-Deccan Herald Mumbai: Palghar that grabbed headlines late last year for all the wrong reasons continues to simmer with news trickling from interiors  that communalist forces have barred Christian adivasi families from drawing water or collecting firewood to cook food. The ostracising of Christian adivasis in the tribal taluk of rural Thane district reached its peak on Sunday when a mob raising slogans disrupted a worship service and assaulted worshippers. Delayed reports...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Roiled by a rash of corruption charges, the Maharashtra government appears to be headed for deeper trouble. An investigation has unearthed the involvement of thousands of officials and politicians in a decade-old fraud, in which Rs 101 crore of public funds were siphoned off and disbursed to 1.49 lakh bogus beneficiaries. Of the numerous recipients of the dole meant for the destitute, the probe found, 19,367...

-The Economic Times CPM, which has conventionally opposed capital punishment, has suggested enhancement of punishment in sexual offences and proposed life imprisonment and even death in rarest of rare cases.  In the final draft of suggestions being sent to Justice Verma Committee, formed by the government to rewrite the country's rape laws after the horrific gang-rape, the Left party has openly called for capital punishment in rare and brutal cases. According to...

-The Hindu Mid-January last year a fragile, dazed 14-year-old girl walked into the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences Trauma Centre here clutching what looked like a tiny bundle of clothes. Sensing something amiss, the medical staff there immediately swung into action, unfolding what was to be one of the worst reported cases of child assault by a juvenile in the country. Malnourished, pregnant and with a history of being violently abused mentally,...

-The Hindu “They (tribals) are in live-in relationship. Once a couple gets separated, the case goes to the police. Those are not rape,” says Vibha Rao, chairperson of Chhattisgarh State Women Commission Vibha Rao, the chairperson of Chhattisgarh State Women Commission, doesn’t agree that her views are a case of ‘blaming the victim’ but is emphatic that women are “equally responsible” for the sexual offences committed against them. The gruesome acts of rape...