‘Homicide’ comes from the latin word ‘homo’ (man) and ‘cidi’ (I  cut). Kolling of a human

being is homicide. It is either lawful or unlawful.  Lawful homicide includes cases falling under the general exceptions under sec. 76 -107 IPC, whereas unlawful homicide is dealt within secs. 299-318 of the code. There are two classess of culpable homicides-

(i)                 Culpable homicide amounting to murder known as simply murder, and

(ii)              Culpable homicides not amounting to murder.

Criminal intention or knowledge is the necessary ingredient of both. The difference does not lie in the quality but in the degree of criminality as manifested by the act. In murder there is greater intention or knowledge than in culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

            To discuss the topic- All “murder” is culpable homicide, but not vice versa, it is necessary to say when culpable homicide amounts to murder and when not. Sec.299 of the IPC 1860 defines culpable homicide as under - Whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death, commits the offence of culpable homicide.

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The law of Limitation has its roots in the principle that the law aids the diligent and not the

indolent, that a man who has negligently slept over his rights for an undue length of time, will not be allowed to litigate in respect of them.

Sec.27 of the Limitation Act provides that when the period limited to a person for instituting a suit for possession of any property has expired, his right to such property is extinguished .

 In Harrynath Vs. Mother[1] sir Richard Couch observed inter alia “ The intention of the law of limitation is not to give a right where there is not one ( nor to extinguish a right  where there is one) but to interpose a bar after a certain period to a suit to enforce an existing right.”

The Limitation Act thus prescribes period within which various suits, appeals or applications for respective claims can be instituted in courts of law. If a party or claimant fails to do so, it cannot claim any further remedy at law. But, having said that, it only bars the judicial remedy, without extinguishing the right. It is only the remedy which is barred if the suit is not brought within the specified time limit, but the right continues to exist, and if therefore, there exists some other procedure which allows such a right to be enforced by the Limitation Act cannot bar it.

Under Sec. 25(3) of the Indian Contract Act,1872, a barred debt is good consideration for a fresh promise to pay the amount. When a debtor makes a payment without any direction as to how it is to be appropriated, the creditor has the right creditor has the right to appropriate it towards a barred debt. It has also been held  that a creditor is entitled to recover the debt from the surety, even though  a suit on it is barred against the principal debtor. When  a creditor  has a lien over goods  by way of security  for a loan, he can enforce the lien for obtaining satisfaction of the debt, even though an action thereon would be time barred.[2]

The solemnization of any Muslim marriage requires the adherence of certain forms and

formulas which are actually termed as essentials of Muslim marriage. If any of these requirements is not fulfilled, the marriage becomes either void or irregular, as the case may be. The essentials are as follows :-

 (a)   Proposal and acceptance – Marriage like any other civil contract is constituted by two living parties and there must be an offer (ijab) of marriage, usually from the bridegroom and such offer of marriage should be accepted (qabool)  by her or her guardian or by other party on her behalf  as the case may be. In Mst. Ghulam Kubra Vs. Mohammad Shafi[1] Mahmood J. said that a man or someone on his behalf or a woman or someone on her behalf should agree to marriage at one meeting and the agreement should be witnessed by two adult witnesses. Under Shia law, witnesses are even not necessary at the time of marriage. It was also held in Mst. Zainaba Vs. Abdul Rahman[2], that there is no particular form in which the proposal and acceptance should be made. The offer(Ijab) and acceptance(Qabool)  may be either oral or in writing. The parties contracting a marriage must be acting under their free will  and consent. Though according to the Hanafi law, contracts of marriage even under compulsion or the offer and the acceptance even if pronounced without any intention to effect marriage, are valid.

(b)   Competent Parties - The parties to a marriage must have the capacity of entering into a contract. For this purpose every Muslim (whether man or woman) must be (1) of sound mind (2) adult (3) have attained puberty. If a person attains the age of 15 years, it is presumed that he has attainmed puberty. As per Hedaya, the age of majority for a boy is 12 years and for girls 9 years. In the case of Nawab Shadiq Ali Khan Vs. Jai Kishori[3] , Privy Council held that as per Shiatis, the age of majority for a girl is 9 years. It should be noted that marriage of a minor without the consent of the guardian is invalid unless it is ratified after attainment of majority.[4]

 (c)    Legal Disability – Legal disability means the existence of certain circumstances under which marriage is not permitted. These prohibitions have been classified into four classes as follows :-

 (i)                 Absolute incapacity or prohibition which arises due to Consanguinity, affinity or fosterage;

(ii)              Relative incapacity or prohibition like unlawful conjuction, Polygamy or marrying with a fifth wife and absence of proper witness, differences of religion and finally for woman undergoing iddat. Relative incapacity  render the marriage invalid only so long as the cause which creates the bar exist. 

(iii)            Prohibitory incapacity or prohibition like Polyandry and a Muslim marrying a non-Muslim; and 

(iv)            Directory incapacity or prohibition like marrying a woman ‘enciente’, prohibition of divorce and marrying during pilgrimage or marrying a sick man.

 No disturbance - There should not be any social, moral or legal disturbance in the way of a valid marriage. The reason is that there are certain prohibitions on account of which a marriage legally solemnized can become invalid as in the cases mentioned above.

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Economic development is or at least should be the primary objective of any government in power. Now, in the words of  President Abraham Lincoln ‘Government of the people, by the people for the people. As such the question is whether it is possible to make economic development of any country without the proportionate economic development of its citizens. The answer could be really surprising and shocking!!!

We perhaps know the economic failure of the greatest socialist nations of the world viz. Soviet Union, Romania, East Germany. We all know how Communist China has risen to the economic curve by massive industrialisation and privatisation of their economy.

Ø Government of a nation  is expected to  supervise and not to do business of their own, as profit and loss are the two sides of the coin of business and when its a turn of ‘loss’ then in government sector, it is the loss of the citizens;

Ø In today’s world of consumerism, people are conscious about their rights and ‘value for money’. They don’t mind paying off an extra 'shilling' from their pocket if the service or goods are better in quality;

Ø First let us delve into the health sector on India. We all know that treatment in Govt. hospitals (specially in block and/or municipal level) is cheaper but the life of your beloved is never cheap. So you want result, you don’t want to take any chance and if you can afford you go to the best hospital. You don’t mind, if it is a private one. Correct?

Ø Second, the aviation sector. Indian Airlines/ Air India has been given a fair chance to compete with private airliners operating in India for quite a long time. In fact ‘Spicejet” and Indigo’, the two private sector giants in the field of aviation started operation in India way back in 2005/2006.  But, the fact is well known to everybody, that Air India is running under such a loss that the recent attempt to sell it out has also fallen flat. It is not a fact that Air India has been the only looser. Kingfisher, Jet Airways also have suffered losses. So, its a competitive market and the fittest survives. Now the question remains, whether Govt. of India will carry through ‘Air India’, even after such losses, then the loss will be burdened upon the shoulder of poor Indians only;

Ø Third is the telecommunication sector. Here also the story has been the same more or less. BSNL could not survive  the competition against the private sector. Why is it so? That is a different topic that could be discussed on any other day. But, at the end of the day, the question remains the same. Whether loss making BSNL will survive only at the cost of public exchequer?

Ø Fourth, is the Indian Railway. Time has come whether it should also be put to test vis-a-vis private sector operators breaking its monopoly and below average service condition  both is passenger and freight sectors;

Ø Fifth, comes the insurance sector. After being put to the acid test with the private sector, only two public sector insurance company, namely National Insurance and New India Insurance could show a little bit of profit;

Ø Sixth is the power sector. We all know that metro cities of India  largely depend upon the private sector power generators compared to the public sectors and in semi rural and rural areas  where peoples paying power is less, they are just compromising with the service condition;

Ø The last but not the least is the education sector. In India the current scenario is that any educated Indian having an average monetary affordability thinks thrice before admitting his/her ward into a Govt. school. Why is it so? The answer is same. The quality matters. 

H  However, petroleum sector is amongst a very few commercial sectors in India, where state owned companies are giving a matching fight to the private sector companies. 

The gist of the entire discussion is that people are concerned about quality of life rather than quantity and as such for developing the economy of any nation, its govt. needs to shred some loss making burdens be it in employment sector, aviation sector, health sector or education sector.

Loss of a penny is the loss of a poor citizen. Govt. cannot afford to run in loss, otherwise the entire economy will be trapped under the burden of loan and its repayment. Growth will be retarded and day will come soon when we will find ourselves on the seats of Soviet Union or East Germany or Romania.

This is very harsh but this is the bitter truth. Privatisation of loss making sector is a sine qua non. Whichever party remains in opposition irrespective of the period, they will shout nevertheless, but Indian political history is the prime witness of the golden truth that from Indian National Congress to Janata Dal,  from coalition Govt. to Modi Govt. no party could deny this reality.

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Photo- https://pixabay.com/photos/the-dollar-america-currency-finance-3125419/

 The shrinking Indian Economy in the recent past has been a point of debate worldwide. Let me take a bird’s eye view on this. According to reliable sources(https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/gdp-growth-rate), India’s GDP growth for the last 10 years has been as below –

As such, it can be clearly seen, that things have changed very insignificantly during Modi Government compared to the earlier scenario.

India’s Forex reserve touched a record high of USD $506.8 Billion in June,2020, while in of inter-country comparison, India stood at 6^th place in terms of forex reserve, while  China is at 1^st place and Japan is at 2^nd place.

Youth unemployment rate in India has risen from 20.3% in 2010 to 23.34% in 2020.

However, the 23.4% contraction of GDP in April-June, 2020 quarter has been a point for bullying the Modi Govt.

Now, let us dissect some issues –

(i)                Near stoppage of almost all economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic ;

(ii)             Huge rate of layoffs and job termination during the COVID-19 pandemic;

(iii)           India-China border tension and several major but emergent investment in  defence sector during the same time;

(iv)            Loss of international trade due to all above three reasons.

Could they be responsible for the shrinkage? Well let us check globally vis-a-vis some world giants- The BussinessToday.in has produced a graphical representation of this as below –

Source- https://www.businesstoday.in/current/economy-politics/which-top-economies-have-suffered-worst-gdp-fall-due-to-covid-19/story/414683.html

As such, the  message is loud and clear, that India is not the lonely loser for the pandemic. It has been a global phenomena. As such it will be rather harsh and biased to  label Modi Govt. responsible for the situation.

What remains to be seen, as to how and upto what extent Modi Govt. manages to tackle the situation vis-a-vis the  ever rising tension at China and Pakistan border.

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India is known worldwide as the powerhouse of the technology brain, but  even then the fruit

of technology is far from adequately available to the citizens morefully the rural citizens of India. The National e-Governance Plan approved by the Government of India in 2006 has made a progress since its inception but it is still far away from achieving its objective.

The Indian citizens hope for a brighter future, with a decent standard of living. To meet these aspirations, the country needs broad-based economic growth and more effective public services. Technology can play an important role in enabling the growth India needs. The spread of digital technologies, as well as advances in energy and genomics, can raise the productivity of business and agriculture, redefine how services such as healthcare, Banking and Education are delivered, and contribute to higher living standards for millions of Indians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the much ambitious 1 lakh crore ‘Digital India’  programme on  July 1, 2015 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in the national capital. The best part of this initiative being it will also connect rural regions and remote villages ensuring that they too have high-speed Internet services. The project is expected to be completed by 2019. The programme  has been envisaged  by the department of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt. of India(DeitY).

The vision of Digital India aims to transform the country into a digitally empowered society  and knowledgeable economy. The Digital India is transformational in nature and would ensure that Government services are available to citizens electronically. It will also bring in public accountability through mandated delivery of government’s services electronically, a unique ID and e-Pramaan based on authentic and standard based interoperable and integrated government applications and data basis.

 Hon’ble Primie Minister has made clewar 10 visionary  points regarding ditital India. They are -

1.      “E-governance is going to change to M-Governance soon. 'M' is not for 'Modi', but 'Mobile'.

 

In line with these objectives, the government has launched some inititaives. Such as-

1. Digital Locker System- This  aims to minimize the usage of physical documents and enable sharing of e-documents across agencies. The sharing of the e-documents will be done through registered repositories thereby ensuring the authenticity of the documents online, says the government.

2. MyGov.in has been implemented as a platform for citizen engagement in governance, through a "Discuss", "Do" and "Disseminate" approach. The mobile app for MyGov would bring these features to users on a mobile phone.

 

3. Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app would be used by people and Government organizations for achieving the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission.

4. e-Sign framework would allow citizens to digitally sign a document online using Aadhaar authentication.

5. The Online Registration System (ORS) under the e-Hospital application has been introduced. This application provides important services such as online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online etc, the government claims.

6. National Scholarships Portal is said to be a one stop solution for end to end scholarship process right from submission of student application, verification, sanction and disbursal to end beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the Government of India.

7. DeitY has undertaken an initiative namely Digitize India Platform (DIP) for large scale digitization of records in the country that would facilitate efficient delivery of services to the citizens.

8. The Government of India has undertaken an initiative namely Bharat Net, a high speed digital highway to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of country. This would be the world's largest rural broadband connectivity project using optical fibre.

9. Policy initiatives have also been undertaken by DeitY in the e-Governance domain like e-Kranti Framework, Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India, Framework for Adoption of Open Source Software in e-Governance Systems, Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India, E-mail Policy of Government of India, Policy on Use of IT Resources of Government of India, Policy on Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications, Application Development & Re-Engineering Guidelines for Cloud Ready Applications

 

10. BSNL has introduced Next Generation Network (NGN), to replace 30 year old exchanges, which is an IP based technology to manage all types of services like voice, data, multimedia/ video and other types of packet switched communication services.

11. BSNL has undertaken large scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country. The user can latch on the BSNL Wi-Fi network through their mobile devices.

12. BPO Policy has been approved to create BPO centres in different North Eastern states and also in smaller / mofussil towns of other states.

13. Electronics Development Fund (EDF) Policy aims to promote Innovation, R&D, and Product Development and to create a resource pool of IP within the country to create a self-sustaining eco-system of Venture Funds.

14. National Centre for Flexible Electronics (NCFlexE) is an initiative of Government of India to promote research and innovation in the emerging area of Flexible Electronics.

15. Centre of Excellence on Internet on Things (IoT) is a joint initiative of Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), ERNET and NASSCOM.

"The estimated impact of Digital India by 2019 would be cross cutting, ranging from broadband connectivity in all Panchayats, Wi-fi in schools and universities and Public Wi-Fihotspots. The programme will generate huge number of IT, Telecom and Electronics jobs, both directly and indirectly. Success of this programme will make India Digitally empowered and the leader in usage of IT in delivery of services related to various domains such as health, education, agriculture, banking, etc," the government claims.[2]

Thus if actually materializes even to some appreciable extent of the dream project; India may as well see itself alongside some top ranking digitally developed country of the world like Japan, USA, Russia etc. How soon and how far will be the questions in everybody’s mind.