-The Hindu The Supreme Court's timidity in dealing with the law on prior sanction for prosecuting public servants has offered protection to the murderous and the corrupt While the encounter murders in Pathribal and their cover up are yet another blot on India's record in Kashmir, the legal issues they raise on accountability to the law affect the entire country. They touch the very core of the rule of law that is...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: After months of being in denial mode over the rise in sexual crimes in Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee government has been forced to take action. Kolkata Police is setting up an exclusive unit by Independence Day to protect women, especially tourists. Women will make up half of this new squad. TOI has relentlessly campaigned to make the city safe for women and the activism has yielded results. The...

-The Guardian Half of Indians have no toilet. It's one of many gigantic failures that have prompted Nobel prize-winning academic Amartya Sen to write a devastating critique of India's economic boom The roses are blooming at the window in the immaculately kept gardens of Trinity College, Cambridge and Amartya Sen is comfortably ensconced in a cream armchair facing shelves of his neatly catalogued writings. There are plenty of reasons for satisfaction...

-The Telegraph Has rape become an inspiring act? Protest, debate, anger, mutual blame, marches, mob violence are spilling out of streets and screens, yet the rape count continues to rise relentlessly, almost as if the outrage over one incident is inciting the next one. Such a narrative is to an extent encouraged by the way incidents are reported in newspapers and television, but the facts are inescapable, and everybody, including the...

-The Hindu The hostility to the UPA's food security Bill from both its allies and the Opposition stems not from substantial objections to the draft law itself but from other political grouses The decision to bring an ordinance to provide food security to 67 per cent of the country's population was received with much hostility by the Opposition parties last week. The latter seemed surprised that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) could...