What is the marriageable age for a girl in India? Well, there is no straight answer to this question, thanks to legal loopholes. Now, in a bid to dispel doubts, the National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked the government to consider bringing uniformity in the 'marriageable age' and 'age of consent' for girls. The need arises because of the disparity in laws and contradictory court judgments. Both the Hindu...

The CBI, which now says that it has evidence to seek the extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, had in 2002 sought dilution of charges against him. Court documents have revealed the CBI had filed an application in a Bhopal court eight years ago stating that Anderson be tried for having caused death due to negligence and not for culpable homicide not amounting...

With khap-dictated honour killings threatening to become a trend, the Centre is mulling an ordinance to rein in the caste courts meting out extreme punishments to young couples who don't follow the diktat against marrying within the same gotra. The Centre has already discussed amendments to relevant laws -- Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act and Hindu Marriage Act -- to deter village elders from holding kangaroo courts which call...

A woman was allegedly poisoned to death by her husband and in-laws for bringing inadequate dowry, police said today. In a police complaint, victim's father Prithvi Singh has alleged that Sangeet's husband Naresh, brother-in-law Mukesh and mother-in-law Sumitra Devi gave poison to his daughter yesterday. Singh also accused the trio of harassing his daughter for bringing inadequate dowry, they said. Meanwhile, police has registered a case under various sections of...

The Bhopal judgment suggests that were a nuclear disaster to be caused by an operator's negligence, they might be held criminally liable for little more than a traffic accident. The world was watching a trial court in Bhopal on Monday, as the Chief Judicial Magistrate ruled on the criminal responsibility for the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in 1984. Twenty six years after the event, 178 prosecution witnesses...