House panel backs move not to treat marital rape as sexual offence

March 2, 2013

sexual_offence

New Delhi, Mar 2: A parliamentary committee has endorsed the government's decision not to treat "marital rape" as a sexual offence in the recently-promulgated anti-rape ordinance, agreeing that it could destroy the institution of marriage. However, the panel was silent on rape in live-in relationships, with many members of the view that treating it differently from other sexual offences was not possible in the absence of a law recognizing live-in arrangements.

Justifying the panel's recommendation to keep "marital rape" out of the purview of anti-rape laws, chairman of the standing committee on home affairs M Venkaiah Naidu said that leaving scope for the wife to accuse her husband of rape "has the potential of destroying the institution of marriage".

"In India, for ages, the family system has evolved ... Family is able to resolve the (marital) problems and there is also a provision under the law for cruelty against women, It was, therefore, felt that if marital rape is brought under the law, the entire family system will be under great stress and the committee may perhaps be doing more injustice," the parliamentary panel examining the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012, said in its report tabled on Friday.

Though some members of the panel like Raja (CPI) and Prasanta Chatterjee (CPI(M)), both of whom put in a dissent note, besides Kanimozhi (DMK) had insisted on some room for the wife to take up the issue of marital rape, arguing that consent in marriage was not "forever", the majority view was that if a wife was aggrieved, there were other means for her to move court. The reference was apparently to laws against cruelty to women. There were some suggestions that the wife's age mentioned in Section 375 be raised from 16 to 18 years, but Union home secretary RK Singh, while appearing before the panel, warned that this would outlaw marriages in many states in one stroke.

Even though the Supreme Court has, in several judgments since 2010, ruled long-term live-in relationships as legal and on par with marriage, the government is yet to enact a law recognizing live-ins and outlining the rights of live-in partners. The home secretary had conceded before the panel that dealing with rape charges brought against a man by his live-in partner, especially where the relationship failed to culminate into marriage, was a tricky issue as sexual consent was presumably based on the promise of marriage. The standing panel steered clear of taking a stand on the suggestion it had received against considering live-in relations as rape.

The panel received as many as 90 suggestions from individuals, women's bodies and states/UTs. Incidentally, only five states and UTs — Gujarat, Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Puducherry and Dadra & Nagar Haveli — gave in their views.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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Agencies
February 5,2020

New Delhi, Feb 5: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday expressed his suspicion over the government using force to clear the Shaheen Bagh stretch where an agitation has been ongoing for over 50 days against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

While speaking to ANI over the phone, Owaisi was asked that there are indications from the government that after February 8, Shaheen Bagh will be cleared.

In reply, he said, "Might be they will shoot them, they might turn Shaheen Bagh into Jallianwala Bagh. This might happen. BJP minister gave a statement to 'shoot a bullet'. The government must give an answer as (to) who is radicalising."

Further speaking about NPR and NRC, Owaisi said, "Government must give a clear cut answer that till 2024 NRC will not be implemented. Why are they spending Rs 3900 crore for NPR? I feel this way because I was a History student. Hitler during his reign conducted census twice and after that, he pushed the jews in a gas chamber. I don't want our country (to) go in that way."

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Agencies
January 8,2020

New Delhi, Jan 8: Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) President Aishe Ghosh has filed a complaint over the violence that took place at the varsity campus on Sunday.

"I am filing this complaint for the incident in which a mob conspired and acted with common intention to assault, intimidate and attempt to murder me, and request you to register an FIR and apprehend culprits at the earliest," the complaint read.

She said that on January 5, in the afternoon, she received information from students in the campus that some students affiliated to ABVP along with other unidentified men and women had gathered with weapons like rods, sledgehammers and lathis near Ganga Bus Stop.

"I along with Nikhil Mathew (MA Labour Studies) who was also present there, were surrounded by a group of persons of that mob most of whom were wearing masks. The mob of 20-30 persons dragged me behind a car standing near the 24*7 and surrounded me and despite my pleading did not let me go and attacked me with rods while I had fallen down. I remember that one of the people was of medium height wearing a brownish-red sweatshirt with UCLA written on it. I saw his face as he was facing me and did not have a mask on and can identify him if I see him," Ghosh wrote in her complaint.

"I was attacked by the above-mentioned persons collectively and was hit on the head multiple times with iron rods. I fell to the ground and my head started bleeding, and some of them kicked me and hit me with the rod on my hand and rest of the body including my head, chest and back."

"I am attaching with this complaint a copy of the MLC which details my injuries. Nikhil Mathew tried to save me but was also hit with an iron hammer and other weapons on his head and arms. The intention of the group of men and their acts was definitely to murder me and other persons associated with me," she said.

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