Honour killings are being reported at an unnervingly quick clip, but what escapes attention is the fast and furious increase in numbers of couples seeking protection, fearing for their lives once they decide to marry. Advocates say the Punjab & Haryana high court receives as many as 50 applications a day from couples seeking protection, a staggering ten-fold rise from about 5 to 6 a day five years ago. Such...

Even as rural Haryana remains in the stranglehold of the defiant Caste panchayats, honour killings continue in their most horrible form: On Sunday, the family members of a girl allegedly killed her and her teenaged lover and hanged them as exhibits in their house for the village to see their "fate." According to police, Monika (18) and her lover Rinku (19), both from Jat families, were brutally killed for honour...

Hundreds of Dalits, under the banner of Punjab Dalit Chetna Manch, laid siege to the District Administrative Complex (DAC) and burnt the effigy of the district administration for its alleged anti-Dalit approach. Some protesters tried self-immolation, while some youngsters climbed up the rooftop of the DAC threatening to jump, but heavy police force, led by SP (City) Sukhwant Singh Gill and DSP (City-II) Swarandeep Singh managed to persuade the protesters...

A pilot survey will be launched next month to assess the number of the poor in the country on a new set of parameters ahead of the scheduled BPL census in April 2011. The government has decided to launch the pilot project in 260 villages across the country to test the parameters suggested by a former Planning Commission member amid a debate on the best way of doing such counts. The project,...

On Tuesday, readers awoke to the Capital’s night of horror. A young girl, Asha, and her lover, Yogesh, were tortured to death by her family members inside her home, even as neighbours chose to shut out the victims’ screams. Those who tried to intervene were brushed off by family members claiming it was a ‘private matter’. This gruesome crime, committed in the name of ‘family honour’, raises three important questions. First,...