RoustAbout

Many people live in hard to reach places  like this village within a  Sanctuary It is the 11 th of July today, the first world population day since the provisional results of the Census 2011 were released earlier in the year. As on all such occasions the discussions today are sure to be on the fact that we continued to add more than Australia to our population. However mention is certainly to be made that the population growth rate is now the lowest it has been in the last fifty years, denoting a success for a our population stabilization programme. However the disappointment of those who work on the issue of declining sex ratio around the census results may not be mentioned. This begs the question does population stabilization still concern itself only with numbers, or there are other things that need to be considered as well? In this article I will try to share some of the concerns that I feel need to be considered even though I feel that growth in numbers continues t...

Old palace of King Haile Selassie, now University of Addis Ababa In the space of twelve hours I shared a drink with one ex President, had dinner with one ex Prime Minister, sat next to the only lady in the world to be both a minister and First Lady of two countries and greeted one Nobel Laureate. In the meeting I was attending, I had very august company. But I guess you need such fire-power if you have to start a global campaign to end one of the most persistent, shameful but extremely common forms of traditional practice that plagues large parts of the world. This traditional practice, which many choose to believe is a thing of the past, but is openly endorsed by political and religious leaders in India, is child- marriage. Sixty concerned persons from all over the world had gathered together at Addis Ababa for a meeting called by The Elders, to discuss ways of ending this regrettable practice. The four stalwarts Desmond Tutu, Gro Bruntland, Graca Machel and Mary Robinson represe...

Mr Pavon (middle) supervising the barbeque This year I had occasion to participate in May Day celebrations in far away Romania with a group of  young Roma who have come together to form a social association and now want to work on health rights issues of the local Roma community. The setting was idyllic. We were in a wooded hollow of an artificial lake. We had a splendid barbeque picnic with pork chops, veal steaks and sausages, topped with home-made white and red wine. But we weren’t the only group having fun. Even though communism is history for over twenty years, May Day continues to be an occasion for the whole family to enjoy themselves in Romania. While we were enjoying our barbeque, a stream of visitors came down to enjoy a meal at the floating restaurant or to take a pleasure boat ride. The lake and floating restaurant Mr Pavon, the leader of the local Roma community was the master at the barbeque, and he has also been the inspiration behind the younger gen...

The road was teeming with people, gaily painted rickshaws, green CNGs and roadside stalls and I sat watching from inside the small cage of the three wheeler which I knew earlier as the ‘baby’ but now christened ‘CNG’ in deference to the fuel it used. I had been in Dhaka many times before but today I was eager in my anticipation of seeing the Buriganga and the Sadar ghat. I had heard stories of this venerable river and also of how the river transport from Sadarghat formed a backbone of the transport system of Bangladesh. Dhaka had always reminded me of Kolkata, the city I grew up in and so my expectation of Sadarghat was that it would be somewhat like Chandpal Ghat or Babughat on the Strand Road. The CNG deposited me in front of a long red and yellow brick building which looked like cross between a warehouse and a railway station. There was not a hint of a river in sight and I asked the driver whether he was sure this was where the Buriganga was. He assured me and I tentatively bought ...

Barwani is a small district in the South-western corner of Madhya Pradesh, where it abuts Maharashtra. It has been a district since 1998, being earlier part of West Nimar or Khargone district. Before independence it was a princely state and the remnants of the princely state are visible as the incongruous Ranjeeth Club in the middle of the city. Barwani is a small sleepy town with little claim to fame, and my visit to this place was occasioned by reports coming to us earlier in the year that an exceptional number of maternal deaths were taking place at the district hospital there, and the local people had protested. As many of you may know the Government of India is currently obsessed with the issue of maternal deaths and has launched a large scheme – Janani Suraksha Yojana to reduce maternal deaths. I was part of a small team of public health experts trying to understand the reasons behind these deaths and if they indicated any kind of systems failure. The barren landscape of Barwa...

Orcha is a small village 18 kilometers from Jhansi but during the time of the Mughals it  was the capital  of Bundela kings of the region.  It was much later that that Laxmibai and Jhansi became famous during the first war of Indian Independence. Orcha is a small village – divided into two by the main road. On one side is the more bustling part which includes the famous Raja Ram temple while the more stately palaces are on the other side. The river Betwa flows quietly past the palaces and forms the other axis. Passing through the rustic scenary of 21 st   century Bundelkhand the sudden sight of these grand 17 th century palaces are truly astounding . The temple of Raja Ram means more to the local pilgrims and many sadhus add colour to this small place. The palace complex is remarkable with two huge palaces – the Raj Mahal and the Jehangir mahal. Today they are mute, but three hundred years ago the lives of the residents of these palaces were intimately intert...

Mother Teresa's memorial The immigration officer at Aleksander the Great Airport studied my Macedonian visa and consulted a page on his desk and shook his head. He consulted his colleague in the immigration officers ‘cage’ next to him, but she didn’t have the answer he wanted and he went to consult the Immigration Police booth behind him. An officer dressed smartly in blue uniform came up to me, asked me to sit on a bench and disappeared into his cubby hole with my passport. While the line of passengers at the immigration desk grew rapidly shorter I wondered whether I was being denied entry as an Indian in the land of Alexander, for bringing an end to Alexander’s world conquering campaigns two and a half thousand years ago! Soon the officer came back and asked the immigration officer to stamp my passport – my paperwork was in order and I was free to get into the land of Phillip and his more illustrious son. The Old Stone Bridge Macedonia is a small country of a little over 2 ...

Flame of the Forest Patnagarh was once a princely state, but is now a small town in the district of Bolangir in Western Orissa. Even though there have been three ministers from the erstwhile royal family in recent times, the region clearly hasn’t benefited too much from their interventions in the state government. The forty kilometer drive from Bolangir (where we were staying) to Patnagarh was resplendent with ‘palash’ trees in full bloom. Even though I was familiar with the flower, prinicipally through its reference and use during ‘basanto utsav’ in Shantiniketan, it was only here that I realized why it is referred to in English as the ‘flame of the forest’.  Women Carrying Mehula flowers Bolangir is one of the poorest districts in Orissa, part of the infamous KBK districts, where hunger deaths, distress sale of children were reported during Rajiv Gandhi’s time as prime minister of India. Since then many hundreds of crores must have been provided as development assistance t...