Policing by SMS in HP / His Classroom is a Jail / Help for 'holiday wives'

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Surya Prakash Loonker

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Jan 11, 2012, 3:03:12 PM1/11/12

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Policing by SMS

Ashwani Sharma : Sun Jan 01 2012

On December 16, Jairam Thakur, the state Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, found that someone had hacked into his Facebook account. Not wasting a moment, he sent an SMS to 9459100100—a dedicated, 24x7 SMS gateway service of the Himachal Pradesh police. “Somebody has hacked my Facebook account. Pls take legal action,” wrote Thakur. Within a few hours, the police were on the job and his complaint was lodged at the police station.

Thakur is just one of those thousands of mobile-phone users in the state, including tourists, whose SMSes have prompted instant action and even resulted in lodging of FIRs.

The biggest advantage of the SMS service is that a mobile phone user, whether a tourist or a local, doesn’t have to go to the thana. The SMS is received at the control room set up at Shimla, where a policeman forwards the information to the police station concerned, the SHO and the SP of the district. “The action begins instantly as all 100 police stations in Himachal Pradesh are online, and the staff is equipped with mobile phones, landline phones and also the wireless,” says Diljeet Singh, the state’s Director General of Police.

Till date, the police have registered 59 FIRs on the basis of SMSes in cases of threats, robbery, accidents caused by rash driving, obscene calls, etc. In fact, for complaints against crime against women, the police have found the service very useful as the identity of the complainant can be easily kept secret.

Senior officers, headed by the DGP and the additional DGP (law and Order), are monitoring the SMSes and action taken reports on daily basis.The officers are required to send the feed-back within 24 hours to the control room. The SMS facility supplements already offered services such as online FIRs and phone number 100 for police assistance. The SMS service is found particularly useful in offences that require swift action. High tele-density in Himachal Pradesh is another reason for the success of this service.

The elderly and women have turned out to be the biggest beneficiaries. The police get 14 to 20 messages every day, even in the night.

The service has become so popular that people are sending SMS complaints against overloading in buses, reckless driving, use of mobile phone by bus drivers, shortage of ration at PDS outlets in far-flung villages and snow-covered areas, encroachment on government land, drug abuse among children, traffic jams and even misbehaviour of policemen.

“The service helps us monitor the working of our own force. We get complaints about policemen smoking at public places, misbehaving or harassing the public, or not helping people,” says the DGP.

A girl from Killar in Pangi valley of Chamba district SMSed about an alleged rape attempt and the local police not lodging her complaint. Soon, a case was registered against the accused.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/policing-by-sms/894259/0

His classroom is a jail

Gopu Mohan : Sun Jan 01 2012

When one of his students passed class X, scoring over 50 per cent marks, Rajendran knew this was an idea that was going to stay. For, this was not an ordinary student. He was a prisoner, a man convicted for 12 serious crimes including murder. Sitting for and passing the examination, Rajendran believes, is a test of character.

Every Sunday morning, S Rajendran, an ardent follower of the father of Dravidian politics, Periyar, makes a trip to the Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai. There, he interacts with the inmates, teaching them, guiding them and, some times, merely talking to them about world and life. The effort, he says, is to understand them and transform them one step at a time. “The basic idea of prison system is to reform the convicts, isn't it?” he asks. He himself is not well educated, having dropped out after completing class X three decades ago from a government school in Sendhurai in Ariyalur district. He has been a full-time activist ever since, traversing the state to take part in matters of public interest, attend and speak at meetings, and sometimes merely to travel.

After several years of work at the grassroots level, someone advised him to work for the welfare of prisoners. “We need to work with them, give them basic education so as to equip them to earn an honest living. They have to be taught skills including modern computing,” he says. Rajendran says it is not a one-man job, as he receives help and support from many, including prison authorities and in some cases, even the educated among prisoners.

This work by a team of committed people has begun to show results: last year, all students who took the exam for classes VIII, X and XII passed, a rare 100 per cent result that even the better-equipped schools outside find difficult to achieve. And the numbers only increased this year. This has encouraged prison authorities to spread the initiative to other prisons across the State, with positive results. For instance, B Raja, a life convict at Tiruchy Central Prison, scored an envious 902 out of 1,200 for class XII, results of which was announced in mid-2011. Many others scored a commendable first class in the same exam. Elsewhere, there were prisoners who are pursuing BA, MBA and MPhil, depending on their basic education background

“In all, 400 prisoners are preparing for various examinations and other educational activities including graduate and post graduate courses, diploma courses by IGNOU and Tamil Nadu Open Universities, computer courses like Tally, higher secondary, SSLC and the like in the Puzhal central jail alone. We are trying to take this initiative to all prisons in Tamil Nadu,” he says.

There are several illiterates among the inmates, who are given basic education to clear class VIII first and then classes X and XII. Even in the case of those who don't wish to pursue education further, Rajendran is happy that they are now able to write to their family members without having to seek anyone else’s support.

“There are several life convicts who are attending the classes. We are hoping that acquiring qualifications like these would perhaps help in securing an early release from prison. This encourages them to study, and studies would equip them to make an honest living once outside. When you teach a man to fish, it enables him to put a stop to the need to steal to make ends meet,” he says.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/his-classroom-is-a-jail/894266/0

Help for ‘holiday wives’

Anju Agnihotri Chaba : Sun Jan 01 2012

Parneet Singh, the new passport officer at Jalandhar, the buckle of the NRI belt—Doaba—in Punjab, has brought a ray of hope for wives deserted by the NRI husbands. “Now my husband cannot go back to the US until our matrimonial case is decided by the court,” says Nandini Sharma of Amritsar, who was deserted by her US-based husband. Saravjit Kaur, who married a UK-based NRI in 2002 and was deserted in 2003, says, “He got married twice but couldn’t escape the passport office net.” The Jalandhar office has impounded passports of both the NRI husbands.

Like Nandini and Saravjit, thousands of deserted wives have found relief at the Women Grievance Section, which Singh set up in February this year at the passport office. When he joined in August 2010, he found an alarming number of women being deserted by NRI husbands who married them while holidaying in India and then left the country alone—never to call their wives abroad.

According to the National Commission for Women, out of 30,000 women deserted by NRI husbands, 15,000 belong to the Doaba region alone. And only 159 of such husbands have been booked in the past three years. Singh says he brainstormed for six months and realised that the existing laws were enough to tackle this problem; he decided to impound passports of the runaway husbands who were moving freely abroad. “I found that in Section 10 (3) of the Passport Act, 1967, the NRI grooms who have deserted their brides and fled from the country can escape no more. For perhaps the first time in the country, this section was used against offending grooms,” says Singh.

Till date, the Women Grievance Section has received 205 complaints. Passports of 62 accused have been impounded and among these, 19 were found to be proclaimed offenders.

Singh has also asked the state government to make it mandatory while registering a marriage to mention the NRI groom’s social security number, permanent address and contact number in the foreign country and submit an affidavit on the matrimonial status and a copy of the passport.

The affected women or their families can email their complaints to the Women Grievance Section at atrpo.j...@mea.gov.in or call their helpline at 0-84274-71823. The passports of the accused are impounded either by the passport office here or the Indian missions abroad.

Parveen Bhatti says her husband had deserted her just after their wedding in 2008. On her complaint, the passport office impounded his passport—just a few hours before he was to fly out of the country, posing as single.