More than Lokpal, does Anna need a speech writer?
The self-styled crusader against corruption, the “modern Gandhi” — Anna Hazare — has managed to pick on one of the most marginalized sections of Indian society. While pitching for a strong Lokpal Bill on Tuesday, Hazare resorted to an unfortunate idiom about childless women, when he said, “Banjh kya jaane prasuti vedana (what would an infertile woman know about labour pain)?”
However the word in Hindi, “banjh”, does not have the same clean and scientific connotation as “infertile” or “sterile”. It means “barren” and is used as a derogatory term for women who fail to bear children. A woman who does not produce a child loses her social status inside and outside the house. While the ostracism in urban India may not be as obvious, contempt for childless women is reinforced through colloquialism and Bollywood.
Popular culture still depicts women who don’t reproduce, even if it is out of choice, as incomplete and good-for-nothing. It is not uncommon for infertile women to be barred from baby shower or child-naming ceremonies as they are considered the harbingers of ill-omen. Even if the husband is infertile, the wife ends up shouldering the blame for a childless marriage and is often subjected to treatments ranging from exorcism to numerology. Subordination, violence and estrangement are all likely consequences of infertility for a woman.
74-year-old Anna Hazare, who has spent most of his life in rural India, would certainly be aware of the stigma a “banjh” carries. And, while he promises to push India towards a glorious, evil-free future, how can he sustain a campaign on the back of older-India’s prejudices?
Neither has this been Hazare’s only controversial statement. Lately, he has come up with remarks that should alarm any self-respecting non-violent activist — advocating flogging for alcoholics and death penalty for the corrupt.
Maybe it is time that the “Gandhian” in Hazare actually took a leaf out of Mahatma Gandhi’s book who worked towards both political and social emancipation. Or maybe, he just needs a new speech-writer.
from Photographers Blog:
License to kill
By Danish Siddiqui
Mumbai provides everyone living in it with an opportunity to earn and survive. Be it a white-collared job in a multinational company located in one of the city’s plush high rise buildings or killing rats by night in the filthiest and dirtiest parts of India's financial capital. This time, my tryst was with the latter.
I decided I wanted to meet Mumbai's rat-killer army employed by the city's civic body. Very little is known about this tireless force that works the bylanes of the metropolis every night. Mumbai's municipal corporation employs 44 rat killers and also has a freelance contingent, who aspire to be on the payrolls one day. Employees of the pest control department receive a salary of 15,000 to 17,000 Indian Rupees ($294 to 333) while contract laborers are paid 5 Indian rupees ($0.10) per rat they kill. The rat killers are expected to kill at least 30 rodents per night and hand over the carcasses to civic officials in the morning. If they fall short by even one rodent, they are expected to make it up the next night or else they stand to lose a day’s pay.
Importing Ukraine stray dogs above the existing Indian stray dogs is a great idea of the economist of India. I am sure Ukraine would be too happy to export its stray dogs.
Why not send a proposal to the Indian government for a quick action on this brilliant break through idea of importing Ukraine dogs to kill Indian rats?
from Photographers Blog:
Circus nostalgia
By Vivek Prakash
There are a couple of stories I've been waiting to do since I heard that I'd be moving to India last year. Maybe it's part nostalgia, part fascination, but I'm happy to be able to interpret these stories visually, finally.
The last time I was at a circus was some twenty-five years ago. My father brought me to the Bandra Reclamation in Mumbai to see it. I can't remember which one it was, maybe the Apollo Circus? I remember the smell of fresh dirt and popcorn. There were fireworks. There was a dome where three people on motorbikes rode on the walls without crashing into each other. There were big cats; lions and tigers with some jumping through flaming hoops. I was wide-eyed and thrilled. I've dreamed of seeing and photographing that show for years.
Twenty-five years later, I came to the very same location, with a camera in hand. When the Rambo Circus pitched tent, I jumped at the chance to spend a few days documenting what Indian circuses are like. This place has been in my imagination for so long.
from Photographers Blog:
Jostling for space in Mumbai
By Danish Siddiqui
To live in the world’s second most populous country and city is itself an experience. When I was asked to do a feature story on the world's population crossing the 7 billion mark, I realized it wasn’t going to be an easy task. This was simply because there were so many stories to tell in this city of dreams, Mumbai.
I chose to do a story on the living conditions of Mumbai’s migrant population who pour in to the city by the hour.
I decided to go to a slum which is inhabited mostly by migrants arriving from the northern part of India in search of a better future. Most of the migrants who live there work as taxi drivers and manual laborers. It was difficult to get access as they were always apprehensive of journalists. But I was able to convince a couple of them over a cup of tea after which they opened the doors of their one room world to me.
This same one room tenement acts as their bathroom, kitchen and living room. The one room is shared by at least 5 to 20 people who share the space, rent and other expenses.
Is India becoming too big to govern?
The population growth in India has outgrown everything else, even perhaps corruption. It is the country with the highest population density in the list of top 10 countries with highest population and with largest land. Only one country with higher population density and in any one of the two largest/highest list is its neighbor, Bangladesh. Bangladesh is in top 10 highest population list. No wonder illegal Bangladesh immigration is a major headache in India.
To commensurate this wonderful population growth story, Indian political growth is apologetically moribund. The number of seats in people’s parliament have increased from 489 to 543. To compare with population growth, since 1951 the population of the country has increased from 361.1 millions to 1028.7 millions. All the political growth has been horizontally, and not vertically……
The sad part is that number of seats in Indian parliament have been freeze till the year 2026……………………
U.S. consulate for sale, in India’s daily paper
For sale: a spacious, well-built Mumbai townhouse with beautiful views, well-heeled neighbours and one considerate, well-respected former owner.
Lodged between an advert for hair loss treatment and an article on illicit after-hours drinking in India’s commercial hub, the U.S. government consulate in Mumbai invited bids for its two consulate properties in Tuesday’s Times of India newspaper.
The consulate building, located at a much sought-after address in the exclusive Breach Candy neighbourhood in the south of the city, has long been outgrown by its inhabitants, who already have a new location in Mumbai’s northern business district.
But a buyer has been elusive. Enter the world’s most-read English language daily.
“For sale,” read the red text of the advert on page 5 of the newspaper, “The American Consulate Properties”.
Three bids valuing the consulate at 8 billion rupees ($169 million) were made by developers on Tuesday for the 8,345 sq metre (90,000 sq ft) plot, ET Now news channel reported citing sources.
The agent, DTZ, could not confirm the bids, but said that all offers would be considered. Real estate consultants not involved with the sale told Reuters that the reported price tag met their expectations.
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul’s own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries. A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another. Thanks.
Regards,
Chandler Real Estate
from Photographers Blog:
Editing thousands of cricket pictures a day
Sports and Action photography is all about timing. It’s about reacting. It’s about being in the right place at the right time and it’s about execution.
These are all qualities of the athlete and those of the photographer covering them as well. Each sport has predictable and unpredictable moments. For instance, in cricket, photographers will have opportunities to capture jump shots, players diving to make the crease, diving to take a catch, diving to field the ball, a bowler leaping in the air as he bowls, a batsman screaming in joy on reaching his century, etc. Understanding the timing of these predictable actions allows a photographer to capture the peak moment; when the action is most dramatic.
Before I start editing I always have a brief chat with the photographers about what could be the day’s great picture. The staff never fail to deliver and meet expectations. I briefed two photographers covering matches from the quarter-finals onwards not to forget to look for emotion in the players and the fans. A good number of the best shots come from the crowd. I received a bunch of nice pictures of the crowd from the final.
While editing pictures from the semi-final match between arch rivals India and Pakistan, I thought I should leave the confines of our New Delhi desk and photograph the match in Mohali. The Mohali semi-final match had a few news angles attached to it. Firstly, India and Pakistan were playing each other after a long time; secondly the Indian Prime Minister and his Pakistan counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani were watching the match in the stands after the latter accepted an invite from Manmohan Singh to watch the match. It was a historic moment where one could see the prime ministers of two nuclear-armed countries sitting side-by-side enjoying the game. But in the end, I am glad I edited their pictures.
Great images, pretty much my dream job – the photography rather than the editing 
Any pointers for my portfolio would be very welcome.
from Summit Notebook:
A bubble in the real estate market?
Have you tried buying or renting a house in Mumbai recently? If so, then I won’t be surprised if you think real estate prices are plain expensive, and incredibly so. But that’s almost always been the case in India’s commercial capital. After all, when was the last time someone told you they got a cheap house in the city?
So is the real estate market in a bubble? We asked Adi Godrej, the man who controls Godrej Properties, if things could get bubblicious. This is what he had to say: “I don’t think we are in a bubble, because demand is strong, but we could get into a bubble.”
Godrej, whose family fortune is estimated to be about $5.2 billion, doesn’t really care if prices go up in south Mumbai’s old-money neighbourhoods such as Malabar Hill or Altamont Road, where Reliance Industries chairman, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is building a 27-storey $1 billion home.
“I would be more disturbed if middle-level and lower-level housing in Mumbai were to go up much,” Godrej told the Reuters India Investment Summit in Mumbai.
Godrej Properties, which is developing a lot of what is termed ‘affordable housing’, expects revenue to jump more than 50 percent in the fiscal year ending in March as rising incomes boost demand for housing.
If prices continued to increase at current supply levels, the Indian residential market could head into a "bubble."
The company, part of the $2.5 billion diversified Godrej group, defines ‘affordable housing’ as an apartment that carries a price tag of less than 2,500,000 rupees or $50,000. Is that within your budget?
from Summit Notebook:
Infrastructure still top-of-mind in India
On Monday, we kick-off the 2010 India Investment Summit. We'll have exclusive interviews in Mumbai and Bangalore. In 2006 we held the first Reuters India Investment Summit. It was my first time in India. I've had the privilege to return every year. How time flies. Here we are four years later. Some of the key players may have changed but the big, over-arching theme is still the same: Infrastructure. It's the key to realizing the country's potential but bureaucracy, tough financing and hesitant overseas investment have slowed development in the sector, calling into question the future of India as a powerhouse.
India has had only mixed success in its efforts to accelerate construction of roads, bridges and power plants. The statistics are mind-blowing...the country is growing at 8.5% and has a population of 1.2 billion that is making a mad-dash from the countryside to sprawling cities. Call them growing pains...in India's expanding cities there is an acute need to speed project approvals, implement new financing models and attract overseas investment for much needed infrastructure. But, while the business opportunity is tremendous investors looking to India as a way to play the emerging markets are wary given the history of missed deadlines and red tape that makes getting projects completed a challenge.
Is red tape getting better or worse? Which sectors are attracting most interest? How do returns compare with similar projects globally? How do sector companies attract foreign investment in large projects? Are the challenges forcing investors and developers to look overseas instead?
These topics and more will be the key points of discussion at the Reuters India Investment Summit in Mumbai and Bangalore September 27-29.
To read our exclusive stories and analysis starting September 27 copy and paste the link below to your browser: www.reuters.com/summit/IndiaInvestment10
Filling the gap one brick, one hospital bed at a time
Two stories this week stand out as examples of how entrepreneurs in India are doing what the government and the private sector have largely failed to do.
One is on housing, the other on healthcare, hot-button topics in India, which is struggling to house and heal its 1.1 billion population even as it gallops toward double-digit growth.
Various state governments and real estate firms have made lofty promises of “affordable housing”, but few have delivered.
One man is determined to show he can. Entrepreneur Jaithirth “Jerry” Rao, who headed software firm MphasiS, this week launched a project in Bangalore to build 1,900 homes that will be priced at 450,000 – 1 million rupees (roughly $9,500 – $21,000) each.
Rao’s Value and Budget Housing Corp – floated with a former Citibank colleague – will use lightweight aluminium beams and cast-on-site technology to cut costs.
Top mortgage lender HDFC will provide housing finance for the project, which will be replicated in cities including Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, the NCR and Navi Mumbai, which are more often in the news for luxury residential projects looking to outdo Dubai.
Rao’s project comes on the heels of a similar one launched by entrepreneur Ramesh Ramanathan’s Janaadhar Constructions, which is building more than 500 homes priced at 500,000 rupees or less.
from Photographers Blog:
Come, fall in love
I first encountered the 52-year-old Maratha Mandir movie theater while I was on one of my walks to explore Mumbai. Being new to the city, I do this often. It was just a casual walk down the lanes of the city when I saw a huge billboard promoting a film outside the cinema. The billboard proudly advertised it as the longest-playing film in Indian history.
The film "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride), starring Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, is a simple romantic film shot in Europe and India, where a boy meets a girl and falls in love with her - girl is about to get married in India - boy takes the journey from Europe to India to win her over.
I still remember when the film was released in 1995, it became an instant hit amongst the youth. Fifteen years down the line it’s unthinkable that people still love to watch it and in a cinema to boot!
At Maratha Mandir, it was the watchman who first told me that DDLJ, as the film is popularly known, still runs to a full house in the 1000-plus-seats cinema. I, of course, didn’t believe him until I met Manoj Desai, the cinema’s executive director. He invited me to watch the film, promising it would answer all my questions. He asked his manager to reserve a seat for me, as on Sundays the film is usually sold out. He said it was the first time in the history of Maratha Mandir he was allowing someone to shoot inside the ‘heart’ of the theater --- the projection room.
On the day of my shoot, I arrived an hour before the ticket window was to open…and there was already a long line waiting to get inside. There were young men, old men, women, children...all equally keen to catch a glimpse of the iconic Bollywood film.
Indeed the Movie is still running in various states of India..
Since, I am a Huge SRK Fan..this movie marks him as the KING KHAN as he still rules our hearts..
This write up seems to have been written just to criticize the great crusader … ! Otherwise the use of the world “Banjh” by Anna is befitting the context and so are his remarks; “advocating flogging for alcoholics and death penalty for the corrupt.”