-Human Rights Watch Reform Laws Choking Freedom of Expression, Association New York: The Indian government failed to stop or credibly investigate vigilante attacks against minority religious communities during 2017, Human Rights Watch said today, releasing its World Report 2018. Many senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-Nationalism at the expense of fundamental rights for all Indians. Extremist Hindu groups, many claiming to be affiliated...

-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...

-IndiaTomorrow.net As a first step, SAMLA would run a nationwide movement with name of "Dalit, Minority, Tribal Lives Matter" New Delhi: In the wake of the growing culture of mob lynching and atrocities against religious minorities, Dalits and Tribals in the country, a group of lawyers on Tuesday launched a body to provide these communities with legal aid in order to get speedy justice. The body named as "South Asian Minorities Lawyers' Association"...

-The Indian Express We have been numbed by a series of lies, myths and fictions about the project. India is at risk of becoming a surveillance state, with faint resistance from libertarians, intellectuals, political parties, the media, or the Supreme Court. Very soon, almost everyone will have an Aadhaar number, seeded in hundreds of databases. Most of these databases will be accessible to the government without invoking any special powers. Permanent surveillance...

-Hindustan Times In the index released on Wednesday, India was ranked just three places above Pakistan and was one notch below violence-torn Palestine. India slipped three places in the 2017 world press freedom rankings to 136th among 180 countries, the dismal performance blamed on “Modi’s Nationalism” and growing “self-censorship” in the mainstream media. In the index released on Wednesday, India was ranked just three places above Pakistan and was one notch below violence-torn...