Woman raped by Uber driver in India sues firm for breaching privacy

Agencies

June 16, 2017

New York, Jun 16: A woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014 has filed a lawsuit against the ride- hailing company and its embattled chief executive Travis Kalanick for "unlawfully" obtaining and sharing her medical records related to the sexual assault.

The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in the lawsuit filed in federal court in California, said in the complaint that she was "violated physically" when she was brutally raped in Delhi by her Uber driver in December 2014.

"Sadly, in the United States, Uber executives violated her a second time by unlawfully obtaining and sharing her medical records from that vicious sexual assault and have failed, as of the date of this filing, to apologise to her for this outrageous conduct," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit has been filed against Uber, Kalanick, Uber's former Vice President for Business in Asia Eric Alexander and the company's then-Senior Vice President for Business Emil Michael.

The lawsuit has been filed days after it emerged that Alexander had obtained medical records of the 26-year-old woman and had shown them to Kalanick and Michael. It is also alleged that numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group and Alexander had carried around the document for "about a year" before other executives, "presumably the legal department, obtained the report and destroyed his copy."

It is also alleged that Alexander, Kalanick and Michael had considered the prospect that Uber's main rival in India, Ola, could have been behind the sexual assault incident to sabotage the company.

The lawsuit added that Uber executives "duplicitously and publicly decried the rape, expressing sympathy for plaintiff, and shock and regret at the violent attack, while privately speculating, as outlandish as it is, that she had colluded with a rival company to harm Uber’s business."

The woman currently lives in Texas and had previously sued Uber in 2015 for its lack of sufficient safety standards. The case was settled a few months later.

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Over 58 lakh names dropped from draft voter list in Bengal ahead of polls

News Network

December 16,2025

The deletion of over 58 lakh names from West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls following a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has sparked widespread concern and is likely to deepen political tensions in the poll-bound state.

According to the Election Commission, the revision exercise has identified 24 lakh voters as deceased, 19 lakh as relocated, 12 lakh as missing, and 1.3 lakh as duplicate entries. The draft list, published after the completion of the first phase of SIR, aims to remove errors and duplication from the electoral rolls.

However, the scale of deletions has raised fears that a large number of eligible voters may have been wrongly excluded. The Election Commission has said that individuals whose names are missing can file objections and seek corrections. The final voter list is scheduled to be published in February next year, after which the Assembly election announcement is expected. Notably, the last Special Intensive Revision in Bengal was conducted in 2002.

The development has intensified the political row over the SIR process. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have strongly opposed the exercise, accusing the Centre and the Election Commission of attempting to disenfranchise lakhs of voters ahead of the elections.

Addressing a rally in Krishnanagar earlier this month, Banerjee urged people to protest if their names were removed from the voter list, alleging intimidation during elections and warning of serious consequences if voting rights were taken away.

The BJP, meanwhile, has defended the revision and accused the Trinamool Congress of politicising the issue to protect what it claims is an illegal voter base. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the ruling party fears losing power due to the removal of deceased, fake, and illegal voters.

The controversy comes amid earlier allegations by the Trinamool Congress that excessive work pressure during the SIR led to the deaths by suicide of some Booth Level Officers (BLOs), for which the party blamed the Election Commission. With the draft list now out, another round of political confrontation appears imminent.

As objections begin to be filed, the focus will be on whether the correction mechanism is accessible, transparent, and timely—critical factors in ensuring that no eligible voter is denied their democratic right ahead of a crucial election.

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