Today, when I return to Delhi I go for walks in the Lodi Gardens, a huge park which houses a series of mausoleums and a big ancient mosque. In the mausoleums are the graves of the Pashtun kings of the Lodi dynasty who ruled Delhi from 1451 to 1526, before the Mughals arrived from Central Asia.

The wind blows through the big stone buildings. When you step into them the domed ceilings act like sound chambers; a pigeon cooing unseen high in the darkened roof fills it with sound.

Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, then called Delhi a city of 'dreary and disconsolate tombs.' The capital, so often sacked and burned, was remade and rose yet again, but indeed the history of the city can still be told in its mausoleums and memorials.

But there is one that is missing.

In a ruthless political maneuver, the British colonial rulers in 1858, deposed the last Mughal emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar and exiled him to Yangon where he died five years later on Nov 7, 1862.

The British in 1858, deposed the last Mughal emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar and exiled him to Yangon where he died five years later on Nov 7, 1862.

His grave quite near the Shwedagon pagoda, is today a Sufi shrine. It is well maintained, and leaders of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have visited it. Inside are some old photographs of the deposed King; in one he is a gaunt figure, smoking a hookah pipe, as if waiting for the end. There is also a photograph of his calligraphy laced with loneliness.

The grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar. It is well maintained, and leaders of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have visited it. Inside are some old photographs of the deposed King.

I am lonely in the city, barren and dead
But who has prospered in a transitory world..

A long life I besought, these few days
Half spent in longing, half awaiting

Life comes to an end, dusk approaches
In peace I will sleep, sheltered by the grave

Zafar the wretched in his death was denied
A few feet of earth in the beloved’s street

Neither light for eyes nor solace for heart
Of use for none, I am fistful of dust..

But Bahadur Shah Zafar is at least remembered even in a quiet way 150 years later. Every evening, in the well-kept memorial opposite a small urban park and pond, local devotees gather for Sufi chants, the place echoing with the ancient sound.

Almost nobody ever visits Thibaw’s small mausoleum, about 1km from the mansion where he lived in Ratnagiri, in western India, far from his beloved Mandalay.

Thibaw was the last King of Burma, also exiled to the furthest place the British could think of at the time.

The deposing and exile of their king in November 1885 was seen as the ultimate humiliation by people in Mandalay, possibly much more so than that of Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose empire was already on its last legs and barely extended beyond the borders of Delhi.

There are numerous accounts of how the British loaded Thibaw, his Queen and their retinue onto bullock carts in Mandalay, and marched them off surrounded by British troops, as local people helplessly wept.

'British policy was to uproot the monarchy entirely and ensure that the clan of Alaungpaya would never again be a political force in Burma,' wrote historian Thant Myint U in his book, The River of Lost Footsteps.

'Dozens were sent far to the south, to Tavoy and Moulmein, and dozens of others were forced to go to India, where they were scattered in different towns and cities.'

Many of the descendants of the royals – both the Burmese and the Mughals – later were reduced to poverty.

Today, Thibaw's small mausoleum lies in the midst of shabby housing blocks. Beside it is the grave of Queen Supayagale – Thibaw’s second wife. Thanks to some repairs in 1994 by India's government, there is at least a low wall around them today; before that squatters would dry their laundry on the graves of the last King and Queen of Burma.

Today, Thibaw’s small mausoleum lies in the midst of shabby housing blocks. Beside it is the grave of Queen Supayagale – Thibaw’s second queen.

Ratnagiri was a tiny place then, with a population of 16,000. Ice would be delivered to the mansion where Thibaw and his family lived, from Mumbai – once a week. Even today it is a small place, with a population of 116,000. A rail link to Mumbai was only built in 1996.

But in Yangon, one man refuses to forget.

U Soe Win, 64, recently retired from director general at Myanmar’s ministry of foreign affairs, is now in charge of the country’s football federation’s international affairs. He is also the great grandson of King Thibaw.

U Soe Win, 64, the great grandson of King Thibaw.

'My great grandfather’s case is a miserable and tragic story. I feel sorry for his descendants,' he told me.

U Soe Win has been waging an often lonely battle to get the remains of Thibaw back to Myanmar – and Mandalay.

The return of the remains would correct a curious anomaly, a shadow of the two countries' shared colonial past. It would also be a poignant moment for Myanmar, and especially Mandalay, the seat of the old kingdom.

U Soe Win and other members of his family visited the graves in 1993, and performed some religious ceremonies there.

Thibaw died in 1916, age 56. Queen Supayalat was allowed to return to Burma in 1919, and died there. The 'little princess' Hteik Supayagale who was also Thibaw's wife, stayed in India and died a few years later and was interred next to Thibaw.

A nationalist movement in Myanmar – then Burma – to have the remains of the couple brought back to Mandalay, came up against British resistance. The British colonial rulers did not allow it for fear it would ignite Burmese nationalism and incite a rebellion.

After independence in 1948 there came another attempt to bring back the king's remains. A committee was formed, and had Prime Minister U Nu’s support. But that effort also failed. The government was fragile at the time, embroiled in civil war, and the country still hurting from the assassination in 1947 of independence hero general Aung San – National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's father.

U Soe Win has written this month to both the Indian government and the Myanmar government to revive the effort. But he is still up against it.

The return of the remains would certainly trigger emotion especially in Mandalay. Myanmar has been through a lot since independence in 1948: decades of civil war and military dictatorship, ostracism and isolation. Today it is finally moving forward.

Amid this fragile transition, with Myanmar only just beginning to experience the rehabilitation of Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Aung San, whether the country wants to travel deeper back into the often bitter past now is questionable, explained a friend in Yangon.

As for the Indian government, an official asking not to be identified said: 'We will be able to do something about it if the Myanmar government asks us. So far, they have not.'

He said in his personal opinion, the Indian government would have no reason to object to the repatriation of the remains. And he doubted that the Indian government was interested in the repatriation of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

U Soe Win sees a slender ray of hope in the imminent visit to Myanmar of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

But speaking on the phone from Mumbai, Sudha Shah whose book The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma – the product of seven years of research - is to be published this year, said: 'Nobody except the family is giving this any priority.'

'Both countries have other, more overwhelming issues to deal with,' she said.

In Yangon, one man may still refuse to forget. But it is probably safe to say that in Ratnagiri, even in the dreary flats overlooking the graves, almost nobody dreams of distant Mandalay.

Notes on further reading :

Books :

The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh (Harper Collins, 2000)

The River of Lost Footsteps, by Thant Myint-U (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)

Online :

An interesting email exchange with Amitav Ghosh, author of The Glass Palace, and more pictures, can be seen here http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?m=20120417

A note by Amitav Ghosh on the forthcoming book by Sudha Shah : http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?p=3306

But when Kony 2012 - a film calling for the capture of African warlord Joseph Kony - was shown to youngsters in northern Uganda, the overwhelming reaction was outrage.

The audience in Lira - where Kony's army has killed, raped and abducted children for two decades - hurled rocks and complained that the footage did not accurately reflect their lives.

Academics have also criticised it for being patronising and giving the misleading impression that the rebel chief - who leads The Lord's Resistance Army - is still active in northern Uganda. In fact, it was pushed out in 2006, and has been operating in the neighbouring states of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

As someone who has worked in northern Uganda, gathering stories from conflict survivors, I understand the critics' point perfectly. By glorifying the aid-givers and largely relegating the Ugandans as bystanders in their own story, Kony 2012 resurrects the spectre of the white man parachuting in to 'save' Africa.

But for all its ham-fistedness, I believe the film that has spread faster than any other online video to date and is due to have a sequel released this week, is overall a positive thing.

Not only has it raised awareness of the crisis among an audience of tens of millions, but it could also provide a prototype for other charities that want to harness the power of the Internet to tap into a fired-up young demographic.

That’s because, although we hate to admit it, there’s a big fat ‘I’ at the heart of activism. Being an activist makes you feel good about yourself and buzz with the euphoria of being a hero. For a charity appeal film to strike a chord with the masses, the mission must also feel urgent and achievable. Too often, otherwise compassionate people are turned off from engaging in issues affecting the developing world because the problems seem so complex and tangled.

In an era of Facebook and Twitter, where patience is scarce and individualism reigns supreme, this is what Kony 2012 has smashed through so successfully. The 30-minute clip is narrated by 33-year-old Jason Russell - co-founder of Invisible Children - and focuses on his personal mission to bring Kony to justice.

Viewers are urged to 'shape history' by getting a kit with wristbands and posters. The aim is to "make him famous" and ensure that the United States - which sent 100 military advisers to help hunt the warlord last October - cannot quietly drop the mission.

Last week, amid mounting criticism of the film, the African Union announced that it would deploy 5,000 troops to help the US troops in their mission. Although Francisco Madeira, the Union's special envoy, denied that the move was prompted by the Kony 2012 film, it's difficult to imagine that the powerful yet controversial campaign had no influence at all.

After all, Kony and his troops have been terrorising villagers in the Central African region for more than two decades but this is the first time that such an intense spotlight has been thrown upon their atrocities.

Capturing Kony is a noble and pressing cause. His group has abducted more than 30,000 children in Uganda and continues to massacre innocent civilians in neighbouring countries.

But my contact in the region told me the film was "not going down very well locally" and sent a statement from an inter-faith community group lambasting the clip's "sensational messages".

The irony is it that may have been precisely these elements which allowed Kony 2012 to leapfrog the usual staid and dusty NGO channels and mine the rich seam of dumbed-down Western youth culture.

Testimonies

Back in 2010, I was in northern Uganda as part of a team gathering testimonies from children who lost parents or siblings to the conflict. Their stories were featured in a DVD educating British pupils while encouraging them to fund-raise. The four films were told sensitively, through the voices of the Ugandan children and gave an accurate picture of the conflict.

How many YouTube hits did they get? Less than 1,000 between them. This illustrates how Kony 2012 has eclipsed other attempts by charities to harness social media.

Its meteoric rise has floored even its makers. A few weeks after the film became an internet sensation, Mr Russell was hospitalised after San Diego police found him naked and making sexual gestures in public. His wife said he is suffering from brief reactive psychosis caused by the clip's global attention. The sad episode is yet another example of how things take on a life of their own once launched into cyberspace.

Yet this flawed but well-meaning film has provided the first step towards opening up a new arena for activists seeking to reach a mass audience online.  I hope the soon-to-be released Kony 2012 Part 2 will correct some of the more jarring aspects of the original – namely, the lack of historical facts and recognition of local people’s efforts to rehabilitate their communities.

Other charities say they can and should learn lessons from the campaign about how to attract a huge following so quickly. For example, Invisible Children is said to have tapped its established network of supporters on American campuses, which helped the film go viral.

I'd like to think that in future, the message could be made a little more sophisticated without diluting its appeal.

Insensitive? Yes, but Kony 2012 remains a force for good.

It was a vastly different world then; the Vietnam war had just officially ended but the Cold War was still very much on. There was no such thing as cable TV; in many countries there was no such thing as TV. It was still the era of the radio.

On Oct 6 that year, military and police units and righ- wing mobs savagely attacked several thousand left-wing students protesting the return to Thailand of Thanom Kittikachorn, the military dictator ousted in a massive uprising in 1973.

There is video footage online from that day. The official death toll remains 46. The real death toll is widely suspected to be more than double that. A general amnesty ensured that nobody was held to account.

The unquiet spirits of that gruesome day when students were shot, beaten and kicked, dragged out on to the Sanam Luang grounds and hung from trees as mobs, inflamed by right-wing hotheads convinced that the students wanted to destroy the monarchy, bayed and cheered and even little children watched, have surfaced again.

Today, Thammasat is again the centre of controversy. Seven law professors calling themselves 'Nitirat' or 'People's Law' have suggested amendments to Article 112 – Thailand's lese majeste law - and have also suggested that Thailand's monarch should swear allegiance to the constitution, thus preventing any monarch from endorsing a military coup.

A fierce war of words has erupted over the Nitirat proposal. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, with absolute monarchy officially abolished in 1932. Yet King Bhumibol Adulyadej – now a frail 84 - is the country’s ultimate moral authority and under him the Chakri dynasty has arguably reached its zenith.

The monarchy is officially above politics. But in reality any accusation of disloyalty to the monarchy is a powerful political weapon for competing power centres, including political parties and the army whose principal allegiance is not to the civilian government but to the monarchy.

Thammasat University rector Somkit Lertpaithoon on Jan 30 banned the Nitirat group from campaigning on university premises to amend Article 112, fearing''conflict and chaos' if they continued. Thammasat has seen small demonstrations since by students, both in support of and against Nitirat. The rector days later backed down slightly and said academic discussion was allowed.

Thailand's powerful army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha has weighed in against the Nitirat group, warning them to stop their campaign. This week, it was reported that the Navy chief Admiral Surasak Roonruangwong has also joined in, saying 'I think every armed force is following this group's activities to see if it will affect national security. I agree with the majority of people that the campaign serves no purpose at all.'

It is not clear on what basis he concluded that the 'majority' of people see no purpose in the campaign. To the best of my knowledge no truly comprehensive opinion poll of referendum has been held on the matter.

General Prayuth reportedly said: 'Don't exploit Article 112 to instigate disturbances. I'd like to ask whether you could accept it if your parents are insulted.'

'Parents' is a euphemism for the King and Queen.

The government – keen to avoid any trace of a taint of being against the monarchy – has categorically said article 112 will not be amended.

Yet, the campaign is set to continue. One article in the Bangkok Post this week quotes Puangthong Rungswasdisab, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, saying that the Campaign Committee for the Amendment of Article 112 was collecting 10,000 signatures to seek an amendment. Several thousand had already signed, she said.

Ms Puangthong said the army chief may not have studied the details of the proposed amendments before criticising advocates for change.

'What we are doing is not new. Civic groups used to collect signatures to petition for legislation. This is a right guaranteed by the constitution,' she said.

'What authority will the army chief invoke to stop us? Does the army think its major duty is to stage a coup to protect the institution [of the monarchy]? The army no longer has legitimacy to stage coups.'

Several commentators have said the atmosphere is reminiscent of the buildup to that frightful October 36 years ago.

'The most salient difference between the current royalist backlash and crackdown on fair dissent and reasonable reform, and its precursors that culminated in October 1976, is the absence of the Cold War,' Chulalongkorn University professor of political science Thitinan Pongsudhirak wrote last week.

Thailand's lese majeste law is the harshest in the world. Under the law anyone defaming or insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in jail. Hundreds of lese majeste complaints – which can be lodged by anyone against anyone – have been filed since the royalist-backed coup of 2006, which removed the increasingly authoritarian but popularly elected premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

(He was later convicted for corruption and his political party disbanded and a large chunk of his wealth seized; that has not stopped his younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra rising to power last year on his popularity while he himself remains in self-exile, dodging the two-year sentence handed him by the Thai courts).

Back in 1976, one of the right-wing songs widely sung to denigrate left-wing students was Nak Paendin, translated as 'Scum of the Earth.'

In 2010, I heard the song for the first time, at a small gathering of ultra royalists at Victory Monument in Bangkok. They had assembled to protest against the 'red shirt' who had massed in Bangkok to challenge the establishment.

Today, it is being sung by ultra royalists to describe anyone deemed against the monarchy. Calls for amendments to Article 112 on grounds that it violates human rights and does the credibility of the monarchy more harm than good, have been equated with an attempt to destroy the monarchy.

In 1976, there were explicit calls for violence against the students. Today, there are the same explicit calls. One caller to a radio talk show said he would like to 'cut their (Nitirat’s) heads off'. Pressed by the radio host on whether he knew the details of the group's proposal, he admitted he had no idea.

'One hopes that the caller is a rarity in today’s Thai society, but recent Thai history is not on one's side,' remarked a Thai journalist who goes by the pseudonym Kaewmala.

'The brutality... in 1976 was committed by their fellow countrymen,' Ms Kaewmala wrote in an online article last week. 'Hatred against the students was stoked by the deadly mixture of ignorance, blind faith, unfounded fear and disinformation.'

'A a generation later, a group of seven law lecturers.. are being accused of having an evil plan to topple the monarchy, being lackeys of (former prime minister) Thaksin (Shinawatra), being Red (shirts), or simply being suspected of harbouring some mysteriously ill intention.'

In an interview on the website Prachatai.com, Tyrell Haberkorn, Research Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Change of Australia National University, said the language used against the students in the days before the 1976 massacre and that used against Nitirat were 'similar in their tone, dehumanisation, and explicit calls for violence.'

And 'When (army chief) General Prayuth Chan-ocha publicly states that the members of Nitirat should leave the country.. [it] is important to ask what kind of a signal, direct or indirect, it sends to citizens.'

Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul, now a professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, was one of the students at Thammasat on that day, which in today's Thai school textbooks is referred to as a 'riot' or 'disturbance'.

In an email he wrote: 'Thailand never learns anything from any controversial past. That's not how the country deals with the past. The past is always sanitised and didactic to reproduce only the dominant ideology. The Oct 6 massacre is probably the noisiest dissonance, a haunting voice of the past that refuses to go away, probably until justice is served.'

Sitting at Thammasat, it is difficult to imagine history repeating itself especially given the different context. Perhaps as the saying goes, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose - the more it changes, the more it is the same. It is an ominous thought, yet seasoned commentators have evoked it.

Only the wind in the leaves of the Bodhi tree may know the answer.

On a study trip organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Nam Theun 2 Power Company (NTPC) last year, a group of journalists from the region including The Straits Times were given extensive access to the reservoir, the dam and power station, and relocated villagers, most of whom are 'Vietic' people; Laos is a patchwork of some 40 ethnic groups.

Money spinner - electricity from NT2 on its way to Thailand -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

NT2 reservoir, Nakai plateau -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

The tops of dead trees protrude from the water now, and the boatmen of the Nam Theun 2 (NT2) Power Corporation manoeuvre between them at great speed and with great skill.

The rotting debris of submerged vegetation has made it necessary to oxygenate the water that passes through the turbines of the NT2 power station and into a 27km channel that cuts through the stunning landscape of the Gnommalath plain with its jagged karst outcrops.

Oxygenating the water -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

On the banks of the reservoir, where the high winds that funnel through what was once the valley of the Nam Theun river, a once-pristine tropical wilderness, huddle new villages housing communities displaced by the rising waters.

Once subsistence communities living off the forests and slash-and-burn agriculture, the 1,240 families from 17 to 18 settlements have been located in 16 villages, given new wooden and rattan houses with their own plots, 0.66ha of land each to farm, an electricity connection, and 650 boats with which to fish in the reservoir.

Schools and health clinics have been provided. Close monitoring shows health and school attendance, and even incomes, are up over what they were before - no real surprise given that the settlements were previously very remote, with little road connectivity.

700 school children are now enrolled who would otherwise not have been - a 90 per cent rise in primary school enrolment. Previously, there was a 70 per cent rate of parasitic infections in the communities; that is now down to seven per cent, thanks mainly to clean water extracted by hand pumps from bore wells.

Problems include the fact that the 0.66ha of land for cultivation is not very good for cultivation. Several of the villagers were unenthusiastic about the agricultural plots; some were not cultivating them at all, depending instead on fishing to earn an income.

The shift from a virtually cashless subsistence lifestyle, to one that must be linked to markets and needs cash flow to purchase daily necessities, is a tectonic one. Imagine a banker and his urban family being relocated to a jungle for the rest of their life and given some hand tools and a book on medicinal plants and told they must survive.

Among the problems identified in evaluations include indebtedness of the relocated villagers. Illegal extraction of forest produce is also a major problem.

Resettled village -- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

There is also concern that as the resettled families depend more on fishing, with links to urban markets engineered by the NTPC, there may be a risk of overfishing in the reservoir even though large sections of it are reserved only for them.

Mr Soun Nilsvang, the NTPC's deputy manager for resettlement and a trained rural agronomist, said getting them to embrace a market economy had been difficult. Many did not trust banks to keep their money. Others did not see the need to generate more income than was barely adequate for their daily needs.

All the villagers met by the journalists expressed appreciation that the new settlements were 'more convenient' with schools and clinics nearby and everyone within shouting distance. But it may take a generation for the communities to fully adapt to a cash economy, Mr Soun Nilsvang admitted.

Along with the cash economy, plastic has been introduced to their lives; now waste disposal in the villages is a challenge.

Yet NT2 has won grudging praise even from environmental activists who are against Laos' plans to construct dozens of dams across the country – including on the Mekong mainstream. The mainstream dams in particular will have transnational implications, affecting Vietnam and Cambodia and to some degree Thailand as well.

NT2 was hugely controversial to begin with. It is South-east Asia’s first trans basin hydro power project – taking water from one river, Nam Theun, damming it and diverting it to another river, the Xe Bang Fai. Both are tributaries of the Mekong.

Warning on the Xe Bang Fai-- PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

I recall attending a World Bank stakeholder meeting on NT2 in Bangkok several years ago. It was clear even then that the project was going to go ahead regardless of objections. It had morphed into a poverty alleviation and development project. There is something to be said however for the pressure from environmental groups; it helped drive better project design.

'What characterises this project is that there has been a high degree of consultation with affected people,' said Ms Elizabeth Mann, a senior social safeguard specialist with the ADB's Vientiane office.

'And it was the developer's responsibility to pay for the social aspects; the government provided the legal framework.

'But (the lifestyle in the new settlements) was never going to be an exact replacement for what they lost; it's still a work in progress.

'Some have adapted very quickly, and some slowly, but in general there has been a positive impact on livelihood. We have identified about 25 families who are vulnerable and need more support.'

One powerful driver will be the TV sets that now occupy almost every house - and the schools that occupy the children by day.

In one of the villages, a middle-aged woman, Hom, is one of the few who does not have a TV. But her 13-year-old grandson, Mai, goes to a friend's house every evening to watch TV.

'Sometimes he doesn't come back, and I have to go and fetch him,' his grandmother said.

Mai gave a shy smile when asked what he watched. Thai soap operas, was his answer.

And asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, he said: 'A policeman.'

Now, with the death toll at more than 25 million and counting, there are glimmers of hope that the spread of the disease could be stopped in its tracks.

Thanks to decades of tireless awareness-raising and scientific research, there is a real chance that there could be no new cases of HIV -  the virus that causes Aids - by 2020, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said at a conference this summer.

He added that if world leaders and agencies unite “as never before”, the goal of relegating Aids to the history books could be met.

But there is one major stumbling block to this vision of an Aids-free world.

That is, the deep-rooted fear which still surrounds this most misunderstood of illnesses. This fear has turned many sufferers into social pariahs and deterred others from coming forward to be treated, which further fuels the spread of the disease.

Today, on World Aids day, as we take stock of how far humanity has come in the fight against the disease, one thing seems clear: Aids is capable of bringing out the best and the worst in people.

From the playgrounds of rural Scotland to the lime-green fields of Northern Uganda, I have interviewed sufferers who say the stigma associated with being HIV-positive is one of the hardest things to bear.

Five years ago, I spoke to Sarah, a 20-year-old woman in Scotland who contracted the virus in the womb after her mother received a contaminated blood transfusion.

Born in the mid-1980s, Sarah (not her real name) was one of the first children in Scotland to be diagnosed HIV-positive and was bullied mercilessly at school.

“I've had to put up with being called 'dirty' and a 'junkie'. And most of the time my family and I were treated like lepers,” she told me.

She added that her schoolmates’ parents, presumably ignorant of the fact that HIV is transmitted via unprotected sex and direct blood contact, also told their children to avoid standing near her when she coughed or using the same toilet seat as her.

“The truth is that I was more likely to become hospitalised if one of them coughed on me,” she said, referring to the fact that HIV suffers are often left with weak immune systems.

Half a world away in war-scarred Northern Uganda, I met Florence, a 34-year-old mother of four.

Even though she was receiving anti-retroviral medication when I met her last year, Florence (not her real name) was visibly very weaker and worsening by the day.

The drugs, which have helped many sufferers add decades to their lives, were not working effectively on her, largely because she had received them too late.

The reason for the delay? Her husband, who started to fall ill repeatedly after being unfaithful to her, had refused to get an HIV test.

“Even when he was very weak and dying, he did not want to go for testing and he did not want me to go either,” she said. “He feared being told he was HIV-positive.”

In a male-dominated society, it was difficult for Florence to go against her husband’s wishes or even refuse to have unprotected sex with him.

It was only after he died that Florence was free to go for the test. Not only did she discover that she had the disease but she also was told her CD4 count, which measured the health of her body’s immune system, was very low. This meant the HIV virus was now at an advanced stage.

“Now I just worry for my children,” she said. “Who will look after them? How will they go to school? Where will they live?”

Florence’s predicament is not unique. Countless others like her have been infected because their partners refused to go for the HIV test for fear of what others would say.

Only half of those with the virus know their status. And there is still great fear attached to taking the test, The Guardian newspaper reported in May.

This conspiracy of silence fuels new cases of HIV, thwarting efforts to stop the virus’s spread.

The good news is that anti-retroviral drugs and therapy, which significantly prolong the lives of people who are HIV-positive and reduce the rate of mother-to-child transmission, are available and reaching more and more sufferers.

According to this year’s UNAIDs progress report, increased access to HIV services has resulted in a 15 per cent reduction of new infections over the past decade and a 22 per cent decline in Aids-related deaths in the last five years.

But in this tough economic climate, with international donor funding for HIV/Aids programmes dropping from US$8.7 billion (S$11.15 billion) to US$7.6 billion last year, progress on that front could be jeopardised.

It is clear that we cannot rely on scientific breakthroughs alone or take for granted the steady stream of funding which has supported it.

Instead, individuals, communities and governments need to engage in practices that help lift the cloud of ignorance and fear that still surround this preventable disease. Otherwise, too many victims will continue to suffer in silence.

I am sure it is nothing new for fathers, teachers and mentors. It must be a sign of age, given that most people read about historical events in books, as opposed to witnessing it themselves. In my case, it made me think back to more than a decade ago, when I was the proverbial callow youth of 21.

It was a case of deja vu during my recent three-week overseas In–Camp Training stint in Shoalwater Bay Training Area, where I spent three weeks. It is located in the little town of Rockhampton, with a population of just over 74,000, in the Australian state of Queensland.

It was my second deployment there, after the first one as a full-time national serviceman (NSF) in 2000. But having been downgraded two years ago due to a bad back, the only battles I fought this time round took place on a computer screen and in an air-conditioned room.

I was sent to help out in simulated war games between my unit and the 'enemy', where I worked with a group of full-time national servicemen on the cusp of finishing their two-year national service (NS) stint.

They were the same age as I was when I first went to Rockhampton 11 years ago. Watching them snack non-stop on cookies, chips and candy, and relentlessly 'exercising' on their portable PlayStations during lull periods, I could not help but picture myself when I was 20.

REMINISCING

I did not snack as much then, but our little chats revealed that we have much in common. National Service was six months longer then, but my preoccupations were the same as every NSF: waiting to finish my tour of duty, to further my studies and to get on with my life.

It is almost difficult to recall having such high-energy levels and being able to put up with so much more physical hardship. My platoon-mates and I once walked almost 50km with 25kg field packs for a training exercise, a feat completely beyond me now.

There was also the ability to sleep at any time, any place: rocky ground, a noisy helicopter, a rat-infested bunk. The NSFs proved that this priceless talent is still being passed on, by bedding down on a dusty, sandy floor in between shifts.

I do not know if they will come to feel the same way, but national service was a much more carefree time, mainly because the realities of the working world and greater responsibilities beyond myself were still a long way off.

I do know that the prospect of getting old(er) is probably a distant one for them. Upon discovering my age - 31 - one of the NSFs exclaimed: 'Wah, that’s ancient.'

I would have smacked the little brat, but I contented myself with the knowledge that a decade from now, some young punk of an NSF will be calling him the same thing.

But it was hard to begrudge them anything. After all, I know what it is like to train in an area three times the size of Singapore and filled with all kinds of wildlife.

It is even hotter in the day now - up to 40 degrees - and colder at night, when the temperature drops below 20. And there is still sand and dust everywhere. Lots of it.

In fact, the amount of sand churned up by men and metal must have been enough to build the foundations of another Marina Bay Sands. All you had to do was take an extended ride in a five-tonner truck, and you would be covered in the stuff.

There are also some very sneaky marsupials to deal with. One night, standing outside the command post in pitch dark while checking my mobile, I heard a rustling in the bushes.

I turned to my left and could just about make out two kangaroos hopping away furiously. Attracted by the light of my phone, they had crept up to within a metre of me.

But we have all come home now, and the NSFs have just a month before their ORD (Operationally Ready Date), when, just like me, they will yell the age-old cry: ORD loh!

So, good luck in whatever you do, boys. Just remember that you still have another 10 more years of ICTs ahead of you.

A new study released in Bangkok on Thursday by the organisation Plan International, which works in over 50 developing countries in support of vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, throws up some disturbing responses which show just how big the challenge of gender equality really is where it matters probably most of all – in childhood.

Here are the relevant findings from the study, based on 'primary research with more than 4,000 children' :

65 per cent of participants from India and Rwanda totally or partially agreed with the statement 'A woman should tolerate violence in order to keep her family together'. A further 43 per cent agreed with the statement: 'There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten'.'

Over 60 per cent of children interviewed in India for this report agreed that 'if resources are scarce it is better to educate a boy instead of a girl'.

Here's more :

- There are 75 million girls out of primary and lower secondary school.

- A girl in Southern Sudan is more likely to die in child-birth than finish primary school.

- As many as 150 million girls and young women under 18 have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence involving physical contact. The first experience of sexual intercourse in adolescence for a large number of girls is unwanted and even coerced.

- Globally, young women aged 15 to 24 years account for 64 per cent of HIV infections among young people. In sub-Saharan Africa young women aged 15 to 24 are more than twice as likely to be infected as young men in the same age group.

If that is not grim enough, add to that this grim statistic. Life can be brutal for both girls and boys, for different reasons :

'Pressure to be tough can kill: violence, suicide and road traffics account for 60 per cent of all deaths of under 24 year old men in Europe. In the Americas, under 30 year olds are 28 times more likely to be homicide victims than elsewhere in the world. (World Health Organisation).'

A summary of the study notes : 'There is general consensus that men and women need to be given equal opportunities to show case their talents and change can only come when men in power, social and family institution play a unique role to ensure gender equality.'

At a ceremony on Friday at the Siam Society near Bangkok's Asoke intersection, close to where I live, Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra signed a gender commitment.

Many have been wondering what Thailand's first female prime minister, 44 years old and a mother of a nine year old boy, believes about issues like gender equality.

I have not seen anything really substantial on that front – though to be fair the Prime Minister has a lot on her plate, and it was a huge positive that she appeared at the Plan International event. The gender commitment, one hopes, will be more than symbolic.

In her speech Ms Yingluck said 'We need a comprehensive approach, that looks at strengthening the family, improving education, addressing poverty and changing the mindset of people.'

In his short speech Mark Pierce, Asia Regional Director of Plan International  'Boys are equally affected by poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunity in many parts of the world.'

But 'Around the world girls face twice the level of discrimination because of their gender leaving them suffering at the bottom of the social ladder.'

'The challenge... cannot be tackled by girls and women alone. Fathers, brothers, husbands and boyfriends all have a part to play.'

The spectacle of terrorism has a knack for silencing clever arguments and making fence-sitters look churlish. The Sept 11 attacks needed no explanation because everything was so viscerally understood on ‘live’ TV, whether it was of jet planes slamming into the Twin Towers or office workers jumping to their deaths to avoid the flames.

The power of terror also goes beyond the corporeal. After all, it is often said that fear is too good to waste in politics. If Archimedes’ boast – “give me a place to stand and I'll move the Earth” – is a fundamental law of mechanics, then the Sept 11 attacks may be said to abide by the same logic.

Like Archimedes’ fulcrum, the terror of Sept 11 was used as the political lever to move the world. For America, it was the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, for Singapore it was the 2001 General Elections.

Indeed, Sept 11’s biggest impact on Singapore was seen in the 75 per cent of the popular vote for the incumbent party. The combination of fear and moral certainty carried the day on Nov 3, barely two months after.

That 75 per cent was more than just a surreal statistic. It was a numerical expression of a people’s fear. It was a quantitative measurement of popular desire for solace and comfort in a world that had just turned topsy-turvy.

A decade later, more mundane fears have replaced the spectacle of terrorism. The competition for jobs, the rising cost of living, immigration and cultural displacement come to mind, while the moral certainty that shaped the way ballots were cast in 2001 seems to have given way to a greater willingness to try the alternative. This is perhaps understandable since moral certainty finds little oxygen to flourish when the drama of terror is absent.

Nevertheless, terror is never far from the Singaporean consciousness. Whether the spectre of bloody racial riots or religious conflict, we are a people who have learned to live with the anxieties of our vulnerabilities. Whatever progress we have achieved has been because of these anxieties.

Terence Chong is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

It was one of two trucks, transporting 60 young sharks in all. Dive instructor Jean Christophe Thomas and I sat in the back of one of them. One of my legs was down by a plastic bag bloated with water and oxygen. The black tipped shark in the bag swam furiously round and round, occasionally bumping into my leg.

A bamboo shark, near freedom. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

It was a 15 minute trip to the pier, but encountering unexpected traffic on the pier itself – one of the downsides of Pattaya – we placed upturned soft drink crates on the bags to prevent them from heating up in the sun. We transferred them as soon as possible to the covered deck of the boat.

Soon we were off out to sea, eventually mooring near a reef some 26 kilometres off Pattaya, at Ko Rinn. This was the first of two reintroduction sites.

Handing over sharks to a diver to be released. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

Divers went into the water and were passed the bags one by one. Among the group of foreigners and Thais was 37 year old Panutcha ‘’Ouy’’ Bunnag, an executive from a private sector firm in Bangkok, and an experienced diver.

Struggling at first with the bags which were filled with air and awkward to drag below the surface, they opened them, submerged them carefully, and let the sharks swim free. The black tipped sharks, which are swift swimmers, shot away; the bamboo sharks seemed to linger, almost disbelieving of their freedom, before disappearing.

The divers emerged from the first few releases with whoops of joy and exchanged high-fives.

This was the Dive Tribe’s ‘’great shark release’’ – possibly the largest ever release of captive sharks into the wild in Thailand, perhaps in Asia.

Most of them were bamboo sharks, but there were 5 black-tipped sharks with their distinctive dorsal fins. Their ages ranged from a few months to 3 years. The black tipped sharks were each about a foot and a half long; fully grown, they can reach 1.5 metres and live up to 25 years in the wild.

Bamboo sharks are relatively inactive, preferring to hang about among corals and rocks. Black tipped sharks must keep moving to process oxygen. In their bags, they swam constantly in circles, their distinctive dorsal fins slicing through the surface of the 6-8 inches of water. They reminded me of the pacing in zoo enclosures of another apex predator of the terrestrial world, the tiger.

They had been purchased using donations from across the world, from restaurants in Bangkok, Puket and Pattaya, and dealers in Bangkok’s Chatuchak weekend market, by Gwyn Mills, who founded Dive Tribe two years ago.

Gwyn Mills (left) with dive instructor Jean Christophe Thomas loading the sharks. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

Dive Tribe combines diving for paying customers, with marine conservation. UK native Mills, 43, now a resident of Pattaya, said in recent years it was clear that Thailand, once one of the best dive destinations in the region, had lost its cachet to other countries, notably Indonesia.

Furthermore, what excites divers most is spotting a shark – and there were very few left in the waters off Pattaya. This is a problem for the diving industry, which is Thailand’s second largest sporting pastime after golf.

The reason? There are no regulations protecting sharks in Thailand, and they are much sought after for their fins. More recently, sharks are also being used in other products; Mills reckoned that the common Thai fish balls, are now made of cheap shark meat.

Dive Tribe's Gwyn Mills - putting something back. ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

'Thailand is taking 22,000 tons of sharks from the sea every year’ he said. ‘We have a big problem. All the dive stores around Thailand have been complaining that they don’t see sharks on dives any more.’

The owner of the boat, seafarer Robert Camp, tall, lean and sunburned, said that in his 10 years of diving in the area, he had seen some bamboo sharks – which lie around on reefs and under rocks. He had seen just a few black tipped sharks, and no hammerhead sharks at all – though they used to be present.

The condition of the waters off Pattaya had improved somewhat when Pattaya – a once low-profile but now fast-growing city swamped by tourists and dominated by tall hotels and condos – began treating its sewage some 8-9 years ago. Some species like sea turtles had reappeared. ‘’But not the sharks’’ he said.

Among other concerns of marine ecologists and activists like Mills, is the level of mercury in shark fins. Mercury is a well known contaminant in seafood; in many countries pregnant women are cautioned to limit their intake of seafood. Sharks, which are long-lived creatures, accumulate more mercury in their systems than others. For more on this see http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/outreach/advice_index.cfm

Sharks have been the top predator of the planet’s oceans for an estimated 400 million years. Estimates vary, but hunting for sharks - for their fins, driven mostly by the shark fin soup market - removes up to 100 million sharks a year from the marine ecosystem.

A bamboo shark, just moments away from freedom.

In one documented example, the removal of sharks to the extent that they are now at ‘’functionally extinct’’ levels in parts of the North Atlantic on the USA’s east coast, led to an explosion of the population of one of their prey species, the cow nose ray. The ray east scallops, oysters and clams; with the growth in ray population, scallop, clam and oyster catch in the area has plummeted.

Mills addressed the criticism of operations like the shark release, on grounds that buying sharks fuels demand. It was a one-off event and against a background of million of sharks being taken, it was a mere blip, he said. The sharks had been saved from certain death, and the publicity from the operation outweighed the downside, he reckoned.

For more on how sharks are being slaughtered and there is still nowhere near enough being done to protect them, see TRAFFIC’s report here (the link features a downloadable .pdf which makes very grim reading indeed) - http://www.traffic.org/home/2011/1/27/shark-populations-dwindle-as-top-catchers-delay-on-conservat.html

And for a comprehensive and sobering look at what we are doing to the marine ecosystem, see the incredible Sylvia Earle’s outstanding TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/sylvia_earle_s_ted_prize_wish_to_protect_our_oceans.html

Some raw video from my trip to Pattaya is up on my Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/ST.Nirmal

Some of the rioters were as young as nine.

Even at such tender years, children in urban areas across Britain are being drawn into a brutal gang culture born out of deep-rooted social deprivation.

While this does not excuse the senseless destruction which has cost at least five lives in Britain this week, it is important to look at some of the underlying causes behind the mayhem.

I caught a glimpse of what poverty in a developed country looks like during a visit last year to a youth centre just down the road from Brixton, one of the London neighbourhoods blighted by violence during the four day rampage.

At the end of every school day, poor black, white and Asian children head to the centre where they are given free hot meals and counselling before returning to their often chaotic homes on crumbling public housing estates.

Nine-year-old Claire (not her real name) told me how she had been sleeping in a deserted, rat-infested garden shed with her mother and younger sister until social services found them accommodation.

But Claire’s problems went beyond homelessness, a worker at the centre told me. Her family had been evicted from their flat after her father was sent to prison for drug dealing. Claire’s mother, who was addicted to heroin and had worked as a prostitute, was trying to get clean. “I really, really miss my dad and I was getting really angry at school, coming here has really helped me to calm down,” Claire told me.

This kind of tangled web of social problems is also blighting the lives of countless children in other UK cities.

Poverty line

More than 3.5 million children in Britain live below the poverty line, one of the worst rates in the industrialised world.

A couple with two children living on less than 288 pounds (S$566) a week would be deemed as being below the poverty line in the UK in 2009.

Single parent families make up an estimated 17 per cent of all households and almost 900 children were suspended from school every day for violence or verbal abuse last year.

Not all the rioters were underprivileged, of course, and criminal greed seems to have played its part.  But the sheer scale and spontaneity of the attacks, and the relish with which some of them were carried out, point towards a tinderbox of social problems which has long been lying in wait of a spark.

In truth, it does not take much to spur some deeply dissatisfied youngsters into a frenzy of violence. In many of Britain’s sink estates, fights between large gangs of alcohol fuelled boys, and sometimes girls, are common.

On weekends, young people in deprived areas are known to literally run riot, using knives, bats, bricks and sometimes even guns, as weapons against peers who live in different postcode zones and are therefore viewed as the enemy.

These bursts of meaningless violence often terrify residents but attract little national media attention.

Politicians have tried to enforce various initiatives to tackle the problem, such as court orders which ban individuals from engaging in anti-social behaviours which range from drinking alcohol in public to gathering in street corners, but these have had limited impact.

That is probably because the problems of disaffected youth, living in areas where there is zero aspiration, are too complex to deal with in one fell swoop.

While working for a British charity last year, I was sent to interview young people in Walsall, an area in the West Midlands where youth unemployment stands at about 21 per cent. Just a few miles down the road in Birmingham, three people were killed during this week’s riots.

I met a woman who ran a community centre and told me she got up at 7am every day to pick up kids from their dysfunctional homes, before feeding them breakfast and taking them to school. If she was not there to do it, many of the children would go to classes hungry or not turn up at all.

Little motivation

In the long-run, however, it is difficult to see how these children will stay motivated at school, without proper guidance and encouragement from their parents.

At the centre I also met 17-year-old Luke, who started stealing, carrying a knife and getting into trouble with the police – all at the age of 14. When I spoke to him he was trying to turn his life around by training to be a youth worker.

In sink estates in Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, I heard similar stories from young men who were trying to turn back from the brink.

Kevin, 17, who lives in Easterhouse, a part of Glasgow where the average life expectancy is 66, told me how he was lured into a gang at a very young age.

“I started getting involved in gang fights when I was 11, because that’s what we all did,” he said. “There’s nothing else to do.”

Where there is gang violence there is also alcohol abuse. In 2008, I interviewed a 10-year-old boy who lives in a part of Glasgow rife with gang crime. He confessed to getting drunk on white cider with friends, but thankfully he said the unpleasant experience had put him off future binges.

“Some of my pals do ask me to drink again, they say ‘go on, just try it’.” he said “But I say ‘no’ because last time I felt really sick and dizzy all day.”

More than 1, 300 children under 16 got in trouble with the police for alcohol related offences in Glasgow last year.

In some parts of the Scottish city, knife crime is one of the leading causes of death among men aged between 15 and 19.

This figure is driven up by the high number of stabbings that occur during gang fights, yet the danger does little to deter young people who feel they belong to a special tribe.

“Being in a gang makes you feel like you are part of something,” said 21-year-old Steven, who became a gang member at the age of 14. “You know they are not really your family, but it can feel like family. It’s to do with upbringing, we are growing up in a culture where gangs are always around.”

A 24-year-old man I spoke to in North Liverpool told me of his feelings of helplessness when he saw a 17-year-old being stabbed to death during a gang fight.
“We tried to get help and save him, but we couldn’t,” he said. “He wasn’t even part of a gang. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

This constant cycle of violence among inner-city youth forms the backdrop to the wave of mayhem that has swept the country. But as well as being the perpetrators, young people themselves can form part of the solution.

Steven, now 21, left gangs after he narrowly missed being smashed over the head with a golf club during a gang fight. He now runs football tournaments to get local children involved in sport instead of gangs.

“I felt I had been given this gift by finding a way out of gangs and I felt I had to give something back,” he said.