This volume collects seventeen stories of women and men who, simply because they were born poor, or a particular gender, or into a certain caste or religion, fell prey to the many atrocities and indignities endemic to contemporary India. Some resisted, survived, and soldier on. Some did not. Lachmi Kaur lost almost all the male members of her family in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. She then overcame despair to singlehandedly bring up her children and grandchildren with fierce love and pride. With great courage of conviction, Krishan Gopal, a Dalit man from Nimoda in Rajasthan, decided to build his own shrine to Hanuman after being forbidden from the village temple by his upper-caste neighbours. What followed was persecution, violence and exile from the village which lasted all his life. At twenty-eight, Dandapani defied his family--which could not accept him for what he was--left home, and underwent a sex-change operation. Now known as Dhanam, she lives with her extended family of eunuchs in a Chennai shanty. And, in a chilling first-person account, Raheem tells of his village in Muzaffarnagar which, after cynical political manipulation, went from amity to a communal conflagration in just a week. Fatal Accidents of Birth is a powerful, challenging book. It tells us of the many ways in which we inflict violence upon each other--most of all by choosing to not see. And as it does so, this necessary book ensures that these stories will find their rightful place in our consciousness.

A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America. We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators. As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions. Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored. In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites. Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random. Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power. She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.

Accidents are generally regarded as unexpected events that do not fall into any regular pattern. Such is not the case. Analysis of the historical records of accident mortality rates in general, and specifically in industry and transport, shows that they diminish with the passage of time in an ordered fashion, although we are not consciously aware of this fact.In his challenging book Fatal Accidents, the author, in order to explain this paradox, proposes a model of human behaviour in which the reduction in fatal accident rates results from a development of skill, such that the population becomes progressively more adept at avoiding mishaps. Such changes are subconsciously and collectively regulated by the population concerned – for example, by drivers in the case of road transport – and are made possible by advances in science and technology. A similar model is applicable to the reduction of general mortality rates, to economic growth and to population growth. The future cannot be predicted, but at present safety is improving at a satisfactory rate. - Examines fatal accident trends in industry and transport - Proposes that fatal accident rates diminish over time as a result of skill development - Observes the correlation between accidents and specific measures of human activity, such as national productivity

This comprehensive volume analyses Chinese birth policies and population developments from the founding of the People's Republic to the 2000 census. The main emphasis is on China's 'Hardship Number One Under Heaven': the highly controversial one-child campaign, and the violent clash between family strategies and government policies it entails. Birth Control in China 1949-2000 documents an agonizing search for a way out of predicament and a protracted inner Party struggle, a massive effort for social engineering and grinding problems of implementation. It reveals how birth control in China is shaped by political, economic and social interests, bureaucratic structures and financial concerns. Based on own interviews and a wealth of new statistics, surveys and documents, Thomas Scharping also analyses how the demographics of China have changed due to birth control policies, and what the future is likely to hold. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Modern China, Asian studies and the social sciences.