-Open Democracy Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are commodities Let us talk about Ram Singh, the chief rapist accused in the case of Damini,...

-The Washington Post The case of a 23-year-old medical student who died Saturday after a brutal gang rape on a bus in New Delhi has seemed to snap India to attention about its endemic sexual violence problem. Hundreds of Indians poured into the streets of New Delhi to mourn the young woman, and police announced that the six men arrested in connection with the attack had been charged with murder. In recent...

-The Hindu To address the rights issue and the skewed sex ratio, girl child-friendly policies get an extra thrust in the 12 Plan document, to be approved formally by this month-end The 12 Plan document of the Planning Commission, to be formally approved this month-end, has recommended setting up of a high level inter-ministerial committee on ‘Care and Protection of the Girl Child’ which will constitute the institutional mechanism for mobilising and...

-The Times of India Crest Cash transfers have been described as the world's favourite new anti-poverty device. As India gets set to implement it, TOI-Crest finds out if the politics will ever be divorced from the cash The UPA government's ambitious plan to introduce direct cash transfers (DCT) by January 1, 2013 reflects both the political desperation of a beleaguered government and the urgent need to reform India's inefficient and corrupt public...

-Outlook Its ploy of Aadhar-hinged cash transfer may have won the Congress political points, but will it really be a game-changer?   State-Wise     40% of the 22 crore Aadhar numbers are in Andhra Pradesh (4.7 crore) and Maharashtra (4 crore)     20% is what the two politically sensitive, Congress-ruled states account for of the 51 districts where DCT will be rolled out     55 lakh Aadhar numbers in TMC-run West Bengal. BJP-ruled Gujarat (57...