by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Politics, Women Entrepreneur
Hansa Mehta, Lakshmi Menon, Begum Hamid Ali and Vijayalakshmi Pandit
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : Four Indian women pioneers at the UN — Hansa Mehta, Lakshmi Menon, Begum Hamid Ali and Vijayalakshmi Pandit — were hailed on Tuesday as role models who worked to champion gender equality at a nascent world organisation.
At a panel discussion here on the Southern Legacy of Women and the Origins of the UN, Rebecca Adami, a senior lecturer at the University of Stockholm, said the push for gender equality came not from Western nations, but from the countries of the South.
She credited Hansa Jivraj Mehta with ensuring the inclusion of women in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which in its initial draft spoke only of the rights of the “man” and Eleanor Roosevelt, the champion of human rights from the US, who chaired the drafting committee was oblivious to the omission of women.
“Hansa Mehta, the only female on the Commission on Human Rights besides Eleanor Roosevelt, objects to the use of ‘man’ in the draft arguing that member states can use this to restrict the rights, rather than expand them since women are not considered necessarily included in that wording,” Adami said.
As a result of Mehta’s persistence, the draft was amended to mention “human persons” and “equality of men and women” in the UDHR adopted in 1948.
Adami said that Begum Hamid Ali, the Indian delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1947, championed the inclusion of women, whom she had described as the “immense source of wealth lying at the thresholds unused”.
India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said that the Indian women pioneers “served as bridges between the processes of global norm-building at the UN and the institution building processes at the national level” in India.
Mehta was also a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Indian Constitution draws upon several aspects of both the UN Charter and the UDHR, he said.
“The themes of equality, freedom, justice, peace and respect for international law resonated throughout the Indian Constitution that was worked upon around the time that the theme of Human Rights was resonating universally, he said.
Lakshmi Menon, who headed the Commission on Status of Women during 1949-50, “was an outspoken advocate of the ‘universality’ of human rights,” he said.
She, “along with her colleagues from other developing countries, strongly opposed the concept of ‘colonial relativism’, which sought to deny human rights to people in countries under colonial rule,” he added.
Akbaruddin drew attention to the stark contrast between the developing and developed countries in promoting women to positions of authority at the UN.
“While the global North tries to position itself as a leader of gender equality, there have been only three women who have served as the President of the General Assembly – all three have been from the global South,” he said.
The first was Vijayalakshmi Pandit in 1953 and she was followed by Angie Elizabeth Brooks of Liberia in 1969 and Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain in 2006.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ishrat Jahan (file photo)
Alappuzha (Kerala) : A petitioner in the June 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake shootout case was killed in a road accident here on Friday. Kerala Police have started a probe.
M.R. Gopinathan Pillai died when the car he was travelling in collided with a lorry.
“We are leaving nothing to chance and all aspects of the accident are being thoroughly probed,” said an officer, who did not wish to be identified.
Pillai was the father of Javed Ghulam Shaikh, alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, who was one of the three others killed by the Gujarat Police along with Ishrat Jahan on the outskirts of Ahmadabad in June 2004.
“It’s too early at this moment to come to any sort of conclusion on the accident. An FIR has been registered and the probe has begun,” the officer said.
Speaking to IANS, a police officer attached to the Pattanakad police station said: “Pillai was on his way to a hospital for a check-up when his car met with the accident.”
The 78-year-old Pillai, a retired teacher had heaved a sigh of relief after the Special Investigation Team submitted to the Gujarat High Court in 2011 that his son was killed in a fake shootout.
Pillai then reacted that he was a much relieved man because no one would call him the father of a terrorist — as the Gujarat Police had dubbed his son.
Shaikh had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman.
The Gujarat Police had then alleged that Ishrat and the three others were Leshkar-e-Taiba activists on a mission to kill then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday sought Centre’s response on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the practice of polygamy and nikah halala amongst the Muslim community.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said the matter would be heard by the constitution bench.
The court directed that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice for setting up of an appropriate bench.
Appearing for one of the petitioners, senior counsel Mohan Parasaran told the court that the 2017 judgement which had held instant triple talaq as unconstitutional had left these two issues open and did not address them.
A Muslim husband is allowed to have more than one wife.
Under nikah halala, if a Muslim woman after being divorced by her husband three times at different instances wants to go back to him, then she has to marry another person and then divorce the second husband to get re-married to her first husband.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | News
Kochi (Kerala) : An NIA court here on Saturday sentenced a woman from Bihar to seven years in jail in the first Islamic State (IS) case registered in Kerala.
The case is in connection with 15 persons from Kasargode district who travelled to Afghanistan to join the terror group in 2016.
Yasmin Mohammed Zahid was arrested in Delhi July 30, 2016, when she on her way to leave for Afghanistan with her child.
The case was first registered by the Kerala Police in Kasargode. It was later taken over by the National Investigation Agency.
The agency found evidence of the accused persons activities through their social media accounts.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Muslim World, Women Entrepreneur
Malakeh Jazmati
Berlin : A Syrian refugee will be cooking dishes from Damascus and Aleppo for VIP guests at the opening of the Berlinale International Film Festival next month.
The choice of Malakeh Jazmati reflects the mission of the festival, which was set up in 1951 to showcase films that address urgent social and political issues in the world, Reuters reported. The festival devoted its program to refugees and migration in 2016 after Europe’s politics were convulsed by the arrival of more than a million refugees from the Middle East and Africa, including Jazmati herself.
At the Berlin film festival opening reception in February, the 30-year-old chef, who runs a catering business in the German capital with her husband, will be cooking for more than 400 guests attending the opening reception. “When I went and saw it’s not just any film festival but the Berlinale, I was more than happy,” she said of her reaction on learning she had been chosen. “It’s like getting to fulfill your dreams.”
She will be working under the management of Berlinale’s chef Martin Scharff and cooperating with the Lebanese-American cook Barbara Massaad, known for her Syrian cookbook. Her menu will range from Aleppo stuffed aubergine to a Damascene “Syrian pasta”, seasoned with tamarind sauce and pomegranate molasses. “People think about our food that we only have falafel and hummus, but after that they see it’s a very big kitchen,” Jazmati told Reuters TV. The festival will open on February 15 with the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s animated film Isle of Dogs, staring Hollywood actors such as Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton.
—HA/OIC-UNA
