November 2017

Substance abuse and sexual assaults

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(A very well researched article on relation between alcoholism and sexual assault written  by renowned journalists in prestigious news daily The Statesman is reproduced here for the benefit of students)

 While widespread concern has been expressed regarding the increasing trends of sexual crimes and assaults, not enough attention has been given to the significant role of alcohol and drugs in the escalation of sexual violence. Several significant studies in various countries have clearly pointed out that nearly 50 per cent of sexual assault cases involved the use of alcohol or drugs or both.

According to a widely cited paper on ‘alcohol and sexual assaults’ by Antonia Abbey, Tina Zawacki and others of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (USA), “at least one half of all violent crimes involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the victim or both. Sexual violence fits this pattern. Thus across disparate population studies, researchers consistently have found that approximately one half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol. Depending on the sample studied and the measure used, the estimates for alcohol use among perpetrators have ranged from 34 to 74 percent. Similarly, approximately one-third of all sexual assault victims report that they were drinking alcohol at the time of assault with estimates ranging from 30 to 39 per cent.”

However, these researchers also point out that while a woman’s al

cohol consumption may place her at increased risk of sexual assault, she is in no way responsible for the assault. The researchers rightly say that the perpetrators remain legally and morally responsible for their behavior.

Moreover, it also needs to be pointed out that while the data about alcohol consumption by perpetrators is relevant to almost all situations, the data about alcohol consumption by victims is not relevant to those social contexts such as several parts of India where alcohol consumption by woman is very low. In such cases the main issue is the alcohol consumption of the assaulter only. In many of the most serious cases of sexual assault reported in India in recent times, alcohol consumption by the assaulter has been established.

The study by Abbey and Zawacki also points out that perpetrators embrace stereotypes about women who drink being sexually available and appropriate targets. Drinking is used by them as an excuse for socially unacceptable behavior. The researchers say that alcohol’s cognitive impairments enhance misperception of a woman’s friendly cues as sexual and facilitate an aggressive response if the man feels he has been ‘led on’.

These researchers say that alcohol’s cognitive impairments reduce the victim’s ability to evaluate risk. Alcohol’s motor impairments reduce her ability to resist.

The researchers say that when a man is intoxicated he can more easily focus on his immediate sexual gratification, sense of entitlement and anger, rather than on his internalised sense of appropriate behavior, future regret, the victim’s suffering and the possibility that he will be punished for his actions.

Another tragic fact to which these researchers draw attention is that in cases of sexual assaults involving alcohol consumption, the victim’s injuries are likely to be more serious.

Another study titled “Alcohol consumption and woman’s vulnerability to sexual victimization – can reducing woman’s drinking prevent rape” by Maria Testa and Jennifer A Livingston has stated, “a review of the literature on woman’s substance use and sexual victimisation points to woman’s heavy episodic drinking as a risk factor, particularly amongst college samples. At least half of sexual victimisation incidents involve alcohol use and the majority of rapes of college women occur when the victim is too intoxicated to resist (incapacitated rape). Despite the importance of woman’s heavy episodic drinking as being a risk factor, existing rape prevention programs have rarely addressed woman’s alcohol use and have shown little success in reducing rates of sexual victimization.”

Finally, these researchers suggest that given the strength of the association between heavy episodic drinking and sexual victimisation any prevention programme targeting drinking may also prove a more efficacious way of reducing the vulnerability of women to sexual assaults.

Remedial aspects these may differ from one social-cultural context to another. Nevertheless, two broad aspects can be discussed here:

  1. Keeping in view the widely recognized and highly adverse health and social impacts of alcohol and drug consumption, there is a clear and strong need for stepping up efforts to reduce overall consumption of alcohol and drugs in society. According to the WHO, 33 lakh net deaths are caused in a year by alcohol alone while 200 diseases and injuries are related to alcohol consumption. There are also specific problems of alcohol related to women. The overall reduction in alcohol and drug use, a reduction which is anyway needed by society for various reasons, will also help to reduce the vulnerability of women in terms of sexual exploitation.
  2. Secondly, some more steps can also be taken for the protection of women from alcohol related sexual crimes as various high-risk situations have been identified by different research studies. Clear instructions should be used to increase the safety of women in these high-risk situations and to fix responsibility.

Moody’s Investors Service raises India’s sovereign credit rating to Baa2

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Global ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service raised India’s sovereign credit rating to ‘Baa2’ from ‘Baa3’ on November 16, 2017. The credit rating agency asserted that continued progress on economic and institutional reforms will enhance the India’s high growth potential. Moody’s also changed its rating outlook from stable to positive, saying that at the ‘Baa2’ level the risks to India’s credit profile were broadly balanced. It has taken India 26 years to get a credit rating higher than Baa3 from Moody’s. This would give assurance to investors and lenders that the Indian economy is a prospectively a better investment and lending destination than before. Market actually received the news with the expected zeal and enthusiasm. The rupee jumped to 64.63 per dollar after the Moody’s upgrade, against November 16th close of 65.32. The BSE benchmark index Sensex rose more than 400 points to 33,520 while the NSE Nifty surged over 120 points in the opening trade. But any analysis of this upgrade should not be done under irrational exuberance. There are miles to go before India becomes a permanent apple of investors’ eyes.

The agency claimed the initiatives, including demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST), taken up by the government would strengthen India’s credit powers, boost growth prospects and global competitiveness. The reforms would likely contribute to a gradual decline in the general government debt burden over the medium term. Among the reforms Moody’s mentions as responsible for upgrade of India’s credit rating are GST, demonetisation, the inflation-targeting monetary policy framework, the Bankruptcy Act, bank recapitalization, Aadhaar and the Direct Benefits Transfer system. Moody’s believes demonetisation has strengthened institutions by being a part of the government’s efforts to “reduce corruption, formalize economic activity and improve tax collection”. After the agency upgraded the credit ratings on November 17, it received criticism from several quarters on the basis that while India is lacking on the economic growth front and its debt-to-GDP ratio is on the rise, the report gave thumbs up to the economic initiatives taken up by the government. Moody’s explained that current the slowdown in the economic growth – India’s GDP growth slowed to 5.7% in the first quarter from 6.1% in the previous quarter – was the factor it lowered India’s growth forecast to 6.7% in 2017-18. But, Moody’s said, the structural reforms makes the country’s growth potential strong, “stronger than most peers”. “Combined with a large and diversified economy and improving global competitiveness, this boosts economic strength, our view of an economy’s shock absorption capacity, which we assess as “High (+)”, the fourth highest score on our 15-rung sovereign factor score scale.” The agency had earlier posed faith in India’s economic reforms, saying they could improve the business climate, productivity, stimulating foreign and domestic investment, and hence fostering strong and sustainable growth.

Miss World 2017 crown to Haryana girl Manushi Chhillar 

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India’s Manushi Chhillar has won the Miss World 2017 contest. This is a big feat as India has bagged the coveted title of Miss World after a long gap of 17 years after Priyanka Chopra won the title in 2000.  Manushi Chillar competed against 108 contestants from various countries at a glittering event held at Sanya City Arena in China. Miss India World 2017 Manushi Chillar, a 21-year-old from Haryana, had made it to the top five at the Miss World 2017 pageant here. Earlier, Miss India Manushi Chillar, 21, was named one of the five winners of the Beauty with a Purpose award at Miss World 2017. India, England, France, Kenya and Mexico grabbed the top five spots at the pageant.

The other winners of the title are contestants from South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippines. The model from Haryana was inching closer to the Miss World crown as she has gone straight from top 40 to 15. Miss World 2016 winner Puerto Rico’s Stephanie Del Valle gave away the coveted crown to the winner. Miss Mexico Andrea Meza was announced the first runner up, while Miss England Stephanie Hill was declared the second runner up at an event held at Sanya City Area. In question and answer round post getting the top five spot, Manushi was asked: “Which profession deserves the highest salary and why?” She replied: “I think a mother is of the highest respect. I don’t think its just about cash but love and respect she gives to someone. She is the biggest inspiration in my life. Mother should get highest respect.” Manushi, born to doctor parents, studied in St. Thomas School in New Delhi and Bhagat Phool Singh Government Medical College for Women in Sonepat. Chillar, who is from Haryana, had earlier this year won the Femina Miss India 2017.

The many Padmavatis

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(Editorial comment: The prestigious news paper has brought a historiography based view on Queen Padmavati’s identity, i.e.,  who she is, and how she is interpreted by different cultural and historical traditions, a must read article for students by an Indian professor in the Princeton University, US). The political noise may be immaterial to educated class, but in such matters sentiments of related groups are involved and so it is important to understand the whole issue and make an educated view. This article helps students to understand the controversy)

 

 As the release of Bollywood film Padmavati  draws near, protests against it are reaching a fever pitch. Claiming to speak on behalf of all Rajputs, several political figures have objected to the portrayal of the title character of the film for two reasons — that it is a distortion of history and that it is disrespectful to Queen Padmini (appearing in some texts as Padmavati), who is deeply revered by the Rajput community. Recent scholarly work on the Padmavat, such as that of Thomas de Bruijn, Shantanu Phukan and especially Ramya Sreenivasan, makes possible an informed engagement with these claims.

The earliest tale

The earliest known composition of the Padmini tale is Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat, dating to 1540. This tale is part of a new genre, the Sufi premakhyan (‘love story’), that flowered from the 14th to 16th centuries in North India. Most of these tales feature a hero-king’s quest for union with supreme truth and transcendent beauty — embodied in the texts by a woman of unparalleled physical beauty — and the difficulty of navigating the contradictory pulls of the spiritual and worldly domains. The Padmavat is perhaps the only one of these texts to be grafted upon a historical event, Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji’s siege of Chittor in 1303. Writing more than 200 years after the event, Jayasi’s tale bears little resemblance to surviving historical accounts of the siege and instead appears to draw in details from contemporaneous events and places.

In Jayasi’s composition, a parrot, Hiraman, tells the king of Chittor, Ratansen, of the unequalled beauty of the princess of Sinhal, Padmavati. Hiraman’s description is enough to trigger in Ratansen a desire to attain Padmavati. He leaves behind his wife, Nagmati, becomes a yogi, and heads out, along with his men who also become yogis, on the arduous quest to the faraway Sinhal. With great difficulty, and only after he is ready to give up his life for the quest, Ratansen is united with Padmavati and marries her. Due to the pulls of his natal home and the suffering of his first wife, he returns to Chittor, bringing Padmavati along with him. While Ratansen works on building peace between Padmavati and Nagmati, a deceitful brahman, expelled from Ratansen’s court, seeks revenge by going to Delhi and informing Khilji of Padmavati’s stunning beauty. Piqued, Khilji decides to march upon Chittor to demand Padmavati. Ratansen refuses to part with her. With the Sultan’s forces closing in, Ratansen dies of injuries sustained in a fight with a Rajput rival. Padmavati and Nagmati commit sati on Ratansen’s funeral pyre while the remaining Rajput men go into the battlefield to be martyred. When Khilji manages to finally conquer the fortress, all that remains of Padmavati are her ashes. His victory is thus rendered hollow.

Some manuscript copies explain the Sufi import of the tale by referring to Chittor as the body, Ratansen the spirit, Padmini the mind, Hiraman the spiritual guide, and Khilji as illusion (‘maya’). Literary representations of Khilji in a polyvalent text such as the Padmavat and in future iterations of the tale then should not be taken as historical. The historical Sultan Alauddin Khilji, as we know him from accounts of his time, was a gifted statesman who strengthened the fisc of the Delhi Sultanate, expanded the frontiers of his kingdom, and capably protected North India from the expanding Mongol domain, a feat that many of his contemporaries could not accomplish.

As for Padmavati, there is no historical evidence that there was such a figure in Chittor when it was besieged, or that desire for a woman played any role in Khilji’s interest in conquering the fortress. Padmavati/Padmini, then, is a literary artefact, as is the entire story of love and sacrifice at whose heart she is placed. Any depiction of Padmavati thus cannot be a distortion of history since, in our current state of knowledge, she never existed. Born as a figment of poetic imagination, she is free to be reshaped in the hands of a different creator.

Padmini, recast

And indeed, the Padmavat was told and retold over the centuries and across the land. As historian Ramya Sreenivasan has carefully shown in her book, The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen, in each retelling, the contours of the story and the key characters within it, including Padmini, changed. Starting a few decades after the original composition, the Padmavat was adapted into Persian forms in North India and Gujarat, and Jain literati and bardic groups composed versions of it for Rajasthani courtly elites. In the 17th century, professional genealogists wove the Guhila house of Ratansen into the genealogy of their patrons, the Sisodia rulers of Mewar. By the 18th century, after the decline of the Mughal empire but before colonial conquest, the tale of Padmini was refashioned in Mewar to demonise Alauddin Khilji, also emphasising his Muslim identity and presenting the clash between the Rajputs of Chittor and the Sultan of Delhi as the resistance of Hindus against an encroaching, ‘impure’ Islam.

In the 19th century, Colonel James Tod, Political Agent in Rajputana of the English East India Company, was guided in his attempt to write the first authoritative history (by contemporary European standards) of the region by the philological, historiographical, and intellectual frameworks of his age, as well as by the political goal of stabilising the region by strengthening the hands of kings against rebellious chiefs. He selectively chose information from the range of pre-colonial sources at his disposal. He incorporated the courtly Rajasthani Padmini narrative into his early 19th century history of Rajasthan, using it, along with other material, to cast Rajputs as a valiant, pure fighting race of Hindus that resisted Islamic conquest, just as Christians had done in the West. Bengali intellectuals of the nascent bhadralok were deeply impressed with the figure of the Rajput as presented in his account, not just for his selfless bravery but also for his resistance against a Muslim conqueror. As the earliest imaginings of an Indian nation — and a Hindu nation — began to take shape, Padmini became a token of the self-sacrificing, virtuous, and chaste Hindu woman that was to be at its heart. In this idealised form, her decision to annihilate her own body was celebrated for the preservation of her ‘honour’ (read ‘chastity’) through which was indexed the honour of her husband, her family, her community, and now, her nation.

In her journey from the 16th to the 21st century, Padmavati appears to have become increasingly shackled in the confines of patriarchy. In Rajasthani versions, Padmavati lost her autonomous voice, reduced to a prop on the edges of a scene largely occupied by the king and his courtiers. It was this Rajasthani Padmavati who was celebrated in 19th century bhadralok plays beginning to imagine a Hindu nation and who is today deified as the apotheosis of Rajput, and even Hindu, valour, purity, and sovereignty. Padmavati has been recast as adhering strictly to codes of conduct applied to elite Rajput women. Allegations of disrespect and inaccuracy being levelled against the film are thus rooted in the expectation, by those familiar only with the Rajput or early Hindu nationalist adaptations, of a silver-screen Padmavati who observes the purdah and does not display any trace of sexuality. The current row over Padmini’s portrayal only underscores that in the long arc of its history, the imagined Hindu nation holds in its heart the dutiful, chaste Hindu woman, who acquiesces to patriarchal controls and only exercises her agency within their bounds.

No exclusive legacy

It is important to bear in mind, as Ms. Sreenivasan has shown, that at the same time that the Rajputs were articulating a new claim upon the Padmavat in the 17th century, other Padmini tales continued to be composed. A Sufi migrant from Bengal to the Arakan court (in today’s Myanmar) composed his own version of the text in Bengali. In the 19th century, there were multiple Urdu adaptations of the tale printed in North India and an opera performed in 1923 in Paris. There have then been many Padmavats, just as there were many Ramayanas. The tale, and its heroine, are then not the exclusive legacy of any single community. The effort of spokespersons of a single community, one that continues to exercise tremendous sociopolitical power, to freeze the text into a single, authorised version, will rob it of the vitality that has allowed it to thrive over the ages.

(Divya Cherian is an assistant professor at the Department of History, Princeton University, U.S.)

Ethics:  Knowledge of moral principles and its fundamentals  

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Ethics is the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles. Ethics studies moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity. Ethics concerns itself with moral principles, values, standards of behavior, virtues, dictates of conscience,rights and wrongs etc. Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from Ancient Greek “ethikos”, from “ethos”, meaning ‘habit, custom’. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.

Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:

  1. Meta-ethics : It is concerned with the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how  their truth values (if any) can be determined. Meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. A meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, “Is it ever possible to have secure knowledge of what is right and wrong?” According to Aristotle, ethical knowledge depends on habit and acculturation in a way that makes it distinctive from other kinds of knowledge. Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Cognitivism may be seen as the claim that when we talk about right and wrong, we are talking about matters of fact. Non-cognitivism is the claim that when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false. We may, for example, be only expressing our emotional feelings about these things.
  2. Normative ethics: It is ethics concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action. Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethicsbecause it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts.
  •  Virtue ethics: One of the important strands of normative ethics is virtue ethics. Virtue ethics describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior, and is used to describe the ethics of Socrates, Aristotle, and other early Greek philosophers.  According to Socrates, knowledge bearing on human life was placed highest, while all other knowledge was secondary. Self-knowledge was considered necessary for success and inherently an essential good. A self-aware person will act completely within his capabilities to his pinnacle, while an ignorant person will flounder and encounter difficulty. To Socrates, a person must become aware of every fact (and its context) relevant to his existence, if he wishes to attain self-knowledge. He posited that people will naturally do what is good, if they know what is right. Evil or bad actions are the results of ignorance. In Aristotle’s view, when a person acts in accordance with his nature and realizes his full potential, he will do good and be content. At birth, a baby is not a person, but a potential person. To become a “real” person, the child’s inherent potential must be realized. Unhappiness and frustration are caused by the unrealized potential of a person, leading to failed goals and a poor life.
  • Stoicism: Another Strand is stoicism. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus posited that the greatest good was contentment and serenity. Peace of mind, or Apatheia, was of the highest value; self-mastery over one’s desires and emotions leads to spiritual peace. The “unconquerable will” is central to this philosophy. The individual’s will should be independent and inviolate. Allowing a person to disturb the mental equilibrium is, in essence, offering yourself in slavery. If a person is free to anger you at will, you have no control over your internal world, and therefore no freedom. Freedom from material attachments is also necessary. If a thing breaks, the person should not be upset, but realize it was a thing that could break. Similarly, if someone should die, those close to them should hold to their serenity because the loved one was made of flesh and blood destined to death. Stoic philosophy says to accept things that cannot be changed, resigning oneself to existence and enduring in a rational fashion.
  • Consequentialism: Consequentialism is yet another example of virtue ethics. Consequentialism refers to moral theories that hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action (or create a structure for judgment, see rule consequentialism). Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence. This view is often expressed as the aphorism “The ends justify the means”. According to utilitarianism, a good action is one that results in an increase in a positive effect, and the best action is one that results in that effect for the greatest number. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that argues the proper course of action is one that maximizes a positive effect, such as “happiness”, “welfare”, or the ability to live according to personal preferences.
  • Deontology: Deontology is a contrasting ethical principle to consequentialism. Deontological ethics or deontology is an approach to ethics that determines goodness or rightness from examining acts, or the rules and duties that the person doing the act strove to fulfill. This is in contrast to consequentialism, in which rightness is based on the consequences of an act, and not the act by itself. Immanuel Kant’s theory of ethics is considered deontological for several different reasons. First, Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must act from duty (deon). Second, Kant argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives (maxime) of the person who carries out the action. Kant’s argument that to act in the morally right way, one must act from duty, begins with an argument that the highest good must be both good in itself, and good without qualification.
  • Hedonism– Hedonism posits that the principal ethic is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. There are several schools of Hedonist thought ranging from those advocating the indulgence of even momentary desires to those teaching a pursuit of spiritual bliss. In their consideration of consequences, they range from those advocating self-gratification regardless of the pain and expense to others, to those stating that the most ethical pursuit maximizes pleasure and happiness for the most people. Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.
  • Pragmatic Ethics: Another strand of virtue ethics is pragmatic ethics. Associated with the pragmatists, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and especially John Dewey, pragmatic ethics holds that moral correctness evolves similarly to scientific knowledge: socially over the course of many lifetimes. Thus, we should prioritize social reform over attempts to account for consequences, individual virtue or duty (although these may be worthwhile attempts, if social reform is provided for).
  • Post Structuralist or postmodernist ethics: Post-structuralism and postmodernism argue that ethics must study the complex and relational conditions of actions. A simple alignment of ideas of right and particular acts is not possible. There will always be an ethical remainder that cannot be taken into account or often even recognized. Such theorists find narrative (or, following Nietzsche and Foucault, genealogy) to be a helpful tool for understanding ethics because narrative is always about particular lived experiences in all their complexity rather than the assignment of an idea or norm to separate and individual actions. These schools are complex in their construction, yet they offer a highly critical understanding of right or wrong. Jacques Derrida says, “there is nothing outside of the text.” Derrida suggests that no text is an island in which the author’s original intention can be counted on as an absolute basis for understanding meaning.  He later clarified the meaning of a text must be situated within a context that includes competence in the language of the text including its grammar and vocabulary as used in the epoch in which it was written, rhetorical uses of the language, the history of the language itself, and knowledge of the history of the society in which the language is/was used.  In addition, the interpreter should also have familiarity with the corpus of the author. He added, “ “A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible.” And  “What is called “objectivity,” scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions … and yet which still remains a context.” Derrida adds, “We are all mediators, translators.” Michel Foucault extends the post modernist quest by saying thus “We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the ‘social-worker’-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements.” Antihumanists such as Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and structuralists such as Roland Barthes challenged the possibilities of individual agency and the coherence of the notion of the ‘individual’ itself. This was  on the basis that personal identity was, at least in part, a social construction. As critical theory developed in the later 20th century, post-structuralism sought to problematize human relationships to knowledge and ‘objective’ reality. Jacques Derrida argued that access to meaning and the ‘real’ was always deferred, and sought to demonstrate via recourse to the linguistic realm that “there is no outside-text/non-text”; at the same time, Jean Baudrillard theorised that signs and symbols or simulacra mask reality (and eventually the absence of reality itself), particularly in the consumer world.
  1. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action. Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations. Applied ethics is used in some aspects of determining public policy, as well as by individuals facing difficult decisions. The sort of questions addressed by applied ethics include: “Is getting an abortion immoral?” “Is euthanasia immoral?” “Is affirmative action right or wrong?” “What are human rights, and how do we determine them?” “Do animals have rights as well?” and “Do individuals have the right of self-determination?”[ The discipline has many specialized fields, such as engineering ethics, bioethics, geoethics, public service ethics and business ethics.

Fundamental Ethical Principles

An ethical theory is a theory about what makes an action or set of actions morally right or wrong.

Four fundamental ethical principles

  1. The Principle of Respect for autonomy—- Autonomy is Latin for “self-rule” We have an obligation to respect the autonomy of other persons, which is to respect the decisions made by other people concerning their own lives. This is also called the principle of human dignity. It gives us a negative duty not to interfere with the decisions of competent adults, and a positive duty to empower others for whom we’re responsible.

Corollary principles: honesty in our dealings with others & obligation to keep promises.

  1. The Principle of Beneficence—–We have an obligation to bring about good in all our actions.Corollary principle? We must take positive steps to prevent harm. However, adopting this corollary principle frequently places us in direct conflict with respecting the autonomy of other persons.
  2. The Principle of nonmaleficence—— (It is not “non-malfeasance,” which is a technical legal term, & it is not “nonmalevolence,” which means that one did not intend to harm.) . We have an obligation not to harm others: “First, do no harm.”
    (a) Corollary principle: Where harm cannot be avoided, we are obligated to minimize the harm we do.
    (b) Corollary principle: Don’t increase the risk of harm to others.
    (c) Corollary principle: It is wrong to waste resources that could be used for good
    1. (d) Combining beneficence and nonaleficence: Each action must produce more good than harm.

(4) The Principle of justice—–

    We have an obligation to provide others with whatever they are owed or deserve. In public life, we have an obligation to treat all people equally, fairly, and impartially.

(a) Corollary principle: Impose no unfair burdens.
(b) Combining beneficence and justice: We are obligated to work for the benefit of those who are unfairly treated.

Thus fundamental ethical principles that can be applied to decide good from bad are:

  • Beneficence – to do good.
  • Non-maleficence – to do no harm.
  • Respect for Autonomy.

 

Outcomes of Donald Trump’s China Visit: Indications of rise of a post American power in Asia

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Donald Trump came to China on his first visit as President of America. He was on a trip of five Asian countries which included China, America’s biggest regional rival, and often the object of the president’s non-stop tirades. China is a rising Asian power which Trump has often described as a threat to America while other countries on the tour are either treaty allies, namely Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, or a new strategic partner, namely Vietnam. Contrary to his China bashing approach, Donald Trump seemed to be unusually sober and receptive while he met Chinese counterpart. He called his relationship with Xi “excellent” and declared that he “liked him a lot”. He continued his flattery of Xi during his China visit calling him “a very special man”, a “highly respected and powerful representative of his people”, and congratulating him for consolidating his power at the recent “very successful” Communist party congress.

Notwithstanding President Donald’s posturing against China during his election campaign and afterwards, when he landed in China on November 08, he could not assert any of his ideas strongly; instead he was hugely accommodative, receptive and humbled.   The Independent news daily had compared the leaders of the two countries on the eve of Trump’s visit to China  (November 07) saying “President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful figure in a generation, is elevating his nation as a global power. Trump is unpopular and untrusted, pursued by political scandal and questions over his temperament as commander in chief of the world’s most formidable military.” The outcomes of the visit were at least partially the result of these ground realities.

The US President could not manage any big bargain with China on major disputes, but he certainly bargained some worthwhile business deals with the country. The world carefully watched whether the tough-talking American president could extract any major concession on key areas of difference with Beijing. As expected, however, China managed to mollify and tame the American president, while standing its ground on areas of disagreement.

Trade deals

To temper American concerns over its huge trade deficit with China, Beijing offered 37 major investment deals totalling more than US$250 billion to 30 CEOs from major American companies. Big names such as Boeing, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, Cheniere Energy, Air Products were among those who joined Trump’s visiting delegation of businessmen. The US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised the agreements as a crucial step in providing “a solid foundation for a stronger relationship that is more free, fair, and reciprocal between the US and China.” Under Trump, China’s trade surplus with America has actually widened to US$223 billion in the first 10 months of this year – a double-digit increase from a year earlier. But instead of backing down on areas of core interest, especially on trade and industrial policy, China deftly split the difference.

It was, however a consolation prize for the tough talking American President as he could not raise any of the issues emphatically which were loudly made during his election campaign. Adopting an often bellicose language, during his election campaign he has accused China of engaging in supposed currency manipulation, running an excessive trade surplus with America, aggressively dominating adjacent waters at the expense of regional allies such as Japan and the Philippines, and aiding pariahs like North Korea.

Signs of emergence of a post-American order in Asia

Instead of blaming China for America’s trade woes, he placed the responsibility on his predecessors for failing to adopt an optimal economic relationship with the world’s biggest exporting nation. For now, it seems the Trump administration is effectively backing down from its earlier threats of imposing trade sanctions on China. Instead Trump gave “China great credit” for its capacity to “take advantage of another country [America] for the benefit of its citizens”. Thus, Beijing has managed to expose the hollowness of Trump’s aggressive posturing through carefully crafted set of mutually satisfactory trade deals. Richard Heydarian (China Morning Post, November 13) describes this as “Chinese statecraft at its finest.” He added, “The visit, which saw Trump failing to secure any major concession from China, underlined the glacial but unmistakable emergence of a truly post-American order in Asia. Far from highlighting America’s leadership in the region, the visit accentuated China’s emergence as the alternative pillar of prosperity and stability in the world’s most dynamic geopolitical theatre. Trump embarked on his Asia trip to assert American centrality in global affairs, but left Beijing as a humbled leader of a declining superpower.”

However, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised an open investment environment and that “China will not close its doors” and keep its huge domestic market “more open, more transparent and more orderly” for foreign companies, including Americans. It was a well-timed statement of reassurance amid growing concerns over rise of economic nationalism in China.

Geopolitical Tensions remained unaddressed

North Korea- In the realm of geopolitical tensions, Trump left almost empty-handed from Beijing. Speaking before the South Korean National Assembly a day earlier, the American president deployed a thinly veiled attack against China for supposedly choosing to “ignore” or “worse still, to enable” North Korea. He squarely placed the “weight of [the] crisis” on China’s “conscience”. Yet, all that tough talk quickly translated into a conciliatory gratitude to China for its efforts to rein in North Korea’s aggressive nuclear and ballistic missile programme. In Beijing, Trump simply called “on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard,” expressing his optimism that “If [Xi] works on it hard”, there will be a quick resolution of the crisis in the Korean Peninsula.

South China Sea– There was also no significant deal on rising Sino-American tensions in the South China Sea, with American navy challenging China’s reclamation activities via regularised “freedom of navigation operations” close to disputed land features. Describing bilateral relations as standing at a “new historic starting point”, the Chinese president reiterated his earlier point that, “The Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States”.Thus, China signaled its willingness for an emerging “grand bargain” in adjacent waters, with no palpable resistance from the Trump administration, which is desperate for Beijing’s help on the North Korea issue.

No joint Statement

Oddly, Trump’s visits produced no joint statements, which points to the difficulties in agreeing to balanced formulations on divisive issues with the White House. The release of the White House on the Trump-Xi talks is not substantial. Xi used the opportunity of the joint press conference with Trump to elaborate on China’s positions on issues on the agenda with the US. He sought practical cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, called for respecting each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, underlined China’s role in the Asia-Pacific, claiming that “the Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States”, which is an indirect way of affirming that China will pursue its assertive policies in this region and the US should yield it the space it wants.

Conclusion

Trump’s humbling visit to China is likely a harbinger of a new order in Asia, where America is no longer the undisputed number one. Former Foreign Secretary of India Kanwal Sibal rightly claims that Donald Trump’s extensive East Asia visit has not produced any striking results, which is not surprising as US policy towards this region is marked by contradictions. China’s policies in the region have become increasingly disruptive, but an effective US response is absent because huge American trade and financial links to China rob Washington of the kind of tools deployed against Russia where American economic stakes are very limited. He further adds that China will not abandon North Korea so long as the US is militarily present in South Korea, and the US cannot withdraw from the Korean peninsula without unraveling its long-standing security arrangements in the region and eroding the political foundation of its presence there. Trump will not get satisfaction from China on both issues. In fact, China has neither the means nor the resolve to denuclearise North Korea, and Trump too, despite his bluster, cannot use military means to achieve that objective without exposing Seoul to horrendous consequences.

 China has played the shrewder card so far, building its economic power on the back of America and its allies and using the strength acquired (including military) to challenge American power in the region. Further he points out that Trump has created a lot of uncertainty about the thrust of US policies in East Asia. The intensely parochial “America First” philosophy sends a signal even to its allies in the region that US interests will override theirs. Such a message cannot remain limited to the economic domain as it will create doubts about US security commitments to the region if their excessive burden is seen by the US as weakening it economically.”

Bhopal Gang Rape :High court comes forward to restore trust in a failed system

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We can call it Nirbhaya 2!

A daughter of India, contender of IAS, ran from pillar to post to complain about her brutal gang rape, but her ordeal was not only described as filmy or headache by police officers, her complaint was denied registration. With all jumlas about beti bachao beti padhao, the common man of India wonders how insensitive the system can be towards a heinous crime that demoralizes and disappoints people who were shown the dreams of achhe din. Heart breaks into pieces when the leadership keeps silent on issues that have long lasting impact on liberty and dignity of women and hopes and aspirations of parents who want their daughters to come out of the glass ceiling.

A 19-year-old UPSC aspirant was raped by four men on the railway track near the Habibganj Railway station while she was on her way to board a train to Vidisha after attending her coaching class on October 31, 2017. The victim, along with her parents, had approached the police the very next day after the incident but they had to run to 3 police stations for over 24 hours before an FIR was registered. How deep the rote has spread and taken the shape of a cancer can be realized only when we see how the police reacted when the victim approached them. The girl’s parents – her father is with para-military and mother with the state CID – said their complaint was initially turned down by the police. A complaint was only filed after the girl spotted two of the accused outside the second police station they were going to and her parents managed to grab them after a dramatic scuffle. At the Government Railway police station, an officer accused them of cooking up the story. Different police officers at other police stations denied registering the case on the pretext that the crime does not fall in their jurisdiction.

We are living in aspirational India which has set many high benchmarks of achievement and where everybody claims to be honest and upright, sensible and human; you will wonder the event happened in front of large number of indifferent passersby. The spot where she was raped has some of the busiest roads and rail tracks — the bustling Habibganj station is just 100 metres away, and an RPF post just 50m away. Thousands of cars drove past just 100 metres from where she was stripped, tied up and raped repeatedly. Yet, no one heard a thing. What’s more horrible is that the Bhopal police dismissed her story as “filmy” when she went to report the incident. The survivor shuttles between her hometown, about an hour’s journey from Bhopal, every day as she is preparing for the UPSC exams. That is how Bhishma Pitamah syndrome- the culture of “looking away” and “culture of silence” where we should stand up and speak out came alive! Shame on aspirational India- cowards and self indulgent lots!

Notwithstanding criticisms of judicial system being influenced by the ruling dispensation, thanks to the Madhya Pradesh High Court notice to government for inadvertently erroneous medical report which shows that this country still has a future, and hope has not died altogether. That all of us have not killed our conscience and there are still some who decline to be mute spectators like Bhishma Pitamah who kept silent when Draupadi was being disrobed.

Taking suo moto cognisance of media reports that exposed the insensitivity of doctors who prepared the first medical report of the Bhopal teenager allegedly gang raped on October 31, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has a served a notice to the state government.  The state women commission has already sought a report from police with Chairperson Lata Wankhede terming the incident of ‘grave concern’. Home minister Bhupendra Singh has also ordered a probe in the delay in filing a police complaint. Five policemen have already been  suspended for dereliction of duty and harassing the victim. One of the accused, Golu Chadhar, was produced in the court on Friday while two others are in police custody. The fourth accused is still at large.

Our daughters are unsafe, we know it but still we are not serious. Women are still seen as an “object of pleasure” or an “attractive poster” for commercial advertisement and also as an “item number” in films, and “subject of laughter” in laughter shows on TV. The violence against women in the patriarchal society has different forms and their occurrence has become so frequent that it is hardly taken as an outrage.

Nevertheless, Amit Sharma, a young author and blogger declined to be part of thick skinned aspirational India. He spoke loudly and with conviction thus:

“When crime against women are committed in Delhi, the government suddenly springs to action IF there is a protest. An exception to this was the Guwahati molestation case because the video went viral. It was heartening that Delhi took to streets yesterday and forced the government to take notice (however bland it was) but the actions promised are a bit worrisome. There was no talk of taking up the issue at a national level. Our rulers (yeah, that is what they are. Rulers) should understand that applying quick fixes in Delhi will not solve the problem on a national scale.

According to the National Crime  Records Bureau (NCRB) data (1991-2011), Madhya Pradesh has led the nation in the number of rapes committed. Only last year, it recorded 3,406 cases of rape, which means nine women were raped here every 24 hours. Overall, the State accounted for 14 per cent of the rapes committed across the country in 2011. Among cities, the State capital, Bhopal, with 100 rapes, was second only to the metropolises Delhi (453) and Mumbai (221), while the State’s industrial capital, Indore, stood fifth, registering 91 rapes.

Not surprisingly, the top five States in terms of the number of rapes — Madhya Pradesh (3,406), West Bengal (2,363), Uttar Pradesh (2,042), Rajasthan (1,800) and Maharashtra (1,701) — also have dismal sex ratios. While Madhya Pradesh (930), Rajasthan (926) and Uttar Pradesh (908) have sex ratios below the national average of 940, West Bengal (947) and Maharashtra (946) are just on the threshold.

In February this year, a woman in Indore was gang-raped by eight people including a cop while her husband was kept in captivity. However the cops took their own sweet time to file an FIR. After the Delhi gang rape case, an abducted school girl was found raped and murdered in Chennai. She was 12. Let us not forget what happened to Sonali Mujherjee in Jharkhand when her face was splashed with acid and her father rubbed his nose in front of authorities for 10 years to get her treated as the criminals who did this to her were out on bail. And let’s not forget that 19 rapes happened in a month in Haryana and no one raised an eyebrow.

And of course, Delhi goes on as usual when a 3 year old was raped by the husband of a play school owner. This happened after the Delhi gang rape incident. Clearly, the deterrents are not working. Clearly it is not an issue prevalent just in Delhi.

We are all aware of the various factors in play here which range from treating girl child as a liability to attitude within the government (where ministers blame women and mock them) and the police force to dismal conviction rates. All these problems will not vanish by hanging the gang rape accused of the Delhi case. And I am afraid that is where we are heading.

There are preventive measures which can be applied. More patrolling, better lightening of streets, gender sensitization, education, teaching your children about respecting other humans and gender equality, drilling messages through media. It will not happen immediately. It will take years. We cannot root out all the psychopaths that we have created over decades in one snap of a finger but we have to make a start. The government can play a vital role in this but everything will be defeated if this is not done on a national level.”

Unsettling the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir

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“Or call it winter, which being full of care, Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.” — William Shakespeare

Whatever the motivation, the appointment of the former Director of the Intelligence Bureau (DIB) Dineshwar Sharma as the interlocutor for Kashmir is to be welcomed. Better late than never.

Predictably, the beleaguered Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, was the first to welcome the appointment which enabled her to claim that the Bharatiya Janata Party had fulfilled its promise of dialogue. She, however, subsequently clarified that it was the secular DNA of India that had encouraged her Peoples Democratic Party to align with its ideological opposite, the BJP, in the State. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah perhaps expressed the Kashmiri sentiment more aptly when he said that we also need to talk to Pakistan. The reservations of the wise men of the Hurriyat notwithstanding, there has been palpable excitement in Srinagar that peace may at last have a chance. At the very least, the appointment provides hope. Separatists have been egging the Hurriyat high command to respond positively and even the most hardline of the separatists, S.A.S. Geelani, acknowledges that dialogue is the only way forward. The more moderate Mirwaiz has pleaded for dialogue umpteen times.

A political issue

Heavy-handedness is not the answer in Kashmir; it never has been and is not likely to be in the future. It only furthers the cause of separation. Kashmir is not a military or law and order problem; it is a political and emotive issue.

The security forces have a difficult job in J&K and have been doing this admirably of late, but rubbing that in or stating the obvious where it touches a raw nerve makes no sense. Obviously the appointment of the special representative does not imply that Army operations would wind down. It does not require the Army Chief to say so repeatedly. The Kashmiris know fully well that no representative of the Government of India can engage or talk beyond the Constitution. Repeating it endlessly only betrays a lack of confidence. It did not require former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani to say so when he held rounds of talks with the Hurriyat in 2004. Talks were in fact extremely cordial, with the Hurriyat leaders somewhat overawed by him. As a senior Hurriyat then acknowledged, they fully understood the ambit of engagement.

Right man for the job

What Kashmir and the Kashmiris need is not another shopping list of concessions or promises but the shock therapy of absolute candour. Not magnanimity but hard-nosed common sense that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee displayed. In fact, he is still revered in the Valley more than any other leader. Finding a way out of any mess requires a willingness to listen.

There is no better listener available in Delhi than Mr. Sharma, who has all the attributes required of an interlocutor. He is humble, talks little, understands and feels for Kashmir, and has infinite patience. Plus, he has loads of experience, including a stint in Srinagar during the most difficult days. If press reports are to be believed, he has no restrictive mandate either. Nor should he feel hobbled by the situation on the ground. It is quite often left to Intelligence agencies to do the dirty work, to flirt in the grey areas. Kashmir is nothing if not grey. Mr. Sharma has been appointed interlocutor for exactly that reason: to try to alter the situation in Kashmir by investing in trust, building new bridges and repairing the old.

Given the mandate he received in 2014, Narendra Modi was in a position to do what no Prime Minister in recent times could do. The Kashmir Assembly elections too went the BJP’s way. In Kashmir, there was hope that the new BJP government would follow in Mr. Vajpayee’s footsteps. Even the Mirwaiz welcomed Mr. Modi’s election as Prime Minister. But unfortunately, there has been no engagement in Kashmir.

Kashmiris crave peace and desire engagement. Not talking has again brought Pakistan into the game when it was quite out of the equation in Jammu and Kashmir. There is still no great love lost for Pakistan; Kashmiris realise they have no future across the border but it remains the most convenient fallback. Alienation, disillusionment and, of late, anger and disgust bring out the green flags.

Added to that is the Kashmiris’ ultimate fear that they could be reduced to a minority in their State. Threats of scrapping Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution only add to Kashmiri apprehensions, leading to unnecessary turns in the debate on autonomy, a legitimate Kashmiri aspiration. The sentiment of subnationalism in Kashmir is not very different from that in most other States, except that in Kashmir it is guaranteed by the Constitution.

The detention and arrest of separatist leaders serves no purpose except that it may provide the interlocutor a ready concession to offer the Hurriyat. Invariably, release of their colleagues is their first demand. To that extent it could facilitate dialogue. But as Ms. Mufti rightly said in Delhi, the National Investigation Agency needs to step back to facilitate an atmosphere for talks. Ironically, Shabir Shah, who was once Narasimha Rao’s favourite to be Chief Minister, is lodged in Tihar Jail.

There has been much talk of speaking to the youth in Kashmir, a consummation devoutly to be wished for except that antagonised youth who count are not easy to find in Srinagar. South Kashmir, where the young have been radicalised since Burhan Wani’s killing, is a different world, far from accessible. Such is the situation that the long overdue parliamentary election in Anantnag has still not been held.

The Hurriyat key

The much-maligned Hurriyat is far more accessible. Mr. Sharma’s old friends should help him reach out to them even if being out is never quite the same as being in the system. Not talking to the separatists would render the dialogue meaningless. The mainstream does not need an interlocutor to engage. As former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah once said, they were always available to Delhi for talks, it is the separatists that Delhi needs to engage with.

Whether credible or not, Hurriyat thinking is still a factor in Kashmir as much as Pakistan. Basically, the Kashmiri is not at peace with the status quo. The peace with honour he bargained for still eludes him. The reason that we have reservations about talking to the Hurriyat and to Pakistan are the very reasons we need to talk to them. The magic of democracy is that hardliners get moderated and mainstreamed. The majority realise that their future lies with India. They deserve a chance.

It is unfortunate that Pakistan chose to immediately react negatively, saying that the interlocutor’s appointment was neither sincere or realistic. No wonder we say, who do we talk to in Pakistan?

The Hurriyat must resist the trap. Nothing can redeem their credibility better than engagement. As Mufti Mohammad Sayeed would say, there is no better way but to talk. Not talking is no longer an option, if it ever even was.

(A.S. Dulat, a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, was an adviser on Kashmir in the Prime Minister’s Office)

GST Council meet: Beauty, shaving products get cheaper as 177 items moved lower from 28% tax rate

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Before Gujarat elections where BJP has certainly lost ground among small traders and its weakening  favour among common man in other parts of the country due to increasing economic hardships, the government has chosen to reduce the burden of top GST rate of 28% on people. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced at a press briefing after the GST Council meet in Guwahati on November 11, 2017,  “Out of 228 items in the 28% tax bracket, 178 have been put into the lower tax category of 18%, which include chocolates, chewing gum, shaving cream, aftershave kits, beauty products, granite and marble. GST Council has lowered tax rates on a wide range of items, bringing down the number of items remaining in the highest slab of 28% from 227 to only 50. The GST Council has decided to keep only 50 items, mostly demerit, sin and luxury goods in the 28% bracket, he said, according to news reports from the meeting venue. The GST Council is likely to discuss lowering tax rates on dining in AC restaurants as well.

Among other items that have likely moved to the lower tax slab are handmade furniture and plastic products. All types of furniture used to attract a 28% tax under the GST. Wooden furniture is handmade by unorganised sector artisans and is mostly used by middle-class families and there have been demands for lowering tax incidence on them. Also, some items of plastic attracted 18% GST but goods such as shower baths, sinks, wash basins, bidets, lavatory pans, seats and covers, flushing cisterns and similar sanitary ware of plastics were under 28% levy.

To provide other relief to the small businesses, the council is also likely to allow taxpayers to file their returns on a quarterly basis instead monthly to make less burdensome. In a further relief to small and medium enterprises (SME), the panel is likely to rationalise tax rate in sectors where the total incidence of taxation has gone up because the goods were earlier either exempt from excise or attracted lower VAT rates in the previous indirect tax regime.

The GST regime slots items under four primary tax rate slabs — low rate of 5%, standard rates of 12% and 18%, and high rate of 28%. Other than this, gold and jewellery are taxed at a concessional GST rate of 3%, while rough diamonds are having a 0.25% levy.

The modified rates will come into force on November 15. The tax rate on two items have been reduced from 28% to 12%, 13 items have been reduced from 18% to 12%, while the rate on six items have been cut from 18% to 5% and that of eight items from 12% to 5%. Six items have gone from 5% to zero. The restaurant industry will not get input tax credit. The consensus in the Council has been that, even though restaurants have been given the benefit of input tax credits, they have not passed this to consumers. Tax rate will be 5% uniform for all AC or non-AC restaurants, except those in hotels with tariffs of more than Rs. 7,500, which will continue to be taxed at 18%. Outdoor catering will be taxed at 18% with ITC.

Congress leader P. Chidambaram said that a “shower of changes” was expected from a meeting of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council in Guwahati. He said that the “panic-stricken” Modi government would be forced to heed the advice of the Opposition and experts due to the coming Gujarat Assembly elections. A letter from the Finance Ministers of the Congress-ruled States to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who heads the Council, would set the tone for discussions in the meeting. “The letter exposes the structural flaws in the design and implementation of GST. The government can no longer duck these issues.”He added that the government had avoided debate and voting in Rajya Sabha on GST Bills but it cannot avoid a debate in the public domain or in the GST Council. He claimed, “Congress Finance Ministers will force changes in GST Council meeting. Agra, Surat, Tiruppur and other hub towns are watching. ”

It is notable that last week, several Finance Ministers demanded a major overhaul of GST, alleging that the tax reform measure had turned out to be a “big disappointment” due to its “poor” implementation with regard to GST’s concept, design, tax rates, exemptions, compliance requirement and technological preparedness. The Ministers from Punjab and Karnataka, Manpreet Badal and Krishna Gowda, alleged that the country had “lost the opportunity” to bring tax reform and that there was “utter chaos and confusion”, forcing many businesses to shut down.

Mary Kom Wins Gold, Becomes Asian Boxing Champion for Fifth Time

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Ace India boxer Mary Kom once again showed why she is one of the best in the continent as the pugilist won the gold medal for the fifth time at the Asian Boxing Championships, on Wednesday (November 08, 2017).

Mary Kom thumped North Korea’s Hyang Mi Kim in the championship clash, to clinch her maiden gold in the 48 kg category of the tournament. The 35-year-old, who is also a former Olympic bronze-medallist, returned to her preferred weight category after five years of competing in 51 kg, which was made an Olympic category in 2012.

“I am really happy the way this Championship has panned out. I would like to dedicate this victory to all those who have supported me even though the world had written me off. I would like to thank my coaching staff who worked hard with me over the last few months,” Mary Kom said after her win.

“A special word for the professional setup that BFI has put in place, ensuring the best facilities was given during the month-long camp and all the exposure trips for the team. Also, I am thankful to BFI president Mr. Ajay Singh for showing faith in me,” she added.

“Mary Kom’s gold at the Asian Boxing Championship is a huge victory for India’s women power. At 34, this mother of 3 has shown that, with grit and determination, you can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Mary Kom is a huge inspiration for all Indians and we are proud of her victory today,” Ajay Singh, BFI President, said.

In Hyang Mi, the 35-year-old Mary Kom found her most aggressive opponent so far in the tournament but she was up for the task. Unlike her previous bouts, in which the opening three minutes were invariably spent measuring up the rival, both the boxers were lunging at each other within seconds of the bell going off.

Matched quite evenly in speed and precision, Mary Kom scored for her ringcraft, which included some fine footwork to outpace Hyang Mi at crucial junctures. There was hardly any power-hitting on display but the contest was made engaging by the boxers’ fast-paced exchange of punches.

The North Korean was relentless with her left hooks but the Manipuri did not allow herself to be rattled and scored on counter-attack with her combination blows.

List of medalists

Mary Kom(48 Kg) – Gold

Sonia Lather (57kg) – Silver

Shiksha (54kg) – Bronze

Priyanka Choudhary(60kg) –Bronze

Sarita Devi(64kg) – Bronze

Lovlina Borgohain(69kg) – Bronze

Seema Poonia(+81kg) – Bronze

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