Women Fight Back Against Witch-Branding in Rajasthan

Betwa Sharma for The New York TimesWomen discussing their problems in a forum organized by Seva Mandir, a nongovernmental organization, outside Udaipur city in Rajasthan, March 20, 2012.

RAJASTHAN â€"â€"Shanta Devi was branded a witch nearly a decade ago, after her family was plagued by long bouts of fever and breathing problems.

Villagers still cover their faces while crossing the 65-year-old woman, who lives in a tribal belt about 60 miles outside Udaipur city in the desert state of Rajasthan. Last year, the branded woman's relatives were advised by a witch doctor to make her drink goat's blood as a cure. But she refused, even as neighbors wielded sticks in her backyard to pressure her into doing so.

Betwa Sharma for The New York TimesShanti Devi, 65, was branded a witch and was asked to drink goat's blood by a witch doctor.

For generations, women have been frequently branded as witches in villages spread across the dusty Aravalli hills and elsewhere in rural parts of India, blamed for unexplained or incurable illnesses among villagers and livestock. The lack of medical facilities near remote villages allows these superstitious b eliefs to prevail.

In recent years, activists have pushed for better medical facilities and sanitary conditions in tribal villages. Still, most people cannot afford the jeep fare to the nearest hospitals, which are at least an hour away. So they turn to a witch doctor, called a bhopa, who plays the dual role of doctor and priest. The bhopa, who claims to have magical powers as well, prescribes remedies like burying a live chicken, burning hands with coal as well as identifying and punishing witches.

Old and young widows are easy targets. The mixing of old superstitions with modern material desires has proved deadly for these women, as many brandings are now done to disinherit them from family property.

Dakat Kunwar, 25, was declared a witch and thrown out of the house after her husband died. Ms. Kunwar, a manual laborer, now lives in a small room with her three children. “I can't get remarried and I can't feed my children,” she said.

Lawmakers in Rajasthan have failed to criminalize witch-branding, but the practice is common even in states like Jharkhand that have made it illegal. Activists say a combination of severe punishment, a sensitized police force, easily accessible medical facilities and education can combat the deep-rooted persecution.

Branded women, called dakans, rarely defy their tormentors, but Mrs. Shanta's resistance was supported by a fellow villager, Lakshmi Khadadi, who has intervened on behalf of nine women. Mrs. Khadadi, 23, involves other bold women in the community to try to defuse a volatile situation by talking to the feuding parties or advising them to seek medical help.

“There is safety in numbers so women should help women,” she said. “We have to show there is no connection between magic and illness.”

They also pleaded with the village council last year to take Mrs. Shanta's side. The council sent emissaries to meet the bhopa who had advised drinking goat blood. “We found no logic to his counsel,” said Shankar Lal Meena, the village chief. The bhopa, villagers said, sometimes made people put their hands into a snake pit as a test - getting bitten is seen as proof of guilt.

Lakshmi Jain, a social worker with Seva Mandir, a local nongovernmental organization, said that perpetrators of witch-branding often have wide support. She recalled an incident in the late 1980s of two men slicing off the head of a branded woman with swords in broad daylight. Onlookers, including women, believed their village had been saved. “I was shocked, but it made me realize that only creating awareness will produce lasting change,” she said.

Belief in black magic is entrenched in the countryside. Haresh Singh, a middle-aged villager, said he believes that his mother is possessed by a witch who causes her shaking fits. “Who are you to question when you didn't see what I saw?” he said, getting annoyed it was suggested that it could be a medical problem. “Even doctors fail to help us.”

The case of his mother, Geeta Kunwar, is infamous in these parts. A bhopa once advised her family that burning Mrs. Geeta was the only way to get rid of the evil spirit inside her, so many years ago she was made to hold burning embers.

Seva Mandir recently organized a meeting with bhopas. “None of them returned a second time, because to stop giving wrong advice means less income,” said Ms. Jain.

Babuji Lal, a bhopa, receives many requests to dispel witches from possessed relatives. He can be seen beating people with bushes of the sacred neem plant to cleanse them. Mr. Lal, however, insists that he no longer blames illnesses on witches. “It is angry goddesses who punish the villagers for doing animal sacrifices,” he said. “But villagers still want remedies to expel witches.”

The education of young people is seen as key to eradicating such superstitions. Better roads are making it possibl e to cover the long distances for attending college in the city. Even a secondary school education could help change rural mindsets. Mrs. Khadadi, during her childhood, saw many women being branded as witches. But going to school until the 10th grade, she says, made her question and eventually reject the practice.

Her husband, who never received an education, supports her activism by doing home chores and taking care of the children. “He worries sometimes because village disputes can be dangerous,” she said.

Ms. Jain said that her organization has focused on working with progressive village women who can fight witch-branding from inside the community. “We are seeing results,” she said. “Women are still branded, but we hear of far less cases of heinous crimes like burnings, tonsuring hair and killings.”

There are also more instances of women standing up to their tormentors. A 65-year-old widow, also named Shanta Devi, is known for fighting back a gainst a wealthy merchant family who believed she was casting spells to prevent them from siring male heirs. One late afternoon, four men came into her house and beat her mercilessly. “They hit me with sticks and kicked until I fainted,” she said. “They only had girls so thought I was killing the boys.”

After being released from two weeks in the hospital, Ms. Devi decided to challenge her persecutors in a local women's forum. Such meetings are organized by Seva Mandir to discuss various issues like the length of the veils covering women's faces and employment opportunities.

Ms. Shanta Devi wanted reimbursement for the medical treatment that cost 10,000 rupees ($200) and a public retraction. Forced to appear at the women's forum by activists, the men eventually promised not to harass her but never covered the hospital bill.

For Ms. Devi, the apology has more value since it might prevent other villagers from using her as a scapegoat in any future trou bles. “I want to live without fear,” she said.

Asian Schools Jump in Rank

When Christoph Kramer of Germany surveyed the field of universities offering undergraduate business programs, he focused on their locations as much as on their academic programs.

Graphic

“China is always in the media; everyone says it is the future,” he said by telephone from Düsseldorf. So he enrolled in a three-year program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, because he thought it would be a culturally enriching experience.

According to a recent study on graduate employability, Mr. Kramer's H.K.U.S.T. degree puts him ahead of business graduates from many well-known Western universities.

The 2012 Global Employability Survey, which is being released exclusively in the International Herald Tribune, characterized the ideal young candidate on the basis of skills, personal qualities and the schools they attended. The study, a collaboration of Emerging, a French consulting firm, and Trendence, a German research institute specializing in recruitment, asked hundreds of companies what they looked for when hiring recent graduates, regardless of their course of study.

The study also asked employers what universities produced the ideal young graduates.

In terms of desirable schools, U.S. and British universities retained their commanding lead. The list is dominated by the same names that top most rankings: Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, M.I.T., Columbia, Princeton and Imperial College London, with Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main rounding out the top 10.

But Asian schools are also emerging. The most striking finding this year is the growth in the reputations of universities in China.

Just outside the top 10 is Peking University, which leapt to No. 11 from No. 109 in just one year.

This year, four mainland Chinese universities made the top 100, as opposed to only two last year. Shanghai Jiao Tong University went to No. 44 from No. 139.

Meanwhile, H.K.U.S.T., where Mr. Kramer recently graduated, jumped to No. 46 from No. 94.

The only Indian institution to make the list both last year and this year, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, rose to No. 35 from No. 134.

The fact that top Asian universities are being held in higher esteem is both a reflection on their success in preparing students for the global work force and the realization among employers that students trained in Asia are better equipped to work there.

“A lot of employers are looking for global players,” said Tony Chan, H.K.U.S.T.'s president.

Dr. Chan attributes part of his institution's success to the fact that it bridges the gap between China and the rest of world.

“China being the second-largest economy in the world is a huge factor,” he said by telephone from Hong Kong. His institution's strength, he explained, lies in building bridges between different business cultures and languages.

“We are one of the most international universities in China,” he said. “We hope to train graduates that know both East and West.”

Guy Breton, rector of the Université de Montreal, also attributed his institution's position in the global ranking - No. 30 in the recent study, up from No. 46 in 2011 - to a successful combination of several cultures.

“We teach in French; we are the most European of the North American universities, and I think that is of added value to employers,” he said by telephone.

According to Dr. Breton, Montreal's multiculturalism and multilingualism contribute to his university's openness and worldliness, something global employers are increasingly seeking.

“We are exposed to the international reality,” he said.

The Emerging/Trendence survey was conducted in two waves. Initially, 2,500 recruiters in 20 countries were asked to complete a personalized online survey designed to characterize the ideal new graduate.

Several months later, more questions were asked of top recruiters from 10 countries deemed to be active employers. Those supplementary interviews resulted in the list of the top 150 global institutions in terms of graduate employability.

In ranking the importance of second languages, aside from English, recruiters responded that they appreciated Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Arabic, Italian, Russian and Portuguese, in that order.

Global recruiters also listed the countries that produced the best graduates: the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, India, China, France, Australia and Switzerland.

The quality portion of the survey found that international recruiters appreciated soft skills like adaptability, communications and the “ability to work in a team,” more than leadership qualities or “the ability to work under pressure.”

Steffen Laick, a top recruiter at Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, agreed that the ability to work with a team was important. Besides a strong and focused academic record, he also looked at extracurricular activities.

“Not everyone can have been a volunteer firefighter,” he said by telephone. Showing recruiters that you have done something more than just fixated on studies is very important, he said.

The universities also mattered, he said, because there might not be much more for recruiters to go on when the candidate is quite young and lacking in work experience.

Many well-known universities have partnerships with global recruiters, which can help graduates in their applications and interviews. In other cases, universities have alumni networks that put recent graduates ahead of competitors from lesser-known schools.

Not all emerging economies contributed to the top universities in terms of their attractiveness to employers, the survey found. Universities in Brazil, Russia and the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, for example, did not do as well in the rankings as Asian schools.

Brazil, which has the sixth-largest economy in the world, had only Fundação Getulio Vargas, at No. 95, and the Universidade de São Paulo, at No. 112.

The study also lists two Mexican universities - Tecnológico de Monterrey and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - at 110 and 113, respectively, but no other Latin American universities were represented.

“It is surprising that Brazil and Mexico, that have really good universities, are low on the list; they are still too focused on American universities,” Sandrine Belloc of Emerging, the company that designed the study, said about recruiters in those countries.

Russia's only contribution to the list is Moscow State University , in 150th place.

Mr. Kramer, after graduating from his global business program this year, found a job with the Boston Consulting Group in his hometown in Germany.

Having a Chinese degree did not raise eyebrows in his German job interviews. “I was looking for a job in an international consultancy, so it was probably fairly common,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 25, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.

SAT and ACT Officials Answer Readers\' Questions About Standardized Tests

The Choice has invited Kathryn Juric, the vice president of the SAT program, and Jon Erickson, the president of the education division at the ACT, to answer readers' questions about standardized tests in the blog's Guidance Office, a forum for college applicants and their families seeking expert advice.

We hope the moderated Q. and A. session, which began on Monday, will help you and other readers of this blog have a better understanding of each test and, perhaps, ease some anxieties.

We have included answers that would be most relevant to prospective international students. Please feel free to visit The Choice for the complete series.

The questions we've posed are based on readers' submissions. Some answers have been edited, including for length and style. - Tanya Abrams

Comparing the SAT and ACT

Q.

Readers are grappling over whether to take the SAT, ACT or both. Do colleges and universities prefer one exam over the other, or do the preferences vary based on the type of institution?

- From Roxlet

A.

Mr. Erickson: All accredited American colleges and universities accept scores from either the ACT or the SAT without preference or prejudice. This has been the case for many years. Both organizations provide on their Web sites a table that students and admission officers can use to compare scores on the two tests, and many colleges develop their own similar tables based on their applicants.

Ms. Juric: Today, nearly all four-year undergraduate colleges and universities require a college-entrance exam like the SAT, and even test-optional institutions accept and review SAT scores when submitted as part of a holistic review of a student's likelihood of success at a particular institution. We believe the SAT measures a student's ability to apply the skills they have learned in high school, in turn demonstrating to admission c ounselors their college preparedness. The question of which college entrance exam a college or university prefers is best answered by the admission staff at the colleges and universities to which you are applying, bearing in mind that scores from college entrance exams are just one aspect of your overall application.

Q.

What should a student do if she performs better on one exam than the other?

- From Elizabeth Walsh

A.

Mr. Erickson: College is very important, so students should put their best foot forward during the admission process. There are distinct differences between the two tests, and we think it's a good idea for students to familiarize themselves with these differences before registering to take a test. For example, the ACT's writing test is optional. In addition, the ACT includes a science test as well as an interest inventory that can help colleges understand more about the student.

If st udents decide to take both tests, they can usually send both sets of scores without worrying which one is higher. Most colleges will use the highest scores they receive to the advantage of the student. Students should check the particular college's policies on test scores before making this decision.

Sending both sets of scores can be a good idea for another reason: The more colleges know about a student, the better they can decide if that student is a good fit for their institution and, once a student has been admitted, the better they will understand what they can do to best help that student succeed on campus.

Ms. Juric: We strongly recommend that students take the SAT in the spring of junior year and again in the fall of senior year, as the majority of students who take the SAT twice improve their scores.

For those students who decide to take each test once, we recommend that students use the SAT-ACT Concordance Table. Concordance tables are what colle ge admission officers use to compare SAT and ACT scores.

Unfortunately, many students and educators make the mistake of comparing percentile information from the two tests, which is not an accurate comparison. Percentile ranks should not be used to compare SAT and ACT scores, as the population of test-takers is different, and a higher percentile rank on the ACT may not mean the student's ACT score is better than his or her SAT score.

It should be noted that the College Board does not support the use of ACT's Estimated Relationship Table because it compares the SAT composite to the ACT without writing, which is not a valid comparison.

Q.

Mr. Erickson, do you agree that it is inaccurate to compare percentile information of each test? How do you respond to the assertion that ACT's Estimated Relationship Table is not a valid comparison of SAT scores?

- Tanya Abrams, The Choice

A.

Mr. Erickson: It's important to remember that the ACT and the SAT are different tests that take different approaches to measuring college readiness. ACT provides the Estimated Relationship Table to help students and parents compare the two scores. This table is valuable to students who are applying to colleges that consider all three SAT scores in their admission process. A number of ACT-SAT score concordance tables can be found, not only on each organization's Web site, but also on individual colleges' Web sites, which can help a student get a feel for their “best” scores. Ultimately, however, I would suggest that students simply send out whatever scores and profiles they feel best represent themselves - or send out both sets of scores - rather than stressing too much about which scores are higher.

Guessing

Q.

When is it O.K. to guess if you don't know the answer? Please explain how wrong answers are scored on the PSAT, SAT and ACT.

- From NE mom

< div class="a left">A.

Hurricane Sandy Threatens Northeast and Mid-Atlantic

http://www.nhc.noaa.govHurricane Sandy's path projected on Thursday by the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Sandy, now battering the Bahamas, is expected to barrel up the East Coast over the weekend and possibly collide with a winter blast, producing what weather forecasters fear could create a historic and potentially devastating storm for a large swath of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic early next week.

Under some of the most recent computer models, the hurricane could slam into the New Jersey coast on Tuesday with tropical-force winds and, depending on landfall, cause severe coastal and inland flooding and historic urban flooding in New York Ci ty, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Some weather forecasters are calling the unusual combination of a hurricane and winter weather from the Midwest “Frankenstorm,” which inspired the creation of a new Twitter account by that name.

I'm ALIVE.

- frankenstorm (@TheFrankenstorm) 25 Oct 12

Forecasters are drawing comparison to the so-called Perfect Storm of 1991, warning that the mix could cause mayhem, with downed power lines, flooding and high winds, from the Carolinas to New England and as far inland as Ohio. Some areas may be forced to cancel Halloween plans.

“If it actually hits at the kind of intensity it might across central to northern New Jersey, that would be a potential worst-case scenario for New York City,” said Paul Kocin, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “That would maximize coastal flooding and winds for New York. The floodin g could be of a level that would be rarely ever seen.”

But Mr. Kocin cautioned that forecasts could change and that some computer models were showing that Hurricane Sandy, expected to move into the western Atlantic before turning back toward the northern coast, could hit anywhere from the Carolinas to the DelMarva peninsula to the southern coast of New England. What is certain, however, is that the winter weather moving from the Midwest is setting the stage for a dangerous storm.

“Without these two systems coming together, it is possible that the hurricane would remain harmlessly out at sea,” Mr. Kocin said. “The storm coming from the Midwest may cause the hurricane to not only make a left turn but make it more intense than it would be otherwise.”

“The storm, wherever it comes in, is going to have a large impact over a lot of people, no matter what,” he said.

An animation by NASA.

In New York City, Bloomberg administration officials activated the city's coastal emergency plan, which that led to the closing of the subway system and the evacuation of thousands of residents in low-lying areas during Hurricane Irene in August 2011. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that some residents should prepare to evacuate. Our colleagues in City Room are noting descriptions of the storm.

“There will be a lot of rain along the whole East Coast, certainly in Southern Florida, and then coming up,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters on Thursday. “If this storm merges with another storm coming from the Ohio Valley, it has the potential to give you real weird weather, like snow, and a lot of rain and high winds. On the other hand, it might just go out to sea, and they just don't know. What we are do ing is we are taking the kind of precautions you'd expect us to do, and I don't think anybody should panic.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said during a briefing that federal emergency management officials had been working with local officials to prepare for the storm. He said people living along the Eastern Seaboard should monitor weather reports in the coming days.

At least four people died in the Caribbean as a result of the hurricane, which is currently a Category 2 storm after making landfall in Cuba.

Ask About the Wealth of Chinese Officials

As the prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao has staked out a position as a populist and a reformer, known as “the People's Premier” and “Grandpa Wen” in the state-run media for his common touch. But, as our the Shanghai bureau chief David Barboza reports on Thursday, many of Mr. Wen's close relatives â€" including his wife and son â€" have become extraordinarily wealthy during his tenure, accumulating shares in banks, jewelers, real estate and telecommunications companies over which the prime minister has broad authority. The relatives have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

In the course of his investigation, Mr. Barboza collected and reviewed corporate and regulatory documents tied to Mr. Wen's relatives, their friends, work colleagues and business partners. “Untangling their financial holdings,” he writes, “provides an unusually detailed look at how politically connected people have profited from being at the intersection of government and business as state influence and private wealth converge in China's fast-growing economy.”

What does this mean for the Chinese economy, and the future of the country's leadership? What is permissible under Chinese law? Here on The Lede, Mr. Barboza will respond to questions from readers about the intersection of government and business in China. Submit your questions in the comment thread below or direct them to @DavidBarboza2 on Twitter, using the hashtag #NYTChina.

As Spotlight Turns to Gadkari, Political Questions Loom

European Pressphoto AgencyBharatiya Janta Party president Nitin Gadkari at a press conference in New Delhi in this Oct. 18, 2010 file photo.

Nitin Gadkari, the president of India's main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is the latest to Indian politician to face allegations of corruption.

Purti Power and Sugar, which was once controlled by Mr. Gadkari, is accused of getting financing through a maze of shell companies and accepting a loan from a contractor that Mr. Gadkari favored while he was minister of public works in Maharashtra. India's corporate affairs ministry is investigating the allegations, an official said earlier this week.

The allegations, raised in investigations by The Times of India and the independent news channel NDTV, have raised political questions as well: Will Mr. Gadkari survive as president of the party? And if not, who would replace him?

An editorial in The Asian Age said, “With pressure mounting on the B.J.P. and its chief, Mr. Nitin Gadkari, after reports about dubious funding of his trust, talk has begun in the saffron party about who will succeed Mr. Gadkari in case he has to step down and is not allowed a second term as party president.” His successor, the paper speculates, could be a Delhi party leader, or a virtual unknown from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the right-wing Hindu group that supports the B.J.P.

Mr. Gadkari's party, so far, is sticking by him. “This is a politically motivated canard spread by Congress,” Prakash Javadekar, a B.J.P. spokesman, said in a telephone interview.

“Congress's reputation is down because of allegations on Robert Vadra,” he said, referring to the son-in-law of the Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, who has been accused of illegal land deals. “They want to damage B.J.P.,” Mr. Javadekar said.

A B.J.P. senior leader, L. K. Advani, said in a statement Wednesday, “This is more to neutralize the unprecedented charges against the ruling” alliance. He added: “But I am of the view that the B.J.P. should be different and should not claim immunity on either scale or nature of the allegations.”

Mr. Gadkari, who resigned from the board of directors of the sugar company 14 months ago, told NDTV in an interview that there is nothing wrong with getting investments from contractors. He also said he is open to any investigation by the government.

The Congress Party, not surprisingly, demanded a probe into the allegations. Digvijay Singh, the general secretary of the party, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, saying: “I would be very grateful if you can forward my letter to the ministry of corporate affairs for instituting an inquiry by Serious Fraud Investigation Office for which a prima facie case exists.”

Image of the Day: Oct. 25

Vijay Mathur/ReutersFerrari driver Fernando Alonso, center, with school children, promoting the practice of washing hands with soap, during an event on the outskirts of Delhi, ahead of the Formula One championship, which begins Friday.  

Ask Janine di Giovanni About Reporting From Syria

Janine di Giovanni, whose report on the battle for the Syrian city of Homs appears in Thursday's New York Times, reflects on the experience of reporting from the country in this post for The Lede. She will also respond to selected questions from readers about covering the evolving civil war there. Please post your queries for her in the comment thread below.

PARIS - I took the first of several visits to Syria in June 2012, legally, with a rare journalist's visa, to report from the government side.

I flew from my home in Paris to Beirut, then got a driver and traveled to Syria. Damascus, the world's oldest inhabited city, seemed to carry on business as usual - though there were already the car bombs, and the wounded soldiers in the hospital. I could look out the window of my hotel, the Dama Rose, and see women in bikinis drinking beer to hip-hop music at pool parti es, then see the smoke of bombings in the background. I had worked in the Middle East for two decades since I was a cub reporter, but this was my first time in Syria.

On my second trip, I traveled alone with a driver from Beirut to Damascus, which normally takes about three hours. This time, the checkpoints, sandbagged refuges of soldiers, were so heavy that it took about four. The driver was nervous and we had some difficulty at the border, but finally, I saw the hills outside Damascus where it is said that Cain killed Abel, and I felt relieved that we had made it. The U.N. observers had recently been pulled out, and there were only a few left at the Dama Rose so I decided not to stay there, thinking it might now be more of a security risk.

Instead, I stayed in a small hotel where I felt I would go more unnoticed. It was unnerving. I was the only Westerner. There were some Syrian refugees from Homs who had enough money to stay in a comfortable hotel. It was a bit like “The Shining” - my floor was empty, and, on all my trips, I had the feeling I was being watched, my computer hacked and my phone listened to.

Of course they were. But I worked in Iraq in the Saddam Hussein days, and I am used to getting dressed in the dark in the bathroom and not talking when a waiter comes to the table. Still, my paranoia was high - to say the least. There were a few nights when I put a chair under the lock on my door, which I did in Liberia during the civil war. In Syria, it was for no particular reason other than that I was by myself. Not that those chairs would have done anything if anyone wanted to come get me.

The third trip, which I just returned from, was the most dramatic.

The Ministry of Information gave me permission to work with government soldiers in Homs fighting rebels. It wasn't quite an “embed” - it was more me driving to Homs from Damascus, about two hours, and calling someone on a cellphone who came to pick me up. I have to say that the woman in Homs who organized my trip, a government official, was kind and polite, well dressed and helpful, and did not try to interfere with what I wanted to do. She said it was dangerous, and asked if I wanted to take that risk. I said I would until I felt uncomfortable - that I had been doing this a long time and usually had good instincts.

We drove toward the front line and at some point had to get out and go on foot because it was too dangerous to go by car. We had to climb through bombed-out buildings, glass everywhere, through tunnels that the rebels had previously used - basically punched-in walls of buildings that led to other buildings. It was real urban warfare. The Syrian Army had just pushed the rebels out, so this was now Syrian Army territory.

A few local people were still, living near the front line.

I saw some old women pushing carts of wood or food, and spent some time with a fam ily, and finally reached the soldiers. When I reached their position, there were a group of about a dozen exhausted-looking government soldiers who had been up all night. You realized then that they fight for hours to take the tiniest bit of territory. In this case, they were clearing the Free Syrian Army, the rebels, out of a school.

They welcomed me politely, not used to seeing journalists, and probably not a woman. I can understand some Arabic but don't speak it, so I had an interpreter with me, and the men did not treat me in a menacing way. The commander took me to the closest point to see a rebel sniper nest, about 300 meters away, and within seconds, we heard shooting. I stayed a while with them.

They were polite. And proud. They began to sing pro-Assad songs.

That night, there was very heavy fighting with that small unit - I had wanted to stay but they made me leave because they felt it was too dangerous. But I could hear heavy shelling from my smal l hotel in the center of Homs.

I had a cup of tea with the main commander, whose “office” was an old bombed-out shop. I was given standard soldier fare - heavily sugared tea and a cigarette. He was in his 40s but looked older, and we tried to talk but he looked totally burned out. It struck me that war is always monstrous, no matter what side you are on. Even though I was with men who defend Bashar al-Assad, they believe in what they do. They were fighting, they felt, to stop their country from becoming a “Salafist kingdom.”

When I asked how many men he had lost, he suddenly grew silent. “Too many,” he said. “All too many. And all too young.”

The Homs I drove through was wrecked - I had been to Homs two months before, but now it looked more like parts of Grozny or Jenin, where I have also worked.

We stayed in a simple hotel in Homs loaded with Mukhabarat - the feared intelligence service - but for some reason, because I was invited, I did not feel the usual anxiety. We stayed two days and then heard that there was fighting on the outskirts of Damascus, more bombing and another fight in a northern suburb. We wanted to get back and not be locked out of the capital.

Back in Damascus, I checked into my hotel and made some calls. My friends were growing more and more scared. War had come to the capital. I had lived through the siege of Sarajevo, and I remember that in the beginning no one thought it could happen - the road blocks, the electricity turned off, the lack of water and food for nearly four years, along with heavy fighting and shelling. I begged friends of mine there to leave as soon as they could.

Do You Have Corruption Fatigue ?

Mahesh Kumar A/Associated PressAn effigy of demon king Ravana going up in flames during Dussehra festival celebrations in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh on Oct. 24, 2012.

Remember Satyam?

Way back in January 2009, the head of the information technology company Satyam Computer Services admitted to what was, at the time, billed as India's biggest corporate fraud, to the tune of (gasp) $1 billion.

That number, and the fact that the scandal was prompted by the chairman's own regretful confession, seems a bit quaint now. Instead, there's a daily barrage of screaming newspape r headlines and screaming news anchors reporting on the latest allegations of corruption.

This unrelenting coverage has to a large extent been fueled by activist-turned- politician Arvind Kejriwal, as Manu Joseph pointed out in the International Herald Tribune on Thursday.  His vitriolic nonpartisan attacks on politicians are a foundation for launching his own political career. The media have been quick to latch on to his leads and have done solid follow-up reporting on some cases.

Mr. Kejriwal recently accused Salman Khurshid, India's law and minority affairs minister, of siphoning off funds from a trust meant for the disabled.  Other high-profile targets include Robert Vadra, son-in-law of the Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi, and Nitin Gadkari, president of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, both of whom Mr. Kejriwal accused of using their political clout to seek undue favors in personal business dealings.

The gove rning Congress Party and the leading opposition have used this opportunity to start a full-scale battle, taking pot shots at each other by throwing new names on the long list of allegedly tainted leaders. Virbhadra Singh, a Congress leader from Himachal Pradesh, was accused by the B.J.P. of tax evasion and graft in land dealings, as the state readies for elections.

So what's the average citizen, bombarded with endless examples of politicians doing corrupt things, to think? Are India's voters finally getting to a point where they don't care anymore?

We turned to - where else? - Twitter to get a sense of what people think.

Let's start with some reactions to the prime minister's office's Dussehra tweet on Tuesday evening:

PM:Victories of Lord Ram and Goddess Durga signify the triumph of good over evil â€" an inspiration for us to follow the path of righteousness

- Dr Manmohan Singh (@PMOIndia) October 24, 2012

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Responding to greetings from the prime minister's office, ‏@ChetanRachitck wrote:

@pmoindia you r not seeing evil near you., change your glasses., (specs) Pawar, Chidambaram, Khurhid, Virbhadra, Jaiswal, Rajeev Shukla ???

- Chetan Kothari (@ChetanRachitck) October 25, 2012

Demanding the ouster of the Congress-led government, calling it the victory of the common man over the corrupt government, @samekshagadh  wrote:

@pmoindia @janlokpal victory of good over evil on broader term is victory of mango ppl over govt of banana republic #corruptCongress mst GO

- sameksha gadh (@samekshagadh) October 24, 2012

Sometimes, the only defense to an overload of information is an attempt at humor. Like these folks:
“Bakkar-OMama” wrote:    

Robert Vadra does a DLF â€" ‘Delete Link from Facebook' while Gadkari can't figure out Deactivate button.Open to Enquiry @ndtv

- Bakkar-Omama (@BakkarOMama) October 25, 2012

Ramesh Srivats @rameshsrivats  wrote:

Kejriwal challenges Sonia & MMS to public debate. One-sided no? MMS has hardly met the public, while Sonia has never encountered any debate.

- Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) October 21, 2012

BREAKING: “Expose me please,” little-known corrupt politician requests Arvind Kejriwal fakingnews.com/2012/10/expose… #IAC

- Faking News (@fakingnews) October 20, 2012

The shortest way to describe Congress Party: “From Votebank to Swiss Bank”

- Ki ran Kumar S (@KiranKS) October 20, 2012

But despair also seems a common response:

Faizabad and Hyderabad burning but media is on fire with Gadkari rank.Where are we heading?

- VB Singh (@vbsingh60) October 25, 2012

Despite the numbing overdose of corruption cases, there are still plenty of people who are ready to fight, though:

All those who stand against corruption should join @arvindkejriwal7 when he goes to Farrukhabad. How much blood can Khurshid shed?

- Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) October 17, 2012

Bronze, Concrete and Debt: Mayawati\'s Legacy to the Yadav Administration

Strdel/Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesA statue of Bahujan Samaj Party (B.S.P.) leader, Mayawati, left, and B.S.P. founder Kanshi Ram in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in this March 4, 2012 photo.

Visitors to the Baudh Vihar Shanti Upvan in Lucknow, which calls itself a library, may wonder what they're getting for their entrance fee of five rupees (9 U.S. cents). The shelves hold only a few dated copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a set of something called the Encyclopedia of Buddhism in an attempt to appear like a place of study.

The actual purpose of the building becomes clearer once they step into the courtyard, where three clusters of large, four-sided white statues of the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, the Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram and Buddha greet visitors. Elsewhere, huge cartoon-eyed paintings of Ms. Mayawati line the walls.

On most days, the only people inside the sprawling building are a handful of students, who are not studying but instead trying to escape from their parents or the heat.

Akhilesh Yadav, 39, son of the Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, was elected earlier this year as the youngest chief minister in the history of Uttar Pradesh, and the breathtaking desolation of places like Baudh Vihar Shanti Upvan are a big reason for his success. Mr. Yadav's election victory over Ms. Mayawati, the Dalit leader who goes by only one name, came on the heels of one of the most controversial spending sprees in modern Indian history.

When Ms. May awati first became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1995, Mr. Ram joked that he had transformed his rebellious young protégée into a “maharani” overnight. Seventeen years and four terms later, as one rides through the dry streets of the state capital of Lucknow, the Dalit icon's boast feels like an understatement. At nearly every intersection, Ms. Mayawati's lavish expenditures erupt from the ground in the form of parks and statues she commissioned during her fourth and most recent tenure as chief minister, which lasted from 2007 to 2012.

While an outsider might see these creations as evidence of Ms. Mayawati's continued influence over India's most populous state, local residents view them as reminders of Uttar Pradesh's long history of corruption, mismanagement and debt.

Foreigners have a different point of view about Ms. Mayawati “than we locals do,” says Ram Advani, a 90-year-old bookseller. “You see her with a glow. Her ego is fascinating to you ,” he said. “For us, however, there is no glow. She was just another politician spending money.”

During a visit to Lucknow in May, one of the state's hottest months, a series of prolonged blackouts virtually stopped parts of the city. Power shortages are common throughout India, but in a city where state expenditures appear in your face at every turn in bronze and stone, such problems feel weighted with a bitter sense of irony.

Uttar Pradesh, according to government estimates from June, is now an estimated 2.2 trillion rupees ($41 billion) in debt. In 2007, Ms. Mayawati's first year in office, the debt was 1.6 trillion rupees. Anubhuti Sahay, an economist with Standard Chartered, said that it's extremely difficult to know exactly how much the parks and statues played into the state's rising debt, but that the expenditures nevertheless could constrain the current administration.

“At the state level, a rising debt won't make a large difference in carr ying out basic functions,” said Ms. Sahay, “but if the foundation of the economy is weak enough, it can create problems for the current administration.”

Anil Sultar, along with his father, Ram, formed the sculpting team responsible for much of the bronze work done during Ms. Mayawati's prolific period of construction. The pair has worked on many political statues throughout India, including the world's tallest Gandhi statue, which was erected on Oct. 2 in Bihar.

In Lucknow, the Sultars focused on Ambedkar Park, as well as Eco Park, of nearly equal size, and the Kanshi Ram memorial, a large dome with an interior decked out with statues detailing Mr. Ram's life. The dome's exterior is flanked by scores of life-sized stone elephants.

While the sculptors declined to reveal exactly how much they were paid by the state to make bronze statues, the younger Sultar said, “Our rate was 11,000 rupees per kilogram. The larger sculptures and fountains weigh somew here about 20 tons each.”

That would put a large bronze sculpture, of which there are dozens in Ambedkar Park alone, at slightly less than 200 million rupees each. And that figure doesn't include the Rajasthan-exported sandstone work, which snakes through every corner of Lucknow.

Most of the discussion about Ms. Mayawati's excesses have centered on Lucknow's monolithic Ambedkar Park, with its dozen-plus statues of Ms. Mayawati, Mr. Ram and other Dalit icons, 36 elephant-headed pillars and its breathtakingly surreal corridor of 60 life-size stone elephants, leading to a behemoth stone altar that supports a giantess statue of Ms. Mayawati.

But the handful of other surrounding parks have gone somewhat under-reported. Where Ambedkar Park astonishes the visitor with its ego-driven visual audacity, Baudh Vihar Shanti Upvan and Eco Park, which features a collection of bronze hippos, bored-looking lions and inquisitive chimps, are simply inexplicable.

The c urrent chief minister has not yet put forth a detailed plan to deal with the massive legacy of construction projects left behind by his predecessor. Ranjana Bajpai, speaking on behalf of his Samajwadi Party back in 2002, demanded that a hospital be built in Ambedkar Park so that it would be more useful to citizens. But such ambitious plans have not been articulated since the Samajwadi Party took power.

So far, the only thing Mr. Yadav has actually done with Ms. Mayawati's landscape-dominating creations is to turn an abandoned construction site into what he called a “milk stand” for Parag, the state's largest milk distributor. The state also announced earlier this month that it would rent out places like Eco Park for weddings.

The elephant, the symbol of Ms. Mayawati's party, appears sporadically throughout Lucknow as a result of the former chief minister's work, which cannot be very pleasant for the current chief minister. But one reason that Mr. Yadav might not tear these down is that he hopes to be re-elected in 2017, and it would be difficult to achieve that without at least a decent share of Dalit votes. Preserving the history of Dalits and untouchables was one of Ms. Mayawati's expressed intentions for creating the statues and parks in the first place.

Ms. Maywati “believes that she's given her people a history,” says Maria Belli, assistant art history professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, who traveled to Lucknow last year to study the parks. “So I think these parks will be around long after we're dead because there will be riots from Dalits if they took them down.”

For now, however, not even the Dalits are helping to fill the parks with visitors. One Dalit woman named Ashanti, who works as a sweeper at a Lucknow guesthouse, said she likes the idea of the monuments, but she has only seen them from the outside. Ambedkar Park's entry fee of 10 rupees is a luxury she cannot easily afford.

Earlier: For Akhilesh Yadav, the Honeymoon is Over. An interview with the new chief minister.

Michael Edison Hayden is an American writer currently living in Mumbai. You can follow him on Twitter @MichaelEHayden.

India Reacts to Gupta\'s Sentence

Craig Ruttle/Associated PressRajat Gupta, right, leaving the federal court in New York on Wednesday after he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for insider trading.

The sentencing of Rajat Gupta, the Kolkata-born former Goldman Sachs director, to two years in prison for leaking confidential information has prompted shock and sadness among many of his longtime admirers and friends in India, some of whom even started a Web site to voice their support for him. But some younger Indians, business students who represent the future of corporate India, say they are torn between revering Mr. Gupta as a role model and viewing him as a criminal.

Mr. Gupta was sentenced Wednesday in United States District Court in Manhattan for leaking corporate secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, a former hedge fund manager who himself is serving an 11-year sentence. Mr. Gupta was also fined $5 million.

Abhinav Rishi, a 27-year-old student at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, said Wednesday he had hoped that Judge Jed S. Rakoff would sentence Mr. Gupta to community service instead of prison time.

“I'm emotional about this,” Mr. Rishi said. Referring to Mr. Gupta, he said, “He made us believe that we don't just have to be the India managers of big companies but lead from the very top and make India matter.”

Mr. Gupta, 63, who was educated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and at Harvard Business School, was the first Indian-born executive to lead the consulting firm McKinsey & Company . In addition to Goldman Sachs, he served on the boards of Procter & Gamble and American Airlines.

Udit Sood, a 23-year-old student at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, admitted that his sympathies for Mr. Gupta were stirred in part because of his Indian origins. “He is one of us and I don't want to see him rotting in a United States jail,” he said. “After reading so much about him, I don't want to see him in chains.”

In India, Mr. Gupta was deeply admired for preserving his strong ties with the country, and for co-founding the prestigious Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Orphaned at 18, he now lives in Connecticut with his wife and four daughters. In addition to his Wall Street successes, he won international respect for his philanthropic work on health and education. He sat on the boards of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2011, Mr. Gupta's image was shattered wh en he was arrested in a sweeping investigation of insider trading on Wall Street, led by another Indian-American, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. A jury convicted Mr. Gupta in June. “His conduct has forever tarnished a once-sterling reputation that took years to cultivate,” Mr. Bharara's office said in reaction to Wednesday's sentence.

Prosecutors had sought a 10-year prison term for Mr. Gupta. Bill Gates and Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, were among many who wrote to Judge Rakoff urging leniency. Judge Rakoff, while imposing a considerably shorter sentence than the government had asked for, also rejected Mr. Gupta's lawyers' request that he be sent to Rwanda to help fight H.I.V. and malaria, rather than to prison.

Some Indian corporate leaders said even a two-year sentence was too much. “To put him in jail even for a day is gross injustice,” said Rajesh Kumar, head of marketing at Tata Motors, who knew Mr. Gupta in college. “It will hurt millions of people who would have benefited from his humanitarian work.”

But some business students, while calling Mr. Gupta an “inspiration,” said that justice needed to run its course, in the interest of deterring future corporate malfeasance.

“A number of good deeds don't wipe out a bad one,” said Prashant Sarkar, a 27-year-old student at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. “Nobody is above the law and there should be equal standards for punishing people.”

Even as the curtain falls on Mr. Gupta's trial, people are still expressing incredulity at the charges. “Whatever happens, I am most saddened and still can't believe it,” Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh told India Ink before the sentencing.

Speculation about Mr. Gupta's motives continues. Some speculate that the former Goldman Sachs director wanted to make the jump from millionaire to billionaire, as Mr. Rajaratnam had. But his supporters insist that he was never greedy and didn't make money from the illegal trading carried out by Mr. Rajaratnam.

Judge Rakoff, who presided over the month long trial, wrote in his sentencing order that “there is no doubt that Gupta, though not immediately profiting from tipping Rajaratnam, viewed it as an avenue to future benefits, opportunities, and even excitement.”

“Thus, by any measure, Gupta's criminal acts represented the very antithesis of the values he had previously embodied,” he wrote.

Despite intense public interest in Mr. Gupta's fate, experts say that his case is unlikely to have any practical impact in reducing insider trading in India. “Public memory is short,” said Rajiv Luthra, head of Luthra and Luthra Law Offices in Delhi. “And investigative agencies are not enforcing the laws properly.”

The lawyer and anticorruption activist Prashant Bhushan scoffed, saying that India is a playground for bigger scam s than leaking boardroom secrets. “Insider trading is passé here, here we have loot of public resources by corporations with the connivance of public servants,” he said. “But people know they can get away with anything.”

But Mohan Gopal, who heads the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, stressed that this case should be studied in India, especially now, when calls for holding the powerful to account are growing stronger.

“Two Americans of Indian origin are at the forefront of a battle over accountability of the rich and the powerful to common people in the United States, not on the streets, but in the courts,” said Mr. Gopal, referring to Mr. Gupta and Mr. Bharara.

“This would not have been possible if the same two gentlemen were operating in their country of origin. This must change,” he added.

The swiftness of the trials of Mr. Rajaratnam and Mr. Gupta, at least when compared to the Indian courts, was seen as one aspect of the American justice system's ability to confront business tycoons. Some observers said it would have been highly unlikely for Mr. Gupta to face prosecution for such dealings in India, or that it would have taken years.

The case against Ramalinga Raju, who confessed to falsifying records of his company Satyam Computers in 2009, is still ongoing. At the time, it was billed as corporate India's biggest-ever scandal, though it has since been overtaken in scale by allegations of improprieties in telecommunications and the coal industry.

Mr. Gopal, a former board member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India - the counterpart of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States - said that in India, the “chances of punishing a corporate leader for violation of securities laws are very slender.”

He blamed this lapse on the securities board itself, which he said is weak on enforcement; the Indian police, which he said do not have adequ ate power to enforce securities laws; and the lack of strong and independent prosecutors.

Whether or not Mr. Gupta's case has alarmed corporate criminals in India, it appears to have spooked young business students, some of whom say they now see a spectrum of corruption extending from the bureaucracy all the way to elite boardrooms.

At the Indian Institute of Management campuses, students say issues of ethics and corporate social responsibility are given special attention in their coursework. But in the business world, they say, these issues seem only to be given prominence at a few companies, like the Tata Group. And not all of them will get jobs there.

“My friends and I are very apprehensive that we may be asked to resort to unethical means,” said Aswin Murali, 26, who is studying at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. “I hope the corporate world cleans up before we get pulled down.”