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.

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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.

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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.

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KnightSec, an arm of the hacker collective that specifically targets rapists, demanded a public apology be issued to the young woman and warned that it would release personal information of Big Red football players and staff who have defended the accused young men. No apology was issued by the hackers' deadline of Jan. 1. That day, a video was leaked of a teenage boy -- a former Steubenville High baseball team member -- captured cruelly joking about the sexual assault.

"She is so raped," he laughs, continuing an offensive tirade including the lines, "They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson!" and "they raped her more than the Duke lacrosse team!" grossly quipping that the unconscious girl was "deader than Trayvon Martin,"  even as other voices captured in the video interject, saying, "That's not cool, bro ... That's like rape. It is rape. They raped her." Other teens in the video laugh along.

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According to the Delhi police department, 274 Delhi women have applied for gun licenses and some 1,200 more have called the licensing department to inquire. "These include not only the average working woman, but even students who travel long distances to colleges and even their concerned parents. They were eager to find out more on the procedure to acquire arms," a Delhi police officer told the Times of India.

India's restrictive gun laws require a "grave and imminent threat" to the applicant's life in order to be approved, making gun ownership rare. The 274 applications received in the last three weeks amount to more than half of the applications submitted in 2011.

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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.

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"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".

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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.”

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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.

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Last weekend, the website of the locally celebrated Steubenville High School Big Red football team was replaced with a note and a video from the hackers in typical Anonymous style -- a message from a Guy Fawkes mask and a computerized voice. KnightSec warned that it would release personal information including names and Social Security numbers of Big Red players and staff if an apology was not issued to the rape victim. The hackers also released "preliminary" information, which they called "a warning shot," publishing names, addresses, phone numbers, and names of parent of 13 players allegedly involved in the rape.

"The town of Steubenville has been good at keeping this quiet and their star football team protected," the KnightSec statement read.

Last week the New York Times reported on the disturbing assault in the small Ohio town. A 16-year-old girl was, according to prosecutors, gang raped and drag from party to party by a number of star football players while she was too drunk to consent. Via the Times:

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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.

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Reedy's attacker struck again one year later. He was caught and admitted to the assault and robbery for which Reedy had been blamed.

This year, according to the Guardian's Observer, Reedy "won a marathon legal battle and a $1.5million settlement against the detective who turned her from victim into accused. The payment was agreed earlier this year, but can be revealed only now because of a non-disclosure clause that was part of the settlement."

"I'm relieved that people will be able to see now that I was telling the truth," Reedy, now 27, told the Observer.  "Although mine is an extreme case, I'm not the first – and I won't be the last."

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Hey, speaking of putting up a fight, how about that Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson? What a card! Back in 2008, the Orange County judge was handing down a sentence on Metin Gurel, who'd been convicted of "rape, forcible oral copulation, domestic battery, stalking and making threats against his former live-in girlfriend." Prosecutors, who'd asked for a 16-year term for the man, noted that on the day of the assault, he'd also threatened to mutilate the victim's genitals with a heated screwdriver. And what did Derek G. Johnson think of what Gurel had done? Not a whole heck of a lot.

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Right now, if you’re a woman in the military, which has startlingly high rates of sexual assault, and you get raped, you face the added insult of having to pay for an abortion out of your own pocket. That’s because the military's health insurance plan is the only one in the federal government that does not cover abortion in the case of rape or incest. It'll only cover the procedure if the woman's life is in danger

Democrats in the Senate have tried to change this, but House Republicans have so far resisted, thus producing two different bills -- one with the change and one without. Yesterday, the House named its representatives to a bicameral committee that will hammer out the differences between the two bills, including this provision. While killing the amendment could reignite the explosive abortion and rape debate of the summer, Republicans generally oppose the expansion of reproductive rights, even for raped female soldiers.

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Two weeks ago, the Project published a story by Alyssa Royse with the provocative title "Nice Guys Commit Rape Too," a tale in which Royse's friend had been accused of the crime. Royse says she "had watched the woman in question flirt aggressively with my friend for weeks. I had watched her sit on his lap, dance with him, twirl his hair in her fingers. I had seen her at parties discussing the various kinds of sex work she had done, and the pleasure with which she explored her own very fluid sexuality."

And so, even though he went ahead and penetrated her while she was sleeping and ultimately "learned a hard lesson: He had committed rape," the real takeaway problem here is "that no one is taking responsibility for the mixed messages about sex and sexuality." Feministe later described the piece as "the worst thing I have read about rape all year — and that’s including the GOP’s pre-election bout of Rape Philosophy." But that was before this week.

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The new line of cups is designed to change appearance, from clear to red stripes, when they detect the  presence of predator drugs like Rohypnol. This discreet color change technology might seem simple, but could be a breakthrough in prevention since a majority of these drugs are odorless, colorless and tasteless. It's not a silver bullet, but it probably doesn't hurt, either.

And according to DrinkSavvy founder Mike Abramson, the company's mission isn't just financial -- it's personal.

"Why do I care about this topic? Within the past three years, three of my very close friends -- and myself -- have been the unwitting victims of being drugged. ... And I want to prevent it from happening to anyone else."

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NEW YORK — Word of a settlement agreement between former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a hotel maid who accused him of trying to rape her could bring an end to a saga that has tarnished Strauss-Kahn’s reputation, ended his hopes for the French presidency and renewed a debate about the credibility of sexual assault accusers.

But it might not mean the end of legal troubles for Strauss-Kahn. He is awaiting a ruling on whether he is linked to "pimping" in connection with a French prostitution ring.

A person familiar with the New York case said Thursday that lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, made the as-yet-unsigned agreement within recent days, with Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon facilitating that and a separate agreement to end another lawsuit Diallo filed against the New York Post. A court date is expected next week, though the day wasn’t set, the person said.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private agreement.

Details of the deal, which comes after prosecutors dropped related criminal charges last year, weren’t immediately known and likely will be veiled by a confidentiality agreement. That could prevent Strauss-Kahn and Diallo from speaking publicly about a May 2011 encounter that she called a brutally sudden attack and he termed a consensual "moral failing."

Strauss-Kahn lawyer William W. Taylor III declined to comment. Lawyers for the housekeeper didn’t immediately respond to phone and email messages.

Diallo, 33, and Strauss-Kahn, 63, crossed paths when she arrived to clean his luxury Manhattan hotel suite. She told police he chased her down, tried to yank down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex.

The allegation seemed to let loose a spiral of accusations about the sexual conduct of Strauss-Kahn, a married diplomat and economist who had long been dubbed the "great seducer."

With DNA evidence showing a sexual encounter and Diallo providing a gripping description of an attack, the Manhattan district attorney’s office initially said it had a strong and compelling case. But within six weeks, prosecutors’ confidence began to ebb as they said Diallo had lied about her past — including a false account of a previous rape — and her actions after leaving Strauss-Kahn’s room.

Diallo, who’s from Guinea, said she told the truth about their encounter. But the district attorney’s office dropped the charges in August 2011, saying prosecutors could no longer ask a jury to believe her.

Diallo had sued Strauss-Kahn in the meantime, with her lawyers saying she would get her day in a different court. Strauss-Kahn called the lawsuit defamatory and countersued her for $1 million.

Her lawsuit against The Post concerned a series of articles that called her a prostitute and said she sold sex at a hotel where the Manhattan DA’s office had housed her during the criminal case. The News Corp.newspaper has said it stands by its reporting; a spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.

In helping resolve the cases, McKeon averted what could have been an ugly court drama.

Strauss-Kahn initially said he had diplomatic immunity, an argument the judge turned down in May. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers had since asked McKeon to throw out part of her claim for other legal reasons. Court records show the judge had yet to rule on that and several other legal issues, and it appeared that a high-stakes step — depositions, or pretrial questioning under oath — had not yet been taken. Depositions can give both sides information and a better picture of how strong the key parties and other witnesses might be in court.

While the vast majority of civil cases end in settlements, some legal observers were surprised that the deal between Strauss-Kahn and Diallo came before the legal arguments were resolved.

"I really expected it to go a little farther," said Matthew Galluzzo, a criminal defense lawyer and civil litigator who has been following the Strauss-Kahn case closely.

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