Sangita Jha

There is clear admission of the fact among the officials that heart of India, geographically speaking, is in the clutches of naxals. So much so that the state governments or even the Central agencies find difficult to reach out the means of development and advancements to tribals living in deep forest in Central India. The challenge thrown up by the naxals is clearly daunting and armed response is being seen as not the only answer.

Ever since Union minister Jairam Ramesh took charge of the Union rural development ministry, there has been a change in the approach as far as dealing wity the naxals or left wing extremism (LWE), as spoken officially, is concerned. In the last one year, it’s being seen, that the government’s approach is to deal with naxals with full force but at the same time reaching out the benefits of various Centrally sponsored schemes to the tribals in a clear strategy that they are do not fall prey to the left wing extremism ideology.

This year’s Budget proposed by the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee endorses the strategy on which Ramesh is working on in partnership with central paramilitary forces and state governments.

Mukherjee has proposed setting up of a National Rural Livelihoods Foundation (NRLF) on the lines of the Public Health Foundation on public-private partnership mode specifically for 173 districts, which are affected by the naxal violence.

While the Centre would pitch in with an initial allocation of Rs 500 crore for the first two years, another Rs 500 crores would come from the corporates and state governments. Ramesh has already a number of trusts sponsored by big corporate houses who want to be part of the exercise, indicating that funds would not be a problem. The state governments too have reasons to pitch in with their share for the objective of setting up of NRLF.

The idea of the NRLF is to assist civil society in their endevour to bring the gains of development and progress to the tribals entrenched in the naxal affected areas. This is for the reason, as acknowledged by Ramesh, that even the government officials do not dare to go into such areas, while the civil society like Ram Krishna Mission are allowed to work without any interference by the proponents of left wing extremism. So with an initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore, there would be Rs 100 crores accruing as interests, which would be utilized to assist the civil society in carrying out their work.

The idea is clearly novel and enterprising. What is more intersesting is the stress on the part of the Centre to support the civil society and NGOs to take up work on watershade management, water supply, capacity building, education among other activities in the 173 districts which span from Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Odhisa and Jharkhand. These areas are geographically speaking heart of India but also the place where the paramilitary forces are engaged in a battle of nerves each days, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.

Ramesh should also be credited for taking a host of other measures too to ensure that the war against naxals is won effectively and convincingly on a sustainable basis. In another initiative, Ministry of rural development has unveiled a programme whereby corporate houses are being roped in to buy and market the tribal handicrafts and their products apart from taking part in their skill building activities. This initiative has got impressive response from the corporates, which in the end is intended to put the money into the pockets of tribals by ensuing that they are not exploited by the middlemen, who often account for most of the money which should have rather gone to the poor. Corporates have shown interest in bamboo products and herbs, which the tribals know better than others.

The Centre has already rolled out a pilot project called Saranda Action Plan in the trijunction of Jharkhand, Odhisa and Chhatisgarh to win the hearts of tribals and put them into the mainstream life. After the CRPF claimed to have cleared the Saranda forest areas of the naxals, the Centre has stepped in by reaching out to the tribals with benefits like houses under Indira Awas Yojna (IAY), transistors, cycles, surface drinking water supply. In addition to other measures, the Saranda Action Plan also seeks to give employments to the tribals under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) along with roping in other institutions for skill building exercise. The Centre is looking forward to replicate the Saranda Action Plan in other naxal affected areas in phased manner. The idea is clear, that the government would step in with a host of schemes in the naxal affected areas once they area cleared out by the paramilitary forces. Interestingly, the Saranda Action Plan is being implemented under close monitoring by the Centre, while at the ground level the district administration with protection by the paramilitary forces are rolling out the benefits to the tribals.

In another move to rope in the elected representatives in implementing Integrated Action Plan (IAP), which is meant for the naxal affected 78 districts in the country, the Planning Commission is mulling a proposal to rope in the Gram Panchayats. The move has come in the backdrop of West Bengal having reportedly shown better result in tackling naxals with the involevement of political leadership. Deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Jairam Ramesh and Union minister for Panchayati Raj V. Kishore Chandra Deo have deliberated on the ways to make Gram Panchayats part of the exercise, which as of now is being administered by the triumvirate od District Magistrate (DM), Suprintendent of Police (SP) and District Forest Officer (DFO). Mr Deo had been advocating larger role of the Panchayats and Gram Sabhas in the tribal districts to ensure that land is not leased out to corporates for mining activities by flouting the existing laws.

Last but not the least, the Centre is also seeking the young graduates to take up fellowship programmes in the tribal areas under a Pradhan Mantri Rural Fellowship Programme, which has been recently launched. This is in addition to Rs 50 crore grant to IRMA for taking up programmes in the rural areas, which are otherwise shunned by themanagement graduates.

It’s clear that the intent is there on the part of the government to defeat the naxals not only by force but also to cut off the supply line of manpower by winning the hearts of tribals by showing them better side of the world.

(This article was first published in Sopan Step)

BeyondHeadlines News Desk

The UNICEF’s initiatives for the adolescent girls of India got a major leg up with Delhi Daredevils announcing their support for its campaign.

The campaign coined as ‘Dare to Care’ will witness Delhi Daredevils as well as UNICEF working towards sensitizing the public on the important role girls can play in society and why education and protection can ensure that they can grow up and develop to their full potential.

Virender Sehwag, Captain, Delhi Daredevils said “This is an honor to be associated with a campaign which fights for empowering the adolescent girls of India. The entire team along with the management of the Delhi Daredevils is glued and excited about this campaign since this cause is so close to our own lives and hearts and so will do anything to make this a successful initiative.”

“The Delhi Daredevils have a huge and very loyal crowd of supporters. In partnering with the Daredevils we are looking forward to hearing millions of voices speaking out for girls in India. Girls who are educated, protected and empowered”, said Ms Karin Hulshof, UNICEF Representative in India, “With the Dare to Care campaign we are looking forward to joining hands with the team and calling for boys and girls to transform India.”.

Commenting on the announcement GMR Sports Head (Marketing) Hemant Dua said “The fact that 40% of adolescent girls aged between 14 – 17 years do not attend school, 40% girls in India marry before the legal age of 18 and around 56% of adolescent girls are anemic were good enough reasons for us to come together with UNICEF for a common cause of educating everyone to understand the value of girl child. It’s the girl which is so full of life, strength, playing a critical role in our lives so what holds us back to give them an equal status as the boys in the family and society at large. Delhi Daredevils through this campaign DARES everyone to wake up and start caring for the girls in your family.”

The partnership aims to support the efforts to protect millions of adolescent girls still facing obstacles in their lives by experiencing various forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse on account of their age and their sex. ‘Dare to Care’ will focus on issues related to empowering girls with education which will further give them the courage to say no to an early marriage and also give their views on decisions which directly impacts their lives. (Courtesy: Sopan Step)

Cheerleaders of Kolkata Knight Riders are coming out in saris

They continue to entertain the crowds at Indian Premier League cricket matches, but Western-style mini-skirts and lewd dance moves have been shelved by the teams’ cheerleaders.

Two teams, the high-profile Kolkata Knight Riders and the Pune Warriors, have opted for inoffensive saris and less suggestive Indian-style choreography.

Cheerleading squads for most other teams in the multi-billion-dollar league have donned knee-length leggings – sometimes even skin-coloured.

Much like Lalit Modi, the former commissioner of the IPL who oversaw the league’s first three seasons of Twenty20 cricket and was subsequently removed amid allegations of corruption and nepotism, cheerleaders in hot pants have seemingly become a little too hot to handle.

‘Soft target’

“This is part of the effort to deglamourise the IPL since the exit of Mr Modi,” says a senior official of Hanmer MSL Communications, speaking on behalf of the CEO of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Venky Mysore.

“The priority is on cricket. It is also true that cheerleaders are often the soft target of the moral police in India,” the official said.

This year KKR, owned by Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, has seen its cheerleaders dressed in garish purple and gold saris dancing in rhythm with local dhakis (drummers) to the team anthem and Bollywood film music.

Pune Warriors cheerleaders dance to Indian tunes

The idea, it is reported, came from KKR’s actor-owners who found inspiration from a Bollywood film in which they had played the lead roles.

The film, aptly, was called Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (Yet My Heart Is Indian), in which Ms Chawla played a woman from the Bengali community which forms the Calcutta team’s primary support base.

The KKR management has also employed “only local girls” as cheerleaders in the current IPL instead of using fair-skinned foreigners, the norm since the inaugural IPL in 2008.

“Now that Shah Rukh Khan has been appointed as brand ambassador of West Bengal (the state of which Calcutta is the capital city), using traditional costumes and local cheerleaders is all about making an emotional connection with the Bengali community,” the official added.

Not everyone is buying the argument.

After a match against the Rajasthan Royals at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta, Sikharendu Datta, a banker, found the KKR cheerleaders to be unlike Bengalis.

“They don’t wear saris the Bengali way or dance the Bengali way or to Bengali music, other than the team anthem. At best, they are just cheerleaders in saris,” said Mr Datta.

‘Distracting’

The IPL was envisaged as a meeting of the best popular baits in India – bang bang cricket, Bollywood stars, music and prime time televised spectacle. Long-legged blonde cheerleaders in short dresses completed the picture with their pom poms and American Super Bowl moves.

Ironically, among the first to protest against the presence of the cheerleaders was a player.

Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi, who was playing for an IPL team in the inaugural season, said he found the cheerleaders “distracting” for the batsmen. At least one newspaper report suggested the poor-in-form player keep his eye on the ball.

Over the years, and for varying reasons, others have spoken out in agreement with the Pakistani all-rounder.

Meanwhile Afridi, along with other Pakistani players, has been kept out of the lucrative IPL players’ auctions since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which militants from Pakistan were found to be involved.

In the state of Maharashtra – home to the Mumbai Indians and Pune Warriors – Bal Thackeray, the powerful chief of the Hindu right-wing political party Shiv Sena, felt the cheerleaders were introduced to “seduce” the crowd.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party politician Shatrughan Sinha said the use of cheerleaders made a “mockery” of cricket, while social activist Swami Agnivesh felt it to be “the height of vulgarity”.

In Orissa, a fringe political outfit called Kalinga Sena threatened to disrupt IPL games in the state if cheerleaders were allowed.

‘Exotic and sensuous’

The girls continued to be in the news after two “dark-skinned” cheerleaders complained of racial bias and another blogged about flirtatious cricketers. A South African cheerleader subsequently lost her job.

In a 2010 interview given to the BBC, former IPL head Lalit Modi was asked about the League’s seeming preference for blonde pom pom girls and whether he was saying Indian girls were not beautiful.

Of course not, Mr Modi countered haltingly, India has the prettiest girls. “There are many, many Indian women participating in the IPL as fans, or in the stadium or watching the product,” he added.

If the IPL let Indian women on the field as cheerleaders, it happened only after Mr Modi’s exit after the third season and with the emergence of the Pune Warriors India (PWI) team from 2011.

Dressed in traditional Indian classical dancing costumes, Pune have dubbed their cheerleading team the Cheer Queens and the performers Bharatiya Nrityaganas (Indian Dancers).

‘Exotic and sensuous’

“I thought it was a brilliant way to move out of our set thinking about cheerleaders,” says dancer Tanushree Shankar, who worked as a consultant with the PWI Cheer Queens last year.

“Classical and folk dance forms not only showcase our Indianness, but can be exotic and sensuous too,” she says.

Despite complaints from some fans that a certain spark is now missing from the league’s proceedings, cheerleaders continue to be an important part of the IPL, says Raghu Iyer, CEO of the Rajasthan Royals (RR).

“It is a very important revenue-generation item sold to sponsors and partners,” he says.

The Rajasthan cheerleaders have “over the last few years” increasingly appeared in more conformist fashion. This year, their blue tights have been extended to well below the knees.

“We ensure that their attire and choreography take the sensibilities of the Indian viewing family into account. In future we might also have local girls as cheerleaders,” says Mr Iyer.

In the two decades since the Indian economy opened up, India has found ways to localise the most prominent of international brands.

From pizza ingredients, music and fashion to automobile engineering, Indian tastes, ethics, political compulsions and needs have gradually been added to the product mix by multinationals.

By all indications, even cheerleading at the IPL is no exception.

(Shamik Bag is a Calcutta-based writer and journalist and This article was first published in BBC)

Since ages woman have always been subjected to sanctions and dictums from more privileged male counterparts in every feudalistic society like ours and even the most optimistic prophet will stumble to foretell when it will come to an end. Her freedom had been curtailed accusing her of licentious and promiscuous behavior, prerogative to don what she wishes had forcefully been snatched voice & even in her own matters, has been muzzled.

Society is replete with prejudices that stink of anathema towards her socio-economic development and obstructs her progress as an equal human being. These prejudices manifest themselves in practices like female foeticides, denial of basic rights, partiality in providing education, good food or clothing and other accessories. Eve-teasing, harassment (physical, mental and sexual), rapes, marital rapes, women trafficking, prostitution are only few names out of horribly lengthy list of ignominious acts perpetrated against woman.

People like me who belong to middle or lower class, are witness to despicable act of wife beating in our neighborhoods. Women even sometimes fall victim to institutionalized apathy. The methods of sexual torture adopted, or the Finger Test conducted on rape victims are the most abominable acts that need to be condemned in harshest words.

The painstaking efforts of activists, reformers, rational and progressive thinkers, Government, NGO’s has met with some considerable success for the emancipation of women. But this success is restricted predominantly to metropolitans where woman are holding managerial, intellectual, political or other respectable positions. The goals are still elusive as far as rural landscape is concerned and only combined concerted effort of all the aforementioned will extend the contours of the bright daylight up to those women that still reel under the shadows of male dominance.  

A cruel practice

Sorry, as I apprehend my social or anthropological incompetence to question or scorn the “millennium” old traditional practices, deeply entrenched and ossified by accumulating fears of indigenous culture being subjugated by western culture, however, horrendous or inhumane these practices might be. I enunciate the practice that offended me when I heard it from one of my friends. And then I launched my so called “investigation”. I elucidate what I found out as I heard, witnessed, discussed and deliberated with my friends, teachers, people and clerics belonging to divergent communities or strata of life. I wish to narrate two correspondences.

Women or young girls are still barred from entering kitchen, religious structures, or from touching utensils or anything that is considered holy or from reading sacred texts during their natural periods. Their access is restricted to a single room where they are rendered shabby treatment flagrantly abusing their sense of dignity and liberty. The practice is entrenched uniformly across the spectrum of society, only the modern societies have liberated themselves from this blot.

Out of the people that I “cross examined”, an educated female friend of mine was very critical of this traditional tract “We are degraded and treated like wretches, we are held in disdain as we might have committed some serious felony and are scorned as sinners”. Then commenting on rural and urban divide in the context of this practice she commented, “Belonging to metropolitan culture is boon to us while our rural sisters’ reel under scruffy treatment meted out to them by elderly women who sometimes connive with their male counterparts. You see how the girls in villages use dirty cotton clothes which sometimes cause serious bacterial and fungal infections that give rise to STDs (Sexually Transmitted Disease) and sometimes even cancer”. “Girls feel humiliated when they had to rush to toilets during their periods because of absence of proper stuff required and lack of knowledge. Non availability of toilets is one of the major reasons of high girl dropouts from school and consequently low women literacy”. When I entreated her to remonstrate and demur she lamented, “Pranay, we have accepted it as our preordained destiny. We are victims not only of amorous desires of man but also of religious and traditional structures”.

In another instance I landed a young cleric into an unusual discomfiture when I enquired, “Is it true”. Initially baffled at my question he calmed down and reluctantly replied in affirmative. “These practices have continued from million years, now we can’t change them”. When I further pressed him, he bulged, to my dismay “Don’t you see, during this time women are full of dirt and filth, aren’t they unholy”? I remained tightlipped, only reflected that how can a process in which lies the source of continuity of human life be unholy. I couldn’t get the answer. Do you have any answer for it????

(The writer is a B. Tech student at Jamia Millia Islamia. His email id is pranayparashar@gmail.com and Facebook Profile https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000592636247.)

The views expressed in this article are writer’s own, and it does not necessarily reflect BH’s editorial policy. 

If you have just fifty rupees to spend and you want the best of them then plan a Sunday Evening visit to Daryaganj in Old Delhi. Famous Sunday book market has a lot to offer at remarkably low prices. Your longing for books may come to an end here as this very busy street can offer you almost everything written on paper.

One remarkable thing about this market is that here you can find literature, science, medicine, physics, astrology, history, geography, computing, geology (and almost every other ics and logy)

Piled up like throw away waste. Those who know its value get it at best value of their money. Daryaganj book market offers you best knowledge at unbeatable price. All you need is quest for knowledge and patience to find it.

The famous Sunday market not only offers you book but also displays Delhi culture in all its colors. Delhi, the capital of country has adopted different communities and cultures and crowded weekly markets are rooted in its culture. Daryagnaj book market is also one of such markets of Delhi.

It is a real bite to the mind of book lovers. Walk in Daryaganj book market is a treat to mind in heaven of books. The sellers array books wherever they find a small space. Those who can’t find any comfortable space just pile up them on roadside.

Whatever your taste or need is, you will surely find something for you and even for your loved ones here. One interesting thing about this market is that whether a writer is a celebrity like Paulo Coelho or some struggling one, all are equal here, at least in display. Be it Premchand or some unknown hindi writer, everyone is lying in the piles of books. It is a wonderful experience to see Hitler smiling on cover of Mein Kemf with Jawaharlal Nehru on Discovery of India, both lying together on the footpath.

And it is not the readers but many famous writers who reside in Delhi give frequent visits to this market. Those who come to visit Delhi also do not forget to find their lost love of books in Daryaganj. Writers like Kuldeep Nayyar and many others come to purchase the books here. Anuj, a bookseller at the Sunday market recollects, many times famous writers come here but we do not recognize them unless someone tells about them

The Sunday Book Market of Daryaganj is being organized for almost last 30 years and many of sellers are continuing it as their family profession, adds Anuj.

Low Prices are USP here another big reason for success of this market is that most of book here are in best shape and quality. Though most of books are second hand but they are rarely torn off or damaged. A visitor while searching books says, ”I always wait for Sunday whenever I need a book because I can get it at a very low price compared to a shop”.

Although the book sellers are well aware of the taste of readers but most of them do not know much about the books they sell. The lesser the seller know about the book the better is your chance to get it at lower prices. Also, many book sellers have regular customers and they do not hesitate to offer them additional discounts.

Added with the numerous and insisting book sellers, a walk here can make you crazy. Nevertheless, it’s like the whole charm of Delhi. The traffic is just mad, hundreds rickshaws coming from every directions, many bikes and crowd of pedestrians. The crowd may either bore you or excite you, it depends on your taste. If you want to satisfy your mind then it will be a great treat to yourself.

Many times the visitors find themselves lost in piles of books like Alice in wonderland. The best Idea is to have an idea of what exatly you want. If you have specific needs then be ready with a list and if you are visiting just like that to pass a Sunday evening then be ready for surprises. Your mind may be tempted to read a lot and a lot and despite very low prices at the end of the day you may find your wallet a bit lighter.

(Razia can be reached at razia@beyondheadlines.in)

New Delhi: Delhi is perhaps the most unsafe city for women as 414

rape cases were reported in the national capital in 2010, the highest

among 35 major cities in the country, while Mumbai followed it with

194 such incidents.

According to government statistics released today, 23 per cent of rape

cases in these urban areas took place in Delhi and 10.8 per cent in

Mumbai.

A total of 1,422 kidnapping or abduction of women have taken place in

Delhi last year which is 37.7 per cent of the total cases in 35 major

cities.

There were 112 dowry deaths and 1,273 incidents of cruelty by husband

or relatives in Delhi last year, said the report of the national Crime

Control Bureau.

In Mumbai, there were 146 incidents of kidnapping of women, 21 dowry

deaths and 312 incidents of cruelty by husband or relatives during

last year.A total of 1,422 kidnapping or abduction of women have taken

place in Delhi last year which is 37.7 per cent of the total cases in

35 major cities.

There were 112 dowry deaths and 1,273 incidents of cruelty by husband

or relatives in Delhi last year, said the report of the national Crime

Control Bureau.

Pune reported third highest number of 91 rape cases in 2010 followed

by Jabalpur where 81 rapes took place last year.

Software city Bangalore recorded 65 incidents of rape while Indore

reported 69 incidents of rape last year.

Among the states, Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rape

– 3,135 incidents — in 2010 followed by West Bengal where 2,311

cases were reported last year.

Assam, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh reported 1,721,

1,599, 1,563 and 1,362 cases respectively.

There were 1,012 incidents of rape in Chhattisgarh, 1,025 in Orissa

and 795 in Bihar.

Curtousy: NDTV.com

We Sprawl, a creative group, is holding film making workshops this October where the children from NGO private schools are participating in the workshop where they will come out with one minute documentary. The batch is a mixed group, consisting of privileged and underprivileged children, of varying age group.

“Young aspiring people need such platforms. That’s our only aim, that is to give them opportunities. You do not know the kind of thinking they have. It’s completely out of the box. They never fail to surprise us. Their simple questions break the conformist pattern of education we have,” says Aqsa Anjum, one of the founder members. The children directed and suggested the story themselves, they will come out with the one minute documentary.

‘We Sprawl’ is a group of freelance journalists, film makers, event managers, theatre persons and photographers. They keep on conducting theatre, film making, photography and journalism for privileged and under privileged children. It founder members are all young creative female professionals who founded the group in 2010.

Earlier this year, in April, We Sprawl conducted a cultural extravaganza ‘over a cup of coffee’ at the heritage Indian Coffee House in Connaught Place, New Delhi . There was music, photographs, untold stories by children. In 2010 We Sprawl conducted creative workshop for privileged children of Father Agnel school and unprivileged children of NGO Deepalaya. The news stories done by children of Father Agnel during photo and journalism were edited by French journalists Sujatha Samy and Isreal Ayala.

The current film workshop is a joint venture of TERI and PVR Nest, CSR unit of PVR cinemas, where WE SPRAWL is conducting two out of ten such workshops.

The first workshop was held for children of NGO butterflies and Windows Art and Craft Centre. The second one will be held in Army Public School.The films will be screened at PVR cinemas in the end.

The workshop is held for four days and the first day goes in ice breaking, that is to make both the groups comfortable with each other. Then they were taught basics of camera and aesthetics involved in shooting.

Sumiran Preet Kaur of We Sprawl said, “We salute the talent in these young aspiring students. They refuse to simply nod yes if they disagree with something. They are honest, expressive, and enthusiastic and have fresh ideas, so it’s a challenge for us also. They will simply ask you ‘why can’t we paint our sky pink’. And shut you up. They are the real heroes; we are simply the guiding lights.”

New Delhi (Reuters): Irom Sharmila has been on hunger strike for 10 years to protest against military abuses, force-fed by tubes through her nose. But the tragedy for the world’s longest hunger strike is that she is on the wrong side of India’s digital divide.

Twitter, Facebook and aggressive private TV have helped rally India’s biggest protests in decades to support civil activist Anna Hazare, a digital groundswell of a wired middle class that echoes the Arab Spring and has taken a Congress party-led government of elderly politicians by surprise.

But Sharmila, who has been on a hunger strike in the northeastern Manipur state to demand an end to the army’s sweeping emergency powers there, has only managed a small following, a footnote in media coverage.

“We also once tried to take our fight to New Delhi … but we did not get support from the rest of the nation,” Sharmila told Tehelka magazine.

She must be frustrated. The Hazare phenomenon has rallied Indians from the start with social media. Hazare’s India Against Corruption website says it has had 13 million phone calls of support. Its Facebook page has nearly 500,000 “likes.”

Its leaders have tweeted each step of the whirlwind crisis, whether describing their arrests in real time or negotiations with the government, outmanoeuvring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his ministers at every step.

“Protest at PM’s residence: 35 people detained, taken to Tughlaq Rd. PS, hundreds still there, come if you can #Janlokpal,” twitter user @janlokpal sent its followers in just one example of how the movement was rallying support.

Cases like Sharmila expose the digital divide of Asia’s third largest economy and underscore how a growing urban middle class may be getting its political voice heard while millions of poor remain off the digital protest map.

“This is the first time digital social media has resonated with such a large number of people,” said Nishant Shah, head of research at the Center for Internet and Society think-tank.

“But this is far more of a middle class, urban movement, than a national movement. Many people in India are excluded from it.”

Twitter and Facebook are barely used in many of India’s social causes, including battles over land rights that are one of India’s most pressing problems involving millions of farmers.

Huge social issues in India, from caste discrimination to high food prices, from the building of dams to protests by farmers against nuclear power plants, have failed to create the kind of digital mobilization that Hazare enjoys.

A DIGITAL DIVIDE

India’s internet users have grown 1,400 percent between 2000 and 2010, behind only China and Vietnam among Asian countries, according to a report by Burson-Marsteller, a consulting firm.

But that masks India’s low base. Internet penetration is around 8 percent in India, the lowest among major Asian countries. That compares with nearly 40 percent in China.

Out of a population of 1.2 billion, there are only 29 million people active in digital social networks. A report by Maplecroft consultancy warned that India was lagging other BRICs, Brazil, China and Russia in “digital inclusion.”

“India, for example, the wealthier, more affluent segment of the population, primarily based in urban areas, has embraced the use of modern communications technology,” the report said.

“The vast majority of the population has, however, been excluded from this process.”

Those statistics highlight that while the middle class has found a voice, electorally the center-left Congress party will still need to pander to its traditional vote base of millions of farmers and poor Indians ahead of a 2014 general election.

Congress, in power for most of the life of independent India, has failed to use social media tools. One minister lost his job for tweeting too frankly, in a sign of government unease over the web, and the party lags behind an opposition that has embraced Twitter.

LIBYA OVERSHADOWED

So far, private TV channels have provided 24-hour coverage of the protests — the news from Libya is hardly to be seen. Urban Indians with mobile phones in hand have dominated rallies in the open grounds where Hazare was on his second week of fasting.

Small protests across the country, from demonstrations outside ministers’ houses to rallies outside metro stations, have been organized through Twitter and Facebook.

An app that can be downloaded on to smartphones running the Android operating system gives users the latest news on the campaign for a tough “Jan lokpal,” or anti-corruption bill, and details of the latest meetings.

“Social media has been huge for us, it has a life of its own,” said Shazia Ilmi, in charge of Hazare media strategy.

Even before Hazare was arrested last week, organizers had prepared a pre-recorded video from him that went on YouTube.

The movement does have deep roots and social media has widened the protests, if not caused them. Many of Hazare’s protests have also been through word of mouth. Corruption also affects the poor more than middle classes with endemic bribes, whether permission for street food stands or driving licenses.

“It’s not an up and down, national movement. It is largely a middle class cause,” said Sagarika Ghose, a novelist and journalist at the CNN-IBN news television channel.

“But it’s hugely important one. For a younger generation, corruption has become a catch-all phrase for the failure of development.”

Some activists are already criticizing Hazare as a hype of an elitist social media.

“Those thronging the Ramlila grounds or marching in support of Anna in the metros are not necessarily ‘the people’ of the country, and it is dangerous to take the two as identical,” academic Prabhat Patnaik wrote in The Hindu newspaper.

Abu Zafar for BeyondHeadlines

New Delhi: Despite the hurdles of lack of accuracy and accountability, the Indian media has a very vibrant future, driving on increasing literacy figure, feels Scott Winter, a journalism professor from United States.

“The media in India has vibrant future because there is huge growth rate in literacy, but it also faces challenges like accuracy and accountability,” Winter told BeyondHeadlines.

Winter, who teaches feature writing, sports reporting and writing for magazine at University of Nebraska, at Lincoln in United State of America was an educational trip to India with his two dozen journalism students.

The educational tour was organised in collaboration with a Delhi based media institution World Media Academy (WMA) and School of Journalism of University of Nebraska. International Centre For Journalist (ICFJ) USA runs the WMA in posh South Delhi’s South Extension. It is also has a MoU with the University of Nebraska.

The visiting US students also visited historical monuments in Delhi and Lucknow and the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Those journalism students of course found “lots of stories” for their projects, besides having “good times.”

They were in India for two weeks and also visited some villages in the Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh.

Elisabeth Loeck, a visiting student, who did story on child education in India, said that it was an amazing trip and there were lot of learning opportunities.

After visiting some villages she said “It was absolutely amazing to see another face of India. There is huge contrast between the city and the villages of India.”

“We are here because India is emerging global economy, it is field of stories and it is fascinating, Professor Winter elaborated.

“India Russia and China are priority basis of every college here in US,” he further added.

The university had organized same trip to China and Russia last year.

But Winter was critical of journalism education in India that according to him is “more theoretical not as practical”.

“In India the journalism is more theoretical not practical and the education system is depended on class rooms but we are more habitual on fields not class rooms.”

Answering a question about opportunities for Indian students in the USA he said, “We are working on several programs to organize exchange program for students as well as faculties.”

Sarah Miller, another student, who is interested in Photography, shared her feelings with her colleagues during her visit to villages.

“It was changing trips to villages where I met the most hospitable people ever, but it was still a phenomenal day,” she told BH.

An elated Miller added, “India, you never cease to amaze me.”

Kay Kemmet, who wrote her project on the culture of arrange marriages in India, said that memories form Indian will always remain in heart.

Sharing her experience to the village Kay added, “When I first met this little girl, she ran from me. Her older sister sat with me singing the alphabet and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” but this little sweetheart wouldn’t come near me. Maybe it was that I was a stranger for her.”

Francesca Luisa Torquati, a video journalist, thinks that travelling in India for the stories was the good experience of her life: “For most of my life India has been a colorful abstract dream, a country that I only heard stories of and seen on National Geographic or Discovery Channel TV.”

(Abu Zafar is a Delhi based Freelance Journalist and can be reached at  abuzafar@journalist.com)

Publisher: Pharos Media, New Delhi, India.

Year of Publication: 2011
Pages: 190
Price: Rs 200
ISBN-13: 978-81-7221-048-9

Reviewed By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

The armed insurgency has brought in its wake a host of human catastrophes, saga of pain and unending miseries. Scores of new social issues and problems have cropped up because of the conflict. The ever growing crop of widows and half widows is an addition to the list of victims of conflict. An entire generation of youth and men was wiped out by the Indian Army on the pretext of fighting insurgency, which rendered thousands of women as widows and lakhs of children as orphans. Half widows are a unique breed of victims complacent to the Kashmir conflict. They are those helpless souls who dont know about the fate of their husbands who got disappeared at the hands of the security forces, and they have been living since then every moment between hope and despair.

The present book under review by versatile and now a seasoned young journalist Afsana Rashid is a story of many such voiceless souls who continue to suffer in oblivion. This is not only the story of half widows but widows and women who happen to be on the opposite side of the state establishment. Afsana in her preface about the book states that, “the work has been done to provide a broader perspective of the problem that is yet to be recognized as grave even by the Kashmiri society itself.” This apathy towards the victims and pathetic attitude of the society as a whole is evident on every page and each single word of the book.

The book is divided into 25 chapters, and the first few chapters deal with the historical background of the Kashmir conflict, the backdrop of armed insurgency initiated soon after the rigging of 1987 elections and one of the reasons why youth resorted to gun culture was that India never did allow the democracy to function smoothly in Kashmir. Soon after the insurgency started, India took no time to respond with an Iron Fist policy to suppress the secessionist movement and began to opt for a genocide of Kashmiri youth. Thousands got disappeared at the hands of the Army and security agencies, which prompted the mothers of the disappeared persons form the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which was later joined by the wives of disappeared people.

The concerned agency that had apprehended or arrested the victims would first of all declare their ignorance about the arrest and if pressed harder would declare either that he ran away from their custody or ask the family that he must have crossed the Line of Control (LOC). The police also hesitates filing First Information Report (FIR) against Army personnel and security agencies, and the victims family is threatened by the establishment to give up their fight for justice or be ready to face dire consequences. Many cases of killing, maiming of the members of victims family are related in the book.

The worst sufferers are the families of the disappeared souls, who run from pillar to post to ascertain the whereabouts of their kith and kin and in this process, a lot of money gets drained and they are rendered as paupers. The half widows cannot remarry as there is no consensus among the scholars of various schools of thoughts as to when a half widow can be declared as widow although the government has declared seven years as the stipulated time, but still widow remarriage rarely takes place as it is alien to the Kashmiri society as well as fear of maltreatment of their children by step father holds many widows back from remarriage. As soon as the woman becomes a half widow, her status in the family is reduced to a maid and in most cases, she is forced to leave the in laws home. In many cases, the wives were deserted and divorced by their husbands for pursuing the cases of their disappeared brothers or fathers. Many members of the victims’s family have lost their mental balance, developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and even some have opted for suicide as a way of escapism from the perpetual agony.

To add insult to injury politicians always give contradictory statements regarding the number of disappearances and before elections, they always promise to provide justice to the victims. And as soon as they are in power, they forget and break the promises. The victims are aghast when the National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party’s leaders are invited to attend international seminars on human rights because it was during their regimes when hundreds of disappearances took place and one renegade Papa Kishtwari who allegedly played role in the disappearances and killings of scores of men in Pampore area only, held a seat of councilor during the National Conference regime. The Indian civil society, which never gets tired of repeating the state dictum of Kashmir being crown of India are in deep slumber regarding the disappearances of thousands of souls, which is one of the biggest catastrophe of this century.

The police in collaboration with the Army is indulging in fake encounters for the sake of gallantry awards and securing promotions are burying the innocent victims in unmarked graves and declaring them as militants. Various torture centers existed in Kashmir, notorious among them were Hari Niwas and Papa Two, where hundreds of people got killed during inhuman torture and scores got disappeared. The victims have been pressing for turning these places as museums in the name of the thousands people killed there.

The victims are fed up with the justice system. One victim Masooda Parveen whose husband was killed unjustly by the Army and renegades went on to seek justice even to the Supreme Court, but she returned dumb founded and angry as the court believed the Army version. Now many victims dont even file cases because they dont believe in the justice system of the state.

The women of Kashmir are an epitome of selflessness and sea of sacrifice, who because of conflict came to acquire new roles of bread earners and decision makers. The old patriarch in the family has even assumed the overburdened charge of supporting his son’s progeny and daughter in law. The women are fighting legal battle as well as keeping the pot of family boiling too in their new extended roles. Hajra bano is one such example who lost her four sons to the conflict, but she still regularly attends the monthly sit ins organized by the APDP at a local park in the heart of Srinagar. Due to the killing of the male earning member of the family, women and children are the worst sufferers as there has been an increase in the labor force of women as well as the child labor plus the school drop out rates. The juvenile delinquency is increasing day by day against which the society is ill equipped to deal with. Faith healers are being consulted regularly to deal with the psychological problems, the society has failed to come forward to help the families of disappeared souls and they are left to fend for themselves, which escalates their agony and struggle.

The book ends with a documentation of different plans, which have been envisioned for the solution of the Kashmir issue and the steps that must be undertaken to curb the inhuman practice of disappearance.

Overall the book is a welcome addition to the literature of human rights violations in Kashmir and what problems baffle the families of victims on various fronts.

(Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander is writer-activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir, and can be reached at sikandarmushtaq@gmail.com)