Deadline Delhi

Kashmir’s much-hyped literary festival has been cancelled. The organisers of ‘Harud: The Autumn Literature Festival’, scheduled for September 24-26 in Srinagar, cited the possibility of violence as the main reason behind this decision. The festival secretariat said they were concerned about the possibility of protests and the "heightened" nature of the debate. The debate in question was the incisive criticism that the organisers faced from writers, journalists, filmmakers and artists, among...

A circular issued by the Kerala government directing the public education department to deploy online school management software called Sampoorna in schools across the state has drawn flak from civil liberties activists. According to the circular, details of as many as 6 million students spanning over 15,000 schools in the state would be captured in this scheme. All schoolchildren will soon have unique identification numbers (UID), which will help in tracking their movements in educational...

The Reliance Communications website describes itself as India’s number one network. It certainly isn’t if you consider the number of subscribers it has lost in the first five months since the mobile number portability (MNP) facility was introduced in India – it lost a whopping 1,166,643 net subscribers till June 30. Reliance’s loss is more than double the second company in the dubious rankings – state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which lost 573,142 subscribers. The third is Tata...

The attacks carried out between 2005 and 2009 on Indian students studying in Australia should not be construed as an evidence of racism, a study has insisted. The attacks had previously created a diplomatic row between India and Australia. Indians studying in Australia, as well as other foreign students, were “less likely or as likely to be victims of physical assaults and other theft” than Australia’s population in general, a report released by the Canberra-based Australian Institute of...

The Supreme Court of India’s directive to the Chhattisgarh government to disband and disarm 6,500 special police officers (SPOs) engaged in anti-Maoist operations is a slap on the latter’s face. On Tuesday, a Supreme Court bench ordered the Union government “to cease and desist, forthwith, from using any of its funds in supporting, directly or indirectly the recruitment of SPOs for the purposes of engaging in any form of counter-insurgency activities against Maoist/Naxalite groups”. SPOs, also...

India has introduced a new e-waste rule that makes environmentally sound management and disposal of electronic waste mandatory. The E-waste (Management and Handling) Rule, 2011 places responsibility on the producers for the entire lifecycle of a product, from design to disposal. Apart from Extended Producer Responsibility principle, the rule is a significant step towards international standards of Restriction of Hazardous substances in electronics. The rules were notified by the Ministry of...

The online travel audience in India is rising, according to comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world. It found that the number of visitors to travel sites increased 32 per cent in the past year to 18.5 million visitors as more Indians are turning to the web for their travel needs. “The online travel category continues to show strong growth in India,” Kedar Gavane, comScore Director for India said on Friday. “The convenience of booking trips and locating travel information online...

The death penalty is back in the limelight in India after a long time, this time for all the wrong reasons — mostly political. The issue came back into focus after Indian President Pratibha Patil approved the executions of two death row prisoners. Patil accepted the Indian Home Ministry’s recommendations to reject the mercy petitions of death row prisoners Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Mahendra Nath Das. Bhullar was sentenced to death in 2001 for plotting terror attacks that killed nine people...

Critics have long argued that the Indian government lost the plot in Kashmir ages back. But as an incident on Saturday shows, it is now increasingly turning schizophrenic — imagining enemies where there aren’t any. Well-known human rights activist Gautam Navlakha was detained at Srinagar International Airport on his arrival there on Saturday. He was not allowed to enter the city, and was served an order under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Core (CRPC). Navlakha, who’s a frequent visitor...

The Indian government has commissioned an in-depth study to estimate unaccounted income and wealth being held within and outside India. This study, engaging three institutions, aims to bring out the nature of activities that encourage money laundering and its ramifications on national security. The study has already been in progress since March this year, and is expected to be completed within a period of 18 months. The study, according to an official release, is being undertaken by the National...