Today, for instance, women of 184 SHGs in the Barrabazar Block have managed to build a collective corpus fund of one crore ninety lakh rupees in the bank – no small feat for those who have spent the greater part of their lives living below the poverty line. But with the money coming in another critical concern started plaguing them: As illiterate or semi-literate women, how were they to manage their earnings? How were they to understand the workings of a bank? How were they to sign cheques or deposit cash if they couldn’t read, write or recognise numbers?

Says Sujala Murmu, 35, of village Tuima Baradi, “We feared that we might be cheated. We were making payments, takings loans, paying interest to the bank – all blindly, on trust. This concerned us greatly. We wanted to learn to read and write. To know the numbers.”

Literacy has never been strong around these parts – even the 2011 Census gives Purulia an average literacy rate of 65.38. The female literacy rate is a dismal 51.29 compared to a male literacy rate of 78.85. These SHG women worked hard, had the money, but something was still holding them back. “I am illiterate. Will I be able to participate in the meetings properly? How will I speak in front of strangers?” – these were Sadmoni Hembram’s first thoughts as she was elected to represent the women SHG members of her tribal village, which comes under the Sabuj Sathi Nari Shakti Sangha (SSNSS) Federation. And like this 39-year-old from Tilaboni village, who cringed at the thought that she would end up making a fool of herself, there were many across the district suffering from self-doubt.

That’s when Pradan stepped in and initiated a literacy programme, under which village-level Functional Literacy Centres were set up with a focus on adult literacy. It was launched in June 2009 in Barrabazar, Bagmundi and Kashipur blocks, with the support of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT).

Despite a laborious day working in the fields, managing their household chores and collecting firewood from the forest for fuel and for sale, Sujala, Sadmoni, and 2,413 women in 108 centres, religiously attend class. As a result, they can now read and write in Bangla and do basic mathematics. “The learners are a mix of Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and tribal women. Primarily engaged in agriculture and wage work, they belong to varied age groups, from adolescence to late sixties. As per a baseline survey conducted by us, more than 75 per cent of these women were illiterate or could only sign their name and over 70 per cent belonged to BPL families,” informs Kuntalika Khumbakar, Integrator (state unit), Pradan.

The idea has been to impart literacy and numeral ability to women to make their organisations more relevant for them. “At the same time, we expected the enlightened women to help their respective groups in ensuring greater participation and transparency, adds Khumbakar. That’s exactly what happened.

Take Baramani Maji, 33, the coordinator of Tuima Baradi village. Herself a Class Nine dropout, she is now taking classes for the illiterate women of her SHG, Turla Utnaoi Mahila Samity. She says, “Turla Utnaoi is ‘Alchiki’, meaning ‘for benefit of women’ and I feel that literacy is very useful for all of us. First, I learnt myself; now I teach the women in my group.”

To select teachers for the literacy centres, Pradan conducted a written test. According to Sourangshu Banerjee, Project Executive of Pradan’s Adult Functional Literary Centre Project, the minimum qualification was matriculation. “We found women teachers for all centres in Barrabazar but in Bagmundi block the literacy rate amongst women was so poor that we got only male teachers,” he informs.

Like Baramani Maji, Gurubani Mandi was selected to teach. “I get a salary of Rs 1,200 (US$1=Rs 53) per month and I teach Bengali and mathematics,” she says. Teaching at the centres is a continuous process. The women carry on their studies month after month in phases. Camps are also held in the homes of the teachers or selected places for slow learners.

“Once the basics are through, in the second phase, the women learn to handle calculators, read newspapers and do paragraph writing. They are taught to fill forms as well. So our focus remains functional learning,” points out Banerjee.  For training and consulting for this project, Pradan has tied up with Delhi-based women’s resource centre Jagori and Nirantar that empowers women through education.

Murmu started as a student six months ago in her Tuima Baradi village. “Now I know no one can fool me. I understand all the transactions being made by my SHG. I can speak, read and write in Bengali. I have also learnt to do ‘plus’ (addition) and ‘minus’ (subtraction). I am very proud of my abilities. The added advantage is that I can help my children with their schoolwork and maintain family accounts. Earlier, I could not even count!” she says.

This basic education has certainly enabled the women to understand money management better. And following the computerisation of their business model, they are able to properly deal with the computer ‘bandhus’ (friends) and ‘munshis’ (accountants). All the 184 SHGs under Barrabazar block have a central computerised accounting system under which the women drop their transaction slips into a box, which is collected by a computer ‘bandhu’, who takes them to the computer centre where the computer ‘munshi’ creates computerised balance sheets. These are delivered back to the SHGs by the computer ‘bandhus’. Explains Maji, “We pay for the sheets and get accounting details, interest calculations, payments, everything on hand. It was necessary that we learnt how to read and write for this.”

But the women don’t plan to depend on them for long. Elaborates Maji, “I am eager to learn how to use the computer. We want to do the work of computer ‘bandhu’ and ‘munshi’ ourselves. This will be the next step for us.”

It’s obvious that the literacy programme is gradually strengthening women’s leadership abilities and capacities, which will have a long-term impact on the larger processes of development and governance. Social change is also inevitable. Already through plays, prose and poetry recitations and talks, issues like domestic violence, women trafficking and child marriage are being discussed openly.

Most importantly, the confidence crisis and self-doubt has completely vanished. At the ‘mahaadhiveshan’, or mass meeting, of the two umbrella SHG Federations in the district, held in the Barrabazar and Jhalda blocks of Purulia last month, voices of women like Sadmoni Hembram were heard loud and clear. “Today, I can address the Federation gathering with confidence, detailing our achievements with eloquence in front of the Block Development Officer (BDO) and other dignitaries,” says a proud Hembram.

Education and economic empowerment has made a world of difference to Purulia’s women. Now, it’s the turn of the new generation. Mothers are keen to transfer their prosperity and teachings to their daughters. Here’s how Radhika Murmu, 30, puts it, “I have discovered a new interest after I learnt to read and write – that of reading my daughter’s textbooks to her. She will move forward and do much better in life.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

 Q: Part scholar, part activist, how would you define yourself?

A: Primarily, I see myself as a human rights activist. In 1990, I was with a group of people who set up something called ‘Inform’, which is a human rights documentation centre. We monitor ongoing human rights situations and create a database of human rights abuses. We have also, over the years, built a network of human rights defenders at the local and community level. Within these groups we human rights training and support them in engaging with all kinds of advocacy at the local level. At the third level, we work at the local, national and international arena with women. We have worked with sex workers, lesbians, transgenders, women living with HIV, we have worked on the issue of land rights with peasant communities and with fishing communities. We also work with disadvantaged school students in different areas.

 Q: Sri Lanka seems to have witnessed a steady erosion of democratic rights in recent years.

A: There has indeed been a climate of impunity in the country. Many human rights violations, abductions and assassinations have taken place and none of them have ever been investigated or prosecuted. Our Constitution guarantees equality for women and minorities, including the Tamil people, but none of that gets translated into practice and nobody can challenge the fact that it is not in practice because of the undemocratic structures that have been put in place.

 Q: What have been the specific experiences of women against this backdrop?

A: There are two things one should say about how women experience the consequences of conflict inSri Lanka. One relates to women all over the country, and that is the rise of violence against them. Just in the recent past we have been recording cases in which women and members of women’s families, have been murdered over personal conflicts by partners, fiancées, husbands. The murderers are invariably those who have either been in the army or who have deserted the army.

 Here, and elsewhere, there is a clear relationship between the rise of such incidents and militarisation, the availability of guns, violence as a way of resolving feuds within communities and the general culture of impunity. These men who have been in the army and security forces have got used to the fact that they can do pretty much anything and not be held accountable. Interestingly, most of the women who have been murdered this way are Sinhalese women from the south because the soldiers are from the south.

 The situation for women in terms of women’s rights in the north and east is different. Being Tamils and Muslims largely, they are surviving in a situation where conflict has seriously destroyed infrastructure and institutions, including hospitals. Whatever hospitals that have come up after 2009 at the end of the conflict, are poorly staffed and equipped. There is no civilian administration as such in these areas, because they are completely overseen by the military. So for women who have experienced many years of insecurity because of militarisation have no option but to go to these facilities supervised by men in uniforms, and that’s not easy for them. That’s why we are demanding the return of civilian administration in these areas.

 Sri Lanka, because of the conflict, has a large number of female-headed households, especially in the north, I believe. In the Jafna district alone, according to some estimates, there are over 20,000 women-headed households. At the moment we don’t have any comprehensive data. In 2009, you remember, 300,000 people were estimated to be living in camps. The government had denied that there were so many displaced people and then all of a sudden they were there in a situation where the government had not made adequate preparations to accommodate them. Then, because of the international scandal about these camps, which were referred to as “internment camps” by some, the government dispersed everybody by 2010. But the problem was that these people were returned and resettled without adequate provisions. So even today, many of the people who have been “resettled” continue to live in small little hovels that they have put up with no money to restart their livelihoods. For women who head families, not having even one room that has a door that one can shut, is in itself a huge problem. Anybody can enter. There have been some reports of sexual violence in the Vani, which some groups working there have documented.

 The problems are at two levels: One, the women here don’t have enough resources and not enough resources are not being allocated to them. For example, the Indian government committed to building 50,000 houses in 2009 but in 2012 this intervention is still a contentious matter. No houses have been built so far largely because of bureaucratic obstacles put by the Sri Lankan government. Two, the patriarchal system operates against these women. So when they have to go to the provincial office in order to get the money that has been allocated, they are subjected to sexual and physical harassment. They sometimes have to sell sexual favours in order to get an official to sign a document for example. They have to sell their sexual favours in order to get the men to plough their land.

 Q: Do you agree that women bring something different to conflict resolution, although they have always been kept out of it?

A: Sri Lankan women have always since the 1980s, especially after the terrible anti-Tamil riots of 1983, tried to create spaces and organisations that supported the interaction and engagement between Sinhala, Muslim and Tamil women. For me, this is one of the most significant aspects aboutSri Lanka, that we don’t see in other countries. Through the years of the conflict women’s groups maintained a very consistent relationship with each other across the conflict. Because of that, I think there is a very deep sense of solidarity, sisterhood and friendship among women that enables a continuing dialogue.

 Women have a different idea about who the enemy is and how to deal with the enemy. When we talk to them about reconciliation – which is not a conversation that the government is having with anybody at the moment –  women always tell me that if the material conditions of their lives can be addressed it would make a big difference. Inherent in such statements is the feeling that it is time that we moved on. But the tragedy is that, while it would be so easy for the government to improve the conditions of life for the Tamil people, it has not done so. It continues to treat the Tamil people, especially in the north in the Vani, as hostile, as enemies. It continues to arrest them and detain them, subject them to torture. They continue to be abducted and disappear. The LTTE may not exist as it used to, but that doesn’t mean the war has ended. For many, many people the war has in fact not ended.

(© Women’s Feature Service)

 I was put into school at age five, and a year later was witness to the end of colonial rule – and also the trauma of Partition. I have no strong memories of childhood, but I clearly recall an occasion in 1946, when riots broke out in Old Delhi and a group of rioters told us children to return home since there was going to be trouble in our area. By August 1947, there was mayhem in the streets. My brother and sister literally ‘witnessed’ a killing as a group of three Muslim men ran towards a police station for shelter. Two got there, the third didn’t; the terror of that killing changed my sister from a devil-may-care child to a fearful, always-looking-over-her-shoulder kind of girl who never recovered from the shock of that murder. A routine illness with high fever had me crying, “Why are the Hindus and Muslims killing each other?” in my delirium. We locked ourselves inside the house in the curfew-bound city as it burnt, our days interspersed with stories of trains full of bodies going across the Punjab, both ways, leaving behind a terrifying memory that resurfaced in the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage inDelhi. When schools reopened, the new girl in my class, who became my ‘best’ friend, had walked across the ‘border’ with her family, so one got a first-hand account of the enormous human misery that accompanied the birth of the nation-state. One unhinged and broken-down maths teacher who had come from Lahore strayed into our school, borderless and gateless as it was, intermittently solving maths problems in the air muttering to himself, weeping at the same time, exclaiming, “Ma, main kadi na Pindi javan” (Mother, I’ll never go to [Rawalpindi).

 That sense of living through tumultuous times was dramatically heightened with the assassination of Gandhiji. At six-and-a-half years, my only memories are of every single person in our neighbourhood instinctively rushing out of the house and standing in shocked little clusters as they tried to register the meaning of the news; and next morning everyone going to Kingsway – renamed Rajpath later to suit the new republic of India – to ‘see’ the funeral procession of the man whom all his political compatriots had, in a sense, betrayed. Then, when he was broken in spirit but still fighting to hold on to a vision of the subcontinent with easily crossable borders and rights for the minorities in the new nation-states, gunned down by a Hindu fanatic. With people in the hundreds milling about the India Gate lawns, I could see nothing till my father placed me on top of a parked car so that I, too, could partake of the collective grief of the people.

 Perhaps it was all this that led me inexorably towards history, the only subject I had ever wanted to ‘study’ in my life. My school was in tents and shifted from being housed in a church building to tents onNorth Avenue, aptly calledNaveenBharatHigh School, located finally onMathura Roadas theDelhiPublic School. The grounds around us were dotted with derelict monuments, graves and mausoleums, not for from the beautiful Humayun’s Tomb. One of these fairly well-preserved tombs on our premises became the school dispensary! History was so all around me, so much a part of the bicycle rides to school and back, so much a part of the bicycle rides to school and back, so much a part of our everyday wanderings that it became the centre of my being, the anchor of my childhood, propelling me to study it later in life even though it seemed so difficult to pursue. It was not offered as a main subject in my undergrad course in Bangalore (where we had moved after my father retired), and not taught at all the MA level as all humanities and social science subjects were allocated to Mysore in the crazy distribution of departments between Bangalore and Mysore in the early 1960s. Mysore was just ninety miles away, but too expensive to go to as a residential student, so I settled down to a law course in Bangalore and a simultaneous MA in history at Banaras Hindu University as a ‘private’ student, studying from a syllabus sent to me by bookshops in Banaras, plus those borrowed from sundry libraries in Bangalore, including that of the famous Mythic Society. The entire family was pressed into service to help me with my double load – older members, including my parents, making notes; younger ones accompanying me on our bikes to the libraries in search of books.

 I got through somehow, though the course was as dull as hell, with no social history and, of course, no gender; yet it was all worth it when I got a job inDelhias a teacher at Miranda House. This was where I had desperately wanted to do the history honours course, but had not been able to. Miranda House, where I taught history for some forty-odd years, was the anchor of my adult life: it was here that I really learnt my history, teaching it to others, sometimes only barely ahead of them in the early years; and it was here that I learnt my politics from irreverent and unruly teachers famous for throwing out principals, and challenged in turn by irrepressible students.

 (Excerpted from Making A Difference: Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India, Edited by Ritu Menon; Published by Women Unlimited; Pp: 386 Price: Rs 350(Softback)

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Generally, the flood-ravaged districts of easternBiharpresent a scenario of abject poverty and poor development. But Dharhara is an exception. Located about 20 kilometres from the district headquarters ofBhagalpur, this village is one of the greenest pockets of the region. And that’s not all. Unlike elsewhere, for years now girls in this village have been welcomed into the world in the most novel way: By the local community planting at least 10 fruit trees – traditionally mango – in celebration. New daughters here are treated as avatars of Goddess Lakshmi and stand to inherit these fruit trees as they grow up.

 Owing to the tradition, this green village – which is surrounded by the riverGangato the south and the unpredictable river Kosi to the north-east – is today nestled in the midst of more than 20,000 fruit-bearing trees. Sukriti, the young daughter of the village pradhan, Parmanand Singh, says, “Even as the world is frantically discussing how to deal with issues like sex selective abortions, global warming and the carbon footprint, planting trees when girls are born is our simple solution to all these complicated problems.”

 In the highly prejudiced Bihari society, where girls are generally seen as a financial ‘bojh’ (burden) on the family, dowry deaths that were once so common here no longer make the news. Planting trees to celebrate the birth of a girl child is essentially a move to build an asset base for her, which can eventually be utilised by the family to finance her education and future development. Former pradhan, Pramod Singh, puts it this way, “She inherits the trees and over the years the fruit not only helps support her family it also helps them bear the expenses of her wedding. We plant the trees at birth because as our girls grow up, so do the trees.”

 Pramod had planted 10 mango trees about 12 years ago when his daughter, Niti, was born. Niti now goes to school and neither her father nor other family members consider her school fees a burden since the money comes from selling the fruit from her trees. Of course her very traditional mother, Rita Devi, has taken to planning for her marriage already and sees Niti’s trees as an asset in that context.

 The unfortunate social practice of dowry may take many more years, or even generations, to overcome, but Madhurani, 20, who got married a couple of years back and is a proud mother of a three-month-old daughter, chooses to be optimistic, “Of course we know we cannot completely remove the practice of dowry from our social system, but at least having some assets in their name have given our girls and their families a better life.”

 Adds Gul Afsan, an activist with the NGO, ‘Her Initiative’, which works for the empowerment of poor women through entrepreneurship, “Although the purpose of planting these trees is to build an asset for the future of local girls, it has also helped them develop a sense of ownership – rare among women of this region.”

 For now, the 8,000 villagers of Dharhara, including scores of young girls, are enjoying the fruits of their labour. InBhagalpur, a district well-known for mangoes, a tree takes around four to five years to mature and then, with some care, they start yielding bumper crops every season. While the greater part of the produce is sold, some of it is kept aside for the children to enjoy. Says Nirmala Devi, a mother of three, “My daughters love to eat mangoes and I don’t stop them since it’s good for their health.”

 Planting mango is also profitable because once the trees become old they can be felled for wood, which is in great demand in the low-cost furniture market. “We cut the trees over a period of several years for the wood and all the furniture that is customarily presented to girls during marriage is made from this,” adds Nirmala.

 Nivedita Singh, 20, who recently got married to a schoolteacher working in a nearby village, explains, “Another reason for this trend is that the amount of labour needed to work in orchards is much less. One only needs to be patient for a few initial years and then it only gets better.” Her parents, too, did not have to worry about money for her education or marriage, as her trees were there to support them.

 These trees have also impacted cultivation patterns in this region. Notes Parmanand Singh, “People in our village have been tilling land as a means of livelihood for generations. But, of late, there has been a shift from conventional farming to fruit tree plantation, as it pays better.”

 While the mango is still the preferred tree for fruit plantation, it’s not always easy to maintain and sometimes they are not cost-effective either. Therefore, many farmers here are now opting for guavas, litchis and papayas since they are cheaper to grow and take less time to mature.

 Shatrughan Singh, an octogenarian, has planted more than 600 trees in Dharhara for his daughters, granddaughters and other village girls. Most of his trees are mango, but even he has taken to planting litchis over the past few years. His daughters are now married, and his two granddaughters, Neha and Nisha, go to school. Both the girls are excited at the prospect of owning 20 trees among them once they grow up.

 Trees for girls is an innovative practice and one that can potentially check the decline inBihar’s child sex ratio, if the idea catches on in other parts of the state. According to the 2011 Census, at 933, the state’s child sex ratio may be better than the national average of 914, but it has dropped sharply from the figure of 981 that the state had registered 30 years ago.

 The success story of Dharhara has even caught the attention of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has visited the village to plant trees and ensure that a girls’ school is built there. During a public meeting in the village, some years ago, he said that the Dharhara residents’ age-old practice of planting trees to mark the birth of girl child is worth emulating at a time when the gender ratio in the country has been on the decline. He added that local people have, in their own novel way, addressed two concerns with this one move: Environmental conservation and gender justice.

 Treat the girl child as a blessing and trees as bank deposits – that’s the message from this tiny village.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

Ends                                                                                                

Girl Child\Activism                                                                   WFS REF NO. INDL509

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]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-greeting-every-new-born-daughter-with-fruit-trees-saadia-azim/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-for-bundelkhands-tribal-women-muddy-water-at-3-am-aditi-bishnoi/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/india-for-bundelkhands-tribal-women-muddy-water-at-3-am-aditi-bishnoi/#comments Tue, 22 May 2012 13:07:01 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=118862  It’s that time of the year when everyone in northIndiais gearing up for the severe summer. For some, it’s the season to stay indoors and gorge on mangoes, but for others, particularly Bundelkhand’s Sahariya tribal women like Sunita and Dhiru, it signifies only one thing: Long days and sleepless nights chasing after precious water.

 Being Sahariya women, poverty and discrimination at every turn is no new experience for them. But as the hot days of April slowly give way to the punishing heat of May and June, turning the entire rural landscape brown and barren, life becomes truly unbearable in the absence of water.

 Conforming to the characteristic separations between castes and communities within the universe of the Indian village, Sunita, Dhiru and 38 other Sahariya families live together at one end of Budawani village, which falls in Lalitpur district’s Talbehat block in Uttar Pradesh. They prefer to keep to themselves for fear of being ostracised by more privileged communities in their neighbourhood. Sunita puts it this way, “Hamare gaon main kisi aur se koi lena dena nahi hai (we have nothing to do with others in our village).” There is good reason why she says this: Caste and untouchability issues have put their imprint here, especially where access to water is concerned.

 Sunita and Dhiru, both in their early 30s, are homemakers and mothers. Whenever they get some time free from the chores of looking after the family, collecting water, cooking, cleaning and the like – they also step out to work as farm labour to supplement very modest household incomes.

 Here’s how a typical day for Sunita begins: Up by5 am, she washes her face with the little water that is leftover from the day before. Then she sets off on a 25-minute trek to a well located two kilometres away. For having the ‘privilege’ of taking three buckets of drinking water from this well, Sunita and her friends face daily humiliation at the hands of the other communities, especially the powerful Lodhas, who also have a stake in the well’s water. “The big problem is that the well is located on the land of a privately-owned farm and we need permission to draw water,” she reveals.

 Generally, there’s no restriction on taking this water, but when the store of water dwindles in the height of summer, tension over water rises with the temperature. This stretch in the Bundelkhand region has seen drought for almost a decade. As the sun beats down for almost four months, the wells become nearly dry. “Many a time we’ve been denied water from this well during summers,” says Sunita.

 However, chances of returning with at least a bucket from here are brighter if the women start queuing up even before dawn breaks. Elaborates Dhiru, “Last year, the water level was rock bottom and there were  many wanting their share of the available water. We all waited patiently for our turn and filled smaller steel vessels with the muddy water.” She had begun at3 am, and it was10 amby the time she could make it back home to tackle the other chores.

 If the Sahariya women are turned back from the well, they head to the nearby hand pump to try their luck. Here too the water level plummets during May-June and local farmers, who can afford diesel pumps, add to the women’s woes when they direct the little water in the well to irrigate their fields. In any case, the hand pump water is brackish, and although it can be used washing and bathing, it is clearly not drinkable. Yet, “if there is no other option, then this water just has to serve for drinking purposes as well,” Sunita says, matter-of-factly.

 Ordinarily, to access the water of the hand pump, Sunita has to make at least three trips a day to meet the household needs. In other words, water collection can take up to six hours and during summer the time spent collecting water can nearly double.

 The irony, of course, is that the situation needn’t have had to be so grave. On paper, Budawani has an overhead tank, pipelines and taps since 2000 and even electricity supply, normally missing in most villages in Bundelkhand, is fairly regular here. Unfortunately, someone stole the generator and the motor needed to pump the water within one-and-a-half months of their installation.

 While it is true that the village has not displayed the social cohesion or unity of purpose required to pressurise the local water authority to get the supply restored over these last ten years, thel authorities too have obviously not considered the everyday traumas over water experienced by women here worthy of attention.

 Chasing water is then the central activity of Sunita’s and Dhiru’s existence. It leaves them very little time to seek much-needed wage work that could help buttress household income. Chronic fatigue and health problems like nagging backaches have to be endured because nothing can be done about them, but what is particularly stressful knowing that the lack of water is seriously undermining the lives of their children, especially their daughters.

 Although both Sunita and Dhiru want their children to be regular in their studies, they are unable to ensure this. Sometimes they get delayed in getting them ready for school because of the time they have to spend at the well or hand pump, and the young ones even find themselves locked out of school because they are late. There’s another factor at play here: On the days the two women manage to get work and cannot spend time collecting water, it’s their daughters who are sent to perform this chore, leading to disruptions in their schooling.

 The school in Budawani has classes up to Class Five after which the children travel 10 kilometres to Chandrapur to study till Class Eight. Those who manage to get past that milestone then go all the way to a high school in Talbehat, about 25 kilometres away. Many Sahariya children drop out before they reach high school for several reasons, but water availability is certainly one of them.

 While the denial of access to water continues to affect their entire existence, what are these women doing to get themselves a better deal? Last year, Sunita, Dhiru and several other Sahariya women were drawn to the awareness raising activities of Parmarth, a local NGO working on establishing women’s first right to water, supported by the European Union. The women now know that it is important to talk about their water-related problems publicly in order to persuade the authorities to take action. Says Dhiru, “Poor women like us will have to step forward. After all, the water crisis affects us first and most.”

 The Sahariya women had drafted a petition for the authorities, with help from Parmarth, that clearly enumerates the existing water sources in their village, their problems in accessing them and suggestions to improve the situation. Then, at a public hearing in Talbehat a few months ago, in front of a room full of district-level officials, Sunita spoke out confidently on behalf of everyone when she said, “If we remain silent neither will we get water, nor will the discrimination we face disappear. Today we have spoken out; tomorrow we will come up with solutions, too.”

 The Sahariya women of Budawani appear to be willing to use their newfound sense of confidence to protect their right to water. But the more disturbing problems are that of age-old biases and discriminations that they have to continuously bear.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 More so in a state like Rajasthan where some of its western districts have the infamous ritual of breaking mud pots when daughter are born. These girls grow up in an environment of discrimination, without proper health care or education. And since this prejudice is part of the social norms and cultural practices, it is easily transferred from one generation to the other, perpetuating a lifetime of injustice.

 There are even tales of Bhati Rajput families drowning the newborn girls in water mixed with milk or killing them with an overdose of opium. So the grave is the destination for this region’s missing girls. In 2010, when Panna Singh’s daughter, Shagun Kanwar, got married the otherwise normal ritual of the arrival of a ‘baarat’ (marriage procession) in their Deora village, situated on the Barmer-Jaislamer border, created headlines. It was only the second time in 12 years that the family had welcomed a ‘baarat’. The first time was in 1998 when Shagun’s cousin, Jayant Kanwar, had got married.

 In such a hostile terrain, however, the arrival of baby girls did not remain an unsung event this year. The occasion was ‘Kanya Dhoond Mahotsava’ organised by the Pre conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Cell, a state department set-up to execute the provisions of the PCPNDT ACT, in association with the health department and the Barmer district administration.

 In Rajasthan, traditionally the Dhoond (the local name for a demonic figure from whose evil eyes the child is protected by worshipping the Holi fire) is an event to mark the arrival of a baby boy. But, in a departure from the local custom, in March 2012 close to 150 mothers attended the colourful ‘Kanya Dhoond Mahotsava’ at Barmer’s Zila Swasthya Bhawan along with their newborn daughters. As the festive folk melodies wafted through the air, it was a moment of joy and pride for these women when their girls were garlanded and gifted toys and new clothes.

 Looking for ways to create awareness on the declining sex ratio in the district, the PCPNDT Cell hit on this novel idea last year. Rather than organising routine seminars where discussions are limited to experts who deliberate on the critical need to save the girl child, the border district opted to reach out to ordinary people by asking families to be part of a ‘mahotsava’ to celebrate the birth of a girl child. Said Vikram Singh Champawat, the district coordinator of the PCPNDT Cell, “Girls are assigned an inferior status in our society and that is why most of the rituals are meant to celebrate the arrival of boys only. We, therefore, decided to make a new beginning by holding the Dhoond function for the girl child.”

 Added Dr Azmal Hussain, Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO), Barmer, “The main objective of organsing such a festivity was to stop discrimination against the girl child and help improve the declining sex ratio of our district.”

 To drive home the need to balance gender disparity in society, posters with messages like, ‘If the sex ratio continues to decline by the present rate, where would you get brides?’, ‘Fifty years on there will be just one girl to seven boys’ and ‘Save the Girl Child and Stop Sex Selection’ were put up at the function venue, even as district collector Dr Veena Pradhan argued that if girls were given the opportunities, they would achieve as much or even more than boys. “Main bhi beti hoon aur aaj Collector hoon (even I am a daughter and today I have become Collector),” she told the audience.

 In Rajasthan, and many other parts of the country, the Dhoond is an extension of the festivities during the first Holi (in the month of March) after the birth of a boy. The child is brought to the site of Holika dahan (where a ceremonial wood fire is lit) to offer prayers to keep the evil spirits away. Gifts, toys, clothes, popcorn and sweets are sent for the infant by the relatives from his maternal side and his aunts. Later, the sweets, mostly ladoos, and popcorn are distributed among friends and acquaintances.

 Before organising the Kanya Dhoond Mahotsava, the PCPNDT Cell, too, made extensive preparations. “We publicised the event in local dailies and involved anganwadi and health workers to identify baby girls less than one year old this Holi and invited them to attend the Mahotsava,” Champawat said.

 While it didn’t have enough resources to promote and pull off such a large-scale event on its own, CairnIndialent support that ensured that each baby was gifted with new clothes and toys. The British Exploration company, Cairn Energy has the largest oil exploration fields in Barmer. “I think with collective effort the event turned out to be an effective way to convey the provisions of the PCPNDT Act. The maiden initiative was also well applauded at the coordinators’ All Rajasthan meeting at the state capital, Jaipur,” he added.

 While the Dhoond celebration may be a symbolic gesture on the part of the government, it’s a positive beginning nonetheless. Simple hard facts on the missing girls in the region cannot be ignored any longer. As per the latest statistics, Barmer has the sorry sex ratio of 899 females per 1000 males. It is, besides, one of the country’s 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640) and has to do a lot on the literacy front as well – the average literacy rate currently is 57.49 per cent compared to 58.99 per cent in 2001. The female literacy figures have seen a sharper decline – it has come down from 43.45 per cent to a miserable 41.03 per cent, according to the latest Census.

 The Barmer situation mirrors that of the rest of the state. At 883 females per 1000 males Rajasthan is among the states with lowest child sex ratio inIndia, well below the national average of 914. The overall sex ratio at 926 is no heartening news at all as it is below the national average figure of 940 per 1000 males.

 Apart from the Women and Child Department of Barmer and other government bodies, some non-governmental organisations are also working for the advocacy of the PCPNDT Act. For instance, Vikalp Sansthan has been working in the rural areas to encourage people to celebrate the birth of girl child by performing rituals like sounding the ‘kansi ki thali’, ‘badhai’, ‘namkaran sanskar’ meant earlier only for boys. Just last year, the NGO also felicitated nearly 40 newborn girls and their mothers at a Balika Mahotsava.

 Barmer’s district administration wants to make the Dhoond Mahotasava an annual tradition. Will its echoes be heard all over the state and, particularly, in neighbouring district of Jaisalmer that has an even lower sex ratio of 849 per 1000 males? Only time will tell whether there’s hope for a better future for the daughters of Thar and, eventually, for all the girls of Rajasthan.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Ever since the fall of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the creation of the National Transitional Council,Libyahas disappeared from international headlines. And yet the country’s democratic transition is far from over, especially for the women who had actively participated in its recent revolution – standing at the frontlines of demonstrations, tending to wounded fighters and selling their valuable belongings to buy supplies that would sustain the uprising.

 Today, Libyan women continue to demand their full representation in the public sphere. They are taking the lead in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and advocacy groups, and are determined to keep the spirit of the revolution alive, so that they can secure the change that they had pushed so hard for. Among these women is Alaa Murabit, a 22-year old doctor, and the founder and president of the women’s organisation, Voice of Libyan Women (VLW). The VLW is an NGO based inTripoli, with branch offices in the cities of Zawia and Misrata. Its core concerns include the greater political participation and economic advancement of Libyan women, as well as the elimination of all forms of violence against them.

 Alaa was born inCanadato Libyan parents and returned to her country along with her family after completing her high school degree at the age of 14. She describes her transition to Libyan life as an absolute shock for her as a teenager, when she found herself cut off from the freedoms she had grown up with. Even something as basic as the Internet suddenly became a luxury. The telecommunications void still exists inLibya. Apart from the wealthier homes in the Libyan capital ofTripoli, and other major cities, most people don’t have access to the cyber world. According to Alaa, there is only a five per cent Internet penetration rate in the country.

 Just years after her move toLibya, Alaa was swept up in the Libyan revolution. As she commented in the interview, “as soon as I accepted the culture, they decided to have a revolution”.

 During this period Alaa saw the women around her – her friends, sisters, and aunts – rise up to join in the efforts of those who wanted change and were willing to usher in a revolution. The women played a much less publicised role than the men. While the latter took to the streets with firearms and were followed by news crews, the women kept homes running, often shouldering the responsibilities of the men as well. They also provided much-needed food, medicines and weapons to the fighters at the front. Alaa points out that these women claimed their new role with a truly self-owned sense of agency. As she put it, “Women didn’t ask for permission to be part of the revolution, they felt it was their responsibility to be part of it.”

 Now she sees a warning in the hype over the “Arab Spring” – a term with which she is in strong disagreement. She has some words of caution for those swept away by such terms, “We need to be very cautious about not getting lost in the shock of the Arab Spring before it’s too late. We have noticed that women have been sidelined. If we are to seize this window of opportunity, we have to get women into positions of political and economic power – and not women who will just say ‘yes’ to those who are part of the existing government structure. Women should not just be quota-fillers, but actually stand up for those of their gender.”

 Alaa also described the current situation in her country. “There is currently an illusion of freedom. Earlier, nobody spoke about Gaddafi. My grandmother would say to me, when I first arrived fromCanada, ‘the walls have ears’. Now, yes, we all get to articulate what we don’t like about the system, but does it matter if no one is listening? I fear the new situation may turn into more of a regression than progression for women,” she says.

 Currently based in the port city ofZawia, which lies about 50 kilometres to the west ofTripoli, the capital ofLibya, Alaa Murabit has emerged as an eloquent voice for Libyan women.

 (© Women’s Feature Service)

 Women’s groups were among the more articulate social forces in post-EmergencyIndia. Many ordinary women were becoming part of what came to be known as the second phase of the Indian women’s movement in the late Seventies and early Eighties. The central concern was sexual violence, perhaps because it shone the torch on the unequal relations between the genders for the first time in the country’s history. Even an ‘establishment’ organisation like the Mahila Dakshata Samiti began to interrogate the innocuous ‘stove deaths’ of newly married women and concluded that many of them were actually dowry murders. When the Supreme Court overturned the verdict of the Delhi High Court and exonerated two policemen accused of having rapedMathura, a young tribal girl, in a police station, there was a national outcry. An Open Letter to the Supreme Court was written by four law professors fromDelhiUniversitydirectly confronted the judge who delivered that verdict:

 Your Lordship, does the Indian Supreme Court expect a young girl, 14-16 years old, when trapped by two policemen inside the police station, to successfully raise an alarm for help? The Court gives no consideration whatsoever to the socio-economic status, the lack of knowledge of legal rights, the age of the victim, lack of access to legal services, and the fear … which haunts the poor and the exploited in Indian police stations…

 If there could be no avoiding class, there could also be no avoiding patriarchy. It was there at every level of society, and it was also obvious that an issue like violence against women could be a deeply political and class issue. It was logical then for a woman like me, with left leanings, in search of socially relevant activity, to gravitate to the cluster of amorphous organisations which saw themselves constituting the “autonomous” – as opposed to the party-led – women’s movement. They presented a total contrast to the group I had just drifted from: while one was disciplined, centralised, singular in ideology, secretive, hierarchical, male-centric and represented the radical Left, the other was chaotic, patently rudderless, largely female in composition, and embraced a plethora of political cultures, ideologies and strategies, all of which were broadly left of the spectrum. Coping with the chaos, the lack of planning – random meetings held at random places or spontaneous decisions to stage impromptu demos – was daunting, especially in a city likeBombay, strung out like a line of washed linen. But the energy on display went straight to the head and the spontaneous reaching out to each other, across a hugely wide spectrum of backgrounds and ages, touched the heart.

 The questions and quests that had emerged in the late Seventies lingered on with the arrival of the Eighties. The new decade – which many today recognise as the most significant one for the Indian women’s movement – began on an emphatic note. The Forum Against Rape, the ide of which was engendered on the fighting streets of the city and dispersed through pamphlets distributed in offices, trains and stations, was formally inaugurated in February 1980 at the Cama Hall, in the stone heart of South Bombay. I remember the excitement of that moment. Ahilya Rangnekar, the grand old communist woman leader, spoke on the occasion, as did Indira Jaising, the prominent feminist lawyer. Vijay Tendulkar, one of Marathi literature’s finest and socially aware minds, who consistently disturbed the peace of the suburban middle classes through his provocative, non-conformist theatre, hailed the brave women who were ushering in a revolution. ‘The Times of India’, which normally looked askance at any activity that threatened the established order, took note of the event and reported on a “mass signature campaign that has been organised for a reopening of the Mathura case and a review of the loophole-ridden rape law which results in an astoundingly low rate of convictions”.

 You could make what you wanted of the Forum. Marxist-Leninist groups dismissed it as an exercise in revisionism, many voiced apprehensions that it was “blindly anti-men”, but there were as many, including men, who saw it as a social force that had the potential to transform society. Women activists perceived it in more personalised terms – as a platform, a network, a shelter of their own, something that everybody could claim but nobody could possess. While it was located inBombay, it seemed to stand for Everywoman, whether she was battling the timber mafia in the high Himalayas, campaigning against dodgy contraceptive injectables inDelhi, fighting for dues as a fish vendor in coastal Kerala, or protesting court verdicts inHyderabad.

 As awareness of the multi-dimensional aspects of violence grew it was clear that addressing them would demand multidimensional agendas and actions, whether they were struggles to change existing laws or to raise awareness on safety for women in public spaces. In keeping with that realisaton, the Forum Against Rape was re-christened the Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW). It was a period of activism all over the world. InSan FranciscoandNew York, women were marching and raising slogans like ‘Let’s Take Back the Night”. InBombaywe felt we needed to take back not just the night but the day, and not just the public space but the private space as well.

 (Excerpted from ‘Making A Difference: Memoirs From The Women’s Movement In India’, Edited by Ritu Menon; Published by Women Unlimited, 2011; Pp: 386; Price (Softback): Rs 350)

(© Women’s Feature Service)

Take Kasturi Pangi of Dumripadar village in Odisha’s tribal Koraput district. Despite being in her seventh month of pregnancy, she has to ferry a big pot of water on her head for at least a kilometre each time she goes for a refill. Says Pangi, “The water source is about half a kilometre away along the national highway, and every day I have to make at least three such trips to meet the family’s water requirements.”

The actual value of this effort is lost on her, as indeed her husband, Sarat Pangi, a construction worker. When asked about his wife’s daily scramble to collect water for the family, he casually mumbles, “She has to bring the water in time so that I can take a bath before I leave for work at 8 am.”

In Odisha, there are innumerable villages that have no committed source of water or have very poor water supply. According to Census 2011, around 35.4 per cent of families in the state have to travel long distances to fetch drinking water. A decade back this figure was 30.8 per cent. In other words, there has been an almost 5 per cent rise in the number of villages without adequate water during the summer. Some districts are worse off. Every second family in the tribal-dominated district of Kandhamal travels more than half a kilometre to fetch drinking water, while 50.4 per cent of houses are not near any source of drinking water. Kandhamal is, in fact, the worst affected among the state’s 30 districts. The data further reveals that in rural Odisha only 7.5 per cent households has access to tap water, while 19.8 per cent depends on wells and another 66.9 per cent uses tubewells.

The day starts early for these water carriers and things get particularly harrowing during the summer months. “When the river dries up under the hot summer sun, we women sometimes have to dig a hole on the river bed to access water. These holes are known as ‘chahalas’ and we have to wait for each one to fill up before we can scoop out more water,” explains Malati Bag of Kirakela village, in Nuapada, another water scare district in the state.

Life is hardly easier for the women of Bolangir district which is, like the others, a tribal dominated one. Sabitri Tandi of Bangomunda block in Bolangir has to go to a water source about half a kilometre away from her home. Since she has to make three such trips a day in the searing heat, she ends up covering three to four kilometres every day.

What is generally not reported is the high price women pay for water collection water in terms of their physical health. Jamuna Dharua, 23, from Bolangir, has a tragic story to relate, and this despite having a well in the premises of her home. Last year, she suffered a miscarriage while drawing water from the well. Recalls Dharua, “We have eight member families solely depend on that one well for all its domestic use and on an average, we have to draw at least 20 buckets of water from the well every day. I was in my fourth month of my pregnancy during a time when the water level of the well had gone down to 15 ft deep because of dry summer conditions. While I was drawing water, I felt a mild pain in my lower abdomen that I overlooked. A few days later, I had a miscarriage and the doctor explained that bending over at the waist for long time while drawing water from the well could be one of the factors for this.” Ironically today her sister-in-law, who is pregnant, spends much of her day drawing water from the well.

Dharua’s mother-in-law, Kalabati, 60, is quick to defend herself, “Our women are used to this kind of work and everyone does it – my ‘bohu’ (daughters-in-law) – are no exception. Jamuna’s miscarriage was an accident. I don’t keep well, so I cannot help these girls with such chores. So if my ‘bohu’ don’t do this work, who will? My sons?” She poses this question of her sons doing such work almost as an unthinkable proposition!

Scarcity of water has other health implications as well. As summer wears on, the people of BahadulkivillageofRayagadadistrict become dependent on the local stream for their daily needs and incidents of diarrhoea and cholera shoot up because the stream is contaminated by water from a nearby drain. Explains one woman who didn’t want to be named, “We are getting infections because of this water. When we get our periods, there is insufficient water to clean our clothes, and we end up with urinary infections.”

Explains Bhubaneswar-based social activist, Amrita Patel, who is familiar with women’s concerns in this region, “Generally, I have seen women in rural Odisha carry massive 15- or 20-litre aluminium pitchers full of water on their heads, while holding on to another 10- to 15-litre bucket full, and walking several kilometres. One hardly ever sees a man carrying even a small pitcher of water on his head! This is because, according to local social norms, getting water for domestic purposes like for drinking, bathing and cleaning is the sole responsibility of the women.”

What disturbs Patel is that public discussions on reducing the burden of women in terms of water collection only revolve around the need to reduce the distance to the source by provisioning a water source at an accessible location. While this is an important concern, she believes that the time has also come to break the norm that ensures that water collection is strictly seen as a woman’s task.

Ranjan Panda, Convenor, Water Initiatives Odisha, a voluntary organisation working on water issues, is worried about the future. Says he, “As the years go by, sources of drinking water are only going to get depleted, given our vanishing water bodies. This will make women even more vulnerable in the future. It is time that society becomes more sensitive to the issue. So far the government has never addressed it from a gender perspective.”

(© Women’s Feature Service)

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(i)                ’Rabindra Chitravali’, a compilation of digital images of about 2,000 paintings and sketches of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, sourced from the rich collection of Tagore’s works available inVisva-Bharti, Rabindra Bharati University and the National Gallery of Modern Art.

(ii)             Ministry of Culture and Ministry of information and Broadcasting have prepared a collection of six DVDs titled ‘Tagore Stories on Film’ containing films like Khudito Pashan (Hungry Stones) byTapan Sinha, Teen Kanya (Three daughters) by Satyajit Ray,Kabuliwala by Hemen Gupta, Ghare Baire (Home and The World) by Satyajit Ray, Char Adhyay (Four Chapters) by Kumar Sahaniand Special Features - Natir Puja by Rabindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore by Satyajit Ray.

(iii)           The Tagore Cultural Grants Scheme to support Tagore relatedprogrammes in different parts of the country was introduced on 21^stSeptember, 2010. Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided to NGOs on the basis of the recommendations of the Zonal Sub-Committee of experts.

(iv)           Ministry of Culture has introduced the scheme of Tagore National Fellowships for Cultural Research to invigorate and revitalize the various institutions under the Ministry of Culture which have vast ‘treasures’ in the form of manuscripts, documents, artifacts, antiquities and paintings. 13 National Tagore Fellows have been selected for the year 2009-10 under this scheme.

(v)             Ministry of Culture has provided financial assistance for publication of several books and special issues on Tagore by reputed publishing houses and newspapers. Noteworthy among these are the book titled ‘Something Old Something New – Rabindranath Tagore’ byMarg, ‘Tagore – The world Voyager’ by Random House lndiaPublishers, a documentation of the Tagore commemoration undertaken by Ministry of Culture, by Eicher GoodeadhPublications, printing of the facsimile edition of the original ‘Gitanjali’ manuscript.

(vi)           Ministry of Culture has provided financial assistance for creation of replicas of Tagore busts by noted sculptors like Ramkinkar Baij,Sudhir Kastagir and Janak Nazary. Several of these busts have been installed by lndian Missions in foreign countries and the same would be done in more countries.

(vii)        The Government of India established the Tagore Award for promoting values of Universal Brotherhood. The award shall carry an amount of Rs. One Crore, a Citation in a Scroll, a Plaque as well as an exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item. A jury under the chairmanship of Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh after detailed deliberations decided unanimously to select Pandit Ravi Shankar to be the first recipient of the Tagore Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cultural harmony and universal values. On the recommendation of the jury the award has been renamed as the ‘Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony’. The award would be presented by the President of India in a special ceremony.

(viii)      The Government of India has decided to grant Rs. 150 Crores toViswa Bharati University to revive and restore the glory of this great institution founded by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

(ix)           Several exhibitions of Tagore Paintings have been organised in USA, France, Germany, UK, Bangladesh, Singapore, Japan and South Korea by Ministry of Culture through the National Gallery of Modern Art.

(x)             Ministry of Culture has undertaken the preparation of an inventory of all translations of Tagore’s works (and works on Tagore) in foreign languages for reprinting some of these works, in easy-to-handle, paper-back or pocket editions, through co-publishing, to ensure widest possible readership.

(xi)           A Screening Committee has been constituted under Shri ShyamBenegal to select films and documentaries on Tagore for production with financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture. Several proposals for film/documentary production have been approved and the same are underway.

(xii)        An Expert Committee set up by Ministry of HRD under the Chairmanship of Shri Ved Prakash, Chairman, UGC has recommended several proposals for setting up of new lnstitutes and Study Centres on Tagore. Ministry of Culture would be funding such projects for a three year period.

(xiii)      All writings of Tagore in Bangla and English intended for public circulation, as may have been published in journals, magazines, catalogues, anthologies or in book form, would be placed in a single chronological sequence under the Kalanukramik RabindraRachnavali project. This project is being implemented by Visva-Bharati University, Shantiniketan.

(xiv)      A project for creating an ‘Online Electronic Variorum’ of Rabindranath Tagore’s literary works in Bengali and English is being implemented by Jadavpur University. This project and theKalanukramik Rabindra Rachnavali project are being implemented with financial assistance from Ministry of Culture.

(xv)        Other Ministry of Culture supported Visva Bharati projects are Heritage Buildings, Digitization of Library Collections, Photo Archives, Preservation/Restoration of Manuscripts/Paintings, Restoration of Sculptures/Murals, New Auditorium & Museum Complex.

(xvi)      During 1960s on the occasion of Birth Centenary of GurudevRabindranath Tagore, the programme of building Auditoria and Cultural Complexes that were named as Rabindra Rangashala,Rabindra Bhavan, Rabindra Manch, Tagore Centre, etc., was started at the initiative of the then Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The modernization of existing Tagore Auditoria all over lndia and setting up of new Tagore Complexes (Parisars) was among the major suggestions made at the National Committee meeting. On the occasion of commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary, it has been decided to construct cultural complexes which would have multiple facilities i.e., Art galleries, open air Theatres, Cafes and Auditoria etc. Several projects have been approved by the National Appraisal Committee that has been set up for this purpose.

(xvii)   Ministry of Culture has also provided financial support for the organizing of select overseas Tagore commemoration events sponsored by reputed civil society groups in several countries based on recommendations received from the lndian Missions concerned.

(xviii) A web-portal consisting of more than 8000 books written by or on Tagore, covering 42 languages was launched. The Ministry approved a digitization project to preserve the works of Tagore in the possession of Visva-Bharati for posterity, along with an on-line Variorum of the multiple editions of his works. Translation of Tagore’s works in Indian and foreign languages is also underway and several films and documentaries on Tagore by eminent directors are in production.  This year also witnessed the installation of high quality Tagore busts, made of bronze, in several countries of the world by Indian Missions.

(xix)      Several high quality publications were commissioned, some of which have already been released, while some others are awaiting publication. The most important among these is the four-volume ‘Rabindra Chitravali’ which is the first such digital unification of all the works of a major artist anywhere in the world. Among the other quality publications which have been brought out is the ‘facsimile edition’ of Tagore’s ‘Gitanjali’, which is an exact replica of the first draft of his English translation of ‘Gitanjali’.  This was made possible by the efforts of the Ministry of Culture that secured permission from the Houghton Library of Harvard University.

(xx)        After many decades, the Ministry has organized international exhibitions of Tagore’s original paintings in cities like London, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur. Tagore also found his place in the UNESCO’s programme for commemorations, worldwide.

Among the States with large populations of persons with disabilities, Uttar Pradesh tops with 34.53 lakh, Bihar and West Bengal have over 18 lakh each, Tamil Nadu over 16 lakh,Maharashtra over 15 lakh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan over 14 lakh each. According to 2001 Census, 49 per cent of the persons with disabilities in the country are literate and 34 per cent are employed. Over one crore persons have visual disability, 12.61 lakh hearing and over 61 lakh have locomotor disability in the country. According to the NSSO Survey of 2002, 75 per cent of persons with disabilities live in rural areas.

             The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment which has the charge of looking after the welfare of the disadvantaged and marginalized sections of the society, including persons with disabilities, oversees a vast network of schemes for the empowerment and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities. The Government plans to consolidate them into a composite Centrally-sponsored national programme called National Programme for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in the 12th Plan (2012-2017), for their better administration. The trend is towards greater financial allocations and better monitoring.

In 2011-2012, the Disability Division of the Ministry was allocated Rs 480 crores. The schemes in operation aim to promote physical, psychological, social, educational and economic rehabilitation and development of the beneficiaries to enhance their quality of life and to enable them to lead their life with dignity.

Although the 12th Plan is yet to be ready, the Planning Commission has made allocations for some new schemes during the first year (2012-2013) of the Plan. These includeRs 33 crores for post-matric scholarships for students and Rs 12 crores for Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Scheme for persons with disabilities (PwDs) for MPhil and PhD courses.

The Government announced the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities in 2006, recognizing them as valuable human source for the country who can lead a better quality of life if they have an effective access to rehabilitation measures.  A Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has been appointed in the Ministry to receive and act upon complaints of violations of rules and orders notified for the welfare of the beneficiaries. Seven national institutes have been established to work in the field of disabilities.

These institutes are engaged in human resource development in different field of disability, providing rehabilitation services to persons with disabilities and undertaking research and development. During the last financial year, Rs 34 crore were released to these institutes against the budgeted outlay of Rs 60 crores for the year.

Under the scheme of Assistance to the Disabled for Purchase or Fitting of Aids and Appliances (ADIP), approximately two lakh persons with disabilities are provided assistive devices every year. An allocation of Rs 100 crores was made for the scheme in 2011-2012 to help 2.80 lakh persons but only about Rs 28 crores was released till December, 2011, although a total expenditure during the year is now expected to be Rs 76 crores. The ADIP scheme is being revised during 2012-2013 to raise the income ceiling and ceiling of the assistive devices. Under the Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS), Rs 31.27 crores was sanctioned till December last year against the allocation of Rs 120 crores. The total expenditure is likely to cross Rs 86 crores.

The DDRS helps voluntary organizations to run special schools for children with hearing, visual and mental disability and vocational rehabilitation centres for persons with disabilities and for manpower development in the field of mental retardation and cerebral palsy. The target of beneficiaries during the year was 2.50 lakh.

To facilitate creation of infrastructure at district level, the Central Government is encouraging the States in setting up of District Disability Rehabilitation Centres (DDRCs) since the ninth Plan. A hundred DDRCs were proposed to be set up in the last two years. A total of 215 DDRCs are functioning in the country at present. Twenty-one were set up in 2010-11 andRs 1.20 crore were released in 2011-12 to set up six more in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.

In 2009-10, the Government launched the Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), replacing the earlier Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) scheme. While inclusive education for disabled children at elementary level is being provided under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), this scheme provides 100 per cent Central assistance for inclusive education of disabled children studying in Classes IX-XII in mainstream government, local body and government-aided schools.

The objective is to facilitate continuation of education of children with special needs up to higher secondary level. The scheme provides for personal requirements of the children in the form of assistive devices, helpers, transport, hostel, learning material, and scholarship for the girl child up to Rs 3000 per disabled child per annum. In addition, assistance is also provided for salary of special teachers, capacity building of teachers, making schools barrier free, establishment of resource rooms, and awareness and orientation. A budget of Rs 100 crorewas allocated for this scheme during 2011-12 and over 1.30 lakh disabled children were proposed to be covered in the year. According to HRD Ministry, 35 per cent of children with disabilities remained out of school.

On World Autism Day, the Government reiterated its commitment to help development of people with autism in the country. India has about 10 million people with autism in the country. There was need to create awareness on the brain disorder and the Government would support all awareness campaigns. The Government has stressed the need to remove the myths about autism like it was the result of bad parenting or “emotionally dysfunctional mothers.” The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the vehicle for the Right To Education, ensures support to children with autism, through resource teachers and teacher-aides.

In many States, students with autism get a one on one support with care-giver or aide in the classroom. The Rajya Sabha passed in the Budget Session a Bill to amend the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 to extend its benefits to children with cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism and multiple disabilities. The children having these severe disabilities will have the option to receive education at home. There is some criticism of this provision as it is felt that it will keep the special needs children away from their peers and out of the mainstream education.

In a major step, the Government has given an “in-principle approval” for creating a separate Department of Disability Affairs. Informing Parliament, the Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Shri Mukul Wasnik, said the new Department would be within the Ministry and the proposal to amend the necessary rules is under process.  He said a need was felt to create a separate department under a Secretary-rank officer to address the issues of people with disability more effectively. At present, the issues related to empowerment of disabled people in the country are looked after by a division in the Ministry.

            To ensure persons with disabilities travel by air with dignity and ease, the Government has constituted a Committee on the ‘Rights of Passengers with Disabilities and Reduced Mobility’.

            There are Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) on “Carriage of passenger by air with disability and/or with reduced mobility” issued by the DGCA which are to be strictly adhered to by the airlines. The CAR is available on the DGCA website. Violation of the provisions of the CAR is punishable under the Schedule VI of the Aircraft Rules,1937. The Committee will look into the need for modifying the CAR in view of improved guidelines adopted in other countries and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons withDisabilities(UNCRPD).

The Committee’s terms including examining the inconvenience faced by persons with disabilities right from the stage of booking of tickets; arrival at the airport; checking-in, issues related to location and design of facilities like toilets, wheel chairs, check-in counters, security checking, boarding, seating in aircraft, disembarking and collection of luggage.

Needless to say, the persons with disabilities require similar facilities at railway stations and inter-city bus terminals. The Railway Board has prepared a plan to enable differently abledpeople to book rail tickets online at the concessional rates they are entitled to. It is proposed to issue identity cards with specific numbers to each person, which will be built into thecomputerised passenger reservation system (PRS) across the country.

To make life easier for the differently abled, the Social Justice Ministry is encouraging development of suitable technologies. The Ministry has made its own website accessible to persons with disabilities and is giving incentives to other Government organisations to follow its example. An Online Braille Library has been established at Dehradun in January this year. Its books can be accessed in real time from any location in the country.

On helping the persons with disability get their rightful share in employment, Section 33 of the Persons with Disability (Equal Opportunity, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 provides for a three per cent reservation in government employment, including one per cent each for disabled persons suffering from (i) blindness or low vision; (ii) hearing impairment and (iii) loco motor disability or cerebral palsy. A special recruitment drive was initiated recently to fill up backlog vacancies for posts reserved for persons with disabilities. As per information from 69 Ministries and Departments, there were 11134 persons with disabilities in employment under the Central Government on the 1st January, 2008.

There are no directions to the private sector to create jobs for disabled persons. However, a new Scheme of Incentives to the Private Sector for Employment of Physically Challenged Persons has been launched from 1st April, 2008. Under this Scheme, the Government provides the employer’s contribution for Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees State Insurance (ESI) for three years, for physically challenged employees employed in the private sector on or after 1st April, 2008, with a monthly salary up to Rs. 25,000.

In spite of the increasing awareness about the welfare of the disadvantaged population, the 2012-13 plan allocation for the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry is Rs 5915 crores, which is just 1.512 per cent of the total plan allocation of Rs 3,91,027 crores for all Ministries and Departments of the Government of India. This year’s allocation of Rs 5915 crores is against the allocation of Rs 5375 crores, and the likely actual expenditure of Rs 5006 crores, during 2011-12.

Looking at the Ministry’s various responsibilities, the Planning Commission’s Working Group on empowerment of persons with disabilities has recommended an allocation of Rs onelakh crore as plan expenditure for the welfare of these persons during the 12^th Plan, out of which Rs 24000 crores is be incurred through the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry, and the remaining Rs 76000 crores through other Ministries.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2011, the proposed law that is to replace the existing Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, is a comprehensively drafted piece of legislation that will remove the existing gaps and take care of nearly all the possible situations and circumstances in which the beneficiary population may require legal and social cover to lead a normal life. India has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) and undertaken the obligation to ensure and promote the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all Persons with Disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability. While the existing Act provided for an impairment-based exhaustive definition of disability, the UN Convention recognized that disability was an evolving concept. People with impairments, not expressly mentioned in the Act, were often denied the rights and entitlements recognized in the Act. The 1995 Act, among other provisions, required appropriate governments and local authorities to make public buildings and their campuses accessible to persons with disabilities. The facilities to be created include ramps, toilets for wheel-chair users, Braille signages, new elevators, auditory signals in existing elevators, and tactile tiles.

Accessibility for persons with disabilities was also one of the core provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force in May, 2008. Expanding the scope and definition of physical impairments, the 2011 Bill recognizes the equality of persons with disabilities and prohibits direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of disability. The draft law seeks to guarantee equality and non-discrimination to all persons with disabilities, and to recognize legal capacity of all persons with disabilities and make provision for support where required to exercise such legal capacity.

The Constitution of India includes persons with disabilities generically within the universal categories of person and citizen; it does not even mention disability specifically. Therefore the draft Bill attempts to lay down procedures by which the civil-political rights guaranteed in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Constitution of India can be realized for persons with disabilities. The rights guaranteed by the Constitution need adaptation to be of value for persons with disabilities. (PIB Features.)

Centers of Excellence in Nanoelectronics

Nanoelectronics Centres at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science, Bangaluru

A joint project for   setting of two Nanaoelectronics Centers at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore was initiated with a  cost of ` 100 Crores in the year 2006 as a Phase I.  This project has been unique in the manner   in which two top level academic organizations in India have come together with an MOU between them to take up an R&D project of this magnitude. The objectives of these Centers have been:

• Embark on R&D activities in the areas of nanoelectronics including materials, devices and sensors, nanosystems and their characterization and modeling.
• Networking with other agencies, institutions, national labs and industry working in the area of nanoelectronics and create a nanofabrication facility accessible to all researchers.
• Generate trained human resources suitable for nanoelectronics research, engineering and manufacturing.
• Demonstrate that the nanofab facilities created and human resources generated can be used to develop socially relevant systems with nanostructured materials and systems.
• The deliverables at the Center of Excellence at IIT Bombay included development and establishment of sub 100 nanometer CMOS process, development of nanosystems for Healthcare and environmental monitoring, development of organic and biopolymer devices, GaN devices, and characterization, modeling and simulation of nanoelectronic devices.
• The deliverables at IISc included magnetic materials for LC resonator, acoustic sensors, ferroelectrics for Ferratic RAMs (FRAMs) and phase shifters, rare earth metal oxides for MOS gate dielectrics, molecular rectifiers based on organic thin films.

Centres of Excellence in Nanoelectronics  Phase I

The first phase has been very successful in establishing major nanofabrication facilities of international standards at the two institutions and providing a catalyst for ambitious research initiatives in the area of nanoelectronics. Within a short span of five years, state-of-the-art facilities in nanoelectronics have been set up and used by a large number of faculty and students at the two Institutes as well as researchers from other institutions under the satellite “Indian Nanoelectronics Users’ Programme”. Significant research output as well as training of manpower has been accomplished in this project during a relatively very short span of time.   These centres have attracted international attention and talent (as faculty) to these institutions and   have become “Centres of Excellence in Nanoelectronics”.  This project has provided confidence that academic organizations can take up large R&D projects effectively and has become a model project for funding of   large R&D projects by other Government departments and organizations at academic institutions.

Centres of Excellence in Nanoelectronics Phase II

Based on the experience and success of the phase I   project, the phase II project at a cost of  Rs. 146.91 Cr was initiated in December 2011 for execution by IIT Bombay and IISc over a period of 5 years.  While the previous project was largely focused on infrastructure creation for nanoelectronics research, the Phase II project focuses on research in frontier areas of nanoelectronics, technology generation, closer interaction with industries for commercialization and scaled up effort in high quality R&D manpower generation.

Nanoelectronics Centres at IIT Delhi, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur

Inspired by the success of the Nanoelectronics Centres project at IIT Bombay and IISc, setting up of 3 more Nanoelectronics centres has been taken up by the Department of IT at IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, Chennai and IIT Kharagpur on different aspects of Nanoelectronics.

R&D Projects

In addition to establishing Centres, several small and medium scale projects have also been initiated for capacity building for R&D in the areas of   nano materials, nano devices, nano subsystem and nano systems at various institutions across India including Indian Institutes of Technology at New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee,  IISc Bangalore,  C-MET Pune,  CEERI Pilani, CSIO Chandigarh,   Jadavpur University Kolkata, Jamia Milia Islamia, Visvevaraya Institute of Technology Nagpur  etc.  The specific R&D areas   included Nano silver oxide, nano-particles of noble and transition medals, nano-sized metals/metal oxide/metal nitrides, nanocrystalline silicon MEMS Pressure Sensor, technology for quantum structures, organic thin film transistors, quantum-well infrared photodetectors, Carbon Nano Tubes (CNTs) for targeted drug delivery, tin oxide powder and tin oxide   thin films for gas sensing, CNTs for field emission devices, simulation of Nanoscale MOSFETs, Nanosized SiC based quantum structures, Quantum-semiconductor-glass-nanocomposites, porous silicon for sensing of gas and biological spices, simulation of nano-devices, oxide based functional thin film nano-structures for Spintronics and quantum informatics, GaN, InGaN based quantum dots for LEDs, Nano silver oxide doped/ mixed with gold and copper for ultra high density storage devices, III/ V compound semiconductor based quantum dots technology, wide band gap semiconductors nanostructured materials and devices, semiconducting  Single Wall Carbon Nano Tubes (SWCNTs), CNTs based Gas sensor and Multi-functional magnetic nano particulates for cancer therapy.

Nanometrology

In order to implement the Nanoelectronics development program successfully, nanometrology (science of measurement at nanoscales) is also an requirement. The general trend towards increased miniaturization in manufacturing   to micro to nano  is not simply a scale problem, but involves facing new physics.

              A project has been taken up at National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi to address the issues of nanometrology by establishing a National nanometorlogy laboratory. This laboratory provides calibration and traceability for physical dimensions like linewidth, step height, surface texture and calibration of electrical parameters like low voltages in nanovolts, low currents in picoamperes, electric charge in femtocoulombs (fC).  It is expected to cater to the nanoscale measurements for various industrial applications including automotive, biomedical and semiconductor industry.

 Indian Nanoelectronics User Program

The Indian Nanoelectronics User Program (INUP) has been conceived and initiated by the Department of IT to facilitate and support generation in India of expertise and knowledge in nanoelectronics through participation and utilization of the facilities established at the Centres of Excellence in Nanoelectronics at IISc, Bangaluru and IIT Bombay, Mumbai by external users from academia, R&D institutions and Industry.  The INUP program aims to:

• Impart hands-on training in nanoelectronics to researchers from other institutions in the country and help train researchers in Nanoelectronics. Users from academic, research and industrial R&D institutions are trained through this project at three levels.

-          Short-term workshops to disseminate the outcome of the research activities. These workshops are also expected to provide exposure and awareness.

-          Hands-on training for selected researchers.

-          Execution of collaborative research projects by external users by providing support for fabrication and expert guidance.

• Assist in the initiation of research in nanoelectronics at various institutions in the country by enabling the execution of the work of external users at these centres.
• Collaborate with research teams at various Indian organizations and develop joint projects in nanoelectronics.
• Provide a platform for researchers in Naoelectronics to come together and benefit from complementary expertise.
• To generate more than 750 trained students, professional scientists and engineers etc., at various levels and take up about 40 research projects in Nanoelectronics.

The INUP has been utilized by researchers and engineers from academia, R&D organizations and industry.    More than 110 R&D projects from more than 100 external organizations across the country have been taken up so far under INUP. About 1150 researchers and students   from across India have been trained through INUP.

Patents, Publications

More than 500 articles have been published and more than 20 patents have been filed in the projects initiated under this programme.

Industry Participation and Commercialization

While initiatives have already been taken for establishing the R&D infrastructure for Nanoelectronics, the focus of programme is now progressively leaning to technology transfer, product development and commercialization.  A startup company viz. Nanosniff has been incubated at IIT Bombay for product development. A mechanism for incubation of startup companies and commercialization of technologies is being contemplated by the Department of IT in collaboration with other organizations. (PIB Feature).

The theme for 2012 International Day for Biological Diversity is Marine Biodiversity. Coastal and marine biodiversity form the basis of survival for billions of people around the world today. The ocean covers 71% of the surface area of the globe, and constitutes over 90% of the habitable space. Coastlines are supporting fragile ecosystems – mangroves, coral reefs, sea-grass and seaweeds. But the diversity of life in these areas is poorly understood and under-valued resulting in over-exploitation. Some of the marine species are disappearing and others are on the threat of extinction. The economic and market potential of marine biodiversity is still not properly understood while prospects of marine diversity has increased manifold. The number of patents being taken on products and processes based on marine life is increasing by leaps and bounds every year.

India has a coastline of about 7,500 km, of which about 5,400 km belong to Peninsular India and the remaining to the Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands. With less than 0.25% of the world’s coastline, India accommodates approximately 11% of the global population, who live in low elevation coastal areas. Fishing is a major livelihood options for millions of coastal communities. India’s coastal zone is endowed with coral reefs, mangroves, sea-grasses/weeds, salt marshes, sand dunes, estuaries and lagoons.

In India, all the three major reef types (atoll, fringing, and barrier) occur in most diverse, extensive and least disturbed reef areas. There are four major reef regions in India on all sides of its coastline. The Gulf of Kutch in the Northwest, Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar in the Southeast, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on the East and Lakshadweep archipelago in the West. Mangroves cover 4827 square km with about 57% of it along east coast, 23% along the west coast and the remaining 20% in Andaman and Nicobar Island. Fourteen species of sea-grasses with 6 genera are known in the Indian seas. All the above mentioned ecosystems are shelter for unique marine and terrestrial wildlife.

The economic potential of coral reefs is estimated to be $1,250 million/hectare/year. These are researched figures by economists. Consider that we realize a mere 10 per cent of this potential for the local people.

Even though humanity has repeatedly benefited from the marine and coastal ecosystems, our land and ocean based activities have made critical impacts on marine ecosystem. Indiscriminate discharge of wastes by coastal cities and industries and over-extraction of fish and other marine products are the major challenges.

Hence land-based activities, which have an adverse impact on coastal and marine ecosystems, need to be controlled. Further, since marine resources are generally renewable, its extraction should be restricted within its regeneration capacity. Promotion of Marine Protected Areas/Reserves is important for conserving and managing coastal and marine biodiversity. India has many Marine Protected Areas/Reserves and it need to be extend further.

A special and high level focus on marine and costal biodiversity by the Environment Ministers from around the World during the forthcoming eleventh meeting of Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 11) is expected to identify concerted efforts to not only protect marine and coastal biodiversity but also realize the economic potential of this natural treasure trove that provides livelihoods, protects us from climate change and ensures our food and nutritional securities are intact as well as enhanced with suitable interventions. (PIB Features).

The study recorded the bed times and wake times of 2,200 participants, aged nine to 16 years, and compared their weight and use of free time over four days.

Children who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese than those who went to bed early and got up early, reports the journal SLEEP.

Late-night owls were almost twice as likely to be physically inactive and 2.9 times more likely to be glued to TV and computer screens or play video games for more hours than recommended guidelines.

‘The children who went to bed late and woke up late, and the children who went to bed early and woke up early got virtually the same amount of sleep in total,’ said co-author Carol Maher, postdoctoral fellow with the University of South Australia.

‘Scientists have realized in recent years that children who get less sleep tend to do worse on a variety of health outcomes, including the risk of being overweight and obese,’ said Maher, according to a South Australia statement.

Mornings are more conducive to physical activity for young people than nights, which offer prime-time TV programming and social networking opportunities, Maher said.

At a time when research is showing that teenagers have a natural tendency to stay up late and wake up late, the results of this study could stand as a warning, Maher said.

When FIR and charge sheet was filed long ago, the CBI did not think of freezing accounts of Media organizations run by Jagan. But as June by-elections are nearing the ruling party felt the heat and try to stifle the resources, freezing accounts and banning the Government advertisements. In 2009 Sakshi substantially influenced the minds of voters against Telugu Desam and helped Congress to retain power. Sakshi has extensively used the video clippings of NTR’s criticism against his son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu alleging backstabbing seriously affected TDP chances.  Now Sakshi daily and TV news channel campaigning for YSR Congress Party, which is threatening by-poll prospects of both Congress and TDP.

If there is clinching evidence why not the state arrest Jagan and get charges framed by court, which is eternally being delayed because of inaction of political bosses? If they cannot arrest for fear of upsurge in his popularity, why cripple accounts of Sakshi? Can state target extinction of media in the name of regulation? How can CBI be used as subordinate tool to wreck vengeance against hostile opposition party and its media?

It is in this context, seizure of bank accounts of Jaganmohan Reddy’s Sakshi daily and TV, followed by the stoppage of Government Advertisements smacked of ‘mala fides’ which vitiate the legality of action, directly impacting survival of Sakshi. Legally the CBI has every authority to seize the accounts to prevent disappearance of ill-gotten money. Underlying object of Section 102 of Criminal Procedure Code was to empower the court to get hold of money linked to crime. Investigating agency can seize account if the assets have direct links with offence (as per Supreme Court in State of Maharashtra vs Tapas D. Neogy on 16 September, 1999). Apex court also mandated issuing of notice before seizure orders. However, Bombay High Court held in Vinoskumar Ramachandran  vs The State of Maharashtra, (Criminal Application no.4376 of 2009) that issuing notice is absurd as that facilitates accused to transfer money.

If it is so essential why CBI did not seize Sakshi accounts long ago when it contained more than Rs. 350 crore, but froze now after it dwindled to Rs. 100 crore? CBI is yet to prove that this account was depository of proceeds of crime. Procedural law gave authority to seize only to protect the money to be handed over to the victims of cheating besides valuing it as a piece of evidence. It will remain evidence whether seized or not.

Mala fide action

Using statutory power for purposes other than achieving objects of that statute would amount to misuse and politically motivated, as per the decisions of Supreme Court in several such attacks on media. If excessive exercise of power affects media organization, it is nothing but attack on the freedom of speech and expression. In fact every attack on freedom of press is apparently by use of some statutory authority only. Here are a few examples. Imposing heavy duty on import of newsprint was held to be the violation of Article 19(1)(a) by Supreme Court Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy in Indian Express v Union of India, AIR 1986 SC 515. Freedom of press means freedom from interference from authority. If the result of action would be disastrous to the owners of Indian Express as they would have to pay heavy customs duty that would be a violation.

Because Indian Express exposed his actions during emergency as ‘excesses’ Lt Governor of Delhi Administration, Mr. Jagmohan prevailed over Delhi local authority to forfeit lease of newspaper building and issued a notice of re-entry in 1986. The Lt. Governor also held out a threat at the press conference that the new ExpressBuildingmight have to be demolished for alleged violations. On its petition Supreme Court (Express Newspapers Pvt. Ltd. & Ors vs Union Of India & Ors, AIR 1986 SC 872) held that action was meant for collateral purpose of harming the interests of freedom which amounted to mala fide exercise of power and hence unconstitutional. Such orders were really intended and meant to bring about the stoppage of the publication of the Indian Express which has throughout been critical of the Government in power whenever it went wrong on a matter of policy or in principle, the court explained.

In Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India (AIR 1978 SC 597) the Supreme Court pointed out that even where a statutory provision empowering an authority to take action is constitutionally valid, action taken under it may offend a fundamental right and in that event, though the statutory provision is valid, the action may be void. In this case the Government of India decided to impound petitioner’s passport under s 10(3) (c) of the Passport Act “in public interest”. The direct and inevitable effect of an order impounding a passport may be to abridge or take away freedom of speech and expression or the right to carry on a profession and where such is the case, the order would be invalid, unless saved by Article 19(2) or Article 19(6).

Test of Reasonableness

In Bennett Coleman’s case (AIR 1973 SC 106) the Court indicated that the extent of permissible limitations on this freedom was indicated by Article 19(2) of the Constitution itself. It was laid down that permissible restrictions have to be imposed by a duly enacted law and must not be excessive i.e. they must not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the object of the law under which they are sought to be imposed. The power to impose restrictions on fundamental rights is essentially a power to ‘regulate’ the exercise of those rights. In fact, ‘regulation’ and not extinction of that which is to be regulated is, generally speaking, the extent to which permissible restrictions may go in order to satisfy the test of reasonableness.”  The true test, according to the Court, is whether the effect of the impugned action is to take away or abridge fundamental rights. Applying the same test here, the orders of seizure of accounts might have a direct impact on survival of the media.  It may be recalled that Supreme Court prevented the state from seizing the accounts of Ramoji Rao while initiating prosecution for allegedly collecting deposits for Margadarshi in breach of RBI Act.

While rulers tried to defend action as part of rule of law, Telugu Desam Party, Eenadu, eminent journalists and editor’s guild criticized it as an assault on freedom of press. In a similar situation now TDP and a section of press are not saying the same obviously for political reasons. Powers that be should understand that any abuse of state power is an attack on freedom and selective use of power against media of political rival is also misuse.

Stopping Ads to Sakshi

With the stoppage of Government Advertisements in the wake of elections crucial and decisive for future of YSR Congress party and ruling Congress party, the Kiran Kumar Government resorted to starve Sakshi daily by obvious abuse of power.

The A.P. State Information and Public Relations Commissioner R. V. Chandravadan ordered on May 9 asking the government departments, agencies, public sector undertakings, corporations and organizations to “withhold releasing of advertisements and notifications” with immediate effect “in public interest.” The order added that the ban would be in force till the charges against the firms are cleared. It may be recalled that as part of its investigation into the Jagan’s disproportionate assets case, the CBI has seized over 46 files related to advertisements to Sakshi from the I&PR department.

YSR favoured Son

It was during the regime of Jagan’s father YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the government issued an order on April 24, 2008, empanelling Sakshi daily for issue of government advertisements, by relaxing the rules. While Sakshi newspaper was launched on March 23, 2008, Sakshi TV went on air on March 1, 2009. According to media reports, of the total state government budget of about Rs 200 crore for the print media for the years 2008-11, the lion’s share of over Rs 101.63 crore (over 50%) was allotted to Sakshi newspaper. Similarly, of the nearly Rs 40 crore ads for the electronic media in the last three years, Sakshi TV got advertisements of over Rs 17 crore. “Clearly, the two Sakshi media received undue preferential treatment during the YSR era and a little after that,” explained a news report in Times of India dated May 11,2012.

Apart from the advertisements released by the I&PR department, Sakshi newspaper and TV received ads from various other state agencies like APSRTC, APTransco, AP Genco, Singareni Collieries, Irrigation, Roads and Buildings, Excise and Police departments etc., altogether netting a revenue of over Rs 300 crore to the Sakshi group over the last 4 years, as reported.

Generally the rules prohibit Government from issuing its ads until the newspaper runs for six months and obtain recognition from Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicities of Union Government. This was not considered at all. Even otherwise, allotting huge resource of state by the chief minister YS Rajasekha Reddy to Sakshi owned by his own son Jagan is apparently vitiated by personal bias which no norms of administrative law would approve.  It is almost left hand giving the state money to his right hand.

At present, Sakshi is an established newspaper claiming to have largest circulation even surpassing the no.1 daily Eenadu. As per the rules of the Information department it is quite eligible to get ads on par with other eligible dailies like Eenadu.  Nowhere is it stipulated that if charge-sheet is filed against the owner of the media organization the government advertisements should be stopped and it never happened anywhere inIndia. Even if such a rule existed, it cannot stand test of Constitution. It is a case where state flouts rules to render undue favours and to deny eligible share of ads too at different times.

State Ads: Not a right but principle of equality

Though advertisement is staple food for every media, no media organization has right to advertisements from state or any other client. It is absolutely free choice of the advertiser to choose its medium. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed by the Constitution under Article 19(1)(a). But it has a right to be considered equal in similar conditions when state is issuing advertisements as per its approved frame work of rules. If state decides to single out a newspaper in spite of its eligibility to get the ads, it could be arbitrary decision and could be unconstitutional for violating Article 14.

In Dainik Samband v State of Tripura (AIR 1989 Gau 30) it was held that discriminatory allotment of Government advertisements to different newspapers of same category by state government would impair both the fundamental rights, under Articles 14 and 19. The case on the point which is most relevant in the context of stoppage of advertisements to Sakshi is case of its rival Eenadu. When Eenadu questioned (Ushodaya Publication v State of AP, AIR 1981 AP 109) non-release of advertisements by Congress government because of its anti-Congress critical writings it was held that newspapers had no right to ads from Government and Government has every authority to choose the newspaper for its ads. At the same time it was held in this case that the Government had no power to distribute the largess through issue of advertisement, it should not be arbitrary or discriminatory to muzzle a section of press which criticize its policies and programs. It was further explained in Gulam Nabi v State of Jammu & Kashmir (AIR 1990 J & K 13), if state chose to completely stop issuance of advertisements to all newspapers none could have grievance against.

At the same time the state cannot venture to limit or curb the space allotted by media for ads in the name of regulating the news advertisement ratio in ‘public interest’. The apex court held in Bennett Coleman v Union of India (AIR 1973 SC 106): “the restrictions imposed discriminating against bigger dailies while curbing advertisements in a newspaper the state must keep within permissible limits not only clause 6 but also clause 2 of Article 19, for advertisements are a substantial source of revenue of a newspaper so that if the restrictions imposed by the state unduly curb the advertisement-revenue of a newspaper, it would constitute a restriction of the freedom of expression itself”.

Relying on a common investor Reliance

It is relevant to look into the issue of ownership with reference to these two media giants. Sakshi alleged a nexus between Eenadu, Reliance and Chandrababu Naidu of TDP. The Eenadu made an official announcement in January 2012 that its 100 per cent stake of 10 ETV channels – except Telugu ETV and ETV2- would be transferred to Reliance Industries Limited, in lieu of its 40 per cent stake in Ushodaya Enterprises. In Telugu ETV and ETV2 news channel, Ramoji Rao will have 51 per cent controlling stake, while 49 per cent will be with Reliance. Saakshi reiterated once again that Mukesh Ambani invested in Ushodaya Enterprises through Nimesh Kampani for the benefits extended by Chandrababu to Reliance in KG Basin. Sakshi also questioned the value of the companies and why Reliance was paying so much for so little. Sakshi also alleged that if cases against Ramoji in courts were proved, he would have to pay Rs. 7,700 crores as fine, and hence his businesses are not safe.

It is further interesting to note that TDP leader, Revanth Reddy, MLA said in December 2011 that the same Nimesh Kampany invested in Jagan’s Sakshi media group. Explaining the flow of funds, Revanth alleged that Nimesh Kampani units (J M financials, Latitude, Merchantile Pvt ltd) had invested Rs. 27.65 crore in the Metaphor Real estate and Projects Ltd of Patluri Vara Prasad close to YSR which in turn had invested Rs.10 crore in Jagati Publications of YS Jagan. This takes the governance to the wider and significant issues of media freedom vis-à-vis the rule of law especially when the freedom guaranteed to individual citizen is being ruined by corrupt corporate giants.

The proximity of two media houses with the Government at different times, their ownership patterns, sources of funds including their transfer to companies which operate as frontal agencies of one major corporate giant, in this case Reliance, and involvement in other activities of criminal nature and investigations bring forth the serious issues of democracy and public interest. The link between seizure of accounts and stoppage of advertisements to Sakshi and the prosecution for disproportionate assets is issue which is certainly beyond the scope of media freedom. While seizure of accounts could be illegal if ultimately proved in a court of law, stoppage of ads can be viewed as potential harm to freedom of media firm owned by political rival. Selective investigations, motivated timings of freezing accounts and stoppage of ads will help accused in courts to get out of criminal justice. The state should allow the CBI or police and prosecution to act as facts demand without considering political consequences.

Prof.Madabhushi Sridhar,

Professor and Head, Center for Media Law & Public Policy, NALSAR University of Law Hyderabad.

 

 I RISE to join all the members of parliament and the rest of the country on this 60th birthday of independent India’s parliament. As the country celebrates this sashtipurti – which ancient belief suggests marks the beginning of a new life; it, however, does not say a ‘better life’ –  it is incumbent upon the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha today to make the parliament and our democratic system a better one for the future.  This requires consideration of at least four aspects.

 Before we discuss these issues, it is necessary to recollect what the then prime minister of Britain, Sir Anthony Eden, said: “Of all the experiments in government, which have been attempted since the beginning of time, I believe that the Indian venture into parliamentary government is the most exciting…. The Indian venture is not a pale imitation of our practice at home, but a magnified and multiplied reproduction on a scale we have never dreamt of.”  Indeed, during these six decades, we have consolidated this process and enriched its content, overcoming the challenges of internal emergency and the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

 The centrality of our Constitution lies in the sovereignty of the people. This is exercised by those elected to the legislature (parliament/state assemblies).  The executive (government) is accountable to the legislature which, in turn, is accountable to the people.

 The efficiency of this mechanism depends on the duration and proper conduct of the parliamentary proceedings.  On this score, there is much need for corrective action.  During the last two decades, the parliament never sat for more than a hundred days in a year. The closest was in 1992 with 98 sittings.  The 14th Lok Sabha was marked by the least  in parliament’s history with 332 sittings (an average of 66 a year).  Worse, 24 per cent of this time was wasted in disruptions and adjournments. The British parliament, on the other hand, sits for at least 160 days a year on the average.

 Clearly, unless the parliament sits for longer durations, its vigilance over the government is not effective. Thus, the executive’s accountability to the legislature becomes the casualty. This seriously undermines our Constitutional scheme of things engendering authoritarian tendencies. This needs correction by ensuring a mandatory 100 sittings a year through a Constitutional amendment.

 The second issue relates to the role of the judiciary as being both the interpreter of the Constitution and law, the custodian of the rights of citizens through the process of judicial review and the delivery of justice.  During the last session, the law minister informed us that there are 3.2 crore cases pending  in high courts and subordinate courts across the country while 56,383 cases were pending in the Supreme Court.  As of December 2010, there were 3,50,003 undertrail prisoners languishing in jail due to such delay.  Justice delayed is justice denied. The system of delivery of justice, thus, needs to be urgently beefed up. Further, recent experiences of judicial activism have blurred the delineation between the three organs of democracy.  The judiciary interprets the law but cannot make them or  decide on public policy. The Constitutional mandate is for judicial review and not for judicial activism.

 The time has come for us to seriously consider the establishment of a National Judicial Commission with representatives from the three wings and the Bar. This could deal with an entire range of issues from the appointment and transfer of judges, examining complaints of corruption and other expressions of possible judicial misconduct and for ensuring judicial accountability.

Thirdly, the maturation of Indian democracy needs to be accompanied by certain structural changes to enrich  the process further. Consider the fact that not once in our history since the first general elections in 1952 has a government been formed which commanded  over 50 per cent of the polled vote. All the governments at the centre had more people voting against them than supporting them. The closest to reach the majority mark was the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1984 that polled 48.1 per cent with 415 seats. The lowest was the 1998 NDA government whose alliance polled 36.2 per cent. Thus, democracy as the rule of the majority has not yet been achieved in its full sense. This merits a serious consideration  of the proportional representation system where the people vote for the parties, who, in turn,  will send to the parliament the number of MPs, on the basis of a  prior-declared prioritised list, in proportion to votes they receive.  Any government that is formed on this basis by a majority of MPs in the parliament will necessarily reflect the majority as expressed by the electorate. This issue was seriously debated in the Constituent Assembly, but in its wisdom, it adopted the British ‘first past the post’ system.  The 1928 Motilal Nehru Committee report had recommended the system of proportional representation as the best answer to reflect India’s diversity.

 In the Indian context, therefore, a combination of proportional representation with the present form may be ideal. This could be done, for instance, by clubbing two adjoining constituencies where people, with two votes, vote for individual candidates as well as the parties.

 An additional advantage of this system would be the prescription of a minimum percentage of the national vote required for parties to send their representatives to the parliament as per the submitted list. They, of course, can be represented by individual candidates who may win. In the coalition era, this would be of immense relief to foil unreasonable pressures and demands.

 The responsibility of the media, the Fourth Estate, is also an issue on which we will have to do certain fine-tuning without encroaching and, most respectfully, upholding the right to expression, the fundamental right to expression, which is necessary.

 Finally, notwithstanding all the talk of ‘inclusive growth’, the reality is that during the course of the last two decades of economic reforms, there have been two Indias in the making – a `shining’ India for the rich and a `suffering’ India for the poor.  In this context, recollect what Baba Saheb Ambedkar had to say when he presented our Constitution’s draft for final consideration and adoption by the Constituent Assembly.

 “On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the  principle of one man-one vote and one vote-one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man-one value.

 “How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?

 “If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril.  We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has laboriously built up.”  (25th November, 1949)

 The parliament must enact necessary laws which empower our people economically, politically, socially and culturally.  One man, one vote, one value must be transformed into one man, one value. The time has come for us to heed the above warning.

 As incumbent members of parliament  at this moment, it is our responsibility to rise to the occasion to create a better future.

SITARAM YECHURY ON 60 YEARS OF INDIAN PARLIAMENT

One telling signal was the victory of Francois Hollande in the French presidential run-off, making this the first presidential victory for the Left since 1988 and only the second occasion when an incumbent French president has not been re-elected. Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat may partly be the result of his excessively flamboyant style and arrogance. But it is largely the consequence of his willingness to collaborate with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in pushing for fiscal consolidation across Europe and imposing austerity on countries whose public debt levels were arbitrarily declared as unsustainable.

In Germany, Merkel too has been sent a warning. Her Christian Democratic Union has been inflicted a huge defeat by the centre-left Social Democratic Party in elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state. In the Netherlands, the government has collapsed and the country prepares for elections, as parties of both the right and the left flounder between support for deficit cuts necessitated by the new European fiscal compact and fear of voter anger.

BAILOUT DESIGNED TO

HELP PRIVATE CAPITAL

But the country that illustrates best the chaos that can ensue from the austerity philosophy that lacks rationale in the midst of a crisis is Greece. Burdened with austerity ever since the first bail-out agreement in 2010, Greece has not only seen incomes and output shrink dramatically, but is experiencing an unemployment rate of 22 per cent, with one in every two jobseekers under the age of 24 unemployed. The austerity measures were ostensibly aimed at reducing Athens’ debt from 160 per cent of GDP to 120 by 2020, through cuts in wages, pensions, healthcare, public sector employment, and much else. But with the austerity slowing growth, revenues have been falling short as well, making it near impossible to meet staggered debt-reduction targets. The bailout has failed.

The bailout was actually designed to help private finance capital. Access to credit from Eurozone governments, the European Central Bank and the IMF prevented the repudiation of private debt and an exit of Greece from the euro. In 2010, before the first bailout agreement, Greece owed about 310 billion euros, almost wholly to the private sector. According to the Greek Debt Management Office’s estimates, Greece now owes 266 billion euros, of which close to 75 per cent is owed to the European Central Bank, Eurozone governments and the IMF. While there is talk of a greater than 50 per cent haircut taken by private banks, the real outcome has been a huge swap of private debt for official debt.

The cruel cut was that this redistribution in favour of financiers who had lent to Greece without diligence had at its other pole severe austerity. That this would be unacceptable was known. Hence, when former Prime Minister George Papandreou announced on 31 October 2011 that the government would hold a referendum to assess popular support for the terms of the bailout agreement, the response from the counterparties to the bailout was aggressive. The move, which was seen as a means to scupper the bailout deal, was attacked both within and outside Greece. This led to its withdrawal and the resignation of Papandreou as prime minister ten days later. Clearly, democracy was not seen as a suitable environment for implementing the austerity presented as a prerequisite for restoring confidence and kick-starting growth.

Elections were also postponed for long so as to allow an unrepresentative “national government”, in the form of an opportunistic coalition between the centre-right New Democracy and the PanHellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), to obtain legislative sanction for the austerity measures. The intention was to accede to the demands of the German and French governments, the European Central Bank and the IMF, even though protestors clashed with police outside parliament while the details of the austerity package were being debated and made into law.

But the elections had to be finally held. And they have left the erstwhile ruling coalition short of a majority, with the New Democracy winning 19 per cent of the vote and 108 (out of 300) seats in parliament and Pasok garnering 13 per cent of the vote and 41 seats. What is remarkable is the showing of Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, which came in second with 17 per cent of the vote and 52 seats. In the October 2009 polls, Syriza had won just 4.6 per cent of the vote and 13 seats. The vote was clearly a rejection of the two leading parties that had come together to accept and implement the austerity agenda in return for bailout funding.

POLITICAL REJECTION

OF AUSTERITY

Anger against austerity has also led to a good showing by the Ultra-right and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party that reportedly advocates forcing immigrants into work camps and planting landmines along the Turkish border. The party has won 6.9 per cent of the vote and 21 seats in the Greek parliament.

But with two seats short of a majority, the coalition led by New Democracy has little chance of forming the government, since it is committed to both staying with the euro and continuing with the bailout policies. The one party that could have helped form a new “national government”, the Democratic Left, which has won 19 seats, is committed to the euro but campaigned for a reversal of austerity measures.

The next to get the opportunity was Alexis Tsipras of Syriza. His declared objective is to scrap the austerity measures. In Tsipras’ view, there cannot be a government of “national salvation” to implement austerity, since such austerity amounts not to salvation “but tragedy for the people and the place”. “The parties that signed the memorandum now form a minority. Their signatures have been delegitimised by the people,” Tsipras is reported to have said.

Unfortunately, Syriza too could not put together a government that can reject austerity and place the burden of preventing a Greek default and keeping Greece in the eurozone on the rest of Europe. In the event, efforts are still on at the time of writing to somehow cobble together a centre-right government with a face-saving relook at the austerity measures. If that works, the problem would once again be temporarily postponed. If it fails, Greece’s citizens will get one more chance to get a government that rejects austerity. This time they are likely to deliver.

The political rejection of austerity is visible in France as well. Immediately after his election, Hollande declared that his election signalled that “austerity does not have to be inevitable” for Europe. That is significant, especially since his campaign promises included higher taxes on business and the rich, employment subsidies, and a partial reversal of the rise in the retirement age to 62.

There is therefore some hope that the world would see a retreat from an unthinking commitment to fiscal conservatism. But the transition would be difficult and divisive. Merkel has already warned Athens, grappling with finding itself a government, that it would have to stick to the reforms and budget targets agreed with lenders in the bailout deal. But this is not good for Greece, for Europe or the rest of the world. The reason why spending cuts in the middle of a recession are seen as making good sense is flimsy to say the least. Improved fiscal positions and reduced government debt is expected to improve “investor” confidence, leading to more international investments and credit and a revival of demand and growth. However, the reason why investors should feel confident when economies are languishing in a recession is never made clear. And the evidence that they don’t is ignored. Consider a country like Ireland, which has been a disciplined student of the “austerity for confidence” school. Having recorded a negative 0.4 per cent growth in GDP in 2012, Ireland grew by just 0.7 per cent in 2011. And growth in the last quarter of 2011 was just a little above half than in the second quarter. Other countries that have been experimenting with the contradictory austerity-induced revival strategy, such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and the UK have also been disappointed, as was to be expected. Nowhere is the turn to austerity as severe as in the peripheral countries of Europe. So the political backlash had to begin there. But with France showing the same tendency, the popular mood is difficult to dismiss. Hopefully this would restore some balance in economic policy making across the world.

 ENCOURAGEMENT FROM WESTERN POWERS

Now that the prospects of open foreign military intervention in Syria have dimmed, the rebels hope to plunge the country into a long drawn out civil war. Al Qaeda too has entered the fray in a big way. Suicide bomb attacks have started occurring at regular intervals in the capital Damascus and the country’s second largest city, Aleppo. The rebels continue to be supplied with money, training and heavy weaponry by a host of nations, led by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with active encouragement from western powers. Like in the case of Libya, western capitals are using the auspices of the Arab League to institute a regime change in Damascus.

The Arab League resolution, presented to the UNSC, masqueraded as an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the violence that has gripped Syria since March last year. The resolution in fact was a blueprint for regime change as it demanded the resignation of the Syrian president and the holding of multiparty elections. The resolution had gone on to state that it would review Syria’s implementation of the key clauses within 15 days of it being passed. The resolution had warned that, in case of Syria’s non- compliance, “further measures” would be adopted in consultation with the Arab League.

The American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, while pronouncing from the rooftops that “Assad has to go,” also kept on insisting that there were no plans “to pursue any kind of military intervention.” The French foreign minster, who played a big role in unleashing the dogs of war in Libya, said that the talk of foreign intervention in Syria “is a myth.” The British foreign secretary, William Hague, also said that the resolution did not envisage use of military force but then went on to add that other “measures will be considered” if there is no immediate end to the violence in Syria. Surprisingly, India too sided with the Arab League sponsored resolution.

INDIA’S STANCE & CHINA’S, RUSSIA’S 

Till recently, India was consistent in its support for Syria. The two countries have had a strong bilateral relationship for the last four decades.  But recent instances have shown that when it comes to crunch situations, India end up by siding with the West. It happened earlier in the IAEA on the resolutions censuring Iran. During the passing of the UNSC resolution on Libya, India had abstained. Indian officials claim that abstention was not an option this time. They claim that India worked overtime to include clauses in the resolution that would ensure that the will of Syrian people would be the decisive factor, not outside military intervention. They also say that the Arab League’s stand on Syria was an important factor that led to India voting for the resolution, which called for the resignation of the Syrian president. South Asian diplomats based in Damascus told this correspondent during a recent visit that President Assad continues to be popular among ordinary Syrians and would get around 60 per cent of the votes if the opposition agrees to the holding of fair and free elections. Recent reports in the western media have admitted that President Assad continues to have the support of the minority groups as well as the secular members of the majority Sunni community.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had warned that the passing of the UNSC resolution on Syria would inevitably lead to another Libya like military intervention. Lavrov pointed out that the resolution’s call “to withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns and return them to their original home barracks” was an ultimatum no sovereign government could accept. And in the case of Syria, the insurrection was being aided and abetted by the West. He said that there was no justification for unleashing bombs on Syria just because the opposition there was refusing to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the government. China’s ambassador to the UN, Li Baodong, told the UNSC that his country was opposed to “pushing for forced regime change in Syria as it violates the UN Charter and the basic norms guiding the practice of international relations.”

Washington and its allies had worked overtime to convince Russia and China to go along with the Arab League resolution. Behind the scenes assurances were given that their interests in Syria would not be affected by regime change. Syrian opposition leaders were dispatched to meet Russian diplomats to assure them that Russian interests will be preserved in a post-Assad era. Syria has been a long standing ally of Moscow. Much of the weaponry for the Syrian security forces is provided by Russia. In recent period, China has also been selling military equipment to Syria. Both Moscow and Beijing are well aware that the regime change project envisaged by West for Syria is part of the grand strategy to weaken the resistance to US hegemony in the region. If Assad falls, the Lebanese resistance movement — the Hezbollah — will be next in Washington’s crosshairs. After that it will be the turn of Iran. War clouds are already hovering over Iran with the US military significantly bolstering its presence in the Persian Gulf.

PRO-WEST GROUPS ENGINEERING VIOLENCE

After the resolution failed in the Security Council, western leaders were sharply critical of Moscow and China. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, stated that Russia and China bore “the responsibility for the horrors that are occurring on the ground in Syria.” The Arab street has not forgotten that the US has wielded the most number of vetoes in the Security Council, most of them on behalf of its closest ally in the region — Israel. The massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese by Israeli forces through the years have gone uncensored and unpunished with the connivance of Washington. As for the US itself, it has been responsible for the worst instances of human rights violations. The massacre of civilians in Fallujah is only a recent illustration.

 In the last couple of months, the Syrian government has made several gestures to show to the international community that it was serious about ending the cycle of bloody violence. The Arab League was allowed to send in its monitoring mission despite misgivings about its motives. The head of the Arab League’s mission, Mohammad al-Dabi, had in his report said that the situation was improving when the observers were on the ground. Al-Dabi, a former intelligence chief of Sudan, while addressing a press conference in Cairo in third week of January, criticised the foreign media for exaggerating the violence in Syria, stressing that the situation inside the country had improved since the monitoring mission began its work in December. He also said that the Syrian government fully cooperated with the mission. But Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are backing the Islamist dominated Syrian National Council and the Free Syria Army, are fixated on regime change in Damascus. The Arab League’s monitoring mission issued a report which said that the government alone was not responsible for the continuing bloodshed. Saudi Arabia, the main financier of the mission, withdrew its observers, unhappy with the report. The mission was forced to cease its work and withdraw from Syria.

 On February 12, al-Dabi was forced to resign as head of the monitoring mission by the Arab League. After that a request was put to Damascus for the observer’s mission to be allowed in once again. This time the Syrian government refused to grant permission as the Arab League in its meeting in Cairo on February 12 had also called for a joint peace keeping force comprising of the UN and the Arab League states to Syria.

 The Arab League’s monitoring commission’s report had categorically stated that there was no organised, lethal attack by the Syrian government against peaceful protestors. Instead, the report stated that armed gangs were responsible for carrying out terror attacks against civilians, leading to the thousands of deaths, including over a thousand Syrian troops. The report gave specific instances of bombing of civilian buses and trains and the sabotaging of gas pipelines.

 WESTERN GAME STILL CONTINUES

The five member Arab League’s Ministerial Committee approved the report, with only Qatar voting against it. Qatar has now assumed the chairmanship of the Arab League though it was the turn of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to do so. The PA vacated the post in favour of Qatar. Qatar has since announced 400 million dollars in aid to the cash strapped PA. The Emir of Qatar had issued an appeal for open military intervention in Syria, saying that his country was willing to deploy troops there. Qatar, along with France and Britain, was among the first countries to send Special Forces clandestinely to Libya when the counter-revolution against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi began early last year. New Delhi too ignored the Arab League’s monitoring mission’s report and preferred to cast its lot with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which dominates decision making in the Arab League and the West on the issue of regime change in Syria.

 It has been evident for some months that sections of the Syrian opposition are aligned with terror groups. The western media still gives credence to allegations that all the terror attacks are the handiwork of the government. The al Qaeda has claimed credit for the three big terror attacks in Damascus and Aleppo. In a video recording released in the second week of February, the al Qaeda chief, Ayman al Zawahri, called on Muslims in the region to join the uprising against “the pernicious, cancerous regime” in Syria. Another report from Tripoli quoted the Libyan foreign minister as saying that the interim government will not stop Libyans from joining the fight against the Syrian government. The interim government in Libya, installed under NATO supervision, has already recognised the Syrian National Council and has formally handed over the Syrian embassy in Tripoli to the rebel group. The Libyan Islamist leader, Abdulhakim Belhadj, who now occupies a top position in the government, met with leaders of the Syrian Free Army in Istanbul recently. According to reports, Libyan fighters were among the first foreign fighters to reach Syria and fight alongside the Syrian rebels in hotspots like Homs and Hama. There are also unconfirmed reports about Qatari and British Special Forces helping the Free Syrian Army. Washington has called for the establishment of a “humanitarian corridor” to assist the anti-government rebels in Syria.

 Whatever be the merits of the case against the cartoon, the matter should not be treated as one of mere executive discretion. This establishes the kind of precedent that should be avoided.  Such issues are bound to come up from time to time, therefore appropriate procedures have to be followed, such as the setting up of a committee of academics to look into each case, so that summary judgments of the ministers concerned, under political pressures of various kinds, do not determine the contents of our academic syllabi.

 We strongly condemn the vandalism perpetrated by a group of people in the office of Professor Suhas Palshikar, one of the advisors for the textbook. Such vandalism is fundamentally antithetical to the democratic values cherished by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar for which he is  justly revered by all Indians.

 The signatories are:

Romila Thapar,  Prabhat Patnaik, Zoya Hasan, Amitabh Kundu,  Mushirul Hasan,  C P Chandrasekar, Pralay Kanungo, Gopal Guru, Jayati Ghosh, Ram Rahman,   N K Sharma,        Sudhanva Deshpande, Rajendra Prasad,  P K Shukla  and    M K Raina.

CASTE OPPRESSION AND UNTOUCHABILITY

The shameless practice of untouchability and caste oppression unfortunately continues in our country. Caste oppression is the worst form of human subjugation and is intolerable and unacceptable in any civilised society. There exist numerous forms of untouchability. Dalits are denied elementary democratic rights. Despicably it pervades all spheres of socio-economic and cultural life. More than one million dalits are forced to work as manual scavengers despite a legal ban on the inhuman practice. The shameful Devadasi system is prevailing in many parts of the country.  Dalits continue to be victims of untouchability, caste violence, human rights violations and atrocities day in and day out. Nearly 30,000 cases of crimes against dalits are registered every year; while a large number of atrocities and cases of discrimination go unreported. In many parts of Northern India, khap panchayats are ruling the roost.  Sixty four years of bourgeois-landlord rule in India has failed to make a serious dent on untouchability and caste oppression despite the presence of constitutional provisions.

In addition to untouchability, atrocities and violation of human rights, discrimination in all walks of life is also common. Economic discrimination in terms of inequality of assets, inequality of opportunities and political discrimination in terms of allotment of schemes and budgetary allocations is rampant. The condition of the adivasis or Scheduled Tribes is also equally pathetic and they are also denied the basic dignity of life, equal opportunities, access to education, health and employment like the dalits.

CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS FOR DALITS AND TRIBALS

The Indian constitution guarantees safeguards to dalits under Part XVI and also provides for the protection and promotion of their social, economic, educational, cultural and political interests, to bridge the disparities with other sections of society. Fundamental rights, directive principles of State policy and the fifth and sixth schedules of the constitution try to guarantee certain safeguards for dalits and adivasis. Article 330 guarantees reservations to SCs and STs, but after the implementation of the neo-liberal policies, job opportunities have got reduced to the minimum level. Private sector has, in no way, implemented this constitutional provision. The so-called affirmative action is confined to papers only. Despite the constitutional safeguards and developmental planning attempted through the Five Year Plans, the dalits and adivasis are lagging behind the general population in various socio-economic indicators.

DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF DALITS

The total population of dalits who are classified as Scheduled Castes as per the 2001 census was 16.6 per cent of the total population. In 2000, about two-thirds of SC rural households were landless or near-landless, compared with one-third amongst the non-Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities; less than one-third of SC households had acquired access to capital assets, compared with 60 per cent among non-SC/ST households; and about 60 per cent of SC households still had to depend on wage labour, compared with one-fourth among non-SC/ST households.

The percentage of agricultural labourers is 51.4 per cent for Scheduled Castes and for others it is 19 per cent (data for 1999 to 2000). Literacy rate of dalits is 54.69 per cent as per census 2001.  But dalit enrollment in graduate education is merely 8.37 per cent as against 91.63 per cent for others.

Disparities of a similar magnitude exist in their health status. The incidence of anaemia among SC women and the mortality rate among SC children are high compared with those among their non-SC/ST counterparts. Discrimination in various market and non-market transactions, including access to social services such as education, health, housing, and in political participation is also common.

The cumulative impact of these disparities is reflected in the high levels of poverty in the dalit community. In 1999-2000, about 36 per cent of dalits were poor as compared with 21 per cent among non-SC/STs. The prevalence of poverty was particularly high among dalit households that were engaged in wage labour in rural areas (50 per cent) and urban areas (60 per cent). Although there may have been a slight improvement in material conditions of small sections of the dalit community due to reservations and resultant jobs, it is far below desired levels. In all the above cases, the discrimination against dalit women is much worse.

STATUS OF TRIBALS

Tribals constitute 8.2 per cent of the population. But they are deprived the share proportionate to their population in the funds. Tribal sub-plan is being implemented since 1974. But the results are far from satisfactory. In 2010-11, budget plan outlay for tribal sub-plan is 3.16 per cent only. In the 2011-12 it was increased to 5.11 per cent. Even then this is much below their due in proportion to their population. Actual expenditure is very much less than the allocation. 

SC SUB PLAN (SPECIAL COMPONENT PLAN) AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

The Sixth Plan identified the lack of economic support as the main cause of extremely slow pace of development of the Scheduled Castes during the earlier plans. It came up with a new strategy to address this concern. The objective was to reduce the gap between the dalits and the non-dalits. The Sixth Plan (1980-85) marked a shift in the approach to the development of SCs. Special emphasis was laid on the implementation of the newly launched Scheduled Caste Special Component Plan (SCP), later it was converted into SC Sub-Plan (SCSP) facilitating easy convergence and pooling of resources from all the other developmental sectors in proportion to the population of SCs and monitoring of various developmental programmes for the benefit of SCs. In the process of implementation of liberalisation policies, the concept of Special Component Plan also got diluted and renamed it as Sub Plan.  In the capacity of member secretary of Planning Commission, the present prime minister Manmohan Singh has issued guidelines in 1980.  The new strategy so evolved was a combination of the following three instruments: (1) The Special Component Plan of the states and central ministries (SCP), (ii) The Special Central Assistance (SCA) and (iii) The Scheduled Castes Development Corporations in the States (SCDCs). The programme was mandatory for all state governments and all their departments as well as central government ministries and was universal in application. The SCA scheme whereby 100 per cent grant to states for implementation of SCP is given, was initiated in 1986. The SCP envisaged that the funds to be allocated for the welfare of dalits out of the total plan outlay should be at least proportional to their population percentage both at the national and state level. The Scheduled Castes Development Corporations in the states (SCDCs) were to act as the nodal agencies for formulation, implementation and monitoring of the SCP.

This was meant to be a mechanism for the economic empowerment of dalits and envisaged as a policy instrument to ensure fulfillment of constitutional guarantees and entitlements enjoined for the dalit community. However, the track record of the implementation of the SC Sub Plan has been dismal and the aspirations of the dalit community have been betrayed over time.

As per Special Component Plan, the amount of expenditure of planned central government budget for dalits should be according to their population but this rule has been flagrantly violated by states as well as central government ever since the SCP or the SCSP came into existence. In 2006-07 the total plan allocation was Rs 1,65,499 crores, but only 4.25 per cent or Rs 7,031.86 crores were earmarked for dalits.  In 2007-2008 the total plan budget was Rs 205100 crores and allocation to dalits was only Rs 12535.75 crores (6.1 per cent) whereas it should have been Rs 32816 crores. Thus there is a shortfall of nearly Rs 20280 crores. In 2008-09 the total budget allocation under Plan outlay was Rs 2,43,385.5 crores and although the government was liable to allocate Rs 40,090.90 crores exclusively for dalits it had allocated only Rs 11,715.07 crores or merely 29 per cent of the total due under the SCSP for welfare of dalits. This implies that the dalit community has been deprived of 71 per cent of the amount or Rs 28,375.9 crores meant for their development. In 2010-11 of the total plan outlay of Rs 2,84,284 crores only Rs 23,795 crores or 8.4 per cent of the plan was allocated for the development of dalits. In 2011-12 of the total plan outlay of Rs 3,40,255 crores only Rs 30,551 crores were allocated under the SCP thereby depriving the dalit community of Rs 24,570 crores that was meant for their development. During the Ninth Plan period out of the 62 central ministries or departments only 11 had formulated an SCP. In 2011-12 only 24 departments have allocated for dalits. The actual spending on SCSP and TSP is much lower than even the meager allocation made in the plan outlays. Many states have not implemented the SCSP and a few have introduced the concept only recently. In different states also rampant diversion of the SCSP funds is going on. Under-utilisation and lapse of funds as well as misuse is also a common practice. A glaring instance has been the diversion of funds from the SCSP to the tune of Rs 744.354 crores during 2006-07 to 2010-11 to meet the Commonwealth Games related expenses. Some ministries and departments are giving the ruse that the non-implementation SCSP, TSP is because of non-divisible component. They argue that quantification is made only from divisible component, scheme wise. The Principal Adviser to the Planning Commission, in his report in 2006 mentioned “As a result of this the actual earmarking of SCSP and TSP from the total state plan becomes much lesser than what should have been as per the population of SCs and STs to the total population of the state.” In this situation, it is the responsibility of the Planning Commission to ensure the allotment of funds in proportion of the population. The task force appointed by the Planning Commission in its report in 2010 November revealed that departments/ministries which are under no obligation category needs to be relooked. The government of India introduced a new scheme for dalit areas development, called Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY) meant for development of dalit areas where their population is high. They selected some village in some states. In the 2010-11 budget, they allotted Rs 400 crores for this purpose and later it was revised to Rs 98 crores. Similarly, allotment as a whole to the social welfare sector was reduced by Rs 200 crore in the revised budget. This is the state of affairs of allotment of funds.

WHY THIS FAILURE?

There is no law that would compel state governments, central ministries and departments to stop them from diverting allocations. The Planning Commission has been issuing guidelines from time to time. But these are not being followed. There is a central tripartite committee to monitor the schemes under SCSP/TSP but it is also not functioning properly. The prime minister himself made a speech on June 27, 2005, saying that the SCSP and TSP should be an integral part of annual as well as five year plans and called for making provisions non-divertible and non-lapsable. The National Advisory Council under the chairmanship of Sonia Gandhi also made some recommendations, recently, in this regard. Many of the reports accept the non-implementation of these schemes and guidelines. But still the problem continues. That is why a comprehensive law is required to curtail diversion/under utilisation of SCSP & TSP allocations and suitable mechanisms should be put in place to monitor this on a regular basis at all levels. Specific guidelines exist that debar states, central ministries/departments who do not properly implement the schemes/guidelines from getting further approval of plan outlays. If these guidelines had been implemented properly, the situation could have improved.  Administrative measures alone cannot ensure implementation of the schemes. Beneficiaries/stakeholders particularly those at the lower level should be involved in the implementation process. Information relating to the schemes should be available in public domain and there should be grievance redressal mechanism. Like in the case of the MGNREGA, social audit can ensure transparency and arrest the misuse/diversion of funds to an extent. All these loopholes should be rectified in the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Five Year Plan. The main reason for this non-implementation of SCSP and TSP is the lack of political will.

Most of those who want the dollar to go  are not suggesting any other currency as an alternative. But, the popular alternative suggested is the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) released  by the International Monetary fund (IMF). But, there are inherent weaknesses in the SDR of IMF. Firstly it is not a currency. It is only a unit of account. The value of this unit of account is calculated based on the weighted basket of four major currencies.  The US dollar still plays a dominant role in the SDR of IMF.

But, the SDR seems to be not in a position to pose any serious challenge to US dollar in the imminent future though countries  like China publicly voice their support to SDR. Noted economist C.P.Chandrashekhar explained the reasons for the inability of SDRs of IMF  to replace US dollar  in the near future.  There is no strong country to back SDR.  The value of SDR is weighted average of four currencies   dollar, pound, sterling, Euro and Yen. Thus any country can keep all these four currencies rather than SDR.  In fact such a strategy shall give that country  more manoueuvrable space. T he total volume of SDR s released so far is worth only 317 billion dollars. But, the total global surpluses are 6.7 Trillion dollars . Therefore the quantum of SDRs available constitute only a small proportion of total global reserve holding . Even country like China can buy the entire SDRs . Even these limited SDR s available will be distributed  to different countries. The IMF can release more SDRs only with an agreement  of countries  having at least 85 percent IMF quota.  But, only US has 17.77 percent of IMF quota. With which it can  veto any decision to increase the quantum of SDRs in circulation. As SDRs are distributed among nations , the countries  having high surpluses may not get the SDRs even if they want to buy. Finally as of now SDRs are exchanged in transactions between central banks but not among  governments and private companies.  These limitations of SDR make it ineffective as a financial asset that can be an alternative to dollar though there is strong desire for an alternative to dollar.

The competition to dollar came when Euro was launched on January , 1, 1999 . There were wide expectations  on Euro  as an international currency that would replace dollar’s supremacy . But, this did not happen. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, Euro is not the currency of any particular country, but it represents European Union. Therefore , there is no strong originating country to back this currency. There is still no   political unanimity in Europe on the Euro. There are inequalities in the levels of growth and economic strength among  the member countries that constitute Euro. In fact, the political, economic and military clout of Europe has declined in the post Second World war period.

The dollar today accepted as an international reserve currency and as a currency for international transaction. Noted economist C .P.Chandrashekhar in an incisive analysis on the future of dollar in the global currency market explains that a combination of factors contribute to the strength of a currency to be the international currency. First, the competitive strength of the economy in which the currency originates, , the confidence in the  strength of the state   to ensure that the value of the currency it backs would be stable  to goods and resources in general,  finally , the willingness of others  to accept the currency in payment .  However history suggests that it is the confidence in the state rather than the competitive strength of the economy it governs that is crucial for generalized acceptance of a currency as a reserve.  There seems to be no other country is nearer to United States in this regard despite the economic downturn and downgrading of its sovereign rating. This is precisely the strength of the US dollar. Not just the economic strength of the US, but the military and political supremacy of United States which determines the relative strength of its currency. Though several economies like that of China and India which are emerging as strong economies, there is no immediate rival to the military and political dominance. This is precisely the reason for much of the international trade done in dollars and the world’s super rich and the countries having huge surpluses would like to stock their finances in dollar denominated assets. Thus the world’s rich and the world nations have a vested interest in keeping the value of the dollar not to decline terminally. The historical experience suggests that  the periods of steep fall in the value of dollar was followed by remarkable revival in its values . As long as the structural weakness in the US economy continue , the dollar has to derive its strength  from the weaknesses in the international financial eco system rather than  it own mettle. The real alternative to US dollar and establishment of a more stable and broad based international reserve currency  can not be possible without restructuring of international political and economic order .

One in three adults worldwide, according to the report, has raised blood pressure – a condition that causes around half of all deaths from stroke and heart disease. One in 10 adults has diabetes.

“This report is further evidence of the dramatic increase in the conditions that trigger heart disease and other chronic illnesses, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. “In some African countries, as much as half the adult population has high blood pressure.”

For the first time, the World Health Organization’s annual statistics report includes information from 194 countries on the percentage of men and women with raised blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

In high-income countries, widespread diagnosis and treatment with low-cost medication have significantly reduced mean blood pressure across populations – and this has contributed to a reduction in deaths from heart disease. In Africa, however, more than 40% (and up to 50%) of adults in many countries are estimated to have high blood pressure. Most of these people remain undiagnosed, although many of these cases could be treated with low-cost medications, which would significantly reduce the risk of death and disability from heart disease and stroke.

Also included for the first time in the World health statistics 2012 are data on people with raised blood glucose levels. While the global average prevalence is around 10%, up to one third of populations in some Pacific Island countries have this condition. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to cardiovascular disease, blindness and kidney failure.

Obesity another major issue

“In every region of the world, obesity doubled between 1980 and 2008,” says Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems at WHO. “Today, half a billion people (12% of the world’s population) are considered obese.”

The highest obesity levels are in the WHO Region of the Americas (26% of adults) and the lowest in the WHO South-East Asia Region (3% obese). In all parts of the world, women are more likely to be obese than men, and thus at greater risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

Noncommunicable diseases currently cause almost two thirds of all deaths worldwide. Global concern about the rise in numbers of deaths from heart and lung disease, diabetes and cancer prompted the United Nations to hold a high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases in New York in September 2011.

The World Health Assembly, to be held in Geneva from 21 to 26 May 2012, will review progress made since that meeting and agree on next steps. Work is currently under way to develop a global monitoring framework and a set of voluntary targets for prevention and control of these diseases.

Published annually by WHO, the World health statistics is the most comprehensive publication of health-related global statistics available. It contains data from 194 countries on a range of mortality, disease and health system indicators including life expectancy, illnesses and deaths from a range of diseases, health services and treatments, financial investment in health, as well as risk factors and behaviours that affect health.

Some key trends in this year’s report are:

• Maternal mortality: In 20 years, the number of maternal deaths has decreased from more than 540 000 deaths in 1990 to less than 290 000 in 2010 – a decline of 47%. One third of these maternal deaths occur in just two countries – India with 20% of the global total and Nigeria with 14%.
• 10 year trends for causes of child death: Data from the years 2000 to 2010 show how public health advancements have helped save children’s lives in the past decade. The world has made significant progress, having reduced the number of child deaths from almost 10 million children aged less than 5 years in 2000 to 7.6 million annual deaths in 2010. Declines in numbers of deaths from diarrhoeal disease and measles have been particularly striking.
• Death registration: Only 34 countries (representing 15% of the world’s population) produce high-quality cause-of-death data. In low and middle-income countries, less than 10% of deaths are registered.

According to a poll, carried out by mobile phone firm Recombu, once revered for our good manners, Britain has become more ‘Rude Britannia’ since the introduction of smartphones. Almost two third of people — 63 percent — admitted leaving their iPhone or BlackBerry on the table while being out for dinner, Daily Mail reported.

As high as 68 percent would take a call on a dinner date, even if they knew it was not important or work-related, the study found.

The research also suggested that Britons cannot live being separated from their smartphones, with more than a third admitting they would struggle to live without their mobiles.

Around a third — 35 percent — said they couldn’t live without their television, 23 percent without their laptop, three percent would be at a loss if they did not have their iPod, and two percent would struggle without their tablet.

More than half — 59 percent — keep their phones on at all times, 16 percent continuously walking around with their mobile in their hands, one in seven of the 1,000 people polled even take their phone to the toilet.

A new University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose (fruit sugar) slows the brain, hampering memory and learning – and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption.

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery at the UClA’s David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the Journal of Physiology reports.

“Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But ­adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage,” adds Gomez-Pinilla, according to an UCLA statement.

While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.

The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, apple sauce and baby food.

Gomez-Pinilla and study co-author Rahul Agrawal, studied two groups of rats that each consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for six weeks.

The second group also received omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which protects against damage to the synapses – the junctions between brain cells that enable memory and learning.

“DHA is essential for synaptic function – brain cells’ ability to transmit signals to one another,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “This is the mechanism that makes learning and memory possible. Our bodies can’t produce enough DHA, so it must be supplemented through our diet.”

Six weeks later, researchers tested the rats’ ability to recall the route and escape the maze. What they saw surprised them. “The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids,” Gomez-Pinilla said.

“The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signalling each other, disrupting the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier,” he concludes.

For every European, the social cost of alcohol abuse has been estimated to be 240 pounds a year, with the annual bill for the National Health Service (NHS) alone being 2.7 billion pounds, the Daily Mail reported.

A major conference of addiction specialists from across the world is meeting at Newcastle University. Organisers have called for England to follow Scotland and set a minimum price per unit and also sought a ban on advertising alcohol.

Eileen Kaner, a professor, cited new research which showed one in eight British deaths of people aged 15 to 64 was caused by alcohol.

In Europe, alcohol consumption is more than twice the global average and represents the biggest addiction in Britain, greater than any illegal drug or gambling.

Even 10 years ago, romantic novels spun stories about a man and one woman, whose sacrosanct monogamous love twisted and turned its way to the altar after epic struggles. Brazen romantic love as a subject of mass fiction was considered audacious in the middle-class conservatism of the 1970s-1980s.

However, when the globalised 1990s began to creep into “desi” books, the floodgates of love opened to include more complex themes with “emotional riddles, tangled relationships and even same sex love”. In the decade of 2000, the cast of the tales grew younger in years as dark passionate secrets came tumbling out of cupboards – but with an essentially Indian feel.

Quite a lot of books are reflecting the changing romantic relationship in India, says literary agent Mita Kapur of Siyahi, which promotes contemporary young Indian literature.

“It came to my mind when I was reading ‘Zoya Factor’ by Anuja Chauhan and ‘Piece of Cake’ by Swati Kaushal. It also comes through in the way Advaita Kala (almost single) handles her relationship or Anita Nair addresses relationship. Namita Gokhale also reflected upon the relationships in her book, ‘Priya’,” Kapur told IANS.

“Complex relationships have always been there in society – in a particular class in the urban areas which were developing faster than the rural areas.

“I read a lot of new manuscripts by young writers. Though I do not always approve of their writing, I have noticed a certain openness in the way they talk of relationships in their books,” Kapur added.

Difficult relationships, jealousy and triangular love no longer shock readers; rather they make powerful plots like in cinema and television.

A new book by Nirupama Subramanian, “Intermission”, follows in the footsteps of John Updike to paint the changing face of Gurgaon suburbia, the dazzling face of modern India.

Varun and Gayatri, an NRI couple returns to India after several years abroad. Varun is glad to be his own boss while wife Gayatri finds readjusting in the traditional Indian family difficult. Life changes insidiously for the family when Varun meets Sweety, a single mother of two, in a dream of a nuclear family.

It is a far cry from Rabindranath Tagore’s “Nashto Nir” or “Ghare Baire” or Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s “Devdas” – tales of unconventional and heroic love.

Tracing the history of romance in literature and its assimilation from the society, Dipa Chaudhuri, the chief editor of Om Books International, says 35-40 years ago love stories in books were built in the mould of Mills & Boons and Barbara Cartland romances which began with difficulties in the beginning and resolved in the end.

“For me it was a bit of an illusion because the books were written in a certain time period which played on what love ought to be for women. The presentations were stereotypical. What I find today is a demystification of love in actual life and yet the upholding of the emotion and connecting with realities. It is no longer the ideal emotion that you can reach out to touch. Contemporary romance is a surprise to me because so many things (options) are coming out of Indian contexts,” Chaudhuri told IANS.

Chaudhuri said: “Interestingly, more men are also writing about love now. Everybody needs to evolve. Men are talking about love, loss and longing – difficulties in negotiating relationships,” Chaudhuri said.

Two new best-selling mass-market works, “I Too Have a Love Story” and “Can Love Happen Twice” by Ravinder Singh addresses the progression in Indian love stories through the life of its young protagonist Ravin, who finds love through a matrimonial site and loses it, only to give another shot at it.

Books like “Boy Meets Girl”, “There is No Love on Wall Street”, “The Great Indian Love Story”, “Marrying Anita”, “Nick of Time” and “Scandalous Secret” have been powered by the Indian reader’s undying passion for love stories with a tweak.

On a parallel note, a spate of books have been addressing forbidden love like gay and alternative sexual passion.

According to writer Namita Gokhale, the author of contemporary novels like “Paro: Dreams of Passion”, “Priya: ” and a new anthology of short stories, “The Habit of Love”, modern fiction mirrors the anxieties and aspirations in relationships.

“There can’t be any single Indian reality as societal constraints are changing and opening up. It is the need for love stories – the writers – to understand real kind of love. Writers are projecting different emotional and social situations… After all, literature helps make sense of our lives,” Gokhale told IANS.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

• About 16 million adolescent girls give birth every year – most in low- and middle-income countries.
• An estimated three million girls aged 15-19 undergo unsafe abortions every year.
• In low- and middle-income countries, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 years.
• Stillbirths and newborn deaths are 50% higher among infants of adolescent mothers than among infants of women aged 20-29 years.
• Infants of adolescent mothers are more likely to have low birth weight.

Overview

About 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 years and two million girls under the age of 15 give birth every year. Worldwide, one in five girls has given birth by the age of 18. In the poorest regions of the world, this figure rises to over one in three girls.

Almost all adolescent births – about 95% – occur in low- and middle-income countries. Within countries, adolescent births are more likely to occur among poor, less educated and rural populations.

The causes

Several factors contribute to adolescent births.

In many societies, girls may be under pressure to marry and bear children early, or they may have limited educational and employment prospects.

In low- and middle-income countries, over 30% of girls marry before they are 18 years of age; around 14% before the age of 15. Moreover, married adolescents are likely to become pregnant and give birth in accordance with social norms. Education, on the other hand, is a major protective factor for early pregnancy: the more years of schooling, the fewer early pregnancies. Birth rates among women with low education are higher than for those with secondary or tertiary education.

Some adolescents do not know how to avoid becoming pregnant, or are unable to obtain contraceptives. However, even where contraceptives are widely available, sexually active adolescents are less likely to use contraceptives than adults. In Latin America, Europe and Asia only 42-68% of adolescents who are married or in partnerships use contraceptives. In Africa the rate ranges from 3-49%.

There is a lack of sexuality education in many countries. A global coverage measure related to sexuality education estimates that only 36% of young men and 24% of young women aged 15-24 in low- and middle-income countries have comprehensive and correct knowledge of how to prevent HIV.

In some situations, adolescent girls may be unable to refuse sex. Sexual violence is widespread and particularly affects adolescent girls. More than one third of girls in some countries report that their first sexual encounter was coerced.

The consequences

Pregnant adolescents are more likely than adults to have unsafe abortions. An estimated three million unsafe abortions occur globally every year among girls aged 15-19 years. Unsafe abortions contribute substantially to lasting health problems and maternal deaths.

Having babies during adolescence has serious consequences for the health of the girl and her infant, especially in areas with weak health systems. In some countries, adolescents are less likely than adults to obtain skilled care before, during and after childbirth.

Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 years in many low- and middle-income countries. Stillbirths and newborn deaths are 50% higher among infants born to adolescent mothers than among those born to mothers aged 20-29 years. Infants of adolescent mothers are also more likely to have low birth weight, which can have a long-term impact on their health and development.

Global context

Adolescent pregnancy is a major contributor to maternal and child mortality, and to the vicious cycle of ill-health and poverty. The Global strategy for women’s and children’s health, launched by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2010, stresses the importance of addressing the health and welfare of adolescent girls in order to achieve the fifth Millennium Development Goal on maternal mortality reduction.

Preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes among adolescents in developing countries

Authors:
World Health Organization

Publication details

Number of pages: 195
Publication date: 2011
Languages: English
ISBN: 978 92 4 150221 4

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Overview

The WHO guidelines, Preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes among adolescents in developing countries, provide both a call to action and directions for future research on:

• preventing early pregnancy: by preventing marriage before 18 years of age; by increasing knowledge and understanding of the importance of pregnancy prevention; by increasing the use of contraception; and by preventing coerced sex; and
• preventing poor reproductive outcomes: by reducing unsafe abortions; and by increasing the use of skilled antenatal, childbirth and postnatal care.

They are primarily intended for policy-makers, planners and programme managers from governments, nongovernmental organizations and development agencies. They are also likely to be of interest to public health researchers and practitioners, professional associations and civil society organizations.

They have been developed through a systematic review of the evidence and through consultation with policy-makers, programme managers and front-line workers from countries around the world, in partnership with many key international organizations working in this field – the Guttmacher Institute, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), FHI 360), the Population Council, and Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales, CREP (Argentina).

Their development has been supported financially by the United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. (IPPF) Similar partnerships have been forged to distribute them widely and to support their use.

However, such large-scale feeding will require huge investment in both resources and time. A better alternative is to create conditions by which proper wholesome food is made available to all the rural poor at affordable price. Getting this done will be the biggest charity!

Most of these rural poor are landless labourers. After working the whole day in the fields in scorching sun they come home in the evening and have to cook for the whole family. The cooking is done on the most primitive ‘chulha’ (wood stove), resulting in tremendous indoor air pollution. Many of them also have no electricity and so they use primitive and polluting kerosene lamps.

WHO data has shown that about 300,000 deaths a year in India can be directly attributed to indoor air pollution in such huts. The pollution also results in many respiratory ailments and these people spend close to Rs.200-400/month on medical bills.

Besides the pollution, rural poor also eat very poor diet. They buy whatever is available at Public Distribution System (PDS) shops and most of the time the shops are out of rations. Thus they cook whatever is available. The hard work, together with poor eating, takes a heavy toll on their health. This malnutrition also affects the physical and mental health of their children and may lead to creation of a whole generation of mentally challenged citizens.

Poverty to my mind is not an absence of material goods but not getting enough wholesome food. We are what we eat!

Rural Restaurants

So I feel that the best way to provide adequate food for the rural poor is by setting up rural restaurants on a large scale. These restaurants will be similar to regular ones but they will provide meals at subsidised rates for people below poverty line (BPL). These citizens will pay only Rs.10 per meal and the rest, which is expected to be quite small, will come as a part of government subsidy. Our calculations show that this subsidy will be only Rs.2.50 per person per meal.

The buying of meals could be facilitated by the use of UID (Aadhar) card by rural poor. The total cost should be Rs.30 per day for three vegetarian meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner. With an average wage of labourer being Rs.100 a day, the cost of meals will be 30 percent of his wages.

Since the food will not be cooked in huts, this strategy will result in less pollution in rural households, thereby reducing women’s chores. The spare time can be used in gainful activities like teaching children. Besides giving nutrition and tasty food, these restaurants will also provide a meeting place.

Eating in restaurants will also require fewer utensils in the house and hence less expenditure. For other things like hot water for bath, making tea, boiling milk and cooking on holidays some utensils and fuel will be required. Our Institute NARI (Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Pune) has developed an extremely efficient and environment-friendly lanstove, which provides both light and heat for cooking.

Cooking is a luxury for the rich and upper middle class. For the rural and urban poor, it is a chore and a misery. Hence, subsidised meals in rural restaurants are a necessity for these people.

How can this be done?

Providing reasonably priced wholesome food is the basic aim and programme of the union government. This is the basis of their much touted food security programme. However, in 65 years, they have not been able to do so. Thus I feel a public-private partnership can help in this.

To help restaurant owners, the central or state governments should provide them with soft loans and other lines of credit for setting up such facilities. The corporate world can take this up as part of its corporate social responsibility activity.

More clientele (volumes) will make these restaurants economical. Existing models of dhabas, Udipi-type restaurants and the like can be used in this scheme. These restaurants may also be able to provide midday meals in rural schools. At present, the midday meal programme is faltering due to various reasons.

Cooking food in these restaurants will also result in much more efficient use of energy since energy per kg of food cooked in households is greater than that in restaurants. The main thing, however, will be to reduce drastically the food wastage in these restaurants.

Rural restaurants can also be forced to use clean fuels like LPG or locally produced biomass-based liquid fuels. This strategy is very difficult to enforce for individual households.

Large-scale employment generation in rural areas may result from this activity. With an average norm of 30 people employed per 100-chair restaurant, this programme has the potential of generating about 20 million jobs permanently in rural areas. Besides, the infrastructure development in setting up restaurants and establishing the food chain will help local farmers and will create huge wealth generation in these areas.

In the long run, this strategy may provide better food security for the rural poor than the existing one which is based on cheap food availability in PDS – a system which is prone to corruption and leakage.

In India, huge donations are given in both cash and kind to temples. Thus most of the temples are very rich. It will be better if somehow these donations can be channelled to create rural restaurants. This will help assuage the feelings of the giver and at the same time provide food to the rural poor. The blessings of the rural poor to my mind will be far more powerful than those of the gods in temples!

( Anil K. Rajvanshi is director of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Pune. )

 CARPET

Kashmiri carpets are world renowned for two things – they are handmade and they are always knotted, never tufted. The yarn used normally is silk, wool or silk and wool. Woolen carpets always have a cotton base while silk usually have cotton base. Sometimes however, if the base is also in silk then the cost increases proportionately. Occasionally, carpets are made on a cotton base, mainly of woolen pile with silk yarn used as highlights on certain motifs. The soothing blend of colors makes the Kashmiri carpet a prized possession.

Carpet weaving in Kashmir was not originally indigenous but is thought to have come in by way of Persia. Till today most designs are distinctly Persian with local variations. One example, however, of a typical Kashmiri design is the tree of life. The colors of Kashmiri carpets are more subtle and muted than elsewhere in the country. The knotting of the carpet is the most important aspect, determining its durability and value, in addition to its design. Basically, the more knots per square inch, the greater its value and durability. Also there are single and double-knotted carpets. A single knotted carpet is fluffier and more resistant to touch.

NAMDAS

Far less expensive are these colorful floor coverings made from woolen and cotton fiber, which has been manually pressed into shape. Prices vary with the percentage of wool – a Namda containing 80% wool being more expensive than one containing 20% wool. Chain stitch embroidery in woolen and cotton thread is worked on these rugs.

PAPIER MACHE

Besides at least three different grades of Papier Mache, there are some cheaper versions in cardboard or wood available too. To make Papier Mache, first paper is soaked in water till it disintegrates. It is then pounded, mixed with an adhesive solution, shaped over moulds, and allowed to dry and set before being painted and varnished. Paper that has been pounded to pulp has the smoothest finish in the final product. The designs painted on objects of Papier Mache are brightly colored. They vary in artistry and the choices of colors. Gold is used on most objects, either as the only color, or as the highlight for certain motifs, and besides the finish of the product, it is the quality of the gold used which determines the price.

Pure Gold leaf, which has the unmistakable luster, is far more expensive than bronze dust or gold poster paint but also has much longer life and will never fade or tarnish. Varnish, which is applied to the finished product, imparts a high gloss and smoothness, which increases with every coat. Cardboard, usually indistinguishable from Papier Mache, gives slightly when pressed firmly.

SHAWLS

There are three fibers from which the Kashmiri shawls are made – Wool, Pashmina and Shahtoosh. Woolen shawls are the cheapest while the Shahtoosh are the most expensive ones. Woolen shawls are popular because of the embroidery work on them, which is a specialty to Kashmir.

Many kinds of embroidery are worked on shawls – ‘sozni’ or needlework is generally done in a panel along the sides of the shawl. Motifs, usually abstract designs or stylized paisleys and flowers are worked in one or two, occasionally three colors, all subdued. Another type of needle embroidery is popularly known. This is done in broad panels on either side of the breadth of a shawl, or covering the entire surface of a shawl. Ari or hook embroidery; motifs are well-known flower design finely worked in concentric rings of chain stitch.

Pashmina shawls are unmistakably soft and its yarn is spun from the hair of the ibex found at 14,000 ft above the sea level. Although pure Pashmina is expensive, sometimes blending it with rabbit fur or with wool brings down the cost. Shahtoosh is the legendary ‘ring shawl’, renowned for its lightness, softness and warmth. The astronomical price it commands in the market is due to the scarcity of raw material. High in the plateaux of Tibet and the eastern part of Ladakh, at an altitude of above 5,000 meters, roam Pantholops Hodgosoni or Tibetan antelope. During grazing, a few strands of the downy hair from the throat are shed and it is these, which are painstakingly collected until there are enough for a shawl.

Yarn is spun either from Shahtoosh alone, or with Pashmina to bring down the cost. In the case of pure Shahtoosh too, there are many qualities – the yarn can be spun so skillfully as to resemble a strand of silk. Not only are shawls made from such fine yarn extremely expensive, they can only be loosely woven and are too flimsy for embroidery to be done on them. Unlike woolen or Pashmina shawls, Shahtoosh is seldom dyed. Its natural color is mousy brown, and it is, at the most, sparsely embroidered.

PHERANS

This garment seems to be fusion of a coat and a cloak and is loose enough to admit the inevitable brazier of live coals, which is carried around in much the same way as a hot water bottle. Men’s pherans are always made of tweed or coarse wool while women’s pherans, somewhat more stylized, are most commonly made of raffel with splashes of ari or hook embroidery at the throat, cuffs and edges. The quality of embroidery and thickness of the raffel determines the price.

BASKETS

Willow rushes that grow profusely in marshes and lakes of Kashmir are used to make charmingly attractive objects such as shopping baskets, lampshades, tables and chairs and are generally inexpensive. To increase their life span, unvarnished products should be chiseled and frequently sprayed with water, particularly in hot, dry climates, to prevent them from being brittle.

WALNUTWOOD

Kashmir is the only part of India where the walnut tree grows. Its color, grains and inherent sheen are unique and unmistakable, and the carving and fret work that is done on this wood is of a very superior quality. There are two types of walnut trees – the fruit bearing species whose wood is so well known, and one that bears no fruit and is locally known as ‘zangul’. Zangul has none of the beauty of walnut wood, being much less strong and possessing no grain while the walnut wood is almost black and its grains are much more pronounced than the wood of the trunk, which is lighter in color. The branches have the lightest color, being almost blonde and have no noticeable grain. The intrinsic worth of the wood from each part of the tree differs – that from the root being the most expensive and the branches having the lowest price.

A cheaper product is liable to warp, or in case it is taken to warmer climes, will crack or shrink. Knots are usually concealed skillfully in the sawing, as it is difficult, though not impossible, to mask them while carving. Carving is the demonstration of the carver’s skill, and walnut is eminently suitable for this, being one of the strongest varieties of wood.

There are several varieties of carving-deep carving usually with dragon or lotus flower motifs, two inches deep or more; shallow carving, half an inch deep done all over the flat surface; open or lattice work, usually depicting the Chinar motif; and most popularly, semi carving, which is a thin panel along the rim of a surface, with perhaps a Centre motif. The advantage of the semi-carving is that it allows the grain of wood to be displayed, together with the carver’s skill. Naturally deep carving with all the skill and labor required is the most expensive.

Copper and Silverware

Shops in local market of the old city abound with objects of copper lining the walls, the floor and even the ceiling. One can see craftsmen engraving objects of household utility like samovars, bowls, plates and trays. There are floral, stylized, geometric, leaf and even calligraphic motifs that are engraved or embossed on copper, and occasionally silver, to cover the entire surface with intricate designs which are then oxidized. The work known as ‘naqash’ determines the price of the object, as does the weight. (PIB Features.)

The IAAS provides a very special kind of inputs to the farmer as advisory bulletin. It   has made a tremendous difference to the agriculture production by taking the advantage of benevolent weather and minimizes the adverse impact of malevolent weather. IMD launched the scheme IAAS in the country  in collaboration with different organisations/institutes/stakeholders from 1^st April 2007 for weather wise farm management. Under IAAS, a mechanism was developed to integrate weather forecast, climatic and agro-meteorological information to prepare agro-advisories which contribute significantly to enhance farm productivity and trying to solve the food security in India.

Structure of IAAS

This project is implemented through five tier structure to set up different components of the service spectrum. It includes meteorological (weather observing & forecasting), agricultural (identifying weather sensitive stress & preparing suitable advisory using weather forecast), extension (two way communication with user) and information dissemination (Media, Information Technology, Telecom) agencies.

Weather Forecast –Seven Parametres

From 1 June, 2008 quantitative district level weather forecast up to 5 days is issued. The product comprises of quantitative forecasts for 7 weather parameters viz., rainfall, maximum and minimum temperatures, wind speed and direction, relative humidity and cloudiness. In addition, weekly cumulative rainfall forecast is also provided. IMD, New Delhi generates these products using Multi Model Ensemble technique based on forecast products available from number models ofIndia and other countries. The products were disseminated to Regional Meteorological Centres and Meteorological Centres of IMD located in different states. These products after value addition using synoptic interpretation of model output are communicated to 130 Agro Met Field Units (AMFUs) co-located with State Agriculture Universities (SAUs), institutes of Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) etc., for preparation of district level agro-met advisories twice a week i.e. Tuesday and Friday.

AAS Bulletins at Different Level

The Agromet Advisory Bulletins are issued at district, state and national levels. The district level bulletins are issued by AMFUs and include crop specific advisories including field crops, horticultural crops and livestock. The State Level bulletin jointly prepared by State Meteorological Centre of IMD and AMFUs is a composite of district bulletins helping to identify the distressed districts of the state as well as plan the supply of appropriate farm inputs such as seeds, irrigation water, fertilizer, pesticides etc. It forms a significant input to the State level weekly Crop Weather Watch Group (CWWG) meeting and used by state government line function departments viz: Fertilizer industry, Pesticide industry, Irrigation Department, Seed Corporation, Transport and other organizations which provide inputs in agriculture. National Agromet Advisory Bulletins are prepared by National Agromet Advisory Service Centre, Division of Agriculture Meteorology, IMD, Pune, using inputs from various states.  This bulletin helps identify stress on various crops for different regions of the country and suitably incorporate advisories.

Ministry of Agriculture is prime user of these bulletins, as important decisions are taken in weekly Crop Weather Watch Group meetings steered by Ministry of Agriculture at national level. The bulletins are also used by a large number of other agencies including fertilizer, pesticide industries. At present bulletins are being issued twice in a week i.e., Tuesday and Friday and reach 23 state and 560 district level centres.

District-specific medium-term forecast information and advisories help to maximize output and avert crop damage or loss. It also helps growers anticipate and plan for pesticide applications, irrigation scheduling, disease and pest outbreaks and many more weather related agriculture-specific operations. Such operations include cultivar selection, their dates of sowing/planting, dates of intercultural operations, dates of harvesting and also performing post harvest operations. Agromet advisories help increase profits by consistently delivering actionable weather information, analysis and decision support for farming situations such as: to manage pests through forecast of relative humidity, temperature and wind; manage irrigation through rainfall & temperature forecasts; protect crop from thermal stress through forecasting of extreme temperature etc.

A typical Agromet Advisory Bulletin enables farmers to reap benefits of benevolent weather and minimize or mitigate the impacts of adverse weather are:

• District specific weather forecast, in quantitative terms, for next 5 days for weather parameters like rainfall, cloud, maximum/minimum temperature, wind speed/direction and relative humidity, including forewarning of hazardous weather events (cyclone, hailstorm, heat/cold waves, drought and flood etc) likely to cause stress on standing crop and suggestions to protect the crop from them.
• Weather forecast based information on soil moisture status and guidance for application of irrigation, fertilizer and herbicides etc.
• Advisories on dates of sowing/planting and suitability of carrying out intercultural operations covering the entire crop spectrum from pre-sowing to post harvest to guide farmer in his day–to-day cultural operations.
• Weather forecast based forewarning system for major pests and diseases of principal crops and advises on plant protection measures.
• Propagation of techniques for manipulation of crop’s microclimate e.g. shading, mulching, other surface modification, shelter belt, frost protection etc. to protect crops under stressed conditions.
• Reducing contribution of agricultural production system to global warming and environment degradation through judicious management of land, water and farm inputs, particularly pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
• Advisory for livestock on health, shelter and nutrition.

The support on above is rendered through preparing district specific agrometeorological advisory bulletins which are tailored to meet the farmers’ need and are made relevant to his decision making processes. The suggested advisories generally alter actions in a way that improves outcomes as it contains advice on farm management actions aiming to take advantage of good weather and mitigate the stress on crop/livestock. The bulletins are encoded in a format and language which is easy to comprehend by the farmer. The agrometeorologists first interpret the immediate past weather and the forecast for next 5 days and translate it into layman’s terms so that the farmers can understand it. They use state-of-art technology such as crop weather models, climatic risk management tools, GIS generated agromet products etc., for framing the advisory bulletins. Also, interaction between the AMFUs and farmers to identify the weather sensitive decisions is promoted under the service through participatory approach. This step fosters a relationship between the IMD, AMFUs, farmers and other stakeholders so that they can identify or diagnose the gaps in weather information and services available from the IMD. (PIB Feature.)

In this booming metropolis, where thousands struggle for a place to live in, even death offers no solution. Rapid urbanisation, burgeoning population, escalating land prices and shrinking graveyards due to encroachments have virtually left no place to bury the dead.

Some graveyards have already hung “no space available” boards while others are refusing to allow the burial of “outsiders” or those residing in other localities.

The burial in any graveyard costs no less than Rs.10,000. Those attached to dargahs are charged anywhere between Rs.15,000 and Rs.50,000 for two yards. Still, in places such as Yousufain dargah at Nampally in the heart of the city, it comes for a whopping Rs.100,000.

Non-allocation of land for new graveyards, encroachments on existing ones, construction of concrete tombs by people and a high demand for burial grounds attached to dargahs have only compounded the problem.

The issue has religious, social as well as economic aspects. Some people consider it sacred to be buried near the tomb of a saint. It was due to such beliefs that the demand for such spaces increased and some custodians started taking advantage of the situation.

The management officials of some graveyards, however, justify the collection of money.

“We have only rocks left in the graveyard, hence we ask people to pay for the expenses we incur in clearing the rocks. This amount works out to anywhere between Rs.5,000 and Rs.6,000 for each grave. We also accept donations,” Mohammed Jahangir, secretary of the management committee at Jamia Masjid on A Battery Lane, told IANS.

The committee displays a board saying the graveyard is not for the burial of those from other localities. But people from several localities come here with recommendations from MLAs, Wakf board chairman and others. “They even fight with us,” said Jahangir, who has been heading the committee for 42 years.

The management committee has fatwas from Islamic seminaries which say after a grave turns old, one can dig it up to bury another body. However, people don’t allow this and even build concrete structures on graves.

Wakf board chairman Syed Ghulam Afzal Biyabani alias Khusro Pasha, however, says people are not coming forward to complain against ‘mutawallis’ (custodians) charging money. “We will definitely take action in such cases,” he said.

“The mutawallis tell us they have to collect the money to protect and maintain graveyards. We agree that charging Rs.2,000 to Rs.4,000 is fine, but it should not be more than this,” he told IANS.

“We are doing our best to address the space crunch by identifying new lands at a distance from the city,” he said.

“This problem is not of the Muslim community alone. Even Hindus and Christians are finding it difficult to cremate or bury their dead,” said Syed Amin Jafri, legislator of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM).

He pointed out that the number of graveyards or cemeteries has not increased in proportion to the population over the last four to five decades. From just 1.25 million in 1971, the population has gone up to 7.7 million.

“The problem is reaching an alarming level. Unless the government intervenes and provides land for new burial grounds the issue can’t be solved,” said Jafri.

“The government should allot 100 to 150 acres of land about 40 km away from the city for free burial,” said Syed Vicaruddin, chief editor of Urdu daily Rehnuma-e-Deccan. He blames encroachments on hundreds of acres of land belonging to the Wakf board for the present crisis.

(Mohammed Shafeeq can be contacted at m.shafeeq@ians.in)

OIDB loan disbursed to Oil PSUs during the last three years

                                                                        (Rs. inCrore)

Grants released by OIDB to Oil PSUs for Development purposes during the last three years

(Rs. in Crore)

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/loansgrants-released-by-oidb/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/services-on-track-over-two-crore-women-beneficiaries-registered-with-mcts-varun-bhardwaj/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/services-on-track-over-two-crore-women-beneficiaries-registered-with-mcts-varun-bhardwaj/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 09:17:59 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/?p=114794 Motherhood is a divine feeling, a wonderful experience, but it brings with itself tremendous responsibilities which call for proper care for both mother and the child. For a healthy mother and child, it must be ensured that required medical care is provided to pregnant woman and full immunization course is administered to the child. It is with this spirit in the mind that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) in December 2009. The focus in MCTS is on the Beneficiary Based Monitoring of the delivery of services to ensure that all pregnant women and all new born receive ‘full’ maternal and child health services. The MCTS utilizes Information Technology and seeks to capture details of every pregnancy in the country in a centralised data base. It is a generic system which aims to provide information of different health services received at the individual level, by monitoring all service deliveries that an individual benefits from.

MCTS Coverage

The MCTS database primarily comprises of

• All new Pregnancies detected/ registered from 1st December, 2009 at the first point of contact of the pregnant mother with the health facility/health provider.
• All Births occurring from 1st December, 2009.

Unique Identification Number

The record of each mother and child is tracked through a 16 digit unique identification number. The 16 digit unique number  contains  state code, district code, Block PHC/CHC Code, Health Sub-Centre Code, Pregnant Woman code, child code and the serial number given to each mother/child.

Advantages

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare endeavoured to have a central data repository for quick reference of validated data for all pregnancies and births in India. Such a Central Database seeks to facilitate grassroots level health functionaries like ANM, ASHA, Anganwadi workers etc. in performance of their duties by enabling more effective transformation and utilization of information. It is envisaged to implement a Beneficiary Centred Approach so as to ensure delivery of maternal and child health services from conception till 42 days after delivery in the case of pregnant women and up to five years of age in the case of children so as to ensure that all pregnant women and all new born receive full maternal and immunization services.

Further, MCTS would enable roll-out of targeted health programs and schemes, for controlling of external cost and time spill-over and ensure tracking of full immunisation course for all children. It shall also lead to validation of information collected from each block/district/state at the central level, for figuring out authenticated situation at respective functional levels.

Furthermore, efficient need-based planning of allocation and management of health resources can be done at ground-level. For example a fair idea about drug stock and inventory can be made once  number  of pregnancies have been recorded at a particular level. Thus, it leads to improved supply chain management of vaccines and drugs .Also, MCTS can provide vital clues for making improvements in the system for better service delivery. The bottlenecks at the implementation level which hinder effective implementation of Government initiatives can be known and provide valuable inputs for public policy implementation. Not only this, MCTS is expected to facilitate qualitative improvement in the delivery of services to pregnant women and children of the country and thus facilitates an accelerated reduction in maternal, infant and child mortality.

Architecture of MCTS

The operationalization of the MCTS is achieved by clear cut role allocation at different levels viz. village level, Sub Centre level, PHC level, CHC level, District level, State Level and the National Level.

Village Level

Identification of pregnant women and new born is done at the Village level. The Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been given the responsibility of informing the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) about the details of the pregnant women and new born in the village every month.

Sub Centre Level

            The delivery of maternal and child health services according to the agreed service delivery protocol is done at the sub centre level. At the Sub Centre level the ANM is responsible for Contacting all pregnant women reported by ASHA and  preparation of the Pregnant Woman Card( One copy to be retained by the ANM and the other given to the pregnant woman).Services are delivered according to the agreed service delivery schedule and the ANM updates the Maternal Health Card.The ANM Contacts parents of all new born and prepares the Child Health Card.

The above data is entered into a Central Database at Primary Health Centre /Community Health Centre where internet facility is available. This registers pregnant women and the details of services due (example ANC or antenatal care) to the woman along with the dates are captured in the database. The name and contact details of associated ASHA worker/ANM are also entered into the database .In fact, two distinct fields in the data base viz. Services administered and Services overdue help in monitoring and tracking service delivery at field level.

Primary Health Centre (PHC)

The Medical Officer at PHC is responsible for organizing training of ASHAs in the identification of pregnant women and children below five years of age; organizing fortnightly/monthly meeting to review the records maintained by ANM with a view to improve the quality of the record; visiting all villages in the PHC at least once in a month to supervise the activities of ASHA and to provide her necessary support; on the spot verification of the data entered in MCTS using a standard sample design.

Finally, the Medical Officer also identifies gaps in the context of providing ‘full’ maternal and child health services to all pregnant women and all new born recorded in MCTS.

Community Health Centre( CHC)

The Block Program Manager at the CHC is responsible uploading the data on pregnant women and new born in the MCTS software and generating reports related to the implementation of MCTS at the PHC level within the CHC. He is also responsible for tabulation and analysis of the verification data available through the cross checking of the records entered in the MCTS system.

District Level

MCTS performance review  is done at the district level to fill up the gaps in the health care delivery institutions within the district in the context of delivering ‘full’ services to all pregnant women and all new born.

State Level

Monthly reports of the implementation of MCTS for all districts within the state are generated and state level monthly meetings are organized to review the implementation of MCTS at the district level and identify and address bottlenecks and constraints in implementing MCTS.

National Level

MCTS cell is responsible for monitoring and analysis of the progress of MCTS in terms of data entry status, identification of low reporting States/districts and identification of districts/facilities not reporting.

The Quality of data reporting is known through data of performance of state and district indicators and cross analysis of data and services provided. This helps in identification of abnormalities and and discrepancies in MCTS data.

Also National level meetings are organized to review the implementation of MCTS at the state/UT level and to identify and address the bottlenecks and constraints in implementing MCTS. Besides, the MCTS Cell also prepares Quarterly Research Note using the data available through MCTS.

Thus, the states can take action at their own end to ensure that services reach those for whom they are meant. This is possible since the contact details of all beneficiaries to whom services are overdue along with the associated ANM/ASHA are available at the click of a mouse. As on 1 May, 2012, a total of 2,07,55,732 women have been registered with the Mother and Child Tracking System.

The Central Government on its part regularly intimates Mission Directors of NRHM in states on the progress made and gaps which remain in provision of services to beneficiaries. In addition, a call centre has been established in the Ministry of H&FW to directly contact pregnant women and parents of the new born registered under the system to verify the services that they have received. A Toll-Free facility which provides information to beneficiaries registered with the MCTS server has also been started. At present the data of MCTS is available only through private login to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and various State Governments. Although, a  full fledged MCTS portal is expected to be launched so that the data is available in Public Domain. In a nut shell, MCTS  not only facilitates closer monitoring and regular check-ups of pregnant women and reduces avoidable complications but aids strategic decision-making and need based allocation of resources also. (PIB Features).

The study conducted at the University of Edinburgh, UK, identifies ways that consumers could also help curb greenhouse gas emissions – by reducing the amount of food they buy, serve and waste. They also suggest the food industry could reduce emissions by seeking more efficient ways to use fertilisers.

For instance, halving the amount of chicken consumed in the UK and other developed countries to levels eaten in Japan could cut greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 10 million cars off the road, the journal Nature Climate Change reports.

“Eating less meat and wasting less food En play a big part in helping to keep a lid on greenhouse gas emissions as the world’s population increases,” said David Reay from Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, according to an Edinburgh statement.

Figures show that if average chicken consumption in developed countries fell from the current level of 26 kg each per year to the Japanese average of about 12 kg each by 2020, global emissions from poultry would fall below current levels, despite increased output from the developing world.

This would cut the predicted global output of nitrous oxide, a key greenhouse gas, from this source by almost 20 percent, based on current growth rates. Demand for food, particularly meat, is expected to increase over the next few decades as the world’s population continues to grow and emerging countries consume more.

Agriculture is the biggest source of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas that is emitted by soil and fertilisers. Producing meat produces more emissions than growing crops, as large amounts of cereals are grown to feed livestock.

Researchers arrived at their findings by examining data for global agricultural production of greenhouse gases together with consumption of food in various regions of the world. The study was carried out in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and partners in Europe and the US.

We have arrived at a determining moment in the Syrian crisis.

 THE NATION AND THE NORTH EAST

The historical discrimination of the North Eastern region and its people takes place at two different levels. First there is the discrimination against the region as a whole and this is reflected in the inadequate development of basic infrastructure development as well as the lack of educational and employment opportunities. Therefore the democratic movement has been demanding that such regional discrimination be addressed through a strategy for socially just and balanced development of North Eastern region through the intervention of the central government. It is also hoped that such development will stop the large scale migration from the region. However the problem of the North Eastern region and its relationship with the rest of India is only partly addressed by the problem of uneven economic development.

The second level of discrimination not addressed by this view concerns the way in which people of North Eastern origin are dealt with in the places where they migrate. Historically, the roots of this discrimination lie not only in the processes of uneven economic development but also in the way in which dominant ‘mainstream’ Indian society perceives the region. At the advent of Independence, the partition of the country placed the region in a unique geographical position. The region was politically cut off from East Bengalwith which it was integrated socially and economically in the pre-partition period. The seemingly insurmountable difficulties of communication and geographical location were further translated into a social and cultural distance which articulated itself in uniquely political terms. Movements for separate states and autonomy reflected that the founders of the Indian nation had not incorporated the aspirations of the people of the region within the larger framework of nationhood. Images of the North East as projected in school textbooks and in popular culture also normalised the perception that the people of the region as unique and different. For example who can forget the stark scene from the popular film Chak De India where a Manipur player is welcomed into the hockey training camp saying “You are our guest. Welcome to the training camp”. The player’s reply is obvious “How can one be a guest in one’s own country.

This perception of North Eastern people as ‘foreigners’ is perhaps a result of larger processes that have resulted in the resistance of North Eastern communities to imposition of dominant cultural values of mainstream caste Hindu ruling classes. This situation is in stark contrast to the acceptance of the tribal people of Central and Eastern India whose dominant classes have largely accepted the superiority of dominant culture of caste Hindu societies. The integration of these tribal people as subordinates within the larger system is in sharp contrast to the tribal aristocracy of the North East which has been asserting both its cultural and its legitimate right to the natural resources of the region. Thus the reproduction of the images of the North Eastern cultures as foreign and outside the realm of the mainstream society is part of a larger process to deny the North Eastern people their due place within the power structures of the larger Indian nation.

FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION

Given this fact, racial and other forms of discrimination against people of North Eastern origin are seen both in everyday life and the insensitivity of state level institutions. A survey done by the North Eastern Helpline in January and February recorded that 58.33 per cent of the cases of discrimination were crimes against women. According to the recorded cases of the Delhi Police, approximately two-thirds of the crimes against women were targeted against women from the North Eastern region. In other cases it is commonplace to find that North Eastern students find it difficult to find rooms on rent in comparison with students from other places. This has prompted institutions like Delhi University to designate one whole hostel for girls from the North Eastern region. While the initiative to provide space to girls from the region is welcome, one wonders whether such a separate hostel will serve the purpose of forging a spirit of living together and cultural tolerance within the larger student community.

At the same time the indifference and insensitivity of the state administration towards cases of discrimination is glaringly evident. In 2007 the Delhi Police came out with a set of guidelines for people from the North East. These guidelines prescribed dress codes and behaviour rules to North Eastern communities. Though the resultant outrage forced the authorities to withdraw the guidelines they reflected the conservative mindset of the law enforcement agency. Refusal to file FIRs in cases of discrimination is common in at least half of the cases of discrimination. It is therefore not surprising that the home minister is able to state in parliament that only seven cases of discrimination have been recorded in this year. This gross underestimation of the problem arises from the fact that there was no FIR in at least 63 per cent of the cases of discrimination, despite the victim approaching the police.  Reluctance of law enforcing agencies is also seen from the fact that they themselves regard the people of North Eastern region as foreigners. This was reflected in the parliamentary debate in Rajya Sabha when a member from Assam reported that the Delhi Police was asking students and servicemen from the region for their passports and not identity cards or driving licenses during road checking. In this context it is not surprising that a maximum number of cases of discrimination are against people of Nagaland and Manipur: two states that are perceived as both rebellious and remote. Thus the home minister’s claim of zero tolerance of crime against people from the region seem hollow in the wake of the fact that the agencies responsible for dealing with cases of discrimination are themselves guilty of following social practices that target these communities.

In order to combat the problem of social profiling and discrimination, it is not only necessary to fight for the legitimate rights of the North Eastern region, but also have a larger movement to ensure the forging of a democratic and inclusive national culture. The assertion of dominant cultural values that subordinate the rights of ethnic minorities and the carriers of this culture should be combated at every level. While the democratic movement has been at the forefront of fighting for the legitimate economic and political rights of the North Eastern region, it needs to redouble its efforts to bring about a cultural and social movement that will challenge the deep rooted intolerance of culturally different people from this region. In meeting this challenge, the hegemonic role of education, films and media has to be recognised since they have acted as a tool of ruling classes’ embodying conservative cultural values. Hence the progressive movements must initiate a militant campaign to combat such hegemonic influences. This will be the first step towards forging a truly composite and inclusive national culture.

Besides these confrontations between the heavyweights at the national level, there were innumerable relatively minor tiffs lower down the scale as between A.K. Antony and K. Karunakaran in Kerala.

But it is necessary to remember that none of these seriously undermined the Congress. On the contrary, it became an overpowering political presence at the time of independence and for at least two decades afterwards, and also in the 1970s and 1980s. There were two reasons for this remarkable achievement. One was the presence of charismatic leaders at the top, whose popular appeal swept away the cobwebs of groupism, and the other was the articulation of the Big Idea, which represented the party’s vision.

Arguably, it is the absence of these two factors which has led to the party’s present plight and, consequently, allowed the petty groupies to proliferate. It cannot be gainsaid that unless the Congress finds a sense of direction in terms of an idealistic outlook, it will continue to flounder.

However, the Congress’ travails are all the more surprising because it is the only party which has been able to reorient its policies in sync with the changing times. Neither the Left nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its two main opponents, has been able to do so. The comrades, for instance, remain stuck in the days of Soviet hegemony when anti-Americanism was the flavour of the day. They seem to take no cognisance of the fact of communism’s terminal decline.

The BJP, on its part, is unable to break free of its pro-Hindu Jana Sangh past or of its servile relationship with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the head of the Hindu supremacist saffron brotherhood. As a result, it is virtually an untrustworthy alien entity so far as the country’s minorities are concerned – Muslims and Christians – and also for the liberal-minded Hindus.

In contrast, the Congress has undertaken major ideological changes. For a start, it is gingerly sidestepping the Nehruvian concept of socialism even if this Fabian ideal is associated with one of the party’s greatest leaders. Along with socialism, another Nehruvian policy initiative of the 1950s – non-alignment – has been discarded. In their place, the Congress has chosen market-driven economic policies and tilted towards America, the socialists’ bugbear.

It isn’t that there hasn’t been resistance from within the party to these changes. There are sizeable sections which still hanker for a “socialistic pattern of society”, which the Congress’s 1955 resolution envisaged. These groups are also wary of too close a relationship with America, for which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is held responsible. Even then, consensus is gradually emerging that there can be no definitive turning away from economic reforms or from a close friendship with America.

However, it is the continuing half-heartedness about these initiatives which is responsible for the Congress giving the impression of being unsure about its future course of action or being able to convince the people of whatever it has achieved. It is the sense of being stuck in a limbo, as it were, which is hurting the party. Nothing showed the effect of this purposelessness than the recent Delhi municipal election results where the BJP succeeded in retaining its hold despite the achievements of the city’s Congress government in making the national capital one of the country’s most liveable cities.

Yet, although the Congress raised its tally of seats from 67 in 2007 to 78 this time, the electorate was unwilling to repose full faith in it apparently because of its perceived governance deficit at the centre and entanglement in numerous scams that have been played up in the media. It was the same in Uttar Pradesh where the Congress gained the most in terms of a rise in vote share – 14.02 percent in 2012 compared to 8.63 percent in 2007 – a 5.5 percent jump compared to a 4.5 percent increase for the Samajwadi Party. The impressiveness of the gain can be seen from the fact that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lost 4.2 percent of its vote share and the BJP lost two percent. But the Congress still remains very much a marginal player.

The surge in the Congress’ popularity in 2009, which took the party’s Lok Sabha seats to above 200, was the result of the belief that the party was about to implement the Big Idea of economic reforms. Instead, not only is the party dithering, it is even turning to state paternalism redolent of a controlled economy by favouring dole-oriented programmes like the rural employment scheme and the proposed hugely expensive food security bill, which will make a mockery of fiscal discipline. These are ideas which will not impress the new generation.

A lot of other sweeping changes have taken place too.

The first Lok Sabha, formed after the 1952 election, was dominated by the Congress and the towering presence of Jawaharlal Nehru, with the Communists being the main opposition.

Today, while still heading the ruling coalition, the Congress is a much weakened political force, surviving on the support of not so loyal allies. The Communists are a pale shadow of their former self.

The percentage of MPs without secondary education — many gave up schooling for the independence struggle — was almost a quarter in 1952. It is now just three percent.

Most MPs in the first house were lawyers by training. Now most are linked to agriculture.

There is a noticeable shift in the age profile too.

In 1952, only 20 percent of MPs were 56 years or older. In 2009, when the last Lok Sabha election was held, this zoomed to 43 percent, said Devika Malik of PRS Legislative Research, a think tank.

The members of the first Lok Sabha included, in the treasury and opposition benches, besides Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Vallabhai Patel, B.R. Ambedkar, Abul Kalam Azad, A.K. Gopalan, Sucheta Kriplani, Jagjivan Ram, Sardar Hukam Singh, Asoka Mehta and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai.

Speeches, debates and interventions in the house were of a very high order. Even when they differed with their opponents, everyone maintained decorum.

Sixty years later, this has been the biggest casualty.

Senior politicians fondly recall the days when disruptions were infrequent and ruckus, sloganeering and rancour were almost unheard of.

Cabinet minister Virbhadra Singh, who entered the Lok Sabha in 1962, told IANS: “Disruptions on small issues never happened earlier. Members strongly expressed their differences of opinion but there was hardly an occasion when parliament was disrupted. Now this is the rule rather than the exception.”

Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sumitra Mahajan said members in earlier decades reflected a national view in their thinking. “They had a pan-India approach to issues. Now state perspective has become more pronounced.”

Mahajan, into her seventh term as a Lok Sabha member, said there was respect for senior leaders in the past. If any of them stood up to speak, members would listen without creating a din.

“In later days, even Atalji had to face disturbances,” she said, referring to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Political analyst S. Nihal Singh agreed the standard of debates earlier was very high. “There is much less real debate now, much more of noise and disturbance.”

Nihal Singh said there was less respect for parliamentary democracy now though everybody swears by it, adding that the frequent disruptions were a waste of public money.

Former Lok Sabha secretary general Subash C. Kashyap said parliament only reflected the larger society.

“They (MPs) are representatives of people that we are… Of our weaknesses, our culture, sense of values, our indiscipline… If there is indiscipline in society, it is bound to be reflected.”

Kashyap said there was more discussion on international affairs when Nehru was the prime minister.

More disorder means less work in parliament.

According to PRS legislative Research, the first Lok Sabha passed an average of 72 bills every year. This has decreased to 40 in the 15th Lok Sabha.

Former Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Najma Heptulla, in her sixth term, said many parliamentarians of the earlier era were freedom fighters. Their values and issues have almost vanished, she lamented.

* First chairman of Rajya Sabha – S. Radhakrishnan.

* First Speaker of Lok Sabha – G.V. Mavalankar.

* First Lok Sabha meeting was on May 13, 1952.

* First Lok Sabha held 677 sittings for about 3,784 hours.

* Around 48.8 percent of time of first Lok Sabha was used for legislative business.

* Percentage of graduates has increased from 58 percent in 1952 to 79 percent in 2009 (includes post-graduate and doctoral degrees).

* Women constitute 11 percent of members in the 15th Lok Sabha. In comparison, only 5 percent of MPs in the first Lok Sabha were women.

* In the first Lok Sabha, there was no MP over the age of 70. This number has risen to 7 percent in the current Lok Sabha.

* The first Lok Sabha passed an average of 72 bills each year. This has decreased to 40 in the 15th Lok Sabha.

* Parliament passed 118 Bills in 1976. This was the highest number of Bills passed by Parliament in a single year.

* The lowest number of Bills was passed in 2004 when only 18 Bills were passed by Parliament.

* Lok Sabha met for an average 127 days in the 1950s and Rajya Sabha for 93 days. This has decreased to 73 days for both houses in 2011.

(with inputs from PRS legislative Research)

The Indian agrochemicals market is currently poised at over Rs 16,000 crore, according to a study titled, ‘Indian Market for Agrochemicals,’ released by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

“Growing awareness about the positive impact and benefits of agrochemicals on the agri-produce and the need for crop protecting and growth augmenting chemicals amid farmers together with growing shortage of farm labour, need for self-sufficiency in food grain production, growth in organized retail segment and thriving domestic horticulture and floriculture industries are fuelling the growth and increased usage of agrochemicals in India,” said Mr D.S. Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the findings of the study.

“There is a huge growth potential for foreign investments in India’s agrochemicals market and the multinational companies operating in the sector can witness five to ten times more annual growth in India as compared to that in other countries thereby making India a global hub for agrochemicals,” said Mr Rawat. “Rapidly growing population is constantly putting huge pressure on arable land thereby making the use of agrochemicals inevitable to increase farm production in India.”

Besides, lower availability of natural fuels is also a significant reason behind growth of agrochemicals as the usage of the same can help boost agri-production, according to the ASSOCHAM study.

Considering the rampant growth prospects of agrochemicals, there is an urgent need to groom the farmers and inform them about their usage and application in terms of its quantity depending upon the nature of crops.

Indian agrochemical companies should leverage from their wide distribution network, superior abilities in process optimization and low-cost manufacturing skills, said ASSOCHAM. Besides, Indian companies in the sector should also increase their investment in research from current level of about two per cent to at least eight to 10 per cent to spur its exports and be more competitive in the global scenario, said ASSOCHAM.

Abundance of low-cost agrochemical products from China, high inventory owing to Indian farms’ dependence on monsoons, counterfeit products and long credit periods to farmers are certain key problems faced by India’s highly-fragmented agrochemicals market.

In terms of agrochemicals production, India ranks fourth in the world after USA, Japan and China respectively. Besides, the global agrochemicals industry is growing at about 12 per cent CAGR and is likely to cross Rs 13 lakh crore mark from the current level of about Rs 8.5 lakh crore, according to the ASSOCHAM study.

As per an estimate, crops worth about 20 billion dollars is lost due to lower usage of pesticides each year. ASSOCHAM has thus suggested judicious use of pesticides to prevent crop losses, reduce input costs and provide economic benefits to the farmers.

The ASSOCHAM delegation comprising Mr. Ravi Wig, Chairman, ASSOCHAM Punjab Development Council, Mr. Ashok Khanna, Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Environment & Safety and TQM and Mr. D.S. Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM met Mr. Prakash Singh Badal today and suggested setting up of industiral clusters in Punjab   for small and medium enterprises involved in food processing, handicrafts, renewable energy and information technology to generate three lakh direct and indirect jobs over the next three years and help inclusive growth.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to assist in establishing clusters of small and medium enterprises in two districts of potential states across the country.

The strategy paper on all-round Punjab development is a ready-reckoner for investors, the Centre and state governments to make it as one of the most attractive investment destinations in India with double digit SGDP growth, said Mr. Wig.  The chamber has also set up a dedicated Foundation for Development of Micro Industries and Clusterisation to promote micro, small and medium enterprises.

They said Punjab should rejuvenate agriculture, create manufacturing hubs and accelerate growth in services sector to emerge as land of opportunities. The agenda of new state government should be to prioritise building social and physical infrastructure and define role of all stakeholders and cover short-term and long-term goals to ensure speedy development.

The state may not have enough finances to develop infrastructure on its own which builds a good case for public private partnership (PPP) type of initiatives involving multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. “The challenge before state government is to address the issue from a holistic perspective keeping in balance between agriculture and industry,” said Mr Rawat.

To encourage effective distribution of agro-commodities, initiatives should be taken to create hub-and-spoke model under which districts and towns identified act as a hub and villages surrounding them act as spokes. This will ensure efficient distribution, reduce transportation costs, increase competition and real price discovery, benefiting the farmers.

Farmers need technology upgradation, logistic support, market intelligence and should be able to compete in international markets. The industry looks forward to stable, transparent and responsive state government so that more investments can pour in, he said.

“We would also like the state government to promote irrigation, rural connectivity, health, education and non-farm rural activities. With rich natural resources and traditional industries, however, the state holds enormous unrealised growth potential,” said Mr. Khanna.

At the same time, industries clusters can be created for micro, small and medium enterprises to ensure common facilities, thus reducing operating costs and increasing competitiveness and skill development around that sector.

The state government must facilitate contract farming by attracting investments from the private sector. Irrigation systems can be improved by employing modern technologies which are a must to boost productivity.

Special economic zones (SEZs) can be created with organic farms for herbal and medicinal plantation. A definite roadmap needs to be drafted to improve storage facilities, transport infrastructure and marketing network so that food processing industries can develop value-added products for domestic and foreign markets.

Industry-specific SEZs for information technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, textiles, gems and jewellery besides manufacturing of sports goods also hold potential for growth and employment generation, said ASSOCHAM.

State-level development finance institutes like erstwhile industrial development corporations should be revived to support long-term financial needs of small and medium enterprises. Developing strategic business services like IT, IT-enabled services, finance and insurance can be catalysts of growth and enhance the share of services in gross state domestic product (GSDP).

The private sector can contribute by promoting such projects to provide industry-relevant skills to rural youth. ASSOCHAM also called for creating an enabling policy framework to rejuvenate economic activity in the state.

The state government should spell out a clear land acquisition policy with sufficient room for buyers and sellers to negotiate directly with minimal government role for attracting fresh investments from the private sector.

Women in Mumbai and B’lore more aggressive about career development, Delhi ranks 3rd

Majority of young working women in urban India are putting off plans to start a family as they put career and professional ambitions ahead of motherhood, according to a just released survey by apex industry body ASSOCHAM ahead of International Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 13.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and India (ASSOCHAM) under the aegis of ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF) carried out a random survey of about 1,200 married, young full-time working women without children and about 800 stay-at-home mothers in the age group of 24-30 years at urban centers of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune during March-April.

Over half (650) of married, young working women in the aforesaid urban centres said they have shelved plans to start a family as career advancement and higher-education is their priority and cannot sacrifice the same to raise kids, highlights the ASSOCHAM survey.

 “Ambitious working women in India are not willing to give up their career for the sake of family as they are apprehensive about dealing with stress and emotional distress associated with issues of work/life balance,” said Mr D.S. Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM while releasing the findings of the survey.

“Household chores, social commitments and other obligations make raising kids a delicate balancing act for women with successful careers,” said Mr Rawat.

About 10 per cent said they work to lead a better lifestyle and need to accumulate enough wealth before they start a family and cope up with rising costs of childcare.

About 200 respondents from the working women category said they have put off their plans to have a baby as it would disfigure their physical appearance. About 70 of these said they are too young to be a mother.

However, about 20 per cent of these both said they have taken a mutual decision with their spouse that first they want to accomplish their career goals and then would start a family to be able to justify with both the roles effectively.

Many working women said they work primarily because of sheer passion for their career and to hone their organizational skills.

About 220 respondents from this category said they have no qualms in going on the family way and becoming a mother would make them feel happier and fulfilled and are not fearful of the effect motherhood might have on their career.

Nearly 65 out of the total 150 working women interviewed in Delhi said they are deliberately avoiding starting a family and most of these have taken their families into confidence regarding their decision. Of these, about 30 said they are sticking to their decisions from career point of view, while about 25 said they are conscious about their physical appearance that’s why they are delaying this move and about 10 said they are too young to have a baby.

In this category, about 85 respondents in Delhi said they have not taken any such decisions but majority of these (45) said they are fearful as it might end their social life, while remaining 40 said they would be happy to raise kids and feeling of being a mother will make them feel fulfilled.

Though, 100 out of 150 working women in Mumbai and 80 in Bangalore said they are averse to having a baby for the time being as their respective career is primary for them.

Off the 800 stay-at-home moms interviewed, about 35 per cent of respondents said though they do not make any monetary contributions to the family income but looking after and taking care of kids full time consumes most of their time as they carry out plethora of household chores on a daily basis. Besides, many even said they have put their social life on hold and are not able to even take much care of themselves and rest of their family to raise children.

About 25 per cent said they regret not being able to work as they are less educated, have limited job skills and find it hard to make both ends meet due to rising cost of living and feel two incomes are imperative to run the household efficiently. Of these about 80 said they regret motherhood as they have lost their social identity.

Rest of the 40 per cent of these respondents said its better to stay at home and raise their kids rather than paying a bomb at day care units in the neighbourhood. Besides, majority of them said they are proud of choosing motherhood over work as it can lead to comprehensive development of their wards during the pre-school years.

Of this category, about 15 per cent said they used to work initially and quit their successful careers and chose family over job as it was becoming a conflict of priorities as they had to travel extensively and stay away from home and family.

Majority (60 respondents) of stay-at-home moms in Delhi said they are happy staying at home as they can devote ample of time in raising their kids. About 30 of the remaining 40 said they quit their jobs to look after their wards and about 20 of these said they regret their decision. About 10 said they find it hard to raise kids due to rising cost of living.

Born May 11, 1912 in Samrala, Punjab, Manto arrived in Mumbai in the 1940s and spent four to five years here. Though not much is officially known about it, his writings provide adequate hints of his sojourn here.

He lived in small, dark buildings spread across the congested Grant Road, Byculla, Nagpada areas of southcentral parts of the city.

A series of events has been lined up now to mark his birth centenary Friday, including one by the Mumbai Press Club, and another by the socio-cultural organisation Urdu Markaz.

Senior film journalist, researcher and writer Rafique Baghdadi said: “Manto’s contribution to Urdu literature is remarkable.”

Zubair Ansari of Urdu Markaz said, “The legendary writer merits a befitting tribute on his birth centenary”.

In his short life spanning barely 43 years, Manto left a legacy of some of the most profound and popular contribution to Urdu literature.

A short story writer, film and radio script writer and journalist, in a professional career of less than two decades, Manto bequeathed 22 collections of short stories, one novel, five collections of radio plays, three collections of essays and two collections of personal sketches.

Over the years, he was catapulted to fame with works “Boo”, “Khol Do”, “Thanda Gosht”, and his magnum opus, “Toba Tek Singh”.

And Mumbai figured in his works.

In the biographical sketch of Nur Jehan, Manto writes: “I think I arrived in Bombay on Aug 7, 1940, and my first meeting with Shaukat (Syed Shaukar Hasan Rizvi) took place on 17 Adelphi Chambers, Clare Road, which served both as office and his residence.”

His ever-popular story, “A Question of Honour” described in great detail the places with which he was associated in the city, the places he lived in, ate, visited during his few years here.

In “A Question of Honour”, Manto mentions Mumbai’s famous Arab Gully: “Another street in the area was called Arab Gully, with 20-25 Arabs living there, all apparently in the pearl trade. Others were Punjabis and Rampurias. I was in Arab Gally that I had rented a room, which was so dark that the light has to be kept on at all times. The monthly rent was exactly nine rupees, eight annas….”

Despite an early struggle, Manto was fortunate that the film studios of that era recognised his gift for storytelling and he landed with several scripts which later became movies.

They include “Keechad”, “Apni Nagariya”, “Begum”, “Naukar”, “Chal Chal Re Naujawaan”, “Kisaan Kanya”, “Ghamandi”, “Beli”, “Mujhe Paapi Kaho”, “Doosri Kothi”, “Shikaar”, “Aath Din”, “Aagosh” and “Mirza Ghalib”.

He has also acted in a couple of films – “Eight Days” and “Chal Chal Re Naujawan”.

Considered one of the best Urdu short story writers of the 20th century, Manto also developed a reputation for being the most controversial.

Known for penning topics which were considered social taboo in the Indian and Pakistan society of those days, Manto was reviled and revered in equal measure and often compared with D.H. Lawrence of English literature.

Manto’s focus of writings ranged from the grim socio-economic injustices prevailing in the pre-and-post-colonial subcontinent, to the more controversial topics of love, sex, incest, prostitution and the typical hypocrisy of a traditional subcontinental male.

Long before the renowned artist M.F. Hussain came on the scene, Manto was tried for obscenity half-a-dozen times, thrice in the undivided British-ruled India and thrice after 1947 in the post-Partition Pakistan. However, he escaped being convicted or exiled for his bold thoughts and daring to espouse creative freedom in that conservative era.

He was opposed and deeply pained by the Indian partition. He died Jan 18, 1955, in Lahore, Pakistan. Only 42 years old, Manto was survived by his wife Safiyah and three daughters, but the literary void he left behind was difficult to fill.

Many of the nearly 90 Bangladeshi prisoners lodged in the jail, on the outskirts of Jammu, feel the skill will help them live a dignified life back home after their release.

Poverty is the main factor that drives them to infiltrate into India to either stay put or further cross over to Pakistan in search of work. But many get caught by police or the Border Security Force (BSF).

One such convict, Shamshul Alam, a resident of Chittagong in Bangladesh, told IANS that he belonged to a very poor family, “so I thought of crossing over to India to work as a labourer but police caught our group of 10″.

Alam, aged 25, says he along with nine others worked for a few days as labourers in Arnia village near here before police arrested them. “There are agents in Bangladesh who bring groups of people into India with the promise of getting us small jobs,” he told IANS.

“Bangladesh is a poor country and, on top of that, floods and cyclones spell havoc. This forces many like us to flee illegally,” says Jashimian of Dhaka who along with a group of 25 was arrested by the BSF while trying to cross over to Pakistan from the border near Jammu with the help of an agent. They were later convicted of illegal border crossing.

He says he has a big family, including parents, six brothers and two sisters, to support.

Now while they are in jail they are getting training in Kashmiri aari embroidery on crewal fabric.

“I learnt it in just two weeks, and thereafter I have embroidered a number of curtains, bedcovers, tablecloths and ladies’ suits,” Alam says proudly.

All of them realise that they have learnt a great art which can make earning a living easier.

Expressing gratitude to the jail authorities, another Bangladeshi, Mohammad Johail, says, “Our jail sentence has become a boon, as now we know Kashmiri embroidery which can help us earn our bread back home in Bangladesh. It is like taking a great gift of Kashmir to our country.”

Jashimian gets emotional as he remembers his home. “It is going to be a beautiful blend when we do world famous Kashmiri embroidery on the famous Dhaka cotton.”

Now all of them are much more confident about life. Mohammad Illiyas says, “We can start coaching classes for this embroidery, or can sell embroidered items when we go home… at least we are sure of earnings now.”

When asked what prompted the jail authorities to teach Bangladeshi inmates Kashmiri embroidery, Superintendent of Jammu district jail Rajni Sehgal said, “Our effort is that when these inmates are released they do not feel lost in the world. This is to make them learn an art that can help in earning and surviving and make them skilled workers.”

There are around 90 such Bangladeshi convicts in this jail in the age group of 20 to 30 years. The majority have completed their sentence and their counselling is also over. “We are checking their antecedents and they are now under preventive detention till repatriation,” she said.

About the training, Sehgal said, “Language was somewhat a problem between them and the teacher, but we overcame that in no time with love and affection.”

The Bangladeshi inmates, who have become very fond of Sehgal, say in chorus, “When we go home, we will do embroidery on Dhaka’s malmal (cotton) and bring that gift for our madam (jail superintendent). But this time we will come legally on passport.”

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Born too soon: the global action report on preterm birth provides the first-ever national, regional and global estimates of preterm birth. The report shows the extent to which preterm birth is on the rise in most countries, and is now the second leading cause of death globally for children under five, after pneumonia.

Addressing preterm birth is now an urgent priority for reaching Millennium Development Goal 4, calling for the reduction of child deaths by two-thirds by 2015. This report shows that rapid change is possible and identifies priority actions for everyone.

This inspiring report is a joint effort of almost 50 international, regional and national organizations, led by the March of Dimes, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and the World Health Organization in support of the Every Woman Every Child effort, led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Born too soon proposes actions for policy, programs and research by all partners – from governments to NGOs to the business community – that if acted upon, will substantially reduce the toll of preterm birth, especially in high-burden countries.

The report contains a foreword by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and is accompanied by more than 30 new and expanded commitments to prevention and care of preterm birth, joining more than 200 existing commitments.

Search and rescue teams were heading to the area just south of the capital, said Bambang Ervan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transportation. Bad weather, however, forced at least two helicopters to turn back.

The Sukhoi Superjet-100 took off from Jakarta’sHalim Perdanakusuma Airport at 2:21 p.m.

It dropped off the radar 21 minutes later near the Salak mountain range, after the crew asked air traffic control for permission to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet (3,000 meters to 1,800 meters).

No explanation was given for the sudden change of course. Though drizzling at the time, it was not stormy.

“I saw a big plane passing just over my house,” Juanda, a villager who lives near the 7,200-foot- (2,200-meter)- mountain, told the local station TVOne.

“It was veering a bit to one side, the engine roaring,” she said. “It seemed to be heading toward Salak, but I didn’t hear an explosion or anything.”

Rear Marshal Daryatmo, chief of the national search and rescue agency, said several diplomats from the Russian Embassy, potential buyers from major Indonesian airlines and journalists were on board what was supposed to be a 50-minute demonstration flight, the second of the day.

Together with the Russian crew, the plane was carrying 50 people, said Sunaryo, from PT Trimarga Rekatama, the company that was responsible for the guest list. Like many Indonesians, both Sunaryo and Daryatmo use only one name.

Though the air search was called off by early evening, soldiers, police and members of the air force had joined the land-based rescue efforts. They were expected to continue through the night, but the terrain was rough and difficult to navigate after darkness fell.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to reach the location tonight,” Daryatmo said.

Developed by the Russian aerospace company Sukhoi in co-operation with Western partners, the plane is the first completely new airliner designed by Russia since the Soviet collapse.

Russia has hoped that the short- to mid-range jet, which made its maiden run in 2008, would help it break into international markets dominated by Boeing and Airbus.

It was on the fourth stop of a six-nation “Welcome Asia!” road show after having already been to Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. It was supposed to head next to Laos and Vietnam.

 

 Before the law extended its long arm and guilt is decided according to law the file is closed while the spokes person lost that important position in the political party which is leading the ruling front UPAt. Law does not take its course on its own, unless somebody moves it.  Rule of law and criminal procedural is available only for what is moved in court of law, but that which is in public domain or cyber space, perhaps knows no rules and the law. While netizens were aghast with CD revelations, the citizens were informed about it by Delhi High Court’s injunction order on April 13 restraining the driver of Singhvi, Mr Mukesh Kumar Lal and others including media as well as social network sites from “publishing, broadcasting, disseminating or distributing in any form or manner the contents of any alleged CD or any other material in relation to the Rajya Sabha MP Singhvi. The court restrained Aaj Tak, Headlines Today and The India Today Group from disseminating the contents of the CD. The petition stated: “Driver Mukesh Kumar Lal said that he needs a very large amount of money or else he will start spreading false rumours and allegations against Singhvi, including false statement regarding his moral character and will go to the media and distribute a CD which allegedly depicts alleged sexual acts made allegedly by Singhvi and will not hesitate from making other false claim.”

In yet another related litigation the Delhi High Court on 24^th April dismissed a petition seeking direction to the Bar Council of Delhi and the Delhi Bar Association to investigate this CD controversy. The petitioner advocate Sanjay Kumar had moved the court saying that the controversy had been decided without considering the allegations made in the CD and the FIR had been dropped without any further investigation.

Strangely the High Courts are deciding the procedural aspects and trial courts never get opportunity to try the guilt or innocence of VVIPs. While the powerful wield all power through courts the ordinary man is left to the mercy of a sub-inspector at lower rung of police machinery to suffer third degree methods to discover his guilt of stealing a bicycle or selling cinema tickets in black. Thus there appears to be two streams of law enforcement defying basic theme of rule of law and equality.

An organized Media with established identity cannot report rumours and baseless allegations. As there is a fiat from Court, tvs and newspapers cannot write and show the CD, origin of which was not known. But unlike the situation a few years ago, the vibrant presence of technology made it possible to some elements to hide themselves and circulate ‘the news’  widely with great speed. The life of a news story is as short as half day earlier, but with internet, its life is terribly shortened.  The social media persons got three days before the injunction came into operation. The twitter and other media space was filled with various questions about the CD, possibility of manipulating it, personalities involved in, motives behind and the sanctity of the place of happening. A raging debate happened simultaneously about the act between two consenting adults, their identity and reasons for it. There were no answers to these questions.

The firstpost.com reported that the video, recorded in what appears to be a Court Chamber room, is grainy, and not over-the-top explicit – although there is no doubt about the sexual nature of the activity it records. Nor do the conversations between the protagonists contain any reference to an offer of any position as alleged.

The first post.com also reported that this video has gone viral on social media platforms and on the Internet, defeating legal injunctions. The 12 minute, 40 second video was first uploaded around 9 pm on 19^th April on YouTube, but was pulled down within 20 minutes, for violation of YouTube’s terms of service on nudity and sexual content. A Facebook page too was created with links to the video. The creator of the Facebook page suggests s/he has more videos that are more incriminating – and implicating other leading politicians as well. The cat-and-mouse game continued all night with netizens repeatedly posting the video on YouTube and uploading bit torrent files on file sharing platforms, from where they can be downloaded. Next morning too there were websites streaming the video as embeds. Feisty commentators on Twitter have been posting links and mocking the person involved all night.

Though not a crime, several politicians fell down for being caught on camera for sexual involvement, chiefly because of media’s exposure and consequential social reaction.  Media’s response and the grammar of news are changed with technology.  Even as media desires to have freedom, that becomes casualty because of its fear of big powers. On the other hand anonymity gives strength to social media to bring out things in black and white without any fear. This social media with this freedom assumes role of watch dog and supports edifice of democracy as a fourth pillar while some watch dogs compromise to be a lapdogs.

Sexual morality continues to deter politicians though they have escape routes from punishment. If some powerful are beyond law, social media appeared to be beyond them, at least in some instances.

The Criminals and Criminal Law:

Consensual sexual intercourse is not a crime unless the female partner is below the age of consent giving capacity. Now a bill is pending before Parliament to rise the age of girl to 18 years to give consent for sexual acts. Proposed law makes sex with a girl below 18 years a crime of sexual assault, a cognizable offence punishable as rape. The suggestion to fix the age at 16 years and consensual sexual act between girls of 16 to 18 years and man should not be penalized was not widely accepted.

Since consent of woman defeats the charge of rape, and law did not provide enough scope for understanding inducement or veiled threat as reason for consent, the sexual assault law was reformed to add ‘custodial sexual offence’ in 1983. Section 376B of Indian Penal Code made such a crime punishable with five years jail and fine. It is defined: Whoever, being a public servant, takes advantage of his official position and induces or seduces any woman, who is in custody as such public servant or in the custody of public servant subordinate to him, to have sexual intercourse with him, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description (rigorous or simple) for a term which may extend to five years and shall also liable to fine.

If there is a prima facie evidence to show the possibility of occurrence of this crime, it should be investigated and culprit should be booked. Since the offence under 376B is cognizable, though accused cannot be arrested without warrant or without order of a Magistrate and the offence is bailable, police have a duty to investigate without waiting for a formal complaint, only on the information. There is little possibility of complaint from a woman when the sexual act is peaceful and consensual. The law is there, but there are lawyers too. Social media can only talk about it. Social and political fall out apart; legal consequences depend on so many other factors. Realizing that freedom comes with fearlessness, the media, whether print/tv or social networking, should remain a watch dog and retain its status as fourth pillar of democratic society.  Fortunately the technology added eagle’s eye to the watchdog.

Madabhushi Sridhar

Professor and Head, Center for Media Law and Policy, NALSAR University of Law Hyderabad.

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FOR MORE READING. . . 

A scheme for setting up 20 new IIITs on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model has been approved by Government at a capital cost of Rs. 128.00 crore for each IIIT to be contributed in the ratio of 50:30:15 by the Central Government, the State Government and the Industry respectively (57.5:35:7.5 in the case of North Eastern region).  The concerned State Government will  provide 50-100 acres of land, free of cost and initially the new IIITs would be registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource  Development, Dr. D. Purandeswari, in written reply to a question in Lok  Sabha

Overall, through this hike an additional burden of  Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 would fall on the shoulders of every passenger! Per annum the amount thus collected would exceed Rs 3000 crore in Delhi Airport alone! ‘Delhi will be the world’s costliest airport’, most newspapers reported a day after the hike. But, astonishingly, DIAL says that they will ask for another hike in user fee. Even Mumbai International Airport has asked for a 500 per cent hike. This kind of loot, which is a clear example of ‘primitive accumulation of capital’, is happening with the strong support of the government.

In their eagerness to support the corporate houses and big business, the government is violating all accepted principles of democracy and parliamentary procedures! It is misinterpreting the Acts and making Rules that go against the intention of legislature. Even as the Airports Authority of India (Major Airport Development Fee) Rules, 2011was pending scrutiny of parliament, the AERA went ahead and permitted increase of user development fee. Actually, the Rules were framed because the Supreme Court in a judgement banned collection of this fee without proper rules and regulations. This development fee was being collected from 01.03.2009 up to 01.06.2011. As per monthly Audit Report, the total collection of development fee during this period was Rs 1481.72 crore. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court only examined the technicalities of rule making and the administrative competence of the government to collect the fee rather than going into whether there was any genuine necessity of charging development fee or whether the contractual obligations and undertakings of the Airport developer permitted such collection. It may be noted here that when the contract was finalised, there was no provision of collection of development fee. The bidder put his papers without considering the income from development fee and there was no commitment from the part of the government to facilitate collection of such huge sums of money every year.  So it is very clear that the permission to collect development fee is an illegal administrative decision on the part of the government and this was upheld by the Supreme Court. Now, these Rules have been framed to overcome the ‘technicality’ and allow the private firm to reap in huge sums of money.

RULES MUST BE WITHIN

THE MANDATE OF THE ACT

It is a well established law that without proper Rules, no Act can be effectively implemented. The role of the Executive in framing the ‘Rules’ has come under public scrutiny with controversies erupting over framing of Rules pertaining to the Civil Nuclear Liability Act, the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the present Airports Authority of India (Major Airport Development Fee) Rules, 2011, etc. In such cases, the Rules were either not in tune with the Acts that were passed by parliament or against the basic premises of the Constitution of India.

Adopting a rarely used parliamentary tool of amending Rules, the opposition parties moved amendments to many such rules. The power with the Executive to make Rules, regulations, by-laws, schemes or other statutory instruments is delegated by parliament. The Committee on Subordinate Legislation, of both the Houses, examines whether the Rules are in pursuance with the Constitution or Acts passed by parliament. These committees also see whether the Rules contain matters which should be dealt within an Act of parliament or it contains imposition of any tax. The committee also checks whether the rules directly or indirectly bars the jurisdiction of the courts and whether it involves expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India or the Public Revenues.

Even though the concepts of Administrative Law provides for enough safeguards against the arbitrariness by the Executive in running the administration, the practical experience is far from satisfactory. The power to make legislation is always vested with the representatives of the people in all modern democratic systems. But, due to the complexities of modern day administration and because of the growing areas of public life, the law making bodies cannot go into the minute details of law making. Generally, primary law will be made by parliament through Acts and the Rules, the most important instrument in transmitting the intention of the legislature, will be made by the administration i.e. Executive. While drafting the Rules, the Executive has to look into the intention of the parliament and to analyse the practical field realities. They should make the Rules only in consonance with the parent Act. But, unfortunately, the ‘Executive made Law’ in many cases deceives the real intention of the parliament. If the authorities concerned are not properly making the Rules in time or making provisions that run contrary to the Act, the basic intention of the enactment will not succeed.

THE CASE OF AIRPORTS

DEVELOPMENT FEE RULES

The Airport Authority of India (Major Airport Development Fee) Rules, 2011 enables private operators to levy user development charges from all passengers travelling through a particular airport. The Rules, laid in Rajya Sabha, help private airport operators like DIAL and Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) to collect the development fee from the passengers. These Rules help the private airports to overcome the legal laxities pointed out by the Supreme Court, while hearing a case questioning the illegal collection of user development fee.

The Delhi and Mumbai Airports were developed through PPP model by the government. The developers were selected through a process of competitive bidding. After some years of operation, the government has accorded sanction to the airport developers to collect huge amount of user development fee from the passengers using both airports. While tendering the projects and inking the contract, there was neither any provision for the collection of user development fee nor any rules empowering them for it. Later, after many years, the private developers demanded for the introduction of user development fee. The government accepted their demand and allowed a fee collection of Rs1300 per international passenger and Rs 200 per domestic passenger from Delhi airport. Similar amount was allowed to be collected from Mumbai Airport users also. Aggrieved by the decision of the government, some consumer organisations approached the Delhi High Court.

Initially, it upheld the decision of the government.  But, while hearing the appeal, the Supreme Court held the user fee collection as illegal. Without going into the technicalities of the contract and fee collection, the Supreme Court held that the collection itself is ab-initio void because there is no enabling ‘Rules’ to empower fee collection.

Further, the court stated that even if such fee is to be collected, it must be decided by the regulator, Airport Economic Regulatory Authority. So, it was very clear that the government’s arbitrary decision to support the private developer by imposing this fee was patently illegal. During the time of initial order by the government and the judgement delivered by the Supreme Court, the DIAL had collected more than Rs 1481crore. A strong demand was made before the government that this money, which was illegally collected by the airport developers, should be taken back from them. But, instead of rectifying the mistakes done by the administration, the government immediately came out with Rules enabling the collection of user fee. The government tabled the Rules in the parliament.

PROPOSED

AMENDMENTS

Generally, the use of parliamentary tool of giving amendments to Rules is rare. Such amendments to Rules were discussed in Rajya Sabha 11 years ago in May, 2000. After such a long period, a statutory motion to amend the biased Rules relating to Major Airports Development Fee came up before the House recently. But, instead of supporting and promoting the parliamentary procedure, the concerned ministry has tried to avoid the discussion on this statutory motion.

The amendments brought mainly four points before the House. Firstly, they do not accept user fee collection in airports built on PPP model, as there was no such provision to collect user fee at the time of bidding and awarding of contract for upgrading these airports. The lowest bidder would have been finalised without considering this income. If the government allows collection of user fee, it would amount to a major scam involving thousands of crores of rupees.

Secondly, the amendments called for bringing PPP airports and user development fee collection and its spending under the C&AG’s scanner.

Thirdly, they propose to hand over the money illegally collected by two Private Airport Developers to the Airport Authority of India. This money comes around to around Rs 2500 crore from the two airports.

Fourthly, the amendments seek to entrust the Airports Authority of India with the task of collecting and managing the user development fee rather than the private agencies.

Members would have accepted these amendments, if they are placed before the House, because of their legality. But the government is manoeuvring to scuttle this process.

This amount, collected illegally by private airports, is to be considered as Bona-vacantia (ownerless goods) and should be the property of the government. The question about the right of levying tax and its collection raises issues of wider ramification which will deeply affect our system. Article 265 of our Constitution clearly says that private parties are ineligible to collect and levy taxes.

In the case of the Rules notified under the Civil Nuclear Liability Act, the Act was diluted for the benefit of foreign suppliers. It has been pointed out by the opposition parties that the right to recourse for the operator to claim damages from the foreign supplier has been limited to the duration of the initial licence period or the product liability period, whichever is longer. The initial duration of the licence is normally five years and the product liability period will also be limited. Such Rules did not cover a reasonable period of the functioning of the reactor and its equipment. So, the interests of private, foreign manufacturers of nuclear equipment were put above the interests of our people. Once again, the UPA government is displaying the same attitude.

A provision to tax the public cannot be implemented through a Rule made by the Executive without the approval of parliament. The present government seems to be very eager to allow its PPP partners and corporates to levy tax bypassing parliament. The sovereign function of the Legislature has been put under question.

Red Cross Day falls on 8th of May. Back in 1963 the American President John F Kennedy reminded the world of this selfless movement and exhorted men and women to become part of this movement.

“Today as the Red Cross embarks upon its second century of service, each of us has an opportunity and an obligation to become a part of this humanitarian tradition. For only through our help is this important work made possible.” : President John F. Kennedy on the 100th anniversary of the Red Cross Movement, 1963.

Polio and Malaria – Joint Exercises

            Let us recall the significant contribution of   Indian Red Cross towards the Global Polio Eradication Programme in India. The country reached a major milestone in the history of polio eradication on 13 January, 2012, where we witnessed a 12-month period in which no case of polio was recorded. Indian Red Cross volunteers and staff played a noteworthy role in the dissemination of information to the general public, about the importance of preventing, controlling and eliminating the virus that causes paralysis, muscular atrophy and permanent deformity among children, on account of polio. The Indian Red Cross has also implemented Polio Programmes in the States of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where Polio had high prevalence.

            April 25, is observed as the World Malaria Day, the theme being “Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria”. The Indian Red Cross supported by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 2010-11 had implemented the Malaria Prevention and Control Programme in the two high malaria prevalence states of Andhra Pradesh  and Odisha. The objectives were the distribution of 40,000 LLIN (Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets) in two states and supplemented government efforts and by dissemination of knowledge about malaria and raising awareness especially at the community level.  Among other activities, the volunteers made visits to households, engaged in interactive sessions with the community members about health and hygiene, stressed on early detection signs and symptoms, cautioned on protective measures to be taken and thus educated the community imparting adequate knowledge regarding this killer disease. The Governors of the States of Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands congratulated and lauded the efforts and achievements of the Indian Red Cross Society.

Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Recognition

            The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad speaking on an earlier World Red Cross remembrance day, said volunteers were the backbone and spirit of the Red Cross Movement. He was a great votary of voluntary blood donation and has had an opportunity to notice firsthand, the yeomen service rendered by volunteers in the wake of cloud burst tragedy at Leh that had occurred in August, 2010. People of Leh still cherish the two sanitation units set up by Red Cross volunteers.

Blood Storage Units - Upgradation

            Regarding the upgraded Indian Red Cross Model Blood Bank, Dr. S.P.Agarwal, Secretary General, said that the Society collects 85% blood from voluntary donors and aims to achieve 100% voluntary blood soon. He added, the latest equipments such as automatic Elisa & serology processor, cold-room to store 2000 units of whole blood at 4 degree Celsius, storage of 5000 units of frozen plasma at -40 degree Celsius, equipments for component separation, transfusion transmitted infectious markers are being added. He added with hope that with the procurement of a mobile blood collection van, the society would help in achieving the target of 100% voluntary blood donation.

Functioning in Indian States

            Indian Red Cross Society’s, Nellore District Branch (Andhra Pradesh) renders service to the community through Health activities and Medical Camps. It has an active Vaccination Centre and a Blood Bank,is involved with a Spastics Centre,has undertaken a Cancer Project,runs an Aids clinic, educates men on Disaster Relief and provides opportunity for youth by giving them a chance of joining Junior Red Cross/Youth Red Cross. It also has a Pinakini Gandhi Ashram which stands second only to Gandhiji’sAshram at Sabarmathi at the National Level.

            The Kottayam (Kerala) Red Cross Branch has been involved in multifarious welfare activities in the areas of health and social welfare. Red Cross Nursing and Employment Scheme (RCNES)  is a project aimed at catering to the needs of the nuclear family in modern times, Red Cross Nursing Training Course is given every month for selected men and women. Supplying of free medicines to poor patients as per the prescription of doctors from all over the district is another noble act of this Centre. A well furnished service counter is functional at the Medical College, Kottayam. The Kottayam Red Cross Branch maintains a directory of willing blood donors. They have also conducted numerous eye donation awareness camps all over the district

            Junior Red Cross (JRC) is active in Tamil Nadu. A two day JRC training camp was organized at Melakottaiyur where 172 Juniors and 32 Counsellors from 54 schools participated. Sessions were covered on History of Red Cross, Eye donation, Personality Development and culminated with Cultural activities by Juniors. Officers from Educational Districts like chief Educational Officer & District Educational Officer also participated in this two day camp. A three day Training camp for JRC students was conducted from 1.3.2012 to 3.3.2012 at Usilampatti involving 205 Juniors and 20 counsellors from 23 schools in which sessions were covered on history of Red Cross, Global Warming , Aids Awareness, First Aid & Road Safety.

History of Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

            Young Swiss businessman Henri Dunant was the pioneer of the “Red Cross” activity. He was appalled by the condition of the wounded soldiers he happened to see in the battlefield of Solferino in Italy in 1859, during the Franco-Austrian war. He arranged relief services with the help of the local community immediately. What had occupied his thoughts, the aftermath of that war, became a book - A Souvenir of Solferino written in French, published in 1962 and became a passionate appeal against the inhumanity of war. Even today it is one of the most vivid and moving accounts of war, ever written. It suggested that a neutral organization be established to aid the wounded soldiers in times of war. Just a year after the release of this book, an international conference was convened in Geneva to consider the suggestions of Henry Dunant and thus the Red Cross Movement was born. International Red Cross Movement was established by Geneva Convention  Act of 1864. The name and the emblem of the movement are derived from the reversal of the Swiss national flag, to honor the country in which Red Cross was founded.

Indian Red Cross Society  

            During the First World War – 1914 – India had no organization for relief services to the affected soldiers, except a branch of the St. John’s Ambulance Association and a Joint Committee of the British Red Cross. A bill to constitute the Indian Red Cross Society, independent of the British Red Cross, was passed on 17th March 1920 and became an Act in 1920. On 7th June 1920 , fifty members were formally nominated to constitute the Indian Red Cross Society and the first Managing Body was elected from among them. Tamil Nadu Branch has partnership with the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies through the National Headquarters and individuals and philanthropists in supporting its activities. In fact, the Indian Red Cross Society is auxiliary to the Government.

The Task Ahead

One word would suffice, participation. In fact, Guru Gobind Singh IndraprasthaUniversity, New Delhi has a comprehensive Post-Graduate Diploma Course in Disaster Preparedness and Rehabilitation, under the aegis of the Red Cross Society which seeks to provide opportunities to obtain specialized qualification which has recognition on a global perspective and also provide a platform to professionals to build up capacity for training. One could become a member of this Society by visiting the urlhttp://www.indianredcross.org/membership.htm.The words of John F Kennedy still keeps ringing in one’s ears and has its relevance even today.

The Red Cross often steps in when nobody else can, performs onerous tasks and plays a unique role based on its international standing. And for this reason it gives us, the entire humanity, a ray of hope.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School, Boston surveyed 4,000 obese adults and found those who followed the common sense advice were much more likely to lose weight than those who adopted fad slimming regimes, went on liquid diets or bought costly weight-loss supplements.

Christina Wee, who helped compile the study at Harvard, said: “There are lots of fad diets out there as well as expensive over-the-counter medications that have not necessarily been proven to be effective. So it’s very encouraging to find that most of the weight-loss methods associated with success are accessible and inexpensive.”

Researchers found 41 percent of those who cut their fat intake were more likely to have shed five percent of their body weight in under a year than those who went on liquid diets, used non-prescription dieting supplements or followed popular slimming regimes, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported.

And if they exercised more than usual, they were almost 30 percent more likely to lose the weight. Although five percent weight loss may not sound significant, experts say it is enough to delay the onset of diabetes in an obese person, according to the Daily Mail.

And the ‘Not Rocket Science’ diet helped many volunteers shed more weight, with 37 percent of those who cut down on fat more likely to lose a tenth of their body weight, while exercising boosted their chances by 6 percent.

The study, the largest scale investigation of its kind, discovered that young men who actively resisted the urge to adopt a “couch-potato” lifestyle in their late twenties seemed to gain the biggest bone benefit.

Load bearing sports are those that involve jumping, including soccer, basketball, volleyball and tennis, that increase the load on the body’s bones.

“Men who increased their load-bearing activity from age 19 to 24 not only developed more bone, but also had larger bones compared to men who were sedentary during the same period,” senior study co-author Mattias Lorentzon, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, was quoted as saying in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Bigger bones with more mass are thought to offer a shield against osteoporosis, a disease that affects men and women alike, in which bones become porous and weak over time and start to fracture by age 50 or later, according to a university statement.

“Osteoporosis actually seems to get its start by age 25 when bones start to lose tissue. So this study sends an important message to young men,” Lorentzon said. “The more you move, the more bone you build.”

Lorentzon and colleagues found that basketball and volleyball seemed the best kinds of activities for building bone mass, followed by soccer and tennis. Such load-bearing sports seem to push the body to form new bone tissue.

Activities that do not put an increased load on the bones, like swimming and bicycling did not seem tied to the building of bigger bones or more bone mass, even though they offer other health benefits.

Osteoporosis affects more than 200 million people worldwide yet many are unaware that they are at risk. The disease has been called the silent epidemic because bone loss occurs without symptoms and the disease often is first diagnosed after a fracture.

Osteoporosis is more common in women, but men also develop it usually after age 65.

“Many neurological and psychiatric conditions are likely to involve problems with signalling in brain networks,” says study co-author Maurizio Corbetta, professor of neurology at Washington University.

“Examining the temporal structure of brain activity from this perspective may be especially helpful in understanding psychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia, where structural markers are scarce,” adds Corbetta, the journal Nature Neuroscience reports.

Scientists usually study brain networks – areas of the brain that regularly work together – using magnetic resonance imaging, which tracks blood flow.

They assume that an increase in blood flow to part of the brain indicates increased activity in the brain cells of that region, according to a Washington University statement.

“Magnetic resonance imaging is a useful tool, but it does have limitations,” Corbetta says. “It only allows us to track brain cell activity indirectly, and it is unable to track activity that occurs at frequencies greater than 0.1 hertz, or once every 10 seconds. We know that some signals in the brain can cycle as high as 500 hertz, or 500 times per second.”

For the new study, conducted at the University Medical Centre (UMC) at Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, researchers used a technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) to analyse brain activity in 43 healthy volunteers.

MEG detects miniscule changes in the brain’s magnetic fields caused by the simultaneous activity of many cells. It can detect these signals at rates up to 100 hertz.

“We found that different brain networks ticked at different frequencies, like clocks ticking at different speeds,” says Joerg Hipp of the UMC at Hamburg-Eppendorf.

For example, networks that included the hippocampus, a brain area critical for memory formation, tended to be active at frequencies around five hertz. Networks constituting areas involved in the senses and movement were active between 32 hertz and 45 hertz.

Many other brain networks were active at frequencies between eight and 2 hertz. These “time-dependent” networks resemble different airline route maps, overlapping but each ticking at a different rate.

“MEG studies provide a window into a much richer ‘temporal’ structure. In the future, this might offer new diagnostic tests or ways to monitor the efficacy of interventions in these debilitating mental conditions,” Corbetta adds.

But is this really enough to supply electronic microsystems? The answer lies in a compact data-logger installed on board, designed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Germany.

This compact system analyses and characterises usable energy – in this case, the oscillations created during the ride. Data logger includes an acceleration sensor, a GPS module, a micro-controller, an SD card and a WiFi interface.

Experts refer to this underlying technology as “energy harvesting.”

For instance, the vibrations generated by a high speed freight train could deliver enough energy to charge small electronic equipment: this is how the sensors that monitor temperatures in refrigerator cars, or GPS receivers, can receive the current they need to run, according to a Fraunhofer statement.

“We can use the data collected to design vibration converters, such as the piezoelectric generators, to feed the sensors, radio transmission receivers, tracking systems and other low-power-consuming devices with enough energy to power them,” explains the Fraunhofer group manager and engineer Peter Spies.

“The tracking systems in use to date run on just a battery. These batteries need constant replacement, but that involves a lot of effort and expense. Thanks to energy harvesting, we can replace the batteries and wiring,” adds Spies.

The energy “harvested” can be used for a great many other applications as well – to charge heart-rate monitors, sensors in washing machines and production plants, or measurement systems in cars to measure the air pressure in tires. The data logger is already in use in freight cars, trucks and machinery.

The researchers are showcasing a prototype of the data logger at the Sensor+Test 2012 trade fair, May 22-24 in Nuremberg, Germany.

The opposition does not seem to be in a hurry over passage of the bill even as the government is trying to narrow down the differences, said a parliamentary source who has been following the bill’s passage.

The opposition’s attention has now moved away from the bill because of its preoccupation with the presidential elections slated for July. Besides, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare also appears to have lost some of his appeal among the people, the source added.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was backing Hazare wholeheartedly during the winter session last year in order to pressurise the government, the party has criticised Team Anna for abusing parliamentarians at the start of the budget session.

During the March 23 all-party meeting addressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, most leaders were in favour of separating state Lokayuktas from the bill.

This amendment had to be approved by the union cabinet before the bill was presented in the Rajya Sabha, where it has been lying stuck since the winter session.

Even if the Rajya Sabha passed an amended bill, it would have to go to the Lok Sabha again for fresh approval, which might not be possible during the budget session, said the source.

As of now, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy is informally speaking to leaders of various parties on how to take the bill forward, said the source.

Last month, Narayanasamy said that differences on the bill had been narrowed down to five or six issues. During the debate on the bill in the winter session in the upper house the total number of amendments moved by members was 149.

“We are engaging with various political leaders and trying to bring consensus on major issues, and trying to bring the bill before parliament,” he had said.

The main votary of separating the Lokayukta and the Lokpal Bill is United Progressive Alliance ally Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee.

The Lokayukta was made part of the Lokpal Bill, 2011, as there was no uniformity in the various Lokayukta Acts in the states, said an official.

Under its platform, Rural Educational and Economic Development (REED), the organization has not only constructed the buildings of basic multipurpose one-teacher schools but also appointed trained Telugu-speaking teachers.

“We will run these schools for two years and thereafter hand over the management to local Muslims,” Ahsan Syed, a member on IMRC board, told IANS during his recent visit to Hyderabad.

It was three years ago that IMRC got a survey conducted on the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in coastal Andhra villages. Appalled by the utter poverty, illiteracy and inequality, it decided to launch the project, but despite its offer for total funding of the project, no organization came forward to undertake the work. It finally launched the project with the help of some individuals.

The mosques-cum-schools with libraries have come up in Srikakulam, East Godavari, Guntur and other districts in coastal Andhra. The organization, which raises donations from individuals in the US, is also providing food and clothes to the poor and conducting medical camps.

“We are spending Rs.5-6 lakh for construction of each school building and spending another Rs.2 lakh on the maintenance,” said Ahsan Syed, a retired engineer with US Army Corps of Engineers, who now delivers sermons at a mosque in Santa Clara.

The organization is at present working only in Andhra Pradesh, but it is receiving requests from other states like Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra to undertake similar projects. “We don’t have resources and people who can work in field,” he said.

He believes that Muslims not just in villages in India but across the world face the same problems. “Deprived of education and living in utter poverty, they have moved away from Islam and as a result they are being exploited by Christian missionaries,” he said.

“We are teaching basics to them, creating the fear of God in them. We tell them that this world is temporary, everybody has to die and there is ‘Akhirat’ (hereafter) and everybody will be questioned about his deeds.”

The IMRC also has a proposal to extend micro loans to the poor in Andhra Pradesh villages.

“After ‘Iman Billah’ (belief in Allah), the biggest intellect is serving people. This is built in for us,” explains Ahsan, who had migrated to the US from Hyderabad in 1967.

An expert of ‘Iqbaliyat’ (studies of poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal), Ahsan believes the young generation of Muslim Indian Americans are not aware of the problems of their brethren in India. He attributes this to the problems faced by the youngsters in maintaining their own identity in the US.

“They (the young Muslim Indian Americans) are the best Muslims at the international level. We hope that on world stage they will bring glory to Islam,” said Ahsan, who teaches Iqbaliyat to youth.

Ahsan is also on the board of trustees of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group which informs the US Congress and the US President about the conditions of Indian Muslims. He claims the biggest achievement of IAMC was the cancellation of diplomatic visa of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

“It is not a pressure group. It is an advocacy group. We work with Hindus and Christians. We tell them we share the same problems. If a man is poor, we don’t see whether he is Hindu, Muslim or Christian.”

Former Intelligence Bureau chief Arun Bhagat is of the opinion that the NCTC doesn’t need police powers because it was designed as a single agency to coordinate counter-terrorism operations across the country,

“Democratic nations don’t give police powers to intelligence agencies. Only oligarchies or monarchical governments do that. It reminds you of the organisations like KGB,” Bhagat told IANS.

He said the purpose of the NCTC was to collate and analyse intelligence inputs with experts from all disciplines, including diplomatic, financial, investigative, judicial and police.

“They were to examine leads because our intelligence agencies were not getting the broader picture that complicated the situation.

“But I don’t know what situation prompted (the government) to come up with the idea to give police powers to search, seize and arrest to the NCTC. You know even the IB doesn’t have the police powers.”

The former Delhi Police commissioner, who also had a stint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), stated that “lack of consultation” with state governments had complicated the matter that ultimately led to a deadlock over the NCTC.

The anti-terror organisation could not be formed despite a government order issued in February 2012 because many non-Congress ruled states feared its perceived misuse and that their policing powers would be clipped.

Commodore (retd) Uday Bhaskar, a noted security expert, said the state governments “had a reason to worry” even as he called the stalling of the NCTC as a “worrisome development” given the nature of threats to the nation’s internal security.

“Their (state government’s) argument is not devoid of reason, especially the states that have had tricky relations with the central government,” he said.

Ajay Sahni, an author and expert on counter-terrorism, questioned the logic to have the NCTC at all, arguing that not having it would “mean nothing for the country’s security”.

“It was a vanity project that would have undermined the existing capabilities,” feels Sahni.

Asked about the existing gaps in India’s anti-terror capacity as pointed out time and again by Chidambaram, Sahni argues that “generalisations cannot be arguments”.

“New structures cannot work. Existing system should be given the capacity to fight terror. Can NCTC do that?”

Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management that focuses on internal security research in India, pointed out that the Intelligence Bureau, India’s premier intelligence agency and nodal counter terrorism body, has less than 5,000 field agents to gather ground information from a population of 1.2 billion.

“Can NCTC do anything about that? In fact the NCTC will draw these field officers for its desk work and further complicate the things. What is the problem with the IB? Why cannot IB do what that you want the NCTC do?”

Sahni said there were already some 20 big and small central intelligence and security agencies – including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) – apart from state police intelligence wings.

“There are gaps that need to be filled. Work on the existing system. Modernise police forces, improve their intelligence gathering, link police stations with centralised intelligence database and improve your police public ratio,” he said.

But former home secretary G.K. Pillai, who is considered to be one of the main architects of the NCTC, is disappointed over the proposed one-stop anti-terror intelligence hub getting stalled.

“You are waiting for another terror attack like the Mumbai 2008 then you will agree that we need the NCTC,” Pillai told IANS.

He said state governments were playing politics over terror. “There should not be any politics when it comes to fighting terror,” he stressed.

Pillai rejected the contention of its being misused. “Anything can be misused. Tell me which law cannot be misused. But that doesn’t mean we should do nothing.”

New global report: 15 million babies born too soon, over 1 million die each year

Addressing preterm birth is now an urgent priority for reaching Millennium Development Goal 4, calling for the reduction of child deaths by two-thirds by 2015. This report shows that rapid change is possible and identifies priority actions for everyone.

This inspiring report is a joint effort of almost 50 international, regional and national organizations, led by the March of Dimes, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and the World Health Organization in support of the Every Woman Every Child effort, led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Born too soon proposes actions for policy, programs and research by all partners – from governments to NGOs to the business community – that if acted upon, will substantially reduce the toll of preterm birth, especially in high-burden countries.

The report contains a foreword by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and is accompanied by more than 30 new and expanded commitments to prevention and care of preterm birth, joining more than 200 existing commitments.

This commitment means that almost 10 million health-care workers are aiming to implement hand hygiene best practices, such as cleansing hands in specific moments during patient care. These steps help to combat the often hidden but persistent public health hazard of health care-associated infections.

Many of the germs causing these infections are transferred by hands when health-care providers or visitors are touching the patient while providing assistance. Using proper hand hygiene to keep hands clean is critical to reducing the risk of health care-associated infections in patients. The most common infections are urinary tract and surgical site infections, pneumonia and infections of the bloodstream.

A worldwide problem

“Health care-associated infection is a major burden around the world and threatens the safety and care for patients,” said Sir Liam Donaldson, WHO Patient Safety Envoy. “I urge the health-care community to take firm and decisive action to save lives from this preventable harm.”

Of every 100 hospitalized patients, at least seven in developed and 10 in developing countries will acquire health care-associated infections. In intensive care units, that figure rises to around 30%, according to a recent WHO report¹.

A new WHO survey of more than 2000 healthcare facilities in 69 countries, found that 65% of them are at a good level of progress with regards to hand hygiene promotion, resources and activities, but at least 35% are still at an inadequate or basic level. Promising achievements in promoting hand hygiene through reminders and education of health-care workers have occurred in more than 90% of health-care facilities, but improvement is still needed in areas such as monitoring of hand hygiene practices and establishing optimal hand hygiene behaviour within a strong patient safety culture.

Performing hand hygiene

When working with patients, hand hygiene should be performed in specific moments either by handwashing with soap and water or by handrubbing with an alcohol-based formulation. WHO recommends alcohol-based handrub as the most effective and easiest method for hand hygiene performance during routine health-care delivery.

“But handrubs are not available or not affordable in many countries,” says Dr Benedetta Allegranzi, team lead in the WHO Patient Safety Clean Care is Safer Care programme. “Improving affordability and accessibility to this simple and proven intervention will save lives, and it will require working with both public and private partners.”

To address these issues, the WHO Patient Safety Programme is launching the Private Organizations for Patient Safety (POPS)², a computer-based platform for knowledge sharing to promote compliance with WHO recommendations, share information and enhance hand hygiene product availability and accessibility in all parts of the world.

According to Hindu mythology, Lord Buddha is considered the ninth avatar of Vishnu. The important ritual for all the Buddhist is the Vaisaka Purnima known asWesak or Vesak festival in Sri Lanka. It is also known as Buddha Jayantiin India.

The three most significant events in the life of Gautama Buddha occurred on the same day. His birth, enlightenment and death (nirvana), all happened on a full moon night in April/May. This makes the day – called Buddha Purnima or Buddha Jayanti – all the more sacred for Buddhists.

At Bodh Gaya where Lord Budha attained enlightment, a special prayer was organised under Bodhi tree for world peace Thousands of monks across the world have assembled at the Mahabodhi temple to offer prayer.

The decision to agree to celebrate the Vesākha as the Buddha’s birthday was formalized at the first Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists held in Sri Lanka in 1950, although festivals at this time in the Buddhist world are a centuries-old tradition.

Bringing happiness to others

Celebrating Vesākha also means making special efforts to bring happiness to the unfortunate like the aged, the handicapped and the sick. To this day, Buddhists will distribute gifts in cash and kind to various charitable homes throughout the country. Vesākha is also a time for great joy and happiness, expressed not by pandering to one’s appetites but by concentrating on useful activities such as decorating and illuminating temples, painting and creating exquisite scenes from the life of the Buddha for public dissemination. Devout Buddhists also vie with one another to provide refreshments and vegetarian food to followers who visit the temple to pay homage to the Enlightened One.

history of Buddha in india :

Buddhism began in India and then got populated in the East Asia. Gautam Buddha lived and died in about the fifth century before the Christian era. He attained Nirvana i.e. the complete liberation at the age of 80.

Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama about 2500 years ago (544 BC), to King Shuddhodhana and Queen Mayadevi who ruled the kindowm of Kapilavastu at the Himalayas. When he was born, the royal astrologer prophesized that the young prince would either become a famous emperor or a world-renowned ascetic. Fearing that the prophecy might come true, his anxious father, the King took extraordinary precautions to avoid every situation that could lead Siddhartha to becoming a sage. He was brought up in luxury, every wish was fulfilled and he grew up without ever knowing what misery or sadness was. At an early age he married the beautiful Yashodhara, and led a luxurious life, blissfully ignorant of the ups and downs of life that existed beyond the palace gates.

But fate had something else in store for him. One day the prince expressed his desire to see the city. his charioteer took himoutside the walls of his palace where he was shocked to see an old man, a cripple, and a corpse. It was something he had never ever seen before. He asked his charioteer to explain the concept of old age and death. It was then that he realized the universality of sorrow. Deeply perturbed and disturbed by what he had seen, made him withdraw from his wordly pleasures. He realized that there was more to life than his extravagant lifestyle. The prince gradually grew disenchanted with his life, and the material comforts, and finally left his wife and son to seek enlightenment and the true meaning of life. He was barely 29 years old.

Gautam traveled far and wide, from one religious center to another, studying doctrines, going from one wise man to another and seeking answers to his questions. He finally stopped at a forest at the edge of the river near Gaya, in Bihar to meditate and observe penance for six long years. But this did not lead to a sense of true knowledge or peace, so he gave up the practice of deep meditation and embraced a life of extreme asceticism. Finally in search of truth, Siddhartha discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Path, which is moderate, in between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. He found a place near Bodh Gaya, where he found a suitable site for meditation, and vowed not to rise until he had attained perfect enlightenment. It was only after 49 days of intense meditation under the Bodhi tree that he achieved his goal and became the ‘Enlightened One’.

Bodh Gaya where he attained his supreme enlightenment has to this day remained one of the most sanctified places of pilgrimage for the entire Hindu World.

He delivered his first sermon at the Deer Park near Varanasi, in northern India to the group of five companions with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. They then, together with the Buddha, formed the first ‘sangha’ (company of Buddhist monks).

Teachings of Gautam Buddha :

The teachings of the Buddha are solely to release human beings from the sorrow and sufferings of life. For which he suggested one kind of meditation called as “Vipassana” (Vi – important and Passana – see) which means to see what is happening in your body. According to the Buddhism, sorrow and need are the main cause of all the iniquity and suffering of this world.

Lord Buddha suggested “Arya Ashtangik Marg” to all human beings which consisting of eight principles to gain victory over suffering. By following this marg one can easily reach the position of Nirvana. Nirvana is the state of complete liberation. The great Emperor Ashoka followed the teachings of Buddha and helped in spreading it far and wide.

His ‘Four Noble Truths’, which are the foundation of all Buddhist beliefs, are as follows:

1.All human life is suffering.
2.All suffering is caused by human desire
3.An end of human desire is the end of human sufferings.
4.An end to all the desire can be achieved by following the ‘Eightfold Noble Path’.

The Noble Eightfold Path 

The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana.

Three Characteristics of Existence

1. Transiency (anicca)
2. Sorrow (dukkha)
3. Selflessness (anatta)

Hindrances

Unwholesome mental states that impede progress towards enlightenment.
1. Sensuous lust
2. Aversion and ill will
3. Sloth and torpor
4. Restlessness and worry
5. Sceptical doubt

Factors of Enlightenment

1. Mindfulness
2. Investigation
3. Energy
4. Rapture
5. Tranquillity
6. Concentration
7. Equanimity

We don’t have to struggle to survive after all. We have already survived. We survive now; the struggle was just an extra complication that we added to our lives because we had lost our confidence in the way things are. We no longer need to manipulate things as they are into things as we would like them to be. Try to Understand Buddha to reveal yourself and to find real happiness.

Compiled By : Srinivas.Katta

            “I welcome you to this meeting of the Chief Ministers to discuss an important subject.  We met a little over two weeks ago and I deeply appreciate that the Chief Ministers have been able to find the time to meet once again.  I thank the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers for their gracious presence. I also thank my colleagues in the Central Government for kindly accepting our invitation.

            The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was passed by Parliament in 1967.  No one has questioned the validity of the Act.  After the horrific attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, there was an universal demand for strengthening the laws dealing with terrorism.  Since Parliament was in session, it was decided to act without loss of time.  All political parties joined together and unanimously passed two legislations: Act 34 of 2008 which is the National Investigation Agency Act and Act 35 of 2008 to amend the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

            In amending the UA(P)A, Parliament was mindful of its obligations not only to the people of India but to the international community as well.  The preamble to the UA(P)A was amended and a reference was made to Resolution 1373 and other Resolutions of the Security Council requiring all Member States to take measures against terrorists and terrorist organisations and to the Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order, 2007.

            A ‘terrorist act’ was defined more comprehensively.  ‘Court’ was defined to include ‘Special Court’.  New offences were added under Chapter IV.  In Chapter VII, new sections 43A to 43F were inserted.  A Schedule was added listing the 32 terrorist organisations as well as the organisations listed in the Order of 2007.  With respect, I submit each one of these amendments was made after careful consideration, wide consultations and reasoned debate in Parliament.

            In a note circulated earlier – and included in the agenda notes circulated for this meeting at pages 3-7 – we have dealt with the genesis, objectives, structure and powers of the National Counter Terrorism Centre.  The note draws attention to section 2(e) of UA(P)A that provided for a ‘Designated Authority’.  When section 43A was drafted, it was based on section 2(e) that was already part of the Act.  The decision to vest certain powers in the Designated Authority was a conscious decision taken by Parliament.  At the same time, Parliament took care to limit the exercise of powers under section 43A to cases where an offence under UA(P)A had been committed or there was a design to commit such an offence.  Further limitations were placed through sections 43B and 43C.  In fact, section 43B is a clear acknowledgement of the exclusive power of the State Government to register a case and deal with the arrested person or the seized article.

            Although the Amendment Act was brought into force on 31.12.2008, it was only in December, 2009 that I was able to draw the outline of a new security architecture.We took note of the experience of other countries.  In the US, the NCTC has the mandate to conduct CT operations involving all elements of national power.  There are also the FBI and the Secret Service with nationwide jurisdiction.  In Germany, there is the GTAZ (Joint Counter Terrorism Centre) and the GIZ (Joint Internet Surveillance Centre).  In the Indian context, the National Counter Terrorism Centre, that will be an important pillar of the new security architecture, is based on the following premises:

1.         That, under the Constitution of India, countering terrorism is a shared responsibility of the Central Government and the State Governments;

2.         That terrorists do not recognise boundariesbetween countries or boundaries between States belonging to a country;

3.         That many terrorist organisations have foot prints in several countries and have the capacity to commit terrorist acts across borders or boundaries;

4.         That human resources alone are not sufficient to counter terrorism; technology is the key weapon in this conflict.

5.         That we have obligations to the international community under the Resolutions of the Security Council.

6.         That given India’s 7516 km coastline, 15,106 km of international borders with seven countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar) and a number of international gateways, State Anti-Terrorist Forces would have to necessarily work with a number of agencies of the Central Government, especially when there are threats in the domain of sea, air and space.

            I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a new dimension to terrorist threats.  Hitherto, we confronted terrorist threats only in the physical space.  Now, there are terrorist threats in the cyber space, which is the fifth domain after land, sea, air and space.  Much of our critical infrastructure lies in cyber space.  Cyber crimes such as hacking, financial fraud, data theft, espionage etc. would, in certain circumstances, amount to terrorist acts. Our counter terrorism (CT) capacity must be able to meet the threats in cyber space. Since there are no boundaries in cyber space, how will the Central Government and the State Governments share the responsibility to face the threats in cyber space?

            When we last met, I had shared with you the good news that, in 2011 and until March, 2012, 21 terror modules had been neutralised, and that one half of the cases had been cracked through the joint efforts of the Central Agencies and the State Police concerned.  Today, I wish to share with you the other side of the picture.  There are cases where, despite inputs regarding the presence of terrorists, the security agencies concerned did not act either due to lack of capacity or lack of a timely decision. Most of these cases concerned so-called ‘jihadi’ terrorists and cadres of CPI (Maoist).  What should the Central Government do in such cases?

            Two days ago, Central agencies received specific inputs on an imminent terrorist attack.  Several States were notified and specific targets were identified.  Suppose it was a Central agency alone which had the opportunity to interdict the movement of the suspected terrorists, and if action had to be taken within hours or minutes, should the Central agency have the power and the duty to act immediately or not?

            Ladies and Gentlemen, I have tried to place before you – and the people of this country – the rationale behind the NCTC and a Designated Authority.  I am sure you would have noticed that the power to name a Designated Authority under section 2(e) is concurrent.  Hence, we would welcome it if your State Government also designates its Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) as the Designated Authority of your State.

            I would now draw your kind attention to paragraph 6.1 of the Order notifying the NCTC.  That paragraph is the key to understand how the NCTC will discharge its responsibilities.  Paragraph 6.1 stipulates that “The Standing Council shall ensure that NCTC is the single and effective point of control and coordination of all counter terrorism measures.”  Following the usual practice when a new body is created, we have circulated two Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs).   One deals with the functions and powers of the Standing Council and the other deals with the Operations Division of the NCTC.  I sincerely hope that the two SoPs would address all the concerns raised by some Chief Ministers in their letters to the Prime Minister and the issues flagged by the Directors General of Police at the meeting convened by the Home Secretary on March 12, 2012.

            In closing, I wish to assure you and the people of India that counter terrorism is a shared responsibility.  That is what the Constitution says, that is the practical and prudent way forward.  As State Governments build more capacity and inter-State cooperation becomes more effective, I suppose the Central Government can – and will – step back.  Meanwhile, we have to work together. Working together – State Governments and the Central Government working together, the Opposition and the Treasury working together, civil society organisations and Government institutions working together – I am confident we can make the country more safe and more secure.

            I look forward to an illuminating discussion and I seek your support to establish the NCTC.

The complete text of the Introductory Remarks made by the Finance Minister Shri Mukherjee is given below:

I would like to start this Press conference giving a brief preview of the Indian Economy. The unfolding of the euro zone has impacted the Indian economy through lower growth, falling business sentiments, declining capital inflows and exchange rate and stock market volatility with attendant implication for investor confidence. Despite these challenges, India has continued to be a front runner in terms of economic growth in the region, which underlines the resilience of the Indian economy. We have managed to maintain a growth rate of 6.9 per cent in 2011-12 with continued emphasis on inclusive growth. Steps are being taken to meet the fiscal deficit. In Union Budget 2012-13, we have focussed on strengthening domestic growth drivers, encouraging private investments to regain its pre-2008 crisis growth momentum and addressing supply constraints in infrastructure and agriculture sector.

The monetary authority in India has on 17th April 2012 reversed the policy rates for the first time, after a gap of nearly three years. I hope this will help in investment revival and contribute to strengthening of business sentiments. On the fiscal front, we are committed to bring down the subsidy bill below 2% of GDP in 2012-13 and to 1.75% of GDP in next three years.

We have taken several steps to shore up the short and medium term growth prospects which include gradual liberalization of capital market and encouraging capital inflows including through FIIs, FDI and in the area of External Commercial Borrowings, especially for infrastructure financing. The Indian economy is more resilient than many other nations to withstand this fresh round of global economic turmoil, as the bulk of India’s GDP is domestic demand driven. India’s External Commercial Borrowings Policy has been successful in maintaining external debt at sustainable levels. India’s banking sector is robust and our regulatory architecture is mostly in place. I am confident that the strong fundamentals of our economy will help us return to a sustained growth path of pre 2008 crisis level in the coming years.

India is a Founder Member of the ADB and our association with the institution dates back to 1966. The 45th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors of ADB here in Manila provided opportunity for meeting intellectuals and policy makers from across Asia and the world. In my intervention at the First Business Session of the Board of Governors yesterday, I highlighted that infrastructure development, dealing with the challenge of urbanization, managing food security, raising agricultural productivity, promoting efficient renewable sources of energy, improving livelihoods through inclusive growth and advancing regional cooperation are some of the key areas which need to be addressed with seriousness for sustaining the growth of Asian region. ADB is uniquely placed to assist in realizing the full potential of the region.

During my stay in Manila, I held bilateral meetings with the Finance Ministers of Bhutan, Bangladesh and the President of ADB. The new President of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) also called on me. Issues of mutual interest were discussed. I would also be meeting Secretary of Finance, Republic of Philippines during my stay.

India is honoured to be the host of 46th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the ADB that is scheduled to be held on May 2-5, 2013 in Delhi. We have chosen as theme for the event “Development through Empowerment” . This theme reflects the development strategy of India namely, empowerment backed by legal entitlement and encompasses issues that are critical for sustaining high and inclusive growth in Asia.

I am extremely happy that a Website to publicize the event was formally launched by the President of ADB and myself just now. This website will provide information about the Delhi Annual Meeting and act as a link between the host country and prospective delegates. We hope the Annual Meeting of 2013 will help bring countries of Asia closer to each other and also facilitate the formulation of policies that can lead us towards greater prosperity and well being. I welcome all colleagues from the media to visit India in May, 2013 and make this event a big success.

“I think we have had a useful and productive discussion today on a proposal which I think is extremely important in order to face the threat of terrorism to our country. I came to this meeting with an open mind and I continue to keep an open mind and I assure you that all your suggestions will be carefully considered before a decision is taken by the Government. Ultimately, however, Government would have to take a decision. Taking no decision on a matter of such urgency does not advance the objectives for which we have met today. It is not my intention to sum up the discussion today. However, I would be failing in my duty if I do not highlight the areas of convergence and areas which require more examination.

I think it is broadly agreed that there are two separate issues, one the need for NCTC or a similar organization. The other is what should be the powers and functions of such an organization, should one be created. I think this distinction was brought out in every intervention and I am grateful that all Chief Ministers maintained the distinction as far as support or opposition to the proposal is concerned and I think it will be fair to say that a number of speakers expressed strong support, a number gave qualified support and a few out rightly rejected the proposal. We will give serious attention to both those who strongly supported the proposal and those who suggested that it should be rejected outright.

The third aspect is about the role of agency designed to do counter terrorism, in a sense this is new to our system. We have intelligence agencies, we have investigative agencies. Between intelligence agencies and investigative agencies under the traditional system of administration of law and order, we have the police but my experience in this job for the last three and a half years tells me that what we need is not simply a police organisation; what we need is a counter terrorism organisation. I think one of the Hon’ble Chief ministers brought out borrowing the language of the NCTC in the US, what we need is a counter terrorism organisation that mobilises all elements of national power – diplomatic, financial, investigative, judicial, police. So we need to move beyond looking upon counter terrorism as a police operation and enlarge our scope to make it a truly counter terrorism organisation that will mobilise all elements of national power. That is why we believe that an NCTC or a similar organisation or organisation by any other name is absolutely necessary. While we will continue to have intelligence agencies, and the premier agency is the IB, and we will continue to have investigation agencies, the agencies are the State CIDs and Crime Branches and at the Centre, the CBI and now the NIA, we need and I underline this, we need a counter terrorism agency which is in my view more than a mere police agency.

In the last two and a half years, there have been significant successes in our CT operations, (Counter Terrorism operations). I listed them on 16th of April, I listed them today but against the significant successes in the CT operations there have also been the cases of failure. Why did we fail? We failed mainly because of lack of capacity; sometimes we failed because of a lack of timely decision. Each case has been documented; each case has been examined carefully. We document each case of success, we also documented each case of failure. Each case of failure contains within it the potential of another terrorist attack. Therefore, we cannot afford to fail. The adversary can fail ninety nine out of hundred times but the State, the Governments, cannot afford to fail even once out of hundred times. Every case of failure-there will be some terrorist attack somewhere. That is why it is important that we get over these weaknesses, the weaknesses arising out of lack of capacity, the weaknesses arising out of lack of timely decision. We think the NCTC or any other organization or any similar organization with whatever powers will fill this gap.

The fourth point is the misgivings about operations of the NCTC. It is not the NCTC which is being given certain powers, it is the operations wing of the NCTC which is being given powers and I have taken pains to say, both in the draft order that was made available and in the draft SOPs, that it is under exceptional circumstances. Normal operations will be done by the ATS and the State police. It is only in exceptional circumstances. As I said in the morning, suppose in a given situation only an officer of a Central Agency has the opportunity to interdict the terrorist, what should we do? Suppose that action has to be taken within hours or within minutes, what should we do? Suppose there is no real time between gathering intelligence or interdicting a terrorist what should we do? It is in exceptional circumstances that we have said that the operational wing may act, as far as possible by giving advance intimation and certainly by immediately providing information. But I recognise that a number of speakers are not still satisfied and they want more safeguards on this and those who gave qualified support are not satisfied with the safeguards that are built in. So this requires greater reflection.

And finally the other point of misgiving: why is it located in IB. I may recall, when I stood at this very podium in December 2009, I did not propose that the NCTC should be located in the IB. In fact, the new security architecture was certainly more ambitious but did not propose that it should be located in the IB. Finally, the decision was taken to locate to it in the IB because the GoM which made its recommendations in 2001, named the IB as India’s nodal counter terrorism agency. A number of speakers who pointed out that we must have a NCTC, asked why should it be located in the IB? Certainly this matter deserves re-examination and we will certainly re-examine it.

Once again I am deeply grateful to all of you for the useful, productive and illuminating debate on the subject. If we can debate all subjects that come before the Central Government in this manner in a very balanced manner, I think decision-making will be easier. Hard decisions have to be taken. Our decision cannot be based upon our past experience alone, because the past does not contain any indicators. We do not have experience of many matters. Some risks have to be taken, some calibrated steps have to be taken. But given the nature of threats we face, we must take hard decisions. As one of the Chief Ministers pointed out this morning, as we came to this meeting there was a terrorist attack in Russia, 20 people were killed; in a terrorist attack in Pakistan, 24 people were killed; there was a counter terrorist operation which commenced in the early hours in Jammu and Kashmir, the security forces succeeded in neutralising two terrorists. That is the way most days begin for me, but at the end of the day, if there has been no terrorist attack in India or terrorist threat to India, we end the day peacefully. But that is what I face every day. That is precisely why I plead with you to work with us. Working together, Central Government, State Governments working together, we can certainly make India a safer and more secure country for our people. All your suggestions will be carefully examined and when a decision is taken or a process of decision making is initiated, we shall certainly share it with you.

Thank you.”

•      The Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2011 was conducted on 12^thJune, 2011.  A record number of 4,72,290 candidates applied for this examination, out of which 2,43,003 candidates have actually appeared.
•   11984 candidates were declared qualified for the Main written examination held in October-November, 2011 out of which 2417 candidates were selected for the Personality Test conducted in March-April, 2012.  Finally, 910 candidates (715 male & 195 female) have been recommended for appointment to the IAS, IFS, IPS and other Central Services against 1001 reported vacancies.  Vacancies unfilled presently are on account of 91 reserved community candidates qualifying on general standards.  Depending on the options exercised by them finally, these vacancies will be filled by candidates recommended for the Reserve List that is maintained by the Commission.
• The First two positions have been taken by female candidates.  The top 25 candidates include 19 male (including 01 visually challenged candidate) and 06 female candidates. In the top 100 candidates, there are 21 female candidates.
•  Ms. Shena Aggarwal (Roll No. 233541) has topped the Examination.  She has done MBBS from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.  This is her 3^rd attempt.
•  The 2^nd ranker is Ms. Rukmani Riar (Roll No. 27895).  She has done Master of Arts (Social Entrepreneurship) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.  The is her 1^st attempt.
•  The 3^rd position is bagged by Shri Prince Dhawan (Roll No. 1804).  He has done M. Tech (Elect. Engg.) from IIT, Delhi.  This is his 1^st attempt.
•  The result also showcases the pan-Indian distribution of successful candidates of this Examination. Amongst the top 25 candidates, there are candidates claiming domicile from as many as 16 States, i.e., Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh.
•    The top 25 candidates include alumni from some of the premier educational institutions of the country including AIIMS, IIM and IITs.  An alumnus of London School of Economics also figures in the top 25.
•  The family background of top 25 candidates show diverse representation from all walks of the life which include farmer, teacher, businessman, army personnel, low and middle level govt. servants, doctors, advocate, professor & civil servants.
• Amongst top 25 candidates, 6 have made to the merit lift in their 1^st attempt; 07 in 2^nd attempt; 09 in 3^rd attempt; and 01 each in 4^th, 5^th & 6^th attempts. As many as 12 have already been recommended to services other than IAS on the basis of Civil Services Examinations of previous years.
•    Of the top 25 candidates – 13 appeared from Delhi; 3 from Jaipur, 2 each from Mumbai & Chandigarh; and 1 each from Hyderabad, Chennai, Dispur, Patna & Jammu Centres.

G. Richard Scott, associate professor of anthropology at the College of Liberal Arts, University of Nevada, Reno, obtained samples of dental plaque from 58 skeletons buried in the Cathedral of Santa Maria in northern Spain dating from the 11th to 19th centuries to conduct research on the diet of this ancient population.

After his initial findings met with mixed results, he decided to send five samples to Simon R. Poulson at the Nevada University’s Stable Isotope Lab, in the expectation they might contain enough carbon and nitrogen to allow them to estimate stable isotope ratios, said a university statement.

“It’s chemistry and is pretty complex,” Scott explained. “But basically, since only protein has nitrogen, the more nitrogen that is present, the more animal products were consumed as part of the diet. Carbon provides information on the types of plants consumed.”

Scott said that once at the lab, the material was crushed, and then an instrument called a mass spectrometer was used to obtain stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios.

“It was a long shot,” he said. “No one really thought there would be enough carbon and nitrogen in these tiny, five to 10 mg samples to be measurable, but Dr. Poulson’s work revealed there was,” added Scott.

Researchers at the Emory University have developed a new method to scan the brains of alert dogs and explore the minds of the oldest domesticated species, the journal Public library of Science ONE reports.

The technique relies on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), the same tool that is unlocking secrets of the human brain, according to an Emory statement.

“It was amazing to see the first brain images of a fully awake, unrestrained dog. As far as we know, no one has been able to do this previously,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Centre for Neuropolicy and lead researcher of the dog project.

Key members of the team include Andrew Brooks, graduate student at the Între for Neuropolicy and Mark Spivak, professional dog trainer and owner of Comprehensive Pet Therapy in Atlanta.

Two dogs were involved in the project’s first phase. Callie is a two-year-old Feist, or southern squirrel-hunting dog. Berns adopted her from a shelter. McKenzie is a three-year-old Border Collie, who was already well-trained in agility competition by her owner, Melissa Cate.

Both dogs were trained over several months to walk into an fMRI scanner and hold completely still while researchers measured their neural activity.

In the first experiment, the dogs were trained to respond to hand signals. One signal meant the dog would receive a hot dog treat, and another signal meant it would not receive one.

The caudate region of the brain, associated with rewards in humans, showed activation in both dogs when they saw the signal for the treat, but not for the no-treat signal.

“These results indicate that dogs pay very close attention to human signals,” Berns says. “And these signals may have a direct line to the dog’s reward system.”

May 8 is globally celebrated as ‘International Thalassemia Day’. It is an inherited blood disorder in which the red blood cells contain a reduced amount of haemoglobin, or in severe cases, a lack of haemoglobin in the cells. Thalassemia can range from mild to life threatening and therefore should be monitored.

“Earlier, the numbers were limited to some portions of the country but now thalassemia has a pan India presence mainly because of cross marriages between people from different backgrounds,” Deepak Chopra, president of ‘Thalassemics India’ told IANS.

“Sadly, due to lack of awareness especially among couples who have not yet conceived a child, the numbers will rise further,” he added.

Amita Mahajan, Senior Consultant, Pediatric- Hematology at the Indraprastha Apollo hospital told IANS that every pregnant woman should be tested for thalassemia.

“More than 10,000 kids with thalassemia are born in the country every year just because there is not enough awareness among couples who are getting married,” she said.

The disorder which requires regular blood transfusion can be cured if the patient gets the right donor for a bone marrow transplant. However, the success rate remains awfully low at 3 to 5 percent.

“A patient should first get the right match then there should be advance medical equipments available at the medical centre near the patient and then he should be having deep pockets to get the transplant done,” said Mahajan.

“So, regular blood transfusion is the only option left for many,” she added.

However, with several reports of thalassemic patients given blood infected with HIV and Hepatitis, the experts unanimously agreed that the only the Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) could detect infection in a donor’s blood.

“But the present techniques for testing donated blood in the country are old and fail to detect infections properly,” J. S. Arora, General Secretaryof National Thalassemia Welfare Society told IANS.

“The problem of infected blood arises when a person is compelled to donate blood for money. Though it is banned and illegal but it goes on undercover. So, the chances of getting pure blood from a donor who is doing it for money are very low,” he added.

Chopra said that blood donation has to become a common practice and the dearth of blood makes blood donation a business for some.

“We want our water to be 100 percent pure and our gold jewellery to be 24 carat pure as well but strangely providing infected blood to thalassemic patients,” said Chopra.

A thalessemic patient between the age of one to five years needs one unit of blood every month, between the age of five to ten-two units every month are needed, between the age of 10 to 15-three units are needed every month and an adult thalassemic needs four units of blood every month.

The findings from the University of Edinburgh could also help explain why older men are more at risk of developing diabetes, because testosterone levels fall in men as they age.

Kerry McInnes, from the Edinburgh’s endocrinology unit, said: “This study shows that low testosterone is a risk factor for diabetes no matter how much a person weighs,” according to an university statement.

The study showed that mice, which did not have androgen receptors in fat tissue for testosterone to attach to, were more likely to show signs of insulin resistance than other mice and also became fatter than other mice and developed full insulin resistance when fed a high-fat diet.

Researchers found that levels of RBP4, a protein which plays a crucial role in regulating insulin resistance, were higher in mice in which the role of testosterone was impaired.

The Edinburgh team say that its findings could lead to the development of new treatments that regulate production of RBP4 and reduce the risk of diabetes in men with lower levels of testosterone.

The National Solar Mission is a major initiative of the Indian government to promote ecologically sustainable growth while addressing the country’s energy security challenge. Launched in 2010, it sets a target of 1,100 MW during the phase I by 2013 and 20,000 MW of installed solar generation by 2022.

The picture looks rosy when one looks at the growth of the solar energy market in India in the last two years and the vast potential the sector offers due to an abundance of sun (a good 300 solar days annually).

New solar energy investments in India increased to more than Rs.12,000 croreout (about $2.5 billion) in 2011, according to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

But things have become gloomy for the domestic industry, which is unable to catch up with global players, who get incentives like subsidies for exporting their products. China is dumping solar products in the market the world over at much cheaper rates and many countries are coming up with anti-dumping guidelines to give an edge to their domestic companies.

“There is massive potential for solar energy in India with over 30 percent of population still having no access to electricity. The government came up with the solar mission but unfortunately it remained silent on what role Indian solar companies can play,” Ajay Prakash Srivastava, president of Solar Energy Society of India (SESI), told IANS.

The ministry agrees that the manufacturing in India has suffered.

“I understand the manufacturing industry has suffered quite a bit and it’s a weak area in the mission,” said Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary in the ministry of new and renewable energy, the nodal agency to run the National Solar Mission. In this direction, he said, the government is planning an integrated approach during the second phase of the mission (2013-2017).

“The government can do something seeing the dramatic change in the sector with the price crashing,” Kapoor told IANS.

The industry got a ray of hope after New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah promised that the government would limit imports and encourage domestic manufacturing. But at the moment, the picture is gloomy.

According to SESI, domestic solar companies are running with only 15-20 percent of their capacity and even big companies likes Moser Baer, TATA BP and Indosolar have either shut down operations or are running into huge loses.

“A lot of companies invested in the solar energy market around the year 2000 when European countries called for clean energy and Indian companies made good profit. But now European markets have reached stagnation and China has taken the lead in providing products like thin films, solar photovoltaic and other products at much cheaper rates,” said Rajinder Kumar Kaura, secretary general of SESI.

SESI feels India has much better technology but there’s need for a level playing field, as China offers subsidies to their companies.

“The government should offer subsidies to domestic companies or put anti-dumping duty on foreign companies. The issue is that crores of rupees from India is going to foreign companies selling their products here and that is generating employment in those countries rather than here,” he said.

India should draft a policy where rather than importing solar products, foreign companies are asked to set up their units in India so that it can help generate jobs and the money stays in the country, said Kaura.

With the European Union and the US already planning anti-dumping guidelines, Indian industries have also approached the Director General of Anti-Dumping to come out with similar guidelines.

“The problem is there is oversupply of solar energy products and countries like China are exporting 95 percent of their manufactured solar products, thus increasing the competition and slashing the cost. There should be anti-dumping guidelines to help the domestic industry grow,” H.R. Gupta of the Solar Energy Manufacturers Association of India told IANS.

Recognising the problems, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy constituted a solar advisory panel headed by Anand Mahindra, managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra. The panel was set up in January.

The thrust of the committee’s mandate is ‘manufacture’, so that the Indian solar industry evolves with India-made equipment.

Although there is no timeframe for this panel to come out with solutions, industry people say they need quick solutions.

Known as the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra – or the teachings of the white lotus and sun – the sutra is the basis of the Tiantai and Nichiren schools of Buddhism. Transcribed by monks for over 100 years between the 5th and 6th century AD, they are possibly the only body of Buddhist manuscripts discovered in the Gilgit region and probably compiled there as well, scholars say.

The facsimile was launched Thursday in the capital by secretary of culture Sangita Gairola at the India International Centre.

The facsimile edition of the Gilgit Lotus Sutra is a collaboration between the National Archives of India, Institute of Oriental Philosophy (IOP) and Japanese Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai.

Unveiling the edition, Gairola said “much work was going on in cultural thought both in India and abroad. It is fitting therefore that in India we take care to preserve, promote and disseminate all forms of culture. We have entered into cultural agreements with several foreign countries”.

Leading Buddhist scholar Lokesh Chandra, who had suggested the publication of a facsimile edition of the sutra to the National Archives, said: “The Gilgit manuscripts found in three stages by cattle grazers in 1931 in a circular chamber within a Buddhist stupa.”

Found in a wooden box, these manuscripts survived for centuries partly because they were written on the bark of the bhoj tree that does not decay or decompose, Chandra said. The icy weather of the Gilgit region also helped it survive. After they were discovered, the manuscripts were taken to Srinagar where archaeologist Aurel Stein announced their discovery.

Chandra, who has grown up with the Lotus Sutra, recalled that an army captain brought the box of Buddhist manuscripts to his father (noted Sanskrit scholar Raghu Vira) in the early 1930s.

“The army officer was posted somewhere in the Gilgit region. He wanted my father to buy the papers but they were very expensive. He asked several institutions, but no one wanted to buy the manuscripts. The manuscripts went different ways – a part of it went to the former Maharaja of Kashmir while the rest went to Germany and Britain. The original manuscripts – small portion which remained in India – are now at the National Archives,” Chandra said, addressing an the audience at the launch.

“The manuscripts are about the beauty of the human mind – purity and light – as expressed by the white lotus. The white lotus sutra has given a value system to Asian nations for the last 1,600 years,” Chandra said.

One of the Lotus sutras, “the Shri Mala Devi Simha Nanda Sutra, was a great feminist text – and probably the earliest one”, he said.

Historian Kapila Vatsyayan, one of the guests of honour, said Indians were losing the power of reading ancient epigraphical inscriptions and one of her studies showed that the country had only 61 inscription scholars.

“It might lead to a generation of Indians who may keep all ancient papers in satin textiles but not be able to read them,” she said, recalling how Lokesh Chandra’s father was sent to China to bring back Buddhist manuscripts during the regime of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

“I was a young education department employee when Raghu Vira promised to bring donkey loads of papers from China,” she said.

Director of National Archives Mushirul Hasan said the extra pennies given to the archives by the government might be useful for preserving more ancient manuscripts and developing the repository.

However, the party itself can hardly be credited with this achievement. Instead, it is really a gift of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and, more particularly, of its leader in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, whose gaffes have landed the principal opposition party in a mess.

Apart from confirming how the BJP’s leadership tangle remains unresolved, what the episode underlined was the party’s warped ideas on the subject of the next president. When Swaraj peremptorily and unilaterally ruled out the question of support for Ansari and Mukherjee, she was acting in accordance with the BJP’s conditioned reflexes of anti-Muslim and anti-Congress postures.

Her charge that the vice president lacked stature was laughable, especially in the context of the lacklustre background of the present president, Pratibha Patil, whose elevation five years ago had surprised and amused the political world since many outside Maharashtra didn’t even know who she was. “Pratibha who?” was the question which was asked. Since then, her tenure – though thankfully devoid of major controversies – has hardly enhanced her stature. India’s first woman president, therefore, will go down in history as something of a disappointment.

Swaraj’s assertion, therefore, that the far more distinguished Ansari lacked stature was odd, to say the least. Her objection appeared to have been based on the fact, therefore, that Ansari was a Muslim and, for the BJP, to straightaway endorse a Muslim candidate would go against the party’s grain.

Since she couldn’t state the obvious, she took a roundabout way of restating the party’s “secularism” by naming former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as a nominee. Kalam, of course, has enjoyed the BJP’s support in the past if only because he shares some of the party’s views of Indian history. He is also known for his scientific achievements and personal integrity. But, having already been president, it will be strange to elevate him to the post again, especially when he is now 81. What the suggestion showed, therefore, was the BJP’s bankruptcy of ideas and also how bare was its cupboard of possible Muslim candidates. And this, in the world’s second largest Muslim country.

It will be unfair to deny that the Congress’ calculations in choosing Ansari have nothing to do with the Muslim angle. But it acts with long practised sophistication in these matters, born of years of accommodating Muslim dignitaries inside and outside the organisation. So from the distinguished academic Zakir Hussain to the unprepossessing Mohammed Hidayatullah, to Ansari, the Congress has nurtured individuals of varying potential as followers and admirers.

If Ansari stumbles at the last hurdle, it will be due to the habitually contrarian Mamata Banerjee, who is totting up one by one her unending opposition to the Congress’ initiatives. In Ansari’s case, it is his supposed friendliness towards the Marxists which is unacceptable to the West Bengal chief minister. If there was no other alternative, she would have wondered about the impact of her opposition to Ansari on her Muslim base in the state.

But, fortunately for her, there is an alternative in Mukherjee, who can become the country’s first Bengali president if Mamata plumps for him. And, for Mamata, it will be something for which she can claim credit back home where little is going right for her at the moment.

For the Congress, it is a Hobson’s choice. The party will dearly love to install Ansari with the next general election two years away when his elevation will enable it to mobilise Muslim support. The move will also enable it to keep some parties of the Hindi belt on its side – the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and others who always wear their “secularism” on their sleeves. But the Congress is not sure whether Mukherjee’s wider acceptability – he can expect the BJP’s support as well – makes him a safer bet.

In these turbulent political times, when the Congress’ credibility is low and when it may have to run an even weaker coalition government in 2014, Mukherjee’s sharp political mind, his grasp of constitutional niceties and skills as a mediator will be of as much value inside Rashtrapati Bhavan as outside. It will also be in the fitness of things that when the young prince ascends to the throne, the old family loyalist will be there behind the scenes with his advice and consent.

As part of the mechanism, Government had issued Oil bonds to the OMCs for their under-recoveries up to the year 2008-09. However, since 2009-10, the Government has been providing cash assistance to the OMCs towards the share of the Government for compensating the under-recoveries of the OMCs.

Compensation of under-recoveries depends upon various factors including the price of the commodities in the international market as well as in the domestic market, changes in volume of consumption and ability of the oil companies to share it.  Hence, it is not possible to estimate the under recovery for future years.  It has been, therefore, is difficult to evolve a fixed policy to fund under-recovery as it varies from quarter to quarter even in a particular year.  However, the details of compensation/assistance given to the OMCs by the Government during 2011-12 (actual) and budget estimate for 2012-13 are given below:-

(crore)

*during April-December 2011.

A National Committee (NC) under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister had been constituted on 27^th April, 2010 to consider policies and lay down guidelines for the appropriate commemoration.  It held its first meeting on 20^th May, 2010.  A National Implementation Committee (NIC) had also been constituted on 27^th April, 2010 under the Chairmanship of Finance Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee for chalking out the programmes and activities and to implement the decisions of the National Committee. The NIC had met twice in 2010 – on 5^th May and 14^th July. The third meeting of the NIC was held on 6^th April, 2011 and the fourth meeting of NIC was held on 24^th March, 2012. Several programmes and projects were approved by the NIC for a befitting commemoration of 150^th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.

A delegation led by the then Secretary Culture, Government of India visited Dhakain December, 2010 to chalk out the programmes of Joint Indo-Bangla Celebrations. Subsequently a delegation from Bangladesh also visited India in April, 2011 and further discussions was held on joint commemorations.  The inaugural function of the commemoration in India was held on 7^th May, 2011 in New Delhi to start the year-long joint celebrations. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Planning Minister ofBangladesh, Air Vice Marshal (Retd.), Shri A. K. Khandker, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, National Advisory Council (NAC). Finance Minister Shri PranabMukherjee, Culture Minister Kumari Selja, Information & Broadcasting Minister Smt.Ambika Soni, External Affairs Minister Shri S.M. Krishna, HRD & Communications Minister Shri Kapil Sibal and President, ICCR Dr. Karan Singh participated in the inaugural programme.

Earlier, an inaugural function was also held on 6^th May, 2011 in Dhaka,Bangladesh.

The National Implementation Committee had decided in its fourth meeting held on 24^th March, 2012 that the joint commemoration will culminate with Closing Ceremonies to be organized in Dhaka on 6^th May, 2012, and in New Delhi on 7^th May, 2012. Accordingly, the Closing Ceremonies are being organized in Dhaka and New Delhi. Vice-President of India Shri M. Hamid Ansari will be the Chief Guest at the Closing Ceremony on 7^th May, 2012 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.  Several cultural programmes will also be organized by Indian and Bangaladeshi groups on 6^th and 7^thMay, 2012 in Delhi as well as Dhaka.

During the year-long joint Indo-Bangla celebrations, several programmes involving various art forms like songs, dramas, recitation, poetry, kantha paintings etc,  were organized in India and Bangladesh. The programmes have been attended by several dignitaries, high officials and top cultural artists of Bangladesh. The performances in packed auditoria have received rave reviews in practically all leading newspapers and electronic media of India and Bangladesh. The same have renewed the bonds of shared cultural heritage of the two countries.

Existing System

Presently, employers make payment of subscription amount for their employees every month by filing a challan without any details of individuals to whom the amount is to be credited. The details of individuals accounts to which these amounts are to be credited are given by the employer at the end of the year by way of Annual Return. In addition, the employer also has to submit 5-6 paper returns every month to the office of the Regional Commissioners for intimating the abstract of payments, changes in employee details, etc. on receipt of the Annual Return, all the accounts of an establishment are updated once a year and annual accounts slips are generated for distribution to the concerned employees. In other words, even though, the payment by the employer is made every month, these amounts are reflected in the individual accounts only at the end of the year.

New Provisions

The launch of the Electronic Challan cum Return brings an opportunity for the employers to file their returns online from anywhere anytime with a click of a mouse. The hassles of preparing various monthly and annual paper returns and visiting the EPFO Offices for submitting them has become things of past. The exempted establishments also enjoy the same facility as they are also free from the shackles of various paper returns. EPFO offices are relieved off from manually entering those returns in the system to update the information and making several communications in case of mistakes or deficiencies in the paper returns. The on line returns are uploaded in the system to update the information automatically.

Benefits

The ECR facility has benefits for subscribers, employers as well as for the organization. These benefits include –

For EPFO Subscribers

• Monthly credit of subscriptions in employee’s account soon after payments by employer
• Online access to statement of PF accounts through the employer soon after receiving the payment.

For Employers

• Online submission of returns along with remittance of the subscription
• Online submission of one single return in place of nearly 5-6 paper returns
• Payment through internet banking of SBI or at any designated branch of SBI.
• Confirmation of payment through SMS instantly.
• Download and print the monthly and annual accounts slips for their own employees.

For EPFO

• Online submission of returns along with payments has helped in doing away with the need of Annual Accounts preparation at the end of the year.
• With updating of new employee and exiting employee details automatically every month the claims settlement process is made quicker.
• Manpower engaged for these old processes can be gainfully utilized for other activities.

(PIB Features)

The Shipping Minister informed the Members that during April-February, 2011-12, Ennore Port recorded highest growth in traffic at 47%. Cochin Port stood second at 13.7% followed by VO Chidambarnar Port at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu at 13.2%. He said, amongst the major Ports, Kandla Port handled the maximum cargo of 75.4 million tones with a share of 14.8% in total cargo handled at major ports followed by Visakhapatnam with a share 12.2% and JNPT with a share of 11.8% which stood second and third respectively.

Shri Vasan informed the meeting that around 95% of India’s foreign trade by volume and 70% by value is transported through sea. He said 12 Major Ports account for 75% of the total cargo by volume handled at Indian Ports. The volume of cargo traffic handled by Ports is mainly shaped by the levels and changes in both global and domestic activities.

Cargo traffic in iron ore (mainly export) in particular was adversely affected during April-February, 2011-12 and dropped by 28.6 per cent. In terms of composition of cargo traffic handled at major ports, the largest commodity group (with share in percent in total cargo handled) was POL (32.0%) followed by Container traffic (21.4%), other cargo (17.8%), Coal (14.0%), Iron ore (11.0%) and Fertilizer & FRM (3.8%). Major ports which recorded negative growth in traffic during April-February 2011-12 were: Mormugao (20.0%), Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) (9.5%), Chennai Port (7.8%), Kolkata Dock System (KDS) (3.8%) and Paradip (1.6%).

The Members of Parliament participating in the discussion while appreciating the efforts of the Ministry of Shipping in the handling of major ports in the country gave various suggestions for improving the working of these ports. There was a suggestion for urgently filling up the Class III and Class IV vacancies in various ports in the country. One Member suggested that various Ports should take adequate pollution control measures. Another Member was of the view that security of Indian shipping personnel in International waters should be of utmost priority. There was a suggestion for proper Disaster Management Policy also. While thanking the Members for their valuable suggestions for the development of the maritime sector, Shri Vasan said that these suggestions would guide the Ministry of Shipping in optimising the cargo mix at our ports

Giving further details in reply to a question in Lok Sabha today the Minister of State in PMO Shri V. Narayansamy said that in the last three years, three nuclear power reactors (3×220 MS) have been commissioned successfully. Construction of 4 indigenously designed Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors of 700 MW each have been started. Bilateral cooperation agreements have been signed with several countries.

The Minister stated that as per the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 foreign equity investment in nuclear power projects is not permitted. Therefore, foreign funding can only be in the form of debt. Currently, the Kudankulam project is being set up with Russian state credit of Rs. 6416 crore. In respect of future projects, foreign debt either as state credit, banks or multilateral funding agencies is envisaged.

Revealing further on the matter Shri Narayansamy said that the Central Government has signed fuel supply contracts with Russian Federation, Kazakhsthan and France.

He said France has completed supply of the contracted quantity. With Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, there are long term fuel supply agreements. Supplies are being received regularly.

The land acquisition at Fatehabad, Haryana is progressing in accordance with the Land Acquisition Act. It has reached to an advanced stage of conclusion. Of the 1313 acres to be acquired for the plant site, land holders of 1109 acres have already expressed their consent. Currently compensation for land to be acquired is being discussed with the state government. The apprehensions about safety of nuclear power, particularly post Fukushima are being addressed through sustained public outreach programs.

These institutions are meant to enhance the capacity of African countries and to benefit African students.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr. D. Purandeswari, in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha

A scheme for setting up 20 new IIITs on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model has been approved by Government at a capital cost of Rs. 128.00 crore for each IIIT to be contributed in the ratio of 50:30:15 by the Central Government, the State Government and the Industry respectively (57.5:35:7.5 in the case of North Eastern region).  The concerned State Government will  provide 50-100 acres of land, free of cost and initially the new IIITs would be registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource  Development, Dr. D. Purandeswari, in written reply to a question in Lok  Sabha

The star attractions will be a “Missile Interceptor Simulator” and a “3D Virtual Reality Theatre”. In this edition of DEFEXPO, DRDO has given special focus to Autonomous Vehicles. The outdoor exhibits include Muntra – Unmanned Tracked Ground Vehicle, Remotely Operated Vehicle Daksh, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Nishant, Rustom and Netra, Light Weight Sensor Integrated Composite Bridge, the Long Range Solid State Electronically Scanned Active Phased Array Radar LSTAR, Disha EW system, Scorpio Jammer, Heavy Weight Torpedo Varunastra, Pinaka Multi Barrel Rocket System, Prahar Tactical range Ballistic Missile System and Arjun Main Battle Tank.

The indoor exhibits and models will cover nearly the entire gamut of R&D in DRDO. Prominent will be models of missiles Nag, Akash, Brahmos, Aerostat System, AEW&C System, BMP Survival Kit (BUSK), Sarvatra and other bridges. Different types of Parachutes, the family of Small Arms, Torpedoes and Decoys, Military Communication Equipment, Electronic Warfare systems, Night Vision Devices, Microwave Devices, NBC protective systems and Soldier Support systems will also be seen.

Product Launch: 

The Explosive Detection Kit (EDK), and the Swine Flu diagnostic kit are among over 70 products and technologies developed for defence applications with potential civilian applications that have been identified for commercialization under the DRDO-FICCI ATAC (Accelerated Technology Assessment Commercialization) programme. These two products will be launched during a function at Hall No 7G, during 1100-1150 hrs on Saturday March 31, 2012. The Explosive Detection Kit (EDK), developed by Pune based High Energy Materials Research Laboratory, can quickly detect and identify even traces of explosives. The handy kit is ideally suited to be carried and used everywhere. The Swine Flu diagnostic kit, developed by Defence Research and Development Establishment, Gwalior, can detect H1N1 virus within an hour. The kit does not need sophisticated instruments and can even be used in villages where electricity is not available.

DefExpo will also provide a platform for the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to identify areas for collaboration and initiate dialogue with DRDO in areas of mutual interest for joint development as partners.

DRDO has amply demonstrated capability to design, develop and realize highly complex multidisciplinary weapon platforms for Army, Navy and Air force. These systems are among the most extensively evaluated systems in harsh environmental conditions, meeting stringent quality requirements of our services. The production value of products inducted / under induction is more than Rupees 1,40,000 crores, effectively translating to creation of about two million jobs in the country. The figures will see a sharp rise in near future once the systems in advanced stages of User acceptance are inducted. Further, DRDO has enabled a number of Small and Medium industries from the private sector in the design, development, manufacture of Defence related products apart from DPSUs and Ordnance Factories. No doubt, the indigenous production of these systems at a fraction of cost of imported systems is significant contribution to Nation’s economy, besides ensuring freedom from possible blockades in the times of need.

Press Conference: 

Dr. Vijay Kumar Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to Raksha Mantri, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and DG, DRDO will address a Press Conference at 1200 hrs on Saturday, March 31, 2012 at Hall 7F.

In amending the UA(P)A, Parliament was mindful of its obligations not only to the people of India but to the international community as well. The preamble to the UA(P)A was amended and a reference was made to Resolution 1373 and other Resolutions of the Security Council requiring all 2 Member States to take measures against terrorists and terrorist organisations and to the Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order, 2007.

A ‘terrorist act’ was defined more comprehensively. ‘Court’ was defined to include ‘Special Court’. New offences were added under Chapter IV. In Chapter VII, new sections 43A to 43F were inserted. A Schedule was added listing the 32 terrorist organisations as well as the organisations listed in the Order of 2007. Each one of these amendments was made after careful consideration, wide consultations and reasoned debate in Parliament.

Section 2(e) of UA(P)A  provided for a ‘Designated Authority’. When section 43A was drafted, it was based on section 2(e) that was already part of the Act. The decision to vest certain powers in the Designated Authority was a conscious decision taken by Parliament. At the same time, Parliament took care to limit the exercise of powers under section 43A to cases where an offence under UA(P)A had been committed or there was a design to commit such an offence. Further limitations were placed through sections 43B and 43C. In fact, section 43B is a clear acknowledgement of the exclusive power of the State Government to register a case and deal with the arrested person or the seized article.

Although the Amendment Act was brought into force on 31.12.2008, it was only in December, 2009 that The ministry of Home affairs Government of India was able to draw the outline of a new security architecture. It took note of the experience of other countries. In the US, the NCTC has the mandate to conduct CT operations involving all elements of national power. There are also the FBI and the Secret Service with nationwide jurisdiction. In Germany, 3 there is the GTAZ (Joint Counter Terrorism Centre) and the GIZ  (Joint Internet Surveillance Centre).

In the Indian context, the National Counter Terrorism Centre, that will be an important pillar of the new security architecture, is based on the following premises:

1. That, under the Constitution of India, countering terrorism is  a shared responsibility of the Central Government and the  State Governments;

2. That terrorists do not recognise boundaries between  countries or boundaries between States belonging to a  country;

3. That many terrorist organisations have foot prints in several  countries and have the capacity to commit terrorist acts  across borders or boundaries;

4. That human resources alone are not sufficient to counter  terrorism; technology is the key weapon in this conflict.

5. That we have obligations to the international community  under the Resolutions of the Security Council.

6. That given India’s 7516 km coastline, 15,106 km of  international borders with seven countries (Afghanistan,  Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar)  and a number of international gateways, State Anti-Terrorist  Forces would have to necessarily work with a number of  agencies of the Central Government, especially when there  are threats in the domain of sea, air and space.

 A new dimension to terrorist threats Hitherto, we confronted terrorist threats only in the physical space. Now, there are terrorist threats in the cyber space, which is the fifth domain after land, sea, air and space. Much of our critical infrastructure lies in cyber space. Cyber crimes such as hacking, financial fraud, data theft, espionage etc. would, in certain circumstances, amount to terrorist acts.

Our counter terrorism (CT) capacity must be able to meet the threats in cyber space. Since there are no boundaries in cyber space, how will the Central Government and the State Governments share the responsibility to face the threats in cyber space?

In 2011 and until March, 2012, 21 terror modules had been neutralised, and that one half of the cases had been cracked through the joint efforts of the Central Agencies and the State Police concerned.  There are cases where, despite inputs regarding the presence of terrorists, the security agencies concerned did not act either due to lack of capacity or lack of a timely decision. Most of these cases concerned so-called ‘jihadi’ terrorists and cadres of CPI (Maoist). What should the Central Government do in such cases?

Two days ago, Central agencies received specific inputs on an imminent terrorist attack. Several States were notified and specific targets were identified. Suppose it was a Central agency alone which had the opportunity to interdict the movement of the suspected terrorists, and if action had to be taken within hours or minutes, should the Central agency have the power and the duty to act immediately or not?

paragraph 6.1 of the Order notifying the NCTC is the key to understand how the NCTC will discharge its responsibilities. Paragraph 6.1 stipulates that “The Standing Council shall ensure that NCTC is the single and effective point of control and coordination of all counter terrorism measures.”

Following the usual practice when a new body is created, we have circulated two Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs). One deals with 5 the functions and powers of the Standing Council and the other deals with the Operations Division of the NCTC.  the two SoPs would address all the concerns raised by some Chief Ministers in their letters to the Prime Minister and the issues flagged by the Directors General of Police at the meeting convened by the Home Secretary on March 12, 2012.

Counter terrorism is a shared responsibility. That is what the Constitution says, that is the practical and prudent way forward. As State Governments build more capacity and inter-State cooperation becomes more effective, The Central Government can – and will – step back. Meanwhile, The Centre and the States have to work together. Working together – State Governments and the Central Government working together, the Opposition and the Treasury working together, civil society organisations and Government institutions working together –  we can make the country more safe and more secure.

Source : Home Minister P Chidambaram addressed the chief ministers at the National Counter Terrorism Centre meeting on 5th May 2012. in New Delhi.

FULL TEXT OF THE OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HOME MINISTER
SHRI P CHIDAMBARAM
AT THE
MEETING OF CHIEF MINISTERS ON NCTC
ON SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2012 AT NEW DELHI

It is the responsibility of the Centre to give form and shape to a cohesive national approach and strategy based on information gathered globally and from all the states of our Union. On their part, the states should use their expertise, knowledge and machinery to secure their own territories and work in coordination with the Centre and other States.

Since 26/11, we have diligently strengthened our counter terrorism capabilities both in the States and at the Centre. Today the State and Central Police and intelligence agencies are working in harmony and in close coordination. These efforts have resulted in several noteworthy successes. The State Police forces have achieved some excellent results in the recent past. On the whole there is broad agreement on the strategy and measures that we must adopt to counter terrorism in all its multifarious dimensions in India, including cross-border terrorism, Left Wing Extremism, terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, insurgency in the North-East and religion based terrorism. However, much remains to be done.

Indian government remains committed to working with the State governments and providing them all possible help in combating terrorism. We have been providing financial assistance to the States and helping them train State police and intelligence agencies. We are also implementing schemes on border management and on coastal security, and the scheme for modernization of state police forces.

The antecedents of the NCTC lie in the recommendations by a Group of Ministers and by the Administrative Reforms Commission, commencing from the lessons learnt in Kargil. It is our belief that the NCTC, in its design and its operational aspects, will supplement the counter-terrorism capabilities of the States and not supplant them. The NCTC mechanism will give each state agency an ability to see the bigger picture of terrorist threats and thus would enhance their counter terrorism capability and access to resources to tackle them.

But for the NCTC to function smoothly and effectively, it is very important that we have a fairly broad consensus on its powers and its functions.

Source :The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh addressed the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) meeting in Delhi .

On-Time Performance (%)

The efforts made by Air India to improve its load factor and also on time performance are: flights are monitored to improve seat Factors and Fares offered in the market to match competition; fares are reviewed constantly; schemes are launched from time to time to target specific market segments; special attention has been given to promote groups travelling to and from India for leisure, corporate, religious movements etc.

As regards improvement on-time performance, the integrated operations Control centre and Hub control centre have been set up to manage and control all movements of the entire airline. Air India has decided to reduce the Business Class seats in its 320 family aircraft to increase its revenues. 14 old A320 aircraft are to be converted to all economy, with 42 additional Y class seats in place of 20 J class seats for optimum utilization.

In order to attract more passengers, Air India came out with special offers, viz. get Upfront-Airport Upgrade-wherein passenger can buy an upgrade coupon at the airport before boarding;  Jaldi-Jaldi  scheme – to publicize the scheme of special rates if passengers buy tickets 7 days and 14 days before travel; Shagun Voucher – to gift wedding couples during the wedding season; Get Lucky – wherein every 100^th ticketed passenger would get special coupons of discount; Silver and Platinum Passes – To popularize the unlimited travel scheme within a deadline; a tie-up has also been developed with the Taj Group’s Gateways Hotels and Resorts to enable Air India passengers get a concessional coupon.

This information was given by Shri Ajit Singh, the Minister of Civil Aviation in Lok Sabha today in a written reply.

He also added that total commercial production of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) in the country during 2011-12 (up to February, 2012) is 74.833 million standard cubic meter (MMSCM) which is much less as compared to 19,971.253 MMSCM natural gas produced from conventional sources under Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime.

The breakup of current gas production in above block is as under:

D1 and D3 fields        :           28.93   MMSCMD

MA field                     :             6.64   MMSCMD

Total                           :           35.57   MMSCMD

The Minister also stated that the issue of falling gas production in KG-D6 block has been deliberated in various Technical Committee Meetings held between Contractor(s) and DGH including the field visit by DGH technical team to ascertain the reasons for less gas production. The Management Committee (comprising of representatives of GoI/DGH and Contractor (s)) has also examined the issue from time to time. The major reasons for fall in gas production are as under:

·         6 out of total 18 gas producers put on production in D1 and D3 fields have ceased to flow due to water loading/and ingress in the wells.

·         1 oil/gas producer in MA field out of 6 oil/gas producers has ceased to flow due to water loading in well.

·         Non-drilling of gas producers in D1 & D3 by the Contractor(s) in line with the approved AIDP. So far, 18 producers have been drilled, completed and connected as against 31 producers by 31.03.2012 as per approved AIDP.

He further said that in order to increase the gas production from KG-D6 block, the Contractor has been advised to drill more gas producers in D1 & D3 gas fields as well as adopt appropriate remedial measures such as wells intervention in D1 & D3 and MA fields to revive the sick wells in order to achieve the gas production in line with approved FDP. The Contractor has drilled 4 more wells in D1 & D3 which are yet to be completed or connected. Further, the Optimized Field Development Plan for 4 other gas discoveries (D-2,6,19 &22) in this block has been approved by the MC in January, 2012.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, Planning Commission in its Mid-Term Appraisal of 11^th Plan and the Ministry of Urban Development have appraised the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) including the Sub-Mission on Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP)-component of JNNURM. The details of findings of the appraisal are at Annexure-II.

Annexure-I

STATE-WISE DWELLING UNITS SANCTIONED AND COMPLETED UNDER BSUP

Annexure-II

(I)      Major findings by Planning Commission –The Mid-Term Appraisal of 11^th Plan Document of the Planning Commission has revealed the following points on JNNURM:

A) JNNURM has been effective in renewing focus on the urban sector across the country; however the need to raise capacity and investment resources is still substantial. It has been successful in catalysing significant investments into the physical infrastructure of cities. Much of this investment has been directed towards the provision of critical basic services that are essential to inclusiveness. The programme has created renewed focus on cities and allowed states and ULBs to raise their aspirations.

B) JNNRUM has helped to initiate a comprehensive process of urban reforms within States and ULBs. However, the pace and depth of reforms needs to pick up.

C) Capacity building funds can be used more effectively. JNNURM earmarked 5 per cent of the programme funds for capacity building. Assessment and discussions with the states point to opportunities for better use of these funds to support capacity initiatives in the states.

D) Emphasis has to shift even more from ‘projects’ to holistic urban renewal and an integrated view of a city’s development. While cities did submit CDPs as part of their project proposals, the emphasis on urban renewal and long term planning of cities is lagging.

(II)    M/s Grant Thornton, engaged by the Ministry of Urban Development for conducting Appraisal of JNNURM, has revealed the following major findings in its report:

§  JNNURM has been instrumental in rejuvenating the urban space in the country.  Post-independence, JnNURM has been the country’s first National flagship programme of this nature and size for the urban sector.

§  Even though JNNURM give the option of providing the Central Assistance as a soft loan to the Urban Local Body (ULB), the discretion to exercise that option had been left to the State Government.

§  It is for the first time that the Central Government is providing assistance of this kind for what is classified as a State subject as per the Constitution.  This Programme is bringing about a change, not just in the urban governance set up and the mind-set of the states and ULBs but has also created an awareness, raised expectation among the people for a better quality of life.

§  Out of the 65 Mission Cities, category A (Mega cities/Urban Agglomerations) and B (Million plus cities/Urban Agglomerations) may not require the extent of funding under the umbrella of JNNURM as in the present scheme and funding may be scaled down for them to increase the funding for smaller towns.

§  Funding of the Mission Cities was decided on the basis of population based on 2001 census; based on the said criteria, the smaller states with smaller towns had some disadvantage over the large cities.

§  The State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA) is headed either by the Secretary of Urban Development or Municipal Administration/Local Self Government without any dedicated staff as the staff already have additional workload.

§  23 reforms to be implemented within a span of five to seven years seem to be a tall order for the States/ULBs.

A bottom up approach should be followed and the States should be asked to furnish the reforms within the acceptable timeframe.

§  Capacity building, perhaps the single most important activity required in the today’s urban sector scenario should be considered to be monitored by an agency similar to appraising and monitoring agencies for reforms and project.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, in the urban areas what is perhaps more required is skill development of the urban poor as well as facilitation of sustainable self-employment opportunities for them instead of focusing on unskilled wage employment as is the case in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). The recently revised guidelines of SJSRY lays considerable focus on skill development of the urban poor to enhance their employability, so as to enable them to take advantage of increasing job opportunities in the urban areas.

“A Slum is a compact settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly of temporary nature, crowded together usually with inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities in unhygienic conditions”.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, this definition has been adopted for Rajiv AwasYojana with a special dispensation for North Eastern & special category states, where such settlements of 10 -15 houses would be considered as slums.

She said, the Government of India launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) on 3rd December, 2005 to assist cities and towns in taking up housing and infrastructural facilities for the urban poor including slum dwellers in 65 cities in the country under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) Programme for the urban poor in the country. For other cities/towns, the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) was launched with the objective to strive for holistic slum development, with a healthy and enabling environment by providing shelter and basic infrastructure facilities to the slum dwellers. The Mission period is from 2005-2012.

Kumari Selja said, the Ministry is also implementing the Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing the Urban Poor (ISHUP), which is meant to provide 5% interest subsidy on loans upto Rs.1.0 lakh for construction and purchase of houses for the EWS and LIG beneficiaries of the urban poor including Slum dwellers. This Scheme has now been dovetailed with Rajiv Awas Yojana.

She said, in pursuance of the Government’s vision of creating a Slum-free India, a new scheme ‘Rajiv Awas Yojana’ (RAY) has been launched on 02.06.2011. The Phase I of Rajiv Awas Yojana is for a period of two years from the date of approval of the scheme with an outlay of Rs.5,000 crores while Phase II will be for the remaining period of the twelfth plan period.

The Minister said, the Scheme will provide financial assistance to States that are willing to assign property rights to slum dwellers for provision of decent shelter and basic civic and social services for slum redevelopment, and for creation of affordable housing stock. Fifty percent (50 %) of the cost of provision of basic civic and social infrastructure and amenities and of housing, including rental housing, and transit housing for in-situ redevelopment – in slums would be borne by the Centre, including operation & maintenance of assets created under this scheme. For the North Eastern and Special Category States, the share of the Centre would be 90% including the cost of land acquisition, if required.

She said, the Affordable Housing in Partnership Scheme, which encourages public private partnerships for the creation of affordable housing stock, has been dovetailed into RAY. Under this scheme, central support is provided at the rate of Rs.50,000 per unit of affordable dwelling unit or 25% of the cost of civic infrastructure (external and internal), whichever is lower.

Thus, performance as reported by States/UTs has improved.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, under the revised guidelines of Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana(SJSRY), funds are released to states with indicative allocation for the following components:-

1)                  Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP).

2)                  Urban Women Self-help Programme (UWSP).

3)                  Skill Training for Employment Promotion amongst Urban Poor (STEP-UP).

4)                  Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP).

5)                  Urban Community Development Network (UCDN).

She said, subject to guidelines for implementation of various components of SJSRY, States have flexibility to undertake wage employment programmes involving construction of social assets, self employment, support to thrift and credit groups, etc. in cities and towns. Data pertaining to these are not maintained at central level.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) have developed following Indian Standards related to earthquake resistant design and construction techniques for various types of construction:

i. IS 1893 (Part-1):2000 – Criteria for earthquake resistant design of structures

ii. IS 4326:1993 – Earthquake Resistant Design and Construction of Buildings – Code of Practice

iii. IS 13827:1993 – Improving Earthquake Resistance of Earthen Buildings – Guidelines

iv. IS 13828:1993 – Improving Earthquake Resistance of Low Strength Masonry Buildings – Guidelines

v. IS 13920:1993 – Ductile Detailing of Reinforced Concrete Structures subjected to Seismic Forces – Code of Practice

vi. IS 13935:2009 – Repair and Seismic Strengthening of Buildings- Guidelines

She said, National Building Code 2005 brought out by BIS inter-alia gives provision for planning, design and construction of earthquake resistant construction techniques. Disaster Management Act 2005 is in place and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) issues guidelines related to the earthquake safety from time to time. There is also a National Policy on Disaster Management 2009 which has been approved by the Union Cabinet on 22nd October, 2009.

Kumari Selja, to facilitate State Governments in making necessary amendments in their Town & Country Planning Acts, Development Control Rules and Bye-laws for safety against earthquake hazards, a Model Town and Country Planning Legislation, Zoning Regulation Development Control and Building Regulation/Bye-laws for safety against natural hazards have been prepared by an Expert Committee constituted by Ministry of Home Affairs. All the States have been advised to amend their respective Acts/Bye-laws/Regulations so that construction activities are regulated with respect to safety against earthquake hazards. Workshops have also been organized to help them in making necessary amendments.

The Minister said, Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the aegis of this Ministry has undertaken activities like propagation and demonstration of seismic retrofitting in important schools and hospitals in various regions including Delhi, to bring in greater awareness in this regard. ‘Land’ and ‘Colonisation’ are State subjects and therefore it is the primary responsibility of States to amend their existing regulations to make the requisite provisions for compulsory adoption, she added.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today she said, the Scheme is expected to cover about 250 cities, across the entire country by the end of 12^th Plan (2017). Under the Slum Free City Planning Scheme i.e. the preparatory phase of RAY, an amount of Rs.99.98 crores has been released to 34 States/UTRs during the years 2009-10 & 2010-11 for undertaking preparatory activities.  The list of 162 cities for which these funds are to be utilized for undertaking preparatory activities is at Annexure-I.

Kumari Selja said, under Phase-I of RAY which will extend for two years from the date of approval of the Scheme, States are being supported to develop GIS based Slum Free City Plans with comprehensive household-wise slum surveys as RAY emphasises a whole city, all slums and whole slum strategy. The States/UTs are also being encouraged to prepare innovative pilot projects which would form the basis for replication and upscaling in Phase-II of the Scheme. 8 pilot projects with project cost of Rs.446.2 crores have been sanctioned for construction of 6240 Dwelling Units and 2160 units of rental/transit housing.

****

Click here to see Annexure

According to World Health Statistics 2011 published by World Health Organization (WHO), the total expenditure on health as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008, for India is 4.2% as compared to expenditure on health in respect of some select developing countries, e.g. China 4.3%, Bangladesh 3.3%, Indonesia 2.3%, Malaysia 4.3%, Pakistan 2.6% , Sri Lanka 4.1% and Thailand 4.1%.

The above information was given by the Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Rajya Sabha

The data on fish production given below shows a rising trend in seafood production:

(Production in ‘tonnes)

(Source: NFDB)

The assistance released as grant-in aid for development for fish processing under the Scheme for TechnologyUpgradation/Modernization/ Establishment of Food Processing Industries in last three years is as under :

2008-09 – Rs.407.00 lakh

2009-10 – Rs. 396.00 lakh

2010-11 – Rs. 342.00 lakh

2011-12 – Rs.575.75 lakh (as on 23.03.2012)

This information was given by Dr. Charan Das Mahant, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha

Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) has been set up to lay down science based standards for articles of food and also regulate, inter-alia, its manufactures. The Authority is also mandated to promote consistency between International technical standards and domestic food standards while ensuring that the level of protection adopted in the country is not reduced. Moreover, to ensure compliance of the laid down standards by the food processing companies, inspection of such units at regular interval is done by the enforcement agencies. In case of any violations, penal/legal actions are taken against the defaulters as per relevant provisions of the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006.

This information was given by Dr. Charan Das Mahant, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha

Ministry of Food Processing Industries under its plan scheme for Technology Upgradation/ Establishment/ Modernization of Food Processing Industries extends financial assistance to food processing units in the form of grant-in-aid @ 25% of the cost of plant & machinery and technical civil works subject to maximum of Rs. 50.00 lakh in general areas and @ 33.33% subject to a maximum of Rs. 75.00 lakh in difficult areas such as Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and North Eastern States, A&N Islands, Lakshadweep and ITDP areas. The Ministry under the various schemes provides financial assistance to increase the production of packaged food items which are considered to be more safe and hygienic.

This information was given by Dr. Charan Das Mahant, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha

FOR MORE READING. . .

http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/HM-IB-Endowment231209.pdf

Rosponse to P. Chidambaram’s views  :

Self-regulation is a norm that has high values and noble objectives. “Yet in the context of independent India – more so in the context of modern-day broadcasting where we witness coming up of many regional and national channels – self-regulation alone may not be sufficient,” said secretary general D.S. Rawat.

ASSOCHAM encourages the government to examine the parameters and significance of broadcasting in the context of internet. Self-regulation has to be the first tier of the pyramid while the second tier has to consist of an autonomous regulator.

“When the entire world is moving in the direction of wireless, mobile and could computing, it is therefore very essential that the present proposed legislation must have a realistic perspective of situations. In this scenario, co-regulation for news content in a holistic and inclusive manner is the real way forward,” said Mr Rawat.

Present provisions in programming and advertising codes under the Cable Act and News Broadcasters Association’s code of ethics are not sufficient and comprehensive. There is need for more clarity through elaborate stakeholder consultations to move forward in an inclusive and balanced manner, said Mr Rawat.

There is distinct need for an independent and autonomous regulator as the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill has various flaws which need to be appropriately addressed.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) seems to be a mere formality in regulating the media and imposes only small fine upon the defaulters. In today’s time when media is making huge profits out of broadcast rights, such imposition of nominal fine barely regulates any broadcaster, he said.

Powers exercised by the self-governing authority are not enough to maintain media discipline. ASSOCHAM is of the firm opinion that regulation has to be by means of a public body which is accountable to the Right to Information Act.

The relevant interests of consumers also need to be considered. The framework under Content Code / Broadcast Service Regulation Bill does not give appropriate attention to privacy rights and protection of relevant stakeholders.