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| Jun 19 - 25, 07 |
Maoists blast rail track, seize train
Ranchi: Maoist guerrillas blew up a rail track, laid siege to a passenger train for three hours and burnt trucks as they launched a two-day 'economic blockade' in Jharkhand Tuesday.
The protest began at midnight Monday to protest against the arrest of Maoist leaders and 'police repression'.
According to the police, the railway track was blown up between Barkahana and Barwadih stations. The engine of a goods train was set on fire in Lathear district.
Maoists also stopped the Jodhpur-Howrah train near Parasnath railway station in Giridih district. They stopped it around 1 a.m . Tuesday by parking a truck on the railway track. They left after three hours.
In coal-rich Bokaro district, the rebels stopped a coal-laden goods train and unloaded the coal on the tracks.
In Pakur district, the guerrillas raided the Panam coal mine and burnt eight coal-ferrying dumper trucks. Some rebels abducted four officials posted there. While three officials escaped, one is missing.
The railway authorities have cancelled around a dozen trains, including the Ranchi-New Delhi Rajdhani Express and Jharkhand Express, to avoid attacks by the rebels.
'No casualty has taken place in any of the incidents,' said Jharkhand Director General of Police J.B. Mahapatra.
Maoist rebels are active in 18 of 22 districts in the state. Around 740 people, including 290 security personnel, have been killed in Maoist-related violence in the last six years in the state.
The 'economic blockade' is also taking place in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/news/article_1322552.php/Maoists_blast_rail_
track_seize_train
Mill to process natural uranium ore commissioned
CHENNAI: The natural uranium crunch that hit India's indigenously-built Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and brought down their capacity factor will ease with the commissioning on Monday, for trial run, a mill at Turamdih in Jharkhand for processing natural uranium ore. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, inaugurated the mill. He opened an open-cast mine at Banduhurang for production of natural uranium ore. Besides, he laid the foundation for constructing an underground mine at Mohuldih for excavating uranium ore. The mill and the mine have been built by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), a public sector undertaking of the Department of Atomic Energy.
According to Ramendra Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, UCIL, the mill at Turamdih could process 3,000 tonnes of natural uranium ore a day. The existing mill at Jaduguda, also in Jharkhand, processed 2,190 tonnes a day. Thus, the two mills could together process about 5,200 tonnes of uranium ore a day. It would take a month for the operations at the mill at Turamdih to stabilise. "We have a centralised control room and drum filters in place of belt filters at Turamdih. So recovery of uranium ore will be better," said Mr. Gupta from Jaduguda.
The process
It is a state-of-the-art, high-end capacity plant. Through a series of chemical processing methods in these two mills, uranium is obtained from the ore and then converted into yellow cake. At the Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad, the yellow cake is fabricated into fuel rods which become the fuel for the 15 PHWRs operating in the country now. These 15 reactors need 540 tonnes of natural uranium a year but the production till a few weeks ago stood at 280 tonnes of natural uranium a year. This led to the capacity factor of the PHWRs dropping from about 90 per cent in 2002-03 to 65 per cent now. The situation will ease with the commissioning of the mill at Turamdih and the mine at Banduhurang.
The mine at Banduhurang will produce 2,250 tonnes of natural uranium ore a day and the mine was built in two years at a cost of Rs. 95 crores. The underground mining project at Mohuldih in Seraikela-Kharswan district in Jharkhand was part of the UCIL's expansion programme. This mine will produce 1,50,000 tonnes of ore a year. It will be built in 48 months at a cost of Rs. 90 crores. Construction of a mine at Bagjata in Jharkhand is under way and production of natural uranium ore there will begin in 2008.
Mr. Gupta said the UCIL started constructing an exploratory mine from June 18, 2007 at Gogi near Yadgir in Karnataka for excavating uranium ore. V.P. Raja, Additional Secretary, DAE and S.K. Malhotra, Head, Public Awareness Division, DAE, took part in the function.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/26/stories/2007062651661300.htm
Jharkhand In The 1857 War Of Independence
THREE currents of revolts and resistance against the East India Company, over lapping each other but not inter-related, were observed in the area of present day Jharkhand during 1857 war of independence.
After the battle of Palassy, giving diwani (revenue administration) of Bengal Bihar and Orissa to East India Company on August 12, 1765 by the Mughal emperor was a turning point in Indian history as EMS Namboodiripad pointed out in his seminal work, A History of Indian Freedom Struggle. Unlike Bengal, the feudatory chiefs in Jharkhand were almost independent, maintained army and administered justice in their own territories and paid tribute at their will to Mughal emperor. After they got Diwani, to force payment of revenue and to impose subordination, East India Company launched armed campaign against the feudal chiefs of Jharkhand in 1767. The British armed campaign and armed resistance by the feudatory chiefs continued, intermittently, almost for three quarters of a century. Feuding feudal chiefs helped Company army to defeat themselves.
The other current of armed revolt and resistance against the British armed forces was by the adivasis spanning over 128 years. No other place in India has seen such armed revolts, resistance and sacrifice of the masses against the might of the British government for such a long period. Chronicle of such revolts include Mal Paharia revolt (1772-80), Santhal revolt under the leadership of Tilka Manjhi (1780-85), Munda revolt in Tamar under the leadership of Bishnu Manki and Maiju Manki (1795-1800), Chuar revolt (1798), Bhumij revolt of Manbhoom (1798-99), Chero revolt under the leadership of Bhukhan Singh in Palamau-Surguja (1800-02), Munda revolt in Palamau under the leadership of Bhukhan Munda (1819-20), Ho uprising (1821), Oraon revolt under the leadership of Buddhu Bhagat (1830-32), Kol uprising (1831-32), Kherwar revolt under the leadership of Bhagirath, Dubai Gosai and Patel Singh (1832-33), Bhumij revolt under the leadership of Ganga Narain Singh (1832-33), Santhal Hul under the leadership of Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu (1856), Kherwar movement under the leadership of Bhagirath Manjhi (1874), Kherwar revolt (1881), Sardar movement of Munda tribes (1858-81, 1890-95), Munda Ulgulan under the leadership of Birsa Munda (1895-1900).
Adivasi armed revolts and resistance characteristically differed from other contemporary currents of struggle for independence. Adivasi revolts were mass uprisings of peasants. They used bows and arrows and other traditional arms against fire arms. Their struggle was for freedom, natural justice, identity and traditional rights on land, forest and water. They adopted the tactics of guerilla war fare. They fought against the British army and their sepoys, police, zamindars, money lenders and government administrators.
Permanent zamindari settlement of 1793 added to the woes of the adivasis. " Zamindars, the police, the revenue and court alas have exercised a combined system of extortion, oppressive extraction, forcible dispossession of property, abuse and personal violence and a variety of petty tyrannies upon the..Santhals." (Calcutta Review, 1856). Under Indian forest act, waste lands of adivasi villages were converted as protected forest depriving the adivasis of their traditional rights on forest produce. Obviously, adivasis in general did not have faith on the sepoys and feudal lords, who led 1857 war of independence.
Yet, 1857 war of independence in Jharkhand broke out at Hazaribagh on July 30 when Santhals rebelled against the Company government, broke the jail and freed the prisoners. Hazaribagh deputy commissioner fled to Barhi. Hazaribagh became free.
Credit of mobilising the Santhal adivasis against Company government goes to Shekh Bhikhari. Shekh Bhikhari was himself a zamindar of 12 villages and later became dewan of Khatanga state of Tikait Umrao Singh. Both of them were patriots and closely followed the war of independence which began in other parts of the country. They encouraged the sepoys of Ramgarh army battalion, which was within the territory of Khatanga state, to revolt. The sepoy leaders were also in touch with Mangal Pandey. On July 31 under the leadership of Madho Singh and Nadir Ali Khan sepoys of Ramgarh army camp revolted. The foreign officers and loyal sepoys were defeated in Chutupalu ghat. The combined forces of sepoys of Umrao Singh and zamindar Madho Singh led by Shekh Bhikhari marched towards Ranchi to join hands with Thakur Bishwanath Sahdeo and Pandey Ganpat Rai.
Thakur Bishwanath Sahdeo was the jagirdar of Barkagarh state under the Maharaja of Chotanagpur. In 1855 he revolted against British rule and defeated British army. Pandey Ganpat Rai was the dewan of Maharaja of Chotanagpur. Both of them joined hands to fight the British rule despite opposition by Maharaja of Chotanagpur, who sided with the British government. Bishwanath Sahdeo and Ganpat Rai proceeded to meet Veer Keur Singh of Jagdisgpur of present Bihar for alliance against the British. They were intercepted by British army. Ganpat Rai led the rebellion of sepoys in Doranda army camp of Ranchi. The combined forces of Umrao Singh, Shekh Bhikhari, Madho Singh, Bishwanath Sahdeo and Ganpat Rai and rebellious sepoys of Ramgarh battalion and of Doranda army camp broke jail and freed the prisoners, burnt record rooms and administrative offices at Ranchi. Ranchi commissioner Dalton, deputy commissioner Denis and judicial commissioner Oaks fled from Ranchi through Kanke-Pithoria road. Ranchi became free.
Two brothers Nilambar and Pitambar organised the Bhogtas and Kherwars of Palamau. They joined hands with jagirdar of Chero. They were influenced by Doranda sepoy rebellion. They freed Lesliganj and Shahpur, southern part of Daltonganj.
Thus, beginning on July 30, 1857 within few months large areas of Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Ranchi and Palamau of present day Jharkhand were liberated from British rule.
At local level due to disunity, absence of central command, lack of trained armed personnel and of ammunitions, the freedom fighters could not sustain.
By 1858, the war of independence in the area of present day Jharkhand was ruthlessly suppressed by the British army. Two hundred Santhal rebels in Hazaribagh and hundreds of sepoys were executed. Shekh Bhikhari was arrested on January 6, summarily tried on January 7 and was hanged on January 8, 1858. Thakur Bishwanath Sahdeo and Ganpat Rai were hanged side by side at the gate of Ranchi zila school to terrorise the people. Nilambar Pitambar retreated in Manika forest and continued their fight. Latter they were arrested and hanged to death.
In 1857 feudal India, the declared objective of the war of independence was to re-establish the Mughal emperor to the Delhi throne. At local level the freedom fighters wanted to establish native rule and maintain their feudal social system and cultural identity. The concept of parliamentary democratic system in India would come much later in twentieth century. 1857 war of independence was naturally led by the feudal lords. Second phase of freedom struggle under the leadership of national bourgeoisie would come by the end of nineteenth century with the growth of industrialisation and formation of national bourgeoisie. The role of the working class and their ideological and political struggle would again come much later with the contradiction growing in the changing material conditions.
By no means can supreme sacrifice of the patriots of the 1857 war of independence be under-estimated. The entire area in northern India, from Bengal to Delhi, was in ferment. The people rose in revolt against the foreign rule. The sepoys and leadership of the then feudal society joined hands but could not succeed. This is the 150th year of that great rebellion. Let us remember the martyrs who laid down their lives against imperialism.
http://pd.cpim.org/2007/0624/06242007_1857%20jharkhand.htm
Jharkhand banks to take on Naxals
RANCHI: Banks in Jharkhand are targeting Naxal-hit districts to improve their credit deposit ratio (CDR). As many as 17 banks in the state have lower CDR than the state average. These banks have been advised by the Jharkhand State-Level Bankers' Committee (JSLBC) to take steps to improve the situation. The overall CDR of the state stood at 40.83% in March this year.
Banks are facing closure in Naxal-hit areas of the state. For instance, Bank of India is reported to have closed its Masaria branch in Gumla district. A few other banks could soon follow suit.
JSLBC chief manager RN Singh told ET districts such as Lohardagga, Simdega and Latehar are the worst-hit. Steps are being taken to improve CDR of banks in these districts.
Banks in the state achieved 47.59% of their Annual Credit Plan (ACP) target for 2006-07 in Lohardagga district, which is the least among all. Total annual credit in Lohardagga amounted to a mere Rs 22 crore. Simdega registered an ACP of Rs 30.72 crore and Latehar Rs 34.10 crore, as in March 2007. About 80% of the 550 branches of various banks in rural areas of the state are located in Naxalism-affected areas.
"Banks in Naxal-hit areas are unable to tap the market because of security reasons. As many as 18 of the 22 districts in the state are affected by Naxalism. Banks in the state have taken it up as a challenge and are devising strategies to increase advances in Naxal-hit areas," Mr Singh said.
Banks have decided to enhance credit flow to weaker sections of the society living in Naxal-hit districts. The majority of private banks operating in the state do not extend credit facilities to such sections. "This needs attention as there is a vast scope to improve financing to the weaker sections," Mr Singh said.
JSLBC has also advised banks to revise the ACP target in general, and agriculture target in particular, to achieve 45% credit deposit ratio and 18% agriculture credit by the end of the current financial year.
"There's a need to explore the untapped growth potential in agriculture sector in Jharkhand. The state is endowed with fertile soil, abundant water, favourable climate and low-cost labour.
Yet, only 25% of the geographical area and 47% of the cultivable area is being cropped. Thus, 53% of the cultivable land still remains to be tapped," Mr Singh said.
He said JSLBC had decided to organise a three-day symposium in partnership with Nabard on farm credit for inclusive growth to achieve a higher sustainable growth rate in agriculture by exploring potential and untapped areas of the state.
Jharkhand_banks_to_take_on_Naxals/articleshow/2142901.cms
Protests in Jharkhand as Government returns ST bill
Ranchi, June 23 (IANS) The six Jharkhand communities fighting for scheduled tribe (ST) status have reacted sharply to the central government's decision to return the bill regarding their inclusion into the ST list back to the state.
The Social Justice and Empowerment and Tribal Welfare ministries of the central government returned the bill this month, Jharkhand government sources said.
The bill had recommended inclusion of the Kurmi, Biar, Teli, Mahto, Khatori and Ghatwar communities into the ST category.
The ministries reportedly asked the Jharkhand government to do further research on these communities with the help of the Tribal Research Institute (TRI) here, they said.
The previous Arjun Munda government had sent the bill regarding the inclusion of the communities into ST category in December 2004 after it was passed by the state assembly.
The decision of the central government sparked protests and criticism across the state. Kurmi and Mahto youths burnt the effigy of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here Thursday.
"The central government's motive is not clear. If they wanted to clear the bill then they could have passed the bill in the parliament instead of sending back for research work," said Jaleshwar Mahto, a Janata Dal-United legislator.
"The state government should expedite the research work and send the report to the central government so that these castes are included into the ST category. There is proof that the Kurmis and Mahtos were in ST list before 1950," former home minister and All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) chief Sudesh Mahto said.
"The state government has sought suggestion from TRI. The Kurmi demand is long standing and the state government will look into the matter taking the sentiment of each community into consideration," Deputy Chief Minister Sudhir Mahto said supporting the views of the communities.
Criticising the Congress for the return of the bill, Shailendra Mahto, convenor of Jharkhand Kurmi Sanghrash Samittee said, "Congress is playing politics over the issue. The central government kept the bill pending for three years and now it has sent it back".
"We will soon convene a meeting of Kurmi leaders and decide on the future agitation and how to put pressure on both the state and central government to push the bill," he said.
These communities have been demanding their inclusion into the ST category for a long time and the demand got further momentum after Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar in 2000.
They also claim that they were included in the ST list in 1913 but their names were deleted from the ST list in 1950.
http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=46380
Jharkhand post offices to sell rail tickets
Ranchi, June 22 (IANS) Post offices in Jharkhand will soon start selling railway tickets and preparing PAN cards for income tax payers in a bid to generate extra revenue.
Postmen in Jharkhand have already been distributing, besides letters, condoms and contraceptive pills under a tie up with the Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust (HLFPPT).
"Enthused by the response to that scheme, we have decided to step into other fields. From July, railway tickets will be sold through post offices and we will also prepare PAN (permanent account number) income tax cards," Anil Kumar, who heads the Jharkhand postal circle, told IANS.
"We have selected 50 post offices where the railway tickets will be sold. We have already set up computers with broadband Internet links. We have trained our staff for the new job.
"We have tied up with UTI Technology Services to prepare PAN cards for tax payers, also from July. The applicants will have to submit their documents and our postman will deliver the cards after getting them prepared."
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/jun/22/jharkhand_post_offices_sell_rail_tickets
.html
Maoists kill two policemen in Jharkhand
GUMLA (Jharkhand): Two policemen, including an Assistant Sub-Inspector, were killed and three others injured when Maoists ambushed their jeep near Milmili river in Gumla district, police said on Friday.
The police team, which had been to Chenpur to nab an accused man, was on its way back late Thursday night when the Maoists, laying in wait near the river under Raidih police station, opened fire, according to police Inspector Raindra Kumar.
The police personnel also retaliated but ASI Christopher Minz and constable Ram Uday Mahto died on the spot in the exchange of fire, Kumar said.
The injured policemen were identified as constables Prakash Khalkho and Prakash Minz and Havaldar Dwarka Prasad. All of them are out of danger, he added.
Massive raids have been launched to nab the extremists.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maoists_kill_two_policemen_in_Jharkhand/
articleshow/2140616.cms
Jharkhand villagers build dam to solve irrigation woes
Vishunpur (Jharkhand), June 21: Villagers of an undeveloped hamlet in Jharkhand have constructed a dam on their own to irrigate nearly 1000 hectares of parched farmland.
Unable to get the government to act on their longstanding demand, the natives of Kumbatoli, Chatti Serka, Rehe Toli and Bheetar Serka took the initiative of making a dam on Gatti Jahria Mountain in Vishunpur area of Jharkhand's Gumla District in 2000.
The villagers brought stones and sand for construction from a neighbouring hilly region and put together voluntary efforts to make their dream come true.
"When we started the work here, we face lot of difficulties. It is not easy to go up and down the 1300 feet high mountain every day. There were no stones here in the mountain. We had to bring the stones by breaking rocks of another mountain. There was no sand in the river here, so we had to bring it up from the village," said Champa Bhagat, a villager.
A voluntary organization came to the aid of the villagers to provide technical assistance to build the dam. The improvised dam is made of sand and stones without any modern construction material like steel or cement.
"This dam will help to irrigate the field in seven villages in the region. Every household will have water now," said Bhikhari Bhagat, a functionary of Vikas Bharti, a voluntary organization.
Once completed, the dam would be able to store the water of a seasonal river and solve the irrigation and drinking water problems of over 500 families in seven villages.
http://www.newkerala.com/news5.php?action=fullnews&id=41128
Tea tribes get more muscle - Adivasi back-up for ST
Guwahati, June 21: The tea labour community's campaign for the status of a Scheduled Tribe is about to go national.
Adivasi leaders from across the country will be in Guwahati next month to show solidarity with organisations that have been spearheading the movement for ST status. The tea tribes are of Adivasi stock, mainly Santhals, whose ancestors were brought to Assam by British planters.
Apart from adding muscle to the movement for ST status, the Guwahati conclave will give shape to the national forum that Adivasi leaders initiated in New Delhi. "We will formally announce the formation of our All India SC/ST demand Co-ordination Committee in Guwahati. We formed the ad hoc committee in New Delhi recently," the secretary of the committee, Edmond Andrew Sawra, said today.
The committee will lobby with parliamentarians to get the ST tag for the tea labour community of Assam. It will also take up similar demands by Adivasis residing in Delhi and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
"In both these places, Adivasis are known as Jharkhandis. Like the tea tribes of Assam, they are demanding ST status," Sawra said.
The Assam Tea Tribes Students' Association recently restricted the entry of Congress leaders into tea gardens for the party's failure to convince its central leadership to grant the community ST status.
Sawra will meet Adivasi parliamentarians and legislators in New Delhi next week to fix the date for the conclave. "In all likelihood, the conclave will be held in the first week of July," he said.
Koch Rajbongshis, Motoks, Morans, Chutias and several other indigenous communities are queuing up for ST status.
Leaders of the tea tribes insist that their demand should not be equated with those of others as the community has already been granted ST status in the states from where they migrated. "How can a Munda or a Sawra or a Murmu be ST in Jharkhand and not in Assam? This is discrimination," Sawra said.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070622/asp/northeast/story_7955784.asp
Rebels focus on recruitment, Centre plans intelligence rejig
June 24: Even when the Maoists are planning for a mega recruitment drive in several states, the Centre has decided to rejig the intelligence machinery of both Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to tackle the red menace.
The decision came after a senior team of the Intelligence Bureau visited the two states to study the intelligence network of local police.
After giving green signal to Chhattisgarh's plan to go for an intelligence revamp costing Rs 4.6cr, the Union home ministry has asked the Jharkhand government to submit a similar proposal. "Jharkhand had submitted a proposal earlier. After vetting it with the help of Intelligence Bureau, we have sent it back to the state government along with proposed changes. The state government is now expected to get back to us," said an official at the Naxal Wing of the Union home ministry.
The intelligence revamp plan not only entails changes in surveillance equipment, but also talks about IB officials working in close co-ordination with the state police's intelligence wing to make them proficient in the shadow art.
Zooming in on Chhattisgarh, the Centre has decided to send Vishwaranjan, a senior IB official, as the director-general of police there.
He will be the second IB official, expert in left wing extremism, to be posted to Chhattisgarh within a year's time, with the first being former IB director E.S.L. Narsimhan who was made the governor of Chhattisgarh.
Meanwhile, the rebels have taken a decision to step up their recruitment exercise in remote areas of all the states, including Jharkhand, where they have strong base along the corridor from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh.
Of late, every year, claimed a senior police officer quoting the Union home ministry officials, the rebels are losing over 1,500 cadres on an average from different states. The loss is mainly due to arrests or deaths due to police firing. There have also been cases where rebels have given up arms to join the mainstream.
According to police sources, the recruitment drive has taken off in remote parts of Giridih, Bokaro, West Singhbhum, Chatra, Palamau, Koderma, Seraikela-Kharsawan and even rural pockets of Ranchi.
According to additional director-general of police (special branch) Gauri Shanker Rath, recruiting rural youths rather than elders is now the top priority of the rebels. "The top brass of the Maoists are of the opinion that inducting youths, both male and female, are of great advantage. The rural youths are more dedicated and continue to serve the group for long, seldom involve themselves in funds embezzlement and would serve for a long time."
In Chhattisgarh, a separate battalion of Special Task Force (STF) would be raised to deal with the Naxalites. The jawans would be specially trained in jungle warfare to combat the rebels having its "territories" in the forest pockets. "Colonel Rajneesh Sharma, currently serving in the insurgency-hit Kashmir, has been asked to head the battalion," said a senior state home department official.
He added that Colonel Sharma would quit the army to join on a contract for five years. He would be designated as STF Commandant with a rank of deputy inspector-general of police.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070625/asp/frontpage/story_7965092.asp
GAIL pipeline to recharge Dabhol batteries
Calcutta, June 21: The Dabhol power project will pick up steam from August, thanks to a pipeline being built by GAIL (India ) Ltd.
The GAIL pipeline connecting Dahej and Dabhol will be ready by the month-end.
It will supply gas to two of the three units of the Dabhol plant, which is now Ratnagiri Gas and Power Project.
"We will supply 8 million standard cubic metres per day gas to Dabhol," GAIL chairman and managing director U. D. Choubey said.
The company will source the gas from Petronet LNG, which has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG), to feed two units of 740mw each.
At present, one of the three units is operating on naphtha, a costlier substitute of natural gas, to feed power-starved Maharashtra .
The 576km pipeline, built at a cost of Rs 3,200 crore, will supply gas from next month but the power production will stabilise only in August.
Choubey said efforts were on to run the third unit on gas by the year-end.
"We also expect to utilise a small part of the existing LNG terminal at Dabhol by the year-end," he said.
The National Thermal Power Corporation was asked to run the power plant and GAIL to look after the gas supply after US major Enron, the original developer of Dabhol, went bankrupt.
Revenue leap
Choubey expects to raise GAIL's revenues to Rs 45,000 crore by 2011.
By that time, GAIL will commission over 5,000km of pipelines in addition to its 6,400km network at an investment of Rs 18,000 crore.
This will contribute significantly to GAIL's revenue while money from the petrochemical business will also flow in.
The company has already entered into agreements with gas producers such as Reliance, ONGC and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
Bengal plan
Choubey said the Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline that would bring gas to Bengal was expected to be built by 2011.
It will pave the way for a state-wide gas distribution network for domestic and industrial customers.
According to GAIL officials, the Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline will have facilities for a bi-directional flow.
The pipeline will pass through Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The estimated investment is around Rs 2,000 crore and the proposed pipeline will have the capacity to carry 25 million standard cubic metres of gas per day.
GAIL is also expected to build a pipeline network in the city on the model of Mumbai and Delhi to supply compressed natural gas to automobiles and piped gas to other users.
However, if coal-bed methane is found in abundant quantity in the Asansol-Raniganj belt, the company will set up a pipe distribution network in that region first.
"We can also start CNG business in Calcutta on a pilot basis by converting CBM into CNG and bringing it to the city," Choubey said.
GAIL has formed a joint venture company with the Indian Oil Corporation for city gas distribution in Calcutta.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070622/asp/business/story_7957442.asp
Women make inroads into male bastions in Jharkhand
RANCHI — More and more women in Jharkhand are daring to look beyond traditions and have taken up professions generally perceived as male bastions — like petrol pump workers and auto mechanics. Many have also come up with innovative ideas to tide over crises like food shortage.
Sunita Thapa, along with seven other women, works at a petrol pump in Doranda area of Ranchi. None of them has any major complaint and they enthusiastically fill petrol and diesel in motorbikes and four-wheelers.
"I have never faced any problem. Duty is duty and we fulfil our duty without any hesitation and try to do it with perfection," Sunita told IANS.
In Ranchi, over two dozen women constables have been deployed to control traffic.
"I enjoy my job of controlling traffic. People have to abide by my signals and anyone who violates rules is punished," said Anita Devi, a constable.
The Jharkhand police have also raised a separate women's battalion, which is currently training in Bokaro district.
A group of eight women in Sirsi village in Hazaribagh district thought of a radically different career — they underwent training to repair motorbikes and set up their own auto workshop earlier this year.
Kalawati Devi and her friends, however, still face the disadvantage of being women mechanics. Not many people are ready to avail of their services to get their vehicles fixed.
"Not many come to us to get their bikes repaired. We even learnt how to drive mobikes but people still prefer to go to town to get them fixed," said Kalawati, 40, whose husband is a rickshaw puller.
But they have not given up hope and now want to serve customers in the town. "We are planning to open a workshop in Hazaribagh town also," she added.
Similarly, women of Seelam village in Gumla district took it upon themselves to become self-reliant. With the help of Mahila Mandal, a self-help group, the women started poultry farming in 2000. Now many men are also employed by the initiative, which villagers say has changed the quality of their lives.
"Poultry farming has changed our lives tremendously. We are in a position to send our children to school and give them good education. Our families lead good lives," said Sunita Devi, a member of Mahila Mandal.
In Jamshedpur, women of several villages came together and exhibited exemplary management skills by coming up with an innovative idea to avoid food shortage, especially during droughts.
With their sheer grit, joint efforts and aid from an NGO, they set up a common granary system to store additional food grains for future needs.
"We store the surplus food grains that are given to families in times of need," said Dhaniya Devi of Laydih village.
Added Sonari Devi of Huruumbil village: "Drought and food shortages are common here. During drought, the surplus grains are distributed among the needy families. But the grains have to be returned to the granary once the crisis is over so that some other family can use it in need."
Women are entirely in charge of the granary and maintain records too.
"Women of Jharkhand have proved their mettle in diverse fields. They have the potential and just need a little push from the government or NGOs," said Vasvi, a social worker here.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/June/subcontinent_June974.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=
MEDIEVAL LITTLE INDIAS
- Benefits to the creamy layer are essential to the quota plan
Consanguinity and community of economic interests are the factors that most effectively bind a group together. Endogamy and a common occupation within each caste were the pillars of our caste system. They consolidated each caste into a rigid and exclusive brotherhood with its own rules and its own leadership, a fraternity that lasted countless generations and gave the caste system a durability that few other social structures have achieved in human history. They also ensured that each caste was so wrapped up in its own concerns and so hostile to others that no sense of Indianness emerged until centuries of racist colonial domination created a shared grievance against a common enemy.
The colonial masters have gone. Since their departure the divisive effects of the caste system have been steadily dissipating the sense of nationhood that their rule created despite the existence today of the countervailing forces of economic growth, urbanization and industrialization. The latter have induced occupational and regional mobility and fostered a degree of anonymity that weakens kinship and caste ties. In urban, industrial India, new economic alignments are emerging. Even inter-caste marriage, that ultimate solvent of the system, has made a timid beginning.
Two factors have however diluted the impact of growth and helped the preservation and reassertion of caste identities. First, there is the yet-localized and limited nature of economic growth: vast tracts of the Hindi heartland (including all Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), the tribal belts of Rajasthan, central and eastern India as well as the inaccessible North-east remain outside its pale, steeped in essentially agrarian economies with age-old traditions and power-structures. In this huge part of our world, traditional caste roles are still socially enforced and murder of couples who have the temerity to stray outside their castes is routine. This, of course, is a transient factor. As the mainstream of growth broadens and engulfs more of the country and its population, its eroding effect on caste is bound to intensify.
Far longer lasting however will be the consequences of deliberate mobilization of caste identities by politicians in search of a power base. All politicians are shrewd enough to realize that merely invoking caste loyalties cuts no ice with the electorate, particularly when the opposition could do likewise. Loaves and fishes, or at least expectations of loaves and fishes, howsoever seldom fulfilled, are needed as well — and caste quotas constitute the ideal instrument for the distribution of these goodies. 'Social justice' provides the perfect fig-leaf for this exercise in electoral bribery. And once a politician or a political party begins this game, as V.P. Singh did for the 'Mandal' castes in 1989, Pandora's box is well and truly open: the compulsions of electoral competition ensure that all others must willy-nilly follow suit.
For the ideologues of caste-based reservations, quotas are intended to rectify the inequalities implicit in the hierarchic structure of the caste system. The fact that at least 90 per cent of the educational and employment benefits from a caste quota are captured by the microscopic elite within the targeted caste is regarded by them as a deplorable but minor flaw (which can be easily corrected) in a grand egalitarian scheme.
Quota politicians know better. They know that benefits for the 'creamy layer' are not unintended and dispensable by-products of the scheme but essential to its very design. One must give credit where credit is due. Quotas were fashioned by politicians, not by ideologues, and their primary purpose was achievement, not of equality, but of caste consolidation. Sixty years of reservations have not improved the relative status of our scheduled castes, but they have produced a Mayavati at the helm of a militant SC movement. The Mandal movement has not reduced inequality anywhere, but it has transformed the politics of UP and Bihar into an open display of caste conflict with shifting patterns of coalitions and alliances among the warring castes. National parties are increasingly irrelevant on this battlefield because they have preoccupations other than caste. Even governance issues matter little in these states, as the long tenure of Lalu Prasad in Bihar demonstrated. As for corruption, the pervasive venality of the Indian politician has long devalued this as an electoral issue: where everyone will surely steal, why shouldn't I vote for the thief of my caste rather than the thief of yours?
Quotas, while failing conspicuously in their overt purpose of uplifting the least advantaged, have thus been supremely successful in their hidden agenda, the consolidation of caste identities and the caste vote. And effective caste consolidation requires a strong caste leadership with adequate resources; only such a leadership can direct the manoeuvrings of the caste vote bloc or formulate and enforce a coherent course of action for the whole caste. Exclusion of the creamy layer from quota benefits would not only totally contradict the personal interests of the leadership; it would also drive a palpable wedge between the interests of the leadership and the perceived interests of its flock that would undermine the credibility of the former. Little wonder therefore that, the laments of the quota ideologues notwithstanding, the creamy layer has kept its tight hold over quota benefits intact over the six decades spanned by reservation policy. Indeed, it is now supposed to be a standard argument for the retention of this hold (articulated, for instance, quite openly and unashamedly by Ram Vilas Paswan) that, if the creamy layer is excluded, 90 per cent of seats and jobs allotted to the quota castes would remain vacant. Clearly, the protagonists of reservation policy know who are its real beneficiaries and consciously wield it, not as an instrument of equality, but as a rallying cry to unite their castes behind them.
Unite for what purpose? At best for savage electoral bouts like those between those accomplished wrestlers, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayavati. But away from the limelight of these well-refereed electoral dangas, in obscure towns and villages, an undeclared caste war rages between the landed other backward classes and their Thakur allies, and the landless SCs — a war that ensures that UP and Bihar remain the most criminalized states in the country.
Not that the Hindi belt is unique as a caste battlefield. The clashes between the Vanniyars and the other OBCs in Tamil Nadu, the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas in Karnataka, the Kammas and the Reddys in Andhra Pradesh and between all of these castes and the Dalits in all these states have become endemic. The Naxalite insurgency that now engulfs all of tribal Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar is primarily a war of scheduled tribes against essentially OBC landowners. The North-east is simmering with countless tribal mutinies, demanding autonomy, sometimes for groups that number only a handful. And northern India a mere fortnight ago watched pitched battles over reservations between armed mobs 50,000 strong who had to be separated by the army.
In their quest for personal political strongholds, the politicians have indeed fragmented the country into a thousand Little Indias, each in determined and militant pursuit of its narrow interests. And if only they can paralyse the growth process (as Arjun Singh in his determined assault on quality in education and industry threatens to do), they will have succeeded in returning the country to a medieval anarchy in which caste was the only reality. 'Social justice' would then have been well and truly served.
The author was professor of economics at the School of International Studies, JNU
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070626/asp/opinion/story_7936121.asp
Dalit Woman Beaten to Death in Bihar
Saran (Bihar), June 25, 2007: A Dalit woman named Phulmati Devi, 43, was beaten to death in village Ruparhimpur in Saran District of Bihar in India on 23rd of June.
She was murdered on Saturday by two upper caste men named Dharmendra Tiwari and Guddu Tiwari for resisting the forcible harvesting of her field. Her son Bablu was also roughed up and seriously injured.
Phulmati's husband Bhagwan Chandra Paswan said to the Salem Voice Ministries (SVM) News Service that her only crime was she dared to oppose the upper caste people.
"Dharmendra Tiwari and Guddu Tiwari were forcibly harvesting our crops from the field for years. But this time we decided to resist their move; but it cost the life of my wife," Chandra Paswan said.
"The accusers attacked me first for opposing them," Bablu, son of Phulmati and Paswan said. "When my mother intervened to save me and resist them, they turned to her and beat her to death," he added.
A police complaint has been filed against the Tiwaris but none of them have been arrested so far.
Police officials say the two are absconding. This is just one of the many incidents where Dalits have been victimised by upper caste people in Bihar.
Last month, a dalit woman Kari Devi of 45 years old was beaten to death by a former 'mukhiya' (panchayat head) and his kin in Gaya district of Bihar on the suspicion of having stolen a cow.
A tribal man, Jeevan Munda of 35 years old allegedly beaten to death in Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand State on June 15 by forest guards for an wooden cot that he had brought home.
A few months ago, an upper caste man in Bhagalpur district chopped off the fingers of a 10 year old Dalit girl because she had plucked spinach from his field.
Rev. Paul Ciniraj, national president of the Christian Ministers of the Churches of India (CMCI) and the Director of the Salem Voice Ministries condemned the attacks towards Dalits and minorities. He appealed the central and state governments to take an immediate action to stop persecution of Dalits, Christians and other minorities.
"Many murdered and seriously injured; but governments do not take serious actions. That is the reason persecutions are increasing," Paul Ciniraj continued.
http://salemvoice.org/news187.html
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