-The Times of India Blowing the lid off the government's 'cold' attitude towards the three-member committee it had set up to review Rape laws, its chairman Justice J S Verma on Sunday said the panel was offered little else than a couple of rooms in Vigyan Bhavan and a government car to ferry the committee members, with all secretarial assistance and infrastructure being arranged by member Gopal Subramaniam. Lamenting the lack...

-The Indian Express Ahmedabad: Coming down heavily on the police and prosecutors for their "casualness" in handling of Rape cases, the Gujarat High Court has said they should be held accountable if they "fail the victims in securing justice". "It is high time the investigating officer as well as the prosecutor concerned are held accountable, and appropriate actions taken against them after affording them opportunity of being heard and explain the circumstances...

-The Hindu Police can record complaint of such woman at her residence Considering the difficulties encountered by physically challenged women at each stage of the criminal-legal process, right from filing an FIR to testifying in court during trial, the Justice J.S. Verma Committee has recommended that they be exempted from coming to the police station and making repeated visits to courts for testimony. In its report, the committee said that when a physically...

-Frontline While the broadcast media often arrogates to itself the right to speak in the name of the nation, catering to their “customers” in the process, intellectuals have a duty to question such practices and resist being co-opted by the channels. It may not be far-fetched to speak in terms of a new “mediacracy” riding the airwaves. The movers and shakers perched on the prime time news shows on television seem,...

-The Indian Express Saumya Saxena, who is researching gender justice at Cambridge University, was in New Delhi when a 23-year-old woman was gangRaped in a bus on December 16. When the government set up the J S Verma Committee to suggest amendments to criminal laws in the wake of the Rape, Soumya wanted to become part of the effort. “I wrote to them and asked them if I could be a part...