From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 5:36 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 07.07.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 07.07.10
A killing to honour caste practice in Sivaganga - Express Buzz
http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/a-killing-to-honour-caste-practice-in-sivaganga/187685.html
Facing khap ire, Daula turns into a fortress - Times Of India
Brahmin-dominated village blames it on caste politics - Times Of India
BAD JUSTICE - The Telegraph
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100707/jsp/opinion/story_12651419.jsp
Magars ban dalits from using well - Republica
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=20722
T.N., U.P. yet to respond to Centre's scheme for Dalit-dominated villages - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/07/stories/2010070762861200.htm
HC: Cannot allow disabled candidates same score concession as SC/ST students - Indian express
Express Buzz
A killing to honour caste practice in Sivaganga
http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/a-killing-to-honour-caste-practice-in-sivaganga/187685.html
First Published : 07 Jul 2010 03:16:22 AM IST
Last Updated :
MADURAI: Murdering Dalit youths, who run away with caste Hindu girls or Dalit girls eloping with other caste boys, is common in many districts in the State. These were euphemistically called 'honour killings', where the parents of the girls or boys take the law into their hands.
But what appeared like a case of murdering a youth, who had eloped with a newly married woman has now turned out to be another gruesome 'honour killing' near Manamadurai in Sivaganga district. The murdered youth and the girl are not from different castes. Both are from the same community, but what irked the parents of the girl was that the two were cousins, who under their caste practice cannot be married. So the man has been killed and the woman is at the hospital nursing her wounds. Mekala (19), the daughter of Vijayan of Kattikulam near Madurai, had been in love with Sivakumar (27), an auto driver of K Pudukkulam village. When Vijayan came to know of the affair, he had got Mekala married to Kalidas of the same village, last month. Ten days after the marriage, Mekala was missing and so was Sivakumar. They had eloped and were living as husband and wife in Pudukkottai. When Vijayan came to know of their location, he along with some others had gone to Pudukkottai and convinced the couple to return to Kattikulam, promising that they would be legally married. Believing them, Mekala and Sivakumar had returned to Manamadurai on Sunday and were proceeding to Kattikulam by an auto when a gang intercepted them and hacked Mekala and Manikandan with aruvals. Sivakumar died on the spot while Mekala who was trying to escape was also cut and had been admitted to a hospital. The reason for this gruesome murder and attempted murder according to a fact finding team from Evidence, a Maduraibased NGO, was that both Mekala and Sivakumar were relatives and their relationship was such that according to their community practice they cannot marry. It would amount to incest. This was the first time that the organisation had come across such an honour killing as the victims were always Dalits. Mekala who is recovering at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai had said that she and Sivakumar were in love for the past one year and to break this affair, she has been married off to an elderly person. Police had registered a case and arrested Vijayan and his relative Manikandan. They are looking for another relative Prabhakaran.
Times Of India
Facing khap ire, Daula turns into a fortress
Dipak Kumar Dash, TNN, Jul 7, 2010, 12.46am IST
DAULA (GREATER NOIDA): Daula, a tiny village in Greater Noida, has turned into a fortress after several dozen of armed policemen were deployed in the area after the panchayat of a nearby village, Maicha, threatened to forcibly take away the women and children from the village. This diktat came after a Dalit boy from Daula allegedly eloped with a Brahmin girl from Maicha.
Locals said they had to send their women and children to their relatives' places. "After police were deployed in the village on Monday, most of them have returned home. But the fear of being attacked is still there,'' lamented an aged villager.
Police said that situation has returned to normal and that police presence would continue for the next couple of days. "We have provided police protection to the boy's (Sanjay) father Kanchi Singh. We have assured the people that nothing will happen to them. Earlier, we had filed a case against 40 unidentified people of Maicha. So far we have identified about 15 persons,'' said Noida SP (rural), S K Verma.
Verma added that a case of attempt to murder and criminal intimidation has been registered against them. "We have also booked them under relevant sections of SC/ST Act. The accused are absconding,'' the SP said.
Though police mobilization in the village has brought some relief to the residents, Sanjay's mother, Bharpai, said, "Cops are here today (Tuesday) as there is media presence. Will they be here once the media leave?''
Since Monday, armed cops have been frequently visiting her house to ensure that they don't face any atrocity at the hands of higher caste people of Maicha village. Kanchi said that now they feel relieved.
Recalling the entire episode, Kanchi said that their ordeal started on June 24 the day his son, Sanjay, had gone missing. "That day, the girl's father came to my house and alleged that my son had eloped with his daughter. He asked me to return his daughter. Then came the cops and took me to the police station. I was kept there for four days,'' Kanchi said.
Kanchi returned home on June 28. The next evening representatives of Maicha panchayat and the girl's father came to his place again. "They made the earlier demand and after a long discussion they gave me four days' time to bring the girl back. I had to pay 5-6 people who helped me in looking for the couple,'' Kanchi lamented.
On July 4, another team of panchayat leaders visited Kanchi. "They said they would not return without their daughter. Laundiya ke badle mein laudiyaan do (give your girls for our daughter). They even took with them three men from our village saying that they would keep them until the girl retuned to her home,'' Kanchi alleged.
He then reported the matter to the local police which lodged an FIR. He said that after that day he did not receive any threat from the girl's family or the Maicha panchayat.
Meanwhile, the girl's father, Rajesh Sharma, denied that neither he nor the village panchayat ever threatened to snatch girls from Daula. "We have been maintaining that Sanjay had eloped with my daughter from Kakod village. We only want our daughter back in home,'' he told reporters.
A few policemen have also been deployed in Maicha to prevent any untoward situation.
Times Of India
Brahmin-dominated village blames it on caste politics
Dipak Kumar Dash, TNN, Jul 7, 2010, 12.42am IST
GREATER NOIDA: The deployment of armed policemen in Daula might have come as a major relief to the 130-odd dalit families residing there, but villagers of Maicha allege that the district administration's response top officials rushed to the village even as a massive contingent of cops was stationed was not completely isolated from the caste politics of Uttar Pradesh.
The second largest community in Daula village is dalits, comprising mostly Jatavs. UP chief minister Mayawati also belongs to the Jatav community. The incident of atrocity against dalits in the village has come to light weeks after Mayawati lashed out at the Haryana government for failing to protect the balmikis of Mirchpur, Hissar. She had even demanded President's rule in the state.
Political observers said that with the state elections drawing closer, the BSP government will do all it takes to prevent such incidents from hurting its loyal votebank. While experts said any sensible government would act like this in such a situation, it was even more important for Mayawati to send out a strong message that her government was committed to protect the dalits in this case as she needed to galvanize her eroding votebank.
Meanwhile, Maicha villagers refuted all allegations that they had threatened to forcibly take away women and girls from Daula. "We never said so. We just want our daughter to return home safe. We suspect that the boy's family is aware of their whereabouts,'' said one of the elders of Maicha.
"The Maicha residents have been very upset over the alliance and say that it is not acceptable to them. We don't know if they will ever shed this feeling against us,'' an old villager of Daula told a team of district administration on Tuesday. Officials who visited Daula assured residents that they will be protected from any atrocity at all cost.
The Telegraph
BAD JUSTICE
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100707/jsp/opinion/story_12651419.jsp
How effective is a national commission that officially fails to understand a national vernacular? There is something deeply flawed about a justice delivery system that refuses to 'understand' complaints made to it in one of the Indian languages. But this is exactly what the national commission for scheduled castes has done with serious complaints addressed to it in Oriya. That the targeted beneficiaries of this body are the scheduled castes makes such a flaw even more difficult to fathom. A set of complaints made to the commission in Oriya by poor Dalit villagers from Orissa has been shuttling between the commission's Delhi headquarters and its Calcutta office simply because the latter, which has jurisdiction over Orissa, failed to find translators who would translate Oriya into English (or whatever other language it is capable of working in). The complaints are far from frivolous — they are about the forcible displacement of rural Dalits because of the construction of an irrigation project in a district in Orissa. Incredibly, the commission's Calcutta office sent the complaints back to the collector of the same district — effectively asking the accused to deal with the problem.
It is difficult to believe that nobody who understands Oriya could be found in Calcutta. It is the government's responsibility to have a panel of translators ready, and obviously it has not bothered to be alert to this fact. Such inefficiency and indifference add to the inequalities and loopholes that exist already in the Indian justice system. In a society disunited not only by economic disparities but also by linguistic diversity, the built-in checks and measures in the systems of governance and law have to be kept in place scrupulously to make the systems serve their minimal functions. Effective two-way communication is at the core of access to justice. For ordinary Indians — or extraordinarily disempowered Indians — to be able to access the protection of the State, the latter has to ensure the proper running of its basic services. Every government body, whatever its executive powers, should have quick access to a panel of translators who would be able to work, without delay, to deliver to the people the attention, and comprehension, that they are entitled to as citizens. To plead ignorance about existing services speaks of a callousness about the basic principles of democracy.
Republica
Magars ban dalits from using well
http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=20722
MITHILESH YADAV
SIRAHA (DHARAMPUR), July 6: The Magar community in Chandrodayapur-4, Dharampur of Siraha has banned dalit families from using a public well.
The dalits have lodged a formal complaint of untouchability against the Magars with support from the Crime Vigilance Center. Siraha district police chief Ramesh Bhattarai has assured that action has been initiated in the case.
Representative of the center, Radheshyam Ram, said the Magars have stopped the Mijars from filling water for the last one month. The ban came following a dispute between the communities after two Mijar kids were thrashed for trying to drink water from the well when Magars were filling water.
Local Tej Kumari Ruwa had thrashed five-year-olds Ashok and Subhash when they went to the well to drink water on their way home from school on June 9, according to Rishi Maya Mijar, a local. "When we went to drink water from the well, she thrashed us saying untouchables should not touch the well," Ashok recalls.
"Our kids are still terrified to go near the well since the incident," Rishi Maya rues and adds, "We will have to leave the village if we are prevented from filling water from the only well in the village."
The four Mijar households in the village are having torrid time after the ban as they require more water to drink during the summer heat. "We don´t get water to drink even in such hot weather. The police administration also is not sensitive to our plight and has done nothing despite our complaints," Kanchan, the mother of thrashed Mijar kid Ashok, says.
The well dug by Siraha District Development Committee around 22 years ago is the only means of drinking water for 17 households, including 11 of Magars and two of Halwais, in the Ruwale Tole.
The Magars, however, claim they have not banned Mijars from filling water. "We have let them use the well at other times. They cannot fill water with us as they are from a lower caste," argues Tej Kumari, who thrashed the Mijar kids.
Untouchability has been banned by the law since 1963.
The Hindu
T.N., U.P. yet to respond to Centre's scheme for Dalit-dominated villages
http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/07/stories/2010070762861200.htm
Smita Gupta
U.P., and Tamil Nadu were picked for pilot phase which cover 1000 villages
Assam, Bihar and Rajasthan sent in their proposals
New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are yet to respond to the Centre's invitation to send proposals for the Union Ministry of Social Justice's new Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY), a scheme aimed at the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes.
Three months after the scheme was notified, "proposals are awaited from them," official sources in the Ministry told The Hindu.
Objective
The PMAGY's objective is to achieve all-round, integrated development of selected villages with more than 50 per cent Scheduled Caste population, through convergence of all relevant Central and State schemes.
Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were among the five States picked for the pilot phase, which is to cover 1,000 such villages.
The rest of the States, Assam, Bihar and Rajasthan have sent in their proposals.
And on Tuesday, the Centre released Rs. 55.54 crore for 100 villages in Assam's Nagaon district, 225 villages in Bihar's Gaya district and another 225 villages spread over Rajasthan's Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts. Bihar and Rajasthan have been allocated Rs. 22.72 crore each, while Assam has been given Rs.10.10 crore.
Uttar Pradesh's indifference to the PMAGY, sources said, stems from reasons both practical and political.
First, the PMAGY is a replica of the State's Ambedkar Village scheme, which was drawn up for the development of Scheduled Caste-dominated villages way back in 1991, and which has been refined and improved over the years.
The latest version, the Dr. Ambedkar Gramin Samgra Vikas Yojana came into force on September 14, 2007, a few months after Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party came into power in the State.
Under this scheme, all gram sabhas are to be saturated with 13 different development programmes.
The scheme, launched in January 2008, will conclude in March 2012, the eve of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh — and a total of 17,100 gram sabhas are to be covered in the process.
Against this backdrop, sources told The Hindu, the Central offer of Rs, 10 lakh for each of the 225 villages in Uttar Pradesh do not amount to very much.
Secondly, the State government, the sources added, may not wish to be beholden to the Centre.
Uttar Pradesh, of course, has the largest number of Scheduled Caste-dominated villages — 17. They are Azamgarh, Sitapur, Sonebhadra, Hardoi, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Mirzapur, Unnao, Bijnor, Jaunpur, Mau, Lucknow, Allahabad, Kheri, Barabanki, Chandauli and Rae Bareli. Tamil Nadu has four such districts — Kanchipuram, Thiruvarur, Viluppuram and Cuddalore.
Indian express
HC: Cannot allow disabled candidates same score concession as SC/ST students
Posted: Wed Jul 07 2010, 01:16 hrs New Delhi:
In what might be a setback to thousands of physically challenged candidates looking to make careers in medicine, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday ruled that they cannot be given concession in qualifying marks similar to that of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) candidates for admissions in MBBS courses in the Capital.
Dismissing a couple of writ petitions filed by a candidate with over 60 per cent locomotive disability, a Division Bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Veena Birbal held that while disabled candidates already had a right of reservation in educational institutions, they could not be given the right to avail concession in the minimum standards prescribed by the Medical Council of India (MCI).
The court noted that though several seats were going waste despite the 3 per cent reservation for the physically challenged due to the candidates' failure in securing the required 50 (now 45) per cent marks in the qualifying exams, it would rather stick to the legal dimensions of the case.
"For the present, it is sufficient for us to observe that insofar as physically disabled persons are concerned, they have a right to reservation, but there is no right to relaxation or a concession in the minimum standards. And unless and until such a right is established, no mandamus or writ can be issued to any authority to give them the relaxation or concession," the Bench held.
The writ was filed by Md Shah Afzal, who was denied admission in a Delhi University (DU) college for the MBBS course for failing to get 50 per cent marks in the the Delhi University Medical Entrance Test (DUMET) in 2008 and 2009. He contended before the authorities that the concession given to SC/ST candidates — they need to secure 40 per cent marks to qualify — should also be given to physical disabled candidates.
Afzal subsequently approached the Chief Commissioner under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act. The Commissioner then directed DU and the MCI to extend the relaxation to physically challenged candidates as well.
Afzal then approached the High Court and said the MCI had refused to obey the Commissioner's directive even though the colleges failed to fill up the seats reserved for the physically challenged. Afzal further contended that other reputed institutions like the AIIMS and the IITs had gone ahead to provide disabled candidates the same concession for admission as given to SC/ST candidates.
The MCI also approached the court, saying the Commissioner had overstepped his jurisdiction by issuing directives to them.
The Bench then adjudicated the Commissioner's order and the writ petitions on the basis of legal criteria and dismissed Afzal's plea.
"Although we feel that physically disabled persons should be extended all rights, privileges and benefits under the said Act..., we do not agree that the petitioner, as of right, can claim parity with SC/ST candidates insofar as a relaxation in the minimum marks is concerned," it held.
The court also set aside the Commissioner's order, noting that his role was only recommendatory in nature and could not be binding upon the MCI. The Bench, however, asked the MCI and the Centre to give a "serious view" to whether disabled candidates could be allowed the same relaxation in marks as SC/ST candidates.
-- .Arun Khote
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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