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Mar 29, 2007

Common man poorer, MLAs richer in Jharkhand?

Ranchi, March 29 (IANS) The people's representatives in Jharkhand are getting richer while those who elevate them to positions of power are getting poorer, if the salaries of local legislators and poverty figures in the last five years are anything to go by.

The 10th Five Year Plan (2002-07) had a target of reducing poverty by five percent in the state. But a report of the state rural development ministry says the number of poor families increased by 100,000 during this period.

In 2002, the total number of families living Below the Poverty Line (BPL) was 2.35 million, only to go up to 2.45 million in December 2006.

The salaries of legislators and ministers, however, have doubled in the last five years. And a move is afoot to increase them further.

Five years ago, a legislator was getting Rs.16,000 a month. He now gets Rs.34,400. A minister earns Rs.39,500 as against Rs.18,000 earlier. The chief minister's salary was Rs.19,000. Now it is Rs.42,500.

Sources said a move is afoot to increase the salary of the legislators to Rs.42,000.

'The number of families living below the poverty line has increased due to a rise in the prices of basic commodities like food grains, oil, petrol, diesel and other things. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that rules Jharkhand now is responsible for it,' said C.P. Singh, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator.

Asked about legislators' salaries, he said: 'Poverty alleviation work should be done but the rise in prices also affects the budget of legislators.'

In Jharkhand, 52 percent families live below the poverty line. The state produces only half the food grains it consumes and milk production is just 30 percent of the requirement.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1284255.php/Common_man_poorer
_MLAs_richer_in_Jharkhand

Court orders free treatment for HIV-infected child

New Delhi, March 28 The Delhi High Court Wednesday directed the government to bear the cost of treatment of a child, who was allegedly inflicted with HIV after blood transfusion in the state-run Safdarjung Hospital here.

While disposing of the petition with the directions, Justice B.D. Ahmed asked the central government to admit the nine-year-old in the same hospital for free treatment.

'The government should bear all the expenses including for the treatment of the patient,' said the order.

Naseem Ahmed, a resident of a village near Ranchi in Jharkhand, had filed a petition seeking direction to the government for free treatment and to meet other expenses of his child, Faizan, who had been under treatment for the past five years.

Ahmed's counsel Sugriv Dubey said in his petition that Faizan was being treated at a Ranchi hospital for anaemia. He was referred to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here for further treatment in 2002.

The AIIMS, however, had refused to treat him and sent him to the Safdarjung Hospital.

The petition alleged that the child was given HIV-infected blood without scanning the same during the blood transfusion in the hospital.

The authorities, however, deny the allegation saying that the hospital had a proper mechanism to scan the blood given to patients.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/45227.html

Dead' officials get promotions in Bihar

PATNA: Nothing is impossible in Bihar. Even the dead and retired government officials in the state get promotions!

Dozens of government officials who have either died or retired figure in the promotions list of the registration department in Buxar district, about 125 km from Patna.

"Yes, some dead and retired officials are in the list," admitted Raj Kumar Jha, an official of the Buxar district administration.

According to official sources, most of those in the list of 48 promoted officials had either died or retired long back. "It was a clear case of official apathy and negligence," Jha said.

He added that it was a serious matter and an inquiry would be conducted to ascertain how their names had appeared in the list.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Haridnarayan Choudhary said this had exposed the government's claim of good governance.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1825809.cms

A day in the life of a school in Bihar

On a bright Saturday morning, we are hurtling down the Patna-Hajipur road to make it in time for the morning assembly at a government school in rural Bihar.

Once we leave Hajipur -- the constituency that had set a record for electing Ram Vilas Paswan to Parliament with the highest-ever margin in the 1989 election -- the road becomes narrower with traffic on both sides. Save some bumpy patches, it is turning out to be a fairly smooth ride, till the car stalls by a cluster of small stalls at the roadside.

We are already running late, the Saturday school timing we are told is 8 am to 11 am, and there is no chance of finding a mechanic in a village where the few shops haveno boards to indicate the name of the place we are stranded in.

The driver tries his driver routine, the car is pushed but after a few tantalising gasps, the vehicle stops breathing. That is it.

We start thinking of a backup plan when two young men appear, exchange a few words with the driver. One of them very casually sits in the driver's seat while his companion helps push the car.
A few minutes later, the car roars back into action and the two men walk away just as casually as they had appeared -- as if it was just a usual occurrence -- without even giving us a chance to say 'thank you.'

"He was a driver too," says Abbasbhai, our driver, and I think of visuals of stalled cars with harried drivers caught in the middle of whizzing traffic in Mumbai, where no one, barring perhaps the traffic police, stops to lend a hand.

This is Bihar, known as India's lawless state, where my editors had sent us with many warnings of 'Be careful, stay safe.' But that morning on that road at a place we didn't know, we couldn't have had a better way.

The assembly is delayed. Some students are still walking in, touching the feet of their teachers as they pass them by. A few bend down and touch ours too. While the students gather for assembly, some sweep the classrooms before classes begin.

We are told it is the students who clean the classrooms and premises, including the toilets. The school has no peons, and barring the cook -- who prepares khichdi for lunch every week day which is given free to all school children from Class I to V in the state government schools -- the school has no additional support staff.

The children do not wear uniforms because they have none. The government hopes to provide uniforms to all children and cycles for girls but that is yet to arrive.

The children walk to school from neighbouring villages, most of whose parents are uneducated, poor farmers. They carry books in a cloth bag. Some bring with them a gunny sack, over which they sit for classes under a cluster of mango and litchi trees.

There are classrooms for every class but because the number of students -- 1,023 -- cannot be accommodated in the classes, the students from class I to IV sit in the ground outside.

The assembly is conducted by students, while the teachers stand in attendance. Two barefooted little girls in frocks lead in the singing of Vande Mataram, Sare Jahan se Accha and the National Anthem. A little off tune, the singing is followed by stories about hygiene and a round up of the news and sports news by two boys.

'Namaskar, yeh hai aaj ki khabrein' says one boy and goes on to read the news of the day to the rest of the school. 'Aur ab khel samachar inse suniye, and the sports news of the day is provided by his partner.

A PT routine is included and the assembly lasts 50 minutes. The Islampur Middle School is the only middle school in the Goraul block in Vaishali district in central Bihar.

Like all government middle schools, the children here do not pay any fee. All girls and boys from the so-called scheduled castes are entitled to free books, says Assistant Teacher Shyam Nandan Thakur.

Many children pass on their books to those who cannot afford books once they move to a higher class, says the teacher.

Far from private English medium schools in India's cities where parents queue up overnight for forms and try everything in their power to get their children admitted to the best schools, in government-run schools like this one, girls are given lessons on topics that are taken for granted by privileged kids.

Lessons that are given through Meena -- a nine-year-old cartoon character, who propagates education, gender equality, denounces child marriage and child labour.

Developed by UNICEF to change perceptions and behaviour that hamper the survival, protection and development of girls, the programme was initiated in this school in 2005.

'Meena Manch' -- a group of girls from the school -- assembles twice a month to listen to Meena's story and discuss a topic that is relevant to girls in their community.

I am struck at the confidence of the little girls. One of them gets up and asks me to introduce myself, looking straight into my eyes.

Once the story with a moral is told for the day, the girls sing an educative song in Bhojpuri and display some karate kicks, their anklets ringing in unison with every kick.

The girls tell us that their sisters also go to school. They zealously tell us the story of how they were able to prevent the marriage of their 14-year-old school-mate by going and speaking to her parents and telling them about the demerits of child marriage.

How many of us would go and speak up for friends if injustice was being done to them, I wonder?

Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in India. Only 47 per cent of its population is literate, girls are worse off at 33.1 per cent.

The Islampur school could be a far cry from other schools in many villages and towns in Bihar where schools exist in deplorable conditions, where there are not enough teachers, where students don't have toilets, where children are taken away to help their parents in the fields, where girls in the minority community are sometimes withdrawn from school after they reach puberty.

One of the reasons why villagers withdraw their children from school is a commonly held view that once children start attending school regularly, the first thing they do is stop helping out in the chores at home as they did before. They don't want to go to the fields, will not plough, will not milk the cows or rear milch cattle.

"They feel a child who has studied will not do this, but who hasn't will do all this. So parents think education is not proving beneficial for them. Unless the child acquires some skill, for a guardian his education is of no use," says Anjani Kumar Singh, the IAS officer, who is director of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan scheme in Bihar.

"We are making every effort to build the school infrastructure, separate toilets are being made for boys and girls that will be managed by students and teachers," continues Singh, who has a long experience with education in Bihar.

"There have been instances in schools where teachers have kept a toilet locked for their own use or where toilets have gone into disuse. In schools we also have a child cabinet (which consists of student office-bearers ), which sees if nails are trimmed and hygiene is being maintained, that toilets are being cleaned. Effective child cabinets do exist in some form or the other in most schools."

I want to be a teacher or singer," said a girl, who was quickly joined by a bunch of girls rattling out their dreams and ambitions as children the world over are want to do. "We are going to participate in a competition in Hajipur, so wish us luck," said another.

For the children in government schools, the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar has done something that was never done before in the state's school system.

It has provided Rs 5,000 to every school for an excursion. So among the ruins of the famed Nalanda University, in between the busloads of Japanese, Korean and Sri Lankan tourists, run school children, on a trip many of them take for the first time.

"There are children who have not seen a police station, a railway station, so the Rs 5,000 is being used so that children can see places of interest in their area," says Anjani Kumar.

At the Islampur Middle School, only one girl from the Meena Manch has traveled as far as Kolkata. Another bunch traveled to the state capital Patna to participate in a competition. No one else has ever traveled beyond Hajipur, an hour's distance away.

At the Islampur Middle School, the children are towards the end of their school day. The teachers under the tree outside sing rhymes alongside the children. Mr Thakur, the assistant teacher, shows us the computer room which has three computers -- introduced six months ago -- which he says is used by the children to paint and learn the use of wordpad.

He also shows us the ongoing construction of classrooms so that the children sitting outside finally have a classroom. The state government is recruiting 200,000 primary and elementary teachers and constructing 100,000 classrooms this year. Last year, 70,000 teachers were appointed.

I am not sure how much three computers help in a school with over 1,000 students. Neither can one vouch for the quality of education. But the classrooms are full at this school, the teachers are teaching, the students are neatly dressed even if they don't have uniforms and bear the familiarity of their curriculum at the end of their school year.

Also, the children we meet all sound confident.

"Yes, education has deteriorated in Bihar over the years. There was a time when the syllabus of Patna University was almost like Oxford. But you may be surprised, two-three recent surveys done at the all India level have shown that the quality of primary education is good in Bihar. We are not saying it, they are," says Anjani Kumar Singh.

In the heartland of India's most illiterate state, a difference is being made. Better still, it can be felt.

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/29sld1.htm

Growth alone doesn`t reduce poverty

Several states have witnessed higher GSDP growth and higher poverty at the same time.

Poverty levels in the country have fallen from 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000 to 21.8 per cent in 2004-05, based on the mixed recall period consumption method. Those for rural areas fell from 27.1 to 21.8 while those for urban areas fell from 23.6 to 21.7 per cent. While the poverty estimates for 1999-00 and 2004-05 are not strictly comparable with earlier poverty estimates, some broad conclusions can be drawn on the rate of decline of poverty vis-à-vis the rate of growth of the economy.

Both the rate of decline in poverty and income growth between 1993-94 and 1999-00 have been the highest for the six periods given in Table 1. Yet, the elasticity of poverty reduction (0.78) is exactly the same as that between 1983 and 1987-88. Does this mean that the trickle-down hypothesis is working for poverty reduction? The correlation between aggregate income growth and rate of decline of poverty is not very strong ( 0.47). However, it also provides sufficient evidence against rejecting the trickle-down hypothesis. The trickle-down hypothesis is stronger for urban areas — the correlation between aggregate income growth and rate of decline of poverty for urban areas is 0.73, while the same for rural areas is 0.36.

While at an aggregate level there has been some evidence of the trickle-down hypothesis, the cross-sectional evidence of trickle down between 1999-00 and 2004-05 is rather weak. The correlation between the rate of decline in poverty (RDP) and gross state domestic product (GSDP) growth between 1999-00 and 2004-05 is 0.20, suggesting a weakness in or the absence of trickle-down. All major states witnessed a positive GSDP growth between 1999-00 and 2004-05, while the incidence of poverty increased in Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Even after excluding states that experienced an increase in poverty, the evidence of trickle-down (correlation coefficient = 0.30) is weaker than that observed at the national level. Among the states which experienced a decline in the incidence of poverty between 1999-00 and 2004-05, the magnitude of the RDP varies from 2.22 per cent in Kerala to 16.77 per cent in Arunachal Pradesh. Between 1999-00, the average annual growth rates of Andhra Pradesh (6.54 per cent), Gujarat (6.85 per cent), Haryana (6.86 per cent) and Kerala (6.88 per cent) were of a similar order while the RDP varied drastically. It was 6.77 per cent for Andhra Pradesh, 2.41 per cent for Gujarat and 2.22 per cent for Kerala and the incidence of poverty increased in Haryana by 2.44 per cent per annum. Similarly, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh were able to achieve an RDP of 16.77 per cent and 16.11 per cent respectively between 1999-00 and 2004-05 with a corresponding average annual growth in GSDP at 4.86 per cent and 5.23 per cent. Undivided Bihar with a 5.01 per cent average annual growth of GSDP between 1999-00 and 2004-05 was able to achieve an RDP of 4.95 per cent. However, poverty in Rajasthan and Maharashtra increased by 2.79 per cent and 0.12 per cent per annum respectively, despite their GSDPs rising by 5.39 per cent and 5.13 per cent respectively. Clearly state level policies with regard to poverty alleviation, safety nets and developmental activities are mainly responsible for divergent trends of poverty reduction vis-à-vis economic growth.

This is not the first time that rural poverty has declined faster than urban poverty has. This was observed in earlier periods also —1977-78 to 1983, 1983 to 1987-88 and 1993-94 to 1999-00. The ratio of rural to urban RDP at 2.54 observed between 1999-00 and 2004-05 is slightly higher than the 2.34 observed between 1983 and 1987-88. Both these time periods coincide with a low average agricultural GDP growth (0.06 per cent in 1983 to 1987-88 and 1.76 per cent in 1999-00 to 2004-05).

What are the reasons for the faster decline in poverty in rural areas compared to urban areas? Rural employment estimates suggest that rural employment alone is not growing fast enough to reduce rural poverty faster — the shift of the labour force from the less profitable and stagnant agricultural sector to the more profitable and growing sectors could, however, be the reason for the faster decline in rural poverty levels. Provisional results of the fifth economic census suggest that between 1998 and 2005, the average annual growth of enterprises in rural areas— at 5.53 per cent— has been nearly 50 per cent higher than the growth of enterprises in urban areas. At the same time the growth in employment offered by these enterprises in rural areas at 3.33 per cent has been nearly twice the employment growth in urban areas. Between 1999-00 and 2004-05, five states, namely, Assam, undivided Bihar, Tamil Nadu, undivided Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal accounted for 72 per cent of the decline in the number of rural poor across the country. A combination of higher agricultural growth rate and higher employment growth in non- agricultural/farm (excluding crop production and plantation) activities led to a decline in the absolute numbers of poor in these states. While in undivided Bihar it was higher agricultural growth that led to the decline in the number of rural poor, in the case of Tamil Nadu and undivided Uttar Pradesh it was higher non-agricultural growth that was responsible. In short, the politics and economics of Indian states are so divergent that it is difficult to pinpoint a single factor responsible for the change in poverty or any other developmental indicator.

The author is Associate Director, Fitch Ratings India Private Ltd. The views are personal

http://www.business-standard.com/opinionanalysis/storypage.php?leftnm=4&subLeft=
2&chklogin=N&autono=279176&tab=r

A new recipe for sweet success

KOLKATA: Lakhs of bees are being ferried across the shallow waters of the Sunderbans everyday, giving rise to a new breed of honey collectors in search of the sweet elixir. This is the new way honey business is done in Bengal.

Twenty-six year-old Tarun Das has been collecting honey through the 'box' method for the past few years. His modus operandi - boxes of bees are bought from a local bazaar and ferried to the islands by boat. The bees are allowed to escape from the boxes and into the forest areas adjoining their villages.

Once the insects detect nectar in a flower, they dance around it in circles, signalling others in the swarm. Eventually they return to the boxes to begin forming a honeycomb. This continues daily for one-and-a-half months when the nectar is finally wringed out through a mechanised drum. Sometimes though the bees need some coaxing to leave the boxes, especially when they lay eggs or are sick.

The pioneers of this form of harvesting sourced the bees from Italy but today they are bought from Punjab. A collection season spans one and a half months in summer in the Sunderbans and usually yields 35-50 kg, which is sold for as high as Rs 150-200. Income can be as high as Rs 25,000 in a year, a princely amount in an area of extreme poverty.

However, Das rues that the state government takes a cut in the form of Rs 8 per box. Plus there are middlemen who like to get their palms greased for helping out with the transit pass which is a requirement for collectors in the the area. According to a Forest Department official, the method is not illegal but only those with permits can enter into the reserved area.

The Forest Department does permit small groups to enter the forest twice a year, from mid-March to end-April. The new method has its advantages.

Collectors don't have to risk their life in the forest; many have reportedly been killed in tiger attacks. Honey yield too is assured. Once the season gets over in the Sunderbans, the honey hunters move on to create a buzz elsewhere in West Bengal. Their's is not exactly a boxed-in existence.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1087734

Sikkim Teesta Hydro project of NHPC: Craving a path to Disaster

Tara Dhakal, Sikkim: National Hydropower Commission (NHPC) has started the Teesta river project for hydro- electric power generation in Sikkim , India that is craving a path to disaster. It has been conceived without adequate participation from the people. Now the construction process has disrupted the lives of many people without just and adequate compensation. The extensive use of dynamite detonation has destroyed people's houses, their land and livelihood. In addition, invaluable rich flora and fauna has been severely destroyed. NHPC project have been a disaster to the rural highlands communities who have lost fields, grazing lands and access to water sources due to the project. This has pushed them to the edge in their struggle for survival. In addition, the construction process has had extensive negative environmental impacts adding to the already fragile mountain ecosystem. The traditional livelihood of the mountain people are shattered already, their houses are cracking down due to the force of dynamite blasting, which have further weakened road network and it's surrounding mountain belts causing massive land slides and soil erosion. Sikkim is an example of how indifferent and ignorant Government policies could ultimately destroy livelihood of the people.

In the name of development, disaster has been prescribed with the destruction of rich natural habitats of beneficial plants and herbs and traditional knowledge that runs among the mountain people with ultimately displacing them. All these destruction of natural resources and uprooting of the mountain people will not fetch economic outcome that the government is thinking that it would achieve through generation of electric power by constructing and controlling the flow of river by constructing dams. At the end, when glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate, such project would serve no purpose than a complete failure.

Many of the victims are waging a struggle to assert their right to life and livelihood. However, in this process they have suffered human rights abuses. Opposing NHPC is opposing the government .When people whose rights were violated tried to voice their concerns with both the project and related government officials they were arrested and beaten up by police and hooligans sent by the government. Political suppression in the form of threat of victimization of families, forced job transfers, abuse and manhandling by government hooligans, and destruction of properties/livelihood by hooligans that has been imposed since many decades is the reason behind our silence. It is human behavior that everyone values their own life and family and this adds to our compulsion to an extent that we do not even exercise our fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression. Leave alone people, even local media are politically suppressed. Mainstream media does not represent our issues. We the Sikkimese have become victims of such projects and political suppression. The Government of India is least bothered about the plight of its citizens. Indian democracy boasts of being the largest democracy in the world which is the biggest irony for citizens of Sikkim.

The author is Ford International Fellow

Source: (Unpublished) Submitted to Jharkhand News Network by Tara Dhakal

Schemes not enough to shape dreams

New Delhi, Mar 28 The Planning Commission is of the view that no single scheme of the government alone can liberate people from the low-end poverty.

There is a need for re-designing the welfare schemes and process of the implementation and arriving at convergence for better delivery. Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Bundelkhand Uttar Pradesh need adequate focus.

"Do not expect that all the basic needs of the poor would be covered under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Social mobilisation and convergence of people's rights can considerably help in the process. Our experience shows that self-help groups (SHGs) have led to empowerment of the people, particularly the women," said Planning Commission member BN Yughandar.

Speaking at the occasion of the release of the book—Capturing Imagination of Stakeholders—authored by KS Gopal, Yughandar said there has been cruel dilution of employment assurance schemes in which the concept has shifted from "demand-driven" to that of allocation and from "worker-driven" to that of "patronage-driven". Hence schemes should be re-designed and their implementation finetuned.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=159325

Villagers turn against family over Dalit son-in-law

Jajpur - March 29 - An upper caste family has been denied access to wells and shops in an Orissa village after their daughter married a Dalit man, the distraught family said Thursday.

'- are not allowing us to draw water from the village well and tube wells for the past one month. We are forced to depend on the water of a polluted pond,' lamented Mayadhar Sahoo, father of 20-year-old Sabita.

All four shops in Badman village in Jajpur district, around 120 km from Bhubaneshwar, have refused to sell essential commodities to the Sahoo household following pressure from the villagers.

'We are being forced to trek three kilometres to purchase essential goods,' said Malati, Sabita's mother.

Sabita Sahoo broke age-old caste barrier by marrying Dilip Mallik, a Dalit of the same village, in a temple last month.

Although her family was opposed to the marriage and did not attend their wedding, villagers held a meeting and decided to ostracise the Sahoos, according to the girl's father.

'After she got married, the villagers told us to perform a death ritual for our daughter. When we refused, they started discriminating against us,' the farmer said.

The villagers are not bothered about law.

'Sabita has tainted the status of the upper caste people by marrying a Dalit,' said Raghunandan Dash, a villager.

'Since she is 'dead' for us, her family must perform death rituals. Unless and until they do that, we will continue to boycott them,' he asserted.

The local Dalit Manch has written to the National Human Rights Commission, the state Human Rights Commission, the chief minister and the governor, urging them to take action against the erring villagers.

http://www.rxpgnews.com/india/Villagers-turn-against-family-over-Dalit-son-in-law_21493.
shtml

Trapped tribals in survival mire

MANGAPET/CHATTISGARH: Wailing parents scooped up the bones of loved ones as eight cremated corpses smouldered by the road, the latest victims of a Maoist rebel war that has put tens of thousands of tribal people in the crossfire.

"Where were the police? They were drunk, hiding with their weapons," shouted Gopal Ran Udhe, who lost his son in a Maoist attack on a police post that killed 55 police and tribal militia members, in one of the worst rebel attacks in decades.

Villagers recounted how tribesmen, surrounded by nearly 500 rebels, quickly ran out of bullets for their 80-year-old rifles. Maoists bombarded the base with homemade bombs made from lunch boxes. The majority of victims were government-hired tribal militia, 'Special Police Officers', who critics say are an example of how ill-equipped tribal people are put in the front line by authorities looking for ways to beat the rebels. The region is now a stronghold of up to 4,000 well-armed Maoists, police say, who roam the Chhattisgarh forests.

"Naxalites take away our food. The police come and harass us," said Madvi Kosa, a villager whose son was one of the 55 killed. "We want to be neutral but it is becoming impossible," he said. While many tribal people at first gave support to Maoists, most have turned against the rebels who they say killed community leaders, suppressed their religion and stole their food. Over the last two years, an anti-Maoist movement among tribal people known as Salwa Judum (Campaign for Peace) has surfaced, and some 50,000 villagers have been pushed into refugee camps in a plan to defend them. However, criticism has grown that the movement was forced on villagers by a government unable to defend its own people.

The state is one of the most thinly policed in India. Police keep to their bases, afraid of landmines and ambushes. Surrounded by wire fences, the refugee camps have forced villagers off their lands. Hundreds of tribals have still been killed in the last two years.

"Initially, Salwa Judum was welcomed," said Lalit Surjan, a senior scribe. "It has since been taken over by the government and grown huge. We have been asking them to call off Salwa Judum because the state just can't protect them."

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1087737

news@jharkhand.org.uk Jharkhand News Network www.jharkhand.org.uk

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