Genocide of India's daughters
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Do women have any rights in Hinduism?! Or are they just sex objects and to be sold off by their Hindu husbands?! How do the Hindus know which child is bastard and which is legitimate? Can they trace to 30 generations back?! Lol.
Between the beginning of the Christian era and the advent of invasions around 10th century for about 1000 years women?s status slowly went down. ?Sex polarity? became the type of sex identity. Roma Chaudhury (?Some Reflections on the ideals of Indian Womanhood?) wrote: "The position of women in India gradually deteriorated as the golden Vedic ideals of unity and equality began to fade through the passage of time. During the period of the Smritis, the period of codification of social laws - women were bracketed with the shudras and were denied the right to study the Vedas... Marriage or domestic life became compulsory for women and un-questioning devotion to, and self-effacing service of husbands their only duty."
Representations of Women in Popular Indian Cinema
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Film.html
It is the Brahminical Sytem that Indian daughters have no right! The sytem prevails as the Woman`s Quota in parliment and legislature is still in deep freez! Political parties damn care for woman`s representation. CPI demanded a Woman for the presidential post but is backing a Brahmin candidate like Pranab and Somnath. Both happen to be kuleen Brahmins from Bengal where the left ensures the Brahminical dominance with Ideology and Cadrepower. The daughters of India in Nandigram Resist valiantly against indiscriminate land aquisition for Blue Revolution of capitalist development and post modern Manusmriti!
The Manusmriti (Sanskrit ?????????), translated smriti of Manu is a work of Hindu law and ancient Indian society. It is one of the eighteen Smritis of the Dharmasastra; and is a part of the Smriti literature. It contains laws, rules and codes of conduct to be applied by individuals, communities and nations. Some of these laws codify the Hindu caste system and discuss the "stages of life for a twice-born man". It explains itself as a discourse given by Sage Manu to rishis having begged him to enlighten them on the topic.
The book is ascribed to Manu, according to the Hindu mythology, the forefather of all humans. The text as preserved is generally dated to ca. the 1st century CE[1]
There are 2,031 verses (laws) of Manusmrti.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti
http://www.answers.com/topic/manu-smriti
http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-yechuri120803.htm
The role of Women in Hinduism is often disputed, and positions range from quite fair to extremely intolerant. Hinduism is based on numerous texts, some of which date back to 2000 BCE or earlier. They are varied in authority, authenticity, content and theme, with the most authoritative being the Vedas. The position of women in Hinduism is widely dependent on the specific text and the context. Positive references are made to the ideal woman in texts such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, while some texts such as the Manu Smriti advocate a restriction of women's rights. In modern times the Hindu wife has traditionally been regarded as someone who must at all costs remain chaste or pure.[1] This is in contrast with the very different traditions that have prevailed at earlier times in 'Hindu' kingdoms, which included highly respected professional courtesans (such as Amrapali of Vesali) sacred devadasis, mathematicians and female magicians (the basavis, the Tantric kulikas). Some European scholars observed in the nineteenth century Hindu women were "naturally chaste" and "more virtuous" than other women, although what exactly they meant by that is open to dispute. In any case, as male foreigners they would have been denied access to the secret and sacred spaces that women often inhabited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Hinduism
India has a law barring medical personnel from from using prenatal
diagnostic techniques to determine the sex of an unborn child. But the
law is widely ignored because local officials are reluctant to fight
the will of the people, the Daily Mail said.
Generally, in Indian society, woman who produce only daughters are
pitied, in some cases abused and in many cases regarded as betrayers.
By conservative estimates, sex-selective abortion in India accounts
for the termination of about 10 million females over the past 20 years.
"This is the world's biggest genocide ever," Chetan Sharma, a
campaigner against female feticide, told the Daily Mail of London.
Chetan is founder of the Delhi-based group Datamation.
India's 2001 census shows a drop in the number of girls 6-years-old
and under per 1,000 boys, to 927, compared to 962 in 1981.
"The future is frightening. Over the next five years we could see more
than a million fetuses eliminated every year," said researcher Sabu
George."At this pace we'll soon have no girls born in the country. We
don't know where it will stop."
The problem of undervaluing women is an old one. In the 19th century,
British leaders tried to eradicate female infanticide. Female
feticide, however, is a new phenomenon brought about by advances in
technology along with liberal attitudes toward abortion, which was
legalized in India in 1971.
Kalpana Sharma, a columnist in The Hindu newspaper, says "anyone can
walk into a government hospital and ask for an immediate abortion up
to the 20th week of pregnancy, free, merely by saying there has been a
failure of contraception. "
Subject: Daughters of the 73rd Amendment with Dr. Bidyut Mohanty
Posting Date: 24 Oct 03
Author(s):
The 73rd Constitutional Amendment that was passed in India in 1992 gave formal constitutional recognition to local self-governance units. Most significantly, it reserved 33 per cent of seats for women. Today, an estimated one million Indian women hold political office at that level.
In September 2001, SAP Canada?s India Linkage Program brought Dr. Bidyut Mohanty of the Institute for Social Sciences (ISS), New Delhi, on a four-city tour of Canada to speak on the impact of this landmark amendment. Attached are her speaking notes on the subject.
Genocide of India's daughters
Ten million female foetuses have been illegally aborted in India by mothers desperate to bear a son. What will become of this nation of ever fewer women? ANNE SEBBA investigates:
May you be the mother of a hundred sons - this is the Sanskrit blessing given to a Hindu woman in India on her wedding day. And the minute she falls pregnant, there is the traditional chanting of mantras by the other women of the family, calling for the foetus, if female, to be transformed into a male.
Increasingly, such age-old beliefs are becoming a curse in India, as, in this deeply patriarchal society, women have become obsessed with giving birth only to sons.
?Asking me why I need a son, instead of a daughter, is like asking me why I have two eyes and not one,? says one woman in the northern district of Haryana, who has just had an abortion after discovering that the baby she was carrying was female.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=393896&in_page_id=1770
For India's daughters, a dark birth day
Infanticide and sex-selective abortion yield a more skewed gender ratio.
By Uma Girish | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
MADRAS, INDIA ? The oleander plant yields a bright, pleasant flower, but also a milky sap that, if ingested, can be a deadly poison. It's one of the methods families use to kill newborn girls in the Salem District of Tamil Nadu, a part of India notorious for female infanticide.
Though the government has battled the practice for decades, India's gender imbalance has worsened in recent years. Any progress toward halting infanticide, it seems, has been offset by a rise in sex-selective abortions. Too many couples - aided by medical technology, unethical doctors, and weak enforcement of laws banning abortion on the basis of gender - are electing to end a pregnancy if the fetus is female.
The vanishing girls of India
The consequence of female infanticide and, more recently, abortion is India's awkwardly skewed gender ratio, among the most imbalanced in the world. The ratio among children up to the age of 6 was 962 girls per 1,000 boys in 1981, but 20 years later the inequity was actually worse: 927 girls per 1,000 boys.
Infanticide is illegal in India (though never prosecuted), and laws are also in place to stop sex- selective abortions. But in some places, national rules don't hold enough sway to overcome local religious and social customs - which remain biased in favor of sons over daughters.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html
Brothel Boom Ensnares More of India's Daughters
Run Date: 05/17/07
By Swapna Majumdar
WeNews correspondent
In certain rural villages in India it is traditional for low-income families to send daughters into prostitution. Some girls are being protected from that dangerous fate in the age of HIV-AIDS, but far more are falling into brothels' economic grip.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3171
BHARATPUR, Rajasthan (WOMENSENEWS)--Kamla was just 12 years old when she was initiated into the sex trade in the brothels of Delhi.
After working as a prostitute for 14 years she found a man who was willing to marry her. But Kamla (her name has been changed to protect her) knew that leaving the trade would not be easy.
Disappearing Daughters : The Tragedy of Female Foeticide
Author: Aravamudan, Gita
Year: 2007
ISBN : 0143101706
[ pp. 208, pb ]
[ Price: RS. 250.00, US$ 6.25 ]
10 million females illegally aborted in India
Parents desperate to bear son changing nation's demographics
Posted: July 7, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Main Features »
Now they no longer feed them paddy husk or poisoned milk?they stifle them with a pillow or with a cloth.? (Kanchamma, a midwife from Alligundam village in Tamil Nadu)
?We knew the doctor at the scan centre and?went to the clinic that he suggested and had the foetus removed. The next two times were also okay except that I got very tired and had to give up my job. My husband said having a son was more important than having a job.? (Renu, from Chandigarh, who has had four abortions in five years)
India has historically had a deficit of women compared to most other countries, but we now live in a time when a systematic extermination of an entire gender is taking place right before our eyes. Until the 1980s, women and girls were dying either of neglect or were killed soon after they were born. Today, the horrifying reality is that, thanks to ?advances? in medical technology, they are now eliminated while still in the womb. Female foeticide has become an organized crime and the ultrasound machine has mutated into an instrument of murder.
In Disappearing Daughters Gita Aravamudan uses the tools of investigative reporting to expose the imperatives that drive this horrific phenomenon. She unravels an appalling story of deeply embedded and destructive patriarchal beliefs, disempowered women who have no claim on their own bodies and the active complicity of a ruthless and callous medical and social system. This book makes it chillingly clear that the macabre practice of eliminating female foetuses spells doom for our sons as well as our daughters and is bound to have a disastrous impact on future generations.
Scroll down for media reports and reviews
?This book touches our conscience? from the Foreword by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
?Now they no longer feed them paddy husk or poisoned milk?they stifle them with a pillow or with a cloth.? (Kanchamma, a midwife from Alligundam village in Tamil Nadu)
?We knew the doctor at the scan centre and?went to the clinic that he suggested and had the foetus removed. The next two times were also okay except that I got very tired and had to give up my job. My husband said having a son was more important than having a job.? (Renu, from Chandigarh, who has had four abortions in five years)
About
India has historically had a deficit of women compared to most other countries, but we now live in a time when a systematic extermination of an entire gender is taking place right before our eyes. Until the 1980s, women and girls were dying either of neglect or were killed soon after they were born. Today, the horrifying reality is that, thanks to ?advances? in medical technology, they are now eliminated while still in the womb. Female foeticide has become an organized crime and the ultrasound machine has mutated into an instrument of murder.
In Disappearing Daughters Gita Aravamudan uses the tools of investigative reporting to expose the imperatives that drive this horrific phenomenon. She unravels an appalling story of deeply embedded and destructive patriarchal beliefs, disempowered women who have no claim on their own bodies and the active complicity of a ruthless and callous medical and social system. This book makes it chillingly clear that the macabre practice of eliminating female foetuses spells doom for our sons as well as our daughters and is bound to have a disastrous impact on future generations.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A woman who had nine abortions of females said it's important to have
a son because of the family's big business.
"I want what my husband has built from scratch to go to his own
blood," she said.
It's not just the assets of having a son that motivate feticide ?
carrying on the family name or business and taking care of elderly
parents. The practice of providing a dowry to the grooms' family
creates an enormous financial burden on parents who have a daughter.
Kalpana Sharma said the dowry demands today are nothing short of
extortion. Many families sell off land and are forced into debt they
can never pay off.
The affluent also are choosing feticide, as evidenced by the fact that
states with the lowest ratios of girls to boys also are the most
prosperous, such as Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana.
Affluent women, the analysts say, believe they will have a better
standard of living if they have only sons.
Land inheritance also is an issue, as daughters now are entitled
legally to an equal share of land when their parents die.
Many unqualified technicians are operating ultrasound machines
throughout the country, finding it relatively easy to get a license.
While there are 25,770 officially registered pre-natal units in India,
one doctor estimates as many as 70,000 ultrasound machines are in
operation.
Long-term consequences of the gender imbalance include the rise of
prostitution and sex trafficking and the danger to women's emotional
and physical health from repeated abortions.
The Indian government is taking steps to impose regulations on the
registered ultrasound clinics throughout the country, but Chetan
Sharma, of Datamation, says that local officials are guilty of
corruption and will simply continue to turn a blind eye.
As WorldNetDaily reported in 2004, the Bush administration withheld a
$34 million payment from the United Nations Population Fund to China
over the issue of forced abortions.
The communist government of China maintains, at least in some areas of
the country, a one-child policy sometimes enforced through a policy of
forced abortions. It is believed China performs some 10 million
involuntary abortions a year. The abortions disproportionately affect
female babies.
Facing a critical shortage of women that could leave millions of men
without wives, China is trying to convince its populace of the value
of girls, who have been systematically killed during birth or after as
a result of the one-child limit on most families.
Beijing has developed a five-year plan to correct the alarming
disparity in the numbers of males and females in the country.
First exposed by WND in 1997, what has come to be known as
"gendercide" in China has resulted in the deaths of at least 50
million girls.
Related offer:
Get "Struggling for Life: How Our Tax Dollars and Twisted Science
Target the Unborn" by Kelly Hollowell.
Previous stories:
Mandatory abortion proposed in Holland
Congress to restore funding for 'gendercide'
Bush withholds funds to China
China battles 'gendercide'
China's gendercide crisis
Cover-up of China's 'gendercide'
SC issues notices to Maharashtra, Gujarat governments
The Supreme Court today issued notices to the governments of
Maharashtra and Gujarat and Bajrang Dal activist Babu Bajrangi on a
petition accusing him of running a racket which prevented Hindu girls
from marrying outside their caste.
The notices came on the petition filed by Ajay Nikam, Naval Medige and
others. The petitioners alleged that Bajrang Dal's Nav Chetan Trust
was forcibly separating girls, who had married outside their caste,
from their husbands, at times with the consent of their parents.
The petition also alleged that divorce proceedings in such cases were
either obtained under duress or not being obtained at all.
The petition had came after the Bombay High Court had dismissed their
habeas corpus petition seeking to know the whereabouts of the missing
wives.
The High Court also ignored the report of its own inquiry committee
which had recommended the registration of FIRs against Bajrangi and
others.
Rent wife for Rs 8,000 a month in Gujarat
18 Jun, 2006 l 2352 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK
Write to Editor
SURAT/VADODARA: You might have heard of rent-a-womb, but who ever
heard of rent-a-wife! Certain people, especially in tribal belts of
Gujarat, have smelt an irresistible business opportunity in the skewed
sex ratio in the state.
If many tribal daughters are being sold in marriage, there are also
reports of husbands agreeing to their wives staying with higher caste
men, who are not able to find a wife in their own community, for a
monthly rental.
In Netrang taluka in Bharuch, police officials quote the recent
instance of Atta Prajapati allowing his wife Laxmi to stay with a
Patel in Mehsana for a monthly rental of Rs 8,000.
Laxmi has two children back in Netrang, and used to work as a farm
labourer at Patel's farm. The demand of brides fuelled by the
dwindling number of girls in Mehsana, Patan, Rajkot, Gandhinagar and
other districts has inspired many agents and poverty-struck families
to capitalise on the situation and make a quick buck.
In certain pockets of Netrang, Valia, Dediapada, Sakbara, Rajpipla and
Jaghadia, Tribals from Vasava community families can be witnessed
entering into financial agreements with brokers, called 'Vachetias'
from Banaskantha, Mehsana and Ahmedabad districts to marry off their
daughters to Patels or those from the Thakur community for a price.
The broker charges anywhere between Rs 65,000 to Rs 70,000 from the
Patel and then pay the Vasava families Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 for
their daughters.
Rights for war-scarred women
May 23, 2007 04:30 AM
Carol Goar
The passion built slowly until it became an obsession for Ariane Brunet.First, she opened a women's bookstore in Montreal. Then she headed the Third International Feminist Book Fair. Then she joined the newly founded International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, as co-ordinator of its women's rights program. That was where her commitment became all-consuming. She remembers the exact moment it happened.
She was monitoring the tribunal set up in 1994 by the United Nations to bring justice and reconciliation to Rwanda after its horrific genocide.Time after time, the same scene would play itself out.
Women who had been brutally raped and infected with HIV would appear before the tribunal pleading for antiretroviral drugs. The men who had attacked them had been receiving treatment for years.
This wasn't justice, Brunet fumed. It was humiliation. She went to Ed Broadbent, founding president of the centre, and said she had to organize an international women's coalition to speak for female victims of war.
Broadbent gave her his enthusiastic support and the financial resources to get started.
In 1997, the Coalition for Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations was born. Ten years later, it has members in Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Serbia, Peru, Colombia, Chile and Guatemala ? all countries scarred by violence ? as well as Britain, France, Japan, the United States and Canada.
This spring, 30 of its leaders gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to draft a declaration intended to guide jurists and policy-makers, when dealing with women and girls brutalized in conflict situations.
The document was unveiled in Toronto last week, kicking off a global campaign to make it part of international law."Sexual violence is a long-standing weapon of war," said Jean-Louis Roy, current president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. "The remedies must correspond to the abuse committed and the harm inflicted."
The Nairobi Declaration rests on four basic principles:
1.) That women and girls who are victims of sexual violence in conflict situations have an absolute right to reparations.
2.) That women in nations ravaged by war, genocide or ethnic cleansing must be full participants in designing and implementing programs to expose the truth, hold the perpetrators to account and compensate the victims.
3.) That post-war settlements must go beyond financial redress. They must provide women and girls with the tools to build better lives than they had before the conflict.
4.) That national governments bear primary responsibility for providing post-conflict reparations, but it is up to the international community to act as a watchdog and, in some cases, as a megaphone for victims.
"We are small so we need you, the big voices, to speak out," said Sonia Kambie-Kabbia of Sierra Leone, who helped found the Mano River Women Peace Network in her country. Her group works with rape victims, orphans, street kids, amputees and unlawfully detained women and girls.
Her plea was echoed by Gladys Canales Martinez of Peru. She was arrested, tortured and incarcerated for eight years during the brutal regime of former president Alberto Fujimori. After proving her innocence, she received a special pardon from president Alejandro Toledo. She now travels the country organizing other unjustly imprisoned people to speak out and seek reparation.
"It is hard to make progress alone," she said. "We rely on the support of the international community to move forward."
Brunet stayed out of the limelight at last week's event, letting women who had experienced war crimes tell their stories and explain the importance of the Nairobi Declaration.
It was never her intention that she ? or Canada ? would shape or drive the coalition. Her aim was give the movement an institutional home and an international voice.
She's achieved the first goal. She's consumed with the second.
"It's become an obsession with me to raise awareness, to make people see what they don't want to see."
Brunet is proud of the way female survivors of war crimes from five continents have come together to overcome the stigma, prejudice and exclusion they face. But she is under no illusion that civil society can fix what armies, governments and guerrilla forces have broken.
Until the principles of the Nairobi Declaration are entrenched in law, and world leaders accept that women have an equal right to justice and restitution, Brunet will not rest.
http://www.thestar. com/opinion/ article/216558
WaheGuru Ji Ka Khalsa WaheGuru Ji Ke Fateh
See interesting article below
Kashmir Singh LL.B, LL.M, C.Eng, Project Management NVQ, Parliamentary
Committee Advisor; former member of statutory OFWAT water industry customer
services committee for England and Wales, IEE Council
07721-507055
General Secretary
British Sikh Federation
PO Box 242, Wolverhampton WV4 5DH, England, UK
Visit the BSF website at www.british- sikh-federation. org to see details of
previous successful campaigns to safeguard Sikh Rights over many years, e.g.
work as bus drivers and conductors wearing turbans (1966), wear turbans on
construction sites (1989), overwhelming support in the European Parliament
on an Urgency Resolution for a Sikh newspaper editor's release from prison
against the then UK Government (1996), right to wear Kirpan in courts
(1999), defence for Sikh school children to wear Kirpan (1996), right for
Sikh workers at UK airports to wear Kirpan (2002), opening British Embassy
offices in Panjab and Gujarat (2003), Government commitment to set up
Commission for Equalities and Human Rights (2004), etc
Posted by: "Dalits; The Seeds of India .." india4dalits@ gmail.com
Wed May 23, 2007 5:14 am (PST)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: pardeep attri >
Date: May 23, 2007 8:09 AM
Subject: Genocide of Women in Hinduism
To: hahahaharsha2020@ yahoo.com ,
*G**enocide of **W**omen in **H**induism*
by Sita Agarwal
"In memory of my late sister, who died as a result of the inherently
anti-woman religion of barbarian Hinduism."
*Introduction* >
*Vedic Obliteration of Girls ~~ Chapter
1*>
*
**Aryan Hindu Annihilation of Women ~~ Chapter
2*>
*
**Inhuman Persecution of Women in Brahmanism ~~ Chapter
3*>
*
**Severe Restrictions Enforced upon Women ~~ Chapter
4*>
*
**Sati - Brahmin Annihilation of Widows ~~ Chapter
5*>
*
**Hindu Scriptural Sanction for Crushing of Women ~~ Chapter
6*>
*
**Hindu Gods' Subjugation of Women ~~ Chapter
7*>
*References
*>
*Source of this book: **Internet Ambedkar
Library<
Posts archive for: 30 May, 2007
-
Dalit Bharat Victimised
@ 2007-05-30 – 17:07:08
Dalit Bharat Victimized
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.comThis is Dalit Bharat today, persected! Victimised! Evicted! Killed!
Sangh Pariwar wants Buddha`s blood for Nandigram Genocide. But it has been always justifying gujrat Genocide. After Kalingnagar and Nadigram, latest name of the killingfield happens to be situated in the saffron ruled empire of Maharani Vasundhara Raje, the Ramp Queen Goddess Annapurna. Well, Dausa is not a SEZ vanue. But the victims are the same who belong to the majorty enslaved communities in a Zionist Brahminical Global Post Modern Manusmriti state! Nandigram, Kalingnagar and Dausa villagers dared to resist the statepower. The result is the same. Buddha has not resigned. Thogh he has accepted the mistake and his responsibility. Naveen Patnaik does not speak vernacular like poet Buddha and Orriss as a state is not resisting as Bengal. So, partying with Pasco, Patnaik has every right to wipe out all good achievements of his great father. He did not resigned. Neither Buddha went to Nandigram, nor Naveen to Kalingnagar. Why should be Vasundhara expected for a Durbar on margine. her majesty belongs to a really Royal Family! She has not resigned. She won`t. Sangh Parivar justified Narendara Modi and Kalyan Singh respectively for Gujrat Genocide and Babari Mosque demolition. It is not blaming the Maharani. Though , the Sangh Parivar sees emergence of Hindu unity in UP results and Mayawati`s social engineering!
Well, Rajasthan government on Wednesday invited the leaders of the agitating Gujjar community to hold negotiations with its representatives. At least 16 people were killed on Tuesday in clashes between policemen and Gujjars who were demanding their inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.Gujjars are up in arms against the state government for its failure to fulfil an election promise to recommend their case to the Centre.A cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje decided to resolve the current crisis through dialogue.
The chief minister said, "My doors are always open to the leaders of the community to find an amicable solution to their problem.""I will not permit anti-social elements to fan the violence and they will be dealt with the iron hand," she said.
NEW DELHI: The BJP on Tuesday appeared divided on the police firing on Gujjar protesters at Dausa with a senior leader calling for an investigation, contrary to the party line that appealed for calm. "It's not the question of which party is in power... I strongly condemn the police firing there.
There should be a high-level inquiry," BJP vice-president Sahib Singh Verma told reporters.
His comments came barely minutes before spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad gave the BJP's official reaction from the same podium."The incident is unfortunate. It's sad. We express our condolences... We are not condoning it either. We appeal for calm," Prasad, who neither condemned the police firing nor demanded a probe into it, said.
JAIPUR: Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Minister K L Gurjar and five Gujjar MLAs of the ruling BJP on Wednesday offered to resign in wake of the agitation and violence on the issue of grant of Scheduled Tribe status to the community.
The MLAs were Hargyan Singh, Dataram, Prahalad Gunjal and Atar Singh Bhadana.
The minister said that he, along with four MLAs, were at the party office here to hand over their resignations to state BJP president Mahesh Sharma.
Another BJP MLA Nathu Singh Gurjar, who has also expressed his desire to step down, was on his way to Dausa, badly hit by the ongoing stir.
When contacted, Sharma did not have immediate comments and said he was looking into the matter. "I will go and see what is wrong with them," he said.
Earlier in the day, the MLAs held a closed-door meeting in the state capital to discuss the issue in the aftermath of quota agitation and violence which has claimed 14 lives so far.
"We have talked to Home Minister G C Kataria and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on this crisis and expressed our views,' Nathu Singh Gurjar said.
See these articles:
Conversion should be banned
Dr T.H. ChowdaryThe competitive proselytization and conversion activities between these MNCs are becoming evident in the form of a number of churches each set belonging to a particular or different sect of Christianity (7th Day Adventist, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Pentecost, Methodist etc.) with sumptuous funds somehow garnered.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=186&page=30The day the Buddha and Babasaheb Ambedkar smiled
BY A STAFF REPORTER | Tuesday, May 29, 2007 11:28:43 IST
Close to one lakh members of backward tribes vowed allegiance to Buddhism on Sunday--Select--NewsSportsDiaryEditorialsIn MumbaiOpinionsSpecial ReportLakme Fashion WeekThe Uppercrust ShowSpecial SectionBooksFilm ReviewBusiness22nd AnniversaryMelody SaloonAfternoon BuffetHealth CheckBusiness ExtraWoman's ExtraBombay FirstShow BuzzCelebrity InterviewsArt AttackGuest ColumnStray ThoughtsA MotherRound and AboutBooksEating OutPoliticsInternet HumourTarotscopeAsit ChandmalDr.Shirin WadiaMehraboon Irani
for :Babasaheb Ambedkar smiled again after 50 years. On Sunday, May 27, close to one lakh members of the Dalit community and 41 other tribes gathered at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse to
turn their backs on an oppressive life and let a sense of freedom wash over them.
Early Sunday morning, jeeps, vans and trucks drove into the racecourse grounds where the people in the vehicles began to alight. Hundreds soon swelled into thousands and thousands swelled into tens of thousands. The number eventually touched the One Lakh figure. They came with their families, families of tens and thirteens. They came on their own, lone figures chanting Buddhist mantras under their breaths, but not alone in their quest. Those about to embark on a new journey altogether were accompanied by those who had already gone down that path, the former dressed in their burnt saffron robes and the latter, in pure white.
“My father turned to Buddhism in 1956, when Babasaheb Ambedkar first gave his directive,” said Anil Bhende, proprietor of a passport office in Malad. “I have been born and brought up a Buddhist. We have all come here together to give moral support to the others who are about to be converted and welcome them into the fold.”
A hundred and fifty monks were present to give their blessings to the new devotees. Cutting a striking picture in their orange robes, they filed up to the stage in a silent line, where they were joined by the eminent Buddhist leader Rahul Bodhi. Besides the Dalit community, 41 other groups were present, traditionally belonging to the government OBC classification. The process of conversion began at five in the afternoon, when everyone was seated on the grounds. Once one has made the shift of loyalty to this faith, the process itself is simple: taking an oath of allegiance. The crowd chanted Buddhist mantras after Rahul Bodhi and then took their vow.
http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=inbombay&xfile=May2007_inbombay_standard13068Home Rule: West Bengal is special zone for Left Front
TAMAL SENGUPTATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2007 03:42:27 AM]
KOLKATA: The CPM’s insistence regarding withdrawal of the provision related to direct land purchase by SEZ developers in the Centre’s SEZ Act of 2005 is gathering steam each passing day. Yet, in the state’s own SEZ Act that was promulgated in 2003, the Left Front government had kept a similar provision itself.
In Chapter IV of the West Bengal Special Economic Zone Act, the state government had empowered the developer “to purchase land or to acquire legal right and title independently, in respect of land which is proposed to be developed as a Special Economic Zone”.
The state Act has not been amended yet. However, CPM is flexing every muscle to ensure that the central Act gets amended. Pressure from four Left parties on the Congress-led UPA government is so intense that the Centre is now remodelling the SEZ Act and by taking advantage of this, West Bengal government has for the time being decided to go slow on developing SEZs in the state.
West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has recently announced that his government would prefer to develop a chemical hub in and around the port town of Haldia and also sough consent of all the political parties in the state in his effort to develop the proposed hub. Mr Bhattacharjee, in a letter to the political parties, also urged them to select site for the proposed chemical hub.
The Board of Approvals (BoA) has in principle approved two multi product SEZs by the New Kolkata International Developers Private Limited, a company by the Salim Group of Indonesia with an investment of Rs 1,25,00 crore.
The BoA has also approved in principle three proposals from the Videocon RealtyAnd Infrastructure Limited for setting up two multi-product and one electronic SEZ. All these decisions were taken in the BoA’s meeting held on October 6, 2006.
Convention to bring anti-SEZ agitations under one umbrella
May 30, 2007, 9:45 GMT
Kolkata, May 30 (IANS) A West Bengal based civil liberty group will hold a two-day convention here from June 2 to bring under one umbrella agitations across the country against land acquisitions for industrialization.
'Over 1000 social activists who are continuing their movements against land acquisition and special economic zones (SEZs) in India will join hands with us,' Gana-Unnayan O Jana-Adhikar Sangram Samity (People's Welfare and Rights Association) spokesperson Aditi Chowdhury told IANS.
'Activists from West Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tripura, Jharkhand and other states will attend the convention,' Chowdhury said Tuesday.
She said the main aim of the convention is to bring the anti-SEZ agitations in various parts of the country under a single umbrella and raise a united voice against land acquisition for industrialisation.
'Well-known social activists like Arundhuti Roy, Mahasweta Devi, Medha Patkar, Debabrata Bandhopadhyay, Ulka Mahajan and many others would address the convention followed by a public rally,' she said.
Jamait-e-Ulema Hind leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who will also participate in the convention, said the state government should call an all-party meeting to discuss issues regarding SEZs in West Bengal.
'In the convention we will raise demands for scrapping the SEZ Act 2005 and the abolition of the Land Acquisition Act 1894. People at the grassroot level should decide such land acquisition issues and the actual path of development,' he said.
Mayawati empowered!
In Lucknow,Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was on Tuesday authorised by the BSP state executive office-bearers to decide on the party's choice for supporting a Presidential candidate.
At a meeting here, the officer-bearers unanimously authorised her to take final decision on the matter and also passed a resolution in this regard, a party release said here. The national executive of the party had on May 25 authorised Mayawati for taking a decision in this regard.The BSP supremo, whose party holds the key to the next Presidential election, held talks with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week and has promised a decision after consulting party MPs and MLAs in the coming days.
Dalit Christians in India protest
Mission Network NEws (press release), Grand Rapids - 11 hours ago
India (MNN) -- At least 3000 Christians, Dalits, and rights activists from across India joined together to protest against the "silence" of the government ...Dalit question, lately, has acquired a new currency post Mayawati’s thumping victory in Uttar Pradesh. The mass conversion, hence, must be seen within that context. The Dalit movement in the state is no longer what it used to be, primarily because of lacklustre leadership and the fact that larger political parties wanted to co-opt the Dalits into their fold. The Republican Party of India (RPI), the vanguard of Dalit politics in the state is in shambles, having broken into several splinter groups.Mass conversions of Dalits are not new in Maharashtra. Since Ambedkar himself embraced Buddhism, this has been a regular practice, almost a tradition. It has great symbolic value, enunciated by Ambedkar himself, who used it as a rejection of Hindu society, in which Dalits, the lowest of the castes, have suffered for many millenia.
Sunday’s mass conversion ceremony where people from 42 nomadic tribes embraced Buddhism is the biggest such exercise among Dalits. For the massive congregation, it was also a significant day because it marked the completion of the 50th year of Dalit leader BR Ambedkar’s baptism into Buddhism.
Dalit youth tortured in Agra court premises
Agra: In a shocking incident, A dalit youth was assaulted by the lawyers here in premises of district court, Sahara Samay sources said.According to the channel, Vinod, was tied in a tree and his head was partly shaved. Lawyers assaulted him for more than an hour and Some of them also spiting on his face. All this took place on the campus of Agra district sessions court. Most of the persons involved in the incident were lawyers.
The Bar Council of India has taken a serious note of the incident and sought FIR details.
According to reports, it was a minor difference of opinion between Vinod (22) and Ravindra Singh. The latter happens to be the brother-in-law of Vinod's elder brother Tej Singh and claims to be a lawyer. Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Agra, Hariram Verma, quoting information gathered from the police sources by early evening on Tuesday, said that Rawindra had short-listed a girl and wanted Vinod to marry her. But the latter was not ready for it. Ire over the refusal, Ravindra allegedly overpowered him with the help of some associates.
Shiv Sena threatens Hindi-speaking farmers
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena party workers today threatened Hindi-speaking farmers of dire consequences if they did not leave the land for Marathi farmers. The Shiv Sainiks claimed that the Hindi-speaking farmers were sowing their vegetables in gutter water and this could lead to health hazards for the nearby regions.
Earlier this week, activists of the Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) attacked the Hindi-speaking people at the examination conducted by the Railway Recruitment Board (RR
. At least nine MNS workers have been detained in connection after the incident.
The examination was for the aspirants in Class-III posts such as motorman, driver and engine assistant. The MNS activists, who were upset over the absence of Marathi candidates at the centre, demanded that outsiders or the non-Marathi should be barred from appearing in this examination.DLF to invest Rs 3500 cr for acquiring land
Economic Times - 32 minutes ago
PTI [ WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2007 07:30:51 PM]. NEW DELHI: Real estate giant DLF Ltd, which aims to raise up to Rs 9625 crore through the country's largest IPO, plans to invest Rs 3500 crore of the proceeds for acquisition of land and development rights in ...
DLF to raise Rs. 9625 crore through public offer Hindu
DLF upbeat on earnings, sees no price bubble Reuters IndiaEconomists meet to decide global benchmark for happiness
Daily News & Analysis - 1 hour ago
PTI. LONDON: As countries try to outdo others in terms of development numbers, a congregation of world's renowned economists, including India-born Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and representatives of World Bank and United Nations, are devising a benchmark ...
GDP passe, happiness index in Times of India
GMI, the new measure for happiness? Times Now.tvThe Rajasthan government Wednesday formed a cabinet committee to meet with militant leaders of the Gujjar community and work out a peace formula, a day after 14 people were killed in an upsurge over Gujjar demands for better job and educational opportunities.Meanwhile, the national highway that connects two important tourist destinations Jaipur and Agra, part of the famous Golden Triangle that includes Delhi, still wore a deserted look. Burning tyres, stones and bricks scattered along a stretch of over 20 to 30 kilometres near Patauli, are witnesses of Tuesday's violence.On the other hand, reports from Lucknow say that The Uttar Pradesh government today asked the western districts in the state to be on alert in view of the agitation of Gurjars in Rajasthan.Members of the Gujjar community came out on roads in places like Saharanpur and Meerut but the situation was under control in the state. Police today fired in the air to quell protestors who torched several government offices in Bayana town of Bharatpur district as Gurjars intensified their agitation for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe category.
The decision to set up the four-member committee was taken at a cabinet meeting held here in the afternoon.Tuesday's violence saw police and Gujjars, a largely farming community that rears cattle, clashing in Bundi and Patauli near Dausa. Wednesday also got off to an explosive start with protesters torching police posts in Atal Band area of Bharatpur town, about 175 km from here, and in nearby Deeg.However, the situation in Bundi and Patauli districts was normal with protestors agreeing to cremate the bodies of those killed in Tuesday's clashes, Kataria said.
Protests over granting tribal status to the Gujjars has started to spread to new areas.The protestors Wednesday burnt two police posts in Bharatpur district and torched government vehicles in Jhalawar, the chief minister's constituency. Two buses were also reportedly torched near Bairath on the Jaipur-Alwar route.
Indian Army personnel have been deployed around Patauli on Jaipur-Agra highway, the place that witnessed worst of the clashes Tuesday.
Though the government claims to have made some traffic diversions, people are not taking the route. Even the bus service between Jaipur-Agra has been suspended.The rail traffic between Jaipur and Agra has also been diverted as rail tracks were uprooted near Bandikui, near Dausa.
The Gujjars claim to be a tribal group subject to thousands of years of discrimination. Untouchables, the lowest strata, and tribal groups benefit from India's affirmative action scheme, the largest in the world, but the issue is explosive when employment and education are at stake.
Gujjars represent more than 10% of Rajasthan's 55 million population, and are near the bottom of the hierarchy - but not low enough to guarantee easy access to quotas. "Gujjars benefit from some government affirmative action schemes," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a writer on caste and himself a dalit or untouchable. "The problem for the Gujjars is that they face too much competition from rival farming castes. They want an easier competition, from the lowest castes such as dalits and tribals, and therefore agitate to be socially downgraded. But their claim has no social, cultural or historical validity."
On the other hand,The apex Singh Sahibs (clerics) of the Sikh community on Tuesday rejected the apology from the Dera Sacha Sauda and warned its chief Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh against imitating the practices of any faith across the globe. The announcement came late in the evening after the Singh Sahibs deliberated the letter from the Dera chief that contained an apology to Guru Gobind Singh. Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti quoted the "Gurbani" (religious scriptures), saying that even the Guru, who was bountiful in pardoning, would not accept anything from a person whose spirit did not reflect a mindset suitable for a religious way of life. Before taking the decision, the Singh Sahibs met representatives of various Sikh organisations and an all-religion delegation, led by social activist Swami Agnivesh.
1993 Mumbai blasts: TADA court sentences two for life
Zee News - 7 hours ago
Mumbai, May 30: The TADA court on Wednesday sentenced two persons convicted for their role in 1993 Mumbai serial blasts for life. Dawood Phanse, the only convict in the case who met underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, was awarded rigorous imprisonment for ...
1993 Mumbai Blasts: Dawood Aide, Another Get Life (LEAD) NEWSPost India
Landing agent gets life, avoids death sentence due to age Daily News & AnalysisBernama
Bush's Quiet Idealist
Spiegel Online - 3 hours ago
By Marc Pitzke in New York. Robert Zoellick has been designated the new president of the World Bank following Paul Wolfowitz's departure.
Ex-Trade Envoy Is Bush’s Choice for World Bank New York Times
Robert Zoellick to head World Bank MoneywebIsrael vows to keep hitting Gaza militants
CNN International - 1 hour ago
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel's government said Wednesday that a cease-fire with Palestinian militants is not on the table, and its military will continue to target militants in Gaza.NDTV.com
Fatwa against Indian army aid to Kashmir mosques
Reuters India - 1 hour ago
By Sheikh Mushtaq. SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - An influential Kashmiri Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa against using money from the Indian army to renovate mosques and shrines, saying only Muslims could carry out such work at holy places.
Fatwa against Operation Sadbhavna Hindu
Fatwa issued against army in J&K NDTV.comIraq: Who Are The Kidnapped Britons?
Sky News - 1 hour ago
A Canadian firm has confirmed that it employs the four British security guards who were kidnapped with their British client in Baghdad.Finance24
Microsoft waves in Minority Report -style computing era
Register - 4 hours ago
By Bill Ray ? More by this author. Microsoft launched Surface Computing last night, and with a new computing paradigm - the table-top.
Microsoft to unveil coffee-table-shaped computer Reuters.uk
Bill Gates showed surface computer table demo in ‘06 iTWireConsumer durables flying off the shelf? Not exactly
Daily News & Analysis - 16 hours ago
NEW DELHI: Sitting in our living rooms, reading the papers that say the economy is galloping at 8.3% a year, seeing it shine, learning of Wal-Mart’s entry - one would think India is consuming voraciously.
Leftists harden opposition to Wal-Mart Reuters India
Leftists step up opposition to Wal-Mart NDTV.comMaoists blast hydel plant control room
VISAKHAPATNAM: Maoists blasted the main control room of the hydel power generation plant at Donkarai in the agency area of Visakhapatnam district late on Tuesday night. An eight-member naxalite team, which came from Orissa, blasted the control room after ordering the employees to clear out. An Assistant Engineer suffered injuries when shards of glass hit him, according to B. Sreenivasulu, SP of East Godavari district.
KOLKATA: Clashes between a mob, stated to include Bhutanese refugees of Nepali origin, and Indian security forces continued for the second day on Tuesday along the India-Nepal border in Panitanki area of West Bengal's Darjeeling district. The crowd tried to break through a security cordon and enter India in a bid to move into Bhutan. The security forces, comprising the police and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SS
fired several rounds in the air after a baton-charge failed to disperse the large group of people that attacked them with stones and allegedly tried to set ablaze a Customs office. Tension since Monday
There has been tension in the area since Monday following attempts by people to enter the country after passing through a bridge across the Mechi river that separates the two countries, Raj Kanojia, Inspector General of Police (Law and Order), told The Hindu . Many of those involved in the two-day violence are from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-administered camps in eastern Nepal for Bhutanese refugees. More than 40 security personnel were injured in the clashes and 32 persons arrested, a police officer said.
Plea to solve problems of agriculture
New delhi: Andhra Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Tuesday urged the Central Government to make a conscious effort in shifting people from agriculture to other sectors while at the same time ensuring growth in production and productivity in the sector. Taking part in the 53rd meeting of the National Development Council, Dr. Reddy said while over 60 per cent of the population were dependent on agriculture, its contribution to GDP was 20 per cent. He said if the economy grew by over 8 per cent over the last few years, agriculture contributed 2.3 per cent.
The Chief Minster said since mid-1990s there has been a deceleration in agriculture as against the rapid growth of the services sector. He said while the Centre has earmarked funds for urban renewal, unless the urban-rural divide and the agriculture-services divide is not addressed, the problems of agriculture would remain. Dr. Reddy, who headed a sub-working group, said Andhra Pradesh had enhanced allocation for animal husbandry, fisheries and poultry and suggested that other States replicate success in the fisheries sector achieved by Andhra Pradesh.
Posco to use self-developed technology for Orissa plant
BHUBANESWAR: South Korean steel major Posco on Wednesday said that it will adopt its self-developed FINEX technology for its proposed $12 billion Greenfield integrated steel project in Orissa, coming up under the largest foreign direct investment in India.
"This technology will make Posco-India steel work most competitive in Indian steel sector," Posco-India CMD Soung-Sik Cho said.
It is the innovative, future generation of steel-making technologies as replacement of the blast furnace method, which so far has been evaluated as most competitive among steel making technologies in the world, the company said.
FINEX eliminates the first step in the steel-making process of sintering and coking and allows the direct use of low-cost ore fines and coal, bringing down overall plant installation and operational costs.
The new technology also reduces pollution, producing significantly less sulphur and nitrogen oxide than current furnaces.
The Indian plant will be the world's first steel mill of the company outside South Korea to use FINEX on a large scale, Posco said.
Moreover, FINEX can better utilise the Indian iron ore which contains high alumina as compared to the blast-furnace technology, and thus is expected to substantially reduce the proposed amount of swapping of iron ore required for the project.
Posco, one of the world's biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up a plant near the port town of Paradeep, some 120 km from the state capital, by 2016.
The firm started working on the development of the new technology in 1992. It celebrated the successful completion of a plant commercialising FINEX in Pohang steelworks on May 30, in the presence of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and more than 1,000 dignitaries from all over the world including a team of officials from the Orissa government.
Its total investment into R&D in order to develop and commercialise FINEX process was approximately $596 million.
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