-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre has floated a proposal to scale down an interest waiver scheme meant to help poor students enrol themselves for professional courses. The human resource development ministry has sought the opinion of other ministries on lowering to Rs 7.5 lakh from Rs 10 lakh the loan amount eligible for interest waiver under the central sector interest subsidy scheme (SCISS) launched in 2009. The proposal to lower the ceiling...

-TheWire.in When conscientious and well-meaning citizens are attacked for "acting rightly", is the government "acting rightly" by not doing enough to safeguard them? Yet another Right to Information (RTI) activist in Gujarat has paid with his life for demanding transparency. On March 9, Nanjibhai Sondarva (35), a resident of Manekvada village in Kotda Sangani taluka of Rajkot district, was allegedly clubbed to death by six people. The deceased’s father has claimed that...

-Business Standard The Supreme Court said a person has the 'right to die with dignity' and can make an advance living will authorising the withdrawal of life-support system In a historic judgement, the Supreme Court on Friday held that the right to die with dignity is a fundamental right, saying that an individual could make an advance "living will" that would authorise passive euthanasia under certain circumstances. The apex court's Bench held...

-TheWire.in At a time when food has provided so much grist for the identitarian and nativist mill, it is important to infuse into public discourse a modicum of reason through facts. For long, India has been mythologised as a vegetarian, and particularly beef-eschewing, society. Such a representation has further been ideologically explained (and justified) by a wide range of scholars, politicians and popular discourse by constructing India as a society primarily shaped...

-The Times of India Backed by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, the Uttar Pradesh police has launched a vigorous crackdown on criminals. Some criminals have been killed in encounters and many, out of fear of being gunned down, have surrendered. According to data sourced from police headquarters as many as 1,142 encounters were recorded between March 2017 and January this year, and 38 alleged criminals were killed. Encounter specialists in the police are...