-The Hindu Even direct reportage of facts is being termed defamatory, says Nikhil Pahwa A bid by a private institution to scrub clean the web of all critical opinion against it and a backdoor censorship facilitated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) have stoked the rage of prominent commentators on Twitter and Facebook. For the second day running on Sunday, the hashtag #IIPM was trending on Twitter across the Indian Twitterverse with several...

-Deccan Herald As primitive tribes continue to be in a state of acute poverty, ‘schedule area’ status for settlements of evicted tribals from Nagarahole National Park will favour their development. The status will also solve the problem of representation of tribals in political institutions, which will help them benefit from the welfare programmes aimed at them, said Muzaffar Assadi, Chairman of the High Court-appointed Committee on Tribal Issues of Rajiv Gandhi...

-The Hindu Gandhi’s country must set an example by abolishing capital punishment, says Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer The President has dismissed the mercy petitions of four of Veerappan’s associates who had been sentenced to death. They should not hang. I appeal to the authorities to remove the death sentence from the statute book. Every state execution amounts to nothing but murder. The people of India must rise against such grave crimes by the...

-The Times of India Three Rajiv Gandhi assassinshave opposed the execution of the death sentence awarded to them by pointing to the 12 year-lag between the Supreme Court's confirmation of the high court's order to send them to the gallows and the rejection of the mercy petition by President. Behind this argument, it turns out, is a well-organized campaign by LTTE cadres, sympathizers and human rights groups opposed to death penalty...

-The Times of India India may be reporting one death penalty every third day but it also commutes one capital punishment to life imprisonment every day - thanks to Delhi which leads the chart by making course correction in old cases. The national Capital, which reported 71 death penalties during 2001-11, saw 2,462 commutations in that 11-year period - accounting for more than 50% of the total commutations (4,321) in the...