The "Khusboo episode"

So what do you guys think of the Khusboo controversy?. Havent heard of it, so here is the story in short. Khusboo is a well-known (rather well-worshipped, she had temples for her in south india) actress in South India. Recently she supposedly said that pre-marital sex is ok.

And guess what happened!! It was a huge controvery and there is a court case against her and many in the same film industry didnt support her ... Why did this happen?. Cant she express her views openely? Is she wrong in saying what she said?. did the controversy come along only because she is a woman and expressed her views?. Would this have happened is a guy would have expressed the same views?.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/nov/ksh-kushboo.htm

"Sania Mirza is probably fed up with people giving her advice. But I would like to commend her for being firm earlier this week. According to press reports, she walked out of a press conference in Kochi "in a huff" when faced with persistent questions about what she thought of the Kushboo controversy. Sania was in the city to endorse a line of jewellery. Instead, predictably, when the media met her, the questions had nothing to do with jewellery, or even with tennis at which she has excelled, but her views on an issue that has blown so out of proportion that the original context has been forgotten. For once, she made a sound decision to hold back her opinion on this or any other unrelated subject.

At a media event

We are willing to elevate women to the status of goddesses and worship them. But they must remain obedient and silent.

The reason she was asked this was because of her reported statements on November 16 at an event organised by Hindustan Times on the theme, "Role of the celebrity: Influencing public policy". During the discussion, Sania did not make any comments about pre-marital sex, according to Vir Sanghvi who was moderating the discussion. What she did speak on, in her usual forthright manner, was about the length of her skirt on the tennis court. On this she was quoted as saying, "As long as I am winning, people should not care whether my skirt is six inches long or six feet long." (The Hindustan Times, November 17, 2005).

After the event, she as well as Formula One champion Narain Karthikeyan were asked what they made of the "Kushboo controversy". A news agency reported Sania as saying, "I think there are two separate issues, AIDS and pre-marital sex. Whether it is before or after marriage, people should have safe sex. And about pre-marriage sex, you can't stop people and hence the best way is to play it safe." Karthikeyan was reported saying, "South India is a closed society. There was nothing wrong in what Kushboo said, but it spiralled into a big issue because of the media."

Karthikeyan is a Tamilian but there were no "spontaneous" demonstrations across Tamilnadu condemning his support for Kushboo who has been charged with defaming "the Tamil people". In fact, what Kushboo said was not very different from Sania's remarks. She was speaking in the context of the spread of HIV and advocating safe sex in all situations. It is precisely this kind of celebrity endorsement of safe sex that is used by AIDS activists to create awareness about the issue. Yet, it appears that women celebrities are not entitled to make a "safe" remark about sex." ... Continued on india together.

Slums/Urban Poor - Price Paid for Basic services

The middle class/upper class attitude towards slums (which is documented in moveies/surveys) is one where they think slum dwellers are of no use and they use up resources and tax payers money. Focussing the aspect of slum dwellers dont pay for basic services, I have blooged earlier that various surveys/studies have shown that slum dwellers pay a lot for services as water, electcrity, rent to stay etc.

This article talks about a study by SPARC on how much is paid by slum dwellers for water in Pune & Mumbai.

Infochange India News Features agenda: The price poor pay in Mumbai & Pune

Daily wage-earners pay up to 20% of their wages on water; slum-dwellers pay Rs 5 per can of water; others tap into water lines illegally, or pay the local mafia for the supply…These are stories that illustrate the political economy of water that operates in the slums of Mumbai and Pune



A report by SPARC, ‘Our Needs, Our Priorities: Men and Women from the Slums of Mumbai and Pune Talk About Their Needs for Water and Sanitation’ (done in 2002-2003) by Meera Bapat and Indu Agarwal, points out how stressful and time-consuming the exercise of accessing water is for half of Mumbai’s population -- those who live in slums and on the city’s pavements. Slum- and pavement-dwellers spend nearly 10-13% of their income on water. In most cases it is either the “private” water mafia that benefits or local civic officials

Continued on the website.

Urban Housing Problem: Rent Control Act - A Blessing ??

As discussed earlier in this blog urban housing problem is huge. This does not include only the slum issue, was has been detailed here earlier, but also the rental market in big urban centers.

Rent Control Act, freezes the rent a landlord can charge the tenants at 1940 levels as far as tenents stay and also limits the increase in rents per year. Intended to provide low cost housing alternatives to many. But it has caused the rental market to shrink, denying incentives to landlords to maintain their properties causing frequent building collapses , or forceful removal of tenants and in general worsening the situation for the poor.

In this article Dilip argues as to why this act hasnt being touched.
India Together: Nobody touches the Act - 24 November 2005

Strolling through downtown Bombay one day during the recent monsoon, I passed a sign nailed high on an entrance to a building. It said: "This building is dangerous. It may collapse at any time. Enter at your own risk."

An unsettling sign any time. But at the time, it carried a special meaning, because the city was in the midst of what at least two papers called an "epidemic" of building collapses: four in a week. The most recent had been the previous Monday. An 80-year-old edifice near the old Metro cinema crumbled, killing six people.

One more tragedy, in a monsoon season laced with tragedy.

So laced, that even the words took on special meanings. Take "collapse". On that terrible July 26, an entire Saki Naka hillside collapsed, destroying over a hundred huts and 75 or 80 lives. Take "epidemic". Two weeks after the July deluge, people began dying of diseases contracted that day, likely by walking through chest-deep water contaminated with urine and faeces and other random bits of Bombay filth.

Over two hundred people died like that.

And then, the building collapse epidemic.

Yet the truth is that buildings that crumble are an old Bombay tradition. Every monsoon, a few more give up the battle to stay erect. Weakened by years of neglect and disrepair, they come down, invariably taking lives. And behind all this are, as is another Bombay tradition, some intricate and often seedy goings-on.

In 1996, the Tavadia building in Bora Bazaar collapsed, taking 18 lives with it. About six weeks earlier, a man was found dead in a cinema theatre in Pune. One Ramesh Kini, he was a tenant in a building in Dadar owned by one Laxmichand Shah.

Why have I mentioned both these probably forgotten episodes, and in the same paragraph?

Continue reading the article on the India together site.

Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price

Another article showing the vast gender inequality leading to various injustices on females. Child marriages are prevalent in some parts on India, especially Rajasthan as part of custom. More than 50% girls get married before they reach the age of 18. Most of the girls get married between 13-16 ages. It has been seen though that women are more empowered and female education more widespread this happens less. Take for example the state of Tamil Nadu or HP in India.

The article below does not talk about India but about Africa and how girls are forced to marry as repayment of debt.

Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price - New York Times: "Forced to Marry Before Puberty, African Girls Pay Lasting Price"

CHIKUTU, Malawi - Mapendo Simbeye's problems began early last year when the barren hills along Malawi's northern border with Tanzania rejected his attempts to grow even cassava, the hardiest crop of all. So to feed his wife and five children, he said, he went to his neighbor, Anderson Kalabo, and asked for a loan. Mr. Kalabo gave him 2,000 kwacha, about $16. The family was fed.

But that created another problem: how could Mr. Simbeye, a penniless farmer, repay Mr. Kalabo?

The answer would shock most outsiders, but in sub-Saharan Africa's rural patriarchies, it is deeply ingrained custom. Mr. Simbeye sent his 11-year-old daughter, Mwaka, a shy first grader, down one mangy hillside and up the next to Mr. Kalabo's hut. There she became a servant to his first wife, and, she said, Mr. Kalabo's new bed partner.

Now 12, Mwaka said her parents never told her she was meant to be the second wife of a man roughly three decades her senior. "They said I had to chase birds from the rice garden," she said, studying the ground outside her mud-brick house. "I didn't know anything about marriage."

Mwaka ran away, and her parents took her back after six months. But a week's journey through Malawi's dry and mountainous north suggests that her escape is the exception. In remote lands like this, where boys are valued far more than girls, older men prize young wives, fathers covet dowries and mothers are powerless to intervene, many African girls like Mwaka must leap straight from childhood to marriage at a word from their fathers.

Sometimes that word comes years before they reach puberty.

The consequences of these forced marriages are staggering: adolescence and schooling cut short; early pregnancies and hazardous births; adulthood often condemned to subservience. The list has grown to include exposure to H.I.V. at an age when girls do not grasp the risks of AIDS.
... Contiued on NYTimes.

Make Trade Fair

Long time since I have blogged. Have been busy with lot of personal stuff and will be for a month or so. But till then I would want to share some articles which highlight efforts by some NGO groups.

This effort is pretty important. This raises awareness about the trade policies especially agricultural subsidies offered by the developed world to their farmers. It is well known/documented that these subsidies have several negative imapcts including

1. These lower the world-wide prices for agricultural produce causing farmers from developing/under-developed world to sell in the market at a loss or negligible profit.

2. They promote inefficient production in developing world. A theory which goes quite against the basic principles of capatalism promoted by the developed world.

3. Even in US Mainstream Media it is well documented that these subsidies dont benefit the smaller farmers in US but only the bigger farmers/corporates. People get on average >$125,000 in subsidies for this and most are high net worth indiviuals.

There are several other negative impacts and well documented on Oxfam or WTO or even in main stream media. The article below talks about an Indian NGO doing a public campaign against these. This is specially important in relation to the upcoming WTO talks in Hong Kong.

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/nov/agr-fairtrade.htm

Hundreds of farmers, students and volunteers worked around the clock to gather one million signatures for a "make trade fair" campaign that ended last week. The drive, concentrating on sugarcane farmers in the region, was to protest dumping of sugar in the country by foreign producers; campaigners hope to make India self-sufficient in sugar production. Muthuvelayudham of CCD says "the main aim is to put an end to export oriented industrialization and to concentrate on self-sufficiency and restoring indigenous farming processes lost due to globalization and liberalization." He argues that the farmers are the biggest losers in the globalization game.

The one-month-long campaign was launched on 16th October simultaneously in Orissa and Tamilnadu. Covenant Centre for Development (CCD), an NGO from Tamilnadu, spearheaded the movement in all south Indian states and in Orissa. Cycle rallies in Sooranam in Madurai and Bhubhaneshwar, Orissa marked the launch.

Developed countries provide high subsidies to their farmers which makes farming financially viable in those nations. Further, by clever manipulation of their subsidy reduction commitments, rich nations have increased the support to farmers in the developed countries. The subsidies allow producers in developed nations to compete globally; trade policies that have forced open the markets of developing countries additionally make Third World farmers vulnerable to the imports of highly subsidised products. India has seen a massive increase in the imports of agricultural commodities and products from about Rs.50 billion in 1995 to over Rs.150 billion in 1999-2000 - a three-fold increase in only a few years.

Students on a bicycle rally during the launch of signature campaign in Sooranam, Tamilnadu.

Trade policies crafted far from their lives nonetheless affect farmers in significant ways; the woes of Indian sugarcane farmers attest to this. With fifteen acres of fertile land, two wells that contain water sufficient for whatever crop one wants to grow, 72-year-old Mookaiah I from Palamedu, Tamilnadu should be in a good position, but he begs to differ. He and his family have been living hand-to-mouth for the last four years. Traditionally a sugarcane farmer, Mookaiah now has no money to cultivate sugarcane or any other crop. His land stands barren. Until the 1950s Mookaiah and his family cultivated sugarcane and used it to make jaggery. And when Tamilnadu government decided to open a cooperative sugar mill at Alanganallur in Madurai, he along with other sugarcane farmers decided to sell their produce to the mills.

Selling cane to sugar mills was the easiest thing, he says. "The mills took care of everything. They gave us the seeds; they told us what kind of fertilizers to use and they arranged labour for harvesting too. We got paid handsomely. We were promised that this arrangement would not be disrupted." This was better than making jaggery, for which the cost of production would be too high and the market prices would vary depending on the quality of jaggery, which in turn depended on the quality of sugarcane. The farmers didn't have to worry about all that if they just sold their sugarcane to the mills.

http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/nov/agr-fairtrade.htm
Continued on India together site. I dont copy/paste the complete article because taht would be wrong and diverting traffic away from india-together site.

El Bloqueo by David Peterson

Continuing the dumping into the "memory hole"......George Orwell would have a good laugh on reading about all of this....

Raghav


El Bloqueo
Posted by David Peterson
Not sure which gets more comical---in a sick sense---with each passing year: The ever-mounting one-sidedness of the annual vote in the UN General Assembly urging those “States that have and continue to apply [measures against other States that affect the free flow of international trade] to take the necessary steps to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible”? Or the near-invisibility with which this vote occurs---just as it has been occurring for the past 14 straight years?
After all, the principles affirmed are anything but a “complete exercise in irrelevancy,” here quoting the phrase used by the American Ambassador to the United Nations, dismissing the lot of them. Namely: The “sovereign equality of States, nonintervention and non-interference in their internal affairs and freedom of international trade and navigation....” Or what the Russian Foreign Ministry referred to as the “resort to unilateral exterritorial measures in international relations.” A practice which “contradicts the spirit of our time and the very nature of the contemporary international relations.” But a “left-over of the Cold War and of ideological confrontation.” One that “retards the formation of the new 21st century world order, based on the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and the international law.”
As best I can tell, the New York Times devoted 127 words to the grand event. (Though a few days later, New York’s Daily News did run a sensible commentary on the vote.) The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) a total of 30. The Calgary Sun a whopping 83. While the U.K. print media ran virtually nothing. (Excluding a bona fide outlier such as the Morning Star. Wherein I discovered 408.) The Economist (London) 40. And the Financial Times somewhere on the order of 20. (At the outset of a slightly-longer blurb about how the Governor of the State of Alabama was urging his 49 fellow governors to adopt a boycott of Aruba, “angry about Aruba’s alleged mishandling of an investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama student, on the holiday island in May.” Doubtless one of the most heavily reported incidents on American cable television during 2005. Right up there with Hurricane Katrina. And the Michael Jackson trial.)
Of course I am referring to the General Assembly’s vote on a draft resolution bearing the mouthful of a title: Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.
In case you missed it, the November 8 vote was 182 in favor of the resolution, 4 against (the United States---and Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau), 1 State abstaining (the Federates States of Micronesia), and 4 absent (El Salvador, Iraq, Morocco, and Nicaragua).
Just as in every one of the previous 13 years, the votes in favor or against these resolutions have been roughly the same---the one significant difference being in the number of states willing to vote in favor of the resolutions, rather than copping out and abstaining, as used to happen early on.
- 1992 (A/RES/47/19): 59 in favor; 3 against (the U.S., Israel, and Romania); and 79 abstained
- 1993 (A/RES/48/16): 88 to 4 (the U.S., Israel)
- 1994 (A/RES/49/9): 101 to 2
- 1995 (A/RES/50/10): 117 to 3
- 1996 (A/RES/51/17): 137 to 3
- 1997 (A/RES/52/10): 143 to 3
- 1998 (A/RES/53/4): 157 to 2
- 1999 (A/RES/54/21): 155 to 2
- 2000 (A/RES/55/20): 167 to 3
- 2001 (A/RES/56/9): 167 to 3
- 2002 (A/RES/57/11): 173 to 3
- 2003 (A/RES/58/7): 179 to 3
- 2004 (A/RES/59/11) 179 to 4
- 2005: (A/60/L.9): 182 to 4
At no time in the 14 consecutive years that the General Assembly has adopted these resolutions has the U.S. Government voted completely by itself. In fact, in each of the 14 years, the Israeli Government has joined it. As it did this past November 8.
As one Lester D. Mallory, then a Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in the Eisenhower Administration, expressed what would become the unrelenting U.S. policy toward Cuba for the next 45 years (April, 1960---and there were no so-called “Neoconservatives” in sight):
[T]he only foreseeable means to alienate internal support is by creating disillusionment and discouragement based on lack of satisfaction and economical difficulties….We should immediately use any possible measure to…cause hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the Government.
In other words, if somebody can build a house for themselves, U.S. policy is to tear it down. (All the while counting on the educated classes back in the States to lay the blame for the demolition at the feet of the very people who built it in the first place.)
In a State Department briefing the very day the resolution was adopted, Adam Ereli was asked whether he thought “there’s something to be said for the fact that the whole international community disagrees with your policy and thinks other things should....”
Even before the reporter could finish his question, Ereli’s response was as unequivocal as it was unceremonious: “No.”
American history really is no more complicated than this No.
Unless we say so.
Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba (Draft Resolution: A/60/L.9), UN General Assembly, October 24, 2005. [This same draft document was adopted by the General Assembly on November 8.] “General Assembly, for Fourteenth Straight Year, Adopts Text on Ending Decades-Old United States Embargo against Cuba” (GA/10417), November 8, 2005 “General Assembly issues annual call for an end to US embargo against Cuba,” UN News Center, November 8, 2005
STOP Al Bloqueo (Homepage) Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly (English), Government of Cuba, August 15, 2005
“Trip To Latin America,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 4, 2005 “Fact Sheet: Accomplishments at the Fourth Summit of the Americas,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 5, 2005 “President Bush Discusses Democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 6, 2005 “Daily Press Briefing,” Adam Ereli, U.S. Department of State, November 8, 2005
“Ministerial segment of the 15th Ibero-American Summit ends today,” Nidia Diaz and Jorge Luis Gonzalez, Granma International, October 13, 2005 “Cuba Regards Ibero-American Summit as Victory Over U.S.,” Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com, October 17, 2005 “15th Ibero-American Summit supports Cuba,” W. T. Whitney Jr., People’s Weekly World, October 18, 2005 “Ibero-American summit criticises US policy,” Paul Mitchell, World Socialist Website, October 29, 2005 “Cubans more wary of Bush administration,” David Clarke, Reuters, November 4, 2005 “Cuba obtains overwhelming support for resolution calling for an end to the blockade,” Granma International, November 8, 2005
Strange Logic, ZNet, November 2, 2004

The corridor to hell

The second part of conversations with Michael Mazgaonkar (the first part, rural innovations, can be found here)..

*******
In addition to their technology innovations, Michael and Swati actively drive the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti which works on environmental issues. They work with other groups in raising awareness, trying to work with the government. In addition, they inform people of their rights and try to ensure that unchecked misuse and abuse does not happen in the name of development.

Now, the region from Ahmedabad to Vapi in Gujarat is called the “Golden corridor”, and is Gujarat’s industrial hub. Though productive, with many industries, almost every single pollution control or environmental law has been flouted here, and now the effects are being felt, and these effects are very, very harsh. Polluted Places (A Blacksmith institute project) describes the (almost unbelievable) amounts of pollution in this region.

Scores of industries illegally dump toxic waste by the Damaganga river. This flows in to the river, polluting the water source, as well as seeps in to the soil, and contaminates the aquifer itself. Michale and co tested the pH (a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of water) in various water sources, and found the pH as low as 3 in one region, and 11.5 in another. To bring things in to context, the natural pH of water (neutral) is just below seven. A pH of 3 makes it as acidic as dilute hydrochloric acid, and a pH of 11.5 that of calcium hydroxide (imagine drinking whitewash). An effluent plant in the region callously discharged untreated water (green, thick and foaming) passing it off as treated water. This plant was going to be funded by the World Bank, but Michael took photographic, videographic and scientific evidence to the officials, who first dismissed it, then incredulously found out that it was all true.

A more publicized case was that of Hema chemicals, a small chemical manufacturer. This company was found to have illegally dumped 300 tons of chromium waste (yes, 300 tons) by water sources, severely contaminating it. It took a very, very long time (faced with typical government apathy) to even counter this problem. In Michael’s own words:

·Over fifteen letters addressed to Pollution Control Board between 30th August '99 and 28th Aug '01 drew blank responses.
·After constant following up by PSS with GPCB they ordered discontinuance of power supply to the company on 3rd August '01 but it was not executed.
·PSS, through letters dated 7th August, 8th August '01 and 16th Aug '01 to GPCB pointed out that the company would use all means to circumvent execution of the order to discontinue its power connection.
·The order dated 3rd Aug '01 for disconnecting power supply was executed only on 17th Aug '01 but the company continued its operations using its private diesel generators.
·The company managed to pull strings in the corridors of power and managed to get its power supply restored on 18th Aug '01.
·GPCB was forced to act only after political interference in the matter was exposed through newspapers. .

The government pretends that the problem does not exist, and their stand is to:

·disregard the fact that 70 % of its groundwater is not potable,
·to hide that there are illegal hazardous waste dumpsites on private, government lands, and river banks as well,
·be oblivious to the fact that major rivers including Sabarmati, Mahi, Narmada, Kolak, Par, Damanganga severely polluted,
·remain blind to the clear and present health threat to communities in the vicinity of industrial estates due to pollution,....

Hema was a small chemical company. A mega company like Aventis was caught red-handed dumping toxic waste illegally (in drums which still contained the company name). There isn’t even talk of taking action against them. In some areas, water from 100 feet deep can be pumped out. It appears clear. Leave it in the open, and it turns yellow, then brown, in 20 minutes.
In some downstream villages, cancer rates have gone up to over 1% of the population (compared to average rates of 0.05 to 0.2% (hotspot rate)). Still, the water continues to be used to grow food, and feed livestock. Most people are aware of these problems, but are unwilling to compel the industries to conform to law or basic safety standards, because they fear a loss of their jobs and livelihood. But as time goes by, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the consequences.
According to Indian law, companies are supposed to hold public hearings, there is a channel to petition, and violations of laws can be taken to court. However, there is now an effort underway, not unlike some of the recent proposals of the Bush administration, to do away with all pollution control laws, and to allow industries to voluntarily adopt non-polluting technology or to clean up. The proposal also takes away the right to a public hearing, or any mandatory disclosures of the industry.
Michael and Swati, with other groups in India, are trying to raise public awareness of this issue, as well as make them aware of their rights, and the consequences.
I have seen pretty bad cases of industrial pollution, but these specific numbers, callousness for the law (with encouragement from the government, in some guise of “development”) and degree of impact affected me deeply.
I also have another question. Many people support allowing industry to voluntarily act. However, here we see that in spite of regulations and (a distant) risk of prosecution, industry remains utterly callous to any such efforts. How then do people believe that industry will voluntarily adopt measures that benefit the locality and their own employees?
A developing country needs to learn from the mistakes made elsewhere. These problems of massive pollution have been faced by industrial Europe, and the United States, and many regions solved these problems the hard way. The technology to prevent these problems exist, and the laws and safety standards also do. Should not a developing country leapfrog towards such technology, rather than cripple itself first, and then heal itself?

Memo to Jon Stewart

Interesting article, especially for those who admire Jon Stewart...

Raghav


Memo to Jon Stewart
Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass?
By ALISON WEIR
Dear Jon Stewart,
I phoned ABC and left a comment for The Daily Show. I hope you got it. Maybe other people will phone, too (818-460-7477).
I'm glad you're against torture. I just wish you were also against torture by Israel. I was pretty astounded to hear you chatting with John McCain last night, nodding along as AIPAC-buddy McCain explained that the US should emulate Israel, "which doesn't torture people."
Whew!
Jon, you're a really smart guy. Is it possible that you don't know that there are 8,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons right now, and that many of them have been tortured, some of them at this very minute? <
Is it possible that you didn't read the article about Mustafa Dirani testifying in an Israeli court for ten hours about his gruesome torture by Israeli interrogators?
Is it possible you've never ever talked to Palestinians, even Palestinian-Americans, and heard their graphic descriptions of the Israeli prison experience?
Jon, I know you're not dumb, and I'd like to think you're not hypocritical, so maybe you just really have missed the boat on this one. Therefore, in thanks for all the great laughs you've given us, I'd like to help you out a bit and invite you to join us on our next trip to the West Bank and Gaza. That way you can learn about things. The trip's on us, and the humus is great.
Sure, Israeli forces may kill or injure us, like they did Rachel Corrie, James Miller, Tom Hurndall, Brian Avery, and thousands upon thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children but, hey, they probably won't.
Cordially,
Alison Weir
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew. She can be reached at: alisonweir@yahoo.com
P.S. Below is a news report that I think you missed, Jon, but it wasn't really your fault. Although this article can be discovered on some websites, almost no American news media actually printed it.
Militant Says He Was Abused by Israel
By PETER ENAVAssociated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel - A Lebanese guerrilla leader about to be freed in a prisoner swap testified Tuesday that Israeli interrogators raped him, sodomized him with a club and kept him naked for weeks in a round-the-clock effort to extract information on a missing Israeli aviator.
State prosecutor Shamai Becker said interrogators never touched Mustafa Dirani. The prosecutor said Dirani "sang like a bird" and made up allegations of abuse to explain why he gave Israel information.
Human rights groups have accused Israel of routinely mistreating Arab prisoners, but rarely to the extremes Dirani alleged to a Tel Aviv court in his $1.3 million lawsuit against the Israeli government.
Dirani is one of hundreds of Arab prisoners to be released Thursday in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers - all kidnapped by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah in October 2000.
The prisoners to be freed by Israel include 400 Palestinians, 34 people from Arab countries and a German convicted of spying for Hezbollah.
On Tuesday, a white bus filled with prisoners drove into the Sharon Prison in central Israel under heavy guard. Prisoners peeked from tiny wire mesh-covered windows, and some tried unsuccessfully to spread their fingers in V-for-victory signs.
The German-mediated swap is to take place Thursday. Security officials said the prisoners from Arab countries and the German would be flown Wednesday to Germany. Israel will release the Palestinians into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and will hand over 59 bodies of Lebanese militants killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
All the Palestinians had less than three years to serve and were not involved in wounding or killing Israelis, according to a list released Tuesday. About two-thirds were scheduled to be released this year.
Some Palestinians greeted the list with disappointment, noting Israel has often freed prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses on Muslim holidays or as part of peace talks.
"I look at this like a routine release," said Issa Karake, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Association.
Dirani is among the most prominent of the prisoners named. Israeli forces burst into his home in Lebanon in 1994, kidnapped him and held him without charges for a decade, yet allowed him access to its court system to sue the government for torture.
On Tuesday, Dirani testified that interrogators kept him naked and shackled in a secret facility for a month as six men tortured him, splashing him with hot and freezing water, shaking him until he fainted and sexually assaulting him as they demanded information about missing airman Ron Arad.
Israel accuses Dirani of helping capture Arad, who was caught alive after ejecting from his plane over Lebanon in 1986.
Israeli and international human rights groups say Israel has mistreated Arab security detainees during interrogation by depriving them of sleep, tying them in painful positions and forcing them to wear hoods.
In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court banned the blanket use of such practices, saying they could be used only in specific instances. Human rights activists said abuse fell off after the ruling but has become more frequent in the past three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Dirani's accusations of torture - which he said took place before the court ruling - were far more severe than those usually reported, said Yael Stein, research director at B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
"Accusations of rape are not common," she said. "If it is true, it is very severe."
Dirani, 53, limped badly and walked with a cane when he entered the courtroom. He had to be coaxed into giving details.
Dirani said he was interrogated around the clock for a month by six people, including a man known only as George, who threatened him, cursed him and repeatedly squeezed his testicles "until I felt I would die," Dirani said.
One day a uniformed soldier nicknamed "Kojak" came into the room and dropped his pants, and George told Dirani the soldier would sodomize him if he did not talk, Dirani said.
Days later, Dirani was shackled and pushed down onto a bench, he said. "I couldn't see or resist ... I was raped by the soldier. He said he would rape me, and he did," he told the court.
"Two or three days later they started raping me with a police baton," he said. "It's impossible to describe the pain. I yelled to high heaven."
The interrogators took him to a doctor to stop the bleeding, he said. They also forced him to drink castor oil, which made him incontinent, and gave him large diapers as his only clothing.
Israel's Channel Two TV broadcast an interview with a person, his face in shadows, identified as the interrogator named George. He denied abusing Dirani, but said interrogation is a competition between questioners and detainees.
"You must be innovative," he said, "and you can't always run and get permission in advance."
Becker, the prosecutor, denied Dirani's accusations.
"All the interrogators said you sang like a bird and there was no reason to touch a hair on your head," Becker said as he cross-examined Dirani.
"What's all this about? You are going back to Lebanon. People will ask how could you give out this and that information. You'll answer that you are a heterosexual Muslim. This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tortured and thus forced you to talk," Becker said.

Engineering innovations for rural India

I spent a wonderful evening listening to and talking to Michael Mazgaonkar today. Michael is an electrical engineer by training. About 15 years ago, he (with his wife and colleague Swati Desai) went and started living in a Bhill village (Juna Mozda) in the Narmada region of Gujarat, and never left. Since then, they have been working with the villagers on environmental, adivasi, watershed, and technology issues for rural areas. This is the first post (of two) about his conversations with us.

The technologist in me couldn’t resist the technological innovations they are enabling in the village, so this post is about technology. The next one will discuss some of the (horrifying) environmental issues of the area.

A major effort of theirs has been on alternative energy. This village (like many others) is without electricity. Now any energy researcher will agree that energy is best managed locally (due to large energy losses in long distance transmission), and given India’s inefficient system, even if electricity comes to this village, it’s likely to be inefficient. But they have made substantial innovations in this area, focusing on local resources, and inculcating abilities in the locals.

A first innovation (which he brought along with him) is a torch. Now, typical torch bulbs are moderately expensive, use a lot of energy (batteries), and burn out quickly. Michael and his local friends (tribals, mostly illiterate) innovated around this. They designed a torch (with the case made out of wood and cloth) using four super-bright LEDs (light emitting diodes). These are (surprisingly) remarkably bright, and use next to no energy (so batteries last 10 times longer). Their lifespans are also thousands of hours. Pretty handy in a dark village!

Another nice innovation was a pedal power generator. They made one of these for the village school. Of course, the concept is simple. The pedals (of a bicycle) charge batteries, which light up the school. All it takes are twenty children, each pedaling for just five minutes a day, to charge the batteries to light up two schoolrooms for five hours daily.

But the most ambitious project was an electricity-generating windmill (which they set up quite recently). The windmill is a10 feet in diameter, 1200-watt creature, which generates 1.3 kWHr of electricity (for 8 months in a year, when the winds are strong). This cost Rs. 76,000 (less than $2000), and was a first prototype, using fiberglass panels. Future windmills will be fashioned locally, using local wood (Teak, which is termite resistant, hard, and extremely durable). This windmill charges batteries in a battery bank. Villagers use these batteries to light up their houses (each battery allows 4 lights in each house), and pay a small fee for this. In just a couple of months, fifteen houses have started using this (and numbers grow by the week, in the village of ~45 houses). To prevent excess discharging of the battery, they innovated a low voltage discharger (to cut off supply when the battery charge runs low). Here’s a WMV clip about their windmill.

Another technological innovation is more mundane. Michael and Swati helped create a womens’ cooperative, where the women process and sell organic dal (lentils; both thoor and channa dal) in cities like Baroda. Now, the dal is traditionally split by a hand-splitter, slow and laborious. Electric or motorized ones of course are expensive. They innovated and improved a hand-ground mill that splits dal about 10 times faster than the traditional mill (at a rate comparable to the electric one), that’s saving a tremendous amount of time and energy for the women.

Another effort of Mozda (for the public domain) is to design Scheffler reflectors for use primarily to sterilize and dispose biological waste in hospitals in the greater area. Now, these reflectors are widely used in mega-temples like Tirupathi, Shiridi or Mount Abu to cook food for thousands of devotees daily. It’s perfectly suited to be modified to autoclave medical waste (usually sloppily done in hospitals in India, often due to erratic electricity supply). Their innovation meets World Health Organization standards. They are now also working on a needle crusher to get rid of hospital sharps.

And all of Michael’s co-innovators are the local tribals.

Someone in the small audience asked Michael if he worked with universities and students on these projects. A definitive yes was the answer. But then he added that most universities and students wanted something cool and flashy (that would be publishable or will result in a thesis) but weren’t interested in making something already known doable at a low cost. They wanted innovations to make things cost $5, not innovations that would cost $150.

I (like many of us) was an engineering student in India too. Sadly, I can’t remember any of us doing any useful projects of this kind. More power to useful technology, that can be adapted for local needs, and more power to innovators like Michael.

Here is an article about Mozda in the Indian Express.

The difficulty of being good

The excellent South Asia Center at the Henry M.Jackson School of International studies here at the University of Washington has an annual Exchange program, where a distinguished public figure from India would spend an entire quarter in campus as Visiting Scholar, co-teaching a course, and giving some lectures. This year’s visiting scholar was the affable Gurucharan Das, man of many talents, author and superb columnist. He gave his keynote lecture last week, and I tooted down to witness the proceedings, and left after having listened to an excellent lecture.

Smiling, unassuming, poised and articulate, Gurucharan Das spoke on a rather philosophical note, titling his lecture “The difficulty of being good”. He drew on his own rich background in philosophy (after all, he majored in Philosophy at Harvard, and along with Bruce Lee, is the only other person I know who succeeded in his chosen non-philosophical profession with a degree in philosophy!). The lecture discussed governance failure and corporate social responsibility, using the Mahabharata as backdrop, to draw analogies from, and explore sensitivity to Dharma.

“What is the point of doing good, if there are no rewards?” was a question asked to Gurucharan by a social worker somewhere in India. From this question, he takes us to the forest, where Pandavas are in exile, and Draupadi sees that all those who compromise with Dharma prosper, while they (and Yudishtra in particular, who never waives from the path of Dharma) suffer. What does Dharma allow? Did Dharma allow Yudishtra to give Draupadi away after he gave himself away in the game of dice?

We came back to modern India. The economy is growing, the population growth rate has dropped substantially, and there is a steady (though slow) decline in poverty. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s all happening in spite of terrible governance. As examples, we see huge teacher absenteeism in government schools, negligent government doctors, police not functioning, and businesses not transparent. Can behavior based on Dharma lead to economic harmony? Or, as Draupadi declared, “Power is all that matters.”

Coming back to the absent teachers (the specific example constantly explored), there is an over 25% absentee rate in India, and half of those present do not teach. So, 2/3 of ALL government schoolteachers don’t do anything. Even in neighboring Bangladesh, there is only a 14% absentee rate. This abysmal negligence results in very low educational standards and literacy rates, and the poor are forced to enroll their children in more expensive private schools. What’s funny is that government school teachers are quite highly paid (starting salary of Rs. 8500, with perks), while private school teachers usually earn from Rs 2000-5000 (having worked with many of those, I’m more comfortable with these numbers), yet these private teachers deliver higher performance standards (though they may not be spectacular), because they are accountable. In a few states, there were efforts to confront this problem. For example, in MP, Digvijay Singh tried to make teachers more accountable, by making them answerable to the panchayat or local parent associations (who could deduct their salary if they were absent). Guess what, teachers are all-powerful during elections (they are held in rural school classrooms, with teachers supervising). According to Digvijay Singh, his move (extremely unpopular with teachers) resulted in the powerful teachers union working against him, and influencing elections (all held in their classrooms).

Gurucharan Das went on to describe how, in the various education reform meetings (filled with politicians and bureaucrats) there is extensive discussion on resources or targets. But there has never been a discussion on teachers. Now, India spends nearly 4% of its GDP on education. This puts us right in the middle bracket of spending for education. But our performance remains at the bottom of the barrel.

Back to the Mahabharata, during the game of dice, Vidura, who also constantly upheld Dharma, pleads with the blind king. He says, “To save a family, sacrifice an individual. To save a village, sacrifice a family, and to save a country, sacrifice a village”. His words are not heeded, and he walks out of the assembly in rage. Vidura looks at Dharma using a simple cost vs. benefits analysis, and it sums up the greater good. But to Yudishtra, this is unacceptable. He upholds Dharma (as he tells Draupadi) because he must, and because Adharma leads to damnation, and because he sees Dharma as a ship. If people are not good, social order will collapse, and the rules for cooperation will no longer exist.

Back to corporate India, and Dhirubhai Ambani’s story. On one side, it was the glorious rags to riches story. On the other, it is a tale of deceit and manipulation, and the license raj. It has undoubtedly benefited millions of people (almost 8% of India’s taxes are collected from Reliance industries). Yet laws were broken with impunity. In Yudishtra’s words, ends cannot justify means. This brought Das to the topic of corporate social responsibility, and how corporations had excellent internal governance standards and codes, but little mattered to them when dealing with the greater economy.

So with teachers or with corporations, the problem is the same. Can a sense of duty be given to any of these? Plato and Aristotle believed that virtue could be taught. Reform of schools or corporations or greater government is all our work.

While concluding Gurucharan Das mused again, “What is the point of it all, the point of being good? Being good will result in greater rewards by themselves.”