Cohabitation in India

 


Many people imagine that living together before marriage resembles taking a car for a test drive.
India is still looked by the world as a nation where marriage occupies a sacramental position both philosophically and practically. The phrase ‘common law wife’ was used to denote legal rights as that of a wife enjoyed by a woman living with a man without marriage. The change in the life styles towards western style has definitely brought the need of ‘common law wife’ in India as well. By recognizing a woman who has not entered into the matrimony with rights of wife, whether we would do some harm to society? Live-in-relationships are not new in our  society. The only difference is that now people have become open about it. Formally they were known as “maitray karars” in which people of two opposite sex would enter into a written agreement to be friends, live together and look after each other. A change is visible in our society from arranged marriages to love marriages and now to ‘live-in-relationships’. If an analysis is made of need of such relationships, avoiding responsibility would emerge as the prime reason. The lack of commitment, the disrespect of social bonds and the lack of tolerance in relationships have given rise to alternative to marriages.
The very nature of the closeness allows a couple to provide with feedback so that they may recognize and modify relationship-defeating behaviours. It contains an element of convenience.” No relationship can ever be equated with a relationship as eternal as marriage. Hence the option of live-in-relationships may seem attractive but the real side may not be that fancy. They may be practically possible but their success in life which some day requires a life-long companion is definitely dull.

A good example of it is the movie Salam Namaste and the serial Bade Ache Lagte hai the character Ayesha Sharma Priya’s sister was in live in relation with priyas brother in law.

Provisions with regard to live-in-relationships
Outside India
The law introduced in 1999 in France makes provisions for “civil solidarity pacts” allowing  couples (even of same sex) to enter into a union and be allowed to the same rights as married couples in such areas as income tax, inheritance, housing and social welfare. Couples, who want to enter into such a relationship may sign up before a court clerk and can revoke the contract unilaterally or by bilaterally with a simple declaration, made in writing, which gives the partner three months’ notice.
In India
No law at present deal with the concept of live-in-relationships and their legality. Still even in the absence of a specific legislation on the subject, it is praise-worthy that under The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, all benefits are bestowed on woman living in such kind of arrangement by reason of being covered within the term “domestic relationship”  under Section 2(f). If we propose to enact a law to regulate live-in-relationships, though it would grant rights to parties to it but at the same time it would also impose obligations on them.
Couples prefer to choose it only to have no responsibility of any sort, but if it is guided by some law, then it would not be so readily preferred. To consider of enacting a law on the lines of provisions in other countries 

may not be successful as their relationships are granted sanction mainly to legalize gay relationship. In India, since it would not be socially permissible to have relationship between persons of same sex, the law enacted for them by the countries cannot act as guiding force.
The last two to three months have been influential in arousing response on the matter of live-in-relationships in India. It should not be denied that our culture does need a legislature to regulate relationships which are likely to grow in number with changes in the ideology of people.

Balika vadhu as Cultural rethinking

Balika vadhu from start till now has got many varations in its culture, this serial has got different cultures. The story deals with Child marriage, a social custom that is still practiced in some parts of India although being banned by law. It is one of the most popular shows and has been running for more than four years. The show is set up in rural Rajasthan and based on the practice of child marriage. It is about Anandi, a young girl married to Jagdish (Jagya), the only grandson of Kalyani Devi (Dadi Sa) and Dharmveer Singh. When Anandi reaches her sasuraal (in laws home), she finds herself listening to her dadi-sa, Kalyani Devi. Little by little, Anandi's childish blunders get her into trouble in the hands of Kalyani. When anandi supports jagat for studies and he leaves foe Mumbai, there he meets Gauri.
For a long time in the serial, there was a lot of love between Jagat and Gauri, something which developed over a period of many years, and one could see that Gauri did love Jagat a lot. Though, at the same time, she was also aware that the relationship between Jagat and her was a bit shaky and so she had to push his family away from him. So, over a period of time, she did a number of activities that either pushed them away, created more distances between Jagat and Anandi and also created emotional blackmail to get Jagat more to her side. Even when it was revealed that Bhairon had actually funded her education, she hide this from Jagat; and then on one occasion when Jagat almost got to know details about Bade Papa and his funding, she became very angry.
 
On the other hand, the Anandi's life was improving, Shiv was in love with her and got his parents and family to accept her. Now, it was exciting to see when Jagat comes back at the exact time when there are preparations being made for the marriage activities.
"The show is progressing towards the highpoint focusing on Shiv-Anandi's married life. Given the hectic shooting schedules the show demands at this stage, Pratyusha has been unable to commit the required time.
‘Balika Vadhu’ is riding high on TRP’s after Anandi married to Shivraj Alok Shekhar, essayed by actor Siddharth Shukla.
Meanwhile, Pratyusha said that she has no plans post 'Balika Vadhu' .
 A actual example of Cultural Rethinking.

Media Law-

CHEQUEBOOK  JOURNALISM

A cheque is issued to make payment. But in journalism it has a peculiar meaning. Here, a journalist pays money for the right to publish his story. The term “chequebook  journalism is used in a derogatory and negative sense. The understanding is that stories obtained by praying people are not so worthy as those obtained by traditional methods and investigations.
It is defined as the practice of securing exclusive rights to material for newspaper stories by paying a high price for it, regardless of any moral implications. For instance, it may involve paying people to boast of criminal or morally reprehensible activities.
An example of chequebook journalism is the famous case where five men were charged with plotting to kill Victoria Beckham, wife of soccer star David Beckham. The media paid money to the witnesses in  the case to get stories out of them.
The trail collapsed as the court decided that the charges of plotting to kidnap were false.  This raised questions about when and whether it is acceptable for the media to pay witnesses in criminal cases for their stories.
The fear is that a witness who has been offered money may be tempted to exaggerate their evidence to justify their fee- or hold something back for publication later.Either way the witness becomes unreliable.However, those who defend payments to people who may become witnesses in criminal trials argue they are important tool of investigative journalism. They feel that sometimes people just don’t want to tell their stories unless they’re paid.The code of ethics says that payments to people who may become witnesses at a earlier stage are permitted, but only way to get it. Under no circumstances must witnesses be offered more money on the event of a conviction.
Thus, Checkbook Journalism is term used when newspaper and other media pay people to tell their story. It is believed that the truth usually suffers in deals like this. Often the person telling the story will say what the journalists want to hear, in order to get the money.
In many countries, especially the UK and US it is becoming an accepted practice. A section of thinkers believe that it has a corrupting influence. It either encourages exaggeration/ colouring of information or suppresses it, depending upon the situation.  It becomes particularly problematic when these payments are made to source who are witnesses or crime or convicted of crime.

 In India, this kind of journalism is not practiced. Most journalists have disregard for it. Chequebook journalism remains restricted to sleazy tabloids who do not mind paying, say Britney spear’s hair-dresser, a large sum of money for some story about Britney’s love life. In the UK however, cheque-book journalism flourishes. At one level, it is the mainstay of the tabloids. The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The News of the World or The Daily Mail have no hesitation in paying for stories. These could range from the confessions of a high class call girl to something more substantial and significant.
But at another level, it could be an integral part of investigate journalism. If a reporter pays a security guard to gain access to restricted space or it a correspondent pays money to driver to tell him who he drove where, this might be acceptable.

                                                                                                                                                    

Media Law

The Cable Television Networks 

(Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011

 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in its recommendations dated the 5th August, 2010 on "Implementation of Digital Addressable Cable Systems in India" had, inter alia, recommended that " digitalization with addressability be implemented on priority in cable TV services in Non-CAS areas" and, accordingly, recommended a time-frame comprising four phases for switch over from analog system to the Digital Addressable System (DAS) in the cable TV sector. In view of the above-mentioned recommendations of the TRAI, the Central Government decided to introduce digitalization with addressability in the cable TV services in a phased time bound manner on a pan India basis, leading to complete switch off of analog TV services by the 31st December, 2014. 

For the implementation of DAS, certain amendments were required to be made in the aforesaid Act mandating all cable operators to provide programs of all channels, including free-to-air (FTA) channels, in an encrypted form through DAS in a phased manner at specified areas from specified dates to be notified by the Central Government. It is also mandatory that any such notification should give at least six months time to the cable operators for being able to install the necessary digital equipments for migration and educate the subscribers in this area. In order to protect the interest of consumers, it has been proposed to empower TRAI to specify a package

of free-to-air channels, called basic service tier, which shall be offered by every cable operator to the consumers. It is also necessary that every cable operator should offer channels in the basic service tier on a la carte (individual) basis to consumers at a tariff fixed by TRAI.

It has also been considered necessary to carry out certain amendments in the Act for rectifying certain deficiencies noticed during the operation of the Act for the last fifteen years. These, inter alia, include systemization of registration of cable operators, providing right of way to cable operators and permission by public authorities, compulsory transmission of certain channels, inspection of cable network services, prescription of interference standards by the Central Government and empowering the TRAI to specify basic service tier and its tariff.

The Act has come into force from 25thday of December 2011.