In India’s Gujarat, mothers navigate pregnancy with dream baby apps

In India’s Gujarat, mothers navigate pregnancy with dream baby apps
In this file photo, pregnant women wait in line for a vaccine in Chennai, India, on July 5, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 05 February 2024
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In India’s Gujarat, mothers navigate pregnancy with dream baby apps

In India’s Gujarat, mothers navigate pregnancy with dream baby apps
  • One pregnancy app, known as DreamChild, claims to have 250,000 subscribers
  • Such apps give modern touch to the practice of instilling Hindu values starting in the womb

New Delhi: When she found out she was pregnant with her second child last year, Rinkal Ramani vowed to do things a little differently. 

For the last seven months, the 30-year-old has been following guided and routine prompts that appear on her phone screen in the hopes of nurturing her dream baby. 

“We can give a kid an education, a certificate, but we cannot give the sanskar, or purity, that comes only from the mother’s womb,” Ramani told Arab News. 

“I want an ideal child seeped in the Indian culture, who does not get swayed by other external influences.” 

Ramani is referring to a practice known as garbh sanskar, which is popular in the western state of Gujarat, and claims that the nurturing of a child and the creation of an environment conducive to instilling a Hindu value system begins in the womb. 

“I did not do the garbh sanskar course during my first pregnancy five years ago, and I feel that my 5-year-old girl does not listen to her parents — she quarrels, and she does not share. We decided to join the course so that my second kid is not wayward from the beginning,” she said. 

Along with an increasing number of women in Hindu-majority India, Ramani is subscribed to an app that combines traditional guidance with scientific research, offering wellness practices and dietary plans, as well as daily developmental activities ranging from yoga to story reading and lullabies. 

These apps, which have been taking off in Gujarat, act as a guide to child-rearing for many expecting mothers in India, as it transforms cultural and religious traditions passed down from elders into accessible formats and fact-checked curation that one can easily tap into from the palm of one’s hand. 

Dhaval Chheta, co-founder and CEO of one such app called DreamChild, said that over 250,000 women — mainly from Gujarat — are subscribed to it. 

“We decided and designed 25 daily basis programs for pregnant ladies … The app tells the mother how much she should walk, how much she should eat and drink, what activity she should practice – all these things are guided by the app,” Chheta told Arab News. 

Some days, expecting mothers like Ramani would be given a mental puzzle to solve, one of various activities requiring around 40 minutes daily to develop the child’s intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual quotients. 

The rise of garbh sanskar apps reflect a lifestyle change in Indian society, Chheta said, which has grown more dependent on smartphones and where a growing number of multi-generational families no longer live together. 

“We used to have a joint family, so many cultural practices and beliefs used to come to us as legacy. But now people are living an isolated life, our thought processes have also changed. Our challenges to lead a normal life have increased,” Chheta said. 

DreamChild, which was founded in 2018, hopes to reach 10 million parents by 2025, and is part of a larger mission to “make a new India,” he added. 

“India is the land of saffron, land of spirituality, land of Hinduism. Our core purpose is to make India a proud nation.” 

The rise of these pregnancy apps can also be traced back to the growth of garbh sanskar itself in Gujarat, where it is fairly well-known and taught through in-person courses.

Dr. Karishma Narwani, an Ayurvedic doctor and director of the Garbhopnishad Foundation who first taught the course over 15 years ago, said she has trained over 1,000 couples. 

“The children born after the garbh sanskar are different and superior and we are documenting these. We have noticed that (with) a mother who had a second child after following the garbh sanskar course, the child is healthier and without any genetical anomalies,” Narwani told Arab News. 

But for Gujarat-based sociologist Madhubhai N. Gayakwad, the rising practice of garbh sanskar is “a symptom of growing religiosity in society.”

He told Arab News: “As a sociologist I believe that religious influences play a great role in determining who joins the garbh sanskar program. If you look at the people who join the program they are heavily soaked in religious beliefs and practices.” 

Gayakwad added: “If we look from the perspective of a sociologist I don’t think the garbh sanskar can really bring you an ideal child … I believe that a child’s real development and his personality development takes place depending upon his upbringing, the situation in the family and circumstances.”


Fire rips through slum area in Philippine capital

Fire rips through slum area in Philippine capital
Updated 24 sec ago
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Fire rips through slum area in Philippine capital

Fire rips through slum area in Philippine capital
  • Manila Fire District said around 1,000 houses were destroyed in the blaze
  • The structures housed around 2,000 families, according to the fire department
MANILA: Raging orange flames and thick black smoke billowed into the sky Sunday as fire ripped through hundreds of houses in a closely built slum area of the Philippine capital Manila.
Manila Fire District said around 1,000 houses were burned in the blaze that is thought to have started on the second floor of one of the homes.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Drone footage shared online by the city’s disaster agency showed houses in Isla Puting Bato village of Manila razed to the ground.
The structures housed around 2,000 families, according to the fire department.
Village resident Leonila Abiertas, 65, lost almost all her possessions, but managed to save her late husband’s ashes.
“I only got the urn with the ashes of my husband,” a crying Abiertas said.
“I really don’t know how I can start my life again after this fire.”
Fire and disaster services deployed 36 trucks and four fire boats while the country’s airforce sent in two helicopters to help extinguish the fire.
“That area is fire-prone since most of the houses there are made of light materials,” firefighter Geanelli Nunez said.

Turkiye’s Erdogan to discuss Ukraine war with NATO chief

Turkiye’s Erdogan to discuss Ukraine war with NATO chief
Updated 58 min 51 sec ago
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Turkiye’s Erdogan to discuss Ukraine war with NATO chief

Turkiye’s Erdogan to discuss Ukraine war with NATO chief

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday during his visit to Ankara, a Turkish official said on Sunday.
Russia struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile on Thursday in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia, marking an escalation in the war that began when Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
NATO member Turkiye, which has condemned the Russian invasion, says it supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and it has provided Kyiv with military support.
But Turkiye, a Black Sea neighbor of both Russia and Ukraine, also opposes Western sanctions against Moscow, with which it shares important defense, energy and tourism ties.
On Wednesday, Erdogan opposed a US decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to attack inside Russia, saying it would further inflame the conflict, according to a readout shared by his office.
Moscow says that by giving the green light for Ukraine to fire Western missiles deep inside Russia, the US and its allies are entering into direct conflict with Russia. On Tuesday, Putin approved policy changes that lowered the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional weapons.
During their talks on Monday, Erdogan and Rutte will also discuss the removal of defense procurement obstacles between NATO allies and the military alliance’s joint fight against terrorism, the Turkish official said.


Blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kyiv, witnesses report

Blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kyiv, witnesses report
Updated 59 min 51 sec ago
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Blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kyiv, witnesses report

Blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kyiv, witnesses report

KYIV: Explosions were heard early on Sunday in Kyiv, Reuters’ witnesses and local media in the Ukrainian capital reported.
The blasts sounded like air defense units in operation, Reuters’ witnesses reported. There was no immediate official comment from Ukraine’s military. Kyiv and its surrounding region and most of northeast Ukraine were under air raid alerts, starting at around 0100 GMT.

Meanwhile, Russia’s air defense systems destroyed 34 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 27 over the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry said in a post on its Telegram messaging app on Sunday.
The ministry, in its post, did not mention an earlier statement by the Kursk governor that air defense units had destroyed two “Ukrainian missiles” overnight over the region. 


Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal

Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal
Updated 24 November 2024
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Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal

Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal
  • Developing countries say finance pact “optical illusion” and “lack of goodwill” from rich countries amid heated negotiations
  • Agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies

BAKU: The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low.
After two exhausting weeks of chaotic bargaining and sleepless nights, nearly 200 nations banged through the contentious finance pact in the early hours in a sports stadium in Azerbaijan.
But the applause had barely subsided when India delivered a full-throated rejection of the “abysmally poor” deal, kicking off a firestorm of criticism from across the developing world.
“It’s a paltry sum,” thundered India’s delegate Chandni Raina.
“This document is little more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”
Sierra Leone’s climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai said it showed a “lack of goodwill” from rich countries to stand by the world’s poorest as they confront rising seas and harsher droughts.
Nigeria’s envoy Nkiruka Maduekwe put it more bluntly: “This is an insult.”
Some countries had accused Azerbaijan, an oil and gas exporter, of lacking the will to meet the moment in a year defined by costly disasters and on track to become the hottest on record.
But at protests throughout COP29, developed nations — major economies like the European Union, United States and Japan — were accused of negotiating in bad faith, making a fair deal impossible.
Developing nations arrived in the Caspian Sea city of Baku hoping to secure a massive financial boost from rich countries many times above their existing pledge of $100 billion a year.
Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, said she would return home with only “small portion” of what she fought for, but not empty-handed.
“It isn’t nearly enough, but it’s a start,” said Stege, whose atoll nation homeland faces an existential threat from creeping sea levels.
Nations had struggled at COP29 to reconcile long-standing divisions over how much developed nations most accountable for historic climate change should provide to poorer countries least responsible but most impacted by Earth’s rapid warming.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged the final deal was imperfect and said “no country got everything they wanted.”
“This is no time for victory laps,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had “hoped for a more ambitious outcome” and appealed to governments to see it as a starting point.
Developed countries only put the $300 billion figure on the table on Saturday after COP29 went into extra time and diplomats worked through the night to improve an earlier spurned offer.
Bleary-eyed diplomats, huddled anxiously in groups, were still polishing the final phrasing on the plenary floor in the dying hours before the deal passed.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband hailed “a critical eleventh hour deal at the eleventh hour for the climate.”
At points, the talks appeared on the brink of collapse.
Delegates stormed out of meetings, fired shots across the bow, and threatened to walk away from the negotiating table should rich nations not cough up more cash.
In the end — despite repeating that “no deal is better than a bad deal” — developing nations did not stand in the way of an agreement.
US President Joe Biden cast the agreement reached in Baku as a “historic outcome.”
EU climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra said it would be remembered as “the start of a new era for climate finance.”
The agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies, cut emissions and prepare for worse disasters.
It falls short of the $390 billion that economists commissioned by the United Nations had deemed a fair share contribution by developed nations.
“This COP has been a disaster for the developing world,” said Mohamed Adow, the Kenyan director of Power Shift Africa, a think tank.
“It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously.”
The United States and EU pushed to have newly wealthy emerging economies like China — the world’s largest emitter — chip in.
Wealthy nations said it was politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and economic belt-tightening.
Donald Trump, a skeptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, was elected just days before COP29 began and his victory cast a pall over the UN talks.
Other countries, particularly in the EU — the largest contributor of climate finance — saw right-wing backlashes against the green agenda, not fertile conditions for raising big sums of public money.
The final deal “encourages” developing countries to make contributions on a voluntary basis, reflecting no change for China, which already provides climate finance on its own terms.
The deal also posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources.


Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog

Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog
Updated 24 November 2024
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Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog

Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog
  • India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities
  • One study estimate India’s economic losses due to worsening air pollution at $95 billion yearly

 

NEW DELHI: Noxious smog smothering the plains of north India is not only choking the lungs of residents and killing millions, but also slowing the country’s economic growth.
India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities. Each winter, vehicle and factory emissions couple with farm fires from surrounding states to blanket the city in a dystopian haze.
Acrid smog this month contains more than 50 times the World Health Organization recommended limit of fine particulate matter — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants, that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.
Experts say India’s worsening air pollution is having a ruinous impact on its economy — with one study estimating losses to the tune of $95 billion annually, or roughly three percent of the country’s GDP.
The true extent of the economic price India is paying could be even greater.
“The externality costs are huge and you can’t assign a value to it,” said Vibhuti Garg, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Bhargav Krishna of the Delhi-based research collective Sustainable Futures Collaborative said “costs add up in every phase.”
“From missing a day at work to developing chronic illness, the health costs associated with that, to premature death and the impact that has on the family of the person,” Krishna told AFP.

A school teacher conducts an online class near a basketball court at Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute in New Delhi on Nov. 22, 2024. (AFP)


Still, several studies have tried to quantify the damage.
One by the global consultancy firm Dalberg concluded that in 2019, air pollution cost Indian businesses $95 billion due to “reduced productivity, work absences and premature death.”
The amount is nearly three percent of India’s budget, and roughly twice its annual public health expenditure.
“India lost 3.8 billion working days in 2019, costing $44 billion to air pollution caused by deaths,” according to the study which calculated that toxic air “contributes to 18 percent of all deaths in India.”
Pollution has also had a debilitating impact on the consumer economy because of direct health-related eventualities, the study said, reducing footfall and causing annual losses of $22 billion.
The numbers are even more staggering for Delhi, the epicenter of the crisis, with the capital province losing as much as six percent of its GDP annually to air pollution.
Restaurateur Sandeep Anand Goyle called the smog a “health and wealth hazard.”
“People who are health conscious avoid stepping out so we suffer,” said Goyle, who heads the Delhi chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India.
Tourism has also been impacted, as the smog season coincides with the period when foreigners traditionally visit northern India — too hot for many during the blisteringly hot summers.
“The smog is giving a bad name to India’s image,” said Rajiv Mehra of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.
Delhi faces an average 275 days of unhealthy air a year, according to monitors.

Piecemeal initiatives by the government — that critics call half-hearted — have failed to adequately address the problem.
Academic research indicates that its detrimental impact on the Indian economy is adding up.
A 2023 World Bank paper said that air pollution’s “micro-level” impacts on the economy translate to “macro-level effects that can be observed in year-to-year changes in GDP.”
The paper estimates that India’s GDP would have been 4.5 percent higher at the end of 2023, had the country managed to curb pollution by half in the previous 25 years.
Another study published in the Lancet health journal on the direct health impacts of air pollution in 2019 estimated an annual GDP deceleration of 1.36 percent due to “lost output from premature deaths and morbidity.”
Desperate emergency curbs — such as shuttering schools to reduce traffic emissions as well as banning construction — come with their own economic costs.
“Stopping work for weeks on end every winter makes our schedules go awry, and we end up overshooting budgets,” said Sanjeev Bansal, the chairman of the Delhi unit of the Builders Association of India.
Pollution’s impact on the Indian economy is likely to get worse if action is not taken.
With India’s median age expected to rise to 32 by 2030, the Dalberg study predicts that “susceptibility to air pollution will increase, as will the impact on mortality.”