Most safe place for women :-Is India As compare to the other countries INDIA is only country where women got the respective position .Here women has not only gone to the space , in fact they are worshiped as a lord.In one of the village of India ,there is still PANCHAALI PRATHA is going on,where a single woman can get marry to many men but man's are not allowed to get marry with more then one woman, also for getting married with a girl ,the BROOM family has to pay huge amount of money i.E. Dowry.
Secondly from the ancient time , tribal area of INDIA is still given all decisional authorities to women. Like A Woman can choose their BROOM ,She can live with a man without getting marriage and she can leave the man according to their wishes.
In some of the places of Harayana have women dominating area's.
So in this way it is proved that India is save for women any only country which respect to the women as compared to men
Posted by: AnshulAkashSao Report Post
Like Reply Challenge02
Only in some places It depends where you are. For example, in South India, places like the very liberal state of Kerala are much safer than places like New Delhi (the capital). In New Delhi women traveling alone are not very safe, even if they don't get full out assaulted there is still some "feeling" of danger for women.
Posted by: toinfinityandbeyond Report Post
Like Reply Challenge01
Biased media reporting India is not much more unsafe as any other country. But our media is obsessed with reporting every rape case because it is more sensational than other crimes. Compare the cases of murder and the number of rapes. There are far relatively more rapes reported in the media than murders.
Report Post
Like Reply00
Laws are there Laws have been enacted for women safety.....Government are punishing those who are culprits.....As handful of people are mean we must not blame are nation....Certain apps are being created for womens safety....Atleast we all are being made to give respect towards women...And ya India is safe and womens going to be safe as we will be punishing all those culprits
Report Post
Like Reply00
India is a safe nation for women India provides equal opportunities to both men and women. Because of some rape cases and dowry cases, we certainly can not claim that India is not safety for girls. Culprits and bad men are in every nation. Because of few culprits we can not blame the whole nation.
There is one more issue I want to discuss here. Rapes happen in other countries as well. But in India, media popularizes the rapes very much. I am, in no way, favoring rapes. Rapists must be punished. But my point is that because of few handful mean people we can not blame our nation of being insecure towards women.
Report Post
Like Reply00
India is safe for every men and women. It is that currently rapes in India are making a belief that India is not safe for women. But the situation is not at all like that. You can't blame a whole nation when hardly a handful of people are involved in this crime. But recent cases has raised our conciousness on this matter. According to me if Indian women are ready to get mordernized they also time has come to raise their personal security. Every Indian irrespective of boy and girl must get a lesson on self defence(via any style of martial, Judo ) upto Street FightLevel. Media also must highlight those cases where the convict is being caught and beaten at the spot. Then only it is possible to get a rape free India .. .. .. If you don't know to hit back .. .. Nocandle march is going to help you.
Posted by: Subarno Report Post
Like Reply Challenge00
Safe in India They are very lucky to be in India because India is the only country which gives respect to women
.Like in south India women are very safe as compared to New Delhi. They are at high risk if they are just going for a walk and women are not lesser than men.
Report Post
Like Reply10
India -not safe anymore..For women India isn't safe at all for women and young girls at all ...Every time a girl walks out of her house doesn't know if she will return home safe.She lives with fear every minute of her life with all the rapes n murders going on..India is become hell for women... Is this the independence in the life of women?
When India got independence i think it was for both men as well as women but the tide has turned i think women better start their protest ..Its high time now..
Report Post
Like Reply21
India is Hell for Women Look at the number of rapes happening around the country. Specially Metro cities, its really ashamed to do this crime. The criminals doesn't worry about the punishments. Even our Law is strong enough to punish those criminals. The Advocates Association should protest against those Advocates appearing on behalf of those criminals.
Report Post
Like Reply00
Women are not at all SAFE in India... The regular rapes and assaults on women, that are occurring, is the proof. Men treat women as a medium just for enjoyment which according to every women and girl is wrong. The culprits should be soaked in petrol and lit fire and made to return over on to the area where they used to live, they should be burnt to death.
Posted by: Kirtinair_17 Report Post
Like Reply Challenge00
Dead Indian women Can you approximately say how many rape cases happen each minute? What I mean by dead Indian women is that safety for women in India is dead. India is the 4th dangerous place for women and in India all the rape cases lack justice. So its clear that there is no safety for women in India. Its dead.
Report Post
Like Reply00
Its wrong how they are treated I have never personally been to India myself but i don't have to go to see how awful the conditions are and the horrible lives that woman have to put up with. Men in that country have no respect for woman how can you think its okay to sexually abuse a woman which is the reason of your existence!
Posted by: cjm324 Report Post
Like Reply Challenge00
Women are not safe in India. Women are not safe in India because in India there are problems such as:rapes and abusal offences.Women in India need protection because they are abused or raped which should not be allowed in any country,even if it's a developing or undeveloped country.In India a lot of rapes happen to women.
Posted by: james13 Report Post
Like Reply Challenge00
I hate India being an Indian Even just before I came across a gang of guys who were teasing me very badly about my walks and my style. Guys think girls as a roadside doll. You can't even walk in road. I started going to class since last week. Almost everyday I get annoyances. I hate India totally. I never wanted India to be like this. I am thinking of escaping to a safe foreign country in near future as I know India will be a total turn off for all girls in the near future. Almost it is now. I urge the need of education and moral classes to be taught to everyone around. It is a red sign here. Women are harassed. Guys are such stupid behaving like this. I totally hate India. From my own experience I am here in my room crying and crying even though I have courage I don't know what to do, how to teach morals to them and still crying inside my heart for immoral Indians.
Report Post
Like Reply00
Where are women safe? The fight to for equality has been on the agenda for infinite nations. The condition of women in workplaces, in the domestic realm and in the community has improved. However we hear of incidences across the world causing uproar and rage due to disrespect and misogyny. India still experiences the brutal blueprint of female foeticide and dowry. It will take much more to make India and the world a safer place.
Posted by: neha.youva Report Post
Like Reply Challenge10
Because of Women! We say that women are not safe in this country. What tempts men to rape? Men are mainly tempted by seeing women exposing themselves in the movies. This is more evident in India. Women are objectified in Indian movies for decades in the form of making them dance in improper dresses and item songs. Many porn movies are made focusing women rather than men. Women never opposed it is a large scale. So these things provoke men. Women in India have accepted their state for many decades and have made it mandatory for a movie to have an item number. Also so many women were raped in India in the past years and I don't remember seeing such mass protests in the past as we had for the recent rape of the Delhi girl. So women never worried about women in the past and these things lead to the events that take place now and I insist that women in India realize their state and protest against the causes like objectifying women in movies, porn,etc.
Posted by: DanielSpeaks Report Post
Like Reply Challenge00
India is not as safe as people think I go to India every year for 1 and half months to visit relatives. My grandparents are ever worried about me going out on my own, wearing short-shorts I wear everyday in America and doing normal things I do. It is getting worse for women. There are cases of rapes happening everyday, making the front page of newspapers. No woman is even safe in her own home. I was stalked once in a resort in India. It was terrifying- something I thought would never happen to me. The government of India needs to think a little more about the women of India, and help towards a safer country for them. In short, women are not safe alone in India.
Report Post
Like Reply00
NO
State Your Opinion10 Point Plan to Keep Women Safe:

1. Sensitize the Police - When a rape victim comes to the police station, have a female counselor sit with her alone to record the sequence of events. The officer should not rush the victim or ask details before she has finished. Make a list of relevant questions that can be asked after she finishes speaking. Offer the victim support, food, a shawl to cover herself. Send the recorded statement to the male police officers immediately to arrest the named if any. Keep a female officer with her that night at the hospital. Offer her the best care.

2. Non bailable offence - Keep the man for a week before he can apply for bail. For all other sexual offenders - even for whistling, groping and leering, make it a severe action of at least stay in jail for one night before they can apply for bail. Make the bail high so it's not easy to get away so easily.

3. Stop selling acid - Women are scared of attacks if they protest. They fear repercussion if they speak out. Give the women who have reported a rape security for some time. Stop selling harmful, toxic substances over the counter. The friends of the accused feel they can take revenge as well. Make sure the accuser's friends, family and everyone have their picture and ids at the station with a strict warning that if anything happens to the girl, they will all be arrested.

4. More female officers - Have a female officer in every bus route, train after 7 pm - all over India. If there aren't enough female officers, start recruiting immediately. Start getting female IPS officers to oversee who they trust on each route. If they are male officers - their name must be made mandatory for reporting in and reporting out time on each route.

5. Fast courts for sexual abuse - Find the accused but also send him to as faster trial. Confiscate his passport, documents of driving, etc so he cannot live a complete life. Start trial within a month. Sentence within 45 days. Do not let any accused be set free to do what he has done again. Give a minimum sentence to maximum punishment, but do so quickly. Show their faces to society when convicted. Let them be an example to deter others.

6. Mental health - Promote free mental health checks for people. It has to start from the grass root level of panchayats. Remove the stigma of mental health. Start treating people who are violent, aggressive, and with personality disorders. Do not take violence lightly.

7. Rehabilitate - Women who have been raped and rejected from their families need to be rehabilitated in their own society and life. Send social workers with them to talk to the families. Find her a job. Educate her if she is not already. Let her find dignity in her life so that all women understand that there is no stigma of being raped. There is only shame if you don't report it.

8. Believe the woman - If she is a prostitute, a housewife, a student, a working woman - believe her. She has taken the courage to come to you. Record her statement. Do not judge her for what she wears, how she speaks, where she was, who she was with or what she was doing. If she said "no" she was raped. Understand it and sympathize immediately. Train the entire police force to behave so. To take it as an urgent matter. Immediately.

9. Family, society and stigma - Rapes can happen within a family. Do not tell her to go back and adjust to her family life if this has happened. Do not say this is a family matter that you have no control over. Arrest the person. Do not make her the victim. She cannot go back. She needs help. You need to give it to her. She needs to believe in the Justice System where even her husband can be arrested for a week. Where she will be protected for speaking out. Don't advise her what to do, what to wear and how to behave. Just be on her side.

10. Punish powerful - If a rapist has gotten away because he bribed the police, the police and the accused should be immediately given a severe punishment. Do not be afraid of being brutal. These are the worst of times. It calls for desperate measures. Let the Justice System of India set an example where corruption shall not thrive at all, especially when it comes to abuse. If an MLA's son, police officer's children and other powerful people are involved in such a heinous crime - do not look away! Confront them. Treat them like any other citizen of India who has committed a crime. Arrest them. They cannot have power. Money cannot buy back a life. They cannot have time to suppress statements or buy out witnesses. Act fast.
Being in the 21st century, with technology and world so advanced, we still talk about this subject, “Are Women Safe, in India, especially?” With surveys and understandings of what is happening around us, it is time that the country joins hands together to realize that – ‘Women are NOT SAFE in any means in India’. There have many cases that have been reported and many unreported for the torture a woman undergoes, yet there has been nothing done to change the law or the system to the way a woman is being looked at.

Women have been advancing, progressing and have proved that they can beat men in any sector they are in. Be it sports, arts, science, politics, service or for that matter any where, she has stood at par with what a man could do. Yet, she still fights for equality.

No matter what, the old thoughts and upbringing culture still lay cluttered in the minds of men that women should not be above men, but below them. It is sad to understand that women are the better halves of the society, yet they are the ones who face the maximum tortures in many ways in their lives.

Time has changed, yet attitude towards women have never been changed. To understand better, one has to get to the root cause of the problem. It has all started ages ago, where men are thought to be gods and powerful and women to be just like slaves for household works.

Even today, leave alone villages where people are uneducated, the educated society or who claims to be in the high class society, opts for abortions of girl child! The only reason that they state is “It is expensive to bring up a girl child.” How ridiculous? The system has to be changed right from the roots.

When a girl child is born, the first thought is, the parent has to make dowry to get her married off. Aren’t men and their families ashamed to ask for dowries even today? Do they survive on the money from the girl’s house?

From inside the womb, till her death, a woman is always faced with danger. In the womb, the chances of being killed, even before seeing light, when being born and growing, she faces harsh brutalities like molestation, abusing, physical and mental tortures and above all a heap of workloads and in old age, just abandoned and still being opened for more brutalities till death. What a life? One has to understand, women are also human beings. They also have the same thoughts, desires, and dreams and feel the same pain that men feel. How could they just be taken for granted?

We all know the Delhi Rape Case. (Dec 16th 2012) The most brutal rape case ever heard. There were Nation wide protests, debates, and candle lights, everything done by the public to punish the criminals. More than two months have passed now, what has happened? Has all the frustration died down? The law has done nothing severe in this case and to add more shame, there have been lawyers to defend these criminals! How disgusting … the criminals are still out there and they know they would be freed. The poor girl suffered and died a painful death. The loss is only for her family and loved ones. Everything else is back to normal. This is how our judicial system works.

It is high time that the law has been changed with regard to cases like these. There has to be stringent punishments and fast tracks to monitor these kinds of cases. When the law is stringent in a country, before committing a crime, at least the offender would think twice on committing the crime. I agree that with one punishment, the nation is not going to get better, but with consecutive punishments, it would be under a controllable situation. Nothing changes overnight, but in due course it does create an effect.
The present scenario is not going to change, but yes the coming generations could definitely make a remarkable difference. The basic understanding that men and women are equal has to start at school levels. Education is a must for all. The government has to come up with strategies where every child gets education. Respecting the opposite sex has to be taught from school levels and parents and teachers have to join hands in this subject. With proper understanding, exploitation could be reduced to much extend. Women are not sex and child bearing objects, but they are also equally powerful and emotional and a great companion for men and the vice-versa should be made to understand. Once this understanding gets through, half the scenario changes.

Next is the judicial system that has to change. Serious consideration and changes in laws for these kinds of brutalism and exploitation has to be brought about. Corrupted officers should be thrown out and punished as an example and efficient ones to be bought in. Action has to be taken, without looking at face and rules should not be bend for certain classes. Definitely, it would have an impact and the thought of “I can get along, no matter I do” thought would come to a stop. Law should neither favor some, nor be exploited by others. Such laws have to be bought about.

And most importantly, the marriage concept of dowry system or demanding for more from the bride’s family should be bought to a stop and that could be possible, when the groom stands for his bride and makes his family understand. It is not money that matters all the time; a good life partner is what your son should have.

Changes do not take place soon or easily, but if each one of us join hands in every possible way that we can and start to make little changes within the family from today, it would gradually get implemented and there would be a better society that respects and understands women, at least for our next generation and generations to come. Women could walk around freely, without the fear of being attacked at any time, anywhere.

Join hands and save women.
How do we make every place safe for women, men and others? How do we make freedom from fear of violence a part of who we are? By taking responsibility.
As I sit down to write this, newspapers are reporting the gang-rape of a Mumbai journalist. People are posting the link everywhere, and in a while, comments and announcements about protests will follow. We’ve been here before. And then there are hundreds of other times when we should have been there to speak up, but haven’t.

Why aren’t India’s women and girls safe? Who is responsible for their safety? How should that safety be assured? Since December 2012, these three questions have become a fixture on the national agenda, as has the issue of safety, or more precisely, freedom from violence. But women and girls have always thought about safety. How could they not, when the threat of violence is pervasive and shadows them from conception through their lifetimes? Concerns about safety limit women’s mobility and activities and teach them to strategize everything from timings to travel to how to walk to the office or college toilet.

The Indian women’s movement has always raised the issue of violence—violence against women (or more broadly, gender-based violence that is directed at anyone by virtue of their gender) and the violence that follows from structural inequalities like caste, poverty or identity.

India’s library of laws dealing with violence against women are a legacy of the women’s movement’s many campaigns to find ways to deter this violence such as the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation And Prevention Of Misuse) Act, 1994, which addressed the growing problem of sex-selective abortion) or to offer justice to victims such as the very recent Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, which offers the growing numbers of women who work outside their own home a process whereby they can complain about sexual harassment). This is historically consistent—social reformers and social movements in India have seen the law as the remedy for social problems and sought new laws or amendments to old ones. Examples range from Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s successful advocacy for the Hindu Widows Remarriage Act, 1856, to the Right to Information Act, 2005.

We think first about the law—not because we are law-abiding—but because we repose primary responsibility for women’s safety in the hands of the state. We also see laws as expressing a larger consensus (which may or may not exist in reality) that certain kinds of behaviour are unacceptable to this society. When laws have not worked as we imagined they would, we assume it is because they were not properly implemented. The police are corrupt, we say, and the judicial system takes too long. When violence against women occurs, it’s because someone else failed—the police, the courts, the law and order apparatus, governance, politicians.

Concerns about women’s safety are expressed in paternalistic terms—how do we keep “our women” safe—our mothers and sisters, daughters and daughters-in-law, cousins and friends? Protectiveness is one way to express we care, but in the context of violence, it takes the form of restricting mobility, choice and freedom.

Protection against violence outside the home becomes the pretext for control. A different category of violence emerges when education is interrupted, livelihood options are (de)limited and choice of friends and life-partners restricted or dictated. Women are told—wear this, do that, don’t go there, don’t talk to such people, don’t make eye contact. Discussing harassment situations at workshops, we learn that the “victim” should have said “no” clearly and firmly. Women are safe when they behave and speak in ways that ensure their safety. Women are unsafe when they make unsafe choices (dress, work, any).

This logic is extended, when the home is described as a “safe haven;” if women want to be safe, they should stay at home. But the home is not safe either. If the streets are full of marauders who are easily tempted into violence, predators lurk in the home. As much as they are the individual who beats and tortures a spouse or the relative who gropes, fondles or rapes the vulnerable, predators are also the family that thinks that a baby girl is a lesser child, that cousins are promised to each other or that the resident domestic worker also offers sexual services.

There are no safe havens for women. Nor, I believe, should there be. The idea of a safe haven to me seems to endorse the idea that it is acceptable that other places are unsafe. I say, it’s time we dumped that idea altogether.

How do we make every place safe for women, men and others? How do we make freedom from fear of violence a part of who we are? By taking responsibility.

Yes, laws matter and governments are responsible first and foremost, for public safety. Yes, we should be careful and thoughtful about potential risks. But we—each of us, all of us, together—also bear responsibility together for the world as it is and as it should be.

The first step is to recognize violence as “violence.” Groping is not acceptable because a girl got on a crowded bus. Staying on to work with the team to meet a project deadline is not seduction. A slightly shapeless roti does not warrant punishment. Enforcing male preference by abusing diagnostic techniques is not freedom of choice. Having been in a relationship does not deprive someone of the right to say ‘no.’ To see violence where we would see lack of caution, poor choices, justice of a sort, passion or punishment—that is the starting point. After December 2012, we may be closer to that starting point than ever before.

The second step is to learn practical ways to stop violence from happening around you. Bell Bajao’s excellent videos offer many examples of simple things that neighbours and bystanders can do to break a moment of violence. In an office situation, if someone looks uncomfortable in an interaction, one might just walk up and interrupt by asking a question. On a train, if women travellers are being heckled, one might appear to join them as a way of communicating that the harassment has been noticed. Within the family, making gender violence a conversation topic can help to share awareness on what is and is not acceptable even within close relationships.

Stopping violence does not need to involve confrontation and danger. It can be as simple as noticing and as sharing what one learns (from ideas to laws to helplines). Being alert and being considerate are more than half the battle won.

The third step is to know the law. We agitate for this law and that, and dissect drafts critically but do we know how to use the law? Are we willing to complain and stay the course? Reporting of violence against women is on the rise, happily, and this is where the role and functioning of the police and courts becomes relevant.

Taking responsibility, means finally, learning about support services (safe-homes and shelters; legal counselling; psychological and medical help; livelihood training) for survivors of violence and for their families. We should understand what services exist, and how we can strengthen those services—by volunteering time, by sharing resources or by making donations, at minimum.

Blaming the government, police and women, we will never eliminate the threat of violence against women (and others). By seeking and designating safe havens here and there, we force women to trade freedom for safety, citizenship for protection. But by owning and taking responsibility for a violence-free world, we start building the world in which we would like to live and we would like our children to inherit.
A few days ago, after news of the sexual assault case in Mumbai broke out, someone on Twitter said something that got me thinking. A female resident of Mumbai, presumably, lashed out after seeing the umpteenth tweet asking women in Mumbai to “take care” and “be safe.”
+
Enough of this patronizing nonsense, she said. Instead of asking women to “take care” it was time that men actually did something to make the city safer for women.
+
In the days since that attack, such outbursts from men and women alike have become common. And they have been part of a much broader collection of discussion and debates about women’s safety. There are several concurrent threads to these debates: How can we teach our men to respect women better? Is violence against women an expression of social faults, if so which ones? How can these faults be alleviated? How does the portrayal of women, women’s issues and violence against women in mass media play a role in making things better or worse? Should minors involved in sex crimes be treated as adults? What can we do to make our neighborhoods safer? More recently there has been substantial debate on the trivializing of the idea of rape in the form of jokes and in other contexts not directly related to sex crimes.
+
Essentially, I suppose we are all trying to figure out how India can be made safer and more empathetic for all women. And these lines of questioning are legitimate. They might eventually help us make our cities, towns, and homes safer. But not immediately, not right now.
+
Right now, make no mistake about it, we need something that forms the foundation of a safe society: a functioning law-and-order system. No amount of soul searching, cultural self-flagellation, sex education, local activism, and behavioral conditioning will succeed unless our streets are well-policed and our courts function with speed and efficiency.
+
And this is exactly why I am afraid India will remain an unsafe country for women for the foreseeable future. Now I know this is not the message that many campaigners for women’s safety want to hear. Many of them are optimistic that some kind of governmental or non-governmental campaigning will make India safer. But as long these campaigns are divorced from a substantial overhaul of law and order mechanisms, they will not work.
+
Let us just take the case of of the city of Mumbai, arguably India’s most commercially important metropolis. Mumbai has a sanctioned police strength of approximately 45,000 officers. Around 3,000 of these posts are currently vacant. The effective number police on the streets are even lower. The New Indian Express recently said that Mumbai had a serving police force of 33,000 officers.
+
Earlier this month, in response to a Right To Information request, Mumbai police revealed that in the first two months of this year 27,740 police personnel had been deployed on VIP security duty, generally meaning they guard politicians. It is unclear if these deployments were short or long term. But there is no question that this substantially reduces the number of police officers the city actually needs on its streets.
+
An optimistic estimate suggests that, on an ongoing basis, Mumbai police has around 20,000 police taking care of its population of around 20 million residents. Therefore, Mumbai enjoys an effective police coverage of approximately 100 police officers per 100,000. (This number can vary somewhat depending on how you approximate police and population. But by my reckoning, it gets no better than around 165 per 100,000.) The United Nations recommends coverage where a population of 100,000 are served by 220 to 250 police officers.
+
What about courts? It is common knowledge that Indian courts have millions of cases pending at any given point in time. Yet another Right To Information request, filed by the same applicant in June, found 49,170 cases of crimes against women pending in courts across the state of Maharashtra (Mumbai is its capital). This number has increased by 40% between 2008 and 2012. Of the 14,414 rape cases tried in Maharashtra last year, 13,388 remain pending.
+
To be sure, better police and faster courts will not solve these problems alone, and columnist Praveen Swami explains this, but I can think of no conceivable solution that does not include better police and faster courts as key elements.
+
The need for immediate intervention is staring us in the face. So why don’t the people who run Mumbai, Maharashtra or India see this? What prevents them from overhauling the police force and legal system? Why does law minister after law minister lament about the masses of pending cases in Indian courts … and then actually do nothing radical about it?
+
This situation is doubly ludicrous when you consider that the government is also struggling to create sufficient jobs each year to occupy its exploding youth demographic. The nation is simultaneously drowning in both unemployed youth and undelivered public services.
+
Is it because these reforms are overly complex?
+
Cleaning up the courts is admittedly complex. But surely hiring a few thousand policemen can’t be as complex as rolling out multi-billion dollar job guarantees, food security or biometric identity schemes? Those are all initiatives the government has somehow managed to undertake.
+
Is it too expensive?
+
One estimate puts the annual budget of Mumbai’s police force at about 6 billion rupees (or $91 million). Almost all of this, around 85%, goes toward paying salaries. Can Mumbai, the beating heart of India’s economy afford to, say, double this? Given that the budget of the city of Mumbai is 280 billion rupees ($4 billion), and the city has a GDP which is at least 10 times as much, an escalation wouldn’t break the bank.
+
Then why not?
+
Your guess is as good as mine. But I think it is because overhauling Mumbai’s police or drawing up a radical plan to create new courts and hire new judges is exactly the kind of granular reform that, from a political perspective, Indian governments find difficult to execute. And unless these reforms deliver an immediate return (and one that can be politically leveraged), most stakeholders aren’t going to be interested in at all. In a given term in office there are only so many fights you can fight. So why pick the tough ones?
+
This is perhaps why the life cycles of legislation such as the Food Security Bill are relatively short, while those of a politically unsexy but economically important nature such as a new Companies Bill take decades.
+
There is a peculiar pattern that often pops up when “India’s problems” are discussed on social networks or in the comments section of news websites. Somehow while all of India’s problems are all universal—rapes happen in the US also, corruption happens in China also, malnutrition happens in Indonesia also—all the solutions to India’s problems become unique and complex. Police reform is complex, education is complex, food is complex, taxation is complex and on and on.
+
Not always. Some of India’s problem are simple things with simple solutions that unfortunately have no political capital.
+
I am afraid efficient courts and more and better police are among these problems. And I don’t think we should expect major reforms any time soon. Of course I hope I am proven completely wrong and Mumbai, and Delhi, and every other local administration immediately implements steps to improve law and order. Volunteer action, social awareness campaigns and neighborhood watch programs can all make marginal improvements. They will not, however, make up for a law and order system that works.
+
Until that happens—and I have no intention of being patronizing or sexist here—my fellow citizens will have to take care and be safe.

Media in India are highlighting renewed concerns over women's safety in Delhi after the gang rape of a 51-year-old Danish woman.

The tourist was attacked by a group of men in the Paharganj area of the national capital on Tuesday evening. Police say she was robbed and raped at knifepoint.

"The attack is the latest involving a foreigner in India, and again raises questions about the safety of women in the country," the Hindustan Times reports.

The incident comes a month after India marked the first anniversary of the gang rape and murder of a student in Delhi that sent shockwaves across the nation.

"Such incidents show that despite tough laws in place after the 16 December [2012] gang rape, attacks on women have not gone down and there does not seem to be much fear of the law", the paper says in an editorial.

The Times of India echoes similar sentiments, saying "that a woman can get gang-raped in the heart of the national capital in the afternoon of a week day shows just how terrible is the situation when it comes to women's safety in India".

Papers are also criticising the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi over the issue of women's safety.

"The rape in the heart of the city also puts a question mark on the AAP's electoral promise to make Delhi safe for women," The Asian Age reports.

The NDTV website says the party, which had "bitterly attacked former chief minister Sheila Dixit for making Delhi unsafe, finds itself at a loss for answers today".

Newspapers and websites are also underlining the latest incident's impact on the country's image.

The incident "showed India in a bad light once again" says The Pioneer.

Laloo Prasad on Twitter
Moving on to other news, journalists in the eastern state of Orissa are protesting against the arrest of a colleague over allegations of "hurting religious sentiments" by publishing a picture of the Prophet Muhammad, the Hindustan Times reports.

Jitendra Prasad Das of the Samaj newspaper was arrested on Tuesday for publishing the picture he apparently downloaded from the internet, it adds.

Islam prohibits making images of any person. In the orthodox tradition, photography is allowed only when someone needs a photo for travel or other purposes, the paper says.

In business news, inflation figures dropped to a five-month low of 6.16% in December owing to lower vegetable prices, The Times of India reports.

Analysts say the drop in inflation, based on the Wholesale Price Index, may force India's central bank to adjust interest rates.
"The easing of inflation at a time when industrial growth continues to be in the red should induce the Reserve Bank of India [central bank] to review its monetary policy stance and cut its policy rates to rejuvenate growth…" the report quotes Confederation of Indian Industry director-general Chandrajit Banerjee as saying.
Meanwhile, Dalit (low-caste Hindus) leader Mayawati has announced that her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will not form an alliance with any party in the upcoming general elections.
"There are media reports of a Congress-BSP electoral alliance. But I want to make it very clear, we will contest alone," the DNA newspaper quotes her as saying.
And finally, Laloo Prasad Yadav, one of India's colourful politicians and chief of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party, has opened an account on Twitter after he realised "the importance of social media used successfully by political leaders like Narendra Modi and others", the NDTV website reports.
"Only change is constant. With change, we change, finally on Twitter," said the RJD chief in his first tweet.\
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.