A Gujarat court today convicted 23 of the 46 accused in a 2002 riot case in which a mob torched a house where four families had taken shelter, killing 23 people. The court in Anand district will hand down the sentences on April 12 in the so-called “Ode massacre” or “Pirawali massacre”, one of the nine cases probed by the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT). This is the third Gujarat riot...

When universities start censoring speech and banning books, and permission is needed to hold conferences, we risk becoming a hollow, illiberal democracy. Do you need the administration's prior permission to hold a meeting, seminar, symposium or conference at a university? Most academics in liberal democracies would either be astounded by the question or feel compelled to answer it with an emphatic, if not vehement, no. The administration, they would argue, should...

Civil society pressure may have forced the government to keep proposed changes in the Right To Information (RTI) Act in abeyance but the information officers are quietly implementing them.   The government has proposed restrictions on RTI applications that only one issue can be raised in one application and it should not be more than 250 words. But, it had to withdraw amendments following objection by RTI proponents such as National Advisory...

Manual scavenging is still widespread and India has a long way to go in getting rid of the scourge, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said. Over 1 per cent of all households in the country still rely on the practice and neither urban nor rural areas are immune to it, Ramesh said on Tuesday citing recent census data. “The census results are a shocker. Manual scavenging is very much there in...

The Centre is keen to resolve differences with rights Activists over the remuneration under its flagship rural job guarantee scheme, which can potentially save it from paying 7,000 crore in arrears to states that have higher minimum wages.  Wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have risen for all states after the government made adjustments for price rise last month. But despite the revision, the payout is...