India, Jan. 3 -- One of the challenges I face as a gender writer is to find stories of hope, aspiration and optimism. You can see it very often shining through in sports, in education, even in jobs and skilling. But sexual crime - as we enter 2026, there is no sign of it abating - is another story.

The year begins with a collective sigh of relief that convicted rapist and former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar will continue to serve out his life sentence for raping a minor girl in 2017. But the fact that he could come this close to walking free tells you something about justice for women - how high the price, how ruinous the cost, how low its priority, and how dogged its pursuit by women themselves. Sengar was convicted for kidnapping and r...