Dalits Media Watch
News Update 02.07.09
337 Dalit families deprived of houses - Express Buzz
Memorials are beacon of inspiration for Dalits: Mayawati - The Times Of India
HC asks CBI to prepare chart of Khairlanji witnesses - The Times Of India
S. Viswanathan will be new Readers' Editor – The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/15/stories/2009061556920100.htm
HIV affected denied treatment, delivers outside hospital - Zee News
http://www.zeenews.com/news543746.html
Express Buzz
337 Dalit families deprived of houses
THENI: Usurious moneylenders, under the system of kandhu vatti, have deprived 1,337 families of Arundhatiyars (a sub caste of Dalits) of their houses and properties. The details have come out in a survey conducted by Arundhathiyar Makkal Munnetra Iyakkam (AMMI) jointly with Thensudar Women's Organisation based in Andipatti of Theni district.
According to the victims, these moneylenders will go to any extent to collect the usurious interest. Most of the victims who seek loans during emergencies are poor and unlettered. They continue to be harassed by the moneylenders even after the payment of interest (many times more than the capital).
"Kandhu vatti" is only a general term which includes other forms of loans like daily vatti, meter vatti (interest calculated every hour) and dandal (interest for unpaid interest)," AMMI activists pointed out.
They quoted many instances where the victims were bled white. Sivakumar, son of Kaliappan, of Bodi Municipality Colony, had borrowed Rs 30,000 from one Meenakshi Thevar to buy an autorickshaw. Though he had repaid Rs 27,000, the moneylender demanded Rs 60,000 and to support his claim, the latter produced forged documents claiming that Sivakumar had pledged his autorickshaw and seized his vehicle.
In another incident, Gowri, of Dharmapuri pan chayat, had borrowed Rs 2,000 from one Pavun Thevar and repaid Rs 1,500. The moneylender had calculated an interest of Rs 12,000 as the balance amount and seized her land and house.
In most cases, backward class and low-income groups, mainly the Arundhathiyars, fell prey to these usurious moneylenders, who get their thumbprint on plain bond paper. This is later filled in with whatever they want.
Hapless victims pledge documents such as ration cards, bonds of LIC and Provident Fund, bank passbooks and even ATM cards.
Most of these usurers belong to Caste Hindus and are either from the locality or neighbouring districts like Madurai. There have been instances of moneylenders compelling women debtors for sex, AMMI activists said.
On many occasions, husbands who borrowed the money flee the village leaving the women to bear the brunt. An adolescent girl near Bodi attempted suicide after being sexually assaulted by a lender.
There have been cases of suicides near Periyakulam and Muthurengapuram of Andipatti region because of torture from moneylenders.
These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg and the tales and tragedies of victims of usury are endless.
RDG Pandian, director of Arogya Agam, a trust functioning in Andipatti, said that the situation would change only if the government included measures to help the poor to get financial assistance in times of emergency under programmes like Vazhnthu kattuvom.
The Times Of India
Memorials are beacon of inspiration for Dalits: Mayawati
2 Jul 2009, 0548 hrs IST, TNN
LUCKNOW: "Those who live in glass houses must not cast stones at others' homes," chief minister Mayawati, taking pot-shots at her detractors on
Wednesday, sounded her acerbic best. Miffed at the wide criticism incurred over construction of parks and museums, and installation of statues during her regime, the BSP president said that the vilification campaign was nothing but manifestation of a strongly biased and casteist mentality. Her attempts to immortalise Dalit icons, she said, "would serve as a beacon of inspiration (prakash stambh) for all Dalits and downtrodden"...even though her opponents fought shy of acknowledging the fact due to their deep-seated prejudices.
Museums and parks constructed in Lucknow were means of empowerment of the oppressed class, the CM declared. Disrespect shown by the opposition parties to saints and icons and their resistance to her efforts in the direction only go to prove their die-hard anti-Dalit mindset, she added.
Rubbishing charges of wastage of government funds, the CM said that money spent on setting up statues and parks is negligible as compared to the amount spent in Delhi on 'samadhis'.
The Times Of India
HC asks CBI to prepare chart of Khairlanji witnesses
2 Jul 2009, 0348 hrs IST, TNN
NAGPUR: The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the CBI counsel to prepare a chart mentioning names of the witnesses who had earlier given statement regarding casteist abuse and later changed their stand in Khairlanji massacre case.
On September 29, 2006, four members of the Bhotmange family, belonging to the Dalit community, were murdered in Khairlanji, a small village in Bhandara district. Bhaiyyalal was the sole survivor.
The district court in September 2008 awarded death penalties to the six of the 11 accused and life imprisonment to two others while acquitting three. Later, the convicts approached the high court to revoke the decision. The Bhandara court had acquitted all the accused persons from charges under the Atrocities Act. The CBI has filed an appeal against this part of the judgment.
While hearing the appeal, the Nagpur bench comprising justices A P Lavande and P B Warale wondered how a premier investigation agency like the CBI had failed to examine the statements of witnesses who had given statements to both the police and state crime investigation department claiming casteist abuse by some of the accused persons.
The bench observed that the investigation officer of CBI had failed to record the exact wordings of some witnesses. These witnesses had earlier recorded their statements that they had saw the accused persons using casteist and abusive language while driving away the deceased persons from their house. Strangely, the IO had not recorded the statements of these witnesses, said defence counsel Neeraj Khandewale.
The Hindu
S. Viswanathan will be new Readers' Editor
http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/15/stories/2009061556920100.htm
S. Viswanathan, Deputy Editor, Frontline, will take over as Readers' Editor of The Hindu on July 1, 2009. His appointment as independent, full-time internal news ombudsman of the newspaper is for two years. He will succeed K. Narayanan, 76, the quintessential professional who during his three-year tenure as Readers' Editor made a pioneering contribution and shaped the way the institution functions in India.
Mr. Viswanathan, who turned 70 on June 12, is an astute follower of political and cultural trends. He brought to his journalism personal integrity, high standards of professionalism, a soft-spoken and modest style, and social commitment.
After completing his Masters in Economics from Pachaiyappa's College in Chennai in 1961, he joined The Indian Express as a sub-editor. He worked on the newspaper's editorial desk for three decades, had responsibility for Express Weekend, and wrote a regular column on socio-political and cultural undercurrents in Tamil Nadu.
Mr. Viswanathan joined Frontline, a sister publication of The Hindu, in November 1993 as Special Correspondent. At the fortnightly, he proved to be a productive writer specialising in education and socio-political areas and demonstrating the value of meticulous fieldwork and research. His series of articles exploring the social situation and economic conditions of Dalits in rural Tamil Nadu, and their resistance to anti-constitutional but widely prevalent segregation, oppression, and violence against them was an eye-opener. This insightful series, which covered 1995-2005, was published as a book, Dalits in Dravidian Land (Navayana, 2005).
In January 2006, Hindu The became the first newspaper in India to appoint an independent full-time Readers' Editor. The key objectives were to institutionalise the practice of self-regulation, accountability, and transparency; to create a new visible framework to improve the accuracy, verification, and standards in the newspaper; and to strengthen bonds between the newspaper and its millions of print platform and online readers. The newspaper announced, at the time of appointment, that it had been inspired by the exemplary practice and experience of The Guardian, U.K., in a crucial area of journalistic performance. It adopted, with minor modification, the Terms of Reference worked out for The Guardian's Readers' Editor.
Zee News
HIV affected denied treatment, delivers outside hospital
http://www.zeenews.com/news543746.html
Faizabad, July 01: An HIV affected woman was forced to deliver her baby outside a government hospital after she was allegedly denied treatment by the doctors in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Ambedkar Nagar district.
The 28-year-old pregnant woman, a resident of Jahageeraganj locality in Amdedkar Nagar, went to Mahatma Jyotiba Phule district hospital last evening in the district, 60 km from here.
"Doctors and other medical staff refused to treat the woman, as she was HIV positive and asked the family to take her somewhere else," social activist Manoj Mishra told reporters here. "The woman delivered the baby outside the hospital gates when she was being taken to another facility".
District Chief Medical Officer Liaqat Ali said that an enquiry has been initiated into the incident.
"It is yet to be conclusively established that treatment was denied because the patient was HIV positive," he said.
Mishra, however, contended, that staff of the district hospital knew the couple very well as both had gone through HIV tests in this hospital.
Asked about the condition of the mother and the newborn, Ali said: "They are under our supervision. Both of them are doing fine".
--
.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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Thursday, July 2, 2009
Re: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch- News Update 02.07.09
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com> wrote:
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