-Tehelka The district administration in Karauli has undertaken steps to ban the practice after Change.org's Video Volunteers brought the discriminatory practice into light  When 39-year-old Sunita Kasera, a journalist for Video Volunteers, was sipping tea one hot afternoon in Dangariya village, eastern Rajasthan, she noticed something peculiar. Many women, who left their houses with their footwear on, would abruptly remove them in the middle of the road and wear them again after...

-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today asked the Bengal government to take steps to arrest the migration of widows to Vrindavan. “This is human problem… a very serious problem,” Justices D.K. Jain and Madan B. Lokur told state counsel Abhijit Sengupta. “Many of the destitute are coming from your state or Odisha,” the court said. Sengupta sought time to file his reply to the suggestion. The court also directed the Uttar Pradesh government to...

QUEZON CITY (PIA) -- The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) announced today the six winners of the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay Award. The awardees were from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Philippines and Taiwan. A press statement from RMAF said hen Shu-Chu, from Taiwan, is being recognized for “the pure altruism of her personal giving, which reflects a deep, consistent, quiet compassion and has transformed the lives of the numerous Taiwanese she has...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: A special SIT court on Monday sentenced 21 people to life imprisonment for attempt to murder and arson in the 2002 post-Godhra riot of Dipda Darwaza in which 11 Muslims were killed in Visnagar town of north Gujarat. All the victims belonged to the same family.  In addition to the 21 found guilty, M K Patel, the then police inspector of Visnagar and also the first investigator...

-The Times of India A report released by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday said activists are threatened and attacked both by "Indian authorities and Maoist insurgents, who undermine basic freedoms and interfere with delivery of aid in embattled areas of central and eastern India".  In its 60-page report — Between Two Sets of Guns: Attacks on Civil Society Activists in India's Maoist Conflict — the rights body documented cases of...