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Showing posts from December, 2018

Women’s collectives as locomotives of economic growth in rural areas

By Moin Qazi* Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie. ― Gloria Steinem Every woman, regardless of her marital status, needs education, a good job and support with household duties Society needs to abandon culturally entrenched practices, marital or otherwise, that degrades and commodifies women. Women also need legal immunity from debts accrued by the husbands. Changing long-held beliefs, practices and laws may be difficult, but it is the only way to keep price tags off women and ensure them dignity and financial independence. Empowering women is the solution to many problems on a global level, right from poverty. Societies that take the effort to empower women show better development indices, are better governed, more stable, and are less prone to violence. On the other hand, societies that limit women’s e

Story of a person from vulnerable community 'recruited' in Gujarat for rioting in 2002

By Rajiv Shah  Suresh Jadeja, alias Langdo, alias Richard, is a well-known name in the Naroda Patiya massacre case, in which 97 persons were killed on February 28, 2002, the first day of Gujarat riots. Convicted for life on August 31, 2012 for murder and rape, little, however, is known about this rioter’s vulnerable background. Apart from murdering Majid’s nine-member family, he was reportedly part of a group consisting of Babu Bajrangi, Jai Bhawani and Guddu Chhara that killed Kausar Bi. They had “surrounded her, murdered her, ripped out the foetus within her with a sword and killed up”, to quote Revati Laul’s new book , “The Anatomy of Hate”. Suresh particularly acquired notoriety after his name sprang up in a sting operation, carried out by “Tehelka” magazine’s Ashish Khetan, before whom he spilled beans on how he was involved in murder and rape, as also BJP leader Maya Kodnani’s alleged involved in the riot. However, what is not known about Suresh is this: Coming from Chharanagar,

Central government flipflop in Lok Sabha over data on deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers may remember my email alert sent during the first week in November, 2018 , containing statistics of the number of Indian Workers who died in six Gulf Countries since 2012. Using the data that I obtained from the Indian Embassies situated in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, I had pointed out that 24,570 Indian Workers had died between 2012-2018. The Indian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates did not send any data even after I filed a first appeal. A quick calculation had revealed that on an average more than 10 Indians had died every day. I had also showed that Indian Workers in the six Gulf countries had sent more than US$ 209 Billion in the form of remittances. When compared with the deaths data, this worked out to more than 117 deaths for every US$1 Billion remitted to India during this period. Please click here for the RTI queries and the responses I received from the Indian Embassies. Thanks to the widespread print and digital coverage of t