Perhaps it is safer to trust no one.

A woman in Mumbai who has named her step-father instead of her biological father in her passport application has been asked whether she was conceived by rape. A passport is an identity document, especially for travel to a foreign country. Every passport contains particulars of the holder, such as name, date of birth, place of birth, photograph and finger prints printed on the first 2 pages while the last page has the names of the father, mother, spouse, in case of married people, and address. Millions of people do not own any property, so have no fixed address, and many communities have no fixed surname which passes down from one generation to the next. India does not allow dual citizenship so a passport is also a certificate of citizenship which means it is important to know whether the father was a foreign national or not. This should be made absolutely clear, instead of asking if the mother was raped. Although numbers are still small, some women in India, especially educated ones, are choosing  to conceive either by artificial insemination or by physical relations with a man, without the restrictions of marriage. Since a child has no say in its own conception children of such single mothers should not be discriminated against. An official at the Ministry of External Affairs said that a birth certificate and an affidavit from the mother stating that she was single when she gave birth to the applicant would suffice. What if the biological father was a foreign national, especially of a hostile country? After all motherhood is a certainty, because lots of people are witnesses, but fatherhood is always a little doubtful. If a woman has the right to give birth without getting married and to have an abortion up to 20 weeks of pregnancy it means that the law is recognising a woman's right to her own reproductive system. In which case prostitution should also be made legal as suggested by the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women and demanded by those practising the trade. We may think that it is terrible for a woman to have to sell her body to survive but for those already in the trade a legal acceptance as a legitimate business would stop harassment by the police and allow them to access bank loans and other facilities. The ladies would be able to get rid of pimps, who abuse them, and organise themselves so that trafficking of women is stopped. The problem is that our journalists tend to twist facts, perhaps deliberately. Apparently the police in Kerala will not allow adults to kiss in public. We are supposed to be outraged. But surely in these days of ' love jihad ' it is better not to risk a riot if the kissers happen to be of different communities. Sadly, these days there are so many crooks that it is hard to trust anyone.