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The Irish Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
I met ISIS bride Shamima Begum in prison camp – I felt sorry for her but saw true colours when I gave her wrong ‘gift'
AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race. Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations - his nerves started to get the better of him. Advertisement 7 Andrew Drury with Jihadi bride Shamima Begum Credit: Supplied 7 The filmmaker said his view of Begum changed as he got to know her Credit: Supplied 7 The Al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria where Begum lives Credit: AFP But when he was introduced to "She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful," Andrew told The Sun. Advertisement Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East in Syria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone. He initially felt sorry for Begum, then 21, and became a close confidant of the Jihadi bride - even securing a In less than two years his view of Begum - accused of serving in the feared IS "morality police" and helping make suicide vests - completely changed, however. He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a "thin, ill-looking, sad character" who was "very apologetic". Advertisement "We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head," he said. "After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she'd go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink. "Then I didn't want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye - I thought I'd never see her again. How Shamima Begum camps are fermenting twisted next generation of ISIS as kids make 'cutthroat' gesture & hurl firebombs "I said, 'Can I shake your hand?' and she asked for a hug. "So she gave me a hug and started to cry." Advertisement Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult. "At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere," he said. I actually don't think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it Andrew Drury "I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she'd been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody. "She said she'd made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she'd done. "She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK. Advertisement "And I felt sorry for her, I've got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance." Andrew - whose book The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a "subtle change" in the former Brit. Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more "Western" makeover - ditching her hijab and abaya. 7 Andrew secured the Bafta-nominated live interview with Begum for Good Morning Britain Credit: Alamy Advertisement 7 Begum, then 19, pictured in 2019 Credit: Times Media Ltd 7 The former Brit at the camp in 2021 Credit: Getty "She had changed as a character," Andrew said. "She was more short. She wasn't this nervous-cry sort of character. "She looked assured, and she didn't seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions." Advertisement Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview "rehearsing" with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards. He added: "Her friends said they'd had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say. "They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her." Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived. Andrew - who said he had formed a "bond" with Begum - told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children. Advertisement The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima's plight. "One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face," he recalled. "I said, 'What's that?' and she said, 'Oh we used to like baking cakes'. "And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died. "She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn't shared them before she said." Advertisement 7 But it was Begum's attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him - and began to shatter their relationship. "I said to her, 'Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you're okay'," he said. "She messaged back and said, 'Oh, they don't bother me anymore. That doesn't make me sad'. "I thought, was that because she's been traumatised so badly? Advertisement "But I think she is that hard. I think she's calculated. "I actually don't think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it." After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her - including clothes. The dad said he felt "at a crossroads" about whether to take what she wanted. "I felt bad and guilty that I'd be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes," he said. Advertisement "But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark. "We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it's not their fault." But then Begum's requests started turning into demands, Andrew said. "The messages continued," he added. Camps breeding next ISIS generation Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture - the message is clear, "You are not welcome here". Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream - while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb. Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria - the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad. It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult. And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps. Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: "The reality is - they are not changing. This is not a normal camp - this a bomb." He went on: "They are saying it was ISIS who 'liberated' Damascus - and soon they will be coming here." "And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere." The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children. At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them - including infamous jihadi bride "This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct." Advertisement Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books - Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer - which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence. He added: "What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp - where they were legally held. "That's how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone. "She'd done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine. Advertisement "She'd become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She'd read all the newspaper articles." Andrew - who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew - took some clothes for Begum with him. I could see things in her I didn't like. I didn't trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive Andrew Drury But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours. "I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her," Andrew said. "It was a little boy's birthday, and I felt so sorry for him. Advertisement "He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It's not fair for these kids. "I didn't take the books Shamima wanted because I didn't want to. I didn't want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim. "She opened the clothes, said she didn't like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp. "She said, 'I didn't really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted'. So she became quite aggressive in her nature." Who is Shamima Begum? ISIS bride Shamima Begum, who was born in Britain, was stripped of her British citizenship on February 20, 2019. But she appeared to show no remorse and called the 2017 Manchester Arena massacre of 22 people Her principled position has sparked intense debate about the UK's responsibilities to jihadis who despise the country and everything it stands for, but want to return from Syria. The case took a dramatic turn on February 20 2019 when it emerged Begum claims she is "willing to change" her ways while pleading for "mercy" from Britain. Her appeals against the decision have all been denied. Begum's attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl's story. Advertisement It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed. "Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her," he said. "She was like a child that was pretending they were ill. "So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone. "It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her. Advertisement "I could see things in her I didn't like. I didn't trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive. "I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests "Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria. "So I didn't trust her." Andrew's last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange. Advertisement She accused Andrew of "selling her out", to which he shot back: "You've sold your country out." Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship. She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. Andrew said: "I think she's a danger for what she stood for, and I don't think she could ever come back. "I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people." Advertisement
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
I met ISIS bride Shamima Begum in prison camp – I felt sorry for her but saw true colours when I gave her wrong ‘gift'
SHAMIMA SHAM I met ISIS bride Shamima Begum in prison camp – I felt sorry for her but saw true colours when I gave her wrong 'gift' AS Andrew Drury made his way through a Syrian camp looking for notorious ISIS bride Shamima Begum, his mind began to race. Although the intrepid filmmaker had been in far more perilous situations - his nerves started to get the better of him. Advertisement 7 Andrew Drury with Jihadi bride Shamima Begum Credit: Supplied 7 The filmmaker said his view of Begum changed as he got to know her Credit: Supplied 7 The Al-Roj camp in north-eastern Syria where Begum lives Credit: AFP But when he was introduced to Begum - who left the UK aged 15 to join ISIS a decade ago in 2015 - he was taken aback. "She was very shaky, very nervous, very shut, emotional, tearful," Andrew told The Sun. Advertisement Father-of-four Andrew met Begum, who grew up in East London, for the first of six times at the Al-Roj camp in Syria in June 2021 while filming for a documentary, Danger Zone. He initially felt sorry for Begum, then 21, and became a close confidant of the Jihadi bride - even securing a Bafta-nominated live interview with her for Good Morning Britain. In less than two years his view of Begum - accused of serving in the feared IS "morality police" and helping make suicide vests - completely changed, however. He saw a colder side when she talked about how the death of her three children no longer upset her and even expressed support of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. Extreme adventurer Andrew, who has made treacherous journeys to North Korea and Iraq, said at first Begum was a "thin, ill-looking, sad character" who was "very apologetic". Advertisement "We took a long walk around the camp, She started to relax, and she said she used to take this regular walk right around the perimeter of the camp to clear her head," he said. "After the interview finished, we walked back to the room. Normally she'd go off to a tent, but she wanted to come back to the room to get a cold drink. "Then I didn't want to insult her at that point, I wanted to say goodbye - I thought I'd never see her again. How Shamima Begum camps are fermenting twisted next generation of ISIS as kids make 'cutthroat' gesture & hurl firebombs "I said, 'Can I shake your hand?' and she asked for a hug. "So she gave me a hug and started to cry." Advertisement Andrew, from Surrey, said he felt they had formed a connection and believed she regretted turning her back on Western society to join the murderous death cult. "At that point I kind of believed that she was sincere," he said. I actually don't think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it Andrew Drury "I kind of felt sorry for her. I thought at that point she'd been radicalised online, sent out as a prescribed bridge to somebody. "She said she'd made a real bad mistake and really regretted what she'd done. "She owned up to being this person that everybody hates in the UK. Advertisement "And I felt sorry for her, I've got young daughters, not a lot of difference in age, so I thought people do make mistakes, and I should give her a chance." Andrew - whose book Trip Hazard details his experience in dangerous areas - returned to the camp months later after GMB asked for his help to get an interview with Begum. The author, who has exchanged hundreds of messages with Begum, said he noticed a "subtle change" in the former Brit. Begum, who was stripped of her British citizenship in 2019, appeared to have undergone a more "Western" makeover - ditching her hijab and abaya. 7 Andrew secured the Bafta-nominated live interview with Begum for Good Morning Britain Credit: Alamy Advertisement 7 Begum, then 19, pictured in 2019 Credit: Times Media Ltd 7 The former Brit at the camp in 2021 Credit: Getty "She had changed as a character," Andrew said. "She was more short. She wasn't this nervous-cry sort of character. "She looked assured, and she didn't seem such a waif character, and she seemed to be in control of herself and her emotions." Advertisement Andrew told how Begum spent the night before the live interview "rehearsing" with three of her friends In the camp, which is controlled by armed guards. He added: "Her friends said they'd had their music playing and they were tutoring Shamima what to say. "They seemed pretty together about what she should say, and they were schooling her." Begum married an IS fighter soon after arriving in Syria and went on to have three children, none of whom survived. Andrew - who said he had formed a "bond" with Begum - told how after the interview, Shamima opened her purse and showed him photos of her children. Advertisement The tragic loss of his own brother Robert as a child made him sympathise with Shamima's plight. "One of them was a scene where the child must have been eight, nine months old, had chocolate around his face," he recalled. "I said, 'What's that?' and she said, 'Oh we used to like baking cakes'. "And it actually makes me quite sad. It was really quite sad knowing the child had died. "She made it sound like an honour that she had shared these pictures with me, which I guess it probably was, because she hadn't shared them before she said." Advertisement 7 But it was Begum's attitude after Andrew returned to the UK that shocked him - and began to shatter their relationship. "I said to her, 'Those pictures you showed me really upset me, I hope you're okay'," he said. "She messaged back and said, 'Oh, they don't bother me anymore. That doesn't make me sad'. "I thought, was that because she's been traumatised so badly? Advertisement "But I think she is that hard. I think she's calculated. "I actually don't think the death of her children actually bothered her in the slightest. She was not at all affected by it." After meeting Andrew a couple of times, Begum started asking him to bring stuff into the camp for her - including clothes. The dad said he felt "at a crossroads" about whether to take what she wanted. "I felt bad and guilty that I'd be taking somebody that carried out what could have been some atrocities, clothes," he said. Advertisement "But then, probably on the soft side of me, and the fact is, she was a young girl, so I was playing with these emotions, but I took her the clothes from Primark. "We had a bundle of stuff, we took some toys for the children because it's not their fault." But then Begum's requests started turning into demands, Andrew said. "The messages continued," he added. Camps breeding next ISIS generation Exclusive by Henry Holloway, Deputy Foreign Editor and Alan Duncan A CHILD no older than eight draws his hand across his neck in a chilling throat-slitting gesture - the message is clear, "You are not welcome here". Other kids hurl stones, shout and scream - while one exasperated camp official shows us CCTV of two youngsters hurling a firebomb. Welcome to camps al-Hol and al-Roj in northern Syria - the fates of which remain uncertain after the fall of tyrant Bashar al-Assad. It is warned these stark detention centres are now the breeding ground for the next generation of the bloodthirsty cult. And much of this new wave of radicalisation is feared to be coming from the mothers inside the camps. Senior camp official Rashid Omer said: "The reality is - they are not changing. This is not a normal camp - this a bomb." He went on: "They are saying it was ISIS who 'liberated' Damascus - and soon they will be coming here." "And then they want to spread to Europe, to Africa, and then to everywhere." The two sprawling sites hold a total of nearly 60,000 including ISIS fighters, families and children. At least 6,000 Westerners are still held among them - including infamous jihadi bride Shamima Begum, the 25-year-old from London. READ MORE HERE "This time they became slightly more angry, slightly more direct." Advertisement Before he planned to return to Syria again, Begum told him she wanted two books - Guantanamo Bay Diaries and Sea Prayer - which is inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. Andrew said she was also being schooled by her lawyer about her media presence. He added: "What she declared by then is that she was hostage in a prison camp - where they were legally held. "That's how she started to see herself. All apologies had gone. "She'd done a documentary with the BBC and was on the front of The Times magazine. Advertisement "She'd become a celebrity and was loving all the attention. She'd read all the newspaper articles." Andrew - who returned to the camp with a friend and no crew - took some clothes for Begum with him. I could see things in her I didn't like. I didn't trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive Andrew Drury But it was his decision not to take the books she had demanded that revealed her true colours. "I did go back again, but my feelings were already changing towards her," Andrew said. "It was a little boy's birthday, and I felt so sorry for him. Advertisement "He wanted a Superman outfit, so I would have gone just for that, because I spend a lot of time in refugee camps. It's not fair for these kids. "I didn't take the books Shamima wanted because I didn't want to. I didn't want her to have that opportunity to what I saw as studying how to be a victim. "She opened the clothes, said she didn't like them. I mean, this is a girl in a prison camp. "She said, 'I didn't really care about the clothes, it was the books I wanted'. So she became quite aggressive in her nature." Begum's attitude then worsened when Andrew became interested in another girl's story. Advertisement It was one of the final nails in the coffin in the bond Andrew believed they had initially formed. "Shamima had a tantrum that the attention had been taken away from her," he said. "She was like a child that was pretending they were ill. "So during this period of time I was beginning to feel like the connection was gone. "It was broken, and I was beginning not to like her. Advertisement "I could see things in her I didn't like. I didn't trust her. Her behaviour was poor. She was angry and aggressive. "I had found out from other girls what she was accused of, and they told me the same thing that I had heard before, like sewing suicide vests "Things were ringing in my head like she said early on that the Manchester bombing was legitimate because of what happened in Iraq and Syria. "So I didn't trust her." Andrew's last contact with Begum was around two years ago in a fiery text exchange. Advertisement She accused Andrew of "selling her out", to which he shot back: "You've sold your country out." Begum last year lost her final appeal challenging the removal of her British citizenship. She can now no longer fight to overturn the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. Andrew said: "I think she's a danger for what she stood for, and I don't think she could ever come back. "I think she needs to go on trial in Syria for the crimes she committed against the Syrian people."
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
‘The fans just circulate hot air': how indoor heat is making life unbearable in India's sweltering cities
At noon, Khustabi Begum is sitting on the steps leading to her three-room home, trying to escape the stifling April heat indoors. But respite is hard to come by in Rajendra Nagar, a slum in south Bengaluru. 'It's just as hot outside, but it feels worse indoors. It's been really hot for the past five or six days, but at least there's an occasional breeze outside,' says the 36-year-old. Inside Begum's dimly lit living room, ceiling fans whir. One corner is stacked with sacks of onions and just outside their home is a vending cart. 'My husband sells erulli, belluli [onions, garlic],' she says. The couple moved to Bengaluru more than a decade ago, hoping to give their three children a better education. With a nostalgic smile, Begum recalls her green and breezy village in Kishanganj district in Bihar state. 'It's actually hotter in our village, temperature-wise,' she says. 'But when it got unbearable, we would go and take a stroll by the river. Here, there's nowhere to go, just up and down this street.' While the government's heat advisories urge people to stay indoors between noon and 3pm, it's pointless advice for most families in Rajendra Nagar. 'The fans just circulate hot air,' she says. 'We keep drinking matke ka paani [chilled water from clay pots] and step outside from time to time, but there's nothing else to do to escape the heat inside.' Indoor heat is recognised as a serious health hazard for vulnerable groups. Among them are low-income families in informal settlements where poorly ventilated homes are built of heat-trapping materials, and have irregular electricity and water supply. Outdoors, there's little relief on offer because of limited access to green, open spaces. Bengaluru, a city of lakes and gardens, has seen a steady rise in temperatures in recent years, challenging its longstanding reputation for clement year-round weather. According to the Bengaluru Climate Action and Resilience Plan, the city's average temperature has risen by approximately 0.23C per decade since 1975, with a sharper increase of nearly 0.5C since 2009. In April, Bengaluru recorded temperatures of about 35C (95F). In Rajendra Nagar and nearby slums such as LR Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar, most homes are built on compact plots of roughly 300 sq ft, and each household typically has five to seven members. There are power cuts several times a week, lasting from a few hours to a few days, and water is available only on alternate days or even every third day. Running fans or cooling the body with 'spray bottles, damp cloths [or] ice towels', as a government heat advisory suggests, can be challenging for people in these neighbourhoods. Begum's home has one window, facing a quiet side road. However, the municipality recently began road building work and is widening the sewers. 'We open the window only during long power cuts,' her daughter Noor Nagina, 14, says. 'Otherwise, we have to deal with mosquitoes and dust from all the work.' Researchers at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, point out that most heat action plans (HAPs) in India have overlooked indoor heat, especially in low-income and informal settlements. A review of 10 city-level HAPs, published in the journal Plos Climate, revealed that only two cities – Rajkot and Bhubaneshwar – explicitly acknowledged indoor heat vulnerability. 'Overall, while a few plans highlight indoor heat risks … there is a significant gap in comprehensive, scalable strategies to address these challenges,' says Swati Surampally, one of the review's authors. Poor ventilation does not help, says Radha N, who works with Rajendra Nagar-based NGO Swabhimaan. 'Most houses in the area have narrow, tunnel-like entrances, with rooms arranged one behind the other in a straight line. This leaves little to no space for air to circulate indoors and as a result, the concrete walls heat up,' she says. 'Children sometimes wake up crying because of the heat, power cuts and the mosquitoes. As a result, their parents, who spend most of the day working outdoors, are unable to get enough rest at night.' This, she adds, badly affects their ability to function the next day. Sometimes, I sit by the door hoping for some air, but that's rare now. The only thing I can do is drink lots of water Zakia Begum Allamelu John, 39, a domestic worker, only cooks early in the morning and late at night in her home to avoid the smoke and heat that builds up in the afternoon. 'Our kitchens are small and lack exhaust fans, so it becomes very difficult,' she says. At night, her family sleeps on a bedsheet spread over a charpai (a traditional woven bed) on the floor, which, she says, is cooler than sleeping on mattresses. Across the city, in Bellahalli in north Bengaluru, Zakia Begum, 28, sits in a one-room shelter with a tarpaulin roof. She is seven months pregnant and the insufferable indoor heat in her previous tin-roofed home was one of the reasons she and her husband moved here. Originally from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, Zakia has lived in Bengaluru for nine years. Her husband works as a truck driver with a contractor transporting the municipality's waste. Zakia quit her job as a domestic worker to look after herself during her pregnancy. Their room is part of a cluster of shanties built on open land among scattered heaps of waste. 'This summer feels different; there's no breeze,' she says as a small table fan whirs beside her. 'Sometimes, I sit by the door hoping for some air, but that's rare now. The only thing I can do is drink lots of water.' Most families in Zakia's neighbourhood depend on tankers for water or buing in limited supplies. While Begum washes her face and hands often to stay cool, she knows she must use water carefully. Migrant women's experiences of indoor heat have come up in research by the IIHS and its partners. The project, Climate Change Local Adaptation Pathways (Claps), found that indoor heat disproportionately affects women, who shoulder paid work and unpaid domestic responsibilities. 'Women face a triple burden: they manage paid work alongside domestic chores, endure prolonged exposure while cooking in unventilated spaces, and often eat last or inadequately, heightening fatigue and health risks. Together, these factors make indoor heat a deeply gendered and under-recognised health challenge,' says Surampally, a senior research associate at IIHS, also working with Claps. Related: 'I feel dizzy but I can't stop': global heating is already making kiln workers' lives unbearable. And it will only get worse Kavita G, a social health activist who works in Rajendra Nagar, says: 'Women often come to us with problems like itching, skin infections and a burning sensation while urinating, especially during periods of extreme heat.' Older people are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses – including severe dehydration and heatstroke. Researchers at IIHS say responses to extreme heat must address the structural vulnerabilities that migrant workers face – in their homes and at work. Surampally emphasises the need for heat-resilient housing through subsidies for cool roofs and improved ventilation; access to reliable electricity and water; enforcement of labour protections such as rest breaks and hydration for outdoor workers; and multilingual campaigns tailored to migrant communities. 'Many migrants compare Bengaluru's heat to their even hotter native towns and, therefore, underplay its risks,' Surampally says. 'This perception, along with limited financial resources, means that the urgency to adapt is low, even when physical discomfort is high.' After spending on rent, daily expenses and the children's schooling, Khustabi Begum's family might be able to save a little in a month when the profits are healthy. But this doesn't happen often, given the fluctuating prices of vegetables. 'We cannot afford a cooler or a fridge because we have to prioritise our children's education,' she says. To escape the heat, small children in Rajendra Nagar often roam around naked and Begum laments the unfairness of how her husband and two boys sleep with their shirts off – a comfort not afforded to her and her daughter. 'Women do not have that option,' she sighs. • This story first appeared in the Migration Story, India's first newsroom to focus on the country's vast migrant population. The reporting was supported by People First Cities which is undertaking a project on rising heat in informal settlements
Scroll.in
03-06-2025
- General
- Scroll.in
White roofs can cool down homes – but scaling up this simple solution is a challenge
In the last few years, Sahani Begum found that the desert cooler she owned was barely effective enough. Her small, two-storeyed home in RK Puram's Hanuman Labour Basti in New Delhi would become unbearable in the summers, the temperature inside rising much higher than outside. Then, her son heard about a quick and simple solution through the internet – painting their roof white. Studies have found that applying reflective white paint on cemented roofs can reflect between 30% and 70% of direct sunlight, significantly reducing indoor temperatures. Begum's son bought the paint and finished painting two coats on the roof in a single day. They felt the difference immediately. 'We could sleep in relief,' Begum, who is in her fifties, told Scroll. As heatwaves become more frequent and intense in India, experts say it is no longer enough to simply avoid direct exposure to the sun – even indoor heat poses a risk to human health. In fact, during summers, depending on the material used for construction, temperatures inside buildings can be as much as 12 degrees Celsius higher than outside, said Bharati Chaturvedi, director at Chintan, a non-profit that works on waste management and livelihoods. In Delhi, low-income communities that cannot afford air-conditioning are experimenting with small-scale, low-cost solutions like the one that Begum's family tried. City-level heat action plans have also recommended these – the 2024-'25 Delhi heat action plan recommends a 'pilot project on roof painting with white color – cool roof and or distribution of gunny bags for putting on the tin roofs/asbestos in slums'. However, while these affordable solutions are attractive, they face considerable challenges on the ground. Begum's family, for instance, has struggled to continue painting their roof year after year. A year after the family first did the job in 2023, Begum noticed that the paint had chipped off at places and needed a redoing. The NGO Chintan helped her household along with 39 others in the basti to complete the work. The organisation took care of all associated costs – they bought the paint and paid workers to do the painting. This year, however, the project ended. Begum's family will have to incur their own expenses to repaint the now chipped roof once more – she explained that the cost could go up to Rs 3,000. 'It's not going to be possible,' she said. Indeed, experts working on interventions like these are concerned about whether they can be scaled, considering that they can be expensive or do not last long. Indeed, as a report by Chintan found, in the around 200 houses they had introduced the intervention in, 'not even a single painted cool roof' was 'almost fully white, as initially applied' after a year. 'Painting white roofs does not work for everybody,' said Vinita Rodrigues, a project manager at Fair Conditioning, a Mumbai-based organisation that works on thermal comfort across five cities including Delhi. In fact, Rodrigues explained, many solutions that focus on roofs are not even feasible to attempt given that families do not always find it easy to use the area. In some places, their team found high-voltage wires in close proximity to roofs, which would make it unsafe for home owners to carry out any kind of work on them, while in other places, goats would venture on the roofs, and damage structures that had been installed to help tackle the problem of heat. Rodrigues added, 'A diversity of solutions has to be accessible to people. We cannot have a one-size fits-all approach.' A range of problems Other experts agreed that proposed solutions had to take into account a range of conditions on the ground. Thus, apart from concerns of cost and availability of material, 'practicality of the interventions also becomes a factor', said Manu Gupta, co-founder of SEEDS, an organisation that works on improving disaster resilience among communities. For instance, Anshu, another resident of Hanuman Basti, found that painting her home's roof white was ineffective because it was made of tin. 'Compared to other cemented roofs, the cooling effect was not as much since the tin captures a lot of heat,' she said. Another practical problem that many residents faced was that they used their roofs for a variety of purposes, limiting the space available to do any kind of work, and the effects of solutions such as painting. 'Most of the people here sell scrap for work,' said Anshu, pointing to several roofs we could see around, which were covered with material such as cardboard, paper, glass, metal and plastic. 'For them, the roof is an important storage space and many continue keeping their material.' Close to the Bhalswa landfill in north Delhi, residents faced a more unpredictable hurdle while experimenting with a solution. With Chintan's support, they had used large plastic bottles filled with water on roofs: the water's ability to absorb large amounts of heat created a thermal mass, which helped lower the temperature inside buildings by as much as 3 degrees Celsius compared to the outdoors. However, many residents found that after a few months, the bottles began to be stolen for their high resale value. To ensure that solutions provided are effective for specific kinds of houses, Fair Conditioning carries out 'house audits', which help them to understand 'if structurally, a certain solution works for a certain type of home', said Rodrigues. These audits document information like the age of houses and water availability. The problem of affordability As in Begum's case, many proposed solutions are also unaffordable to communities. For instance, Rodrigues explained, in situations where people use roofs for other purposes, experts have recommended working with other materials, which can be used under the roof to cool the home. Among these is alufoil, an industrially made material, which can be layered indoors, on the ceiling of a house, to trap heat. 'But we found that this was an expensive material and so we have been looking for alternatives to this,' said Rodrigues. One replacement they have been experimenting with is multi-layered plastic, such as the kind used on the silver side of packets of chips. 'We have found it to be quite effective,' she added. But communities told Rodrigues and her team about another problem that they encountered when they tried this solution – rat infestation. 'Somehow, rats were finding a way to enter the sheets we had installed,' she said. 'And now we are looking for ways to block their entries.' Rodrigues explained that the most effective solutions to the problem of heat were 'dynamic solutions'. She was referring to designs such as one involving a chain and sprocket mechanism, which rotates installed panels so that they can be positioned horizontally in the morning to block heat, and vertically in the evening to release trapped heat. This can reduce the indoor temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius. 'But the problem is that since there is a lot of metal in this design, these are expensive,' she said. 'So our design team is currently working to find local alternatives to replace this as well.' The report by Chintan also pointed out another aspect of the chain and sprocket solution that increased its costs. 'Chain sprockets need constant greasing to work which may not be sustainable in the long run and incur additional costs,' the report stated. Anshu noted that even a cheaper solution such as painting roofs was unlikely to catch on since most families in her locality did not own their houses. 'Anyway I live on rent. Why would I want to spend this much money on a house which is not even mine?' she said. Some organisations have tried tapping into existing government policies and grants to fund such work. 'In Pune, we found that communities in low-income areas are eligible for housing repair grants every year through the city administration,' said Gupta. Involving communities to ensure durability Many experts believe that involving people in projects from the time they are initiated can inculcate a sense of ownership over them, and thus increase the likelihood that communities will carry work forward even without the support of NGOs. SEEDS' Gupta explained that they constantly received a 'live feed' from communities about their experiences. 'In one experiment, we had used cow dung and mud as a binding material on a bamboo frame,' he said. After households began using it, 'people told us that it smells. We had not thought of it,' he said. The best solutions, Gupta added, came from 'codesigning with communities', which would involve 'negotiations of cultural nuances' and soliciting their active participation in the work. Fair Conditioning conducts 'listening workshops' that encourage communities to be involved right from the designing of a solution. 'Our approach is that the communities know their homes the best,' Rodrigues explained. 'And having these discussions ensures that a certain type of solution works for a certain type of home.'
Hans India
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Supreme Court to Review Case Of Woman's Alleged Illegal Detention And Deportation from Assam To Bangladesh
The Supreme Court has agreed to examine a petition filed by the family of a woman who was allegedly unlawfully detained in Assam and potentially deported to Bangladesh as part of the state government's ongoing operations to remove individuals declared as illegal foreigners. The case highlights concerns about the implementation of deportation procedures while legal appeals remain pending. Manowara Begum's citizenship struggle began during Assam's National Register of Citizens exercise, where she presented documentation from a village head certifying her Indian nationality and migration to Assam before 1971. Despite this evidence, a foreigners' tribunal in 2015 dismissed the validity of her citizenship documents and classified her as an illegal immigrant who entered India after the March 20, 1971 cutoff date. Following the tribunal's decision, Begum was confined to the Foreigners Detention Centre in Kokrajhar in 2016. Her family subsequently approached the Gauhati High Court and later the Supreme Court seeking relief. After spending three years in detention, she was granted bail and released in December 2019 following Supreme Court orders. The Supreme Court had also validated the village head's letter as legitimate identity documentation in 2017 and directed the High Court to reconsider her appeal against the foreigners' tribunal decision. This established legal precedent supported her case and provided grounds for challenging the original tribunal ruling. However, on May 25, local police summoned Begum to Dhubri police station ostensibly to answer questions but subsequently detained her. When family members, including her son, arrived at the station with court documents demonstrating her pending Supreme Court appeal, they were dismissed without explanation or access to Begum. During Monday's Supreme Court hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal represented the family before a vacation bench, expressing concerns that Begum may have been forcibly removed from India and sent to Bangladesh. Sibal questioned the police authority's decision to detain someone whose petition remained under Supreme Court consideration. Sibal emphasized the irregularity of the situation, noting that the appeal had been pending since 2017 and questioning how local police officials could unilaterally decide to remove someone while their case remained before the highest court. He argued that the Superintendent of Police had overstepped authority by taking such action. The bench, comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Satish Chandra Sharma, initially showed hesitation about addressing the matter, questioning whether they could intervene if the individual was no longer within the country. However, Sibal contended that the court possessed authority to order police disclosure of Begum's current status and ensure her protection if she remained in detention. The petition, submitted by Begum's son, detailed their communication with the Superintendent of Police (Border) in Dhubri, reiterating that his mother had been released under Supreme Court orders and that her civil appeal remained pending before the top court. The family emphasized the ongoing legal proceedings and the impropriety of detention during active litigation. The plea expressed serious concerns about arbitrary and unlawful detention, highlighting the risk of forced deportation to Bangladesh despite the pending judicial determination of her citizenship status. The family argued that such actions violated legal procedures and constitutional protections while matters remained under court consideration. In response to these arguments, the Supreme Court has issued formal notice to the Assam government, Assam Police, and the Superintendent of Police (Border), requiring them to respond to the allegations and provide clarification about Begum's current status and treatment. The case is scheduled for detailed hearing in July. This case occurs within the broader context of Assam's efforts to identify and remove individuals classified as illegal immigrants by state foreigners' tribunals, with authorities citing Supreme Court directives regarding deportation of undocumented migrants. The situation raises important questions about procedural safeguards and the balance between immigration enforcement and individual rights during ongoing legal proceedings.
