Going by just the number of countries, the global average for the age of consent is 16. The government's proposal of criminalizing consensual sex with any person below 18 will put India in the company of countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Chile, Peru and Egypt, none of whom can be counted among liberal democracies. While the age of consent across the world ranges from 13 to 18, the bulk of the...
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Inflation takes away ‘feel good factor’, one-third Indians suffering: Survey-Sidhartha
High inflation and moderate economic growth seem to have taken away the "feel good" factor for many Indians. Gallup's Financial Wellbeing Index, released on Monday, showed that 31% of Indians rated their present and future lives as "suffering" compared to 24% in 2011. Similarly, only around 13% said that they are "thriving" compared to 21% a year ago. The biggest jump in the "suffering lot" is in the middle 20% population, where...
More »MEA said no to 39 trips by 25 Union ministers-Shyamlal Yadav
Even as 2011-12 saw Union ministers going on an unprecedented number of foreign trips, the MEA has refused clearance on several grounds for at least 39 proposed trips by 25 Union ministers since June 2009. Some of them are no longer ministers. All these trips, barring one, fell in the official category. The ministers had proposed to travel to destinations such as the US, UK, France, Italy, Japan, Australia and South Africa,...
More »India Serves Up Costly Cocktail of Vaccines by Ranjit Devraj
Ignoring widespread concern over the safety, efficacy and cost of pentavalent vaccines, India’s central health ministry has, this month, approved inclusion of the prophylactic cocktail in the universal immunisation programme in seven of its provinces. Pentavalent vaccine doses, a cocktail of five antigens in a single shot, confers immunity against five paediatric diseases - diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), with the last one considered particularly...
More »Wife beating justified, feel most Indian women
-CNN-IBN A Unicef report titled Progress for Children, a report on adolescents, holds that available data for developing countries (India included) show that nearly 50 per cent of girls and women aged between 15 and 49 also believe that wife-beating is justified under certain circumstances. About 57 per cent of male adolescents aged between 15 and 19 years in India think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his...
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