Tag: Indic civilisation

It is true enough that being a girl in India is a fate-bed strewn with thorns. Still while illegal torture by random monsters is hard, nothing is as ghastly as the state taking on the role of Daddy monster (and dont you know that the dictums are for the good of women…).

…
A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a
neighbour has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion.

The
plight of the girl, who is five months pregnant and lives in Ziguinchor
in the south, highlights the heavy cost women and children are paying
for a Napoleonic law on abortion that is still in force in the former French colony.

“She
is going to have to go through with the pregnancy,” said Fatou Kiné
Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers’ association. “The
best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl
gets regular scans and free medical care.

“Senegal’s abortion law is one of the harshest and deadliest in Africa.
A doctor or pharmacist found guilty of having a role in a termination
faces being struck off. A woman found guilty of abortion can be jailed
for up to 10 years.”

“For
a termination to be legal in Senegal, three doctors have to certify
that the woman will die unless she aborts immediately. Poor people in
Senegal are lucky if they see one doctor in their lifetime, let alone
three,” Camara said.

“A single medical certificate costs
10,000 CFA francs ($20), which is prohibitive. We had a previous case of
a raped nine-year-old who had to go through with her pregnancy. We paid
for her caesarean but she died a few months after the baby was born,
presumably because the physical trauma of childbirth was too great.”
The women lawyers’ association is lobbying MPs to align Senegal’s abortion legislation with the African charter on women’s rights, which the country ratified 10 years ago. Its provisions – legal medical abortion in cases of rape and incest, or where a woman’s physical or mental health is threatened – have never been added to the statute book.

“Most of the calls are from rural people and
concern property rights and access to land,” said Aminata Samb, 25, a
law graduate who works with the association. “This morning a woman rang
to say her husband had married another woman and was no longer taking
care of her and her children. I inform the callers of their legal rights
and tell them where to turn, should they want to exercise them. But
many women just want to tell their story again and again. It makes them
feel better.”
…

regards

A totally barbaric case where a glimmer of light can (may) be seen. A sixteen year old tortured for 40 days with all the accused except the prime mover acquitted of all charges. Then came the log-term mental toruture where she was accused of being a “deviant girl.”

The only difference with the re-appeal is the ghost of Nirbhaya, which forced the Supreme court to scrutinize her case (after it had been lying idle for an unbelievable period of 8 years [ref wiki]).  

This poor girl can thank that poor girl for a bit of justice that may be flowing after such a long dry season.

24
accused in the Suryanelli rape case have been held guilty of gang rape
by Kerala high court on Friday after a rehearing in the case. All the 24 were acquitted 9 years ago by another division bench of the court.

The mass acquittal was challenged in the Supreme Court, which ordered re-hearing in the case last year.

It was on January 31 last year that the apex court had set aside the
high court’s mass acquittal in the rape case and had asked the high
court to take a fresh look at the case.

A division bench comprising Justice KT Sankaran and Justice ML Joseph
Francis pronounced its judgment today after completing fresh hearing.

The case relates to the abduction of a 16-year-old girl (16 years, 3
months, and 23 days as on January 16, 1996) from her school hostel at
Suryanelli in Idukki district on January 16, 1996 by a bus conductor,
first accused Raju, in the guise of love.

She was then handed
over by the conductor to second accused Usha and Dharmarajan and was
transported from place to place in Kerala and Tamil Nadu for 40 days.
During the 40-day period, she was presented to 41 men and was raped 67
times, until she was released on the morning of February 26, 1996. She
was transported for over 3,000 kilometres by the gang during the rapes.

Charges against the accused included rape, kidnapping, criminal
conspiracy, wrongfully concealing abducted person, selling minor girl,
procuration of minor girl, and gang rape.

On September 2, 2000,
a sessions court at Kottayam had convicted 35 of the accused to undergo
prison sentences ranging from 4 to 13 years and had acquitted four
persons.

A total of 40 persons had faced trial in the case,
which included 9 businessmen, 2 advocates, 2 railway employees, 3
vehicle brokers, 1 mechanic, 1 policeman, 5 drivers, 1 professor, 1
clerk, 5 coolies, 6 farmers, 1 bus conductor, 1 nurse, and sex worker
Usha who pimped the girl.

As the main accused Dharmarajan was
absconding, he faced trial separately later on. He was convicted and
sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001. Considering appeals
filed by convicts, a division bench of the high court had, on January
20, 2005, acquitted all the accused except Dharmarajan. He was convicted
only for procuration of minor girl, and not for rape. His sentence was
modified to 4 years of rigorous imprisonment from life imprisonment by
the high court.

Considering state government’s appeal, a
special bench of the apex court dealing with crimes against women had
set aside the high court’s judgment and had ordered a fresh hearing on
the appeals by the high court on January 31 last year.

State
government had assigned director general of prosecution T Asaf Ali to
present the prosecution’s case. A total of 27 appeals were filed by the
convicts, including prime accused Dharmarajan, through advocate George
Kutty Mathew. Hearing of the appeals had begun on March 13 last year.
……

regards

He was a dead poor, rural boy whose mother was a rag-picker. He defied fate (and logic) by marching into the Indian Institute of Technology and then on to USA and had been an active supporter of the Obama campaign. However, now his homeland has called and he has returned to assist Arvind Kejriwal to achieve their (common) dream of a corruption free (less?) India. A true patriot, India needs many more of such bright, young stars who may one day grow into an(other) Ambedkar.

Much better than a few other disadvantaged people who grew too big too fast (and became too greedy and had to pay for their sins).
…
It’s
not often that the son of a dalit agricultural labourer from
Maharashtra’s farm suicide belt, whose mother once worked as a rag-picker
on the streets of Mumbai, makes it as an entrepreneur in America and
provides healthcare consultancy to the governments of New York,
Washington and New Jersey.

What are the odds that such a man
will throw up a life in New Jersey after a decade in the US to return to
his dusty village in rural Marathwada? That’s a question Aam Aadmi
Party’s Jalna candidate, Deelip Mhaske, is best suited to answer.

Mhaske (35) is a Dalit candidate contesting the elections from an open
seat in a Maratha stronghold, a rarity of sorts for Indian politics.
While Mhaske is no stranger to elections, having actively supported the
Obama campaign, the murky world of Maharashtra politics came as a bit of
a shock to him. His political opponents have used both his caste and
his US stint against him, calling him an outsider.

Some of his
campaigns have been disrupted by rowdy elements shouting casteist slurs
at him. He says other political parties have openly distributed alcohol
in the district to buy votes.

Mhaske, though, is no stranger to
challenges. When he made it to IIT Bombay for a degree in planning and
development, he doubled up as a construction labourer, while his mother
worked as a ragpicker to make ends meet. “I once landed up at a building
where my classmate lived in order to carry out some construction work.
That’s when she discovered for the first time that I worked as a
construction labourer,” he says.

Post IIT, a research paper he
wrote was selected for a conference at the University of Pennsylvania
where he got a scholarship to do his PhD. Mhaske, who went on to set up
his own outpatient clinic for mental health patients, also had a degree
in health sciences from Harvard Business School. He has been a
healthcare consultant with the governments of New York, New Jersey and
Washington.

His early success may have something to do with the
Central government scholarship he got at the age of 10, which gave him
entry to Navodaya Vidyalaya, one amongst a chain of schools that
provides quality education across India to talented children in rural
areas.

Mhaske has been intricately linked with India’s
anti-corruption movements, both while at IIT as well as during his
career in the US. “I have been an active member of Jayprakash Narayan’s
Lok Satta party in Hyderabad, and was involved in setting up a chapter
of the party in Maharashtra,” says Mhaske, adding that he had been a
part of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption in 2003, as a student
at IIT, well-before Hazare shot to fame on the national arena.

While in the US, Mhaske joined the Aam Aadmi Party the day it was
launched and has worked on several campaigns, both online and offline,
to garner support for the party. “I’ve always felt the need to enter
politics in order to better the system. This is why I have supported
good parties such as AAP and Lok Satta,” says Mhaske.

…
regards