WEEK OUT

Murder, in the name of honour: Honour killings are no longer a plague only in rural India. Three honour killings in 48 hours the week past - the victims were all from the same family in West Delhi. First, a young couple, Kuldeep and Monica, were murdered near their home. Then, the body of Monica's cousin, Shobhana, was found barely 300 metres away in a car. Shobhana helped Monica elope;she was also in love with a man her parents did not approve of. The brothers of the two women have now been arrested by the police and are being interrogated, as the police believe they were the ones involved with the deaths. The issue of honour killings, and the linked issue of khap panchayats, is snowballing into a potent political issue - a few weeks ago Congress MP Naveen Jindal outrageously defended the regressive diktats of khap panchayats;the BJP is now calling for stringent measures against the offenders. Calls for specific laws to be framed to deal with this social malaise are also being made by sections of society. A misplaced sense of honour cannot be a license to kill.


WEEK IN

Debating interior affairs: Home/interior ministers of SAARC countries are convening in Islamabad today for a multi-lateral debate on security issues concerning the region. India's custodian of home affairs, P Chidambaram, has already flown across the border and is slated to have a one-on-one discussion with his Pakistani counterpart, Rehman Malik on the sidelines of the convention. Terror and 26/11 are expected to dominate the talks.