-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Tuesday criticized the Centre's "casual approach" during the hearing on appeals challenging a Delhi High Court verdict diluting section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to decriminalize consensual gay sex between consenting adults in private. The ministries of home affairs and health had opposed dilution of section 377 before the HC but accepted the verdict and did not appeal against it in the apex...

-The Indian Express Gay rights activists today submitted in Supreme Court that criminalising homosexual acts is against constitutional values and that the law should not interfere when consenting adults are involved. Naz Foundation, an NGO working for the welfare and rehabilitation of HIV infected people, contended that homosexuals face social ostracism with gay sex being declared as an offence. Appearing before a bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya, the...

The latest round of data on the 2011 Census shows that the country is exhibiting distinct signs of trading up as material living conditions improve for large sections of the population. Although this aggregate picture is not uniform across the country, analysts believe that the upward material mobility in society is creating the basis of a new consumer boom in the economy—serving up a perfect backdrop ahead of the presentation of...

-The Indian Express section 377 violates the right to equality, whatever be the gay or HIV numbers Examining the appeal on section 377 (which had been struck down by the Delhi high court, effectively decriminalising homosexuality), the Supreme Court had been careful to unpack many of the terms that obscure the issue, like “unnatural” and “abnormal”. The government, after confusedly spinning around on its stand, finally went with the health ministry’s earlier...

The Union Home Ministry on Friday disowned Additional Solicitor-General P.P. Malhotra's averments in the Supreme Court in the homosexuality case and said the government's stand was not what he argued on February 23. He said homosexuality between two consenting adults was immoral and an offence. Soon after Mr. Malhotra made his submissions before a Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya that day, another ASG Mohan Jain told the court...