India's Supreme Court has told states to "ruthlessly stamp out" the so-called honour killings. The court also warned that senior officials who failed to act against the offenders would be prosecuted. In recent times, there have been many cases where people have been ostracised or killed for defying age-old notions of tradition and family honour. Often these crimes are endorsed, or even encouraged, by village-based caste councils. Many of the victims are young couples...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday termed Khap panchayats as kangaroo courts and declared them illegal. The Supreme Court ruling said that Khap panchayats are wholly illegal and have to be ruthlessly stamped out. A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra said in a judgement that the new trends of kangaroo courts, honour killings, "khap" panchayaths in northern India and "katta" panchayats in Tamil Nadu were barbaric and illegal,...

Casteism is one of the main causes holding up the country's progress Calling a person by caste name, if used with intent to insult, is an offence under SC/ST Act Society regarding a section of its own countrymen as inferior is simply unacceptable While deprecating the caste system in the country, the Supreme Court has declared illegal ‘khap panchayats' which often decree or encourage honour killings or other institutionalised atrocities against boys and...

A convicted rapist out on bail has been arrested along with his cousin for brutally beating his own aunt and another widow to death in the name of family honour. Tension prevails in the area while the accused is unrepentant. The two women were attacked at Ranila village in Bhiwani district late Sunday night. The horrific crime was committed in front of at least 200 villagers, including dozens of women, but...

Late last month we received the exciting news that India now has a population of 1.21 billion. This figure generated less discussion than I expected. Maybe it would have been more mind-boggling a few months ago, before all the scams and scandals inured us to the large number of zeros that a billion signifies. Or maybe we were distracted by the other bad news in the census results — the...