India, Sept. 6 -- Analysis of government records shows that the average annual number of cases registered under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was higher in the six years following the August 2018 amendment than in the six years preceding it. Across the six years from 2013 to 2018, an average of 40,749 cases were registered annually under the Act. In the six years from 2019 to 2024, the annual average rose to 48,743, an increase of 19.6%, according to National Crime Records Bureau data placed before Parliament. The comparison is significant because the two periods fall on either side of a major legal change to the Act. On 20 March 2018, the Supreme Court, in Dr Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. Sta...