A three-hour drive from Delhi a medieval drama is playing out. A khap — or caste — panchayat in Haryana’s Bhiwani district has asked a man and his family to leave the village because he has married a woman of the same “gotra”. The family sought police protection after the panchayat threatened a social boycott and pronounced a ban on the sale of their land, saying that it would be...
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Land acquisition: HC raises doubt on ‘kind’ of farmers
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a bunch of farmers against acquisition of their agricultural land and the government’s food security policy triggered intriguing remarks from the Delhi High Court, which wanted to know what “kind” of farmers they were. The petition was filed by the farmers against acquisition of their land in Kanjhawala. The petitioners contended that the move was against the government’s food security policy. The petition...
More »Health bill may deny the poor free care by Savita Verma
The Centre has drafted a health bill to ensure the right to health. However, health experts feel the bill will, instead, legitimise denial of health services to the poor. The Draft National Health Bill 2009 was prepared on the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission to recognise and operationalise the right to healthcare. The demand for such a right was led by the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, the Indian chapter...
More »PIL as an unruly horse by MJ Antony
SC lays down eight rules to streamline the PIL movement and wants the courts to follow them What the development of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and right to information has done to the justice delivery system can be compared, with a little exaggeration, to the growth of mobile telephony and Internet in communications. The only fear is that they may act like unruly horses at times. Public interest petitions have been filed...
More »GMO Crops: A Few Questians to the Genetic Engineering by Sailendra Nath Ghosh
In April last year, the Supreme Court, in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Gene Campaign (whose convenor is the internationally known geneticist Dr Suman Sahai), directed the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to consider the toxicity and allergenicity of GM crops and to post the relevant material on the web so that independent experts could examine these. The Supreme Court asked the GEAC to study also...
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