Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Rift in NCW reported – me worry?

National Commission of Women, that community of narcissistic women has reportedly seen a rift in its leadership.  Read the e-paper news below:

Some rift in NCW -- what's bad for my adversary is ...

We can only expect for more such rift and fracture in an established government institution which is anti-men.  This is because the policies which these institutions follow are heavily influenced by feminists, and feminism is a philosophy full of contradictions held together only by a common thread of hatred towards men.

Renuka Chowdhury – showing her true colours?

Self-proclaimed champion of women rights and erstwhile WCD minister Renuka Chowdhury is one of the predators sitting on taxpayer money.  It is another matter that she can argue that since women are taxed lower, it is only men who are suffering more, as was indeed her once famous comment.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/former-ministers-mps-among-illegal-occupants-of-govt-residences/583659/

Ten months after the Lok Sabha elections, 22 former ministers and Parliamentarians continue to occupy government accommodation allotted to them earlier.

A reply from the Union Urban Development Ministry on a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by S C Agrawal, a textile businessman based in Old Delhi, said there are 22 “unauthorised” occupants of bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi.

The 22 include former Union ministers Jagdish Tytler and Renuka Chowdhary, the family of former Prime Minister late

V P Singh and eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani.

This list was issued by the Directorate of Estates on February 18 in response to Agrawal’s RTI query filed in December last year.

Agrawal had also asked whether steps were taken to evict the illegal occupants, as was the case with former MP Ramdas Athawale, who was forcibly evicted from his government bungalow last year after he lost the Lok Sabha elections.

In its reply, the Directorate of Estates stated: “Such steps would be taken under the provision of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act as and when considered necessary.”

Agrawal said: “There are different yardsticks even while tackling law-breaking VVIP occupants of government accommodations. The government should explain why a similar eviction is not being conducted for these 22 encroachers.”

The RTI query also revealed that the bungalow at 6, Krishna Menon Marg, vacated by Meira Kumar, is yet to be allotted.

Unauthorised occupants
Jagdish Tytler - 6, GRG Road
Saleem I Sherwani - 47, Lodhi Estate
Renuka Chowdhury - 76, Lodhi Estate
Ram Vilas Paswan - 12, Janpath
Family of ex-PM V P Singh - 1, Teen Murti Marg
Ram Jethmalani - 2, Akbar Road
Ashwini Kumar - 34, Lodhi Estate
J S Sarma - CI/23, Pandara Park
Neera Shastri - CI/17, Pandara Park
K P Singh - CII/I-C, HUDCO Place
Manju S. Hembrom - CII/73, Chanakyapuri
R K Tandon - CII/D-7.3, RK Puram
Veena S Rao - CII/73, Moti Bagh
H S Josh - CII/27, Tilak Lane
KK Chakrabarty - CII/51, Shahjahan Road
Family of P K Das - CII/A-8.1, RK Puram
P K Mishra - D-1/71, Chanakyapuri
Abhijit Bhattacharya - D-1/6, Rabindra Nagar
BB Mallik - D1/A-13, HUDCO Place
H K Suhas - DI/E-26, HUDCO Place
Pratibha Pandey - DI/112, Rabindra Nagar
Rajesh Kumar Singh - DI/K-22, RK Puram

Women empowerment really -- by lowering taxation?

How pathetic can government attempts seem at times that the want to empower 50% of society by offering them some carrots that they most likely wound not want offered in the first place!  If lower taxation for women already was not enough, now WCD minister wants even lower tax rates for them!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/pre-budget/Tirath-may-seek-lower-tax-rates-for-women/articleshow/5596696.cms

NEW DELHI: Recognising that financial independence is the only way to effective gender empowerment, the government has started thinking beyond the age-old fiscal incentive of a higher threshold for taxable income for women. It is now considering demands from women' rights groups for a differential tax rate for women.

This boldness in gender budgeting was enunciated to TOI by women and child development minister Krishna Tirath. She said the ministry could endorse the women rights' groups demand for a lower tax rate for women. ``It is a serious factor in empowering working women. After all, it is a woman's income that directly impacts the living standard and health of her family and children's nutritional levels,'' she said.

And families and children in those households where women have no income are going into starvation, right?

``We have received demands from women's groups pitching for lower tax slabs for women. We are looking into it,'' the minister said. At present, there are certain tax incentives for women, but women's groups say it is insufficient. Currently women don't have to pay taxes on earnings up to Rs 1.95 lakh while for men, taxation starts at Rs 1.6 lakh. This is seen as a short-sighted approach in the larger feminist discourse. Instead, lower tax rates for women is seen as an empowering tool.

Feminist discourse…. i love that phrase!  I mean if there was any rhyme or reason in feminist discourse except spread hatred towards men and make incessant demands to State for favours for women.

The change may not come through in next week's budget (which is more or less ready) but the radical idea has the women and child development (WCD) ministry excited. A formal endorsement from the ministry may not immediately result in the concept getting enshrined as a principle of governance. But it would be a boost for women's rights activists who are eagerly awaiting the call of minister Tirath.

Ranjana Kumari, Centre for Social Research director, said the step was very important in making women more economically empowered and self-reliant. ``The government needs to do much more in ensuring lower tax slabs for women, especially single women,'' she said. Activists have argued that women's income is used for building human capital, in the form of children's education, improving a family's nutritional status and health care.

This is another line to hoodwink people in the same feminist discourse!  According to them, when it was not fashionable (or convenient) for women to work, there was no human capital being formed, no children being educated, families nutirition was in a disaster!

``It, therefore, works as a productive asset for the family whether in investment or expenditure unlike men's salary. Single women too must have more disposable income at hand as they have no economic security,'' Kumari added.

And what about single men?  They are expected to pay full rates of taxes and subsidize security for single women.  Sure it will do a lot to their self-esteem and support the double rate of suicides of Indian men compared to women.

Women rights activists feel that while some success has been achieved through legislative action, special schemes, access to micro finance, education for the girl child and healthcare access, women continue to be discriminated against when matters of money are involved.

Economists agree that, in general, preferential rates of taxation for women, whether it is stamp duty or income tax deduction or other levies, will increasingly bring women into the mainstream of life and businesses, with more and more earnings shifting from men to women, especially true of rural women and those from the trading and business classes who have this option to transfer income from one member to the other.

Education Resource Unit director Vimala Ramachandran, who has worked extensively in the field of gender empowerment, said lower income tax slabs could be ``encouraging'' for women. ``Such a step will encourage more women to work. Initiatives like lower stamp duty for women owned property has directly impacted and the number of property registered under women's name has increased,'' she said.

A very bad social engineering trick to ensure property rights for women… how many women will get property rights even if stamp duty for them was made zero! 

Friday, February 5, 2010

God save Indian women -- NCW says no swayamvar for them

After Rakhi Sawant’s swayamvar reality show where she chose her husband (or so we thought), a new show has started where Rahul Mahajan will be choosing a wife for himself. Nothing gets Indians so excited than prospect of seeing a marriage party! However NCW does not seem to be too happy about people making their own choices in marriage.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/NCW-trains-guns-on-Rahul-Mahajan-reality-show-/articleshow/5524923.cms

NEW DELHI: National Commission for Women has written to I&B ministry asking it to ensure prevention of indecent portrayal of women in a forthcoming reality show on a bride hunt for Rahul Mahajan.

"I have seen the advertisement only. However, we have written to the ministry asking it to ensure that there is no indecent portrayal of women in that reality show," Girija Vyas, NCW chairperson, said.

She said the show — `Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jaayega Swayamvar Season 2' — is yet to be telecast and the letter was written before that because NCW wanted to ensure that there was no inappropriate depiction of women in the show. Vyas also took exception to the use of `swayamvar' in its title, saying it suggested commodification of women.

"Swayamvar is a word which denotes commodification of women. Why should men or women be portrayed as objects," she asked.

It is common knowledge in India that swayamvar was historically a well-accepted and respectable form of marriage for women and especially mentioned in many Hindu epics including Mahabharata. It is astonishing to see how NCW chairperson has decided that it means commodification of women? NCW did not object to Rakhi Sawant’s swayamvar show so evidently the only reasoning seems to be that NCW is unhappy that a man is being given the same choice of choosing a life partner that was given to a woman in earlier reality show.

Let’s read some basic definition of swayamvara below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayamvara

The literal meaning of swayamvara is given below based on Sanskrit words used:

Swayamvara (Sanskrit: स्‍वयं‍वर), in ancient India, was a practice of choosing a life partner, from among a list of suitors, by a girl of marriageable age. Swayam in Sanskrit means Self and Vara means choosing or wanting.

So according to NCW chairperson, if a woman chooses her husband by her own will somehow it results in commodification of women. God save Indian women from NCW!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Indian woman thinks of marriage as pious bonding, but sex before marriage is ok!

A recent Delhi High Court judgment has ruled that having sex with fiancée and then breaking off engagement will be taken as crime of rape.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Sex-with-false-promise-of-marriage-is-rape-HC/articleshow/5525620.cms

Justice V K Jain refused to grant bail to the man, Nishant (name changed), who had filed a petition for anticipatory bail in a case where he is accused of raping a girl who was approved by his family and had even got engaged to him.

On one hand society is getting permissive in terms of sex, what with 3-4 sex surveys being done every year in weekly magazines, reality shows where women mouth obscenities as much as men do; so it would seem that at least in urban India, women are not the coy stuff they were supposed to be earlier and having sex before marriage is not a big deal.

The court thinks that the girl in this case did it so as not to disappoint her future husband. Why? was she ready to disappoint everyone else in case the marriage was called off?

"If a girl surrenders herself to a boy who comes in contact with her for the first time only in connection with a proposal for her marriage and then enters into a formal ceremony of engagement..she does it not because she loves him or wants to have pleasure with him, but because she doesn't want to disappoint her future husband,'' the HC held, rejecting the argument of the accused that it was consensual sex.

The other question is what would a court rule where a man was pushed or persuaded to have sex with fiancée but afterwards it was her who broke off the engagement. Can the man get her punished under any Indian law? The answer is obviously no. But the HC thinks that it is perfectly ok to prosecute and punish a man for crime of rape in such situation.

The HC said if a view was taken that persuading a girl to have physical relations on the false promise of marriage, despite having no such intention, does not constitute rape, "this will amount to putting premium on a conduct which is not only highly reprehensible and abhorable but also criminal in nature.''

Further the high court has gone ahead and made statement on the general nature of Indian women:

The courts cannot and should not give such a license to those who keep on looking for opportunities to exploit the sentiments and vulnerability of Indian girls who perceive marriage as a pious bonding and not a union of two bodies, the court said.

So here the HC thinks that Indian women would think of sex only within marriage, but we don’t know how the court came to conclusion that this particular woman was fine with having sex in order not to disappoint future husband. She is only into pious bonding, but will do it anyway in order not to disappoint future husband? Makes sense to anyone?

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