Food Waste : Writing On The Wall Just Got Bigger

This week began with some exciting news :the UN just fed some world leaders trash and that it was great.

Curious?

Ok, here is how it happened: In New York, Ban-ki-Moon , the UN Secretary General, hosted for 30 of his guests  - comprising presidents, prime ministers and royals - a lunch that was made of  food waste.

In plain words, each dish of each course on the menu - from appetizer to dessert - was made of material that was considered waste and would have ended in a trash bin.

The salad on the lunch was made from unwanted vegetable scraps, stalks and outer leaves salvaged from the waste of big food producers.

There were burgers and fries and these were made of thrown away vegetables including ends of cucumber thrown out by pickle makers. They also used 'cow corn' - corn that are considered too hard for human consumption and so are fed to cows instead.

That is not all. The bread on the lunch table was baked from

Badaun Rape and Murder: Lets Stay Angry

If you have been following the news from Asia in the past few days,  you may have heard of the latest act of violence against women that has horrified India: 2 teen age girls abducted, raped and then hanged in a village called Katra Sahdatganj of Badaun - a district about 220 km north-east of New Delhi. The girls were cousins and had gone out to relieve themselves in the bush because their home didn’t have a toilet, when they went missing. 

The heart-wrenching story told by one of the girl’s father reveals that the girls were abducted in 27th May (Tuesday) evening. The father went to the police that night, pleaded with them to find his girls, but the policemen on duty refused to either listen or act. In fact, one of them mocked the man who is from a 'lower caste' and said ‘go and check, you may find your girls hanging from a tree’. Next day, just as the policeman had said it, the father – and the rest of the village – indeed saw the girls’ bodies hanging in an orchard.

Since the news came in the light, protests and condemnations have poured in from all quarters.  A number of political leaders have visited the girls’ family and expressed their sympathy. The media has been camping in the village and has been reporting many more cases of rape and abduction of women that have taken place in that area. The latest words of condemnation have come from the United Nations which hassaid, ‘Violence against women is a human rights issue, not a women's issue’.

Now, besides the obvious lack of security for women and good governance, the horrible rape and murder also point out another of India’s ugliest truths: women are increasingly falling prey to sexual predators due to lack of sanitation facilities.

3 weeks of silence = 3 weeks of speaking out

Its been a while - 3 weeks to be precise - since I wrote anything. And that's because, I had been speaking, at the World Pulse Live tour that went on for slightly over 3 weeks (17th-9th) It is a tour organized by World Pulse - the US-based, world's largest women's media group. And the tour is for the three toppers of their Voice of the Future correspondent program. As one of those lucky three, I was there, participating at the 4 city (New York, Washington DC, Portland and Atlanta), 18 events tour, talking about the need and effectiveness of connecting grass root women through digital technology. Shared here are some of the highlights of what I would always remember as an epic tour!
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It happened on 8th of October. Suzanne Malveaux of Newsroom International interviewed me and my fellow World Pulse correspondent from Syria. Among other things (Infanticide, my work and my experience as an unwanted girl child), Suzanne asked me how digital technology could help stop killing of girl children in India. My answer was, by helping women quickly seek help when they were in a crisis situation, and also share their experiences directly with the global audience.  The same day, The Epoch Times also interviewed us and published this article later.

Libya: How Will It Work for Indians?

Finally, Gaddafi is a dead guy. Libya is freed. A new era beckons the liberated country.

Even as celebrations erupt, questions are being raised over new challenges that Libya now faces: repairing the war-torn nation,  building a new economy,besides new systems of education, democracy and health.
My head is, however, clouded with one question: what about the 18,000 Indians who lived and worked in Libya not so long ago, earning  a living? Will the new Libya be just as warm to welcome them back?