-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Fewer children were brutalised in 2015 than 2014. And yet, 451 girls were raped before they could celebrate their sixth birthday, and another 1,151 before their twelfth. That means a girl, not old enough to begin primary school, and three others yet to enter their teens, were raped every day in 2015. Four out of every 10 victims below the age of 12 were either in Maharashtra (365...

-Deccan Herald New Delhi: The number of honour killings has seen a whopping seven-fold increase from 28 in 2014 to 251 last year. Uttar Pradesh accounted for the majority of honour killings (168), followed by Gujarat (25) and Madhya Pradesh (14). While the country witnessed 251 cases of honour killings in 2015, another 135 lost their lives to witchcraft and a total of 24 were victims of child or human sacrifice. Even love affairs...

-The Hindu The findings point to corruption, politics as the adversaries of journalists working in small towns. Reporting in India can be a dangerous business as a report compiled by an independent watchdog, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), has observed. Twenty-seven journalists have died under unnatural circumstances since 1992; increasingly, the victims are from small towns. There have been zero convictions, raising questions about the governments’ intent to allow journalists...

-AP New Delhi: India is failing to help and protect journalists who are facing violent threats or attacks for their work, an international watchdog agency said Monday, noting a pattern of resistance in investigating crimes targeting reporters. The Committee to Protect Journalists counted 27 journalists killed for their work since 1992, and noted that it was still investigating more than two dozen cases to determine whether those journalists’ deaths were also work-related....

-The Telegraph Ahmedabad: Jignesh Mewani, 35, had a pleasant surprise when he returned home on Monday evening. A group of neighbours in the predominantly middle-class Dalit locality of Chwalnagar in Ahmedabad were waiting for him with flowers, near a small stage they had erected to felicitate their newfound "hero". The previous evening and through the day, they had watched the young Dalit activist on TV and read about him in newspapers, awestruck at...