作者： bharat.cn

To the images of the charred remains of a young woman, raped and murdered, countless Indians woke up this morning with a sense of having failed their nation.

Dr Priyanka Reddy was out and about her work as a vet in the outskirts of Hyderabad when her motorbike broke down and she fell prey to the evil eyes of men around her, with no route of escape left for her modesty or her life.

All of India’s gains on women’s issues in recent years, personally for me, had been put to flames.

Four years ago, India’s premier Narendra Modi launched a scheme for girls, appropriately in the northern state of Haryana, which suffers from a skewed gender ratio and where women must largely look after home and hearth, and little else.

“The prime minister of this country has come to you like a beggar, begging for the lives of our daughters,” Modi had implored.

Flip through the news pages of the last six years and you would see countless tales of Indian women who are world champions, two of them –Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza– from the very city of Hyderabad which today hangs its head in shame.

You would find women who scaled Mount Everest on one leg; the youngest ever to swim her way to a record in icy Antarctic waters; grandmasters in chess; unbeatables in squash; an amateur world boxing champion’s reign of six years; authors who are internationally acclaimed; women scientists who are today the backbone of India’s space research programme, the envy of the world.

Indian companies IREL (Erstwhile Indian Rare Earths Ltd) and KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Ltd) are looking into rare earth elements projects in Russia, according to Russia’s Far East Investment and Export Agency.
In a meeting with Indian firms in New Delhi, the Russian delegation presented perspective projects that could be implemented in the remote Far Eastern region and the Arctic zone.

“We’re considering mining of lithium and cobalt,” the director of the agency, Leonid Petukhov, said. The official added that the region is keen to secure foreign investment for developing local deposits amid the lack of Russian investors.

The agency also said that the agency wants to attract foreign investors to participate in other projects in Zabaykalsky Krai, part of Russia’s Far East district, including those related to excavating a rare-earth element, yttrium, as well as other metals such as tantalum and niobium, among others.

Cobalt and lithium are key components for the production of rechargeable batteries. The so-called rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements with special characteristics which are important for making many different devices from smartphones to weapons.

The materials are not actually rare, despite their name, but they are difficult to find in desirable concentrations and they are difficult to process as the ores often contain naturally occurring radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium. China is the world’s leading producer of rare earth metals; it accounts for around 80 percent of imports worldwide.

India is in shock after the brutal rape and murder of 27-year-old veterinarian Priyanka Reddy this week. Her father has called for the perpetrators to be hanged, while her mother wants them to be publicly burned alive.

Reddy was allegedly raped, murdered and her body burned on Wednesday night. Her charred corpse was discovered on Thursday morning by locals after a frantic search by her family and local authorities. Her remains were identified by a locket she wore around her neck. 

Hyderabad police have arrested four men, including truck driver Mohammed Pasha, in connection with the incident.