So I've read...

ARCHITECTURE INSIDE OUT
By MOHAMMAD TAJUDDIN MOHAMMAD RASDI


I NEVER would have thought it. Here I am, a 22-year veteran of academia in the field of architecture, writing about ... parking lots. But, actually, they do have something to say to us, especially if you consider their implications for democratic architecture.

Basically, the simple message I want to convey is that in democratic architecture, parking must be designed to adequately serve people who visit government buildings.

Most Malaysians have learnt that it is impractical to drive themselves alone to a government hospital or to a bangunan perseketuan (federal building) because there is generally nowhere to park close by.

We all know we have to be dropped off at the entrance while the car would have to be driven off to either be parked miles away or driven in circles in the vicinity as the poor driver waits for you to finish your task. If there are any parking spots nearby, chances are they will sport “Kakitangan Sahaja” (Staff Only) signs.

Let me share two contrasting parking lot stories with you.

The first story is about the Wisma Persekutuan in downtown Johor Baru. If you want to renew your passport or register your son’s IC, you have to go to this building, which offers two parking choices: one is just a stone’s throw away but space is limited, it costs RM3 to park, and it charges by the hour; at the other lot, you only pay RM2 for the whole day, but it comes with a 150m-long walk in either the hot sun or a deluge.

Where do the kakitangan park? Well, in the architecturally designated space, of course, right next to the building, where else?

Now, I am not going to fault the architect (or administrator) who wrote the brief for the building with a requirement of only a certain number of parking lots. He probably never imagined a day would come when an office boy would be driving his Kancil or second hand Unser to work – all thanks to the wonderful New Economic Policy, of course.

Here’s my second parking lot story, about the lot at a shopping mall near my home in JB. My niece worked at the mall for two years, and she used to drive her Kancil to work. She told me that the mall’s kakitangan were not allowed to park either in the shaded areas or in the open air parking lots close to the building. These places were reserved for customers.

I never failed to get parking at the mall (except when there’s a mad card member sale!); and parking was free then.

Now the mall has upgraded the open air parking lots, covering them with metal roof decks to provide shelter from the sun and rain. We now have to pay RM1 to use those lots, which seems eminently reasonable to me. Pretty good deal and service, in fact.

Why did this happen, I asked? Well, it seems the mall feels strongly that “the customer is our business”. An unhappy customer makes for zero business. In other words, the bottom line speaks!

So how can those who design and build government buildings learn from this mall? Simply that the business of the civil servants employed by the Government is to serve the “customer”. The government would have no “business” if there were no “customers” to serve. Who are these customers? You got it. They are us, the loyal citizens of Malaysia, the rakyat.

So my message to the architects and administrators of Government buildings is: get your calculations right and give thought to the customer first and the kakitangan last. No two ways about it. If we are to forge ahead into a new 1Malaysia, “Citizen” must be spelled with a capital “C”. And the signs should read “Untuk Rakyat Malaysia” (For Malaysian Citizens).

You see, even the humble parking lot can give a building a vocabulary of democracy if the designers and administrators actually understand the meaning of that word.

By Jacqueline Ann Surin and Shanon Shah

DURING a press conference in 2003, then Perlis Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim tried to defend the state’s decision to loosen conditions for polygamy. Perlis had decided that Muslim men did not need to seek their first wife’s consent to marry another woman.

By LESTER KONG
lester@thestar.com.my


The GTP aims to raise the public transport modal share to 13% by 2010 and to 25% by 2012 during the morning peak period and apply successful initiatives to Penang and Johor Bahru.

Malaysia is at the crossroads of change and the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) forms the roadmap to transform Malaysia into a fully developed nation by 2020.

The GTP’s goals are not just economic but also encompass political, social, spiritual, psychological and cultural dimensions of development.

Although the country has progressed by leaps and bounds since Merdeka, it is in danger of becoming stuck as a middle-income nation and losing competitiveness amid rapidly developing economies.

Under the GTP, major areas of necessary change were outlined as the six National Key Results Areas – the NKRAs.

The NKRAs are reducing crime, fighting corruption, improving student outcomes, raising living standards of low-income households, improving rural basic infrastructure and improving urban public transport.

These are the priority areas for the nation to overcome in order to become a developed nation. They impact the people directly and have bearing on how safe people feel, how competitive they could become and the level of comfort that Malaysians across the board enjoy.

As Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) of the Prime Minister’s Department chairman Senator Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said: “We must achieve our national vision of a developed nation that is prosperous, peaceful, safe, and united, with social justice.

“To do so, the Government will champion the spirit of 1Malaysia, put the people first, and perform and deliver results in the best interests of the people. This roadmap provides the way forward to address the basic concerns of the people.”

Under the main NKRAs are the equally important underpining ministerial KRAs,” he said.


These MKRAs include targeted outcomes that the rakyat can see and feel (such as faster responses to public complaints and reducing the number of road traffic accidents).

Similar to the NKRAs, MKRAs and Ministerial KPIs (MKPIs) continue to be refined and improved over time and accountability for delivery rests with each respective minister.

The Prime Minister has also committed to reviewing the progress of all ministers every six months to ensure their performance is on track. The first reviews took place between November 2009 and January 2010.

Log on to www.pemandu.gov.my to get a clearer idea of how the GTP will guide the public and private sectors to collectively achieve a paradigm shift to bring the country to greater heights for all Malaysians.

URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT: THE KEY RESULTS AREAS

High peak period congestion, often unreliable service with frequent delays and cancellations, poor connectivity between modes in certain areas and poor access to public transport services (e.g., only about 61% of Klang Valley’s population lives within 400 metres of a public transport route).

These, in combination with continued growth in the number of private vehicles, has contributed to public transport modal share in Klang Valley falling steadily from 34% in 1985 to 20% in 1997; today it is closer to 10–12%.

Overall, the GTP aims to raise the public transport modal share to 13% by 2010 and to 25% by 2012 during the morning peak period of 7am to 9am in Klang Valley and apply successful initiatives to Penang and Johor Bahru.

Improving reliability and journey times, enhancing comfort and convenience and improving accessibility and connectivity such that the percentage of the population living within 400m of a public transport route increases from 63% to 75% in 2010.

In meeting these KPIs (key performance indicators), four steps will be taken between 2009 and 2012 and one beyond 2012 to secure and extend targeted improvements.

By 2012, capacities of the KTM Komuter and LRT lines will be increased by up to 4.0 times (depending on specific lines).

This will involve refurbishments and purchases of rolling stock and trainsets such as 35 new four-car trains for the Kelana Jaya LRT line.

Dedicated rights-of-way for buses will also be introduced across 12 major corridors in Klang Valley by 2012 starting with four in 2010.

These 12 corridors will in total carry 35,000 to 55,000 passengers during the morning peak hours, or 6% to 9% of total public transport ridership by 2012.

The existing bus fleet will be boosted by 850 buses by 2012. This will improve services on current routes and provide service to 53 new routes to address currently unserved areas.

Initiatives to stimulate demand to attract people to use public transport include introducing an integrated ticketing platform and fare structure such as the 1Ticket, 1Seamless Journey concept across all 16 operators in Klang Valley.

Parking problems will be mitigated by adding roughly 6,800 new parking spaces by 2012 across 14 rail stations outside the urban core, enhancing feeder services into rail stations and upgrading high-traffic stations, terminals and bus stops.

Physical connectivity between modes such as enclosed walkways will also be increased.

Enforcement and monitoring efforts will be critical to ensure operators adhere to minimum service and operational standards. In order to achieve this, backend IT systems will be integrated with joint on-the-ground enforcement efforts, across all major enforcement agencies – the 10 local authorities, Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board (CVLB), JPJ and PDRM.

Heavy vehicles will be diverted from the central business district to reduce congestion.

To do this, three major integrated transport terminals (ITT) outside the city core, beginning with ITT-South in Bandar Tasik Selatan in 2010.

This will be supported by ITT-East in Gombak by April 2011 which will divert more than 350 inter-city buses from the east to the city centre every day and then a third terminal will also be built to serve the northern inter-city express buses beyond 2012.

Within the city centre, there will be two types of public transport hubs – first, the intra-city terminal at Pasarama Kota, Hentian Putra and Pudu to facilitate the flow of traffic from the suburbs into the city, and second, 14 Hentian Akhir Bandar that will facilitate the movement of passengers and public transport vehicles within the city centre to reduce congestion and streamline overlapping routes.

The current system of having 12 ministries and various agencies involved in different aspects of public transport will be funneled into the proposed Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD – Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat).

A prerequisite for success will be the creation of a single point of accountability for policy planning and regulatory oversight.

Beyond 2012, once public transport modal share is above 25% and the public transportation system has been improved in terms of reliability, journey times, comfort, accessibility and connectivity, initiatives will be implemented to increase the relative attractiveness of public transport vis-à-vis private vehicles.

One example is congestion pricing, which has been implemented successfully in London and Singapore. A series of detailed initiatives have been formulated to support the achievement of the KPIs.

EARLY SIGNS OF PROGRESS ON URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Realignment of 45 RapidKL routes has reduced passenger transfers, saving time and costs, and improving coverage in November 2009.

Optimising deployment of trainsets on highest traffic segments in the same time also reduced KTM Komuter headway from 20 minutes to 15. These are on the Sungai Buloh-Kajang and Kuala Lumpur-Shah Alam routes.

Launch of RM 150 RapidKL integrated travel passes also allowed unlimited travel on all Prasarana services including Rapid KL buses, Kelana Jaya LRT, Ampang LRT and Monorail.

A set of 10 four-car trains were also added to the congested RapidKL Kelana Jaya LRT line since December 2009.

FRI, 28 MAY 2010 23:51
By Stephanie Sta Maria

PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's Wesak Day message for Malaysians centred around religious tolerance, and the Buddhist teaching of following the middle path and avoiding extremism.

His message came hot on the heels of a recent panel discussion on Islam, which had both Muslims and non-Muslims shifting uneasily over the misrepresentation of Islam in Malaysia.

Oganised by Sisters In Islam (SIS), the discussion followed a screening of the documentary “Mencari Kartika” (In Search of Kartika) by new filmmaker Norhayati Kaprawi.

The documentary was inspired by a Merdeka Centre survey which revealed that many Malaysian Muslims supported the caning of Kartika Dewi Shukarnor.

Kartika was sentenced to caning after being found guilty of consuming alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam. Her sentence was later commuted to three weeks of community service, but her case had attracted criticism from local and international quarters.

According to Professor Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi of the Mara University of Technology, the “Talibanisation” of the Malay society is currently taking place. He warned that this is cause for great concern.

“Talibanisation means too much emphasis on symbols – wearing the hijab, growing a beard and discrimination against women – than substance,” he said. “In certain instances, Malaysia has crossed over into extremism, which is very disturbing. But our leaders don't seem to recognise this.”

“The Muslims who supported the caning of Kartika somehow find an appeal in violence, vengeance and watching other people suffering. They think this is part of Islam but it isn't. These are the fringe aspects of Islam that have become mainstream. And Kartika has become a symbol that has led to a call for the revival of the hudud law.”

Wayward perception

Professor Norani Othman, a sociologist at Universiti Kenagsaaan Malaysia and a founding member of SIS, places the blame for this wayward perception of Islam squarely on Malaysia's education system.

She didn't mince her words when she said the intellectual culture of Malaysian Muslims has suffered a great dumbing down and they have failed to bring themselves into the 21st century.

“When (prime minister) Najib (Tun Razak) was Education Minister, I appealed to him to review the education format of religious schools,” she recalled. “The students were learning by memorising and critical thinking was not encouraged. I told him that he needed to appoint a committee of experts and scholars to provide feedback on how to improve our education system but he didn't grasp the importance of this.”

“Indonesia set up such a committee because education wasn't part of the state. The Suharto regime may have been an authoritarian one but it still laid off Islam and, to some extent, Islamic education. So the intellectuals invited the late Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman for a conference.”

“Only then did they begin to implement modernisation and a reformation of their religious education. This is why Indonesia has far more thriving and intelligent debates on the implementation of Islamic law.”

Both professors also noted with dismay the reluctance of the “right-thinking people” to speak up against the “extremists”. Calling it a tragedy of the country and the Malaysian Muslims' social, religious and moral life, Shad warned that continuing to keep silent would give more power to the “lunatic fringes”.

He pointed out that the agenda of Islam is currently being dictated by this group who force others into silence for fear of being confronted with tough questions. In his opinion, the Malay society has adopted the feudalistic mindset of blindly following the leader. Norani fully agreed.

“Under the federal constitution, we are all citizens of Malaysia,” said Norani. “If we allow the state too much freedom to politicise Islam, then we are encouraging the 'Talibanisation' of Islamic laws to cow people into silence.”

“It's time we all stood up and stop saying that it has nothing to do with us. We shouldn't be afaid to speak up against Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (JAIS), Majlis Agam Islam Selangor (MAIS) and Perkasa because they are terrorising us into silence.”

Marina Mahathir, who was also present at the discussion, voiced anxiety over the future of Islam in Malaysia.

“I believe in an Islam that upholds justice and equality and everything that is good,” she said. “But today both conservative Muslims and non-Muslims view it as a religion that punishes people and oppresses women. I fear that the true Islam will one day be completely wiped out from Malaysia.”

Gays are under attack in poor countries—and not just because of “local culture”
May 27th 2010

THEIR crimes were “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts”. Their sentence was 14 years’ hard labour: one intended, said the judge, to scare others. He has succeeded. A court in Malawi last week horrified many with its treatment of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a gay couple engaged to be married. The two men are the latest victims of a crackdown on gay rights in much of the developing world, particularly Africa.

Some 80 countries criminalise consensual homosexual sex. Over half rely on “sodomy” laws left over from British colonialism. But many are trying to make their laws even more repressive. Last year, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, signed a law criminalising consensual gay sex, despite the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of the bill. A draconian bill proposed in Uganda would dole out jail sentences for failing to report gay people to the police and could impose the death penalty for gay sex if one of the participants is HIV-positive. In March Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who once described gay people as worse than dogs or pigs, ruled out constitutional changes outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In many former colonies, denouncing homosexuality as an “unAfrican” Western import has become an easy way for politicians to boost both their popularity and their nationalist credentials. But Peter Tatchell, a veteran gay-rights campaigner, says the real import into Africa is not homosexuality but politicised homophobia.

This has, he argues, coincided with an influx of conservative Christians, mainly from America, who are eager to engage African clergy in their own domestic battle against homosexuality. David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who proposed its horrid bill, is a member of the Fellowship, a conservative American religious and political organisation. “Africa must seem an exciting place for evangelical Christians from places like America,” says Marc Epprecht, a Canadian academic who studies homosexuality in Africa. “They can make much bigger gains in their culture wars there than they can in their own countries.” Their ideas have found fertile ground. In May this year, George Kunda, Zambia’s vice-president, lambasted gay people, saying they undermined the country’s Christian values and that sadism and Satanism could be the result.

Discrimination against gays, in Africa in particular, risks undermining the fight against HIV/AIDS. In February, those suspected of being gay were targeted in Kenya in mob violence at a government health centre providing HIV/AIDS services. Bishop Joshua Banda, chairman of Zambia’s National AIDS Council, said that donor countries’ efforts to speak out against violations of gay rights were against Zambia’s “traditional values”. The increasing crackdown on gay rights in Africa will be a disaster for public health, according to Mr Epprecht, as gay people go underground and do not get treatment for HIV/AIDS.


The problem goes beyond Africa and is more than one of state-sponsored homophobia. In Iraq, for example, homosexuality is legal. But in 2009 Human Rights Watch described the persecution that men suspected of being gay there face, including kidnappings, rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, there has been a growing fear of the “feminisation” of Iraqi men. The Mahdi Army, a Shia militia, has played on these fears and, claiming to uphold religious values and morality, offered violent “solutions”. Members of the Iraqi security forces have also been accused of colluding in the violence.

South Africa was the first country anywhere to ban homophobic discrimination in its constitution. It is the only country in Africa to allow gay marriage. In formal legal terms, it is a beacon for gay rights, says Mr Tatchell. But the growing phenomenon of “corrective rape” both there and in Zimbabwe, where women are assaulted in an attempt to “cure” them of lesbianism, suggests these laws often fail on the ground. As worrying to campaigners as the violence itself is a reluctance by the authorities to acknowledge that the attacks are motivated by homophobia. In April 2008 Eudy Simelane, a South African football player who was a lesbian, was gang-raped and stabbed to death. Two men were convicted of her murder but, in his sentencing, the judge denied that Ms Simelane’s sexuality played a part in the crime.

Hopes rose a little in June 2009 when India overturned its 149-year-old sodomy law but since then the global trend seems to have been in the opposite direction. Campaigners argue the proposed laws have implications beyond gay rights. How countries treat one particularly vulnerable group is a good measure of how they will act towards the rest of their citizens.

Source: Economist

Sam Jones

Two boys aged 10 and 11 were today found guilty of attempting to rape an eight-year-old girl, but were cleared of raping her.

The boys, who have sat next to their mothers in the well of a court at the Old Bailey for the last two weeks, were among the youngest ever to be charged with rape in England and Wales.

A jury found them not guilty on two charges each of raping the girl in Hayes, west London, in October last year. They were later found guilty of two charges each of attempted rape, by majorities of 10 to two.

As a concession to the defendants' age, the judge and counsel dispensed with wigs and gowns and reporters were asked to spread out around the court rather than congregate in an intimidating huddle on the press bench.

Proceedings were also kept short to help the boys follow what was going on; the day was divided into two 40-minute sessions in the morning and two 30-minute sessions in the afternoon to mimic a primary school timetable.

Opening the case almost a fortnight ago, Rosina Cottage, prosecuting, told the six-man, six-woman jury that they would hear evidence of a most serious crime.

"This case concerns rape by two boys still at primary school of a girl even younger than them," she said.

"Together they took her to different locations near where they lived in order to find a sufficiently secluded spot to assault her. The events leading to the alleged rapes all took place in and around a block of flats and they ended in a field."

Cottage told the court the girl had been playing with a five-year-old friend near her home in Hayes on 27 October when the defendants arrived and suggested visiting another friend.

But Cottage said that when the four children arrived at the block of flats where the friend lived, the defendants pulled down their pants and those of the girl.

After the scene was repeated in the lift of the block of flats, the girl and her younger friend were trapped by the older boys in a shed that held rubbish bins, Cottage said.

Once again, said Cottage, the girl's pants were pulled down and she was sexually assaulted before eventually being taken to a nearby field and allegedly raped.

The jury was then shown a recorded interview shot by specially trained police officers the day after the alleged assaults.

In it, the girl played with a teddy bear she had named Mr Happy while she told one of the officers how the boys had exposed themselves, pulled down her pants and raped her.

However, the girl's story changed radically when she was cross-examined via a videolink.

She said she had lied to her mother because she had been "naughty" and was worried she would not get any sweets.

In a series of questions, she was asked if any parts of her body had been penetrated by the boys. She replied each time: "No."

She also admitted that she had agreed to play with the boys and had pulled down her own underwear while the boys exposed themselves to her.

Linda Strudwick, defending the older boy, asked her: "Did you ever tell your mum it was not you but it was [the boys] who took your knickers down? You didn't want your mum to think you had been naughty?"

The girl replied: "Yeah."

The judge asked what the girl had been worried about and she replied: "No sweets if it [sic] found out I had been naughty."

The problem, as one of the defence barristers told the jury, was that everything hinged on the girl's testimony.

"Apart from saying that the girl said it had happened so it must have, Ms Cottage provided you with absolutely nothing to support the allegation of rape and attempted rape," said Chetna Patel, counsel for the younger boy.

"No useful medical evidence, no DNA evidence and no forensic evidence: nothing."

Strudwick said that her client was "a normal boy … not a monster", adding that a children's game appeared to have got out of hand.

"What this case is about is not a serious crime," she said. "It is about children. There is a game called 'You show me yours and I will show you mine'.

"Maybe it went too far, maybe it went to touching, maybe they were doing something they had seen on television, maybe they were playing that age-old game, doctors and nurses.

"They are kids. If [my client] had been a few months younger, he could not have been charged."

But in her closing speech, Cottage warned the jury not to trivialise what had taken place.

"On the face of it, wouldn't it be so much easier and so much nicer to believe that this was all a case of innocent sexual experimentation, a game of you show me yours and I will show you mine, a case of [the girl] misunderstanding what had happened and innocently exaggerating it?" she said.

"Just because it would be easier, just because we don't really want to consider that these things really did happen, is not the way to decide this case. You have to look at the evidence."

By Manipadma Jena

NEW DELHI, May 21, 2010 (IPS) - When Sunita Sanyal (last name changed) complained of intense headache and vomiting, her mother presumed it was just pre-examination jitters. After all, Sunita’s business management finals were just a week away.

At the doctor’s clinic, however, the startling truth came out: Sunita, 25, had been taking emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs), often as many as eight times a month – a high overdose – or after every tryst with her boyfriend.

Reproductive health communications expert Usha Rai recalls the case of a 12-year-old in Patna in eastern Bihar State, who was repeatedly abused by her brother-in-law and made to take several doses of ECPs. The girl was already five months pregnant when she underwent medical or surgical abortion.

New Delhi-based health activist Jaya Velankar says, "the rampant and unscientific use, over-the-counter sales and misleading advertisements on emergency contraceptives like iPill and Unwanted-72 have raised huge health concerns for young women (taking these pills)."

The latter is known to prevent an unwanted pregnancy provided it is taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

"Over the past year iPills and Unwanted-72 have been moving fast," says Aurobind Das, owner of Mahashakti Medicines store in a posh locality in Bhubaneswar city in eastern Orissa state. These are mostly purchased by young male college students, apparently for their girlfriends, usually as often as twice a week, he says.

Das says he usually explains to these young men the danger of taking an overdose of ECPs and advises them to buy regular oral contraceptives instead. "They just shrug it off and say if there are side effects, the girl will handle that," says the chemist.

Kalpana Mehta of Saheli’ (translated as ‘a woman’s friend’), a nationwide non-governmental organisation based in this capital, describes emergency contraceptives as "fraudulent products."

She explains: "Since oral contraceptives like ‘Mala-D’ are made available by the government freely and widely in India, there is no need for a dedicated product that is costly and out of reach for most, at 80 to 100 (Indian) rupees or around 2 U.S. dollars for a single dose."

Five years ago, India included the promotion of ECPs in its national health programme. The government specifically allowed the distribution of these pills through its social marketing campaigns.

ECPs, also known as ‘curb abortion’ and ‘morning-after’ pills, contain high concentrations of hormones, usually levonorgestrel or estrogen. They have about eight to 10 times more estrogens compared to a regular contraceptive pill and thus are known to pose serious health risks to women, especially when taken in high doses.

A two-pill dose taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex – the second pill taken 12 hours after the first – disrupts the uterus lining, thereby suppressing or delaying ovulation and averts pregnancy, says Dr Sarojini Sarangi, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Sriram Chandra Bhanj (SCB) Medical College in Cuttack, the foremost government-funded university hospital in Orissa.

"One dose within one menstrual cycle can be tolerated, but women take three to five ECP doses in one menstrual cycle, which interfere with the fertilisation process," says Dr Sarangi. "Often patients come to me in their second or third month of pregnancy, mistakenly thinking a missed menstrual cycle is due to the ECP pills."

Adds Dr Sujata Kar, a gynaecologist and owner of an upmarket clinic in Bhubaneswar: "Indians are a pill-happy people. Women conveniently forget the ‘emergency’ prefix in the ECP and use it as an easy means of contraception."

"If high doses are continuously taken over the medium and long term, conception ability could be impaired," warns Dr Sarangi. Other potential side effects are migraine and pelvic inflammatory disease.

"In developed countries, chemists warn buyers to look out for blood clotting and ectopic pregnancies, but not in low-knowledge India," says Mehta of the NGO Saheli. Such abnormal pregnancies, which develop outside a woman’s uterus, arise from reproductive or contraceptive failure.

Since unwanted and unplanned pregnancies are common in this south Asian country of more than a billion people, there is a high incidence of abortions.

Of the 6.4 million abortions performed in India in 2002 and 2003, 56 percent, or 3.6 million, were unsafe, according to a 2004 study by the Mumbai-based Centre for Equity into Health and Allied Themes and Healthwatch Trust.

Almost 20 percent of patients seeking abortion are unmarried, says Dr Kar. In some clinics in Patna, the percentage of such women is even higher, half of them from rural areas.

Many come for abortion in their school uniforms, writes journalist Usha Rai on the incidence of abortion in Bihar in an unpublished 2009 study titled "Rural Women Continue to Opt for ‘Clean Up’".

India legalised abortion in 1971 through the passage of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Medical Termination of Pregnancy, which stipulated certain conditions for its execution.

Women in general are forced to bear more children than they desire, in part because of the phenomenon of son preference, which has deep cultural roots in India, or because men generally refuse contraception, says Dr Saraswati Swain, a retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology who has worked with grassroots communities.

Used right, ECP is an empowering tool allowing women more control over their reproductive lives, says Dr Kar. Therefore, they need to be made available over the counter, doctors say.

Yet, awareness of the dangers of excessive and indiscriminate use of ECPs must be stepped up significantly, says Velankar, the health activist. And this necessarily extends to consumers, particularly youth, and even drug store owners.

(END)