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05-11 June, 2012
small world
Brain Drain
Getting the Hell out of God’s Own Country
Shahina KK

KOCHI ~ It is no secret that for women, Kerala is nowhere near being God’s Own Country, but there is also empirical evidence for it. A survey on migration by the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) has revealed that 33 out of 100 women from Kerala relocate to other states. Interestingly, this has little to do with their spouses or parents migrating. The women are getting out on their own. As much as 69 per cent of women migrants were unmarried.

A little more than half the women migrants, 51 per cent, got out at age 20–24. Educated women also migrated at the first opportunity. Fifty-eight per cent held a professional degree and 34.6 per cent a post-

graduate degree. Among PhD and MPhil holders, migration was significantly higher among women (13 per cent) than men (5 per cent). Women with professional degrees also migrated more than men. While nursing remains the most lucrative career for women migrants, Kerala also loses a fair number of women doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers and entrepreneurs.

“The rate of unemployment and its unequal proportion between men and women are the primary reasons for this phenomenon,” says Dr Irudaya Rajan, faculty member of CDS, who headed the study along with Dr KC Zachariah, demographer and former fellow of CDS. Dr AK Jayasree, a feminist activist in Kerala, says the reasons are more social and political than economical. “Kerala is becoming more intolerant of women and their rights. It is difficult for women, especially those who have higher education, to live in Kerala,” she says.

 

The preference for men is high in Kerala’s labour market. Of the total 8.9 million employed persons in Kerala, 2 million are women and 6.8 million are men, according to the survey. The exodus of women is, however, confined within India. Women migrants outside the country are only 15 per cent of the total 22.8 lakh migrants. “It is an indication of the unequal status and the constraints of mobility among women,” says Dr Rajan.

The study was based on primary data collected from 15,000 households selected at random by a stratified sampling technique covering all the 63 talukas.

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Take Two
It’s a No Ball
On the unfair castigation of the KKR victory celebrations
Madhavankutty Pillai

So we all know by now that Mamata Banerjee has soundly established her paranoia credentials. To the lumpen bourgeois, the new West Bengal government is nothing like the liberal liberators from the Red Army they had so eagerly waited for. We also know that Shah Rukh Khan’s PR has been out of sync with the media and the Twitter crowd for some time. As per the latest wild rumours, he is a botoxed two-timing drug addict. Taking all of the above together, we perhaps understand the sudden blizzard of bad press for what were ordinary victory celebrations by the Kolkata Knight Riders.

The main thrust of the charge seems to be that the West Bengal government has no business hosting a celebration for a private club. In which case, no government, Centre or state had any business having any celebrations when India won the one-day international World Cup. For, technically it was the BCCI’s team that had won. The BCCI, which employs these players, is also just that—a private club. All of cricket in India is a private affair. Exactly what Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken keeps hollering to deaf ears. It is also what the BCCI itself says when threatened with the ambit of the Right to Information Act. But no one questioned the celebrations for Dhoni & Co. or the cheques with crores in them that eager state governments started writing to players from their territory. Perhaps that is also a travesty, but even with travesties, there must be fairness. Why single out Mamata?

Even if you are not a fan of Shah Rukh Khan, you have to admit how completely vindicated his resilience has been. Kolkata is the same city that thinks of Sourav Ganguly as the best batsman in the world even after he has retired, and KKR the same team that sacked Ganguly despite knowing the consequences. It was as courageous a decision as any in the cricketing world. KKR and Shah Rukh have both been objects of ridicule over the past four years. It’s ungracious to continue this in their moment of triumph. At least wait till the next season starts.

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Muscle Power
Balle Balle Arnie
Aanchal Bansal

After Hollywood actor Sylvestor Stallone and Australian singer Kylie Minogue graced Bollywood screens with their rather lukewarm presence, it seems Arnold Schwarzenegger too will soon be seen flexing his muscles in an Indian movie. But not in a Bollywood potboiler. He will be seen in athlete and bodybuilding champion Varinder Ghuman’s Punjabi film Fateh—The Victory, expected to release later this year. Schwarzenegger recently announced Ghuman as the face of his health products and supplements in India. “He had appreciated my body and hard work at the Australian Grand Prix a couple of years back and then I met him in Europe earlier last month… That’s how the deal came through and I am proud that a Punjabi boy like me could get such a break from a veteran,” says Ghuman. He is also known to be the world’s first vegetarian bodybuilder and will soon be seen in his debut film Kabaddi Once Again, in which he plays, no guesses, a bodybuilder. “I have been winning prizes in various championships across the world, but very few people know about it. Films are the easiest way to promote a sport like bodybuilding. We grew up watching Schwarzenegger and Salman Khan; I would like to contribute in the same way,” says the former Mr India.

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05-11 June, 2012