It’s naïve to believe the newly passed Criminal Amendment Bill, 2013 will prevent and deter crimes against women (EW April cover story). As the authors observe, despite the outpouring of public anger little has changed. The police and judiciary continue to be indifferent, callous and inefficient when dealing with gender crimes. That’s why women should take charge of their own safety and well-being. Martial arts and self-defence training should be introduced and made compulsory for girls in all schools from class VIII onwards.

It’s also a good idea to publicly shame offenders. While the law can take its own course, victims should publicly humiliate molesters in their communities. This will stop crimes. Right now there is no fear of the law because the police don’t take molestation seriously, and if at all a complaint is registered it takes several years for conviction to happen. That’s why it’s important for local communities to publicly shame and ostracise sexual offenders.

Jaya Srinivas
Chennai

Business as usual
Your cover story on gender crimes was well written (EW April). The authors have rightly argued that the socio-economic cost of the gender crimes tsunami is massive. Living in constant fear of being molested and attacked whether on the streets, schools, colleges and offices, will increasingly lead to women dropping out of education institutions and the workforce. This translates into a huge loss to the economy with the country deprived of half its talent pool. Sadly nobody seems to care about this loss or about achieving the goal of inclusive development.

Even though public pressure has forced Parliament to enact the Criminal Amendment Bill, 2013, I don’t believe anything is going to change on the ground. No plans to hire more policemen or judges have been announced. It is business as usual on India’s lawless streets.

Manjula Deshpande
Delhi

Value of women 

Unlike other features in the media which focus on the legal and moral aspects of crimes against women, your cover story ‘Huge damage of gender crimes tidal wave’ (EW April)  draws attention to the socio-economic impact of the damage to women’s psyche, following the rapidly degenerating law and order system countrywide.

It’s quite shocking that India’s great intellectuals given to breast-beating on television every evening about our incorrigibly patriarchal society and exhorting male citizens to improve their behaviour with women, don’t highlight the failure of the police and legal systems to crack down on stalking, molestation, groping and worse, of women which is commonplace, resulting in great economic loss to the country. If women have to fear for their safety in public transport, the street, workplaces and after dark, they will obviously opt out of the work force even if they are well-educated and competent.

For your information, the Battle of Britain in World War II was won as much by women working night shifts in munition factories and hospitals, as it was by men fighting on the front. It’s high time our inept politicians, police and pompous judges realise that if women drop out of the work force for safety reasons, India’s already pathetic GDP will decrease by 40-50 percent. 

Shankar Valiathan
Mumbai

Adopt lib-lab-lav project

It’s not surprising that yet again the Union Budget has failed Indian education and the welfare of children (EW April). It’s more than evident from the pathetic state of our public education system — both at the school and university levels — that education has never been a priority of the government, especially state governments. Our crumbling government schools where basic infrastructure such as toilets and drinking water is lacking are a sad testimony to persistent government neglect.

A first step for the government to translate lip service into action is to implement your lib-lab-lav project. The cost of equipping every government school with a library, laboratory and lavatory is a mere Rs.23,204 crore — 0.21 percent of GDP. As you rightly suggest, this sum can be easily raised through sale of equity in public sector enterprises (PSEs) which anyway are a big drain on the exchequer. Millions of taxpayers’ money have already been wasted on loss-making PSEs, from where no worthwhile invention or innovation has emerged in the past 60 years. It’s no loss to the nation if some of them are sold to invest in education. It’s definitely a better investment.

Sangeeta Subramaniam
Chennai

Disheartening corruption
It is rightly stated in the letter from the editor (EW March) that these are the “worst of times with the economy in the doldrums, political scandals involving mind-boggling defalcations unfolding every other day…” Not a day goes by when a scam is not reported in the press. The latest is the Augusta Westland helicopter deal. Is there any department free from scandal? It’s disheartening that every day newspapers post screaming headlines of new scams or corruption charges against government ministers and bureaucrats.

What is more unfortunate is that there are no reports on how many people have been convicted for corruption. Is it because of criminalisation of politics? For corruption at higher levels, laws must be stringent. Wealth amassed illegally must be confiscated, and the guilty severely punished. The solution is not just to install CCTV cameras in government offices, but to do video recording of all procedures.

Mahesh Kapasi
Delhi

Corrigenda
1. Founder-director of CHIREC School, Hyderabad (Education Briefs) on page 24 (EW April) should read as Ratna D. Reddy. The error is regretted.

2. Credit for photos used on pages 7 and 36 (Cover Story, EW April) should have been given to Rohit Gautam, Delhi. The omission is regretted.