Monday, March 31, 2008

Nip, Tuck and Other Such Clinical Terms for a Crime

“Cut my life into pieces
This is my last resort
Suffocation
No Breathing
…Do you even care if I die bleeding?”

- Papa Roach

It’s an issue that’s finally garnering public and the media’s attention. The occurrence that has silently existed for centuries is finally evoking worldwide protest. And it’s about time. A practice such as this if allowed to continue unchecked can only spell disaster for one of the least empowered groups of people – children and women.

Female circumcision. Or more accurately known as female genital cutting/mutilation. The term itself credits a wince.

Widely practiced in Africa and Indonesia, female circumcision involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for cultural, religious or another non-medical reasons. Unlike self-consent procedures such as gender reassignment and vaginal reconstructive surgery, this process is carried out with parental consent as it is generally performed on a minor. That means that the child, usually between the age of four to eight years, though the operation can be done anytime between infancy to adolescence, has no say in the irreversible alteration that her anatomy undergoes. Considering the tender age of the patient at the time of operation, they have little knowledge of what is being done to them, making dissent almost impossible. It results in them being robbed of health and imposed with a lifetime of hardship.

Practiced in African and Indonesian Islamic communities, opinion among the larger Muslim society regarding female circumcision ranges from forbidden to obligatory, though it is not commanded by the Quran. Hence, majority of Muslims don’t practice it.

While male circumcision is known to have some known health benefits, its female equivalent has none. On the contrary, it can cause infections, obstructed urine and menstrual blood flow, infertility and even death through shock, immense pain or excessive bleeding, when done without administering anesthesia or use of sterile instruments. In parts of Africa, girls are even stitched up with materials as crude as brambles. Reasons for performing this surgery includes increase of matrimonial opportunities, prevention of promiscuity and loyalty to one’s husband, reduction of sexual pleasure but enhanced male sexual performance and pleasure.

But let’s put the gruesome details aside for a minute. The cause for greatest concern is misinterpretation of faith, giving room for abuse of those who have no voice to protest. Radical clerics take to the pulpits, vociferously recommending this unnecessary measure in the name of religion and tradition. What’s scariest is that such steps often find their way into mainstream society over a period of time – almost like crediting a lie makes it seem true after a while. And then there’s no saying until where the madness can extend. What’s next – breast ironing that’s practiced in Cameroon or the well known foot binding native to China? It’s easy to see how such practices solely torture a woman’s body, either for male satisfaction or simply because it is possible to do so.

Somalian-born model, Waris Dirie, who was in the news recently after going missing for three days in Belgium, strongly advocated against female circumcision – something she was subjected to as a child. The WHO is trying hard to abolish the practice. With notable figures and major organisations representing the cause, there is hope that it will soon fade away. But until then, it’s helpless little girls who desperately need to be saved from a deed that gains ground by the suppression of women.

Read Waris's powerful story in her autobiography, Desert Flower.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The Indian Billionaire Club

The results are out. The game’s gotten hotter. The Forbes Billionaires list 2008 boasts a substantial Indian presence. India is shining.

Of course, such lists and statistics are no more than an overview of the stock market on the day that the list was composed. However, the sizeable number of Indians that dominate the top slots on the coveted index indicates something much more profound.

India is shining for a reason.

Few other countries in South East Asia, barring China, are producing globally competitive companies the way India is. In fact, the region is almost conspicuous for its failure to do so. Their enterprises are not serving much further than the home country. This works to India’s advantage, with its location among sluggish neighbours enhancing the value of its business successes.

Apart from China’s Lenovo and Singapore’s Singapore Airlines, there aren’t too many internationally-recognised business houses to compete with India’s global players of Tata Steel, Ranbaxy and Wipro, with the exception of real-estate giant, DLF, which is wholly national. Investors prefer putting their money in the Indian market, which offers so many more options.

India has turned into a giant ‘wealth creating creature’, with its productivity increasing rapidly. Owing to its huge managerial talent pool, it has developed into a ‘growing economy’ – an alive, intensely competitive system that is acutely sensitive to prices and functions on the principle of providing maximum value to its customers.

But this hasn’t happened overnight.

It takes more than being large for a company to make it ‘big’ in an international arena. According to Economist, it either needs to build a brand that is valued world over, develop innovative technology or exercise an admired business method. Indian businesses dealing on foreign shores seem to have at least one of these concepts down pat. Take Wipro, for example. The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals ranks it the highest Indian IT provider and it enjoys a 300-plus clientele, across US, UK and Japan and 50 of the Fortune 500 companies. Forrester Research has also termed its offshore model ‘unique among the larger players in the security consulting space’.

A stark difference between Indian undertakings and several big companies of other countries is that much of their financial support doesn’t extend too far beyond their own friends and family. This causes them to remain under archaic, mediocre managements that are generally controlled by patriarchal owners. The scene in India is ironically different, despite us being a country that has roots in similar professional structures. Tata Sons maintains a minority stake in Tata Steel, leaving daily operations to be handled by managers. Even if administration remains within the family, in most cases shareholders can breathe easy knowing that Cornell-educated Ratan Tata, Stanford-educated Azim Premji and Wharton-educated Aditya Mittal are qualified to manage their massive investments.

Indians are now heading major multinationals – Vikram Pandit at Citibank, Indra Nooyi at Pepsico and Shantanu Narayen at Adobe Systems. Indians are also acquiring foreign companies – Arcelor-Mittal, Corus taken over by Tata and Vijay Mallya’s all-cash acquisition of scotch whisky maker, Whyte & Mackay.
All of the above has contributed to the revamping of the Indian economy, making it a destination that the world is quickly sitting up and taking notice of.

Bharti Telecoms, headed by Sunil Mittal (4th richest Indian and featured on this year’s Forbes list), has recently launched a calling card in US, aimed at NRIs. It offers competitive rates for those calling India from US, compared to other telecom service providers. This ability of Indian companies to identify specific needs in alien markets, clubbed with the added advantage of a huge Indian population spread across the globe, will ensure that they continue to excel overseas. The Ambani brothers, the Mittals and the Tatas will laugh all the way to the bank for several more years and the Indian billionaire club will only swell. Now that’s pretty swell.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Not So Incredible India

January 1999: Graham Staines, a Protestant missionary, is burnt alive with his two sons, as they sleep in their station wagon in Orissa.
March 2007: BB Mohanty, son of former Orissa director general of police, Biti Mohanty, is found guilty of raping a German researcher in Rajasthan.
September 2007: Two Japanese nationals allege that they were gang raped by three men in Agra.
February 2008: 15 year-old British national, Scarlett Keene, is found dead on Anjuna Beach, Goa.

India has long been known worldwide for her hospitality. No one does it quite like the Indians when it comes to welcoming a guest, complete with garlands, decorated platters, fireworks and colourful fanfare. So then, how would the recent numerous atrocities against foreign nationals in the country be explained?

For those of us who have travelled abroad and have been racially discriminated against would recall how degrading the experience was. It was humiliating to be treated poorly because of the colour of our skin. We know how we seethe when we read of inhuman working conditions of Indian labourers in the Middle East. We ask, what right do these sheikhs have to ill treat our people? And we wish we could gouge the eyes out of the foreign nationals who endorse the thriving child sex-trade industry in Goa and other parts of South India.

We could blame it on the steady diet of anti-foreigner facts that we are fed on through the media or resentment towards all goras for their wrongs against us in the past – ultimately, anything that numbs us to violence committed against them. But not all foreigners are demons and don’t deserve to be heinously punished. From smaller offences of spitting on them from buses, to passing lewd comments at them, of a general attitude to exploit them when they're on Indian soil and finally larger ones of rape and murder – non-Indians have not been treated very hospitably.

It's strange that for a country that worships women, we don't protect our own and rape our guests.

The government has now decided to review the safety measures at tourist spots. But how is such an effort likely to work without education of the masses or public cooperation?

The world is coming closer together. Several countries are waking up to the potential called India. We’re likely to see plenty of traffic from overseas. In view of this climate, it’s in our best interest to clean up or act rather than being branded with the growing misnomer of being the ‘World Rape Capital’.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Ponder, don't pander. Wonder, don't wander

It's an interesting question I came across today. Why is it that when we're kids, we want to be astronauts, ballerinas and wildlife photographers. But the moment we turn 20 years old, our dreams go out the window? We settle for more 'practical' careers, even if that means being unhappy for the rest of our lives. Maybe childrens' wisdom shouldn't be underestimated. And perhaps it's not just coincidence then that children are infinitely happier than adults...