From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 4:49 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News updates 19.04.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media watch
News Updates 19.04.10
Rs 40,000 cr given as education loans: PC - Express Buzz
http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/rs-40000-cr-given-as-education-loans-pc/166364.html
Rape victim's mother threatened by accused - Times Of India
More dons to be sacked as Maya cleans up the 'dirt' - India Today
173 forest dwellers get right to dwell on forest land - Times Of India
Express Buzz
Rs 40,000 cr given as education loans: PC
http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/rs-40000-cr-given-as-education-loans-pc/166364.html
First Published : 19 Apr 2010 03:03:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 19 Apr 2010 07:55:06 AM IST
CHENNAI: Emphasising that no other regime in independent India had disbursed so much educational loans largely benefiting the Dalit and the backward people, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday expressed the hope that the volume of monetary assistance to support learning was likely to be at least Rs 40,000 crore till the last fiscal (2009-10).
At a seminar on 'Development of Dalits,' besides a mass marriage function organised by Tirukkulam Sinthanaiyalargal Maiyam here, Chidambaram said educational loans totalled Rs 25,000 crore as on March 31, 2009.
The final disbursal figures were yet to come for the period ended March 31, this year and hoped this could go up to at least Rs 40,000 crore benefiting 25 lakh students. "The beneficiaries are poor, children of landless farmers, Dalits and the backward people," he said. Chidambaram said pursuing higher education was the only way to overcome all the stumbling blocks in life.
Stating that "faster and inclusive growth" was the Congress party's roadmap for development, he claimed that the country had progressed well in the past five years and this was proved with the party's return to power with more Parliamentary seats.
"I had said in a similar function in 2004, that the fruits of growth would be chanelled to reach the Dalits in a better manner," Chidambaram said and cited the steep rise in the outlay for the Special Component Plant over the years. During 2005-06, the allocation was Rs 6,523 crore and by 2009-10 it was Rs 22,959 crore and this was to facilitate the percolation of the benefits arising out of the growth in economy to Dalits.
Right to Food Act
Showering praise on Dr Ambedkar, Chidambaram said the Dalit icon was also a great economist and added that even the Constitution had to be tailored by way of Amendments in tune with the changing times. Specifying Central legislations guaranteeing the right to information, employment and education, the Home Minsiter said the 'Right to Food Act,' was the next item on the agenda.
Earlier, former bureaucrat P Sivakami said just 1.26 lakh acres of panchami lands were in the possession of the Dalits out of 12 lakh acres and urged that efforts be made to return it to the Scheduled Castes people.
Times Of India
Rape victim's mother threatened by accused
S Ahmed Ali, TNN, Apr 19, 2010, 02.30am IST
MUMBAI: Even as the Mumbai police is on the final stage of forming a special committee to protect witnesses, a 58-year-old woman, who was witness to her daughter's rape, is running from pillar to post trying to get security.
Rita Ganesh Das has alleged that the accused, Dorai Devendra, his brother Ganesh and their father Subbu, all residents of Adarsh Cooperative Society in Antop Hill, have been threatening her with dire consequences if she deposed against them in court.
In 2008, Rita's 22-year-old daughter was allegedly raped by Dorai in Antop Hill following which, Rita lodged a complaint and he was arrested. In 2009, he was released on conditional bail and since then Dorai and his family have been threatening Rita so that she would drop the case, which is in the sessions court.
"On many occasions, they threatened me to stop pursuing the case," Rita said. "On March 29, Dorai, Ganesh and Subbu barged into my son Shankar's house at Mhada chawl in Kopri and assaulted him with choppers." This was not a stray incident as the Dases had approached both the Wadala TT and Antop Hill police, but they allegedly refused to entertain them. The victim's brother, Shankar, said, "Whenever we go, the police only take down our complaint as an NC. If we insist they should take action against the accused, the police threaten us. My sister has been raped. Is it not the police's duty to arrest the accused?"
Shankar said though the incident occurred on March 29, the police registered an FIR against the Devendras only on April 3, after Rita met additional commissioner of police (central) Sadanand Date. "Now 15 days have passed since the Wadala TT police registered the FIR, but they have not arrested anyone," Shankar said.
Incidentally, in September last year, Subbu had alleged that his daughter, Nitya, was raped by four persons after which she was burnt alive at Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society in Antop Hill.
India Today
More dons to be sacked as Maya cleans up the 'dirt'
She started "cleansing" her party with the expulsion of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders Mukhtar Ansari and Afzal Ansari. And now, Mayawati seems to be on a roll.
The fear of losing ground in the 2012 Assembly elections seems to have shaken the Uttar Pradesh chief minister out of her forced indifference to the presence of criminals in her party.
She has asked her party's districts coordinators to make a list of BSP leaders and workers who have a criminal past and have been accused of misusing the party's clout to get their way. And it was said over 24 BSP leaders may be on the " hitlist". Addressing a meeting of the coordinators in Lucknow on Saturday, Mayawati asked them to submit the list of criminal leaders in her party by April 30.
BSP general secretary and PWD Minister Nasimuddin Siddiqui said in his address to the coordinators that although Mayawati there was "every possibility" that at least two dozen criminal politicians would be shown the door in the next couple of months.
He said expelling Mau MLA Mukhtar Ansari and former Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari was "just the first step". Siddiqui told them in the closed- door meeting that Mayawati was " shocked" to know that Hanuman Prasad Shukla - who was shot dead on a dais during a public meeting last Wednesday - was the assembly coordinator of Gonda and a history-sheeter.
She was told Shukla was gaining power in Gonda with the help of the BSP tag.
Siddiqui said at the meeting: "Besides senior leaders who are found to be involved in criminal activities, district-level workers with criminal antecedents would also be removed." "There is no space for musclemen and tainted politicians in the BSP," he added.
Specific instructions were also given for public functions.
"Henceforth, only the chief guest, district president, zonal coordinator and the parliamentary or assembly in-charge would be allowed to sit on the dais during any public meeting of the party.
Criminals and those not known to the zonal coordinator won't be allowed to come near the stage," Siddiqui was quoted as saying.
State Mining Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha said they should "forget the past" and now view the BSP as a party where criminals would not only be given the boot but could also be sent to jail.
"We had fought the 2007 Assembly elections by attacking the criminals in Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party. We had promised the people a crime- free society. The time has come to act accordingly," Kushwaha said.
Reacting to Mayawati's cleanup-BSP mission, former chief minister and Jan Kranti Party patron Kalyan Singh said: "In the 2007 polls, she (Mayawati) had convinced all criminals of the SP to come to her party because she wanted to win the election by unfair means. Now, under criticism from the general public and her rival parties for ignoring the interests of the Dalits, she has announced this step as she fears she will be defeated in the next polls." " She will expel only those criminals who are of no use to her," he added.
He said the CM had fielded 131 candidates in the 2007 assembly elections and about 20 in last year's Lok Sabha polls who were known criminals.
Currently, there are many listed dons in the BSP, including D. P. Yadav, Sushil Singh, Jitendra Singh, Anand Sen Yadav and Shekhar Tiwari. The last two are in jail.
Times Of India
173 forest dwellers get right to dwell on forest land
DALTONGANJ: The Palamu district administration has given permission to 173 families to dwell on forest land in this Maoist-hit district. These forest dwellers can now live in peace as there will be no fear of any case of encroachment or eviction from the forest land.
Sources said the district administration had withdrawn cases against 138 forest offenders, belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections of society just a couple of days ago. These two moves have been made at a time when the CPI(Maoist) is on a destruction mission.
Deputy commissioner Amitabh Kaushal confirmed the dwelling rights given to as many as 173 families. He cautioned that no forest dweller, who has settled on forest land, can sell any inch of that. The forest land, so settled with the dwellers, can only be inherited, the DC explained.
Sources said the right to dwell on forest land has benefited most of the primitive tribes here. The Korwas of Uldanda village in Palamu's Chainpur block have benefited the most. For example, Shuku Korwa is now a proud owner of 3.2 acre forest land.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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