Australia’s `Stifling blanket of silence’

0 Comments read Gender, Indigenous

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.09.2003 (Panos Features UK): Elaine Shaw was repeatedly raped and sexually abused from the age of four by her father and uncles. Her partner physically assaulted and psychologically tormented her, locking her in a room for three years to separate her from the children.

Aboriginal women like Shaw – her name is changed to protect her identity – are 45 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than other Australians. And such violence is common in Australia: research shows 23% of all Australian women have been attacked by a partner or family member.

Says New South Wales magistrate Pat O’Shane, who is Aboriginal, “Women are subjected to violence daily, if not hourly, if not by the minute.”

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Talking Tough: Australia and India

0 Comments read Diaspora

By Neena Bhandari

Adelaide, 28.08.2003 (PTI): Australia on Thursday said there was ‘irrefutable’ proof that Pakistan was a source of terrorism and there had been support for terrorist outfits in the country for many years.

“Pakistan has been one of the sources of terrorism and the Taliban really developed out of Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told PTI when asked about visiting External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha’s remarks in an Australian newspaper that ‘Pakistan is the epicentre of world terrorism’. “There has been support in Pakistan for terrorist organisations over many years. The evidence there is irrefutable,” he added.

Downer said Australia was ‘very concerned’ about boarding schools and private Islamic educational institutions being used as breeding grounds for people ‘who have gone on to become fundamentalists, extremists and in some cases terrorists’.

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Conquest of the Summit

4 Comments read Travel

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 16.02.2003 (The Australian/The Hindu/The Week): As the world celebrates this Year of the Mountains and 50 years of the conquest of Mt Everest, SIR EDMUND HILLARY, who along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was the first to set foot on the summit of this highest peak in the world, spoke to this correspondent from the quietude of his home in Auckland (New Zealand), where he lives with his wife, June, about the sanctity and charm associated with the Everest climb in his days.

At 83, he still loves the mountains and the challenge of the climb and expressed concern at the recent commercialisation of the peak. Amongst his prized possessions is the ice axe, which he used for cutting steps up to the summit; and the enamelled tin mug, with Hillary inscribed on the side, from which he sipped coffee just before 4 am on the fateful day.

What was the view from the `Roof of the World’ at 29,035 feet?

The view is still distinctly imprinted on my mind — the barren highlands of Tibet, the valleys and big ridges going into India, and other great mountains to east and west from Kanchenjunga on one side to Chomolhari on the other. Continue reading →