For convicts facing death penalty or life imprisonment in jail, it is expected to become tough to get remission. The Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) has asked states to be cautious and judicious while exercising powers of remission in its latest advisory. It has said that the power to grant remission by the state government should neither be done arbitrarily nor in a “wholesale manner’’.

Anyone who calls a woman “dayan”, “dakan”, “dakin”, “chilavan”, “opri”, “chudail” or “bhootni” and uses criminal force against her can face seven years in jail if the ordinance mooted by the Congress-led Rajasthan government is cleared by the Centre.

A controversy has erupted over the recent Naxal attack on an Indian Air Force copter in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. The Union home ministry has written to the defence ministry pointing fingers at the IAF for “abandoning’’ the copter, their weapons and the injured wireless operator of the Chhattisgarh Armed Force in the Naxal hotbed after it was hit by the Maoists on January 18.

The government will take a fresh look at the procedure of framing curriculum in schools to make it gender-sensitive and intervene during a child’s formative years to build sensitivity towards the fairer sex. This forms part of the key suggestions shared by the state governments with the Union home ministry.

Bowing to public pressure, the government has proposed the death sentence in extremely brutal cases of sexual assault in the ordinance cleared by the Union Cabinet late Friday evening.

The ordinance cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday evening proposes that dereliction of duty by public servants be made an offence punishable with up to only one year in jail against the recommended

A few weeks before Parliament meets, the Centre is planning to bring an ordinance to strengthen rape laws. The home ministry has prepared a draft note that will be laid before the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The Cabinet is expected to take a call on whether an ordinance should be promulgated amending rape laws on the basis of the Justice J.S. Verma panel’s recommendations or if this should wait for Parliament to meet.

The Centre is examining a proposal by the Andhra Pradesh government which has recommended setting up a national emergency response agency like 911 in United States or 999 in the UK, where the police a

Delhi’s streets will soon see more policewomen as the Union ministry of home affairs has gone into overdrive to give the Delhi police a women-centric face.

A day after former Chief Justice of India J.S. Verma pointed to a total governmental failure to prevent rising crimes against women, that led to the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi on December 16, he said “accountability needs to be fixed” to ensure that such incidents don’t recur. Justice Verma regretted the top brass of the home ministry and the Delhi police did not own “moral responsibility” over the incident.