BJP faced more adversities in independent India than Cong under British: Modi

New Delhi, Jan 20: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said the kind of cleaning in the system that the BJP-led government had to carry out after coming to power in 2014 was "unbelievable" and it undertook the exercise without any grudge or worry.

Between 2014-16, there were a lot of questions as to why reforms did not come fast and there were comments that the government was incapable of bringing them, she said delivering the Nani Palkhivala Memorial lecture on "Road Map to $5 Trillion Economy" here.

Pointing out that there were allegations and criticism that the government wants to do something but it did not, Sitharaman said, "I am fully willing to buy that." She recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi often said he did not believe in incremental changes and the country needed good transformational change. The stage in which India is today, it cannot have little marginal increments, but good transformational change.

"But still one might say in the last five years the government never did. That can be a critical analysis and I am fully willing to buy that. Because post-2014 the kind of cleaning up the government had to do was unbelievable and we undertook that exercise without a grudge without a worry.. we had to do it and it is part of the game," she said. Elaborating, Sitharaman said states have their own views on Land Acquisition Bill and the government could not have done anything because land, after all, is with them.

Commenting on the topic 'Road Map to $5 trillion economy,' she said quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments, the government would take the route "Sarkar ka abhaav nahi hona chahiye, prabhaav hona chahiye aur dabaav nahi hona chahiye."

"Abhaav and dabaav both of which are not desirable, abhaav is the inadequacy or lack of adequate presence or shortfall. You do not need a shortfall. You need a government where it should be present, where it is expected to function.", she said.

"So there should not be abhaav. Dabaav (meaning pressure) is not something you want from the government. So, you want Prabhaav. It is broadly an influence, facilitation, broadly the philosophy with which it is mandated, she said.

Noting that the government has got the mandate through the election, she said, "The mandate was spelt out in so many different ways in its manifesto. So the route towards $5 trillion is this."

"We have to be there to facilitate. We have to be there to make it easy. We have to be where you need us, where there is no policy (reforms from the government)," she said.

On the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) implemented by the government, the union minister said the approach of the IBC was not to shut business. "IBC takes on the approach in having some kind of resolution where all people who exploited the company do not come back through the "back door," she said.

IBC was done through better management so that the institution is alive and kicking. It is something which she wanted to carry forward from Modi 1.0 to 2.0. "The point I am trying to make on this road to $5 trillion economy is that it is not just an abstraction, this is not how I want India to be. But in micro-level too, we are coming in response to every stakeholder," she said.

New Delhi, Jan 10: One woman reported a rape every 15 minutes on average in India in 2018, according to government data released on Thursday, underlining its dismal reputation as one of the worst places in the world to be female.

The highly publicised gang rape and murder of a woman in a bus in New Delhi in 2012 brought tens of thousands onto the streets across India and spurred demands for action from film stars and politicians, leading to harsher punishments and new fast-track courts. But the violence has continued unabated.

Women reported almost 34,000 rapes in 2018, barely changed from the year before. Just over 85% led to charges, and 27% to convictions, according to the annual crime report released by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Women's rights groups say crimes against women are often taken less seriously, and investigated by police lacking insensitivity.

"The country is still run by men, one (female prime minister) Indira Gandhi is not going to change things. Most judges are still men," said Lalitha Kumaramangalam, former chief of the National Commission for Women.

"There are very few forensic labs in the country, and fast-track courts have very few judges," said Kumaramangalam, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The rape of a teenager in 2017 by former BJP state legislator Kuldeep Singh Sengar gained national attention when the accuser tried to kill herself the following year, accusing the police of inaction.

Five months before Sengar was convicted last December, the accuser's family had to be provided with security after a truck crashed into the car she was in, injuring her and killing two of her relatives.

A 2015 study by the Centre for Law & Policy Research in Bengaluru found that fast-track courts were indeed quicker, but did not handle a high volume of cases.

And a study in 2016 by Partners for Law in Development in New Delhi found that they still took an average of 8.5 months per case - more than four times the recommended period.

The government statistics understate the number of rapes as it is still considered a taboo to report rape in some parts of India and because rapes that end in the murder are counted purely as murders.

New Delhi, Feb 5: Delhi High Court on Wednesday stated that that death warrant of all convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case should be executed together.

The Delhi prison rules do not state whether when the mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place and from the trial court to Supreme Court all convicts have been held by a common order and a common judgment, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait observed while passing the order.

High Court dismissed the Central government and Tihar Jail authorities plea challenging the Patiala House court's order, which stayed the execution of the four convicts in the case. It also observed that the convicts indulged in a heinous offence of a bone-chilling rape and murder of a girl and that criminal appeals by all convicts were dismissed by the courts.

Moreover, the court observed that the review petitions were filed after long wait and convicts are taking shelter of Article 21 which is available to them till their last breath.

A single-judge bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait had on Sunday kept the order reserved in the matter after special hearing of two days.

Earlier, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Centre, alleged that the convicts were deliberately delaying the execution, adding that any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the convicts.

A Delhi court last week stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.