- India International School teachers demoted to sales staff
- Saudi Minister Wants Chinese Wall between Girls and Boys in Schools.
- Dubious Land Deals at the Damam Indian School
- Dozen Nigerian University students killed in cult attack
- US radio to broadcast from Djibouti
- 1213 foreign companies in India
- Rape is a sharp weapon of war in the East Africa
- NAIROBI, 21 June (IRIN) - Sexual violence, perpetrated by all parties to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is "rampant" in rebel-controlled eastern part of the country, says the advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW).Its report issued on Thursday on "The War within the War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Eastern Congo" details the widespread, and in some cases systematic, use of rape on the part of Rwandan troops and their rebel allies, the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie, as well as armed groups opposed to them from Burundi and Rwanda, and an ethnic militia groups known as the Mayi-Mayi.
- Some of the combatants used rape as a form of "punishment" for civilian populations seen to be cooperating with the "enemy", HRW said. In other cases women and girls were abducted and forced to provide sexual and domestic services for periods of more than a year. Medical care in the region was practically nonexistent, and rates of HIV were thought to have reached 50 percent among fighting forces, HRW reported.
- "Rape in these circumstances can be a death sentence," it added.
- "Combatants must direct their violence against recognised military targets, not against hapless women and girls who happen to cross their paths. Those who abuse women must be held accountable for their crimes," Alison des Forges, senior adviser to the Africa division of HRW, said.
Indian International School Jeddah regains control over school property
Ashraf K.M
Jeddah: June 18, 2001.An Appeals Court in Saudi Arabia has ruled that the ownership of the land and building that houses the school's boys section is owned by the International Indian School, Jeddah, and not by the private builder who had a dubious long term lease contract with the school. Corruption in various Gulf based Indian schools has reached such an extent that the Jeddah school paid several times the cost of land and building as lease payment. Dubious land deals at inflated rent and property price is a common pattern followed by Indian schools to divert funds.
Till the handing over of the building to the school, on Sept. 12, 1994, an amount of SR18,912,789.70 was paid to Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Maimani, builder of the structure which covered more than the cost of the land and the structure, the school claimed. Further, SR11,873,646.00 was paid to the builder in due course of time "without any justification". All this money went to the builder because of a dubious lease agreement signed by the members of a former management committee with the builder, reportedly a relative of the someone controlling school activities. Obviously there was the involvement of corrupt school officials in the deal. The school had already paid the builder over SR30 million but SR6.8 million was still due when the school took Al-Maimani to court in the year 2000 since when no cash was paid out. According to IISJ Chairman Abdul Rahim "relevant records were not available either in the school or the Indian Consulate to evaluate and justify the payments demanded by the builder."
The Appeals Court upheld the plea of the International Indian School, Jeddah (IISJ) and asked the High Court to review its recent verdict dismissing IISJ's claim. The lower court had upheld the school's dubious lease contract which says that is the owner of the land and building. The court had also directed the school to continue paying the high annual lease payment to Al-Maimani. The school's management committee challenged the verdict in the Appeals Court. A letter was issued to the builder by the school requesting him to provide supporting documents about his claim which he failed to deliver.
IISJ claimed that the school building was built on a piece of land purchased under an agreement signed by the Indian Consulate, Jeddah, on behalf of the school, and the owner of the land Bajaber. The school committee alleged that the consulate in violation of the agreement issued two checks in the name of a third person (Mahmood Ahmed Al-Maimani), and also registered the property in his name. The school also claimed that there was no paper available to substantiate Maimani's claim and hence, to justify payments.
The IISD won the battle after a protracted legal battle with the former member of its managing committee over a fraudulent land lease deal. A Saudi court in Alkhobar ruled in favour of the school saying that the lease agreement signed in 1998 between Dr. Abdul Qureshi, a former acting chairman of the managing committee of the IISD, and Talal Al-Hindi, Qureshi's son-in-law who owned the plot, was null and void. The verdict on April 25, 2001 saved the school millions of riyals, which used to be paid in the form of high lease payment. (keralamonitor.com)
Dubious Land Deals at the Damam Indian School
A lease agreement was fraudulently entered into by Dr. Qureshi, in his capacity as the Chairman of the School Management Committee with his son-in-law, Al-Hindi. The lease agreement was signed for a period of 15 years from July 1998 at an annual rent of SR90,000. The school paid one year's rent to Al-Hindi and spent SR90,000 on developing the land.After the initial payment at the time of the finalization of the lease agreement, the school refused to make further payments. Reports suggest that the lease agreement was fraudulently entered into by Qureshi without proper authorisation from the Indian International School Dammam managing committee. It constituted a breach of trust on his part. Qureshi who was only an acting chairman of the school board for one month allegedly manipulated the agreement in favour of his son-in-law. During his tenure as acting chairman, he had no power of attorney to sign legal documents on behalf of the school.--Full Report
ONGC to Buy Sudanese oil Company
Indian cabinet has approved ONGC's $750-million bid for Talisman Energy Inc.'s stake in a Sudanese oil project. According to Reuters, India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. will buy Talisman's 25-percent interest in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., which runs the 230,000 barrel a day project in the impoverished and war-torn African country, Indian energy minister Ram Naik said. The bid is in line with ONGC's aim to buy stakes in foreign fields to make up for declining output in India, which imports more than two-thirds of its crude needs for its 17 refineries that process 2.3 million barrels per day., Reuters reported.Thep roject includes a 12 million acre (4.8 million hectare) concession and 1,500 km (930 mile) pipeline to the Red Sea.
Free schooling proposal in Zambia under scrutiny
LUSAKA, 19 June (IRIN) - President Levy Mwanawasa's decision to scrap cost sharing in Zambian schools and re-introduce free education has run into controversy over whether the government can afford adequate levels of funding to the country's neglected schools.
Mwanawasa argued that the reason for poor enrolment rates and a general decline in education standards was a result of high school fees. The government has since banned financial "contributions" from parents through the Parents-Teachers Associations (PTAs) - viewed by some campaigners as a hidden tax on already poor households - and announced a return to universal free primary education.
"The reintroduction of free education is not a bad idea in itself, but it must be viable before it is employed. As things stand, it has only meant that schools no longer have enough money to run smoothly," a school teacher, who asked not to be named, told IRIN.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Lusaka Basic School is its ordinariness. Its well-trimmed gardens, paved walkways and sterile corridors evoke the tedious air of academic serenity that is the expected mark of learning institutions all over the world.
However, it stands in marked contrast with the average public school in this impoverished southern African country. For less well off pupils, school campuses usually comprise little more than rundown buildings set in ill-tended grounds.
Understandably, members of Lusaka Basic's PTA are proud of the way they have maintained the school's high standards despite a slowdown in government funding to the education sector. This, they say, has been made possible by the prudent use of the PTA fund – a scheme under which pupils in virtually all schools in the country hitherto supplemented public funding through individual contributions.
"This school has always been able to supplement government funding to the tune of 70 million kwacha [about US $16,000] per year on average. That has always gone a long, long way," a Lusaka Basic schoolteacher explained.
But the government's concern about cost sharing in schools seems justified. A recent study by the Lusaka-based Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection's (JCTR) and Oxfam established that, on average, Zambian households spend twice as much on primary education as the government does. It also established that public funding of primary education is "highly erratic", with actual expenditure being only a small percentage of authorised expenditure.
The report, entitled, 'Will the Poor go to School: Cost Sharing in Education in Zambia', said cost sharing had seen a marked drop in the number of children attending school, and a deterioration of teachers' salaries and living conditions, "with a resultant negative effect on education".
Ministry of Education statistics corroborate the report. For example, only 28,000 of the 111,000 students who sat for final Grade 9 examinations last year made it to Grade 10. The 88,000 children who were sieved out of the education system joined tens of thousands of others who failed their final Grade 7 examinations last year, and countless more who were forced out of the system by prohibitive school fees.
Mwanawasa has made the campaign for universal free primary education one of his government's priorities. It is a key element of the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - making clear the link between education and development - which will govern the country's economic policies over the next several years.
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have endorsed the PRSP and said it forms "a sound basis" for International Development Association (IDA - the World Bank's soft loan window) and IMF support. However, the IMF, which earlier expressed doubts about the country's capacity to provide free education, has said that some aspects of the PRSP may be unrealistic.
"Some of the core goals and targets of the PRSP appear too ambitious. Targets and indicators need to be refined further to ensure that they are realistic and can be monitored within the allotted time frame," said IMF resident representative Mark Ellyne. He did not elaborate.
While development campaigners in general welcomed the reintroduction of free education early this year, schools in the capital are already feeling its ill effects. The lack of finance has forced many schools in and outside the capital to venture into unorthodox fundraising initiatives, such as chicken rearing and tailoring, to meet their running costs.
"Most government schools have engaged in private projects to raise money to acquire basic teaching equipment. Previously, the government, through the ministry of education, used to provide teaching equipment," the state-run Times of Zambia reported after a survey of Lusaka schools last week.
Schools have also had to cut spending on general maintenance and supplies. For example, Lusaka Basic has laid off three workers in the sanitation and maintenance departments to cut its wage bill."The results can already be seen. The grounds are not as clean as they used to be and the toilets are getting filthy," the Lusaka Basic teacher said.
However, some influential development campaigners insist that, the apparent teething problems aside, free education can be made sustainable if the government adopts more creative ways of using its limited resources.
"It may seem impossible if one takes a cursory look at the problem of mobilising resources in our current situation to meet the challenge of providing free education. However, a deeper look shows that there are ways through which Zambia can and should mobilise resources towards providing free education," argued Muweme Muweme, coordinator of the Economic and Social Development Research Project of the JCTR. "There are indeed steps, such as reducing wasteful utilisation of public resources, curbing corruption, increasing government funding to the education sector, that can be taken ... to change for the better the current disastrous education situation if there is the political will to do so," he added.
Dozen Nigerian University students killed in cult attack
LAGOS, 20 June (IRIN) - More than a dozen students were killed when an armed group, believed to be members of a student cult, attacked a rival group at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in the southeastern Enugu State, university staff said. The armed group were said to have invaded the university’s engineering faculty on Saturday in three stolen cars and opened fire on students writing examinations. Several people died on the spot.
"I can confirm that at least 12 people were killed on the spot," Val Ekechukwu, an engineering lecturer at the university told IRIN on Thursday. "Some of those rushed to hospital with critical injuries have also been reported dead," he added.
The Enugu police commissioner, Nwachukwu Egbochukwu, told reporters on Wednesday that he could not confirm the number of people killed as the full report on the incident was still awaited. But he confirmed the arrest of two people involved in the attack and said the university had been shut down to prevent further escalation of violence.
"We are looking at a conflict between two cult groups, but the picture is still hazy," Egbochukwu said. "The two people arrested are students of the university and will appear in court soon."
Nigerian universities have been plagued by violence between rival student cult groups since the mid-1970s. But the trend grew worse starting in the 1980s, with allegations by student union leaders that the fraternities had been infiltrated by the country’s military rulers who used them to neutralise militant student opposition.
Similar attacks have been recorded across universities in different parts of the country. Apart from attacks directed against rival cult groups in turf wars, student union officials campaigning against cult activities are often the targets. In March the president of the student union at the Lagos State University was shot and killed by assailants believed to members of a student cult.
US radio to broadcast from Djibouti
NAIROBI, 20 June (IRIN) - The governments of Djibouti and the United States have signed an agreement on setting up radio relay stations in Djibouti to be financed by the US, the official Djibouti news agency (ADI) reported. The agreement, signed on 18 June, provides for the installation of a medium wave transmitter and a 5-kW FM transmitter at the state-owned Radio-Television Djibouti's (RTD) relay station in Arta (southern Djibouti).
According to the agency, the transmitters "will relay Arabic radio programmes to the East African region and the Arabian peninsula".
A 2-kW FM transmitter will also be installed at RTD premises in Djibouti to relay Voice of America programmes in English, French and Arabic to listeners in Djibouti, it added.
"The government has granted the use of the 1431 kHz frequency for the medium wave broadcasts and the 100.8 and 100.2 MHz channels for the FM broadcasts," the agency said.
The agreement, which was signed for Djibouti by Communications Minister Rifki Abdoulkader Bamakhrama, and for the US by the its ambassador to Djibouti, Donald Yamamoto, is worth between US $7 million and $8 million. The transmitters are for Radio Sawa, which was launched in March by the US government as part of its efforts to provide "accurate and objective news and information programming in the Arab world" following the 11 September events in the US, the French news agency AFP added.
A total of 1213 foreign companies in India
A total of 1213 foreign companies as defined under Section 591 of the
Companies Act, 1956, were registered in the country during 2001. Of these, 72
foreign companies established their places of business in the country.The number of foreign companies in India has been increasing since 1993-94
following the emerging globalisation of Indian economy. As against 565 foreign
companies registered during 1993-94, the number of such companies went up to
619 during 1994-95, to 679 in 1995-96, to 772 in 1996-97, to 871 in 1997-98, to
956 in 1998-99, to 1045 in 1999-2000, to 1141 in 2000-01 and to more than 1213
in 2001-2002. Foreign companies in India are registered with the Registrar of Companies at
Delhi irrespective of their areas of operation in the country.
