-The Times of India AGARTALA: The Tripura government on Wednesday lifted the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, (AFSPA) from the state with immediate effect, chief minister Manik Sarkar announced. The Act has been in force in the one militancy-ravaged state since 1997, Sarkar told media the decision was taken in the cabinet meeting on Wednesday. "Insurgency activities in the state are now reduced almost at zero. The demand for withdrawing the AFSPA has been persuaded at...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The march down south -Vishwanath Kulkarni
-The Hindu Business Line Though migration of labour from the east has helped revive the plantations in southern India, questions remain on the long-term implications, Vishwanath Kulkarni reports As the harvest season starts in Coorg, Karnataka, coffee planter MC Kariappa has a lot of issues to contend with - productivity, weather and, the biggest worry of all in recent times, paucity of labourers. So when a dozen labourers from Assam landed at...
More »Fewer convictions in crimes against SCs -Meena Menon
-The Hindu Rajasthan records the highest number of cases followed by U.P. There is a 17 per cent increase in registered cases of atrocities against members of the Schedules Castes in 2013 as compared to 2012 and the conviction rate is around 23 per cent, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot said on Friday. He was speaking at a two-day conference of ministers and principal secretaries dealing with Scheduled Castes,...
More »Child rights panels exist but on paper -Ananya Sengupta
-The Telegraph New Delhi: A year after the Supreme Court pulled up 19 states, including Bengal, that did not have a commission to protect children's rights and directed them to set up one, most of these panels exist only on paper. All states/Union territories are required to have a child rights commission under Section 17 of the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005. Twenty-three states now have the panels -...
More »The inexplicable silence-Arun Mohan Sukumar
-The Hindu The Congress has steered clear of any debate on the AFSPA, leaving a politically untenable choice for the next government: repeal the Act or leave it untouched With its recent decision to extend the implementation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur by another year, the United Progressive Alliance's opportunistic posturing on the legislation has come full circle. The UPA's rendezvous with the AFSPA began months after it...
More »