India an 'all-rounder' in sex trade : UN Report

September 8, 2006

New Delhi - India has the dubious distinction of being a sort of 'all-rounder' in the sex trade. It is one of the very few countries in the globe that rank high as origin, destination as well as transit points in this murky business.

Among the others which are both major sources and destinations are Pakistan, China, Cambodia and, not surprisingly, Thailand.

This shameful fact emerges from State of the World Population 2006, a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released on Wednesday.

The report, which focuses on migration, lists trafficking as one of the greatest risks to women during the process of migration.

According to the report, though the trafficking industry's revenue is globally estimated to be about $7 billion to $ 12 billion, the traffickers probably netted an additional $32 billion from re-trafficking and from the labour of the trafficked victim.

Southeast Asia and South Asia, the report says, are home to the largest numbers of internationally trafficked persons.

In Asia, most of the trafficking takes place within or from the region, which explains why India, Pakistan China, Thailand and Cambodia double up as both destinations as well as source areas for traffickers.

India and Pakistan also serve as transit points for trafficking into the Middle East, according to the report.

Though the report does not give any precise country-wise data on trafficking, there are two different colour-coded maps showing destination countries and origin countries for trafficking.

The five Asian countries figure in the "high" or "very high" category on both counts. In most other cases, countries that are major origins - like Russia or Brazil - rank as "very low" or "medium" when it comes to being destinations.

Similarly, major destinations like the US or Japan report either low or negligible numbers of outward movement of sex workers.

No condoms please, we are Indians

Sushmita Bose, Hindustan Times

03 September 2006, New Delhi.

Sex isn't taboo for the new global Indian. Condoms are. Buying the rubber over the counter makes most Indians turn various shades of pink, a study reveals.

The market for condoms shrunk in 2005 by 2.2 per cent in urban India and 6.9 per cent in rural India (in terms of volume).

The embarrassment factor has gone up from 26 per cent (in 2004) to 37 per cent in 2005, according to the study conducted by Synovate India. The study was done as part of the USAID/ICICI condom promotion campaign.

So why do otherwise confident men baulk at buying the contraceptive? "Asking for a condom exposes the consumer's intention to have sex, may provoke suppliers to visualise the consumer's partner in a sexual context, and stigmatises unmarried consumers by 'disclosing' that they are sexually active," says Anand Sinha, country director, PSP-One India (an USAID project).

In short, the average Indian still doesn't want his neighbours to know that he has sex.

That chemists turn incoherent at the mention of the C-word doesn't help. Varun (name changed), who works for an NGO, says that he wanted to know about different brands of condoms "but the chemist didn't let me choose a brand of my choice. He took a packet out and put it in a black polythene packet.”

Australian cricketer Chappell to be killed by Hindu Goddess Durga in Calcutta !

Come Puja, Chappell will be Mahisasura!

Press Trust of India
Kolkata, August 29, 2006

With Sourav Ganguly's return to the Indian cricket team still uncertain, a local puja organiser is seeking divine intervention by depicting coach Greg Chappell as the demon 'Mahisasura' during next month's Durga Puja.

A prominent sculpor of Kumartuli, where Durga images are scuplted, has been asked by a North Kolkata puja organiser to depict the Australian as Mahisasura, the evil demon who is eliminated by Goddess Durga.

"The people in our locality have very strong sentiments against Chappell for his role in omitting of Ganguly from the Indian team and that is why we have decided to depict Chappell as Mahisasura this year," a member of the Deshbandhu Road Puja committee in Baranagar said.

"Ganguly is very dear to us and we want to express our sentiments in this manner," another member of the committee said.

Depiction of topical events at the puja mandaps (pandals) is a common practice in Kolkata during Durga Puja, the biggest festival of Bengal scheduled in 2006 for the last week of September.

Dilip Pal, the sculptor in Kumartuli, who has been assigned the task of making Mahisasura look like Chappell, sees nothing wrong in depicting the batting legend as evil personified.

"Every year we get requests from puja organisers to make images depicting some recent events and this year it is the Ganguly-Chappell issue," Pal said.

Interestingly, Pal is also making an image depicting the infamous head-butt by French footballing icon Zinedine Zidane during the World Cup for another puja committee.

Pal, however, said that his depiction of Chappell as Mahisasura would not be in the traditional manner as the Australian was a guest in India.

"Chappell will not be shown being killed by the Goddess but he will be shown dressed in trouser and jacket standing before the goddess asking for forgiveness," he said.

Goddess Durga would be shown in an angry mood directing the Aussie to bring back Ganguly in the Indian team, Pal said adding, "this is simply the sentiments of the people about Ganguly."

The organisers have also planned to design the entire pandal depiciting the sport theme in 2006.

Speaking about his other creation this year, Pal said that as a football lover, he considered Zidane's act as 'unsporting' and that is why "I decided to oblige another puja organiser in the outsirts of the city."

Pal's logic, however, did not go down well with football crazy Kolkatans, including Subrata Dutta, secretary of Indian Football Association, the governing body of the game in the state.

"I feel sad about this. A great player like Zidane does not deserve this from us who claim to be football lovers," Dutta said when approached for his comments.

He also said that people should not forget Zidane's contributions to the game and, "even if his act was a blemish, we should not forget under what provocation it was done.

"Depicting a player like Zidane like this only lowers our image."

Indians form half of UAE's private sector workforce

Saturday, 26 August 2006

Dubai: Indians form about half of the 2.6 million expatriate workers in the United Arab Emirates' private sector.

Indians make up 50 per cent of the total number of employees working for the private sector, Pakistanis account for 18 per cent and Bangladeshis 6 per cent, Under- Secretary in the Ministry of Labour Khalid Al Khazraji has said.

Indian expatriates alone account for nearly 45 per cent of the total number of employees being brought in since the beginning of this year, he said.

A total of 202 different nationalities exist in the labour market, he has said, adding that the country has one of the highest rates in the world so far as the diversity of foreign nationalities is concerned. — PTI

Visitors flock to 'sati' village

Thursday, 24 August 2006

By Faisal Mohammed Ali
BBC News, Tulsipur

Until now a mere speck on the revenue maps, the village of Tulsipur in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is seeing a flurry of activity.

People are flocking to the village where a woman, Janakrani, is believed to have committed the outlawed Hindu practice of "sati".

Sati, or the practice of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre, is believed to have originated 700 years ago.

The rare practice mostly happens in parts of northern and central India.

The state government insists the case is one of suicide and it should be treated as one.

Inquiry ordered

But the chairperson of the state women's commission, Relam Chauhan, says Janakrani committed an act of sati when she immolated herself on the funeral pyre of her husband, Prem Narayan.

A magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the case, while the National Commission for Women has asked for a report in a week.

Ms Chauhan, who is visiting Tulsipur to "do an on-the-spot inquiry into the whole affair", says: "It has to be verified if someone encouraged or coerced her to take this extreme step."

Residents of Tulsipur and many of the visitors to the village in Sagar district say they are impressed by Janakrani's "extraordinary devotion to her long-ailing husband".

In a voice full of admiration, one visitor, Ram Dayal, says he heard about the case and has come for a look.

Madhya Pradesh

A number of saffron-robed Hindu monks have also arrived here and everyone's first stop is the remains of the pyre - now a six by three-foot-long egg-shaped spot on the ground.

The police have taken the charred bones of the couple for forensic tests but a few tiny remains of Janakrani's clothes and bangles can still be recognised in the ashes.

A group of visitors from Deori, a small town 150km (100 miles) away, try to touch the ashes, but they are stopped by the police who are deployed here.

'Hindu ritual'

Janakrani's son, Ram Avtar, says his mother burned herself to death while they had gone to take a bath in the river after performing the last rites of their father and there were no witnesses to the incident.

"My mother told my wife she was going out for a while, but we became suspicious when she did not return for long and went to look for her. We found only her ashes, she was completely burnt," he says.

The police and state administration argue that since there was no ceremony and no one encouraged her, this cannot be called a case of sati.

Also, they say sati is a Hindu ritual and Janakrani was a tribal.

But many here say that some of the Hindu social and religious practices have been adopted by the tribes in the recent years.

Roop Kanwar case

Cases of sati are very rare in India.

The last incident, involving a 65-year-old woman, took place in Madhya Pradesh in 2002.

The most high-profile sati incident was in Rajasthan in 1987 when 18-year-old Roop Kanwar was burned to death.

The case sparked national and international outrage.

Police charged Roop Kanwar's father-in-law and brother-in-law with forcing her to sit on the pyre with her husband's body, but the two men were acquitted by an Indian court in October 1996.

Sati is believed to have originated some 700 years ago among the ruling class or Rajputs in India.

The Rajput women burnt themselves after their men were defeated in battles to avoid being taken by the victors. But it came to be seen as a measure of wifely devotion in later years.
The custom was outlawed by India's British rulers in 1829 following demands by Indian reformers.

Indian man "sacrifices" himself at Hindu temple

LUCKNOW, India, Aug 23 (Reuters) - An Indian man "sacrificed" himself by slitting his throat in front of a Hindu deity at a temple in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, police said.

Natha Ram Pal, 45, a father of four, shocked devotees at the village temple when he picked up a knife and slashed his throat in the courtyard.

He was rushed to a hospital where he died, senior police officer Dawa Sherpa told Reuters.

"The temple has a history of people sacrificing their tongues on new moon nights to fulfil their desires," Sherpa said. "But even that has not been heard of in recent times."

Pal's family described him as an "obsessively religious person", who spent most of his time at local temples in the village, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the state capital, Lucknow.

Malaysia to sign labour MoU with India

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

New Delhi - India and Malaysia are to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on labour in October following which a Malaysian government agency will recruit blue-collared Indian workers directly, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said.

Ravi, who visited Malaysia last week, said a delegation led by Malaysian Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn will visit India in October and sign the MoU.

‘Once the agreement is made, the Malaysian government will directly recruit the Indian workers and distribute them to their companies, which need such workers,’ Ravi told IANS.

‘This agreement on labour will basically avoid the hassles and troubles created by the recruitment agencies. It would be the responsibility of the Malaysian government to ensure the safety of the workers and good wages for them there,’ he added.

Ravi said the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), the Malaysian governmental agency, would recruit the workers - mainly for the construction companies in the country - and distribute them.

‘The officials from the CIDB will visit India to train the workers,’ the minister said, adding that the Indian government would identify the agency that would recruit people from here.

‘The agreement will ensure good wages, good living conditions and better medical facilities for the workers. The government will be responsible for these. That makes a lot of difference,’ Ravi explained.

He admitted that there have been serious complaints against recruitment agencies that they did not ensure good wages and living conditions for workers going abroad.

Indian workers form the third largest foreign work force in Malaysia, with 140,000 of them eking out a living there. Ethnic Indians comprise seven percent of Malaysia’s population of around 24 million.