6 Mar 2019

European Development Days Young Leaders Programme (Fully-funded to Brussels, Belgium) 2019

Application Deadline: 24th March 2019 at 1pm CET.

Eligible Countries: All


To be taken at (country): Brussels, Belgium

About the Award: Are you playing an active role in the fight for gender equality and women empowerment at the local, national or regional level? Do you want to share your vision of the future with other influential development actors? The time has come to make your voice heard: Apply for the Young Leaders Programme and grab the chance to be invited to Brussels to share your ideas!
Under the main thread of ‘Addressing inequalities: Building a world which leaves no one behind’ the EDD 2019 agenda will be framed around three major themes: Why inequalities matter for sustainable development, Understanding the structural causes of inequalities and Working better together through more effective policies to address inequalities.

Type: Conferences, Training

Eligibility: 
  • Applicants must be between 21 and 26 at the time of the forum (June 2019).
  • Applications are open to young adults from all around the world, without restriction of nationality.
  • Applications must be submitted in one of the following official European Commission languages: English / French / Spanish. The candidate must be able to speak clearly and comprehensively in one of these languages, as well as have a mandatory intermediate level of English.
  • Applicants must be able to travel to and participate in EDD 2019 in Brussels (Belgium) in June 2019.
Selection Criteria: We will evaluate your application based on three criteria:
  • 40% Your knowledge of your chosen topic and the relevance of your active engagement. We encourage candidates to show how their activities have had an impact on the community.
  • 30% Your role as a representative of an organisation, other youth or community, and your leadership experience or potential.
  • 30% Your public speaking skills and ability to speak at a high-level panel.
Number of Awardees: 15

Value of Program: The 15 selected Young Leaders will be invited to Brussels, Belgium, and all expenses (Visa, travel, accommodation) will be covered by the European Commission.
During their visit to Brussels, Young Leaders get the chance to visit European institutions, participate in workshops, meet key policymakers and interact with other young people driving change around the world. They will speak at various sessions and enjoy full access to the whole conference. Travel and accommodation is covered by the European Commission.

Duration of Program: 10 days

How to Apply: You will find the application form below then instructions for applying on the Program Webpage. Don’t forget that you should submit a completed form before 24 March 2019!

Apply here.

Visit Program Webpage for details

KDI School GKS-KGSP (Korean Government Scholarship Program) 2019 for International Students

Application Deadline: 20th March 2019
Each embassy and university will send the 1st round successful candidates’ applications and related documents to NIIED by April 4th, 2019.


Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): South Korea

Type: Masters, PhD Research

Eligibility: 
-Be non-Korean citizens whose parents are also non-Korean citizens*.
-Be physically and mentally healthy
-Be under 40 years of age as of September 1st, 2019
-Hold a bachelor’s or an equivalent degree prior to August 31st, 2019
-Have a GPA higher than B or 80% from the previously attended institution
*Applicants must be from designated countries (see NIIED application guideline)

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Full tuition, monthly stipend, round-trip airfare

Duration of Scholarship: Total 3 years:
-First year: Korean language training
-Second & Third year: Master’s program

How to Apply: Apply Here
Please be sure to check both application guidelines in Link below before applying

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Western Union Scholars Program for Undergraduate International Students 2019

Application Deadline: 30th April 2019
Selection & Notification to all Applicants: July 2018


Eligible Countries: All. Mostly developing countries

Fields of Study: Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business/entrepreneurship.

About the Award: The WU Scholars program was created to help give young people a boost toward a better life. The Western Union Foundation believes education is the surest path to economic opportunity. Educational pursuits to gain knowledge and skills for in-demand, 21st century careers are helping people all over the world climb the economic ladder.
To us, a better education means better employment opportunities. And with better employment opportunities comes improved earning potential. As Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek says, “Education is powerful. It is the key to change and one key to financial dignity for all.” That financial dignity is what drives a better life for individuals, families, and communities around the world.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: 
  • Scholarships must be used at an accredited post-secondary institution seeking an undergraduate degree.
  • All applicants must be pursuing a degree/field of study in one of the following categories: science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business/entrepreneurship.
  • All applicants for scholarships must be between the ages of 18 – 26 years of age on June 1, 2019.
  • Application must be submitted in English. Translation services may be used to help non-English speakers submit. You will not be penalized for basic errors.
  • Must be able to demonstrate admittance to an accredited post-secondary institution or have applied for admittance.
  • Must provide a letter of recommendation from a teacher or professor. If a teacher or professor is unable to submit a recommendation on your behalf, you may also use someone who has supervised you in a youth/community group, volunteer position, job/employment situation, etc.
  • Scholarships must be used on programs resulting in an undergraduate degree. Specialized academic programs (study abroad term, stand-alone language acquisition course, service learning, etc.) are not permitted.
  • Scholarships may not be used for advanced degrees, such as Masters, PhD, JD, etc.
  • Scholarships may be used for tuition or school fees during the academic term immediately following scholarship winner selections (estimated in July). Funds cannot be used for room and board or for school supplies.
  • Immediate family members of controlling officers in Western Union, any of its affiliates and non-affiliated nonprofit entities, or its Agents are not eligible to participate in the scholarship program.
  • All other employees and their family members who meet the other eligibility requirements may apply.
Selection Criteria: Candidates will be selected based on criteria relating to the program’s three pillars: Perseverance, Aspiration, and Community.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Selected scholarship recipients will receive USD $2,500 each to contribute toward tuition or school fees at an accredited post-secondary institution.

Duration of Scholarship: One-time

APPLY NOW

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Albert Einstein Global Fellowship 2019 for Researchers

Application Deadline: 15th May, 2019

Eligible Countries: All


To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award:  The purpose of the fellowship is to support those who, in addition to producing superb work in their area of specialization, are also open to other, interdisciplinary approaches – following the example set by Albert Einstein.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must be under 35 and hold a university degree in the humanities, in the social sciences, or in the natural sciences.
At the end of the fellowship period, the fellow will be expected to present his or her project in a public lecture at the Einstein Forum and at the Daimler and Benz Foundation. The Einstein Fellowship is not intended for applicants who wish to complete an academic study they have already begun.

Selection Criteria: A successful application must demonstrate the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed project, as well as the superior intellectual development of the applicant. It is not relevant whether the applicant has begun working toward, or currently holds, a PhD.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Fellowship: The fellowship includes living accommodations for five to six months in the garden cottage of Einstein`s own summerhouse in Caputh, Brandenburg, only a short distance away from the universities and academic institutions of Potsdam and Berlin. The fellow will receive a stipend of EUR 10,000 and reimbursement of travel expenses.

How to Apply:The applications for the year 2020 should include a curriculum vitae and an outline of the project (both in English) and two scientific references, to be submitted by 15 May 2019 .

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Israel is Playing a Big Role in India’s Escalating Conflict with Pakistan

Robert Fisk 

When I heard the first news report, I assumed it was an Israeli air raid on Gaza. Or Syria. Airstrikes on a “terrorist camp” were the first words. A “command and control centre” destroyed, many “terrorists” killed. The military was retaliating for a “terrorist attack” on its troops, we were told.
An Islamist “jihadi” base had been eliminated. Then I heard the name Balakot and realised that it was neither in Gaza, nor in Syria – not even in Lebanon – but in Pakistan. Strange thing, that. How could anyone mix up Israel and India?
Well, don’t let the idea fade away. Two thousand five hundred miles separate the Israeli ministry of defence in Tel Aviv from the Indian ministry of defence in New Delhi, but there’s a reason why the usual cliche-stricken agency dispatches sound so similar.
For months, Israel has been assiduously lining itself up alongside India’s nationalist BJP government in an unspoken – and politically dangerous – “anti-Islamist” coalition, an unofficial, unacknowledged alliance, while India itself has now become the largest weapons market for the Israeli arms trade.
Not by chance, therefore, has the Indian press just trumpeted the fact that Israeli-made Rafael Spice-2000 “smart bombs” were used by the Indian air force in its strike against Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) “terrorists” inside Pakistan.
Like many Israeli boasts of hitting similar targets, the Indian adventure into Pakistan might owe more to the imagination than military success. The “300-400 terrorists” supposedly eliminated by the Israeli-manufactured and Israeli-supplied GPS-guided bombs may turn out to be little more than rocks and trees.
But there was nothing unreal about the savage ambush of Indian troops in Kashmir on 14 February which the JeM claimed, and which left 40 Indian soldiers dead. Nor the shooting down of at least one Indian jet this week.
India was Israel’s largest arms client in 2017, paying £530m for Israeli air defence, radar systems and ammunition, including air-to-ground missiles – most of them tested during Israel’s military offensives against Palestinians and targets in Syria.
Israel itself is trying to explain away its continued sales of tanks, weapons and boats to the Myanmar military dictatorship – while western nations impose sanctions on the government which has attempted to destroy its minority and largely Muslim Rohingya people. But Israel’s arms trade with India is legal, above-board and much advertised by both sides.
The Israelis have filmed joint exercises between their own “special commando” units and those sent by India to be trained in the Negev desert, again with all the expertise supposedly learned by Israel in Gaza and other civilian-thronged battlefronts.
At least 16 Indian “Garud” commandos – part of a 45-strong Indian military delegation – were for a time based at the Nevatim and Palmachim air bases in Israel. In his first visit to India last year – preceded by a trip to Israel by nationalist Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu recalled the 2008 Islamist attacks on Mumbai in which almost 170 civilians were killed. “Indians and Israelis know too well the pain of terrorist attacks,” he told Modi. “We remember the horrific savagery of Mumbai. We grit our teeth, we fight back, we never give in.” This was also BJP-speak.
Several Indian commentators, however, have warned that right-wing Zionism and right-wing nationalism under Modi should not become the foundation stone of the relationship between the two countries, both of which – in rather different ways – fought the British empire.
Brussels researcher Shairee Malhotra, whose work has appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has pointed out that India has the world’s third largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan – upward of 180 million people. “The India-Israel relationship is also commonly being framed in terms of a natural convergence of ideas between their ruling BJP and Likud parties,” she wrote last year.
Hindu nationalists had constructed “a narrative of Hindus as historically victims at the hands of Muslims”, an attractive idea to those Hindus who recall partition and the continuing turbulent relationship with Pakistan.
In fact, as Malhotra pointed out in Haaretz, “Israel’s biggest fans in India appear to be the ‘internet Hindus’ who primarily love Israel for how it deals with Palestine and fights Muslims.”
Malhotra has condemned Carleton University professor Vivek Dehejia for demanding a “tripartite” alliance between India, Israel and the US – since they have all suffered “from the scourge of Islamic terrorism”.
In fact, by the end of 2016, only 23 men from India had left to fight for Isis in the Arab world, although Belgium, with a population of only half a million Muslims, produced nearly 500 fighters.
Malhotra’s argument is that the Indian-Israeli relationship should be pragmatic rather than ideological.
But it is difficult to see how Zionist nationalism will not leach into Hindu nationalism when Israel is supplying so many weapons to India – the latest of which India, which has enjoyed diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, has already used against Islamists inside Pakistan.
Signing up to the “war on terror” – especially “Islamist terror” – may seem natural for two states built on colonial partition whose security is threatened by Muslim neighbours.
In both cases, their struggle is over the right to own or occupy territory. Israel, India and Pakistan all possess nuclear weapons. Another good reason not to let Palestine and Kashmir get tangled up together. And to leave India’s 180 million Muslims alone.

Turkish-Chinese spat puts Central Asian leaders on the spot

James M. Dorsey 

A Turkish-Chinese spat as a result of Turkish criticism of China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its strategic but troubled north-western province of Xinjiang complicates efforts by Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states to at best deal quietly behind closed doors with the plight of their citizens and ethnic kin in the People’s Republic.
China’s threat that the Turkish criticism of its massive surveillance and detention campaign, involving the alleged incarceration in re-education camps of up to one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims would have economic consequences and the temporary closure of the Chinese consulate in the Mediterranean port city of Izmir serves as warnings to others in the Muslim world what could happen if they break their silence.
The Chinese effort to get the Muslim and broader international community to maintain silence, if not acquiesce in the crackdown that constitutes the most frontal assault on Islam in recent history, was boosted when Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on a visit to Beijing last month appeared to endorse Chinese policy.
Prince Salman’s endorsement of China’s right to undertake “anti-terrorism” and “de-extremism” measures was widely seen as tacit support for the crackdown by the custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
China has denied allegations of widespread abuse of human rights and insisted that the camps are re-education and training facilities that have stopped attacks by Islamist militants and separatists.
The crown prince’s remarks contrasted starkly with the characterization last month of the crackdown by Turkey’s foreign ministry as an “embarrassment to humanity,” The ministry demanded that Chinese authorities respect the human rights of the Uyghurs and close what it termed “concentration camps.”
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called twice last week on China to make a distinction between perpetrators of political violence and innocent civilians while insisting that Turkey wished to continue cooperation with the People’s Republic.
“The fact that we have a problem with China on an issue should not necessarily hinder our cooperation on other matters,” Mr. Cavusoglu said.
Turkey is hoping that Chinese investment in nuclear, e-commerce, finance, and infrastructure will narrow its gaping trade deficit with China that last year stood at US$17.8 billion.
That is not how China appeared to envision its future relationship with Turkey.
“There may be disagreements or misunderstandings between friends, but we should solve them through dialogue. Criticising your friend publicly everywhere is not a constructive approach,” said Chinese ambassador to Turkey Deng Li.
“The most important issue between countries is mutual respect. Would you stay friends if your friend criticized you publicly every day?” Mr. Deng asked.
Mr. Deng’s comments were not only designed to whip Turkey back into line but also to prevent Central Asian nations from speaking out despite mounting domestic pressure.
Mr. Deng’s comments reflected greater Chinese intolerance for criticism of its crackdown amid attempts to convince the international community by taking diplomats and journalists on carefully managed tours of Xinjiang that one participant called a “dog and pony show.”
The ambassador’s rings particularly loud in Kazakhstan whose ethnic kin constitute the second largest Muslim community in Xinjiang after the Uyghurs.
A former re-education camp employee, Sayragul Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan told a Kazakh court last year that she was aware of some 75,000 Kazakh nationals and Chinese of Kazakh descent being incarcerated.
Atajurt Eriktileri, a Kazakh group that supports relatives of people who have disappeared in Xinjiang, says it has documented more than 10,000 cases of ethnic Kazakhs interned in China. The Xinjiang Victims Database says it has collected some 3,000 testimonies of prisoners and their families, half of which are from ethnic Kazakhs.
Askar Azatbek, a former Xinjiang official who became a Kazakh citizen, went missing in December after allegedly having been kidnapped while on the Kazakh side of Khorgos, a free-trade zone on the border with China.
So has Qalymbek Shahman an ethnic Kazakh Xinjiang businessman who was refused entry into Kazakhstan, sent to Uzbekistan and disappeared in Thailand to where he was returned by Uzbek authorities. Mr. Shahman hasn’t been heard from since.
“I wanted to go to Kazakhstan, because China’s human rights record was making life intolerable,” Mr. Shahman said in a video tape from Tashkent airport before being forced to fly to Thailand, which has a track record of complying with Chinese repatriation requests.
For now, Central Asian leaders are walking a tightrope. Officially, they insist that Xinjiang is a Chinese internal affair. At the same time, the leaders are trying to curb domestic criticism.
Ms. Sauytbay has fired her lawyer after he became unreachable at key moments in her asylum application and encouraged her to not talk about it publicly. “I don’t want to talk…until I have some kind of protection. I’d prefer that protection to come from Kazakhstan, but I might need help from other countries,” Ms. Sautbay said.
Ms. Sautbay is certain to hope that Turkey’s willingness to confront China, if maintained, makes Central Asia’s tightrope act increasingly risky, particularly in an environment in which public criticism of the crackdown, anti-Chinese sentiment and social and economic discontent are meshing.

Gender Gap: A Bridge Still Far

Moin Qazi

 All lives have equal value. No matter where they live on the planet. No matter what state, city, and country you’re born in, whether you are male, female.
– Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gate s Foundation captures in it mission goal the true spiritual concept of human creation. But today we know that not all lives have equal opportunity. Gender remains a critically important and largely ignored lens to view development issues across the world.   Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. India has a larger relative economic value at stake in advancing gender equality. However, despite some significant gains, some gaps remain. Although India has narrowed the divide between men and women in primary education and health sector, it doesn’t measure well in major metrics for measuring gender parity.
Gender equality refers to the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of women and men, girls and boys. It does not imply that women and men are the same, but that the interests, needs, and priorities of both women and men should be taken into consideration while recognizing diversity across different populations.
Gender discrimination continues to be an enormous problem within the Indian society as well. Traditional patriarchal norms have relegated women to a secondary status within the household and workplace. This drastically affects women’s health, financial status, education, and political involvement. Women are commonly married young, quickly become mothers, and are then burdened by stringent domestic and financial responsibilities.
India was placed at 108th position in the Global Gender gap Index 2018 amongst 149 countries, behind China and Bangladesh and 10 notches below its own position in 2006. The unpaid care work of women amounted to 291 minutes daily in rural areas and 312 minutes in urban areas as compared to men who spent 29 minutes and 32 minutes in urban and rural areas respectively. Data available closer home substantiates this fact.
What does the empowerment of women entail? At a basic level, it means gaining control over sources of power like material assets, self-assertion and ability to take part in making decisions that affect their lives. For this, women must have equal opportunities, capabilities, and access to resources. This would obviously mean a redistribution of the existing power relations and, finally, a challenge to the patriarchal ideology and male dominance as the concept of women empowerment is linked with gender equality.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, fully empowering women would add some $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025. But despite decades of laudable policies and   efforts, the world has   failed to close the   gender gap.
Economic empowerment means, init s basic idea, the ability to monetize one’s skills and talents. But for most women – particularly women in developing countries – access to the formal labor market is restricted by a host of social, cultural and political barriers.  Agriculture is among the most ubiquitous forms of female entrepreneurship. But, although women produce most of the world’s food, they own less than one-fifth of the world’s farmland.
Women are still perceived as an important capital-bearing” object, both in how they are seen as a “subordinate, confined to domestic and caring roles behind closed doors, and how they are portrayed d as a “sexual” form through popular culture. A recent study by OECD found that women in India work nine hours a day on average, compared to seven hours a day for men. Most of this time is spent on unpaid activities, such as household work and care giving for the elderly or for children, leaving little time for paid labour or social and leisure activities. This scarcity of discretionary time is referred to as ‘time poverty’ For example, nursing and care work is largely a female occupation and is often undervalued or seen as a natural female trait.
Women face worse prospects in almost every aspect of their daily lives – education, employment opportunities, health or financial inclusion. As the report notes, “We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death. From poor education to poor nutrition to vulnerable and low pay employment, the sequence of discrimination that a woman may suffer during her entire life is unacceptable but all too common.”
Women experience barriers in almost every aspect of work, including:
  • Whether they have paid work at all;
  • The type of work they obtain or are excluded from;
  • The availability of support services such as childcare;
  • Their pay, benefits, and conditions of work;
  • The insecurity of their jobs or enterprises and
  • Their access to vocational training
Women bear the greater brunt of poverty. In India, where a patriarchal system is deeply entrenched, only 13 percent of farmland is owned by women. The figure is even lower when it comes to Dalit women who are single. About 12 percent of India’s female population is classified as single, including women who are widowed, divorced, separated, and older unmarried women, according to the 2011 census. About 41 percent of households headed by women in India do not own land and make a living through casual manual labour. . Removing obstacles to land ownership could improve women’s economic and social prospects faster than almost any other policy prescription.
All women, regardless of their marital status, need access to education, good jobs, and support for domestic duties. Both widows and married women deserve freedom from culturally entrenched marital practices that degrade and commodify them, as well as legal protection from their husbands’ debts. Although transforming long-held laws, beliefs and practices may be difficult, it is the only way to keep price tags off women and ensure that they have dignity as well as true economic agency. It has been said that women who are closest to the world’s most pressing issues are best placed to solve them. In many countries, women are adjusting to large-scale economic changes through community-based grassroots organizing efforts. But can women be expected to use local solutions to clean up and compensate for larger economic problems without also being allowed to influence larger decisions?
What needs to be changed? Improvement in access to quality education for girls can boost their future income, save mothers’ and children’s lives, reduce rates of child malnutrition, and reduce overall poverty levels. For all interventions, the fundamental logic is plain: If we are going to end extreme poverty, we need to start with girls and women.
Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that has bedevilled Indian society at every level. Socially prescribed gender roles that have become deeply entrenched continue to hold women back. Cultural institutions in India, particularly those of patrilineality (inheritance through male descendants) and patrilocality (married couples living with or near the husband’s parents), play a central role in perpetuating gender inequality and ideas about gender-appropriate behaviour. A culturally embedded parental preference for sons – emanating from their importance as care providers for parents in old age – leads to poorer consequences for daughters.
Women work tirelessly to end poverty and hunger in their families. But it can take much more than hard work. They need new tools to create their own paths forward. They need opportunities that can overcome economic, cultural and gender barriers. It needs multi-sectoral cooperation to create breakthrough ideas and solutions to break down economic, social and technical barriers.
We have for long made paternalistic decision to “protect” these women, thereby eliminating their ability to solve issues that they face. Why couldn’t they decide for themselves how to manage their own situation? Why couldn’t we equip them to decide how they can take their own decisions? The key levers for change, from the ground up, are clearly female education and women’s access to income.
Fortunately, the world is now awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. Melinda Gates, who is now spearheading a major campaign for a proper time balance for the women, particularly the poor, commends three R’s: “Recognize that unpaid work is still work. Reduce the amount of time and energy it takes. And redistribute it more evenly between women and men”.  Women are far more likely than men to spend money they have under their discretion on the education of their children, the health care for their family and improving their housing. They   tend to invest their financial resources in their homes, the nutrition and health of their families, the education of their children, and their communities.
Women and girls play a lesser recognised role as drivers of growth and progress and powerful agents of change. Gender remains a critically important and largely ignored lens to view
Women bear the greater brunt of poverty. In India, where a patriarchal system is deeply What needs to be changed? Improvement in access to quality education for girls can boost their future income, save mothers’ and children’s lives, reduce rates of child malnutrition, and reduce overall poverty levels.
Providing women with more number of better opportunities to fulfill their social, economic, and political roles is now deemed so essential for reducing poverty and improving governance that women’s empowerment has become a development objective in its own right. The key levers for change, from the ground up, are clearly female education and women’s access to income. Women approach the future with creativity optimism and determination. They take economic ups and downs in stride. They show calm in the face of adversity. Above all, they work hard.
We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death. The global statistics on poverty are numbing. The real brunt has always fallen on women and sometimes it is very cruel. Women are commonly married young, quickly become mothers, and are then burdened by stringent domestic and financial responsibilities.
Women and families the world over work tirelessly to end the poverty and hunger in their lives. But it can take much more than hard work. They need new tools to create their own paths forward. They need opportunities that can overcome economic, cultural and gender barriers. It needs multissectoral cooperation to create breakthrough ideas and breakthrough solutions that break through and break down economic, social and technical barriers.  We live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death.
Empowerment has led to a number of positive changes in women’s own perceptions of themselves, and their role in household decision making women’s self-image and self-confidence was enhanced when they received training on women’s rights and social and political issues. This is a truly uplifting signal of the role women will play in building our future sustainable economy.
The female labour force participation rates (FLFR) in 2011-12 as per NSSO (68th round for 2011-12) was as low as 15.5% as compared to 56.3% for men. Further as per NSSO data, the disparity in average wages per day between men and women ranged between 37.5% in rural areas and 28.32% in urban areas. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) in its Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) observed that he FLFR in 2018 was down to 11%. The few women who did go out to find work found it even more difficult to find employment as seen from the unemployment rate of 14.9% against 4.9% for men in 2018.
The Economic Survey 2017-18 reiterates that s that there is ‘feminisation’ of agriculture sector with women taking part in multiple ways as cultivators, entrepreneurs and labourers.  Feminization may be more of a fall back measure necessitated by the  migration of  rural to men  to urban  areas or death of the husband rather than one out of  by choice.  Traditionally, women have played important role in ensuring food security, diversification through animal tending and backyard poultry and preserving local biodiversity. Family farms could not have survived without women playing a committed role, though they may not be counted as the head of the operational holding.
The Agricultural Census 2015-16 revealed that the share of female operational holdings increased to 13.87%   holdings compared to 12.79% in 2001-02.It also brought out that the average farm size for female holdings is 0.93 ha compared to 1.08 ha for overall.  Further, about 52% of female holdings are of less than 0.5 ha category; operating 12.28% area.
The Executive Summary of High Level Committee on the Status on Women, 2015 emphasizes that “there should be a significant increase in the gender equality investments in India, across Ministries and Departments. A comprehensive need mapping, district upwards, should be the basis for planning for future. A life cycle approach, social equity approach and an approach that covers all dimensions of empowerment should be used so that no group of women are left out”.
For all interventions, the fundamental logic is plain: if we are going to end extreme poverty, we need to start with girls and women. They are the ones who have the grit to lift families out of the pit. People who have pioneered successful social programmes   recognized this potential and sought to evoke it.

Moldova election heralds political instability

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir 

Parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Moldova on the February 24. The election signaled the culmination of a protracted process of disintegration of the forces that have defined the political establishment in Moldova in the last 20 years.
Under the weight of intensifying geopolitical tensions and popular hostility, the EU-backed Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) and the Liberal Party (PL), brought to power after the 2009 “colour revolution” against the Russian leaning Party of Communists, essentially lost all political significance. The Party of Communists, the direct descendent of the Stalinist Communist Party of Moldova, was routed at the polls and, for the first time since 1998, will have no representatives in parliament.
The election was won by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), which received 31 percent of the votes and will have the highest number of deputies, followed by the newly formed EU-backed ACUM coalition with 27 percent and the ruling Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) with 24 percent. The PDM will have the second highest number of deputies, due to the peculiarities of the electoral system.
Voter turnout in the country of 3.5 million inhabitants was close to 49 percent. Almost 56 percent participated in the last election in 2014.
The pro-EU opposition immediately contested the results, focussing especially on the vote from the Russian speaking breakaway province of Transnistria that favoured the PDM and PSRM. The week prior to the elections saw a concerted effort by pro-EU forces to paint the vote as tainted by Russian influence campaigns. In an act of censorship, Facebook closed 200 pages and accounts from Moldova that it suggested were linked to the Moldovan government. Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s cybersecurity policy chief, claimed that these accounts, which “typically posted local news and political issues,” “shared manipulated photos, divisive narratives, and satire.”
The governing Democratic Party of Moldova is set to remain the principal political decisionmaker in the coming period. The party was a junior member in the pro-Western coalition, coming in last in the 2014 elections. As working people were becoming increasingly hostile to the coalition’s IMF-imposed free-market policies, endemic corruption and alignment with the NATO military provocations against Russia, the coalition disintegrated and the PDM managed to outmanoeuvre its rivals and consolidate power.
PDM officials paid lip service to Moldova’s constitutional neutrality, instituted minimal social assistance programs, and broke away from the more radical elements, who were demanding a union with neighbouring EU member Romania, which shares historical and linguistic ties to Moldova. The PDM has faced open hostility from Germany and other European powers, which have supported violent protests against it, and cut important financial aid to the country. The organizations making up the ACUM coalition have been built up in the course of these protests.
Much is being made in the media of the figure of oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, head of the PDM and de facto head of government. Lurid accounts of his criminal business dealings are offered to argue that he is a political aberration who has “captured” the Moldovan state. In fact, Plahotniuc is the definitive political product of the last 30 years of capitalist restoration in Eastern Europe.
Beginning his career in the quasi-criminal milieu of the former Stalinist bureaucrats after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Plahotniuc’s fortunes were tied to the Party of Communists of Moldova and to the Social Democratic Party, the former Stalinist ruling party of Romania.
In 2001 Plahotniuc was appointed head of Petrom Moldova, the largest Romanian company operating in the country. He joined the Democratic Party, a political outfit close to the Communists but inclined to faster EU integration and market reforms, after the former became part of the pro-Western regime in 2009. With Plahotniuc’s control over a large part of the Moldovan media and his role as a go-between among the various factions of the governing coalition, he quickly became indispensable to its functioning and to its handlers in Washington and Brussels.
Relations soured with Germany and the EU in 2015 after Plahotniuc side-lined the pro-Romanian factions favoured by Angela Merkel, but he has enjoyed the support of successive US administrations. He also has the backing of the current Romanian government led by the Social Democratic Party, and its head, Liviu Dragnea. Dragnea and the PSD, favoured by the Trump White House, have long been engaged in a tug of war with the EU.
Romania has continued to supply the Moldovan government with funds to offset the loss of EU funding and maintains numerous local assistance and infrastructure projects in Moldova. Romanian news outlets also reported that Romania and Viktor Orban’s Hungary opposed the passing of an EU foreign affairs document condemning the Moldovan government for not respecting “democratic principles, the rule of law and human rights.” These accusations were fuelled by the annulment of the elections in the capital Chisinau, won by a pro-EU ACUM candidate.
It is likely that Plahotniuc will manage to gather the necessary number of defections from the other parties to continue with a PDM Government, with or without the participation of the ACUM bloc. The Socialist Party of President Dodon has already stated that it is entertaining the prospect of another election. Another possibility is that the Socialist Party of Dodon, who has repeatedly stated that he intends to maintain Moldova’s Association Agreement with the EU, will form a government with Plahotniuc organised around Moldovan “independence.”
Regardless of the manoeuvres of the local bourgeoisie, the interests of the impoverished workers of Moldova, many of whom work abroad in Romania, the EU or Russia, will not be represented.
The Republic of Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, is 137th in the world by income per capita, according to the IMF. Economic growth has declined from 6 percent to little more than 2 percent, while foreign investment collapsed from over €500 million in previous years to just €40 million.
According to a study conducted by the Institute for Public Policy, around half of all Moldovans would like to leave the country if they had the chance to do so. The reasons given for this were poverty and the absence of any perspective for the future. The population is already declining sharply. Around 1 million people have left the country in recent years. The average pension is €90 per month, while the average income is around €230. €1 billion were wiped out four years ago in a banking scandal, equivalent to one-eighth of Moldova’s gross domestic product.

Britain rejects International Court of Justice order to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius

Jean Shaoul 

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Britain to hand back the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible.” This follows its landmark ruling that the UK’s occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful.
The court held that the process of decolonization of Mauritius “was not lawfully completed” in 1968 and that “all Member States” had an obligation to cooperate with the United Nations “to complete the decolonization of Mauritius.”
The decision by an overwhelming majority of 13 to 1, with only the US voting against, follows the UN General Assembly’s decision in 2017 to refer the legal status of the Chagos Islands to the ICJ, the UN’s highest court.
The Chagos Islands make up the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), located halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. Diego Garcia, the largest island, is the site of one of the largest US airbases with some 4,000 US troops as well as British troops stationed there. The implication of the ICJ’s ruling is that the UK’s leasing of Diego Garcia to the US is illegal.
The ICJ’s ruling will be discussed at the UN general assembly, which has already voiced its opposition to Britain’s position by referring the issue to the ICJ in 2017.
The ICJ’s ruling has no binding status. The British government, determined to hold onto its colonial possessions, has rejected both the ICJ’s order and its unanimous ruling that it has jurisdiction because it relates to a UN process of decolonization, not a dispute between two states.
Speaking in Parliament, Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan accused the UN General Assembly of a “misuse of powers” and setting a “dangerous precedent” by referring the issue to the ICJ in 2017. He made the absurd claim that “The defence facilities on the British Indian Ocean Territory help to protect people here in Britain and around the world from terrorist threats, organised crime and piracy.”
The exact opposite is the case, with Britain allowing the CIA to use Diego Garcia as a “dark site” where it detained and tortured people and to refuel extraordinary rendition flights.
In February 2016, Britain also rejected a UN human rights panel ruling that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who sought asylum inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London due to his persecution by the Swedish and British authorities, has been subjected to “arbitrary detention” in violation of international law.
For more than five decades, Britain has carried out one crime after another against the Chagossians—lying, ignoring court decisions, and covering up its actions in pursuit of its imperialist interests.
Harold Wilson’s Labour government granted Mauritius independence in 1968, but not before separating the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, in breach of UN resolution 1514 passed in 1960 banning the breakup of colonies before independence. It then forcibly evicted the vast majority of Chagossians from the archipelago and prevented their return.
The UK denied Mauritius complete independence on all its territories and the 1,344 islanders’ right to return to their homeland to provide the US with a military base, free of local residents. It signed a sordid deal with Washington that was kept secret from both Parliament and the US Congress. This granted the US a 50-year lease on Diego Garcia in return for an $11 million discount on the US-made Polaris nuclear weapons system, which Labour had, when in opposition, pledged to scrap.
Starting in 1965, the islanders were illegally deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles, another former British colony, where they have lived in desperately impoverished conditions, with a few being allowed into Britain. Since then, they and their descendants, who now number 10,000, have campaigned for their rights against a conspiracy of silence, obfuscation, temporising and lies.
In 1982, the UK paid Mauritius the derisory sum of £4 million for the archipelago on an ex-gratia basis. The 1,344 islanders, as a condition of accepting the funds, were required to renounce their right to return to the BIOT. In the 1990s, the few who settled in Britain finally won the right to British citizenship.
In 2000, representatives of the Chagossians came from Mauritius and the Seychelles to pursue a case against the Labour government of Tony Blair, winning a historic ruling that confirmed that the eviction was illegal. British government officials—duplicitous as ever—declared that the indigenous citizens were free to return, but to the “outer homeland islands only.” While the High Court again ruled that the Chagossians were entitled to return, the Foreign Office won on appeal in 2008.
Investigative journalist John Pilger brought the plight of the islanders to the world’s attention with his film Stealing a Nation in 2004.
In 2009, the British Foreign Office went a step further and issued an order turning the Chagos archipelago into a “marine reserve” aimed at making resettlement impossible. This was revealed for the fraud that it was in December 2010, when WikiLeaks published a batch of secret cables from the British government in 2009, reassuring the Americans that “the former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos were a marine reserve.”
After the WikiLeaks revelations, the Chagossians launched an appeal against the declaration of the reserve. In a perverse decision, UK high court judges, Lord Justice Richards and Mr. Justice Mitting, refused to accept the Foreign Office documents as evidence, even though they were now in the public domain, claiming that it would “breach diplomatic privilege.” In effect, they ruled that evidence obtained from leaks or whistle-blowers was inadmissible, setting a dangerous precedent. In June 2013, the judges found against the Chagossians, arguing that the reserve was compatible with European Union law.
In 2015, Mauritius won a ruling at the permanent court of arbitration at The Hague that Britain had acted illegally in the way it had exercised control over the Chagos Islands. It criticised London for failing to consult over establishing a marine reserve around the archipelago, but this changed nothing.
In 2016, after years of delays, the Foreign Office finally announced that Chagos islanders would not be given the right of return to resettle, arguing that the cost and US objections made it impossible. This was confirmed last week, when in a largely unreported ruling the Divisional Court found against the Chagossians’ legal challenge to the 2016 decision.
Chagos Refugees Group leader Olivier Bancoult and fellow native-born Chagossian Solange Horeau had challenged the legality of the government’s failure to permit resettlement, the decision to offer a £40 million “Support Package” to the Chagossian community and the “implicit decision” not to remove the ban on Chagossians living in their homeland. The judges stated, “This is not a case where fundamental rights are affected. ... This is because this Court has to proceed on the basis that the legal rights which existed previously have been extinguished at least by the 2004 Orders.”
The 2004 Orders-in-Council issued a new legal ban on Chagossians living in their homeland, after their successful legal challenge to the original deportation. The Orders were brought in without any parliamentary vote or scrutiny, and effectively exiled Chagossians for a second time.

Algerian workers in France speak out against Bouteflika regime

V. Gnana & Alex Lantier

The expansion of demonstrations in Algeria opposing a fifth term for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has provoked support and solidarity across France. More than 6,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Sunday, and another 1,500 in Marseille, in support of the protests in Algeria.
While hundreds of thousands of “yellow vests” are protesting to demand the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron and for social equality, many French workers are closely following the opposition to the corrupt Algerian regime. On Sunday, the WSWS interviewed workers of Algerian origin in Paris about the protests and Bouteflika’s announcement on Sunday that he will seek a fifth term.
Itchir said, “It’s been the same for 20 years, and now he wants a fifth mandate. Why does he ask for a fifth term? To keep control of the gas and the money. That’s not how a country can run; we want radical change for the entire Algerian people … We have to sweep aside the government first, down to its roots. And then we will start over.”
He said he believes that Bouteflika is dead, or is so incapacitated that he might as well be. “His brother is in America getting treatment,” Itchir said. “They say he has cancer. Those who are with him, his right-hand man, [prime minister] Ahmed Ouyahia, for example, is a bastard. He’s done nothing… The Bouteflika regime just embezzles funds for itself. Go to the Champs-Elysées, and you’ll find the daughter of [ex-prime minister] Sellal. To buy her apartment on the Champs-Elysées, you need hundreds of thousands of euros.”
Itchir stressed that the unions and the entire Algerian political establishment are hardly different from the clan in power. “The unions are all bastards. The unions and the political parties who bring them to the table, all of them are the same. They eat and steal. They think only of themselves and their families. They don’t think of us, of the youth, of the Algerian people.”
He said that in Algeria “There is nothing for the youth. There are also many young Algerians in Europe. Sometimes they’ll be just over there, selling individual cigarettes.” He added: “As for the Algerian government, you have stolen, you have taken, you have chateaux in France and throughout Europe. Now we need radical change.”
Noting the simultaneous outbreak of “yellow vest” protests against Macron and those in Algeria against Bouteflika, Itchir said that the problems for workers in Europe and Africa are the same.
“It’s the same thing there as here,” he said. “Here we have to run all over, and there we have to run all over. There if you don’t work, you don’t eat, here if you don’t work, you don’t eat. I’ve done the calculations, and it’s the same. I’m here; I didn’t have to get on a boat like others did. I had the chance to request a visa. They said yes. Those who don’t have to take a boat to come. It’s said that France is a paradise, but it’s no paradise. I hope there will be a good change in Algeria.”
Itchir underscored his total lack of confidence in elections, which the Algerian regime intends to rig with the support of the European imperialist powers, including France. “The elections begin on March 19. Bouteflika is going to win it,” he said. “They do it with stuffing—not the voice of the people. Everything is prepared—the lockers, the ballots, everything. That’s in Algeria, but we hope that that will change. We only wish good upon the country.”
He added that he placed his hopes in the escalation of struggles in Algeria: “They have protested in all 48 regions [ wilayas ]. We must have a radical change.”
The WSWS also spoke with Djilali and Elwan, two Algerians originally from Kabylie, a majority Berber region. They expressed their determination for change and anger toward the capitalist regime of the National Liberation Front (FLN), which took power following the Algerian war for independence against France in 1954-1962.
“Algeria is ours,” Djilali said, before pointing to the intolerable situation for workers in the country. “A kilogram of potatoes costs 80 dinars; chili peppers, 220 dinars; beans, 300 dinars. Semolina is 5,000 dinars for per hundredweight. There is no housing. There is no work. We need it. You earn 18,000 dinars [the Algerian minimum wage]. You pay for electricity, rent, gas and it’s gone. We can’t live like this. It’s like in France.”
Elwan attacked the historical trajectory of the Algerian regime. “How many generations did they sacrifice?” he asked. “I was born in 1966. I saw nothing from the war of independence. But from 1966 to 2019, we had no luck. If Algeria was doing well, do you think I would have come to France, to live in this misery? Because it’s misery here, too.”
“In 2019, the people are revolting,” he said. “Now they have gained consciousness.”
He noted the difficulty of unifying the struggles of Arab and Berber workers and oppressed masses in the Maghreb, referring to the Berber revolt of 1949: “We revolted in 1949,” he said. “Every time, the other regions of the country said we were dividing the country, but it’s not true. We don’t want to divide the country.”
This raises the necessity for the unification of the struggles in Europe and the Maghreb in a socialist political movement of the working class, against the establishment parties. Referring to the Stalinist French Communist Party, which voted to support torture during the Algerian war, and the petty-bourgeois French parties allied to the FLN, Elwan said: “On the French elite, I can’t say anything. I don’t know French politics. But it’s France that supports the dictator there. Because otherwise, how does it happen that there are so many elections in Algeria and always the same leaders?”
But he stressed that the establishment parties in Algeria provided no perspective: “These are the parties of power. That is their language: divide and conquer. They create parties for themselves, an opposition elite, but at bottom there is no opposition. It’s 20 years since Louisa Hanoune has been head of the Workers Party.”
Asked about the decision by Hanoune and the PT on Sunday to not participate in the elections, Elwan said: “She saw the people are waking up; she’s afraid. But she’s not a revolutionary. At the moment, it’s the same everywhere.”