01.07.24 UT NEWS.Trusted by 25780 individual readers,and 148 Trusted what's app group members((Untouchable News)).Chennai.26.Follow us in all Social Media.
Kisan Union leader held for assaulting Dalit youths in old video; outrage in Punjab
After immense pressure from the Dalit community and the authorities, Gharachon was finally handed over to the Sangrur DSP Manoj Gorsi by the farmer union leaders.
Punjab police arrested Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Manjit Singh Gharchon on Saturday after his old video where he is seen brutally thrashing two Dalit youths in Sangrur city came to light.
After immense pressure from the Dalit community and the authorities, Gharachon was finally handed over to the Sangrur DSP Manoj Gorsi by the farmer union leaders.
According to reports, a case was registered against Gharachon under Sections 341, 323, 325, 148 and 149 of the IPC and Section 3 (i) (X) of the SC/ST Act for “beating” and using casteist slurs.
BKU Ugrahan chief Joginder Singh said that Gharchon’s son and the Dalit youths had a verbal altercation. Subsequently, the quarrel turned violent when the Dalit youths first attacked and grievously injured Gharchon’s son, which led to retaliation.
Ugrahan further stated that they have handed over Gharchon to the police so that no one could take benefit by making it a “labourers versus farmers” issue.
Courtesy : TSD
Uttar Pradesh rich cultural tapestry includes not just the revered sites associated with Lord Ram but also key locations integral to the life and teachings of Lord Buddha. To cash in on these Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the State, the UP Government recently launched the "Bodhi Yatra 2024" program to attract pilgrims and tourists from across India and the world, drawn by their historical and spiritual importance.
At an event held here in the national capital, the UP Tourism Department announced a slew of initiatives to attract domestic and international pilgrims and tourists to the renowned Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the state. It is home to many places once visited by the Buddha and sacred Buddhist stupas, monasteries, shrines and stupas, some of which date back to the days of the Buddha himself. He spent much of his life in the region with the spots of his first and last sermons located in the state.
The State boasts of six major Buddhist sites: Sankisa, Sarnath, Shravasti, Kapilvastu, Kaushambi, and Kushinagar.
Uttar Pradesh's Tourism Minister, Jaiveer Singh, explained that the objective of this journey is to showcase the memories of Lord Buddha's ordinary life journey through the heritage sites of Buddhism in the state.
"Throughout the year, this journey aims to familiarize people across India with the significant messages of Buddha," said the Minister as he announced that through various artistic presentations, the Tourism Department will highlight Uttar Pradesh's contributions to Buddhist art, culture, and the importance and connection of Lord Buddha.
Furthermore, an interactive cultural session was also organized during the Bodhi Yatra program, inviting guests from various countries. The program will now be organized periodically in various cities across the country, which will enhance the reach of the pilgrimage, said the Principal Secretary of Tourism and Culture Mukesh Kumar Meshram. The conclave featured Ambassadors and other diplomats from Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, Japan, Indonesia, Argentina, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.
Union Minister of Tourism and Culture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat echoed similar sentiments, appreciating Uttar Pradesh for spearheading the Buddha Circuit, a visionary project to connect pilgrims with the spiritual journey of Lord Buddha, from birth to enlightenment.
Police always take sides with the powerful, upper caste people during acts of violence against SCs, says VCK
Even IPS officers who join service after various rigorous examinations can be seen with the same mentality of standing with the perpetrators of upper castes when the affected were from the downtrodden communities
Published - June 30, 2024 07:16 pm IST - MADURAI
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi president and MP Thol. Thirumavalavan speaks at Melavalavu near Madurai on Sunday. | Photo Credit: R. ASHOK
The attitude of police being indifferent to the pain and agony of people belonging to Scheduled Castes and taking the side of caste Hindus during incidents of violence against SCs have remained constant throughout the history, irrespective of the ruling party, said MP and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol. Thirumavalavan.
Addressing party members at Melavalavu here on Sunday after paying respects at ‘Viduthalai Kalam,’ a memorial built for victims of the massacre, Mr. Thirumavalavan said that even the murder of panchayat president Murugesan and six others in the late 90’s happened hours after they sought security from the then Collector sensing the dangers that were awaiting at his village.
Why MK Stalin is pushing for a pan-India caste count
Pressuring the BJP-led Union government to hold it alongside the delayed national census will enable states to rewrite quotas
Will a pan-India caste count be held as part of the delayed national census? This is the moot question posed by Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin by getting the state legislative assembly, on June 26, to adopt a resolution urging the Union government to conduct such an enumeration.
The move is significant as it comes after a long delay in conducting the census, which was initially scheduled for 2020 but postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The census data is crucial for the government to formulate policies and schemes for the welfare of various communities, especially the marginalised and backward classes.
Stalin, who wrote about the issue to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last October, alleges the Union government is delaying the “basic task of conducting the census every 10 years, which was due in 2021”. He wants the caste-based count of the population to be done alongside this time. Given the timing of the resolution, even before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government gets down to business, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supremo is pushing the envelope.
“We can become a society with real, widespread economic development only by making all sections of the society have equal opportunities and equal rights in access to education and employment,” says Stalin. “It is with that objective that the reservation policy is being implemented to bring about a balance among all sections of the population on educational, social and economic levels.”
Census operations in the states and Union territories were conducted as per the provisions of the Census Act, 1948, and the caste-wise and tribe-wise data of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes alone were enumerated now. But in a country like India, where the social milieu influenced the mobility of various communities across the economic levels, laws were enacted on the basis of verifiable socioeconomic indicators drawn from the decadal census report alone to gain legal validity.
Yet no contemporary data was available since the last caste census was conducted way back in 1931, and it had given rise to the need for quantifiable data relating to socioeconomic and educational status of various castes, communities and tribes of the entire population of the state, as it had been emphasised in several Supreme Court judgments for classification of the backward classes.
In Tamil Nadu, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a constituent of the NDA, is pleading for a caste-wise census to provide 10.5 per cent quota for the Vanniyar community. But the state is hamstrung as it cannot call for such a caste count since the mammoth task of the head count is the mandate of the Union government under the Census Act. A caste-based census has been a longstanding demand of various political parties and social organisations in the state.
A widely held opinion is that the state government can carry out a caste-wise census under the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008. While the Act empowers state governments to collect socio-economic statistics, Section 3 Clause (a) of the same Act prohibits the collection of statistics in respect of castes in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India. A case pertaining to the matter is in the Supreme Court.
The caste-wise census cannot be conducted under the Statistics Collection Act, 2008. “A legally sustainable census means that it must be carried out under the Census Act, a Union law. Therefore, we have been insisting that it would be proper for the Union Government to undertake this work,” said Stalin. If the respective state governments collect statistics in the name of a survey for a caste count and then enact laws based on it, it is fraught with the prospects of being struck down by the courts at a later date. Such an attempt by the Bihar government was quashed by the court.
Caste is a strategic element in the operations of political parties, considering the lack of accurate data has resulted in the neglect of certain communities, which has perpetuated social and economic inequalities. Some analysts, therefore, argue the DMK government is showing interest in a caste census now with an eye on the Vikravandi assembly by-election. Others, contend there is no immediate compulsion per se, though there is the 10.5 per cent sub-quota order that the previous AIADMK government passed on December 20, 2020, for the Vanniyar community, which is hanging fire.
A caste-based census, that too by the Centre, would get the figures correct, and that can be done only alongside the delayed national census, where it has to be included. “At the political level, it could put the ruling BJP at the Centre, its ally PMK and also the Opposition AIADMK on the defensive until the assembly polls in 2026, as social justice deriving from caste-based reservations has been the mainstay of the Dravidian polity in the state for over 100 years—and continues to be so even now,” says political commentator N. Sathiya Moorthy.
There are gains for the ruling party. “The DMK gains in public imagery as the defender of the faith. Tamil Nadu will benefit as all past state government commissions that have made substantial recommendations on caste reservations have cited only from the decennial census figures,” says Moorthy.
It is often forgotten that in the much-debated 'Mandal Commission verdict' of 1992 (Indra Sawhney vs State of Karnataka), the Supreme Court also held that any state government that wanted to fix a higher quota than the court-ordered upper limit of 50 per cent, should prove with facts and figures that reasons existed for the same. That’s another reason behind the state government’s demand now for including caste in the delayed census process.
The DMK government can, for now, tell the PMK to pressure the BJP to comply with the demand for the caste-based census at the national level. The demand could force the party to quit the NDA after the current short stay, and for one more time, to realign for the 2026 Tamil Nadu assembly polls.
Centre, state not in sync? Anupriya flags bias in job quota, UP govt says not true
LUCKNOW: In response to Union MoS Anupriya Patel’s letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has said that there was no provision for marking any post as ‘unreserved’ or ‘Not Found Suitable’ in the appointment rule book if the aspirant of the reserved category failed to get minimum eligibility marks.
In the letter, the Union MoS expressed concerns over the ‘reservation provisions’ in jobs. The letter also claimed that unfilled seats meant for reserved category candidates were declared ‘unreserved’.
The Commission sent its reply to the state government, which in turn, forwarded it to the Union Minister who is also the president of NDA ally Apna Dal (S), through Additional Chief Secretary, Appointment and Personnel Devesh Chaturvedi.
What was Patel's contention?
Anupriya Patel, in her letter, drew the attention of the UP CM to the complaints she claimed to be getting from the reserved category candidates in the competitive exams. The recruitment was applied solely based on interviews; they were often declared ‘Not Found Suitable’ by the recruitment agency.
“Consequently, no candidate from SC/ST or OBC is selected to those posts,” the minister had said in her letter dated June 27, 2024.
The Union minister had added that after several repetitions of the same process, the reserved posts were declared 'unreserved', depriving the candidates of reserved categories of the benefit of quota.
Patel had urged the UP CM to take immediate steps to stop the practice so that the rising anger among the candidates of those categories could be checked in time. She had also demanded steps to ensure that such reserved posts go only to the categories, mandatorily, for which they were meant, irrespective of the number of times the recruitment process had to be conducted.
UPPSC Reply
Rejecting the allegation that reserved vacancies were filled as un-reserved, the Commission made it clear that reserved seats were never converted into ‘un-reserved’ seats.
In case any reserved vacancy was not filled, it was carried forward to next year's recruitment exercise as a ‘reserved vacancy’ to be filled only by the candidates of SC/ST and OBC categories.
Instead of marking them ‘not found suitable,’ the grade of such candidates was marked and converted into marks as per the law of average. It was then mentioned in the mark sheet signed by both the members of the two-member interview panel and the technical consultants, as stated by the UPPSC in correspondence to the state government, which was forwarded to the Union Minister.
The UPPSC further added that it was not authorised to convert any vacancy into any other category if it was left vacant due to either few numbers of the candidates of the reserved category, or if the eligible candidate failed to score the minimum required score to get appointed.
“As per the government order, all such unfilled vacancies are carried forward to the next year’s quota for recruitment,” said the Commission.
The Commission also clarified that the entire recruitment process happened to be coding-based, wherein, no one on the interview panel was provided with the personal details like name, registration number, age, reservation category, and caste of the aspirants.
The minimum qualifying marks for such interviews is 40 percent for General, EWS and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and 35 percent for Scheduled Castes (SCs)/Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Chaturvedi’s letter to Anupriya Patel said that the state’s Higher Education Department also confirmed that it did not convert the reserved category posts to ‘unreserved’ ones if any candidate was not found eligible for those posts.
A65-year-old Dalit was paraded around the village with a garland of shoes around his neck near Kaushambi in Uttar Pradesh after a molestation charge was levelled against him by the gram pradhan's husband.
The video clip of the incident has gone viral on social media.
The incident reportedly took place in Birner village and the victim has been identified as Premnarayan Ravidas.
The date of the incident is unknown. The veracity of the video could not be verified immediately.
......
Comments
Post a Comment