-The Hindu The All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) too objected to the "selective and arbitrary approach" of the Government to the recommendations. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has denounced the ordinance which the Union Cabinet issued on Friday to curb sexual violence against women. When Parliament was to convene for the budget session in three weeks, the promulgation of the ordinance ran counter to democratic norms, a statement issued by the...

-The Hindu The ordinance on sexual assault cleared by the Union Cabinet and signed into law on Sunday by the President is problematic, not in what it seeks to achieve, but in what it does not attempt to redress. If this is all that the government intends to do on the basis of the Justice Verma Committee report, then, quite worryingly, the nationwide protests and expressions of outrage at rape and...

-The Indian Express On the Delhi rape case, let’s keep the indignation, disturb legislative slumbers The Verma Committee Report (VCR) speaks against civil society and political rape cultures. The poignancy and urgency of the VCR owes much to the experience of conversing with rape survivors and traumatised children. A precious message of the VCR is this: one may not take law reform seriously without taking human and social suffering equally seriously. The committee...

-The Hindu Verma panel recommended fixing responsibility on superior officers The Centre has not accepted the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee regarding punishment to government servants, particularly police and army personnel, involved in acts of crime against women. The ordinance, cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday, aims at making changes in various sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with crime against women. For instance, the three-member panel had suggested changes in...

-The Hindu Opposing the Centre’s decision to move an ordinance on criminal law amendments in respect of sexual violence, women’s organisations, civil society groups and women’s rights activists have appealed to President Pranab Mukherjee “not to sign” it. Arguing that virtually all suggestions of the Justice Verma Committee, hailed as signs of a paradigm shift in understanding violence against women, and all the recommendations that could strike at the heart of impunity...