Monday 24 May 2010

QR – Cure – Quizzing Realms – 65

Folks, I may not be in town for two to three days, so I am posting three questions for the maximum duration for which I may not be here.

I. This organisation has its headquarters in Bengaluru, and claims to engage itself primarily in “creating awareness about the Legal Terrorism going on in the country under the garb and paradoxical veil of Women Empowerment through various methods like television shows on news channels, protests, road shows, press conferences, article publication, online blogging to name a few.”

It also claims to help the distressed victims who are at the receiving end due to the misuse of sections 498A, 304B, 406, 506 and many other similar sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

It also claims to help wrongful victims of the various sections of the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005, Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), Section 18, 24 and 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act, various provisions of the Special Marriage Act and the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890.

Straight question. Identify the organisation. Hint: You will be really surprised by who the victims actually are!

Here’s a poster displayed by some of them at one of the marathons in Nagpur.

100_0883

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II. The following scenes may be disturbing to some people, but they are true, and taken by Ranjit Deshmukh, our excellent photographer at Times of India’s Nagpur office. He and I had gone to this ‘fair’, and which is an annual event.

Just name the event or the fair, and tell me what is so unusual about it. I promise to share my experiences when answering this one. Mind you, all these photographs have been taken from the e-paper of Times of India.

1. fair 1

2. fair 2

3. fair 3

4.fair 4

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III. Identify the breeds of these three dogs. They are not all that common.

1.

100_0770

2.

100_2334

3.

100_2513

Happy quizzing, and have a nice life, folks! See you in three days’ time!

PS: All photographs put up in this post, except for the ones in question II, have been clicked by yours truly!

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Cracked almost unanimously.

I. This is the Save Indian Family Foundation, abbreviated as SIFF. Look ‘em up on the internet, and you will be surprised by how, sometimes, the very laws meant to protect the womenfolk of our country are being misused by them to threaten and abuse their husbands and in-laws!

Incidentally, the sufferers are not always the men! Through Mr Rajesh Vakharia, one of the Nagpur co-ordinators of SIFF, I have had the chance to meet a lady who was kept an entire day in police custody when she was seven months pregnant! And all on a single complaint against an entire family by a newlywed wife!

Through Mr Vakharia, I have also come to find out that even the police are apparently biased! They take seven days to arrest a wife who has been mentioned as the reason of her husband’s suicide in his suicide note, but arrest a husband and his entire family immediately on just a complaint of the bride’s relatives, without a single iota of evidence!

Now, I am not saying that these laws are all evil, but their misuse should definitely be curbed by harsh punishment!

II. The Gotmar Festival in Pandhurna of Chhindwara district, Madhya Pradesh. On a certain date every year, the residents of Pandhurna and Sawargaon, situated on opposite sides of a small creek, throw stones at each other. The explanations vary, but the end result is the same.

I plan to write about my experiences there very soon…

III. 1. This is a Miniature Pinscher. Somehow, it was referred to as a ‘mincher pincher’ by its owner!

2. That’s a Shih Tzu.

3. A Schnauzer.

7 comments:

  1. II.

    Got-maar.

    When we were in Nagpur, we had one friend from Pandhurna who told us about that fair.

    It'd be so interesting to get more 1st-hand info from you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I.
    Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF), a men's rights group.

    Long back, one hilarious incident happened. If I remember it correctly, the members of "Pirito Purush Pati Parishad" (Forum for Harassed Husbands) sat on a demonstration in Kolkata & that demonstration was dispersed, not by the police, but by the wives of those demonstrators (by using brooms etc, some unconfirmed sources reported)!

    What a proof! :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. 1) Save the Indian Family Federation

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    2)the "fair" is Gotmar Mela. the unusual thing is that the residents of two villages 'Savargaon' and 'Pandhurna' gather on either bank of the river, and start pelting stones at the persons of the opposite village who try to cross into the mid of the river and remove a flag on top of the tree trunk
    ______________________________________________

    3) Chihuahua,Lhasa Apso , Miniature Schnauzer,

    ReplyDelete
  4. I) This organization is known as "Save Indian Family Foundation".
    II)This annual fair (now banned since 2009) is known as "Gotmar Festival" - held in the Pandhurna and Savargao villages of Chindwara district of Madhya Pradesh where villagers of these two rival villages pelt stones and prevent the opponent from removing a flag atop a tree in the river that separates the villages. This resulted in several injuries and even deaths, thus resulting in the festival being banned. Will wait for eyewitness report from Arkadev.
    III)
    a)Miniature Pinscher
    b)Lhasa Apso
    c)Miniature Schnauzer
    Not too sure about the dog breeds, but they are all small dogs.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I. Save Indian Family Foundation
    II. Gotmaar at Pandhurna alongside river Jam... I guess on Pola day
    III. I dont know.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Please read 498A carefully. It was introduced to stop dowry harassment. A plain reading of the law will tell you how ill drafted it is.

    So it was bound to be misused. Nothing surprising about it. The law is evil. DV act goes several steps further. It is full of contradictions. If DV is strictly enforced, all males(living in a house with a young married women, who might be their wife, or Daughter in law, or bhabhi, etc) in India would be found violating it.

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    498A. Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty
    Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.

    Explanation- For the purpose of this section, "cruelty" means-

    (a) any wilful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive the woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical) of the woman; or

    (b) harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand.]

    --------------------------------------------------

    ReplyDelete

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