As Parliament gets set to reconvene, a bill to protect children from sexual abuse is on the agenda. Author Pinki Virani has warned that the bill might end up as a ‘graveyard of good intentions’ unless parts of it are redrafted. She explains to Open where the draft bill falls short

The Union health minister’s attitude to alternative sexuality is typical of a prejudiced majority. For queer students who suffer alienation or worse, relief comes in the form of a campus network

Married at 16, widowed at 31, arrested at 35, acquitted at 38, the wife of the forest brigand reluctantly talks about a life she did not choose

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who’s writing yet another autobiography, says she’s awaiting the ‘green’ signal to return to West Bengal

A chief minister loses the plot in Uttar Pradesh. A challenger grabs the opportunity. But this ought to be about a fair deal for farmers, not the 2012 polls

After 27 years in Pakistan prisons, Gopal Dass got a hero’s welcome when he returned last week to his village in Punjab. He was on a spying mission for India when he was arrested near Sialkot in 1984. Hard as they come, Gopal Dass tells his story.

Traces of Hemraj’s blood were found on a pillow belonging to Krishna, Dr Rajesh Talwar’s compounder who lived nearby. Yet, the CBI chose to ignore this

How an inept police and an insensitive media made it worse.

A quiet, protectionist tweak of India’s visa rules is forcing hordes of foreign expats to up and leave the country

The managing editor of TwoCircles.net, an English news website for Indian Muslims, speaks to Open on what makes his website unique.

CELESTIAL HEROISM IS a bestseller, unless it is badly made. In it merges great survivor dramas and the romance of breaching the boundaries of human…