UP government to give Rs 20 lakh compensation for Delhi-gang-rape victim's family

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh (UP) government on Monday announced Rs 20 lakh compensation for the family of the Delhi gang-rape victim who succumbed to injuries two days ago. The compensation will be given from the chief minister's discretionary fund.

Earlier, on December 21, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had announced to give Rs five lakh financial assistance to the family of the victim in addition to the the offer to all medical expenses and a job after recovery.

The family hails from a village in Ballia district of the state and had moved to Delhi 20 years ago but is still connected to its native place.

He had taken a loan for the education of his daughter who wanted to be a physiotherapist. His two sons are still studying.

The chief minister announced the Rs 20 lakh compensation overlooking the criticism of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Imam Bukhari. Mayawati had said that compensation is fine but the state government should focus on preventing rapes and provide speedy justice. She had also alleged that crime against women has increased manifold in first nine months of Samajwadi Party (SP) rule in the state. Bukhari had said that SP government should have also announced compensation for the Muslim rape victims.

Earlier today, the Delhi government announced financial aid of Rs 15 lakh for the next of the kin of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim and offered a job to a family member of the girl, who died two days ago.

The decisions were taken at a cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

The phsyiotherapy student was brutally gang-raped and assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16. She breathed her last in a Singapore hospital on Saturday morning and her mortal remains were cremated here on Sunday.

(Inputs from PTI)

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FDA approves 1st new tuberculosis drug in 40 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug that is the first new medicine to fight the deadly infection in more than four decades.

The agency approved J&J's pill, Sirturo, for use with older drugs to fight a hard-to-treat strain of tuberculosis that has not responded to other medications. However, the agency cautioned that the drug carries risks of potentially deadly heart problems and should be prescribed carefully by doctors.

Roughly one-third of the world's population is estimated to be infected with the bacteria causing tuberculosis. The disease is rare in the U.S., but kills about 1.4 million people a year worldwide. Of those, about 150,000 succumb to the increasingly common drug-resistant forms of the disease. About 60 percent of all cases are concentrated in China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe.

Sirturo, known chemically as bedaquiline, is the first medicine specifically designed for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. That's a form of the disease that cannot be treated with at least two of the four primary antibiotics used for tuberculosis.

The standard drugs used to fight the disease were developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

"The antibiotics used to treat it have been around for at least 40 years and so the bacterium has become more and more resistant to what we have," said Chrispin Kambili, global medical affairs leader for J&J's Janssen division.

The drug carries a boxed warning indicating that it can interfere with the heart's electrical activity, potentially leading to fatal heart rhythms.

"Sirturo provides much-needed treatment for patients who have don't have other therapeutic options available," said Edward Cox, director of the FDA's antibacterial drugs office. "However, because the drug also carries some significant risks, doctors should make sure they use it appropriately and only in patients who don't have other treatment options."

Nine patients taking Sirturo died in company testing compared with two patients taking a placebo. Five of the deaths in the Sirturo group seemed to be related to tuberculosis, but no explanation was apparent for the remaining four.

Despite the deaths, the FDA approved the drug under its accelerated approval program, which allows the agency to clear innovative drugs based on promising preliminary results.

Last week, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen criticized that approach, noting the drug's outstanding safety issues.

"The fact that bedaquiline is part of a new class of drug means that an increased level of scrutiny should be required for its approval," the group states. "But the FDA had not yet answered concerns related to unexplained increases in toxicity and death in patients getting the drug."

The FDA said it approved the drug based on two mid-stage studies enrolling 440 patients taking Sirturo. Both studies were designed to measure how long it takes patients to be free of tuberculosis.

Results from the first trial showed most patients taking Sirturo plus older drugs were cured after 83 days, compared with 125 days for those taking a placebo plus older drugs. The second study showed most Sirturo patients were cured after 57 days.

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Time's Up: Sides Closing In on 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

Congressional and White House negotiators are closing in on a deal to avert across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that take effect at midnight, as the nation teeters on the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff.

An emerging tentative agreement would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; extend the estate tax at its current level of 35 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.

The deal would also extend unemployment benefits set to expire Tuesday and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.

Both sides also seem willing to delay by three months automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, the sources said, setting the stage for continued fiscal debate in the next few months tied to the debt ceiling.

Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are leading the negotiations, sources said, holding several "good" conversations late into Sunday night and continuing a dialogue early this morning.

They are trying to broker an elusive compromise on taxes and spending that can win the support of bipartisan majorities in the Senate and House.

Even if a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.

"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."

Failure of Congress to act on a tax measure by Tuesday morning would trigger income tax hikes on all Americans. The average family would pay an extra $3,446 in 2013 under the higher rates, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Regardless of the "cliff," virtually all workers are due to see less in their paychecks starting in January when the temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut will expire.

More than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs will also begin to take effect later this week unless Congress delays or replaces them.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that all of us find ourselves in this place at this time," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday night on the Senate floor.

"Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is our American Congress," he said, echoing a frustration shared by many Americans.

Republican and Democratic Senate leaders wrangled all weekend over the outlines of a deal, but those talks eventually hit a brick wall on GOP insistence that Social Security savings be included in a deal.

"I want everyone to know I'm willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner," McConnell said Sunday, noting that he had directly reached out to Biden to break the impasse.

As part of any deficit reduction deal, the White House wants to raise income tax rates on people making more than $250,000 a year, a threshold on which President Obama campaigned for re-election.

Republicans, caving on outright opposition to any tax increases, want a higher income threshold for the tax hike of around $450,000, sources said. They also want to prevent the estate tax from rising above its current 35 percent rate on estates of $5.1 million or more.

"There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Sunday evening. "There is still time to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations."

Both sides say the cost of failure is high.

"If we are not able to reach an agreement, it will be dire," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Probably at least another million jobs lost, an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and putting us back into recession."

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State Department made "grievous mistake" over Benghazi: Senate report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the U.S. mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.

A report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the September 11 attacks on the U.S. mission and a nearby CIA annex, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died, faulted intelligence agencies for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.

It also faulted the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.

The committee's assessment, "Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi," follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.

Joseph Lieberman, an independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "midlevel managers" who have since been held accountable.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said it was likely that others needed to be held accountable, but that decision was best made by the Secretary of State, who has the best understanding "of how far up the chain of command the request for additional security went."

The attacks and the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens put diplomatic security practices at posts in risky areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence on militant activity in the region was adequate.

The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" by intelligence agencies to focus closely enough on militant groups with weak or no operational ties to al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the "Arab Spring" countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.

NEED FOR BETTER INTELLIGENCE

The report recommended that U.S. intelligence agencies "broaden and deepen their focus in Libya and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups."

Neither the Senate report nor the unclassified accountability review board report pinned blame for the Benghazi attack on a specific militant group. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.

President Barack Obama, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said the United States had "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks. He did not provide details.

The Senate committee said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before acting on improving security in Benghazi.

It also said it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to fill the security gap.

"Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down," the report said. "That was a grievous mistake."

The Senate panel reviewed changing comments made by the Obama administration after the attack, which led to a political firestorm in the run-up to the November presidential election and resulted in U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton, who is stepping down early next year.

Rice had said her initial comments that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film were based on talking points provided by intelligence agencies.

Lieberman said it was not the job of intelligence agencies to formulate unclassified talking points and they should decline such requests in the future.

The report said the original talking points included a line saying "we know" that individuals associated with al Qaeda or its affiliates participated in the attacks. But the final version had been changed to say: "There are indications that extremists participated," and the reference to al Qaeda and its affiliates was deleted.

The report said that while James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had offered to provide the committee with a detailed chronology of how the talking points were written and evolved, this had still not been delivered to Capitol Hill because the administration had spent weeks "debating internally" whether or not it should turn over information considered "deliberative" to Congress.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and David Brunnstrom)

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No deal yet as US teeters on fiscal cliff edge

WASHINGTON: As the United States teeters on the edge of the fiscal cliff, politicians had yet to agree on Monday on a New Year's Eve escape route to prevent taxes from rising on all Americans on January 1.

Despite several sticking points, the framework of a possible deal was emerging after midnight talks between top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat with whom he has a close rapport.

With time running out to avert $500 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in within hours, the White House announced that President Barack Obama was to speak on the looming "fiscal cliff" at 1:30 pm (1830 GMT).

Even if the Democratically-controlled Senate does sign off on a deal Monday, avoiding the cliff could go down to the wire.

The bill must then go to the Republican-held House of Representatives. The chamber is in session on Monday, but House Speaker John Boehner has struggled to control his party's restive conservative wing, many of whom may balk at signing on to any Obama-approved deal that raises taxes.

The key areas of friction are the income threshold at which taxes should rise, Obama's insistence on extending unemployment benefits and Republican demands for increased federal spending cuts.

"There are a number of issues on which the two sides are still apart," Democratic Senate Majority Harry Reid conceded. "Negotiations are continuing as I speak, but we really are running out of time.

"Whether or not we reach an agreement in the short time we have left, we'll need cooperation on both sides to prevent taxes from going up tomorrow for every family in America."

Days of last-gasp talks have produced no deal between US political leaders struggling for a compromise to head off a fiscal crisis that could roil global markets and plunge the United States back into a punishing recession.

Asian stocks were flat Monday while Europe was mixed, as markets nervously digested the Washington gridlock.

Disagreement has simmered over the threshold at which taxes would rise in any new deal.

Obama campaigned for re-election vowing to raise taxes on households with a combined income above $250,000, but in an 11th-hour concession has agreed to negotiate a higher rate - as much as $450,000 - to the chagrin of some his own Democrats.

Some reports said Republican leaders were still seeking $550,000 as the cut-off point.

Republicans have dropped their demand for a new way of calculating inflation that would have cut the level of benefits for Social Security recipients.

But they were reportedly maintaining their insistence that estate inheritance tax rates stay at current levels.

The two sides remained bitterly at odds over the $109 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the Pentagon as well as other federal agencies beginning in early January.

Democrats said they were pushing for a delay of the cuts, known as the "sequester," for about two years, while some Republicans, including Senator Roy Blunt, said it was inconceivable to allow a delay without imposing more targeted offsets to pay for such a postponement.

Don Stewart, McConnell's spokesman, said in a statement on Monday morning that the Republican leader and Biden had talked long into the night to try to hammer out a deal.

Democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen said there was better than a 50-50 chance of a pre-midnight agreement, but his Republican rivals were a question mark.

"One big question of course is whether an agreement put together by the senators on a bipartisan basis, whether that can pass the House of Representatives," he told CNN.

Republicans largely oppose raising taxes on anyone. There may be a push by conservatives to let the economy slide off the cliff so that taxes rise on all Americans, only for lawmakers to quickly turn around and vote for a tax cut on the middle class.

- AFP/de

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Haryana khap opposes death penalty for rapists

HISAR: Opposing the demand for death penalty for rapists, a khap in Haryana on Sunday said no law should be introduced in a hurry which can be misused.

Speaking at a village here, khap leader Sube Singh said that the authorities should not be carried away by emotions in the wake of the public protests over the gang rape issue and demand for death penalty for rapists.

"We have seen the anti-dowry and the SC/ST laws being misused. Any new law which gives such harsh punishment would also be vulnerable to misuse," Singh said.

The influential khaps or caste panchayats have in the past drawn flak for opposing marriages in the same sect and their diktats on moral policing.

The statement by the khap leader raised hackles of activists who said it was an attempt to shield the rapists in Haryana.

"Twenty gangrapes took place in Haryana in which several people are involved. This is a plot to save them. This atmosphere forces them to ... disrespect among women," Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary of the All-India Democratic Women's Association, said.

The controversy comes in the midst of national outrage over the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old in Delhi who died on Friday night.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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President Suggests Small 'Cliff' Deal Likely

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” President Obama today suggested that a small deal remains the best hope to avoid the perilous package of spending cuts and tax increases.

In an interview aired this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the president said if Republicans agreed to raising taxes on top income earners it should be enough to avoid the triggers that would execute the $607 billion measure. Economists agree that going over the cliff would likely put the country back in recession.

“If we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what’s called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term,” he said.

Saying the “pressure is on Congress to produce,” the president did not specify what income level his party would deem acceptable as the cutoff for those who would see their tax rates remain at current levels. The president has called for expiration of the “Bush-era” tax cuts to affect household earnings over $250,000 since the campaign, but has reportedly floated a $400,000 figure in past negotiations. Speaker John Boehner once offered a $1 million cut-off in his failed “Plan B” proposal, which failed to garner enough support among the House Republicans.

“It’s been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell  to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” the president said.

Domestic programs would lose $55 billion in funding should sequestration pass, including $2 billion to Medicare and unemployment benefits. The Pentagon would take a $55 billion loss as well, or 9 percent of their budget.

Repeating remarks he made Friday after a meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said that should negotiations fail he has asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to introduce a stripped- down proposal to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote – if it isn’t blocked.

“If all else fails, if Republicans do in fact decide to block so that taxes on the middle class do in fact go up on January 1, then we’ll come back with a new Congress on January 4, and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle-class families,” he said of the worst case scenario. “I don’t think the average person is going to say, ‘Gosh, you know, that’s a really partisan agenda.’”

The interview was taped Saturday while Reid and his GOP counterpart Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky scrambled to their offices for a solution behind closed doors. Press staking out Capitol Hill reported little public activity from the leaders or their surrogates. If negotiations are successful, the lawmakers could introduce a bill for vote this afternoon.

Republican leaders bit back at the president’s remarks. In a written statement Speaker Boehner said casting blame was “ironic, as a recurring theme of our negotiations was his unwillingness to agree to anything that would require him to stand up to his own party. ”

“In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending – which is the problem – I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month,” he wrote. “Republicans made every effort to reach the ‘balanced’ deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs.”

Senator McConnell’s office issued this response to the NBC appearance:

“While the President was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution. Discussions continue today.”

Regardless of outcome, talk of a comprehensive budget deal is gone and any bill would likely set up a series of smaller partisan roadblocks in the weeks and months to come. For example, if any hypothetical legislation managed to dodge tax increases for the middle class it may still not address the looming debt ceiling, which Treasury can avoid using accounting tricks for approximately two months.

A small deal may also not address the estate tax, another central point of the brinkmanship. Currently standing at 35 percent, Republicans want to leave that rate as-is after exempting the first $5 million in estate value. Meanwhile Democrats have called for a 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption. Should negotiations fail, it would climb to 55 percent after a $1 million exemption after the New Year.

ABC’s Sunlen Miller and the Associated Press contributed to this report, which has been updated.

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Body of India rape victim cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.

Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.

Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.

In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.

"MISOGYNY"

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.

"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.

The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.

"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Israel must complete peace deal with Abbas: Peres

JERUSALEM: Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday urged Israel to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, saying their president Mahmud Abbas was a willing partner with whom an agreement could be reached.

Speaking with Israeli diplomats at his Jerusalem residence, Peres said the only way the Jewish state could positively affect the fluctuating reality in the region was "to complete the peace agreement with the Palestinians."

"I know there are different opinions," he said. "This is not a matter of ideology, this is a matter of appraising" the situation.

"I have known Abu Mazen for 30 years, and nobody will change my opinion of him," Peres continued, using Abbas's nom de guerre.

"I know there is criticism of things Abu Mazen said," Peres continued, but "there is currently no other Arab leader who is saying he is in favour of peace, against terror, in favour of a demilitarised state, and of... the Palestinian consensual right of return."

"There is not much time left," he warned.

Talks between the Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since September 2010, with the Palestinians insisting on a settlement freeze before returning to the negotiating table and the Israelis insisting on no preconditions.

Following last month's historic United Nations vote giving the Palestinians upgraded status in the world body, Israel announced a new spate of settlement building in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Peres's remarks elicited a harsh response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, which is contesting January 22 elections on a joint list with ex-foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party.

"It is very saddening that the president chose to express a personal political opinion that is contrary to the Israeli public's stance on Abu Mazen, the peace refuser," a statement from the party read.

"The prime minister has called on Abu Mazen to return to the negotiating table dozens of times," it read, saying the Palestinian leader "prefers to join forces with Hamas and act against Israel in every possible sphere."

Netanyahu himself, however, softened his party's line a few hours later.

"I respect the president, I value him," he told Channel 2 television. "There is a variety of opinions, we exchange opinions on topics on the agenda."

Lieberman, who resigned as Israel's top diplomat earlier this month, following indictments on fraud and breach of trust, has consistently said Abbas is not interested in reaching a peace deal with Israel.

He has also described Abbas as an obstacle to negotiations, suggesting it would be better for the president to step down.

- AFP/jc

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