Ending Violence Against Women: First, Lets End Impunity

It's 25th Nov - the day for Eliminating Violence Against Women. I began my day with the news of a senior government official in Uttarakhand - a state in northern India being accused of raping a 29-year old woman.  And I thought "well, here you go - the official proof that we really do need a day to end violence"

:Original image: oil on canvas by S. Ilayaraja

In the following hours, so many other pieces of news came in, each of them about a woman or a girl who's been violated or tortured. For example, in Assam, 4 men gangraped woman, gougeed her eyes out before killing her. In Delhi, a journalist from Tehelka news magazine who was recently sexually assaulted by her boss and chief editor Tarun Tejpal, said that she was intimidated by one of Tejpal's  relatives. Also in Delhi, the court convicted --and Nupur Talwar -a  doctor couple of murdering their teenage daughter four years ago. (And, not to forget, every 40 minutes a girl also got raped).