-The Hindu Withdraw cases against villagers, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti: Civil society groups Several civil society groups have alleged abuse of human rights and registration of false cases by State government agencies in order to curb resistance against the land acquisition for the proposed Posco steel plant in Odisha. Highlighting instances of “biased and arbitrary” police action in the eight villages of Jagatsinghpur district affected by the plant, illustrated in the recently-released fact...

-The Hindu Twenty years after the Babri Masjid riots, a survivor recounts her tale of horror Mumbai: It may be 20 years for everyone else but for Safia (name changed on request), it seems like 20 seconds. Overwhelmed by the nationwide outrage over the Delhi gang rape, she is anguished that no one helped when she and her 19-year-old daughter were stripped and gang-raped. The mob burnt her daughter alive while she managed...

-The Hindustan Times As India debates ‘capital punishment’ for rapists, millions of men maintain that ‘corporal punishment’ is the right sentence for a wife who serves chai gone cold. Since it is often invisible, Violence committed by husbands has escaped public outrage. Crimes such as beating, punching and forced sex usually go unpunished because it is common belief that a husband has the right to punish his wife.   Though we do...

-The Hindustan Times The European Union on Friday staunchly defended its decision to re-engage with Narendra Modi a day after it emerged that the Gujarat chief minister had a quiet lunch with the ambassadors of the member countries here early this year, ending a decade-old boycott.   The January 7 lunch is likely to be seen as a major boost for Modi, who after his third successive win in the western state, is...

-Outlook Hyderabad: Union Ministry of Women and Child Development today announced setting up of dedicated centres catering to women victims of Violence across 100 districts in the country. "The 'One Stop Crisis Centre for Women' (OSCCW), aimed at helping the women victims of domestic and other forms of Violence, to be located at hospitals, will have a senior doctor as coordinator and comprise a counsellor, police officer, lawyer, on-duty doctor and support...