As the five men charged in the gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman on New Delhi bus face murder charges, a politician in northeast India accused of rape was stripped and beaten by a crowd of women.

Bikram Singh Brahma is a member of the Congress Party in Assam and president of a district Congress committee in the state. He was arrested Thursday in the rape of a woman in Chirang, a district in Assam. As the New York Times reports:

“A case has been registered against him under I.P.C. 376 by the lady’s husband,” G. P. Singh, the zonal inspector general of police, said in a telephone interview, referring to the section of the Indian penal code that applies to rape.

Mr. Brahma attacked the woman Wednesday night while he was staying at her family’s house, Mr. Singh said on Thursday. “He was staying at their house, and under what circumstances will be the subject matter of the investigation,” he added.

Local television stations released a video of a group of women tearing off Mr. Brahma’s shirt and hitting him on the face and stomach.

Continue Reading...

That attack has sparked outrage across India and led to calls for tougher rape legislation and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said crimes against women and marginalized sections of society are increasing, and it is the government's responsibility to stop them.

"This needs to be curbed by an iron hand," he told a conference of state officials from across India that was called to discuss how to protect women.

He called for changes in the law and the way police investigate cases so justice can be swiftly delivered. Many rape cases are bogged down in India's overburdened and sluggish court system for years.

"We need a reappraisal of the entire system," he said.

Five men were charged Thursday with murder, kidnapping and rape in the attack on a 23-year-old student who died over the weekend in a Singapore hospital from massive internal injuries. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Saturday at a new fast-track court inaugurated this week to deal with rape cases in the capital.

Continue Reading...

But the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi on Dec. 16 has now thrown the issue of women's safety in India into sharp relief.

The victim, who passed away Saturday from injuries sustained during the assault, had boarded a privately operated bus with a mansaid to be her fiance.

The BBC had reported the vehicle was a "white line" bus, one of several services run by private operators to supplement the city's public bus network.

Continue Reading...

New details are emerging in the horrific gang rape that caused the death of a female student in Delhi, India.

The gang of assailants who allegedly brutally assaulted and raped the 23-year-old aboard a private bus would have run her over if her boyfriend had not pulled her out of the way just in time, reported Agence France-Presse.

The severely injured medical student, who has not been named, was airlifted after initial surgery in Delhi to a hospital in Singapore, where she died Saturday after extensive organ failure. Her boyfriend, whom friends say she was planning to marry, was also was beaten and thrown off the bus on which the two were traveling.

Continue Reading...

"Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected," Ban said in a statement in which he expressed "deep sorrow" at news of the young woman's death and called for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Continue Reading...

All of this in a single day. And it is only what the Deccan Herald had room to print.

Continue Reading...

They blasted the Delhi police for incompetence and insensitivity. And they cried out for the death penalty for six men accused of brutally gang-raping a 23-year-old woman aboard a private bus on Dec. 16. The woman succumbed to her injuries on Friday in Singapore, where she was being treated at a hospital, according to media reports.

In the story of India's battle against sexual assault, the honorable members ignored one important footnote: Every major political party has fielded and continues to field candidates facing criminal charges for rape, harassment and other crimes against women.

“We found that all these parties had given tickets to people of dubious backgrounds, involved in crimes against women,” said Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of the watchdog group National Election Watch. “It's the highest order of hypocrisy.”

Continue Reading...

A statement by Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital, where the 23-year-old victim was being treated, said she "died peacefully" early Saturday.

The horrific ordeal of the woman galvanized Indians, who have held almost daily demonstrations to demand greater protection from sexual violence, from groping to rape, that impacts thousands of women every day, but which often goes unreported.

She and a male friend were traveling in a public bus on Dec. 16 evening when they were attacked by six men who raped her and beat them both. They also inserted a rod in her body, stripped both naked and threw them off the bus onto a road.

Continue Reading...

Indian authorities have been accused of belittling rape victims and refusing to file cases against their attackers, further deterring victims — already under societal pressure to keep the assaults quiet — from reporting the crimes.

However, the gang-rape of the 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital two weeks ago has brought new focus on police and community attitudes toward woman in India. Demonstrators in New Delhi have demanded stronger protections for women and stronger punishment for rapists.

Authorities in Punjab took action Thursday when an 18-year-old woman killed herself by drinking poison a month after she told police she was gang-raped.

State authorities suspended one police officer and fired two others on accusations they delayed investigating and taking action in the case. The three accused in the rape were only arrested Thursday night, a month after the crime was reported.

Continue Reading...

Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup.  Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

[slide_show id=13151256]

Continue Reading...

Classical music

Zakir Hussain — a former child prodigy who first toured the US in 1970 — has done for the tabla what Shankar did for the sitar. In 1992 and 2009, he collaborated with Mickey Hart, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo on the Grammy-winning “Planet Drum” and “Global Drum Project” albums to introduce the world to Indian classical's curiously melodious drum. In earlier years, Hussain played with John McLaughlin's Shakti — one of the first efforts to fuse the rhythms and melodies of classical Indian ragas with the improvisations of Western jazz — touring extensively in the late 1970s. He worked on the soundtracks of Francis Ford Coppola's “Apocalypse Now” and Bernardo Bertolucci's “Little Buddha.” And he's capitalized on the growing crossover audience for Indian films, and films made by the Indian diaspora, with acting cameos and soundtrack work for movies such as Aparna Sen's “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer” and Ismail Merchant's “The Mystic Masseur.”

Continue Reading...

Police chased angry protesters with batons as they fought pitched battles to try to get past steel barricades and a wall created by hundreds of policemen to reach the president's mansion to present their demands. "We want justice," they shouted.

Television footage showed that some protesters were injured in the clashes.

The demonstrations continued Sunday despite Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde promising to consider their main demand for death penalties for all six suspects who have been arrested by police following the Dec. 16 attack.

Shinde said Saturday night that the government was taking steps to better ensure the safety of women.

A group of protesters met Sonia Gandhi, the governing Congress party chief, and her son and lawmaker Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday and demanded a speedy trial of the suspects.

Popular yoga guru Babar Ramdev stood on the roof of a bus and pledged support to the protesters. "The government must set up fast-track courts to punish the offenders in rape attacks," he said.

Continue Reading...

You may have heard this refrain. You may have even sung it yourself. So let's look at this question for a moment: Are atheists subjected to real discrimination?

It's certainly true that, in the United States, while atheists do experience real discrimination, it's typically not as severe as, say, racism or misogyny. Or rather, since I don't think comparing discriminations is usually all that useful: Anti-atheist discrimination takes different forms. It's not like the systematic economic apartheid African-Americans experience, or the systematic enforcement of rigid gender roles women experience. It takes other forms: such as social ostracism; bullying in schools; public schools denying atheist students the right to form clubs; religious proselytizing promoted by the government; widespread perceptions of atheists as untrustworthy; businesses denying equal access to atheists and atheist organizations; government promotion of religion in social service programs; government promotion of religion in the military. And it's true that atheists have significant legal protection in the United States: people sometimes break those laws, and those laws aren't always enforced, but we do have these laws, and they do help.

Continue Reading...

According to the Daily Mail, the head of the Indian club, Sanjay Gupta, wants to "separate the powerful Playboy brand from its adult associations" and turn it into "an aspirational lifestyle brand for the growing Indian middle class." "We will dissociate from nudity completely," said Gupta. "We are positioning it around lifestyle, aspiration and glamor." (Even the iconic Playboy bunny costume will be toned down, "keeping in mind Indian sensibilities").

But Nikhil Desai, Goa's director of tourism, remains unconvinced that Gupta can make the Playboy club a wife-friendly place, as he claims it will be: "Assuming there is going to be vulgarity and activities that are not in tune with the Goan culture, their proposal will not be granted permission." He added, "However, they could be setting up a perfectly decent club."

PB Lifestyle has plans to open another Playboy club in Hyderabad, India in 2013.

Continue Reading...

“That really killed us,” Chinnappa said. “You dream about this, and then your dreams are shattered.”

Then, a few minutes before Metallica was supposed to take the stage, Inner Sanctum was back on the program.

“I don't know how it happened exactly,” Chinnappa said. “The guy doing sound had heard us before, and he recommended us to the organizer. He said, 'Listen, they're a band that Bangalore loves, and you must get them on stage.'”

Continue Reading...

With a domestic economy in ruins and an electorate afraid for their jobs, their homes, and their health care, there seemed to be little energy left to ponder problems in distant lands.

This suited Republican challenger Mitt Romney just fine.

More than one pundit has joked that Romney’s foreign policy experience ends at the offshore banks where he parks his money.

“Mitt has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport,” quipped former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC.

Besides, there was little actual daylight between the positions of incumbent President Barack Obama and his rival on the main issues: While Romney tried his best to find fault with Obama’s plan to withdraw most American combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014, the truth is that there was simply no domestic appetite for prolonged debate over an endless and seemingly fruitless war.

Continue Reading...

On Thursday, the Treasury Department issued an order against eight Lashkar leaders that prohibits Americans from doing business with them and freezes any of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction. The suspects targeted include Sajid Mir, who was indicted by U.S. prosecutors last year for allegedly working with Pakistan's spy agency to direct the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

ProPublica has reported extensively on the attacks and the ties between Lashkar and Pakistani intelligence. The other Laskhar chiefs named Thursday by Treasury are accused of running finances, propaganda and military operations against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where Lashkar cooperates with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Continue Reading...

KATHURA, India (AP) — The farmer walks past muddy fields of stunted sugarcane and damaged rice paddies as a light drizzle falls. "Too late, too late," he says of the rains he has been praying for since many weeks ago.

For nearly two months, Satyavan Narwal's eyes scoured the heavens looking for the monsoon rains that would nourish his crops, but he found nothing and was left with parched earth. Now monsoon showers are soaking the fields — but late August is much too late for him.

This year's fickle monsoon has played havoc with millions of Indian farmers. The showers, which normally run from June to September, are crucial in a country where 60 percent of the population works in agriculture and less than half the farmland is irrigated.

"Here farming is entirely on God's mercy. If nature doesn't bless us, the farmer can't do anything," Narwal says.

India's Meteorological Department has said it expects the country to get at least 10 percent less rain this year than during a normal monsoon, but large parts of the country have been hit much harder.

In the northwestern state of Haryana, where Narwal's family has farmed for generations, rainfall is less than half what it should have been. And when the rains finally did come, the crops were already nearly dead, fit only to be used as animal feed.

Shriveled old men share a water pipe and one of them points to the skies and shouts "What now, brother?" as they watch men and women carry damaged sugar cane to feed to their cattle. At the edge of fields, young men stand, hands on hips, shaking their heads in dismay. The village is 140 kilometers (87 miles) northwest of New Delhi.

By now the sugar cane crop should have been at least eight feet tall (2.4 meters tall). Rice paddy crops would have been lush and emerald green. Small patches of pearl millet, corn and sorghum would have dotted the landscape.

But the sun shone on with determination through all of July and most of August so that the cane is now only knee-high at best and most of the rice crop is burnt.

The lack of monsoon rains has also been partly to blame for the worst blackout in world history, which cut power to half of India last month. Large-scale farmers were using extra power to pump water from deep aquifers, and little electricity was being generated by hydropower projects.

Across the country rains in June and July — a crucial time for farmers — were nearly 20 percent below normal.

"Now some of the crop is so dry and damaged even our cattle won't eat it," says farmer Mahinder Singh, as he watches over the cleaning up of his sugar cane fields.

Punjab, the unofficial breadbasket of India, has received less than 40 percent of the rain it should have. Large swaths of western Gujarat and Maharashtra have been declared drought-stricken.

The government has said it's not worried about food scarcity because millions of tons of rice and wheat from earlier bumper harvests are spilling out of state-owned granaries.

But for the average farmer, who lives and earns from season to season, a poor monsoon means that food must be carefully rationed because he has little money to spend.

With dreams of a good harvest, most small- and medium-scale farmers borrow money, often at exorbitant interest rates, from local money lenders to buy seeds and fertilizers and hire tractors to plow the fields.

"Now even they won't give farmers money. They know there are no crops so there's no chance of recovery," said Ranbir Singh, as he cleaned up his three acres of dead sugarcane.

He already has to pay off loans of 300,000 rupees ($5,400), a fortune for a poor farmer.

"Now I will need to borrow more money to feed myself, but lenders will hold back," he said.

With nearly 70 percent of India's population living in rural areas, farming is vital to the economy. A poor monsoon is expected to further dampen already disappointing growth this year, according Citigroup economist Rohini Malkani.

Poor agricultural output could result in growth as low as 5.4 percent in the current fiscal year, down from the bank's earlier estimates of 6.4 percent, according to the economist's August report.

"If drought conditions worsen, headline growth could come in lower at 4.9 percent," she writes.

The federal government and many state governments have hesitated to declare a drought for fear of causing panic and because it requires them to assess each farmers' losses and compensate them.

Farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh state, which have not been given declarations of drought, are losing patience.

"What will it take for the government to declare a drought?" asks Narwal. "Will all the farmers have to die first?"

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said Cabinet ministers would meet later this week to discuss the impact of the poor monsoon.

In Kathura village, however, Pankaj Aggarwal, the top district official, brushes aside talk of a drought, saying that the few recent days of rain will revive the crops.

Meanwhile, farmers lament the lack of government investment in irrigation and other infrastructure that could protect farmers from the vagaries of the monsoon.

"Where are the irrigation canals, the irrigation pumps, the electricity supply that the government keeps promising the farmers?" asked Dharmendra Malik, a farmer and activist in Uttar Pradesh.

"You have food grains in your stocks so you're not worried, but that doesn't mean you abandon 600 million of your people who tend the fields," he said.

Continue Reading...

Major wildlife conservation groups and tourism operators attacked the decree, calling it a "total disaster" and a decision could bring about "the end of the tiger in India" if it's made permanent.

An advocate for the ban who filed the petition to the court told the Guardian that tourism was negatively affecting the tiger population.

"Tiger conservation is being adversely affected by mindless tourism," he wrote in an email to the newspaper, "[T]he large number of vehicles loaded with people were traumatising (sic) the endangered species in the critical tiger habitat."

The high court is set to reconvene on August 22 to decide whether the ban will be permanent.

Continue Reading...