From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, May 16, 2010 at 3:31 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 16.05.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 16.05.10
Medha Patkar opposes Mumbai slum demolition - The Times Of India
Victims of atrocities give testimonies - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/16/stories/2010051661820300.htm
RPI activist stabbed, killed in Kalwa - The Hindustan Times
Yeddyurappa greeted by furious Dalits - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/16/stories/2010051661830300.htm
The Times Of India
Medha Patkar opposes Mumbai slum demolition
IANS, May 14, 2010, 04.59pm IST
MUMBAI: Social activist Medha Patkar on Friday tried to stop the razing of hutments at Anna Bhau Sathe Nagar here, demanding that the slum dwellers be first provided alternative accommodation.
Patkar and her supporters dubbed the demolition as anti-Dalit and vowed to stop it.
"They (Dalits) are the backbone of this city. Their rights should not be taken away just because they are poor," she said.
She said about 10,000 residents of the area in Mumbai's northeast suburb had nowhere to go.
More than 1,000 of the nearly 3,000 hutments were razed in the drive that began on Thursday by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the collector's office.
Patkar said around 40 women were detained by police when they protested against the demolition.
But the BMC is determined to raze the slum. "This land belongs to the collectorate and has been encroached upon," said Dhananjay Sawarkar, the additional suburban collector.
Social activist Simpreet Singh alleged that the authorities did not issue the mandatory 24-hour eviction notice to residents before demolishing the hutments. Sawarkar denied this.
The slum houses workers mainly from the unorganised sector.
The Hindu
Victims of atrocities give testimonies
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/16/stories/2010051661820300.htm
Staff Reporter
| At People's Conference on Victims of Atrocities, organised by an NGO |
MADURAI: It was all depressing to see tears rolling down from the cheeks of women and men while narrating their tales of woe and atrocities committed against them in the name of caste.
One hundred victims of various atrocities gave testimonies at the People's Conference on Victims of Atrocities here on Saturday. It was organised by Evidence, a Madurai-based non-governmental organisation working among Dalits and Tribals.
The members belonging to Dalit and Tribal communities expressed their conditions of inability to fight both the State and the hierarchical social order, which were "repressing their right" to freedom and livelihood.
The discriminations included honour killings, bonded labour, attacks on the basis of defilement by touch, sexual harassment, social ostracism, discrimination at workplace. Caste as identity was the central feature behind all these attacks and in one case a small boy was not even spared and forced to remove excreta by his bare hands by a Caste Hindu after the boy unknowingly defecated on an open field in the caste Hindu area.
This incident had a psychological effect on the child who underwent a lot of trauma which got reflected in his everyday life and literally made him get attached to water clean his hands frequently and to touch things hesitantly.
P.K. Mishra, former Chief Justice of Patna High Court, in his special address, said that it is unfortunate after 63 years of Independence and 60 years of becoming a Republic our nation is still plagued by the ills of caste-based discrimination. He also listed out that caste-based atrocities and corruption as the two most baneful things that our nation has to overcome.
Mr. Mishra accompanied the victims on the stage and helped them with having their thumb impressions on a whiteboard as a symbolic measure to record the testimonies before they actually deposed in front of the panel.
S.K. Krishnan, former Judge, Madras High Court, in his inaugural address, said that there are sufficient numbers of laws but the lack of will on the part of the bureaucracy to implement them fully is the reason for its prevalence.
While speaking on the objective of the conference, A. Kathir, executive director, Evidence, said that conference aims to record that caste-based discrimination is an existing reality which needs complete attention at an international level.
Later the victims sitting beside a jury of 6 members presented their cases one after the other. Each jury member accompanied the victim and expressed their solidarity with the victims after hearing their cases.
The jury members who voiced their views in solidarity with the victims were Qudsia Gandhi, Chairperson and Managing Director, Overseas Manpower Corporation India Limited, Rev Aloysious Irudayam, Head, Research and Documentation, National Campaign on Dalit and Human Rights, V. Karuppan Former Civil Services Officer, Bernard Fatima, Tamil Nadu Dalit Women Movement, Vasamalli, Member, State Tribal Welfare Board, and Beulah Azariah, Women Activist.
The Hindustan Times
RPI activist stabbed, killed in Kalwa
Hindustan Times
Thane, May 16, 2010
A 45-year-old woman activist of the Republican Party of India (RPI) was killed in the New Shivaji Nagar area of Kalwa (East) by four people on Saturday evening.
The area turned tense as news of Ramabai Pujari's murder spread, aggravating nerves already strained following an early morning clash between two groups. Police have been deployed in the area.
"Some people had vandalised her M&M Scorpio and she had filed a case at Kalwa police station. She came to the police station in the evening to check on the case," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone I), Ashok Deshbhrathar.
"She was returning in an autorickshaw with her party workers when four people dragged them out and stabbed her with a sword. We now know the names of three of the attackers. Investigations are on," he added.
While the police are not commenting on the possible motive, the early morning clash appears to be a factor.
Around 2 am on Saturday, vandals burnt a bike and damaged a Scorpio and a tempo.
A 20-year-old was also attacked and shops damaged. Most shops stayed shut after the incident.
"Around six men, all drunk, from the Gopalnagar area came with choppers and sticks. They broke the windows of my Scorpio with the chopper. They attacked a boy and were about to attack me as well but our local boys came and drove them away," Pujari said.
During the day, 20 men vandalised other vehicles and shops in the area. New Shivajinagar residents say such incidents happen every fortnight but the police don't take any action.
"When we went to the police station to file a complaint, they were not ready to take the complaint. We have to go to west Kalwa to file a complaint. They should at least have a chowkie and night patrolling here so these goons don't have a free run," said Kunal Mauje (22), whose bike was burnt.
Kalwa police filed a case of causing grievous hurt in the morning incident and named Deva Pandey, Krishna Pandey and Sanjay as accused.
Police were in the process of filing a murder case in Pujari's case.
The Hindu
Yeddyurappa greeted by furious Dalits
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/16/stories/2010051661830300.htm
Staff Correspondent
| They are yet to get compensatory jobs |
MANGALORE: Chief Minister B.S. Yedyurappa was greeted by the angry and sloganeering Dalits on his arrival on Saturday for the inaugural of the Rs. 180-crore integrated terminal building at the airport here.
The agitators, whowere displaced in phases by the airport over a period of 10 years, have allegedly not got full compensation by the Government yet. Their lands had been acquired for the airport on behalf of the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
The Chief Minister's convoy stopped briefly in front of the agitators and Mr. Yeddyurappa heard their grievances. However, D. Krishnananda, district convener of the Karnataka Dalit Sangharsh Samiti, which organised the protest, said: "The Chief Minister left the spot without giving us any assurances."
Later, Mr. Krishnananda told The Hindu that the members of the 280 families, which were displaced by the airport in phases since 1999, had not yet got jobs as compensation. "Each family was supposed to get one job," he said.
The land was acquired for a paltry price of Rs. 250 a cent in the early 1990s, he said.
The memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister mentioned that 75 households, whose lands were acquired in 2006-07, had been given compensatory sites with controversial titles. "When we went to get our sites registered, we found that some of them were in somebody else's name," said one of the agitators.
The agitators also raised the issue of the 10 Dalit houses in the Bonkuri area, just outside the new terminal building, which has been cut off from the outside world by the wall of the building. In a report that appeared in these columns on October 27, 2009, the then Assistant Commissioner for Mangalore taluk, Prabhulinga Kavalakatti, had said, "The Revenue Department is working on a solution to the Bonkuri issue". Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the inauguration of the terminal, Mr. Kavalakatti said that "talks are still on".
Expressing concern over the plight of the displaced Dalits, Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily asked Mr. Yeddyurappa to find a solution to the issue.
--
.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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