The Aruna Shanbaug case: SC rejects plea
UPDATE: The Supreme Court in its judgement on Monday rejected the euthanasia plea of Aruna Shanbaug, who has been lying in a vegetative state for 37 years following a sexual assault on her.
Euthanasia in various forms is legal in some countries with safeguards, but has been criticised.
There are instances when patients are mistaken to be in a vegetative state though they are conscious of their surroundings but unable to draw attention to their condition. This is described as the Locked-in Syndrome.
But a misdiagnosis cannot be reversed once life support is withdrawn and the patient is no more.
In India, there are also concerns that legalised euthanasia can be misused.
In its judgement, the Supreme Court rejected a plea to stop force-feeding Aruna Shanbaug. But it also said that doctors and nurses could petition to withdraw life support under special circumstances, in a sense allowing “passive euthanasia“.
Do you think the Supreme Court should have allowed Aruna the right to die? Share your views.
Rough justice as woman kills politician she accused of rape
An alleged rape and a violent stabbing left an Indian politician dead and a 40-year-old woman in police custody on Tuesday night, as Rupam Pathak reportedly took the law into her own hands to avenge 18-month-old sexual assault charges. Bihar state legislator Raj Kishore Kesri was killed in his own home before an audience of dozens by a mother of two after charges first lodged in May 2010 against the four-time representative were reportedly dropped “under duress” from Kesri and his associates.
Pathak will almost certainly be sent to jail for her premeditated crime, after appearing to take what she considered the only option available to punish the man she says raped her.
A local school owner, Pathak was beaten by Kesri’s supporters after the stabbing, and as she was taken to hospital reportedly shouted: “Don’t take me for treatment. Hang me. I don’t want to live anymore. Nobody knows what I have been through.”
In India, the world’s largest democracy, it can often seem that high-powered politicians are outside the rule of law.
A disturbing graphic in Wednesday’s Mail Today newspaper details numerous state politicians and ministers from across India who continue to walk free despite substantial charges of rape and murder.
In Bihar’s neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, a young girl languishes in jail on theft charges lodged by Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi, a state politician who, as she told police on Tuesday, raped her twice before his aides beat her in the local police station after she was framed for stealing from his home.
Bihar’s deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told a press conference that Pathak had been attempting to blackmail Kesri for some time: “The police probe, ordered by the government, would unravel the mystery as well as the motive behind the sex slur and slaying.”
This is India Political System at her best. The Indian politician, usually, is of little Education; and if He should have some, then the Degree is of little value regarding his Occupation. Ignorant, Amoral Troglodytes running India as they have been ever since the Moghuls…
An easier end to unhappy marriages in India?
India’s cabinet this week cleared a proposal to amend the Hindu Marriage Act to allow “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” as a ground for divorce.
The amendment had been resisted earlier and been pending for nearly three decades now. Other grounds for divorce, which can take anywhere from six months to 20 years, include cruelty, desertion and adultery.
The amendment, if approved by parliament, will make divorce easier for estranged couples, experts say, particularly in cases where a partner is deliberately delaying proceedings. Even family courts are notoriously ineffective and insensitive when it comes to separation, with judges often admonishing the woman to be more “adjusting” or offering advice thinly disguised as rulings.
The proposed amendment gives women, who are sometimes forced into marriage, an easier way to end an unhappy marriage and provides some safeguards against harassment.
Some counsellors have warned against making divorce too easy, lest couples do not even attempt to reconcile differences.
But others say the recognition that the divorce process must be easier only reflects the present day reality: while the divorce rate in India, at about 1.1 percent, is among the lowest in the world, it is ticking up, particularly in cities, where women tend to be more financially independent and where divorce is seen as more acceptable in a country where there is still a big stigma attached to it.
Indian laws have often trailed reality; indeed, the courts have stepped in to resolve matters such as a higher marriage age, and more recently, legalising live-in relationships and homosexual relations.
The ammendment gurantees half of the assets of the husband for the wife regardless of her conduct. So tommorrow if the wife deserts the husband within 1-2 years , she still gets on the benifits.As the author rightly said the ammendment would be know to the upwardly mobile , economically independent women. So this means, there is clear scope for gross misuse here. While the traditional wife would not be evernaware , those unscruplous women who have no serious intention or respect for marriage would use it as a tool to earn quick and large amount of money by marrying, and causing a divorce within say 1-2 years.
Environmentalists cheer news of scrapping of power project
Environmentalists are hailing news that India’s ministry of environment and forests has scrapped a proposed power plant by Larsen & Toubro in eastern India close to a nesting ground for endangered Olive Ridley turtles.
But Greenpeace is quick to point out that there are ports proposed near all of Orissa’s mass nesting areas, and that these should be denied permission, as well.
It is a tough fight, one that is pitting environmentalists, tribals and villagers against large companies and government agencies keen on tapping resources and building infrastructure to keep pace with India’s robust growth.
The fate of dozens of mining projects, power plants, ports, even highways and special economic zones will be determined by India’s ministry of environment and forests, with reports every day of protests that have sometimes turned violent.
Like in mineral-rich Orissa state, where hundreds of indigenous people are battling to stop London-listed miner Vedanta Resources from extracting bauxite from what they say is their sacred mountain, in an eerie echo of the blockbuster “Avatar” movie.
Vedanta says it needs the ore to feed a refinery it has already built at the foot of the hills, and which will bring greater prosperity to the impoverished area.
India has some of the strictest environmental norms, but its failing has often been lack of implementation and lack of penalty for those breaking the law.
I think it is essential to take the middle path, bearing in mind that you cannot make an omelet without breaking any eggs. There will always be somebody or group that is adversely affected but that has to be then set off against the greater good, whatever that may be.
I think that what is primarily required is the need to have more comprehensive dialogues from the very beginning and for those involved not to take an uncompromising stand. Left only to the environmentalists, we would probably have to regress to the stone age and start living in caves again. Everything else either pollutes, or has a carbon signature, or displaces people or creates some problems for some people. I think awareness is spreading, albeit slowly, and that such problems very often get politicised and then there is simply no solution in sight.
Why not make a rule, that if something essential cannot be located somewhere, then those opposing or refusing permission to operate must also have a suitable alternate site.
Moral brigade, media trials and law
In what is being seen as a significant judgement, India’s apex court recently dismissed all charges against south Indian actress Khushboo for her alleged remarks on pre-marital sex in a 2005 magazine interview.
The Supreme Court said her comments were her personal view and that she was entitled to express them.
Many in the country believe the verdict heralds a welcome but a difficult and slow change. Nevertheless, it reinforces our claim to democracy, secularism and above all freedom of speech and expression, of course with its riders.
But an offshoot of the same verdict also highlights prevalence of two active groups in the country which are substantially contributing to its brand and image.
One is media which drives to act as a facilitator of democracy, welcoming the evolution of society and bringing about changes. Other is the moral brigade which claims to be the preservers of rigid cultures and ethos and refuses to embrace any change.
In its judgement copy of the Khushboo verdict while quashing all 22 criminal cases and denouncing litigators’ plea, the apex court criticises media as well.
The judgement text says the three-judge bench in the Khushboo case was misquoted by electronic and print media on live-in relationships, and that there was no such observation made.
Media today need to get over its obsession with the reporting and highlighting of the negative and the controversial. It need to focus more on development and constructive issues. I have discussed on this need for an image make-over in my blog http://chapter18.wordpress.com/2010/05/1 4/the-mosquito-syndrome/
Thanks
Narayanan
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.
this judgement needs a fuller bench of entire supreme court for review as it has far reaching adverse consequences in the society. human beings have sense and not animals
Role of the media in Jessica Lall case
The Supreme Court has upheld the life term for Manu Sharma who was convicted for the 1999 murder of Jessica Lall.
The case became a cause celebre for the media, helping it grab eyeballs in a decade when private news channels mushroomed in the country.
It even inspired a novel by diplomat Vikas Swaroop, the author of the book on which the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” was based.
The case was something of a pot-boiler where fashion, high society, crime, political influence and media activism came together.
As Jessica Lall’s family heaves a sigh of relief the media too can pat itself on the back.
Or can it?
Hundreds of men and women in suburban India are victims of societal malaise everyday. The media does not highlight their plight. Often it gives precedence to glamour over mundane, uncomfortable reality of everyday life. Let’s not forget that it was a media sting operation that captured on camera a professor of Aligarh Muslim University having sex with a rickshawpuller. It led to his humiliating ouster and death. Largely the Indian media does work for that “perfect story” but on issues that threaten our sovereignty, they do come together as a daunting, cohesive machine.
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.
The Moily ministry’s roadmap for judicial reforms sees court cases resolved in just a year. At present, some cases drag on for 15 years or more.
Also in the pipeline are time limits for delivering verdicts, laptops for trial court judges and retired judges pitching in with their time.
Some say these measures are necessary in a country which suffers from what the Chief Justice of India called a “chronic shortage of judicial officers“.
K.G. Balakrishnan is in favour of appointing more judges and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for quickly filling up High Court vacancies.
The law minister is also looking at reducing the number of cases filed on behalf of the government while others say there is a need to screen the rising number of public interest litigations.
Seems that Veerappa Moily has taken his firs step today and he is letting Quatrocchi go scot free. This is the first speedy disposal of a case. Uncannily, Gandhis are involved.
Should Indian judges be above the law?
India’s law minister on Tuesday was forced to defer the introduction of the Judges (Declaration of Assets and Liabilities) Bill because of strong protests from the opposition as well as his own party members.
For once, they raised their voices in unison against the provision that while judges are required to declare their assets before a designated authority, they are protected from public scrutiny and questioning.
A hotly contested section of the Bill says: “no judge shall be subjected to any inquiry or query in relation to the contents of the declaration by any person”.
Congress party’s own leaders have objected, saying the proposed law could violate the Right to Information Act that has empowered people and helped expose corruption.
It has invited scorn from lawyers, too: well-known lawyer Ram Jethmalani has described it as “a conspiracy in corruption” that would make people suspicious of the judiciary and places the latter “on a higher pedestal than any other public servant in the country”.
Law Minister Veerappa Moily has said the government was working on more comprehensive judicial reforms and that this was only a first step.
But until then, should our revered judges deserve special treatment? Why should they be above the law that governs other people in power and, indeed, the rest of the country?
It will be interesting to see the assets of CJI K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice Sadasivam. I am sure Sadasivam will disclose only a fraction of his wealth earned through his community persons – Gounders. Shame on Indian judiciary.
Ambani rivalry spills over at shareholder meeting
Anil Ambani on Tuesday used an annual shareholders’ meeting to lay into his older brother and the government for good measure, over the issue of gas pricing which is at the heart of the most recent spat between the fighting Ambani brothers.
Anil charged Reliance Industries, India’s top private-sector conglomerate run by estranged brother Mukesh, had used every trick in the book, and some outside the book, to feed its “greed”, and was firing from the shoulder of the oil ministry that he claimed was being “partisan”.
The 90-minute diatribe livened up what threatened to be an otherwise staid shareholders’ meeting, with accusations, pleas, emotions, tears and the inevitable invocations of the father, founder Dhirubhai Ambani, whose death helped bring the feud between the two brothers out in the open. All peppered with energetic cries of support from shareholders.
The dispute next comes up for hearing at the Supreme Court on Sept. 1.
Leaving aside the legal issues, was it right for Anil to have used a shareholders’ meeting to wash the family’s dirty linens and take potshots at the government? Certainly, there are implications for the company’s earnings and therefore shareholder value. But does that make it OK to discuss a matter that is sub-judice?
The two brothers have fought before in the full glare of the media spotlight, and are quite likely to do so again. Anil has already given interviews to all major newspapers stating his stand, signalling that the gloves are off in this stage of the Ambani battle.
Is this the start of a new season for shareholders’ meetings? We’ve often bemoaned the lack of shareholder activism in India, but clearly a big family business like the Ambani’s thinks nothing of using a shareholder meeting to air grievances against a sibling.
It is true that Gas is a Nation’s property… but most in India would have preferred the government to be supportive of lower gas prices rather than higher prices and the is not in any way adding to its credibility
if the SC cannot grant what the victim wants,due to various reasons it can order some govt help..