Stringent laws alone do not make just society, need to change our mindsets: CJI Chandrachud
New Delhi, Sep 16: There is no dearth of legal provisions to protect the interest of women in private and public spaces but law alone cannot make a just system, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said on Monday, stressing that society also has to shed its "patriarchal social attitude".
Speaking at News18 Network's She Shakti event, CJI Chandrachud said, "We must foster institutional and individual ability to look beyond the male default".
"There is no dearth of substantive and procedural legal provisions targeted towards protecting the interests of women in private and public situations. But good laws including the stringent laws alone do not make for a just society.
"Above all we need to change our mindsets. The mindsets must move from making concessions for women to recognising their entitlement to lead lives based on freedom and equality. We must zealously guard against apparently protective laws infringing women's liberties and choices," the CJI said.
Addressing the event, he said, "Talking about women's rights is not a women's thing. Some of the great life lessons I have learnt from my female colleagues."
"I believe equal participation of women is important for a better society. Before we adopted the Constitution of India, the Indian Women's Charter of Life was drafted by Hansa Mehta, who was feminist," he added.
The CJI said issues of safety, equality of opportunity, dignity and empowerment are not subsets that ought to be discussed in silos. "Every one of us in the country has to be a part of this conversation."
"Equal participation of women in governance, policy and leadership roles is positively linked to better development outcomes. When we either create or fail to address barriers in the path of women, we are jeopardizing our quest for a better society. Indifference is no longer an option," the CJI said.
He said there has been an increasing intake of women Civil Judges through exams -- 58 per cent of the total candidates in Rajasthan in 2023; 66 per cent of the appointments in Delhi in 2023, 54 per cent of the appointments in Uttar Pradesh in 2022 and 72 per cent of the total number of judicial officers appointed in Kerala are women.
Justice Chandrachud said the labour force participation of women is 37 per cent while the contribution of women to the GDP is 18 per cent.
"We have not exactly met the pre-independence hopes about women's economic participation. A part of the reason is the continued gendered allocation of domestic labour. Even as women are entering the workforce, they are never divorced from the domestic realm.
"They must simultaneously juggle domestic and care-giving chores. They are doubly burdened - almost as a penalty for transgressing the domestic threshold," he said.
The CJI said gender equality is a function not only of statistics but a function of lived realities of women.
"This also applies to assimilate traditionally excluded groups such as persons with disabilities, transgender and queer persons. Our expectations from these groups are heavily based on the stereotypical understanding of their supposedly innate tendencies.
"We fail to appreciate them as individuals. As women break rank and enter professional workspaces traditionally dominated by men, they are expected to act like men. Ironically enough, they are also tacitly expected to act like women, act-their-part, lest they upset the code of womanly conduct," he said.
He said that for a large part of their lives, institutions have operated in an information deficit about the objective abilities of women.
"Women traditionally were not a priority in institutional design. Even as they break into elusive and exclusionary places, women are met with institutional apathy at best, and hostility at worst. The result is high attrition rates and professional stagnation in entry level and mid-level roles for women," Justice Chandrachud said.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
