VHP Leader killing: UP govt to hike relief for victim’s family – The Indian express
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/vhp-leader-killing-up-govt-to-hike-relief-for-victims-family/
Dalit youth’s family receives threat letter – The hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/dalit-youths-family-receives-threat-letter/article8372816.ece
Plea to shift polling station – The hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/plea-to-shift-polling-station/article8373019.ece
Why Dalit youth hacked to death for marrying woman from a higher caste won’t get justice anytime soon – Scroll. in
http://scroll.in/article/805277/why-dalit-youth-hacked-to-death-for-marrying-woman-from-a-higher-caste-wont-get-justice-anytime-soon
India’s tribes and lower castes demand legal right to shelter, land | Reuters – First post
http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/indias-tribes-and-lower-castes-demand-legal-right-to-shelter-land-reuters-2684628.html
Low radiation pushes up tariffs in Jharkhand solar project auction – Economic times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/low-radiation-pushes-up-tariffs-in-jharkhand-solar-project-auction/articleshow/51458916.cms
Agriculture is focus of Maharashtra budget – Asian age
http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/agriculture-focus-maharashtra-budget-701
Rs405 crore earmarked for minorities’ development – Dna
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-rs405-crore-earmarked-for-minorities-development-2191149
India’s Tribes and Lower Castes Demand Legal Right to Shelter, Land – Jakarta globe
http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/international/indias-tribes-lower-castes-demand-legal-right-shelter-land/
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The Indian express
VHP Leader killing: UP govt to hike relief for victim’s family
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/vhp-leader-killing-up-govt-to-hike-relief-for-victims-family/
Avoiding a confrontation with an aggressive BJP in Agra, the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh has agreed to the party’s demand for enhanced compensation for the family of VHP leader Arun Mahaur, who was killed on February 25. Addressing a BJP rally in Agra on Friday, Ram Shankar Katheria, Minister of State for HRD and the party’s MP from Agra, announced that the state administration has “agreed to all our demands”, and also defended his earlier speech which was widely seen as provocative.
Besides “Jai Sri Ram” and “Bharat Mata ki jai” the crowd raised slogans such as “Jis Hindu ka khoon na khaule, khoon nahin wo paani hai (the Hindu whose blood doesn’t boil has water running in his veins) during Friday’s rally. The BJP had demanded a compensation of Rs 45 lakh for Mahaur, a house for his family, a government job for his wife, sought that the arrested accused be booked under National Security Act, and withdrawal of all cases related to hate speech filed against BJP and VHP leaders. The cases were filed against three leaders for spreading religious enmity after The Indian Express had reported that several Sangh Parivar leaders had openly called for killing of Muslims during a condolence meet organised for Mahaur in Agra last month. Mahaur, who came from a Dalit community, was killed allegedly by some Muslim youths. The saffron party claims Mahaur was killed by “cow slaughterers” since he was opposed to cow slaughter. The police refute the charge and say the murder was the result of a local rivalry. While Katheria Friday said he was “pleased” that the state has agreed to withdraw all cases, he was unrelenting on his earlier speech. Smouldering from the that the issue was raised in Parliament, he told the crowd, “They said the minister delivers provocative speeches. If someone is killed, will I not give a provocative speech?”
The hindu
Dalit youth’s family receives threat letter
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/dalit-youths-family-receives-threat-letter/article8372816.ece
The family members of Dalit youth Shankar, who was murdered on Sunday last for marrying a caste Hindu girl, received a threat letter from a man claiming to be a resident of Mettupalayam in Coimbatore, even as one more accused in the case surrendered in a court in Dindigul district.
According to police, C. Velusamy, father of Shankar, residing at Komaralingam in Tirupur district, received a letter bearing the name of one Alavudeen. The writer abused Mr. Velusamy citing his caste and threatened to behead him.
The writer further said had Mr. Velusamy sent his daughter-in-law Kausalya (who was also attacked) back to her parents, he could have saved his son’s life.
Mr. Velusamy handed over the letter to the Komaralingam police, who registered a case under Section 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code.
Vigneswaran (19), younger brother of Shankar, toldThe Hinduthat the family did not feel intimidated by the contents of the letter: “We have no fear at the moment. In our village, we are surrounded by relatives and very friendly neighbours,” he said.
One more surrenders
Meanwhile, one more person surrendered before the Judicial Magistrate Court at Nilakottai in Dindigul on Friday in connection with the case.
The surrendered person was identified as V. Prasanna (20) of Palani town. He was studying B.Com second year in a private college in Udumalpet.
He informed the judge that he came to know that the police were in search of him and hence he was surrendering.
Judicial Magistrate B. Risana Parveen remanded him in judicial custody and advised the police to produce him before the court in Udumalpet on March 23.
Later, he was lodged in a juvenile home in Melur near Madurai.
The hindu
Plea to shift polling station
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/plea-to-shift-polling-station/article8373019.ece
People of Landai panchayat in Thiruvadanai Assembly constituency staged a protest on Friday, demanding shifting of one of the two polling stations in nearby Karungulam to their village and threatening to boycott the May 16 Assembly elections if their demand was not conceded.
The Dalits, who staged the protest in Landai near here, displayed copies of the electoral roll to claim that they had a polling station in their village in the 2011 Assembly elections. It was shifted to Karungulam when subsequent elections to the local bodies were held.
Since they were forced to travel more than two and a half km to cast their votes in Karungulam in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, they had been demanding that one of the two polling stations must be shifted to their village, but officials failed to look into their demand, village head M. Thangavel said.
Communal implications
Official sources said that the issue had communal implications as more than 600 voters in Achankudi village, coming under Landai panchayat, preferred the polling station in L. Karungulam (316) and were against shifting it to Landai, though both were Dalit villages.
The 126 voters in Landai and 843 voters in L. Karungulam were allotted polling station in L. Karungulam (316), while 123 voters of Kannanai, 328 voters of Periya Thamaraikudi and 604 voters of Achankudi were allotted the polling station in Karungulam (317).
As shifting of the polling station at this stage was not possible, the election authorities have decided to concede to the demand of a section of voters to cast their votes at the polling station of their choice between the two polling stations, the sources said.
Accordingly, the 126 voters in Landai village would be allowed to exercise their franchise in Karungulam polling station (317) and the 604 voters in Achankudi village in L. Karungulam polling station (316), the sources said. Booth-Level Officers had distributed Form 8A to the voters of the two villages asking them to return the filled-in forms by Saturday, the sources added.
Scroll. in
Why Dalit youth hacked to death for marrying woman from a higher caste won’t get justice anytime soon
http://scroll.in/article/805277/why-dalit-youth-hacked-to-death-for-marrying-woman-from-a-higher-caste-wont-get-justice-anytime-soon
The village of Komaralingam in Tamil Nadu was so silent that even the rustle of leaves in the breeze sounded unnaturally loud. Around 100 policemen stood guard in hushed lanes with shuttered shops, as a pall of grief hung in the air. It felt as if the whole village was mourning the murder of V Sankar, a 22-year-old Dalit standing on the cusp of a new life.
At a little distance from the main village stood a single-room house with a tiled roof and a small bathroom outside that was thatched with coconut fronds. This was Sankar’s house.
“When my first son got a job, I thought that the whole family would come up in life,” said S Velusamy, Sankar’s father, who wept as he spoke. “I sacrificed a lot to make him study. But just when the butter was being formed, they have broken the pot and thrown my son’s lifeless body on the ground.”
Sankar was hacked to death in Udumalaipet, 14 km from his village, in broad daylight on March 13. He and his young wife, a member of a higher caste, were returning home from a shopping trip when three bike-borne youth stopped by their side and assaulted them with sickles. Sankar died on the way to hospital. His wife is recovering from her injuries.
Sankar was the first of three children born to Velusamy, an agricultural labourer, and Selvanayagi. The Scheduled Caste Pallar family survived on the Rs 150 that Velusamy brought home every day. Selvanayagi died after an illness in 2014.
Sankar was a determined young man, said his father. After finishing his schooling at a government school in Komaralingam, a village about 100 km from Tamil Nadu’s textile hub of Tirupur, Sankar applied at an engineering college but did not make the cut. “He was undeterred,” recalled Velusamy. “He joined a polytechnic and completed two years there. He studied hard and scored well. He then joined an engineering college in Pollachi, near Coimbatore.”
Sankar paid for college with an educational loan. In another month, he would have been the first mechanical engineer in his family – a first generation graduate. But it was not to be.
How it started
Around November 2014, the bridge connecting the town of Palani in Dindigul district and Pollachi in Coimbatore district fell into disrepair. So for four months, while the bridge was being repaired, buses plying from Palani to Pollachi had to pass through Sankar’s village. He was elated. This meant he could catch a bus directly to his college in Pollachi instead of having to change buses at Udumalaipet.
It was on this bus that Sankar and S Kausalya first met. Kausalya, 19, a resident of Palani, was a first-year computer science student in Sankar’s engineering college. She hails from a family of Thevars, which is a dominant caste in Tamil Nadu categorised as a Backward Class. The two fell in love.
When Kausalya’s father Chinnasamy Thevar learnt of the relationship, he decided to get her married against her wishes. But Kausalya “ran away from home and asked Sankar to marry her,” recalled Velusamy.
On July 15, 2015, Sankar and Kausalya married at a temple in Palani with friends as their witnesses. From there, the couple went to the all women police station at Udumalaipet to seek protection before travelling onwards to Komaralingam to begin the next phase in their lives together.
“They could not afford to pay tuition fees for both of them,” said Velusamy. “So Sankar and Kausalya discussed the issue among themselves and decided that she would stay at home while Sankar went to college. Kausalya also started working in a tiles company in the village and earned Rs 3,000 a month.”
Sankar’s younger brother Vignesh recalled that Kausalya’s parents arrived at their home and threatened her, asking her to come back with them. She refused. Next came her grandparents, who sweet-talked her into returning to Palani with them. Upon learning of this, Sankar complained to the police who helped him bring Kausalya back to Komaralingam.
Two months later, some people who haven’t been identified as yet accosted the young couple at Udumalaipet bazaar. But they managed to escape unhurt, said Vignesh. Kausalya’s father and uncle then came to Sankar’s house and offered him Rs 10 lakh to send Kausalya home with them. “When Sankar refused, they issued a death threat and left,” he said.
The family was worried. Sankar then decided he needed to leave home and head to Chennai with Kausalya in order to protect the rest of his family. “He had passed his exams and got a job in an on-campus interview with a private firm,” said Vignesh. “They decided to go to Chennai.” The plan this time was that Sankar would work while Kausalya would pursue her studies.
Sankar was all set to join his new workplace in the first week of April. Last Sunday the couple decided to go shopping in Udumalaipet to buy new clothes for Sankar. There, as the couple returned home after completing their shopping, they were attacked viciously.
“It seemed like a scene from a movie,” said A Mani, an auto rickshaw driver in Udumalaipet who witnessed the brutal murder. A CCTV camera from a department store nearby captured the horrific attack. Kausalya, who tried to hide under a car, was not spared either. She had severe injuries to her head.
The Tamil Nadu police has arrested six persons in connection with the murder. Kausalya’s father surrendered the day after the attack. The police said he blamed it on his brother-in-law.
Back in Komaralingam, villagers are struggling to make sense of the tragedy. “There have been a number of inter-caste marriages in this village,” said A Nagarasu, a resident of the village who belongs to the upper Naicker caste. “Naicker-Dalit marriages have taken place as also weddings between Muslims and Dalits. There have never been any issues before. This is the first marriage between a Thevar and a Dalit though. All this violence has come from outside our area.”
Komaralingam has a population of 13,250 people of which 40% belong to the Scheduled Caste Pallar community. The other 60% include Gounders, Naickers and Chettiars among other castes. The village is part of the Kongunadu belt comprising the western districts of Tamil Nadu. The Gounders – classified as a Backward Class in the state – are dominant in this belt, but are not very powerful here. The district of Dindigul, a hotbed of caste tension between the dominant Thevars and Dalits, is just six km away from Sankar’s village.
The upper and lower castes here have been inter-dependent, said Nagarasu. “For the past 20 years we have been peaceful here, with the scheduled castes working in the fields of the upper caste landowners,” he said. There used to be conflict over the two-tumbler system and access denied to Dalits in common property, but those issues were sorted out two decades ago.”
The backlash
As Tamil Nadu heads into polls in May this year, caste is an even more delicate issue than it usually is. As a result, major parties do not want to offend dominant castes. Chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader J Jayalalithaa, and her prime Opposition rival M Karunanidhi, the chief of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, haven’t said a word on the murder.
However, Karunanidhi’s heir apparent MK Stalin called the murder “a law and order problem” in a statement on Tuesday. He condemned the state government for failing to keep people safe. Another politician, Vijayakanth, leader of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam issued a statement saying the AIADMK must “own moral responsibility” for what he called an “honour killing”.
Several caste-based parties have taken strident stands on the issue. S Ramadoss, leader of the Pattali Makkal Katchi, had, in 2010, first created a political issue of Dalits “wearing jeans and sunglasses and luring our [upper caste] women away”. He was furious when asked to comment on the murder. In this video, he is seen refusing to comment and shouts angrily at reporters instead.
ER Eswaran, the leader of another smaller caste-based party of the Gounders, justified the brutal murder. “Some people deliberately instigate Dalit youth to love and marry upper caste girls,” said Eswaran of the Kongunadu Makkal Desiya Katchi, “The parents would not like their daughter to live in poverty. This is the outcome of such anger.”
The polarisation is so deep that divisive messages such as these messages are rampant on social media.
First post
India’s tribes and lower castes demand legal right to shelter, land | Reuters
http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/indias-tribes-and-lower-castes-demand-legal-right-to-shelter-land-reuters-2684628.html
NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – For as long as she can remember, Panchi Sahariya and those in her tribal community in central India have been threatened, harassed, beaten and even arrested for living on land which does not legally belong to them.
But there is no where else to go, she says. For over 40 years, the forest village of Nibheri in Madhya Pradesh has been home to 150 families of the Sahariya tribe and their children have been born and brought up there.
“We have no land of our own. We had no choice but to live in the jungle. We survive from the little farming we do there. But there is no comfort, there is no security,” she said.
“The forest department guards come and threaten us and tell us to move. Sometimes they have even beaten us and taken our people to jail for protesting over the land.”
Sahariya is one of more than 5,000 people from India’s most impoverished communities who gathered in the capital this week to demand Prime Minister Narendra Modi bring in a law guaranteeing the rural poor the right to shelter.
Despite wide recognition of the link between poverty and landlessness in India, and a slew of policies over the years aimed at helping the people secure housing, more than half of rural Indians do not have a permanent homestead.
Data from India’s 2011 Socio Economic and Caste census released last year showed that 100 million families, that is 56 percent of all rural households, were landless.
Most are from low caste or indigenous communities, who have faced decades of neglect and social discrimination, and continue to live on the margins of society — partly due to a failure to enforce laws aimed at their upliftment.
Social indicators such as infant and maternal mortality rates, literacy and monthly income are worse than national averages and their access to quality services such as good hospitals and schools remains a serious challenge.
HOMESTEAD BILL NEGLECTED
After years of campaigning for land rights by the social movement Ekta Parishad — which has organised multiple rallies involving thousands of homeless rural poor — the government drafted legislation in 2013.
The National Rural Homestead Bill calls for a democratic and market-friendly land reform programme, providing landless families with plots of land the size of small football fields.
The bill provides that titles for the land, which would be around 4,400 square metres, be registered in the name of the woman, rather than jointly by the male and female head of the household.
To ensure accountability of the local authorities, it also stipulates a time frame of five years for all the states and seven union territories to enforce the law.
But the draft bill has never been presented before parliament, despite repeated promises by both the previous and current government to introduce it to lawmakers.
Activists acknowledge that land reform, like in many other countries, is a highly political issue but argue that securing tenure for the landless will help stem the rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation India currently faces.
India’s towns and cities are projected to swell by an additional 404 million people by 2050, as villagers migrate to urban areas in search of opportunities and better standard of living, says the United Nations.
More significantly, experts say, land in India is the biggest predictor of poverty. Insecurity traps people in extreme impoverishment, restricts economic growth, and sparks conflict.
“When women and men gain secure rights to land, they can begin investing in their land to improve their harvests and their lives,” says the land rights group, Landesa.
“Further, land rights in India act as a gateway right. When women and men gain secure rights to land, they can access a host of government services from work and nutrition programmes to agricultural extension services.”
Research by Landesa suggests clarifying and strengthening land rights could increase India’s GDP by as much as 476 billion rupees ($7 billion).
LAND IS DIGNITY
Activists say the right to land should be legislated as a basic human right.
“In India, where there a legal guarantee to education, health, information and employment, but why is there no guarantee of the land?” said Ramesh Sharma, Ekta Parishad’s National Coordinator.
“Land in India means the place where I born and where I am going to die. This bill is one step towards guaranteeing me that right.”
Sharma said a meeting with Ekta Parishad representatives and the prime minister took place on Tuesday, and Modi seemed interested to look into the introduction of the bill and has asked them to meet with rural development ministry officials.
Sitting on the kerb in central Delhi, amidst the crowds of thousands waving Ekta Parishad’s green and white flag, Sahariya listens intently as various speakers — from social activists to politicians — address the gathering from a large podium.
In the hot afternoon, they speak of the multitude of injustices faced by the landless and pledge to pressure the government to move on the homestead bill as soon as possible.
The audience — made up people forced from homes due to climate change impacts such as land erosion or floods, and those who have no documentation to prove ownership of the land they have lived on for generations — cheer and shout slogans.
Sahariya, like the others — which include forest dwellers, nomads and fisher folk — spent their own money to make the journey to Delhi by buses or by train from states as far away as Assam in the northeast to Kerala in the south.
She says she had no other choice but to come to the capital, and will return until the government listens to its homeless people.
“The land is our livelihood. It is our identity. It is our dignity. In the place we are from there is nothing else for us to live off, except the land,” she said.
(Reporting by Nita Bhalla, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Economic times
Low radiation pushes up tariffs in Jharkhand solar project auction
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/low-radiation-pushes-up-tariffs-in-jharkhand-solar-project-auction/articleshow/51458916.cms
NEW DELHI: A mega solar tender for 1200 MW, with plants spread over 45 different areas in Jharkhand, saw winning tariffs in a range of Rs 5.08 to Rs 7.95 per kwH, which is higher than some recent projects because of lower quality of solar radiation in the state compared with Rajasthan and cost of land.
The biggest winner of the auction conducted by the Jharkhand government was ReNew Solar Power, which was awarded rights to set up 522 MW of projects. Other major winners were Suzlon EnergyBSE -2.69 % (175 MW), SunEdison Solar Power (150 MW), OPG Power Generation (124 MW), ACME Solar Holding (75 MW) and Adani Green Power (50 MW).
The projects are awarded via auction where the bidder offering to sell power at the lowest price wins.
The tariff range in the Jharkhand auction was considerably higher than those in several recent auctions in other states which were well below Rs 5 per kwh. Fortum Finnsurya’s offer of Rs 4.34 per kwH for a 70 MW plant in Rajasthan in January this year has so far been the lowest. The spike is attributed to a number of factors, foremost among them being Jharkhand’s relatively low solar radiation, which pushes up the cost of producing power. In contrast, Fortum’s record-setting low bid was for a plant in Rajasthan’s Bhadla Solar Park, where radiation is the highest in the country.
Unlike in solar park projects, land for the plants is not being provided and have to be acquired by developers. With Jharkhand being a tribal state, this is a challenge since land within tribal belts and blocks cannot be leased or purchased. “Developers want only non-tribal land and non-tribal land is expensive,” said DK Tewatia, director of the Jharkhand Renewable Energy Development Agency (JREDA). “That is another reason for the tariff going up,” he said. “The Naxal issue in the state is also a problem.”
The relatively poor credit rating of the state power distributor, Jharkhand Bijli Vitaran Nigam, which will buy the power from the developers, is yet another issue. Jharkhand had come last in a rating of state discoms last year by the Ministry of Power. “But, despite these hurdles, it is heartening to see that so many big players have bid for projects in our state,” Tewatia said.
For the auction, the projects had been divided into two parts – those below 25 MW and those above. The projects with installed capacity of over 25 MW will benefit from economies of scale and have offered lower tariffs. The winning tariff range in the first category was Rs 5.29 to Rs 7.95 per kwH. In the second category, it was between Rs 5.08 and Rs 5.48.
Asian age
Agriculture is focus of Maharashtra budget
http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/agriculture-focus-maharashtra-budget-701
Maharashtra finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Friday presented an agriculture and farmer-centric budget on the lines of the Union Budget. While presenting a deficit budget for 2016-17, Mr Mungantiwar proposed substantial allocation of over Rs 25,000 crore for various schemes for agriculture, agro-allied and irrigation sectors. He announced that the year 2016 will be observed as “Shetkari Swabhiman Varsha” or “Year of Farmers’ Self Respect”. Meanwhile, the size of the annual plan has increased to Rs 56,997 crore from the previous year’s Rs 54,999 crore.
Taking note of drought conditions in the state, Mr Mungantiwar made substantial allocations for 26 out of 58 schemes and programmes. During his budget speech, the minister said that farmers were the backbone of the rural economy. “Self-dependent farmers and prosperous villages constitute the foundation of ‘Make in India’. Hence, not only survival but also prosperity of our farmers is undoubtedly essential for strengthening and empowering the state’s economy,” he said. He added that considering these facts, he had formulated this budget by making substantial provision for the agricultural sector so as to accelerate its growth.
Mr Mungantiwar made an allocation of Rs 3360.35 crore to assist farmers hit by drought and other natural calamities. The state proposed allocation of Rs 1855 crore as its share towards the farmers’ insurance scheme. An outlay of Rs 1,000 crore has been proposed for the Jal Yukt Shivir Scheme. Last year, Rs 1600 crore was made available for this scheme through which, 130,000 water conservation works have been completed in more than 5,000 villages. Mr Mungantiwar said that with the objective of providing protective irrigation through farm ponds, irrigation wells and energisation of water-lifting devices during water scarcity, a total outlay of Rs 2000 crore had been proposed under the “Farm Pond on Demand” scheme in budget.
An outlay of Rs 110 crore has been made for Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Loan Concession scheme.
Since the United Nations Organisation (UNO) has declared this year as the “International Year of Pulses”, the state has allocated Rs 80 crore for increasing oil seeds and pulses production. An allocation of Rs 50 crore is proposed for cold storage and the food processing industry. An allocation of Rs 1,855 crore has been made for Crop Insurance Scheme, while an allocation of Rs 62 crore has been made for the Decentralised Food grain Purchase scheme.
An allocation of Rs 112 crore has been made for the Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Tribal Nutritious Diet scheme. In addition to this, Rs 170 crore has been allocated for the National Rural Drinking Water scheme. So also, an allocation of Rs 3,473 crore has been made for the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNEGS).
Mr Mungantiwar proposed the “Krushi Gurukul Yojana” scheme in which farmers honoured with ‘Adarsh Shetakari Puraskar’ would share their experiments with other farmers in each district. The Finance Minister also announced that an “Agricultural festival” would be organised in each district to motivate the farmers’ society, create awareness about government efforts towards agriculture etc. Mr Mungantiwar announced the new scheme, “Govardhan Govansh Raksha Kendra” to be established in 34 rural districts for rearing of non-lactating and unproductive cattle breed with participation of NGOs. He said that a one-time grant of one crore will be provided for the project.
The CM, while congratulating Mr Mungantiwar, said that despite economic challenges, Mr Mungantiwar had presented a pro-farmer and inclusive budget. He further stated that the budget had concrete provisions for drought relief measures. However, NCP’s group leader, Jayant Patil, termed the budget as directionless. He said that the budget had cheated farmers, farm labourers and industrialists.
Meanwhile, the size of the annual plan has been proposed as Rs 56,997 crore . “An outlay of Rs 6725.64 crore is proposed for the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan in proportion to the population of SC, which is 11.8 per cent,” said Mr Mungantiwar. Rs 5,357.71 has been proposed for Tribal Sub Plan in proportion (9.4 per cent) to its population. While, outlay proposed for District Plan Scheme is Rs 7,562.2 crore, he added.
Dna
Rs405 crore earmarked for minorities’ development
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-rs405-crore-earmarked-for-minorities-development-2191149
Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar announced on Friday that over 1.55 lakh kaccha houses in rural areas will be converted to permanent shelter homes by 2019. Apart from that, Rs60 crore have been earmarked for Warli-Hut, which aims at preservation and conservation of the world famous Warli Art.
As far as tribal development is concerned, the finance minister announced an outlay of Rs290 crore for schools, Rs300 crore for roads and Rsz370 crore for Ashramsahalas, under the tribal sub-plan. Mungantiwar further announced an outlay of Rs25 crore for the proposed Eklavya Sports and Entrepreneurship Academy in Palghar. In all, Rs 405 crore has been earmarked for development of minorities, as compared to Rs350 crore in the previous financial year.
The government further announced an outlay of Rs220 crore to carry out construction work on government hostels for Other Backward Communities (OBC) students. Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said the allocation for the tribal population in the state was cut. He said while blowing the trumpet for Make in India, the finance minister and the government forgot the weaker sections of the society, the tribal population as well as minorities. Minister for tribal development Vishnu Savara did not answer calls from dna.
Arif Naseem Khan, former minorities minister, slammed the Budget and said, “The Budget is anti-minority. It has no new schemes for them. In fact, they have not even spent the amount they budgeted last year.” Minorities development minister Eknath Khadse was not available for comments while minister of state for minorities development Dilip Kamble did not answer calls.
Jakarta globe
India’s Tribes and Lower Castes Demand Legal Right to Shelter, Land
http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/international/indias-tribes-lower-castes-demand-legal-right-shelter-land/
New Delhi. For as long as she can remember, Panchi Sahariya and those in her tribal community in central India have been threatened, harassed, beaten and even arrested for living on land which does not legally belong to them.
But there is no where else to go, she says. For over 40 years, the forest village of Nibheri in Madhya Pradesh state has been home to 150 families of the Sahariya tribe and their children have been born and brought up there.
“We have no land of our own. We had no choice but to live in the jungle. We survive from the little farming we do there. But there is no comfort, there is no security,” she said.
“The forest department guards come and threaten us and tell us to move. Sometimes they have even beaten us and taken our people to jail for protesting over the land.”
Sahariya is one of more than 5,000 people from India’s most impoverished communities who gathered in the capital this week to demand Prime Minister Narendra Modi bring in a law guaranteeing the rural poor the right to shelter.
Despite wide recognition of the link between poverty and landlessness in India, and a slew of policies over the years aimed at helping the people secure housing, more than half of rural Indians do not have a permanent homestead.
Data from India’s 2011 Socio Economic and Caste census released last year showed that 100 million families, that is 56 percent of all rural households, were landless.
Most are from low caste or indigenous communities, who have faced decades of neglect and social discrimination, and continue to live on the margins of society — partly due to a failure to enforce laws aimed at their upliftment.
Social indicators such as infant and maternal mortality rates, literacy and monthly income are worse than national averages and their access to quality services such as good hospitals and schools remains a serious challenge.
HOMESTEAD BILL NEGLECTED
After years of campaigning for land rights by the social movement Ekta Parishad — which has organised multiple rallies involving thousands of homeless rural poor — the government drafted legislation in 2013.
The National Rural Homestead Bill calls for a democratic and market-friendly land reform program, providing landless families with plots of land the size of small football fields.
The bill provides that titles for the land, which would be around 4,400 square meters, be registered in the name of the woman, rather than jointly by the male and female head of the household.
To ensure accountability of the local authorities, it also stipulates a time frame of five years for India’s 29 states and seven union territories to enforce the law.
But the draft bill has never been presented before parliament, despite repeated promises by both the previous and current government to introduce it to lawmakers.
Activists acknowledge that land reform, like in many other countries, is a highly political issue but argue that securing tenure for the landless will help stem the rapid and uncontrolled urbanization India currently faces.
India’s towns and cities are projected to swell by an additional 404 million people by 2050, as villagers migrate to urban areas in search of opportunities and better standard of living, says the United Nations.
More significantly, experts say, land in India is the biggest predictor of poverty. Insecurity traps people in extreme impoverishment, restricts economic growth, and sparks conflict.
“When women and men gain secure rights to land, they can begin investing in their land to improve their harvests and their lives,” says the land rights group, Landesa.
“Further, land rights in India act as a gateway right. When women and men gain secure rights to land, they can access a host of government services from work and nutrition programs to agricultural extension services.”
Research by Landesa suggests clarifying and strengthening land rights could increase India’s GDP by as much as 476 billion rupees ($7 billion).
LAND IS DIGNITY
Activists say the right to land should be legislated as a basic human right.
“In India, where there a legal guarantee to education, health, information and employment, but why is there no guarantee of the land?” said Ramesh Sharma, Ekta Parishad’s National Coordinator.
“Land in India means the place where I born and where I am going to die. This bill is one step towards guaranteeing me that right.”
Sharma said a meeting with Ekta Parishad representatives and the prime minister took place on Tuesday, and Modi seemed interested to look into the introduction of the bill and has asked them to meet with rural development ministry officials.
Sitting on the kerb in central Delhi, amidst the crowds of thousands waving Ekta Parishad’s green and white flag, Sahariya listens intently as various speakers — from social activists to politicians — address the gathering from a large podium.
In the hot afternoon, they speak of the multitude of injustices faced by the landless and pledge to pressure the government to move on the homestead bill as soon as possible.
The audience — made up people forced from homes due to climate change impacts such as land erosion or floods, and those who have no documentation to prove ownership of the land they have lived on for generations — cheer and shout slogans.
Sahariya, like the others — which include forest dwellers, nomads and fisher folk — spent their own money to make the journey to Delhi by buses or by train from states as far away as Assam in the northeast to Kerala in the south.
She says she had no other choice but to come to the capital, and will return until the government listens to its homeless people.
“The land is our livelihood. It is our identity. It is our dignity. In the place we are from there is nothing else for us to live off, except the land,” she said.
News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET
