Chairman of Maharishi Vidya Mandir School Group, Girish Chandra Verma being produced in district court after being arrested for allegedly raping a woman teacher, in Bhopal on Monday - PTI Bhopal: Chancellor of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Vedic University, Girish Chandra Verma was arrested for allegedly sexually exploiting a former woman employee for several years, police said today.
Verma, also the chairman of Maharishi Vidya Mandir School Group, was arrested last evening on the complaint filed by the victim about nine months back, they said.
He was arrested amid high drama as his security guards offered stiff resistance against police action. Verma was picked up from his sprawling 10-acre ashram on the Bhojpur road here and taken to the Jehangirabad police station for recording his statement, officials said.
He had earlier been summoned to the Mahila Thana in Bhopal for questioning two days back, police officials said. City Superintendent of Police Saleem Khan said Verma has been charged under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC
Exactly a year ago, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang raped on a moving bus in Delhi. That led to a national outrage with people questioning inefficiency of the government to provide security to women. There was such anger with protests across the nation that anyone would have thought it would be the last rape in the nation. That wasn't to be.
Safety of women in the national capital was questioned, and in fact that was one of the reasons why chief minister Sheila Dikshit and the Congress suffered a humiliated defeat at the hands of political newcomer Arvind Kejriwal and his party Aam Aadmi Party. Political implications apart, the December 16 gang rape made headlines in international media, exposing how insecure women are in India. Despite the magnanimity of the most brutal rape of the country, very little has changed in one year.The conviction rate for rape is a mere 27 per cent which is why rapists aren't scared.The four accused in the December 16 rape case, gym instructor Vinay Sharma (20), bus cleaner Akshay Thakur (28), fruit-seller Pawan Gupta (19) and Mukesh Singh (26) were awarded death penalty as the court felt it was a rarest of rare cases. Main accused Ram Singh was found dead in jail while another is a minor.Notwithstanding pressure, the Central government in April amended the Anti-rape bill, which now provides life-term or death sentence for rape convicts. According to the new law, an offender can be sentenced to rigorous imprisonment that is not less than 20 years. The law also fixed age for consensual sex at 18 years. One thing that has changed is, none will take things lying down. But it doesn't mean that the incidents have gone down. Shockingly, a rape is reported every 20 minutes in India. A young girl's sexual harassment complaint resulted in the arrest of Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal. The girl was bold enough to report against her boss, putting her career at stake. Neither death sentence nor new law has acted as a deterrent. The number of rape cases in Delhi have almost doubled. Till November this year, 1,450 cases of rape cases were registered against 706 in 2012. There is an element of positivity about it, as police say that more women are coming forward to report rapes. But as Indian women are known for, not all aren't comfortable reporting about rape.The only mistake of a 23-year-old software engineer, who was kidnapped and raped in a cab Hyderabad, was that she trusted the cab drivers to take her to her hostel. But she ended up being raped.Unlike the Tehelka journalist, this girl was scared to report it, she filed a false complaint that there was an attempt to rape her. But the incident came to light when the police arrested the cab drivers, who admitted to raping her.Rapes are tarnishing the image of the country as a whole. Internationally, India is perceived as the rape capital with governments of foreign countries warning women against travel to India.A photojournalist was gang raped when on duty in Mumbai. That wasn't the first time for the accused, who thought when others didn't complain why would she? Experts debate if raping is a psychological problem? Most of the rapists won't have any remorse or guilt feeling. In many cases, they deny the crime or feel what they did wasn't wrong.There is a need for a systemic social change and the solution doesn't lie in the law, but in changing the mindset of people.
New Delhi: Calling for a culture of openness and pooling of resources across companies, Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry has asked firms of the conglomerate to focus on innovation and remain agile to succeed in an uncertain and volatile environment.In an year-end letter to employees, Mistry, who has completed a year at the helm of the group, said that after realising the distinctiveness of every Tata enterprise, "each needs to be viewed in a manner that is appreciative of its uniqueness".Exhorting the employees to carry forward the legacy of the group's founder Jamsetji Tata, whose 175th birth anniversary is being commemorated, Mistry said the year gone by has witnessed a business environment that has continued to be volatile and uncertain."This is a time for us to re-look at some of our strategies, recalibrate our business models, fine-tune our execution capabilities and invest in our future," he said.Stagnant or sluggish economic growth across some of the group's key markets such as India and Europe impacted the performance of several Tata companies, he added."To succeed in an uncertain and volatile environment, it is critical that our businesses evaluate alternate scenarios of the future while crafting our strategies. Our organisations will need to embrace agility, powered by teams with the aptitude and capability for continual learning," Mistry said.Spelling out key factors to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive world, he said: "We shall put innovation capability at the core of each of our companies' operating structures and will invest in R&D and grow top talent."Calling for more synergy among the over 100 operating companies of the group, Mistry said: "As a group, we must also continue to seek opportunities for our companies to pool resources to co-create shared value. There is so much that collaboration between our companies can offer, be it in areas like innovation, management of technology, or identifying the emerging needs and wants of consumers."Highlighting factors that will influence on how successful the group will be in achieving its goals, he said: "Principal among these will be our ability to foster a culture of openness across the Tata group, and develop a performance oriented framework that values each colleague's contribution as well as cultural fit with the group. This requires significant investment in people development and in encouraging diversity in the workplace."Asking the employees of the Tata group to play their part in the betterment of the society, Mistry said: "With over half a million employees, the Tata group today constitutes a global force not only for doing good business, but being in the business of doing good for society, and I am absolutely confident we will deliver on our core purpose of long-term stakeholder value creation."Through the commitment of Tata employees over the past 140 years to improving the quality of life of the communities the group serves, the Tata brand has acquired a unique sheen, he added."All of us have a responsibility to protect and enhance this brand through the ethical conduct of business and by adhering to the unique value system instilled by our Founder, sustained for over half a century by Mr JRD Tata, and fortified by Mr Ratan N Tata in recent years," Mistry said.Quoting words of anti-apartheid champion late Nelson Mandela, Mistry said: "...let me quote a giant of a human being, one who left this world a far better place than he found it. 'Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again'. There is a lesson in these words of Nelson Mandela, and by taking them to heart we can build on the unique platform that our Founder and those who followed him created."The Tata group companies employ over 5,40,000 people worldwide with operations in more than 100 countries across six continents, and its firms exporting products and services to 150 countries.In 2012-13, the total revenue of Tata companies, taken together, was USD 96.79 billion (around Rs 527,047 crore) with 62.7 per cent coming from business outside India.