-The Hindu A complex picture emerges from the analysis of a year of Mumbai sessions court rulings on sexual assault: false cases foisted by parents, wide variation in the sentences, societal prejudices and vulnerabilities at play, and a tendency for investigating high-profile cases with greater rigour Over half of all sexual assault cases decided by Mumbai’s sessions courts in 2015 involved either parents filing cases against young couples who had eloped, or...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: After fixing minimum educational qualification of Class X for candidates contesting panchayat polls, Haryana will now make class XII mandatory for aspirants to urban local body elections. The Supreme Court on December 10 had upheld Haryana government's earlier decision to mandate class X for panchayat polls, saying illiterates can be barred from contesting. The Haryana advocate general's office has suggested that qualification for people contesting various municipal...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Accidents caused by drivers without licences increased by 54% between 2012 and 2014, according to data provided by the police departments of all states and Union Territories. In absolute numbers, the accident count went up from 25,463 to 39,314. In the same period, drivers younger than 18 caused between 19,000 and 21,500 accidents. Though the official count is evidently much less than actual numbers, it reflects...

-The Times of India NOIDA: A 13-year-old student of a city school has developed a website to promote easy carpooling among commuters. At a time when commuters have voiced concerns over the forthcoming rule on odd and even numbered cars plying on alternate days on Delhi roads, Akshat Mittal, a student of Class VIII in Amity International School Noida, Sector 44, said his website, odd-even.com, would prove extremely useful. Users simply need to...

-Business Standard Evidence on increasing risk should be tipping scale for the government New Delhi: At the COP21 talks in Paris, Chennai had been brought up as an unfortunate exhibit of the perfect storm triggered by climate change and indiscriminate urban planning. While India is already driving the conversation about the global effort to climate-proofing, hopefully the impact of this latest flood will also force its leadership to sit up and take...