India, recently became the fifth-largest global economy, has the Earth’s largest population below the age of 35, with considerable smartphone and social media penetration 

Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S, a data journalist, challenges widely-held beliefs and debunks media coverage far removed from the data. Her account is contrary to the image many Indians have of themselves as a largely tolerant nation, peopled with mostly liberal citizens, who, despite great odds, adversity and backsliding, remain committed to the democratic, secular and pluralistic values of the Indian Constitution. Rukmini found that India is less committed to democratic principles, freedom of speech, free operation of the judiciary and the opposition, than most other countries.

“This is not a liberal country nor do most Indians see liberalism as a virtue,” she writes. “Age, education and levels of urbanisation and income do not produce the moderating, progressive liberal effects on views that we in our popular imagination in India assume they do,” she said

On caste, the data reveals that Indian society continues to be steeped in casteism, where the banned practice of untouchability is still followed, not just in rural India, but in cities as well. 

“…The organisation of Indian society as being extremely hostile to any inter-group mingling or relationship or communication of any sort. The majority of Indians in opinion polls say they are opposed to inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, large numbers of people say they do not have friends of another religion or caste, and a significant share of people, even in urban India, say that someone in their family practices untouchability…We are seeing laws being brought in to discourage inter-religious marriage. We are seeing violence against backwards castes. We are seeing a lot of violence against Muslims…We are seeing all sorts of criminalisation and intimidation around all sorts of mixing between religious groups. Places of worship that were shared between groups are being actively weaponised and polarised…”

“…Young people are saying they do not support inter-caste, inter-religious marriage to a greater degree than views expressed by their grandparents. They are not saying they have greater commitments to free speech or to secular values than older people…”

In 2011-2013, 30 percent of rural households reported practising untouchability while in urban areas the corresponding figure was lower at 20 percent.

While there appears to be more latitude for women choosing their life partners, the data reveals that Indians believe that women should be subservient to their husbands and should not go out for paid work.

“…The overall national picture is bleak in terms of even having the ability to have any say on your marriage, to choose a partner, to be able to take any decision around the household purchase, to have any assets in your own name, to have any cash on hand, to be able to even go the doctor without permission — all of these numbers are pretty bleak, particularly in the north and centre of the country…Overall in the country, we have one of the lowest levels of female labour force participation of any country in the world. This is an indicator that has not risen but has fallen substantially. It is also extremely low for extremely well-educated and rich women…”

Between 1990 and 2014, those who opposed homosexuality fell from 89 percent to 24 percent, from an overwhelming majority to a clear minority. Between 2014 and 2019, the share of Indians who believe homosexuality should be accepted by society more than doubled.

 “…Given that decriminalisation occurred in 2018, I feel it is an avenue to explore whether it made people perhaps feel that if the Supreme Court says that it is not criminal, perhaps I should change my views, or if it allowed people who already had people in same-sex relationships in their lives — children, nephews and cousins—it made them feel that this is something they have already seen and now even the law said it wasn’t criminal…It is certainly worth thinking that if an important constitutional authority comes out with clear and resounding support of a position, can it change societal values significantly?  It makes you think about what could be done if the courts came out strongly in support of interfaith relationships or other democratic principles. This was one of the areas where there was mass media support as well…”

India Far Less Committed to Liberal Values Than Imagined, Data Shows – Consortium News

A poll of more than 2,000 workers earning less than the real living wage of £9.90 an hour, or £11.05 in London, by the Living Wage Foundation found that 78% said this was the worst financial period they had ever faced. As many as 4.8 million people in the workforce have earnings of less than the real living wage.

More than half had used a food bank in the past year, while 42% reported regularly skipping meals for financial reasons. 

More than a fifth of these workers, 21%, said they had no money at all left over after paying for essentials, such as rent and food.

More than two-thirds of the workers surveyed said their financial situation was negatively affecting their levels of anxiety, and their overall quality of life – with women particularly badly affected.

Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation said: “Everyone is feeling the pressure from soaring inflation, but our polling shows that low-paid workers are being hit harder than most. These shocking findings bring to life what it’s like to be paid less than a real living wage during a cost of living crisis.” She added: “It’s more important than ever that those employers who can, step up and provide a wage based on the cost of living.”

Britain’s lowest-paid workers say finances have never been worse | UK cost of living crisis | The Guardian

 “Climate change is no longer a ticking timebomb, it is exploding before our eyes. It is making extreme weather such as droughts, cyclones and floods – which have increased five-fold over the past 50 years – more frequent and more deadly,” Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, said.

Extreme hunger is closely linked to the climate crisis, with many areas of the world most affected by extreme weather experiencing severe food shortages.  Oxfam examined 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, afflicted by drought, floods, severe storms and other extreme weather, and found their rates of extreme hunger had more than doubled in the past six years.

The 10 countries covered by the report – Somalia, Haiti, Djibouti, Kenya, Niger, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe – were those with the highest number of UN appeals driven by extreme weather events.

Within the countries studied, 48 million people are currently suffering from acute hunger, up from about 21 million people in 2016. Of these, about 18 million people are on the brink of starvation, according to the Oxfam report.

 The profits of fossil fuel companies over 18 days would be enough to fulfil the UN’s $49bn appeal for humanitarian aid this year, the Oxfam report found.

Bucher said: “Leaders of rich polluting countries must live up to their promises to cut emissions. They must pay for adaptation measures and loss and damage in low income countries, as well as immediately inject lifesaving funds to meet the UN appeal to respond to the most impacted countries.” 

Somalia is experiencing its worst drought on record, and 1 million people have been forced to flee, while in Kenya 2.5 million livestock have died and 2.4 million people are going hungry.

Cereal production in Niger has fallen by 40% owing to extreme weather, leaving 2.6 million people in a state of acute hunger, while the desertification of crop and pasture land in Burkina Faso has resulted in more than 3.4 million people in extreme hunger.

Extreme hunger soaring in world’s climate hotspots, says Oxfam | Climate crisis | The Guardian

 David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told the U.N. Security Council that 345 million people facing acute food insecurity in the 82 countries where the agency operates.

It is 2½ times the number of acutely food insecure people before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. And 70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine.

50 million of those people in 45 countries are suffering from very acute malnutrition and are “knocking on famine’s door.”

“What was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger,” he said. “…There is a real and dangerous risk of multiple famines this year,” adding, “And in 2023, the current food price crisis could develop into a food availability crisis if we don’t act…The hungry people of the world are counting on us, and we must not let them down.”

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned, “Famine will happen in Somalia, be sure it won’t be the only place either.”

UN warns up to 345 million people marching toward starvation | AP News

 The United Nations has warned in a new report that Syria is on the verge of another flare-up that could spell a return to large-scale combat.

“Today, Syrians face increasing and intolerable hardships, living among the ruins of this lengthy conflict. Millions are suffering and dying in displacement camps, while resources are becoming scarcer and donor fatigue is rising,” said Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chair of the UN’s Syria commission. “Syria cannot afford a return to larger-scale fighting, but that is where it may be heading.”

In recent months, an intensification along Syria’s northern front has increased the suffering of citizens, warned the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in its report.

Under the threat of another Turkish ground operation, the commission recorded continued mobilisation and fighting between Turkish and Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish-led forces in the north. In addition, Russia is still actively supporting the Syrian government, particularly concerning air strikes that have killed civilians and targeted food and water sources. Russian air raids over opposition-held areas had increased in the last few months, said commissioner Hanny Megally.

“We had an idea at some point that the war was completely finished in Syria,” Pinheiro told journalists, adding that incidents documented in the report proved this was not the case. The report found that “grave violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law” had increased across the country in the first six months of this year.

“Tens of thousands of Syrians remain forcibly disappeared or missing to date. Government forces continue to inflict cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment on the relatives of the missing by deliberately concealing the fate and whereabouts of the missing,” the report outlined.

“We also see continued operations by Israel, as well as the US, Turkey and Iran-backed forces, in this protracted conflict,” commissioner Lynn Welchman warned. The report documented more than a dozen Israeli strikes across Syria in the first six months of 2022, including an attack on Damascus International Airport that put the site out of commission for nearly two weeks. The UN revealed that it had been unable to fly in humanitarian assistance to Syria during that time.

The UN also documented cases of people and families who have been unable to return to their hometowns and villages because their properties were confiscated by forces, or because they cannot return to their properties and land, fearing arbitrary detention. Against this backdrop, the commission noted that some neighbouring countries are creating concrete plans for mass returns of Syrian refugees. 

“Returns must be a choice and take place in a safe, dignified, and voluntary manner,” Pinheiro said.

Syria could return ‘to larger-scale fighting’, UN warns | Syria’s War News | Al Jazeera

 According to Japan’s Environment Ministry, an impressive 210,000 metric-tons (231,485-ton) of metal was recovered in 2020 by specialist companies that operate as “urban miners.” The aim is to increase the amount gathered to 420,000 tons by 2030.  

Tons of disused electronic equipment that are wastefully dumped every year, Discarded mobile phones and television sets, computer motherboards and refrigerators, microwave ovens, car components and countless other household items contain varying amounts of gold and silver, lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and zinc. They provide key components of batteries and high-tech electronics and can be reused if processed properly.

So much is discarded every year that a 2020 estimate suggested that there could be as much as 6,800 tons of discarded gold alone in Japan, which is more than the known deposits still waiting to be mined in South Africa.  

Japan harvesting junk electronics to tackle resource shortages | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW | 14.09.2022

  The government announced a substantial increase in the price of fuel that will further squeeze a population already struggling with soaring costs of living. It announced on Wednesday that the price of gas will more than double, with slightly smaller increases for diesel and kerosene. The government has justified the price increase by saying that it is no longer tenable to subsidise fuel as much as it used to.

Haiti had previously received its petroleum from Venezuela’s Petrocaribe programme, which shut down several years ago. Since then, it has helped subsidise local distributors who import fuel.

Protesters blocked roads throughout the capital Port-Au-Prince, closing off usually busy areas of the city to traffic. Schools and businesses closed as streets were blocked with rocks, vehicles, and burning tyres. Many people in Haiti depend on fuel not only for transportation, but also for electricity and cooking.

“It’s a very challenging time for Haiti right now,” Haitian journalist Harold Isaac explained. “We’re facing a compounding set of crises, the latest one being the gas crisis that really has made life very difficult for everyday folks here.” 

Haiti sees more protests as fuel price hike worsens public anger | Inflation News | Al Jazeera

Background Reading

Material World – A forlorn and forgotten nation – worldsocialism.org/spgb

According to the United in Science report, the world’s chances of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown are diminishing rapidly, as we enter “uncharted territory of destruction” through our failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions and take the actions needed to stave off catastrophe.

The United in Science report was coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, and involves the UN Environment Programme, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the World Climate Research Programme, the Global Carbon Project, the UK’s Met Office and the Urban Climate Change Research Network.

Despite intensifying warnings in recent years, governments and businesses have not been changing fast enough, according to the report. The consequences are already being seen in increasingly extreme weather around the world, and we are in danger of provoking “tipping points” in the climate system that will mean more rapid and in some cases irreversible shifts. The world was also failing to adapt to the consequences of the climate crisis, the report found.

Recent flooding in Pakistan, which had covered a third of the country in water, is the latest example of extreme weather that is devastating swathes of the globe. The heatwave across Europe including the UK this summer, prolonged drought in China, a megadrought in the US and near-famine conditions in parts of Africa also reflect increasingly prevalent extremes of weather.

The secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, said: “There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters. They are the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction…”

Since Cop26, the invasion of Ukraine and soaring gas prices have prompted some governments to return to fossil fuels, including coal. 

Guterres warned of the danger: “Each year we double down on this fossil fuel addiction, even as the symptoms get rapidly worse.”

Guterres condemned rich countries that had promised the developing world assistance but failed to deliver. “It is a scandal that developed countries have failed to take adaptation seriously, and shrugged off their commitments to help the developing world,” he said.

Tasneem Essop, the executive director of the Climate Action Network, said, “The terrifying picture painted by the United in Science report is already a lived reality for millions of people facing recurring climate disasters. The science is clear, yet the addiction to fossil fuels by greedy corporations and rich countries is resulting in losses and damages for communities who have done the least to cause the current climate crisis.”

The United in Science report found:

1.

The past seven years were the hottest on record and there is a 48% chance during at least one year in the next five that the annual mean temperature will temporarily be 1.5C higher than the 1850-1900 average.

More than 140 million people face acute food insecurity due to conflict and instability, even as climate change and economic precarity indicate that hunger needs will rise in the coming months.

Armed conflict, climate-related emergencies, economic hardship and political obstacles are leading to a growing wave of hunger in countries around the world. The misery for millions will deepen without immediate urgent action, the Red Cross said.

An emergency response alone will not end these hunger crises. Concerted action and long-term approaches are the only way to break the cycle. Political will and resources are needed now. Without them, many lives will be lost, and the suffering will endure for years. 

Measures must include strengthening grassroots food systems.

“Conflict is a huge driver of hunger. We see violence preventing farmers from planting and harvesting. We see sanctions and blockades preventing food delivery to the most vulnerable… A cycle of band-aid solutions will not be enough in coming years.” Peter Maurer, President of the ICRC, said

In Sub-Saharan Africa: One in three children under the age of five is stunted by chronic undernutrition, while two out of five women of childbearing age are anaemic because of poor diets. The majority of people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1.90 a day.

In Afghanistan: The combination of three decades of armed conflict and an economic crash resulting in few job opportunities and a massive banking crisis are having a devastating effect on Afghan families’ ability to buy food. More than half the country — 24 million — need assistance. 

In Pakistan: The recent flooding has led to an estimated $12 billion in losses. Food security in the country was alarming before this latest catastrophe, with 43 percent of the population food insecure. Now the number of acutely hungry people is expected to rise substantially. Some 78,000 square kilometers (21 million acres) of crops are under water. An estimated 65 percent of the country’s food basket — crops like rice and wheat– have been destroyed, with over 733,000 livestock reportedly killed. The floods will also negatively affect food delivery into neighboring Afghanistan.

In Somalia: We have seen a five-fold increase in the number of malnourished children needing care. Last month the Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa admitted 466 children, up from 82 in August 2021. Children admitted here die without the specialized nutritional care they receive.

In Syria: Food insecurity rates have risen more than 50 percent since 2019. Today, two-thirds of Syria’s population –12.4 million out of 18 million — can’t meet their daily food needs. The compounding effects of more than a decade of conflict, including the consequences of sanctions, have crippled people’s buying power. Food prices have risen five-fold in the last two years.

In Yemen: Most Yemenis survive on one meal a day. Last year 53 percent of Yemen’s population were food insecure. This year it’s 63 percent — or some 19 million people. Aid actors have been forced to cut food assistance due to a lack of funds. Some 5 million people will now receive less than 50 percent of their daily nutritional requirement because of it.

Crisis fatigue not an option as global hunger crisis deepens, the International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement warns – World | ReliefWeb