'"Our best wishes are with him [Sengar]. We hope that he will overcome the bad times, fight through it and come out of it and be with all of you," Hardoi MLA Ashish Singh Ashu said... Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashish Singh Ashu, MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi constituency, on Friday expressed solidarity with Kuldeep Singh Sengar – a former BJP MLA who has been in jail for a year now on charges of raping a minor.
'On June 13, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed an FIR against Anand Grover and Lawyers Collective for alleged violations of rules related to NGOs receiving foreign funds... Grover and his partner Indira Jaising, both senior advocates, have been at the forefront of public interest and civil rights litigation in India. Several Indian lawyers have cut their teeth doing human rights work as a part of Lawyers Collective since 1981. Their work has had implications around the world. Between the two of them, they have contributed to the legal field in India for close to 80 years...'
'As the world and India celebrate International Women’s Day, the state of representation of women in the country’s decision-making process continues to be dismal, with only 9% women MLAs and MPs across the country in 2019, according to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch. Not just that, hundreds of men who declared cases of crimes against women against them in their affidavits, were given tickets by key political parties, with BJP giving the highest number of tickets at 54...'
'On Monday news of another mob lynching shook Kerala - this time a migrant worker was killed on the suspicion of stealing a hen. This is the seventh such case to be reported from the state since the beginning of this year. This points to a worrying trend in the state, and sociologists, psychiatrists and rights groups say they have reason to believe that only a specific section of people of people are being targeted - Dalits, migrant workers, transgender people and women.
'India is the world’s most dangerous country for women due to the high risk of sexual violence and being forced into slave labour, according to a poll of global experts... Experts said India moving to the top position showed not enough was being done to tackle the danger women faced, more than five years after the rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus made violence against women a national priority.
'India has continued to make very little headway in improving the status of human development within the country, moving up only five notches on the United Nation’s recently released Human Development Index (HDI), a ranked list that measures various dimensions of human well-being. According to the report, which was published on Monday, India placed at 130 out of a list of over 180 countries and continues to remain in the ‘medium human development category’— a group of countries that includes Botswana (Rank 106), Iraq (Rank 121), and Cambodia (Rank 143)...
'The judgment of the Supreme Court in the Raj Bala case deals a near fatal blow to the health of the Indian democracy. In essence, the court has held that those who have no formal education, those who have no “functioning toilet” and those who are in rural indebtedness cannot contest an election for the position of sarpanch. The judgment effectively disenfranchises – and it recognises this – 68% of Scheduled Caste women, 41% of Scheduled Caste men and over 50% of all women in Haryana from contesting a panchayat election.
;Forget cuss words, now even the images of Indian goddesses have failed to make the cut in front of the Indian censor board. In the soon-to-be-released film Angry Indian Goddesses, amongst the 17 cuts that the Indian censor board wanted filmmakers to make, was the blurring of the images of two Indian goddesses -- a picture of Lakshmi in the credits, and later in the movie, a picture of Kali. Movie producer Gaurav Dhingra said that he had failed to make the cut in front of the revising committee.
'Prominent Sunni Muslim leader Kanthapuram Aboobacker Musliyar Saturday said gender equality was “against Islam”. Addressing a Sunni students’ camp in Kozhikode, the orthodox Sunni leader said, “Where has man-woman equality taken place? It is not going to happen. Gender equality is against Islam, society and human kindness.” “The world is controlled by men. Women have strength in other areas… They can deliver babies. Only women can nurture babies. Her duty is to rear children and feed the husband,’’ Musliyar said...'
'Track legend P T Usha has shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi protesting against the decision of School Games Federation of India to organise the athletic events for boys and girls separately. In her letter, Usha cited the SGFI calendar, showing that athletic events for boys and girls will be held separately in the second week of January 2016 and fourth week of December this year in Nasik and Pune respectively. SGFI is the national apex body for organising various sports and games among all Indian schools.
