The police said that eight people, including four children, were killed and over 12 others injured when a factory wall collapsed in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday.
The police said the incident took place early in the morning at Saraj Majra village, 120 km from the state capital Shimla, when the boundary wall of the factory adjoining a big slum suddenly collapsed during a storm.
“While eight people died on the spot, those injured have been admitted to Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in the neighbouring state at Chandigarh, where they were referred to by a local hospital.
“The death toll may go up later in the day as the condition of some of the injured is serious.
“Doctors at the hospital are trying their best to treat the injured,” the police said.
The police said that some senior officials have gone to the area to assess the damage.
A probe had been ordered into the incident to ascertain how the people constructed the illegal slums near the factory.
In May, 26 people were killed and 28 others injured after the wall of a wedding hall collapsed due to heavy rains and thunderstorm in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.
Officials say four people including a teenager and two women were killed when a wild elephant ran amok in southern India early Friday.
District official S. Madhuranthangi said that the elephant strayed into a residential area on the outskirts of the Coimbatore city from a nearby forest and carried out three attacks, sending residents into a state of panic.
Madhuranthangi said: “the elephant first entered a house and attacked a family that was asleep. It lifted a twelve-year girl with its trunk and flung her to the ground, causing her to die on the spot.
“It trampled two women and a 70-year-old man to death in separate attacks later.”
She said Five more people injured in the attacks were admitted to hospitals in Coimbatore, where the condition of two wounded was said to be serious.
Hundreds gathered in the area as wildlife and police teams attempted to tranquilise the animal to arrange for its return to the forest.
“The elephant has gone astray and has been wreaking havoc in the region. … It attacked a government food rations store earlier on Thursday.
“We have warned residents not to venture out from their homes, but there is a lot of commotion around,” the official said.
Attacks by wild elephants are common in India and government reports say more than 300 people are killed each year by elephants.
Park deforestation, poaching and encroachment by villagers are boxing in the country’s estimated 27,000 to 31,000 wild elephants and causing them to stray from their habitat and reserves.
Police said no fewer than six men were beaten to death by mob in eastern India on suspicion that they had kidnapped children, a media report said on Friday .
The killings took place in two separate incidents in adjoining districts of Jharkhand State on Thursday.
Angry villagers pelted stones, clashed with police and also torched two police vehicles.
Police officer Prashant Anand said the first incident took place in East Singbhum District, where three men were beaten to death by villagers who accused them of kidnapping children.
“The tribal villagers cornered the men and tempers ran high after they came to know they were outsiders, belonging to another district.
“Suspecting them to be child-lifters, a mob physically assaulted and beat them with sticks until they died.
“In the second related incident that occurred in adjoining Seraikela district, three more men were lynched on similar suspicion,’’ Anand said.
Police, however, denied reports that a number of child abduction cases were reported in the region.
“No such cases have been reported, we are trying to check the spread of rumours which is responsible for the violence.
“ We will identify and arrest those responsible for circulating such rumours,’’ Anand stressed
Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Thursday expressed confidence that the recent amendments to the Electoral Act will strengthen the country’s electoral process and make it conform with the international best practices.
Saraki noted that when assented to, the amendments will eliminate rigging, violence and other forms of malpractices associated with the electoral process in the country.
The Senate President in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Mohammed Isa, spoke while receiving a delegation of Safran IS, an international biometric and identity management company that visited him in Abuja.
Saraki said, “I believe the amendments will strengthen our electoral processes, particularly at the transmission of results to the various stages of collation.
“We made a lot of progress with the introduction of the Card Reader during the 2015 general elections and it is our commitment and determination to improve on that during subsequent elections.
“One of the things that I think is the big issue during election is in the area of transmission of results, and it has been something that we need to improve on and we need to get that done before 2019.
“I am confident that if we can get the electronic transmission right, we will begin to have an election process that can compete with what obtains in any other part of the world.
“We want a situation that as soon as results are announced at polling units, we should be able to receive them across board. I think when we are able to do that, the challenge associated with physical result transmission would be a thing of the past.”
He expressed the readiness of the Senate to partner with any organization that could provide the right solutions, and requested Safran to collaborate with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and support their initiative.
The leader of the delegation, Ms Jessica Van Meeteren explained that based on their experiences and successes in similar jobs in other countries, Safran IS possesses the required technology and technical know-how to provide Nigeria with the solutions.
Meeteren said the company had undertaken similar jobs in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, India, Chile among others.
The Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Prof. Tijjani Bande, on Wednesday, pledged Nigeria’s commitment to address all forms of terrorism and inequality on the global stage.
Bande made the remarks at a dinner organized in his honour and his Deputy, Samson Itegboje, at the Nigeria House in New York, to formally welcome him into the diplomatic community.
The new envoy said that “Nigeria is committed to advance the cause of the United Nations to realise the purpose for which it was founded.
“Beyond this, I want to further pledge the readiness of the Government of Nigeria to work with others to address the urgent issues of terrorism and inequality in the global system”.
The UN Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the dinner was well attended by members of the diplomatic corps.
There was a large representation from the Permanent Missions of many African countries, as well those of Canada and India, among others.
Members of the business community and Nigerians in the diaspora were also present to welcome the new envoy.
Speaking with NAN, Bande expressed delight at the honour done to Nigeria by the diplomatic community, saying it has affirmed the goodwill the country enjoyed among the comity of nations.
“We are very glad that virtually all the Missions invited to the dinner attended; mostly the attendance was by the Heads of Missions.
“And even for those who couldn’t make it, they sent very senior officials who stayed with us and the interactions were extremely cordial.
“This is proof enough of our importance in the UN system.
“Which means we have to also strengthen our capacity to play our role in the system and there is no doubt, this is really the focus of the present administration.”
The Nigerian envoy said that he had hit the ground running since he assumed office last week adding, the Mission has proactively planned his schedules and things are going on well.
Bande assumed office on May 1 as Nigeria’s new envoy to the UN and presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on May 3
India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday sentenced a sitting judge to six months’ imprisonment for contempt of court, an unprecedented development in the country’s judicial history, local media reported.
Justice CS Karnan, 61, from the Calcutta High Court, was accused of contempt after he named 20 “corrupt judges” in January and sought a probe alleging corruption in the judiciary.
The accusations sparked a full-blown row between Karnan and India’s top court which recently ordered his psychiatric evaluation to ascertain if he was mentally ill.
Karnan recently turned away the team of doctors and ordered mental evaluation for the judges instead, even as he refused to show up at court or submit to its orders.
“We are of the unanimous opinion that Justice CS Karnan has committed contempt of court, judiciary and judicial process of the gravest nature,’’ Chief Justice J S Khehar said, ordering police to arrest Karnan.
The immediate provocation appeared to be Karnan’s sentencing Khehar and seven judges to five years’ jail Monday, saying they were guilty of caste discrimination.
He alleged that he was being victimised because he belonged to the low-caste Dalit community.
Karnan is the first judge in India to be sentenced to jail by court.
Legal experts questioned the ruling, saying the constitution did not allow the Supreme Court to exercise powers over the state high courts.
“The high court and Supreme Court judges have very similar jurisdictions under the constitution.
“There is no administrative hierarchy between them,’’ senior lawyer Indira Jaising told newsmen.
India’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld death sentences against four men who fatally gang raped a woman on board a bus in 2012.
The crime sparked widespread protests and drew international attention to violence against women.
Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh were convicted and handed death sentences by lower courts for the fatal rape of Jyoti Singh, which they challenged in the Supreme Court.
“It’s a barbaric crime and it has shaken the society’s conscience,” Justice R. Banumathi told a packed courtroom as the three-judge Supreme Court panel threw out an appeal on behalf of the defendants.
The five men and a juvenile lured the 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist and her male friend on to a minibus in New Delhi on Dec. 16, 2012, repeatedly raping the woman and beating both with a metal bar before dumping them on a road.
The woman died of grave internal injuries two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.
Applause broke out in court among relatives of the victim, whose identity is protected by law, as judges explained that the crime met the “rarest of the rare” standard to justify capital punishment in India.
“I am very satisfied.
“Today I am happy,” the victim’s mother said.
Her father said: “It’s not just a victory for my family, it’s a victory for each and every woman in our country.”
Intense heatwave has gripped India with mercury soaring to 45 degrees in some parts of the country, meteorological department officials said on Thursday.
The Indian Meteorological Department said, in the southern state of Telangana, no fewer than 37 people have died due to the heatwave since the beginning of April.
“Yesterday, severe heatwave conditions were prevailing at many places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi,” the department said in a statement.
“Heatwave conditions at a few places over Vidarbha and at isolated places over Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh were recorded.”
The department also said that on Wednesday, the highest maximum temperature of 46.2 degrees Celsius was recorded at Chandrapur (Vidarbha) in the Maharashtra. Delhi, the capital city, recorded 44 degrees Celsius.
The local Telangana government advanced summer holidays for schools due to prevailing heatwave conditions across the state.
It has also issued an advisory to people not to venture out especially between 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to avoid the severe heat.
In zoos across India, officials have put coolers in enclosures for animals in the wake of the intense heatwave.
In this piece for The Nation, an Indian journalist of South African origin, ROBIN SHUKLA examines the travails of Nigerians and other Africans in India, where brown seems darker than black
For a nation greatly distressed over its people getting harassed and killed in racist attacks in the U.S., India seems to have minimal qualms over its own senseless hatred of Africans.
March 27, 2017 saw three African youths being brutalised by a large mob of Noida residents. The attackers were reportedly incensed over the death of a 16-year-old Indian drug-user who succumbed to a probable overdose, and over the subsequent release of five Nigeria-born students suspected of having provided drugs to the deceased.
Nigerian attacked by Noida mob on March 27, 2017
Anti-African violence has again reared its ugly head after a lull of about seven months. Last year, sometime in July 2016, there were two kinds of reports coming out of Africa: One was of Indian PM Narendra Modi’s five-day-four-nation jaunt to Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. The other pertained to retaliatory violence unleashed against Indian traders in Congo over the killing of a Congolese woman, Cynthia (32), who was murdered by her Indian husband and chopped into pieces in Hyderabad, India!
During his much tom-tommed people-to-people interactions in those four countries, Modi failed to address the issue of frequent racist attacks across India that had riled the entire African continent of 54 countries. One can only hope that nobody stokes anti-India sentiments there in retaliation for the current Noida attacks, because the video footages are very sickening.
In the aftermath of Monday’s attack, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had tweeted, “I have asked for a report from Government of Uttar Pradesh about the reported attack on African students in Noida’ and ‘He (UP CM Yogi Adityanath) has assured that there will be a fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident.”
Ministry of external affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said: “The government is committed to ensuring safety and security of all foreigners in India. People from Africa, including students and youth, remain our valued partners.”
The administration had obviously failed to see an oncoming situation, even though on March 25, 2017, more than 500 (some say 1,000) residents of Greater Noida housing societies had taken a morcha to the SSP office to protest against what they termed ‘police inaction.’ That the marchers were holding printed banners and posters seeking the eviction of Nigerians should have alerted police to the fact that there was a behind-the-scenes channelizing of hatred, and that the morcha was not just a spontaneous expression of anger against an Indian drug-user’s death.
Earlier attacks on Africans
Last year, on May 25, 2016, a grand Africa Day Celebrations event was almost boycotted by 42 African nations because a 23-year-old Congolese national, Masonga Kitanda Oliver, had been beaten to death in the Vasant Kunj area of India’s capital, Delhi, only five days earlier, on May 20.
Congolese national Masonda Ketanda Oliver, killed in Delhi on May 20, 2016
Diplomats of African nations had planned to stay away from the Africa Day Celebrations, organized in Delhi by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, as a mark of protest against the discrimination and violence faced by their countrymen in various parts of India. The envoys of several African countries signed and sent a strong letter ticking off the Indian government for failing to protect their nationals.
As a matter of fact, hundreds of Africans were set to march alongside members of the Association of African Students of India in an anti-racism rally to condemn the atrocities. However, senior BJP leaders like the then Minister of State for External Affairs, General (retd) V.K. Singh and Sushma Swaraj had made placating noises about brotherhood, shared histories, etc, and the rally was cancelled. Some diplomats later condescended to attend the Africa Day Celebrations where they voiced their concerns and displeasure over India’s treatment of Africans.
Alem Woldermariam, the Ambassador of Eritrea, warned, “Given the pervading climate of fear and insecurity in Delhi, the African heads of mission are left with little option than to consider recommending to their governments not to send new students to India, unless and until their safety can be guaranteed.’
Ironically, on May 25, 2016, on the day Africa Day Celebrations event was held in Delhi, a 23-year-old male Nigerian student, Ghazeem, was assaulted with an iron rod and had to be hospitalized after a tiff over parking his car in Hyderabad. A day later there were as many as four attacks with bats and iron rods on nine African nationals, including four women and a boy, in the villages of Rajpur Khurd and Maidan Garhi located in South Delhi.
It would be pertinent to point out that Rajpur Khurd, in addition to its population of about 5,000 Rathi Jats, has more than a 1,000 African men and women renting spaces for up to Rs.15,000 per month and friction between locals and the dark-skinned foreigners has continued to trigger violence from time to time.
Sordid history
The state of Karnataka brought real shame to India in February 2016, when a 21-year-old Tanzanian woman was pulled out of her car in Bengaluru, her clothes torn off by a mob that beat her up and continued to chase her even as she fled into a bus. The horror of horrors was that passengers, our own dear Kannadigas, pushed her out of the bus and into the hands of her ravagers even as Bengaluru police looked on and then stood by mutely as her car was torched by the mob.
Tanzanian woman was beaten and stripped in Bangalore in February 2016
Bengaluru has been bad to Africans before. In March 2015, a mob in the northeast part of the city attacked men from the Ivory Coast with stones and beer bottles. In July 2013, 44-year-old Wandoh Timothy from Chad was attacked by a mob in Bangalore after an argument with bikers while he was on his way to pick up his three-year-old daughter from school. Timothy has been living in India for more than a decade and is happily married to an Indian girl.
– Chad national Wandoh Timothy, attacked by a mob in Bangalore in July 2013, seen here with his family
In September 2014, three students, Yohan, Mapaga and Guira, from Gabon and Burkina Faso were set upon by a mob at a Delhi metro station for alleged eve-teasing.
Most of us may remember the despicable behavior of Aam Aadmi Party’s cabinet minister Somnath Bharti who, in January 2014, led a raid against Ugandan women for alleged drug dealing and prostitution rackets in Delhi. Most of the women were allegedly molested, leading to uproar in their home country.
In December 2013, 36-year-old Obodo Uzoma Simeon from Nigeria was hacked to death in north Goa, allegedly the fallout of a drug peddling dispute. There were spontaneous street protests by other Africans, many from Nigeria itself and police had to intervene to prevent a law and order situation.
On April 21, 2012, Yannick Nihangaza from Burundi was attacked by nine youth from well-to-do families in Jalandhar, Punjab. He was hospitalized and went into a coma, from which he recovered a few months later. The traumatized young man died after two years, in his home on July 1, 2014.
Nigerian national Obodo Uzoma Simeon, killed in Goa in December 2013
Color prejudices run deep
Even a cursory enquiry will expose the scary situation of the common Indian perceiving Africans as almost a subspecies, and many Africans have gone on record about the teasing and baiting they have had to cope with from unknown persons or groups on the streets of India, or from their overtly suspicious neighbors who view every African as a drug-smuggling or online-racketeering Nigerian.
Anti-African prejudices continue to run deep in Goa where even BJP ministers are known to have mouthed off uncalled for remarks and later had to eat their words for reasons of political correctness. Nothing is mentioned however about the violent Russians who have virtually taken over swathes of Goa’s beachfront areas into which Indians are discouraged from entering.
The dangerous downside
On the numbers front, there could be a fine line we are crossing as population equations could well work against us. We may have at best about 50,000 Africans currently in India as against the millions of Indians living and working in that continent. At any time, injustices highlighted here could trigger violent retaliation in various parts of Africa, a situation India could ill-afford.
There was a backlash of sorts after the killings of Masonga Kitanda Oliver and Cynthia, with many Indian settlers getting roughed up and shot at while their shops were vandalized in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. There are about 5,000 Indian living in that country.
On the economic front, India’s trade with Africa is worth approximately $72 billion, and it sources 24% of its crude oil from Africa. Several Indian private companies have invested there in the agriculture, renewable energy, pharmaceutical, automobile, telecommunication and engineering goods sectors.
China’s trade there was pegged at upwards of $200 billion in 2012, three times as much as that of India, with US figures pegged at $100 billion. Bad relations and the presence of such business rivals could be our undoing.
Gabon and Burkina Faso nationals, Yohan, Mapaga and Guira, attacked in a Delhi Metro station in September 2014
What about dark-skinned Indians and Asians?
There is scarcely a dusky complexioned Indian who will not have heard the word kalia or kali being used in reference to him or her because of skin tone.
The advertising for fairness creams which one sees on almost all of the hundreds of TV channels and scores of magazines and newspapers in almost all languages may easily be crossing the billion-rupee mark each year.
Parents and grandparents groom little girls with applications of various pastes made from ingredients in the kitchen to lighten their color. As they grow older, manufactured cosmetics get used and there are several in the market to choose from.
Even players like Nivea, who were satisfied with the success of their winter creams and lotions and deo-sprays, have graduated from under-arm whiteners to lotions that could bring in fairness all over!
The obsession with fairness is not a factor only with the fairer sex. There are Fair and Handsome creams, face washes, and lotions and many other such products for the men and boys, with superstars and cricketing legends endorsing and vouching for their efficacy. The contagion has spread as easily as cream and lotion, thanks to the deep-rooted prejudice that Indians have against their dark-skinned countrymen or women.
Matrimonial prospects are better for the fair and good-looking while those a few shades down have to offer a dowry of extra cash and goods to get a chance at being carted away by a spouse.
Not a new problem, God suffered too
Colour equations in India have avowedly ancient origins. As the Vicco people tell us in their jingles, a fair and lovely complexion is guaranteed because their turmeric cream has ingredients recommended in ancient Ayurvedic texts.Yashomati Maiya se boley Nandlala Radha kyun gori, mai kyun kala
These are the first words of a popular song from the super hit film, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, which even today has sing-along acceptability among all age groups and persuasions. Little Lord Krishna is asking his mother, “why is it that Radha is fair and I am black”.
Our dusky curd-grabbing flute-playing god is the stuff of many romantic legends and enjoys absolute devotion among Hindus. He has an overseas presence via the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), where mostly white devotees adopt Indian sadhu and sadhvi nomenclatures and attract attention at various temples across the globe with their heavily accented chanting and their swaying and dancing to bhajans sung to an accompaniment of cymbals and drum beats.
Unfortunately, acceptance of black or dark skin is limited only to Krishna and a few other gods and goddesses like the dark Kali Mata (Durga) and the pitch black Balaji of Tirupati.
In fact, Lord Balaji is probably the most venerated figure, ensconced atop Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati Hills, the most visited place of pilgrimage in India when compared to all the mountain trudging and river dipping at various other yatras, kumbhs and maha-kumbhs in the East, West and Northern parts of the country and also the Sabarimala walkathon in the southern state of Kerala.
Skin color may well continue to be one among India’s various intolerance issues, but it may not be safe to continue to subject Africans to our biases and prejudices. If patience runs out, those of us living in or visiting Africa may find it difficult to mouth the usual drivel about ‘Africans being our brothers and being very safe in India’ with our badly bruised lips and broken teeth.
A financial expert, Mr Mufutau Oyegunle, on Wednesday advised Nigerians in the informal sector to embrace the micro pension contributory scheme being developed by National Pension Commission (PenCom).
Oyegunle told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the scheme, which would begin in 2017, would enable them develop saving culture and live better at old age.
He urged artisans such as tailors, plumbers, vulcanisers, mechanics, hairdressers and others to key into the scheme.
The expert said that the scheme was not particularly new as it was being successfully practised in India, Kenya, Ghana and other countries.
“Those who think they are unable to save due to low income will still find it difficult to save when they have more because saving requires discipline.
“If you can’t save N10, you can’t save a billion.
“If you think your fund is too small to save, you may not save when you have it increased by 10 million folds.
“This is the fundamental principle when it comes to money. So, no amount is too small to be saved,” he said.
Oyegunle, who is the Managing Director of LAKEG Insurance, said PenCom had targeted over 50 million workers in the informal sector for the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) using the Micro Pension initiative.
“The commission expects to get at least 20 million savers in the informal sector into the scheme in the next four years,” he said
