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QBullet: Rains Flood Mumbai; Govt Won’t Criminalise Marital Rape

The Quint’s roundup of headlines from the national dailies. 

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India
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1. Mumbai Rains Live: Local Trains To Run Through The Night

Continuous heavy rains in Mumbai have caused severe flooding and waterlogging in several parts of the city, adversely affecting both road and rail transport. Local trains running on the Western Railway line have either been slowed down or disrupted, and several flights have been delayed too.

The city is likely to witness its highest rainfall since 2005, reports say. Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department predicts that rains would continue for the next 24 hours.

According to reports, in just 9 hours South Mumbai had recorded its highest rainfall this year on Monday.

There have been reports of water logging in suburbs such as Matunga West, Mahim, Dadar, Lower Parel and Bandra East. Parts of Mumbai including Borivali, Matunga have no electricity.

Read the full story on The Quint.

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2. Don't Criminalise Marital Rape, May Disturb Institution of Marriage: Government

Stating that what “may appear to be marital rape” to a wife “may not appear so to others”, the central government took a stand against criminalising marital rape, in its affidavit to the Delhi High Court, on the grounds that it “may destabilise the institution of marriage apart from being an easy tool for harassing the husbands”.

As to what constitutes ‘marital rape’ and what would constitute ‘marital non-rape’ needs to be defined precisely before a view on its criminalisation is taken.

It goes on to cite the “rising misuse of section 498A of IPC”, commonly known as the dowry law, to demonstrate how laws dealing with violence against women can be misused “for harassing the husbands”.

Section 375 of the IPC dealing with rape makes an exception for such instances within marriages and holds that “sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape”. No other statute or law recognises marital rape, and victims presently only have recourse to civil remedies provided under the Protection of Woman from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

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3. Panic Strikes Gorakhpur's BRD Medical College Again, 61 Children Die in Three Days

Days after alleged disruption in oxygen supply resulted in deaths of over 30 children within 48 hours at Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College, 61 children died there in the last 72 hours, spreading panic in the hospital again.

The latest deaths were due to various ailments, including encephalitis, health complexities in newborns, pneumonia, sepsis etc, whose patients have been flooding the hospital, leading to overcrowding.

On August 27, 28 and 29, 61 deaths were recorded at the hospital — 11 in the encephalitis ward, 25 in neonatal intensive care unit (NNICU) and another 25 in the general pediatric ward.

Local doctors said the number of deaths will increase in the coming days due to heavy rainfall, floods and water-logging which foster the spread of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES).
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4. RTI Activist Says Aadhaar Contract Gave Foreign Firms Access to Unencrypted Data

Contrary to the Centre's claims, contracts signed with foreign firms by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), custodian of Aadhaar data, show that they got "full access" to classified data including fingerprints, iris scan info, and personal information like date of birth, address and mobile number of the applicants. They were also allowed to store the data for seven years.

This was revealed through an RTI application filed by Bengaluru-based Col Matthew Thomas, one of the petitioners in the right to privacy case currently being heard in Supreme Court.

The RTI reply showed that the nature of the contracts contradicted UIDAI’s statements that no private entity had access to unencrypted Aadhaar data. 

The contract with one of the biometric service providers (BSPs), L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Co Pvt Ltd, headquartered in US, says that the company was given Aadhaar data access "as part of its job". Morpho and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd are two other firms that were given identical contracts with twoyear (2010 to 2012) Aadhaar data access.

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5. Shimla Rape-Murder Case: CBI Arrests Eight Officers for Custodial Death of Accused

The CBI on Tuesday arrested Inspector General of Police Zahur H Zaidi, Deputy Superintendent of Police Manoj Joshi and six other policemen — all part of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in July — in connection with the custodial death of an accused in the case.

Zaidi, a 1994-batch IPS officer, was the IGP (South Range, Shimla) at the time of the incident. He is now posted as the IG (administration), Police Headquarters. 

The other policemen who have been arrested are Rajinder Singh, SHO, Kotkhai police station; ASI Deep Chand Sharma, the investigating officer in the rape-murder case; head-constables Mohan Lal, Surat Singh and Rafiq Ali; and constable Ranjit Singh.

CBI sources said the police personnel were arrested in connection with the custodial death, for which a separate FIR was filed on July 19, under Section 302 of the IPC, at the Kotkhai police station.

The case dates back to July 6, when the girl’s body was found in the Halaila forests of Mahasu in the apple-rich Kotkhai area, 56 km from Shimla, two days after she went missing on her way home after school.
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6. 'Godman' Rampal Acquitted in Two Criminal Cases, Murder Case Verdict Awaited

A Hisar court acquitted self-styled godman Rampal on Tuesday in connection with two criminal cases registered against him, citing lack of evidence. Judicial Magistrate, Hisar, Mukesh Kumar pronounced the verdict, acquitting Rampal, head of Satlok Ashram, Barwala and his followers here.

Rampal would remain in jail as he is facing other charges including sedition, the defence counsel said.

The Quint’s roundup of headlines from the national dailies. 
The court is yet to announce a decision on more serious allegations of murder, attempted murder and sedition that have been filed against him.

“He has been acquitted in the two cases (426 and 427). It’s a victory of truth,” said Rampal’s lawyer AP Singh.

The Indian Penal Code sections pertain to causing damage to public property and person.

The 66-year-old leader, who runs a sect housed in a sprawling 12-acre ashram in Hisar’s Barwala, first burst into prominence in the late 90s after touring Haryana as a bhajan singer.
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7. Only Indian Phones for Defence Officials?

The Centre is considering the creation of a secure communications ecosystem for its officials, especially those working in the defence sector.

One of the proposals is mandating the use of mobile phones manufactured by Indian companies for official communication. The government will also be providing a secure email service to its officials.

“The view is that communications for vital departments of the government need to be secured… a lot of the companies store user data on a server in a foreign country, including China,” a senior official, who requested anonymity, told The Hindu.

The suggestion on mobiles came up at a meeting called by Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad with senior officials in the department, including representatives of Cert-In, earlier this month. The Army now uses secure landline phones to communicate.

We are already working on a data protection law. The Minister wants us to also look at ways to secure communication between the vital government departments, such as defence.

Source: The Hindu

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8. Eight JeM Fidayeen Hiding in Punjab, J&K

Could the suicide attack on police lines in J&K's Pulwama, in which eight security personnel were killed, have been averted?

Two days before the deadly attack, which is being termed the biggest this year, the Intelligence Bureau had shared two specific inputs, with the security forces claiming that heavily armed and trained fidayeen attackers of Maulana Masood Azhar-led Jaish-e-Mohammed had infiltrated from Pakistan and their targets were camps of military and other security forces.

The information shared by IB was of “high priority” nature and it was felt that JeM was planning something on a major scale like last year’s Pathankot IAF base attack.

The first input, shared on August 23 claimed that seven JeM suicide attackers have entered India through the line of control (LoC) at Poonch on the intervening night of August 16-17 and have split into two groups — of four and three members. It added that one group was headed towards Jammu, while another was going to Srinagar.

The second IB communique, sent to ground forces on August 24, two days before the Pulwama attack, informed that four heavily armed JeM attackers had successfully infiltrated into the Jammu sector via Shakargarh in Narowal (Pakistani Punjab) to Gurdaspur on Indian side, on the intervening night of August 16-17.

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9. Farmers Lock 250 Stray Cows in School, Students Go Home

Farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, who say they have been facing some real tough times due to the menace of stray cattle, caught hold of and locked 250 of the animals in a primary school as they demanded a shelter house for the bovines.

As there was no place for students to study, they all returned home. The kids have no idea when the school will be cleared of the animals. Neither do the teachers.

On their part, some of the farmers TOI spoke to on Tuesday said that there are thousands of stray cattle in the district that are damaging crops but the district administration has not taken any action in the matter.

This was the fourth such incident reported from the district, where peeved farmers have locked up stray cattle in school compounds.

Basic education officer Budhpriya Singh said:

The primary school in Sakethu village of Nakha block was taken over by angry villagers and they locked stray cattle inside the school premises. The students had to go back to their house.

The official hoped the deadlock will end soon and the school will reopen.

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