Sunday, January 6, 2013

Behind the Rape in the Bus

Behind the Rape in the Bus


Over at India Streets today - http://www.facebook.com/IndiaStreets - the india bus crowdingdistinguished Indian journalist and writer, Vidyadhar Date, posts an article entitled "Rosa Parks, The Power of Resistance and the Rape In The Bus In Delhi". He makes a point which I believe is central to understanding  a great part of both (a) the what and (b) the why of this tragic event in Delhi, when he writes:
The nationwide protests in India have focused mainly on the issue of rape. But these could as well extend to the arena of public transport because the girl’s rape and death are directly related to the inadequacy of public transport and the government’s abject failure to provide basic amenities to the masses."

Who are the greatest victims of the over-crowded buses and trains? Surely the women.

No one can reasonably argue that, but yet in all the outrage and seething, this critical point for the future seems to have gotten lost. Based on the past evidence, it would seem that those responsible in government will do all they can to find ways to run away and even to bury this central issue.

All I can say it, I hope not.

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4 comments:

  1. This is an interesting area of research, and on which my PhD research work was based. Kindly note that, the travel environment, operational attributes of public transport and poor governance are major factors of inadequacy in public transport, particularly in developing countries. Findings reveals that, female passengers are the most vulnerable or victims of criminality in Nigerian public transport. Hope to share results of my reseach findings very soon.

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  2. [...] new transportation power players in Congress, and whether they represent areas with viable transit. World Streets wonders what role transit overcrowding might have played in the India rape case that’s [...]

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  3. Reblogged this on Nuova Mobilità and commented:
    In Italiano (Google); http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=en&tl=it&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fworldstreets.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F01%2F06%2Fbehind-the-rape-in-the-bus%2F&act=url

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  4. Problem solving in India is very complex since several issues are interconnected. Its like opening a Pandora's Box. During this very incident I monitored several TV channels and news papers to understand the issue and what I found is here at my blog http://chetanprasad.com/blog/2012/12/22/delhi-rape-and-problem-solving-in-india-eye-opener/

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