-Express News Service   Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday said his party has told activist Anna Hazare’s camp that proper safeguards must be put in if the Prime Minister were to be brought under the ambit of the proposed Lokpal. Jaitley said the BJP has refused to accept Hazare camp’s demand to include the Prime Minister unconditionally, saying a lot of conditions and safeguards are required so that...

The number of journalists in prison worldwide has spiked to its highest level in 15 years. Of them, nearly half worked online, raising larger questions about Internet freedom for more than just reporters, but average citizens as well. Eighty-six out of 179 journalists who were in prison worldwide as of Dec. 1, 2011 were reporters or bloggers whose work appeared online, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect...

Thousands of people came out in support of Anna Hazare's day-long fast at Jantar Mantar. However, there was no dearth of Dissenting views either.  The All India Confederation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Organizations protested near the venue, demanding representation for minorities in the Lokpal committee. Their views were echoed in the speeches of leaders of CPI (M) and Samajwadi Party among others, who participated in a debate organized by...

Six months before India's human rights gets reviewed at the United Nations, the Working Group on Human Rights (WGHR) in India released a report painting a dismal picture of its rights record. The U.N. Human Rights Council examines the rights record of its members on a rotational basis every four years through a peer review process, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Reports by the civil society, U.N. agencies and the country...

-BBC   A report on a controversial bill to set up an anti-corruption watchdog has been submitted in India's parliament. The bill was tabled in parliament in August but was sent to a panel of MPs after protests from anti-corruption activists who said it was too weak. Anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare has rejected the new draft too, saying it does not go far enough as it does not include lower-level bureaucracy. He has announced plans...