Month: July 2015

India’s Trafficking Story is Full of Missing Little Pieces

Ninety per cent of India’s trafficking problem is internal, informal and often much too close to home

Plastered in Poverty. Credit: Meena Kadri, CC 2.0

Plastered in Poverty. Credit: Meena Kadri, CC 2.0

Two weeks ago, I travelled to Chandauli for the first time, a two-hour drive from Varanasi. For the past year, I’ve been following the NGO, Aangan’s work there with vanvasis, a Scheduled Caste group who live off the forest. I had a mental picture of what I was about to see – deeply malnourished children with too-large heads and protruding bellies, their parents collecting wood and betel leaves from the forest to eke out a living.

To reach the village, we got off the main road, onto a dirt track, now almost indistinguishable after heavy rain. From there, it was a one-kilometre walk to the village, wading through knee high water to reach the first clutch of houses. The village is in a valley between hills, and transportation is virtually non-existent. In other circumstances, purely as a tourist, the setting would have lifted my spirits – mud houses with low, thatched roofs, a few buffaloes, streams and an air of quiet, bucolic.

At first, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong. The rudimentary school and malnourished children didn’t surprise me. Nor did the men and women sitting outside their homes all day, no claim on their time, no work to tend to. As I spoke to a group of women from the community, it began to hit home.

There were very few adolescent girls or boys to be seen.

The women said many had left – some had been married, others left to work in warehouses and factories, lured by the promise of a mobile phone or a pair of jeans. Some had returned from brutal, exploitative working conditions in warehouses in cities to which they were taken, others had never come home. Still others had left to work in neighbouring villages as agricultural labourers and might return after the season, or would be left there at the behest of the landlord to continue working.

Did parents worry about sending their children away? Was that even a choice, or a luxury? Would I choose differently in that position? Probably not.

As I sat there, my mind drifted to Naina, a girl who is part of a weekly group session I attended at a state-run institution for lost, abandoned and harmed children in Mumbai.

Naina is 16, and one of the quietest girls in the group. For the first month, she never made eye contact, looking down and drawing patterns with her finger on the floor. In any activity, she’d quietly refuse to participate, wanting to listen to the conversation but physically moving to the fringe of the group, sitting just outside the circle.

A few weeks after we started the group sessions, she came, up wanting to talk, to know when she could go home to her mother who lives in a village in West Bengal.

Naina had left home at the age of 10 to work as domestic help in a house in Gurgaon. An agent from her village had helped her get there and she said it was a good few years she spent. The woman she worked for was kind to her, giving her food and buying her clothes on Diwali. She lived there for five years, before returning home to her mother for a few months for Pujo. Did she get a chance to study, I asked. No, she responded, but whatever she cooked for the household, she also got to eat.

Her next ‘posting’ was at a house in Surat. Here, she met an auto rickshaw driver who promised to marry her. She agreed to leave for Mumbai with him, got on a train and arrived at the station. She was then put in a taxi on her own, the driver trying to take her somewhere to sell her. When she resisted, he left her on the street and she was brought to the institution for girls.

Naina said she wanted to go home and be with her mother for Durga Pooja, but after that, she would go wherever she could find work. What was there to do at home, after all? Her father had died and her mother was ill. Staying back was not an option. She had to leave, go to the next house, and hope for a kind woman.

As I sat there, I could picture other girls and boys like Naina in Chandauli, and understand deep in my bones, the absence of choice, of any sort of agency.

The 2015 Trafficking in Persons report has been published by the US State Department. It says that 90% of India’s trafficking problem is internal. From what I’ve seen from bastis or hotspot communities we work in, I’d agree. It is internal, and informal and often much too close to home.

Six kilometres away from the first village I visited in Chandauli, is another. This one is alongside a road. Women here have started coming together to talk about trafficking, about how to keep children safe. They’re a group of volunteer adult child protection workers, part of Aangan’s PACT program (Parents and Children Against Trafficking and Harm). They’re coming together to share their own experiences – of sons and daughters who were lured or sent away, talking about why that’s dangerous. They’re meeting the local school principal to enlist support for their children to go to school where they were previously bullied and harassed because of their caste. They’re urging parents to be cautious, to collect details of where their children are going, numbers, addresses.

Yesterday, July 30, was World Day Against Trafficking, and unwittingly, the subject was feeling close at hand. It’s only six kilometres away, but there’s an air of action in this village, of supportive adults, watching out for and protecting children they see around them. They’re working to stand up for children. To keep safe.

*The names of children have been changed to protect their identity

The author, Deepika Khatri, is the Strategy and Advocacy Coordinator at Aangan, an Indian non-profit that works with children in dangerous situations like child trafficking, child marriage, hazardous work, and violence and abuse, to prevent and protect them from harm

New Indian Cinema Finds Critical and Financial Success

Parallel cinema’s India features farmers, factory workers, dispossessed refugees, tribals, unemployed youth and other marginalised sections

She cooks for him; he removes the washing from the clothesline. Together they have a home, even though opposing work schedules means they hardly see each other. Asha Jaoar Majhey (Labour of Love, Bengali) is a story of marital love in a time of economic recession. Set in the Indian city of Kolkata, the film is untouched by Bollywood-style escapism and has a narrative without dialogue.

Labour of Love is the latest in a steadily increasing stream of Indian films which defy Bollywood expectations. In a market-driven environment, these films refuse to fit into the contours of mainstream or art film. Far removed from the sometimes esoteric narratives that formed the Indian submissions to film festivals in the 1990s, they have urban audiences. Their narratives are realist, their performances nuanced. But although the mainstream industry has grudgingly acknowledged their critical and financial success, it is still wary of providing such films wide release in the multiplexes.

Varied fare

Labour of Love was among the 20 films featured in this July’s London Indian Film Festival. This year’s fare was particularly varied. Entries included the UK-Australian documentary Death of a Gentleman on test cricket and Oscar-winning director Danis Tanovic’s Tigers, a multilingual Indian-German-French co-production featuring a disillusioned salesman’s struggle against a powerful multinational corporation.

Sturla Ginnerson’s multilingual documentary Monsoon charts the course of the rain system across the Indian subcontinent. Director Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court is a Marathi language exploration of the contemporary Indian nation-state. Many of the screenings were accompanied by interactive sessions with directors and actors.

Mani Ratnam, one of India’s most acclaimed commercial directors, gave a talk. Credit: London Indian Film Festival

Mani Ratnam, one of India’s most acclaimed commercial directors, gave a talk. Credit: London Indian Film Festival

The festival paid tribute to the genesis of contemporary Indian film with a documentary on the work of Shyam Benegal. He was one of the pioneers of India’s parallel cinema movement. Benegal’s films, along with those of contemporaries such as G Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Govind Nihalani and Mrinal Sen, helped make the parallel cinema movement a pan-Indian phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s. The films featured realist narratives that showed an India beyond the make-believe world of mainstream Bollywood film.

Parallel cinema’s India featured farmers, factory workers, dispossessed refugees, tribals, unemployed youth and other marginalised sections. These were shown toiling against the impossible odds created by an unequal society which had failed to deliver the fruits of independence to many.

Mainstream actors

For a long time, the parallel cinema movement was shunned by the matinee idols of mainstream films. As a result, some of the finest actors made their mark as the unconventional stars of parallel cinema. These included Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. These actors later found equal success in mainstream films.

Cast in a new role: Emraan Hashmi in Tigers. Credit: London Indian Film Festival

Cast in a new role: Emraan Hashmi in Tigers. Credit: London Indian Film Festival

Contemporary Indian film has benefited from the confidence this has given to a new generation of actors. They switch effortlessly between Bollywood films and those beyond it. Emraan Hashmi, a contemporary Bollywood heartthrob, plays the central character in Tigers, while Nawazuddin Siddiqui easily moves between indie films like Haramkhor (The Wretched) and more formulaic Bollywood films.

Overcoming regional identities

The parallel cinema movement led to the emergence of realist film cultures across India. It helped directors and stars overcome regional identities. For example, it made it possible for Assamese language director Jahnu Barua to have a national audience. Or, for Bengali director Mrinal Sen to make a film like Oka Oori Katha (1977) in Telugu.

New Indian cinema has taken this forward several steps. Multilingual, crossover films are marked by an integrative cultural identity. This cultural crossover is also an important part of its “national” identity, because the new Indian film is also at times Canadian, German, Australian or American.

It has evolved into a phenomenon which is now global in terms of its engagement with worldwide film narratives on nationalism, identity, culture, environment and corporate greed. It derives its strength from trans-cultural partnerships between filmmakers, actors and craftsmen. It is, for the most part, a humanist cinema that is Indian and international at the same time.

Beyond Bollywood, Indian cinema has found a voice that is inclusive and pan-Indian, local and global. After decades, when the limitations of the Bollywood song-and-dance formula film seemed impossible to surmount, this cinema of partnerships has triggered an irreversible process of change.The Conversation

Suman Ghosh is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Bath Spa University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Court Ruling on Abortion for Rape Survivor is Reminder of Need to Amend the Law

Amendments to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act have been hanging fire for some time now, jeopardising the access to safe abortions for lakhs of Indian women

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Crossed Hands. Credit: Meena Kadri, CC 2.0.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court’s landmark verdict on Thursday allowing a minor rape survivor to abort her more than 24-week-old foetus – following clearance for medical doctors – is likely to give a push to the proposed amendments to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 which seek to allow termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks.

The MTP Act allows abortions under a broad range of conditions up to 20 weeks of gestation or five months of pregnancy. The conditions under which termination of pregnancy is allowed include continuation of pregnancy posing a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury to her physical or mental health; pregnancy caused by rape (presumed to constitute grave injury to mental health); pregnancy resulting from the failure of contraception used by a married woman or her husband; and a pregnancy in which there is substantial risk that the child, if born, would be seriously handicapped due to physical or mental abnormalities.

For termination of pregnancy between 12-20 weeks, the opinion of two Registered Medical Practitioners is required.

Proposed amendments

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2014 proposed to amend the MTP Act by increasing the gestation limit from 20 to 24 weeks for special categories of women (rape victims, women with disabilities – to be defined in the rules) and making first trimester abortions available on request by removing the requirement of a doctor’s approval up to 12 weeks of gestation.

Importantly, since certain foetal abnormalities that are incompatible with life are detected only after 20 weeks of gestation, the proposed amendments would address situations like the Nikita Mehta case by making provisions to allow for late term terminations in such cases.

“In my mind, the Supreme Court’s decision is a revalidation of the urgent need to amend the MTP Act, 1971. This young girl and her family have been brave to battle it out in courts but there would be many more such cases of girls and women who suffer in silence due to the current provisions of the law. The amendments proposed to the MTP Act include the clause of extending the gestation period for survivors of rape to 24 weeks, without the need to take recourse to Section 5 of the current MTP Act. Once the amendments to the MTP Act come through, girls and women would not be forced to move the highest court for a solution. I hope the Supreme Court’s judgment will help accelerate the passage of the amendments to the MTP Act, 1971 which have been deliberated on for half a decade,’’ says Vinoj Manning, Executive Director, Ipas India.

Section 5 of the MTP Act, 1971 allows for abortion beyond the stipulated time and at non-designated places when it is to be done immediately in order to save the life of the pregnant woman.

In the Nikita Mehta case, the child’s severe abnormal condition was detected only after 20 weeks of conception and she had approached Supreme Court to terminate the foetus as the law did not permit so. The Supreme Court, in her case, had disallowed the abortion. Mehta subsequently had a miscarriage.

Unsafe abortions as cause of maternal deaths

Though abortion has been legal in India for over 40 years now, every two hours a woman dies because of abortion related causes. Statistics unsafe abortions are the third largest cause of maternal deaths in India and account for 8% of maternal mortalities because women do not have access to safe abortion services.

One of the main reasons for women not receiving MTP services at site is non-availability of doctors. In comparison, mid-level providers (which include nurses, AYUSH doctors) are not only available at all levels of the health system but global experiences suggest that these cadres of trained providers can safely offer abortion services.

The National Population Policy, 2000 had also identified permitting mid-level providers to offer abortion services as one of the strategies to remove barriers to women’s access to safe abortion services.

At the time of the passage of the MTP Act in 1971, Dilation and Curettage (D&C) was the only available technology. Now, there are new technologies like manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) and medical methods of abortion (MMA) which are very safe.

Experts say there is no evidence that increasing the gestation limit for abortion leads to an increase in the abortion rate – a major argument used by those opposing the MTP amendments. Whether abortion is legally more restricted or available on request, a woman’s likelihood of having an unintended pregnancy and seeking induced abortion is about the same. However, legal restrictions, together with other barriers, mean many women induce abortion themselves or seek abortion from unskilled providers.

Global practice

Globally, out of 60 countries with abortion laws that specify a gestation limit within their law, 34 countries allow abortion anytime for more indications than saving the life of mother. These indications include foetal impairment, rape, economic and social reasons.

Ethiopia has a provision in its law for women who are victims of rape. No questions are asked in case a woman wants an abortion on grounds of rape or for minors who are unprepared for raising a child. In 2004, Ethiopia approved a new law which legally prohibits abortion but allows it under certain conditions including when the pregnancy results from rape or incest, in case of foetal abnormalities, for women with physical or mental disabilities and for minors who are physically or psychologically unprepared o raise a child.

The revised law establishes that poverty and other social factors may be grounds for reducing the criminal penalty for abortion and that in case of rape or incest, no proof is required beyond the women’s statement that it has occurred.

Who can perform abortions

Under the existing MTP Act provisions, an abortion can only be performed by a Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP), defined as: 

“a medical practitioner who possesses any recognised medical qualification as defined in clause (h) of section 2 of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, (102 of 1956) whose name has been entered in a State Medical Register and who has such experience or training in gynaecology and obstetrics as may be prescribed by rules made under this Act.”

The ministry’s proposed amendments will replace the requirement of an RMP with that of a Registered Health Care Provider (RHCP) – who could be a healthcare provider qualified under the Indian Medicine Central Council Act and entered into the Central Register or State Register of Indian Medicine (Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha), a qualified general nurse and a qualified auxiliary nurse midwife.

The proposal to allow persons other than just doctors to perform abortions has been criticised by the Indian Medical Association. “MTP is a procedure meant to be conducted by an allopathic doctor only and cannot be conducted by the paramedical staff on their own as they are not at all well equipped to handle critical medical conditions arising out of excessive bleeding especially during incomplete abortions as a result of procedures provided by unauthorised medical or paramedical professionals during and after MTPs,” Narendra Saini, head of the IMA, was quoted as saying.

While a section of the Indian medical community is suspicious of both non-allopathic systems and the notion that anyone less than a doctor can perform an abortion, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said involving health workers can help reduce the number of deaths arising from the 22 million unsafe abortions that take place worldwide each year, almost all in low- and middle-income countries.

Adolescent girls and those who are poor, unmarried, less educated, and those who live in rural contexts are particularly at risk of unsafe abortion. Even though safe, simple, effective primary healthcare level interventions exist, many women still do not have access to them, placing their lives unnecessarily at risk.

The WHO has now  come up with a new guideline, ‘Health Worker roles in providing safe abortion care and post-abortion contraception’, that aims to help break down one critical barrier which limits access to safe abortion care – the lack of trained providers.

The WHO guideline is the first to make an evidence-based recommendation on the safety, effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability of involving a range of health workers in the delivery of recommended and effective interventions for providing safe abortion and post-abortion care, including post-abortion contraception.

Featured image by Meena Kadri, CC 2.0.

China is Headed for a Slowdown. Here’s Why India Should Be Worried.

The severe boom and bust cycle witnessed in the property and stock markets in China has led many analysts to argue that the next Asian recession is being made in China.

Just as the 2008 global recession was led by a property and stock market crash in the United States, there is growing consensus that China’s deepening financial crises – caused by excessive investment in property, commodities and stocks – will inevitably cause a hard landing in its real economy, sending deflationary ripples across other Asian economies which have deep trade and investment linkages with China. Indeed, some experts suggest the deflationary ripples caused by the slowing Chinese economy are already being felt across other Asian economies. The pain has just begun. There is more pain to come in the next year or two.

“In a sense, a China-induced economic slowdown in Asia is already underway. It is happening and we have to see how long this will last. And India will be affected by China’s overcapacity, which is bound to get exported to all its trading partners in Asia.” says Arvind Virmani, a former Executive Director representing India at the IMF.

Virmani argues the crisis will remain until China’s overcapacity works itself out and a new equilibrium is reached between supply and demand. This might take a few years, though.

So China is the elephant in the room which all economies, especially those in the Asian neighbourhood, need to keep a very close watch on. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla recently said he was worried about the events in China much more than in Greece. The first big indicator of the deflationary effect from China is that Singapore is now facing negative GDP growth (-4.5%) in the last reported quarter. Singapore, largely dependent on foreign trade and investment flows, is seen as a bellwether economy that tells us about what may be coming.

India is already facing a massive influx of cheap steel from China. Since 2014, April steel imports have risen by an unprecedented 70%, mostly from China. This is happening at a time when the domestic India steel industry has doubled its own production capacity over the past decade. Many steel companies have defaulted on loan repayments to both public and private sector banks in recent months, partly because of this evacuation of Chinese overcapacity at cheaper prices. The Indian steel industry owes about $50 billion in debt to banks and if China continues to slow down at the current rate, there will be mayhem not only in the domestic steel sector but also in banks that have lent huge sums to the sector.

So India is not insulated from the Chinese crisis as some policymakers might like to believe. In fact, when Chinese stock markets crashed by about 30% in recent weeks sending ripples of fear across Asia, India’s leading business paper, the Economic Times, prone to excessive optimism, had a lead story on the front page suggesting that the Chinese market crash is actually good for India! Some analysts took a narrow finance capital view that more foreign portfolio investment could come to India as China becomes a less attractive destination. This is clearly a case of being myopic because China is one elephant whose fall can damage a lot of economies in ways beyond one’s comprehension.

The fact is China today is the single largest contributor (over 35%) to world GDP. If an economy of this size were to have a partial hard landing in the months ahead, which is the consensus view among economists, China’s GDP is bound to slow down to about  5%. China is currently reporting 7% GDP growth quarter after quarter but objective observers believe it is closer to 6%.

The reason why China will have a partial hard landing is because it injected a massive stimulus of $600 billion dollars after the 2008 global financial crises. Indeed, the fiscal and monetary stimulus helped China double its GDP from $5 trillion in 2009 to about $10 trillion today. However, a large part of the stimulus went into the real estate sector as China created massive overcapacity in housing. This resulted in a property market bubble that threatened to burst in 2014. To stave off an imminent bust in the property market, China eased its monetary policy further and government banks gave easy credit to support property prices. But a lot of this money got diverted into the stock market, sending the Shanghai index soaring by about 150%. Then came the big stock market crash in early June this year. China has taken unprecedented measures to support its stock markets. Government-run banks have been prevented from selling shares. Brokerage houses got massive liquidity support from the Chinese central bank in order to keep the stock markets steady. In short, massive capital controls have been imposed.

But there is no knowing whether the markets believe that fundamental stability would return with just government efforts. The Chinese authorities do realize that the excess stimuli delivered after the 2008 global financial crisis has indeed created asset bubbles, whether in property, stocks or commodities, which need to work themselves out. Another stimulus of the same order as in 2008-09 is out of the question. So a semi-hard landing is inevitable in China. In 2009, China’s total debt – including those of the government, business and household –  was about 130% of GDP. After the big stimuli packages of the past six years, this stands at roughly 270% of GDP. It is self evident that this cannot be repeated again. So some sort of partial hard landing will have to be managed, and other Asian economies will have to brace for its ripple effects.

I have not seen any articulation of this fast approaching crisis from either the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister. Arvind Virmani says substantial parts of the Indian economy which are globally linked – in terms of being part of global trade and pricing regime -will be negatively impacted until the Chinese overcapacity plays itself out. However, Virmani holds out hope for those parts of the Indian economy which may not get affected by the severe Chinese, and consequently Asian, slowdown. The NDA government can dramatically scale up its activity in roads, railways and other transport infrastructure – largely public sector funded – to somewhat neutralize the negative impact of a China-induced recession in Asia. Otherwise India cannot grow at 8% when most other developing economies are either in recession or in a severe slowdown. The Modi government needs to articulate a clear strategy in the context of what is happening in China. So far, we have heard nothing.

Building Blocks of Life Found Among Organic Compounds on Comet 67P: What it Means

One of the declared goals of the Rosetta mission when it was approved in 1993 was to determine the composition of volatile compounds in the cometary nucleus. And now we have an answer.

Scientists analysing the latest data from Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko have discovered molecules that can form sugars and amino acids, which are the building blocks of life as we know it. While this is a long, long way from finding life itself, the data shows that the organic compounds that eventually translated into organisms here on Earth existed in the early solar system.

The results are published as two independent papers in the journal Science, based on data from two different instruments on comet lander Philae. One comes from the German-led Cometary Sampling and Composition (COSAC) team and one from the UK-led Ptolemy team.

The data finally sheds light on questions that the European Space Agency posed 22 years ago. One of the declared goals of the Rosetta mission when it was approved in 1993 was to determine the composition of volatile compounds in the cometary nucleus. And now we have the answer, or at least, an answer: the compounds are a mixture of many different molecules. Water, carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) – this is not too surprising, given that these molecules have been detected many times before around comets. But both COSAC and Ptolemy have found a very wide range of additional compounds, which is going to take a little effort to interpret.

New images show Philae’s landing spots on comet when bouncing around and taking measurements. Credit: ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM/SONC/DLR

New images show Philae’s landing spots on comet when bouncing around and taking measurements. Credit: ESA/ROSETTA/NAVCAM/SONC/DLR

At this stage, I should declare an interest: I am a co-investigator on the Ptolemy team – but not an author on the paper. But the principal investigator of Ptolemy, and first author on the paper, is my husband Ian Wright.

Having made this clear, I hope that readers will trust that I am not going to launch into a major diatribe against one set of data, or a paean of praise about the other. What I am going to do is look at the conclusions that the two teams have reached – because, although they made similar measurements at similar times, they have interpreted their data somewhat differently. This is not a criticism of the scientists, it is a reflection of the complexity of the data and the difficulties of disentangling mass spectra.

Deciphering the data

What are the two instruments? And, perhaps more to the point, what exactly did they analyse? Both COSAC and Ptolemy can operate either as gas chromatographs or mass spectrometers. In mass spectrometry mode, they can identify chemicals in vaporised compounds by stripping the molecules of their electrons and measuring the mass and charge of the resulting ions (the mass-to-charge ratio, m/z). In gas-chromatography mode they separate the mixture on the basis of how long it takes each component in the mixture to travel through a very long and thin column to an ionisation chamber and detector.

Either way, the result is a mass spectrum, showing how the mixture of compounds separated out into its individual components on the basis of the molecular mass relative to charge (m/z).

Unfortunately, the job doesn’t end there. If it were that simple, then organic chemists would be out of a job very quickly. Large molecules break down into smaller molecules, with characteristic fragmentation patterns depending on the bonds present in the original molecule. Ethane, C2 H6 for example, has an m/z of 30, which was seen in the spectra. So the peak might be from ethane, or it might be from a bigger molecule which has broken down in the ionisation chamber to give ethane, plus other stuff.

Then again, it might be from CH2O, which is formaldehyde. Or it might be from the breakdown of polyoxymethylene. Or it might be from almost any one of the other 46 species which have an m/z of 30. Figuring out what it is exactly is a tough job and the main reason why I gave up organic chemistry after only a year – far too many compounds to study.

Of course, the teams didn’t identify every single peak in isolation, they considered the series of peaks which come from fragmentation. This helps a bit, in that there are now many more combinations of compounds and fractions of compounds which can be matched.

So where does this leave us? Actually, with an embarrassment of riches. Have the teams come to the same conclusions? Sort of. They both detected compounds which are important in the pathway to producing sugars – which go on to form the “backbone” of DNA. They also both note the very low number of sulphur-bearing species, which is interesting given the abundance of sulphur in the solar system, and the ease with which it can become integrated into organic compounds.

The COSAC team suggests that nitrogen-bearing species could be relatively abundant, whilst Ptolemy found fewer of them. This is important because nitrogen is an essential element for life, and is a fundamental part of the amino acids which eventually make up the central core of DNA. Conversely, the Ptolemy team has found lots of CO2, whilst COSAC hasn’t detected much.

These differences are probably related to sampling location: COSAC ingested material from the bottom of Philae, while Ptolemy sniffed at the top. Did Ptolemy breathe in cometary gases, whilst COSAC choked on the dust kicked up during the brief touchdown? If so, then the experiments have delivered wonderfully complementary sets of data.

Most importantly, both of those sets of data show that the ingredients for life were present in a body which formed in the earliest stages of solar system history. Comets act as messengers, delivering water and dust throughout the solar system – now we have learnt for certain that the ingredients for life have been sown far and wide through the 4.567 billion years of solar system history. The challenge now is to discover where else it might have taken root.

What else is certain is that both teams are keeping fingers crossed that the Philae-Rosetta communications link stabilises, so that they can get on with their analyses. This is just the start.

The Conversation

Monica Grady is Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Featured image credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM, CC BY-SA.

#fieldworkfail, an Endearing Chronicle of Scientists in Their Natural Environment

#fieldworkfail is in retrospect #fieldworkwin, depicting scientists in their natural environments

If you grew up watching Dexter’s Lab or broadcasts of ISRO’s mission control room on DD News, you would’ve picked up a lot of science as well as a misconception: that scientists are all about working in a closed-off space with an intimidating array of instruments, donning labcoats (originally white-coloured) and goggles, and as a matter of convention not finding anything funny. But as it happens, there are also many scientists out there getting their hands dirty with natural, not just lab-made, gunk.

Consider the tweets tagged #fieldworkfail on Twitter. From getting their legs stuck in tarpits to glueing themselves to crocodiles to dropping cheetah poop on themselves, #fieldworkfail is in retrospect #fieldworkwin, depicting scientists in their natural environments, showing them making mistakes like the rest of us, but most importantly showing in insightful light what science really is: about being curious, taking initiative and being honest about the results. And to the hashtag’s additional credit, the tweets scientists are also hilarious.

https://twitter.com/KaggleRock/status/626817892370223104

https://twitter.com/naomi_noodle/status/626940573950287872

https://twitter.com/TellDrtell/status/626897187600007168

And like all humans…

When a Film Makes Hawks on Both Sides Squirm

A Pakistani looks at Bajrangi Bhaijaan and marvels at its ability to go beyond the usual stereotypes

A poster of the film 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan'.

A poster of the film ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’.

While going through an Indian expat’s piece fiercely critical of Bollywood’s recent film, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, I realised that a lot is often lost in translation. People tend to see only what they want to and nothing more. This particular Indian columnist was angry that the film tried to suggest that Indians and Pakistanis were the same. Of course, over a period of 68 years, we have become different, with a varied political history and ethos. Moreover, our leaderships have invested a lot in generating insecurity and building up iron curtains. But this is not what the film said. In fact, it respected boundaries. In the last scene, where common folk from Pakistani Kashmir force the border gate open to allow the hero to return to India, the people firmly stick to their sides and do not cross over. There is no breaking down of the ‘Berlin Wall’.

The film tells the story of a good-hearted simpleton, an ardent follower of the Hindu god Hanuman, who crosses over illegally into Pakistan to find the parents of a six-year-old girl, accidentally separated from her mother and left behind in India. The Indian critic thought the film was unreal because, how could an Indian, who doesn’t even hide his identity in Pakistan, illegally cross over and survive? The writer may have a point, but this is commercial Hindi cinema and anyone watching Bollywood knows the fantasy it creates. It is best to say the most difficult things in the simplest possible manner. Bajrangi Bhaijaan is certainly not for the staunch political realists in South Asia, whose nerves are shattered at the very suggestion of options other than that of destruction of the adversary.

The film doesn’t say that we are the same; it just reminds us of our geographical closeness, which, in so many years, has proved to be both a boon and a bane. Pakistan’s best friend is China, but people watch Bollywood movies, not Chinese films. Yet, the bulk in India and Pakistan know so little of each other. We are either a fantasy created by celluloid or an ugly farce, as depicted by angry anchors. In this backdrop, the film simply says that ordinary folk may run into unforeseen problems that require cooperation and defeating of decades-old bureaucratic mindsets. It requires humanism rather than bland and blatant nationalism to treat each other with respect.

An experiment in imagination

Anyone can sit down and make a list of things that appear to be far from reality in the film. The hero, Salman Khan, represents Hindutva, supporters of which, in real life, might want to ban anything Pakistani. Are we not aware of instances where Pakistani artists, shows and exhibitions were stopped by the Hindu right-wing? In this respect, this film is a great experiment in imagination. It humanises the right-wing in both India and Pakistan. Pawan Chaturvedi, the hero of the film, is moved by the helplessness of a child who can’t talk, even after he finds out that she is Muslim and Pakistani. Similarly, after he crosses over, is caught by the Pakistani police and hides in a mosque, the mullah does not shut the door on him. He helps the hero escape.

Film, like literature, is fiction, which by its very nature forces us to imagine possibilities that may not be there in real life. Bajrangi Bhaijaan is not just an India-Pakistan story, it is also about independent yet linked social realities of the two states. It nudges the rabid Hindu right-wing to think beyond its ideological paradigm in how it treats Muslims in India. In the film, Sharat Saxena, who plays Kareena Kapoor’s father, does not rent out rooms to Muslims which is what often happens in Maharashtra, and also increasingly in Delhi. The film thus is a dialogue with Hindu nationalism, prodding it to change its perspective. The heroine of the film, Rasika played by Kareena Kapoor, reminds the hero and jostles her rabidly religious father about the need for looking at a six-year-old, not through the lens of her religion, but through humanism. The child, Shahida played by Harshaali Malhotra, unintentionally reveals her identity by her attraction to non-vegetarian food and going to a shrine to pray as she had seen her mother do the same. But Rasika, whose character is developed as a strong feminist, remains focused on the needs of a child who cannot talk rather than getting distracted by stark ideological differences. The film not only gives Hindutva a humanist makeover, it also reminds the Hindu right-wing that there are other ways it could deal with minorities in India, as well as Pakistan, which in the Hindutva mind symbolises Muslims in India.

I wonder why the aforementioned Indian writer feels we are not similar when there are people like him in Pakistan who were angered by the film and even tried to get it banned.

The film is extraordinary as it engages Pakistan in a conversation without denigrating any of its critical institutions. Similar to the way it humanises Hindutva, it also gives a human face to Pakistan’s security establishment. Once convinced of the authenticity of Bajrangi Bhai’s mission, the border patrol officer allows him to sneak into Pakistan. Despite being eventually caught and tortured, there are other kind-hearted officers who let him leave. The film challenges Pakistan’s officialdom not to view a human crisis from the lens of power and organisational ego. It draws attention towards the need to respect each other’s religious and cultural norms. While doing so, it does not humiliate ordinary Pakistanis, which is one of the reasons the film was popularly received in Pakistan and is a lesson in good diplomacy. The scene of an innocent child with the most amazing face kissing a Pakistani flag in front of an ardently religious Hindu household may have contributed a tiny bit to restoring the ordinary Pakistanis’ confidence in having dialogue with India. In one respect, it is Hindutva engaging with the idea of Pakistan, not shying away from it. The film defeats stereotypes which is perhaps why the hawks and naysayers on both sides are uncomfortable with this production. At this time of deteriorating security ties, this film is a refreshing human intervention.

The writer is a Pakistani expert on strategic affairs. The piece first appeared in The Express Tribune

 

Kalam the President Went Where His Conscience Took Him

‘APJ’ pushed the envelope on political issues but kept within the ‘Lakshman rekha’ that the Constitution has drawn for presidential functioning

‘APJ’ pushed the envelope on political issues but kept within the ‘Lakshman rekha’ that the Constitution has drawn for presidential functioning

APJ Abdul Kalam in conversation with Manmohan Singh. Credit: PTI

APJ Abdul Kalam in conversation with Manmohan Singh. Credit: PTI

It is always difficult to evaluate a leader’s political legacy hours after he has passed away, particularly in a country  given to emotion, like India is. It is even more difficult to do this for someone like APJ Abdul Kalam, whose USP was his ability to reach out to – and connect with – ordinary citizens during his 2002-07 presidency, and this is reflected in the outpouring of grief at his passing away on July 27.

But it was by accident that Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam became the 11th president of the Indian republic.

Back in the days of majority governments, Indira Gandhi, as Prime Minister, decided who would be the next President months ahead of the due date and R. Venkatraman was informed that he was going to be the chosen one, almost a year in advance. Of course, he was told to keep the decision under wraps. But with the onset of the coalition era, and the pulls and pressures that PMs began to be subjected to, ad hocism characterised decision-making at the top.

This happened also in 2002 when the National Democratic Alliance was in power and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister. The BJP’s first choice for President was P.C. Alexander but the Congress, which had fallen out with the former principal secretary to Indira Gandhi and to Rajiv Gandhi when they were Prime Minister, was averse to the suggestion. So the idea was dropped.

Vajpayee, who wanted to take the decision by consensus, zeroed in on Krishan Kant, then the Vice President. The Congress agreed to his name. So did state leaders, led by Chandrababu Naidu. The decision was conveyed to Kant by none other than Vajpayee himself. And then suddenly the decision was undone. A group inside the NDA – including Pramod Mahajan, George Fernandes and L.K. Advani – felt Kant would be closer to the Congress than to them. Vajpayee had to give in and the hunt started for another candidate

(It is one of those coincidences that Kalam passed away on July 27, the very date on which a broken-hearted Krishan Kant had died 13 years earlier, weeks after the presidency eluded him.)

Both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu have taken the credit for mooting the idea of APJ Abdul Kalam for Rashtrapati Bhavan, though in Kalam’s own words, Naidu was the first one to phone him on June 10, 2002 and within seconds of his call, the Prime Minister was on the line. Vajpayee entreated Kalam, who was then teaching at Anna University in Chennai, to say only a “yes” and not a ”no” to his offer.

‘First task’, Gujarat

Though some have talked about Kalam’s political naïveté – indeed, his popular appeal was based on his being a “non-politician” politician – Kalam’s first act as President of going to Gujarat showed that he was no babe in the woods.

APJ Abdul Kalam listens to a young survivor at Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad, site of one of the worst incidents during the 2002 Gujarat riots, during his visit to the state in August 2002. Credit: PTI

APJ Abdul Kalam listens to a young survivor at Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad, site of one of the worst incidents during the 2002 Gujarat riots, during his visit to the state in August 2002. Credit: PTI

He decided to visit Gujarat a couple of weeks after taking over on 25 July 2002 and this created huge discomfiture in the NDA government with Prime Minister Vajpayee questioning if it was really “essential” for him to visit the state. The issue was a sensitive one because Gujarat had gone through bloody riots that had taken the lives of more than 1000 people, most of them Muslim. There was speculation that Narendra Modi, then the caretaker CM with the assembly having been dissolved and the state getting ready for polls, might not receive him, though this did not happen. In Kalam’s words:

“PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was discomfited by my decision. He asked me, ‘Do you consider going to Gujarat at this time essential’? I replied, ‘I must go and talk to the people as a President. I consider this my first major task.’ “

Kalam could not but have been conscious of the fact that a large number of Muslim organisations and leaders had been silent about his elevation as President, while the RSS had endorsed his candidature, enthused by his many virtues. He had put India on the missile map, promoted the study of Sanskrit and the Vedas, he played the veena, was a vegetarian – and a bachelor – and was known for his integrity and simplicity.

He may have wanted to visit the violence-torn state – without waiting to be invited, which is normally the norm for presidential visits – because as First Citizen, he wanted to share the agony of those affected. But he may have also wanted to send a signal that he did not want to be seen as anybody’s man, and would be even-handed in his treatment of all communities and parties.

‘APJ’ pushed the envelope on issues but kept within the ‘Lakshman rekha’ the Constitution has drawn for presidential functioning, and could therefore be called a constitutionally correct President. R Venkataraman had referred to himself as a “copybook” President, an emergency light which came on during crises; Kalam’s predecessor, K.R. Narayanan called himself a “working President”.

Kalam returned the Office of Profit bill which exempted certain offices of state and central government – including the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council – from the purview of Office of Profit for MPs, but when the UPA sent it back unchanged, he signed it.

The President-PM relationship is a delicate one in our constitutional scheme of things. Just as Kalam had an easy relationship with Vajpayee, so also he enjoyed a comfort level with his successor, Manmohan Singh. It was Singh who dissuaded Kalam from resigning when the Supreme Court passed strictures against the Centre for dissolving the Bihar assembly in May 2005. For it was Kalam, then in Moscow, woken up at night, who as President had signed the proclamation.

It was said at the time that the UPA government opted for dissolution under pressure from Lalu Prasad’s RJD, which wanted fresh elections. The elections in early 2005 had thrown up a hung assembly, which was then placed in suspended animation, but when the NDA was in the process of breaking Ram Vilas Paswan’s MLAs, the assembly was dissolved.

Kalam came to the rescue of Manmohan Singh in 2008 to facilitate the passage of the Indo-US nuclear deal, though by then he was no longer President. It was his statement in favour of the deal, which the Samajwadi Party latched onto, to justify the end of its opposition to it. It was the SP which bailed out the Manmohan ministry when the Left withdrew support to the UPA.

Clears air on Sonia

Kalam however took eight years to lift the veil on the controversy that it was he who had prevented Sonia Gandhi from staking her claim to the prime ministership in 2004 because of her foreign origins. It was only at the tail end of the UPA’s second sting in power in 2012 that he revealed in his book Turning Points that he had been prepared to swear her in as the Prime Minister.

Few Presidents – they are usually far removed from public dealings – have been a draw at the popular level, like Kalam was, and that is the biggest political legacy he has left behind. Those present at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi remember that he was the only person who drew thunderous applause amongst the battery of leaders present.

His writings and the solutions he offered often looked simplistic. What worked for the “People’s President” was that he came to epitomise the mood of the moment. He represented the qualities of ‘modernity’ – given his background of science, technology, of building missiles and the nuclear bomb – that appealed to an aspirational, young India which dreamt of the country becoming a major power. This, combined with his simplicity and accessibility, made him an iconic President, especially at a time of growing disgust with a grasping political class.

Neerja Chowdhury is a senior journalist and political commentator.

Civilisation Hanging By A Thread

Memon’s execution has shown how the inheritors of the Dharmashastra – which lays emphasis on prayaschitta or atonement as a means to become “divine” – need only the minimal incitement provided by media hype to become bloodthirsty.

Memon’s execution has shown how the inheritors of the Dharmashastra – which lays emphasis on prayaschitta or atonement as a means to become “divine” – need only the minimal incitement provided by media hype to become bloodthirsty

The gallows. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The gallows. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The year – about 2nd Century CE; the place – the flourishing port city of Puhar, also known as Kaveri Poompattinam; the story – the heart wrenching epic of Kovalan and Kannagi and of capital punishment gone wrong. Children of prosperous merchants, Kovalan’s debauchery leads the couple to penury. Hoping for new beginnings, the couple move to the bounteous land of Madurai – where Kovalan, whilst trying to sell Kannagi’s gold anklet filled with rubies, is beheaded without a trial as he is mistaken for the thief who stole the Queen’s anklet. The epic highlights the righteousness of the King and his consort, who give up their lives when they realise the injustice meted out to Kovalan and the insatiable wrath of Kannagi, who burns the entire city of Madurai to ashes.

This story from the Silapathikaram is not just about the irreversible and cruel nature of the death penalty but also a condemnation of the insatiable blood cry of victims seeking retribution and, most significantly, the possibility of error in the delivery of justice, even in the best of systems.

Punishment theories can broadly be categorised as deterrent, retributive and reformative. The retributive theory of punishment is the most basic and primitive, with reformative being intrinsic to an evolved society and deterrence falling somewhere in between.

Deterrence as a basis for capital punishment should be abhorred, as it is the very basis for extremism i.e., killing to set an example. From the public hangings of yesteryears to the recent executions of high-profile offenders, the death penalty may at best bring out voyeurism or curiosity or worse in a person and not a Eureka moment of self-realisation in which a person contemplating murder decides to step back in order to avoid being hanged. Statistics further support the irrelevance of deterrence as a basis for death penalty. The United States, with its death penalty, has more homicides than other western countries, which abolished it. In Canada, as in some US state, homicides have decreased after abolition of the death penalty. India, which has held on stoically, has implemented the death penalty only once in 2012 and 2013.

Retribution knows no boundaries and cannot be satiated. Individuals and societies display progress through increased levels of acceptance, tolerance, restraint and temperance. The recent display of anger over Salman Khan’s twitter feed clearly does not show either temperance or tolerance. The calls we heard for the expeditious hanging of Yakub Memon in the light of divisions in the Supreme Court were a further display of intolerance. On Thursday morning, those voices had their way as Memon was put to death minutes after the dismissal of his final appeal.

The Attorney-General’s call for his speedy execution to avoid opening the floodgates for other petitions is clearly misconceived. The fact that the two Supreme Court judges who heard his writ petition against his death warrant were divided clearly indicates doubt, the benefit of which must always accrue to the accused. The margin for error in retribution is another reason to oppose capital punishment. Justice William J Brennan famously observed that the “death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner…” but also upon some innocents. There are enough examples from around the world of innocents either having suffered incarceration or even of having been executed and pardoned after about 86 years, as in the case of Colin Ross. It is now time for the world – and definitely India – to move from merely breaking the nib of the pen that signs the death penalty to breaking away from this practice itself and moving towards reformation.

Memon’s execution has shown how the inheritors of the Dharmashastra – which lays emphasis on prayaschitta or atonement as a means to become “divine” – need only the minimal incitement provided by media hype to become bloodthirsty. No doubt the cry for the death penalty usually comes after a heinous or unspeakable crime is committed but this cannot be a justification for an act of mindless killing albeit sanctioned by law. Legality does not wipe away the indelible mark of blood from the executioner’s hands. Socioeconomic norms do not justify it. Religion does not condone it – while Hinduism preaches prayaschitta and Christianity turning the other cheek, Islam, which speaks of Qisa, or retribution, also permits Tauba or repentance and pardon. Why India still hangs on to the hangman’s noose therefore defies logic.

Insufficient infrastructure to ensure expeditious investigations, delays in the system of justice delivery, subversion of truth or justice in some instances, cause angst and frustration in society and lead to justice being denied. Hanging the guilty cannot be the answer to these deficits. This is not to say that every convict is a Kovalan or that no one should be punished – just punishment is a prerequisite for effective enforcement of the law. Justice, however, does not demand a life. As a civilised society we must reaffirm our faith in reformative principles and moral certitude. If we don’t, India may simply be sucked into the inexorable sands of regression.

N.S. Nappinai is an Advocate practicing in Mumbai and Delhi.

Note: This article has been edited to change a reference to Yakub Memon’s curative petition to his writ petition against his death warrant

Tea Gardens in the East Are Brewing Starvation, Malnutrition

Tea garden path, Assam. Credit: nallin a, CC 2.0

Tea garden path, Assam. Credit: nallin a, CC 2.0

In a country where tea is an extremely popular beverage, few are aware that within the plantations where tea is cultivated there is a silent epidemic that is taking the lives of hundreds of tea workers.

Between 2000 and 2015, 1400 people have died in 17 closed tea gardens in North Bengal. In these estates, it was found that severe malnutrition was the main cause of death. Many deaths have occurred in other tea estates as well but they have gone unreported.

A majority of these starvation deaths have occurred in Dooars tea gardens in Jalpaiguri and Aliporeduar.

The most affected are families who worked in tea estates that have been shut down. Loss of their only source of income has created famine like conditions in these closed tea gardens, resulting in high mortality within the community.

Over the last decade, the death toll in tea gardens has been rising significantly. In the past few months, 50 people have died in Red Bank tea estate, 22 have died in Bundapani and 6 have died in Raipur. In Dheklapara tea estate, which has been closed for 12 years now, 39 people have lost their lives in the last four years.

All those who paid with their lives worked in tea estates that are now closed. With no alternative jobs or income, it is a daily struggle to survive.

The condition resonates across many other tea estates as well. In Madhu Tea Estate in Aliporeduar district, nine starvation deaths among tea workers have been reported.

In working estates too, woefully low wages, non-availability of drinking water, sanitation and food items that have low nutrient content has led to hunger deaths. Six family members of workers died in June last year due to starvation. Two of them were children.

The mortality rate is unlikely to decline since the living conditions of estate workers continues to be deplorable with abysmally low income and complete absence of healthcare, education and housing facilities. Food availability is very limited so families survive on meagre meals.

Bengal picture grim

Abhijit Majumdar, member of the Siliguri Welfare Organisation and Secretary CPI (ML), describes it as a condition of ‘perpetual famine’ prevailing in the closed or non-functional tea estates in North Bengal which, over the years, has become endemic. According to him, it is the oppressive wage structure and complete indifference on the part of the management that has driven workers into absolute penury.

Those working in active plantations in the Terai region are in no better shape. Their minimum wages are abysmally low. Currently, most of them are paid 95 rupees per day while in Darjeeling up in the hills; it is lower at 90 rupees. The deplorable situation seriously affects their health. Long working hours in the scorching sun causes severe dehydration. A majority of workers and their families have also been found to be severely undernourished.

To understand the extent of malnutrition among plantation workers, which is a major killer, a survey was conducted which found that more than half tea estates workers have Body Mass Index (BMI) of below 18.5. In India, the ideal BMI is 23 to 24. If the BMI is lower, then it becomes a potential health risk. A sizeable proportion of plantation workers were found to have BMI as low as 14. Similarly, among families, the BMI ranged between 17 and below 14. According to doctors, death rates in those who are below 14 are double than others.

This data on nutrition deficit is an indicator that the entire community is at high risk. Longevity has been declining for quite some time now and has come down to 65 years. In 107 estates, there are no hospitals or medical facilities, so families do not have access to healthcare.

Children too are severely affected. In 42 estates, there are no schools, so children are unable to get mid day meals.

Currently, the only alternative livelihood for workers in closed estates is breaking stones on the riverbed. The meagre sum of money they earn from this task is not enough to meet their needs, driving them further into destitution.

According to Dr Binayak Sen, well known paediatrician and public health specialist, who conducted the survey, a prime cause of chronic hunger deaths in this region is also linked closely with the sources of food and nutrition, which are seriously compromised in these communities due to non-availability of nutritious and diverse food products along with poor sanitation. None of them receive any benefits such as subsidised rations or have drinking water facilities or even toilets.

As a result, limited intake of food along with poor hygiene has led to severe malnutrition, jeopardising their health.

Sanjay Bansal, a prominent tea estate entrepreneur, who owns the popular Ambootia tea estate in Darjeeling, has worked to provide several benefits for his workers wellbeing. He says many gardens were rendered sick because of gross mismanagement since none of them were originally sick. The problem arises when a garden does not do well because of lack of vision, proper financial planning and administration along with the inability to propagate and practice good practices are the leading causes why the management falls short in meeting its commitments. This has had an adverse affect on the people whose livelihood revolves around these gardens. It has been found that plantation workers and their families are facing the brunt of the industry’s inaction.

Assam workers’ woes

In neighbouring Assam, the condition of tea garden workers is equally dismal. Across all tea estates, excessive intake of salt in their tea has led to severe cardiovascular disease leading to high mortality. Dr H C Kalita, head of the Cardiology department, Assam Medical College, who conducted a survey in tea estates, found that hypertension was widespread and was much higher in those who worked in the plantations as compared to general population. The cardiac condition was linked to alcohol use and high salt intake.

Sanjay Bansal says it has been a practice in Assam to drink tea in the field with pepper and salt and this system is continuing in many Assam tea estates over many decades. This tradition was introduced during British rule and since then estate owners have followed it. In order to deal with severe dehydration caused by long working hours under the sun and heat, owners provided copious amounts of tea, loaded with salt.

Tea plucker, Assam. Credit: Akarsh Simha

Tea plucker, Assam. Credit: Akarsh Simha, CC 2.0

However, the overdose of salt led to heart disease and many did not survive beyond the 40s. Even after the British left, in many estates in Assam salted tea is popular. As a result, workers suffer from hypertension and other severe cardiac problems. Death rates are on the rise because consumption of salt continues to be high. Tobacco is another addiction that poses high risk.

In Pratapgarh tea estate in Sonitpur district, 20 people died in 2010. However, there is limited data on mortality. As witnessed in West Bengal, the government in Assam has turned a blind eye towards the plight of tea estate workers. No surveillance has been done to understand the status of tea garden workers nor has there been any attempt to provide healthcare, education, housing and other facilities. The wage structure and non-payment of wages and other benefits have also not been addressed or regulated.

The outcome of such indifference is that living conditions in these estates are miserable. Bibek Das, member of the Sadau Assam Sangrami Cha Shramik Union, says that in many tea estates there are no toilet facilities or drinking water facility. Families use water from the river or from wells which are filthy, making them prone to infections. In these estates too, education for children and other fringe benefits are not provided.

Many workers do not receive payment on time or are denied their welfare rights because only 790 out of 1500 tea estates in Assam are registered with the government. In non-registered plantations, workers are denied the benefits that they are entitled to.

Wil Topno, also part of the Tea Workers Trade Union says that phenomenally low wages and indifference on the part of estate owners and their management along with complete lack of concern and empathy have left workers and their families deeply impoverished. Severe malnutrition, anaemia and tuberculosis are the major causes of death, along with cardiac problems that are far higher among workers than in the rest of the population.

According to the National Rural Health Mission’s data, 80% of maternal deaths occur inside plantations. Since they are no hospitals in the vicinity or adequate medical help, in the case of high-risk deliveries or other complications both pregnant mothers and newborn infants lose their lives.

What is to be done?

Sanjay Bansal says the only way to prevent rampant starvation deaths and draw workers out of their impoverished lives is for the industry to make radical changes in order to keep the estates active and running smoothly and efficiently but also ensuring that workers get the benefits that they are entitled to.

He says the common tea workers, apart from increased wages, should get social security and other employment benefits like free potable water, housing, electricity, medical, fuel, heavily subsidised rations, access to primary education and amenities like protective clothing, umbrella, blanket and footwear so that workers are less prone to life threatening diseases and are protected.

Abhijit Majumdar and Bibek Das also add that if tea garden workers are to get their rights, they should not be treated like outcastes and discrimination must end. Majumdar says it is imperative that along with increasing wages and provision of welfare schemes as per the law, healthcare facilities need to be provided to the workers so that families have access to treatment, medicines and care and do not have to compromise their lives.

The need of the hour is for the government, tea manufacturing company owners and their managements to wake up and address the imbalances that continue to pose a threat to tea estate workers and their families so that the inequities that they have faced so far can be dissolved. Only then will the silent epidemic of starvation deaths end.