Ruchika molestation case: Punish Rathore like never before

Can anything be more embarrassing than life of brave girl being snuffed out by a top custodian of police (DGP-Haryana), a person of her father’s age? This brutal act was not the end.He misused his official position to cover his dirty tracks and harassed Ruchika’s hapless family to the extent that forced Ruchika to commit suicide after 3 yrs of molestation. Her family had to flee their Panchkula home to avert another impending disaster which might have befallen her brother against whom Haryana police registered 11 cases. On some flimsy grounds, Ruchika was expelled from the Panchkula based Sacred Heart public school. On what base it’s sacred, I don’t know!!

After almost 20 years, the perpetrator of this crime got only 6 months jail term and Rs.1000 fine. He left the court smiling and said to Ruchika's father-“Kya Bigad Liya”. It’s shameful for our judicial system that is so slow and full of loopholes. CBI did not made any further charges against DGP for harassment and prompting Ruchika to commit suicide.

A number of questions arise. Why it took 20 years for the sentence to be awarded? Was legal system in mood to celebrate silver jubilee of this case?? Why did CBI strike that part of charges which would have invited a far stiffer sentence for DGP? Why did court sentence him 6 months jail when there is provision of 2 years. Why DGP was recommended for President Medal even after this beast like act?

Indian legal system requires extensive review. Police has become a tool for political hands- Shameful and dreaded.

Ruchika’s tragic case exposes the anomalies and shortcomings of our outdated legal system and society too. The rich and powerful, like Rathore, gets off lightly. They are not just above law, they are law. Our legal system needs modifications in such outdated laws.

Thank God.Public outcry and media campaigns in recent days have forced the system to reopen this case to bring culprits to book.

All those who falsely implicated Ruchika's brother or tortured him or any of her family members must be brought to book. If Rathore is the primary culprit, so is school and others involved with him. Why did the school terminate her when she ought to be lent moral support to fight the atrocity?

Readers please do not let this go off, or else next time we all will be responsible, when some other Ruchika will be sacrificed, like this.

Are we looking forward to a future, where the society resorts to violence and molestation against females?
I SHUDDER at the thought of what comes next. The year 2010 is probably coming in with a warning for all of us to think and reflect on what has become of our society. What has gone wrong? Where do we move from here? How would all this stop?

Journalism or Jingoism?

Among the multiple roles played by media, the most important one is to enable readers make intelligent choices.

It should act on truth because it stands on the side of millions of people who anticipate and rely on it. The creativity of the media people should be used at calling a spade a spade without sounding too blunt, if the situation demands and allows.

Is Media serving this purpose?

Today media, specially the TV media has become so much commercialized that people are creating news by themselves (sting operation) to be in the forefront in media competition.

"A man throwing stones on north Indian students”,”One person hurling stones on a taxi”, “the taxi driver is shown running away from getting beaten" all this is shown in steps again and again. This only induces violence.

TV headlines scream “Mumbai Burning”, “Attack on North Indians”, “Kaun hai asli maharashtrian” and all like that. TV news channels are relentlessly bombarding Indian homes with images of 4 stray incidents that happened two days and ago and repeating it for one million times in each and every channel.

Last year when enemy hit us badly and we could not find time for remorse, the media was at its peak of jingoism cum emotionalism rather then their professionalism. ‘Excess of everything is bad’ the issue was totally hijacked and sensationalized.

During internal communal outbursts like Babri-masjid demolition and Gujarat riots media is used as a battle ground for political frustration, imperialistic hegemony, human right violation and invasion of sovereignty and privacy.

The young children whose imaginations are still a vast blank landscape are gradually getting cultured to violence. Nowadays children play ‘encounter games’ instead of the good old hide-and-seek. When I asked a three years old who has just started the basic A, B, C…to read out the newspaper for me, she starts right away with “2 people gunned down and killed”. So one can well imagine the impact our daily news has on tender minds.

At this point the question arises on role of the media, what is the purpose of those news channels. Sensationalizing even a trivial issue to a national scale creates further trouble across other regions.

Well said: Power brings responsibility with it.

The power vest on media should always go hand in hand with the responsibility towards the people. Freedom of expression should never forsake the unwritten law of responsibility.

Media should have a focus on education, instead of merely trying to entertain their listeners and viewers with the highlights of serials like Rakhi Ka Svayambar and Big Boss. They have to focus on social responsibility and respect media ethics in order to satisfy the public.

Media is a mighty institution wielding enormous powers and liability to the society, which are expected to be exercised for the protection and well-being of the people and limited.

Energy Saved is Energy Generated - National Energy Conservation Week

The luxurious cars in which we roam around, the shivering cold atmosphere created by air conditioners in hot seasons and the lights which brighten up our homes at night makes our lives so relaxing and pleasant. No one can dare to even dream of life without them. But have you ever imagined the amount of energy required to run these machines! Have you ever estimated the amount of carbon effluents emitted by them into the atmosphere!

Aah! Fortunately, people all over the country are becoming aware of the problem of consuming too much energy and are making a conscious effort to conserve it. This year, 14 December is being celebrated as National Energy Conservation Day.

Energy conservation is basically the practice of reducing the amount of energy used to accomplish the same. India accounts for about 17% of world’s population but has just 1% of world’s energy resources.

As the world is feeling heat of global warming, by conserving energy, we can also lower the amount of pollutants and carbon emission in the atmosphere. Energy is essential to life and now it has become absolute necessity.

Sources of energy can be basically of 2 types: renewable and non-renewable.

Non-renewable sources majorly include coal, petrol and natural gas. As we are over tapping these resources they are gradually exhausting. Scientists have revealed that our energy resources may last only for another 40 years or so.

Renewable sources of energy are solar energy, wind energy, agricultural residue, firewood, and animal. These sources will never exhaust and are available locally in abundance.

India’s domestic consumption of energy is low as compared to population but as we are world’s fastest growing economy our energy consumption will rise. There is a growing need to bring about improvement in the efficiency of energy use.

About 24 per cent of energy consumed globally is for transportation, 40 per cent for industry, 30 per cent for domestic and commercial purposes, and the remaining 6 per cent for other uses, including agriculture.

The first step to conserve energy is not to waste it. When we save one unit of energy, it is equivalent to 2 units of energy produced.

Domestic consumption can be reduced by using energy star rated products and switching off lights and ACs and other electrical products when not in use. Switch off a little…save a lot!

Switching to renewable sources of energy is another way to save non-renewable sources

of energy. We can use solar heaters and
biogas plants for domestic and industrial purposes.


Car pooling and use of public transport can save

a lot of fuel.We should switch off our engines if
we need to stop for more than 2 minutes.



Industrial energy efficiency can be increased by pre-heating combustion air with waste and by using energy efficient motors.Lights should be switched off when not in use.

An old Indian saying indicates “The earth, water and the air are not a gift to us from our parents but a loan from our children.”

More efficient energy use can increase productivity and economic competitiveness as well as lower greenhouse gas emissions per unit of output. Conservation and efficient use of energy in industry has for a long time been a priority of the Government of India. People on their part should become aware of the seriousness and do their best to conserve and preserve this energy.

A Binding effort to combat climate change....How far is it fare??

Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth In recent years there has been a rapid increase in earth's surface temperature ( see graph) because human activities specially industrialization has contributed a lot to increase the emission of these greenhouse gases.Scientists have revealed that there can be increse of 4-5 degree celcius temperature by 2010.

The increase in greenhouse gases in atmosphere has resulted in frequent melt down of glaciers that resulted in floods and other natural calamities. The melting of ice at the poles had led the rise of mean sea level. And further increase in temperature may further melt the ice and lead to further increase in mean sea level, which will engulf low lying countries. Also there is a change in their life style of animals because of the changes in the seasons. The migrating birds have changed their time of travel and also their place of migration. The animals who can't change their lifestyle accordingly with this changing climate are on the verge of extinction.

Source: http://www.earth-policy.org/

The largest producers of these greenhouse gases are the thermal power plants, which burn the fossil fuels and produce these gases in large quantities. The second biggest sources of these green house gases are the road vehicles and industries.

To combat this climate change, representatives of more than 118 countries are conglomerating in danish capital in Copenhagen climate change summit. The idea there is to bind every country to cut a certain percentage of carbon emission. It is an elaborate conspiracy by the developed world to throttle growth in the developing countries.We shall not bind ourselves to accept such binding commitments on cutting carbon emissions. We shall just voluntarily cut our carbon emission rates.

India is about 17% of humanity, but accounts for less than 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions. America's emission levels are 18 times to that of India. We are the fastest growing economy and our emission levels will grow. Any attempt to cap India’s emissions will mean restricting India’s ability to grow and that is not at all acceptable. It's not we, but the developed countries who have done mass damage to this environment by uttering these gases in exchange of their economic development. Thus the majority of responsibility goes to developed countries for reversing and mitigating this damage.
But India cannot turn around just on this claim that it does not need to do anything. As the second fastest growing economy after China, India has to offer the world something, specially when countries like China, Indonesia and Brazil have announced their measures to combat climate change.The way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to raise energy efficiency.We shall substitute fuels that generate more greenhouse gases with fuels that generate less. We shall move towards solar energy.Our target is to have 22,000 MW of solar energy by 2022.The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can also be reduced by growing more trees and plants. This will also help us to reduce pollution.

Facts about Female Mortality

Our country which is at its glory of fastest developing country in arena of IT, infrastructure and technology innovation has the lowest child sex ratio in the world reflecting a highly undesirable reversal of the norms of nature.

Census results of 2001 reveal that child sex ratio that fell from 945 females per 1,000 males in 1991 to an all-time low of 927 in 2001. The ratio even dropped further to 800:1,000 in some specific parts of the country.

Let me share some facts with you:

• 1 out of every 6 girls does not live to see her 15th birthday.


• Every sixth girl child's death is due to gender discrimination.


• Condition of majority of those who survive is no good, as 22 million girls below the age of 18 years are forced into marriage against their wishes many a times to males twice their age.


• Female mortality exceeds male mortality in 224 out of 402 districts in India.

Hope starters look appetizing!

Innovative techniques, like embryo biopsy, sonogram ultrasound, scan tests and amniocentesis, devised to detect genetic abnormalities, are highly misused by number of families to detect gender of the unborn child. These clinical tests are highly contributing to the rise in genocide of the unborn girl child.

Amniocentesis started in India in 1974 to detect fetal abnormalities. These tests were used to detect gender for the first time in Amritsar, Punjab. Later the test was stopped by the Indian Council of Medical Research but it was too late. The benefits of these tests were leaked out and people started using it as an instrument for killing an innocent and unborn girl child.

In a country like ours where females are praised in form of Maa Durga and Maa Kali it’s shameful that some parents kill the girl child even before she comes in this beautiful world.

From the very day of the birth itself, the female child is looked down upon. Though not evidently, there is a feeling in all parents that the newborn is going to be a liability. It is weaker sex attitude our Indian parents keep towards their female children that makes our females weak throughout their life

To stop this social offence our government has taken several initiatives like “Free education to Girls” and projects like "Nanhikali” and "Save The Girl Child" but these efforts are not enough. We must come forward against this social evil. We need to create a society where girls can get a prominent status.

Raise your voices, and create awareness…….