In early April, Rekha Sharma, chairperson of the National Commission for Women, drew attention to the disturbing phenomenon of a reported increase in violence against women during the first phase of the nationwide lockdown in India. Even as the period of lockdown in India came to be extended, increase in domestic violence continued to be reported from India and across the world. National dailies in India, apart from the New York Times, the Guardian and others have tracked some of these developments, reporting on the spurt in incidents and women’s frantic calls to helplines. News reports have pointed to the added stress of being locked in with abusers, and being cut off from support groups while being confined at home in times of social distancing. The issue flagged merits serious attention from all concerned, be it the media or activists and, more so, from agencies of the state, charged with formulating and implementing policies to stem the tide of this violence. There is also a ...

The 19-year-old woman, whose death in a Delhi hospital two weeks after she was brutally gangraped sparked protests and anguish, was cremated near her home in Hathras in the dead of the night early Wednesday with her family alleging they were forced by local police to conduct the last rites. “The cremation was done around 2.30-3 in the morning,” her father told PTI, a day after the young woman, grievously injured when she was allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men, gave up the battle for life. As political leaders and activists voiced their protest on social media and other platforms over the manner in which the funeral was conducted, local police said it was carried out as per the wishes of the family. In the moments preceding the cremation, the Dalit teen’s brother told PTI, “Police have forcibly taken the body and my father along with them for cremation. When my father reached Hathras (from New Delhi), he was immediately taken (to the crematorium) by the police.” Prime Minister ...

Once upon a time there was a great city called Bombay, a multicultural cosmopolitan metropolis, which welcomed one and all. It was India’s greatest city, its people insisted, and definitely a much better place than Delhi. Then came Bal Thackeray, the vigilante who ruled the city by force, destroying what was once Bombay, making it Mumbai, a city that could anytime be gripped with fear. Or, so went the liberal narrative. The same Shiv Sena has today become the darling of Indian liberals, as it breaks away from its old ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party. To keep the BJP out and check the unbridled power of Modi-Shah, the Shiv Sena is suddenly kosher for liberals. With Uddhav Thackeray’s imminent occupation of the chief minister’s chair in Mumbai’s Mantralaya building, it seems like it was another era when Bal Thackeray was India’s most extremist politician. The Shiv Sena was more Right-wing than the BJP and its parent organisation, the RSS. Bloodshed in Behrampada One saw the worst of the ...