-Live Mint The right to food campaigner talks about the importance of the Bill in an interview The National Food Security Bill (NFSB) is just a signature away from becoming law after being passed by the Rajya Sabha on Monday. It was passed by the Lok Sabha on 26 August and needs the President's signature to be enacted. Critics have dismissed the proposed legislation as a drain on India's resources. Dipa Sinha,...

-The Hindu     Young offenders above a certain age who commit violent crimes should be prosecuted as adults On August 31, 2013, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ordered that the boy who raped Nirbhaya, brutalised her with an iron rod, pulled out her intestines and then cleaned up the bus and made tea would go virtually free by sentencing him to only 28 months in a remand home as eight months of the...

One landmark law, the Right to Information Act, has helped over a thousand adivasis in north Maharashtra in getting closer to their rights under another landmark law – the Forest Rights Act. The latter was legislated in 2006 giving forest dwelling and other adivasi communities individual and Community Rights to lands they had traditionally cultivated and occupied. But communities in rural India have faced an uphill battle in getting the...

-The Business Standard The process prescribed in the law is so cumbersome and time consuming that neither industry nor landowner will benefit Fast economic growth in the last two decades has increased demand for land from many sources, such as infrastructure, industry, mining, and urbanisation, including real estate. Even when these activities are funded privately and are driven by profit motive, they serve a social purpose since employment generation per unit of...

-The Hindu Health activists demand public disclosure of maternal death reviews and the remedial action taken Twenty-two-year-old Kousalya (name changed), a Scheduled Caste woman in a remote village in Karnataka, was in an abusive marriage. She had suffered a late miscarriage in her first pregnancy and had been very careful with seeking antenatal care early in this pregnancy. She had moderate anaemia which was not identified or treated at the taluka hospital....