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| Mar 25, 2007 |
Scheme to waive women teachers' training charges
RANCHI, March 24. — Women from underprivileged backgrounds will not have to pay to complete a bachelors degree in education if a proposal by the Jharkhand state government is passed in the next cabinet meeting.
The state's human resources development (HRD) ministry hopes that in waiving the course fees they will not only increase education and employment among women but also create more qualified teachers thereby increasing the education level of the state.
The proposal would waive all fees for women from tribal adivasi and other backward classes seeking admission to the bachelor of education (B Ed) programme from the next academic session. This would also include women from ethnic minorities such as Muslim women.
Talking exclusively to The Statesman, the state's HRD minister Mr Bandhu Tirkey, who also doubles up as art, culture, sports and youth affairs minister, said the scheme aims to empower underprivileged women as teachers.
"Most of the primary, secondary as well as some higher secondary schools in Jharkhand suffer from an acute shortage of well trained teachers. The Sarva Siksha Aviyan, initiated by the central government merely makes a child capable of reading, writing and signing his or her name. We want to go a step beyond that and make our future generation, especially in the rural areas of Jharkhand, capable of competing with other candidates who have better exposure. For that, we need to have good teachers in rural areas, where we are facing shortages", he explained.
"The HRD department has already carried out a detailed survey which reveals that the pass rate at the entrance examination for the B.Ed programme among female students from the tribal adivasi and other backward classes is very high. However, because the exams are quite expensive most of them cannot take the examination, failing to realise their dreams simply because they can't afford the fees. We have decided to waive the entire fee for the course for these women. The scheme will also be applicable to quite an extent for the Muslim women candidates applying for the B.Ed programme", the minister said.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=150863
One gets death sentence in human sacrifice case
HAZARIBAG: The fast track court of Hazaribag on Friday awarded death sentence to one Mahavir Razak and life imprisonment to three others -- Shashi Thakur, Subhash Bose alias Khepa Baba and Birju Bhuiyan-- in the sensational human sacrifice case.
The additional district and sessions judge, Ramendra Nath Roy, found all of them guilty of the crime and pronounced the judgement.
The judge in his order said after examining all witnesses he found that Razak, only for the sake of fulfilling his personal ambition, kidnapped a child and sacrificed it before Goddess Kali. "This was a heinous crime and all the accused deserve severe punishment," said the judge.
According to sources, Mahavir Razak, who was suffering from a serious disease, including TB, and could not be cured after treatment, approached Subhash Bose alias Khepa Baba, a tantrik, at his ashram in Bhurkunda.
Baba assured Razak that he can be cured if he sacrifices a human being before Goddess Kali, sources said.
Mahavir, then, approached a rickshaw-puller, Birju Bhuyian, who kidnapped a boy Munna Kumar, son of one Vijay Paswan on December 8, 2003, sources said and added that Razak, Baba and Bhuian took Munna to a lonely place and killed him by slitting his neck.
When the child did not come back home, Paswan lodged an FIR with the police station concerned on December 9, 2003. The police recovered the body packed in a gunny bag thrown into the Nalkar river.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Cities/Patna/One_gets_death_sentence_
in_human_sacrifice_case/articleshow/1800794.cms
Lines of fate, re-drawn
At first glance, 30-year-old Manoj Kumar might just look like any other B.Ed aspirant preparing for his lectureship interview (he cleared the Bihar Eligibility Test in 1998) in March.
Take a second look at his credentials and you might have a sneaking sense of admiration for him. He's not only done his masters but has also cleared the lectureship examination.
But when you consider he's done all this without his palms, you can't but ooze awe and respect for the man who's dared to rewrite his fate lines.
Born without either of his palms, Manoj seems quite matter of fact about it. "You must have the attitude to excel and the vision to achieve it," he told The Telegraph with a smile.
A resident of Bongo village under the Chauparan police station in Hazaribagh, Manoj is the eldest among the seven brothers. Most of his brothers are well-settled in life and Manoj travveled down to Giridih to meet brother Indu Bhushan, the officer-in-charge of Tisri police station. Ask him about his inspiration and Manoj's eyes shine while he speaks about noted scientist Stephen Hawking.
"If he could contribute so much to the society with his research on Black Hole, even I could go ahead despite my handicap," He said.
His brother Indu Bhusan, too, is effusive in his brother's praise.
"He might not have been born a complete human being in terms of his physical attributes but he inspired not only my family members but also the people of our society with his will power and vision," he signed off.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070301/asp/jamshedpur/story_7455884.asp
Scheduled for recruitment?
The furore over "the Muslim head-count" in January-February 2006 overshadowed the question of many groups unrepresented in the armed forces, such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). They represented a little over 16 and 8 per cent respectively of the total national population in 2001, but few are found in the armed forces as officers. Between 1950 and 2005, about 50,000 men entered the defence services as cadets through the National Defence Academy (NDA), according to the Union Public Service Commission. Out of this number, only about 200 were SCs and a little over a 100 were STs. Why so? And what can be/should be done about it?
Historically, the British considered the SCs and STs outside the "martial races", and thus disqualified them for recruitment as jawans.Wartime compulsions, however, necessitated the induction of many non-martial groups including SCs and STs. Thus the Mahars of Maharashtra and Mazhbi (faithful) and Ramadasia Sikhs — both lower castes — of Punjab entered the colonial army as did the pariahs of southern India from early 19th century onwards. The manpower demand of World War II even saw the emergence of a Chamar Regiment that recruited mostly in UP, only to be disbanded in 1946.
In 2007, SCs and STs are well-represented as jawans in the Mahar Regiment, the Bihar Regiment and the Sikh Light Infantry. In addition, there are some battalions of infantry regiments which are exclusively meant for SCs and STs, or have a fixed percentage in them. But the officers in these regiments are not necessarily members of SC or ST communities. The current chief of the army staff Gen. JJ Singh is a Sikh from the Mahar Regiment, and proudly considers himself a Mahar! The reason why there are so few officers from the two communities is clear: poor educational backgrounds, leading, first, to an inability to meet the minimum qualifications to enter the exams and, then, a failure to pass the examinations when able to enter them.
A close examination of the annual reports of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Tribes from 1950 to the present reveals a depressing absence of SC and ST men in all three branches of the armed forces: army, air force and the navy, as far as combat units are concerned. The absence from air force and navy is easy to explain: both are highly skilled organisations requiring technical education for entry. Since education of any kind — much less technical — is poor among the SCs and STs, they are therefore poorly represented in the two forces.
The situation is better in noncombat units. In the civilian cadres of the three branches of the forces, the SCs are represented well above their population percentages: 20.58 per cent in the army, 15.3 per cent in the navy, and 35 per cent in the air force. But the STs have done poorly in the army's civilian cadres.
Within the civilian cadres of the three forces, the percentage of the two groups is highest in the D-category requiring least education and lowest in the A-category requiring advanced education. A high degree of education is not required in the infantry units, where at least 25-30 per cent of the recruitment is based on ethnicity, caste or region, exemplified by the famous Dogra, Garhwal, Gorkha, Kumaon, Rajput and Sikh regiments more than half-a-century after entry into the army was theoretically opened to all qualified Indian citizens. SC and ST politicians from Babu Jagjivan Ram (defence minister in 1970s) to Ram Vilas Paswan, Union minister for steel & fertilisers, have demanded reservation for the two groups in the three branches of the services. The commissioners/chairmen of the National Commission on Scheduled Castes and Tribes have consistently supported the demand as evidenced from their reports since the 1950s.
Most recently, Dr Suraj Bhan, the current chairman of the SC Commission articulated the demand in May 2006. The Lok Sabha's Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, headed by Ratilal Kalidas Varma, presented a case for reservations with facts and figures to the Defence Ministry in August 2003. Paswan in particular demanded a Dalit regiment.
There is thus a consensus among Dalit politicians and the intelligentsia for reservations in the armed forces. But the Central government, whether headed by the BJP or the current UPA, categorically rejects the argument for reservation or for new regiments based on caste, ethnicity or region. Their argument is that "any attempt to introduce reservation for any class or community cannot but impair the fighting efficiency of the Army".
When asked to abolish units based on ethnicity, caste or region, the Defence Ministry's strange argument was that "class composition of certain army units has been retained because of compulsions of combat effectiveness, operational performance and experience". It is obvious that the defence ministry wants to maintain status quo even when contradictory arguments are used in the same breath. Moreover, the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee was either misinformed or intentionally misled the nation when he claimed in Rajya Sabha on February 22, 2006, that "all regiments named after communities and regions were formed before Independence. None was raised after 1950."
Mukherjee was obviously unaware that Naga and Mizo regiments were raised in the early 1960s, a decade-and-a-half after 1947. The nation as a whole must develop consensus on whether or not it wants its institutions to mirror the country's population diversity. The armed forces' composition cannot be above public scrutiny in a democracy such as India. If we desire our armed forces to reflect our population composition, then measures must be taken to achieve that goal.
Children of aristocrats, former officers, and children of upper classes are disinterested in a career in the armed forces, given the poor incentives compared with the IT sector; they are unlikely to complain if reservations are introduced. If reservations are too radical, then state-sponsored intensive coaching for SCs, STs, Muslims, women and all other under-represented groups to prepare for UPSC exams is one corrective measure. Otherwise the underrepresented groups will not be scheduled for recruitment.
(The writer is a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)
http://www.hindustantimes.in/news/181_1944728,00300006.htm
DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Project-Displaced Camp in India's Capital
NEW DELHI, Mar 24 (IPS) - Through this week, a broad pavement on a leafy road in the Indian capital has served as venue for a spirited 'parliament of people' from across the country, come to protest a relentless globalisation drive that is stripping them of their land and livelihood.
Thousands of women and men, most of them dirt-poor and marginalised from India's villages, have sat day after day, their emaciated children in tow, listening to each other's stories of loss and protest, deprivation and abuse.
Policies of economic globalisation and markets pursued single-mindedly by the government have hit India's small farmers and unorganised workers the hardest. Everywhere, small groups have mobilised into campaigns to resist the sweeping changes being introduced recklessly in a despairing countryside.
Nearly 200 such groups that were represented at the 'Jan Sansad' (people's parliament) participated Friday in a march that was stopped by police barricades a km short of the tightly-guarded Parliament House but close to the offices of the Planning Commission.
The previous evening, on World Water Day, police had arrested the activist Medha Patkar and 62 others from outside the Planning Commission where they had gone to non-violently protest the government's continued indifference to the plight of millions of villagers who are due to be displaced by a series of big and small dams have been planned in western India's Narmada river valley.
On Friday, intensifying the crackdown, the police charged the activists under the Indian Penal Code and remanded them to judicial custody for 15 days.
Patkar, whose NBA or save the Narmada movement stalled the biggest of the dams, the Sardar Sarovar, for nearly two decades, has been fighting a losing battle since 1999 when dam authorities with the sanction of the judiciary and government began raising the height of the dam wall without bothering to resettle or compensate villagers in the submergence area.
"The state is provoking more Nandigrams," fumed a frustrated activist, referring to the tragic massacre by the police in West Bengal state, Mar. 14, of peasants who were resisting the forcible acquisition of 22,000 acres of land to be handed over to an Indonesian conglomerate for development into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
The gruesome killing by the state's communist party-led government was repeatedly condemned in the 'people's parliament' this week. Slogans remembering the dead as 'martyrs' punctuated the proceedings daily, while activists resisting more than 200 proposed SEZs spread over nearly every Indian state shared their experiences.
Twenty-four SEZs have been approved in the western coastal state of Maharashtra alone. According to Ulka Mahajan, 11,000 hectares of land belonging to 42 villages in Raigad district have been earmarked as an SEZ for Reliance, a powerful Indian business group.
"Does this 'jan sansad' accept a policy that will take away livelihoods of farmers, salt workers, and fisherfolk?" Mahajan asked the vast assembly, squatting calmly under the shade of giant 'neem' trees. "No," they thundered back, raising clenched fists in defiance of the government.
A publication on SEZs for the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) quotes another activist Ganesh Thakur from Raigad saying that while half the land proposed for the SEZ is irrigated by the Hetavane dam, large tracts belong to the salt pans or are wetlands, essential for the sustainability of the area.
"The government will evict farmers at their peril," warned Vijay Jawandhia, a farmers' leader from Nagpur in Maharashtra state. "The government has obligations to poor people, not the corporate sector," appealed an activist from Tamil Nadu.
SEZs, which offer huge tax breaks and privileged treatment to promoters and exporters at the expense of the public exchequer, are being opposed through campaigns and the judiciary. A group of small farmers have joined hands to file a public interest litigation against another Reliance-owned SEZ proposed near Delhi which will abut on the Sultanpur bird sanctuary, a critical halt for migrating winter birds from Siberia and Europe.
Over the week, the Delhi gathering called 'Action 2007' has addressed issues from tribal rights over forests to displacement, development and right to natural resources and right to information. While every issue has been picked threadbare by experts and activists, government ministers who were invited to participate have stayed away.
On Friday afternoon, sovereignty issues concerning the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and international financial institutions were the subject of discussion. Invitations were sent to Indian commerce minister Kamal Nath and his deputy, Jairam Ramesh, finance minister P. Chidambaram, and Mani Shankar Aiyar, also a cabinet colleague.
Not one of them turned up. "The people's representatives are scared to come before the parliament of the people," said Shaila Thakur of the National Alliance of People's Action Committee, among the organisers, from Mumbai.
What are the people's demands? A random sample reveals an interesting variety. Villagers demanding a permanent bridge over the Kosi river in eastern Bihar state. All India Hand Embroidery and Cooly Traders Union of southern Tamil Nadu state seeking labour rights. Security for traditional fisherfolk from trawlers. A ban on sand mining in river beds.
A right wing, business-friendly Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, which ran the slogan of a 'Shining India' but did little for the masses was voted out of office in 1994 in favour of a left-of-centre coalition led by the Congress party which took office vowing to give a 'human face' to the processes of globalisation and liberalisation.
But this ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, while chalking up respectable 9.5 percent growth rates, stands accused of presiding over an unprecedented crisis facing the poor in India's villages and cities.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37076
A brutal dictatorship
There is an irresistible temptation to gloat over the CPI(M)'s ignominy over the cadre-directed police action in Nandigram which left at least 14 people dead and forced many hundreds to flee their homes. Always intolerant of criticism and political opposition, the party transformed a small corner of East Midnapur district into a war zone last Thursday. It did so not because it wanted to sweep away pre-capitalist obstacles in the path of industrialisation but because it wanted to re-establish its physical control over an enclave that had seceded from Red Bengal. It was not an ideological battle; it was old-fashioned conquest of territory.
Those who maintain that this state-cum-cadre heavy handedness is not politics but terrorism are only partially right. For the past 30 years, the CPI(M)'s near-impregnable control over rural West Bengal has been based on sanctimonious populism enforced by coercion. Since it assumed power in 1977 the CPI(M) has created two classes of villagers: those who are with the party (either out of choice or compulsion) and those who are the outcastes.
The pariahs under Bengali Stalinism are those who still insist on supporting parties opposed to the Left Front.
In the heartland of rural Bengal (the border districts are an exception), where the CPI(M) majority is weighed rather than counted, it takes fierce, unflinching courage to flaunt a political affiliation which is not to the liking of the all-pervasive local committees. The CPI(M) not only preaches Stalinism; it practices it with brazenness in West Bengal. Under the smooth veneer of progressivism lurks a brutal party dictatorship.
The Leftist intellectuals who now protest sanctimoniously against the un-Leftist behaviour of the Left Front Government are being disingenuous. For decades they have been co-conspirators in suppressing those they regard as class enemies. And all this was perpetrated in the name of pious correctness.
The beneficial spin-off from Nandigram is that the ugly face of the CPI(M) has been exposed nationally. The next time the fellow-travellers from Sahmat get all worked up over a film which can't find a distributor in Gujarat, the next time Brinda Karat gets herself photographed outside Parliament in the company of happy tribals (as she was last Thursday), and the next time Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee spouts a verse from Mayakovsky or Neruda or Brecht, you can offer one word of retort - Nandigram.
Nandigram was not the first in the bloody history of Communist movements and nor will it be the last. Right from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, violence and Communist movements have been inseparable. Yet, for the moment in India, Nandigram has become a euphemism for the smug arrogance of a group that pompously declares that history is unflinchingly on its side.
And yet, gloating over Nandigram is painful. True, the CPI(M) has been put on the backfoot and the duplicity of the Congress leadership exposed -the whisper in Delhi is that Sonia Gandhi couldn't draw propaganda mileage from the massacre of 56 policemen by the Maoists in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh because of Nandigram. The Left intellectuals are in disarray and many have discovered their lost conscience. The debate over Special Economic Zones has merged into the national concern for the deepening crisis of agriculture throughout the country and triggered a populist backlash, which will have a debilitating impact on the UPA Government. The Opposition NDA has rightly sensed an opening and derived political advantage from the Government's discomfiture - even if that involves parroting the likes of Medha Patkar and Muslim sectarian organisations. Amid this headiness, one minor point appears to have been forgotten - the likely impact of the Nandigram kerfuffle on West Bengal.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the flight of capital from West Bengal. The first CPI(M)-dominated United Front Government began the assault which the Naxalite movement and Congress hooliganism complemented. The decline of Bengal was, of course economic. Remember the gherao movement of 1967? The abandoned factories on both sides of the River Hooghly bear testimony to the effects of perverse Left politics. However, the decline was not purely economic. The upheavals bred a strange political culture based on self-pity, cussedness and envy - what a perceptive British commentator, in another context, described as the ''grievance community.'' For proof, see the morbid films of Mrinal Sen and Rithwick Ghatak.
This negativism was not confined to the Left; it has infected the anti-Left forces as well. The protests - the product of a strange combination of the Trinamool Congress, the ultra-Left and Islamists - in Nandigram epitomise this self-destructiveness. The entire state, it would seem, has been overwhelmed by a pedestrian but romantic glorification of poverty.
Investment in West Bengal is certain to be the biggest casualty of the Nandigram violence and the controversy over Singur. The turbulence of politics has offset all the promise and hope that its Chief Minister held out during last year's Assembly election. Ratan Tata, if not the Singapore-based Salim group, must be ruing the day he decided to repose faith in West Bengal. ''You must be stupid,'' Ratan Tata told the Resurgent Gujarat conference two months ago, ''if you are not in Gujarat.'' By the same logic, you must be incredibly obtuse if you sink the wealth of shareholders in West Bengal. Other investors are unlikely to make the same mistake. West Bengal has yet again scored a self-goal.
This is bad news for Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. For the past few years, this erstwhile Stalinist has attempted to undo the legacy of stagnation and bloody-mindedness bequeathed to him by his party. At times he has conveyed the impression of being a Bengali Mikhail Gorbachev - out to destroy the system that created him. The fiasco of Nandigram signals the end of this perestroika. The Comrades have struck back with a vengeance and the mindset of the CPI(M) has prevailed.
Together, the CPI(M) and its opponents have thrown the baby out with the bath water. These are bad days for West Bengal but the worst, I fear, is yet to come.
http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEC20070323064459
&eTitle=Columns&rLink=0
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.
POVERTY LEVEL DECLINING
Urban reality
Below poverty line
Orissa: 40.30%
Madhya Pradesh: 39.30%
Chhattisgarh: 34.70%
Urban poor
Maharashtra: 1.314 cr
Uttar Pradesh: 1.004 cr
Sikkim: 2,000 (lowest)
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.
Rural legend Below poverty line
Jharkhand: 40.20%
Orissa: 39.80%
Dadra & Nagar Haveli: 36.00%
Rural poor
Uttar Pradesh: 3.57 cr
Bihar: 2.62 cr
Delhi: 10,000 (lowest)
However, in both cases, poverty levels have shown a decline between 0.8 and 0.9 per cent per annum.
Twice proved Poverty in India (in %)
Uniform Recall Period Mixed Recall Period
'93-'94 '04-'05 '99-'00 '04-'05
Rural 37.30 28.30 27.10 21.80
Urban 32.40 25.70 23.60 21.70
Total 36.00 27.50 26.10 21.80
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
YES, CHIEF MINISTER!
I am planning to write a letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Here is a draft, which I offer to readers ~ who are, after all, the most important stakeholders in The Statesman ~ for comment.
Dear Mr Chief Minister,
I write this on behalf of The Statesman, a newspaper that is more than 130 years old and is directly descended from The Friend of India, founded 1818. In other words, we were born about half a century before the house of Tatas was founded as a trading firm, a reference that you may find mysterious but one that I promise to explain as I go along.
In February last year, we applied to your Housing Minister and head of the West Bengal Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation for a two-acre plot of land in New Town, Kolkata. In October or thereabouts, some seven or eight months later, we received a letter from WBHIDCO that it had been decided to allot the land to us. But, curiously, there were no details furnished in the letter about the location, the cost or anything else. Thereafter, there has been no word from WBHIDCO.
I had indicated that we required the land for our own use, for production activities and for new business ventures, including software development, that we proposed to set up. While there were several locations available to us for the proposed investment, including in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, we felt that West Bengal, which has been our home for nearly two centuries, would be most suitable.
I must hasten to add, however, that I am not making a grievance of the fact that 13 months after our application, there is no sign of the land, much less the terms under which it is to be allotted. The wheels of government grind slowly, and bureaucracies cannot be hurried. I am sure, some day in the not so distant future, our file will be found in the WBHIDCO office and the land will be allotted.
The purpose of this letter is different. I am given to understand from reports of your Industries Minister, Mr Nirupam Sen's statement in the West Bengal Assembly that your government is offering a better alternative.
I understand that you are offering land to investors, especially those who are considering other states, on lease at favourable terms, and I would like to urge you to use your good offices to make such an allotment to us.
The Statesman would be interested in acquiring on 90-year lease about 10 acres of land. We are prepared to pay an annual lease rent of Rs 80,000 for the first five years, calculated at the rate of Rs 8,000 per acre per annum. We are prepared to offer an increase of 25 per cent every five years thereafter for the next 30 years. Thus we will agree to pay Rs 100,000 per year from years 6 to 10, Rs 125,000 per year for years 11 to 15, Rs 156,250 per year for years 16 to 20, and so on. However, I understand that you will charge lease rent only for about 40 per cent of the land, so these figures will be proportionately reduced.
We understand that your government is offering several other incentives for investment in the state, and I would request you to confirm that we will be eligible for each of the following:
a) A loan of Rs 2 crore at 1 per cent per annum interest from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation;
b) Allotment of 0.5 acre of land in New Town, Rajarhat, of which 0.2 acre will be at a cost of Rs 3 crore per acre and may be used for commercial purposes and 0.3 acre at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore per acre for setting up a housing project, to one of our subsidiary companies;
c) Five acres of land in the BRADA area; and
d) Refund of VAT (should it be applicable) for the first 10 years of our lease.
There are some additional facts that you must bear in mind whilst considering our application.
If the Government of West Bengal grants our request, we will be able to take up our expansion activities in the state and will not need to go to Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh or Chhattisgarh. In the strictest confidence I must tell you not only is our heart not in any of these states, it would be incredibly silly for us to consider any of them. A newspaper needs to be close to its readers; just as a car manufacturing company must be close to the source of its main raw material ~ steel ~ and to transportation links and markets. But of course, you can tell your political opponents that had you not offered these incentives, we would have gone away.
As a sagacious Chief Minister, I am sure you must be wondering if the business activities we plan to take up will generate jobs. I am sure they will. Unlike the automobile industry, which is extremely mechanized and uses robots in assembly lines (my brother-in-law who has a Ph.D in robotics from Stanford and who worked for many years with General Motors in Michigan tells me that nearly 90 per cent of assembly line jobs are done by robots), the newspaper industry is still quite labour-intensive. At the end of a long day spent covering police firings, clashes and bombings, we may look like zombies, however I can assure you we are human.
But let's get down to specifics. I hereby assure you that for every 1,000 jobs the Tatas provide in their car manufacturing plant, we will provide 10. This is only fair, as we are only asking for one per cent of what they have got from you. Thus, if they give 10,000 people jobs, I assure you that The Statesman will offer jobs to at least 100 people.
That is not all, though. I believe that on the basis of the terms your government has offered, Mr Tata has promised to produce a Re 1-lakh car. As I am only asking for 1% of what you have given him, I ought to promise to produce a newspaper costing Rs 1,000. However, I am feeling generous, and so here's my offer. If you give us what we have asked for, I promise to sell our newspapers at a cover price of Re 1 each, at least for the first year after commencement of production from the new facilities. You will appreciate that in this respect our terms are a thousand times better than those offered by the Tatas.
There are several other benefits to our proposal. First, as we are an impoverished newspaper and not remotely likely to be buying the world's fourth-largest publisher at any point in the foreseeable future, no eyebrows will be raised at your government giving us a loan at 1 per cent per annum interest.
As we are seeking only 10 acres of land, you may not have to displace more than three or four farmers, of whom perhaps half will part with their land willingly. How many trenches can two farmers dig? And should they resist, you may not have to fire more than a bullet or two. Even if you have to do that, the repercussions will not be serious. I do not see Left constituents threatening a revolt over one bullet, much less the Governor feeling aggrieved enough to issue a statement.
Thus, you will appreciate that our proposal has much to commend it, and very few disadvantages. As such, I am sure you will approve it expeditiously, bearing in mind that not doing so might be deemed discriminatory and therefore violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Do please let me know as soon as you start fencing our land, so that I can fetch up at Writers' Buildings to sign the necessary papers and hand over a cheque for Rs 32,000 (40% of Rs 80,000).
I look forward to doing business with you.
The author is Editor, The Statesman, and wrote this tongue firmly in cheek
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=150877
Coal kills
The smell of burning coal in household fires hangs in the air. Bicyclists carry heavy bags of coal from the mines to sell for a few rupees. They are overtaken by huge lorries carrying more than the tonnage they are supposed to carry -- all part of the black market in coal -- down busy streets, with cattle lying nonchalantly on the road.
We visited communities that were literally on the edge of the coal mines, who had nowhere else to go, having received no compensation for their land, taken by the coal companies and the World Bank. In the heat of the summer they tell us, the temperature in these communities can reach over 130 degrees F. Spontaneous combustion of coal in the open-pit mines cannot be extinguished. Water is polluted and far away. Health care and education is non-existent. Heavy energy-intensive industry is everywhere in Angul: aluminum smelters, steel mills, sponge iron factories.
As we drove to a village on the outskirts of the dirtiest aluminum smelter in the country, Nalco, we were forced to stop as a parade of men dressed in bright orange dress, paint on their faces, were banging drums and cymbals, celebrating the festival of holi, the arrival of spring. They celebrate in colorful garb in their villages as they do every spring although just down the road, on the outskirts of the state-owned Nalco smelter, their cattle are dying in droves from bone-crippling fluorosis -- caused by the excessive fluoride produced from smelting aluminum -- and other undiagnosed diseases.
The people and animals have small tumors on their bodies; the women complain of arthritis-like symptoms and swollen joints that make it hard to do their daily work; the children show signs of genetic malformations. One boy we saw had seven fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. Another boy was deaf and retarded, his teeth also weakened, possibly by the fluoride. All the malformed children were born after the aluminum smelter was established here. Many of the women cannot be married if the men learn where they are from; similarly, cattle cannot be sold from this community. it is well-known that here a severe poisoning has taken place at the hands of Nalco.
Orissa has become a magnet for energy-intensive industries -- domestically and internationally over the past decade thanks to at least three factors:
World Bank-enforced privatization and deregulation of the power sector, combined with no/lax enforcement of environmental and labor laws, have made coal-fired power here among the cheapest in the world.
Other minerals such as bauxite and iron ore are found in abundance beneath the soil.
The rights of the tribal people, who were traditionally oppressed by the British and now the Indians, are ignored in this rush to industrialize, and kept in a state of seemingly intentional helplessness and illiteracy.
I would add to this, as pure speculation based on some research, that the Kyoto Protocol is also creating an incentive for energy-intensive industries in the North to set up shop in a country such as India, where greenhouse gas emissions restrictions are non-existent. They can not only benefit from the lax labor and environmental laws, now, under the Clean Development Mechanism, they can also profit by turning fly ash to bricks, and earn money from carbon credits sold to Northern polluters.
We visited one facility where the highly toxic fly ash, loaded with heavy metals and other toxins, was being combined with sand and other substances, to make the bricks. This is one way of disposing of the abundant supply of fly ash produced when the coal in Orissa is burned. Indian coal has a very high ash content, so this kills two birds with one stone.
It may also kill the day laborers who are making these bricks without any sort of protective gear in the hot Indian sun. Yesterday, we arrived on a slow train throught the arid landscape of Orissa to the town of Sambalpur. We met with government officials, who assured us that polluting industries were being taxed at five percent and that this revenue was being reinvested in the affected communities. But when we visited the communities, we saw how little money had been spent. A school had been taken over by security for the coal company, and not replaced. As a result, one teacher has a small classroom filled with over 80 students, of all grades.
Last night, after another round of meetings with villagers on the margins of the coal mines, I was invited to give a talk to local activists, academics, and others on climate change. They were eager to know more about the strange weather they are experiencing here and all over India. Orissa has experienced famines in the past. Its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed, and so many small farmers are one season's drought away from starvation.
The combination of the deforestation, the open pit coal mines, and the land clearance by the tribal people for rice paddies is certainly adding to the change in local climate, and resulting in a drop in water tables. But I fear this region will be among the hardest hit in India as climate change accelerates. It is so unfair; these tribal people are being assaulted from all sides.
In two days we head to West Bengal. Today in the news they are reporting yet another police attack on a crowd of protesters who refuse to move to make way for the so-called "special economic zones" where all labor and environmental laws are suspended in order to attract corporations. Land is taken away with little or no compensation, and nowhere for these people to go. When they refuse to move and blockade the roads, the police shoot to kill.
Fourteen people were shot and killed yesterday in West Bengal. Twelve were shot in a similar incident in Kalinga Nagar, Orissa, in 1996 when Tata Steel tried to create a special economic zone. The people there remain agitated, and we are told it is unsafe to travel there.
Today we head to Ib Valley, the site of at least 6 coal-fired power plants, many of them constructed with World Bank and American development dollars. We will try to arrive before the heat of the day.
Author is co-director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/3/20/10319/0954
Emami group to invest Rs 2,000 cr. in Chhattisgarh
Raipur, March 25 (PTI): The Emami group would be investing Rs 2,000 crore in Chhattisgarh, company sources said.
"Emami has decided to invest Rs 2,000 crore in the natural resource rich Chhattisgarh within next three years," company sources said here today.
The company is planning to set-up a four million tonnes capacity cement plant and also a 100 mw power plant in the state with total investment of Rs 1,600 crore, they said.
Besides that, Emami is also investing Rs 150 crore for setting up a bio-diesel plant in the state as Chhattisgarh has developed quite a lot of interest in the bio-fuel sector, they said.
It was also being planned to construct a 500-bedded hospital near the capital city with an outlay of Rs 175 crore, the sources said.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200703252021.htm
The medium effect: Dreams get going
This is the story of a set of people who dared to dream. Chandan Singh Adhikari 'Chandu' drives a schoolbus. As a young boy in Almora, he wanted to join the army but didn't quite make it. Chandu may not have realised his dream but he made sure his children got a chance to follow theirs — one daughter is a teacher, the other worked in a foreign bank, one son has completed his hotel management and the youngest works at a call centre.
"In my village, studies didn't really matter. However much I studied, I'd end up tending to cattle. Times have changed. I knew I had to send my children to an English-medium school if they had to get anywhere in life. The principal at St Francis de Sales encouraged me to put my eldest daughter in school. The other three followed soon after," says Chandu.
His brother Inder Singh, a peon, also came to Delhi around the same time. "I worked by day and went to school by night. My firstborn is a web design engineer. I'm so proud of him. With so many MNCs in the market, I'm glad I decided to put all my children in an English-medium school," he says.
While a big city's bright lights have beckoned many, only a few who have reached for the stars. Sisters-in-law Rajkumari and Rani Kanojia are two such people. While Rajkumari is an ayah, Rani is a cook in a school canteen. "I've hardly studied but I wanted my kids to have the advantage of an English education.
My son Vijay is a health instructor at Radisson hotel and my daughter Pooja, a software engineer, is married and in America," says a proud Rajkumari. Rani always wanted to be a nurse but the family's financial condition didn't allow her to study. Today she is living her dreams through her daughters Jyoti and Kiran. "Jyoti works for Airtel and Kiran is studying Economics at DU. Looking at them, I feel I have done everything I ever wanted to," she says.
Diyva Gulab Minj, an ayah, is delighted that her son Vineet wants to be a chef. "I never had to worry about him.
After Class XII he sat for a hotel management exam and got through easily. When I go back to my village in Chhattisgarh, I feel so proud that both my children are well educated and speak good English," she says.
English, of course, is the language of aspiration, ambition, desire... Says Fr Jacob, principal, St Francis de Sales school, "I have realised parents would rather send their children to an unrecognised English-medium school than a recognised Hindi-medium one. When we started our Hindi-medium section for the less privileged, invariably some seats would go vacant. After changing the medium of instruction to English, I received 80 applications for 45 seats!"
Hemant is one such little boy who will go to this English-medium school when the new session begins in April. The son of Deepak and Monica, both press wallas, Hemant is a bright kid whose parents realise the importance of good schooling. "So what if we iron clothes? We could shardly study but our son is very intelligent and I'm sure he'll be a great student. I have big dreams for him," says a beaming Mon
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1804127.cms
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