With very few exceptions, politics no longer attracts the brightest and the cleanest. In an environment where we assume sab neta chor hain we opt for the least unattractive. HT Image The names have begun trickling in and speculation is rife. The BJP has announced that former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, forced to step down after an indictment by the state lokayukta in a graft case, is its candidate from Shimoga. ‘Cruel joke’, responds the Congress but has no explanation for fielding Pawan Kumar Bansal (railway posts-for-cash) and Subodh Kant Sahay (coal block allocation) or even whether it will…

To not be raped. To not be subject to dowry. The right to be acknowledged as their children’s natural guardian. Meet four women who forced the law to recognize these basic rights. A protest march can sometimes tell us just how far, or how little, we have travelled. In 1972 a girl called Mathura was raped by two policemen in the compound of their police station in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. As the case inched its way through the sessions court (she was habituated to sexual intercourse, therefore no rape) to the Supreme Court (no visible injury marks, therefore no rape),…

Women’s groups argue for a more humane approach to survivors that focuses on holistic treatment. New Delhi: News reports of a ban on the so-called two-finger test and the issuance of national guidelines on dealing with sexual assault cases by the ministry of health are wrong and misleading, say women’s groups. The file on this has not yet been signed by health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, three months after the recommendations were submitted by a committee set up by his ministry to look into all aspects of sexual assault, including medical examination. “We had proposed that the two-finger test be outlawed nearly…

Redemption really came in the final segment of the show when Aamir Khan interviewed two remarkable rape survivors. In the two hours that it took to telecast the first episode of Star Plus’ second season of Satyamev Jayate, over five women and girls would have reported rape somewhere in India. In a country where a woman is raped every 22 minutes, over five women would have lived out what Aamir Khan outlined as the ordeal of a rape survivor. Somewhere a girl or woman would have been telling police the details of how she had been raped and by whom; she…

Paid news undermines democracy. Yet, as a sting operation goes public, why aren’t we more concerned? HT Image You didn’t need a survey to predict the reactions. As TV channel News Express broadcast a sting operation that showed as many as 11 polling agencies willing to tweak results for a price, the reactions by political parties played out to a script. The Congress, which most surveys predict will be ousted in this year’s elections, reiterated its demand for a ban on polls. AAP wants regulation and transparency rather than a ban. And the BJP, at the top of poll predictions,…

Paid news undermines democracy. Yet, as a sting operation goes public, why aren’t we more concerned? You didn’t need a survey to predict the reactions. As TV channel News Express broadcast a sting operation that showed as many as 11 polling agencies willing to tweak results for a price, the reactions by political parties played out to a script. The Congress, which most surveys predict will be ousted in this year’s elections, reiterated its demand for a ban on polls. AAP wants regulation and transparency rather than a ban. And the BJP, at the top of poll predictions, raises the…

We attack students because they look a certain way, we hound out Africans from neighbourhoods because ‘they are not like us’, we tie up books in lengthy litigation because we find their ideas unpalatable. This has become our national sport. The debris of intolerance is all around us. Not protests nor black flags, just a suit filed in a Delhi court is all that it took for Penguin India to capitulate and withdraw Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History. In Delhi, students from the Northeast continue to be assaulted for looking different: Four cases this past week alone. In…

We attack students because they look a certain way, we hound out Africans from neighbourhoods because ‘they are not like us’, we tie up books in lengthy litigation because we find their ideas unpalatable. This has become our national sport. Namita Bhandare writes. The debris of intolerance is all around us. Not protests nor black flags, just a suit filed in a Delhi court is all that it took for Penguin India to capitulate and withdraw Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History. In Delhi, students from the Northeast continue to be assaulted for looking different: Four cases this past…

AAP’s failure would be a severe setback to any future would-be reformer. And any success of its increasingly visible vigilante-style politics will send absolutely the wrong signal of a ‘success formula’ to rival parties. In Birbhum West Bengal, a village decides that the girl must be gang-raped as ‘punishment’ for falling in love with a man outside the community. In Maharashtra, Raj Thackeray asks his MNS party workers to refuse to pay toll for roads dotted with potholes. Thrash those who dare to ask, he says. In Delhi, a mohalla decides that the Africans who live amongst them are involved…

AAP’s failure would be a severe setback to any future would-be reformer. And any success of its increasingly visible vigilante-style politics will send absolutely the wrong signal of a ‘success formula’ to rival parties. Namita Bhandare writes. In Birbhum West Bengal, a village decides that the girl must be gang-raped as ‘punishment’ for falling in love with a man outside the community. In Maharashtra, Raj Thackeray asks his MNS party workers to refuse to pay toll for roads dotted with potholes. Thrash those who dare to ask, he says. In Delhi, a mohalla decides that the Africans who live amongst…

The petition filed by the woman lawyer seeks the establishment of a ‘permanent mechanism’ to look into complaints against judicial officers. New Delhi: The four original petitioners in the Supreme Court’s landmark Vishaka judgment have asked the court to include them in the ongoing sexual harassment case filed by a woman lawyer against a former Supreme Court judge. The judge, who has obtained a Delhi high court injunction against reporting of the case, was a sitting Supreme Court judge and the lawyer was his intern when she says the encounter took place in May 2011. The Supreme Court is currently hearing…

Men say they are scared by this new environment. Far too many women have lived in fear of the old environment. It’s time to pack the dinosaurs off to the museum. I hear a great lament these days. Aggressive women are killing romance in the workplace with their flurry of complaints (young corporate executive) Come on. He put his hand on her back. And that’s sexual harassment? (older lawyer) Really? You can just name and shame a senior judge and damn his reputation forever? (even older lawyer) Farooq Abdullah’s fatuous comment — “I’m scared to talk to women these days,”…