[ZESTCaste] The Bioscopewallah: World Premiere at Seattles 4th Independent South Asian Film Festival
Hi Folks, I am glad to let you know that The Bioscopewallah was invited for its World Premiere at Seattle's 4th Independent South Asian Film Festival between 3rd and 7th October 2007. I sincerely thank all the pre-release film reviewers including Anand Patwardhan and Professor Vinay Lal to name a few. Following is some info: Friday October 5th, 2007 9:00 PM: The Bioscopewallah Prashant Kadam, 2006, Canada/India, Marathi with English subtitles, 13 minutes, MiniDV The Bioscopewallah is a brief encounter with an entertainer, Rau Waghmare, who is also a rare occasion for pure and simple joy for children. A dalit folk artist, hit by an unfortunate drought Rau narrates in colloquial Marathi the story of his struggle for survival in the face of a natural calamity and migration. Raus cheerful singing and gestures, his unconditional pride in the bioscope stand in contrast to the lurking shadows of poverty and failing health. More information is available at http://www.visualcultures.com Prashant Kadam Prashant is a post-graduate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. He worked as a freelance photographer for a number of distinguished newspapers magazines in India. His assignments covered features such as Art and Culture, investigation, fiction, new products, fashion shows, astronomy, music dance festivals, adventure, feature stories, movers and shakers, eye-opener and counter moves. A research assignment for a period film triggered his latent interest in filmmaking. Subsequently, he worked on more projects of the kind. He is passionate about making documentaries that would voice elements of social cultural realities. The Bioscopewallah, Prashant's debut independent documentary, was shot entirely in natural and available light, sans crew. http://isaff. tasveer.org/ 2007/event. php?id=12 Thank you, Regards, Prashant - Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers.
[ZESTCaste] USA: The New Affirmative Action
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/magazine/30affirmative-t.html?_r=1oref=slogin Application The New Affirmative Action Tierney Gearon for The New York Times Two decades ago, Frances Harris would have been a shoo-in for a place in U.C.L.A.'s class of 2011. But the political landscape changed, and with it her chances for admission. Sign In to E-Mail or Save This Print Share DiggFacebookNewsvinePermalink By DAVID LEONHARDT Published: September 30, 2007 In another time, it wouldn't have been too hard to guess where Frances Harris would have ended up going to college. She has managed to do very well in very difficult circumstances, and she is African-American. Her high school, in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento, was shut down as an irremediable failure the spring before her freshman year, then reopened months later as a charter school. Midway through high school, her father developed heart problems and became an irritable fixture around the home. She also discovered that he was not actually her biological father. That was a man named Leroy who, when her mother took Harris to see him, simply said his name was George and waited for her to leave. In Harris's senior year, her mother lost her job at a nursing home and the family filed for bankruptcy. Harris somehow stayed focused on teenage life. She earned an A-minus average and she distinguished herself as a debater. Her basketball teammates sometimes teased her for using big words, but they also elected her co-captain. As she led me on a tour of her school and her neighborhood one day this summer, she introduced me around with an assured ease that most adults can't manage, even if her sentences are peppered with like, you know and Oh, my God. Her bedroom in the bungalow she shares with her parents is a masterpiece of teenage energy, the walls covered with her prom-queen tiara, her purple-and-white basketball jersey (No. 3) and photos of her friends. The hardest part of high school, she says, was to be smart and cool at the same time. She decided her dream college was the University of California, Los Angeles. Ten or 20 years ago, Frances Harris almost certainly would have been admitted. Her excellent grades might not have even been necessary, because Berkeley and U.C.L.A. — the jewels in the U.C. system — accepted almost all of the African-Americans who met the basic application requirements. To an admissions officer, Harris would have seemed like gold: diversity and achievement, wrapped up in a single kid. But in the early 1990s, the elite campuses began to pull back from their aggressive affirmative-action policies, and in 1996, California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative, also known as Proposition 209. After that, race could no longer be a factor in government hiring or public-university admissions. The number of black students at both Berkeley and U.C.L.A. plummeted, and at U.C.L.A. the declines continued throughout the next decade. The reasons weren't entirely clear, but they seemed to include some combination of the admissions office taking Proposition 209 to heart and black students falling further behind in the academic arms race. (Harris, for instance, scored a 22 on the ACT test — slightly above the national average and well below the U.C.L.A. average.) The changes on U.C.L.A.'s campus were hard to miss. In 1997, the freshman class included 221 black students; last fall it had only 100. In the region with easily the largest black population west of the Mississippi River, the top public university had a freshman class in which barely 1 in 50 students was black. A U.C.L.A. graduate named Peter Taylor, a 49-year-old managing director at Lehman Brothers in Los Angeles, remembers picking up The Los Angeles Times outside his house on a Saturday morning in June of last year and reading that piece of news. Taylor, who is black, is a third-generation native of the city and one of U.C.L.A.'s most active alumni. Within days of reading about the latest decline in the number of black students, he began a campaign to reverse it. At a reception to honor U.C.L.A.'s new acting chancellor, a law professor named Norm Abrams, he greeted Abrams with a big smile and said, Well, Norm, you're stepping right into it, and you've got to deal with it. Abrams soon named Taylor to lead a task force of students, faculty, alumni and outsiders from places like the Urban League and the First A.M.E. Church. It spent the next year trying to get more black students to apply, more black applicants to be admitted and more black admits to enroll. In essence, Taylor's group was trying to figure out how to bring a student like Frances Harris to U.C.L.A. without breaking the law — or at least without getting caught. What they have achieved may well show us the future of affirmative action. Peter Taylor's office on the 25th floor of the MGM Building in Century City looks out over the Fox movie lot and a golf course; in the distance downtown Los Angeles
[ZESTCaste] Fear haunts Khairlanji Dalits (News)
http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/29/stories/2007092961981500.htm National Fear haunts Khairlanji Dalits Meena Menon Last year on September 29 four Dalits were murdered in the Maharashtra village KHAIRLANJI (Bhandara district): We are terrified of living here, says Shamkala Meshram. Hers is one of the two Dalit families still living in this village in Maharashtra. Last year, after the murder of four members of the Bhotmange family on September 29, the Meshrams, along with the family of Durvas Khobragade and his sister Panchshila Shende, had asked the government to rehabilitate them somewhere else. However, the district administration forwarded their request to the Director of Social Welfare in Pune in December 2006, but nothing has happened since then. Shamkala and her husband Vinod own 2.5 acres of land. Most of the time they work as daily wage labourers. On the day of the incident on September 29, the Meshrams were away and returned in the evening. We saw nothing. The police took our statement and that of my three sons since they were at home. But they too saw nothing because it all happened near Bhotmange's house which is further away, she said. We stay like second class citizens here and we don't talk much, she said. Their family is related to the Bhotmanges and the incident deeply affected them. I am worried about my three sons. What about their future? Anything can happen here, she added. Her eldest son was in the same college that Priyanka Bhotmange attended. The village is dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and now it is playing politics with the two families. The Meshrams are upset that in the panchayat elections, a member of the Khobragade family, Jayshree, contested with the help of the BJP. She has already been elected unopposed as the seat was reserved for women of the Scheduled Caste. Keys handed over The District Collector Sambhaji Sarkunde on Friday handed over the keys of a flat in the low-income group colony built by the State government to Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, the only surviving member of the Bhotmange family. Mr. Sarkunde told The Hindu that since Bhaiyyalal had refused to pay a portion of the money for the house allotted to him earlier this week, it was decided to give it to him free of cost. On Saturday, Bhaiyyalal will offer shraddanjali to his family at Deulgaon where the burial took place. A small ceremony is also planned at Khairlanji. Other meetings have also been organised in Bhandara and Nagpur to mark the first anniversary of the killings. About 20 policemen have been stationed at Khairlanji since last year. Now a platoon of the State reserve police has been added and prohibitory orders have been imposed. Bhotmange's house in Khairlanji is almost falling apart. It remains locked and the single room remains as it was when the family was dragged out and killed on September 29. The courtyard and the cattle shed are overgrown with weeds. A police picket is still stationed outside and every visitor to the village has to make an entry in the register. Normality Things seem to have returned to normal in the village. In the evening, men stand around chatting and you can hear the sounds of television. The five witnesses in the trial here have been given 24-hour protection. Two of them have asked to be relocated. Panchshila Shende, who is an anganwadi sevika, says that on the surface there is no tension but we can sense the hostility. She lives with her brother Durvas Khobragade who owns 10 acres of land. After this incident, it is very difficult to get labour. People don't come to work for us. We have to wait till the work is over on everyone else's fields. Then we get labourers and that too we have to pay extra, says Shende. Both Panchshila and her sister-in-law Kausalya remember the Bhotmanges. The village never let him build a pucca house. The sarpanch refused to give a letter saying that he was a resident of the village. They kept saying this was public land and a house can't be built on it, says Shende. She keeps saying that she wants to work in another village. I was the only one who has done Montessori training in the village but I got a job as an anganwadi sevika. I wish to work elsewhere. Here my helper is siphoning off the food supplies and putting the blame on me. I am fed up, she says. Police claim The district administration did receive a request for rehabilitation from the Meshram family as well as the Khobragades and Shende but no action has been taken. However, Superintendent of Police (Bhandara) Suresh Sagar said that in a meeting with the Collector, these two families were asked if they wanted to shift out of the village and they had said 'no'. There are over 100 houses in Khairlanji and the majority communities are Kunbi and Kallar, which belong to the Other Backward Classes. In 2006, Bhandara reported 52 cases of atrocities against Dalits. This year there are 30 registered cases, according to Mr. Sagar. After the
[ZESTCaste] Nepal: Dalit NGO Federation on the caste discrimination incidents in the Farwestern region
http://nepaldalitinfo.net/2007/09/27/331/ Dalit NGO Federation on the caste discrimination incidents in the Farwestern region Kathmandu, 24 September 2007. Dalit NGO Federation has submitted a memorandum to different ministries and parliament head on the caste discrimination incidents that occured in the Farwestern region. Dalit NGO Federation has seriously drawn attention on the two incidents of caste discrimination in which two ladies in different districts of Far-western regional namely Baitadi and Doti are severely beaten by local non datis. In the incident of Baitadi that occurred on 27 Bhadra 2064, the 18 years old Dalit girl named Manisha Nepali was severely beaten while she was bathing in the public tap by local non dalits. The reason was only that she belonged to Dalit. Surprisingly, it has come in the national daily news papers that there was direct involvement of Parliament member of Nepali Congress (Democratic) Mr. Narendra Bam in this incident. It is also mentioned that this incident was happened under his leadership. However, it is yet to be proved. The fact finding team from DNF and HRTMCC has headed toward Doti to find out the real facts. In the another incident, the 13 years Dalit lady was also severely beaten by two local non Dalit women in Doti that occurred on 26 Bhadra 2064. The lady was beaten while she was dancing in the dancing party of her neighbor house at their invitation to celebrate Teej festival. In the Nepalese culture, there is custom to organize regular dance parties during the Teej festival. It has come in the national daily news papers that there was involvement of mother of Sopan Bohora in this incident who is the district president of Nepal Student Union affiliated to Nepali Congress. Two Dalit women who were also invited on the occasion severely beat the Dalit girl blaming the place was unclean because of her presence as she belonged to Dalit. Today (24 September 2007), after consulting with its member organizations, Journalists, Human Rights activists, Intellectuals and Dalit Students, DNF has jointly submitted the memorandum to different ministries drawing the attention take action against culprits provide justice, medical care and compensation to the victims immediately. The ministries include Home Ministry, Peace and Reconstruction Ministry and Agriculture Ministry respectively. The delegation team also drawn the attention separately about the incidents in fornt of honorable parliament head Mr. Subash Nembang to raise these incidents in the parliament session in front of all the parliament members to create exert pressure for taking necessary action to the real culprits. All the Ministries have assured the delegation team that the incidents will be investigated by the government soon for taking the action against culprits and provide justice and compensation to the victim from their own. The delegation team was under the leadership Mr. Krishna Bishwokarma from DNF Mid-central Regional chapter, other members in the team were Dhana Maya Bishwokarma DNF,Mr.Tirtha Bishwokarma, DNF, Suman Poudel, DNF/SAMATA Nepal, Sushil B.K, journalist Kumal Nepali, FEDO, Tulsa Gautam, DHRO, Hari Prasad Rasaily, CUDC and Arjun Bagale, DNF/DDL Nepal respectively. Please find the attached memorandum for your information and necessary action. DNF has also drawn the attention of National Human Rights Commission, National Dalit Commission, National Women Commission and OHCHR for taking necessary action from their own. Report by: Suman Poudel Kamalpokhari, Kathmandu DNF
[ZESTCaste] Dalit massacre to be commemorated (News)
http://www.indiaenews.com/india/20070928/72506.htm India Friday, September 28, 2007 Dalit massacre to be commemorated From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 09:30 AM IST Dalit groups in Maharashtra are to pay homage Saturday to a Dalit family massacred a year ago by a group of Hindus who wanted to teach them a lesson for taking them on in a criminal case. A Dalit group will hold a public meeting in Nagpur while similar functions will be organised in neighbouring Bhandara district. On Sep 29 last year, a group of non-Dalit villagers attacked the house of 50-year-old Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and beat to death his wife Surekha, young daughter Priyanka and two sons Dilip and Roshan after dragging them out. Bhaiyyalal managed to escape moments before the slaughter in Khairlanji village. The attackers were mostly from the 'other backward classes' and were angry with the Dalit family for testifying against 12 of their community members in a case of attack on their family friend Siddharth Gajbhiye. Bhotmange's daughters Surekha and Priyanka had testified in the case. The villagers were furious for not bowing to their caste 'superiority' and accepting their demand not to give evidence. The massacre had triggered widespread protests in Maharashtra and elsewhere in the country. Police arrested 47 people, 36 of whom were discharged for want of evidence. The remaining 11 are facing trial in a special court. The government suspended three policemen and a medical officer for dereliction of duty and handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Bhaiyyalal was given a government job, a house plot and money to buy farmland. Bharatiya Republican Party and Bahujan Maha Sangh (BRP-BMS) president Prakash Ambedkar, Dalit Panthers chief Jogendra Kawade and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Brinda Karat are slated to attend the rally in Nagpur. Social activists have been invited for the meeting in Bhandara. One of the organisers, Ashok Saraswati, said that the Saturday function would be used as a launch pad for the formation of a militant youth organisation of Dalits.
[ZESTCaste] Scindia demands action on atrocity against Dalit woman (News)
http://www.newkerala.com/oct.php?action=fullnewsid=6616 Scindia demands action on atrocity against Dalit woman Bhopal, Sep 28: Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia has said he did not expect justice from the Madhya Pradesh Government over registering of a police case against him. However, action must be taken against the legislator, who insulted a Dalit woman. Talking to UNI, Mr Scindia said Rashtriya Samanta Dal MLA Harivallabh Shukla has insulted a Dalit Congress woman worker and attacked another Congressman. He said action must be taken against Mr Shukla. He said he was ready to go to jail in connection with the case registered against him. Replying to a question, Mr Scindia said he did not have any discussion with any representative of the government in connection with the case registered against him. Mr Scindia said the case was registered against him as a part of a planned conspiracy. --- UNI
[ZESTCaste] There's no end to Maya's maya
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/PoliticsNation/Theres_no_end_to_Mayas_maya/articleshow/2413148.cms There's no end to Maya's maya 29 Sep, 2007, 0243 hrs IST,Bharti Jain, TNN NEW DELHI: Iving up to her political stature, Mayawati now not only figures among the country's richest politicians, but has officially become the highest tax-paying people's representative. The UP chief minister and BSP supremo has, between July and September 15 this year, paid a whopping Rs 14 crore as advance income tax for the assessment year 2008-09. While she paid Rs 1.5 crore as advance tax in July, an additional Rs 12.5 crore was deposited by her on September 15. This may be only a percentage of the total tax to be paid by her for the assessment year. Till September 15, assessees need to disclose only 40% of their income and the remaining 60% can be declared by March 15. In an affidavit filed along with her nomination papers for the UP Assembly polls, this year Ms Mayawati had declared an income of Rs 52 crore. The Dalit icon, who rose from humble beginnings as the daughter of a lowly clerk of the government and worked as a school teacher before BSP founder Kanshi Ram initiated her into politics, incidentally, continues to face a disproportionate assets case alleging that she had, over the period 1995-2003, declared her income at Rs 88.70 lakh when her known sources of income totalled Rs 1.12 crore. The latest status as the highest income-tax paying politician may only help Ms Mayawati legitimise her huge wealth acquired over less than a period of three years, when her declared income grew from barely Rs 1.67 crore — as recorded in the affidavit filed along with the nomination papers for 2004 Lok Sabha poll — to Rs 52 crore this year. By paying tax on a declared high income, Ms Mayawati hopes to weaken the CBI's disproportionate income case pending against her. The BSP leader has been claiming that the assets amassed by her are contributions from ordinary party workers as well as well-wishers. She, in her affidavit filed with her nomination papers for this year's state polls in UP, had declared her property at Rs 37.82 crore, cash worth Rs 50.27 crore, deposits in banks, financial institutions and non-financial institutions at Rs 12.88 lakh, gold and diamond jewellery at Rs 49.75 lakh, silverware at Rs 1.12 lakh and murals worth Rs 15 lakh, which are among her assets totalling Rs 52 crore. She even found a convenient explanation for her newly acquired wealth: donations from her supporters after the BJP upped the ante with false cases like the Taj corridor against her. Property accounts for the largest chunk in Mayawati's wealth. She owns prime commercial properties in Connaught Place as well as Okhla, besides a palatial house on the posh Sardar Patel Marg and another mansion on Nehru Road, Lucknow. -- Subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a BLANK email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[ZESTCaste] Khairlanji survivor is a lonely outsider as Dalit groups fight (News)
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/222483.html PAGE 1 ANCHOR Khairlanji survivor is a lonely outsider as Dalit groups fight Vivek Deshpande Posted online: Saturday, September 29, 2007 at hrs Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange was the rallying point of Dalit organisations, today he is not even invited to their rallies. BHANDARA, SEPTEMBER 28: A year ago, he was the rallying point for the deeply divided Dalit groups of Maharashtra. As Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange revisits his Khairlanji village tomorrow to pay homage to his wife Surekha, daughter Priyanka and sons Sudhir and Roshan, killed by a mob on the same day last year, he is a lonely outsider. Bhaiyyalal has not been invited to a rally in Bhandara, the district headquarters, organised by Dalit leader Shyamdada Gaikwad. Nor will he be in Nagpur, where the Khairlanji Action Committee has organised a shraddhanjali rally to be attended by CPM leader Brinda Karat and Prakash Ambedkar. Bhaiyyalal will first visit Khairlanji and later Deulgaon, where his in-laws stay, to return to Warthi, where he has been staying with local NCP Dalit leader Dilip Uke. So sharp are the divisions among the Dalit protestors that they don't see eye-to eye today. Rajan and and Siddharth Gajbhiye, with whom Bhaiyyalal addressed his first post-Khairlanji press conference under the aegis of the Khairlanji Action Committee, are today the target of his wrath. Siddharth is responsible for what happened to my family. I had warned him not to come to the village so often, but he didn't listen. Now, he and Rajan go to Mumbai, Delhi and everywhere and use my name to become leaders, Bhaiyyalal says hurling expletives. If the villagers would have found him, my family would haven't been killed. And now how they are telling the media they are the eye-witnesses? he asks. The Khairlanji Action Committee blames Uke for appropriating Bhaiyyalal and brainwashing him. Uke says his being NCP leader has nothing to do with his solidarity with Bhaiyyalal. He is a Dalit and that's why I am with him, he says. I don't have any axe to grind like many of his relatives. All have an eye on his money, he alleges. Convenor of Khairlanji Action Committee Milind Pakhale says, True, Bhaiyyalal had become a rallying point but is no more one. I am also confronted with this question and have no ready answers to give. Republican leader Prakash Ambedkar, however, says: There was never a sense of unity in the Khairlanji protests. I never had any such illusions. For tomorrow's occasion, we have appealed to all Dalits to congregate before the Ambedkar statue and pay their respects to the victims. What Bhaiyyalal says about anyone isn't an issue before us at this moment. We are now concentrating on the legal case and waiting for justice, he says. Siddharth Gajbhiye, a police patil from the neighbouring Dhusala village was Bhotmange's family friend. Owner of 50 acres, he would employ people from surrounding villages on his farm. Early in September last year, he had a tiff with a landless labourer. Siddharth had allegedly beaten him up, resulting in anger among villagers, some of whom thrashed him severely. Bhaiyyalal's wife Surekha and daughter Priyanka had testified before the police against the alleged assaulters, who were arrested. When they got bail, they set out to teach Siddharth a lesson. When they couldn't find him, they returned to the village and vented their ire at the Bhotmanges. While Bhaiyyalal fled the spot after seeing the mob, his family was wiped off in the attack, leading to nationwide outrage and Dalit protests. Then, everybody seemed to be reaching out to Bhaiyyalal. The government rushed in with aid, cash and kind, worth over Rs 13 lakh and the job of a security guard in a government school for Rs 5,000 a month. Two days before the incident's anniversary, on Wednesday, the government gave him a house in Bhandara. Now, no one comes to visit Bhaiyyalal. I know how I am living, he says. He hasn't yet thought about beginning his life afresh. That's for later. First, I want to see all the killers hanged, he says. He isn't happy with the slow pace of the case in a fast-track court in Bhandara. There have been 24 days of hearing so far, covering only 12 of the total 78 witnesses. They should be completing at least 4-5 witnesses in a month. I had demanded a special court that would have been able to do that. The government hasn't given it, he complains.
