Fifty-five civil society groups from the U.S., the U.K. and Canada have come together to demand the immediate release of jailed human rights activist Binayak Sen, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Chhattisgarh court. They will observe the Martyrs' Day (January 30) as a ‘global day of protest against repression of human rights activists' in India. The coalition has demanded the repeal of draconian laws that give the state arbitrary...

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Orissa government to maintain status quo on acquisition of about 6,000 acres of land for the proposed Vedanta University in Puri city. A Bench of Justices D.K. Jain and H.L. Dattu, admitting a batch of appeals from the Anil Agarwal Foundation, the State government and others, said status quo on the nature, character and possession of land should be maintained. After hearing senior counsel...

A broad coalition of 55 civil society groups from the US, Britain and Canada are coming together to demand the immediate release of jailed Indian rights activist Binayak Sen, who was recently given a life sentence by a Chhattisgarh court. In a statement, the coalition on Thursday demanded the repeal of alleged 'draconian laws' giving arbitrary power to the State that infringe on the fundamental rights of free speech, and the...

Somalia is the world's most corrupt nation, according to Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perception Index. The 2010 CPI shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of corruption), indicating a serious corruption problem. New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore are the least corrupt countries in the world, according...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today notified veterinary and border authorities in ASIa of a major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Republic of Korea, urging them to be on the look-out for livestock showing signs of infection by the highly contagious animal disease. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, causing high fever. It is characteristic by lesions in animals' mouths and...