-The Indian Express The fate of close to two million people excluded from the NRC in Assam rests with the Foreigners Tribunals. The constitutionality and conduct of these quasi-judicial bodies are questionable Over 1.9 million people have been excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The herculean executive exercise, mandated and closely monitored by the Supreme Court, has incurred a staggering expenditure of over Rs 1,200 crore...

-The Indian Express As legal scholar Gautam Bhatia put it in Transformative Constitution, Justice Khanna’s dissent would constitute a “contrapuntal” or something that appears as a counterpoint, often solitary, against the tide at the time, but something that conceals the kernel of the future and the way ahead, which lives on to speak forcefully, another day. Costa Gavras’ 1982 film Missing is a haunting story of what a military dictatorship does...

-TheWire.in Women, the report has found, would be molested and threatened with rape by male personnel. Trigger warning: The article contains graphic descriptions of physical and sexual torture which might be triggering to survivors. Electric shocks, bricks hung from private parts, threatened with rape, sexually assaulted, hung naked, hung upside down — these are some of the methods that Haryana Police has been undertaking in dealing with prisoners, both men and women, a...

-The Hindu Many of them are understaffed and under-resourced Fast-track courts are in the limelight yet again. Smriti Irani, Minister for Women and Child Development, informed the Rajya Sabha that the government has proposed to set up 1,023 fast-track courts to clear the cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court in a suo motu petition had issued directions, stating that districts...

-Down to Earth The National Democratic Alliance government's move is an assault on the independence of information commissioners, writes former Central Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu Alas! I thought the Narendra Modi government is strong enough after its re-election. But now it is scared of the Right to Information (RTI) and the Chief Information Commission (CIC), as if they are monsters who can harm the power of the powerful rulers. The Information Commissioner...