Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 18.10.11
18 Jodhpur sarpanches quit in protest - The Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/18-Jodhpur-sarpanches-quit-in-protest/Article1-758454.aspx
Mere symbolism can't empower - The Times Of India
4 booked for assaulting SC family - The Tribune
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111018/haryana.htm#14
The Hindustan Times
18 Jodhpur sarpanches quit in protest
http://www.hindustantimes.com/18-Jodhpur-sarpanches-quit-in-protest/Article1-758454.aspx
HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Jaipur/Jodhpur, October 17, 2011
A day after the removal of Rajasthan water resources minister Mahipal Maderna from Ashok Gehlot's cabinet, 18 Jat sarpanches resigned from Osian, Maderna's constituency in Jodhpur district. Members of 11 panchayat samitis and four zila parishads, also belonging to Jodhpur district, submitted their resignations in support of Maderna who belongs to the Jat community.
Maderna was removed from the cabinet in connection with the alleged kidnapping and suspected murder of Dalit nurse Bhanwari Devi.
Dalit leaders, on the other hand, have welcomed the removal of Maderna. Chaturaram Deshbandhu, leader of the Sansi community, said: "The Dalits of Rajasthan are highly obliged to him (Gehlot). It should have been better if Maderna had resigned himself."
State Congress chief Dr Chandrabhan also supported Maderna's removal. "I believe ...the CM did not have another option. Gehlot has the right to include or remove any minister from the cabinet," he said.
Bhanwari Devi allegedly had in her possession a sex CD of herself and Maderna and she was using it to blackmail the minister. She went missing on September 1 from the Bilara area of Jodhpur, and her husband Amar Chand named Maderna as an accused in the FIR.
The Jodhpur bench of the Rajasthan high court on Monday once again reprimanded the state while hearing the petition of Amar Chand.
On Monday, the CBI team investigating the case questioned Amar Chand for more than three hours. The team also questioned a Congress leader at Kishangargh in Ajmer district, where Maderna used to stay during his visits.
The Times Of India
Mere symbolism can't empower
Oct 18, 2011, 12.00AM IST
According to UP CM Mayawati, the newly inaugurated Rs 685-crore park in Noida symbolisesdalit empowerment. In other words, the memorials on display are part of her counter-cultural project to compensate for centuries of neg-lect and oppression suffered by her community. By her logic, the statues of Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and herself installed at such sites are a necessary homage to champions of social justice. No one else has honoured dalit icons, she said, so she is rectifying matters. The question is, can Mayawati's strategy of monumentalising her caste-based political brand be conflated with uplift of the downtrodden?
The answer is no. Public good isn't served by promoting exclusivist agendas linked to personality cults. It demands efficient service delivery to citizens across the social board. Parties exploiting identity politics invariably equate the good of this or that section with their own political fortunes. True, Mayawati has tried to widen her social base. But she seems yet to understand that people's empowerment depends on inclusive development on the ground.
UP's record here isn't pretty. Health services are in a shambles, as exposed by an encephalitis outbreak killing over 400, mostly children, in poverty-wracked eastern UP. With the second highest slum child population after Maharashtra, UP is an educationally backward state where vast numbers face grinding poverty, be they dalits, Muslims or upper caste Hindus. Moreover, the administration is widely perceived to be corrupt.
Given all this, Mayawati can hardly justify blowing up jaw-dropping sums on memorial-building sprees that are environmentally unfriendly to boot. If she's serious about creating a positive legacy, she'd focus on good governance the way Nitish Kumar does in Bihar. In an aspirational nation, leaders will increasingly be judged by their ability to improve lives by providing schools, hospitals, roads, power and jobs. Symbolism alone won't cut it.
The Tribune
4 booked for assaulting SC family
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111018/haryana.htm#14
Tribune News Service
Faridabad, October 17
Four persons were booked today for assaulting and making "casteist" remarks against members of a Scheduled Caste family in Nawada village in the Ballabgarh area of the district. They were sent to 14 days' judicial custody.
One of the accused is still at large. The accused and the victim are from Nawada village.
The area SHO, Jeetender Dhanda, said Hansraj, the main accused, Krishan and Bholu, named in the original FIR, were arrested yesterday.
The names of Dharamveer, who was arrested today, and Bhupi, who is on the run, were added today to the original FIR during the course of the investigation.
The SHO said the accused had been booked under the Scheduled Castes/Schedued Tribes Act and under several sections of the IPC.
The police version is that Hansraj allegedly misbehaved with Akash, son of Ram Prasad, and often made casteist remarks against him in the factory in Munjesar where both of them were employed.
On a complaint by the victim's family, a police team visited them last Saturday. While the police was on its way to the house of the sarpanch of the village in connection with the case, Hansraj along with his friends went to Akash's house and allegedly beat up his father and mother. Both were injured and hospitalised.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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