Jishi Samuel - Weblog

"No Patent" low cost drug for Malaria proposed

2007-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

A low priced drug for malaria has been produced by a paris based drug company Sanofi-Aventis. The world's fourth largest drug company has decided not to seek any patents so the pills can be freely copied by generic companies like those in India. The company proposes to sell the drug at no profit at less than $1 to very poor customers and $3 to $4 to wealthier ones. The pill is designed primarily for Africa, where a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

UN incited Bangladesh's army take over

2007-02-25T19:37:00.000-08:00

The UN warned the Bangladesh Army chief that if it supported the forthcoming elections, which the UN feared would be violent, it might lose several peacekeeping contracts. UN peacekeeping contracts bring in $300 million a year to Bangladesh which is significant for the poverty ridden country. The next day, the Army chief walked into the office of Bangladesh's president and ordered him to declare a state of emergency, cancel the election, and install a military-backed caretaker government.

Novartis throttling AIDS relief operations in developing countries

2007-02-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis is challenging the Indian Governments decision to put peoples health before patents and profits. Until 2005, India was able to produce affordable versions of medicines which was pateneted elsewhere, since the country did not grant pharmaceutical patents.

Indian drugs constitute one quarter of the drugs brought by over 30 developing countries worldwide. 80% of medicines used for the treatment of AIDS in the developing countries come from India. Novartis is effectively trying to shut down the pharmacy of the developing world.

India has 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, according to the United Nations, which is the world's highest caseload. But the prevalence rate is much lower than in most of Africa.

India complied to the The World Trade Organization's (WTO) Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in 2005. But this agreement includes provisions to safeguard public health and India has included only these in its patent laws.

The Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health signed in 2001 reinforced the right of individual countries to implement these safeguards.

Challenging the public health safeguards in the Indian Law by Novartis will affect the access to medicines in developing countries when the TRIPS agreement by itself has made it difficult for India to produce affordable medicines.

The Indian Network for People with HIV/AIDS (INP+), the People's Health Movement, the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad), the international medical humanitarian organisation Mèdecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) have all expressed their protest on the lawsuit. They have opposed patent applications for crucial AIDS drugs that they need to be able to access at affordable prices. The survival of these organizations and their effort to fight AIDS all depend greatly on winning these patent oppositions.

Widespread protests forced the Novartis to abandon a similar legal action agains the South African government in 2001.

Please join these efforts to get Novartis to back off from India.

Killing innocents for promotion and rewards

2007-02-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

In the 17 year old insurgency in Kashmir, more than 60,000 people have been killed. Recently a new trend has been observed in these killings. Police officers have been conducting "false encounters" and killing innocent people to claim rewards and promotions.

The word "encounter" has until now been used principally to mean skirmishes between militants and the police or the military. For each new murder, the police invoke self-defence and insist that the miscreants opened fire first. Not surprisingly, since the law allows the police to use arms against anyone charged with an offence for which the punishment is death. In their affidavits, the police always say that the criminals had sophisticated weapons, imported or smuggled into the country.

It is said that the stand of human rights activists is demoralising for the police: The government says that it has neither ordered the encounters nor will it ask the police to stop the same. In fact, this isn’t an action taken against criminals, it’s a fight between two groups of criminals.

In the eyes of the public, law and order are breaking down. The prestige of the police is damaged and it needs to do something to limit the damage. "Encounters" are part of that damage control strategy. Police depend on informers to discover who pulled the trigger, not who instigated the murder. These known criminals are then tracked down and shot. The police version is that the criminals opened fire on them and they were killed in self-defence. There are no witnesses to corroborate the story. But public opinion is satisfied and police prestige is restored.

Police and politicians create an impermeable web of corruption and concealment..

In effect, there is a sustained effort by politicians and police to discredit the judiciary. Their story is that the judiciary is too liberal, too inefficient, cases take too long to come to court and too many criminals are released on bail on technicalities. The campaign to tarnish the judiciary is part of the apologia for the extra-judicial killings.

Rape and ye shall marry? In India, Yes.

2007-02-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

Rapists in India has an option now - Marry and you may get away scot free.

Last year, a Delhi court asked a rape victim to consider a marriage proposal from her rapist in a bid to escape conviction. Women's groups, including the National Commission for Women had criticised the court for even entertaining such a proposal.

Indians offered cash prizes for marrying beneath their caste

2007-01-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

The Indian Government is offering 50,000 rupees to higher-caste people who marry spouses from the lowest castes in its latest controversial effort to dismantle the ancient Hindu social hierarchy.

India's national carrier dishonours Indian Currency

2007-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Air India flights accepts only US Dollars or Dirhams on it's flights to UAE for in-flight purchases. If being in international territory is the reason for this, why would the tea vendor in the departure lounge (after emigration) accept Indian Rupees?

High priest sacked on allegations of sexual harassment

2006-08-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

The preliminary police investigations showed that the priest had visited a flat in Kochi and spent time with a woman. There is a case of immoral trafficking pending against the woman in question whom the priest had gone to meet.

This is believed to be part of the same master plan that propagated the desecration story since the priest had opposed the move for corrective rituals and had alleged that the story was fabricated.

Actress breached security and touched idol at Sabarimala Temple

2006-08-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

Controversy erupted at Sabarimala when a film actress admitted to have entered the sanctum sanctorum and touched the celibate idol. Earlier an astrologer had discovered that a woman had entered the temple which was out of bounds for females between the ages of ten to fifty and hence desecrated it.

The chief priest at the temple denied the allegations and maintained that it is part of a master plan to derogate the sanctity and popularity of the temple. It is also alleged that the astrologer is involved in this master plan and the whole set of discoveries by the astrologer and the ensuing revelation by the actress was fabricated.

It is believed that as part of the master plan, the presence of "Lord Ram" was discovered in the devaprasnam. The corrective action proposed was to instate Lord Ram also in Sabarimala to eventually make the believers chant "Jai Ram", the infamous slogan that preceded the destruction of Babri Masjid.

The relevance of Sabarimala in the context of multi-religious fabric of Kerala is the glorious camaraderie of Lord Ayyappa and Vavaru Swami. A muslim shine that co-exists in Sabarimala for centuries and where the hindu pilgrims paid a customary visit was also targeted in the master plan, threatening the centuries old secular tradition of the temple.

No skirts for girls in the campus

2006-07-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

The women's commission of a state in India is considering a ban on skirts for girls and to enforce strict dress codes for women to prevent crimes against them.

The mindset prevails in these societies that it is the fundamental right of a man to misbehave with a woman and it is a woman's responsibility to protect herself.

Girl child labourer tortured and murdered

2006-07-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

The 10 year old girl who was caught trying on her mistress's lipstick was tortured and killed by an educated urban mother of three.

Rapist escapes jail by marrying victim

2006-06-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

A 25-year old man charged with raping a young hearing and speech impaired woman in Chennai has escaped conviction by marrying the victim after striking a compromise with her family.

This shocked women rights activists who feel this could be a precedent-setting verdict.

Spammers win the battle once again

2006-05-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

In a disheartening development in the ongoing battle against spam by computers users, a computer security company waved a virtual white flag of surrender and closed down its operations.

Idealist politics humbles mafia rule

2006-05-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Former minister and prime accused in the infamous ice-cream parlour sex scandal, IUML leader Mr. P.K Kunhalikutty was defeated in a historic electoral reverse by his former aide Mr. K.T.Jaleel who was earlier expelled from the party since he began questioning the style of functioning of the party.

Police torture boy in custody

2006-04-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

A 13-year-old boy taken into custody by police for alleged theft was tortured in a police station in Kerala.

Show cause notices issued to hostile witnesses

2006-02-25T09:27:00.000-08:00

In a landmark judgment an Indian judge awarded life imprisonment to the Best Bakery case accused but also accused perjury on the witnesses giving a clear warning message to several other similar cases around the country where witnesses have been forced to change their statements owing to life threats.

Parents of peace activits killed by Israeli bulldozers sue Caterpillar

2006-01-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

Parents of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist who was crushed and killed by an army-driven Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza are suing Caterpillar for violating the Geneva Convention and American torture laws in allowing its equipment to be used against the Palestinian people and their homes.

There is a boycott of Caterpillar, the company that makes the bulldozers Israel uses to knock down Palestinian homes.

Rigorous imprisonment for sexual harassment

2006-01-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

A court in Kerala has issued a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for sexually harassing a Calicut University employee in a bus.

P.E. Usha, the mother of a 12 year old girl, received little help from the state. For pursuing the case, even her daughter was not left out. She was threatened over the phone that her daughter would be kidnapped, raped and killed. The State Women's Commission had refused to intervene since it is a police case. Though the entire state had been talking about Usha's case, there were few organisations willing to support Usha.

"This is wrong. This is the United States of America."

2005-09-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

Law and order is gone, gunmen are roaming at will, raping and looting, as people die of heat and thirst, bodies lie rotting in the street, with no medicine and now there are thousands of people defecating in the streets. This is wrong. This is the United States of America.

Front-page photos of the dead and desperate in New Orleans, devastated by the Hurricane Katrina , almost all of them poor and black have shaken assumptions about American might.

The issue is being studied closely by American ethicists and social psychologists who opines that rules of human behavior including respect for others' property and for social order itself dissolve quickly in desperate circumstances like the storm's aftermath. Ethicists call it state of nature -- an atmosphere without rules or infrastructure, where the needs are so great that anything goes.

It is under extreme distress that the true character of a person emerges. This reflects the culture of the person and as a whole of the society he belongs.

The looting and chaos in New Orleans reflect a culture of violence. In South Asia, where the tsunami killed more than 30,000 not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged or raped.

Parallel religious courts under scrutiny

2005-08-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the Islamic Seminary, Darul-ul-Uloom & the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on a petition accusing the two most important Muslim bodies of trying to interfere with the country's legal system and introduce parallel Islamic laws in violation of the Constitution.

Cleric's power too large a challenge for the Indian Government

2005-07-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

The 'culture' of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies in their moral code, which is based on concepts of honour and shame. In honour-and-shame cultures like those of India and Pakistan, male honour resides in the sexual probity of women, and the 'shaming' of women dishonours all men. Any country claiming to be a democracy must secularise and unify its legal system, and take away power exercised by medievalist religious institutions that teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of religion.

Ever since the Indian Government caved in and passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano case, denying alimony to divorced Muslim women, Indian politicians have not dared to challenge Islamist clerics' power.

Another honor rape in Pakistan

2005-07-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Another woman has been "honour raped" (read gang-raped) by five men in Pakistan's Central Punjab province where another high-profile gang-rape of a woman, Mukhtaran Mai, on the orders of a village council had triggered an international outcry.

Violence against women is common in rural Pakistan where tribal and feudal customs hold sway. Hundreds of women are raped or killed every year by men intent on restoring honour after behaviour by the woman or a male relative deemed inappropriate in the male-dominated society.

An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective.

Muslim council "finds" that the rape never occured....and hence the matter is closed?

2005-07-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board which sent a team on a fact-finding mission says it is unlikely that Imrana was raped. They "support their finding" on the argument that her house did not offer sufficient privacy for a rape to have occured.

Protest against India rape fatwa

2005-07-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

A ruling by a Muslim seminary in India that a woman allegedly raped by her father-in law must separate from her husband has been met with wide protests.

Mediapersons are the prostitutes of the governments?

2005-06-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

Several top journalists who have covered the UAE say the country has a long way to go in respect of providing functional freedom to the media, while at least one top journalist in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region feels, “My colleagues and I are prostitutes of the government.”