Posts tagged ‘Delhi’

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24/03/2013

* ‘If girls look sexy, boys will rape.’ Is this what Indian men really believe?

The Observer: “A shocking series of brutal attacks has led to a national debate on sexual violence. The Observer asked a group of young men in Goa for their views. The talk revealed a disturbing mindset

Indian woman at food stall

“Rape is a big, big problem. It starts with the woman. They drive the man fucking crazy.” Papi Gonzales leans back in his chair and surveys the other young Indian men around the table in his beach bar, seeking approval. They nod in agreement, eager to make their own points. “When the girls look sexy and the boys can’t control themselves, they are going to rape. It happens,” said Robin Shretha, one of the waiters.

Since a 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi in December and later died in hospital from her injuries, the issue of rape has been hugely prominent in India. Last week headlines were dominated by the gang rape of a Swiss woman on a cycling holiday in Madhya Pradesh. In the same week a British woman leapt from her hotel window in the northern city of Agra at 4am to escape the unwanted attention of the hotel manager, who was trying to get into her room.

According to government figures, a rape takes place in India every 21 minutes. The number of reported rapes rose by 9% in 2011 to 24,000. Yet conviction rates are falling, down to 26% in 2011.

The recent cases have led to worldwide outrage, and demonstrations led by women have filled the streets of major cities. But what do India’s young men think? The Observer gathered a group in the western region of Goa to hear their views. They were: Abhijit Harmalkar, 28, a driver; his brother, Avinash, 24, a factory worker; Bhivresh Banaulikar, 26, an auditor; Brindhavan Salgaonkar, 20, a factory worker; Robin Shretha, 21, a waiter; and Papi Gonzales, 32, the owner of the bar.

One word to describe their views would be “unreconstructed”. Others would be “alarming” and “frightening”. Plenty of Indian men have joined the recent demonstrations. Plenty of Indian men are committed to the cause of women’s rights. But this discussion revealed the deep moral conservatism of some young Indian males, coupled with confusion about gender roles in a society where economic modernisation is outstripping social attitudes.”

via ‘If girls look sexy, boys will rape.’ Is this what Indian men really believe? | World news | The Observer.

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13/03/2013

* Rains or Not, India Is Falling Short on Drinkable Water

NY Times: “CHERRAPUNJI, India — Almost no place on Earth gets more rain than this small hill town. Nearly 40 feet falls every year — more than 12 times what Seattle gets. Storms often drop more than a foot a day. The monsoon is epic.

Water containers are lined up at a community tap in Cherrapunji. Some people must walk long distances to get water.

But during the dry season from November through March, many in this corner of India struggle to find water. Some are forced to walk long distances to fill jugs in springs or streams. Taps in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya State, spout water for just a few hours a day. And when it arrives, the water is often not drinkable.

That people in one of the rainiest places on the planet struggle to get potable water is emblematic of the profound water challenges that India faces. Every year, about 600,000 Indian children die because of diarrhea or pneumonia, often caused by toxic water and poor hygiene, according to Unicef.

Half of the water supply in rural areas, where 70 percent of India’s population lives, is routinely contaminated with toxic bacteria. Employment in manufacturing in India has declined in recent years, and a prime reason may be the difficulty companies face getting water.

And India’s water problems are likely to worsen. A report that McKinsey & Company helped to write predicted that India would need to double its water-generation capacity by the year 2030 to meet the demands of its surging population.

A separate analysis concluded that groundwater supplies in many of India’s cities — including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai — are declining at such a rapid rate that they may run dry within a few years.

The water situation in Gurgaon, the new mega-city south of Delhi, became so acute last year that a judge ordered a halt to new construction until projects could prove they were using recycled water instead of groundwater.

On Feb. 28, India’s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, proposed providing $2.8 billion to the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the coming fiscal year, a 17 percent increase.

But water experts describe this as very little in a country where more than 100 million people scrounge for water from unimproved sources.

Some water problems stem from India’s difficult geography. Vast parts of the country are arid, and India has just 4 percent of the world’s fresh water shared among 16 percent of its people.

But the country’s struggle to provide water security to the 2.6 million residents of Meghalaya, blessed with more rain than almost any place, shows that the problems are not all environmental.”

via Rains or Not, India Is Falling Short on Drinkable Water – NYTimes.com.

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24/02/2013

* I am here to share your pain, PM tells Hyderabad blast victims

Times of India: “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday visited the Thursday’s blast sites and hospitals where the injured are being treated to express “solidarity” with the people of the city and appealed for peace and calm.

[image]

He lauded the people of the city for refusing to be provoked by the “nefarious” act.

Singh visited the twin blast sites and Omni and Yashoda hospitals where he met some of the injured and their families, assuring them of all help.

“I have come to share the grief of people of Hyderabad. I express condolence for the families of the bereaved and wish speedy recovery for the injured,” Singh said after meeting the blast victims at the hospitals.

He also said the state government has assured all medical help for them.

“The state government has assured all help will be given for treatment,” Singh, who flew in here from Delhi by a special IAF plane, said.

Making an appeal for peace, he said, “I call upon the people to maintain calm in this hour of grief. I am happy that people of Hyderabad have refused to be provoked by this nefarious incident.”

Singh had on Saturday strongly condemned the blasts, saying those responsible for the “dastardly” act would not go unpunished.”

via I am here to share your pain, PM tells Hyderabad blast victims – The Times of India.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/indian-tensions/

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21/01/2013

* India, Australia to launch n-talks in March

The Hindu: “India will begin talks for a civil nuclear energy cooperation with uranium-rich Australia in March this year.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid with his Australian counterpart Bob Carr, prior to their bilateral talks, in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: V. Sudershan

“We shall be commencing negotiations on a Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement in March 2013,” External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said here on Monday after talks with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

The first round of negotiations conducted by the Foreign Ministries of both countries will be held in Delhi.

The agreement would enable the export of uranium from Australia to India, Mr. Carr said.

“A sense of urgency and purpose will be there. We will move swiftly,” Khurshid said pointing out that India already had similar agreements with a number of countries which could be used as a model.

During the parleys, it was decided that Defence Minister A.K. Antony would visit Australia sometime in March for further discussions on cooperation in defence and security sectors.

This would be the first ever visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Australia.

Australia had agreed to start negotiations on a civil nuclear deal with India during the October visit of Prime Minister Julia Gillard to New Delhi.

In December 2011, Ms. Gillard’s Labour Party had overturned its long-standing ban on exporting uranium to India.

via The Hindu : News / National : India, Australia to launch n-talks in March.

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21/01/2013

* Women voters in India want to stand up and be counted

It’s about time!

Reuters: “Several years ago, a dinner-table conversation about state elections in Himachal Pradesh veered towards a candidate who gave away pressure cookers to woo women voters. Of course, bribing voters is illegal, but I remember wondering whether all I wanted as a woman was a pressure cooker.

The Delhi rape case and the molestation of a young girl in Guwahati in Assam last year have underscored the place that women often occupy in Indian society. These incidents have made me wonder to what extent our country’s political parties will focus on gender inequality as they look forward to the 2014 general elections. How will they vie for the women’s vote?

Until now, political parties and their largely male leadership focussed on the ‘aam aadmi’, or the common man, a phrase which subsumes women. Politicians and other public figures don’t make much hay of gender inequality and many of the attitudes toward women that hurt a large portion of our society — and when they do, they’re often lacking. The best attitude that politicians often apply to women is a patronising one. Instead of focusing on women’s empowerment through education and awareness, politicians distribute saris, cookers and sanitary napkins.

There is some attempt to change that. The Congress party’s weekend “Chintan Shivir“, or brainstorming session, in Jaipur put a special focus on women.

“Discrimination against the girl child and atrocities against women are a blot on our collective conscience,” party chief Sonia Gandhi said while opening the gathering. “Gender issues are fundamental and should be of concern to all of us.””

via India Insight.

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30/12/2012

* How India treats its women

BBC News: “People have called her Braveheart, Fearless and India’s Daughter, among other things, and sent up a billion prayers for a speedy recovery.

An Indian schoolgirl holds a placard during a prayer ceremony to mourn the death of a 23-year-old gang rape victim, at a school in Ahmadabad, India, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012.

When the unidentified woman died in a Singapore hospital early on Saturday, the victim of a savage rape on a moving bus in the capital, Delhi, it was time again, many said, to ask: why does India treat its women so badly?

Female foetuses are aborted and baby girls killed after birth, leading to an an appallingly skewed sex ratio. Many of those who survive face discrimination, prejudice, violence and neglect all their lives, as single or married women.

TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, has ranked India as the worst country in which to be a woman. This in the country where the leader of the ruling party, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, at least three chief ministers, and a number of sports and business icons are women. It is also a country where a generation of newly empowered young women are going out to work in larger numbers than ever before.

But crimes against women are rising too.

With more than 24,000 reported cases in 2011, rape registered a 9.2% rise over the previous year. More than half (54.7%) of the victims were aged between 18 and 30. Most disturbingly, according to police records, the offenders were known to their victims in more than 94% of the cases. Neighbours accounted for a third of the offenders, while parents and other relatives were also involved. Delhi accounted for over 17% of the total number of rape cases in the country.

And it is not rape alone. Police records from 2011 show kidnappings and abductions of women were up 19.4%, women being killed in disputes over dowry payments by 2.7%, torture by 5.4%, molestation by 5.8% and trafficking by an alarming 122% over the previous year.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has estimated that more than 100m women are “missing” worldwide – women who would have been around had they received similar healthcare, medicine and nutrition as men.

New research by economists Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray estimates that in India, more than 2m women are missing in a given year.

The economists found that roughly 12% of the missing women disappear at birth, 25% die in childhood, 18% at the reproductive ages, and 45% at older ages.

They found that women died more from “injuries” in a given year than while giving birth – injuries, they say, “appear to be indicator of violence against women”.

Deaths from fire-related incidents, they say, is a major cause – each year more than 100,000 women are killed by fires in India. The researchers say many cases could be linked to demands over a dowry leading to women being set on fire. Research also found a large number of women died of heart diseases.

These findings point to life-long neglect of women in India. It also proves that a strong preference for sons over daughters – leading to sex selective abortions – is just part of the story.

Clearly, many Indian women face threats to life at every stage – violence, inadequate healthcare, inequality, neglect, bad diet, lack of attention to personal health and well-being.

Analysts say deep-rooted changes in social attitudes are needed to make India’s women more accepted and secure. There is deeply entrenched patriarchy and widespread misogyny in vast swathes of the country, especially in the north. And the state has been found wanting in its protection of women.

Angry citizens believe that politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are being disingenuous when they promise to toughen laws and speed up the prosecution of rapists and perpetrators of crime against women.

How else, they ask, can political parties in the last five years have fielded candidates for state elections that included 27 candidates who declared they had been charged with rape?

How, they say, can politicians be believed when there are six elected state legislators who have charges of rape against them?

But the renewed protests in Delhi after the woman’s death hold out some hope. Has her death come as an inflexion point in India’s history, which will force the government to enact tougher laws and people to begin seriously thinking about the neglect of women?

It’s early days yet, but one hopes these are the first stirrings of change.”

via BBC News – How India treats its women.

Posted in Gender imbalance, India alert, Inequalities, Social & cultural, Women's rights | 3 Comments »

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22/12/2012

* Rape victim taken off ventilator, all 6 accused arrested

Both India and China view baby girls as inferior to boys. Both have long-standing historic bias against women.  But, whereas the late Chairman Mao once declared, “women hold up half the sky” and Chinese girls now face no discrimination in entering higher education or seeking jobs, the same cannot be said about India.  Why?

Times of India: “Akshay Thakur, the sixth and final accused who was one of the helpers in the bus, was arrested from his house in Bihar’s Aurangabad district this evening.

Thakur was arrested by a special team of Delhi Police after several raids were conducted at different locations in Bihar.

“Since Tuesday, a special team of Delhi Police was conducting raids in Bihar. The last absconding accused Akshay Thakur was arrested from Bihar’s Aurangabad Friday evening,” said a police officer.

According to the officer, the accused is being brought to Delhi.

Four other accused were arrested Monday and Tuesday while the fifth accused, who is claiming to be a juvenile, was apprehended Thursday night.

The fifth accused, who claims to be 17 years old, was detained in a late night raid Thursday from Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun by a special team of Delhi Police.

Since he claims to be a minor, police refused to divulge his details.

“He will be taken to a juvenile justice home after confirmation that he is a minor,” said the officer.

Union home secretary RK. Singh said it is yet to be confirmed whether he is a minor.

The savage rape and torture occurred Sunday night when the woman and her male friend boarded a private bus, used for ferrying school children, in south Delhi after watching a movie.”

via Rape victim taken off ventilator, all 6 accused arrested – The Times of India.

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27/08/2012

* Is a Youth Revolution Brewing in India?

NY Times: “Among the world’s major countries, India has the youngest population, and the oldest leaders. A startling four-decade gap between the median age of India’s people and that of its government officials most recently reared its head with a heavy-handed and widely-maligned crackdown on free speech on the Internet.

A protester jumped over a police barricade during a demonstration near the prime minister's residence, led by India Against Corruption member Arvind Kejriwal, in New Delhi, Aug. 26, 2012.

History shows us that generations with an exceptionally high youth ratio create political movements that shake up their systems and leave a profound impact on history. America’s baby boomers – the 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 – led the charge in the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution.

In China, out of the stormy Cultural Revolution emerged the country’s current crop of leaders, who have taken it to remarkable heights of prosperity and power. More recently, in the Arab Spring there is evidence of a strong correlation between the ratio of the population under 25 and the urge to overthrow unresponsive governments.

Whether India will follow the same path may become apparent in the very near future.

There are some signs that the beginnings of India’s own youth revolt are stirring – the “India Against Corruption” protests, which swept Delhi on Sunday, involved a about a thousand protesters, mostly young men, who broke through barricades meant to protect their elder politicians’ homes and battled with the police.

The India Against Corruption political movement unleashes youth disenchantment against the establishment, using new means of communication like Twitter and Facebook as its fuel. Still, it is headed by an iconic 75-year-old Gandhian – call it shades of a youth movement, with the structure of a traditional Indian family.

India now has around 600 million people who are younger than 25, and nearly 70 percent of its 1.2 billion population is under 40. It is an unprecedented demographic condition in the history of modern India, and in absolute numbers it is unprecedented anywhere in the world. It also comes at a time when much of the developed world and China have aging populations.

The country’s median age of 25 is in sharp contrast to the average age of its cabinet ministers, 65, which is a far bigger gap than in any other country – Brazil and China are next with age gaps just under 30 years. In the United States the gap is 23 years, and in Germany it is less than 10.

Beyond the Internet crackdown, there are other disturbing signs that the age and thought gap between the majority of India’s citizens and their aging leaders is stifling India’s teeming youth.

We see this at play when the chairwoman of the National Commission for Women tells women to “be careful about how you dress,” after a young woman was sexually assaulted in public by a group of men in Guwahati.

We see it when a police officer wielding a hockey stick cracks down on Mumbai’s buzzing night life, and is defended by the state’s home minister. We see it in the inability to overhaul the country’s jaded bureaucracy that stifles fresh ideas.

Most tellingly, perhaps, we see it in the lack of political will to open up key sectors of the economy like retail to foreign competition, under the populist pretense of protecting existing jobs. This protectionism is far removed from the economic realities of the past two decades – India has been one of the clear winners of globalization. But as one writer put it, “The decision-makers in the Indian political class are still stuck in the mental framework of the 1970s, which is when they were blooded in politics.””

via Is a Youth Revolution Brewing in India? – NYTimes.com.

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26/08/2012

* India coal scandal: Hundreds protest against PM Singh

BBC News: “Police in the Indian capital Delhi have baton-charged hundreds of anti-corruption protesters angered by the government’s sale of coalfields without open bidding.

An auditors’ report last week said the mis-selling cost India $33bn (£20bn).

Police also used water cannon and tear gas to turn back protesters trying to reach the house of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Opposition calls for Mr Singh to resign have deadlocked parliament.

In the report last week, government auditors said private companies had made “windfall gains” by the allocation of coal mining rights from 2005-9 in a process that “lacked transparency”. India is one of the largest producers of coal in the world.

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says Mr Singh should quit because he was head of the coal ministry at the time of the sales.

The call has left parliament deadlocked since Tuesday. The Congress-led government insists there was no wrongdoing.”

via BBC News – India coal scandal: Hundreds protest against PM Singh.

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31/07/2012

* Powerless again: Northern, eastern grids fail

The Hindu: “The northern and eastern grids tripped on Tuesday, leading to power failure in several States of the country affecting hundreds of millions of people.

The northern grid collapsed for a second day on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the power supply was restored in the entire northern region following a disruption on Monday. The eastern transmission lines too failed on Tuesday afternoon, said officials at the Power Ministry and electricity companies.

Services in the national capital came to a grinding halt as power supply snapped around 1.30 p.m. The load fell to 40 MW and all of Delhi’s generation station stopped working, because of the cascading effect of the fault in the grid.

“We don’t have the details yet, but yes, there is a problem with the Grid again. Right now, the priority is to secure power supply for emergency services,” said a senior official of the Delhi Government’s Power Department.

On Monday, eight states attached to the Norther Region plunged into darkness after a grid collapse.

…

PTI adds:

Power supply was disrupted in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Assam and Punjab, among other States.

“Yes, I’ve heard that the northern and eastern grids have failed. We are looking into the matter. We are inquiring,” Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said.

The power crisis led to immediate shutdown of Delhi Metro lines in the national capital, while a host of other services including railways were also affected.

“We are again having problems in northern grid,” K. Soonee, CEO of Power System Operating Co said.

Power Ministry officials said that eastern grid has also failed. The reasons for the grid failure were not immediately known.

While an almost 15-hour power crisis was seen in the northern part on Monday, the crisis on Tuesday reached the eastern region as well.”

via The Hindu : News / National : Powerless again: Northern, eastern grids fail.

Posted in Economics, Electricity, India alert | 1 Comment »

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