A project that proposes to give every resident a “unique identity number” is a matter of great concern for those working on issues of food security, NREGA, migration, technology, decentralisation, constitutionalism, civil liberties and human rights.
The National Advisory Council was reborn a year after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. While the NAC of 2004 was to monitor the implementation of the 2004 National Common Minimum Programme, the NAC of 2010 has no NCMP to track but is to take up the priorities set out in the President's speech to Parliament in June 2009. It is an "advisory" body but given that its chairperson is Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling coalition and of the biggest party, any advice it renders will clearly be seen as a directive to the government, as indeed happened in 2004-06.
The 2008 amendment to Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code placed certain restrictions on the power of the police to arrest without a warrant. Due to protests by lawyers, that amendment did not come into force. The government now proposes a peculiar amendment to the amendment that will require the police to record the reasons why they do not make an arrest.
The amendments to Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code through legislation have raised a lot of protests from some lawyers' associations across the country. However, the changes to the section that deals with the power of the police to arrest aim at balancing the liberty of citizens and the maintenance of peace and law and order. The power to arrest is the main cause of police excesses and needs to be circumscribed.
A variety of forest myths and a jungle of forest laws have over the years served to deny social justice to the forest-dwelling tribals. Two commissions, one on tribal matters and the other on forests, are presently reviewing these subjects and this is a golden opportunity for both to meet and resolve all the land issues relating to tribals and forests and the issue of tribal access to their own forest resources which alone can bring peace and prosperity in the tribal areas.
Crime and Punishment Reforming the Prison and Prisoner Punishment and the Prison: Indian and International Perspectives edited by Rani Dhavan Shankardass; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2000;
One of the major reasons for abuse of authority and excesses by the police is the enormous power they wield over life and liberty. The power of arrest is the most important in this category and deserves a closer look from the angle of reducing the scope for several attendant malpractices.
In the present scenario of the criminal justice system in the country, arrests run into millions, the jails are overcrowded mostly with undertrials and the courts are overstretched with several lakhs of pending criminal cases. Added to these are illegal detentions and extra-judicial killings as well as deaths in police and jail custody. Systemic reforms from a people-centred point of view are long overdue. Institutions like the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court have to take the initiative in the matter as neither the state governments nor the central government seem to be interested in meaningful reforms.
stress, growth could slow from 4.3 percent in Most indicators of fiscal per-formance
Most indicators of fiscal per-formance (interest as share of revenue, debt in GSDP, wages in relation to total revenue, fiscal deficits) will deteriorate further." The report had also highlighted the benefits likely from implementing the Bank's programme of reforms, such as likely growth rate of 6 per cent and positive fiscal impact and improvement in capital formation in critical areas.
