Laws, Legislation & Court Verdicts
The Supreme Court has said that a daughter’s right to ancestral property does not arise if the father died before the amendment to Hindu law came into force in 2005. It might seem surprising, but it was only in 2005 that a landmark amendment to The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 was made, where a Hindu woman or girl was allowed to have equal property rights along with her male relatives in ancestral property.
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) called for a ban on the “triple talaq” divorce system, saying it was un-Islamic and outlawed in several Muslim countries. They said, “The Quran gives rights to Muslim women during marriage and does not recognise triple talaq.”
In a major judgement, Allahabad High Court has ruled that a child born out of rape has inheritance rights over the property of the assaulter, and suggested that an appropriate law may be enacted by the legislature to deal with this “complex social issue”.
In Odisha, divorced Muslim women, particularly those belonging to poorer sections of the society, had been granted monthly pension on the basis of the decree of the Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) under the Muslim Women Protection Rights on Divorce Act, 1986. However, this pension amount which started getting credited to their accounts from 2008, suddenly stopped without explanation. So, 616 women have now approached the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC).
Casteism
In Kagganahalli village of Kolar district in Karnataka, since the appointment of Dalit cook in the school, 100 students have left. Apparently, parents are forcing the children to leave because of pressure from the “upper caste” of the village.
“Quoted”
Aditya Puri, the MD & CEO of HDFC Bank just proved himself to be sexist. In an interview with the Economic Times he drew up an analogy comparing a customer to one’s wife. He said, “Customer is your wife and she changes every day…wife ko naraaz karoge toh khana nahi milega.” And we wonder why workplace gender equality is still a distant dream!
Yet another CEO makes a sexist remark, yet it could be termed well-intentioned. ICICI Bank CEO, Chanda Kochar, while discussing lesser women in Business Schools said, “The MBA entrance exams are so quantitative-oriented that it keeps out more and more women from joining the MBA classes. If we were to make the entrance exams more all-rounded you could see more participation.”
Reported Rapes, Threat of Rape, Dowry Deaths & Court Verdicts
A month after a 23-year-old BPO employee was gang-raped in a moving bus, a 19-year-old girl was raped in a mini bus by the driver in Bengaluru rural.
In Warangal, Congress party’s MP candidate Siricilla Rajaiah’s daughter-in-law Sarika & her three sons Abhinav, Ayan and Sriyan were burned to death in a fire. The cause of the fire is unknown, though the husband and both his parents were arrested. It is important to note that Sarika had earlier filed a dowry harassment case against them.
Uber rape case convict Shiv Kumar Yadav was sentenced to life imprisonment till death by a Delhi Court.
The 9 year old survivor of a brutal rape by a 42-year old truck drive at Dumaria in Ranchi, has now returned home and the villagers celebrated her homecoming with songs and garlands.
In Pune, a woman was abused and threatened with rape by her Ola cab driver.
Several cases of rape and child sexual abuse were reported. Some were sentenced on similar cases.
Police Vs. Human Rights
Women from five villages have said that Chhattisgarh Police personnel sexually harassed and assaulted more than 40 of them, and gangraped at least two (including a 14-year old) in the Maoist-hit district of Bijapur.
A video of Mumbai Police at the Andheri station thrashing a screaming couple has surfaced. It records a group of police officers, both men and women, beating up a boy and girl.
Other News
TERI researcher who complained against director-general R K Pachauri, has now resigned from the organization and said that the organization treated her in the worst possible manner and harmed her “mentally, professionally & economically.” However, Pachauri continues to work at TERI as if nothing ever happened. Here is a timeline recording the history of the case and how unfair it has been to the complainant.
Last week, “super-feminist” Kundan Srivastava posted pictures of regular women, shamed them and requested them to not “show-off.” This misogynistic post got a whole lot of attention and shares on Facebook. Well, we just want him to shut up and stop talking about our bodies and our clothes.
The finance ministry has now constituted a committee comprising officials from ministries including women and child development, home affairs, road transport and railways to approve schemes proposed under the Nirbhaya Fund.
In a first, the clerics at Dargah Aala Hazrat at Bareilly will organize a special workshop for Muslim women to make them aware about their rights and the provisions available for divorce and alimony.
According to a new country-specific study by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), women in India represent only 24% of the paid labour force, as against a global average of 40%. Basically, we are doing worse than China and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the study is misleading in many ways since it does not consider the work that women do domestically and actually considers it non-work in a quest to prove how women’s participation in paid work would add to the GDP.
A doctor working at Delhi’s Tihar jail hospital had recently complained to the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) against Gurmeet, a 35-year-old convict serving life sentence for murder, for assaulting her. As a quick remedial measure, the Delhi government transferred 26 women nurses working in the hospital. Basically, even with the police around, it is easier to transfer the women than to find a proper solution to the problem of sexual assault and harassment.
Featured Image Credit: A picture of the Dumaria Rape Survivor as she looks at a presentation | www.hindustantimes.com
