Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 28.07.13
Abducted girl rescued, one held- Business Standard
Student beaten to death by classmates- The Times Of India
Statue of Ambedkar desecrated- Business Standard
Protest against delay in scholarship disbursement- The Hindu
SFI surveys SC, ST and BC hostels- The Hindu
SC, ST hostels in city to get better amenities- The Hindu
Draft bill to collect royalty from miners approved- The Hindu
Free coaching classes- The Hindu
Love for caste, hatred for humanity, votes for party- The New Indian Express
Advani praises RSS for non-casteist outlook- Business Standard
NOTE : Please find attachment for HINDI DMW 28.07.13
Business Standard
Abducted girl rescued, one held
A 16-year-old Dalit girl, who was allegedly abducted and raped, was rescued from Ambala railway station and one person arrested in this connection.
She was abducted from Lopon village here by Satnam Singh of the same village on July 21, police said.
Singh had lured the girl on the pretext of marrying her, they said.
Acting on a tip off, police team rescued the girl and arrested the kidnapper from Ambala railway station yesterday, SSP Surjit Singh Grewal said.
Satnam was produced in a local court which remanded him in three-day police custody.
The medical examination of the victim has confirmed rape, the police official said.
The Times Of India
Student beaten to death by classmates
ALWAR: A 17-year-old student was beaten to death by his classmates and their friends in full public view in Alwar district when he refused to give his pen to one of the accused during classes on Friday.
People from Dalit community, to which the victim belonged, pelted stones at Kotkasim police station in Alwar and placed his body on the road in protest.
According to the police, the victim, Monu Valmiki, was a Class XI student of a government school in Pur village. A police officer said that a classmate asked Monu to give him his pen, however, Monu refused. A minor scuffle took place over this in the classroom and the student and his friends threatened Monu to teach him a lesson outside after school hours.
After Monu was standing at the bus stand when his classmate and about 8-9 others came there and beat him for over half an hours even as local people watched the scene. No one intervened. The student fell to the ground and died.
Police have registered a case against seven students and launched a search for them.
Business Standard
Statue of Ambedkar desecrated
Some unidentified persons allegedly desecrated a statue of Dalit iconB R Ambedkar in Radra area here, police
said here today.
The statue was damaged by some men in Sardaspur village last night, they said.
The damaged statue has been replaced, police said.
A case has been lodged against unidentified persons in this connection, DySP Brijesh Singh said.
The Hindu
Protest against delay in scholarship disbursement
Students belonging to scheduled castes, backward classes and minority communities staged a demonstration here on Saturday, protesting against the delay in disbursement of scholarships.
The students, led by office-bearers of the Jai Bhima Sena, staged a demonstration outside the Mini-Vidhana Soudha and submitted a memorandum to the Hubli tahsildar.
The protesters alleged that students had not received scholarships for 2012–13 and were finding it difficult to pay the annual fees. The protesters also alleged that the hostels run by the Social Welfare Department were not being maintained properly.
They said that because of the lack of maintenance and the delay in disbursement of scholarships, the number of students seeking admission to these hostels was coming down. In the memorandum, the students demanded steps to ensure the scholarship amount was credited directly to the students' bank accounts.
They demanded that the Social Welfare Officers directly remit the admission fees of SC/ST students, instead of the colleges collecting it from the students.
They also demanded an inquiry against officials who were found to be misusing funds released towards the hostels.
The Hindu
SFI surveys SC, ST and BC hostels
Student Federation of India (SFI) conducted a survey of over 10 hostels of SC/ST and BC students in the city and has concluded that they are in a bad shape and lack the basic infrastructure and amenities.
Addressing the media here on Friday, SFI town secretary Praveen said that many of the hostels lack basic amenities such as water and toilets.
"The food that is served is of poor quality ." He pointed out that many of the students sleep empty stomach as the food that is served is insufficient and of bad quality.
The Hindu
SC, ST hostels in city to get better amenities
Hostels in Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation limits that come under the Social Welfare Department may soon have improved amenities like water purification units, mini libraries and mini gymnasiums.
At present there are eight hotels for students of scheduled castes and tribes, four hostels for other backward classes and minorities (BCM) and one Morarji Desai Hostel within the HDMC limits.
Proposed
The corporation is chalking out a plan for upgrading existing amenities and providing better facilities to the inmates.
Although these hostels come under the purview of the Social Welfare Department, the corporation has planned to chip in with funds available under the 22.75 per cent scheme for SC/ST hostels and 7.25 per cent scheme for BCM hostels and Morarji Desai Hostel.
Under the proposed plan, the HDMC will set up mini libraries and mini gymnasiums for the benefit of students. As part of having a permanent set up for conducting lectures, interactions and other extra-curricular activities, a laptop computer, a projector and internet facility will be provided to these hostels. It has been proposed to give the wardens of respective hostels responsibility for maintenance.
Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad Sameer Shukla has taken keen interest in improving the hostels and he wants to develop them into model hostels.
"We want to provide hostel inmates with everything one requires at a hostel, from door mats to mirrors and towels. I have ordered for a survey of the hostels to assess what is required in each hostel, including the five major hostels in the twin cities. We will be ready with a detailed action plan within fifteen days," Mr. Shukla told The Hindu .
Mr. Shukla said that once the action plan was ready they would implement it in a phased manner depending on the availability of funds.
Under the project, it has been planned to install water purification units at the hostels to provide purified water to students. Purified water will help in preventing water borne diseases. As per the initial survey, the hostels at Saidapur in Dharwad, and Ghantiker and Shiradi Nagar in Hubli have been identified for the installation of water purification units.
Health care
The HDMC is also planning to provide better health care to hostel inmates by constituting five medical teams, which would take up regular medical checkups at the hostels. A few doctors have agreed to provide free healthcare to the hostel inmates.
"Under the 22.75 and 7.25 per cent funds available with HDMC, solar lighting systems and lamps worth Rs. 3.05 crore and books worth Rs. 5 lakh have already been given to hostels in the twin cities," HDMC special officer H.S. Naregal said.
The Hindu
Draft bill to collect royalty from miners approved
The Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) has approved Draft Odisha (Scheduled Areas) Development of Mine Bearing Area Regulation, 2013 which would enable the government to collect royalty from miners for spending on development of tribals.
The TAC chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik approved to draft bill which provides for payment by the mining lessees an amount equal to the royalty being paid.
The fund would directly go to the District Peripheral Development Fund and would be spent on health, education, livelihood and other socio-economic development programmes for tribal population living in the mineral bearing schedule areas of the State, said ST and SC Development, Minorities ad Backward Classes Welfare Secretary Santosh Sarangi.
In the past, the State government had tried to collect funds from miners for peripheral development purposes.
But the government's proposal was challenged by miners in court which passed order against the proposal.
The TAC expressed satisfaction over the fact that as on June 30, a total 335763 claims under individual rights and 2983 claims under community rights had been approved by District Level Committees.
Besides, 1 89774 of individual rights holders had availed themselves of the benefits of different convergence schemes implemented by different departments.
The council resolved to form Inter Ministerial Committee to examine proposal for amendment of Regulation 2 of Odisha Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Property (by Scheduled Tribes) Regulation, 1956 enabling mortgaging of ST land for institutional finance and house loan.
Earlier President of India had withheld the assent on the government's proposal for amendment.
After examination, a proposal in this regard would be re-submitted.
"In absence of provision for mortgaging immovable property, tribal population is suffering a lot," said Jairam Pangi, Member of Parliament from Koraput.
Earlier addressing the TAC meeting, Chief Minster said the government had undertaken a programme to provide homestead lands to landless ST families.
"We have decided to provide land to all landless tribals by 2016-17 in the tribal sub-plan blocks covering more than 19000 villages.
The State government decided to upgrade 38 high schools under SC/ST Development Department to higher secondary level, Mr. Patnaik said, adding that as many as 2226 trained graduate teachers posts and 2000 CT teacher posts had been sanctioned.
The Hindu
Free coaching classes
Auxilium College, Vellore, will be conducting free coaching classes on its campus from August 4 for SC/ST/OBC and minority candidates appearing for NET (National Eligibility Test), the eligibility test to be conducted by UGC and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in December 2013 for lecturership and Junior Research Fellowship. According to a release, candidates who have obtained a minimum of 55% marks in PG examination and final year PG students could apply for the coaching classes.
Subjects offered are English and Commerce under UGC-NET and Mathematical Sciences, Chemical Sciences and Life Sciences under UGC/CSIR-NET. Other subjects would be offered if the number of candidates is more than 10.
Interested candidates could register their names at the college office on or before July 31, paying a registration fee of Rs.500. For details,
call 0416-2241774. – Special Correspondent
The New Indian Express
Love for caste, hatred for humanity, votes for party
It is paradoxical that often it is tragedies that succeed in drawing everyone's attention to prevailing harsh realities. The cynicism of the electoral politics of survival has made inter-caste marriages in Tamil Nadu a matter of political violence and conspiracy. The death of a Dalit youth, E Ilavarasan, in western Tamil Nadu's backward Dharmapuri district early this month following a failed inter-caste love marriage—now touted by the police to be a suicide—would bear testimony to this paradox.
This is one of the bloody chapters in the caste violence that exploded in Tamil Nadu in November last year when Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) chief S Ramadoss came out in opposition to Dalits marrying non-Dalit women, particularly those belonging to his own Vanniyar community, saying that they were trapping the girls into marriage.
Ilavarasan's family blames the PMK for his death, which the party denied. This is playing out in the background of Tamil Nadu's caste crisis with violence against Dalits flaring up in places. There are still numerous villages where Dalit panchayat chiefs are humiliated, Dalits are stopped from worshipping at temples, drawing water from wells and using common pathways, tea stalls adopt the twin tumbler system (offer tea in separate glasses or coconut shells to Dalits), barbers refuse to give a haircut to a Scheduled Caste male and Dalit habitations are described as "colony".
Ilavarasan's death has turned the focus on the prevailing caste atrocities in a state that ornamentally prides itself with having pioneered the social reformation process in the early 20th century in a bid to create an egalitarian society.
The Ilavarasan tragedy threatens to snowball into another spike in the confrontation gap with family and activists asking for a CBI or Special Investigation Team probe. Stating that Ilavarasan was under threat from some PMK workers ever since he fell in love with Divya and married her, Ilavarasan's father T Elango alleged that his son was murdered.
Historically, the PMK has been opposed to Dalits, but of late it has been trying to consolidate Other Backward Castes and Backward Castes on a political platform that is against Dalits.
Until eight months prior to his death, Ilavarasan was one among the millions of faceless Dalits in the southern state. However, certain orchestrated violent incidents on November 7, 2012 catapulted him to an unenviable position and put under emotional strain his 13-day-old blissful love marriage with N Divya belonging to the dominant Vanniyar caste.
On that day, Divya's father Nagarajan, who had all along endorsed her love affair with Ilavarasan, though the latter was younger than her in age, hanged himself. Nagarajan was driven to the doorsteps of death by a pressure group that had overnight emerged within the Vanniyar community. This group heaped humiliation on him for having blessed his daughter's elopement with a Scheduled Caste boy.
Hours after Nagarajan's suicide, a mob of Vanniyars as if on cue stormed Ilavarasan's ancestral Natham Colony and burnt down over 250 homes belonging to Dalits. The fact that the mob had targetted all Dalits and not just Ilavarasan's home pointed to a larger political design.
Clearly this was not one of the numerous familiar cases of family wars over inter-caste marriages. And it did not require a political theorist to predict the role of the PMK in this barbaric attack. For the record, the PMK denied a hand in the turbulent incidents that revived the socially nauseating anti-Dalit politics in Tamil Nadu.
Ramadoss is no stranger to political violence. In the 1980s he led a violent struggle to get the Most Backward Community status for the Vanniyars, a dominant community in parts of northern and western Tamil Nadu. The PMK's emergence as a powerful intermediate caste group had led to friction between the Vanniyars and Dalits, particularly in Cuddalore and Villupuram districts. Ironically, around eight years ago it was Ramadoss who took an initiative to unite the Dalits and Vanniyars in the northern districts by forging an alliance with the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a party that represents one segment of Scheduled Caste people in the state.
The PMK-VCK alliance yielded rich electoral dividends till 2009 when the former walked out of the DMK-led front and joined hands with the AIADMK.
With back-to-back electoral routs in the Parliamentary and Assembly elections threatening the PMK's survival and relevance in the Dravidian political firmament, Ramadoss not only returned to Vanniyar politics but also shamelessly used the Ilavarasan-Divya romantic affair to build a broader political spectrum against the Dalits.
The move exposed his desperate aspiration to revive his waning political fortunes by pitting the dominant communities against the oppressed. Ramadoss' devious calculation is that tapping the latent caste pride by touching an issue that matters—caste 'purity'—can bring in votes for a third front led by the PMK.
This vicious campaign against Dalit-upper caste marriages eventually consumed Ilavarasan's life. Using Divya's mother as a pawn, the PMK had managed to wean her away from her husband in early June. Though the young girl initially insisted that she had chosen to live with her mother under duress, she became a prisoner of circumstances and succumbing to emotional blackmail, declared that she would never return to Ilavarasan.
It was in the backdrop of this painful separation that Ilavarasan was found dead.
Noted Tamil writer Manushya Puthiran sees an abhorring lesson in this incident. In his view, Ilavarasan's death only proved that a caste outfit can deny us the basic right to choose the kind of life we want to live.
Ilavarasan himself had refused to play into the hands of Dalit parties. Nearly a month before his death when his wife was weaned away from him, he had fervently appealed not to mix politics with love. "This is our personal affair. No one has the right to interfere in this. Despite the turmoil that I am facing, I have not met the VCK leader Thirumavalavan because I don't want anyone to politicise this," he had said while expressing the hope that Divya will one day return to him.
Sadly that reunion never took place.
Business Standard
Advani praises RSS for non-casteist outlook
BJP leader LK Advani, whose ties with RSS had reportedly strained after Narendra Modi's elevation in the party, today praised the Sangh and said its policy of not discriminating on the basis of caste had helped them win the support of Dalit voters.
Delivering the inaugural address at the National Executive Meeting of the Scheduled Caste Front, Advani said, "RSS never accepted caste and believed that all sections of society are equal.
"When Mahatma Gandhi visited the RSS shakha (meeting) at Wardha he was surprised to see people of different castes sitting together and having a meal," he said.
He maintained that religious conversions from the Hindu fold had taken place due to caste atrocities.
"The RSS view of not discriminating against people on the basis of caste has played an immense role in the political growth of our party," Advani said, adding that this attitude of non-discrimination had brought Dalits closer to BJP.
Advani also referred to former BSP chief Kanshi Ram and recalled one of their interactions several years back when he had told the latter that, "what cannot be achieved socially (by Dalits) can be achieved politically".
Advani had cited the example of RSS shakhas (meetings) held in Punjab to Kanshi Ram, claiming that all sections of society, except Sikhs, used to attend them.
The Sikhs too started attending RSS meetings after BJP and SAD forged an alliance.
The BJP leader has been reportedly unhappy with RSS since the elevation of Modi as the chief of the party's Election Campaign Committee.
BJP is eyeing the sizeable Dalit vote in the country with a view to increasing its voteshare by 10 per cent.
Other sections on the party's radar are Scheduled Tribes, minorities, women and young voters.
Advani asked the party to gear up for elections in six states and the Lok Sabha polls.
Making a jibe at Congress, Advani said, "The amount of effort that Congress has made in the last three years to make BJP win the next Lok Sabha elections, nobody else has.
News Monitor by Girish Pant
--
.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.
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.
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