The government has removed from a proposed bill a clause that would have made builders liable to be jailed for making false promises about houses to customers, housing ministry sources have said. The initial draft of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, which is awaiting cabinet clearance, provided for a jail term of up to three years as well as a compensation of up to 10 per cent of the...

-The Deccan Herald In a decision that is likely to reveal the names of judges against whom complaints have been filed in the Law Ministry, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Law Ministry to make public the forwarding letters attached with such complaints that are forwarded to the Supreme Court and High Courts. The transparency panel gave this direction while hearing the RTI plea of activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, who...

“It is a violation of the child's right to be included in education system” Some non-governmental organisations have opposed the recent amendment to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which makes home-based education a right for children with multiple and severe disabilities. The clause says: “Provided that a child with ‘multiple disabilities' referred to in Clause (h) and a child with ‘severe disability' referred to in Clause...

For not paying compensation to the kin of the victims The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar to appear personally before it on June 11, if the State government fails to take action on the compensation recommended for endosulfan victims in Kasaragod district. The Chief Secretary should file an action-taken report on the commission's recommendations before June 4, failing which he will have to appear before it....

While freedom of speech and expression is an individual right, its actualisation often relies on a vast infrastructure of intermediaries. In the offline world, this includes newspapers, television channels, public auditoriums, etc. It is often assumed that the internet has created a more robust public sphere of speech by doing away with many structural barriers to free speech. But the fact of the matter is that even if the internet enables...