MONTH THAT WAS

Jaipur Foot chief patron awarded

New Delhi: D R Mehta, founder and chief patron of an organisation that popularized the Jaipur Foot, has been selected for the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award this year, the Award Committee announced. The Award, which carries a citation and a cash award of Rs 5 lakh, is being given to Mehta, also a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, for this outstanding contribution towards promotion of communal harmony, peace and goodwill. In 1975, Mehta set up the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), a charity based in Jaipur that provides artificial legs for the poor.

SC slams MP Govt for inaction

New Delhi: The Supreme Court slammed the Madhya Pradesh government for showing laxity in handling alleged cases of illegal clinical drug trials after the state administration failed to file its response to a public interest litigation against the menace.
“Human life is sacred…people are dying every day and human beings continue to be treated like pigs for the purposes of clinical trials. This is most unfortunate,” said a bench headed by RM Lodha. Granting eight weeks time to the Centre for filling a comprehensive report, the bench said: “There cannot be any compromise on an issue like this”.

Parsi woman delivers 11 baby boys in one go

New Delhi: At a time when many couples are remaining issueless and the government is pumping in huge money for the community to have more children so as to stop the fast depletion of its population, the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) could not resist from posting on its website the news of a Parsi woman in Surat giving birth to 11 baby boys in one go on February 6 this year.

It also carried photos of the 25-year-old Roda Cooper and her offsprings, with a report, saying the woman should be listed in Guinness Book of World Records.

Doctors were really surprised, shocked and glad to have a successful delivery the report added.

Goa church going Indian-for dress code !!

Panaji: Basilica de Bom Jesus, the most visited church in Goa, which contains the relics of St Francis Xavier, has decided to install sign-boards requesting visitors to wear decent clothes. Fr Savio Barretto, rector of the Basilica, told that the church management had a meeting with the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), in which it was decided to install signboards requesting visitors to dress properly rather than imposing ban on scantily-clad guests. The parishioner of the church had objected to the “inappropriately” dressed tourists, who usually come during the masses and there were suggestions that such tourists should not be allowed to visit the church. Barretto said that, imposing ban on scantily clad tourists might offend them. “First, we will install the signboard and see,” he said adding that Church would be careful in using the right words on the signboard so that the tourists are not hurt. The Church authorities, for now, have appointed few staffers who would check whether tourists are properly dressed. 

London didn’t change this Paki

London: In a widely followed case of honour killing in Britain, a Pakistan-origin couple was held guilty of murdering their teenaged daughter who allegedly brought shame to the family due to her westernised lifestyle.

Shafilea Ahmed, 17, was missing from her home in Warrington, Cheshire in 2003 and was found dead on the banks of the River Kent in Cumbria six months later.

Her parents, Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and Farzana Ahmed, 49, had denied her murder but the jury at Chester Crown Court returned guilty verdicts against them both after a three-months trial.

A taxi driver, Ahmed had earlier claimed that Shafilea ran away from home in the middle of the night and that he never saw her again.

The two had suffocated Shafilea with a plastic bag in an apparent “honour killing” because she had allegedly brought shame on the family. Shafilea’s sister Alesha, had told the jury that her parents had pushed her on to the settee in their house and she heard her mother say “Just finish it here”. The parents had often clashed Shafilea over her westernised lifestyle, and had objected to her wearing the same clothes as her white friends, rather than traditional Pakistan dress.

In 2003, she was allegedly forced to travel to Pakistan, where she was expected to marry a man more than 10 years her senior.

In desperation Shafelia swallowed bleach badly burning her throat and causing the man to call off the marriage, declaring she was “damaged goods”. 

She returned to Britain but went missing from the family home in September 2003.

Her parents were arrested in connection with the murder but police were unable to find enough evidence to prosecute.

But the breakthrough came in 2010 when another of their daughters, Alesha, was arrested for organising robbery at the family home. Alesha confessed to police that she had witnessed her parents attack and kill Shafilea. The couple are likely to be sentenced later.

When Justice was delivered, not just judgement

Chennai: In a significant ruling, the Madras High Court has quashed criminal charges pending against a 19-year-old college girl who had killed her father when he attempted to molest her.

Allowing an appeal from the girl (name withheld) to quash criminal proceedings pending against her at a court in Sriperumbudur, an industrial town near Chennai, Justice S. Nagamuthu said “What was attempted to be done to the petitioner (by her father) was an unbearable and intolerable violence. The petitioner was justified in killing her father or otherwise, she would have fallen a victim of rape or in the efforts she would have lost her life. In view of this, I am inclined to quash the proceedings,”

The judge quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s work in the book “Harijan” and said “when a woman is assaulted, she may not stop to think in terms of himsa (violence) or ahimsa (non violence). Her primary duty is self-protection. She is at liberty to employ every method or means that come to her mind to defend her honour. God has given her nails and teeth. She must use them with all her strength and if need be, die in the efforts.”

In May last year, the girl’s inebriated father had attempted to rape her when she was alone at home. The stunned girl took a knife and stabbed him thrice on the abdomen as a result of which he died. Subsequently, police had arrested the girl and criminal proceedings were started in the trial court. 

Hearing her appeal, the High Court pointed out that the prosecution itself had acknowledged that the girl’s father who was supposed to protect her modesty had exhibited animal instincts and attempted to rape her. 

“The petitioner had acted only in exercise of her right to private defence to save her modesty and life. Hence she is entitled to the benefit of provisions under Sections 96 and 100 of the Indian Penal Code,” Justice Nagamuthu said. 

Holding that no offence was made out for conducting trial, he said it would not be lawful to allow the trial to go on as it would be a wasteful exercise. Besides allowing the hapless girl to undergo the ordeal of trial would be a serious human rights violation. 

“Therefore, if the court is satisfied that no offence is committed by the petitioner, then, it is appropriate for this court to quash the proceedings,” the judge concludes.