Women related issues.

 

KANISHKBIOSCIENCE E -LEARNING PLATFORM - Help you think beyond the issue but relevant to the issue from UPSC prelims and Mains exam point of view. These linkages provided in this ‘hint’ format help you frame possible questions in your mind that might arise(or an examiner might imagine) from each current event. InstaLinks also connect every issue to their static or theoretical background. This helps you study a topic holistically and add new dimensions to every current event to help you think analytically.

 

Guidelines for matrimonial cases:

Context:

In a judgement, the Supreme Court has laid down guidelines for matrimonial cases.

    The judgment was based on a matrimonial plea from Maharashtra on the question of payment of maintenance by a man to his wife and son under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

As per the Supreme Court guidelines (Have a brief overview):

1    Deserted wives and children are entitled to alimony/maintenance from their husbands from the date they apply for it in a court of law.
2    A violation would lead to punishment, such as civil detention and even attachment of the property of the latter.
3    The plea of the husband that he does not possess any source of income ipso facto does not absolve him of his moral duty to maintain his wife, if he is able-bodied and has educational qualifications.
4    Both the applicant wife and the respondent husband have to disclose their assets and liabilities in a maintenance case. Any earlier case filed or pending under any other law should also be revealed in court.
5    The expenses of the children, including their education, basic needs and other vocational activities, should be factored in by courts while calculating the alimony.
6    Other factors such as “spiralling inflation rates and high costs of living” should be considered, but the wife should receive an alimony which fit the standard of life she was used to in the matrimonial home.

Need for:

Women deserted by husbands were left in dire straits, often reduced to destitution, for lack of means to sustain themselves and their children.

Implications:

These uniform and comprehensive guidelines should be followed by family courts, magistrates and lower courts while hearing applications filed by women seeking maintenance from their estranged husbands.

Prelims Link and Mains Link:

Overview of the Guidelines and their significance.

Sources: the Hindu.

 

  Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

 The Miyas of Assam, and their char-chapori culture:

Context:

A proposed “Miya museum” reflecting the “culture and heritage of the people living in char-chaporis” has stirred up a controversy in Assam.

Why are some Assamese uncomfortable with that?

The museum has been proposed in the Kalakshetra, which is a cultural complex in Guwahati named after neo-Vaishnavite reformer Srimanta Sankardev, and which was set up as part of Clause 6 (“… to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”) of the Assam Accord, signed at the culmination of the Assam Agitation.

Who are the Miyas?

The ‘Miya’ community comprises descendants of Muslim migrants from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to Assam. They came to be referred to as ‘Miyas’, often in a derogatory manner.

1    The community migrated in several waves — starting with the British annexation of Assam in 1826, and continuing into Partition and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War — and have resulted in changes in demographic composition of the region.
2    Over the years, the Miyas have often been stereotyped and derided as “Bangladeshi”.

What are Char-chaporis?

A char is a floating island while chaporis are low-lying flood-prone riverbanks.

1    Prone to floods and erosion, these areas are marked by low development indices. 80% of the Char population lives below poverty line.
2    A UNDP Assam Human Development report from 2014 describes the char areas as suffering from “communication deficits, lack of adequate schooling facilities beyond primary, girl child marriage, poverty and illiteracy”.



Prelims Link:

    Who are Miyas?
    What are Char-chaporis?
    Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.

Mains Link:

Who are Miyas? What are the challenges they are facing? Discuss.

Sources: Indian Express.

 

(With input from news agency language)

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