Some facts
Thursday 1st March
Our friends, Den and Lin left here on Tuesday at 2.00 p.m and arrived back in the UK on Wednesday at approximately 8.00 p.m, nearly 30 hours – well done Air France!
Returning to the theme of last Monday’s blog regarding double standards and women. I read today that according to the United Nations there are 7 million people in India with HIV/AIDS ans the latest report from the recent National Family Health survey only 57% of women have heard of AIDS compared with 80% of men.There are two main factors for this, firstly, only 54% of women are literate (compared to 76% of men). Secondly, rural men visit prostitutes when working away from home in urban areas. There is a huge stigma attached to the disease and they will not discuss it even though they are quite prepared to transfer it to their wives on their return home. I have no information on the literacy rates or prevelance of AIDS in Goa. I am sure that the literacy rates are much higher here as it is relatively a wealthy state compared to the likes of Bihar or Uttarakhand.
Some interesting headlines in yesterday’s paper.
‘GOODY DONATES ‘DIRTY MONEY’ TO POOR’ – (reference to Jade Goody) from the ghastly Big Brother show.
‘MURDER CONVICT STONES JUDGE IN COURT’ – Double murderer concealed a rock in court then threw it and hit and injured the judge while he was passing a guilty verdict.
‘HUBBY SELLS WIFE’S KIDNEY TO BUY TRACTOR’ – a very sad but not too uncommon tale from Pakistan. A man badly beat his wife so much that she had to have an abortion. He then took his wife ‘to hospital in Bahawalpur on the pretext of treatment’, where she was operated on by doctors who allegdely deprived her of one of her kidneys with the connivance of her husband. He used the money from the sale of the kidney to buy a tractor.
