-The Hindu Thousands of acres of uncultivable forested hills in Haryana, Gurgaon and Faridabad face the same prospect Gurgaon: Two decades ago when Sunil’s parents sold off 25 acres of their family’s share of land in the Mangar forests of Faridabad, they and other villagers thought the buyers were fools to buy it up because they were assured that they could continue to use it for grazing cattle and firewood. Today, 25-year-old...

-Outlook While great awareness has been raised about sexual violence against women in India, much less is known about the problem of sexual abuse of children' Summary The rape and murder of a student in New Delhi on December 16, 2012, followed by large public protests, has led to a great deal of soul searching about the problem of sexual violence in India. Politicians, lawyers, women’s rights activists, and an independent government...

-IANS LUCKNOW: With security often seen as a status symbol, the Uttar Pradesh government is spending a whopping Rs 120 crores of public money a year to provide security cover to around 1,500 VIPs of different hues, deploying as many as 2,913 police officials, officials records show. Inspector general of police (Law & Order) Badri Prasad Singh admitted that 1,476 VIPs (very important persons) were being given security based on "pre-emptive threat...

-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...

-Outlook Caste has nothing to do with graft. Even so, Nandy must be heard. Forging a link, however tenuous, between caste and corruption is akin to saying  that the average Indian male  has sex on his mind, caste and communalism in his heart and indigestion in his tummy. That was an irreverent response to the sweeping statement made by the “ageing enfant terrible” of Indian sociology, Ashis Nandy, during a discussion...