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Mar 12, 2007

Commotion cuts through girl's shackles

Hazaribagh: Heated exchange of words and a commotion on the road today saved a young girl from being forcibly taken away by her in-laws and trafficked.

A number of passers-by and villagers assembled at the hub of a war of words at Sindoor here where two youths were seen forcing away 18-year-old Lalita Devi from her father.

But old and feeble Kartik Ravidas refused to relent and started shouting at the top of his voice. That's when the people thronged and police intervened and Lalita's tale of woes came out in the open. It was another case of child marriage —Lalita was married at 14 to one Ranjeet Kumar of Rajasthan and taken to the desert land at her in-law's place — which later turned into a torture tale.

An FIR was today lodged in this connection and the police arrested Ranjeet and his younger brother Ram Niwas.

According to the girl, Ranjeet and his parents started torturing her right after their marriage. "But soon my in-laws and even Ranjeet started torturing me. They used to send me to work at the fields as a daily wage labourer. But they used to take my wages and beat me up every evening. I didn't get my dinner most of the days," she said.

Lalita added that they were planning to sell her off and had also reached a deal with the middlemen when her parents reached the village in the nick of time and brought her back to Hazaribagh.

Her husband and his younger brother reached the village today to take her back and go ahead with their plan. Luckily for Lalita, her father came in the way and the duo ended up in the jail.

Kartik, a daily wage labourer, said: "Lalita's in-laws were not nice people. But I now have nothing to complain as she is back and will stay happily with us."

The police said similar other incidents have been reported in the district. "We want the villagers to remain alert and not get their daughters married elsewhere without verification," an officer said.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070309/asp/jamshedpur/story_7492782.asp

Cupid struck at first sight

Chaibasa: True love comes quietly. But it has the power to shatter all shackles.

Twenty-five-year-old Tulsi Deogam claims to have experienced this. For, she fell in love of octogenarian MP Bagun Sumbrui at first sight. And "the word too often profaned" bridged the huge age difference between them.

Tulsi hogged limelight recently claiming that 83-year-old Sumbrui is the father of her child born on Sunday.

Recollecting her first meeting with the Singhbhum MP, Tulsi told The Telegraph that one of the Sumbrui's wives' sister — Sarita Hessa — introduced her to the MP. Tulsi said Sarita used to study with her at the Chaibasa Mahila College.

"I got attracted to him at the first sight even though he was of my grandfather's age. Gradually our meetings increased. The MP also started reciprocating my feelings for him and our affair took off even as I knew about all his previous affairs," Tulsi said.

Tulsi and Sumbrui have not tied nuptial knot but they were like any other married couple, claimed Tulsi, adding that the MP used to frequent her home at Mahulsai and vice versa.

"He is a very nice human being and caring," said Tulsi, who is ready to go for DNA test to clear doubts on who is the father of her girl child.

Sumbrui, according to sources, helped Tulsi get a clerical job in the Assembly after winning the Lok Sabha poll in 2004.

Tulsi claimed that Sumbrui was aware about the birth of his child.

"My husband (read Bagun Sumbrui) was in favour of giving his name to the male child. But I have delivered a girl child. I am waiting for the arrival of Sumbrui, who is in New Delhi," Tulsi said.

Tulsi's mother, Pallau Deogam, said the Congress MP used to frequent their house and even supported the family financially at times. While it is not clear as to who paid the expenses at the nursing home, sources said that the MP paid a part of it.

Sumbrui, who is attending the Parliament session in New Delhi, was not available for comments. His private security guard, Aslam, who is associated with him for over 10 years, ruled out any relationship between Sumbrui and Tulsi.

However, if one goes by the records of Chaibasa Sadar hospital, Tulsi is the wife of octogenarian Congress MP, Bagun Sumbrui.

Tulsi was admitted to the government hospital on March 3. The next day, her cousin, Summi Purty, took her to Gayatri Seva Sadan, where she gave birth to the child.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070308/asp/jamshedpur/story_7487935.asp

Naxals? What Naxals?

By no stretch of imagination does Sunil Mahato fall into the category of an exploiter or a class enemy. He did not belong to the landed or the upper caste sections of Jharkhand who are blamed for the deprivation of the local tribals.

If anything, Sunil Mahato was a success story of subaltern empowerment. Naxalites targeted Mahato on the day of Holi. He was shot at point blank. His fault: backing a project that drew tribals into a partnership with the government to fight Red terror. He was successful in mobilising people against the high-handedness of the murderous Naxals.

The killing of Mahato has once again brought into sharp focus the folly of those who believe that these thugs can be reformed through "dialogue and understanding". The statistics tell the real story. In 2006, Naxalites slaughtered 678 civilians and police personnel. During the same period, in one of the bloodiest theatres experiencing insurgency, Jammu & Kashmir, the death toll was 20% less — 540. By the Manmohan Singh government's own admission, 165 districts in 14 states of the country are affected by Naxalite activities. Security experts say that what used to be guerrilla pockets have now been transformed into full-scale guerrilla zones. It explains the rising tide of violence waged by Naxalites across the country.

The traumatised masses have given up hopes about the government coming up with any concrete action plan. Barring states like Andhra Pradesh, whose 'grey hounds' are engaged in liquidating the terror merchants, and Chhattisgarh, large parts of India are in a state of denial. And competent life-savers in the forces often bear the brunt of our greatest vulnerabilities — a disgraceful lack of clear and consistent policy.

In the current scheme of things of the Centre, loyalty to a family is the chief consideration for selecting the person who occupies the sensitive and crucial post of the home minister. Past experiences have shown that cronyism and national security are a deadly mix. The country rarely hears from the home minister when it faces war from Islamic fundamentalists and Red goons. But he becomes quite articulate and supports the fifth column when it promotes fear mongering and misinformation about tough anti-terror laws. The result is profound bad management.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1729297.cms

Every year some 77,000 women die from pregnancy-related health problems in India

The government has so far been unable to cope with the problem, especially in rural areas. Inadequate blood supplies and poor facilities are ongoing issues. And violence against women during their pregnancies is also a major cause in early child mortality. The Church has been actively addressing such issues.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In 2003 the maternal mortality rate stood at 300 per 100,000 births, the Home Affairs Ministry reported on Saturday. Such a high rate, including localised increases, indicates that the government has failed to meet the millennium target of 200 per 100,000 births it set for itself in 2000. At the same time, violence against pregnant women, especially domestic violence, continues to harm and kill children.

The state of Uttar Pradesh leads this grim list with 517 deaths per 100,000 births, followed by Assam (490), Rajasthan (445), Madhya Pradesh (379), Bihar (371) and Karnataka (228). By contrast, in Kerala there are "only" 110 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.

In many states the situation has actually worsened. In Andhra Pradesh for instance the rate has gone from 150 in 1999 to 195 in 2003. In Assam and Karnataka the rate rose from 409 and 195 respectively. Things also got worse in states that had below national average rates like Tamil Nadu (134), Maharashtra (149) and Gujarat (172).

One third of all women who die are between 20 and 24 years of age. Haemorrhaging accounts for 38 per cent of all deaths, followed by infections (11 per cent) and abortion (8 per cent).

Health and Family Welfare Ministry sources said that the government has launched a National Rural Health Mission with special emphasis on improving the health status of rural women. Its goal is to lower the maternal mortality rate to fewer than 100 per 100,000 within.

Dr Wilma Carvalho, who works at the St Ignatius Hospital in Honavar, Karnataka, told AsiaNews "that anaemia is an acute problem in pregnant women, so is haemorrhaging."

Inadequate blood bank facilities are also another problem because "the rules one must follow to set one up are so rigid. Donors are also too few. This means that blood is very often unavailable in cases of emergency. And in rural areas women are also not careful enough in post natal follow-ups. Too often superstitious practices override medical treatment," she said.

Mgr John Thakur, bishop of Muzaffarpur and chairman of the Commission for Women of the Bishops' Conference of India, told AsiaNews that the Church is actively involved in raising awareness among women about their health in cooperation with local health authorities.

"The Church," he said, "has been reaching out to the local communities for decades, including those in the remotest areas, with its mobile clinics and dispensaries and providing care irrespective of caste and creed."

"We work non stop through private agencies as well," he stressed, "to bring health care to the poorest. Our nursing homes and 'Mother n' Child' centres provide much needed health assistance to rural areas."

In a related study, the American Journal of Public Health published by the John Hopkins University found that about 20 per cent five still-births and early infant deaths are due to domestic violence during pregnancy.

Babies, whose mothers are exposed to domestic violence during pregnancy, are more than twice as likely to die in the first weeks of life.

Done in Uttar Pradesh, the study involved 2,199 women. It showed a correlation between violence during pregnancy and early infant death. Babies were in fact 2.5 times more likely to die during the prenatal period—defined as from 28 weeks of pregnancy to 7 days after birth—and 2.3 times more likely to die in the first month after birth.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=8712&size=A

INDIA: DUBIOUS 'RECONVERSION' MOVEMENT EXPANDS

Himachal Pradesh becomes seventh state where tribal peoples are coerced 'back' to Hinduism
NEW DELHI, March 12 (Compass Direct News) – Hindu extremists have extended to the northern state of Himachal Pradesh a movement to bring Christian converts back to the Hindu fold through dubious "reconversion" events.

In what can be seen as the beginning of the movement in Himachal Pradesh, a Hindu group on February 28 organized a religious ritual to reconvert 151 Dalit Christians in the Arya Samaj temple in Shimla, the state capital, according to the March 11 issue of a publication that serves as the mouthpiece of the extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The RSS's weekly Organiser reported that temple priest Mahant Suryanath marked the reconversion by washing the feet of the converts, offering them water from the Ganges River (considered holy by Hindus) and reading from the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures. The event was organized by Tarsem Bharti, president of the Himachal Pradesh unit of the All India Scheduled Caste (Dalit) and Scheduled Tribe (aboriginal) Mahasangh, or federation, which is allegedly linked to the Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), political wing of the RSS.

Bharti, a member of the state BJP, told Compass that some of the 24,000 Dalits and tribal people of the federation in the state had marked their membership forms as "Christian" with "Hinduism" in parentheses.

Launching an inquiry, Bharti said he learned that those people had been converted through missionaries allegedly using "allurement." He said most of the converts were promised healing from sickness, while others were offered jobs.

Bharti prepared an "oath form" saying that those signing had been lured to Christianity but that they now wished to return to Hinduism. He took the signatures of the converts one by one. Asked if he could tell the names of the Christian organizations or individuals who "converted" these people, Bharti said he did not know.

"However, many were converted by the numerous house churches operating here," he said.

The Organiser quoted a "former senior pastor," Tulku Ram, as saying, "I was literally cheated. In 1997, while I was doing my graduation, they [missionaries] contacted me and assured me a good job, provided I got converted. But after [my] conversion, they sent me to the Agape Bible College, Ludhiana [in Punjab state], for a one-year training and then to the GFA [Gospel for Asia] College, Kumbnad [Kerala state] for another one-year training."

The report said that Ram's organization, Masihi Sangati (Christian Fellowship), had converted more than 1,000 people in Himachal Pradesh.

But the Rev. Dinesh Chand, a leader of the All India Christian Council (AICC) in Himachal Pradesh, said he had learned that most of those said to be "reconverted" had never received Christ in the first place.

"A majority of them would go to a church or prayer meeting once in a while, but the organizers told them that they had become Christians," Chand said. "When they denied it, he asked them to come to the temple for 'purification' and declared their 'reconversion.'"

Chand termed the "reconversion" event as "politically motivated" and for "personal gain." Bharti organized the program to obtain future political benefit from it as he is an aspiring candidate for the assembly elections due next year, Chand said.

A local source who requested anonymity noted that Bharti was a "capable but sidelined" member of the state BJP.

Coercive Reconversion

According to Dr. John Dayal, AICC secretary general, what Hindu extremists call "reconversion" is in most instances "a case of mere conversion at best, and forcible or coercive conversion at worst."

Dayal said that, according to a Supreme Court decision, Hinduism is not a religion but a "way of life."

"How can one possibly convert out of or into Hinduism, when conversion is from one religion to another, according to the various anti-conversion laws?" he asked. "Reconversion is an oxymoron. It is a false term used sinfully by political Hinduism to convert tribals to their aggressive brand of Hinduism."

Tribal people of India practice ethnic faiths, mainly animist, and do not practice Hindu rituals. Many social scientists and researchers object to the inclusion of the tribal people in Hinduism for census purposes, ironically terming it a "mass conversion" to Hinduism.

Dr. Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, also said that the very idea of "reconversion" as practiced in India is flawed, being the result of religious intolerance and bigotry.

"It is dishonoring of persons when they are paraded as those who have been allegedly coerced to a faith and now they are persuaded to return to their 'original' religion," he said. "More often than not, the so called reconversions are nothing but political gimmicks played to the galleries."

Joseph added that it was condescending to treat some sections of society as inferior and incapable of independent decision because of their weak economic status, "while the well-heeled have all the rights to their decisions."

Launch of 'Reconversion Process'

On December 30, 2006, the Congress Party-ruled state government passed an anti-conversion bill in the assembly. The bill became a law on February 20 after the state governor signed it.

A February 25 issue of the Organiser linked enactment of anti-conversion law and the "beginning of the reconversion process" in Himachal Pradesh to the centennial celebration of the birth of Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar, also known as Shri Guruji.

Golwalkar led the RSS for 33 years after the death of RSS founder Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in 1940. He promoted and amplified the Hindutva (Hinduness) ideology, a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923 through a pamphlet, "Hindutva: Who is a Hindu," which claimed that the Indian sub-continent was the homeland of Hindus while Christians and Muslims are its enemies as "outsiders."

Hindutva proposes creation of a Hindu-nation ruled by those whose ancestors were born in India and who belong to religions that originated here. It allows religious minorities to live in the country but in subordination to the majority community.

The RSS celebrated Golwalkar's anniversary from February 24, 2006 to February 18 by organizing numerous programs in several parts of the country, mainly in the north, to promote the ideas and vision of its former chief.

As part of the celebrations, last year the RSS held 85 rallies in all 12 districts of the state, covering about 75 percent of the villages in Himachal Pradesh, reported the Organiser. The rallies were organized to make the people "aware of the bad intentions of missionaries and were advised not to fall in their trap."

Opposition to reconversion, says Hindu priest Swami Agnivesh in his article, "Back to the Vedic Faith," is based on the premise that tribals were converted to Christianity by inducements and coercion.

"This is a hypothesis that cannot stand the scrutiny of common sense" he wrote. "The obvious fact is that the Dalits who converted to Christianity knew that they stood to lose much by way of material advantages such as reservations [affirmative action benefits]. This should have prevented them from converting."

A 1950 presidential decree grants education and employment benefits "reserved" for Dalits belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain faiths. If thousands have given up these benefits by embracing other faiths, Agnivesh wrote, a key factor may be their desire to escape from the oppressiveness of the caste order that denies them freedom, human rights and dignity.

History of False Claims

The reconversion movement was launched by Dayanand Saraswati, who founded a Hindu reformist organization known as the Arya Samaj in 1875, during the British rule in India. Christened as Shuddhi (purification), the movement aimed at bringing back to Hinduism those who had converted to Islam or Christianity, mainly the former.

After India won its independence, Raja Vijay Bhushan Singh Judeo, the last king of Jashpur – now a district in Chhattisgarh state – adopted the Arya Samaj model to reconvert tribal people in the region in 1952. Judeo termed it as " Ghar Vapsi" (Homecoming).

In 1990s, Judeo's son, Dilip Singh Judeo, former federal minister under the erstwhile BJP-ruled coalition government and now a member of Parliament, gave a new thrust to the movement. It was later extended to other parts of the country, mainly Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and Maharashtra states, by organizations linked to the RSS, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council).

In 1999, Judeo claimed that he had reconverted at least 165,000 Christians in several tribal areas, reported monthly magazine Communalism Combat in March 1999. According to a report in the Pioneer newspaper on December 18, around 2,300 people were reconverted to Hinduism in 2006.

The Communalism Combat of March 1999 pointed out that Judeo claimed reconversion of a large number of Christians in the Dindoli area of Madhya Pradesh in February 1999, but most of these people had never been Christians.

In a recent example, four members of a tribal Muslim family complained that they were forced by BJP legislator Renuka Singh to return to Hinduism in a ceremony held on October 3, 2006, in Surajpur, Sarguja district, Chhattisgarh state.

Following the complaint, the Chhattisgarh High Court directed the state administration to ensure that the family was not pressured to adopt Hindu religion, reported the Milli Gazette fortnightly (November 16-30).

The publication quoted 23-year-old Nur-ul-Islam as saying that the BJP's Singh, along with her 2,000 supporters, stormed his house and forced him to re-convert from Islam by conducting a ceremony.

"My head was tonsured and beard shaved off by her supporters," he said.

In another incident, the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM or Hindu Revival Front) claimed that it reconverted 700 Christians on April 2, 2005, in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh. But Pastor A. David, president of Dhamtari Christian Fellowship, said those "re-converted" in the function were actually Hindus who may have attended a Christian meeting once or twice. (See Compass Direct News, "Hindu Activists in India 'Reconvert' Christians, Threaten Missionaries," April 7, 2005.)

"The people of Chhattisgarh know very well that such programs are sham," David added. "A few years ago, a national newspaper, the Times of India, exposed how Dilip Singh Judeo called Hindus to come to his program and later claimed their 'reconversion' from Christianity to Hinduism."

http://compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=breaking&lang=en&length=long&idelement=4796

Development Through Industrialization? Or Environmental Colonialism Leading To Catastrophe?

In times of corporate totalitarianism such as ours, when the media – with visibly noble exceptions – is merely the obedient tail of the capitalist canine, the impression that is sought to be created is that in "the world's largest democracy" there is an unchallenged consensus that India needs economic development, that rapid economic growth is the most reliable way to achieve it (through the infamous "trickle-down" effect), that this in turn is best achieved through break-neck industrialization and that anyone who stands in the way of such "development" needs to have her patriotic credentials (read: "head") examined. This may include, for instance, those who (following the latest warnings of the IPCC) are pointing to dangerously threatened, rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers.

Nothing is in fact farther from the truth, especially when one keeps reminding oneself that the free press is city-based and is anything but free. People have by now heard of Nandigram and Singur – perhaps because they happen to be in Communist-ruled West Bengal, the hypocrisy of the government all too transparent there. However, as a National Convention held in New Delhi recently revealed there are fires of protest growing in number, frequency and intensity against the large-scale acquisition of land for purposes of industrial/infrastructural/real-estate "development" all across India. The question is whether city-based media outlets are reporting the facts adequately and accurately and whether urban elites have the integrity and courage to face the monstrous injustices that their leaders are busy inflicting on the countryside and its hapless populations.

Orissa: A plain enough case of environmental colonialism

Consider just one of many cases: Orissa. In addition to the massive bauxite mining (which has already disrupted the traditional livelihoods of dozens of local tribal communities), thanks to huge iron ore deposits under the forests, as many as 45 steel plants are on the anvil in this small state alone! Importantly, the people of the state have not asked for them. No democracy there, no plebiscite or referendum.

On the contrary human rights are being routinely violated under what can be best understood as a military-economic regime of extractive-colonialist globalization – whose competitive cost-cutting pressures, led by totalitarian, environmentally destructive China – are creating a lethal race to the bottom, undermining chances of sustainable development and of course, substantive democracy. Constitutional provisions and state tribal and environmental laws are both being routinely violated by the state government to override tribal and community rights to land and resources.

After visiting the joint venture project of Birla and Alcan, Utkal Alumina (UAIL), in Baphlimali (Kashipur), and reviewing the consequences of Sterlite's aluminium project at Lanjigarh , the Indian People's Tribunal recommended in October 2006 that the Orissa government "abandon the UAIL project with immediate effect." Voices of protest from local tribes "are being met by repressive measures in the form of large scale arrests, disruption of public meetings by force, violent beatings to disperse gatherings, official encouragement to the employment of private goons by UAIL, midnight raids by the police, unmitigated violence on women and children. Deposing before the Tribunal Bhagban Majhi stated "instead of answering our concerns, they are replying with bullets and lathis." What is even more shocking is that even minors like Pradip Majhi (aged 14) who deposed before the Tribunal spoke of being physically stripped and humiliated by the Police."

People have expressed their displeasure and dissent in the tens of thousands: places like Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur and Gopalpur have been under siege for months (and often, years) by the police and paramilitaries on account of the angry political ferment over the past decade. The war between the corporate state and the people is on. The lands and water sources of farmers and forest-dwellers in these areas are being taken over through the powerful offices of the state government in order to make way for the steel and aluminium plants (and the associated coal, iron ore and bauxite mines) of business interests like Tatas, Jindals, POSCO, Mittal, Birlas, Alcan, Alcoa and Vedanta (Sterlite). Hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land have already been destroyed. Comparable areas of reserve forests have been torn out of the earth. Water sources are being polluted by mining and the industrial sludge. The air around the mines and factories is full of cancerous gases. After all, who has time to think of clean-up measures when Chinese competition is breathing down the necks of global players.

On many occasions peasants and tribals have been killed in police firing while resisting the take-over of their lands, forests and water resources. The defence of Jal, Jungle, Zameen, Zindagi – and not the treacherous hope of compensation, resettlement, rehabilitation, employment and "modernization" – are the issues as far as local populations are concerned. If "development" implies mere industrialization on their own backs and displacement from their lands and forests, the rural communities of Orissa have declared in no uncertain terms – often through the sacrifice of human lives – that they want none of it.

So if such "development" is not for the people of Orissa, who is the brutally break-neck industrialization in the state for? (Orissa attracted over 10% of the foreign direct investment in India in 2006.) It is for the many companies who have been gouging the earth to extract the abundant mineral wealth from the region (most of it lying under thick forests or farmed fields) for the price of dirt and make huge profits by selling abroad (If a company can get away by paying Rs.100-150 per ton of iron ore to the state and fetch a price of Rs.1500-3000 abroad – depending upon the grade of the ore – there is little surprise that there is a growing queue of foreign investors.)

It will make it a lot easier and faster for the Tatas to pay off the astronomical debt (of close to $10 billion: more than Orissa's entire GDP) that they have taken on recently in order to acquire the Anglo-Dutch steel major, Corus. Importantly, it will enable the rich countries to derive the benefits of cheap steel (for construction, transport and industry) and aluminium (so critical to aeroplanes and soda-cans alike) while keeping "dirty" industries and mining away from their own environmentally sanitized shores (the reason why companies like Corus and Novelis have been selling out so readily – and at exorbitant prices – to Tatas and Birlas: the cleaner the industry the less likely it is to be auctioned off to bidders from countries like India or Brazil. On the contrary service sector businesses are being taken over by multinationals from rich countries: notice the recent acquisition of the Indian company Hutch-Essar by the British multinational Vodafone – the fact that it is led by an Indian CEO is of little import here (Pepsi does not become an Indian company simply because its CEO happens to be an Indian these days.))

The moral horror of such a pattern of industrialization in Orissa – fitting snugly and conveniently into a socially and ecologically unfair global division of labor and pollution – is that the beneficiaries from it (barring the few Netas and Babus who get cuts from each business contract) are not from Orissa but are scattered around urban India and the rest of the world. It is a thinly disguised form of environmental colonialism orchestrated by the comprador government of the state, the Mir Jafar dalals only too happy to sell off both their people and nature to outsiders.

Such a pattern of industrialization has less to do with development (understood as lasting change and transformation in the quality of people's lives, reflected but minimally in such measures as life expectancy, the literacy rate and growth of real per capita income) than it has to do with the imperative to compete and win at any cost that Indian and global industrial business interests feel at this uncertain juncture of history. "Orissa is not there to enrich the rich and strengthen the economies of America and the West", one activist from Orissa argues.

However, the Patnaik government of Orissa continues on its merry path, inviting investment recently from NRIs, among many others. The Korean steel giant POSCO has already planned on investing $12 billion in the state (though its tax breaks and other incentives amount, if it is possible to imagine, to an even greater sum). The same is true for Laxmi Mittal's Mittal-Arcelor group (the world's largest steel conglomerate) which signed a MoU with the Orissa government in December 2006, agreeing to invest $ 9 billion in Keonjhar district (and deriving tax benefits of comparable magnitude). Mittal has asked for 8000 acres of land (2000 acres more than POSCO) for the project. He has also asked that (just like the concession to POSCO) the land be classified as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), with all the attendant privileges, tantamount to a de jure suspension of the Indian Constitution.

Only the ecological future – global and local climate change, to name only one of dozens of environmental ailments brought on by mindless industrialization – will reveal the ultimately suicidal nature of this putatively "free market" economics – which is in fact a case of active promotion of private corporate profit by the state, even if it means rampant exploitation of the poor citizens (who are citizens for one day and subjects for 5 years) of a famous democracy, in addition to the rapid accretion to the ecological debt of the region.

The Indian People's Tribunal reported last year in October "that the bauxite-mining project proposed by UAIL will have adverse environmental and health effects: water sources and agricultural land will be contaminated by toxic wastes, grasslands and forest land will be destroyed, and pollution including the release of cancerous gases that will create a health hazard for those living in proximity of the alumina refinery. Further the location of the mine in the Eastern ghats will cause irreversible loss of plant genetic material and biodiversity of this region."

Let us forget any other ideals or values and come together to challenge the brutally flawed corporate vision – itself in accord with the so-called "neo-liberal" economics purveyed by Washington and its multilateral agencies – which imperils today the very basis of human survival in India.

http://www.countercurrents.org/en-shrivastava100307.htm

Market rules, job-oriented courses a big hit in Bengal

Kolkata, March 11: After Madhyamik, what? Students in the state seem to be slowly figuring out an answer to the riddle, going by the Council of Indian School Certificate Examination's (CISCE) figures.

The answer lies in a line of vocational subjects offered by the Council under its Curriculum of Vocational Education (CVE). According to CISCE figures, though few West Bengal schools run these courses, the number of students opting for the technical and non-technical courses is on a steady northward drive. And many enrol in such courses right after Madhyamik examinations.

G Arathoon, officiating chief executive and secretary of CISCE, said specilised diplomas get a preference over degrees from even reputed colleges and universities in the market today. That is one reason why "we find so many students with academic degrees to their name but no job in their pocket. Our courses are becoming attractive because a job is guaranteed after successful completion."

Arathoon said the courses are available for not just ICSE students but also other equivalent board examinations. "It is a two-year, full-time course that ends with an examination equivalent to the Class 12 ISC examination."

The council says students after completing the course will get placement in companies like Tata Indicom, VSNL, TISCO, Tega Industries, Bengal Ambuja and Tata Refractories.

The courses are at present available in Don Bosco (Park Circus), Don Bosco Self Employment Research Institute (Liluah) and the Indian Institute of Advanced Hotel Management. Arathoon said Durgapur Society of Management Science and Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Siliguri would start these CVE courses this year.

Explaining the admission procedure, Arathoon said schools affiliated to other boards have to get an NOC from the government.

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=226265

Area of darkness

Hindu-Muslim relations have impacted India's development discourse more decisively than was anticipated in the pre-Partition years. And for good reason: Conditions of Indian Muslims, according to the Sachar committee report, point to an appalling policy neglect over decades.

Public debate on the report suggests it is only about India's contentious Muslim reservation issue. Two articles in this newspaper 'Sachar report flawed' (Jan 23) and 'No Quotas, Please' (Nov 20) are an example of this projection.

But the report is, in effect, about how incomplete and shallow the discourse on secularism has been. It also shows how flawed frameworks of interaction between the state and communities have shaped unequal outcomes.

While the statistical portrait that emerges from the report is deeply disturbing, identical trends were noticed long before 1947.

As early as 1871, W W Hunter in his book, The Indian Musalmans, articulated the community's deep sense of discrimination. "A great section of the Indian population, some 30 million in number, finds itself decaying under British rule.

They complain that they, who but yesterday were the conquerors and Governors of the Land, can find no subsistence in it today", he said. Muslim backwardness became the rallying point for a powerful fraction of Muslim elites who successfully campaigned for a separate homeland.

In post-Sachar India, Muslim elites have no such option. What, however, still gives an edge to Indian Muslims is the power of their votes in nearly 85 parliamentary constituencies, which could determine the fate of any national regime.

With the onset of coalition politics since the early 1990s, Muslim voters have gained unprecedented bargaining power in India's competitive party politics. It is this factor, not commitment to secularism, that motivates non-Hindutva, supposedly secular, political elites to take the Sachar report's recommendations seriously.

The claim that there is nothing fresh about the report except that it bears official stamp is quite misleading. The trends are not new, but the facts are. For example, the facts about Muslim backwardness in West Bengal with its 23.16 per cent Muslim population, are a shocking revelation.

This fact remained out of public knowledge, even as the region was always part of research agenda of eminent scholars like Amartya Sen, Partha Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj, Amiya Bagchi, Pranab Bardhan and others. It suggests the exclusive character of our mainstream research agenda.

The Left Front regime should be given some credit for building a riot-free society, which other major parties failed to accomplish in regions they governed. However, a riot-free society is not enough to address the backwardness of a com-munity with historical disadvantages. This calls for special policy interventions.

The report points to a significant intellectual failure.

When Muslims were up against a vicious political campaign on so-called appeasement during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the secular response either dismissed it as prejudiced claims of Hindutva ideologues or recognised it as appeasement of Muslim fundamentalists, citing the infamous Shah Bano case.

But had the facts the Sachar report lays down been available, the appeasement campaign could have been confronted more effectively.

Though this report is the first of its kind exclusively on Indian Muslims, there were similar efforts in the past, such as the Gopal Singh panel (1980-83), which also studied other minorities. According to its member-secretary Rafiq Zakaria, its findings sent shock waves through South Block.

As many as 200 researchers were sent to different parts of India to collect the facts, and Rs 57.77 lakh invested in the report's preparation. Although submitted in 1983 to the government, it was tabled in Lok Sabha on August 24, 1990, with its major recommendations rejected.

According to MIT scholar Omar Khalidi, the report is not available in any major library. Intellectuals concerned with secularism could have nailed down Hindutva votaries with this panel's findings, but they failed to place this in the public domain.

The Sachar report once again exposes the failings of our secular researchers.

The writer teaches at Jamia Millia university.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/OPINION/Editorial/Area_of_darkness/articleshow/msid-1640413,curpg-2.cms

Maoist violence killed 226 Chhattisgarh civilians this fiscal

Raipur, March 12 Among the 325 people killed in Maoist violence in Chhattisgarh between April 1 2006 and Feb 4, 2007 were 226 civilians, Home Minister Ramvichar Netam told the assembly Monday.

Giving a break up of killings during question hour, Netam said that besides 226 civilians, 23 policemen and 76 Maoist militants were killed till Feb 4 this year during the current fiscal year.

Most of the incidents were reported from the interior belt of hilly Bastar region, comprising the three districts of Dantewada, Kanker and Bastar.

'A total of 548 Maoist violence activities were reported in the state till Feb 4 in the year 2006-07 comparing to 639 such incidents during entire 2005-06,' Netam said in reply to the opposition Congress party's Nandkumar Patel.

'There were a total 351 casualties reported in year 2005-06 with 243 civilians, 43 guerrillas and 65 policemen,' the minister said in a written reply.

He said the Indian government had deployed 11 battalions of the paramilitary entral Reserve Police Force (CRPF) besides one Mizo and one Nagaland Armed Police (NAP) battalion to combat leftist extremists.

The home minister claimed that the state government had spent millions in the current fiscal year on providing compensation and other help to family members of the deceased civilians and policemen.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/39213.html

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