-The Hindu While Supreme Court has voiced concerns over their increasing use to prove a case, women’s rights activists deem the technology an empowering tool Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA tests occupy a grey area in the quest for justice, vacillating between the dangers of slipping into self-incrimination and encroachment of individual privacy and the ‘eminent need’ to unearth the truth, be in the form of evidence in a criminal case, a claim...

-The Indian Express Yet again, DNA Regulation Bill cleared for introduction in Parliament. Whose DNA will be stored, when is it supposed to be used for reference? What are the concerns, how is government addressing these? On Monday, the Cabinet cleared the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill once again, paving the way for its reintroduction in Parliament. The Bill had been passed by Lok Sabha in January this year,...

-The Hindu Low conviction rates and a lack of a lawful definition of crime mark criminal administration in India Police reform in India has been concerned with political interference ever since the landmark Supreme Court judgement, in 2006, on the subject. The focus should really be on reorganising criminal administration. The annual publication of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), “Crime in India 2016”, which was released recently, presents a dismal picture of...

-DNA The Modi government’s soil-testing scheme doesn’t address the causes of agrarian distress In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious Rs568 crore Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme. The objective of the three-year scheme is to issue soil health cards to 14 crore farmers spread across India. The cards will be given out after determining the quality of soil, identifying its macro- and micronutrients as well as its...

-The Indian Express The objective of the DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, is to establish a regulatory framework for DNA testing, and setting standards and guidelines for laboratories doing these tests. The proposed Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2015, could not be finalised in time to be introduced in Parliament’s Monsoon Session. After that, owing to the intense debate generated by the Bill in the past few weeks, the government extended the deadline...