In June 1979, an innovation in the field of law and politics came about in the form of Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. The idea behind it is identifying and publicising cases of violations of fundamental rights. For the first time a session of the tribunal was held in India in November 2011. In an interview to Jyotika Sood, the secretary general of the tribunal, Gianni Tognoni, tells how it works What is...

Has the explosion of media in India been a mixed blessing? With more than 70,000 newspapers and over 500 satellite channels in several languages, Indians are seemingly spoilt for choice and diversity. India is already the biggest newspaper market in the world - over 100 million copies sold each day. Advertising revenues have soared. In the past two decades, the number of channels has grown from one - the dowdy state-owned broadcaster...

-PTI    India along with China, North Korea and Israel has low levels of transparency on nuclear materials and security, an independent report has said. "Four countries have particularly low levels of transparency, specifically Israel, North Korea, India and China, on materials and materials security," said Page Stoutland, Vice President for nuclear materials at the Washington-based independent Nuclear Threat Initiative. The Nuclear Threat Initiative, in a project led by former US senator Sam Nunn...

-The Hindustan Times   The Darul-Uloom Deoband’s demand to ban the entry of writer Salman Rushdie into the country took a political turn in Uttar Pradesh on Monday. With an eye on the 17% Muslim electorate in the state, leaders of most parties quickly took poll position. But leaders of the ruling BSP were unavailable for comment. Rushdie, who earned the wrath of Muslims worldwide for his book The Satanic Verses, is scheduled to...

Anna Hazare refused to answer questions on the anti-corruption movement today as he left hospital after an eight-day stay. However, many of his long-time associates said they used the time in hospital to advise him to make a course correction, particularly as regards India Against Corruption and its “100 per cent RSS leanings”. Hazare, they added, has been listening, particularly on the need to shed the movement’s pronounced anti-Congress agenda. “IAC is...