THE HORROR OF POVERTY.

In 1993 East Africa was crippled with severe drought. 20 persons are dying for an hour in the refugee camps due to acute starvation. In those miserable days a photographer Kevin Carter from South Africa had reached Sudan.He heard a baby cry out side the refugee camp.The baby was crawling towards a food station. The baby is fighting with life and death as you can see in the picture the vulture is about to tear apart the little baby. Any one who has a responding heart will flood out tears but the photographer waited for 20 minutes for the vulture to spread its wings and captured the horror in his camera. This photo was published in New york Times 26th march of 1993 for which he was awarded Pulitzer prize in July 1994. He was flooded with mails querying about: what happened to the little baby, did you saved the baby. He replied that there were strict rules and restrictions not to touch the refugees. The baby died out of misery. people responded that he was the second vulture to the other side of the baby.
Kevin Repented that he had done a mistake, he committed suicide on 26th July 1994 just few days after he received the award.Had he saved the baby and also taken the photograph he would have got the credited of showing the world  THE HORROR OF POVERTY. That is why i always feel to respond in time is very essential, for that one need to have empathy,but this is the world we are living in.
Today the same East Africa,also known as horn of Africa, popularly remembered by the word SEED- SOMALIA,ERITREA,ETHIOPIA,DJIBOUTI. is again facing Severe drought.People are crossing the nations by walk to reach the food stations in the refugee camp held at north Kenya in DADAAB refugee camp. 10 million people have been affected due to drought in these nations because of prevalent LA-NINA effect that caused the prolonged crop failure.
"PEOPLE IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD ARE DYING TO LIVE WHILE WE ARE LIVING TO DIE"

VULTURE FUNDS

Speculators have made $1-bn from crisis-hit countries. A case in the Channel Islands could decide how much more will follow.

Jean Ngaigy, the head of a school in Lepaigagone, interprets the words of one of her six-year-old students. The girl is happy to have a school now. Her favourite subjects are maths and French.

Like many children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both the girl's parents were killed in the country's civil war, which left up to 7.2 million people dead. Now, though, a fragile peace in the town, outside the capital Kinshasa, means mines are reopening and the factory is coming back to life. The school has been rebuilt and has running water. In the DRC, that represents hope.

Contrasts

The DRC should be one of Africa's richest countries. It has a mineral wealth estimated to be around $24-trillion (£15-tn). There are huge deposits of cobalt, diamonds, gold, copper, oil and 80 per cent of the world's supplies of coltan ore — a valuable mineral used in computers and mobile phones.

Yet 100 women a week are still dying in childbirth and 16,000 children under the age of five die every year. One in three children in the DRC will never get anything more than primary education.

One of the reasons the country has been unable to recover is that it is being pursued by international debt speculators, known as vulture funds, through offshore tax havens such as Jersey, for debts that were run up during 30 years of war and civil war.

What happens

Vulture funds operate by buying up a country's debt when it is in a state of chaos. When the country has stabilised, vulture funds return to demand millions of dollars in interest repayments and fees on the original debt. New York vulture fund FG Hemisphere has gone to Jersey to claim $100-m from the DRC because a legal loophole means that the island remains free of anti-vulture laws that were passed in the U.K. last year.

Jersey will decide next month (December) whether to allow its courts to let the $100-m go to FG Hemisphere.

It has been 16 years since most of the world began writing off the debts of the world's poorest countries, but the vulture funds, a club of between 26 and 35 speculators, have ignored the debt concerts by pop stars such as Bono and pleas from the likes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to give the countries a break and a chance to get back on their feet.

The DRC has been a particularly fruitful target for vulture funds, being ravaged by conflict but rich in natural resources. One of the earliest cases against the country came in 1996 when $30m worth of Congolese sovereign debt was purchased by Kensington International Inc, a subsidiary of the well-established hedge fund Elliott Associates, headed by prominent vulture financier Paul Singer.

Singer, a major contributor to the Republican party, reportedly bought the debt at a significant discount and began pursuing lawsuits against the impoverished African nation through the world's courtrooms. Bloomberg has reported that the DRC has spent an estimated $5-m fighting Singer's lawsuits. Finally in 2005 Kensington International was awarded $39-m in the U.K. High Court.

So far, according to the World Bank, the top 26 vultures have managed to collect $1-bn from the world's poorest countries and still have a further $1.3-bn to collect. Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister and long-time Finance Minister in Tony Blair's administrations, has described the payouts as “morally outrageous.”

The World Bank has described vulture funds as “a threat to debt relief efforts” and the former, Bush-era U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said: “I deplore what the vulture funds are doing” in testimony before the House of Representatives' financial committee in 2007.

In terms of public donations, the impact of the vulture funds is huge. The $1-bn collected by the funds is equivalent to more than double the International Committee of the Red Cross's entire budget for Africa in 2011. One billion dollars could fund the entire U.N. appeal for the famine in Somalia and is more than twice the amount of money raised by Save the Children last year.

Vulture funds also scare off new investors, who the vultures will target their investment, from a country. In the DRC, a large U.S. company with plans to invest millions in mining pulled out last year after one vulture sued it as a result of its business with the DRC government.

It is thought FG Hemisphere bought the debt for which it is claiming $100m in the Jersey court for $3.3-m, with the help of another vulture fund, Debt Advisory International (DAI).

FG Hemisphere, headed by Peter Grossman and DAI, run by Michael Sheehan — both men were former Morgan Stanley consultants — have attempted to collect on the debt by suing DRC state companies and their foreign investors.

Joint media investigation

When interviewed as part of a joint investigation between the BBC's Newsnight and theGuardian, Grossman defending his involvement in the DRC, saying “he wasn't beating up on the Congo but collecting on a legitimate debt.” The last decade has seen FG and DAI chase the DRC, for the same debt, in the United States, Jersey, Hong Kong and Australia. In 2010, Britain passed a law banning vulture funds from collecting in U.K courts. But the legislation failed to mention Jersey. Because Jersey is not specifically mentioned, it is automatically excluded under British law, a loophole that FG Hemisphere immediately exploited.

Grossman said it was not the vultures whose activities needed to be investigated but mismanagement in the DRC. He also denied having any knowledge that, as alleged by the Bosnian police, the debt was acquired illegally in the first place.

Sheehan, who is nicknamed Goldfinger, brokered the original deal with Bosnian state company EnergoInvest and owns some of the debt. The DRC originally owed the money to EnergoInvest for a contract to build power lines.

But as Grossman looks for payment from DRC through the Jersey legal system, the world's biggest charities, including Oxfam, Christian Aid and Jubilee Debt Campaign U.K., are appealing to Jersey to close the loophole.

Jubilee Debt Campaign U.K., which has been campaigning for debt relief for over a decade, is sending a representative to Jersey next week to put the case directly to the island's government to close the vulture funds' loophole.

Tim Jones, of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said: “The DRC is the second poorest country in the world. The country desperately needs to be able to use its rich resources to alleviate poverty, not squander them on paying unjust debts to vulture funds left by the dictator Joseph Mobutu. Jersey has to shut vulture funds down.” U.K. legislation on vulture funds has already had an impact, when Liberia last year reached agreement to repay just over three per cent of the face value of a $43-m debt. That case was originally brought by two Caribbean-based vulture funds, Hamsah Investments and Wall Capital Ltd, over a debt dating back to the 1970s and it sparked a furore when the high court ordered Liberia to repay the full debt in 2009. Liberia mobilised debt campaigners, who pushed for a change in the law, resulting in the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010 being passed.

The law, a world first, requires commercial creditors to comply with the terms of international debt cancellation schemes, which specify a single discount rate for creditors to ensure equal treatment. The law applies to the U.K. courts and ensures that public money given towards debt cancellation is not diverted to private investors.

The World Bank estimates that more than one-third of the countries which have qualified for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief have been targeted by vulture funds. HIPC countries are those whose debt is unsustainable and qualify for loans from the World Bank's International Development Association or the IMF's poverty reduction and growth facility.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is poised on the edge of a fragile peace but elections later this month could again destabilise the country. Having spent $5-m fighting off the vulture funds, the DRC is waiting for news from 4,000 miles away, where Jersey will decide whether the vultures will get their money. (Additional reporting by the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo, Josh Strauss and Nicolas Niarchos.)

HORNBILL FESTIVAL

In 2000, state government of Nagaland started the festival to establish the different tribes of  Nagaland to understand each other's customs and culture better. The result is the Hornbill festival in which  all the 16 tribes of the state congregate in traditional dress and perform their folk music and dance at a single location-the Naga Heritage village, KISAMA 12 km away from Kohima. The festival will be held for a week from December 1-7 which also includes Hornbill literature festival that focuses on state writers and poets.

SURVEY: REPORT ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT,2005

Physical abuse is the most common form of abuse reported by women, and husbands are the largest respondents under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005.

Courts have entertained complaints of emotional and verbal abuse where no physical abuse has been alleged, and relief has been granted in the form of protection order and residence order. However, though protection orders are being passed in favour of the aggrieved person, the reason given is domestic violence and not sexual violence, a survey has shown. It also suggests that man not having sexual relation with his wife, too, has been accepted as a form of sexual abuse as has been making the woman forcibly watch pornography.

According to the Fifth Monitoring and Evaluation report of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, physical violence (3215) along with verbal and emotional abuse (2726) are the most common forms of violence reported by women, followed closely by economic abuse (2938) and dispossession.

A large number of women have complained of sexual abuse (229) by their husbands, fathers and brothers-in-law.

The Act was an innovation over the conventional understanding of domestic violence as it did not limit the protection against violence solely to ‘marital relationships'. It introduced the concept of ‘domestic relationship' which included all relationships based on consanguinity, marriage, adoption and even relations which were in the nature of marriage.

In 2011, 17 cases of women in relationships in the nature of marriage have become public across the country with the highest numbers of cases coming from Delhi where five women have received relief from their male partners. But, the most important aspect of the Act is the ‘right to residence' which protects women from being pushed out of the house.

Judges are readily passing ‘stop violence' and residence orders under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 which is a major step forward in empowering aggrieved women, but protection officers are diverting from their primary role of helping women to access justice and constantly persuading them for out of counselling rather than taking recourse to justice.

The report further said that while there was in increase in positive attitudes on gender and domestic violence of protection officers, confusion continued to prevail around the definition of domestic relationship and whether women could be the first respondents or not. Protection officers are a mechanism to coordinate between the victim and the court meant to assist women.

It is alarming that even with increased training initiatives, police continue to ‘counsel' and ‘settle' cases of domestic violence at the police stations without taking appropriate action.

Of a total of 7557 court orders examined from across 16 states, 1401 had been settled in a compromise, said the report prepared by the Lawyers Collective, Women's Rights Initiative, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability in collaboration with the International Centre for Research on Women and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women.

The report said courts had also passed protection orders on prima facie evidence of domestic violence and the most common form of relief granted to women who had faced domestic violence was monetary relief and this trend showed an increase.

The report makes a specific mention of two Supreme Court judgements: one on `live in relationships' which recognises such relationships and the second that led to a controversy where women in `live in relationships' were referred to as ‘keep', betraying entrenched patriarchal mindsets and the existence of negative stereotype.

SATYAGRAHA

 Satyagraha was based on truth and non violence,a meticulously worked out philosophy, nevertheless was influenced by Thoreau,Emerson and Tolstoy.The term Satyagraha was coined by Gandhi.There are different techniques of satyagraha.

1. Fasting

2. Hijrat or voluntary migration

3. Strikes and Hartals if they did not aim at destruction and sabotage.

 Difference between passive resistance and satyagraha:

PASSIVE RESISTANCE	SATYAGRAHA
It was a tool of extremists	It was a Gandhian tool
It is an act of expediency	It is an act of moral weapon based on superiority of soul-force or love force over physical force.
It is a weapon of weak	It can be practiced by the bravest who have the courage to die without killing.
The aim is to embarrass the opponent to submission	The aim is to wean the opponent away from error by love and patient suffering
Passive resistance is static	Satyagraha is Dynamic
It is negative approach	It is positive in content. It emphasis the internal strength of the character.

WATER: A HUMAN RIGHT?

The new draft National Water Policy (NWP) circulated by the Ministry of Water Resources to water experts suggests that the government is poised to withdraw from its responsibilities of water service delivery, and that multinational corporations and financial institutions might have too big a say in water allocation and policy.

At first glance, it appears as if the policy takes a holistic approach to water resources management, with a clear recognition of India's water woes. It accords pre-emptive priority for safe and clean drinking water and sanitation to all and prioritises meeting the water requirements for ecosystems.

However, a closer look shows that some important points are missing. To begin with, water is not articulated strongly enough as a fundamental human right in this draft. This is despite India voting in favour of the United Nations General Assembly resolution on Right to Water, in 2010. But there are various suggestions to institutionalise the treatment of water as an economic good. In addition, the draft NWP proposes to limit the role for government in public services. When in other parts of the world water services are being brought back into public realm due to negative experiences with private sector water provision, this policy suggests that the government should function simply as a service facilitator, and that service delivery should be handed over to local communities or the private sector.

Crisis and conservation

While such proposals are not new, what is new is that these policies are justified in the name of dealing with the water crisis and in the name of conservation!

The draft also recommends “full cost recovery” of water used as the means for achieving efficient use of water. While full cost recovery will help meet the costs of water delivery, it does not deter water use among those who can afford to pay. In that sense it works particularly against lower income groups, and groups that use water for activities that have low economic returns. Full cost recovery needs to be accompanied by protection of the right to water for basic needs, including that for basic livelihood strategies.

Moreover, in the area of water quality conservation, the important “polluter pays principle” has disappeared. It has been replaced with “incentives” for effluent treatment and for reuse of water. While reclaiming wastewater is necessary to bridge the water deficit, in the absence of strong regulations to limit polluting activities, such incentives to polluters (to treat effluents), might work as a perverse incentive to pollute more. These are also opportunities for some of the worst water polluters to profiteer: companies such as Dow Chemicals are developing patented water purification technology. If these policies are unlikely to protect the basic right to water, it begs the question: who are the advocates and beneficiaries of these policies?

New report

It is likely that a recent report, “National Water Resources Framework Study: Roadmaps for Reforms,” might have had some influence on this draft NWP. There are striking convergences between sections of this report and parts of the draft water policy. This report, by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), was commissioned at the request of the Planning Commission of India to the 2030 Water Resources Group (WRG), via the International Finance Corporation. The report was commissioned even while several Planning Commission constituted working groups were preparing reports on various aspects of water governance.

The CEEW is one of the main Indian partners of the WRG, a high profile public-private partnership housed in the International Finance Corporation (of the World Bank Group). Financed by multilateral banks and bilateral aid organisations among others, the WRG's strategic partners include the multinational firms Cargill, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Unilever and McKinsey & Company.

Influencing policy

The WRG is systematically trying to influence how the world's water will be allocated in future. It is seeking to influence the water policy in India, South Africa, Mexico, Jordan, China and Mongolia, where it is targeting public officials in water and environmental ministries. For India its targets were more ambitious: the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, and “potentially the National Planning Commission.” In their efforts to make inroads into national and regional policy making arenas, they seem fairly successful. For example, in India, since 2010, the WRG has successfully been collaborating with the Confederation of Indian Industry and the CEEW to influence water policy in Karnataka, and now it appears, at the Centre.

The WRG is particularly interested in influencing agricultural policies, especially crop choices and agricultural water allocation in the countries they target. The reason for its focus on a “water-efficient,” “productivity-oriented” agriculture, and the importance they place on the role of food value-chain players is self-evident: the WRG is led by the transnational agriculture and food related businesses that constitute its main members. However, such water sector reforms will become yet another way to push already vulnerable peasant agriculturists further into poverty. Civil society groups in Karnataka are aware of and oppose the dangerous path their State is tempted to take.

But it is not going to be easy for them in Karnataka or elsewhere. For example, a quote ascribed to Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, suggests that he sees the WRG as an answer to the problems in international water governance: “The problem is that we have no coordinated global management authority in the U.N. system or the world at large. The World Economic Forum's effort to develop the economic and geopolitical forecast on water is essential. For the first time, all the different perspectives and expertise required to define the full dimension of the problem are brought together.”

In many ways the draft national water policy epitomises not only what is being advocated in the area of water governance, but also the problems with the initiatives being pursued around the world. Multinationals are no longer content with profiteering from their traditional areas of businesses: they want to play a larger role in the allocation of the world's natural resources, which have so far been in the public realm. The actual water users and their representatives are marginalised. In the context of the climate crisis that the draft policy seeks to address, it is important to remember that a large number of water users, farmers and local communities have been taking prudent decisions in the area of effective water management and adaptation. There is substantial practical knowledge that they can bring to the table that would completely change the way to look at issues. Rules governing the use of water, an essential part of life itself, must be the result of careful consultation with all stakeholders, especially the least powerful, and should not be driven by corporations and international finance. This is important not only in India, but for what it could mean for the future of water governance globally.

LGBTQ

The Delhi High Court judgment on the LGBTQ community is a step closer to a life of dignity

Attitudes can be moulded and mind sets transformed by even subtle but progressive changes in the law. In July 2009, the Delhi High Court decriminalized consensual gay sex by revoking the archaic Section 377. This landmark decision has led to a gradual but steady acceptance of sexual minorities by society, concludes a recent study. Ensuring greater self-confidence for the community, it has already brought them one step closer to living with dignity, states a report by Centre for Health, Law, Ethics and Technology (CHLET) at the Jindal Global Law School.

The Supreme Court has begun the hearings on a bunch of petitions challenging the HC judgment in the case between Naz Foundation and the Union of India. On Wednesday, Justice GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhyay asked a petitioner, “So who is the expert to say what is ‘unnatural sex'? The meaning of the word has never been constant. We have travelled a distance of 60 years. Now it is test-tube babies, surrogate mothers. They are called discoveries. Is it in the order of nature? Is there carnal intercourse?”

Even before the Supreme Court passes its final judgment on the constitutionality of Section 377 in the Indian Penal Code, the HC verdict has boosted the self-acceptance and confidence of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders and Queers (LGBTQ), according to the study.

“There is a difference. There is a lot of change. Now we feel braver and can speak up for our rights, even against police. We are not scared of police like before.” Some respondents also reported that they could now argue with the police since they know there is no section 377 in the law books any more.

Though most respondents felt more emotionally secure and positive, there were mixed responses as far as police harassment is concerned. While some felt that police harassment had substantially reduced among MSM (men who have sex with men) outreach workers, they pointed out that it had only to some extent reduced amongst Hijras and Kothis.

A programme co-ordinator with an NGO was not optimistic about any change following the judgment. He said, “After the judgment, police harassment has not reduced much. Four-five months ago, my friend and I were in his car. We were not doing anything. The police came and started knocking on the door of the car because the car had been parked on the side. They accused us of having sex.” However, on a more optimistic note another respondent stated, “Police does not trouble me as much after the judgment as they did earlier. The media supports us.”

All in all, it was found that though police harassment had reduced significantly in certain areas of Delhi, in other areas it continues unabated.

Wide media coverage of the Naz Foundation judgement and the queer pride march and movies like Dostana have also helped in changing societal perception of homosexuals, according to some respondents. People are treating them with respect and there has been a change in thinking also, said one.

As far as familial acceptance is concerned, the judgment seems to have made little or no impact. Most respondents from the community said that they would still not disclose their identities to their families and some others who had in the past were discriminated against. One of them said, “I cannot even go home as my sister has to get married. I feel that there should be an environment in which we can live more openly. Parents play a huge role in discriminating. Even they tease. Why should I be blamed because I do not get attracted to girls? There has to be anti-discrimination laws to protect us and then families will be more accepting.”

“Studies in the past in countries like Australia and South Africa have observed that jurisdiction with anti-sodomy laws have seen lower self-esteem amongst homosexuals, while jurisdiction with decriminalization of homosexuality has observed greater self-acceptance and confidence. This was confirmed through the interviews,” said lead author of the study Professor Dipika Jain, a Harvard law graduate, and Assistant Professor at CHLET.