Crime

Taxi drivers in Mumbai may now have an additional task on their hands apart from ferrying passengers ― keeping the police informed about any suspicious activity. Taxi drivers, however, feel they will now be harassed more by the police. The Mumbai police is planning this initiative as part of its Alert Mumbaikar campaign to keep a tab on the movement of suspicious people in the city. The police in Mumbai want to emulate the practice followed by their counterparts in the Gulf countries where taxi...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that Turkey failed to protect the life of journalist and human rights activist Hrant Dink has been welcomed by press freedom and human rights organisations around the world. The ECHR on Tuesday held Turkey guilty of failing to protect Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink when authorities knew his assassination was imminent, and of then failing to adequately investigate his murder. The court said in its ruling, "None of the three authorities informed...

The Asia Foundation has launched a five-year, $6.8 million project to prevent human trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute traffickers in six districts in Nepal. Its own contributions will bring the total amount to approximately $7.4 million. The award, given by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), goes into effect immediately. Trafficking in persons is serious and widespread in Nepal, a country facing a deepening political crisis. Ongoing internal conflict and economic...

Biases in eyewitness identifications in police line-ups have been observed empirically. Now scientists would be finding out more about these biases to determine if people avoid pointing the finger at someone they like in a police line-up. Eyewitness misidentification is the biggest cause of wrongful convictions the world over. In the US alone, more than 75 percent of convictions have been overturned through DNA testing. Till now, however, no one has studied this aspect of human behaviour...