Global Temperatures Reached Record Highs In 2020: EU Scientists

A view of the A-68A iceberg from a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane near South George island, November 18, 2020. UK Ministry of Defence/Handout via REUTERS

 

Last year tied with 2016 as the world’s warmest on record, rounding off the hottest decade globally as the impacts of climate change intensified, the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation service said on Friday.

In the United States, the warmer temperatures contributed to a record 22 separate disasters that each caused more than a billion dollars of damage, including wildfires and hurricanes, according to a new U.S. government report.

Meanwhile, the fingerprints of climate change were also starkly visible in Europe, which experienced its hottest year on record in 2020, and in the Arctic and northern Siberia, which suffered extreme heatwaves and fires, Copernicus said.

With governments due to meet for a climate summit in Glasgow in November, the latest data prompted renewed calls for faster action to slash greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“The key here is to - for every year and as quickly as possible - reduce the amount we emit, thus reducing the amount we actually add into the atmosphere,” said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist at Copernicus.

In 2020, temperatures globally were an average of 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.

The Paris accord aims to cap the rise in temperatures to “well below” 2C and as close as possible to 1.5C to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change.

The Arctic and northern Siberia continued to warm more quickly than the planet as a whole in 2020, with temperatures in parts of these regions averaging more than 6C above a 30-year average used as a baseline, Copernicus said.

The region also had an “unusually active” wildfire season, with fires poleward of the Arctic Circle releasing a record 244 million tonnes of CO2 in 2020, over a third more than in 2019.

Arctic sea ice continued to deplete, with July and October setting records for the lowest sea ice extent in that month.

In August, instruments documented the highest temperature ever reliably recorded, when a California heatwave pushed the temperature at Death Valley in the Mojave Desert up to 54.4C (129.92°F).

RECORD SPATE OF DISASTERS

Scientists said the latest data were consistent with growing evidence that climate change is likely to result in more intense hurricanes, fires, floods and other disasters.

In the United States, the 22 separate billion-dollar disasters were comprised of seven tropical cyclone events, 13 severe storm events, one drought and one wildfire event, according to the report published on Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That total smashed the previous annual record of 16 such disasters in 2011 and 2017.

The combined costs for 2020 were $95 billion in the United States - the fourth-highest total annual cost since 1980.

The three most costly events were Hurricane Laura ($19 billion); record wildfires in the U.S. West ($16.5 billion); and the August ‘derecho,’ a storm in the Midwest packing hurricane-force winds ($11 billion).

“We need another dictionary to help us describe how these extremes continue to play out and unfold year after year,” said Adam Smith, a NOAA climate scientist who tracks billion-dollar disasters.

The extreme year in the United States helped push up damages from natural disasters globally to $210 billion in 2020 from $166 billion the previous year, German reinsurer Munich Re said in a report published on Thursday.

The impacts were particularly punishing in developing countries, where the majority of losses from weather-related disasters are not covered by insurance, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re.

“The consequence is that economic development, with all these economic shocks, is set back, is pushed back for years,” Rauch said.

Although COVID-19 lockdowns meant global emissions of CO2 dipped in 2020 compared with recent years, the concentration of the gas accumulated in the atmosphere continued to rise.

Britain’s Met Office forecast on Friday that CO2 concentrations in spring 2021 would hit levels 50% higher than before the industrial revolution, breaching a symbolic threshold for human impact on the climate.

“This is another grim milestone in the unrelenting rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration,” said Heather Graven, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Role As Democracy's Champion Battered By Assault On Capitol

An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S. on January 6, 2021

 

by Arshad Mohammed, Jonathan Landay/Reuters

The United States will find it harder to advocate for democracy and rule of law abroad after the assault on the U.S. Capitol unless it grapples with President Donald Trump’s role in the violence, current and former U.S. diplomats said.

After a rally where the president exhorted them to fight to overturn the Nov. 3 U.S. election that he lost, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Wednesday, forcing legislators to evacuate as they smashed windows and looted.

Scenes of lawmakers cowering and police officers with guns drawn seeking to protect them undercut the image Washington has long projected as a champion of democracy despite its past interference in the politics of nations such as Guatemala, Iran and South Vietnam.

In a memo to staff on Thursday, a senior State Department official said, “As voices around the world attempt to use yesterday’s events to discredit our efforts to defend democracy and human rights abroad, we must firmly reject that view.”

“Political leaders from across the spectrum in our country unequivocally denounced the violence yesterday,” Michael Kozak, the acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, wrote in the memo, which was read to Reuters.

“The thugs who overran Congress” did not keep it from certifying that Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump, Kozak said, adding that the Republican president “affirmed that our nation will have an orderly transition to a new administration on Jan. 20.”

Serving and former U.S. diplomats, however, said the note put the best face on events and failed to address what they saw as Trump’s incitement of the violence, his initial failure to condemn it, and his repeated false assertions of victory.

“This was an undemocratic assault against one of the citadels ... of our democracy promoted by people who sent them up there, like the president of the United States, his lawyer and his son making incendiary statements,” a senior U.S. diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It’s not just the assault of the mob. It’s what preceded it, what caused it,” he added. “We have to be honest about this ... not just repeat the standard talking points.”

A former senior U.S. diplomat said Washington’s ability to convince others of the virtues of democracy rested, in part, on embodying them itself. “It was easier to do that a week ago than it is today,” the former diplomat said.

Asked to comment on the memo, and on the views of the current and former diplomats, a State Department spokesperson said: “We do not comment on purportedly leaked internal communications.”

After falsely claiming Thursday morning that the election was stolen, Trump on Thursday evening acknowledged that Biden will be the next president and called the attack “heinous.” A day earlier, in a video taped in the White House Rose Garden and posted on Twitter as protesters stormed the Capitol, Trump told them to “go home,” adding, “...we love you, you’re very special.”

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping would exploit the assault on the Capitol to assert the superiority of their autocratic systems.

“Putin and Xi Jinping push the supposed stability of their dictatorships over the messiness of democracy,” he said. “What happened yesterday is going to be Exhibit A in their case for a long time.”

In fact, China’s state media, in editorials on Friday, said the storming of the U.S. Capital reflected a failure of leadership, with the Global Times calling it a sign of “internal collapse” in the U.S. political system.

Roth, along with the serving and former U.S. diplomats, argued that a key test for the United States would be how it handles Trump’s actions and whether he is held accountable or punished.

“Our message to the world has never been that we’re perfect. It’s that we have a system that is capable of correcting its imperfections,” said Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski.

A former top U.S. human rights diplomat, Malinowski said he supported impeaching Trump “precisely because we need to show the American people, first and foremost, but also the rest of the world that nobody in this country is above the law.”

 

If Rioters Who Stormed Capitol Were Black, 'Hundreds' Would Have Been Killed

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump cover their faces to protect from tear gas during a clash with police officers in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S. on January 6, 2021

 

by Nandita Bose, Makini Brice/Reuters

The United States’ stark racial inequality was on display after a mob of predominantly white supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol with ease on Wednesday, then left with few immediate consequences, according to Washington residents, activists and politicians, including President-elect Joe Biden.

The rioters broke through barricades, smashed windows, snatched souvenirs and entered Congressional offices and chambers, some taking photographs with police.

Some carried trophies with them as they walked out.

The lack of security and limited police response, despite weeks of promotion of the pro-Trump protest that sparked the riot, was in sharp contrast to the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Washington six months ago.

“My mom said if you did this you’d be shot,” Beatrice Mando, who works for the district and attended BLM protests last year. “She is right. There would be hundreds dead, if not more, had this group been Black.”

In a speech on Thursday, Biden agreed there was a sharp contrast.

“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently from the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” he said.

The United States saw a summer of widespread demonstrations against racial injustice that began in May following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died as a Minneapolis police office knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

In Washington, participants in those protests said their reception was very different.

“There were cops at every intersection in DC. There were cops at all the monuments, at the Capitol, in front of the White House,” said Abby Conejo, 29, who works at a small business in Washington.

The Black Lives Matter protesters in Washington had been faced with rows of masked National Guard troops at the Lincoln Memorial in June, as Trump vowed to crack down on what he called lawlessness by “hoodlums” and “thugs.”

One evening, baton-swinging police fired smoke canisters, flashbang grenades and rubber bullets to drive peaceful protesters away from the White House, so that Trump could walk to a nearby church and be photographed holding a Bible.

“They treated us like the enemy,” Conejo said. “Where was that anger and rage yesterday? Why were these people treated like friends?”

WORRIED ABOUT A REPEAT

The D.C. Police Department said on Thursday it had arrested 68 people in connection with the Capitol unrest. In comparison, nearly 300 were arrested the evening that police cleared Black Lives Matter protesters from near the White House.

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund praised his officers, saying they “responded valiantly” when demonstrators attacked them with “metal pipes, discharged chemical irritants and took up other weapons” and also faced two pipe bombs.

Sund later said he would resign effective Jan. 16, according to a letter cited by news outlets.

Local residents said they worried that the police response was so muted there may be a repeat.

Charles Allen, a D.C. council member who represents the area, said he and his neighbors are used to First Amendment demonstrations and large gatherings.

“That was not what this was. This was an insurrection. This was domestic terrorists coming into our city and trying to overtake the Capitol,” Allen said, adding it was traumatic for the neighborhood.

“I think that people will feel emboldened that they can do this and I think on top of it, they feel emboldened because they left with souvenirs,” he said.

Among the mob who stormed the Capitol were individuals who waved Confederates flags and wore clothing carrying insignia and slogans espousing white supremacist beliefs.

“It felt like abuse to see not just white privilege but white supremacy in action,” said Makia Green, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Washington. “To see the bias from the government, from the police.”

KIPP DC Public Schools, a group of local charter schools, canceled classes on Thursday, citing the feelings of its mostly Black student body after the riot.

“We are disgusted when we think about the contrast between how our country is responding to this act of domestic terrorism vs the peaceful protests of this past summer,” it said in a statement. Charles McKinney, associate professor of history at Rhodes College in Tennessee, said Wednesday’s events in Washington were a reminder of the “gross disparities” in how Black people and white people are treated by law enforcement.

“The response from law enforcement was a blatant display of systemic racism. It was a display of white privilege, the disparities in policing in this country,” he said.

Could The Himalayas Harbour The Next Pandemic?

 

by Beth Walker/ The Third Pole

The world is in an “era of pandemics”. Unless the destruction of the natural world is halted, diseases will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, kill more people and affect the global economy with more devastating impacts than ever before. This was the stark warning from the world’s leading scientists in a major new report last week.

FILE PHOTO: Deforestation in the Himalayas near Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh

Almost all pandemics are caused by zoonoses, diseases that spread from animals to humans, such as Covid-19, HIV, Sars, Ebola and bird flu. These are being driven entirely by our destruction of the environment, particularly cutting down forests, the intensification of agriculture and wildlife trade, the experts said. This has brought people into closer contact with animals and made it more likely that new viruses will emerge and spill over into human populations.

“The risk of pandemics is increasing rapidly, with more than five new diseases emerging in people every year, any one of which has the potential to become a pandemic,” wrote the group of experts convened by the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

There are an estimated 1.7 million undiscovered viruses on the planet circulating in mammals and birds, of which about 700,000 could have the potential to infect humans.

“There is no great mystery about the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic, or of any modern pandemic,” said Peter Daszak, the chair of the group. “The same human activities that drive climate change and biodiversity loss also drive pandemic risk through their impacts on our environment.”

The current approach of trying to contain outbreaks and search for treatments and vaccines is a “slow and uncertain path”, argue the group of 22 leading experts from every continent – including health experts, ecologists and economists.

Instead, they call for a “transformative approach” that addresses the root causes of the outbreak rather than the economic and health symptoms. This includes stopping deforestation for agriculture, cattle farms and palm oil, shifting our consumption patterns and tackling climate change.

Their proposed solutions include setting up an intergovernmental council on pandemic prevention to provide decision-makers with the best science and design a global surveillance network. They also call for stronger conservation of high-biodiversity areas and for governments to promote more sustainable consumption – for example, putting a tax on meat production and consumption. They also urge policymakers to incorporate health risks into major development and land-use projects, and to factor the economic costs of pandemics into government policies.

The costs of a preventative approach would be “trivial” compared with the trillions of dollars of damage caused by Covid-19 alone, the experts found.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The report shines a spotlight on the links between land degradation, climate change and emerging diseases. Climate change is the “elephant in the room”, said Daszak during a virtual media conference. “It is already driving pandemics and will worsen the spread of future diseases.”

The warming of the planet is changing patterns of disease.

“There is clear and strong evidence that climate change is leading to a shift in vector-borne diseases. In Europe, for instance, tick-borne encephalitis has moved further north because of climate warming. Lyme disease and bluetongue has also reached Europe,” said Daszak.  Research shows the warmer, wetter weather brought by climate change is heightening the risk of Ebola outbreaks across Africa.

“Climate change also leads to shifts in the geographic range of species, livestock and people – we are already seeing migration because of climate stresses – and that will spread diseases more effectively,” said Daszak.

EMERGING HOTSPOTS

Diseases tend to come from the edges of tropical rainforests and places of great diversity, where humans and animals mingle. These “hotspots”, where diseases are more likely to spill over from animals to humans, are closely linked to degradation of landscape, such as deforestation.

David Hayman, professor of infectious disease ecology at Massey University, New Zealand, and co-author of the report, said, “These hotspots are at the intersection of high biodiversity and high human and livestock density.” Existing work has been done at the global level and in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The Hindu Kush Himalayas – which stretches from Afghanistan in the west to China in the east over some of the world’s most biodiverse areas – is one of these potential emerging disease hotspots, according to Nakul Chettri, biodiversity expert and regional programme manager at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a research institute based in Nepal.

“First, the HKH is bestowed with a wide range of wildlife species, which brings higher risk of diseases,” he said. “Second, the region hosts four out of 36 global biodiversity hotspots, has lost 70% of original habitat and faces acute human pressure. There are higher chances of human-wildlife interaction due to habitat fragmentation, wildlife trade, bushmeat-eating practices and traditional domestic animals being replaced with hybrids, which are more susceptible to diseases.”

Interestingly, habitat destruction means only the hardiest species – such as bats and rats, more likely to carry diseases – survive. For example, the multi-mammate mouse in West Africa that carries Lassa virus thrives in degraded land around plantations.

The HKH region is also warming up to three times faster than the global average. This creates a perfect storm for new diseases to emerge.

Climate change is known to be driving the spread of Zika in the HKH Himalayan region, compounded by the high levels of population density, poverty and unplanned urbanisation. Warmer temperatures are also pushing mosquito-borne diseases like dengue into higher altitudes. While these are not new viruses, they are spreading into new areas where people have no natural immunity and interacting with trends such as deforestation in ways that are poorly understood.

There is still little research on how climate change will shape the future risk of pandemics. This is particularly important in the HKH region – where there is growing evidence of animals and plants shifting habitats and moving into new ranges. And people are already on the move, forced on by rising sea levels, storms, river erosion and lack of fresh water.

A handful of “virus hunters” – the glamorous name for epidemiologists who find potentially dangerous pathogens – are already working in the region. US scientists recently discovered new coronaviruses from bat caves in Myanmar; and an Indian scientist is studying diseases in wildlife and livestock in the Himalayas.

But hunting for the next virus could be a long shot. Restoring degraded, fragmented areas is the most important thing. Chettri from ICIMOD argued that conservation efforts by countries of the HKH region are essential to mitigate disease risks.

“We need to keep the space for wildlife and biodiversity to thrive… It is high time [we] invest in the restoration of natural habitats that we have lost over the last century. This is crucial for the long-term well-being of humanity in the HKH.”

He called on countries to “move forward with a green development agenda”, invest in green enterprises such as eco-tourism and organic farming and educate the youth in maintaining an ecological balance.

There have been some positive noises about building back greener in Pakistan, but amid the economic fallout from Covid-19 this will be a long and arduous path.

In the meantime, how can countries best prepare for the next pandemic? Chettri rattled off a list of actions: “Among many things, invest in rural health facilities in remote areas; minimise human-wildlife interaction, keep wild habitat and their migratory routes intact and restore degraded areas; ban wildlife trade and bushmeat; encourage traditional livestock rather than hybrids and invest in research to understand the types of disease-causing organisms.”

What My Family taught me about Gender Politics, Misogyny, Sex and other issues --- By Anonymous

Illustration courtesy Soul Centric

1. The Great Big Cover-up

I have to be ultra-cautious about my clothes. I can't wear clothes that are too tightly-fitted or low neck or in any manner flattering to my natural contours. I have to wear dupatta at home and cover my undergarments with another piece of cloth after washing them. Use of words like 'bra', 'underpants', 'panties', 'tampons', 'sanitary pads' etc is a strict no-no and invites censorious glances and awkwardly-mumbled protestations about 'indecent language'. This kind of 'cover-up' is an unavoidable part of my existence, has been, ever since I can remember.

2. Disparity begins at home

My brother and his shenanigans are treated with way more tolerance than mine are. My parents are more understanding and accommodating with my brother. With me, they are impatient, barely on-the-edge and ready to lash out for doing the same things and making the same 'mistakes'. This attitude affects all facets of their interaction with the world in general and with women in particular.

Illustration courtesy Soul Centric

3. I am a man, I come first

My mother cooks hot rotis while my father sits comfortably at the head of the dining table, reading a newspaper or browsing the net on his phone. My mother eats cold or barely-warm rotis after serving my father. 

4. We don't speak directly to women

When my brother visited my family with his girlfriend some time ago, my father refused to speak to her directly or address her by name. He used my mother as the conduit and directed questions meant for my brother's girlfriend at my mother. This was a shocker even for me -- someone who feels she has seen everything.

Illustration courtesy Soul Centric

5. What's Your Raashii, err, Caste?

My mother passes casual remarks about the caste of domestic helpers. She shows no concern about hurting their feelings. Her husband and their friends join in and have a good laugh over it.

 6. Hypocrisy thy name is 'Religious'

My father is an alcoholic and was named in a sex scandal as an accused. He makes a big show of being religious and a family man. After being part of all kinds of dodgy activities, he tries to find refuge under the umbrella of religion.

Essentially, the way the world works is a direct extension of how my family operates, in relation to each other and to others outside the family unit. With this background, I am in a better position to make sense of and survive in this dystopian world.

Here's what REALLY happens with International Students in the UK

All that you may have heard about educational excellence in the UK is a sham, a huge lie and a cover-up. Here's why. First, Asian students face a lot of racism in the UK, mostly in Universities and by faculty members. Then, once your course is over, there are no jobs anywhere in the UK. On top of all this, EVERYTHING you do, say and write is monitored. EVERYTHING.
And why? I wish I knew. But it may be because the UK is fast turning into a totalitarian police state. The govt. wants all 'foreigners', 'troublesome immigrants' and 'stinking Asians' sent back to 'whichever hellhole they came from'. May be this is what Brexit was all about. Keep the numbers down, keep the 'troublesome Asians' out, keep the Leavers believing in the greatness of an illusion, keep the locals antagonistic towards 'immigrants', because if they have too much free time to think, they will see through the ancient deception that is the elite's plan of enslaving humanity by ALL means possible. Brilliant!

My journalism course began in September 2016. I was asked to be present at the University by September 9, but even by end of September, there had been no regular classes. Just welcome lectures, orientation, introduction to the faculty and so on.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: SEXISM, RACISM
When the classes finally began, we were assigned two elderly lecturers. One of them was a racist pervert who skipped no opportunity to call me "old" (i am 38) and to humiliate me and two other Indian students on everything she thought was "dirty" and "backward" about India. An example: One Indian student (not me) wanted to explore the educational system in the UK. She rejected his story idea and replied thus: "This is not India, where you sit on the floor and write with chalk and slate."
The other used to openly flirt with a student, even going to the extent of saying to her in front of the entire class, "I think I'm in love!" He was in his 60s. The petite student had long blond hair and was in the flush of youth, being in her early 20s :-) "It happens." (?!)

NO JOBS and only because of your Nationality
Recent graduates of UK universities end up working at supermarkets or retail stores as customer sales agents, even if their course was an MBA. The same applies to other industries/job sectors. Even AMERICAN citizens cannot find jobs in the UK! Now you can imagine what little chance Indian students have of landing a job in the UK after spending lakhs of rupees paying the exorbitant tuition fees.

24X7 SURVEILLANCE of Students but Terrorists get away
How can I be so sure that international students in the UK are put under heavy surveillance from the moment they set foot on its tarmac? Well, for this, I have to thank my elderly lecturers. I first became suspicious that my hostel accomodation, including my private ensuite room, is bugged, when these two great academics would make passing comments about things I had been discussing with my flatmates in the hostel's common area. This happened atleast 4 times, and was enough! And then I have overheard conversations in which University student 'advisors' are 'advising' students to keep away from 'certain' activities since the 'Home Office will bring it up when it's time to extend your visa'. There are also people following me, ANYWHERE I go. From my one favourite cafe in town to during my travels around England and Scotland, upto the Orkney Islands.
What I want to know is if they treat students with so much suspicion, how is it that 'terrorists' get away from their 'web of surveillance'?
DISCRIMINATION at EVERY STEP
My course was an MA degree in Broadcast Journalism, but looking at the state of faculty, subject expertise, inadequate number of video and audio equipment for students, general tardiness and all-pervasive discrimination bordering on racial abuse, I decided to withdraw from the course. After this, things got more interesting. The lecturer duo became more determined in their pursuit of driving away anyone remotely independent-minded; they scored me on 'final' exams and gave me very poor marks -- in the 50s (out of 100). Even the re-evaluation results came back unaltered, but then, I had not expected anything else. As if all this was not enough, I waited for more than 6 months. for my course certificate (to prove to my bank which loaned me money to pay the tuition fees, that I completed three months of the course and so, I am entitled to an MA Certificate Course in Broadcast Journalism certificate). The University was non-cooperative and said they only send out paper copies and do not hold PDFs of students' certificates. No PDFs! Wonderful.

The not-so Merry Wives, Sisters and Mothers of Southall (and Smethwick)

British-Indian Women & Domestic Violence

Having lived in the UK for a while now, and going to the 'Indian' part of town once too often, there's one question that keeps nagging me: How different are lives of British-Indian women from those of Indian women?

What are their 'options' in terms of sovereignty in life choices, whether it is pursuing a career or not, getting married or staying single, getting a divorce, having a same-sex partner, becoming an entrepreneur? Is the way women are viewed and treated by their families in the UK any different from India? And if there is a difference, how does it fit in with the construct of social life in the UK?

GENERATIONAL SHIFT?

Going back to the beginning, the UK city that I live in, has a whole different 'Indian' area, where most first, second and third generation Indians (the older ones still decidedly-Indian in attire) buy Indian clothes and Indian groceries from Indian-owned business establishments. In fact, when I first went there, it took me a while to orient myself; it was almost as if the chaos of Delhi's Karol Bagh or Mumbai's D.N. Road had been replicated in this green and perennially-misty land ! So complete was the mind-boggling 'operation' of moving Indians and Indian quirks to the UK, lock, stock and two spicy biryani barrels, that it took me one full day to recover from 'British-Indian' accents and heavily made-up Indian women, who all looked the same.

The critical question is what lies behind the dainty white lace curtains of insulated windows in neatly laid-out British-Indian homes? Is the reality of life for Indian-origin families here revealed by and limited to the cultural spectrum offered by movies such as Bend it Like Beckham and Provoked: A True Story? Is honour killing and honour-based abuse as rampant today as it was in the 80s and 90s? Are Indian-origin men here just as intrusive, abusive and sexually-deviant, both in public spaces and within four walls, as they are notorious for being in India? Is there more to the story than violence, abuse and coercion in the name of family values, religious traditions and cultural affinity?

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE….

I met Raheema (not her real name) at a University event. During lunch break, we got talking about the Tamil Nadu village her family belonged to and how she loved visiting India, especially the Marina Beach in Chennai. "My husband used to give me £50 per week for household expenses. The rest of his salary went to his family in India. Then one day, during an argument, he hit me with a broom and then slapped me. I had to divorce him after that," she told me. Despite her best efforts, tears welled up in her eyes. Raheema is a second generation British-Indian, and is Indian only in attire. An intelligent middle-aged woman, with a successful career, she was fortunate enough to be able to divorce an abusive husband who arrived in the UK on a spouse visa and then brought along several of his family members, paying for their living expenses on priority while sidelining and being abusive toward his wife.

Mindy Chawla (not her real name) was born in the UK to a second generation British-Indian father; her mother arrived here from India post-marriage. Mindy is quite the party animal, clubbing and dining out atleast twice a week. Her active sex life and scores of like-minded friends keep her social calendar full, and she is as independent in life choices as any British-Indian woman would want to be. She faces other problems, though. "My family reported my 'social drinking' to my GP, who then put me on this programme of mental health counselling. I told the GP I was not an alcoholic but only drank on and off, on social occasions. He just did not get it and it left me so frustrated !" she says.

APATHY AND IMPUNITY

When this writer went to meet a representative of Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid (BSWA), she was asked to email questions to Sally Dennis of BSWA. Sally could not reply but Nasheima Shaikh, Assistant Chief Executive at BSWA wrote back saying, "I am afraid we do not have the capacity to do this (answer questions) presently."

With regard to official statistics on Domestic Violence in the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) gave this reply on its website to a question on the ethnicity of victims of domestic violence in the UK: “The exact information on the number of victims of domestic violence by UK area that you require is not available…”

In their study on Indian-origin victims of domestic violence across the world, researchers Sundari Anitha, Anupama Roy, Harshita Yalamarty, Nalini Trivedi and Anjali Chahal spoke to 57 women who had faced abuse. Twenty-eight of the 57 women interviewed for this research had been married to men resident in the UK, eight of the husbands were from Italy, four each from Australia and USA, with smaller numbers from other countries.

Titled “Disposable Women: Abuse, Violence and Abandonment in Transnational Marriages (Issues for Policy and Practice in the UK and India)”, this study was conducted between December 2013 and May 2015 in the Indian states of Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat, which have a long history of out-migration to the UK and other countries in the West.

“The majority of the women reported that they had experienced physical violence perpetrated by their husband, in-laws or both. All the women were subjected to coercive control, isolation and financial abuse. A third of the research participants disclosed sexual abuse perpetrated by their husband, while just under a quarter disclosed sexual abuse by male in-laws. A fifth of the research participants had been coerced into undergoing abortion(s). A majority of the women who experienced sexual abuse indicated that our interview was the first time they had disclosed this abuse,” the study states.

It goes on to say, “Socio-cultural norms against divorce compelled women to remain in abusive relationships. Insecure immigration status prevented marriage migrants from seeking help. The findings suggest that cultural practices like dowry, son preference, and dominant social norms which make for patriarchal control and devaluation of women played an important role in the violence and abandonment that ensued in all marriages,” which makes one wonder if there really is ANY difference at all between the status of Indian women in the UK and those in India.

The demographic characteristics of the women and statistics relating to the nature of domestic abuse they experienced are as follows:

 

Age             Number of women           Percentage                           

18-24                      6                                   11%

25-34                    30                                   53%

35-44                    18                                   32%

45-54                      3                                     5%

Religion

Hindu                    36                                    63%

Sikh                      19                                    33%

Muslim                  1                                        2%

Christian               1                                        2%

Type of marriage

Arranged by family     53                               92%

Love/self choice           4                                 8%

Number of children

None                          38                                67%

One                            16                                28%

Two                              3                                  6%

Domestic Abuse

Walked out of the marriage   13                        23%

Forced out of in-laws’/husband’s home  44       77%

Financial abuse

Dowry demanded/given to in-laws      57              100%

Dowry related violence/harassment    39              68%

Appropriation of wages        7                                   14%

Abuse related to domestic labour      56                  98%

Physical abuse

Violence from husband only          15                           26%

Violence from in-laws only             11                              19%

Violence from both                         16                                          28%

Denial of food and medicine           27                           47%

Psychological abuse

Verbal abuse                                  53                                                   93%

Coercive control/intimidation          57                          100%

Isolation                                          56                                                            98%

Sexual abuse and denial of reproductive rights

Sexual abuse from husband only    18                     32%

Sexual abuse from in-laws only       13                        23%

Forced abortion                                11                                                 19%

Post-abandonment actions

Reported to police                            53                                             93%

Recovered dowry                               3                                                  5%

Obtained financial compensation       4                          7%

Percentages are rounded off

SOURCE: Disposable Women: Abuse, Violence and Abandonment in Transnational Marriages (Issues for Policy and Practice in the UK and India)

Lessons Learnt? Prevent 'Natural' Disasters through Early Education Initiatives

Scenes from an apocalyptic nightmare have become quite common in India.

Sometimes there are visuals of large-scale flooding, gushing waters breaching bunds and inundating everything in sight --- from schools to offices and homes to hospitals; at other times, there are heart-rending images of crumbled houses and cities razed to the ground by earthquakes. 

Cyclones, floods, droughts, earthquakes and other natural disasters are occurring with alarming regularity in India. Be it the Kashmir floods of 2014 or the devastating Uttarakhand earthquake a few decades ago, devastation seems par for the course as human population increases exponentially and resources are drained like never before in history.

And although we like to term them ‘natural’ disasters, the fact is most of these calamities are caused due to and exacerbated by human activities. As far back as October 2001, a study by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington D.C.-based environmental research organisation had found, “More people worldwide are now displaced by natural disasters than by conflict. In the 1990s, natural catastrophes like hurricanes, floods, and fires affected more than two billion people and caused in excess of $608 billion in economic losses worldwide -- a loss greater than during the previous four decades combined. But more and more of the devastation wrought by such natural disasters is “unnatural” in origin, caused by ecologically destructive practices and an increasing number of people living in harm's way.”

According to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) statistics, in June 2013, there were 4,094 fatalities in the mountainous states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh due to landslides and floods. Similarly, in 2008, the state of Bihar recorded 527 deaths, with 19,323 livestock perishing, and 2,23,000 houses suffering damage, leaving a total number of 3.3 million persons affected. Data on the NDMA website goes back to 1977, when in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh, a cyclone left in its wake 10,000 humans fatalities, 40,000 livestock dead and thousands of people homeless.

All this leaves us wondering if preventive action can reduce the impact of disaster events (not limited to ‘natural’ disasters). The main reasons why natural calamities turn into large-scale disasters are unchecked and unplanned construction activity, blocked drainage vents (both along rivers and in residential areas), unawareness about impending calamitous events, faulty public warning systems and sometimes, plain callousness in giving advance warning of potential disaster situations.

Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment had termed the 2013 Uttarakhand flooding a ‘man-made disaster’. Contending that development must account for terrain and ecological-sensitivity, Narain had told The Hindu newspaper, “We cannot have roads on the Himalayas like the ones on the Alps. The Himalayas are young mountains… we need to look at ways of development without destroying natural resources.”

The next logical question is why do we keep repeating the same mistakes while commissioning/planning new construction activities, especially in eco-sensitive areas with high risk of disaster? The answer could lie in (a) a lack of awareness and (b) an indifference towards long-term impact of ‘development’ activities.

Consequently, the most comprehensive effort at disaster mitigation will, logically, have to begin at the educational level. When knowledge of the catastrophic impact of human activities is ingrained into young citizens from an early age, its effects pass over to their families and from there to entire communities in a kind of positive ‘domino effect’.

The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, 2016, published under the aegis of UNESCO, states much the same with its enhanced focus on the inter-relation between climate change--natural disasters--education systems.

The GEM Report states: “Climate change and natural disasters severely affect education systems and outcomes. The growing frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather increases the vulnerability of many low income countries, and such events have multiple direct and indirect effects on education systems and outcomes.”

The report mentions how the challenge of climate change demonstrates the complexity of, and urgent need for, using education to address environmental crises. “All three approaches...are required: learning at schools, in communities and through lifelong learning, along with integration between types of education and collaboration between education and other sectors. Thus deployed, education can contribute to actions to address climate change, including prevention, mitigation and disaster preparedness.”

By conservative estimates, between 1995 and 2014, 15,000 extreme weather events caused more than 5,25,000 deaths worldwide and losses of nearly US$3 trillion. A 2012 report by the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institution has highlighted how the effects of climate change have serious implications for the functioning of education systems, and require adaptive strategies.

In September 2012, the Global Partnership for Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children put forward a proposition for better aid for education in emergencies. “The Global Partnership for Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children put forward a proposition for better aid for education in emergencies,” reads the Brookings Institution report. “The Call to Action, endorsed by leaders from governments, international organisations and civil society at the U.N. General Assembly, calls for education to be integrated into Humanitarian Action Plans, and for education systems everywhere to incorporate emergency prevention, preparedness, response and recovery,” the report states further.

With the average number of natural disasters expected to increase by 320 percent over the course of the next 20 years, schools could become avenues to provide knowledge and skills that the next generation will need to respond to disaster. It would not be an exaggeration to say that better education, leading to greater knowledge of occurrence and prevention of disaster events, could potentially reduce the fatalities and losses incurred from such events.