Rape survivors are degraded by 'finger test' in India

Agencies
November 8, 2017

Mumbai, Nov 8: Five years after a fatal Delhi bus rape, more Indian women are reporting attacks but are often humiliated by police and medics or intimidated to withdraw cases, activists said on Wednesday.

A study by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found the outlawed "two-finger test" - which involves a doctor inserting fingers into a rape victim's vagina to determine if she is sexually active - being carried out in a hospital in the state of Rajasthan.

"In some states, both the police and the medical system have not adopted the measures the government set out," Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at the U.S.-based advocacy group told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"While the intention is there (to help rape survivors), it does not percolate down the system."

Home ministry officials said they could only comment once they had seen the report.

India has some of the highest number of rapes in the world but many sex crimes are not reported, offenders often go unpunished and the wheels of justice turn slowly, activists say.

HRW analysed the impact of reforms introduced following the fatal gang rape of a student in a New Delhi bus in 2012 that led to national outrage and put a global spotlight on rape in India.

Nearly 35,000 rape cases were reported to the police and 7,000 convictions were made in 2015, both increasing by about 40 percent in three years, according to government data.

But access to support services, ranging from legal aid to healthcare, is poor and gender-friendly government guidelines are often flouted, HRW said.

"Women and girls said that they received almost no attention to their health needs, including counselling, even when it was clear they had a great need for it," the report said.

India's top court said in 2013 that the two-finger test violated a woman's right to privacy.

It was banned and the Indian Council of Medical Research issued new guidelines in 2014.

But HRW found the test mentioned in a form that doctors fill in when they examine rape survivors at a Rajasthan hospital.

Sexual violence remains a taboo in the world's largest democracy, and women and girls fear stigma or retribution if they report attacks.

HRW called for India to introduce a victim and witness protection system to encourage people to come forward.

It interviewed more than 20 rape survivors, as well as lawyers, doctors and police officials in four states with a high prevalence of rape, as well as New Delhi and Mumbai.

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News Network
August 8,2020

The Kozhikode International Airport located at Karipur is not safe for the landing of flights in rainy season, according to an air-safety expert, who had warned the aviation ministry and the civil aviation regulator about this in 2011. 

The warning was particularly about the dangers of permitting passenger aircraft to land on runway 10 of the airport during rains and unfavourable wind conditions. 

Nine years later, on August 7, 2020, the warning became a reality when an Air India Express pilots landed in tailwind conditions and the aircraft overshot the tabletop runway to drop off the end and crash.

 “An aircraft landing on runway 10 in tailwind will experience poor braking action due to heavy rubber deposits … All such flights … are endangering the lives of all on board,’’ said Capt Mohan Ranganathan, in a letter sent on June 17, 2011 to then director general of civil aviation Bharat Bhushan and Nasim Zaidi, chairman of a civil aviation safety advisory committee, which was formed after the May 2010 Mangaluru air crash which killed 158 people.

“My warning issued after the Mangaluru crash was ignored. It is a table-top runway with a down slope. The buffer zone at the end of the runway is inadequate,” Capt Ranganathan said. Given the topography, he pointed out, the airport should have a buffer of 240m at the end of the runway, but it only has 90m (which the DGCA had approved). “Moreover, the space on either side of the runway is only 75m instead of the mandatory 100m,” he added.

Capt Ranganathan said there is no guideline for operations on a table-top runway when it is raining. “Runway 10 approach should not be permitted in view of the lack of runway end safety area (RESA) and the terrain beyond the end of the runway. RESA of 240m should be immediately introduced and runway length has to be reduced to make the operations safe,” his letter said.

If an aircraft is unable to stop within the runway, there is no RESA beyond the end. The ILS localiser antenna is housed on a concrete structure and the area beyond is a steep slope. “The Air India Express accident in Mangalore should have alerted AAI to make the runway conditions safe. We have brought up the issue of RESA during the initial Casac-sub group meetings. We had specifically mentioned that the declared distances for both runways have to be reduced in order to comply with ICAO Annex 14 requirement,” Capt Ranganathan said.

He said the condition of the runway strip was known to DGCA teams that have been conducting inspection and safety assessments. “Have they considered the danger involved? Did the DGCA or the airlines lay down any operational restrictions or special procedures?”

The letter also refers to Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) training, which is supposed to be mandatory before every monsoon, but airlines don’t follow it, he said. “70% of accidents take place during approach and landing and that is why this training is essential,” he added.

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News Network
June 6,2020

New Delhi, Jun 6: Military commanders of India and China are scheduled to meet today at Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), to discuss the ongoing dispute along the LAC in Eastern Ladakh.

The Commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps of the Indian Army Commander Lieutenant Gen Harinder Singh will meet his Chinese equivalent Maj Gen Liu Lin, who is the commander of South Xinjiang Military Region of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) to address the ongoing tussle in Eastern Ladakh between the two countries over the heavy military build-up by the People's Liberation Army along the LAC there.

The two sides have held close to a dozen rounds of talks since the first week of May when the Chinese sent over 5,000 troops to the LAC.

On Friday, officials of India and China interacted through video-conferencing with the two sides agreeing that they should handle "their differences through peaceful discussion" while respecting each other's sensitivities and concerns and not allowing them to become disputes in accordance with the guidance provided by the leadership.

In the last few days, there has not been any major movement of the People's Liberation Army troops at the multiple sites where it has stationed itself along the LAC opposite Indian forces.

India and China have been locked in a dispute over the heavy military build-up by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) where they have brought in more than 5,000 troops along with the Eastern Ladakh sector.

The Chinese Army's intent to carry out deeper incursions was checked by the Indian security forces by quick deployment. The Chinese have also brought in heavy vehicles with artillery guns and infantry combat vehicles in their rear positions close to the Indian territory.

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News Network
January 22,2020

Jan 22: Microsoft Corp’s chief executive officer said he worries that mistrust between the US and China will increase technology costs and hurt economic growth at a critical time.

Using the $470 billion semiconductor industry as an example of a sector that is already globally interconnected, Satya Nadella said the two countries will have to find ways to work together, rather than creating different supply chains for each country.

“All you are doing is increasing transaction costs for everybody if you completely separate,” Nadella said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead conference in Davos. That’s a concern as the executive said the world is on the cusp of a revolution around technology and artificial intelligence.

“If we take steps back in trust or increase transaction costs around technology, all we are doing is sacrificing global economic growth,” he said.

The agreement signed last week between the US and China was “not sufficient,” said Nadella, but represented “progress” on the issue of intellectual property protections for US technology companies working with China.

Nadella said he worries about the development of two separate internets, noting that to some degree they already exist “and they will get amplified in the future” with massive technology companies already in place in China.

The viewpoint clashes with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has been sceptical about the idea that ongoing US-China trade tensions could ever lead to a bifurcated system of two internets.

China and the US are the two leading AI superpowers, however the cooling political relations between them have slowed the international collaboration.

Nadella also warned that countries that fail to attract immigrants will lose out as the global tech industry continues to grow. The CEO has previously voiced concern about India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, calling it “sad.”

“However, Nadella said he remained hopeful.

“The fact that there is a 70-year history of nation-building, I think it’s a very strong foundation. I grew up in that country. I’m proud of that heritage. I’m influenced by that experience.”

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