CHENNAI, India — India can be sparkling white and deadly black. While it brags about its scientific achievements, including space exploration and nuclear arms, fancy cars and elite educational institutions, it must hang its head in shame over some heinous, dark-age practices.
Honor killing, brazenly sanctioned by social institutions and community elders, is one such practice, which neither the judiciary nor the executive has been able to stop.
Recently, Nirupama Pathak, a young journalist working for a leading Indian English-language business daily, was found murdered in her house. She was, according to newspaper reports, smothered to death by her own mother, who has since been arrested.