By Neeraj Mishra Micro-finance schemes, Jan Dhan Yojana and women’s Self-Help Groups (SHG) may have been the toast of many presentations on development. But they have introduced rural women to the new world of debt trap and suicides. More than 40,000 women and a Rs 350-crore loan scam involving 45 banking institutions in Chhattisgarh has…
The National Green Tribunal has taken suo motu cognizance of a news article published on December 3, 2024, regarding the death of four workers due to a storage tank explosion at an industrial unit in Ankleshwar GIDC area of Bharuch district in Gujarat. The NGT registered an original application based on the news article and…
President-elect Donald Trump’s first days of 2024 were anything but smooth. On January 9, he attended Jimmy Carter’s state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral—a poignant reminder of the nation’s shifting moral compass. The next day, he participated remotely in a New York courtroom to hear his sentencing on 34 felony charges stemming from the Stormy…
By Neeraj Mishra The recent killing of eight District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel in a landmine blast in Bijapur district has reignited concerns among human rights groups about the treatment of tribal populations in conflict zones. This incident, marking one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in two years, highlights the grim reality of…
By Shaan Katari Libby A will is more than a piece of paper; it is a roadmap for the distribution of one’s assets, ideally designed to prevent disputes and ensure clarity. Yet, as recent rulings by the Supreme Court of India reveal, merely drafting or even registering a will does not guarantee its validity. These…
The Karnataka High Court has made a ground-breaking decision to enforce the rights of transgender individuals by mandating updates to birth certificates. A petitioner, born male in 1983, and later diagnosed with gender dysphoria, sought relief after undergoing sex re-assignment surgery. Despite updating key identity documents like Aadhaar and passport, the Registrar of Births and…
In a pivotal judgment, the Gujarat High Court declared that withholding earned leave encashment from employees constitutes a violation of their constitutional rights. The Court upheld a labour court’s directive for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to compensate a retired employee, reinforcing the principle that earned leave encashment is an enforceable right protected under the…
A special court in Pune has granted bail to Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case filed against him for making derogatory remarks against freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The MP/MLA court presided by Judge Amol Shinde on Friday granted bail to Gandhi on a surety bond of Rs 25,000. The…
The Delhi High Court will hear on January 13, an interim bail petition filed by former Aam Aadmi Party Councillor Tahir Hussain in a case related to the riots that rocked the North-East areas of Delhi in 2020. Hussan sought bail in order to participate in the upcoming Assembly polls from Mustafabad constituency as a…
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has taken suo motu cognizance of a news article published on December 6, 2024 highlighting the alarming levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in Bengaluru, which were found to be nearly double the standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The NGT noted that the annual average NO2 concentration in…