The Story of Rishi Ashtavakra

Ashtavakra is a revered Vedic sage in Hinduism. His name literally means "eight bends", reflecting the eight physical handicaps he was born with. His maternal grandfather was the Vedic sage Aruni, his parents were both Vedic students at Aruni's school. Ashtavakra studied, became a sage and a celebrated character in the mythologies of the Hindu Epics and Puranas.

Little is known about the life or century in which Ashtavakra actually lived, except for the mythologies found in the major Indian Epics (the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) and the Puranas. 

 In the Aranya Kanda of Ramayana, the demon Kabhanda narrates his story to Rama and Lakshmana, in which he says that he was a Gandharva earlier who was cursed by Ashtavakra to become a demon when he laughed on seeing him (Ashtavakra). When the Gandharva then bowed down to Ashtavakra, Ashtavakra said that he would be released from the curse by Rama in Treta Yuga.

In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, the legend of Aṣṭāvakra is described in greater detail. On losing the game of dice with the Kauravas, the five Pandava princes and Draupadi are exiled for twelve years. On their pilgrimage, they meet the sage Lomaśa, and he narrates to the Pāṇḍava princes the legend of Aṣṭāvakra, over three chapters of Vana Parva of the Mahābhārata.
Ashtavakra is an unconventional and a lesser known person who has played a major role in shaping our culture and history...
The Ashtavakra Gita is also one of the major texts which is written as a dialogue between Rishi Ashtavakra and Rajrishi Janaka..

THE SATI PRATHA

A wife was burnt alive at the funeral pyre of her dead husband! Sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? Yet this barbaric practice of Sati had been prevalent in orthodox Hindu society for many centuries. This was based on a warped notion that a woman had no existence once her husband had died. Millions of women were consigned to an untimely and horrific death due to the pressures of a rigidly patriarchal system.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, after the coming of colonial rulers in India they were horrified to witness such a ritual. This was as the Sati Practice violated their faith in the Christian ethics which believes  that all life howsoever insignificant is precious and a gift of God.

Raja Ramohan Roy

 It was the prominent social reformer, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who  first  protested against this custom. Horrified and deeply pained at witnessing his own sister-in -law committing ritual suicide at his brother’s pyre, he continued with his propaganda against the custom in spite of protests from orthodox Hindus. Finally, he succeeded in his mission when Lord William Bentinck, the then Governor General of India, passed a law in 1829 abolishing the custom of Sati.

The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act 1987

 According to this law, the practice of Sati became illegal and punishable as culpable homicide. Slowly but evidently over the next few decades this practice was socially discarded.
Despite all the efforts  made by independent India isolated cases were still reported. In 1987, a case of Sati, leading to a nation wide furore and demand for stringent action ,was reported from Deorala, Rajasthan. A young woman named Roop Kanwar was reportedly forced to immolate herself at the funeral pyre of her dead husband. This incident received wide publicity and as a response to the public outcry, the Government of India passed The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.With this act the cruel practice of Sati was banned for ever from the Indian soil.