Women's Rights

Essays on how Indian law treats women in the matters that reach court most often: maintenance and its recovery, cruelty in marriage, and guardianship of children. Each of these areas has a settled rule on paper and a different practice in the courtroom. Maintenance arrears are refused as time-barred when they are not. Mental cruelty is recognised but close to unprovable. Mothers were said to have been made equal guardians by a case that did something narrower. The essays below trace where the gap between the stated law and the applied law is widest.

• Nirbhaya Changed the Law. It Did Not Change the Bus. 1 September 2026

  After 2012 India wrote one of the most severe sexual offence codes in the world, and also a rule requiring a panic button in every public service vehicle. In May the Supreme Court found fewer than one per cent comply.

• Maintenance Arrears Are Not Time-Barred After One Year 21 August 2026

  Maintenance arrears are routinely refused as time-barred after a year. The Supreme Court settled that they are not in 2005, again in 2013, and again in 2020.

• Mental Cruelty Is Recognised in Law but Almost Impossible to Prove 18 August 2026

  Indian law has recognised mental cruelty since 1988. What it has never solved is how to prove it, and the only witness is often dead.

• Why Mothers Are Still Not Equal Guardians Under Hindu Law 31 July 2026

  Githa Hariharan is remembered as the case that made mothers guardians. It did something narrower, and the hierarchy it was asked to dismantle is still standing.