-The Times of India When it first circulated a draft Bill in 2010 to amend the rape law, the home ministry stuck to the traditional notion that men alone could commit sexual assault. But when the Cabinet cleared the Bill last month for introduction in Parliament, the offence turned "gender neutral", as revealed by a government press release.  Welcome to the brave new world of gender neutrality, in which laws increasingly no...

-The Hindu Scheme coming for free distribution of medicines through public hospitals and health centres The government will expand the scope of the NRHM to all towns and cities, by converting it into a National Health Mission (NHM), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Wednesday. In his Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort here, he said the government was also formulating a new scheme for distribution of free medicines...

-The Telegraph Jhargram: A farmer who had accused chief minister Mamata Banerjee of making false promises to Jungle Mahal’s poor at her Wednesday rally was picked up a second time on Friday night and slapped with non-bailable charges. Forty-something Shiladitya Chowdhury, who owns a one-bigha plot, has been charged with assaulting and injuring government officials three days after the police apparently let him go because they could find no evidence that he...

-The Hindustan Times With the pressure off on the government for setting up the lokpal, the law ministry has joined its various counterparts and departments in opposing many key provisions of the anti-graft bill, rendering its future uncertain. Interestingly, the ministry had drafted and given legal clearance to the bill, passed by the Lok Sabha on December 27, 2011. It has conveyed its views to the Rajya Sabha select committee, which is examining the...

The Guwahati molestation incident throws light on the violence women face overtly and covertly in India, at home and outside. The shocking incident of the beating and molestation of a young woman by a mob in Guwahati in Assam on July 9 has exposed the ugly underbelly of modern, globalised India, where women face violence, covertly and overtly, at home and outside. The incident has also exposed the lackadaisical manner in...