Kicking off soccer dreams

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/kicking-off-soccer-dreams/article4245604.ece

The Dr. B.R. Ambedkar stadium in Delhi was on fire with jubilant enthusiasm on three days in the third week of December as excited children showcased their skills with the football to fulfil their dreams of making it big in the soccer world. The fact that differentiates these matches to other tournaments is that the children are street children playing for a berth in the Indian team for the Homeless World Cup, 2013 to be played in Poland.

The matches were organised by Slum Soccer, a Nagpur-based non-profit outfit that scouts for football talents amidst street children for the World Cup tournament. “My father Vijay Barse began this journey way back in 1999 to instil confidence among underprivileged children. We registered ourselves in 2001,” says Abhijeet Barse, executive officer of Slum Soccer. The sight of street children kicking up a torn plastic bucket on a rainy day inspired the senior Mr. Barse to cash on the huge talent resource hidden in almost 170 million homeless people in India, a sizeable number of which are children. He identified passion for sports as the focal point around which Slum Soccer could weave its social mission – “development of and development through football”.

Abhijeet says, “Sports can bring about a contrast. I have seen the transformation.” His words find a resonant echo in one of the players, Sohail Khan’s confident assertion. “I am the child of a sex worker and football is my life now. I dream, breathe and eat football. I wish to make it big in life,” Sohail says while wiping his sweat, packing up his bag for the day.

“We mixed sports and social initiative because sports have this unique ability of binding people. And at Slum Soccer, we wish to bind the marginalised with the mainstream,” Abhijeet points out.

Football was an instant choice for the outfit because it is cheap, fun and popular. Within a very short span of time, Slum Soccer graduated from connecting passion for football in Nagpur to connecting with players in West Bengal, Karnataka and Kashmir. “We wish to and shall expand to States like Bihar, too,” says Abhijeet, adding “we aim to make slum soccer a platform of community investment. We use football exercises to discuss issues like nutrition, HIV, AIDS, etc. as against doing the same via classroom rote teaching. We wish to produce players who go back to their community and spread the word.”

Shahnaz Quireshi, a coach in Nagpur now, had a tough time fighting it out as a Muslim girl to make a room for herself in football. Though thrown out of home, her commitment took her to Germany where she trained to become a coach. She now actively mobilises members from her community and in nearby slums to play the game.

Slum Soccer brings in coaches from various countries at least twice a year to train its own coaches. It is working with groups like International Children Football Alliance and UK Sports. Abhijeet, however, rues the absence of recognition in the country, “While Street Football World, a FIFA-CSR initiative, selected Slum Soccer on their board and we bagged the 30 position in the Homeless World Cup by winning the Community Cup in 2011, we are not even recognised by regular football associations.”

Finance is also a major issue to deal with some logistical bottlenecks.

Johnson from Karnataka shares his aspiration to become a professional football player like Ronaldo. Asif from Kashmir wishes to become an inspiration for others as a big player some day. The son of a sex worker, Vishwajeet Nandi from West Bengal beams, “We can fight and defeat almost anyone.”

Imraan from Kashmir, who was falsely implicated by the police and taken into custody for two days on the charge of stone pelting in 2010, is an inspiration for others today. He trained with an Argentine coach for a year in Brazil and came back to the Valley to not just play but help unite players across the terrain. Son of a labourer, Imraan asserts, “There is future in football but nothing in stone pelting.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/kicking-off-soccer-dreams/article4245604.ece

Democracy and protests

Democracy and protests have become synonymous concepts in our nation. In fact, to be negatively critical of the system at hand seems like the only way to showcase one's credible socialist leanings. And to criticise what's wrong with the government seems like the most fashionable way of registering one's intellectual capacity. The recent vitriolic attack by Arundhati Roy on the ongoing phenomenon post the gang-rape case is a case in point. Similar are the many 'protests' in various forms - symbolic and out-on-the-streets raised voices. This note follows as a continnum of the past note that investigated a subjective and lived experience. The overwhelming texts, messages, calls and requests have phenomenally inspired immense introspection within me and the issue at hand. It was a conscious attempt on my part to distance my voice from the onslaught of this language of alleged 'protest' and 'democratic dialogue'. I shall try to investigate what are the problematics within the scenario and why it is so. Let us agree as Nilanjana Roy says in her recent article on Kafila that the protest voices at India gate, Jantar Mantar, Raisina Hills, Rashtrapati Bhavan, 10 Janpath are more or less directionless and vague. But my disagreement lies in the constant justification of the echoes in the article and elsewhere as central and definitive of the idea of democracy and free speech. How free should free speech be needs a check. And yes, it requires a monitoring mechanism - either developed by state for conservationists(limitations to Freedom of Expression in the Article 19 of the constitution) or non-state values for communists or ethical, rational and logical loops for the anti-ism lobby. We must remember that we reside in no Plato’s Republic guided by purely poetic principles but we live in a realpolitik scenario where putting a name to our nationality is central to our agreement of being a part of this system. By default, we must abide by certain codes till the time they change and are brought as transformed alter egos. We should and must participate in the process of bringing about a change but that ought to be done respecting the constitutional limitations to freedom. After all this is what being civilized means – to be able to respect and appreciate constructively the culture of the civilization at hand. What binds the cacophony of the protests is pure emotional outburst against a systemic malaise that the psychology of rape, especially gang rape, has become. Kudos to the awareness quotient but one needs a serious look at where the energy of the huge mass intends to fritter away. The demand for justice for the victim of this heinous crime is being met rather too fast for the speed barometer record of our judiciary and police department. Not only has the investigation been quite impressive but the nabbing of the criminals also well coordinated and fast. It is a mockery of our ill framed demand right on the face of the placards we seem to hold. We must realise that we are not saudi Arabia and that the process of justice delivery shall happen within certain protocols - the very same that we expect from the institutions we attack. Also, the state is, at large, outraged at the act and committed to channelise its service delivery mechanism into constructive conclusions soon enough. Let us not get overwhelmed by the euphoric chest thumping, lung cracking cat calls of the ‘silent’ and ‘non-violent’ protests. They are sensitive to the issue but not necessarily ethical, humanitarian, logical and rational in their ‘demands’. The ideas behind gang rape are much beyond the limited confines of violence. Unlike isolated cases of rape where subjective grudge and inflamed passion against the victim are often the raison d’etre, gang rapes are ideological and well planned within the fabric of entrenched patriarchy. Off late, the demographics of gang rapists has emerged as largely those who are visibly disturbed and at times stupified by the presence of assertive and confident women in the work spaces and public sphere erstwhile occupied by their male hormones. This systemic problem/ trend, then, is much beyond the speedy address of any government. It needs, instead, a concerted and consistent social and sociological commitment with apt political and legislative efforts to release the toxin gradually. Logically and rationally, the agitation stands nowhere to address any situation. Rather, it aggravates the already festering instance of lawlessness out on the streets. To stone pelt the police, to abuse the men in uniform and chest thumping sloganeering is nothing but a lewd attempt to grab limelight when the brokers and pimps of two minutes of fame are ready with their cameras and microphones all over the elitist places of protest. The demographics and the modus operandi of the protesters are equally disturbing. Instead of bunking classes to protest for something which is essentially their doing, they would do much better by monitoring their own conduct around women – covertly and overtly. I doubt the sincerity of the ‘movement’ because why is it that the defenders of justice and women safety choose to march with a candle at 3pm from Laxmi Nagar when it is out in the open that post 9 and 10 pm the place literally transforms into a den for open sex racket. Why can not the ‘sincere’ protesters, the men in the clan, undertake night vigils and patrols around places like Dwarka and Mahipalpur than climbing on the poles near Rashtrapati Bhavan to get a love bite from media camera flashes? Why resort to token gestuures at select places of power? Why are the margins of dingy lanes of Delhi abandoned? Why can not Chandni Chowk and Mahipalpur roads be waxed by the peaceful candles? Is it a protest drive or a fashion parade on a seemingly romantic date inspired by Rang de Basanti? The symbols and language of protests and marches has increasingly become a fad these days. Post Arab Spring, Jasmine Revolution, agitations at the Tahrir Square, protests at Wall Street the fashion of loud sloganeering has caught up as frenzied mania. But we need to see if we want a directionless mob to annihilate and leave the shambles for later rot or look for patient yet perseverant cures for malignant tumours as deeply entrenched as rape.

Rape - of what?

I was in class two when that man i called my grandfather(i respected him as one because of his similar age to that of my own grand dad) slipped his hands into my knickers while i slept. I ignored it thinking, as often a child does, that it was a mere mistake. That was repeated, oft repeated and continued being repeated. I felt angry and wept at my helplessness. I could not say this to anyone, not even my mom, for i felt shy. For i felt, even then, that somewhere i was wrong in what happened to me. That i might have mistaken his intention, unsure then, at that age, what exactly could that gesture mean. I was, in nutshell, scared. Years later, once, i broke down. I broke down in my mom's arms when she was trying to explain to me how as a girl growing up in a society like this, i needed to be extra cautious regarding my own safety, unlike people belonging to my own age but of a different gender. Perhaps she meant to give lessons on my fast changing body with teenage stepping up. She explained to me what it meant to be touched inappropriately, hugged unnecessarily, smiled lewdly, looked at with malicious intentions and so on and so forth. She shared her own childhood trauma with me that involved someone very close to her family, someone within her family etc etc to make me confide in her if at all a situation arose. I cried in her lap that day. After years of putting up with nightmares that made my sensitive self a dithering being, after years of being silent because i did not KNOW if what happened was wrong, after years of reluctant feet touching to that man and being caressed on my back by those very same hands, i let myself go. My mom hugged me and apologised. She assured me that none of that shall ever be repeated. She made sure my dad never allowed that man to pass the borders of our home. My dad convinced me that i was not wrong anywhere and that they love me for my courage. I knew that i was in safe hands. And am lucky that amidst most of my friends who have been molested by their own brothers, my own cousins who have been touched by their own uncles, i have a home that makes sure that i never feel like a victim, ever. Even when i was groped in a moving bus when i tried to get down, even when i abused vociferously at that unmanly bastard who tried to caress my body, even when some arbitrary guy tried to touch my thighs while i walked past him with my brother, my dad made sure that i did not lose out my cocky confidence. I don't know how to thank him. But amidst all this, incidents like the one that make the hot debated topic today make me shake with fear. I eagerly wish to wrap up all work while it is still day. I wish that there is someone who can drop me at places i need to go. And it is then that i feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that i begin to behave exactly how those men who raped the girl wish me to behave. A coy, shy girl who should lower her eyes when a lewd comment is passed, and not protest and slap. It is then that my dad and my mom come to my rescue. I love both of you, really! I was talking back home a few hours ago, visibly shaken after i heard a news clipping describing the follow up of the entire incident. I was transported to the trauma i once experienced. I can perhaps never imagine the girl's plight. But i am more angered at the show she is supposed to become for every goddamn newspaper and media house. The men are incognito, with black cloth adorning their faces while they are chaperoned to the legal temple while the whereabouts of the girls make it to every drawing room's discussion snack. And who are these rapists? The driver, the fruit vendor, the conductor? They have a class, and please no Marxist leanings intended or meant, but would they be as speediy tracked down as they have been had they been some Rahul Vadera or some Neelesh Malya or some Chintu Advani and Rohit Ambani? Not that i am not happy that these brutes have been tracked down, not that i am not proud of the Delhi Police's alacrity, but that i am ashamed at the glorious way in which this 'professionalism' is hailed by some. I mean how many of the women receive the same pat on the back when they avert a rape attempt? The police have done what they were supposed to do. Good job! But the applause ends there. Catch that bastard .....Yadav who raped scores of Brahmin gilrs in Bihar before they got married because he wanted to reek of holy vengeance on an upper caste. Catch those affluent Brahmins and Rajputs and Bhumihars and so on and so forth who would not drink water touched by a Dalit girl but would pound her to death for their rapacious pleasure. Catch those IAS ofifcers who openly rape Nepali girls crossing the border and go away scot free because they make the doubly marginalised women, a feast of their power. "Rape is a comment on the systemic scum our system has accumulated over generations," says a very dear friend. I could not agree less for he identifies the machinations of power dynamics of the act rape is. Sex, intrinsically, is an act of violence. But with patriarchy clutching its tentacles over every system that defines THE society, this act has identified gender dynamics as a deeply problematic phenomenon, very subtly but deeply. My mom wanted me to hide any trace of my femininity because she deems it her responsibility to transfer me to another man, unscathed and unsullied, so that he can sully and scathe me later on. It is a scum of a system to dictate girls to feel ashamed of her natural bodily function when she is groaning under pain during her periods. Because if she says she is chumming, a man could calculate the onset of her fertile days and make advances on her, accordingly. It is a scum of a system which produces pseudo-feminists who would want to dress up like a man and behave like them to assert their equality. I am tired of these slut walks and pink lingerie campaigns where every 'feminist' move of baring one's cleavage and midriff is an act of defiance for a male stare. I am sick of waxing and threading and peeling and flinting my skin because some male, Vatsyayana, identified what beauty is, in Kamasutra. Why does feminism have to be male centred, defined, and defied by men and around men? This indeed, is a systemic scum. I am too angered at the moment to indulge in any kind of facebook activism. I take this opportunity to convey my apologies to all those who expect such token gestures from me. I am neither comfortable nor too important to go out for candle light protests, signing petitions, making a black dot my FB profile pic and so on and so forth. In my own way i shall make sure that the cab drivers who pick me up for my night duty at All India Radio behave as they should and not as they want, that i work at my office as early and as late i want and walk out with confidence and reach home safe, that i pester the police in PCR vans to ensure my safe arrival at a bus stop when i lose my way back from some press conference, that i make a guy shut up when he dares pass a lewd comment on me in the metro or anywhere else without thinking twice what people would think to a spray of my choicest abuse, that i get back to my flat convincing my land lord that my arrival and my departure is not their but my lone concern, that none in the world except my parents have the legitimate right to seek explanation of my conduct. This, i decide, shall be my way of putting up my strong face to the world. More than the incident, i am pained at such symbolic forms of cocooned 'protest', painted pains, scribbled sarcasm etc etc. I know words are powerful and all that, but my contribution would lie in convincing my father and my brothers that as i am a potential victim of rape by some potential pyschopath, i need to be cautious and alert all the time, they too are potential rapists like all testosterone storing males and hence need to behave and control their primal urge. I am sorry to have hurt sensibilities, but i refuse to be part of this grand show of solidarity when tomorrow all of us shall have a different issue to tweet, facebook and faff about. I wish to make this a silent yet a consistent and resilient struggle which needs no chronicling on a wall but a sustained etch on my heart and a pat on my shoulder each time my brother comes home and tells me how beautiful a girl in some short skirt looked and how he genuinely appreciated her and confidently asked her out for a cup of coffee.

From classroom to market

http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/issues/from-classroom-to-market/article4213789.ece

There has been an upsurge in professional educational institutions in the past few decades in India. Management training schools have mushroomed at a pace — leaving a widening gap between the demands and challenges placed by and in the market and the supply chain generated out of these institutions of expert management practices. This was a common observation by many panellists at a recent discussion organised at the All India Management Association.

Education and employability had often been treated as disparate principles. Therefore, the need to train students in the art of management became stark and allowed the proliferation of these centres of professional learning. But the theories learnt in classrooms and strategies and practices employed in the real life are markedly different. Hence, the human resource pool churned out of these centres has often been inadequate and ill equipped to fill the requirements — perpetrating a trend of learning, unlearning and then relearning principles to cater to the markets.

There is an inevitable requirement of management educational institutions to have programs, courses and logistic support to train the students in the practices and rigors of ethical business behaviour. This observation has led to the growing sensitivity towards concepts like Corporate Social Responsibility.

A few prominent management schools in India have already designed their syllabi to cater to this lack of social sensitisation at the moment. Compulsory enrolment of students in activities that make them interact with realities at the margins of development as part of their formal training in management; introduction of supplementary and integrated courses along the lines of social sensitisation are some ways in which they endeavour to make their students socially responsible as professionals.

Dr. Prafulla Agnihotri, director at IIM, Tiruchirappalli, pointed out, “The output of academia is the input of industry.” He highlighted the need to involve the industries at every level of business education — engaging industry experts right from the beginning in the selection process of students to designing the curriculum to acting as advisory units in conducting joint research and programs and finally recruiting them to employ their skills in the market.

Dr. Debasis Sanyal, dean of SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, added that a diverse pool of nationalities and identities need to be roped in to cater to the multidimensional challenges posed by market situations.

A.C. Chaturvedi, director of Power Management Institute, asserted that by 2022 there would be a global demand of eight million “globally sophisticated general managers” to address the shifting and enormous demands of the market. For this, he suggested the need to develop cognitive, behavioural and functional skills among the students and also the merging of innovation, adaptability and creativity. Industry experts and academicians unequivocally feel the need to bridge this burgeoning gap between market situations and the academic rigour of business education.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/issues/from-classroom-to-market/article4213789.ece

Hitch a safe ride

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/hitch-a-safe-ride/article4200259.ece

The late 1950s saw the introduction of auto rickshaws on Indian streets. With the burgeoning population, increase in number of private vehicles, introduction of metro trains and more public buses in the cities, auto rickshaws have been facing newer challenges to survive in and acclimatise to the road transport system.

Its unorganised nature is responsible for auto rickshaw’s lack of a brand image, poor public perception, randomised services and operational inefficiencies such as empty trips. Weighing the challenges of the scenario, entrepreneurs in various capacities have begun to take interest in streamlining auto rickshaw services, in turn, taking a step towards sustainable, safe, affordable and profitable road and transport network.

Embarq India and Shell Foundation hosted a roundtable conference last week to discuss the challenges and opportunities in para transit and to promote entrepreneurship in organising and streamlining auto rickshaw services.

Entrepreneur Nirmal was studying at IIM Ahmadabad when an auto driver’s attempts to fleece him for a short distance ride prompted him to initiate a unique model of streamlining the otherwise unorganised auto rickshaws in the area. What began as a small venture of forming a network of 10-15 drivers has expanded to a huge network of 10,000 “G-auto” drivers today in Ahmadabad, Gandhinagar and Vadodara.

At his charitable trust — Nirmal Foundation -- he works on a self revenue based model generated through advertisements and bookings in newspapers and magazines. Auto rickshaws registered with the trust are provided with the name of a trusted brand. This increases the credibility of para transit provided by these vehicles in the market. Additionally, the trust gives insurance and medical facilities to the drivers, ensures their children’s education and augments the quality of their business by inculcating behavioural changes in them through free training sessions. The passengers, in turn, get trouble-free rides at optimum costs.

In a similar vein, Janardan Prasad and Mukesh Jha in Pune and Bangalore operate another entrepreneurial venture with the objective of fleet optimisation on roads. The duo, pass-outs from IIT-Kanpur, formed a ‘for-profit’ network marrying technology, communications, IT systems and services to bridge the gap between commuters and auto rickshaw drivers.

A survey conducted by them reported only one per cent of passengers are happy with the services provided by auto rickshaws plying on Pune roads. They converted it into an opportunity and consolidated their vision of fleet optimisation as autowale.in with the mission of ‘becoming the Google of auto rickshaw sector’.

At autowale.in, the attempt has been to organise auto rickshaws in Pune and Bangalore under their banner. It uses GMS towers to track their vehicles, write algorithms and help in planning travel for both passengers and drivers. This has gone a long way to minimise traffic congestion and tackle the problems of empty rides often faced by drivers on their way back after dropping passengers. Also, the process of surveillance has ensured passengers’ safety and saved them from falling prey to exorbitant travel costs.

The conference had representatives from the world of finance commenting on the huge possibility and opportunity in making the exercise of organising the largely unorganised sector of auto rickshaws a profitable one.

While pointing to the Centre’s sluggish response to innovations in the field, a leading finance expert said that since the exercise is new for the government, too, one needs to highlight and focus on the profitability and scalability of ventures like those which have made success stories like G-auto orautowale.in for the governments to take notice. In addition, he also talked about the need to encourage public-private-partnership models in this largely unexploited sector.

The conference showcased effective strategies to rope in angel investors and foundations and ensure an environment of sustaining entrepreneurial attempts.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/hitch-a-safe-ride/article4200259.ece

It's my land

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/its-my-land/article4187452.ece
Women with land rights have better access to health care, are lesser prone to domestic violence, and able to provide better educational, nutritional and health care facilities to their children, reveals a recent survey by UN Women and Landesa in two districts each of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

They also have better access to micro credit, are less vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and, in effect, have an increased say in decision making in the household, says the report.

The organisations interviewed a total of 504 women in 19 villages (in the districts of Mahabubnagar and Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Kishanganj and Siwan in Bihar) to feel the pulse of the land rights situation in India. The report suggests that access of and control over land by women and their feeling of empowerment are inevitably connected variables.

In a stark contrast to general belief, 22 per cent of Hindu families and 50 per cent of Muslim households were aware of the Hindu Succession Act and the Muslim Personal Law, respectively. The dismal awareness about the women’s rights to land is credited to the fact that there is lack of cohesion and association among women in the communities and societies.

The survey found that 12 per cent of the women were aware of other women who held land titles and 15 per cent of them knew women who had inherited land from their parents. Of those surveyed, 92 per cent of women held no land titles and only 19 per cent showed any willingness to own some. Of the ones who did own a stretch of their own, 78 per cent revealed that they had no official documentation regarding land ownership, making the issue of land rights awareness grimmer.

Discussing the reasons behind this scenario, the report maintained that women do not have access to fair legal recourse to demand their land rights, there is little or almost no documentation of land ownership by women and that women are reluctant to interact freely with revenue officials. Of the women interviewed, 40 per cent said that the law did not recognise their access to land. Around 20 per cent of Hindu women and 5 per cent of Muslim women suggested that their religious leaders did not recognise women’s rights to access land. Among village leaders, 60 per cent did not recognise land rights to women. Interestingly, 85 per cent of husbands supported their wives’ claims to land rights.

The report states that 39 per cent of women did not claim their land rights to keep their social reputations intact, 19 per cent of them did not want to deprive their brothers of the share and 73 per cent of the eldest sons and daughters cited fear of changing family dynamics to stay away from women asserting land rights.

“When families have secure rights to land, they can make long term investments and production decisions, are more inclined to protect their natural resource bases, may benefit from housing opportunities, are more likely to access government programs and may engage more fully as citizens,” according to the report, which supports suggestions and recommendations to positively alter and strengthen women’s share over land rights.

The report says that there should be a gender sensitive approach towards issues of land rights. Land allocation and distribution should have a women-centric trajectory. Village leaders should be informed and sensitized by gender-sensitive training to strengthen the policy base at the grassroots level. All government services related to land rights’ issues and capacity building exercises around the same should be made in a gender-sensitive way and in an easily accessible format.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/its-my-land/article4187452.ece