In Assam, college students gang-rape teenager

A 16-year-old Adivasi girl was gang-raped by four college students near the Dibrugarh railway station on the outskirts of the town late on Saturday night. 





Dibrugarh additional SP Hiranya Kumar Barman said three accused—Karun Gogoi, Pranjit Dutta and Kalyan Dutta—have been arrested while the fourth, Raju Gogoi, is on the run. 

Based on the statement of the rape survivor, a case has been filed against the accused at Dibrugarh police station under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.

Karun Gogoi is a student of Aniruddha Deva Junior College, Dibrugarh, while the other three are students of Lahowal College, he said. All the accused are residents of Romai Kordoibam village in Ghoramara area of Lahowal, around 20km from Dibrugarh town. Raju Gogoi used to stay in a rented house in Bylane 2 in Banipur area and on Saturday he had invited his three friends to his place. 
Narrating the sequence of events, the officer in charge of Dibrugarh police station, Naba Kumar Bora said that the rape survivor, a resident of the town, had a tiff with her parents over some matter. Around 9pm, she went out of her home. She then sought the company of a cousin brother to visit her relative's place in Panitola area of Tinsukia.

Around 11.10pm, the two of them boarded an auto-rickshaw for Dibrugarh railway station, located around 5km from her home, with the intention of catching a train. 

As they were prepared to pay only Rs 200 as fare, the autorickshaw driver dropped them at a secluded spot about a kilometer away from the railway station. 

As they were walking towards the railway station, they came across the four boys waiting by the side of the road on two motorcycles. All of a sudden, the four boys pounced on the duo. While one of them grabbed the girl, the three others pinned her cousin to the ground. Then tying his hands and legs with a rope, they carried him to a nearby paddy field and threw him there. The four then took turns to rape the girl. 

As the accused were preparing to leave after committing the crime, a police team on night patrol came across them. Perplexed by their sudden arrival, three of them sped away on their motorcycles while one of the accused, Pranjit Dutta, was left behind. 

"He (Pranjit) was nabbed by our men while trying to flee across a paddy field. The girl's relative was also rescued. I was informed about the rape at exactly 12.05am and immediately dispatched three police teams on motorcycles. Within a span of 2 hours we managed to nab two others from a house in the area. We are searching for the fourth one," the OC said. 

The rape survivor, who also suffered injuries on her body, has been sent for a medical examination.

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India's youngest CEO's message to youth: pursue your dream with sincerity

 Lucknow, August 30, 2013

It is no animation but a real life story of a teenage girl who sits in the chair of a chief executive officer at the age of 17 and holds the Guinness World Record for becoming the youngest CEO in India.

Meet 17-year-old, Sindhuja Rajamaran, who became the youngest CEO, of a Chennai-based animation company called Seppan, at the age of 14 in India.

When girls of her age would go to school, study at home and spend time on social networking sites, she would be seen working from 9am to 6pm, busy taking meetings with colleagues, taking tough decisions to raise the profitability of her company.

Sindhuja was in Lucknow on Monday as a panelist at the All India Management Association convention to shape the young minds. When the girl-next-door look arrived at the Scientific Convention Centre -- the venue for the programme -- there were not many to receive her.

It was after sometime that the organizers recognized her and ushered her inside the auditorium where she was the main speaker for the final session. And when the moderator introduced her, people were surprised.

Her advice to youngsters was simple and precise: Keep the hunger of growing and pursue your dream with sincerity.

Sindhuja's journey from an ordinary school girl to the CEO of a company, that makes commercials for other companies, started at the age of 10. Her father Rajamaran, an avid animator and cartoonist, taught her animation when she was 10. Today there are five people -- all men in their early 20s -- in the company.

She has made it clear that she is not like a typical boss. “It is more of a team and I’m just a facilitator only giving the right direction to the company so that it scales new height. I’m happy all the men in the company have accepted me and it is a good young team to work with,” she said sporting a big smile.

Now it is her dream to become a successful entrepreneur and provide employment to the youth of the country.

“The education system has several flaws as it does not make youngsters employable. There is a big gap between educated youth and unemployment in the country which needs to be bridged, she said.

When asked how it feels like snatching the title of youngest CEO from another South Indian prodigy Suhas Gopinath, she says, “I had a chance of meeting him at a function in Madurai and he was very happy and also advised me how to run my company.”

By the time she was through, Sindhuja Rajamaran had indeed shaped several young minds in the audience as most of them said they too would like to employ rather than get employed.

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COURTESY: Hindustan Times

Rape order: NCW head unhappy

Sep 2, 2013, 03.12 AM

KOLKATA: National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Mamta Sharma said on Sunday that she was "disheartened" by the special court verdict in which the juvenile accused in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case in Delhi was awarded three years' punishment.

Speaking at a seminar organized by NGO Aasra on the topic 'Women are not commodities - they are human' held at ICCR, Sharma said instead of relying on a certificate issued by a school, the authorities should have carried out a bone marrow test to ascertain the age of the accused.

"It is easy to acquire a fake certificate nowadays. Nirbhaya had herself said that the youngster was the most brutal of the whole lot. In my personal opinion, the accused should have been sent to jail for at least 15-20 years," said Sharma.

Referring to the recent Mumbai gang rape, Sharma said that despite several requests by the commission to fast-track such hearings, nothing significant has been achieved so far.

"The press keeps asking me when the guilty in the Nirbhaya case will be punished. How do I tell them when the proceedings will get over?

Remember, this verdict was only for the minor. The main verdict is yet to come even though nine months have passed," said the NCW chairperson.Sharma also came down strongly on the popular culture that is being depicted through Bollywood. "We had taken cognizance of films like 'Ek Thi Daayan' and songs like 'Fevicol Se' from 'Dabangg 2'. We have to ensure that filmmakers restrict themselves. I remember a film called 'Dirty Picture'. Some films are just not meant for family viewing," said Sharma.

She said that unless there was a will, there cannot be way of achieving equality for women. "The Food Security Bill was passed as there was a will. Similarly, willpower is needed to pass the bill for 33% reservation for women.

The others who addressed the seminar organized by NGO Aasra on the topic 'Women are not commodities - they are human' were actor Parambrata Chattopadhay, former pro-VC of Calcutta University Bharati Roy, AAP candidate for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections Shazia Ilmi, Times Foundation trustee and All India Muslim Law Board member Uzma Mahid, principal of Government Law School, Dholpur, Talat Fatima and journalist Utpal Chatterjee. Acheivers like danseur Alokananda Roy and table tennis player Poulami Ghatak were awarded prizes for achievements in social work and sports among several other categories.


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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

Watchman, ward boy rape mentally ill woman in Pune hospital

 Sun,01 Sep 2013

A 30-year-old mentally ill woman was raped by the watchman and ward boy of a government-run hospital in Pune where she was admitted.

According to the police, the woman was admitted to Bhosari Civic Hospital, run by Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, on Friday for viral fever.

On Saturday evening, she was in the hospital lift when 28-year-old watchman Pramod Manohar Mandekar and 30-year-old ward boy Shailesh Jadhav raped her.

The case brought back memories of the 1973 assault on a nurse Aruna Shanbaug by a ward boy in a Mumbai hospital. Shanbaug has been in a vegetative state since the brutal rape.

The police have lodged a case under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code based on the woman’s complaint and arrested both the accused.

"The accused stopped the lift on ground floor and raped her in the evening when no one was around," said senior police inspector SD Kakane. He said the survivor lives in a women's home run by the Chaitanya Mahila Mandal.

According to the complaint filed by the woman, the watchman raped her while the ward boy helped him, said assistant police commissioner SD Shelar. The police are now waiting for the medical report for a clearer picture.

Both the accused were produced before a local court, which remanded them into police custody till September 4.

COURTESY: HINDUSTAN TIMES

Andhra Pradesh women lag in development

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh has fared dismally in women's development in various categories of health, security, child sex ratio and political participation as compared to most states in the country, according to central government data collected and analysed over the past decade. 

The socio-bio-economic condition of women in Andhra Pradesh is abysmally low with issues of health, security and societal hurdles, plaguing women in urban as well as rural areas, the data reveals. 

States like Goa, Mizoram and Kerala have done reasonably better than AP on health parameters, whereas on security of women, even Daman, Dadra and Nagar Haveli have come up with schemes to improve safety of women at work and at home. 

In terms of political participation of women in AP as observed between 2011-2011, only 33% of women participated at the Panchayati Raj level, Think tank Delhi Policy Group (DPG), which has consolidated and analysed the national level statistics said. 

The state also has the lowest proportion of women judges, between 3 and 5 %. 

Safety of women in the state continues to be an issue with AP recording the highest cases of harassment, second highest in molestation cases and trafficking of women. It has also recorded the sixth highest number of cases of dowry deaths, the DPG analysis says. 

"The government has failed in spreading enough awareness about harassment and defining sexual harassment. The police are not senitised or prepared enough to handle cases of harassment," said Isidore Philips from Divya Dasha, a city based NGO working on women issues.

Despite the high levels of crime, conviction rates at an all India level remain poor at only 24% and 58% of rape cases being disposed of. 

"Many woman protection policies are only on paper. Committees and helplines are not being popularized enough. In many cases, even if a woman has to reach out, she doesn't know where or whom to approach," Philips said. 

As per government recorded data, child sex ratio in Andhra Pradesh is one of the lowest at 939. Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu are the other states, showing similar trends. 

Women in AP suffer from chronic anaemia as the highest increase of anaemic women in the country was being seen in state post 1999, with a whopping 13% jump by 2006. 

"Anaemia has become extremely common among women nowadays and has crept into young girls as well. Lack of nutrition during prenatal and antenatal phases is largely responsible for this problem. An anaemic mother is most likely to give birth to an anaemic child," said Dr Sujatha Stephen, chief dietician at Global Hospitals. She added that both urban and rural population of women is increasingly steering away from traditional food which has natural sources of iron and prevent anaemia.

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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

Pregnant woman gang-raped in front of her husband in Gondia, 4 arrested

Aug 8, 2013

GONDIA: Four persons were arrested for allegedly raping a 20-year-old pregnant woman in front of her husband at BhimNagar locality on Monday night. The accused also badly thrashed the victim's husband and snatched Rs2,900 cash and mobile phone from the couple.

On the victim's complaint, police nabbed the accused Vicky Suryawanshi (20), who confessed to the crime. During interrogation, he revealed the names of his accomplices - Rushi Chandrikapure (25), Avinash Funde (23) and Nitin Khadse (23) - all residents of Gondia.

Suryawanshi told the police that they saw the young couple at Sanjay Nagar around 11pm and accosted them. The couple said that they were returning home after visiting their relatives in Chhota Gondia.

The accused allowed the victim and her husband to leave but started following them. The accused again stopped the couple near a library where they badly thrashed the victim's husband.

Police said, the accused then took the woman to a building construction site near the library and raped her for four hours till she fell unconscious. The victim told police that she was gang-raped in front of her husband who could not move as he was seriously injured.

After regaining consciousness, the victim approached the city police station about 3am on Tuesday and lodged the complaint. She was taken to the Government Women's Hospital, Gondia, where tests revealed that the she was four months pregnant.

Based on the description provided by the victim, police arrested Suryawanshi. The accused were booked under sections 376,341,146 394 (34) and were remanded to police custody.



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COURTESY: Times Of India

Photojournalist gang-raped in Mumbai, over 20 detained

Mumbai: A 22-year-old photojournalist is in hospital after being gang-raped by five people on Thursday evening at the dilapidated and isolated Shakti Mills compound in Lower Parel, south Mumbai.

Her condition is now described as stable by doctors attending to her at the Jaslok hospital.

The young woman, who works with a magazine in the city, was on assignment with a male colleague when she was assaulted at about 8 pm yesterday.

In details chillingly similar to the December gang-rape in Delhi, the woman and her friend have described in their statements to the police how two men accosted her, beat up and tied her colleague with a belt and then dragged her into a run down, abandoned building, where three other men joined them and gang-raped the young woman.

The attackers then fled the spot. The young woman and her colleague took an auto rickshaw to the Jaslok hospital four kilometres away and doctors called in the police.

Twenty people have been detained and the police have released sketches of five suspects based on the statements (Have you seen them?). The woman has reportedly said that two of her attackers called each other Rupesh and Sajid. Four of the men are believed to be in their early 20s and Mumbai's police commissioner Satyapal Singh said he suspected they were drug addicts.

Nine special teams of the Mumbai Police have been formed to investigate the case and the crime branch is carrying out a parallel probe.

The police are investigating whether the attackers fled in a train after raping the girl. The Shakti Mills compound is very close to the Mahalakshmi station on the western line.

Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil visited the young woman in hospital last night. He promised that those responsible would be arrested soon.

Mumbaikars say they are shocked that such an attack could happen in the middle of the city that they pride as safe for women. South Mumbai MP Milind Deora tweeted, "Mumbai Police must get to the bottom of yesterday's alleged rape and punish the guilty ASAP. Mumbai takes pride in being a safe city for women." (Mumbai shocked)

Last December, a 23-year-old medical student was brutally gang-raped by six men in a moving bus in Delhi. She died 13 days later. The horrific assault had provoked nation-wide protests and demands for better protection for women and more stringent laws against rape.



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COURTESY: NDTV

Asha Singh is dedicated to reverse the trend of India’s disappearing daughters in Morena

Asha is a women's rights campaigner with Prayatn, an ActionAid partner organisation dedicated to reversing the trend of India’s disappearing daughters in Morena.

"Here in India women are blamed for all that is wrong in society. Men feel they can inflict pain, shame and dishonour on women because we are powerless to fight back. 

"I am determined to try and change this. I’m a trained lawyer but have been working as an activist fighting against sex discrimination for five years.    

"Every month I travel by motorbike to over 25 towns and villages talking to women about their rights and asking them to recognise the valuable place they hold in our society. I want to help reduce discrimination against women and stop the violence against girls happening at every level of our society.

"India’s disappearing daughters are a national shame. Sex-selective abortions are wrong and it’s very difficult to witness parents determining that their baby is worthless because she is a girl. 

"It’s also hard to witness how much neglect there is of girls in some of the villages I work in. I want to empower more and more women to come forward and with their help I can reach more villages and towns.

Change doesn’t come easily but I am convinced we can change things for the better in India. I’m proud I’ve become a role model for many girls in rural areas."

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COURTESY: ActionAid UK

Dr Ritu Rathi refuses to tell her patients whether they are expecting a girl or boy.

Dr Ritu Rathi, a GP from Morena. Although Ritu understands the enormous pressure that woman are under, she refuses to tell her patients whether they are expecting a girl or boy.

"Every day families come to me for ultrasound scans and the first question they ask is not about whether their baby is healthy, but whether it is a boy or a girl.

Discrimination against women is so historically ingrained in our society that it’s always exceptionally difficult to get parents to understand why I am refusing to tell them the sex of their unborn child. They will offer me any amount of money for sex determination tests in their desperation not to have any more daughters.

The problem is there are always other doctors who will do the test for them. Ultrasound is now so commonly misused for sex detection that it has become an accepted and convenient way of ensuring that unwanted girls aren’t born in the first place.

Even though many families are happy to have a girl if they already have a son, the social stigma of just having girls is enormous. Just today I was treating a woman who has two daughters already and she is suffering acute anxiety that her third child will be another girl. The abuse she will receive from her in-laws and her husband will make her life very difficult if she has another daughter.

There needs to be a serious step-change in attitudes. India might be developing economically, but in terms of our attitude to women, we’re not moving forward at all."



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COURTESY: ActionAid UK

Hindu Mythology and Sex Crime in India

Mr. Sunny Hundal, Author of the Book, India Dishonored  Behind a nation's war on women talks about the Hindu Mythology and Sex Crime in India. 

A woman prayed in a candlelight vigil in Kolkata protesting the gangrape of a student in Delhi, Dec. 30, 2012.

The gang rape and death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in New Delhi in December drew global attention to sex crime in India. It also spurred British journalist Sunny Hundal to write a book.

Mr. Hundal, 35 years old, looks at the role Hindu mythology has played in shaping attitudes to women in India and examines the impact of urbanization and economic liberalization. He argues that these factors have come together to create an army of single, angry men.

“India Dishonoured: Behind a Nation’s War on Women” will be released by Guardian Books on Thursday as an e-book.

The London-born author, who spent his childhood between the U.K. and India (his father was in the Indian Army), spoke with The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time about his book. Edited excerpts:

The Wall Street Journal: In your book, you look at how women are portrayed in the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. How has Hindu mythology shaped the way women are viewed and treated in India today?

Sunny Hundal: Some of the popular interpretations of Hindu mythology have very fixed views on how women should behave; things like being obedient and being a good housewife and mother. In the Ramayana, Ram is a model for how men should act and Sita is the model for women. Unfortunately, these texts play a part in perpetuating sexism and violence against women in India today.

I focused on Hindu mythology because 80% of Indians are Hindus and even non-Hindus are impacted by it. Other religions in India view women in a similar light; they are not allowed to be independent. In some ways, these attitudes are used to justify violence against women. They blame the woman by saying she didn’t behave like Sita. If she did, she would be fine. I think these interpretations need to be challenged by Indians.

WSJ: The Delhi gang rape case was a watershed moment in India. Do you think it was also seminal in the global fight to end violence against women? 

Sunny Hundal.

Mr. Hundal: I wish it was a global watershed moment, but I don’t think it was. I fully acknowledge that violence against women is a problem across the world, but I don’t think there was much of an impact outside of India and it didn’t really galvanize women in the U.K. In India, there have been other moments like this. There were protests in the 1970s and at other times, which have helped change attitudes and laws. The same happened this time. The December incident made the issue much more salient. The question now is how long will the momentum last?

WSJ: You say urbanization and economic liberalization has created a toxic mixture that exacerbates India’s sex crime problem. How?

Mr. Hundal: In India, a sex-selection phenomenon has been in place since the 1980s, with men born during this period now at marriageable age. Then you’ve got urbanization since the 1990s where a lot of families and men have moved to cities to look for work…. People are much wealthier but at the same time there’s pressure to produce sons as an heir, so educated, wealthy families are now more likely to have sex selection. All these factors are coming to play and creating this toxic mixture, which has turned violence against women into a bigger issue today.

WSJ: Why do you think most Western media narratives on India in recent years have ignored its sexual violence problem?

Mr. Hundal: The Western media likes easy narratives about other countries and the early narrative around India was always around the exotic – the snake charmers, that sort of stuff. And then it became much more about Bollywood followed by India as a future economic powerhouse. These narratives shift because the media are looking for new stories and new angles, and then suddenly in December, rape in India became an issue.

WSJ: In your book, you look at the rising number of ‘honor’ attacks against women in the U.K. Are you surprised at how common such crimes have become, particularly within the South Asian community?

Mr. Hundal: ‘Honor’ killings in the U.K. are getting worse. The first generation of South Asians immigrated to the U.K. in the 1960s and 1970s, and the second generation grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. So you have the second generation now coming of age and at the same time their parents maintain this traditional attitude on how women should behave. They’re mentally still stuck in a village, they force their daughters into arranged marriages and are worried they are becoming too westernized. All these attitudes are still prevalent in the U.K. and are behind ‘honor’ killings. The statistics show there’s more and more cases being reported in the U.K. and it’s not just the South Asian community but also among other immigrant communities.

WSJ: How has the Delhi gang rape case impacted India’s global standing?Mr. Hundal: Outside India, there are a lot of people with their heads in the sand who don’t realize the scale of the problem, but still the issue has had an impact on India’s economic development. Investors are taking note of what’s happening and that’s not good. Tourists are also choosing to holiday elsewhere. The government is more interested in investments, so I think business leaders of India need to step forward and say this is a serious problem and it is affecting not only how India is perceived overseas but development and growth. That’s when I think the politicians will listen because that light bulb hasn't gone off in their heads yet.

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COURTESY: Wall Street Journal

AR Rahman teams up with sisters for women empowerment

After a recent Bollywood awards function took a stand for women’s empowerment, the music industry is now following suit. Oscar-winning music composer AR Rahman is lending his support by producing an album on the same theme under his record label, KM Musiq. What’s most interesting is that Rahman’s collaborators are his own sisters, AR Rayhanah and Issrath. They will team up for multiple songs in the Tamil album, which is titled Rasaayana Rojaakkal (Chemical Roses). In fact, Rahman and his elder sister, Rayhanah, have sung a duet, ‘Naan yen pirandein’ (Why was I born?), written by the famous Tamil poet, Vaali.

Another song, ‘Ennile maha oliyo’ (I discovered the divine light within me), has been sung by the sisters together. “The album is very close to Rahman sir. He has been working hard on it for some time now. Also, it’s even more special because he’s collaborating with his sisters on the project,” says an industry insider. Both the songs aired on a popular music show on Saturday.

“The album should be out in a few months’ time. Rahman sir and his sisters are equally excited about it,” adds the insider. While Rahman couldn’t be reached for a comment, his official Facebook page reads thus (besides other information on the two songs): “Coming soon, is a production from K. M. Musiq, Rasaayana Rojaakkal (Chemical Roses) whose theme is women’s empowerment (sic).”

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COURTESY: HINDUSTAN TIMES

Asaram Bapu booked in Delhi for sexual assault on minor

DELHI: Delhi Police have booked self-styled godman Asaram Babu on charges of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl.

A zero FIR under section 376 was lodged at Kamala Market police station in central Delhi. on Tuesday evening.

The case pertains to the rape of a girl at a hostel in Jodhpur. "We registered the complaint, but the girl said the incident occurred in Rajasthan, so the case will be forwarded to Rajasthan," a police officer told IANS.

The case is being supervised by Joint CP Tejendra Luthra and inspector Pramod Joshi is investigating the matter. DCP Alok Kumar may question the godman, sources say.

The girl's father is a transporter in Shahjahanpur in UP. Jodhpur and Shahjahanpur police had earlier refused to lodge an FIR after which the victim came to Delhi and made her complaint.

The cops are approaching the case cautiously so as not to risk hurting the religious sentiments of a community.

Asaram Bapu, who has a large following, was earlier in the news after Gujarat Police filed a case of attempted murder against him and two others. He was also accused of illegal land-grabbing in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.


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COURTESY: TOI

Kin donate girl’s body, save 4 lives

NEW DELHI: The efforts by government and social sector to create awareness about organ donation is finally paying off as more and more people are coming forward for the 'final act of kindness'. In the last 24 hours, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has received three cadaveric donations. 

One of them is of a 22-year-old Delhi University student who was declared brain dead at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) after falling from a height. The girl's parents themselves took the initiative and contacted the Organ Retrieval and Banking Organisation for doctors to harvest her organs. Their decision has already saved the lives of at least four critically-ill patients waiting for a transplant at AIIMS. 

"Her two kidneys have been used to conduct transplant in a child and an adult patient suffering from renal failure. The heart and liver have also been transplanted. Tissues such as the cornea and heart valves have been stored for further use," said Dr M C Misra, the chief of the AIIMS trauma centre where the organ retrieval was conducted on Thursday. 

"The girl was pursuing graduation from Janaki Devi Memorial College. She fell from a height on August 4 and was admitted to DDU where the doctors declared her brain dead six days later. AIIMS legally declared her brain dead after two tests on Thursday. Following this, her organ retrieval started," said Rajeev Kumar, the transplant coordinator. 

The families of other two donors — a 71-year-old patient declared dead at a private hospital in Shalimar Bagh and a 82-year-old man who died at home — donated their whole body, but only tissues like corneas and the heart valves could be retrieved, added Kumar. 

Professor Aarti Vij, the chief of ORBO, said, "This is a heartening trend. After Anmol, this is the second instance of family coming forward to donate the organs of their near ones in the eventuality of brain death." Following his brain death in a road accident last year, the family of 21-year-old Anmol decided to donate all his organs to AIIMS. 

According to the AIIMS trauma centre chief, they get around 80-100 patients who are either brain dead or develop the condition due to serious head injury. "Only 10% families agree to donate the organs," he said. 

With increased awareness, doctors hope that the rate of donation from brain dead patients will improve. AIIMS has received organ donation from at least six brain dead patients in the last eight months. In case of brain death, more than 34 organs and tissues including the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, intestines, pancreas, eyes, heart valves, skin, bone marrow, connective tissue, middle ear and blood vessels can be retrieved.


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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

72-yr-old catches two pickpockets

NEW DELHI: A 72-year-old woman based in the US caught two pickpockets at Connaught Place in central Delhi on Tuesday. She told the police that four women began following her when she went to have have golgappas with her sister in CP.

When the woman checked her bag, she found that a small purse containing cash was missing. "She raised an alarm and managed to nab two of the women with her sister's help," police said. The two accused have been identified as Jyoti and Versa.


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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

Constable's son rapes 6-year-old girl

GHAZIABAD: A 14-year-old son of a Delhi Police constable allegedly raped a six-year-old girl at his residence in Vijay Nagar area here, police said on Tuesday. The girl's family lives in a rented accommodation in the boy's house. 

Police said the matter came to light late last night when the girl's mother noticed blood and injury marks on her body. According to the police, the boy allegedly raped the girl, a Class I student, when she was alone in house. 

The girl's father, who works in Noida, told police in his complaint that his landlord's son, a Class VIII student, took his daughter to the terrace on the pretext of flying a kite and allegedly raped her at around 7 PM. The girl's mother had gone to the market along with the constable's wife when the incident took place. 

When the girl's mother came back home, she noticed that her daughter was bleeding and had injury marks on her body. She told her husband about the incident when he returned from work. "The girl's father later registered a complaint at Vijay Nagar Police Station," said a senior police officer. 

"We have sent the girl for medical examination. Police are investigating the case," the officer said.


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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

60-year-old held for molesting Japanese woman in flight

KOLKATA: A 60-year-old man was arrested here on the charge of molesting a Japanese woman mid-air in a Bangkok-Kolkata Thai Airways flight, airport sources said on Friday. 

The woman complained to the authorities of theNSC Bose International Airport after landing here at around 12.55am that Narayan Singh, a co-passenger of the TG-313 flight, molested her mid-air. 

The complaint against Singh, who hails from Haryana, was forwarded to the airport police station and he was taken into custody by the police. 

The woman had also complained about the alleged incident to the flight crew, the sources said.


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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

2,000 women cops to come, 500 posts for men to go

NEW DELHI: The ministry of home affairs has passed Delhi Police's proposal to induct 2,000 women in the force. The move will help Delhi Police meet the ministry's mandate of filling 25 per cent posts with women cops. Till two years ago, women constituted only 9-12 per cent of the police force. 

Interestingly, the new induction will be made by scrapping 500 posts earlier reserved for men. So far, police have received 75,000 applications from women—35 per cent more than that last time. 

According to the commissioner's office, the new recruits will also help the police in "magnetic policing." Police say, magnetic policing essentially means police will guard places frequented by women in the city, including business centres and malls. "We will watch out for men committing crimes against women and will nab the accused from the spot," a senior police officer said. 

However, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday that cases of women police personnel being molested and attacked in the national capital have been on the rise. According to the home minister, 14 female officers have been attacked and molested till July 31 which is equivalent to the number of such incidents reported between 2009 and 2012. 

Minister of state for home affairs Mullappally Ramachandran told Lok Sabha 16 people have been arrested for involvement in such incidents. In 2010, four cases were registered which led to the arrest of four people. In 2011, three cases were reported for which six people were held. In 2012, seven such incidents took place and eight people were arrested, he said. Ramachandran said 

Delhi Police has been working ceaselessly to ensure the safety of women and that immediate action has been taken on all cases reported to them. 



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COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA

Team Balika shows the way

Gender equity: The programme makes school infrastructure girl-friendly. Photo courtesy: Charlotte Anderson/ Educate Girls

A project in the severe gender disparity districts of Pali and Jalore in Rajasthan mobilises government schools to enhance the quality of education for girls

Mamta dropped out of school after Class VIII as the school in her village Jadri, located in Bali block of Pali district in Rajasthan, provided only primary education till Class VIII. The secondary school is almost three to four km away. Her parents disallowed her to walk that much distance.

“The girl used to attend our Bal Sabha. We got to know about her story and persuaded her parents to send her to school. I asked to her mother, who is a farmer, if she wanted Mamta to suffer the same way as she does when there are no rains and no harvest. I told her that if she had been educated, she could have taken up a job or set up her own business. Her parents were finally convinced,” says Meena Bhatti, a 41-year-old field worker, who has been associated with Educate Girls for about five years now. The very next day, Mamta, along with two of her friends from the neighbourhood, bought a bicycle and started riding to school together.

Educate Girls is an initiative to mobilise government schools to encourage girls’ education by leveraging existing community and government resources.

Under the programme, Mera Gaon, Meri Shiksha, theyouth are mobilised to spread awareness about girls’ education in Pali and Jalore districts of Rajasthan which are known to be suffer from severe gender gap. The cadre is called Team Balika.

Uma Garg, 21, from Pali, is a B.A. first year student and a member of Team Balika. She says, “When I was a child, I used to wonder why the young girls of my age living in my neighbourhood never went to school. This feeling later on motivated me to be part of this noble cause...We go door to door in order to encourage people to send their daughters to school. But the people would not allow their daughters to go to school saying that, eventually, they have to get married and therefore there was no point in educating them.”

Says Meena, “In Pali, girls are not allowed to step out of the house; they help in household chores or look after their younger siblings. This reduces their self-confidence. We counsel the girls by organising Bal Sabhas in order to equip them with life skills.”

Under the programme, a pilot project has been rolled out this year based on the Payment-by-Results (PbR) mechanism. It will be initially implemented in about 200 government schools in the Sirohi district.

PbR is an innovation in the financing of social services; unlike in traditional contracts, in PbR, the donor pays the service providers (NGOs) only if they achieve pre-determined social outcomes such as the baseline figures on enrolment, retention and learning outcomes as is the case in thisproject.

“Out of the 26 gender gap districts in India, about nine are in Rajasthan. Pali and Jalore are two of the most severe gender gap districts — the reason why we chose them for our project,” says Alexander Mette, fund-raising strategist, Educate Girls.

“We work in three key areas: enrolment, retention and improved learning outcomes. We train the existing school management committees in making the school infrastructure more girl-friendly like having separate toilets for girls. We train government teachers in child-centric creative learning and teaching techniques to ensure an increase in learning levels and outcomes,” adds Mr. Mette.

“We started with 50 government schools and now we cover over 5,000 government schools across Pali and Jalore,” says Safeena Husain, executive director, Educate Girls.

Meet the first CEO of all-women bank

FinMin identifies Usha Ananthasubramanian, executive director of Punjab National Bank, to be the chief executive of Bhartiya Mahila Bank

The suspense over who will steer India's first all-women bank is over. The finance ministry has identified Usha Ananthasubramanian, executive director of Punjab National Bank, to be the chief executive of Bhartiya Mahila Bank, which will launch its operations from November with six branches.

Ananthasubramanian is leading the core management team (comprising employees from various public-sector banks) set up to put in place by October 31 the systems and processes necessary to start the bank's operations. The government will formally announce the name of the CEO after the Reserve Bank of India has issued the licence.

Ananthasubramanian, 55, started her career in 1982 at Bank of Baroda as a specialist officer in the planning stream. She holds a dual master's degree - in statistics from the Madras University and in ancient Indian culture from the Mumbai University.

Her experience could come in handy, as she has in the past led similar initiatives, such as overseeing the formation of Bank of Baroda's life insurance joint venture.

That the country will have an all-women bank was announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech earlier this year. He had said the bank will get an initial capital of Rs 1,000 crore.

After starting with one branch in each banking region, the bank will expand to 500 branches by the fourth year of operation. It will, however, have to comply with all RBI guidelines and will not offer any concessional rate to women. A five-member panel, headed by former Canara Bank CMD M B N Rao, prepared the blueprint for the bank.

Since the bank will draw employees from public-sector banks, (besides fresh recruitment), managing a diverse pool of human resource is going to be a big challenge. But sources in the know say Ananthasubramanian, who has an experience of over three decades, in which she has risen up the ladder, has been found to be suitable for the task.

She has attended the leadership & corporate excellence management programme at Kellogg School of Management and a programme at Indian School of Business. She has also been associated with Bank of Baroda's transformation projects, including its re-branding and HR initiatives.


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COURTESY: Business Standard