Women's organisations rise up against a petition that seeks an amendment to Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. A PETITION that alleges the misuse of Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, which has been admitted by the Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions, has become an object of concern among leading women's organisations in the country. The petition claims that the law, dealing with dowry-related torture and acute domestic...
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Judicial check by V Venkatesan
The quashing of the appointment of P.J. Thomas as the CVC shows the judiciary can go beyond the express provisions of law to render justice. THE Indian Constitution does not envisage strict separation of powers among the three branches of the government – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. This flexibility permits marginal incursions though one branch cannot usurp the essential functions of the other. One of the essential functions...
More »Amnesty International criticises 'tough' Kashmir law
Rights group Amnesty International has criticised a tough Indian law which it says has been used to detain up to 20,000 people without trial in Indian-administered Kashmir. Amnesty urged India to scrap the Public Safety Act (PSA) which allows detention for up to two years without charge. The group also criticised the judiciary for its failure to protect human rights of the detainees. Kashmir has been gripped by a violent separatist insurgency since...
More »Centre decrees: CBI will probe any NREGS fraud by Maulshree Seth
In a move likely to raise the hackles of states, the Union Ministry of Rural Development has decided that all Criminal offences in the implementation of the NREGA would in future be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), whenever the state government fails to take satisfactory action. In a circular sent to all states on Thursday, the ministry said that in cases of system failures or non-criminal lapses, a...
More »Govt opposes mercy death; over to court
The attorney-general of India today urged the Supreme Court to permit Aruna Shanbaug, a Mumbai nurse who has been in a coma for over 38 years, to live in her present state and not stop food to end her life. Shanbaug, 60, has been in a persistent vegetative state since a murderous attack by a ward attendant of Mumbai’s KEM hospital who tied a dog chain around her neck and tried...
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