the India of today

Rape and molestation, mindset and judgments

2012-01-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

It has been a rather sad first week of the New Year. It is difficult to change mindsets and again and again the same kind of judgments land making light of the plight of girls and women on the receiving end of gender violence.

No faith that the legal system will help
First came the news of a mother wanting to opt out of the legal system which had failed to bring justice to her daughter now 18, who had been raped in Delhi four years ago. The girl fearing ridicule and bias by the society had tried to commit suicide by swallowing acid. Her damaged food pipe had to be replaced by an artificial one and the mother informed the court that her daughter lay in a vegetable state. The mother pleaded in court that the case be closed. She expressed the family's inability and unwillingness to fight the case and seek justice any longer.

Waiting for four years is indeed a long harrowing time, especially when the authorities do not act. It leaves the victim and the family which also suffers trauma, double victimised, first by the rapist criminal and then by an inactive state system. In this case, the parents had pursued the case for four years, during which the girl's father suffered two heart attacks and her mother had to work as a maid to feed the family. There was no help from the state, monetary or otherwise.

Finally, the Delhi court ordered Rs one lakh as compensation, pointing out that the apex court too has held that subordinate courts trying rape cases have the jurisdiction to award interim compensation as the offence of rape is against the victim's basic human rights and violation of her fundamental right to life and liberty.

"I'm shocked to observe that despite this pathetic state of the victim and her family, who, I find, are feeling a sense of physical and psychological isolation, no assistance has been provided to her by the state," the judge observed, ordering Delhi Government to award her the compensation, noting the vegetative state the victim has reduced to.

The judge, who has given some gender sensitive judgments in the past, noted: "Rape of a minor not only affects her but has also a devastative impact on her entire family, which equally suffers in silence as has happened in the present case."

"It is cases like these which the Ministry of Women and Child development needs to target for restorative justice so that the medical and legal assistance, besides professional and psychological counselling, shelter and other support is provided to the victim, which, in the present, case has not been done," the judge is reported to have said.

Pack of molestors
And just as the New Year dawned we learnt of yet another very sad case of a gang of raucous men pouncing on a young girl. Check out the complete lack of restraint by a group of young men on New Year's eve in Gurgaon. A similar case had happened in Mumbai some years ago. The poor men get so out of control at the mere sight of a woman that they pounce on her. The Hindustan Times quotes an eye witness as saying, “They were touching her initially and ended up tearing her clothes. They were passing lewd remarks in the middle of the road. I was shocked to see what could happen on Gurgaon roads."

Society should be very concerned that it raises its members to behave in this fashion. These men need urgent psychiatric help to be able to control their impulses. Otherwise they need to be put behind bars.

When we have a top cop talk of "josh food" and that "clothes can provoke men to rape" one can only wonder at the sheer ignorance of these men in powerful positions. I had the occasion to go through the training course of Haryana cops. There was just no effort made to sensitise them on gender violence and how to deal with it. So it comes as no surprise when you find these men indulging in gender violence themselves and the rising number of custodial rapes.

In all such cases, as our top cop, society feels the women ask for it. This is what prevents women from lodging a case. In the Gurgoan case, the FIR has been registered by the policemen who got injured in the melee that followed their attempt to rescue the girl. Not by the girl. For the girl knows better. She will have to relive her trauma if she lodges a complaint. And then what? What will happen to the men? Their families will probably laugh it off. The men will continue to strut around and nothing would have changed.

Where is justice?
Now, look at another mockery of justice: The judgement given by the Bombay High court in the case of a 10-month old baby girl who was sodomised. The court actually reduced the sentence handed out to Ramkishan Harijan, who worked as a labourer with a brick-trader in Mumbai, from 10 years to seven.years, accepting his contention that "he lost control over himself as he was living away from his family".

The Indian Express reports that in his judgment, Justice M L Tahaliyani also said that the six years Harijan had already spent in jail be taken into account. “Trial judge was aware of the fact that the appellant (Harijan) was married and (had) two children and his family was staying in Uttar Pradesh... No doubt, this by itself may not be a reason for lenient sentence. However, had it been considered in the proper perspective, the learned trial court probably would have imposed lesser sentence than 10 years,” Justice M L Tahaliyani wrote in his judgment recently. Click here for earlier shocking judgements.

Increase the sentence, keep the man locked up, for he is a beast and cannot be trusted among humans
Why should the fact that the man is married and has children reduce the sentence? In fact, there is all the more reason to free the wife legally from such a man so that she and the children have nothing to do with him. If the man is so deranged to force himself on a neighbour's child, a 10-month old baby at that and injuring her so brutally that she was left bleeding from her private parts, just think of the danger he would pose to his own wife and children. Think how cruel he could be with them over whom he has more control. So, there is all the more reason for the court to increase the period of the sentence so that he poses no threat to his own and other children. And arrange psychaitric counselling for him. For only a totally depraved and deranged being (I cannot call him human) can act in this way with a baby.

You might like to read-
Chemical castration for rapists, why not?

Some questions for Andhra top cop - Dinesh Reddy

2011-12-31T23:49:00.000-08:00

A factor behind the increasing number of rape cases is that women dress provocatively.
This is a considered view of one of India's top cops, the Director General of Police, Andhra Pradesh, V Dinesh Reddy. He also thinks the salwar kameez is a provoking dress!

What does he want us to do? Cover ourselves with a chadar and lock outrselves at home - Taliban style?

And Mr Dinesh Reddy, tell us why are children and babies raped? And elderly women? And women in burkhas? Why is there incest?

Kudos to home minister, P Chidambaram for taking objection to the remark. He is reported to have strongly disagreed with the statement. To read a full report click here.

Now, how do we educate men like Reddy?

Convoluted Justice: Violence most foul

2011-09-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

I am proud to get this badge from blogging gurus, IHM and her Team, for the post that follows. It is an honour that I treasure.

To read other award winning posts click here. Each post makes one THINK!

The post appeared as an article in The Tribune on September 2, 2011

Violence most foul

Rape is one of the most heinous crimes, impacting the victim for life. Given its enormity, it should be considered next only to murder. Sadly, it has not been given the attention it needs by social scientists, law makers and justice dispensers. When two Class IX boys attempt to rape a Class I girl, as in a Bathinda school recently, it is time society introspected. What kind of signals are we sending out to our young?

The National Crime Records Bureau had termed rape "India's fastest growing crime". We have complete figures for 2009, when according to the NCRB, a total of 21,397 rape incidents were reported countrywide. Add to this, 25,741 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women and 38,711 cases of molestation, and you get 235 reported cases of molestation/rape/ abduction of women every day. These are just the reported cases. Most, especially molestation and rape cases, go unreported in the name of guarding 'family honour'.

Let us examine some recent sentences proclaimed by our justice dispensers and the messages these have sent out to society.A few months ago the Supreme Court decided to let off three farmers, who had been convicted of gang raping a woman in Ludhiana district. A sessions court had awarded a 10-year imprisonment to them. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had upheld their conviction, following which, the criminals appealed to the Supreme Court. Their sentence was cut short after a few years under a "compromise formula" that entailed paying Rs 50,000 each to the victim.

The rapists had appealed to be let off as "they and the victim were happily married to their spouses" and "wanted to live peacefully". The fact that the victim is "happily married" is no credit to the rapists. Did the judges ascertain the happiness quotient of the criminals' marriages? Did they speak to their wives? Men who rape, make for draconian and violent husbands. As far as "wanting to live peacefully is concerned", it is easy to say that after committing a violent crime. The fact that they can indulge in rape makes them dangerous criminals. If they could do that to one woman, they can inflict themselves on another. How does the court ensure that this does not happen? The National Council for Women has asked for a review of the case for it sets a bad precedence of reaching a compromise in rape cases, where conviction rates are extremely low anyway.

Wrong signals embolden rapists

It is not surprising that such a judgement should come from our highest court. The former Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, is reported to have said that society and the state must respect the decision of a rape victim if she chooses to marry the rapist. His words as reported by a newspaper: "Due regard must be given to their personal autonomy since in some cases victims may choose to marry the perpetrator." Imagine the trauma of a woman having to spend her life with a man who has raped her? It is like inflicting a lifelong sentence of mental and physical cruelty on her, while the man goes scot free. And then, what would prevent the rapist from marrying the victim to escape punishment and then deserting her? This kind of a mindset furthers the warped view society holds that marriage is the be all and end all for a woman. And that it is better to marry a man who has raped you than not marry at all!

Now look at the punishment a panchayat in Ghaziabad meted out to an rapist uncle: It ruled that five smacks with a shoe was enough punishment for raping his niece. In another case, also in Ghaziabad, a five-year-old was raped by her 19-year-old cousin. But the family chose to keep quiet, not even getting medical attention for the little girl.

She was sent to school the next day where she complained of abdominal pain and died. It was only then that the parents approached the police. The girl's mother said she had raised an alarm when she saw the cousin raping the child. The family elders had caught him, slapped him and let him off. Consider now how these family elders and panchayats handle youngsters who marry outside their caste group or marry within their own gotra. The punishment has ranged from social ostracism to even death! Obviously, rape is considered a minor crime compared to violation of caste and kinship lines.

Compounding victims' trauma

The law as it stands today is weak and archaic. Apart from woefully inadequate sentences, it only recognises vaginal rape and does not believe that children below 12 can be raped. Women's groups have been demanding its amendment but though decades have passed, the bill is still in a draft stage.

The Aruna Shanbaug case illustrates the complete warpedness of our justice system. While Aruna, the nurse who was raped and maimed for life has been lying in a hospital bed for the last 37 years, the rapist, ward boy Sohanlal Walmiki, is a free man today. He is said to have changed his name, moved to Delhi with his family where he works in a hospital. He was imprisoned for only seven years for attacking her and stealing her jewellery, but not for rape as it was anal and not vaginal rape he indulged in as Aruna was menstruating at that time. What kind of justice is this?

The death penalty awarded to rapist and murderer Santosh Kumar Singh was commuted to a life sentence because of what is termed as "mitigating circumstances". Among them were that he was "young, just 24 years old" at the time of his crime. At 24 years, one is an adult! The fact that he was "married" and "the father of a girl child" were the other "mitigating" factors. Now, how does this help either the wife or the daughter? They have to fend for themselves anyway and live with the knowledge of having a rapist and murderer as a husband and father for the rest of their lives. In fact, the law should give the wife and children of a rapist the choice to walk off from the relationship with no legal binding on their part, while retaining all their rights on the family property. If the wife has the option of being legally freed of the relationship, she can think of starting her life again. It is extremely traumatic for a young girl to grow up knowing her father is a rapist. In fact, such men are best kept away from their daughters.

We have also had judgments where the sentence was commuted when the rapist passed a civil services exam. What is the message that went out? That if you pass the exam, all will be forgiven and you will occupy an important government post. In fact, the opposite should be the case. Convicted rapists who have served their term in jail should be debarred from holding a government job.

Need for unorthodox methods

The law must acknowledge that rape mars a person for life. The condition has been recognised as Rape Trauma Syndrome where the victim suffers from phobias and nightmares and feels emotionally crippled, unable to form meaningful relationships and friendships for life.

Kamini Lau, Delhi's additional sessions judge, recently called for a public debate on “chemical and surgical castration” of child rapists and serial offenders as an alternative punishment. She said this while delivering a sentence for a man who raped his minor step daughter for four years.

Chemical castration is being used in parts of United States and many European countries, with the rapist's consent. Sweden, France and Germany are among them. In Poland it is mandatory. A province in Argentina is the latest to adopt it. It involves an injection of an anti-pregnancy drug every three months to lower libido and uncontrolled sexual impulses. There is much evidence in the medical and psychiatric world that a rapist cannot be cured unless there is a medical intervention. It is time to act. There can be no compromises with a rapist.

To read other Tejaswee Rao award winning posts click here

Anna and spontaneous protest

2011-08-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

At my neighbourhood market in Delhi:

The protest against the denial of the right to protest builds up. It began when a group of persons holding candles and shouting pro-Anna and anti-corruption slogans came in a procession and entered the market square.

PS: Notice the 'Citizen First' board. Ironical?

Quickly, the group swelled. The late evening shoppers, the momo munchers, the pani-puri poppers joined them. There was the aunty, the uncle, the dude, the dudette, the bhaiya and the bhenji. One aunty stepped on to a cement platform and urged the gathering to come out in support for Anna. "Act NOW!" she urged. A dude took over. There was some slogan shouting.

They lit the candles. The little platform was soon ablaze. It was a fire of protest againt a system that was throttling free expression. The last time I had seen candles on the platform was during Diwali, put up by the shopkeepers in celebration. But today, the candles were an Indian's expression that all was not right with her/his world. The news of the government deciding to release Anna came in. But the people did not go away. Instead they decided to gather there every day at the same time and continue their struggle.

And the little flames that flickered seemed to be saying: "Let there be light. Let us lift the darkness, the cover of corruption from Indian life..."

The weight of undernourishment

2011-07-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

In 1970, a young community health physician, Saroj Pachauri in her PhD thesis focused on low birth weight, which was a major cause of death among infants in India at that time. Thirty per cent of all babies born then had low birth weight. Today, the figure remains the same and low birth weight continues to be a major cause of death among infants.

Decades of various family planning and welfare programmes have not been able to give our babies a better start in life. Of all infant deaths, 65 per cent occur in the very first month, and majority of them are babies with low birth weight. It becomes very tough to save them in the sub-optimal conditions of our rural health centres, if they reach there at all.

Dismal picture

The health of the Indian women is among the worst in the world. A recent World Bank report put the figure of anaemic and undernourished girls in India at 300 million and women at 30 million. This should jolt a country to remedial action.

Poverty, poor infant feeding practices, neglect of the girl child and social customs like eating after the men and the boys have been fed, leave the females undernourished. When under and malnourishment is coupled with early marriage as over 50 per cent of Indian women marry before they reach 18 years, it spells danger, especially during childbirth.

A recent study puts the maternal mortality figure at 254 per 1,00,000 live births. Infant mortality, defined per 1000 live births, is at 53. Both the figures, though improved over the last few decades, are still extremely high. A real shame! For a country, which attracts people from around the world for complicated medical procedures, cannot save its own women and babies. India’s maternal mortality ratio is 16 times higher than Russia, 10 times that of China and four times that of Brazil.

Both the babies and the mothers die largely from the same factors – apart from poor hygiene, lack of adequate newborn and maternal care. Low birth weight predisposes them to complications and death from malaria, pneumonia, and diarrohea.

Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam contribute 75 per cent of all infant deaths in the country. Maternal mortality figures are high among, what are now termed as the Empowered Action Group states - Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Assam.

Schemes don’t reach out

India has been dispensing iron and folic acid tablets to the pregnant women for decades and dishing out meals to its school going children. For the last 40 years, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme has been running. However, these schemes have had only limited success. One of the criticisms against ICDS was that it failed to reach the very vulnerable 0-3 year age group, in any significant way. By then, under-nourishment had done its harm.

The upcoming Fourth National Family Health Survey will reveal just how well the efforts at improving the health of women and children have been. Since the third survey in 2005-06 the National Rural Health Mission and the Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY) have been launched, entailing large-scale employment of resources, human and monetary, like never before.

In 2005, JSY, the biggest cash transfer scheme ever, was launched. It aimed at getting the women to deliver at a medical centre, as opposed to home, so that they and the newborn could get timely medical attention. Initial studies show that women have started going to institutions for delivery, but they are being discharged within a few hours, so that they become eligible to receive the Rs 1400. Health scientists point out that woman and her baby need to be under medical care for at least 48 hours. The neonatal period is a critical time and many infants and their mothers could be saved.

Interviews by the writer in Uttar Pradesh villages revealed that people are happy with the cash amount they get, at times given after a mandatory ‘cut’ to the ‘authorities’. But it is not being spent on food for the mother; instead it goes towards buying household items. Even the National Rural Health Mission, which has improved the demand for public health facilities, has not been able to check infant mortality rate in any substantial way.

The results of NFHS 3 have been disappointing. Around one third of the women were having their first child while still in their teens. The risk of low birth weight and neo natal mortality increases when the woman is an adolescent. The Indian Council of Medical Research has found maternal mortality among adolescents to be as high as 645 per 100,000 live births.

Think beyond numbers

In 1983, the National Health Policy had expected to reach the replacement level total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 per cent by 2000. TFR is calculated as the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. But by 2000, we were nowhere near. However, the year saw the establishment of a new National Population Policy and the goal of 2.1 TFR was extended to 2010. Today ten states – Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have TFR between 3.0 and 3.9. Demographers now predict that the near replacement TFR is still some decades away. The US Census Bureau calculates a fertility rate of 2.2 by 2050! By then, we would have become the most populous country in the world with numbers that could range from 1.5 billion to 1.8 billion, overtaking China in 2030.

We will soon have the largest ever generation of adolescents. They can be a ‘demographic dividend’ only if they are healthy. But a half of India’s children today are moderately or severely malnourished.

What is more, most Indian children suffer from at least one micronutrient deficiency. Over 75 per cent of preschool children suffer from anaemia and almost 60 per cent have sub-clinical Vitamin A deficiency. Progress in reducing the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in India has been excruciatingly slow. Child morbidity and mortality is higher for girls aged one month to 5 years than for boys, as the girls receive less food and health care. It is a vicious cycle—an undernourished girl will grow up to be unhealthy and give birth to low weight babies.

In 1994, some health scientists brought out a book – “Listening to Women Talk About their Health”. It featured health studies from different villages and slums of India and made a strong case for population-based studies on women’s health instead of hospital/clinic ones to get a better picture so that better policies can be framed and their needs addressed. For often poor women do not, or to put it better, cannot access the health system. Therefore, listen to what they are saying, what they want from a health system.

Some health scientists have been critical of India’s obsession with numbers, i.e. population control, and not focusing enough on women’s health and well being. At the end of it all – a healthy woman means a healthy baby. And a healthy and an educated woman means a healthier child and adult. Forty years down the road, Dr Pachauri, now heading Population Council of India, is saying the same thing: Improve the health of the women if you want to save the babies.

The above article by me appeared in The Tribune on July 12, 2011.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110712/edit.htm#6

Handcuffed in school in the US

2011-05-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

What do you say when a teenager is HANDCUFFED in a SCHOOL in the US for a crime she never committed?

The news that a school girl, Krittika Biswas, who happens to be the daughter of an Indian diplomat, was arrested, handcuffed and thrown in with criminals for a crime she never committed, has shocked India. (Her supposed crime was sending some obscene emails to her teachers). The fact that these actions have been taken in the United States of America is all the more shocking. For we all know that the United States shouts the loudest on human rights, and is the self appointed monitor of human rights records of other countries through its NGOs like Amnesty. But its own status surfaces through actions like these and leave a very bad taste in the mouth. For the leader has a different set of rules to judge others, and ignores the wrong doings in its own house.

There are some very basic issues in this case, which are very disturbing:.
1. Should societies that pride themselves for being civilized resort to handcuffing school children, even if they have committed a crime?
2. Treat someone as a criminal even before the charges against the person are proven? What has happened to the justice system of the country?

3. Should a crime like sending some obscene emails warrant handcuffs?

4. While Krittika was held in custody she was not even allowed to use the bathroom and had to go in front of everyone. Which medieval society are we talking about?

5. Krittika has been quoted as saying that the arrest was based on nothing and even when the real culprit was found, neither the school nor the state apologized to her. What does this say of a school system, where young are supposed to be guided and nurtured, where the teachers set examples? Even if the girl had sent the obscene emails, the teachers and the school should provide a system where the child can be counseled. In India, the police is kept out of educational institutes, and can be called in only in case of physical violence or damage to property. Now, what is the role of the teachers? Are they there merely there to teach maths or physics? Does their role end there? What is the purpose of schools?

6. And this one takes the hamburger! Even after the charges were dropped against her by the district attorney, the school officials sent her to a suspension centre! Some gross negligence here -- adding insult to injury.

Krittika has sued New York city for $1.5 million. But I feel justice would be done only if the school principal and other concerned authorities are arrested and tried for gross negligence of duty and torturing of a child.

To read about the case in detail click here.

Chemical castration for rapists? Why not?

2011-05-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Kamini Lau, Delhi's additional sessions judge, has shown a lot of pluck in calling for "chemical castration" of child rapists and serial offenders. It is high time we had some stiff punishment for these criminals. In our country rapists rarely get the imprisonment they deserve. At the end of this post, I give links to some cases which show the non serious manner in which society and our judges have been dealing with such cases. A former Chief Justice of India had even suggested that the victim marry her rapist!

Kamini Lau is quoted as having said: "A full public debate, with regard to imposition of castration (both surgical and chemical) as an alternative punishment for the offence of rape and molestation, is the need of the hour." She made the observation while delivering a 10 year rigorous imprisonment for a man who raped his minor step daughter for over four years. To read the report in full click here.

Rapists in our country are let off very lightly with just a few years in jail at best. The woman however goes through a private hell her whole life. The most telling example is the case of the Aruna Shanbag, the nurse in a Mumbai hospital who was raped by a ward boy. Walmiki, the rapist, is a free man today after a few years in prison. He lives with his wife and children and works, (really horrifying as per some newspaper reports) in a hospital! Aruna, instead, lives a life confined to the hospital bed, having lost her power of speech and movement. Her fiance and family have deserted her. She has been alone for decades. The punishment meted out to the criminal in this case does not match his crime. He should have been imprisoned for life. And kept away from his wife and children. If he could behave in this way with a woman who was a senior colleague, it does not need much imagination to think how he must be treating his wife and daughters, if he has any.

A couple of years ago I had asked women bloggers from around the world what they felt should be the punishment for rape. What do you think they said? Prison for life or castration! The similarity in their response was amazing.

Some earlier posts -
Another shocking judgement on rape

Rape victim has to resort to legal action to take an exam!

Six month old baby girl raped

Rape, fastest growing crime in India

Society elders decide five shoe smacks enough punishment for a rapist

It happens only in India!

2011-04-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

There are some things that can happen only in this colourful land of ours. It never fails to surprise. Have a laugh!

Termites eat crores of rupees! Where? In a bank strong room in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh. Click here to read.

One interesting comment on the site by a reader, Bharat Bhushan:

We have the biggest living termite species called "POLITICIANS & GOVT OFFICIALS"... They have eaten up 70% of tax-payers money... without a trace...

Do you agree?

'Family honour' more important than 'justice'

2011-04-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Another one of those stories of misplaced family honour was in The Hindustan Times today. It makes you wonder what is wrong with our value system. A five year old was raped by her 19 year-old cousin. The family came to know about it, but chose to keep quiet in the name of family honour. They probably did not seek medical help for the child and sent her to school. She complained of abdomen pain and died a little later. A complaint with the police was lodged only after she died.

Some hard facts -
The family prizes 'honour' over a member's life.
The family does not even think the man needs to be punished for the barbaric act.
Female lives are cheap. Especially a little girl's life.
Adults even today find it tough to argue their case in front of 'family elders'. Reminds one of the khap panchayats ruled by patriarchs where the young and the women have no say.

Wouldn't the family be held in esteem if its elders had tried to pursue justice for the victim and get the criminal, even if he happens to be from the family, punished?

This case reminded me of an earlier one where a few hits by a shoe was considered enough punishement for a rapist!

India is rising against corruption

2011-04-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

With you, Anna Hazare!

Something is happening finally. The anger of the common man and woman against corruption is building up. We have had enough of scams - one after the other. We have seen our politicians prosper at our cost. They seem to become rich overnight. There are more billionaires in the Parliament now than there ever were. The bureaucrats have joined the politicians, in diverting funds, amassing wealth. Judges, who were once considered above board, have joined the corrupt ranks. Even the armed forces.

The rich are becoming richer. Our MPs and MLAs give themselves periodic pay rises. And the poor? There is no end to their miseries. Rising prices, homes beyond reach, a government school system for their children that makes a mockery of education, a health system difficult to access...

Anna Hazare, began his fast unto death against corruption yesterday.Thank God we have people like him, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi...They give us hope. That it is in our power to change things and we shall. They have the support of the common people of India. Now, it is upto us to build this no corruption movement. Give our voice to it.

The Lokpal bill against corruption is the longest pending bill in Parliament: For some reason or the other it has been held back for 42 years by various governments! It has seen many drafts and the latest one is one weak one. Hazare has a very simple demand. That the team that scrutinises the Lokpal bill clause by clause should be 50 per cent people's representatives and the other 50 per cent be the ministers. But so far the government is showing no mood of relenting.

Every time the bill emerges there is some viogorous discussion and then it goes into abeyance. But this time, I sense a difference. The public mood is WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH. You cannot loot us anymore. We wont allow it.

I hope the mood sustains. And we get a strong law against corruption. So that politicians, bureaucrats, judges, persons occupying high public posts, who have looted this country, are brought to book.

Whew! Wouldn't that be wonderful?

More on Corruption and India

Corruption in India : A rotten state
Fastest way to become rich, become an MP
Where is my leader?

Rich MPs, poor people

70 dead in building crash, but the building does not exist in MCD records!

Anna and spontaneous protest

Rape fastest growing crime in India, says National Crime Records Bureau

2011-03-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says rape is the fastest growing crime in India. NCRB figures available for 2009 show that 21,397 rape incidents were reported in the country in 2009. There were also more than 25,000 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women, aside from cases of molestation which numbered more than 38,000.

This means that every day -
about 60 women who get raped in India, report the crime. There will be many more who keep quiet.

About 68 women get abducted and kidnapped and 104 women who are molested pick up courage and report the crime.
To read a detailed report by Inter Press Service, click here.

Other posts - Rape and punishment
Is there something seriously wrong with the way we bring up boys?

Is Climate Change an Exaggerated Concern?

2011-03-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Here is an event open to all college students. Bring your i-card along!

Is Climate Change an Exaggerated Concern?

Location: Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi

March 24, 2011 From 11.30 am to 1 pm

Prakriti- The Environment Society, is pleased to invite you to join us for a panel discussion on ‘Climate Change is an Exaggerated Concern’ organised by Green Karbon, a Deutsche Bank- Sanctuary Asia Climate Change- Biodiversity initiative.

The Speakers
· Muhammad A. Khan, Advisor of Law and Policy to Ministry of Environment and Forests
· Professor Vinod Chandra Menon, Former Member National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India
· Samir Menon, Head of Eco-Sustainable Services, Tata Consultancy Services.

Speakers from LSR
· Dr. Kalyani, Senior Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Lady Shri Ram College
· Preeti Venkatram, President, Prakriti- The Environment Society of Lady Shri Ram College

Please register at the link given below:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHRXcXRraVNDMWtrWGsxS0tJMWwyLXc6MQ

Lady Shri Ram College's Go Green Week

2011-03-06T22:57:00.000-08:00

Lady Shri Ram College is hosting an environment week from March 21 to 26 with competitions galore for college students!

Make an ad, design a folder, take part in a quiz, make a photo story or participate in the LSR MCOP.

Certificates and prizes to be won!

For details click on LSR Prakriti Week.

Another shocking judgement on rape by the Indian Supreme Court

2011-02-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

All it needs is Rs 50,000 as fine to buy freedom from a prison sentence for gangrape.

Three men were convicted of gangraping a woman and the Punjab and Haryana High Court had upheld their conviction and punishment. The three criminals appealed against their conviction and the Supreme Court of India let them off after (as reported in The Hindustan Times) they agreed to a "compromise formula" of paying Rs 50,000 each to the victim.

Note what has been considered by the court -
1. The rapists had said that "they and the victim were happily married to their spouses". Consider, if a man can rape a woman, what torture he must be inflicting on his wife? Did the judges talk to the wives? Did they find out what kind of husbands the men were? I think the wives are better off without having to live with such men. The court would have done the three wives a big favour by keeping their men locked up.
I would go so far as to say that the wife or fiancee of a rapist should have the freedom to walk off from the relationship with no legal binding if she so chooses and take the children with her. The man should lose all his rights to his property which should go to the wife and other dependant relatives.

2. The fact that the victim is "happily married" is no credit to the rapists. I would say that the woman's husband has shown maturity and not reacted the way we have known some husbands to behave.

3. The men said "they wanted to live peacefully". It is easy to say that after committing a violent crime. What happened to their desire of living peacefully earlier? The fact that they can attack a woman in this way makes them dangerous criminals. They should be kept behind bars for life. For they spell danger for women. How will the court ensure that they do not repeat their act? It is not only the safety of the victim but other women too in question.

I am happy to see two eminent women advocates Kamini Jaiswal and Pinky Anand crticise the shocking judgement of the highest court in land.

India does treat its women shabbily.

My reaction to the judgement is as an Indian woman. To read what lawyers are saying about the judgement read here.

It was heartening to see the National Commission for Women react to the judgement and prepare to seek a its review. But I am wondering why there were no protests by Indian women. What has happened to our women's groups? I remember the mid-Seventies and the early-Eighties when as young women we marched to Parliament, held protest marches, organised sit-ins and gheraos on so many issues affecting us - dowry, rape laws, portrayal in the media. The activism helped initiate many changes in the laws and society.

But where are our young firebrand women today?

A lesson in living

2011-02-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

The following article by me appeared in the Speaking Tree, The Times of India, under the title "Lessons from Ma Ginger"

Behind the trunk

She was a lady of the streets. She lived by her wits and gave us menacing stares. But we were persistent. We looked out for her, knew the time when she would hit the front yard or the back lane. The boys were after her — human as well as feline. For she was a real beauty — a beige cat with brown stripes and the cutest face you ever saw.

I found her one morning in my backyard, looking as if she owned it, and I was the intruder. I raised my arm threateningly. She got up lazily to plonk herself a little distance away. There was some movement behind the steel trunk. She had brought her day-old kittens — three ginger like her, and two black and white after the father. We knew him. He would stretch out in the park, his black coat striking against the monsoon grass.

One could not possibly drive away a mother and her babies, and so she stayed. You could catch her most of the time feeding and tending litter, taking short breaks for herself, when she ensured the kitties were securely behind the trunk. She suffered our presence silently, kept a suspicious eye on us, inflicting us with steely glares and an occasional snarl.

One night we woke up to much whining and crying. We ran out to see Ma sitting on her haunches guarding her brood from a big brown cat on the boundary wall with the meanest face you ever saw. Seeing us, Meanie slunk off, and we got back into bed only to be woken up moments later by feline cries.

This time we picked up a walking stick, feeling very sorry for the family and hoping to teach him a lesson. Ma had moved back many paces while Meanie was now on the ground ready for attack. Seeing us, he jumped back up on the wall and Ma picked up courage to give a chase. The kitties were quivering in fear. We left the stick out hoping it would instil fear in Meanie.

Suddenly, there was much snarling and whining. We dashed out to discover he had killed a kitty. Meanie jumped up the wall and vanished into the dark. A lifeless kitten lay there, while its siblings and mother gathered around it. It was a deeply moving moment. Sorrow hung visibly over the little family that had frolicked during the day. Ma did not bother about us, so great was her grief.

As the early morning sun rose, I saw Ma on the boundary wall. The kitties had gone, even the dead one. Ma had probably found a safer place. The family emerged a week later. The kitties were bigger and Ma had brought them to our front lawn. They tumbled about in the pots. But by the end of the day, the family had moved again. We were horrified to learn that she had moved next door, probably thinking the overgrown bushes would provide the much-needed cover. But she had not contended with two little horrors who lived there. We knew they had spotted the kitties, for we heard their squeals and that of their little sister. What would Ma do now?

That night we found a dead kitty on the compound wall. The next night, we heard a lot of screeching and whining and knew Ma was in trouble again. Sure enough, a third kitty was dead in the flower bed. Ma was down to two kitties. We watched out for her anxiously. We do not know whether she moved house again, but she preferred the quiet of our garden for her late evening feeding session.

Once again, the family disappeared, only to reappear a few days later. Ma’s beautiful face had a wound. We knew Meanie was on her trail. Sure enough, there was only one kitty and she was back living with us. She hid it sometimes behind the garbage bin, or under the staircase, even under the stationary car before she took off for a break. It has now been a week, but we have not seen the pair. I used to think life was hard and unfair.

I used to crib about small things. But seeing the way Ma fought a battle for survival every minute of the day, with no support system or friends, humbled me. She faced life as best as she could… against great odds, never quitting. Ma taught me a lesson in living.

Scurrying for cover

Corruption and India and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi

2011-01-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

How many employees does the Municipal Corporation of Delhi have on its rolls?

One would think in this age and date the figure would be readily available. But no. It is the biggest mystery. And it is taking the form of an action thriller. The Delhi High Court, the Delhi police and the MCD itself are trying to unravel the mystery. And I, as a resident of Delhi, am waiting with baited breath to know the number. But it seems the wait is going to be long.

Various figures have emerged at various points in time of the MCD's elusive employees --the sweepers, the gardeners that are supposed to keep India's Capital city clean and green but are missing from its rolls: 22000, 29680, 43415 even 212 and now some strange new figure. We rarely see the elusive workforce. And the biometric system discovered what we always knew, that there were a substaintial number of ghosts on the rolls. So a machine did what we residents could not achieve for years. It got the authorities in charge to ponder. Yes, yes, there was some deep rot here. These ghosts were sucking the organisation dry of funds. Salaries were being given to the ghosts. Newspaper reports told us that the amount ran into many crores ( a crore = ten million) every month.

But with bigger and full bodied scams hitting the country - the CWG scam, the mine scam, the fodder scam, the Taj corridor scam, the 2G spectrum scam, the chief justice scam, the Adarsh scam, and then Bhopal's land scam, the NOIDA land scam, and now the IAS-Joshi couple scam, and an even bigger the Indian black money-Swiss bank scam, the MCD scam was ghostly in comparison.

I maintain the biggest asset India has is its press. Which brings to the fore the doings of our leaders, our bureaucrats, for us minions, who work instead of loot and cheat for a living, to see. If it was not for India's press we would never get to know of the horrors the leaders we elect, the bureaucrats who we hope will give us functioning systems, the judges who occupy the hallowed confines of court rooms, do upon us. It is then not difficult to relate why millions have no access to health care, why our children are given a shoddy or no education, why farmers are driven to suicide and getting a roof on one's head remains a lifetime achievement for millions of Indians.

When there is so much corruption around, even the MCD vampires pale in comparison. I was however heartened to see that the police on orders of the court has been tracking some of these employees, to see if they are human or indeed ghosts. So what better way than to go to their houses and verify their human existence. The exercise did reveal that there were indeed some ghosts.

But then, a surprise, the MCD came up with another figure. I was amazed to see a new word crop up in its lexicon. 'Substitute' is the word used for the ghosts now. And the figure of these 'substitute employees' is almost double that of the ghosts. Vexed? A 'substitute employee' sounds better than a 'ghost employee'. It is more respectable for sure! At one time, there was talk of thousands of 'temporary employees'.

Meanwhile, I wait for one to show up on my street. I am not choosy, ghost or substitute, either one would do. The leaves, the plastic chips packets, the bits of paper and the dog shit are piling high. One day during the Commonwealth Games, I thought I had a vision. I blinked. Yes, indeed there he was, holding a long broom and sweeping the street. I wanted to go up and touch him to see if he was real. He must have been for my street was clean for a few days. Even the kerb stones got a watery coat of white paint. Never mind, if it was as elusively faint as the ghost. You could see it was white, if you tried hard to ignore the grey of the kerbstone that stubbornly showed its face. Now, the ghostly paint has disappeared and so has the man with the broom.

All that remains now are streams of dry leaves, mounds of paper, the dog shit and the peanut shells....
When will the ghosts get real? Your guess is as good as mine. Meanwhile, I will track the news reports of the scams and the scamsters. I do not need any Western make believe thrillers. Made in India stories provide a real good read. And what is more, they are for real!

An earlier post -
http://shreevenkatram.blogspot.com/2009/07/ghost-employees-of-municipal.html

70 dead in building crash, but the building does not exist in MCD's records!

2010-11-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

I have done a few posts on the corruption in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. We got to see the biggest consequence of this corruption on November 15 when an illegally constructed building came crashing down in East Delhi. Seventy persons lost their lives.

Here are some of the earlier posts -
The most corrupt Municipal Corporation of Delhi
Shocking scandal

The owner-builder of the building has been arrested. But what about the corrupt MCD officers and political masters who would have taken bribes to look the other way so as to have made the building possible? MCD true to its devious ways, is now saying it has no records of the building! It is a smart and time-tested way to protect one's men. If files go missing, or no records are kept, how would it be proven that the building existed in the first place?

Some years ago I did a survey of the builder floors in South Delhi. All of them had covered more than the sanctioned area or had more than the stipulated number of floors. Though almost all these buildings had no completion certificate, there were buyers and the properties were being registered by the government.

There there are plenty of buildings standing all over the city flouting norms. I know of two such buildings in my neighbourhood which the MCD made a great show of a cosmetic demolition, for these very obviously were protuding on to the common land. But some months later they were all patched up. Yes, the gaping holes in the buildings outer walls made by MCD's demolition squad, were filled and today life goes on in the buildings. Who benefited in this drama of build-demolish-build? None other than the MCD officers and the politicians.

Delhi is in a high risk earthquake prone zone, and it is makes it all the more necessary that all buildings adhere to some basic norms. But who cares? We are just lucky that there have not been more such cases of building collapse.

An article in the Outlook about MCD stirring to act and the blame game between the two political parties which have ruled the corporation.

This is yet another case of MCD corruption. It would be proper to say of MCD murder. For many lives were lost and families destroyed because of corruption. Will the guilty officers be punished? Wait and watch.

UPDATE: Municipal Corporation of Delhi's ghost employee case

2010-11-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

The latest on the ghost employee case -

The Delhi Police has been unable to trace 212 employees, we are informed. What about the thousands of other ghost employees? Have they been tracked? As a reader, I failed to find a clear answer in the reports by the media tracking the case.

However, we learn that the Delhi Police has lodged two FIRs in connection with the alleged existence of ghost employees in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi after making a door-to-door verification of "the total employees whose details were provided by the civic body for investigation", according to a report appearing in The Hindu. What is the number of the "total employees"? Who knows this number?

Standing Counsel Nazmi Waziri appearing for the Delhi Police has said the police were also investigating whether the muster roll of temporary sweepers of the civic body was also inflated as alleged by the petitioner in the matter.

The Bench has directed the police to file a status report on January 19 after conducting the inquiry into the ghost employee case.

It is necessary to point out that a number of possible reasons or excuses are now being given for the ghost employees. We have to wait and watch for the truth to be uncovered.

Punishment for sexual harassment in the US and for rape and murder in India

2010-10-26T04:26:00.000-07:00

I read the following news item from Washington in the Indian Express about a man being indicted by a jury for groping a sleeping woman on a flight-

Ranchhodbhai Lakha, 61, of Alpharetta, Georgia, faces charges of assault and abusive sexual contact for the Sep 28 incident on a Delta Air Lines flight from Dallas to Atlanta, the US Attorney's Office said on October 20, 2010.

A 20-year-old woman seated in the same row as Lakha fell asleep and woke up to find the man allegedly touching her below the waist, according to US.Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. The woman removed his hand but Lakha allegedly touched her again, prompting the woman to get up from her seat and report the incident to a flight attendant, Yates said.

If convicted, Lakha could face a maximum sentence of life in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

What amazed me is the kind of punishment he would get - a maximum of life in prison. Just contrast this to the very lenient laws we have in India. Even the recently proposed quantum of punishment for rape gets only a few years in prison. And then, the courts here are so liberal in letting off sexual offenders, even those who have been convicted of serious crime like rape. The Supreme Court of India recently commuted the death penalty awarded to rapist and murderer Santosh Kumar Singh to life sentence because of some "mitigating circumstances" in his favour. And what did the court find as mitigating? Among them the fact that he had married after his acquittal by the lower court and was the father of a girl child! What if he had fathered a male child?

As a woman, I find this reasoning difficult to digest. The judgment, like most judgments on rape and murder, is very patriarchal in its nature, completely overlooking justice to the woman raped and the welfare of the women around the man. In this case Priyadarshini Mattoo who he raped and murdered, strangling her with an electric wire and battering her face with his helmet, and his own wife and daughter who would have to live with the constant reminder of him being in jail. Imagine life for the little girl. Growing up would be so tough knowing that your father was a rapist and murderer.

What kind of a life would the wife have? Having to come to terms with the fact that the husband has raped and killed a woman? Would she ever be able to forget that fact? It would be haunting her every single moment of her life. Controversial as it might sound, it would be better for both the mother and the daughter if he was awarded the death penalty as the court had earlier decreed. They would have a chance to start their lives afresh. There would be justice done for Priyadarshini Mattoo, the woman he stalked, raped and brutally killed. Priyadarshini's father, Chaman Lal Mattoo, who has been fighting a tough battle to get justice for his daughter says he is "shattered and dismayed" by the verdict. His lawyer has said they would go in for a review of the punishment to be meted out to the rapist and murderer.

Life term in India is really no punishment for the well connected. They have reasonable comforts and do some light jobs. What is more they can be released in a few years, and be regularly out of jail on parole. Watch on NDTV what Neelam Katara, whose son was murdered, has to say about life term in India.

What do you think should be the punishment for rape, and rape and murder?

A temple for all faiths

2010-09-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

The story is very inspiring - A temple of all religions at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Imagine Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and others praying together at one spot! The businessman Laljibhai Satya Sanehi who built the the temple 60 years ago must have been a real visionary. I have heard of temples and masjids coexisting, standing side by side, but a common prayer house seems to be the first.
What amazes me is that it has been standing for the last 60 years, being visited by people of different faiths, but those outside of Ayodhya did not know of its presence.

There should be more such temples, not only in India but all over the world. Common prayer houses which are open to people of all faiths. Each such structure would be one small step towards a world free of religious divides. A more spiritual world. What do you say?

The devious ways of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi

2010-09-15T02:58:00.000-07:00

Check out the devious ways of our Most Corrupt Department - the MCD.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) admits it has thousands of temporary employees - over 43,415 of them! Why then do we have such filthy streets and overflowing gutters? I have still to see one of these visit my street.
The article by Indian Express gives the answer. Now with the Court looking at its functioning?? (should be non functioning, for it has an army of vampire employees that suck the corporation of its cash), it is coming out with excuses -it now blames its own sanitation department for the mess. Wonder what the authorities were doing earlier?

And the article tells you how the MCD encourages its regular staff to go on leave so that the temporary guys can work for a day or two and then their services will be regularised. Sounds complicated? Sure is. You would need a devious mind to understand the ways of the MCD and the babus and the netas that rule it.

Read the earlier posts on it - to get the full picture.
A must read - the court has had to tell MCD to stop paying the ghost employeees. One would have thought that the department would have done it on its own. But then this Most Corrupt Department, was never known for its work ethics, only for its pits of corruption.

And now for the latest twist to the MCD ghost employee case.
The police says the biometric system that discovered the ghost employees is faulty, according to The Times of India report. This multi-crore system cannot recognise thumb impressions and duplicate impressions. So now this is another issue that has to be probed.

Meanwhile, the The Delhi High Court has ordered that the in-house inquiry report prepared by all additional commissioners of MCD on the ghost employees scam be placed before the police for scrutiny. It asked the police to submit a detailed report by October 27.

I am curious to see how long this case will take, and who will be held guilty. So will be following the proceedings as reported in the Indian press and bringing it to you through this blog.

Some more corruption in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi

2010-07-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

And now this - the court has pulled up the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in another corruption case. Rs 1.5 crore misappropriated by its staff. Is there no end to the corruption by the corporation's staff?

Stinking urinals, bad roads...pavements littered with garbage, when will the Municipal Corporation of Delhi give us a Capital to be proud of? The way the corporation is riddled with corruption, inefficiency, and political bosses who look the other way....a clean and neat Delhi will be a faraway dream.

Not to forget, what the corporation did some months ago - it demolished one of the few night shelters the city has for the homeless. So add to the list - the corporation does not have a heart.

Bhopal - off the radar once again

2010-07-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

The Bhopal verdict story is in danger of going off the radar of our news organisations once again.

The Bhopal fatigue which had crippled all our news organisations for decades, has once again overtaken them. It is sad how the fatigue sets in when the pressure and the chase need to be kept up the most.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) has come up with a compensation packet for Bhopal. Public anger at the verdict - forced the Government to act. And it did by setting up the GoM. The GoM has made an announcement which includes a hike in the compensation, the earlier camount we now learn did not all go into the hands of those affected, but like all money that passes "through the government", went into the many hands of friends, well wishers of the powers that be, all but those for whom it was intended. So the ministers decided that the compensation packet had to be hiked and the government would seek the extraditation of Carbide boss Warren Anderson, who it had actively helped to flee the country. And it was proclaimed finally, that the site leaching toxins into the ground, should be cleaned.

But wait, it is not Carbide who will be footing the bill of either the clean up or the compensation hike. That, if you are an Indian, will be borne by you. The multinational comes in makes profit, pollutes our ground water and air, murders our people willfully by compromising on safety procedures and then flees. And its new avatar - Dow Chemical - is set to do business again on our land - and we cannot even hold it liable.

An article in the New York Times states Indians are envious of the US response to the oil spill, seethe over Bhopal. So true.

As an Indian, I am ashamed at how the Indian state has not worked, how it subversed the interest and future of its citizens to a western corporation, of how it let the the Carbide criminals escape. And now of its inability to get the compensation from the polluters and instead foisting the burden on the Indian tax payers.

Yes the contrast between the US response to the oil spill and the Indian reaction to the gas leak is stark. It shows the Indian state as a powerless entity. It cannot put the guilty behind bars, it cannot get the polluter to clean up the mess it created (yes, we look enviously at how Barrack Obama gets the British Petroleum officials running and the pressure being exerted and the funds set up to compensate those affected) and the clean up that has begun. And here for 26 years we let the chemicals and the toxins leach into the ground.

All seven organizations for survivors' rights have strongly condemned the recommendations of the Group of Ministers on Bhopal. They call the government action in setting up the group as a "smokescreen" . In a press release, the organizations have said the recommendations demonstrate "more concern for the welfare of American corporations than for Bhopal survivors".

The organizations said that the compensation recommended by the Group of Ministers would go to less than 10 per cent of people known to be exposed to Union Carbide’s toxic gases. “The GoM has based its decision on the notoriously flawed system of damage assessment that was designed to downplay and diminish the death and injury caused by Union Carbide Corporation. It has made no recommendations regarding review of death claims or registration of exposure related death claims after 1997, when such registration was arbitrarily stopped." The GoM has denied any additional compensation to 521,000 [91%] survivors who received a paltry sum of Rs. 25, 000 for life long injuries,” said Abdul Jabbar, convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan.

The Group of Ministers has gone back on its June 2008 decision to concede Bhopalis long-standing demand to set up an Empowered Commission on Bhopal to oversee rehabilitation. Instead, it proposes to transfer Rs. 720 crores to the Madhya Pradesh Government for medical, economic, social, and environmental rehabilitation. “More than Rs. 530 crores have already been spent by the M.P. Government in the name of relief and rehabilitation, and there is nothing to show for this. The Rs. 720 crores will go the same way – into the pockets of the Ministers and bureaucrats,” said Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. “The Madhya Pradesh Government’s list of equipment to buy includes fictitious equipment such as 'automatic micro-organism detection instruments' and 'identification & sensitivity of micro organism" that cost more than 35 lakhs," Dhingra added. "The Group of Ministers could just as well put the money straight into these bureaucrats' pockets and save on overhead costs."

The organizations also expressed dismay that the GoM has failed to recommend action for extraditing the authorized representatives of Union Carbide Corporation, USA and Union Carbide Eastern, Incorporated that is now reincarnated as Union Carbide Asia Pacific and Union Carbide Asia Ltd. “As 100% percent owner of Union Carbide, USA, Dow Chemical is guilty of sheltering a fugitive from justice punishable by 3 years imprisonment under Sec 212 of the Indian Penal Code and the Group of Ministers has made no directions regarding the summons against Dow Chemical issued by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal District Court, on January 6, 2005,” said Balkrishna Namdeo, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Sangharsh Morcha.

The GoM has also failed to recommend any action to make Dow Chemical pay for the clean up of the thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste and extensive damage to human health caused by contamination of ground water. “The Group of Ministers and in particular certain members of it who are known to be Dow Chemical’s agents have made appropriate noises but their money is not where their mouth is," said Safreen Khan of Children Against Dow Carbide. “It has decided to spend Rs. 300 crores of public money towards removal of toxic waste -- something which is the legal responsibility of Dow Chemical."

Survivors' organizations pointed out that Dow Chemical, through its lawyer Abhishek M. Singhvi, has refused to accept jurisdiction of the Madhya Pradesh High Court for the last six years. Despite this, the GoM has not made a single recommendation towards making Dow Chemical answerable to Indian courts, even as the company continues to do business in India. “This clearly displays an intention by the government to let Dow Chemical off the hook and is just as criminal as the act of helping Anderson escape justice. It is in fact a greater crime because Dow Chemical’s ongoing environmental disaster continues to maim and kill people, including the unborn, as we speak today,” said Rashida Bi, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh.

The organizations said that the recommendations of the GoM are designed to please the US-India CEO Forum. GoM's recommendation of spending money from the public exchequer to address the lingering issue of toxic contamination follows from one of the founding principles of the US-India CEO Forum that prescribes a “specific focus on resolving legacy issues such as those impacting Dow / Bhopal tragedy of 1984 … to send a strong positive signal to US investors.” (http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/USIndia.pdf)

The organizations said that the GoM’s recommendations demonstrate the failure of the media attention and public awareness to change the UPA government’s priorities of FDI over the survival of ordinary people in this country.
The signatories to the statement are -
Safreen Khan
Children Against Dow-Carbide

Balkrishna Namdeo
Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha

Abdul Jabbar
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan

Syed M Irfan
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purusg Sangharsh Morcha

Rashida Bee, Champa Devi Shukla
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh

ND Jayaprakash
Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti

Rachna Dhingra, Satinath Sarangi
Bhopal Group for Information and Action

Bhopal - the Indian system fails again

2010-06-10T04:53:00.000-07:00

BHOPAL

What is there to say? That the Indian judiciary failed us again. That the Indian government let us down once again.
That our political leaders have lost their voice. That corporations can play havoc with our lives, kill us and maim us and we find our hands are tied and our voices muffled.
And what can be said of the Indian press that is now screaming itself hoarse? Why was it quiet all these years? Why are scandalous facts tumbling out now, years later. Where was the Indian press for 25 long years?
Why wasn't the criminal behaviour of our leaders exposed earlier?
And what does it say of us as a people? That while a few of us battled in Bhopal trying our best to focus attention on the plight of fellow humans, the rest of us closed our eyes prefering not to see and did nothing at all for the cause.
We must be ashamed of ourselves!

If you want to know what happened on that fateful night of December 2/3, 1984, click here.

The Municipal Corporation seeks consultants to tell how many employees it should have!

2010-06-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

To those of you who have been following the progress of the ghost employees case of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi on this blog, I have an apology. I am late in posting the developments on the case.

Things have moved somewhat on that front. For one - The Delhi High Court has expressed its annoyance on the way the corporation has been suppressing facts -
"This affidavit conceals everything and reveals nothing. It does not disclose facts," a Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Mukta Gupta remarked.
It is best to read the report which appeared in The Hindustan Times on May 13.

And finally -
MCD now needs consultants to tell how many Class 3 and 4 employees it should have. Its work culture is appalling. Let the news story speak for itself.

Why cannot the MCD bosses work out the number for themselves? Why pay a fat sum to consultants to comeup with a figure. It can be got for free - All it has to do is ask the residents associations. Each association will give a number of the sweepers and gardeners that are required to keep its locality clean . The markets associations would do that for commercial areas and the accompanying parking lots where they exist. An officer of the corporation could do some simple calculation on the length of the arterial roads and bigger parks and roundabouts that do not fall under any residents' locality. Each sweeper should have some set Kms of road/pavement length to clean. And each gardener should have a set garden area. Let the MCD employees report to the Residents/ Market Association. Delhi will be spruced and shining...And we can be truly proud of this city that has otherwise so much to offer.

Check this story out - http://www.hindustantimes.com/They-work-but-only-on-paper/Article1-552361.aspx

Society elders decide five shoe smacks enough punishment for a rapist

2010-03-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Why is society so lenient to rapists? A panchayat in a village let off the rapist, who was the 17-year-old victim's uncle, with just five smacks with a shoe. What kind of a punishment is this for a serious crime? The community we are informed felt that it's honour was at stake. Why does the perceived "community honour" take precedence over the crime and justice to the victim? Wouldn't community honour be redeemed if a suitable punishment was awarded to the criminal?

Check out the story.

One true heroine - calls off wedding after baby is raped

2010-03-12T03:00:00.001-08:00

I was heartened to read the following report in the Hindustan Times -

Bride calls off wedding after infant's rape.

If you have read my earlier post regarding the rape of a six month old baby, you would know why this is such great news.

If things have to change for women, it is the women who must act. The 18 year old bride - Rizwana Parveen -deserves the highest praise for taking the bold step in calling off her wedding after the guest from the groom's side raped the baby. She said she did not want to get married in a village, Kithor in Meerut district, where they did not respect women.

This is the best and the boldest decision the young woman could take and she did it. I hope one of our many NGOs honour her. For she deserves it. And I am so happy that she had the support of her parents and the entire panchayat in taking the action.

Meanwhile, the baby is battling for her life in a hospital. What should the punishment be for such a crime?

An earlier post on the issue of rape and punishment - http://shreevenkatram.blogspot.com/2009/07/rape-and-punishment.html

Shame! A six month old baby girl raped

2010-03-10T03:32:00.000-08:00

What do you say to this? A 20 year old raped a six month old baby girl left in his care. How brutal can humans get! And we have people who recommend a punishment of a few years for such men. A man like this is so sick in the head, that he would be best bobitted or locked up in a cell for life.

I cannot understand why such people should get away with just a few years in jail. And we have our jurors order the release of a rapist from jail who had raped his student, driving her to suicide. Our law makers felt that as the man had performed well in the civil service exam he should be released. Five and a half year of a jail term that he had already served was enough for him. I gather he is a free man today. Just imagine, he will now be the Indian government's representative, a member of the Indian Adminstrative Service! God help us.

Some prominent citizens have appealed to the Chief Justice of Delhi. against the judgement.

Recently the Chief Justice of India recommend that a raped woman should be free to marry her rapist if she wants. I would think in a civilised society, a rapist should be punished, not offered matrimony. In our country, very few men will come forward to marry a raped woman. And as marriage is held as the be-all and end-all for a woman, there could be instances where a woman may feel it is better to marry the rapist than face the taunts of the society for the rest of her life. We need to change mindsets so that society shuns the culprit and not the victim. If a man who has raped is made an outcaste, thrown out of his job, made ineligible to ever hold a government job, and no woman agrees to marry him, and others refuse to socialise with him, instances of rape would come down.
The suggestion by the Chief Justice has shocked many. What justice can women hope to get when our law makers think in this vein? Read here another reaction to the judge's suggestion. And does the fact that there are few women judges tell it all. Women are less than 10 per cent in India's judiciary.

And this post following the bride's reaction.

Rape victim has to resort to a legal notice to take an exam

2010-03-03T06:52:00.000-08:00

What do you say to this - A 12 year old school girl who was raped has to resort to a legal intervention to get her school to allow her to take her exam!
And what is this that we learn - that the school thought that her presence at the school would ruin its reputation! Shades of the Ruchika Girhotra case - where instead of providing support to the victim, it threw her out, after she was molested by a senior police officer. In the present case, the young girl was forced to withdraw from school after her neighbour raped her.
The report fails to mention the action against the alleged rapist. It does not tell us what has happed to the criminal and how society is acting against him. Has he been thrown out of his job if he is working, or college if he is a student? Are his neighbour boycotting him? All we know is that he is 20 years old, an adult who raped a child. Why is it that news reports do not mention the action taken againt the man? Or is he roaming scot free?

The progress in the MCD ghost employee case

2010-03-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

With the PIL being filed in the alleged ghost employee issue, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi seems to finally be shaking off its stupor. It is reported to have told the court that it has ordered a probe into its ghost employee scam and would need another four weeks to complete it. The next date for the hearing has been fixed for April 28.
Let us see how long this case takes and if the guilty are finally brought to book.
To read a news report on the PIL hearing on February 24 click here.

Another scam hits the civic agency - this time about bogus pensioners! To read, click here.

A PIL on the MCD ghost employee scam

2010-02-21T23:42:00.000-08:00

Here is some heartwarming news - An NGO has filed a Public Interest Litigation regarding the scam relating to the ghost employees on the rolls of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Hopefully, now we will come to know the full truth, which as residents of Delhi and citizens of India we need to know. Regular updates will be posted on this blog. I am pasting below a news item from PTI which gives some details about the PIL. It is unfortunate that apart from the Times of India, no other national paper has considered it worth its while to delve into the ghost employee issue.

As a resident of Delhi, all I can say is that seeing the garbage piled up on the streets and in marketplaces, there appears to be an urgent need for the MCD employees to do their job. The city has become dirtier over the decades.

And the stray dog population of the city has jumped. It has become very risky to go for an early morning or a later evening walk for you may encounter the canine species in packs. If you are lucky all you may have to do is a tap dance over all that dog shit. Wonder what happened to all the MCD employees who are to ensure that our streets are free of the strays? Do they really exist?

Delhi as a world class city? Wish I could see it happening..

Here is the news item about the PIL-

New Delhi, Feb 10 (PTI) The scam relating to alleged ghost employees in MCD today reached the Delhi High Court which sought a response from the NCT government and the civic agency within two weeks on a PIL seeking a probe into it.
Issuing a notice also to Anti-corruption branch, a Division Bench of Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw sought their replies by February 24.
The Bench was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by Jagrook Welfare Society, an NGO, through counsel C S Parashar seeking an inquiry by CBI or an independent agency into the scam relating to the allegation that MCD was paying salary to more than 22,000 of its gardeners and sweepers who existed as employees only on paper.

Earlier post

Singapore court awards 30 years to a child rapist

2010-01-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

Thirty years in jail for raping a child. This is indeed the kind of punishment that should be awarded to child rapists. Singapore shows the way. Read the story in Strait Times.

Contrast this with the punishment meted out to child molesters and rapists in India.

The Ruchika molestation case

2010-01-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

The Ruchika suicide case signifies all that is wrong with the Indian system. And how it can be twisted by those in power, to harass simple law-abiding citizens.

SPS Rathore, a senior Haryana Police officer, used the system to play havoc with the lives of the Girhotra family, pressuring them to withdraw the charge of molestation the 14 year old Ruchika Girhotra had made against him. The result - the vivacious Ruchika, a promising tennis player, was forced to end her life, after her family was hounded for over three years following her complaint and her brother was tortured and false cases of auto theft slapped on him.

And what is the punishment that our judiciary system awards Rathore? Six months in jail and Rs 1000 as fine. That too after 19 years!

In fact, in this blog, all the reasons that led to Ruchika's sucide have been discussed in various posts.

First, a sullied police force - Haryana Police, one of the most corrupt in the country. Rathore as a senior police officer, molested the young girl after calling her to his office. It could have led to a rape, but for the arrival of her friend Aradhana, an eye witness to the case. After a complaint was filed against Rathore he went on to harass the family no end. Her friend, Aradhana, and her father have said that her school, Sacred Heart Convent, expelled her follwoing pressure from Rahore. The school has however denied bowing to any pressure. But the case still shows an education system that is most child unfriendly. The school should be like a child's second home. Ruchika had been molested. She did not have a mother. Her teachers should have stepped in, giving her the strength to cope with the trauma. But our education system does not put the child first, many of our top schools are money making rackets open to being exploited by the powerful. If all the teachers and the management of the school had decided that they would stand by the child, Ruchika could have been saved. Aradhana tells us that after the school expelled her, the once vivacious Ruchika went into a shell. The school failed her.

After Rathore had a string of auto theft cases slapped against Ruchika's brother, had him arrested and tortured, the family, which was well settled in Panchkula, was forced to shift to another city as the police, who is supposed to protect, had turned predators. One wonders why Ruchika's neighbours did not protest? Why couldn't they have demanded action against Rathore? And why the management of the Gymkhana club where Ruchika was molested by Rathore, did not throw Rathore out after the charge was made against him? The fact that two teenaged girls had penned a complaint against him, should have been reason enough. Young girls do not go around saying they have been molested, and the complaint should have been ground enough to remove Rathore from the helm of a gymkhana where young girls were coming to play. So the third failure was that of the civil society. Why don't we protest a wrong being done to our neighbour?

What do you call a police officer who tortures children? Is there a word for it? The departmental inquiry against him soon after the crime, which had found him guilty, was put into cold storage and ignored by the state's top politicians. Instead of seeing that the complaint was speedily looked into and the man punished, the political bosses promoted him. He went on to become the DGP of Haryana police. The political system failed the young girl.

It took the complainants nine years to lodge an FIR! And 19 years for the courts to pronounce Rathore guilty! And a sentence of six months of imprisonment and Rs 1000 as fine was awarded to the guilty man. An absolute failure of the judicial system. Our laws do not recognise that a child can be molested.

Thank God for the free press that we have. The only reason it is being given another look is because the television channels took it up, providing regular updates. The public was aghast. The pressure has built up. The case is being given another look. The critics call it trial by the media, but when institutions fail to deliver, it is the media that shows the society what has happened. Like a mirror, it shows the way things are.

A mentally-challenged rape victim copes with motherhood

2009-12-26T03:57:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court in its wisdom allowed a mentally challenged rape victim in Chandigarh to carry the foetus full term and she has given birth to a baby girl.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that the mother was raped by one of the security guards at Ashraya, a state run home for abadoned women, where the victim was living. The rapist, a married man and a father of two children, has been arrested.

Now what?

With the father behind bars and the mother mentally challegned, who is going to bring up the baby? What arrangements has the Supreme Court esnured so that the baby is brought up in a loving and caring atmosphere? What steps have been taken that the girl child would be safe from predators that prowl the state run home? Are the activists who pleaded against the High Court verdict that had called for the medical termination of the pregnancy spending time with the child? Or is this yet another case of misplaced human rights? Whose rights are we talking about?

Read here how the 19-year-old mother, said to be mentally challenged is coping. It is sad, very very sad, what the State has done to her.

Earlier post-
A disturbing judgment

Corruption and India

2009-12-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

A scandal of this proportion and there has been no outcry from Delhites. Are we so dead as citizens that we cannot even protest and demand action against the employees who robbed us and the politicians who let the system come to this pass?
It shows the extent to which we fail as citizens and forgo our right for effective governance.
One would have thought a scandal of this proportion where over 22,000 ghost employees have been drawing salaries for God knows how many years, would have led to some protest, a demand that the men who cheated us be dismissed, but nothing has happened. Not a whimper from Delhi's residents and the many residents' associations and citizens groups and the NGOs that populate the Capital city. Apart from a newspaper report or two, the citizens seem unconcerned.
We have got so used to the filth and malaise around, that like sewer rats it has become a vital part of ourselves. We cannot imagine, it is completely beyond our psyche to visualise a corruption-free government department. By not protesting about this scandal, by not demanding that action be taken against the scoundrels, we open ourselves to more such loot. And where is our moral police, so quick to jump at women who go to bars, so quick to even bash them up, so quick to pull down artist's works, or demand ban on movies they feel corrupt human minds?
Where are they? Why don't they protest? Don't they think this corruption and filth spells doom for India? Or as sewer rats it has become our life?

And now this- MCD staffers get salary six times in two months!
Earlier posts - Ghost employees of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi
The most corrput Municipal Corporation of Delhi

Happy to post 15 months later that the Indian public is reacting to corruption and How!

Mera India Bridge the Gap workshop - Help build a healthy and a prosperous India

2009-12-02T02:04:00.000-08:00

If you are between the ages of 18 and 35 years and reside in Delhi, here is an opportunity to attend a very special workshop --

Mera India, Bridge the Gap
invites you to a workshop
Transforming ideas into action
The building of a prosperous and a healthy India
On December 12, 2009 (Saturday)
9.30 am onwards to conclude with Lunch
(to be held in Delhi, you will be informed of the venue)

The workshop will inform how youth can work towards an India that is free of poverty and hunger, is healthy and informed and where women and men enjoy an equal status.

Please confirm your participation asap as there are a limited number of seats. There is no entry or participation fee. Participation certificates will be awarded.

The workshop follows the Mera India Bridge the Gap contest where the young participants had advocated for youth playing a more active role in nation building and meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

So if you are interested, do drop us a line at indiabridgethegap@gmail.com

We look forward to working together.

Bridge the Gap Team

Shocking scandal - over 22,000 bogus MCD staffers

2009-11-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

It is finally out - the Municicpal Corporation of Delhi has 22,853 ghost employees! The Times of India in its report, has stated that the Indian taxpayer has been paying Rs 204 crore a year for these employees every year. And for how many years has this practice been in existence? You could easily say it has been for decades. As residents of Delhi, India's Capital city, we see piled up garbage even in posh localities like South Extension and Greater Kailash and prime office complexes like Nehru Place. The situation in other loclities is worse. On paper there are sweepers allocated for every street, every block. In reality, ghosts never sweep, they only pocket money. So streets remain unswept for months, corruption is rife in all its departments, and as residents we have seen that nothing moves without palm grease. The manner in which these babus control our lives and mess it up has to be experienced to be believed.
Who would you say is responsible for the state of things? The babus or the netas? That is the bureaucrats or the politicians?
And are we, as Delhites, as Indians, going to keep quiet after this information, thanks to the biometric system, is known to us? Or are we going to lend our voice to see that the ghosts are banished once and for all. And that some action is taken against those who let them in, fattened and nurtured them. The citizens must speak up, in fact YELL and demand action. For otherwise the powers that be might never hear us.

earlier post

And now, you have to read this story in Hindustan Times. Of the tricks the employees are now resorting to so that they do not have to use the biometric system.

An NGO files a public interest litigation, so now finally we may know the full truth.

An inspiring story - The youngest headmaster in the world

2009-10-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

The story about Babar Ali, born to poor illiterate parents in West Bengal, is really heartening. See the what this 16-year-old has done. How he is using all that he has to change the lives of children who may never be able to go to school.

The story will make you happy and also bring tears to your eyes. It holds a lesson for all of us. Are we doing enough to change the condition of those less fortunate than us?

Thank god, we have people like Babar Ali in the world.

Journey in magenta

2009-08-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

There are so many things about India that bother me. And in this blog I keep ranting about them. There are also many things that I absolutely love about this land. One of them is the colour that one finds here. Nowhere else in the world have I seen colour in its undiluted beauty, the way one does here. Nowhere else have I seen women wear it the way they do here.

One of my earliest memories of the sheer abundance of colour, like there was no getting away from it were the boungainvillea bushes behind my school. The dusty rolling stretch with its little tufts of grass was used for races and march past practice, both which I dreaded in summer, but the purple pink bunches beckoned me and drove me into plucking the bracts and then blowing them in the summer wind.

The hotter it gets in India, the more vibrant are the hues -- the water melon, the gulmohar, the Rajasthani ghagras. They are there right in your face, no subtlety here, but its display is in pure unadultered form. I love the gorgeous silky skeins of the Gujarati embroidery and the tiny mirrors that sparkle in their midst. I absolutely adore the midnight blue and the emerald greens of the Kanjeevaram silks with the gorgeous orange or red borders...

The bougainvillea always takes me on a big colour journey. The bougainvillea bush in my neighbour's garden was bunched with the most vibrant shades of pomegrante red. Every morning I rushed to my window to admire it till the rains robbed it of its colour. Today it is just plain green.

The most gorgeous three hours I have ever spent in my life were at Bangaluru's Lalbagh one afternoon, feasting on the most ecstatic colours of the bougainvillea in shades I could have never imagined. From creamy white, to golden yellow, to a sunset rust, and of course, the magenta. In one bush, the magenta merged with white, in another the strawberry red flirted with cream, and the yellow decided to have orange tipped bracts. Then they went on a strange medley, three shades in one bush... an enterprising gardner had mixed and matched. I loved it all so much that I had to sit down on a bench to savour it till dusk fell and I was forced to leave the bounty of colour.

Today, while putting order to my cupbaord I came across a set of two French chiffon dupattas that belonged to my mother. They used to be musty white... I had loved the texture, reminded me of the bracts that I had blown in the wind. My mother let me stitch them up into a sari and get them dyed into magenta pink. I then designed a blouse...in green, magenta and white... And I wore the outfit with the flourish of a teenager... Now when I looked at it after so many years, I understood, my romance with the colour....and where it all began.....The colour took me on to this great mind journey that started in my childhood. And it had me making that computer drawing that you see....

I wish my readers would share the colours that they love and which inspire them....

Assauging Indian fears about higher education in Australia

2009-08-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

Finally there seems to be some action on the Australian front. With external affairs minister S M Krishna’s visit to Australia, the Indian government has shown that it cares about the fate of its youngsters who landed on the Australian shores for higher education. Read about Krishna's interview to The Australian - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25906785-5013871,00.html

Krishna is the first senior minister to go to Australia following the spate of attacks on Indian students. The incidents drove the students to protest on the streets in a foreign country to highlight the rising incidents of violence against them. These incidents have been termed as racial by the Indian students who were attacked, but have been downplayed by the Australian authorities as 'opportunistic violence'.

One would have expected Australia to act fast following the violent attacks. Instead what happened, was strong criticism of the manner in which the Indians ‘behave’, playing loud music, talking loudly on the telephone, cooking with strong spices, keeping their rooms untidy, working late and travelling at night on trains ... as if these were reasons for them to be attacked with screwdrivers, have their eyes gouged and cars burnt. Surely, there is a “developed country” way to address such behaviours among the students! One that ensures that those who come to stay for a couple of years are sensitised on what is expected of them so that they do not offend their hosts. Now whose responsibility is it to ensure that? Of course, the Australian universities and educational institutes that line up in India and charge exorbitant fees.

As the media in India and Australia focussed on these attacks, the manner in which some private colleges had been duping the Indian students and promising permanent residency also came to light.

According to reports reaching here, some of these educational institutes have been found to be hole in the wall kind of places that have cheated the students, painting a rosy picture of the kind of training they would be given. But once the students land up there they find a paucity of qualified instructors and infrastructure. These institutes are worse, much worse, than many third rate institutions in India. At least here you and your family do not go bankrupt fianancing a third rate education.

The Australian government, rattled by the negative publicity that the attacks have brought, had sponsored a trip for some Indian journalists to see that it is not as bad as the Indian media painted it to be. Australia was not racist; they wanted the journalists to check the situation out for themselves. But all we got to see was the Australian PM Rudd holding forth on how he and his family liked Indian food, the same strong curry smelling fare, that some of his countrymen held against Indian youngsters. Wonder what happened to all the other stories that the journalists were to have done?

Following Krishna’s visit, the Australian government has announced that it would review and revamp its educational sector and promised that the overseas students would be safe.

But just as this announcement came in, the Chinese government issued an advisory to its students in Australia, following a brutal attack on four Chinese students in Gold Coast. While Krishna expressed his satisfaction with the assurances given to him by the Australian authorities, Indian student representatives had their reservations. They wanted more than mere assurances.

However, Indian students should be very careful in their selection of the institute after the horror stories that have emerged of unscrupulous education agents in Down Under. Here is a story of how a flight school in Sydney, Aerospace Aviation duped its students.

The best way to check about the worthiness of an institute is to do an independent follow up with some Indian students who have studied there. If the school does not provide you with particulars of its alumni, you can be sure that it has something to hide.

An Indian mother is very glad that she did not send her 17 year old daughter there for the culinary arts. The representative of the institute who had come to India for the recruitment drive was a smooth talking Indian settled in Australia, who wanted an immediate commitment. The hardsell was what cautioned the mother. It also made her wonder why the institute, headquartered in Switzerland, didn’t set up shop in India? A lot many students would then enrol, and the fees too would come down substantially.

It seems such a shame that Indians have to head elsewhere to pursue courses which can easily be offered here. The Human Resource Development minister, Kapil Sibal, seems very sincere about his job. Let us hope he can change the scenario for the Indian students, so that they can get vocational training at an affordable price in India itself.

To all those students looking at education in Australia or/and permanent residency, I recommend Cristopher Mitchell's blog. It shows the problems you can face as Indians in that country. There is also an earlier post on the Indian government advisory to students.

For an understanding of why things are the way they are between the two countries click here ..

A disturbing judgement

2009-07-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

A 19-year-old mentally challenged woman whose mental age is described as nine was raped by an attendant in a shelter home in Chandigarh. A few weeks later, when she developed what has been reported as "some complications" it was realised that she was carrying. And the authorites approached the High Court to have her pregnancy terminated. The High Court was in favour of terminating the pregnancy.

Then some activists on the woman's behalf approached the Supreme Court to have a stay on the High Court order. They wanted the woman to give birth to a child. The Court was told that the woman was an orphan, and as she had no blood relative she should be allowed to keep the baby. The woman too, it was said, wanted to have the baby. The Supreme Court has stated that the woman be allowed to carry the child full term.

As a woman I am horrified.

First, the woman who is bearing the child needs looking after herself as she has the mental age of a nine year old child. The State has been found to be deficient in its care of the woman. One of the attendants of the home where she was kept raped her.

Now the judges want the woman to carry full term, bring into the world a baby who would neither have a father, nor a mother who could look after it. Who would then take care of the baby? The State that has been found to be lacking?

Second, the pregnancy follows a rape. Now, I do not know of any woman who would want to carry a child of a man who has raped her. One must realise that her feelings for the foetus have yet to be developed. But her feelings for the rapist exist. And these would be unhappy and torturous. Usually if matters are in a woman's hand, she gets rid of such a foetus at the first opportunity.

It is said the woman wants the baby. In this case, the woman is not in a position to decide what is in her best interest. She does not know was bringing up a child entails. The decision has to be made for the woman.

Third, are the persons who are so vociferously fighting for the woman to carry the child, prepared to help the mother look after it? Are they ready to assume the responsibility for the child till he or she attains adulthood? If not, then they have no business to advocate that she carry the child full term. Why saddle the woman, who is herself a child, with the task of looking after a baby?

The court is reported to have cast aside the objection to the prospect of the mentally challenged girl delivering the baby when she is not able to take care of herself. “The nature has its own methodology,” it said. Now what does that mean? That nature by some magic is going to take care of the baby? I found this statement reported in the media about what the judges said, very horrifying.

Rape and punishment

2009-07-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

The National Commission for Women recently came up with a host of suggestions to deal with rape in the country. But it has recommended very short terms for rapists. I wonder why? Does the commission think that a rapist can be 'cured', or would regret his crime by spending a few years behind bars? Can a rapist be ever cured? However, that is a topic for another post.

The commission has suggested somewhat stiff punishment for men in uniform and those who hold responsible positions. In cases of a police official commiting a sexual assault on the premises of the police station where he is appointed, or if he assaults a woman or child under 16 years of age, the commission proposes he should be liable for a minimum punishment of 10 years and a maximum of life imprisonment. The staff or management of a hospital, remand home or a women's or children's institution committing such an act should be liable to punishment from five years to 10 years in jail and a fine, the commission has proposed. Five years, is really a very short term for rape, especially if the woman is under treatment in a hospital or under care of a remand home. And just five years for raping a child? This is no punishment for bodily harming and scaring her or his psyche for life. In fact, the punishment for raping a child should exceed that of raping a woman.

The commission has proposed a prison term for seven years for incest. Is that enough?

Whenever I write about rape, the situation of women in Saudi Arabia horrifies me no end. That is one of the countries where a rape victim is punished! Lashes and a jail term! This tragic incident happened not so long ago in Saudi Arabia. See what the woman's husband has to say about it -http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/21/saudi.rape.victim/index.html

In Pakistan till recently, the testimony of four pious (I wonder how they define that!) persons, sorry it should be MEN, was needed for a rape to be proved! Now where in the world would you find four eyewitnesses for rape? And what kind of men, and pious men at that, would they be, if they let the rape be committed and did nothing to prevent it?

See how the Afghan men reacted to a protest by Afghan women to the introduction of a new law – they spat and threw stones at them!

The law introduces some more restrictions on women -- it bars them from leaving their homes without the permission of their husbands and also legalises marital rape.

The world over there are few convictions for rape. I wonder why that is so? Is it because that often it is only men who man the judiciary? Or the fact that men can never really understand the trauma of rape? Of is it that we use different yardsticks for defining wrong and right for men and women? Or that in some countries the adherence to some warped male interpretation of religious text takes precedence over everything else? Whatever it is, there is no denying that around the world men get away lightly with rape.

Though India does not have such archaic laws, the rate of conviction in rape is abysmal. It is still very tough for a woman to come out openly and say she has been raped. And after she does that, little or no action is taken in majority of the cases. Insecurity, public censure, lack of support drives some women to take the extreme step – commit suicide.

Most horrifying is the way judges behave. Read about the way a Pakistani judge conducted the trial of a 13 year old girl who was gangraped -
http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/1969/
Shouldn’t he be punished? Why does he get away with the wrong he does? Just because he is a judge?

In my earlier post I wished to share what women in different parts of the world feel the punishment should be. Though I did not get any response from a Pakistani or an Afghani woman, I am sure they too would advocate life imprisonment, if not death and castration.

There is a great schism between how women view rape and how the state reacts – in most countries in a very patriarchal fashion. Raping a child should be considered more serious than raping a woman. Is there any country in the world where this is being done?

Some opinions from around the world. One of the posts states that in India rape is equated to murder. That is not true.

You must see this one - Society elders decide five shoe smacks enough punishment for a rapist!

Can a rapist ever be cured? Read what is being said about it.

Is there something seriously wrong with the way we bring up boys?

2009-07-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Is there something seriously wrong with the way we bring up our boys? Why are there so many cases of men who rape children? And what does this say of us? This shocker of a story really saddened me - a child raped every other day in Tamil Nadu! Think of the poor little girls and the trauma they would have to carry with them all through their lives. Just why do we do this to our children?
And shouldn't there be some very stiff time-bound action against men who rape children?
At Blogcatalog, I had asked a group of female bloggers from around the world, what they thought should be the punishment for rape? Women from different parts of the world had one verdict - yes, we all think alike- and the punishment sought is life imprisonment. Some even said castration. It sure seems to be an apt punishment for men who rape children.
Remember what Lorena Bobbit did to her husband who raped her? It happened long ago. Watch as she tells Oprah. I am sure many girls who have been through the trauma would wish they could do that to the rapist.

Earlier posts -
The vile men of religion

Obama checks out a girl

2009-07-11T05:07:00.001-07:00

Don't they look like a couple of college boys?

It doesn't matter - you may have a Michelle or Carla by your side...

I loved the photo. It is one of those photos that brings an instant smile. The photographer was alert and fantastic at his job.

But of course, the media has to be condemned... now I see stories on the net that the photograph was doctored! Does the photo make the Americans uncomfortable? The speed with which the video appeared saying that the photo is lying ...excuse me, he wasn't looking at her behind, but watching his step, or ,or , or ... watch the video and decide... maybe he didn't mean to see her rear, it just appeared in his line of vision!
The video clears Obama, but poor Sarkozy is framed.

Another police excess

2009-07-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

More on police brutality. This time from the eastern part of the country. A truck driver was shot dead by a policeman because he hit the police car! Cases like these show how those in power deal with common people. The incident shows their utter brutality towards defenceless persons who are not in a position to retaliate.

It is indeed sad that the police meant to protect people do just the opposite and become perpetrators of crime.

Do you think that the punishment for those in uniform, or those who hold posts of power and responsibility, should be stiffer than that slapped on ordinary persons who commit an offence?

Earlier posts
Cops as criminals
Haryana police needs better training

The ghost employees of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi

2009-07-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

You must have heard of employees not showing up for work.
Even heard of employees that shirk work.
But have you ever heard of phantom employees? Employees that draw their salary every month but do not exist in human form? Well our Municipal Corporation of Delhi has thousands of such ghost employees.
But what is the number of the ghosts that inhabit the payment rolls of the corporation, no one knows, least of all the MCD.

The Times of India has been carrying a series of articles on the rot in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which Delhiwallahs have nicknamed the Most Corrupt Department - where things move only by palm grease.

This corporation we are informed has two kinds of employees - the permanent ones and the daily wagers. Many of them do not show up for work. The report says that thousands of them may not even exist, but their names appear on the rolls and these phantoms draw salary!!

No wonder I have not seen a safai karamchari ( the sweeper) ever on the lane on which my house stands... though MCD has assigned sweepers to every street. On record there are hundreds of these workers. So no surprise that you see Delhi's streets so piled up with filth and the municipal parks neglected. The gardeners too exist only on the salary rolls and are not seen in the parks. If they were you would not find them neglected and overgrown. If you see a well laid out park, you can be sure, the residents' association is taking care of it by hiring its own gardeners.

One estimate is that the phantom employees could number around 45,000. Though they never show up for work, they draw their salaries, milking the system dry of crores of rupees every month, according to these reports. The rot has been known to our political masters, the councillors who we elect. The paper says that the move to weed away these fictitious workers was opposed by these councillors and MCD staff way back in 2002.

And by the look of things, the councillors are once again trying to stop the enquiry, says the Times of India today.

The MCD needs to come clear on many fronts. The people of Delhi need to know --
The number of employees the corporation has
The total salary bill of these employees
How many of them are permanent and how many temporary
What is the need to have 'temporary' workers if there are posts that are still lying vacant (according to some reports)
The residents associations need to be given the names of the sweepers and gardeners assigned to their locality, so that a check can be kept on their attendance and to confirm that they do exist!

Earlier posts on the MCD -
The most corrrupt Municipal Corporation of Delhi
Where is my leader

A later post
Shocking scandal - Over 22,000 ghost employees in MCD

Want to work for a better India?

2009-07-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

Unnati Features and Women’s Feature Service are looking for dynamic young persons for an exciting short-term project that reaches out to young people

TWO POSTS (Based in Delhi)
The person, between 20 to 30 years old, should be -
* proficient in the use of web-based software for audio, video and data integration
* a good communicator in English and Hindi with an ability to address small and large groups
* able to interact personally with young people/students in particular
* available for the project from mid-July to mid-November to work on part-time basis
Postgraduate students/research scholars are welcome to apply. Salary will be based on ability and experience.

(FIELD WORKERS IN OTHER INDIAN CITIES)
We also welcome volunteers with good communication skills interested in reaching out to colleges and youth groups in other parts of the country. Those selected will carry out the work in their respective towns and cities and be in touch with the project coordinator in Delhi by email. Remuneration will be based on tasks accomplished.

Please send your CV by July 7, 2009 to -
unnatifeatures@gmail.com

Cops as criminals

2009-06-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

Another of my favourite topics - of the way we train our police. Looking at how they behave with the public, their training needs to be overhauled.

Time and again we come across cases where the police become perpetrators of crime. The police record of the way they deal with women is terrible, and downright atrocious if they happen to be poor and illiterate.. Apart from being brutal, as noted in an earlier post, there have been cases of the police resorting to sexual harassment and even rape. The police stations in India are the most women unfriendly places. Women are reluctant to walk into police stations to seek help or lodge a complaint. For the demeanor and the manner in which the policemen in India behave with women is downright crude (for want of a more apt word).

Last week, on June 18 we learnt of how two policemen threw a pregnant woman and her three-year-old daughter off the running Mailani-Gonda passenger train near Lucknow, after she and her husband refused to bribe them for travelling without a ticket. The woman came under the wheels of the train and died. The little girl miraculously escaped.

The public is so fed up with the high handed ways of the police force that neighbours and relatives of the couple caught hold of the two cops and beat them up mercilessly. They are said to have suffered multiple injuries and had to be admitted to hospital.

Our police trainers need to pay particular attention to the manner in which uniformed men should interact with the public. They need lessons on how to deal with law breakers, especially women, in a firm manner without getting physical. Some years ago I saw the police conduct a raid on a brothel on Brigade Road in Bangalore. The manner in which they were pulling out the sex workers from a building and pushing them into the police van was a terrible sight indeed. Most of the women appeared to be in their mid teens and with the brutal handling their clothes were torn. Some of them could not even cover themselves up properly. The policemen were dragging them by their hair, hitting them with lathis and shepherding them into the van while shouting filthy expletives. As happens in India a huge crowd had gathered to see what was going on and all the women looked really frigthened. They were facing a public humiliation of the worst kind. It doesn't need much imagination to know that the ordeal of these women would have continued into the police station.

Every other day, there are cases of women being raped by the police or security personnel. Increasingly one is seeing the public hit back, in the form of protests and demonstrations, so fed up are they of the way the men who should be protecting turn aggressors.

Look what happened in Kashmir following the rape and murder of two women in Shopian district allegedly by security forces.

In Bhopal recently, a 48-year-old woman, arrested in connection with a dowry case, alleged that four policemen raped her inside a police station in Betul district. The woman said she was forced to spend the night in the Amla police station because the police told her it was too late to go to Betul, after a court sent her to judicial custody. The victim alleged that the cops were drunk and had raped her at night. The next morning when she was taken to the Betul jail, she told the jailer about the incident. Her statement was recorded.

Probably, the cops think the women they harass won't complain and that emboldens them. Recently, sons of two policemen in Gujarat were apprehended for raping a teenage girl. The public thrashed the alleged culprits when they were brought to the hospital for a medical examination. While the crowd that thrashed them consisted mainly of men, one could see some women vent their anger against the culprits.

But the biggest shocker was yet to come. There is reason to believe that the culprits were involved in at least seven cases of rape, including one of a mentally challenged girl. The investigators have recovered clippings of the gangrapes from their phones and laptops. After all these alleged culprits are the sons of policemen!

Advice for Indian students going to Australia

2009-06-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

The attacks on Indian students in Australia go on unabated. Today, Hardik Bipinbhai Patel, a commercial cookery student at Melbourne University, was attacked and robbed. A group of Sri Lankans were attacked in Canberra. Yesterday, a student was beaten up in a mall in Adelaide.

By the Australian police own admission, there have been 1447 reported attacks on Indians last year. This year, the number is all set to rise. For finally, the Indians are reporting the attacks, which they might not have earlier.

Meanwhile the Indian government has come up with an advisory. It gives the Indian students some tips, which are reproduced here --

Before leaving for Australia

Be fully informed of all actual costs involved, as also of relevant rules governing work, housing and other aspects of living in Australia. You are strongly advised to do adequate research.
Study the official website of the Government of Australia for international students.
Make sure institution offering the course has good reputation, especially if it is private.
Go through website of educational institution and cross check if needed with the Education Officer at the Australian High Commission in Delhi or consulates in Mumbai and Chennai.
Make sure you have written agreement from the institution before paying any fees. This will be especially helpful in settling disputes if any.

After you arrive in Australia

Please register with Indian High Commission / Consulate as soon as possible.
Familiarise yourself with the student services offered by your educational institution, such as counselling services, help in finding suitable accommodation and jobs, assistance in improving your English etc.
Whatever accommodation you choose, remember it is your responsibility to maintain it and keep it clean.
Seek details about the security situation in and around your university and place of stay, as well as, local policing arrangements from the university authorities.
You should also contact local Indian associations and keep in touch with them.

The government means well. But these guidelines are not going to stop the attacks. One of the reasons we learn Indians are being attacked is because they are considered "passive", easy targets. They are not being attacked because their houses are not clean. The problem lies with the Australian society and is best tackled from their end.

The only advice to students still contemplating admission in a univeristy in Australia -- Get admission into a good university and stay on the campus. If you cannot, stay away from Australia. You will save your parents many sleepless, stomach churning nights and lakhs of rupees.

To read more on the subject -

http://shreevenkatram.blogspot.com/2009/06/opportunistic-crime-or-racial-violence.html

http://shreevenkatram.blogspot.com/2009/06/attack-on-indians-now-in-canada.html

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1020986/Have-the-attacks-on-Indian-students-hurt-Australia-s-image
http://www.benjaminsolah.com/blog/?p=1188

Further developments

The number of Indian students to fall in Australia

Attack on Indians, now in Canada

2009-06-11T03:50:00.000-07:00

Now there is news of a hate crime against Indians in Canada. Fortunately, the authorities were quick to apprehend the culprits and charge them. The police in Cananda acknowledged that the crime was racial in nature, unlike Australia, where the authorities have persistently down played the racial part.

Quick action by the authorities sends a strong message to the perpetrators. It shows that such crimes will not be tolerated in Canada.

The Australia authorities have been very reluctant to say that the attacks on Indian students are racist. They persist in calling such crime "opportunistic". Some Australian commentators have pointed out that the crime can be opportunistic and racial at the same time. There is this insightful article in The Australian worth a read - Blind eye to racism .

And then, whoever said that racial crimes are always committed by the whites only? We have seen in Australia and other countries that other races also indulge in hate crimes.

The Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, stated in a radio interview that such violence was part of urban life. He then went on to add that in India upto 20 Australians had been murdered or assaulted during the last decade. "Now that is not a result of Australians being targetted in India. That's just the fact of violence in cities around the world," he is reported to have said.

Very sad indeed that he had to say this. Was he implying that as long as crimes continue in India, Indians have no right to protest?

Moreover, how can one compare 20 cases over ten years to 1447 cases in one year? The figure for Indians being targetted in Australia works out to almost four cases of crime reported per day. A larger number would be going unreported. What kind of a comparison was Rudd making?

I suppose the reluctance in Australia to acknowedge that the crimes are racial, boils down to its racial past. The country wants to show that it has moved beyond it.

The immediate fallout of the attacks on Indians has been tourism minster Kumari Selja postponing her visit to Australia to promote India as a tourism destination. As she said, the climate is not right for it.

Both India and Australia need to work now on improving their people's understanding of the other. It calls for more contact between different racial groups. For how else can we proceed in a globalised world?

A mother-daughter relationship

2009-06-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

CNN has a very touching story on how a woman in Tel Aviv, Israel, decided to give a new mattress to her mother as a surprise present, and threw out her old tattered mattress. When the mother realised what the daughter had done, which was the following morning, she told her that the old mattress that she had been using for decades contained over one million dollars - her entire life's savings. The daughter ran downstairs to find that the mattress had been taken away. The mother than told the daughter to "leave it".

This mother is truly admirable. She tells her daughter to 'leave it'. Forget it, in other words. The daughter must have been feeling so miserable. And the mother's response was keeping her daughter's feelings in mind. She did not want her to feel bad about it - so like a mother.

The report had me thinking. Would an Indian mother have responded the same way? Indian mothers undergo great sacrifices for their children. I feel an Indian woman could possibly respond in a similar way if it had been a son. But if it had been a daughter? What do you think?

The Israel mother explained her reaction as, "the heart is crying, but we could have been in a car accident or had terminal disease."

Do you think that her response is conditioned by the violence in the region?

I hope they find the mattress.

The incident also shows that all good intentions and deeds do not necessarily benefit the person for whom they are intended or done.

'Opportunistic crime' or 'racial violence' - there is a problem out there for Indians

2009-06-04T00:07:00.001-07:00

A number of persons have responded to my first post on the targetting of Indian students. Some comments were very vitriolic from both Australians and Indians calling each other names. A few other nationalities also joined in. I initially published a couple of anonymous comments, and then stopped doing so for apart from being abusive in nature, they offered no analysis of the problem or suggestions. However, these posts show how easy it is for us to lose our veneer. Ranting and calling people names is not going to help the situation. We cannot help our past, but we can control the present and influence the future. Therefore, we need to look ahead: How do we prevent such incidents from happening?

Looking at the photos of Indians lying battered in hospital, a video of a student being beaten up on a train, statements from representatives of Indian students, and posts on the net, it is clear that all in not well in the land the Indian students have chosen to pursue their higher studies.

Ever since the Indian media started tracking the story a week ago, cases of violence on Indians have been reported everyday. The authorities prefer to term it as 'opportunistic crime", but when a particular community is repeatedly targetted, it seems there is something more than mere "opportunism". And when thousands of Indian students come out on the streets of Melbourne to protest, there seems to me that the problem is very serious and needs urgent attention. Today we have a report of the Australian police admitting to the rise in the number of attacks against Indians.

Given the kind of background most of the Indian students come from, they would be law abiding and deadly serious about their studies. Many of them would have taken loans to finance their study and stay in Australia in the hope of a better future. In some cases, their families would be sacrificing a lot of material comfort to have raised money to send them abroad.

The lack of adequate quality educational institutes in India, is what drives our students to the US, the UK, and of late Australia and Singapore for higher studies. So the reason they pick up cheap housing or take jobs that demand late hours is because they have to.

If Australia is interested in having these students there, the areas where they live and the train system needs to be made safer. New and better policing systems would help. Comments by Australians stating that the reason behind the “opportunistic crime” on Indians is because they take up jobs involving late hours and then take trains at night. The issue of making public transport safe needs to be looked into. Why have trains running at night if no one can use them?

The Indian students applying to uiversities need to ensure that they can get housing in and around the campus, so that they do not have to travel long distances and live in "bad areas" as the first commentator to my earlier report put it.

There was a suggestion of a multi-cultural police force in areas where the students reside and study. It might be a good step, restoring confidence among the students. Bad or no policing might be contributing to the surge in crime -opportunistic, or race driven.

There seems to be a strong case for having intensive counselling sessions with the Indian students before they leave for Australia – on what are acceptable forms of behaviour and what is a strict no-no. For often people inadvertently offend their hosts as they are not aware of the norms. In most parts of India, a revealing dress by a woman is considered a form of invitation. It is foolhardy to walk on the streets dressed that way. But some foreigners do it and expose themselves to unnecessary attention and harassment. As the cultural and social ethos of the two countries are different, the Indian boys would have to be told on how they need to conduct themselves especially with the women. Also, an advisory to students and visitors about which areas are ‘safe’ and which should be avoided, would help.

In a globalised world we need to know more about each other. And when we know, we understand the other better. It makes for more tolerance. When a country opens its doors to outsiders, it should ensure that they will be safe. It calls for examining attitudes and governance systems.

If you have suggestions on how Indians can prevent themselves from being vulnerable to attacks in Australia, please leave them as comments.

More on the subject -
http://shreevenkatram.blogspot.com/2009/06/attack-on-indians-now-in-canada.html

Later developments

It gets worse in 2010. Indian stabbed to death in Melbourne
The Indian government takes a firm stand

Australian racism is a form of terrorism

2009-05-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

Racism is a form of terrorism. Think about it. The way Indian students have been targetted in Australia; the attackers want to spread fear among the Indians. In that way they are no different from the terrorists. Their intention was to kill, as the brutal attacks show. They shouted "You bloody Indians, go home," according to reports reaching here. The terrorists do the same. They strike brutally. They have an agenda, which majority among us may not agree with. The racists too have a point of view which many among us may not subscribe to.

Again according to reports, over 95,000 Indian students are studying in Australia. They bring revenue and employment to the Australians. Attacks on students have been going on for years, only now they have reached a ferocity and regularity not seen earlier. The Australian authorities have been slow to take up the case of the students.

It was only when the Indian television channels started airing photographs and clips of the Indians being bashed up, and the resentment and anger started building up in India, that the Australian authorities were forced to take note. Even then, the effort has been to down play the attacks. In Australia, the attacks are referred to as "curry bashing". To "curry bash", is to go out find an Indian and target him. The term completely downplays the attack, giving it a 'fun' connotation, which it is not. It is pure racist terrrorism.

When we do not use the right term for attacks of this nature, we do not give it the seriousness it deserves. The media has a role here. Find the right word and use it. The culprits should be treated as terrorists, for that is what they are.

The Australian High Commissioner to India was at pains to downplay the racist part. As have the newspapers in Australia and some blogs that I visited. One went so far as to say that the attackers in one of the crime (where the students were beaten up on the train) were not white. That is was an opportunistic crime. However, representatives of Indian students say that in almost all incidents and there have been four in recent days, yelled words like "Bloody Indians, go home". If that is not racist, would someone explain what it is?

The attacks have created fear and anger in India. Australia will see lesser number of Indians applying to the universities, if the Australian government doesn't reign in its racist youngsters soon. Australia needs to show to the world that it will not tolerate barbarism of this nature in the twentyfirst century. At stake is not only its reputation as a developed country, but also its lucrative educational business. Every year, Australian universities line up, making a pitch to attract students from India. The race terrorism will hit the lucrative educational busniess of the country. This has what has got the Australian authorities worried. We are told that finally the police arrested some youngsters.

Check out the Eurasian Sensation blog by Christopher Mitchell. It gives you an insider's view on how things are in Australia. http://eurasian-sensation.blogspot.com/2009/03/curry-bashing-on-rise-in-melbourne.html

I found the following post dating back to 2006. It deals with Australian racism too. Indians students were facing problems even then, which seem to have now got more violent and occur with frigthening regularity. http://gideon.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/white-australia-racism-against-indian-students.htm

In India we are very familiar with the uncouth and racists ways of the Australian cricketing team. The post below is written by one of its own correspondents and deals with the way the Sri Lankans were humiliated. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2003/jan/20/cricket

The indigenous people of Australia have for long been at the receiver's end. The following is a link to their website. http://www.antar.org.au/node/221

A few weeks ago the Australian government pulled out of a United Nations forum to discuss racism.

Would you say Australia is a developed country? Should development be measured only on the basis of purchasing power, or the GDP? Or do we need a human rights record?

The most corrupt Municipal Corporation of Delhi

2009-05-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Finally a confirmation of what is already known, but little is done about.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is the most corrupt body in the country, possibly the world. A recent Right to Information query has confirmed widespread graft in the municipal corporation with as many as 4,400 corruption cases pending against about 3,400 employees, who range from peons to junior engineers. Strangely they are still employed and continuing with their money making rackets.

Try and get a housing plan passed. Or get a completion certificate for a building....and you will have to deal with these corrupt government officials. Nothing moves without greasing their palms. Refer to my story of how buildings that openly flout all norms and a great show was made of knocking down portions, stand today all patched up, mocking the citizens of Delhi. The corporation has allowed 3000 unauthorised colonies to spring up, violating Delhi's master plan. There are thousands of buildings which extend on to government land and this has been done in connivance of the junior engineers of the corporation, who are supposed to keep watch on the building activity in the city.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominates the civic body having secured 164 seats in the 272-member MCD House in 2007. The Congress, had made a similar sweep in the 2002 polls.
Both the dominant parties are responsible for the state of things in the Capital.

The recent parliamentary elections in which the Congress swept all the seats in the Capital, has jolted the MCD into action. Check out the following item -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Delhi/Poll-struck-MCD-jolted-into-action/articleshow/4572829.cms

Here is an old news item, but it tells you a lot of the attitude of those men and women responsible for overseeing the functioning of the corporation -
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/after-laptops-mcd-councillors-now-want-men/422418/

The vile men of religion

2009-05-23T03:26:00.000-07:00

God help us from these men of religion.
You find these sorts everywhere.
Two stories below – one from India and the other from Ireland!
Does anyone have any views on why men who claim to show us the path to God, resort to abusing children?

First, the story from India.
A court in Kerala has sentenced self-styled Godman Swami Amrithachaithanya alias Santhosh Madhavan to 16 years rigorous imprisonment for raping two minor girls. He ran an orphanage, giving scholarships to orphan girls. This served as a smokescreen for the child abuse he indulged in.
The second story is about the bishops who regularly abused children in Ireland.
The children were regularly abused in the religious schools in Ireland run by the Roman Catholic Church. A nine-year investigation by Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse recently published its final results. The commission paints a horrible picture of these schools. “Sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ institutions,” states the Executive Summary of the report.

Why do these men of God do such things to children? Any answers?

Haryana police needs better training

2009-05-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Haryana police has once again lived up to its reputation - of being the most gender- insensitive police force in the country. There have been two reported cases in the last one year of women, who had been raped, driven to suicide when the police refused to register their complaint.

It is tough for a woman to come out in the open and say she has been raped. When she plucks up enough courage and comes forward only to find that the authorities who are supposed to help her, turn a deaf ear, she finds herself all alone with no recourse for action against the culprits. Moreover, she lives in the dreaded fear that her tormentors who have escaped punishment, would be emboldened to rape her again.

That the police is insensitive to a woman's plight is to state the obvious. It also suffers from a great class bias. If the woman is from an economically poor strata of society, she has little chances of being heard. In all likelihood, she would be shooed away from the police station. There have been quite a number of cases of women being raped by the men in uniform, who were supposed to protect them.

In Haryana, the two women killed themselves when they found the police refused to listen to them in spite of them trying all means within their power to make themselves heard.

Alka and her husband, spent the past many months running around for justice. Failing in their effort, the couple who have two children below ten years old, consumed poison outside the office of the Inspector General of Police, Rohtak. While Alka died by the time she was taken to hospital, her husband lies critically ill.

According to media reports, Alka said she was gangraped by five men in Samalkha town in Karnal district last year. The police there did not register a case despite her complaint. She then met the IGP who forwarded her complaint to the Karnal district police chief. However, the case was later cancelled by the police who said that nothing could be found during investigations.
Senior Haryana police officials have refused to comment on Alka’s death.

In June last year, another young woman, Sarita, had consumed poison inside the Haryana police headquarters in Panchkula near Chandigarh, alleging that the police were not taking any action on two of its own personnel who had raped her inside a police station in Rohtak April last year.

The action by Sarita and Alka and her husband, is a statement that a society that does not even hear them out is not worth living in.

These are just two cases that have come to the media's attention. There are bound to be many more cases, where women after failing to register complaints against their tormentors, just give up, picking up pieces of their lives as best as they can and living in constant dread of being bodily harmed and mentally tortured again. The culprits roam free, emboldened that they can target a woman.

Haryana is a state which has become synonymous with a desensitised police force. The selection of its personnel and their training need a urgent closer look and attention. Those who are in charge of selecting suitable men and women for the force, need to ensure that they pick the right candidates. Further, their training needs to be overhauled, so that the state raises a sensitised police force which women feel comfortable in approaching.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/haryana-cops-ignore-rape-woman-kills-herself/91957-3.html

We save a few rupees, but they rake in crores

2009-04-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

(A crore is 10 million or 100 lakhs)
A crore of rupees - Rs 1,00,00,000

It is downturn time. People have lost jobs. Many have had to do with a cut in their salaries. The poor always had it bad, but the middle class is feeling the squeeze. Housing loans need to be paid off; school fees too. On top of it the elections have added to the woes. Summer means a rise in the price of vegetables. But the price of staples like rice, atta (wheat flour) and dals (lentils) has risen by about five to ten rupees per kilo. Ditto with sugar. When I protest, my neighbourhood grocer looks at me pityingly and explains, "Madam, I am being forced to charge the high rates. I am getting the goods at a higher price. Don't you know the sugar lobby has financed the political parties to the tune of some crores? In return, they have been assured that they can sell sugar at any price they want.”

More hardship for the common people – India’s middle class who will eventually have to bear the cost of the elections. Our rich netas (leaders) will get elected to another five years of pure unadulterated money making spree.

Meanwhile, I bargain for a few rupees with the vegetable vendor. I check out the price of 10 kg of atta in four shops to see who will give me the best price. I save a few rupees.

The leaders will rake in crores. A study shows how their wealth has grown between two elections. L Rajagopal of the Congress party representing Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh was worth Rs 9.6 crores in 2004 and now five years later he has declared Rs 299 crores as his assets! An increase of over 30 times!

There are many such candidates. Check out the following articles -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4367826.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Fastest-way-to-become-rich-Become-an-MP/articleshow/4484286.cms
It is a good thing that the politicians are being asked to declare their assets and their educational qualifications. Check out the election commission site -
http://eci.nic.in/ElectoralLaws/OrdersNotifications/Order_Assests_Affidavits.pdf

Of course we have no way of ensuring that what the leader has declared is all the assets he or she has. But we need to be told how they made the money and how much they have paid by way of tax. These figures should be available on the election commission website.

While the electorate is expected to pay its taxes, and penalties are stiff for late payment and evasion, our leaders evade them with impunity. In the state of Mizoram, none of the ten top candidates even possess a PAN card! Do we really want leaders like these- who have no regard for the law of the land? And shouldn’t we demand to know how the income tax authorities have proceeded against these worthies?

See how the assets of our political masters rose -
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=353302

Check out how the residents of Vadodara are demanding their right to choose not to vote.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1249952

Is it any wonder then, why the middle class is so disenchanted of the politicians that it does not come out to vote. And the pundits on television keep asking why the elections do not enthuse the middle class and why it chooses to treat voting day as a holiday instead of joining the queue to vote a leader. If you do not take part in an election you have no right to grumble, say those working for election reforms. Fair enough! But what if the choice is choosing between a thug and a lesser thug? Then we should rather have the choice to register that none of the candidates meet our expectations and we choose not to vote. Like some people have in some constituencies.
And if in any constituency a certain percentage of voters say that they feel that none of the candidates are worth choosing, then the constituency should come under President’s rule. By having such a law, we would ensure that the political parties pick their candidates with care. For they would not like to see it go under President’s rule. We need such a law, and we need it quick. Otherwise, the fixers and the thugs will continue to occupy the seats of power.

Where is my leader?

2009-04-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Who am I going to vote for? The voting day is upon us and I have not been able to make up my mind. India’s problems are immense, the country is huge, its population is large. And governing it is no easy task. Granted. Over 60 years since Independence, and a substantial majority of Indians still go to bed hungry. Millions do not have a roof over their head that they can call home. Many more can’t read and write. But that is another story.

Here I wish to focus on my immediate neighbourhood in the capital city of Delhi and why it is so tough for me to find my leader.

I see corruption and callousness of the powers-that-be towards the common man. I see the power of money. It is used to bend the rule of the land, and in the bargain, the common man or woman is put through needless harassment of an unthinking system.

An example: Many buildings in my neighbourhood stand testimony to norms having been flouted, especially by the builders. Not only do they cover more than the stipulated area, they also rise much higher than what has been laid down.

If you want to buy a house, you will have to be really lucky to get one with a completion certificate; for most come without one. But the estate agent will assure you, “Don’t worry. You will not be harassed. Everything has been taken care of.” This means the pockets of those who matter have been adequately lined with money.

For decades people had encroached upon government land with impunity, added rooms and extensions not permissible by law, and operated commercial outfits from residential premises. Political masters chose to turn a blind eye, extracting money to let the matters rest. Even the poor cobbler on my street gave hafta (a sum of money paid every week) to the cops so that they would not drive him away from the pavement.

One day, the administration woke up. Some people were served demolition notices. Then the bulldozers arrived. I saw two brand new buildings that were being given the finishing touches being targeted. The builder of one building, and the owner of the other had deviated from the guidelines. Why did the municipal corporation pass the plan in the first place? And then why did it wait till the building was ready to take action?

But it had to act. Politicians of various hues had to score points. Delhi had to be made into a world- class city in time for the Commonwealth Games. So action had to be taken, or shown to have been taken. Some portions of the outer walls of the two buildings which faced the main road were knocked down. The way the bulldozer carefully selected where to hit, told a story of money having exchanged hands. The neighbourhood buzz had it that a few lakhs were given to the officers to be ‘considerate’, to inflict damage that could be rectified with the least possible expense.

The buildings stood with the holes for months. As if they were a testimony to an administration that acts. There was much hue and cry in the city. Many business establishments were shut down. Many people lost their jobs. People took out protest matches and went to court. The opposition made a din. Newspapers and television channels faithfully covered the demolitions. And then as happens in this land, things died down, just as suddenly.

The workers returned. Bricks were added to the gaping holes, a coat of plaster and a brush of paint and it looked as if nothing had ever happened. Only some people in the municipal corporation and their political masters got richer by a few lakhs.

The whole drama served no purpose. By the end of it no one was wiser. Who were the corrupt officers, who bended the rules and pocketed the money? We did not get to know. Would they ever be punished? Of course not. For then the corrupt politicians would be exposed. And the politician is a special breed, above the law.

Another example: I went vegetable shopping and parked my car in the same spot I have been parking over the past decade. Only, this time when I returned, my car was missing. A helpful soul announced: “Your car has been towed away!” Nonplussed, I headed for the police station. I was fined – Rs 600 for parking at a no-parking zone.

“There is no such board on the street. And I have been parking there for years,” I told the cop.
“Well, now you can’t park there,” he said.
“Where do I park then?”
“On the opposite side of the road.”
“When did you change the rule?” I ask.
“A week ago.”
“But I have seen no board announcing that,” I pleaded.
“We can’t be putting up boards on every street,” he retorted.
An old man arrived. Panting and puffing, he came looking for his car. Another Rs 600…and on it went. At least five persons paid up in the half an hour I spent there.

Who could I complain to at this arbitrary functioning of the police? Where is my neta?

Oh! Who do I vote for?

The essence of India...one nostalgic post

2009-04-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

What does this old skeletal of a building mean to me? Though its essential character has been ripped out, the place holds for me some of the most pleasant memories of a childhood. Of fun and games, care and friendship and discovery of the essence of India.

It was my grandmother's home and I visited it regularly ...almost every fortnight, sometimes staying over during vacations. It stands on one of the most bustling streets of Old Delhi called Chandani Chowk.

Once it was filled with people, relatives and friends, old and young. Sounds of laughter would reverberate through it; an aroma of delicious food would hang over it. It would sit in so well in the cacophony of life in that busy history-rich street. My grandmother, Bibiji, ruled over it like a true matriarch. Its main door was always open. Anyone was free to go up, and many did; members of the extended family, neighbours, beggars who needed alms, the local politicians collecting funds. Everyone was welcome. And people would flock to meet that one woman who gave the building such life and vibrancy. The building lost it all with her death. I couldn't get myself to visit it for decades.

Recently, a relative came visiting from London and I took him to discover Old Delhi. We had to pass the house and what I saw.....it had changed beyond recognition. Its character had gone, it had been peeled away. It seemed as if the owner was going to give it a brand new look. Iron girders had been installed. The lovely green painted iron pillars were no more and railing of the balconies that ran along its length, could only be seen in parts. If you click on the photo you can see portions of the beautiful railing, in the building which was built about 200 years ago.

My grandmother had rented the first, second and third floors of this building in 1947, soon after the Partition of India into India and Pakistan. The family was fleeing from Lahore, the city that had been home for generations. My mother, who was in her teens, narrates how war cries between the Hindus and Muslims would rent the air and they would see Hindu houses being set on fire. Some women she knew had been kidnapped and raped by the Muslims. She would blame it on the power hungry political leaders who had betrayed their people, ruined the perfect camaraderie between two communities that had together fought for freedom from the British. My grandparents being Hindus decided it was best that they leave Muslim dominated Lahore, which had become part of Pakistan, and set up home in Delhi. So one terrible day as blood cries rented the air, my grandmother left with a band of six children and some members of the extended family for Delhi. My grandfather stayed on behind to wind up the business and died a year later.

Grandmother's first task on landing in Delhi was to find a place to stay. Her eldest son located the building, we were told. I think the fact that it housed two chemist shops on the ground floor attracted the family to it. My grandfather ran a chemist shop in Lahore - Beli Ram and Sons. It was one of the biggest and the best known.

It was from this building that I discovered the rich secular fabric of India. On this road stand Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib (a Sikh worshipping house), the Gauri Shankar mandir (a Hindu temple), the Sri Digamber Jain mandir (a Jain temple) and the Sunheri masjid (the Muslim prayer house). On the opposite side is a little church said to be the oldest Baptist Christian church in northern India.

My grandmother would sit on a charpoy pulled out into the balcony and I would stand, my head a little higher than the railing, as she would point out the sights. We would watch the religious processions pass below and she would tell me what they signified. This little street showed that different religions can cohabit, as long as each respects the other. And like monocultures which harm the earth, mono-religions, weaken the secular fabric of a nation. India gives people the right to pray, to worship any way they want, any God they may chose. Indians respect different religions, and participate in each others festivals. You may choose to question aspects of your religion or you may faithfully follow; the choice is yours. That is the essence of India that I grew up with. I marvel to this day that my grandmother bore no grudges. She would welcome with open arms any friends from Pakistan who came over.

While four of my cousins who lived in the house, studied in a convent school, one of them went to an adjoining school for girls run by the Jain nuns. The blue board in the photo announces the school. If you click on the photo you can read its name. So great was the influence of this school on her, that she grew up to be a pure vegetarian in a meat-eating family.

Bibiji kept an open house. Family and friends could drop in any time and be treated to a hot meal. Many women, pushed out by their families, sought refuge with her. A bed would be provided and the person could stay as long as he or she wanted. Some would spend a day pouring their heart out to her, complaining about abusive husbands and sons, while others would come to recuperate from an illness or seek her guidance on relationship and matrimonial matters.

She would sit crosslegged on her charpoy, dressed in white, her snow white hair pulled into a neat bun. Three other charpoys occupied the room and each had its respective corner. A visiting daughter and her children, or an abandoned woman seeking refuge would occupy the other charpoys.

On one corner of the room were her Gods. It was in her that I discovered my first feminist. At a time when it was taboo to touch the gods or visit the temple if you were having periods, she refused to toe the beliefs blindly. If God thinks women pollute he would not have made them, she would tell us.

While the first floor served as an office for my uncle, the second floor were the living quarters - housing two bedrooms and a store. The third floor had the kitchen, the servant's room, a spare room used to store the many charpoys and bed rolls ready to be rolled out for guests as they came in. Sleeping on the terrace on crisp white linen under the star-spangled sky exhanging ghost stories with cousins is an experience I have never been able to duplicate.

The rooms in the two-century-old building were divided by wooden planks burnished a rich brown. The floor was of uneven kotah stone blocks joined together by cement. For the children it was a readymade hopscotch floor and we used it to our advantage. The high ceilings kept the place cool in summer. The house had no wardrobes. Clothes, bedding, linen would be kept in big steel trunks. One piled on top of the other in the second-floor store. A small steel almirah housed my grandmother's most prized possession -- a range of the yummiest pickles made by her. We were forbidden to touch it. She didn't want our dirty hands diving into the stone jars to sample the aromatic stuff. Instead, each day she would dish out a small amount into a porcelain cup for consumption. When she was not looking the cousins would sneak into the room, but the almirah made such a clatter while opening that she would get alerted and we would receive a dressing down.

Even the birds and animals felt at home in this house. A flock of pigeons would live on the ledges around the building. One or two brave birds would venture in to occupy the wooden ledge in her room. The neighbourhood cats would walk in and out with impunity. Saucers of milk would be placed for them at one end of the long balcony, while the pigeons got fistfuls of grain every morning from her. It was here that I saw a cat hunt a pigeon. And one dark stormy night encountered two gleamy green eyes next to my bed and let out a scream that shook the whole household upright and they came running to find out what had happened. But Bibiji, on her charpoy opposite mine, just turned over her side and told me, '"Go back to sleep, it is just the black cat. You have scared her away."

She was the ever indulgent grandmother. She knew the favourite foods of each of her grandchildren, and as and when he or she arrived, a servant would be dispatched to bring the goodies. It was here that I dug my teeth into the valewale samose, gorged on the juicy fruit chat, was introduced to chilled rabri and rose-flavoured and kesar-badam kulfi. The famous sweet shop - Ghantewala is right opposite this building. and when we left for home, she would get a box of the most delicious Indian sweets packed for us as a parting gift.

It was at her place that I ate the best cooked mutton ever. And the sumptuous tandoori chicken. Though she rarely stepped out of her house, she knew where the best was available.

It was from here, that I discovered the richness of the Indian arts. At Dariba - the lane that houses the gold and silver jewellery shops - my mother traded her old jewels for new ones and bought my sister and me our first set of gold earrings. We would walk the Kinari bazar looking for intricate borders and sequins to attach to dupattas. It was in one of the gullies (narrow lanes) that I discovered a nondescript bangle shop which had the most exciting bangles I have seen. I flaunted them in college and the girls hounded me to know where I got them from.

It is here that I got introduced to Bollywood. My parents were no movie buffs, but my unmarried aunt would aim to catch the first show of each movie as it was released. And if I happened to be in Chandni Chowk on a Friday, I would get to see it with her. There were a choice of film theatres. A couple survive to this day.

Chandni Chowk, translates into a moonlit square. It is said a canal once ran down the entire length of the street with Red Fort on one end and Fatehpuri masjid on the other. History tells us that the Mughal king, Shah Jehan's daughter, Jahanara, took an active interest in the landscaping of the area. She had a market set around a square pool and on moonlit nights the waters turned a magical silver and hence the place got its name. The canal was gone much before my grandmother set up her house here...

I head for the main door of the building, hoping to run up the steep staircase, like I did as a teenager. A panwala sits on the platform in front of it, like his father had done decades ago. Only the man does not know who I am. His father would greet me with a 'namste beti' (greeting to you daughter) and put a cardamom and some meethi supari (sweetened betel nut) into my open palm. The double panelled door is bolted. A big lock hangs from the latch. In this age of terrorism, you cannot keep open the door of even a bare building. Time changes...but I feverently hope the essence of India would live forever.

extremists frighten us into silence

2009-04-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

Another case of rowdy censorship. This one comes from Norway.

This was to be a blog on India. But one of my pet themes is human expression and how society seeks to control it. Expression gets curtailed, free speech is banned by a few among us who are loud enough to shout and violent enough to stomp, tear, destroy and even kill. All this as the majority of us just stand and watch, and remain silent.
Increasingly these shouters are getting more vocal, much louder and they frighten us into submission. With threats of violence, and vandalalim and plain murder.
And what is happening? The movie maker shifts base, the artist pulls down his work, the writer is banned. It is happening all over the world and with a frigthening regularity and frequency. Yes, we are becomong a lot less tolerant. We are unable to take criticism. We are unable to debate or frame fitting replies to something we do not like, or hold a contrary view to, in a civilised manner. When someone writes something, and we think it is wrong, why can't the argument be put forth in a civilised manner. Another article or a book, perhaps? Another set of paintings depcting the contrary view? Why do we have to throw stones, burn property and kill?
Last month, a Norwegian Library was forced to pull down posters of "anti-extremist Islamic Art" after vandalism and complaints by a small group of Muslims (three women we are told) who vandalised some works, and the library was forced to pull them down.
The posters were done by Ahmed Mashhouri, a Muslim artist and refugee from Iran. Ahmed and his wife were human rights activists in Iran and knew what people can do in the name of religion as they had experienced at first hand the cruelty of the Muslim fanatics.
The posters were up for only a few hours before the women got at them. This is what I call rowdy censorship and falls in the same category as the one that drove Deepa Mehta away from India for the filming of her film on widows, that drove Bangladeshi author Tasleema to exile first from her home country and for the second time from India, the country where she had sought refuge.
It is what frigthened a Mumbai gallery from exhibiting a painting which depicts nothing more than what our ancient scupltures do . Links to some of the stories are provided below.
The poster from the top is from Ahmed Mashhouri's collection.
In fact, I found the recent video of the public flogging of a girl in Swat valley of Pakistan, which was widely circulated, very very disturbing. The poster in fact, seems a watered down version in comparison of what some fanatics among us do to women in the name of religion.
I wonder if those who protested at the Norwegian library will raise their voice against the public flogging of a teenaged girl in Swat? Will those who bayed for the head of the Danish cartoonist, speak up against the flogging? And demand that those who did it be punished for their very unislamic act. Will the men who flogged her be brought to book?

For more on the posters -
Gateway Pundit: Artist Told to Remove Anti-Islam Display After Muslims Attack Exhibition
http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2009/03/norwegian-library-pulls-exhibit-of-anti-extremist-islamic-art-after-vandalism-and-complaints-by-muslims/

Articles on this blog -

Rowdy censorship and Deepa Mehta's film -Water

Have a cry

What kind of a religion is this?

2009-04-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

What kind of a religion is it that allows such merciless flogging of a woman? Can watch it here -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/taliban-pakistan-justice-women-flogging
The video of a 17-year-old girl being flogged in the Swat Valley is very shocking. Reminded me of the Muthalik goons in Mangalore. Even they beat up women.

There was national outrage in India. And women came together to demand action against the creeps. Does anyone know what has happened to them? The media these days can only report on the elections. Are Muthalik's men in jail? Or are they out? When will justice be meted out to them?

I was very happy to see condemnation by Pakistanis to the flogging. Here is the link to the way they have reacted - http://www.defence.pk/forums/current-events-social-issues/24378-video-girl-17-flogged-taliban-savages-swat.html. Check out another reaction at http://pakcom.com/is-this-shariah-law/
Will the voices become vocal and strong for the government to reverse its pact with the Taliban powers that be? Have my doubts.

I loved the pink chaddi campaign in India. At least here, the women and men could try and shame the goons. It was action by the public, to show Muthalik and his ilk what we thought of them.

Okay, so the Swat society decided the woman had to be punished for something that is a crime in their eyes. A large group of men stood and just watched. Her brother was among those who participated in flogging her. But what about the man she was with? Is it okay for him to step out of the house with a woman not his wife? Will not the same punishment be meted out to him?
Now, how can one even ask a question like this!

If you want to be healthy learn to express

2009-04-01T04:00:00.001-07:00

These slides contain tips from a Brazilian doctor, Drauzio Varella, to keep you healthy.The mind has a lot to do with your state of health. If you are happy, you will be healthy, you feel so good and energised. The feeling is wonderful. But if you are depressed, everything seems to go wrong with your body. I am no doctor but I have seen it work in my life. The happiest years of my life have also been the healthiest...
These slides were sent to me by a friend who was a budding sportswoman and in the prime of her life met with an accident that left her paralysed.
She is a woman of immense courage and great wisdom. Ten minutes in her company and the statements she makes get you thinking about life. Why are we here? What is our role on Mother Earth? Why was I born?
What I have learnt from her is how to keep your spirits high in the face of immense hardship. And find meaning and happiness in life....
And for that, it is so important that one learns to express...Being able to talk, write, paint your feelings make you healthier. It is true. Try it.

Crime and Punishment

2009-03-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Incest can't be punished in India. The incestuous fathers will have to be tried for rape. By not having laws to deal with particular crimes, is a society's way of choosing not to see the crime. For at the root of it all is the so called sanctity of the family. An Indian family. And it raises uncomfortable questions and the society would rather not accost them. So pretend it does not exist.

It is the same with the media. If the media takes note of an issue it is an issue. If it chooses to ignore it, it becomes a non issue. There are so many non issues for the media today. For it chooses not to talk about them.

Is the internet the new age shrink, guru and what have you

2009-03-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

There is something about the internet. The anonymity that it offers to those who wish to remain so, and still seek out information, advice, or even give info and advice....

A young woman sexually exploited by her father, mother! and a former neighbour for nine long years, finally broke her silence and came out in the open telling her uncle about her ordeal. What made her do it was a friend on the net, who advised her to break free. Kudos to the friend. The journalists still do not have his name; all that we know is that he is a married man and gave her some very sound advice.

The 21-year-old could not tell anyone of her ordeal…suffering in silence… We learn that she did not study beyond Class 10 as her father did not let her continue with her education. But as he needed her to help him with his number plate design business, he taught her how to work the computer.

And she found a friend online, who we are informed she has never met. When her parents (her mother was an active accomplice) pushed her younger sister into having sex with their once-upon-a time neighbour Rathod, the older girl was very upset. She did not want her young sister to go through the misery she had been through for all these years. She told her friend on line who advised her to come out. And she did.

The story has a sequel. Seeing the coverage of the sordid tale set in Mumbai on the television, a college girl in Amritsar, sexually abused by her father (incidentally a political leader!!) took courage and went to the police.

The two instances show the power of modern communication tools. Subjects which were kept hidden, to be brushed under the carpet or in dark family closets, can now be brought out into the open, debated and discussed. If it had not been for the net and the TV, the girls would probably never have been able to speak against the beasts they had as their fathers.

The stories of incest are now appearing on the front pages of newspapers. I remember while doing a study on women and their portrayal in the media a good nine years ago, I came across a shocking news item - A judge in India actually gave a reprieve to a rapist, for he felt that the man was needed at home as he had daughters who were of marriageable age and his presence was necessary for their marriages to be arranged! And there was no public outcry against this insane decision. Not a word appeared in the papers against this mad judge. I wondered at the horror of it all. Wouldn’t the girls have been better off with the rapist father behind bars?

But such subjects were rarely discussed those days.

When Anuja Gupta, set up RAHI Foundation to help victims of incest around the same time, many of us marvelled at her for taking on such a tough task. How would she reach the victims? Or would they come to her?

Anuja’s organisation has been helping many young and old women who have survived incest. She was the one who told me, “Do not call them victims, they are survivors….”

We can only applaud the two young women survivors for speaking out against incest. It must have been terribly hard… The internet made it possible.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/60yrold-held-in-mumbai-for-raping-daughter-over-9-yrs/436522/

http://www.worldlatestnews.com/nation-india/daughter-wants-death-for-rapist-dad

After all that courage that it takes for a girl to speak out, the support structures are so inadequate. This is an example of how the police and our law deals with such cases, making it all the more tough for girls to speak out.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/no-chargesheet-rapist-dad-gets-bail/39509-3.html?from=search-relatedstories

Bye, Bye Tanchoi

2009-03-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

I saw the most gorgeous saree a quarter of a century ago in a plush New Delhi silk house. Finely woven silver grey threads spread themselves
effortlessly in a delicate floral, mind-capturing jaal design over rich maroon. I reached out to feel its rich texture, truly mesmerised. It was my introduction to the royal Tanchoi, the special woven silk from Uttar Pradesh. Soon a mother-daughter duo was by my side. I knew they coveted the saree from the look in their eyes. The mother announced "We will take it." "I was looking at it first," I announced. "Sisterji", said the salesman, "I have so many other sarees... See this one, this one..." I dug into my purse to pay him and said, "But I want this one." It cost about a thousand rupees. I found, to my horror, that I was falling short. "Here, you keep this money. I will be back tomorrow with the rest and take the saree," I told him. "We will pay you all the amount right now," said the duo thrusting the money into his hands. I wasn't letting go of it that easily. We soon marched to the owner and he agreed to keep the saree for me.

I still love the way it falls and feels 25 years down the line, with its sheer elegance and style. I marvel at the craftsman or woman who would have woven the magic, his or her heightened sense of design and colour, whenever i catch a glimpse of it in my cupboard. I found fakes in Sarojini Nagar market two years ago and knew then that the wonder saree fabric was in trouble. The shopkeeper informed me that the mechanised form was from China. I found a reputed saree house from South India, whose name is synonymous with the best of silk, stacking the fakes in its new upmarket South Delhi showroom and realised just how serious the trouble was. Oh what a fall! Were there no takers for the original? Something a friend said made me weep. She had recently returned from Varanasi, having met people who once worked the magic in gossamer silk threads, the master weavers. The mechanised fakes have spelt doom. Who will spend thousands now, when the machine-made variety is available for a mere fraction? The weavers have turned rickshaw-pullers. It has taken just a couple of years to reduce a centuries-old flourishing, artistic industry into nothingness. Will it be bye, bye, Tanchoi forever? Will no fiscal or other packages come to its rescue? Those hands that steer the rickshaw must get back to the loom.

The article first appeared in the March 20,2009 edition of the TImes of India.

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/PRET-SAREES--Bye-Bye-Tanchoi/articleshow/4288098.cms

Four women in search of a future

2009-03-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

Creativity killed, Talent murdered, Growth stunted
By Shree Venkatram

This is the story of four brilliant students: Shivani, Tara, Tanvi and Anita, who passed out of school in 2004. Their names have been changed, for their story is being told without their permission. They are all at the exciting age of 21 years, getting ready to claim the world. Unfortunately, something has gone terribly wrong.

Shivani was the head girl of her school. Bright, extremely creative, she scored well in her school exams and got into a leading college, counted among the top ten in India. She became an active member of the college’s dramatic society, then its secretary and in the final year was its President. She wrote, produced and directed plays, winning acclaim at inter -college festivals. She received an invitation to perform one of her plays in Pakistan.

She spent a summer vacation equipping young people in the slums of Delhi to bring out wall newspapers. She worked with them on their writing skills and taught them how to draw and paint. She spent another holiday brightening up the lives of little children in a slum. Every day for two months, in the gruelling heat of Delhi summer, she jumped over the garbage heaps and drains to put the children, a few years younger than herself, through rehearsals to produce a lively play, that gave the parents and the community an evening of colour, joy and laughter.

She was keen to build on her creative talent, and applied for a post-graduate degree course in mass communications specialising in film making at a university in Delhi. Her name did not figure even on the list of those called for a first-round interview. India had said “No” to a person of her calibre. She is now preparing for CAT (Common Admission Test) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management. She might get in, chances are she might not, for her aptitude lies elsewhere. But one thing is definite: A budding film maker has been stymied, throttled.

Tara went to one of India’s best schools and made it to a leading college. Her results have been brilliant. She writes lyrics, composes music and plays in an all-girl band. Highly motivated and creative, she brought out a campus newspaper, conceptualising it, putting it together, seeking ads and then selling it, along with a bunch of students.

She too had sought admission to the same course in mass communications. She too failed to make it. I do not have her reaction, but the people who know her are dumbfounded. Why are such brilliant students failing to secure seats to institutes of higher learning? Have reservations taken over to such an extent that promising students are being turned away?

Tanvi had set her heart on medicine. A conscientious student, she had scored well in school. So keen was she on pursuing medicine that she took a year off to prepare for the Pre-Medical entrance examination. While other girls her age caught the latest films, hung around with friends, and took vacations, she sat through special classes and took the medical entrance exam. India denied her a seat. But many aspirants, way down in the list from her, made it. Two of them were her classmates. She says while in school she was not even aware that they belonged to a ‘backward category’. Their parents were high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians. The children owned the latest gadgets, wore branded clothes and came to school in chauffer driven cars.

She lost a year, but what is worse, she lost the belief that hard work gets you what you want. She learnt that modern day India sacrifices merit. Embittered and disgusted, at the age of 18 she sought admission to a regular BA course.

While still in school, Anita volunteered her Friday evenings and Saturdays to teach at a neighbouring school for disadvantaged children. In college, she spent time with an NGO working for women in mental trauma. She entered an international competition and her entry, based on the work she had done, got selected. At the age of 19, she had the distinction of being published in the leading medical journal of the world. She coordinated the women’s development cell of her college and got interested in pursuing a course in development studies. She applied to two prominent British universities well known for their development studies course, and a leading Indian institute that began a course in development studies this year. The British universities gave her admission. But her parents, neither rich nor in politics, could not afford the fees. The Indian institute said “No” to her. Disheartened, she entered another stream. India has lost a caring individual who wanted to learn and work in the field of development.

Where do we go from here? Are we going to let talent waste like this? Are we going to let our politicians lead us this way?

Wake up India! Let us not do this to our best talent, to our most creative youngsters. Let us not kill hopes, but nurture them. Let us set up more quality institutes of higher learning. Though there are many fly by night institutes proclaiming to teach mass communications and charging exorbitant fees, why is it that we have only a couple of quality institutes? And what logic is there for reserving seats in courses that build on creativity? Can creativity ever be reserved?

Isn’t it ironical that 60 years after Independence we continue to look West to deliver our people from poverty and want? What kind of education policies do we have that we have not been able to set up departments of development studies in all our universities? Why are there only one or two institutes offering a postgraduate course in development studies with almost 50 per cent of the seats being reserved?
India needs to assiduously build its pool of talent. It needs to nurture its young socially committed youngsters. And it needs to do so very badly.

The article first appeared in the Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/four-women-in-search-of-a-future/235060/

Rowdy censorship and Deepa Mehta's film -- Water

2009-03-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

The issue of censorship, or how some elements in our midst have a say over what the rest of us do, is troubling. We need to examine our response to such elements who decide what we should do, how we should think, and how we should project ourselves. I wrote the article on Deepa Mehta's film some years ago. What happened to the film, the protests that it faced fall into the category that I term 'rowdy censorship', where a few loudmouths scream and shout, and even vandalise, forcing the artist to move away from the locale or hide his or her work. The photo you see here is a still from the film Water showing Chuhiya, the child widow with an older one.

The article first appeared on Voices-Unabridged - The E-Magazine on Women and Human Rights Worldwide.

"Water" the Forbidden Movie
by Shree Venkatram, 10/08/06
Deepa Mehta’s film, “Water”, has been drawing crowds ever since its world premiere four months ago. It ran full house in Australia and has become the highest-grossing Hindi language film in North America for 2006. But in the country of its origin, India, it has yet to be released.

Set in the 1930s, “Water” tells the story of upper caste Hindu widows in Varanasi. Seventy-five years later, young and old women still sit in the ‘widow houses’ of the holy city, packed off there by relatives who either found it too burdensome to look after them or wanted to grab their property. Poorly educated and often illiterate, these women live a life of penury with barely a sari to cover them and hardly enough food to see them through the day. Although separated by three fourths of a century, both sets of women are prone to sexual abuse and exploitation.

Though not on reel, “Water” tells another story about politics and perceived ‘national honour’. It is a contemporary story of how a small vocal group, playing the role of moral police, curtails free expression.

Deepa Mehta, the Indian-born Canadian filmmaker, had the necessary license from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to shoot the film on the Varanasi ghats in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2000. Unfortunately, in a country that values democracy, stands by free speech and prides itself for its tolerance, the government issued license could not ensure the filming. The will of the cacophonous group prevailed. It burnt the main set of the film and threw it into the river. It shouted slogans demanding that the film troupe leave and burnt effigies of Deepa Mehta. Its statement to the press said, “They come with foreign money to make a film which shows India in poor light because that is what sells in the West. The West refuses to acknowledge our achievements in any sphere, but is only interested in our snake charmers and child brides. And people like Deepa Mehta pander to them."

Deepa dashed to Delhi, met with the minister, cleared the script again, and armed with an order that filming be allowed, returned to film. Under heavy police protection, the filming began. But after a couple of takes, the local authorities arrived on the sets, reporting that since they could not guarantee the troupe’s safety, they would have to leave.

It would be four years before Deepa would resume work on “Water” again, this time in the neighboring island country of Sri Lanka with sets made to resemble the ghats of Varanasi. The change of locale did not alter the story in any way, except for some details. In one sequence, for example, the people who go past the widows outside a temple look Sinhalese.

The protest about “Water” had a precursor. Deepa’s earlier film, "Fire", which dealt with lesbian love between two sisters-in-law, saw protests after three weeks of a successful run in cinema houses of Delhi and Mumbai. This was when a group decided that the film was “contrary to Hindu values, anti-Indian, corrupting of morals.” Cinema houses screening it were stoned and there were protest marches forcing the government to ban the film. Ironically, most of those who were protesting against “Water” had not read the script. Just as most of those who shouted slogans against “Fire” had not seen the film. Deepa Mehta said in an interview that she had come across people in Varanasi who had rewritten leaked pages of the script.

"Water" shows widows shorn of their femininity (tonsured and dressed in a shroud of white), being pushed to the fringes of society and made to beg for a living. Even the child widow, Chuhiya, has to follow the strict dress and behavior code. She is reprimanded for looking longingly at goodies in a sweetmeat shop, food a “woman” can’t enjoy after the death of her husband. Though society barely acknowledges their presence, it is not averse to exploiting and sexually abusing them.

The moral keepers of the 1930s had no qualms about the subjugation and sexual exploitation of the widows. The moral police of today gets offended because the film shows the country in a bad light, even though it has never raised its voice over the exploitation and the degradation of these widows.

Although the film has a tragic ending, the spirit in which it ends is uplifting. It is about winning when the odds are stacked against you. In a way, this is Deepa’s story—of how even with her sets burnt, her funds run out, her initial team of lead actors not able to give her new dates, she picked up the pieces to complete the task she had embarked upon. “Water” is a story of determination, of the indefatigable human spirit.

The link to the article on Voices Unabridged http://voices-unabridged.net/article.php?id_article=151&numero=10

More links to posts on Rowdy Censorship
Extremists frigthen us into silence

Have a cry

2009-03-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

When artistic freedom gets curtailed, it is time to get worried. Of late instances of moral policing are on the rise in India.

Fearing police intervention over the display of supposedly ‘obscene’ artwork, Mumbai’s oldest public art gallery, the Jehangir Art Gallery, has told Delhi-based artist Damayanti Sharma, who had booked its gallery number 3 for a show, that she could not put up some of her paintings “for fear of offending the sensibilities of some quarters”.
The shocked artist plans to go ahead with her show – minus the censored pieces – from today. “I had already created the artworks for my show. I didn’t consider them offensive at all, but when I sent photographs of 15 of my works to the Jehangir Art Gallery, I learnt that about a dozen of them could not be put up. The gallery’s secretary Karthiyani G Menon sent me back a list of my works, most of which were marked as inappropriate,” said Damayanti. Menon confirmed that she had seen Damayanti’s photos and recommended that some works be removed from her show. “Of late, we’ve faced quite a lot of harassment from the Colaba Police Station. The cops come, confiscate the art, sometimes arrest the artist – it’s embarrassing for us. We are, after all, a public institution. We’re still reeling from the legal repercussions of hosting a photograph of Vikram Bawa’s work that focused on homosexual love,” explains Menon. Vikram Bawa’s case went up to the High Court, where a private party sued Jehangir Art Gallery for vulgarity. Senior inspector Deepak Vishwasrao of Colaba Police Station, however, defended the police stance on action against ‘offensive’ shows. “Nude art or anything that offends the religious beliefs of any section of the people is problematic. It is not my job to decide whether artistic licence can be granted simply because an art work is in a gallery. We just implement the existing laws, and respond to the people who take offence,” Vishwasrao said.

To see a painting by the artist click on the link below.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Potpourri/Breast-left-alone/articleshow/4217941.cms

Have a laugh

2009-03-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

Appeared in the March 19, 2009 issue of Hindustan Times

Daryaganj monkey on a power trip

The police in Daryaganj are investigating an electricity meter theft. Nothing unusual in this: only the suspect has a tail.
Zafar Ahmed Khan, a musician from All India Radio filed a police complaint blaming “a monkey” for the disappearance of his electricity meter. “When our meter got stolen, everybody said it must have been the monkeys as they routinely open wire boxes in the area,” he said.
Last month, Ahmed found that his electricity meter, that unobtrusive box, which ticks away quietly at a dark corner in every house, had vanished. “No man would be stupid enough to steal something like that,” he had told his neighbours.
His neighbours reckoned it wasn’t a human being. “I still went to the police station for a formal complaint,” he said.
But instead of registering a case, a friendly cop also gave him similar advice. “He looked sure that a monkey had taken off with my meter. So I wrote that in my complaint,” he said.
The police, however, denied having anything to do with the monkey business. “It is not our job to chase monkeys. But we’ll probe it,” said a senior officer. On Monday, BSES installed a new meter at Ahmed’s residence. The police, however, haven’t made any headway.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=RSSFeed-India&id=cf6c2fd3-fc82-4956-9cd7-783f47b111a2&Headline=Daryaganj+monkey+on+a+power+trip

Clash of cultures?

2009-02-12T06:36:00.000-08:00

Check out the following item:

GULMARG: Angry crowds blocked the main road to Gulmarg on Sunday as massive protests continued to rock the north Kashmir resort town and adjoining areas, a day after police detained a Swedish skier for hurting Muslim religious sentiments.
Henz Patrick, in his 30s, was detained after locals protested that he was using a ski slider with Quranic verses inscribed on it.
While grand mufti Bashir-ud-din's call for forgiving the Swede — the Mufti met Patrick late ON Sunday evening — led to the blockade being lifted, the protests have spread to Srinagar.
On Sunday morning, rumours that Patrick was part of an Israeli-led skiing group particularly inflamed passions. Raising anti-Israel slogans, angry people blocked the main road to Gulmarg at Tangmarg for several hours.
A police officer said some protesters gathered outside the famed Gulmarg Gandola, Asia's highest and longest cable car project, leading to suspension of its operations for some time.
In his statement, Patrick said his wife, an Arab from Qatar, had given him a good luck sticker with Quranic inscriptions, which is the first 'Kalima' of the scripture. It was this sticker pasted on his slider that kicked up a ruckus. Patrick said he there was no malicious intent on his part.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Protest_over_skier_intensifies_in_JK/articleshow/4096839.cms
What does it show? A big disconnect. The man meant well. He pasted the sticker, given to him by a woman he loved on an item he valued.
But look at the reaction. Why did that happen? For in the east, anything that we hold important, or should I say holy, is not displayed on our feet, or put on something we step on.
The skier apologised and all was forgiven.

More than a meal

2009-02-11T02:18:00.000-08:00

By Shree Venkatram

The future of India lies in the health of her children. The latest Human Development Report shows that 47 per cent children are underweight. Over 34 per cent of Indians live on less than Rs 40 a day. The mid-day meal (MDM) scheme is thus a necessity. It is an investment the country makes in the health of its children. But unfortunately, the government’s implementation of the scheme leaves much to be desired in most parts of the country.

Recently, some of our young MPs — keen to understand the malnutrition situation in the country — made jaunts to a few states. Meanwhile, there was a hare-brained suggestion from some quarters to replace a fresh MDM with packed food — like biscuits. Our leaders feel that by doing away with the hot meal,they would be stemming the corruption found to be associated with the programme. It is akin to killing a person because of an ailing organ. It would be funny, if it were not appalling, to see how ignorant some of our leaders are of a government scheme working well in some parts of the country. The advocates of packed meals should visit some villages in Tamil Nadu to see for themselves what a fresh, hot meal can do. The formula adopted by those schools running a successful MDM scheme leaves little room for corruption and has dramatically improved the quality of the meal.

What is this magic remedy? It is the involvement of the mothers of the children in the MDM programme. Along with the teachers, they have a say in the purchase and storage of the food items. The mothers’ group of each school selects from among themselves those who will cook and serve the meals. The cooking is done on the school premises and they ensure that each child gets a hot meal of rice, sambhar and greens or koottu (mixed vegetables). The child carries a plate to school and after eating, washes and takes it home to bring it again the next day.

The scheme is working so well that the balanced nutritious meal comes for (hold your breath) just Rs 5 a day for each child. Tamil Nadu has an MDM committee, which has drawn up a weekly menu, providing for variety and ensuring that the children get balanced nutritious meals. The involvement of the mothers in the meal programme has had many positive spin-offs. Their presence on the school premises and the constant and regular monitoring by the state authorities ensure that teachers do not absent themselves from work and classes are run on a regular basis. The INDUS project launched by the Indian government in 21 districts of the country to eliminate child labour has found that involving mothers in the MDM programme has brought the children into schools faster than any other scheme. In districts with high instances of child labour like Virudhunagar and Namakkal for example, involving the mothers has promoted teacher-parent interaction, thus benefiting the child. In some areas, NGOs have joined hands with the government in running special schools for mainstreaming child labourers. Some of them have managed to raise additional resources so that each child can be given a glass of milk or a mid-morning snack. In some of these special schools, an afternoon snack in the form of a cup of groundnuts, cooked beans or Bengal gram has been introduced providing an additional helping of much-needed protein. The mothers involved in the cooking programme are given a monthly stipend, which goes into augmenting the household income. Another big plus is that children from different religions and castes eat food cooked and served from a common pot. They sit together, breaking bread, and caste barriers. So let us hand over the reins of the MDM programme elsewhere in the country too to the mothers. They will ensure that their children get adequate nutrition and also attend school regularly. At stake is much more than a mid-day meal scheme.
The writer is a consultant with the International Labour Organisation.

The article first appeared in The Times of India

When the media neglects

2009-02-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

The Media on dowry

The Media seems totally disinterested in the issue of dowy. Though dowry has such a vital hold on the lives of Indian families, the media finds no time or place for it.

As a chronicler of contemporary society, the amount of time and space the media gives to an issue shows what it feels is important. When dowry is off its radar, the impression given is that it is not important.

It is only when an 'event' like the Nisha Sharma case happens, that the there is a rush of storites. But now there is silence again....

Should an event be the only point of reference for the journalist? Can't she or he see a story in the way life is lived?

The new face of dowry

2009-02-07T20:51:00.000-08:00

by Shree Venkatram

Dowry: Age-Old Tradition or Contemporary Cruelty?

Three years after Gudiya's marriage, Bina is still repaying the Rs 30,000 ($660)
she took as loan to buy her daughter's dowry. When Gudiya left for her marital
home, she took with her: a double bed, an almirah (traditional Indian wooden
chest), a dressing table, a TV, a washing machine, utensils, gold jewelry and a
suitcase full of new clothes for her and her in-laws.
But in the slum where she lives, Bina does not even have a bed, let alone a
washing machine. However, she had to give one to her daughter’s in-laws when
they demanded it. The total expenditure for the wedding was over Rs one lakh
(approximately $2,230), 33 times the amount of money Bina makes per month as
a housemaid in Delhi. The amount includes Rs 70,000, ($1,550) all that she and
her carpenter husband had saved over the course of 15 years.
Bina has already started worrying about finding funds for her second daughter,
Babina’s, wedding. “Who will marry her without dowry?” she asks. And so the
family will eat only one meal a day and cut down on other necessities so that
three years from now, when Babina is 20, there will be some money available.
Even in poor homes, marriage expenses can run into several hundred thousands
of rupees. In better-off homes, dowry might include a car, furniture and
furnishings for a new home, expensive jewels, and a wedding feast for several
hundred friends and relatives in a five-star hotel.
The monetary hardship that dowry brings can be directly linked to the
astonishingly skewed female to male ratio (in some districts, there are as few as
800 females to every 1,000 males). In many cases, the birth of a daughter is a
fate to be avoided at all costs; foeticide and infanticide are all too prevalent (see
article). Families who do raise their female children spend just the bare minimum
on her education and often neglect her health needs; money must be saved for
her dowry, whatever the cost.
At one time, dowry was only practiced by upper caste Hindus who gave gifts of
clothes and jewelry to their daughter at the time of her wedding. The movable
property, perceived as her share from her natal home, was made available to her
when she left for her marital home. The in-laws welcomed her with gifts that
were to match what she had received from her parents; this was to show equality
in status. Gifts were also exchanged between members of the two families to
cement their ties.
In Bangalore, Three to Four Newly Married Women Die Every Day
But over time, especially in the last three to four decades, a practice that once
signified paternal love, has become ugly, vicious, and deadly. Thousands of
young women have been tortured and murdered at the hands of husbands and
in-laws, greedy for unearned wealth in the form of dowry. Official records in the
South Indian city of Bangalore show three to four newly married women die
unnatural deaths every day. In the capital city of Delhi, Ms. Vimla Mehra, Joint
Commissioner of Police, Crime Against Women Cell, says she received over
8,000 complaints from women in 2003, a majority of them related to dowry.
Although a law passed in 1961 forbidding the dowry system, there have been
Page 1
hardly any convictions since that time. Young women who did not bring dowry
up to the husband and in-laws’ satisfaction were tortured until their parents gave
into the demands. Many women were, and are, driven to suicide. A sinister and
rising trend is newly married women dying after catching fire from kitchen
stoves. These deaths are being passed off as accidents or suicides, leaving the
husband free to marry again and get more dowry. Under pressure from women’s
groups, amendments to the law were made in 1983 and 1986, broadening the
definition of cruelty, putting the onus on the accused, and providing for a
minimum of seven years of imprisonment for dowry murder.
But laws have proved ineffective and dowry’s stranglehold on Indian society has
only become stronger now that tribal and matrilineal communities, who
previously never gave dowry, are adopting the custom. “It is truly a secular
custom now,” comments Brinda Karat, president of the All-India Democratic
Women’s Association (AIDWA). According to a recent extensive study, dowry
has spread in the length and breadth of the country.
Bina may be a Christian, and her daughter may have married in a church, but
when it came to putting together the dowry, there is no difference between Bina
and her Hindu neighbors or the Muslim families living in her slum cluster.
Feminists, social activists, and reformers are truly alarmed. Breaking the practice
is proving extremely tough. While on one hand they work at educating the girl
child and providing for inheritance rights for women, century old customs prove
difficult to break. There have been instances of women who got married without
dowry being denied any right to property in their natal home by their parents.
Take Geeta, for example. She got married without dowry to a man of her choice.
Before his death, her father willed his entire property to her two brothers, giving
her no share.
On the other hand, rising materialism, consumption, and advertising power
continue to boost the practice of dowry. It is seen as a get-rich-quick facility
exploited by the groom’s family. Goods the groom’s family have seen and
desired, but not been able to afford, are demanded from the girl’s side.
Marriage is big business in India—estimated to be a Rs 50 billion (about $1.1
billion). A mega mall, devoted to the business of marriage, is coming up in a
Delhi suburb, Gurgoan. Delhi recently saw a couple of fairs at luxury hotels that
sold lavish 16-course wedding dinners, luxury cruises and honeymoons abroad,
exorbitant designer wear and jewelry at mind-boggling prices. Is it the new face
of dowry?
2004-09-29
First published inhttp://www.voices-unabridged.org/format/creat_ss_format.php?id_ss_article=224

disappeared

2009-02-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

Had a lot of problem locating my blog. It just disappeared. Found it after a lot of difficulty. Does this happen often?

The condom chant

2009-02-01T05:17:00.000-08:00

I was happy to read the following newsitem:
Condom ringtone launched in India (published at the end of this post)

As a development communicator, I find it is very difficult to get people to change their attitudes. How do you go about it? One way is to make the uncomfortable, the taboo subject or word part of everyday vacabulary, make it commonplace.
I was happy to see the condom and the parrot ad on TV. It is done with a sense of fun and I am so glad that they put the sari clad mami in.
When I started out in journalism, way back in the late Seventies, the chief reporter, (now they call the breed Metro Editor) threw a fit when I used the word 'rape' in a news report. He struck it out and wrote "outraged a woman's modesty". I objected. "The phrase in no way states what the word 'rape' does," I told him. He said, "Our's is a respectable paper, we do not use words like that!" Even in the late Seventies and early Eighties, Delhi saw a number of incidents of rape. and everytime I reported on a case I used the word 'rape'. He finally stopped crossing it out!

Sexual harassment was referred to as 'eve-teasing', a terrible expression that masks the enormity of the crime and the way a woman feels when she is sexually harassed. I am glad to see that the terrible phrases have been knocked off from our vocabulary and reportage. Let us say it the way it is. A condom is a part of adult life. Let us behave like adults. Now all I wait for is: A R Rehman to set music to a song on condoms in a Bollywood tamasha. That would proclaim our ultimate comfort level.

Condom ringtone launched in India
August 2008:A cellphone ringtone that chants "condom, condom!" has been launched in India to promote safe sex and tackle the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. The "condom a cappella" has been designed to break down Indians' reluctance to discuss condom use and to make wearing a condom more acceptable. Organisers of the campaign, funded by the foundation set up by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, hope the ringtone will become a craze among young Indians. About 2.5 million people live with HIV in India, said the BBC World Service Trust, the charity behind the ringtone, which was released this month. It can be downloaded at condomcondom.org. "Ringtones have become such personal statements that a specially created condom ringtone seemed just the right way of combining a practical message with a fun approach," said Radharani Mitra, creative director of the BBC World Service Trust. "The idea is to tackle the inhibitions and taboos that can be associated with condoms." India is the world's fastest-growing mobile telephone market with 270 million users according to the latest official figures, up 57 percent in just one year. — AFP http://www.todayonline.com/articles/271737.asp

This bride had guts

2009-02-01T04:33:00.000-08:00

This happened in August 2008 in Chennai. It is an interesting story and I liked the woman's guts. The man lacked them completely. Why couldn't he stand up to his parents?
Techie forges HIV+ve report to escape knot
His parents found him a suitable girl, but he was already in love with another. As the wedding date was fixed, he found an unusual way to prevent the marriage by producing a fake medical report which said he was HIV positive. What he didn't expect was that he would end up behind the bars for cheating the girl. Ashok Nagar all women police on Friday arrested Satish, a 28-year-old MBA graduate working in a software company in TIDEL park, and slapped cases under Sections 420 (cheating) and 4 (1) of Prevention of Women Harassment Act. Initial inquiries revealed that right from his college days, Satish has been in love with a girl, who is now working in the US. He kept the affair a secret and agreed to marry the girl form Jafferkhanpet his parents found for him. The couple got engaged and their marriage was fixed for the first week of September. Satish, a resident of Mugalivakkam near Porur, apparently had a change of mind and decided to call off the marriage. He visited the girl's parents last week and broke down, telling them that he was HIV positive. He gave them a lab report 'confirming' his status. Not entirely convinced, the girl's family later called up the lab, which denied having issued such a report to Satish. They said the logo on the report was a fake one. When the girl's parents called up, Satish stuck to his version. Inquiries with friends revealed Satish's affair and the bride filed a complaint of cheating. Satish then offered to go ahead with the marriage, but the bride turned it down and told the police to pursue the case. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Chennai_techie_forges_HIV_report_/articleshow/3397702.cms__._,_.___

Sam Pitroda's recipe for success

2009-01-31T04:26:00.000-08:00

By Shree Venkatram

The message was clear: “You will have to help yourself if you want to change things. Nobody else will do it for you.” Sam Pitroda was interacting with a group of about 50 children from Delhi’s slums and surrounding villages who met him in his office at the Knowledge Commission at his invitation.

“Do not tell me the problems. We all know them,” he responded when a young girl said ‘corruption was a big problem’. “Tell me how can it be dealt with?”

“We have to tell people not to give bribes. We have to change them,” said a young voice.

“You cannot change others. You have to change yourself,” remarked the visionary who brought the telecom revolution to India.

“If 50 of us decide never to bribe anyone or to accept bribes, we would have made a beginning,” he told the group.

He told them about the time when he went to a village as Rajiv Gandhi’s special advisor. “The village pradhan had prepared a long list of things that were not available in the village and he proceeded to read them out in front of a large gathering, thinking I would be able to set them right.

“I said: ‘I can’t. It is in your hands. If the teacher does not come to the school, has any villager ever volunteered to teach the students?’”

“In villages where there is no school, does anyone say, ‘My house is available for three hours everyday to run the classes’?” he questioned.

He told the children the meeting with them was part of a consultative process to learn from them their views and goals which would feed into the recommendations made by the Knowledge Commission to the Prime Minister.

“How could one improve the education system,” he asked.

A teenaged boy replied: “Education should be based on practicals, and not be rote based as it is at present.”

“Good,” said Pitroda.

“When we ask questions to our teachers we are made to shut up with either ‘you ask too many questions’ or ‘there is no answer to why’,” the young ones were quick to point out.
“Parents should let us pick the courses of our choice,” said another.

Pitroda could not have agreed more. He said, “Parenting in India has to change. The Indian parents do not allow their children to explore. They are constantly giving instructions.”

“But Sir, you should be telling that to our parents,” they pointed out.

“Yes, my next meeting should be with parents,” he said.

The children were inquisitive about him. One little girl asked: “What was the toughest day of your life?” The man was stumped. “No one has ever asked me that before. It was when I had the surgery following my second heart attack. The doctors cut me up here, and here,” he said pointing to his body. “I thought I would never come out of it alive.”

***
At the end of the meeting, I seek out the little girl. She stands less than 4 feet tall and looks barely eight. Priyanka turns out to be 11 years old and is badly undernourished. Her, father is a tailor. An NGO is financing her studies as her family is too poor to send her to school.

“What has been your toughest day?” I ask her. She gives me a dazzling smile. “I haven’t had any,” she says.

No wonder Pitroda has such faith in India’s children.

Great tumult in Little India

2009-01-31T04:22:00.000-08:00

by Shree Venkatram
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 17, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=24015
Ladnun is a small town one of the most backward districts of Rajasthan. A serpentine road from Ratangarh railway station through parched land takes you there. If you are lucky you would have passed a truck or two, for on this road you travel for miles without seeing a human or an animal. The drought for the fifth year running has left the ground cracked.

Ladnun has quaint Jain havelis, but their occupants have left to make crores in big cities. Some of them maintain caretakers, who keep the haveli clean for the sheth’s annual visit. At the end of one Jain street is the Jain Vishwa Bharti Institute (JVBI), a little university. On its campus rainwater is harvested, bougainvillaea bloom and peacocks strut about.

Sixty bright-eyed girls are doing their first year BA in Political Science. It is the first undergraduate course thrown open for girls. Most of them are first-generation women to receive higher education. Were it not for the bus that the institute runs, which brings them to their college on the JVBI campus and takes them back, many of them would have been unable to attend. The new vice-chancellor of the university knows that and when she threw open the institute’s gates, acquiring a bus was a priority.

The girls revel in the joy higher education brings. When asked what was the first word that came to their mind when they were given the term ‘‘college”, unhesitatingly one of them replied: ‘‘mauj-masti’’. It is like being let out of a prison. And as the girls make friends, explore the university, attend classes, discover the library, try out the latest fashions, the parents look around for grooms. But will these girls marry the first suitable boy?

Unlikely. All of them want to work, to be economically independent. And most of them know what they want to do — law, journalism, teaching, business management and even flying! They are finding out how to get there.

How would a traditional society react to these girls? Would it force them to conform — put them behind the ghunghat or the burkha — or would the force of their collective spirit crumble the small-town middle class bastions and set them free? The tide is strong, and there is no holding back. They want to have control over their lives. Who would know this better than the boys on the campus? Among them is a palpable apprehension of the changing equations. She is different from the women they have known so far. Would they be able to handle this creature who wants to be an equal, have a career and an opinion? Would she respect her in-laws and be god-fearing, cook and wait for them like they have seen the women do? Would they have to share the household chores? And would entering the kitchen be a reflection on manhood? ‘‘Manhood’’ here is waiting for a new definition.

In nearby Koel village, people have turned out in full strength and in their best — from the old bent man to the baby wide-eyed on her mother’s shoulder. The village has no health centre and only a primary school. Its fragile economy couldn’t be worse. But they are celebrating the opening of a bridge school for those girls who have passed out of primary school but could not continue their education because there was nowhere to go.

The villagers have contributed in cash and the labour to build the five-room school. The university helped in devising a curriculum, identifying the teachers and a women’s organisation in a neighbouring town donated a handsome amount that will go towards paying the teachers and buying basic equipment. Thirty enthusiastic girls cannot wait to begin.

The coordinator of this unique project has been covering the distance from Udaipur to check out her new assignment before she moves into the campus. She crosses the desert by bus, train, anything that moves. She is excited — and in the few meetings she has had with her to-be students she has already taught them a song and helped them prepare a skit for the inauguration.

In Sujangarh, a neighbouring town, waits a real surprise. Savita Rathi, a lawyer by training, a mother and a medical superintendent by choice. She switches among her roles with absolute ease and carries herself with supreme confidence. “Yes, it has been tough,” she admits. “Women have to struggle very hard to succeed especially in small towns like these.”

But that is the last thing that bothers these women. They want more from life and are prepared to travel, live alone, study and slog for it. They yearn for a life beyond home.

Mindset behind a bad ad

2009-01-29T00:14:00.000-08:00

http://www.boloji.com/wfs6/2008/wfs1122.htm
Mindset Behind a Bad Ad
by Shree Venkatram
Words are very powerful. They can maim and devastate, or they can enthuse and liberate. Just two words were the undoing in a TV commercial of financial company, ING Vysya Life Insurance, that recently drew flak from the Education Secretary to the Delhi government and left many women fuming.The ad for financial planning was taken off TV screens soon after protests. Those in the business of communicating with the masses need to be very conscious of the words they use.The ad was slick and technically sound. It had color and strong imagery, but socially it was all wrong. It fed into biases and promoted stereotypes, and at the root of it all were two Hindi words - 'bhaari' and 'bojh', which literally translate into 'heavy' and 'burden'. The words are synonymous with the female and the raising of the girl child in India, used to denote the great burden she is for the family, especially for the men - her father, her husband, never mind the fact that the reality is otherwise... but that is another story.For those who missed the commercial - the word 'bojh' was used just once towards the end, in the punch line that came as a nurse hands over a new born baby girl to the father... and the ground caves in under his feet, with 'kahin khushiyan bojh na ban jaiyein' (happiness should not become a burden).
The ad had a series of scenes showing men bearing the 'burden' of women. The first was a shot of a bridegroom at his wedding. He looks at his bride and the next frame shows him waving to a friend, and as the ground caves in, the words ring out, 'Dekhne mein toh pyaari hain, khushiyan thodi bhaari hain' (She is lovable, but the happiness is a little heavy).
The next scene shows a daughter rushing out to meet her father to give him a good news - she hands him a letter, which states she has been selected for the MBA course in a foreign university and the fee is Rs.15,00,000 (US$ 1= Rs 40).The line, 'dekhne mein to pyaari hai, khushiyan thodi bhaari hain', rings out again and the ground sinks beneath the father."Why wasn't a son shown? It is not like a son can study for free," the education secretary had asked. Someone who claimed to know the people who made the ad commented on a blog: "Funny enough, in the past another life insurance company showed the 'cost' for a daughter getting married and a son doing his MBA. Then the comments were 'why is there a boy shown? Like only boys study and girls just get married'."
But think. Would the word 'bojh', or for that matter 'bhaari', ever be used for a son? Never! Most Indian parents do their very best, even scrimp and scrounge, to give their son the best education they can afford. But it would be blasphemous to term him a 'burden'.When an ad goes retrograde on national networks, it is cause for serious concern. A medium that reaches out to the masses has to necessarily be both responsible and cautious. Words that condemn or derogate sections of the population must be avoided. For stereotypes harm, they limit and stunt human potential. Just ask the thousands of Indian women who have to overcome such stereotypes every day of their lives. The medium that reaches the masses has to liberate, help us out of the ghettos of our mind into a world where the human spirit and potential knows no shackles. Just imagine: What a powerful ad it would have been had the woman been shown buying a house for her parents, or her parents saving happily for the MBA course minus the 'bhaari' or 'bojh' factors.
Not so long ago, an ad taken off the networks argued that by using a fairness cream a girl could get the job of an airhostess and her parents, who have been bemoaning the fact that they do not have a son, are now proud of her achievement. In this case, the All India Democratic Women's Association had written to the multinational company in protest, but when it did not respond, appealed to the Human Rights Commission, which passed the complaint to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The government went on to issue a notice against it.The multinational in a PR damage control exercise then launched a scholarship scheme for Indian women who are economically disadvantaged. The ban did not help much. It could hardly influence popular mindsets, given the obsession Indians have with fair skin. The next few years saw a plethora of men's fairness creams being launched. It was easier to extend the stereotype than to fight it. The great King Khan himself appeared in a commercial advising a young man to switch to a man's whitening cream and not use his sister's! What a potent pitch. The market for men's bleaching creams is on the upswing, one learns.And now we hear that a certain dusky actress has been replaced with a fair-skinned one for a jewellery commercial. An apt commentary on the times.For once, let us take a lesson from the much-maligned cola companies, which had agreed not to use children in their commercials and have stuck to their decision. Let the media, especially ad and film-makers, be more discerning of the words they use. Regulation should come from within.
March 30, 2008