-The Indian Express A day after The Indian Express reported that video clips showed police destroying private property and looting shops in the north Maharashtra town of Dhule during violence earlier this month, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said there were “some communal elements” in the State Police too and this needed to be handled with great sensitivity. “I have seen the clips that you have written about. Unfortunately, there are some communal...

-The Indian Express Ahmedabad: Coming down heavily on the police and prosecutors for their "casualness" in handling of rape cases, the Gujarat High Court has said they should be held accountable if they "fail the victims in securing justice". "It is high time the investigating officer as well as the prosecutor concerned are held accountable, and appropriate actions taken against them after affording them opportunity of being heard and explain the circumstances...

-The Hindu Police can record complaint of such woman at her residence Considering the difficulties encountered by physically challenged women at each stage of the criminal-legal process, right from filing an FIR to testifying in court during trial, the Justice J.S. Verma Committee has recommended that they be exempted from coming to the police station and making repeated visits to courts for testimony. In its report, the committee said that when a physically...

-Governance Now But his eminence is not worth a vote for Mayawati, Paswan and others baying for his blood In an age where 22-second sound bites become the source of heated political debate and vacuous intellectual discourse, eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy’s indiscretion may seem unpardonable. Clearly, he is too old to adapt to bites-induced intellectualism, making him almost incompatible with an impatient class of social elites whose intellectual span is defined by...

-The Hindu Although it has left some crucial questions unanswered, the Verma Committee report is a big step forward in the struggle for women’s rights The UPA government has perhaps got more than what it bargained for from the committee it set up, headed by the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice J.S. Verma, in the wake of the public outrage following the horrific Delhi gang rape. The government had...