-The Hindu Business Line Indian society is yet to acknowledge the existence of rape culture – a set of beliefs that condones aggression on women. Perhaps no other event in India has received more international attention in the recent past than the brutal gang rape in Delhi and its tragic aftermath. The issue is widely covered in the Western media; the latest addition is the channel interview of the rape victim’s male...

-The Times of India With violence against Indian women on the rise, the debate over feminist politics and its relevance has acquired new importance. Academic Nivedita Menon has researched this in Seeing Like A Feminist. Speaking with Amrita Nandy, Menon discussed the role and energy of feminism today, how rape and dress are analysed by convention versus feminism — and how feminism eventually liberates women, even from being feminists: * You write...

-The Hindu Refusal by Dalits to work as agricultural labour and to perform menial duties plus their relative economic improvement have made them the targets of Caste Violence In the recent violence against the Dalits in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu, about 300 of their houses were burnt down and other properties destroyed by the Vanniars, a numerically strong intermediate caste, sections of whom have been economically stagnant. The immediate cause for...

-The Hindu An independent all-woman criminal justice system for acts of violence against women would stand a better chance of enabling equitable justice than one dominated by patriarchal insensitivity. What more can I say about the unconscionable event that took place on the night of December 16 in Delhi that has not already been said or written about over the last fortnight? Every conceivable aspect of the brutal rape and the reactions...

-The Indian Express The CPM has demanded that the maximum punishment in cases of “aggravated sexual assault” and “rape” be enhanced to rigorous life imprisonment till death and suggested that laws related to sexual assault be made “gender specific”. The party is not in favour of death penalty as it feels existing laws provide for capital punishment in “rarest of the rare” cases of gangrape and murder like the Delhi incident. In...