Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to school. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...

The Gujarat High Court has disposed of a petition, with costs of Rs. 1 lakh, filed by an organisation that sought a new law for protection of “harassed husbands” against atrocities by wives and an amendment to the existing law. A Division Bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyaya and Justice K.M. Thaker fined the Akhil Bhartiya Patni Atyachar Virodhi Sangh (the All India Wives Cruelty Opposition Union) for filing a frivolous...

Observing that killing a six months pregnant wife is the most heinous and barbaric crime warranting the death penalty, the Supreme Court has issued notice to the husband, who was awarded 10-year rigorous imprisonment why it should not be enhanced. A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra also issued notice to Haryana on the appellant's 80-year-old mother, who was sentenced to two-year imprisonment. The Bench, however, granted...

Four years ago, the National Commission for Women (NCW) and its Delhi chapter (DCW) had sought an answer from the Supreme Court as to what should be the age of marriage for a girl, given the different figures given in various laws and the resultant confusion. On Tuesday, counsel for the commission Aparna Bhat pointed out that despite the lapse of a long time, the Centre has not yet filed its...

After Ashok Chavan, it's now the turn of the former Chief Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, to face trouble for “favours” to the Adarsh Society during his tenure from January 18, 2003 to October 31, 2004, according to a complaint filed on Saturday with the Maharashtra State Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). Mr. Shinde has already denied his role in the scam repeatedly. Advocate Y.P. Singh and activist Simpreet Singh told journalists that Mr. Ashok...