In Chhattisgarh, Hindutva manifests itself in the form of attacks on Christians; in Uttarakhand it does so in the form of promoting Sanskrit. IN Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindutva agenda may not be strident, but the Sangh Parivar orientation is unmistakable in various government policies and programmes. While in Uttarakhand the party places much emphasis on gau mata (bovine goddess) and the teaching of...

Five women — all illegal miners — were buried alive when the roof of a 15ft deep coal pit collapsed on them near Chandrapura junction, 35km from Bokaro steel city, this noon. Two others were injured in the incident. That the mishap took place at Jhungurghuttu, which is a stone’s throw from a bustling railway station and barely 400 metres from the Chandrapura police station, is a clear indication that illegal...

-The Hindu   The services will enable transfer, application procedures to be brought to one's door Last Christmas Eve, 35 people in a remote village of Jharkhand received a unique present. They became the first Indians to access their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme bank accounts on their doorstep, having had their identities authenticated through their Aadhaar numbers. They are among the earliest beneficiaries of the next phase of the ambitious —...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday posted for final hearing on Thursday a Special Leave Petition filed by death-row convict Mahendra Nath Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by the President after an inordinate delay of 12 years and whose plea for commutation to life imprisonment on this ground was dismissed by the Gauhati High Court. A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar, without passing any order on his...

-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...