In a move aimed to protect victims of sexual abuse from further mental trauma, a high powered government committee has recommended abolishing the "two finger test" for determining rape or sexual assault. Rape survivors are routinely subjected to forensic examination that include the "finger" test. Social activists have for long been demanding a ban on the "archaic and outdated" practice. They termed the test "unscientific and degrading". In a bid to protect...
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UID as User’s ID by Ila Patnaik
The government appears to be working towards an amicable solution on the question of who can collect biometric information data for the Indian population. There has been disagreement about whether this will be done by the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani, or the National Population Register headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram. It now seems that both may continue to collect data but share its use. When any country sets about...
More »UP has turned NRHM into a deadly web of graft and killings
-The Economic Times The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was started in 2005 by the first UPA government. It has had some positive results: after 15 years of stagnation , over 1,00,000 new healthcare professionals have been inducted and more and more village women are admitted to institutions to deliver babies. But in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, the NRHM is at the centre of a massive corruption racket. Three senior medical...
More »Whose Land? Evictions in West Bengal by Malini Bhattacharya
In the initial months of governance by the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, attempts appear to have been made to begin subverting the positive results of the land reform programme of the Left Front. What is happening appears to be the inevitable outcome of political rivalry, the hegemonic rule of one party giving place to another, with the citadel of power changing its colour, making the “red” one “green”. But...
More »Cop beats lady
-The Telegraph TV pictures of a young woman being pulled by the hair and thrashed inside a police station have caused outrage in poll-bound Punjab and embarrassed the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal. Raj Kaur, 22, was beaten up by head constable Manjeet Singh at the Baretta police station, over 200km from Chandigarh, in Mansa district for allegedly stealing a gold chain. Someone filmed the assault on a cellphone camera. A district official alleged...
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