'Burst of feminine power' after India polls

Description

'Burst of feminine power' after India polls

Informations

• Publié par: uhezyxuk
• Nombre de lectures: 36
• Langue: Français

Extrait

WORLD

Gulf Daily News Monday,

16th

May 2011

19

NEW DELHI:

More women than ever are

holding powerful political roles in India

after two female regional leaders scored

massive victories in state assembly elec-

tions.

Their wins doubled

the number of

female state chief ministers and meant

that women

now

rule

a

third

of the

1.2 billion population in India, where

girls are often still seen as a liability

and female foeticide has skewed gender

ratios.

The

country,

which

already

had

a

sprinkling of women in key positions

including leader of the ruling party, is

seeing an unprecedented “burst of femi-

nine power”, said veteran commentator

M J Akbar.

Firebrand Mamata Banerjee last week

demolished 34 years of Communist rule

in

West

Bengal,

India’s

fourth

most

populous state – prompting the

Indian

Express

news-

paper to shout

in

a

head-

line:

“Bengal

makes

her-

story”.

Meanwhile,

in

T am il

N adu,

ex-

movie actress

J

Jayalalitha

staged a huge comeback to oust a rival

regional party enmeshed in corruption

allegations.

The pair join populist maverick leader

Mayawati – who governs vast, poverty-

stricken Uttar Pradesh state – and Sheila

Dikshit, regarded as a sober grandmoth-

erly

type

who

administers

the

Delhi

national capital region.

“There

is

definitely

a

big

elector-

al sweep in favour of women,” Rekha

A

g

g

a

r

w

a

l

,

a

Suprem e

Court

lawyer

and

women’s

activist, said.

“For gener-

ations, women

have

been

d

o

w

n

t

r

o

d -

den.

It’s

a

big signal to

male politicians who’ve been ruling the

roost,” she said.

While national ruling Congress party

chief Sonia Gandhi, 64, is viewed as

India’s

most

influential

politician,

women also hold the jobs of president,

leader of the opposition and parliamen-

tary speaker.

Last year, the upper house of parlia-

ment

passed

long-standing

legislation

that would reserve a third of seats in the

national legislature for female MPs, but

it is yet to go to a vote in the lower house.

Observers are divided on what the

surge in female power means – and what

it could bring in a nation plagued by

accusations of high-level corruption.

“People are voting this way because

they think women will be more respon-

sible and less corrupt as political leaders

than male politicians,” said Aggarwal.

However, among the chief ministers,

only the diminutive Banerjee, 56, who

favours plain cotton saris and lives with

her elderly mother in a modest one-

storey home, is free from any whiff of

scandal.

Jayalalitha, 63, who has a strong fol-

lowing among the rural poor, has battled

court

charges

of

enriching

herself

at

public expense and had a reputation as

a vindictive politician during previous

stints in power.

‘Burst of feminine power’ after India polls

n

Sonia, Mamata and Jayalalitha ... powerful roles

France shocked

by IMF scandal

PARIS:

IMF

chief

Dominique

Strauss-Kahn

was

charged

with

attempting to rape a New York hotel

maid, in a scandal that appeared to

wreck his hopes of running for presi-

dent of France and to open questions

over his leadership

of the

global

lender.

The charges yesterday threatened to

create a leadership vacuum at the IMF,

overseer

of

the

global economy, and

threw wide open the French presidential

election next April, for which opinion

polls had made Strauss-Kahn the front-

runner.

The 62-year-old Socialist, a key player

in the response to the 2007-09 global

financial

crisis

and

to

Europe’s

debt

woes, was taken off an Air France plane

minutes

before

it left for

Paris

from

John F Kennedy International Airport on

Saturday.

A

hotel maid, 32, alleged

Strauss-

Kahn

sexually

assaulted

her

in

his

$3,000-a-night suite at the upscale Sofitel

in

Times

Square

on

Saturday, police

spokesman Paul Browne said. The IMF

chief was charged with a criminal sexual

act, unlawful imprisonment and attempt-

ed rape.

“She told detectives he came out of the

bathroom naked, ran down a hallway to

the foyer where she was, pulled her into

a bedroom and began to sexually assault

her, according to her account,” Browne

said.

“She pulled away from him and he

dragged her down a hallway into the

bathroom where he engaged in a criminal

sexual act, according to her account to

detectives. He tried to lock her into the

hotel room.”

One

of

his

lawyers,

Benjamin

Brafman,

said

his

client “will plead

not

guilty.”

Browne said the head of

the International Monetary

Fund

does

not

have

dip-

lomatic

immunity

and

appeared to have fled the

hotel after the incident, leav-

ing his cell phone behind.

The arrest caused shock

and disbelief in France.

“The news we received

from New York last night

struck like a thunderbolt,”

said Socialist leader Martine

Aubry.

In a statement, the Fund

declined

to

comment

on

the case, saying only that it

“remains

fully

functioning

and operational.”

TEHRAN:

Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was a prisoner in

US custody for “some time” before he was killed by the American

military, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday.

“I have exact information that Bin Laden was held by the

American military for some time ... until the day they killed him

he was a prisoner held by them,” he said in an interview on Iranian

state television. “Please pay attention. This is important. He was

held by them for some time. They made him sick and while he was

sick they killed him,” Ahmadinejad added.

n

Honour killing mothers arrested

NEW DELHI:

Two Muslim mothers in a northern Indian town

have been arrested on accusations they killed their daughters

for dishonouring the family by eloping with Hindu men, police

said yesterday. Newlyweds Zahida, 19 and Husna, 26, were

strangled when they returned home after getting married to

men of their choice, said Anil Kumar Kusan, a police officer.

Zahida and Husna were neighbours in Baghpat, a town in

India’s Uttar Pradesh state, when they fell in love with two

construction workers. They eloped and got married last week

before returning home to make peace with their families,

Kusan said. Initial investigations showed that the mothers

helped each other to strangle their daughters.

n

US-Pakistani ties ‘at critical point’

KABUL:

US Senator John Kerry warned yesterday that US-Pakistani

relations have reached a critical juncture as calls grow in the US

to cut some of the billions of dollars in aid to Islamabad following

Osama bin Laden’s killing. Kerry, in Afghanistan before travelling

to Pakistan, said sober and serious discussion was needed to resolve

the widening rift amid growing suspicion that Pakistan’s security

forces were complicit in harbouring the Al Qaeda leader.

n

MPs seek to quiz deputy premier

KUWAIT CITY:

Two Kuwaiti MPs asked yesterday to question a

deputy prime minister in the week-old government over what

they described as misuse of public funds. The request from

the liberal National Action Bloc to question Shaikh Ahmad Al

Fahad Al Sabah, deputy prime minister for economic affairs,

was the second such request since the new cabinet was formed.

Bin Laden ‘was in US custody’

n

Moussa in talks with Bahrain’s Foreign

Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa

ahead of the Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in

Cairo yesterday

Egyptian foreign

minister elected

Arab League chief

CAIRO:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby

was unanimously elected Arab League chief yes-

terday to succeed Amr Moussa, embarking on a

challenging task as political upheaval sweeps the

region.

The surprise announcement of his candidacy

came after Egypt withdrew diplomat Mustafa Al

Fikki from the race just moments

before voting for the head of the

22-member body was due to start.

The

new

Arab

League

chief

stood up to salute the delegates

who gave him a standing ovation

after

Omani

Foreign

M inister

Yussef bin

Alawi, who

chaired

the session, presented him as the

secretary-general.

“The

Arab

world

is

going

through

many crises. W e must

all stand together and find solu-

tions,” Elaraby said, admitting he did not have a

speech prepared.

Fikki, a diplomat under the regime of Egypt’s

former

president

Hosni

M ubarak,

had

faced

strong opposition both on the Egyptian street and

from within the league, sources said.

Protesters

who

had

gathered

outside

the

league’s headquarters in Cairo

to

denounce

Fikki’s

nomina-

tion

broke

out

into

cheers

when

Elaraby’s

nam e

was

announced.

Moussa, whose

last day

at

work is today, has decided to

contest the top job in his native

Egypt,

in

the

first

presiden-

tial election since Mubarak was

overthrown in February follow-

ing 18 days of popular protests.

He

said

he

was

“proud”

of

his

10

years

at

the

Arab

League, boosting in particular

the

domains

of

development

and culture.

For his part, Elaraby said he

would call on Moussa for advice

as he takes on a political assault

course, with a region throbbing

with conflicts and protests as it

seeks to replace its decades-old

autocracies with democracy.

Elaraby “does not have an

easy

job.

W e

must

all

stand

together and support him in his

new job,” Bin Alawi said.

And in a sign of the popular-

ity of the choice of Elaraby, he

said “the Arab world is in good

hands,” to yet another round of

applause.

n

Elaraby

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights:

Israeli

gunfire killed 15 people and wounded hundreds

yesterday as Palestinians marched on Israel’s

borders with Lebanon, Syria and Gaza in a

mass show of mourning over the creation of the

Jewish state.

Tensions along the Israeli-Syrian frontier spi-

ralled as thousands of protesters from Syria tried

to force their way into the Israeli-occupied Golan

Heights, prompting the army to open fire in one

of the worst incidents of violence there since a

1974 truce accord.

Syria lashed out at Israel for the bloodshed,

warning that the Jewish state would bear full

responsibility for its “criminal” actions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed

that Israel would continue to protect its borders

faced with those who sought its destruction.

“Their struggle is not over the 1967 borders,

but it questions the very existence of Israel,

which they describe as a catastrophe which must

be resolved,” he said in a televised address.

“We are determined to defend our borders and

our sovereignty.”

A

Druze doctor from

Majdal Shams who

rushed to the scene said he saw at least two bod-

ies, with local paramedics confirming the same

toll, saying one had been shot in the head, and

the second in the chest.

They also treated 20 people for light to moder-

ate injuries.

Along the Lebanese border, Israeli gunfire

killed 10 people and wounded 110 as thousands

of

mainly

Palestinian

refugees

demonstrated

along the tense frontier, medical sources said.

And along Gaza’s northern border with Israel,

125 people were injured, five of them seriously,

when troops opened fired as more than a thou-

sand Palestinians marched on the Erez crossing.

At least half of the wounded were minors,

medics said.

The Israeli army issued a statement saying

“hundreds of Syrian rioters” had crossed onto

the Israeli side, and in response troops had “fired

selectively” towards them, injuring an unspeci-

fied number.

Protesters in southern Lebanon had tried to

cross the border into Israel, the statement added.

15 ARAB PROTESTERS GUNNED DOWN BY ISRAELIS

n

Strauss-Kahn