Cornell was chosen this year as one of ten locations that would lead “Take Back the Night,” an annual march against domestic and sexual violence. Students gathered at Williard Straight and marched down to the Commons, where they held a candle light ceremony.

Asmita Basu, a guest speaker from New Delhi, addressed a crowd of mostly graduate students at Myron Taylor Hall about the obstacles and successes in implementing India’s Domestic Violence Act at a midday lecture yesterday.

Basu is a fundamental contributor in the enactment of the Domestic Violence Act in 2005 as a project coordinator of the Lawyers Collective Women’s Rights Initiative, a top legal, non-government organization dedicated to empowering women through law. She spoke in a filled lecture room of around 50 people about her experience in India drafting the law, lobbying members of Parliament to form consensus over the content of the domestic violence law, and monitoring its implementation.