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Friday, December 3, 2010

[ZESTCaste] India court okays Dalit leader Mayawati's statues park

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11910895

3 December 2010 Last updated at 13:14 GMT
India court okays Dalit leader Mayawati's statues park

Construction was stopped at the park in October last year

India's Supreme Court has said work can resume at a memorial park
being built by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in the Delhi
suburb of Noida.

The court said 50% of the 75-acre park must have trees as it was close
to a bird sanctuary and that only 25% could involve permanent
structures.

Ms Mayawati is an icon for India's 160 million low-caste Hindus.

She is famous for building statues of herself and other Dalit icons
but denies encouraging a personality cult.

'Self-glorification'

The Supreme Court has appointed a three-member expert group to ensure
the park is built according to guidelines.

It had ordered the Mayawati government to stop building work in October 2009.

Mayawati, seen here wearing a garland of 1,000-rupee notes (Photo:
Krishan Saith)
Huge numbers of statues commissioned by Ms Mayawati can be seen in the
state capital, Lucknow, and other towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh.

Critics accuse her of self-glorification. She accuses them of
conspiring against her.

Uttar Pradesh is one of India's most deprived states, with a high
crime rate and poor health indicators.

Ms Mayawati's spending on statues and memorials has been described as
"shameful" by India's Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Last year, she unveiled 15 new memorials, including two of herself.

Statues of political leaders are generally put up posthumously, but Ms
Mayawati says that belief is outdated.

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[ZESTCaste] Role of statutory institutions on Dalits shocking : Study

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article930868.ece

JAIPUR, December 4, 2010

Role of statutory institutions on Dalits shocking : Study
Special Correspondent

A study on the role of statutory institutions in the protection of
Dalit rights in Rajasthan, the findings of which were released here on
Thursday, has revealed a shocking track record of various Commissions
as well as caste biases and nexus rampant in police and administration
resulting in the denial of justice to Dalits and dilution of cases
registered against the perpetrators of crimes against Dalits.

Participants at a State-level consultation at Nehru Sahakar Bhavan
here deliberated on the study results to conclude that the State
Government's protective and development measures for Dalits were
"perfunctory and half-hearted", while Dalits continue to face
tremendous barriers to socio-economic and political progress.

The Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and the Centre
for Dalit Rights (CDR) jointly conducted the study over a period of
two months while looking into the role of statutory bodies such as the
State Human Rights Commission, Commission for Scheduled Castes,
Women's Commission and the State Assembly's Committee on Welfare of
SCs.

Noted economist and State Planning Board deputy chairperson V. S. Vyas
was shocked to note that the Commission for SCs had not brought out
its annual report even once during the last 10 years of its existence.
The Commission is at present defunct after the dissolution of the
previous body amid litigation in the Rajasthan High Court.

Not sufficient

Prof. Vyas, who is also a member of the Prime Minister's Economic
Advisory Council, said the 11 {+t} {+h} Five Year Plan's emphasis on
"inclusive growth" would be meaningless if Dalits continued to remain
on the periphery and the statutory bodies supposed to protect them
remained ineffective: "Merely policy formulation is not sufficient.
Conditions have to change at the grassroots."

The speakers at the consultation were dismayed at the 2009-10 annual
report of the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment cited
in the study with the observation that Rajasthan had reported one of
the highest occurrences of atrocities against Dalits during 2008.

Over 4,300 cases of atrocities against Dalits were registered under
the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)
Act, 1989, in the State during the year, with an average of 44.7 cases
calculated per lakh of population, constituting one of the highest
rates of crimes in the country.

The study noted that pockets of poverty and deprivation still remained
untouched and the protective and development measures had not been
implemented in the spirit in which they were conceived. Since the
bodies such as the SC/ST Development and Finance Corporation are
non-functional, the financial resources under various schemes are
simply not utilised.

CDR patron P. L. Mimroth noted that the State Budget for 2008-09 had
allocated only Rs.27.24 lakh for the Special Component Plan,
comprising an abysmal 2.7 per cent of the total budgetary outlay.
"Coupled with the biases and feudal mindset of the members of
[various] Commissions, this approach renders absolute injustice to
Dalits," he said.

The study also threw light on high levels of dissatisfaction among
Dalits vis-à-vis the constitutional and quasi-legal bodies which were
meant to protect their interests. With an "unsatisfactory role and
disappointing track record", the Commissions had failed to provide
constitutional safeguards or redress grievances of Dalits, felt the
participants.

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[ZESTCaste] Maya to inaugurate two more parks on Ambedkar Jayanti

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Maya-to-inaugurate-two-more-parks-on-Ambedkar-Jayanti/719808/

Maya to inaugurate two more parks on Ambedkar Jayanti

Press Trust of India Posted online: Fri Dec 03 2010, 05:25 hrs
Lucknow : Caring little about allegations of misuse of funds to erect
parks and statues, Chief Minister Mayawati will inaugurate two more as
a tribute to Dr B R Ambedkar on his birth anniversary on December 6.
The state government has sanctioned around Rs 150 crore to develop the
parks.
To be named after the architect of the Constitution, both parks are
coming up in the city's Gomti Nagar locality, where a grand memorial
in the name of Amebdkar already exists. While one is being developed
over a sprawling 22 acres — featuring Lucknow's biggest and most
spectacular musical fountain — the other is coming up over 23 acres on
the banks of Gomti bandha and will have the first four-faced statue of
Amebdkar, said an official.

"Cast in marble, the 18-feet high statue has been sculpted in Jaipur.
Another 12-feet high statue of Dr Ambedkar has been put up inside a
huge pavilion at one of the parks," he added. With well laid out
pathways, flower beds and lights, the entire 45-acre stretch of Gomti
barrage is being beautified to provide a visual treat to visitors.
"There will be a mix of light, music and colours. The hi-tech musical
fountain has cost Rs 2.5 crore," the official said.

Earlier, the Lucknow Development Authority had wanted to sell this
reclaimed land along the Gomti for the construction of a hotel.
However, the idea was shelved after the High Court shot down the
proposal following a public interest litigation challenging the move.

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[ZESTCaste] Fwd: caste discrimination in pakistan flood relief

Caste away
Scheduled caste Hindus in Sindh are facing floods as well as discrimination
By Zulfiqar Shah

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2010-weekly/nos-19-09-2010/dia.htm#2

Prithvi Raj Bhel, 40, a farmer from Sujawal Tehsil in Thatta District, looks devastated. He and hisfamily are living in a tent made of a piece of cloth just in front of college hostel in Makli in Thatta. Makli hosts about 200,000 flood-displaced people, the largest number of displacement at one place.

Makli is full of tents, makeshift thatched huts, water tanks and canopies to shelter displaced people. Inadequate arrangements by the state machinery and non-governmental organisations have put the lives of these people in great danger.

Situation in Makli is pathetic and that of Prithvi Raj is worst. While other displaced people can get cooked food from the government and NGOs, Raj and his family cannot. Government officials are in the process of registering internally displaced persons (IDPs), but Raj and family have been denied registration.

The only difference between other hundreds of thousands of IDPs and Raj is that he is a scheduled caste Hindu, generally considered lower caste or 'Dalits'. Even though there is apparent discrimination against minorities, the situation of scheduled caste people is miserable.

"We are literally singled out here. First we were denied a place in the common relief camp and now people come with food for distribution, but they do not give us any," complains Prithvi Raj while talking to TNS.

Prithvi Raj is not the only person who is complaining about discrimination on the basis of caste and descent. A visit to half a dozen camps of IDPs in Sindh — from Karachi to Hyderabad via Thatta — shows that scheduled caste people are facing the worst kind of discrimination at all these places.

Scheduled caste Hindus such as Bagri, Bhell, Kolhi, Menghwar and Oadd make a tiny population of Sindh. According to official figures, they are only 300,000, but Dalit activists challenge these figures and claim that the actual number of Dalits is 2 million in Sindh alone.

The ongoing floods in Sindh has affected millions of people as 17 out of 23 districts of Sindh have been badly affected. As per latest official figures, 7 million people have been rendered homeless, while 2.2 million acres of agriculture crop has been damaged. In monetary terms, the province has suffered losses of Rs446 billions.

According to Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network (PDSN), the number of scheduled castes affected by flood is between 300,000 to 500,000. "This is a big disaster for Sindh and people have suffered a lot, but scheduled castes are facing different kinds of problems," says Convenor of PDSN Malji Rathore, an alliance of several civil society organisations working for protection of the rights of scheduled castes. "It's unfortunate that the discrimination we face goes on even in times of disaster."

A two-year old research study on the status of scheduled castes in Pakistan titled "Long Behind Schedule" has revealed the scheduled caste communities face severe discrimination in Pakistan, both in public and private spheres. They live in segregated housing and their children are discriminated against in schools. They are poorest of the poor and are victims of double discrimination — first as Hindus in a majority Muslim country and second as the lowest caste among Hindus.

According to a report, scheduled caste Hindus were even denied shelter and food at a Dharmshala in Larkana where local management had made arrangements for 500 upper caste Hindus displaced due to floods from upper Sindh and Balochistan.

Nisar Khokhar, a BBC correspondent from Larkana, says that arrangements at Dharmshala were very impressive, but unfortunately there was no place for scheduled castes. "Milk and other food items were available in huge quantity, but the entry of scheduled caste Hindus inside Dharmshala was banned," he tells TNS.

He says that he was impressed by the efforts of local Hindu Panchayat, which did not take money from the government and was managing flood relief facility inside the Dharmshala on self-help basis. But, unfortunately, those who were in the most need were denied access to the facility just because they belonged to lower caste.

The attitude of government officials is no different. In Makli, Prithvi Raj and other scheduled castes are denied registration as displaced persons. This registration will entitle them for government aid in cash and kind. The government had already started distribution of cash (Rs20,000) through "Watan" card scheme.

"DCO office in Thatta has refused our registration and told us to go to Hyderabad because our NIC is from Hyderabad," complains Pirthvi Raj. "Yes, we have NIC from Hyderabad, but when flood came we were settled in Thatta District," he argues.

The official plea that they should go and register themselves in Hyderabad will deny these poor people compensation because Hyderabad is not included in the list of affected districts.

"We have received nothing, be it ration or cooked food," says Sono Bagri at Sabzi Mandi Camp in Hyderabad city. "When we try to reach them, we are told to go away because we are 'Bagri' schedule caste".

An NGO activist tells TNS she has been asked by her boss not to focus on Bagris because they are not affectees, but beggars. Even provincial ministers are on record saying that Bagris and other schedule castes are beggars and have gathered in and around camps to receive aid.

"Discrimination against Dalits is a general phenomena in disasters and aid particularly in South Asia," says Rikke Nohrlind, head of International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), a Copenhagen-based organisation. "It happened during Tsunami, and now we are receiving reports during current floods in Pakistan." She regrets that discrimination on the basis of religion, caste and creed continues even in this modern era and in times of disaster.

United Nations has recently adopted guidelines for elimination of discrimination based on caste and creed. These guidelines urge governments to take special measures to ensure equality.

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[ZESTCaste] Appeal for Volunteers on 5th & 6th Dec 2010 at Chaitya Bhoomi

Dear All,
Jai Bhim!
@
Every year from last six years eThe Bahujans Clubf organizes a eCleanliness Awareness
Programf. More than 400 Volunteers took part
last year in this project which included men, women,
children, students, Officers, Doctors, Engineers etc.
and was very successful. This is one of the way to pay
respect to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar to keep Chaitya
Bhoomi area Clean and maintain good hygienic
conditions.
This year also many volunteers are going to take part
in it for two days ie on 5th and 6th Dec. Volunteers
from many organizations, vihars, Colleges, Sansthas etc.
are taking part this time also.
Any interested persons who want to pay
their respect to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar can register
themselves for the same at eThe Bahujans Clubf. You
can register by providing two copies of your
photograph at the office or mail us and/or directly
register at the eThe Bahujans Clubfs Stall which is
expected to be next to the BAMCEF Stall at Shivaji
Park. As you enter from Meenatai Thakre statue at
Shivaji park then you turn to left, our stall will be
situated there.

Please forward this so that many
interested persons who can take part in it.
Also all our friends from the forums gather every year
at eThe Bahujans Club Stall on 6th Evening and
discuss.

This year also the project is being organised in association with the 'Vishwa Leader Publication'. Both the Stall will be side by side. Many people from all over Maharashtra are expected, senior citizens, Graduates, Govt. Officials, Business people and also people from all over India and abroad are going to visit both the stalls and take part. You all are also wellcome ........

Hope to see you all at the stall.
For more details contact:

Mrs Surekha Ramteke 9969688928
Shirish Ramteke 9969688918
Santosh Pawar 9224395412

or contact at :
Vishwa Leader Publication
Unit No.1, Malwa, Patanwala Ind. Estate,
L. B. S. Marg, Ghatkopar West, Mumbai 400086.
Tel.: 91 22 25006697
Tel./Fax : 91 22 25006696
email : vishwa.leader@gmail.com or
thebahujansclub@rediffmail.com
Regards,
Shirish Ramteke
For eThe Bahujans Clubf.

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Friday, December 3, 2010

[ZESTCaste] India court okays Dalit leader Mayawati's statues park

[ZESTCaste] Role of statutory institutions on Dalits shocking : Study

[ZESTCaste] Maya to inaugurate two more parks on Ambedkar Jayanti

[ZESTCaste] Fwd: caste discrimination in pakistan flood relief

[ZESTCaste] Appeal for Volunteers on 5th & 6th Dec 2010 at Chaitya Bhoomi

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