-Economic and Political Weekly State and society both have to transform if we are to reduce violence against women. The past fortnight has seen unprecedented protests in Delhi over the gang rape and brutalisation of a young medical student. It has taken most people by surprise to see the manner in which thousands of people have come out to protest the lack of safety for women in the public spaces of the...

-Open Democracy Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are commodities Let us talk about Ram Singh, the chief rapist accused in the case of Damini,...

-The Economic Times CPM, which has conventionally opposed capital punishment, has suggested enhancement of punishment in sexual offences and proposed life imprisonment and even death in rarest of rare cases.  In the final draft of suggestions being sent to Justice Verma Committee, formed by the government to rewrite the country's rape laws after the horrific gang-rape, the Left party has openly called for capital punishment in rare and brutal cases. According to...

-The Guardian The coverage of Damini's death strikes a particularly ironic note following recent media controversy over a rape in Ohio There's something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India's civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country's culture of sexual violence, commentators...

-The Indian Express Our reactions to the current protests triggered by the gangrape in the capital reveal a paradoxical state of mind. We welcome the spontaneous nature of these protests, underline the fact that most of the ordinary women and men who joined these protests were not mobilised by any organisation and caution against the entry of “political elements”. At the same time, we criticise the protesters for the lack of...