-The United Nations On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour, two United Nations independent human rights experts today highlighted that of the 215 million children working throughout the world, more than half are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. “One of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three,”...

Mention crime, and murder and rape are the first to strike the mind. But there is another crime that arguably causes similar trauma, yet goes almost unnoticed: abduction.  The felony rose by 77% in six years, from 23,991 in 2006 to 42,580 in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In comparison, murders remained around the 34,000 mark in the corresponding period and rapes rose by 24% (from 19,348...

-The Indian Express Inmates of the Apna Ghar shelter in Rohtak told a four-member committee that visited them today that they were gangraped by Haryana Police officials, who made them dance naked and forcibly took them out of the home. According to sources, two of the inmates — one deaf and mute and the other mentally challenged — said that when they got pregnant, the incharge of the home stepped on their...

-The United Nations Almost 21 million people worldwide are trapped in jobs into which they were coerced or deceived and which they cannot leave, according to new estimates released today by the United Nations labour agency. Released by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the 2012 Global Estimate of Forced Labour found that the Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of the 20.9 million forced labourers in the world – 11.7 million,...

Alarmed by its proactive role, the three ‘pillars’ of our democracy set out to weaken the fourth estate Fundamentalisms do not necessarily announce their arrival by banging a hammer on our heads. Freedoms are often lost in little steps. The process creeps in quietly but insidiously. The path is often complex and defies a simple narrative. But here’s a straightforward fact: a concerted attempt is being made to censor, control...