Sordid State

I just read a rather depressing news on rediff. The title screams, rather sensationally, Four murders and 2 rapes in an hour. I was forced to open the page out of the natural inquistiveness that people - or rather should I say MEN, attach to these words. I know the very words that is running through the back of your mind - 'Arun, you filthy animal'. But, the material presented rather than arun turns out to be the filthy part. The page gives you nothing but a statistical non-partisan perspective of the crime graph in the country. Two things is what I poignantly remember from this report. One of them baffles me and other makes me sad:

The first one is that as per the crime report, pondicherry has reported the highest IPC crime in India. Having lived there during my student days, I cannot fathom Pondy - thatz how we call it down south, being called the crime capital of the country.

The other one was that the life of almost 3300 women have been snuffed out by their in-laws to satiate their greed for wealth. And, mind you this is the statistic only for 3 states - UP, Andhra & Bihar.

Even though we can dismiss the first as a typographical error the second can't be dismissed nonchalantly. This kind of statistical facts only reiterates the fact that though we are making giant strides economically, when it comes to real human development India is still very much a third-world country.