Just a few days back, the Union Cabinet passed a Bill called the Foreign Educational Institution (Regulation of Entry and Operation) Bill, 2010 which empowers Foreign Universities to setup their campuses in India. This is a Bill that seeks to regulate the functioning of these Foreign Universities in India, something that was not on the cards, given some of the challenges that the Government was facing in its other legislative actions. And, this is a sensitive subject, with a lot of opposition to the Government in this action, from the Communist Parties, from other parties, and from within the Government itself. There was a plan to bring the Bill to Parliament in the first term of the UPA, but given the dependence of the Government on the Communist Parties, the Bill was dropped at that time, and the concept had been in cold storage ever since then.
The Bill will allow foreign educational institutions to set up their campus within India, and be treated as private universities. They will have certain freedoms to make it more attractive for them to set up shop here in India, such as:
- The foreign institutions will be allowed to set their own fees, like other private institutions; this should enable students who want to get the level of teaching in these institutions to get this cheaper by joining the India campus rather than making a beeline for the foreign campuses (it is expected that the fees here will be cheaper than in the US or other countries)
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The Women’s Reservation Bill, a long pending legislation, was finally brought into Parliament for voting, and it produced the anticipated furore. The Government (and the previous BJP Government) had long dithered over getting in the bill to vote, worried about the impact of the Bill on their supporting parties. For example, even though the Government has a majority in the Lok Sabha and in the Rajya Sabha, it is a wafer thin majority and has a comfort level in terms of support from the BSP, the RJD and the SP. All these parties are primarily the parties of the oppressed classes and remain very worried that a Bill which ensures the reservation of seats for women will be primarily cornered by women from the classes that are not part of their supporting bases and which will cut into their possible seats. Hence, they produce a vociferous reaction to the Bill and couch it in terms of asking for a reservation for OBC’s and Muslims in the Bill, and hope that such a demand will make the Bill infeasible. In the past, such protests (along with an implicit push back by male MP’s in the main parties – the Congress and the BJP) have worked to derail attempts to pass the legislation.
It is only in this session that the Congress, inspired (and pushed) by Sonia Gandhi (along with all the political calculations required for the passing of such a controversial bill) has made a push to get the bill passed, and after a initial push in the Rajya Sabha on World Women’s Day (where the expected protests did materialize and derailed the Government’s attempts), the Government pushed to get the Bill passed on the next day; for this purpose and for suppressing the protests, the Government even used Marshals to push out some of the unruly MP’s.
Chief Justice of India makes a different suggestion – let rape victim marry the accused if she wants
Typically in India, the criminal justice system has not been handling the crime of rape very well. The confidentiality of victims is not maintained by either the media or by the judicial system, cases take a long time to happen (if you leave aside the fast track cases, which are an exception); the medical examination in the police process or the cross examination in the courtroom are not fully cognizant of ensuring that the victim’s sensitivities are kept in mind (with some cross examination being distinctly hostile, in some cases, implying that the victims were asking for it). Then, when the actual case is going on, natural principles of justice are given a go-by; this happens when the testimony of the alleged victim is enough to incriminate the accused (with the moralistic attitude that no lady would accuse rape unless it was true). However, this is not enough, since such a slant in favor of the alleged victim can be mis-used in many cases (with judges and courts getting swayed by the testimony of a defenceless victim and deciding to convict the dastardly villain even if the circumstances are questionable and the evidence is not enough to convict the accused beyond a reasonable level of doubt).
One area where morality and law were setting out on a conflict was in terms of a future relationship. The morality in India says that because the honor of the victim has been sullied, no one will take her, and maybe it is easiest for everybody if she marries the accused (and any child that may be born of the crime also has the natural father). This has been objected to very strongly by many organizations, by the courts, and by the media, since this assumption of a loss in honor of the victim, along with the effort to marry her off, would imply that she has no self-respect; further, this does not take into account the fact that she had been subject to an incredible humiliation by the accused, and that any person who did this to her could not be trusted with her future. He would be just trying to save himself from a sentence, and once free, would be free to subject her to more torture and even forced sexual interaction. Courts have also been refusing to entertain such requests by the accused in rape cases and throwing out their efforts.