Five men and a 17-year old boy were arrested after the December 16 bus rape in 2012. Of the five adults convicted of the crime one is dead, and four have had the death sentence passed against them. The 17-year-old, called Accused #6, was also convicted and punished. After serving his time in jail, equipped with some education and skills, he is set to start a new life.
'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.
'An FIR was registered against a former Delhi University professor Ashok Vohra, on Tuesday night, for allegedly hurting religious sentiments of Hindus during his speech at the Mohan Lal Sukhadia (MLS) University in Udaipur. On Tuesday evening several right-wing groups blocked the highway at Udaipur to pressurise the police into filing an FIR against the professor.
Notwithstanding popular perception, professional soldiers do not join the armed services out of overwhelming ‘patriotism’. They are in fact driven by the desire to get a job that offers material security for them and their family. It is predominantly their own livelihood needs that drives people to enlist.
'Madras High court on Tuesday directed Tamil Nadu Government and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department to implement dress code for devotees coming to offer worship in temples to enhance spiritual ambiance. Disposing a petition filed by one Rasu seeking police protection and permission for "Adal Paadal programme" (dance and music) at Sri Shenbaga Vinayagar temple in Tiruchirappalli district, Justice S Vaidyanathan said "we should dress for public worship in a way that is generally considered appropriate".
'A family was evicted by fellow patrons at a cinema hall here on November 29 for allegedly not standing up when the national anthem was played. As per a State government order passed in 2003, cinema halls in Maharashtra are required to play the national anthem before the start of each movie. The incident came to light when a moviegoer in the same theatre (PVR Cinemas in the suburb of Kurla in central Mumbai) filmed the altercation and posted it on Twitter and Facebook, leading to an online uproar...
'A day after finance minister Arun Jaitley and his Congress predecessor P Chidambaram claimed that the Supreme Court should reconsider its 2013 decision to criminalise gay sex, Delhi's queer community on Sunday showed up for the city's annual Pride March with strong views about their statements. Speaking at the Times LitFest in Delhi on November 28, Jaitley said that the court's view on homosexuality was not in sync with laws in many other parts of the world.
'An old 1870 law that a democratic state should have struck down seems to have become the weapon to muzzle dissent, used by politicians in power at the state and centre with increasing frequency, and without valid justification. The British used this law against Gandhi and other freedom fighters, and the modern Indian state in recent years and even more so in the past year, used it against artists, actors, writers, cartoonists, political opponents making arrests, and in many cases imprisoning the ‘offenders.’
'Is the call for a uniform civil code being made by the RSS-BJP combine a call for gender justice or to push a particular community into a corner?... All communities in India have resisted state interference in their personal laws. Such interference, they argue, is outside the state’s jurisdiction since personal laws are exclusively within the private domain of the religious community. Such a claim is historically false.
'An advocate fighting for the rights of his client found himself in the detention room of a Mumbai police station instead, being allegedly abused, hit and told by screaming cops: “You terrorists are well trained to get your people off the list, al Qaeda has coached you well.” Advocate Moin Khan had approached the Magistrate’s court on behalf of a client Aijaz who had been arrested by the police for stolen goods. Aijaz had been taken to the Vakola Police Station where Moin Khan said, he had been tortured excessively.
