Goa – Land of prayers and Sunsets

By Unknown Citizen

Figure 1 Goa has the best beaches with alluring sunsets

Thirty six hours! That’s all you usually allot yourself when it comes to a trip to India’s beach destination, even if you’re a city-dweller like I am. And I’m sure you can’t go more wrong just like I did. I went there two weeks ago for three days and I couldn’t have felt worse when the time came to finally come back to a steel and mortar neighborhood.  But first, the start…

Planes? No please!

I hate planes. Ok, I have nothing to do with their efficacy of course (you will win hands-down in a debate on how it is the best way to get to a place….and a friend is trying to erase my fear through everything from telling me how it’s totally safe to sometimes sending me videos of plane crashes so I know why they happen:), I just really, truly dislike flying, as silly it might sound. That said, I succumbed to a plan to fly to Goa with my parents and it was “just 45 minutes, so what”, I asked. It turned out to be most eventful trip ever.

Kids will be kids, time grownups ‘grew up’

I love kids. I can spend hours entertaining them, talking to them and indulging them. So a plane packed with tots actually made for a lot of fun for me. To start, it makes me smile how they talk, sing and ask for things with absolute abandon (that it’s a plane or any other limiting confinement be damned). And the nicest thing about them is that unknown to each other, they soon seek each other out and form a united little band of their own (grownups, take a cue here?) So we had a very fat baby in his helper’s lap and who refused to sit still, in seat no 1. Two fourth graders (I think) met and managed to engage in a walking match to see who had longer strides once we were airborne and somewhere in between, another preschooler decided to liven the flying experience every now and then, with his own song. Not everyone enjoyed it though. Right behind us was this lady who called the steward promptly when landing was being announced and said that she was going to complain about “having to bear hearing these kids through the flight and how dare anyone seat her near a little tot who couldn’t even talk but needed to be passed into his parents’ hands and back to the helper, once or twice!” The kid who loved singing started to sing even louder while she was having her hysterics, as if on cue. I was grinning so much at this point; it took everything to not turn around to take a look at her. To me, it’s unfathomable to get annoyed with kids. They’re just being themselves. It’s the grownups who actually have to understand that. For now, this bunch of tots was all set for their Goan holiday. Somewhere in all that melee and fun we landed. No time for flying fears this time, I thought…:)

World Share of Extreme poverty

India	33.00%
China	13%
Nigeria	7%
Bangladesh	6%
Congo	5%
Indonesia	4%
Pakistan	3%
Tanzania	3%
Ethiopia	2%
Kenya	1%
Other	23%

 

Extreme poverty’s definition is someone who earns less than $1.25 a day , the current graph (2010) shows that nearly half of extremely poor people resides in the 2 most populous country namely India and China (46%) , If these two countries can eradicate poverty along with the other two countries which forms a great part of the Indian subcontinent , namely Pakistan and Bangladesh , which makes 55% of the world extremely poor

oh Bric

Investors were asked "which BRIC countries they wouldn't like to Invest and the findings were rather surprising 

Brazil	25%
Russia	24%
India	35%
China	23%

Clearly the trend of investors is to disinvest from BRIC countries and buy the ever low cost assets of the European nations and United States – Germany, Italy, France and the UK are all getting better and since the asset prices of the BRIC countries are so high and some even rivals that of the developed countries are making the investors jittery and their exit much faster

New Trends in Rioting

	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	Total
Incidents	711	677	779	698	761	943	826	701	580	668	7344
Injured	2261	2132	2066	2170	2227	2354	2424	2138	1899	3117	22788
Killed	193	134	124	133	99	167	125	116	91	94	1276

Legend

Pre-election year

Election Year

Post Election Year

Mid term Year

There are close to 734 riots every year in India with 2278 people getting injured and 127 people losing their precious life. The Average is 5.6 deaths per 100 injured in communal riots. The graph above shows the trend line shown in dotted lines shows there is a growing trend towards communal violence in India starting 2007 and it has reached an epic proportion in 2012.

2008 saw spike in the deaths but it was followed by momentary lull in the death rate in the following two years, but the number of injures are more even though the number of incidents less than the preceding year.

The trend (in dotted lines) shows communal violence is getting more vicious, rabid and it is resulting in more casualty than before especially when we have a new kid in town.

A survey of the some states that have notably high rate of Communal violence per million people is listed below with some explanation

State	Status	Incidents
Madhya Pradesh	BJP Ruling State	965 incident of communal riots between 2005 – 20013 – state with Highest number of communal riots with only 6% Muslim population 14 Communal riots for every one million  people1
Karnataka	BJP Active (Ex-ruling party)	Second highest number of communal riots
Maharashtra	Shiv Sena **	Various incidence of violence and organized communal riots
Gujarat++	BJP Ruling State	Registered one of the worst communal riots in the recent history
Kerala	Active RSS ***	Least casualty in communal riots -highest level of literacy

¹ population wise

** A regional rabid hindu nationalistic political party

++ officially between 1000 and 2000 people lost their life in 2002 communal riots , though unofficial figures are close to 5000 with most of the victims were Muslims.

*** sudden rise shakhas in kerala – a new foray of RSS in kerala ; Kerala registers the highest level of literacy and have a 30% Muslim population

National average of communal riots is around 5 per one million people with some notable exceptions

Some notable states with low communal incidents are,

States	Status	Riots per million population
Bihar	Once a hotbed of communal riots it registers a lowest communal incidents	2.8 /million
Haryana	Mostly rural around 6% muslim population with minor skirmishes	< 2 /million
Andhra Pradesh	A depleted Telgu desam party who once aligned with Hindu nationalist party now they are unpopular and there is also Telangana movement to chalk out a separate states but this state witnessed worst communal violence during 1990	< 2 /million
Chhattisgarh	Muslims are around 2%	< 2 /million
Punjab	Muslims are less than 2%	< 2 /million
West Bengal	The only exception where communal riots have not flared up even when Muslims are more than 25%	< 2 /million

Communal riots in India just don’t accidentally happen, there are meticulously planned and executed, I am sure there are planners and financier who does that. We have seen riots yet we have not seen any convictions. The brain of rioting has been cloaked by the political parties with fixed political designs. The Graphs and data presented were a simple exercise to prove it.

The minorities esp. the Muslims have been pawned and used in and around elections, number of riots increases as the election approaches , so does the severity and the casualty. The rabid hindu nationalist ideology has hijacked the polity of India and it has enormous polarizing effect in the society, often these polarizing factors have been the motivating factors in the rising communal incidents in India. Even the minorities who survives communal riots but thereafter they are subjected to extreme economic prejudice in form of loss of assets and employment.

Riots have played havoc to our economy and communal riots of epic proportion like Kandhamal in orissa (2007), Gujarat(2002), Bombay(1992), Bhagalpur(1989) and New Delhi(1984) where properties of minorities were targeted and destroyed. Some have suggested the net loss in Gujarat communal riots were close to $10 billion. We can now sense these riots are manufactured to condition sentiments towards one kind of political ideology , due to weak judiciary and mostly weak state government, the conviction rate of the rioting enterprise are abysmal.

Time for strong action in the form of  Prevention of Communal and targeted violence Bill and mandatory law making it essential to investigate these riots by special investigation team supervised by the supreme court, only accountability can act as deterrent and any other sops would be meaningless.