To pay for water

Imagine you are a farmer, or a daily wage laborer. You have a family of six to support. You have two children to be educated, and two old parents getting weaker and more dependent on you every year. You earn $1 after a good day’s work. What do you do with it?

Elsewhere, you would probably worry about your parents falling health, and your child’s neglected future. Then you would shove those worries aside for another day, for the sake of sheer peace of mind, and buy some food for home. You would go home, give it to your spouse, and wash up and be glad of the bite to eat and the mattress to sleep on.

In Honduras, even this basic choice is not simple. Because in Honduras, $1 can get you either a bag of beans, or a barrel of water. In most cases, you would chose the water and forego the food, because water is the single most basic necessity of life, which people like you and I take too much for granted. You can probably make it through the day without a bite to it, but how long can you survive without a drop of water down your throat, that you just can’t afford to buy?

The water distribution system in Honduras was privatized in early 2000, due to pressure from the World Bank on this already indebted country. The gates were opened and scores of private water corporations- mainly from Europe- poured in with proposals. San Pedro Sula, the country’s economic hub, was the first to hand over the distribution part of its waterworks system, DIMA, to a private company.

Water privatization is one of the prime focuses of the Honduran Resistance movement, which has been going on for nearly a decade. But even something as necessary as this has been eclipsed by the coup of 2009, and the resulting violence and protests demanding the return of the ousted president. Manuel Zelaya had many faults, but he was primarily a socialist. He greatly resented the country’s economic helplessness before the global giants, and would talk against the privatization of water and education.

There is a very fundamental wrong in handing over such a basic necessity to the hands of profit- motivated organizations. In the distribution of water, the need for it needs to be the uppermost criterion, and not the people’s ability to pay. For people to survive in a humane manner, water needs to flow from the tap, regardless of where I live or how much I earn.

Ah fraylechin Purim

“Purim is my favouritest festival”, says Shirley, an Israeli friend. It is one of the liveliest festivals of Israel. Purim is celebrated on the 14th or 15th of Adar according to the Hebrew calendar (which comes in February or March).

(Shirley's daughter Shaili, dressed as Minnie Mouse on Purim this year)

The story behind the festival revolves around the Biblical Book of Esther, The Megillah. Esther is a Jewish orphan girl who was raised by her cousin Mordecai. King Ahasuerus of Persia falls for her beauty and crowns her the queen but was unaware that she was Jewish.

Haman, the king's advisor, hated Mordecai, and so, formulates a plot against him. When Haman learned that Mordecai was a Jew, he resolves to kill not only Mordecai, but also Esther and all the Jewish people under the Persian rule. Being the king's advisor, Haman gets the king to, approve of his plan. Somehow Esther learns of this. She fasts for three days with all the Jews in the land. She prepares to approach the king to ask him to spare her and her people. He welcomes Esther, honours Mordecai and

saves the Jews (because the king recalls the time Mordecai saved him from death through the court records). Haman and his ten sons are then hanged on the gallows that were intended for Mordecai.

Purim is a festival with an almost carnival atmosphere. Like all other Jewish festivals, Purim starts in the evening and continues till nightfall the next day (in Judaism, the night always precedes the day. So every holiday begins the night before, and ends at nightfall the next day).

One of the customs associated with the festival is the Synagogue service. The Book of Esther is read during these services. Every time the name of Haman is mentioned, everybody ‘boos’ it down. Traditionally, people used to come all dressed up, and a lot of them with masks and characters from the Purim story (but now, a lot of people just casually attend the synagogue service and meet up with friends at get-togethers dressed up as anything under the sun, cartoon characters, film stars et al.).

Giving charity to the poor (Matanot la'evyonim) and sending gifts to friends and relatives (Mishloach manot) are two other very important customs of this festival.

Purim is like a national holiday in Israel. Food and drinks are given foremost importance in the festival. Plays, pageants and masquerade are performed on the theme of Purim or even otherwise. Wearing masks and various costumes are popular and some communities even allow cross-dressing, seeing it in spirit with the jovial theme of the festival.

People start preparing months before the festival for this one day. Everybody looks forward to the celebrations of this day.

Iran: Forgotten lessons of history

The beating of war drums has begun but for the sake of the many lives that will be affected, I hope the leaders of Israel, USA and the other countries learn from history. Invading a country’s sovereign land will push the people towards a more aggressive nationalism which will only benefit the fundamentalists.

Israel’s need to “protect” itself seems laughable because we all seem to be focusing on Iran and its supposed Nuclear weapons, but nobody questions Israel and its nuclear arsenal, they have not signed the NPT, and they maintain “nuclear ambiguity” about their WMD, neither refusing nor accepting. Not being part of the NPT makes them evade International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) inspections, and while in Iran they conduct them every now and then, they have no legal authority to do so in Israel. A little hypocritical, don’t you think? The argument that they need to protect themselves from the surrounding hostile nations, well, how are they in that situation in the first place? Who asked them to intervene in Lebanon which gave rise to the Hezbollah, or their human rights violations which gave rise to Hamas in Gaza or their intervention in Syria and Iraq’s supposed nuclear program and occupation of the Palestinian lands. As George Monbiot in one of his columns clearly puts it, “Nuclear weapons in Israel's hands are surely just as dangerous as nuclear weapons in Iran's… Iran is not starting a nuclear arms race, but joining one.”

Like most of the people, even I’m not that thrilled about these countries having nuclear weapons, since most of them are in the grips of terrorism, lawlessness and dictatorial governments. But that does not give Israel the right to be a bully and get its way.

Recently, an Israeli diplomat was attacked in Delhi, I remember the hue and cry that the Israeli government made blaming Iran for the attack and that was before any evidence was even established. Israel was already charging Iran as the culprit – innocent until proven guilty? It may have been Iran just as well that it may not have been, but this eagerness that the Israeli government is portraying does more harm than good. Ahmadinejad at home can tell his people, ‘look, they are after us,’ and in this way the fraudulently elected President gains legitimacy, in a previous post on the persecution of Baha’is I gave a few news headlines, what those told us was that Baha’is and Israel have become a convenient bogeyman where there is anything wrong in the country, they are the ones blamed and acts like this by the Israeli just strengthens that position. Oh and I also wonder what happened when those Iranian scientists were assassinated, didn’t hear of it? Don’t blame yourself; the story was given a quick burial.

Whenever there needs to be change in a country, rest assured the people themselves are going to do it, not the Americans not the Israelis, they wanted to ‘help’ Iraq, yeah, we all saw how that turned out. Nobody is going to change the way Iran is today other than Iranians themselves, we can help sure, but bombs and war will only push the country into extremism. History has tons of lessons; the world needs to learn from them.

As Israel repeatedly claims that it has the right to arm itself, since it’s surrounded by hostile nations, then doesn’t Iran have the same right! Let’s look at the facts’, they have Turkey, America’s ally to the north-west, Bahrain to the south which is where the US Fifth Fleet is based, Qatar, hosts the US Central Command headquarters, Turkmenistan to the north-east, which is refuelling centre for American planes since 2002 and Saudi Arabia whose king has often enough called for America to “attack Iran.” The Iranian state is threatened so don’t they have the right to protect themselves, it’s a state whose scientists have been assassinated in their own land, ‘stuxnet’ a computer worm that was used against them has set back their nuclear facilities by “two years”, the economic blockade that has crippled their economy and reduced their market to a barter system. One of the reasons there was no war between Soviet Russia and USA during the cold war was because both the countries had nuclear weapons and for their own good were prudent enough to follow a policy of ‘détente’ where they both knew that it was in their interests to avoid a nuclear war, so they diplomatically worked towards a solution. As Mehdi Hassan in his column in the Guardian puts it, “the fundamental geopolitical lesson that you and your countrymen learned over the last decade: the US and its allies opted for war with non-nuclear Iraq, but diplomacy with nuclear-armed North Korea.”

The biggest question is if the Iranians actually have nuclear weapons or not, a recent report on Reuters makes this question abundantly clear, “The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran's nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead.”  Israel, why all the huffing and puffing!

The US intervention of Iran has already put the country in the hands of the mullahs. It irks me to see the ‘big brother’ attitude that the American government seems to give itself. I don’t like the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons as much as I don’t like the idea of Israel or USA having them, but if they want to engage with Iran for a solution, they need to first question their own hypocrisy in this matter.

This cartoon sums it up quite nicely:

 

The Media in Poland

Under communist rule, media in Poland was under heavy censorship. For nearly four decades, the government controlled every source of news for the public, hence determining exactly what the public should know, and what it shouldn’t. This almost complete censorship lasted till the people’s movement led by Solidarity put forward ‘the lessening of government censorship’ as one of its 21 demands in the Gdansk Agreement of August 1980. This agreement, coupled with Gorbachev’s new policy of glasnost, resulted in the reform of much of the censorship process. Although complete freedom of press was still far from being achieved, the passing of a few legislations ensured that the process of getting a completely free press was underway in Poland in the 1980s. However, this complete freedom was achieved only after the fall of communism in 1989. This initiated the subsequent transformation of the Polish media sphere.

On April 11, 1990, Polish parliament passed an anti-censorship act that modified the Press Act of 1984 implemented by the previous communist administration. With the sweeping economic reforms that were being implemented, the structure of the Polish media also underwent a transformation. In the print media, journalists who had previously worked for state owned newspapers now had the opportunity to take over the ownership of these papers. Also, the government opened the print media up to foreign investment, which soon led to the complete privatization of the print media sector with a majority of the newspapers being owned by foreign investors. The electronic media too, was subject to a number of reforms. The state-owned broadcasting broadcaster “Polish Radio and Television” was broken into separate entities – ‘Polish Radio’ and ‘Polish Television’ and transformed into public companies. Several policies encouraging commercial radio and television channels were also implemented, which led to a great increase in commercial interests in radio and TV as well as the surge in foreign investment in this media. However, the foreign investment in the broadcast sphere was not as high as that in the print sphere because the government had restricted foreign ownership of broadcast channels to 33 percent.

Since the implementation of these reforms, the Polish Press has by and large enjoyed absolute freedom in its reportage. However, there still exist certain laws framed in the Polish Constitution which are seen as barriers to absolute press freedom in the country today. One of the most crucial factors which impact press freedom in Poland is that journalists and editors are liable for criminal prosecution for a variety of acts which are not considered “criminal” in several other countries of the world. For instance, if an editor chooses not to publish a reader’s response, he/she runs the risk of having criminal proceedings initiated against him/her. Recently, the editor of one of the independent newspapers in a rural region of the country was sentenced to nine months of community service at 30 hours a month because he did not publish the reply of a local politician to articles the newspaper had run about him. Another such clause is, if a journalist does not take explicit permission to quote an interviewed person directly, he runs the same risk. Consider this law in the Indian context, and you would have all the reporters who make their day’s story quota by reporting the war of words between politicians fighting criminal cases in courts. Offending religious beliefs is another important clause that journalists are often tried under. In January 2010, the Polish Supreme Court imposed a 500,000 zloty (Rs. 75 lakh) fine on Polsat TV because a feminist activist invited on one of its shows had parodied a well-known presenter from the extremely conservative Catholic radio station Radio Maryja, and this was ruled to be offensive to Christian sensibilities. Apart from these legal restrictions placed on it, the Polish media is also threatened by a lack of objectivity in its reportage, and is characterized by a politically partisan nature. Almost all media, whether print or broadcast, have fairly evident political leanings.

In recent times, however, there have been changes in the media scenario in Poland in terms of the law. The government introduced certain legislative changes towards the end of December 2010 which have provided the media a certain degree of leeway in terms of the laws mentioned in this article. Upon overall analysis, the Polish media certainly seems to be a healthy, free institution. According to the Observatory for Media Freedom in Poland at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Poland ranked 24^th in the reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index in 2011-12 (as compared to 32^nd in 2010-11), higher than European heavyweights UK (28^th), France (38^th), Spain (39^th), as well as the USA (47^th) which saw a fall of 27 places compared to last year, primarily because of the arrest of journalists following the Wall Street protests. India, on this index, came in only at number 131. While this may not be a completely satisfying Index in terms of its basis and its methodology, it does provide a certain frame of reference. Going by this frame of reference, Poland seems to be taking great strides in terms of the freedom enjoyed by its press; however, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.

The Central American Drug Trail

The United States of America is the highest consumer of coke and marijuana in the world. Around 12.4 million U.S citizens- roughly 7% to 8% of the country’s population- consume drugs regularly. Columbia, the world’s leading producer of illicit drugs, sells most of its produce to this 7- 8% of the US population. Most of the drugs are delivered across the Mexican border, by drug cartels that weald immense economic and political clout in both Mexico and Colombia.

When a country falls into the hands of drug cartels, corruption and violence is inevitable. For years, Mexico has had the reputation of a country steeped in governmental corruption, murders and gang violence. In recent years, the Mexican government pressuri

sing the United States to take its drug consumption under control and take responsibility for what the drug trade has done to the Mexican system. As a result, Washington is now aiding the Mexican authorities and its police in what is commonly called the “Mexican drug war”, something many critics allege is a step further in the US attempt to hegemonies the western hemisphere through the Pentagon. The past six years or so has seen the Mexican government crack down on cartels and illegal traffickers with unprecedented brutality. The technique is working, but the cartels are now moving south of the Mexican border, into Guatemala.

Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have traditionally been the transit points for the motion of drugs from Colombia to Mexico, on its way to the United States of America. Most of this transition happens via sea, with drugs dropped off or ships refuelled at points

along the Pacific as well as the Carribean coasts in the dead of the night. Sometimes, when boats or ships are being trailed and fear capture, they simply dump the wrapped bundles into the sea, near the shore, where they later wash up for the locals to discover and fall prey to. Moreover, local Central Americans who help with the trafficking out of sheer need for work and money are often paid in kind as much as in cash. This ensures their addiction, and also ensures that they have a stake in keeping the trail running. Such is the power of the cartels that they have managed to buy over powerfuls both in the government and in the police. Drug abuse, violence and corruption are as integrated in these countries as they are in Mexico.

However, with the recent further shifting of cartels into the Guatamala- El Salvador- Honduras triangle, the situation has worsened. In Honduras, it was further accelerated by the coup of 2009, which many now say was influenced by powerful right- wing families with business interests in the drug trade. Regardless of his many faults, ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya had begun a strong crackdown on the corrupt police force, suspending scores of officers with links to the cartels. With the coup, the situation came full circle. Daylight murders and attacks on journalists, NGO workers and honest police officials have become a common occurrence now. Anyone with a strong voice against the police- drug relationship is silenced.

The situation today in Central America today seems desperate and hopeless. So much so that Otto Perez Molina, the President of Guatemala, is pondering the option of legalising the drug trade altogether. While this has created outrage and heavy debate across countries, some realise that he might have a point. Any trade that is legalised is subject to taxation, leading to rise in prices and decline in profits. Moreover, such a move is also likely to bring down the homicide rate, for the simple reason that traders won’t shoot you down for having information about you, if they don’t have to fear the law. Most people, however, see it only as a ploy to seek US attention and intervention, now that the President of El Salvador has also joined the call. There seems to be no other way out.

White Nights Festival

Ever wondered how it would be if evenafter the sunsets the sky is bright and the street lights are not required. This isan annual phenomenon in St. Petersburg, the northern most city in the world. In fact this is known as ‘White Nights’. The day is almost 19 hours long and the longest
white night falls on June 21/22. This occurs due to the northerly geographical location of St. Petersburg, at 59 degrees 57’north which is roughly on the same latitude as Oslo, Norway, the Southern tip of Greenland. St. Petersburg is supposed to be the world’s most northern city where the sun’s rays do not descend below the horizon enough for the sky to glow dark. So it never becomes dark in the night which makes it difficult to distinguish between and day and night.
The whole city celebrates these few days when darkness does not seem to take over the skies. People stay awake all through the night enjoying the events being held in the city. One finds a lot of romantic couples strolling by the river Neva. White Nights is not unique to St. Petersburg, other cities in Russia also experience this from May to Mid-July.
But St Petersburg being the artistic capital of Russia celebrates White Nights through a series of cultural events which takes place all over the city. Musical concerts, ballet performances, opera are held in every part of the city. Dance clubs and beach clubs remain open till 6 am in the morning during White Nights. The ‘Scarlet Sails’ which is tradition that marks the end of the school life takes place sometime in June. This custom is inspired from the book of the same title
written by Alexander Grins. Thus school students come together to celebrate the end of an academic year. Scarlet sails as the name suggests consists of tens of boats full of pirates in the waters of the river Neva, fireworks adorn the sky as these boats cross the river. This tradition began after World War II and still goes on.
The night view of River Neva is one of the best photo spots during this time. The drawbridges of the river Neva rise between 1:30am and 5am to let big ships pass. The south bank of the river
Neva offers the best view of the bridge.
‘Stars of the white nights’ are held annually at the Mariinsky Theatre this is the main highlight of the White Nights festival. This was originally started by the first mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak. Tickets to these festivals get sold out months before the date of performances.
The Palace Square is the central part of the city, it connects the Palace Bridge leading to Vasilievesky island. This place attracts a lot of international musicians who perform during the white nights festival. More than 50 thousand fans gather to witness these events. The recent stars who performed here were Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Scorpions and other stars. A lot of film festivals are held during this time. White Nights festival has added to cultural and literary spirit of the city, all the people of St. Petersburg look forward to this festival after tolerating extreme winters throughout the year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARgiagY0d6k

Free, until the 21st Century

The ancient Mayan civilisation, almost 3000 years ago, was open and tolerant towards homosexuality. Indeed, there is evidence to state that ‘two- spirit people’, or people of the third gender, taking up unconventional gender roles in society, were widely accepted, and played an important part in spiritual worship. Male sex slaves for unmarried young men of elite families were common. Homosexual couples lived comfortably in society, along with heterosexual ones. Gays (if not lesbians), bisexuals and transgenders were, in short, accepted. Ironically, when the rest of the world is finally waking up to the possibility of such acceptance three millennia later, the Mayan descendents are trying to pass laws abolishing gay marriage.

On September 24, 2009, the Congress of El Salvador tried to pass reforms that would ban same sex marriage and prohibit homosexual couples from adopting children. Thanks to the ruling party in power, it failed. Gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens in this country have been enjoying social and legal acceptance in a way that is unimaginable in most other parts of the world. Articles 32, 33 and 34 of the Constitution make it possible for homosexual couples to live and adopt in the country with legal legitimacy, and also recognise their financial rights as partners and parents. El Salvador is one of the few, rare countries in the world to have reached such levels of equality in terms of LGBT and human rights. LGBT citizens in El Salvador, today, even enjoy right to inheritance.

However, in recent years, catholic and evangelical churches have been lobbying and protesting for same- sex marriages to be prohibited by law. They feel that only marriage between a man and a woman should be legally recognised, and that only such (i.e. heterosexual) couples should have the right to adopt and raise children. In their opinion, they are acting to preserve the sanctity of the institution of marriage by working for such reforms. Importantly, unlike in India until recently, they are not calling LGBT relationships “abnormal” or rejecting them from society outright. Their only concern is the institution of marriage, which, they believe, is sacred and only legitimate between a man and a woman.

For the 2009 legislative vote on the issue, the conservative churches had their hopes pinned on the many right wing parties in the assembly. The reforms needed 56 votes in favour to be passed in the Congress by the required two- thirds majority. It didn’t. The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) is the single majority party with 35 seats out of 84, and hence could stave off the required two- third majority vote through its own strength in Congress. The party had come to power in May 2009, with a strong pro- LGBT stance in its campaigning.

Despite the fact that a pro-LGBT party was voted to power by the people in 2009, the community is facing increasing discrimination in recent years in the country. In the months running up to that crucial vote in Congress, prayer meetings and demonstrations had been aplenty in the streets of El Salvador, and violence against LGBTs suddenly escalated.The catholic and evangelic churches have still kept the pressure mounting, and till date, tensions among the people of the country are only increasing.