social issue

 

SOCIAL ISSUE

1. The ghost village of Uttarakhand.

 In the lockdown that was Ghost Villages might make you think that the villages we are talking about here are haunted or have a paranormal presence. But that’s not what this term implies. Ghost villages are at least 550 migration-hit villages in the state of Uttarakhand. These villages have lost more than half of their population to migration and since they are empty, imposed last year, the people who migrated from the villages to the big cities lost their jobs and means of income and that became one big reason why people started to return to their homes in the villages.  And hence the ghost villages started seeing a rise in their population. The term ghost was the English translation of the Hindi term “Bhootiya”. Over the years people had migrated to the cities in search of work and the villages were hardly left with any people. The deserted villages were hence devoid of human presence and started being called ghost villages.  After decades of emptiness, the villages sprigged back to life last year in lockdown.

 According to the Uttarakhand Migration Commission over 1700 villages and 1000 hamlets in Uttarakhand were left with less than 100 people. People leave the villages in the urge to earn more money and be able to provide their families a better life. They go through a lot in the cities and most of the migrant become laborers. But the question is why do they leave the villages in the first place? The reason behind this is the lack of modernization of the villages, while a lot of things are done for the big villages, and nothing much for the small ones, everyone needs, electricity, water, good roads and ease of access along with high paying opportunities of income, since the villages fail to provide that to the natives, the people migrate out leaving the villages ghosted.

 Hence The Migration commission of Uttarakhand is figuring out ways that can provide people the opportunities they need so that they stay back and do not migrate. Climate change is driving temperatures up dramatically, especially in the higher elevations. As per a recent study conducted by the Germany-based Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and The Energy and Resources Institute, Uttarakhand’s annual average maximum temperature may increase by 1.6 degrees Celsius-1.9 degrees Celsius between 2021 and 2050. The residents of Uttarakhand are already experiencing the effects of climate change such as changing seasons, less snowfall during winters, disappearing glaciers, upward-moving snowlines and unpredictable rainfall. According to India’s census from 2011, more than four million people – about 40% of the population of Uttarakhand – have migrated from the hilly state, due to which an increasing number of villages in Uttarakhand have become uninhabited, and some districts such as Pauri, Garhwal and Almora are witnessing negative population growth. According to a 2018 survey by the Uttarakhand Migration Commission, 734 villages in the state have become uninhabited since 2011, and are often referred to as ghost villages. This dual crisis of climate change and distress migration is likely to worsen for Uttarakhand over the next 30 years.

 

 

2.LGBTIQA RIGHTS AND SOCIAL INCLUSION AS EQUAL CITIZENS.

 

 6th of September 2018 was not an ordinary day. Something momentous happened on the day that "blew a life of " constitutionality" in the dead members of the LGBTQI+ community, who have been subjected to centuries of mind-numbing toil. What marked the day special for the LGBT+ community was that the Supreme Court of India delivered a historical verdict decriminalizing homosexuality by partially striking down Section 377 of IPC.

The LGBT community all across the country erupted in jubilant celebration, enjoying their victory against the 200yearly British law that criminalized same sex relationship. The significance of this However, this landmark event should not be construed as the culmination of more than two decades of a legal fight against the draconian law, but rather should be understood as the beginning of a new era in the fight for LGBT Rights. It is no exaggeration to say that the abolition of colonial law is just the tip of the iceberg and that the LGBT community in India is facing an increasingly fierce battle.

Homosexuality has been criminalized, but Indian law remains hostile and disadvantageous to the LGBT community in many respects. The reason is that there is a big gap between the legislation of LGBT law in India and the development of the law. The entire verdict can be considered in the light of Judge Indu Malhotra's statement, which read the verdict on page 50.

For centuries. " In essence, same-sex couples now live together without fear of persecution and have the legal right to control personal matters, but they are still denied equal treatment in many ways. Therefore, it is imperative to advance the conversation and discuss various laws that continue to discriminate against LGBT + people. This includes non-discrimination laws such as disapproval of same-sex marriage, lack of adoption rights, and surrogacy. Section 377 of the IPC, which criminalizes all forms of non-reproductive sex, was enacted during the pre-independence period. According to the British colonial government. Tyranny was not only directed at homosexuals, but even within the framework of heterosexual unions, it targeted all other forms of non-traditional sexual intercourse. Therefore, this law was nothing more than a remnant of orthodox Victorian morality that did not exist in a democratic country like India.

However, it took more than 70 years and almost 2 decades of long legal battle to scrape down this old age law that had become a weapon to harass and exploit all those who didn't conform with the traditional binary of sexuality and gender. But before proceeding to understand how the current laws in India, even after the scrapping of Section 377, are insufficient in securing basic human rights to the LGBT+ community in India.