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Dated : Friday, August 17, 2012 |
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Street fighting years: How Northeast women cope with the big city
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It is now an established fact that both men and women from the Northeast are subject to racial discrimination, even violence. The reasons for such bestial acts are varied
Ninglun Hanghal
‘Girl from Manipur molested, allegedly by Gurgaon neighbour’; ‘North East girls molested by Air India staff’; ‘Dana Sangma suicide: Amity denies discrimination’… Of late, the media have been full of reports on the insecure lives of thousands of young women who come to the Capital from India’s northeastern states to study or seek gainful employment.
According to the ‘North East Migration and Challenges in National Capital Cities 2011’, a study by the North East Support Centre & Helpline, over 314,850 people had migrated from the Northeast to Delhi and other cities between 2005 and 2009. Delhi, of course, has emerged as one of the most popular destinations – the University of Delhi is a magnet for those interested in higher studies, while the sparkling lights of the retail and BPO sectors in the National Capital Region (NCR) beckon unemployed youth.
But these opportunities apart, life in the NCR is far from salubrious, particularly for women. It is now an established fact that both men and women from the Northeast are subject to racial discrimination, even violence. Incidents of physical violence, rape and even murder are not uncommon experiences. The reasons for such bestial acts are varied. For instance, women could find themselves under attack in the patriarchal milieu of north India, because they look different, or appear “modern” and “free”.
Shang and Renu, who have been living in Delhi for over two years, prefer however not to dwell on the “dangers” too much. Ever since the two friends, who are both in their early 20s, came to Delhi from Manipur, they have simply played it safe. They live in a relatively safe middle-class colony in south Delhi with their relatives, and work at a gift shop in a high-end mall located just a few kilometres away. For assisting shoppers and keeping a cheerful demeanour all day, they take home a modest monthly salary of any thing between Rs 10,000 and Rs 13,000 (US$1=Rs 55.4). “It’s nice working here,” says Shang, with a soft smile, adding, “You will find that most showrooms here have staffers from the Northeast.”
Shang is right. Just a few metres away, at a skin and body care products counter, Jolly and Margaret, also in their early 20s, are busy at work. Dressed in white coats and aprons, the two girls pleasantly explain the benefits of the range on offer to prospective customers. For their hard work – they are mostly on their feet and have to be patient with everyone who visits their kiosk – they earn Rs 20,000 every month. Both the girls live in rented accommodation. While Jolly stays with her brother, who works in a BPO, Margaret shares her home with a cousin, who works in a shopping complex.
Ask these young women about the hardships they endure in a city like Delhi and they remark that the harassment, discrimination and bad behaviour they encounter are so ubiquitous that such behaviour has almost become “normal and usual” for them. Street stalkers, misbehaving cabbies, random bystanders who keep staring, they encounter them every day. But they have learnt to deal with the “risks” by making sure that they travel in groups, and by bonding with colleagues and friends.
In fact, these are among the most common coping mechanisms reported. For instance, all the young women we spoke to told us that they invariably had a colleague, friend or relative from their home state at their workplace on whom they depended when things got tough or emotionally draining in a highly competitive office environment. Moreover, they make it a point to live with their siblings, relatives, or friends – cultural ties help to create a sense of security. There are spin-offs of such arrangements: Sharing a flat helps save money – and although earn enough to send money home on a regular basis, savings come in handy for gifts for festive occasions.
Most young Northeastern women with a high school certificate or college degree prefer to work in malls and shopping complexes because they are better in terms of physical security and work timings. Most of them get off by 10 pm and can easily take an autorickshaw back home – cheaper than hiring a cab – since they are still plying on the roads at that hour. For those doing the graveyard shifts, like BPO employees, the risks are much higher. A major source of disquiet is the transportation arrangements made by BPO employers for those on night shifts.
Khanching from Manipur, who works in an UK-based outbound insurance telemarketing company in south Delhi, starts her shift at 3.30 in the afternoon and gets off past midnight. Although she has been doing this job since 2008, hardly a day goes by when she is not on her guard. Like the other women we talked to, Khanching, who earns around Rs 18,000 per month, also lives in a middle-class neighbourhood, with her younger brother, a college student.
The problem often is that the vehicle that drops women like Khanching home cannot access the narrow lanes of many residential colonies in Delhi. So they are dropped off on the main road and often have to make their way at that late hour past groups of young men, some of whom may be drunk. But Khanching has found a way out even in this challenging scenario, “Since my cab cannot come up at my doorstep, it’s my male colleagues – also from the Northeast – who drop me.” She also showed us a bottle of Spray COP alert, which can temporarily disable an assailant. Although she makes sure to carry it in her bag every day, she has fortunately never needed to use it she says.
Among the scores of young women working in the retail and BPO sectors, are several young women entrepreneurs, too. Take the five Mizo women who run a beauty parlour in south Delhi. Mazami, who manages the salon, came to the city in 2008 and her friends joined her later. Today, at their home-cum-salon, they pitch in and do everything together. They share the rent; they rustle up meals and, of course, work jointly. The parlour opens at 10 am, and the women work through the day, cutting hair or doing facials and the like until 8 pm. Sunday is an off day – they spend it by going to church and visiting relatives across the city.
In Delhi, the beauty business can sometimes mean big bucks. Mazami, who manages to make over Rs 20,000 a month, reveals that it is also a demanding line of work. “Sometimes I get very tense,” she says. The bulk of her customers are from the Northeast. “People from our region do not feel very comfortable going to other parlours because of the language barrier. They feel free and comfortable here,” says Mazami, who is undergoing training at Jawed Habib Hair & Beauty Ltd. She has big plans for the future. “I am looking forward to expanding my parlour,” she smiles.
Her words are a reminder of the inherent resilience and never-say-die spirit of these young women. Despite the shabby treatment meted out to them, they have kept themselves and their families going. While support structures are few, those that do exist are a great help in times of trouble. There are also groups working to change attitudes and build bridges between different communities. Some run helplines and websites to register complaints.
What’s interesting is that although every woman we talked to is aware of the dangers of living in a city like Delhi, none of them is fazed. They believe they have made the right decision by migrating to the big city and making the most of the opportunities that come their way.
(Women’s Feature Service) |
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Early relationship 'key to adult happiness'
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Positive social relationships in childhood and adolescence are key to adult well-being, a new study has revealed.
In contrast, academic achievement appears to have little effect on adult well-being.
We know very little about how aspects of childhood and adolescent development, such as academic and social-emotional function, affect adult well-being - defined here as a combination of a sense of coherence, positive coping strategies, social engagement and self-perceived strengths.
Associate Professor Craig Olsson from Deakin University and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia, and his colleagues analysed data for 804 people followed up for 32 years, who participated in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (DMHDS) in New Zealand.
They explored the relative importance of early academic and social pathways to adult well-being.
In particular, they measured the relationship between level of family disadvantage in childhood, social connectedness in childhood, language development in childhood, social connectedness in adolescence, academic achievement in adolescence and well-being in adulthood.
Social connectedness in childhood is defined by the parent and teacher ratings of the child being liked, not being alone, and the child’s level of confidence.
Social connectedness in adolescence is demonstrated by social attachments (parents, peers, school, confidant) and participation in youth groups and sporting clubs.
The researchers found, on the one hand, a strong pathway from child and adolescent social connectedness to adult well-being. This illustrates the enduring significance of positive social relationships over the lifespan to adulthood.
On the other hand, the pathway from early language development, through adolescent academic achievement, to adult well-being was weak, which is in line with existing research showing a lack of association between socioeconomic prosperity and happiness.
The analyses also suggest that the social and academic pathways are not intimately related to one another, and may be parallel paths.
“If these pathways are separate, then positive social development across childhood and adolescence requires investments beyond development of the academic curriculum,” the authors concluded. (Agencies) |
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Why India performs poorly in sports
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As a rapidly growing economy, India is often clubbed with China, but in the Beijing Olympics of 2008, China won several medals while India managed just six. When the question of India’s poor standing in the area of sports is raised, blame is put on a variety of factors like the lack of a sporting culture, poor funding, inadequate training opportunities, inability to identify talent at an early age, and so on.
Important as these are, the basic issue is that a malnourished nation cannot be a sporting nation. Finally, it comes down to this: No health without good nutrition, and this is what I argued in a recent piece for ‘Current Science’, on which the present piece is based.
Over the years, some improvement has occurred in terms of reduced mortality. But the resistant problem of malnutrition continues to defy a solution. Thus, almost 30 per cent of infants in India have low birth weight (less than 2.5 kilos). Almost 50 per cent pre-school children suffer from protein calorie malnutrition as judged by anthropometric indicators like wasting and stunting, and the past decade has seen little improvement. Nearly 30 per cent of adults are also undernourished as judged by the body mass index. There is rampant deficiency of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). There is iron deficiency that causes anaemia (50-70 per cent), with iodine deficiency and vitamin A deficiency being of particular concern. Other deficiencies knocking at the door to be recognised on the basis of recent evidence are vitamin D deficiency (despite our tropical sun), B-vitamins (folic acid, B 12 and B 2) and zinc.
Undernutrition impairs growth, immunity and productivity in day-to-day life, leave aside performance in sports, which demands strength, stamina, and concentration. This is clearly the issue of our times and a panel of economists, who are also Nobel laureates, gave high priority to nutrition for human development. In fact, of the top-ten priorities selected for development in the Copenhagen Consensus, five were in the area of nutrition – micronutrient supplements, micronutrient fortification, biofortification, de-worming and other nutrient programmes at the school and community level.
We need, not just food security – often interpreted as adequate stocks of cereals at the national level – but nutrition security. For this there has to be awareness as well as physical, economic and social access to an age-appropriate balanced diet. There also has to be clean drinking water, a safe environment and primary healthcare for all. A balanced diet implies the right blend of cereals, legumes (dals), vegetables, fruits and foods of livestock origin - milk, eggs, meat and fish.
Thanks to our price support policies, India has been encouraging the consumption of fine cereals like rice and wheat. Yet, coarse grains like maize and sorghum (jowar) and millets like pearl millet (bajra), finger millet (ragi) and minor millets that are rich in nutrients and fibre, need to be prioritised in our nutrition security policies. They have the added advantage of requiring less water for their cultivation, and being more resistant to climate change.
The link between malnutrition and disease is often overlooked. It is, in fact, a vicious cycle. Undernutrition compromises immunity and predisposes a person to infection, which in turn depletes the body of nutrients. Today, countries in transition like India are facing the double burden of pre-transition diseases like undernutrition and infections, and post-transition degenerative diseases like obesity and associated conditions like diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), cancer and arthritis. India is the diabetic capital of the world and CVD hits South Asians, including Indians, at a younger age than in other countries.
Research done over the last two decades has suggested a link between undernutrition at the foetal stage and increased susceptibility to these age-onset degenerative diseases. Intra-uterine nutritional deprivation (resulting in low birth weight) affects foetal programming and body composition. Babies born to malnourished mothers tend to have low birth weight. Such individuals have a higher percentage of body fat than babies born to well-nourished mothers. Indulgence in later life (sedentary lifestyle, high-fat, low-fibre, refined diet, which would be the lot of individuals who move up the economic ladder), predisposes people to obesity, diabetes and CVD. Obesity also aggravates arthritis.
To break this multigenerational cycle, the nutrition and health of girls has to be ensured from birth. A low birth-weight baby has to be rehabilitated nutritionally within the first year, through simple measures like the introduction of breast milk within one hour of birth, exclusive breast-feeding for six months and the introduction of complementary food after six months. These are low-cost interventions needing only mass awareness campaigns.
Ordinary Indian diets are not particularly high in their nutritive content. Visit any village in south India and you will see children eating a pile of rice, with a little chutney or some vegetable or a little dal (lentil). In north India, replace the rice with wheat ‘rotis’ and it is essentially the same picture. Surveys done by the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau, run by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, under the Indian Council of Medical Research, as well as other surveys, have shown that Indian diets are qualitatively deficient in micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), and within the family the diet of pre-school children are most deprived, primarily because of ignorance of a child’s dietary needs and the inability or lack of time on to ensure that the child gets small meals at frequent intervals.
Among vegetables, green leafy vegetables are a treasure trove of micronutrients. They are easy to grow, available throughout the year and cheap. Horticulturists have given little importance to this precious resource. Orange, yellow vegetables and fruits (carrot, papaya, yellow pumpkin and mangoes) are rich in pro-vitamin A (beta carotene). Fruits, particularly citrus fruits, like amla (Indian gooseberry), guava and tomato are rich in vitamin C, which is a good antioxidant. Vitamin C promotes iron absorption and hence helps prevent anaemia. With a little knowledge and understanding, agriculture can be nutritionally oriented. Vegetables and fruits are also rich in health-promoting phyto-chemicals that protect against the onset of age-degenerative diseases.
India needs to put nutrition security at the heart of its missions like the National Food Security Mission, National Horticulture Mission and the National Rural Health Mission. The Food Security Bill is a step in the right direction. But it only includes cereals and millets. While the inclusion of millets needs to be appreciated, we should bring in other items like pulses, vegetables, fruits, animal products and oil into the Bill’s ambit. The Public Distribution System should widen its food basket to include at least pulses, millets and some oil. Some states are, in fact, already doing this.
Several excellent plans of action have been proposed. The Coalition for Sustainable Nutrition Security under the leadership of MS Swaminathan made recommendations for an agenda for action. The Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, one of the highest scientific bodies in India, released two papers, ‘Nutrition security for India – issues and the way forward’ (2009) and ‘Micronutrient security for India – priorities for research and action’ (2011), based on detailed scientific deliberations. Let us hope that these recommendations are heard and implemented.
So to return to the theme we started with, India cannot hope to become a sporting nation without adequate attention to the nutrition of its people. Before the country thinks of winning medals, it needs to look again at what its ordinary citizens are eating.
(Women’s Feature Service)
Mahtab S Bamji |
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Grateful teens less likely to be depressed
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Grateful teens are more likely than their less grateful peers to be happy, less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and less likely to have behaviour problems at school, a new study has revealed.
“Gratitude played an important role in many areas of positive mental health of the teens in our study,” said lead author Giacomo Bono, PhD, psychology professor at California State University. “Increases in gratitude over a four-year period were significantly related to improvements in life satisfaction, happiness, positive attitudes and hope,” Bono said.
To measure the development of gratefulness, researchers asked 700 students aged 10 to 14 to complete questionnaires in their classroom at the beginning of the study, and four years later to provide comparison data.
When comparing the results of the least grateful 20 per cent of the students with the most grateful 20 per cent, they found that teens with the most gratitude by the end of the four-year period had gained 15 per cent more of a sense of meaning in their life, become 15 per cent more satisfied with their life overall, were 17 per cent more happy and more hopeful about their lives and experienced a 13 per cent drop in negative emotions and a 15 per cent drop in depressive symptoms.
Even if teens didn’t start off with lots of gratitude, they could still benefit if they developed more gratitude over the four-year period, according to Bono.
“They experienced many of the same improvements in well-being. Moreover, they showed slight reductions overall in delinquency, such as alcohol and drug use, cheating on exams, skipping school, detention and administrative discipline,” he said. “For instance, the top 10 per cent of those who developed the most gratitude showed 9 percent less delinquency than the bottom 10 per cent in gratitude growth,” he said.
For the purposes of the study, the authors’ defined grateful teens as having a disposition and moods that enabled them to respond positively to the good people and things in their lives, Bono said. “These findings suggest that gratitude may be strongly linked with life-skills such as cooperation, purpose, creativity and persistence and, as such, gratitude is vital resource that parents, teachers and others who work with young people should help youth build up as they grow up,” Bono said. “More gratitude may be precisely what our society needs to raise a generation that is ready to make a difference in the world,” he said. (Agencies) |
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