Yours Sincerely

//  T he Supreme Court in a majority opinion of 4:1 on Friday, lifted the centuries-old practice of prohibiting women from the age of menarche to menopause to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala in Kerala. // - link //  It said that exclusion on grounds of biological and physiological features like menstruation was unconstitutional. It amounted to discrimination based on a biological factor exclusive to gender. It was violative of the right to equality and dignity of women. // And the best of all, for addressing the issue of celibacy, see the even better separate but concurring opinion from Justice Chandrachud: //  He said the logic behind the ban was that presence of women deviated men from celibacy. This was placing the burden of a men's celibacy on women thus, stigmatising women and stereotyping them. // Interestingly: //  Justice Indu Malhotra, the lone woman judge on the Constitution Bench, dissented from the majority opinion. She held that th...

Wow.... SC seems to be on form. First scrapping section 377 ( link ) and now scrapping adultery law ( link ). Something good seems to be happening in our country, finally. Section 497 of the IPC: //  Adultery.—Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offense of rape, is guilty of the offense of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor . // - link So what's the problem?  // Only an adulterous woman’s husband could prosecute her lover, though she could not be punished; an adulterous man’s wife had no such right. // // H er affair with another would not amount to adultery if it had the consent of her husband. “The history of Section 497 ...

Thank God for small mercies! A much awaited victory for the LGBTQ community: // In a unanimous 5-0 verdict, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra led justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra in declaring that a two-judge bench's decision in December 2013 in the Suresh Koushal case, which had recriminalised section 377, "was arbitrary, fallacious and retrograde. // Read more heartening details here - link Teaspoon by teaspoon, we will make progress... There's a long road to cover.... Someday, hopefully not too far in the future, we will stop giving legal sanctions to marital rape . For now, let's celebrate and rejoice in this progress we made as a country towards implementing human rights. Cheers and happy weekend folks!