2. Educational Background
3. Why Banking Sector
4. Hobbies
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Feb 1, 2015
SBI Asso. GD and Interview Discussion
2. Educational Background
3. Why Banking Sector
4. Hobbies
Post your views in comments,,,
[PIB] 18th National Conference on e-Governance concludes in Gandhinagar
The two-day 18th National Conference on e-Governance with the theme “Digital Governance-New Frontier” concluded in Gandhinagar, Gujarat today. Addressing the valedictory session, Governor of Gujarat, Shri Om Prakash Kohli said that that e-Governance is important because it is the most easy, effective and economical governance. He said that it is one of the most useful fields of Information Technology and brings about Empowerment, Equity, Efficiency besides being the most economic mode of governance. He said that this conference has been very useful in creating awareness among officers dealing with e-Governance.
Shri Kohli mentioned the successful implementation of various e-Governance Programmes executed by the Gujarat State Government. He mentioned that Mobile technology is a preferred mode for delivery of services under the e-Governance. He expressed the hope that the Government, Industry and Academia would forge stronger ties to create programmes and institutes with focus on Skill Development in the field of Information & Communication Technology (ICT). He stated that Indian youth will bring development to our nation through the use of ICT.
The second day of the conference started with a panel discussion on “Skill Development and Employability” within the perspective of e-Governance, being the focus sector of this year’s Conference. Further, panel discussions on “Partnership with Industry – New Business Model and Service Delivery”; and “Citizen Services in a Smart City – New Paradigm” were also held. In all the panel discussions held during the two-day conference, eminent personalities from Government, Industries, IIM, e-Governance Board, Estonia, ILO, World Bank, etc participated as panelists.
Shri Govindbhai Patel, Minister of State, Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat also addressed on this occasion. He emphasised the need for all the States to work towards restructuring and re-focusing of existing schemes so as to implement them in a synchronized manner by introducing process improvements at minimal costs. He urged to take a few steps to enable access, make it affordable, allow for an environment for development of applications and encourage people to adopt internet. Shri Patel expressed confidence that this would lead to a self-sustaining process.
The Conference was inaugurated by Chief Minister of Gujarat, Smt. Anandiben Patel yesterday. During the inaugural Session, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave his message on Twitter that e-Governance is an essential part of our dream of Digital India. The two-day Conference was organized by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) and Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India in collaboration with the Department of Science & Technology, Government of Gujarat. The National Awards on excellence in e-Governance for the year 2014-15 were given by Gujarat Chief Minister yesterday.
Source - PIB
Centre proposes major changes to Tea Act
The Centre has proposed major amendments to the 1953 Tea Act to give more teeth to the regulator — Tea Board of India.
The move aims at plugging loopholes in relevant sections of the Tea Act to enable takeover of the management or control of tea gardens, which have been closed for over 90 days.
The amendments also propose new additions in the Act, like including in its ambit terms like small tea growers while defining tea estates. Special attention is also to be paid to protection of IPR of teas and monitoring of tea gardens. The Government feels that there is need to delete certain archaic provisions of the Indian Tea Act as they have become irrelevant. There is also a need to reinforce the powers and functions of the Tea Board so as to enable the body to regulate, develop and promote tea industry and trade while helping production and exports besides improving quality.
Surprisingly, the existing Act does not clearly define the powers of the Tea Board although it is widely known as the industry regulator. The amendments plan to lay out clear definitions in this respect while setting out the powers of the Tea Board chairman.
“The aim is to move from reactive to proactive,” sources say.
The Tea Board has sought powers to monitor the working of tea gardens, making its approach more direct and proactive than the present reactive attitude. It has been suggested that the Board shall constantly monitor the gardens and try to pre-empt closures.
It is felt that the Section 16 of the Tea Act, which provides for handing over management of sick gardens, has many limitations.
Source - The Hindu
Preamble row: academics, political scientists disconcerted
The controversy over the Preamble to the Constitution may have forced the government to beat a retreat, but the fact that the Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry used a watermark of the original document without the words ‘socialist, secular’ in an advertisement has left many academics and political scientists disconcerted. Particularly, since in this instance, the deed was not by an outfit of the extended Sangh Parivar but by the government itself.
The retreat, according to P.K. Datta, a professor of Political Science at Delhi University, is typical of the “two steps forward, one step backward” strategy the BJP has used on such issues in the past. “And, Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to be silent. His silence is part of the ideological machinery of governance.”
Be it Prof. Datta, historian Romila Thapar, Rajya Sabha member K.T.S. Tulsi or the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s aide, Sudheendra Kulkarni, none finds any merit in senior Ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad’s contention that Indians are inherently secular, and secularism is in “our blood.” “No society is inherently secular. Societies have to be consciously secular and need laws that support secularism,” Prof. Thapar told The Hindu.
As for Mr. Prasad’s statement that there is no harm in debating the inclusion of the two words in the Preamble since they were introduced through an amendment during the Emergency, the counter-view is that these words did not go against what is inherent in the Constitution and none of the subsequent governments found fault with them.
“In fact, Mr. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani were part of the Janata government, and they never demanded that these words be dropped even when the 44th Constitution Amendment to undo many aspects of the 42nd was taken up,” Mr. Kulkarni said, adding that the controversy represented the “split personality” of the BJP.
Another issue Mr. Prasad has sought to inject into the debate is why these words should be there when the framers of the Constitution did not find them necessary.
But, Anil Nauriya, a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, said: “Gandhi spoke of a secular state and secular laws in the 1930s. The word started to be used more in post-independence debates to especially contrast with Pakistan, which was described as a theocracy. Perhaps, after Bangladesh defined itself as Islamic in the post-Mujib period, we reduced the use of theocratic for Pakistan in our conversations because we did not wish to tar Bangladesh with the same brush as Pakistan.”
Source - The Hindu
Cash transfers can plug PDS leakages: study
In the study, based on the latest NSSO data, by Chair Professor for Agriculture at ICRIER and former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP), Ashok Gulati and Shweta Saini, Chhattisgarh was the best performing State with 0 per cent diversion. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were among the better performers with 11.1 per cent and 12.2 per cent leakages respectively.
The worst-performing State was Manipur where 97.8 per cent of the grains failed to reach beneficiaries, followed by Daman and Diu where leakages were 95.8 per cent. In Delhi, 82.6 per cent of the grains were diverted.
During the period under study, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister in Gujarat, the pilferage was 72.2 per cent. Poor States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal delivered greater proportion of off-taken grains to the poor than Gujarat.
The paper makes a case for shifting the support to the poor from the highly subsidised price policy to Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) of cash transfers through the Jan Dhan Yojana dovetailed with Aadhaar. The researchers estimate that this could result in savings of up to Rs.33,087 crore annually in food subsidy bills.
This is the best global practice which can plug leakages, reach the vulnerable segments of population, not interfere with markets of food, result in savings to the Centre, while still giving a better deal to consumers, the paper says.
The paper questions the need for the PDS not only on account of its inefficiency owing to high leakages but also on equity grounds. Five States — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal — which are home to close to 60 per cent of India’s poor, accounted for almost 50 per cent of the total grain leakage in the country.
Examining whether the PDS is tuned to help abolish poverty, the paper says that the major beneficiaries of the PDS are people from States that have a smaller number of poor. “In a way, it helps the better offs more than the real poor of the country,” the paper says.
The paper, however, cautioned that the better-than-normal efficiency of some States, reflected in the findings, could be the result of state-run, food-based welfare schemes supplementing the central PDS. Chhattisgarh covers 90 per cent of its population, while Tamil Nadu covers close to 100 per cent of its population and both have greater per card entitlement relative to the centre-run scheme, it says.
A CACP paper had estimated that leakage for the year 2009-10 was 40.4 per cent. Just before the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) was wound up by the new government in 2014, it had reported in a preliminary finding that approximately 40 per cent of the food grain allocated under the PDS did not reach the intended beneficiaries.
The PDS operates through a network of roughly 5.00,000 fair price shops (FPS) across the country and is likely the largest public network of its type in the world, currently distributing roughly 50-55 MMT of grains annually.
The National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013 also relies on this vehicle to deliver food security to 67 per cent of population (75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) with an estimated distribution of about 61.4 MMT of grains.
Source - The Hindu
Smart City scheme: It will be a competition for funds
At the end of a two-day consultation hosted by the Ministry of Urban Development, the States and other stakeholders to identify the parameters for choosing the cities that can compete, it was suggested that percentage points be allocated for further ranking of cities. The Ministry has clarified that cities will have to compete for the funds allocated under the scheme.
States’ suggestions
“States have suggested certain parameters that include self-financing ability, which will have a 25 per cent weightage in the selection criteria, institutional systems and capacities (25%), existing service levels and committed plan of action for three years (25%), track record in implementing reforms (15%) and quality of vision document (10%),” said an official of the Ministry.
The States have suggested two sets of reforms for small and metropolitan cities. These include land monetisation, increased FAR norms with transparent policies, quick progress towards e-governance and online service delivery, integrated GIS-based Master Plans including for sanitation, mobility, land use, digital connectivity, disaster risk management and climate change. Policy reforms, fixed tenures for Mayors and municipal officials, improving revenues through 100 per cent collection of taxes and user charges, minimum educational qualifications for corporators and their capacity-building, economic master planning for cities before physical master plans, creation of municipal cadre and credit rating have also been identified.
“The States have suggested that in addition to the PPP model, they should be given the option of EPC [Engineering Procurement Contract] and user fee-based concessions to promote private sector participation. They want to impose impact fee on organisations that benefit from improved infrastructure, government support for making projects viable for private investors, unbundling of services to make projects investment-worthy and creation of a low-cost pooled fund with the support of the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, pension funds and sovereign funds etc.,” said the official.
Source - The Hindu
Kunming becomes first destination of Sushma’s China visit
Ms. Swaraj’s arrival follows a high-profile visit to India by U.S. President Barack Obama. “The Presidential visit will not be the focus of discussions, but it is quite likely that the Chinese hosts and the Russians later would be interested in hearing about the visit directly from the visiting minister,” a diplomatic source told The Hindu.
The Sino-Indian border differences are unlikely to draw prime attention during the talks between Ms. Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Significantly Ms. Swaraj routed her journey to the Chinese capital through Kunming — one of the starting points of the 21 st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) — a pet project of Chinese President Xi Jinping. China has invited India to join the MSR, but New Delhi has so far, refrained from making a firm commitment. Starting from Kolkata, Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, is also the point of termination of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor — a part of the MSR, which the Indian side is negotiating with the Chinese. However, India has become a staunch supporter of the China-initiated, Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is also likely to be used for funding MSR projects.
Sources say India’s reservations on the MSR stem from China’s forays in the Indian Ocean, including Sri Lanka, which was visited by a Chinese submarine, and Maldives. The Chinese, on their part have resented the joint oil exploration bid by India and Vietnam in the South China Sea.
Modi’s China visit
Ms. Swaraj’s visit is also seen as preparation for Prime Minister Modi’s visit to China later this year. The Prime Minister is expected to visit Kailash Mansoravar, which has now been connected by a new route through Nathu La in Sikkim. After talks with her Chinese hosts on Sunday, Ms. Swaraj will confer with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on February 2. This would be followed by a meeting of the Russia-Indian-China (RIC) grouping, and a dinner hosted by Mr. Wang. Ms. Swaraj is also slated to call on Mr. Xi on Monday. Analysts point out that Ms. Swaraj’s visit is in the crosshairs of two competing trends —Washington’s charm offensive towards New Delhi and the deterioration of ties, following the crisis in Ukraine, of China and Russia with the United States. The Chinese are working feverishly to counter the accumulation of forces in the Pacific under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” by sharpening their nuclear and conventional deterrent. Facing sanctions, Moscow is consolidating its energy and defence ties with China in Eurasia, buttressed by currency swap agreements that allows payments in local currencies — the rouble and the yuan.
“Frankly the timing is perfect to test India’s multi-vectored diplomacy. New Delhi is in a good position to leverage its relationship with the United States to move into strategic areas of cooperation with China and Russia,” a diplomat said. The Russian news agency, Sputnik, is reporting that Moscow and New Delhi are considering using their national currencies in bilateral trade to reduce their dependency on the dollar.
Source - The Hindu
‘Govt. must show persistence to get Indian hostages freed’
The ICRC oversees conditions at many of the camps near the frontlines in Iraq, and while it is unable to operate in areas held by the Islamic State (IS), it has been monitoring the situation there closely “through local communities,” Director-General of the ICRC Yves Daccord said.
In June last year, the ICRC had first confirmed the safety of 46 Kerala nurses who were trapped in their hospital in the town of Tikrit. ICRC associates had then made contact with them, eventually providing them food and phones, and helping the Indian government contact militant groups to negotiate their release.
Referring to other cases where hostages held by the IS had been released, he said what this showed is that the Indian government must show patience, and also persistence, given that some of the hostages had been freed after years.
“It is important to keep pursuing the case, letting those who may be holding them know that these 40 men are very valuable to India,” he added.
In November 2014, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had dispatched two MEA officials to Erbil to intensify efforts to bring back the 40 men whose families have been meeting her regularly, demanding action. But in the absence of confirmed locations and access to the men who are holding them, the Indian government has been unsuccessful.
“It must be made clear that these men are important, that they will not be forgotten,” Mr. Daccord said.
Speaking of the role of the international humanitarian agency in the release of the Indian nurses, he said, “ICRC was very happy to have been of assistance in this case. Once we found that the nurses were safe, our next task was to start a conversation between those who controlled the area and the Indian government. That is eventually what led to them returning safely.”
In June last year, the ICRC had first confirmed the safety of 46 Kerala nurses who were trapped in their hospital in the town of Tikrit. ICRC associates had then made contact with them, eventually providing them food and phones, and helping the Indian government contact militant groups to negotiate their release.
Referring to other cases where hostages held by the IS had been released, he said what this showed is that the Indian government must show patience, and also persistence, given that some of the hostages had been freed after years.
“It is important to keep pursuing the case, letting those who may be holding them know that these 40 men are very valuable to India,” he added.
In November 2014, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had dispatched two MEA officials to Erbil to intensify efforts to bring back the 40 men whose families have been meeting her regularly, demanding action. But in the absence of confirmed locations and access to the men who are holding them, the Indian government has been unsuccessful.
“It must be made clear that these men are important, that they will not be forgotten,” Mr. Daccord said.
Speaking of the role of the international humanitarian agency in the release of the Indian nurses, he said, “ICRC was very happy to have been of assistance in this case. Once we found that the nurses were safe, our next task was to start a conversation between those who controlled the area and the Indian government. That is eventually what led to them returning safely.”
Source - The Hindu
Govt. effects major reshuffle of Secretaries
The Narendra Modi government effected a major reshuffle of Secretaries of Union Ministries on Saturday days after the tenure of Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh was curtailed.
Shankar Agarwal, secretary of the Urban Development Ministry and Anita Agnihotri, secretary Housing and Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Ministry were both moved out, ahead of the launch of the government's flagship schemes — the smart city project and housing for all by 2020.
According to sources, the Prime Minister's Office had held several rounds of meetings with both these ministries and there was “dissatisfaction” over the slow pace of work. The Prime Minister's Office had recently asked the UD Ministry to fast track the smart city project, while the HUPA ministry was asked to submit the blueprint for how housing shortage, particularly for the weaker sections will be met.
While Mr. Agarwal has been shifted as Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment in place of Gauri Kumar, Ms. Agnihotri will take over as Secretary, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment in place of Sudhir Bhargava.
Madhusudhan Prasad, Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry will take over as Secretary, UD and Nandita Chatterjee, Member Secretary, National Commission for Women, Ministry of Women and Child Development will take over as secretary HUPA.
Gauri Kumar has been moved to (Co-ordination & Public Grievances), Cabinet Secretariat in place of S.B. Agnihotri.
Lov Verma, Secretary Health and Family Welfare Ministry has also been moved out at a time, when the government is gearing to roll out the Universal Health Assurance Mission. He has been shifted as Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in place of Stuti Narayan Kacker, on her superannuation. Bhanu Pratap Sharma, Establishment Officer and Special Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will take over as the new Health and Family Welfare Secretary.
Shankar Agarwal, secretary of the Urban Development Ministry and Anita Agnihotri, secretary Housing and Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Ministry were both moved out, ahead of the launch of the government's flagship schemes — the smart city project and housing for all by 2020.
According to sources, the Prime Minister's Office had held several rounds of meetings with both these ministries and there was “dissatisfaction” over the slow pace of work. The Prime Minister's Office had recently asked the UD Ministry to fast track the smart city project, while the HUPA ministry was asked to submit the blueprint for how housing shortage, particularly for the weaker sections will be met.
While Mr. Agarwal has been shifted as Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment in place of Gauri Kumar, Ms. Agnihotri will take over as Secretary, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment in place of Sudhir Bhargava.
Madhusudhan Prasad, Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry will take over as Secretary, UD and Nandita Chatterjee, Member Secretary, National Commission for Women, Ministry of Women and Child Development will take over as secretary HUPA.
Gauri Kumar has been moved to (Co-ordination & Public Grievances), Cabinet Secretariat in place of S.B. Agnihotri.
Lov Verma, Secretary Health and Family Welfare Ministry has also been moved out at a time, when the government is gearing to roll out the Universal Health Assurance Mission. He has been shifted as Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in place of Stuti Narayan Kacker, on her superannuation. Bhanu Pratap Sharma, Establishment Officer and Special Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, will take over as the new Health and Family Welfare Secretary.
Source - The Hindu
Jagan vows to stand by farmers
YSRC chief begins two-day ‘Rythu Deeksha’ on farm loan waiver issue
YSR Congress president Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy on Saturday began his two-day hunger strike (Rythu Deeksha) on the issue of farm loan waiver in this delta town of West Godavari district.
He vowed to stand by farmers and self-help group women and fight it out until the government extended the waiver in full.
Addressing the gathering, he criticised Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for his ‘politics of deception’ and said the Chief Minister had misled farmers and SHG women promising to implement loan waiver in full, but revealed his true colours soon after coming to power.
The case of farmers and women from West Godavari district with whose support the Telugu Desam Party managed to win all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats was an example of Mr. Naidu’s rank opportunism, the YSRC chief said.
Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy said the government diluted the loan waiver scheme by making it more cumbersome and bringing down the total volume of relief to be extended to the debt-ridden farmers.
The YSRC chief, after his brief address, had a one-to-one interaction with farmer representatives and SHG women.
Janaki, an SHG woman from Chintalapudi area said she had taken Rs. 1 lakh as loan from her group. While she was waiting for relief, the loan amount as going up with accumulation of interest, she said.
She claimed that her husband, a farmer who had borrowed from commercial banks, was also facing the same problem.
YSRC former MLA Karumuri Nageswara Rao said the government had failed to address the acute shortage of fertilizer and remained a mute spectator even as farmers were purchasing stocks at higher rates in the black market. YSRC MLC Meka Seshubabu said West Godavari district drew blank in terms of development even after it gave the TDP a handsome majority in the general elections.
YSR Congress president Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy on Saturday began his two-day hunger strike (Rythu Deeksha) on the issue of farm loan waiver in this delta town of West Godavari district.
He vowed to stand by farmers and self-help group women and fight it out until the government extended the waiver in full.
Addressing the gathering, he criticised Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for his ‘politics of deception’ and said the Chief Minister had misled farmers and SHG women promising to implement loan waiver in full, but revealed his true colours soon after coming to power.
The case of farmers and women from West Godavari district with whose support the Telugu Desam Party managed to win all the Lok Sabha and Assembly seats was an example of Mr. Naidu’s rank opportunism, the YSRC chief said.
Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy said the government diluted the loan waiver scheme by making it more cumbersome and bringing down the total volume of relief to be extended to the debt-ridden farmers.
The YSRC chief, after his brief address, had a one-to-one interaction with farmer representatives and SHG women.
Janaki, an SHG woman from Chintalapudi area said she had taken Rs. 1 lakh as loan from her group. While she was waiting for relief, the loan amount as going up with accumulation of interest, she said.
She claimed that her husband, a farmer who had borrowed from commercial banks, was also facing the same problem.
YSRC former MLA Karumuri Nageswara Rao said the government had failed to address the acute shortage of fertilizer and remained a mute spectator even as farmers were purchasing stocks at higher rates in the black market. YSRC MLC Meka Seshubabu said West Godavari district drew blank in terms of development even after it gave the TDP a handsome majority in the general elections.
Source - The Hindu
MiG-21 crashes in Jamnagar
A MiG-21 fighter jet of the Indian Air Force crashed during a sortie near Bed village in the Jamnagar district on Saturday while the pilot managed to eject safely, the second such incident this week involving MiG series aircraft.
“A MiG-21 crashed at Rasoolnagar area near Bed village, 20 km from Jamangar city,” District Superintendent of Police Neeraj Badgujar told PTI.
IAF officials said the pilot managed to eject safely during the accident which occurred around 2 p.m.
They said the aircraft was on a range firing sortie and while operating “a flash was seen on the wing which resulted in fire”.
The pilot ejected immediately.
The pilot, who landed in a tide pool created by the sea water near the spot, was later rescued by an IAF chopper.
Source - The Hindu
“A MiG-21 crashed at Rasoolnagar area near Bed village, 20 km from Jamangar city,” District Superintendent of Police Neeraj Badgujar told PTI.
IAF officials said the pilot managed to eject safely during the accident which occurred around 2 p.m.
They said the aircraft was on a range firing sortie and while operating “a flash was seen on the wing which resulted in fire”.
The pilot ejected immediately.
The pilot, who landed in a tide pool created by the sea water near the spot, was later rescued by an IAF chopper.
Source - The Hindu
‘Queer Azadi March’ protests against forced reconversions
As hundreds walked the streets of Mumbai on Saturday in the annual ‘Queer Azadi March’ demanding equality, the daring political sloganeering against the ‘forced ghar vapsi’ did make thousands of heads turn in curious attention.
The march which till now had kept politics away made it a point that neither religion nor sexuality nor gender can be forced upon someone. “It’s a matter of personal choice and an individual’s choice must be respected,” said Chayanika Shah, activist with LABIA — A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, one of the supporting organisations for the march.
From 2011, QAM began conducting a week full of festivities and events in different pockets of Mumbai from movie screenings, flash mob, plays, meet-the-author to drag shows, street performances and mela and, finally, the Pride March which saw thousands of queer individuals take part to assert their human rights of equality in the eyes of law and society.
“For us, it’s always been a political struggle. One cannot see queer pride without talking about the political climate. And the focus of which today is religion,” said Ms. Shah.
“Ghar vapsi, whether in a religious term or about gender and sexuality, should be an individual’s choice. No political force should be used in deciding these issues and that is the reason why we have raised this issue,” she added.
The processionists raised slogans such as ‘Gender, Sexuality, Dharm: Where I’m respected, that is my Ghar’ and with stickers asking people to state their assigned religion and gender and what is the real one.
The participants said that while the choices around gender issues are denied, campaigns such as ‘Bahu Lao, Beti Bachao’ were attempts to control the sexuality. Right from protests against the insensitive depiction of queer individuals in the media to organising community events that addressed awareness issues, QAM has remained at the forefront of many such activities in the last several years.
The march which till now had kept politics away made it a point that neither religion nor sexuality nor gender can be forced upon someone. “It’s a matter of personal choice and an individual’s choice must be respected,” said Chayanika Shah, activist with LABIA — A Queer Feminist LBT Collective, one of the supporting organisations for the march.
From 2011, QAM began conducting a week full of festivities and events in different pockets of Mumbai from movie screenings, flash mob, plays, meet-the-author to drag shows, street performances and mela and, finally, the Pride March which saw thousands of queer individuals take part to assert their human rights of equality in the eyes of law and society.
“For us, it’s always been a political struggle. One cannot see queer pride without talking about the political climate. And the focus of which today is religion,” said Ms. Shah.
“Ghar vapsi, whether in a religious term or about gender and sexuality, should be an individual’s choice. No political force should be used in deciding these issues and that is the reason why we have raised this issue,” she added.
The processionists raised slogans such as ‘Gender, Sexuality, Dharm: Where I’m respected, that is my Ghar’ and with stickers asking people to state their assigned religion and gender and what is the real one.
The participants said that while the choices around gender issues are denied, campaigns such as ‘Bahu Lao, Beti Bachao’ were attempts to control the sexuality. Right from protests against the insensitive depiction of queer individuals in the media to organising community events that addressed awareness issues, QAM has remained at the forefront of many such activities in the last several years.
Source - The Hindu
Maoist bandh hits train services in Bihar
The bandh was condemn police action against them
A 12-hour bandh called by Maoists on Friday halted trains for several hours in Bihar, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
The Maoists called the protest in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to condemn police action against them.
On Friday night, a group of armed Maoists broke into the cabin of the Bhaluhi halt in the Naxal-affected Jamui district and asked cabin man Dinesh Arya to stop trains in the Danapaur-Howrah section, said Arvind Rajak, chief public relations officer of East Central Railway.
Two dozen trains on the route were stopped for eight hours, he said.
Among the long distance trains that were stranded were Howrah-Amritsar mail, Howrah-Danapur express and Farakka express, while Vibhuti Express and Howrah-New Delhi Poorva express had to be re-routed from Asansol to reach Mugalsarai via Gaya, said the ECR official.
“We had a harrowing time. We were stranded for over eight hours at one place amid the lurking fear of naxal-attack on the train”, said Pankaj Kumar, a passenger of the train halted in Jamui.
Traffic was restored on Saturday morning after CRPF personnel inspected the track and a goods train was run to make sure that the track was safe,” Mr. Rajak said.
On Saturday morning, the Maoists blew up a mobile tower at Mananpur in Lakhisarai district. They also attacked Rani Bazar in Nawada district and beat up several villagers.
The Maoists called the protest in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to condemn police action against them
A 12-hour bandh called by Maoists on Friday halted trains for several hours in Bihar, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
The Maoists called the protest in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to condemn police action against them.
On Friday night, a group of armed Maoists broke into the cabin of the Bhaluhi halt in the Naxal-affected Jamui district and asked cabin man Dinesh Arya to stop trains in the Danapaur-Howrah section, said Arvind Rajak, chief public relations officer of East Central Railway.
Two dozen trains on the route were stopped for eight hours, he said.
Among the long distance trains that were stranded were Howrah-Amritsar mail, Howrah-Danapur express and Farakka express, while Vibhuti Express and Howrah-New Delhi Poorva express had to be re-routed from Asansol to reach Mugalsarai via Gaya, said the ECR official.
“We had a harrowing time. We were stranded for over eight hours at one place amid the lurking fear of naxal-attack on the train”, said Pankaj Kumar, a passenger of the train halted in Jamui.
Traffic was restored on Saturday morning after CRPF personnel inspected the track and a goods train was run to make sure that the track was safe,” Mr. Rajak said.
On Saturday morning, the Maoists blew up a mobile tower at Mananpur in Lakhisarai district. They also attacked Rani Bazar in Nawada district and beat up several villagers.
The Maoists called the protest in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to condemn police action against them
Source - The Hindu
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