The Law Commission recommended to the Government to bring in suitable changes in the existing laws to prohibit marriages of children below the age of 18. Suggesting 18 years as a uniform age of marriage for both boys and girls, the Commission said that child marriages involving a girl or boy below the age of 16 should be void i.e. illegal. It said child marriages involving parties between 16 and 18 years should be voidable with an option to the minor to repudiate the marriage after he/she attains 20 years of age. At present under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), the marriageable age of girls is 18 while the same for boys is 21. The recommendations form part of the Commission’s 205th report on The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA) and other allied laws that by submitted by its Chairman Justice A.R. Lakshmanan to Law Minister H. R. Bhardwaj. If the Government accepts the report and accordingly the existing laws dealing with child marriage are amended, for the first time in the history of India, a child marriage involving a bride or groom below the age of 16 will be illegal. The present law i.e. the MHA and the PCMA do not have such provisions. Violation of the condition of age under the Hindu Marriage Act does not make the marriage void. However, taking note of the possible difficulties faced by girls, the Commission recommended that the female would be entitled to maintenance under the PCMA till her remarriage in case of void marriages: Similarly, provisions relating to maintenance, child custody and legitimacy would be applicable to voidable marriages as they are at present. In tune with the recent Supreme Court order, the Commission also recommended mandatory registration of marriages within a stipulated period, of all the communities – Hindus, Muslims, Christians etc. On the age of marriage, it said “The age of marriage for both boys and girls should be 18 years as there is no scientific reason why this should be different.” The Commission noted that “in spite of these legal provisions, child marriage is still widely practiced and a marriage solemnized in contravention of these (age) provisions was neither void nor voidable under the old child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and also under the Muslim Law.” The issue of child marriage hit headlines after the high courts of Delhi and [...]
Archive for February 19th, 2008
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KANDAHAR CHAPTER IS NOT CLOSED YET
February 19th, 2008 
krishna The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court hearing the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 case certainly took its time to arrive at a judgment. Abdul Latif, Dalip Kumar and Yusuf Nepali – who were arrested on charges of conspiracy in the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in December 1999 – were found guilty of helping Pakistani hijackers obtain fake passports and taking weapons aboard the plane. To recall: flight IC-814 from Kathmandu with 180 people on board was hijacked on December 24, 1999. Indian security forces tragically passed up the opportunity to storm the plane, which had force-landed in Amritsar to refuel, and allowed it to fly to Kandahar in Afghanistan. The weeklong hijack drama ended with the release of three militants, Masood Azhar Mushtaq, Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Aluried Omar Saeed from Indian jails. Although most of the passengers were freed unharmed, the hijackers killed one person and seriously injured another. The verdict is unlikely to be hailed by many people given the fact that the main hijackers got away scot-free, after the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan gave them safe passage. And it is doubtful if New Delhi has ever stopped ruing the release of Masood Azhar, the most high profile of the three freed militants, who founded the Jaish-e-Mohammed soon after he was liberated. The long trial shows that little has changed on the ground in India when it comes to trying terrorism suspects, with even special courts taking inordinately long to hand out verdicts. If there is a silver lining, it has to be the subsequent welcome change in India’s policy regarding hostage situations, especially in crises involving hijacked aircraft. The most dramatic sign of this is the sweeping legislation enacted by the government a couple of years ago.- Prompted by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, it didn’t take New Delhi too long to adopt a tough hijack policy that allows security forces to shoot down any ‘rogue’ aircraft that is headed for strategic locations. It also recommends establishing a committee of negotiators, psychiatrists and linguists to handle the crisis. Airport personnel would prevent the seized plane from taking off, allowing National Security Guard (NSG) commandos to storm it. The story of IC-814 would probably have been very different if this policy was in place six years ago.
DO WE HAVE A RIGHT TO FLY?
February 19th, 2008 Tejinder Flying is not for the rich alone. It is every Indian’s right to be able to fly – to work, for holiday; even just for fun. For this, flying needs to be made more affordable than it is today. Low cost airlines have ensured that many more Indians fly than ever before. Yet, we have a long. The number of trips has gone up from 18 million in 2005-06 to a projected 43 million in 2007-08. Wire money online to India with Xoom.com for as low as $4.99. On an average, a person who flies makes three trips a year and that means just about 1 out of every 100 Indians flies today. The biggest bottleneck in ensuring lower fares is the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF). Nearly 50 per cent of the cost of low cost airlines is what we pay for ATF. The cost of ATF has nearly doubled in the last 2 years. A major component of the price is the tax that airlines pay to the Central and State governments. Tax on ATF can be in excess of 50 per cent in some states. Worse, ATF in India is 70-80 per cent costlier than many other countries. Traditionally; taxes in India have been high because flying has been treated as a luxury good. So just as colour television and computers were taxed in our socialist past, aviation is taxed today. So, to make flying more affordable the biggest thing that Finance Minister P Chidambaram can do today is to reduce the taxes and duties on ATF. I suggest ATF be granted the so called “declared goods” status, which will make the fuel draw uniform sales tax of 4 per cent across all states. The minister can also reduce customs and excise duties on ATF to 5 per cent and 4 percent respectively. Airlines also pay a tax on landing (a service tax of 12.24 per cent on landing, airport and air navigation fees), a tax on renting planes (the withholding tax on lease rentals), a tax on providing food or accommodation to passengers (the fringe benefit tax), and a tax on providing hotel accommodations to pilots and cabin crew (again, the fringe benefit tax). Much of these are passed on to the consumers. There is a strong case for reviewing some of these taxes. Similarly, expenses on crew such as hotel accommodation cannot be considered [...]
NOT ONLY TABLE MANNERS- ITS MORE THAN THAT
February 19th, 2008 krishna Arundhati Roy’s book, Power Politics, uses the delectable imagery of how it increasingly appears that Indians are being rounded up and loaded into two convoys of trucks – the tiny one moving towards a glittering destination and the large one, comprising the unsung, hurtling towards darkness and then disappearing. Wire money online to India with Xoom.com for as low as $4.99. Award ceremonies are criticised for egging on only the mini-convoy. For celebrating those who glitter and are considered glamorous. For feting fluff and frivolity. So when you have an awards night where the underdog, the unsung is celebrated and put under arc-lights, you would expect a certain solemnity in the air. You would expect the invitees to feel privileged to be a part of a celebration where status and power – the two heaviest loads being carried by the mini-convoy – have been offloaded. But Delhi is different. It’s a city-whose air contains highly noxious and intoxicating fumes of power whose constant inhalation cripples egalitarian thinking. Those afflicted by it even fail to recognise the enormity of simple human achievements. Little wonder that many among the audience at the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year awards night, perhaps failed to notice the occasion was celebrating simplicity. It was honouring those who helped us smile and be comfortable. Who gave us hope, a sense that by their work those travelling on board the larger convoy are at least being noticed and acknowledged. They did not notice, for instance, that the awardees were those who were successful not because of the system, but in spite of it. So if an R.K. Laxman was honoured for making us smile everyday for 60 years, a Sreedharan was put on a pedestal for showing how integrity and discipline can move mountains. But then we are talking about certain countrymen who judge and confirm their participation in such a celebration by the table number they have been allotted. Some, who unfortunately have inhaled more noxious power fumes than others, consider a double digit allocation as a mark of shrinking stature, not a good enough place to applaud selfless service from. They need a pedestal, a prominent place, even to applaud selfless and faceless work. It didn’t matter to the table-number-conscious lot that one of the ‘important tables’ was occupied by five Indians who have rendered faceless public service without expecting anything in return. From a [...]
