From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:51 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 21.01.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 21.01.10
Mid-day meal programme sparks caste row - Kalinga Times
Des Raj Kali, a Dalit writer, to feature at Jaipur literature fest - Express India
`Improve economic condition of poor, dalits' - Central Cronicle
http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=24931
Kalinga Times
Mid-day meal programme sparks caste row
By Manoj Kar
Kendrapara, Jan. 20: In the latest caste-bound conflict, the noon meal was yesterday stopped in a government-run primary school in a remote village under Rajnagar tehsil with a section of villagers registering their protest against cooking of mid-day meals by scheduled caste women.
MDM was stopped yesterday at Sidha Marichani Primary School in Sanamarichapalli village. A section of Village education committee (VEC) members made their way to school kitchen and forced the Dalits cooks to stop the noon meal. Their argument was that Dalits have no right to cook in the school that accommodates the upper caste children.
Two Dalits cooks were locked up inside the kitchen for over an hour before the school head master rescued them.
Meanwhile, the Maa Ambika Women's Self Help Group running MDM in the said school expressed unwillingness to shoulder noon meal responsibility. A complaint has been lodged in this regard by the concerned SHG before the Rajnagar block development.
The group alleged that they were being ill-treated because of their lower-caste root.
Yesterday's incident has set off caste-bound divide in the remote village.
The village has a population of about 700 people of which nearly one-third are from lower caste origin.
As one passes through the backward village with rows of mud-walled and thatched houses, deceptive calm pervades the air. The demographic graph of the village is heavily tilted towards the upper caste. The upper castes, mostly landowners, are economically better off than the Dalits.
"The upper caste parents are insistent that Dalit women cooks should be shown the door. But we can not change the equation as it's the decision of higher authorities to deploy them for cooking duty", according to school head master Rabindra Nayak.
It's pertinent to note here that the School and Mass Education Department was earlier accused of shutting the 'kitchen' doors for Dalit women on the ground that upper caste children may skip the mid-day meals. The government agencies monitoring the scheme in the district had allegedly stopped recruiting the Dalits as cooks.
The retrenchment drive of Dalit cooks had triggered a furore with the National Human Rights Commission last year directing the administration to stop the caste-bound and arbitrary practice.
The Women & Child Welfare Department, through a notification had ordered that the enrolment of MDM cooks in primary schools should be preferably women from scheduled caste and tribe community. Priority should be accorded to widows and destitute women from these lower castes for cook enrolment.
Express India
Des Raj Kali, a Dalit writer, to feature at Jaipur literature fest
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/des-raj-kali-a-dalit-writer-to-feature-at-jaipur-literature-fest/570019/
Amrita Chaudhry
Ludhiana Des Raj Kali, a well-known Punjabi
novelist, will be a part of the six Dalit writers that will feature in the upcoming Jaipur literature
festival. This five-day festival opens on January 21 and has dedicated a special focus on Dalit writing from Punjabi, Tamil, English and Hindi. The other writers include P Sivakami, Om Prakash Valmiki, Kancha Ilaiah, Ajay Navaria and Laxman Gaikwad.
According to Nirupama Dutt, who is anchoring the session, the celebration is dedicated to the poetry of two people's poets of Punjab, Lal Singh Dil and Sant Ram Udasi. Iqbal Udasi, poet and daughter of Sant Ram Udasi, will also feature in the session which will include discussions and rendering of inspirational poetry. The session named 'A million suns' after a poem of that name by late Lal Singh Dil will celebrate the Dalit literary traditions of Punjab for this writing is part of a people's struggle to social justice.
Kali says, "I will be reading the first episode of my novel Praansehswari. This novel is basically dedicated to the Nath and the Sufi tradition and through this work I have tried to bring fore the fact that respect and a sense of equality to the lower castes have come through these two traditions and not through Sikhism and Brhaminism, as claimed."
The Dalit Focus at JLF is being coordinated by S. Anand of Navayana Publishing and Namita Gokhale, founder-director of Jaipur Literature Festival. "Dalits, who constitute 17 pc of the India's 1.2 billion population, are subjected to everyday violence and brutalities. It is from such a context of hidden apartheid that Dalit literature emerges. The opening panel in the Dalit focus, Outcaste: The Search for Public Conscience, befittingly derives its title from Ambedkar's anxiety over the lack of a public conscience in India when it comes to the issue of discrimination against and oppression of Dalits," says Anand.
Central Cronicle
`Improve economic condition of poor, dalits'
http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=24931
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
By Our Staff Reporter
Bhopal, Jan 20:
Leader of Opposition Ms Jamuna Devi has sharply reacted over the proposed 'Madhya Pradesh Banao' Yatra by the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from January 26 and said that until and unless economic position of the poor, dalit and adivasis is not improved, such Yatras would have no meaning.
Mrs Jamuna Devi reminded Chouhan of his innumerable announcements during his earlier Yatras and said that if these announcements were converted into action, a large number of villages would have been developed by now.
She advised the chief minister, during his year and half long Yatra, to find out about implementation of his announcements. She also told him to see how much of the Rs 7 thousand crores received from the Centre were really spent under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and how much of the amount went into the pockets of officers. She also told them to find out why only 20 lakh job cards were made instead of the proposed 1.15 crore job cards under the scheme.
The Leader of Opposition also advised Chouhan to find out why forests were deranged in an area of 37 lakh hectares and what happened to the funds given for their improvement. She also advised the chief minister how illegal cutting of trees from the forests is being happened.
--.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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