FLAIR TALK - March 2016

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The LGBTQ community’s fight for legal existence comes live once again, with the Supreme Court deciding to examine the issue of decriminalisation of homosexual sex for one last time. Section 377 of IPC, which has been from a long time a subject of debate, reads, “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished...” As far as records are concerned, there are no schools or institutes being run anywhere in the world to train people to be homosexuals. In fact, it is the very order of nature that guides a person into loving a man or a woman regardless of their own gender. Then there is also a popular argument by opponents to this community that homosexuals are sick and diseased people. If there are millions of people who believe that homosexuality is a disease, there are multiple times those numbers saying it’s not. These issues may be just tip of the iceberg that this contentious issue is. The cover story by Albuquerque couple: Dr Olav and Deborah seeks to explore more facets of religion vs homosexuality debate.

The Central Board of Film Certification has been in lot of news lately due to disputes between its members as to the content which should be allowed to be shown to the public and what should be removed. The popular argument of leading film-makers is that CBFC should merely issue certification as to the age group for which the movie is suitable and should not indulge in dissecting the vision of film-maker. Even the Supreme Court of India has held that obscenity is subjective and it cannot be defined in letter. FLAIR asked the legal fraternity whether movies should be censored or should CBFC’s jurisdiction be limited to granting the relevant certificates while preserving the film-maker’s idea and vision? Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, the freedom fighter who was born on 23 March, has been Showcased in this issue.