Mens rea: Criminal Intention

Let us start with a scenario where, 'P' and 'M' were heavily drunk and in a state of drunkenness they started playing a game of gun draw, to find out who was the quickest draw. 'P' ended up shooting 'M' and 'M' dies on the spot. Do you think 'P' is liable for the murder of 'M'? 'P' in his defense said that he was so drunk that he did not know what they were doing. If that was the true state of P's mind (doesn't know at all what he is doing), then can we truly say that he is guilty? Would there be any difference had 'P', not drunk but, accidentally fell down while in possession of a gun and the gun fired killing 'M'? How should we differentiate between P's mental state in these two different scenarios? Surely in neither of these two situations 'P' had any 'intention' of killing 'M', as in the first case he was intoxicated and was not in a position to form any kind of mens rea (mental state) and in the second case he surely was not in control of his actions.

Come, KILL with Apple!

I was in my dinner table last night, enjoying my after meal tea and gazing through the afternoon paper, when an article caught my attention, iSuicide. Like iPod, iPhone and iPad, iSuicide. The article was about the corporate giant Apple. Allegedly Apple's contractor in China, Foxconn, has created an working environment so harsh and stressful for its employees that in last 16 months 9 employees committed suicide. They are now practically undertaking affidavit from new employees stating that they will not commit suicide and if they do they forfeit all the benefits, specially those their families can claim. The report says that due to the hike in demand for Apple products the contractors are struggling to keep up with the supply, and to make up, they are forcing the workers with 12 hours straight shifts and in addition, occasional overtime, military style. On top of it these workers are not even paid the national minimum wage which is $300 a month or 800 Chinese Yuan. In fact at some places wage is equivalent to $8 a day or less. Now I do not need to stress but this is violation of every rule of Chinese, US and International labour laws. What is Apple doing about it? The answer is nothing.

Micro-credit in Bangladesh, what went wrong?

I had been following the Grameen Bank (GB) incident in Bangladesh for some time now, and it seems since the High Court Division (HCD) decision to refuse Dr. Yunus's writ there is very little news on this issue (it might have something to do with the heat of Cricket WC). It was expected, as a nation we (Bangladeshis) are hot headed, we jump before we look, most of the time we don't know what happened, in fact we don't care, but we have to make some noise where we can.

Couple of things were very interesting (in the sense of the probably apocryphal Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times') in this whole Yunus scandal. I have come to view and read a large number of youtube videos, news articles (including original Norwegian reports, from their website ofcourse) and comments in social website network about Dr. Yunus being, on one hand a culprit and on the other a victim by the current political regime. But what seemed lacking in all these comments, videos and blogs was an objective look. I myself had commented on several links in the social web facebook about the legality of the removal of Dr. Yunus as MD of GB. But in this particular blog my intention is to put all the scattered thoughts into one single place. There are two different issues that need to be considered in this particularly stigmatic event, namely legal and policy.