-The Hindu     With the closing of relief camps in Muzaffarnagar, even the meagre food support has disappeared. As the winter cold descends this year on Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Western U.P., some 20,000 people will camp in makeshift unofficial camps amidst squalor and official neglect, or survive in small rented tenements or with relatives - exiles from the villages of their birth. Three months after one of the grimmest communal outbreaks...

-Outlook New York: Founder of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal is among Foreign Policy magazine's leading Global Thinkers of 2013, a list of 100 people who have made "measurable difference" and are "pushing the boundaries of the possible". Activists Urvashi Butalia and Kavita Krishnan have also made it to the list that has been topped by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. Kejriwal, 45, who figures on the 32nd spot, is a...

-The United Nations Despite significant progress in meeting international development goals for women's empowerment, gaps in key areas remain, which require a renewed effort from all partners to better integrate gender issues into the overall quest for sustainable development, a United Nations gender equality official said today. "It is ... essential to harness the synergies between gender equality, women's rights and empowerment with sustainable development in its three dimensions - economic, social,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Around two in five men in India - nearly 40.7% - were found to hold 'rigid and discriminatory' gender views. This segment believes women to be inferior. Such men are very controlling. They tend to dictate whom the wives can meet and do not allow participation in decision-making. Further, men who hold the most rigid views of masculinity are three times more likely to physically abuse their...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Against the backdrop of increasing violence against women and children across the country, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development had launched the ‘Ahimsa Messenger' Programme in last August to address the critical issue at the grass roots level through creating numerous Ahimsa Messengers. The messengers would be generating awareness on basic legal rights, procedures and provisions amongst women and children; they would also serve as link...