Here's an encounter that the city police are in no mood to encourage. Within days of a Right to Information activist subjected to third degree at a city police station, TOI finds that it wasn't a stray bad experience, with cops pulling out all stops to stay RTI-proof. In fact, police officers in some stations even say they are unaware of the RTI Act and remain most unresponsive when it...

Days after chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy wished to see every police station in the state work like a corporate office and the complainant received warmly, a Right to Information (RTI) activist on Friday was nearly subjected to the third degree treatment by inspector K Srinivas Rao after he walked into Kukatpally police station, and only timely intervention by higher-ups saved him from being arrested and slapped with false cases....

A Dantewada district court yesterday granted bail to D.V.C.S. Verma, the general manager of an Essar Steel plant, who was arrested last September in a case of alleged protection pay to Maoists. The court said investigators had not been able to provide any concrete evidence against the official. Chhattisgarh police had arrested Verma based on the statement of a local contractor, B.K. Lala, who was allegedly caught red-handed while paying Rs 15...

Child welfare continues to be accorded the least priority in planning and implementation of public services or amenities. Other than those institutions, public and private, directly charged with the protection of children, almost all others exhibit a low level of sensitivity to children and low levels of preparedness for child protection, a new study has shown. Conducted by Childline 1098 — a helpline service for children in distress — the study...

If you are a resident of Madhya Pradesh, Muslim and poor, nowhere close to the class of nawabs who can pay for murg musallam or mutton raan, watch your pot! The BJP government, led by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has just armed itself with a big danda ostensibly to protect the holy cow and its progeny. But, make no mistake, it’s a stick to beat you with. To save your...