‘Being gentle is not being unmanly’: Writer Shashi Deshpande tells Indian men

Dear Men,

I am slightly uneasy at addressing you as ‘dear’ men, in view of the things I am going to say to you. But of course, this is only a formality. It is also a wish and a hope, so let the ‘dear’ remain.

I have for long wanted to speak to you directly on the subject of rape. But I have a suspicion that you don’t want to listen to anything which makes you uncomfortable. Which is why rapehas become a problem that only concerns women. But you know, or rather you should know, that it is not a women’s-only issue. There are two parties to any offence – offender and victim; both have to be part of the conversation. So, here goes.

I am sure many of you remember the girl who was gang-raped in a bus in Delhi. Perhaps, you also remember the brutality and savagery with which the rapists treated her. Something strange happened then, something we can’t explain even now: the country erupted in protest. And you too, yes, you men, were part of the protest.

How gladdened I was to see you standing along with the women in this fight. ‘Nirbhaya’, the media called the girl, following the convention that a victim of rape should not be named. But on the first anniversary of her death, her mother, as courageous as her daughter, declared, “My daughter is not Nirbhaya, her name is Jyoti Singh.” Hearing her words, I had goose bumps, as if I was witnessing something momentous. Something momentous had happened. This woman, by declaring that there was no need for her daughter’s identity to be concealed, was denying the shame and humiliation that had always been a rape victim’s lot.

The girl and her death haunted me for long; it still does. But do you know what haunted me more? It was the cruelty with which the men had dealt with the girl. I asked myself: where does this cruelty come from? Agreed that rape comes out of lust, out of looking at women as possessions; but cruelty? It can only come out of hatred. So where does the hatred come from? We can’t escape the truth that most of us, you too, have been brought up by women – and with care and tenderness. Some of the most intimate and tender moments of our lives have been spent with each other.

I know, too, the love with which fathers, brothers, all men look upon the females in their family. Which is why I ask you: do you make a difference between ‘your’ women and ‘other’ women? But if it is so, why do we hear, too often these days, of fathers, brothers, uncles, even grandfathers raping girls in their family? I read a terrible story of a girl raped over a long period of time by her father, brother and uncle. Even more terrible was the fact that the girl’s elder sister, too, had had to endure the same ordeal and had finally committed suicide. The story filled me with horror, anger and pity.

I am sure most of you will say: what have I to do with rapists? I don’t rape. But let’s put rape in its context, as part of a pattern of taken-for-granted violence which has many facets. Eve-teasing. (What an inadequate phrase!) Stalking. And flashing. I was in hospital after my first son’s birth when a man opened the door and, pretending he was looking for another room, exhibited his pride and glory to me. A woman who had just delivered! But let’s move on.

In the family there’s casual cruelty, there’s wife-beating and marital rape. In the world outside, gang rape is becoming common; they hunt in packs now. The latest trend is acid-throwing.

Rape, however, is an ancient practice. Even the gods raped. Zeus and Indra were both notorious rapists. I wonder how many of you know the story of Ambika and Ambalike, princesses of Kashi, brought by Bhishma to marry his sickly brother King Vichitravirya. When he could not father a son on them, they were forced to sleep with a stranger to provide heirs for the kingdom. They each had a son: Pandu who was white because his mother turned pale and fainted when she saw the stranger she had to sleep with, and Dhritarashtra, who was blind because his mother closed her eyes to the horror of what she had to endure. Such a lot of cruelty and fear concealed in this story, isn’t there? Yet, some people talk of our ancient culture as an ideal one. Not for women, it seems. But let’s give credit to the story-teller who told this as it happened. Forget about the past, we need to make this age better. We can do it only if we work together. Women need to teach their sons to respect women, but there are some things only you can do. Like teaching boys that being gentle is not being unmanly. Teaching them how to deal with their bodily desires without hurting others. And only from your behaviour with women will boys learn that companionship with women is possible. Perhaps, they will then know, when the time comes, what sex really is: a union that is the ultimate expression of love and an act of the greatest shared pleasure for all humans.

Yours in hope

Shashi Deshpande

( The author is a novelist and short story writer)

Source: Hindustan Times, 5-10-2016

30% of Very Poor Children Live in India: Unicef

United Nations: Press Trust of India





India is home to over 30% of almost 385 million children living in extreme poverty, the highest in south Asia, according to a new report by World Bank Group and Unicef, `Ending Extreme Poverty: A Focus on Children.' It said children are more than twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty . In 2013, 19.5% of children in developing nations were living in households that survived on an average of USD 1.90 a day or less per person, compared to just 9.2% of adults. Globally , almost 385 million children are living in extreme poverty .The report said sub-Saharan Africa has both the highest rates of children living in extreme poverty at just under 50%, and the largest share of the world's extremely poor children, at just over 50%.
“South Asia has the second highest share at nearly 36% with over 30% of extremely poor children in India alone,“ it said, adding that four out of five children in extreme poverty live in rural areas.
The report said children are disproportionately affected as they make up around a third of the population studied but half of the extreme poor. The youngest are the most at risk with more than one-fifth of children under the age of five in the developing world living in extremely poor households.
“Effects of poverty are most damaging to children. They are the worst off and the youngest children are the worst off of all,“ said Anthony Lake, executive director, Unicef. PTI

Source: Economic Times, 5-10-2016

Lead A Life Of Compassion, Receive Grace

Ramalinga Adigal





We should understand and obtain benefit for the soul which is attainable through this human birth. It is to live the unique great life at all times, at all places and in all ways without any sort of hindrance, obtaining the absolute natural bliss of God, who by His Grace has made all the universes, worlds, things, living beings, ways of living.That great life can be obtained only by Grace which can be obtained only by leading a life of compassion (jivakarunya) towards all living beings ­ not even a little of it can be obtained by any other means.This is because Grace is God's mercy , natural manifestation; compassion means living beings' sympathy or their souls' natural manifestation. Therefore it is certain that by sympathy we can get mercy and by manifestation, get manifestation.Grace can be obtained only by being compassionate to other living beings.
When compassion to living beings manifests, knowledge and love will blossom along with it; therefore `helping power' manifests; because of that all good benefits will appear, but when compassion to living beings disappears, knowledge and love will disappear immediately, therefore `helping power' will disappear, and when it disappears, all evils will appear.Virtue is nothing but showing compassion to living beings, and vice means to be without compassion to living beings.
Enlightenment coming from leading a life of compassion towards living beings is Enlightenment of God, and bliss coming out of leading a life of compassion towards living beings is Divine Bliss. Liberated ones while they are still living are only those who have attained their goal, having seen and enjoyed this manifestation and bliss for a long time and are thus fulfilled, and then only they will know God by knowledge and will become God.
But, what is meant by leading a life of compassion towards all living beings? It is to live, worshipping God, by the melting of the soul of living beings, towards other living beings.
When will the melting of the soul towards other beings occur? It will occur when one sees, hears or comes to know of the suffering of living beings due to hunger, thirst, disease, desire, poverty , fear and the suffering when being killed.
What is the spiritual need to have compassion towards other living beings? All living beings are created by God as part and parcel of the natural truth and are of the same quality; so they are all brothers with the same right. The melting of the soul that occurs, when one of the brothers sees another suffering or knows that he is going to suffer due to some peril and the former recognises the latter as his brother, it is called the age-old spiritual right.
Some people, even on seeing other living beings suffer, do not have compassion towards them and are hard-hearted; there is no fraternal right to these people, because: Their eye called spiritual knowledge has become very dim because of nescience; though there was the fraternal right, compassion to living beings did not arise. From this it is learnt that those who have compassion towards other living beings have enlightened spiritual vision or perception.

Change in recruitment rules irks UGC officials

Akshaya Mukul

New Delhi:





A change in recruitment rules has led to resentment in the University Grants Commission (UGC), resulting in more than 15 officers submitting a representation to the secretary of the higher education regulator requesting that the rules be either amended or kept in abeyance.Officers, who plan to knock at the doors of Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, allege that the new recruitment rules notified in August could create a chasm between direct recruits at the level of deputy secretary or joint secretary and promotees.
For instance, the new recruitment rules mandate that only a person with a first class in masters degree can be promoted to the post of deputy secretary , the aggrieved officers said.
They added that a large number of under secretaries and education officers in the UGC had a PhD but did not have first class in postgraduation.
“They cannot be promoted as deputy secretary now,“ an officer said, pointing out that the commission had prescribed 55% in postgraduation for assistant professors.
The officers said the qualification requirement for the position of joint secretary was “ironic“. It says a person should have a “doctorate in any discipline with first or second class masters degree“. An officer said, “This criteria means that someone who is not eligible for the post of deputy secretary either through direct recruitment or through promotion due to second class in masters can become eligible for the post of joint secretary .“
A questionnaire sent to the UGC early in September went unanswered.
Another problem with the new recruitment rules, officers said, was the capping of age at 45 years (relaxable up to five years) for promotion to the position of deputy secretary.
“This means several eligible officers will have to continue as education officer or under secretary until retirement just because they have crossed the age limit,“ the officer said.
Similar problems have been pointed out in the case of promotion to the post of joint secretary .

Source: Times of India, 5-10-2016

All about means and ends

The Management Information System of MGNREGA is a way to providing data on implementation. But to achieve complete transparency it has to overcome several shortcomings

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is not only a pioneering livelihood security programme but also a great example of proactive disclosure of information through its Management Information System (MIS). It is the first transaction-based real-time system for any public works programme in the country that is available in the public domain. There has been a digitisation of all the processes in MGNREGA — right from a worker registering demand for work, to work allotment, to finally getting wages for completed works. Another notable feature of the MIS is the availability of information through online reports at various levels of disaggregation. This has enabled any citizen to monitor the implementation of the programme and has consequently charted a new paradigm of transparency since the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The sheer scale of information available on implementation is also no mean achievement. Individual worker details from around 2.5 lakh gram panchayats are available in the MGNREGA MIS.

While this system is certainly a great feather in the cap of a transparent democracy, it is critical to understand its current shortcomings and possible ways to improve its functioning.

Shortcomings

To begin with, the MIS is accessible only from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Indian Standard Time. This is a huge impediment for collaborative work across time zones.

Second, it does not provide any data dictionary. A data dictionary is a repository of all the names of variables/columns used in various reports, containing a brief explanation of its meanings. Such a dictionary is crucial so that any citizen accessing the online reports can understand the content in them. As things stand, unless somebody has spent a lot of time in rural areas, it is difficult to comprehend the details of many reports.

Third, the nomenclature of the column names in the online reports is not consistent. The same column name is labelled differently in different reports. For instance, what is referred to as the Payment Date in the report of weekly works (‘Mustroll Report’) is known as the Second Signatory Date in a report titled ‘FTO Second Signatory’. Payment Date is also a misnomer as it does not refer to the date on which a worker gets paid. Although obfuscation of the column names may not be intentional, it nevertheless becomes excruciating for any citizen or researcher to make meaningful sense of the reports.

Fourth, some obvious worker-centric links in the data structure are missing. For example, every household that does MGNREGA work has a unique job card number. This number is crucial to get work. Upon completion of a work week, a Funds Transfer Order (FTO) is generated containing the details of each job card holder’s earned wages. On the MIS, there is no clear link between these two crucial pieces. As such it becomes difficult to follow the trail of each job card holder from the time of work demanded to getting the wages.

Passing the baton of accountability

While computerisation of all transactions is a welcome move, officials are passing the baton of accountability. One should be mindful that an information system doesn’t end up controlling the legal rights. There are several situations when a written request for work by a worker is not entered in the MIS till funds for work allocation are made available from the Centre. This is illegal as the Act mandates provision of work within a stipulated time of requesting for it. Similarly, the generation of the FTO is withheld till funds for wage payments are released. There are other instances when the FTO is not generated if a worker fails to furnish his or her Aadhaar number. Some are harder to locate as there is no paper trail or stated intention but realised only retrospectively once the workers are affected. There are other such examples illustrating how the IT infrastructure becomes a tool prioritising administrative needs as opposed to being a programme enabler. In this regard, it is instructive to recall the phrase “code is law” popularised by the Harvard Law professor, Lawrence Lessig. Code, as in software, and code, as in law, can both be instruments of social control. To quote him: “We can build, or architect, or code cyberspace to protect values that we believe are fundamental. Or we can build, or architect, or code cyberspace to allow those values to disappear. There is no middle ground. Code is never found; it is only ever made, and only ever made by us.”

Technological architecture can also be used to perpetuate falsehoods. For instance, consider the flawed mechanism of the calculation of delay compensation when wages are not paid on time. Ideally, the compensation should be calculated from the 16th day of completion of a work week till the day on which the workers actually receive their wages. However, the compensation is computed based on the payment date, which, as we have mentioned, is not the date on which the wages get credited into the workers’ accounts. The difference of the two calculation methods run into crores of rupees that rightfully belong to the workers. While the automated calculation is a progressive measure, its basis must be correct and transparent. The fact that even with the flawed calculation no compensation has been paid corroborates that technology can be a strong aid but not a replacement for accountability.

The MIS is a powerful mechanism to have an evidence-based discourse for monitoring basic services. But a governance framework for the MIS needs to be put in place that lays out the minimum standards and accountability of the Ministry managing the system. Such a framework must be built in consultation with all concerned parties and should follow the provisions of the law (both MGNREGA and RTI). The system design choices should reflect the values of the worker-centric programme and hence principles need to be followed for compassionate design. Otherwise, we fear that technology is dictating administrative choices, akin to the phrase “architecture is politics”.

Sakina Dhorajiwala is a student of Public Policy at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Rajendran teaches at Ashoka University, Sonepat. The views expressed are personal and don’t reflect their respective institutions’ perspectives.

Source: The Hindu, 4-10-2016

Google Science Fair: Indian-origin teen wins $50,000 scholarship

A 16-year-old Indian-origin South African teen has won a $ 50,000 scholarship at the annual Google Science Fair in the US for using orange peel to develop a cheaper “super-absorbent material” that helps soil retain water.

Kiara Nirghin, a Grade 11 student at private school St Martin’s, submitted her project titled ‘No More Thirsty Crops’ which was aimed at alleviating the severe drought plaguing South Africa.

Her solution to the problem of drought uses the peels from orange and avocado fruits, which were normally discarded.

The Google Science Fair is a programme for any budding scientists between the ages of 13 to 18, who are invited to solve world’s biggest challenges using science and technology.

“I have always had a great love for chemistry since I was young. I vividly remember at the age of seven experimenting with vinegar and baking soda solutions in plastic cups,” Nirghin said in her submission, in which she cited a renowned Indian scientist as her greatest inspiration.

“MS Swaminathan, has always been an inspiration of mine as he truly believed in the necessary movement of not only India but the whole world towards sustainable agricultural development,” she said.

“I hope to one day become a scientist specialising in agricultural science and also become a molecular gastronomist,” she added.

Nirghin explained how she had found an alternative in the fruit peels to super-absorbent polymers (SAPs), which absorb and carry about 300 times its weight in liquid relative to their own mass.

“These SAPs are not biodegradable, costly and full of acrylic acid, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals. During more research in the topic, I found that natural occurring polymers exist in most citrus fruits,” Nirghin said.

After 45 days of experimentation, Nirghin was successful in creating a low-cost super-absorbent polymer, made out of waste products found in the juice manufacturing industry, that is biodegradable, can retain large amounts of water, keep soil moist and improve crop growth without regular water supplements.

“The only resources involved in the creation of the ‘orange peel mixture’ were electricity and time, with no special equipment or materials required,” she said.

Nirghin’s discovery has huge financial implications for agriculture, as her creation could retail at $ 30 to $ 60 per metric tonne, as compared to the $ 2,000 plus costs of SAPs.

The young scientist is convinced that her mixture will help assist farmers in agricultural drought disaster areas, where food security could increase by 73%.

Now Nirghin has set her sights on using orange peel SAP in experiments testing water filtration and oil removal from water.“I would also like to make large amounts of orange peel SAP and apply it to crops such as maize and wheat in poorer communities in South Africa,” she added.

Source: Hindustan Times, 4-10-2016

Violence against women has increased, but no sign of rape crisis centres

The 2015 National Crime Records Bureau report is as grim as the earlier ones: Overall, crimes rose to 7.3 million, a 3.4% increase compared to 2014. The only comforting news is that the number of rapes has come down from 36,735 (2014) to 34,651 (2015), though the dip in numbers is too insignificant to crow about. “You cannot also cast aside from the fact that there were as many as 4,000 foiled rapes,” a senior police officer wrote in a website.

This large number of registered cases, foiled rapes and numerous cases of stalking --- there has been a 33% increase in stalking cases between 2014 and 2015 --- show that these are more than just a law and order problem; the discussion on violence against women has to start in every home, and it has to involve both boys and girls. On Monday, Hindustan Times started a special eight-part series --- Let’s Talk About Rape --- where eight eminent Indians will write open letters in the newspaper to discuss the reality of sexual assault in India. It is an effort to look at the issue of violence against women from different perspectives. But such efforts by media, citizens and NGOs need a strong support from the government.

But is not happening: In 2014, the Centre announced that it would launch Rape Crisis Centres in every district in India. But by 2015, that came down to 36 centres; to date only 18 have been built. But even these centres are not functioning to their full capacity because of lack of personnel, infrastructure and convergence among different departments. This is not all: There has been no utilisation of the Rs 2,000 crore fund that was set up in memory of the December 16, 2012, gang rape victim; in fact, there is no national plan as to how rape victims are to be compensated. As the Supreme Court reminded the government earlier this year, setting up of the fund is not enough and it is just paying “lip service”; It added: “The State must ensure adequate relief to the victims of sexual offences”. Do we say more?

Source: Hindustan Times, 4-10-2016