Goa has been going through a period of turmoil for many years now. Given that there are only 40 members in the assembly, and the 2 competing blocs of the Congress and BJP are not far away in terms of distribution of seats, there is the potential for a lot of horse-trading and governments getting over-turned. In the past, the Governor and the speaker would play key roles in fashioning a government as per their political affiliations. However, with the courts and the media getting more attentive on issues of horse-trading and bias shown by the speakers and the governor, the incidence of such misuse had decreased.
Well, no longer, since the current situation on Goa has turned all these beliefs upside down. In a test ordered by the Governor as the first business of the day, the speaker in an interim order disqualified 3 members from voting and with this change, the Congress managed to retain victory. Now, there was a hope that the Congress will provide a stable administration, but those hopes flew out of the window when 3 members moved out of the Congress side. But this action by the speaker on behalf of the Congress has just made things worse. This issue will be sure to go the courts for further decision-making:
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Sometimes the Indian legal system does things which make you wonder. Over the last few years, there have been a series of judgments that have changed the concept of age of marriage and age of consent of sex. My generic understanding, and I would think that of the public is the following:
A female cannot get married until the age of 18, and a male cannot get married until the age of 21. Linked, and yet somewhat separate is the age of consent for having willing sex, which is 18 for both. So a boy of 19 can have a sexual relationship and not yet get married. The corollary to that is the age restrictions, which is that a boy or girl under the age of 18 is considered to be not of the age of consent, and hence not qualified to agree to sex. Put another way, if a boy or girl under the age of 18 has sex, then the law would believe that even if they had agreed, because it is considered that such agreement could have been under an influence and hence invalid, a rape has occurred.
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After the Domestic Violence Law was enacted, there was immense controversy about whether the law would help save the fate of innumerable women who face dowry claims, who face abuse in their households over whether they they give birth to male children vs. female children, and about their overall status in the household. Sadly, a lot of this abuse is also directed at them from other females in the household; or whether the law would end up being misused. No clear answers, but 2 separate stories. As an example, read this article:
It is a horror story of sorts. Two Vadodara women, who could not bear the macabre torture meted out to them by their husband for not bearing a son, have escaped to Ahmedabad to get their gut-wrenching tale heard and dealt with.
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