-Hindustan Times A study shows glaring gaps in Indian policing — from unfilled quotas of SC/STs to a dip in women officers. The rule of law has two extremes: a failed State and a police State. A failed State loses control over law and order as its monopoly slips over the use of physical force. The latter commands complete control, but ends up abusing State machinery for repression. Both extremes suffer...

-ThePrint.in Ex-SC judge Jasti Chelameswar, chief guest at the release of the study by Common Cause & CSDS, also alluded to political pressure on the justice system. New Delhi: A study released in the national capital Tuesday stated that 72 per cent of police officers have experienced political pressure while investigating cases involving influential persons. The chief guest at the event, former Supreme Court judge Jasti Chelameswar, also alluded to political pressure on...

-Livemint.com Bihar, UP and Odisha account for the bulk of highly-stressed district courts, shows an analysis based on parameters including pendency rate, infra deficit It is often said that in court cases in India, the process itself is the punishment. However, how torturous and long-drawn this process can be varies dramatically across the courts of the country, a Mint analysis of district-wise court data suggests. The analysis shows that Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (UP)...

  In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...

-Hindustan Times The changes empower the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so On August 8, 2019, the President assented to amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, introducing a set of changes to an already draconian law. The most fundamental of these changes empowers the government to designate individuals as terrorists, merely if it believes so, leaving little to no recourse for them to protest...