-The Economic Times The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has concluded in its final report that it would not amount to an offence even if Gujarat chief ministerNarendra Modi hypothetically did say something about 'allowing Hindus to vent their anger' in a meeting with top police officers after the Godhra carnage in 2002. That is an appalling conclusion. If Modi did actually make that statement, it patently cannot be called...

-Express News Service The Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has concluded that even if Narendra Modi gave an illegal verbal instruction to allow Hindus to “vent their anger” after the Godhra carnage, it was not an offence. “...The interpretations made on alleged illegal instructions given by the Chief Minister by (police officers) Shri R B Sreekumar and Shri Sanjiv Bhatt, appear to be without any basis. Further, even if such...

-PTI The Centre's move to carve out 4.5 per cent reservation for minorities would double the job opportunities for Muslim community, Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid said. "The 4.5 per cent reservation for minorities would increase two fold the job opportunities for Muslims, who must get their rightful share in the fruits of development," Khurshid said. The demand for reservation in employment and education for Muslims was not a "bargaining tactic", but was...

This month a group of Dalit (or Untouchables, as they were formerly labelled) students organised a Beef Festival in Osmania University of Hyderabad. It was the festival to assert their culinary rights in public and make a political statement of dietary habits of Dalits and Muslims – by cooking and eating beef Biryani on campus. About 2000 students participated and although it started out well, the festival was disrupted and students...

Rudyard Kipling opens his superb novel with the street urchin Kim teasing the son of a wealthy man. Kim kicks Chota Lal, whose father, Lala Dinanath, is worth half-a-million sterling, off the trunnion of the mighty cannon Zam-Zammah. Kipling loved India and wrote that it was the only democratic place in the world. It warms us to read this, but of course this was quite untrue in Kipling’s time and...