1 No one asked their names (Qais Azimy in Al Jazeera) In the days following the rogue US soldier’s shooting spree in Kandahar, most of the media, us included, focused on the “backlash” and how it might further strain the relations with the US. Many mainstream media outlets channelled significant energy into uncovering the slightest detail about the accused soldier – now identified as Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. We even know where his wife wanted to go for vacation, or what she said on her personal blog. But the victims became a footnote, an anonymous footnote. Just the number 16. No one bothered to ask their ages, their hobbies, their aspirations. Worst of all, no one bothered to ask their names.
In honoring their memory, I write their names below, and the little we know about them: that nine of them were children, three were women.
The dead:
Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
Nazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali
The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja
2 Arab world’s youth bulge (Khaleej Times) The Arab world today is home to millions of young people with hopes, plans and the desire to work. With more than 100 million young people between 15 and 29, representing 30% of the total population, the region is facing an unprecedented ‘youth bulge’. This has led to many challenges when it comes to youth employment, but it can also be seen as an opportunity to foster youth-powered positive change, using social networks and technology to create much-needed impact.
Even though young Arabs may still be looking for work, they definitely have found their voice. The advent of technologies such as the Internet, mobile phones and social media has provided young people with tools to help them make change happen. One way to drive change is to fund, engage and celebrate young people who are trying to make a living on their own, and show how we as individuals around the world can help foster change. Sustainable giving models such as ‘revolving loan funds’, or ‘social investments’, provide an opportunity to use these technology platforms to enable more impactful giving.
3 Africa’s rise is no myth (Khaleej Times) Approximately half the people of Africa own a mobile phone. In many African countries phone technology is ahead of Europe and North America. Money can be transferred from the city to an upcountry village. Bills can be paid. In Ghana farmers can receive text messages reporting the price of yams and corn two towns away and thus find the best market without a middleman. In parts of West Africa nurses are storing patients’ data on phones. Black Africa has come late to the party but a majority of its 48 countries is leaping ahead. One advantage of being late is that one can leapfrog over old concepts and tools and get today’s version at cheaper prices than the old.
Welcome to the new Africa. Lions roar and poverty drops. All over infant mortality rates are falling, literacy is improving, longevity is rising and infectious diseases including Aids are falling steadily, as is malaria. For the first time a middle class is emerging in significant numbers. Only about one third of Africa’s recent growth is due to commodity exports. Ten years ago ‘The Economist’ labelled Africa as “The hopeless continent”. Much has changed. But don’t go out in the bush unaccompanied. The lions are roaring!
4 The crime of wasting water (Bikram Vohra in Khaleej Times) Prince or pauper, wasting water is a crime. By the same token so what if we keep the tap running on full when we brush our teeth or shave, what’s it to you? And if my wife wants to have a twenty minute shower or soak in the tub, get off my case, it’s not as if I was asking you to share the cost. How many of us save 20% of a flush by placing a bottle in the tank despite a whole campaign on the concept. Even fewer of us are freighted with any sense of responsibility when it comes to conservation despite an avalanche of advice designed to underscore our flirtation with danger. And danger it is, for the world is drying up and potable water is now dramatically in short supply.
The grand irony is that if you, as an individual, could change three daily habits with regard to how you use water you could save 1,000 litres a month and imagine a family of five doing that and saving 5,000 litres and then the building’s residents, then the neighbourhood, then the emirate, in ever increasing circles of common sense making a liquid asset in more ways than one. There is no argument that we all understand the problem and much of the commentary is stating the obvious. The hard part is coming to terms with our indifference and the misplaced pride inherent in the fact that we can afford to waste.
5 Class divides and hypocrisy (Dawn) Class divides exist. Everywhere. There will be shoe shiners sitting on the street waiting for you to come and get your expensive leather boots shined so that they can make a quick buck to feed themselves. There will be waiters clearing bits of your salad from a restaurant table so that by the time your main course arrives, your tables are clean and sparkly again. Your whole meal may even cost more than what their monthly salary is. But that’s fine because that’s how it is… right? But show us a mirror being party to that ‘system’ and we all get outraged? Hypocrisy at its finest.
The recent hullabaloo caused over a designer lawn’s advert has people going insane and international media has picked up on it, too. People are taking their Facebook likes back from the brand’s page! The horror, the horror. To deserve this damnation from the Pakistani masses, the brand had featured their model displaying her fancy clothes and designer luggage while sitting with a group of porters at a railway station. This setting probably didn’t sit well with one or perhaps five (that’s how many it takes) Facebook users and before you know it, there is a full-on debate going on, accusing the brand of exploiting the working class and using poverty as an accessory for their image.
Basically, this hype about pretending to be so sensitive about poverty is getting old. Will people stop driving their fancy cars on the same roads as staggering rickshaws? No. Will you stop eating at cafes where poor waiters linger around your table to satisfy your eating experience? No. Maybe once you start actively trying to eliminate the menace of poverty, your conscience will feel more at ease – but until you don’t start doing that, I don’t think any of us have a right to complain.
6 Asians fastest-growing race in US (Straits Times) Asians are the fastest growing race group in the US, reflecting a surge in immigration from the entire region over a decade, the US Census Bureau has said. The federal agency said those who identified themselves as Asian alone, and not mixed race, grew by 43.3% from a decade earlier. That was more than four times faster than the rate of growth for the overall US population, which grew 9.7% in the same period to 308,745,538. Some 14.7 million people, or 4.8% of the total population, identified themselves as Asian alone. Another 2.6 million, or 0.9%, said they were Asian in combination with another race group, most commonly white.
7 Yes Prime Minister (The Wall Street Journal) The only consensus in Indian politics these days is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can't control his own government. Further proof came on Sunday when Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi was forced to resign because of a coalition partner's fit of pique. Mr. Trivedi's offense was hiking fares, the first time in nine years that passengers on India's public railway network were asked to pay more.
Indians long ago ceased being surprised by these internal power struggles. Mr. Singh first applauded the plan as "forward looking," but stayed quiet as Mr Trivedi’s party chief Mamata Banerjee forced his government to oust Mr. Trivedi and now probably roll back his plan. Mr. Singh now says he "regrets" Mr. Trivedi's departure, but that he was powerless to prevent it. He repeats the same excuse he offered when critics blamed him for letting another coalition ally allegedly perpetrate a 2008 telecom scam: "we are a coalition government and we have to...maintain a consensus."
Managing a parliamentary coalition is never easy, but the leader of the world's largest democracy seems to have given up. True, part of the problem is that real power resides with the Gandhi family. Nevertheless, Mr. Singh has made matters worse with his failure to stand up for his decisions and his ministers. Ms. Banerjee is now called "Ms. No" for her de facto veto power over government decisions, but that's only because Mr. Singh always says "yes" the moment someone objects.
8 Who are the poor in India? (Soutik Biswas on BBC) Who are the poor in India? The fact is nobody quite knows. There are various estimates on the exact number of poor in India, and the counts have been mired in controversy. This week the Planning Commission said 29.8% of India's 1.21bn people live below the poverty line, a sharp drop from 37.2% in 2004-2005. (This means means around 360 million people currently live in poverty.) But one estimate suggests this figure could be as high as 77%. The problem, believe many, is that the new count is based on fixing the poverty line for a person living on 28.65 rupees (56 cents/35p) a day in cities and 22.42 rupees (44 cents/33p) a day in villages.
Whatever the figure is, the number of poor in India remains staggeringly high. And, what is more worrisome, demographics and the social character of the poor do not appear to be changing. Labourers (farm workers in villages, casual workers in cities), tribespeople, Dalits (formerly called low caste untouchables) and Muslims remain the poorest Indians. Almost 60% of the poor continue to reside in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Significantly, 85% of India's tribespeople and Dalits live in these states.
9 India’s porn-watching legislators (Johannesburg Times) Legislators in India's western state of Gujarat allegedly watched porn during assembly, in the second sleaze scandal to hit the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recent months, officials say. Shankar Choudhary and Jetha Dharwad, both members of the BJP, which rules at state level, watched obscene clips on a tablet computer during a state assembly, local newspaper journalist Janakbhai Purohit said.
Purohit shot a video of the lawmakers looking at porn and lodged a complaint with assembly Speaker Ganpat Vasava. Choudhary said the accusation was "a baseless and fabricated allegation just to defame us. No such incident took place." The controversy comes weeks after three BJP ministers in the southern state of Karnataka were forced to resign after a similar scene.
10 India B Schools shut by the dozen (The Financial Express) Around 130 management institutes or 4% of all B-schools in India are expected to close shop this year, twice as many as last year, thanks to faculty shortage, lack of students, substandard curriculum and poor infrastructure. Topping the list of states whose business schools have applied to wind up is Andhra Pradesh with 36 such institutes, followed by Rajasthan with 25 and Uttar Pradesh with 18. Recently, the Mumbai Business School wound up after three years of operation due to lack of students.
Experts said many B-schools were unable to fill all seats while some were unable to meet the criteria of the technical education council. “Most of these institutes are in rural areas, without any relation with the industry and have poor admissions. There are no jobs in such remote areas and hence, they lose out on students,” said AICTE chairman SS Mantha. India has nearly 4,000 B-schools with a capacity of 3,50,000 seats. Every year, around 60-70 institutes get added to the list.
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