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Dear Reader,
The national outrage over the brutal rape and murder of Nirbhaya in December 2012 persuaded the then Delhi government to launch a ‘181 Women's Helpline' to support women in distress. This model, including number '181', was centralised and then taken nationwide in April 2015. Its mandate was to assist women who call and connect them to the police, legal aid services and hospitals.
However, an investigation by The Reporters' Collective in Delhi and Haryana finds that the facility has been reduced to a pale shadow of what it was mandated to be -- a full decade after its launch. It now functions as a mere "call forwarding" mechanism, lacking the capacity to assist or follow up on cases directly. Even the Helpline's integration with 'One Stop Centres' – envisaged as a single window lifeline for women affected by violence has not helped. These anomalies and other cost-cutting measures have eroded the Helpline's very rationale, reducing it to mere lip service.
In July this year, 14 residents, including eight women, five men, and a minor, died at Asha Kiran -- north India's largest government-run shelter home for the mentally challenged -- on account of various ailments. This tragedy came in the wake of reports of the institution’s mismanagement over a decade, with the facility accused of providing sub-standard food, unpotable water and inadequate space.
A report by the Delhi government on August 7 to the Delhi High Court, following a PIL, revealed that there was “only one psychiatrist responsible for 938 intellectually challenged” inmates, no clinical psychologist despite three sanctioned posts, and no paediatrician for 210 children in the Home. The institution housed 938 individuals when its capacity was just 570. Article 14 reports on the grim state of affairs at Asha Kiran.
The hike in mobile data tariffs by India's leading telecom carriers Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel by about "11 to 25 per cent" early this year has impacted the lives of migrants in India. For migrants who live far away from their homes, mobile phones are a lifeline that allows them to stay connected to their “families, farms, and festivals”.
The mobile phone has grown beyond being a connectivity device to become a tool for job hunting by accessing the contractor network through specific apps, a leisure tool for entertainment, and even a platform to create and broadcast content based on the migrant's life experiences and struggles. Therefore, as The Migration Story tells us, there is anxiety among the migrants on how the rising mobile tariff trends will affect their lives and livelihoods.
More than 300 factories in the Eloor-Edayar industrial belt, near Kochi in Kerala, including chemical units, the residents assert, are spewing waste and pollution in the area, affecting not only residents' health and wellness but marine life too. TrueCopy Think does a long documentary on the apparent disregard of environmental norms and the consequences that followed. It asserts that the collusion between industries, the pollution control board and other government agencies is the core of the problem.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
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