Wednesday, 10 December 2014

You Won't Believe How Delhi Police Found The Uber Office

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On Saturday morning, as investigators from the Delhi Police scrambled to crack the case, they stumbled upon an unexpected hurdle—what is Uber and where is the company located?
"We found no records online," said Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police of north Delhi where the case has been registered. "It was a totally clueless situation." The cops searched online for a Delhi address for the San Francisco-headquartered company and couldn't find one.
It was already the dead of night when the police received the complaint—around 1.30 am—and the survivor was traumatised and needed medical attention. "It was frustrating because there was no information available on where they (Uber) were based out of," said a senior police officer investigating the case.
And then, Delhi Police decided to end their web search and step out on to the streets. They downloaded the Uber app and created a Paytm account to be able to pay—Uber in India accepts payments only through the third-party Paytm wallet.
Using the Paytm wallet app, they paid for a Uber cab and caught hold of the driver who was assigned to them. "We asked the driver to take us to the Uber office," said Verma, explaining how the police team finally found the Gurgaon office of the company.

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Today 6:25 PM IST
Uber Cab Driver Had Two Previous Rape Cases, Is a Compulsive Sex Offender
Haidar Naqvi for the Hindustan Times: 
"An Uber cab driver accused of raping a young executive in Delhi was involved in not one but two previous rape cases , including one in Mainpuri district in Uttar Pradesh in 2013 for which he was arrested but released on bail six months later."
“He is a compulsive sex offender. You won’t find a single household in the village whose woman he hadn’t teased or molested. I know no less than 26-27 cases that never reached police,” said Kushun Singh, a farmer.
Today 11:23 AM IST
Uber, Ola, TaxiForSure banned in Delhi until they get licence; Other states may follow suit
"Late on Monday, the Delhi Transport Department issued a public notice saying only Mega Cabs, Meru Cabs, Easy Cabs, Chanson, Yo Cabs and Air Cabs were licensed to operate radio taxis and all other taxi services are illegal till licensed. This would mean other Ubertype app-based taxi services such as OlaCabs and TaxiForSure also stand banned from operating in the national capital region."
12/08/2014 2:44 PM IST
Twitter Reaction Roundup #2: #Uber #Delhi #Rape
12/08/2014 2:35 PM IST
Delhi Police Certified That Shiv Kumar Yadav Had No Criminal Record
H/T: amlanweb
12/08/2014 2:17 PM IST
Delhi Government Bans Uber
Via Economic Times: The Delhi Government has acted after the rape incident involving a 25-year-old woman in Delhi and has issued an order on Monday banning the services of Uber India in Delhi, saying it is misleading customers. This means any taxi plying in Delhi using Uber's services can now attract fines and even be impounded.
12/08/2014 1:37 PM IST
100 AAP Supporters Over Protests Outside Home Minister's Office

India Today Reports: 100 AAP supporters, including four former party MLAs, were detained on Monday for staging a protest outside Home Minister Rajnath Singh's official residence in New Delhi over inaction against the Uber cab company.
12/08/2014 1:04 PM IST
Uber CEO Makes A Statement, Promises To Establish Clear Background Checks
"What happened over the weekend in New Delhi is horrific. Our entire team's hearts go out to the victim of this despicable crime. We will do everything, I repeat, everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery.
We will work with the government to establish clear background checks currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programs. We will also partner closely with the groups who are leading the way on women’s safety here in New Delhi and around the country and invest in technology advances to help make New Delhi a safer city for women."
- Travis Kalanick, Uber CEO
12/08/2014 12:59 PM IST
Some Reads On Uber While You're At Lunch
12/08/2014 12:25 PM IST
Twitter Reaction Roundup: #Uber #Delhi #Rape
12/08/2014 12:17 PM IST
Shocking Stat: 93 Women Raped In India Every Day
A story published in TOI earlier this year reports: 
"According to NCRB data, there is a gradual increase in the number of rapes reported in India - from 24,923 in 2012 to 33,707 in 2013."
12/08/2014 12:04 PM IST
uberX Drivers Had A Bad Reputation Among Delhi Uber Users.
Via Qz India:
"Within the Uber community in New Delhi, said Mahendra, drivers of uberX—the cab service category the alleged victim took on Friday—have a reputation for being less polite than others."
Have you had a bad experience with uberGO or uberX? Send in your tweets or sound off in the comments below.
12/08/2014 11:45 AM IST
Uber operates from three-four rooms on the ground floor of Signature Hotel, Gurgaon
Ananya Bharadwaj in Indian Express."The Station House Officer found that Uber operates from three-four rooms on the ground floor of Signature Hotel, near IFFO Chowk, Gurgaon."
12/08/2014 11:35 AM IST
Outrage Over Uber Rape Case On Twitter: 'It Could Have Been Me'
Messages of outrage have flooded Twitter since the weekend. For many women, the Uber rape harks back to the chilling reality that hit home after the Delhi gang rape: it could have been me.
12/08/2014 11:30 AM IST
You Won't Believe How Delhi Police Found The Uber Office
Indrani Basu writes: 
On Saturday morning, as investigators from the Delhi Police scrambled to crack the case, they stumbled upon an unexpected hurdle—what is Uber and where is the company located? Continue Reading.Posted: 
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"Centre for Social Research established the Gender Training Institute (GTI) in 1997, to facilitate women’s empowerment and social justice through capacity building and training-related activities"

India’s first online course : Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace

Dr. Ranjana Kumari - Director, Centre for Social Research
Centre for Social Research has contributed it’s support to generating awareness and combating sexual harassment at workplace by developing India’s first online course on the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act that in partnership with Rainmaker and Ford Foundation. It is referred to as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), this is a free course featuring lectures by Dr. Ranjana Kumari accompanied by written course material explaining the requirements of the sexual harassment law. This Massive Open Online Course (“MOOC”), will provide the learner with a fundamental understanding of this Act in a simple, concise and comprehensive manner. It will introduce the mechanisms and procedures instituted by the Act to enable a safe working environment for women.
Gender sensitization training is the practical tool for analysing gender relations and provide adequate information regarding major factors that influence and are responsible for maintaining or change the structure of gender relations. It is also a development intervention which aims at awareness, knowledge, skill and behaviour in relation to gender. It concerns with developing skills, capacity to translate such awareness into very specific tools that can be used into practice. 

Gender training may be seen as methodology of consciousness raising and social empowerment, individually or collectively, or as a way of making project design and implementation or service delivery more gender sensitive or as a means to effect institutional changes. With the knowledge, appropriate policy, intervention can be designed to enhance women’s status enabling them to take an equal place with men and to participate equally in the development process. 

Often students, or people working within a governmental or non-governmental setting, don’t have a clear understanding of gender mainstreaming and analysis or how to contribute to gender equality. It is for this reason that gender trainings came to existence. Gender training is a tool and a process that demonstrates to organizations and policy makers how to incorporate gender considerations into all areas of their projects and policies.http://www.gendertraining.in/
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यूट्यूब से कैसे होती है कमाई? श्वेता पांडेय मुंबई से बीबीसी हिंदी डॉट कॉम के लिए

एक्शन जैकसन
नब्बे के दशक और 2000 के दशक के शुरुआती दौर में नई फ़िल्मों का ट्रेलर देखने के लिए लोग टीवी पर चैनल बदलते नज़र आते थे.
लेकिन अब ज़माना बदल गया है. छोटी बड़ी सभी तरह की फ़िल्मों के ट्रेलर सीधे यूट्यूब पर ही लॉन्च हो रहे हैं.
यहीं नहीं एआईबी, द वायरल फ़ीवर, द प्रीटेन्शस मूवी रिव्यू जैसे कार्यक्रम तो ख़ासतौर पर यूट्यूब पर ही प्रसारित होते हैं और इन्हें देखने वालों की भी तादाद कम नहीं है.
टीवीएफ़
यहां तक कि पूरी की पूरी फ़िल्म ही इस प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पर उपलब्ध होती है.
लोग इस पर व्‍यक्तिगत चैनल बनाकर वीडियो ब्रॉडकास्‍ट कर रहे हैं इसके बदले में उन्‍हें यूट्यूब पैसा दे रहा है.
लेकिन सवाल है कि यूट्यूब पर अपना वीडियो या कार्यक्रम डालकर लोग पैसा कैसे कमाते हैं?

पढ़िए पूरी रिपोर्ट

पूरी की पूरी फ़िल्में यूट्यूब पर उपलब्ध होने से क्या निर्माता को नुक़सान नहीं होता?
टीवीएफ़
क्या इससे पायरेसी का ख़तरा नहीं पैदा होता?
एक आम व्यक्ति इस प्लेटफ़ॉर्म से कैसे पैसे कमा सकता है?
यूट्यूब के कंटेंट ऑपरेशंस प्रमुख सत्या राघवन के मुताबिक़ वीडियो बनाने वाले से लेकर विज्ञापन देने वाले भी यूट्यूब से अच्‍छी आमदनी कर रहे हैं.
टीवीएफ़
सत्या बताते हैं, "बीते एक साल में लोगों का रुझान इस ओर काफ़ी हुआ है. इस बात को बॉलीवुड ने भी काफ़ी अच्छी तरह से समझा और फ़िल्म निर्माता भी अपनी फिल्मों के प्रमोशन तक के लिए यूट्यूब के चैनल पर आने लगे हैं."

'नहीं होती पायरेसी'

'हैप्पी न्यू ईयर'
पायरेसी के सवाल पर सत्या ने कहा, "पायरेसी का ख़तरा इससे नहीं हो सकता है, क्योंकि फ़िल्म बनने के बाद निर्माता-निर्देशक यूट्यूब से संपर्क कर लेते हैं, साथ ही 29 से 60 दिन का क़रार भी होता है. फिल्म सिनेमाहॉल से उतरने के बाद ही यूट्यूब पर आती है."
पैसा, यूट्यूब के वीडियो पर आने वाले विज्ञापनों से आता है.
सत्या बताते हैं कि विज्ञापनों से आने वाली आमदनी का 45 फ़ीसदी यूट्यूब और 55 फ़ीसदी वीडियो के निर्माता को जाता है.
डेल्ही बैली
'शूटआउट एट लोखंडवाला' जैसी फ़िल्म बना चुके अपूर्व लखिया कहते हैं, "यह एक बहुत अच्छा मंच है. यहां हम दर्शकों को वह भी दिखा सकते हैं, जिन्हें आम तौर पर नहीं दिखाया जा सकता. मसलन फिल्म की मेकिंग आदि."
वहीं ‘डेल्ही-बेली’ के निर्देशक अभि‍नय देव का कहना है, "यूट्यूब की वजह से आपका उत्पाद ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा दर्शक देख सकते हैं, यह बॉलीवुड के लिए भी बड़ा और अच्छा मंच है."

'सेंसरशिप नहीं'

हां, यूट्यूब से सीडी/डीवीडी पार्लर और बाज़ार पर ज़रूर विपरीत असर पड़ने की बातें हो रही हैं.
दिनों दिन इंटरनेट की बढ़ती रफ़्तार से अब इस प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पर वीडियो देख पाना उपभोक्ताओं को ज़्यादा सुविधाजनक लगने लगा है.
टीवीएफ़
लेकिन कई दफ़ा यूट्यूब पर ऐसी सामग्री आ जाती है जो कई लोगों को आपत्तिजनक लगती है.
अभी इस प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पर आने वाले वीडियो पर किसी तरह की सेंसरशिप का कोई प्रावधान नहीं है.
हां, अगर किसी को इन पर आपत्ति हो तो वो यूट्यूब को रिपोर्ट कर सकता है जिसे सही पाने पर उस वीडियो को हटा दिया जाता है.
(बीबीसी हिंदी के एंड्रॉएड ऐप के लिए आप यहां क्लिक कर सकते हैं. आप http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/entertainment/2014/12/141204_you_tube_story_pkp?ocid=socialflow_facebookहमेंफ़ेसबुक और ट्विटर पर फ़ॉलो भी कर सकते हैं.)
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'Men must realise they are messed up by patriarchy’ Send Comments


Most feminists in India have tended to see men as adversaries. They have fought with passion for women’s rights. NGOs have reached out to women in rural areas and slums. These efforts have resulted in greater awareness of women’s rights. There are now stringent laws and policies in place. But violence against women continues and so does preference for a male child. 
The solution seems to be in having more men involved in achieving gender equality. Globally, male feminism is on the rise. An indication of this trend was the second MenEngage international conference that took place at Delhi’s India Habitat Centre over 10-13 November. Delegates from all over the world discussed strategies to involve men in birthing, fathering, household duties and in being equal partners in marriage. There were also sessions on changing the way men think of masculinity. 
A report was released, “Masculinity, Intimate Partner Violence and Son Preference in India”. The study, by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) and UNFPA, covered a sample of 10,000 men across seven states in India – Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
It revealed that 60 per cent of men admitted to violence against their wives. Fifty-two per cent of women reported experiencing violence. Men who experienced economic stress were more likely to be violent with their partners. Only 15 per cent of men involved the wife in making decisions concerning the family.
A majority of men (67 per cent) and women (47 per cent) wanted an equal number of male and female children. More women (81 per cent) than men (76 per cent) considered it very important to have at least one son.
Men who were educated and had higher incomes were more likely to value gender equality and tended to exercise less control over their partners.
Kamla Bhasin, a feminist from the NGO sector, is the founder of Jagori, a women’s rights group. She spoke to Civil Society about the significance of the UNFPA-ICRW report and why, despite the feminist movement, gender rights remain on paper.

What are the implications of this report?
Our Constitution states clearly that men and women are equal and discrimination is not allowed. So you see the gap between the values in the Constitution and the values of the society we live in. The 60 per cent of men in the study who admit to violence against women are violating the Constitution. 
The other finding was that only 52 per cent of women said that violence is done to them. Women seem to be ashamed of living with violence. The men are, perhaps, unashamed to admit that they inflict violence. What is tragic is that, until now, government figures stated that 40 per cent of husbands beat their wives. This study was undertaken in six states where masculinity and patriarchy are much stronger and it revealed that 60 per cent of men beat their wives. 
We keep talking about Asian values, Indian values. Now this is the Indian family.

So the study is a mirror of the Indian family?
Absolutely. Maybe the figure can vary by, say, 5 per cent but even the Government of India accepted the 40 per cent figure a long time ago.
The corresponding worrying figure is the child sex ratio. It is continuously going down. Now that is an extreme form where you go to the extent of murdering your daughter in the womb. How can that family be together after that murder? For the sake of a few thousand rupees a doctor and his team commit this crime. According to data, 35 million girls are missing in India because they have been killed by patriarchy.

You have more people in the middle class. Statistically, more people are being educated. But you say the increase in violence and the sex ratio have only got worse. Why?
The reason is that this paradigm of economic development values only profit, unlimited profit and greed. Once profit becomes your goal then there is no other value, of non-violence, of love. You want what represents strength, like boys. We are still patriarchal.

But the Indian state has implemented so many laws, schemes and policies for women’s empowerment. So, according to you, why has nothing worked?
This is all due to neoliberal globalisation and our economic policies. China wanted to control its population. They had a one-child policy and that one child had to be a boy. Here we don’t have a one-child policy but the middle class doesn’t want more than two children. So how can you have two girls? You can have two boys, though.

So how do you get the men involved in gender rights, then?
The only way we can do that is by doing what we are doing: organising, starting NGOs, going to communities. Our tragedy has been that we have been to villages, to slums, basically to the poor. We have done no work with the middle class. How do we work with them, they are the most individualistic. They are never going to listen to us. All the work Jagori has done for the past 30 years is with the working class. If a woman in a slum is beaten, she will shout openly. But a middle class woman will want to keep things quiet, within the family.

But the middle class becomes a role model for the poor.
Yes, but look where they are headed.

What is the kind of activism you would like to see by the state and by NGOs?
All political parties, the BJP, the Congress and the Communist parties, follow the same economic paradigm of neoliberalism when they come to power. We can’t remove patriarchy unless economic policies change.

So, is male feminism a growing movement?
Definitely.

What are the good examples at this conference of men getting involved in gender rights?
There are many. I, for instance, have been doing workshops in South Asia, in Bangladesh with NGOs, in the Maldives with Members of Parliament and with police officers.
In Himachal Pradesh, Jagori is working in over 150 villages, with adolescent girls and boys, talking about these issues. Two weeks ago we sent a dancer to Chandigarh to denigrate masculinity through a performance. Tomorrow, a troupe of male dancers from Punjab will do a sensitive dance at the closing ceremony of the conference.

Why would men get involved if, as you say, they have all the power in Indian society?
If there were only patriarchy, then all men would be powerful. But there is class and caste. So 50 per cent of men are powerless. Dalits are about 40 per cent of the population. They are also powerless.
Men who work as drivers, domestic workers, waiters and in other low-paid jobs realise how painful it is to be without power, to be insulted. I joined Manas, a mental health organisation,  in training 100,000 auto-rickshaw drivers in Delhi. We have finished training 40,000.

What is this training about?
The auto-rickshaw drivers have to come (to the licence office) once a year for renewal of their certificates. We requested them to give us one hour of their time. They eventually agreed. During that time we spoke to their sense of humanness. We said rape is increasing in Delhi and you people are the ones mostly on the road. Around 50 per cent of them had migrated to Delhi to earn a living. I told them, Delhi is giving you mobility, you are giving Delhi mobility. So please save the girls. If things continue like this, tourism will suffer and so will your business. If girls don’t come out, your earnings will decline. 
Then I am part of the One Billion Rising campaign. This is the biggest campaign in the world with 207countries and I am the South Asian coordinator.
In Western countries because of male insensitivity, 50 per cent of marriages end in divorce. So if we want to save the family, the marriage, the community, and male humanness, we have to remove violence. Once men understand that they are also messed up by patriarchy, it will mean freedom for all. Equal rights in the family means four capable people rather than two.

Are men seeing the benefit of what you are saying?
Definitely. Yesterday an American professor presented research on families where men are doing household work. What is the impact? Those men are happier because they are spending more time with their children. Their children are doing better in class. Their children are happier because there is no violence. The wives are happier.
But liberation is never individual. It is related to structure. So you have to deal with structures of caste, class, corporate globalisation and neoliberalism, if you want meaningful change. http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/pages/Details.aspx?626

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Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Indian sterilisation patient: ‘I was slapped and told to calm down’

Woman recounts treatment at camp where 15 women have died after taking antibiotics possibly tainted by rat poison chemical
Shivkumari Yadav sits with daughters Prisha, two months, Mansi, three, and her mother Mahasin Bai
Shiv Kumari Yadav (right) sits with daughters Prisha, two months, and Mansi, three, as her mother Mahasin Bai looks on. Photograph: Alok Putul for the Guardian
A woman who became seriously ill at the Indian sterilisation camps that have killed 15 women has spoken of being slapped by a doctor and told to “calm down” after screaming in pain at the procedure.
Shiv Kumari Yadav, 27, attended one of the clinics in Chhattisgarh, eastern India, at which antibiotics were handed out that authorites have said might have contained rat poison. She said she had stomach cramps and vomited after taking antibiotic pills following the operation.
Yadav is a tall, slight mother-of-three, her hands and feet roughened from hauling bricks all day. Her two-month-old daughter, Prisha, sat in her lap as she spoke about the camp, which has ignited debate in India about the country’s population control policies and healthcare system.
Yadav’s story appears to implicate the pills for the illnesses and possibly the deaths. Officials say samples have been sent to laboratories in Delhi and Kolkata for further testing.
Yadav said she went voluntarily to the sterilisation camp on 8 November. “We decided after my youngest was born that we did not want any more children,” she said from her bed in the large ward at the government-run Chattisgarh Institute of Medical Science (CIMS), where many of those who fell sick have been admitted.
During the surgery, Yadav said, she was awake and at one point screamed because of the pain. But the doctor slapped her lightly and said: “Calm down – it’s almost over.”
Ten minutes later, after she had been stitched up, Yadav said she and her husband paid for an auto-rickshaw home, an extravagance for a couple who earn $4 between them on days when they can find work hauling sand, concrete or bricks at construction sites in Bilaspur town.
“We were given $10 for having the operation,” she said. “We spent $8 to hire the autorickshaw.”
Hours later, back home in their village of Ghutgu, 16km away, Shiv Kumari said she swallowed two of the white, oblong Ciprocin pills that had been prescribed.
“First I got terrible stomach cramps,” she said. “Then I began vomiting. I went to our local government clinic and the nurse gave me medicine to stop the vomiting, but the next day it started again, and then I fainted.”
Yadav was initially taken to a private hospital where doctors said her condition was too serious. She ended up at CIMS, along with other women who had attended the camp.
One woman from her own village, who arrived a day after Yadav, died.
“We’re lucky that we live close to town,” said Mahasin Bhai, Yadav’s mother. “If the hospital had been any further away, there would have been a carpet of corpses.”
State officials said on Saturday that tablets were found to contain a chemical compound commonly used in rat poison. Preliminary tests of Ciprocin were found to contain zinc phosphide, said Siddhartha Pardeshi, the chief administrator for Bilaspur district.
However on Sunday the company involved denied any wrongdoing, claiming all that had been found was a sticky pad used to catch rats in a storeroom and this had snowballed into “exaggerated” reports that the pills contained rat poison.
The antibiotics were handed out at the sterilisation camp. Three other patients, not involved in the camps but who reportedly took the same pills, have also died.
The deaths have fuelled criticism in India about its population control and family planning policies – from the unofficial targets set to sterilise women, to the appalling conditions in camps and the lack of contraceptive choices for women.
The discovery of potentially tainted antibiotics highlights yet another problem, that of India’s largely unregulated pharmaceutical sector.
Activists and patients have described an assembly-line operation at last week’s camp, where nurses filled in women’s names on consent forms and did blood and urine tests without sharing the results.
“The women we spoke to said they were placed four to five on a bed and given five injections, two in each arm and one in the abdomen,” said Kerry McBroom, of the Human Rights Law Network, a Delhi-based collective of lawyers and activists. “They were taken into the operating theatre and after the procedure they were put in other beds or on the floor and stitched up.”
McBroom, who was in Chattisgarh to document women’s stories as part of ongoing litigation challenging the government-run camps, said none of the women nor the health workers she spoke to knew anything about the tubectomy procedure being performed. Only three of 15 women had heard of any other form of contraception.
McBroom said her interviews revealed potentially disturbing issues surrounding sterilisation targets, although none of the women said they had been physically forced to attend.
“In early November, there was a meeting held for all field-level health workers and a very senior person, though we don’t know who, told them they had to bring in at least three patients each because it would be good for this person’s career.”
State and national inquiries have been ordered, along with postmortem reports for the victims. Four health workers including the doctor RK Gupta, who performed 83 tubectomies in a matter of hours, have been arrested.
Yadav was critical of the way the camp was conducted in such haste.
“If they had told us we were weak and maybe the surgery wouldn’t suit us, I would have hesitated.”
Yadav said she had taken birth control pills for a year after her second pregnancy, but had heard from villagers that they might not be good for her.
“What can we do? This was the only way to stop more children from coming.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/15/indian-sterilisation-camp-victim-antibiotics-rat-poison
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