MEDIA'S RESPONSIBILITY IN CONDUCTING FREE & FARE ELECTIONS IN INDIA

“Satyameva Jayate”, these two words are the inscription of the national emblem of India which symbolizes the governance in India, adapted from the pristine pillar of Ashoka, depicts that truth alone triumphs. Congenial to this, concept of media is also based on the principle of truth i.e. it supposes to deliver truth and only truth. So! If, both (govt. and media) reside on the concept of truth, then where do the false exist? The answer is embedded in the working methods of these two.

The word “media” reflects the connecting link between any two ends i.e. it involves flow of information from one end to another, here it envisages two collective terms (print media and electronic media) and both are supposed to be the most significant source of information available to both i.e. elite as well as common guild of society.

Media is a brand vehicle: Media provides a unique platform where one can get a reliable brand for the product so that it can be trusted by the mass. The most applicable tool of media is that it transforms rubble to palace, clay to gold, novice to expert, etc. The quality which makes it unique is that it can work in the reverse order as well i.e. it is adroit in converting palace to rubble, gold to clay and so on. By utilizing this unique feature of media, an appellant can avail justice while an innocent may be charged as a culpable, and it is this uniqueness of media which sometimes implants a stigma to its reliability.

Media makes govt.: Media makes a psychological impact on public and public being the basic unit of government, determines the establishment of governance in the country. No. doubt, media can create a freak in favor of one political guild and can ruin the repute of the other at the same time.

Role of media in elections: Media provides the complete profile of all the political parties taking part in the elections. Media conducts a 360 degree analysis of the entire process of election right from the announcement of various important dates and deadlines by the Election Commission including the dates for voter registration, the filing of nominations till the counting and declaration of the results, so that, even the most common person may come across to know about the right political party and right candidate of his choice, and hence, gives value to his vote. During the entire procedure of election, media is incessantly involved in the process as a watchdog and point out even the subtle details in front of the public.

Besides fulfilling just a mere duty to provide the details of election procedure, media should involve in propagating the healthy environment for the elections by conducting sensible discourses, procuring reliable data, encouraging the public to cast their vote and not to cast their caste. So! As media transforms its duty into the responsibility, we get the government of our choice.

WESTERN CULTURE PROMOTES DIVORCE

The living planet which we inhabit is an archive of various cultures, civilizations, work-ethics, and life-styles. Besides having such a diversified environment, the one thing which conglomerates the entire humanity is the different forms of emotions - the emotion of love, the emotion of grief, the emotion of joy.....and so on.... These forms of emotions are common in every culture with varying flavors. These emotions are the building-blocks of various relations and relation of a husband and a wife is one such important one in this series. A man and a woman become husband and wife respectively by following a common ritual (though in different formats) world-wide called "Marriage". However, there is also a rival word "Divorce" which provides an element of social-discourse to the issue.

Divorce (or the dissolution of marriage) is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties. In most countries divorce  requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process. The legal process for divorce may also involve issues of spousal support, child custody, child support, distribution of property and division of debt. In most western countries, a divorce does not declare a marriage null and void as in an annulment, but it does cancel the married status of the parties. Where monogamy is law, this allows each former partner to marry another. Where polygamy is legal, divorce allows the women to marry another. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world. Divorce is not permitted in some countries, such as in Malta and in the Philippines, though an annulment is permitted. From 1971 to 1996, four European countries (Spain, Italy, Portugal, & the Republic of Ireland) legalized divorce.

The subject of divorce as a social phenomenon is an important research topic in sociology. In many developed countries, divorced rates increased markedly during the 20th century. Among the nations in which divorce has become commonplace are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Australia. India and Sri-Lanka are the two countries that have the lowest divorce rates around 1% and 1.5% respectively. In this part of Asia, divorce is still very rare, although, it is more common in South-East Asia. In India, for example, arranged marriage is still fairly prominent although not as common as it once was. Divorce is not declared as acceptable as it is in other countries and therefore many either make a problem or remain in unhappy marriages.

On an All-India level, the Special Marriage Act was passed in 1954 and the Hindu Marriage Act, in 1955 which legally permitted divorce to Hindus. Divorce can be sought by husband or wife on certain grounds, including : adultery, cruelty, desertion for two years, religious conversion, mental abnormality, venereal disease and leprosy. Divorce causes great stigma among Hindus, especially those of the higher castes, and thus it is not common in this population. For consensual divorce, there is six months cooling off period after filling the consent terms in court before the divorce is granted. There are different laws for granting divorce in many communities.

In Islamic law and marital jurisprudence, divorce is accepted and referred to as talaq. Khula is the right of a woman in Islam to divorce or separate from her husband. The triple talaq is a mechanism for divorce which exists in sunni sect of Islam while rejected by the shia sect. Talaq (conflict) deals with the relationship between religious and secular systems for terminating the marriage in the conflict of laws.

An annual study in the United States by the Anthropological Issues & Behavioral Organization, estimates the main proximal causes of divorce based on survey of matrimonial lawyers. The main causes concluded in 2009 were :

1. Extra-marital affairs - 27%
2. Emotional/physical abuse - 13%
3. Mid-life crisis - 13%
4. Addictions, e.g. alcoholism & gambling - 6%

A recent survey found that 93% of divorce cases were petitioned by women, very few of which were contested. 53% of divorces were of marriages that had lasted 10-15 years, with 40% ending after 5-10 years. The first five years are relatively divorce free and if a marriage survives more than 20 years it is unlikely to end in divorce.
The age at which a person gets married is also believed to influence the likelihood of divorce, delaying marriage may provide more opportunity or experience in choosing a compatible partner.

As a social institution, marriage provides benefits not only to society as a whole, but also to the people that make up households that include marriage. Social scientists and family experts largely agree that there are many reasons that marriage helps societies, families and individuals stay stronger and healthier.
Here are ten of the many reasons marriage is valued :

1. Within marriages, there is generally less domestic violence toward women and children alike than there is in single parent or cohabitating households.
2. Children with married parents are not only less likely to be the victims of violent crimes, but are also less likely to commit crime or to be incarcerated (the latter applies specially to boys).
3. Children of married parents are more likely to graduate from college and to acquire better jobs.
4. Married ones are tend to be more ambitious, earning more than their single counterparts do even when other life circumstances (education, experience, etc.) are very similar.
5. Married men are less likely to engage in reckless behaviors, which may be attributed to the facts that they have a wife and /or children who depend on them and care for them. This may be one of the reasons for the next entry.
6. Married ones enjoy greater life expectancy than single ones do.
7. Mothers who are married tend to suffer from depression less often than single or cohabitating mothers do.
8. It is widely accepted that married adults, both men and women, tend to be healthier than their single, cohabitating or divorced counterparts are, and that children of married parents enjoy better health on average.
9. Children who grow up with married parents are more likely to stay married themselves, while children of divorced parents are nearly twice as likely to divorce.
10. Marriage may help recede poverty, especially in regard to women and children. A high rate of divorced women, other single parents and their children live in poverty.

The chronology of divorce is an axiom of its negative impact (except in some relevant cases) on the society and its culture should not be allowed to propagate like a cancerous cell. In the current scenario, it is being seen that the culture of divorce is being adopted by the people like a fashion and this must be cursed on every aspect. There are other things to adopt as a fashion, rather to play with such a beautiful relation.

A German philosopher has aptly said "Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate."

EMPOWERING WOMEN : REBUILDING THE SOCIETY

A women is a female human, more specifically an adult one, as defined in the dictionaries. "The half-world" - this is the current sobriquet for women and the highly discussed one in various guilds of social importance ranging from local to international platforms. More or less, this is almost one of the highly expected topics in essay writing competitions or in some counterpart exams. Freelancers always feel comfortable in putting their contributions on this, because they are an expert now and have discovered some sprucing innovative words to write about women and their issues. It was always very easy to say or to write few words or few resplendent lines on women so as very difficult to prove them real. An extempore question arises "why women are such a highly discussed one?", a philosophical inference to this curiosity points that smoke is the result of fire, so as women are guised as smoke and fire belongs to their plight. To elaborate this philosophical sentence a precis about the status of the women, since the inception of society up to date, is inevitable.

Status of women has been undergone multidimensional changes with the passage of time, strikingly in an alternate fashion. They enjoyed a revered status in pre-vedic period, as a pariah during post-vedic/medieval period and again emerged strongly in the twentieth century which is still on its journey to be completed.

Pre-vedic period was the golden era for the women because at that time they were devoid of any sort of restrictions or benighted customs, they were scholars, diligent, politician, etc, without being discriminated on the gender basis, however, some non-social impediments started arousing by the end of pre-vedic period and at the inception of post-vedic period. The first most accused has been claimed to be the doctrine of "Manusmiriti" which advocated the deprived and jeopardized living for the women followed by the Islamic invasion of Babur and the Mughal Empire who further added the suppression of women's rights in the society. The benighted customs like sati, child marriage, ban on widow remarriage, Devdassis, purdah, etc, were quite prevalent in the medieval period.

The deterioration of women's status persisted and remained isolated for a long time when social reformers started campaigning for their social upliftmnet during the British Rule. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar, Jyotirao Phule. were the names of such social reformers who made strong contributions in breaking the shackles of static and prevalent customs responsible for the deterioration of women's status in the society and further incepted the doctrine of their empowerment and reformation to set their status not less than any other human species.

Women in India now participate in all activities such as politics, sports, education, media, art and culture, service sectors, science and technology, etc. Indira Gandhi who served as prime minister of India for an aggregate period of 15 years is the world's longest serving women prime minister and the influence of women in politics is at its apex in the present context strongly supported by the incumbent president of India Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, incumbent speaker of Lok-Sabha Meira Kumar, incumbent railway minister Mamta Benerji and leader of UPA Sonia Gandhi. Besides these names of women holding major authorities in the politics, the other fields also have women ascendants like Indira Nooyi CEO of Pepsico, Chanda Kochar CEO of ICICI bank, Shikha Sharma of Axis bank and so on.

The constitution of India guarantees to all Indian women equality (Article 14), no discrimination by the state (Article 15(1)), equality of opportunity (Article 16), and equal pay for equal work (Article 39 (d)). In addition
it allows special provisions to be made by the state in favor of women and children (Article 15(3)), renounces practices derogatory to the dignity of women (Article 51(A)(e)) and also allows for the provisions to be made by the state for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief (Article 42)

In 1990s, grants from foreign donor agencies enabled the formation of new women oriented NGOs. Self-help groups and NGOs such as Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) have played a major role in women's rights in India. Many women have emerged as leaders of local movement for example Medha Patkar of Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Govt. of India declared 2001 as year of women empowerment. National policy for the empowerment of women was also passed in 2001. In 2010 march 9, one day after international women's day, Rajya Sabha passed women's reservation Bill, ensuring 33% reservation to women in parliament and state legislative bodies.

Besides all these beautiful data, the status of women is still not that to which it is meant for. There are still a lot to do for their empowerment. The cases of child marriage, deteriorating maternity rate, anemic pregnancies, eve teasing, molestation, harassment, rape, exploitation, trafficking and so many more are such an inventory of
non-social impediments which are still prevailing in an alarming rate.

The worst myth so far is that man is superior and women is inferior in terms of physical power, more muscles, taller stature, broader shoulders. His prowess is proven in the brave progress he has made down the ages, hunting for food, cultivating for better living, conquering territories for more power. In short, pages of History remember him as the ruler, achiever, and savior with great physical and intellectual strength. He is seen to be born to govern, to protect and dominate. On the other hand, women seen as a lesser version with tender make-up of physique and delicate features have been alloted a shaded place in the back-ground, a safe shelter in home looking after the appetites and needs of the mighty man, delivering his pregnancies and bringing them up, has been her primary if not the only duty.

Man and women being complimentary physically, emotionally, and morally and there is no scope for comparison. One has no existence without the other. They are interdependent. Together their life is whole and meaningful. Each has their own duties, roles and responsibilities.

Beautifully lyrical sloka from Atharvaveda clearly states that women leads the man - "The son God follows the
first illuminated and enlightened goddess Usha (Dawn) in the same manner as men emulate and follow women".