Thingnam Anjulika Samom, January 06 2010: Eight year-old Thoibi (name changed) still recalls the night when her drunken father burnt down their house and all their possessions after a quarrel with her mother.

She was seven years old then.

Shy but wise for her age, she smiles despite the memories as she recalls, "I hardly get beaten when father was drunk; it is usually Boynao whom he spanks." Her smile however fades away and she hides her luminous eyes behind the curtain of jet black hair as she bows her head and adds softly, "Yes, he used to beat mother often'.

"I didn't cry during those incidents.

We just stood and watched," she continues as she stood up in reply to her mother's gesture.

Gently but firmly she pulls away her youngest sibling, who turns two years in April this year, from her mother's bosom so that her mother Bijanti can talk to the visiting mediapersons.

Seated on a borrowed mat by her ramshackled hut located in Haorang Keirel village under Sekmai Assembly Constituency just about 10 kilometres from the state capital Imphal, 35-year old Bijanti spares no words in abusing her errant husband, Prem Singh, a construction labourer who had deserted her and the children about nine months back.

"There is no place for him here now with me even if he comes back," she fires.

"We heard that he is either in Churachandpur or Tamenglong and has taken a new wife.

Earlier also a few months after our third child was born, he had eloped with a girl and was jailed for six months," she informed.

Bijanti and Prem Singh's 15 years of marriage had borne them six children � four sons and two daughters.

Her two elder sons 14-year old Joy and 10-year old Kumar (names changed) had run away to an adjoining house through a hole in the hedge at the sight of visitors.

Plastic sacks filled with straw spread on the mud floor served as bed and pillow for their family of seven in their one-room hut walled with old clothes and torn plastic sacks.

A few torn thin blankets and old woolen ladies wraps lay crumpled on the "bed" beneath the double-sized mosquito net made from old chunnis hand-stitched together.

A small basket of mustard leaves to cook for the morning meal lay in a corner of the hut.

"Either Joy or Kumar cook for the family these days," narrated Bijanti who is still recovering from an appendix operation in December.

Local people as well as the local MLA and Gram Panchayat members had contributed towards her treatment under the initiative of members of the Village Women Co-ordinating Committee (VWCOC), a local NGO.

Her parents who do odd jobs in the adjoining paddy fields are presently providing food for the family.

"I have been asking for a BPL card for the last two years through the Gram Panchayat Member, but I still haven't got it," she said.

Interestingly the local agent who distributes the government rations lives next door.

Gram Panchayat Member Chaoubi adds, "I don't know how long it will take to make the BPL card.

It is in the hands of the MLA and ministers" .

Bijanti continues, "I did get the job card under NREGS and worked for about 20 days earlier last year." The early marriage and frequent childbirth has however taken its toll on Bijanti's health.

This added with the care of her small children have left very few work options open to her.

"The present land we are staying belongs to my father-in-law and he has made it clear that we don't have much right over it as Prem Singh sold off half of the familial landholdings about four years back on pretext of my treatment during a problem in my womb then," she narrates.

Gender equality and the eradication of many dimensions of poverty by 2015 are among the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by 189 nations including India and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000 .

In its 2005 Country Report on MDGs, India stated clearly that to achieve the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, it must reduce by 2015 the proportion of people below poverty line in the country from nearly 37.5 percent in 1990 to about 18.75 percent.

Besides this stance, there are also various state and central government schemes to aid the poor in the country such as providing low cost food rations through BPL cards, low cost latrine construction through the Total Sanitation Campaign as well as aid for building houses under the Indira Awas Yojana.

Yet in face of the widespread gender imbalance and violence against women, as well as the failure of the democratic establishment in reaching out to the grassroots and identifying the real beneficiaries like Bijanti and her children, it remains to be seen how far ahead India can progress in its journey to achieving the MDGs.

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