Delhi is much more than just the capital of India. It is a city with an amazing history. So many times, it has been the major city or capital of India, from the earliest Mahabharata days to the Rajputs to the Delhi Sultanate to the Mughals to the British. Each time the new rulers left their mark on the city. As a result, now we have a Delhi which has the mark of at least seven or eight different historical cities, if not more. In this book, we review the different historical cities of Delhi. We use the Delhi metro, which is currently probably the best developed metro in India, as the preferred means of transport to see the sights of the seven cities of Delhi. We hope that this short guide will help the reader the experience a little bit of what Delhi is all about, its people and its history. In this book, we do not cover all the historical sites or attractions of Delhi, such as the many modern museums, markets and other attractions. Rather, we focus on the sites that form part of the historical cities of Delhi and those that are located within the historical boundaries of those cities. This book was born out of many travels and exploratory walks made by the authors in Delhi, where they live.
एल्युमीनियम, स्टील और चीनी भारतीय अर्थव्यवस्था का एक महत्वपूर्ण हिस्सा हैं। एल्युमीनियम का उपयोग विभिन्न प्रकार के अनुप्रयोगों और साइकिल और एल्यूमीनियम पन्नी से लेकर उत्पादों में किया जाता है। स्टील (इस्पात) का व्यापक रूप से इंजीनियरिंग और निर्माण उद्योग में उपयोग किया जाता है, और कारों, उपकरणों और चिकित्सा उपकरणों सहित विभिन्न वस्तुओं के निर्माण में। खाद्य उद्योग में चीनी का व्यापक रूप से उपयोग किया जाता है। इन सभी उद्योगों में भारत का दुनिया में एक उत्पादक देश के साथ-साथ उपभोग करने वाले देश के रूप में एक महत्वपूर्ण स्थान है। इस पुस्तक में, हम इन तीन उद्योगों का विस्तार से वर्णन करते हैं । हम कच्चे माल का उत्पादन करने वाले क्षेत्रों, और निर्माण प्रक्रियाओं से शुरू होते हैं। साथ ही साथ भारत में मुख्य संयंत्रों और कंपनियों पर चर्चा की गई है जहां एल्युमिनियम, स्टील और चीनी का उत्पादन किया जाता है।
My hindi book on short stories on the Indian court system titled “कानूनी जीवन: भारतीय न्यायालय प्रणाली पर आधारित लघु कथाएँ” is published by NotionPress
भारतीय न्याय प्रणाली एक विशाल संस्था है। विभिन्न न्यायालयों में प्रतिदिन हजारों मामलों की सुनवाई हो रही है। कुछ मामले वर्षों में और अन्य दशकों में चलते हैं। इस प्रकार यह लाखों या करोड़ों लोगों को प्रभावित करता है।
इस पुस्तक में, हम भारतीय न्यायालय प्रणाली के विभिन्न पहलुओं को दर्शाते हुए कुछ कहानियाँ लिखते हैं। ये कहानियाँ बताती हैं कि कैसे कानूनी व्यवस्था आम लोगों को जीवन की विभिन्न स्थितियों में प्रभावित करती है। कहानियों में से एक महाभारत है, जिसे भारतीय अदालतों में लड़े गए विवाद के रूप में वर्णित किया गया है।
इनमें से कोई भी कहानी वास्तविक नहीं है, जीवित या मृत व्यक्तियों के साथ कोई समानता विशुद्ध रूप से संयोग की बात है।
हमारा उद्देश्य भारतीय अदालत प्रणाली को विभिन्न दृष्टिकोणों से प्रस्तुत करना है, और इस प्रकार पाठक को आम आदमी के लिए इसके विभिन्न पहलुओं के अनुभव की सराहना करने में मदद करना है। प्रत्येक कहानी के अंत में, हमने उस कहानी से सीखने के लिए पाठों पर एक खंड जोड़ा है।
इरादा यह दिखाने का है कि आम आदमी न्याय पाने में कैसे सफल हो सकता है, अगर वे दृढ़ रहें, भले ही प्रक्रिया धीमी और कठिनाइयों से भरी हो।
The Indian court system is a large institution. There are thousands of cases being heard daily in the different courts of the land, big and small. Some of the cases run into years and others into decades. It thus affects lakhs or crores of people. In this book, we write a few stories illustrating different aspects of the Indian court system, how it affects the common people in different situations of life. One of the stories is interpreting the timeless Indian epic, the Mahabharata, as a dispute fought in the Indian courts. None of these stories are real, any similarity with persons living or dead is purely a matter of coincidence. Our aim is to present the Indian court system from different viewpoints, and thus help the reader to gain an appreciation of the experience of different aspects of the court system for the common man. At the end of each story, we have added a section on lessons to learn from that story. The intention is to show how the common man can succeed in getting justice if they persevere, even if the process is slow and fraught with difficulties.
If we are lucky, we may have good neighbours who help each other in times of need. But sometimes the neighbours may prove to be a constant headache. Below we list some of the ways the neighbours can make our lives difficult.
Having noisy parties or events late in the night
Being loud, or playing unreasonably loud music, at inappropriate times
Parking their cars (or their visitors’ cars) on the neighbours’ allotted parking spaces
Leaving their trash all over the place
Not controlling their pets who may cause a nuisance on the neighbours’ property
Not controlling their kids who may cause a nuisance on the neighbours’ property
Making unauthorized constructions on the neighbours’ property
Trespassing on the neighbours’ property frequently
Stealing items from the neighbours’ property or from the common areas of the building
Damaging the items belonging to the neighbours kept in the common areas of the building
Stealing the neighbours’ electricity connection by installing wires illegally
Stealing the neighbours’ internet connection, such as by stealing WiFi passwords
Obstructing the neighbours’ access to their own property, such as by locking the gates or doors or installing new locks, gates or doors
Locking the common doors from inside whenever the neighbours leave the property, so it becomes bothersome to request them to let in when they are back, or needing to get a family member to open the common doors for them
Locking the common doors from outside
Intentionally blocking communications from their neighbours, such as refusing to take calls, even for essential things
Stealing or ‘borrowing’ the neighbours’ newspaper in the morning
Stealing the water from the common municipal water supply to the house
Refusing to pay their fair share of the common electricity bill and expecting the neighbours to pay it
Refusing to pay their fair share of the common water bill while utilizing the water
Refusing to pay their share of much needed repairs to the common property
Threatening or assaulting or harassing the neighbours physically
Threatening the neighbours verbally
Harassing the neighbours by using third parties or legal notices
Using their influence with the housing association to harass the neighbours
Periodically stopping or obstructing the utilities such as municipal water supply or water from the tank, if it is in their control
Bullying the neighbours’ kids
Moving the boundary walls when the neighbours are away
Threatening and obstructing the daily helpers and service people of the neighbours when they are trying to do their work.
There are a number of senior citizen helplines in India where senior citizens can turn to for help regarding abuse and other problems. 14567 is the nationwide helpline for senior citizens, 1291 (1090 in some other cities) is the senior citizen helpline, 112 is the emergency services including police, NGOs like HelpAge India, Dignity Foundation, AgeWell Foundation etc have their own helplines. In addition, senior citizens are free to access the courts for help as well as the additional district magistrates for help under Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.
However, in practice, there is still a wide gap between the availability of services and the senior citizens actually getting the help which they need. Our own personal experience has shown that often someone does answer the helplines but the police do not follow up with the actual help or confronting the abusers. In this article, we analyze some of the reasons for these gaps that prevent help from being given in a timely way.
One big problem in this can be due to the need of technology awareness to collect the evidence properly and file the complaints in the first place, which may hamper the process of getting help. They may be unaware of the helpline numbers or lose them, they may not be able to collect timely evidence such as documentation of medical needs or videos or photos of abuse or harassment, they may be suffering from memory loss and so on.
Also, many times, the police are reluctant to file FIRs or act on the abuse complaints, even when abuse is reported by senior citizens. Some reasons for police inaction can be the following:
• Corruption by the police
• Police wanting to avoid extra work
• Abuser being an influential person
• Police wanting to take bribes from the abused senior citizen before filing any case
• Police having taken bribes from the abusers
• Reported crime details from the senior citizens being vague
• Police believing it is difficult to collect evidence for the alleged crimes by the senior citizens
• Alleged crime not being in the police station jurisdiction
• Police not sensitized to take senior citizens seriously
• Police concluding non cognizable offence without a proper investigation
For example, in case of abuse or harassment of senior citizens related to ongoing property disputes, the police may close the case and not act citing that property disputes are beyond their jurisdiction. Given that senior citizens are often reluctant to approach the police for several reasons, this perceived or real inaction by the police can have a doubly adverse effect on the reporting and prevention of senior citizen abuse. Hence, it should be combated.
Additionally there may be problems with the senior citizens accessing help from the phone helplines run by the NGOs as well:
• Often, the senior citizens might not be able to articulate the problem of abuse accurately.
• Senior citizens may suffer from memory loss or dementia and not be able to recount the full details of the abuse accurately.
• Senior citizens may not be able to collect evidence about the abuse, given their lack of familiarity with technology.
• Since the senior citizens are often living with and dependent on the abuser, they may not tell the full story for fear of the abuse becoming worse.
• Senior citizens may be currently scared of threats made by the abusers, who may be their family members, even if they are not living with them.
• Helplines run by the NGOs, since they do not have official powers and are not directly linked to the police, might not be able to do much in case of abuses or threats, other than reporting the abuse to the local police.
Because of all these reasons, the effectiveness of the available help for senior citizens may be reduced. This should be kept in mind by policy makers, police and the people running the helplines. They should be better sensitized and more responsive to the problems faced by senior citizens. More importantly, while the first level response to the helplines may be there, the follow up support might be lacking. There should be a proper plan to fix this gap and make the helplines more effective.
Most lawyers are good and professionally try to assist their clients the best they can. However, there may be rare situations when one is unlucky to have lawyers whose conduct is unprofessional. This can cause a lot of unnecessary stress, separate from the stress of the court case itself. Hence, one should learn to identify such situations and prepare for dealing with them.
In this article we discuss a few situations in which lawyers can cause different types of problems for the clients during a court case.
This may be in one or more of the following ways:
The lawyer might be not experienced in the specific area of law that the court case deals with. They may have previously handled cases in a different area or be new to law, and arguing before the lawyer, altogether. This could hurt the client’s case.
The lawyer may lose interest in the case as time drags on. They may give less effort to preparing the replies or pleading the issues, or even may be absent sometimes on the appearance dates.
If the client wishes to change their lawyer due to any reason, the previous lawyer might not cooperate or demand a hefty fee to return the client’s files related to the case. The client would have no option but to pay whatever is asked, in order to retrieve their files.
The lawyer might treat the client as a cash cow and encourage them to file more cases that do not bring any concrete results but just increase the time and costs and cause additional stress. The client may not know this and end up spending more time and effort on additional cases.
The lawyer might not be familiar with new technology and how to e-file a case or use emails or attend virtual hearings. This may be more relevant in these post-Corona days when a lot of the court hearings and procedures are moving online. Not knowing how to email or check the status may cause unnecessary stress and extra work.
The lawyer might be overconfident and overbearing and not listen to the client’s needs, insisting that they know what is best, and thus harm the client’s position. This may be the case in some lawyers, and the client would have no choice but to go with their opinions on how to proceed next.
The lawyer might simply refuse to act as per the instructions from the client, selecting the course of action that require least effort for themselves. This may harm the court case for the client.
The lawyer might try to force the clients to file other pointless cases or try other means to prolong the ongoing case, so as to keep making money from the client.
The lawyer might be too much busy with multiple cases from multiple clients to fight our own case properly. They may not have enough time or resources to put sufficient effort to fight the client’s case.
The lawyer might be too busy with other cases to attend the actual court dates and might send their juniors instead. The juniors on the other hand may be unfamiliar with the actual context of the hearing and may not make the correct arguments before the judge.
The lawyer might ask the client for more money than what was originally agreed as the legal fees. The client would have no choice but to pay the demanded extra fees.
The lawyer may sometimes even collude with the opposite party and compromise the case at crucial points.
One must be alert for any of these and try not to fall into any of these traps. Or gently try to persuade the lawyer not to do any of such tactics.
Aluminium, Steel and Sugar and important industries in India and form an important part of the Indian economy. Aluminium is used in a variety of applications and products ranging from bicycles and aluminium foil. Steel is widely used throughout the engineering and construction industry, and in manufacturing of a variety of items including cars, appliances and medical instruments. Sugar is used widely in the food industry. India has an important position in the world in all of these industries, both as a producing country as well as a consuming country.
In this book, we describe these three industries in detail, starting from the areas that produce the raw material, manufacturing processes and the main companies or corporations that sell the finished product. We also discuss the main areas in India where the raw materials are found for each of these industries, as well as the main plants and companies in India where aluminium, steel and sugar are produced.
In this article we discuss what actions to take in case our neighbor cuts off or tampers with our water supply.
One thing to keep in mind is that disconnection of the water supply for any reason is not legal in India, as in most other countries as well. This has been repeatedly stated in multiple court decisions such as this one. This not only holds for neighbors but also the RWA or housing committee or builder. Disconnection of water supply is a deprivation of the right to livelihood under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Hence, one can file a complaint in the municipal water authority or Jal board as well as a police report in case such an event happens. Also, one can file a court case for claiming damages for the inconvenience caused from the person or entity doing the disconnection or tampering of the water supply.
The Indian Penal Code sections state the following:
Section 427 of the IPC: Mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees.—Whoever commits mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.
Section 268 of the IPC: Public nuisance.—A person is guilty of a public nuisance who does any act or is guilty of an illegal omission which causes any common injury, danger or annoyance to the public or to the people in general who dwell or occupy property in the vicinity, or which must necessarily cause injury, obstruction, danger or annoyance to persons who may have occasion to use any public right. A common nuisance is not excused on the ground that it causes some convenience or advantage.
One can file a police complaint or FIR under the above sections in case of water supply disconnection for any reason.
The only legal way anyone can disconnect a water supply in India is through a court order. Any other way is not possible.
In case your water supply is disconnected, be sure to collect all kinds of photo, video, audio and other evidence first as much as possible, before taking further action. This can include video of your water not coming, CCTV footage of people tampering with the water supply and so on. It is good to call a plumber and check the supply and investigate first the cause of the water not coming.
पर्यावरण किसी भी देश और उसके लोगों के लिए एक अनमोल संसाधन है। भारत जैसे तेजी से विकासशील देशों के लिए प्रदूषण, वनों की कटाई, वन्यजीवों और समुद्री जीवन के गायब होने जैसी कई पर्यावरणीय समस्याएं हैं। इसलिए पर्यावरण को विनाश से बचाने और संरक्षित करने के लिए पर्यावरण कानूनों की आवश्यकता है। इस पुस्तक में, हम सबसे पहले पर्यावरण से संबंधित मुद्दों का परिचय प्रस्तुत करते हैं। फिर हम पर्यावरण की रक्षा के लिए मुख्य कानूनों को संक्षेप में प्रस्तुत करते हैं। इन कानूनों में पर्यावरण के विभिन्न पहलू जैसे वन्यजीव, प्रदूषण नियंत्रण, वन आवरण और अपशिष्ट प्रबंधन शामिल हैं। कुल मिलाकर, ये कानून भारत की हवा, पानी और मिट्टी से जुड़ी जैव विविधता और पर्यावरण संसाधनों की रक्षा और संरक्षण के लिए एक व्यापक प्रणाली प्रस्तुत करते हैं। यह आशा की जाती है कि यह पुस्तक उन लोगों को परिचयात्मक मार्गदर्शन प्रदान करेगी जो पर्यावरण के मुद्दों में रुचि रखते हैं और जो भारत में पर्यावरण से संबंधित कानूनों से परिचित होना चाहते हैं।
Siva Prasad Bose 