-The Indian Express The juvenile justice system should aim to reform, rather than punish, offenders The anguish and anger evoked by the sheer brutality of the gangrape in Delhi has LED to the demand that the accused be subject to the most severe punishment. Voices have been raised seeking the death penalty and chemical or physical castration. As one of the accused is below 18 years of age and cannot be “punished”...

-The Indian Express Increasing frequency and intensity of protests reflect a deeper crisis in Indian democracy: the failure of civil society In the last five years, citizens have poured out in large numbers at Jantar Mantar and India Gate (and in many other parts of the country) to ask the state to hear their demands. In 2006, marches and sit-ins forced the state to re-examine the Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo cases....

-The Business Standard Reetika Khera Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi* “Aadhaar is being made de facto compulsory for welfare schemes. With two-thirds without Aadhaar, they are bound to be denied entitlements” There are three components of the government’s direct benefit transfer scheme — computerisation, extending banking services and linking the benefits with Aadhaar. The real game-changers are the first two, whereas Aadhaar-enabLED transfers carry the risk of excluding current beneficiaries. The Central government has...

-Jagran Post Jabalpur (MP): Press Council of India (PCI) chairman Justice Markandey Katju on Friday released a report on Gujarat polls which claimed that the malpractice of paid news was noticed on a large-scale in the recently held elections.      Releasing the report before the media here, Katju said that the team has found large-scale practice of paid news, both in print and electronic media, in the recent Gujarat Assembly elections.      The...

-The Hindu Subsidies on cooking gas, kerosene and diesel have resulted in perverse outcomes not envisaged when they were introduced With the Aadhaar-based direct cash transfer scheme facing so many glitches in implementation, any hopes that the country’s energy sector can soon dismount the subsidy tiger it has been riding so dangerously have receded into the background. Had the Aadhaar scheme worked satisfactorily, the next logical step would have been to extend...