Patna: In a bid to free food, water and air from use of dangerous chemical and toxic, an unique 100 percent organic product SteriPlant “Sanitising Water” has been launched in India by a Thailand based company ActiwaSwiss here on Wednesday.
“We are here to replace chemical pesticides in agriculture to minimize use of chemical in food industry. Our product SteriPlant, Sanitising Water is only of its kind in the World to purify water, food and air” said Mr. Jorg Peter Kalt, CEO of Bangkok based ActiwaSwiss, who has formally launched this Sanitising Water in Patna, first time in India.
“After hit the international market including in USA, Australia, to Europe, Asia, SteriPlant has now come to India. We have launched our product SteriPlant, sanitizing water” said Jorg Kalt.
Jorg Kalt, a Swiss national, who is the brain behind Sanitising Water product, which is a highly effective and safe sanitizer for purification of air, water and food, told Maeeshat that it is electric activated water with a very high oxidation reduction potential and eco-friendly. It is also a natural sanitizer reliably and effectively eliminates harmful micro organism from water, air and food.”
It is hundred percent natural non-toxic and chemical free disinfectants based on positively charged water. Ninety nine percent of all pathogen bacteria, virus and fungi get neutralized by contact. It has no side affect at all for use in agriculture, food industry, drinking water purification, hospitality and personal hygiene”.
According to him, use of SteriPlant Sanitisiing Water in agriculture is very efficient as it can reduce the use of conventional pesticides currently used by farmers. Take for example its use for production of drinking water from river water, lake water, spring water to rain water. Even it decent realized water filtration in isolated villages without electricity and temporary water supply in disaster areas. SteriPlant Sanitising Water easily removes all particles, bacteria and larger viruses from food items, he said.
Air Freshener by ActiwaSwiss is an all purpose, all natural and all powerful odor eliminator that permanently gets rid of odors. It works with strong odors like cigarette smoke, sewer smell, paint fumes, eco-friendly, non toxic, biodegradable.
He claimed that SteriPlant Sanitising Water is hundred percent safe as it has been in use by people in USA, Switzerland, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia.” After India, we will launch SteriPlant Sanitising Water in Brazil by middle of 2018”.
Jorg Kalt said India has a huge market and potential for our product is high and bigger.
ActiwaSwiss’s collaborator in India is a Patna based Angel Water Solution Pvt. Ltd. They are setting up a plant near Pawapuri in Nalanda district to produce SteriPlant Sanitising Water here to market across the country.” It will take nearly ten months to start our factory in Bihar in India. We will bring machines for it from Switzerland. Only machines will cost 200 million dollars. It is a very big project.” Jorg Kalt said.
Angel Water Solution Pvt. Limited’s managing director Mohammad Ariful Hoda said process of land acquisition for the factory is in advance stage and we hope to start construction within two months.” This Sanitising Water is a rare product which is going to be a need in every home in India in future.”
Hoda said “We will also start a research station facility because our target is to closely work with farmers producing potato, vegetables, paddy, wheat and maize”.
In its urgency to push through the Triple Talaq Bill, the government appears to have overlooked five criminal laws relating to women and marriage identified in 2015 by a government committee as needing immediate political attention.
These are: Criminalising marital rape; clarifying the definition of “cruelty by husband and his relatives”,;plugging a loophole in the anti-dowry law; ensuring the same age of marriage for women and men; and outlawing khap panchayats that impinge on the right to choose whom one wants to marry.
In its assessment of women and criminal law, the committee, formed in 2013 — 25 years after the last such panel — lists several recommendations, not restricted to Muslim personal laws alone, to help women through legislation and the justice system.
Less than a handful of these recommendations have been initiated.
“Improving the legal status of women involves a multi-pronged approach that looks first and foremost at the legislative inadequacies and state policies and schemes closely, followed by addressing the inadequate implementation of laws by the State, police and courts,” the report said.
Criminalise marital rape: Currently, there is no legal recourse for victims of marital rape as section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, provides an exception to marital rape.
“The exemption of marital rape stems from a long outdated notion of marriage which regarded wives as no more than the property of their husbands,” the report observed, adding that “the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim should be irrelevant in evaluating consent”.
Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy, who has argued for criminalising marital rape, pointed out that cases of marital rape may be filed under section 498-A of the IPC relating to “cruelty by husband and his relatives”.
“However, these laws treat victims of marital rape differently from other victims and also limit their access to compulsory free healthcare and legal aid otherwise provided to victims of rape,” Nundy told IndiaSpend. “The justice served in these cases is also limited as the perpetrators of this kind of rape are subjected to non-rape penalties that are much lighter in comparison.”
Expand definition of marital cruelty: Under section 498-A of the IPC, which refers to “cruelty by husband or relatives of husband”, the law seeks to punish the husband or his family for harassing a woman to the point of driving her to suicide or for coercing her to meet unlawful demands. If found guilty, the accused can be jailed for a term extending to three years or be fined.
Over a third, or 34 per cent (110,378 cases) of 325,652 serious crimes against women reported in 2016, were filed under section 498-A, showed National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2016. This was the most among all categories of crimes against women reported that year.
“These numbers are still low compared to the number of cases where police turn away victims of various kinds of abuse that are not merely physical,” said Flavia Agnes, women’s rights lawyer. “Since it is not clearly defined under the current law, these cases are often not registered.”
The committee has recommended that the definition of cruelty be reviewed to include “the varied forms of violence against women in the home and to ensure that it is in line with the definition of ‘domestic violence’ given under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005”.
The Act seeks to protect and shelter women who report to be facing any kind of abusive behaviour by her husband/male partner or their relatives (male and female). It clearly defines and expands the concept of abuse to include not only the physical but also verbal, emotional, sexual and economic.
As many as 31 per cent of ever-married Indian women have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional spousal violence, according to the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16. The most common type of spousal violence is physical violence (27 per cent), followed by emotional violence (13 per cent), while six per cent of ever-married women have experienced spousal sexual violence.
Amend anti-dowry law: Currently, the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, prohibits the giving or taking of dowry. An offender is subject to a minimum of five years’ imprisonment. The committee reiterated the amendments to the anti-dowry law proposed by the National Commission for Women (NCW) — widen the definition of dowry and lower the penalty levied on the giver of dowry. It recommended that stridhan (all the movable, immovable property, gifts and so on a woman receives in her lifetime) be included in the definition of dowry; and also that the legal provisions that allow a husband to inherit this stridhan be deleted.
However, in July 2017, the Supreme Court of India struck down the use of section 498-A in dowry cases, putting an end to the immediate arrest of the husband and his family in dowry cases. The court’s decision was based on the high acquittal rate in dowry cases reported under section 498-A — a median 81 per cent over the decade to 2015.
However, for a decade from 2005 to 2015, 88,467 women, or an average of 22 each day, died in dowry-related cases, indicating how little has changed despite the existence of an anti-dowry law for nearly six decades. In 2016 alone, 1,354 dowry deaths were reported, NCRB data showed.
Same minimum age of marriage: The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 outlaws child marriages — where the a boy is under 21 years of age or the girl, under 18.
The committee recommended that the minimum age be made the same. “Child marriage is not just a social norm but denial of childhood with irreversible consequences, especially for girls,” the report said.
Underage marriages, especially of girls, are rising in urban India and declining in rural India.
Criminalise khaps ordering honour killings: “Unequal economic, social and political status and position of women is an outcome of patriarchy and the deeply entrenched socio-cultural stereotypes about women. This is sometimes perpetuated by laws, regulations and policies which do not sufficiently address the subordinate status of women,” the report said.
“Honour killing is not just a way of punishing the one who has brought dishonour to the family, it is indeed a barbaric murder usually of girls.”
Since 2014 — when the NCRB started recording data on honour crimes — to 2016 honour crimes more than doubled, from 28 cases to 71 cases. In 2015 alone, 192 honour killings were recorded, NCRB data showed.
To address the high rate of such killings and their gender skew, the committee recommended a separate legislation. This would involve the shifting of criminal consequences of the extra-judicial honour killings on the khap panchayats that order them.
The committee also recommended mandatory police and legal protection for couples/women/children/families who approach any institution fearing harm at the hands of family members or community.
“Violence against women has been acknowledged as one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men and therefore a violation of women’s equality rights,” the report said.
“Passing legislation however does not indicate judicial or executive sensitivity to women’s rights. Faithful implementation of the laws is thus the essence for good governance.”
(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Alison Saldanha is an assistant editor. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
A student wears a T-shirt with a message protesting Maharashtra government’s beef ban order. (HT File photo)
Panaji : Harassed by vigilante groups, Goa’s only beef traders association on Friday said they will go on an indefinite strike from Saturday, until the government cracks down on vigilante groups who hamper bringing in beef from neighbouring states.
The association said the strike would go on till the government eases procedures to bring beef into the coastal state.
Speaking to IANS, Manna Bepari, President of the Qureshi Meat Traders Association of Goa said no beef would be available for sale in Goa, until the government steps in and resolves the issue.
“We are tired of these raids. They are not allowing our business to function. Every other day these groups target the beef consignments which we order from the open market in Karnataka and government officials also keep harassing us,” Bepari said.
“No beef shop will be open until the government helps us and stops these vigilant groups from taking law in their hands,” Bepari said.
He also said that more than five raids were conducted in the last few weeks, especially during the Christmas and New Year period, when sale of beef is at its peak in Goa.
Beef is normally consumed in the form of stew, curries, roasts, soups and is an essential protein, and one of the cheapest meats in most Christian and Muslim homes in the state.
Minorities comprise more than 30 per cent of the state’s 1.5 million population.
Cheaper than mutton, beef is also commonly consumed in the tourism-oriented coastal belt, which sees nearly six million tourists, half a million of which are foreigners.
According to official statistics from the Goa Meat Complex, the state’s only abattoir facility allowed to slaughter cattle and buffaloes, the state consumes nearly 30 tonnes of fresh beef every day.
And with the Complex not functioning to full capacity over the last few months, a majority of the beef is brought in from Karnataka by the meat traders in Goa.
New Delhi : Search engine Google on Wednesday celebrated one of Urdu literature’s most iconic poets, Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, popularly known as Ghalib (meaning conqueror).
Mirza Ghalib, who would have turned 220 this year, is shown standing on a balcony of a building of his era, with a pen and paper, and the sun and a mosque in his background.
Born in 1797, the poet, one of the most popular and influential ones in Urdu and Persian language, wrote at a time when the Mughal empire was entering its last quarter and the British were taking over in India.
His ghazals have been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people as his writing which is still extremely popular among the Hindustani diaspora.
Ghalib continues to inspire even the youngster not just in India but across the world.
He began composing poetry at the age of 11. His first language was Urdu, but he was equally efficient in Persian and Turkish. A descendent of Aibak Turks, Ghalib was born in Kala Mahal in Agra.
He received education in Persian and Arabic. Keeping with the conventions of the classical ghazal, in most of his verses, the identity and the gender of the beloved remained unknown.
Bestowed with the honorific Dabir-ul-Mulk and Najm-ud-Daula, Ghalib lived in Gali Qasim Jaan, Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi which is now known as “Ghalib Ki Haveli”.
His residence has been turned into ‘Ghalib Memorial’ and houses a permanent Ghalib exhibition.
Mirza Ghalib breathed his last on February 15, 1869. His tomb is located near Chausath Khamba, Nizamuddin area in Delhi.
72 students from 11th grade and 87 students from 12th qualify for Olympiad, 2 KVPY, 54 Pre-RMO and 2 RMO from Patna, Hyderabad & Aurangabad.
By Maeeshat News,
Patna : Students from Rahmani-30 a manifestation of Rahmani Program of Excellence have once again demonstrated an exceptional performance in the Olympiad and the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) – the international and national talent search examination. In 2015, 95 and in 2016, 61 students qualified whereas this year in 2017, 72 students from 11th grade and 87 students from 12th grade qualified in IAPT, 50 Pre-RMO & 2 RMO and 2 in KVPY from Patna, Hyderabad & Aurangabad.
This year 75 students of Rahmani-30 qualified at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and 22/31 students in the Medical stream scored above 90 percentile at the NEET. This year all of its commerce stream 12th grade students successfully completed the prestigious Stock Exchange Fundamental certification. Rahmani Program of Excellence attributes this continued trajectory of success to its evolving learning model which is producing stronger students. In addition, given the historical success, more students both from 11th and 12th grade are choosing to take these tests.
The Mathematics and Science educational Olympiad is an international talent search competition in which more than 100 countries participate in order to identify and nurture the best minds. Selection in the Olympiads is considered an epitome of achievements in the field of sciences. In India, this competition is conducted under the auspices of Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education.
The Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) is an on-going National Program of Fellowship in Basic Sciences, initiated and funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The objective of the program is to identify exceptionally highly motivated students with talent and aptitude for research; help them realize their academic potential; encourage them to take up research careers in Science, and ensure the growth of the best scientific minds for research and development in the country.
Since its inception in 2008, Rahmani Program of Excellence through the success of Rahmani-30 has reached millions of students and has been instrumental in changing their mindset towards education. The organization has been serving as the primary vehicle of information about various national examinations and opportunities that demonstrates the ability of the students. This institution has also served as a major incubator to develop and showcase these talents in form of qualifications at the IIT-JEE, NEET, Olympiad, KVPY and other national competitive examinations.
