-The Times of India After spending 25 days behind bars on charges of raping her live-in girlfriend, athlete Pinki Pramanik was granted bail on Tuesday. The judge virtually exonerated the Asiad gold medallist by saying that preliminary medical reports make it clear Pinki is "not capable of committing rape".  There was much drama both inside the courtroom and outside. Athlete and former CPM MP Jyotirmoyee Sikdar led a huge crowd at the...

Apparently, people across the country, bridging class, caste and income divides, are deliberately ensuring that girls are simply not born. The child sex ratio of 914 girls per 1,000 boys is a tragic situation and a poor reflection on India’s growth and development. This is in spite of laws, schemes, relentless activism and media campaigns spanning three decades in support of the girl child. According to activists and economists, a...

-The Indian Express Asian Games gold medalist Pinki Pramanik, arrested after a woman charged that the athlete was a male and had raped her, was granted bail by a court in North 24 Parganas district after spending 25 days in judicial custody on Tuesday. The bail was granted by the Barasat court to Pramanik, whose chromosome pattern test report to determine her gender was received by the SSKM Hospital on Monday. Pramanik was arrested on...

-The Telegraph The latest statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has revealed some disquieting data for Assam. According to the latest NCRB figures, the rate of violent crimes in Assam was the third highest in the country in 2011. Only Kerala and Delhi were ranked above Assam in first and second positions respectively. The NCRB in its report Crime in India 2011, released on June 31, has said that the...

The railway ministry is helpless about the discomfort of railway passengers in reserved compartments who are outnumbered by passengers without tickets or with tickets meant for unreserved compartments   Last month, my friend’s daughter went on a trip to Corbett Park, which was organised by a Pune-based nature trail group. Although they had booked a Second Class (ordinary) reserved compartment, most of the 30-hour journey was spent in utter discomfort, with people...