The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Indian village suffers for lack of women Posted: 12 Oct 2011 03:59 AM PDT  Unmarried men stand in a group as they watch women dance during the Dussehra festival in the remote village of Siyani, where they also live and work in, about 140km west of Gujarat's capital Ahmedabad, October 4, 2011. Siyani is typical of many Indian villages and may be an indicator of things to come as India's male to female ratio declines. The village has some 350 unmarried men over the age of 35 – and hundreds more under 35 – because there aren't enough women to marry. Many women have also left to look elsewhere for grooms with more money and better prospects. – Reuters pic They live, eat and sleep together, sharing mattresses on the bare floor of an empty room the way a married couple usually would. All but a handful are unmarried – a living example of India's rapidly worsening gender imbalance. Census data released earlier this year revealed there are 914 girls for every 1,000 boys born – a sharp fall since 2001 when the ratio was 933 girls for every 1000 boys. "I have been looking to marry since I was 15," said Vinodbhai Mehtaliya, a 23-year-old Siyani farmer. A decades-old Indian preference for male children, who are seen as breadwinners, has led to the skewed ratio, aided by cheap ultrasound tests that assist in sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. Siyani, in the western state of Gujarat, shows the decline. Here, some 350 men over the age of 35 are simply unable to get married – out of a total population of roughly 8,000. "I'm lucky I got married 20 years ago" said 42-year-old Laljibhai Makwana, who works as a diamond polisher in one of the village's small workshops. "If I was young here today I would never get married." The absence of women is obvious in the village's bumpy, tiny lanes, where cows wander freely, especially in the evenings. "There is little industrial development or infrastructure here, so people are poor and uneducated," said Prashant Dave, the 41-year-old owner of a small flour mill who said he was lucky to be married. "There are too few women and they leave for better prospects." Among the group of men living together, men perform all the tasks which are traditionally the domain of women: sweeping, cooking and cleaning. The situation has also led to another reversal in custom, with some women and their parents asking for a lot of money from men to allow men to marry them, an inversion of the usual dowry system in which the woman's family has to pay the man's. At sunset, as the day's work ends, groups of unmarried men gather around the village tea stalls and tobacco shops, lacking wives and families to go home to. "I've given up looking," said Bharatbhai Khair, who is single at 45 and has been trying to marry for 25 years. "The women want more money for marriage than I can afford." – Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Festival cheer rings diabetes alarm for Indians Posted: 12 Oct 2011 12:22 AM PDT NEW DELHI, Oct 12 — It's festival season in India, with the celebrations providing a perfect opportunity for family outings, late-night parties and customary feasting on sweets. But health experts warn that the festivities, coupled with genetic predisposition and lifestyle changes brought about by the increasing prosperity of the middle class, is contributing to the country being called the world's "diabetes capital", with the highest number of diabetics in any nation.  Bingeing on sweets — from Durga Puja and Dussehra to Diwali on October 26. — Reuters pic "For the next one month or so, it is all either festivals or outings," says Anoop Misra, chairman at New Delhi's Fortis-C-DOC, Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, Metabolic Diseases and Endocrinology. "During this time, the rate of obesity goes up, sugar control of established diabetics goes down and those who are predisposed to develop diabetes also show diabetes." Festivals in India are synonymous with eating and gifting sweets, and most food and confectionery shops are decked with an assortment of goodies in colourful wrappings meant for traditional presents. Two all-time favourites are rasgullas, a soft, spongy ball made from cottage cheese, and the conch-shaped samdesh, made from jaggery. A popular holiday treat is milk-based kaju barfi. But experts warn the festival fun — and, not least, the culture of sweet-eating that peaks then — can help trigger long-term health problems, with diabetes only the start. The disease is characterised by high levels of sugar in the blood and can lead to more serious complications such as heart disease and stroke, damage to the kidneys or nerves, and blindness. But the culture of consuming sweets is hard to shake off, especially during festivals. "Everybody (in India) has a sweet tooth, including me," said Ramachandran, a man in his 50s polishing off a plate of sweets at a New Delhi restaurant. "(Diabetes) is not because of sweets. It's because people are too lazy (to exercise)," he added. Middle-class disease? The majority of those with diabetes have Type 2, which is linked to obesity and lack of exercise. India, with 62.4 million cases, has the world's highest number of diabetics. Misra said numbers were rising at an alarming rate because of a newly rich middle class that increasingly consumed junk food while adopting more sedentary lifestyles. "Their awareness about healthy eating is very low," he said. Recent studies have shown the numbers of diabetics is also rising fast in villages, where people are traditionally more active and have not previously been exposed to fast-food restaurants and refined snacks. Nutritionist Uma Gupta attributes it to increasing stress and people adopting city culture, among other causes. A recent study commissioned by the Indian Council for Medical Research found that in the past one year, the number of diabetics in India increased by 11.6 million, while another 77.2 million are pre-diabetics — a precursor to Type 2 diabetes where a person's blood sugar levels are higher than normal. Experts warn that the country's health infrastructure could soon be unable to deal with the burden. "(Diabetes) is a forerunner of multiple diseases including heart disease and cancer . . . I don't think our present health system can counter this pressure," Misra said. The situation is made worse by a tendency for people to wait until they have a real health problem before doing anything, said Gupta. "Take measures now, improve your lifestyle. Otherwise, hospitals will not have space for you, doctors will not have time to treat you," she added. "Treatment should start from your plate itself." — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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