Mumbai: 8 women booked for allegedly disrobing, molesting teen over sanitary pad disposal
Mumbai: Mumbai police have registered a case against eight women for allegedly disrobing and molesting a 13-year-old girl in Borivali over suspicions that she was improperly disposing of sanitary pads.
According to police reports, the incident occurred in March at the BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) staff quarters. The complainant, the girl's mother, stated that four women from their building, accompanied by four unknown individuals, forcibly entered their home.
The accused reportedly accused the girl of discarding used sanitary pads and undergarments in the building's backyard. The complaint alleges that the women abused both the mother and daughter and, to check the girl's undergarments, forcibly disrobed her and touched her inappropriately. They are also accused of using vulgar language.
Police have revealed that the complainant's family and the accused families have a long-standing dispute regarding room allotments at the BEST staff quarters. The accused women have previously filed grievances against the complainant's family with the BEST administration.
A Borivali police officer stated that while the complainant had initially filed a complaint about the disrobing incident but later withdrew it. Following a renewed complaint, police booked all eight women on Tuesday under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including sections 74 (criminal force with intent to outrage modesty), 76 (criminal force to disrobe a woman), 79 (insulting a woman's modesty), and 329(4) (criminal trespassing), along with sections 8 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Authorities have confirmed that no arrests have been made so far, and the investigation is currently underway.
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India should create strategic buffers to navigate 'most difficult' energy shock: CEA Nageswaran
New Delhi (PTI): Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Saturday said India needs to create strategic buffers in the face of the "most difficult" energy shock that the country is facing amid the West Asia crisis.
Nageswaran also said the rising prices of fertiliser and petroleum products globally due to the crisis will make it challenging to achieve the 4.3 per cent fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal, while below normal monsoon and pass-through of higher energy prices could lead to "potential inflation spike".
He also said India has employment challenge emanating from AI, and there is a need to ensure that IT sector becomes more competitive and not lose jobs to AI, and instead create jobs that use AI within the IT sector or in other services.
Speaking at the ICPP Growth Conference organised by the Ashoka University, Nageswaran said the current account deficit (CAD) in the current fiscal could rise to over 2 per cent of GDP, from less than 1 per cent in FY'26.
"The ... priority for us is to create strategic buffers. This energy shock is the most difficult one compared to any other previous energy shock in terms of energy lost as a percentage of total global energy supply, not just oil, including gas.
"And we also need to use this occasion to think about other areas where we are vulnerable in terms of import dependence, nickel, tin, and copper. We need to build strategic buffers if we have to make a shot at manufacturing and becoming indispensable," Nageswaran said.
Since the beginning of the war in West Asia on February 28, crude oil prices soared to a four-year high of USD 126 per barrel on Thursday, from about USD 73 level before the war.
Stating that geopolitics will compel policymakers to be nimble and flexible and shed old model of thinking, Nageswaran said India is better prepared than many other countries to deal with the crisis because of the fiscal leeway that the country has due to lowering of fiscal deficit ratio to 4.4 per cent of GDP in FY'26.
Nageswaran said the West Asia conflict is more of a price shock than supply shock for India as the government is managing the supply side deftly.
"This particular conflict, which is going to be on a low simmer or a high flame situation, whatever it is, it is going to be there with us in some form or the other because the military conflict may be over, but the strategic conflict is well and truly alive. It will be so for some time," Nageswaran said.
He said the conflict has four channels of shock: price and supply shock, trade impact, sticky logistics costs and remittance shock.
India imports 60 per cent of its LPG usage and of that, 90 per cent flows through the now closed Strait of Hormuz.
Nageswaran said the pass-through of high global energy prices would have to be a "balancing act". He said some pass-through is already happening in commercial LPG, and the levy of export duty on diesel and ATF.
The government has cut excise duty on petrol and diesel to shield customers from the impact of the rise in petroleum prices. "We are coming around to arriving at a certain modus vivendi with respect to burden-sharing between the fiscal policy side, inflation, households and the oil marketing companies. So it has to be a balancing act," Nageswaran said.
