-The Hindu   "To the women of India - we have a collective responsibility to ensure the dignity and safety of women. Recent incidents have cast a long dark shadow on our credentials. As more women enter public spaces...there are more reports of violence against them. We stand in solidarity with our girl children. We pledge to everything possible to keep them swcure. A number of measures are in the works...

-Outlook While great awareness has been raised about sexual violence against women in India, much less is known about the problem of sexual abuse of children' Summary The rape and murder of a student in New Delhi on December 16, 2012, followed by large public protests, has led to a great deal of soul searching about the problem of sexual violence in India. Politicians, lawyers, women’s rights activists, and an independent government...

-The Indian Express A series of arrests has helped investigators establish the links between some of the most high-profile terror cases involving Hindu extremists—from Malegaon 2006 to Modasa 2008. RAHUL TRIPATHI looks at what the investigators have found so far—and what they haven’t One cold December morning, Rambalak Dash left his ashram in Chitrakoot on the UP-MP border for a puja he had been called upon to do at a house in...

-IANS A new cultural "emergency" is emerging in India, and writers, painters, and filmmakers are becoming soft targets, says author Salman Rushdie, citing the national "Emergency" during 1975-77. "It seems that culture has become the new target. It may be because the writers, painters, filmmakers, artists don't have armies. We don't have the boys to put on streets to defend our film, novel or painting. So it's not hard to attack," Rushdie...

-The New York Times blog You could be pardoned for thinking that light pollution is someone’s idea of a Diwali joke. With concerns about rising air pollution hanging over India’s capital like the thick blanket of smog that appeared a few weeks ago and activists against noise pollution jostling to be heard over the burst of holiday firecrackers, the relatively benign problem of light pollution may not seem too important. But astronomers in...