7 laws in India which should be looked into!
1. Marital Rape is legal
Rapes laws in India do not apply to married couples, thus, sex without consent between a legally wed couple is not a crime. The law in India considers marriage, a declaration of consent to have sex with the partner even in 2020!
2. Sexting is technically an offense
While protecting the privacy of a person, Section 67 of the IT Act 2000 also says that if one sends or publishes anything online that is obscene or invokes lust then it can land one in the prison for three years. So while there are no particular law laying down laws against sexting, this law makes sharing any kind of lascivious content, privately or publicly, illegal.
3. No Provision for Gay Marriage in India
It was only in 2018 that the Section 377 happened and Homosexuality was decriminalized. However, people from the LGBTQ+ community still do not enjoy the right to marriage and all the provisions that come with the same. The same is being fought for by the lawyer couple Guruswamy and Katju in their next project: The Marriage Project.
4. PDA might cause legal troubles
The law says, if accused did some act or sang, recited or uttered any word, song or ballad and such an act was obscene, was performed in a public place; and caused annoyance to others, it may constitute as an offence. However, as the word obscene is so ambiguous, often conservative communal elements use this against the freedom of speech and expression, causing people to be charged with the offense even for acts like kissing.
5. The ‘Love Jihad’ Law
In November 2020, four BJP-ruled states: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka designed and passed laws to prevent “forcible conversions” through marriage, popularly referred to as the “love jihad” laws. The law declares a marriage null and void if the sole intention was to “change a girl’s religion”, mainly from Hinduism to Islam. In the name of the law, radical religious forces in the country are seen acting upon their Islamophobia.
6. No consistent legal age for drinking in India
A reform regulation for legal drinking age is one law which is needed in India. Unlike the age for voting or marriage, different states and UTs have different legal ages for drinking. For example, In Delhi, a person who is 25 or above is eligible to drink while in Goa the age bar is set at 18.
7. Women are not considered farmers by law
In India, women are not recognized as farmers thereby they are denied any institutional support of the bank, insurance, cooperatives, and government departments, due to the current policy framework. Despite a large population of Indian women working on the farms, they are still only considered cultivators in the country.
