Women's Bills in Pakistan

Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Bill and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, and Domestic Violence Bill are the three bills which are under process to enactment in Pakistan. They were almost scuttled under influence of religious parties. But intense lobbying by women had pushed the bills a step further towards enactment.

In the wider picture, these bills, when they become law, may appear to be the harbingers of major change. But their significance is at the moment symbolic and only in the legal context. In practical terms, they will spell greater protection for women in their workplace only when the prescribed mechanism is made available to them to complain of sexual harassment and obtain redress if needed.

More importantly, these bills explicitly recognise the right of a woman to go out of her home to earn a living, to acquire an education, to obtain healthcare and to involve herself in the day-to-day business of caring for her family and herself. The statement of objectives of the bill passed in the National Assembly last week states, “This bill builds on the principles of equal opportunity for women and their right to earn a livelihood without fear of discrimination.”

Maharashtra farmers revive local crop varieties

Interesting read on the subject of how efforts can yield results

http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20100131&filename=news&sec_id=50&sid=30

In US, more wives outearning their husbands

A US study of people aged 35-44 years old show that increasing number of wives are more educated than their husbands and are earning more than their husbands.!

US government data indicates that men constitute 75% of the decline in employment in 2008.

Indian supreme court directs govt to grant land to farmers displaced by dams

Good gracious God, in India things do move, albeit very verrry slowly. Soon it may be time that due compensation for project affected people becomes a norm. Soon Indians can proudly say that we dont build our development on sacrificial lambs, viz. project affecties!

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Madhya Pradesh govt to identify the farmers whose 75 per cent or more land were acquired for carrying out of excavation and construction of canal work for Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar projects.


A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan favoured the proposal for granting land-for-land by identifying the project-affected families of farmers.

The Bench accepted the plea of Madhya Pradesh government that it would need two weeks to identify such farmers and posted the matter for further hearing on 13th February.

The apex court had on 18th December last refused to stay the Madhya Pradesh High Court order restraining the state government from further acquisition of land and carrying out of excavation and construction of canal work for Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar projects.

The High Court had passed the order on the petiiton filed by Narmada Bachao Andolan activist Medha Patkar.

Unofficial city bus time table put up by a citizen

Pune (india) is a city traditionally famous for its erratic city bus service. Nobody is certain when a bus will come at any stop. Nobody is sure what all routes pass through any particular stop. Even the website of the bus service does not give its time table, it only says 'site under construction'.

Then a concerned citizen of Pune, Mr. Vijay Patil, got to task. He collected all the time table bits and pieces from sources of the bus service, depots, staff etc and collated complete time table. He has put this Pune PMPML Bus Service Time table on the web for anybody to see. Of course this is to be taken as reference only as he has not got this information through official routes neither would he may know fast if any changes are made.

Here is the website address for this time table :
http://ptransit.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/rgen/html/en-index.html

But it is a wonderful effort, for sure.

Quick Response from Pune Police in the middle of night

This is an personal experience of a newspaper reader. Reader is a young girl of 19years age. She has started studying very very early morning, rather very very late into night, at about 2am. She sensed couple of people sneakily walking out of her door. When she looked through the eye-hole in the door, she did see two men locking her main door and climbing up the stairs, with some iron weapons in their hands. She woke up her father. They first rang up some phones in their building trying wake up people. Then they called police on 100. The speed of police response that she had described truly deserves hearty accolades, particularly in Indian reality. She called up 100 at 2:53 am. Exactly at 3 am she got a call from local police station saying not to worry as their police vehicle is at doorsteps. At 3:04 am police had reached their house and unlocked their door from outside. There were 9-100 policemen with AK-47 rifles and walky-talky etc.

Till then all her life she never had any interaction with police force. But she was really moved by the speed with which police had responded to her SOS at 3am. She has saluted the Pune police force for it.

I wish to join in her saluting

Shillong Lajong FC

Shillong Lajong FC (Football CLub), a little known soccer club from a north-eastern Indian state of Maghalaya has made history in the Indian football world. It got entry into the I-League and in its first appearance in the league the club made to the finals of premiere Federation Cup Tournament. It held on to its nerves till end with many missed chances. Finally it lost only on penalties. The young boys probably could not handle the pressure, not being used to it.

The club was formed in Shillong, Meghalaya with the prime objective of improve diminishing football standard in the state, and to spot, train and nurture local football talent. 'Lajong' in the local Khasi language means 'our own'. In Shillong, Professionally managed Lajong has access to the largest student base in the north-east and has a strong fan support in the region.

India football's legendary star Baichung Bhutia is from the region.

The club is being sponsored by some major corporates. People are looking forward to times when football will be flourishing all over the region.

Natwar Thakkar Conferred Naga people's award

Noted Gandhian worker Natwar Thakkar has been conferred "Lifetime Service to Naga people award" by the villagers where he started his work in the fifties as a Sarvodaya worker.


Chuchuyimlang Senso Mongdang (people's union) gave the award to octogenerian Thakkar, founder of Nagaland Gandhi Ashram, at a function on Tuesday at Chuchuyimlang village near Mokokchung.

The award carrying Rs 1 lakh was given in recognition of his service to the people of Nagaland and Chuchuyimlang and surrounding villages for more than five decades, Senso Mongdang president Supongmatong said.

The ceremony was attended by over 3,000 people which included women and children. Thakkar gave back the money to the village for development work.

Born to Gujarati parents at Dahanu, a small town on the western coast of Maharashtra and inspired by the upsurge of nationalism in his younger days, Thakkar volunteered to come to Nagaland with a mission of service in 1955 at the age of 23. He made Nagaland his home.