NEW DELHI // Her parents called her "bitiya", or little daughter. She was her family's biggest hope. In a country where women are routinely pushed into subservience, this 23-year-old who dreamed of becoming a doctor was going to lift them out of poverty.
"Without her we are lost," said her father, rocking on the edge of a bed in the family's tiny basement apartment, hugging himself as if to hold in the grief. The sadness enveloped him as he talked of his daughter, who died after she was gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi in December, a case that galvanised public anger in India.
Indian culture has a deeply rooted preference for sons, and many daughters are expected to spend their lives caring for first their brothers and later their husbands. Yet these parents encouraged their bright, hardworking daughter to shine. The time for the two younger boys would come later, when their sister had a toehold in life.
"I never discriminated between my sons and daughter. I could see nothing else in this world but my children. They had to study at any cost," the father said.
Because of a legal gag order, the victim and her family cannot be identified until the end of the trial of alleged rapists.
The family reflects a small but growing part of Indian society that is changing. When their daughter said she wanted to go away to study physiotherapy in a hill town far from New Delhi, her father didn't think of holding her back. He asked the older son, who is in his late teenagers, to delay enrolment at an engineering college until his sister finished her studies. Money was scarce, and she was first in line.
"She was the hero of the film in our family," the father said.
For most women in this country of 1.2 billion, there are few real choices. Tradition says they will get married and become mothers, preferably of boys. If they work, the money will go to their fathers or their husbands.
The mistreatment starts early - with sex-selective abortions and even female infanticides that have skewed India's gender ratio to 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys.
Twenty-five years ago, the victim's father got through high school, left his north Indian farming village and moved to New Delhi to escape poverty. He is still poor, he admits freely, gesturing around the tiny bedroom that passes for a living room when guests arrive.
But he was able to give his children something else.
"My own father could not educate me very much. He had no means. I wanted different things for my children."
He struggled for years, working as a security guard and making parts for washing machines. Three years ago, he got a job as a baggage handler at the New Delhi airport. Since then he has worked 16 hours a day, six days a week for about 12,000 rupees (Dh800) a month.
"We were struggling but life was good," said the father, a heavyset man with greying hair in his mid-fifties.
The poor in India often don't have family photographs, and there are no pictures of the young woman in the damp two-room basement the family calls home.
There are also no closets. Almost all their belongings - clothes, blankets, towels, sheets - hang on nails hammered into the thin brick walls. A naked bulb is the room's only light, except for a tiny window that opens at street level.
In the father's absence, it was the daughter whom both parents trusted most.
"She was the head of the family in the real sense," he said. "Now that she is gone I can't even see tomorrow clearly. I have no idea about the future."
It was a responsibility she took seriously. By the time she was in the ninth grade she was already working - tutoring younger children in her neighbourhood - to help pay her school fees.
The father had big dreams for her. But her dreams were bigger.
"She wanted to become a doctor. A really good doctor," he said.
Maybe that dream would have come true eventually. But she chose a less expensive route. Four years ago, she enrolled in a physiotherapy course at a school in Dehradun, a tiny town in the Himalayan foothills. She got an overnight job working at a call centre to help pay for rent and school fees.
On most days she slept only a few hours in her rented room.
With a job as a hospital physiotherapist, her salary would have started at 12,000-15,000 rupees a month, already more than her father's pay.
By December, she was nearly finished. She was back in New Delhi, living at home and awaiting the results of her final exams.
On December 16, everything changed. As they did every Sunday, the parents washed everyone's clothes. The daughter cooked a family meal of kidney bean curry and lentil fritters soaked in spicy yogurt.
"Everything was so normal," her brother said.
Later, she went to a mall to see a movie with a male friend.
Ordinarily she rarely came home after 8pm, and always called if she was late. But that night the family heard nothing. When they called, her cellphone was switched off. By 8.30pm her brother had called all her friends.
At 11.10pm the police called. They were told their daughter had been in an accident.
The woman and her friend had got on a bus after the movie, looking for a way back to her home. But the bus turned out to be driven by six men out for a joyride, according to police documents. For nearly an hour, they were driven through the city. He was beaten. She was gang-raped, and penetrated with metal rods, causing such severe internal injuries that doctors found parts of her intestines floating inside her abdomen.
Eventually, the two were dumped, naked and bleeding, on a busy road on the cold December night.
"Imagine how much she must have suffered," her brother said.
For almost 10 days her brain was alert. Police and a magistrate took statements from her in a New Delhi hospital. She remembered the names of her attackers. She recognised the faces in the photographs police showed her. She broke down only once.
"She told me 'Mummy, they beat me a lot.' That was the only time she showed her pain," the mother said.
When infection began to ravage her body, she was flown to a Singapore hospital. But on Christmas she slipped into a coma. She died on December 29. Now, they feel varying degrees of rage and helplessness.
"Sometimes I want to kill them myself," the brother says, "but I know that would be wrong."
If convicted, five of the attackers could face death sentences. A sixth, declared a juvenile, would likely serve three years in reform home if convicted.
"I want them to hang. They should not come out alive after what they did to my child," said the father. "This is not just about my daughter. If there is no justice in this case it will hurt the progress of girls in the whole country."
"I always told my children, if you study hard you can escape this poverty. All my life I believed that," said her mother. "Now that dream has ended. My faith has left me."
Three weeks after her daughter died, her final exam results were announced. She had passed.
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
The specs
Engine: 0.8-litre four cylinder
Power: 70bhp
Torque: 66Nm
Transmission: four-speed manual
Price: $1,075 new in 1967, now valued at $40,000
On sale: Models from 1966 to 1970
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
The specs: 2018 Opel Mokka X
Price, as tested: Dh84,000
Engine: 1.4L, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: Six-speed auto
Power: 142hp at 4,900rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 1,850rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L / 100km
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
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HEADLINE HERE
- I would recommend writing out the text in the body
- And then copy into this box
- It can be as long as you link
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- That's about it
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
If you go
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.
The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Power: 110 horsepower
Torque: 147Nm
Price: From Dh59,700
On sale: now
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Stormy seas
Weather warnings show that Storm Eunice is soon to make landfall. The videographer and I are scrambling to return to the other side of the Channel before it does. As we race to the port of Calais, I see miles of wire fencing topped with barbed wire all around it, a silent ‘Keep Out’ sign for those who, unlike us, aren’t lucky enough to have the right to move freely and safely across borders.
We set sail on a giant ferry whose length dwarfs the dinghies migrants use by nearly a 100 times. Despite the windy rain lashing at the portholes, we arrive safely in Dover; grateful but acutely aware of the miserable conditions the people we’ve left behind are in and of the privilege of choice.
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
Power: 141bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh64,500
On sale: Now
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
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Financial considerations before buying a property
Buyers should try to pay as much in cash as possible for a property, limiting the mortgage value to as little as they can afford. This means they not only pay less in interest but their monthly costs are also reduced. Ideally, the monthly mortgage payment should not exceed 20 per cent of the purchaser’s total household income, says Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching.
“If it’s a rental property, plan for the property to have periods when it does not have a tenant. Ensure you have enough cash set aside to pay the mortgage and other costs during these periods, ideally at least six months,” she says.
Also, shop around for the best mortgage interest rate. Understand the terms and conditions, especially what happens after any introductory periods, Ms Glynn adds.
Using a good mortgage broker is worth the investment to obtain the best rate available for a buyer’s needs and circumstances. A good mortgage broker will help the buyer understand the terms and conditions of the mortgage and make the purchasing process efficient and easier.
