Global Phenomenon Addressed: Dalits Media Watch News Updates 30.03.11

New Delhi, Mar 29 (PTI) Over 67 per cent of poor Dalit and tribal households in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh did not get a single day of employment under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act last year, an NGO today claimed. The Centre for Environment and Food Security also alleged widespread irregularities and corruption in implementation of 10 food security and poverty alleviation schemes in the most backward areas of the two states. The NGO's charges come close on the heels of the Supreme Court asking the Centre to expeditiously decide on a CBI probe into allegations of misappropriation of funds meant for MNREGA in Orissa, as claimed by the same organisation. The apex court had on March 14 said reports prepared by the NGO, CAG as well as the National Institute of Rural Development NIRD show that there is massive misappropriation of funds to the tune of 88 per cent in some districts of Orissa. The CEFS' present findings are based on a performance audit conducted by its activists through sample survey in 130 villages spread over 12 districts of Orissa and UP (Bundelkhand). Releasing the report here on the findings, CEFS Director Parashuram Rai said, "Only 7.3 per cent of the sample households had received above 50 days of MNREGA employment.Out of 2000 very poor households surveyed in Orissa, only five of them received 100 days of work in 2010". Rai rubbished as an eyewash the claims made by the Orissa government and the Centre about Gajapati district setting an example by bagging the award for best practices at the MNREGA awards 2009-10. "If anybody visits this district, projected as one of the best in Orissa, they will be shocked to see the level of poverty, unemployment and malnutrition", said the activist, who also claimed that this was the most exhaustive report prepared on the plight of Dalits, Adivasis and their non-inclusion in these schemes. Rai claimed that a similar situation prevailed in Bundelkhand, with over 52 per cent of the needy households not getting a single day's employment.

Calcutta Tube

Mirchpur violence: Supreme Court pulls up Haryana

http://calcuttatube.com/mirchpur-violence-supreme-court-pulls-up-haryana/146001/

Posted by IANS-CT in Business

New Delhi, March 28 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday pulled up the Haryana government for its failure to maintain law and order and asked why it should not reimburse the railways for the losses caused by the Jats' blockade in January against the arrest of members of the community who attacked Dalits in Mirchpur village last April.

The court slammed the government for not executing its orders passed in the wake of the protests.

An apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly said: 'What is the respect of an order passed (by court) in public interest if it is not honoured.'

When Additional Solicitor General Harin Raval said that the failure of the state government in maintaining law and order would amount to the breakdown of the law and order machinery, the court said it was 'avoiding' using that expression.

Raval said that there should be a will to govern and rule, prompting the court to add that things were slowly moving towards a state of anarchy.

The court said that it was for the civil society to take cognizance of the situation.

The court's observation came during the hearing on a petition on the attack on the Dalit locality of Mirchpur village by the members of the dominant Jat community. A 70-year-old man and his 18-year-old physically challenged daughter were killed in the incident.

Indian Express

'Govt pursuing promotion quota for SC/ST in apex court'

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/govt-pursuing-promotion-quota-for-sc-st-in-apex-court/769145/

Wed Mar 30 2011, 03:17 hrs Lucknow:

A day after Chief Minister Mayawati expelled BSP leader Vinod Tejiyan from the party and sacked him from the post of vice-chairman of UP Forest Corporation after he disrupted railway traffic to demand reservation in promotions for Dalits in state services, the UP government on Tuesday made an appeal to the SC, ST employees not to indulge in activities that could cause law and order problem. Tejiyan, who enjoyed the status of minister of state, was arrested on Monday in Saharanpur.

Principal Secretary (Home) Kunwar Fateh Bahadur, who is also the principal secretary in the Department of Appointment, said the state government is pursuing the case of the reservation in favour of SC/ST employees in the Supreme Court. He said the government filed a SLP in the Supreme Court on January 4 against the decision of the Allahabad High Court, which had quashed the provisions to provide consequential seniority to SC/ST employees and reservation in promotion to them in the state services. Bahadur said, the Supreme Court passed an order stating: "Status Quo, as its exists today, shall be maintained by the parties until further orders."

Deccan Chronicle

State limits SC, ST 'free education' plan

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/hyderabad/state-limits-sc-st-%E2%80%98free-education%E2%80%99-plan-567

March 30, 2011

March 29: In a major jolt to meritorious students from BC, SC, ST and minority categories, the state government has decided to limit the free corporate education scheme to 5,500 students from 8,000. The government issued orders to this effect on Monday and also exempted Hyderabad district from the scheme as it is an "urban district". While majority of the students who availed the scheme were from BC categories, only 20 per cent of the seats have been reserved for these categories in the latest orders.

Under the scheme introduced by late Chief minister Y.S. Rajashekar Reddy in 2008-09, the government bears the tuition fee of Rs 35,000 plus Rs 3,000 scholarship per annum for each student who scored over 400 marks in SSC exams to enable them to study Intermediate in corporate colleges like Narayana, Sri Chaitanya etc for two years. The scheme was a huge success since it helped students from weaker sections to pursue intermediate in some of the top corporate colleges free of costs and enabled them to appear for national-level competitive exams like IIT-JEE, AIEEE, AFMC, JIPMER apart from Eamcet.

However, the scheme ran into rough weather last year after the government issued a GO in haste scrapping the scheme in May 2010 citing 'financial constraints'. However, it immediately backtracked on its orders after it encountered stiff resistance from various BC, SC and ST unions. Around 24,000 students have been admitted under the scheme during the last three years and the government had paid Rs 90 crore to the colleges as fee. The scheme achieved desired results with majority of those students securing seats in engineering and medical courses.

The Times Of India

Without water, Haryana gives connections to SCs

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Without-water-Haryana-gives-connections-to-SCs/articleshow/7822549.cms

Sukhbir Siwach, TNN | Mar 30, 2011, 05.30am IST

CHANDIGARH: Auditors from the Comptroller and Auditor General's office have disclosed that Haryana government provided water connection to 22,649 Scheduled Caste families under the Indira Gandhi Drinking Water Scheme without availability of water supply.

The scheme was introduced in 2006 with the aim of providing private connections to 30 lakh households, thereby saving wastage of water supplied through public stand posts and man days lost in drawing water from the stand posts. As per the guidelines of the scheme, private water connections were to be released where the water supply status was 40 LPCD (liters of water supply per capita per day) or more. Further, infrastructure for water supply in the village was to be improved to provide at least 40 LPCD water before releasing private connections under the scheme.

In 499 villages, over 1 lakh connections were released by incurring an expenditure of Rs 30 crore during 2007-10. The availability of raw water in these villages was less than 40 LPCD. "Out of these connections, drinking water was not available to 22649 households due to various reasons like non-availability of distribution pipelines in the area, abandoned waterworks, high altitude of the areas and wastage of water due to leakages in pipelines. An expenditure of Rs 6.34 crore was incurred on providing water tanks, taps and other expenses on providing connections without ensuring the availability of water in these areas.

In response to a query of auditors, the engineer-in-chief stated that due to less flow in the canal system, water supply could not be made to the desired level adding that the main objective of the scheme was to release private connections to households.

The auditors said, "The reply is not convincing as private water connections were to be released only after ensuring availability of water."

Orissa Diary

Govt should have an inclusive higher education policy for the deprived section

http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowOriyaColumn.asp?id=25597

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

By Sai Prasan

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar had asked the people of the deprived section to have a good education to cut the social slavery, to gain social staus, for economic betterment and political freedom. But, the post-globalisation process has dampened the spirit of the deprived section to get a good education as it has excluded them from the education system. It has strengthened the Brahminical social order and Elite culture in the education sector specially in the professional collages of the country.

The globalization has weakened the state finances of the country. More than 70% of the state exchequer goes for meeting the administrative expenses. This situation has been further worsened with the implementation of the sixth pay commission in the year 2008. The weak state finances has forced the various states to spend less money on the higher education. Very few state owned professional collages – Engineering, Medical and Management – have been opened since the New Economic Policy has been introduced in the country in May, 1991. Instead, the government has adopted a policy to allow the private players to open new collages in these professional streams.

These private professional collages are beyond the reach of the SC and ST students. They claim to follow the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and provide 15% reservation to the SC students and 8% reservation for the ST students. But, the fee structure in these collages is so high that it is very difficult for the students of the deprived section to afford it.

For example, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) University in Odisha is one of the popular private educational institution which offers courses in all the professional streams. Its course fee per annum for the four year engineering course is Rs 1,80,000/- and the student has to pay another Rs 60,000/- if he or she opts hostel facilities with food. The total fee for the residential students for the four years course comes around Rs 9,60,000/-. It excludes the project and internship cost which the students have to bear during the said duration. The total cost for completing the engineering course is around Rs 12 lakhs to Rs 15 lakhs.

Likewise, the KIIT takes around Rs 6 lakhs towards course fee for the two years management studies which is popularly known as MBA. The students have to bear an additional cost for the boarding, lodgeing and all other facilities for completing this course.

The fee structure is 30% to 40% lesser in all the one hundred professional colleges affiliated to Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT). The colleges affiliated to the University offer courses in Engineering, Pharmacy, Architecture, MCA and MBA.The parents of SC and ST students find it very difficult to pay the fee for their children since they can not afford it. The government or these private colleges do not have a provision to give concession in fee to the students of the deprived section.

There are a large number of cases in Odisha where the Dalit and Tribal parents sell their small land holding to fill the huge collage fee. Some were forced to drop their studies during the course period as they were unable to meet the high cost of these professional courses.

The government should make the provision of 50% fee concession to the students of the SC and ST students in these professional courses. The 50% fee concession should be bear equally by the collage management and the government – 25% fee by the college management and 25% by the state or Central government.

The government should also direct these professional collages to take a special personal care for the students of the deprived section because the collage staff of these professional courses are not fully equipped academically. The government should also ensure that the Lab standards are upto the mark. Both the government and the Collage management should also ensure that the students of the deprived section get a proper placement in the public or private sector after completing their courses.

In this backdrop, the Church run educational institutions can play a vital role in the upliftment of the SC and ST students. They are second major stake holders in the educational set up after Indian government.

According to the Church insiders, Catholic Church runs 480 collages (4, 26,784 students); 63 medical and nursing collages (180,080 students); 9,414 seconadry schools (35, 78206 students); 513 traning schools; 900 technical schools; 263 professional institutions and six engineering collages. They also run a large number of schools and all other forms of educational institutions.

Apart from Catholic Church, there are 40 other Christian denominations including the Protestant and the Orthodox Churches that run similar institutions all over the country. One can add 20 to 25 per cent to the Catholic figures to arrive at the total number of institutions run by Christians of different denominations.

Out of 2.5 per cent Christians of the total Indian population of 1.10 billion, 1.6% are Catholics. More than 70% are from the Dalit and Tribal origin. But, these Christian Dalits and Tribals hardly get any place in the educational institutions run by the Church.

Indian Church leaders have been saying that the dalits and tribals are victimized in the Brahminical social order. They claim themselves the champions of the SC and ST community and influence the deprived section to convert into Christianity for better education, health and living standards. It is high time for the Church leadership to fulfill their duty and provide proper higher and professional education to the SC and ST specially the converted Christians at a concessional fee.

Similarly, all other religious and community run collages, institutions and Universities should follow this line of action plan throughout the country.ll these private professional collages including Church run institutes should also provide reservation in the teaching staff. Currently, their faculty is packed with the Brahmin led upper castes. They should reserve 15% teaching posts for the SC and 8% for the ST candidates.

All the state government and UGC should have a strict monitoring on the functioning of these collages in India. They should ask these collages, institutes and Universities to submit an annual report on how many SC and ST students have taken admission and how many have completed their courses. Similarly, they should ensure that these collages implement the reservation policy in the recruitment of the teaching staff.

Dr Ambedkar has called upon the deprived section to educate, organize and agitate. The re-Brahminisation of the education system is weakening this process carried by the Ambedkarities. The opinion makers, academicians, activists and the political leaders working for the development of the dalits and tribals should united pressurize the Union and state governments to implement an inclusive higher and professional education policy for the SC and ST students for a holistic development of the country. Otherwise, India will face a strong backlash from the youth of these communities as the discontentment is already simmering among them.

[The author presented this paper in a national seminar on `Amalgamation of Dr BR Ambedkar's Vision and Mission in Higher Education: Present Status and Future Strategies' held on March 25-26, 2011 at Kuvempu University, Shimoga, Karnataka. Please send your comments and suggestions atjanatavikasmanch@gmail.com. ]

--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
..................................................................
Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/