-The Hindu The conviction rate for every kind of crime is in free fall, engendering a breakdown of law that no republic can survive Even criminals, back in 1953, seemed to be soaking in the warm, hope-filled glow that suffused the newly free India. From a peak of 654,019 in 1949, the number of crimes had declined year-on-year to 601,964. Murderers and dacoits; house-breakers and robbers — all were showing declining enthusiasm...

-The Indian Express A group of teachers at Jamia Milia Islamia University has put together a compilation of terror cases that failed to hold up in court, all of these built by the Delhi Police Special Cell around youths they had arrested and described as terrorists. Titled “Framed, Damned and Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell” and compiled from court judgments and media reports, the study by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity...

-Economic and Political Weekly  The Government of India is considering a proposal to notify farming as an essential service. This is ostensibly to bring drought relief to farmers suffering from a weak monsoon - a laudable goal indeed. However, if farming is deemed an "essential service", farmers and farm workers could lose many of their political and civic rights because the government can then invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act to...

-The Indian Express The Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted interim bail to cartoonist Aseem Trivedi (25), charged with sedition and sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, and ordered his release from the Arthur Road jail here on a personal bond of Rs 5,000. The direction came after a PIL filed by city-based lawyer Sanskar Marathe on Tuesday urged the court...

-The Indian Express The Reddy brothers’ iron grip on Bellary has come undone. Mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy is already in jail. In the most severe blow to the family since his arrest, his younger brother Somasekhara Reddy has now been detained for questioning by Andhra Pradesh’s Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly bribing a CBI judge in Hyderabad to grant bail to Janardhana Reddy. Friday’s “catch” — it has not yet been declared...