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| << December03, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net]Putin,nandigram ,NGOs,Gujarat ,freedom of expression etc |
December06, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net]Church attacked at Delhi ,Ambedkar ,Airport expansion etc >> |
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[1] Dangers of women who work in the Gulf http://deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp#AP%20woman%20found%20in%20Pak AP woman found in Pak Islamabad / Rajahmundry, Nov. 30: A woman of Andhra Pradesh is coming back home after spending a harrowing 17 years in Pakistan. Ms Yellamilli Kejiamani's husband and children, who thought she had died, are overjoyed to learn that she is alive. She boarded a plane to India on Friday from Islamabad saying that she was looking forward to meeting her family. Ms Keijamani, 53, a native of Antarvedi village in Sakhinetipalli mandal of East Godavari district, got married to Mr Yallamelli Nireekshana Rao, a pastor in a local church, 30 years ago and had two sons, Mani Kumar and Nireekshana Kumar. About 20 years ago, she went to Kuwait in search of livelihood. But during the 1991 Gulf war, she went missing and was presumed dead by the family. But she had actually been taken to Pakistan by a man named Riaz, a resident of Lahore. "He snatched everything she had and burnt her Indian passport," said Mr Rao Abid Hamid, an official of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which was instrumental in sending her back Riaz also tortured her before finally throwing her out of his house six months after she reached Pakistan. The next 10 years were very hard for Ms Kejiamani. "I had lost my senses," she said. "Then I met Muhammad Amin, a cook, who took me to his house and provided me shelter." However, Mr Amin's wife resented her presence and he took Ms Kejiamani to his native village in Sahiwal district and arranged a marriage "on paper" with her after giving her the Muslim name Ayesha. He also obtained her a national identity card and a Pakistani passport. Her case recently came to the notice of the HRCP, which wrote to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on September 24. Mr Suresh Reddy, visa counsellor with the High Commission, said: "We contacted Ms Kejiamani's relatives in India and verified her antecedents. A visa was immediately issued to her." Back home, Mr Nireekshana Rao was shocked to receive a letter from his wife stating that she was alive and was coming back home. She also telephoned him. Her family, including youngest son Nireekshana Kumar, have left for Hyderabad to receive Kejiamani. "I am longing to see my mother," he said. Her eldest son, Mani Kumar, went to Kuwait in pursuit of work. Human rights activists believe there could probably be other Indian women being held against their will after being brought to Pakistan following marriages in the Middle East. Mrs Kejiamani's was the first case in which a woman had contacted the authorities to seek help to go back home -------- [2] From: kashif-ul-huda <kaaashif@gmail.com Date: Mon Dec 3, 2007 Subject: Afroz Jahan: A women of strength Afroz Jahan: A women of strength<http://www.twocircles.net/2007dec02/afroz_jahan_women_strength.html <http://www.twocircles.net/2007dec02/afroz_jahan_women_strength.html *By Rupa Abdi, TwoCircles. net* I read about her in a small article in the 'Times of India' and decide to visit her during my recent trip to Lucknow. I met her at her home in Choudhary Tola - a nondescript locality of Aliganj. . Afroz Jahan does not come across as some fire brand activist or a high society socialite working for the cause of down trodden. This mild mannered frail woman comes from a conservative Muslim family of a daily wage earner. With seven children to fend for, her father married her off immediately after she completed tenth standard. She had to live with her husband in Jeddah where he worked. Her husband repeatedly abused her for years and even tried to sell her off. Ironically, the Gulf War was her saviour and she fled Jeddah with other Indian migrant workers. She and her two children got shelter in her father's house in Lucknow, where she lives now with her younger brother. --------- [3] From: "Aditya Mishra" <aditya11@sbcglobal.net Date: Tue Dec 4, 2007 Subject: Fw: [Bulk] The Cause Of Hunger In India Is Sexism http://www.huffingtonpost.com/e-a-hanks/jim-whitton-of-the-hunger_b_74767.html The Huffington Post E. A. Hanks Posted November 30, 2007 Jim Whitton knows exactly when he decided that being a banker wasn't for him. "In 1982 I was doing international banking in China, for Chase Manhattan. I went to this Ending Hunger briefing that went on for four hours, led by volunteers. It was by far the most educational moment of my life. It woke me up -- that it's possible to end hunger." (Here at HuffPo Living, we call this the "light bulb moment.") "I was a reluctant banker -- I was a history major in college. I wasn't very good [at banking], I didn't find it at all compelling. I knew it wasn't going to be what I did long-term." I spoke with Whitton, Regional Director of the Hunger Project, a global initiative that aims to empower those living in abject poverty and starvation to feed themselves, without first world arrogance. After all, as their website explains: "A dangerous and patronizing cliche we often hear is, 'Give a man a fish and feed him for a day -- teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.' People living with chronic hunger have generations of wisdom about 'fishing' -- the problem is the barbed wire around the lake." Talking about the role that race and geo-political strife play in keeping people hungry, Whitton maintained, "What we've found is that people's dignity and sense of self and sense of equality is really so critical in the entire process. It's like a team sport, the lion's share is already and always been done by Africans, Indians and Bangledeshis, but we can always be on the same team, working together." While race may seem to play a large part in what parts of the world are hungry and, without help, will stay hungry, Whitton patiently explained to me that no other force was more powerful in keeping people starving than deeply entrenched sexism, particularly in Greater Asia. "There is no social condition more primary to the persistence of chronic hunger than unimaginably severe discrimination against women and girls," says Whitton. India is an amazing case in point. Most people are not aware that the highest level of malnutrition is in India, not Africa. Even with the a successful Green evolution India has - -they have GDP growth seven, eight, nine percent. But 46 % of their population is malnourished; in Africa, it's 30-35%. UNICEF conducted a report that was called 'Asian Enigma,' and what they concluded was that an extreme discrimination against women and girls was responsible. Firstly, parents pray not to have a girl child - sons are currency. Girls leave and become laborers in their in-laws houses, so they bring in no money. If a girl is born, then she's breastfed 6-8 weeks less that brother, which compromises her immune system for the rest of her life. Growing up, she eats with her mother and the other women in the family, after the boys and men, which means less food for her, even when food is already scarce. Eventually she'll be held back from school to labor in the fields, and all the health care will go to the boys, if there is any. When she enters puberty, when a girl needs it most, she gets the least medical attention. The she's married young, she's pregnant young, and gives birth to a malnourished child, usually pre-mature, and if it's a daughter the cycle continues." This puts my getting ticked off about Axe Body spray adverts in perspective. You can watch a video about this cycle here. http://thp.org/video/india.htm In order to "empower" people to feed themselves, which seems to be a favorite word of The Hunger Project, in a sustainable, independent fashion, there has to be some level of infrastructure and relative peace. Because of this the Hunger Project is not in war zones: "I love the Hunger Project's strengths, but also its humility. This work does not happen over night. It's a multi year process, some would say generational. We don't go into countries where there is an insufficient level of political stability. We're in India and Bangladesh, but we're not in Pakistan." Speaking with Jim, I was fascinated by the emphasis he was placing on the big picture -- if India won't be able to feed itself until it thinks of women differently, then we need to focus on the national image of women. By backing political change ("like the civil rights movement in the US," says Whitton) the Hunger Project focused on the political empowerment of women as the best starting point to expose that entrenched misogynism. They supported a proposed amendment in the Indian constitution that reserved 1/3 of all seats in a decentralized councils for women. "Five million women stood for election," Whitton notes, pride evident in his voice. "One million were elected. So, in the last place on earth you would have thought it could happen, you have more women elected to office than the rest of the world combined." But that wasn't enough. Just because these women were put into office doesn't mean that anything had changed, "No one took it seriously - and no one should have. These women were illiterate, they were only proxies for their husbands and their father-in-laws." To empower these women to become their own leaders, the Hunger Project began a program that brought women together (for some, it was the first time they'd be able to gather with other women). 65,000 women have gone through the program. Organizations like The Hunger Project show that not only is the empowerment of women necessary for sustainable relief and a pathway out of abject poverty, they also show that the future of activism and humanitarianism is a global approach to global issues Says Whitton, "In the past thirty years, we've seen a real growth in our understanding that we are not islands. Global is local. It's easier and easier to see that we're all in this together." To see video about what the Hunger Project is doing, click here. http://www.thp.org/video/ -------------- [4] Climate Change: Bangladesh Takes Its Trauma To Bali By Farid Ahmed http://www.countercurrents.org/ahmed041207.htm Bangladesh sees in the United Nations climate change conference, currently underway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, an opportunity to remind the world of its special vulnerability Musharraf: Our Own Caudillo By Mir Adnan Aziz http://www.countercurrents.org/aziz031207.htm Retired General Pervez Musharraf took oath on November 29 as a civilian president. During this same oath he solemnly promised to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution'. Could anyone in that glittering gathering have dared ask him how that Houdini act could be managed? This so, when the same had been summarily suspended and shackled by his very own decree proclaiming 'emergency' in the country Tamils: Anti-Ethnocide Campaign By Chandi Sinnathurai http://www.countercurrents.org/sinnathurai031207.htm After the 8th India-European Union [EU] Summit held in Delhi a Joint-statement was issued on 30 November 2007. There was nothing particularly ground-breaking in the statement about the conflict in Sri Lanka. But the hypocrisy of the statement betrays any diplomatic subtlety. Both – The EU and India have surreptitiously supplied military hardware to Sri Lanka knowing very well that these weapons are utilised to wipe out Tamil civilians. Having done that, they want to speak about peace, openly --------- [5] From: syed rahman <surahman2000@yahoo.com Date: Tue Dec 4, 2007 Subject: AMU to establish schools in Muslim areas across the country AMU to establish schools in Muslim areas across the country http://www.khabrein.info/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=9613&Itemid=8\ 8 ALIGARH, Dec 4: Aligarh Muslim University will expand its campus and will setup centers at Muslim-dominated areas across the country. It was decided by the AMU Court which met here today. ------------ [6] From: Abhiyya 2006 <abhiyya@yahoo.com Date: Mon Dec 3, 2007 Subject: Miracle man walks again Miracle man walks again http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html? in_article_id=56500&in_page_id=2 Monday, July 9, 2007 He survived against all the odds; now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again. When his body was cut in two by a lorry in 1995, it was little short of a medical miracle that he lived. Peng Shulin, wearing new trainers, works on learning to walk again It took a team of more than 20 doctors to save his life. Skin was grafted from his head to seal his torso – but the legless Mr Peng was left only 78cm (2ft 6in) tall. Bedridden for years, doctors in China had little hope that he would ever be able to live anything like a normal life agan. The bionic legs mimic the way Peng's limbs would have worked But recently, he began exercising his arms, building up the strength to carry out everyday chores such as washing his face and brushing his teeth. Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about Mr Peng's plight late last year and devised a plan to get him up walking again. They came up with an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it. He has been taking his first steps around the centre with the aid of his specially adapted legs and a resized walking frame. Mr Peng, who has to learn how to walk again, is said to be delighted with the device. With Regards Abi ------------- |
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| << December03, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net]Putin,nandigram ,NGOs,Gujarat ,freedom of expression etc |
December06, 2007 - [India Thinkers Net]Church attacked at Delhi ,Ambedkar ,Airport expansion etc >> |
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