LEGALIZING DOWRY IN INDIA

In the present day India marriage is a commodity which involves buyers and sellers. It is no more a union of two hearts and souls, rather it is union of two families belongs to same social strata. More over it is Social Status, more Dowry means more status in the status. It may be better to LEGALIZE the Dowry. So that Tax can be levied on sellers (Grooms) and exempt buyers (Parents of Brides). When huge sums of finanical transactions are taking plance in the name of Dowry, why not it be bring under the perview of Income Tax. So the added income to the exchequer may be utilized for:

1. performing marriages of poor girls

2. providing incentives to LOVE MARRIAGES and Inter Caste Marriages

3. Establishing Family Courts

4. Constructing Jails for convicted in family crimes and etc.

I feel there is nothing wrong in giving Dowry if brides parents are well placed and are willing to  part some of their wealth to their daughters. Crimes related Dowry may not be accepted, but for the wealthy people Giving Dowry is like Consented act between two adults/familes, where as for the people who can't afford, it is like force. 

Every one should condemn Dowry Deaths and its related Crimes, but at the same time it is our responsibility to not to deprive women from their equal share in the family's property. In the form of Dowry at least women are getting some or more share in the family's property otherwise they will be deprived from the same. 

Even Kanyashulkam (Bride price) also did not bring any justice to the women folk. Rather it created more harm than benefit. So mere Anti dowry campgaing would not bring any benefit to the women in general. It has to be more comprehensive effort and should be based on the understanding of simple to complex social factors.    

SILENCE

Speech needs company

Silence needs solitude

Speech wants conquer others

Silence conquers one self

Speech demands respect

Silence commands it

Speech is self expression

Silence is self experience

Speech is mind bound

Silence is soul bound

Speech dissipates energy

Silence conserves it

Speech is human

Silence is divine

Life is a flower

Silence is fragrance of it

Speech makes your self centered

Silence makes you God centered

Great works are inspired by speech

But

Written in silence

While speech you are heard by creatures

In silence you hear the creator

Speech receives appreciation

Silence receive adoration (Collection) 

TRANSPLANTING IN RED GRAM

Red gram (Pigeonpea) is sometimes grown as a sole crop, but more typically, it is grown in relatively complex systems where it is intercropped, or mixed with other crops. Pigeonpea is generally broadcasted, but line sowing is superior over broadcasting. Broadcasting results in uneven plant population which ultimately results in low yield. In general transplanting of pigeonpea seedlings is one of the alternate agronomic practices to overcome late sowing and related lower yields of pigeonpea. This technique involves rising of seedlings in polythene bags in the nursery for one month and transplanting the seedlings with the onset of monsoon after the soil profile is uniformly wet.

This method uses lesser seed, chemical inputs and promotes soil biotic activities in and around plant roots, enhanced through liberal applications of compost and harrowing that aerates the soil. Further Transplanting at wider spacing allows enough sunlight to reach the leaves of each pigeonpea plant thus reducing competition for water, space and nutrients resulting in the spread of roots and healthy growth of plants. These changed practices with lower inputs counter-intuitively lead to improved productivity and yield. Filed experiments conducted to evaluate the performance of transplanted pigeonpea by few agricultural universities and NGOs elsewhere in the country have shown the encouraging results. But this method need to be tested in the local conditions and it need to gain momentum at large.

RATIONALE TO INCREASE RED GRAM PRODUCTION: Red gram is an important pulse crop in India, it is also known as Pigeonpea or Arhar or Tur. This crop is widely grown in India and India is the largest producer and consumer of Red gram in the world. But the  opening  up  of  economy  to  the  global  market  forces  has  changed  the framework  of  decision-making  for  farmers  in Andhra  Pradesh  as  elsewhere  in  the country,  particularly  in  regard  to  choice  of  crops.   Barring few, majority of the Indian farmers have been switching from food crops to cash crops especially cotton. Expectations  of  more  export opportunities  and  higher world  prices  for many  agricultural  commodities  led many farmers  to move  from  “secure”  subsistence  food  crops  to  high  risk/high  cost  cash crops for  the market. As  a result,  area  under  food  crops  has been in decline in  favour  of  cotton and other cash crops. 

This shift from food crops to cash crops resulted in to the significant decline in area under food grains especially pulses in favour of export crops. This shift resulted in the heavy burden on the farming community due to high input costs, environment pollution, deterioration in the soil organic carbon stocks and fertility of soil due to the extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on cash crops and monoculture. The most important impact is decreased production of pulses.  Although the national situation on cereals remain encouraging; Pulses, Sugar and Edible Oils remain an area of concern.

The need of the hour is to bridge the gap between the demand and supply and address the need to encourage farmers to go in for more pulses production. To achieve this, consistent efforts should be made to improve local production by and revitalizing the soil health, providing incentives and seed subsidies to the farmers. As India is the largest consumer of red gram and it is a protein rich staple food. It contains about 22 percent protein and supplies a major share of protein requirement of vegetarian population of the country. Decreased area under red gram poses a significant threat to the food security. Hence India needs to invest on accelerating red gram production through the better seed supply management, capacity building of farmers on factors of production and promotion of improved package of practices, including technological interventions, and a region-specific approach are needed to alleviate the problem of short supply of pulses and chronic malnutrition among the people.

IT IS THE ACT OF MIRACLES THAT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL EVILS AROUND BABA..

When every miracles is questionable to the logical mind and no object/thing can be created without using other material(s). Creating objects especially finished gold ornaments from the emptiness is the root cause of all evils and prevailed controversy around Baba. I don’t know whether God is there or not, even if he/she is there, he/she has provided us only raw materials and left us like that. And it is we; only human beings, with thousands of years of observation and efforts arrived to this stage and able to understand materials and quantities to be used and methods to be followed to  make any object/thing.

Unlike the nature, which provides only raw materials, Baba pretends to be raised above the nature and had been engaged in creating finished goods from the emptiness, which caused all the problems and created a breeding ground of highly self driven individuals around him in the name of coterie comprising few powerful individuals who have taken the responsibility of secretly making those things (gold chains, watches, rings what and not) and make available to him, that is why/how they become so strong and could even manage the concerned for their selfish end. Here we should also thank those anonymous jewelers who are always in the dark and never cared for any public endorsement by any one.  

When Baba can create that much gold he would have created more gold on his own instead of accepting donations for the cause and establishing institutions, constitutional settings and etc. If it is his capacity, with one wish and with more power, he would have created hospitals, colleges and universities in the empty lands. Then these problems would not have taken place and these kinds of people would not have associated with him in the name of whatever it may be. But it is unlikely, it was all game plan to attract people.

He might have started his journey with pure soul and great intention, but once he started giving gifts, there he went in the grip of some people who were assigned to make those gifts/armaments secretly. That is where a strong coterie encircled him and continued their drama pushing Baba ahead. Every day is a magic show with rich and power full occupying front seats and enjoying personalized miracles and costly gifts. Poor are always kept away from Baba, who always bestowed with general Darshans – “sight" in the sense of an instance of seeing or beholding - and Ash, while rich and mighty have always enjoyed specialized Darshans and gifts made from mostly gold. I don’t know any poor and ordinary devotee have received any such costly gifts from Baba, but all the rich and mighty devotees we name any quote the gold gifts received from Baba. Poor might have received one or the other service but why not they were given Gold gifts? Since mighty can influence more and bring more devotees, they might have given special treatment in the Ashram. It seems the whole saga is been ran and marketed by DEVOTION MERCHANTS in the name of aides to Baba.

If God is there, where he/she has created all individuals with equal bones and flush, it is man who made all these classifications. It may be common for ordinary people, why the same has been followed by extraordinary, Godly nature human being, who differentiated rich and poor and offered special Darshans to those rich and mighty. According to Baba when all of his devotees are “Embodiments of Love”, why only rich, mighty and power full embodiments of love have received special treatment, personalized miracle and special gifts? If an ordinary person says, someone is great, the impact will be much lesser, but if a rich/powerful/mighty says someone is great then the impact will be much more. That is why Rich and Powerful are given much importance there. It is all commercial tricks played for the benefit of few.   

Some may argue that, whatever he may be, he has attracted millions across the globe.  For that matter movie stars, sports stars, artists, social workers and sometimes even terrorists have also received attention worldwide. Receiving attention is never be the concern. Gaining attention is considered, Father Ferrer, a Spanish native who served natives of the Anantapur district for more than four decades and has done much more service than anyone else in the district has also attracted many and revered by lakhs of people. His final journey was also witnessed by Lakhs people and a government holiday is also declared on the day of laying him to rest. But how many knew him and heard about him? Unfortunately he is more revered in his native country than in India. It is all power play by few for their and few others benefit.

This mother earth has given birth to many all time greats like Buddha to Bhagat Singh, who lived simple life but contributed significantly for the benefit of large. When one’s soul and acts are pure, people will always follow them, then one need not to resort in creating miracles. Their number may be few, but their acts, souls and deeds are pure, that is why they never resorted on miracles and created the garbage around them in the name of aides. Who are the main culprits in this case, who had to secretly made those things (gold chains, watches, rings what not) and make available to him, that is how/why they become so strong and could even manage the concerned for their selfish end...

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BEHIND EVERY CORRUPTED MAN THERE IS A CORRUPTED WOMAN

As there is a woman behind every successful man, there is a corrupted woman behind every corrupted man.  But that woman does not necessarily to be wife, she may be mother or daughter or some other female whom that man likes. Here I am not referring those unfortunate women whose son/husband/father is a rogue and gender insensitive, I am referring women from those families, whose son/husband/father is good at family and gender sensitive, knows art of living, art of looting the country and fellow human beings while knowing the art of sharing the looted sum with family members.

If accepting bribe only is considered as corruption, then we need not discuss much, a Lokpall Bill or something is else may be sufficient enough to curb the corruption, but it is the entire society in nature is corrupted by minds and souls. When Auto driver to Vegetable vendor to Shop keeper to Petrol bunk owner to Theatre owner to Doctor to Lawyer to Contractor to Journalist and whom not, everyone involved corruption in one or the other manner or involved in cheating fellow individual and nation in one or the other way, we should not consider taking bribe only as corruption and should not target only bureaucrats, political people and industrial houses, whose number is relatively very less. I feel using office phone for personal purpose or stealing things (Stationary, Software, Documents and etc) from office must also be considered as unethical practice, which most of the individuals do. In that sense, from Auxiliary Nurse to Anganwadi Teacher to Office sub staff to IAS Officer to Ward member to Member of Legislative Assembly/Parliament to State/Central Minister to Common public, everyone are corrupted.

It is men who are corrupted in general, because it is men who are more into employment or involved in earning means of living for their families. Though women are also have been into employment for long, their number is relatively less and it is more men who are into helm of affairs, whether it is politics or something else. But in most of the cases, a women will be there behind every corrupted, however she relates to him.

Some may argue that, if so, women should be behind every crime and made responsible for the same, but women supports only corruption, but not any crime, because with corruption they get money, jeweler, houses rather bungalows, cars and moreover respect and admiration from the corrupted society, friends, neighbors and relatives. If a person a kills someone, except a dead body of the killed, what his wife gets? so they don't encourage any other crime but corruption.

It is mother, because if she says no or infuses character, majority of the times one will not involve in corruption. I feel behind every Chatrapathi Shivaji there is a Rajmata Jijabai, his mother, who infused character and valor in him. It does not mean that behind every Kasab there may be one mother like him, because killing someone doesn’t fetch anything but imprisonment. But corruption fetches money, respect from the society, huge dowry and what not?

It is wife, because she occupies majority of the man’s productive life time. If she says no or refuses or ignores the corrupted sum, majority of the men or at least 50 to 70% men stops corruption or at least think twice before taking bribe or doing something unethical. But if a man’s seat is potential for corruption and if that person is not corrupted, then he will be thrown out of the house by his wife only. Some argue that, in the middle class families, most of the times women are occupied by house hold chores and don’t have time to look into the her husband’s means of income and the alike. It may not be true, if so, why T.V. serials have become so popular?

It is daughter or younger one, who can differentiate between good and bad, if she says no or persuades her father not to be corrupted, majority of the men stops corruption, but in general daughters don’t, because they dream of buying another big corrupted man to marry with huge sum as dowry amassed by her father.

There may be some women in any relation with corrupted, who are good at heart and tries to convey that they don’t want corrupted sum. But interestingly corrupted gets relatively beautiful girl as wife as they are most sought for by beautiful bride’s parents. Because beauty has its value, which comes at price, though that price might paid through the sum made by corruption. And in marriage alliances it is wealth that has more weight-age than anything else especially character. If you are very good at heart, have social concern, character, values and civic conscious, then the best place for you will be a Math or Ashram….     

But it is also the society, friends, relatives and well wishers (??), who always encourages one to be corrupted, admires his wealth amassed through corruption, respects him while making mockery of righteous people.

LEGALISING CORRUPTION IN INDIA

An alternative way to deal with gigantic nature of corruption which penetrated in to minds and souls of majority citizens of India

No country in the world is never ever free from corruption. The size, magnitude and manifestations of corruption may be different and varied. At least in the country like India, where all sections of people are corrupted in one or the other way, complete eradication of corruption may be an  Utopian idea and may be over ambitious. The reasons for corruption are many and varied, rather corruption is mere a symptom of the prevailing system.  The disease lies in the outdated laws, bureaucratic and democratic setup, multiparty parliamentary republic system to cite few. Unless this root causes are not addressed, corruption can’t be removed by any means. Even if Jan Lokapal Bill or something like that is accepted, it would not stop corruption. Mere a bill or law can’t bring any noticeable change in the country. Corruption will prevail irrespective of all such laws and thousands of anti-

corruption officials or civilian watch dogs.

Adding another legal body will not help, because supporting mechanisms, like the Indian Penal Code, the code of Criminal Procedure, the Indian Evidence Act, etc are remain the same (According to Mr. Suresh Kopade, Special IG, Pune, Maharashtra with ET, 8 April 2011). To date, there are many such prevailing laws in India to protect the rights of majority individuals and none of them are properly implemented. Likewise, this  bill also will meet the same fate in future. Many quote that, as long as vote bank politics are not put to an end, corruption prevails in one or the other form. But it is not the vote bank politics alone, which are causing corruption, it is corrupted electorate, who are also major cause for all the menace. Unless, there is a law to punish the corrupted electorate or irresponsible electorate who never cares for exercising their franchise, we can’t put an end to corruption. Majority of the educated who are in no need of immediate money offered by contestants and who are not interested rather feel responsibility to exercise their franchise are the main reason for the election of corrupted persons in to the helm of affairs. Whoever exercises their franchise are poor and illiterate, who don’t exercise their franchise until they are sufficiently fed or offer money. If not, why simple and honest people are not elected? In private, if any rogue or killer or rapist or goon or terrorist meets any politician for any favor, he/she can’t say no to him/her, because they need to consider every one as voter and need to make their best efforts to protect their voters.

In India, where corruption involved from the day of birth to death, how to fight against corruption? If it is urgent and definite need to control corruption and put corrupted into Jails, then we may have to treat this entire country as Jail and put the remaining righteous – Corruption free minds and souls - citizens of country in to the Jails, which we are currently using. From Auxiliary Nurse to Anganwadi Teacher to Office sub staff to IAS Officer to Ward member to Member of Legislative Assembly/Parliament to State/Central Minister to Common public, everyone are corrupted, then how to control corruption? When Auto driver to Vegetable vendor to Shop keeper to Petrol bunk owner to Theatre owner to Doctor to Lawyer to Contractor to Journalist and whom not, everyone are corrupted in one or the other manner or involved in cheating fellow individual and nation in one or the other way, why are we talking about corruption free India and targeting only bureaucrats, political people and industrial houses? And why are we leaving the remaining citizens, whose minds and souls are already corrupted and never retires to the bed without involving in one or the other type of corruption. Is stealing stationary from office where we are working or making personal calls from office phone or applying for undue government welfare schemes or taking money to exercise our franchise or taking dowry are not considered as involved in corruption or illegal acts? If yes, then how many of us are not involved in such things? How many righteous people are there among us? Then how to stop corruption?  

Ordinary citizens may involve in corruption in small magnitude? But does it mean that he/she be scot free and run behind only big? We Indians are corrupted by nature, heart and soul. We are accepting corruption and cherishing the corrupted. If you are not corrupted, it is not the others, but your wife and children throw you out of the house. It is your friends and relatives make mockery of yourself. It is the society, which morally and emotionally kills you of being not corrupted. That is why, it is the general individuals, who need to change and correct their corrupted minds, otherwise nothing can be achieved with this bill or some other bill, because at present, at least in India, corruption does not confined and taking place only by politicians or bureaucrats, it is majority of the individuals who are corrupted by deeds or minds or souls or by all. Synonyms of ‘Corruption’ are Dishonesty, Immorality and Depravity etc. If taking bribe only is considered as corruption, then only bureaucrats and politicians need to be targeted, but if we consider generalized meaning, then majority of us Indians are corrupted or involved in one or other significant acts of corruption in our daily life. At present this is the prevailing condition in India. Then whom to blame and whom to target and how to stop corruption of this magnitude with innumerable manifestations?

Legalizing corruption may be only the best and lasting solution for this. With the help of which, we can standardize the corruption, so that government exchequer will not be over burdened, people will receive services by paying whatever set fee by the government, government need not to allocate major share of budget to salaries and pensions, can spend majority of the budgeted amount on development programs, can stop giving salaries to the employees rather can charge them in return based on the prospectus of each post, charge politicians according to the positions they were offered, allow industries to pollute the environment and charge them accordingly, all shop keepers to adulterate items they sell, allow people to take taxable dowry, allow theatre owners to sell tickets in black, to cite few. May look embarrassing, but all these things have been taking place without any control and which we are currently accepting at the cost of the country and cherishing such corrupted and wishing such corrupted to glorify our houses in the form of sons and son-in-laws. Then why not we fight for Legalising the corruption for the benefit of this country, otherwise which can’t be dealt with by any means????

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (2) - A REVIEW OF EXISTING DATA

Violence against Women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women. It has been noted that in all patriarchal societies violence has been used as the most powerful instrument for suppressing the rights of women as equal partners both within the family as well as in society at large.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – A GLOBAL PHENOMENON 

According to a WHO study presented at Geneva; 52% of the women worldwide were physically assaulted by close male associates at least once in their lives. According to a WORLD BANK study domestic Violence Against Women accounted for 5% of the healthy years of working life lost in developing countries.

At least one out of every third women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime and in most of the cases abuser usually someone known to the victim. Violence against women and girls is a universal phenomenon. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.

The current day statistics paint a horrifying picture of the social consequences of violence against women. In the year 2002, the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation declaring violence against women a public health emergency, and a major cause of death and disability of age women 16 to 44 years. In one such report by World Bank, it was estimated that violence against women was as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria combined. The cost involved is also considerably high, a report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2003) estimates that the costs of intimate partner violence in the USA alone exceed $5.8 billion per year: 4.1 billion are for direct medical and health care services while productivity losses account for nearly $1.8 billion.

DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Domestic and intimate partner violence involves physical and sexual attacks against women in the home, within the family or within an intimate relationship. Women are more at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships than elsewhere.

No country in the world is safe for women from this type of violence. Out of ten counties surveyed in a 2005 study of the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, with figures reaching staggering 71 percent in rural Ethiopia, with an exception to Japan where less than 20 percent of women reported incidents of domestic violence. An earlier study by the same organization recorded 30 percent women in the UK and 22 percent in the USA have experienced rather physically abused by their partners or ex-partners.

Based on several surveys from around the world it can be concluded that 50 percents of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Women are killed by people they know and die from guns violence, beatings and burns among numerous other forms of abuse. A study conducted in Sao Paulo, Brazil reported that 13 percent of deaths of women of reproductive age were homicides, of which 60 percent were committed by the victims’ partners.

In the USA, 700,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted each year, with 14.8 percent of women reported being raped before the age of 17. In a randomly selected study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva and Switzerland; 20 percent of them revealed that they had experienced at least one incident of physical sexual abuse in their life.

HARMFUL TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

Harmful traditional practices refer to types of violence that have been committed against women in certain communities and societies. So long these abuses are considered a part of accepted cultural practice. These violations include female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM), dowry murder, so-called honour killings, and early marriage marriages. They lead to death, disabilities, and physical and psychological dysfunction for millions of women annually.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION (FGM)

FGM refers to several types of surgeries performed traditionally on women and girls. Often part of fertility or coming-of-age rituals, FGM is sometimes justified as a way to ensure chastity and genital ‘purity’. The practice of FGM is prevalent in 25 African countries, among some minorities in Asia and immigrant communities in Europe, Australia, Canada and the US. An estimated 130 million women have undergone FGM, and an additional two million girls and women are being subjected to it each year. Since the late 1980s, opposition to FGM and efforts to combat the practice have increased. Some countries also have passed legislation to regulate or ban FGM. A joint initiative by UNICEF, WHO, and UNFPA seeks an enormous reduction in the incidence of FGM with an addition to assisting governments to develop and implement national polices to abolish the practice.

DOWRY MURDERS

Dowry murder is a brutal practice involving a woman being killed by her husband or in-laws because her family is unable to meet their monetary demands in the name of dowry. While custom of dowry or analogous payments are prevalent among all cultures throughout the world; dowry murder takes place predominantly in South Asia. In India, for example, there are close to 15,000 dowry deaths estimated per year and mostly in kitchen fires designed to look like accidents. In Bangladesh, there have been many incidents of acid attacks due to dowry disputes leading often to blindness, disfigurement, and death.

HONOUR KILLINGS

The practice of killing rape victims, suspected women who have engaged in premarital sex and accused women of adultery by their male relatives is predominant in many societies across the world as such violation of a woman’s chastity is viewed as an affront to the family’s honour.

According to a 2002 UN human rights report, every year in the name of honour more than 1,000 women are killed in Pakistan. In a study of female deaths in Alexandria, Egypt, 47 percent of the women were killed by a relative after the woman had been raped. In Jordan and Lebanon, 70 to 75 percent of the perpetrators of these so-called honour killings are the women's brothers. It is not only in Islamic countries that this act of violence is prevalent, but Brazil is cited as a case in point, where killing is justified to defend the honour of the husband in the case of a wife’s adultery.

EARLY MARRIAGES

The practice of early marriage of girl is striking throughout the world, but it is rampant in African and South Asian countries. This can considered as another form of sexual violence, as young girls are more often forced into marriage and an eventual sexual relations, which jeopardizes their health, raises their risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and limits their chance of attending school.

Parents and families often justify child marriages to ensure a better future for their daughters. Parents and families get their younger daughters married as a means to gain economic security and status for them as well as for their daughters. Insecurity, social conflict and societal influence forces family members to get their daughters married at early ages. Kidnapping young girls is common practice in many African countries, where there is a higher incidence of ethnic violence and social conflict.

For example young girls are ‘sold’ by their parents into marriage for money in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. And in many cases this is done without the consent of daughters; and often the prospective bride grooms are wealthy but much older than bride. Though law does not permit this, but child marriages are still practiced. Girls fleeing from such marriages can be put in jail and are shunned by society. And even if they are released, they are either killed by their own family or their in-laws, or sold again.

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Trafficking involves recruiting or transporting another person in order to place them in a situation of abuse or exploitation such as forced prostitution, slavery-like practices, battering and extreme cruelty, sweatshop labour, or exploitative domestic servitude.

While exact data is hard to come by, estimates on the number of trafficked women and girls range from 700,000 to two million per year. More than 200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked between1990 and 997; and 5000 to 7000 Nepali women and girls illegally trafficked to India. In Europe for example, 10 to 15 percent of foreign prostitutes in Belgium were trafficked from other countries and sold into prostitution rings. These women and girls were mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, Colombia, Nigeria and Peru. Illegal trafficking in persons frequently involves organized crime, and efforts to combat it can involve serious risks.

HIV/AIDS AND VIOLENCE

Women’s inability to negotiate safe sex and unwanted sex refusal is closely linked to the high prevalence HIV/AIDS. Sexual assault such as rape results in a higher risk of abrasion and bleeding, providing a ready avenue for transmission of the virus. Both realities obliterate women’s ability to protect themselves from infection.

Violence is a cause as well as a consequence of HIV/AIDS. For many women, the fear of violence prevents them from declaring their HIV-positive status and seeking help and treatment. They have been driven from their homes, left destitute, been ostracized by their families and community, and subjected to extreme physical and emotional abuse. In the year 1998 a women named Gugu Dhlamini from South Africa was stoned to death by men in her community, after she declared her positive status on radio and television on World AIDS Day.

Young women are particularly vulnerable to coerced sex and are increasingly being infected with HIV/AIDS. Over half of new HIV infections world-wide are occurring among young people between the ages of 15 to 24, and over 60 percent of HIV-positive youth between the ages of 15 to 24 are women. A study conducted in Tanzania in 2001 found that HIV-positive women were over 2 and half times more likely than HIV-negative women to have experienced violence perpetrated by their current partner.

CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN IN WAR AND ARMED CONFLICT

The victims in today’s armed conflicts are far more likely to be civilians than soldiers. Some 70 percent of the casualties in recent conflicts were non-combatants, most of them women and children. Women’s bodies have become part of the battleground for those who use terror as a tactic of war as they are raped, abducted, humiliated and made to undergo forced pregnancy, sexual abuse and slavery. In Rwanda, up to half a million women were raped during the 1994 genocide. The numbers are as high as 60,000 in the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Equally, in Sierra Leone, the number of incidents of war-related sexual violence among internally displaced women from 1991-2001 is as high as 64,000.

Protection and support for women survivors of violence in conflict and post-conflict areas is woefully inadequate. Access to social services, protection, legal remedies, medical resources, places of refuge is limited despite the valiant efforts of numerous local NGOs to provide assistance. A climate of impunity further exacerbates the situation, ensuring that perpetrators go unpunished and free to continue their acts of violence. It is glaringly evident that much further effort is needed from governments and the international community to strengthen procedures and mechanisms to investigate, report, prosecute and remedy violence against women.

Violence Against Women

Every other day in every part of the world, one or the other women faces, one or the other kind of violence.  Despite wearing Civilized hat, majority of men across the world don't seems have shedding cruel and violent behaviour against women and other weak individuals. 

Every living being in the planet earth has an equal right to live and no one is superior or inferior in any manner, but it is the intelligent human species who exercises enormous power and supremacy over other species of creation with an exception to extremes of nature. The agony is that the same human being exploits the fellow human being and discriminates and oppresses others in the name of caste, class, creed, colour, gender, nationality and religion. Since ages no part of the world is ever eluded from the practice of exploitation and subjugation. Inequalities and exploitation of man by man began with the raise of civilization and has taken many forms and is continued to be persist even in the highly civilized and technologically advanced societies. Despite great changes in the history of human development, the practice of suppressing and violating the rights of fellow human being has been a continuous phenomenon in various magnitudes and in various parts of the world and it is rampant during medieval period. And incidences of human rights violation are paramount during wars, social disturbances and during ethnic aggressions. Whether it is war or life; women and children are more vulnerable and subject to meet discrimination.

Women in every part of the world encounter one or the other kind of discrimination and violence in various magnitudes in their day to day and even in their family life. Manifestations of violence include physical aggression, sexual abuse, molestation, rape and psychological violence through humiliation, coercion, blackmail, economic or emotional threats, and control over speech and actions. When compared with other countries, incidences of violence and discrimination against women seem to be considerably high in developing countries. And in India despite her culture rich and traditional identity, where women are been accorded with goddess status; every day it witnesses many forms of violence against her women folk. Despite women’s highest status in Hindu scriptures and in tradition, women in India is been considered as secondary citizens and accorded with due subordinate status as compared with their counter parts in developed parts of the world.

These various expressions of violence take place in a man-woman relationship within the family, society and state. More often than not superior role of men transforms into discrimination, suppression and violence against women. Women are neglected a lot when it comes to providing education, health and other basic facilities like nutritious food. The reasons are many and varied and one of the important factors of their backwardness is that since ages men have been decision makers in the family and in the society. This relegated women to be submissive and dependent in all walks of life. Discrimination against women begins soon after birth of a female child and she grows up with a constant sense of being weak and in need of social and economic protection. This helplessness leads to her exploitation at almost every stage of life.

      

The status of women may not be identical in every part of the world, but similar trend is observed in most parts of the developing world and in India. In India, the family fosters its members to accept hierarchical relations between men and women. More over family is the operational unit where the child is exposed to gender differences since birth. And in recent times even before birth, in the form of sex-determination tests. More often than not these tests lead to foeticide and female infanticide. The home, which is supposed to be the most secure place for both men and women, is turning into platform of violence against women of all ages.