India looks to ban lavish weddings
India looks to ban lavish weddings to feed poor
NEW DELHI (Reuters Life!) - India is considering adopting a policy from its impoverished and war-torn neighbor Afghanistan to help tackle a domestic food crisis: rein in lavish wedding parties of the rich.
The government is mulling a plan to feed the country's poor, by restricting extravagant feasts at the weddings and parties of India's burgeoning middle class, India's Mail Today newspaper reported on Tuesday.
India's economy has been growing an average 8.5 percent over the last five years, helping to propel millions of people into what is often termed the great Indian middle class and making the South Asian giant a darling for overseas investors.
But with steady growth has come high inflation, pushed up by soaring food prices that have hit India's poor the hardest. Headline inflation in December was above 8.4 percent while food inflation hit a one year high of 18.3 percent the same month.
"We believe we can preserve food grains for the poor and needy of this country by restricting its use at such extravagant and luxurious social functions," India's Food and Consumer Affairs Minister K. V. Thomas was quoted as saying in the Mail Today on Tuesday.
Nearly 15 percent of India's food grains were wasted at these events, Thomas said, and the government was now looking at introducing a bill before parliament limiting the amount of food dished out to guests, the Mail Today reported.
The proposed policy draws comparisons with a plan last month by the government of Afghanistan -- a country with only a fraction of India's GDP and which is grappling with a stubborn insurgency -- to ban abundant weddings to stop grooms going broke..
Note: I think its good step to equalize all weddings but will ppl take it seriously ?
:) Like they used to say...You get married only once.
But you must admit gorgeous costumes, fantastic food, and pumping dance music....hope you had fun being part of the circus...lol.
experienced all this at an Indian friend's wedding... hence the reason... once bitten twice shy;-P
Xena :-/
It isn't how big the wedding is, it's the rituals...the relatives getting together to make special sweets, blessing the bride-to-be, the henna ceremony, the "kanyadaan" or the bride giving away ceremony, receiving/inviting the bride's into her new home......add all that up and you have a grand wedding. *nostalgic*
I wouldn't count on that;-P
you do realise you'd have to come to the table with more money than he has, as a dowry;-P Are you sure you could afford her?
See.... this is the best thing about western girls... most of them nowadays, don't care about big weddings... they are happy with small intimate family affairs:-)
ahem....i wanted to get married like a princess...and dad made my dream come true....a weeklong affair...all the works :) The excess food was distributed to charitable organisations near our home.
Why cant the FFCCKK ers bring the Jan LOkpal Bill on table and stop corruption??? bring in the trillions in the tax havens?? instead of doing thses dramas?
Another Money making idea!!!!!
To put it in a crude way....if they (the flamboyant ones) dont buy it from retail mart, retail marts wont have the need to buy it... finally it will cascade down to a surplus of food grains...which will eventually mean a fall in prices which would then mean a benefit to the poor...so ultimately the poor would get benefitted.. thats what is being attempted at IMO.
Same as in Pakistan....
By 10 PM all lights should be closed other wise the Groom would be in Jail...... :)
This is a stupid decision. They are now talking like the communists. Let them spend...whoever wants to spend. It's their hard earned money. If they don't spend the money...will it help to feed the poor?
Afterall the food grains they are using for the marriage ceremonies are coming from the retail marts. Are these marts going to distribute their stock to the poor if the rich people don't buy it?
Just like they banned dowry.....
OK .. OK..
We'll call it "co habiting" ..
Even if rich can get around the rules, its severity gets quite a bit toned down... I would be happy even if that can be achieved.
I hope you are not advocating living in sin..
On a more serious note - The rich always find loopholes to get round these restrictions.
If its the requirement of the country or good for the country, religion should not have a bearing on that and everyone should rise to support the cause, irrespective.
yup if Ban taken seriously then the Dowry problem will get solved eventually, the issue is corrupt people who get away easily : (
Not necessarily only dowry hungry parents of the grooms ...thats a sweeping generalisation.... parents of some girls are more influential or well to do as compared to that of a groom and would like to resort to such lavishness as their status symbol.
So now Marriage TAX?
Religion doesn't permit court marriages !! or does it ? am not sure lol
Why get into making food and then looking for someone to come forward to go and collect the extra food and distribute... ban making of the food itself on such occassions.. just make the rule of "Court Marriage".
Yes Tinker, I know the guy u talking about seen his videos on youtube, such a devotion for the society. we all can contribute in our society.
you know * Shadi ke ladoo khake bhi pachtaoo aur na Khake bhi pachtaoo *
agree with rizku paaji and wk. wastage of food is nobody's right weather rich or poor.
i wish they ban the same here or anywere in the Gulf...:(
I would say make "Court Marriage" the rule, with no reception party allowed afterwards...
Low Budget marriage does makes a lot of difference just calculate the wastage of food to make relatives happy by preparing expensive dishes? on other hand poor can just imagine, if we all can take 1 step to change society we can make difference..
Agree, wastage of food is nobodys right - but still people waste a lot of food...:(
Wastage of food is nobody's right, whether rich or poor
Pakistan is already practicing on low budget marriages they allow to make 1 Biryani, 1 sweet dish daz all, but sum people do cheat..
is a dummy puppet who has no power of his own to take decisions. Instead of taking decisions that would help the country these guys are going the wrong way.
why should it matter to anyone how much money one spends on weddings. it is their hard earned money and they can spend it the way they like.
I agree that it is the duty of the rich in the society to help the poor but that doesn't mean they donate everything they have earned. This way the poor will always remain poor as they dont have to do anything.
Its very hard to make it practical !
Nobody will take it seriously.
If they form an inspection team to go and conduct raids at the wedding then the members conducting the raid will be given free food and drinks and they will report no wastage of food at these functions.
sell the Ambani's Residence n divide among the poor