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The article is based on a Thomson Reuters “expert survey” conducted a few months back. And I have detailed out, in a previous answer of mine, why the survey is not robust or scientific and can, hence, be trashed.And although it (my answer) was written from an Indian perspective, the overall narrative holds for other countries in the list too since the entire survey design and the conclusions drawn are faulty.Thomson Reuters Foundation (a not-for-profit arm of Thomson Reuters). They conducted a poll back in 2011 and asked a bunch of experts on the topic of female rights and treatments a few questions, and published the results. This year’s piece was a follow-up on the same.The poll can be found here: The world’s five most dangerous countries for women 2018The corresponding article: EXCLUSIVE - From managers to maids: India's working women all face sexual abuseA. The PollThe methodology page on the website mentions,We contacted 548 experts focused on women’s issues including aid and development professionals, academics, health workers, policymakers, non-government organisation workers, journalists, and social commentators.All of the experts were asked to list:5 most dangerous countries in the world for women6 compound questions pertaining to 6 different facets - healthcare, discrimination, traditions, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, and traffickingThe first question was given a weightage of 25%, the remaining 6, 75% (or 12.5% each). And here is the first fallacy - the first question is a repeat of the 6 that follow. A country is 5 times more likely to be named there than the other 6 (which ask for only one option), but is only given twice as much weightage. But that’s probably nit-picking.The major problem with the survey design is that it is open-ended. There are 193 countries in the world and picking out one based on personal assessment and perception will never be objective. It is going to be biased against bigger/more popular countries (they are more likely to be named).Furthermore, a subjective analysis like this is prone to recency effect with countries which have been in the news recently having better memory recall. It is also susceptible to being influenced by the kind of media one follows - India is always getting the short-end of the stick in most mainstream Western publications like Huffington Post, BBC etc. Ironically, HuffPo published a opinion piece on this at the same as the first version of the Thomson Reuters poll was out.The examples are many. Why is it that some Australians reacted to the beating and killing of Indian students with the odd retort that “this happens in Mumbai”? Why did NPR cheerily lend its audience to one man’s claim that he saw an Indian get the Nigerian airline bomber on board? Why does Foreign Policy get to call India “evil” without a drop of concern for how it feels to Indian readers or how dangerous words like this were in the past for the colonized nations? Why does New York Times choose to show agonizing restraint when Pakistani terrorists massacre civilians in Mumbai and run screaming headlines naming the arrest of an “Indian” after Madrid? Why does Slumdog Millionaire, one of the most exhilarating movies of our time, depict the majority of Indian characters in it as irredeemably cruel and barbaric (not the nice Indian hero with the British accent though, of course not)? Why did the fictional slur “slumdog” and the image of poverty reportedly figure so often in the Australian attacks? Finally, why does Glenn Beck find the name of a life-giving sacred river similar to the name of a disease?Even the most revered experts would not have a holistic view of all 193 countries across all 6 categories.And all this seems unnecessary considering that you could recreate the same with a set of objective questions with responses rooted in facts and figures. For example, the question on sexual violence,In your view, what is the most dangerous country in the world for women in terms of sexual violence? This includes rape as a weapon of war, domestic rape, rape by a stranger, the lack of access to justice in rape cases, sexual harassment and coercion into sex as a form of corruption.could be deconstructed into data-driven questions around:reported rape cases per capita (where South Africa with 132 cases per 100,000 is at the top, compared to India with 1.8)adjustments based on extent of non-reporting of rape casesPost-assault treatment of sexual assault victimsLawsMarry-your-rapist lawRape shield lawFinally, the weightage for all questions is the same for all types of experts. So someone working in healthcare gets the same weight to their response on question cultural traditions as a academician focused solely on the topic.The poll, with all its shortcomings is still far better than the ensuing article, the first half of which is a classic case of argumentum ad passiones or Appeal to emotion. The first quarter of the article narrates the experiences of a woman and the fear they go through on a daily basis.It is also followed up by quotes from prominent female public figures (like the Vice President of World Bank, South Asia, and the Head of the National Commission for Women), and other singular incidents (Air India).There are precious few facts scattered throughout the thin narrative, and even those are misleading and/or outright incorrect.Quoted fact #1:At least 20 million women - the combined population of New York, London and Paris - have left the workforce of Asia’s third-largest economy since 2005, World Bank data shows, partly due to their poor treatment. Only 27 percent now work.This is taken from a World Bank Paper published in 2017 and is factually correct, but misleading, owing to Fallacies of Omission.If you look at the number for 2004–05 and 2011–12 in the rightmost column, 20 million (148 minus 128) women have indeed dropped out of the workforce. But the report also goes on to mention that,One plausible explanation for the recent drop in FLFP, therefore, is that with the recent expansion of secondary education (due to sustained efforts by the central and state governments), as well as rapidly changing social norms in India, more working age young females (15-24 years) are opting to continue their education rather than join the labor force early.—-Moreover, the FLFP rate for this age group declined by 19.3 percent (from 42 percent to 22.7 percent) by 2011-12, and during this period the decline was more than compensated by a gain of 22.1 percent in educational participation among working age females. Similarly, in urban areas, the CPR increased by 11 percent (from 49.2 to 60.2 percent), despite a decline in the FLFP rate by only 3.8 percent (from 18.3 to 14.5 percent) during 1993-94 to 2011-12. These figures support the argument that the decline in the FLFP rate for females between 15 to 24 years of age was to a large extent (or may be completely) due to an increase in female enrollment in education.So, teenage girls dropped out of workforce to continue their education. That’s a big positive. But the author conveniently ignored it and added “partly due to their poor treatment” without any proof of the same. (try searching the report for treatment, abuse, exploitation, harassment, etc.)Verdict: Technically correct, but intentionally/ignorantly attributed to the wrong causes.Quoted fact #2:Crimes against women in India spiked more than 80 percent between 2007 and 2016, according to government data.Nearly 40,000 rapes were reported in 2016 despite a greater focus on women’s safety after the fatal gang rape of a student in New Delhi in 2012 that sparked nationwide protests and led to tougher laws against sexual abuse.Rekha Sharma, head of the National Commission for Women (NCW), said it was a case of more women reporting crimes rather than a greater incidence of sexual violence.But local media carry daily reports of sex crimes - from girls molested in school, professional women raped by taxi drivers, to teens trafficked and sold to brothels.Despite this being a expert survey, the author chooses to ignore another expert on the topic and presents her own opinion to counter it.“Rapes have increased -> Expert says it is because of greater reporting -> “but what about the news?””A similar article on Firstpost had other experts stating the same plausible reason for the increased number of rape reports in India (i.e. greater reporting, not greater crimes)."More than the increase in crime rate, it is an increase in reporting," Flavia Agnes, women's rights lawyer and co-founder of Majlis, a non-profit that provides legal services to women and children, told IndiaSpend."There are no mechanisms to analyse such events," said Agnes. "I feel that due to media pressure on certain brutally violent incidents, there is greater awareness, and women are coming forward to report crimes."Verdict: Proof by assertion. Likely untrue.Quoted Fact #3:India recorded 539 cases of sexual harassment at the workplace in 2016, up 170 percent from 2006, a joint report by EY and Indian industry body FICCI from last year showed.But campaigners say the figures are just the tip of the iceberg. A 2017 survey by India’s National Bar Association found nearly 70 percent of sexual harassment victims did not report their cases.The facts reported are again correct, but the interpretation is not.Here’s a trend chart of sexual harassment incidents reported at workplaces (from thsi report from EY and based on data released by NCW.)As you can see, the reported cases remained below around 200 till 2012. From 2013, they have been increasing ~50% YoY.The reason for that could be the fact that The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 came into force on 9 December 2013, and granted women more power to report such crimes. Again, conveniently ignored.Verdict: Error of omission.The closing statements cite one incident of female trafficking and assert that “Such cases lend weight to the Thomson Reuters Foundation's poll of 548 experts on women's issues that found India was the most dangerous country for women in terms of human trafficking including sex slavery and domestic servitude.”According to this 2017 report by the US Department of State, India is a Tier-2 country as per the Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 1991, implying that it “does not fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards, but is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with those standards.” Tier 1 countries are the fully-compliant ones.Countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi, Iraq, HK, Kuwait, Nigeria, Oman, Thailand are one level below (Tier 2 watchlist), and Congo, Iran, Russia, Sudan, Syria are Tier 3.All in all, both the poll and the ensuing articles should be taken with a , p̶i̶n̶c̶h̶, nay fistful of salt.

Thank you Lior for the A2A!I would like to see the sort of policing reforms that would result in Americans of all ages, ethnicities, genders and socio-economic backgrounds actually look forward to an interaction with the police.Could you imagine that? Can you actually imagine an America in the 2020s with police that you would actually want to interact with, not fearful of losing your life, liberty or pursuit of happiness?When was the last time you approached a police officer without trepidation that, despite your innocence, things might escalate into an unpleasant encounter? For me, it was the last time I was in France.Because even I — a white, male, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel without a single police infraction on my record — have little trust that an American policeman has the education, training, motivation or organizational culture to be a decent, self-controlled human capable of dealing with a situation calmly and professionally without escalating an issue into an unpleasant or even potentially violent or deadly situation.Believe it or not, I am not writing this answer to shit on the police. Almost no police man or woman — apart from white supremacists or mafia/cartel infiltrators — joins the police to become a thug, a gangster or a criminal. Yet the brutal and ugly police state we Americans have constructed and allowed to develop over the decades has transformed many police departments from embodying “To Protect and Serve” into “Dominating Anyone We Come Into Contact With via Overwhelming Force”. We owe it to our police men and women to liberate them from this degrading and dehumanizing system.Much smarter people than myself have painstakingly chronicled how we got into this mess including Radley Balko in The Rise of the Warrior Cop - Wikipedia. (Cliffs Notes version: Republican politicians adopting ‘Tough on (minority) Crime’ policies in the ‘War Against (some) Drugs’ and dragging reluctant Democrats along with them.) However, I must take exception to the title, because our police do not deserve the title of ‘warriors’ — elite, highly disciplined and professional operators. Instead they are frequently lowest-common-denominator, poorly educated, badly trained, undisciplined paramilitary wannabes. A gang, you might say, or an invading armed force.As a result, every day hundreds of thousands of Americans endure unnecessarily unpleasant and sometimes lethal encounters with police which further erode trust on both sides, leading to an almost unbridgeable Us vs Them chasm.This is the godawful mess we Americans find ourselves in during the miserable year 2020. How do we dig ourselves out of it and establish a police force in which American citizens have trust?Well, I am a firm believer that disciplined habits vastly outperform motivation. Similarly, while personalities come and go, setting up a system so that it encourages and rewards good habits is essential to long-term positive change. Keeping in mind that these reforms are only a small part of a much larger necessary economic and political reform — including the repeal of the ‘War on Terror’, the ‘War on (some) Drugs’ and ‘broken windows policing’ — I humbly offer the following four systemic restructurings:Community Policing - a police force of neighbors you know and trustProfessionalization of Unprofessional Police - mandatory education, training and organization … just like a real professionPolice Health and Wellness - mentally and physically healthy police officersCitizen-based Oversight of the Police - the only path to legitimacyThat probably comes off as a little pie-in-the-sky, so let’s examine specific actions within each of these focus areas where the rubber needs to meet the road.(I’d talk with this guy, just to figure out his wheelie technique.)COMMUNITY POLICINGResidency. All police would be required to live in the actual neighborhood that they police. Not the next county over, not in an adjacent state … the actual neighborhood that they work to maintain the peace in. The police department would provide a housing stipend (similar to the military’s Basic Allowance for Housing or BHA) for areas with high housing prices.Face to Face. To the maximum extent possible police would not patrol from enclosed vehicles, rather they would walk, bicycle or use other non-automotive means to patrol their neighborhood in order to actually meet face-to-face with the people they serve.De-paramilitarize.The vast majority of police would wear a white-colored and non-military style utility uniform similar to Postal Service workers without chevrons, stars or other military-style emblems.Police titles would use non-military terminology instead of ‘officer’, ‘sergeant’, ‘lieutenant’, etc.Most police would not carry lethal weapons and would be required to adhere to the “Absolute Necessity” doctrine for lethal force.Police would divest of paramilitary gear including armored assault vehicles, HUMVEEs, tear gas, pepper bullets, rubber bullets and water cannons.No-knock raids would no longer be conducted as they greatly increase the chances for accidentally wounding or killing innocent people.De-SWAT.The vast majority of SWAT teams would be disbanded unless they could prove their requirement to an independent Justice Department review board. The few deemed essential would not be permitted to take part in any routine, non-SWAT activity policing functions (e.g., enforcing liquor law violations, crowd control, etc).All SWAT teams would have an embedded member of the independent inspector body and an observer from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch participate in all aspects of planning, conducting and reporting on SWAT actions.De-monetize.Police would no longer have power to confiscate money or property through mechanisms such as civil forfeiture, asset forfeiture, etc.Police would be fully funded by taxes and would no longer be able to collect or use money from fines, bail or any other mechanism to enrich their department or themselves.All fines and fees collected by police would be directly deposited into the budget of the independent inspector body.Police would be forbidden to institute or enact quotas (e.g., speeding tickets, arrests, etc).De-Paperwork. Paper report forms would be replaced with an encrypted smartphone app generating easily filled out reports pre-populated with relevant data (e.g., GPS coordinates, date/time, police IDs, etc) with copies accessible to both the police and the independent inspector body (more on this later).Civilian Complaint Review Boards. Legally empowered by the mayor to review police misconduct allegations and make sure that discipline is administered when it occurs. This would combine with:Public Disciplinary Records. Because sunlight is the best disinfectant when restoring the public’s trust in a formerly secretive police force.PROFESSIONALIZATION OF UNPROFESSIONAL POLICEBoard Certification. Police would be required to meet minimum education and training requirements, including continuing education, in order to obtain a license good for 2 years. Only licensed police would be allowed to practice, and the independent inspector body could revoke this license.Background Vetting. Before being hired, police recruits would be thoroughly vetted by an external investigative service that is incentivized to uncover incidences of violent crime, domestic violence, financial wrongdoing, participation in violent extremist political groups (e.g., white supremacy, anti-abortion terrorism, organized crime, etc.) The independent inspector body would also conduct a separate background check of potential police recruits.Personal Liability Insurance. Police would be required, like medical professionals, to obtain and maintain personal liability insurance to settle misconduct lawsuits.Peace Fund. Each police department would be provided with a retirement fund for officers that would be tied to the peaceful versus non-peaceful incident rate for the department as a whole as an incentive to nonviolent policing.Training.Police training would focus on de-escalation, racial/ethnic bias, techniques for peaceful conflict resolution, customer service skills (politeness, attentive listening and smiling), and the importance of building community relations.Police would receive monthly training by professionals in the fields of mental health crisis resolution, conflict negotiation, social work, child advocacy, traffic safety, sexual assault counseling and emergency first aid.National Police Misconduct Database. The independent inspector body would provide information on all police misconduct to a Department of Justice database. Thorough review of this database would be a state requirement for due diligence during police board certification and licensure.Affirmative Intervention. All police would be required to adhere to the doctrine of affirmative intervention when they become aware one or more of their fellow police are abusing their authority. Failure to do so would result in the independent inspector body withdrawing their police license.POLICE HEALTH AND WELLNESSCompetitive Pay. Police salaries would set high enough to be competitive with other well-compensated career fields without the need to chase overtime hours in order to decrease the temptation to supplement pay with graft.Mandatory Physical Fitness. Like the military, police would be required to meet or exceed rigorous standards for physical fitness administered by an external testing agency with no connection to the police department.Mandatory Mental Fitness. Police would regularly participate in counseling sessions with external psychologists with no affiliation with any police department. Those exhibiting elevated mental stress would be rotated out of police work to de-stress and would be provided with mental health counseling until certified as fit for duty.Yoga and Meditation. Police would participate in an hour of yoga at the start of each shift, and the police department would either provide a yoga room with instructor or pay for police to take free yoga classes.Jiu-jitsu. Wait, what? Yes, police would be regularly trained in jiu-jitsu in order to improve their self-confidence, ability to defend themselves in a confrontation, and their knowledge of how restrain a suspect without injuring him or her.USADA-style Testing. Police would be regularly but aperiodically tested by an outside agency with no connection to any police department for abuse of drugs including steroids, testosterone, human growth hormone and other androgenic substances, similar to professional athletes. Those in violation would lose their professional license for six month (1st offense), two years (2nd offense) and lifetime (3rd offense).CITIZEN-BASED OVERSIGHT OF THE POLICEIndependent Inspector Body. Has complete and unfettered access to all police data including databases, communications, police reports, bodycam video/audio. Automatically launches an investigation into any incident of police-caused bodily trauma or death.Body Cameras. Police would be required to wear body cameras during duty hours over which they have no control. Encrypted video feeds would automatically be sent to the independent inspector body and could only be requested on an as-needed basis and by formally documented request from this body by the police department.Chain of Custody. Police would be required to maintain positive control over the evidence chain of evidence for every incident. Lost or tampered evidence would result in an automatic investigation by the independent inspector body.Violent Reports. Every single incident of police use of force would require a report that would be immediately reviewed by the highest ranking members of the department as well as the independent inspector body. Unjustified police use of force, particularly if manifested as a pattern of behavior, would be grounds for loss of their professional license as well as criminal and/or civil charges.Public Disciplinary Reports. As is being enacted in New York City, police disciplinary reports would be made public so citizens would be able to determine whether or not their tax dollars are being well spent on police who are acting professionally.End Grand Juries. Police accused of improper use of deadly force would no longer be tried by secretive grand juries but by independent prosecutors with no connection to the local police.End Police Unions. Just as the military with a monopoly on national-level violence has no unions, police departments with a monopoly on state-, city- and county-level violence should not have unions.End Qualified Immunity. Last but certainly not least, qualified immunity would be scrapped to deny violent rogue police the legal shelter from the consequences of their murderous actions. Hey, it’s just a few bad apples, right? If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.So there you have it, one citizen’s ideas on steps that can be taken to transform our current police force into actual public servants. Please also read the former President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing report if you have a spare couple of hours on your hands.Do you think this is an important issue? Then please share it with your friends and family, discuss it with your co-workers and advocate for police reform to your politicians.

The person begging in the picture is Evangelin Bernakov, a Russian tourist who arrived in India on October 8, 2017. He was on visit to temples and monuments in South India. During his visit to town of Kancheepuram he had gone for currency exchange and when he exhausted the exchanged money, he visited a nearby ATM which for some reason blocked his card. He struggled with the language barrier and no cash. He roamed around town and decided to sleep on a footpath near a temple. When he woke up, he saw several beggars who had gathered outside the temple. Having no money, he sat with other beggars and spread out his cap to get some money.The temple visitors were shocked to see a foreigner begging. The incident was reported to the police and they arrived at the scene. After hearing his story, police gave him Rs 500 and helped him board a train to Chennai. He was advised to visit the Russian High Commission in Chennai for help.However after reading the news about him, External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj tweeted:So even before Russian embassy could help him, Indian government officials were there to help him in any form.And this is one of many instances where her and her office helped many people (national or foreigners) in such critical situations.1.)2.) Sushma Swaraj helps woman who was mugged in Tanzania; this time, without even being asked3.)4.)5.)This is my Incredible India.