Rights Issues

Asks how foreigners are identified An order by a Foreigners’ Tribunal in central Assam’s Morigaon district has questioned the process of identifying foreigners and ‘D’ (or doubtful voters), who have been struck off the updated National Register of Citizens. Gautam Soren, member of Foreigners Tribunal 3 (FT3) in Morigaon, highlighted …

Around 1,000 farmers from Gujarat, whose land will be acquired for the ambitious Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, have filed affidavits in the High Court, opposing the land acquisition process started by the State government. The affidavits were filed before a division bench of Chief Justice R.Subhash Reddy and Justice V.M. …

An estimated 6.3 million children under 15 years of age died in 2017, or one every five seconds, mostly of preventable causes, according to the new mortality estimates released by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Division and the World Bank Group on Tuesday. The report …

The five persons under house arrest are poet Varavara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, and activists Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Gautam Navlakha. As for the quashing of the cases against them, the Chief Justice, at one point, suggested they (accused) could continue their efforts in the competent lower courts. The …

There should be a set of rules so that our indigenous rights are protected, says a student leader Less than two months after a Meghalaya tribal council tabled a bill to strip a Khasi woman married to a non-Khasi man of her tribal status, an apex students’ body in Arunachal …

In a relief for the nearly 70 lakh two-wheeler riders in Delhi, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed a National Green Tribunal order making the odd-even vehicle rotation scheme applicable to all, including scooters and motorbikes. A Bench led by Justice Madan B. Lokur also exempted women driving four-wheelers from …

Material to be presented tomorrow Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said on Monday that the Supreme Court will set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) if the material relied on by the Maharashtra government to raid and arrest five activists on August 28 in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case is …

On the heels of a Twitter exchange, the IT-BPO major has let go of a discriminating employee Information technology company Tech Mahindra has, on the back of a former employee’s sustained Twitter campaign, sacked a senior company official in charge of the training and diversity portfolio. The move came following …

Govt. told to renew passport of petitioner The Delhi High Court has held that denial of passport or its non-renewal affects the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution, while directing the government to renew immediately the passport of a man whose residential status in Canada was in jeopardy due to …

‘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 …

Former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has, in a letter, raised serious objections to the rules governing the administration of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund. He has described them as a “blatant breach of assurances” given to Parliament. Here is a look at the key issues involved What is the Compensatory Afforestation …