The Great Escape From "Shining India"

[grey boy 2]

GovernanceNow.com | Open defecation ? India?s shame

This is one statistics that will put India in the poor light. A report by WHO-UNICEF says that Indians comprised 58 percent of all people who defecate in the open. However, the worldwide figures show a decline from the previous years’. The report points out that open defecation worldwide is on decline from 25 per cent in 1990 to 17 per cent in 2008.

Some of the key findings of the report:

•Around 638 million people do not have access to toilets in India

•18 percent of urban India still defecates in open while the percentage of rural India is as high as 69 percent.

•At least 44 percent of the population defecates in the open only in South Asia.

•Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year.

•It also underlines that open defecation leads to deadly diarrhoea and other intestinal diseases which kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year.

•The report also says with only five more years to go until 2015, a major leap in efforts and investments in sanitation is needed to fulfill the targets of Millennium Development Goal.

The report also says with only five more years to go until 2015, a major leap in efforts and investments in sanitation is needed to fulfill the targets of Millennium Development Goal.

Read the entire report here

 

[karan.1970]

Water quality is not the same as access. The two are different, mainly due to the relative affordability.

The water quality is bad in some European nations such as Belgium, but access to clean water is 100%, and it is achieved through bottled water that the population there can afford.

If you look at the water quality rankings, you'll realize the difference.

So shouldnt the measure be around % of people who have access to pure drinking water instead of the basic quality of raw water? And thats what UNDP also uses..and I have used the same metric in the post above

 

[RiazHaq]

So shouldnt the measure be around % of people who have access to pure drinking water instead of the basic quality of raw water? And thats what UNDP also uses..and I have used the same metric in the post above

Access to "improved water" does not mean access to clean or "pure" water for drinking. "Improved water" means it has gone through some kind of a filtration or treatment plant without measuring the effectiveness of such treatment.

 

[karan.1970]

Access to "improved water" does not mean access to clean or "pure" water for drinking. "Improved water" means it has gone through some kind of a filtration or treatment plant without measuring the effectiveness of such treatment.

Sure.. but the trend stands.. What the trend shows is that Pakistan's % population who has access to improved water source is decreasing which is a disturbing trend.

Considering its a 100 basis point movement, it translates to 1.5 million people who earlier had access to improved drinking water no longer have that access..

 

[RiazHaq]

Sure.. but the trend stands.. What the trend shows is that Pakistan's % population who has access to improved water source is decreasing which is a disturbing trend.

Considering its a 100 basis point movement, it translates to 1.5 million people who earlier had access to improved drinking water no longer have that access..

I am not sure how you concluded that.

 

[karan.1970]

I am not sure how you concluded that.

the % people with access to improved water source in Pakistan decreased over last 5 years by 100 basis points. HDR trends..

 

[RiazHaq]

The guerrilla fighter was tough, experienced, leading a platoon of around 60 insurgents.

"I am from a very poor family," the fighter told me.

"Life was very difficult. I joined the party and now I understand many more things. I think revolution is the only option."

One thing you should know about this hardline Maoist rebel - she is a young woman.

She is one of the growing numbers of poor Indians who have joined a four-decades-old Maoist rebellion, in which thousands have died. Last month the rebels killed 76 members of the security forces in a single attack.

More than 20 of India's 28 states are affected by the insurgency. The remote tribal villages of Jharkhand state, where the fields are still tilled by oxen, are at the centre of it.

The area is home to some of the country's poorest people, mostly members of indigenous tribes. There is little sign of India's economic miracle here.

Local people feel the government has neglected them. So the Maoists, or "the party" as the villagers call them, have got on with running the place.

Parallel government

"The government here has no health programmes… so our party sets up health clinics to help the people," one Maoist fighter told me.

"This area is plagued by illness... Our party gives free medicines in the clinics - and we get help from doctors and nurses. We run them in the rainy season when people are suffering most."

The Maoists have drawn a lot of support from poor villagers like Chachi.

"They are like our sons, our brothers," she says.

"Before, we were not allowed to go into our forests - the authorities used to cut the trees but we weren't even allowed to gather firewood. Now we can.

"The party makes sure there is no tension between rich and poor… that's why we want the party here."

But not everyone agrees. The Maoists have blown up schools because the security forces use them as barracks.

"The pupils there now have classes under a tree," says a teacher, whom I call Pandey.

"The area is not able to develop - if a road is to be constructed, the Maoists won't let it be built," Pandey says.

"When electricity was planned, at first they objected. They didn't allow the main road connecting the villages to the cities to be built. And so this area remains extremely backward."

'Gravest threat'

Pandey is from a different state. There are few villagers who are as critical. Whatever actions the Maoists take, it seems they are still considered part of the local community.

But the authorities brand them "the gravest threat to India's national security", in the words of Home Secretary G K Pillai.

The government has sent 75,000 security forces and tens of thousands of policemen to these remote regions to regain control.

"Maoists treat the Indian state as the enemy. If citizens of India take up arms against the state no democracy can allow anarchy to flourish. And you can see in areas where the Maoists are there it's total anarchy. They decide who is to live, who is not to live," says Mr Pillai.

The Maoists defend their actions as part of a wider struggle to end the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

Violence

I had a rare face-to-face interview with a member of the movement's leadership, a man I call Rameshji. I questioned him on their violent tactics.

"See the other side of the picture - how the minorities are butchered in state-sponsored pogroms," Rameshji responded.

"Many people in the struggling areas of central India are being killed by the state forces," he alleged. "Many people are dying of hunger. Who is responsible for such deaths? People are left with no other option. No-one is going to listen to you. This violence has been imposed by the state on the people of India."

For the Indian authorities, such accusations do not justify the insurgents' use of violent tactics against a democratically elected government.

But Maoist leaders like Rameshji seem determined to fight on until they overthrow the government itself.

"Our aim is to achieve a new democratic revolution - to seize the state power. You must eradicate the whole system and in order to eradicate the whole system, you must seize power."

BBC News - Inside the Maoist insurgency in India's Jharkand state

 

[Iggy]

Haq why are you posting the same thing in your every thread??

 

[Nemesis]

Haq why are you posting the same thing in your every thread??

Ha!! You might as well ask why is the sky blue and why does the apple fall from the tree. People with an India obsession, who are delusional about the problems in their own nations, don't behave in a rational manner.

This particular thread of Haq did give me a chuckle though. It is irony of the highest order for a Pakistani living in California to talk of people escaping the problems of India. Tell me Mr Haq, why did you err "escape" from Pakistan? The weather was it?