[humanrights-movement:4364] Fwd: Update 2 on Day 6th : Negotiations with Chief Secretary Remain Inconclusive
-- Forwarded message -- From: NAPM India Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 11:38 PM S *Update 2 on Day 6**th** : Negotiations with Chief Secretary Remain Inconclusive* *May 25, Mumbai *: After five hours of long negotiations between the Chief Secretary, Mr. Ratnakar Gaekwad, Medha Patkar and their respective teams an agreement over the demands could not be reached finally. At one point, an agreement seemed to have been arrived on three points : 1) accepting the proposal for 19 settlements and any more to be given in next two days to be declared as slums under the Maharashtra Slums Act, 1971 after due process; b) a meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary to be convened along with NAPM members, Central Government officials and state officials on June 10 on the Rajeev Gandhi Awas Yojana; c) formation of a sub committee to look into the irregularities under the existing High Powered Committee, chaired by Chief Secretary, appointed by Honourable HC in 2005 meant for reviewing the policies & recommend, amend or suggest new policies to government of Maharashtra. *However, our demand was to institute an independent enquiry committee involving civil society representatives with terms of reference decided during negotiation and notified through an official notification while the fast is on. This Committee was to enquire into all the complaints related to public housing projects by builders which are raised on behalf of the people in the area to be covered by 3K projects including the one by Shivalik Ventures where documentary fraud has been proved and criminal cases filed by the residents. And until a report is submitted and action taken by the government, till then put moratorium on all the demolitions in the city.* *The talks remained inconclusive since,** Chief Secretary didn't agree to commit a time period for the Committee to start work and complete the task of investigation.* Chief Secretary was hostile towards the end and kept emphasising that he has already given enough and people need to trust his words that he will make sure things happen. One of the residents in the meeting quipped, “then give us your promise in writing, since you might not be Chief Secretary tomorrow”. Suburban Collector Nirmal Deshmukh later said that, “Time-bound functioning of the High power committee is not possible as it is defunct due to the High Court order that set a cut off date for slum rehabilitation as January 1, 1995. We tried to comply with most of her demands but some of her demands were not reasonable.” Medha Patkar added that, “this committee has been defunct after having held not more than three meetings till date. The committee does have representatives of civil society organisations and were nominees of people's movements as per High Court Directives, however, the overall composition had large number of government officials. That there is no doubt that current Chief Secretary is powerful enough to influence the policy makers. However, it is also known that the function of the committee was sabotaged. *In such situation, if such a committee has to play a role of investigator into cases of frauds in various facts and documents, the modus operandi has to be similar to SIT. This would require giving powers of hearing to representatives of people and assessing large number of frauds. This does not seem to be possible by Sub Committee of the larger committee composed out of the present member. *There need not be any further confusion or arbitrariness left behind since the conflict and crisis in each of the 3K cases has reached its peak and sword of demolition is hanging. It is therefore necessary to set time limit of enquiry which can do justice to people.” The talks remained inconclusive but Medha's and Syed Zuber's fast will continue. Later in the evening Shabana Azmi visited the dharna site and lent her support and solidarity to the movement. *Prerna Gaekwad, Santosh Daundkar, Deven Nair, Simpreet Singh* *For details contact : Madhuresh Kumar (9818905316) **| Mukta Srivastava 9969530060* -- *National Alliance of People’s Movements *National Office: Room No. 29-30, 1st floor, ‘A’ Wing, Haji Habib Bldg, Naigaon Cross Road, Dadar (E), Mumbai - 400 014; Ph: 022-24150529 6/6, Jangpura B, Mathura Road, New Delhi 110014 Phone : 011 26241167 / 24354737 Mobile : 09818905316 E-mail: napmin...@gmail.com | n...@napm-india.org Web : www.napm-india.org -- This mailing list is for dissemination of news and views on the communities struggles in India defending their land, water, air, rivers from hungry predatory corporations, policy formulations, announcements on struggles, action alerts and request for support. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "National Alliance of People's Movements" group. To post to this group, send email to napmin...@gmail.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to napm-india+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group
[humanrights-movement:4363] Repercussions of the Velusamy Judgement - From Majlis
*Repercussions of the Velusamy Judgement. * After two decades of litigating on behalf of over 50,000 women across Maharashtra, our experience has been, that when a destitute Hindu woman approaches a court for a meager sum of maintenance under S.125 Cr.PC, the common ploy adopted by the husband (under the guidance of his lawyer) is to deny the validity of the marriage by pleading that he has an earlier valid marriage subsisting and hence the woman is not entitled to maintenance. It is an irony that while it is the man who has flouted the law of monogamy as prescribed by the Hindu Marriage Act, it is the woman, who is called upon to pay the price. She is denied the crucial and basic right to maintenance. This is indeed a travesty of justice. Over the years, several judges of various High Courts and the Supreme Court, have tried to give some respite to women by invoking the principle of ‘beneficial legislation’. In an important ruling in 2005 in *Daga v. Daga*, the Supreme Court had commented that bigamous marriages, though illegal, are not ‘immoral’ and maintenance cannot be denied on this basis rendering the woman a destitute. Way back in 1976, Justice Kania of the Bombay High Court (who later became the Chief Justice of India), while upholding the rights of a woman in a bigamous marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act had held that “*Since the Act is a social legislation, it could not have been the intention of the legislature to deprive a Hindu woman, who was duped into contracting a bigamous marriage, her right to claim maintenance.”* Several other rulings have held that the right of maintenance under S.125 Cr.PC is a beneficial provision enacted for the purpose of providing a summary remedy to a wife to prevent vagrancy and destitution. It does not finally determine rights and obligations of marriage. It is a well settled principle in law, that beneficial legislation must be liberally interpreted in order to benefit the very class of people for whom it was enacted. Thus, the section must include within its purview a wife whose marriage suffers from some technical defect. But the recent ruling, *D. Velusamy* v. *D. Patchaiammal* in October, 2010 which denied maintenance to women in marriage like relationships with men who are already married seems to have undone the positive impact of all the earlier judgements. In this ruling, Justice Markandey Katju termed such women as ‘mistresses’ and ‘keeps’ undeserving of maintenance. He discussed in great detail, how a married man is not free to contract with another woman and hence is not liable to pay maintenance, even if he is living with this other woman. Not once in the judgement is a word of reprimand to the man who has duped both his first wife and then the second woman. Subsequently, the review petition filed by some concerned groups before the same bench pleading the court to expunge the derogative comments has also been dismissed. It appears that instead of moving forward we seem to be moving backwards into regressive spaces by placing ourselves on a moral high ground by endorsing a fallacious belief in the monogamous nature of Hindu marriages. Today the ground level reality is that, because of the adverse publicity that the judgement received, trial courts are rejecting petitions of women who are unable to ‘prove’ a valid marriage, at the time of filing under S.125 Cr.PC. The ruling has also blocked the remedy under PWDVA which was supposed to bring redressal to precisely this category of women. PWDVA uses a broad (and presumably Western) term ‘live in’ relationships in order to cover the widest range of relationships, it does not specifically address the situation which is most common in India, of women who are in marriages which are accepted by the community as valid, despite the fact that the woman is the ‘second wife’. Hence, after the Velusamy ruling a need has arisen to address this concern frontally. It is common knowledge that despite the codification which brought in monogamy, Hindu marriages have continued to be bigamous. The question that we need to ask is NOT whether they ‘ought’ to be monogamous, but whether we are bound by a constitutional duty and obligation to protect the basic and fundamental rights of a large number of both rural and urban women, the citizens of India, who wittingly or unwittingly, are entrapped within technically defective marriages. We at Majlis are planning to launch a campaign to undo the harm caused by the *Velusamy *ruling. We are looking forward to your support to strengthen this campaign. We will also appreciate if you would share with us cases that are dealt by your group / organisation, where women have been denied maintenance on the sole ground that the marriage is invalid as she is the second wife. This will help us to take the campaign forward. We thank you in anticipation of your support. With warm regards, Flavia Agnes and the Majlis Team. *Support the Campaign * *http://m
Re: [humanrights-movement:4361] Re: NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ARBITRARILY LIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAILACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORT TO THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGEOF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIA
Niloufer disgusting to hear this. if i had written what you had probably nobody would have bothered. Ranjani --- On Wed, 25/5/11, Niloufer Bhagwat wrote: From: Niloufer Bhagwat Subject: [humanrights-movement:4359] Re: NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ARBITRARILY LIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAILACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORT TO THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGEOF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIAN SELF DETERMINATION AS PER UN RESOLUTION To: "Jean-Paul PUTS" , "Turgut Tarhanli" , "Nalan DAL" , "Norman Finkelstein" , lhinds...@aol.com, "Ian Douglas" , "Osamu NIIKURA" , "Narihiko Ito" , "Keiko Yasuhara" , humanrights-movement@googlegroups.com, "Lollyramu Ramdas" Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 12:25 PM Dear Jean , Immediately following my communications on the plight of the vessel carrying humanitarian relief for Gaza I received a strange e mail from the Webmaster of TATA INDICOM the company which provides the server about limiting access to my webmail account .My reply is below . THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW ARE ALL ABOUT . WHEREAS MAHATMA GANDHI MAINTAINED THAT TRUTH WAS DHARMA . This is for your information.Could you please let me have Peter Erlinder's e mail address . Niloufer Bhagwat - Original Message - From: "Niloufer Bhagwat" To: Cc: "shabnam hashmi" ; ; "John Dayal" ; "ial central" ; "Palestinian Centre for Human Rights" ; ; "Zeinab Assaffar" ; "Mona Al Kayali" ; "matthias chang" ; "Dr. Zulaiha Ismail" ; "Denis Halliday" ; ; "HQ" ; ; "Boyle, Francis" ; "Osamu NIIKURA" ; "Keiko Yasuhara" ; "evelyn dürmayer" Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:12 PM Subject: Re: NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ARBITRARILY LIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAIL ACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORT TO THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGE OF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIAN SELF DETERMINATION AS PER UN RESOLUTION > Dear TATA INDICOM, > > There is no unusual activity > on my webmail unless you are > referring to the Freedom Flotilla > for Gaza or National Self Deterimination > for Palestine as per the Resolution > of the United Nations supported by > Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal > Nehru and the government of India > in the UN and communications on > HUMAN RIGHTS . > > An e mail sent to the member of parliament > MANI SHANKAR AIYAR was returned > with the communication that this is an > UNKNOWN ALIAS though he is a member > of the Rajya Sabha when a ship ' IN THE > SPIRIT OF RACHEL CORRIE" named > after an American girl who was killed by > a Caterpillar tractor when she was peacefully > trying to protect demolition of Palestinian > homes in a peaceful , non-violent way > by raising her hands just as Mahatma > Gandhi would have done . > > My TATA VSNL ACCOUNT HAS > ALL THE DETAILS , MY E MAIL, > NAME ,PASSWORD ETC AND > WHILE RENEWING THE ACCOUNT > ALL DETAILS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED > TO YOUR STAFF . > > There is no justification for limiting > access to my account . Kindly refer > to the specific provision you are relying > on as this amounts to violating my > Constitutional rights . > > NILOUFER BHAGWAT > > - Original Message - From: "Tata Indicom webmail management service" > > Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:11 PM > Subject: NOTIFICATION > > > Dear Webmail Subscriber, > > We contact you to be inform that our team review this account and identified > unusual activity in your Webmail account. As a result, access to > your account has been limited in accordance with the Webmail account > Online Terms and Conditions of Use. > > Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been > resolved. You are therefore required to provide us the > following information: > > User Name :__ > > Password :_ > > confirm password :__ > > Date of Birth :__ > > Important Note: Please enter all this information accurate and complete, > otherwise for security reasons we may have to close your > Webmail account temporarily. > > Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. > Please understand that this is a security measure intended to > help protect you and your Webmail account. We apologize for any > inconvenience. > > Thanks, > > Tata Indicom webmail management service > > Copyright © 2011 Tata Indicom Customer Support Team All rights reserved > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to humanrights-movement@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to humanrights-movement+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to humanrights-movement@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send em
Re: [humanrights-movement:4360] Re: NOTIFICATION OFYOURARBITRARILYLIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAILACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORTTO THE FREEDOMFLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGEOF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIANSELFD
Thank you Meena , I did not respond to the queries . Niloufer Bhagwat - Original Message - From: Meena Menon To: niloufe...@vsnl.net Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:31 PM Subject: Re: [humanrights-movement:4359] Re: NOTIFICATION OF YOURARBITRARILYLIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAILACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORT TO THE FREEDOMFLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGEOF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIAN SELFDETERMINATION ASPER UN RESOLUTION Hi The mail you received is just a fraud email sent to steal passwords of email accounts form gullible users. If you had filled it in and set it you would have lost access, and people in your mail box would have received an email supposedly form you requesting money because you are stuck in some place or other. . This has happened to many people, so it is not a move from the service provider. Not this time anyway. best Meena Menon On 25 May 2011 12:25, Niloufer Bhagwat wrote: Dear Jean , Immediately following my communications on the plight of the vessel carrying humanitarian relief for Gaza I received a strange e mail from the Webmaster of TATA INDICOM the company which provides the server about limiting access to my webmail account .My reply is below . THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW ARE ALL ABOUT . WHEREAS MAHATMA GANDHI MAINTAINED THAT TRUTH WAS DHARMA . This is for your information.Could you please let me have Peter Erlinder's e mail address . Niloufer Bhagwat - Original Message - From: "Niloufer Bhagwat" To: Cc: "shabnam hashmi" ; ; "John Dayal" ; "ial central" ; "Palestinian Centre for Human Rights" ; ; "Zeinab Assaffar" ; "Mona Al Kayali" ; "matthias chang" ; "Dr. Zulaiha Ismail" ; "Denis Halliday" ; ; "HQ" ; ; "Boyle, Francis" ; "Osamu NIIKURA" ; "Keiko Yasuhara" ; "evelyn dürmayer" Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:12 PM Subject: Re: NOTIFICATION OF YOUR ARBITRARILY LIMITING ACCESS TO MY WEBMAIL ACCOUNT MERELY BECAUSE OF SUPPORT TO THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA TO BREAK THE SIEGE OF GAZA AND TO PALESTINIAN SELF DETERMINATION AS PER UN RESOLUTION Dear TATA INDICOM, There is no unusual activity on my webmail unless you are referring to the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza or National Self Deterimination for Palestine as per the Resolution of the United Nations supported by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and the government of India in the UN and communications on HUMAN RIGHTS . An e mail sent to the member of parliament MANI SHANKAR AIYAR was returned with the communication that this is an UNKNOWN ALIAS though he is a member of the Rajya Sabha when a ship ' IN THE SPIRIT OF RACHEL CORRIE" named after an American girl who was killed by a Caterpillar tractor when she was peacefully trying to protect demolition of Palestinian homes in a peaceful , non-violent way by raising her hands just as Mahatma Gandhi would have done . My TATA VSNL ACCOUNT HAS ALL THE DETAILS , MY E MAIL, NAME ,PASSWORD ETC AND WHILE RENEWING THE ACCOUNT ALL DETAILS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED TO YOUR STAFF . There is no justification for limiting access to my account . Kindly refer to the specific provision you are relying on as this amounts to violating my Constitutional rights . NILOUFER BHAGWAT - Original Message - From: "Tata Indicom webmail management service" Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:11 PM Subject: NOTIFICATION Dear Webmail Subscriber, We contact you to be inform that our team review this account and identified unusual activity in your Webmail account. As a result, access to your account has been limited in accordance with the Webmail account Online Terms and Conditions of Use. Your account access will remain limited until this issue has been resolved. You are therefore required to provide us the following information: User Name :__ Password :_ confirm password :__ Date of Birth :__ Important Note: Please enter all this information accurate and complete, otherwise for security reasons we may have to close your Webmail account temporarily. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your Webmail account. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks, Tata Indicom webmail management service Copyright © 2011 Tata Indicom Customer Support Team All rights reserved -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the G
