By Rajiv Shah
A new “fact-finding” report, taking a line similar to that of Union home minister Amit Shah, who has termed Delhi riots “pre-planned” and “part of a conspiracy”, has admitted that “the police and law enforcement agencies were on a back-foot” during the riots which have claimed more than 50 lives, rendering hundreds injured and thousands homeless.

By Rajiv Shah
The top United States think tank, Freedom House, based in Washington DC, has sought a series of measures, including from top social media companies like WhatsApp, against the Modi government as retaliation against the alleged crackdown in the country’s only Muslim-majority state Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the “discriminatory” citizenship amendment law, which has sparked nationwide protests, which are sought to be suppressed by Modi administration.

By Rajiv Shah
In strong message to India’s powers-that-be, a new report by Freedom House, a high profile US organization, has rated the status of democracy in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) as equal to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Giving both J&K and PoK the same score, 28 on a scale of 100, and categorizing both as “Not Free”, the report rates 210 countries, including individual territories, in order to rate two sub-categories, political rights and civil liberties.

By Rajiv Shah
Finding crucial relationship between what it calls “unpaid work” and sexual violence as a social norm in rural Rajasthan, a new study, carried out by high-profile NGO Oxfam India, has found that a whopping 54.4% of women it had interviewed were beaten up as and when they attempted to leave house without permission, while in 86.4% cases they were harshly criticized for this type of “disrespect” shown to their male folks in the family.

By Rajiv Shah
In a major effort to counter the narrative created by the Supreme Court order dated February 13, 2019 which had stated that the tribal claimants whose forest land claims under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 “have been rejected and have attained finality should be evicted”, a top international NGO has compiled 14 case studies to point out that forest dwellers, in fact, see FRA “as a means to regain control over their forests”, and the apex court must recognize this.

By Rajiv Shah
Founded by Mahatma Gandhi a hundred years ago, Gujarat Vidyapeeth was in news recently for allowing police to enter the campus for the first time ever. The occasion was, some Vidyapeeth students were identified flying objectionable kites on the Makarsankranti day, January 14. The ire was against those who were flying kites printed with anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), anti-National Register of Citizenship (NRC) slogans – a “seditious act” from current standards!