Frontline / interview with P.B. Sawant by Lyla Bavadam
Justice (retired) P.B. Sawant served as a judge of the Supreme Court of India from 1989 to 1995. He also served as a judge in the Bombay High Court, before which he was an advocate practising all branches of law. Deeply involved in social activism after retirement, he is known to take an unequivocal position on human rights and civil rights and against communal forces.
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News Click / by Subodh Varma
The much delayed NCRB report for 2017 shows that three-fourths of those accused of crimes against women are set free by courts. …
Crimes against the two most oppressed and exploited sections of Indian society – dalits (Scheduled Castes) and adivasis (Scheduled Tribes) – too showed increases by about 10% and 5%, respectively, over 2013.
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Quartz India / by Niharika Sharma
India, the world’s largest democracy, is also among the biggest surveillance states.
The country ranks behind only Russia and China when it comes to surveilling citizens, the UK-based research firm Compritech has found. On the company’s privacy index, India scored 2.4 out of 5, indicating a “systemic failure to maintain (privacy) safeguards.”
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Scroll.in / by Sneha Philip & Smarnita Shetty
Criminal justice procedures are being misused to repress undertrials in the state’s jails who are falsely accused of being Maoists.
In this interview Swamy discusses the emergence and growth of people’s movements, his work with young Adivasi undertrials who are falsely accused of being Maoists, the difficult choices that confront young Adivasis today and the ongoing case against him in connection with the Bhima Koregaon caste clashes near Pune in 2018.
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The Wire / by Raghavi Sharma
The Coalition Against Fascism in India said that the Modi government has been “orchestrating a pogrom of hate and violence against Muslims and Dalits in India”, and has “disenfranchised seven million Kashmiris”.
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The Print / by Raju Ramachandran
As chief interpreter of Constitution, Supreme Court is required to demarcate with some clarity areas of permissible state action. And this is where it has been found wanting.
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The Indian Express / by Apoorvanand
People like Hany Babu, with the confidence of their scholarship and the integrity of their profession, can talk to the state with their heads held high. Statism cannot succeed as long as they are free.
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India Development Review (IDR) / by Sneha Philip and Smarinita Shetty
Stan Swamy [one of accused in the Bhima Koregaon case] is an activist, a social worker and a Jesuit priest who has spent many decades fighting for the rights of Adivasis in Jharkhand.
In this interview with IDR, Stan discusses the emergence and growth of people’s movements, his work with young Adivasi undertrials who are falsely accused of being Naxalites and the difficult choices that confront young Adivasis today.
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Times of India blogs / by Amulya Gopalakrishnan
A year after the 9/11 attacks, American writer and editor Michael Kinsley made an honest admission. He had stopped himself from writing or publishing some things, regardless of their merit, he said. Ordinary scepticism, any opinion slightly out-of-step, had been silenced in the “patriotic gush and mush” of the times.
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The Print / by Ashutosh Bharadwaj
War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, State and Maoists was seized from activist Vernon Gonsalves’ home during a raid last year in Elgar Parishad case.
Soon after becoming the chief minister in May 2011, Mamata Banerjee initiated peace talks with the Maoists who had been holding out in Junglemahal, an area stretching over Bankura, Birbhum, Purluia and parts of West Midnapur districts. The talks failedwithin months. The namesake of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece, War and Peace, which surfaced in the Bombay High Court recently, is a collection of essays and grassroots voices penned by eminent writers, activists, academics and lawyers as they discuss the Maoist issue in the aftermath of the talks.
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