From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 3:50 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 28.03.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 28.03.10
Tribals, Dalits still at the bottom in most indicators - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/28/stories/2010032864051200.htm
Does untouchability still exists in Goa? - Digital Goa
http://digitalgoa.com/ca_disp.php?id=955
Beyond the hallowed paradigms of lives - Express Buzz
'No scope for foul play' - Express Buzz
31 pc muslims live below poverty line: NCAER survey - PTI
http://www.ptinews.com/news/585045_31-pc-muslims-live-below-poverty-line--NCAER-survey
The Hindu
Tribals, Dalits still at the bottom in most indicators
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/28/stories/2010032864051200.htm
Aarti Dhar
NEW DELHI: Indigenous groups and Dalits continue to be at the bottom in most indicators of well-being, the Muslims and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) occupy the middle rung, while forward caste Hindus and other minority religions are at the top. The "Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition" survey has found this.
These patterns are seen in a variety of indicators, including household incomes, poverty rates, landownership and agricultural incomes, health, and education. The group positions are not immutable, and on some dimensions, there is a difference in rankings.
The Adivasis generally have slightly better health outcomes (reported short term morbidity and child mortality), particularly in the northeast where healthcare appears to be of a higher quality.
Similarly, when it comes to education, the Muslims are as disadvantaged as the Dalits and Adivasis, although their economic well-being is more at par with that of the OBCs, the survey suggests.
Disparities
Two major aspects of these group disparities have been highlighted in the survey report. Firstly, much of this inequality seems to emerge from differential access to livelihoods. Salaried jobs pay far more than casual labour or farming, and these jobs elude the disadvantaged groups for many reasons, including living in rural areas and lower education. But regardless of the reason, more than three out of 10 forward caste and minority religion men have salaried jobs, compared with about two out of 10 Muslim, OBC and Dalit men, and even fewer Adivasi men.
Dalits and Adivasis are further disadvantaged as they either do not own land, or mainly low-productivity land. Not surprisingly, these income differences translate into differences in other indicators of human development.
Secondly, the report points out, future generations seem doomed to replicate these inequalities because of the continuing differences in education — both in quality and quantity. In spite of the long history of positive discrimination policies — reservation in college admission — social inequalities begin early in primary schools. Thus, affirmative action remedies are too little and too late by the time students reach the higher secondary level.
It further says that differences in well-being among social groups are long established, but a variety of contemporary forces have conspired to sustain and sometimes exacerbate these inequalities. Dalits have long laboured on the margins of a society that depends on that labour, but has often excluded them.
Digital Goa
Does untouchability still exists in Goa?
http://digitalgoa.com/ca_disp.php?id=955
Digital Goa News Service
Panaji, March 27 - Even as Goa is poised to celebrate golden jubilee of its liberation from Portuguese Rule, it is shocking to know that inhuman practice of untouchability still exists in the so called developed Goa.
"Dalits of Harijan wada are still prevented from drawing water from well of neighbouring villages``, Sopte informed the House there by exposing the unacceptable situation prevailing in certain parts of Pernem. Sopte was speaking on the calling attention motion brought by him in the Assembly on this burning topic. He pointed out that the scheduled caste residents of Surbanwada, Pernem have been put to lot of hardships due to the objection raised by Pedne devalaya committee on the tender floated by Pernem Muncipal Council for repair of their only source of drinking water that is well and a tank situated at surbanwada.
Sopte argued that the well and lake needs immediate reapirs. Minister for urban devlopment Joaquim Alemao also agreed to that as citizens of surbanwada belongs to sceduled caste.
It may be recalled that two months back one minister belonging to SC community had made a revelation that even today separate tea cups are served to scheduled caste community in certain parts of Goa.
Express Buzz
Beyond the hallowed paradigms of lives
Last Updated : 25 Mar 2010 07:32:33 PM IST
In an engagingly written preface to Venomous Touch, Ravikumar, the activist-theoretician of the dalit movement and general secretary of the Viduthalai Ciruthaikal Katchi (VCK), traces his intellectual journey from Lenin to Bakunin, Gramsci, Althusser, Derrida and Ambedkar. Reading books rather than party politics, he says, was what gave him the impetus to think and act. For scholars and activists interested in the question of caste, Ravikumar lays out a challenging roadmap, straddling two worlds — that of theory and activism. Azhagarasan's passionate rendering of the original Tamil essays into English has allowed Tamil dalit politics to travel to other spaces.
Written over a period of time, Ravikumar's essays reflect his wide-ranging interests. From culture to communalism, from education to literature, Ravikumar probes the collective consensus that is democratic India today. In her foreword to the book, the feminist scholar Susie Tharu describes her first encounter with Ravikumar and writes of being charmed by the light, almost easy way in which his Niraparikai group translated, used and disseminated theory. Ravikumar is located in the political moment that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union, the moment when other things happened: the rediscovery of Iyothee Thass, the emergence of Subaltern Studies and the translation of Ambedkar into the regional languages.
The book contains five parts. In the first, the author describes the various discriminatory practices against dalits. In Part II, he criticises the celebration of the golden jubilee of independence, pointing out that conditions have remained much the same for dalits post-independence. This part includes an essay in which Ravikumar outlines the cornerstones on which Ambedkar based his idea of democracy: equality, the existence of opposition, constitutional morality, social order and public conscience. In the third part, Ravikumar explores dalit narratives. Part IV is perhaps the most powerful, containing as it does stories of the slaughter of dalits and the Melavalavu murder. The fifth part explores the reservation question. While it is not possible to discuss every essay in the collection, I would like to mention a cross-section.
In the essay "State, Caste and Land", Ravikumar focuses our attention on a key but as yet unaddressed question, the landlessness of dalits. He argues, with Ambedkar, that land should be brought under the control of the state. "Unwritten writing" describes the many challenges faced by dalit magazines such as Rettamalai Srinivasan's Parayan which transformed the political culture of the dalits. The essay probes the important question of dalits in journalism. "What is the present state of dalits who made a distinct mark way back in the 19th century by publishing magazines and writing or editing scholarly books?" asks Ravikumar.
In another essay titled "The Ingenuity of Integration", Ravikumar questions the logic of handing over the Adi-Dravida Welfare schools run by the Adi-Dravida Welfare Department to the Education department and argues that the idea of integration was born out of a Hindutva ideology that insisted on subsuming all identities under the umbrella of a Hindu identity. He predicts that this will certainly lead to the collapse of the adi-dravida school system.
In "On the Borderlines: Dalit rights vs Human Rights" where he presents us with the testimony of a dalit tortured by the police, Ravikumar raises an embarrassing question: "How can we "hear" the voice of the victim? … when a non-dalit reader approaches a dalit text, he/she can either become a witness or consider it an object of research. Neither of these attitudes helps rescue the victim from oppression."
Venomous Touch bears witness to and documents the caste violence of our times and the cultural politics that surround caste. Equally, it presents us with a possible model of thinking and engaging with the world today, a model that will most certainly unsettle the hallowed paradigms within which we live our lives.
— Srilata is a poet, fiction writer and associate
Express Buzz
'No scope for foul play'
Last Updated : 27 Mar 2010 10:24:18 AM IST
HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Public Services Commission (APPSC) chairman Y Venkatrami Reddy reiterated that there is no scope for foul play in the recruitment procedure of Group-I officers. There is a widespread criticism against Venkatram Reddy that he has favoured candidates from his community in the selection procedure, the Chairman pointed that there are four members in the selection committee and each one of them belong to different communities.
Addressing a press conference here today, Venkatrami Reddy expressed that out of the 1,099 candidates, more than 90 Backward Classes candidates have scored more than 70 marks out of a total 90 marks and nearly 50 candidates from SC/ST categories have scored as much. He elaborated that these numbers speak that there are no malpractices in the interview procedure.
When asked about the reason for the difference between the performance of the candidates in the written exam and interview, he said: ``By definition there would be variations in the performance as they are two different patterns. There would be no point to conduct interviews if the scores and performances are going to be the same in both written examination and interview.'' He also pointed that even in the Union Public Services Commission there were variations in the performance of the candidates in the written exams and interviews.
The APPSC Chairman informed that the results of the Group-I officers would be announced in September.
PTI
31 pc muslims live below poverty line: NCAER survey
http://www.ptinews.com/news/585045_31-pc-muslims-live-below-poverty-line--NCAER-survey
STAFF WRITER 14:6 HRS IST
New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Nearly one third of Muslims in the nation survive on less than Rs 550 a month, economic think tank NCAER said, amid the ongoing debate on reservations in jobs and educational institutions for those belonging to the community.
A survey by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) said that three out of every 10 Muslims were below poverty line and lived on less than Rs 550 a month in the year 2004-05.
Even among the poor, urban Muslims were better off compared to those in villages, who survived on Rs 338 a month during the year under review, NCAER said last week.
The survey comes around the time when Supreme Court, in an interim order, has upheld the validity of four per cent job and educational reservation provided to backward members of Muslim community in Andhra Pradesh.
--
.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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