 Hello and welcome to Dispatches from India Show by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from the country, the issues Indians are talking about, and the implications these will have on politics, economy and society. We first get into our News This Week section. A major controversy has broken out in the country after the conduct of a Hindu right-wing religious conclave from December 17 to 19. The event took place in the city of Haridwar in the state of Uttarakhand. At this event, speaker after speaker spewed venom against minorities, especially Muslims. There were even calls for genocide. Many of those who spoke are close to or even associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party. For instance, Yati Narsingh Anand, an extremely controversial Hindu spiritual leader, publicly said, you need better weapons than them, forget swords. They look good only on stages. You need to update your weapons, have more children, get better weapons. Another speaker, Sadhvi Anapurna, was heard giving the call to be ready to kill or go to jail. She also proudly cited Nathuram Gotse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India's freedom struggle. In the aftermath of the event, voices from across India expressed shock and asked how the state government could permit such an event with open-hate speech. The police finally filed a case but so far have named only one person in the case. Political parties as well as activists have also condemned the response of the police. The Communist Party of India, Marxist, CPIM, said the speeches were akin to supporting terrorist acts. It called for the immediate arrest of those responsible for the promotion, not just of hate speech but of incitement to violence. Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, JNU in the National Capital, New Delhi staged a protest earlier this week over claims that PhD aspirants from marginalized communities are being marked poorly during the interview process. According to the students, this prevents them from bagging university seats. Newsclick reporters spoke with students at the protest who claimed that professors irrationally marked them low and engaged in castist discussions during the interviews. For instance, a student shared that some Muslim PhD aspirants were asked why they were not seeking admissions in registered minority institutions for Muslims. These students were awarded one or two marks after being interviewed for over 20 to 30 minutes. Students are also protesting the introduction of a Central University's common entrance test, C-U-C-E-T, arguing that such tests are easier to crack for those who look in a FOD expensive coaching institute and this will in turn deprive students from marginalized backgrounds from premier public universities. We spoke with Ayeshi Ghosh, President of the JNU Students Union on the issue, have a look. The recently held JNU entrance examination has again brought into light the continuous discrimination based on caste basis, whether it is students coming from the marginalized community S-C-S-T-O-B-C or the basis of religion, the students belonging to the minority communities and also based on regional diversity has again been seen. The low marking of the Viva of the students in the Viva Vose again shows that how students especially coming from the marginalized community has been at the receiving end and has been facing the brunt of these kind of discrimination. So what the JNU Students Union has been continuously stressing on is the JNU administration is continuously not showing interest in maintaining a transparent system of JNU entrance examination and that is where all these issues are coming, whether it is the framework of the Viva Vose which is deciding how much should be marked to these students who are appearing for the Viva is also not been determined. Also we are continuously seeing a campus such as JNU where a lot of students, a huge section of the students who generally come over the years from the marginalized community from various districts which are backward communities which are in the marginalized sections of the society, gender based marginalized sections used to get chance in studying in such a premier institute, higher education institute is now facing the discrimination and are not able to come for the education in this premier institute. That is why we have been pointing out that this form of discrimination which is happening today is not for the first time but the continuous lack of transparency in the entrance examination is putting a question mark on that why is the JNU administration continuously trying to hide the transparency in the entrance examination. Also in the last few years post 2014 we have seen a relentless attack on JNU and there has been continuous, there has been continuously the right wing government and the administration trying to somewhere change the atmosphere, change the environment of public education system where voices have always been raised for the marginalized communities. Today JNU is somewhere trying to only bring in a certain pool of students into the campus and trying to push out the marginalized community of the students. The JNU students union has clarified time and again that we have stood beside the marginalized community students who come to this institute and in the coming days also our fight will be for them to ensure that a transparent system of entrance examination is followed in JNU and also the most marginalized community students get certain deprivation points so that they are somewhere given an affirmative policy to help them towards coming to the institute of higher learnings. Next we get into our in focus section where we take a deeper look at some of the burning issues in the country. In a significant move the Indian government has introduced a bill to raise the minimum age for marriage for women to 21. It was 18 earlier. The bill has now been referred to a parliamentary panel. While introducing the bill the government said it aimed at ensuring equality between men and women. The minimum age for marriage for men is also 21. The government also says it will reduce maternal mortality and improve nutrition and sex ratio at birth. However a number of experts have picked holes in the government's argument. They say that the bill will in fact end up discriminating against weaker sections and the marginalized. Shabani Chakraborty an activist with the All India Democratic Women's Association EDWA talks about some of these critiques. This was opposed when it was first introduced and then put in the parliament later by various women's organization primarily for various reasons and I would like to highlight two reasons here. One was the argument that was given from the government side was that the health of women, maternal health of women is very crucial and women who are getting married at the age of 18 are not getting their chance to finish their education. Now if we look at the real situation first of all there are many things involved. A in India women get their right to vote and they are considered as adult which is based on various international convention norms. They get their right to vote. They can enter a contract everything they are considered as adult but they cannot marry and there are several studies which shows that there are other reasons for the deterioration of maternal health of women which requires a specific issue based address from government side like they have to increase their allocation for various projects like ICDS where women get the required amount of nutrition. Now somebody if one person is malnourished from the beginning at the time of birth that person's nourishment will not suddenly increase at the age of 21 but the most important issue that we think is as adult it will limit their right to choose their partner, their right to marry. What is happening currently in India we have an increasing situation where the rights constitutional rights are being violated and extreme polarization and communalization is happening all over the government in various states wherever they are the BJP party wherever they are in the state government they are trying to introduce various sorts of bills, anti-conversion bills and they are trying to stop intercast and inter-religious marriages. So once women are at the reaches the age of 18 they can choose their partner now if it is increased to 21 there will be added pressure from the family added pressure from the society that they will they cannot marry the person that they chooses. So these are the two primary reason we think that this is a minimum age. Edwa absolutely, Edwa thinks that women should get all rights including education, right to job and then get married but even after marriage when to become a mother all these decisions should be dependent upon the choice of the women but now given the patriarchal setup all these choices are not available to the women but just by increasing the age from 18 to 21 it is not going to happen it has to happen through a process which needs to be addressed and there are concrete issues like in addressing the nutrition and maternal health which has to happen from various level and also women don't have access to free education those who are finishing their school if they are not married till 21 there is no guarantee that they will get education because then the family on the family there would be added pressure and these economic considerations are serious therefore we have said that this is the minimum age the women have their constitutional right if they want they can marry the society or the government cannot put a bar like this. Now on to our final story urban company Asia's largest home services provider has lodged a civil suit against its women employees for protesting against what the workers claim are unfair labour practices we brought you the story first back in October when these women had gone on strike on account of low wages and high commissions here is a brief glimpse covid came before covid came they had an urban company after coming into the urban company these people even made a problem with our credit they pressured us that you will do so much work in a day you will lead so much and they targeted the month 50 after targeting 50 they said that if you don't do 50 jobs then you will get a penalty of Rs. 2,000 now what will the girls do now covid is also time to see your family and how much will the girls run away from covid how can they run away from the company so you have this new metrical response rate and then there are penalizations on that or there are pressures put on women you know the moment you have a metric it becomes a way for the company to tell women that they're not as good as the average amount of you know the fleet of partners right they don't actually have the freedom then to choose the work they want to do with the flexibility that they want and you have to realize that every time there is a relationship of power there is some kind of imposition that happens you know like there is no free will here so the rating system the opaque kind of like systems that drive these penalties that people are not aware of some of these penalties are just absolutely horrible I would say there's no way to justify them I would like to see the company try to justify them after talks with company officials the protest was called off but began to gain momentum again earlier this month after three days of protests outside the company's head office the company sued the workers to put an end to the strike in the suit the company has sought a permanent prohibitory injunction restraining its workers from holding any demonstration rally peace march or from shouting slogans entering or assembling on or near the office premises the workers were forced to clear out the area on December 22 after the Haryana police intervened in the matter however the women have decided that they will continue to fight legally until all their demands are met that's all there is for this week next week we'll be back with more such news from India to know more about these and other such stories keep watching People's Dispatch