NEW DELHI: Sex with a minor amounts to rape even if the couple are married, India’s top court ruled on Wednesday, closing a legal loophole that had allowed some perpetrators to escape punishment.
The age of consent and thus the legal age for girls to marry in India is 18, but millions of children are made to do so when they are much younger, particularly in poor rural areas.
India’s rape laws specifically exclude married couples, which historically meant that even non-consensual sex with a minor could not be classed as rape if it took place within marriage.
But the Supreme Court said that contradicted India’s strict laws on the age of consent.
It ruled that police should in future prosecute cases of marital rape if the victim was under 18 and registered a complaint within a year of the incident.
Vikram Srivastava, a lawyer who petitioned the court on the issue, welcomed the ruling which he said would give child victims some protection.
“The judgment today in two lines says that if anyone now marries a girl child below the age of 18 years and if the girl complains within a year of sexual intercourse, then that person can be prosecuted for rape,” he said in comments broadcast on the NDTV news network.
“(Child marriage) is prohibited, but we all know the number of children who are married below the age of 18 years.”
Many parents in India marry off their children in the hope of improving their financial security and to avoid the shame associated with pre-marital sex.
The results can be devastating, with girls dropping out of school to cook and clean for their husbands and suffering health problems from giving birth at a young age.
A separate challenge to the laws on marital rape is currently going through the Indian courts.
The government has said it opposes criminalizing marital rape as this would damage the institution of marriage.
India’s top court says sex with child is always rape
India’s top court says sex with child is always rape
US national security adviser Sullivan says Trump should like ‘burden sharing’ AUKUS deal
In an interview with Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank published on Tuesday, Sullivan said he had confidence AUKUS would endure under the Trump presidency, as it enhances US deterrent capability in the Indo-Pacific and has Australia contributing to the US industrial base.
The trilateral AUKUS deal struck in 2021 is Australia’s biggest defense project, with a cost of A$368 billion ($245 billion) by 2055, as Australia buys several Virginia-class submarines from the United States while also building a new class of nuclear-powered submarine in Britain and Australia.
“The United States is benefiting from burden sharing — exactly the kind of thing that Mr.Trump has talked a lot about,” Sullivan said of the AUKUS agreement.
Australia has agreed to invest $3 billion in US shipyards that build the Virginia-class nuclear submarines it will be sold early next decade amid concerns that a backlog of orders could jeopardize the deal.
Australia having conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines enhances America’s deterrent capability in the Indo-Pacific, Sullivan said.
“Australia is directly contributing to the US submarine industrial base so that we can build out this submarine capability, supply Australia in the nearer term with Virginia class submarines and then in the longer term with the AUKUS class submarine,” he added.
Australia’s defense and foreign ministers, meanwhile, met their counterparts in London on Monday to discuss progress on AUKUS for the first time since a change of government in Britain, and ahead of Trump’s inauguration as US president in January.
Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey said they discussed “the challenge of maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, the challenge of China — increasingly active, increasingly assertive in the region — and the vital importance of maintaining both deterrence and freedom of navigation.”
Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said they discussed accelerating the process of bringing Australian companies into the supply chain in Britain for building submarines.
Judge denies Trump’s bid to throw out hush money conviction
- Judge rules Trump’s conviction for falsifying records should stand
- Trump’s lawyers argue case impedes his ability to govern
Trump’s lawyers argued that having the case hang over him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern. He was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Justice Juan Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
In a 41-page decision, Justice Juan Merchan said Trump’s “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch.”
Trump’s lawyer did not immedaitely respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, said there were measures short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a US president — former or sitting — had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.
ChatGPT search opens to all users in challenge to Google
- OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT
The San Francisco-based tech firm had beefed up its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot with search engine capabilities in late October, but made the feature available only to paying subscribers.
The newly public feature enables users to receive “fast, timely answers” with links to relevant web sources — information that previously required using a traditional search engine, the company said.
The upgrade to ChatGPT enables the AI chatbot to provide real-time information from across the web.
“We’re bringing search to all logged-in free users of ChatGPT,” OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil said in a video posted at YouTube.
“That means it’ll be available globally on every platform where you use ChatGPT.”
Examples of the new interface demonstrated by OpenAI resembled search results provided by Google and Google Maps, though without the clutter of advertising.
They also appeared similarly to the interface of Perplexity, another AI-powered search engine that offers a more conversational version of Google by featuring the sources it referenced in the answer.
“We’re really just making the ChatGPT experience that you know better with up-to-date information from the web,” ChatGPT Search product lead Adam Fry said in the video.
“We’re rolling this out to hundreds of millions of users, starting today.”
Rather than launching a separate product, OpenAI has integrated search directly into ChatGPT.
Users can enable the search feature by default or activate it manually via a web search icon.
Since their launch, data on AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude have been limited by time cutoffs, so the answers they provided were not up-to-date.
In contrast, Google and Microsoft both combine AI-generated answers with web results.
The addition of online search to ChatGPT will raise more questions about the startup’s link to Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor, which is also trying to expand the reach of its Bing search engine against Google.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has set his company on a path to become an Internet powerhouse.
He successfully catapulted the company to a staggering $157 billion valuation in a recent round of fundraising that included Microsoft, Tokyo-based conglomerate SoftBank and AI chipmaker Nvidia as investors.
Enticing new users with search engine capabilities will increase the company’s computing needs and costs, which are enormous.
Russia to boost its ballistic arsenal with new missiles and testing, commander says
- Karakayev said that Russia had not ruled out increasing the number of warheads on deployed missiles after the New START treaty expires, in response to similar actions by the United States
MOSCOW: Russia is boosting its ballistic arsenal with new strategic missile systems, plans maximum-range launches and may increase testing in response to growing external threats, a senior Russian military commander said on Monday.
In a clear warning that Russia will respond if it deems its security is threatened, Sergei Karakayev, the commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the country plans maximum-range test launches as part of testing new systems.
“In terms of range, there is no place where our missiles cannot reach,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Karakayev as telling the Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian defense ministry’s official newspaper, in an interview.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Russia develops new intercontinental ballistic missile system
• Russia plans maximum-range test launches of ballistic missiles
• Russia may increase intensity of missile testing
• Moscow, Washington warn each other ahead of ICBM tests
He added that Russia may increase the intensity of tests of its advanced missile weapons if external threats grow.
Confirming for the first time publicly that Russia is developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Osina, Karakayev said the introduction into combat of Osina and a number of new missile systems is a priority.
He said, without revealing details, that Russia is also completing the development of missile systems akin to its new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik, which President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russia will mass-produce soon.
Russia struck Ukraine in November with Oreshnik in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.
Karakayev said Russia’s new state armament development program will consider various options for the development of strategic offensive weapons by Russia and will take into account similar moves by the US after the expiration of the New START nuclear arms treaty between the countries in 2026.
Russian media reported in October that Moscow will not sign a replacement for the START treaty, the last remnant of efforts to slow the nuclear arms race between the former Cold War superpowers and to increase transparency by imposing verifiable limits on the number of weapons.
Karakayev said that Russia had not ruled out increasing the number of warheads on deployed missiles after the New START treaty expires, in response to similar actions by the United States.
He also said that Moscow and Washington continue to give each other a 24-hour warning of any planned test launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Russia’s armament program ensures that Russia’s strategic missile forces are equipped with mobile missile systems, Karakayev said.
“Missile divisions equipped with mobile-based missile systems will be a decisive means of inflicting devastating damage on the enemy in a retaliatory strike due to high manoeuvrability and survivability, especially in the context of the deployment of the US missile defense system,” he said.
Trump says it was ‘stupid’ for Biden to let Ukraine use US weapons to strike deeper into Russia
- “I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and an unsettled Syria following the ouster of Bashar Assad. “I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation”
- Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent
PALM BEACH, Florida: President-elect Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he may reverse President Joe Biden’s recent decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Trump called the decision made by Biden last month “stupid.” He also expressed anger that his incoming administration was not consulted before Biden made the move. With the loosening of the restrictions, Biden gave Ukraine long-sought permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System provided by the US to strike Russian positions hundreds miles from its border.
“I don’t think that should have been allowed, not when there’s a possibility — certainly not just weeks before I take over,” Trump said during at a wide-ranging news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Why would they do that without asking me what I thought? I wouldn’t have had him do that. I think it was a big mistake.”
Trump’s withering criticism of the Biden administration’s move comes as the Democratic administration aims to push every last dollar already designated for Ukraine out the door to help repel Russia’s invasion before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, with future aid uncertain.
But even as Biden tries to surge weaponry and other aid to Ukraine in his final five weeks in office, the moment underscored that it’s Trump who holds the most significant influence over how Ukraine can use its US-provided arsenal in the long run. It’s a critical piece of leverage he could use to try to follow through on his campaign pledge to bring about a swift end to the conflict.
Asked if he would consider reversing the Biden administration decision, Trump responded: “I might. I think it was a very stupid thing to do.”
The White House pushed back on Trump’s criticism, noting that the decision was made after months of deliberations that started before last month’s election.
“All I can assure you is that in the conversations we’ve had with them since the election, and we’ve had at various levels, we have articulated to them the logic behind it, the thinking behind it, why we were doing it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said of the current administration’s coordination with the outgoing administration.
Trump’s relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been scrutinized since his 2016 campaign for president, when he called on Russia to find and make public missing emails deleted by Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. Trump publicly sided with Putin over US intelligence officials on whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him, and Trump has praised the Russian leader and even called him “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine.
Vice President-elect JD Vance has said that while the US has differences with Russia, it was counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.
Trump on Monday reiterated his call on both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war, calling the death and despair caused by the conflict “carnage.”
But Trump also appeared to acknowledge that finding an immediate endgame to the war — something he has previously said he could get done within 24 hours of taking office — could be difficult.
“I think the Middle East will be in a good place,” Trump said, referring to the conflict in Gaza and an unsettled Syria following the ouster of Bashar Assad. “I think actually more difficult is going to be the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
Trump declined to say whether he has spoken with Putin since the election.
Zelensky met with Trump in Paris earlier this month, while the president-elect was visiting France for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have been making a forceful effort to get Trump to maintain support for Ukraine.
But the situation on the ground in Ukraine continues to remain complicated as both sides wrestle for a battlefield advantage that will give them leverage in any negotiations to end the nearly three-year war.
The Pentagon last week unveiled US intelligence that predicts Russia could again launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine soon.
Putin deployed the missile for the first time last month days after Biden loosened the restrictions on Ukraine. Putin warned the West that Russia’s next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Biden agreed to loosen the restrictions after Zelensky and many of his Western supporters had pressed Biden for months. They argued that the US ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids.
The outgoing president ultimately made the decision last month amid concerns about Russia deploying thousands of North Korean troops to help it claw back land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year.
