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.

The media must be utilised to create gender awareness.

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

Five ways degraded women

Five ways Pakistan degraded women

women know to expect no special concessions. At any given moment in history, one or another political force, religious edict, or social problem is aiming directly at them, pointing fingers, attaching blame. Given this, most of them expected few good things to come out of the commemoration of International Women’s Day.

Sure, there would be some laudatory articles commemorating them, a few celebrations and gatherings here and there, providing neat opportunities for politicians and dignitaries to do their smiling and clapping bit, hand out checks to widows, listen to schoolgirls sing. A history of dealing with misogyny has meant a reality of low expectations. No one, of course expected anything to actually change for the better.

A lack of hope, however, does not equal adequate preparation for catastrophe. If things were bad on women’s day, a pragmatic Pakistani woman may have assumed, they would stay in their existing state of awfulness for at least the next week. As it turns out, they were wrong.

The week after women’s day has proven that new depths of misogyny are indeed possible and that they will be achieved in Pakistan, a country resolute in being the most woman hating place on the planet. Here a list of five steps the country took in this direction.

1. Recommended child marriage

On March 11th 2014, two days after the celebration of International Women’s Day in the country, Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology (perhaps fearing that women had become empowered by the occasion), decided to deliver some decisive blows.

The Chairmen of the CII, Maulana Mohammad Sheerani, declared that children below the age of puberty could be married off and that international conventions prohibiting child marriage were un-Islamic and not applicable to Pakistan. In one statement therefore, Pakistani girls, even babies were left vulnerable to abuse, with their lives and futures now liable to being decided long before they could have any say in the matter.

This was not the limit to rage against women, on an earlier day, he had also declared that any law requiring a Pakistani male to obtain permission from his first wife for a subsequent marriage, were also un-Islamic.

2. Ignored a rape victim until she burnt herself alive

She was 18 years old and she was a survivor of rape in a country where rape victims can themselves be prosecuted. Over two months earlier, on January 5, 2014, she had lodged an FIR at the police station alleging that the accused Nadir Khan, along with four accomplices had raped her near Bait Mir Hazar Chowk.

On March 13, 2014, all five men were set free. On March 14, 2014, five days after International Women’s Day, she set herself on fire outside the police station, which had so callously denied her justice. She died of her burns on the same day.

3. Buried a woman alive

Sughra Brohi of village Hakim Khan Marri in Sanghar District had committed the crime of marrying a man of her own choice. The villagepanchayat met and the elders assured everyone that she would not be killed if she returned home. They lied, As soon as she returned home, she was assaulted by her own family.

According to the Sindhi language daily, Kawish, she was buried alive in the graveyard of the Bheel community in the area. The grave was discovered and the news reported this last week. Area police are said to be investigating the case.

4. Beat up striking nurses

More than a hundred female nurses had been on strike for over five days outside the Punjab Assembly building. The nurses were protesting the firing of their colleagues who had been working on ad hoc or contract basis. On Friday March 14, 2014, the nurses all of whom were unarmed were baton charged by police.

A policewoman beats a nurse outside the Punjab Assembly. —Photo by Online

News footage of the incident showed the women being charged and heavily assaulted by law enforcement. Several were injured and had to be hospitalised, and two were so critically hurt that they had to be admitted to the intensive care unit of an area hospital.

Despite, the use of undue and unjustified force by the police, those that were unhurt continued to mark their ongoing protest outside the Assembly building.

5. Called them good for cooking not for cricket

If the round-up of being buried alive, burned to death, raped and baton charged were not plentiful degradation for Pakistani women to bear in a single week, a public insult by a man crowned the country’s cricket hero, added one more degradation to the week’s dastardly mix.

In an interview question, Shahid Afridi was asked about what he thought about the under 19 women’s cricket trials recently held in Karachi. The cricketer now revealed himself to be a male chauvinist; implying that “our women” were better kept in the kitchen, assumedly cooking up meals for their men.

With this list, the week ended, a series of blows, not unusual, not unique, but notable in their ability to represent, what is an entire nation’s inability to respect one half of its population.

In the dead and injured and degraded collected in this one week, is the reflection of a country in which every man considers himself unaccountable and unconnected to the miseries enacted every day and day after day on women.

The forces of law, of faith, of community, of Government and of entertainment, each one came together in this bouquet of misery and degradation, its stench and filth, exposing the rot that lies within.

Kim Kardashian's FIRST naked shoot

The 34-year-old beauty cried hysterically after seeing her first naked shoot for W Magazine and vowed never to strip off again

Kim Kardashian on the cover of W magazine

Kim Kardashian's full frontal nude shoot in Paper mag left most of us gob-smacked - but she didn't seem to care.

Turn the clock back three years and the reality TV star had a meltdown after she stripped off for W Magazine and saw the results in the publication (they weren't too pretty).

Although her boobs and lady bits were mostly covered up in the shoot, she was seen crying hysterically during an episode of Kourtney And Kim Take New York and vowed never to get naked again.

The 34-year-old beauty posed for photographer Mark Seliger covered in silver paint with her brunette hair flowing down and her hands covering her private parts.

Kim Kardashian appeared nude in W Magazine

During her reality show, she was seen sobbing to momager Kris Jenner, telling her: "I'm so f***ing mad, you have no idea.

"Mom have you seen my cover? I feel so taken advantage of. I'm never getting naked again.

"Oh my God, I'm more naked than I was in Playboy!" she wept. "I'm so mad right now. She promised I would be covered with artwork. You can see nipple. The whole concept was sold to me that nothing would be seen.

She wailed: "This really p****s me off … this is serious porn!", while looking at the cover which was entitled 'Kim Kardashian: The Art of Reality'.

"To have come so far to go back to that just upsets me. F***ing do something!"

As a final thought, she then added: "I've learnt my lesson, I mean, I'm definitely not getting naked or taking my clothes off ever again."

Now pretty much every one has seen her boobs and vagina after she bared all for famous photographer Jean-Paul Goude and also recreated his 1976 Champagne Incident image.

Kim, who has also stripped off for GQ magazine this year, reportedly didn't get paid for the shoot, she simply wanted to work with the celebrated French snapper.

Well, we hope she's happy with the photographs this time.

Eight women test HIV positive after only discovering lothario had virus - at his funeral

The search for victims of Daniel Decu has widened to Italy after it was revealed he spent a year there living a 'party lifestyle'

Romanian Romeo: Daniel Decu's funeral was attended by many of his lovers

Eight young women have tested HIV positive - after discovering at the funeral of a local lothario that he had been living with the virus.

The search for victims of 25-year-old Daniel Decu has now widened to Italy, after his mother admitted he had spent a year in the country apparently living a party lifestyle that left him sick when he returned to Romania. He died a year later.

The funeral of Daniel, which was attended by many of his lovers, turned into an angry shouting match when it was revealed he had been HIV positive.

It was also revealed that he'd had his first girlfriend at the age of 12, when his mother had given him a lecture on living with HIV and told him to make sure he always carried a condom with him.

He is said to have contracted the condition in a hospital as a young child.

Although he was registered as living with HIV, it only became known to the public when an autopsy was carried out and a coroner's report published.

Incredibly, it was also revealed that when a local doctor in the town of Segarcea, in south-eastern Romania's Dolj County, tried to warn people he had the disease, he was threatened with a lawsuit by the man's mother.

Doctor Cornel Stanciu, their family physician, knew that Daniel was HIV positive and tried to make his health condition public after the 24-year-old had a relationship with his daughter.

Daniel Decu — Panic: Dozens of women are awaiting test results after finding out Decu was HIV positive

But when Daniel's mother Elena Secu, 45, found out what the doctor was doing, she had threatened to sue him unless it stopped.

The doctor said: "I knew he had a lot of female friends but there was nothing I could do about it."

The mother however says that all of the women that her son had relationships with knew that he had been suffering from HIV since he was little. She said: "They all knew, I don't know why they are saying these things now."

She added: "Dani went to the psychologist to prepare himself for living with the virus, and I told him he had to use protection, I was telling it to him from the age of 12. My boy had condoms in his pocket all the time."

And she said she welcomed the investigation ordered by prosecutors.

"I want this case to be resolved, and for my boy to rest in peace in his grave. He died because of tuberculosis, not from any complications as a result of suffering from the HIV virus."

However, critics of the mother pointed out that tuberculosis was often a consequence of having the HIV virus, with around 25 percent of deaths among HIV-positive people due to TB.

She also claimed that her son had been in good health despite living with the HIV virus, and had only started to get sick after deciding to move to Italy where he lived for a year.

She said that when he came back from Italy he seemed pale and sick and that a year after that he had died.

It was not known where he lived in Italy, or if he had continued his Romeo lifestyle there as well.

Segarcea, Romania — Concerns: Revelations about Decu's condition caused anger in Segarcea

The eight people women who have now tested HIV positive will be added to two previously confirmed victims.

In total 40 women are known to have applied to take the test, although many more are suspected to have had the test done secretly in other counties.

Although it is impossible to take any action against the dead man, his mother and family are being investigated as well as others who knew about his condition, and said nothing.

AIDS remains the only disease specifically mentioned in a Romanian criminal law, where it says the transmission of the virus by a person who already knows he or she is infected can be punishable with a jail term of between five and 15 years.

Nicolae Popa, the mayor of Segarcea, said: "The boy's mother is to blame for the terrible situation that we now find ourselves in.

"It is only now that it has become clear that the family physician knew he was HIV positive and tried to make the situation public. When he started to do so he was threatened with a lawsuit by Daniel's mother."

But the young man's aunt Maria said: "Dani contacted the HIV virus at the Segarcea Hospital. At the time he was taken to hospital, several children were also infected.

"I know another three individuals that died, while others still live. My nephew is not guilty of anything.

"There are girls who had intimate relations with him, and the blood test came out negative so why is he to blame for those that are positive?"