There is a widespread understanding amongst the public on the distress of the men in general and married men in particular. The sustained campaign by the members of AIMWA and SIF through media and by direct interaction has created awareness on the plight of men in India on account of the blatantly anti-male biased laws.

Here are the Press releases in Tamil and English:

The book in PDF (eBook) form can be downloaded from International Men’s Day web page.

The handbook has been compiled and edited assiduously Mr.Atit Rajpara and various other men’s rights activists belonging to the renowned NGO movement viz: “Save Indian Family”. It exposes the deep-rooted malady of misandry in our society and the laws and attitudes that are pronouncedly biased against men.

You can have a walk-through of the booklet here:

The reason behind this being that they want to highlight that this is a global and not domestic story.

Violence against men seems to be a largely untold story and is something that they are really interested in featuring.

The show that she is researching on behalf of, Taboo, is National Geographic’s most successful show.

Taboo is a long-running prime-time documentary series on the National Geographic Channel. The series presents an in-depth analysis of human behaviours and customs from around the world. As the title suggests, the focus is on practices that some countries or cultures might consider strange.

But often things that are considered taboo are not well understood. In each episode, personal stories are presented alongside analysis from leading academics and experts in the relevant field.

Part of the reason for this success is their observational documentary style of shooting. In recent years female violence against men has become more public affair, it would seem that there a quite few contributing factors, but above all, there seems to be very little support by way of shelter for men that are in this situation.

Violence against men seems to be a largely untold story and is something that they are really interested in featuring.

If you are able to assist Sarah, please contact her at the details below.

Sarah Isaac / researcher
Beyond Productions
109 Reserve Rd, Artarmon NSW 2064
E: sarah_isaac@beyond.com.au
L: +61 (0)2 9437 2000
M: 040 6897171
F: +61 (0)2 9437 2090

See also: One in Three page.

Present day fathers are actively involved in parenting their children in every way and in all spheres of their development. In the changed scenario of our family system, especially in cities the role of the father is paramount and must be recognized equally along with the Mother.

Shared parenting is the only solution for the normal growth of children whose parents are separated.

Views of the Fathers’ Day bash at Bangalore by the members of CRISP (Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting):

More reports and pictures:

1. Are dads dispensable commodities?
2. Protest of fathers at Nagpur.
3. News reports on the Fathers’ Day celebrations at Hyderabad.
4. Write-up in The tribune.
5. Papas out in pursuit of happiness (Times of India)
6. For them, Father’s Day has no relevance
7. Child abduction by parents among Indian diaspora raises concern
8. Right to fatherhood
9. YouTube Channel

The protest will see hundreds of men venting their agony in front of the Town Hall.

According to SIFF, husbands and their family members are facing discrimination by the government and inaction of the judiciary against ‘wife terror’.

This ‘intimate terror’ also includes ‘biting’, ‘nagging’, ‘hitting’, and ‘extra-marital affairs’, according to SIFF. Other ‘terror’ by wives the husbands will protest against include daily abuse, threat of blackmail to commit suicide, threat of criminal cases and not allowing to play with children.

“Recently, a young man was ordered to pay Rs 25,000 per month as maintenance to his estranged wife in a marriage that lasted just six months. Even a government employee does not get Rs 25,000 pension per month after working for 30 years,” said an SIFF spokesperson.

The protesters are demanding changes in laws that govern divorce, dowry law and maintenance. These they say are being used to file false cases against men by their wives.

“There is a need for a separate state commission for men and create policies for men. More married men are committing suicide in India. At present one married man commits suicide every nine minutes,” the SIFF spokesperson said.

Thanks: Bangalore Mirror

Here are some photos of the protest:

Men: Be Pround to Claim Your Rights	Husband Not An ATM Machine.	Give no Maintenance to Criminals.	Feminists Raping Indian Laws!!
Women Fight for Rights of their Sons.	Do not give a damn to Feminists.		Traffic passes by SIF Banner.
Every 9 mins, a husband commits suicide in India.	Women Leaders shout for men's rights.	Activist talks to local language TV Channel	Draconian Vampire's Act ?!!
Girls walk past the "Vampire's Act" Banner.	Activists discussing in the tent as the local magician stares at them!!

Definitions.- In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

(a) ” aggrieved person” means any woman who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and who alleges to have been subjected to any act of domestic violence by the respondent;

” respondent” means any adult male person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person and against whom the aggrieved person has sought any relief under this Act: Provided that an aggrieved wife or female living in a relationship in the nature of a marriage may also file a complaint against a relative of the husband or the male partner;

How blatantly biased, one-sided and preposterous and cruel towards males in India!

It negates the very essence of domestic relationship! This law seems to have been ushered in for the express purpose of exterminating the very institution of matrimony and family on Bharat, that is India!

Now read about a weak, tender and nubile wife who just killed her husband; poor girl!

Woman arrested for assaulting husband with knife

Source: Times of India | Apr 4, 2011, 01.50am IST

PUNE: The Mundhwa police on Sunday arrested a 32-year-old call centre employee for allegedly assaulting her husband with a knife following a domestic quarrel. The incident took place on March 13 at their residence on B T Kavde Road.

The police have identified the woman as Dorothy Powell. Her husband, Uday Powell (34), lodged a complaint with the police on Saturday, after he was discharged from the hospital. Dorothy was arrested under section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons) of the Indian Penal Code. She was produced before the court on Sunday and released on bail.

According to sub-inspector Durgesh Sable of the Mundhwa police station, Uday and Dorothy got married around two years ago. They have a one-and-a-half-year-old son. Uday works with a construction company and Dorothy works with a call centre. “The couple was staying in a rented house for two to three months,” Sable said.

He said that following some domestic dispute, the couple entered into a brawl. “Uday has claimed in his complaint that Dorothy assaulted him with a knife. He then locked her in the house and rushed to a doctor. After getting preliminary treatment, Uday was shifted to a private hospital in Hadapsar. “On Saturday, Uday lodged a complaint with the police,” Sable said.

Speaking to TOI, Dorothy’s uncle Ruben Jadhav said that the allegations Uday had made against Dorothy were false. “The couple was staying in Dnyaneshwar building for two to three months. Dorothy had asked Uday to give her money to pay the house rent. However, Uday refused to give her money, saying that he wanted to buy a motorcycle,”
Jadhav said.

Jadhav added that on March 13, the couple started quarreling over the same issue. Uday then went into the bathroom and when he came out he had injuries in the stomach. He locked the house from outside and ran out. He went to the doctor, who suggested that Uday should be shifted to a hospital. “Dorothy paid the doctor’s bill and also deposited cash in the hospital for Uday’s treatment,” Jadhav said.

Jadhav said, “Dorothy is innocent. We do not know why Uday has implicated her in a false case.”

Uday has claimed in his complaint that Dorothy assaulted him with a knife. He then locked her in the house and rushed to a doctor. After getting preliminary treatment, Uday was shifted to a private hospital in Hadapsar. On Saturday, Uday registered a police complaint.

Demanding the arrest of Rakhi Sawant in connection with the recent controversy on her TV show, a group of male activists from the Indian Family Foundation (IFF) came together on International Men’s day on Friday, raised the grievances of men and spoke about the alleged misuse of women-centric laws in the country.

“If a woman was called impotent on national TV, we are sure that the National Commission for Women would have ensured that the male host was behind the bars,” says Bunty Jain, vice-president, IFF. “We are not against women but we are looking for gender neutrality in the country,” says Jain.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in the last 12 years, 1,70,000 married men have committed suicide due to domestic violence. Reflecting upon the rising figures of suicide rates among Indian husbands, the IFF questioned this bias and demanded separate machinery to record complaints by men under cognisable offences.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has plainly told the government to take a relook at the anti-dowry law — Section 498A of Indian Penal Code — saying it has been misused by women to lodge false or exaggerated complaints against husbands and their relatives accusing them of cruel behaviour.

Such is the level of exaggeration of cruel behaviour on the part of husbands and their relatives that “to find out the truth is a Herculean task in a majority of these complaints”, said a bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and K S Radhakrishnan.

Expressing concern at the rise in number of complaints under Section 498A, the Bench said, “We come across a large number of such complaints which are not even bona fide and are filed with oblique motives.”

Advising extreme caution in dealing with such complaints, the bench said courts must take pragmatic realities into consideration while dealing with matrimonial cases.

It was high time that the legislature considered and made suitable changes in the law taking into account public opinion, the apex court said, sending a copy of the judgment to the Union law minister to initiate the process.

“At times, even after conclusion of criminal trial, it is difficult to ascertain the truth,” it said and gave examples of cases where the woman in her complaint had roped in the husband’s relatives, who lived in different cities and rarely visited them, of cruel behaviour towards her.

Such accusations invariably led to the husband and his relatives remaining in jail for a few days, breeding rancour, acrimony and bitterness and ruining all chances of an amicable settlement, said Justice Bhandari, writing the judgment for the bench.

The significance of the court’s directive goes beyond what happens to Section 498A. It marks a conceptual shift, a turn away from the culture where women were seen only as victims who were incapable of levelling false allegations. The conception of women as the silent suffering sort who could do no wrong has influenced the administration of justice in both open and subtle ways. The assumption of women’s innocence is apparent in laws devised to deal with rape and other crimes against women where the presumption of innocence is not available to the accused.

Section 498A and other laws were meant to level the field which has traditionally been tilted in favour of men, and were meant to help women get their due. But with instances of their misuse rising, the apex court has been impelled to draw the government’s attention to revisit the issue.

“It is also a matter of common knowledge that exaggerated versions of incidents are reflected in a large number of complaints. The tendency of over implication is also reflected in a very large number of cases,” he said.

“Criminal trials lead to immense suffering for all concerned. Even ultimate acquittal in the trial may not be able to wipe out the deep scars of ignominy,” the bench said.

SALEM: A national-level coordination forum of men has called for protection from wives and live-in partners whom they charged with exploiting women’s welfare legislation that arm them with ‘unbridled’ power to act against men.

The men, who claim to be ‘victims’ of such legislation from all over the country, spent three days in a resort at the hill station of Yercaud near here to deliberate on how to protect themselves and their kith and kin from harassment and to kick-start a campaign to impress upon policy-makers to think about their plight before enacting such lop-sided laws.

The forum said that many women were abusing these laws for nefarious gains by filing charges against their husbands and partners.

The provisions in these statutes, they called, were ‘anti-men’ leading to suicide of nearly 60,000 men as against 32,000 women annually.

Between 2004 and 2008, seven lakh men and family members were arrested including 500 minors and 5000 aged people, they claimed.

They pointed out that, for instance, laws such as the Dowry Prohibition Act, Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, Sec 125 of Cr. PC and above all Section 498A of Indian Penal Code were too stringent and non-bailable.

Women’s lobbies

“Though a debate is going on in legal circles on whether to amend or not especially Sec 498A to prevent its abuse, a few powerful women’s lobbies are blocking it,” said Suresh Ram, National Collegium member, All India Men’s Welfare Association, which organised the 3rd Men’s Rights Conference of the Delhi-based Save Indian Family Foundation at Yercaud in Salem district.

Delegates from Maharashtra, Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and from the U.S. attended the deliberations.

A majority of them were from Karnataka, mainly young Information Technology professionals. They said that they would urge the government to replace the words ‘Husband and Wife’ with ‘Person’ in the said acts. They said that cases before Family Courts should be expedited and settled within two years.

The government would be approached to form National Commission for Men, they add.

Thanks: The Hindu