The world over, different countries have different concepts revolving around homosexuality. There are states in the United States that have made marriage between homosexuals as having the same legal sanctity as that between a man and a woman, there are other states where this is a matter of huge debate and controversy (with the Catholic and Protestant churches being against it), countries in parts of Europe are liberal while those where the Church has a stronger influence are less likely, and there are the Islamic countries where the concept is abhorrent - forget marriage between homosexuals, even the concept of a relationship was unacceptable (for example, in Iraq, insurgents would target homosexuals for murder).
What about the thought of homosexuality in a country such as India, which has a long history, and where there is a lot of debate even among historians about whether homosexuality was prevalent in the past. India, till today, had a law called Section 377, that made homosexuality a crime (even among consenting adults). This law meant that even among groups with a higher risk pattern for AIDS (such as gays), it was difficult to really follow anti-AIDS programs since a number of people would hide their homosexuality, or not be open about it.
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It is common knowledge that Dalits in India were a oppressed lot (and still are), being treated as a political base by the Congress party. It was the emergence of Kanshi Ram, who resigned from his Government service and setup the Bahujan Samaj Party for giving the Dalits a voice. In our modern word, it is hard to believe that a politician would not have ulterior motives for doing what he did, and it was not easy to understand fully the acts of Kanshi Ram, but his actions (including the fact that he did not actively seek any political power for himself) lead to a suggestion that he did in fact not hanker for power for himself.
It was Kanshi Ram who started the process of making the Dalits believe that they could wield political power, and as a part of taking this process forward Kanshi Ram handed over the actual power wielding to Mayawati (wikipedia). It has been Mayawati who has taken the party much further in its quest to become a major political power in the country, starting with the critical state of Uttar Pradesh. It is also true that among the urban class, there is a certain negative feeling against Mayawati.
There are several sections of India that are semi-controlled by the Red Army, by the Naxalites. When I mean semi-controlled, it essentially means that they are regions where Naxalites and Maoists can move around without much fear of being encountered by security forces, and where they can in turn strike at state presence such as Government officers and police stations. Lalgarh is one such region, located in Bengal that seems to be in the control of ultra-left forces (need to make the distinction, since West Bengal is actually ruled by a Left / Communist party which is the enemy of the ultra-left forces).
Many states have declared the Maoists as an illegal force, with West Bengal being a notable exception (maybe because it would be hard for a Communist party to justify calling another Communist leaning organization as illegal). However, it really cannot continue to have a condition where a region of the state is a no-go zone for arms of the State. If they let such a situation continue, the CPM sets itself up to be a target of media all over the country, they let a situation fester where the Maoists have time to consolidate and again target other CPM regions, they are under pressure from the Center to take some action, and so on. So, finally, the combined forces of the state police, specialized force called COBRA, and the para-military forces seem to be having success in their operation to the extent that the Maoists leaders are willing to talk peace now (link to article):
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One reads in the newspaper all the time about some accident whereby a person gets injured due to rash or negligent driving by the driver of a vehicle (in numerous cases, this rash driving would be done by the driver of a bus or truck, and because of the size and weight of this large vehicle, the injuries would be serious, or even death could occur). In such cases, a person (or his dependents) can claim compensation from either the driver / owner of the vehicle, or from the insurance company that had provided insurance to the vehicle. Such claims need to be filed under the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal, which assesses the loss of employment income along with extent of injury and accordingly provides compensation (some compensation is also provided in the cases where the fault of the driver cannot be proved). These cases can also be taken to higher courts if either party is unsatisfied with the award of the Tribunal (link to article):
The Delhi Development Authority had developed a huge number of flats in the Indian capital, and settled large sections of the capital (as per its mandate). However, experiences of people vary in terms of the customer-friendly nature of the Authority. For example, the Authority has been known to delay in handing over properties, land, and is famed for the level of corruption. Raids on its officers have always managed to net people involved in corruption, and it is common knowledge that getting a file to move in the DDA headquarters is a fairly difficult task. So, it is not uncommon to hear of people, even though they have been allotted a flat by the DDA, facing huge amounts of problems in actually getting the paperwork and physical allocation. It is to solve such problems that people are increasingly taking the help of instruments such as consumer forums and courts, and these institutions are indeed helping out people (link to article):
NEW DELHI: The National Consumer Commission has held the DDA guilty of causing mental agony to a woman who was not handed over possession of a flat for nine years and asked it to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation. The Commission, comprising Justice R C Jain and member Anupam Dasgupta, also asked the housing agency to pay interest to allottee Prabhati at the rate of 15% on Rs 8.59 lakh for the period between 1998 to 2005.
“In the facts and circumstances of the case, we hold that the delays in issuing the letter of possession of the flat and in delivering its possession are instances of gross misfeasance in the DDA,” the Commission said, adding that it was an “inexplicable and deliberate” delay by the authority. The panel passed the order on DDA’s plea challenging the Delhi Consumer Commission’s direction to it, asking the agency to pay the allottee Rs 50,000 compensation and Rs 2,500 cost.
This is not the first time such a judgment has been passed on the DDA, which has been held guilty in many previous such cases of causing agony to people who have been successful in winning flats, and then being forced to wait for long periods before getting possession. And yet a systematic cleanup of the DDA does not seem like a possibility, given the vested interests involved.
When the results for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha (Parliament) elections were out, everybody was surprised by the scope of the Congress victory. The Left would have been shell-shocked by the scope of their reduction in seats and dramatic bad run in both West Bengal and Kerala, but it was the BJP that was most badly affected. The BJP, which once ruled India for 5 years, had just lost its second general elections (and both of them were lost under the leadership of Lal Krishna Advani - this election was his last attempt to be the Prime Minister of India, since he would be too old the next time).
For the first few weeks after the election, it seemed like the BJP was literally in shell-shock, the party quickly resisted a half-hearted attempt by Advani to resign as the leader of the party (given that there is no clear demarcated second line leader - the presumed next generation leader, Modi, could not carry his state to a complete sweep (which was almost a rejection for him), and all the others are in full fighting mode, it would have been difficult for the party to select a new leader agreeable to all). Murli Manohar Joshi tried to stake a brief claim, but that was quickly thwarted.
When the Congress Government came back to power with an enhanced mandate and higher numbers (and consequently, a less dependence on allies to make up its numbers), the markets welcomed the step, with people talking about a re-start of the earlier stalled divestment process. In fact, with the amount of money that the Government has committed towards its ambitious social welfare programs, it needs to arrange for large sums of money to fund these programs. The disinvestment program seems a good way to arrange money for these programs. However, not everything seems to be going the same way for the Congress; even though the allies are lower in number, the opposition from them is still prevalent.
Right now, the 2 main allies of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress of Mamta Banerjee, and the DMK of Karunanidhi seem to have problems with the policy of disinvestment. The DMK is opposed to the policy of disinvestment for those Public Sector Units that are located in Tamil Nadu (these PSU’s are a source of public patronage, and the DMK needs to ensure that continuous patronage opportunities remain). The poltician belonging to DMK and Karunanidhi’s daughter, Kanimozhi, made a statement against the process of disinvestment as well (link to article):
We are typically more sympathetic to the concerns and feelings of differently abled people (or who used to be called as handicapped people), and one expects that Government departments, who act as enablers for providing support and services to the citizenry of this country, would also act the same way for differently abled citizens. However, it is no surprise that Government departments are as unconcerned to these special citizens as they are towards normal citizens. But now, citizens have a weapon to get what they want, and that is using the power of RTI. The RTI Act enables citizens to get information on many aspects of the workings of the Government, and this includes the status of any item pending with the Government, and so it was in this particular case when the citizen used RTI to get the required action (link to article):
For almost a year, Rudrakshi Pandya, a differently-abled was pushed around when she demanded her right to a family pension after her father, a retired headmaster of a city-based school, died few years ago. Rudrakshi, was entitled by the government for a pension, under Gujarat civil services (pension) rules as she was unable to fend for herself. Interestingly, pension department had all the requisite documents, including Rudrakshi’s medical certificate and even the clearance from the district education office.
Getting an internet connection in modern India should be very easy, and it should almost be like a commodity. The customer pays for a connection, and the company provides the connection, and it works with minimum down time. But what do you when the company provides you with a connection that is old, even though you asked for a 1 year connection ? And how do you get to know ? Well, the connection ends and you are told to pay up for the unpaid bills. Furthermore, officials of the company do not treat the customer with due convenience, and instead quote rules even though the fault is the company’s. Well, now we have consumer forums, and even though it may take time, the consumer forums do deliver satisfaction, and allow the consumers to get benefit. Consider this case (link to article):
CHANDIGARH: Finding Reliance Communication deficient in services, UT consumer forum directed it to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation for harassment along with Rs 2,500 as litigation costs to Tejbir Kaur of Sector 46. The forum also added that Reliance was duty bound to adjust Rs 9,345 and Rs 330 received by it.
I wonder how many times people would have noticed things like this. It was just yesterday that I went to 2 different stores - one of them had advertised for a Flat 50% discount (this was a store called Fab Creations in the Cross River Mall in East Delhi), and the other store was the Reebok store in the same mall. The Reebok store had a similar offer, with the different being that the offer was described as ‘Upto 50% off’.
First, we went to the clothes stores, there was no problem whatsoever, the clothes were indeed available at 50% off as a flat rate of discount, and the store was full of people willing to buy (and the people purchasing were not cribbing about the rate having been inflated earlier, a tactic that stores such as Cantabil, Priknit, and Kouton seem to have adopted (I wrote about this earlier - Priknit had jackets at 80% off, but the jacket that would normally have cost Rs. 1500 was priced at Rs. 5000 plus and I walked out in disgust at the horrible anti-consumer attitude of the store owners)). People were satisfied at the purchases, with the price and quality seeming right.