Solutions to rising crimes against women & children.

The recent report by Praja highlights what has been suspected all along that crimes against women & children are treated casually.. This explains the fact, that, more than 90% cases are pending trials in courts.

Hence, conviction is less than 40 % .The reasons can be many. One major reason is shortage of manpower or rather human power. The highest shortage is in forensic laboratories where its 40%, followed by public prosecutors where its 28% shortage. Next is the police, where shortage of personnel is 18% & in sessions courts, the shortage is 14% .Even the Supreme Court & High Courts have vacancies & it takes years to fill up the vacancies. Obviously, all this affects deliverance of justice .And ,when ,at the grassroot level, there are vacancies at sessions courts, & amongst the police, the public prosecutors, & in the forensic laboratories, women & children continue to suffer as their lives are marred by violence.

Even in cases that needed to be tried under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences ( POCSO) Act ,just about half of the cases have been tried in special courts as mandated under the POCSO  act. And only 44 out of a total 220 cases tried under POCSO reached the stage of judgement in 2019. In, 2020 , because of COVID, the situation has definitely worsened. All this will add to a huge backlog of cases in the future.

As per the National Judicial Data Grid ,the backlog of cases is a whooping 37.7 million ! This works out to 3.7 million cases pending for 10 years, Out of these 3.7 million cases, 2.8 million cases before the district courts & 0.92 million cases before the High Courts have remained pending. And that’s not all. Nearly, 6,60,000 cases have remained pending for more than two decades & another, 1,31,000 have remained unresolved for more than 30 years. All this adds to a huge economic cost. Moreover, delay in justice is as good as denial of justice.

Capital punishment or death penalty is an incorrect response to check crimes against women & children. Capital punishment is not a deterrent .It is an expensive process & since nearly 75 % of the accused on the death row are from the marginalised sections of society, it gets too exorbitant .And death penalty has not acted as a deterrent .If death penalty is the answer then murders should have stopped. And yet, murders continue. Capital punishment is like revenge & this has therefore no place in a civil society. And cases in which capital punishment is awarded take years to end. And this makes it a long & winding process. It is traumatic for the victim, their families & even for the accused & their families. .And where is the scope to correct if a person is given capital punishment & later its discovered that the accused who suffered the death penalty ,had not committed the alleged crime ?

Many states have brought in the death penalty in case of sexual assaults' of children below 12 years under POCSO. And the effect is ,that there are hardly any convictions. Because ,in most cases of sexual abuse of children , the accused   ( more than  90% ) are from the family and friends. And so the victim or survivor is pressurized to keep silent & not depose against the accused.

The pandemic has led to an exponential increase in cases of domestic violence .And even in such cases, it is  likely that the women who are the victims and survivors , will choose to remain silent .They would rather not speak up against their family members. So death penalty will make this complaining against family members nearly impossible.

Faster arrests , thorough investigation & fast tracking of cases  is needed to curb rising crimes against women & children. 

How can the pendency of cases involving women & kids be  brought down ? Obviously by decisions of the courts .And that can happen only when the courts function with full capacity. That means all vacancies need to be filled up. And this should include vacancies at the levels of judiciary, at the level of police , at the level of public prosecutors and also at the level of forensic laboratories. It's the entire gamut of the judicial system that needs to be covered.

Another step that needs to be taken is to fill up all the vacancies that exist across all the courts, from  the lowest till the highest levels. This will improve the judge to population ratio & help in brining down the backlog of cases. The Advocate General of India, Mr Venugopal recently told the Supreme Court that there is a lot of gender bias in the judiciary .He opined that as many as 50 % of judges need to be women to make it non biased.

A suggestion is to temporarily increase the number of lower courts by appointing willing law graduates as judges .Such temporary judges will be paid only salary .They will be ineligible for other benefits .And as soon as the backlog of cases end, these temporary  judges will be retired without any benefits. Of course, the most suitable of them can be absorbed into the judicial services after the requisite examinations & interviews & other relevant criteria. And mostly these temporary judges can be from women candidates. Even the courts which have to try POCSO cases can be headed majorly by women. Because women have a better understanding of children & their trauma. The temporary judges can try a majority of the cases dealing with women & children as women are better equipped to deal with such cases.

The Supreme Court guidelines as laid down in the Vishaka case  ( which dealt with sexual harassment at the workplace ) stated that the internal complaints committee in any organisation must be headed by  a woman .At least half of the members of this committee must be women. It follows therefore that women must have an equally importantly role to play in violent crimes affecting women & children

Similarly, other temporary posts can be created across the entire gamut of the criminal justice system whereby police personnel, the public prosecutors, the forensic team, can be majorly women. And these temporary posts can be ended once the pendency of cases gets back to manageable proportions. Here also, the most suitable ones can be absorbed into the permanent services through examinations, interviews & other relevant criteria. The Constitution of India allows reservation in favour of women & hence these judicial, police , public prosecution & forensic science jobs in favour of women are as per the Fundamental Right under Article 15 ( 3 ). 

Another  way to reduce the huge backlog of cases is to allow  the courts & other judicial & quasi judicial authorities to work in shifts.  In Maharashtra, the lower courts will be working in two shifts .And this, is indeed, the urgent need of the day. In fact, not just the lower courts, even the High Courts & Supreme Court need to work in shifts to clear the huge backlog of cases. If this happens, the backlog will end soon & then all courts can resume single shift working.

And as women get employed , the GDP of our country will rise by 27 % .Hence, employing women as judges, police personnel, public prosecutors & forensic scientists will be a WIN WIN situation for all !!! It will make the society safer for women & children as crimes are dealt with promptly & justice is delivered. Economy will improve & the backlog of cases will reduce.

And this is in accordance with India’s position on the international stage. India is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil & Political rights as also Convention for Elimination of Discrimination against Women .

And this pandemic has given us a chance to implement the aforesaid ideas ,  which can only lead us ahead in the direction of a better tomorrow !

Women during the Lockdown.

This blog post was published on Women's Web on 24th April , 2020 as a Featured Post.

India nah, the world is under lock down .And it has affected   in  myriad ways.And therefore it has obviously influenced  kids  and especially  women as well.

Since everybody has to stay safe by staying indoors at homes, the women of the hose is constantly on her toes.She cleans, cooks, cares, washes, etal. Yes, men do chip in and  help .And that is the bare minimum and  that too when asked specifically to do so.The kids in the house are no better and yet that's expected .Because, when they see their father and the men in the house laze around, they are going to follow the laid back attitude of the men.

Men seem to believe that while they slogged in offices during pre shutdown days, their wives would snap a finger and  housework would get done by itself. Yes, in the pre lockdown days, maids did a part of the housework  yet the lady of the house did have to do the remaining part . Men are therefore shocked that women physically do housework  ! That is ladies cook, clean, care, wash, etc with their hands , not by snapping fingers ! And since men are at home, they are expected to chip in too .As men pretend to be busy doing nothing, they have to be specially requested to do at least some task around the house. And then , the men do it in such a manner /s  that they are never ever asked again to help. A survey regarding the type and  quantity of housework done by Indian men is quite revealing . Just that this survey makes  it official ! More that 25% women feel that men do not do enough work at the home during shutdown. It follows that post shutdown, they will do no work around the house .And nearly 70% men did admit that housework is tougher than they believed it to be ! Corona lockdown  has led to enlightenment  ! Not that this enlightenment is going to reduce the burden of housework for ladies in any which way.

And in the midst of the lockdown , there are reports of increased domestic violence. Women are bearing the brunt of this violence followed by children. Many women have nowhere to go  and  no income of their own. Hence, they are forced to put up with the violent partners . And this lockdown has made it tougher. The men take out all their frustration on their partners as all are at home all the twenty four hours , day in and  day out.The National Commission for Women has been flooded with more than twice the number of complaints during the lockdown  as compared to those  filed before the shutdown.


The victims of domestic violence have been using email and  whatsapp texts or text messages to complain about domestic violence as talking on phone gets difficult if not impossible with the abuser being in close proximity. This is  different from the pre lockdown period when a majority of the complaints were through the phone calls.

The government has issued a warning  that domestic violence will be strictly handled.And yet,  with the police being overworked in handling lockdown, it may be difficult  for the police to deal with domestic violence. The NGOs working with the police can intervene in matters of domestic violence & ease the lives of women away from domestic violence.

Another downside of this stay at home has been a spike in the number of cases being filed for divorces. Rising divorces are mainly due to domestic violence as also economic downturn which has got aggravated since the lockdown has been en forced to deal with the pandemic. Some couples are consulting lawyers through  audio and  video calls while others are turning to psychotherapists . Lack of communication and  being out of sync is coming to the fore, during the lockdown. Maybe ,counselling can help and  if the lockdown continues for some more days, more couples would firm up on separation. In India, women have to fight for their maintenance even after divorce . Divorces begin new problems of more harassment.

Child porn has risen by 100% as per  India Child Protection Fund ( ICPF) which works for protection of children & against child trafficking. And many are looking for  child porn with violent content. Majority of porn viewers  are on Virtual Private Network ( VPN ) to escape Indian government ban on  Child Porn .And so, this makes it, extremely difficult to deal with such individuals .For this, more Cyber Crime cells need to be added and  more personnel trained to deal with Cyber Crimes.The fact that kids are victims of Porn means that women are more stressed as they need to be more vigilant about their kids .And this is further adding to their woes in this lockdown.

There is some upside for women in this pandemic time. Corona seems to be affecting men more than it infects women. More men are falling prey to Covid 19 than women.Maybe, women are better at handling infections just like they are good  in dealing with  everything. Maybe, because women have stronger genetic makeup which fights infections in a better manner. Male gender is at risk by Corona and  yet, science has always studied the male body.Drug trials and vaccine tests are done keeping the male body as reference .This can later lead to many of the drugs and  vaccines being withdrawn because they were never tested to see how they would affect the female bodies. Science needs to treat women fairly so that effective medicines can be made, which will help the whole of the human race not just the male gender.After all , this is the minimum that science can do as a tribute to the discoverer of Corona virus, the scientific pioneer,Ms. June Almeida, a woman  who is being acknowledged now, for her iconic work in virology, way back in 1964.

The world over, female heads of State have been able to control the pandemic better than the male heads of state. Taiwan, headed by President Tsai Ing-wen    is exporting face masks to other nations .

The Taiwanese President had ordered inspections of all the flights which landed in Taiwan from Wuhan , China when she heard about the virus that was still unknown in December, 2019. A unit was set up to monitor the epidemic and  production of personal protection equipment was scaled up .The control was so effective, that USA has asked that Taiwan be given observer status at WHO. Angela Merkel of Germany handled the Corona virus spread so well that Germany had the least number of fatalities in Europe .Similarly, New Zealand's PM, Jacinda Ardern ordered a four week lockdown from March 23.There was  large scale testing which limited the number of deaths to nine. And this she did, by banning all tourists though tourism is the biggest revenue generator for her country.

Likewise PMs of Finland, Iceland, Sint Maarten  ( all are women ) have taken firm steps of widespread testing and  quarantining to control the spread .And they are winning  ! It may be argued that these small countries are easy to govern .And yet, small steps lead to bigger things !

And  this means, that women need to lead , so that the world is better managed .And more women are needed to make the world healthier and  better !

Book Review : Fractured Legend

This is my first book review .I have recieved this book under the books review program of Blog Adda.I am thankful to BlogAdda for giving me this opportunity.

The book 'Fractured Legend ' is by the Hyderabad based novelist, Kranthi Askani.This book has been published by APK Publishers,Pune who started publishing books, in order to give a chance to upcoming writers.

The cover of the book is full of - red,yellow,black, orange & white hues.It shows a teenage girl asleep on a table with her head completely resting on her left hand.

The  tales of the heroines are told by the women themselves.They are their own sutradhaars.Men have a role or rather roles to play in the stories of women.The roles of men are just like branches which grow out of the trunk of a tree.The setting is real to surreal,present & past ,dream  & reality.

The story of the book is about  three women - Priyambada,Nandhini & Pravalli.Priyambada is a temple slave.She decides to go in for a life in flesh, even though she will lose immortality which she has, as a temple slave. Priyambada goes through the human cycle of marriage & childbirth.She is unable to break with her past though she is quite happy with her human life.Nandhini, is a woman, who has taken up the task of eliminating people by killing them for a price.She is trapped through her son  into killing her boss .She kills her boss & then she despairs if she  did right.This had never confused her earlier.Pravalli is penning a letter to her mom after years.She is unable to forgive & forget her mom.As the book ends,Pravalli tries to come to terms with  why her mom, behaved the way she did.

The author has tried to weave magic in the story - as his heroines keep passing from the real world into the surreal.The heroines keep going back & forth in time,  every now & then- memories of association as the heroine reminds us.They dream quite a bit.The book starts weaving its magic slowly & pensively.It has a sad undertone.One can feel the anguish of the women who are trapped, for no fault of theirs. One tends to sympathise with the heroines & this makes us anxious to read further.

The writing is good, though in the initial pages ,it gives a feeling of too many words being used from the world of architecture.Later ,it is not so.Simple easy words would have helped more.The imagination is very vivid.The author correctly describes the feelings of all mothers who will keep sweets for the child whenever they attend any function & not devour them like fathers.The tender relationship between the mother & daughter is detailed poignantly.

The pleating of sarees has been described by the author correctly.This is a surprise, considering that nowadays ,sarees are the  last option of generation next.Even I started wrapping sarees in some decent manner quite late.One  heroine is typically frugal in her choices -she will go for the middle priced item, be it bangles or anything else.Chiffon sarees are the preferred choice of the ladies  & all this paints  a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours !

I would recommend this book for those readers, who are patient enough to wait for the magic to begin slowly but surely.The wait is going to be worth it though the ending leaves many questions unanswered.Perhaps,the writer is penning a sequel.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

ABCDs ! ?

A friend remarked the other day, that, no matter how high & mighty we pretend to be,we are all basically ABCDs.A is for aaya,B is for bawarchi,C for chaprasi & D means driver . Perhaps,sometimes we are more than one of these or better still all the four rolled into one !

Aaya is someone who cares for others like kids,sick & the elderly.Bawarchi denotes a person who cooks & generally takes care of the kitchen.Chaprasi is the sweeper who cleans up the dirt generated by others.Now,it is is upto the sweeper to sweep the dirt away or under the carpet.Mostly the latter.Most of us are indeed chaprasis as many a times we are busy hiding away our vices & exhibiting our virtues ( if any ).

This nomenclature stands good for men as also  women.Men need aayas to care  for them no matter how old they grow.Actually,the older the age,more is the care needed.Men are aayas only in one sense -they earn money which shows they care for the family.Very few males can actually take care of others.Doctors do care but as part of their duty.Men have an inborn innate tendency of not caring.They feel it is a job of the lady just like the other ones ! Men are bawarchis at times when they relax by means of cooking .Of course,some are bawarchis by profession .Chaprasi is an apt name for anyone who clears the mess .Men are chaprasis at the work place as they keep bemoaning that they are always cleaning up for the guy /s who left a mess or rather loads of it.It is another story, that the ladies have to perennially  clean the  trash ,that the men  leave at home on a regular basis.Men drive women crazy & so they are drivers.Sometimes,they do drive vehicles as well but how well they do it is a matter of grave concern to one & all.Just one look at the accident statistics is enough to daze the daylights out of anyone.

Women are all rolled into one most of the times.They are aayas as they care for all at home .Women cook & so they are bawarchis as well.Chaprasis are ladies as they have to clean up the houses & homes after the kids & family members leave litter strewn all over.But some women think that these three roles are insufficient to desribe their talents.So they venture into driving .They  end up being drivers also ! 

Our Prime Minister also fits into this nomenclature.He is an aaya as he the PM to take care of all Indians.At least,that is the oath taken, later forgotten, in other roles.He is the bawarchi as he has to cook up so many tales to counteract  the opposition ,the media,the public & sometimes even his cabinet ! He is a chaprasi as he will always keep reminding us that he is too busy cleaning up the mess left by the previous rulers.This is to justify that this clearing job is so voluminous that no other work will get done ! He is also the driver as he is driving our nation & its people down hill !

I  am an aaya for my kid & my hubby .This role extends to taking care of  the extended family as well sometimes, just by the reason, of being conversant in the  national language.I cook or rather pretend to cook & so am a bawarchi as well.Obviously ,the blog posts cooked by me, make readers suspicious about my culinary abilities as also my literary ones.Since my kid & hubby have no penchant for cleanliness,all the neatness is my forte.So,I am the chaprasi of the house.Whilst I worked in the Public sector,I realised that all of us - my boss included, were chaprasis earning inflated salaries.I am yet to own a vehicle & so cannot drive.But my hubby says that I drive him nuts by my adamant attitude.So I am a driver by my better half's classification.

We all fit so snugly into this.The next time anybody requests you or even orders you for any job ,just think what role is being demanded of you -aaya,bawarchi,chaprasi or driver ? Nine out of ten,it will be the work of a chaprasi !

Shhh... Male at work !

This is in continuation of males & females-how men work & how women work.

I know it is debatable if men ever work but still let us suppose that they are at work-in office,at home etal but then their attitude is of  no disturbance.They opine that any disturbance while they are at work,irritates them.When my hubby is performing puja,he will not pick up the phone,will refuse to open the door & keep mum when spoken to.This is because, he is in deep thought about God.But while,I am praying ,I get up to open the door& then continue my prayers.Then,the phone rings & I pick up the phone.It is generally not for me but still I politely reply & then disconnect.Again, I am  interrupted  yet again by the doodhwala,the dhobi,the kachrawala,the maid & so on & so forth.By the end of the day,I have just managed to recite the prayers amongst  all these chores .I also somehow am able to cook a decent  nashta,lunch,& also attend to my kid if she is home -all this simultaneously with my praying.When I compared my praying to my Hubby's ,he replied,"My prayers will benefit you as well." Does this mean that my prayers will not work or maybe he is trying to tell me that the way I pray, amidst chaos -it does not count at all !But then ,I cannot ignore all the doorbells,the kid etal even when I pray.Men ignore all & are indifferent as they know that their wives are there to attend to mundane tasks like the trash,the kid etc.But likewise,women cannot trust men even with simple chores-the less said about the difficult ones,the better...

Just today,I had called up the beautician to come & attend me for henna,facial,etc.But I was tense also -as my kid was home & so was my dad.My dad needs nashta on time.I prepared nasta,warmed the milk,kept the trash outside,made toast for my kid etc etc.If my dad needs a haircut,he will just declare that he is going for a haircut .That's it.But if I have to go for a haircut -I have to make sure that lunch is ready,maid has finished her chores & so on.Many times,women just keep postponing their  medical check ups,even bank work as they feel too overwhelmed by the tasks they have to perform .But you tell men this & they will only flare up.They will rarely do any  such task which is quite silly by their standards .But men always keep reminding the women how important & ,intelligent their work is.Really ! Ours is so essential that it has to be  done then & there but try telling men that !

In the finality,it is that we adjust when we have some exclusive work with ourselves  & it is again ,we, who make adjustments when all others at home have specific tasks to attend to.So,the moral of the tale is -women are excellent at adjustments -as at all other things !

The debate continues ...