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Cricketers, keep away from politics

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The Brussels blasts on Tuesday drowned a minor but significant outburst in Mohali by the captain of the visiting cricket team of Pakistan touring India to participate in the T20 World Cup. Skipper Afridi invoked the K word and support to their campaign. To a question from the on-field commentator that Pakistan seemed to have good crowd response, Afridi bowled the googly saying that there were a lot of Kashmiris in the crowd in Mohali and the team got good support in Kolkata as well. The on field commentator was none other than Rameez Raja of Pakistan. That the conversation telecast live was innocuous is difficult to digest. It is no co-incidence that a visiting skipper egged on by a Pakistani on-field commentator availed the free airtime to address millions of spectators and innocently furthered the national policy of Pakistan and the ISI to keep the Kashmir issue on the front burner. If nothing else, a tormented Afridi has certainly earned some brownie points back home among the har...
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LESSONS FROM MAHILA POLICE RECRUITS' PROTEST IN GORAKHPUR, UP

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The protest by nearly 600 women recruits of UP Police at the PAC, Police Training Centre, Gorakhpur, has raised pertinent questions about the state of training infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh. The young recruits, from diverse backgrounds, including some disadvantaged ones, joined the training with lofty ideals of donning the uniform to take on crime and criminals in the state. Unfortunately, they had such an unpalatable first experience that they had to take the extreme step of collective protest, something unheard of in uniformed services, particularly in a training institution. The concerns of the recruits appear genuine, including cramped accommodation, a lack of sanitation, electricity, water, and hygienic food, as well as the presence of CCTV cameras in the washroom areas. The women recruits were also incensed by a departmental circular mandating pregnancy tests for all recruits, married or otherwise. In response to this crisis, the state government suspended a senior offic...
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SECRETLY RECORDED CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN SPOUSES AND THEIR ADMISSIBILITY IN LAW

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In a divorce case, the Supreme Court has accepted conversations of a couple secretly recorded by the man to prove cruelty by his wife, raising concerns about domestic surveillance and abuse of privacy law.s In a landmark judgment in a divorce case ( Vibhor Garg vs Neha ), the Supreme Court has accepted the admissibility of secretly recorded conversations between a married couple as reliable evidence. Vibhor Garg had filed a divorce petition under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 in a family court at Bathinda in Punjab on the grounds of mental cruelty by his wife, Neha.  The petitioner adduced conversations between him and his wife recorded by him over a period of time without her consent and knowledge to buttress his allegations of mental cruelty. The evidence was admitted by the family court. However, on appeal against its decision, the Punjab & Haryana High Court took an opposing view, holding the secretly...
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Nelson Mandela International Day: Alleviating the misery

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July 18, which is the birthday of Nelson Mandela, is celebrated as the Nelson Mandela International Day, recognising and rededicating his commitment to human rights, conflict resolution, and reconciliation. This day is special to the prison officials across the globe as the day is also utilised to promote humane conditions during incarceration; to raise awareness about inmates being an inalienable part of society and to value the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance.  Nelson Mandela fought apartheid for decades, was sentenced to an astounding 27 years in jail and stood at least four trials. He observed, "It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones."   The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the revised Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. These rules are known as the Nelson Mandela Rules in hono...
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On Gurugram Streets on a Rainy Day

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हरे कृष्णा हरे जाम हरे गुरु हरे ग्राम| Gurgaon now Gurugram boasts of being the Millenium City. What earned this sobriquet could be the offices of several IT companies and grand edifices and Malls which are touted not as shopping places but as a destination and tourist attraction. While the concentration of IT companies brings in thousands of young minds to the city along with revenue, it is certainly not this alone that should earn Gurugram this sobriquet. Silicon Valley in the US is home to the who's who of the world IT industry. But then Silicon Valley is also known for the 6th highest GDP in the world, and the best air, and water supply anywhere on the planet Earth. The infrastructure there is awesome and always being upgraded. And here is our Millennium City overwhelmed by one hour's downpour. Thousands of motorists were stranded everywhere. Engines stalled. People abandoned their cars on the roads and trudged home in knee-deep water. NH 8 gets flooded and large pools of w...
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SHARBATI WHEAT OF MADHYA PRADESH AND PUNJAB PRCTICES

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  Recently I bought a bag of Sharbati wheat at Rs. 44 per Kg. Normal MP wheat sells at around Rs. 40 a kilo. The third in the hierarchy is the Rajasthani wheat selling at Rs 30-32 a kilo. There is great demand for these varieties and I am told the farmers use no or little chemical fertilizers but reap a rich harvest earning handsomely or twice as much as the farmers in Punjab. Wheat grown in Punjab is sold at Rs. 22-24 and there are few takers other than FCI. The rich farmers in Punjab themselves do not eat their own produce! I would urge our Punjabi farmers and their so-called unions/associations to follow the Madhya Pradesh model by growing better varieties using no or little chemical fertilizers. It will restore soil health and the health of people. A particular area of Punjab has witnessed an explosion of cancer cases. A switch to healthier farming practices may reverse the cancer trend. Better quality wheat will surely be in great demand for local consumption and exports. It w...
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Women prisoners: The way ahead

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 While assessing the condition of Indian prisons in 1835, Lord Macaulay described them as "shocking to humanity". The prisons system has definitely evolved from the medieval and the British times which mainly focused on incarceration and inhuman treatment of inmates. The prison conditions have significantly improved but a public interest litigation titled 'Inhuman Conditions in Prisons', in the Supreme Court puts focus on the not so desirable conditions in the Indian prisons.  As per the NCRB data compiled up to 2015, there were approximately 4.2 lakh prisoners in some 1400 prisons in the country. Women, at 17,834, constitute just above 4 per cent of the entire prison population. Most of the women inmates are confined to separate enclosures in general prisons. Shockingly, there are only 18 prisons which cater exclusively to the women inmates. Whether the design of these 18 prisons is suitable to the specific needs of women remains debatable. The World Health Organi...
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