ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 3 January 2008

CRPF Camp Attacked

UP IS JIHADIS NEW TERROR GROUND

By Insaf

Terror struck once more in UP with deadly vengeance --- this time at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Group Centre in Rampur, on a cold wintry Sunday night. Leaving eight policemen dead, the jihadis again sent a chilling reminder that they mean business. Clearly, the terrorist had done their homework, given the fact that the Rampur CRPF hub serves as the logistical and administrative backbone to five battalions posted in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East. This attack, the seventh since 2000, comes two years after the failed attack on the Ram Janamabhoomi complex in July 2005 and exposes the unprepardness of the security forces in dealing with terrorism. UP Chief Minister Mayawati promptly tried to wash her hands of the dastardly attack by accusing the Central forces of laxity as these had already been warned.  But she herself has been accused by the Congress of being “soft on terrorists.”

The State has been on the fiyadeen’s radar for the last 14 years. In fact, after Jammu & Kashmir, UP has been the worst affected terror-afflicted State. Borne out by the fact that in the last three years alone, 80 terror modules have been neutralized by the security forces. Interestingly, these modules, off-shoots of the dreaded Harkut-ul-Ansar, had made western UP their base after inheriting the infrastructure from it in 1993.  Shockingly, the State security forces which are wholly dependent on the Central forces, have been unable to make a dent in the jihadis network, which has grown many-fold in the last five years. Worse, time and again, it has not followed effectively the vital leads, resulting in cases being closed. Thanks to this lackadaisical approach, it has uptill now failed to prosecute any of the arrested terrorists, who were able to obtain bail and then disappear. Clearly, it is time for the Centre to bring in another POTA.

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Nitish Knocks Down Lalu

Bihar’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, has special reason to rejoice. He has won hands down a virtual “referendum” against the RJD Supremo, Lalu Prasad, in the Bikramganj Lok Sabha byelection, which his JD (U) candidate bagged by over 31,000 votes. Remember, Nitish has won all byelections since he came to power two years ago.  The outcome dashes all hopes of Lalu derailing Nitish, his bete noire in his home State in the near future. Needless to say, this poll should serve as an eye-opener for Lalu to realize the extent he has lost ground in Bihar, over which he lorded for 15 years. Specially as the by poll was a contest between him and Nitish Kumar with Lalu banking on the Yadav-Khushwaha-Muslim alignment. True the margin of victory was slim. But that was thanks to a low voter turnout. A visibly happy Chief Minister appropriately chides his arch rival: “Now people will only vote for development. Voting on cast lines is getting passé!”

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Heartbreak For Mayawati

In neighbouring UP, it was double heartbreak for Chief Minister Mayawati in the byelection for the Ballia Lok Sabha poll. One, her BSP candidate had to eat the humble pie by over 1.31 lakh votes. Two, he was defeated by her arch rival Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, which had fielded former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj. Mayawati and her ministerial colleagues had made the poll a prestige fight and put up Vinay Shankar Tewari, son of Gorakhpur’s dreaded mafia don, Hari Shankar Tiwari. Nevertheless, this is BSP’s first defeat in the State since Mayawati came to power. Last year, it won all the three previous Lok Sabha bypolls. The result has also dashed the hopes of the BJP riding the crest of its Gujarat and Himachal victories in the Hindu heartland as also the Congress’ expectations of reviving itself in the State. Shamefully, the candidates of both the national parties forfeited their deposits.

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CPM Wins But Warned

Traditional supporters of the CPM in West Bengal have clearly warned the party not to take their support for granted. Borne out by the decreased victory margin of nearly 8,000 votes for its candidate in the Balagarh Assembly seat in Hooghly. This is less than half the margin in the last election. Exposing that Singur and Nandigram have had a ripple effect all over the State, including the CPM’s rural strongholds. Coupled with the CPM’s pro-farmer posturing which took a beating. Most farmers continue to be fearful of losing their land. Spiraling prices also caused strong reaction, forcing loyalist cadres to go in for a serious rethink of what is best for them. In fact, had the Opposition combined to take on the CPM, it could have snatched the seat from the Red party. The total of the Trinamool (51,691) and the BJP (8,833) a former ally of Mamata Banerjee’s party, together polled more votes than CPM’s 60,101. The CPM is clearly in trouble.

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Goa Governor Blows Bugle

Goa’s Governor, S.C. Jamir, former Chief Minister of Nagaland, has blazed a new trail: playing the role of an elder statesman and candidly sharing his thoughts about the State, its people and their future. Goa, he lamented in Panaji, had become oversensitive and, in the bargain, Goans had developed a negative mindset. “Everything is being politicized and, as a result, nothing moves.” Goa, he added, should be helped to develop “a balanced mindset” and a polity that was stable and a people and politicians committed to an ideology. Jamir also blew the bugle against the prevalent electoral practices, wherein candidates “bribed their voters with drinks and money” to get elected. Such candidates, he warned, would not make good leaders. Jamir said much else that was of interest, including his opposition to SEZs in the State.  Importantly, he urged the Government to give up thoughts of making Goa another Hong Kong or Dubai and let it remain what it is --- Goa!

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President’s Rule In Nagaland

The Centre has decided to impose President’s rule in Nagaland on second thoughts. Notwithstanding, that the Assembly poll is just a month away. New Delhi was forced to rethink when 30 Congress MLAs called on President Pratibha Patil and claimed that they had won the no-confidence motion against the Neiphu Rio-led Democratic Alliance of Nagaland by 31-23 votes in the 60-member Assembly with an effective strength of 55 members. Recall, the Speaker had surprisingly barred nine MLAs from voting and declared the motion lost. Expectedly, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and his colleagues are livid. They have denounced the Centre’s decision as “murder of democracy.” The BJP, a partner in the Neiphiu Rio Government, too has criticized the Centre’s decision as “against all political ethics.” But New Delhi is clear that the DAN Government had lost its majority and Central rule was necessary on two counts: First, to stem further deterioration in the law and order situation in which militants are now ruling the roost. Two, ensure a truly free and fair vote!

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Now Incredible Ladakh

Incredible India. And now incredible Ladakh. An anti-corruption drive in picturesque Ladakh has got an icy response from the local community. Six months, 18 raids in which 31 Ladakh residents, including 14 shopkeepers, were held by the J&K police investigating large-scale theft of supplies meant for Indian troops on the Siachen Glacier has led to strong protests. Specially as the pilfered supplies are seen as subsidies, not as corruption. Each winter, when night temperatures drop below -25⁰ Celsius, local residents  are forced to depend upon fuel and food filtered from the Army since transportation costs of normal supplies are prohibitively high. As an MLA explained: “We get just 10 litres of subsidised kerosene per head per month. This is barely enough to keep one home warm for a day.” Also the allotted 1.5 kgs of daily food for those guarding Siachen is more than what is required. Thus, the locals feast on chocolates and dry fruits meant for the Army--- and protest angrily against the Government’s anti-corruption drive.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE STATES

New Delhi, 10 January 2008

ID Cards Storm

STATES ARE UP IN ARMS

By Insaf

All the States and Union Territories are up in arms against an order of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor, Tejendra Khanna, last week. One, making carrying of identity cards mandatory for people in the Capital from January 15. Two, requiring people with driving licences from other States to get them revalidated in Delhi. Little did Khanna realise that his well-intentioned order designed to “step up security in the wake of recent terror attacks” would snowball into a major controversy. Wherein faced with an angry backlash from various Chief Ministers, he was forced to beat a hasty retreat. A livid Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar termed the move as “unconstitutional and anti-Biharis” as they comprised almost a third of Delhi’s total population together with the people hailing from eastern UP. Similar  anger was expressed by the BJP, JD, BJD and UP’s Mayawati who called it “anti-Dalit” and used it to up the ante against the Congress.

True, Delhi’s Lt Governor may have been forced to backtrack on his ID cards order. Nevertheless, he has once again spotlighted the dire need for all Indians to carry proof of their identity, especially now that factories of terrorism have made India their favourite hunting ground. Recall, since the sixties the Election Commission has been crying hoarse for the need of multi-purpose identity cards for all citizens. In fact, two Chief Election Commissioners, SL Shakhdar and Peri Shastri had even worked out the proposal which would have cost the national exchequer Rs 100 crore then. But successive Governments have slept over the proposal even as the amount has increased manifold. Today, with terror becoming a byword of modern life, Khanna’s proposal should be considered seriously instead of being used as fair-game of vote-bank one-upmanship!

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NSA’s Red Alert To CMs  

More so, after the National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan has sounded a ‘red corner alert’ to all the Chief Ministers in the country, following former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. In a letter to them, he has warned that the jehadis outfits are now posing a major threat to key political leaders and advised them to beef up their security. Especially as the terrorists were using “new wave” tactics. This includes a “great deal of planning, studying the habits and activities of their targets, more sophisticated techniques and the vulnerability of the security forces.” Following this missive, the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s security has been upgraded. Surprisingly, however, the Union Home Ministry has rejected the UP Chief Minister, Mayawati’s request for SPG cover as there was a threat to her life on the facetious plea that her security was adequate!

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Politics Hits New Violent Low In UP

Politics has hit a new low in UP. If the criminalization of the polity was not bad enough the latest head-on confrontation between Chief Minister Mayawati and her bete noire, Samajwadi Chief Mulayam Singh, has brought violence to the centre stage of the political theatre. True, we are accustomed to elected legislators coming to blows in various State Assemblies. However, this is the first time that one has witnessed the BSP and SP cardres clashing in several towns and cities in the State, leaving one dead, three injured and many buses burnt . The provocation? The Samajwadi workers’ demand for the students union poll. All hell broke lose when Mulayam’s brother, Shivpal, and son, Lok Sabha MP Akhilesh, were slapped. Sadly, this in not the end. Mayawati has notified Mulayam to behave or he too would not be spared. Clearly, if this continues, brutality would become a byword for UP!  .

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BJP’s Kisan Yatras

A two victory-flush BJP is now busy readying for bigger electoral battles that lie ahead in 2008-09 ---- 9 State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha elections. Towards that end, the BJP President, Rajnath Singh, plans to make kisans one of the USPs of his campaign strategy. He is now undertaking a two-day kisan yatra to spotlight the burning issue of farmers’ suicide in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, which continue till date, notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s relief package of thousand of crore rupees. Shockingly, a recent survey on the farmers’ plight has exposed that a mere 16 per cent of the relief percolated down to the farmers. The rest was taken away by financial and land sharks. What makes the BJP Chief’s yatra all the more significant is that it is taking place at a time when strains have developed among the ruling combine, Congress and NCP, with each accusing the other of not doing enough.

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CPM: Goodbye Socialism, Hello Capitalism

Winds of change are blowing across ‘Red’ West Bengal.The Communist CPM is busy humming a new song: goodbye socialism, hello capitalism. The CPM old warhorse, Jyoti Basu took not only his comrades but also votaries of reform by surprise when he contended that capitalism was the only way to industrialise West Bengal. This has no doubt come as a shot in the arm for Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who has been the lone torch bearer for economic reformation of the State steeped under the burden of antiquated socialist models of economic governance. But it has left the CPM’S Front partners seething. They are aghast that the veteran leader is speaking the language of Manmohan Singh (read reform). Either which way, there is no gainsaying that capitalist winds of change are blowing over Red Bengal!

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Maya Dissolves Bhaichara Samitis

Is UP Chief Minister Mayawati’s honeymoon with the Brahmins over? Though it’s too early to say anything, signs of her getting wary are there. The BSP President has dissolved all Brahmin and Vaishya Bhaichara Samitis, formed last year to bring the Upper castes, closer to the BSP. And these did, as the UP Assembly elections proved. However, the defeat of its candidate Vinay Shankar Tiwari in the Ballia byelection last month has made Mayawati angry. At a recent party meeting she blamed the Brahmins for the party’s defeat in the Ballia byelection. Moreover, she has announced a reshuffle in the State unit and appointed State coordinators. Significantly, not a single Brahmin has been included. Is Mayawati going back to her party’s roots — the Dalits? Time alone will tell.

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Goan Feni To Get Patent

The New Year has good news for the Goans. Its famed Kaju Feni shall soon “get patent and we will easily be able to export it,” says the Feni Producers’ Association. Goa is the only place in the world where Feni (liquor) is produced from the juice of cashew apple. Though the process was introduced in Goa nearly 450 years ago by the Portuguese, nowhere in Portugal, or anywhere else is feni produced from Kaju fruit. Goa has over 2,000 distillation outlets and factories working overtime. A team of officers from the Geographical Indications Registry, Chennai were recently satisfied with the Association’s claim and the Government expects certification by early May. The GIR will publish the information on the “World Trademark’ journal inviting objections. A period of four months hence should see the Kaju Feni, in all probability, patented to the joy of the Goans!. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Events & Issues

New Delhi, 1 April 2008

Doha Round Talks

UNREALISTIC & LITTLE HOPE  

Dr. P. K. VASUDEVA

It has been reported by the commerce and industry ministry that India is preparing for a WTO ministerial meeting in Geneva in May 2008. This has raised the hope that there could be a successful resolution of the ongoing Doha Round negotiations. The reason being attributed for this meeting is that the US would like to settle the Doha agenda before the US Presidential elections. While this is certainly in the interest of all the WTO members, India should not show undue haste to cobble together an accord just for the sake of accommodating the US election schedule.

The country has seriously taken the WTO Director-General, Mr. Pascal Lamy’s suggestion that since there is no point in continuing with the negotiations as one gets closer to the US polls, these would need to be suspended around mid-year. According to him, a Ministerial meeting held before the suspension would not only imply political acceptance by the WTO member-States of the progress made before the talks are suspended, but would also make it difficult for the next US Administration to ignore what has been achieved at the negotiating table.

Lamy’s point of view seems to have some weightage, but the more important point is to truly agree on a body of accords that could then be formalised by the proposed Ministerial meeting. So far the prospects of a meeting point between the developed and the developing countries seem bleak. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, the Commerce Minister Kamal Nath made it clear that there were around 150 points of discord in the farm negotiations, which had to be reduced to not more than 50 before a ministerial could be held. The scale of the disagreement, as indicated by Nath is the result of intense bargaining spread over nearly six years, which makes the expectation of having two-thirds of the troublesome points being settled in the course of another five or six weeks unrealistic.

This is one of the dangers the Doha Round is facing today, one that could derail the WTO from the good work it is currently doing (mainly in the dispute-settlement sphere) and also ‘defang’ it vis-a-vis future trade liberalisation programmes. Nath has time and again emphasised that the content of any agreement is much more important than meeting schedules, a point reiterated by the EU Trade Commissioner as a principle earlier when he said viz the India-EU trade talks that both New Delhi and Brussels wanted to “deliver what is best for both of us and not the fastest”.

Much is being expected of the revised agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) drafts, which will be released shortly, as also of the services’ negotiations (of crucial importance to New Delhi), which have finally got under way. The ground realities, however, point to hurdles which will be difficult to cross in so short a time.

The point of concern is that the problems in the way of clinching an agreement on the Doha Round have been there right from day one. This was more than six years ago, when the talks began after the fourth WTO Ministerial conference held in Doha in November 2001, with two deadlines — the original January 1, 2005 and the unofficial target of end 2006 — passing without any substantive progress in overcoming the obstacles. Thus, it would be nothing short of a miracle if, in the course of the next three weeks, a worthwhile initiative suddenly materialises and produces results which have for long eluded the best international trade negotiators.

Admittedly, a hastily arranged patch-up is possible but, as New Delhi has warned, any “accord” must stand or fall on its contents and not on its scheduling. In fact, the strongest signal that the Doha Round talks were as good as dead was hoisted in June 2007, when the G-4 Potsdam negotiations (among the US, the EU, India and Brazil) collapsed, with the Commerce Minister stating unambiguously that the developed countries were looking “at promoting and protecting the prosperity of their farmers” while in India the effort was to protect “the livelihood of our farmers”.

The blame was put on Brazil and India for not being flexible. The point being conveniently overlooked that the rich economies were expected to sacrifice a proportionately larger part of their economic interest compared to the poor in terms of the Doha Development Agenda. The gulf between the two sides is still so wide that while, Kamal Nath focused on the problems in the farm sphere, the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, said he was more worried about the differences on issues pertaining to trade in industrial goods. The responses indicate that the revised agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) drafts, released in February 2008 by the chairmen of the respective WTO negotiating groups in Geneva, have made no effective progress.

Does this mean the end of the road for the WTO? Not quite. Because while the Doha Round has failed to make progress till now, trade liberalisation measures distilled from the earlier rounds remain in force — rules and guidelines that can still be used by aggrieved parties to seek redress from the WTO’s dispute resolution bodies. Instructively, the latest beneficiaries have been both the developed and developing worlds, the US, the EU and Canada winning their case against Chinese auto-part import tariffs, and India and Thailand having their stand on US import conditions for shrimp exports upheld.

The Commerce Ministry has done well to draw attention to the need to focus on the content of the Doha Round negotiations rather than on the schedule. Admittedly, there is nothing new in this because this has precisely been New Delhi’s stand over the past couple of years. Even so, the issue has gained in importance now because of the critical shortage of time available to the international community to get a WTO deal done. This is perhaps why the emphasis has now shifted to the so-called “horizontal” approach, in which participants in the negotiations are expected to include officials, envoys and even Ministers.

As Nath has put it, the urgency with which the negotiations need to be conducted has to be “calibrated against the backdrop of realism” and, what is even more important, it has to “match the aspirations of the developing world” and conform to the development-oriented spirit of the Doha Round. While the telescoping of the negotiations road-map is understandable, given the indispensability of getting a deal signed and delivered by the end of the year, the ground conditions in the different sectors are far from conducive.

Thus, if one takes the farm scenario, the specific issues which have to be settled are not only quite voluminous--the US Trade Representative, Ms Susan Schwab, has said that “a significant number of the 40-odd outstanding issues” in the farm talks need to be settled before Ministers can be asked to join the negotiations — the differences among the various parties involved on a number of intra-sectoral subjects remains as big as ever.

Further, while the talks on agriculture--which have not made any substantive progress --have hogged the limelight, the negotiations on market access for NAMA, as the Commerce Minister sees it, have been plagued by the fact that the last draft text represented the views of “only one set of advanced countries while almost completely cold-shouldering the views of over a 100 developing countries”.

In view of all this, it is apparent that the outlook for the Doha Round is bleak, and it remains to be seen whether the fresh agriculture and NAMA drafts, to be presented shortly by the chairmen of the two negotiating groups in Geneva, will help to alter its fortunes. The problem is that even if they manage to do so, there are a host of other areas such as services, rules, trade-related intellectual property rights, etc, which may play spoilsport. Not because of an intrinsic inability to resolve the differences, but because there is just not enough time to discuss in-depth the problem-issues, without which a truly useful Doha Round for the poor world would not be possible. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Events & Issues

New Delhi, 24 March 2008

Scarlett Keeling Case

BE SERIOUS ABOUT TOURISTS’ SAFETY

By Syed Ali Mujtaba

The rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, on a Goa beach has once again caught the attention of the nation towards the growing crime against foreign tourists in India. Thanks to the media, the darker side of ‘Incredible India’ is at full display.

Scarlett’s case is not the first of its kind. It’s only the tip of the iceberg. Newspaper columns from different parts of the country are often filled with reports of alleged sexual assaults on the foreign tourists

Earlier, three British women were raped and sexually assaulted in Goa. Another report says a British freelance journalist was raped by a guesthouse owner in Udaipur. An American woman was molested at a temple in Pushkar. Two Japanese were gang-raped in Agra. A South Korean was raped near Manali. Two teenage girls from Canada were sexually assaulted by security guards at a hotel in Kerala.

One can add on to the list but it would be suffice to say that these cases are assuming alarming proportion in the country. The government statistics show that there were 19,348 rape cases reported in 2006, compared with 15,847 in 2005 in the country. Trend suggests there has been no let up in the crime against the foreign tourists. There is every reason to believe that the crime graph would have gone up during 2007-08.

If one tries to do psychoanalysis of all such cases the common thread is that most of the victims happen to be fair complexioned. Not a single report of sexual assault has been reported against any black females. Why?

Sudhir Kakar, an authority on human behavior explains that Indian men prefer fair skin to the dusky ones. And, there is nothing fairer than white. If one needs to be convinced on this point, one has to turn to the matrimonial pages to find all the potential brides are fair complexioned!

Then there are very wrong impressions that some Indian men carry about the white females. They are widely regarded as promiscuous who treat sex as casually as shaking hands. So, if an Indian youth bothers a white woman walking alone on the street, there is nothing abnormal about it. Seeing such a sight, it’s the psychic disorder that comes into play, adds Kakar.  

Notwithstanding such pithy comments, one has to accept the fact that western tourists are a vulnerable lot. They usually haven't been around long enough and their ignorance leads to their exploitation. Their polite responses, which come across as being helpful and friendly are often construed as something else. Their ignorance to distinguish between the right and wrong signals make them easy prey to criminals.

The Government has finally been forced to take note. It is seized of the matter and has reviewed the security measures with the tourism ministers of different States.  The State governments have been reminded of their commitment to deploy tourists’ police at all important sites. However, so far only 10 States have complied with the government order and the rest have shown their inability due to unknown reasons.  

The problem is not as simple –of issuing orders or of raising a tourist police force. There are five million foreign tourists expected to visit the country and their security issues need a serious thought. It is high time that the Indian Tourists Development Corporation (ITDC) should play a proactive role in this regard. Its offices, which have a presence in almost all the tourists’ locations, have to assume a bigger role and responsibility to handle the tourists. Since the tourists can connect such offices much more easily, than the police station, the ITDC offices should be made the nodal point to register such cases.

The ITDC offices then can take up issues of crime against the tourists, and pursue it with local police officials. It should also as starters save tourists from touts at the airports and the ever-fleecing taxi drivers. Perhaps, specific counters should be opened by it at airports, train and bus stations.

Unfortunately, the ITDC offices are functioning like a white elephant. They have work but no responsibility. Rarely would they help tourists except in few cases. It would be worthwhile to do conduct a survey amongst tourists to what extent ITDC is of help to them and what is it that they expect from it.

If tourism has to be promoted in a big way in our country, the grey area of security of tourists needs special attention. Apparently whenever there is some hue and cry in the media about tourists becoming victims, the authorities get into action and try to improve the situation, which regrettably lasts only a short while. And, then slips back into the same casual rot.   

The onus of the security of tourists should also rest on other stakeholders in the tourism industry. They must realize that the tourists are “gooses that lay golden eggs,” and if they are maltreated or fleeced then they are risking their own source of livelihood.  The tour operators, hoteliers, cab drivers, guides, shopkeepers and all those involved in the hospitality sector should act as a watchdog to ensure that the tourists have a pleasant stay in the country.

Unfortunately, this is not happening. Some unwanted elements within the hospitality sector are denting India’s reputation as a safe and easygoing tourist destination. Such persons, basically criminals operating under the cloak of hospitality sector, need to be identified and reported to the police. The hospitality industry should keep a track of cases involving tourists long after they are gone and ensure that whoever be the criminals are brought to book and justice done.  

The stakeholders must too realize that all foreign tourists are neither ‘money bags,’ nor ‘promiscuous’. Many of them could be less wealthy then the average Indians and have come basically to see this beautiful country and its people. We need to play good hosts.  

Last but not the least, the onus of safety also lies on the tourists themselves. They must take precautions rather than be casual or over confident of their safety. The world-wide popular Lonely Planet guide has cautioned women of the dangers of traveling alone in India. It advises female tourists to refrain from wearing sleeveless blouses; tight-fitting clothing or to present any bare dare look.

"Getting constantly stared at is something you'll simply have to get used to in India. Just walk confidently and refrain from returning male stares, as this may be considered a ‘come-on’. Try freezing someone who is too persistent in his attentions or getting uncomfortably familiar, and walk in a manner that puts out a clear signal: don't mess with me. Don't accept invitations for a drink or a movie or a ride from men they do not know,” says Lonely Planet.

The Scarlett Keeling case is neither the first incident nor will be the last in the country. However, it has once again highlighted the horrendous growing problem of molestation, rape and murder of tourists in the country. If such incidents of ‘national shame’ are not halted immediately, we could just as well bid goodbye to ‘Incredible India!’ -- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)