Indian women hold candles and posters during a protest against two recently reported rape cases, in Ahmadabad, India, April 16, 2018 (AP photo by Ajit Solanki).

MUMBAI, India—In December 2012, in a case that generated international headlines, a 23-year-old physical therapy student was gang-raped by six men on a bus in New Delhi. After 45 minutes of torture, the woman—dubbed Nirbhaya, or fearless, by the Indian press, which is prohibited by law from naming victims of sexual assault—was thrown off the bus. Found in critical condition, she died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital less than two weeks later. The tragedy brought national and international attention to the issue of sexual violence in India. Following Nirbhaya’s death, then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared, “While she may […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at a festival at Kevadiya, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Sept. 17, 2019 (AP photo by Ajit Solanki).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in the United States next week to attend the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly, meet with U.S. officials and business leaders, and address a huge rally of the Indian diaspora. As he embarks on the trip, his government finds itself a target of widespread international criticism after it upended the status quo in Kashmir last month, by revoking the special autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir—the latest move in what is widely seen as an increasingly divisive, Hindu nationalist agenda. Given these recent developments, one might expect the Indian […]