15-year-old girl ‘raped and set on fire’ battles for life with 95 per cent burns – Nyoooz
http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/382568/15yearold-girl-raped-and-set-on-fire-battles-for-life-with-95-per-cent-burns
Dalit Beaten To Death In U.P., Crimes Against The Community Only Show Rise Since 2013 – Youth ki awaz
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/03/dalit-man-killed-in-uttar-pradesh/
Arraigned in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college – The hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/arraigned-in-murder-case-dalit-youth-drops-out-of-college/article8325457.ece?css=print
HC rejects petitions of expelled Dalit students – The hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/hc-rejects-petitions-of-expelled-dalit-students/article8325593.ece
ABVP rift widens: VP of JNU unit will burn Manusmriti copy today – Catch news
http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/abvp-rift-widens-vp-of-jnu-unit-will-burn-manusmriti-copy-today-1457403356.html
For the women – The Kathmandu post
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-03-08/for-the-women.html
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Nyoooz
15-year-old girl ‘raped and set on fire’ battles for life with 95 per cent burns
http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/382568/15yearold-girl-raped-and-set-on-fire-battles-for-life-with-95-per-cent-burns
Summary: Doctors at Safdarjung Hospital said the girl was brought with around 95 per cent thermal burns and a history of sexual assault. She is battling for life at Safdarjung Hospital with 95 per cent burn injuries. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav)A 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped and set ablaze on the terrace of her house in a village in Gautam Buddh Nagar district in the early hours Monday, said police. “Our priority is to control the spread of infection in her blood which can lead to multi-organ failure and be life threatening. Poonam Dhanda, PRO of Safdarjung Hospital, said, “Doctors are trying their best to control the spread of infection.” Doctors said she was referred after initial treatment at a local government hospital.
Police deployed at the village. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav) Police deployed at the village. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav) A 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped and set ablaze on the terrace of her house in a village in Gautam Buddh Nagar district in the early hours Monday, said police.
She is battling for life at Safdarjung Hospital with 95 per cent burn injuries. A 20-year-old man from the village has been picked up for questioning in the case, said police. Doctors at Safdarjung Hospital said the girl was brought with around 95 per cent thermal burns and a history of sexual assault. Doctors said she continued to be extremely critical at about 8.30 pm in the burns ICU. “There are around 95 per cent burns across her body.
Youth ki awaz
Dalit Beaten To Death In U.P.
, Crimes Against The Community Only Show Rise Since 2013
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/03/dalit-man-killed-in-uttar-pradesh/
A Dalit man was beaten to death in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh on March 7, due to “old enmity”, said Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Jha. The 55-year-old man was killed in Chachya village, in Nagra area. Maliram was attacked with sticks by the assailants and he died on the spot, they said.
An FIR has been registered in this regard and police are trying to catch the culprits.
Reports suggest that incidents of atrocities against Dalits have registered a spike since the current government under PM Narendra Modi came to power.
Last month, a Dalit man was singed to death in UP.
In October last year, an elderly Dalit man was beaten to death for trying to enter a temple in Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh.
In November 2015, a Dalit man was beaten to death for “gate-crashing” a marriage party.
With the government already under fire since Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student from Hyderabad Central University, committed suicide, such incidents mar its reputation even more as being insensitive to the plight of the marginalised sections of the country. Union minister V.K. Singh also faced a lot of flak after he compared a similar incident in Haryana last year to pelting stones at dogs.
A stricter vigil on such issues is expected as one of the remedial measures from both, the state and the central governments.
The hindu
Arraigned in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/arraigned-in-murder-case-dalit-youth-drops-out-of-college/article8325457.ece?css=print
A Dalit youth in Ramanathapuram district has discontinued education after being “falsely” arraigned in a murder case and jailed for 65 days. The youth, M Karunakaran (21), a student of the Government Polytechnic College near Melur, was among the 12 accused arrested by the Paramakudi police in November last, in connection with the murder of a BJP functionary, C. Ramesh, near Thenpoduvakudi village.
While the police insist that Karunakaran was part of a gang that hacked the victim, three of the co-accused claimed to The Hindu that he was in no way connected with the crime and that they were not familiar with him.
Karunakaran and his family members say that on the day of the murder, he was at home as he was suffering from ear pain.
A local paramedical staff says he administered injection to Karunakaran on that day at his home. Besides, medical records reveal that he had visited the Paramakudi Government Hospital, a day before the murder, with complaints of ear pain.
“I was on leave when the murder happened and attended classes from the next day onwards. But in the small hours of Friday (four days after the murder), I was arrested by the police,” said Karunakaran. College administration acknowledged his presence in the classroom during the two days after the murder.
The jurisdictional Inspector, A John Britto, said that all the 12 accused — incidentally all are Dalits — were involved in the murder,
“The victim was involved in a scuffle with V. Devaraj, the main accused in the case, over a minor road accident, a month before he was murdered,” he said.
Karunakaran’s advocate K Muthukannan claimed that his client was detained on suspicion and there was nothing to connect him to the crime.
- Kathir, executive director of a civil liberties outfit ‘Evidence’, which is providing legal assistance to Karunakaran, has sought investigation by an external agency into the murder to bring out the truth.
However, N. Manivannan, Superintendent of Police of Ramanathapuram district, denied that Karunakaran was innocent and said that he was arrested only after investigation confirmed his involvement. “As far as we are concerned, he is an accused in the case at this stage,” he said.
The hindu
HC rejects petitions of expelled Dalit students
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/hc-rejects-petitions-of-expelled-dalit-students/article8325593.ece
Expressing serious concern over even educational institutions not having been spared from caste and communal clashes, the Madras High Court Bench here has refused to interfere with the expulsion of three Dalit students from an arts college for having allegedly assaulted a Caste Hindu student with deadly weapons.
Dismissing writ petitions filed by final year B.A. (Economics) students K. Raja, S. Premkumar and B. Ranjithkumar who were expelled from Sree Sevugan Annamalai College in Sivaganga district, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana lamented the increasing number of caste and communal clashes taking place between students.
Action was taken against them for alleged assault of a Caste Hindu student
Catch news
ABVP rift widens: VP of JNU unit will burn Manusmriti copy today
http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/abvp-rift-widens-vp-of-jnu-unit-will-burn-manusmriti-copy-today-1457403356.html
The rift between members of the right wing students’ organisation ABVP over the Manusmriti, the ancient text that outlines the laws of India’s caste system and the status of women in society, widened on 7 March when the vice president of the ABVP’s JNU unit announced that he would burn a copy of the text on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
“We will symbolically burn the Manusmriti to protest against what it says on Dalits and women,” said Jatin Goraya, a final-year bachelor’s student of Russian studies.
Members of the ABVP at JNU have exhibited signs of disunity since three office bearers resigned over what they called “the oppression unleashed by the government” on students of the university ever since the Delhi Police charged six students including JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar with sedition. The suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University in January also contributed to the divergence of opinion among ABVP members on the Manusmriti, according to The Telegraph.
While Goraya is uncertain if he will resign too, he said: “We have an ideological difference on the Manusmriti with the ABVP…. They were not of the opinion that we should burn it.
The Kathmandu post
For the women
http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-03-08/for-the-women.html
Mar 8, 2016- Over the last decade, women from historically marginalised groups such as Dalits, Madhesis and Adivasi Janajatis have consistently stressed the importance of recognising diversity among Nepali women. Yet the “mainstream” women’s movement, which shapes the discourse of women in Nepal, has failed to include their voices. In most cases, the exclusion is deliberate. Here I will give just one among numerous examples to illustrate this.
Dev Rai, who hails from a village in Sankhuwasabha, has been actively involved in indigenous people’s issues for the last 12 years. He now lives and works in Kathmandu. In 2009, he was working as a programme manager at a reputed NGO that champions the rights of women. The election to the first Constituent Assembly had just ended. For the first time in Nepal’s history, the political environment seemed somewhat favourable for raising the issues of marginalised groups. He thought the time was right for the NGO to carry out activities specifically targeted for indigenous women.
Like most indigenous women activists, Rai believes that problems faced by Nepali women differ in nature and magnitude depending on their caste or ethnic identity. With this in mind, he designed 19 “pilot activities” targeted for Danuwar women in Udayapur district, an area where the NGO had been working for some time. The activities aimed at increasing Danuwar women’s knowledge about their cultural and economic rights. Rai meticulously prepared the “logframe” for the activities and developed the “output, results, and verifiable indicator”. He knew the budget was not a constraint because the NGO had adequate funding for “women empowerment”. Once the project activities were completed, he hoped to deliver trainings for men as well as non-indigenous women in those areas to familiarise them with the multi-layered challenges faced by Danuwar women. He strongly believed (and still does) that understanding and empathising with the experiences of marginalised peoples strengthens rather than disrupts social harmony.
One among many
In short, there was nothing radical about Rai’s proposed activities. It was well in accordance with the accepted norms and practices of the NGO world. The only difference was that the activities were aimed at women from a highly marginalised community.
But when he laid out his plans before the NGO head, she scrapped his proposal without asking for an explanation. Rai was told that such activities would lead to “division” and “conflict” within the community. When he tried to explain his rationale, he was made to appear like a tribal-minded extremist. The NGO head, who belonged to a privileged caste group, loftily suggested that he rise above communal loyalties and focus on working for “all Nepali women”.
Two months later, the NGO organised a five-day “strategic planning meeting” at the Godavari Resort. National and international experts and intellectuals were invited to the meeting. One of the sessions was devoted to conducting a SWOT analysis of the NGO—a commonly used method for evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by an organisation. The team identified “identity politics and fundamentalists” as the biggest threats to the NGO. The NGO head argued that such threats weaken the women’s movement and need to be contained. Rai had become a “threat” for having raised the issue of marginalised indigenous women. A month later, he handed in his resignation letter where he clearly elaborated his reasons for quitting.
Rai laments that not a single colleague stood up for him. The few colleagues who belonged to the marginalised groups sympathised with him in private but did not dare openly support him. This did not surprise him though. He knew that the rare Janajati, Madhesi or Dalit who works in an I/NGO (or any “mainstream” organisation for that matter) must exercise a degree of self-censorship to avoid offending their seniors or colleagues. Vastly outnumbered by high caste people, the Janajati, Dalit or Madhesi in such organisations can only “fit in” by pretending that identity does not matter. Those who complain that the Janajatis and Dalits are taking away all their jobs would do well to check the ethnic composition of most organisations in Kathmandu. Such tokenistic representation of marginalised groups is helpful only insofar that it allows organisations to tick the right boxes and attract more funding.
Long way ahead
And yet the pernicious myth prevails that inclusion is a “donor funded” agenda. Many women activists from the marginalised groups can barely articulate themselves in Nepali. How can they even begin to compete with those who have mastered the language of donors? A 2012 report titled ‘Rights, Share and Claims: Realising Women’s Rights in South Asia’ by South Asian Women’s Fund stated, “Large ‘mainstream’ women’s organisations receive the lion’s share of funding, due to their personal connections with donors (attributed to their upper caste, English speaking privileges) and their greater accessibility to donors.” By contrast, the report adds, organisations run by women from marginalised communities are the “worst off among women’s organisations” in terms of receiving funding.
A remark by Meena Acharya, a well-known economist and women rights activist, encapsulates the “mainstream” attitude toward the demands of marginalised women. In a 2010 paper titled ‘Diversity and Unity of Feminist Movement in Nepal’, Acharya writes that “…ethnic women’s movement [is] guided primarily by the ideology of revenge for their past oppression, rather than by a vision of a truly democratic, equitable and just state and society.” It is unfortunate that a widely respected feminist like Acharya views the aspirations of marginalised women through such a narrow and twisted lens. Clearly, the so-called mainstream women movement has a long way to go before it can claim to represent “all Nepali women”.
News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET