Pairokar

Why I am a Hindu: an Utterly Disappointing Book I have finished reading ‘Why I am a Hindu’, by Shashi Tharoor, a Parliamentarian and an author. Frankly speaking, I am highly disappointed with his superficial and skewed understanding of Hinduism. The book is divided into three parts: My Hinduism, Political Hinduism and Taking Back Hinduism. The first part deals with the general concept of Hinduism. One must appreciate his description of certain Indian philosophies in anecdotal style in succinct English. It gives the bird’s eye view of the Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism and also about the reformist movements of the 18th and 19th century. But in the second part of the book, the writer has become diabolic against Hindus. The book nauseates with the writer’s abhorrence towards Hindu faithful. His acid-tempered description denounces and denigrates Hinduism. The title of this book should have been ‘Why I am a Hindu’ with a ...

There are Acts and laws galore for the welfare and holistic development of children but most of them remain unimplemented, be it Prevention of Child Labour Act, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act or Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. That is why; the Supreme Court of India taken to task the Central Government as well as the State Governments for not properly implementing those Acts. A child is the father of the man (woman as well), said William Wordsworth in his famous poem ‘My heart leaps up’. Children are the future assets of the country and any country which does not pay proper attention for the protection and growth of the physical and mental faculties of the children is bound to suffer in the long run. Child, as defined under various Acts, 'is a person who has not completed fourteen years of age’, in certain acts this limit is sixteen years. A child of such a tender age is expected to play and study and be carefree about his or her life. But...

        ‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ is such an oft-repeated maxim as it has lost its impact on the common litigants in India. There is no gainsaying that the rule of law cannot exist without effective judicial system, which is capable of enforcing rights in a timely manner that inspires the public confidence in the administration of justice. For the law to govern, the system through which it is administered must measure up adequately when mapped against the three dimensions of justice- substantive justice on merits, timeliness in the disposal of cases, and proportionate use of the State’s resources. Access to justice must ensure that legal redress does not become the preserve of a few. Unfortunately, apathy and ineffective governance have created barriers to accessing justice, which has resulted in granting limited access to the full range of socio-economic and civil -political rights available. Every politician of any stature, minister or a judge ...

Sometimes blessings come in disguise. The sanguine hope is that the volcano that has erupted in the Supreme Court of India on 12th of January in an unprecedented press conference of four seniormost puisne judges will bring good results for the catharsis of the judiciary. It was like a tremor in the Indian judicial history when four judges-Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Bhimarao Lokur and Kurian Joseph took the unimaginable recourse of addressing the media to tell the nation that everything was not hunky dory in the Supreme Court of India. Hectic efforts are going on to paper over this crisis of monumental proportions, but it has already become a historic watershed in the higher judiciary. The press conference has brought forth the rot that has been simmering the judiciary but never discussed openly. There has been a general opinion across the country that subordinate judges and its paraphernalia has been in the neck-deep corruption.  Even a common man will te...

India is visible in country’s development  Passikudah Beach is one of the best beaches of the world. One can enjoy in the shallow waters of the sea and get distressed. It is a very near to Dambulla, where the historic citadel of Sigiriya rests atop the gigantic rock. One can experience the traditional Sri Lankan way of life. We witnessed the striking similarity in the way of living in the rural areas of this side of Sri Lanka and the Indian countryside. One could see many women wearing sarees like those of the Indian women in the villages. While moving towards Passikudah from Colombo one is bound to get enamoured with the expanse of tea gardens, rubber plantations and fruit-bearing trees. This is the time when mango fruits get ripen. Hindu temples all over Sri Lanka are always found to be squeaky clean. There is one Koneswaram temple of Trincomalee is worth mentioning for its antiquity and upkeep. It is one of the three major Hindu shrines on the promontory with a coloss...

We know so little about our neighbouring countries was realised by me during my six days visit to Sri Lanka in the second week of December 2018. I was the part of the 23-member delegation of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists, which travelled to many places in Sri Lanka. While Indians have known it as Sri Lanka from time immemorial, it was called Ceylon when it was a British Colony and its original name was restored in 1972, after 24 years of her gaining independence in 1948. Sri Lanka is credited to have the first woman Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the entire world, way back in 1960. Most of us started our journey by Air India on 10 th  of December in the afternoon from Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi international airport of New Delhi reached within three and half hours at Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport. Colombo is one of the modern cities of the world with the all-natural gorgeousness of ocean, lagoons, gardens and greeneries. Manmade high-...

Is adultery law in India not offensive to the dignity of the women? Does it not treat women as the chattel of her husband? Is it not discriminatory against men and therefore repugnant to the equality of men and women? These are the questions which have been agitating the men and women both from the time of the adoption of the Constitution of India. Adultery is a voluntary sexual activity by a married woman with another married or unmarried man. Although it is a voluntary sexual activity between man and woman but the provision for the punishment is only for the men and not women. This is the reason that there has been a consistent demand for scrapping of Section 497 IPC to make it sync with the times.   It says that  ‘whoever  has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilt...