Women's organisations rise up against a petition that seeks an amendment to Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. A PETITION that alleges the misuse of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which has been admitted by the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions, has become an object of concern among leading women's organisations in the country. The petition claims that the law, dealing with dowry-related torture and acute domestic...

Dantewada District Collector R. Prasanna has announced a probe into allegations of the police and paramilitary forces burning homes, molesting three women and killing at least three men in an operation early this month. On Wednesday, The Hindu and Rajasthan Patrika carried news reports in which eyewitnesses accused Chhattisgarh's Koya commandos (an armed tribal police corps) and the Central Reserve Police Force of burning over 300 homes and granaries, sexually assaulting...

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...

Four men have been arrested for allegedly beating up a Dalit RTI activist for seeking details of work done in his village in Rajasthan's Barmer district under the government's rural job guarantee scheme, an official said Wednesday. Mangal Ram from Bamgore village was allegedly thrashed by the sarpanch (village head) and his supporters March 3. He was hospitalised with his legs and hands fractured. 'We have arrested Jameel, Hamira, Jeela and Ali...

This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...