Rape case, New Delhi

Hey guys,

I know that by now, most people have already frogotten this incident which happened several weeks ago in New Delhi, India. However, it brought some changes to the country and that's why I'm sharing this blog with you.

The 23 years old Indian girl and medical student  was raped in a bus in Delhi on December 16 in the evening. Her boyfriend was accompanying her when this cruel incident happened. She wasn't "only" gang-raped by all in all six men but badly wounded too. Her boyfriend also suffered from severe injuries but he survived. After the occurance, she had been brought to a special hospital in Singapur but she nevertheless died on December 29th. 

The girl's family received 1.5 million rupees from the government. What I asked myself is that how it must feel in such a situation when you get money in exchange for somebody you loved and who isn't there anymore. Somehow I can empathise with the victim's family about wanting death penalty for the committers. The six men are seriously threatened by that desicion at the moment.

Even if this incident made the whole country feel ashamed and extremely sad, there were also some positive things that happened in consequence to it: Massive protests and an introduction of a 24-hours-hotline for woman in need, but the most important consequence is probably that sexual abuse of woman in India has been brought to light.

Hopefully there wiill be more upcoming postive consequences of this terrible rape!

"Fancy" Culture evening ;-)

So, our last progress check isn't far away anymore. Everybody gets stressed more and more as the days pass by. We, the students, now have to study the CLIs of the other groups and in order to break that down a little bit for us, our professors invited us to a culture evening.

I think that it was a really good idea. They tried to explain the culture topics but not like in too strict lessons. It was actually quite great fun listening to them and laughing with them. 

When I went to the culture evening I didn't expect it to last so long. Still, I liked it and as Fiona told us that this had been the first culture evening she and the other professors had organised, I would strongly recommend to do so again in the following years too.

What impressed me the most was probably the Appalachian guest who told us a little bit about the region where he comes from. Not only did he talk about that, he gave other interesting information (like for example about the Bible Belt in the Us) too. 

Apart from that I think that everybody was quite impressed by the "fancy" presentation ;-)

Amritsar

The most impressive place I have ever been to is Amritsar, a city located in the north-western part of India. The first time I visited this city I was totally overwhelmed. Every single area of this city was completely overcrowded. The main reason why Amritsar grabs the visitors’ attention is the “Harmandir Sahib”, informally referred to as the “Golden Temple”. It is the most important shrine of the Sikhs. What impresses me most about it is the access for everybody regardless of which religion and the breath-taking part of the temple, which is completely covered with gold. The second sight of this city that attracts the visitors’ attention is the “Jallianwala Bagh”, a public garden where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919. A memorial was built at this site. I actually did not found it really exciting until reaching a wall where the bullet holes of the shooting are still visible today. Apart from venturing out Amritsar and seeing various sights, you get a special and unique feeling as if you were experiencing a colourful Bollywood film yourself.