india - The African Mirror

Nov

2020

India’s low-caste women raped to keep them ‘in their place’

ANURADHA NAGARAJ LOWER-caste Dalit women in northern India are targeted for rape by upper caste men who usually escape justice as survivors bow to pressure to drop their cases, researchers have found. Only 10% of 40 rape cases involving Dalit women and girls in Haryana state ended with the conviction of all those charged, and these involved murders or victims under the age of six, found two rights groups, Equality Now and the Swabhiman Society. In almost 60% of cases, the survivor withdrew her case and accepted a "compromise" settlement outside the legal system, usually after unofficial village councils, or…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

With scant power or freezers, Pfizer vaccine brings little cheer to coronavirus-hit India

WORLD

ANNIE BANERJI DESPITE hopes raised by Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, it will take huge efforts for India to defeat the coronavirus, with its 1.3 billion population and the world's second-highest caseload. Pfizer Inc's Monday announcement that initial trials showed their experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective sparked cheer across the world, scarred by a pandemic has killed 1.2 million people and infected 50.7 million. But the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at temperatures matching an Antarctic winter - a logistical nightmare for India with heatwaves exceeding 50 degrees Celsius (122°F), few ultra-cold freezers, patchy power and a largely…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Rapes show double struggle of low-caste women in India

WORLD

ANNIE BANERJI and SAURABH SHARMA THE victim of India's latest alleged gang rape faced the double discrimination of being born female and low caste, says her family, fearing she will get no justice in death either. They say it would all have been different if the 19-year-old victim of a brutal attack came from an upper-caste family or if the suspects were all lower-caste Indians, known as Dalit. "The police are twisting facts," her brother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Things could have been different had we belonged to an upper caste." His…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Police impose emergency law in Indian village as gang-rape victim’s cremation sparks clashes

WORLD

SAURABH SHARMA and ALASDAIR PAL INDIAN police have imposed emergency laws in a village where a woman from the lowest rung of the country's caste system was allegedly raped and killed, barring gatherings of more than five people after clashes erupted following her cremation. The 19-year-old victim died from her injuries on Tuesday, having been attacked and gang-raped on September 14 in a field near her home in Hathras district, 100 km (62 miles) from Delhi, authorities said. Police have arrested four men in connection with the crime. Clashes between protesters and police erupted in the district in the northern…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Modi pledges to use India vaccine-production capacity to help ‘all humanity’

WORLD

INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged at the United Nations that his country's vaccine production capacity would be made available globally to fight the COVID-19 crisis. "As the largest vaccine-producing country of the world, I want to give one more assurance to the global community today," Modi said in a pre-recorded speech to the U.N. General Assembly. "India's vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting this crisis." Modi said India was moving ahead with Phase 3 clinical trials - the large-scale trials considered the gold standard for determining safety and efficacy -…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Boy’s death spurs calls for bonded labour crackdown in central India

WORLD

ROLI SRIVASTAVA THE death of an eight-year-old boy whose parents worked as bonded labourers has triggered demands for authorities to crack down on thousands of other suspected cases in nearby villages in central India. Debt bondage is India's most common form of slavery despite being outlawed four decades ago, and millions of bonded labourers work in fields, brick kilns and rice mills to clear loans. Police said the boy's parents, who were repaying a 25,000-rupee loan by working on their employer's farms for five years without pay, lived in a "polythene hut" and were assaulted when they asked for money…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

India to reopen underground train networks even as coronavirus cases jump

WORLD

NEHA ARORA INDIA will reopen underground train networks and allow sports and religious events in a limited manner from next month as part of the government's efforts to revive the economy, even as coronavirus infections soar. India reported 76,472 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, slightly lower than the numbers seen in the last couple of days, but extending a run that has made the country's outbreak currently the world's worst. The underground train network, a lifeline for millions in the capital city of New Delhi, will be reopened in a phased manner from Sept. 7, the federal home ministry said.…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

On India’s COVID-19 frontline, female health workers push for fair pay

WORLD

ROLI SRIVASTAVA RUSHING from one home to another in a village in western India, health worker Ashwini Mhaske cannot afford to take a breather. Working to keep COVID-19 at bay while caring for mothers and babies, Mhaske races between households to meet job targets and earn bonuses for an average monthly wage of 4,000 rupees ($54) that India's army of rural health workers says is derisory. Accredited Social Health Activists - or ASHA workers - are the government's recognised health workers who are usually the first point of contact in rural India, where there is often limited or no direct…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

At least 13 bodies pulled from rubble of collapsed Indian building

WORLD

RAJENDRA JADHAV AT least 13 people have been killed and several are still missing after a residential building collapsed in western India, where a rescue operation has been underway for more than 28 hours, officials have announced. The emergency services have found 76 people alive, but there are still around six unaccounted for following the disaster on Monday evening in Mahad, an industrial town about 165 km (100 miles) south of Mumbai. Workers rescued a four-year-old boy after his cries were heard beneath the ruins of the five-storey building, which a police officer described as having come down like "a…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

At least 15 dead as Indian COVID repatriation flight crashes on landing

WORLD

AT least 15 people were killed and dozens injured when an Air India Express passenger plane overshot the runway and broke into two after landing in the southern city of Calicut in heavy rain, officials said. The Boeing-737 flight from Dubai was flying home Indians stranded overseas due to the coronavirus pandemic. There were 190 passengers and crew on board, the civil aviation ministry said in a statement. Among them were 10 infants. Television footage showed rescue workers moving around the wreckage in pouring rain. The aircraft lay split into at least two chunks after he plane's fuselage sheared apart…