Indian P.M Modi’s wife wants to know her rights

he wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inexplicably doesn’t live with him has asked the government to explain her official rights as the spouse of the Indian leader and also said she feared for her life, according to local reports on Monday.

The reports said Ms Jashodaben on Monday filed an RTI application with Mehsana police in Gujarat to seek details of the security cover given to her at present and what she is entitled to.

Press Trust of India said that in her application Ms Jashodaben expressed unhappiness about the current protection set-up, where her guards travel in government cars, while, despite being a PM’s wife, she has to travel in public transport.

She was quoted as saying also that just like former prime minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her own bodyguards she felt scared of her guards. She asked the government to make it mandatory for each guard to produce copy of deployment order.

Ms Jashodaben, who has been previously described as a junior school teacher asked the government to explain the definition and details of protocol she was entitled to.

Mehsana superintendent of police J.R. Mothalia has been quoted as saying that Ms Jashodaben wanted to know what her rights as Mr Modi’s wife were as far as the security aspect was concerned.

“Today, she came to our office and filed an RTI to know about her rights as PM’s wife with regard to security cover. We will give our written reply to her in stipulated time,” said SP Mothalia.

Ms Jashodaben lives with her brother Ashok Modi in Unjha town of Mehsana district. After Mr Modi was sworn in as prime minister, she was given security by the Mehasana police.

“We have deployed ten of our policemen, including armed guards, for her security. They work in two shifts, five each in one shift,” PTI quoted police inspector of Mehsana Special Operations Group J.S. Chavda as saying.

In her application, Ms Jashodaben sought several documents from the police department related to her security cover and details of the protocol it derives power from. She also asked for a certified copy of the actual order passed by the government about providing security.

She also wanted to know the laws and related provisions in the Indian Constitution about security cover given to a prime minister’s wife.

The standard drill by a parliamentary act requires the immediate family of the prime minister and former prime ministers to be given top grade Special Protection Group cover, a service given by law to protect Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and her children.

Ebola In Pakistan

A man who had recently returned from Togo, an Ebola-affected country in West Africa, and shown symptoms of the virus died on Tuesday at a hospital in Faisalabad.

Speaking to Dawn, an official at Allied Hospital confirmed that the suspected Ebola patient had died early on Tuesday.

According to initial reports, 40-year-old Zulfiqar Ahmed, who hailed from Punjab’s Chiniot district, was admitted to Faislabad's Allied Hospital on Saturday with high fever.

Doctors suspected that Ahmed might have contracted the deadly Ebola virus since he returned from Togo only a week ago and was bleeding from his nose and mouth.

Speaking to Dawn, Dr Rashid Maqbool at the Allied Hospital had earlier said that the patient’s blood samples had been sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad for laboratory tests and it would take at least two weeks for the results to arrive.

Meanwhile, taking notice of the reports, the Punjab Health department had shifted the patient to the isolation ward at Allied Hospital.

Punjab Health Advisor Khawaja Salman Rafique had told DawnNews that government medical teams had reached Chiniot, where they would perform tests on Ahmed’s relatives and friends in case they also displayed similar symptoms.

World Health Organisation (WHO) teams are also expected to reach the Punjab town.

Child abductions

 the authorities have sprung to action with the same alacrity if a parent had abducted Sahil? Certainly, in such a scenario there would have been no clear demarcation of victim from villain and plans for recovery of the child would have been accordingly muddled.

One factor, however, would have been constant in both scenarios an innocent child would have been used as a pawn in a game of adults! This article examines the legal framework that may be mobilised in case a child is abducted by a parent, particularly across nations, and explores the possible safeguards available to a child in such a situation.

Although the Pakistan Penal Code recognises kidnapping (whether from legal guardianship or from Pakistan) and abduction as crimes, the superior courts of Pakistan have consistently interpreted the relevant provisions to exclude abduction by a parent, particularly when the abducting parent is the father, because in their view “...father of a child being always a natural guardian along with the mother, can never be ascribed or attributed the offence of kidnapping of his own child....” (Muhammad Ashraf v. SHO and others 2001 P Cr. L J 31). While this view may exonerate the father from penal consequences it cannot protect him from actions for the production and custody of the child.

A case may be lodged for the production of a child under section 491 of the Criminal Procedure Code and for custody under section 7 or 25 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. The Act does not assume either parent as the appropriate guardian and confers upon the district court the power to appoint a guardian most capable of ensuring the 'welfare' of the child.

Pakistani courts have demonstrated considerable sensitivity for the child's emotional and financial well-being in interpreting the concept of 'welfare', and while upholding these principles have at times granting custody even to a grandparent if such grandparent appears better placed to ensure the child's welfare.

Custody matters become complicated however when the child is born of a mixed marriage. In 1983, the international community, recognising the possibility of transnational abductions of children of mixed marriages as well as the inadequacy of domestic laws to deal with such situations, ratified the Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction. The Convention, while it recognises that the principle of 'welfare' is paramount in considering any question of child custody, stipulates that the abducted child be returned to his country of habitual residence as the courts of that country are best suited to determine the issue.

Pakistan has chosen not to ratify the Convention. This however does not mean that the issue of transnational abductions is not relevant to Pakistan. In the last few years, high courts throughout Pakistan have dealt with cases involving children from mixed marriages between Pakistanis and British, Canadian and French nationals. While these cases appear to have been resolved judiciously, they represent relief for a very small fraction of parents who had the capacity to approach Pakistani courts even when they themselves were residents of foreign jurisdictions. The problem of child abduction is indeed far graver than the small number of cases suggests, as are the obstacles created by a foreign resident parent's lack of knowledge of the legal process in Pakistan.

The problem of child abduction is most acute between the UK and Pakistan due to the high percentage of marriages between Pakistani and UK nationals whether residing in Pakistan or the UK. Seeing the pain and anguish caused to children who become victims of such cases, the superior judiciary of the two countries took it upon themselves to tackle this issue and in January 2003 signed the UK Pakistan Judicial Protocol on Children Matters in order to establish a formal mechanism that aggrieved parents could invoke in case a child of a mixed marriage was abducted from one to the other country.

Like the Convention, the Protocol stipulates that the courts of a country in which the child is habitually resident should decide the issue of custody. The Protocol adds that this decision should be made without regard to the nationality, culture and religion of either parent. The Protocol is unbiased and allows parents to invoke the jurisdiction of Pakistani courts if the child is habitually resident in Pakistan and of UK courts if UK is the child's normal home. The guiding principles of the Protocol are safeguarding the interests of the child and preventing an abducting parent from taking advantage of his illegal act and dictating the jurisdiction in which the question of the child's welfare may be decided.

Despite voluntarily accepting the Protocol, Pakistani judiciary has remained reluctant in following it. In a departure from this judicial silence, Justice Saqib Nisar in his judgment in what is known as “the Misbah case” followed the Protocol in principle, however he too did not actually refer to it. It is perhaps unfortunate from a purely legal perspective that the parties arrived at a compromise in an appeal before the Supreme Court and the Protocol did not become a binding precedent for all other courts in Pakistan.

Judges in Pakistan may well argue that the Protocol is not necessary because they are fully capable of determining the welfare of a child. While such a claim is indeed borne out by numerous judgments, it fails to take into account that the issue here is not of the competence of judiciary but of creating certainty in the legal system by dealing with cases between Pakistan and the UK consistently in accordance with the Protocol and in fact extending the principles to any transnational abductions.

The issue is also about providing a level playing field to both parents who are equal stakeholders in the welfare of their child rather than making it difficult, if not impossible, for one parent to approach the courts. Most importantly, the issue is of rescuing the child from being a mere pawn in the parental tussle, and recognising him as an individual who has the legal right to have his welfare determined in accordance with the laws, standards and values of the country in which his parents — until their marital discord led them to think otherwise — themselves chose to raise him

Acid Attck on Girl

here ever was a situation that could aptly be described without a trace of irony as a fate worse than death, it would be the lives of victims of acid attacks, most of whom are women.

There are few other crimes that have the kind of far-reaching, devastating and often permanent consequences in a world where physical appearance is a vital aspect of an individual’s social capital. When Pakistan’s parliament enacted the Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act, 2011, it was hailed as an important step in the fight against this type of violence.

The legislation inserted new sections into the Pakistan Penal Code that, for the first time, defined acid attacks and stipulated imprisonment from 14 years to life and a minimum fine of Rs1m as punishment.

However, as a report in this paper yesterday indicates, that scarcely appears to have been a deterrent. In Punjab, which accounts for the majority of cases, acid attacks have actually registered an increase: there were 42 between January and September this year, compared to 35 throughout 2013.

Rights activists have persistently held that the 2011 amendment to the PPC was to have been buttressed by a comprehensive act to address various aspects of the issue — financial compensation for the victim, his/her rehabilitation, the sale of acid, etc.

Crucially, the proposed legislation recognises that victims are in need of urgent and long-term medical attention. Several drafts are in the final stages with various provincial authorities.

Among the suggestions in the draft under consideration in Punjab is that cases be processed within a specific time frame, the fine imposed upon perpetrators go towards compensation for victims and the government be made responsible for the latter’s rehabilitation.

It also stipulates the setting up of a monitoring and funding mechanism to enable effective implementation. To ensure that this most vicious of crimes does not go unpunished and that those at the receiving end are not left without redress, the comprehensive bill must be passed into law without delay.

Women at work

 September 1997. I had returned from England after completing my Bar and had just started work at a prestigious litigation firm in Karachi. Our offices comprised a large hall — which also served as the reception, entrance and waiting room — surrounded by individual rooms. Junior lawyers — like me — and the clerks sat in the hall, whilst the more senior ones sat in adjoining rooms. My desk was placed at the furthest end from the entrance, surrounded by those of other lawyers.

Within weeks, however, I noticed clients ignoring all other chairs in the room and making a beeline for my desk. One afternoon, a client sat in front of me for nearly a half hour until my senior could see him. I was terribly upset and after he left, asked the head clerk why he had not asked him to move. The head clerk simply said: “If you come out to work, you should be prepared for this.” Stunned and shaken, I still managed to retort rather sharply: “I come here to work, not to make a spectacle of myself.”

This incident, minor as it was, remained seared in my memory as a reminder of the attitudes a woman has to encounter as she steps into the workspace. Over the years, however, as I spoke to many other workingwomen I realised that I had in fact gotten off lightly. Many women had faced far more difficult situations and had either compromised simply to retain their jobs and then too wasted away in subordinate positions, or had become frustrated and quit.

In 2010, when the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act was enacted, I was curious to see what difference it would make to the situation women faced. Certainly, the act did many good things: It defined harassment widely, to include all actions ranging from unwelcome sexual advances to simply sexually demeaning attitudes which were likely to interfere with work or render the environment hostile or intimidating. It also placed a responsibility on employers to properly implement the act.

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The media must be utilised to create gender awareness.

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However, in the four years since it has been enacted the term ‘harassment’ still remains to be fully interpreted: there are only two reported judgments, authored by the ombudsman Mussarat Hilali. In hearing appeals from decisions of the inquiry committees — which incidentally do not enter the public domain — she finds in one that calling someone ‘an illiterate and ill-mannered woman’ though upsetting, does not qualify as sexual harassment whereas in the other she finds that overtly asking for sexual favours does fall within the ambit of sexual harassment.

Ms Hilali’s somewhat black and white interpretations of the term ‘sexual’ appear to be based on her personal understanding rather than an evaluation of the law. In order to fully understand what the term encompasses, it is imperative to examine how it has been interpreted elsewhere.

In the UK for instance, where sexual mores are more permissive, any comment or act, ranging from a remark about clothing and appearance to cracking sexual jokes to even just staring, may constitute sexual harassment, provided it makes the recipient of such comment or act uncomfortable.

It is further important to understand that the issue at the heart of sexual harassment is not morality but abuse of power. An exchange, which may be considered harmless between two consenting adults, becomes laden with undertones and implications when it comes from a superior at the workplace. Surely, in a conservative society like Pakistan, where the ordinary spatial rules between men and women are stricter, the threshold of what constitutes harassment should be lower and not higher than what it is in the West.

Parliament may have done its duty by enacting a sexual harassment law but the government needs to do more to enforce it meaningfully. Parti­cu­larly, it needs to appreciate that simply appointing a woman ombudsman is not the answer: that women can — and do — perpetuate chauvinistic views unless they are formally trained for gender sensitivity. It needs to require the workplace to do more to implement the law perhaps by making the maintenance of a gender code of conduct a requirement for the continued operation of business.

Most importantly, however, it needs to utilise the media to create gender awareness: to remind men that being Muslim is not merely about asking a woman to cover up but also as much about asking men to lower their gaze; and that women who work are as respectable as their female relatives whose honour they are so desperate to guard.

My story had a positive ending because I was educated and confident enough to stand up for myself, but more importantly, because my senior was sufficiently enlightened and supportive to ensure that such an incident would never be repeated. Everyone is not so lucky