-The Times of India   Domestic helps would find it easier to complain against sexual harassment if the recommendations of a parliamentary panel favouring their inclusion in the proposed 'protection of women against sexual harassment in workplace' bill are accepted. Dismissing the government's view that there were "practical difficulties" in implementing the law within the confines of a home, the committee on Thursday said such excuses could not be used as a...

-The Hindu   The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has rejected the National Identification Authority of India (NIAI) Bill, which was meant to give a legal backing to the Aadhaar project and its aim of using biometrics to create a unique identity for every resident of India. Sources in the Committee say the Bill has been rejected in its current form on the grounds of the project's high cost, as well as concerns...

A report of the National People's Tribunal on the 2008 riots in Kandhamal, Orissa, is out. The report that runs into 197 pages points out that the brutality of the violence falls within the definition of 'torture' under international law, particularly the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.   According to the tribunal, headed by Justice A P Shah, communal forces used religious conversions as an issue for political mobilisation...

A parliamentary committee is set to reject the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, inflicting a severe blow to Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani and raising doubts about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's pet project. Former IT czar Nilekani, who holds cabinet minister rank as UIDAI chief, had been keen on the enactment of the Bill so that a statutory National Identification Authority could be established. The Bill,...

-The Hindustan Times   With great power comes great freedom. Which, in turn, calls for being responsible. The act to do things freely is one of the fundamental joys of being part of a liberal democracy. With powerful technological platforms and social networking sites such as Facebook, even repressed societies get to savour unfettered expression. But there is a flip side to such a freedom. And this involves the need to respect the...