In Hindustan Times: Recent gang-rapes and our reaction to them tell us how far we’ve descended in six years after Nirbhaya. When we allowed our anger to spill over into the streets following the December 2012 gang-rape of a physiotherapy student, we didn’t ask about her religion. We didn’t put labels on our fellow protesters’ ideology. And we certainly didn’t entertain any of the usual questions about what she was wearing and why she was out after dark. Our collective anger resulted in a new law and while we believed that mindset change would take longer, we trusted that it…

Recent gang-rapes and our reaction to them tell us how far we’ve descended in six years after Nirbhaya Advocate Deepika Singh Rajawat, lawyer of the Kathua rape case victim, talks to media after filling a petition in the Supreme Court, April 16. No action has been taken against the Kathua Bar Association lawyers physically trying to prevent the police from filing a charge sheet.(Sushil Kumar/HT PHOTO) When we allowed our anger to spill over into the streets following the December 2012 gang-rape of a physiotherapy student, we didn’t ask about her religion. We didn’t put labels on our fellow protesters’…

The murder of a woman in Alwar points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story on why nearly 200 lakh women have quit jobs. All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s income was not enough to educate her children, Tanuja, 15, and Dheeraj, 10, and, so, she took a job at a plastic factory. Not everyone was pleased. Incensed that she was ‘going against Rajput tradition’, her husband’s uncle, Mamraj Singh, objected and, when she refused to quit, hacked her to death on March 15. Mamraj Singh has…

It has been reported that these godmen had planned to launch a Narmada Ghotala Yatra on April 1 to highlight a slew of ills from Chouhan’s apparent failure to stop cow slaughter to alleged corruption in the planting of saplings along the Narmada river. Ahead of the assembly elections due later this year, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday accorded the minister of state status to five Hindu religious leaders(HT) By some uncanny coincidence, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government’s decision to confer minister of state (MoS) status on five godmen, one of whom goes by the…

It has been reported that these godmen had planned to launch a Narmada Ghotala Yatra on April 1 to highlight a slew of ills from Chouhan’s apparent failure to stop cow slaughter to alleged corruption in the planting of saplings along the Narmada river. By some uncanny coincidence, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led Madhya Pradesh government’s decision to confer minister of state (MoS) status on five godmen, one of whom goes by the name, ‘Computer Baba’ (apparently he has a memory ‘like a computer’), comes days after Netflix began streaming Wild Wild Country, the true story of the misadventures of ‘Bhagwan’…

The murder of a woman in Alwar points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story on why nearly 200 lakh women have quit jobs Neelam Jatav (right) with a colleague working on a railway track at the Gandhinagar railway station in Jaipur. Gandhinagar is India’s only interstate train station run entirely by women. India is one of the world’s fastest growing major economies but also has one of the lowest rates of female employment, and the trend is worsening.(AFP) All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s…

At the heart of this controversy lies not so much the right of a woman to choose her religion and spouse, but society’s attitude to women Twenty-four-year-old Hadiya (In red dress) at the Supreme Court, New Delhi, India, November 27, 2017(Vipin Kumar/HT We should be grateful for small mercies. On International Women’s Day, a day when hashtags were declaring ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘My Body is Mine’, our highest court reaffirmed a more basic right: the right of an adult citizen — woman citizen, I should clarify — to marry. Social media was split into two camps: Those still convinced that…

At the heart of this controversy lies not so much the right of a woman to choose her religion and spouse, but society’s attitude to women. We should be grateful for small mercies. On International Women’s Day, a day when hashtags were declaring ‘Time’s Up’ and ‘My Body is Mine’, our highest court reaffirmed a more basic right: the right of an adult citizen — woman citizen, I should clarify — to marry. Social media was split into two camps: Those still convinced that the 24-year-old Hadiya was a victim of brainwashing and, thus, incapable of making rational choices, and…

There’s a sickness infecting some of our boys caused by a toxic combination of over-indulgent parents, schools obsessed with ‘brand image’ and the normalising of sex and violence by mass media Parents and members of various organisations stage a protest near HAL police station demanding justice and strict punishment for the culprits who sexually assaulted a 6-year-old student at a private school in Marathahalli, Bengaluru (Representative Photo)(KPN On Instagram, the seventh-grader threatens to have his teacher and her daughter raped. The eighth-grader emails two of his ‘very hot’ teachers and invites them to a ‘candle light date’ since “I feel…

There’s a sickness infecting some of our boys caused by a toxic combination of over-indulgent parents, schools obsessed with ‘brand image’ and the normalising of sex and violence by mass media. On Instagram, the seventh-grader threatens to have his teacher and her daughter raped. The eighth-grader emails two of his ‘very hot’ teachers and invites them to a ‘candle light date’ since “I feel like f***ing you right now.” These kids are respectively 12 and 13 years old. They study in a posh Gurugram school and it is tempting to see them as aberrations, silly boys with raging hormones. Yet,…

We are simply not prepared to grant daughters the right to choose their spouses, particularly in inter-faith marriages In New Delhi, Ankit Saxena made the fatal error of falling in love with a 20-year-old Muslim woman. In Kerala, Akhila Ashokan converted to Islam and, as Hadiya, married a man in accordance with her new faith. Convinced she had been brainwashed, her father got the Kerala High Court to annul the marriage. Hadiya has, since, told the Supreme Court that she wishes to continue with her studies and live with her husband. The court has granted part one of her wish.…

We are simply not prepared to grant daughters the right to choose their spouses, particularly in inter-faith marriages. In New Delhi, Ankit Saxena made the fatal error of falling in love with a 20-year-old Muslim woman. In Kerala, Akhila Ashokan converted to Islam and, as Hadiya, married a man in accordance with her new faith. Convinced she had been brainwashed, her father got the Kerala High Court to annul the marriage. Hadiya has, since, told the Supreme Court that she wishes to continue with her studies and live with her husband. The court has granted part one of her wish.…