Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Though the State’s conviction rate has been a cause of concern for the Government, Nagpur City Police’s record on this count has come as a breather for it. Compared to the conviction rate of 14 per cent for previous year, the City Police has registered conviction in 26 per cent in six months of current year. Conviction rate is number of cases per hundred in which court has held the accused guilty and awarded punishment. Maharashtra’s conviction rate has been a dismal single-digit for past some years. In 2012, it was 9.4 per cent only. This has prompted the State Government to initiate measures to increase conviction rate. In case of Nagpur city, the data with City Police reveals that conviction rate has registered an increase in first half of this year over the year 2012. Of a total 1,203 cases registered between January and June 2013, accused were convicted in 309 cases. In the year 2010, conviction rate for the city was only 5 per cent, which declined to 4 per cent in 20...