-The Hindustan Times On 16 December, D, 25, a Kolkata resident, was returning home, from the fashion boutique he owns, when some people on the street threw eggs at him. A day or two earlier, a group of approximately seven men from the neighbourhood had blocked his way, demanding to know how much they would have to pay him in return for sexual favours. He was also groped on the street....

-The Times of India Shanti is a small, bird-like woman with unkempt grey hair, a wizened face and an innocent, trusting smile. The constant smile is remarkable because her life is unbelievably difficult. She lives in a mud hut in Katihar district of Bihar with her paralyzed husband. Her daughter has been married off and her son has "gone away somewhere to find work", never to return. She has no land,...

-The Times of India Days after Akhilesh Yadav urged the media "to go and assess... at the ground level yourself", TOI visited a relief camp for the Muzaffarnagar riot-hit and found the conditions as wretched as before SC's rap to the UP govt for the dismal conditions LOI (Muzaffarnagar): Life is cheap at the riot victims' camp here. In the past weeks, 11 children have died here; 74 pregnant women, 24 in...

-The Business Standard Lok Pal important measure, but more needed In what should be seen as a victory for deliberative democracy, the Lok Sabha passed the Lok Pal and Lok Ayuktas Bill, 2013, on Wednesday with near-unanimity among political parties. Only the Samajwadi Party and the Shiv Sena objected in the end, and they chose to walk out rather than vote against the Bill or disrupt the House. The Rajya Sabha had...

-The Indian Express By doing nothing, institutions foster hostile sexual environments. Once upon a time, facts amounting to sexual harassment did not socially "exist", let alone constitute a legal claim. Behaviour such as sexual innuendo, sexually offensive gestures, sexually explicit material, sexual expletives, hostile workplace environments, job-related decisions based on implied requests for sexual favours were, well, just the way things were - it was systemic in nature. These were common life...