No death for rapists: Church group

It has demanded introduction of gender-sensitive curriculum at the school level.

New Delhi,  January 08, 2013:  Caritas India, the social service wing of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), sent its suggestions to make India a gender sensitive nation but said it cannot support death penalty as punishment for rape.

In its eleven-point recommendation made last Saturday to the Verma Committee set up by the federal government, Caritas asked to introduce gender-sensitive curriculum from school level onward to promote and foster a balanced gender perspective in India.

The government set up the committee after massive crowds lay siege to the national capital for almost two weeks in December and the first week of January 2013 calling for justice for the 23 year old physiotherapy student victim of gang rape.

Six men raped her in a moving bus and male companion who sought to defend her was also attacked. Both were dumped on a roadside by their attackers presuming them to be dead. The woman died 13-days after the incident in a Singapore hospital of her injures.

Several groups have demanded revise laws to award death penalty for rapists. Although, justifying public rage and protests, Caritas said it does not support death penalty as a punishment to rape.

The official teachings of the Church also do not support death penalty on the ground that God alone is the owner of life and no one could legitimately interfere with life.

Caritas also noted with concern the failure of the country to protect girl-children and women.

Other recommendation of the Caritas include setting up of special fast track courts with women lawyers, women welfare committees at district levels, anti-sexual harassment task force with 60% women at Panchayat levels, higher rank of police officers for handling rape and sexual crimes, national toll free women helpline, CCTV cameras with announcement facilities in public spaces.

While strict and effective enforcement of the law is required for the safety of women, Caritas has also cautioned the government against appropriate safeguards to prevent misuse or taking any undue advantage of such laws.

The Verma Committee’s recommendations would be placed before the government in less than a month which is expected to pave the way to amendment of existing laws to deal with rape and other crimes against women so as to provide speedier justice and enhanced punishment in sexual assault cases in India.

–  press release

ROOT CAUSE – The barefoot doctors of Pen-Panvel

Maharashtra, November 07, 2011: The area around Karnala Bird Sanctuary in Panvel has lately been drawing in customers shopping not so much for a view of the threetoed kingfisher as for the rareprince story plant. Impute this to nurseries along the old Bombay-Goa highway through villages like Barapada and Tara that have more to interest the eye by way of botanic curiosities than avian sightings in a near-barren sanctuary. Among those invested in horticulture here is a nondescript Jesuit Mission in Tara that has been trying to cultivate not so much a hothouse as a habit.

    The priests—all of two—of the Janahitha Vikas Trust (JVT) have, for the last four years, been rooting for villagers to return to herbal and ayurvedic forms of therapy. Among the several development projects they run for the Katkari adivasis here is a herbal programme that shows villagers how to identify and utilise medicinal herbs as curatives.

    Set back from the highway, on an eight-acre plot across from the rather dodgy landmark of Narayan Rane’s weekend getaway, JVT is where the adivasis from Pen-Panvel come to learn about their rights: to have panchayati laws broken down; to get a grip on ration rules; to identify useful government schemes; and avail of vocational training like sewing, carpentry and masonry. The herbal programme, which was founded four years ago, sets out to show the adivasis how to be
resourceful and self-reliant in matters of health. It invites two ayurveda specialists to hold sessions on phytotherapy, where they acquaint the class with different medicinal plants, teach them how to extract their juices and knock together remedial recipes for minor ailments like colds, diarrhea, scabies and fever. With primary health centres few and far between, andcommercial doctors charging over Rs 50, the mission hopes to ease the financial burden on poor adivasis by teaching them to find recourse in Nature.

    “A concoction of adulsa, tulsi, ginger and lemon grass cures colds; cactus oil is known to loosen stiffness from arthritis, and the sarpagandha or snakeroot is a natural anti-hypertensive and remedy for dysentery; the panphuti leaf with peppercorn is effective against kidney stones,” says Fr Diago D’Souza, director of JVT, cataloging the benefits of the herbs that grow on the grounds of the mission itself. Every year the mission distributes 15 new herbs, which it acquires from the Academy of Development Science at Kashele, to seven villages affiliated to the programme. This charity is made possible through funds raised by churches in Mumbai.

    Each village has two ‘health workers’ whose job it is to nurture herbal gardens in their village and help villagers prepare remedies. It is usually the women of the village’s self-help groups to whom the case for natural remedies is first made. A ‘herbal animator’ has the job of overseeing the entire project, hosting refresher courses and keeping interest (and the plants) alive.

    In the village of Banubaiwadi, Tulsa Hapse has attempted to maintain a herbal patch behind her house. But just like one’s medicine cabinet is forgotten until the time of illness, here too the herbs given by the mission are half-lost in a tangle of weeds. Fr D’Souza admits that erratic attention to the initiative is one of the challenges that bedevil the project. Although, Hapse says the patch is faithfully visited in times of minor maladies like colds and fever or for regenerative treatments. “I use tulsi and korphad (aloe vera) for coughs, and neem juice for stomach aches. Only when an illness persists for more than two days do we go three km down the hill to the doctor. He charges Rs 50 a visit,” she says. She points to a short green shrub with short needle leaves and identifies it as shatavari, a shrub that helps lactation. It turns out Himalaya, the herba-pharma company has a product by the same name with the same aim. (Incidentally, the Sanskrit word ‘shatavari’ means ‘She who possesses a hundred husbands’.)

    Kishni Borkya Hapse, who possessed one husband (who happened to be a vaidyaor ayurvedic physician), says villagers were not immediately won over to the profits of herbs. “They started asking for herbal concoctions only after witnessing our own cure by these,” she says. Hapse, who is Tulsa’s mother-in-law, was already familiar with the benefits of ayurveda through her husband, who taught her the formulas. “When you visit a doctor, his allopathic prescriptions usually cure one problem but give rise to another. That doesn’t happen with ayurveda,” she claims.

    Her neighbours took a long time to imbibe it. Fr D’Souza says it was initially difficult to wean villagers away from allopathy because its effects arrived fast while herbal cures sometimes took time. “They can’t afford to lose a day’s work, which is why they want a quick cure,” he says. If they didn’t have money to pay the allopath, they’d take credit from a neighbour. “It also turned into a matter of pride,” says Fr Brian D’Silva, “when the number of bottles of saline you were given indicated the gravity of your illness. It’s common knowledge that saline is indiscriminately used in healthcare here.”
    If the villagers have learnt well, and know what they’re doing with the herbs, they might just put the quacks out of business. Moreover they stand to restore to the village the ancient wisdom of well-being, and return to the soil old seeds of life.

GREEN COVER It is the job of health workers Tulsa Hapse (in red) and Kishni Borkya Hapse to nurture herbal gardens in Banubaiwadi (inset) the locally-prepared tooth powder, Nirgundi oil and hair oil

– joeanna rebello fernandes tnn

Bengal Church to educate youth in “sensitive areas”

West Bengal, October 31, 2011: Catholic bishops and Religious of West Bengal have decided to promote education among youths living in the eastern Indian state’s “sensitive areas.”

A four-day joint meeting of the prelates with priests and nuns that ended on October 28 decided to open four high schools and two technical schools in the eastern Indian state’s Maoist-affected areas and tea estates.

The regional unit of Conference of Religious India (CRI) and the state’s bishops would soon meet to work out the formalities, Sister Gracy Sunder, an organizer of the meet, told ucanews.com.

The Holy Cross of Chavanod nun, who is CRI’s regional president, recalled that a similar meet last year had decided to study the plight of tribal people in Midnapore district because of Maoist infiltration and those living in tea estates at the foothills of Darjeeling.

That meet had formed two teams to study the problems and propose suggestions.

Some 75 people, including six bishops, attended the latest meeting at Our Lady of Happy Voyage Basilica, Bandel, 45 kilometers east of Kolkata, the state capital, that discussed the theme, “Working towards justice, peace and reconciliation/ harmony in the context of struggle of our people in West Bengal and Sikkim.”

Claretian Father Michael Pandian, who coordinated the committee to study the problems in Maoist areas, said people there need qualitative higher education to stop the youth joining the ultras. He wants the Church to train the young in leadership skills through its educational institutions.

Father Pandian also noted that many people suffer from lack of medicare facilities and malnutrition.

The joint forum of bishops and Religious has gone ahead with schools with hostels even if it does not get government aid.

Jesuit Father Joe Victor, who coordinated the other study, noted that many people have lost jobs because of the closure of tea estates. The Midnapore district has some 360 tea estates.

He wants the Church to educate the workers about their rights, while continuing with its pastoral, educational and healthcare works.

Most workers in these estates are tribal and Nepali people.

The joint forum has decided to open an office with full time staff to coordinate Church intervention in the area.

– julian s das, bandel

Colorful tribute to Mother Teresa

West Bengal, October 25, 2011: A Kolkata-based painter held a week-long solo exhibition on Mother Teresa in the City of Joy.

Ritu Singh documented Mother Teresa’s selfless work for the poorest of the poor through her 45 paintings executed over a period of almost 50 years. An artist and a long-time associate of Mother Teresa, Singh organized the exhibition to mark her 101st birth anniversary. Though the entire exhibition, which concluded yesterday, was a ‘shraddhanjali’ to Blessed Teresa, one of her paintings has an offering of flowers at Mother’s feet as she enters Singh’s home.

Viewers at the gallery were surprised to see Mother Teresa in a series of 12 paintings depicting the zodiac signs. Another painting has Mother Teresa amidst clouds to signify that she is leaving the world and going to heaven. A painting titled ‘Prarthana’ (prayer) captures Mother in a meditative mood wearing a crown of thorns.

“It is symbolic to show that she was surrounded by agony,” Singh said.

One of the paintings (Come Be My Light) was presented to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican on October 19, 2003, on the occasion of Mother’s beatification. Another painting shows the transformation of Mother Teresa from a stern sister running a school to an ever-smiling mother. All paintings are done in mixed media – ink, acrylic, pastel, charcoal and thin oil and make portraits of Mother come with a glaze finish.

“I grew up with Mother right from when I was a nine-year-old. It is a special mother-daughter relationship. Every day with the Mother was like a miracle,” Singh said.

“My mother would often accompany Mother Teresa to slums and I would be left behind at the Mother House, under the supervision of the sisters. I was always looked upon as Mother’s daughter. As I waited for my mother to return, I would sketch Mother and the sisters. That’s how I developed a passion for art and later took it up as a profession,” she added.

– cm paul