A view of government juvenile home at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. Rights activists allege that most of the children homes in India do not have adequate physical facilities to rehabilitate and reform delinquent children. Credit: K.S.Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
NEW DELHI, Jan 26 2016 (IPS)

Civil rights groups and child welfare activists have strongly protested against the enactment of a new Juvenile Justice Act by the Indian parliament, lowering the age of a legally defined juvenile for trial from 18 to 16- years old in heinous crimes cases.

Human rights activists and people working for child welfare say reducing the age would be against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India ratified in 1992.

According to the existing law in India, formed in 2000, the accused under the age of 18 cannot be given any penalty higher than three years, nor be tried as an adult and sent to an adult jail. The new law also treats all children under the age of 18 similarly, except for one difference. It states that any one between 16 and 18 who commits a heinous offence may be tried as an adult.

The ongoing heated debates and protests started against the backdrop of the higher appeal courts’ permission to release one of the main accused in the high profile 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. The boy was a juvenile, from a reform home at the end of his three-year remand period.

The case relates to a horrific incident on 16 December 2012, when a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern was beaten and gang raped in a moving private transport bus in which she was travelling with a male friend at night.

Dr. Pushkar Raj, well-known human rights leader and former General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, said that the move of the government to pass tougher laws on juveniles was ill-conceived and would not achieve the intended purpose of reducing crimes amongst juveniles.

“Though juvenile crime has slightly risen in India in last few years, it stands half as compared to US and Australia. While in India it hovers under 1500 per 100,000 of juvenile population, in the US and Australia it is well above 3000 per 100,000,” he told IPS.

The National Crime Records Bureau data says that there has been an increase in crimes committed by juveniles, especially by those in the 16 to 18 age group during the period 2003 to 2013.

The data shows that the percentage of juvenile crimes has increased from one per cent in 2003 to 1.2 per cent in 2013. During the same period, 16-18 year olds accused of crimes as a percentage of all juveniles accused of crimes increased from 54 per cent to 66 per cent.

Experts, however, say that the new law would go against the global commitment of India to child rights.

Shoba Koshy, Chairperson, Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, told IPS that whatever may be the logic behind the lowering of age, it is not acceptable as seen from a child rights perspective. She expressed the apprehension that the new law would be counterproductive until and unless correct remedial measures are taken.

“We have committed ourselves both nationally and internationally to protect child rights up to the age of 18 years.
Therefore, the new amended law is not suitable to this norm. Even if you reduce the age to 16 and then a 15-year old commits a similar crime, would you again reduce the age,” she asked.

“There are several unattended issues concerning children which need to be looked into. We should help our children to grow up to be good individuals by providing systems that will give them the care and protection they deserve in their childhood and by imparting proper education and moral values. The government should allocate more funds for strengthening infrastructure facility to develop reformative and rehabilitative mechanisms under the Juvenile Justice Law, “she said.

The National Human Rights Commission also disagreed with the government move and sent its disagreement in writing to the government.

Media reported that the rights panel opined that every boy at 16 years would be treated as juvenile. “If he is sent to jail, there is no likelihood of any reformation and he will come out a hardened criminal. “

However, participating in the debate in Parliament, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said that under the new law any juvenile aged between 16 and 18 years will stay in an institution meant for housing adolescent offenders till the age of 21 years, whatever the sentence.

A study report in 2013 on ‘Factors Underlying Juvenile Delinquency and Positive Youth Development Programs’, prepared by Kavita Sahney of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology at Rourkela in Odisha, revealed that offences committed by delinquents were primarily due to the combination of various individual and environmental variables, individual risk factors of the delinquents, negligence and ignorance of the parents, peer influence, poor socio-economic status, family pressure and lack of proper socialization.

A section of women activists and members of parliament believe that the new law neither gives safety to women from crimes against them nor gives protection to the children involved in such cases.

Dr. T.N. Seema, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and parliament member in the Upper House, expressed deep anguish over the “encroachment” by the government on the rights of children.

“Most of the juvenile homes in the country do not have a good atmosphere and enough physical facilities to reside delinquent children. In such a situation, how can we reform juveniles?” she told IPS.

T. P. Lakshmi, an activist at Nagarkovil in Tamil Nadu, said that the government succumbed to the “pressure tactics” of a section of women’s groups “taking mileage from the Delhi rape case.” “It is unfortunate that one or two rape cases determine the fate of all the boys accused in juvenile cases in the country,” she said.

(End)

NGOs and government data suggests that a child goes missing every eight minutes in India. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

In a country where well over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day, it takes a lot to shock people. The sight of desperate families traveling in search of money and food, whole communities defecating in the open, old women performing back-breaking labour, all this is simply part of life in India, home to 1.2 billion people.

But amidst this rampant destitution, some things still raise red flags, or summon collective cries of fury. Child trafficking is one such issue, and it is earning front-page headlines in states where thousands of children are believed to be victims of the illicit trade.

The arrest on Jun. 5 of Shakeel Ahamed, a 40-year-old migrant labourer, by police in the southern state of Kerala, created a national outcry, and reawakened fears of a complex and deep-rooted child trafficking network around the country.

Ahamed’s operation alone was thought to involve over 580 children being illegally moved into Muslim orphanages throughout the state.

“Many families are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, which forces parents to sell their children. Some children are abandoned by families who can’t take care of them. Some run away to escape abuse or unhappy homes. Gangsters and middlemen approach these vulnerable children." -- Justice J B Koshy, chairperson of the Kerala Human Rights Commission
Experts tell IPS that children are also routinely trafficked to and from states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), child trafficking is rampant in underdeveloped villages, where “victims are lured or abducted from their homes and subsequently forced to work against their wish through various means in various establishments, indulge in prostitution or subjected to various types of indignitiesand even killed or incapacitated for the purposes of begging, and trade in human organs.”

Available records show a total of 3,554 crimes related to human trafficking in 2012, compared to 3,517 the previous year. Some 2,848 and 3,400 cases were reported in 2009 and 2010 respectively, as well as 3,029 cases in 2008.

In 2012, former State Home Affairs Minister Jitendra Singh told the upper house of parliament that almost 60,000 children were reported as “missing” in 2011. “Of those,” he added, “more than 22,000 are yet to be located.”

It is not clear how many of these “missing” children are victims of traffickers; a dearth of national data means that experts and advocates are often left guessing at the root causes of the problem.

NGOs and government agencies often cite contradictory figures, but both are agreed that a child goes missing roughly every eight minutes in the country.

Human rights watchdogs say there are many contributing factors to child trafficking in India, including economic deprivation. Indeed, the 2013 Global Hunger Index ranked India 63^rd out of 78 countries, adding that 21.3 percent of the population went hungry in 2013. According to the World Bank, 68.3 percent of Indians live on less than two dollars a day.

“Socio-economic backwardness is a key factor in child trafficking,” Justice J B Koshy, former chief justice of the Patna High Court and chairperson of the Kerala Human Rights Commission, told IPS, adding that a political-mafia nexus also fueled the practice in remote parts of the country.

“Many families are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, which forces parents to sell their children,” Koshy stated. “Some children are abandoned by families who can’t take care of them. Some run away to escape abuse or unhappy homes. The gangsters and middlemen approach these vulnerable children. In some cases, good-looking girls are taken away by force.”

An action research study conducted in 2005 by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) found that a majority of trafficking victims belonged to socially deprived sections of society.

It is estimated that half of the children trafficked within India are between the ages of 11 and 14.

Some 32.3 percent of trafficked girls suffer from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other gynaecological problems, according to a 2006 report by ECPAT International.

This is likely due to the fact that most girls are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation.

A government-commissioned study conducted in 2003, the last time comprehensive data was gathered, estimated that the number of sex workers increased from two million in 1997 to three million in 2003-04, representing a 50-percent rise.

Many of these sex workers are thought to be girls between the ages of 12 and 15.

Sreelekha Nair, a researcher who was worked with the New Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Studies, added that parents coming from poor socio-economic conditions in remote villages sometimes readily hand over their children to middlemen.

Some parents have been found to “sell their children for amounts that are shockingly worthless,” she told IPS, in some cases for as little as 2,000 rupees (about 33 dollars), adding, “law and order agencies cannot often intervene in the private matters of a family.”

Rajnath Singh, home minister of India, told a group of New Delhi-based activists headed by Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women, that a central agency would conduct a probe into the mass trafficking of children from villages in the Gumla district of the eastern state of Jharkhand over the past several years.

The group had brought it to the attention of the minister that thousands of girls were going missing from interior villages in the district every year, while their parents claimed ignorance as to their whereabouts.

Raja told reporters in New Delhi this past Julythat developmental schemes launched by individual states and the central government often fail to reach remote villages, leaving the countryside open to agents attempting to “sneak teenage girls out of villages.”

Experts point out that implementation of the 1986 Immoral Traffic Prevention Act remains weak. Many believe that since the act only refers to trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, it does not provide comprehensive protection for children, nor does it provide a clear definition of the term ‘trafficking’.

Dr. P M Nair, project coordinator of the anti-human trafficking unit of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in New Delhi and former director general of police, said that investigations should focus on recruiters, traffickers and all those who are part of organised crime.

The ‘scene of crime’ in a trafficking case, he said, should not be confined to the place of exploitationbut should also cover places of transit and recruitment.

“Victims of trafficking should never be prosecuted or stigmatised,” he told IPS. “They should be extended all care and attention from the human rights perspective. There is a need for the mandatory involvement of government agencies in the post-rescue process so that appropriate rehabilitation measures are ensured” as quickly as possible, he added.

NGOs like Child Line India Foundation help provide access to legal, medical and counseling services to all trafficked victims in order to restore confidence and self-esteem, but the country lacks a coordinated national policy to deal with the issue at the root level.

Experts have recommended that the state provide education, or gender-sensitive market-driven vocational training to rescued victims, to help them reintegrate into society, but such schemes are yet to become a reality.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The death of a 10-day-old girl last November in the Attappadi tribal belt of Kerala, one of India’s best performing states in terms of human development indices, shows how the country’s battle against child mortality is far from won.

The infant’s mother, Saraswathy, a 20-year-old from the Kurumba tribe, was admitted to a government hospital, and delivered the next day. At 1.8 kg, the child was underweight. The mother was discharged but the infant was kept at the hospital, where she died.Experts say the strides taken by India in the 21st century mask its failure to contain infant deaths among the poorest.

Saraswathy told local health workers who visited her tribal area that she left the hospital because she was starving. “The mother was malnourished and this was her third delivery,” Nalini, a health worker, told the local media.

In 2013, over 50 tribal infant deaths were reported in the media from Attappadi, which falls in Palakkad district. This year three tribal infant deaths have been recorded from the area, district medical authorities said Apr. 24.

Experts say the strides taken by India in the 21^st century mask its failure to contain infant deaths among the poorest. Planning Commission figures for 2011-2012 state that around 22 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population is classified as poor.

According to a report of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, the country’s infant mortality rate (IMR) was 42 per 1,000 live births in 2012. IMR refers to the number of newborns who die before reaching one year of age.

Dr. S. Sachidananda Kamath, national executive member of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, told IPS that a combination of causes like low awareness of health and reproductive rights, maternal anaemia and the burden of malnutrition carried over generations traditionally contribute to India’s high child mortality rate.

“The IMR was 148 in 1971 and decreased to 44 in 2011. There has been a consistent decline in IMR. The rate of decline in the current decade is higher than in the previous one. For further reduction of IMR, we have to adopt different strategies for better child health care,” he said.

Health activists say the IMR varies among different states within India, but what is much less known is that within states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, there are wide and astonishing IMR variations.

Dr. Mohan Rao, professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, admitted that there were regional inequalities in health indicators such as IMR, U5MR (mortality rate of children under five) and MMR (maternal mortality rate).

“There are inter-state inequalities. Equally true are intra-state inequalities. What is not, however, receiving adequate attention is that the poor – and the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims among them – bear the highest rates of ill-health and disease. And of course are neglected by the state,” he told IPS. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are India’s most socially underprivileged communities.

A study by the international NGO Save the Children, published in 2014, finds that despite a decade of rapid economic growth, India accounts for an astounding 29 percent of the global deaths of newborns on their very first day of birth.

The report also highlights that equity is a critical factor – the newborn mortality rate among the wealthiest 20 percent of India’s population is 26 per 1,000 live births, while among the poorest households it is 56 per 1,000 live births, with the infants dying in the very first month of life.

With 30 newborns dying per 1,000 live births, national capital Delhi, which has a large proportion of slums and poor areas, has the worst IMR among the four metropolitan cities that also include Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, the study says.

Such deaths can be prevented with better access to healthcare and the presence of qualified birth attendants, say experts.

Anuradha Gupta, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said that though India has made a lot of progress in terms of child survival, there is a need to ensure that every child is saved.

“The country has made dramatic progress in bringing the under-five mortality from 114 in 1990 to 52 per 1,000 live births in 2012, a reduction of more than 54.4 percent, while the global reduction is at 44.8 percent,” she told a gathering in New Delhi in February.

However, dearth of funding could prove to be an obstacle.

Analysts calculate that by 2020, India needs more than 10 billion dollars for public health expenditure to meet the future health objectives for women and children, including slashing maternal and child mortality rates.

A study by Indian and foreign academic institutes, published in the international journal Lancet in 2013, said child mortality in 597 districts of India was astonishing because it indicated that some parts of the country had not benefited from the government’s intervention to reduce under-five child mortality.

In 2012, 1.5 million under-five deaths were reported in 597 districts, of which 71 percent were in the nine poorer states, which accounted for half of India’s population, the study said.

Govindan Jayakumar, a health activist in Mangalore, told IPS that both private and public funding were essential to meet future health expenses, mainly targeting women and children.

“The government cannot meet all the expenditure in the health sector. Therefore, private philanthropy has a big role in the development of a vibrant healthcare ecosystem and in the enhancement of health delivery and support systems,” he said.

Doctors suggest that the promotion of institutional and safe deliveries along with increasing the coverage and quality of community-based interventions should continue.

Explaining the co-relation between infant and maternal deaths, Dr. Parameswaranpillai Jayadevan, a paediatrician at a government hospital in Kochi in Kerala, said the security of infants is equal to safe motherhood during the delivery period.

“India is not on track to reach the Millennium Development Goal-5 (MDG-5), which is to reduce the number of maternal deaths by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015,” he told IPS.

A patient being treated at the Regional Cancer Centre in Thiruvananthapuram in India. Traditional Ayurvedic treatment is being used increasingly to back regular cancer care. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS.

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Feb 24 2014 (IPS)

Balakrishnan, a labourer from Kochi in the southern Indian state of Kerala, was suffering from oral cancer. He was admitted to the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) in Thiruvananthapuram. After the first course of radiation therapy, the 60-year-old could not eat or drink because of severe pain and infection in the mouth.

An Ayurvedic mouth wash developed from the Neem plant was administered to Balakrishnan for three weeks during the second course of radiation. Ayurveda is a  herb and plant-based traditional Indian system of medicine. The result was excellent. He could consume soft drinks and eat without any difficulty.“It was found that the side effects were much less in patients who took the Ayurveda drug compared to others who did not use the medicine."

“I did not use any antibiotics for the pain and inflammation that occurred after the radiation. The Ayurvedic mouthwash was enough to contain the side effects,” he said.

Balakrishnan was not the only one. Apart from him, 148 patients diagnosed with oral cancer were administered the Neem-based medicine at the RCC for treating inflammation.

“It was found that the side effects were much less in patients who took the Ayurveda drug compared to others who did not use the medicine,” Dr. Divya Raveendran, who was the lead researcher involved in the integration of modern and traditional medicines, told IPS before her sudden death.

Senior oncologist at the RCC Dr. K. Ramadas said many herbal components have been found to be more effective in their natural forms than as isolated molecules in managing the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation.

“Ayurveda may not have a big role in the main treatment modalities for cancer. But it has a complementary role. Many drugs in the Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) have proven anti-inflammatory properties,” he told IPS.

A clinical trial at the RCC showed that use of an Ayurveda drug, Varanadi Ghritha, was good for preventing recurrence in treated head and neck cancer patients.

The RCC is one of the first major governmental health organisations in the country to have started the integration of modern medicine with ISM for curing cancer on the basis of scientific validation of traditional drugs.

Reports citing World Health Organisation statistics published in 2013 reveal that nearly 700,000 Indians die of cancer every year, while over a million are newly diagnosed with some form of the disease. “As against 477,000 men, 537,000 women were diagnosed with cancer in India in 2012,” a WHO report says.

Medical experts point out that despite differences between modern and traditional medicine in the approach to treatment, both systems have much to offer for cancer treatment. They say integration would enable the the public to obtain a wider range of treatment under one roof, leading to better healthcare delivery.

Dr. Stanly John, vice-president of the New Delhi-based Central Council for Indian Medicine of the Government of India, told IPS that the cost of cancer treatment with newer therapies was very high and was becoming out of reach for common people.

“If an integrated approach is adopted, it will help reduce the cost of treatment and improve the quality of life of all patients. Many institutions in the country are now integrating modern cancer treatment with traditional medicine for curing the killer disease,” he said.

In India, the practice of combining traditional and modern medicine started in the early 1980s. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru, a practitioner of traditional medicine at the Santhigiri Ashram in Thiruvananthapuram district of the southern Indian state Kerala used it to contribute to treatment of several diseases, including cancer. Governmen initiatives to integrate ISM with mainstream healthcare began only in 2007.

According to the U.S.-based National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a substantial amount of scientific evidence suggests that some complementary health approaches may help manage some symptoms of cancer and the side effects of treatment.

“Scientific evaluation that is used to assess conventional therapies should be used to evaluate complementary approaches,” the centre says. “Some complementary approaches are beginning to find a place in cancer treatment – not as cures, but as additions to treatment plans that may help patients cope with disease symptoms and side effects of treatment and improve their quality of life.”

“Many drugs in Ayurveda have proven anti-inflammatory properties that should be explored for the common good of cancer patients,” said Dr. Rveendran. “Therefore, there is no need for modern medicine to turn its face away from ISM. Curcumin, the yellow pigment in turmeric which is known for anti-cancerous and anti-oxidant properties, is a good chemo-preventive agent.”

A research study conducted at Kerala Agricultural University in Thrissur by Shareesh Nalpadi in 2007 revealed that a traditional rice variety called Njavara has some anti-carcinogenic properties, especially in preventing breast cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), laboratory and clinical studies suggest that some Ayurvedic herbal preparations may contain substances that have the potential to help in prevention and treatment of certain types of cancer.

“Although Ayurveda has been largely untested by Western researchers, there is a growing interest in integrating some parts of the system into modern medical practice. A few of the herbs and substances have been purified into drugs that are used along with other medicines to treat cancer.

“The National Cancer Institute funded a series of laboratory studies to evaluate two Ayurvedic herbal remedies, called MAK-4 and MAK-5. The studies so far have shown some promise against tumours in rats and cancer cells in lab dishes,” the ACS says on its website cancer.org.

Doctors practising ISM explain that Ayurveda immunotherapy called “Rasayana chikitsa” can play a crucial role in cancer preventive management as it revives the body’s support systems. They say that “Rasayana chikitsa” can help cancer patients tolerate radiation and chemotherapy better and mitigate toxic side effects.

Dr. G.R. Sunitha, professor at the Government Ayurveda College in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that many patients are coming forward to try Ayurveda treatment for curing terminal illnesses.

Many herbs used in Ayurveda are anti-oxidant, and may prevent the onset of cancer. Early detection of the illness, the age of the patient and location of illness in the body are decisive factors in curing cancer, she said.

The Siddha system of medicine, considered one of the most ancient medicine systems in the world, offers some therapy for diseases like cancer, and for recurrence of tumours and leukaemia, Siddha doctors say.

Dr. M. R. Dhanesh, a Siddha physician in Thrissur, said Siddha medicines are quick in helping treat diseases if patients can observe strict rules of diet.

“Allegations against the side effects of metallic contents in Siddha medicine are baseless. If one prepares the medicines scientifically as per the doctrines prescribed by ancient Siddha sages, no side effect will occur.”

Workers returning to Kerala from the Gulf. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS.

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Jan 8 2014 (IPS)

Ashik Rehman, 47, worked as a labourer in the southern Indian state of Kerala. He left for Saudi Arabia two years ago, hoping to earn enough to buy a house in his native place. Now he is back and staring at a bleak future.

Rehman was promised a shop salesman’s job by his travel agent. But after he landed in the Saudi capital Riyadh, he was sent to work at a construction site as a sweeper. His sponsor did not take legal measures to correct his work permit.

“I was treated like a slave there. I was not given proper food, leave or salary,” he told IPS.“Many sponsors are evasive when it comes to giving legal status to workers."

To make things worse, Saudi Arabia enforced a naturalisation rule called Nitaqat, forcing Rehman to return to his hometown Kozhikode in Kerala last October. He has not found a job yet.

The Nitaqat law, announced in 2011, makes it mandatory for all private firms to recruit at least 10 percent Saudi nationals in their labour force. For expatriates who do not have proper job or visa documents, the law entails punitive measures such as arrest or deportation.

With 2.8 million Indians making up the largest expatriate community in Saudi Arabia, the law has hit those who have been in the kingdom without proper work documents.

“Many sponsors are evasive when it comes to giving legal status to workers. Because of the disinterest of my sponsor, I had to return. Now I am living in a rented house and trying to figure out how to earn my living,” Rehman told IPS.

According to Indian government estimates, 134,000 workers have returned due to implementation of the new Nitaqat policy.

“Travel agents make things more difficult for hapless migrant workers,” Jamaludeen, who has also returned, told IPS. “They fabricate jobs and employers who don’t exist. Before the migrants can figure out they have been hoodwinked, they find themselves in farmhouses in remote areas and unknown agricultural fields in the deserts.”

The reverse migration of undocumented workers from Saudi Arabia has prompted the returnees to demand that the Indian government implement a comprehensive rehabilitation package for expatriates.

“Since the Gulf War of 1990-1991, we have been hearing false promises of rehabilitation packages,” said S. Ahmed, chairman of the NRI Coordination Council. He said the government had done little to help expatriates who had  to return because of the Nitaqat rule. The Council demanded that all non-resident families that return from Saudi Arabia be included in a comprehensive health insurance project.

The effects of Nitaqat are showing up in many ways in India particularly in sectors dependent on Gulf money. These include a slowdown in construction work, in the real estate business, in motor vehicle sales and dwindling wages of daily workers.

This is particularly true of Kerala because, of the 2.8 million Indians in Saudi Arabia, one million are from this state. After the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia is the most favoured destination for the state’s migrant population.

Dr. Sree Nair, a Kerala-based migration researcher, said the government should make sure that the returnees are rehabilitated and resettled in their homeland.

“Return migrants do not attract much attention from the government. But Nitaqat has brought about a situation where the void in government planning on migration and a remittance-dependent economy has become evident,” she told IPS.

“The services for returnees are inadequate. Not just financial assistance but proper guidance on possible areas of utilising their skills in domestic or foreign labour markets should also be provided. Most returnees are not looking for freebies from the government but for an appropriate re-entry into job markets,” she told IPS.

Kerala is the only state in the country which has announced rehabilitation measures for returnees, including interest-free loans and services to help them find jobs in other Gulf countries.

Abu Ali, who gives legal aid to foreign workers in Jeddah, said there were many foreigners, including Indians, who were declared to be absconding by their sponsors as the latter wanted to avoid making final settlements.

“Many migrants may have been working there for more than 10 years, but there is no legal forum to challenge sponsors who cheat,” he told IPS.

K.U. Iqbal, a Riyadh–based reporter of Malayalam News, a sister publication of Arab News, told IPS over the phone that 1.3 million Indian workers, who initially did not have proper documents, had regularised their work permits and completed other legalities.

“The majority of Indians corrected their documents. It is said that a few migrants did not apply for legal status. They will face consequences if caught by the authorities,” he said.

A group of returnees told IPS that unskilled workers, part-time office workers and school teachers have been particularly badly hit by the Nitaqat rule.

Sharafudeen, who hails from Malappuram, said teachers without proper documents have been granted a reprieve by the Ministry of Education. “But many small shops and restaurants, which used to regularly hire workers without documents, have been closed throughout the Kingdom.”

Labour inspectors swooped down on thousands of illegal workers in a series of raids across the Kingdom after the amnesty period for expatriates to legalise their work status expired.

Shameem Ahmed, general manager of the Thiruvananthapuram-based Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants, quoted Indian government officials in Riyadh to say that many workers were unwilling to go back to India as they were wary of being unemployed and increasing the financial burden on their families.

“Many workers have not been reporting for work for fear of arrest and deportation. Numerous construction companies that were largely dependent on the illegal workforce have suspended their projects altogether. Housing unit prices are set to increase dramatically due to the shortage of workers,” said Shameem Ahmed.

According to the World Bank, India is the top beneficiary of remittances from Saudi Arabia with 8.4 billion dollars received in 2012. But many of the people behind those remittances now find that life has changed – for the worse.

Raju Das from the north-eastern Indian state Assam migrated to the southern Indian state Kerala two years ago to join the construction boom. Kerala has emerged as the new magnet drawing workers from around India.

A study by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT) published earlier this year reveals that Kerala now has a migrant labour population of 2.5 million, which almost matches the number from Kerala working abroad. Most of these work in the Gulf countries.

The numbers of migrant labour in the state could rise as high as 4.8 million in 10 years to meet local demand, especially in the construction sector, the study said. About 60 percent of workers in construction are already from other states.“The present [migration] is pervading every nook and corner of villages. It is a bad trend.” -- Shanavas Ponganad, senior journalist at the “Malayam News” daily

The migrant workers, mostly from West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Uttar Pradesh, send home about 175 billion rupees (2.8 billion dollars) to their home states a year, the study said.

Large-scale migration from Kerala since the 1970s has led to a shortage of local labourers. This backed by the construction boom fuelled by remittances from Kerala workers abroad has fed the increased demand for labourers.

The exodus from Kerala was itself fed by the oil-fed construction boom in Arab countries, Dr. Sreelekha Nair from the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Thiruvananthapuram told IPS. “A consequence was shortage of local labour, and wages for manual labour increased manifold.”

Analysts also attribute the large-scale migration into Kerala to the reluctance of local people to do blue-collar jobs given the high literacy rate in the state.

A CDS report last year highlighted that migrant workers were working in sectors like construction, jewellery, small-scale industries, hospitality services, and in food processing centres.

The average unskilled to semi-skilled labourer earns between 300 to 400 rupees (five to six dollars) per day in Kerala, which is higher than wages in many other states.

“About 235,000 migrant workers continue to arrive every year,” Kerala labour minister Shibu Baby John told the state assembly in February. “The workforce consists almost entirely of single men of 18-35 years. The majority of labourers work under contractors.”

Many local people are concerned that the influx of migrants will change the demographic profile, and marginalise the aging local population. Shanavas Ponganad, senior journalist at the “Malayam News” daily, says permanent settlement of migrants would change the scenario for the local population and harm the interests of common people.

“The present wave of migration to Kerala that began in the early 1990s is entirely different from an earlier migration from the neighbouring States of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,” Ponganad told IPS.

“The earlier migrants were mostly seeking manual jobs and unskilled work in construction and employment in some service sectors in and around cities and towns. But the present one is pervading every nook and corner of villages. It is a bad trend.”

The GIFT study said an explosive demographic situation is developing in Kerala. Within ten years, the majority of the local population will have aged above 40. That would open doors for more migration.

According to the 2011 census report, the state population is about 33.4 million. Of the 8.7 million male population in the 20-64 year age group, only about half are in the local workforce.

Migrants now outnumber local workers in many professions and have totally replaced them in manual jobs and the manufacturing sector, Rajan Thomas, a trade union leader in the construction sector, told IPS.

“Migrants are hard working and do the job sincerely. They work long hours, often eight to 10 hours per day. That is why people prefer migrant labourers.”

Ironically, that is also the virtue of workers from Kerala in countries they have migrated to.

Migrant labourers from the other states are integrated into the host economy, but they are not harmonised with the host society.

“These men spend a lot of money with our merchants and traders for buying commodities. But none of us will invite them to our homes or parties, citing anti-social activities by a few migrants,” Syed Rasa, a migrant worker at Pathanamthitta in the state, told IPS.

“Migrants to Kerala are the backbone of the Kerala’s growing economy. Even though people have some burdens after the influx of non-Keralite workers, there is an obligation to look into the needs and problems of  labourers,” said Mohandas, a social worker in Kozhikode.

According to officials in the department of labour, migrant workers do not benefit from social security schemes, and are unaware of labour rights and obligations.

“The housing and living conditions of migrants are abysmally poor. They often live at worksites and in factories and in crowded rooms with poor water supply and sanitation facilities. The poor living conditions raise fears of diseases,” an official in the labour department told IPS.

Residents of Kudankulam, a village in Tamil Nadu, protest against the Indian Supreme Court verdict approving construction of a nuclear power plant. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
KUDANKULAM, India, Jun 14 2013 (IPS)

The Tirunelveli district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu may seem idyllic, dotted with lush green fields, but upon closer inspection one sees signs of a battle that does not appear to be abating.

Locals here have been waging an incessant campaign against a proposed nuclear power plant that was supposed to be operational in 2012 and which is currently sitting idle 24 kilometres from the tourist town of Kanyakumari, located on the southern tip of the Indian peninsula.

A recent report by a group of prominent Indian researches has now added another issue to a long list of grievances with the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) that activists and residents have been compiling since August 2011: evidence of faulty material used in the construction of the plant itself.

Plans for the plant were first drawn up in 1988 under a bilateral agreement between Russia and India, but various political obstacles kept construction on hold for over a decade. It was not until 2001 that a fresh attempt was made to jump-start the 3.1-billion-dollar venture, which has an installed capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW).

Fishermen and their families protesting against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Credit K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

Things were moving smoothly until news of the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan in March 2011 went viral. Fearing a repeat performance of the tragedy, locals here took to the streets, protesting lax safety standards and possible nuclear radiation in the event of an accident.

The government has refused to address protestors’ concerns, instead issuing blanket assurances that the plant has been constructed using state of the art instrumentation and contains a passive cooling system and other mechanisms that will enable it to withstand natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.

Nalinish Nagaich, executive director of the National Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), has repeatedly insisted that the equipment installed in the power station has undergone multi-stage quality checks.

Last month, in a 247-page ruling, a division bench of the Supreme Court of India consisting of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra dismissed protestors’ concerns as “baseless”, adding: “The benefits we reap from KKNPP are enormous since nuclear energy remains an important element in India’s energy mix, which can replace a significant (quantity) of fossil fuels like coal, gas (and) oil.”

But new information brought to light in ‘Scandals in the Nuclear Business’, a report published by Dr. V. T. Padmanabhan, a member of the European Commission on Radiation Risk, exposes cracks in the government’s position and highlights the potential crises arising from the use of faulty parts.

According to the study, the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV), considered to be the “heart” of a nuclear station, has been built using an outdated, three-decade old model. In addition, various pieces of equipment supplied by Russia have been found to be faulty.

The report has only deepened a crisis of confidence that surfaced earlier this year when Russian Federal prosecutors booked Sergei Shutov, procurement director of the Russian company ZiO-Podolsk that supplied vital equipment to the KKNPP, on corruption charges.

Shutov was charged with “having sourced cheaper sub-standard steel for manufacturing components that were used in Russian nuclear installations in Bulgaria, Iran, China and India”, according to a joint letter sent by over 60 scientists to the chief ministers of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The New Delhi-based Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) has expressed serious concern over the recent scam, calling it a direct violation of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB)’s safety norms.

Back in April, following a series of tests, the AERB itself acknowledged that four valves in the KKNPP were defective and ordered the NPCIL to replace the parts and surrender itself for review by the regulatory authority, before resuming construction.

World Nuclear News reported last month that “technical issues discovered during the commissioning of Unit One have necessitated the replacement of several valves in the passive core cooling system, leading to further delays” in the commissioning of the KKNPP.

Dr. A Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of AERB, has urged the government to put an immediate stop to the project until allegations of corruption and faulty equipment have been adequately addressed, and the safety and quality of the parts used to house the reactor have been determined.

Police crack down on women protesting against the Kudankulam nuclear plant in India. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS.

“The fact that a high-cost, high-risk nuclear reactor is (thought to have) defects…in its components and equipment even before it (has started operating) is highly unusual, and indicates gross failures at several levels in the AERB-NPCIL-Atomstroyexport (triumvirate),” he said, referring to Russia’s national nuclear vendor that stands accused of supplying low-quality parts to India.

N. Sahadevan, environmentalist and prominent campaigner against nuclear arsenals, told IPS that the recent scandal necessitated a “thorough re-examination of the safety aspects of the plant.”

Furthermore, according to Supreme Court Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, the NPCIL, which operates the KKNPP, has failed to comply with the 17 post-Fukushima safety recommendations made by a special AERB committee.

Meanwhile, thousands of villagers in and around Kudankulam continue their daily, peaceful demonstrations.

S. P. Udayakumar, leader of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, told IPS that the Fukushima catastrophe categorically proved that nuclear power projects are not aligned with the welfare of the people, especially those living in the vicinity, and are incapable of providing any kind of “security”, energy or otherwise.

Activists have also exposed discrepancies in the government’s claim that nuclear power is crucial for the Indian economy, pointing out that the country currently has just 4,880 MW of existing capacity, “which contribute to only 2.7 percent of the total electricity generation in the country,” according to Dr. E. A. S. Sarma, former Union Power Secretary of India.

The disease itself may not discriminate on the basis of gender, but when it comes to healthcare for patients with diabetes, women in India find themselves at a disadvantage compared to men.

This was the conclusion of the study, ‘Impact of Gender on Care of Type 2 Diabetes in Varkala, Kerala’, which analysed gender roles, norms and values in a household and found women patients to be more vulnerable.

Women in India face disadvantages when it comes to diabetes. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

And this vulnerability influences all phases of diabetic care, according to the paper by Dr Mini P. Mani at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (AMCHSS) in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Even when they themselves suffer from diabetes, women cannot abandon the ‘caretaker role’ in the family and have to continue to prioritise the health of other family members above their own, the study found. Further, inequitable access to resources prevents early diagnosis of the disease in women.

Women pay more attention to the health of the men and children in the family, leaving them with less time to devote to their own wellbeing, said Rosy Raphy, who teaches at a school in Munambam, near the central Kerala town of Kochi.

“As someone who has lived with diabetes for 26 years,” Raphy told IPS, “I can say that I was not aware of the disease and did not take due care because I was preoccupied with matters of the family. As a result, my case got aggravated.”

Of particular concern to women and gynaecologists in the country is Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM), a form of the disease that affects pregnant women.

The incidence of GDM has grown fourfold in the last 10 years, according to Dr B. Rajkumar, a doctor of Indian Systems of Medicine at the Keezhariyoor Government Ayurveda Dispensary in the state’s northern coastal district of Kozhikode.

“Earlier, pregnant women would engage in physical activity while doing housework. Today, the lifestyle of women has changed. Lack of exercise affects the body. And obesity, too, is a cause of gestational diabetes,” he said.

One in five pregnant women in Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat were found to be suffering from GDM, according to a study by the Diabetes Care Institute in that city, whose results were reported in February.

“What is alarming,” the report said, “is that of the five women found to have diabetes, two were diagnosed with the silent killer while the other three went undetected.”

And women with GDM were at higher risk of developing diabetes later in life, warned an earlier study in Kerala’s neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, conducted by a group of doctors led by endocrinologist Dr V. Seshiah.

“They are the ideal group to be targeted for lifestyle modification or pharmacologic intervention in order to delay or postpone the onset of overt diabetes. Hence, an important public health priority in the prevention of diabetes is to address maternal health both during the ante- and post-partum period,” the study noted.

Medical researchers believe that the disease, earlier considered an ailment of the rich, is on the rise in India. Close to 70 million people – half of them women – in this country of 1.21 billion are living with diabetes, and the number is predicted to go up to 101.2 million by 2030.

Nearly 60 per cent of diabetics in India have never been screened or diagnosed due to a lack of awareness, according to a 2012 report published by the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF), an umbrella organisation of diabetes associations in 160 countries. The study also noted that nearly 63 per cent did not even know the complications that arise from the disease.

Doctors attending the four-day World Congress of Diabetes in April, organised by Diabetes India in Kochi, suggested India-specific treatment guidelines for helping the rapidly growing number of patients in the country.

Dr Jothydev Kesavadev, the organising secretary for the fifth edition of the congress and the moderator for glucose monitoring consensus guidelines, told IPS that low-income patients suffer the most as they lack medical insurance.

“Though there are international guidelines for the treatment of diabetes, there is an urgent need for country-oriented guidelines,” he said, “especially in areas of glucose monitoring and use of insulin in hospitals, besides taking into consideration the socioeconomic status of a patient and the country.”

Healthcare experts say that a combination of dietary pattern, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and genetic predisposition puts Indians at a unique risk of acquiring diabetes.

Analysing the increasing percentage of diabetic patients in the country, Dr Meenu Hariharan, director of the Indian Institute of Diabetes in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that Indians were more prone genetically to diabetes than Europeans.

“Reduced physical activity and obesity accelerate the onset of diabetes in genetically predisposed people,” she said. Starch-rich diets and increased intake of tinned foods with a high content of preservatives are other culprits.

A host of studies and screening programmes have highlighted the fact that diabetes is spreading fast across the country.

Cases of diabetes are higher in the four southern states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala – than in other states, according to the results of a countrywide blood testing campaign conducted under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Strokes by the country’s health ministry.

In Tamil Nadu, 11.76 per cent of people tested positive for diabetes, 10.2 percent in Karnataka, 8.83 per cent in Kerala, and 8.72 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, compared to just 2.95 percent in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which reported the lowest incidence of the disease.

Alarmingly, rural areas are also seeing a rise in diabetes rates, as a fall-out of rapid urbanisation. However, the incidence of the disease remains higher in cities than in villages, according to Dr V. Ramankutty, a well-known health activist and professor at Thiruvananthapuram’s AMCHSS.

Talking to IPS, he charted the rise in the incidence of the disease. A survey in the early 1970s, he said, found only 2.3 per cent of the urban population and 1.5 per cent of the rural population to be suffering from diabetes. But by 1992, the proportion had gone up to 8.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent for urban and rural areas, respectively. A repeat survey after five years found an even higher prevalence of the disease in urban areas, at 11.6 per cent.

But if it’s any consolation, insulin-deficient diabetes in children is less common in India than in Western countries, said Dr G.D. Thapar, former director of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. In his book ‘How to Lead a Healthy Life despite Diabetes’, he emphasised how crucial breast-feeding is to prevent the disease in children.

The well known poetess Sugathakumari speaks at a meeting about sexual violence against women in Thiruvananthapuram. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Mar 28 2013 (IPS)

Shaken by the brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman in the national capital New Delhi last December, the female workforce in India is calling for more concrete measures for the protection of female employees from both physical and non-physical attacks.

Although the Union Government has passed a bill in Parliament to protect female employees from sexual harassment in the workplace, women are demanding long-term measures to implement the law and punish the guilty.

A survey report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India revealed that the rape case in Delhi, and the national outrage that followed, shook the confidence of the female workforce, not only in Delhi but also in other major cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmadabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Dehradun.

In February, the Indian Parliament approved a new law to prevent sexual harassment of women in the workplace and provide protection to women in both the government and private sectors.

According to the new legislation anyone who makes physical contact, sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, sexual remarks or shows pornography will be treated as the accused in any ensuing case.

Krishna Tirath, the minister of state for women and child development, told the lower house of parliament that elected representatives and society itself would have to implement the law for the protection of women in offices and companies.

According to the Indian constitution, sexual harassment infringes on women’s fundamental right to gender equality under Article 14 and her right to live with dignity under Article 21.

Still, the practice continues throughout the country. Studies and surveys have found that incidents of sexual harassment were high both in the government and the private sector.

A survey entitled ‘Sexual Harassment at Workplaces in India 2011-2012’ conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmadabad, Lucknow and Durgapur, jointly released by Oxfam India and the Social and Rural Research Institute (SRI), said 17 percent of 400 respondents claimed that they had experienced sexual harassment on the job.

Respondents cited many reasons for not taking action against the perpetrator including fear of losing their job, absence of a proper complaint mechanism and fear of being stigmatised.

“In private organisations, sexual harassment is common,” Jameela, a typist in a private firm in Kannur, a city in the southern state of Kerala, told IPS.

“I experienced (sexual harassment) from my boss when I worked at a company in Chennai. When I resigned I cited the transfer of my husband, and other family matters,” she revealed.

The three jobs that appear to be most unsafe for women are as labourers, domestic workers and small-scale manufacturers.

Nurses in the healthcare sector are also extremely vulnerable to attacks and sexual advances while on the job.

Dr. P. P. Saramma, senior lecturer at the Thiruvananthapuram-based Sree Chitra Tirunal Medical Institute, told IPS that “indecent advances” towards nurses are very common in Indian hospitals.

“Nightshift nurses often face abuse and (stigma) — working with strangers and male patients leads to questions regarding their morality,” she added.

The results of a 2007 survey conducted in Kolkata among 135 health workers, including doctors, published in the U.K-based international health journal ‘Reproductive Health Matters’, showed that 57 percent of women staffers had undergone some form of sexual harassment in hospitals.

Analysing the increasing rate of sexual offences against women in their places of work, Dr. Sreelekha Nair, a researcher at the New Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Development Studies, said that sexual harassment is largely the result of a hierarchical power structure in society that strongly favours men.

According to the 2001 census, the Indian workforce is over 400 million strong, comprising 39 percent of the population of 1.2 billion. Over 50 percent of the labour force — 275 million workers – is male, and just 25 percent, or 127 million workers, is female.

The 2013 Human Development report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), showed that gender equality in India is among the worst in the world; and its performance was the worst in all of South Asia.

This gap in equality is most prevalent in the workplace, Nair said, where women are viewed as “secondary citizens”, forcing them to keep a low profile. But when they do begin to gain equal footing with their male counterparts, men often react with hostility, or violence.

Thus “the law is not the ultimate solution to sexual harassment – the mindset of the people needs to be changed through greater awareness”, she told IPS.

The rape case in Delhi, and the ensuing outrage, has brought a great deal of attention to the issue. The strong stand taken by the female workforce and a host of women’s organisations after the December incident pressurised the government, as well as businesses, to step up security measures for women staffers.

The climate of anger in the aftermath of that tragedy also fuelled awareness about the right to protest against harassment in the workplace and file complaints with the proper authorities.

Dr. Pushpa Kurup, managing director of Vitalect Technologies and convenor of the women’s forum of the National Institute of Personnel Management in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that the monitoring system for sexual harassment in the government and private sector has been strengthened since late last year.

“Effective training programmes are essential to sensitise all staffers to recognise sexual harassment, prevent it and deal with it when it does occur. Many complaints can be resolved effectively and positively through informal methods. It is critical that the complaints committee empathises with the complainant and not judge her by their own moral standards,” added she.

(END)

Crackdown on women protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear plant in India. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS.

By K. S. Harikrishnan
KUDANKULAM, India, Feb 3 2013 (IPS)

An indefinite struggle continues against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state Tamil Nadu despite a government crackdown on protests.

Idinthakarai, a village in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, has become the hub of a mass agitation which started on Aug. 16 in 2011. Hundreds of men, women and children from a group of 12 villages are leading a campaign to stall operation of the nuclear plant. The public agitation intensified after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

The villagers say they have been facing false propaganda through the media, foreign money, threats from goons, prohibitory orders against meeting in public places, harassment from officials, abuse from policemen, cases of sedition in courts, and arrest warrants.

The movement has become a major headache for the government, S. P. Udayakumar, leader of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Power (PMANP) told IPS. The sit-in-protest at Idinthakarai has now continued more than 500 days.

“The goons of the establishment threatened my family members and destroyed my school near Nagercoil in Kanyakumari district. The government wants to arrest me to shatter the mental strength of the Kudankulam villagers. The central government has portrayed me as an American agent to isolate me from the rest of the supporters.”

Fearing constant snooping by the national intelligence agencies and arrest by the Tamil Nadu police, the front leaders of the PMANP are staying at undisclosed areas.

Rajalakshmi, a woman living at Kudnakulam, said that senior leaders of the movement did not attend weddings and funeral prayers for fear of arrest. “It is a risk for leaders to be present at functions.”

The backbone of the Kudankulam agitation are the fishers, who believe that the plant is a threat to their livelihood.

“The fishermen have had to borrow millions of dollars from banks to stay alive and feed their families as they have stopped going to sea,” Tamil writer Joe D’cruz from Uvari village told IPS. “The allegation of foreign funds sustaining the agitation is false propaganda meant to malign the people’s movement.”

Women have been particularly active in the protests. “Even though police are continuing their threats, women protesters are going to every house to canvas people,” said Balammal from Chettikulam village.

On Aug. 13 last year, children marched to the district collector’s office and complained that the Nuclear Power Corporation of India has not followed disaster management norms in the construction of the plant.

“We strongly oppose the plant which will destroy our coming generation,” Arun, a ten-year-old boy told IPS.

Teachers say anxiety has crept into schools. “They have strong views against the plant. The stress has affected a few students’ performance in the examination,” said a teacher at the St.Annes Higher Secondary School at Kudankulam.

Gopal, a young protester from Kuttappilli village, said that some who are protesting today were the children who participated in the agitation in 1988 when India signed a pact with erstwhile Soviet Union to construct a nuclear plant at Kudankulam.

Protesters recognise their limits. “We are ordinary people and hold strong peaceful protests, but we cannot do much to oppose the establishment,” said Udayakumar.

International researchers into the health effects of radiation say the protest is justified because of geographical factors. V.T. Padmanabhan, well-known scientist and member of the European Commission on Radiation Risk, points out that the power plant is situated on a volcano site.

“Geological studies show that there are many possibilities of a tsunami in the Gulf of Mannar region which is very close to Kudankulam,” he told IPS. “Another important threat is the using of sea water instead of fresh water as a coolant element in the nuclear reaction processes.”

The agitation has won wide support from environmentalists and independent groups from the neighbouring states Kerala and Karnataka.

The commissioning of the 2000 MW nuclear power plant at Kudankulam has been delayed due to undisclosed technical problems.

Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission R.K. Sinha has said there is no major issue behind the delay. But he declined to give any specific date for commissioning.

Fishermen and their families protesting against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Credit K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
KUDANKULAM, India, Jan 6 2013 (IPS)

Mahalakshmi, a housewife married to a farmer, is afraid for her family’s future. The fifty-two-year-old woman is also frustrated that Indian authorities have “betrayed” poor villagers.

A huge nuclear power plant under the control of the government-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is the source of her woes.

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP), situated 24 kilometres from the world famous tourist town of Kanyakumari on the southern tip of the Indian peninsula, is likely to be commissioned this month.

Speaking to IPS, Mahalakshmi and dozens of women in Kudankulam, a village in the Tirunelveli district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, charged that the energy project would ruin their futures, homes and livelihoods.

The plant is slated to produce an initial 1,000 megawatts of power, according to the NPCIL, no small contribution to a country saddled with a severe energy deficit.

But the proposed nuclear station has brought sleepless nights to scores of locals, who fear a disaster similar to the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in March 2011, and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

Locals have risen up in widespread protest over the proposed plant, which they claim has not been equipped with the best possible safety measures.

One of these protestors, Arul Vasanth, told IPS that politicians, scientists, and bureaucrats have made every effort to crush agitation against the potentially lucrative KKNPP.

“We, the poor, are at the receiving end of all false promises given by the authorities,” he said. “The risk has been put on our shoulders so the people will aggressively fight till the end.”

Indeed, the vast majority of those participating in the protests live below the government-declared poverty line.

Opposition to the energy project first began when India inked the KKNPP deal with the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1988.

Agitation gained momentum in 1997 when the country signed another agreement with Russia to revive the deal.

The controversial Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. Credit K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

Now, in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, which drew the world’s attention to the horrific dangers of nuclear power, the people in Kudankulam have brought their fight into the open.

People from the Idinthakarai, Koottappalli, Perumanal, Koothankuli and Uoovri villages, located close to Kudankulam, fear health consequences arising from the plant.

Talking to IPS, well-known anti-nuclear activist K. Sahadevan questioned the efficacy of government measures to safeguard the health of local people living in the vicinity of the plant.

“Radioactivity-related health hazards are a major concern for the people residing near the plant,” he said, referring to a survey of houses very near to the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station, which revealed a high prevalence of cancer and tumors.

Dr. Binayak Sen, human rights activist and member of the Planning Commission’s Steering Committee on Health, said in a statement after visiting the site that the Kudankulam plant posed serious health consequences, not only for those residing in the immediate vicinity, but for inhabitants of the entire region.

Opposition to the plant has created deep cracks in the villagers’ daily lives. Frequent protests by farmers, fisherfolk, students and coastal dwellers have sent a strong message to the authorities but simultaneously interrupted income-generating activities.

Explaining the ground situation in the villages, Peter Milton, an agitation leader in Idinthakari, told IPS that people are worried and frustrated about their future.

Farmers say the government has failed to compensate them for large swaths of arable land that have now been declared part of the official “construction site”.

One small-scale farmer who has suffered many bureaucratic hurdles in claiming compensation for his land told IPS he favours other sources of energy – such as wind farms – over the proposed atomic power station.

A group of students at St. Annes Higher Secondary School in Kudankulam also expressed distress over a future lived in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe.

“A disaster in the plant will eliminate our dreams. That is why we are agitating,” the students, who wished to remain anonymous, told IPS.

Meanwhile, police and intelligence agencies are stepping up their suppression of protestors. “The threat of the police has put more strain on our lives. Even students and women are not exempted from the harassment,” said Milton.

According to media reports, 269 persons have been arrested in connection with the agitation. Agitation leaders claim the number is much higher, with pending cases running into the thousands.

T. Peter, secretary of the National Fish Workers Forum, told IPS that many people have been taken into custody under the charge of sedition. He alleged that the establishment is trying to “sabotage” the protest movement and crush it with an iron fist.

“The fisher folk residing in the coastal area of Kudankulam are (acutely) aware about the impacts of a nuclear (accident) at the KKNPP. People living in coastal areas between Thiruvananthapuram and Tuticorin will be (particularly) affected if a disaster occurs,” he added.

The Russian envoy to India, Alexander M. Kadakin, branded the anti-nuclear protests “gimmicks” and “games” while speaking to reporters in Chennai.

Regardless, India’s highest judicial bodies have expressed alarm about the lack of safety measures at the proposed plant, going so far as to halt the process altogether.

Litigations are now pending before the Supreme Court of India and the National Green Tribunal.

In November, the Supreme Court instructed the Union Government to deploy all necessary safety measures at Kudankulam.

“There must be no compromise on safety and rehabilitation. We are making it absolutely clear that all the guidelines and safety measures for handling disasters must be put in place before the plant is commissioned,” according to Justices K S Radhakrishanan and Deepak Misra.

Attempting to allay fears of a disaster, nuclear scientists have expressed satisfaction over the safety measures at the Kudankulam plant. Former Indian president and scientist Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam declared the plant to be safe, following extensive discussions with KKNPP officials and a thorough inspection of the plant’s safety features.

(END)

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy hands a memento to a disabled student at a ceremony in Thiruvananthapuram, India Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Dec 22 2012 (IPS)

Twenty-year-old Reshma, hailing from the village of Aryanad in the Thiruvananthapuram district of the South Indian state of Kerala, was forced to drop out of school early as a result of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Her parents had just about given up hope on their daughter’s future when she received admission to the Centre for Disability Studies (CDS) in Thiruvananthapuram city.

After six months of counselling, which included the unusual but proven method of horticultural therapy, they began to notice a world of change in Reshma’s life and habits.

Reshma has now developed confidence in practical and social skills. With her parents’ help, she uses gardening as a means of therapy.

After a long absence, she has returned to school to complete her studies.

CDS Director Dr. G. K. Beela told IPS that numerous studies on the programme reveal that horticultural therapy has a significant impact on the development of self-esteem and motor skills in mentally and physically challenged children.

“Horticultural therapists work with people who are disabled or disadvantaged by age, circumstance and ability. Kerala is the first Indian state to adopt the therapy systematically,” she said, adding that there is an urgent need to apply the method on a national scale to meet the needs of India’s disabled.

The National Census of 2001 revealed that over 21 million people in India were suffering from some kind of disability. Indian demographers roughly estimated that the number of disabled persons increased to 70 million this year.

Experts participating in a recent national seminar on disability in Thiruvananthapuram stressed the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to rehabilitation and therapy, against the backdrop of a growing number of disabled persons in the country.

Merru Baura, director of the non-profit ‘Action for Autism’ in New Delhi, said that the rights of the disabled should be protected and alternative forms of treatment explored.

For many years, rights activists have been urging the Union Government to formulate a comprehensive policy to address the needs of the disabled, rather than prolong the current system, which has splintered laws and policies regarding disabilities into individual acts and processes.

Following fervent appeals by various rights groups, the ministry of social justice and empowerment constituted a committee in 2010 under the chairpersonship of Dr. Sudha Kaul, vice-chairperson of the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy in Kolkata, to draft new legislation to replace the existing laws.

Protection of the rights of disabled women, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is also a great concern for activists here.

Jaya Edappal, a disabled lawyer in Malappuram, told IPS that developing and maintaining mechanisms that increase the participation and representation of disabled women in all decision-making areas would improve the status of disabled women in the minds of the public.

“The government should provide…services (such as social services, employment and priority in bank loans) and programmes to disabled women and give clear rationale for the development of specific programmes,” she suggested.

India is a signatory to the Declaration on the Full Participation and Equality of People with Disabilities in the Asia-Pacific Region and the Biwako Millennium Framework for action towards an inclusive, barrier-free and rights-based society.

Thus analysts are urging the Union Government to uphold its commitments on paper and put into practice a broad policy on disability management with prevention, early detection, and early intervention systems, as well as occupational training and a uniform curriculum nationwide.

Few government-run educational institutions have committed to providing equally for all students, according to Dr. J.V. Asha, post-doctoral research fellow at the Indian Council for Social Science Research in New Delhi. Differently-abled students continue to suffer from marginalisation as a result of visual, hearing, speech or orthopaedic impairments.

A recent study on academic achievements and intellectual skills of differently-abled children in the Kollam district of Kerala, conducted by Dr. V. Biji, a lecturer in clinical psychology at the Institute for Communicative and Cognitive Neurosciences in Thiruvananthapuram, showed that academic performance was extremely low among the lower socio-economic group.

“Parents’ awareness about disability and rehabilitation treatment programmes was poor,” the study found.

Social activists have suggested that a governmental policy on integrating rural development issues and upgrading agricultural production technologies to meet the special requirements of the handicapped will enhance the life chances and prosperity of disabled people living in rural India.

Suman Prasad, director of Jan Abhiyan Parishad, a governmental organisation set up for promoting the constructive interference of NGOs in development work in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, said at the conference in Thiruvananthapuram that the rural disabled are the most vulnerable group in the country and protecting them is the “need of the hour”.

A 2008 World Bank report on disabilities in India found that low literacy rates, few jobs and widespread social stigma had also made disabled people among the most excluded in the country.

“Assisting disabled people is an integral part of achieving developmental goals. It is necessary to improve income generating and employment opportunities for the disabled in rural areas,” Prasad stressed.

A large number of disabilities in India are preventable, including those arising from medical issues during birth, malnutrition, as well as accidents and injury. However, the health sector is yet to react more proactively to disability, especially in rural areas, the report said.

(END)

Sreelakshmi, an office executive in a major diagnostic laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Kerala, ends her 11-hour working day to return home at night to a mountain of domestic chores.

At 35, she is already diabetic and vulnerable to disorders ranging from obesity and depression to hypertension and chronic backache.

Health experts warn that Sreelakshmi represents an increasing number of high-powered Indian working women who juggle workplace and domestic responsibilities in an effort to keep everyone around them happy, while disregarding the toll this hectic lifestyle takes on their minds and bodies.

For ambitious, middle-class women such as Sreelakshmi, hailing from a suburban area of Thiruvananthapuram, the office and the home are equally important: they cannot afford to choose one over the other. The result is a harmful mix of stress, anxiety and exhaustion.

Dr. Manjula, a senior medical scientist at the government health institute in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that many working women are suffering from “lifestyle diseases”.

A survey conducted by the Mumbai-based Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) in 2009 revealed that 68 percent of working women suffer from lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes and depression.

Elaborating on the health challenges facing Indian working women, Dr. Mohan Rao, a professor at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, told IPS that hunger, anaemia and infectious diseases remain the major epidemiological priorities for working women in India, the majority of whom are in the unorganised sector, working for low wages.

“The working woman struggles between the responsibilities of production and reproduction. They often sacrifice their own health for the health of the family,” he said. “We need to improve the public health system so that women have access to (a range of) healthcare facilities, and not merely reproductive health services. But we also need to improve working conditions, wages (and) provide access to the universal public distribution systems,” he added.

A survey entitled ‘Rising Workplace Obesity Among Indian Women’, conducted by Healthji.com in association with Leisa’s Secret, a firm that sells weight-loss products, revealed that about 80 percent of urban working women in the 25-45 age group are experiencing weight gains as a result of a sedentary lifestyle.

“Most women (say) they lack the time to walk or exercise due to work pressure,” according to Heal Foundation President R. Shankar.

Dr. Sreelekha Nair, researcher at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in New Delhi, told IPS that the health problems arising from a sedentary life style have reached pandemic levels, with far-reaching economic, environmental and social consequences.

Depression is another major challenge for working women.

Psychiatrists say the inability to perform as well as expected in the workplace, non-achievement of targets, missing deadlines and constant worry about shirking family responsibilities could lead to clinical depression.

Dr. Roy Kuruvila, a well-known psychiatrist in Chennai, told IPS that stressful working environments affect women more than men, as the former have fewer outlets for venting their anxiety or frustration.

“Social support and encouragement are needed to decrease the tensions of working women,” he added.

The problem reaches deep into family life, impacting parenting as well. A five-member study team, led by Dr. M.K.C. Nair, director of the Child Development Centre in the Government Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram, found that there was less breastfeeding among working mothers than non-working mothers.

“An exclusive breastfeeding rate of 54.28 percent was reported among non-working mothers and a much lower rate, 29.52 percent, among working mothers.” Over 77 percent of “working women quoted lack of maternity leave beyond three months as the major impediment to exclusive breast feeding”, the study found.

Doctors practicing the Indian Systems of Medicine opine that most working women avoid routine check-ups due to time constraints. They advise women to keep a careful watch for endometriosis, breast cancer, cervical spondylosis, insomnia, hypothyroidism and hair loss.

Dr. V.S. Ambal, a physician at the Santhigiri Health Care Research Centre at Pothencode in Thiruvananthapuram, said that excess work also leads to menstrual disorders and other gynaecological problems.

“Ayurveda disallows disparate food combinations, which damage internal organs, and advises the intake of natural food. There has been a major shift in the food habits of working women in cities, who prefer to have fast and packaged food due to work pressure, standard of living and convenience,” she told IPS.

Studies and surveys suggest that consumption of fast foods, which contain a high percentage of salt, sugar and preservatives, is on the rise.

An ASSOCHAM survey conducted this year revealed that 67 percent of working women admitted to switching away from traditional food items that are nutritious, simple and easy to digest to fast foods loaded with empty calories.

(END)

Aged women sitting in front of an old age home in Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
NEW/DELHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Nov 9 2012 (IPS)

At midnight on Oct. 12, 91-year-old George Puthenveettil, a widower living in Kalanjur village in the Pathanamthita district of the southern Indian state of Kerala, was brutally tortured and ousted from his own house by his only son for “not earning any money”.

The nonagenarian wandered the streets of his village for hours before he reached a shelter in Pathanapuram with the help of neighbours. Police said the son had often beaten and harassed the old man, who was financially dependent on his son.

For many people like George, the sunset years of life turn out to be a traumatic period, in which they find themselves entirely dependent on families or friends due to the absence of a good social security system or government pension plan in India.

Expressing concern over the increasing insecurity of elders in the country, Dr. Irudaya Rajan, a prominent demographer and chair professor of the research unit on international migration under the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs, told IPS that income security is one of the most urgent needs of India’s aging population.

Years ago, “traditional values and religious beliefs were quite supportive of elderly people”, he said.

Today, economic hardships and the faltering nuclear family system are “drastically eroding the support base of aged people”.

“The majority of the elderly tend to work even after the age of retirement due to inadequate social security and financial resources,” Rajan added.

A report on the aging population in India, released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFP) in New Delhi, said that the country had 90 million elderly people in 2011, with the number expected to grow to 173 million by 2026.

Of the 90 million seniors, 30 million are living alone, and 90 percent work for a living.

Experts estimate that only eight percent of the labour force of about 460 million receives social security from an employer.

‘Informal’ labourers left out in the cold

Over 94 percent of India’s working population is part of the unorganised sector, which refers to all unlicensed, self-employed or unregistered economic activity such as owner-manned general stores, handicrafts and handloom workers, rural traders and farmers, among many others.

Gopal Krishnan, an economist in Chennai, told IPS “There is no social safety coverage for people in the unorganised sector, which accounts for half of the GDP (gross domestic product) of India”.

According to the World Bank, India’s GDP in 2011 was 1,848 billion dollars.

In 2006, the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector recommended that the Union Government establish a National Social Security Scheme to provide the minimum level of benefits to workers retiring from the informal sector.

Until now, the government has not been able to compile a comprehensive policy to address the issues of elderly people. The ministry of social justice and empowerment drafted a National Policy on Older Persons in 1999, which was never implemented.

Hardships abound

Analysts point out that India’s aging population is constantly grappling with health issues, economic stress, family matters, uncertain living arrangements, gender disparities, urban-rural differences, displacement and slum-like living conditions.

Dr. Udaya Shankar Mishra, a senior demographer at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, believes the current “profile” of the aging population of India can change.

“The (perception) of the elderly as a burden can, with suitable policies, be turned into an opportunity to realise active and healthy aging,” he told IPS.

“With limited resources, we need to adopt viable policy changes to manage the crisis of the aged. This calls for a detailed auditing of (all) the affairs of the elderly, primarily health, morbidity and mortality in addition to economic and emotional wellbeing.

“Research on geriatric health needs to (shift) towards ensuring a better quality of life among future elderly persons. Considering the demographic inversion and its associated challenges, it (is clear) that investments into healthy aging are necessary,” he added.

Data from the 2011 National Census revealed that the percentage of aged living alone or with spouse is as high as 45 percent in Tamil Nadu, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala.

Healthcare experts have found that the elderly are highly prone to heart diseases, respiratory disorders, renal diseases, diabetes, hypertension, neurological problems and prostate issues.

The National Sample Survey Organisation calculates that one out of two elderly people in India suffers from at least one chronic disease, which requires lifelong medication.

The most recent data available, taken for the period 1995-96, revealed that 75 percent of aged individuals are affected by at least one disability relating to sight, hearing, speech, walking, and senility.

Dr. Shanti Johnson, professor at the faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies at the Canada-based University of Regina, estimates that nearly eight percent of the elderly are immobile, while a disproportionately higher percentage of women are immobile compared to men.

“The average hospitalisation rate in the country per 100,000 aged persons is 7,633. There is considerable gender difference in the rate of hospitalisation, as a much greater proportion of men are hospitalised compared to their female counterparts,” she added.

Non-governmental organisations are advocating for more old-age homes, day-care centers, physiotherapy clinics and temporary shelters for the rehabilitation of older persons, with government funds allocated to the running and maintaining of such projects.

(END)

Women demand their rights outside the government secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, India. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
NEW DELHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Oct 19 2012 (IPS)

As gender-based violence across India becomes more frequent, and more savage, increasing numbers of women are speaking out against the cruelty.

On Oct. 6, a 14-year-old girl from the Sacha Khera village in the Jind district of northern India’s Haryana state set herself on fire after a brutal gang rape.

In her statement to the police, the girl claimed that two male youngsters dragged her into a house, while the sister-in-law of one of the culprits stood guard on the terrace.

The teenaged girl doused herself in kerosene oil shortly after the attack. She was rushed to the hospital but eventually succumbed to her injuries.

In September, according to ‘oneindianews’, 17 rapes were reported in Haryana, a state infamous for so-called ‘honour killings’ of young women and girls who are thought to have brought dishonour upon their family or community.

Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, who met the girl’s family, told reporters in Jind on Oct. 9 that those guilty of such heinous crimes must be severely punished.

Nationwide trends suggest that the incident in Haryana, reports of which shocked the country for days, is far from an isolated case.

The annual report by the New Delhi-based National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) found that a “total of 228,650 incidents of crime against women were reported in the country during the year 2011 as compared to 213,585 incidents in the year 2010, recording an increase of 7.1 percent.”

The issue has also attracted the attention of government officials. Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told a conference of police director generals and inspectors in New Delhi on Sep. 6 that crimes against women were indeed on the rise and stressed the need to adopt adequate methods of dealing with the perpetrators.

Analysts point out that the violence ripping through India often takes the form of rape, kidnapping, dowry-related cruelty, molestation and harassment.

Dr. Sreelekha Nair, researcher at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in New Delhi, told IPS that data for the period between 2007 and 2011 revealed that cruelty by husbands topped the list, with 99,135 cases reported in 2011.

Meanwhile, 42,968 molestation cases were reported to the police that same year, making it the second most prevalent crime. Police stations also registered 35,565 complaints of kidnapping or abduction.

Turning the tide

Female politicians, activists and other leading members of civil society assert that a decline in the quality of governance, lack of public awareness and lethargy on the part of internal security officials have made matters worse for women.

Member of Parliament and head of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), T. N. Seema, told IPS that both administrative and judicial institutions would have to adopt more gender sensitive policies in order to contain the wave of violence.

“The number of violent crimes is increasing every year while the number of (those convicted) for (such crimes) is decreasing. When analysing records, we can see that only one-fourth of the total accused” received any kind of punishment.

According to Seema, “The mindset of society must be changed to accommodate the heightened role of women in public life.”

The fact that a male-dominated power structure still has a strong hold over most of Indian has led to a culture of victim blaming.

Urban centres bear the brunt of this rising tide of gender-based violence, with the government recording “a total of 33,789 (reported) cases of crimes against women (in) 53 cities during the year 2011 as compared to 24,335 cases in the year 2010.”

Archana Rajeev, a senior journalist in Thiruvananthapuram, believes this could be attributed to the presence of large floating populations, comprised primarily of male migrant workers, in metropolises such as New Delhi.

However, crimes against women should not be viewed exclusively as a “law and order” problem, experts say.

The main cause is an entrenched feudal, patriarchal mindset that refuses to regard women as independent, autonomous and equal human beings.

The beefing up of policing and judicial policies has to be accompanied by a socio-cultural campaign to ensure the rights of women.

More women holding positions of power within local administrations has led to widespread awareness about crimes and abuse. Simultaneously, an increase in the number of registered complaints in police stations suggests victims themselves are becoming more vocal about the issue.

A recent joint study conducted by experts at the Harvard business school, the University of Warrick and the International Monetary Fund traced the link between the surge in the number of reported cases of gender-based violence and the impact of the 1993 self-government reforms, which introduced a quota system to boost female political representation in local bodies throughout the country.

According to the researchers, “There are two reasons behind the surge in reported crimes against women. First, greater numbers of female politicians make the police more responsive to crimes against women.

“Second, women victims who encounter more sympathetic women leaders may feel more encouraged to report crimes.”

Sociologists believe that property, education and employment are key assets for women to be able to combat violence.

Durga Lakshmi, an independent researcher in Kollam, a coastal city in the southern state of Kerala, told IPS, “Education and employment have been upgrading the status of women, helping (them) to find a solution in complex situations.”

A study on containing violence against women in rural Haryana conducted by Prem Chowdhary, former professorial fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi, stated, “Once a woman’s role in the household changes from recipient to provider, her (role) as a decision maker also stands to be recognised and consolidated, erasing the social sanction for violence.”

(END)

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurates a meeting of non-resident Keralites in Thiruvananthapuram. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Oct 8 2012 (IPS)

For the first time in over four decades, the number of people migrating out of the southern Indian state of Kerala, home to 33.3 million people, is on the decline.

A comprehensive study conducted by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Thiruvananthapuram on international migration from Kerala revealed that growth in migration levels will reach zero by 2015.

The report said that the number of Kerala migrants living abroad in 2008 was 2.19 million and 2.28 million in 2011.

Back in the 1970s, a loss of jobs in agriculture, lack of productive ventures and widespread education among the middle class led to an exodus of residents from Kerala, 90 percent of whom headed straight for the Gulf region in search of better jobs and higher wages.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) quickly became the most popular destination, absorbing 40 percent of Kerala’s job seekers, while Saudi Arabia plays host to 25 percent of the migrants.

But now, higher wages at home have begun to stem the outflow of human capital from Kerala. The average wage for unskilled workers increased from 150 rupees (three dollars) to 450 rupees (nine dollars) per day during the first decade of this century, making Kerala an attractive and competitive labour market.

B. Soman, an engineer in the petroleum sector in Oman, said that even unskilled workers already settled in the Gulf are now opting to go back home in search of better salaries.

John Mathew, a 35-year-old driver working in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district, who recently returned from Qatar where he had spent the last seven years driving taxis, told IPS that comparatively low wages in the Gulf made a strong case for coming back home.

“Now I earn at least ten dollars a day. It is a decent wage, and my family is happy,” said Mathew.

In addition, Kerala has achieved a level of human development comparable with many advanced countries, including the highest life expectancy rates in the country – 75 years for men and 78 years for women.

Ironically, it was remittances from the Gulf that first began to improve the quality of life in Kerala and created a consumer culture in the state.

The purchase of land and construction of houses received priority among expatriate Keralites, followed by the purchase of vehicles, jewellery and imported electronic items.

Banks say the state received remittances totalling 500 billion rupees in 2011 compared with 432 billion rupees in 2008.

Dr. Sreelekha Nair, junior fellow at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in New Delhi, told IPS, “While migration to the Gulf was dominated by unskilled workers, recent years witnessed a relative increase in the migration of highly skilled personnel to the Gulf.

“Flexible changes in ownership and business rules, at least in some Gulf countries, resulted in a rise in the number of entrepreneurs.  This also boosted the flow of remittances to Kerala,” she added.

According to the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India, remittances from non-resident Indians in the current fiscal year are likely to exceed 75 billion dollars, up from 66 billion in the 2011-2012 period.

Dr. S. Irudaya Rajan, professor at CDS and an expert in international migration, told IPS that structural changes in the state’s population – namely a steadily ageing population coupled with low birthrates – also contributed to this decreasing emigration trend.

Due to a contraction in the supply of young labourers, and a higher standard of living enabled by remittances, wages for construction and manual jobs are relatively high in Kerala compared to other Indian states, making the former an attractive destination for internal migrants, Soman told IPS.

Internal migrants come largely from West Bengal, Orissa, and Assam and take jobs as domestic workers, farm labourers, masons, and shop helpers, among others.

They say economic hardships, caste-based exploitation, a crumbling agricultural sector and dwindling investment in rural infrastructure in their home states propel them towards Kerala in search of decent livelihoods.

Kalka Das, a mason from Murshidabad in West Bengal, told IPS that unskilled workers like him barely earned enough to survive.

“The prices of commodities are increasing day by day and people are constantly in search of decent wages. Today, Kerala is the Gulf (of India) for internal migrants,” he added.

Ram Gopal, a domestic worker hailing from Assam, told IPS that even though migrant workers in Kerala do experience some exploitation, “we at least get better work and a little bit more money”.

(END)

Four-year-old Deepak Yadav, a mentally disabled boy from Indore city in the Indian state Madhya Pradesh, was being treated for stomach problems at Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, a government hospital for children attached to the M. G. M. Medical College.

(Right to left) Clinical trial victims with medical right activist Dr. Anand Rai. Credit: CTVA, Indore.

But when repeated administration of the anti-ulcer drug Rabeprazole started to exacerbate his condition, his parents stopped treatment and sought help from the Clinical Trial Victims Association (CTVA), which discovered that the boy had been a lab rat for an untested drug.

“We should have been told an unknown drug was being tested on our innocent child and given the choice to say no,” Deepak’s father Sooraj told IPS.

Deepak is now almost entirely reliant on his mother for survival. The family is poor, yet “doctors did not take any steps to get us compensation,” his father added.

This family’s tragic story is just one example of a sinister pattern unfolding across India.

A spate of deaths over the last four years caused by illegal clinical trials of untested drugs has ignited the wrath of rights activists and prompted prominent legal institutions to consider tightening the country’s drug regulation laws.

In response to a Right to Information query filed by Indore-based medical rights activist Anand Rai, the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) disclosed that 2,031 people have died as a result of serious adverse events (SAEs) during drug trials in the past four years.

SAE-related deaths for 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were 288, 637, 668 and 438 respectively.

Rai, who is currently spearheading a campaign against unethical drug tests on human beings, has urged legal authorities and activists to raise their voices against clinical trials in which desperate people become easy prey for multinational pharmaceutical companies.

He told IPS that most of the victims were illiterate and poor people.

“Clinical trials on citizens without their consent is considered a violation of basic human rights and often results in the death of innocent persons, who were not even aware of the kind of tests being (performed) on them, since clinical research organisations use roundabout ways of acquiring the consent of patients and their relatives,” he said.

Many of the institutions involved in the drug trials fail to “provide the patients with copies of the informed consent form, patient’s information sheet or clinical trial liability insurance policy,” according to the CTVA. As a result, very few victims have access to compensation.

An intervention by the Supreme Court of India last month further exposed the unethical practices of clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

A division bench headed by Supreme Court Justice R M Lodha stated in early July that it was “unfortunate” that humans are being treated as “guinea pigs” for testing of drugs and vaccines produced by multinational corporations.

Lax regulations breed impunity

Experts on medical law assert that tight regulations in Europe and the U.S. prompt many pharmaceutical companies and research organisations to look to India and other developing countries as cheaper and less restrictive sites for drug trials.

Dr. Mohan Rao, professor at the centre for social medicine and community health at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, told IPS that India did not have a proper regulatory authority to monitor the trials of new drugs.

“We have unfortunately opened our health sector to global pharmaceutical companies for trials without the infrastructure to monitor and regulate them. It is cheaper for transnationals to locate trials in India, which has a large and captive (drug) market, in addition to doctors not constrained by ethics,” he said.

“The growth of local clinical research organisations has also contributed to this. Above all, we have a large and unregulated private medical sector with a culture of impunity. For the general public, and the elites, the lives of the poor do not matter,” Rao added.

The CTVA said that many doctors give more importance to their earnings than to the lives of their patients.

“Lured by offers (from) big pharmaceutical companies, these doctors have deliberately violated all regulations and have reduced clinical trials to a money spinning exercise,” according to a statement on the CTVA website.

According to the Financial Express daily, stiff opposition from research organisations on how clinical trial victims should be compensated has dealt a blow to the health ministry’s efforts to legislate the practice.

The ministry was on the brink of making it mandatory for pharmaceutical companies sponsoring clinical trials to pay financial compensation to volunteers in case of a proven trial-related death or injury, the Financial Express reported on Jul. 4.

Eminent drug regulatory expert C M Gulhati believes compensation rules in the Motor Vehicle Act can serve as a basis to determine the amount of compensation, while other factors such as the age of the volunteer, number of dependents and prevalent morbidity in the community should also be taken into account in an effort to standardise such payments, according to the newspaper.

Activists say many clinical trials in the country have been conducted behind a veil of secrecy and with little transparency in clinical research.

One such dubious deal was brought to light in 2001, when a group of cancer patients was subjected to drug trials under an agreement between the Thiruvananthapuram-based Regional Cancer Centre and the renowned Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Compounding the issue, according to Dr. Sree Kumar, a private medical practitioner in Chennai, “is the easy availability of a large population of patients in Indian hospitals displaying a broad spectrum of conditions.”

“Collaborative ventures between Indian hospitals and foreign pharmaceutical industries and academic institutions ensure that the lab-to-market journey of a new product is achieved at a low cost and shorter duration,” he added.

Ethical testing required

The flip side of the illegal testing coin can be equally problematic. A panel of lawmakers in the Indian Parliament headed by Brajesh Pathak recently discovered that many popular medicines were being sold without having undergone clinical trials at all.

Lambasting the collusive role of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the parliamentary standing committee for health and family welfare said that 33 new medicines were found to have been approved between January 2008 and October 2010 without undergoing trials.

Medical scientists claim that drug trials conducted on animals do not produce accurate results.

Dr. A. B. Salim, an independent researcher in Bangalore, told IPS that a drug tested successfully on animals could produce harmful side effects when administered to human beings.

“Therefore it is the duty of the ethics committee and the DCGI to monitor and ensure that the trials are done honestly,” he added.

(END)

Nurses taking to the streets demanding fair wages is now a common sight in many Indian cities. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Jun 28 2012 (IPS)

Nurses in India are up in arms against the deterioration of the nursing profession in the country, including unfair wages and the policies of private hospital managements.

Many exploited female nurses are leaving the country in droves, migrating to countries that offer better employment prospects and working conditions.

Those that remain are taking to the streets, demanding decent pay and the enforcement of labour regulations.

For two years now, thousands of nurses working in corporate hospitals across the country have been participating in demonstrations and strikes, protesting the fact that hospital managements – often alleged to have illegal connections with politicians and bureaucrats – blatantly flout the country’s labour laws.

Nurses’ unions say that the strikes in various private hospitals are a result of long-standing grievances like poor working conditions and mistreatment of nurses in the workplace.

Jasmin Shaw, president of United Nurses Association, told IPS that threats of dismissal, disconnecting power and water connections in hostels, threats of eviction from hospital dormitories and violation of labour norms were some of the most frequent complaints to be heard as the strike spread across the country a few months ago, fanning outwards from Mumbai and New Delhi into other parts of the country.

Studies point out that working condition, though better in government hospitals, are by no means favourable to nurses, who describe their duties as “back-breaking”.

The most basic amenities – such as rooms in which nurses can rest and change their clothes – are missing in most hospitals.

A report on nurses’ working conditions in the Indian capital, published by the New Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), revealed that the nurse-patient ratio was generally 1:30, sometimes reaching 1:50 in general wards.

This shortage often results in nurses having to work overtime, for which there is no formal system of compensation; though the prolonged protests have prompted some hospitals to announce that they are taking measures to pay overtime wages.

The report highlighted that nurses’ hostels or other lodgings barely meet minimal standards and rarely offer any privacy

Dr. Sree Lekha Nair, researcher at CWDS, told IPS that a servant–master relation had become an established practice in the country’s nursing sector.

“Hospital managements are confiscating nursing certificates in order to restrict nurses’ professional mobility. When they start work they have to sign a “bond” that requires them to work in the hospital for two to three years.

“These measures prevent nurses from seeking job opportunities without the knowledge of the management. One of the most difficult challenges of the nursing profession in India has been in the realm of collective organising for rights,” she added.

Health activists said that senior trained nurses were being replaced by nursing aides, auxiliary nurses and untrained assistants in order to avoid paying full salaries.

Anie Mathew, a health sector activist in Jaipur, Rajasthan, said that junior nurses in the corporate sector were being treated badly and given meager salaries.

“Nursing aides and auxiliary nurses can be paid just 1,000-1,500 rupees (about 26 dollars) a month and are made to perform duties like giving injections for which they are not trained.”

“Managements do not follow regulations regarding leave packages. Maternity leave is not allowed. The moment a nurse reports her pregnancy, she can be asked to leave,” said Mathew.

Medical tourism aggravates the problem

There is a widespread feeling among nurses that medical tourism hurts the freedom of speech, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of India.

Nurses allege that sponsors of medical tourism strictly enforce the rule that nurses cannot speak in their mother tongue while on duty.

“A five-star hospital culture in New Delhi and Mumbai restricts nurses’ freedom to speak their own native language, which is unacceptable,” said Shaw.

The Indian medical tourism sector is expected to experience an annual growth rate of 30 percent, set to become a two billion-dollar industry by 2015.

An estimated 150,000 people are traveling to the country to avail themselves of low-priced healthcare every year.

Experts say that a strict hierarchy of gender and class, entrenched in Indian society, has also contributed towards the present status of the nursing profession.

Analysing contemporary concerns of status among nursing professionals, Madelaine Healey, an independent researcher from Australia, and Sri Nair, a sociology scholar in Thiruvananthapuram, explained that those in the nursing society were often looked down upon by those from a ‘domiciled European’ background, who were often the children of merchants or businessmen.

“These women nurses were considered wanting not only in their class backgrounds, but also professionally, as the training they received in India was considered inferior to that on offer in the West,” the researches found.

Taking flight

Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.S., the UK, Germany and Gulf countries are the main destination of Indian nurses seeking better jobs.

Experts in migration studies point out that the promise of higher income was the main reason for migration and there was no exact number on how many nurses had migrated to foreign countries.

“Now girls are showing more interest in studying nursing while looking at the lucrative salaries and other perks along with high quality of life abroad. The majority of migrant nurses are from the southern Indian state of Kerala,” Prof. Irudaya Rajan, head of the migration department at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS.

According to a recently released book, ‘Moving with the Times: Gender, Status and Migration of Nurses in India’, authored by Sree Lekha Nair, nurses from Kerala form one of the largest groups of migrant women workers in the international service sector along with Filipinos and Sri Lankans.

Comparatively better salaries, work opportunities and financial independence, along with a desire to travel across the world, are often the reasons behind this wave of migration.

Many women appear to be entering the profession with the sole intention of migrating abroad; finding employment in Delhi is intended simply as a transition to leaving the country, a trajectory that may remain unrealised, Nair’s book revealed.

A senior health official in Chennai told IPS that that the Indian health sector is facing a 50 percent shortage of nursing staff.

“The mass migration of nurses leaves already (under-staffed) hospitals with a shortage of trained nurses and exacerbates the poor nurse-patient ratio,” she added.

(END)

A broadcast session at Radio DC, Thiruvananthapuram. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Mar 21 2012 (IPS)

Security concerns appear to have stymied the growth of community radio (CR) in India, a vast and diverse country of 1.2 billion people, the bulk of them living in remote, rural areas.

“There are too many ministries and departments involved in the CR licensing process, and remote border states in the northeast adjacent to Burma have been left out, for example,” says Sajan Venniyoor, member of a government committee constituted to fund new stations.

Also left out are the Kashmir valley, racked by a separatist movement, and the largely tribal states of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh in central India that have been hit by Maoist insurgency.

Radio Ujjas, licensed to the non-profit Kutch Women’s Development Organisation, became India’s first CR station close to its international border when it started broadcasting on Mar. 10, 2012. Located in Gujarat’s Bhimsar village, close to the Pakistan border, it applied for a license five years ago.

Prof. Kanchan Malik, at the department of communication, University of Hyderabad, told IPS that the processes to set up CR stations should be simplified if they are to play their mandated role of empowering marginalised communities and helping conflict resolution.

“Cumbersome licensing processes, a ban on news programmes, lack of cost-effective technology, funding restrictions, inadequate capacity building and spectrum allocation delays or denials are some of the hurdles in the way of CR stations coming up,” she said.

The campaign to give space to CR in India – in addition to commercial and public broadcasting – began in earnest after the Supreme Court ruled in February 1995 that airwaves are public property and could not be government monopoly.

But, it was not until 2004 that India’s first CR could be launched, run by the Education and Multimedia Research Centre of Anna University in southern Chennai city.

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry has so far approved 363 proposals to set up CR stations in the country and, of these, 126 stations are operational.

Of those running, 76 are owned by colleges, institutes and other educational organisations, while only 36 are run by non-governmental organisations, showing limited civil society involvement.

Existing CR policy limits the award of licenses to not-for-profit organisations with a proven track record of community service and registered for not fewer than three years. Stringent restrictions have also been placed on fundraising.

CRs may operate a 100-watt radio station, with coverage limited to a 12-km radius and antenna height to 30 metres. Fifty percent of the programmes are expected to be produced locally and in the local language or dialect.

News programmes are banned, except items concerned with sports, traffic, weather conditions, cultural events and festivals, academic events, electricity and water supply, disaster warnings and health alerts.

Five minutes of advertising per hour are allowed, but CR programmes cannot be sponsored except by the government.

According to the ‘Compendium of Community Radio Stations in India’, published in 2011 by the New Delhi-based Commonwealth Education Media Centre for Asia in association with I&B ministry, restrictions on using high power equipment present a major difficulty.

Lack of training in handling equipment and creating programmes, inability to make strong content development, competition with mainstream commercial radio stations, limitation in airing advertisements and electricity failure are other hurdles, the compendium showed.

Activists say that women, tribal people, children, students, health workers and fishers could vastly benefit from CR, going by the experience of existing stations.

“With the arrival of CR, neglected groups have an opportunity for active participation in mainstream life,” says Chennai-based rights activist Mani Verma. “There has been, visibly, a revival of local culture and an increase in literacy rates.”

“For a thickly populated, predominantly rural country like India, reaching the masses and educating them is essential, and this can be achieved fastest by utilising CR effectively,” says P. Sajikumar, head of ‘Radio DC’ in Thiruvananthapuram.

A survey conducted by the DCSMAT School of Media and Business in this city found that there was a need to create awareness about CR and its capabilities. Often, the survey found, listeners failed to differentiate between CR and commercial radio.

“People tend to compare CR with commercial channels in every aspect,” the survey said. “Participation of listeners at every stage of production can be encouraged and importance given to young talent,” it suggested.

According to Venniyoor, the advent of mobile phones has given a fillip to CR because even the cheapest handsets come embedded with FM capability. “With digitisation, it may get even better. It will certainly get more interesting because of the explosive growth of mobile telephony.”

“Right now, however, we need to concentrate on getting licenses and setting up more stations,” Venniyoor said. “The government has promised support and we will just have to wait and see about actual implementation.”

*This story was produced with the support of UNESCO.

Even a year after Rani, a three-year-old tribal girl in the backward Wayanad district of southern Kerala state, was treated in a government hospital for gastroenteritis she remains grossly underweight and suffers from frequent bouts of diarrhoea.

Rani is one of millions of children in India who are victims of a faulty and neglectful public healthcare system that is proving to be an obstacle to human development in this rapidly growing economy of 1.1 billion people.

Earlier this month Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called malnutrition “a national shame” while releasing the report of a survey conducted by a coalition of non-government organisations (NGOs) that found 42 percent of Indian children below five underweight.

The report, called ‘Hungama’ (short for hunger and malnutrition and meaning uproar in the Hindi language), was based on a survey of 73,000 households across nine states.

Singh lamented that “despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of under-nutrition in the country is unacceptably high.” He urged planners to “understand the linkages between education, health, sanitation, hygiene, drinking water and nutrition.”

Dr. R. Jayaprakash, associate professor of paediatrics at the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that child malnutrition is mostly the result of poverty and inappropriate feeding practices.

“Malnutrition cases are visible in both urban and rural areas and cut across social strata. If we do not make a concerted effort to tackle malnutrition, India will miss a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) – that of halving malnutrition levels by 2015,” said Jayaprakash.

Studies conducted by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) in Hyderabad show that 45 percent of children in rural areas are underweight and that 49.6 percent of them show evidence of stunted growth.

Dr. A. Laxmaiah, deputy director at NIN, told IPS that besides poverty and faulty infant and child feeding practices, ignorance is an important factor contributing to the high malnutrition rate. “Nutritional illiteracy is seen even among educated people.”

A World Bank Report released mid-2011, ‘Undernourished children – a call for reform and action’, estimated that some 60 million children were underweight in India. The report also said 50 percent of India’s 1.1 billion people live on less than 1.25 dollars a day.

The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in New Delhi says India can easily tackle malnutrition. “As a food surplus and grain exporting nation, India can and must address malnutrition, which is caused by structural neglect and systematic failure, with resolute government and alternative interventions.”

The 2011 MDG report of the U.N. highlights the point that any real progress towards meeting the millennium goals must address the situation of the poorest and most marginalised sections. In India, this refers mostly to dalit (low caste) and tribal children.

National family health surveys conducted over the last 15 years by the government have shown under- nutrition rates to be highest among dalits and tribal children and constant at 55 percent.

Dr. Sivakumar, a Pondicherry-based social activist who works to improve the health of tribal children, told IPS that poor sanitation, lack of safe drinking water, inadequate healthcare facilities, vector-borne diseases and social barriers are among reasons for the higher prevalence of malnutrition in tribal areas.

Dalits and tribal people together make up about 25 percent of India’s population.

The government’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme launched in 1975 is yet to make a dent in child malnutrition. Consequently, the Bank in its 2011 report called for “urgent changes to bridge the gap between the policy intentions of ICDS and its actual implementation.”

Anjali Verma, an activist in the child healthcare sector in Mumbai, told IPS that developing care-giving in communities has proven to be cost effective in fighting child malnutrition, but requires substantial investments at the grassroots level.

“Funds for child welfare schemes are being misused by some state governments in northern India. Any kind of misuse of nutritional schemes will affect achievement of MDGs,” she said.

The National Food Security Bill, which is expected to be passed by parliament this year, seeks to provide specific entitlements for pregnant and lactating women and children below the age of six.

Five years ago, Pulparambil Varghese began cultivating ginger on 1.37 acres of land he owned in Thrikkeppatta village near Kalpetta town in Wayanad district of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Over the years, he borrowed 300,000 rupees (5,700 dollars) from banks and private financial institutions.

Unable to make the holding pay, or to repay the loans, 48-year-old Varghese committed suicide. His was one of six farmer suicides in the backward district Wayanad since the beginning of this year.

The return of acute agrarian distress has claimed the lives of 13 farmers in the state in the month of November alone due to financial problems, according to data collected by farmers’ organisations.

The high suicide rate is all the more worrying because it has occurred in a state that tops the national human development index for achieving the highest literacy rate, for having good quality health services, and for the consumption expenditure of people.

Agriculture was badly affected in Kerala in the period 2000–2007. Unofficial figures put the number of farmer suicides in the state at 11,516 between 1997 and 2005. Other figures quoted by some experts put the number of farmer suicides around 1,800 between 2000 and 2007. The agriculture sector overall in India is doing poorly, with several states reporting suicides by indebted farmers in the last 15 years or so.

K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, in a study report titled ‘Farmers’ Suicide in India: Magnitudes, Trends and Spatial Patterns’, stated: “In the 10-year period between 1997 and 2006, as many as 166,304 farmers committed suicide in India. If we consider the 12-year period from 1995 to 2006, the figure is close to 200,000.”

Almost 90 percent of the farmer suicides in Kerala between 2000-2007 were reported from Wayanad district, which is particularly susceptible because a large number of people here depend on agriculture for a living. One major reason for the high farmer suicide rate is the crash in prices of locally grown crops such as coffee, pepper, ginger, and areca nut, and diseases that killed off the crop.

The state government has now partially admitted that the farming community in Wayanad is in distress. A high-level official team headed by additional chief secretary K. Jayakumar, which inquired into the rising number of farmer suicides, has said that the agrarian crisis is severe.

Analysing the return of agrarian distress in Kerala, Dr S. Mohanakumar, associate professor at the Institute of Development Studies in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and researcher in agrarian distress, told IPS that there was a huge gap between income earned from agriculture and the input costs incurred by farmers.

“Low income from products, rising price of fertilisers and high interest rates are suffocating farmers. There is no alternative and so they take the extreme step,” Dr Mohanakumar said.

Dubai-based accountant Ramesh Ramachandran, who recently abandoned ginger cultivation in Pulppaly in Wayanad district, said there had been a major shift in farm crops from coffee and pepper to ginger and banana in the past ten years following depreciation in the market price of the first two crops. However, today, ginger too is not profitable because of its decreasing market value.

On Nov. 16, chief minister of Kerala Oommen Chandy announced a one-year moratorium on repayment of loans taken by farmers from government agencies, in the wake of increased farmer suicides. He said the government would also examine the role and interest structure of credit agencies lending money to farmers.

The difficulty in getting credit is one the main reasons for agrarian distress. Banks are not willing to extend credit to farmers and methods of loan recovery by banking and non-banking institutions have come in for considerable criticism. Adding to the problem is the sharp fall in the price of agriculture produce. Government agencies that are unable to procure agriculture produce at a remunerative price for farmers.

Satyan Mokeri, state general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha of the Communist Party of India, has demanded that three measures be put in place: monetary relief for the families of the farmers who had committed suicide, extension of debt-relief measures, and grant of low-interest loans to poor farmers.

He says the agrarian crisis had intensified in Wayanad and other districts owing to a drop in the prices of two main crops, ginger and banana.

C.K. Saseendran, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, said financial institutions, including cooperative banks and scheduled commercial banks, are unsympathetic to the needs of farmers and are not providing loans. As a result, “farmers are forced to take loans from private financial institutions at a higher rate of interest.”

When the central government announced the ‘Vidharbha package’ for the development of suicide prone districts across the country (named after the Vidharbha region in the western state of Maharashtra, which saw record farmers suicides), the Kerala government requested the central government to include Idukki, Palakkadu and Wayanad districts in the relief list. It also sought approval of a separate package for the Kuttanad region, which has been facing a severe agricultural crisis for the last five decades and which is unique among rice ecologies of the world.

Farmers’ forums have found fault with the Kerala package. They blame the re-emergence of agrarian distress in the state on the government’s laxity in implementing welfare measures.

V. T. Pradeep Kumar, chairman of Haritha Sena, an independent organisation of farmers in Wayanad, told media at Kalpetta that “if the project was properly carried out, the financial problems of farmers could have been solved to a certain extent.”

Bureaucratic inefficiency prevents most welfare programmes, including ‘packages’ announced from time to time by state and central governments for farmers, from having the desired effect. Former Kerala agricultural director Dr R. Heli told IPS that the delay in implementing the 1,840-crore rupee Kuttanad package prepared by the renowned agriculture scientist Dr M.S. Swaminathan, was due to unnecessary quarrels and a tug-of-war between departments.

“Chennai-based M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, entrusted to study the problems faced in Kuttanad, had submitted remedial measures to the central government in 2007, identifying 15 tasks covering about 50 different activities to mitigate agrarian distress in Kuttanad,” he said. “But lack of will power and inefficiency of administrators delayed the package in full scale.”

Women making saleable products from waste. Credit: Thanal/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
KOVALAM, India, Dec 7 2011 (IPS)

Standing on the shimmering white beach and gazing out at the turquoise blue waters of the Arabian sea, it is hard to believe that a decade ago this international tourist destination was under siege by mounting heaps of garbage.

But Kovalam, about 12 km north of Thiruvananthapuram, capital of southern Kerala state, has been declared a ‘zero waste area’ by a women’s self-help group (SHG) which is engaged in recycling waste into biodegradable carry bags and other items of daily use.

Leena, 35, who heads the SHG – one of several in Kovalam – said she was initially sceptical about the project. “Waste as a resource seemed an impossible concept, but this perception changed once we got going,” she told IPS.

“It is amazing what can be turned out of discarded material such as newspapers, jute, coconut shells and used garments,” Leena said, pointing to an assortment of items scattered about her living room.

With financial assistance from banks, Leena’s SHG started the Pioneer Paper Manufacturing Unit a few years ago with the aim of replacing plastic carry bags with eco-friendly alternatives.

Support also came from the Zero Waste Centre (ZWC), set up in 2001 by ‘Thanal’, an environmental non-government organisation (NGO) which focuses on building capacities and relationships among the local community.

Experts define ‘zero waste’ as a philosophy that encourages extension of the life-cycle of resources. This involves designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid or reduce the volume and toxicity of waste and conserve and recover all resources rather than burn or bury them.

Even though local government agencies in the area did not cooperate, the group went ahead. “Our group is committed to its goal of making Kovalam into a zero-waste destination,” Sabeena Beevi, manager of the ZWC, told IPS.

“The mindset of the people has been changing. People have begun seeing discarded materials as resources, though this is continuing process,” Beevi said.

As part of its campaign, the SHG has been promoting material substitution, responsible resource use and mindful consumption by imparting training to women.

According to Beevi more than 2,000 women have so far been trained by the ZWC in making various products out of discarded materials.

“Products now being manufactured include items of daily use such as mugs, bowls, spoons, soap dishes, key chains and flower vases which are made out of coconut shells to replace plastic. Many of these items are made at home by the SHG members,” said Beevi.

The gallery at the ZWC contains dozens of products made from natural materials such as coconut, bamboo, banana stems and jute, which speaks of the skill of the women.

As part of the waste-to-wealth strategy, the products are sold door-to-door by the women or by canvassing bulk orders. A co-operative is now being set up to collect finished products from other units and retail them through a centralised operation.

Kovalam has become a model in a state which generates about 3,000 tonnes of waste per day, with only about 50 percent of it collected for disposal, according to government estimates.

Elaborating on the evolution of the ‘Zero Waste Kovalam Campaign’, C. Jayakumar, director of Thanal, told IPS that it all started when the NGO joined other local groups in 1999 to resist a government plan to install a waste incineration plant in the Kovalam tourist village.

Support for the anti-incinerator campaign came from international groups fighting persistent organic pollutants and greenhouse gases produced by incineration. Before long the incinerator project was scrapped.

But the issue of addressing waste remained and Thanal volunteered its expertise to carry out a study to help the authorities solve the problem of disposal, said Jayakumar. “That is what paved the way for devising a zero waste action plan for Kovalam.”

Notable zero waste interventions included the replacement of plastic laundry bags used by Kovalam’s many hotels with handmade paper bags and create local jobs.

Other interventions saw the making of patchwork items, put together from tailoring waste and scraps of cloth.

As for disposing organic waste, several biogas digesters were set up in Kovalam, which had the added benefit of producing cheap and eco-friendly fuel.

Commenting on the all-women SHG’s activities at Kovalam, Shibu K. Nair, a noted environmental expert, said that zeroing waste at any international tourist centre calls for comprehensive methods to conserve and protect the area for economic and ecological sustainability.

At Kovalam resource recovery yards were established to sort out materials into reusables, recyclables, repairables and waste. Since 2004, the programme has periodically run beach clean-ups to retrieve thousands of discarded plastic bottles.

“This clean-up activity made our programme visible with hundreds of people pitching in to voluntarily pick up discarded bottles and help spread awareness,” says Nair.

“Zero waste is a theory which can be practiced in our daily lives, in every word and deed,” said Nair. “It is a new school of thought in management – both government and business.”

But Nair cautioned that the success of zero waste lies in the close involvement of communities. “It also needs insights from people with a positive attitude,” he said.

Nair, who co-authored a book ‘Waste Management in Rural Tourism Areas – A Zero Waste Approach’, published by the United Nations Development Programme in association with Thanal, believes that vocational training can help immensely in changing community attitudes towards waste.

“Broadly, traditional products and practices which are economically and ecologically sustainable should be identified and revived in these training programmes,” Nair said.

END/IPS/AP/EN/LB/DV/WO/CS/KP/OO/KSH/RDR/11)

While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness.

“Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation,” Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry, told IPS.

The WHO study, based on interviews with nearly 90,000 subjects across 18 countries with different income levels, said that the average lifetime rates of depression were found to be 14.6 percent in 10 high-income countries, and 11.1 percent in eight low and middle-income countries.

The study, released late July, said while around nine percent of people in India reported having an extended period of depression within their lifetime, incidents of major depressive episodes (MDE) were highest among Indians at 35.9 percent. China, a comparable large country, recorded the lowest with 12 percent.

Kallivayalil and other experts in the Indian mental health sector pointed out that the figures for India were not representative in that while 11 centres across the country participated in WHO’s mental health survey initiative, figures were largely extrapolated from just one centre, Puducherry.

“The Indian Psychiatry Society has formally rejected the WHO study,” Kallivayalil, who is vice-president of the society, told IPS.

While the WHO figures for major depression in India may be exaggerated, specialists say there is a growing incidence of depression in this country and warn that the average age of the depressed Indian is dropping fast and will hit 30 years in the near future unless timely measures are taken.

Dr. Devapalan, a clinical psychologist in Hyderabad, said that mental illness is already high in the age group 30–40 and that minor depression if not properly addressed could easily deteriorate into major depression.

A study conducted in 2009 by the Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro- Sciences placed the average age of the depressed Indian at 31 years.

The National Crimes Records Bureau states that of the 127,151 recorded suicides in 2009, 8,469 were linked to serious mental illness. “Insanity or mental illness accounted for 39.2 percent suicides in Ludhiana, 34.2 percent in Kochi and 31.3 percent in Amritsar,” the bureau observed.

The government launched the National Mental Health Programme in 1982, keeping in view the increasing burden of mental illness and the inadequacy of the mental healthcare infrastructure, but the programme achieved little because of a shortage of psychiatrists.

Health activists say that for real change to happen parliament must pass the new Mental Healthcare Bill which will replace the deficient 1987 Act and restructure mental health institutions in India.

Mathew Vellore, director of the Psychotherapy Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS that essentially the mental health sector needs larger fund allocation in the annual budgets. “A lot has to be done in respect of training, research, and provision of clinical services to promote mental health among all sections of society.”

According to WHO, countries like India allocate less than one percent of their health budget to mental health activities compared to some western countries which give 10 to 18 percent.

India has 3.5 psychiatrists per million people. But, given that doctors are located predominantly in the cities and that mental health treatment facilities in primary healthcare centres are poor, the number of unattended mentally ill in the villages is likely to be very high.

A 2010 report by the Stanley Medical College (SMC) in Chennai titled ‘Training and National Deficit of Psychiatrists in India’ said: “With 6.5 percent prevalence of serious mental disorder, the average national deficit of psychiatrists in India is estimated to be 77 percent.”

That report estimated that with 6.5 percent prevalence of serious mental disorder, the average national deficit of psychiatrists in India would be 77 percent and that more than one-third of the population had a 90 percent deficit of psychiatrists.

Such statistics give credence to estimates that put the number of Indians who suffer from depression around 10 million.

“The only solution to the problem is to train undergraduate medical students to provide a strong fundamental basis in psychiatry,” the SMC report suggested.

Dr. D. Raju, secretary of the Kerala State Mental Health Authority, run by the state government, told IPS that the steady migration of psychiatrists to Western countries like the United States and Australia and inadequacies in manpower development are the main reasons behind the shortage.

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her “ill-timed pregnancy”. To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl.

Sujatha, a public school teacher, and her husband, a civil engineer – who asked that their full names be withheld – are from well-off and educated families in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern state of Kerala. Yet they dared violate the law, approaching doctors at the Sree Avittam Thirunal Hospital for an abortion; they were granted one within a month.

The law prohibits Indian couples from selecting the sex of their unborn children, and from discriminating against female foetuses. Abortions are legal only for certain reasons, like when the mother is ill and pregnancy would endanger her life, or when a foetus is found to be severely handicapped.

But even with these laws in place, educated urban couples like Sujatha and her husband are opting for sex-selective abortions, thus causing a decline in the female population.

Sex determination tests have spurted across the nation, despite efforts to strengthen the Pre- Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC & PNDT) Act, the law against the misuse of pre- natal tests for sex selection.

Indian health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters in New Delhi that the central supervisory board on the PC & PNDT Act has been reconstituted to prevent widespread sex determination tests.

Azad said the Medical Council of India (MCI) “should urgently ensure that guidelines for accreditation of training and experience are put in place quickly.” The government has asked the MCI to implement a tough accreditation system for institutes that give training on the use of ultrasound machines, while considering the increasing trend of fraudulent institutions that use bogus certificates.

The health departments of the different states have also started cracking down on illegal sonography centres and fraudulent maternity clinics.

The Indian parliament enacted the PC & PNDT law in 1994 and amended it in 2003. Sources in the central health department said that between 2003 and March this year, 805 cases had been filed against doctors for violating the law, resulting in 55 convictions.

“The Indian socio-cultural psyche prefers a son to a daughter. This belief is very strong in northwest India, including Haryana and Delhi, where sex selection tests are very common,” Dr. V. Raman Kutty, a health activist and professor at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, told IPS.

“Advances in medical science have aided the popularity of these tests. The metros are the major centres for the tests with sophisticated laboratories. However, amniocentesis and ultrasound are available even in the clinics of small towns and cities,” he pointed out.

A study led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Health Research and published in the British medical journal “The Lancet” estimates that up to 12 million selective abortions of girl foetuses had occurred in India in the past three decades.

Sex-selective abortion was rare in India during the first half of the 20th century, but the availability of ultrasound machines has made sex determination easier, leading to an increase in the frequency of such tests.

Experts observe that the abortion law in the country, called the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, has many loopholes that save violators from penal action.

Dr. Sunny Sebastian, a health expert in Mumbai, told IPS that “in the present system, the doctor and patient can do abortions for wrong reasons. A survey conducted in Mumbai revealed that both doctors and patients do not heed legal warnings and have done abortions in advanced stages of pregnancy after discovering the foetus was female.”

Sex selection is taking its toll on the population. The 2011 Census data found a decline in the number of girls in the zero-to-six age group, reflecting a steady decline in the child sex ratio (CSR). In 1981, there were 971 girls for every 1,000 boys; in 2011, the number of girls dropped to 914.

The data revealed that CSR has declined in 431 districts, but improved in 149 districts of the country.

While citing the new census data, Azad said there were 7.1 million fewer girls than boys. “In 2001, this gap was six million. This means around 3.1 to six million girls have been aborted in the past decade.”

Activists say preventing female foeticide is a serious challenge before Indian society and that the economic factor plays a key role in the change in CSR.

Durga Lakshmi, a social activist and lecturer in Metca Institute of Teacher Education at Varkala, Kerala, told IPS that the financial wellness of a family determines whether it will decide to have a girl child or not.

“Through empowerment, strengthening of rights, campaigning against vicious practices and ensuring strict implementation of law, society can wipe out sex selection and abortion of girls. Economic distress is the basis for smaller families preferring sons. Daughters are thought to be an economic burden in poor families,” she said.

For Janu, walking the streets to beg for alms is the only option for survival. After all, she has a two-year-old daughter to feed, and she herself, at 14 years old, is little more than a child.

Single mother Leela with her daughter. Credit: K.S.Harikrishnan/IPS.

The story of Janu, who lives in the Attappady tribal area in Palakkadu district in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is not an isolated one.

In tribal hamlets in the districts of Wayanad, Palakkadu and Kasargod, girls like Janu end up as unwed mothers after falling victim to sexual harassment and exploitation, sometimes by influential men who refuse to acknowledge their responsibilities. Now, these women face shame and starvation.

A survey conducted by the Kerala State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Department found 563 unwed mothers in the state. But the Kerala Women’s Commission (KWC) puts the actual number at more than 2,000.

An investigation led by Deputy Police Inspector-General S. Sreejith had found that there were no less than 1,000 unwed mothers in the tribal areas of north Kerala.

According to the KWC, most unwed mothers are 14 to 20 years old. Oommen Chandy, the new chief minister of Kerala, has directed the police to go the extra mile to ensure justice to the victims of violence, trafficking, and sexual exploitation, particularly unwed mothers hailing from the tribal sector.

KWC member and senior woman leader T. Devi told IPS that there has been a steep rise in the numbers of unwed mothers in the tribal community in the past fifteen years. “The Commission is initiating a police inquiry into the cases of young unwed mothers and making arrangements to rehabilitate the affected women,” she said.

T. Devi pointed to forest officials, teachers, contractors, labourers and local leaders as among those accused of impregnating young girls. They lure teenage girls by giving them money, liquor, clothes, bags, and perfumes. They flatter the girls and then invite them to their homes or to see a movie. Some men offer marriage proposals.

Dr. K. G. Vijayalakshmi, director of the Thiruvananthapuram-based Women Empowerment and Human Resource Development Centre of India, who has studied the problem, told IPS that the issues of unwed mothers are mainly linked to social backwardness.

“Hunger, poverty, illiteracy, ill-health, lack of communication and financial constraints are leading tribal women to seek the help of non-tribal people,” she said. “These forest invaders, especially rich people, sexually exploit the women. Many unwed tribal girls are working free of cost in the residences of non- tribal people.”

Chennai-based anthropologist G. P. Paul told IPS the issue of unmarried mothers is as serious as the problem of displacement from tribal territory. Kerala tribes have lost thousands of acres to non-tribal people, who venture into the forest to grab their land.

“No steps were taken to restore their land. Migration of non-tribal people continues. Raped and ravaged by non-tribal people, tribal women in Kerala are paying a heavy price,” he added.

News reports cite a survey conducted in 174 hamlets in Attappady in 2000 by the volunteer organisation NAMU, which found 343 unmarried mothers, some of them with more than one child.

Earlier in 1997, a committee of the Kerala Legislative Assembly also examined the problem and submitted a report to the government, which failed to act on it.

Since then, officials and activists have demanded action and social programmes to address the issue of unwed mothers in tribal hamlets.

Pushkala Unnikrishnan, an activist in tribal issues and vice-president of the local self-government institution in Wayanad district, wants the government to implement special welfare schemes such as pensions for unwed mothers.

“It is a shame for a high-literacy state like Kerala that these unmarried tribal women continue to live in a state of penury and neglect, years after their problems came to public attention,” said Unnikrishnan.

Kerala Aadivasi Forum (KAF), a tribal organisation, is seeking justice from the government and social agencies for the rehabilitation of unmarried mothers and their children.

Bolan, a state committee member and KAF Wayanad district president, wants government to start planning a long-term programme for the welfare of these mothers. “Living conditions of children born out of wedlock are worst. Most of them have inhibitions to face others, fearing being taunted as the children of harlots.”

Experts point out that premature deaths of unwed tribal women were not uncommon, and several crude and inhuman methods have been employed to eliminate infants even after birth.

Kitty Lukose, a social researcher who has studied the condition of tribal unwed mothers in Wayanad, found out that many tribal girls resorted to abortion using traditional medicine. “They go to government hospitals for check-ups. Once they find that they are pregnant, they abort the fetus.”

Dr. K. Ramachandran Nair, a physician who has served in tribal areas for more than 45 years, told IPS that hypertension and diabetes are very common among unmarried mothers.

“Some of the unwed mothers later turn into sex workers since there is absolutely no income for survival. The mothers are isolated both from their family as well as from the community. The culprits escape from the net through their economic and political power,” Dr. Nair pointed out.

Dr. Beena Kannan, a health expert working in a government hospital in Kochi, a city north of the capital Thiruvananthapuram, suggested that regular medical checkups, both for the mothers and children, are essential for their survival.

“Besides imparting legal and emotional support, health organisations should give awareness on safe sex practices and condom usage,” she added.

It was smooth sailing for 30-year-old Susan George throughout her pregnancy, until the day she went to give birth at the government hospital. Doctors told her they had to do a caesarean section because they could not wait for a normal delivery.

George, a fish vendor, pleaded for a natural delivery, but no one heard her. There was a rush of pregnant women, hence the C-section, said doctors at the hospital in Cherthala town in Alappuzha district in the southern Indian state of Kerala, when George was admitted on Apr. 19.

The hospital is capable of handling only six surgeries a day, and lacks maternity and newborn care facilities. Despite these limitations, the doctors took the risk of performing 22 C-sections in three days, because they were rushing to go on leave for the Easter holidays.

The incident came to light after several pregnant patients complained that the doctors forced them to show up for delivery before their due dates.

District medical officer K. M. Sirabuddin noted that the “mass” C-sections represented “an unusual rise in the number of caesarean operations (that) had become visible and many of these surgeries were unwarranted.”

The cases have prompted the State Human Rights Commission to file a case against the hospital and the doctors, news reports said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that C-sections should be done only as a life-saving measure when there is a risk of fetal or maternal death. As far back as 1985, the WHO already stated, “There is no justification for any region to have CS rates higher than 10 to 15 percent.”

But the Kerala Health Directorate revealed that the C-section rate in the state is as high as 30 percent, and has always been much higher than the national average of 20 percent.

The Kerala Health Department says this is because the state has nearly 100 percent institutional delivery – in other words, almost all births take place in hospitals and not at home.

Women’s rights activists say forcing women to undergo C-sections violates their human rights. The group is blaming medical bodies such as the Indian Medical Association for standing by errant colleagues instead of conducting unbiased investigations into such incidents.

The activists, led by former WHO consultant and professor Dr. T. K. Sundari Raveendran, said subjecting women to C-sections when not medically necessary is a violation of women’s rights to a non-interventional normal vaginal birth.

“There are good reasons to be concerned about the spate of unnecessary C-sections carried out in a casual manner. Consent has been taken from women, and doctors are not giving full and complete information about the possible side effects of abdominal surgery,” the activists said.

India, however, is not the only country with high C-section rates. News reports say China has a 46 percent C-section rate, while caesarean operations in the U.S. have been increasing and have reached over 31 percent.

C.R. Choudhury, a researcher at the Mumbai-based International Institute for Population Sciences, studied the rate of caesarean operations in India and found that the state of West Bengal had the highest rate, at 32.50 percent, followed by Kerala with 28.38. The north-eastern state of Mizoram has the lowest at 5.48 percent.

Women’s organisations say the C-section rate is very high in urban areas. Birth India, a Mumbai-based NGO, reveals that the surgery rate in urban areas is approximately 50 percent.

In the capital New Delhi, analysts estimate that C-section rates could go as high as 65 per cent in some private hospitals. Birth India says it can climb as high as 80 percent in private hospitals.

Dr. Manjula, a health expert working in a private clinic in Kochi some 25 kilometres north of Cherthala, told IPS that 70 percent of pregnant women in Kerala give birth by C-section. “In many parts of urban India, women having caesarean section deliveries seem to be the norm and those having normal deliveries almost seem to be an exception.”

The mass C-section scandals in Kerala have exposed not only the growing rate of caesarean operations in the country but also doctors’ growing lust for money, say women’s advocates.

Senior physicians admit government doctors and private hospitals prefer C-sections in view of the financial gains.

“Many gynaecologists are looking for money. A caesarean delivery costs an average of 20,000 rupees (440 dollars) more than normal in private hospitals, and in a few hospitals in New Delhi a normal delivery costs 50,000 rupees (1,100 dollars) while a caesarean section costs 65,000 (1,400 dollars) plus hospital stay and room charges,” an executive member of the Indian Medical Association told IPS on condition of anonymity.

Obstetricians say the “convenience factor” was the major potential advantage of caesarean delivery on demand, giving a woman the feeling that she has a degree of control over the birth process.

Dr. Santhi Iyer, professor at a medical university in Chennai, told IPS that freeing women from fear of delivery pain, maintaining the mother’s health and quality of life, and avoiding pelvic prolapse and urinary incontinence are other benefits that persuade women to opt for a C-section.

An added reason against making women go through C-sections is that Indian government hospitals are unhygienic, health activists say. Yet the poor and lower middle classes still prefer these hospitals.

“The typical government hospital is without basic facilities, and hence the patients are often compelled to occupy the floor – even those with serious illness. The victims of mass caesareans were forced to share single beds and newborns are often kept on the floor,” said Gopichand, an activist from Rajasthan state.

Ajith, a nine-year old boy from Badiyadukka village in the southern Indian state of Kerala, waits patiently for his mother to return from the market and take him to the toilet. His bones are so deformed, he is totally immobile.

Endosulfan goes by another trade name, Parrysulfan, in this photo taken from a cardamom plantation in Idukki, Kerala. Endosulfan is banned in Kerala. Credit: K.S. Harikrishnan/IPS

In Periya, another village in the northern Kerala district of Kasargod, a woman waits for compensation from the government for her daughter Anjana, who was born with her bladder outside her body. “I have to be near her through the day and am unable to find work,” she said.

Ajith and Anjana are living victims of the spraying of the toxic pesticide endosulfan that has continued over two decades despite being banned in the cashew-growing hills and valleys of Kasargod, now a recognised name on the global pesticides map.

The issue of a global endosulfan ban is on the agenda at the fifth Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, or “POPs Treaty”, which opened in Geneva Monday.

As the conference began, Kerala’s chief minister, V.S. Achuthanandan, led a mass action in the state demanding that the central government impose a national ban on endosulfan, a move already taken by 81 other countries.

The Kerala government is also busy trying to extract 86 million dollars in compensation from the central government to rehabilitate the victims, as recommended by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Dec. 31, 2010.

Rights activists say that amount is inadequate. Kummel Radhakrishnan, an activist at Hosdurg, a town near Kasargod, told IPS that the victims are not getting proper care. “Many affected families have been deprived of their breadwinner either by death or by desertion.”

Endosulfan poisoning started in the 1980s when the state-run Plantation Corporation of Kerala (PCK) began a thrice-a-year ritual of aerial spraying on close to 5,000 hectares of undulating, cashew-growing hills and valleys spread over a dozen villages.

The aerial spraying by PCK has claimed at least 9,000 victims in Kasargod district, said the Endosulfan Action Committee, an umbrella body representing nearly a dozen organisations working for the relief and rehabilitation of affected villagers. Of that total, the group says, 4,800 are bedridden and around one thousand have died.

The state government acknowledges that 486 people exposed to the pesticide have died so far and that some 3,000 people continue to suffer its debilitating effects.

Kerala and neighbouring Karnataka state have banned endosulfan, but manufacturers continue to market the chemical using different names such as “parrysulfan,” which is being sold through outlets to ordinary farmers. PCK itself no longer uses the pesticide.

The two states are pressing the central government for a national ban to prevent the cheap and popular pesticide from being smuggled in from other states.

But a pesticide lobby led by Central Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who is also a powerful politician from Maharashtra state, is behind the move to delay the national ban.

Achuthanandan took issue with the fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had not conceded to Kerala’s demand for a national ban. The Kerala chief minister said, “The Prime Minister should not use his office to promote the pesticide lobby like Minister Sharad Pawar.”

Endosulfan poisoning in Kasargod has caused birth defects, including: babies born with stag-horn limbs, scale-like skin, protruding tongues, eye deformities, extra fingers and toes, cleft palates, club feet and harelips, hydrocephalus, renal diseases, respiratory disorders, cognitive and emotional deterioration, memory problems, impairment of visual-motor coordination and blindness.

Several young mothers have had to resort to repeated abortions rather than risk giving birth to deformed children. It is common in Kasargod to find young men and women who look like children and children who look like stunted grandparents.

C. Jayakumar, director of Thanal, a leading environmental organisation based in Kasargod, told IPS that a house-to-house health survey in the Periya cashew plantation area revealed that health disorders were a major concern for all living there.

He said that a nationwide ban is needed for a total stop to the sale and export of the pesticide. “Regional banning will not have much effect. The state of Kerala has even banned the sale, but the use of endosulfan continues under different names,” he said.

No fewer than 16 studies have brought out the ill effects of endosulfan in India. One study conducted under the New Delhi-based Indian Council of Agricultural Research revealed a decline in the honeybee population in Idukki and Kasargod districts of Kerala, as a result of use of the pesticide.

S. Devanesan, professor and principal scientist at the Thiruvananthapuram-based College of Agriculture under the Kerala Agricultural University, said bees showed symptoms of poisoning and died a day after the spraying.

“Some bees visited flowers but became disoriented and were unable to return to their hives. The poisoned bees crawled around disrupting hive activity,” he told IPS.

Honeybees play an important role in pollinating flowering plants. They are the major pollinators in cardamom, coffee, coconut, cashew and vegetables like cucurbits and leguminous plants including peas and beans, all of which are grown in Kasargod.

Jayakumar and his fellow Thanal environmentalist Lakshmi Narasimhan said the decline of honeybees has disrupted tribal communities. “It affected the tribal Koragas who used to collect wild honey from the forests,” they said.

Experts pointed out that PCK ignored stipulations that aerial spraying of pesticides should be done very close to the canopy level or that the same pesticide should not be used continuously for a long time in any given area.

Dr. A. Achuthan, a scientist who studied the impact of endosulfan usage around villages in Kasargod, said the water and soil in the villages were severely contaminated. Furthermore, “the possibility of the bugs acquiring immunity because of long-term exposure was not considered.,” he added.

With so much scientific evidence weighing against endosulfan, NGOs led by the Endosulfan Spray Protest Action Committee in Kasargod are calling for criminal prosecution of people responsible for the human tragedy in the district.

“We are demanding proper compensation for the victims and criminal prosecution of those responsible for a preventable tragedy, whether they belong to the corporate world or are officials in the state or central government.,” said Masood Bovikkanam, a leader of the committee.

It was just past 9 p.m. of Feb. 1 when guards of the Ernakulam-Shornur train found 23-year-old Soumya, an accountant, unconscious near the railway tracks at Vettikkattiri in Thrissur district, Kerala state.

Soumya was her family’s breadwinner and had been travelling home from work in Kochi city when a notorious youth reportedly dragged her from the women’s compartment, pushed her out, smashed her head with a stone and raped her.

Soumya died five days later.

What happened to Soumya is not an isolated sexual horror. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says rape is the fastest growing crime in India, with a spike in the number of cases reported for January and February 2011.

According to the NCRB, a total of 21,397 rape incidents were reported countrywide in 2009. There were also more than 25,000 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women, aside from cases of molestation which numbered more than 38,000.

In 1990, the number of reported rape cases was 10,068, a figure which jumped to 16,496 in 2000.

Experts attribute the increase in rapes to various factors: the growing urbanisation, a lack of value-based education, dwindling healthy social relationships, and easy access to vulgar pornography.

They also blame it on the shift from larger families to nuclear ones. Another factor is the increasing presence of goons hired by local politicians.

Dr. K. Pramodu, a well-known sexologist and director of the Kochi-based Promod’s Sexual and Marital Health institute, told IPS that a major attitudinal change had occurred in the minds of Indian youths in the past ten years.

The Internet has made images of sex widely accessible, Pramodu said. At the same time, Pramodu noted that a positive attitude by law enforcement agencies has encouraged women to come out and file complaints against their attackers.

The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rape cases at nearly 3,000 in 2009.

Dr. K. P. Pothen, sociology professor at Indore in Madhya Pradesh who studied rapes cases in central India, said the incidence of rape was increasing compared to the previous decade.

“Both minors and adults are involved in rapes,” Pothen said. He added that where the victim is below 16 years old, very few cases are reported because the matter is considered delicate. Pothen also noted an increase in deaths of rape victims.

NCRB records show that one-fourth of all rape cases in cities in 2009 were reported in the Indian capital New Delhi.

Among 35 mega cities in India, Delhi reported 404 rape cases in 2009. The number of kidnapping and abductions of women was 1,379 while reported molestation cases were close to 500.

According to a United Nations survey in 2010, almost 85 percent of women in the capital felt unsafe and feared being sexually harassed. “Women feel more vulnerable while travelling in a bus, waiting at the bus stop, walking on the streets and in market places,” the survey found.

Archna Rajeev, a senior journalist in New Delhi, told IPS that the capital was experiencing a high influx of people from all over India, primarily from the northern states, as people migrate towards better opportunities and living conditions.

“Delhi, with rapid urbanisation, high rates of education and intense access to media, has also resulted in changing values among the youth,” Rajeev said. “As a result of the growing economy and increased job opportunity, a large number of young girls are joining the work force. But their security is minimal in and outside of organisations.”

NCRB statistics also show an increase in reported incest rape cases from 309 in 2008 to 404 in 2009. But there is severe under-reporting of such cases. Crime experts say incest rapes account for the highest number of rapes in the country, with most not reported.

Dr. Arun Kumar, a Bangalore-based criminologist, says victims refuse to talk about incest rape. “Many illegal incest cohabitations are happening in family circles. Both the victim and assaulter do not reveal the truth,” Kumar said.

Women writers describe the increasing trend of sexual abuse and violence against women as a byproduct of vulgarity in media and commercialisation of human relationships.

“Nowadays, the safety and security of women is a great concern to all,” says poet, author and columnist O. V. Usha. “The seductive advertising has unlimited influence on youngsters. We, people and government, ought to do more to stop atrocities against females.”

Over the years, the Kadars, a dwindling aboriginal tribe who live on the borders of the southern Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have survived pestilences, extreme exploitation and even mass sterilisations. But a new government plan to build a hydroelectric dam across the Chalakudy River would have been the death knell for the group who now number about 1,500.

With the Ministry of Environment and Forest veto of the proposed 140 million U.S. dollar dam project at Athirapilli in the valley of the Western Ghats, the Kadars have gotten a reprieve.

The decision of the Environment Ministry is “a major success for the forest and the tribe,” A. Latha, an environmentalist and research co-ordinator of the Thrissur-based River Research Centre, told IPS.

Local resistance and judicial intervention by the High Court of Kerala have also come to the aid of the Kadars and the unique flora and fauna of the forested hilly area of the Chalakudy river basin.

The Kadar community is one of the six endangered food-gathering communities in India according to anthropologists. Their population in 1961 was just 800.

Ayyan, a member of the tribe, says that many community huts will be submerged if the state continues the work on the dam. “We hear the death knell of our beloved river,” the 60-year-old man told IPS.

“The government does not give adequate basic amenities to us at the settlement area, where living conditions are very bad. Their assurance on amenities is a pipe- dream. Now they want our river and forest for their benefits,” Ayyan said.

P. Gopakumar, a Malayali author, told IPS that the government is guilty of sponsoring violence against tribal society in the name of the dam. “Acting on behalf of the middle men in the market sector, the promoters in government and private agencies are ignoring the rights of the tribe,” he said.

According to Joy Kaitharam, general secretary of the Thrissur-based Human Rights Protection Centre which fights for the rights of indigenous people, there has been no letup in the atrocities inflicted on the tribe since 87 Kadars were forcibly sterilised at the Mattathoor Government Primary Health Centre, near Kodakara in 1976.

“Since the conduct of sterilisations, the population of the tribe has remained stagnant. Today, Kadar men are tortured by officials on charges of forest theft and for agitating against the dam,” Kaitharam told IPS.

Prof. S. K. Tiwari, who compiled ‘Encyclopaedia of Indian Tribals’, pointed out that “Kadars shifted from traditional occupation to snake charmers as well as sellers of honey and wax since 1940.”

“Because of the change of life style, very high morbidity is prevailing in the tribal belt. There is no modern health facility at the settlement,” says S. P. Ravi, convener of the Chalakudy River Protection Forum. “Kadar people need highly nutritious food for managing anaemia.”

Environmentalists say that the immediate fallout of building the dam will be the fragmentation of the habitat for elephants, tigers, lion-tailed macaques and other species that roam the contiguous sanctuaries and national parks in the Parambikulam-Anamalai range of Western Ghats – one of the internationally identified eco-regions for long-term conservation in India.

Due to the rich diversity of fish in the Chalakudy River, the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources in Lucknow has suggested the river area be declared as a “fish sanctuary.”

Gopinathan Nair, president of the Limnological Association of Kerala, fears construction of dam will prevent both upstream and downstream migration of some of the fish – which is a vital activity for their survival. “Depletion of fish and mussels will certainly affect the environment surrounding the 140 kilometre-long river,” Nair points out.

Cambridge-based Bird Life International has noted the importance of the endemic birds nesting in the Athirapilli-Vazhachal hills.

Botanists have focused on the abundant and diverse flora that has not yet been fully catalogued in the area. “Experts from government agencies are silent on the actual volume of trees that would be submerged,” says Ravikumar, a botanist in Kochi.

By K. S. Harikrishnan
TAMIL NADU, India, Aug 16 2010 (IPS)

Soon after she had her second child, Rathna fell into a frenzied state and had to be brought to a hospital here in the southern Indian village of Dharmapuri. After a month-long series of tests, doctors issued their diagnosis: Rathna, they said, was suffering from a psychiatric aberration that seems to occur often among adolescent mothers.

Rathna was just 16 years old. Her parents had married her off to a total stranger with whom she had two children in quick succession. A mere child herself, the experience was apparently too much for her to handle, causing her to suffer what appeared to be a breakdown.

The story of Rathna, however, is hardly rare in India, where child marriages are still considered acceptable by many people. This is despite the legal age for marriage for men being 21 years old and that for women, 18 years old.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which defines child marriage as one in which either the bride or groom is under the age of 18, says that 40 percent of the world’s child marriages take place in this country. In most cases, it is the girl who is the minor – and with the groom more than a decade older.

Yet not only are the aspirations of such child brides dashed because of their early marriages. Experts say that these girls’ health is seriously compromised as well as a result of their having wed and borne children before they are physically and psychologically mature.

According to UNICEF, child brides often have premature pregnancies, “which cause higher rates of maternal and infant mortality”. Researchers led by Anita Raj of Boston University’s School of Public Health also said in a 2009 paper released that girls who marry at a very young age are more likely to suffer from fistula, which is a genital tract tear, aside from complications arising from childbirth.

Well-known demographer K G Santhya of the Population Council in New Delhi points out, too, that child brides are vulnerable to “both physical and sexual violence perpetrated by their husbands”.

Why the practice persists in India despite these risks can be traced partly to traditional norms that stress female subservience, among other things. Researchers including Raj and others have also found that child marriages are more common among the country’s poor and uneducated.

Ananda Babu, a Kochi-based sociologist, recently told IPS that in some cases, “by marrying off young girls, parents are aiming to get money and other aids.”

This may be why the northern state of Bihar has resorted to offering financial help to those who marry after the age of 18.

In early August, ‘The Hindu’ newspaper also quoted Bihar Social Welfare Minister Damodar Rawat as calling child marriages “a gross injustice to children as it proves devastating for their life”.

Studies have shown that Bihar has one of the highest incidences of child marriages in all of India. Just this year, the Population Council released a report that noted, “Women from Bihar were most likely to be married off before reaching the legal marriageable age. Over nine in (10) young women with no formal schooling were married before age 18.”

Bihar has the lowest literacy rates in the entire country, for both males (59.68 percent) and females (33.12 percent). Nationwide, the literacy rate is 64.85 percent, with that among males at 75.26 percent and females at 33.12 percent.

The Population Council report also said that nearly one- fifth of Indian women are married off before turning 15 and around 50 percent before reaching the legal marriageable age.

Sociologists say that some parents marry off their young daughter to a much older man in a misguided attempt to give the girl a mature “guardian”. The set-up, however, often ends up in abuse.

Although the details are sketchy, this may have been the case with Rathna, who was discovered by her parents to have fallen in love a college student. Fearing their daughter would elope, they forced her to marry a man twice her age.

Authorities and activists alike have been trying to stop marriages like this from taking place. Here in Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu state, 11 weddings involving minor girls were stopped by officials in a single day in June “just before the nuptial knots were tied by the grooms”, said a district social welfare officer.

In northern Haryana, another state where the number of child marriages are high, an officer in the women and child development department said, “About 100 child marriages were stopped by the prevention cell in the last one year, and succeeded in stopping 20 child marriages in this year.”

In Delhi, a court petition filed by a non-government organisation to have the marriage of a 17-year-old girl to a 40-year-old widower declared illegal yielded a high court order in May that prohibited the groom from consummating the marriage until his bride reaches 18.

The court also commented, “Child marriage is a violation of human rights, compromising the development of girls and often resulting in early pregnancy and social isolation, with little education and poor vocational training reinforcing the gendered nature of poverty.’’

Yet sociologist Babu said that ridding India of child marriage would not be easy. “Families and communities, including boys and men, need to understand the risks associated with child marriage and must work for social change,” he said.

Excerpt:

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Feb 9 2010 (IPS)

Domestic worker Beena Joy, 35, came back empty-handed after losing her job in recession-hit United Arab Emirates, but soon found that getting laid-off has given her a happier life back home here in this southern Indian city.

When she left the UAE, she was not able to collect the 1,000-U.S. dollar arrears from her sponsor. But after some time at home, she felt liberated from a life of drudgery and physical abuse at the hands of her employer.

“I left quietly, without complaining to government officials or anyone, and today I am happy to be a domestic worker with a wealthy family in (the southern Indian state) Kerala,” Joy told IPS.

Her story about losing her job due to the economic downturn is not an isolated one. “I left behind many women workers like me sobbing within the four walls of many houses in the UAE,” she called. “Many of them cannot return because they need to pay off debts from paying employment agencies and for flight tickets, and are trapped.’’

Joy probably did the right thing because the labour courts in UAE are inaccessible to ordinary migrants, says Irudaya Rajan, a researcher on migration to the Gulf at the Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies.

“In the case of female domestic workers, they cannot even approach labour courts as they are not covered by any labour laws,” he said in an interview.

The Gulf is a magnet for millions of migrant workers from Asia, including South Asia. Many Indian migrant workers also come from Kerala state.

Talking to IPS at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, which is a transit point for travelers to the Gulf from Asian countries, a group of women of different nationalities but all working in UAE, said it was common for migrant women to face mental and physical abuse in the host country.

“Irregular payment of salaries, long working hours, harassment, false involvement in theft and sexual abuse’’ are the lot of women not only in domestic situations but also in offices,’’ said Jayanthi Gopal, a Nepali typist working in Abu Dhabi.

“The only difference is that domestic workers who try to run away are more vulnerable to other forms of exploitation such as forced prostitution and trafficking”, she added.

“Different types of punishment are inflicted upon female servants when they violate order of the masters”, explained, Nandini Pandiyan, a Sri Lankan domestic worker at Fujairah.

Gopalakrishnan, a Dubai- based Indian journalist, says that there even were cases of debt bondage of unskilled women workers in UAE residences and of saleswomen being taken away from shops by wealthy or influential men for pleasure.

“A saleswoman told a Dubai court that a businessman tricked her into going to watch a remote-controlled aeroplane game in the desert, where she claimed he raped her. Prosecutors accused the 27-year-old Emirati businessman of having sex with the Syrian saleswoman against her will,’’ the journalist added.

Amnesty International Report -2009 on the UAE has condemned the exploitation and abuse of foreign labourers in the country. “Cases of torture and prolonged detention without trial were reported. Women continued to face legal and other discrimination”.

Human Rights Watch, another international rights group, has urged officials to protect domestic workers under labour laws and reform the sponsoring system, which makes it difficult for women to change jobs or leave the country without their consent.

A joint study, titled ‘HIV Vulnerabilities Faced by Women Migrants from Bangladesh to the Arab States’, published by the United Nations Development Programme and the Dhaka-based Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme, also looks into the exploitation and mistreatment of women workers in the UAE.

The UAE federal government has adopted strict measures on career opportunities, labour acts and visa rules, despite assurances to the international community on guaranteeing of rights of foreigners.

The Global Forum on Migration and Development, which held its meeting in Athens recently, also called the attention of the UAE to address labour migration issues.

But the financial crisis, which has led to many migrants losing their jobs, has not made easier efforts to respect migrants’ rights.

Due to difficult economic times, uncertainty prevails in the Emirates as many migrant workers are losing their jobs, sponsors are flouting laws, and many are laid off without the right benefits. Those who continue to work also grapple with delayed salaries, higher rent costs and stricter family visas.

In January, some 4,000 construction workers of the Thermo LLC company in Al Sowwah Island held a protest at the Abu Dhabi Financial Centre due to the non-payment of salaries for three months, said John Kuruvila, a staffer in the company.

Rasheed, a skilled worker from India, told IPS over telephone from Dubai that there have indeed been protests at various labour camps over flouting various laws, and bad accommodation and unhygienic food in violation of contractual agreements.

All of these are also happening against the backdrop of the ‘Emiratisation’ process since the early nineties, under which the country is trying to nationalise the workforce to reverse the trend of heavy dependence on foreign labour.

Of the UAE population of 6 million people, which comprises both Emiratis and foreigners, the largest group of foreigners is from India with 1.75 million people, followed by Pakistanis at 1.5 million. About a fifth of the population is estimated to be Emiratis.

Recently, more than 5,000 typing centers across the country were shut down with the intention of giving more opportunities to UAE nationals.

T P Sreenivasan, a former diplomat who served as deputy permanent representative of India to the United Nations, told IPS: “The rulers are now trying to control the migration in order to give more placements to natives and cannot be expected to be sympathetic to Indian workers.’’

The Kerala Gulf Returnees’ Association estimates that four million individuals are working with the private sector in the UAE, and that half of these are construction workers. Indians and Pakistanis are the backbone of construction boom, while majority of the women migrant labour from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines are domestic workers.

Excerpt: