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Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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Increase marriage age: Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Staff Reporter

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Kolkata: Men must play an important role in raising the age of consent and marriage for women, West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi said here on Tuesday. He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the inauguration of a seven-storied extension of the hospital building of the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Prathishthan (RMSP).

“If the right age or consent is missing, then all the participants of the marriage are taking liberty with what is laid down by both law and morality,” he said.

Praising the monks of the Mission order, who combined “science with spirituality” and offered tremendous service to the ordinary people, he flagged off the year-long platinum jubilee celebrations of the institution.

An intensive neo-natal care unit will be one of the features of the new building, erected at a cost of Rs.10 crore, apart from facilities for the treatment of vision and orthopaedic problems in children. The RMSP was set up in 1932 as a small maternity and child welfare centre (known as the Shishu Mangal Prathishthan) by Swami Dayanand Maharaj.

Pointing out that neo-natal mortality accounted for 80 per cent of the infant mortality rate and that most of it occurred in the first week, Health Minister Surjya Kanta Mishra said the Government had, over the years, worked with the Mission in these areas. The new building would be known as the Adhish Chandra Sinha Memorial Building, whose family contributed Rs.5.1 crore towards its construction. “Adhish, my cousin, died before he could realise his dream of doing something to alleviate suffering,” said Bikash Sinha, Director, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics.

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