Archive
Reuters blog archive
from The Human Impact:
Extreme measures to “protect” daughters in India
Gurpreet Singh is a determined man. But he is an even more concerned father.
The 32-year-old investment adviser is leaving India and migrating to Australia. There is nothing new in that -- tens of thousands of professional Indians emigrate every year.
Unlike most of them, Singh’s reason for leaving is not the pursuit of greater economic returns, but a search for something increasingly perceived by parents to be lacking in India -- security for their daughters.
It was the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi last December that jolted Singh, like millions of middle-class urban Indians, and awakened him to the brutalities women and girls face in this largely patriarchal country.
Since then he has been exposed to a torrent of daily news reports of the molestation, abduction and rape of women, and even more worryingly, of young girls, upsetting him so much that he felt he had little option but to fill in the Australian visa forms for himself, his wife and his three-year-old daughter.
from Alison Frankel:
Scalia: Judiciary suffers when private lawyers stay off the bench
If there's one theme that ran through U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's interview Monday with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler, it's that words matter. Time and time again, Scalia and Bryan Garner, the co-author with Scalia of the book Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, endorsed originalism and textualism, doctrines that demand judges stick to interpreting the words in front of them rather than attempting to divine legislative intent or (heaven forbid!) imposing their own policy agendas. According to Garner and Scalia, textualism is a sure-footed guide, regardless of where it leads.
"A textualist will frequently end up with -- an uncomfortable result. With a result that feels bad," Garner said, according to a transcript of the interview, which he also participated in. "That's the funny thing. The judges who are not textualists will essentially always do what they consider to be the better policy. But textualists will frequently decide cases that they think, 'Wow, it's a shame I have to do this.'"
from India Insight:
Women culpable for domestic assault? Judges believe so
By Annie Banerji
The country that has a woman president, four women chief ministers and has generated the likes of internationally renowned actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi hasn’t scored too well when it comes to the condition of the fairer sex.
The Indian government released census data on Thursday that said every 14th girl child born in India dies before she can celebrate her fifth birthday. The March Census 2011 revealed a highly skewed gender ratio with the lowest level of child sex ratio (number of girls per 1,000 boys below five years of age) in the country’s history -- 914 from 927 in 2001.
from India Insight:
Has the judiciary been a let-down?
A former Chief Minister of Karnataka sparked off a controversy in the 1990s by comparing the country's legislative, executive, judiciary and the fourth estate to four pall-bearers of India's democracy.
Many would have disagreed with the cynicism the comments displayed, especially regarding the judiciary.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Sentenced to death: On Pakistan’s minorities
Earlier this year I asked someone who had been a senior minister in the government of Pakistan why the country could not change laws which discriminated against minorities. I asked the question because more than 80 people from the minority Ahmadi sect had just been killed in two mosques in Lahore, which at the time served as a wake-up call of the dangers of growing religious intolerance in Pakistan.
His answer was unhesitating. You could not possibly do something like that in Pakistan.
from India Insight:
INTERVIEW – Supreme Court lawyer on Khushboo case
Pinky Anand, counsel for actress Khushboo in the Supreme Court, spoke to Reuters about the case and how the verdict would have a far-reaching impact.
from Funds Hub:
All pensions are equal, but some are more equal than others
Ever agreed with George Orwell's sarcastic vision of equality? If you are nodding, you will not be surprised to hear that the same wide range of equality degrees applies to pensions.
Take public pension employees; some say the fact they are entitled to a pension equivalent to a percentage of their wages, no matter what markets/economic cycles are up to, makes them "pension aristocracy". Some companies' executives share the same exalted fate but most UK workers are today part of the pension plebs, enrolled in defined contribution pension schemes, which pay out only what the markets have delivered.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan: Through the eye of a needle
For the first time in many months, the future of Pakistan is being determined not in the fight against Islamist militants, but within its institutions -- its judiciary, its political parties, its government and its military. Last week's decision by the Supreme Court to strike down a 2007 amnesty given to politicians and bureaucrats has provided Pakistan with a rare opportunity to remodel itself as a civilian democracy based on the rule of law. But the way forward is so fraught with difficulties that assessments of its chances of success are at best sober, at worst ominous.
The court decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) affects some 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats on a list of those who had been covered by the amnesty, including the defence and interior ministers. President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, but remains protected by presidential immunity. Such was the upheaval created by the ruling that foreign exchange markets were briefly shaken last week by unfounded rumours of a military coup. The real impact is likely to be more slow-burning.
from India Masala:
Jail: Avoid this three-hour sentence
Fortunately or unfortunately, I rented a DVD of Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" last weekend, watching this landmark film for the umpteenth time. So when I went in to watch "Jail", expectations were high.
Obviously, Madhur Bhandarkar's "Jail" is not a patch on Andy and Red's story but it doesn't even qualify as a gripping entertainer, mainly because of a sloppy script and characters who might as well have been caricatures.
from India Insight:
Justice no longer delayed: Moily’s roadmap for reform
If Law Minister Veerappa Moily has his way, horror stories of years, even decades, spent waiting for a court verdict may soon be a thing of the past.
In an interview to a national daily this week, Moily said his ministry is planning to set up 5,000 new courts in the next three years, each working in three shifts to clear a backlog of 27.4 million cases pending in trial courts.
