'Speaking about women’s safety in his maiden Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stressed on the “need to test different approaches that can be validated and scaled up quickly”. Two schemes were allotted a sum of Rs 200 crore to ensure the safety of women in public spaces — Rs 50 crore for a pilot-testing scheme on safety for women on public transport under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and Rs 150 crore to the home ministry to improve women’s safety in larger cities... For a nation with over 61.4 crore women, 200 crore to improve women’s safety is a pittance.
'Violence against women has been a pressing concern since the early Eighties. Each time a gruesome incident becomes a media spectacle, the government responds by finding quick-fix solutions — a magic wand that will make violence against women disappear. There is also a constant desire to discard the old and find newer and fancier solutions. Latest is the announcement of setting up 660 rape crisis Nirbhaya Centres across the country, though several others have preceded this...
"In the year 2013, there was an alarming 30% rise in crimes against women in Gujarat compared to the preceding year, says the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, ?Crime In India 2013'. Incidents of rape and assault on women have risen by almost 50%, says the report. The last year's most talked-about rape incidents in the state include the rape charges levelled against Asaram Bapu and his son, Narayan Sai, by two Surat-based sisters. Asaram and his son are still in jail because of the allegations. In 2013, there were a number of rape incidents involving minors in Ahmedabad.
A joint team comprising Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR) from Punjab , People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) from Delhi visited Bhagana village of Hisar district on May 13, 2014 . The main purpose of this visit was to meet the villagers after the gruesome gang rape incident of the four Dalit girls earlier on March 23 by five men of the Jat community and to understand its links with the ongoing struggle that the Dalit community has been waging since May 2012 for access to common land.
"She was 16 when she married a man from Rajasthan. Now 20, the case of sexual exploitation she filed against her husband and 16 others, including Union Minister of State Nihal Chand, comes up for hearing in a Jaipur court... She married Om Prakash on December 20, 2010. She remembers the day well, she says. “The wedding happened in a rush. My father’s elder brother brought us the match. He (Om Prakash) came to see me one day along with some relatives. This is unusual in our community as the boy never comes himself. He agreed to the marriage and said we had to do it fast as he was very busy.
'...In a case of staggering brutality recently 15 km away from the state capital, three persons, including two women, clubbed a woman, stripped her, dragged her around and stuffed chilly powder in her private parts over a property dispute. The 33-year-old woman rushed to the Mapusa police station to lodge an FIR. The police first refused to file an FIR and then filed a non-cognizable complaint. The FIR was filed by the police as late as Friday, only after persistent follow-ups by the victim...
'Goa's leading women rights group has called Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar "arrogant and insensitive towards women" after he publicly suggested that entrepreneurs starting an industrial unit suffered an ordeal worse than that experienced by a raped woman.
'Those making unwanted advances towards women and girls in rural areas of central Gujarat should be prepared for a shock - quite literally. Vadodara range police have begun a programme to sell a highly subsidized device that looks like torchlight and also works as one till used to give a shock. Termed as shock torch by district police, it is also called electronic riot device. It generates a high voltage shock to stun a person much akin the shock batons used by the police to curb mob violence...
'...Nihalchand Meghwal, a Rajasthan MP, had been named in an FIR way back in 2011, along with 16 others. In it, he was accused of raping a real estate agent's wife along with 16 others. The agent had deliberately drugged his wife to facilitate the crime. The incident took place in Jaipur. After a year, the Jaipur police closed the case, accused the complainant of fabricating the charges against the men. The police also requested the Jaipur court where the case was being heard to close the case.
"...Prajapati had worked in Asaram’s Motera ashram for 15 years before they fell out in 2005. Since then, he had been one of the prime witnesses in a rape case against Asaram, testified against him in a number of cases, and allegedly been attacked several times. Among the cases in which Prajapati testified, one in which he was prime witness involves the rape of a Surat-based woman whose younger sister, simultaneously, has accused Asaram’s son Narayan Sai of rape during 2002-05. Asaram is in Jodhpur jail, and Sai in Lajpore jail in Surat.
