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UP: Dalit houses allegedly torched for not voting for Gram Pradhan, 2 died – Abp live
http://www.abplive.in/india-news/up-dalit-colony-set-on-fire-for-not-voting-for-gram-pradhan-2-died-309578
A Week After ‘Honour Killing’, Kowsalya’s Statement Taken – The new Indian express
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/A-Week-After-Honour-Killing-Kowsalyas-Statement-Taken/2016/03/22/article3339545.ece
Tamil Nadu Dalit youth requests police to rescue his lover from her parents – The news minute
http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/tamil-nadu-dalit-youth-requests-police-rescue-his-lover-her-parents-40606
SHRC Seeks Report on Dalit’s Death – Nyoooz
http://www.nyoooz.com/chennai/398947/shrc-seeks-report-on-dalits-death
Uthapuram Villagers Warn of Poll Boycott – The new Indian express
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Uthapuram-Villagers-Warn-of-Poll-Boycott/2016/03/22/article3339551.ece
Mother India’s discriminated and exploited children – Big wire
http://bigwire.in/2016/03/22/mother-indias-discriminated-exploited-children/
TN: Activists protest against ‘mysterious death’ of Dalit leader – Hindustan times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/tn-activists-protest-against-mysterious-death-of-dalit-leader/story-a77SrI3w0p2URimX7aJtqM.html
Gujarat Dalits in Surendranagar district’s rural areas deprived of Narmada water: Letter to chief minister – Counter veiw
http://www.counterview.net/2016/03/gujarat-dalits-in-surendranagar.html
A new leash of life for Nagaland’s most famous unknown animal – Eastern mirror
http://www.easternmirrornagaland.com/a-new-leash-of-life-for-nagalands-most-famous-unknown-animal/
India’s tribes demand legal right to shelter, land – The hans india
http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/News-Analysis/2016-03-22/Indias-tribes-demand-legal-right-to-shelter-land/215354
Modi tries to dispel anti-Dalit image of BJP, compares Ambedkar with Martin Luther King Jr – F.india
http://www.firstpost.com/india/modi-tries-to-dispel-anti-dalit-image-of-bjp-compares-ambedkar-with-martin-luther-king-jr-2687798.html
Please Watch:
Prof. Mridu Rai: Caste system in India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7_zmUghLmw
ABP live
UP: Dalit houses allegedly torched for not voting for Gram Pradhan, 2 died
http://www.abplive.in/india-news/up-dalit-colony-set-on-fire-for-not-voting-for-gram-pradhan-2-died-309578
Sitapur: Two children have died in a horrific incident when several houses of a Dalit colony were allegedly set ablaze by the Gram Pradhan in Daheliya Patti village of Sitapur, Uttar pradesh.
The incident occurred on Monday in which around 35 Dalit houses were set on fire.
According to the victims, Kamlesh Verma wanted Dalits of his locality to vote for him in Gram Panchayat polls. He also threatened the Dalits of setting ablaze their houses in case they vote for someone else.
Daheliya Patti Gram Panchayat went for election on November 27, 2015 and on December 15, 2015, Kamlesh Verma got re-elected a the Gram Pradhan of Daheliya Patti.
“He set afire agricultural waste in his land nearby our colony. We asked him not to do that as we feared our houses would catch but he didn’t listen,” said mother of a victim.
8-year-old Suryanshi and 4-year-old Mukesh have lost their life in the incident.
“He threatened us before election of setting ablaze our houses if we don’t vote for him,” said a villager.
Police said they are investigating the matter.
The new Indian express
A Week After ‘Honour Killing’, Kowsalya’s Statement Taken
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/A-Week-After-Honour-Killing-Kowsalyas-Statement-Taken/2016/03/22/article3339545.ece
PALLADAM (TIRUPUR): Slain Dalit youth V Shankar’s widow Kowsalya gave her statement about the Udumalaipet hacking incident at the Palladam Judicial Magistrate Court on Monday.
The police brought Kowsalya to the court from the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital in an ambulance accompanied by medical staff and under tight security around 1.30 pm.
Magistrate G Krishnan recorded Kowsalya’s statement for almost two-and-a-half hours. The court room was closed when her statement was recorded. Even the court staff were not allowed inside, till the process got over around 4 pm.
She had earlier said that she could identify the attackers if she saw them once again, the police said.
Kowsalya, who appeared weak, is yet to recover fully from the shock, sources said. She had suffered injuries on her head in the hacking incident and came to the court with her head wrapped with a shawl. In fact, she was out of the hospital for the first time, following the March 13 attack.
Once her statement was recorded, he was taken back to the hospital in an ambulance. A team headed by Inspector Thavamani of Udumalaipet Police Station provided security.
Police sources said five eyewitnesses, present near the Udumalaipet bus stand when the couple were attacked, were also taken to the court to give their statements in front of the magistrate. However, the police did not let the public or media meet them, to maintain secrecy in the case and to ensure security for the eyewitnesses.
Five persons arrested in connection with the incident — Manikandan (39), Selva Kumar (25), Jegadeesan (31), Michael alias Madhan (23) and Manikandan (25) — are now lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison.
Kowsalya’s father Chinnasamy and her cousin Prasanna (20) had surrendered in the Nilakottai court last week. The police are still looking for three others wanted in the case — Kowsalya’s mother Annalakshmi, her uncle Pandidurai and Dhanaraj — all of whom are absconding.
The news minute
Tamil Nadu Dalit youth requests police to rescue his lover from her parents
http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/tamil-nadu-dalit-youth-requests-police-rescue-his-lover-her-parents-40606
Fearing for the safety of his lady love hailing from a Backward Class family, a Dalit youth on Monday sought the intervention of the Superintendent of Police in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukottai to ‘rescue’ her from her parents, who had reportedly detained and brutally assaulted her.
In his petition to the SP T M Vinoth said the girl had sent an SMS to him, saying that her parents had detained and brutally assaulted her, leaving her with injuries on her head, hand and legs.
He requested the SP to rescue his lover, police said.
Their ages were not mentioned.
Vinoth also feared that the parents could kill her anytime for the sake of honour of the family.
The girl should be rescued and allowed to live with him, he said.
Vinoth said he could not enter the village of the girl in Alangudi in this district as it was dominated by Backward Class people.
Nyoooz
SHRC Seeks Report on Dalit’s Death
http://www.nyoooz.com/chennai/398947/shrc-seeks-report-on-dalits-death
Summary: According to Erode SP, Sibi Chakravarthi, a case of suspicious death has been registered and the police are awaiting a postmortem report to resume probe. As his death was a suspected murder, his kin and relatives staged a protest in Erode that night, seeking immediate action. Dalit farm worker Chinnasamy (55) of Ricemill Pudhur in Nallampatti, Thingalur village near Gobi was found dead in Marappakavundar’s farm well on March 19. His body was shifted from Erode to the Coimbatore Medical College for postmortem as Dalit outfits staged protests in Erode. The Commission, headed by its chairperson Justice T Meenakumari, called for a detailed report from the Erode District Collector and the Erode Superintendent of Police within four weeks.
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission has taken cognizance of The New Indian Express report dated March 21 under the caption ‘Kin Stage Protest After Dalit Farm Worker Suspectedly Killed by Caste Hindu Landlord’. The Commission, headed by its chairperson Justice T Meenakumari, called for a detailed report from the Erode District Collector and the Erode Superintendent of Police within four weeks. Dalit farm worker Chinnasamy (55) of Ricemill Pudhur in Nallampatti, Thingalur village near Gobi was found dead in Marappakavundar’s farm well on March 19. As his death was a suspected murder, his kin and relatives staged a protest in Erode that night, seeking immediate action. Chinnasamy’s death triggered a row as only a day ago he was allegedly threatened by Marappakuvandar at a peace committee meeting held to sort out the issue of Dalits’ right to enter temple in the village. His body was shifted from Erode to the Coimbatore Medical College for postmortem as Dalit outfits staged protests in Erode.
According to Erode SP, Sibi Chakravarthi, a case of suspicious death has been registered and the police are awaiting a postmortem report to resume probe.
The new Indian express
Uthapuram Villagers Warn of Poll Boycott
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Uthapuram-Villagers-Warn-of-Poll-Boycott/2016/03/22/article3339551.ece
MADURAI: A section of Dalit families from Uthapuram village threatened to boycott the upcoming Assembly elections in the state if they were not included in the victims list for compensation ordered by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court in connection with the caste riots that took place in 2008.
In a grievance petition, they claimed that even though all the 500 families were affected in the riots, only 199 families associated with the CPM were given compensation.
“If we are not given compensation, we will boycott the Assembly elections,” the villagers said.
Big wire
Mother India’s discriminated and exploited children
http://bigwire.in/2016/03/22/mother-indias-discriminated-exploited-children/
For the past few months, a section of our countrymen has engaged the nation in a battle of slogans, the latest being ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’(hail mother India).
From all that we can get from fierce television debates and newspaper headlines, the section that raked up this issue makes us believe that it is compulsory to chant this slogan in order to prove one’s nationalistic credentials.
Another group does not feel such sloganeering necessary to show one’s love for the nation. And there are many in between who seem to be confused and gullible.
The fact is that the country’s political parties, intellectuals, and media have moved away – unintentionally or intentionally – from the real issues that define the lives and living conditions of common Indians.
The idea of India, after its Independence, is defined by the Constitution so well that we really do not need the help of flags and slogans to delineate it any further.
A mother and her untouchable children
The Mother India, our sacred country, calls for fair and equal treatment to all Indians as defined by the Constitution. But the Bharat Mata in the grassroots has many forms of inequalities; some continuing for thousands of years and some incorporated in recent times.
On the World Water Day, let me discuss on one important section of the Indian population that has been subjected to innumerable forms and types of discrimination since ages: it is about the Dalits, the untouchables.
Discrimination against Dalits is as old as our caste system. Access to sources of water has traditionally been synonymous with access to power in many Indian communities.
The modern Indian society is not much different. Visit any village and you will find the habitation of the Dalits is segregated from that of the upper caste; same is the case with water sources.
Ponds and rivers have separate bathing ghats for Dalits. As far as tube wells are concerned, they have either separate ones for themselves or have a separate timing to access the point.
Stories of Dalits being beaten up, tortured and even killed for accessing water from sources belonging to the upper castes are not uncommon.
Discrimination in 21st Century Mother India
If in case you are thinking I am talking about the past and not the modern day India, some recent examples would be good to wake you up.
On the 8th day of this month, as the country was celebrating World Women’s Day, the nine-year-old son of a Dalit mother in Madhya Pradesh, died of drowning in a well while trying to get water to quench his thirst after taking the mid-day meal.
Like every, he went to the well because he was denied access to the nearby hand pump. But unlike every day, he lost balance and fell into the well.
Dalit Adhikar Abhiyan of Madhya Pradesh recently conducted a survey in thirty villages. It found out that 92 percent of the villagers admitted they did not allow Dalit students in schools to drink water on their own.
Further, about 80 percent of the villagers admitted to debarring Dalits to drink or fill water from public water sources.
The parents of Dalit children also said their children are allowed to access drinking water sources in schools only when non-Dalits are not using them. Many Dalit children wait to return home, after school hours, to quench their thirsts.
In June 2013, media reported about an openly written discrimination in water supply in Dhanwada village, just about 45 km from Gujarat’s financial capital city Ahmedabad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the state then.
It was written on the wall at the entry point of the bore-well room, “Rajputs and Patels will get water from 8 am to 10 am. Then, from 10 am to 12 noon, it is the turn of the Bharwads and Vaghris and lastly, Harijans and other untouchables for the next two hours.”
Real India and its neglected children
The Constitution does not allow all these. In fact, it is a grave offence under Indian laws to discriminate against lower castes and practicing untouchability. Ironically, the state itself discriminates against the Dalits.
According to latest census figures, only about 35 percent of Scheduled Caste families (or the Dalits) have water sources within their premises, whereas it is about 53 percent for the general castes.
Almost near about 60 percent of Dalit households (meaning mostly women) have to walk away from their premises to fetch drinking water for their families. For the general caste, however, this figure stands at 47 percent.
Then, out of the 65 percent Dalit women who go out, almost a half have to walk up to faraway places, sometimes five to ten kilometers, to fetch drinking water.
As the hyperbolic debate continues to center around slogans, the real India slips off the development discourse.
This World Water Day let the real India prevail over the India of slogans. Let’s admit, once and for all, that water divides people and discriminates against the socially excluded groups in this real India of ours. And let’s say that is not acceptable.
Hindustan times
TN: Activists protest against ‘mysterious death’ of Dalit leader
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/tn-activists-protest-against-mysterious-death-of-dalit-leader/story-a77SrI3w0p2URimX7aJtqM.html
The family members and activists from Dalit outfits protested on Monday, alleging “foul play” in the death of a 45-year-old Dalit leader whose body was found in a well in Tamil Nadu and demanded a thorough probe.
A day after the body of Chinnasamy, leader of ‘Dalit Viduthalai Katchi’, was found in the well in Chellampalayam, his family observed a fast at Dasampudur village demanding a probe into his ‘mysterious death’ and registration of a murder case.
Activists of a Dalit outfit staged a demonstration in front of the Head Post office in Erode, Tamil Nadu.
According to the police, some people had picked up a quarrel with a group of Dalits who were allegedly consuming liquor near a well in Dasampudur village, where a local temple festival was held on Saturday.
An upper caste person had reportedly “abused” a 19-year- old Dalit boy by his caste name following which Chinnasamy intervened and objected.
Chinnasamy had reportedly said his community members would not visit Dasampudur and render their regular help to the upper caste people, police said.
Chinnasamy’s body was found floating in a well in Chellampalayam on Sunday and was brought to the government hospital for a post-mortem.
Counter veiw
Gujarat Dalits in Surendranagar district’s rural areas deprived of Narmada water: Letter to chief minister
http://www.counterview.net/2016/03/gujarat-dalits-in-surendranagar.html
In a letter to Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel, a well-known Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust’s activist, Prakashbhai Jayantibhai Parmar, has given the instance of two villages of Surendranagar district to point towards how, despite availability of Narmada waters, the Dalits are being deprived of drinking water.
Pointing out how in the two villages – Gedigam and Jambugam – the Dalits are being discriminated against in the distribution of Narmada waters, Parmar said, “While the water gathers in the village drinking water tanks, the responsibility rests with the local village panchayat to distribute it.”
He adds, “While other sections of the population do get water, the pipelines leading to the Dalit area are several years old and they do not have enough capacity to deliver water to the Dalit families, who live a segregated locality.”
“The Dalit families have to dig seven to eight feet deep holes in order to obtain water from the pipeline”, the letter says, calling the two village panchayats’ attitude as “discriminatory” and “amounting to untouchability.”
The letter says, “With the summer approaching, the Dalit families are obliged to buy water from private tankers. Sometimes, the families have to use dirty water from the nearby pond. As a result, there have been complaints of Dalit family members falling ill.”
The letter says that the Dalit families have made frequent complaints to the local officials, including the taluka mamlatdar of Limdi, under which the two villages are situated, and the government engineer looking after water supply, apart from local village officials and the village sarpanch.
“These complaints have made little difference”, the letter says, adding, “No one has cared to begin work for fresh pipelines towards the Dalit areas of the two villages.”
Demanding immediate provision of Narmada waters to the Dalit localities, the letter insists, “There should be a separate overhead tank for them under the provisions of the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP). Besides, the MLA and MP of the region should be asked to set aside their funds for the Dalits.”
The letters have been addressed to the chief minister amidst Navsarjan Trust, in a statement, insisting that the Gujarat government has not been spending funds allocated under the SCSP in the state budget.
Kirit Parmar, senior activist of Navsarjan Trust said, an analysis of the budget for the financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15 suggests that there was a provision of around Rs 600 crore for creating Narmada-based water supply mechanism for the Dalit areas during the two years.
“Despite this provision”, he says, “The Dalit families in Gujarat villages are deprived of Narmada waters, with the state government adopting an indifferent attitude towards them. Thus, in 2013-14, 62.78 per cent of the allocation (Rs 327.78 crore), and in 2014-15, 71.73 per cent of the allocation (Rs 361.47 crore) was spent for the Dalits.”
Eastern mirror
A new leash of life for Nagaland’s most famous unknown animal
http://www.easternmirrornagaland.com/a-new-leash-of-life-for-nagalands-most-famous-unknown-animal/
The bovine, the Mithun, famed for its place in the culture of the north-eastern people, particularly Nagaland, is a creature everybody knows but few, well, knows enough to appreciate its impact on the socio-cultural lives of the indigenous people.
A three-day technology injection and farmers’ awareness programme on mithun rearing and care was conducted recently in three villages in Tuensang district, namely Waoshu village, Yakor village, and Sangphur village. The event was organised by the ICAR-National Research Centre on Mithun of Medziphema in collaboration with the Mithun Rearing and Women Welfare Societies of said villages. The workshops were conducted during March 17-19.
The scientists from ICAR-NRCM comprising Dr. N Haque, Dr. S Mukherjeee and Dr. MH Khan apprised the farmers about the mandate of the Institute and stressed about scientific mithun rearing for the socio-economic development.
More than 300 mithun farmers attended the camps along with their mithuns. Scientists of ICAR-NRCM demonstrated the method of ear tag and microchip-based animal identification and apprised the farmers towards the benefit of feeding mineral mixtures and adopting health care and vaccination for better economic returns.
Various inputs including commonly used medicines, vaccines and piglets were distributed to the farmers under Tribal Sub Plan. Stationary items like copies, pencil etc were also distributed among the school children.
The enthusiasm and keen interests shown by the mithun farmers of these remote villages are very encouraging.
The gayal (Bos frontalis), also known as mithun, is a large semi-domesticated bovine distributed in Northeast India, Bangladesh, northern Burma and in Yunnan, China. The state animal of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland continues to be integral to the economics of animal husbandry in the region.
The gayal differs in several important particulars from the gaur. It is somewhat smaller, with proportionately shorter limbs, and stands much lower at the withers. The ridge on the back is less developed, and bulls have a larger dewlap on the throat. The head is shorter and broader, with a perfectly flat forehead and a straight line between the bases of the horns. The thick and massive horns are less flattened and much less curved than in the gaur, extending almost directly outwards from the sides of the head, and curving somewhat upwards at the tips, but without any inward inclination. Their extremities are thus much farther apart than in the gaur.
The female gayal is much smaller than the bull, and has scarcely any dewlap on the throat. The skin colour of the head and body is blackish-brown in both sexes, and the lower portion of the limbs are white or yellowish. The horns are of uniform blackish tint from base to tip. Some domesticated gayals are parti-coloured, while others are completely white.
Distribution and habitat
Gayals are essentially inhabitants of hill-forests. In India, semi-domesticated gayals are kept by several ethnic groups living in the hills of Tripura, Mizoram, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland. They also occur in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
In northern Burma, they occur in the Kachin State, and in adjacent Yunnan are found only in the Trung and Salween River basins. In Nagaland, the animals are kept semi-wild, and live in herds, being watched over by special caretakers assigned by the villages or the owner of the herd. They respond to a horn kept especially for the individual caretaker or actual owner to call them. From birth until the time of butchering or market, the Mithun remain in the herd, and roam mostly freely throughout the forests.
The role of the mithun is central to the lives of many residents of these areas, including transhumant ones who pair mithun management with sago palm harvesting:
Although livestock is highly characteristic of the high Himalayan way of life in general, with yaks and sheep being predominant species until recently, the mithun, or gayal (Bos frontalis) is the most prominent animal exploited by Eastern Himalayan groups. The mithun is a semi-domesticate, managed in fenced tracts of forests rather than being kept in or near villages.
Outside North East India, mithun are primarily imported for the purpose of cross- breeding with other bovids, for example in Bhutan. It is very common among Eastern Himalayan languages to find lexical sets denoting fauna in which the mithun is lexicalized as a “prototypical” meat animal, with all other terms being derived.
Terms for ‘mithun’ in other languages of Arunachal Pradesh are typically cognate with Aka fu, suggesting that this is probably not a case of semantic shift from a wild species. The implication is that the semi-wild mithun was seen as the core species, and the true domesticates such as cattle, which arrived subsequently, as marginal to the system.
The hans india
India’s tribes demand legal right to shelter, land
http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/News-Analysis/2016-03-22/Indias-tribes-demand-legal-right-to-shelter-land/215354
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 nowhere 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 uplift.
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 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 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).
F.india
Modi tries to dispel anti-Dalit image of BJP, compares Ambedkar with Martin Luther King Jr
http://www.firstpost.com/india/modi-tries-to-dispel-anti-dalit-image-of-bjp-compares-ambedkar-with-martin-luther-king-jr-2687798.html
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid glowing tributes to BR Ambedkar, comparing him with iconic civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
“If Martin Luther King is seen as an image of fight against injustice the world over, BR Ambedkar should also be not seen as second to anyone,” Modi said at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the BR Ambedkar National Memorial in the capital.
The Prime Minister sought to dispel impression that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is anti-Dalit and maintained that whenever it came to power at the Centre, including under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and in various states, efforts were made to uphold the teachings and values of Ambedkar. “Still there is a misgiving about us. But the truth is we in the BJP always had utmost respect for Ambedkar,” he said.
Maintaining that his government is trying to realise Ambedkar’s dreams by providing electricity in 18,000 villages, he said, “When in these villages you get power supply, do-not give credit to Modi (me). Give credit to Ambedkar.”
“These all are his ideas and only in between some people sabtoaged these works,” he said, in a veiled cricticism of Congress. He lamented that even after 60 years some villages in India remain in darkness.
“Babasaheb was the voice of the marginalised,” the Prime Minister said, adding that the founding father of the Indian Constitution should not be seen as a leader of any caste. “Rather he was a protector of all human values,” Modi said.
Modi also praised Ambedkar’s vision for the development of the poor and middle class and said he also made a right synthesis between the welfare of labour force and industrialisation. “He had a vision to realise India’s maritime resources, power sector and many things…he always wanted people to be educated,” Modi said, adding, “Ambedkar gave inner power to people by compelling people to be knowledgeable.”
Paying tributes to Ambedkar’s economic philosophy, Modi said farmers’ welfare also figured in Ambedkar’s philosophy. “In order to realise one of his dreams, I will launch a technology on April 14 that will help enable farmers get updated information about market rates of agri products,” Modi said.
News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET
