Provincialism of language and The health of popular Indian languages.

1. Indeed, Hindi was broadly accepted as the National Language and Hindi Prachar Sabha-s were established to propagate Hindi language and working successfully in many States, esp. in Tamilnadu, where the objections of serious nature developed later.

2. Malayalees took to Hindi as fish to swimming, as the Sampoornanand version of Sanskritised Hindi- not Hindustani- was understood better by Keralites than even UP-ites, who were more familiar with Urdu words. Most of the rankings in Hindi Language Examinations in Delhi or Agra, I remember were taken by Malayali students, as they knew the Devanagri script while studying Sanskrit and the terminologies too of Sanskrit.  

3. What was objected to and aggravated to serious agitations was the modus operandi followed in imposing Hindi through Central Govt. offices as well as UPSC examinations- only in English and Hindi then- which States like TN would not accept. One of the reasons of success of the Dravida movement was the anti-Hindi agitations in 1960-s, bandhs and defacing Hindi- boards, displays..etc. leading  to severe law and order problems and sympathies for DMK rising fast.

4. The Centre unilaterally decided to send all letters in Hindi which found the trash-box in many offices in non-Hindi States without responding, paralysing the work in offices. It was then diluted to both English and Hindi versions on either side of the paper for Govt. correspondence.

Thousands of mediocre school non-metrics from Hindi States were recruited as Hindi teachers and sent to every Central office to teach Hindi to non-Hindi speaking staff, a futile effort initially, until passing Hindi language tests was made compulsory for promotions.. etc.

5. Nehru then came up with the idea that while non-Hindi States would learn Hindi as a third language, Hindi speaking States would insist on the staff to learn one of the non-Hindi languages- which never materialised.

UPSC examinations too were compromised to accept all 14 languages and mediocres flooded the IAS and other cadres compromising on meritocracy in Central Services.

6. IT IS STRANGE THAT ALL HINDI SPEAKING STATES WHO EXPECT THE NON-HINDI SPEAKING STATES TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE AND MAKE NOTINGS BY WRITING, STUDYING THE FILES ETC. insist on Hindi numbers .

7. However, IAS officers posted to particular States learn the local language within a few years and converse, speak and write notings in the States they work. This works as it is mandatory.

8. Parochialism is bad and is divisive. But Parochialism has benefited many political parties to win the elections, be it DMK or Shiv Sena or Akali Dal etc. Shiv Sena and MNS are aiming at this goal.

9. Hindi movies have done propogation of Hindi language much more effectively than all Govt. promotionary programmes put together. Popularity in Hindi movies is universal.

10. If you want to promote Hindi, make it a third language from Std.V compulsory up to XII, besides English and mother tongue for the next 15 years, and you will find the next generation prepared to meet any challenges then, without any compulsion.

Veer Savarkar once started addressing a public meeting in Hindi at Bangalore . 

The crowd started shouting "Speak in Kannada. We will hear only in kannada." 

Veer Savarkar replied " Friends, I have spent 14 years of rigorous imprisonment in ill famous Andaman Jail where all freedom fighters were kept in jail. I have learned Bengali from the freedom fighters coming from Bengal , Hindi from those coming from Uttar Pradesh, even gujarathi and 

punjabi. Unfortunately there was none from Karnataka from whom I could have learned Kannada." 

...and there was pin drop   silence.

The primary cause of the problem is the failure of the Indian state on two major counts:

a)  failing to establish a comprehensive public education system to provide quality education for most of Bhaarat's children up to the secondary levels, AND a combination of public & private institutions of higher learning of high quality in all fields (including the humanities) to produce technocrats, professionals, managers, 'artists', thought leaders and cutting-edge researchers for Bhaarat (not for Nasa, Microsoft, and Wall Street); and

b)  failing to establish a comprehensive 'language policy' to further enrich India 's linguistic heritage, which is fundamental to intellectual and moral development, as well as cultural articulation and innovation. 

 Hopefully this anecdote would help people understand how and where India slipped by 

making a comparison. 

 A university undergraduate (biological science) - outside India - has been selected to spend one semester (five months) in a Swedish university, beginning Jan 2010, as part of the student exchange programme.  A catch.  He cannot take courses at the Bachelor degree level because all first degree courses (including the hard sciences) are conducted in the Swedish language.  Only Masters and above are available in English.  This young man (of Indian origin) has, therefore, agreed to choose somewhat equivalent modules from the Masters programme. 

The politicians who fight to get elected can't run even kindergartens properly, so much so that even ordinary peasants are forced into sending their children to unaffordable private 'convents' (in English).  Do you know what kind of damage is being done to the mental and emotional development of these kids forced to learn a foreign language (English)?  Aggravating the problem is the fact that most of the teachers are themselves not proficient in English.  What is going on in the name of education is, therefore, nothing less than criminal.  There are any number of educationists who will vouch for the damage the kids will suffer.  But the education merchants are in cahoots with the politicians and bureaucrats.  

At the other end is the problem of job opportunities for graduates educated through the mother tongue.   

Why is it that Bhaarat cannot get to do what the Swedes, Dutch, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russians.... . can?

Is it because they have superior languages?

Or superior people? 

Jaago India Jaago

What is the reason of linguistic war going in India. Should Hindi be taken as a national language and be made compulsory or we should follow 'language of convenience’ and follow English as "Ingliss" and lose our identity. Jaago India Jaago

There are various elements necessary in the making of a nation such as a common language, a common religion, a common Government and a common culture and social economy, but perhaps the most fundamental and indispensible factor is the possession of a common country, a fixed, definite abode. Even nationality has a material physical basis without which it can hardly manifest and assert itself as a real existence and factor in the political world”. – Radha Kumud Mookerji, Ex-Historian

Those nations are at a loss, where there is no common language, one that is officially declared, mooted and followed religiously. A common language can convey the sensitivity of their inhabitants. On 15th August 1947, British India gave birth to a sovereign nation: India in English and Bharat in Hindi.

What’s there in a name? Are ‘Bharat’ and ‘India’ same or different?

By January 26, 1950 it was made official that rich cultural heritage and ethnic diversity of “ancient Bharat” will be re-assimilated and will be re-amalgamated in order to carve out a new modern nation, BHARAT. But nothing really happened… at the age of 59, Bharat is persistently struggling for ‘her’ own identity against India. From British-India to India, privately owned India Inc. is endlessly ruling the roost. Bharat has continually been facing tough challenge to stand on its feet - since its inception. Millions of people of ‘Indian’ origin do not know what ‘Bharat’ is, and why ‘Bharat’ is engraved in their Passports and other documents? What happened in ‘Maharashtra Assembly’ speaks the volume of identity crisis of Bharat. Linguistic war inside Assembly could have been avoided, if we would have given our country one name: either India or Bharat.

Will any country without “a language of national repute in real terms” ever become a forceful country to reckon with?

A few months ago, there was a panel discussion on CNN-IBN online why “the foreign policy of China is ruthlessly aggressive”. In other words, why our nation’s foreign policy is mercifully meek? Panel failed to address the core problem, it was the language. Mandarin, the language of China is a ‘font’ of aggression and the ‘typescript’ of national pride. Our nation does not have a language that can embrace her entire populace and stimulate the feeling for the place we live in and work for, neither the officially declared Hindi and nor the languages of 8th schedule in our constitution. It is practically impossible to snub aggression in ‘scrounged’ idioms, what ‘India’ is doing for the past several years.

Officially declared language, Hindi went on dialysis on the night of August 14, 1947 when first Prime Minister of Independent India Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru delivered his first ‘independence speech’ in and outside the Parliament in the language of his convenience. ‘Nehruvian’ school of language continues to dominate both inside and outside of Parliament amongst different political and social affiliates. India became the officiating country to the world; her representatives never spoke in the officially declared nation’s language at any world forum. It is ironical to note that many cities and states across our country adopted names in their respective languages in order to assert their regional smugness. Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Bangalore embraced regional self-importance in the form of Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru, respectively. No one asserted emphatically ever on behalf of Bharat. 

Bombay, the financial capital of India became Mumbai, but Mumbai remained financial capital of India. Imperative to regional leadership and own weaknesses of Bharat, not only Mumbai is slowly slithering, but the entire small rural-urban centers across the nation. That is why there is no national pride associated in the battle of name change. ‘India’ gained many technologists and scientists, but there was none in favor of ‘Bharat’. Hence, our national (educational) identity is lost in translation.

India is more accommodative.

Music is magic, and Indian (mainly Hindi) Cinema has shown us a new national hope. In 2009, nearly two-third lyrics of Hindi songs have English inputs for the betterment of our rural folk-tongue. According to a survey on upper middle and rich Indians conducted by The Nielsen (published in CNN-IBN online edition) found that "Top 10 affluent cities of India prefer English language for newspapers but watched television more in regional languages. “Nine in 10 affluent individuals watch television and nearly three-fourth read English dailies”, the survey further added.

Can English as a language be our exclusive identity of one-nation theory - India?

Reflective confusion has always prevailed over Indian Institute of Technology vs ‘Bhartiya Prodyogiki Sansthan’. And, between Prodyogiki and Technology, there were/are many dumb abnegators. It was my late realization in early 1990s that why parents are working overtime on feeding ‘Technology’ to their children over ‘Prodyogiki’ as a mode of communication? Trends set in motion for the sake of acquiring prestige, power and jobs, or whatever the forms it may have today. A sudden realization by the Government was for a ‘unique identification number’ for all in order to serenade one’s national identity. Therefore, Agency was ‘just’ given a new name in Hindi language, “Bhartiya Vishishth Pahchaan Pradhikaran” and in English “Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)”. It was noticed that UIDAI made its presence felt everywhere on the recent visit of its Director, Mr. Nandan Nilekani in Patna. There was no banner depicting “Bhartiya Vishishth Pahchaan Pradhikaran”. Poor ‘Bharat’ is enduring stress of continual ‘Indianization’ of her own heartland.

Policy making places are no exception. A couple of months ago, during a parliamentary Question hour in English between Maneka Gandhi and Jairam Ramesh, Mulyam Singh Yadav wondered whether he was in an Indian or an English parliament. 

What language one should use in the Parliament, the so-called national language Hindi or the language of convenience. Maneka Gandhi chose language of convenience, ENGLISH. Later BJP spokesperson Mr. Rajiv Pratap Rudi cleared the BJP view and gave verdict in favor of the language of convenience. At the same time, he showed ‘enormous kindnesses” towards Hindi. Constitutionally declared the so-called national language has all the privileges and civil liberties till the ‘language of convenience’ blows its horn boldly in coming years. Mr. Jairam Ramesh too asked for forgiveness.

The “INGLISS”

A language is like a flower, and needs enough water for its nourishment, and hence, the Hindi. I personally believe that Hindi as a national language has failed at all fronts to such an extent that it will certainly never become a language of convenience in 21st century. Hindi has further failed to get acquainted with millions of individuals as ‘Indian identity’, so why it has been crowned with national title with so much disgrace in their own country and parliament? Insult can be tolerable, injury can be beyond repair. Hindi should be given due respect in the 8th schedule of constitution before it loses everything in the name of national language in coming years. Language signifies our identity. Why should we carry such a fake identity, which divides people and creates a class system based on linguistic diatribe?

Hindi is losing its foot hold in the Hindi heartland, where the life of economically upward mobile people wakes up with “good morning” and slumbers with “good night”. Those who are fighting for Hindi inside Parliament/Assembly ironically take pride in their second generation who are fluent enough in the characters of “good morning” to “good night”. Not only amongst rich and affluent, over the years English has emerged stronger, has grown bigger, and in fact they are finding acceptability amongst rural tongue - INGLISS. 

These days, speaking ‘Ingliss’ is providing citizens of Bharat a full satisfaction of earning prestige as well as upper hand in sharing the cake of globalization with rest of Indians including nearness to bureaucracy and military.

Hindi has no right to occupy the national language seat in an ethnically divided multi-lingual country. Time has come to declare INGLISS as a language of national identity and neo-nationalism. Time has come to shed the ‘double standard’ in our lives. Bihar has always been the torch bearer of the revolution of its kind. Bringing English (Ingliss, an Indian English) as a compulsory subject in Class X board is a major shift in the policy of Government of Bihar. Many “Bhartiya” from Bihar putrefied in their linguistic struggles on the streets of ‘India’ in finding their dreams. Let the Government of Bihar initiate the process of endowing the official status to INGLISS as the primary language for all Biharis.

A country whose President, Prime Minister and Council of Ministers refrain from speaking “officially declared national language” while pledging for their respective offices, remain restrained in taking tough stand against the marginalization of national language by extremist forces; a country whose parliamentarians are mortified by the language Hindi, calling it a disease, is an embarrassment to the words, national and nationalism. It is an absolute double standard with respect to ‘Bharat’.Let us declare “Ingliss or English” the language of National Identity of India.

src: When India Defeated Bharat: By Dr. Sudhir Ranjan

Is India ready to become the Biggest Economy of the World? Please Donate to Help stop Child Labour

We all know India is growing at an extensive speed, giving birth to a lot of entrepreneurs and Business Tycoons. Our Status and reputation are gaining strength in the World. In every Aspect we are developing but still Vision 2020 of Dr.Kalam can not be achieved unless we reduce the gap between these two positions:

.Photo: by Shelton Muller

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

At an age when she should be visiting school and learning, she is earning livelihood for herself and her family. Showing her extraordinary skills of balancing on rope she manage to earn Rs.100 a day from the offerings from the passing buyers on the road side of PUSHKAR. Though she can make her carrier and future in Gymnasium and may bring back some medals for the country, but who has time to look into it. Every one is busy and counting there own lot. Even Govt. approaches them only when they seems to be a potential vote bank. http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Still the no of Child Labours in India is at an alarming level. Sparing some pennies from our daily extravagance like an ice-cream or just a cigarette we can help them shape their future.If we want to see India at the apex we need to change ourself.  Those pennies may not count for you but meant a lot for those whose daily earning is less then $1. http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

After 6 decades of Independence child labour exists and we think we are developing. These Kids did not ask for a laptop or an ice-cream but there age needs a nourishment for their Mind and Body. They are the one which can shape the future and image of India. Govt is trying a lot for them, providing basic schooling and even mid-day meals and school dress completely free to attract them to attend classes, but what really approaches them is not hidden from anyone. The corruption is present at every level. Despite the numerous promises and provisions made by the Indian government, the state of many of the country's children continues to be pitiable. Statistics reveal that there are close to 13 million child laborers, about 3 to 5 lakh children are forcibly engaged in prostitution and at least 18 million children live on the streets in India. Coupled with child abuse and poverty figures, the picture is far from pretty. A little help on your part can bring these numbers down! http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

We need to change it, It is the responsibility of every Indian to ask and check the status and condition of such schools and to contribute to shape the life of these 'to be futures' of India. There are a lot of NGO's and other organisations helping these kids to smile. Please Help them to make these kids SMILE in true sense.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Please Donate: your Donation can help:



Donate through UNICEF : As low as Rs. 1000 [click here]

Donate to Cry CRY: Child Rights and You 

Sponsor a Child : World Vision India and get TAX benefits under section 80G

Donate to Smile Foundation

Donate for India Street Kids

Donate online to accountable Indian NGOs working for children



Please Jaago India Jaago Don't think about yourself only, we are human we are meant to share the problems of the world. Please Donate and help her.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Some Links:

Initiatives towards Elimination of Child Labour – Action Plan and Present Strategy

UNICEF Statistics India

India Street Kids

Support the Homeless : Habitat for Humanity on World Habitat Day (5th Oct 2009) & URBAN Homeless Condition Report In India

The United Nations has designated the first Monday each October as World Habitat Day.

This year on Oct. 5 in Washington, D.C. and around the world, please join Habitat for Humanity in support of this global observance as we come together and declare that the lack of decent, affordable housing is unacceptable.

Let's stand up on World Habitat Day and let it be known that affordable, adequate housing should be a priority everywhere—in our communities, in our towns, in our country, in our world.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

The theme for World Habitat Day 2009 is "Planning our Urban Future"

Supporting organizations for 2009 World Habitat Day include:

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

• Habitat for Humanity


• Rockefeller Foundation


• Woodrow Wilson Centre


• Global Housing Foundation


• CHF International


• American Planners Association


• International Housing Coalition


• the Urban Institute


• USAID, Cities Alliance


• the World Bank


• the US Department of Agriculture


• the Cooperative Housing Foundation


• the National Law Centre


• the Mortgage Bankers Association

Donate: your mere donation can give shelter:



Did you know that your gift does much more than help families escape from unsafe, unhealthy living conditions?

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

You’re helping families to break the cycle of poverty and build long-term financial security. Habitat’s affordable, no-profit house payments free up money for food, child care, medicine and other necessities. And research has shown that decent housing improves health, increases children’s educational achievement and strengthens community ties.

Thanks to your support, Habitat has transformed the lives of more than 1 million people around the world! Let’s help even more!http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Click here to donate now

Some Facts of URBAN Homeless Condition In India:

• As per 2001 census report the slum population of India in cities and towns with a population of 50,000 and above was 42.6 million, which is 22.6 per cent of the urban population of the states/ Union Territories reporting slums. This could also roughly be the size of Spain or Columbia.

• As per the 2001 census, the total urban homeless population is 7, 78,599 people. Delhi had  3.1 percent of the national level, and Bihar and Tamil Nadu had 1.6 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

• In Delhi, for over a 100,000 homeless people, the government runs 14 night shelters with a  maximum capacity of 2,937 people, which is only 3 percent of the homeless people in the  city. Outside in the walled city of Delhi, private contractors called thijawalahs rent out  quilts (winter) and plastic sheets (monsoon) for five rupees a night. Iron cots are rented  for 15 rupees a night.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

• In a study of homeless populations, homeless men, women and children in four cities reported  that they were beaten by the police at night and driven away from their make-shift   homes/shelters.

• There are 375 children below 5 years of age forming less than one per cent of total shelterless in the capital. The aged population (60 year and above) form almost 3 per  cent of total shelterless in the capital.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Homeless in Mumbai, India's metropole

Photo: by VeganMoonray

• The shelterless in Delhi earns between Rs. 70 and Rs. 100 per day on average.

• More than 36 per cent of men and more than 46 per cent of women still use open fields for defecation.

• The estimated number of shelterless person by 2016 is 141,091 according to IHD survey and 34,166 according to calculated Census Growth Rate of shelterless person.  http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Homeless family in Bombay:

Photo: by  larserlandsson

A few Living Examples:

• After 17 years of sleeping on the streets of Delhi, Saroja Devi slept in the first shelter  for homeless women in Delhi and said that what she valued most in the months she stayed at  the shelter was that for the first time she had the assurance of an uninterrupted night’s  sleep. http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

• ‘I live on a pavement in the old Delhi area. And know how people survive on pavements. If  one meal is available, then another time one has to sleep without food. No one sleeps on an  empty stomach willingly and happily. But what can one do? When we go to find some work, we  are asked a series of questions like: “From where have you come? What do you do? Do you  thieve? Who can stand guarantee for you?” How can you get work like this? Now tell me, what  will one do to fill one’s stomach?’ - Seventeen-year-old Hashim sleeps among the multitudes  of homeless people in the open ground near Jama Masjid, in the medieval walled city of  Delhi.

• Sixty-five year old Budhan Bai spends eight months a year begging and sleeping in the  courtyard of Kalkaji Mandir in Delhi to support her ailing husband in their village in Uttar  Pradesh.

• Old women [Buddham Bai] at Kalkaji Mandir in delhi india: http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

I could smell Buddham Bai before I could see her. She was covered with layers of clothes once white, laced with the acrid odour of incontinence, of old age. Pink nail polish flashing against the dark, wrinkled hands, her grizzled hair was put in a careless bun. Her child-like smile, at the age of 65, was the only thing that didn't look weathered by life's grueling tests. [read more]

-Arpan Tulsyan 

Photo: by fuzonlab [Living on a hand cart]

• 
  
  

Some More Facts by Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan: Shelter Rights Campaign for the Homeless in Delhi



src:

1. INDIA-URBAN-POVERTY-REPORT-2009

2.Shelter Less Persons in Delhi:

Quick links: News Facts | What Can You do | Photos | Videos | Donate | 2008 Successes

Unite To End Violence Against Women: Please Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide, Female Genital Mutilation, Dowry and Discrimination Against Women, Women’s Resistance and Educate & Empower Women for a Happy Future !!!!!! : Jaago India Jaago

LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC:

Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz 





"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." 

-(UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)

Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz 

“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” 

:(UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)

http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz 

In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF (www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.

According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.

Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz 

United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.

India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.

Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.

It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.

The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.

Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/

Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz 

More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. 

Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?

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Unite To End Violence Against Women!

Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!

Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!

Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!

Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!

Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jaago India Jaago!!!

www.un.org/womenwatch/

www.un.org/women/endviolence/

www.saynotoviolence.org/

www.unaids.org

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/