The Shopian rape and murder case, also known as Asiya, Neelofar case, is the abduction, rape and murder case of two young women allegedly by the Indian Army. In mysterious circumstances between 29 and 30 May 2009 at Bongam, Shopian district in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Two women who were sisters-in-law went missing from their orchard on the way home on 29 May 2009. The next morning, their bodies were found both one kilometer apart. Local police rejected the allegations saying that the women appeared to have drowned in a stream.
Bhanwari Devi is an Indian social-worker from Bhateri, Rajasthan, who was gang raped in 1992 by men angered by her efforts to prevent a child marriage in their family. Her subsequent treatment by the police, and court acquittal of the accused, attracted widespread national and international media attention, and became a landmark episode in India's women's rights movement.
Archana Joglekar is an Indian actress and classical dancer. She has acted in Marathi, Odia and Hindi films and television serials. Some of her noted films are Sansar (Hindi), Eka Peksha Ek (Marathi) and Anapekshit (Marathi). She is a Kathak dancer and choreographer. She was trained in Kathak by her mother, Asha Joglekar, a Kathak dancer and instructor. In 1963, her mother founded a dance school in Mumbai called Archana Nrityalaya. In 1999, Joglekar opened a branch of this dance school in New Jersey, US.
Rape is the fourth most common crime against women in India. According to the 2021 annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 31,677 rape cases were registered across the country, or an average of 86 cases daily, a rise from 2020 with 28,046 cases, while in 2019, 32,033 cases were registered. Of the total 31,677 rape cases, 28,147(nearly 89%) of the rapes were committed by persons known to the victim. The share of victims who were minors or below 18 – the legal age of consent – stood at 10%.
Anand Pal Singh was an Indian gangster mainly active in the cities of Rajasthan. He was a most-wanted gangster with a reward of ₹10 lakh on his head. He was accused of multiple murders as well as extortion.
The Kathua rape case involved the abduction, gang rape, and murder of an 8-year-old girl, Asifa Bano, by six men and a juvenile, in January 2018 in the Rasana village near Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, India. A chargesheet for the case was filed, the accused were arrested and the trial began in Kathua on 16 April 2018. The victim belonged to the nomadic Bakarwal community. She disappeared for a week before her body was discovered by the villagers a kilometer away from the village. The incident made national news when charges were filed against eight men in April 2018. The arrests of the accused led to protests by the Panthers Party and other local groups, who sought justice for the victim. A protest in support of the accused men was attended by two ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party, both of whom later resigned. The gang rape and murder, as well as the support the accused received, sparked widespread outrage in India and world-wide.
Rukshmani Kumari is an Indian politician, affiliated with Indian National Congress, who is currently serving as the Rajasthan state unit president of All India Professionals Congress, the professional wing of Indian National Congress in Rajasthan.
Mardaani 2 is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film and a sequel to the 2014 film Mardaani. It is directed by Gopi Puthran who wrote the previous film, marking his directorial debut, and backed by Aditya Chopra through Yash Raj Films, with Rani Mukerji reprising her role of police officer Shivani Shivaji Roy from the previous film. The plot follows her attempts to catch a 21-year-old rapist and murderer, played by newcomer Vishal Jethwa.
Witch-hunts are still occurring in Nepal in the twenty-first century, and the persecution of marginalised individuals of the community, especially women, still persists. Witchcraft is believed to be the exercise of supernatural powers by witches. Although Nepal does not have a recorded history of systematic witch-hunts, belief in the supernatural, magic, and humans capable of exploiting both to do good or harm is pervasive. In many instances, witch-hunts are simply tribal scapegoating measures carried out to serve ulterior motives, such as getting revenge or winning property disputes.
Ruma Devi, is an Indian social worker, fashion designer and traditional handicraft artist from Barmer, Rajasthan. Ruma devi received the “Nari Shakti Puraskar 2018” the highest civilian honour for Women in India. She is associated with a network of over 30,000 rural women, trained them and linked them to the livelihood.
The following is the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in India from January 2020 through May 2020.
Stone pelting in India refers to criminal assault in the form of stone throwing by individuals or mob who pelt, bombard or throw stones at security personnel, police forces, healthcare workers and trains. Stone pelting began with incidents of stone pelting in Kashmir, but became less frequent after the revocation of article 370 of the Constitution of India and the conversion of the state into union territories. These incidents were later reported in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in 2019 in protest of the citizenship amendment act. In 2020, such incidents started occurring in various parts of India on doctors and policemen after the coronavirus lockdown.
On 14 September 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh, India, by four upper caste men. She died two weeks later in a Delhi hospital.
Veer Singh Patel is an Indian politician and former MLA representing the Chitrakoot constituency in Uttar Pradesh as a Samajwadi Party member from 2012 to 2017. He is the son of dacoit Dadua who was killed in 2007.
Zahida Khan is an Indian politician from Indian National Congress. She is a former Member of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly from Kaman Assembly constituency. She was initially elected in 2008 and then re-elected in 2018. She has also served as the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in the Government of Rajasthan. She was also appointed as the General Secretary of All India Mahila Congress in October 2011.
Chutni Mahato, also known as Chutni Devi, is a social worker from Jharkhand, India. Once a victim of witch-branding, she now works to help others who have been branded as witches and spreads awareness about superstitions and witchcraft. In 2021, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her social work, India's fourth highest civilian award.
Chitra Tripathi is an anchor currently working in Hindi news channel AAJ TAK News. Tripathi started her career in 2005 from Gorakhpur Doordarshan. She has worked with news channels like Sahara India, India News, News 24, ETV Network, ABP News.
Witch-hunts are still prevalent in India in the twenty-first century. Those who are labelled as witches are usually elderly or single women accused of manipulating supernatural forces with malicious intent. Witch branding occurs predominantly in rural, poorer areas of the country where there is often a higher concentration of tribal communities.
Manzil Saini is an Indian Police Service officer of 2005 batch, who previously served as Senior Superintendent of Police for Lucknow. She is the first woman to assume the post of SSP of Lucknow in the history of Uttar Pradesh. She has also served as Deputy Inspector General in National Human Rights Commission. In 2021, she was raised to the post of Deputy Inspector General of National Security Guards. Saini has also served in Etawah, the hometown of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav. She gained nationwide fame for her role in investigating Amit Kumar Kidney Racket case. Saini is an alumnus of Delhi School of Economics, and she is a gold medalist from there.
