Press Releases
Embassy of India
Baku
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India introduces laws to ensure welfare of senior citizens and women
According to sources from Embassy of India, Indian Parliament and government have recently introduced various legislations to guarantee welfare of parents, senior citizens and women.
The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (Amendment) Bill 2019 which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 11 December 2019 aims to provide for the maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens for ensuring their basic needs, safety and security, establishment, management, and regulation of institutions and services, and rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The Bill also seeks to amend the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 and removes the ceiling of Rs. 10,000 as maintenance and includes the preference to dispose of applications of senior citizens, above 80 years of age. It also proposes registration of senior citizens care homes and home care service agencies and also seeks to ensure that minimum standards are maintained at senior citizen care homes.
The Indian Parliament has also on 2 March introduced the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020 to amend the 1971 Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. The Bill aims to expand access of women to safe and legal abortion services on therapeutic, eugenic, humanitarian or social grounds. It also extends the contraceptive-failure clause for termination to include “any woman or her partner” in place of the present provision for “only married woman or her husband”.The proposed bill will ensure safe termination of pregnancies and also give women reproductive rights over their bodies. The bill also provides extension of upper gestation limit from 20 to 24 weeks for special categories of women. Name and other particulars of a woman whose pregnancy is terminated shall not be revealed except to a person authorised in any law which is in force.
In order to protect women's reproductive rights, the Union Cabinet in February approved a historic Bill -Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation Bill 2020. The major benefit of the Act would be that it will regulate the Assisted Reproductive Technology services in the country. Consequently, infertile couples will be more ensured/confident of the ethical practices in ARTs. Through the bill, the National Board, the State Boards, the National Registry and the State Registration Authorities respectively will regulate and supervise assisted reproductive technology clinics and assisted reproductive technology banks. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), including In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF), has given hope to a multitude of persons suffering from infertility, but also introduced a plethora of legal, ethical and social issues. India has become one of the major centres of this global fertility industry, with reproductive medical tourism becoming a significant activity.
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