India in action to extradite NRI grooms who desert wives

NEW DELHI, Jan 9, 2007
Sonia Sharma

On Monday, the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury was addressing a session on women at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas and said, "I am in talks with the US and the UK about the existing treaties between us to ensure that Indian laws apply to people no matter where they reside." She spoke about the experience of many harassed women who were left in lurch by their NRI husbands in the alien land, after making rosy promises.

"Why should a woman who has got married here get divorced abroad?... If they (NRI men) violate laws, they should be called back home," she said.

"Don't teach the women to wait for a hand, empower them," she said. She said over 30,000 Indian women have been abandoned in "NRI marriages", and of these 15,000 are from the Doaba region of Punjab alone.

Brinda Karat, member of Communist Party of India (Marxist) said, NRI community should set up linkages with NGOs for giving support to Indian women who are in distress. "There are three million women who work as domestic help in the Gulf region, but they have no access to labour laws," Karat said.

Opinions:

In any falied Marriage involving NRIs, you can't say whether it is the fault of the Bride or Groom. But your posting is concentrating on that these faliures are because of Grooms. But that is not the relaity. There are 100s or even 1000s of NRI grooms whose marriages have falied just for the greediness of the Bride. Do proper invetigation before commenting on any issue. Don't be gender dependent. Because of the greedy NRI Brides, not only the NRI Husband, in fact all the family members of the husband including Mother, Siters, Sister-in-laws are behind bars and facing many problems just based on a oral complaint by the bride. Irrespective of the truth behind that complaint, all the husband side members are sent behind bars. Once they are sent behind bars, then how can you think that the marriage will not brake. In this, who actually broke their marrige, Is it the Husband? NO, Is it Husbands Parents? NO, Is it the Bride? Upto some extent Yes, then who is the fully responsible for this brakeup? Is it not you, the Government, the Law Makers. If any NRI having any problems they are facing, let them file a law suit in the country where they live and where they are facing the problem, not in India.....Naveen

I am ashamed to see the MOIA's article on failed and fraudulent marriages. The entire article deals with NRI husbands who have abandoned their wives in the US. What about NRI wives abandoning their husbands? The ministry does not even want to acknowledge it, let alone give an advisory warning men of indian law misuse. On one hand, the government of India is proud of its NRI professionals for their forays into different areas of science, technology, arts etc. On the other hand, the government thinks of NRI men as criminals born to harass and torture women. To me, these two do not add up. Why can't the ministry make this article in a gender-balanced way? Agreed that there are some women being harassed by men in the US. So are men being harassed by women. Also, I do not understand why proposals by NCW have made their way into this article. Is it the MOIA's website or NCW's website? The proposal asks for treating domestic disputes to be treated under criminal law and wants to extradite men from here. Do these people have any idea what a criminal is and what types of activities needs extradition treaties? US lawyers are laughing here at the mention of 498a. They are asking how can someone disprove something which did not happen in the first place. No body needs to educate the indian government that the allegations have to be proven by the petitioners. It is not the respondent's responsibility to disprove the fancy allegations cooked up by petitioners. How can police take action without any evidence? Are they being held responsible for the damage occurred to the family of the groom and himself in the case of false 498a complaints? Who is going to pay for all this? The proposal even goes to the extent of asking for help with damaging the person's career and citizenship/work authorization status. Do they have any idea of how hard people work here and the difficulties that they go through to come to the stage they are at? What the NCW wants is the power to seal a person's fate on their whim. This entire proposal is disruptive in nature and not constructive in any sense. Also, there are reports of the MOIA snatching away passports of NRIs when they visit the MOIA office. Is it any way to treat your countrymen? Are you here to help or destroy people's lives?.....Sandeep

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