-Outlook Caste has nothing to do with graft. Even so, Nandy must be heard. Forging a link, however tenuous, between caste and corruption is akin to saying  that the average Indian male  has sex on his mind, caste and communalism in his heart and indigestion in his tummy. That was an irreverent response to the sweeping statement made by the “ageing enfant terrible” of Indian sociology, Ashis Nandy, during a discussion...

-The Indian Express Mumbai: In 2006, soon after the Malegaon bomb blasts, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested a Unani medicine practitioner alleging he harboured Pakistanis and smuggled the RDX used in the explosives. After five years in prison, and a year outside on bail, Dr Salman Farsi Monday launched a NGO called Justice Legal Voice (JLV) to provide legal aid to the “wrongly arrested”. Farsi recalls that he was nothing but ‘accused...

-The Hindustan Times Amid the din of the discordant notes in Parliament and outside on scams, a significant decision by the Union cabinet went almost unnoticed. Earlier this week, the Cabinet amended the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act (CLPRA), 1986, and renamed it as the Child and Adolescent Labour Prohibition Act (CALPA). When Parliament passes the important amendments, CALPA, along with the Right to Education (RTE) Act, it is likely...

-The Hindu The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is set to take place on June 20 at Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the 1992 Earth Summit on Environment & Development. World leaders, experts, and U.N. agencies are expected to take stock and reaffirm global commitment to sustainable development. The summit is taking place against the backdrop of threats of catastrophic climate change, unprecedented environmental degradation and widespread market...

A recent report put out by the Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch revealed that 47 per cent of the newly-elected Uttar Pradesh assembly has candidates with criminal cases pending against them.  Barring Manipur, none of the other four states that went to polls is free of a tainted MLA. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of criminal MLAs has gone up from 37 per cent in 2007 to 47...