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After a Bullet in the Head, Assaults on a Pakistani Schoolgirl\'s Character Follow

A graphic posted on Facebook this week comparing Aafia Siddiqui, top left, a devout Pakistani Muslim jailed in the United States, to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl who professed admiration for President Barack Obama before she was shot by Taliban militants. A graphic posted on Facebook this week comparing Aafia Siddiqui, top left, a devout Pakistani Muslim jailed in the United States, to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl who professed admiration for President Barack Obama before she was shot by Taliban militants.

As a Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by Taliban militants last week fights for her life in a British hospital, a battle to tarnish her reputation is being waged on social networks and news s ites in Pakistan.

In yet another statement to the Pakistani media defending the assassination attempt, a Taliban spokesman claimed on Tuesday that young Malala Yousafzai, who had criticized the Islamists for closing girls' schools in a blog she wrote for the BBC when she was 11, was “a spy who divulged secrets” and “created propaganda.” The spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, also took pains to note reports that the girl had turned 15 in July, suggesting that this meant that she was no longer a child. “Even if no sign of puberty becomes noticeable,” he said, “this age of the girl marks the end of pre-puberty phase.” That being the case, he added, the “Taliban executed the attack on an adult girl only after she emerged as a pivotal character in the media war against us.”

The Taliban's media wing issued the statement after an outpouring of sympathy for the girl, and anger at the militants, swept Pakistan. As my colleague Declan Walsh reported, “Front -page headlines have carried updates of her medical treatment, schoolchildren held prayer services and candlelight vigils, and the political system has united to condemn the Taliban with an unusual vehemence and unity.”

That solidarity, however, has been less than universal online, where extreme nationalists and politicians from religious parties who support the Taliban have attempted to tarnish the image of the young activist by spreading rumors of her supposed complicity with the American military. One of the main elements in the viral campaign is a mislabeled image of Malala and her father, Ziauddin, meeting in 2009 with President Obama's envoy to the region, the late Richard Holbrooke.

As the Pakistani journalist and blogger Beena Sarwar noted, the image was posted on T witter repeatedly by Samia Raheel Qazi, a senior figure in Pakistan's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Ms. Qazi, who is the daughter of the party's former leader, added a caption that falsely claimed that the child had attended “a meeting with American military officers.”

Far from being a glimpse of a secret meeting, however, the image is actually a still frame taken from a documentary about the family made by my colleague Adam Ellick. As the film makes clear, the Yousafzais and other grassroots activists were invited to meet the American diplomat on July 24, 2009, as they made their way home to the Swat Valley, following a Pakistani military operation to regain control of the region from Taliban militants. When it was her turn to speak, Malala said simply, “I will request you all, and respected Ambassador, I will request you that if you can help us in our education, so please help us.”

After Ms. Qazi circulated the falsely captioned image of Mal ala with Mr. Holbrooke, several Pakistani journalists expressed outrage that she appeared to be spreading rumors about the young shooting victim.

Maham Ali, a rights activist who knows Malala, called for “the hate tweets” to stop.

In a subsequent update, the Islamist politician defended her decision to circulate the image by endorsing, obliquely, the theory that Malala's shooting was part of an American-led conspiracy to justify further strikes in Pakistan. Ms. Qazi wrote that she had shared the image only because “we condemn those w ho used this little candle in the wind.”

In addition to Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana, Ms. Qazi appeared to be referring to a conspiracy theory promoted in recent days by Islamist politicians and nationalists who claim that Malala was shot by American intelligence agents in order to deflect criticism of drone strikes or build public support for Pakistan's Army to move against militants in the tribal area of North Waziristan.

Her father, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, who is the Islamist party's former leader, hinted darkly at the conspiracy on Pakistani television, condemning those who, he said, “used Malala.”

Before she circulated the image, Ms. Qazi passed on a series of claims from conspiracy theorists who insisted that the attack was a ploy.

In a detailed report on the viral campaign against Malala on Pakistani Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, Jahanzaib Haque, the Web editor of the English-language Express Tribune, explained that the conspiracy theory widely shared online is outlined in an article headlined “C.I.A. Behind Attack on Malala; Attackers Are in Afghanistan.”

That report, from a Web site called The Lahore Times, which is set up to look like a replica of The New York Times, begins with the a ssertion that the “United States of America was behind the attack” on the schoolgirl. It goes on to claim that Taliban militants are in fact American agents: “Evil U.S. forces created a dirty plan to kill Malala and they gave the task to Tehreek-e-Taliban or Black Water (Xe).” A part of the report in bold type, somewhat broken English, calls the Pakistani Taliban, “a coward terrorists organization which works close with C.I.A., Mossad and R.A.W.” referring to the American, Israeli and Indian intelligence agencies.

As Mr. Haque reported, another formulation of the same theory was posted on Facebook by the Pakistani nationalist blogger Ahmed Quraishi, who wrote:

Fact is, the U.S. is partially responsible for Malala Yousafzai's plight. The killers of Malala are a bunch of criminals known as ‘Swat Taliban.' This terror group was roundly defeated by Pakistan Army in 2009 and flushed out from northern Pakistan. That action by Pakistani militar y was a lesson to American commanders in Afghanistan in how to successfully defeat terrorists.

But Pakistani officials have discovered last year to their horror that the entire leadership of this terror group, the ‘Swat Taliban' is alive and well and thriving in terror ‘training and resting' camps inside Afghanistan under the watch of U.S. Army.

An illustration shared on Pakistani Facebook pages this week, suggesting that the United States was responsible for the shooting of Malala Yousafzai.Screenshot by Jahanzaib Haque/ Express Tribune An illustration shared on Pakistani Facebook pages this week, suggesting that the United States was responsible for the shooting of Malala Yousafzai.

Although it requir es a deeply conspiratorial mind to believe, as Pakistani nationalists do, that the American military has the power to choose which Islamist militants operate from areas of Afghanistan under the control of the Afghan Taliban, every good conspiracy is woven from scraps of the truth. As the journalist Ahmed Rashid explains in a post for The New Yorker, the Pakistani Taliban's leader, Mullah Fazlullah, described as the mastermind of the attack on Malala, does appear to be based in Afghanistan.

Fazlullah's forces were defeated by the Pakistani Army in 2009 after the public was incensed by a video showing Fazlullah's gunmen flogging naked women. The army, also under enormous American pressure, moved some 2.5 million people out of the Swat Valley and sent in eighty thousand troops to clear Swat of militants-except that Fazlullah and his commanders escaped across the border into Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan. From Kunar, which is under the control of like-minded Al Qaeda affiliates, the Afghan Taliban, and multiple other groups from Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, and Europe, Fazlullah has recently relaunched his movement, attacking army posts inside Pakistan's tribal belt and then retreating back to Kunar, where Pakistan cannot touch him.

While Mr. Rashid does not embrace the theory that Mullah Fazlullah is an American agent, he notes, “Afghan officials have quietly admitted to me that Fazlullah's actions are being backed by the Afghan intelligence services. (Officially, Afghanistan denies all such charges.)” The Lahore-based journalist adds:

Afghan support for extremists like Fazlullah is, in a sense, return pay. Pakistan's army has done exactly the same thing for the past twelve years-allowing Afghan Taliban to launch strikes into Afghanistan against United States and Afghan forces and then retreat back into Pakistan. Now both countries are more evenly balanced in this dang erous, brutal, bloody proxy war-one that is leading to open war, with Pakistan's army shelling Fazlullah's camps and Afghan villages in Kunar almost every day, angering the Afghan public.

Late last year, when Afghan forces got involved in a nighttime firefight along the disputed and thinly-guarded border between Pakistan's Mohmand tribal region and Afghanistan's Kunar Province, they called in American airstrikes on positions that were only identified later as Pakistani Army posts. Two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed and Pakistan's government responded by closing NATO supply routes into Afghanistan and ordering the Central Intelligence Agency to vacate an air base in Pakistan used for drone operations.

Another part of the online backlash to the support shown for Malala were demands from Pakistani nationalists that the media should pay as much attention to the victims of American drone strikes. Several images of children said to have been wounded or killed in drone strikes were sent to journalists, with the demand that they be given equally intense coverage.

One of the journalists, Beena Sarwar, pointed out that one widely circulated, heartbreaking image, presented as an example of an overlooked drone victim, actually showed a seven-year-old girl named Laiba who was shot by members of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Constabulary in 2008.



Now in New York: Delhi\'s Moti Mahal and a \'Dosateria\'

The Dosateria, a dosa bar in Manhattan, New York City.Courtesy of Christina Nuzzo/Life Mosaic PhotographyThe Dosateria, a dosa bar in Manhattan, New York City.

Indian restaurant openings in New York City aren't always newsworthy, but the two new eateries this fall stand out - they're neither the typical nondescript corner curry joint, nor are they the new breed of Michelin star-aspiring, high-end boîtes.

Call them Indian food for every day.

First, Dosateria, a 25-seat dosa bar, opened inside the blocklong Whole Foods in TriBeCa in Manhattan.

Diners sit around the tawa, or griddle, where these savory rice crepes are cooked. With Dosateria, the natural foods supermarket chain is expanding a relationship with the Indian restaurant and catering company Café Spice, which provides Indian cuisine in 150 of Whole Foods's hot buffets across the country.

Indian food offerings like saag paneer and chicken curry, which mostly come from the country's north, were already tremendously popular with Whole Foods customers, said Michael Sinatra, public relations manager for Whole Foods Market in the northeast, so it made sense to branch out to South Indian cuisine. Dosas “cater to all kinds of diets including vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free,” he said.

Dosateria is run by 37-year-old Hari Nayak, a chef and cookbook author from Karnataka who has worked in the kitchen of Daniel, which has three Michelin stars. The menu he has created reflects his dual backgrounds: for starters, customers can choose between a white rice and whole grain batter. And while they can order the traditional masala option, a spiced potato filling, they can also go for mo re unusual picks like butter chicken and brie, tofu masala, coconut shrimp or meatball with avocado and jack cheese.

The chutneys include the standard coconut and cilantro mint but also mango-fennel and tomato-mustard. A bowl of sambar comes with the dosas, and the average price of a generously sized plate is $10.

If Dosateria is a hit with customers the way the Café Spice hot bar has become, Whole Foods will expand it to other locations, Mr. Sinatra said. (Whole Foods is at 270 Greenwich St., phone: 212-349-6555)

Meanwhile, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which was sorely lacking in palatable Indian restaurants, a legend has opened: Moti Mahal Delux. The restaurant is a branch of the famed Delhi-based eatery, which started in the 1970s with a fast food outpost in Old Delhi. A few years later, a “Delux” version opened in south Delhi with proper table service and became known for its Mughlai cuisine like kaali daal, kebabs and butter chicken, which it claims to have invented. There are more than 100 Moti Mahal franchises around the world, but this is the only in the United States.

Butter Chicken served at Moti Mahal.Courtesy of Moti MahalButter Chicken served at Moti Mahal.

The chef and owner of the American branch, Gaurav Anand, 30, who is originally from Delhi, said he replicates these specialties using the same cooking techniques that are used in the original Moti Mahal.

Mr. Anand, who also runs two Indian restaurants in the Curry Hill neighborhood, said that he and a team of four other cooks spent five months perfecting the dishes to meet the standards of the brand owners. “They were adamant that we use nothing canned and only antibiotic-free farm-raised chicken and lamb to get that really tender taste,” he said. “We have no pastes and nothing frozen.”

The only butter used is the Amul brand, imported directly from India; the daal is cooked for 18 hours in six-layered Indian copper pots; the meat is sourced from local farms, and the velvety butter chicken starts with a base of tomatoes, ginger, spices and cilantro that's boiled for several hours before it's pureed into a curry. A meal of an appetizer, entrée, a side and either bread or rice runs about $25 a person. (1149 First Ave., at 63rd Street, 212-371-3535)



Pandit Steps Down as Citi\'s Chief

10:26 a.m. | Updated

Citigroup's board said on Tuesday that Vikram S. Pandit had stepped down as chief executive, effective immediately, and would be succeeded by the head of the bank's European and Middle Eastern division, Michael L. Corbat.

His resignation comes after long-simmering tensions with the bank's board. In particular, the board's chairman, Michael E. O'Neill, had been increasingly critical of Mr. Pandit's management, according to several people close to the bank.

Mr. Pandit was seen by some board members as not being able to quickly and effectively execute strategy, lurching from crisis to crisis, these people said. There were concerns he lacked the breadth of vision needed to turn the bank around. “He was considered more technically skilled,” one Citi executive said.

John P. Havens, the bank's president and a longtime associate of Mr. Pandit's, has also resigned.

Some at the bank sai d on Tuesday that they believed Brian Leach, the bank's chief risk officer, could depart soon as well, especially because he was extremely close to Mr. Pandit.

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Inside the bank, the news was greeted with shock. A huge gasp was audible on the trading floor in Manhattan as employees watched the news on monitors showing CNBC, according to several employees. When Mr. Havens's resignation was reported, some employees on the trading floor jumped up from their chairs.

The surprising departures come just a day after the firm reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings. Excluding a number of one-time charges - including a big loss tied to the continued exit from the Smith Barney brokerage - Citigroup earned $3.27 billion, or $1.06 a share. That exceeded analysts' average estimate of 96 cents a share.

“There is nothing better than our third-quarter earnings announcement to demonstrate definitively that we have turned this company around,” Mr. Pandit said in a memo to employees.

Yet those results paled in comparison with the earnings an nounced on Friday by JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Spurred by exceedingly low interest rates, and the Federal Reserve bond-buying program, there has been a recent resurgence in mortgage lending, bolstering those banks.

Yet Citigroup appeared to have been caught flat-footed. In its earnings call on Monday, John Gerspach, the bank's chief financial officer, intimated that the bank was slow in staffing up to deal with the mortgage activity.

Within the board, some believed Mr. Pandit's lack of foresight and planning contributed to the bank's missed opportunity, the people close to Citigroup said.

Shares of Citigroup were up slightly in midmorning trading on Tuesday.

Discussions to line up a ready successor to Mr. Pandit have been in the works at Citigroup over the last year, according to several people familiar with the matter. One leading candidate to succeed Mr. Pandit had been Jamie Forese, head of securities and banking. Inside the bank, however, Mr . Pandit had expressed his commitment to stay at the helm of the bank until it was on firmer footing.

During Mr. Pandit's tenure, which began in December 2007, the bank struggled through enormous market upheaval and needed several rescue lines from the government. But it has slowly recovered, in large part by shedding big portions of its businesses. Among them is Smith Barney, the brokerage operation that is being absorbed by Morgan Stanley.

“Given the progress we have made in the last few years, I have concluded that now is the right time for someone else to take the helm at Citigroup,” Mr. Pandit said in a statement. “I could not be leaving the company in better hands.”

With his departure, just two men who ran Wall Street banks during the financial crisis remain in their posts: Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. Both firms rebounded from the upheaval much more quickly and strongly than Citigroup.

Mr. Pandi t, an immigrant from India who quickly ascended the ranks of Morgan Stanley before turning to hedge funds, was long seen as an unusual choice to lead Citigroup. But the banking giant purchased Old Lane, his investment firm, and then tapped him in December 2007 to do what a succession of leaders could not: push the firm back to profitability.

Born of a string of acquisitions by Sanford I. Weill, Citigroup initially seemed like an imposing colossus on Wall Street, combining investment and consumer banking, hedge fund services and insurance. But the firm whose birth presaged the fall of decades-old banking regulations proved unwieldy to manage, with a labyrinthine bureaucracy and underperforming divisions.

Under Charles O. Prince III, Mr. Pandit's predecessor, the firm announced more than $18 billion in write-downs because of souring investments in complex mortgage securities known as collateralized debt obligations.

When stepping down, Mr. Weill was very deli berate in choosing his successor. Later, he regretted, privately, that he had not spurred more competition before tapping Mr. Prince.

In an acknowledgment of the difficult task ahead, Mr. Pandit said that he would take a token $1 annual salary until the firm began earning profit again. But the untested chief executive struggled with turbulent markets, culminating in the financial crisis that left Citigroup in need of a $45 billion bailout from the government.

He quickly adopted a deferential tone to Congress and regulators, backing tougher banking rules and moving quickly to shed nonessential businesses like Smith Barney. His ultimate goal had been to transform Citigroup into a smaller bank that focused on safer investment banking and consumer and corporate lending.

Mr. Pandit first brought Citigroup back to profitability two years ago, and by the end of 2010 the government had cashed out its remaining investment in the firm, earning a $12 billion profit fo r taxpayers. That performance drew praise from many within the firm's ranks: “The man deserves to be paid,” Richard D. Parsons, the bank's then-chairman, told New York magazine that year.

The bank's shareholders were less certain about that, still dissatisfied with a firm whose stock had fallen 89 percent since he took over. They vetoed a $15 million pay package for Mr. Pandit in April, in the first major rebuke against the chief of a major financial firm.

As head of Citigroup's business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Mr. Corbat represents what many on the board consider the bank's new direction, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The bank has been working to focus its growth on international markets that are not riven by the same problems as the United States.

Also adding to Mr. Corbat's desirability, he helped wind down some of the soured assets in Citi Holdings.

As news of the management upheaval spread througho ut the ranks at Citigroup on Tuesday morning, some employees pointed to Mr. Corbat's elevation to chief executive as a censure of Mr. Pandit's leadership.

Mr. Corbat, in an internal memo to employees on Tuesday, said he would begin by immersing “myself in the businesses and review reporting structures.”

But some employees noted that Mr. Corbat had already indicated change ahead. In the memo, he said: “These assessments will result in some changes, and I will make sure to communicate these changes with you as decisions are made so that you are informed and updated.”

The bank has struggled to make up for lackluster revenue. In March, Citigroup was waylaid by a decision from the Federal Reserve to reject the bank's proposal to buy back shares and increase its dividend.



India Pledges Millions for Global Biodiversity

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressing the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.Mahesh Kumar A/Associated PressPrime Minister Manmohan Singh addressing the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday.

HYDERABAD, India

India will be the first nation to contribute funds toward international targets aimed at protecting the world's biodiversity, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday.

The Indian government will earmark $50 million toward reaching the so-called Aichi targets, 20 goals set in Nagoya, Japan, two years ago to curb damage to the world's ecosystems and the extinction of its plants and animals, the prime minister said, speaking at a United Nations conference on biodiversity in Hyderabad.

A commitment to an international effort on the environment represents a shift for the country, which has refused to accept mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

“In recent years, it has become increasingly more difficult to find common ground on environmental issues,” Mr. Singh said. “This is, indeed, unfortunate given that there is today a much higher global awareness of environmental risks and concerns.”

This consciousness should provoke nations to “greater action even as we cope with the pressures of the current global economic downturn,” he said. (Read the full speech here.)

Though intended only as a start, India's contribution is just a small fraction of the estimated $80 billion necessary to halt the extinction of species and preserve natural sites, according to a new study by BirdLife Internation al.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Environment and Forests estimates that India spends around 110 billion rupees ($2 billion) per year on protecting the environment. That number includes projects that directly conserve nature, like creating protected areas for endangered species, and more indirect means like creating “green jobs” through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, ministry officials said.

While scientists and environmentalists welcomed the Indian government's international commitment Tuesday, many say the government pursues policies at home that emphasize rapid growth â€" especially in areas like farming, mining and urbanization â€" at the expense of the environment.

India is considered to be one of the world's 17 “megadiverse” countries, and is home to 45,000 types of plants and 90,000 types of animals, according to United Nations estimates. But as a growing economy and fast-rising population increase demands for the Earth's resour ces, rapid expansion in commercial agriculture and urban development have threatened many of those species.

“All over the country you find that, in the name of economic growth, ecosystems are being diverted for destructive projects like mining and nuclear power plants,” said Ashish Kothari, founder of the environmental group Kalpavriksh.

Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, said that while India once took the lead in conservation efforts, the government is no longer serious about protecting the country's wildlife.

“The forest and wildlife habitats of India are biodiversity hotspots that have to be protected under any circumstances,” said Ms. Wright. “And for that, we need leadership to show a very strong policy view on protecting biodiversity, forest land and wildlife. But they just say we're spending millions without pushing the policy that reflects that commitment.”

Activists acknowledge that the governme nt has passed some strong legislation to protect the environment but say it often fails in implementation.

For instance, in his speech Mr. Singh heralded the Forest Rights Act, which gives property and resource rights to the mainly tribal communities that live in forests, as an example of “new models of inclusive conservation.” Mr. Kothari said the act went far to preserve forests and the rights of forest dwellers but was often not enforced in forests with mining interests.

“Legislation that is supposed to save forest people's rights is not being implemented, and on the other hand massive land-grabbing is taking place in the name of development,” Mr. Kothari said.

Government officials argue that India is balancing the need for development with the need to protect its environment.

“We really have an excellent record, you know, considering the population and biodiversity we support on our relatively small piece of land,” said M.F. Farooqui, the Ministry of Environment and Forests official overseeing the United Nations biodiversity convention. “We are striking the right balance between the imperative for growth and development and at the same time the need for sustainability and biodiversity.”

During his speech, the prime minister said that conservation efforts were especially necessary for the poor, who disproportionately depend on the ecosystem for their livelihoods. “India's initiatives acknowledge the correlation between biodiversity conservation and poverty eradication,” Mr. Singh said. “Our efforts have focused on biodiversity conservation while protecting and promoting livelihoods, particularly in our rural areas.”

Madhusudan Katti, an ecologist at California State University who co-authored a report titled “Cities and Biodiversity Outlook,” which was released at the convention, said that half of India's population is expected to live in cities by 2045, but that the cities need to be better planned to co-exist with a wide range of species.

“If urban development pays attentions to ecological needs, then you could incorporate elements that allow for the movement of animals and so on,” he said. “A lot of Indian wildlife has actually evolved to life around the edges of human inhabitations. But I don't see the government â€" or ecologists â€" giving much attention to these big changes that are happening in terms of urbanization and climate change.”

Government officials say they recognize how environmental damage from growth hurts human lives and are working to fix it. For instance, Bangalore is currently spending 1.4 billion rupees (about $30 million) per year to revive its polluted lakes, many of which are too toxic to support aquatic life.

“Bangalore is a very unique city because there is no running water around,” said Brijesh Kumar, who heads the project. “So Bangalore is very critically dependent on lakes for drinkin g water and ecosystem services.”

Mr. Singh also said that the Indian government created a 34 million-page database of traditional medicinal and agricultural techniques, in order to fight patents issued on traditional knowledge like Ayurveda â€" a major concern at the convention â€" and that it would increase efforts to save endangered species like snow leopards and lions.

The rest of the convention on biological diversity, which ends on Friday, will focus on how many other countries agree to the Nagoya protocol and provide resources to meet the Aichi targets.

“Diversity is nature's insurance against extreme events that may disturb the delicate balance of this planet,” said Mr. Singh. “We need to work together and act before a catastrophe is upon us.”



Tourism Ban Lifted in India\'s Tiger Parks

A tiger at Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka.John McConnico for the New York TimesA tiger at Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka.

India's Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted the ban on tourism in the core areas of the country's tiger reserves and asked state governments to draw up conservation plans that follow the guidelines prepared by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

India is home to approximately half of the world's tiger population, with an estimated 1,700 in the country. On July 24, the Supreme Court had banned tourists from the “core areas”, or the inner parts of parks where tigers are believed to breed and hunt, of all 41 tiger sanctuaries in the country, citing the danger posed to the animal by to urist traffic in parts of the reserves. Following the order, state governments raised objections that the ban would hurt the states that depended on tourism revenue, and the central government asked the Supreme Court to review the ban.

As per Tuesday's ruling, each state government has been asked to prepare a tiger conservation plan that adheres to the national authority's guidelines. These guidelines limit tourism to 20 percent of the core areas of tiger reserves and national parks, or the areas where tigers are believed to travel, breed and hunt.

The agency's guidelines said “regulated low-impact tourism” would be allowed in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries that have been designated as core and critical tiger habitats. However, the guidelines forbid any new tourism infrastructure in these areas.



Image of the Day: Oct. 16

Bollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor greet their fans after their wedding in Mumbai, Maharashtra.Associated PressBollywood actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor greet their fans after their wedding in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

As India Responds to Latest Rapes, the Unanswered Question is \'Why?\'

Women at a protest organized in Rohtak, Haryana, on Oct.15, to condemn the recent incidents of rape and violence in the state.Mustafa Quraishi/Associated PressWomen at a protest organized in Rohtak, Haryana, on Oct.15, to condemn the recent incidents of rape and violence in the state.

As the north Indian state of Haryana reels from one awful rape case to the next, the question on many lips is, simply: Why?

Why would a group of drunken men drag a lower-caste teenage girl, known to some of them, into a building and rape her repeatedly while taking video of the assault, as was reported to the police in Hisar? Why would a fruit vendor repeatedly rape a 13-year old girl, and why would school officials expel her and her sisters after the family went to the police, as was reported in Fatehabad?  Why would two men in their 20s rape a 6-year old, as was reported in Gurgaon?

Haryana, which hugs the nation's capital, New Delhi, straddles the “New India” of Gurgaon, the outsourcing supercity, and the old India of farming communities ruled by unelected but all-powerful male village councils, known as khap panchayats.

There were 733 cases of rape reported in Haryana last year, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, an average of 61 cases a month. But that rate isn't among India's worst, according to official figures. On a per capita basis, Mizoram, with 7.1 reported rapes per 100,000 people, is India's worst state for rape; Haryana, at 2.9 cases per 100,000, isn't in the top five.

India Ink asked analysts and activists to try to explain the motives behind the recent attacks in Haryana, and rounded up a handful of offic ial explanations as well. Edited answers are below:

The Powerful Are Trying to Dominate the Powerless: 

“What we are seeing is a discourse of power dominance,” Kavita Srivastava, national secretary for the People's Union for Civil Liberties, told India Ink after protests Monday brought hundreds to the streets of Haryana to demand better policing. “The people being targeted are the powerless - Dalit girls and minors,” she said. “A section of the dominant community is asserting their dominance on members of the lower caste.”

The Uneducated ‘New Rich' Are Asserting Their Feudal Privileges:

Shabnam Hashmi, a founding member of Anhad, a human rights group that works in the Mewat region of Haryana, said Monday that the violence in Haryana could be traced to a strong feudal mind-set in the state.

“In Haryana, so-called development because of globalization means that the government has taken over land on a large scale,” she said. †œThe families have been given compensation, and so there has been an influx of sudden money in families with almost no education. Sudden wealth combined with a feudal and patriarchal system means that we can see a certain type of machismo coming into play. All the boys ride motorcycles and it becomes okay to take advantage of women.”

The Government Lets Them Get Away With It: 

“The failure of the government to implement even existing laws has led to this state of affairs,” said Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women. “The state government and the central government must have the social commitment and the political will to make change happen and only then will gender justice be ensured,” she said.

So far, “the state is failing miserably in this respect,” she added. “Unless the government sends a strong message that they will not spare people who commit atrocities against women, this will not change. The num ber of rapes will increase because people will think they can get away with anything.”

Rape Is a Weapon in Caste Conflict:

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, who participated in the protests in Haryana on Monday, said she thought caste issues played a major role in the rise of rape in the region.

Most of the women being raped are Dalit, the lowest caste, Ms Kumari said. “When there is a state of class conflict, rape is often used as a weapon to teach a lesson,” she said. “Often there is no other provocation besides an attempt to drive the family out of the village and capture their land.”

Rising unemployment and the increased availability of drugs and alcohol in the area has led to an increase in gang rapes, she said.

Intellectual Development Isn't Keeping Up With Economic Progress:

Sampat Singh, a Haryana Congress legislator, said Monday, “Haryana has progressed economically, but it has not developed mentally and intellectually, leading to rising incidences of rape in the state.”

When Young Men and Women Mingle in Public, This Is One Result:

On Monday, the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, said that rape is on the  rise in India because men and women interact with each other more freely now. “Earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded, but now everything is so open. It's like an open market with open options,” she said.

Television and the Movies Are Making Women More Sexual:

Following a shocking incident last week in which a teenage girl committed suicide after being raped, Sube Singh, a village council member, told IBN Live, a news channel, “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don't need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur.”

What Rapes?:

Dharambir Goyat, spokesman for the Congress Party in Haryana, said that he thought 90 percent rapes began with consensual sex.  ”I don't feel any hesitation in saying that 90 percent of the girls want to have sex intentionally but they don't know that they would be gang-raped further as they find some lusty and pervasive people in the way ahead.”

Malavika Vyawahare contributed reporting to this story from New Delhi.



In India, GM Crops Come at a High Price

The flower of a Bt cotton plant in a field in Hussainpur village, Andhra Pradesh.Courtesy of PRRI/ISAAAThe flower of a Bt cotton plant in a field in Hussainpur village, Andhra Pradesh.

During a recent United Nations summit meeting on genetically modified organisms in Hyderabad, a busload of scientists gathered in the cotton fields of Hussainpur, a village 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. They came to see how small cotton growers in India benefited from genetic technology.

The farmers were growing Bt cotton, a crop whose genes were altered to produce a protein fatal to some insects. They now saw dramatic improvements in yields, explained representatives from the International Service for the Acquisition of Ag ri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), the pro-biotechnology group that organized the meeting. The farmers no longer suffered from bollworms, which once ruined large sections of their crop, and saved time and money on pesticides, representatives said.

The farmers were less enthusiastic. True, their fields were no longer infected by the bollworm after switching to Bt cotton â€" but the farmers were paying for it.

T. Venkatesh a cotton farmer from Hussainpur, Andhra Pradesh.Courtesy of Vivek NemanaT. Venkatesh a cotton farmer from Hussainpur, Andhra Pradesh.

“We're getting higher yields, but we're not better off,” said T. Venkatesh, one of the cotton farmers, in an interview. “Our costs have gone up much faster than the price of cotton.”

Srinivas Reddy, another farmer, said, “We buy our seeds on the black market now, and we pay three times, sometimes five times, as much as we did for the normal seeds.  But nobody is selling non-Bt seeds anymore.” Mr. Reddy said he was also paying more for farmhands and pesticides.

The farmers in Hussainpur raised a central question in the controversy over genetically modified crops: What makes them so expensive to farm?

As developing countries like India and China expand their production of genetically modified crops, engineered for traits like natural pest resistance or tolerance of herbicides, farmers are seeing costs rise. Crop biotechnology companies like Monsanto already charge a premium on their seeds to defray the cost of research. But in India, where agriculture consists mainly of small farms, a complex web of inadequate crop management, regulatory barriers, and incre asing weed and pest resistance has pushed the costs for farmers even higher.

Bt cotton is currently India's only genetically modified crop, but it accounts for 95 percent of all cotton farming in the country. The seeds can cost anywhere between 700 to 2,000 rupees ($38) per packet, or about three to eight times the cost of conventional seeds.

Seed companies say that the high prices are largely due to stringent regulation by governments, which they say inflate the costs for the companies.

“Burdensome regulations have been adopted and indiscriminately used by regulators to assess extremely remote risks,” said Eric Sachs, regulatory lead at Monsanto. “But the added requirements provide no significant reduction in risk, lengthen the review time and contribute to higher costs.”

Out of concerns that live genetically modified organisms will contaminate local species and potentially pose health and environmental threats, governments usually require ex tensive field trials and risk assessments before approving a seed for local planting. A recent industry-financed study by the agribusiness consulting firm Phillips McDougall found that seed companies spent on average five years and $35 million, or a quarter of their entire costs, on such requirements while developing a genetically modified crop.

“You have to look at the different actors that are working here â€" civil society groups, organic groups, consumer associations, environmental parties â€" that have been putting pressure on the different regulatory agencies to do more in terms of conducting research and field trials,” said Jose Falck-Zepeda, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C. “So instead of having five trials, the regulatory system might ask you to do 10 trials. That means that the costs will go up.”

In addition, Indian regulators have directly regulated the price of genetically modified seeds. The state of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, intervened in 2006 when Bt cotton seeds were selling for thousands of rupees and has now fixed the price at 750 rupees â€" far less than what the Hussainpur farmers said they paid.

Bhagirath Choudhary, a scientist at the ISAAA office in New Delhi, blamed the price ceiling for creating a black market in India's Bt cotton seed market, worth an estimated $364 million, according to a Le Monde report. “The demand for the seeds is so high that the seed distributors actually sell the material at a much higher price than retail, so the farmer ends up paying much more to the distributor,” Mr. Choudhary said.

In June, the news magazine India Today reported that Andhra Pradesh faced an acute shortage of Bt cotton seeds, driving up black market prices to as high as 2,000 rupees per packet and leading to a profusion of bootlegged seeds illegally marketed as genetically modified products.

Though of genetically modifie d agriculture, as well as some independent studies, say that higher yields offset the costs of the seeds, farmers have seen other costs rise as well. The Hussainpur farmers said their crops were now affected by aphids, which replaced the bollworms that Bt cotton was designed to resist. The new pesticides require fewer applications, they said, but are far more expensive.

“The old pesticide used to cost us 200 rupees per liter,” said Mr. Reddy, who has been planting Bt cotton for six years. “Now I have to pay between 2,000 to 3,000 rupees. And I need to apply it more and more every year.”

Some critics of genetically modified seeds see a cycle of rising costs â€" and debts â€"  for farmers.

“Farmers buy the seeds, and the costs of the pesticides, which they buy from the same companies, are probably tenfold what they used to pay,” said Shivani Shah, a campaigner for Greenpeace in India. “So it's creating a system of dependency. It is a deliberate idea of increasing costs and increasing royalties â€" there is no intention of reducing those costs through economies of scale.”

Ling Li Ching, a researcher with the Third World Network, a nonprofit devoted to developmental issues, said the increased costs from the rise of aphids was an expected turn of events. “As ecologists have pointed out from the start, you take out a target pest, you're likely to have secondary pests coming because that's how ecology works: you vacate one niche, you'll have another niche take its place,” she said.

Higher seed and pesticide costs have left small farmers in India â€" and other developing countries â€" more vulnerable to failed monsoons and other climate change-related dangers.

For small farmers, the consequences can be tragic. When weak monsoon rains led to crop failures in 2005, hundreds of debt-ridden Bt cotton farmers in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra committed suicide by drinking pesticide. A PB S documentary on the suicides by Chad Heeter reported that the indebtedness was largely due to expensive genetically modified seeds and pesticides. And each growing season, the suicides of indebted cotton farmers continue to make headlines in India.

There are practices that can help manage the cost of growing Bt cotton, like planting buffer zones that will delay how quickly insects develop resistance to the crops. But the practice has been unpopular in India, where small farmers often cannot afford to spare land for less-profitable ventures, and it has in some regions even led to the return of the bollworm â€" the very crop-destroying insect that Bt cotton was designed to resist.

“We don't plant the buffer crops,” said Mr. Reddy, the Hussainpur farmer. “It would waste our precious land.”

The best remedy for rising costs in developing countries, say critics of genetically modified crops, is a shift toward organic and eco-friendly farming methods.

“By using ecological methods, you can actually increase yields and production greatly for these farmers,” said Ms. Ling. “And these are low technology, simple to use, not costly methods â€" you don't have the high costs of pesticides or genetically modified seeds â€" but yet they make real differences in lives, immediately.

“What farmers in developing countries need now are techniques to work on and improve the biodiversity they already have in their farms,” she said.



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