In UP, Rape Survivors Struggle to Get Police to Register FIRs, Let Alone Investigate Them

Less than three weeks before the Hathras incident, a study by The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), titled ‘Barriers in Accessing Justice’, revealed how even filing an FIR in today’s Uttar Pradesh is a struggle for rape survivors. The Wire’s report on the study highlights the humiliation, caste and gender discrimination that these survivors go through even before a preliminary investigation has begun.

Read Here

Video shared to make misleading claim that Hathras victim’s family did her last rites

Alt News fact-checks a claim made by political leaders that the Hathras victim’s family was present at her cremation. The fact-checking site spoke with the victim’s family and analysed media coverage from different sources to show that not one immediate family member was present when her last rites were performed.

Read Here

Rape As A Political Weapon

Feminism in India analyses how rape and sexual violence has been systematically used as a political weapon against women and the vulnerable to stifle their voices. In the Hathras gangrape incident in UP, aspects of gender prejudices, caste privileges and systemic discrimination were at play, it points out.

Read Here

If rulers get stubborn it’s a crime to sit at home: Punjab farmers’ protests get popular support

Contrary to the Centre’s claim that the farmers in Punjab have been “misled by vested interests”, The Caravan reports from the ground that the agitation against the Farm bills is transforming into a “peoples’ movement”. Not only has Punjab seen a massive mobilisation around the issue, but the farmer groups leading it are consciously keeping political parties seeking to profit from the movement at an arm’s length.

Read Here

How the amendment to FCRA strangles NGOs

Suno India discusses India’s history of clamping down on NGOs and the perennial fear of a ‘foreign hand’. The amendment to the law has severely demoralised the sector and is likely to hurt grassroot level NGOs which will find it tougher to comply and access funding, the podcast concludes.

Listen Here