-The Hindu India will not make marital rape a crime because of cultural and religious values and society’s belief that marriage is a sacrament, the government said on Wednesday. DMK MP Kanimozhi, through a question submitted in the Rajya Sabha, asked Minister of State for Home Affairs Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary whether the government would bring in an amending Bill to the Indian Penal Code to remove the exception of marital rape from...

-The Hindu India cannot continue with a pattern of industry that yields so few jobs but has such a large ecological footprint. Neither can it be excited by the urban nightmares that its cities are today. The land law debate must be the occasion to talk about these key national agendas The current debate on the land law is important because it affords us a chance to reflect more deeply on the...

-IPS News NEW DELHI: Vinita Panikker, 26, considers herself “the world’s most unfortunate woman”. Three years ago, a jealous husband, who suspected her of having an affair with her boss at a software company, poured a whole bottle of hydrochloric acid on her face while she was asleep. The fiery liquid seared her flesh, blighting her face almost entirely while blinding her in one eye. What remains today of a once pretty visage...

-The Times of India As successive spells of freak rains in March-April ravaged fields across Uttar Pradesh, a spate of farmer deaths were reported. Most of these were ascribed to suicide or trauma, as crop losses mounted and the state appeared to be reeling under a fresh agrarian crisis. The UP government moved to provide relief, but on farmer deaths, it saw things a little differently. "There is no conclusive proof, yet,...

-The Asian Age The much-quoted sentence, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics", was attributed to the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli by American author Mark Twain. Although researchers could never find such a statement in any written work of Disraeli, the sentence gained universal popularity to signify how economists and other number-crunchers use the "persuasive power" of figures to make a political point or...