HRIDAYA

This is one Shimla Declaration that adds an intriguing twist to the meaning of freedom and independence. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of the nation's growth in his Independence Day address in the Capital, in Shimla, the summer capital under the British, a group of men and women at that very moment declared they were better off in the British Raj. That freedom to them was still a dream.

The Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) comprises young, angry, "harassed" husbands, who claim they represent 25 NGOs and 40,000 equally "tortured" persons like them. Their grouse: they were being "betrayed" by those who framed laws and enforced them; that the law erroneously assumed all wives were "innocent angels" who could only be sinned against, and are not sinners.