-Business Standard Intervention by Gadkari and Javadekar helped Maharashtra govt take control of forests back from tribals Setting a precedent for the entire country, the Union tribal affairs ministry has revised its views to re-interpret the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and allow the Maharashtra forest department to get control back over forest management and a grip on the lucrative trade worth crores in forest produce such as tendu leaves and bamboo. The...

-The Hindu Business Line The mythology of free trade being a force for economic progress remains entrenched in world politics Globalisation has created a unique spectator sport, where political dignitaries periodically gather at carefully chosen venues for days of deliberation over humanity’s most consequential problems. It is a spectacle at which ‘civil society’ — as the new force in world politics is called — is granted a tent of its own, financed...

-Frontline The NCRB data used to justify the new law bringing down the age of responsibility for criminal action are open to interpretation. Often the same data can be interpreted in different ways to arrive at contrary conclusions. Portions of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data have been quoted ad nauseam by the government and the media alike to justify the changes made in the juvenile justice law. Experts from the...

-Frontline   Swagata Raha, a senior legal researcher (Consultant) at the Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, said the Juvenile Justice Bill, 2015, “incorrectly assumes that children are competent to stand trial as adults”. Currently pursuing Master of Studies in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford, Swagata Raha worked extensively on the campaign against the Juvenile Justice Bill and has written extensively...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The "Mercedes" class left squirming by Delhi's odd-even car rationing today received sympathy from the Supreme Court, which suggested that Metro trains earmark premium seats where the affluent can sit "dignified" at a price. "Mr Kumar, car owners who are coming (to the Delhi Metro), they must get some space to sit," Chief Justice T.S. Thakur told solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre in a case filed...