Students and women's groups across India held rallies and candlelit vigils yesterday in memory of the 23-year-old student whose brutal gang rape and murder a year ago sent shockwaves around the world.

The victim - dubbed Nirbhaya or "fearless" by the press - was on her way home from the cinema with a friend when they were lured onto a private bus.

A gang of men beat both with a metal bar, using the weapon to inflict grotesque and ultimately fatal internal injuries on the woman.

They were both dumped naked on the roadside, with the 23-year-old dying after an agonising two weeks in hospital.

Protesters and politicians hailed the changes in social attitudes brought about by the gruesome case with tough new laws, police reforms and fast-track courts brought in to improve India's response to violence against women.

Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar led a group of musicians around New Delhi along the route that the bus took, stopping along the way to perform street theatre highlighting the brutality of gang rape.

Students and other women's activists also held candlelit vigils in the city and across India.

Four of the defendants were sentenced to death while another hanged himself in prison - though the man's family insists he was killed.

But the sixth attacker - described in court as being behind the most vile aspects of the rape - received only three years in a reform home because he was under-18 at the time of the attack.

The victim's parents petitioned the supreme court for a harsher punishment, which in turn has asked the central government to decide in coming weeks whether he can be tried by a criminal rather than juvenile court.

Delhi's high court is likely to deliver a verdict on the other four's appeal against their death sentences in January.

The victim's father told a public meeting in Delhi that although laws had improved, social attitudes had to change.

"Only then can we say a difference has been made. Only then can I say my daughter did not die in vain."