[ZESTCaste] Re: Fw: [grey-youth-movement:816] Dalit internet politics-possiblities and probl
More than the commentators, we need discussion and debate among ourselves. Many of our people have widely varying and even conflicting opinions and perception of the real problem and situation. -- In ZESTCaste@yahoogroups.com, C.K. Vishwanath [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear friends, Chittibabu asks about the relevance of internet activism.Please give your comments in solidarity, Vishwanath
[ZESTCaste] Medha puts spokes into Maya’s Buddha project
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14701287 IANS Medha puts spokes into Maya's Buddha project Darshan Desai | Tuesday, 24 June , 2008, 12:45 Kushinagar (Uttar Pradesh): Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's dream project of building the tallest Buddha statue in the world at 152 metres - taller than the Bamian Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan - has run into rough weather. The execution of the plan has slowed down thanks to massive protests by farmers in Kushinagar town, where the project is to come up on a sprawling 750-acre plot. It is located around 330 km from Lucknow, on the border with Nepal, where the Buddha died, or attained Nirvana, 2,500 years ago. Rights activist Medha Patkar has taken up cudgels against the project on behalf of farmers and held meetings with them earlier this month. Protests against the project began in 2002 when Mayawati first conceived the plan during her third stint as chief minister, but the government had later succeeded in bringing around the farmers. Now, with Medha Patkar taking up the campaign, the agitation has revived and the project has slowed down. We hope to convince the villagers that Kushinagar would become an international tourist destination and create jobs for them, P.K. Mohanty, commissioner of Gorakhpur division, told IANS. The proposed 152.4-m-bronze statue would sit atop a 17-storey building. It would be higher than the world's tallest Buddha statue of 67 metres in China's Sichuan province. The ones destroyed by the Taliban were 52 m and 34 m tall. The building on which the Buddha would sit will have another 12 m statue, besides prayer halls and terraced gardens. The campus would also have a museum, an art gallery, a university for the study of philosophy, a women's college, a hospital and a hotel. The $222-million project is being implemented by a global private organisation called Maitreyi, which has set up a trust in Gorakhpur, about 50 km from here. The state government is acquiring the land from the farmers and would lease it out to the Maitreyi Trust free of cost. Patkar and the agitating villagers are questioning the purpose of depriving the villagers of fertile land for the construction of the statue. Officials told IANS that 660 acres of land belonging to about 3,000 farmers of seven villages was being acquired for the project, while the rest 90 acres belongs to the government. Govardhan Gaur, who heads the campaign against the project under the banner of Bhumi Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, told IANS: It's not just about us being deprived of our fertile land. The land that the government wants us to give away has an irrigation canal passing through it, which caters to some 50 villages and an approximate population of over 50,000. Gaur claims he has been holding an indefinite sit-in for more than three years on the road outside his village Dumari, about three kilometres from Kushinagar, which is also to be acquired for the project. Guar, who owns a half-acre plot, said: We will continue our agitation till the project is dropped. We are not concerned about the compensation to be given to us. The land in Gaur's village will fetch compensation of Rs.345,000 per acre, while the range of the compensation the government has offered is up to Rs.5 million per acre. It would vary depending on the quality and location of the land. We have announced a very fair compensation and villagers should not have any problem with it, said Mohanty. He believes the government will succeed in completing the acquisition process by October.
[ZESTCaste] Dalit women invisible citizens: Report
http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/24/stories/2008062459960600.htm National Dalit women invisible citizens: Report Special Correspondent Reveals prevalence of untouchability Recommends a redress mechanism JAIPUR: A fact-finding mission's report on the status of dalit women in Rajasthan released here on Monday has brought to light the critical denial of rights to them on the basis of caste as well as gender. Dalit women were found having very little access to livelihood, food, water, sanitation and the government's welfare programmes. As untouchables and outcastes, dalit women invariably face caste-based discrimination. As women, they face gender discrimination, and as poor, they face class discrimination, affirmed the report prepared by two leading dalit and women's rights groups. The Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR) and the Programme on Women's Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) conducted field surveys in five localities inhabited by dalits in Jaipur and Dausa districts to assess exclusion and subordination of dalit women. Dalit women are restricted to the bottom of the society, impoverished and invisible as citizens, noted the report. Releasing the report here in the presence of dalit activists, academicians and community leaders, State Assembly Speaker Sumitra Singh admitted that systematic denial of right to education, training, land and livelihood resources during the 60 years of Independence had led to exclusion of dalit women from all socio-economic and political fields. Ms. Singh called upon the dalit groups to exert pressure on government functionaries to provide health care, nutrition and other basic services in the dalit-dominated areas. Access to education will surely enable dalit women to assert their rights and improve their living conditions, she said. The 39-page report said all dalit communities in the State were suffering from the practice of untouchability and deliberate segregation. The fact-finding teams visiting the five areas found that dalits lived in ghetto-like structures within the segregated areas away from the general population. CDR chairperson P. L. Mimroth said that there was a complete lack of information about the State programmes and schemes and entitlements for dalits under them. With dalit men and women being unable to access these sources, the government functionaries had a sense of complacency and no concern for accountability. The dalit habitations covered by the field surveys were the Jhalana Doongri Kachchi Basti, Jaipur; Bagarion Ki Dhani, Pachala; Kadwa Ka Bas, Dudu (all in Jaipur district) and Raigar Mohalla, Gudalia; and Raigar Basti, Dausa city (both in Dausa district). Preeti Darooka of PWESCR said the only occupations available and traditionally allocated to dalit women were those that no one else would prefer to do. The fact-finding clearly demonstrates that in spite of various laws and schemes for dalits, not much is being done on the ground to address the day-to-day hardships faced by dalit women, she said. The report demanded that the State government develop a monitoring system to recognise the discrimination faced by dailt women in all walks of life. There should also be a redress mechanism to deal with the complaints of violation of rights and dalit women should be made aware of their legal rights. The report also underlined the need to bring about radical changes in the mind-set of people who see nothing wrong in the customary practices of social exclusion of dalit women. It said the government should ensure that dalit children had access to education without being discriminated.
[ZESTCaste] Dalit youth killed in Pottilanka following small alteration
http://www.andhracafe.com/index.php?m=showid=34735 Dalit youth killed in Pottilanka following small alteration Updated: 06-24-2008 HYDERABAD : A small alteration between the dalits and upper caste youths in tiny village Pottilanka of Kadiyam mandal, represented by excise minister Jakkampudi Ramamohan Rao led to claiming the life of a dalit youth on Saturday night. This has sparked tension on Sunday. The Dalit youth held up traffic on the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway No 9 for more than three hours, led by Amalapuram MP G V Harsha Kumar. They demanded justice and payment of Rs.5 lakh compensation for the kin of the deceased, beside an immediate halt to upper caste high handedness in the village. Members of the other community alleged that a youth misbehaved with a woman of their community, resulting in the clashes. the government suspended the Rajahmundry rural Circle Inspector L. Ankaiah and Kadiam Sub-Inspector Satyanarayana who failed to control the situation in the village, which led to tension and clashes between the two groups. Police arrested about 30 persons in the case and investigation is on. Police arranged four pickets and the Minister for Small scale Industries Gollapalli Suryarao, Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, DIG Hasan Reza and SP Y. Nagi Reddy held discussions with Dalits in the village to bring back normality in the village. Minister Suryarao announced that the government would provide a government job to the wife of Veera Pandu, who died in the clashes. He also said that they would give one acre of cultivable land to the family of Pandu and education to his children.
[ZESTCaste] Local Dalits Say Reservation In India Has Benefited Their Community
http://www.thelinkpaper.ca/index.php?subaction=showfullid=1214246572archive=start_from=ucat=3cat=3 Local Dalits Say Reservation In India Has Benefited Their Community By Jai Birdi SURREY - In response to the Reservation Debate in India, Chetna Association of Canada hosted a seminar on June 7 and facilitated a discussion from Canadian South Asian perspective. Various guest speakers provided their perspectives on the merit of reservation policy and the progress (or a lack of) made for the betterment of Dalits in India. Contributors to this debate included Gurpreet Singh (Radio India), Surinder Ranga (President of Chetna Association), Gurmit Sathi, (General Secretary of Chetna Association of Canada), Ajmer Rode (writer, activist and board member), Om Parkash (Dr. Ambedkar Society, Nawan Shehar), Swami Ram Bharti, and others. The program was facilitated by Paramjit Kainth (Asst. Secretary) and Jai Birdi (Vice President) of Chetna Association of Canada. Following is summary of the discussion and the resolutions passed at the seminar: 1. It was acknowledged that the reservation policy in India has benefited a lot of people to move ahead and make a contribution to the development of India. 2. The proportion of Scheduled castes in class III and IV is well above the quota of 16 per cent and in class I and II, the proportion is around 8–12 per cent. So, the middle and the lower middle class that we see today from the Dalit community is because of reservation. With no reservation, the entry of these people in government services would have been doubtful. 3. There is a need to focus on education and skill-building capacity of the Dalits across India. It is estimated that only 10 per cent of the Indian labour force is skilful. 4. While the practice of untouchability is legally banned in India, episodes of caste-based discrimination continue to occur in India. 5. Indian Government's decision of 2006 and the ruling of the Indian Supreme Court in April 2008 restores faith in Indian democracy; the Supreme Cort's decision to add 27% reservation for the Other Backward Castes (OBC) is commendable. 6. Living in a global village is now a reality and the flow of multi-national corporations is occurring across the globe at a very rapid pace. However, there is a growing concern that the Multi-National Corporations (MNC's) often do not carry out their social responsibilities as effectively as they may do in their native country. Therefore, it is important to exert influence among these MNC's to accept their social responsibilities and increase opportunities for all citizens of India to access education and advanced training so they can participate in the business environment and contribute more effectively to the development of the economy. 7. As pointed out last year by Narendra Jadhav, Vice Chancellor of Pune University, there has been no national policy on education since 1986 and government spending was only 3.66 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), when it should be 6 per cent. Access to quality education in India is becoming increasing limited especially for the Dalits. Therefore Indian Government and the MNC's need to allocate further resources and ensure student economically and socially disadvantaged students have the same access to educational opportunities as do the privileged students. 23 Jun 2008 by editor INFORMATION OVERLOAD? Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/ PARTICIPATE:- On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:- If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/ Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/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] Probe sought into gang-rape
http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/24/stories/2008062460240700.htm National Probe sought into gang-rape Staff Correspondent DEHRA DUN: Senior Congress leaders on Monday sought a CBI probe into the gang-rape of a Dalit girl in a hotel here recently. The culprits allegedly include a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Addressing a rally, Kisan Congress president Pramod Kumar Singh wondered why the Government was not taking action against the accused even after the arrest of a BJP leader in the case last week. Accusing the ruling party of trying to influence police investigation, Mr. Singh said the Congress would launch a mass movement to apprise the masses of the increasing crime rate in the State.
[ZESTCaste] Quotas are route to inequality at IITs, IIMs
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1173139 Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:52:00 AM Quotas are route to inequality at IITs, IIMs Mayank Tewari Their dropout rates are higher at IITs, and salaries lower at IIMs NEW DELHI: The recent decision of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, to terminate 25 students, many of them from the scheduled caste category, for poor performance has raised hackles all around. While the National Commission for Scheduled Castes is pressuring the institute to take them back, the issue that cannot be wished away is their actual performance after gaining entry into these hallowed institutions. Have quotas really worked? How do students from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/ST), inducted on the basis of lower qualifying marks, fare in terms of performance and salaries at the IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)? Are they able to cope with high academic pressures? DNA, which used the Right to Information Act (RTI) to extract numbers on SC/ST performance from reluctant institutions, has some answers. We found that quotas don't work as well in the IITs, where the demands for academic excellence are higher, but the results are reasonable when it comes to the IIMs. It's clear that dropout rates are high among SC/ST candidates at the IITs; at the IIMs, their average salaries are also lower than general category students. The big differences, though, come up in the case of top performers. At IIM, Kozhikode, the highest salary earned by a general category student was Rs70 lakh this year; the highest earned by the SC/ST candidate was just Rs13 lakh. The differences in average salaries were lower: for general category students, it was Rs15.84 lakh, for SC/ST Rs11.01 lakh. The real problem area seems to be the IITs. According to information provided by IIT-Powai in Mumbai, 21 SC/ST students were asked to terminate their undergraduate BTech course in 2006-2007. In the last three years, the number of reserved category students terminating their courses at Powai has risen quietly. In 2005-2006, the institute had asked 20 SC/ST students to pack their bags. A year earlier, in 2004-2005, 19 students left without completing the course. Between 2003 and 2007, the yearly average dropout number for IIT, Powai, is a high 16 students . Two other IITs — in Delhi and Kharagpur, for which DNA has data — had lower average dropout rates of 11 and eight among SC/ST candidates. The dropout rate for general category students at IIT, Powai, hovers around 1-2% and, according to faculty members, is nowhere close to that of reserved category students. Students are asked to terminate their courses when they accumulate more backlogs (courses failed) than permitted by IIT rules. There is no semester-wise fail/pass system at IIT, Powai. Students can continue further studies with up to four backlogs (failed courses) at the end of each semester, till the second year, or up to six backlogs at the end of each semester during the third and subsequent years of study, says Dr Indu Saxena, deputy registrar at IIT, Powai. But things are better at IIT, Delhi, where yearly dropout rates have stabilised in the range of 3-9 for SC/STs combined after a peak of 23 in 2002. A professor at IIT, Delhi, told DNA that the institutes seldom have any control over dropout rates. The quality of reserved category students every year is variable, unlike general category admissions, where merit is the sole criteria. In the case of reserved categories, sometimes totally undeserving candidates are admitted who cannot meet the standards set by the institute, he said. The gap between general and SC/ST category students is less stark at the IIMs, where average salary differentials are not seriously out of whack. DNA, however, found that students from the general category fared much better than reserved category students in terms of salaries offered at campus. IIM, Ahmedabad, did not share details about the highest salary offered to SC/ST candidates in 2008, but the highest obtained by general category students was Rs60 lakh. Average salary levels for the last two years show some serious divergences. Last year, the average salary offered to a general category student at IIMA was Rs13.70 lakh, while an SC/ST candidate got Rs11.14 lakh. This year, the general category average was Rs17.81 lakh while the average salary given to reserved category students was Rs14.50 lakh. According to Bakul Dholakia, former director of IIM, Ahmedabad, disparities in salaries are not surprising. At IIMA, we have always acknowledged the academic differences between general and reserved category students. It is generally assumed that reserved category students, on an average, score 20% less than their general category counterparts. Keeping this in mind, an average salary difference of Rs3-4 lakh between general and reserved category students is logical, he told DNA. Piyush Sinha, professor at IIMA, feels that average
[ZESTCaste] Chengara agitators move out from new occupation
http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0 Chengara agitators move out from new occupation Pioneer News Service | Pathanamthitta Dramatic scenes and tension prevailed in the Chengara hills and town in Pathanamthitta district throughout Monday with hundreds of Dalits and backward Christians occupying 1,000 acres of estate of Harrison Malayalam Plantations Limited at midnight on Sunday in addition to the more than 600 acres they already held and their withdrawal from the newly occupied land on Monday evening following friction with estate workers who gave a 5 pm deadline for withdrawal. The Chengara centre witnessed tense scenes with hundreds of plantation workers staging demonstrations against Dalits and Lhaha Gopalan, president of the Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi, which has been spearheading the struggle that had started on August 4, 2007 in the Chengara hills demanding barest minimum land for the families to live and to earn livelihood. The agitating Dalits and others on Sunday night extended their occupation to another 1,000 acres of land said to be held legally by Harrison Malayalam Plantations Ltd. The act was in the context of the CPI(M)-led Government's refusal to respond to the minimum demand agreement made between the Vedi and Pathanamthitta District Collector Raju Narayanaswami three weeks ago. The District Collector had submitted the charter of demands, in which one acre of land for each family and money to start cultivation for the Dalits was demanded. The Government has not even considered the report of the collector so far. The plantation workers, demonstrating in Chengara town, burned the effigy of Gopalan, shouting slogans that accused him of leading a struggle with resources received from abroad, an allegation the Government and the CPI(M) had continuously made and consistently rejected by the Vedi and various rights organisations. They set a 5 pm deadline for withdrawal of the agitators from the new occupation but they refused to comply. The situation grew worse, forcing Pathanamthitta District Collector Raju Narayanaswami to intervene in the matter. He talked to Gopalan and representatives of the plantation workers and managed to come to a consensus. We agreed to withdraw from the newly occupied land by 5 pm after the district collector assured us that everything would be done to meet the minimum demands we made at the earliest, he said. About 1,000 agitators have put up huts in the land and these would be removed to the land where the agitation has been going on for the past 11 months, he said. As per the agreement, the agitators withdrew from the land by 5 pm. Vedi office-bearers suspected the anger of the plantation workers was sparked by the intervention of political parties, especially the CPI(M), which had been trying in various ways to defeat the agitation. The parties do not know a way to defeat this stir through Governmental action. They are turning the working class against us which is an age-old strategy for dividing the poor. We do not want to spoil the life of the workers. But it would be better if they identified the evil designs of their political bosses, said a Vedi leader. She said they would not withdraw from the agitation unless and until their minimum demands, as specified to the District Collector were met. We have asked posed some very basic requirements only. The Government has land to lease out to huge corporates and it never wants to retrieve the lands from the plantation companies even after the expiry of lease. But it does not have land to give to the poor so that they too would live on this earth until they die, she added. The Government had two times failed to abide by a High Court order to remove the agitators from the land, which Harrison Malalaylam held as belonging to it. However, the Vedi says that the land, where they had put up tents belonged to the Government and is not under lease to the company.
