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Vol-2; Issue-4 March 2016

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We feel delighted to present you the Beyond India Magazine special issue on International women’s Day. March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day around the world every year. Beyond India salutes the spirit of women for their accomplishments and unlimited sacrifices. International Women’s Day is a day to remember the sacrifices made by women at times of need across the world. It is the day to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women. The day also reminds you of the contributions made by women for international peace and security. Women have struggled a lot in the past and are now able to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with men. They have achieved financial independence with education and developed a life of dignity and self-worth. So we need to celebrate the day with pride and honour. Cherish your memories of the past while making new memories today. Reach out to others. If you cannot find an angel, be an angel for someone this Year. This glorious time of year can be very difficult for some folks. We address some of the important issues in several articles which are beneficial for all to read. This day reminds you of sacrifices made by women everywhere. As being a woman i really feel challenges faced by women’s at every step in every field.

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March 2016

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The world has now recognised the woman power globally. Women’s Day can be so much more than just a commercial exercise. It is being reduced to offering free treatment at a spa, film tickets at discounted rates and other such gimmicks to make the urban women feel special and beautiful. But it should be a day to acknowledge the immense strength women exhibit in their day-to-day lives throughout the year. In today’s context, Women’s Day should focus more on those women living in the rural parts of India. They are not even aware that such a day exists but they continue to make a huge difference to their own lives and that of others. The need of the hour is to make them understand their importance and worth. Woman has been gifted with the power to create. The power of giving birth makes a woman very powerful. However, the country has delayed in giving due credit to women. The 50% reservation in the recent polls should have happened much earlier. As for the significance, this day serves as a podium to pay homage to womanhood. Talking about sex, sharing our knowledge of sex and insisting on our rights as women especially those of us from conservative backgrounds—would make life better for all girls and women. Women need to be financially empowered — this is the only way to achieve equality. They need free childcare to allow them to work and earn and there should be quotas for women across the board for senior executive positions and in politics and society more generally. I am seeing so many men in front of me. At least today I would have hoped to see more women. Women are playing an important role in nation-building, we can’t deny that. At the root of all problems is how boys and girls are looked at differently even within the family. We need to change the outlook in the society. Women should be free to choose, whether it is about their career, education, marriage or having a family. Discrimination against women is the root of all troubles. Mahatma Gandhi said when a woman is educated, two families are educated. I will add...not just two families but two generations are educated. Treat all of the women in your life with fairness and equality. Treat all women in the manner in which you would like to be treated. Jai Hind!

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International women’s day

International Women’s day

A Salute to Indian Women ‘Intellectually, mentally, and spiritually, woman is equivalent to a male and she can participate in every activity. —Mahatma Gandhi

In recent years, celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 has become pretty mainstream in India. The day marks the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.

—Barkha Yadav

rom Sita in Ramayana to Kannagi in Silapathikaram to Rani Jhansi are not only celebrated women but also their contribution to social change and awareness had been immense. Even Ramakrishnaparmahamsar is said to have worshipped his wife. Gender is western concept. India is the original home of the Mother Goddess. women in India have always been honored and respected. Article 14 of the constitution accords equality for both genders. India has led the world in ratifying UN Conventions and international covenants like the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action. Only in India Woman is worshipped as Sakthi [Strength], Saraswathy [Knowledge] and Lakshmi [Prosperity]. No other country or religion in the world worships women hood in the way India does. In Hindu Mythology women is said to have been given absolutely 50% of Mental, Spiritual and physical space in the life of a man, when Shiva is illustrated to have done this in Arthnareeswarar form. The Indian woman of today wants it all and wants it on her own terms. She will have a career and she will have a

family too. From Mary Kom and Indra Nooyi to that woman in an average Indian home, each one is special and each one is balancing her dreams with the demands of everyday life. September 24, 2014, as the country celebrated the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission, the picture of women scientists celebrating at ISRO flooded social media. Middle aged, clad in traditional saris with flowers in their hair and bindis on their foreheads, as they hugged and laughed they came to represent the new age Indian woman. This new woman has learnt to revel in her Indianess and at the same time her womanhood. She enjoys her successes and celebrates them with abandon. No longer does she bother about fitting in, no longer does she dress to project an

image, and no longer does she find her happiness in others. She is no wannabe any more. She has arrived. Yes, she definitely has! Minal Sampath, a systems engineer with the Mars programme often works 18-hours a day and ‘forgets that she is a woman’. Watching a live launch on the television when she was five years old, gave birth to a dream that she went on to fulfill. There have been many more like Ms Sampath. For example, the late Anna Mani, who worked with the honored Professor CV Raman on the research of optical properties of ruby and diamond. Then, we have Rajeshwari Chatterjee, who was the first woman engineer from Karnataka. Honestly speaking, the list of such eminent ladies with exceptional work contributions in

International women’s day their respective fields is endless. In these past few years’ women have grabbed headlines in almost all spheres. Where on one hand they conquered Mars, on the other they dominated sports. We have five time world boxing champion Mary Kom, the only boxer to have won a medal in each of the six world championships. She has been conferred the Padma Bhushan, the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shree among a host of others. Another one who brought home an Olympic medal, the shy young shuttler Saina Nehwal, became the first woman to do so. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been easy learning to straddle the two worlds of career and family. ‘Women can’t have it all,’ said Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO in her famous interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival last year. Ranked at number 13 on the 2014 Forbes list of the world’s most powerful women and a Padma Bhushan recipient, Nooyi confesses to feelings of parental guilt. She advises women to make use of a support system. Women are coming to accept that they aren’t superwomen and are no longer afraid to ask for help. However, that is not to say they are incapable. Naina Lal Kidwai country head and CEO at HSBC India, made a practice of bettering her male cousins when her uncles undermined her capabilities. And then, to her uncles’ surprise, she went on to become the first Indian woman to graduate from Harvard Business School and be conferred with the Padma Shri. Additionally, creative pursuits have always been seen as a woman’s forte. New age women Indian authors and poets have put India on the global map and proved their mettle. Dealing sensitively with issues of South Asian Immigrants through her women protagonists, author Chitra Bannerji Divakaruni has opened their hearts to the world. Describing the characters in one of her femaleoriented books, says she, “..what distinguishes my characters is their courage and spirit and a certain stubbornness which enables them to keep going even when facing a setback.” That, in essence, sums up the modern Indian woman. Furthermore, we have writers like Maha Shweta Devi who combined journalism, social work and writing in one potent mix to bring forward the indomitable spirit of the exploited people of India. She writes primarily in her native tongue Bengali about the tribals of Eastern India. She has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri, the Jnanpith Award and the Padma Vibhushan award among a plethora of others. What’s more, women have been running our country too. Indira Gandhi might have had her share of controversies, but one cannot deny that she took the country a step ahead in all spheres. Now we have Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi,

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March 2016

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Minister for external Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who are all power centres in their own right. India is fortunate to have had many great women - Auvaiyar, Annie Besent , First women president of Indian national Congress, Nevedita, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, First Indian Woman President of UN General Assembly,

Mother Teresa, Sarojini Naidu to Indira Gandhi only the second woman Prime Minster in the world, to Kalpana Chawla, Indra Nooyi to Pratibha Patil first women President of India and many more in the Indian Corporate sector who have proved to be more than a match . Their contribution to society in whole and to Women in Particular is invaluable. In Modern Indian society women are playing stellar role, even challenging the males in Politics. More importantly their role in family building, society development is stupendous. Indian woman is emerging out of their conventional role, realizing their unlimited potential and have begun to take major role in all walks of life. Indian woman is beautiful, gentle, motherly yet powerful. Indian society look upto their women folk to take the lead, which is slowly happening. When India becomes a superpower, surely there will be significant contribution from great women International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s,

History of International Women’s Day:

International Women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s...

1908 : Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst

women. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. 1909 : In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913. 1910 : 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin 1911 : Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic ‹Triangle Fire’ in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labor legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women’s Day events. 1911 also saw women’s ‹Bread and Roses’ campaign. 1913-1914 : On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on

the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1913 following discussions, International Women’s Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women’s Day ever since. In 1914. 1917 : On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for ‘‘bread and peace» in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. The date the women’s strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March. 1918 - 1999 : Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women’s Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike. 2000 and beyond : IWD is now an official holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The tradition sees men honoring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother’s Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

March 2016

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Harshini Kanhekar She received the title of India’s first female fire fighter about ten years back. She believes in creating barriers and making history, and has clearly done the same.

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Arunima Sinha An Indian woman who lost her leg after she was thrown from a moving train two years ago has become the first female amputee to climb Everest. Arunima Sinha, 26, from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, reached the peak on Tuesday morning after a slow climb from Everest Base Camp. She left high camp at 6pm on Monday evening and arrived at the summit at 10:55am (0510 GMT) on Tuesday, Ang Tshering Sherpa, founder of Asian Trekking, the company that organised the expedition, told the AFP news agency. Sinha›s guides were concerned about her slow pace until the team reached an 28,707 foot junction that climbers pass through on their way to the top of the mountain, Ang Tshering Sherpa said. Two years ago, the former national-level volleyball player was shoved from a moving train by thieves when she reportedly attempted to fight them off as they tried to stealing her purse. A passing train crushed her left leg, forcing doctors to amputate below the knee to save her life. At that time everyone was worried for me. I then realised I had to do something in my life so that people stop looking at me with pity, Sinha told Indian TV before leaving for the climb.

Salute to Indian Woman power Dr. Seema Rao Indian brave daughter Dr. Seema Rao is an MD, MBA in Crisis Management and PhD Honora Doctoris (Indiana) in Martial Science. She is the daughter of a freedom fighter. Along with her husband, Honorary Major Deepak Rao, she has dedicated her life to the service to the nation. In a country where women are still looked upon as weaker sex and the Indian Army itself has many reservation in terms of capabilities of men and women, here stands a women who did not bring up a family for the sake of her work for the nation. Her contributions include Combat training and authoring books for the Indian Forces. She earned her Para Wings from the Indian Air Force under special directive of the Air Chief. She is a 6th degree Black Belt in Military Martial arts and a medalist Rock climber from the Army Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. She is also a crack shot Combat Shooting instructor. One of the 10 women in the world to be certified in Bruce Lee’s martial arts of Jeet Kune Do, 38 years after Lee’s death. She was runner up in the Mrs India World beauty pageant in 2004. She received the World Peace Diplomat Award from the Malaysian PM at the World Peace Congress (UN Affiliate) in 2008. She received the “Outstanding Law

Enforcement Instructor Award” from US Hall of Fame. She has devoted 17 years of her life to sharing her expertise in Close Quarter Combat with the Indian forces. She along with her husband, Prof. Dr. Rao have imparted training in CQB to almost every elite unit of the Indian Forces, including NSG-Black Cat Commandos, Marine Commandos (MARCOS), Air Force Commando - Garud, Para Commando Special Forces, BSF, Army Corps Battle School›s Commando Wing, National Police Academy, Army Officers Training Academy, etc. They have been called

Neerja Bhanot was a flight attendant for Pan Am, based in Mumbai, India, who was murdered while saving passengers from terrorists on board the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 on 5 September 1986. Posthumously, she became the youngest recipient of India›s highest peacetime military award for bravery, the Ashok Chakra. while saving passengers from terrorists on board a hijacked airplane. She was only 22 years....

to train the Police QRTs of almost every major city & State in India as Official Resource Person by Directive of the Home Ministry. Their innovations have been used in modernization of training by the armed forceis .Dr Seema Rao is the inspiration for the new generation and those women who think that they are weak

International women’s day

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March 2016

Social development of rural women —Dr.Banarsi Lal and Dr.Shahid Ahamad

evelopment may be defined as a function of economic, social, educational and cultural betterment of people. In India various programmes have been initiated for women betterment. Women share has been ensured as members and chairpersons in rural and urban local governments. Women empowerment these days has become a buzz word. For the concept of Women’s Component Plan which was mooted as far back as in the Seventh Plan, put into practice in the Ninth Plan as one of the important strategies to earmark not less than 30 per cent of funds and benefits in all women related sectors by the Centre and the State Governments. But if we see women empowerment from perspective of their social development, we observe that women are still at margin even after more than five decades of planning and development. The disparity between them and their counterparts is glaring. The pitiable health and nutrition conditions of women present a gloomy outcome of more than five decades of the planning and development of the country for women in India. This may be seen in the intensity of anaemia among the women. Presently more than 50 per cent of women are anaemic in India. Anaemia in women is highest in Assam and lowest in Kerala. Although the states like Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra which are known for their prosperity, the anaemia among women is more than 40 per cent. Before 1966 Himachal Pradesh and Harayana were the parts of erstwhile Punjab. If we compare these states we observe that problem is less serious in Himachal Pradesh than the other two states. This could be due to the focus of the leadership on creation of egalitarian society and ensuring people’s participation in developmental activities in the state of Himachal Pradesh. More than 75 per cent of children in our country are anaemic. If we observe at state level, we find that this problem is highest in Haryana where about 84 per cent of children are suffering from anaemia. This problem is 44 per cent in Kerala. This problem is acute in all over the country. We can estimate the fate of building in terms of national building if the bricks in terms of children are weak. The access to antenatal and post-natal care coupled with lack of nutritive food to pregnant women are responsible for this. It has been observed by the Office of the Registrar General, India that 15 per cent of female child below the age of one year, 17.3 per cent in the age group between 1 year to 4 year, 7.9 per cent in the age group of 5 years to 14 years and 59.2 per cent in age group of 15 years and above died

due to anaemia. The percentage of male child who died due to anaemia is less than their counterparts. Its main causes are lack of awareness about general health among the people, consumption pattern and level of sanitation. For example, consumption pattern in north Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh is potato and dal as lunch and dinner and chapattis curd with salt mixed with pepper as breakfast. Vegetables rarely form the parts of their consumption basket. This is not in case of poor people but also in case of those who live in the lap of luxury. This fact is hard to swallow but this is the practice which is on this part of the country. It has been revealed that birth-weights of babies born to women in poor income groups are much less than higher groups. The Mid-Term Appraisal of the Ninth Five Year Plan commented “Low dietary intake is the most important cause of under-nutrition. Other major factors responsible for undernutrition in children are poor infant feeding practices, infections due to poor sanitation, lack of safe drinking water, poor access to heath care. In spite of higher average dietary intake, under nutrition rates are higher in MP, UP and Orissa because of lack of equitable distribution of food and access to health care. Prevalence of anaemia among pregnant women ranges between 50 per cent to 90 per cent.”

The adverse sex ratio is also an indication of deprivation of women in the society. Presently the sex ratio in India is 940 females per 1,000 males as per Census 2011 while it should be 1,000 because number of males should be equal to females. Many states and Union Territories sex ratio is less than national average. In the sates like Harayana and Punjab which are considered as the most prosperous states of the country sex ratio is abysmally low. Let us highlight some factors responsible for this. * It may be observed that sex ratio is not adverse in southern states of the country. It is due to practice of kinship which is male -friendly in northern states of the country and female- friendly in southern part of the country. * The adverse sex ratio particularly in northern part of the country is due to dowry system. It has been observed that dowry is the main reason for female foeticide. It has been found that female foeticide is found more in the families which are prosperous. These families suffer from superiority complex. * Female participation in the economic activities also determines the sex ratio because the work determines the worth in the society. It has been observed that in those families where women participate in economic activities, this problem

is not severe as compared to those families which do not participate in economic activities because in the former families women have not been considered as liability. The issues of dowry and employment were found to be the main reasons for the social evil. We all know that education to a boy means educating a single man, while educating a girl means educating the whole family. The education among the females is less as compared to males as is evident from the fact that as per the latest Census as against 82.14 percentage literacy of males their counterparts is merely 65.46 per cent. In most of the states the primary education has been put under the domain of the Panchayati Raj and power of supervision and control was also given to Panchayats. It has been observed in the state like Haryana, we can safely say that neither the elected functionaries nor the selected functionaries of the Panchayats are aware about their roles in supervising and controlling the schools located in the villages. They do not have much interest in these kinds of activities. The social development of women has not been achieved as expected during the planning era, although various measures have been initiated for them. Malini Karkal has worked out a Composite Quality of Life Index (PQLI) based on three measures namely infant mortality rate, life expectancy at age one and literacy for population aged 15 and above using four census periods-1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991 for all states of India and found that the differences for rural and urban areas for all the variants in the four census periods show the poor PQLI for women in the rural areas both as compared to rural males and urban females. These disparities continue for different groups of women, varying with their access to infrastructure and services. Therefore, government should pay more attention on the social development of women.

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Opinion

Why it happens in JNU only? What makes JNU, the island of Leftist politics and how it challenges Hindutva-happy nationalism with its competing version?

—BY JEAN THOMAS MARTELLI AND SHAFI RAHMAN

t was an eventful day in New Delhi as its sidewalks were filled with soldiers returning to the national capital after a victory in war with Pakistan. An early autumn cheered returning war heroes. On 20 September 1965, Lok Sabha was also witnessing a bitter war of words as it was discussing a Bill for setting up a new university in the national capital, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Dr Madhav Shrihari Aney, oldest member of House, 85, spearheaded the attack against the Bill portraying it as vague and undemocratic. Other socialists and several Jana Sangh members strongly opposed the idea of adulating Nehru, making him the palladium of nationalism and conferring to his name qualities that personified the patriotic spirit. “The university is converted into a church and the character and appeal of national ideals are considerably overcast with personality cult,” said MB Lal, spurring aheated exchange with education minister Mohammed Ali Currim Chagla. There are so many institutions in Nehru’s name and most of them are in hibernation, Prabhat Kar, a member from Hooghly accused. History tells us Prabhatkar was far off the mark. JNU is not just a pixel on the spreadsheet of Nehruvian legacy. The university is one of India’s premier institutions. Early this month, it catapulted into national imagination and grabbed column-inches in broad sheets, after JNU Student Union (JNUSU ) president Kanhaiya Kumar, was arrested by two plainclothes policemen on charges of sedition. The leafy campus of JNU is housed in south Delhi flanked by gleaming shopping malls and neon glow of DDA houses. There is also a small gloomy stretch of slum across traffic lines crisscrossed with clotheslines and heaps of refrigerator cartons. The university is spread across 1019 acres with low-slung school buildings, teaching Arabic to Russian, foreign policy to nanosciences. Messy tangle of streets and beaten paths take you to myriad hostels and schools. A few months here in the campus, eventually a map appears in your head and you can find new routes and new political alleys. The political tracks of the student movements had veered off to Left from early days. The coveted post of JNUSU president was won nine times by All India Students’ Association (AISA ), 22 times by Student Federation of India (SFI ), nine times by independents, mostly

socialists. Rarely it blurred its way into the Centre or Right — the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP ) student wing of RSS , won once in 2000, while Congress’ National Students’ Union of India (NSUI ) once in 1991. The Left unions waged their battles from the campus, projecting themselves as young saviours of the shirtless. Right under the nose of India’s Congress and BJP governments, it won elections after the other. In the league tables of Left campuses of India, it topped with full Marx. The Left here maintained semblance of orthodoxy, sometimes with crude and joyless interpretation of ideology. jnu’s staying power as a Left bastion gives rise to many questions. What turned jnu into a communist Xanadu and what are its dissenting voices? Who walks through its revolving doors? Who are its new converts? What is its revolutionary discourse? jnu is perceived as an elitist research-based (and Englishmedium) university, and courses are often competitive and demanding for students. There is a competition among young scholars for upgrading from Masters to MPhil or PhD and making their way to academia. How students become politicised and devote themselves to timeconsuming political activities can be understood only if we look at how new students get socialised by developing new political bonds. The role of student organisations in that process can explain how activism is interweaved with friendship, loyalties, and mechanism of integration into new in-groups. In the campus, one form of micropolitics that seeks to abolish the

distinction between the regular student and the activist is the practice of “room sheltering”. Because of the rapid expansion of the number of students in the past decade, the amount of free rooms available in the 17 hostels in the campus is increasingly insufficient to host all the newcomers. Many freshers therefore end up in the rooms of activists who generously offer them some space until they are allotted accommodation. Kumar lived in Brahmaputra Hostel, housing mostly PhD students. His room had a reassuring familiarity with empty tea pots, a narrow bed and posters of latest campaigns. Card board sheets were fevicolled to his window panes to stop harsh Delhi sun from cartwheeling through. In his room, like that of other activists, amidst flicker of mobile phones, comrades squatted like inflated parachutes. Away from crumbling hostel rooms, across ocean of protests and blood, was a promise of better lives. At the beginning of the academic year an activist can shelter up to four new students. This situation can last for months and provide a formidable space for “political socialisation”. A former senior leader of SFI agrees that a normal procedure for recruiting new cadres in political organisations involves sheltering new students waiting to be alloted a hostel room. “Sometimes assistance to students involves personal sacrifice. The classic strategy is to offer a room to freshers and this is what I did, four people for so many months, it was horrible,” he adds. As a residential institution, JNU is for many a forcing house for changing persons and it can

be argued that an important agent of individual change is the multidimensional and processual student interaction with campus organisations. It means that at first, the stranger in jnu cannot apply the standardised social patterns at work in her former educational place. Sinful temptations of Greater Kailash have no place here. Within few months however, the individual “is about to transform himself from an unconcerned onlooker into a would-be member of the approached group” (Schutz). Four actors are involved in the process of initiation into jnu cultural pattern: friends, senior activists, ideologues, and professors. The processes of socialisation and politicisation are so intertwined that they form a single nexus on the days of registration for freshers. On these days of the year students land in the campus, fresh-faced, thumbing through degree certificates and other documents to get enrolled for the courses and the hostel. These are days of “registration assistance” in which activists first come in contact with new students, in order to help them complete the necessary administrative tasks and get familiar with the facilities. Sometimes, one needs to be innovative too. “It is true that in order to have a good database [list of sympathiser that will cast votes for the organisation and will form a pool of potential recruits], you need to be the first to approach freshers. Usually, newcomers arrive in 615 bus and at the T-point aisa and sfi are waiting for them. But I was more astute, I would go to main gate and wait for the bus to come, then I will jump onto it and while it will go up to the registration area

Opinion

I would gather everyone and get them there,” says sfi activist Nikhil Narkar. AISA , being an outfit of the CPI (ML), which has its roots in Bihar, relies mostly on cadres originating from the Hindi belt (74 per cent compared to the average of 54 per cent in campus). After an organisational split in 2012, the student wing of CPM , relied on a few leaders from Kerala to restructure their unit. As a result, one in two activists from sfi was born in south India. Campus politicisation is orchestrated by small cohorts of actors with preexistent linguistic and regional identities, but student organisations broadly represent the different categories of the population. In Democratic Students Union (DSU) for example, eight members in 2014 were from north India and four belonged to the Northeast and Darjeeling region. Out of these four activists, three happened to have studied in the same high school, St. Anthony’s School — in Darjeeling’s Kurseong district. In the campus, the community of faithfuls often fought with their worst enemy, each other. “New cadres then become polarised and follow a confrontational line. Between sfi and aisa, there is a river of blood,” says Khaliq Parkar, a former MPhil student. Old wounds were often rubbed vigorously, sometimes innocent comments were seized upon. During every polls, a fratricidal carnage spreads through the Left ranks. The AISA will accuse SFI of not fighting against the attempt of Nestlé to open a vend in JNU campus in 2005 or rejecting any accountability in the 2007 killing of farmers in Singur and Nandigram by CPM led West Bengal government. SFI in return will blame AISA and CPI (ML ) General Secretary Vinod Mishra for not taking a clear stand on OBC reservations in the 1990s. Climbing up the ladder is a tough act and young leaders have to show

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their skills in a two dimensional political world: one is the public interaction between the activist and common students, and the other is the quasi-private interaction between the activist and the sundried organisation. The leaders lure specific network of sympathisers, decide whether to address a speech in English or Hindi, find a rhetorical pirouette to avoid uncomfortable questions and keep calm and carry on when questioned by the rival organisations. This body public is fundamentally an act of performance. Like an actor before footlights, the leaders must act real, which includes, even, wearing a specific outfit. Certain rules of dress gives mask of position – an unwashed and worn-out kurta, chappals even in winter, gamcha in summer and a jhola. “This jute bag makes students think that activists are going to work with the masses, boarding a bus just after their speech. Just as if they were always in movement, busy, so that they have to keep their things always with them,” says Suchismita Chattopadhyay, a PhD scholar. The baptism of a Left activist in jnu cannot be complete without her capturing the revolutionary discourse and class struggle cosmology. Textual analysis of student pamphlets, throws up a lexical field based on confrontational phrases – dare to resist, damning facts, communal-goons, worker’s exploitation, not up for sale. All God’s in Marxist pantheon are invoked at the dinner table – Mao (DSU ), Mazumdar (DSU , AISA), Safdar Hashmi (SFI , DSF , Lenin (AISA, SFI, DSU, AISF), Bolivar and Chavez (DSF, AISA, SFI, AISF), Che Guevara (all except NSUI and ABVP), Bhagat Singh (all), Ambedkar (all). While television anchors and Sangh Parivar rush to paint JNU as an anti-national campus, in their own way, JNU activists develop a close sense of what India is, as an imagined community. Students

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committed to public affairs do not only discuss Marx, Gandhi, Ambedkar or Lohia, they take position on contemporary Indian issues raised in media. “When you open the newspaper in the morning, it tells you what you are going to protest against in the afternoon,” says Ishan Anand, a senior Democratic Students’ Federation leader. Daily protest and programmes in jnu are often made in reaction to news items. Benedict Anderson saw this medium as a silent form of mass ceremony in which the nation is imagined by the readership. Most jnuites are of that kind, they envision India when taking a position on political matters. Irrespective of specific ideologies flourishing in campus, commentaries portraying jnu activists as anti-nationals are grave misinterpretations. Historian Romila Thapar notes that the current issue exemplifies the opposition between two forms of nationalism, one secular and one religion-based. The political arena in jnu welcomes overlapping interpretations of secularism, including a communist version, a feminist-inspired, and a Dalitcentred one. The Hindu-Right definition of an Indian, articulated by the RSS and both their student (ABVP ) and political outfits (BJP ) refuse to accept incompatible but competing claims over the definition of the nation. Following Golwalkar’s understanding of the Nation, Indian identity according to RSS and ABVP is equated with Hindu culture, in which religious minorities are enjoined to keep expressions of community particularism to the private sphere. “We repeat: in Hindusthan, the land of the Hindus, lives and should live the Hindu Nation” (in We or Our Nationhood Defined, 1939). Contrary to this essentialist definition of the nation, communists’ idea of India is attached to the ascriptive aspiration for land free

March 2016

from landlordism, class oppression and adherence to religious pluralism. A textual analysis of JNU pamphlets since 1994 by JeanThomas Martelli shows how the word ‘nationalism’ provokes different reactions from different groups in the campus. It tells us that each organisation identifies different enemies to the Indian interests. ABVP emphasises on illegal Bangladeshi immigration or Islamic terrorist acts, while MarxistLeninist organisations (AISA , SFI ) concentrate their attacks on “imperialist” forces, such as the US or Israel as well as hated elites like capitalists and industrialists. Mirror of commentaries held up to JNU so far showed it as a deluded herd passing resolutions on affairs of far off land, say rigging of municipal polls in Nicaragua. In contrast to these views, the word India was mentioned overwhelmingly 25,138 times. Kanhaiya Kumar’s PhD study is on social transformation of peasants in post-apartheid South Africa. He met his supervisor, Subodh Malakar, at a seminar at Joshi Adikari Gangadar Institute in New Delhi. Impressed by his paper on Marxism and population problems in India, Malakar advised Kumar to seek admission in JNU . This is the first time, Kumar, who came from mudwalled town of Bihar’s Begusarai, heard about jnu. But Kumar’s idea of nation was loud and clear: “ We are not only a Left party, we follow a patriotic nationalist character,” he told us in an interview last year. As an after thought, he added: “Don’t worry. I am an Indian by sentiment but Marxist in reason.” That’s the sound of a young man in the grasp of destiny. Jean-Thomas Martelli is a research scholar at King’s College London, working on contemporary student movements. Shafi Rahman is a journalist based in London and editor of the India Gazette London. Courtesy: Tehelka.com

March 2016

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Dirty Politics

Why students not punished for insulting MAA Durga?

NU students celebrate Mahishasur Martyrdom Day:- This custom has been celebrated since long time. During the Durgapuja or Navratri, when the rest of the Indians(specially Hindus) worship Maa Durga, some student groups in JNU celebrate it as “Mahishasur Martyrdom Day” and worship Mahishasur(a demon). According to their ideology, Maa Durga was a upper caste woman who trickily killed Mahishasur, an honest and great native King. Recently Smriti Irani made a statement in Parliament, regarding how some JNU students abuse Maa Durga. Addressing to the MP’s from Bengal & all others, she explained how this group celebrates Mahishasur Martyrdom Day by calling Devi Durga a sex worker. No coming back to this answer, the answerer stated that some tribal groups worship Mahishasur and he has shown an article which has been published by TimesOfIndia. ToI which is known for it’s antiHindu articles has done such severe calamities from time to time. However, in his recent statement, a tribal scholar named Prakash Oraon stated that no tribe venerates Mahishahur. Check his statement. By this theory as hypothesis, it is easily understandable that some politicians and intellectuals of the leftist/communist and secular brigades are brainwashing the relatively less educated mass of tribal India for their own political leverage. “Whether the students should be punished or not?”, that’s another issue. But however, we must know one thing. If Kamlesh Tiwari can be send to jail for commenting on Muhammad, then why are these

Posted on October 4, 2014. A statement by the SC, ST and minority students of JNU. «Durga Puja is the most controversial racial festival, where a fair-skinned beautiful goddess Durga is depicted brutally killing a dark-skinned native called Mahishasur. Mahishasur, a brave selfrespecting leader, tricked into marriage by Aryans. They hired a sex worker called Durga, who enticed Mahishasur into marriage and killed him after nine nights of honeymooning during sleep. students roaming free? Why isn’t Kanhaiya Kumar charged for spreading communal hatred too? Let’s check this line from Kanhaiya:Hume chahiye azadi, Brahmanbad se azadi. Manubad se azadi. Lad ke lenge azadi. Which means, “We need freedom. Freedom from Manubad and Brahmanical culture. We will fight

for Freedom” Now change the statement to:Hume chahiye azadi, Islam se azadi. Quran se azadi. Lad ke lenge azadi. Islam se Bharat ki azadi . Which means, “We need freedom. Freedom from Kuran and Islamic culture. We would fight for Freedom. India needs to be free from Islam”. How much different are the two statements? For the second slogan, you can expect that some people will demand death penalty for you. The idea of Free Speech is distorted in India. If Kamlesh Tiwari makes such comments on Muhammad, he is kept behind bars, while if someone abuses Hindu deities and Gods, he is called liberal and courageous. This is not just the first time that someone has abused Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The world famous secular painter M.F. Hussain could paint nude painting of Bharat Mata and other Hindu deities. However he wasn’t secular enough to paint any Islamic divine element like Al-Buraq.

Zakir Naik mocked Lord Ganesh on Ganesh Chaturthi, and it was Freedom of Speech. Owaisi made derogatory comments on Lord Ram and Mata Sita. He is still roaming free giving speeches, while Kamlesh Tiwari is still behind bars. An Assamese painter Akram Hussain paints derogatory painting of Sri Krishna. It is called Freedom of Expression. Now, let’s put some other point also:Don’t the Hindus pay taxes too? Don’t the Brahmans or Upper Caste pay the taxes too? The SC/ST/OBC are given reservation facility not only because they are socially backward, but also because due to their socially backward situations, many of the backward people don’t even have enough financial condition to have a healthy life. Since Hindus are majority, and since SC/ST/OBC mostly don’t have good financial condition, that means the General/Upper-Caste Hindus pay quite more amount of taxes compared to the taxes paid by SC/ST/OBC/Muslims/etc. This tax money is used for development of India and as well as giving subsidized facility and reservations to the backward communities. Then why should the optimum tax payers be abused? Asking for equality or asking for social reforms is always appreciable. There are many Hindus both from General category and backward castes who both want to remove this caste discrimination. For that, we all need to discuss, communicate, treat others with wisdom and compassion. But abusing customs or a community without even trying to reform it, is just simply not appreciable.

This is why Smriti Irani mentioned Goddess Durga, Mahishasur in her Parliament speech

debate on Jawaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad University controversies in Lok Sabha turned into a no-holdsbarred battle between Government and the Opposition on Wednesday, with a belligerent Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani hitting out at the Congress, especially Rahul Gandhi, and the Left. In a hard-hitting reply, she forcefully defended the action against students of JNU, saying Kanhaiya Kumar and some other students had been found indulging in anti-national activities by the JNU authorities themselves. To support her case about undeserving activities on the JNU campus, she cited an event to observe ‘Mahishasur Martyrdom Day’ in which Goddess Durga is depicted as a ‘sex worker’.

Here is what she said:

What is Mahishasur Martyrdom Day, madam speaker? Our government has been accused. I miss today Sugata Bose and Saugata Roy in the House - champions of free speech, because I want to know if they will discuss this particular topic

which I am about to enunciate in the House, on the streets of Kolkata. I dare them this. Posted on October 4, 2014. A statement by the SC, ST and minority students of JNU. And what do they condemn? May my God forgive me for reading this. “Durga Puja is the most controversial racial festival, where a fair-skinned beautiful goddess Durga is depicted brutally killing a dark-skinned native called Mahishasur. Mahishasur, a brave self-respecting leader, tricked into marriage by

Aryans. They hired a sex worker called Durga, who enticed Mahishasur into marriage and killed him after nine nights of honeymooning during sleep.” Freedom of speech, ladies and gentleman. Who wants to have this discussion on the streets of Kolkata? I want to know. Will Rahul Gandhi stand for this freedom? I want to know. For these are the students. What is this depraved mentality? I have no answers for it. Irani wondered how such things got into the minds of students and added that it was because of the wrong policies of the previous government and added “don’t make education a battlefield” as the consequences could be grave.

Jaat Agitation

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Empowering Youth Voice

March 2016

Politics behind Caste Politics

s the quota violence wears down and the government ponders over the detailing of its proposed new legislation to give Jats reservation, one wonders what steps will be taken, if any, to bridge the ugly caste divide brewing in Haryana. The political and social might of the Jat community in Haryana is evident in the manner in which they brought the state and adjoining areas to a halt, creating mayhem, blackmailing and defying the government with impunity, in their quest for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under the other backward class (OBC) category. Haryana’s political leadership has scurried for cover and even the Jat leaders of the ruling BJP are unable to exert any influence over the khaps who are leading the agitation. The family of state Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu Singh, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s second-in-command, was airlifted to safety from a burning Rohtak town, without any consideration for the property and belongings of hundreds of hapless people left to face anger of marauding mobs on their own. Indeed, the message from the Jat community is that in Haryana, where they have always called the shots, they will not be trifled with, with the rampage and destruction proof of what they are capable of if made to play second fiddle to other communities.

Jats vs non Jats

The seeds for the present confrontation were sown when the BJP government led by Khattar, a Punjabi, took charge in the state. The party’s decision to install a non Jat as the chief minister rankled the community, including those from the party who assumed they had a natural claim to the post. But it also allowed for attempts by Khattar and his supporters within the government and party to to restore the balance in favour of non Jats, who were largely instrumental in bringing the BJP to power for the first time on its own strength in the state. Recent comments by Raj Kumar

Political implications

Saini, the BJP MP from Kurukshetra, against Jats demanding reservation was an articulation of the fears of his own community and others, such as the Ahirs, Gujjars and Lodhas, who currently enjoy a 27% reservation in government jobs and educational institutions, and are unwilling to share their quota with the numerically and politically powerful Jats. There is therefore more to the quota mayhem in Haryana than merely reservations. The current agitation is nothing but the attempt of a spoilt child to regain the pampering and cosseting received by the previous Congress and Indian National Lok Dal regimes, to re-assert its waning clout in the new dispensation. Former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Om Prakash Singh Chautala are Jats, and unabashedly protected and indulged the community. A rattled BJP government has shamefully capitulated before the anger of the Jats, rushing to placate them with OBC status, and will introduce a bill in the coming assembly session. How it proposes to beat the court diktats that have struck down similar attempts to give Haryana’s Jats quota benefit is the real question. In 2013, the Congress government gave the community 10% reservation under the special backward caste category, taking the total reservation pie to 57%.

The government then introduced an additional 10% quota for economically backward persons of the general castes, which increased reservation in the state to 67%! Many in the government conceded in private that these decisions were made with the full knowledge that they will be struck down by the courts but political opportunism played its hand. In 2014, just before the Lok Sabha polls, the UPA government had included Jats in the centre’s OBC list after overruling objections from the National Commission for Backward Classes, but this was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015. In this sordid game of political oneupmanship that has left 16 people dead and destroyed property worth 20,000 crore rupees in the last few days, two disturbing trends can be discerned. The first is a deep schism between the Jat and non Jat communities, with clashes breaking out between the two at several places. A new suspicion has arisen among the Yadavs, Sainis, Lodhas and Dalits in the state: they resent the prospect of the Jats eating into their quota pie, but also feel that the current agitation is an attempt by the Jats to install their own chief minister. The government should also be concerned by the deliberate inaction at several places by Jat policemen who were sympathetic to arsonists targeting the properties of non Jats.

Although the violence has quelled a bit, there was no check on the caste-fuelled assertion and its violent manifestation over the past few days. Burning railway and police stations, and digging up roads and felling trees to block them are the favourite weapons of the Haryana Jats, who have used these measures in previous reservation stirs too. Only this time around the speed and scale of the operation took the government by surprise and has exposed Khattar’s miserable hold on his government. The issue has hit Khattar’s cabinet too. On Monday, during a cabinet meeting, state Health and Sports Minister Anil Vij threatened to resign if the state government gave 10 lakh rupees compensation those killed in the violence since many of those killed may have been involved in rioting. If the already tottering Khattar, rushing to placate the angry Jats, ‘goes soft’ on the cases against the arsonists as is being anticipated, where does that leave the bruised and battered non Jats who voted for the BJP and ended up with their shops, homes and establishments destroyed? The inevitable feeling of betrayal and alienation will need handling by a firm and skilful leadership, no evidence of which is available at present. The BJP’s bold experiment of having a non Jat chief minister has gone horribly wrong by picking the relatively-inexperienced Khattar who failed to grasp the nuances of emerging caste tensions and quell it in the bud. The last non Jat chief minister was the wily Bhajan Lal of the Congress who understood the Jat psyche and humoured them, even as the non Jats flourished in his rule. The two Jat ministers in Khattar’s cabinet, Capt Abhimanyu and Om Prakash Dhankar, do not have a mass base in the Jat belt, where leaders like Hooda hold sway. As the quota violence wears down and the government ponders over the detailing of its proposed new legislation to give Jats reservation, one wonders what steps will be taken, if any, to bridge the ugly caste divide.

March 2016

Empowering Youth Voice

Why Ringing Bells CEO of Freedom 251 is in trouble?

On January 17, the Indian mobile phone industry was shaken by the news of the unveiling of a phone that is so cheap that even the Indian Cellular Association has said it is impossible.

inging Bells launched Freedom 251, a smartphone, priced at Rs 251 (around $4). The executives tried in vain to elucidate how and why they have set the price at Rs 251, even though the actual price of the phone is around Rs 2,500. There is no way one can justify why a phone with a fourinch screen, Android Lollipop operating system, 8GB internal storage and 1GB RAM can be sold for so low a price. In order to understand why they have done this, we must look back a little. Remember the $35 Indian tablet called Aakash? It was a government of India initiative and it was doomed from the start because the price the government was aiming for was ridiculous. The tablets were intended for students. But they were so bad that hardly anyone actually used them. Millions of rupees went down the drain. The government decided to shut operations. There is, however, one company that benefited from that fiasco – DataWind. It was supposed to supply the $35 tablets. And it did. Although the quality and usability of those tablets were suspect, Datawind and the government ended up blaming each other for the fiasco. Consequently, the buzz around the $35 tablet helped Datawind sell its own cheap tablets. In its commercial version, the Aakash was called Ubislate, and it sold like hot cakes owing to its low price. (Again, it is another matter that many people never got the delivery of the tablet, and those who got it, mostly got it late). The Freedom 251 could be the beginning of something similar. The smartphone market is highly competitive in India. It is nearly impossible to break into it. Creating a buzz with something like Freedom 251 seems like a way to acquaint people with a brand called Ringing Bells. There can be several ways to deal with the rush for the phone. Take the orders and share the sales figures with the media to create a bigger buzz. But the shipping of the actual products will only start four months after the orders are placed. Public memory is short. It is likely that when it’s time to deliver the actual product, there will be some deliveries and many cancellations. In the interim period, Ringing Bells will start focusing on its other budget phones. It already has a phone called Smart 101, which has been priced at Rs 2,999. The company also has plans to launch more phones in the Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 price bracket. The Freedom 251 is a marketing gimmick. On the failure and publicity of the Rs 251 phone, Ringing Bells will step into the market.

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Metro News

Ignoring Murthal highway gang rape is our national shame

he gang rapes of 10 women at Murthal near Sonepat in Haryana are the nation’s shame. It’s a shame for the governments of Haryana as well as the Centre. It’s our collective shame. Sadly, it’s national media’s shame too. As the reporters had also spoken to the police and army officials who were on duty in the area on the night of February 22 after the violence triggered by demand for reservation by Jats. The Punjab and Haryana High Court took quick action over the incident the same morning, February 22. Justice Naresh Kumar Sanghi who took the charge said that the incident required a probe by the “premier investigating agency” of the country. The facts are being recounted here for one reason. Never or seldom, if ever, one comes across high judiciary, high court, and human rights commission moving with such speed on the basis of a report. It reinforces the credibility of the report, the seriousness of the incident and its magnitude. It was reported that in the wee hours of February 22, vehicles on the National Highway-1 at Murthal in Sonepat district of Haryana were stopped by a group of 30-odd goons. They set the vehicles on fire. The male occupants of vehicles managed to flee. Some women, as many as 10, according to the report, who couldn’t flee, were dragged out, stripped and raped. The women were found lying in the fields nearby when their male relatives returned after the goons had left. The victims and their families, the report said, were advised by the district officials not to report the matter to anyone for the sake of their “honour”. Murthal is less than 50km from Delhi. It’s on the national highway linking Delhi with Chandigarh. There were tell-tale signs of molestation and “violation” of women. Torn jeans and clothes, dupattas and undergarments were strewn in the fields. There were witnesses who had

spoken to reporters, roadside eateries’ owners who had given shelters to the women fleeing from the marauders. There were villagers who were talking of circumstantial evidence pointing to molestations. There were people from villages nearby who had said that they had rushed to provide clothes to women who had been stripped and molested. No less culpable are politicians who were busy scoring brownie points over each other in Parliament. For political parties, debating merits and demerits of “Ma Durga versus Mahishasur” constituted a matter of more urgent national priority than raising the issue of a mass gang rape. Had the opposition parties raised the issue in Parliament that very day, the culprits wouldn’t have the time to suppress the incident. The Haryana Police would have been under a lot more pressure to act. The Haryana police chief wouldn’t be staging the charge of calling for victims of rape to come forward to report the case after four days, rather than going after the culprits. If an incident of mass rape of women in the backyard of the national capital could remain virtually off the nation’s radar for four days, one shudders to think of the plight of the people who live in the country’s vast hinterland. The horror of Haryana is a collective national shame.

Feature

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Green tea can protect spinal cord neurons

Empowering Youth Voice

March 2016

Early obesity could cause dementia

olyphenols found in green tea are strong antioxidants and can protect your brain in case of a spinal cord injury. Chinese researchers have found evidence that polyphenols can protect spinal cord neurons against oxidative stress and can reduce free radical damage. In lab experiments over rats, lead researcher Jianbo Zhao and co-workers from the First Affiliated Hospital of Liaoning Medical University found that green tea extracts significantly lessen oxidative stress and reduce neuronal apoptosis. “The results show that green tea polyphenols can help protect spinal cord neurons against oxidative stress exposure,” Zhao added. Oxidative stress is an important factor in secondary injury after damage to the spinal cord. Accumulation of oxidation products can cause a series of harmful effects such as lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation

and DNA damage. The findings show a possible treatment for the functional recovery and regeneration of neurons after spinal cord injury, said the study published in the journal Neural Regeneration Research. Spinal cord injuries comprise primary and secondary injuries. The former refers to mechanical injury to the spinal cord and the latter to a series of pathological changes such as oxidative stress and release of inflammatory factors with a complicated pathogenesis. (AGENCIES)

Smartphones can make kids emotionally dull

oung people may be losing the ability to read emotions as digital devices such as smartphones, TVs and tablets are destroying their face-to-face social skills, a new study has found. A study by University of California, Los Angeles found that sixth graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who continued to spend hours with their electronic devices. “Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues–losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people–is one of the costs. The displacement of inperson social interaction by screen interaction seems to be reducing social skills,” said Patricia Greenfield, a distinguished professor of psychology in the UCLA College and senior author of the study. The psychologists studied two sets of sixth-graders from a Southern California public school: 51 who lived together for five days, and 54 others from the same school.

new British study has found that people who are obese in their early to mid-life face a greater risk of dementia in their later lives, with the ones in their 30s facing triple the risk. The researchers used the anonymised data from hospital records for the whole of England for the period 1999-2011, and data in which obesity had been recorded was then searched for any subsequent care for, or death from, dementia. During the study period, 4,51,232 of the people who were admitted to hospital in England were diagnosed with obesity, 43% of whom were men. The analysis revealed an incremental decrease in overall risk of hospital admission for dementia the older a person was when a diagnosis of obesity was first recorded, irrespective of gender. For those aged 30-39, the relative risk of developing dementia was 3.5 times higher than in those of the same age who were not obese. For those in their

40s, the equivalent heightened risk fell to 70% more; for those in their 50s to 50% more; and for those in their 60s to 40% more. People in their 70s with obesity were neither at heightened or lowered risk of developing dementia, while those in their 80s were 22% less likely to develop the disease, the findings indicated. There were some age differences between the risk of developing vascular dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, with those in their 30s at greater risk of both. A diagnosis of obesity in the 40s through to the 60s was associated with an increased risk of vascular dementia, while the risk of Alzheimer’s disease was lower in those diagnosed with obesity from their 60s onwards. The researchers concluded that while obesity at a younger age was associated with an increased risk of future dementia, obesity in people who had lived to about 60-80 years of age seemed to be associated with a reduced risk. (AGENCIES)

Are you suffering from smartphone-loss anxiety disorder?

f you consistently live in the denial mode of losing your smartphone, remember that once it happens, you are the one at a greater risk of developing smartphone-loss anxiety disorder. According to fascinating research, loss of one’s smartphone not only represents an immediate disconnection from one’s online contacts but is also a potential privacy and security risk should the lost phone wend its way into the hands of a malicious third party.The same anxieties apply equally to lost or stolen laptops, tablet computers and other digital devices. “The valuable data assets on a stolen smartphone may include personal and business contacts, private pictures and videos, meeting

and lecture notes and the like, banking details, utility statements, company spreadsheets and much more. All such assets are potentially sensitive to abuse by third parties,” said Zhiling Tu from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The value of lost hardware might be negligible when compared to the loss of sensitive or proprietary data, added co-author Yufei Yuan from McMaster University. During the study, they found that a few active and securityconscious users were aware of countermeasures. But many users were either not aware of “time bomb” data deletion settings and remote device locks and such or were simply in denial of the risk of their losing their phone. “More troubling is that while there

are various countermeasures that can be used to cope with mobile device loss and theft, users are either unaware of their existence or unwilling to use them,” Tu noted. Many companies now have a BYOD (bring-your-own-device)

policy rather than dispensing a standard corporate device to all employees as there are additional security issues that arise from their being centralized control of the data on a given device, researchers informed. (AGENCIES)

March 2016

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Cine star

Aishwarya wears a six-yard wonder for meeting French President Francois Hollande

he red Banarasi sari woven in the temple town of Varanasi on handloom with fine mulberry silk and zari made of gold coated pure silver threads doubled the grace of Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan when she met the French President Francois Hollande at a special luncheon held in New Delhi on the occasion of Republic Day celebration. The sari designed by the Kolkata-based designer duo Swati and Sunaina has been given a name -‘Mehraab’ (or mihrab) by them for translating the Mughal architecture on stone into a ravishing textile art using traditional ‘kadhua’ style of weaving. Aishwarya, the former beauty queen and one of the recipients of the prestigious civilian award by the French government, ‘Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters’, chose to wear this designer

Priyanka Chopra in ‘Jai Gangaajal’ inspires Goan women cops

ctor Priyanka Chopra may have made it big internationally as an FBI sleuth in television serial ‹Quantico›, but for Goa policewomen, it is her role as spunky cop Abha Mathur in ‹Jai Gangaajal› that has captured their imagination. Speaking to reporters after attending a free screening of Prakash Jha›s latest film ‹Jai Gangaajal›, where Chopra plays a feisty cop, a Superintendent of Police in the badlands of North India, policewomen in Goa were both enamoured and inspired by the sense of leadership displayed by the fictional SP Mathur. «Women are empowered from within. Whether the system supports or not, at the end women will decide the course of our lives,» Superintendent of Police (Anti-

Terror Squad) Priyanka Kashyap said, after the film screening organised in a cinema hall in the state capital. «Women in leadership roles bring in healthy changes to the system and bring the much required change that the ‹system› needs.» The special screening for women police personnel was organiSed by the Panaji Riviera chapter of the Rotary club. Police Sub Inspector Reema Naik, who also attended the ‹Jai Gangaajal› screening said that the film was an inspiration for a police-woman like her. «We have to stick to the truth and stand ground. The worst that will happen is that you will be transferred, but that is better than going against your conscience.

Jake Kasdan signed to helm ‘Jumanji’ remake

irector Jake Kasdan, known for directing a few episodes of TV comedy show ‘New Girl’, has been tapped to helm the much-anticipated remake of 1995 Robin Williams-starrer superhit ‘Jumanji’. The original movie adapted Chris Van Allsburg’s Caldecott Medal-winning adventure book and told the story of two kids who let loose a man trapped for decades in a board game. With this, they also unleash a jungle’s worth of creatures into the world. The upcoming film is being described as a new take on the book. Produced by Columbia Pictures, the remake is set for a December 25 release. Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner have written the script, working off of a draft by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Kasdan has shown a deft hand for sweet-natured comedy, directing episodes of TV’s ‘Freaks and Geeks’, besides ‘New Girl’, as well as the Cameron Diaz black comedy ‘Bad Teacher’ (2011). He also helmed the 2014 comedy ‘Sex Tape’.

Banarasi silk sari for the special occasion. The sari has been woven by using traditional ‘kadhua’ technique of Banarasi handloom weaves. The kadhua style, in which a design is made in course of weaving, differs from embroidery. “In fact the kadhua style of weaving, which cannot be imitated on power loom, is the basis of getting Geographical Indication (GI) tag to this famed Banarasi product,” said Rajni Kant of Human Welfare Association, who played a key role in getting GI certification for Banarasi Brocade and Sari. Varanasi’s weaving is famous for its exclusive varieties of the saris like Jangla, Tanchoi, Vaskat, Cutwork, Tishu, and Butidar. During the Moghal period, weaving of brocades with intricate designs using gold and silver threads was the speciality of Banaras.

Save Earth for your future generations Avoid using plastic bags

Keep your homes and surroundings clean

Black plastic bags cause skin cancer

Make this world a green heaven

Use cloth or paper bags to shun using plastic bags

Cleanliness means safe health of your kids

Always use biodegradable plastic bags

Reduce noise level for a calmer living

Stop burning of garbage

Get your vehicles tune-up regularly

Dispose of garbage at designated place

Keep engine and silencer of your vehicle in good condition

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t litter, it will make your life bitter

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