Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Saudi to send women to Games but Baghpat (UP, India) looking in the opposite way

   
Qatari shooter Bahiya Al Hamad, Sarah Attar from Saudi Arabia
In the famous book 1984, George Orwell wrote "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

But today, it seems like this quantity is in severe short supply on many parts of the world. Unfortunately, in India too situation is not so different.

It was only some day’s back we heard about the decision of Saudi administration to sent two women athletes to Olympic Games for the first time in the history. With this act they also escaped from Human Rights Watch and other right's agencies call to Ban Saudi Arabia from the games. A ban would have put Saudi in the category of Taliban era Afghanistan and apartheid era South Africa. London Games will also see the first ever women participation from Qatar and Brunei too.

But at the same time news coming out of Guwahati, Bengal, UP are disappointing.

UP - Asara, Baghpat

DNA Reports,

"In bizarre diktats, love marriages have been banned and women below the age of 40 years barred from going out for shopping and using mobile phones outside their homes by a village panchayat in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat city. The panchayat in Asara village in Ramala area also ruled that when women leave their homes, their heads must be covered."

Guwahati - Assam

Hindustan Times reports,

"In yet another incident of crime against women, a 16-year-old girl was molested by around 30 men in full public view for about half an hour on Monday night outside a posh nightclub here. The incident was witnessed by hundreds, but no one came to her rescue."

Hooghly, West Bengal

Times Of India reports,

"The probe into the mysterious death and burial of a 32-year-old woman in a Hooghly rehabilitation home has unearthed a horror house where inmates were regularly raped and tortured by outsiders. It was virtually a free for all — anyone could walk in after sunset and do whatever he pleased with the women, who are either mentally challenged or speech and hearing impaired, sources said."

These are not rare incidents happening in some remote places. In the modern times, why we - often boasting as the inheritors of 5000 years of civilization - are not able to behave in a civilised way? If today women are banned from using mobile phones what is the guarantee that tomorrow there won’t be a ban on going to school and day after tomorrow...

Sajeev.

Photo Courtesy: Voice Of America

References:

1. DNA India - Report baghpat panchayat bans love marriage women below 40 from shopping
2. Hindustan Times - India shamed: Guwahati girl molested in full public view
3. Times of India - Inmates raped at will by outsiders in Hooghly rehabilitation home.

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