Right to Information (RTI) activists from Pune came together on Sunday and formed an RTI council to serve as a repository of information obtained by various activists. “Once the information obtained by anyone under the RTI is available with a council, there will be less threat to an individual’s life,” said Vivek Velankar, an RTI activist, while speaking to journalists after a public meeting to demand justice for the murdered RTI...

Women’s groups have demanded a comprehensive legislation to address rape and sexual assault. A delegation that met Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily earlier this week, said there was a need to incorporate various substantive and procedural sections in the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and the Indian Evidence Act to deal with child sexual assault and sexual assault against women. Archaic definition In a memorandum to the Minister, the...

Year 2010 could go down in history as a watershed for undertrial prisoners, who for long have been the silent victims of apathy of the police, prosecuting agencies, prison authorities and judiciary. The UPA government is setting a six-month deadline, starting January 26, for the release of 1.25 lakh of the 1.7 lakh undertrials languishing in jail though booked for petty offences and despite having served a major part of...

Winner of a national award for Bitter Chocolate, an eye-opener book on child sexual abuse, author-activist Pinki Virani tells Nandita Sengupta the nation has let down its children in the Ruchika Girhotra case. You have said that government response to the Girhotra case is appalling. In the national outrage on Ruchika, government has missed the woods for the trees. I'm appalled that the law minister says we will now strengthen...

At least two cases of hunger deaths have been reported from Jabalpur district of MP and Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan in the past few weeks. The two states are run by different political parties-- the BJP and the Congress-- but there is quite a lot common in the victims’ circumstances. Both families were among the poorest in their villages but were not included in the BPL list and both the...