News Wrap
AGD
In a global study, India has
recently been found to be the worst
of the G20 nations, in which to be a woman. Saudi Arabia was the second worst. Rape cases in India more than doubled between 1990 and 2008. National crime records indicate that 228,650 of the total 256,329 violent crimes recorded in 2011, had women as their victims. The conviction rate for rape cases in India, is 26% only. The perpetrators are generally rootless migrants and relatively well-to-do villagers near big cities, who are sure for their ability to evade capture. Gang rapes almost always take place in urban or semi-urban areas. Attacks on women illustrate a crisis of male identity in India, where boys are often more valued than girls. Female empowerment is totally unsettling to many men. New Delhi has a rape incidence of 2.8 per 100,000. The highest in India is 5.7 per 100,000 in Bhilai (Chattisgarh). ‘Eve teasing’ in India refers to a spectrum of offences from verbal sexual harassment to sexual assault. Year 2012 concluded with the death of the Delhi rape victim in a Singapore hospital. A police constable also died in the capital’s protests.
Tension in Tea Estate
Ten lac people are dependent on 800 tea gardens in Assam. December 2012 witnessed the barbaric incident of labourers burning the owner of a tea garden and his wife to death in Assam’s Tinsukia district. Armed with bows and arrows, angry labourers in a simmering dispute over housing, laid siege to the bungalow of a planter, Mridul Bhattacharjee, and set it on fire, killing him and his wife Rita. There has been a huge deployment of police and paramilitary forces at the Kunapathar Tea Estate. Labour leaders feel that labourers were deprived of their dues for long, and reacted against the management, but they should not have taken the law into their own hands. Before the incendiary incident, the tea planter had filed an FIR at Bordumsa police station, against two workers, when they refused to vacate their quarters, despite eviction notices. In the past, Assam’s Tea industry experienced gruesome killings, over common disputes concerning wages. With the alleged Maoists having a presence, there are calls for social transformation of workers, and proper channels to air grievances over wages and basic facilities.
Self Help Groups
Self Help Groups (SHGs) in West Bengal have secured only 3% total credit from nationalised banks, under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), while the southern states in India, have received 79% share in fiscal year 2011-12. There is a low intake capacity in West Bengal, being merely Rs 40,000 against the national average of Rs 80,000. To obtain more loans, the SHGs in West Bengal need to improve capacity. Economic activities in West Bengal did not expand, as the SHG movement started late in the state, unlike South India. In the last financial year, West Bengal secured about Rs 551 crore as loan from nationalised banks, which is roughly 3.5% of the banks’ total credit under NRLM. Andhra Pradesh secured maximum amount of loan of Rs 8177 crore (51%), followed by Tamil Nadu with Rs 1933 crore (12.1%), Karnataka with Rs 1629 crore (10.2%), and Kerala with Rs 854 crore (5.4%). In West Bengal, there are about 14.5 lac SHGs. Even though West Bengal is among the top six states which repay loans on time, 1.69 lac SHGs, in the state could not obtain bank loans. Credit facilities have been extended to 97,000 new SHGs in West Bengal, covering 97% of the target.
Israel Strikes
Israel is pushing ahead with building a 3000-home settlement on West Bank, that Palestinians warn would end the peace process. The 15-nation UN Security Council, including India, except the USA, have condemned Israel’s announcement of new construction activity in Palestinian territories, and demanded immediate dismantling of the illegal settlements. Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Russia have delivered similar messages. The earlier UN General Assembly vote to upgrade the Palestine’s status to that of a ‘‘non-member state’’ has infuriated Israel. Plans of an Israeli settlement in the E1 zone, east of Jerusalem would cut off Palestinians from east Jerusalem. There have been earlier threats from Israel to build settlements in E1 zone, of about four and a half square miles. Construction has been delayed in acknowledgement that it would serve to divide the West Bank in half. The proposed construction dashes hopes of a contiguous state, as it would cut off Palestinians from east Jerusalem. Building in E1 zone destroys peace plans proposing a two-state solution, and hopes of establishing east Jerusalem, as the capital of a future Palestinian nation.
Besides the E1 plan, the construction of 4000 homes in plan ‘Givat Hamatos’, would be the first new settlement to be built over the Green Line, since 1997. Being built in Jerusalem between two existing neighbourhoods, Givat Hamatos will complete a ring of Jewish settlements that cut the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, off from Jerusalem. Along with growing international isolation, Israelis’ leverage with the Palestinians and its Arab friends is shrinking fast.
Israel is also withholding millions of dollars in tax needed to pay civil servants in the West Bank. The Israeli cabinet claims that about $120 million (75 million Pound) withheld monthly, would pay down debts the Palestinians owed for Israeli electricity. The Palestinian authority, always cash strapped, depends on the income from tariffs and customs, Israel collects on its behalf, to pay to workers, including its Western trained police force.
Poland’s slowdown
Poland’s economy is growing at 1.4%. Since business opened up in 1991, Poland has survived numerous economic crises. As the largest country among the EU’s new member states, and the only one of the 27-member bloc not to suffer a recession in 2009, Poland today is battered by the slump in the eurozone, and slowing of domestic demand. Growth in consumption, investments and exports have declined. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 12.5%. Earlier Poland was the only EU country to raise rates, but in December 2012, the Polish Central Bank cut its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 4.25%. There is little hope of an external stimulus, with eurozone stagnating. Compared with 2011, the car sector, one of Poland’s largest exporters has suffered production fall by 20% in 2012. The budget deficit is around 7.9%. With more than 20% of 2013’s borrowing needs covered, Poland’s ten-year bonds have fallen by 4%. Sale of state assets is funding large infrastructure projects.
Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 31, February 10-16, 2013
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