Shafiq Ur Rahman Khan

KILLING OF women by family members is often termed honour killing by village elders in the rural areas of the country. Caste discrimination, however, also exists among urban Indians. Education and exposure have not been able to wash away certain prejudices even among the educated urban population of India . "Honour Killing" literally means murder committed to safeguard the honour of the family but the term has got a deeper meaning and serves a different motive in our villages. The standard definition of Honour Killing goes like this: Honour killing is murder of womenfolk by family members, generally male, who are compelled to remove stains on their familys honour. A woman can cause that stain on the family due to several reasons like refusing an arranged marriage, eloping with her beloved, being the victim of sexual assault or just because she wants to get a divorce. Poornima, a19 year old, was thrown into a canal by her father and some of the other male members of her ...

Mehmood Khan, Unilever’s global innovation head, goes back to his native village with a plan to turn it around Nai Nangla in Haryana’s Mewat district could be just another Indian village, ridden with the usual problems of a people trapped in poverty: Lack of healthcare and clean water, low productivity, high unemployment and illiteracy. But Haji Siddiq Ahmed, a local farmer in his late 60s, sees a different vision. “I want this village to be an adarsh (model) village. Others should look up to this village — that this is what an ideal village should be like,” he says. The image Ahmed sees is actually taking shape in this quiet village with a majority Muslim population. What’s more surprising is the way the change is taking hold. It may be difficult to imagine the humble folk of Nai Nangla as business executives, but the cool concepts reviving the economy of the village are no less professional. Take dairy farming, which engages nearly 80 percent of the villagers. Earlier, all they could...

NAWANSHAHR: A case of “honour killing” was reported at Musapur village in the district on Tuesday(15 December 2009 ), where Sukhdeep Singh (21) murdered her sister Rupinder Kaur (22) who had been living in the same village after solemnising inter-caste court marriage about four years ago. Raj Rani, mother-in-law of Rupinder Kaur, in her statement, said that in a frenzy, Sukhdeep holding a sword in his hand entered her residence in broad daylight and started attacking his sister with the sword. She tried to push him away and raised the alarm, but he continued to attack his sister. After killing his sister, he bolted the door of the room from inside. When asked about the reason behind the incident, she said that her son and daughter-in-law had been living happily for the past four years. Though both of them had solemnised court marriage, the mother of Rupinder Kaur had given her consent and there was absolutly no problem till now, said Raj Rani while expressing surpise over the fren...

Traditionally, the women of Haryana possess an image of a total cultivator housewife who could be easily seen, in the fields or on the way to home from the fields maintaining a long parda (veil) loaded with the fodder for the cattle or grain! Or can easily be found preparing chilum (earthen vessel holding fire on the top of Hubble- bubble) for the hukka (hubble-bubble)! However, on the other hand t he traditional image of the prosperous males of Haryana is – a stout- bodied macho having a tall and wide physic bubbling hukka and alongwith ‘ bandukdi’, ‘jeepadi’ and ‘botadi ’ (gun, jeep and wine bottle respectively)! However, recently the “molki” (purchased) women also have been added in this image. The words ‘Paro’( from across) or ‘molki’( purchased) not only make realize the strangeness and the state of being alien but also decide the social status of the women who are called by these words. In order to understand the social status of “Paro”, a detailed study was under...

What is Trafficking? Trafficking of humans involves moving men, women, and children from one place to another and placing them in conditions of forced labour. The practice includes forced sex work, domestic servitude, unsafe agricultural labour, sweatshop labour, construction or restaurant work, and various forms of modern-day slavery. This global violation of human rights occurs within countries and across borders, regions, and continents. Trafficking has been defined by the UN General Assembly statement of 1994 as: “The illicit and clandestine movements of persons across national borders, largely from developing countries and some countries with economies in transition, with the end goal of forcing women and girl children into sexually or economically oppressive and exploitative situations for profit of recruiters, traffickers, and crime syndicates as well as other illegal activities related to trafficking, such as forced domestic labour, false marriages, clan...