Morning Headlines: Wilson Champramari, GJM supported MLA of Kalchini Dooars was produced before the ACJM of Alipurduar Court and denied bail. He was arrested on 8th February after the Shibsu firing.He is again remanded for 14 days jail custody
Condition of Nirmala Diyali and Brinda Lama two hunger strikers staging protest in Bagrakote is now stable. They have been administered with saline and other medications in Jalpaiguri Sadar Hospital.
Sikkimese people have formed Sikkim solidarity forum to support Gorkhaland demand in Sikkim. It demands formation of a separate state of Gorkhaland. It has suggested GJM not to accept anything else than Gorkhaland.
S
दार्जीलिङको तीन टी सङ्कटमा -आरोप र प्राप्तिबीच मोर्चा
· No hike in passenger fare and freight rates.
· Highest ever Plan outlay of Rs. 57, 630 crore proposed for Railways.
· Rs. 9,583 crore provided for new lines.
· 1300 km new lines, 867 km doubling of lines and 1017 km gauge conversion targeted in 2011-12.
· 56 new Express Trains, 3 new Shatabdis and 9 Duronto trains to be introduced.
· AC Double Decker services on Jaipur-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai routes.
· New Super AC Class to be introduced.
· A new portal for e-ticketing to be launched shortly. Booking charges will be cheaper with a charge of only Rs. 10 for AC classes and Rs.5 for others.
· Pan-India multi-purpose smart card “Go India” to be introduced.
· 236 more stations to be upgraded as Adarsh Stations.
· 47 additional suburban services in Mumbai and 50 new suburban services proposed for Kolkata.
· Two new passenger terminals in Kerala and one each in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal proposed.
· Feasibility study to raise speed of passenger trains to 160-200 kmph to be undertaken.
· A special package of two new trains and two projects for the States managing trouble free run of trains through out the year.
· Anti Collision Devise (ACD) sanctioned to cover 8 zonal railways.
· GPS Based ‘Fog Safe’ Device to be deployed.
· All unmanned level crossing upto 3000 to be eliminated.
· All India Security Help line on a single number set up.
· All state capitals in the North-East except Sikkim to be connected by Rail in next seven years.
· A Bridge Factory in J & K and a state-of-art Institute for Tunnel and Bridge Engineering is proposed at Jammu.
· A Diesel Locomotive Centre will be set-up in Manipur.
· A Centre of Excellence in Software at Darjeeling proposed under the aegis of CRIS.
· Rail Industrial Parks at Jellingham and New Bongaigaon proposed.
· Additional mechanized laundry units to be set up at Nagpur, Chandhigarh and Bhopal.
· 700 MW gas-based power plant to be set up at Thakurli in Maharashtra.
· 18,000 Wagons to be procured during 2011-12.
· A scheme for socially desirable projects, ‘Pradhan Mantri Rail Vikas Yojana’ with Non-lapsable fund proposed.
· 10,000 shelter units proposed for track side dwellers in Mumbai, Sealdah, Siliguri, Tiruchirapalli on pilot basis.
· Concession to physically handicapped persons to be extended on Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.
· Concession of 50% to press correspondents with family increased to twice a year.
· Senior Citizens concession to be hiked from 30 % to 40 %.
· Medical facilities extended to dependent parents of the Railway employees.
· Scholarship for Girl child of Group-D railway employees increased to Rs.1200 per month.
· 20 additional hostels for children of railway employees to be set up.
· Recruitment for 1.75 lakh vacancies of Group ‘C’ and ‘D’ including to fill up backlog of SC/ST initiated, 16,000 ex-servicemen to be inducted by March 2011.
· A separate sports cadre to be created.
· 2011-12 declared ‘Year of Green Energy’ for Railways.
· Freight loading of 993 MT and passenger growth of 6.4 % estimated for 2011-12.
· Gross Traffic Receipts at Rs.1,06,239 crore, exceeding one lakh crore mark for the first time estimated.
· Ordinary Working Expenses assessed at Rs. 73,650 crore.
Egypt-like protest for Telangana in Hyderabad
मनोज वोगटी,कालिमन्युज, कालेबुङ,25 फरवरी। दार्जीलिङ जिल्लालाई अर्थनैतिक महत्वमा देश र विदेशले हेर्ने कारण नै यहॉंको तीनवटा टी रहेको छ। टिम्बर, टुरिज्म र टी। यी तीनैवटा आर्थिक स्रोतलाई अघि राखेर गोर्खा जनमुक्ति मोर्चाले आफ्नो दाबीलाई प्रभावशाली बनाउने रणनीति अप्नाएको छ। यी तिनोटा आर्थिक आधारहरू मोर्चाकोलागि मुद्दा दाबीको निम्ति फ्यॉंक्न सकिने ब्रह्मास्त्र बनेको छ। यी तिनोटा प्रमुख आर्थिक संसाधनबाट सरकारले करोड़ौको राजस्व बटुल्छ। पहाड़बाट करोड़ौं राजस्व पाएन भने बङ्गालको अर्थनीति नै तहसनहस हुन्छ।
मोर्चाले बङ्गालमा मात्र होइन केन्द्रको पनि नाड़ी छामिसकेको छ। यसप्रकार आर्थिकरूपले देश र राज्यलाई जहॉं हानी गर्छ, त्यहीँ प्रहार गर्ने मोर्चाले रणनीति अप्नाएको छ। मोर्चाले पहिले टुरिज्मलाई मुद्दा दाबीको वाहक बनायो। र भन्यो, पर्यटनसित मोर्चालाई कुनै सरोकार छैन। मोर्चाको यो वयानले राज्य सरकार निक्कै जोड़ले हल्लियो। मोर्चालाई अनेकौं आरोपहरू लाग्यो। प्रमुख आरोप हो-मोर्चाले पहाड़को सामाजिक अर्थनैतिक आधारभूमि नष्ट गर्दैछ, जो भविष्यको निम्ति ठूलो सङ्कटको कुरा हो। तर मोर्चा हल्लिएन। पर्यटकहरू आउने सिजनमा पहाड़ बन्द थियो।
अझ पनि पहाड़को स्थितिलाई यस्तो शंकास्पद बनाएको छ कि कुनै बेला पनि पहाड़ बन्द हुनसक्छ। यस्तो स्थितिमा पर्यटक पहाड़ आउन सक्दैन। फलस्वरूप यो व्यवसाय घाटामा जान्छ। पहाड़का मानिसहरू त जसोतसो बॉंच्छनै तर सरकारले पाउने राजस्वमा ह्रास आउँछ। अहिलेसम्म नै पर्यटन उद्योग संकटमा छ। यसले पहाड़का जनतासित नै सररकारलाई पनि असर पारेको छ। तर यसको परिणति के भयो त? प्रश्न विस्तारै उठेदैछ। तुलनामा आन्दोलन-दुइले पनि पर्यटनलाई करोड़ौंको घाटामा झार्यो। यता बन्दावधीभरि जङ्गल नष्ट गर्ने काम तीब्र नै छ। सरकार पनि पहाड़का जङ्गलहरू नष्ट गर्नतिर लागेको छ। पहाड़ नाङ्गो भइसकेको छ अनि पैह्रोलाई निम्तो दिइसकेको छ।
यसपल्ट त बन विभागका सबै कार्यालयहरू जलाएर नष्ट नै गरिएको छ। अब बन विभागीय कार्यालयहरू पहाड़मा फेरि स्थापित हुन सक्ने आशा छैन। बनविनास चरममा छ अनि त्यसको साटोमा अरण्य योजनाहरू कार्यान्वयन छैन। जङ्गल पूर्णरूपले नष्ट भयो भने सरकारलाई त असर गर्छ नै योसित सम्बन्धित पहाड़वासीलाई पनि चपेटमा पार्छ। अहिले मोर्चाले टी-लाई अस्त्रकोरूपमा गरेको छ।
पहिलो मौसमको चिया विश्वबजारमा लैजान पाएन भने कम्पनी घाटामा जाने निश्चित छ। यसबाट पनि सरकारलाई राजस्वमा असर गर्नेछ। तर योसित नै चियाबगानहरू नै बन्द हुने सम्भावना पनि निश्चित छ। आफ्नै संसाधनलाई घाटामा पारेर सरकारलाई चाप दिने यो रणनीति कतिको उचित हो, केही दिनपछि आउने यसको फलाफलले बताउने छ। सरकारी घाटामा राजनैतिक प्राप्ति देख्ने मोर्चाले यसप्रकारको कार्यक्रमबाट हुने जनपीड़क परिणतिलाई पनि आलङ्कन गरेको हुन जरूरी देखिएको छ।
राजस्वमा हानी देखेर शीघ्र नै राजनैतिक समाधानको मार्ग यदि सरकारले रोजेन भने, यो कार्यक्रम लम्बियो भने र यसले पहाड़कै सामाजिक अर्थनीतिलाई नष्ट गर्यो भने दोष कसलाई आउँछ? मोर्चालाई कि कार्यक्रम सफल बनाउने श्रमिकवर्गलाई? कि कम्पनी र मालिकवर्गलाई? जसरी टीनैवटा टी सङ्कटमा छ, त्यसरी नै मोर्चा, जनता र सरकारमा पनि यसले सङ्कट निम्त्याउने निश्चित छ। एकातिर मोर्चाले आफ्नो राजनैतिक दाबीलाई यसप्रकारको कार्यक्रमले असरदार बनाउने सोंच राखेको छ भने अर्कोतिर यसै कार्यक्रमले आफ्नै जनतालाई हानी पुर्याउने स्पष्ट छ। यसप्रकारको जोखिम मोर्चाले कति समयसम्म उठाउन सक्छ, उतिदिनसम्म नै मोर्चाको छबी असरदार बन्न सक्ला तर यसले जन्माएको नकरात्मक प्रभाव मोर्चाकै अस्तित्वको निम्ति खतरा बन्नसक्ने पनि स्पष्ट नै देखिन थालेको छ।
चिया निर्यातमा रोक - हानी कसलाई ?-विपक्ष
सरकारले आर्थिक नोक्सानी खप्न सक्छ, श्रमिकले सक्छ के त?-क्रामाकपा
129 करोड़ प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्ड जम्मा गरिएको छैन,मालिकहरू भाग्न सक्छन्-माकपा
श्रमिक विरुद्ध र मालिकहरूको हीतमा मोर्चाले कार्यक्रम गर्दैछ-लीग
मनोज वोगट, कालेबुङ,25 फरवरी। मोर्चाले चिया निर्यातमा रोक लगाउने कार्यक्रम त घोषणा गर्यो तर यसले निम्त्याउने नकरात्मक पक्षलाई मोर्चाले केलाएको छ के त? भन्ने प्रश्न अहिले चौतर्फी छ। सरकारलाई राजस्वमा नोक्सान पुर्याउँदै दाबीलाई प्रभावशाली बनाउन मोर्चाले यो कार्यक्रम हातमा त लियो तर यसले राजनैतिक फाइदा मोर्चालाई हुन्छ के त भन्ने प्रश्न पनि उठिरहेको छ। विभिन्न पक्षबाट चिया निर्यातमा रोक कार्यक्रमको प्रभाव नकरात्मक बन्यो भने 55 हजार श्रमिकहरूको भविष्यमा प्रश्नचिह्न खड़ा हुनसक्ने सम्भावना व्यक्त भइरहेको छ। अर्कोतिर मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रमबाट मालिकपक्षले पनि गलत फाइदा लुट्ने अनि श्रमिकवर्गलाई नै चपेटमा पार्न सक्ने सम्भावना पनि जिउँदो छ। सीमाङ्कन, विमल गुरूङलाई पदयात्राको अनुमति अनि तराई-डुवर्स र पहाड़ लगाएर राज्य गठन गरिनुपर्ने मोर्चाको दाबी छ।
यता पी.चिदम्बरम्ले गोर्खाल्याण्डको लागि सकरात्मक विचार व्यक्त गरिएको दिल्लीबास गरिरहेका मोर्चा महासचिवको टिप्पणी पनि आइरहेको छ। सीमाङ्कनको निम्ति दिएको आश्वासन अनि चिदम्बरमले पहाड़को समस्या समाधानको निम्ति रोशन गिरीलाई दिएको आश्वासनको प्रेस रिलिज सरकारीरूपले जारी गरिएको छैन। उता आस्वासनहरू आधिकारिक छैन अनि यता आन्दोलनले अर्कोरूप लिइसकेको छ। यता नयॉं कार्यक्रमहरूमा आमरण अनशन खुवै प्रभावशाली देखिएको छ भने चिया निर्यातको कार्यक्रम भने उत्तिकै विवादित छ।
चिया निर्यातमा रोक लगाउने कार्यक्रम निक्कै चिन्ताजनक रहेको विपक्षको पनि राय रहेको देखिएको छ।
क्रामाकपा प्रतिनिधि किशोर प्रधानले चिया उद्योगमा पहिलो मौसमको चियाको अन्तराष्ट्रिय मूल्य राम्रो हुने भएकैले भारत सरकारले कमाउने डलरमाथि असर गर्न मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रम हुन सक्ने बताउँदै कार्यक्रमको नकरात्मक पक्षलाई पनि हेरिनुपर्ने बताएका छन्। तिनले भने, तर अन्तराष्ट्रिय व्यापारको निम्ति अझ दुइ महिना समय छ। यसबीच मोर्चाको कार्यक्रममा नै फेरबदल हुनसक्ने आशा क्रामाकपालाई छ। तिनले अझ भने, उत्पादन गर्न दिने तर बिक्रि गर्न नदिने अथवा श्रमिकहरूले काम चॉंही गर्न पाउने भन्दैछ, तर बिक्रि भएन भने मालिकहरूले श्रमिकलाई तलब कसरी दिन्छ? सरकारी कर्मचारीहरूले काम नगरी पैसा पाउँछ तर चिया श्रमिकहरूले काम गर्नैपर्छ। नोक्सान भयो भने कम्पनीले बगान बन्द गर्नसक्छ, यसकारण मोर्चाले यो कार्यक्रममा फेरबदल ल्याएको उचित हुन्छ।
तिनले जनता जस्तै हानी पनि बेहोर्न तयार रहेको बताउँदै भने, तर आन्दोलन इमान्दार भएन भने? घरि ट्यूसन धरी पढ्न नपाउने घरी विद्यार्थीहरूको भविष्यको चिन्ता व्यक्त गरिने कार्यक्रमहरूमा कहीं न कहीँ तालमेल मिलेको छैन। सरकारले जस्तै आर्थिक हानी बेहोर्न तयार छ किन भने यो सरकारी मामिला हो, माकपालाई घाटा छैन। तर एकवर्ष जनताले यो हानी बेहोर्न सक्छ के त? माकपा सरकार गोर्खाल्याण्ड नदिने र जस्तै घाटा पनि सहने पक्षमा भएकोले यो कार्यक्रमले ठीक ठाउँमा असर गर्ला जस्तो क्रामाकपालाई लाग्दैन। कहीं पछि गएर गोर्खाल्याण्डको आन्दोलन रोजगारको निम्ति गरिएको आन्दोलन नहोस्।
अर्कोतिर मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रमबाट चियाबगानका मालिकहरूले फाइदा उठाउन सक्ने माकपा नेता तारा सुन्दासको पक्ष छ। तिनले भने, जिल्लाको जनसंख्याको 77 प्रतिशत चियामा निर्भर छन्। दार्जीलिङको 12, खरसाङको 13 अनि कालेबुङको 2 वटा चियाबारीका श्रमिकहरूलाई दिइनुपर्ने 129 करोड़ प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्ड मालिकपक्षले जम्मा गरेकै छैनन्। यता निर्यात बन्द र नोक्सानी। यसै बहानामा मालिकवर्ग पहाड़बाट भाग्न सक्छन्। यसको जिम्मा कसले लिन्छ? सीआईटीयूको पक्षमा म यो कार्यक्रमको विरोध गर्छु। यसमा श्रमिकहरुको हीत छैन।
अहिले श्रमिक सङ्गठनहरूले बारम्बार बैठक गरिरहेको भए पनि प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्डमाथि कुनै कुरा नगरिरहेको आरोप पनि तिनले लगाए। तिनले अझ भने, चियाको भविष्य अन्धकारमा छ। मालिकहरू ठग्नमा एक छन्, यता मोर्चाको कार्यक्रमले उनीहरूले निहू पाउन सक्छ। एकपल्ट बन्द भएर खोल्दा मोलिकहरूले सबै जमीन प्रयोग नगेर बेच्ने गरेको इतिहास छ, यस्तो कार्यक्रम श्रमिकहरूको विरुद्धमा हुन्छ।
अर्कोतिर गोर्खालीगको नेता प्रताप खातीले भने, यो कार्यक्रम मोर्चाको विनाशकाले विपरित बुद्धि हो। पैसा हुनेको लागि मात्र मोर्चा हो। श्रमिकहरूको निम्ति होइन। श्रमिकलाई मारेर चौकी र सेटअप थाप्नेहरूलाई ती नै श्रमिकहरूले थन्को लगाउने छन्। मोर्चाको कार्यक्रम दिशाहीन छ। श्रमिकहरूको भविष्यसित खेलवाड़ भइरहेको छ। यो कुरा श्रमिकहरूले बुझेको दिन मोर्चालाई तइनमा ल्याउने छन्। मोर्चाको श्रमिकविरोधी कार्यक्रमलाई लीगले विरोध गर्छ।
Class boycott cry for Sibchu probe - Skip study from Monday: Morcha cubs
Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, Feb. 25: The Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha has called upon all hill students to boycott classes from Monday until the government orders a CBI inquiry into the Sibchu police firing, an indication that Bimal Gurung’s outfit is determined to get its demands fulfilled before the election code of conduct comes into effect.
The announcement has made the hill institutions jittery at a time when many of them are trying to ensure that there is no major exodus of outstation students.
Around 2.5 lakh students attend the nearly 1,000 schools and colleges that dot the hills. These institutions, some of which have students from other countries as well, are major contributors to the region’s economy.
The class boycott call from the students’ wing of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha comes close on the heels of the party’s decision to impose an embargo on the despatch of the first flush of Darjeeling tea.
Amrit Yonzone, the vice-president of Morcha’s student wing, said: “We call upon the students of the hills, both school and college-going, to boycott classes from February 28 until the government orders a CBI inquiry into the killing of three of our supporters at Sibchu.”
Explaining the details of the boycott, Nima Sherpa, spokesperson for the Vidyarthi Morcha, said: “The students can go to school but no classes can be taken. We will also sit with the teaching fraternity the day after tomorrow to apprise them of our boycott call.”
Most of the Anglo-Indian schools are scheduled to reopen after a three-month winter vacation on March 1 but almost all government and state-aided schools have already reopened and so have the colleges.
The student wing will also organise a public meeting on March 6, where the leaders will announce a date for a Darjeeling to Calcutta padayatra. “Students will take part in the padayatra from Darjeeling to Calcutta. We will also write to the President, the Prime Minister, home minister and the governor of West Bengal, demanding a CBI inquiry (into the firing),” said Sherpa.
This is not the first time that the students have come out on the streets under the Vidyarthi Morcha’s banner. They had taken part in relay hunger strikes and rallies and attended public meetings apart from laying siege to the office of the ABGL in Darjeeling under the leadership of the Vidyarthi Morcha.
Teachers in the hills have appealed to the student leaders to reconsider their decision. “Even in war torn zones, utmost priority is given to education. The demand for a CBI inquiry is justified but students should be allowed to study as they are the future of the place,” said a teacher.
Other teachers voiced concern about the impact it would have on outstation parents. “We are convincing them to send back their wards to our school and have assured them that studies will not be affected. We just hope that the boycott will not carry on for long. If the boycott is for a short duration, we can make up by holding classes on Saturdays as we normally do when school is affected by general strikes,” said a teacher.
Schools with boardings fear that outstation students might not turn up at all. “We are getting calls from anxious parents who want to shift their wards elsewhere,” said a teacher.
In Delhi, Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri met Union home minister P. Chidambaram today to find a solution to the hill impasse. “I, along with Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh and the interlocutor (Vijay Madan), again met the home minister at his office today. The Centre is trying to find a solution,” said Giri.
He had met Chidambaram yesterday too.
Tusker kills two
TT, Siliguri: Devi Tamang, 30, and her three-year-old daughter Ria were trampled to death by a tusker which raided Atal Tea Estate near Naxalbari early on Friday morning. The woman’s husband Pradip, a garden worker, and her two younger daughters escaped unhurt when they had run out of the hut to flee the wild elephant.
Whistling up and down tracks full of promises
मोर्चाले बङ्गालमा मात्र होइन केन्द्रको पनि नाड़ी छामिसकेको छ। यसप्रकार आर्थिकरूपले देश र राज्यलाई जहॉं हानी गर्छ, त्यहीँ प्रहार गर्ने मोर्चाले रणनीति अप्नाएको छ। मोर्चाले पहिले टुरिज्मलाई मुद्दा दाबीको वाहक बनायो। र भन्यो, पर्यटनसित मोर्चालाई कुनै सरोकार छैन। मोर्चाको यो वयानले राज्य सरकार निक्कै जोड़ले हल्लियो। मोर्चालाई अनेकौं आरोपहरू लाग्यो। प्रमुख आरोप हो-मोर्चाले पहाड़को सामाजिक अर्थनैतिक आधारभूमि नष्ट गर्दैछ, जो भविष्यको निम्ति ठूलो सङ्कटको कुरा हो। तर मोर्चा हल्लिएन। पर्यटकहरू आउने सिजनमा पहाड़ बन्द थियो।
अझ पनि पहाड़को स्थितिलाई यस्तो शंकास्पद बनाएको छ कि कुनै बेला पनि पहाड़ बन्द हुनसक्छ। यस्तो स्थितिमा पर्यटक पहाड़ आउन सक्दैन। फलस्वरूप यो व्यवसाय घाटामा जान्छ। पहाड़का मानिसहरू त जसोतसो बॉंच्छनै तर सरकारले पाउने राजस्वमा ह्रास आउँछ। अहिलेसम्म नै पर्यटन उद्योग संकटमा छ। यसले पहाड़का जनतासित नै सररकारलाई पनि असर पारेको छ। तर यसको परिणति के भयो त? प्रश्न विस्तारै उठेदैछ। तुलनामा आन्दोलन-दुइले पनि पर्यटनलाई करोड़ौंको घाटामा झार्यो। यता बन्दावधीभरि जङ्गल नष्ट गर्ने काम तीब्र नै छ। सरकार पनि पहाड़का जङ्गलहरू नष्ट गर्नतिर लागेको छ। पहाड़ नाङ्गो भइसकेको छ अनि पैह्रोलाई निम्तो दिइसकेको छ।
यसपल्ट त बन विभागका सबै कार्यालयहरू जलाएर नष्ट नै गरिएको छ। अब बन विभागीय कार्यालयहरू पहाड़मा फेरि स्थापित हुन सक्ने आशा छैन। बनविनास चरममा छ अनि त्यसको साटोमा अरण्य योजनाहरू कार्यान्वयन छैन। जङ्गल पूर्णरूपले नष्ट भयो भने सरकारलाई त असर गर्छ नै योसित सम्बन्धित पहाड़वासीलाई पनि चपेटमा पार्छ। अहिले मोर्चाले टी-लाई अस्त्रकोरूपमा गरेको छ।
पहिलो मौसमको चिया विश्वबजारमा लैजान पाएन भने कम्पनी घाटामा जाने निश्चित छ। यसबाट पनि सरकारलाई राजस्वमा असर गर्नेछ। तर योसित नै चियाबगानहरू नै बन्द हुने सम्भावना पनि निश्चित छ। आफ्नै संसाधनलाई घाटामा पारेर सरकारलाई चाप दिने यो रणनीति कतिको उचित हो, केही दिनपछि आउने यसको फलाफलले बताउने छ। सरकारी घाटामा राजनैतिक प्राप्ति देख्ने मोर्चाले यसप्रकारको कार्यक्रमबाट हुने जनपीड़क परिणतिलाई पनि आलङ्कन गरेको हुन जरूरी देखिएको छ।
राजस्वमा हानी देखेर शीघ्र नै राजनैतिक समाधानको मार्ग यदि सरकारले रोजेन भने, यो कार्यक्रम लम्बियो भने र यसले पहाड़कै सामाजिक अर्थनीतिलाई नष्ट गर्यो भने दोष कसलाई आउँछ? मोर्चालाई कि कार्यक्रम सफल बनाउने श्रमिकवर्गलाई? कि कम्पनी र मालिकवर्गलाई? जसरी टीनैवटा टी सङ्कटमा छ, त्यसरी नै मोर्चा, जनता र सरकारमा पनि यसले सङ्कट निम्त्याउने निश्चित छ। एकातिर मोर्चाले आफ्नो राजनैतिक दाबीलाई यसप्रकारको कार्यक्रमले असरदार बनाउने सोंच राखेको छ भने अर्कोतिर यसै कार्यक्रमले आफ्नै जनतालाई हानी पुर्याउने स्पष्ट छ। यसप्रकारको जोखिम मोर्चाले कति समयसम्म उठाउन सक्छ, उतिदिनसम्म नै मोर्चाको छबी असरदार बन्न सक्ला तर यसले जन्माएको नकरात्मक प्रभाव मोर्चाकै अस्तित्वको निम्ति खतरा बन्नसक्ने पनि स्पष्ट नै देखिन थालेको छ।
चिया निर्यातमा रोक - हानी कसलाई ?-विपक्ष
सरकारले आर्थिक नोक्सानी खप्न सक्छ, श्रमिकले सक्छ के त?-क्रामाकपा
129 करोड़ प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्ड जम्मा गरिएको छैन,मालिकहरू भाग्न सक्छन्-माकपा
श्रमिक विरुद्ध र मालिकहरूको हीतमा मोर्चाले कार्यक्रम गर्दैछ-लीग
मनोज वोगट, कालेबुङ,25 फरवरी। मोर्चाले चिया निर्यातमा रोक लगाउने कार्यक्रम त घोषणा गर्यो तर यसले निम्त्याउने नकरात्मक पक्षलाई मोर्चाले केलाएको छ के त? भन्ने प्रश्न अहिले चौतर्फी छ। सरकारलाई राजस्वमा नोक्सान पुर्याउँदै दाबीलाई प्रभावशाली बनाउन मोर्चाले यो कार्यक्रम हातमा त लियो तर यसले राजनैतिक फाइदा मोर्चालाई हुन्छ के त भन्ने प्रश्न पनि उठिरहेको छ। विभिन्न पक्षबाट चिया निर्यातमा रोक कार्यक्रमको प्रभाव नकरात्मक बन्यो भने 55 हजार श्रमिकहरूको भविष्यमा प्रश्नचिह्न खड़ा हुनसक्ने सम्भावना व्यक्त भइरहेको छ। अर्कोतिर मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रमबाट मालिकपक्षले पनि गलत फाइदा लुट्ने अनि श्रमिकवर्गलाई नै चपेटमा पार्न सक्ने सम्भावना पनि जिउँदो छ। सीमाङ्कन, विमल गुरूङलाई पदयात्राको अनुमति अनि तराई-डुवर्स र पहाड़ लगाएर राज्य गठन गरिनुपर्ने मोर्चाको दाबी छ।
यता पी.चिदम्बरम्ले गोर्खाल्याण्डको लागि सकरात्मक विचार व्यक्त गरिएको दिल्लीबास गरिरहेका मोर्चा महासचिवको टिप्पणी पनि आइरहेको छ। सीमाङ्कनको निम्ति दिएको आश्वासन अनि चिदम्बरमले पहाड़को समस्या समाधानको निम्ति रोशन गिरीलाई दिएको आश्वासनको प्रेस रिलिज सरकारीरूपले जारी गरिएको छैन। उता आस्वासनहरू आधिकारिक छैन अनि यता आन्दोलनले अर्कोरूप लिइसकेको छ। यता नयॉं कार्यक्रमहरूमा आमरण अनशन खुवै प्रभावशाली देखिएको छ भने चिया निर्यातको कार्यक्रम भने उत्तिकै विवादित छ।
चिया निर्यातमा रोक लगाउने कार्यक्रम निक्कै चिन्ताजनक रहेको विपक्षको पनि राय रहेको देखिएको छ।
क्रामाकपा प्रतिनिधि किशोर प्रधानले चिया उद्योगमा पहिलो मौसमको चियाको अन्तराष्ट्रिय मूल्य राम्रो हुने भएकैले भारत सरकारले कमाउने डलरमाथि असर गर्न मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रम हुन सक्ने बताउँदै कार्यक्रमको नकरात्मक पक्षलाई पनि हेरिनुपर्ने बताएका छन्। तिनले भने, तर अन्तराष्ट्रिय व्यापारको निम्ति अझ दुइ महिना समय छ। यसबीच मोर्चाको कार्यक्रममा नै फेरबदल हुनसक्ने आशा क्रामाकपालाई छ। तिनले अझ भने, उत्पादन गर्न दिने तर बिक्रि गर्न नदिने अथवा श्रमिकहरूले काम चॉंही गर्न पाउने भन्दैछ, तर बिक्रि भएन भने मालिकहरूले श्रमिकलाई तलब कसरी दिन्छ? सरकारी कर्मचारीहरूले काम नगरी पैसा पाउँछ तर चिया श्रमिकहरूले काम गर्नैपर्छ। नोक्सान भयो भने कम्पनीले बगान बन्द गर्नसक्छ, यसकारण मोर्चाले यो कार्यक्रममा फेरबदल ल्याएको उचित हुन्छ।
तिनले जनता जस्तै हानी पनि बेहोर्न तयार रहेको बताउँदै भने, तर आन्दोलन इमान्दार भएन भने? घरि ट्यूसन धरी पढ्न नपाउने घरी विद्यार्थीहरूको भविष्यको चिन्ता व्यक्त गरिने कार्यक्रमहरूमा कहीं न कहीँ तालमेल मिलेको छैन। सरकारले जस्तै आर्थिक हानी बेहोर्न तयार छ किन भने यो सरकारी मामिला हो, माकपालाई घाटा छैन। तर एकवर्ष जनताले यो हानी बेहोर्न सक्छ के त? माकपा सरकार गोर्खाल्याण्ड नदिने र जस्तै घाटा पनि सहने पक्षमा भएकोले यो कार्यक्रमले ठीक ठाउँमा असर गर्ला जस्तो क्रामाकपालाई लाग्दैन। कहीं पछि गएर गोर्खाल्याण्डको आन्दोलन रोजगारको निम्ति गरिएको आन्दोलन नहोस्।
अर्कोतिर मोर्चाको यो कार्यक्रमबाट चियाबगानका मालिकहरूले फाइदा उठाउन सक्ने माकपा नेता तारा सुन्दासको पक्ष छ। तिनले भने, जिल्लाको जनसंख्याको 77 प्रतिशत चियामा निर्भर छन्। दार्जीलिङको 12, खरसाङको 13 अनि कालेबुङको 2 वटा चियाबारीका श्रमिकहरूलाई दिइनुपर्ने 129 करोड़ प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्ड मालिकपक्षले जम्मा गरेकै छैनन्। यता निर्यात बन्द र नोक्सानी। यसै बहानामा मालिकवर्ग पहाड़बाट भाग्न सक्छन्। यसको जिम्मा कसले लिन्छ? सीआईटीयूको पक्षमा म यो कार्यक्रमको विरोध गर्छु। यसमा श्रमिकहरुको हीत छैन।
अहिले श्रमिक सङ्गठनहरूले बारम्बार बैठक गरिरहेको भए पनि प्रोभिडेन्ट फण्डमाथि कुनै कुरा नगरिरहेको आरोप पनि तिनले लगाए। तिनले अझ भने, चियाको भविष्य अन्धकारमा छ। मालिकहरू ठग्नमा एक छन्, यता मोर्चाको कार्यक्रमले उनीहरूले निहू पाउन सक्छ। एकपल्ट बन्द भएर खोल्दा मोलिकहरूले सबै जमीन प्रयोग नगेर बेच्ने गरेको इतिहास छ, यस्तो कार्यक्रम श्रमिकहरूको विरुद्धमा हुन्छ।
अर्कोतिर गोर्खालीगको नेता प्रताप खातीले भने, यो कार्यक्रम मोर्चाको विनाशकाले विपरित बुद्धि हो। पैसा हुनेको लागि मात्र मोर्चा हो। श्रमिकहरूको निम्ति होइन। श्रमिकलाई मारेर चौकी र सेटअप थाप्नेहरूलाई ती नै श्रमिकहरूले थन्को लगाउने छन्। मोर्चाको कार्यक्रम दिशाहीन छ। श्रमिकहरूको भविष्यसित खेलवाड़ भइरहेको छ। यो कुरा श्रमिकहरूले बुझेको दिन मोर्चालाई तइनमा ल्याउने छन्। मोर्चाको श्रमिकविरोधी कार्यक्रमलाई लीगले विरोध गर्छ।
Class boycott cry for Sibchu probe - Skip study from Monday: Morcha cubs
Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, Feb. 25: The Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha has called upon all hill students to boycott classes from Monday until the government orders a CBI inquiry into the Sibchu police firing, an indication that Bimal Gurung’s outfit is determined to get its demands fulfilled before the election code of conduct comes into effect.
 |
| Morcha supporters on fast at Salugara on Friday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo |
Around 2.5 lakh students attend the nearly 1,000 schools and colleges that dot the hills. These institutions, some of which have students from other countries as well, are major contributors to the region’s economy.
The class boycott call from the students’ wing of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha comes close on the heels of the party’s decision to impose an embargo on the despatch of the first flush of Darjeeling tea.
Amrit Yonzone, the vice-president of Morcha’s student wing, said: “We call upon the students of the hills, both school and college-going, to boycott classes from February 28 until the government orders a CBI inquiry into the killing of three of our supporters at Sibchu.”
Explaining the details of the boycott, Nima Sherpa, spokesperson for the Vidyarthi Morcha, said: “The students can go to school but no classes can be taken. We will also sit with the teaching fraternity the day after tomorrow to apprise them of our boycott call.”
Most of the Anglo-Indian schools are scheduled to reopen after a three-month winter vacation on March 1 but almost all government and state-aided schools have already reopened and so have the colleges.
The student wing will also organise a public meeting on March 6, where the leaders will announce a date for a Darjeeling to Calcutta padayatra. “Students will take part in the padayatra from Darjeeling to Calcutta. We will also write to the President, the Prime Minister, home minister and the governor of West Bengal, demanding a CBI inquiry (into the firing),” said Sherpa.
This is not the first time that the students have come out on the streets under the Vidyarthi Morcha’s banner. They had taken part in relay hunger strikes and rallies and attended public meetings apart from laying siege to the office of the ABGL in Darjeeling under the leadership of the Vidyarthi Morcha.
Teachers in the hills have appealed to the student leaders to reconsider their decision. “Even in war torn zones, utmost priority is given to education. The demand for a CBI inquiry is justified but students should be allowed to study as they are the future of the place,” said a teacher.
Other teachers voiced concern about the impact it would have on outstation parents. “We are convincing them to send back their wards to our school and have assured them that studies will not be affected. We just hope that the boycott will not carry on for long. If the boycott is for a short duration, we can make up by holding classes on Saturdays as we normally do when school is affected by general strikes,” said a teacher.
Schools with boardings fear that outstation students might not turn up at all. “We are getting calls from anxious parents who want to shift their wards elsewhere,” said a teacher.
In Delhi, Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri met Union home minister P. Chidambaram today to find a solution to the hill impasse. “I, along with Darjeeling MP Jaswant Singh and the interlocutor (Vijay Madan), again met the home minister at his office today. The Centre is trying to find a solution,” said Giri.
He had met Chidambaram yesterday too.
Tusker kills two
TT, Siliguri: Devi Tamang, 30, and her three-year-old daughter Ria were trampled to death by a tusker which raided Atal Tea Estate near Naxalbari early on Friday morning. The woman’s husband Pradip, a garden worker, and her two younger daughters escaped unhurt when they had run out of the hut to flee the wild elephant.
Whistling up and down tracks full of promises
■ Centre of Excellence in software in Darjeeling under the aegis of Centre for Railway Information Systems
■ A basic training centre in Kurseong for staff of Northeast Frontier Railway and Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
■ 10,000 shelter units for track side dwellers in Siliguri
New express trains
■ Malda Town-Digha (weekly) Express via Rampurhat
■ Kabiguru (weekly) Guwahati-Jaipur Express and
■ Vivek (weekly) Dibrugarh-Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari Express
New passenger train
■ Siliguri-Dinhata passenger
New DEMU trains:
■ New Jalpaiguri-Balurghat and Radhikapur-New Jalpaiguri
Extension
■ (19601/19602) Ajmer-Kishanganj Express to New Jalpaiguri
Increase in frequency
■ (12423/12424) New Delhi-Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express from six days to a week
29 new Adarsh stations
■ Alipurduar court
■ Bagdogra
■ Bamanhat
■ Banarhat
■ Baneswar
■ Barsoi
■ Batasi
■ Belakoba
■ Buniyadpur
■ Chatterhat
■ Darjeeling
■ Eklakhi
■ Falakata
■ Ghoksadanga
■ Ghum
■ Harishchandrapur
■ Hashimara
■ Kalchini
■ Kaliyaganj
■ Kamakhyaguri
■ Kishanganj
■ Madarihat
■ Malda Court
■ Matigara
■ Nagrakata
■ New Alipurduar
■ New Cooch Behar
■ Old Malda
■ Sevoke
■ Multi-functional complex with budget hotel in Islampur
■ Stations in the Dooars to be developed with help of the Union tourism ministry
■ Mechanised laundry for railway linen in New Jalpaiguri
New tracks for eight sections
■ Rangpo-Gangtok
■ Chalsa-Jaldhaka
■ Mirik-Gangtok
■ Balurghat-Hilli
■ Kaliyaganj-Buniadpur
■ Itahar-Raiganj
■ New Mal-Changrabandha and part of New Cooch Behar-Golakganj
Doubling of tracks in two sections
■ Samsi-Dalkhola and Ambari Falakata-New Mainaguri
Gauge conversion
■ New Mal-New Mainaguri
Rail routes to be surveyed in two sections
■ Sevoke-Mirik and Sevoke-Kalimpong
Highlights of Railway Budget 2011-12 · No hike in passenger fare and freight rates.
· Highest ever Plan outlay of Rs. 57, 630 crore proposed for Railways.
· Rs. 9,583 crore provided for new lines.
· 1300 km new lines, 867 km doubling of lines and 1017 km gauge conversion targeted in 2011-12.
· 56 new Express Trains, 3 new Shatabdis and 9 Duronto trains to be introduced.
· AC Double Decker services on Jaipur-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai routes.
· New Super AC Class to be introduced.
· A new portal for e-ticketing to be launched shortly. Booking charges will be cheaper with a charge of only Rs. 10 for AC classes and Rs.5 for others.
· Pan-India multi-purpose smart card “Go India” to be introduced.
· 236 more stations to be upgraded as Adarsh Stations.
· 47 additional suburban services in Mumbai and 50 new suburban services proposed for Kolkata.
· Two new passenger terminals in Kerala and one each in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal proposed.
· Feasibility study to raise speed of passenger trains to 160-200 kmph to be undertaken.
· A special package of two new trains and two projects for the States managing trouble free run of trains through out the year.
· Anti Collision Devise (ACD) sanctioned to cover 8 zonal railways.
· GPS Based ‘Fog Safe’ Device to be deployed.
· All unmanned level crossing upto 3000 to be eliminated.
· All India Security Help line on a single number set up.
· All state capitals in the North-East except Sikkim to be connected by Rail in next seven years.
· A Bridge Factory in J & K and a state-of-art Institute for Tunnel and Bridge Engineering is proposed at Jammu.
· A Diesel Locomotive Centre will be set-up in Manipur.
· A Centre of Excellence in Software at Darjeeling proposed under the aegis of CRIS.
· Rail Industrial Parks at Jellingham and New Bongaigaon proposed.
· Additional mechanized laundry units to be set up at Nagpur, Chandhigarh and Bhopal.
· 700 MW gas-based power plant to be set up at Thakurli in Maharashtra.
· 18,000 Wagons to be procured during 2011-12.
· A scheme for socially desirable projects, ‘Pradhan Mantri Rail Vikas Yojana’ with Non-lapsable fund proposed.
· 10,000 shelter units proposed for track side dwellers in Mumbai, Sealdah, Siliguri, Tiruchirapalli on pilot basis.
· Concession to physically handicapped persons to be extended on Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.
· Concession of 50% to press correspondents with family increased to twice a year.
· Senior Citizens concession to be hiked from 30 % to 40 %.
· Medical facilities extended to dependent parents of the Railway employees.
· Scholarship for Girl child of Group-D railway employees increased to Rs.1200 per month.
· 20 additional hostels for children of railway employees to be set up.
· Recruitment for 1.75 lakh vacancies of Group ‘C’ and ‘D’ including to fill up backlog of SC/ST initiated, 16,000 ex-servicemen to be inducted by March 2011.
· A separate sports cadre to be created.
· 2011-12 declared ‘Year of Green Energy’ for Railways.
· Freight loading of 993 MT and passenger growth of 6.4 % estimated for 2011-12.
· Gross Traffic Receipts at Rs.1,06,239 crore, exceeding one lakh crore mark for the first time estimated.
· Ordinary Working Expenses assessed at Rs. 73,650 crore.
Egypt-like protest for Telangana in Hyderabad
IANS, Hyderabad, Feb 25 : The movement for separate statehood to Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh is set to further intensify with an apex body of activists planning an Egypt-like protest in Hyderabad next month.
The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) plans to mobilise five million people to lay siege to the city in the second week of March in what is seen as a final phase of the movement for separate state.
The JAC, which comprises Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other political and mass organisations, hopes that people from all 10 Telangana districts, including Hyderabad, would participate in the protest.
The activists want that the central government should immediately initiate the process for the formation of Telangana state.
According to JAC convenor M. Kodandaram, the protestors would block roads and not leave until the central government agrees to form a separate state.
This is expected to be the biggest ever gathering for Telangana. The JAC is confident of a massive turnout as the movement has intensified across the region during the last one month.
Buoyed by the huge public response to the two-day Telangana shutdown Tuesday-Wednesday and the impact it had even in Hyderabad, the JAC plans to go all-out for achieving its goal.
It Friday began holding rallies to express solidarity with about 300,000 government employees who are continuing their non-cooperation movement since Feb 17. The rallies will continue Saturday.
Rejecting the government's appeal to call off the movement, the Telangana employees have also threatened to go on an indefinite strike after March 5 if the central government failed to make a clear announcement on Telangana.
The JAC leaders claim that the administration has already come to a standstill with the non-cooperation movement. The lawyers are also boycotting the courts while university students are participating in the protests for separate state.
The JAC also plans 24-hour 'rail roko' and more protests to mount pressure on ruling Congress party legislators to join the movement.
Global Urban Vision – March 2011
(Compiled and Published by J.N. Manokaran (jnmanokaran@yahoo.com) on behalf of Glocal Resources Development Associates)
I India
1. Just Rs 4 a day to feed a poor kid? : Inflation has made the fight against malnutrition harder. In a country where 46% of the country's children below three years are underweight and inflation has spiralled to above 15%, a meagre allocation of Rs 4 per day to feed a child is a mockery of the food programme. On paper, the 36-year-old ICDS programme is targeted at about 7.3 crore children between 0-6 years who are required to be given between 500-600 kilo calories a day with a spending of Rs 4-Rs 6. However, the government's own study has said that only 31.1% of the intended children receive supplementary nutrition and that no significant difference has been found in the nutritional status between children who have been beneficiaries of the scheme or otherwise. Sates including Assam, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Bihar have not been able to give supplementary nutrition regularly due to rise in food prices while Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Puducherry, UP, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are giving fewer calories than prescribed under nutrition norms. Take-home rations have not been distributed for over nine months in Uttarakhand while morning snacks are not being given by Puducherry, West Bengal, Bihar, Chandigarh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (Himanshi Dhawan, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Just-Rs-4/day-to-feed-a-poor-kid--/articleshow/7394291.cms accessed on 31 January 2011)
2. Sabarimala's Makara Jyothi is man-lit: TDB: Seeking to downplay the debate over 'Makara Jyothi' of Sabarimala temple, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) said it was known to most believers that it was a man lit-fire, but there was a Hindu belief behind it. It is known to everybody that Makara Jyothi is a fire lit up by men at Ponnabalamedu and TDB. However, the board was not going to run a campaign to propogate that it was man-made as there was a belief behind it into which the temple board did not intend interfere . Kerala High Court had recently asked TDB to clarify whether the Makarajyothi is man lit light or celestial phenonemon, in the wake of the Pullumedu stampede in which 102 devotees died on Janauary 14 while returning after witnessing the jyothi. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sabarimalas-Makara-Jyothi-is-man-lit-TDB/articleshow/7397707.cms accessed on 31 January 2011)
3. Pedestrians lost in planning: Disappearing footpaths and runaway growth in the number of vehicles have made life difficult for pedestrians in Chennai. 42 per cent of road accidents involve pedestrians. Lack of footpaths, pedestrian subways and foot overbridges on arterial roads and intersections contributes to increasing number of accidents involving pedestrians. Apart from encroachments, transformers and boxes of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and junction boxes of telecom service providers nudge people off footpaths and onto the roads. The state highways department and the city corporation conducted a joint survey to identify obstructions on footpaths such as transformers, telephone or electricity junction boxes and small trees on arterial roads including Anna Salai, EVR Periyar Salai, Jawaharlal Nehru Salai, Dr Radhakrishnan Salai and Nungambakkam High Road. However, the problem in shifting the TNEB boxes is that they have to be opened on either side and placed in a corner in the same position. Traffic planners have been insensitive to the safety of walkers, and the authorities are turning a blind eye to ongoing violations that jeopardise pedestrian safety. The traffic density is very high on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai, the 25-km-long road does have even a single pedestrian subway or foot overbridge. (http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/pedestrians-lost-planning-257 accessed on 9 February 2010)
4. Cancer plagues India's Silicon Valley: A recent population-based cancer registry data of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) shows that Bangalore has 113 male and 139 female cancer patients per 100,000. Comparatively, Chennai has 115 males and 121 females, while Mumbai has 99 and 110 respectively. Thiruvananthapuram district stands close to this, with 121 male and 108 female cancer patients for every 100,000 persons. Delhi and Mizoram are, however, on the higher side. Mizoram has a whopping 249 male and 210 female cancer patients per 100,000 populations, and Delhi has 124 and 121 respectively. While Mizoram capital Aizawl has the highest incidence in India, Bangalore ranks tenth in Indian cities as far as males are concerned, and third for females. Unfortunately, the Silicon Valley of India holds the numero uno spot in carcinoma tongue and breast, uterine, cervix and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in females, and highest incidence of brain tumours in the male category. Certain observations reveal that chances of falling victim to cancer is one in seven to one in nine in urban India, while it's one in 25 in rural areas. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Cancer-plagues-Indias-Silicon-Valley/articleshow/7471455.cms accessed on 11 February 2011)
5. Men outnumber women in suicides, finds NCRB study: Every hour, 15 people kill themselves in India. One in every three victims is aged between 15 and 29 years. Worse, the family is the trigger in about a quarter of the country's 1 lakh-plus suicides annually. The NCRB statistics show that people in the 0-29 year age bracket have been killing themselves due to unemployment, exam failure, poverty and dowry disputes. On a day-to-day scale, eight Indians commit suicide daily due to poverty, another nine due to bankruptcy and seven because of unemployment. The number of suicides due to unemployment and professional or career problems showed a relatively higher increase of 18.8% and 15.1% respectively, said the NCRB report. There are other worrisome statistics: health problems and their related economic issues prompt 73 suicides daily. Family problems and illnesses account for 44.7% of all suicides in the country. Although men are killing themselves in larger numbers than women, the statistics show that housewives, who were hitherto considered non-suicidal, are ending their lives. NCRB 2009 said that 223 Indian men killed themselves daily across the country. The corresponding figure for women was 125 daily, and 69 of these were housewives. It is really worrisome to note that housewives are committing suicide in such large numbers. The report says that one in every five suicides is committed by a housewife. Among metros, Bangalore recorded the highest suicide rate with 2,167 people killing themselves in 2009. Chennai followed with 1,412, Delhi with 1,215 and Mumbai with 1,051 suicides. Incidentally, Kolkata has the lowest suicide rate in the country. Five states Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have emerged as sensitive states for senior citizens, accounting for 54.7% suicide victims in the 60-plus age group. Maharashtra ranks third in this list, accounting for 11.2% suicides. The southern states add up to 39.2% of total suicides in the country, with Puducherry having the highest suicide rate in the country at 47.2 suicidal deaths per one lakh population as against the national average of 10.9. Suicides are increasing rapidly and it is imperative for the government to treat the issue as a public health problem like malaria or polio. Consider how the number of suicides has increased from 1,13,914 in 2005 to 1,27,151 in 2009, and it is indicative enough.(Malathy Iyer, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Men-outnumber-women-in-suicides-finds-NCRB-study/articleshow/7479439.cms accessed on 12 February 2011.)
6. Demand for motorcycle will come within dowry ambit: Supreme Court Any demand for money, property or valuable security made from the bride or her parents or other relatives by the bridegroom or his parents or other relatives or vice versa in connection with the marriage will fall within the mischief of “dowry' under the Dowry Prohibition Act, the Supreme Court has held. A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha said “The mere demand for ‘dowry' before marriage, at the time of marriage or any time after the marriage is an offence. The 1961 Act has been amended by Parliament on more than one occasion and by the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1986, Parliament brought in stringent provisions and provided for offence relating to dowry death.” The Bench upheld a judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court confirming seven-year imprisonment awarded by a trial court to Bachni Devi and her son for causing the death of Kanta, wife of the second appellant, after their demand for a motorcycle for development of his business was not met by the victim's father, Pale Ram, a rickshawman. Writing the judgment, Justice Lodha rejected the contention of the appellants, that the demand for a motorcycle for development of business would not come within the ambit of dowry. The Bench said the term ‘dowry' “is defined comprehensively to include properties of all sorts as it takes within its fold ‘any property or valuable security' given or agreed to be given in connection with a marriage either directly or indirectly to be given or demanded ‘as consideration for the marriage'.” (J. Venkatesan, http://www.hindu.com/2011/02/17/stories/201102176613110
0 .htm accessed on 17 February 2011)
7. The Buck Stops Here: The increasing flow of foreign funds as contributions to charitable organisations has set alarm bells ringing in the Government. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), donations amounting to Rs 10,803 crore came into India through over 20,000 registered associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in 2008-09. The figure is based on funds received under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Of particular concern to the government is the amount of money going to religious organisations. The MHA has asked its Foreigners Division to undertake religious profiling of institutions receiving funds from abroad and go through their files and account books. It has also written to the states to keep an eye on these organisations, their activities and utilisation of funds. 15,000 organisations failed to submit their account books to the government for scrutiny, as is legally mandated. The government is worried about the end use of these funds-there are concerns about financing of terrorist and other anti-national activities; there are also concerns about certain religious organisations conducting forcible conversions which are against the law. According to sources, 10 of the top 20 recipients of foreign donations are Christian organisations. In addition, there are several other smaller Christian charitable organisations and advocacy groups that are getting foreign funds. Forty other NGOs have been banned from receiving foreign donations, and 35 have been placed under the "prior permission'' category, which ensures them to seek the home ministry's clearance before receiving even a single rupee. The banned organisations include Islamiya College Kuttiadi in Calicut, Kerala, Tibetan Culture and Education Foundation, Bangalore, J&K Muslim Conference, Srinagar, Anjumane Hussamia Educational Association, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Chennai, M. A. Wahab Islamic Public School, Manipur and Saraswati Charitable Trust in Delhi. According to the home ministry report, World Vision of India, which is based in Tamil Nadu has been the largest recipient of foreign funds, totalling Rs 192.30 crore. The US-based World Vision International is also the largest donor to Indian NGOs, doling out Rs 705.52 crore. World Vision of India is described as a Christian humanitarian organisation, working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice. The other top recipients of funds include the Andhra Pradesh-based Rural Development Trust (Rs 154.76 crore), Mata Amritanandmayi Math, Kerala (Rs 116.39 crore), Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, Delhi (Rs 108.72 crore) and Believers' Church India (Rs 100.27 crore). This is the first time Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat has been among the top recipients of foreign funds. Even among donor agencies, there has been an increase in the religious organisations sending contributions from abroad. While Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Santha (BAPS), Gujarat, is among the top 10 recipients with Rs 77.59 crore, BAPS Inc, US, is among the top donors with Rs 198.51 crore. The Ahmadiya Muslim Association, UK, is also in the list of top donors (Rs 178.48 crore) for the first time. Among the top donor agencies are Gospel for Asia Inc, US (donating Rs 596 crore), Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Barcelona, Spain (Rs 458.70 crore), Shyam Shyam Dham Samiti, India (Rs 359 crore) and Compassion International, US (Rs 347.43 crore). Interestingly, Shyam Shyam Dham Samiti is an offshoot of Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, and among the top donors for the first time. Mata Amritanandmayi Centre, US, is also among the top donors with Rs 176 crore. Security agencies face a bigger and more real problem with those associations and NGOs that are not registered with the home ministry. If there are 36,000 registered associations, there would be 10 times the number which do not figure on the radar of the home ministry since they are not registered. The FCRA mechanism exists only to regulate those organisations which receive foreign funds through legal channels. To ensure more complete monitoring, the home ministry now plans to introduce a law that would compel all NGOs, including all religious organisations, to disclose their sources of funds to the government. (Bhavna Vij-Arora, India Today 14 February 2011, p. 50-52.)
8. Bihar Guns Seek Market: An unusual pattern of deposits in an account at the Munger branch of the State Bank of India alerted the police. Bihar Director General of Police Neelmani claims a large-scale crackdown on criminals and the conviction of over 56,000 of them since 2006 when the Nitish Kumar Government initiated speedy trials has killed the demand for illegal arms in the state. "Starved for buyers in Bihar, illegal arms manufacturers have started pushing guns outside the state," he says. This is a major turnaround for Bihar, once infamous as the biggest market for illegal arms. In 2006, 1,600 of 7,000 convictions were under the Arms Act in Bihar.But this is one silver lining that's got clouded over. With demand drying up in Bihar, the illegal gun factories of Munger, Chhapra and Nalanda-once thriving on local consumption-have expanded their business countrywide. Many of these firearms are also reaching Maoists in West Bengal, Jharkhand and other states.Earlier, keeping illegal weapons was a status symbol for Bihar criminals. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of offences committed under the Arms Act may be falling in Bihar, but is on the rise in the rest of India. The records say that 80,109 cases under the Arms Act were reported in the country during 2009; in 2007, it was 74,066. In Bihar, 2,982 cases were registered under the Act in 2005, falling sharply to 1,926 in 2009. In the last five years, the number of cases registered under the Arms Act has fallen by 35.41 per cent in Bihar. The NCRB factsheet shows that violations of the Arms Act are on the rise in other states, which are now a market for Bihar's gunrunners. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of cases under the Act rose from 39,496 in 2005 to 47,725 in 2008. In Haryana, it went up from 1,428 in 2005 to 1,886 cases in 2008. In 2009, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest incidence (53,141) of such cases, accounting for 66.3 per cent of the countrywide total. Since 2006, the police has unearthed 151 illegal gun factories in Bihar and seized over 30,000 countrymade arms. Since August 8, 2010, over 10,000 firearms have been seized in Bihar; a majority of them held while being transported to other states. There has been a sizeable attrition of gunsmiths from government gun factories in Munger owing to poor wages. Many of these gunsmiths have been hired at higher wages by illegal arms suppliers. Gunsmiths inscribe 'Made in US' or 'Made in UK' on duplicates. Munger's proximity to Jamalpur-an old railway town that has many engineering workshops-helps illegal gun makers procure raw material like iron and steel. Guns made in Bihar are also reaching Naxalites. In December 2009, the Bihar Police busted four gun factories and arrested six persons while they were delivering arms to Naxalites in Jharkhand. The continuous crackdown on illegal gun factories in Bihar has also made some of manufacturers shift base to neighbouring Jharkhand. In October 2010, the Jharkhand Police arrested eight persons, including six from Munger, for running an illegal gun factory in Dhanbad. Thirty pistols were seized from them. (Amitabh Srivastava, India Today 7 February 2011, p. 65-66)
9. Cruise Control: Over the past seven years, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has set two benchmarks for its peers. It was the first to introduce an airconditioned service (in 2003) and Volvo buses on intra-city routes (2006) - a welcome break from groaning buses-on-truck-chassis that still make for the bulk of fleets in India. It has not been a smooth drive for BMTC, though. In the mid-1990s, Bangalore's transport system was synonymous with labour unrest and losses. That changed in 1998, when the government created BMTC by carving it out from the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation. Within two years, BMTC's engine was humming sweetly. It had improved employee relations with a mix of firmness and good pay packages. Senior drivers now draw a monthly salary of Rs 30,000-35,000. Every driver and conductor gets 1.5 per cent of the collection of their bus. Services were also rationalised. In 2006, the non-profit Public Affairs Centre ranked BMTC as the No. 1 utility in the city in a survey of public perception, with 97 per cent of the respondents expressing satisfaction. The 471 Volvo buses in the BMTC fleet of 6,122 offer the predominantly middle-class population somewhat of a luxury ride for a premium. The Volvo fares start at Rs 10, against Rs 4 for the ordinary service. While increasing the fleet size from 4,606 buses in 2007, BMTC ensured that the staff-to-bus ratio stayed low - at 5.6 it is the lowest among India's transport utilities. Bangalore is also where the biggest shift from bikes and cars to bus transport has happened in India. One out of six people flying into the city airport uses a Volvo bus for the last mile, according to BMTC. Some information technology companies have chartered BMTC buses to ferry employees.
Infosys Technologies alone uses 122 BMTC buses, for instance. BMTC has also been making profits year after year while its peers elsewhere are battling mounting losses. BMTC ended the year to March 31, 2010, with a profit of Rs 65 crore on revenues of Rs 1,132 crore; its accumulated profit has risen to Rs 625 crore. The company is now adding office and commercial space in its new projects to build on its non-fare revenue streams. In the financial year to March 2010, non-fare income made up eight per cent of BMTC's revenues. It is also investing in real estate to set up depots and traffic centres. Some users say BMTC has put profits before public service with its high fares. But BMTC officials retort that it does not get any subsidy and has to depend on internal accruals and bank loans for capital expenditure. The government pays a nominal amount to cover the subsidised rides BMTC offers to students and physically challenged people among others. While BMTC has had a smooth ride so far, it is to be seen whether it will remain profitable once Bangalore Metro opens in March-April. The city buses currently ferry 4.2 million people a day, and the Metro is being designed to serve a million plus users. BMTC officials insist that the Metro's reach is limited and it would still need feeder services. (K.R. Balasubramanyam, Business Today, 20 February 2011, p.110-111.)
10. Invisible Children: Every year, around 7.6 million out of 26.2 million newborns in India do not get registered. Out of 805 families in Bhindusi village of Tijara in Rajasthan and five other neighbouring villages, only a few births are registered every year. However, the government figures claim that Rajasthan has achieved 100 per cent registration of newborns. Every year, according to the office of the registrar general of India, around 7.6 million out of 26.2 million newborns in India do not get registered. Without registration, the government is unable to get an accurate knowledge of something as crucial as infant mortality rate—a key tool for a nation’s development planning. Despite being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, India has the largest number of unregistered children in the world. Under the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969, it is compulsory to register every birth within 21 days. Gross negligence and irregularity in the registration system explain why India is not good at recording births. Under the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, every state is required to submit an annual statistical report to the registrar general office with district-wise details of the number of births and deaths, sex ratio and infant mortality rate. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has not submitted the statistical report in the past 15 years, Goa in the past 10 years and Arunachal Pradesh in the past six years. Maharashtra did not submit reports from 2004 to 2007. At the end of each year, many other states provide a “very brief, sketchy birth registration report which contains little factual information about the status of birth registration,” said an officer of the registrar general of India. The failure of many states to provide the data means that it is not possible to ascertain important figures like the number of children born in a particular district, the sex ratio and mortality rate. Besides, the national birth registration report, which serves as the main component for national public health planning, remains incomplete. In Orissa, with only 400 registration units for 5,000 villages, children remain unregistered. Yet, the government claims that the birth registration has crossed the 85 per cent mark. Administrative slackness and ignorance are the reasons why Bhindusi officials, like their counterparts in other parts of the country, have failed to register the children. The unregistered children belong to the poorest and most marginalised sections of society. The question of gender discrimination is the most sensitive and complex aspect associated with birth registration. According to a report by Unicef, up to 50 million girls are missing from India’s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination. Today there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the country. There is only one registrar for 30 to 35 villages in Uttarakhand. If a delivery takes place at hospital the medical officer registers the birth and the parents, along with a hospital certificate, approach the registrar for a birth certificate. But if the delivery takes place at home, the head of the family or the closest relative reports the birth to the village sarpanch who informs the sub-registrar or registrar. The latter, in turn, visits the village to confirm the birth. If the registration is not done within 21 days of the birth, the family has to produce an affidavit stamp paper to obtain the birth certificate. But if a child is not registered within a year then the process becomes complex as one has to apply to the district magistrate with an affidavit for birth registration. Delhi has made the birth certificate mandatory for admission to schools run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. For those children who are not registered and don’t have birth certificates, a provisional admission is granted after accepting an affidavit by the guardian, subject to submission of the birth certificate later on. The Gujarat government has gone a step ahead and made the birth certificate mandatory for registering marriages. At the heart of the whole exercise is to give official identity to every kid in the nation.( Syed Nazakat, The Week 20 February 2011, p. 18-21.)
11. B'lore is India's best booming city: report: Tech hub Bangalore tops the list in a new Morgan Stanley report on how India's booming cities cope with problems from infrastructure to job creation, with Mumbai, India's financial capital, trailing in 21st place. Asia's third-largest economy is home to one-quarter of the world's 20 most densely populated cities but the slow pace of urban development has been a drag on economic growth. The report found that second-tier cities Mysore, in the southwest, and Meerut in the country's north, came in second and sixth places out of India's 50 most populated cities. Nearly one-quarter of India's top 200 cities have no car dealership, less than 10 percent have a 5-star hotel, and nearly two-thirds were still waiting for a large-scale retail store or hypermarket, the report found. Its findings are based on a City Vibrancy Index (CVI), which looks at, among other factors, infrastructure, job opportunities, modern consumer services and a city's ability to mobilise savings -- what it calls key drivers of urbanisation. Bangalore, India's "Silicon Valley", came in first place, with Pune in third and Hyderabad in fourth while New Delhi, India's capital, ranked eighth. Over the next two decades, India is expected to see an urban transformation the scale and speed of which has not happened anywhere except China, with many cities becoming larger than many countries, in terms of population size and GDP. However, India is dwarfed by China on infrastructure spending. India spends a mere $17 per capita on urban infrastructure, compared to rival China's $116. Poor infrastructure is estimated to shave a whole 2 percentage points off India's economic growth. (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/blore-is-indias-best-booming-city-report/143628-3.html accessed on 18 February 2011.)
12. The uterus snatchers of Andhra: Most women in Kannaram village (Medak District) of 125 households have had a hysterectomy - even those as young as 20,some even younger and in their teens - for complaints as routine and as easily curable as abdominal pain or white discharge. Doctors in the rural pockets of the state, however, do not prescribe antibiotics to these hapless women. They prescribe complete removal of the uterus and ovaries, cutting short their reproductive lives and snapping their estrogen supply. And it is not just the women of Kannaram who have hit an early menopause in Andhra Pradesh. A disturbing number of women in rural pockets from across the state have gone under the knife, surrendered their savings and losing their uteruses and ovaries to quacks who market hysterectomies as aggressively as salesmen sell water purifiers in cities. These victims of rampant medical malpractice and government apathy now make for a startling statistic of the National Family Health Survey - the number of young menopausal women is the highest in Andhra Pradesh, standing at a staggering 31.4 per cent. But what do doctors gain from the cruelty heaped on the women? Money.A hysterectomy can fetch anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000,depending on the facilities they showcase. On the other hand, treating a routine gynaecological problem with pills wouldn't earn them a fraction of that. The modus operandi used in the hysterectomy racket is simple. A woman,often illiterate and unaware, lands up at a private rural clinic complaining of, say, excessive bleeding or leucorrhoea (vaginal discharge) and she is prescribed a hysterectomy as the only way out. Gynaecologists, at least the ones with ethics, maintain that total hysterectomy is rarely warranted these days. Whenever hysterectomy seems inevitable, an effort is made to salvage the healthy part of the ovary so that the woman's body continues to get some supply of estrogen. While this medical malpractice was highlighted five years ago by the Centre for Action Research and People's Development (CARPED),an NGO that works mainly in Medak district, a recent state-wide study undertaken by Andhra Pradesh Mahila Samatha Society (APMSS) shows most women who have undergone the procedure are suffering from health problems ranging from fatigue to osteoporosis. The study, which was conducted across 225 villages in five districts, concluded that the issue was not restricted to a particular area but spread across the state. State health officials confirm that hysterectomies in AP are the highest in the country given the number of women involved, and they also admit that the government is insensitive to the plight of these women. Sources in the ministry of health note how hysterectomy is a growing racket involving quacks, private hospitals and RMPs. Not only has the government remained seemingly oblivious to this health tragedy, it has also inadvertently pushed the trend further. The state health insurance scheme, Arogyasri, is being used to fund these operations. This scheme pays for the private treatment of those below the poverty line. In fact,in 2008-2009 alone,around 11,000 women were hysterectomised and each procedure was funded by the state government. Sources say that in many of these cases, the age of the woman was between 25 and 35.Alleging that nursing homes in the districts were even fudging the date of birth, they say in at least 50 per cent of cases the woman was less than 40 years old. Some health officials are now demanding that hysterectomies be scrapped from the list of procedures covered under Arogyasri, but their voices are not aggressive or persuasive enough. Arogyasri, anyway, is a recent reason for the rise in such cases. Another unnerving factor driving the trend: sterilisations. What happens is that sterilistations are done after the birth of the last child when a woman is in a pre-menopausal stage. Family planning procedures are often carried out in government camps (to meet targets) and women quite commonly develop infections that need treatment. Unscrupulous doctors are quick to suggest a completely unnecessary hysterectomy. The APMSS study on hysterectomy found that 82 per cent of the women who had undergone a hysterectomy had had a family planning operation prior to it. (Roli Srivastava, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/The-uterus-snatchers-of-Andhra-/articleshow/6239344.cms accessed on 19 February 2011.)
13. Suicide seen as easy way out of harassment: Doctors: In 2009, Chennai and Tamil Nadu ranked the highest in terms of the number of women committing suicide by self-immolation, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures. Of the 1,046 suicides by self-immolation by women in the country, 171 were in Chennai, or 16%. Among the states, the figures for Tamil Nadu were 18% of the national figure. Men too have committed suicide by self-immolation the number of women is far higher. About 75% of the suicides by self-immolation in the Chennai are women. While cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad also see a number of suicides by self-immolation, the difference between the number of men committing suicide and women committing suicide is not very large. Most are married and prefer committing suicide to being harassed by their husbands and in laws. Most of the deaths are not reported as dowry deaths in the police records but registered as accidents or suicides. (Revathi Ramanan, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Suicide-seen-as-easy-way-out-of-harassment-Doctors/articleshow/7536371.cms accessed on 21 February 2011)
14. The New Go-to Markets: Biscuit major Britannia Industries plan to set up its latest plants in Orissa; Maruti Suzuki clock 40 per cent growth in sales - one of its highest - in the nine months to December 2010 at Bihar. And in West Bengal, South 24 Parganas district, becomes a new consumption hot spot. Many of the cities where companies are planning investments are located in states which till recently were loosely called backward states. Characterised by large populations, poor development indicators and almost non-existent infrastructure some of these states were clubbed under the near-pejorative term BIMARU (comprising Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and sounding very similar to the Hindi word for "sick") states. That nomenclature no longer holds as states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have surged ahead, with new constituents Orissa and West Bengal joining the ranks. Yet, it is this assorted bunch which is now showing the beginning of a ravenous binge - to consume more of packaged food, bottled water, consumer durables, fast moving consumer goods, telecom and financial services. The auto industry, whose growth of 30 per cent has far exceeded expert forecasts, provides a neat snapshot. In the nine months to December 2010, market leader Maruti Suzuki clocked a 40 per cent growth in West Bengal and Orissa over the same period the previous year, while Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand notched over 30 per cent growth. Rajasthan, too, chalked up 26 per cent more sales than last year, while in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh sales grew in a healthy 18 per cent range. Consumer durables major Samsung has a similar story to tell. Its sales in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh are growing between 25 and 30 per cent over the previous year. To be sure, this growth is from a smaller base, but the pace of expansion has these states on the radar of most companies in India. Governments in these states are running a lot of employment generation schemes that are encouraging people to not leave the state and continue working there. This is having a positive impact on consumption, This consumption boom in the towns and cities dotting what was till now considered Laggard India is powered by sustained income growth. A look at the state gross domestic product or SDP shows an accelerating pace. Most of this growth in SDP is coming from the services sector - typically real estate, hotels and the transport sector. "Connectivity, whether through roads or through telecom has a huge benefit," says Shailesh Pathak, a former bureaucrat and infrastructure expert who has intimate knowledge of Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Pathak, however, reckons that this is not a case of trickle-down effect but "plug-in effect"- as in the sheer availability of many more economic avenues. If satellite television has fuelled soaring aspirations, then a stable political environment has helped change things on the ground. Many of the parties ruling these "laggard" states returned to power. As a result of this surge in consumption, one theme that is playing out in India is the integration of urban and rural areas. Villages are getting integrated and this has much to do with improved road connectivity. The big story is that of the 600,000 villages in India. While earlier only around 125,000 were integrated with the rest of the nation, now barring 125,000 which are very remote or have populations lower than 1,000, the rest are getting integrated. Many of the "laggard states" are now crossing precisely these important thresholds of income. So, in a sense, the chimerical middle class of the early 1990s when liberalisation began is probably roaring to life now. Of course, in the short term, inequality is growing. For instance, for the purpose of financial inclusion, banks take cognisance only of villages with a population of more than 2,500, leaving those with a smaller population unbanked. (Shalini S. Dagar and Shamni Pande, Business Today 6 March 2011, p.78-84)
15. Mumbai is world's 6th most expensive city for office space: Mumbai slipped by one place to sixth in the list of the world's most expensive office locations in 2011, according to global realty consultant Cushman & Wakefield. The 2011 list was topped by Hong Kong, while London and Tokyo came second and third in the rankings, which valued Mumbai's office occupancy cost at USD 114 per square foot a year. India's financial capital occupied the fifth position in 2010, Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) said. As per C&W's estimates, the Brazilian city moved up to fifth position from 13th in 2010 as rental values rose very sharply. The average rental for opening an office in Rio de Janeiro has been estimated at USD 120 per square foot a year. New York, which was a place below Mumbai in the 2010 list, moved up by a single notch to fifth place this year with an annual occupancy cost of USD 115 per square foot, C&W said. Hong Kong topped the list of the world's 10-most expensive office locations this year with an average rental of USD 241 per sq foot every year. It jumped up two places in the list from third position last year. London hung on to its distinction of being the second most expensive place to rent an office in the world, with an average rental of USD 233 per square foot per year. Japan's capital, Tokyo, slipped to the third spot this year from first rank last year, with an average rental of USD 166 per square foot per year. The other cities that found places in the list are Moscow, Paris, Zurich and Milan.In India, Bangalore witnessed the highest rental growth of 12.68 per cent in 2010, followed by Pune (9.09 per cent), vis-a-vis the previous year. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-is-worlds-6th-most-expensive-city-for-office-space/articleshow/7555728.cms 23 February 2011.)
II Diaspora
'Surya Namaskar' gaining popularity in US: Surya Namaskar (Sun salutation) that has been practised in India for years has now found a whole lot of takers in the US, with several cities endorsing this ancient Indian exercise for its health benefits. Over 10,000 people participated in the public Surya Namaskar exercises held in 225 cities from 40 States in January, according to Hindu Swyamsevak Sangha (HSS), which organises annual 'Health for Humanity Yogathon'. Mayors of Tampa in Florida, Milpitas (California), Cupertino (California), Normal (Illinois) and Bloomington (Illinois) declared "Health for Humanity" also known as Surya Namaskar Yajna (SNY) day and encouraged their residents to participate in the locally held Yogathons. Famous for his health conscious agenda, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg integrated this Yogathon with 'Shape up New York' programme and asked the residents to actively participate in it. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/surya-namaskar-gaining-popularity-in-us/748818/ accessed on 11 February 2011)
The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) plans to mobilise five million people to lay siege to the city in the second week of March in what is seen as a final phase of the movement for separate state.
The JAC, which comprises Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other political and mass organisations, hopes that people from all 10 Telangana districts, including Hyderabad, would participate in the protest.
The activists want that the central government should immediately initiate the process for the formation of Telangana state.
According to JAC convenor M. Kodandaram, the protestors would block roads and not leave until the central government agrees to form a separate state.
This is expected to be the biggest ever gathering for Telangana. The JAC is confident of a massive turnout as the movement has intensified across the region during the last one month.
Buoyed by the huge public response to the two-day Telangana shutdown Tuesday-Wednesday and the impact it had even in Hyderabad, the JAC plans to go all-out for achieving its goal.
It Friday began holding rallies to express solidarity with about 300,000 government employees who are continuing their non-cooperation movement since Feb 17. The rallies will continue Saturday.
Rejecting the government's appeal to call off the movement, the Telangana employees have also threatened to go on an indefinite strike after March 5 if the central government failed to make a clear announcement on Telangana.
The JAC leaders claim that the administration has already come to a standstill with the non-cooperation movement. The lawyers are also boycotting the courts while university students are participating in the protests for separate state.
The JAC also plans 24-hour 'rail roko' and more protests to mount pressure on ruling Congress party legislators to join the movement.
Weather Report dated 25.02.2011
I. Local forecast for next 24 hours (Gangtok & its neighbourhood) :
I. Local forecast for next 24 hours (Gangtok & its neighbourhood) :
Light rain may occur (Probability 26% to 50%).
Maximum and Minimum temperatures likely to be around 14°C and 09°C respective
II. Gangtok city forecast of Max., Min. & Wx. Condition.
II. Gangtok city forecast of Max., Min. & Wx. Condition.
Valid for the period | Max in oC | Min in oC | Rainfall in mm | Wx condition |
Next 24 hours | 14 | 09 | 3 | Light rain. |
Next 48 hours | 14 | 09 | 3 | Light rain. |
III. Met data dated 25.02.2011
Today’s Sun sets at (in IST) | 17:35 | Tomorrow Sun rises at (in IST) | 06:04 |
Moon rises at (in IST) | 01:13 | Moon sets at (in IST) | 11:49 |
24 hours rainfall (in mm) | 000.0 | ||
Max Temp. (in 0C) | 18.1 | Dep. from normal | +2.1 |
Min Temp. (in 0C) | 08.5 | Dep. from normal | +1.5 |
(Compiled and Published by J.N. Manokaran (jnmanokaran@yahoo.com) on behalf of Glocal Resources Development Associates)
I India
1. Just Rs 4 a day to feed a poor kid? : Inflation has made the fight against malnutrition harder. In a country where 46% of the country's children below three years are underweight and inflation has spiralled to above 15%, a meagre allocation of Rs 4 per day to feed a child is a mockery of the food programme. On paper, the 36-year-old ICDS programme is targeted at about 7.3 crore children between 0-6 years who are required to be given between 500-600 kilo calories a day with a spending of Rs 4-Rs 6. However, the government's own study has said that only 31.1% of the intended children receive supplementary nutrition and that no significant difference has been found in the nutritional status between children who have been beneficiaries of the scheme or otherwise. Sates including Assam, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Bihar have not been able to give supplementary nutrition regularly due to rise in food prices while Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Puducherry, UP, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are giving fewer calories than prescribed under nutrition norms. Take-home rations have not been distributed for over nine months in Uttarakhand while morning snacks are not being given by Puducherry, West Bengal, Bihar, Chandigarh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (Himanshi Dhawan, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Just-Rs-4/day-to-feed-a-poor-kid--/articleshow/7394291.cms accessed on 31 January 2011)
2. Sabarimala's Makara Jyothi is man-lit: TDB: Seeking to downplay the debate over 'Makara Jyothi' of Sabarimala temple, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) said it was known to most believers that it was a man lit-fire, but there was a Hindu belief behind it. It is known to everybody that Makara Jyothi is a fire lit up by men at Ponnabalamedu and TDB. However, the board was not going to run a campaign to propogate that it was man-made as there was a belief behind it into which the temple board did not intend interfere . Kerala High Court had recently asked TDB to clarify whether the Makarajyothi is man lit light or celestial phenonemon, in the wake of the Pullumedu stampede in which 102 devotees died on Janauary 14 while returning after witnessing the jyothi. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sabarimalas-Makara-Jyothi-is-man-lit-TDB/articleshow/7397707.cms accessed on 31 January 2011)
3. Pedestrians lost in planning: Disappearing footpaths and runaway growth in the number of vehicles have made life difficult for pedestrians in Chennai. 42 per cent of road accidents involve pedestrians. Lack of footpaths, pedestrian subways and foot overbridges on arterial roads and intersections contributes to increasing number of accidents involving pedestrians. Apart from encroachments, transformers and boxes of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and junction boxes of telecom service providers nudge people off footpaths and onto the roads. The state highways department and the city corporation conducted a joint survey to identify obstructions on footpaths such as transformers, telephone or electricity junction boxes and small trees on arterial roads including Anna Salai, EVR Periyar Salai, Jawaharlal Nehru Salai, Dr Radhakrishnan Salai and Nungambakkam High Road. However, the problem in shifting the TNEB boxes is that they have to be opened on either side and placed in a corner in the same position. Traffic planners have been insensitive to the safety of walkers, and the authorities are turning a blind eye to ongoing violations that jeopardise pedestrian safety. The traffic density is very high on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai, the 25-km-long road does have even a single pedestrian subway or foot overbridge. (http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/pedestrians-lost-planning-257 accessed on 9 February 2010)
4. Cancer plagues India's Silicon Valley: A recent population-based cancer registry data of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) shows that Bangalore has 113 male and 139 female cancer patients per 100,000. Comparatively, Chennai has 115 males and 121 females, while Mumbai has 99 and 110 respectively. Thiruvananthapuram district stands close to this, with 121 male and 108 female cancer patients for every 100,000 persons. Delhi and Mizoram are, however, on the higher side. Mizoram has a whopping 249 male and 210 female cancer patients per 100,000 populations, and Delhi has 124 and 121 respectively. While Mizoram capital Aizawl has the highest incidence in India, Bangalore ranks tenth in Indian cities as far as males are concerned, and third for females. Unfortunately, the Silicon Valley of India holds the numero uno spot in carcinoma tongue and breast, uterine, cervix and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in females, and highest incidence of brain tumours in the male category. Certain observations reveal that chances of falling victim to cancer is one in seven to one in nine in urban India, while it's one in 25 in rural areas. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Cancer-plagues-Indias-Silicon-Valley/articleshow/7471455.cms accessed on 11 February 2011)
5. Men outnumber women in suicides, finds NCRB study: Every hour, 15 people kill themselves in India. One in every three victims is aged between 15 and 29 years. Worse, the family is the trigger in about a quarter of the country's 1 lakh-plus suicides annually. The NCRB statistics show that people in the 0-29 year age bracket have been killing themselves due to unemployment, exam failure, poverty and dowry disputes. On a day-to-day scale, eight Indians commit suicide daily due to poverty, another nine due to bankruptcy and seven because of unemployment. The number of suicides due to unemployment and professional or career problems showed a relatively higher increase of 18.8% and 15.1% respectively, said the NCRB report. There are other worrisome statistics: health problems and their related economic issues prompt 73 suicides daily. Family problems and illnesses account for 44.7% of all suicides in the country. Although men are killing themselves in larger numbers than women, the statistics show that housewives, who were hitherto considered non-suicidal, are ending their lives. NCRB 2009 said that 223 Indian men killed themselves daily across the country. The corresponding figure for women was 125 daily, and 69 of these were housewives. It is really worrisome to note that housewives are committing suicide in such large numbers. The report says that one in every five suicides is committed by a housewife. Among metros, Bangalore recorded the highest suicide rate with 2,167 people killing themselves in 2009. Chennai followed with 1,412, Delhi with 1,215 and Mumbai with 1,051 suicides. Incidentally, Kolkata has the lowest suicide rate in the country. Five states Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have emerged as sensitive states for senior citizens, accounting for 54.7% suicide victims in the 60-plus age group. Maharashtra ranks third in this list, accounting for 11.2% suicides. The southern states add up to 39.2% of total suicides in the country, with Puducherry having the highest suicide rate in the country at 47.2 suicidal deaths per one lakh population as against the national average of 10.9. Suicides are increasing rapidly and it is imperative for the government to treat the issue as a public health problem like malaria or polio. Consider how the number of suicides has increased from 1,13,914 in 2005 to 1,27,151 in 2009, and it is indicative enough.(Malathy Iyer, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Men-outnumber-women-in-suicides-finds-NCRB-study/articleshow/7479439.cms accessed on 12 February 2011.)
6. Demand for motorcycle will come within dowry ambit: Supreme Court Any demand for money, property or valuable security made from the bride or her parents or other relatives by the bridegroom or his parents or other relatives or vice versa in connection with the marriage will fall within the mischief of “dowry' under the Dowry Prohibition Act, the Supreme Court has held. A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha said “The mere demand for ‘dowry' before marriage, at the time of marriage or any time after the marriage is an offence. The 1961 Act has been amended by Parliament on more than one occasion and by the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1986, Parliament brought in stringent provisions and provided for offence relating to dowry death.” The Bench upheld a judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court confirming seven-year imprisonment awarded by a trial court to Bachni Devi and her son for causing the death of Kanta, wife of the second appellant, after their demand for a motorcycle for development of his business was not met by the victim's father, Pale Ram, a rickshawman. Writing the judgment, Justice Lodha rejected the contention of the appellants, that the demand for a motorcycle for development of business would not come within the ambit of dowry. The Bench said the term ‘dowry' “is defined comprehensively to include properties of all sorts as it takes within its fold ‘any property or valuable security' given or agreed to be given in connection with a marriage either directly or indirectly to be given or demanded ‘as consideration for the marriage'.” (J. Venkatesan, http://www.hindu.com/2011/02/17/stories/201102176613110
0 .htm accessed on 17 February 2011)
7. The Buck Stops Here: The increasing flow of foreign funds as contributions to charitable organisations has set alarm bells ringing in the Government. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), donations amounting to Rs 10,803 crore came into India through over 20,000 registered associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in 2008-09. The figure is based on funds received under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). Of particular concern to the government is the amount of money going to religious organisations. The MHA has asked its Foreigners Division to undertake religious profiling of institutions receiving funds from abroad and go through their files and account books. It has also written to the states to keep an eye on these organisations, their activities and utilisation of funds. 15,000 organisations failed to submit their account books to the government for scrutiny, as is legally mandated. The government is worried about the end use of these funds-there are concerns about financing of terrorist and other anti-national activities; there are also concerns about certain religious organisations conducting forcible conversions which are against the law. According to sources, 10 of the top 20 recipients of foreign donations are Christian organisations. In addition, there are several other smaller Christian charitable organisations and advocacy groups that are getting foreign funds. Forty other NGOs have been banned from receiving foreign donations, and 35 have been placed under the "prior permission'' category, which ensures them to seek the home ministry's clearance before receiving even a single rupee. The banned organisations include Islamiya College Kuttiadi in Calicut, Kerala, Tibetan Culture and Education Foundation, Bangalore, J&K Muslim Conference, Srinagar, Anjumane Hussamia Educational Association, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Chennai, M. A. Wahab Islamic Public School, Manipur and Saraswati Charitable Trust in Delhi. According to the home ministry report, World Vision of India, which is based in Tamil Nadu has been the largest recipient of foreign funds, totalling Rs 192.30 crore. The US-based World Vision International is also the largest donor to Indian NGOs, doling out Rs 705.52 crore. World Vision of India is described as a Christian humanitarian organisation, working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice. The other top recipients of funds include the Andhra Pradesh-based Rural Development Trust (Rs 154.76 crore), Mata Amritanandmayi Math, Kerala (Rs 116.39 crore), Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, Delhi (Rs 108.72 crore) and Believers' Church India (Rs 100.27 crore). This is the first time Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat has been among the top recipients of foreign funds. Even among donor agencies, there has been an increase in the religious organisations sending contributions from abroad. While Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Santha (BAPS), Gujarat, is among the top 10 recipients with Rs 77.59 crore, BAPS Inc, US, is among the top donors with Rs 198.51 crore. The Ahmadiya Muslim Association, UK, is also in the list of top donors (Rs 178.48 crore) for the first time. Among the top donor agencies are Gospel for Asia Inc, US (donating Rs 596 crore), Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Barcelona, Spain (Rs 458.70 crore), Shyam Shyam Dham Samiti, India (Rs 359 crore) and Compassion International, US (Rs 347.43 crore). Interestingly, Shyam Shyam Dham Samiti is an offshoot of Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, and among the top donors for the first time. Mata Amritanandmayi Centre, US, is also among the top donors with Rs 176 crore. Security agencies face a bigger and more real problem with those associations and NGOs that are not registered with the home ministry. If there are 36,000 registered associations, there would be 10 times the number which do not figure on the radar of the home ministry since they are not registered. The FCRA mechanism exists only to regulate those organisations which receive foreign funds through legal channels. To ensure more complete monitoring, the home ministry now plans to introduce a law that would compel all NGOs, including all religious organisations, to disclose their sources of funds to the government. (Bhavna Vij-Arora, India Today 14 February 2011, p. 50-52.)
8. Bihar Guns Seek Market: An unusual pattern of deposits in an account at the Munger branch of the State Bank of India alerted the police. Bihar Director General of Police Neelmani claims a large-scale crackdown on criminals and the conviction of over 56,000 of them since 2006 when the Nitish Kumar Government initiated speedy trials has killed the demand for illegal arms in the state. "Starved for buyers in Bihar, illegal arms manufacturers have started pushing guns outside the state," he says. This is a major turnaround for Bihar, once infamous as the biggest market for illegal arms. In 2006, 1,600 of 7,000 convictions were under the Arms Act in Bihar.But this is one silver lining that's got clouded over. With demand drying up in Bihar, the illegal gun factories of Munger, Chhapra and Nalanda-once thriving on local consumption-have expanded their business countrywide. Many of these firearms are also reaching Maoists in West Bengal, Jharkhand and other states.Earlier, keeping illegal weapons was a status symbol for Bihar criminals. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of offences committed under the Arms Act may be falling in Bihar, but is on the rise in the rest of India. The records say that 80,109 cases under the Arms Act were reported in the country during 2009; in 2007, it was 74,066. In Bihar, 2,982 cases were registered under the Act in 2005, falling sharply to 1,926 in 2009. In the last five years, the number of cases registered under the Arms Act has fallen by 35.41 per cent in Bihar. The NCRB factsheet shows that violations of the Arms Act are on the rise in other states, which are now a market for Bihar's gunrunners. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of cases under the Act rose from 39,496 in 2005 to 47,725 in 2008. In Haryana, it went up from 1,428 in 2005 to 1,886 cases in 2008. In 2009, Uttar Pradesh reported the highest incidence (53,141) of such cases, accounting for 66.3 per cent of the countrywide total. Since 2006, the police has unearthed 151 illegal gun factories in Bihar and seized over 30,000 countrymade arms. Since August 8, 2010, over 10,000 firearms have been seized in Bihar; a majority of them held while being transported to other states. There has been a sizeable attrition of gunsmiths from government gun factories in Munger owing to poor wages. Many of these gunsmiths have been hired at higher wages by illegal arms suppliers. Gunsmiths inscribe 'Made in US' or 'Made in UK' on duplicates. Munger's proximity to Jamalpur-an old railway town that has many engineering workshops-helps illegal gun makers procure raw material like iron and steel. Guns made in Bihar are also reaching Naxalites. In December 2009, the Bihar Police busted four gun factories and arrested six persons while they were delivering arms to Naxalites in Jharkhand. The continuous crackdown on illegal gun factories in Bihar has also made some of manufacturers shift base to neighbouring Jharkhand. In October 2010, the Jharkhand Police arrested eight persons, including six from Munger, for running an illegal gun factory in Dhanbad. Thirty pistols were seized from them. (Amitabh Srivastava, India Today 7 February 2011, p. 65-66)
9. Cruise Control: Over the past seven years, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has set two benchmarks for its peers. It was the first to introduce an airconditioned service (in 2003) and Volvo buses on intra-city routes (2006) - a welcome break from groaning buses-on-truck-chassis that still make for the bulk of fleets in India. It has not been a smooth drive for BMTC, though. In the mid-1990s, Bangalore's transport system was synonymous with labour unrest and losses. That changed in 1998, when the government created BMTC by carving it out from the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation. Within two years, BMTC's engine was humming sweetly. It had improved employee relations with a mix of firmness and good pay packages. Senior drivers now draw a monthly salary of Rs 30,000-35,000. Every driver and conductor gets 1.5 per cent of the collection of their bus. Services were also rationalised. In 2006, the non-profit Public Affairs Centre ranked BMTC as the No. 1 utility in the city in a survey of public perception, with 97 per cent of the respondents expressing satisfaction. The 471 Volvo buses in the BMTC fleet of 6,122 offer the predominantly middle-class population somewhat of a luxury ride for a premium. The Volvo fares start at Rs 10, against Rs 4 for the ordinary service. While increasing the fleet size from 4,606 buses in 2007, BMTC ensured that the staff-to-bus ratio stayed low - at 5.6 it is the lowest among India's transport utilities. Bangalore is also where the biggest shift from bikes and cars to bus transport has happened in India. One out of six people flying into the city airport uses a Volvo bus for the last mile, according to BMTC. Some information technology companies have chartered BMTC buses to ferry employees.
Infosys Technologies alone uses 122 BMTC buses, for instance. BMTC has also been making profits year after year while its peers elsewhere are battling mounting losses. BMTC ended the year to March 31, 2010, with a profit of Rs 65 crore on revenues of Rs 1,132 crore; its accumulated profit has risen to Rs 625 crore. The company is now adding office and commercial space in its new projects to build on its non-fare revenue streams. In the financial year to March 2010, non-fare income made up eight per cent of BMTC's revenues. It is also investing in real estate to set up depots and traffic centres. Some users say BMTC has put profits before public service with its high fares. But BMTC officials retort that it does not get any subsidy and has to depend on internal accruals and bank loans for capital expenditure. The government pays a nominal amount to cover the subsidised rides BMTC offers to students and physically challenged people among others. While BMTC has had a smooth ride so far, it is to be seen whether it will remain profitable once Bangalore Metro opens in March-April. The city buses currently ferry 4.2 million people a day, and the Metro is being designed to serve a million plus users. BMTC officials insist that the Metro's reach is limited and it would still need feeder services. (K.R. Balasubramanyam, Business Today, 20 February 2011, p.110-111.)
10. Invisible Children: Every year, around 7.6 million out of 26.2 million newborns in India do not get registered. Out of 805 families in Bhindusi village of Tijara in Rajasthan and five other neighbouring villages, only a few births are registered every year. However, the government figures claim that Rajasthan has achieved 100 per cent registration of newborns. Every year, according to the office of the registrar general of India, around 7.6 million out of 26.2 million newborns in India do not get registered. Without registration, the government is unable to get an accurate knowledge of something as crucial as infant mortality rate—a key tool for a nation’s development planning. Despite being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, India has the largest number of unregistered children in the world. Under the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969, it is compulsory to register every birth within 21 days. Gross negligence and irregularity in the registration system explain why India is not good at recording births. Under the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, every state is required to submit an annual statistical report to the registrar general office with district-wise details of the number of births and deaths, sex ratio and infant mortality rate. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has not submitted the statistical report in the past 15 years, Goa in the past 10 years and Arunachal Pradesh in the past six years. Maharashtra did not submit reports from 2004 to 2007. At the end of each year, many other states provide a “very brief, sketchy birth registration report which contains little factual information about the status of birth registration,” said an officer of the registrar general of India. The failure of many states to provide the data means that it is not possible to ascertain important figures like the number of children born in a particular district, the sex ratio and mortality rate. Besides, the national birth registration report, which serves as the main component for national public health planning, remains incomplete. In Orissa, with only 400 registration units for 5,000 villages, children remain unregistered. Yet, the government claims that the birth registration has crossed the 85 per cent mark. Administrative slackness and ignorance are the reasons why Bhindusi officials, like their counterparts in other parts of the country, have failed to register the children. The unregistered children belong to the poorest and most marginalised sections of society. The question of gender discrimination is the most sensitive and complex aspect associated with birth registration. According to a report by Unicef, up to 50 million girls are missing from India’s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination. Today there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the country. There is only one registrar for 30 to 35 villages in Uttarakhand. If a delivery takes place at hospital the medical officer registers the birth and the parents, along with a hospital certificate, approach the registrar for a birth certificate. But if the delivery takes place at home, the head of the family or the closest relative reports the birth to the village sarpanch who informs the sub-registrar or registrar. The latter, in turn, visits the village to confirm the birth. If the registration is not done within 21 days of the birth, the family has to produce an affidavit stamp paper to obtain the birth certificate. But if a child is not registered within a year then the process becomes complex as one has to apply to the district magistrate with an affidavit for birth registration. Delhi has made the birth certificate mandatory for admission to schools run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. For those children who are not registered and don’t have birth certificates, a provisional admission is granted after accepting an affidavit by the guardian, subject to submission of the birth certificate later on. The Gujarat government has gone a step ahead and made the birth certificate mandatory for registering marriages. At the heart of the whole exercise is to give official identity to every kid in the nation.( Syed Nazakat, The Week 20 February 2011, p. 18-21.)
11. B'lore is India's best booming city: report: Tech hub Bangalore tops the list in a new Morgan Stanley report on how India's booming cities cope with problems from infrastructure to job creation, with Mumbai, India's financial capital, trailing in 21st place. Asia's third-largest economy is home to one-quarter of the world's 20 most densely populated cities but the slow pace of urban development has been a drag on economic growth. The report found that second-tier cities Mysore, in the southwest, and Meerut in the country's north, came in second and sixth places out of India's 50 most populated cities. Nearly one-quarter of India's top 200 cities have no car dealership, less than 10 percent have a 5-star hotel, and nearly two-thirds were still waiting for a large-scale retail store or hypermarket, the report found. Its findings are based on a City Vibrancy Index (CVI), which looks at, among other factors, infrastructure, job opportunities, modern consumer services and a city's ability to mobilise savings -- what it calls key drivers of urbanisation. Bangalore, India's "Silicon Valley", came in first place, with Pune in third and Hyderabad in fourth while New Delhi, India's capital, ranked eighth. Over the next two decades, India is expected to see an urban transformation the scale and speed of which has not happened anywhere except China, with many cities becoming larger than many countries, in terms of population size and GDP. However, India is dwarfed by China on infrastructure spending. India spends a mere $17 per capita on urban infrastructure, compared to rival China's $116. Poor infrastructure is estimated to shave a whole 2 percentage points off India's economic growth. (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/blore-is-indias-best-booming-city-report/143628-3.html accessed on 18 February 2011.)
12. The uterus snatchers of Andhra: Most women in Kannaram village (Medak District) of 125 households have had a hysterectomy - even those as young as 20,some even younger and in their teens - for complaints as routine and as easily curable as abdominal pain or white discharge. Doctors in the rural pockets of the state, however, do not prescribe antibiotics to these hapless women. They prescribe complete removal of the uterus and ovaries, cutting short their reproductive lives and snapping their estrogen supply. And it is not just the women of Kannaram who have hit an early menopause in Andhra Pradesh. A disturbing number of women in rural pockets from across the state have gone under the knife, surrendered their savings and losing their uteruses and ovaries to quacks who market hysterectomies as aggressively as salesmen sell water purifiers in cities. These victims of rampant medical malpractice and government apathy now make for a startling statistic of the National Family Health Survey - the number of young menopausal women is the highest in Andhra Pradesh, standing at a staggering 31.4 per cent. But what do doctors gain from the cruelty heaped on the women? Money.A hysterectomy can fetch anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000,depending on the facilities they showcase. On the other hand, treating a routine gynaecological problem with pills wouldn't earn them a fraction of that. The modus operandi used in the hysterectomy racket is simple. A woman,often illiterate and unaware, lands up at a private rural clinic complaining of, say, excessive bleeding or leucorrhoea (vaginal discharge) and she is prescribed a hysterectomy as the only way out. Gynaecologists, at least the ones with ethics, maintain that total hysterectomy is rarely warranted these days. Whenever hysterectomy seems inevitable, an effort is made to salvage the healthy part of the ovary so that the woman's body continues to get some supply of estrogen. While this medical malpractice was highlighted five years ago by the Centre for Action Research and People's Development (CARPED),an NGO that works mainly in Medak district, a recent state-wide study undertaken by Andhra Pradesh Mahila Samatha Society (APMSS) shows most women who have undergone the procedure are suffering from health problems ranging from fatigue to osteoporosis. The study, which was conducted across 225 villages in five districts, concluded that the issue was not restricted to a particular area but spread across the state. State health officials confirm that hysterectomies in AP are the highest in the country given the number of women involved, and they also admit that the government is insensitive to the plight of these women. Sources in the ministry of health note how hysterectomy is a growing racket involving quacks, private hospitals and RMPs. Not only has the government remained seemingly oblivious to this health tragedy, it has also inadvertently pushed the trend further. The state health insurance scheme, Arogyasri, is being used to fund these operations. This scheme pays for the private treatment of those below the poverty line. In fact,in 2008-2009 alone,around 11,000 women were hysterectomised and each procedure was funded by the state government. Sources say that in many of these cases, the age of the woman was between 25 and 35.Alleging that nursing homes in the districts were even fudging the date of birth, they say in at least 50 per cent of cases the woman was less than 40 years old. Some health officials are now demanding that hysterectomies be scrapped from the list of procedures covered under Arogyasri, but their voices are not aggressive or persuasive enough. Arogyasri, anyway, is a recent reason for the rise in such cases. Another unnerving factor driving the trend: sterilisations. What happens is that sterilistations are done after the birth of the last child when a woman is in a pre-menopausal stage. Family planning procedures are often carried out in government camps (to meet targets) and women quite commonly develop infections that need treatment. Unscrupulous doctors are quick to suggest a completely unnecessary hysterectomy. The APMSS study on hysterectomy found that 82 per cent of the women who had undergone a hysterectomy had had a family planning operation prior to it. (Roli Srivastava, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/The-uterus-snatchers-of-Andhra-/articleshow/6239344.cms accessed on 19 February 2011.)
13. Suicide seen as easy way out of harassment: Doctors: In 2009, Chennai and Tamil Nadu ranked the highest in terms of the number of women committing suicide by self-immolation, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures. Of the 1,046 suicides by self-immolation by women in the country, 171 were in Chennai, or 16%. Among the states, the figures for Tamil Nadu were 18% of the national figure. Men too have committed suicide by self-immolation the number of women is far higher. About 75% of the suicides by self-immolation in the Chennai are women. While cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad also see a number of suicides by self-immolation, the difference between the number of men committing suicide and women committing suicide is not very large. Most are married and prefer committing suicide to being harassed by their husbands and in laws. Most of the deaths are not reported as dowry deaths in the police records but registered as accidents or suicides. (Revathi Ramanan, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Suicide-seen-as-easy-way-out-of-harassment-Doctors/articleshow/7536371.cms accessed on 21 February 2011)
14. The New Go-to Markets: Biscuit major Britannia Industries plan to set up its latest plants in Orissa; Maruti Suzuki clock 40 per cent growth in sales - one of its highest - in the nine months to December 2010 at Bihar. And in West Bengal, South 24 Parganas district, becomes a new consumption hot spot. Many of the cities where companies are planning investments are located in states which till recently were loosely called backward states. Characterised by large populations, poor development indicators and almost non-existent infrastructure some of these states were clubbed under the near-pejorative term BIMARU (comprising Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and sounding very similar to the Hindi word for "sick") states. That nomenclature no longer holds as states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have surged ahead, with new constituents Orissa and West Bengal joining the ranks. Yet, it is this assorted bunch which is now showing the beginning of a ravenous binge - to consume more of packaged food, bottled water, consumer durables, fast moving consumer goods, telecom and financial services. The auto industry, whose growth of 30 per cent has far exceeded expert forecasts, provides a neat snapshot. In the nine months to December 2010, market leader Maruti Suzuki clocked a 40 per cent growth in West Bengal and Orissa over the same period the previous year, while Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand notched over 30 per cent growth. Rajasthan, too, chalked up 26 per cent more sales than last year, while in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh sales grew in a healthy 18 per cent range. Consumer durables major Samsung has a similar story to tell. Its sales in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh are growing between 25 and 30 per cent over the previous year. To be sure, this growth is from a smaller base, but the pace of expansion has these states on the radar of most companies in India. Governments in these states are running a lot of employment generation schemes that are encouraging people to not leave the state and continue working there. This is having a positive impact on consumption, This consumption boom in the towns and cities dotting what was till now considered Laggard India is powered by sustained income growth. A look at the state gross domestic product or SDP shows an accelerating pace. Most of this growth in SDP is coming from the services sector - typically real estate, hotels and the transport sector. "Connectivity, whether through roads or through telecom has a huge benefit," says Shailesh Pathak, a former bureaucrat and infrastructure expert who has intimate knowledge of Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Pathak, however, reckons that this is not a case of trickle-down effect but "plug-in effect"- as in the sheer availability of many more economic avenues. If satellite television has fuelled soaring aspirations, then a stable political environment has helped change things on the ground. Many of the parties ruling these "laggard" states returned to power. As a result of this surge in consumption, one theme that is playing out in India is the integration of urban and rural areas. Villages are getting integrated and this has much to do with improved road connectivity. The big story is that of the 600,000 villages in India. While earlier only around 125,000 were integrated with the rest of the nation, now barring 125,000 which are very remote or have populations lower than 1,000, the rest are getting integrated. Many of the "laggard states" are now crossing precisely these important thresholds of income. So, in a sense, the chimerical middle class of the early 1990s when liberalisation began is probably roaring to life now. Of course, in the short term, inequality is growing. For instance, for the purpose of financial inclusion, banks take cognisance only of villages with a population of more than 2,500, leaving those with a smaller population unbanked. (Shalini S. Dagar and Shamni Pande, Business Today 6 March 2011, p.78-84)
15. Mumbai is world's 6th most expensive city for office space: Mumbai slipped by one place to sixth in the list of the world's most expensive office locations in 2011, according to global realty consultant Cushman & Wakefield. The 2011 list was topped by Hong Kong, while London and Tokyo came second and third in the rankings, which valued Mumbai's office occupancy cost at USD 114 per square foot a year. India's financial capital occupied the fifth position in 2010, Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) said. As per C&W's estimates, the Brazilian city moved up to fifth position from 13th in 2010 as rental values rose very sharply. The average rental for opening an office in Rio de Janeiro has been estimated at USD 120 per square foot a year. New York, which was a place below Mumbai in the 2010 list, moved up by a single notch to fifth place this year with an annual occupancy cost of USD 115 per square foot, C&W said. Hong Kong topped the list of the world's 10-most expensive office locations this year with an average rental of USD 241 per sq foot every year. It jumped up two places in the list from third position last year. London hung on to its distinction of being the second most expensive place to rent an office in the world, with an average rental of USD 233 per square foot per year. Japan's capital, Tokyo, slipped to the third spot this year from first rank last year, with an average rental of USD 166 per square foot per year. The other cities that found places in the list are Moscow, Paris, Zurich and Milan.In India, Bangalore witnessed the highest rental growth of 12.68 per cent in 2010, followed by Pune (9.09 per cent), vis-a-vis the previous year. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-is-worlds-6th-most-expensive-city-for-office-space/articleshow/7555728.cms 23 February 2011.)
II Diaspora
'Surya Namaskar' gaining popularity in US: Surya Namaskar (Sun salutation) that has been practised in India for years has now found a whole lot of takers in the US, with several cities endorsing this ancient Indian exercise for its health benefits. Over 10,000 people participated in the public Surya Namaskar exercises held in 225 cities from 40 States in January, according to Hindu Swyamsevak Sangha (HSS), which organises annual 'Health for Humanity Yogathon'. Mayors of Tampa in Florida, Milpitas (California), Cupertino (California), Normal (Illinois) and Bloomington (Illinois) declared "Health for Humanity" also known as Surya Namaskar Yajna (SNY) day and encouraged their residents to participate in the locally held Yogathons. Famous for his health conscious agenda, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg integrated this Yogathon with 'Shape up New York' programme and asked the residents to actively participate in it. (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/surya-namaskar-gaining-popularity-in-us/748818/ accessed on 11 February 2011)
No comments:
Post a Comment