The hands of a woman campaigning against child marriage were chopped off by a youth in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, it was reported yesterday.
The incident took place in the Madhya Pradesh town of Dhar Tuesday, an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar for solemnizing marriages, the Telegraph newspaper reported.
The youth knocked on the door of Shakuntala Verma, a supervisor in the state child and welfare department, saying he wanted directions to a house. When Verma stepped out, he chopped her hands off.
Her relatives rushed her to hospital in the nearby town of Indore where the doctors said she was out of danger after undergoing a nine-hour surgery.
The police said Verma was attacked because she had been touring nearby villages discouraging people from marrying under-age children.
Her brother Sushil said she had received threats from some villagers.
Verma had warned villagers that she would scrutinize birth certificates of all new grooms and brides.
Hours after the macabre attack, 50,000 marriages were solemnized in Madhya Pradesh in auspicious hours that come once a year. Weddings can be solemnized during these hours without a priest oveeing the wedding. The state authorities could not say how many of these were child marriages.
The marriage of boys under 21 and girls under 18 is illegal under Indian laws. But the practice of child marriage is still widely prevalent in remote and backward rural areas of the country, especially in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gaur had created a flutter when he ruled out "serious action" against offenders in child marriage cases last week. "Social customs are stronger than laws," he had said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS