-The Hindu A total of 241 persons out of the 385 death row inmates in India are first time offenders, new findings contained in the “Death Penalty India Report” released on Friday said. For the study, 373 of all the 385 death row inmates in India were interviewed from July 2013 to January 2015 by the Center of Death Penalty at National Law University, Delhi. The study found that around 60 per...

-The Hindu Business Line The best way to celebrate Ambedkar As we celebrate BR Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary, it is important to remember that his vision of economic equality for dalits is still a distant dream. He had told the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949: “We are entering an era of political equality. But economically and socially we remain a deeply unequal society. Unless we resolve this contradiction, inequality will destroy...

-Outlook Vigorous action can nullify the reasons that conspire to keep Dalits out of newsrooms In the ’50s, a foreign correspondent wrote to a renowned south Indian English daily, seeking comments on alleged discrimination against non-Brahmin journalists on its staff. Discrimination was out of the question, the paper clarified, as it never hired a non-Brahmin!  Over  60 years later, the media landscape has altered but the Indian newsroom is still the sanctuary...

-Livemint.com The latest round of NFHS-4 shows than even in wealthy states such as Tamil Nadu, about four out of every 10 married women experienced some form of spousal violence Mumbai: A week ago, minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi said that India cannot have a law to criminalise marital rape, citing various factors such as “level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of...

-The Hindu Clark made a significant pitch for all countries that had not made domestic abuse and marital rape criminal offences to do so at the earliest. Just days after Minister of Women and Child welfare Maneka Gandhi submitted in parliament that the government wouldn’t criminalise “marital rape”, a top UN official said that the issue is one of consent, not culture, suggesting that India would be in contravention of the Sustainable...