Jharkhand.org.in | The public website of Jharkhand State

Hot issues of Today

Mar 10, 2007

From victim to saviour: new roles for eves

Jamshedpur, March 8: Parvati Munda is a known face today. Barely in her late 30's she is an active member of Shakti Mahila Sangh, an NGO formed by village women in Dumuria.

Ten years ago, Parvati could do nothing for a 12-year-old rape victim, but today she is not alone. Parvati, along with 30 other women, is fighting for women's rights.

This is not a lone example. Today, thousands of women victimised in rural Jharkhand have taken the lead to bring about a positive change in society and lives of people around them.

"Though backward in other aspects, women in the tribal belts are quite active when it comes to fighting for their rights," said Purabi Paul, president of Shramjivi Mahila Sangh, another NGO working in over five districts of the state.

Paul narrates an interesting tale. "Last November, a woman named Rajeshwari Mahato from Chakulia was thrown out of home by her in-laws and her two kids were also kept back. When repeated coaxing from the families did not help, the village women took up the issue and within days handed over the child's custody to Parvati without legal hassles," she said.

In another such incident, women in Dumuria went against their families to start marketing of agricultural products and today each woman earns up to Rs 500-700 per week. They are the sole bread earners of the family. All these women are part of Ekal Nari Sashakti Sangathan (ENSS), a forum of 6,000 women formed across the state last year, she recounted.

"These women are from the same group of people identified during a survey across 16 districts in November 2005 as victims but are today fighting their battle against the odds," says Paul.

Through "Samunnati" a developmental project funded by Poorest Area Civil Society (PACS), 7,000 women are fighting for food security and livelihood needs of villagers.

"There are so many such cases that it becomes difficult for us to monitor all of them. But one main reason for the development is the reach of NGOs to interior areas in the recent past," said Monalisa, who is working with a city-based NGO.

"I am not afraid of the consequences for I have the support of many like me in this fight against injustice," signs off a proud Parvati.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070309/asp/jamshedpur/story_7493167.asp

The instant weddings in the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh highlight a disturbing fact - the State's very low sex ratio.

Brides of Dhanmahipur village in Varanasi district leading a marriage procession. In contrast to western U.P., the sex ratio is above 1,000 in the backward eastern districts.

IT probably was not the most orthodox of liaisons, but he seemed like a nice boy with a steady job and a sizable area of land, and so Sunita (name changed) married him. Smiling self-consciously, she describes how he arrived at her village of Sarai Mohana in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh as part of a guided tour by eligible bachelors and their families. "He approached my father, while his younger brother met my cousin's family. We all went to Bidapur in Agra district, saw their house, and a month later we were married." At the time of Sunita's marriage, Sarai Mohana and the rest of Varanasi district existed on the periphery of marriage tours, but three years on, her village finds itself at the centre of the chatpat shaadi (instant wedding) circuit.

Matrimonial alliances in Varanasi and other parts of eastern U.P. have happened at such a hurried pace that Sunita's wedding seems almost sedate in comparison. Anxious grooms from western U.P. usually arrive in teams of 10 or more, with a pre-assembled baraat (wedding procession) of friends and family in tow, meet with an eligible and willing bride through a local matchmaker, hurriedly exchange marriage vows at the local temple, and return home in a matter of days.

The migration and movement of women has often produced anxieties among the communities from which migration occurs and the state and media organisations that track such movement. Migration, particularly of women, is often spoken of in the same breath as exploitation and trafficking and often described as an involuntary act forced upon women. While the realities of trafficking, forced prostitution and bonded labour cannot be ignored, they do not account for a huge number of women who crisscross the country every year. Census 2001 reveals that women account for 71 per cent, or 216.7 million of the 307 million cases, of total migration reported by place of birth. When further disaggregated, the data suggest that 65 per cent of women migrate because of marriage. While the veracity of the findings on the motivation to migrate has been questioned by academics, who argue that female labour migration is rendered invisible for a range of reasons, statistics do suggest that marriage is a significant factor behind migration. Then what makes the weddings of Sunita, her cousins and the 30 other women so different?

The chatpat shaadis can be seen as the point of intersection of two separate and disturbing phenomena: the pull factor that sends men from western U.P. in search of brides to the eastern districts and the push factor that makes the women accept these men.

While a ratio of 950 females per 1,000 males is considered normal in India, most countries tend to have more women than men. The national average in India, as per Census 2001, is 933. A State-wise break-up of the data ranks U.P., with a sex ratio of 898 way below in the rankings, only slightly better than Punjab, Haryana and Sikkim. The sex ratio of the population in the western districts of the State is below 900, while it is above 1,000 in some of the eastern districts.

"There are no women in western Uttar Pradesh," said Motilal Rajbhar. Motilal's daughter Gita is one of the most recent brides to have married a boy from Moradabad, a district in western U.P. with a sex ratio of 885.

"So any boy from Moradabad who does not belong to the upper caste, who does not have a steady job, who is above 25 years of age, or who is looking to get married for a second time, cannot hope to find a local girl willing to marry him," he says.

Moving from west to east along the map of U.P. shows a sex-ratio pattern that mirrors the path that the chatpat shaadi circuit traces. Saharanpur, the western-most district, has a sex ratio of 868; Muzaffarnagar has 872; Agra, one of the districts that a number of women marry into, has a distressing ratio of 852; and Mathura's figure is equally disturbing at 841. Azamgarh, one of the eastern-most districts, has a healthy ratio of 1,026, followed by Jaunpur at 1,021. Varanasi, while still much lower than the benchmark 950, has a sex ratio of 908.

Thus, one of the primary push factors in these inter-district marriages is the frightening unavailability of women in the western districts, which points to an undeclared genocide directed at girl children, denying them the right to life.

"Freedom for Rs.200!" exclaim the large painted doors of Mukti Clinic in Varanasi. Ostensibly a maternal health centre, it is only one of the several prenatal gender determination clinics that have sprung up all over the State. Heavily protected by local mafias, clinics such as these offer parents the option of aborting female foetuses right up to the fifth month of pregnancy and could be one of the biggest factors in the State's abysmal sex ratio. A large body of academic and statistical work has illustrated that economic prosperity is actually one of the largest contributing factors towards worsening sex ratios. Prosperity gives parents access to ultrasound machines that allow for gender determination and surgical procedures to enable female foeticide.
However, as Mukti Clinic illustrates, a complete package of gender determination and subsequent abortion can cost as little as Rs.200 in the first month and Rs.950 in the fifth month - a period when abortions are rarely performed. A district-wise examination of per capita incomes in the State only substantiates this prosperity-sex ratio thesis.

While Varanasi's status as a major town would suggest moderately higher per capita incomes, the crisis in one of Varanasi's oldest industries has spelt disaster for one of its most vulnerable communities - the Boonkar or weaver community, to which Sunita, Gita and Motilal Rajbhar belong.

For long the makers of one of Varanasi's most famous export item - the Benaras silk brocaded sari - the Boonkars are one of the most impoverished groups in the State today. A decade of economic reforms and policy changes have reduced the once-thriving community of almost 500,000 weavers to penury. "There are many reasons for the crisis, which include shifts in demand and changing customer preference," says Shruti Raghuvanshi, from the People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights, a Varanasi-based advocacy group. "But government policy is perhaps the most significant factor."

Once a source of employment for entire families, the handloom sector is in crisis. This has spelt disaster for the weaver community of Varanasi.

A book published by the organisation explains that a decade of liberalised textile policy saw the government reduce the number of items reserved for exclusive production by handlooms to 11 from the 22 recommended under the Textile Policy of 1985. Also an increase in the prices of raw silk was accompanied by an increase in cheap Chinese remade silk imports. India also abolished quantitative restrictions on silk imports in 2001 on the basis of its agreements with the World Trade Organisation.

This resulted in thousands of handlooms across Varanasi district falling silent. "Each house in this village had at least two handlooms," says Bhagoti Devi, a resident of Bhagva Nalla, a weaver's colony outside Varanasi. "Now there are just four in the entire village." In the absence of weaving as a vocation, the only work now available in the village is that of construction labour. It is possible that the crisis has been the major push factor for the women of the weaver community.

Chatpat weddings are usually arranged with the help of a local facilitator or dalal. The dalal, who is often a woman, is usually one who is either from Varanasi and has married someone from western U.P., or vice-versa, and so has family in the villages of both the bride and the groom. Channoo Rajbhar is the dalal in Sarai Mohana and has got 30 young women from his village married off to young men from Moradabad over the past three years.

The dalal is charged with verifying the antecedents of both sides and arranging the modalities and logistics of the wedding. "Since the weddings are usually conducted within days of the couple meeting, a lot of planning is required," explains Rajbhar. "Pandits have to be arranged, a village feast has to organised, gifts have to arranged." However, the ultimate responsibility rests with the parents. "We usually arrange a meeting of the parents, after that we are no longer accountable."

The biggest draw of a chatpat wedding is the limited economic burden placed on the parents. While each case is different, dowry is very rarely taken in such alliances. In fact, the financial insecurity of the weaver community implies that the groom's side often pays the lion's share of the wedding expenses. The dalal extracts a percentage of the costs as commission - and these are entirely borne by the groom's family.

There is obviously a fair amount of money to be made on commissions; one family told Frontline that the money for their daughter's wedding was loaned to them by the dalal.

However, there is a growing number of instances in which young girls have married apparently wealthy landowners from Agra, only to find themselves in a one-room hutment in a faraway village, isolated from their family and support systems.

Gunja, a 16-year-old from Sarai Mohana, and her parents took all possible precautions before marrying her off to a youngster from Nandapur village in Agra district. Her parents met the groom's parents, and even visited their house in Agra. However, it was only after she was married and went to live with her husband that she realised that the couple posing as his parents were in fact his relatives, and the concrete house her parents had been shown was not his house. Gunja spent the next six months practically captive in a one-room mud hut before her parents arrived and rescued her. She now lives with her parents and refuses to return to her matrimonial home.

Uttar Pradesh's chatpat weddings are the latest addition to the larger national marriage market that functions along a complex and intricate network of brides, grooms and agents. States such as Punjab and Haryana have taken to sourcing brides from States as far away as West Bengal, Assam, Bihar and Tripura, apart from neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20070309002208900.htm

Using minors in prostitution is a billion dollar industry in the city

For most, Mumbai remains a city of dreams. But, for some, it has become a place full of nightmares.

In recent years, the financial capital of the country has emerged as one of the leading markets for trafficked minors who engage in prostitution or, in other words, the commercial sexual abuse of a minor.

According to estimates released by international agencies, trafficking of minor girls is a $1-billion-a-year industry, and it is thriving due to increased sex tourism in Mumbai, Goa and adjoining coastal areas.

Edging past North-Eastern states, poverty-stricken rural areas of Maharashtra — Beed, Latur, Solapur, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Nandurbar, Chandrapur, Washim, Akola, Buldhana, Dhule and the Konkan region — have emerged as one of the biggest suppliers of minors.

States such as Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa have also opened up as the new supply markets, says a Mumbai police source.

As instances of HIV and AIDS reach alarming proportions, demand for younger, pre-puberty girls has hit an all-time high. Girls as little as seven and eight-years-old are being forced into prostitution, both in the red-light areas and as "professional" call girls (always accompanied by an adult), according to a DNA investigation.

Affluent businessmen, some members of the film and advertising industries, diamond merchants and politicians form the "select" clientele who source minors.

"Trafficking in minor girls has seen an estimated 30 per cent increase from previous years," says a social activist working at Kamatipura — the city's most notorious red-light district.

"Poverty due to prolonged drought, mounting farm debts, unemployment and lack of livelihood are the triggering factors, which are forcing parents to send their daughters out of town for employment."

Though migration is also emerging as an important aspect in the minor flesh trade, numbers entering the flesh trade through this route are considerably smaller, explains the activist.

"Even when girls are rescued, families are unwilling to take them back," says the police source. "This has become a common story in the rural areas."

According to conservative estimates released by NGOs, the flesh trade in Mumbai "employs" about four lakh individuals. "Nearly 45 per cent — 1.8 lakh — are minors," says Triveni Acharya, Founder-President of the Rescue Foundation, an organisation working with commercial sex workers.

Nepal and Bangladesh are the biggest exporters of trafficked minors and women in South Asia. Though the police estimate there are about 35,000 Nepalese nationals in Mumbai's red-light areas, social activists insist the number is closer to one lakh. A majority of them are minors.

As per UNICEF estimates, about 12 lakh children are trafficked across international borders each year. Save The Children (India) states that clients today prefer girls as young as 10 years.

"The victims are subjected to the worst form of torture if they do not 'perform' with the clients," says another social activist. "Most are denied food, water and toilet facilities, and regular beatings are an 'integral' part of their lives."

Every minor girl is subjected to a probation period of three years. During this time, she is not allowed to meet or interact with others in the brothel, and kept in a locked room.

The probation period is the gestation time for the brothel keeper to rake in the money.
Shockingly, the same people who are supposed to uphold the laws of the country are the ones involved in the trade, says a social activist. "How else do some rescued minors find their way back to the same brothel?" she says. "This trade cannot survive without patrons in the Mumbai police. This is the main reason why the police are incapable of handling child prostitution."

And, it is all about the profits in this business. A fair minor fetches between Rs1-1.5 lakh for a night, and a dusky one is sold for between Rs75,000-1.25 lakh. An adult always accompanies the child to the rendez-vous point, and the clandestine destination is subject to several changes to throw off decoy agents.

Though several NGOs are actively involved in rescuing minors, the magnitude of the problem keeps growing. Since 1986, the age of girls entering prostitution has gradually declined. In 1998, the average age of girls was 18 years. By 2000, it was 15. In 2003, minors as young as 12 were freely available.

Now, the police source says clients have been asking for minors as young as 8 years old. In 1998, NGO Prerna brought together a consortium of like-minded organisations to address the issue of trafficking of minors.

The group formed the Network Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking, to begin a dialogue with women working in the red-light areas. Today, the organisation has about 250 members spread across the state. Most work in the districts from where girls are trafficked.

The Rescue Foundation had till December 2006 organised 50 rescue operations. Over 700 people — about 60 per cent were minors — were rescued from the red-light areas of Mumbai and Pune.

"The fear of HIV has increased demand for minors," says Acharya. "However, it is not easy for clients to get them. They are only sourced to a select clientele known to the brothel keepers. Fearing torture, minors do not dare to venture out of the locked rooms."

Though RR Patil, Deputy Chief Minister and in-charge of Home Department, mooted the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) to include brothel owners, pimps and others found guilty of trafficking women and children, it has yet to be implemented.

During 2004 and 2005, the police sealed 21 brothels for housing minors soliciting clients on their premises. Currently, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and provisions of the Indian Penal Code punishes offenders. If a minor girl is found on the premises of
a dubious establishment, the said premise is sealed for a maximum period of three years, and the accused can be punished for a minimum period of 10 years.

The Mumbai police recently launched a special juvenile aid police unit (JAPU) to tackle the menace. The unit has been staffed with trained personnel.

(Inputs by Dayanand Kamath)

For sale

Fair minor: Between Rs1-1.5 lakh for a night

Dusky minor: Between Rs75,000-1.25 lakh for a night

Age profile

1998: Girls as young as 18 years

2000: Girls as young as 15 years

2003: Girls as young as 12 years

Today: Girls as young as 8 years

The horrors of the trade

Client list
Affluent businessmen, members of film and advertising industries, diamond merchants and politicians form the "select" clientele.

Shocking rise

Trafficking in minor girls has seen an estimated 30 per cent increase from previous years.

The dark side

Victims are subjected to the worst form of torture if they do not 'perform' with the clients. Most are denied food, water and toilet facilities. Regular beatings are an 'integral' part of their lives.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1083952

The Trouble With India: Crumbling roads, jammed airports, and power blackouts could hobble growth

When foreigners say Bangalore is India's version of Silicon Valley, the high-tech office park called Electronics City is what they're often thinking of. But however much Californians might hate traffic-clogged Route 101, the main drag though the Valley, it has nothing on Hosur Road. This potholed, four-lane stretch of gritty pavement—the primary access to Electronics City—is pure chaos. Cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, taxis, rickshaws, cows, donkeys, and dogs jostle for every inch of the roadway as horns blare and brakes squeal. Drivers run red lights and jam their vehicles into any available space, paying no mind to pedestrians clustered desperately on median strips like shipwrecked sailors.

Pass through the six-foot-high concrete walls into Electronics City, though, and the loudest sounds you hear are the chirping of birds and the whirr of electric carts that whisk visitors from one steel-and-glass building to the next. Young men and women stroll the manicured pathways that wend their way through the leafy 80-acre spread or coast quietly on bicycles along the smooth asphalt roads.

With virtually no mass transit in Bangalore, Indian technology firm Infosys Technologies Ltd. spends $5 million a year on buses, minivans, and taxis to transport its 18,000 employees to and from Electronics City. And traffic jams mean workers can spend upwards of four hours commuting each day. "India has underinvested in infrastructure for 60 years, and we're behind what we need by 10 to 12 years," says T.V. Mohandas Pai, director of human resources for Infosys.

India's high-tech services industry has set the country's economic flywheel spinning. Growth is running at 9%-plus this year. The likes of Wal-Mart , Vodafone, and Citigroup are placing multibillion-dollar bets on the country, lured by its 300 million-strong middle class. In spite of a recent drop, the Bombay stock exchange's benchmark Sensex index is still up more than 40% since June. Real estate has shot through the roof, with some prices doubling in the past year.

But this economic boom is being built on the shakiest of foundations. Highways, modern bridges, world-class airports, reliable power, and clean water are in desperately short supply. And what's already there is literally crumbling under the weight of progress. In December, a bridge in eastern India collapsed, killing 34 passengers in a train rumbling underneath. Economic losses from congestion and poor roads alone are as high as $6 billion a year, says Gajendra Haldea, an adviser to the federal Planning Commission.

For all its importance, the tech services sector employs just 1.6 million people, and it doesn't rely on good roads and bridges to get its work done. India needs manufacturing to boom if it is to boost exports and create jobs for the 10 million young people who enter the workforce each year. Suddenly, good infrastructure matters a lot more. Yet industry is hobbled by overcrowded highways where speeds average just 20 miles per hour. Some ports rely on armies of laborers to unload cargo from trucks and lug it onto ships. Across the state of Maharashtra, major cities lose power one day a week to relieve pressure on the grid. In Pune, a city of 4.5 million, it's lights out every Thursday—forcing factories to maintain expensive backup generators. Government officials were shocked last year when Intel Corp. ( INTC ) chose Vietnam over India as the site for a new chip assembly plant. Although Intel declined to comment, industry insiders say the reason was largely the lack of reliable power and water in India.

Add up this litany of woes and you understand why India's exports total less than 1% of global trade, compared with 7% for China. Says Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy: "If our infrastructure gets delayed, our economic development, job creation, and foreign investment get delayed. Our economic agenda gets delayed—if not derailed."

The infrastructure deficit is so critical that it could prevent India from achieving the prosperity that finally seems to be within its grasp. Without reliable power and water and a modern transportation network, the chasm between India's moneyed elite and its 800 million poor will continue to widen, potentially destabilizing the country. Jagdish N. Bhagwati, a professor at Columbia University, figures gross domestic product growth would run two percentage points higher if the country had decent roads, railways, and power. "We're bursting at the seams," says Kamal Nath, India's Commerce & Industry Minister. Without better infrastructure, "we can't continue with the growth rates we have had."

The problems are even contributing to overheating in the economy. Inflation spiked in the first week of February to a two-year high of 6.7%, due in part to bottlenecks caused by the country's lousy transport network. Up to 40% of farm produce is lost because it rots in the fields or spoils en route to consumers, which contributes to rising prices for staples such as lentils and onions.

India today is about where China was a decade ago. Back then, China's economy was shifting into overdrive, but its roads and power grid weren't up to the task. So Beijing launched a massive upgrade initiative, building more than 25,000 miles of expressways that now crisscross the country and are as good as the best roads in the U.S. or Europe. India, by contrast, has just 3,700 miles of such highways. It's no wonder that when foreign companies weigh putting new plants in China vs. India to produce global exports, China more often wins out.

China's lead in infrastructure is likely to grow, too. Beijing plows about 9% of its GDP into public works, compared with New Delhi's 4%. And because of its authoritarian government, China gets faster results. "If you have to build a road in China, just a handful of people need to make a decision," says Daniel Vasella, chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Novartis . "If you want to build a road in India, it'll take 10 years of discussion before you get a decision."

Blame it partly on India's revolving-door democracy. Political parties typically hold power for just one five-year term before disgruntled voters, swayed by populist promises from the opposition, kick them out of office. In elections last year in the state of Tamil Nadu, for instance, a new government was voted in after it pledged to give free color TVs to poor families. "In a sanely organized society you can get a lot done. Not here," says Jayaprakash Narayan, head of Lok Satta, or People Power, a national reform party.

Then there's "leakage"—India's euphemism for rampant corruption. Nearly all sectors of officialdom are riddled with graft, from neighborhood cops to district bureaucrats to state ministers. Indian truckers pay about $5 billion a year in bribes, according to the watchdog group Transparency International. Corruption delays infrastructure projects and raises costs for those that move ahead.

Fortunately, after decades of underinvestment and political inertia, India's political leadership has awakened to the magnitude of the infrastructure crisis. A handful of major projects have been completed; others are moving forward. Work on the Golden Quadrilateral—a $12 billion initiative spanning more than 3,000 miles of four- and six-lane expressways connecting Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai—is due to be completed this year. The first phase of a new subway in New Delhi finished in late 2005 on budget and ahead of schedule. And new airports are under construction in Bangalore and Hyderabad, with more planned elsewhere. "We have to improve the quality of our infrastructure," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a gathering of tech industry leaders in Mumbai on Feb. 9. "It's a priority of our government."

Singh, in fact, is promising a Marshall Plan-scale effort. The government estimates public and private organizations will chip in $330 billion to $500 billion over the next five years for highways, power generation, ports, and airports. In addition, leading conglomerates have pledged to overhaul the retailing sector. That will require infrastructure upgrades along the entire food distribution chain, from farm fields to store shelves.

Envisioning a brand-new India is the easy part; paying for it is another matter. By necessity, since the country's public debt stands at 82% of GDP, the 11th-worst ranking in the world, much of the money for these new projects will have to come from private sources. Yet India captured only $8 billion in foreign direct investment last year, compared with China's $63 billion. "Having grandiose plans isn't enough," says Yale University economics professor T.N. Srinivasan.

Just about every foreign company operating in India has a horror story of the hardships of doing business there. Nokia Corp. saw thousands of its cellular phones ruined last October when a shipment from its factory in Chennai was soaked by rain because there was no room to warehouse the crates of handsets at the local airport. Japan's Maruti Suzuki says trucking its cars 900 miles from its factory in Gurgaon to the port in Mumbai can take up to 10 days. That's partly due to delays at the three state borders along the way, where drivers are stalled as officials check their papers. But it's also because big rigs are barred from India's congested cities during the day, when they might bring dense traffic to a standstill. Once at the port, the Japanese company's autos can wait weeks for the next outbound ship because there's not enough dock space for cargo carriers to load and unload.

India's summer monsoons wreak havoc, too. Even relatively light rains can choke sewers, flood streets, and paralyze a city, while downpours are devastating. Two years ago, Florida-based contract manufacturer Jabil Circuit Inc. saw shipments of computers and networking gear from its plant near Mumbai delayed for five days after an epic storm. "In our business, five days is a really long time," says William D. Muir Jr., who oversees Jabil's Asian operations.

Companies often have no choice but to make the best of a bad situation. Cisco Systems Inc., the American networking equipment giant, has had a research and development office in India since 1999 and already has 2,000 engineers in the country. To supply the country's fast-growing telecommunications industry, Cisco decided last year to try its hand at making some parts locally. In December it contracted with another company to build Internet phones in the southeastern city of Chennai. Although Cisco says the quality of the workmanship is up to snuff, it has to fly parts in because the ports are so slow—and getting them to the factory right when they're needed is proving nettlesome. "We believe in manufacturing in India, but we don't believe in logistics in India—yet," says Wim Elfrink, Cisco's chief globalization officer. Elfrink adds that unless the Chennai operation demonstrates it can run as efficiently as Cisco setups elsewhere, it won't go into full production as planned this summer.

Even the world's largest maker of infrastructure equipment is constrained by India's feeble underpinnings. General Electric Co. last year sold $1.2 billion worth of gear such as power generators and locomotives in India, more than double what it billed in 2005. To meet that surging demand, it is scrambling to find a location where it can manufacture locomotives in partnership with India Railways. But when GE dispatched three employees to survey a potential site the railway favored in the northern state of Bihar, the trio returned discouraged. It took five hours to drive the 50 miles from the airport to the site, and when they got there they found...nothing. "No roads, no power, no schools, no water, no hospitals, no housing," says Pratyush Kumar, president of GE Infrastructure in India. "We'd have to create everything from scratch," including many miles of railroad tracks to get the locomotives out to the main lines.

But there is a silver lining for GE and other international giants: India's infrastructure deficit could yield huge opportunities. American executives who traveled to India last November on the largest U.S. trade mission ever were tantalized by the possibilities. Jennifer Thompson, director of international planning at Oshkosh Truck Corp. , viewed construction projects where swarms of workers carried wet concrete in buckets to be poured. That told her there's great potential in India for selling Oshkosh's mixer trucks. "There are infrastructure challenges, but we see a lot of opportunities to help them meet those challenges," she says.

That explains why so many multinationals are flocking to India. Take hotel construction: In a country with only 25,000 tourist-class hotel rooms (compared with more than 140,000 in Las Vegas alone), companies including Hilton , Wyndham, and Ramada have plans for 75,000 rooms on their drawing boards. Or consider telecom. Because of deregulation and ferocious demand, India boasts the fastest growth in cell-phone service anywhere, with companies adding some 6 million new customers a month. No wonder Britain's Vodafone Group PLC just ponied up $11 billion for a controlling interest in Hutchison Essar, India's No. 4 mobile carrier. U.S. private equity outfits also want in on the action. On Feb. 15, Blackstone Group and Citigroup announced they are teaming up with the Indian government and the Infrastructure Development Finance Corp. to set up a $5 billion fund for infrastructure investments in India.

But while the laws of supply and demand would argue that India's infrastructure gap can be filled, that logic ignores the corrosive effect of the country's politics. To gain the favor of voters, Indian politicians have long subsidized electricity and water for farmers, a policy that has discouraged private investment in those areas. That's what wrecked the now-infamous Dabhol Power plant. In the late 1990s, Enron, GE, and Bechtel spent a total of $2.8 billion building a huge complex near Mumbai capable of producing more than 2,000 megawatts of electricity. But a government power authority set prices so low that it was uneconomical for Dabhol to operate, and the whole deal fell apart. (The plant, taken over by an Indian organization, now runs only fitfully.) A 2001 law was supposed to create a framework to support private investment in power generation. But according to American construction company executives, it's not working well. "Everybody knows what needs to be done, but they have great difficulty doing it," says one of the Americans. "If the party in opposition offers subsidized power, the party in power has to give subsidized power to get reelected."

Politicians who refuse to play the game pay a steep price. N. Chandrababu Naidu, the former chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, transformed the state capital of Hyderabad from a backwater into a high-tech destination by building new roads, widening others, and aggressively carving out land for factories and office parks. Google , IBM, Microsoft, and Motorola have all built R&D facilities there.

His reward? Voters tossed him out of office two years ago. During his decade in power, Naidu didn't do enough for rural areas, and his challenger promised to channel state funds into irrigation projects and electricity subsidies. "Naidu thought economics were more important than politics. He was wrong," says V.S. Rao, director of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science in Hyderabad. Naidu, 56, is plotting a comeback in elections two years hence. This time, he's preaching a new gospel. "You can't just target growth," says a chastened Naidu. "You have to create policies that make the wealth trickle down to the common man."

But even when politicians say they're beefing up infrastructure, it rarely helps the poorest Indians. Agriculture is stagnant in part because of a lack of the most rudimentary of roads to get to and from fields. N. Tarupthurai, for instance, scratches out a living from a five-acre plot in Jinnuru, a village in northeastern Andhra Pradesh. But his fields are more than a mile from the nearest paved road, so each day the 40-year-old Tarupthurai must carry his tools, seeds, fertilizer, and crops down a dirt path on his back or on his bicycle. "I have asked for a road, and the government says it's under consideration," says the mustachioed, curly-haired farmer. Then he shrugs.

One reason little practical help makes it from the seats of power to India's impoverished villages is that so much money gets siphoned off along the way. With corrupt officials skimming at every step, many public works projects either go over budget or are never completed. "You figure that 25% of the cost goes to corruption," says Verghese Jacob, head of the Byrraju Foundation, which promotes rural development. "And then they do such a bad job that the road falls apart in one year and has to be patched over again," Jacob says as he jostles along in a car on a potholed byway outside Hyderabad.

None of the solutions to India's infrastructure challenges are simple, but business leaders, some enlightened government officials, and even ordinary citizens are chipping in to make things better. The most potent weapon India's reformers have against corruption is transparency. Last October a new right-to-information law went into effect requiring both central and state governments to divulge information about contracts, hiring, and expenditures to any citizen who requests it. The country is also putting to work its vaunted technology prowess to police the government. Officials in 200 districts are using software from Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. to help monitor a government program that offers every rural household a guarantee of 100 days of work per year. Most of this labor goes into public works. To minimize "leakage," the TCS software tracks every expenditure—and makes all of the information available real-time on a Web site accessible to anyone.

Sometimes frustrated Indians take matters into their own hands. Tired of spending four-plus hours a day in traffic, Aruna Newton last fall helped organize something of a women's crusade to speed up infrastructure improvements. Nearly 15,000 volunteers now monitor key road projects and meet with state officials to press for action. They even enlisted the state chief minister's mother, who helped get his attention. "It's about the collective power of the people," says Newton, a 40-year-old vice-president for Infosys. "I just wish building a road was as easy as writing a software program."

Increasingly, companies trying to expand in India have the government as a willing partner rather than a roadblock. The state of Andhra Pradesh rolled out the red carpet last year for MAS Holdings Ltd. of Sri Lanka, South Asia's largest garment manufacturer. It promised subsidized electricity, new access roads, and even a deepwater port if the company would place a huge industrial park on the southern coast. Now MAS Holdings plans to build a cluster of factories that will eventually employ 30,000 production workers. And it chose India over China. "The government support was absolutely vital," says John Chiramel, India director for MAS Holdings. "If we can work together, there's no stopping growth in this country."

A key to getting massive projects off the drawing boards is forming public-private partnerships where the government and companies share costs, risks, and rewards. In 2005, India passed a groundbreaking law permitting officials to tap such partnerships for infrastructure initiatives. Developers ante up most of the money, collect tolls or other usage fees, and eventually hand the facilities back to the government.

The first project to take advantage of the new law is the $430 million international airport scheduled to open next year in Bangalore. The facility is designed to handle 11.5 million passengers per year—nearly double the capacity of the overburdened existing airport. It will be owned by a private company, which will turn it over to the Karnataka state government after 60 years. Global engineering and equipment giant Siemens is helping to build the facility, and Switzerland's Unique Ltd. will manage it. These companies are also equity investors. The state had to contribute just 18% of the cost. Without such an arrangement, Karnataka wouldn't be getting a new airport.

A lot of India's hopes rest on the airport deal's success. If it proves the viability of public-private partnerships, more such ventures could come pouring in. A visit to the site instills confidence. Project manager Sivaramakrishnan S. Iyer is a crusty veteran of mammoth infrastructure ventures throughout South Asia and the Mideast. Wearing a scuffed hardhat, with a two-day growth of white stubble on his face, he surveys the site from a 2.5-mile-long bed of crushed granite that will be the runway. Work goes on seven days a week, 18 hours a day. Iyer is intent on wrapping up on schedule in April, 2008. "We have the will to do it, and it will be done," he says.

Will the airport open on time? That's not within Iyer's control. Two government authorities are responsible for building the road that leads to the airport, and they're locked in a dispute over how to do it. Work hasn't started.

And so it goes in India. Unless the nation shakes off its legacy of bureaucracy, politics, and corruption, its ability to build adequate infrastructure will remain in doubt. So will its economic destiny.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_12/b4026001.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Bengal polio scheme best: Experts

KOLKATA: The Unicef-sponsored West Bengal model of polio eradication has been recommended by experts to states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where the disease is still prevalent. Dejected over incidence of Polio in UP, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Uttaranchal and Delhi in spite of eradication programmes, experts prescribe that the failing states emulate West Bengal, which tasted success through a booth-level monitoring system.

The system was introduced with the aid of a Geographical Information System in 2003. Till then, Polio raged in the state with West Bengal accounting for one out of seven polio cases in the world. With GIS-aided monitoring, the figure stood at one at the end of 2006. The lone case was detected along the Indo-Bangla border in Murshidabad district.

GIS mapping divided West Bengal's districts and blocks into six sectors. Sector-wise comparison at the booth level brought out the disparity between each of them. "Then, booth-wise intervention strategies were worked out from GIS-generated information. It was the first application of GIS in India for such micro-level information generation and it worked wonders," said its architect Tapas Ghatak, a senior KMDA geophysicist.

Anxiety over the large number of polio cases in UP, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Uttaranchal and Delhi was evident at a Centre for Information on Community Development organised seminar. Upset over failure, experts even suggested replacing the polio eradication programme with a polio control programme. This, experts felt, would remove steam from the programme.

"Despite sincere efforts, polio could not be eradicated in these north Indian states. So far, 674 polio cases have been detected of which 534 patients were from UP. This is bad. So, despair is quite natural. But we have not lost hope and want to escalate the enthusiasm so that the programme reaches its completion," said Jude Henriques, programme communication officer of Unicef.

"We have been sustaining the nationwide programme since 1985. The international community has been spending huge sums on it. But prevalence of polio in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Punjab and Delhi is enough cause for concern. The eradication programme has to stop at one point of time," said Vijay Bhandari, Rotary International governor and National polio committee member

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Kolkata/Bengal_polio_scheme_best_Experts/
articleshow/1742420.cms

Orissa activists revive irrigation methods

Activists in Orissa are trying to revive traditional irrigation methods and awareness about indiscriminate industrialization.

Ranjan Panda from Sambalpur in Orissa took everyone by surprise when he predicted the desertification of vast stretches in western Orissa in the next 100 years.

"We just took statistics from the state's own departments and one could find that degradation of land in Orissa had gone beyond all predictable limits," Panda, who is an environment conservationist said.

"Taking all these statistics we have only made a very simple assessment that the state might really head for a process of desertification," he said.

About two-thirds of the state's agricultural land suffers sever erosion and low fertility.

Soil erosion due to forest degradation is serious in 52 per cent of total geographic area in Orissa

Between 1986 and 2003 forest cover shrunk by close to 5000 sq kilometres.

Rainfall in the western and southern Orissa decreased drastically. Of 6.56 mn hectares of agricultural land, 4.33 mn hectares is highly eroded.

Soil erosion due to forest degradation is rampant. Between 1986 and 2003, forest cover shrunk by 4,797 sq km Rainfall in western, southern Orissa has gone down significantly.

Industrialisation

Panda fears more trouble if the state government continues to patronize water and power intensive industries like steel and bauxite... as well as thermal power plants.

Conservative estimates have put that if the proposed steel plants start functioning they will alone emit 392 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide by 2010, as they will require to burn 55 million tonnes of fossil fuel.

The whole world is now worried about only .5 degree Celsius increase in the temperature during the last 50 to 100 years, says Panda.

"If you can just go to some parts in Western Orissa a common man's perceptions will tell you that within the last 13 to 14 years it's more than 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature," he points out.

"What we are trying to do is once again revive some of the water harvesting skills and techniques by the communities themselves," Panda said.

Panda and his organization MASS have convinced people to focus on traditional forms of irrigation.

A small tank in the remote tribal village of Tellibenna brought about a remarkable change.

"No one wanted to marry their daughters with anybody from this village because of water problems. Now we have marriage proposals round the year," a villager said.

People's knowledge of the topography must be respected. It's not at they would just dig a pond anywhere," Panda added.

Another villager said, "MASS people asked us to dig a tank because we had no water at all. We chose this place because it was a low-lying area with the depth to trap run-off water."

Degradation of land, desertification and now community action that's a local action against a global problem.

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&id=101953

False cases against Catholic tribal priests and sisters'

JASHPUR (ICNS): The Chhattisgarh government has registered 276 cases against Christian Tribal priests and sisters in Jashpur district under Section 170 (B) of the MP and CG Land Revenue Code of 1959. The tribal identity of the persons does not cease to exist with change of faith as per the Supreme Court judgement. Therefore the cases that are registered are illegal.

An analysis by Fr. Anand Muttungal

(PRO & Spokesperson, Catholic Council of Bishops, And Regional Secretary, SIGNIS India, M.P & C.G)

Jashpur District administration under the guidance of the state government has registered around 280 false land cases against the catholic tribal priests and sisters by misinterpreting and misusing the provision under section 170 (B) of the MP (CG) Land Revenue Code of 1959 ( M.P.L.R.C.). In January 2006 the SC / ST Commission of the Chhattisgarh government has sought detailed information regarding the Christian property in the tribal area. It all alarms threat to the Christian community in Chattisgarh.

What is section 170 (B) M.P.L.R.C

The year 1959 the MP Land Revenue code came into existence in undivided Madhya Pradesh. It was a general law applicable to the state regarding the purchase, use and sale of land. In the case of the tribals, exploitation continued. Many non-tribal rich people purchased their land by use of fraudulent and treacherous means. In order to protect the tribal land a special protective law amendment in the code was inserted in 1980 which came to be known as under section 170 (B)

The section reads as under:-

A. ) Every person who on the date of commencement of M.P L.RC ( amendment Act ) 1980, is in position of agricultural land which belonged to a member of a tribe which has been declared to be un-aboriginal tribe under sub section 6 of section 165 between the period commencing on the second October 1959 and ending on the date of commencement of amendment act 1980 shall within two years of such commencement notified to the Sub Divisional Officer(SDO), in such form and in such manner as may be prescribed all the information as to how he has come in possession of such land.

*In the case of the Christian priests and sisters, the transaction is done between two tribals who are included in the category of aboriginal tribe. The tribal identity of the persons does not cease to exist by change of faith as per the Supreme Court judgement. Therefore the cases that are registered are illegal.

B.) 170(B): - If a non --tribal or tribal purchases the tribal land through fraudulent and treacherous means it has to be returned to the original owner of the land.
Criteria of judging fraudulent and treacherous means: - 170(B) section 1&2 says, if any purchase and sale of tribal land is taken place, it has to be informed to the collector or SDM. If information is not given, then it will be treated as fit case for fraudulent and treacherous means.

Within two years the cheated tribal land owner can approach the district collector or SDM for enquiry and ask to get the said land back to the original owner. If the district administration feels that some fraudulent and treacherous means are used to purchase the tribal land by another tribal without time limit any time SDM can file case. In such circumstances if the original land owner tells the court that no such fraudulent and treacherous means is used, no case can be made out of it.

* The land purchased by the Christian tribal Priests and Sisters are informed to the district collector or SDM as per the law.

* The original landowner has not approached the SDM for any case but SDM on his on has initiated cases against the land transaction by the Christian tribal Priests and Sisters. Here original persons or their children have given statements or affidavits to the SDM that they had received sufficient remuneration for the sale of land and fraudulent or treacherous means is used in the transaction of land. So as per 170(B) no further case can be continued but the district administration is giving verdicts against the Christian tribal Priests and Sisters. In two cases the original landowner has asked to revert the land under the pressure from the district administration.

C.) Purchase of Tribal land by NGO & Trusts owned and run by tribals too are treated in the category of non-tribals.

* The Christians have not purchased any land in the name of any NGO or Trust but individual priests and sisters except in few cases the land was purchased and later given as a gift to the association to run welfare centres for the tribals. It is done with prior permission from the district collector as per the law.

* The owned property is being used by the same individual through some other individuals by giving Power of Attorney to different persons to run schools, hostels, dispensaries, hospitals churches etc. The ownership of the land is not shifted to any body. So this provision does not apply here. As per the Supreme Court verdict the change of faith does not take away the tribal identity of the tribals so individual to individual transaction of the land is permitted.

D.) 170(B) is only applicable to transactions done after 1959.

* In most of the land cases that are registered against the Christian tribal Priests and Sisters , the transaction is done before 1959 so this law does not apply to many cases.

E.) 170(B) will only be applicable to land used for cultivation and the land used for construction and other purposes are kept out of it. It also states that land diversion has to be sought from the concerned Tahsil office for construction of building and any other use if the population of the village is Two Thousand and above, this provision continues till date. If we do not follow this section, the land used for constructions too will be treated as agricultural land.

* In registering the cases under section 170(B) the tenability of registration has not been taken into consideration.

* Even the diverted land has been registered under 170(B) which is not tenable.

The provision of diversion is applicable only in the village area where the village population is Two Thousand or above. In most of the villages this law does not apply due to less population till date. So it can be concluded that this provision does not apply to the land purchased by the catholic tribal priests and sisters.

F.) 165 (6): - This section of the law states that the non-tribals are permitted to buy / use or sell the tribal land with the prior permission from the district collector even by Association and institutions.

* The transactions of the land and property between associations, institutions and tribals are done with due permission from the district collector as per the law.
So there is no illegality in the transaction of the land.

G.) Misuse of the High Court Verdict: - On 1st September 2006 the Chattisgarh High Court directed the Sub Divisional Officer of Jashpur district to execute the pending cases of 1996-97 related to 170(B) within six months from the date of direction. It was not a direction to start new cases and decide within six months.

* The district Collector and the SDOs have started all most 150 new cases under the pretext of following the Honourable High Court direction and are trying to decide it within six months from the date of direction. H.) Bon of contention: - The district and the state administration are registering cases against Christian tribal Priests and Sisters for the misuse and purchase of tribal land. They try to prove that the land is being used benami using tribal catholic priests and tribal nuns as land owners. Original owner of the land is not using the land so the land and property needs to be reverted to the first owner of the land.

* In the district of Jushpur the tribal Christian priests and tribal sisters have purchased land from tribals in their personal capacity and used the land for the public welfare like schools, dispensaries, worship places etc. transactions are between tribal to tribal where 170(B) does not apply.

*Accusation of being benami transactions: - Public welfare centres like schools dispensaries and worship places are run with the mutual consent of the, (catholic priest and sisters), land owner and the present person who runs the above centres are done through the power of attorney. The ownership remains with the same person.

Harassment by the District Administration: -

The district administration at many occasions put it bluntly that they are forced to initiate cases against the Christian tribal Priests and Sisters in general, so they advice to approach the higher officials. They express their helplessness.

* The priests and sisters are insulted in the courtroom infront of the district magistrate by the Fundamentalists and members of a particular political party. It even continues during the case hearing time too. * In the usual circumstances the district collector's and SDM court closes by 5. 30 pm but the cases related to the priests and sisters are kept up to 8.30pm. It has become a general feature. The harassment continues even on the road while returning through fundamentalists' sponsored journalists and media persons.

* On 22nd January the Christian community with the information to the collector, SDM of Kunkuri, SDM of Bagicha and to the police district administration in three tahsils of Jashpur district a protest rally was called. The Rally was attended by above one lakh people.

*In the district headquarter Hindu fundamental organizations forced a Bandh without the permission from the collector but he kept silent. This was done to stop Christians coming for the Rally and stop use of water and food by the protesters. This was attended by over thirty five thousand people. Section 170 (B) is used only against the Christians in the Jashpur district but there are many cases where tribal land is widely used by non-tribals. The cases that were closed in 1996 too are being reopened.

Demand by the Jashpur Nagarik Manch:-

@ The Government must withdraw the illegal cases registered by the misuse of section170 (B).

@ The district collector is working under the influence of the fundamental and particular political party. So an enquiry be conducted on his partisan.

Action Taken by the Church: -

The land cases related to the Jashpur diocese was brought to the notice of Archbishop Dr. Pascal Topno , the Chairman , Regional Catholic Council of Bishops M.P & C.G, in the month of January 2007. The Archbishop directed the Regional Public Relations Office to speed up help extended to Jashpur Diocese to face the problems faced the onslaught on the Church personnel

The Church held discussions with Union Minister Oscar Fernandes, Smt. Mohsina Kidwai, Shri Sitaram Yechuri, and they have extended their support to the Church. The Jashpur Church is also planning to meet the Prime Minister, President of India since the area is scheduled area under the constitution. We would also be meeting the leaders and officials from various sections. We ask you all to pray for the Church in Jashpur, Chattisgarh State in Central India and extend support in whatever manner possible from your side.

http://www.theindiancatholic.com/newsread.asp?nid=6587

Hot issues of Today

Report News

Music Video

Email Support

Be a Volunteer

Complain us