INDIAN MATERNAL MORTALITY FIGURES & CHILD FATALITIES

Every 7 minutes a woman dies due to childbirth complications’

From Kounteya Sinha | TNN

New Delhi: Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. This means on an average, one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes.
But not only the mothers are dying one million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK. These are some of the shocking findings of UNICEF’s ‘State of the World’s Children 2009’ report released on Thursday.
According to the report, an Indian woman is 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy-related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes. Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home.
In India, more than two thirds of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states — UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In UP, one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death, compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala.

THE MONKEY DOCTOR AND THE GIBBON SANCTUARY

THE MANGALORE PUB ATTACK BY THE SAFFRON BRIGADES

In the video there is a brief part showing what happened some 3 weeks ago. The girls were just sitting in the pub maybe even having a drink. The pub was stormed by the socalled saffron brigades and the girls were beaten- up and trown to the floor.
It was declared as an action against pub culture, but from my point of view it is more, it is the fight for the Indian tradition that boys and girls are not allowed to find each other but there luck in love has to be dependent on the family. Family members parents or uncles will select the bride or groom. last but not least only this way the tradition of dowry can remain established, that what is is all about.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT VALENTINE' S DAY INTOLERANCES

INDIA' S VALENTINES DAY WAR :-)...THE LOVE STORY

We all survived and only one couple was forcibly marriaged .... and they even wanted it.


HYDERABAD: You could call it a masterstroke by two lovebirds here. Well aware of the threat by Hindu rightwing groups to marry off couples found
celebrating Valentine's Day, they did exactly that -- and to their delight were pronounced man and wife Saturday!

Vijay Anand and Kriti of Koti area were among two couples who were married off by Bajrang Dal activists in Andhra Pradesh. And given the opposition to their union by their families, they were more than happy to oblige.

Police arrested 20 activists of the Bajrang Dal when they were trying to forcibly marry a couple at Gandipet, a picnic spot on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Hindu rightwing activists say Valentine's Day is against Indian culture.

But at least in the case of Vijay and Kriti, the Bajrang Dal activists could scarcely have imagined that they were doing the couple a favour. The two were found together in Koti area and brought to the group's office and their marriage was performed by a Hindu priest in the presence of Bajrang Dal leaders.

The couple said they had been in love for three years but their parents were opposed to the alliance. They had read in the newspapers about the threat by Hindu activists that they would marry off couples seen together on Valentine's Day and deliberately came out in public so they would be noticed.

Police said they would take action only if the couple or their relatives lodged a complaint that they were forcibly married.

In Nizamabad town, Bajrang Dal activists married off a couple found displaying their love in a park.

It was by and large a subdued Valentine's Day across the state as the threat of rightwing Hindu groups to marry off lovers seen together kept young couples away from celebrations in public.

Police arrested 200 activists of the Bajrang Dal and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Hyderabad and other parts of the state for staging protests and threatening couples.

There were hardly any lovers in parks, pubs, restaurants and public places in Hyderabad.

Bajrang Dal and ABVP activists tried to take out rallies and burnt greeting cards at various places. Holding saffron flags and raising slogans of 'Valentine go back', the activists, including girls, in an open-top jeep and two-wheelers took out a protest march in Chaitanyapuri.

Police beefed up security near parks, shopping malls, cinema theatres, pubs and other public places and warned that action would be taken against those threatening couples.

There were no buyers of the heart-shaped balloons though vendors selling them were seen standing near NTR Garden on the banks of picturesque Hussain Sagar lake and some other parks in the city.



4 comments on this story. Read them and post your own.

WOMEN LIB INDIA TEAM iDIVA ON THE MOVE

I copied this extract from Indian Times to try to sensitize people in the West about the frustating and ambigious situation a lot or almost all of Indian women are living in.

Small victory, big loss!
By Team iDiva 13 Feb 09 Add Writer to Favourite


First we bore the brunt of a beating and then there were threats. Threats to marry us off on V-Day or post our pictures online for all the world to see if found on a date.
Humiliating us into following a misguided version of Indian culture was the motive behind the actions of these self-appointed custodians - the imposing moral police.
That this politically-motivated campaign would lead to the death of a 16-year-old school girl is something that should make even those unaffected sit up and take notice.

Moral police cause suicide
Disgraced in public, the 16-year-old hung herself from the ceiling fan and committed suicide in her house in Mangalore on Wednesday. She could have never known that she'd pay such a hefty price for meeting a friend of the opposite sex on that ill-fated day.
A group of men allegedly "caught" her with the friend and handed them over to police. The police have been quick to deny the involvement of Sri Rama Sene in the humiliation of the couple. That too after, the outfit was responsible for beating up the girls at a Mangalore pub last month and had also reportedly assaulted the daughter of a Kerala MLA for talking to her Muslim friend on bus.
The police and govt are no help

Even the state police machinery and the government haven't really behaved in the most responsible manner in this case. Mangalore City Corporation mayor and five others served a legal notice on union minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury demanding an apology for her statement that "Mangalore has been Talibanised". Her mistake - she chose to speak out and stand up for the rights of women.

Feedback to iDiva

iDiva too has been at the receiving end of flak from so called "culture keepers" (read: men!) Nevertheless, there have been those too (men included) who have left us comments like:

"Moral policing threatening to curtail personal freedom allowed by law is to be taken seriously and he (Muthalik) should be prosecuted according to law. He is an antisocial element."


"Why are women the only ones who have to uphold this moral fabric in our society? Why are men allowed to pee on the streets on Mumbai, in full public view, or walk shirtless, or beat up women, or get drunk in "taadi bars" - when is that acceptable? Indian culture, like any other organism has to evolve!"


"Great letter, way to go Team iDiva !! I feel sorry to see that there are still so many 'protector of culture' who start claiming how wine ruins life of girls/woman and many other 'facts?'. I know only one thing that I am a hindu girl and even though I don't drink or go to pub, I felt very strongly about the attack by those animals. If anything in this world proves that attacking unarmed woman for the sake of some idiot's opinion is our hindu culture, I refuse to follow such culture."

We thank you for your support. And would like to say to all those who said that all this rhetoric wouldn't change a thing - we agree! We cannot bring back the 16-yr-old who lost her life. We'll never hear her side of the story. But we can definitely tell it on her behalf and attempt to make those detractors see that public opinion can initiate change. Why else would Mutalik have called off the disruptions planned by his outfit on V-Day?

ONLY ONE HARMLESS VALENTINE ATTACK IN BELGAUM ?

Sene members attack V-day party
BELGAUM: Activists of right wing group Sri Rama Sene on Saturday raided a Valentine's Day party in a software firm here, attacking the participants
and ransacking the furnitures.

A group of Sene activists, who had been on the prowl in parts of the city, spotted the Valentine's Day celebrators at the Katwa Infotech, barged into it, assaulted some of those gathered and damaged furnitures, police said.

The police, who were taken aback by the suddenness of the strike coming at the fag end of the day, rushed to the spot.

SHRI RAMA SHIV SENA ALSO IN THE BELGIUM PRESS

Honderden arrestaties in India wegens Valentijn


De politie in India heeft in verschillende steden meer dan vierhonderd militante hindoes achter de tralies gezet die Valentijnsdag dreigden te verstoren. Restaurants, bars en winkels die valentijnskaarten verkopen, kregen politiebescherming om te voorkomen dat ze zouden worden aangevallen door heetgebakerde hindoes.

De fundamentalistische hindoeïstische partij Shiv Sena waarschuwde winkels en restaurants niet aan Valentijn mee te doen. Ook in voorgaande jaren zorgde de partij voor problemen. Leden van de Shiv Sena werpen zich op als moraalridders. Ze willen de traditionele waarden bewaren en zijn fel gekant tegen de steeds vrijere samenleving in India. Vooral jonge, moderne vrouwen moeten het vaak ontgelden.


Finaly some interst of the Indian internal problems in the international press in this case HET LAATSTE NIEUWS of Belgium

LINK TO INDIAN, MYSTICAL, MEDITATIONAL AND BHAJANS RELIGIONAL MUSIC

http://www.mysticamusic.com/

SURJAZKUND MELA PICTURES & SURPRISING HANDICRAFT OBJECTS