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Mar 21, 2007 |
Jharkhand couple sells twins, wants them back
RANCHI: A poverty-stricken couple in a Jharkhand village who sold off their new-born twins is now seeking police help to get them back.
Ganpat Pandit, a resident of Alpito village of Hazaribagh district, about 130 km from here, became a father of twins on Jan 25. But soon after, he and his wife Amia Devi decided to sell both the babies to two families for Rs.3, 000 in total.
The couple has now written to the police, asking for help to get back their infants.
Ganpat sold his first baby to Narayan Sao, a resident of Vishungarh locality of Hazaribagh, and another baby to Krishna Paswan, a resident of Sirsi village of the same district, after getting Rs 1,500 from each.
Both the buyers were childless while Ganpat already has five children.
"I want my kids back. It was my fault that I sold them," Ganpat said.
Sao, to whom a baby was allegedly sold, said: "I had not purchased the child. Ganapat had expressed his inability to look after them and I took one of the twins as I have no child."
Police are investigating the case.
In poverty-stricken Jharkhand, selling of babies by poor couples is not uncommon. More than 20 such cases are reported on an average ever year.
In Jharkhand, 52 per cent of the population lives Below Poverty Line (BPL) and many parents find it difficult to look after their children.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/Jharkhand_couple_sells_twins_wants_ them_back/articleshow/1788390.cms
Poverty declines to 21.8 per cent: NSS
New Delhi, March 22. (PTI): Fewer Indians were living in penury in 2004-05 than in 1999-2000, with official data showing poverty declined by 4.3 per cent during the period but there were still 238.5 million people living in less than desirable conditions.
Poverty in India has declined to 21.8 per cent in 2004-05 from 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000, a report of the National Sample Survey (NSS) released by the Planning Commission said on Wednesday.
The decline in poverty was comparatively much more steep in rural areas, where the percentage of people living below poverty line fell to 21.8 per cent (2004-05) from 27.1 per cent (1999-00).
In urban areas, percentage of people living below poverty line fell to 21.7 per cent (2004-05) from 23.6 per cent (1999-00), according to the NSS estimates based on the Mixed Recall Period (MRP)-consumption distribution data.
The number of people living below poverty was estimated at 238.5 million -- 170.3 million in rural areas and 68.2 million in urban areas -- out of the over one billion population.
The level of poverty, based on the Uniform Recall Period (URP)-consumption distribution data, declined to 27.5 per cent in 2004-05 from 36.0 per cent in 1993-94.
The level of poverty under the URP method in rural areas fell to 28.3 per cent in 2004-05 from 37.3 per cent in 1993-94 and in urban areas to 25.7 per cent from 32.4 per cent during the corresponding period.
Under URP methodology, data is collected using 30-day recall period for all items of consumption, while under MRP, consumption expenditure data is collected using 365-day recall period for five infrequently purchased items (clothing, footwear, durable goods, education and institutional medical expenses) and 30-day recall period for the remaining items.
Based on the MRP consumption data, Orissa was the poorest State with 39.9 per cent of people living below poverty line followed by Jharkhand (34.8 per cent) and Bihar (32.5 per cent).
In absolute terms, the number of people living below poverty line was 45.8 million in Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar (29 million) and Maharashtra (26 million).
Poverty levels were low in Chandigarh (3.8 per cent people living below poverty line), Jammu and Kashmir (4.2 per cent) and Punjab (5.2 per cent).
In Delhi, 1.6 million people were living below poverty line accounting for 10.2 per cent of the National Capital's population.
Among the other major States, percentage of people living below poverty line was 15 per cent in Assam, 12.5 per cent in Gujarat, 9.9 per cent in Haryana, 17.4 per cent in Karnataka, 11.4 per cent in Kerala, 32.4 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 17.5 per cent in Rajasthan, 17.8 per cent in Tamil Nadu and 20.6 per cent in West Bengal.
Based on the URP consumption data, 301.7 million people were living below poverty line -- 229 million in rural areas and 80.8 million in urban areas.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200703220313.htm
OWNERSHIP OF MINOR FOREST PRODUCE FOR THE PURPOSE OF ACCESS, PROCESSING AND TRADE – A MILESTONE IN REDUCING POVERTY
The Minister of Environment and Forests, Shri A. Raja said Schedule Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is a tool to provide occupational and habitational rights to the people. Addressing 'World Forestry Day' celebration today in New Delhi, the Minister said empowering people, particularly assigning the ownership of minor forest produce for the purpose of access, processing and trade would definitely enhance their livelihood and this step would be a milestone in reducing the poverty of the people living in and around forests.
National Forest Policy, in India, treats forests as environmental and social resource the Minister added. With the initiative of assigning ownership of Non Timber forest Produce (NTFP) to the local communities including the grass root level democratic institutions for enhancing their livelihood opportunities and also improving their income with the value addition in MP, Orissa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar and Maharastra, India has shifted the approach of forest management from regulatory to participatory mode of management. At present, more than 17 million hectare forests is managed by around one lakh Joint Forest Management Committees with the benefit sharing mechanism. The Minister said the proportion of land area covered by forest globally is one of the indicators for the seventh Millennium Development Goals which were adopted at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The Minister said they are working towards this goal through regenerating forest and securing forest based employment and developing small scale forest enterprises.
The Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Shri Namo Narayan Meena said National Forest Policy paved the way for India's pioneering initiative in introducing Joint Forest Management (JFM) based on formal, long enduring and secure partnerships between the state and the local communities. A large section of the community in the forest-fringe villages is poor. According to one estimate, 40% of India's total number of poor live in about 1.73 lakh forest-fringe villages. The acute poverty in these villages, is a matter of concern and we are addressing this issue on a priority basis. Shri Meena further added that for the first time Ministry of Tribal Affairs allocated Rs. 450 crores to the development of forest villages which were totally cut-off from the mainstream development in the country , and living in abysmal conditions.
Environmentalist Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt said women are true protector of forests, who maintain balance between utilization of forest produce and preservation of forests along with its flora and fauna, culture and society at large. Delivering Key-note address on 'World Forestry Day' celebration, he said women give priority to preserve forests cover and focus on regeneration of barren lands and increasing forests wealth and man tend to plant trees which generate cash. He said afforestation efforts have paid off.
In accordance with this year's theme 'Forests and Poverty', Shri Chandi Prasad Bhatt further said people living in forest areas are mainly dependent on forest for their livelihood. Shrinking forests have resulted in earning livelihood very difficult. Nearly 10 crore people in country live in and around forests. About 28 crore people are dependent on rich forests for their livelihood. Out of this, 75 per cent people are very poor and they inhabit in states of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
There is 1,82,000 sq. km. forest land of which 66,000 sq.km. Forests land is denuded. It is imperative to increase forest cover and preserve it to ensure livelihood of forest communities instead of supporting big industries. Shri Bhatt suggested that efforts must be put to regenerate forests which will eradicate poverty and unemployment. He pointed out that tea gardens where first to ruin forests of the North-east, which was followed by big dams which destroyed forest produce and bio-mass. Industries like paper, mining, plywood, packaging have further degenerated forests. Artisans do not get raw material from forests to earn their livelihood. This has a negative impact on the communities that are supported by forests.
On this occasion two books namely: 'India's Forests' and 'National Forestry Database Management System – A Vision' were also released.
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=26315
BPL list brings alive the dead in Bihar
Patna, March 21 (IANS) It can happen possibly only in Bihar. The names of more than 100 dead figure in the below poverty line (BPL) list in the state, exposing the irregularities in the official list of the poorest of the poor.
After the inclusion of names of a minister, legislators, rich contractors and officials in the BPL list prepared by the Nitish Kumar government, the dead are now turning up on the list.
At the same time, hundreds of landless poor, who live below the poverty line, do not figure in the list, leading to widespread protests across the state.
The names of 101 dead people are in the BPL list under the Charpokhri block in Bhojpur district, about 60 km from here. 'We will look into it,' said a district official.
According to official sources, the names of dead included even those who passed away a decade ago.
However, officials at the Charpokhri block development office downplayed the issue by saying it was a clerical error.
'Some names of dead people figured in the BPL list due to errors in the computer. The officials concerned have been directed to remove the names and correct the list,' an official said.
In November, state Rural Development Minister Baidyanath Prasad Mahto, who owns a house in West Champaran district, land as well as a jeep, found his name in the BPL list. The list was being prepared under Mahto's supervision.
Last month it was reported that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Rameshwar Prasad Chaurasia and a former legislator from Nokha in Rohtas district also figure in the BPL list.
Two people were killed and nearly six injured in the Matihani block of Begusarai district three days ago when the police fired to quell a mob that attacked the block office there alleging irregularities in the distribution of food stamps for those in the BPL list.
This gave the opposition an issue to attack the government.
The government has decided to prepare a fresh BPL list by deleting the names of undeserving beneficiaries and adding names that had been left out.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1280680.php/BPL_list_brings_ alive_the_dead_in_Bihar
West Bengal to add 1,500 MW this year
Kolkata (PTI): With the commissioning of the Purulia Pump Storage project and Sagardighi Thermal Power Project, which would together generate 1,500 MW, West Bengal would not face any power shortage from August, State Power Minister Mrinal Banerjee said on Wednesday.
The first unit of the Purulia Pump Storage project, having a capacity of 225 MW, would be commissioned on April 15 while three others with the same capacity would become operational by December this year, Banerjee told the Assembly.
The Sagardighi project, he said, would have two units each with 300 MW capacity. The first unit would be commissioned by June and the second from July, he added.
The Minister said that there would be no power shortage in the State after July-August, by when the new units would be operational.
Banerjee also said, work for the Katwa thermal power plant was on and the Government had moved the Centre and Union Coal Ministry for coal block allocation to run the plant.
He said, railway lines were being upgraded from Burdwan to Katwa-Kalna for the project at an expenditure of Rs 204 crore. The State Power Development Corporation would provide Rs 102 crore and the Railways Rs 102 crore.
The Power Minister also said, all households in the State would get an electricity connection by 2010.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200703220312.htm
Reform-rich years help bring poverty line down
Two methods, but both indicate that it's time for a cheer in the country. For, those below poverty line are on the decline, that too at a higher rate.
According to the latest National Sample Survey (NSS) data for the year 2004-05, poverty levels are down to 21.8 per cent as compared to 36 per cent in 1993-94. In urban areas, the level fell from 23.6 per cent to 21.7 per cent, while in rural areas, the level's down from 27.1 per cent to 21.8 per cent.
This means poverty levels fell around 0.86 percentage points per year between 1993-94 and 2004-05, marginally higher than the 0.81 percentage points between 1983 and 1993-94, or the pre-reforms period.
However, the rate of decline in the post-reforms period is faster: Poverty declined by 1.8 per cent per annum between 1983 and 1993-94, and the rate of decline rose to 3.3 per cent per annum between 1999-2000 and 2004-05.
However, the use of two sets of questionnaires to determine the poverty levels — the uniform recall period (URP) and the mixed recall period (MRP) — has made the data confusing. While the URP level of 27.5 per cent is comparable with the 36 per cent poverty level in 1993-94, the MRP level of 21.8 per cent is comparable with the 26.1-per cent level in 1999-2000.
However, in both cases, poverty levels have shown a decline between 0.8 and 0.9 per cent per annum.
Considering the MRP, URP sampling during the last decade — a period driven by reforms — nearly 4.3 per cent of the population came out of poverty.
The bulk of this period saw the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in power at the Centre.
The estimates are likely to raise questions over the UPA government's strategy for rural economy. Programmes like Bharat Nirman, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and rural roads, may need a re-look, say official sources.
Based on MRP, more than 50 per cent of the poor are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
The figures may embarrass the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh, where 4.58-crore people are BPL. In case of West Bengal, 20.6 per cent of the population fall comprise the BPL category, while in reformist states like Gujarat and Punjab, only 12.5 per cent and 5.2 per cent of the respective population are below the poverty line.
Surprisingly, Jammu and Kashmir, at 4.2 per cent, is at the bottom of the BPL population list.
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=278542& leftnm=3&subLeft=0&chkFlg =
Coca-Cola shifts Kerala bottling unit to Orissa
NEW DELHI: Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, the bottling arm of Coca-Cola India, has relocated one bottling line of its controversy-ridden Plachimada plant in Kerala, to Orissa. This could mark the beginning of Coca-Cola relocating its entire bottling operations out of the state. In all, the soft drink major has three bottling lines at its Plachimada plant, all of which have been lying idle since 2004.
A Coca-Cola spokesperson, however, clarified that the company was not shifting its bottling plant out of Kerala. "The relocation is in line with the on-going restructuring exercise for our bottling operations. The move is aimed at ensuring that our equipment is placed in plants that serve areas with the highest demand," the spokesperson said. He added that the relocated line constitutes less than 10% of the Kerala plant's overall manufacturing capacity.
The soft drink major had suspended bottling activity in the state three years ago, following a government directive to stop drawing ground water from its plant premises. Subsequently, Coke obtained a conditional licence to operate its plant, renewable every three months. However, the conditional licence was rejected by Coca-Cola.
The company is in the midst of a $250 million restructuring exercise involving its bottling and marketing operations. It is in the process of buying out idle manufacturing capacities of co-bottlers, besides setting up new lines to support its proposed forthcoming launches. The company has been in negotiations with its co-packers in Balia, Kanpur, Rourkela and Aurangabad, to buy-out their excess capacities, and some of the deals have already been sealed.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Cons_Products/Food/ Coca-Cola_shifts_Kerala_bottling_unit_to_Orissa/articleshow/1790823.cms
SAIL, Jaiprakash Associates sign JV pact
SAIL will hold 26% while the balance will be with Jaiprakash Associates. The JV will set up plants at Bhilai (Chhattisgarh) and at Satna (Madhya Pradesh)
Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) on Wednesday announced that it had signed a Shareholders' Agreement with Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) for setting up a Joint Venture (JV). SAIL would hold a minority stake of 26% in the JV while the remaining 74% stake would be held by JAL .
The JV will set up plants for producing 2.2mn tons of cement, at Bhilai (Chhattisgarh) and at Satna (Madhya Pradesh), by using slag generated at Bhilai Steel Plant and limestone from SAIL's mines at Satna.
http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/innernews.asp?storyId=30095&lmn=1
India's witch hunt leaves children orphaned
Sona's mother was murdered and dismembered; Kalo was attacked with a saw and scarred for life. Hundreds of other Indian women are killed or disfigured every year after being branded witches by their neighbours. Raekha Prasad reports
When I first encounter Sona Bindya, this small 10-year-old girl is perching barefoot on a mound of rubbish, squinting into the sunlight by the side of a cratered road. Beckoned to the car, she sits primly on the back seat in her grubby clothes, confidently answering my questions. Her nickname is Pinky, she says. Except for a mouth full of adult teeth, she looks young for her age. Until a few months ago, Sona lived in a one-room hut in an unremarkable slum hamlet of just 12 buildings with her mother, Ramani. Ramani had been bringing Sona up alone since her husband died from an unknown illness. Every day at 6am Ramani left home for her job as a labourer (painting the factories in an industrial area in the eastern Indian state of Jharkand), returning home 12 hours later.
One night in January, Ramani and Sona were fast asleep when two neighbours broke down their rickety front door and dragged Ramani out of bed. As Sona fled to a neighbour's hut, she saw one of the men's hands cover her mother's mouth and another close round her throat. Next morning, no one stopped Sona from seeing the pools of blood that had darkened on her doorstep. On the railway line 100m away, Ramani's mutilated body had been dumped on the tracks. Her severed limbs pointed in opposite directions.
Ramani's death was not reported by India's rolling news stations and fast-proliferating newspapers, because, sadly, there was nothing distinctively "new" about the way in which she had died. Specifically, her death was the result of being branded a witch.
Police in Jharkand receive around five reports a month of women denounced as witches, but nationally the figure is believed to run to thousands. These incidents usually occur when a community faces misfortune such as disease, a child's death or failing crops, and a woman is suddenly scapegoated. Those whose lives are spared face humiliation, torture and banishment from their village: some are forcibly stripped and paraded in public; some have their mouths crammed with human excreta or their eyes gouged out. The belief is that shaming a woman weakens her evil powers. And because these crimes are sanctioned by the victim's community, experts say many of them go unreported.
Ramani and her neighbours belong to one of the country's many distinct tribes, who speak their own language and hold animist beliefs, insulating them from mainstream Indian society. The country's "tribals" are among its poorest people, often living without access to doctors, schools or electricity. People in the neighbourhood are predominantly of the Ho tribe, having migrated from their ancestral forests to the fringes of this part of urban India, carrying with them superstitions and a belief in the supernatural.
Although police have arrested three men in the hamlet for her murder, none of the locals condemns Ramani's killing as a crime. Sona now lives with another family in a nearby village, and as I walk with her through her old neighbourhood, other residents avert their eyes. In the aftermath of the murder, many have fled until the dust settles. Those who remain are evasive. Even the murdered woman's own cousin denies any knowledge of what happened. He says he came back to the slum at 10pm that night. "I went straight to sleep so I didn't hear anything and I don't know anything," he says.
Ramani was killed because she had been deemed a malignant force, wreaking death and misfortune on the hamlet. When a child fell ill in the slum, diagnosis and solutions were sought, as usual, from the resident medicine man or ojha. The ojha is a central figure in the community, believed to have insights into evil forces affecting the health and wealth of the village. When his magical incantations fail to cure a patient, he turns to divination, gathering together water, oil, leaves, twigs, vermilion, a mirror and dung, asking the villager for the payment necessary for him to enter a trance. He then hints at, or directly names, the "culprit" behind the illness. In this case, the ojha told the father of the sick child that Ramani was to blame, says Sona, and claimed that taking her life would lift the curse.
This violence is part of an India that has perhaps been obscured by stories of its software boom and nuclear prowess; a culture sometimes forgotten amid news of such successes as the steel company Tata, which recently swallowed British giant Corus.
Caught between the clash of tribal India and the modern-day nation is Shubhra Dwivedy, chief executive of Seeds, a Jharkand-based development organisation that focuses on girls and women. In the decade that Dwivedy has shuttled between the villages and her urban office, she has seen no decline in witch-hunting. "It's been so deeply ingrained for generations, socially and culturally, that it can't just be undone," she says.
A Seeds report explains that the "witch" label is also used against women as a weapon of control; branding a woman is a way to humiliate her if she has refused sexual advances or tried to assert herself. And the deep fear of witches can also be whipped up to grab a woman's land or settle old family scores. "It is easy for influential villagers to pay the ojha to have a woman branded to usurp her property," states the report.
These are the tactics that robbed Kalo Devi of her land and home. Crouching outside her daughter's house in a village in Jharkand's rugged interior, the 65-year-old widow pulls her sari blouse from one shoulder to reveal scar tissue knotted like bark. She holds out her left hand, disfigured by wounds, and traces the dark scar that runs across her nose and cheek.
She was attacked at noon, she says, just after lunch in September 2004 in the village where she had raised her daughter and lived with her husband until his death 20 years ago. As Kalo squatted in her mud home, washing up, her neighbour Jogan burst in brandishing a saw. "He attacked my shoulder; then tried to cut off my nose. Blood filled my mouth and I couldn't shout," Kalo says, her voice shaking with the memory. "I fell on the ground and he kept hitting me. I passed out so I don't know how my hand got cut."
A few days before the attack, Jogan had branded Kalo a witch in front of the entire village, and accused her of causing the death of his newborn baby. His outburst was an escalation in a litany of abuse, following her repeated requests for him to stop grazing his cattle on her land. During an earlier argument he had told her: "I will graze my cows in your field and cut you into pieces if you shout to stop me."
Kalo is unequivocal about why she was branded. "There were no men in my house. That's why this happened. He deliberately brought his cattle to my field because he thought that he could dominate me."
Although Jogan was arrested and charged, he was granted bail and is living locally again. With no police protection, Kalo fears he may succeed in killing her. That is why she has abandoned her home and land to live with her son-in-law and daughter 20km away. "What choice do I have?" she asks.
This question has occupied the lawyer Girija Shankar Jaiswal for more than a decade. As secretary of the Free Legal Aid Committee - an advocacy group that represents disadvantaged groups in Jharkand - he has instituted legislation that specifically outlaws witch-hunting in the state and its neighbour, Bihar. Although this has not succeeded in punishing the perpetrators - fewer than 1% of reported cases lead to a conviction - Jaiswal claims that it has helped instil fear into potential offenders and police. "Now an officer has a duty to prosecute, despite his personal prejudices. And if a woman can put you in jail, then she becomes a powerful woman."
But for someone like Ramani, the law could not legislate against beliefs. The fear now is for the life of her daughter, the sole witness to her murder. Sona saw four men standing watch outside her hut when she fled her mother's attackers within, and they threatened to kill her if she gave their names to the police. She did so anyway. They are all still living in the hamlet.
· Some names have been changed.
http://www.theasiannews.co.uk/heritage/s/224/224855_indias_witch_hunt_leaves _children_orphaned.html
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Hot issues of Today |
- Mar 20, 2007
- Mar 19, 2007
- Mar 18, 2007
- Mar 17, 2007
- Mar 16, 2007
- Mar 15, 2007
- Mar 14, 2007
- Mar 13, 2007
- Mar 12, 2007
- Mar 11, 2007
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