8 MAY2022Smriti Irani, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, announced that 300 new One Stop Centres (OSCs) will be opened across the country soon to help women who have been victims of abuse. Women's health and empowerment, she noted, have become ingrained in the central government's programs and policies.The Delhi High Court formed a committee to ensure the welfare and assess the physical and mental health of women inmates at a Rohini-based ashram founded by self-styled godman Virendra Dev Dixit, who is a proclaimed offender in a case of sexual exploitation. The committee will be supervised by former Pondicherry Lieutenant Governor and retired IPS officer Kiran Bedi.Last Monday, a division bench led by acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla found that the women inmates of Adhyatmik Vidyalaya are brainwashed, and that their claim that they are there of their own free will cannot be taken at face value. The bench stated that it believes a committee should be formed to keep a careful eye on the convicts' welfare. The district and sessions judge concerned, or his/her nominee holding the rank of additional district judge, the district magistrate, the DCP of the Crime against Women Cell, the Secretary of the District Legal Services Authority, one nominee of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), and a district officer of the women and child development department make up the court-appointed committee."The committee shall function to see and ensure that no woman inmate or child, if any found, in the respondent institution is subjected to any such treatment which may tantamount to breach of her IN FOCUSDELHI HC APPOINTS KIRAN BEDI TO OVERSEE COMMITTEE TO ASSESS MENTAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH OF WOMEN
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