-Open Democracy Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are commodities Let us talk about Ram Singh, the chief rapist accused in the case of Damini,...

-The Indian Express At a time when there’s a chorus for showing no leniency to the juvenile among the six arrested for the gangrape of the 23-year-old woman who later died in a Singapore hospital, children’s rights workers are cautioning that laws should not be bent simply because there is public outrage. Minna Kabir, voluntary children’s rights worker who has long been associated with the legal aid cell at the juvenile justice...

-The Hindu The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will introduce “Human Rights and Gender Studies” for Class XI and XII students from the coming academic year. The subject will be elective. Similarly, a handbook for teachers, “Women Safety and Empowerment through Curriculum,” will be introduced in the training courses by the National Council for Teachers Education. The Ministry of Human Resource Development has been receiving representations for promoting value education in schools...

-The Guardian The coverage of Damini's death strikes a particularly ironic note following recent media controversy over a rape in Ohio There's something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India's civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country's culture of sexual violence, commentators...

-The Indian Express Gangrape speaks of the deep pathologies in the way young men are socialised. We should look within I hate item numbers,” exclaimed a (male) film actor in the midst of a talk show about the gangrape in Delhi that shook the nation. Immediately, there was a heated discussion about the uselessness of item numbers in the midst of Hindi films. Some spoke vehemently about how these songs were sexually...