-The Hindustan Times The tempest of public anger and revulsion against violent attacks on women in the nation's capital must catalyse long-delayed changes in laws and their implementation for a more secure and humane world for girls and women to grow up in. The students and young people who faced water cannons and tear gas shells are right in settling for nothing less. High on the list of reforms demanded - and which...

-Outlook Its ploy of Aadhar-hinged cash transfer may have won the Congress political points, but will it really be a game-changer?   State-Wise     40% of the 22 crore Aadhar numbers are in Andhra Pradesh (4.7 crore) and Maharashtra (4 crore)     20% is what the two politically sensitive, Congress-ruled states account for of the 51 districts where DCT will be rolled out     55 lakh Aadhar numbers in TMC-run West Bengal. BJP-ruled Gujarat (57...

-The Indian Express Nearly 50 activists and organisations are coming together on a common platform to lobby for “issues of the people” with political parties ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. They include Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan’s (MKSS) Aruna Roy (a member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council); former NAC member Harsh Mander; Ekta Parishad’s P V Rajagopal, who recently led a march of tribals and others from MP to...

-The Hindu The new Bill should pitch for free care to mental health patients in public hospitals. Persons with mental illness have long been subjected to cruelty, neglect, ridicule and stigma. In the last half-century, medical science has made significant strides in finding some cures and palliatives for afflictions of the mind – of emotion, mood, thinking and behaviour. Parallel to this is the evolution in our ethical frameworks: of human rights,...

-The Hindustan Times As news filtered in of extended life sentences for 31 persons for the brutal slaughter 10 years ago in Naroda Patiya, a working-class suburb of Ahmedabad, my eyes clouded over. I remembered my first meetings with the traumatised survivors of the massacre in the crowded relief camps in the city, a full decade earlier. I was heartsick and stunned by their stories of incredible cruelty. I wondered if...