Hazare’s flock increases even as he appeals to keep it secular. Uma, Chautala shown the door

New Delhi, April 6: Hundred and seventy-two people have joined Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar, here. Banners of Baba Ramdev in front of the stage have given those of the Art of Living foundation and ex- service men supporting the agitation.

Hazare supporters even appealed to the crowd not to sing religious songs. Politicians- like former CMs Uma Bharti and Om Prakash Chautala- were also kept off the stage. Hazare is also drawing new followers- like the hundred temporary school teachers, sacked by the Delhi government, who marched to his tent raising slogans against corruption. Students in Delhi, are coming to the venue between exam papers.

“I’m damn sure this will work. We can’t hire or fire ministers. Anna’s stature will force the government to pass this bill,” said Bhumika Rai, a student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

The closest Ram Awadh Gond (60) from Mau, Uttar Pradesh, had ever got to politics was voting for Kalyan Singh when the latter was CM. After Kalyan went, he stopped voting. “I read about this protest in the paper. I came here alone. I will fast for four days before going back to tend to my farm. I’m happy here because this will end corruption,” he said.

Volunteer doctors are conducting regular check-ups of those fasting. “We’ve been asking people to at least drink lime juice, as many are dehydrated and having low blood pressure. Once this goes on for 60 hours, then some may have to be admitted. Anna’s BP though is stable,” said a doctor on condition of anonymity.

A government ambulance with advanced life support systems has been stationed at the venue.Perhaps sensing the limit of endurance, Hazare announced that he would launch a jail bharo agitation of the government fails to form a joint committee with the civil society to frame the Jan Lokpal Bill.

The protest has also got more organised. There’s a daily timetable dividing the day into meetings, rest, press briefings and sangeet-bhajan. Volunteers wearing ‘India against corruption’ caps and badges go around distributing pamphlets with information on the Jan Lokpal Bill. They run a counter with the sign- We need your support, more than your donations. “Free Miss Call to 02261559789 to fight against corruption says another.” SMS from known BJP sources are flooding text message inboxes.

There’s also a huge vinyl sheet with tricolour roundels for people to write their views. At regular intervals fasters are given the mic. They say their name, where they’re from and then say what they think is wrong with the system and how they want to change.

Old timers in the crowd comment that this is like the emergency. Sampurna Kranti is on its way. As Anna lies down fasting, the comperes have declared an open season on the Congress. Personal attacks on the PM are routine.

A poster of former BJP leader K. N. Govindacharya along with the pantheon of Hindu freedom fighters and icons and with former president APJ Abdul Kalam has come up. Even an image of Lord Ganesha was put up on the stage. It was later taken off.

Sunil Sharma, who walked around with a banner of Ramdev wrapped around himself, thinks that this will turn into another Tahrir Square. Speakers on stage have been promising that since yesterday. “If this doesn’t force the government to end corruption, Baba has promised to start a new party. This is just the beginning,” he said.

Shaukat Ali, a Hazare supporter from Amravati, Maharashtra, said that these additions were done by Ramdev’s men. “I trust in Anna. He is secular. The rest will come and go.”

Anna Hazare begins indefinite fast for Jan Lokpal Bill- Saffron nationalists make presence felt

New Delhi, April 5: Tricolours fluttered atop SUVs also bearing BJP, Rahtriya Lok Dal and yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Nyas’ stickers and flags near Jantar Mantar, in the capital, where social activist Kisan Baburao “Anna” Hazare began a fast-unto-death at for a Jan Lokpal Bill.

Hazare said that this bill- drafted by Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde, activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan social worker Arvind Kejriwal- is more transparent and stringent than the government’s Lokpal Bill which, would give to give more teeth to the ombudsman to curb corruption.

Addressing a crowd of around 500- mostly salaried class and small trader audience- 73-year-old Padmashree winner Hazare said that he had is undertaking this fast because the government denied his demand that the drafting committee for the bill have an equal number of government and civil society representatives.

“The government proposed a four-member ministerial committee. I said if ministers could stop corruption, then why is it increasing for 61 years since we became a republic.”

Hazare added that before he attended Ramdev’s anti-corruption rally in Delhi on February 27, he had written to Sonia Gandhi about the bill. “She didn’t even reply. You can’t reply to a man who has given his whole life for the country,” said the 1965-war veteran.

The audience, mesmerized by his simple manner and apparent asceticism, started raising slogans of “Shame! Shame!”

“The NAC kept calling me, but I didn’t go. They want to just use me as a photo opportunity to take the wind out the sails of our movement. I will only go when the de facto PM Sonia Gandhi takes a decision,” he added.

He said that he expected the government to relent in three to four days.

Hazare shared the dais with Magsaysay award winners Kiran Bedi, Sandeep Pandey and Kejriwal, along with activist preacher Swami Agnivesh and Prashant Bhushan. He was also visited by the JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav and the BJP’s Prakash Javadekar, who expressed solidarity with his causebut asked him to call off the fast.

The backdrop of the stage has a large image of Bharat Mata. The compere Kumar Vishwas said that in history books Alexander, Akbar and Babur were on one side a poets like Kabir on the other. Hazare was like the latter. People like the former will be forced to leave the country. Flags and banners of Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation also fluttered at the tent, and their activists chanted nationalists slogans.

Bhushan termed the government’s Lokpal Bill as “useless.”

“The Lokpal,” he said, “should have the power to recover ill-gotten wealth from the guilty.” He explained that they weren’t insisting that the government accept their draft in its entirety. “We are also agreeable to the NAC choosing common people and government representatives to frame the bill.”

While Hazare and Bhushan insisted their objective wasn’t to fell the government, Agnivesh appealed to the crowd to “throw out these corrupt rulers.” He said that simultaneous fasts are on in 500 towns and cities. “If Anna dies don’t think you will win Manmohan Singh. Ten thousand more Annas are here from Dhanbad, Hyderabad, Indore and other places,” he thundered.

Many youth and school students in the crowd said that they had got to know of the meeting from Facebook. Various organizations supporting the fast, like India Against Corruption, have launched a vigorous online publicity campaign.

Defence veterans too had gathered wearing their regimental side caps. Recent scams were the last straw that has brought them out on the street said retired Colonel R. P. Chaturvedi. “As responsible citizens we can’t burn buses. We will protest by peacefully agitating with Gandhians like Hazare,” he said.

Vimla, a slum dweller associated with city based NGO Centre for Advocacy and Research, who attended the demonstration, “This may lead to at least a small change. We trust this movement because we area part of it. We slum dwellers suffer the most due to corruption. Anna will see to it the bug fish are caught, the smaller ones will then follow.”

MPs want roads, cops prefer water supply to combat Maoists

New Delhi, March 14: MPs may have won the battle to be included in the selection panel for schemes from Integrated Action Plan (IAP) funds for Left Wing Extremist (LWE) hit districts, but the war on how these will be spent is brewing between them and the police.

The IAP was started last year with a grant of 25 crore per district per year. This will increase to Rs. 30 crore for the next financial year. Funds have started pouring in by this year.

Chatra’s independent MP Inder Singh Namdhari threw down the gauntlet when he wrote the home minister last month about MPs being excluded from selection panels.

Currently selection panels include the district’s collector or magistrate, superintendent of police and forest officer. In some districts, even officers in charge of police stations, block development officers and sub divisional officers, of the areas in which the schemes are implemented, are included.

In his terse letter Namdhari cited the landmine blast on SP Anoop T. Mathew’s convoy on May 28 last year in Palmau district, in which a cop died and two of his colleagues were injured. He blamed it on the dilapidated road at Palamu’s Chak village where the attack happened.

He wrote, “… even after release of LWE fund, this road has not been incorporated by the concerned deputy commissioners of Palamu & [sic] Chatra. It is also unfortunate that the directive sent by the home ministry has eliminated the names of MPs from the selection panel of schemes… I feel frustrated because I am not in a position to face the public of the area which has elected me.”

His views are echoed by Jehanabad’s JD(U) MP Jagdish Sharma. “Local MPs know local problems. DC’s don’t know everything. They do what they will before being transferred, but we have to live here whether we remain MPs or not. How can they beat the naxals when work hasn’t even started with these funds?

The planning commission’s online progress report shows that work on anganwadis have started in Jehanabad in January. Sharma wasn’t willing to comment on his own CM scrapping the corruption ridden MLA LADS funds.

While the finance minister included MPs on the panel in his budget speech, their mention was amiss in the printed version. Sharma, Namdhari and others wrote to him to which he clarified that MPs would be included. The online version of the speech was subsequently edited.

Planning Commission sources say that initially they had proposed to only include panchayat representatives, and not legislators, to prevent corruption and politicization. Senior police officers too want politicians out.

“We take feedback and opinions from local people whenever we implement schemes. If politicians are on the panel these schemes will get unnecessarily politicized,” said an SP of an LWE hit district.

Disagreements with politicians aren’t just on procedure, but they also extend to the actual implementation of the schemes.

Namdhari explained that underdevelopment and unemployment aren’t the only reasons for naxals gaining strength. “They are addicted to the levy they extort from contractors. The more money you pump in the stronger they get. They have a vested interest in not letting development take place.”

He added that LWE funds should solely be spent on increasing the accessibility of the police, like road building. “You shouldn’t waste it on digging ponds.” He ever wrote to Pranab Mukherjee saying, “… in the previous lot of schemes selected by officials several useless schemes have been chosen.”

The IAP however specifies that schemes should show results in the short term. An SP of an LWE district in Jharkhand explained: “I want schools in interior villages. In Palamu and Latehar there is no water in summer. Drinking water, communications- these are of best use in interior villages. Only then will the public believe in us.”

SP Anoop Mathew said, “We take on schemes we can implement fast. They may be roads, but in areas where we can provide security for construction. We have to make visible changes. This is the first time the police are playing a major role in development planning. We’re confident they will contribute in curbing naxalism.”

With legislators finally set to enter selection panels, one can only hope against hopes for a productive synergy between the 2 pillars of democracy in curbing naxalism.

Manipur’s digital film revolution comes to Delhi

New Delhi, March 12: The first Manipuri film festival- Nongpokthong (Eastern Gate)- in the capital is running to near packed houses. The fest showcases the best of Manipuri cinema right from the state’s first film Matamgi Manipur to latest ones in languages other than the dominant Meitei.

While Manipuri films have been winning international accolades since the eighties, many excellent ones in the recent past couldn’t make it to the Indian Panorama and other lists of top films because they were digital and not on celluloid.

With a population of around 25 lakhs, films aren’t the most viable business in the state. But technology has made filmmaking cheaper. “Earlier we had to go for post production to Chennai or Mumbai. But with improvements in technology we now do it on computers in Manipur,” says critically acclaimed director Ronel Haobam.

These are mostly digital films made with which camera an enthusiast can afford, edited with threadbare software. But the National Film Awards used to only accept films in celluloid format.

To show that good films aren’t the monopoly of celluloid, trailblazer director Aribam Syam Sharma and Jawaharlal Nehru University teacher A. Bimol Akoijam conceived a film festival in Delhi, a year back. “This was to be a push for acceptance of the digital format,” said Akoijam.

Since then a lot of water has flown down the Barak. Film Forum, Manipur, went to court for the acceptance of digital films and the Shyam Benegal led expert committee allowed them to compete in the National Film Awards and other festivals.

Akoijam had almost buried the idea, when the Manipur Film Development Corporation called him up a month back to ask him to host a film festival. “What they had in mind was a three-day fest in Siri Fort Auditorium. But I wanted the whole thing repackaged,” he explained.

The result: a five-day fest in two varsities and four colleges of the capital. Plus there are interactions with Manipuri film personalities, cultural shows, northeastern food and DVDs of films.

And the crowds are coming. With Delhi University on strike against the murder of student Radhika Tanwar, students are spending their weekend at the movies. Akoijam says he’s tempted to ask MFDC to make this an annual affair.

Over 40 films more than 5 languages of the state are being screened, with English subtitles. One of the more popular ones was Haobam Paban Kumar’s Golden Lotus winning documentary AFSPA 1958.

The film documents the unrest that followed the rape and murder of Manipur girl Manorama Devi by the Assam Rifles in 2004. Kumar said that though the violence and bloodshed disturbed the censors they didn’t delete much.

“I don’t know if the film can change public opinion on the AFSPA, but we filmmakers try to improve the situation of the state in our own way. I don’t want to hope for a big change lest I break down later,” he said.

An alumnus of Calcutta’s Satyajit Ray Film Institute, Kumar won another Golden Lotus last year for Mr. India- the story true of HIV positive body builder Khundrakpam Pradip Kumar Singh. He said that a welcome change in the Manipuri film industry is the entry of a lot of trained professionals. “Most people never know the problems of the northeast. Let them watch our films and decide.”

The fest had everything from melodrama to sports, but politics has a strong influence in many of the films. “Even our love stories are political,” said Akoijam. “They reflect what’s going on in the state.”

The panel discussions also cover a wide spectrum with lively debates on a wide spectrum of issues. Filmstars and singers like Sadananda, Uttam, Seema and Yengkhom Roma have also turned up for the fest.

Despite minimal publicity the fest has drawn a lot of youth as it is being held on campuses. A common refrain of the audience is they now want to know more of the northeast.

Curtains go up on NSD satellite strife

PHEROZE L. VINCENT

The National School of Drama in New Delhi; (right) a ground on the campus decked out for the school’s annual festival. Pictures by Prem Singh New Delhi, March 4: Theatre artistes pushing for national drama schools in 18 scheduled languages are feeling cheated by the government’s proposal to set up five regional centres of the National School of Drama in various states. Culture minister Kumari Selja had said in Parliament this week that the centres would come up in Calcutta, one either in Maharashtra or Goa, one in the Northeast, possibly Manipur and one in Jammu and Kashmir. The fifth would be in Bangalore, where the regional resource centre would be upgraded into an NSD centre. The demand for the regional language theatre centres, voiced off and on over the last 15-20 years, had gathered steam in 2007 after former NSD director Prasanna went on a hungerstrike in Bangalore. He called off the fast only after then Union culture minister Ambika Soni assured him his demand would be met. “This was about declaring the theatre in Indian languages as national theatre,” Prasanna said. “Regional centres of NSD were not what we demanded, not what the minister (Soni) said, and it is unacceptable.” Click to follow link

Bengal’s child bravery award winner kept illiterate despite ‘full state support’

New Delhi, Jan 19: Birbhum’s Sunita Murmu is West Bengal’s sole National Bravery Award winner for 2010. 17-year-old Sunita can’t read or write. She had dropped out after Class II. She was gifted a laptop along with other award winners, by an education consultancy firm, by an education.

The irony doesn’t end here. The government has put up Sunita at an NGO, in Rampurhat, for her safety. Though the NGO says that she has all the help from the state, she is still not being sent to school.

Santhal girl Sunita was paraded naked across three villages on May 11, 2010, for allegedly befriending a non tribal boy. A 15-minute-long MMS of her ordeal was circulated. She won the bravery award for pursuing the legal battle, against the wishes of her family. Most of her tormentors are now behind bars.

“I had gone to the village shop to buy something. There the badmash captured me and…” her voice trembles down. Her citation reads that she was also sexually abused.

“The people in my village were not against me, but no one said a word when the atyachaar happened on me in front of them,” she says

This paper had reported, on December 12, that most villagers are sorry for what happened and want her to come back. But Sunita says she doesn’t want to go back.

There isn’t much to go back to. She says her village school doesn’t work any more. Her biggest ambition isn’t getting a job, or move to a big city. She just wants to study, she says.

Staff Officer Dipankar K. Ray of the Pushparagniketan Temporary Home for Destitute Women, in Rampurhat where she stays, said that there isn’t any school close by. Rampurhat is the sub-divisional headquarters.

“We have provided her a TV. She likes watching Bengali TV channels during the day,” says Ray, with a misplaced sense of pride.

A Bengal government publication says that Birbhum means “Land of the Brave.” It is only fitting that a bravery award winner comes from here. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Amartya Sen hail from here. Tagore chose the district to set up Santiniketan. For Sunita, the pride ends here.

40 per cent niggle in PM studio theatre scheme

PHEROZE L. VINCENT

Artistes perform at the annual theatre fest of the National School of Drama in New Delhi on Tuesday. Picture by Prem Singh New Delhi, Jan. 12: The Prime Minister’s latest gift to the theatre fraternity may not find too many takers. On January 7, Manmohan Singh had flagged off the “Scheme of Building Grants, including Studio Theatres”, under which registered not-for-profit organisations and cultural groups dealing with the performing arts would be given 60 per cent of the money estimated to construct a studio theatre... Click to follow link

Pro Telangana students meet intellectuals, curse Congress in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 6: Members of the Telangana Students Joint Action Committee came to Delhi to urge leaders to boycott the release of the Srikrishna Committee report. They also met students and intellectuals to support a separate state. They were hosted by Congressman V. Hanumantha Rao, Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh.

J. Ramesh Babu, of Hyderabad’s Osmania University, said the region’s youth given up on political parties to achieve Telangana. He dubbed the Srikrishna report as a betrayal of the people by Sonia Gandhi. It was on her birthday, on December 9, 2009, did home minister P. Chidambaram announce the initiation of the formation of Telangana.

After a meeting with BJP leaders Shahnawaz Hussain and Anurag Thakur, the students burnt an effigy of Sonia and a copy of the report in front of the AICC hadquarters. Hussain promised that the first bill his government would pass, if they won the parliamentary elections, would be that of forming Telangana.

Since they were refused entry into the premises, they left their memorandum with the security. “We have nothing to do Congress from now on,” said Babu. The activists were further angered as rumours of 3 students getting hit by police rubber bullets, in Osmania University, reached them.

His views were echoed by social activist Swami Agnivesh, who told the students to confine the report to the dustbin. “It’s a cruel joke on the people. All those who testified before Srikrishna feel betrayed,” he added.

On the swami’s suggestion that Telangana Rashtra Samiti was the most credible party in the region, student activist Rajesh told him that the party hadn’t taken a single concrete step to solve even the day to day problems of the people.

Rajesh is from the Backward Caste Students Federation of Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, in coastal Andhra. Politicians from the region have a firm stand against bifurcation. Yet a large proportion of the students came from outside Telangana.

“Ambedkar said that smaller states would strengthen the depressed classed. Only politicians and capitalists want a united Andhra,” said Y. Vasudeva from Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, in the state’s Rayalaseema region.

He added that they expect trouble from their classmates, for their support for bifurcation, when they return. “We would still flock to Hyderabad’s superior colleges, but they deserve a separate state,” said Vasudeva.

The activists appeared in front of TV cameras near the home ministry, at North Block, where the report was released. The held up placards and shouted slogans despite prohibitory orders in the area. None of them were arrested.

A public meeting by Telangana supporters is scheduled in Jawaharlal Nehru University tomorrow. Activists say they want to rope in dissent icon Arundhati Roy too. Many far- left student outfits too, in the city, are supporting the agitation.

JNU students, alumnus prevent another Nirupama Pathak

New Delhi, Jan 6: Janta ki aave paltaniya, hilela jhakjhor ee duniya (The platoon of the people is coming, it violently shakes the world) sang the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), accompanied by beats of a daflu, in front of Jharkhand Bhawan.

Their comrade Shruti Tiwari, a first year MA Spanish student, didn’t turn up for registration for the spring semester after the winter vacations. Tiwari, from Ranchi, had married Kaushal Kishore Thakur in August last, in Delhi.

Thakur, a Ph. D researcher at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, is also from Ranchi. Their marriage was solemnized at a temple followed by a registration in court. Tiwari’s parents had no knowledge of their union.

From friends and her roommate, students got to know yesterday that her brother had leaked the news to her parents. The parents then confined her at home and began threatening Thakur’s family. Though a complaint was registered with the Ranchi police, no action was taken.

The All India Students Association, JNU, contacted Mukesh Kumar, additional district magistrate of Chaibasa, who coaxed the cops to act. In Delhi today, more than 60 students came to see Jharkhand’s resident commissioner Rajiv Kumar.

Kumar called up the state’s DGP, who said that the police had visited the girl today. She would be sent back to Delhi before January 10^th, the last day for registration for the semester. The commissioner then helped them prepare a memorandum, which he accepted.

It’s apparently a happy ending for the couple. But students say they won’t rest till Tiwari’s back. They marched away into the sunset, tapping the daflu and raising slogans against khap panchayats.

M. S. Swaminathan addresses RSS backed NGO forum

New Delhi, Dec 22: With an image of Bharat Mata holding a saffron flag in the background, National Advisory Council member Prof. M. S. Swaminathan spoke on sustainable development at the National Convention of Voluntary Organisations, in the city today.

Organised by the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an organization close to the Sangh Parivar, the 2 day seminar was on Ecology for Development. Dr. Swaminathan praised Gujarat for introducing soil health charts for farmers all over the state. “It is the first state to formulate a strategy for fertilizer based on the soil’s health,” he explained.

Swaminathan rued the fact that traditional cereals, like ragi, jowar and so on, are being confined only to tribal areas. The public distribution system (PDS) only gives rice and wheat. NGOs need to impress upon the government to include traditional cereals too in the PDS and noon meals,” he said.

He added that his research foundation will start a sea water farming project in Vedaranyam Tamil Nadu, on December 26. Sea water farming can be used to cultivate shrimp, medicinal plants and mangroves which serve as a shield against tsunamis and cyclones, he said.

The need of the hour is harmony, said the professor. “A greed revolution is engulfing the country with extravagant consumption.” He cited the examples of long convoys of politicians and “the 5000 crore house of an industrialist in Mumbai,” as examples of extravagant consumption.

Swaminathan stressed the need for good social values and education.