-The Times of India The government is redrafting the anti-rape law following serious concerns raised by Cabinet members that the proposed legislation was loosely-worded and open to misuse, and did not account for new social realities of a growing women workforce and inadequacies of law enforcing agencies. The criminal law amendment bill was urgently referred to a group of ministers after objections were raised at Tuesday morning's Cabinet meeting over the formulation...

-The Times of India The Union Cabinet is set to clear a bill seeking to replace the post-Nirbhaya case ordinance dealing with crime against women which will reduce the age for consensual sex to 16 and reinstate "rape" as an offence specifically committed against women. The government has resolved differences on the two contentious aspects of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013, bowing to the demands of women's groups who protested against...

-The Hindu Freedom of expression will continue to remain under siege unless all groups accept that people can have different opinions and beliefs in a free country “Our tradition teaches tolerance; our philosophy preaches tolerance; our Constitution practises tolerance; let us not dilute it.” These stirring sentiments were expressed by Justice Chinnappa Reddy in a Supreme Court judgment pronounced in August 1986 which invalidated expulsion from school of students belonging to Jehova’s...

-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...

-Bloomberg.com One of the most obscene moments after the death of the gang-rape victim in New Delhi was a tweet by Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, offering regret and condolences to the dead woman’s family. Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he...