-The Times of India A fragmented polity and a vitiated public sphere characterise today's India. The question that is making the rounds is whether we have become an intolerant nation. On all the networks, one strident anchor outdoes his or her shrill peer in raising it. Obviously, there can be no simple 'yes' or 'no' to such a question; it all depends on the context in which it is posed. Yes,...

-The Hindu With every passing controversy, we’re learning to redefine our rights, says Baradwaj Rangan This is the story of two YouTube videos. The first one came up bare hours before I sat down to write this, and it featured an actor, a producer, a director announcing to a media gathering that he was now homeless in every sense. His new production, the one that had sucked up his life’s savings, still...

-The Indian Express On the Delhi rape case, let’s keep the indignation, disturb legislative slumbers The Verma Committee Report (VCR) speaks against civil society and political rape cultures. The poignancy and urgency of the VCR owes much to the experience of conversing with rape survivors and traumatised children. A precious message of the VCR is this: one may not take law reform seriously without taking human and social suffering equally seriously. The committee...

-The Hindustan Times In a recent order, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by the Karnataka information commissioner as “frivolous”. It also went on to impose costs of  Rs. 1 lakh.  A closer analysis proves that this case has far reaching implications for the fundamental rights of a citizen, rights that have been codified in the Right to Information Act. The particulars are as follows. A Right to Information (RTI) applicant...

-The Hindu Although it has left some crucial questions unanswered, the Verma Committee report is a big step forward in the struggle for women’s rights The UPA government has perhaps got more than what it bargained for from the committee it set up, headed by the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice J.S. Verma, in the wake of the public outrage following the horrific Delhi gang rape. The government had...