-The Telegraph Teachers who don’t believe in sparing the rod, beware. If an amendment to an existing act on juvenile justice is passed, corporal punishment will for the first time become a standalone provision in the law under which teachers found guilty could be jailed for up to seven years, depending on the nature of injury. As of now there is no definition of corporal punishment except for a provision under the Right...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...

-The Economic Times The Union Cabinet is expected to take up for approval a bill that deals with manual scavenging and rehabilitation of scavengers.  For nearly two years now, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has been advocating for a new law to deal with the indignities of manual scavenging and for their rehabilitation. Gandhi had, in November 2010, written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the government to take steps to...

-Live Mint   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh is advocating a new approach to fighting the Maoist insurgency that has gripped 78 districts so far. Apart from development and security, the approach involves politics and justice, he said. In an interview, Ramesh warned that in the rush to attain high growth rates, India was placing the interests of tribals below that of mining firms. The minister suggested the setting up of a...

-The Times of India The Central Vigilance Commission has asked the CBI to examine a complaint about alleged losses suffered by the public exchequer in the allocation of coal blocks between 2006 and 2009, in what can potentially be fodder for civil society as well as the opposition seeking to attack the government over Coalgate. Although the complaint of BJP MPs Prakash Javadekar and Hansraj Ahir was forwarded by the CVC to...