Wednesday, June 1, 2011

[ZESTCaste] fyi

 

Dear All
in continuation of my earlier posting on banning brahmin priests or priests totally  
 
Coming back from a dalit dominated village wherein I went for some other purposes

- there are six ammans kandigai marriamma (dalit goddess),
- nagathamma (snake goddess),
- Ponni Amma (gold)
- Selvi amma (wealth goddess),
- yelvathamma, ??
- rovithamma, ??
- Tulukanathamma (mulsim-amman).

IF SOMEBODY HAS CLARITY ON THESE DIFFERENT AMMANS DO CIRCUALTE. there was one ganasha temple- i do not know how it made it in. I HOPE A PROCESS OF SANSKRITISATION DOES NOT HAPPEN 

These were either directly worshipped by people or by non brahmin priests.

Old women sang simultaneously songs not only on these ammans but also on ambedkar. How to preserve all this when dalits are getting displaced to ubran areas is a moot question
 
As the purpose of my visit was different i did not investigate deep 

Ranjani


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[ZESTCaste] HC restricts SC/ST officials from filling ACRs

 

http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5186268

01/06/2011
HC restricts SC/ST officials from filling ACRs

Jaipur, May 31 (PTI) The Rajasthan High Court today directed
departments of Personnel and PWD to ensure that no SC, ST officials
fill the Annual Confidential Reports of the general category staff.
Justice M N Bhandari gave the direction on a bunch of writ petitions
filed by Rajeev Garg, a PWD employee, and others.
The petitions contended that candidates and officials of the reserved
class who have been promoted in departments like PWD and others are
due to be reverted back.
But still they are filling ACRs of the general category candidates
with "malice to spoil their future", the petitions submitted.
Therefore, they should be prohibited from filling the ACRs of of the
general category staff, the petitions pleaded.
After hearing the parties, Justice Bhandari directed the Department of
Personnal and the PWD to ensure that no such reserve category official
who is likely to be reverted back fills the ACRs.

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[ZESTCaste] 'Animals here are better off than human beings in this cursed, holy region'

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0601/1224298205425.html

The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 1, 2011
'Animals here are better off than human beings in this cursed, holy region'

RAHUL BEDI in Gaya, eastern India

POVERTY IN INDIA: Part One: Despite its economic successes, India is a
place where some are still oppressed by the caste system, poverty,
hunger and exploitative moneylending

HUNGER is an everyday reality for Nanku Bhuyian, a Maha Dalit or
lowest-caste widow from the remote and arid Jalhe Bhongia village in
India's eastern Bihar state, seemingly forgotten by the local
authorities.

On a good day, the 50-year-old and her family of six survive on boiled
roots and leaves from the native chakura tree – provided she can
manage to scrounge some water and firewood and wild fruits foraged
from the swiftly depleting forest 21km away – a 12-hour return
journey.

It has been months since Bhuyian or her family ate either an onion or
a potato. They simply cannot afford either.

On other days, they often go to sleep hungry and thirsty as the only
pump in the village frequently runs dry and the trip to the nearest,
fetid water pond over hard, sun-baked earth takes more than three
hours to negotiate during the summer months.

Five years ago, Bhuyian's only son, Heera Lal (30), and 13 famished
villagers died after consuming the remains of a goat which they
exhumed a week after it was buried on the outskirts of Jalhe, barely
150km south of the provincial capital, Patna.

"Animals here are better off than human beings in this cursed, holy
region," the illiterate Bhuyian said last week of her predominantly
lowest-caste village, which is close to Bodh Gaya, the place where
Lord Buddha attained enlightenment 2,555 years ago under a giant tree
before going on to propagate Buddhism.

"At least they die with dignity; we don't even have that luxury," she
added matter-of-factly, recounting in unsettling detail her son's
death as several of her grandchildren milled listlessly around her in
searing temperatures of over 45 degrees.

Employment for this lowest-caste workforce, which comprises mostly
women as the majority of their menfolk have migrated to other parts of
India in search of work, too, remains unlikely.

The choice is between collecting firewood in the distant forest the
entire day and selling it for Rs25 (55 US cents) or undertaking
arduous, back-breaking labour in nearby brick kilns or infrequent
government construction projects where the daily wage of Rs50-70
($1.1-$1.5) is invariably deferred.

This, in turn, has forced most locals to borrow small sums of money
just to survive from local mahajans (moneylenders), who charge
interest rates of over 10 per cent per month, perpetuating a vicious
cycle of lifelong indebtedness as debtors are rarely ever able to pay
off their principal sum.

Many end up as bonded labourers for most of their lives, merely paying
off their burdensome monthly instalments.

Kari Devi, of nearby Mananbigha village, was one such victim who last
year borrowed Rs900 ($20) at exploitative interest rates for medicine
and food for her 40-year-old husband, who contracted tuberculosis
brought upon by malnutrition.

He eventually died in June 2010. Twelve months later, she still
struggles to pay off the crippling interest.

Grandiose social security schemes such as prime minister Manmohan
Singh's much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which
annually assures one family member from each of India's 60 million
rural households 100 days of work for a daily wage of Rs60 ($1.35) –
or alternately an unemployment allowance if there are no jobs – are an
illusion for these Maha Dalits caught up in byzantine bureaucratic
procedures manipulated by corrupt officials.

Attendant state-sponsored altruistic measures targeting children, the
aged and sick alongside impoverished and hungry families operate
similarly in a lopsided, corrupt and largely unaccountable manner
benefiting few.

"In rural Bihar, home to 85 per cent of the state's population of over
100 million, little has changed for decades.

"For the majority remain at the mercy of nature, officialdom and
avaricious moneylenders," said Fr Jose K of the People's Union for
Civil Liberties.

Their only instinct was that of survival, he declared, adding that
there had been many more starvation deaths than were reported by the
local media for fear of displeasing succeeding administrations.

Some 150 starvation deaths had officially been reported in Gaya and
adjoining districts including Patna over the past five years and,
according to senior state officials, about one-fifth of Bihar's rural
population is severely malnourished.

At a time when India has been preening itself as an economic
powerhouse with a consistently impressive annual economic growth rate
of about 9 per cent, nearly 40 per cent of Bihar's population,
according to the World Bank, lives below the poverty line, earning
some $1-$1.50 per day.

This makes it the country's poorest and most backward province.

According to the 2010 Global Hunger Index, India is ranked 67th out of
84 countries, placing it below even some sub-Saharan states.

And though its economy has doubled since the mid-1990s due to free
market policies, a buoyant stock market, entrepreneurial businessmen,
increased manufacturing capacity and a real estate boom, India
accounts for over 42 per cent of the world's underweight children.

Behind these disturbing figures, Bihar's poverty gap is far above the
national average, with 58 per cent malnutrition reported among
children – significantly higher than the national average – due
largely to non-availability of health services, absence of community
workers, bad institutional delivery systems and lack of access to
cheap medicines.

The hospital closest to Jalhe, for instance, is 30km away on a phantom
road, forcing locals to turn to quacks and self-styled hakims, who
liberally exploit their dependence and ignorance, often with fatal
consequences.

"These Maha Dalits are the poorest among Bihar's socially marginalised
people and have learnt to live with starvation," said Rupesh, who uses
only one name and heads Koshish Trust, a non-governmental organisation
(NGO).

Along with Oxfam, it recently launched an innovative food security
programme in 18 villages around Jalhe for thousands of predominantly
low-caste residents.

Many, he declared were deprived of numerous government schemes to aid
the poor due to endemic corruption, abiding misgovernment and callous
maladministration.

Besides, government food distribution plans are so meagre that they
leave huge holes in the social security net through which large
numbers of destitute people slip into starvation and hunger, he added.

And while food security had improved nominally following last
November's re-election for another five years of provincial chief
minister Nitish Kumar's Socialist Party-led coalition, the change has
been at best incremental. But Rupesh admitted that there had been
visible improvements in the state's previously horrendous law and
order situation, especially with regard to institutionalised
upper-caste violence unleashed on the Dalits.

Many Dalits were earlier prohibited from even drinking water at public
wells or praying in temples in upper-caste rural areas for fear of
beatings, ostracism and other barbaric forms of public humiliation.

Under Kumar, Dalit women were no longer raped publicly as they had
been earlier in villages and small towns by upper-caste men to keep
them "in their place" while the provinces' appalling, pot-holed road
network also underwent transformation.

Kidnappings for ransom, a booming industry in Bihar until six years
ago (especially the abduction of eligible upper-caste bachelors and
the forcible marrying them off after beating them into submission for
a price determined by the brides' parents) ceased.

Kumar's reputation as an honest and progressive administrator was also
attracting much-needed foreign investment into Bihar, but progress was
slow as regular power supply and socially backward conditions remained
a major obstacle.

Meanwhile, with assistance from the Oxfam-Koshish combine, the status
of a large number of indigent and impoverished villagers in Gaya and
adjoining regions too, after years of flailing, was finally classified
as being below the poverty line.

This status rendered them eligible to receive their monthly
entitlement of 35kg of rice and wheat and a few litres of paraffin as
cooking fuel.

This is at least one positive, if also feeble, attempt at neutralising
starvation and malnutrition.

The two NGOs also increased accountability by involving locals in
monitoring government schemes through the establishment of village
committees and creating a limited buffer grain stock for emergency
disbursement.

But three successive years of drought in a region dependent entirely
on agriculture (state authorities maintain that only 4 per cent of
paddy fields can be planted this year – this is down from about 80 per
cent earlier), together with enduring corruption, caste rivalries,
lawlessness and political turbulence, further restricted Bihar.

And if that were not enough, the proliferating Maoist insurgency,
dubbed by Singh as independent India's gravest internal security
challenge, has gripped large swathes of Bihar, including Gaya,
triggering frequent ambushes, mine blasts and armed attacks on
villages and government buildings and installations – particularly the
rail network which was the state's lifeline.

Bihar's armed Maoist rebels are predominantly dispossessed
agricultural labourers.

They are driven to violence by their callous treatment at the hands of
the upper castes who control the majority landholdings, on which they
were dependent for their livelihood.

"This area offers mukti only for the dead, not sustenance for the
living," Ram Kishan Bhuyian resignedly said.

He is reconciled fatalistically, as are many hundreds of his fellow
villagers, to a wretched existence bordering on the inhuman.

"Till we meet our god, we will continue to starve and suffer."


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[ZESTCaste] Ajit Pawar slams Sena chief, stirs up storm

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Ajit-slams-Sena-chief-stirs-up-storm/articleshow/8671058.cms

Ajit Pawar slams Sena chief, stirs up storm
Ambarish Mishra, TNN | Jun 1, 2011, 05.24am IST

Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar (R) interacts with home
minister RR Patil during the NCP state executive meeting in South
Mumbai. (PTI Photo)
MUMBAI: The political mercury soared on Tuesday with deputy chief
minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar
accusing Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray of provoking the Marathi manoos
in the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji. Ajit is the nephew of Maratha
strongman and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Political pundits attributed Ajit's outburst to the Sena's latest
alliance with the Republican Party of India (Athavale).

Addressing a public meeting in Shirdi, Ajit said Thackeray keeps
invoking the Chhatrapati Shivaji's legacy from time to time for narrow
political gains. "What has Balasaheb done all these years? Did he set
up a decent school or a college? Did he start a milk co-operative
society for the benefit of farmers? Ensconced in the safety of his
Mumbai apartment, he keeps roaring Jai Shivaji, Jai Bhavani to provoke
Marathis."

The Sena was quick to retaliate. Party MP Sanjay Raut said, "Ajit
suggests that Balasaheb hasn't done any concrete work for his
followers. For the Congress-NCP leaders, concrete work means
monumental scandals such as Adarsh, CWG and the 2-G spectrum scandal.
If one goes by the Congress-NCP's yardstick, then Balasaheb hasn't
done concrete work."

Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe said, "Before pointing an accusing finger at
Balasaheb, Ajit should examine his track record. He and his close
aides are involved in a slew of scandals, the latest being the
Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank fraud.''

At the centre of the Thackeray-Ajit spat is the Dalit vote-bank which,
the state NCP fears, the Sena is keen to appropriate from Pawar in the
run-up to the 2012 BMC elections.

Athavale has been a close Pawar lieutenant since 1990 when the latter
inducted the 30-something firebrand Dalit leader in the undivided
Congress government as minister. Since then, the RPI-A has been
two-timing the Congress and the NCP, helping the two parties
consolidate their pro-Dalit image.

However, his defeat in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections prompted Athavale
to look for new political allies. Thackeray was quick to rope in the
RPI-A in the saffron alliance in an attempt to woo the Dalit voters
for the upcoming civic polls. The Sena-BJP-RPI(A) has planned a morcha
in Mumbai on June 9 against the Congress-NCP's "misrule".

"This has deeply upset the NCP which thinks that it has sole
proprietorial rights over the RPI-A. Which is why Ajit has launched a
vicious attack on Balasaheb," said Gorhe.

By pointing out that Thackeray has failed to set up cooperative banks
or milk and agricultural societies, Ajit is reminding the Dalits that
it is the NCP alone which has under its belt centres of prosperity
across Maharashtra, said political observers.

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[ZESTCaste] HC debars SC/ST officials from writing juniors' ACR

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/HC-debars-SC/ST-officials-from-writing-juniors-ACR/articleshow/8670929.cms

HC debars SC/ST officials from writing juniors' ACR
TNN | Jun 1, 2011, 04.15am IST

JAIPUR: State government officers belonging to scheduled castes (SC)
and scheduled tribes (ST) likely to be reverted in light of a Supreme
Court order that disapproved of their promotions on basis of quota
have been temporarily debarred by the Rajasthan high court from
writing the annual confidential reports of their subordinates.

The order came on a bunch of petitions filed by one Rajeev Garg of the
state public works department and others. The petitions were based on
a Supreme Court order of December 7, 2010 that conditionally denied
the benefit of reservation in promotions to state government SC/ST
employees.

The SC had last year upheld a Rajasthan HC order striking down the
state government's notifications to grant reservation in promotions
and consequential seniority to SC/ST employees, the petitioners
informed the court.

It was argued before the single bench of justice M N Bhandari that the
February 5, 2010 HC order categorically held that no reservation was
permissible in promotions in the state services since the Rajasthan
government had failed to fulfill the conditions laid down by the
Supreme Court in the M Nagraj Case judgment on the Constitutional
provision of reservation in promotions in October 2006. The HC also
struck down the state government's notifications of December 28, 2002
and April 25, 2008. The state government then filed a special leave
petition against the HC order, but the Supreme Court dismissed the
government appeal on December 7, 2010.

The petitioners argued that the reserved category officials who had
been promoted before December 7, 2010 in the PWD and other departments
were now due to be reverted back. "The officials who are to be
reverted to lower ranks are still writing the annual confidential
reports of the general category employees and are now doing so with
malice to spoil the future prospects of the general employees. Such
reserved category officials ought to be prohibited from writing the
annual reports of their subordinates," the petitioners told the bench.

After hearing the petitions, Justice Bhandari directed the department
of personnel as well as chief engineer of the public works department
to ensure that no reserved categories officials who are likely to be
reverted from their present posts are allowed to write the annual
confidential reports of their subordinates.

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[ZESTCaste] Reserve-category babus can't decide fate of juniors

 

http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/RAJ-JPR-reserve-category-babus-cant-decide-fate-of-juniors-2152004.html

Reserve-category babus can't decide fate of juniors
Source: DNA | Last Updated 06:02(01/06/11)

Jaipur: In an important decision, the Rajasthan high court on Tuesday
restricted the reserved category officials, who have been promoted
through reservation, from filling in the annual confidential report
(ACR) of their junior general category officials of the state
government. Court has also issued a show cause notice to principal
secretary, department of personnel, principal secretary PWD and chief
engineer of the PWD.

The court made the decision following a petition filed by Rajeev Garg,
a PWD employee and Samta Anodolan Samiti and others. During the court
proceedings it was told that the Supreme Court (SC) in December last
year quashed the Rajasthan government's notification, which provided
reservation in promotion to SC/ST officers in government service.
Since then, the government employees of non-reserved category have
been demanding the state government to implement the apex court's
order.

Shobhit Tiwari, the petitioners counsel, said that state government is
deliberately delaying the implementation of SC orders that is why it
has constituted Bhatanagar Committee to probe into the issue.

The unnecessary delay is now creating situation of mutual hatred
between the officials of reserved category and general category, the
counsel stated. It was said that despite being junior, the official of
reserved category supersedes the general category officials due to
reservation benefits in promotions. In the petition it has been
alleged that the reserved category officials file confidential reports
with mala fide intentions so that general category officials fail to
avail the benefits of the Supreme Court order. Considering the
arguments, the high court restricted the officials of reserved
category, who have been promoted through reservation quota, from
filling the annual confidential report (ACR) of their junior general
category officials who were initially at par with them.

According to Mission 72, the umbrella organisation of government
employees from general, OBC and minority categories, the Supreme Court
has clearly stated in its judgment that the state government was under
no compulsion to adhere to the 85th Amendment that provided
consequential seniority in promotions. The state government also has
to fulfill three conditions laid down by the apex court in the M
Nagraj case for providing the consequential seniority benefits to the
Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) category candidates
including acquiring quantifiable data regarding the inadequacy of
representation of the SC/ST communities in public services and whether
it would affect the efficiency or not in governance.

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