INDIAN STOCK MARKETS HIT RECORD HIGH ON B.J.P. VICTORIES

[India’s primary opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., emerged as the clear winner in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, had a majority in Chhattisgarh and was the single largest party in Delhi, according to results announced on Sunday evening. The B.J.P. and its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, are seen widely as more likely to back policies that favor businesses and investors than the Congress Party, which leads the governing coalition in New Delhi.]

By Neha Thirani Bagri

The Indian stock markets hit record highs on Monday after the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, perceived as a more business-friendly party by investors, performed wellin four state elections.

The Sensex index surged 487 points to 21,483.74 points, beating its previous record of 21,321.53 on Nov. 3, in early Monday trading. Meanwhile, the 50-share Nifty benchmark rose past the 6,400 level to surpass its previous record high of 6,357, hit in January 2008.

Banking stocks rose the most on the Nifty, though all 50 companies in the index performed well. The Indian rupee, which has depreciated significantly in the past few months, opened at a four-month high of 60.84 to the dollar, against Friday’s close of 61.41.

India’s primary opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., emerged as the clear winner in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, had a majority in Chhattisgarh and was the single largest party in Delhi, according to results announced on Sunday evening. The B.J.P. and its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, are seen widely as more likely to back policies that favor businesses and investors than the Congress Party, which leads the governing coalition in New Delhi.

“The business community has taken a very negative view about the performance of the current government,” said Sujan Hajra, chief economist and executive director of institutional equity at AnandRathi Financial Services in Mumbai. “It is perceived that the B.J.P.’s policies towards the market and business will be far more constructive.”

The verdict in the state elections, which is being seen as precursor to the national elections next year, indicates that there is a high likelihood of a stable government, Mr. Hajra said. The uncertainty about the general elections in the coming year has led local and foreign investors to hold back on initiating large projects.

“The market perception is that Narendra Modi is extremely business-friendly, as reflected in what he has achieved in Gujarat,” said Mr. Hajra. “His bettered prospects in the 2014 elections will definitely have a positive effect on the markets.”

Foreign investors, who make up one of the primary influencers in the Indian stock markets, are optimistic in the light of the state election results, said Ajay Bodke, the head of investment strategy and advisory at Prabhudas Lilladher, a brokerage firm in Mumbai.

“Foreign investors want a decisive party or coalition at the helm that will revise the moribund investment cycle, create more business-friendly conditions and ensure that the red-tapism and policy paralysis currently prevalent is overcome,” he said.

The Indian stock markets, which fell steeply in May after the Federal Reserve’s announcement of a possible tapering of its quantitative-easing measures, have rallied since mid-September, when the Fed decided to postpone those actions.

“The rally in the Indian markets has been a combination of global and local factors,” said Mr. Bodke. “If tapering were to start sooner rather than later, then all emerging markets will have to temper their exuberance.”

 @ The New York Times

AFGHAN EFFORT TO GET JUSTICE FOR WOMEN SEEMS TO STALL

[At the same time, there are intensifying fears that the continuing withdrawal of international money and staff members ahead of the 2014 Western troop pullout deadline will leave women particularly vulnerable, after a decade of international attention made little headway in curbing some deeply entrenched and abusive Afghan traditions.]

By Alissa J. Rubin

KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite years of intensive effort by Afghan and international rights advocates, progress in obtaining justice for abused women in Afghanistan appeared to have stalled, according to a report released Sunday by the United Nations.

The report, on the implementation of the 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women law, found that although the number of official reports this year by the police and prosecutors on violence against women rose by 28 percent from the previous year, actual prosecutions did not remotely keep pace, rising by just 2 percent.

At the same time, there are intensifying fears that the continuing withdrawal of international money and staff members ahead of the 2014 Western troop pullout deadline will leave women particularly vulnerable, after a decade of international attention made little headway in curbing some deeply entrenched and abusive Afghan traditions.

“With the drawdown in international assistance and support, there is a real risk that any advances in women’s rights will erode, and there’s already disturbing signs of that,” said Georgette Gagnon, the head of the United Nation’s human rights division here, who led the team that put together the report.

As an example, Ms. Gagnon said, the lack of an ability to bring abusers to justice was likely to increase “the risk of more child marriages, more forced marriages and violence against women with impunity.”

The backsliding has already begun, in fact. Over the past year, there have been repeated efforts in Parliament to reduce women’s rights.

One new restriction in particular is likely to hurt: Parliament prohibited the use of relatives’ testimony in criminal cases, greatly limiting the ability to prosecute domestic violence cases, as they often hinge on family members as witnesses.

There was also an effort to codify the Elimination of Violence Against Women law, which was approved as a decree by President Hamid Karzai in 2009 but has not been passed by Parliament.

The law criminalizes domestic violence and other harmful practices, including beatings, child marriages, forced marriages, the practice of giving away a woman or girl to settle a dispute and forced self-immolation.

But the effort to pass the law through Parliament last summer nearly unraveled it altogether, as conservatives seized the opportunity to declare many of its provisions “un-Islamic,” including the prohibition on child marriages, forced marriages and unrestricted rights to education and women’s shelters. The Parliament speaker stopped the debate and sent it back to committee.

Parliament was successful, however, in reducing the quota of seats for female members of Parliament to 20 percent, down from 25 percent, and eliminated any quota at the district level. The quotas for women used to pertain to all levels of government.

Hasina Safi, the executive director of the Afghan Women’s Network, said her organization had been studying child and forced marriages and concluded that they were directly linked to violence against women. Ms. Safi and other women’s rights advocates, as well as Ms. Gagnon, fear an increase in such marriages as the economy worsens and families turn more frequently to selling their daughters.

Analysts took one bit of solace from the study: The increase in the number of complaints appeared to signal at least some rising awareness among women of their rights and a greater willingness to come forward and seek justice.

However, tempering that was the reality that many more complaints were received by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commissionthan were ever brought to the police. In 15 of the 16 provinces surveyed, more than 1,000 complaints were received by provincial offices of the Women’s Ministry, but only 650 complaints were registered with the police or prosecutors.

In the narrower context of the law and the prosecution of abuse, the United Nations report found that in the past year, most cases were settled by mediation, which human rights advocates said meant women were often sent back into the family circumstances in which they were abused.

Based on examination of cases in 16 provinces (the United Nations said Afghanistan’s other 18 provinces did not provide enough information), few prosecutors were even using the Elimination of Violence law as a basis for indictments. The law was reported to have been used in only 17 percent of cases, 109 out of 650 registered episodes in those provinces this year.

Worse, despite the rise in reports under the Elimination of Violence law, the overall number of criminal indictments filed by prosecutors under all the applicable criminal laws actually decreased this year. Some prosecutors prefer to use other criminal laws than the Elimination of Violence law in cases of abuse.

@ The New York times