MPs Baijayant Panda, Ajoy Kumar, Dinesh Trivedi & Omar Abdullah oppose RTI amendments; seek public consultation - Moneylife

MPs Baijayant Panda, Ajoy Kumar, Dinesh Trivedi & Omar Abdullah oppose RTI amendments; seek public consultation - Moneylife:

'via Blog this'

'Abused goddesses' spread message against domestic violence

'Abused goddesses' spread message against domestic violence:
'Abused goddesses' spread message against domestic violence IBNLive.com | Posted on Sep 06, 2013 at 04:04pm IST Share Donate to PFAW Fight the right wing! Join or   renew your membership. www.pfaw.org Is He Cheating On You? 1) Enter His E-Mail Address 2) See   Hidden Pics & Social Profiles Now! Spokeo.com/Cheating-Spouse-Search Ads by Google New Delhi: Three award-winning ads with images of bruised Hindu goddesses - Saraswati, Durga and Lakshmi - attempt to spread a strong message against domestic violence in India. "Pray that we never see this day. Today more than 68% of women in India are victims of domestic violence. Tomorrow it seems like no woman shall be spared. Not even the ones we pray too," the ads issued for Save Our Sisters initiative by Save the Children India NGO urge us to act before it is too late and also include a helpline number. The campaign was created by blending traditional hand-painted Indian art with modern-day photography using real models by Mumbai's Taproot India advertising agency has won multiple awards at different ad festivals. 

Read more at: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/abused-goddesses-spread-message-against-domestic-violence/420065-77.html?utm_source=ref_article
'via Blog this'

‘First law to link land acquisition, rehab’ - The Hindu

‘First law to link land acquisition, rehab’ - The Hindu:

‘First law to link land acquisition, rehab’

Washington Home Auctions - WA Foreclosures at Auction Now! See the WA homes banks must sell.www.Auction.com/WA

Ads by Google

SHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  

Bill proposes compensation up to four times market value in rural areas and two times in urban areas: Jairam

Jairam Ramesh

The land acquisition Bill, renamed the Right To Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012, was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Jairam Ramesh , Rural Development Minister, in an interview withGirija Shivakumar , says the old law was draconian and led to pauperisation of livelihood losers.

How do you see the Bill playing an important role in kicking off the stalled development process as land acquisition is seen as a major hindrance to projects?

One of the major reasons why land acquisition was delayed was the series of litigation that plagued it. People would go to court against procedures that violated basic norms of due process. Another cause of action were the low rates of compensation.

As a result, there are acquisition proceedings that have been pending for decades. This law seeks to address all those shortcomings.

Could you list a few salient features of this landmark law?

Compensation : Given the inaccurate nature of circle rates, the Bill proposes payment of compensation that is up to four times the market value in rural areas and twice the market value in urban areas.

R&R: This is the very first law that links land acquisition and the accompanying obligations for resettlement and rehabilitation. Over five chapters and two entire Schedules have been dedicated to outlining elaborate processes (and entitlements) for resettlement and rehabilitation. The Second Schedule in particular outlines the benefits (such as land for land, housing, employment and annuities) that shall accrue in addition to one-time cash payments.

Compensation for livelihood losers: The Bill provides compensation to those who are dependent on the land being acquired for their livelihood, besides to those losing land.

Consent: In cases where PPP projects are involved or acquisition is taking place for private companies, the Bill requires the consent of no less than 70% and 80% respectively (in both cases) of those whose land is sought to be acquired. This ensures that no forcible acquisition will take place.

What does the Bill have in store for farmers and rural India, who faced exploitation in land acquisition in the past?

Retrospective effect: Where awards are made but no compensation has been paid or possession has not been taken, compensation shall be paid at the rate prescribed under the new Act. Where the award has not been made, the entire process shall be considered to have lapsed. Also, where acquisition took place five years prior to the commencement of the new law but no compensation has been paid/possession has taken place, the proceedings shall be deemed to have lapsed.

Consent: Prior consent is required from 70 per cent of land losers and those working on government assigned lands only in the case of public-private partnership projects and 80 per cent in the case of private companies. This consent also includes consent for the amount of compensation payable. Share in sale of acquired land increased: The share that has to be distributed amongst farmers in the increased land value (when the acquired land is sold off to another party) has been set at 40%.

Strict restrictions on multi-crop acquisition: The acquisition of agricultural and multi-crop land has to be done as a last resort. There will be definite restrictions on the extent of acquisition of such land to be determined by the States concerned.

Could you explain the freedom given to States in dealing with acquisition issues

Only a baseline: The Bill only provides the baseline for compensation and has devised a sliding scale which allows States to fix the multiplier (which will determine the final award) depending on distance from urban centres.

Choice for return to Land Bank or owner: Where unutilised land is returned, the State can decide whether it goes to the original owner or the Land Bank.

Threshold for private purchase left to government: While the Bill requires the discharge of obligations related to Resettlement and Rehabilitation even in the case of private purchase, provided the purchase exceeds a certain threshold, it leaves the said threshold to the discretion of the State governments.

States free to enact other laws: The State governments are free to enact any law to enhance or add to the entitlements enumerated under the Bill, conferring higher compensation than what is payable under the Bill or making provisions for better rehabilitation and resettlement.

Some industry lobbies think the law will lead to a steep hike in land prices.

True, the cost of acquisition is higher under this law. But it has been done to reflect the current value of land. It has also been done to prevent exploitation of the small farmer.

It is our objective to actively encourage other less displacing options such as lease and private purchase. In the case of the latter, the rates will be those negotiated between parties. In fact, in 20 years’ time, there should be only purchases and no government acquisition except in well-defined extraordinary circumstances.

It has been said the land Bill could potentially dissuade companies from investing in India.

This is a statement of opinion rather than fact. In fact, these fears are largely exaggerated and overblown. Farmers, tribals and Dalits will all benefit.

Any Bill that protects the interests of these weaker sections is in the national interest. Any Bill that closes the door on forcible acquisition is also in the national interest. Industry is certainly an important stakeholder but the Bill has to be judged in totality and not from a sectional point of view.

The old law was draconian and led to the pauperisation of livelihood losers.

'via Blog this'

India’s villages are beginning to smile | Deccan Chronicle

India’s villages are beginning to smile | Deccan Chronicle:

India’s villages are beginning to smile

Kancha Ilaiah | 21st Aug 2013

• Share
• inShare
• Printer-friendly version
• Send by email

So far the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its implementation, however tar­dy, in the Indian rural setting has been discussed in terms of wage and work availability.

Various agencies have doled out statistics of the number of people who have benefited and the amount of money flowing into the hands of the rural poor. Even the team that put this act in place may not have fully realised its effect on India’s rural poor, and its social, cultural and political impact.

For example, the latest National Sample Survey Organisation data has shown a drastic reduction in po­verty levels of many states and that must be seen in the backdrop of implementation of this progra­mme.

The reduction in the number of poor people in Andhra Pradesh within just two years was drastic — from 176 lakh to 80 lakh. The impact of this programme on hea­l­th and empowerment is very much visible across the rural landscape of An­dhra Pradesh.

The socio-cultural impact of the programme is more significant than the physical im­pa­ct, and it cannot be measured in nu­mbers. It has to be seen and sensed.

The Indian caste system and hierarchical relations, under­pinned by the practice of untouchability, have historically endorsed barbaric human relationships in our villages. Feudal ca­s­te­ism coupled with superstitions have been used for centuries to con­trol the labour, i.e. the poor.

The poor — men, women and children — were treated as virtual sla­v­es of the landlords. Doing whatever work was assigned, taking whatever wage — both in kind and coin — given by the landlord was the only option. The dalit population in particular was vulnerable to exploitation, and their women were under the grip of landlords.

This system did not even give the option of school to children belonging to the SC, ST and OBC castes, leave alone thinking of compulsory education. Even after we abolished child labour, insufficient work days in the fields and a “feudal wage system” continued in our villages.

This forced poor families to pull their children out of school and make them work as labourers, often at the command of the landlords during peak work season, and sometimes out of their own necessity. The so-called Land Reforms Act hardly changed this relationship.

But the MGNREGA has changed the situation considerably. For the first time in history the state has asked rural people to take up agrarian developmental work — digging or repairing tanks, canals, laying roads or soil bunds on their own agricultural lands — and it pays wage through a bank.

This dignifi­ed assured income, at least for 100 da­ys per annum, undercutting all feudal-caste cultural relations, has enco­uraged parents in villages to send their children to school, re­sul­­ting in considerable reduction of sc­hool dropout rates in rural areas.

There is a qualitative difference between earning wage and earning dignified, unconditional wage. Dignified wage for work, hitherto unknown in Indian villages, has, thus, energised the spirit of the rural poor.

Though it requires them to learn the nitty-gritty of the banking system, the very act of interacting with a bank has changed their lives. This mode of earning wage abolishes feudal indignities that were, till now,  interwoven with rural poverty. The Indian state did not know how to work for abolition of these indignities. The MGNREGA has initiated this process.

The labouring lower castes, by acquiring relative economic autonomy, are slowly becoming free voters. When they were dependent on the landlord wage system alone, they could not even exercise their right to vote.

Though the pro-landlord economists call the Indian la­n­d­lords “farmers”, the Indian landed gentry has not yet become capitalist cultivators or farmers leaving their caste-feudal cultural heritage behind.

In fact, the landlord class, which was earlier living as a “drink and en­j­oy” class, has been forced to soil their hands as the former bonded labour is now em­pl­oyed elsewhere. Slowly but surely, MGNREGA is injecting some amount of dignity of labour among the lazy, up­per-caste landed gentry.

No wonder, the landlord lobby is very unhappy with MGNREGA. They are not used to labour not being available at their beck and call. They, therefore, talk of the la­bour class becoming lazy and greedy because of this progra­m­me. This is absurd.

Fact is that MGNREGA has empowered the rural poor. It has, for example, changed the condition of women. For centuries, a poor woman’s sexuality was under the control of the landlord because of lack of employment opportunities. They had no choice but to work in the fields of the landlords.

Untouchability, of course, did not extend to dalit women, who have always been vulnerable to sexual exploitation by the landlords. Dalit and other lower-caste women would silently surrender to their landlords’ whims and fancies.

Culturally, poor rural women hate the landlords. But because th­ey need to feed their children they silently suffer sexual abuse. Once the state steps in with an alternative dignified wage-earning mechanism like MGNREGA, the da­lit/tribal/OBC women are bound to challe­nge the landlords more and more.

The alternative wage under MGNREGA has emboldened the women. Now the poorest of poor woman is not surrendering. They are resisting and in case of rape they are reporting.

Finally, it is important to understand the role an assured, dignified wa­ge plays in a family. MGNREGA has brought a se­nse of happiness into the lives of the rural poor and herein lies the essence of change in India.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader Narendra Modi have been attacking this programme as uneconomical. Tho­u­gh Modi is being supported by a large section of monopoly capitalists, large number of landlords are also with that party. They are opposing this programme in various ways. But no one is suggesting an alternative to this programme. They probably don’t want one.

(The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad)

'via Blog this'

After the inferno - South Asia Citizens Web

After the inferno - South Asia Citizens Web:

After the inferno

by Harsh Mander, 24 August

  Send by email 

 printable version

 

 

 other articles by the author

The Hindustan Times
August 20, 2013
One year has passed since the monsoon of 2012, which witnessed, in Assam, the country’s largest displacement caused by ethnic and communal mass violence after the Partition riots of 1947-48. Half a million people were uprooted from their villages because their homes were looted and set ablaze, or simply for fear of their lives. It is extraordinary how easily the rest of the country has forgotten the carnage and the mass suffering it engendered. Part of the reason for this national amnesia is that this violence scarred India’s distant north-eastern frontiers, and the survivors were either indigenous Bodo tribals or Bengali Muslims.
The puzzle of Assam’s endemic cycles of violence is that — unlike the more familiar national paradigm of mass violence inflicted by people of dominant castes and faiths against minorities and disadvantaged castes — Assam’s bloody conflicts often rage between various oppressed minorities. Each embattled impoverished minority is burdened by legitimate anxieties, but the fulfilment of the defensible claims of one seems to make impossible the resolution of the just grievances of the other.
Last monsoon, a series of local skirmishes and murders grew into a raging inferno, which rapidly engulfed several districts of Lower Assam: Kokrajhar, Dhubri and Chirang. The homes and fields of Bengali Muslims, who lived in enclaves surrounded by Bodo majority settlements, were torched and their livestock and belongings looted. In areas where Bodos were in a minority, they faced identical arson and looting by the majority Bengali Muslim population. Fear swept both populations, and the terrified people fled their homes, desperately traversing flooded rivers and kilometres of forests to reach areas where their respective communities were in the majority.
Both fugitive populations took refuge in the grounds of schools and colleges. Unlike in Gujarat a decade earlier, the state government assumed charge of all (over 1,000) relief camps, housing five lakh people. People slept under plastic sheets on bare ground for several months, surviving on the rough frugal diet supplied by the government. The facilities in these camps were primitive, but to the credit of the state, there were no epidemics. Schooling was disrupted, both of the refugee children and youth, but also of students of the educational institutions where most camps were located.
The state government disbanded the camps in a few months, forcing people to return to their homes. But the hatred and fear has not abated, and in many villages, people now live in makeshift camps outside their villages, still finding safety in numbers. A further problem is that the state government agreed to pay a modest compensation for houses that were damaged only to those affected persons who had valid records of agricultural land. This was obviously a ploy to target Bengali Muslims widely believed to be illegal encroachers. But this was a patently unjust policy, because a large number of legal residents were landless, tenants or artisans who owned no land. The situation was aggravated by the open call for the economic boycott of Bengali Muslims, and posters came up announcing a fine on Bodo people who employed them. This unofficial boycott is still in force, and deepens further the fractures between the two communities. In my many visits to Assam in the past year, I found scores of dispirited young Bengali Muslim men sitting idle in the makeshift camps, unable to restart life because of the boycott, compounded by fear and compensation denial. The government could have mitigated the situation by opening large-scale public works under the MGNREGA, but has not done so.
On the other hand, the requirement of land records for compensation unintentionally disqualified many Bodos as well, who also did not have a legal title to their agricultural land. Thus the state government recently took the decision to give an ad hoc grant of Rs. 50,000 to those without land records, but this will only temporarily mitigate their suffering.
There is no move to initiate reconciliation between the bitterly estranged communities. Small but significant fringes of both are radicalised. Both the RSS and Jamiat Islami are active among the affected populations. There is also fear and sullen anger among the third large minority in the Bodo region, the Adivasi descendants of tea garden workers brought into Assam as tea garden labour centuries back.
Moreover, there is no significant political initiative to address the legitimate fears of the disaffected communities. There has been enormous land alienation of the Bodos inhabiting the plains, and they understandably fear the submergence of their culture. On the other hand, demographers confirm that 90% of the Bengali Muslims in Assam are legal residents, and yet they are stigmatised and persecuted as ‘foreigners’. There has been no serious attempt to identify the small ‘illegal’ population and thereby restore the dignity and security of equal legal citizenship to the rest; or to effectively seal the borders to prevent further migration of economic refugees from Bangladesh.
The region is dangerously rife with militant identity-based politics, open trade in illegal arms, state policies that tacitly encourage violence, and runaway corruption. In this smouldering political and social cauldron, peace is chronically fragile. I still found hope in that although the majority of student groups representing both communities remain restive, they do not believe in violence. Also, economic compulsions have led to small ruptures in boycott, as some Bodos employ Bengali Muslims as farm workers, tenants or house builders. Our call from Aman Biradari for Bodo and Bengali Muslim youth to work together for peace and reconciliation found an encouraging response. I see young people slowly recognising that the politics of hate and difference can lead only to a precipice. I find despite continuing rage, hurt and distrust, despite unresolved disputes, a longing for peace with dignity. Even as the rest of the country has already forgotten the carnage.
Harsh Mander is convenor of Aman Biradari
The views expressed by the author are personal

P.S.

The above article is reproduced here from Hindustan Times for educational and non commercial use

'via Blog this'

Center for Security Policy | Don’t rescue the Muslim Brotherhood

Center for Security Policy | Don’t rescue the Muslim Brotherhood:

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Don’t rescue the Muslim Brotherhood

Frank Gaffney's OpEds | August 19, 2013 | The Muslim Brotherhood in America, Understanding the Shariah Threat Doctrine

EmailPrint

Highlights

• Insisting on the restoration of the Muslim Brotherhoodto power will be perilous for America - via @securefreedom |
  Tweet This
• The Muslim Brotherhood has as its mission the worldwide imposition of the brutally repressive shariah doctrine |
  Tweet This

Ever since President Obama came to office, hisadministration has cultivated relations with, legitimated, emboldened, empowered, funded and even armed the Muslim Brotherhood.  This policy has amounted to our changing sides in what is best described as the War for the Free World.

As documented in a free online, video-based course I produced last year (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), one of the factors behind this strategically disastrous – and largely unnoted – reversal is the success the Brotherhood has had, going back at least to theClinton administration, in penetrating and running influence operations against our country.  The Brothers call it “civilization jihad.”  And it has enabled them to establish not only an array of front groups to insinuate themselves into American civil society institutions and governing agencies.  It has also largely obscured the true nature of this organization and the threat it poses to our nation, allies and interests.

The success of such patient, stealthy subversion is much in evidence at the moment in the response to events in Egypt on the part of some prominent Democrats and Republicans, alike.  In recent days, President Obama and Senators like Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Republicans John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Kelly Ayotte of Arizona, South Carolina and New Hampshire, respectively, have discussed the need to cut off assistance to those in Egypt now battling the Muslim Brotherhood.

The principal justification offered for doing so is that the Egyptian people elected the Brotherhood to run their country after America’s longtime ally, Hosni Mubarak, was overthrown, with the support of the Obama administration.  It is further being intensified by the Brothers’ success in forcing the government to resort to violence to establish order throughout Cairo and other cities.

The trouble is that the bloodshed now taking place in Egypt – including that of Christians at the hands of Islamists who have torched or otherwise damaged more than eighty churches in recent days – is just a foretaste of what is to come if we do as the aforementioned leaders have in mind and rescue the Muslim Brotherhood.  And some of that blood will inevitably be ours.

This unhappy prospect is inevitable because of a fact obscured by the Brotherhood’s successful influence operations, and ignored at our peril:  We know for a fact that the Muslim Brotherhood has as its mission the worldwide imposition of Islam’s toxic, brutally repressive and anti-constitutional supremacist doctrine known as shariah.  And yes, it means here, too.

Lest there be any confusion on that point, consider the 1991 mission statement of the Muslim Brotherhood in America: “It is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within…sabotaging its miserable house from within…by [our] hands and the hands of the believers so that God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”  The strategic plan from which this passage comes was introduced into evidence during the successful 2008 federal prosecution of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in Dallas, Texas in connection with their fundraising in this country for the organization’s Palestinian franchise: the designated terrorist organization known as Hamas.

Senators McCain and Graham have also provided bipartisan political cover to the Islamists’ efforts to takeover other countries, as well.  These include, notably, Libya and Syria.  The former has been a debacle of the first order; the murderous attack on our missions and personnel in Benghazi is but a taste of what is to come there and beyond.  And these lawmakers are working with Team Obama to inject the United States into the latter’s civil war, with the predictable practical effect of helping the Brotherhood and/or al Qaeda take over that country next.

As in these other places, if the Muslim Brotherhood’s American friends have their way in Egypt – most immediately, by cutting off U.S. aid or other ties to its military – the killing will not stop.  It will, instead, mean those dying will increasingly be people who have historically looked to us as allies and partners.  And they will be dispatched by jihadists bent on our destruction, as well.

It seems the military and tens of millions of ordinary citizens in Egypt have no intention of rolling over, as their counterparts have done in Turkey.  In that case, an Islamist regime has used elections to destroy democracy and institute an increasingly shariah-compliant order – complete with the incarceration on trumped-up charges of much of the leadership of the Turkish armed forces.  Having tried and failed to effect a similar transformation in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood seems now determined to crush its opponents through full-scale civil war.  Were the United States to cut off Egypt’s military, it would simply encourage and perhaps enable the Muslim Brotherhood to pursue that course.

Even worse from our point of view, the United States will likely drive the Egyptian military back into the arms of the Russians – and possibly this time the Chinese – folks who would love to displace us and secure close relations with a nation that sits astride the strategic Suez Canal.  These are, after all, countries now seen, unlike America, to be reliable allies, not fair-weather friends.

The Muslim Brotherhood is our enemy.  Insisting on its restoration to power – either immediately or through another round of premature elections – will be perilous for this country and for people in Egypt and elsewhere who do not want to submit to the Islamists and their anti-freedom shariah agenda.

TAGGED WITH → Egypt • Muslim Brotherhood • Shariah • Shariah Threats to American Law • The Muslim Brotherhood in America • Turkey • Understanding the Shariah Threat Doctrine 

AUTHOR

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Frank Gaffney is the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. Under Mr. Gaffney's leadership, the Center has been nationally and internationally recognized as a resource for timely, informed and penetrating analyses of foreign and defense policy matters. Mr. Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.

'via Blog this'