Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 26.10.11
'Witch' stripped, beaten in Balasore - The Times Of India
'Police responsible for Dalit woman's murder' - The Pioneer
Madiga community seeks reservation - The Times Of India
Udaipur: Congress MP's son bags scholarship meant for needy, lands in soup - India Today
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/cong-mps-son-bags-scholarship-meant-for-sc-st/1/157244.html
The Times Of India
'Witch' stripped, beaten in Balasore
TNN | Oct 24, 2011, 01.00PM IST
BALASORE: Police on Sunday registered a case against some villagers of Jharanaghati in Balasore district for allegedly stripping a Dalit woman and beating her after accusing her of practising witchcraft.
Police said the residents of the tribal-dominated village, around 35 km from Balasore town, blamed Duli Hembram (40) for the recent death of two fellow villagers. "The villagers believe that Duli practices witchcraft and she was responsible for the recent deaths. Besides, they claimed she has been creating disturbances in the village with the help of one of her relatives whom the villagers believe is a tantrik," said SDPO Siba Charan Mallick.
The villagers dragged the woman out of her house, stripped her in full public view before thrashing her mercilessly even as she pleaded her innocence.
Duli alleged that the residents performed a puja in the village and thereafter they ostracized her before asking to leave the village. Traumatized and harassed, the woman has left for her parental house at Kaptipada in Mayurbhanj district along with her husband and children.
In her FIR, Duli claimed that though she went to lodge a complaint with Berhampur police, the officer concerned didn't take the report. She later met the SDPO who asked the officer-in-charge to register a case and investigate the allegation.
"The local sarpanch had later convened a meeting to convince villagers that Duli did not practise witchcraft. The villagers were pacified and agreed not to harass the woman again. But as she woman didn't feel secure to stay in the village, we advised her to go to her parental house for a few days," the SDPO said. "We have registered a case and efforts are on to nab the accused persons who have been identified in the FIR," he added.
A few months ago, two women were confined in a room by their fellow villagers in Nilagiri area on the suspicion that their husbands were involved in practising black magic.
The Pioneer
'Police responsible for Dalit woman's murder'
Wednesday, 26 October 2011 00:08
Staff Reporter | Bhopal
Bottom of Form
Holding the police administration directly responsible for burning alive a Dalit woman Guddi in Morena district on October 20, State Congress president Kantilal Bhuria alleged that the Madhya Pradesh Government is overlooking mothers because it is engaged in saving the girl child.
The Government had recently launched 'beti bachao campaign' with much propaganda only to woo the voters in the upcoming 2013 Assembly Elections.
He alleged that mothers are facing problems in the State. Pregnant women are dying due to lack of adequate medical facilities in rural areas, while some mothers are being targeted by the musclemen, but the State Government is merely a mute spectator.
Bhuria asked the Chief Minister as how he would save the girl child by spending over `200 crore, when mothers would not remain alive in the State. In such a situation, if the girls are saved, the society can not live peacefully because the girls would be mothers in the future.
The senior Congress leader alleged that the police were aware of the facts right from the first day, but did not take any prompt action, which led to the murder of Guddi. He stated that the whole staff of Dimni police station is responsible for the murder of Guddi.
Bhuria said that it was not possible that any incident that took place openly in a village and no policeman come to know. The incident took place on October 20, and the inhuman acts were committed on the woman for hours, but nobody came to her rescue.
Collector and SP of Morena district cannot be spared merely on the grounds that they were not present at the village. He demanded that they should immediately be transferred and a probe in this regard be started immediately.
The Times Of India
Madiga community seeks reservation
TNN | Oct 21, 2011, 01.19PM IST
CHITRADURGA: The Madiga Reservation Horata Samiti(MRHS) will hold a state-level Dharma Yuddha convention to urge the government to implement Justice Sadasiva Commission recommendations about reservation. Other demands of the samiti include three per cent intra-cast reservation and cancellation of outsourcing of civil administration works.
Villagers of Challakere taluk led by K PBhutayya, leader of Karnataka Rjya Rata Sangha (KRRS), staged a protest against illegal sand mining in river Vedavati on Thursday. The protesters asked the government to take stern action against those who violate laws. "The water level in all villages in the taluk is decreasing due to rampant illegal sand mining in the river," he said.
India Today
Udaipur: Congress MP's son bags scholarship meant for needy, lands in soup
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/cong-mps-son-bags-scholarship-meant-for-sc-st/1/157244.html
A scholarship meant to benefit a poor and needy student from an SC/ ST family had been usurped by a Congress MP's son in Rajasthan, thanks to the help from an unscrupulous tehsildar.
Udaipur MP Raghuvir Singh Meena.
Raj Kumar, son of Udaipur MP Raghuvir Singh Meena, furnished a fake income certificate, provided by the local tehsildar, in which he claimed his father was a labourer whose annual income was less than Rs. 1 lakh. The income certificate helped Raj Kumar, whose father was a four-time MLA in the Rajasthan assembly and a former president of the All India Adivasi Development Council, to bag a scholarship to the tune of Rs. 2.40 lakh to finance his studies at Jaipur Dental College.
What was more surprising was that Raj Kumar had managed to bag the scholarship for two consecutive years (2007-08 and 2008-09) without anyone detecting the anomaly. The scholarship, handed out by Rajasthan's department of social justice and empowerment, was worth Rs. 1.20 lakh each year and covered Raj Kumar's admission and tuition fee.
Sources said the irregularity first came to the notice during a departmental audit.
And just as any politician happens to say in this part of the world when he sniffs trouble, Raj Kumar's father also said he had no clue that something like this had happened.
"I don't know how he availed the scholarship twice. But I have instructed him not to avail it anymore," Meena said in his son's defence.
Raj Kumar said he had first applied for a scholarship in 2007- 08 when he was in the first year in college.
Chandra Shekhar, the Jaipur district in-charge of the social justice department's scholarship programme, pointed out that the scholarship was released on the basis of the income certificate issued by the local tehsildar. Once such a certificate was submitted there was no need of doubting the application, he added.
Principal secretary in the social justice department Aditi Mehta expressed surprise at the incident. "An MP's son can't get a scholarship just like that. I don't know the details but I have sought a report," she said.
--
.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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