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Apr 03, 2007

Green beauty reels from red glare

It has claimed many victims, who succumbed to the spell of its lush hills and peaceful waters over the years. For many people, Topchanchi is a slice of peaceful green paradise on earth, which even Bengal's biggest cine star Uttam Kumar could not resist. He wanted a bungalow near it.

Topchanchi, the century-old artificial lake surrounded by hills and forests and situated 36 km (north) of Dhanbad district headquarters, has been the only escape for many Dhanbad citizens from urban drudgery. Developed during the British period (around 1918), the site was once an artist's paradise.

Topchanchi at a glance:

Area: 18,625.99 hectare Population: 1,40,378 residing in 126 villages under 28 panchayats

Brief: It is the largest forest reserve of the district and has a forestland spread over 8,135.19 acres. It has a wildlife sanctuary, at present comprising six deer and 116 wild boars. Former prime minister late Indira Gandhi, in the memory of her father Pt Jawaharlal Nehru had inaugurated the sanctuary in the mid seventies. The sanctuary is spread over 8.75 km and falls under Hazaribagh wildlife division

Unfortunately, like many other places in the state, Topchanchi represents a tale of paradise lost with red scare holding its fans to ransom. Now, it has turned into a no man's land with the Naxalites stalking the site from the mid-90s.

However, hopes of former glory being restored to this century-old site was revived of late when the district administration approved a proposal to beautify Topchanchi. The mega project comprises mending two small bridges over Lalki Nala and Dholkatta Nala — culverts that were damaged by a heavy flood some 15 years ago — construction of a road, a pavilion, putting up gates, the installation of swings and slips for children at a park and finally electrification in some areas.

The tourism department has sanctioned a total of Rs 1 crore for the work, deputy development commissioner -cum-managing director of the Mineral Area Development Authority (Mada), J.P. Singh said

As much as Rs 26,72,250 has been released to the road construction division of the public works department (PWD) for the construction of the bridges and the road, while Rs 3,7500 has been given for electrical work to the executive engineer of Dhanbad electric supply division. Meanwhile, Mada has also received a Rs 20-lakh package for the construction of a pavilion in the middle of the lake.

Mada holds a special place in the area. It runs a successful water filter plant at Topchanchi (installed at the time of the British Raj), which has a capacity of filtering 40 lakh gallons of water per day.

To begin with, the proposal for reviving Topchanchi was sent to the tourism department by Mada a couple of years ago. Officials claim the project was not flagged off, thanks to a number of "impediments". The revised estimate was again sent early last year and was cleared in August. The work began a month ago, but was stalled just before Holi and never resumed.

Reason: Maoists reportedly "tormented" labourers and local contractors for "levy", a common spanner that intercepts a government's developmental programme. The workers were threatened to stay away from work. Being informed of the situation, police superintendent Sheetal Oraon and district administration officials inspected the site and asked the workers to resume work, pledging them complete security.

But it seems almost impossible to wish away the red glare. The problem lingers and scared labourers are not turning up at the site anymore.

On being told about the quandary, director of tourism department Deepak Singh acknowledged that they have received reports from the executing agencies in this respect. Drawing a parallel with Madhuban in Giridih district, Singh said the Naxalites had also targeted the area because of its importance as a tourist destination. The Indian Tourism Development Corporation's (ITDC) development work there had to be discontinued after Naxalites blew up a guesthouse there.

"We are identifying more such sites under Maoist threats at present. After this, we shall take a decision about the modus operandi to undertake tourism development work at those problematic sites," Singh added.

According to South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR), the levy from contractors vary between five and 10 per cent of the revenue. It depends upon the work-order and amount. Any kind of government or private work, small or big, is subject to the levy.

Unofficial figures peg the annual revenue from extortion in the Bihar-Jharkhand region alone at Rs 3.2 billion. The levy is the outcome of the "rate cards" distributed by the Maoists in 2006 for extortion, the SAIR states.

According to the card, Rs 8,000 is the annual charge from manual crushers, Rs 15,000 from brick-kiln owners, Rs 17,000 from mechanised crushers, Rs 25,000 from petrol pump owners and Rs 70,000 from coal sidings. The SAIR claims that the money is collected to maintain a team of experts employed in the technical wings of the banned outfit, which, according to police reports, cost the Naxalites more than Rs 2 million

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070403/asp/jamshedpur/story_7600521.asp

ST/SC students among IIM-C graduates

Out of 247 management graduates passing out of the IIM-Kolkata, around 50 belong to the SC/ST category.

These students have come a long way. Many have gotten jobs at multinational companies with an average salary of Rs 15 lakh per annum. And what helped them realize their dream of coming this far is the quota allotted for the SC's/ST's.

"I am really feeling proud of myself that I had the caliber to pass out of this esteemed institute," said Swapnil Khandekar, IIM-C graduate.

"The SC/ST reservation quota has made a hell of a lot of difference in the lives of people deprived of such opportunities in education and employment for a long time," said Jayant Ramtikae, another IIM-C graduate.

But there is one regret. While most of these students are happy with their placements there are a few who feel they have lost out on job offers from companies abroad because they lacked the requisite communication skills.

Sky is the limit

Still they have gone further than their parents could ever have hoped.

"Just because of reservation, one cannot get away in the admission process if he has got one or two marks less. It is due to their sheer hard work that these children have succeeded," said Paravati Khandekar, a parent.

"I had this thought that when Dr Ambedkar could work hard and go abroad and be successful, then why not my kids," said Suryawant Ramtikae, another parent.

A management degree from IIM-C gives them a sense of achievement they have always desired.

And having got jobs with multi national companies and plum salary packages too, for these young managers now, the sky is the limit.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070007472

Biometric cash machines bring joy

Vaishali, Bihar: These days Mahendra Sahni, a daily wage worker in India's most backward state of Bihar,

struts up to a gleaming new cash machine in his village to withdraw his hard earned money.

The middle-aged, illiterate fish farmer from Vaishali district makes about 2,000 rupees a month ($44).

For years he used to waste nearly a day getting to the bank and queuing up to get his wages.

Now, when he inserts a cash card into the machine, he is greeted with an voice instruction in Hindi: "Please put your thumb on the specified space."

When he does that, crisp currency notes roll out of the machine with the voice saying, "Your cash is ready. Please accept it."

Sahni and 14 other poor daily wage workers from Vaishaligarh and neighbouring areas are among the first villagers in Bihar to have access to biometric cash machines to withdraw their money.

"This shows how science has made progress and can be used for poor village people like us," says Sahni.

The biometric cash machines are custom-made for people who cannot read or write and use features like fingerprint verification and voice guided animated screens and easy navigation.

The federal government has now announced that everybody in Vaishali employed under its ambitious new National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will get their wages through these new cash machines.

The scheme promises some 60 million households in India a level of financial protection through guaranteed work or unemployment benefit.

Banking made easy

For the moment, the cash machine run by the state-run Central Bank of India, is targeting some 210 daily wage workers in the area.

"It is basically for poor workers like Sahni who cannot read or write their names. Banking for them will become easy with these cash machines," says the bank's local manager Pranay Kumar.
Biometric cash machines promise to change banking in rural India. The biometric cash machines work through a series of processes.

First, the fingerprint of an account holder is captured through a scanner at the time of the opening of the account.

A template is created for each fingerprint and stored in the cash card given to the customer.

When Sahni goes to the cash machine and inserts the cash card, his fingerprint is captured using an inbuilt scanner and it is matched with the impression stored in the cash card.

Central Bank's executive director K Subramanyam says biometric devices will go a long way in offering banking services in India's villages where 70% of its people live.

Payment through cash machines will also protect the workers from local contractors who routinely extract a cut from their wages in return of getting them on the list of government employment schemes.

For the moment, Sahni and his neighbours are happy to have discovered a hassle-free way of withdrawing their meagre savings.

The entire procedure of cycling to the branch and going through the paperwork with help from others and waiting in the queue for the money took up valuable work time.

The other day, he picked up 1,000 rupees in five minutes flat from the cash machine and cycled back home to begin work again.

"Withdrawing money couldn't be a better experience," he says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6478627.stm

Family ties hope for renal patients

- Mass awareness can help curb kidney smuggling rackets; all can donate and live healthy life

Ranchi, April 2: Lack of awareness about transplantation led a mother to refuse to donate one of her kidneys to save her child who suffered from renal failure.

This is not an exception. Many well-educated families react negatively when it comes to donating a kidney for their loved ones, even though it is a well-known fact that we are born with an additional kidney.

Strange as it may sound, but a 30-year-old married woman from Hazaribagh with damaged kidneys has been left to die as both her Bihar-based parents — the mother is a police officer while the father, a high court lawyer — have refused to help. Moreover, the woman's brother has also refused.

Married to a businessman, the mother of a two-year-old is hoping to find a donor, as her husband's blood group does not match hers (A+). Having already spent over Rs 4 lakh in treatment all over the country, the family was finally approached by a young boy from Gaya, Bihar, who was ready to donate a kidney for a price, but they refused. "My father was against taking a kidney from a young boy. Besides, it could have been a trap," the husband of the ailing woman said.

Nephrologists believe refusal from blood relations has given rise to kidney smuggling. "If parents and siblings refuse, who will donate? Won't people look for paid donors?" a city-based nephrologist asked. After refusal from relatives of the same blood group one can only opt for lifelong dialysis that costs between Rs 15,000 and Rs 30,000 monthly, which all cannot afford.

Nephrologist Ghanshyam Singh, who was instrumental in starting kidney transplantation at Ranchi-based Apollo Hospital, points out that there is a shortage of organs and the only solution is donation. "People should be made to realise that God has given them two kidneys and they can lead a healthy life even without one," said Singh.

Another nephrologist, Ashok Kumar Vaidya, cites examples where both the donor and the patient are leading a healthy life. "There is a student of DAV, Shyamali, whose mother donated her kidney about two years ago. Three years ago, a Chutia-based boy also went through a transplant. All the four are happy and healthy," said Vaidya.

A good example of donation can be found in the family of businessman R.P. Singh, closely related to Ranchi district transport officer (DTO) Shivendra Kumar Singh. The DTO says with pride that Singh's daughter-in-law volunteered to donate her kidney. "They family has gone to Chandigarh and the operation is scheduled for April 7. She is one looking after the aged man the most," he said. She has set an example, added Singh.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070403/asp/jamshedpur/story_7600523.asp

650 goats sacrificed in Orissa to appease deity

Bhadrak (Orissa), April 2 (IANS) Around 650 goats were sacrificed at a Kali temple in Orissa as part of an annual ritual despite a ban by the local administration, an official said Monday.

The sacrifice was made at the Rakshya Kali temple at Rameswarpur village in Bhadrak district, about 170 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, Saturday night. The incident came to light Monday after some officials and villagers reported it.

The mass sacrifice is held once a year in the Hindu month of Chaitra. 'Our village is always guarded by Rakshya Kali. It is a 72-year-old tradition,' villager Dibakar Barik told IANS.

'Earlier, devotees used to offer buffaloes as sacrifice. Now we sacrifice goats,' he said.

According to local police, who witnessed the event, the area around the temple's sacrificial altar was soaked in blood. The animals were first garlanded before being led to the altar and their cries got drowned by the beating of drums.

Some devotees even scrambled to touch the blood of the sacrificed animals, believed to be auspicious and a good omen, while some even smeared it on their forehead, an official said on condition of anonymity.

Last year, animal rights activists had launched protests when hundreds of goats were sacrificed at the same temple in the presence of Revenue Minister Manmohan Samal. The activists had also burnt an effigy of the minister.

A week ago, the district administration made an attempt to stop the practice. Top district and police officials had held a meeting with temple committee members and villagers.

It was decided that only one animal would be sacrificed, but the devotees flouted the agreement, the official said.

According to him, a 15-year-old girl of the village rushed to the temple with a group of villagers and claimed she was the personification of the deity. She threatened to kill anyone who stopped the sacrifice. The frightened devotees continued the practice, he said.

'We are helpless,' district collector N.K. Burma said. 'It can only be stopped when the people want and for that we are creating awareness.'

http://www.andhracafe.com/index.php?m=show&id=21086

Tribe defends 'hill god' from foreign miner

LANJIGARH: Their thick, ancient forests shelter leopards, elephants and even the odd tiger, their slopes are home to an isolated tribe, but the "curse" of eastern India's Niyamgiri hills lies beneath the soil.

Massive deposits of bauxite have brought Britain's Vedanta Resources to this remote corner of the state of Orissa, where they have already built a $900 million alumina refinery.

Just a stone's throw from its gleaming new facility, a few hundred people gathered in the shade of mango trees in Lanjigarh in mid-March for the latest protest against the company.

Among them, Dickcha Majhi, who walked for five hours from her remote village to the small town, a member of the 8000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe, who worship an Earth Goddess and revere the hills as their protector Niyam Raja.

"She is our mother and he is our beloved lord," said the small 30-year-old woman, rows of colourful beads around her neck, golden rings through her nose and through her ears, her frizzy hair held down firmly with a dozen metal hair clips.

"If you hand the hill over, the hill god will eat us."

As eastern India engages in a headlong but increasingly controversial rush to industrialise and exploit its vast mineral resources, Vedanta's plans to turn the top of the Niyamgiri range into open-cast mines has emerged as a key battleground.

It is a battle not about whether to industrialise, but how to do it, and how to compensate the losers. And it is being waged in the courts and in the streets at the same time.

Conservationists say the miners could and should have chosen other hills, instead of risking the rich biodiversity of Niyamgiri, and have taken the issue to the Supreme Court.

On the ground, tribal farmers worry their traditional lands and livelihoods will disappear once mining begins. They are being coralled by local Congress party politician Bhakta Charan Das, who promises to stage a mass march on the site in mid-April.

"By the time they reach here, the site will be gheraoed (encircled) by 50,000 people and the administration will be paralysed," he threatened.

"BLATANT VIOLATION"

An elephant corridor, and the only known home of the rare golden gecko in Orissa, the hills were proposed as a wildlife sanctuary in the 1990s.

The Wildlife Society of Orissa dismisses Vedanta's pledge to spend millions of dollars protecting wildlife.

"How will they manage the wildlife? Take them out and keep them in five-star hotels?" asked Biswajit Mohanty.

"Seventy-three million tonnes of bauxite will be taken out. You can't mitigate the effects of that."

The Vamsadhara river rises from the range and more than 30 streams from the mining site, providing water which sustains hundreds of thousands of people, conservationists say. Mining will destroy those sources, they argue.

In September 2005, a Supreme Court committee recommended that "the use of forest land in an ecologically sensitive area like the Niyamgiri Hills should not be permitted."

It also condemned the Ministry of Environment and Forests for a "blatant violation" of its own guidelines for the refinery to be built without getting clearance to mine in the hills, much of which is protected forest under Indian law.

But Vedanta, along with the state and central governments, have fought back hard. The company says the bauxite lies in the top 25-30 metres of the 1,000 metre-high hills, and promises to protect water sources lower down from contamination.

It will fill up pits with residues as it goes along, and plant new trees, said refinery head Sanjeev Zutshi.

The Supreme Court will now refer the case to the Forest Advisory Committee, an expert panel. But that will only happen when the court and the government resolve a separate row about who should sit on that committee.

FORGING AHEAD

In the meantime, Vedanta is forging ahead. The refinery carried out a test run in March. Some of the pillars to carry a conveyor belt from the mine to the plant have already been built.

Zutshi says 17 locals are working in the refinery and 50 more are being trained. Hundreds might get jobs from local contractors as shovel men, to sweep out spillage and drain slurry. But employment for all is simply not possible in an industry which requires small numbers of skilled workers.

"There is one big issue which is difficult to address, and that is the issue of employment," he said. "These people unfortunately are not educated at all, most of them are illiterate."

Instead Vedanta says it has sponsored health and education in local villages as well as alternative income-generating projects.

But the company's claim to popular support was belied by February's local elections, where Congress-backed candidates running on anti-Vedanta tickets dominated, Das said.

Two hours drive away on a rocky, dirt road, a few Dongria Kondh tribesmen and women sat outside their thatched roof huts, their filthy and malnourished children dressed in rags beside them, berries fermenting in the sun to make homemade liquor.

Vedanta says the mines will not affect the slopes on which these people live, only the summits and ridges which they worship. But already people here fear the worst.

"The earth is our mother," said 26-year-old Verang Majhi, rejecting any talk of compensation to leave ancestral lands. "Would you leave your mother for money?."

Later, as dusk drew in and the lights of the refinery dominated the night sky, Reuters visited the village of Bandhaguda, right up against the wall of the plant.

Daka Majhi said all 32 men of his village were arrested by police and jailed for seven days last year, with scarcely any food and water, for staging a peaceful protest outside the refinery.

Their women were threatened by police while Vedanta completed the wall around the plant, cutting the people off from their pond, cremation grounds and much of their fields, he said.

Zutshi contested that version of events, and said repeated efforts had been made to reach out to the villagers, even offering them resettlement at one point, only to be obstructed by a handful of people who wanted "heaps of money."

Vedanta, he insisted, was not the bully that politician Das made it out to be. Nor could it afford to be.

"The days are gone when you can impose yourself, surround yourself with goons and policemen, and browbeat every Tom, Dick and Harry," he said. "It's not going to work, it's not a long-term solution at all."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4012813a7693.html

Women cadres call the shots

KOLKATA: Woman power is on the rise among Maoist extremists in West Bengal. Since the appointment of 23-year-old Sabita Kumari as commander-in-chief of the Maoists, more women are being put in charge of action squads than ever before.

The Intelligence Branch (IB) of the West Bengal police reports that women are being deployed in larger numbers as they are more efficient in avoiding police dragnets, following inputs from central agencies that mega industrial projects may be the next target of the extremists.

Investigating officials are of the opinion that this new trend has evolved after 23-year old Sabita Kumari was unanimously elected as the commander-in-chief of the Maoist action squad of West Bengal.

Kumari was earlier in charge of the Maoist guerrilla outfit in Dantewada, Chattisgarh and has been given a new assignment in West Bengal, at a secret meeting of the Maoists at Bangriposi in Orissa.

According to IB intelligence, Kumari set about organising and strengthening action squads, in the three stronghold districts of Bankura, Puruliya and West Midnapore, immediately after being handed over charge. As a part of this strategy, she recruited female comrades from other states, all of whom received training in sophisticated weapons and explosives at a secret Maoist training centre in Jharkhand.

Most of them are sharp-shooters and are also trained in firing at moving targets. As per police records, Kumari too received her training at the same centre.

High level IB sources told DNA that the basic advantage of inducting women guerrillas from other states is that at the initial stage the police do not have adequate information about their details and movements.

Born in Prabira village of Jharkhand and a science graduate from Dultongunj College, Kumari joined the Maoists in 2000. She is on the Chattisgarh most-wanted list and several cases are registered against her, which include killing of police officers, political leaders and helping fellow Maoists escape from police lock

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1088710

MEANS AND ENDS

The east Asian model for development will not work in Bengal

The author is professor of economics, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta

Raskolnikov, theoretically the murderer in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, had resolved to kill an old woman who was greedy, malicious, charged interest and was so sick that she was likely to die on her own in a month or so. By murdering and robbing her, Raskolnikov intended to make his mother happy, deliver his sister from her bondage, finish his university education, go abroad, and then for the rest of his life be honest, firm and unswerving in fulfilling his duties to humanity. Could his noble end justify his means? It was an ethical question and Dostoevsky took the moral stand that it could not.

Moral stands are not fashionable these days. In these troubled times, when dozens and scores are getting murdered in the name of industrialization, in feuds over land acquisition, no one seems to bother about ethical questions. But quite apart from morality and ethics, there are practical issues too. Can we go ahead with our plans of industrialization in an awful mess like this?

No doubt Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has taken his drive for industrialization seriously. He and his party associates are Marxists seeking to achieve capitalist ends. To accomplish these ends, they are using private incentives and market forces along with coercion and brute muscle power. Being brought up in the Stalinist tradition of thinking, they are not too scrupulous about the methods they take to achieve their goals. For them, ends do justify the means.

The drive for industrialization entailed wooing investors on the one hand, and acquiring land for industries and infrastructure on the other. Bhattacharjee and his deputies decided to woo the investors by giving them subsidies, incentives, tax breaks and low-interest loans. They have even gone to the extent of raising money from the market at the going rate of interest to finance these huge industrial subsidies, expecting future economic activities in the state to go up and yield so much tax revenue that the debt can be easily repaid. Quite expectedly, the endeavour had a favourable effect on potential investors and on those who were sympathetic to market-oriented reforms. As entrepreneurs gradually changed their perception about the state and seriously started considering West Bengal as their next investment destination, Bhattacharjee was hailed by a wide spectrum of people, cutting across party lines, industry houses and the different strata of society.

The other part of the endeavour, the more important part in our opinion, was related to acquiring land for industrialization. Unfortunately, very little thought, energy and effort went into the planning of this part. Compensation and rehabilitation questions were largely ignored. Perhaps it was decided that the formidable political machinery of the party would take care of resentments arising out of eviction, and if verbal persuasion failed, brute force would be applied. In other words, when it came to the question of land acquisition, the Stalinist selves of Bhattacharjee and his party raised their ugly heads.

The practice of using brute force to achieve economic ends was not confined to Stalin's Soviet Russia alone. In the Britain of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, prospects of selling woollen manufactures in the European markets suddenly came up in a big way. Consequently, the village commons, which were cultivated till then on a communal basis, were enclosed for sheep-grazing. The peasant farmer was evicted from his traditional livelihood and the gentlemen sheepgrowers, armed with royal support, prospered along with the merchants and manufacturers. According to some estimates, 2.76 per cent of the total land was enclosed and 50,000 persons were forcefully evicted.

This was no small number in a country whose total population around the year 1600 was about four million. Most historians agree that the enclosure movement, and the consequent eviction of tillers from land, led to large-scale conversion of farmers into a mass of vagrant and unemployable labour force gradually turning into beggars and thieves. The onslaught continues even today. According to the National Research Centre for Resettlement in China, forty five million people were displaced by development projects in that country between 1950 and 2000. The eviction, of course, involved a lot of brute force. There are, however, a couple of fundamental differences between 17th-century Britain, Stalinist Russia and the People's Republic of China on the one hand and West Bengal on the other.

Unlike the former set of countries, we do have a functioning democracy, however faulty it might appear to be. Moreover, our state is not even a country, it is only a small part of a larger nation. These differences have important bearings on the strategies we can possibly adopt for industrialization.

Bhattacharjee's government is trying to apply the east Asian model of development for the economic betterment of West Bengal. According to this model, the investor is treated like a king as long as he performs. He gets all possible benefits, subsidies and incentives from the government on the condition that he has to deliver. If he fails to do so, he is kicked out of the market because subsidies are often time-bound and short-lived. On the other hand, humanitarian considerations are largely kept aside if they hinder the investors' interests. Land is taken away from the farmers for industrial use without much compensation and by force if necessary. Savage labour laws are imposed upon the workers. The buzzword is growth. Growth, and only growth, sanctifies all possible wrongdoing.

The model has produced miracles in east Asia, certainly in terms of growth, though not always in terms of human development. But it can hardly work for West Bengal even to raise the rate of growth. For one thing, being a part of a larger country, West Bengal has to compete with other states to attract investment. But if we indulge ourselves in the expensive game of attracting investments by bidding up subsidies, we cannot punish the non-performer, for if subsidies are withdrawn the investor can threaten to pack up and move to some other region. A slower but much surer way is to attract the investors by building up good infrastructure and ensuring labour-market harmony.

In the latter case, market forces can take care of non-performance and inefficiency. More important, the recent incidents in Nandigram and Singur, and the ensuing anger and protest they have generated all over the state and the country, clearly point to the fact that in a functioning democracy like ours, the coercive method of land acquisition is untenable, not only from a moral standpoint, but also as a matter of practical policy.

Coercion worked only in countries where governments were authoritarian enough to suppress voices of protest, as in east Asia. Over the last few years, Bhattacharjee and his associates have been talking a lot about investors' perception about West Bengal, about how it has improved over the years and how it ought to improve further in the near future. The Nandigram incident has sent a clear message to them. It has demonstrated that like the investors' perception, the people's perception about the process of industrialization is also important, probably more important in a functioning democracy.

If the majority, or even a sizeable minority, perceives that industrialization is going to hurt, then it will be impossible to carry out. Bhattacharjee should read and understand this message. If he fails to do so, it will be a disaster for the state, because it is industrialization alone that can lift West Bengal from the depths of poverty and destitution. The Nandigram carnage should also teach the policy-makers that the means are as important as the ends.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070403/asp/opinion/story_7597169.asp

RRSS prevails, C'garh too bans sex course

AIPUR, APRIL 2 : The Chhattisgarh government has decided to end its Adolescence Education Programme. Days after similar steps were initiated by neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and two years after it introduced the programme in Classes IX and XI, the Raman Singh government asked the Chhattisgarh State Council for Educational Research and Training to immediately stop sex education in state schools, while instructing the SCERT to find ways "compatible with Indian culture" to create AIDS awareness among students.

The decision to abandon sex education in schools was taken after senior RSS functionaries objected to the "explicit material" being used in the Adolescent Education Programme, forcing the Chief Minister to direct SCERT to remove "objectionable" material and photographs which "do not have a place in Indian culture".

Senior SCERT officials involved in the development and implementation of the programme had tried to convince the Chief Minister about the merits of the programme, urging him not to abandon it. But Raman bowed to the RSS's demands. "The SCERT has been told to remove graphic anatomical pictures from the kit meant for teachers," an official, baffled by the government's decision, said.

Incidentally the step to remove sex education from school curriculum comes even as the RSS lobby, which has been keen to remodel the education system, managed to include yoga in the state school curriculum recently.

Speaking to The Indian Express, SCERT Director Nand Kumar confirmed that the government had sought "remodelling" of the Adolescence Education Programme. "We have been asked to remove photographs which were deemed too explicit and replace these with sketches and find other ways to create AIDS awareness," he said.

The Chief Minister has also asked the SCERT to make a presentation of the remodelled programme, after which a decision on the future of the programme would be taken.

The programme was introduced in the state two years back and under it, Classes IX, X and XI students were to be imparted sex education and told about AIDS. About 725 teachers were provided training by the National AIDS Control Organisation and Unicef for making children aware about AIDS, in a project which cost Rs 25 lakh and had been implemented in a majority of districts in the state.

The government's move has been severely criticised by people behind the project. "Scrapping the programme is not the solution. We need to find ways in which a student can be taught about AIDS and given sex education that does not affect the cultural sensitivity prevalent in an area," Joint Secretary, Council Of Boards of Secondary Education (COBSE), Puran Chand said.

He pointed out that a few months ago COBSE, a consultative and apex body of education boards in the country, had launched a package on adolescent education and requested each state government to implement it. "However, due to non-cooperation from various states we have not been able to integrate sex education in the syllabus," he added, stating that only 17 of the member 41 boards had replied positively to COBSE's initiative.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/27352.html

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

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