From: Gerard Oonk <g.oonk@indianet.nl>
Date: Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 9:25 PM
Subject: 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:
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article2284501.ece
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:
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/insight/WCMS_159813/lang--en/index.htm
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:
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-parliament-urges-end-caste-discrimination
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:
http://aob.nl/doc/resolutieeicongres.pdf
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:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indias-new-internet-rules-criticized/2011/07/27/gIQA1zS2mI_story.html
Kind regards,
Gerard Oonk
directeur Landelijke India Werkgroep
Mariaplaats 4e, 3511 LH Utrecht
tel. 030-2321340
www.indianet.nl
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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