Does time heal everything?

Who said time heals everything? It’s been five years, yes five long years, and the pain hasn’t healed at all. Maybe it’s just got easier to bare the pain, easier to cope with things. Had it healed, maybe I would have had a reason to celebrate this day!

Wish I could celebrate it as any other festival, but no. I’m unable to, for two reasons. One I have got used to the amount of pain and memories associated with this particular day bring in and the other, somebody else, who like me might have had millions of dreams before entering the wedlock on this day, now might have same million reasons to curse her fate, curse this day!

A day which was supposed to be a “Red Letter Day”, as someone had mentioned to me very proudly, is in no way remains so. If not for anybody, at least for the girl, ok let me call her my friend to make things simple! After getting divorce, I don’t think either she or her family will ever be able to rejoice this day, as it also happens to be her wedding anniversary…

It’s been five years, five long years, since I celebrated Ganesha Chaturthi, the way we did before my wedding. I thought, maybe this year I would, but no. Her hapless face came to my mind and the day started badly.

I did celebrate Gowri festival yesterday and I was happy too, even though I missed my family very badly. I thought I would manage to celebrate Ganesha festival too, but some memories are too strong to forget, some pains are too hard to let go.

Every single word echoes in my ears, the words which I had not expected, which I can’t forget till my last breath. As years pass by, I see how the amount of pain I have gone through is bouncing back on the perpetrators and all I say is time doesn’t heal the pain, but it makes us mature enough to bare the pain, easier to cope with things.

Today, standing here, away from those people, away from those taunting words, I look back and console myself at least I’m able to do so many things, at least I have learnt something – to face life, to face good and unfortunately, often bad people, to wait patiently and courage to look back into the past, into the good and bad memories.

Now, at this stage, I don’t think I have that many regrets, of taking decisions and of waiting patiently to see my day coming, even though it has been a long and lone journey. I think people who made me to wait to go through this journey have realized it, if not, they will, very soon… And I wish at least next year, I will be able to celebrate this festival, with due sympathies to my friend, hope she gets all the courage to face those people and the world, and I’m sure she will!

Happy Gowri and Ganesha Festival J   

All-veg McDonald's eyes India's holy sites

Fast-food giant is opening its first-ever, all-vegetarian restaurants in India, but could stoke a religious backlash.

Move over greasy burgers, the world's most recognisable fast food chain is about to go vegetarian.

McDonald's has announced plans to open its first-ever, all-vegetarian restaurants in India - a country of 1.2 billion people - where cows are sacred to majority Hindus, and swine are considered unclean by minority Muslims.

The mega-chain - known for its "100 per cent pure beef" - has faced significant culinary obstacles in India, as 80 per cent of the population does not consume the restaurant's main staple.

India also boasts a Muslim population of about 150 million, meaning pork is culled from the menu.

Hence the focus on all-vegetarian outlets. McDonald's menu is already 50 per cent vegetarian in India, and the chain has made a significant effort to adapt to local tastes. On offer are items such as the McAloo Tikki burger, Pizza McPuff and Maharaja Mac - made with a chicken fillet.

"We have always been cognizant of the religion-based and other sensitivities of our customers," company spokesman Rajesh Kumar Maini told Al Jazeera. "We believe this endeavour of ours will also be well accepted." 

Read more here...

The dark side of social media

Earlier dictators and politicians made to the headlines. Times are changing and anyone can make history, not just some big politicians or celebrities. Even an ordinary person like a fruit vendor or a lousy filmmaker can hit the headlines, drawing the attention of the world, thanks to the digital world. People now have power to speak beyond their geographical confines.

Erstwhile unknown singers become famous overnight with a well-placed YouTube video and haters can pinch the right nerve endings at the most vulnerable time so American missions anywhere can go up in flames.

No wonder, countries are struggling hard to clamp down on the internet freedom on its citizens. One can be just a mute spectator if not stunned by the swiftness with which social media can change world events. Interestingly, no longer countries and terrorist organisations have “a monopoly of power to press those dangerous buttons. Those buttons are available now for as little as $199 for the latest iPhone”.

Andrew Lam, an editor with New America Media, has written an excellent article on this issue and here’s the original piece:

In 2010, Time magazine's prestigious Person of the Year title went to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. He was the choice of the magazine's editors, though its readers picked Julian Assange, the founder of the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.

"Facebook is now the third-largest country on earth and surely has more information about its citizens than any government does," the magazine noted. Assange, for his part, undermined nation states' public narratives by providing a platform where individuals can anonymously show their government's dark underbellies.

In 2011, a fruit vendor made the cut. Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian who set himself ablaze protesting at corruption, became literally the torch that lit the Arab spring revolution. Bouazizi's death was seen by many who had mobile phones and the videos kick-started the uprising.

This year, no doubt Time can add "Nakoula Basseley Nakoula", aka "Sam Bacile", as a contender. An unknown amateur filmmaker until this week, he fanned anti-America outrage in the Middle East with incendiary video clips of a US-made film that mocked and insulted the Prophet Mohammed.

Nakoula/Bacile is in hiding and may in fact be fictitious. Evidence now points to him as an Egyptian Coptic Christian who holds grudges against Islam.

The jury is out on who instigated the violence against US personnel in Libya, resulting in the death of the American ambassador and three others. The attack was carefully planned, it was reported, and not the mere work of angry protesters - but few doubt that the film had a direct effect in stoking anger in the Middle East.

In the global age, it seems that not only dictators or overzealous elected heads of state with the power of pre-emptive strikes can direct history to the edge of an abyss, but also fruit vendors and lousy filmmakers.

Even al-Qaeda, for all its planning and propaganda, hasn't achieved what the film and its 14-minute YouTube trailer has; quickly undermining much of the US' soft diplomacy in the region.

In a blog for The Boston Globe, a friend of slain ambassador Chris Stevens asked: "How could Chris Stevens die because of a YouTube clip?" Alas, the answer is: why not in our information age?

It is worth noting that within a day after the deaths in Libya, Apple launched its iPhone5. Through the digital world, people attain power to speak beyond their geographical confines. Erstwhile, unknown singers can become famous overnight with a well-placed YouTube video. And haters can pinch the right nerve endings at the most vulnerable time so American missions anywhere can go up in flames.

Nation states are stunned by the swiftness with which social media can change world events. Excited copycats are waiting in the wings. Why not make a false video showing Japanese killing Chinese on Diaoyu Islands? Why not show blurry videos of Pakistani soldiers raping Hindu women in Kashmir? The list is endless.

This moronic filmmaker has made his point. No longer do heads of state and terrorist organisations have a monopoly of power to press those dangerous buttons. Those buttons are available now for as little as US$199 for the latest iPhone.

(Source: South China Morning Post)

Stopping Rape

How many women go public when it comes the issue of rape? Today, I bumped into an article written by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin, an Irish writer, globetrotter and a feminist for hire, who campaigns against domestic violence, prostitution and human trafficking. Her first-hand experience makes the reading worth it.

She describes how she was a victim of “legitimate rape”. Rape and that too legitimate, yes, I wondered. But after reading it, I realized yes, sometimes it is dubbed as legitimate!

Many may believe that “they don’t know any rape victims”, but how could that be? This impression persists because “victims are pressured into silence”.

When she says: “I was raped. Acknowledging that is severely painful, but the pain isn’t exclusively mine. Rape, every time it happens, is a loss and an affront to us all,” we agree with her that it’s time to “recognise that and stop it happening”.

Here’s the original article:

About ten months ago, I went through exactly what’s been described as “legitimate rape”. I was raped late at night, on a dark street, by a stranger, at knife point. It was entirely stereotypical. With one exception. The man didn’t have any English, but just before he ran away he said one word to me. “Sorry”.

Moments previously, he was terrifying, he had complete control over my body and my survival and then suddenly he became terrified himself and was completely diminished. He wasn’t a monster, he wasn’t evil. He’d just lost his empathy. For fifteen or twenty minutes he was completely desensitised to the fact that I was a human too. He was weak and pathetic.

In that moment, before I’d had any time to think or process, I was overwhelmingly relieved to be in my position and not his. My body, mind and dignity were all severely wounded, but my humanity was intact.

The last few weeks have been intensely difficult. Each time I risk thinking “it can’t get any worse” someone else in a position of power, an Akin, Assange, Galloway or Smith, casually dismisses and disparages the victims of rape. Those of us in the feminist (read: humane) community have understandably lashed out in various angry, emotional ways. However, as every possible aspect of rape is interrogated across the political spectrum, I feel there’s something missing. As a friend of mine put it, “we’ve mocked, raged and laughed because we didn’t know what else to do for long enough.” Sexual and gender-based violence is rarely, if ever, so high on the political agenda. So this isn’t a moment to simply rage against individual figures and offences. Instead, it’s time to galvanise the pain and anger into a solutions-based discussion of the one question that really matters.

How do we stop rape?

We can educate young people, frankly and non-judgmentally, about what consent is because it has become frighteningly apparent that they genuinely don’t know. Victims don’t report rape, because it’s hours, days, weeks or years before that they realise that they were raped. Friends, families, doctors, lawyers, judges and politicians don’t give rape victims the support they need or rapists the judgement they deserve because they don’t believe that what happened was “legitimate rape”.

Most importantly, the confusion over consent actively causes rape to occur because potential perpetrators don’t develop the necessary checks on their sexual behaviour. Ignorance should not be a defence. The victim has to endure trauma, injury and shame whether or not the rapist understood the gravity of what he was doing.  That said, if you read the ‘Reddit Rapist’ thread  multiple men recount experiences of withdrawing from a sexual encounter at the last minute, having seen the fear or horror on their partners’ faces. They are haunted and frightened by how close they came to rape. Now think of all the young men who didn’t notice, have raped and could have spared both themselves and their victims if they’d been given more education and taught more sensitivity.

Most of us, if we had any sex education at all, were students of the Tina Fey school of sex-ed; “If you have sex you will get chlamydia and die!” It’s directive, blunt and too often taught by ill-equipped teachers, who are victims of the same sexual taboos as their students. As a result, the students never get to ask the important questions and sexual expectations are filtered through porn, romcoms, religious beliefs, Fifty Shades of Grey, gendered expectations, peer pressure and groundless braggadocio.

Imagine instead, effective courses in “Sexuality and Society”, peer-supported and led by well-trained, respectful adults. No matter how cool they try to play it, teenagers, like us all, are scared at the prospect of sex. Who’s having it? How are they having it? How often are they having it? Is it only slutty girls who instigate sex? Is the man expected to take control? Do women actually say no when they mean yes? Can men be raped? Do you have to perform oral sex? What are the sexual dynamics of gay relationships?

When there’s an enforced hush around these subjects, they take on vastly greater power and significance. An issue that could have been dealt with in an hour in a classroom or community group must instead be dealt with over a lifetime of shame, guilt, trauma, and sexual dysfunction. All because adults are squeamish about sex. Achieving change will require individuals, particularly parents and teachers, to consciously roll back the sexual stigma and taboo we’ve all been raised with, but it’s a price worth paying.

We already have our trailblazers for this process. The women and men who, in the face of a society that shames and blames them, come out as victims and survivors of rape who refuse to be silenced or stigmatised.

The phrase “come out” is chosen deliberately. The LGBT community has long recognised that by coming out and creating a human face for homosexuality, individuals can affect dramatic social change. Suddenly ordinary people can’t view homosexuality as something that happens far away in big cities, among a particular type of people. Rather, it’s in their workplaces, in their churches, in their schools, in their living rooms, in their families. Gay people become ordinary people too.

The same thing can happen with rape. At present, many people believe that they don’t know any rape victims. That’s close to statistically impossible, but the impression persists because victims are pressured into silence. So people can continue to believe that rape happens to certain types of women, that it’s committed by certain types of obviously depraved men, that it can be prevented by demure behaviour and good sense. When victims are empowered to speak out, that process of distancing becomes impossible. Rape becomes a real issue in people’s communities, families, lives and living rooms. And that makes it an urgent political issue.

I was raped. Acknowledging that is severely painful, but the pain isn’t exclusively mine. Rape, every time it happens, is a loss and an affront to us all. Let’s recognise that and let’s stop it happening.

(Source: Daily Cloudt)

'Hitler' shop sends India shockwave

A new store called 'Hitler' raises fears that right-wing ideology could be finding takers in the land of Gandhi.

"Hitler" covers the black store front in large white letters - a red swastika dotting the "i". The name of the new men's clothing store has caused a stir in India's Ahmedabad city. 

Ignorance over Adolf Hitler's dark history, or a tasteless shock-advertising scheme? That's the question being asked after Rajesh Shah named his shop after the Nazi dictator, who took over Germany in the 1930s and then tried to conquer Europe.

The small Jewish community in Ahmedabad in western Gujarat state - numbering less than 500 - is up-in-arms and demanding he change the name. But Shah says to do so would bite into his profits. 

"If the Jewish community wants the name to be changed, they should pay for it. I have spent too much on the logo ... the brand," Shah told Al Jazeera, refusing to divulge how much it would cost.

Unlike most countries in the world, in India it is not uncommon for the name Hitler to represent businesses, movies, TV programmes, and even people's names - a strange reality to outside observers, but one that is accepted without much thought by ordinary Indians. The swastika, meanwhile, was used as a Hindu symbol long before the Nazis adopted it.

Read more here...

Look who's watching our fetish for gold

It’s not just we, Indians observing each other how much jewels we are wearing or if we are wearing anything at all. Now China joins our league and they are observing us, what jewels we are wearing, how much we are wearing. And you should not miss my previous post on the yellow metal and how it keeps attracting me like a magnet and I'm not ashamed to accept the fact that I have this fetish for gold, gold jewels. No need to get any weird ideas, all I mean is I love to invest in gold, to be more precise.

Let me come back to the point. Yes, “without gold nose ring, Indian women won’t go out,” says an article published on a Chinese daily. Ah, little too much, I don’t even have a nose ring, not just me many of us don’t even wear nose ring, but whatever be it, the Chinese are observing us very closely ;) 

People's Daily Online in its article “Indian beauties wearing gold jewelry” says, “In India it will be considered impolite if women go out without any jewellery.” Hmm, maybe times are changing and yes, I remember my mom often telling me that without some piece of gold on her body, woman looks incomplete. Maybe that’s the reason, even a worker at least adorns herself with as tiny as a gold nose ring.     

The article which features Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai wearing jewels says, “Recently Indian government plans to issue “paper gold” that is to encourage people to purchase gold reserved in banks. Though buying “paper gold” doesn’t mean you can really take physical gold in hand, many Indian still scramble for this, which reflects Indian affection and reliance for gold.”

It’s not an exaggeration when the article mentions that among all kinds of jewellery, Indians prefer gold ones. “Indians have black skin and wearing gold jewelry can highlight this feature,” it says. I don’t remember myself wearing fake jewels and my family, relatives and many of my friends know that I love gold jewels. 

    

It’s a fact that Indian women wearing gold earrings and necklaces could be seen everywhere. “Even those little girls who beg along the roadside with an unkempt appearance have a gold nail in the nose,” it says. Yes, who will not love this glittering metal? I don’t think anybody would hate this metal, if not for wearing at least as an asset!   

Who can deny that men don’t wear jewels in India? “It is also very common that men wear jewelry. Many Indian men wear three rings with large pieces of jewels on them,” the article says. And here, I have a man, who hates wearing gold to the extent that he refuses to wear his wedding band and I have to force him to wear it once in a while! The moment he sees a gold commercial on TV, he switches channels, not because he hates gold, but because I love gold and I would put forth my demands in front of him... 

“In wedding ceremony, parents usually choose gold ornaments as daughter’s dowry, which not only set off the beauty of the daughter but can also serve as a kind of property in married life,” the article adds. It’s not rare that friends and relatives presenting gold jewels to show their blessings during weddings and other special occasions. It’s true that one day or the other gold will come to the rescue of the owners and parents want their daughter’s life to be secure, her future to be secure through gold. Not to forget the underlying fact that it has made the dowry system much more stronger in the country, as gold in kilograms is expected from a girl’s family. Maybe it’s one thing which is passed through generations and as it passes generations, it gains its value! While people these days fancy buying antique jewels, some generations have them passed to the present ones and such jewles are just priceless.  

   

No wonder, there are gold jewellery shops everywhere, from metros to small cities, in the country. And how can anyone miss the number of commercials and ads which are pumped through all media during festive seasons? And it is this craze which often makes a big hole in the pockets of men every year in the name of festivals, special occasions and gifts.     

Apart from all these, ever wondered why is China concentrating on India’s, Indians’ gold jewels? According to "Gold Demand Trends Q2 2012" recently published by the World Gold Council, the gold demand in China has dropped by 7 per cent in the second quarter of 2012. But here, one should not forget that China still ranks sixth in the world with a total gold reserve of 1,054.1 tonnes. Although China’s gold demand has grown slower than last year, the World Gold Council still forecasts the 2012 growth rate of the country’s gold demand at 10 per cent.

Plus, China may overtake India as the world's largest gold jewellery consumer in 2012. So China's gold market will exert significant impact on the global market. China remained the world's largest gold producer for the fifth year in a row in 2011, with the annual output rising by 5.9 per cent to more than 360 tonnes, according to the data from the China Gold Association (CGA).

Moreover, China's demand for gold jewellery currently accounts for over 30 per cent of the world's demand, making it the largest gold jewellery consumer for the third consecutive quarter. In the first quarter, the world's gold consumption dropped 5 per cent year-on-year to 1,097 tonnes, mainly because gold prices have surged 22 per cent from a year ago and because demand in India also fell significantly over the same period, said the WGC report.

Currently China and India account for some 50 per cent of the world's gold demand. But the Indian government has hiked jewellery taxes and raised gold import duties, said the WGC, which resulted in the sharp drop in first-quarter demand.

Attracting the consumers, China also has ATMs dispensing gold bars and coins. The first such ATM was activated in the capital's bustling Wangfujing shopping area in September 2011. Gongmei Gold Trading, which installed the ATM, expected the machine to be a big hit and hoped to have 2,000 similar ATMs in place within the next two years. “The majority will be in private clubs at banks and at landmark buildings in large cities,” the company had said.

And such gold vending machines are not exclusive for China. I have seen them in Burj Khalifa, Dubai, and yes our plans to buy one gold bar at the vending machine didn’t fulfill, as the quoted prices were much higher than the market price!

Such gold vending machines are already in use in countries such as Germany, the United States, Italy and the United Arab Emirates. Sorry, none in India! The touch-screen machines dispense gold bars and coins of various weights based on the market price of the metal, which is updated every 10 minutes.

Sigh, whatever be it, we Indians keep loving this metal and keep buying them, no matter how big hole they make in our family budget!

Married women drink more

Gone are the days when weddings used to draw a line for freedom when it comes to drinks and parties. I have come across women who enjoy drinks and parties even the more after their weddings, thanks to the supporting husband, or rather call a husband who is also indulgent in such things.

And to support my view, today, I came across a report which said that a recent research has found that married women are more likely to drink than their unmarried counterparts -- single, divorced, or widowed.  Men, on the other hand, are less likely to drink when they're married. I doubt if they do, as I have seen women giving company to their husbands while drinking! Maybe a teetotaler wife’s threat might make a man to drink less. 

And yes, Corinne Reczek of the University of Cincinnati, also supports this. "We suspect that men and women may converge in marriage. Wherein women's alcohol use is higher due to the influence of their drinking husbands, while men's declines due to their wives, who tend to drink more moderately."

Reczek and colleagues presented their findings at last weekend's American Sociological Association meeting in Denver. For their research, they studied data from three separate surveys, including one long-term survey that provided information on more than 5,000 Wisconsin residents' alcohol habits, gathered four times during a 47-year period.

Researchers noted that overall, men drink more than women, and that women's increased drinking after marriage might be an attempt to match their husband's habits. Reczek said that she was shocked by the finding that married women drink more than those who are divorced or never married, which "flies in the face of what we thought we knew about marriage and alcohol".

Yes, even I was shocked for the first time to learn the fact that most of my hubby’s friends’ wives join their partners in drinking and I look very odd in their company, or they might be thinking I’m too conservative and out of place, or maybe I’m too rural type for their company! Ah, whatever. My principles remain intact and I know I would be a teetotaler for the rest of my life too.  

Richard Ager, associate professor at New Orleans' Tulane School of Social Work, said he isn't surprised. “People tend to do what others in the same flock do, if you spend more time with individuals that have a higher incidence of doing drugs or alcohol you will develop similar habits. People tend to engage in the behaviors of people they surround themselves with.”

Hmm, I agree that people tend to do what others in the same flock do, but following others can’t be merely blind. I’ve been in the company of people who drink, smoke, consume tea, coffee, milk, and I’m surprised how could they not influence me? Am I so stubborn? Maybe, when it comes to my principles and I would never take a chance of breaking them, and there has never been a need to do so. I never get tempted to drink tea or coffee, let alone alcohol.  

As women drink more to match their men, men in turn tone it down and imbibe less - especially those who are happily married, according to the research. And recently, one of our friends asked me why I don’t drink and when I said I never felt for the need of it, he bluntly said: “You are wasting your life!” And I looked at his wife who was full in smiles and nodded agreeing and she was more than happy to tell me that she gave company to her husband whenever he drinks!

Sorry, my upbringing is different, my culture and tradition is different. Even though I argue for feminist things and women’s freedom, I don’t see any base in arguing for women drinking alcohol and if that would make them equal to men. I have friends and colleagues who drink and smoke, but never ever have I felt that I should follow them.

Moreover, it hurts to see how westerners don’t believe when I say I’m a teetotaler and join them for drinks in parties. After all, they have seen several Indian women taking drinks, smoking cigarettes in parties and westerners are under the impression that we, Indian women, drink regularly at social gatherings!

Women see it as a freedom from the barriers of their own country when they go abroad, or even to other states or cities for higher studies or for work and they simply forget that basic fact that people often generalize things. Because not all people will come to visit our place or country, our behaviour leaves an impression on them and they generalize things, including the behaviour and habits, which is really unfortunate. It’s like after the Slumdog Millionaire, the whole world thinks India is a country of slums!    

       

Coming back to the research, it also looked at what happens when marriage goes wrong. Divorced men reported drinking far more alcohol than married men, while divorced women drank less than married women. "Men who divorce may cope with stress using alcohol use, wherein women are shown to cope with stress in more internalising ways, including depression," Reczek said. It’s strange, but another fact!

Drought revisits India

She is 11-year-old, lives in Bonewadi, a small town in Maharashtra, with her mother, two sisters and one brother. She is in Class 6 and walks 3km to reach her school. In the evening, she walks 7km to feed the cattle at a cattle camp. Her day starts at 7am and goes on till 10 pm. Meet Asha, a young girl born in a farmer’s family that owns 11 acres of land, the land which is usually sufficient to earn enough money to make a living under normal conditions.

Then, there’s Digambar Pandurang Atpadkar, a 70-year-old farmer who owns 60 acres of land and four wells in Vartuke Malwade, a small village, also in Maharashtra. He and his wife have walked 10 km to reach the cattle camp to save their eight animals.

Asha and Atpadkar are just two among the many who have been hit by drought in India. And surprisingly, majority of the farmers and cattle taking refuge in the cattle camp are from Mann taluk in Satara district, which is under the parliamentary constituency of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who had recently claimed to have spent millions of rupees supporting irrigation facilities in Maharashtra.

Moreover, it is also adjacent to the sugar belt - not to forget the fact that sugarcane is infamously a water-intensive crop - which politicians consider their stronghold, having poured in a lion’s share of Maharashtra’s development funds here. Yet, the region, popularly known as Manndesh in Marthi folklore, continues to remain at the mercy of whimsical rains.

Triggering concerns of poor farm output and higher inflation, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted less rain in June-to-September, which would be 15 per cent below the seasonal average.  "We expect 15 per cent shortfall in the seasonal rains," LS Rathore, director general, IMD, told reporters.

Agricultural sector output which accounts for 20 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), would be hit considerably due to the deficient rainfall. “The prevailing drought conditions could affect the crop prospects and may have its impact on the prices of essential commodities, such as shortfall in domestic supplies relative to demand,” Food Minister KV Thomas had said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Cattle camp

Four states - Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra - are facing drought-like situation and Between June 1 and August 5, the monsoon rain has been 17 per cent lower, according to the IMD. Satara district in western Maharashtra has 21 cattle camps, including the biggest Mann Deshi Cattle Camp, a makeshift camp set up at Mhaswad, 190km west of Pune, this year; the last such camps were in 2003 and 2009 when drought was severe in this sugar belt.

“We are here because there is no water in our village. Neither for the animals, nor for us. Our cattle get sugarcane, corn, fodder, dry fodder, green fodder. We get rice and pulses,” said Atpadkar who has left behind his house and land to save the lives of his cattle, the invaluable assets he owns.

The Mann Deshi Camp has rescued over 11,000 animals from going to butcher shops. People are migrating to other places in search of not occupation, but in search of water for their animals. In 2003, there was water, but this year, there’s no water. “Farmers here are ready to buy fodder, pledging their gold, but ask us how and where to buy water?” Chetna Gala-Sinha, the founder-president of the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank, the only women’s bank in rural Maharashtra, which has set up the cattle camp, said.  

Women walk 5-10km every day to fetch drinking water. When men migrate in search of better opportunities for their animals, women turn to the cattle camps and now the camp also gives shelter to more than 3,500 families. Looking like a small township in itself, the cattle camp, which is spread across the five acres of land, originally meant for the housing colony for villagers, provides nearly 3.5-4 lakh litres of water and 140 tonnes of fodder to the animals every day.

“Each big animal gets 15kg of dry grass, sugarcane and corn every day and three kg of processed cattle feed every week. People carry water stored in the big tanks, in buckets, around the camp and four water tankers make five trips a day to a pipeline 11km away to fetch the required four lakh litres of water daily,” said Sinha. 

All the wells in the region have dried up due to the “mismanagement of water”. The lake in Dhakani has water, but is not suitable for drinking. When asked Atpadkar why he left behind such a vast land and his house and took shelter in the camp, he says: “Why? What do we eat there? Soil? There’s no food, no water… There’s no option. We take this as our home. Death is inevitable, here or there. No food, no water… If our animals die, what are we left with?”

Crops hit

The drought, India's first since 2009, will not bring a shortage of staples as the nation's grain stores are overflowing with rice and wheat, and sugar output is set to exceed demand for a third straight year. (If the rainfall records below 90 percent of the 50-year average, it is considered deficient or "drought" in layman's parlance.) But it will deal a devastating blow to grain crops used for animal feed. That would badly hit the vast majority of the country's farmers who - with cattle and small landholdings their only assets - struggle to survive at the best of times.

“The cattle population would be adversely affected due to marginal availability of green fodders. Due to the damage of khariff crops, food grain production would be affected. But the food grains will be supplied through the Public distribution systems to the families below poverty lines, which would help the families living in poverty to cope with the situation,” said Amar Nayak, Knowledge Hub Leader, Land and Livelihood, Action Aid.

According to the data placed before Parliament, retail prices of some pulses, sugar, edible oil and tomato have risen in the last three months and prices of rice, wheat and atta have remained stable. In New Delhi, the retail price of gram dal has increased to Rs 67 per kg from Rs 53 per kg, tur dal from Rs 70 to Rs 74 per kg and masoor dal by Rs 8 to Rs 61/kg and sugar to Rs 39 per kg from Rs 35 per kg three months back.       

Drought prone

India is naturally drought prone. “Particularly in the areas removed from the core monsoon - that is in the Northwest of the country, the average recurrence time of droughts is 8 to 10 years. Severe droughts occur about every 30 years. The 2009 drought was not a major event,” Upmanu Lall, the director of Columbia Water Centre at Columbia University's Earth Institute, said.

And women like Sheelabai Digambar  Atpadkar, 60, has no other go but to find some source to save her family assets, who walked 16km with her animals to reach the camp. When asked about the situation in her village, she said: “The water tanker comes to our village once in 15 days. My six cows need more than 200 litres of water every day. Where can we store this? If I sell my cattle, I will lose my lifetime savings.”

Meanwhile, there are also reports putting the blame on IMD for not alerting the public about the failure of monsoon in advance. Even though in recent years, the IMD’s greater computer modelling capacity  has improved its ability to make seasonal forecasts of rainfall and help authorities and people with early drought warnings, “it is very difficult for climatologists to develop an accurate seasonal forecast, the one with a high degree of certainty,” Andrew Robertson, scientist, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, said.

Moreover, predicting the time and intensity of the rainfall accurately is not that easy. It involves significant uncertainties - looking decades into the future or even a few months. “It’s very tricky,” Andrew Robertson, scientist, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, Robertson said. "It’s not an easy task to predict in May whether the monsoon will be weak in a given year."

There is a correlation between monsoon strength and El Nino, generally. If sea surface temperatures rise due to an El Nino in the Pacific, monsoon rains may be weaker in that year and the weak El Nino this year may be playing a role in the current drought, according to Robertson.

Chances of recovery

Not all such episodes of severe drought correlate with El Nino-Southern Oscillation events, although there have been instances of El Nino-related droughts implicated in periodic declines in Indian agricultural output in the past.

Why is there such a scarcity of water in the country then? The general scarcity of water in the country - apart separate from the drought this year - is very closely related to the mismanagement of water in the country, most grievously in the agricultural sector. “The irrigation technologies employed do not promote conservation. Much canal water is wasted or lost to unaccountable use. The situation is quite tragic,” says Lall, adding: “The investments in agricultural improvements for the Green revolution lifted the country out of the problems... However, the cost of the complacency that set in subsequently, and the inability to continue to assess the implications of the trajectories that were put in place has led to the resulting problems today."

Not everything looks so bleak. “Still there are chances of recovery in the worst hit regions, monsoon rains may come, but again it’s another prediction, another probability. Everything is unpredictable when it comes to monsoons, especially in a country like India,” Robertson said.

Moreover, farmers have their own robust adaptation to climate variation. “We came across inspiring examples as how farmers used traditional seeds, how they have preserved seeds, adjusting the sowing periods as per the forecast of rain, managing the water harvesting systems,” said Nayak.

Maybe such adaptations, promoted with adequate resource and policy support by the government, can help the future generations like Asha to fulfill her “dream of becoming a doctor”.

Drought wreaks havoc on Indian farmers

A punishing drought in western India is hurting livestock farmers as the region experiences water shortages.

She is 11 years old and lives in Bonewadi, a small town in Maharashtra, with her mother, two sisters and one brother. She is in grade six and walks 3km to attend school. In the evening, she walks 7km to feed her cattle at a camp. Meet Asha, a young girl born in a farmer's family that owns 11 acres of land, which is usually sufficient to earn enough money to make a living under normal conditions.

Then there is Digambar Pandurang Atpadkar, a 70-year-old farmer who owns 60 acres of land and four wells in Vartuke Malwade, a small village, also in Maharashtra, India's second most populous state. He and his wife have walked 10km to reach the cattle camp, which offers emergency food and shelter, to save their eight animals.

Asha and Atpadkar are just two among the many who have been hit by drought in India. And surprisingly, majority of the farmers and cattle taking refuge in the cattle camp are from Mann taluk in Satara district - that has 21 cattle camps this year - which is under the parliamentary constituency of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who recently claimed to have spent millions of rupees supporting irrigation facilities in Maharashtra.

Moreover, Mann taluk is also adjacent to the sugar belt - sugarcane is an infamously water-intensive crop - which politicians consider their stronghold, having poured in a lion's share of Maharashtra's development funds here. Yet, the region, popularly known as Manndesh in local folklore, continues to remain at the mercy of whimsical rains.

Triggering concerns of poor farm output and higher inflation, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted less rain from June to September. "We expect 15 per cent shortfall in the seasonal rains," LS Rathore, the director general of the IMD, told reporters.

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IVF treatment: Where to draw the line?

After returning home from a holiday with her new husband, Lee Cowden was hit with chest pains - it turned out to be a heart attack due to a high dose of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) drugs.

Facing ovarian problems Cowden, 33, had taken the drugs to improve her chances of conceiving a child. She didn’t think it would end in a heart attack, but she is one of many women who are facing serious side effects from IVF.

“I was diagnosed with poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOs) when I was 15 and was told at that point that I would need to have fertility treatment to have a family. I married at 25 and straight away started to undergo the fertility treatment,” Cowden, a music teacher, said.   

Cowden’s initial attempt to conceive had failed and the clinic in London where she was taking treatment had doubled the dose for the next cycle to stimulate her ovaries, as part of IVF.

“After the heart attack, I was told that I could no longer have conventional IVF. Because of the PCOs, my body is more likely to over stimulate - OHSS,” Cowden said.

Side effects

The treatment which resulted in the world’s first successful birth of test tube baby - Lusie Brown -  in July 1978, has helped so many couples to conceive babies. Every year, more than 3.7 million babies are born across the world with the help of fertility treatments, but today, experts are increasingly wary of side effects associated with the treatment.

In the UK, nearly 60,000 cycles of IVF are carried out per year and a recent inquiry into maternal deaths in the United Kingdom found that Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS), following high-dose IVF is now one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in England and Wales.

“In most of the cases, it is possible to predict the complications involved. It’s very necessary to monitor women undergoing treatment for the OHSS, as it gives rise to other related complications,” Dr Sadoon Sadoon, Consultant gynaecologist, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, London, said.

According to the National Institutes of Health, high-dose stimulation leads to OHSS in 10 per cent of IVF patients. The severe form of the condition occurs in about 2 per cent. The ovaries become swollen with the shift of the body fluid (intravascular) to the chest and abdomen.

“If it is not addressed immediately, there is a risk of kidney failure, clotting problems, including pulmonary embolism and liver disorder. It is potentially fatal and women can end up in intensive care unit with long- term consequences,” Dr Geeta Nargund, president of International Society for Mild Approaches in Assisted Reproduction (ISMAAR), and medical director of Create Health Clinics, London, said.

“It can result in poor pregnancy outcome, including miscarriages,” adds Dr Sadoon, who is an expert in infertility management and minimal access surgery.

Birth defects

Besides, a recent study suggested that high-dose IVF contributes to lower birth weights, compared with the babies of women who receive minimal doses of hormonal drugs.

In 2008, an analysis of the data of the National Birth Defects Study in the US found that certain birth defects were significantly more common in babies conceived through IVF, notably septal heart defects, cleft lip with or without cleft palate, esophageal atresia and anorectal atresia.

“… it is still important for parents who are considering using ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology, which includes all fertility treatments such as IVF] to think about all of the potential risks and benefits of this technology,” said Jennita Reefhuis, epidemiologist at CDC’s National Centre on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, and the lead author of the report published in the Human Reproduction journal.

Added to these, a new Australian study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examined birth defects associated with different types of assisted reproductive technology.

Researchers compared risk of major birth defects - such as cerebral palsy or heart or gastrointestinal defects - among babies born with help of the most commonly available types of fertility treatments, including IVF, ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) and ovulation induction.

"While assisted reproductive technologies are associated with an increased risk of major birth defects overall, we found significant differences in risk between available treatments," said the lead author of the study, Associate Professor Michael Davies from the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute and School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health.

And only two years ago, the inventor of ICSI, Dr André van Steirteghem, had warned it was being “overused”. He had told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting at San Diego in 2010 that he believed “ICSI was being used too often” and had warned that it should be “used when absolutely necessary”.

Unaware of complications

Not all the times women are aware of the complications associated with the IVF treatment and the moment they are unable to conceive naturally, they blindly think of IVF. Not many realize that they always end up going for the standard IVF treatment and end up facing several complications associated with it.

“When we offer IVF, we should give women options of having Natural (drug-free) IVF , Mild IVF (small amount of drugs) and conventional IVF (high dose drugs),” Dr Geeta Nargund, who has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers including abstracts and several book chapters in the field of Assisted Reproduction and Advanced Ultrasound in reproductive medicine, said.

The way of stimulation always plays a major role in the IVF treatment. In high-dose IVF, women are first given drugs to suppress ovaries, causing temporary menopausal symptoms. Later, ovaries are stimulated to produce more eggs.

“Women normally produce one egg per cycle, but when they are given high dose drugs to stimulate ovaries, they end up producing many eggs and sometimes 20 to 30 eggs, sometimes even more. Some of them are donated during egg donation programme,” Dr Sadoon said.

Even though more eggs are produced after stimulation, collection also comes with risks.

“The egg collection carries a small risk of bleeding, infection and internal injury,” said Dr Nargund.

Switching to mild IVF 

Many countries, including Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Japan and South Korea, are switching to mild or soft IVF from aggressive forms of conventional IVF, and other countries are yet to think on those lines.

Even though there are complications in high dose IVF treatment, why do women prefer it? Is it something to do with cost factor? According to Dr Nargund, “it is because of higher number of eggs and embryo obtained in conventional high-dose IVF” and the feeling that chances of getting pregnant are more.

Many patients and doctors believe that high-dose drugs will increase the chances of conceiving in lesser cycles. But contrary to the general opinion, low-dose IVF drugs are less expensive, costing only about a third of standard IVF, according to Cowden.

"Women undergoing IVF treatment forums want 20-30 eggs so that embryos could be freezed. They fail to realise the risks and the sky-high cost of the high-dose drugs. I calculated and realized I could have four cycles of mild IVF for the cost of one standard IVF," Cowden said.

Mild or soft IVF uses very low dose stimulation for a shorter period of time within a woman's own menstrual cycle which can reduce the burden and discomfort of treatment, including the risk of OHSS. “It is also associated with healthier eggs, embryos and the lining of the uterus,” says Dr Nargund.

Women want their own biological baby and will be ready to go through any amount of turmoil - financial and mental. “The ultimate joy I got when I saw the face of my babies, nothing matters, not even the amount of complications I went through during the treatment," 35-year-old Lisa (name changed to protect the identity), who suffered three miscarriages, before giving birth to twins recently, in New York, said.

Overcoming the stigma
Reducing cost and increasing accessibility and safety are the key priorities in fertility treatment. Welfare of the mother and child should be taken into account before the treatment.

Cowden, who was asked to stop standard IVF drugs, started having mild dose of IVF treatment a year later. "I was given small doses of fertility drugs and carefully monitored. I conceived within three months of the treatment with Molly, who is now five,” Cowden, mother of two, said. "I cried my eyes out when the nurse finally said, ‘Test is positive, you are pregnant’. I was more than happy."

“Natural cycle IVF can be more successful in older women and in women with low egg reserve,” says Dr Nargund, adding, “We must do no harm while offering this treatment.”

To some extent, IVF treatment has become commercialized. “It shouldn’t be used for no reason. Both doctors and patients should realize that IVF is not the only way to conceive, there are many other ways. Mild IVF drugs can achieve the same if not better outcome and aggressive use of ovarian stimulation should be avoided," Dr Sadoon said.

Plus, there is a need to overcome the stigma of being infertile and thinking IVF as the only solution for the problems. There’s a need to understand how to deal with the most painful part - infertility - in life. Many women do not even make it public that they are undergoing IVF treatment, let alone discussing the complications.

“Women are very sensitive, they would not want to talk about it,” said Angie (name changed to protect the identity), working as a secretary in a firm in London, who has also faced complications and has given up the IVF treatment altogether and adopted childfree lifestyle, said.

Becoming parents through IVF treatment can be financially - given the fact that insurances do not cover IVF treatments - and emotionally a draining process. “It’s been a roller-coaster ride for me. I have gone through agonizing times, but I’m happy, rather say lucky, I have a happy ending for my story,” Cowden said.

With many women around the world desperate to have children, it seems Cowden and millions like her will continue using the technique, regardless of the risks. 

Women brave IVF complications for children

Women continue to use In Vitro Fertisilation to conceive, despite increasing evidence of dangerous side effects.

After returning home to London from a holiday with her new husband in 2004, Lee Cowden was hit with crippling chest pains. It turned out to be a heart attack that had been caused by a high dose of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) drugs.

Facing ovarian problems, the 33-year-old had taken the drugs to improve her chances of conceiving a child, but has become one of many women who are facing serious side effects from IVF.

Each year, more than 3.7 million babies are born across the world with the help of fertility treatments, but experts are increasingly wary of side effects associated with the treatment.

"I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) when I was 15 and was told at that point that I would need to have fertility treatment to have a family," Cowden, a music teacher, told Al Jazeera. "I married at 25 and straight away started to undergo the fertility treatment."   

Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby", was born in July 1978, and the process has since helped many couples conceive. Robert Edwards, who is credited with developing IVF, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work. 

Read more here...

Do we really need a Mars mission?

Does India really need a mission to Mars when it is facing so many other challenges? It is not even a month since North India suffered an electrical grid failure, which pushed more than 600 million people in the country to darkness for two straight days. Not to forget the fact that it entered the history as the world’s worst power outage!

The ISRO on the other day announced that the officials are waiting for the cabinet approval of the $80 million-mission. Their Mars mission comes when the country is still weighed down under the burden of power shortage, poor sanitation, less monsoon,

When the country is reeling under poverty, unable to provide basic needs to its citizens, don’t we feel this Red Planet mission is kind of a luxury? I agree that the country should compete with the developed countries when it comes to science and technology, but at what cost? Don’t our leaders see that more than half of the children in our country are malnourished, which even our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had agreed, some time ago? It was not long ago, but this January when the PM called the country’s malnutrition levels a “national shame”. Of the age below five years, “42% of children are underweight”, yes, that’s official! Who will deny that half of the families in the country have no access to sanitation?

Is India competing with its neighbor China when it comes to space mission? It’s an open secret that both the countries have had races to launch moon missions and other projects over the last decade. And it’s only last month, in June, that China sent its first female astronaut into space in a mission to dock with the country’s orbiting space laboratory. The 10-day mission will see the crew of three carry out the first manned docking with the Tiangong-1 space lab, a vital step in China’s goal to have a working space station by 2020.

However, what shouldn’t go unmentioned here is the fact that India suffered a setback in 2010, when it tried to launch a communication satellite. It was not the first, but the second launching failure in less than a year. The advanced GSAT-5P communication satellite, launched from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, had disappeared in plumes of smoke within seconds after blastoff. Ever wondered how much it had cost for the ISRO, rather say country? The rocket had cost nearly Rs 1.75 billion ($38 milion), while the satellite had cost Rs 1.25 billion ($27 million).

And in 2008, ISRO had launched a satellite – Chandrayaan-1 -- to orbit the moon, but was abandoned a year later due to failure in the communication links and scientists had lost control of the satellite. Agreed that the launch has put India in an elite club of countries with moon missions, such as the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China. And since 1960, there have been 44 missions to Mars with just about half of them being successful; attempts have been made by the former USSR and Russia, the US, Europe, Japan and China.

India began its space programme in the 1960s and since 1975, has launched more than 50 remote sensing and communication satellites of its own and 22 for other nations.

And what more, ISRO is planning to send its first manned space flight in 2016. Any idea how much the ISRO has sought for this project? Rs 120 billion, to put two astronauts in space for a week and the government has already provided a pre-project fund of about Rs 4 billion allowing the scientists to do some initial research on the space flight.

When asked if the country should take up such a mission, which costs so much on the exchequer, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had justified it, in 2006. ‘‘We have to walk on two legs to deal with the fundamental problems of development and, at the same time, set our sights sufficiently high so that we can operate on the frontiers of science and technology… In the increasingly globalised world we live in, a base of scientific and technical knowledge has emerged as a critical determinant of the wealth and status of nations and it is that which drives us to programmes of this type.’’

Ironically, ISRO’s homepage highlights a statement by Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian space programme, in which he hails the technology and says that they are not competing with other nations: “There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the comity of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.” But we are not fools to forget the fact that ISRO has projects in all the three areas -- exploration of the moon, the planets and the manned space flight!  

ISRO is also expected to launch a Mars Orbiter as early as November 2013. The mission was boosted five months ago when the national budget set aside Rs 1.25 billion ($22.4 million) in the current financial year. But wait, the project is yet to get the cabinet nod.

The news of this Mars mission generated varied reactions in newspapers and websites. Some mocked the ambitions as a mere waste of resources which could help beat the hunger and poverty in the country, while some others praised the country for competing with the developed nations.

A post by Srini (Hyderabad) on The Times of India website said: “Our country cannot take care of people, education, safety, infrastructure (roads, electricity, food) and disasters. However, we are ready to spend loads of money and send a spacecraft to Mars. We cannot conquer India (Ex: Issues in Assam), politicians face is in their rare end, they talk with rear end, cannot control terrorism, poor with discipline... my god the list goes on. Here we are, ready to go to Mars. What a stupid decision ! it is not even buying defensive equipment to protect from evils but something else. Shame on India... Jai Hind.”

Yet another post by Sri (US) asked: “Shall we get access to clean water and toilets in all villages in India before going to mars.”

A post by human (earth) said: “this isnt right there are over half a billion indians who dont have enough to eat ,no education and no future.The government shud nt be wasting billions of dollars on this.”

A post by Rani (Bangalore) said: “Totally agree. What will this mission proof and how will it benefit these millions who need the basics of life. May send all these corrupt people of India to live on Mars and then India will be best place to live.”

A post by Sir Baby De Porky said: “They have caught some materialistic virus from the West , and think that this ” bolts and nuts ” technological chimera is something to waste money on …

When Indians are fools , they are the biggest fools , because they have the real

and highest spiritual knowledge , but are instead bewitched by the glitter of

Western style ” progress ”…

P.S. My Guru ( from India ) would have blasted them for that !!!”

So, do we really need such a mission? Can’t we help eradicate poverty and improve infrastructure?