Wednesday, October 28, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Amar praises Rahul for efforts to reach out to Dalits

 

http://www.ptinews.com/news/352010_Amar-praises-Rahul-for-efforts-to-reach-out-to-Dalits

Amar praises Rahul for efforts to reach out to Dalits

STAFF WRITER 19:48 HRS IST
Etawah, Oct 28 (PTI) Rahul Gandhi's efforts to reach out to Dalits
came in for praise today by Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar
Singh who lauded him for spending time with people belonging to the
deprived sections of society.

Admitting his "fondness" for the young Congress leader, Amar Singh at
an election rally in Bahrthana assembly constituency said there was
nothing wrong in Gandhi spending nights and sharing food with Dalits.

The SP leader also wondered why such actions by Rahul Gandhi are
infuriating Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.

Though praising Rahul, Singh did not spare the Congress saying that
his party helped it in "bad times" but took nothing in return.

Lashing out at the Mayawati government for what he termed as a "fake
FIR " against him in Kanpur, Singh said it was a conspiracy.

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[ZESTCaste] Kerala favours extending term for SC/ST and Anglo-Indian co

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thirupuram/Kerala-favours-extending-term-for-SC/ST-and-Anglo-Indian-co-/articleshow/5172938.cms

Kerala favours extending term for SC/ST and Anglo-Indian co
PTI 28 October 2009, 05:07pm IST

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala on Wednesday favoured the proposed
constitutional amendment for extending for another ten years the
reservation accorded
to SC, ST and Anglo Indian community in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

A resolution in this regard would be passed in the Kerala assembly
during the next session, chief minister V S Achuthanandan told
reporters here after a cabinet meeting.

The Cabinet also decided to order a vigilance probe into the alleged
irregularities in awarding contract for modernisation of public sector
Kerala Metals and Minerals Ltd during the previous Congress-led UDF
government.

Achuthanandan said as soon as LDF government came to power, it had
recommended to the Centre to order CBI probe into the
'irregularities.' But, the Centre had not done it till now, he said.

On ASEAN pact, Achuthanandan said Congress leaders in the state should
apologize to the people of Kerala as they were "misleading" them about
the 'negative list'.

Alleging that there was no negative list as assured by the Centre,
Achuthanandan said farmers in the state were going to suffer a lot.

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[ZESTCaste] High Court pulls up govt on reservation of BBMP

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=High+Court+pulls+up+govt+on+reservation+of+BBMP&artid=tDV5f0TFK3M=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==&SEO=

High Court pulls up govt on reservation of BBMP

Express News Service
First Published : 28 Oct 2009 06:51:59 AM IST
Last Updated : 28 Oct 2009 08:19:15 AM IST

BANGALORE: The High Court on Tuesday pulled up the state government
for framing unscientific guidelines for reservation of wards for
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections.


The court observed that the guidelines were framed without considering
legal and constitutional requirements. With an intention to postpone
the BBMP elections, the government framed such guidelines, the court
said.

While hearing a petition by Ramakrishna Pai and others, Justice H N
Nagamohandas directed BBMP to file details regarding list of wards,
percentage of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/ST)
population, besides the percentage of SC/ST women in the population of
the city.

Jayakumar S Patil, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, argued
that importing the Assembly constituency concept of reservation to
BBMP wards was not permissible under the Karnataka Municipal
Corporation Act.

While allotting the reservation, the government had identified two
Assembly constituencies with the highest population of SC/ST
communities, out of the 23 Assembly constituencies in the city. Then,
reservation was allotted to certain wards with highest SC/ST
population in those constituencies, the petitioner's counsel argued.

Such allotment of reservation is unscientific and it would not serve
the purpose of providing justice to the SC/ST people.

While fixing reservation, the city should be considered as a whole and
priority should be given to those wards which have the highest SC/ST
population, Patil argued.

If the Assembly constituency criteria in considered, the reservation
of wards will be concentrated only in some constituencies and wards
with the highest population of SC/ ST communities in other
constituencies will be deprived reservation, the counsel argued.

The government, on July 21, 2009, had issued guidelines for fixing
reservation of BBMP wards.

The petitioner challenged the guidelines saying they were unscientific.


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[ZESTCaste] The rise and fall of Mayawati’s lieutenants

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=The+rise+and+fall+of+Mayawati%E2%80%99s+lieutenants&artid=iJSQcUxTxFo=&SectionID=XVSZ2Fy6Gzo=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=m3GntEw72ik=&SEO=Mayawati,%20Mulayam%20Singh,%20Satish%20Chandra%20Mishra,%20UP

The rise and fall of Mayawati's lieutenants

Vrinda Gopinath
First Published : 28 Oct 2009 12:02:00 AM IST

Last Updated : 28 Oct 2009 12:58:52 AM IST

It has been a tumultuous year for UP chief minister and BSP president
'Behenji' Mayawati beginning from her surprise jettison last July as
unofficial prime ministerial candidate of the Third Front and the
sudden crash of her ultimate dream in May this year. After the Lok
Sabha results were announced, it was a stunned Mayawati who went into
a huddle after she was routed in the state by none other than her bete
noire, Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, and the Congress, which saw a
sudden rebirth. Mayawati's grand strategy of combining the
Dalit-Brahmin vote bank came a cropper.


Over the last few months Lucknow has been abuzz about the fate of
Maya's trusted strategists and confidants, a clutch of lawyers,
bureaucrats and party leaders. Mayawati's style of functioning is that
of a political warlord; her lieutenants diligently carry out
'Behenji's' commands and directives as loyal party workers. Here's a
quick guide to those who have been dumped and those who are on a dizzy
rise:

Satish Chandra Mishra: Once the all-powerful Brahmin mascot of the BSP
and Mayawati's closest confidant who is pictured always at her side,
the first sign of Mishra's ignoble slide is that he has been dumped
squarely and surely from all photo-ops. His canny political strategy
to bring the Brahmins and Dalits failed miserably in the Lok Sabha
polls; Behenji's innumerable court cases have also got the heat on
both the CM and Mishra. The last few months have seen several court
cases leaping up to taunt Maya, from her disproportionate assets case
to the contempt of court notices issued to her over the lavish and
extravagant spending on the Ambedkar parks in UP. Mishra has had no
success in getting her any relief so far. On the political side,
Mishra has not been able to mediate in Mayawati's favour with the
Centre. Today he is barely seen in the capital's power corridors.
However, Mishra's family and friends continue to enjoy the fruits of
power, from lavish properties allegedly bought by him in both Lucknow
and Delhi, to having Brahmins head dozens of important state
corporations, to even having a university named after his mother.
Mishra still controls Mayawati's vast and enormous empire.

Navneet Sehgal: It has been a dizzying rise for this bureaucrat, who
began on Behenji's wrong side when she came to power for a second time
as CM — Sehgal was then seen to be close to both Mulayam Singh Yadav
and Lalji Tandon (BJP), and he was summarily transferred out of
Lucknow on a central posting. But the dexterous Sehgal wormed his way
and is now one of the most powerful people of Maya's kitchen cabinet.
Sehgal's rise has been intoxicating — first he was appointed secretary
to the CM, then he got additional charge as secretary urban
development, chairman-cum-managing director of UP Power Corporation
Limited (UPPCL), and was later appointed chairman of UP Jal Nigam.
They are all crucial departments for handing out contracts and
memorandums of understanding for business. The tall and strapping
Sehgal is today undoubtedly voted as the most powerful bureaucrat in
Lucknow.

Akilesh Das: It must go to Sehgal's credit for engineering the entry
of former Congressman and now BSP MP from Lucknow into the party —
Sehgal was private secretary to Das when he was MoS for steel in
UPA-I, and is said to have brokered the deal for Das' entry into the
BSP. So ambitious was Mayawati to become PM in the last election, that
she agreed to give Das a ticket despite knowing that this former mayor
of Lucknow was also one of Mulayam Yadav's closest confidant. However,
Mayawati was right about one aspect — that Das was going to be the
winning candidate of Lucknow, and she was desperate to have as many
winning MPs on her side to stake claim to power at the Centre.

Shahshank Shekhar Singh: It was the most striking appointment and it
took every UP bureaucrat's breath away when Singh, a government pilot
and a non-IAS officer, was elevated as Maya's Cabinet Secretary. But
the complaints from bureaucrats led to a PIL in court and soon
Mayawati was forced to strip many of Singh's powers in the
administration. Naturally, Singh, who has made a clean image his
leitmotif, soon found himself waning in Behenji's sphere of influence,
but he continues to be one of her trusted administrators. However, his
pet projects like the mega international airport on the Agra road has
evaporated because of Maya's plunging clout in Delhi, and the Greater
Noida project limps ahead.

Naseemuddin Siddiqui: The BSP'S Muslim face is also known as the
organisation man as he carries out Behenji's election strategies at
the micro level. Today, Siddiqui has some of the most important and
lucrative portfolios like PWD, Housing, Excise and Prohibition, and he
continues to be Behenji's ear on the ground, picking up grassroots
intelligence. But he too failed to deliver the Muslims to the party in
the last election. Siddiqui continues with his key task of networking
with the second- rung government machinery and party, and is the last
man standing without being touched so far.

Babu Singh Kushwaha: As Mayawati's former telephone attendant, it has
been a speedy rise for this MBC leader who is minister of mining and
geology and panchayati raj. Mayawati is looking to cultivate the MBCs,
a vast but untouched vote bank, and Kushwaha could not have been at
the right place, at the right time. He is also Behenji's trusted
backroom boy, who looks after the party's administrative affairs; even
the party's registration was done in his name. He is an old-timer and
as he has realised, the lesson for survival in the BSP is to keep a
low profile even as your political clout grows in leaps and bounds.

Jaganath Chamber, Neth Ram and Fateh Bahadur: They are the
increasingly powerful Dalit lobby in the bureaucracy who are taking on
the Brahminical and upper caste dominance in their stride, with the
full backing of Mayawati. Chamber has grown from strength to strength
beginning as one of the senior administration officers appointed by
the CM to review police and administrative works, and was made in
charge of Jhansi division. As principal secretary (home), Fateh
Bahadur is also flexing his muscles, refusing to kowtow to upper caste
pre-eminence and control. Neth Ram is also one of Maya's principal
secretaries, and together, the trio is a force to reckon with in the
bureaucracy.

vrinda_2000_in@yahoo.com


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[ZESTCaste] Seven get life imprisonment for murder

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.ptinews.com/news/351292_Seven-get-life-imprisonment-for-murder&ct=ga&cd=XqJf22aRWKM&usg=AFQjCNEIXV82L907GyXllUkvttyPVOujDQ

Seven get life imprisonment for murder

STAFF WRITER 12:53 HRS IST
Varanasi, Oct 28 (PTI) A fast track court sentenced seven persons to
life imprisonment for murdering a Dalit.

The fast track court of Additional District and Sessions Judge A K
Dwivedi of Sonbhadra district yesterday sentenced the seven convicts
to life imprisonment for murdering Dalit Shobhnath on November 4,
2005, and also slapped a fine of Rs 4,500 on each of them.

Roop Kumari, widow of Shobhnath, had lodged a complaint at Beejpur
police station in Sonbhadra in 2005 alleging that Jhurai Singh and
Rana Singh had murdered her husband.

She also accused Maniram, Mohar, Buddhu, Atrilal and Suresh Chandra in the case.

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[ZESTCaste] Why not a Dalit priest? (Kancha Ilaiah)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/32772/why-not-dalit-priest.html

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Why not a Dalit priest?
By Kancha Ilaiah

Let not the NRIs work for creating religious frictions by presenting
one section's festival as Indian festival.


The Non-Resident Indians of North America have been trying to convince
the White House that they should recognise the Deepavali festival as
American national festival by celebrating it in White House. They made
such efforts during the Bill Clinton period but failed. Then they
tried very hard during the George W Bush term and again failed.

However, they succeeded during this time in convincing the Obama
administration that it should celebrate the Deepavali festival in the
White House. On the Deepavali day, Obama attended a celebration
organised by Indians in the White House and lit a lamp. The main
representative of India on the dais, along with Obama was an Indian
Brahmin priest with a shaven head and semi-naked body covered with a
Pattu Vastram and a dhoti. He also sported big three fold Vaishnava
'namam'.
Assuming that the NRIs were not willing to present a homogeneous
Hinduism by keeping a Shaivaite priest also, the basic question that
does bother is: does that priest represent Indian Dalits-Bahujans who
hardly have any space in the Hindu religious temple structures?

The NRIs living in America used Obama's black background to convince
him to attend the celebration and give a respectability to
Indian-Hindu culture. What they have 'hidden' from Obama and his
administrative staff was that in India still the Hindu priestly caste
does not allow millions of Dalits to enter Hindu temples and they
treat them as untouchables.

We were all a witness to Obama's oath taking ceremony where the black
pastors played a key role, though there were white pastors side by
side. In spite of an attempt to raise a controversy around his own
pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama refused to disown him.
Since Hinduism does not even give such a scope to Dalits and other
backward castes, they are forced to remain unequal and outside its
ritual celebrations. No Dalit-Bahujan is allowed to become a priest in
any mainstream Hindu temple.

For a long time the American blacks faced a similar denial of
spiritual rights (though there was no untouchability) within the white
church. The blacks fought for decades to fight such spiritual racism
and over a period of time they gained the right to go to the white
church. But the blacks were not allowed to ordain as pastors and lead
the church system. To counter such discrimination the blacks started
their own churches, which have become a whole religious system in
themselves. All great black leaders emerged from that black church.

Whether it were the first major black leader, Frederick Doglas of
Abraham Lincoln's times, or Martin Luther King who emerged as the
greatest leader of the civil rights movement and won a Nobel Peace
prize at the age of 38, all were black pastors in black churches. Even
Obama emerged as a political leader, while working in the black
community church.

When the Indian casteist forces celebrated the Deepavali in the White
House, the Indian community would have realised that it would have
destroyed his race neutral administrative apparatus if they did not
take a Dalit priest to the White House. They should have done that, at
least, to tell the world that the NRIs do not believe in caste
discrimination and untouchability.

Some of these NRIs were raising objections as to why the Congress
House Committee of Human Rights (called the Subcommittee on Africa,
Global Human Rights and International Operations in the United States
House of Representatives) heard the Indian delegation in 2005 about
the existence of discrimination based on caste and untouchability in
India.

Back in India Sri Sri Ravishankar, Ramachandra Guha and others accused
us (myself, Joseph D'Souza, Udit Raj and Indira Atwale were the main
deposers) as people who were indulging in internationalising the
internal problems. How do these so called reform seers and
intellectuals respond to celebration of Deepavali in White House and
that too with a Brahmin representing Indian culture? Suppose the
Kerala NRIs ask for celebration of Onam in the White House, who will
represent that festival? Would a Bali's heritage Shudra represent it
or a Brahmin from Vaishnava tradition?

Do not these intellectuals, so called seers and NRIs understand that
Deepavali as it is being celebrated today is an anti-Dalit-Bahujan
festival as Narakasura, who was killed was a Shudra himself? How could
a festival that celebrates the death of an Indian Shudra be considered
as a secular festival? Secondly, how does Deepavali represent India as
a cultural festival when India is a country of multi-religious people?
The only festival that can represent all Indians is Independence Day
(August 15) celebration. Let the NRIs not work for creating religious
frictions by presenting one section's festival as Indian festival. Let
the NRIs stop globalising communalism and casteism also in this from.
Let Obama's administration realise that there are 200 million Dalits
who cannot celebrate Deepavali as a festival in India.

This is the reason why the Obama administration should have asked for
the presence of a Dalit priest on the occasion of celebration of the
Deepavali in the White House.


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