Tag: delhi

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Enough said

Some highs and some tremendous lows

This week has been an eye-opener on the state of the human condition in India. And it hasn’t been pretty.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

This has been a strange week, to put it mildly.

Still reeling in the capital city over the Chhatisgarh Naxal attack on the State’s top Congress brass, we are now waking up to a detailed five-page letter on why tribals in the country are angry at the establishment. Space constraints bar me from producing the entire letter, so let me just write the operative part of the communication.

The letter was written by a Minister in the Central Government, V Kishore Chandra Deo, Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj. He has written to the Governors of the Schedule V Areas, in which he mentions, “The main challenge that is staring at us today is the explosive situations (sic) that are prevailing in the Schedule V Areas of our country. These areas are inhabited largely by people belonging to the Scheduled Tribe communities, forest dwellers and other marginalised and deprived sections of our society.

“It is, therefore, not a matter of coincidence that we are today faced with a situation which is threatening to strike at the very roots of the basic structure of our polity, and has  become a threat to our national security…The root cause of this situation is, however, result of continuous exploitation, oppression, deprivation, neglect and indifference for decades.”

And so on.

Recently, Roli Books launched Incredible Ascents to Everest, which captures “extraordinary stories of ascents – from a blind man’s success to a sherpa’s record 21 climbs. From the oldest, two weeks before his 77th birthday, to the first person to ski down the Everest. From the first solo ascent without any supplemental oxygen to the first double amputee to scale the Mount Everest…the extraordinary stories of ordinary men and women who have risked their physical, emotional and financial well-being to make the momentous and perilous climb to the top of the world’s tallest mountain.”

Jiah KhanBefore I could get more details of these men and women scaling the highest mountain in the world, came the news of Bollywood’s Jiah Khan and her suicide. News reports claim that she couldn’t claim with the emotional turmoil and the struggles of everyday life. It is sad to hear of the death of a young, reasonably talented girl, who I wish had seen the positives in her life and not given up the courage to go on. Some day, I hope many such Jiahs will learn to look past immediate disappointments and just live.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a symbol of mingled hope and grief. An exhibition titled Nirbhaya by artist N Swarnalatha was launched here recently, and it bears sketches and paintings of the human form exploited, molested, raped and abused. To quote from the brochure to the exhibition, “‘Nirbhaya’, her current body of work reflects her angst on the plight of the Indian women today. The series is dedicated to Nirbhaya, Vinothini, Vidhya and all the women martyrs who have taught lessons of bravery and self esteem worldwide…”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.warisboring.com, www.dayandnightnews.com)

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Trends

Your office could be checking you out

Companies have started verifying employees’ credentials in the wake of several crimes –  existing employees are included in the checks.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The recent spurt of crimes, both economic offenses or otherwise, is spurring several companies to quietly check out the antecedents of those in their employment. And it’s not just the ones that companies are hoping to employ that are being given the once-over, a lot of companies are conducting background checks on those working for them already.

Details such as education, residence and personal information are being cross-verified to see if employees have given wrong data on any of these counts. Any misinformation is a potential red flag – companies then probe if the person has a past criminal record.

Employee verification is a routine practice among corporations in the West. Our country has only recently woken up to the threat that a ‘wrong’ employee can pose to the company, in the wake of several crimes being committed by supposedly ‘suitable’ individuals.

A recent survey by the Associated Chamber of Commerce (ASSOCHAM) found that nearly 52 per cent corporates in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Dehradun and Hyderabad have been verifying their current and prospective employees at all levels. The verification was conducted by the Human Resource departments of small, medium and large businesses, the survey found. “Companies are fast realising the benefit of doing background checks of prospective employees or risk hurting their brand image in a fraud case. Screening of job candidates at all levels, and even vendors and contract staff is preferred. Previous employment details, academic and professional certificates, identity, criminal records, and credit risk, among other information, are checked thoroughly for authenticity and veracity,” the survey says.

Corporates are certainly becoming more careful and cautious when they are recruiting for the junior, middle and senior level positions, highlights the ASSOCHAM survey. “Many companies hadn’t done any background checks before hiring an employee, mainly at junior levels. The horrendous rape case in Delhi has certainly led to the need for carrying out a comprehensive scrutiny of employees at all levels.”

The survey majorly focused on broad sectors such as BPO, IT/ITes sector, financial and other services, construction, real estate, hospitality, tourism, FMCG and infrastructure, media and advertising, manufacturing and textiles, logistics, transport operators etc. Those companies that cannot conduct checks on their own are outsourcing the work – nearly 25 per cent of the companies surveyed had outsourced the verification work to specialised third party agencies. Under the most intense scanner were jobs that entailed working with children, or in healthcare.

(Picture courtesy www.eharmony.co.uk)

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Kharcha paani

Just ‘Be!’ in Mumbai

Be!Fund, an initiative that funds enterprises run by people from low income groups with risk-free capital, launched in Mumbai yesterday.

This is great news for those looking for capital to fund a business idea that will benefit the community they live in. Going to School, the Delhi based not-for-profit organisation, announced the launch of the Be! Fund at a press conference in Mumbai yesterday. The Be! Fund provides new access to risk-capital (up to $10,000/INR 500,000) to young people from low income groups so that they can start sustainable enterprises that solve local social and economic problems where they live.

Be! Fund is built on the premise that the world needs new heroes for the time we live in and the heroes we should look for are the poorest young people in India – they have solutions that can change India for everyone.

Be!Fund operates by using movies and radio to reach out to young people to ask them to call with local, sustainable, business ideas for change. “The business idea must prove that they can solve a local problem, generate income for the entrepreneur and create jobs. Young people return the investment once they generate a profit, if they fail, they are not put into debt. It’s a risk capital fund based on trust and belief that the poorest young people are the best people to run their businesses. All returns are ‘paid forward’ to invest in more young entrepreneurs to change the way ahead,” says the Be!Fund website.

Raghav Dhar, Bollywood Director, Sanjay Gupta, Chief Operating Officer, Star India, Elizabeth Warfield, Deputy Mission Director, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Anusha Bhagat, Chief Operating Officer, UBS Bank India, Shrinath Bolloju, Group Chief Operating Officer, Deutsche Bank India, and Lisa Heydlauff, Director, Going to School formed the panel that discussed the need for such an initiative. They discussed the need for creating new hero stories to inspire young people to choose to become entrepreneurs, the role of national television in taking these stories to millions of young people free-of-cost, the impact of development organizations supporting innovative approaches to sustainable development and the role of banks taking a risk with their philanthropic capital to invest in young entrepreneurs from base of pyramid communities.

Commenting on the role of Be! Fund, Heydlauff said, “By 2020, there will be over 200 million unemployed young people below the age of 30. The youth unemployment crisis cuts across all industries and development sectors. In short, we need new heroes to solve India’s greatest problems – the heroes we need to find are the poorest, youngest people in India, who by pioneering new sustainable business models that create jobs and solve problems become role models to inspire millions of young people to change the world around them by choosing to become entrepreneurs.”

The Be! Fund started in Bengaluru, with a seed capital from entrepreneurs Phaneesh Murthy and Dev Roy, who believe that the poorest young people in India are worth investing in to change the world – they have the answers to the problems their communities face, all they need is a group of people to listen to them and be open enough to take a risk to invest in their ideas to make them a reality. After the success in Karnataka, new investors in Be! Fund decided to take this ‘made-in-India’ model to Mumbai and the rest of India.

 (Picture courtesy businessenquirer.net)

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Wellness

Government jobs are better for health

A new survey reveals that those having private sector jobs have unhealthier lives than those holding government jobs. Read on.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

For long now, Indians have been content to spend their lives working for the Government, since these jobs come with that wonderful word – ‘security’. However, a lot of youngsters have rebelled against this mindset for a long time now, choosing jobs in private firms or even branching out into business.

Now it turns out that working in the private sector or for yourself can have a bad effect on your health: a recent survey released by the Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM) says that “due to demanding schedules, high stress levels and performance linked perks in private sectors, nearly 85 per cent of employees in private sectors are afflicted to lifestyle and chronic diseases, apart fro acute ailments, as compared to government employees ranging below 8 per cent.”

As per the survey, which was conducted in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh and Dehradun and included a little over 200 employees from each city, showed that 42 per cent people identified themselves as afflicted to lifestyle diseases, followed by 38 per cent suffering from chronic diseases,while the rest, 15 per cent, had an acute ailment. All of them worked in the private sector. Mumbai ranked first for the numbers of people afflicted due to high levels of stress in the private sector, followed by Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.

Said Dr DS Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM, “There is due compensation for increased inflation by way of dearness allowance (DA) to government employees whereas, the private sector is by and large out of this facility. The findings on the government employees reveal very positive features ranging from reasonably good health, family stability, cordial relationship etc. The survey further points out there are many schemes in healthcare for government employees in addition to pension, which reflects better health standards in government jobs.”

The survey findings:

– Around 55 per cent of the survey respondents fall under the age bracket of 20-29 years, followed by 30-39 years (26 per cent), 40-49 years (16 per cent), 50-59 years (2 per cent) and 60-69 years (approximately 1 per cent).

– The survey targetted private employees from 18 broad sectors, with maximum share contributed by employees from IT/ITes sector (17 per cent).
– Increasingly demanding schedules and high stress levels are leading to sleep disorders in the private sector. Loss of sleep has wide ranging effects including daytime fatigue, physical discomfort, psychological stress, performance deterioration, low pain threshold and increase absenteeism.
– Nearly 45 per cent of corporate employees in private sector sleep less than six hours on a daily basis due to work related pressure.
– Around 58 per cent of corporate employees in private sector are deeply concerned about their future health, 38 per cent are fearful regarding their future health conditions and 4 per cent are not at all fearful about their future health, finds the survey.
(Picture courtesy thedailymind.com)
Categories
Enough said

Rich past, uncertain present

Delhi hosted cultural events capturing the essence of bygone times, which only served to remind us of sharp, present-day realities.
by Humra Quraishi

Delhi recently played host to a series of exhibitions on the life and works of Amir Khusrau. Then there was a three-day seminar on Dara Shukoh, the eldest son and heir apparent of Shah Jahan. There was also an exhibition on the art of Calligraphy. Sadly, I could make it to only one of these three events.

I attended the Amir Khusrau exhibition at the National Archives. Let me just say it was splendid. It captured the genius of Amir Khusrau, his poetry, his thoughts, and his philosophy. Credit ought to be given to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and also to the curator, Shakeel Hossein, who, I’m told, came all the way from Boston to set up the exhibition.

I couldn’t attend the three-day meet on Dara Shukoh, organised by Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), but going by the list of speakers – Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Professor Irfan Habib and several well-known historians and critics – it must have been a wonderful, full-fledged seminar. Dara Shukoh has always fascinated me a lot; so much so that I find  my visits to the Kashmir Valley incomplete if I don’t go and visit the unique school of Sufism, Kas-I-Mah, which he had set up. Its ruins lie close to the Chashm-e-Shahi Springs in Srinagar. It is the first-of-its-kind in the whole of Asia and Central Asia, and the school, now in a dilapidated state, was built near the Chashm-e-Shahi springs at the suggestion of his spiritual teacher, Akhund Mullah Mohammad Shah, who came from Badakhshan, in Afghanistan.

The more I read on him, the more I begin to feel that if only he’d lived, he could have changed the entire complexion of this land. In fact, one of the rather fascinating books on Dara Shukoh is penned by Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and former bureaucrat-turned-Governor and now full-time writer. Soon after his book, Dara Shukoh: A Play was released, I‘d asked him why he’d written a book on this bygone Mughal prince. He’d said, “It was his story which was, in fact, history. Where do you find failure trouncing success, defeat making victory counterfeit, as in the life of Shahjahan’s eldest-born?”

Meanwhile, the exhibition on the Art of Calligraphy by the Siasat Group (and set up at the Jamia Millia Islamia’s MF Hussain Art Gallery) drew large crowds. I feel that calligraphy ought to be revived in a  big way, as it is one of those art forms that hasn’t received its due recognition in the country.

But all these events that helped me delve into our rich past has only forced me to ponder over our present and the future – what can we take away from the present?

Nothing. For today, we are busy chasing even those militants who are begging forgiveness and want to give up a life of violence for a second chance. Today, we are calling every bearded person a terrorist.

This week, on World Water Day, UNICEF released these grim findings: ‘Globally, an estimated 2,000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoeal diseases and of these, some 1,800 deaths are linked to water, sanitation and hygiene. Almost 90 per cent of child deaths from diarrhoeal diseases are directly linked to contaminated water, lack of sanitation, or inadequate hygiene. Despite a burgeoning global population, these deaths have come down significantly over the last decade, from 1.2 million per year in 2000 to about 760,000 a year in 2011.

UNICEF child mortality data show that about half of under-five deaths occur in only five countries: India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan and China. Two countries – India (24 per cent) and Nigeria (11 per cent) – together account for more than a third of all under-five deaths. These same countries also have significant populations without improved water and sanitation.’

The report also states that, ‘The figures for sanitation are even bleaker. Those without improved sanitation in these countries are: India 814 million; China 477 million; Nigeria 109 million; Pakistan 91 million; and DRC 50 million. Improvements in water and sanitation would greatly contribute to a reduction in child mortality in these counties.’

This is the present we are grappling with.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy bbc.co.uk)

Categories
Wellness

Holi hai!

Heading out to play Holi? Presenting some before and after-the-revelry tips for you to remain safe from Holi’s ill effects.
by Dr Ajaya Kashyap and Dr Abha Kashyap

Part III of III

It is Holi today, and if you’re reading this, chances are you’re looking for safe ways to play Holi. Or it’s possible that you’ve got colour all over yourself and nobody, including yourself, recognises you.

Either way, we’ve got some tips that will help.

Try to dissuade people from applying colour all over your face with their hands. If you fail to do so, be especially careful in keeping your eyes and lips tightly shut. Always request the person not to smear the colours near the eyes.

Apply cold cream around your eyes and make a thick coating of it over there. This would ensure that the colours can be easily removed when you wash your eyes. When trying to remove the colours around your eyes, keep your eyes tightly shut and use warm water.

You can cover your hair with a dupatta/bandanna and a polypeptide-based gel can be applied to partially repel colour.

Caring for your eyes is equally important while playing Holi. People wearing contact lens should take them off before they begin to play with the colours. When somebody is spraying water colours on your face, keep your eyes shut to prevent damage to the pupil, cornea and iris.

After you’re done playing Holi:

– Don’t sit in sunlight after playing Holi. It makes colours difficult to remove and harms the skin as well. Sit in the shade even when playing outdoors.

– Don’t remove colours by scratching your skin with your nails. Use a granular scrub on the body and face to get rid of the colour.

– Wash off colour from your hair two to three times with shampoo and remove the colour completely. Apply a lot of moisturiser on the body and face after taking a shower.

– Wash the colour off your body at the earliest. Use a basic body wash and if the colour doesn’t go off after the wash, try the aforementioned remedy.

– Make a paste of gram flour (besan), juice of lemon and heavy cream or some milk and apply it on the stained area, let it sit for few minutes and then remove it by taking it off with olive oil.

– Hair should be deep conditioned after the wash. Make sure your hair is clean. Apply a hair mask after two-three days to cure the damage.

– Remove the colour from your face by using a light oil like jojoba or grapeseed. Wash off with face wash and lukewarm water. Follow up with lots of moisturiser.

– Do not bleach, shave, wax, go for facials or clean-ups the following week. Give your skin and body some time to recover from the damage.

Have a happy and safe Holi 🙂

Dr Ajaya Kashyap is Chief Surgeon in Cosmetic and Plastics from Fortis Hospital; Dr Abha Kashyap is an aesthetic image consultant, MedSpa.

(Picture courtesy theatlantic.com)

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