-Down to Earth   The Gram Nyayalaya Act was passed in 2008 to make the judicial process participatory, inexpensive and accessible to rural India. But rural Courts are still few and far between When a mobile court visited Luhari village in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district a year ago, it was a blessing for people like Birsan Singh. A tea vendor, Birsan would lose his daily income whenever he had to attend court. He...

-Down to Earth   Most severely and consistently excluded groups are women, Adivasis, Muslims and the disabled, report confirms A recent report by a Delhi NGO undermines government claims on reaching welfare schemes to the needy and disadvantaged sections of society. The report, titled The India Exclusion Report 2013-14, says the government has failed miserably in providing equal access to public goods to the most disadvantaged groups. The report, prepared by Delhi-based Centre for...

-Economic and Political Weekly   After almost more than eight years of the Right to Information Act being in force, the process of accessing information still faces impediments. The flow of information is restricted either due to various public institutions not coming within the ambit of the Act or the information being exempt under various clauses of the Act. This article examines select judgments/orders of the Central Information Commission and the superior...

-Live Mint   Despite its importance, reform of India's legal institutions has been seen as a ‘second order' issue India is a young nation long ruled by old laws-its police, for example, are governed by such colonial-era statutes as the Police Act of 1861, which predates independence by nearly a century. And its expanding economy requires forward-looking regulatory mechanisms to foster markets while curbing crony capitalism. India is also a nation that must...

-The Hindu   ‘Need to ascertain adequacy of existing safeguards against wrong convictions' The Law Commission has called for a reassessment of the need for the death penalty. In a consultation paper released on Friday, the Commission said: "At this juncture, an exhaustive study on the subject would be a useful and salutary contribution to the cause of public debate on this issue. Such a study will also provide a definitive research-backed orientation to...