Haridwar, October 6
It may be hard to imagine the great grand daughter-in-law of a Mughal Emperor selling samosas in Haridwar, but it is true. Exactly 161 years after the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was imprisoned in Rangoon, his great grand daughter-in-law Sultana Begum is earning her livelihood selling samosas and pakodas.

She gets Rs 400 as pension that her family has been getting since the British era. As she has five daughters and a son to feed, Sultana had no option but to stitch clothes and sell pakodas and samosas.

Her son Mirza Mohammed Kamal Bakht has rented a small electrical appliance shop in Kolkata.

Sultana Begum, who got married to Mirza Mohammed Bedar Bukht in 1965, rues that despite being from a royal family, they have only got apathy, neglect and misery.

“The pension from the government is insufficient. Despite fighting for it since 1980 when my husband died, the pension was reduced from Rs 500 to Rs 400. Umpteen visits to government offices has borne no fruit,” rued Sultana, who got married at the tender age of 12 years.

Sultana is not only struggling for the livelihood of her present family but is also trying to bring back the remains of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar from Rangoon in Burma (Myanmar). It was the Emperor’s wish to be buried in Mehrauli, Delhi.

She said Bahadur Shah Zafar, a night before he was to be taken to Rangoon in October 1858 by the British, had taken along with him soil from the compound as he knew he would not come back alive to Hindustan.

Tears began to fall from her eyes when she started talking about the last Mughal Emperor. “He was a patriot and it is the Indian government’s duty to have talks with their Burmese counterparts to bring back the remains of the last Indian Emperor.”

She has been raising the issue for the past five years at different forums. She recently met President Pratibha Devisingh Patil who assured her that she would be allotted a government house and her pension would be hiked.

She said if the Emperor was laid to rest in Delhi, it would be a matter of pride for all Indians as Bahadur Shah Zafar played a pivotal role in the 1857 Mutiny and was the Commander-in-chief of the freedom fighters.

She said Bahadur Shah’s mother Lal Bai was a Hindu who hailed from Akbar Shah. The Emperor was very good Urdu poet too.

Pitthoragarh, October 6
Sabra Yusufjai, alias Sabra bibi, a young girl from Afghanistan who came to India seeking justice against her desertion by an Indian Army doctor, ultimately got justice when a Delhi court ordered that the Army doctor is liable to compensate her.

On the petition filed by Sabra, the metropolitan court of Sunaina Sharma at Karkardooma, Delhi, ordered on September 11 that the marriage of the doctor with Sabra had been proved.

He would have to provide Rs 5,000 per month for her maintenance and Rs 3000 per month for rent of an alternative accommodation.

“I am very happy with the court’s judgement which proved me right, but I will continue to fight the case lodged by me at kotwali Pitthoragarh on December 7, 2008, under Section 494 and 495 of the IPC,” said Sabra over telephone from Delhi where she is doing some courses in Hindi.

Sabra, a resident of Kabul, came in contact with Indian Army doctor Chandra Shekhar Pant in 2006 when the doctor was posted there on a medical mission.

After passing her senior secondary examination, Sabra had started working as a translator at the international airport in Kabul.

"I was working as translator at the international airport where the doctor proposed to me on the pretext that he was unmarried. With the consent of my parents, we got married on December 10, 2006,” said Sabra.

She said that after their marriage, they lived in a rented apartment in Kabul before the doctor moved to India following his transfer.

Before leaving Afghanistan, Dr Pant promised to take her to India. Sabra not only produced in court her 'nikahnama' with the doctor but also the rent deal with the landlord there.

Sabra waited for the return of her husband for two years but when he neither returned nor responded to her telephone calls, she came to India looking for him.

“After reaching India, I came to know that he was already married and had two children from his first marriage,” said Sabra.

In search of him, Sabra reached Pitthoragarh in Uttarakhand where the doctor was posted in the army hospital in December 2008.

“First, I went to his residence and asked him to accept me. But when he asked me to get out, I lodged an application at the police station in Pitthoragarh as well as with the SDM, Pitthoragarh, for justice,” said Sabra.

The civil society in Pitthoragarh took the case of Sabra in their hands and helped her lodge the case.

“If the court has agreed on Sabra’s contention and accepted that she had married the doctor, then the Army should act against the doctor,” said Govind Kafaliya, a social activists who helped Sabra with her case.

The Army doctor denied his marriage before the court and contended that the photographs, marriage video and 'nikahnama' had been doctored.

The doctor also contended that, as the applicant was a foreign citizen, the court cannot initiate any trial in India without seeking the sanction of the central government according to Section 188 CrPC.

The doctor also alleged that Sabra never had a relationship with him therefore she did not fall within the definition of aggrieved person under the Act.

The court said that after careful perusal of the provisions of the Act, the court felt that there was no bar for a foreigner to approach the court for the seeking relief under the Act.

“I had faith in the Indian judiciary and that has been proved,” said Sabra who thanked the Indian judiciary, media and social activists who helped her pursue the case.

Dehradun, October 6
The Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fibre Board will be putting to test prefabricated bamboo-housing technique in near future even as it plays host to an international training programme on pre-fabrication technique under way in Uttarakhand these days.

An authority on prefabricated bamboo housing, Jeffery Teude, a US national, is the chief trainer of the programme. He is training as many as 25 persons from across the globe on prefabrication technique in Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand. At an initiative of China-based International Network of Bamboo and Rattan (INBR), the Uttarakhand Bamboo Board has taken the opportunity to learn from Teude, whose exclusive expertise over the subject till now were almost unknown to the forest authorities in the state.

Though Teude admits his method of constructing bamboo houses initially involves high cost, he does not rule out it being cost-effective in near future. Teude describes his prefabrication technique as very handy and in relevance to modern times as it could withstand all weather conditions and is environment friendly.

There have been efforts in Uttarakhand in the recent past to promote the usage of bamboo. Apart from the forest authorities, Uttarakhand's tourism body, the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam, in collaboration with the Bamboo Board initiated the construction of huts on the pilgrimage routes.

And surely, bamboo huts have been a big hit with tourists but prefabrication is certainly new to the state. Huts constructed in Rudraprayag and Kodiyala on yatra routes are examples of such efforts. The Uttarakhand Forest Department itself wants to take lead in propagating prefabricated bamboo houses at a cheaper cost and as a strong means of housing.

Interestingly, in consent with United Nation’s International Year of Natural Fibres 2009, Uttarakhand is contemplating establishing fibre banks to boost natural fibre-linked activities in the state. On the similar lines of wool bank, fibre banks would ensure a minimum support price to villagers while also catering to its marketing and other infrastructural needs.

Teude will also be coming up with a practical prefabricated bamboo house at Malsi Deer Park, the venue of the training programme. The programme is also coming up as an excellent platform for officials of the Bamboo and Fibre Board for getting better knowhow of the works being done on bamboo in other countries.