By Lynette Molyneaux:

“India needs Australian coal” is a view promoted by government and industry alike, most recently in the Institute for Public Affairs' latest report. The report argues that opening up Australia’s Galilee Basin for the export of coal to India will provide 82 million Indians with electricity to transform their lives.

[caption id="attachment_50063" align="aligncenter" width="888"] While many people in India live without electricity, it is looking less likely that Australian coal will supply it. Environmental Change and Security Program/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND[/caption]

This echoes sentiments previously expressed by the coal industry and Prime Minister Tony Abbott. In response to a contrasting report released today by the Climate Council, arguing that Galilee coal is “unburnable”, Michael Roche of the Queensland Resources Council replied:

In fact we know India has 300 million people without electricity and that Prime Minister Modi is determined to give those people access to affordable electricity by 2040 […] We also know that no credible forecaster expects India to be able to meet Mr Modi’s target without use of imported coal to supplement domestic supply.

But is there really a case for Australian coal in India? The evidence suggests not.

A weakening case

From 2003 global demand for energy boomed as China and India stepped up their consumption. India’s domestic production of coal was constrained for a variety of reasons, so Indian investors (notably Adani and GVK) sought to develop the untapped coal resource in the Galilee Basin.

Currently, GVK has two mines with conditional environmental approval and Adani has conditional approval for the Galilee Basin’s largest mine (Carmichael Mine), a rail project and expansion of Abbot Point Coal Terminal.

But recent reports highlighted on ABC’s Four Corners suggest that the economic case for the Carmichael mine is weaker than supposed. This would appear to be backed up by fresh reports that Adani has halted work on key infrastructure supporting the mine.

In seeking to grow and create energy access for all, influential people in India are sending out conflicting messages on strategies for energy provision.

Adani appears to be hedging bets on the future of energy in India by signing a US$4 billion Joint Venture with SunEdison to manufacture low-cost solar panels and announcing a target of 10 gigawatts of generation from solar power by 2022.

This could have something to do with India’s Power and Coal Minister, Piyush Goyal, stating that the nation would step up domestic production and stop imports of thermal coal within three years.

India’s rejection of imported thermal coal, even within the next 10 years, would damage the financial viability of developing the Galilee Basin.

Costs don’t stack up

Looking more closely at energy use in India weakens the economic case even further. The Indian states with the lowest levels of domestic access to energy tend to be in the north east.

They are rural agrarian communities with, according to the Indian Planning Commission, an annual per capita gross domestic product of just US$500-1000. Low income levels provide little room for expenditure on electricity or electric goods. Consequently, the Planning Commission reports that state electricity utilities run at a loss due to high levels of unauthorised use and technical failure.

The costs of developing the Galilee Basin are enormous. Investment requires coal mine development, rail infrastructure, port expansion and coal mine operation costs. After that the coal needs to be transported to India and then from the coast into rural states. According to the GVK and Adani Environmental Impact Statements, investment will total well in excess of AU$50 billion over the 40 to 60 years of the projects.

To these costs need to be added the costs of building power stations. Estimating investment in power stations depends on the energy content of the coal, thermal efficiency and utilisation of power stations in rural states. My calculations indicate that 120 million tonnes per year of coal extracted from the Galilee Basin will lead to more than US$50 billion investment in power stations.

After that there are very large costs required to bolster the Indian grid to distribute power to rural areas. It is unlikely that humble households in rural north east India would be able to afford the electricity provided from this level of investment.

Even for very low levels of electricity consumption, the number of Indian homes without access to electricity, translates into a large requirement for electricity infrastructure.

However, electricity for those homes can only be afforded for a few hours a day. Coal fired power stations by contrast are not engineered to switch on and off as demand is required.

What has made electricity from coal technically and financially viable in countries like Australia and China is a high level of electricity consumption from industry. The Indian states where large numbers of homes have no access to electricity are largely agrarian with little industry. So there is a mismatch between what the rural poor in India (and indeed in Africa) need, and what coal-fired power stations can provide.

Health costs

[envoke_twitter_link]China is the poster child for the coal industry’s message that coal can end energy poverty[/envoke_twitter_link]. But China’s success has come at a cost.

China’s Health Minister from 2007-2013, Chen Zhu, a professor of medicine and molecular biologist, stated in an article in the Lancet in 2013, that lung cancer is now the leading cause of death in China and that between 350,000 to 500,000 people die prematurely each year as a result of pollution. There is not a single Australian that would welcome the privilege of having to live with the air pollution that has come with China’s development.

While the coal industry, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Abbott government do not address them, the costs associated with pollution from coal fired power stations are very large. Including these costs in proposals would dramatically change the cost-benefit result associated with reducing energy poverty. According to the former Health Minister’s article in the Lancet, China for instance is planning to spend US$278 billion over five years in an attempt to control pollution.

After heavy investment in coal, India will need to spend tens of billions of dollars every year attempting to make densely populated areas liveable.

Coal is not the only option

So are the costs and complexities of addressing rural energy poverty just too vast to resolve?

Not long ago, rural communities in India and Africa had little hope of access to computing or telecommunications. And yet without heavy investment in mainframe computers, telephone exchanges, poles and wires, advances in technology have enabled the roll-out of affordable, low-function mobile phones and laptop computers.

There is no reason why energy access for the rural poor shouldn’t take the same course. Alternative energy technologies like solar, coupled with battery storage, are rapidly decreasing in cost.

Like mobile phones are to old land-line telephony, renewable technologies are quicker and easier to install and operate than are mega coal-fired power stations. There is reason to believe that India may be able to move straight to alternative energy technologies to meet its development goals.

Mining coal in the Galilee Basin may only benefit Australians.

Lynette Molyneaux is Researcher, Energy Economics and Management Group at The University of Queensland.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post The Case For Australian Coal In India Is Weakening appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Paromita Vohra:

There’s a curiously distant feeling about the rise and rise of Sunny Leone, from the time she entered Indian households via Bigg Boss in 2012 to April 2015, when her film Ek Paheli Leela became a hit. Soon after, she topped The Times of India list of most desirable female stars, ahead of Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif – no small achievement. Yet, her success feels blandly numerical, with none of the visible cultural resonance that accompanies the rise of a new star.

[caption id="attachment_50070" align="aligncenter" width="843"] Image Credit: Mansworldindia.com[/caption]

On consideration, it becomes apparent that this feeling arises from a certain invisibility of Leone’s fandom. The number of fans of her various Facebook pages total nearly 15 million. Yet, while images and videos earn plenty of likes, there are hardly any comments on posts. The media compounds this by constantly reporting on her with reference to her past work as a porn star (or, as she prefers to call it, adult entertainment professional), thus providing no fresh persona – a Sunny Leone of the Hindi films, distinct from her earlier avatar.

Let me just come right out and say it – Leone is one of the most boring performers I’ve ever watched. I fast forwarded my way through two of her porn films, so tedious and mechanical was their spreadsheet porn-sex. ‘Baby Doll’ may be a catchy song, but visually it is so leaden that I have never been able to watch its video through to the end, not even for the purposes of this piece. As for Ek Paheli Leela, despite my love of kitschy reincarnation dramas, I found it very easy to take my eyes off Ms Leone when she was onscreen. There’s nothing offensive about her (she is rather sweet, in fact) but there’s just nothing riveting about her either.

When I discussed this with a male friend, he said, “Well, obviously. You’re a woman.” But, as a dedicated viewer of porn, he admitted in the next breath that he wasn’t a fan of Leone’s adult videos, as they were “typical Amriki porn. Too plastic for me”. The real mystery about Leone is not how an adult entertainment artist has crossed over, with such success, to a mainstream entertainment space in India. The pertinent question is, how did someone so completely unremarkable onscreen, and possessed of such limited charisma, achieve this?

One of the reasons particular stars achieve ascendency at particular moments in history is because they somehow embody the social rhythms and cultural tendencies that are still taking shape around them. They represent the gestalt of a moment, an essence of larger social experience and aspirations that have not yet been fully recognised. Often, the officially elite culture does not have the space, vision or the means to recognise these new feelings, these still-forming quicksilver selves. What is this sense that Leone captures through her success?

I missed Leone’s entry into Indian living rooms via Bigg Boss because I was deep in the bowels of television production myself, working on a somewhat arty TV reality show. Called Connected Hum Tum, the show hoped to track the inner lives of contemporary urban women in India. The process of choosing characters involved meeting literally hundreds of women from varied backgrounds. Many of these were suburban or small-town women, who wanted to make it in show business. They had no real connections, training, or frankly, talent. But, they were bursting with a kind of un-channelled assertiveness, a strong need to ‘show the world what I am’. They did not want to be constrained by older identities of family, community or caution. Chetan Bhagat speaks for many young men like this. He suggests (however disingenuously) that they can shrug off the limitations of feudal India with the leveller of English.

What do these young women feel they have as a leveller, given that they come with no other advantages? It is their bodies. They represent the idea of show business not as a place of ephemeral, alchemical talent, but a labour market in which you can acquire a suitable body, which will be employable. In the nourished warren of gyms, dance classes and auditions that is Mumbai’s Oshiwara, thousands of aspirants apply themselves to this endeavour. Having a sexy body is now not a sign of your immorality, but of your professionalism and ambition. Hence, “compro” or compromise, of some sexual nature, is also looked at far more pragmatically. They have rephrased the body, from a symbol of honour and morality to an instrument of work and progress, of the entrepreneurial self. [envoke_twitter_link]To a certain elite eye, these young people represent vulgarity and desperation[/envoke_twitter_link]. Their “indecent” aspiration finds little recognition – unlike the “decent” MBA-style aspirations of Chetan Bhagat’s following.

It is innumerable young men and women such as these that Leone, with her surgically, impersonally perfect body and her matter-of-fact approach to it as her skill set, epitomises. Coming from an immigrant family, which left its roots to search for a better life, she represents this same unsentimental immigration which thousands of young lower middle-class Indians undertake – one which searches for new destinations, not permanent belonging, and which refuses to be imprisoned or limited by a past identity.

Because of her past work in pornography, it’s easy to place Leone at the cusp of India’s “combination of prurient prudishness and genuine tolerance” and suggest she is a “walking talking double meaning”, as writer Kai Friese recently did in The New York Times. This is the kind of truism about Indian culture that we are now used to hearing from liberal elders. That India, the land of the (yawn) Kama Sutra, has fallen into a state of sexual hypocrisy.

Double meanings can only be a source of contempt if we believe that meanings are, or should be, single. This belief in a linear truth or identity, which only allows you to be one thing at one time, which chooses to fix or expose you, is a deeply moralistic one. Whether coming from the left or the right, it is the judgmental gaze that shames people for their desires. You can do this from the left by talking about how Leone exemplifies Indian hypocrisy, in which porn stars become rich while LGBT rights are denied. You can do it from the right by raving about depravity. The purpose of this gaze, this nazar, from either direction is to shame you for routine human aspirations. It is, in fact, a classically pornographic gaze, seeking always to expose and demean you metaphorically.

As both a performer and a producer of pornography, Leone understands this gaze well and knows not only how to counter it, but how to invert it. Her masterstroke was to appear on Bigg Boss, the ultimate mainstream pornographic vehicle, in which apparently ‘decent’ people reveal their dark and ‘indecent’ selves. In her case, she did the opposite – an apparently ‘indecent’ character revealed her niceness, her (as one YouTube clip calls it) ‘cute-bhara’ self. She was courteous, soft-spoken and all family values: “Bahut accha lagta hai jab sab pyaar dete hain mummy daddy ko, hai na? I miss my parents, but they’re watching from above.” She made rotis, hung out in track pants and told Amar Upadhyay off for being handsy (“he is married and so am I”), sending out the message that she decides the terms of use when it comes to her body, as any person should.

Through this vehicle, she established a narrative that no one is defined by only one part of their identities. Yes, she is a porn star, but she is also a professional and a nice person. She established that these childish polarities of good and bad simply did not apply. To some, this is a double meaning. To many, it is just the normal complexity of all our lives, in which we are many different things at the same time. It was a much-needed message and people responded to it fervently.

For instance, Scarlett Rose, a Mumbai-based bikini model and Splitsvilla contestant, told Anushree Majumdar, who profiled Leone for The Indian Express: “Sunny is one of my role models. It’s not easy to be a bikini model; people think you’re a porn artist. When I heard that Sunny was hosting the show, I felt that here was somebody who would understand my line of work,” she says. Unlike Rose, Leone never speaks of being a porn star with even a hint of apology. On the contrary, she takes pride in her self-made identity. With practised yet never fake ease, she never submits to the attempts at shaming implicit in many interviewers’ questions. She refuses to submit to the hierarchies by which people establish themselves as acceptable by differentiating themselves, as Rose does here (“I’m not a porn star. I’m a bikini model”), or as Rakhi Sawant has done (“I’ve not done pole dancing like Sunny Leone”). She slipped up once in an early interview by saying “a porn star is not a prostitute”, but never again has she resorted to such stereotyping.

Leone never offers the victim narrative. She owns her work completely and emphasises that it has always been her choice and no one ever forced her into it. She also never resorts to bad-mouthing or stereotyping Indian culture, which many Indians do in order to set themselves apart from other natives. In an interview with MensXP, when asked for her response to Ekta Kapoor’s comment that India is a sex-starved country, Leone replied: “I don’t think India is a sex-starved nation. I wouldn’t say that about any country. She [Ekta Kapoor] feels that way, and she is entitled to her opinion.” She has laughed at euphemistic questions by saying she receives mail regularly from women as well as couples on how to improve their sex lives. “Sex isn’t something crazy. It happens every day, guys,” she said in one video interview.

By doing this, she acknowledges a whole other narrative of contemporary Indian sexuality – not the old one of repression and moral policing, but one of a great deal more sexual mobility. In fact, part of Leone’s relatively easy transition to the mainstream is because of the ubiquity of pornography for urban and small-town Indians, thanks to the digital sphere. Indians have the fifth highest number of daily visitors to Pornhub, and fourth highest in accessing it from mobile devices. Given this fact, the transition of a body from the pornographic to the cinematographic space is not really so startling. It is travelling from the private to the public space, sure, but it is also travelling from one everyday space to another one.

Leone also never falls into any other cultural stereotyping. When asked in another interview about what she thought about excessive violence against women in India she merely said, “This is applicable to any country in the world. If our teachers and parents teach us differently, the message will go out.” The Leslee Udwins and the right-wing moralisers sure could take this leaf out of Leone’s book.

So, Leone is the other NRI, the one no one talks about and the one the prime minister doesn’t address – the one who isn’t ashamed of India. She speaks well of those other Indians who make a complex interweave of private and public selves, of where they are coming from and where they want to go to create a life for themselves, rather than constantly engaging in defining the idea of India.

Despite all this non-denominational journey of individuality, Leone, in what may seem like hypocrisy to some and dexterity to others (like myself), never challenges basic traditional niceties. Consider that she arrived on Bigg Boss the way most women arrive in their sasurals – in a doli. The other F word is big in her vocabulary – family. She spoke of Ekta Kapoor and Pooja Bhatt, her first producers, as treating her like family. Her earthy immigrant Punjabi is reassuring. She speaks respectfully of her parents (as indeed of all people). Her demeanour is winning – I found myself quite in love after watching many of her intelligent, confident, always courteous interviews.

She does not challenge family structures – and this is very crucial for success in India, because the family, no matter what you do in it, is still the primary social unit for our culture. Her frontal partnership with her husband also makes Indians comfortable. It allows Salman Khan to say about her: “Unka kaam hai – jo bhi hai unke family mein kuch aitraaz nahin hai.” The idea of a woman not connected to anyone is one Indians continue to find dangerous, unnerving. It is a reminder of the goddess unbound. A woman who belongs with a man allows people to accept much more. Unlike Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat or Sherlyn Chopra, Leone is not interested in directly speaking up about patriarchy or social injustice, as much as she is in swimming past it quickly.

While Leone definitely signifies a break from certain past identities and modes, she is also part of a certain continuity. A porn professional today is only the contemporary extension of how women usually entered the film industry in the past – sometimes from the world of tawaifs or bar-dancing communities and certainly through arduous trysts with casting couches. This belonged to a time when people entered the film industry from mixed backgrounds and remade themselves, too, when the film industry was the location of so much miscegenation.

Today, families and businesses have been around for two or three generations and words such as pedigree and legacy, which were meaningless before, are bandied about. Second- and third-generation filmy families have made parts – but not the whole – of the industry respectable for their daughters to inhabit, and some other women like them. Corporatisation has provided a finishing patina. The bodies of Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor et al carry a different meaning than heroine’s bodies in the past. Any respectability one claimed came from the division of heroine and vamp, but it was a tenuous one.

However, the barrier that once existed between the heroine and the vamp has now been recast as a class difference. This is why Deepika and Kareena are in A-list films, while Emraan Hashmi and various interchangeable women inhabit the B-plus world of Vishesh Films. It is in this B-plus world that Leone rules. Can she break through that barrier? In response, we need only turn to Leone’s own wisdom and insight. As she said in an interview before the release of her film Jism 2: “There’s nothing too crazy in the film. You aren’t going to see anything here that you haven’t seen before. In India, you know, you can push the envelope, you can’t crack it open.” If she cracks it open, then forever and ever ‘Chitthi aayi hai’ shall be a song dedicated to Sunny Leone.

Paromita Vohra is a documentary filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on gender, desire, urban life and popular culture. She is currently working on a non-fiction book about love in contemporary India.

This article first appeared in the June issue of Man’s World Magazine.

The post What Sunny Leone’s Baffling Success Tells Us About Our Society appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Monica Islam:

As the month of Ramadan begins, there is a renewed vigor in the Muslim community worldwide to achieve peace and unity, to spread happiness and love, and to be mindful of a Superior Being. It is also a time for introspection. Although reformation of the Muslim world is not on the top of the list of many Muslims during this month, it is becoming inevitable to focus on making the community more inclusive. Read on to find out the five reforms that are urgently needed, and why.

[caption id="attachment_50102" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Image Credit: Seyfi Şeren[/caption]

1. Religious reinterpretation

What works in one context may not work in another. What worked “1,400 years ago” may not work now. If it did, we would still be clinging to audio cassettes, floppy disks, and mainframe computers. Maajid Nawaz, author of the book 'Radical', aptly says, “We Muslims must admit there are challenging Koranic passages that require reinterpretation today. Only by rejecting vacuous literalism, are we able to condemn, in principle, ISIS-style slavery, beheading, lashing, amputation, and other medieval practices forever (all of which are in the Quran).” A few Muslim commentators even suggest that we start seeing certain passages of The Quran as fallible, and not divine.

2. Greater public engagement

Whenever I have tried speaking up against extremist websites such as Islamqa.com, one of the most common responses I have received, sometimes from influential educated youth leaders, is “Scholars have dedicated their lives to studying theology and hence, we ordinary citizens must always remember that we have limited knowledge. Scholars have preserved the religion from impurities.” And yet, many Muslims will brag that there is no “class system” or “hierarchy” in Islam. That might be true theoretically, but not in principle, because eventually, scholars set the rules and the masses are expected to be obedient due to their supposed lack of knowledge.

3. Separation of spirituality and governance

In The Moral Foundations of Islaamic Culture course provided by Islamic Online University, which is very popular among religious youths of Bangladesh because of its tech-savvy approach, lecturer Dr. Bilal Philips taught that “believing in the Islamic caliphate system is a part of faith.” Imagine what it means for gullible youths when you tell them that they can be better Muslims if they support Islamic caliphate system. [envoke_twitter_link]This concept of an Islamic caliphate is the underlying principle for ISIS[/envoke_twitter_link] and many such criminal groups.

4. More love, more pluralism

Some of my distant Muslim relatives (who are apolitical) often refer to Hindus as “Malu” and refrain from eating/drinking in their homes. In 2011, when a Holocaust exhibition was organized on the premises of a private university in Bangladesh, it was unofficially called-off after one day because of strong opposition from students and teachers alike. They asked, “Why not an exhibition showcasing the plight of Palestinians, or the 1971 War of Independence?” Anything, but not a Jewish exhibition! More recently, at least three atheist bloggers were hacked to death in a span of four months starting from February this year in Bangladesh. This hatred for the “other” needs to halt immediately.

5. Women’s health rights

Among many other things, female genital mutilation must be outlawed and it should not be touted as an “honor for women”. When you say the practice is not obligatory but recommended or honorable, and when you attach a religious tag to the practice, there remains an indirect pressure on Muslims to accept it, even if they are unwilling, for “more rewards”. The same idea holds true for polygamy and child marriage, both of which can be detrimental to the physical and mental health of women.

In conclusion, these visions must be realized immediately—in the words of Shafferan Sonneveld, Global Advocacy Director, Muslim for Progressive Values—“to distinguish between Sharia (divine revelation) and Sharia Law (man-made rulings derived from religious scriptures).”

The post This Ramadan, A Vision For The Muslim World: ‘What Worked 1,400 Years Ago May Not Work Now’ appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Chaitanya Mallapur:

India has witnessed a five-time (455%) increase in drug hauls over three years, from 2011 to 2013, according to data released by the government to Parliament.

Officials have seized 105,173 tonnes of illegal drugs over this period, a reminder of a growing Indian problem on the international day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking, observed on June 26 by the United Nations (UN).

[caption id="attachment_50092" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Image Credit: Indiaspend.com[/caption]

With nearly 18% of the world’s population in the 15-64 age group, [envoke_twitter_link]India is a prime market for illicit opiates originating in both South-East Asia and South-West Asia[/envoke_twitter_link], according to the World Drug Report 2014.

The latest available data, from 2004, estimates that 10.7 million Indians–more than the population of Sweden–are drug abusers: 8.7 million consume cannabis and 2 million use opiates, according to a National Survey Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Indian Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.

Mizoram, Punjab and Manipur are among the states where people are most vulnerable to drug abuse. One reason could be their proximity to porous international borders and international drug-trafficking zones, such as the “Golden Triangle” (Myanmar, Thailand and Laos) and “Golden Crescent” (Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan).

Some of the drugs seized include amphetamine, cannabis plant, cocaine, ephedrine, ganja, hashish, heroin, ketamine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), acetic anhydride, methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA), methamphetamine, methaqualone (mandrax), morphine and opium.

Punjab accounted for almost half of all cases registered in India under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) in 2013 as we reported earlier: 67% of rural households in Punjab have one drug or alcohol addict, while 70% of young men are addicted to drugs or alcohol, according to a government report based on surveys.

In Manipur, there are an estimated 45,000-50,000 drug addicts of who nearly half are injecting drug users.

Studies have also revealed that 12% of drug addicts are below the age of 15, as are 31% in the age group of 16-25 years and 56% in the age group of 25-35 years.

Nepalese are the most arrested foreign nationals: 266 arrests from 2011 to May 2014 followed by Nigerians (210) and Burmese (96).

In terms of drug smuggling, the India-Bangladesh border is most vulnerable with 1,607 cases reported from 2011 till June 2014, followed by India-Nepal (779), India-Myanmar (317) and India-Pakistan (120).

This article was originally published on IndiaSpend.

The post India’s Soaring Drug Problem: 455% Rise In Seizures! appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Rory McCarthy:

Just two months after the shooting of 22 holidaymakers in the Bardo museum in Tunis, Tunisia has been attacked again. On June 26, two gunmen opened fire and killed at least 38 people on the beaches of Sousse. Most of the victims were foreign tourists – making this both a human tragedy and a profound challenge to Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.

[caption id="attachment_50174" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Tunisian security forces in Sousse. EPA/STR[/caption]

This new attack is the worst terrorist incident in the country’s history, and means Tunisia’s vital tourism industry will now be gravely weakened. The once-hopeful democratic transition is also in danger, with growing calls for a tougher security policy.

The attackers opened fire on the beaches of two hotels in Port El Kantaoui, at the northern end of a long coastline of beachfront hotels that runs through the city of Sousse. This area is the most important destination for package holidays in Tunisia.

Tunisia’s tourism minister, Selma Elloumi, called the Sousse attack a “catastrophe” and admitted there was no way to ensure “zero risk”. According to one assessment, revenue from tourism and related industries accounted for up to 14.9% of the Tunisian economy in 2014. Even if the tourist industry had begun to recover four years after the Arab uprisings of 2011, then the Bardo shooting in March 2015 and now the Sousse attacks will surely kick start a long-term crisis.

But despite its record loss of life, the latest attack was not entirely unprecedented.

Escalating violence

[envoke_twitter_link]Sousse has been targeted before, apparently because it attracts so many tourists.[/envoke_twitter_link] Hotels in Sousse were bombed in 1987, at the height of a clash between the Tunisian regime and the Islamist movement. Then in October 2013 a suicide bomber killed himself on the beach outside a downtown Sousse hotel in a failed terror attack.

Sousse is not just a tourist destination. It has played an important role in the country’s history, producing many of the administrative elite who have run Tunisia since independence in 1956. Former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was himself from Hammam Sousse, a northern suburb close to the scene of the attacks.

The city has a secular middle class, but also significant support for the moderate Islamist movement Ennahdha – I spent a year in the city interviewing Ennahdha activists about the history and evolution of their movement. It also has large, impoverished suburbs filled with Tunisians who have travelled from the poorer towns and villages of the interior in search of work.

 As in other poor urban areas in the country, there has been significant Salafist radicalisation here, dating back even to before the 2011 uprising. While [envoke_twitter_link]these shootings were apparently the work of Islamic State[/envoke_twitter_link], Tunisia has also been facing an insurgent campaign by supporters of a smaller Tunisian militant group, Uqba ibn Nafi, which is linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. They have been mounting attacks against the military and security forces since late 2012.

Some interesting research suggests there could be a process of “outbidding” underway between al-Qaeda’s proxy force and Islamic State – and indeed, this latest attack suggests the latter is trying to step up its activities inside the country as part of its wider campaign of violence.

Old ways

The decisions the Tunisian government makes in the coming weeks will determine the fate of country’s already fragile transition to democracy. Although the Ben Ali regime was toppled in a popular uprising in January 2011, many of the political and economic interests of the former regime remain intact and the judiciary and security forces remain largely unreformed. The deep state is still at work. There has been a knee-jerk tendency to resort to authoritarian measures in the name of security and stability, and a backslide into the state’s old ways is still a risk.

That much was made clear when, after the attack, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi travelled to Sousse to meet the survivors and promised “painful but necessary” measures would follow. Mohsen Marzouk, an advisor to Essebsi and now the head of his Nidaa Tounes party, which leads the coalition government, called for the creation of new private sector security forces, and said: “We are at war and we must apply the law firmly.”

Already the government has drafted a bill that would jail any Tunisian found to have “denigrated” the armed forces. Human Rights Watch warned that the bill did not meet international human rights standards, and is also concerned about a new law on judicial reform that fails to give the judiciary sufficient independence from the executive.

Other politicians have proposed a national congress to discuss a national strategy to confront the terrorist challenge and popular marches against terrorist violence. But there is still no clear strategy to confront this worsening security crisis and declining economic situation. The damage done to the tourism industry follows waves of workers' strikes that have also affected the important phosphate mining industry in the south.

There is hope that Tunisia will yet overcome these challenges, just as it has overcome many others since 2011. Politicians have always found a way to negotiate consensus solutions every time a crisis has threatened this hopeful and extraordinary transition to democracy – but that task is becoming ever harder.

This article has been updated to reflect Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

Rory McCarthy is DPhil Candidate in Oriental Studies at University of Oxford.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post Terror In Tunisia: Tourist Deaths On The Beaches Of Sousse Will Kick-Start A Crisis appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Sajai Jose:

For the first time ever, the year 2014 saw India’s carbon dioxide emissions growth accounting fllutor the largest share of global emissions growth, according to a new global report. India’s CO2 emissions from energy use had increased by 8.1% during the year, making it the world’s fastest-growing major polluter.

It was the single-most significant trend revealed in the latest edition of British Petroleum’s comprehensive Statistical Review of World Energy, but the Indian media got the story upside down. Most coverage celebrated India’s sky-high energy-consumption figures, while glossing over its record-breaking emissions growth, a historical milestone with serious implications.

India’s contribution amounted to 28%, or almost a third of global emissions growth in 2014. That number alone does not convey the magnitude of the larger shift it reflects. Consider these supplementary facts:

• Those countries whose CO2 emissions increased in 2014 together added an extra 572 million tonnes (MT) of CO2 to the atmosphere. India’s share was by far the largest at 157 MT of CO2, substantially ahead of China (85 MT) and US (53 MT), the world’s leading polluters for decades.
• India’s share of emissions growth (157 MT of CO2) was not only the largest volumetric contribution in its own history, but for the first time made it the world’s biggest contributor to emissions growth.
• While every other major polluter saw emissions growth decline considerably, some even managed to cut emissions significantly over 2013 levels. The EU, for instance, cut more emissions (211 MT of CO2) in 2014 than India added.
• India’s emissions growth in 2014 (157 MT) was greater than that of the US (155 MT) in 2013. The US’ economy is ten times as big as India’s and consumes nearly four times as much energy.

Trends are reversible, but the pattern that emerges from these numbers clearly point to a pivotal shift. India has bucked a global trend to emerge as the single-most critical player when it comes to carbon emissions, and thereby, climate change.

The triad: energy, growth, emissions

The triad of economic growth, energy consumption and emissions/pollution is joined at the hip. India’s GDP growth, which has driven up energy consumption to a historic high point, is also driving growth in its emissions.

On the other hand, economic growth has slowed globally, leading to a steady decline in global energy consumption in recent years, reaching its nadir in 2014 at just 0.9% (the slowest rate of growth since the late 1990s).

India stays at odds with the world because of a host of supplementary trends: globally-significant emission cuts by the EU, a major Chinese push in renewables, and the “virtual collapse” of highly-polluting industries like coal, steel and cement in China as its infrastructure boom plateaus.

Sharpest divergence in coal

[envoke_twitter_link]It is in coal consumption that India most diverges from the rest of the world[/envoke_twitter_link].

When most major countries have minimal or declining coal consumption, India’s coal consumption has grown by 11%, the world’s largest volumetric increase for the year.

[envoke_twitter_link]Coal is the single biggest source of primary energy in India and China[/envoke_twitter_link], but from the perspective of climate change and air pollution, it is also the dirtiest. Comparing growth in coal consumption with that of renewable energy gives us a better idea of how India fares against the rest of the world in terms of current energy priorities:

A many-sided problem

As the IndiaSpend series showed, it’s only when you apply criteria like population and historical emissions that you get an accurate picture of energy consumption and emissions by countries. But country-wise estimates themselves can be misleading in a globalised economy—where rich nations routinely ‘outsource’ emissions to developing nations.

So, it’s worth repeating: The Indian exception is in the rate of growth in energy consumption and emissions; India’s net consumption and emissions remain low. In per capita terms, India is neither one of the world’s major polluters and nor was its emissions growth rate in 2014 the absolute highest worldwide.

But India’s size, and the consistent rise in its emissions growth puts India in a league of its own. This trend is unlikely to abate since projections show India is set to grow faster than any other major economy, propelled by a massive, coal-fuelled, Chinese-style industrialisation drive.

India taking over from China

The last five years’ data reveals declining Chinese emissions growth (after peaking in 2011 at 7.9%), and accelerating Indian emissions growth. Energy, economic growth and emissions being connected, what we are seeing is the baton being exchanged from one Asian giant to the other, a shift tangentially reflected in recent GDP trends.

This is what makes these latest numbers so alarming–for the world, but even more so for India.

This article was originally published on IndiaSpend.

(Jose is a freelance media professional based in Bangalore)

The post India Is Now World’s Fastest-Growing Major Polluter appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Chaitanya Mallapur:

With India’s road and rail infrastructure in most high-traffic areas running at full capacity, the government plans to raise Rs 1 lakh crore ($15.6 billion) to develop ports and improve inland waterways.

The Sagarmala (necklace) plan, as it is called, envisages a series of ports and coastal and inland-shipping routes that will not just move cargo but also reduce India’s carbon footprint and save energy.

Coastal shipping is the cheapest and least polluting mode of transport, 63% cheaper than road and 38% cheaper than rail: Rs 0.55 per tonne-km versus Rs 0.90 for rail and over Rs 1.50 for road, according to the estimates by the erstwhile Planning Commission.

The project aims to develop ports and make them drivers of economic activity by linking them to road, rail, inland and coastal waterways.

But first: Improve India’s ponderous ports

[envoke_twitter_link]India’s port efficiency is low and work moves slowly, compared to leading international ports[/envoke_twitter_link].

India has 12 major ports and 200 minor ports. Ports in India carry 95% of India’s total trade in volume and 68% by value.

[envoke_twitter_link]Coastal shipping in India transports just 7% of domestic cargo[/envoke_twitter_link]. Compare that with 42% in Japan and 20% in China.

Another important drawback for coastal shipping is the slow turn-around time, the time a ship spends entering the port, loading, unloading, and departing.

The average turn-around time for India, as of April-November 2014, was reported to be 2.1 days (50 hours).

Singapore port, recognised as one of the best in Asia and globally, turns around ships in less than 12 hours. In Hong Kong port, container ships are turned around within 10 hours.

A two-day wait for a coastal container ship increases costs in India by close to 10% for short voyages.

India’s inland water-transport is also poorly developed.

Of 14,500 km of navigable inland waterways, only 5,200 km (36%) of major rivers and 485 km (3%) of canals can handle mechanised vessels. Only 0.5% of India’s cargo traffic is handled by inland water-transport, compared to China at 8.7%, the US at 8.3% and Europe at 7%, according to this KPMG report.

Ports start to get a leg up

An agreement was signed recently for a satellite port in Dahanu between Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and the Maharashtra Maritime Board. The port is expected to reduce the traffic at Jawaharlal Nehru Port.

Similarly, the central government is planning six ports including the Rs 12,000-crore deep-water Sagar port in West Bengal, Colachel in Tamil Nadu, the Rs 6,000-crore Vadhavan port in Maharashtra and the Rs 1,200-crore Haldia dock 2.

Kandla with more than 87 MT in cargo traffic in 2013-14 was India’s busiest port. Its average turn-around time was 2.9 days (69.6 hours). Building ports as part of the Sagarmala plan will, clearly, not be enough.

This article was originally published on IndiaSpend. (Mallapur is a policy analyst with IndiaSpend.)

The post What India Must Do Before The Great Sea Necklace appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

Submitted Anonymously: 

I am writing this today on 28th of June, using my left hand, as my right hand was injured in a brutal lathicharge by the armed forces. Kashmir University saw one of the most inhuman and unforgivable faces of occupation on 25th of June, 2015. With the unanimous decision of students, this day will be commemorated every year as a Black Day in Kashmir University.

[caption id="attachment_35004" align="aligncenter" width="640"] For representational purpose only[/caption]

[envoke_twitter_link]Why did the students decide to call it a Black Day[/envoke_twitter_link]? What happened on 25th, and who will decide the authenticity of the day's narrative?

Is it because of the statement of Kashmir University’s administration, polished by the recently appointed PRO, that we are terming it as a 'Black Day'? Or is it because of what thousands of students who while performing their religious duty of fasting were terrified by the gun shot in the proctorial wing (KU’s law and order dept.) and then beaten, dragged and thrashed by the baton charge of external police forces had to go through? I will let you verify the facts and decide upon the authenticity of the events that led to what can only be called the most brutal and violent day in Kashmir University.

On 25th, the third day of the protest, students were peacefully demanding the release of Muzamil Dar, a fellow student, and assembled in front of the Vice Chancellor’s chamber. The proctor came out and said that the VC had just spoken to the DGP and he would update the Vice Chancellor in two hours. The students decided to wait and started discussing the relentless struggles of Tunisian, Egyptian, Palestinian and Chechnian people and raised anti-administration and pro-freedom slogans. During the Zuhr Salah (noon prayer), in the lawn in front of the VC’s chamber, students waited to hear from the Vice Chancellor and requested the intervention of the Chief Minister in facilitating the release of Muzamil. Unfortunately, the VC had no intentions to come out from the comfort of his cozy AC room while thousands of students were sitting in the scorching heat, waiting for his response. The students demanded that when the VC has no issues in participating in so called “cultural programs” which have an ulterior agenda i.e. “Sadbhavna” charity program, then why was he hesitant to come out for five minutes to update us about the case involving one of the students?

Meanwhile, a female student got into an argument with one of the proctorial police security guard who in no time responded with firing in the air to silence the loaded voice of that girl, and out of nowhere (on the order of the VC, which he accepted in a press statement), external police came and charged at us with batons. They were ruthlessly beating up students, dragging girls by their hair and thrashing anyone who came within the reach of their batons, without differentiating between male and female students.

Suddenly, what we saw was an exemplary moment of courage [envoke_twitter_link]when two girls stood and started beating the men in uniform back with kicks and slaps[/envoke_twitter_link]. In no time, every student turned back and hurled stones on the Vice Chancellor’s chamber, which I think was equally justified and a natural reaction considering the situation. I am amazed to see some intellectually bankrupt opportunists coming up with statements/articles which overtly or covertly are in defense of KU administration and attempt to poison the idea of political liberation of students, in a Foucauldian premise, from the shackles of power which functions through educational institutions.

Intellectual adventurism polished with linguistic jingoism can never deconstruct some grand narratives whether that is the belief in God or voices brimming with the idea of justice. Haven’t you heard that ideas are bulletproof and you cannot fire bullets on an ideology—Hum Kya Chahte!—Azadi. Nonetheless, it was not boys who crushed the glasses but those girls who were beaten and dragged by police who started dismantling everything which came in front of them. They started calling out to the Vice Chancellor and Proctor Nasir Iqbal about their moral standing for using police force to thrash students, especially girls. One of the girls shouted “Ghari chae na beni ti korie” (don’t you have daughters and sisters at your home?) “tuhie kyeapaeth loyewu assie tuhie aawu na insaaf” (how inhumanely you thrashed us, didn’t your heart stop you?) and the girl fainted on the spot. While she still resisted not breaking her fast, our Vice Chancellor ran away through the back door, probably because he was protecting his fast as he might have had to look at the na-maharam beating and dragging female students by the hair.

That day, we saw courage, steadfastness and political maturity in the eyes of Kashmir’s future generation against state oppression and violence. I can only smile at our University’s administration for their reductionist interpretation, but then this uncanny resemblance with the colonial state structure was also visible on 26th of June when girls were thrashed and forced to evacuate the hostels.

[envoke_twitter_link]Let us name them, boycott them and stand firm against them like a wall[/envoke_twitter_link] - the proctor whose security guard opened fire, the deputy proctor, his assistant, Heads of three departments, the DSW, our new PRO who sent a concocted and fabricated report and the valley’s widely read newspaper, which by default is supporting the university administration because it really cannot afford to lose the gatbandhan with the University due to the influx of money coming from advertisements.

An Appeal

Suppression and coercion can never permeate the hard-edged secularist agenda in Kashmir and will only strengthen, and add the fuel of commitment to the idea of Azadi in the consciousness of our upcoming generation. I am happy to see the statements of the Bar Association, the Doctors' Association, and the pro-freedom faction for criticizing the brute manifestation of state terrorism in the campus. But I am, not surprisingly, amazed to see the ideologues, architects, intellectuals and teachers of Kashmir University absent from the discourse. I would like to ask you, the torchbearers of Kashmir University, to have a moment without your conscience and ask yourselves: Who are you? Are you the worshippers of money? Or are you pacified subjects? Bathroom intellectuals? Who are you? Do you claim to shape the future of this nation? Do you really think so? I think you lost the legitimacy the day Rafiq Shah was arrested, the day more than hundred civilians were killed in 2008 and 2010 and you kept mum, the day Asiya and Neelofar were raped and killed in cold blood, the day Afzal Guru was hanged for satisfying the collective conscience of Indian nationalism, the day police used forces on the daughters of this nation and, last but not the least, you lost the legitimacy when time and again teachers and teachers-turned-administrators were in news for exploiting female students/scholars and you satiated your already dead conscience by chanting “Keep Silent”.

[envoke_twitter_link]I pity the conscience of the Vice Chancellor[/envoke_twitter_link], professors and administrators for issuing statements which are actually blatant lies and fabricated concoctions. Using power, psychological tactics and brute manifestation of state terrorism could never extinguish the light of resistance from the hearts of conscious people because they willingly and consciously believe in the idea of justice. We request you not to teach us intellectualism, morality, ethics and justice which altogether are absent from the quintessence of your existence. Call yourselves the slaves of your Nafs.

The author studies in Kashmir University and prefers anonymity because of threat to his career.

The post Kashmir University Protest: We Were Brutally Thrashed With Batons, Girls Dragged By Their Hair appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Urmi Rupa Pal:

On the morning of 21st June 2015, Sunday, three young men came to our house in Burdwan and informed us that the Ward Councilor has demanded to meet us regarding the RTI we had filed about an illegal construction on the wetland adjacent to our house. My father and I went to meet the Councilor, and saw a mob of 25-30 people waiting for us along with the Councilor.

What happened next was beyond our worst nightmare.

The councilor threatened us that if we wanted to live in that locality we would have to withdraw the RTI. When I objected to this they started beating my father holding him by his collar, as he fell down some men started to kick him on his chest. When I screamed and tried to save him, four men grabbed me and lifted me from the ground. They twisted my arms, took my cellphone away, thrashed it on the road, stole the memory card and stamped on the phone. [envoke_twitter_link]They threw me on the road and dragged me by my hair[/envoke_twitter_link]. They kicked me on my right shoulder and on my stomach. [envoke_twitter_link]When I tried to stand up they kicked me again[/envoke_twitter_link]. One of them grabbed me by my bottom and tore my leggings. As I screamed for help the Councilor asked the goons to teach me a lesson and kill my father. At last someone turned up to help and shouted at the goons. He handed me my broken phone. My father and I ran for our home. But, the ordeal did not end there. The Councilor gathered more people. They chased us home and tried to break in while continuously making indecent gestures at us and shouting “let the girl out and let us do an ‘RTI’ of the girl”. For forty-five minutes they vandalised our garden, broke our windows, and kept banging and kicking against the collapsible gate. They kept calling for shovels to break the door open and get me out. My mother had sent me upstairs, where I locked myself in and tried to call the police. As I did not get any response from 100, I called my colleagues and seniors.

[caption id="attachment_50288" align="aligncenter" width="731"] "They took my cellphone away, thrashed it on the road, stole the memory card and stamped on it."[/caption]

Why were we attacked on the main road in broad daylight in a meeting with our Ward Councilor? I work for a University Press and my parents are retired teachers. We have been living in this locality for 22 years and have done more than our fair share for the community. My father would religiously attest documents after documents for the locals when he was a Lieutenant with NCC. We would take part in all the important meetings and assemblies in our locality.

What went wrong was the fact that I have been fighting to save a wetland that belonged to the University of Burdwan for some time now by writing to people and collecting local support. The University had setup a board declaring the wetland to be the selected plot for an upcoming officers’ residence. After I had submitted a deputation collecting signatures from local residents to the VC, I came to know that the Botanical Survey of India had signed an MOU with the University to protect that same ecological zone. The VC said to the press that no concrete structures would come up in the area at the cost of wetlands and the University would take responsibility in protecting the flora and fauna of the region. The University decided to give a boundary to the wetland and in the process the contractors filled up a considerable portion of the wetland. Then, new construction started in the plots adjacent to that wetland, using the already filled up portion to transport raw materials.

When my father notified the VC, the University acted and closed the gap in the boundary wall, which stopped the easy access to raw materials for the workers. These upcoming constructions are not adhering to municipality laws. They are blocking the natural drainage system of the area, which is how the locality has flushed ever since it was inhabited. My father submitted an application to the municipality asking for help. Then he gave them a reminder as well. On getting no response, he filed an RTI on 15.06.15.

Two days after the attack, we moved to our relatives’ place in Kolkata for a period of three days. My parents and I could not bear the trauma anymore. While there, we received information that those miscreants, who attacked us on 21st June, were trying to plant false evidence at our home. We intimated the local PS, who sent a patrol and ensured us that things were under control. They requested us to come back to our home. When we came back day before yesterday, we saw that some more windows had been broken during our absence.

We are living in fear and pain while the culprits are still roaming free. How do we protect ourselves and the wetlands that belong to our community?

The post “They Threw Me On The Road And Dragged Me By My Hair”: How Filing An RTI Almost Cost Me My Life appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By IndiaSpend Team:

Decide your neighbourhood priorities, instead of leaving it to the government.

With that thought in mind, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia announced Rs 253 crore for a Swaraj (self-rule) fund. That is in tune with the way the first full budget of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government was prepared.

[caption id="attachment_50296" align="aligncenter" width="807"] Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (left) and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia at a budget consultation meeting with industry and trade bodies on June 3, 2015. Image: Govt. of Delhi[/caption]

There was “an overwhelming response” to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s appeal for public suggestions in creating the budget, Sisodia said in his June 25 budget speech. More than 1,500 were received after “extensive consultations” at public meetings, discussions with resident associations, NGOs and companies.

Education and health are clearly priorities for the controversy-prone government of India’s richest state, aware that both subjects are priorities for voters.

In a state with 86% literacy—the national average is 74%—and a strong family focus on schooling and jobs, Sisodia doubled the plan outlay on education to Rs 4,570 crore from Rs 2,219 crore in the previous year.

Some of the education proposals include:

1. Modern facilities and infrastructure in 1,011 government schools
2. Hire 20,000 regular teachers by the end of the year
3. Closed-circuit cameras in all classrooms of government schools
4. Fifty state schools to become “model schools”

[envoke_twitter_link]The government also plans three Indian Technology Institutes[/envoke_twitter_link] (ITIs) and five new polytechnics, designed to provide vocational training and so better job prospects of young voters.

Health spending will rise 45% from last year to Rs 3,138 crore. Plans include 500 mohalla (neighbourhood) clinics, three new hospitals—an addition of 1,800 beds—and the upgrading of 11 existing hospitals with 4,000 beds.

Sisodia also announced subsidies for new buyers of battery-operated four-wheelers and two-wheelers, and a fixed subsidy of Rs 15,000 to battery-operated rickshaw owners for promoting eco-friendly transport in Delhi.

Sisodia, as IndiaSpend reported earlier, said Delhi would have received Rs 25,000 crore had it been included in the 14th Finance Commission recommendations.

“The Fourteenth Central Finance Commission has recommended increased devolution of central taxes to states from 32% to 42%. Delhi being excluded from the terms of reference of the Finance Commission is deprived of the benefit from this recommendation, although Delhi has a separate consolidated fund like other states and all financial transactions of the Government are met from its own resources. Had this recommendation been applied to Delhi, then Delhi would have received approximately Rs 25,000 crore during the award period (2015-20),” Sisodia said.

Delhi complains against money from New Delhi

The estimated receipts are Rs 41,500 crore while proposed expenditure is Rs 41,129 crore with a surplus of Rs 371 crore.

“The share in central taxes and duties of NCT of Delhi, which is given by the Government of India, is at Rs 325 crore for this financial year and has remained stagnant since the last 14 years. In spite of the increased devolution of central taxes to states by Government of India from 32% to 42%, there has been no increase in devolution of central taxes to Delhi,” Sisodia said.

[envoke_twitter_link]Delhi has some of India’s best development indicators[/envoke_twitter_link]: a per capita income (at current prices) of Rs 2.41 lakh, almost three times the national per capita income of Rs 87,748, according to the Economic Survey presented last week; more than 97% of Delhi’s population lives in urban areas, according to census 2011; and the sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) of the state has improved to 868 in 2011 from 821 in 2001.

The infant mortality rate, an estimate of infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, is 22 as against the national average of 40. The maternal mortality ratio, the number of women aged 15-49 dying per 100,000 live births, is 146 in Delhi as against the national average of 167.

This article was originally published on IndiaSpend.

The post Delhi Budget 2015: 253 Crore For Self Rule, And More – Here’s How Delhi Plans To Spend appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Akhila Nagar:

When we talk about the forms of inequality that result from gender bias, we only consider the disadvantage faced by women, often completely ignoring what men face. While some of the concerns are legitimate, many, like #DontMancriminate do not make the cut.

[caption id="attachment_50315" align="aligncenter" width="541"] Image source: Maggcom[/caption]

#DontMancriminate is a campaign started by an Indian online lifestyle magazine called Maggcom, which aims to promote equality for men and women alike — with the emphasis on men.

One of the basic premises of #DontMancriminate is that men are part of a supposed “forgotten gender” and are always expected to behave like “gentlemen”. Feminists are being blamed for this lack of interest in the woes of men. Why? Because apparently they place so much emphasis on the liberation of women that they forget that men suffer too. While I would leave it to you to judge the merits of this often repeated argument, let's dissect the term “forgotten gender” - what does that even mean?

Feminists have for long argued that language is often used as a tool of oppression, and patriarchal appropriation and manipulation of discourse on gender justice through the use of such terms is not new either. Even if we were to briefly entertain the absurd idea behind the #DontMancriminate campaign - that of men being part of a "forgotten gender", we must examine what is being insidiously implied. Does it intend to serve as a justification of male oppression on women? Let's get some things straight here then - Even being the “forgotten gender” doesn’t allow you to rape women or abuse women in domestic spaces, or in any way be violent towards women. It doesn’t allow you to give preferential treatment to some workers in an office space. Sure, the law in India is in a few cases biased against men, such as in the case of section 498A of the IPC. But really, if you do think, after knowing that a woman is raped every 30 minutes in this country, that you are the “forgotten gender”, it's time for some honest introspection. Not being allowed free drinks and free entry into clubs cannot even be considered an issue when you think of the crimes committed against women every day in every sphere of their lives. [envoke_twitter_link]It hardly calls for a campaign like #ManCrimination.[/envoke_twitter_link]

The campaign also talks about how men are expected to be chivalrous, and how there's a moral pressure on men to vacate seats for women, or help them in physical tasks etc. In Medieval England, chivalry was associated with the code of conduct of Knighthood. What has chivalry turned into today? Is it about pleasing and respecting women or is it really about placating the male ego? Consider a man who gives you his seat on the metro when you didn't need it at all. Why did he do it? Was it simply because you were a woman or was it because he was a man, and patriarchy demands that a man must display 'masculine' behavior? It's important to put these things in perspective and not fall prey to such flawed logic of women oppressing men by demanding chivalry.

What really is the goal of this idea of ‘mancrimination’? Possibly, raising empathy for men and trying to unite them for a cause. But why do they feel the need for this gender segregated unity? Does the male ego feel threatened by the fact that there is another voice out there – the voice of feminism – that can destabilize the male centric power structures, and change the patriarchal order? Feminism doesn’t ask for a superior position for women, it demands equality. And [envoke_twitter_link]patriarchy definitely doesn’t want the current status quo to change[/envoke_twitter_link]. This campaign is just another attempt to do precisely that - maintain the patriarchal structures intact and try to rationalize it by trying to shame women for demanding equality.

The post The Absurdity Of The #DontMancriminate Campaign: Are Men Really Part Of A “Forgotten Gender”? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Prachi Salve:

• India’s child sex-ratio (below six years) is now the worst in 70 years, possibly the worst ever. The latest decline was from 927 (girls per 1,000 boys) in 2001 to 918 in 2011.
• The child sex-ratio, if it does not improve, will lead to a deficit of 23 million women in the 20-49 age group by 2040.
• Urbanisation is worsening the child sex-ratio: it is 905 in towns and cities, 923 in rural areas.
• Three of five states with the worst child sex-ratio have higher per capita income than the national average, but the link with prosperity is less clear.

Taking inspiration from a sarpanch (headman) in Haryana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his radio show Maan Ki Baat (On My Mind), on June 28, launched the hashtag #SelfieWithDaughter to draw attention to India’s plummeting sex ratio.

Amazed by the fantastic response to #SelfieWithDaughter. Its remarkable how people across the world have chipped in. http://t.co/eROV6qlM83

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 29, 2015

So, here is a look at the numbers:

The overall sex ratio has risen from 933 in 2001 to 943 in 2011, thanks to improved life expectancy among females to 67.7 years.

Demographers attribute improvements in the overall sex ratio to rising female life expectancy; women in India now outlive men, as lifestyles and diseases take a greater toll on men.

India overturns the natural balance

But the scenario for the future is grim because India’s declining child sex-ratio indicates that girls are increasingly being aborted, killed or otherwise dying:

The rate of decline has worsened in the years during which the overall sex ratio began to improve. This corresponds to the decades following 1981, offering evidence of sex-determination tests, selective abortion and female infanticide.

Only China, Pakistan Are Worse

How does India compare to its partners in BRIC and its neighbours?

Russia has the highest sex ratio with 1,165 women per 1,000 men, while Bhutan has the lowest with 897.

The urban sex ratio for 2011 is 905, while rural India’s is 923.

Rajasthan and J&K are the only two states in this list where the child sex-ratio has fallen further.

Prosperity Not Always A Cause For Low Sex Ratios

The link between low child sex-ratio and per capita income is tenuous. Three of five states with a low child sex-ratio have a higher per capita income than the national average.

23 Million Fewer Girls Predicted By 2040

The declining child sex-ratio will lead to a deficit of 23 million females in the 20-49 age group by 2040, according to a study by the United Nations Population Fund.

With fewer women of marriageable age, a significant proportion of men will have to delay their marriage.

It will also affect younger generations of men: they will face a backlog of older, unmarried men, who will still be in the “marriage market”.

“Scarcity of women would not enhance their position in society due to the simultaneous increase in pressure to marry, higher risk of gender-based violence, rising demand for sex work and the development of trafficking networks,” said the UN study.

This article was originally published on IndiaSpend.

Salve is a policy analyst with IndiaSpend.

The post #SelfieWithDaughter: Can India Save These 23 Million Girls? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Chaitanya Mallapur: 

Health Minister J P Nadda sparked scepticism when he declared on June 30 that India would reach the universal immunisation target, or 95% of all children, by the end of 2016.

India minister of health aims for 95% immunisation cover end 2016. At 65% now (stalled for 5 years). Is he smoking something inappropriate?

— Adam Roberts (@ARobertsjourno) June 30, 2015

The disbelief gets credence because less than four months ago Nadda told Parliament it would take five years to immunise 90% of India’s children. Only 65% of children are now immunised, the best rate achieved in 38 years since the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), as it is officially called, was started. It targets 27 million new-born children and 30 million pregnant women every year.

In India, 500,000 children die of vaccine-preventable diseases because one in three misses the benefits of full immunisation, according to government data.​​

“The government has launched Mission Indradhanush on December 25, 2014 with an aim to cover all those children who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated. The mission focuses on interventions to rapidly increase full immunisation coverage of children by approximately 5% annually, and to expand full immunisation coverage to at least 90% children in the next five years,” Nadda said in reply to a question in the upper house of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, on March 10, 2015.

Here’s how the rate of immunisation has grown over the years:

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; Figures in %

The current rate of immunisation has risen to 65.2% (2013-14) from 35.5% in 1992-93. The programme started in 1978. In 1985 it got its present name and was taken to all districts by 1989-90.

Under UIP, the government provides free vaccination against nine preventable diseases: diphtheria, pertussis (whopping cough), tetanus, polio, measles, a severe form of childhood tuberculosis, hepatitis B, meningitis/pneumonia due to haemophilus influenza B and Japanese Encephalitis.

Uttarakhand Does Well, U.P Lags

Uttarakhand with 79.6% coverage is the best-immunised state, according to the Annual Health Survey (AHS) 2012-13 while Uttar Pradesh with 52.7% is the worst.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

These nine are high-focus states since they constitute 50% of the country’s population, 60% births, 71% infant deaths, 72% under-5 deaths and 62% maternal deaths.

Even states that do better, such as Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, fall short by 20-25 percentage points in achieving universal immunisation.

Those like Goa (89.1%), Sikkim (85.2%) and Kerala (82.5%), which are not high-focus statesand do better than others, also fall short of universal coverage.

Lack of awareness among parents about vaccination benefits, fear of side-effects and a shortage of vaccines or have been cited as reasons for low immunisation.

The government programme centres on 201 high-focus districts that account for nearly 50% of partially vaccinated or unvaccinated children in India.

The government allocated Rs. 599.87 crore over the last three years to promote immunisation.

Source: RajyaSabha; Figures in Rs crore

Immunisation prevents approximately 2-3 million deaths globally every year from diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and measles.

In 2013, an estimated 21.8 million infants worldwide were not reached by routine immunisation; nearly half live in India, Nigeria and Pakistan, according to World Health Organisation.

This article was originally published on IndaSpend.

The post Fact Check: Why India’s Health Minister’s Tall Claims On Immunisation Might Fall Flat appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By YKA Staff:

The death toll of people linked to the Vyapam scam continues to increase with the mysterious death of India Today journalist Akshay Singh on 3rd July and the death of Dr. Arun Sharma, Dean of a medical college in Jabalpur this morning. Ironically, Singh had gone to Mehgnagar near Jhabua to interview the family of a girl who had also died mysteriously, when he suddenly started frothing from the mouth and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Similarly, Sharma was helping the SIT by providing them with relevant documents, before his sudden death. The police is already claiming that there are no signs of an unnatural death as far as Singh’s death is concerned, but there are allegations of poisoning which have surfaced. The number of people who have died due to their alleged involvement in the case has reportedly crossed 40. Despite mounting pressure from the Congress and the AAP, the BJP government has not yet ordered a CBI probe into the issue.

The mounting death toll and the refusal of the state government to order a CBI enquiry into the scam do not inspire faith or confidence in the present investigation. In many cases which have the possibility of implicating people in the higher echelons of power, it is often the few witnesses and others involved who become the primary targets in the effort to derail the investigation. The need of the hour is not only for an independent investigative probe from an agency outside the state, but also a vigorous witness protection program to ensure justice.

For details of the scam, please read this report by Abhishek Jha.

The post [Y]Xpress: With 2 ‘Mysterious’ Deaths In The Last 2 Days, Vyapam Scam Gets Murkier appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Ahmer Khan:

जून की तपती धूप में मुख्यमंत्री अरविंद केजरीवाल के आवास के बाहर तकरीबन पांच सौ छात्र भूख प्यास से बेहाल चौबीस घंटे सड़क पर धरना दिए बैठे रहे, जबकि यह समय प्रतियोगिता परिक्षाओं की तैयारी करने वाले इन छात्रो के लिए बेहद कीमती और कॉलेजो में एडमिशन की दौड़ धूप के लिए छात्रों का सबसे अहम समय होता है | इस पूरे धरना प्रर्दशन को अगर छात्र समस्यार के नज़रीए से ना भी देखा जाए तो भी इस असंतोष और धरने का कारण दिल्ली् में लम्बे् समय से चली आ रही मकान किराए में अनियमित बढ़ोतरी, और प्रापर्टी दलालों का शोषण चक्र, इसके मूल में है |

[caption id="attachment_50544" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Image credit: Delhi room rent control movement[/caption]

दिल्ली विश्‍वविद्यालय के आसपास के इलाकों या कोचिंग संस्थानों के नज़दीक के इलाकों में मकान किराएदारी की ये समस्या हमेशा से बनी रही है | वजह साफ है छात्र अपनी सुविधा एंव समय की बचत के हिसाब से इन इलाको को अपनी प्राथमिकता देते हैं | मगर दिल्ली में अभी तक मकान किराए को लेकर कोई ऐसी पुख्ता व्यवस्था नहीं है जो तार्किक और नियमानुसार हो | इस कड़ी में सबसे पहला मसला मकान किराए में बेतहाशा बढ़ोतरी है जो साल की दरों से ना बढ़ कर महीनों की दरों से बढ़ाई जा रही है | और इस बढ़ोतरी को व्यवस्थित रूप से अंजाम देने का काम प्रापर्टी डीलरों और कमीशन दलालों के जरीए बखूबी निभाया जा रहा है | दिल्ली विश्‍विधालय एंव उसके आस पास के इलाकों में एक कमरे के लिए दस से बारह हज़ार रूपया किराया वसूला जा रहा है जिसमें छात्रों को एक महीने के किराए की रकम के बराबर रूपये कमीशन दलाल को देने पड़ते है | [envoke_twitter_link]कमरो का किराया तय करने या उनको बढ़ाने का कोई पैमाना यहां पर काम नहीं करता है[/envoke_twitter_link] |[envoke_twitter_link] इसलिए किराए की दरें भी मनमाना तरीके से तय की जाती हैं[/envoke_twitter_link] |

ये सिलसिला यहीं तक खत्म नहीं हो जाता मकान मालिक प्रत्येत महीने आठ से दस रूपये प्रति यूनिट के हिसाब से बिजली बिल किराए में जोड़ कर किराया वसूल करते है | मकान मालिक और कमीशन एजेंट के गठजोड़ ने छात्रों के शोषण्‍ क्रम में एक युक्ति और खोज निकाली है जिसमें हर दूसरे तीसरे महीने मकान मालिक कमरे का किराया बढ़ाता है | ऐसी सूरत में या तो छात्र सर नवा कर किराया बढ़वा लेता है या तत्काल कमरा खाली कर एक बार फिर कमीशन एजेंट की जेबें गर्म कर बढ़े किराए के साथ रहने को अभिशप्‍त है |

मकान मालिको का नज़रीया है कि ये छात्र् इतने सक्षम है कि दिल्‍ल्‍ाी में अाकर पढ़ाई कर रहे हैं तो किराया देने में इनको किसी प्रकार की कोई समस्‍या नहीं आनी चाहिए | पूरे छात्र् समुदाय के आर्थिक पुष्‍टभूमि का सामान्‍यीकरण्‍ा कर पूरे हक और ठसक के साथ मकान मालिक किराया वसूलते है , ऐसी स्थिति में खासकर उन छात्रों के लिए किराए पर कमरा लेना जान पर बन आती है जो गरीब एंव आर्थिक रूप से कमज़ोर परिवारों से संबंध रखतें है |

[envoke_twitter_link]कमीशन दलाली की इस व्यवस्था की पहुंच कानूनी अहलकारों तक भी है[/envoke_twitter_link] | सवाल चाहे किराएदार के पुलिस वैरीफिकेशन का हो या रेंट एग्रीमेंट का हर मसले का गैरकानूनी हल कानूनी तरीके से निकालना कमीशन दलाल के लिए आसान है | एक अच्छीं रकम के नजराने के साथ बिना रेंट एग्रीमेंट लगाए किराएदारों का पुलिस वैरीफिकेशन दिल्ली पुलिस के ज़रीए करवा लेना कमीशन एजेंटो के लिए कोई मुश्किल बात नहीं है | यहां गौर करने लायक बात ये है कि मकान मालिक या कमीशन एजेंट कभी किसी भी तरह का कोई रैंट एग्रीमेंट किराएदार छात्र से नहीं करवातें है ऐसी स्थिति में कमीशन एजेंट और मकान मालिक के हाथ में अधिकार रहता है कि किसी भी समय वो किराएदार से मकान खाली करने के लिए कह सकता है और किराएदार से कमरा खाली करवाने में अगर मुस्तैद दिल्ली पुलिस अपनी सेवा प्रदान करती है तो ये कानूनन नाजायज़ भी नहीं होता |

इस पूरे गोरखधंधे का विरोध करने और इसकी समाप्ति के लिए छात्र लगातार दिल्ली रैंट कंट्रोल एक्ट लागू करने की मांग दिल्ली सरकार से कर रहें है जो सन 1958 पारित किया गया था जिसको बाद में 1995 में संशोधित भी किया गया है | लेकिन सरकार की तरफ से आश्वासन के अलावा अभी तक कोई ठोस कार्यवाही को अंजाम नहीं दिया गया है | सरकार की तरफ से किसी ठोस कार्यवाही की उम्मीेद में छात्रो का संघर्ष् उसी तरह जारी है, मगर छात्रो के शोषण में किसी तरह की कोई कमी अभी तक नहीं आयी है, ये हकीकत भी अपने पूरे वजूद के साथ कायम है |

Take campus conversations to the next level. Become a YKA Campus Correspondent today! Sign up here.

Also Read: DU Admissions 2015: When Living In Delhi Is Harder Than Getting Into Delhi University

The post दिल्ली विश्‍वविद्यालय में मकान मालिकों और कमीशन एजेंटों का गोरखधंधा appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Video Volunteers:

Students at the Government Girls’ Upgraded School in Shopian face bizarre circumstances in trying to get an education. Some are cramped into a kitchen converted to a classroom, others wait their turn for classrooms to get empty. Still others queue up for ages to get to the single toilet.

While the school has been upgraded from a nursery to primary school, it hasn’t received any government funds since to build the additional infrastructure needed.

The post [Y]ral: 5 Classes Cramped In A Kitchen: How Kashmiri Girls Are Fighting All Odds For An Education appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By YKA Staff:

In a first, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that an unwed mother could have the guardianship of a child without the need for the consent of the father. The petitioner, a gazetted government officer, had argued that she should be allowed to have sole guardianship of her child as the father of the child had known her for only two months and passport application forms don't require one to mandatorily identify one's father.

[caption id="attachment_50631" align="aligncenter" width="666"] Image credit: wikimedia commons[/caption]

This move has been welcomed because of the stigma surrounding children born to unmarried parents. The SC ruling shows that there is nothing wrong with a parent having sole guardianship when there is no procedural necessity for identifying both parents. A court appointed advocate had earlier argued that the child did have the right to know the father and have his affection. However, the mother had argued that since the father did not even know about the child, [envoke_twitter_link]she should not be bound to identify the father of the child[/envoke_twitter_link].

In Githa Hariharan vs Reserve Bank of India, the court had interpreted Section 6 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, to declare that both parents are the natural guardians of a child. The new SC ruling is going to create a further precedent for the mother not being treated as a guardian after the father, which a literal interpretation of the Act would deem.

Note: This article has been edited to add the argument about the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956.

The post [Y]Xpress: Unwed Mothers Don’t Require Father’s Consent For Child’s Guardianship, Rules SC appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Parijata Bhardwaj:

How often have you felt that you have been wronged? Or lamented the general unfairness of life and its amazing ability to single you out? I know I have, on several occasions but I have also over the years realized that this unfairness does not affect everyone in the same way, and the reason for it is one word – privilege. The hierarchical nature of our society ensures that some people, by the very nature of their identity, enjoy certain privileges. If you belong to the upper caste you are privileged, if you are a man you are privileged, if you belong to the majority religion you are privileged, and the list goes on. The danger of privilege is in the fact that it is often invisible to those who benefit from it, and thus usually blinds them. Your privilege affords you certain liberties and opportunities, and this fact often goes unacknowledged.

[envoke_twitter_link]So, how can we become aware of our privilege?[/envoke_twitter_link] The video below showcases a simple exercise to get an idea of the privilege one enjoys and an individual's social location. It is a stark reminder of how privilege is an enabler, and why we need affirmative action to bridge inequality. Even though the questions on race in this exercise do not apply in the Indian context, replacing it with 'caste' would not be too different.

The post [Y]ral: Want To Know How Privileged You Are? This Simple Exercise Will Give You A Reality Check appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Jyotsna Singh:

Note: This article has been republished from Down To Earth.

A brand new advertisement with a twist starring real people, not actors, is going to haunt international soft drink giant Coca Cola. Washington-based non-profit health advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has re-made a 1971 ad of Coke with a change of lyrics. [envoke_twitter_link]It stars people suffering from diabetes, tooth decay, weight gain[/envoke_twitter_link], and other diseases related to soda consumption. Originally in English, the ad has been dubbed into many language including Hindi and Chinese.

In Coke’s “Hilltop”, which was first aired in 1971, actors sing, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony; I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company.” But according to the US-based nonprofit health advocacy organisation behind the new video, CSPI, it is time to change the lyrics.

“For decades, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, and other makers of sugar drinks have used sophisticated, manipulative advertising techniques to convince children and adults alike that a disease-promoting drink will make them feel happy and even sexy,” said CSPI executive director Michael F Jacobson. “And they are increasingly doing what the tobacco industry has done: market their unhealthy beverages in low and middle-income countries. They are investing billions of rupees in India, China, and other countries to distract us away from tooth decay and diabetes with happy thoughts. We thought it was time to change the tune.”

Jacobson said that because Indians and Chinese drink much less sugar drinks than people in the United States, Europe, and Mexico, companies see those countries are opportunities for huge future profits. However, he said, the increased marketing and consumption of the drinks will inevitably lead to increasing rates of obesity, tooth decay, diabetes, and heart disease.

[envoke_twitter_link]India’s per capita carbonated beverage consumption was around 0.6 litres[/envoke_twitter_link] in 2013. The Chinese consumption was 1.47 litres per person in the same year. This is way below 19.96 litres among Americans and 20.61 litres in Mexicans. Even in South American countries, consumption of carbonated drinks is high. In Argentina, per capita consumption in 2013 was 16.56 litres, it was 15.37 litres in Chile and 9.72 litres in Brazil.

“With companies investing billions of dollars to maximise consumption of sugary soft drinks in India, as well as other low and middle-income countries, those nations must take steps to protect the public’s health,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, of the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi.

A paper published in international journal Circulation shows that there were 180,000 deaths in the world in 2010 due to consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, with 72.3 per cent from diabetes, 24.2 per cent from cardiovascular disease, and 3.5 per cent from cancers. The findings demonstrated 75 per cent of deaths in low and middle income countries.

In 2010, 2.7 million deaths occurred due to lack of consumption of fruit and vegetables. Authors of the paper titled Estimated Global, Regional, and National Disease Burdens Related to Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption in 2010, argued that "compared with sodium which is nearly ubiquitous across the food supply, or fruits and vegetables which represent large and diverse classes of foods, sugary soft beverages represent only a single class of beverage."

The post Study Reveals The Real Reason Why Soft Drink Companies Are Investing Billions In India And China appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.

By Saswati Chatterjee:

Satoru Iwata, Chief Executive Officer of Nintendo, passed away on July 11, 2015. He was 55 years old. His death was mourned across the industry, especially for many for whom his name was synonymous with that of Nintendo itself. Iwata took over Nintendo in 2002 and was the push behind many of Nintendo’s most innovative devices, including the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

[caption id="attachment_50998" align="aligncenter" width="667"] Image credit: Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

When the Nintendo DS first came to light, early in 2004, many questioned Nintendo’s decision to move away from their earlier, extremely popular Game Boy series (which would continue on for sometime after the DS was revealed). The Nintendo DS, with its dual screen and stylus was a novelty then, and it took the world by storm. It is the second best selling console of all time, beaten only by Sony’s Playstation 2. The Nintendo DS eventually became the successor to the Game Boy series and was eventually succeeded by the DSi (a more streamlined version of itself) and finally the Nintendo 3DS. All of these consoles have remained extremely popular in the market and Iwata was instrumental in carving out a niche for Nintendo in the gaming world.

Not only the handheld console, but Nintendo also broke ground in the home console markets under Iwata’s leadership. It introduced the Wii, a home console which competed directly with the likes of the Playstation 3 (Sony) and the Xbox 360 (Microsoft) and even against these giants, Nintendo was able to hold its own. The Wii has more worldwide sales than both of the above consoles and has remained extremely popular because of its broad and family friendly appeal. It was succeeded by the Wii U which became the first 8th generation console.

Iwata is also fondly remembered in the Industry for his contribution to the wildly popular Pokemon games. He worked on both Pokemon Gold and Silver for the Gameboy Colour as well Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64, though he was not employed by Nintendo and initially worked for HAL Laboratory. It helped that Iwata’s background was in programming which allowed him to understand the nuances of the gaming industry as well as gaming itself. As Iwata put it, “On my business card, I’m a corporate president. In my mind, I’m a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”

This simple logic and understanding took Iwata from strength to strength. If he was liked within the Industry he was loved within Nintendo, with the company flying its flag at half mast following the announcement of his death after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was a man who was not afraid to take risks, as shown with both the Wii and the Nintendo DS. All his risks did not pay off, as is evidence with the Wii U, but Iwata did not let this stop him and he soon unveiled the Nintendo 2Ds, a cheaper version of the 3DS for younger children as well as announcing Nintendo’s move to mobile gaming, a move which is likely to bolster Nintendo’s recent flagging sales.

In an industry vying for the next most popular game or console, he was a man who remembered what it meant to be a gamer at heart. He will be missed.

The post “But in my heart, I am a gamer”, Satoru Iwata, The Man Who Put Nintendo On The Map appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz.