Monday, August 8, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Fwd: Decade Against Caste Discrimination | Interview with womam Dalit activist | The ILO and manual scavenging | EI's resolution on

 



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gerard Oonk <g.oonk@indianet.nl>
Date: Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 9:25 PM
Subject: [Arkitect India] Decade Against Caste Discrimination | Interview with womam Dalit activist | The ILO and manual scavenging | EI's resolution on
To: ICN.India.News@server.liw.local

 

Dear reader,

In this India News a lot of interesting (links to) stories and documents on Dalits and caste-based discrimination, child labour and the threat to internet freedom in India.

Conference: Decisive Decade against Discrimination based on Work and Descent
The Conference Decisive Decade against Discrimination based on Work and Descent (2011-2020) was held in Geneva on June 24-25, 2011. It was organised by a group of organisations including the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights in India (NCDHR), the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), and other national and international organisations. The purpose of the conference was to review past interventions, mainly at the UN, and to chalk out effective future strategies required for national and international interventions in the next decade (2011-2020). Participating in the conference were about 50 people from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Japan, and Europe.
More information on the Conference, its Declaration, a speech on behalf of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights and a Report on the Conference can be found here: http://idsn.org/news-resources/idsn-news/read/article/conference-on-dalit-rights-the-un/128/

Interview with Dalit women activist Ruth Manorama
''Ruth Manorama started her work with the urban poor in her youth; there has been no turning back ever since. She is the powerful voice of Dalit women today.'' This is the intro of an interesting interview with Ruth in India's reputed newspaper The Hindu:

The ILO and Manual Scavengers in India
The ILO is working with the Government and social partners in India to address the discrimination of Dalits in five states. The main objective is to support the government's efforts to improve the effectiveness of legislation and policies on the issue of manual scavenging, and to include the scavenging community itself in that process.
According to Coen Kompier, an ILO specialist in labour standards working for the ILO office in New Delhi, "rehabilitation of manual scavengers depends on building the confidence of that community, but also on breaking definitively the caste stigma manual scavengers suffer from. Through our project activities we are therefore exploring ways to make rehabilitation effective and genuine, giving scavengers a true voice in choosing their profession or occupation." More information:

Interview: Dutch Parliament urges end to caste-discrimination
In the last India News you were informed about the resolution that Dutch Parliament adopted a motion to urge the Dutch government to be active in e.g. in the EU and the UN and with regard to the corporate sector to work on appropriate policies and measures to help combat caste-based discrimination. The website of Radio Netherlands Worldservice had an interview with the co-ordinator of the Dalit Network Netherlands, on this issue. See:

Education International's resolution on child labour
The 6th World Congress of Education International, meeting in South Africa, adopted an important resolution on combating child labour. One of the recommendations, which is modelled on the experience of the Indian MV Foundation and campaigned for by the Stop Child Labour campaign, is:
'creation of forms of intensive bridging education that enable children who missed the the entry into 1st grade according to their age to catch up with their peers and be mainstreamed into full-time formal education'. This is going to be one of the strategic areas of work of Education International. See the full resolution here:

Internet freedom in India at stake
As we wrote to you in April:
''On the 11th of April the India Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has issued the ''Information Technology Rules, 2011'' restricting web content that can e.g. be considered ''dispaging'', ''harassing'', ''blasphemous'' or ''hateful''. It also includes anything that ''threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign countries or public order''. Anybody can interpret this as he/she likes likes and require websites, but also Facebook, YouTube etc. to take down such ''offensive content'' with in 36 hours. There is no mechanism to defend your webcontent or appeal a decision to take content down.
In the meantime there are facts that the Indian government itself is indeed blocking more internet content. See: http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/indian-government-asked-to-block-critical-content-from-google
In a recent article in the Washington Post also other Indians, including Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar, voice strong criticism of the new internet rules. See:


Kind regards,


Gerard Oonk
directeur Landelijke India Werkgroep
Mariaplaats 4e,  3511 LH Utrecht
tel. 030-2321340

Lees het Jaarverslag van de LIW: http://www.indianet.nl/jaarverslag2009.html
en de nieuwe India Actief 23: http://www.indianet.nl/actiefl.html

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