Despite sustained campaigns and legalchanges, convictions have declined steadily From the near-illegible notes scrawled by investigators at the Prasad Nagar police station, we know this: ever since 2005, the young woman who walked in through their doors last month had been stalked by her brother-in-law, given flowers and chocolate and beatings. There was the time, a bottle of rat-poison in his hand, he threatened to kill himself if she did not declare...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Mamata Banerjee cynically casts aspersions on a rape victim to further her political agenda. When rape becomes a political power game, every woman, not just a rape survivor, has reason to be afraid. What this suggests is that, for people in the political battlefield, the seriousness of this violent crime and the increasing incidence of rape in our towns and villages are of no concern. This has become...

Amnesty International on Thursday said that ten years after the Gujarat riots “an overwhelming majority” of the victims were still awaiting justice and urged the authorities to ensure adequate compensation to all those who lost their homes. Those who were still living in transit camps should not be evicted, it said. “The majority of the perpetrators of the Gujarat violence walk free, assuming that they will not be punished by the State...

The victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat are still to get justice but are determined to continue the fight. SAIRABEN SANDHI and Rupa Mody sit quietly on the back benches at the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Ahmedabad watching the proceedings in the Zakia Jafri case. Both the women have witnessed immense tragedy. One saw her son killed, while the other has been searching for her missing son for the...

A village wedding in Madhya Pradesh stood out for one reason on Tuesday: the groom had chosen to go ahead with the marriage after learning the bride had been raped two days earlier. The groom, a Class XII dropout and farmer, told this newspaper that it was his duty to stand by the bride and fight her battle for justice together. “It is a testing time for her for no fault of...