Rights Issues

‘No mention in PM’s televised address’ Two days after the Prime Minister launched Swacchata Hi Seva, a national cleanliness drive, safai karamcharis(sanitation workers) from across Delhi will start their own campaign against manual scavenging to increase awareness and protest against deaths of five men in a city sewer last week. …

A Durga Puja in south Kolkata has become significant as it has taken up the marginalisation of homosexuals as its theme, in wake of the Supreme Court’s verdict decriminalising homosexuality. The plight of homosexuals and the transgender community will be highlighted with the use of medical instruments such as saline …

Union Minister Ramdas Athawale of the Republican Party of India, an NDA ally, recently announced that he would move the Supreme Court against the Union government’s directive to the media discouraging the use of the word “Dalit” for the Scheduled Castes. He says there is no popular sentiment against the …

‘What happens if illegal immigrants shift to another State?’ Defending the National Register of Citizens exercise, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday recommended such an exercise in all States. “The unabated influx from Bangladesh cannot be seen as a standalone problem of Assam. Assam accounts for just a fraction …

‘The strongest woman of the State’ When 23-year-old Majiziya Bhanu took to the stage to compete in the women’s segment of the Mr. Kerala competition in Kochi earlier this year, all eyes were on her — never before had a bodybuilder wearing a hijab (Muslim head scarf) participated in the …

He has suggested trimming the number of admissible documents as citizenship proof from 15 to 10 Suggestions to the Supreme Court by the officer heading the exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to slash the list of “admissible documents” as citizenship proof from 15 to 10 has …

She feels freed by SC judgment Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s verdict decriminalising homosexuality, the first transgender State- cadre civil servant of Odisha has announced plans to marry. Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan, 34, an officer of the Odisha Finance Service (OFS), had wanted to be recognised as belonging to the third …

Most of their names don’t feature in the NRC, says activist-lawyer Baruah The Supreme Court’s judgment on Article 377 decriminalising same sex relationships may have been celebrated across the country but not by the transgender community of Assam. Rather, it was a “difficult and glum day”, said Swati Bidhan Baruah, …

After their long battle, Supreme Court orders filing of chargesheets in 1,528 cases of extra-judicial killings under the contentious AFSPA September 8 was the grim anniversary of the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, (AFSPA) in Manipur in 1980. Allegations of extra-judicial excesses and killings by security …

A panel headed by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, which deliberated on measures to check incidents of lynching, submitted its report to a Group of Ministers headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. In May and June, more than 20 people were lynched based on fake posts or rumours floating on …