Some of the recent cases in the higher courts bring into sharp focus the dilemmas on the death penalty. ON October 10, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and C.K. Prasad stayed the execution of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving assailant in the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack, by admitting his appeal against the death sentence awarded to him by the Bombay High Court. The Bench wondered whether Kasab deserved...

No doubt ,India is making progress by leaps and bounds in every sector but the condition of the Dalits in India is deteriorating day by day in the society .Development of any nation has no meaning when a particular section of the society such as the downtrodden are socially & economically segregated from the mainstream . The situation is critical when we measure the overall development of the country in...

Absence of preventive measures and affordable and accessible health care leads to nearly 500 encephalitis deaths in Uttar Pradesh. IT is a strange paradox. In a country that aspires to be a superpower and boasts of rapid economic growth, 488 children died in a State, Uttar Pradesh, from encephalitis alone this year. It is nothing less than a national shame and tragedy. In six districts of Bihar, close to 200 children...

The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...

-PTI A division bench of the Calcutta High Court today referred to the Chief Justice an appeal by Tata Motors challenging an earlier order validating the Singur Act after the state questioned whether it had the jurisdiction to hear the case. Appearing for West Bengal government's industries department, senior counsel Kalyan Banerjee claimed before the division bench comprising Justice K J Sengupta and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that it did not have...