ON May 24, Kerala High Court had declared the marriage of Shafin Jahan and Akhila alias Hadiya as null and void on the petition of the bride’s father. The father claimed that his daughter was forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim under the influence of the Islamic State. The petition alleged that the girl would be forcibly sent to Syria in order to work for the extremist Islamic outfit. In response, the Court nullified the marriage and the husband of the girl petitioned the Supreme Court.

WOMEN’S anger erupted on July 31 at the gates of the Supreme Court of India against its recent judgement that would lead to the dilution of Section 498A. Several representatives of women's organisations assembled outside the Supreme Court to protest against the recent order of the Supreme Court on Section 498A and demanded its review. The demonstration was held within just three days of the Supreme Court order. Women's organisations have expressed serious reservations to this order because it is made on the presumption that a large number of cases filed under Section 498A are false.

IT is indeed ironical that just a day after the ILO facilitated a national stakeholders meeting on a proposed National Policy for Domestic Workers for the government of India at New Delhi on July 11, the incidents of violence and repression in Noida happened after the news spread that a domestic worker had been wrongfully confined by her employer in a posh apartment complex.

TWO judgments, one from the Supreme Court in the Nirbhaya case and that of Bilkis Bano in the Mumbai High Court provide a snapshot of differing standards of justice. The Nirbhaya case had aroused the conscience of India in an unprecedented way, calling into action thousands of young people who had perhaps never earlier joined street protests.  The bravery and courage of the young woman Jyoti, the brutality of the crime against her, now detailed in the judgment, the utter injustice and horror of her death symbolised so much that is rotten in our system, it reflected so many real fears and ex

IT has been widely reported in the press that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath plans to carry out a survey of Muslim women to ascertain their keenness to get rid of triple talaq. Muslim women and Muslim women's groups across the country have been campaigning for several years against the practice of triple talaq and have filed several cases in the courts including the Supreme Court against this practice.