The Big Lie: Why Joseph Goebbels and his propaganda philosophy is relevant today more than ever

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

This is Joseph Goebbels’ famous, or rather notorious view on the “Big Lie”. This, later on, became the fundamental philosophy of the Nazi state’s propaganda machine. Contemporary philosophers analyze our times in reference to this doctrine and label our time as the times of post-truth, where truth loses its value when it clashes with such ‘big lies’.

In today’s India, the opposition and the political left finds it comfortable to compare the Narendra Modi administration, which is backed by the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), with the Nazi state. The argument is simply that the RSS-BJP clique wants to establish a Hindu Rashtra on the lines of the anti-Semitic ideology followed by the Nazis.

But, one needs a deeper analysis on the nature of the Modi administration and the Indian state of today. We definitely live in the times of post-truth which is evident from numerous cases of violence and injustice which result from fake propaganda circulated in the social media. But, is the government itself safe from such ‘big lies’ is a question that needs introspection.

Last month, during his Mann ki Baat episode, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with farmers from across the country. One among them was Chintamani Kaushik, a woman farmer from Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district.

Chandramani Kaushik Ji from Chhattisgarh emphasised on value addition…and yes, she and her team also make delicious ice-cream! Do hear the journey of Chandramani Ji and others from Chhattisgarh. pic.twitter.com/kQWQF7QGeu

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 20, 2018

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The video available on the official twitter handle of the PM shows a confident Chandramani confirming that her income got doubled after she got involved with the Krishi ATMA (Agriculture Technology Management Agency) Yojana. She said that her income used to be around Rs 50-60 before but has now grown to almost Rs. 700. The details of the income-expenditure model were not discussed and the PM happily generalized that farmers are growing under his administration.

However, ABP News did a real ground reporting and met the woman for an interview. The revelations that came after that was outrageous.

ये है सच: माननीय रक्षा मंत्री @nsitharaman , माननीय मुख्यमंत्री छत्तीसगढ़ @drramansingh , माननीय केंद्रीय सूचना एवं प्रसारण मंत्री (स्वतंत्र प्रभार) @Ra_THORe जी . ये है आपके द्वारा उठाए गए सवालों का ABP न्यूज़ की तरफ से जवाब. फुल वीडियो लिंक https://t.co/r3E65lxAJa pic.twitter.com/5FtYwbkM1b

— ABP न्यूज़ हिंदी (@abpnewshindi) July 10, 2018

The ABP reporter asked the lady if her income has actually doubled to which she had no clear answer. Her comrades in her Self Help Group (SHG) denied that they have got any benefits. Instead, some shocking facts came out. Chandramani alleged that some officers of ‘Delhi’ came to see her and offered her a meeting with the PM if she said what she said in the live video.

Now, there are two possibilities for such a situation. Either the government is fully corrupt from the top to the bottom and PM Modi was aware that the lady was lying, or Modi himself was in darkness about the actual condition of his fellow citizens and thumping his 56-inch chest cruising on lies. Either way, it’s a massive failure of governance. More so, because one of Modi’s election motto in 2014 was “Pro-People, Good Governance or P2G2”.

Propaganda is not only a tool of the government, sometimes the opposition capitalizes on it too.

Last month Thomson Reuters Foundation published a survey report which declared India as the worst place on earth for women. Devdiscourse rebutted with responsibility immediately.

Read the article here: Thomson Reuters Foundation survey on women security and its rubbish India angle

But, the Indian intelligentsia, as well as the political class, danced in the tunes of a foreign news agency. The opposition attacked the government based on the survey which was conducted only among 500 odd ‘experts’ and had no connection whatsoever with the ground realities. Yes, India has gender issues, but again, is India worse than war-affected countries like Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc.?

The Thomson Reuters Foundation survey also works like a propaganda material for the opposition to bash the ruling government. In fact, today the opposition has been running a parallel propaganda campaign as well against the Modi regime as if Hindu Rastra bill is on the Lok Sabha floor. An engineered fear psychosis has resulted in a social binary and xenophobia. Because of the success of the ‘anti-Hindutva’ propaganda, the general masses are questioning even genuine motives of the government like the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission).

Devdiscourse carried a follow-up story regarding the Reuter’s survey exposing the ones who buy such propaganda.

Read the article here: Thomson Reuters Foundation Survey: Et tu, Brute? says India to Indians giving it heed

The government also is undoing its wrongs through massive state-sponsored propaganda.

On December 8, 2016, at 8 PM in the evening PM Modi surprised and shocked the nation by announcing the demonetization of high-value currency notes.

He said that the reason for demonetization was to nullify the black money and black market in India which fuel not only poverty and unemployment but also terrorism. Indians bought this that night and cooperated. After 56 deaths and no necessary outcome, the strategy changed and a massive propaganda campaign was launched in favor of cashless transactions and digital India. Modi could not explain killing 56 people for making India a cashless economy, which failed miserably too. The basic point is that the Prime Minister failed in his governance and tried to cover it up with the ‘cashless economy’ propaganda.

Propaganda in the post-truth era has infected our society inside out as well.

According to a report by News18, a single Whatsapp message has killed 31 people in India by mob lynching. A fake message spreading ‘awareness’ about child lifters has been circulating via the IM app and has triggered locals to lynch outsiders to death in Gujrat, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Assam, and Tripura.

Whoever wrote the message did make sure it spread far and wide and did translate it to different languages too. Or it could be a case of mass hysteria where people believed what they saw in a Whatsapp message to be fact and forwarded it further. But this is also a classic case of failure of state on the face of propaganda – propaganda of hate, xenophobia, and misinformation.

Joseph Goebbels formulated a propaganda theory and machine which he could control. In today’s times, his disciples have adopted his philosophy but could not estimate the role of digital media and communication technology in the whole game. Thus, propaganda has become uncontrolled, like the nuclear reactor in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. We definitely need a Batman in these times of confusion.

SDG 3 and infant mortality: Ambitious goal trounced by ground realities

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

The Boali maternity hospital lies less than 100 km from Bangui, the capital city of Central African Republic. Here every day a woman cries over her dead child as one in every 24 child dies due to high neonatal death as well as infant mortality as reported by the UNICEF.

The Central African Republic is a country which has no impression on the world map whatsoever. The country contains one of the poorest and most malnourished population in the world. But it tops the list of infant mortality rate with only Pakistan ahead of it, according to the UNICEF report published earlier this year. The infant mortality rate (deaths in the first 5 years of life) in the country is 124 per thousand. These alarming rates are due to a lot of factors, most prominent among which is the lack of doctors and specialists. UNICEF estimates that half of the country’s health infrastructure is managed by unskilled staff or volunteers.

Dr. N-Eloi Mboufoungou says that he is the only practitioner for a population of over 33,000. Assisted by 25 health workers, of whom only 9 are qualified, he can only deplore the lack of follow-up of pregnant women or young children. "Women come for a consultation for their first pregnancy, then they often disappear in nature" he explains.

A 1906 newspaper clipping imploring parents to attend to the cleanliness of their infants. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Over 1 million babies are estimated to die within the first hour of their birth while over 2.6 million die in the first 4 weeks of life. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 9 children dies before age 5, more than 16 times the average for developed regions in which 1 in 152 dies. 165 million children under 5 are stunted (low height for age) in their growth due to poor nutrition during the first 1000 days of life.

WHO estimates that 20% of under-five deaths, or approximately two million deaths annually, could be prevented with existing vaccines. The top three causes of such deaths are estimated to be:

• Premature birth, 
• Complications during labour and delivery, and 
• Infections such as sepsis, meningitis, and pneumonia. 

The UNICEF report brings to light several aspects of maternity health care across the world. It says that such deaths are not because of poor medical conditions mostly, but a major reason is also that the families of the babies are too poor or marginalized to access the care they need.

The five worst countries to be born are Pakistan, followed by Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Lesotho; all low-income countries. While the countries which are safest to be born are Japan, Iceland, Singapore, Finland, and Estonia; all ‘developed’ countries. However, India remains the country with the largest number of newborn deaths overall with 600 thousand infant deaths per year which takes a major share of the world average, i.e. 800 thousand deaths per year.

The Well Being Foundation is one organization that is working tirelessly even in the sub-Saharan deserts of Africa for better health care. With an aim to work only on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals three, five and six, the NGO is running programs on midwifery, emergency obstetric and newborn care, infant feeding, etc. The UNICEF has also jumped into action by launching the Every Child ALIVE campaign which aims to demand the health ministers around the world to step up the investments for every mother and her baby.

Other NGOs like the EU-funded Alima are also working in countries like the Central African Republic. They run a hospital in Boda region and has safely delivered over a thousand babies last year. They also provide medical assistance for carrying out Caesarean section surgeries which prevent many inevitable deaths.

Reporter Monica Pinna posted their work on twitter:

Today I have witnessed the birth of a beautiful girl #CAR. Here 34% of health structures have been destroyed by the ongoing conflict and the maternal mortality rate is among the highest worldwide. So, what I saw is a double gift. Well done @alima and @eu_humanitarian aid pic.twitter.com/QquMfkQcKq

— Monica Pinna (@_MonicaPinna) February 7, 2018

The United Nations have already set 17 primary goals of sustainable development. But, as the UNICEF says, we are failing our children. Infant mortality should be one of the top priorities of the governments across the world if we are to achieve the #Envision2030. If the children are not even alive then for whom are we setting such ambitious goals?

Dubai: A glittering global city built by poor migrant construction workers

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

Zola (name changed) is one among the thousands who travel from Africa to Abu Dhabi on a promise of a job and life that is beyond imagination. He was hired in his home country in Africa for a contract that his skilled job would make him earn £770 a month with good accommodation, medical insurance, and a food allowance.

But as he landed in Abu Dhabi, he faced the harsh reality. He shares a room with 8 other men and often has to wait in line for using the toilet. His day starts at 6 am and he has to work for 11-hour shifts in the hot Arab summer with no medical insurance whatsoever.

“The temperature in this country right now is piercing and we still work. I have family back home but most depend on me for support and that's why I left my job and took the offer in the first place because of the promise of a huge salary,” Zola told The Independent.

Dubai is a global city. 85 percent of its population are immigrants drawn from dozens of nations around the world. As Hussain Zaidi brilliantly puts in his book Dongri to Dubai, “There are several lingua francas, each offering its own advantage—English for the Brave New World of Emirate futurism; Urdu/Hindi for those who trade in gold or drive taxis; Arabic for the Master Planners; Russian or Pushtu to buy or sell cars; and Chinese for the times ahead.”

Till the end of World War II, the city did not even exist in the world map. But, today it is the fastest growing global metropolis in the world giving tough competition to the likes of London, New York, and Tokyo. Dubai is a small city-state and one of the 7 emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates. Even though ruled by an absolute monarchy of the Al Maktoum family, the city has a flabbergasting GDP of $108.14 billion and per capita income of $28,396.

And this happened overnight, literally!

Dubai used to be a small coastal village in the Persian Gulf. Most of its land used to be barren and the population was very sparse until the British left with all their forces in 1966. Apart from fishing, the other big economic activity used to be the pearling industry. But with the Japanese invention of synthetic cultured pearls, Dubai’s only economic activity also diminished.

In the 1950s, oil was discovered in the UAE, which was fully exploited by the natives as the British had to leave soon. In one decade Abu Dhabi started exporting oil. The seven emirates also started collaborating to form a modern state by then. In 1971, the United Arab Emirates was formally established when Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah and Umm al-Qaywayn came together to form a federation. Abu Dhabi’s chief Sheikh Zayed Bin-Sultan AL Nuhayaan became the leader of the new country, Abu Dhabi remained its capital.

The United Arab Emirates is not a nation-state. The seven Emirati constituents are ruled by seven families in a feudal administration.

Since Dubai had a very modest income from oil exports, its ruling family the Al Nahyans banked on another industry which would fundamentally change the landscape of the city. They invested heavily in tourism and developed the infrastructure for tourism. Today the Palm Islands and Burj Al Khalifa are standing landmarks of manmade wonders. The Emirates Airlines, with a market valuation of $25.8 Billion is one of the biggest aviation services in the world.

The other aspect of the new state of UAE was that it had no rigid tax system – neither income nor sales. This helped UAE to exploit the strict import laws of Iran and India. Dubai thus became a safe haven in the Middle East to stash all the money – legal and illegal. Gangsters and their dark professions are therefore well represented in Dubai. In fact, internationally notorious Indian origin gangster Dawood Ibrahim was last spotted publicly in a cricket match in Sharjah, Dubai’s neighbouring emirate ten miles away. Viktor Bout, renowned as the Merchant of Death in Africa and Central Asia also used to allegedly park his planes in Sharjah while receiving his cheques for services rendered to warring factions through the Standard Chartered Bank branch there.

The location is the most important advantage to UAE in general and Dubai in particular. Being in the Gulf area, it had proximity to the Indian subcontinent, the middle east, Africa as well as Europe. It has become the new Constantinople, the centre of the world. Almost all flights from the west to the east and vice versa have a layover at Dubai today.

The workforce of the city comes mostly from the Indian subcontinent – Indian, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankan, etc. Due to a demand for rapid development, it has been alleged that these migrant construction workers and labour forces are often kept in inhumane conditions. Vice news published a documentary called Slaves of Dubai in 2012 which for the first time unearthed the phenomena of modern day slavery.

It is alleged that poor labour forces are picked up from overpopulated regions like Bangladesh and India and brought to Dubai. Once they reach, their passports are taken away and they are made to live in camps which would put Nazi concentration camps to shame. In hot summer conditions of Arab where the temperature reaches as high as 50 degrees Celsius, 20 people are made to sleep in one room. The toilets often run out of the water and there is no proper sanitation as well. Such construction labourers often earn as little as AED 700 (£127) a month.

The other class of workers who are more marginalized is the numerous Asian and African women working as domestic workers who have reportedly been overworked, beaten or sexually abused by their employers but are often trapped in slave-like conditions because they are excluded from the country’s labour law protections.

Human Rights Watch said in a report that the migrant workers’ residency is tied to their employers through a sponsorship system that prevents them from changing jobs and opens them to charges if they run away. It cited passport confiscation, non-payment of wages, long hours of work, forced confinement, food deprivation and psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

The UAE government has not overlooked the matter altogether. According to reports, the Dubai Standing Committee of Labour Affairs said that only 1 percent of labourers housing facilities are in poor conditions. Major General Obaid Muhair Bin Surour, head of the committee, said that policies and efforts made by the committee since its inception in 2011 have enhanced the UAE’s reputation in international forums in terms of labour rights.

He also pointed out that the state register for the protection of workers’ rights and humanitarian work was praised by the UN Human Rights Council, International Labour Organisation, and the UN secretary-general. He further expressed his appreciation for companies cooperating closely with the committee to improve labour accommodations. He pointed out that some companies have excellent housing quarters that include swimming pools, sports facilities and health centres with clean sleeping facilities all year round.


There have been efforts from citizens as well. Like Prakarti Lakwani, an Indian national who founded the “Shukran Workers” (Thank You, Workers) whose volunteers regularly set up cinema nights for domestic workers. Future plans include adopting labour camps, offering dental check-ups and treatment to workers. Prakarti also wants to see workers upskill – learning to drive and improving their English, so one day they might not be workers anymore.

FIFA World Cup: Not all game but human trafficking, sex tourism and drug abuse

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

In Nigeria, ten children, all of whom were in possession of a FIFA fan pass, were rescued by the officials in connection to a human trafficking racket. The group consisting of nine girls and a boy were intercepted at the Lagos’ main airport when the officials of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking of Persons (NAPTIP) suspected them for having only one-way ticket. Five suspects, including a policeman and a quarantine officer, have been arrested in connection to the incident.

Human trafficking is a big menace around the world. The U.S. Department of State estimates that around 600,000 – 800,000 people are trafficked illegally every year. And, when it comes to global events like FIFA World Cup or Olympics the intensity increases manifold.
During the 2014 Brazil World Cup, more than 600,000 fans visited the country out of whom a vast majority, almost 75% were men. These were tourists flying to the host country for a vacation along with the sports festival. According to blogger Michelle Lillie, where there is tourism, there is also sex tourism.

According to the above video, the Brazilian law sets the age of consent to fourteen-year-olds since 2009.

In Brazil, prostitution laws are similar to India and some other countries. All persons above the age of 18 can take money in exchange for sex. But running a brothel or pimping is prohibited by law. But that does not stop the illegal network of sex trafficking. Due to the two mega-events – FIFA World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016, there had been a huge increase in the demand for sexual services. Young girls, some as young as 10 or 11 years of age, were brought from other countries to ‘entertain’ the tourists flying in. They mostly came from extreme poverty. Coupled with selling their bodies, they are also prone to drug abuse, which some victims say helps them go on.

A woman aged 41, who has lived on the streets since she was seven, told The Mirror: “The children are at real risk from local men and tourists. They go with the men because they are high on drugs or need more money to buy drugs. They use drugs to numb the pain of the sexual abuse, become addicted then need to sell themselves over and over again to raise the money.”

During the 2014 edition of the FIFA WC in Rio, Vatican nuns launched a campaign against forced prostitution and sex tourism. They publicised statistics which shows that sexual exploitation rose by 30 percent in connection with the World Cup in Germany in 2006 and 40 percent at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

FIFA and Human trafficking: The other side

Human trafficking is also a perennial problem in soccer-crazy nations of West Africa. There is a scam by a network of fraudsters who offer ‘opportunities’ to young boys who come from a poor background. They promise a trial at any of the big European football clubs for a fee of as high as €3,000 which generally includes their cost of visa, passport, and airfare.

The United Nations opines that football’s obsession with fame, money and the hunt for talent has started a modern day slave trade. There are many unauthorised youth academies which sell adolescents to European or Arabian middlemen who try to sell them further to the European clubs. But often they land up nowhere.

As per a Foreign Policy report, after being recruited from west African soccer playing nations like Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal, the athletes are abandoned in Europe. The agent vanishes with the money and the young boys are caught with poverty in a foreign land. Hence they take up other options like crime and black economy.

The sport’s governing body FIFA’s response has been pro-active yet ineffective. In 2001, FIFA introduced the Article 19, which sets the regulations of international transfers of players. As per the law, a player below the age of 18 cannot migrate to another country. There are a few exceptions though - if the player’s home and the club’s base is within 30 miles from the international border then he can migrate, if a player is above 16 and migrating from one European country to another then it is allowed, and if a player’s family migrates country for a different reason other than soccer then also it is permitted.

But the regulation has received criticism from the American continents. Young Brazilian and Argentine players are often recruited in big Spanish clubs like FB Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid and due to this ban, the players are on the losing side. The three big clubs mentioned have received short bans regarding the same. English giant Chelsea is also under investigation for possible breaches.

Russia had given a visa-free entry during the Confederations Cup held in Moscow last year which extends to the FIFA World Cup 2018 as well. Julia Siluyanova of Russian anti-slavery group Alternativa last month told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the eased visa rules were a "present for traffickers", as its normally strict system had typically made trafficking time-consuming and costly.

Many women and girls have been lured from Nigeria in recent years with promises of work and good wages only to end up sold for sex and trapped in debt bondage, and the World Cup could see the number of victims arriving in Russia soar, Siluyanova added.

The World Cup kicked off on June 14 with host nation Russia taking on Saudi Arabia in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, with the final to be played at the same stadium on July 15. Ten other cities will also be hosting World Cup matches.

Gender discourse in Islamic states: Two case studies.

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

Soumya Swaminathan withdraws from Iranian Chess tournament

Soumya Swaminathan, the Indian grandmaster and Commonwealth Gold (2012) medallist has decided to withdraw from the Asian Nations Cup Chess Championship 2018 which is to be held in Hamadan, Iran from July 26 to August 4 this year. In a Facebook post, she has criticised the Islamic nation’s hijab policy of public appearance.

She said, “I find the Iranian law of compulsory Headscarf to be in direct violation of my basic Human Rights including my right to freedom of expression, and right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

She has also put the organisers under the scanner, “I am very disappointed to see that player's rights and welfare are given such less importance while allotting and/or organising official championships. I understand the organisers expecting us to wear our National Team Dress or Formals or Sporting attire for our games during official championships, but surely there is no place for an enforceable religious dress code in Sports.”

This is not a new incident in Iran, there are reported cases where other women sportspersons have boycotted championships because of the hijab law. The Iranian Chess Federation had also banned chess champion Dorsa Derakhshani for attending a championship without a hijab. She later played from the US side.

The issue is very subjective yet sensitive. Even though it is a law in Iran, in the general discourse, it stands against the basic tenets of gender equality and human rights.

“The Hijab has an important place in the power dynamic between society and the ruling Iranian regime. During the revolution in 1978-79, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the hijab became a symbol of resistance and protest against the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah. The Pahlavi regime of the Shah and his predecessor had attempted to modernise the country, but its policies clashed with the religious values of a large part of the population.” says Moujan Mirdamadi, a Ph.D. Candidate at the Lancaster University.

She further explains, “Publicly wearing a hijab became a symbol of protest and solidarity against the monarchy, regardless of how religious a woman was. But wearing a veil was not compulsory for protesters, neither was making it so a demand driving the revolution.”

After the Islamic revolution in Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war, the new regime imposed strict domestic laws and in 1985 the Hijab law was imposed regardless of their religious beliefs. The Hijab was a symbol for the Islamic theocratic regime to implement their strict religious ideology. A moral police were also installed to monitor the public appearances of teenagers and young people in the country.

However, early this year, Iranian women have gone on a resistance against the Islamic regime and started breaking the Hijab Law by pulling off their headscarves in some of the busiest public squares and using them as flags. Even though the protest is done in guerrilla mode, the Iran government has responded by arresting at least 29 women. “The Iranian police announced in 2014 that they’ve warned, arrested or sent to court nearly 3.6 million women because of having bad hijab, so these arrests are not new, if people are protesting it’s exactly because of such a crackdown,” Masih Alinejad, a US-based journalist and activist told The Guardian.



Massoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s vice president for women’s affairs, however, defended the hijab law by saying that it is a “social regulation” and not wearing it amounts to public nudity. “There is no city in the world where you can walk naked in the streets and you won’t be approached by a particular regulatory body,” she said in a press conference.

Transgenders to fight Pakistan elections

Soumya’s public statement comes at a time when another Islamic regime, Pakistan, became one of the first countries to let the transgender contest elections. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) act was passed by a majority in the National Assembly in Islamabad last month. It granted basic rights for the transgender people and bans discrimination against them by employers and business owners. It also allows transgender people to self-identify as male, female or a "third sex" on official documents, such as passports or driver's licenses and outlaws harassment in public places or at home.

The makers of Pakistan dreamt of making a “New Medina”. After years of the bumpy ride between maintaining a democracy and being a failed state, the south Asian state passed a historic law which set the standard for the world to look up to. Mehlab Jameel is an activist in Lahore, Pakistan, who helped write the bill. "I heard about this yesterday morning and I was in a state of shock because I never thought something like this could happen within my own life in Pakistan," she told National Public Radio. "This kind of development is not only unprecedented in Pakistani history, but it's one of the most progressive laws in the whole world."

As a result of this effort, thirteen members of the transgender community will be contesting the July 25 elections on various seats across Pakistan. According to a Dawn report, two transgender leaders – Nayab Ali and Lubna Lal – will contest on Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Gulalai (PTI-G) tickets, while the remaining 11 candidates will run as independents.


In 2009, Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to legally recognise a third sex, allowing transgenders to obtain identity cards. They number at least half a million people in the country, according to several studies, but their representation in politics and many other spheres of life remains minimal as they are restricted to very few job roles - with many forced to earn their living by begging and dancing.

FIFA World Cup 2018: Festival of humans, death of humanity

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

On the eve of the 1966 FIFA World Cup, a dog named ‘Pickles’ was in news. On 20^th March 1966, four months before the gala event was scheduled to kick off, the original trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall. The Jules Rimet Trophy, which was named after a French lawyer who was a president of the FIFA and initiated the World Cup competition in 1929, was made up of £30,000 solid gold.

The incident was kept confidential and a replica was being considered when the police received a call from Dave Corbett, a resident of Norwood, South London, claiming that he had recovered the trophy. It turned out that his dog Pickles found it. Dave said that when Pickles started going around his neighbour’s car constantly, then he saw a tightly bundled package wrapped in a newspaper. He tore a bit of the package and could see words like Brazil, West Germany, etc., engraved on it, along with a blank shield. His heart started pounding as he finally recognised the priceless piece of gold.



Pickles became an overnight sensation who won several awards, including Dog of the Year and has acted in a few films too. But, died in an accident in the following year. But, for FIFA World Cup, this dog remains a legendary figure out of the playing field. Since then 12 editions of FIFA World Cup have gone by. The trophy has been all over the world from Mexico to South Korea and the United States to South Africa.

Next month the 21^st edition of the greatest show on earth is going to kick off in Russia. But for the host country dogs have become a liability. A petition, started by animal rights activist Yekaterina Dmitriyeva, has accused the Russian state of killing homeless stray dogs. More than a million people are already in support of the petition, which is being addressed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, supposedly a dog lover. According to her, “tenders worth $1.95million have been awarded in host cities to deploy ‘canine KGB’ deaths squads. Hundreds of thousands of dogs, cats, and even birds will be killed by terrible poisons and in some cases even more cruel ways.”
The issue has started a social media campaign already.

#bloodyfifa2018 #WorldCup não há desculpa para ignorar o que ocorre na Rússia. a matança de cães atinge índices dignos de extinção de uma espécie!? nós vamos agir como o foi durante as Olimpíadas no Rio e fingir que não soubemos do 'sumiço' dos moradores de rua daquela cidade?!

— LENIRA! (@lekavick) June 12, 2018

#bloodyfifa2018 Animals don't deserve to be killed just for kicking a ball! No more blood of innocent creatures! @FIFAcom Stop #Russia2018

— IchigoIchie ♡ (@mje483) March 14, 2018

According to the Guardian, there are approximately two million strays in Russia’s 11 World Cup host cities and it has been estimated that local authorities will spend up to £119 million on catching, caging, sterilizing and euthanizing animals this year. But activists warn that image-conscious officials are trying to remove strays from the streets by fair means or foul play before the arrival of players and fans next month.

Russian officials deny euthanasia as state policy, and some NGOs say the same as well. The allegations of mass extermination are just “gossip”, says Yekaterina Ublinskaya, deputy director of Right to Life, an animal rights NGO operating in the western exclave of Kaliningrad, which won a £21,400 contract to provide temporary accommodation for dogs picked up off the streets for the World Cup. “There are some instances of poisoning, but these are private incidents and there is no mass poisoning.”

The Independent, however, reported that there is a crackdown not only on dogs but beggars, prostitutes, and students as well.

This isn’t the first time that Russia has been slammed for its treatment of stray animals. Thousands of stray dogs were shot and poisoned before the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. Yulia Krasavo told CNN that she witnessed the long, agonizing death of a street dog when she walks out of a movie theatre in Sochi. "At first I thought someone beat the dog, she jumped up and started running around in circles. Then she fell down and started spitting up ... I called the veterinarian. He said there is a 100% guarantee the dog was poisoned.”

The sport’s international governing body, FIFA and the Local Organizing Committee said in a statement to The Washington Post that they “in no way condone cruel treatment of wild and stray animals” and would be monitoring “the appearance of stray animals in the stadiums” and “responding to any case in a humane manner.” FIFA and the organizing committee also said they were in contact with the host cities and “expect them to ensure the welfare of the animal population.”
This is also not the first instance when the prestigious international football tournament has been tainted for being inhumane. During the 2014 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, the authorities drove out tens of thousands of slum dwellers from the city. At least 19000 families were affected as reported by The Guardian.

However, from 15 June, the NIKA Foundation – a non-profit animal rescue group – will be launching a dog adoption campaign titled “Find a Friend in Russia” in all host cities.  “The visitors of the [World Cup] host cities... including foreigners, will be able to pick their new friend from a local [dog] shelter via befriendrussia.com website,” the organizers told Sputnik.

The World Cup kicks off on June 14 with host nation Russia taking on Saudi Arabia in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, with the final to be played at the same stadium on July 15. Ten other cities will also be hosting World Cup matches.

Sexual redemption in times of STD: Should condoms be allowed in prisons?

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

Alfred Kurai (name changed) is a convict for 6 years in a Zimbabwean prison serving his time on fraud charges. He has a wife and 2 children aged 6 and 8 and hopes to reunite with them soon after his release. But, he is part of the prison community’s men who have sex with other men but do not necessarily identify as gay.

"First, it was because I wanted food. Here and there I would trade sex for food with some male inmates. Knowing I would be behind bars for a couple of years taught me to do what I had to do to survive," Kurai said to The Herald, avoiding eye contact. "Even after the food situation improved I would seek sexual favours here and there, not because I am gay, but because a person has needs, and with a decade to serve, you need that companionship."

Over a 30 million men and women live in prisons all over the world every year. Among them, one third are pre-trial detainees who will return to their families within a few months or a year. However, HIV-AIDS is a major health challenge for prison authorities. According to a UN report (2013), globally, the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis in prison populations is 2 to 10 times as high, and in some cases may be up to 50 times as high as in the general population.

However, prevention measures are lacking in most of the developed as well as the developing countries. In Zimbabwe, legislators and civil right advocates are currently debating whether to allow access to condoms in prisons to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The debate comes after Lesotho, which has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world, overlooked its criminalization laws on homosexuality to allow condoms in prisons in late 2017. The highest HIV prevalence rates worldwide is led by the East and South African countries with an estimated population of over 19.4 million infected people as reported by avert.org.

The biggest challenge to this serious issue of the public health of the most marginalized section of the society is the criminalization of homosexuality. Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan have death penalties on same-sex unions. In most of the developing countries including India and a series of East African countries, homosexuality is a criminal offence amounting from 7 years to life imprisonment. Homosexuality is decriminalized only in western Europe, North America, and a few Asia-Pacific countries. But, only a handful have experimented with Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) prevention measure inside the prisons. Kurai, who supports the proposed condom policy, says he has seen many fellows die in prison due to AIDS-related illnesses.

India, which has the third largest HIV infected population, has a total population of 2.1 million people living with HIV. In 2016 alone, 62,000 people died due to AIDS-related infection. In 2015, a study was conducted by the National AIDS Control Society (NACO) of men who have sex with men. Conducted across 12 Indian cities, the study found that 7% of the population tested positive for HIV. The legal status of same-sex conduct in India has fluctuated in recent years. In December 2013, India's Supreme Court re-criminalized adult consensual same-sex sexual conduct, after the Delhi High Court had decriminalized it in 2009. This raised fears about access to HIV prevention and treatment for men who have sex with men. However, in February 2016, India’s Supreme Court announced a review of the 2013 decision.

Recently, the NACO launched a prison intervention program which found that the infected population among the prison inmates is much higher than the general population and this is because of unsafe sex as well as drug abuse. According to a UPI report, in 1995 itself, a medical committee appointed by the Indian Council of Medical Research suggested that condoms be made part of prison’s health facilities. However, until as late as 2018, there was no action regarding this.

Among the developed nations, United States has a very high rate of STD-related epidemics. On October 14, 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to determine the ‘risk and viability’ of allowing non-profit or health care agencies to distribute sexual barrier protection devices like condoms to inmates in one state prison facility. His argument was that even though sexual activity in prisons is against the law, providing condoms to inmates is “consistent with the need to improve our prison health care system and overall health.” The pilot project opines that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Programs on HIV/AIDS recommend that prisoners have access to condoms during their time in prison. Studies have found no security problems or serious incidents involving a condom, no increase in sexual activity, and that when condoms are available inmates use them during sex.

In a study published (2002) by the AIDS Education and Prevention journal, researchers J. May and E. Williams found that 55 per cent of inmates and 64 per cent of correctional officers supported the availability of condoms at the Central Detention Facility in Washington DC. The objections, however, were mostly due to moral and religious concerns about homosexual activity. A 1-year pilot study (2014) of wall-mounted condom dispensing machines in one California state prison compared pre- and post-intervention rates of penal code violations related to sexual misconduct, contraband, controlled substances, and violence. The rates of penal code violations were unchanged or decreased compared to the pre-pilot year. Discreetly located condom dispensers were vandalized less frequently than those in plain view. The study suggested that distributing condoms using the pilot model would cost less than $2 per inmate annually. Condoms are available in two prisons and five county jail systems including the Los Angeles and San Francisco County jails in the United States and many prison systems worldwide.

The Pigeon Pea Economy and Indo-African relations

(This article was first published at Devdiscourse.com, please click on the link to find it)

Protein hunger, an important aspect of malnutrition continues to be a major concern around the world. The drylands, covering 55 countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and inhabited by 2 billion people, 644 million of whom are poor, are most vulnerable to climate change with very little rainfall, degraded soils, and poor social infrastructure resulting in risk of malnutrition and poor health status.

The Pigeon Pea is a perennial legume from the family Fabaceae which was first domesticated in India at least 3500 years ago. Today the vegetable is, however, common in Asia, Africa and Latin America and all tropical and sub-tropical regions both as a food as well as an agricultural product. In the Philippines, it is regarded as ‘poor man’s crop’. Due to its high protein content, it is being treated as a substitute for meat in many African countries and thus a nutritious food to tackle malnutrition. The shrub can grow up to 3.5 meters and the seeds which come in colours like white, green, cream, brown, purplish or black are rich in nutrients like magnesium, phosphorous, calcium, and potassium. Apart from protein which is 15-22 grams per 100 grams, it also provides an adequate amount of iron, carbohydrates, fats, dietary fibre, Vitamin B and C. The pulse is an affordable source for preventing Anaemia, particularly for pregnant women.

According to a study conducted at the University of Philippines in 2005, the development of new pigeon pea based value-added processed products may kick off an affordable alternative to the meat-based protein market and boost the small hold farmers and rural households with additional income. After testing various recipes using a trial-and-error method, the best recipe formulation for pigeon pea cakes, cookies and polvoron were identified using a 1:5:1 ratio of commercial cake flour and pigeon pea flour. If commercialization of baked products was feasible, this will make available affordable, ready-to-eat, protein-rich food to a broad sector of society and offer livelihood opportunities for housewives, cooperatives, or women's groups as a small scale enterprise.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is an India based research centre which through scientific research aims to find solutions for the nutrition security of people in these regions. It has collaborated with NRGene, an Israeli genomic big data company which develops cutting-edge software and algorithms to reveal the complexity and diversity of humans, plants, and animals for supporting the most advanced medical research and sophisticated breeding programmes. Together they have developed a new technology with which genomic process that could have taken years, have been completed in just a few months.

“The developing world has long faced the pressures of food security with limited farmland,” said Dr. Rajeev K Varshney, Research Program Director, Genetic Gains and Director, Centre-of-Excellence in Genomics & Systems Biology, ICRISAT. “For effective use of genomics-assisted breeding, we need reference genomes of several varieties of a given crop. Therefore, new assemblies of chickpea and pigeon pea lines by NRGene and ICRISAT will allow our scientists and partners to better understand plant traits to breed more nutritional varieties,” Varshney added. ICRISAT in partnership with other institutions has already decoded and documented genomes of pigeon pea and chickpea.

Tanzania is an East African country known mostly for gems and precious metals which amount to 36% of its total exports. But, that is a colonial legacy. Today the country boasts of sustainable agricultural practices. Out of its total national export value, vegetables amount to almost 5.8%. A major share of the vegetable exports is occupied by the $240 million Pigeon Pea industry. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the world produces almost 4.49 million tons of Pigeon Pea out of which 63% is produced by India alone. Africa contributes almost 21% which makes it produce almost 1.05 million tons.

In Sudan, the Pigeon Pea is mostly consumed as boiled dry seeds. They add either sugar and fat or salt, with onion and sesame oil. Its consumption is related to the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan, and happy occasions. However, recently experts are recommending the use of pigeon pea for school pupils and student boarding houses, as a cheap and equally nutritional source.

India faced a serious shortage of the highly nutritious legume during 2014-16. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi went around these countries and desperately urged them to produce and supply more to India. The Indian Prime Minister in a visit to Tanzania promised that India would increase imports from the country to one million tonnes annually for all pulses, including pigeon peas. But, in 2016-17, India harvested a record 22.9 million tonnes of the legume while unrestricted duty-free import continued. This led to a drastic fall in domestic prices post-demonetization of high-value currency notes in India.

In August 2017, the Indian state-imposed quantitative restrictions (QRs) on the import of pigeon pea (tur/arhar) and black matpe (urad) and green gram (moong) from Tanzania. The reason behind the ban is not clear but it is assumed that it is because of over-production of the legumes in India over the last two years. India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued a Trade Notice No. 13 (2015-2020) restricting imports of the commodity from countries with no bilateral agreement on the crop with the South Asian nation.

This unanticipated move has not only affected the Tanzanian export revenue but hundreds of pigeon pea farmers and traders across the east African country were affected. They, in the peak season for the crop, were unable to sell their hundreds of tonnes of produce because of a lack of market. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that about 300,000 households are involved in pigeon pea farming. Tanzania's pigeon pea exports to India ranged from 160,000 to 180,000 tonnes annually out of an estimated 200,000 tonnes yearly production. That accounted for 97 percent of the exports. The remainder is sold to the Middle East, Kenya, Eastern Europe, and North America.

There is no justification, nonetheless, argues Mr. Charles Mwijage, the Tanzanian Minister for Industry, Trade, and Investment in an interview with The Citizen. "This is a violation of WTO rules. Under WTO this is not justifiable." Best practices in international trade, he pointed out, would only allow increased import duty "even of up to 100 percent" but not quantitative restrictions. "Our exporters are ready to sacrifice 10 percent to 20 percent loss because they can still sell it but now they could not sell because of the total restriction," he explained. Mr. Daniel Charles, the CEO of Kilimo Markets, an Arusha based trading firm has accused India of violating international treaties on trade. He demanded at least a waiver for the ban from India and asked the Tanzanian government to respond and act on the issue.