Sunday, January 2, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Athletes brought glory to Haryana in 2010, Mirchpur shame

 

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Athletes-brought-glory-to-Haryana-in-2010--Mirchpur-shame/732162/

Athletes brought glory to Haryana in 2010, Mirchpur shame
Agencies Posted: Jan 02, 2011 at 1125 hrs

Chandigarh 2010 will go down in the annals of Haryana\'s history as a
year in which its athletes won laurels in the Commonwealth and Asian
Games, the Dalit-burning incident of Mirchpur and honour killings
brought shame and embattled former police chief S P S Rathore escaping
unscathed in a molestation case evoked anger.

On the political front, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda managed
to consolidate his position and initiate a number of development
schemes after Congress\' poll reverses in the October 2009 Assembly
elections.

With khap panchayats earning a bad name for their \'fatwas\' against
young couples who marry against societal norms, a Karnal court in
March delivered a landmark judgement.

It awarded capital punishment to five persons and life sentence to
another for murdering a couple on the diktats of a self-styled
community panchayat for marrying against societal norms. It was the
first case in the state in which the boy\'s family had moved court
against the honour killing.

In April, mayhem was unleashed in Mirchpur in Hisar district, as
people from the dominant caste in the village attacked and burnt
houses of those belonging to the Dalit community. A 70-year-old man
and his disabled daughter were burnt alive leading to exodus of Dalits
from the village to different parts of the state and the national
capital and causing major embarrassment to the government.

In December, the Supreme Court transferred to a special designated
court in Delhi, the trial relating to the Mirchpur incident to ensure
a free and fair trial.

The year brought relief to Haryana\'s former DGP Rathore in the
Ruchika Girhotra molestation case. Later in the year, CBI filed
closure reports in two of the three fresh cases against him.

In May, he was jailed following his arrest for the first time after a
session\'s court enhanced his prison term to 18 months for molesting
the teenager -- who later committed suicide -- 20 years back.

However, after spending close to six months behind bars at
high-security Burail jail here, Rathore was released on bail by the
Supreme Court.

November brought good news for farmers as Hooda gave a Diwali-eve
bonanza, announcing doubling of the minimum floor rate (MFR) payable
for acquisition of land.

But it were the sportspersons who put the state on the international
map, bagging 38 of the total 101 medals India won in the Commonwealth
Games. The commendable part was that with most of the players came
from humble rural backgrounds.

The icing on the cake came when players from Haryana also left their
mark at the Asian Games in China, the notable being boxer Vijender
Singh, shooter Gagan Narang and athlete Krishna Punia.

In the year gone by, the state also battled one of the worst floods in
its history as several lives were lost. Many parts of Haryana
including Ambala, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Fatehabad and Sirsa faced the
flood fury and the state and its neighbour Punjab engaged in a blame
game over the deluge.

The months of August and September saw many parts of Haryana on the
boil as the predominant Jat community was up in arms demanding
reservation for the community in jobs (OBC quota) and a youth was
killed in the agitation in Hisar.

In August, the Haryana Janhit Congress, founded by former chief
minister Bhajan Lal, moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court here and
sought disqualification of five MLAs who were elected on party tickets
but subsequently joined the ruling Congress after the last state
Assembly polls held in October 2009.

Bhajan Lal\'s son and HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi filed a writ petition
seeking the disqualification of the MLAs under the 10th Schedule of
the Constitution.

In mid-November, the Supreme Court upheld Haryana government\'s
decision to remove the Chairman and all other eight members of the
State Public Service Commission for various irregularities and
misconduct in recruitment process.

In late November, India ushered in mobile number portability that
allows cell phone users to switch operators without changing numbers,
with Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal launching the service from Rohtak.

India also signed an agreement with the US to set up an International
Nuclear Research Institute in Bahadurgarh city.

Metro rail link was provided to connect the satellite town Gurgaon
with the national capital thus facilitating with better connectivity
and fulfilling a long standing demand of the people.

While continuing its efforts to make modern health services easily
accessible to the people, Indira Bal Swasthya Yojana was implemented
to focus on health of children of up to18 years of age. The scheme was
targeted to benefit 40 lakh children.

The Government also announced its decision to declare Punjabi as the
second language in the state even as the Sikhs demand for the
formation of a separate Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee for
managing the Sikh shrines in Haryana remained pending.

The state took a big leap forward in becoming an education hub. The
state got approval for setting up of a Defence University at Gurgaon
and a Central University. The Central University has already become
functional in district Mahendergarh.

The pension admissible to freedom fighters and their widows was raised
from Rs 6000 to Rs 11,000 per month.

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[ZESTCaste] Former SC, ST panel chief supports Jagan

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/article1022067.ece

Published: January 1, 2011 00:00 IST | Updated: January 1, 2011 04:09
IST VISAKHAPATNAM, January 1, 2011
Former SC, ST panel chief supports Jagan
Special Correspondent

'Odarpu Yatra' in city is different from those held earlier, he says
A massive cut-out of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy put
up opposite YMCA on Beach Road in Visakhapatnam on Friday, as a
preparatory exercise for the 'Odarpu Yatra'. — Photo: K.R. Deepak
A massive cut-out of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy put
up opposite YMCA on Beach Road in Visakhapatnam on Friday, as a
preparatory exercise for the 'Odarpu Yatra'. — Photo: K.R. Deepak

M. Nagarjuna, former Chairman of Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes Commission declared his support to former Kadapa MP
Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy in his efforts to set up a new political
party.At a meeting attending by large number of Scheduled Castes Cell
members of the Congress held here on Friday, he along with former TTD
Chairman B. Karunakar Reddy said the 'Odarpu Yatra' in Visakhapatnam
district from January 3 would be different from those held earlier.
Mr. Reddy later met Anakapalle MP Sabbam Hari for an hour to review
the arrangements for the yatra.

Former Commercial Taxes Minister Konathala Ramakrishna and Mr. Sabbam
Hari later jointly opened an 'Odarpu Yatra' office in Chodavaram.

VSEU support

Meanwhile, Visakha Steel Employees Union at its executive committee
meeting resolved to express full support to Mr. Jagan, VSEU president
Padi Tribadha Rao said in statement here.


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[ZESTCaste] State not utilising grants for SC/ST communities fully

 

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-116400.html

State not utilising grants for SC/ST communities fully

Bangalore, Dec 31: Taking note of inadequate spending of grants
earmarked for the welfare of the SC and ST communities in the state,
under Special Economic Programme (ECP) and Tribal Support Programme
(TSP), Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today exhorted the
officials to step it up to achieve cent per cent performance.

Speaking at a performance review meeting of SEP and TSP here the Chief
Minister said the government had earmarked about 22.75 per cent of the
total Budgetary proposal during the year 2010-11, for the welfare of
SCs and ST.

He said at the end of October 2010, Rs 3208 crore was reserved to take
up welfare works under SEP and another Rs 1342.67 crore for TSP.
However, only Rs 1216.23 crore (37pc ) and Rs 371.86 (27pc ) crore had
been utilised.

Expressing concern over under-performance in utilising the grants, The
Chief Minister urged the officials to focus more on utilising the
funds meant for the welfare of the oppressed classes.

--UNI

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit denied last rites

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110102/jsp/nation/story_13381151.jsp

Dalit denied last rites
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Hyderabad, Jan. 1: A 65-year-old Dalit farmer was denied last rites in
Andhra Pradesh because the upper castes refused to allow him to be
cremated in the village and let his body rot at home for two days.

Potla Ganganna, who died around 11am on Thursday, was buried on
government land outside the village tonight. His body was too
decomposed to be cremated.

Ganganna's relatives had been turned away from the cremation ground by
the upper castes in Basampalli village in Anantpur, 415km from
Hyderabad, and told to find another resting place for the farmer. The
family who belong to the Namdhari sect of Dalits returned home with
the body.

The Mandal Revenue Officer, Mehabub Peera, suggested an alternative
site but the Modikallu Dalits — a higher sect than the Namdharis —
objected because it was close to their homes.

"We will not allow a Namdhari burial near our homes," said Nagappa,
head of the Modikallu sect, which is dominant among the Dalits in the
village.

The Namdhari last rites include the ringing of bells and beating of
drums and are considered a bad omen by the superstitious.

The 15 Namdhari Dalit families in the village clashed with the others
for stopping the cremation.

Revenue officer Peera rushed to the spot this morning amid reports of
tension and the health hazard caused by the decomposed body.

Police forces also reached Basampalli and the revenue department held
discussions with both sides to sort out the problem. But Ganganna
could not find a resting place in his village.

"Untouchability" has always been practised in the village that has a
population of around 3,000, Dalit elders in Basampalli said. Around 40
Dalit families live in the village.


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[ZESTCaste] Dalit girl rape case: Maya suspends tainted MLA

 

http://www.timesnow.tv/Dalit-girl-rape-case-Maya-suspends-tainted-MLA/articleshow/4361767.cms

Dalit girl rape case: Maya suspends tainted MLA
2 Jan 2011, 1402 hrs IST, AGENCIES
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday (January 2) finally
took some action against BSP MLA Purshottam Narain Dwivedi, who
allegedly raped a Dalit girl. Maya suspended the 'rape tainted' MLA
today till the CBI-CID conducts its probe.

Yesterday, Mayawati ordered a Crime Branch-Crime Investigation
Department (CB-CID) probe into the rape of a girl, belonging to a
backward caste allegedly by the BSP MLA and his supporters.

Congress has alleged the involvement of a BSP MLA and his associates
in the rape of the 17-year-old girl and demanded the immediate arrest
of the culprits and that Chief Minister Mayawati order a high-level
judicial inquiry into the matter.

The CM has directed the probe to reach Banda by Sunday morning and
start the investigation.

The National Commission for Scheduled Caste (NSCS) has, meanwhile,
sought a report from the state government on the rape of the girl and
her arrest on theft charges in Banda district. The NSCS has sought a
detailed report from the state government and the district level
official on rape of a backward class girl and later her arrest on
theft charges, Chairman of NCSC P L Punia said.

"A most backward minor girl was raped by BSP MLA Purshottam Narain
Dwivedi and his associates in Banda and was later lodged in jail on
charges of stealing the legislator's licensed pistol and Rs five
thousand," Congress state president Rita Bahuguna Joshi had said on
Friday.

She alleged that the girl has been framed by the local police to save
the ruling party MLA and sent to jail, where no one was allowed to
meet her.

BJP state president Surya Pratap Shahi also visited Banda and
announced to launch an agitation.

On the directives of the Banda district administration a panel of
three doctors, including two lady doctors, conducted the medical
examination of the girl in the jail, where she is presently lodged on
theft charges and submitted it to the Superintendent of Police,
sources said.

The order for conducting the examination was issued after the SP, Anil
Das talked to the girl for over five hours in jail during which she
levelled the charges against the MLA and his supporters, sources said.

Achche Lal, the father of the girl, who is a farmer, said she had gone
to her maternal home in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh a few months
ago from where she had gone missing.

On December 7, he received a call informing him that his daughter was
in Pathra village in Banda and he sought the MLA's help in tracing
her.

After she was recovered, the girl was taken to the MLA's house for
safety, from where she allegedly escaped after stealing a mobile phone
and cash on December 12 and was arrested two days later on the FIR of
the MLA.

It was when she was produced before the court on December 24 that she
told her brother she had been raped at the MLA's house.

The father however has denied the theft charges.

On the other hand MLA claimed that the charges were politically motivated.

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[ZESTCaste] The Caste Buster

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/magazine/02Striver-t.html

December 30, 2010
The Caste Buster
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS

I came to Umred to write about a riot. A few months earlier, power
blackouts that rural Indians always suffered silently triggered a
violent reaction. Why? Umred was just another small town in the middle
of nowhere, dusty and underwhelming. But Umred had begun to dream,
townspeople told me, because of television, because of cousins with
tales of call-center jobs and freedom in the city. Once Umred
contracted ambition, blackouts became intolerable. A psychological
revolution, a revolution in expectations, had taken place.

"Electricity is essential to ambition," an energetic young man named
Ravindra Misal explained to me, "because I need it to do my homework,
I need it to listen to music if I am a dancer, I need it to listen to
tapes of great speakers, I need it to surf the Internet. But I cannot,
so people get angry." Over plates of mutton and chicken, Misal and his
friend Abhay offered examples of the little things that were changing
in Umred: young men hunting online for wives, farmers' sons deserting
the farms to work at a bank in a nearby town, a deluge of students
signing up for English classes. And beauty pageants. "I see Fashion TV
on television, Miss India contests in the big cities," Misal said. "So
I thought, Why can't we have that also?" And so he organized the first
Mr. and Miss Umred Personality Contest, which seemed to be half about
physical appearance and half about the communication skills that are
all the rage in small-town India.

Misal embodies the type of person who will truly transform India: not
an engineer or a financier, but an average person who refuses to be
satisfied with the status he was born to. Umred rioted because its
people had somehow acquired the courage of their own dissatisfaction.
But what kind of India will they build?

The beauty contest was enough of a success for Misal to organize the
second Mr. and Miss Umred Personality Contest just months later, which
he invited me to attend. On plastic chairs in a gymnasium, eight women
sat dressed as if for their weddings, with sequined saris in pink,
green and orange, pinned with white laminated contestant number tags.
The men took their inspiration from Bollywood gangster movies, leafy
collars drooping over the lapels of their ill-fitting suits. Their
belts, the belts of the Indian underclass, were too long for their
waists, traveling all the way around their backs, such that two belts
would have furnished enough leather for three men.

The pageant began with a talent contest. Some of the contenders, most
of them engineers from local colleges, sang; some danced; others told
jokes. All of them seemed to plagiarize television, which was their
main portal to the world. The pouts were lifted from Fashion TV, the
breast shimmying from Channel V, the joke timing from the Great Indian
Laughter Challenge on STAR One.

After a Q. and A. session and a catwalk round, which involved men and
women who were probably not allowed to have lunch with a member of the
opposite sex strutting down a ramp, it was time to choose the winners.
The judges whisperingly reached their verdict and came onstage. One by
one, the contestants thanked them, their hands touching the judges'
feet. The two winners were announced and handed their prizes: 600
rupees each and a gold-colored tiara (including one for Mr. Umred).
Two banners on the stage declaring the name of the contest were
removed and, reimagined as sashes, tied around the winners' torsos.

I realized that night as I watched Misal, dressed in a crisp
white-and-purple shirt and a dark tie emblazoned with the crest of a
family not his own, that he had made himself Umred's ambassador of
escape: part motivational speaker, part revivalist preacher of the
gospel of ambition. When he established the Mr. and Miss Umred
Personality Contest, he was not bringing a new idea to Umred so much
as giving expression to an existing idea. What he understood was that
the young craved an exit, and he had built a personal empire to serve
that craving. Everyone knew Misal. Everyone, regardless of age, called
him "sir." To reach Nagpur or Pune or Mumbai, you had to seek his
advice, learn English from his English academy, learn roller skating
from his roller-skating academy, reach into his network of contacts,
compete in his pageant, learn to dress and think and enunciate like
him.

On the day after the pageant, Misal took me to a restaurant called
Uttam, which, in the small-town Indian way, served every kind of
Indian cuisine except the local cuisine. As he began to tell me his
story, I learned that Misal swept into Umred not from above but from
below — far below. He was born in a village called Bhiwapur, a
half-hour drive from Umred. It is one of hundreds of thousands of such
villages in India. His family lived in a three-room house with
concrete walls, an outdoor latrine and a thatched roof. They had no
land to cultivate, just a small yard with some anemic trees. His
father worked as a laborer, loading foodstuffs on and off trucks. His
mother was a farmhand. Neither parent advanced past fourth grade; they
spoke Marathi but not Hindi. "We are daily-wages people," Misal said,
betraying elements of the old thinking that he hadn't wholly shaken:
daily wages as social identity, not economic circumstance. He grew up
eating plates heaped with rice, covered with watery lentil dal, with a
small dollop of chutney on the side to lend piquancy, and sometimes a
thin piece of roti. From time to time, the family splurged on
eggplants. They bought their clothes secondhand from the village
bazaar, making them poor even by the standards of the poor. They
rarely possessed more than a few hundred rupees in savings — less than
$20 — almost enough for a one-way train ride to a neighboring state.
Misal's family lived in a particular area of the village, a mohalla, a
ghetto. As Misal grew up, he learned that his mohalla was reserved for
low-caste laboring families like his. Their caste, traditionally
tasked with crushing oil seeds, stood some rungs above the
untouchables, belonging instead to the bureaucratic category of "Other
Backward Classes."

He discovered his inferiority at school, noticing that the Jaiswals
and Agarwals and Guptas, the children of merchants and shopkeepers,
bought 2-rupee ice creams at recess, while his mohalla friends bought
the 50-paise kind. He realized that when guest speakers came to the
school, the children of daily-wages people were rarely chosen to
introduce them. He noticed that at the wedding of a big man in
Bhiwapur, he had to wait until the "guests" had eaten. "You come
afterward," he remembered being scolded. He used to watch his
classmates roar into the schoolyard on the backs of their parents'
motorcycles. He did not even have the two modes of transportation
below motorcycles on the Indian staircase of affluence: the bicycle
and shoes. He wore no footwear until ninth grade. "Whenever I saw
other people wearing expensive shoes and socks and slippers, I used to
get very angry, and I felt very bad," he said. "Why am I not getting
all these things? Why only I don't have all these things? And at that
time I decided that I will earn great money, and I will remove my
poverty. I considered poverty as a disease."

This was not the old Indian orthodoxy: for Misal, the world was not
illusion, maya; it was not enough simply to do one's duty and do it
well and be satisfied with what God gave. "I just believed that we all
are equal human beings, so why do we have differences, as far as
social status is concerned, economical status is concerned, social
recognition and honor and respect?" he said. "What I used to believe
every time is that if one person is getting something big, better and
best, that should be my right."

"Most Indians don't think like that," I interrupted.

"They don't think like that," he said. "They just want to compromise:
it's O.K., we're having sufficient things; let's be settled. But — I
don't know — right from the beginning, I had great anger of my
poverty. The generations after me will not live this kind of life —
that's what I decided. I will change my destiny. I will be good. I
will be rich."

When Misal was in eighth grade, the village school held a
public-speaking contest. He had never stood on a stage before. But now
there he was, with hundreds of people sitting below him, watching. He
spoke for five minutes; the crowd applauded three times. He discovered
that night a power in himself that he had not known: to connect, to
inspire, to cut into people's hearts with his words. And, having
contracted his thirst for money through its absence, he now felt the
first rush of respect. "I felt that I am something different, I am
something special," he said.

Misal's speech, which won the prize, was about the impact of
television on society, and by that time a television bought by the
family was having a great impact on Misal himself. He would spend
hours each day watching "He-Man," "Spider-Man" and "Batman," piously
balanced with the Hindutainment of the "Mahabharat" and "Ramayan"
series. In Misal's world, television was seen, even by parents, as a
force of liberation. "TV is the very hi-fi form of everything," Misal
said. "It's the extreme level of ideas, where they show you everything
at top level, so that certainly gives you motivation. On TV you see
the things of world-class standard. When you see some person on
Discovery catching anaconda, you are looking at the best person in the
world for catching anaconda. On TV we never see the strugglers or
something like that; we see the people who have achieved what they
wanted to be."

For all his dreams, Misal was just another village kid who didn't have
connections and didn't speak English, the language of success in the
India that was beginning to flourish in the 1990s. At the end of 10th
grade, he enrolled himself in an English-language school in Umred, the
nearest town, even though he didn't speak English. He and the other
village kids sat in the back of the classroom gathering fragments of
vocabulary and grammar day by day.

He graduated and moved on to a college in Umred, choosing business as
his major. But he was working numerous odd jobs after school; the
strains became too much, and he failed his second-year exams. He was
kicked out.

In an earlier India, that might have been his story's end: there were
no second chances then, and there were no other routes upward.
Knowledge was the rampart that protected the well-born from the rest.
In an earlier age, that meant confining Sanskrit learning to the
priestly castes; in more recent times, it translated into massive
public investment in elite colleges and universities and the neglect
of basic schooling for most Indians. Even today, the quality of
instruction at all but the best institutions is miserable. And so if
you were like Misal, you were probably not getting a very good
education to begin with, even before an unforgiving examination system
cut you loose.

But the ambitions stirring below created a market for a new breed of
middle-class finishing schools. They catered to young people born into
the lower orders, filled with dreams but shut out by the old system.
The schools were often single-room institutions, taking cash only,
with dubious teaching methods. The most common subject was English. It
was not the archaic English curriculum of many Indian schools and
colleges, with Shakespearean sonnets memorized and not understood. It
was spoken English that could be used in the workplace, language the
quick and dirty way. It gave students the idioms, vocabulary and
placeless accent that would render your lowly origins untraceable in a
land where so much could be deduced when you opened your mouth.

Misal coated himself with one finishing-school skill after another,
learning everything from desktop publishing to how to be an
electrician. One of the schools sensed his talent with people and
hired him as a teacher, paying him 360 rupees a month. Another school
soon poached him for more than double that amount. With the
finishing-school cult spreading, the company even opened a branch in
Bhiwapur. Misal was sent to manage a school there. He had left the
village as the boy who ate last at weddings; he returned as that
loftiest of Indian creatures, a teacher and, better still, a purveyor
of new-economy skills. He was earning 1,800 rupees a month. He had
become a big man.

On his 21st birthday, in September 2002, he bought a motorcycle. It
was the first motorized vehicle owned in the history of his family. He
drove it from the showroom to his home and took his mother for a spin
around the village. "She didn't say anything," he recalled. "She just
cried. And she said, 'Take care of the bike.' "

Misal told me his favorite book was Dale Carnegie's "How to Win
Friends and Influence People," with its tale of the writer's poor
childhood in Missouri, his contemplation of suicide and then his
discovery of a talent for public speaking. "I have read that 28 times
so far," he said. "Whenever I feel nervous or depressed, I open that
book."

In 2004, Misal decided to return to Umred and become its Dale Carnegie
— to start a finishing school of his own. He set up roller-skating
classes and an event-management firm, but the heart of his work was a
spoken-English academy. It offered 90 hours of classes over 45 days
for just 1,000 rupees, the cost of a fancy meal in Mumbai. The
students trickled in at first; then the trickle gathered into a gush
and before long Misal was just about the most important and well-known
young man in Umred.

A year after my visit to Umred, my phone buzzed with a text from Misal:

Sir, last couple of months are full of achievements 4 me. My 2 skating
kids represented India in international skating comp in Belgium. It ws
my greatest dream, turned into reality. I ws busy in passports, visas
n other formalities. Nw im going 2 Hongkong 4 international Skating
Championship as India team manager on sep 26. My life is transforming
rapidly this time. My faith on my abilities raised. Its rising time
4me. My image is getting new shape. Im proving n improving at
personal, social, family n financial areas nicely. At present im
contributory english lecturer at 6 dif school n colleges. Im
constructing my new home also.

The man never stopped.

I began to see self-invention as a theme of India's unfolding drama.
Misal, the shoeless son of a porter, was the manager of an Indian
roller-skating team, was going to Hong Kong, was teaching at six
colleges and was building a house.

We met again at a tea stall in Umred. He came on his motorcycle,
dressed in a silk shirt with green and blue diagonal stripes and a
vast collar, over black polyester pants streaked by a strong
pinstripe. He ordered two cups of tea from the owner.

The English academy continued to do well, but it was his
roller-skating classes that had really taken off. Roller skating was
becoming a major pastime in small-town India, part of the new frenzy
for competitions of any kind. Misal had signed a lucrative deal to be
the area's exclusive distributor of a brand of high-end skates that he
recommended to his students. Meanwhile, he was becoming known as a
groomer of great skaters. One day he got a call from the Roller
Skating Federation of India. The group had heard of his skills as a
teacher, the man on the line said, and they wanted to appoint him
manager of the Indian national roller-skating team. Within weeks he
was shepherding the team through Hong Kong, marveling at the
skyscrapers and the armies of people dressed in coats and ties and
dresses.

As he delivered this update, Misal received a phone call. It seemed,
from the blend of swagger and nervousness in his voice, to be a call
of love. The last time we met, I asked Misal about his romantic
affairs and was surprised that, for all his daring, he was a dutiful
Indian son on the question of marriage. He would marry a woman to his
parents' liking, chosen by them with the family's interests in mind.
This was the case across much of the society: young people bold and
mutinous in matters of status and hierarchy, yet wholly willing to
submit in this other sphere.

When his call ended, I asked who it was.

"That was my best friend." Giggle.

"Best friend or girlfriend?"

"No, no, best friend, best friend." Giggle. "Maybe girlfriend."

I asked if we could meet her. We drove to a school, just outside of
town, where she was the supervisor of teachers and he was a lecturer
in English. On the way, he told me that they were friends but that he
was "willing" to be more and that maybe it would happen someday soon.
She was also an aspiring trainer and public speaker; she, too, emceed
events like the pageant. He insisted I not publish her full name, so I
will call her Miss S.

"Since we are coming together by means of this profession, she is
getting much popular, she is getting improved, her personality is
getting much fragranced — she said many times to me," he said. "She is
getting very much P.R.," he added. "She gives all credit to me for
that. She says, 'You're in my life, and that's why there are so many
changes occurring.' And I always say: 'You deserve it. I'm just the
medium, maybe.' And she always says, 'You are the best motivator I've
ever had.' "

We walked into the school and into the principal's office, where Miss
S. was sitting with the principal. She was short and pretty, wearing
boxy metal-framed glasses and a white salwar kameez with printed
flowers. She was the second-ranking official at the school, but I
noticed that she called Misal "sir." As we made conversation with the
principal, she stayed silent. When the principal gushed to me about
Misal's galvanizing effect on Umred, she grinned quietly.

I accompanied them on an errand of hers, to print out and mail some
forms. They both got out of the car at the post office and asked me to
wait. A few minutes later Miss S. returned on her own. I sensed that
she wanted to talk. But when I asked about her relationship with
Misal, she instantly became shy. Then something in her stirred, and
she said that she liked him very much but that it was complicated.
They had met in the computer institute where he used to teach; she was
one of his students. She was enchanted by his lectures. "As a person,
I like him very much," she said. "Caring. Hard worker. He has a
helping nature. I call him 'sir' because I met him first as a
teacher."

When I asked if they had a future together, she demurred. Then,
perhaps realizing the back-channel possibilities I offered, she said
she had thought about marrying him, but he had never spoken of any
feelings for her. Her mother, meanwhile, was opposed to the notion.
They were from the same caste and even the same subcaste. But they
were not from the same sub-subcaste. They were the descendants of
oil-seed crushers of different varieties. This could be overcome, but
it would require some labor, so Misal had to make up his mind.

I promised Miss S. that I would see what I could do.

On the outskirts of Umred there was a restaurant called Machan, whose
village theme, including the terra-cotta ox cart in the muddy
courtyard, suggested an anticipatory nostalgia for the world now
evaporating. During lunch, Misal took call after call, struggling to
look up from his Nokia.

I asked him about Miss S. "She's my first love," he said. "I never had
such kind of feelings for someone before."

A moment later, he added, "I'm thankful to God that he has put that
love feeling in my heart." He didn't know if she felt the same. I
suggested that perhaps she didn't know how he felt.

Then it seemed to dawn on Misal that she might have been dropping
hints for some time. "Many times she talks about marriage — in
general," he said, reflecting as he spoke. "She says, 'I will not get
a good husband; I don't know what kind of husband will I get.' Then I
ask her, 'What kind of husband do you want?' So maybe she wanted to
tell me her expectations through that." He was now listening to
himself as carefully as I was listening to him.

"I will get married in two years," he said rather abruptly. "It's
planned already. That's the age of 30. At that time, I will have many
things: my house, my vehicle, a couple of international tours."

But when did he intend to reveal this plan to her?

"Obviously, I will tell her," he said. "I will just tell her that I
love her and that I would like to marry her — after completion of my
home. That is the most important priority and responsibility at
present for me."

"But you can tell her before also," I said. "You don't have to marry
her now, but you can tell her before. Otherwise, she'll get married to
someone else."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Why are you so fixed about two years from now?" I asked. "If you love
someone, wouldn't you put that first?"

"There are so many goals," he said, "and I have my sequence set."

I went to see Misal teach the next day. He was a commanding figure in
the classroom. He paced around the room, only a decade older than his
students but, unlike them, a man of his own making, at peace in his
skin. They sat before him in their half-sleeved shirts and ties and
white tube socks and black shoes, listening raptly.

The first class was ostensibly in English communication; the second
was in D.L.S., as Misal called it — development of life skills. But
all his classes were really just different versions of what was now
known as the "personality development" curriculum in India, which
taught everything from how to pronounce words to what to wear to an
interview, from how to work in teams to how to build self-confidence.
It was what the call centers and high-technology firms insisted on:
they claimed to receive too many résumés from brilliant engineers who
could not string together a coherent sentence, could not work with
others, could not make a presentation, could not calm an angry
customer.

Personality development was very alien to the traditional Indian
world. Hinduism had always cultivated a sublimation of the self, aimed
at realizing moksha, or liberation, through transcendence and
renunciation of the material world, which Hindus saw as illusion. But
more than that, it was the social fixedness of Indian life that had
limited the usefulness of a compelling personality. Your station in
life was said to be determined by karma. Your position in the family
was determined by your sex and birth order, not by your skills or
manners. Your early peer relationships were with cousins more than
friends. Your marriage was organized by others, based on family
reputation, not on your charm.

Misal, like the students he taught, was in revolt against the old
fixedness. But once that revolt was complete, a person could find
himself utterly alone. Under the traditional system, a person at least
had a domain of certainties. He knew which foods were his foods. He
knew which things his people considered to be polluting. He had a way
of gesturing and an accent. And so when he chose to strike out as a
self-made man, he would need — even before a job and a house and a car
— the rudiments of selfhood. He would need to develop a personality.

Misal fired up his motivational energies for the students, who were in
their late teens, a light black fuzz darkening the boys' faces. "There
is always gap at the top," he said, and it took three things to get
there: knowledge, attitude and skill. Today's lesson was SWOT
analysis, by which business executives around the world assess a
company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. But here
in Umred, SWOT was part of the relentless cultivation of the self.
"SWOT is the method by which we can evaluate ourselves," a lanky
teenage boy stood up to say when Misal asked for a definition.

And I had a sense, from this and earlier visits to Indian finishing
schools, of a generation being trained rather than educated. They knew
nothing about industry, art, history, literature, science.

There were now hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Indians who
were making this bargain and adopting this focus. And they were
liberating India. But I wondered what kind of country they would make
when there were enough of them to change its essential character.
Their heads were filled with SWOT analysis and ways to win friends and
influence people, not with the tolerance of Asoka, the poetry of
Kabir, the universalism of Tagore.

As Misal drove me to the airport, he asked for advice. It was a
request for feedback, a foreign corporate practice imported into this
setting. I told him that my suggestion would be to have a well-rounded
idea of life, to pursue interests other than his own success, to be
humble, to keep space for friends and family and love. And I realized,
even as my words poured out, and in the moments of silent
incomprehension that followed, how empty and out of tune they must
have sounded. Misal did not have the luxury of broadening his vision,
because if he lost focus, the world of degradations that he had
escaped would be delighted to take him back.

Some days after leaving Umred, I received a text message from Misal:
"Bad news! Miss S. denied my love. Her parents r fixing her marriage
with some1 else. I think she is unwilling 4 this. Bt cant resist
against family."

When she spoke to me in the car, in secret, it was perhaps a last,
hopeless attempt. She gave him the opportunity; now she was gone. She
refused even to talk to him. He begged me to call her, which seemed
like a terrible idea. But he said that his very life was at stake and
that he needed my support. So I called. Her answer, in five words,
resolved all ambiguities. "I love my family more."

When Misal showed me the thousands of text messages he had stashed in
his computer, sent and received, they seemed to brim with borrowed
emotions: made-up sayings, quotations from people they scarcely knew,
like Abraham Lincoln.

If you find your self in a dark room + vibrating walls and full of
blood, then don't worry. You are at safe place, you are in my heart!

LOVE is 4 LIFE. LIFE is not 4 LOVE. LOVE may fail in LIFE. LIFE should
never fail in LOVE. So dnt spoil LIFE in LOVE. But dnt 4get 2 LOVE in
LIFE!

Ice is a cream, luv is a dream, bt frndship is ever green. Dont mak
frnds b4 understanding, & dont break ur frndship after
misunderstanding.

Ninety percent of the messages appeared to be forwards. It was as if
they had so much to say to each other, and no language of their own in
which to say it.

Now Misal would suffer for a time. Then he would continue down the
path of becoming everything that India once told boys like him they
could not be.

Anand Giridharadas is an online columnist for The Times and the author
of "India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking," out
this week, from which this article is adapted.


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[ZESTCaste] Minor Dalit girl raped, put behind bars

 

http://origin-www.ibnlive.com/news/up-minor-dalit-girl-raped-put-behind-bars/139055-3.html

UP: Minor Dalit girl raped, put behind bars
CNN-IBN

Lucknow: A minor Dalit girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a BSP
MLA and then found herself behind bars after the MLA accused her of
stealing from his house in Uttar Pradesh.

The man in question is Purshottam Narain Dwivedi, an MLA from Banda in
Uttar Pradesh.

"My daughter was given Rs 50,000. She was then slapped and handed over
to some men who raped her," said the victim's father.

UP: Minor Dalit girl raped, put behind bars

Dwivedi has denied all the allegations, countering them instead by
saying that he caught the girl stealing clothes and cash from his
house.

"The girl worked in the MLA's house. She ran away after stealing. The
MLA complained and we arrested her," said SP Anil Das.

The victim has refuted this. She claimed that the MLA threatened to
kill her as well.

The opposition Congress has taken up the girl's cause and UP Congress
President Rita Bahuguna Joshi is expected to meet the victim.

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati orders probe into rape allegations against BSP legislator

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Mayawati-orders-probe-into-rape-allegations-against-BSP-legislator/articleshow/7202814.cms

Mayawati orders probe into rape allegations against BSP legislator
IANS, Jan 2, 2011, 12.29am IST

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Saturday ordered a
police inquiry into the allegations of gangrape and illegal
confinement of a minor girl by a ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)
legislator and his supporters in the state's Banda district.

In an official press release issued her, the chief minister said: "The
Crime Branch of the CID has been asked to take over the investigation
into the case of alleged gangrape of a girl in Banda. The
investigating team has been asked to reach Banda by Sunday morning and
start their work immediately."

The girl, belonging to a Dalit community, had accused BSP legislator
Pushottam Narain Dwivedi and his henchmen of not only subjecting her
to gangrape but also using his influence to implicate her in a case of
theft.

Dwivedi accused her of stealing the legislator's licenced revolver and
Rs 5000 from his house, for which she was currently lodged in jail in
Banda, 180 km from here.

Mayawati got into action only after the issue was raised by both state
Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Samajwadi Party president
Mulayam Singh Yadav, who charged her of shielding criminals in her
party.

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[ZESTCaste] Give tax credits for affirmative action

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/iw/2011/01/02/stories/2011010250661100.htm

Give tax credits for affirmative action

Krishnamurthy Vijayan

It is easier for a small company to create new work processes, but the
tax credit may not benefit it if profitability is many years away.

Some time back there was debate on if the private sector should be
asked to reserve jobs for the weaker sections. The private sector and
its votaries spoke about how this would reduce efficiency and hamper
meritocracy. If the reservation had happened, I am sure the stock
market would have reacted adversely.

After all, any hint that the quality of manpower in an organisation
will decline is negative for a company's prospects and its share
price.

But let's look at it from another angle: As an employer in an emerging
market, faced with rising wages and a dearth of talent, isn't it
worthwhile modifying work-processes and HR systems to tap into a new
talent pool?

Most companies and jobs do not require exceptional talent. Sincerity,
attention to detail and the knowledge of systems are the key to
productivity.

These jobs can be boiler plated and training systems can transform a
recruit into a specialist. If work is well planned, carefully
organised and documented into standard operating procedures and
manuals; and if a recruit is trained on them (through a combination of
class-room and on-the-job orientation), most tasks can be handled by
anyone.

Let us assume that the Centre wants to ensure that companies add, say,
10 per cent to their workforce every year and that 20 per cent of
these jobs should go to the physically challenged. One way of doing
this would be the old-fashioned way – just make it mandatory. But the
more effective way would be to say that "costs incurred towards
building an appropriate work environment and cost of salaries paid to
such employees can be charged at 150 per cent to the P&L account" or
"will get a tax credit of Rs 1 lakh per person employed".

The advantage of tax-credits over legislation is that companies that
wish to continue with their practices are free to do so and shell out
the usual taxes.

US models

Two such tax-credits in the US that would work even better in a rising
economy like ours are:

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is a Federal tax credit incentive to
private sector for hiring individuals from 12 target groups who have
consistently faced significant barriers to employment.

Two new tax benefits are now available to employers hiring workers who
were previously unemployed or only working part time. These are a part
of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act. Employers who hire
unemployed workers this year may qualify for a 6.2-per cent payroll
tax incentive, in effect exempting them from their share of Social
Security taxes on wages paid to these workers after March 18, 2010.

In addition, for each worker retained for at least a year, businesses
may claim an additional general business tax credit of up to $1,000
per worker, when they file their 2011 income-tax returns.

Now let's go beyond what the US has done and make tax credits
tradable. A start-up or a small enterprise can enhance its revenues by
selling its credits to a large tax-paying entity, and thus convert a
notional benefit into a revenue stream. It is evidently easier for a
start-up or a small enterprise to create new work processes, but the
tax-credit may not benefit it if profitability is many years away. On
the other hand, a large, old enterprise may find it difficult to
change, but it can still buy itself some tax benefits. Large old
companies are going to create fewer jobs than small and new companies
anyway and legislation that facilitates a transfer of benefit actually
improves the efficiency of such a benefit.

Again this is an extension of an old idea – after all carbon credits
have been around for some time. Carbon credit trading has encouraged
new businesses to adopt non-polluting processes and environment
friendly programmes, without resentment; and old "smoke-stacks" can
off-set their polluting businesses by buying tax-credits, or creating
environment-friendly processes in new areas.

Legislation creates resentment and can be unproductive when quotas
remain unfilled. Tradable fiscal incentives, however, give businesses
a choice: Be innovative and improve profitability or continue with
business as usual and be profit-neutral. It can lead to quick wins in
the form of inclusion for all-round benefit.

(The author is MD and CEO, IDBI Mutual Fund. The views expressed are personal.)


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