-The Economic Times With roughly three years left for India to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the country has managed to show significant progress in 10 of the 22 indicators.  With impressive gains in improving primary education enrollment rate, promoting gender Equality and increasing forest cover, the country's lackluster performance in reducing overall poverty and health indicators has dragged down the performance of the overall South Asian region.  The millennium development goals...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday started hearing the debate on legality of decriminalising same sex behaviour in private among consenting adults by asking contestants whether the “order of nature” changes with time. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions challenging a Delhi High Court judgment on July 2, 2009, which ruled that sexual intercourse among adults of the same sex is not a criminal offence under Section 377 of the...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court last week ruled as unconstitutional the mandatory imposition of the death penalty under the Arms Act in view of the absence of judicial review. The verdict is a reiteration of current jurisprudence that for criminal offences, life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence the exception. The impugned section 27 (3) of the Arms Act stipulates capital punishment for offences that may result in the loss...

The power of judicial review envelopes natural resource distribution The tsunami created by the 2G spectrum judgments of the the Supreme Court last week has almost mopped up the ripples they made in the legal sphere. However, they deserve respectful consideration for their discussion on two hot issues that have been agitating public mind in recent years. The first is the nature and ownership of natural resources, like air waves and spectrum,...

The PM, Raja, TRAI, telecom firms... the apex court lets no one off the hook The Supreme Court’s stinging judgement against the government in the 2G spectrum scam case is an extremely significant attempt by the country’s highest court to curb the corrupt nexus between business and politics and will further damage the UPA’s already battered credibility. The court’s decision will not merely have far-reaching consequences on India’s political economy,...