A look at the front page of The Indian Express, published on June 13, 1977
PM-Phizo Talks
A four-member delegation of the Nagaland Peace Council led by Rev Kenneth Kurhevo has flown to London to be at hand when PM Morarji Desai meets A.Z. Phizo, leader of the remaining underground Nagas. The meeting is at Phizo’s request. He hopes that from it will emerge a “final settlement” of the three decade-old Naga question. Before leaving for London, Rev Kurhevo and two other members of the delegation, M. Aram, who has been associated with peace efforts in Nagaland for more than 10 years, and Ramyo, a leader of the underground who had signed the Shillong accord, told this reporter that they were optimistic about the meeting yielding positive results.
Not An Encounter
The second interim report of the Civil Rights Committee says its investigations have revealed that the death of nine citizens in Guntur district during the Emergency were not a result of “encounters” between so-called Naxalites and the police, as alleged by the latter, but instead a cold-blooded murder of people who were in police custody. The nine-member Civil Rights Committee, headed by V.M. Tarkunde, was formed by Jayaprakash Narayan in April 1977, in order to look into the killings of 77 individuals in Andhra Pradesh which took place during the Emergency.
Human Rights Panel
The scope of the Union government’s proposal to set up a high-powered Civil Rights Commission at the Centre to look after the rights of minorities and backward sections is being widened. While the government is working on a bill to set up the commission at the Centre — it is likely to be presented to Parliament in this session — it now feels that similar commissions should be set up in the states as well. The Central Civil Rights Commission is likely to be headed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court who will continue to be on the bench.