BJP National President Sri Amith Shah said the days of the
Siddaramaiah Government in the state were numbered and Sri B. S. Yeddyurappa led BJP
Government is poised come to power.
This was the gist of Sri Shah’s speeches at different parts of Chikkamagalur district.
The people of Karnataka have showed immense confidence in Prime Minister Sri
Modi’s “Sabka Sath Sabka Vikaas” philosophy. Also, they are sure to endorse the Sri B S
Yeddyurappa’s leadership for Karnataka.
● Ruling out the changes in reservation policy he said the Congress is indulged in false
propaganda that Central Government aims to bring drastic changes in the constitution.
The reservations given by Baba Saheb Ambedkar cannot be wished to take away.
● The Central Government under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modiji have take
number of progressive steps for the benefit of the of Coffee and Arecanut farmers.
● The Government under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modiji was the first Government
to fix import price for arecanut at Rs. 251/-. It was under this Government that 100%
custom duty was made applicable on arecanut import, thus substantially the negative
impact on our farmers from import from Sri Lanka. In the year 2017 it was for the first time
that a Central Government procured arecanut under MIS. In the BJP Karnataka Manifesto
it has been promised that BJP will build a arecanut research center for Rs. 500 Crore.
● The coffee plantations across the state are withering away but the Siddaramaiah
Government is in slumber. When BJP will form the Government in the state international
coffee trade fair will be organised every year.
● The Siddaramaiah Government has the blood of over 3500 farmers on its hands, who
have committed suicide due to the insensitivity of the Siddaramaiah Government.
● The Modi Government under the 14th finance commission has given the state Rs.
2,19,000 Crore and has given Rs. 80,000 Crore under various other schemes.
● JD(S) can only cut into some votes. But they cannot take on the Congress thus they can
protect the people from the corruption and misgovernance of Siddaramaiah Government.
Archives for May 2018
Modi woos poll-bound Karnataka farmers through mobile app
Making smart use of his NaMo mobile app once again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday wooed Karnataka farmers to vote for the BJP in the May 12 state Assembly elections.
Addressing cadres of the party’s state farmers’ cells (Kisan Morcha Karyakartas) through his NaMo app, Modi listed the various pro-farmer schemes initiated by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government to improve their welfare and income over the last four years.
“Nature, farmers and the government have to work hand-in-hand. We are trying to look at the agriculture sector holistically — from soil health to taking its produce to the market (beej se bazaar thak),” said Modi in his 40-minute interactive audio-video discussion in Hindi.
Accusing the ruling Congress in the state of remaining indifferent to farmers’ issues, Modi regretted that they (farmers) did not benefit from of the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance scheme) because the state government did not care to implement it.
“Hence, it’s time for the people to form such a government in Karnataka that understands the farmers’ issues. Our annual budgets so far have been hailed as farmers’ budgets for the measures taken to benefit them,” asserted Modi.
Highlighting the importance of agriculture in the country’s economy, Modi said the NDA government had issued 93-lakh soil health cards to the farmers across the state till date and fertilisers were distributed with neem coating to help the soil gain more nutrients and produce higher yields.
“In the Union Budget for 2018-19, we have increased the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to 1.5 times of the production cost to double the farmers’ income,” reiterated Modi.
Tech-savvy Modi first used the NaMo app on April 26 to connect with his party’s state unit cadres, leaders and candidates ahead of the polls on May 12 and vote-counting on May 15.
Scientist arrested in Agra for sexually assaulting minor girls
Taj Ganj police Station House Officer (SHO) Shailendra Kumar said a fellow scientist had filed a written complaint against the accused Vishnu Dutt Sharma, 62, saying that he lured a minor girl to his house and tried to sexually abuse her.
The victim told her mother about what had happened to her. The police was immediately contacted, the complaint said.
Another neighbour confirmed that his daughter too had been a victim.
Several others told the police that the scientist used to call girls luring them with chocolates.
Sharma, who works for the Jalma Institute, is slated to retire in September.
Bollywood Awards Round Up
Bollywood Celebs Bagged 9th Newsmakers Achiever’s Award
Bollywood Celebs like Bappi Lahiri, Acharya Dr. Lokesh Muni, Bharti Singh, Swapnil Joshi, Bhagyashree Mote, Rajeev Nigam, Rohit Roy, Makrand Deshpande et al recently bagged the 9th Newsmakers Achiever’s Award.
Vaidehi Taman, Editor of Afternoon Voice recently organized a unique event of Charity & appreciation & 9th Newsmakers Achievers’ Award 2018 at Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Mumbai where the awards were given in different arenas.
This year we have dedicated the day to help “Divyang” (handicap) & Sex Workers’ daughters who are pursuing education; the thought is inspired from and in support with our Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana”.
Director of NBC Vaidehi averred, “We give out these award event to mainly acknowledge the unsung heroes those who are giving lots of contribution towards this society and in the field they are working in this is an amalgamation of sung & unsung heroes and a very unique experiment with the charity, we do it every year and this is our 9th year.”
Acharya Dr. Lokesh Muni bagged the “Best Spiritual Leader Award”, B J Khatal bagged the “Lifetime Achievement Award”, Bappi Lahiri bagged the “Lifetime Achievement” award, Bharti Singh & Rajiv Nigam bagged the “Best Comedian Award”, Bhagyashree Mote, Makrand deshpande, Rohit Roy, Nitanshi Goel & Swwapnil Joshi bagged the “Best Actor” award, Amit Tyagi of Aajtak, Neeru Sharma of E 24 & Vibha Kaul Bhat bagged the “Best Editor” award, Sonal Sonkavde bagged the “Best Author award, Priya Kataria Puri bagged the “Best Designer” award. Bhaiyyu Ji Maharaj came specially to give the awards.
For the corpse burners of Varanasi, untouchability is still a reality
It was past 10 in the night. Four pyres were aflame at Manikarnika Ghat on the banks of the Ganga here. Gagan Choudhary, a corpse burner, was shifting from one pyre to another as the air reeked of burning flesh and wood — tinged with alcohol, tobacco and cannabis.
As a mild wind from the sacred river blew over the ghat, flecks of ashes from the burning pyres swirled in the air.
In Hindu custom, it is believed that the path to liberation (moksha) for a soul is attained if the physical body is burnt at death at Manikarnika Ghat.
And Chaudhary, like his daily routine, was jabbing the corpses with a wooden stick one after the other. Moving barefoot, he covered his face with a piece of cloth to protect himself from the heat and ashes.
“This is all we have been taught — to burn dead bodies. This is what we are good at. We have no hope of education and no scope for improving our standard of living,” said Chaudhary, who lives near the ghat in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency.
Chaudhary belongs to the Dom community which, for generations, has been burning dead bodies. They are generally considered lowest in the caste hierarchy — even among the Dalits — and often become victims of untouchability. Dreaming for a better life is unimaginable.
“My father was also into it. He was a heavy drinker and he stopped working. Then I had to take up the profession. It is not that we do it willingly, but something we are forced into.This is our destiny,” Chaudhary said.
His eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of country liquor. He recalled he was just eight when he started burning corpses and consuming alcohol because he couldn’t bear the smell of dead bodies.
“You think it is easy to carry so many dead bodies and burn them every day? I cannot. Nobody can do it unless we consume alcohol or smoke weed,” he grinned.
He couldn’t say how old he is. “I must be around 26, I guess. I don’t have any birth certificate because I didn’t attend much of school. And have been doing the same work for 16-17 years now.”
His four to five hours of labour fetches him around Rs 300 a day and he is happy with whatever he is earning.
“Rest of the time I manage to either drive a car or pull a rickshaw. But then, I prefer hiding my identity. Not all would appreciate to be served by a Dalit, that too a Dom” he quipped.
A little above where the corpses were being burnt sat Jai Raja Chaudhary. Though also a Dom, in the caste hierarchy he is higher than Gagan Chaudhary. He assembles the other Doms and assigns them the work of corpse burning.
He has a 24-hour working day. This is his family tradition. Jai Raja said that, in his family, every male member spends a whole day at Manikarnika Ghat by turn.
“Our situation can never develop because casteism still is a major factor in India. We are not being allowed to explore opportunities. We are way behind compared to the other Dalits. Our comparison comes within our community. We cannot even imagine competing with those from the upper classes,” Jai Raja, 40, said.
He has studied till Class 12 but couldn’t continue further because of family pressure. He has three children — two sons and a daughter — who attend a government-run school. But he is not sure how long will his kids be able to continue their education.
“Not a single Dom would want their kids to pursue burning corpses as a career. But do we have any other option? We have been exploited over the years and probably the same is going to continue. Upliftment of our status is difficult.”
For the Doms, untouchability is still a reality which they face almost every day even in Varanasi where they have been living for centuries. They are abused and humiliated by the upper castes, Jai Raja said.
“We are not allowed to walk in the same lane as used by upper class. They will clean the lanes if we pass by. Shop-owners never hand over cash directly on our palms. They will either keep it aside and ask us to pick up or simply drop it in our palms.”
Gagan Chaudhary said he and his contemporaries were ill-treated even by Dalits who claim their social status a notch above them.
“Not just the upper class but even those among the Dalits who have now made money often misbehave with us, use slang language to address us.”
He wished his life too turns out to be like “Deepak Chaudhary” — a character from the movie “Masaan” played by Vicky Kaushal who portrays a Dom boy. But he contends that was too “filmy”.
“Wo haqeeqat nahi hai, filmy thaa (it was not based on reality, it was a movie). In real life more than 90 per cent of us haven’t even completed our schooling, forget about going to college.”
But like Deepak Chaudhary will he too dare to fall in love with someone from the upper caste?
“I don’t know what that is. I will marry someone from the same community. Upper caste women will neither marry us nor would we want to marry someone from outside the community — or else there won’t be any compatibility,” he smiled.
Bollywood stars Arbaaz Khan & Sohail Khan to campaign for MEP party in Karnataka elections
Bollywood stars Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan will be campaigning for The All Indian Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP) in the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections.
The actor brothers, who addressed the press conference along with MEP president, Dr Nowhera Shaik, praised the work of Dr. Shaik, and said that she has been fighting for the cause of justice for decades now. They said that they believe in the inclusive policies of the party, and that’s the reason they will be campaigning for it, across the state.
Dr. Shaik said that MEP is the first political party in the country focussing on women and their issues, as it believes that improving the conditions of women will ensure that the society as a whole will be improved.
She said that parties like Congress and BJP have only paid lip service to the cause of women and downtrodden communities, and it’s time for the people of Karnataka to elect MEP to power.
She also lambasted Narendra Modi, for his false promises, and said that her party will ensure justice for everyone.
Knesset gives power to PM to declare war with single vote backing
by Al Jazeera
The Israeli parliament has voted in favour of granting Israel’s prime minister the power to declare war, solely with the approval of the defence minister.
The vote on Monday amended a law which previously required the whole cabinet to vote on such a move, transferring that authority to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, his defence chief.
The Knesset approved the amendment 62 to 41, allowing Netanyahu and Lieberman to declare war in “extreme situations”.
The change was introduced by Netanyahu shortly before his theatrical presentation in which he claimed to present proof of Iran having secretly pursued a nuclear programme.
According to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee initially voted against the proposal, but it was later approved by the Knesset during a second and third reading.
Although Netanyahu would currently require approval by Lieberman, it is not uncommon for Israeli prime ministers to be appointed as minister of defence during their time in office.
David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres all served as ministers of defence during their stint as prime minister.
Rising regional tensions
Netanyahu’s speech on Monday came against a backdrop of sustained efforts by the US and its allies in the Middle East to cancel, or at least renegotiate, the 2015 nuclear pact signed between Iran and the US, France, Russia, Germany, China, the UK and the European Union.
He claimed that Iran, after signing the nuclear deal, intensified its efforts to hide files pertaining to its nuclear programme.
Iranian state TV said called Netanyahu’s accusations propaganda.
Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the nuclear agreement, saying it fails to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability.
He has also welcomed US President Donald Trump’s pledges to withdraw from the Iran deal if it is not changed.
Trump praised Netanyahu’s presentation as “good”, saying it and other recent events show he has been “100 percent right” about Iran.
Witch Hunts Today: Abuse of Women, Superstition and Murder Collide in India
More than 2,500 people have died because failed development in villages heightens gender inequality and tensions, experts say
Men circled the three women, their fists wrapped around thick iron pipes and wooden sticks. The women huddled on the ground at the center of their village in the western Indian state of Gujarat and whimpered as the crowd gathered. Two young men had died in the village, and the women were being called dakan, the Gujarati word for witch. They were accused of feasting on the young men’s souls.
Madhuben clutched her right upper arm. She had taken three blows from one of the pipes and was sure her bones were broken. Her sisters-in-law, Susilaben and Kamlaben, covered their heads as wood and metal pounded their backs. (The names of women targeted by witch hunts have been changed in this story, to minimize the risk of further assault or of jeopardizing pending legal cases.)
The attack on the trio, in Gujarat in 2014, was one of thousands of witch hunts that take place in India. More than 2,500 Indians have been chased, tortured and killed in such hunts between 2000 and 2016, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. Activists and journalists say the number is much higher, because most states don’t list witchcraft as a motive of murder. Witch hunts primarily target women and exploit India’s caste system and culture of patriarchy. Men who brand women as dakan capitalize on deeply rooted superstitions and systems built on misogyny and patriarchy to lay blame on females. The accusations of sorcery are used to oust women from valuable land that men covet, in a region where flawed development plans have produced agricultural failures, say sociologists who study violence in India. Witches are also convenient explanations for rising infant mortality rates and deaths from malaria, typhoid and cholera.
A few states have adopted anti–witch hunting laws, but Gujarat is not one of them. Women there are using their own resources to fighti back. At ANANDI, a Gujarati nonprofit that supports vulnerable communities, women sit in a circle on the floor and share samosas and stories. “We protect each other. It’s how we find strength,” one of them says. The women are learning the law, demanding a desk in the local police station so they can advocate for women who walk in to report violence, and they are pushing for witch hunting to be outlawed.
In December 2017 Susilaben and her sister-in-law, Madhuben, who were beaten during the witch hunt four years ago, sat on the dirt floor inside a friend’s house, talking to me. It has been three years since the attack and the sisters-in-law say it is not safe to discuss the witch hunt in their own home because they still live with the men who called them dakan and beat them. Madhuben’s cheeks are hollow, the whites of her eyes visible. “I am scared in my own home,” she says. “Too scared to eat. I faint with fear. What kind of way is this to live?”
The violence and accusations against Madhuben, Susilaben and their sister-in-law began in 2012. That year the three women found their male relatives routinely defecating in the plot of land where the sisters grew corn, lentils and peas. Almost half of India’s households lack a toilet, according to the 2011 census, and many of those people defecate in the open. Of the 1.7 million people around the world who die each year because of a lack of sanitation and access to clean toilets, 600,000 live in India.
Women share their stories about witch hunts at ANANDI, a Gujarat non-profit group that supports vulnerable women. Credit: Seema Yasmin
The sisters-in-law were upset with their male relatives’ using their crops as a toilet. “I said to them, ‘This is where we grow food. How are we supposed to deal with [human excrement] here?’” Susilaben says. This challenge to men in a culture where women are expected to be silent subordinates infuriated her family, she recalls. The men did not stop defecating on the land. Instead they turned on the women, beat them and ran them out of their home for 10 days.
The situation worsened a year or so later, when two young men in their home became ill. One developed renal failure, the other cancer. Poor access to health care in the region meant the family was forced to take out loans and travel to neighboring towns for medical help. Money was scarce and stress was high. When the young men died, the sisters-in-law were accused of eating their souls and causing their premature deaths. And then the remaining men began a campaign to take their land.
The plot where the women grew vegetables was fertile and in a prime location, at a four-way road junction in the village. That was the spot where they were beaten. Male relatives forced the sisters-in-law to sign a document saying they would hand over land ownership to the men. “We had no choice but to sign,” Susilaben says. “They said they would kill us if we didn’t give them our land.” The farming land is now a series of roadside stores selling slippers, stationery, car parts and clothes.
Battles over land and property are common starts to witch hunts, says Soma Chaudhuri, a sociologist at Michigan State University who studies gender violence in India. Chaudhuri says witch hunts and beatings provide an outlet for men living in poverty to vent frustrations over their own lack of power. “These rural communities are so marginalized and so oppressed, and they have no political resources and no avenues of protest. So what do people do when they’re very frustrated? You look to your surroundings for an easy scapegoat. Women are that scapegoat.” Long-standing cultural traditions of patriarchy, where men are supposed to control family resources, make women who may have inherited their own land easy targets, Chaudhuri says. With those patriarchal values comes misogyny and denigration of women, she adds.
In Gujarat worsening inequalities between urban and rural communities may be another triggering factor, experts say. Gujarat is lauded by the government as one of India’s most developed states. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, led by prime minister Narendra Modi, formerly Gujarat’s chief minister, has even run on the slogan: “I am development, I am Gujarat.” The image that politicians push is of a modernizing region that has moved past issues of gender inequality and bias.
In the villages where Susilaben and her sisters-in-law live in eastern Gujarat’s Dahod District the reality is vastly different, says Kiran Desai, a professor at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University’s Center for Social Studies. Whereas the government can point to highways and hospitals in cities, Desai says, infant mortality in rural areas is rising, air quality is worsening and agricultural conditions are deteriorating. According to the National Family Health Survey, fewer children are immunized and more children under the age of five years are malnourished and severely underweight in Dahod compared with the national average. “It’s an illusion, this Gujarat model of development,” Desai says. “What we’re actually seeing is inequality rising because the model boosted manufacturing in the cities while neglecting agriculture in the villages.” Chaudhuri argues the model completely excludes the communities where many of the women targeted in witch hunts reside, places like Dahod where poverty and sickness boil over into frustration and violence toward women. “The witch hunt is the final expression of frustration.”
Even in the cities, Desai points out, the economic changes have “had an impact on household gender dynamics.” For instance, when the state’s urban textile mills began closing in the 1980s, men were left unemployed and women, who made a living selling vegetables or sewing clothes, became the breadwinners. Chaudhuri has interviewed many of the former mill workers and found the unemployed men retained control of their wives’ finances, and that alcoholism and violence against women increased in the wake of the mill closures.
WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN
After Susilaben and her sisters-in-law were attacked as witches, they looked for help at ANANDI, and discovered they were not the only women in Dahod suffering accusations of sorcery. Another woman, Ranjuben, was there, and said she had been accused of being a dakan when a one-year-old girl in her village died. “She was sick for a long time, a year I think. But they said, ‘You ate her,’ and a mob came to beat me,” she recalls. Still another woman, Ushaben, said she was named as a witch when she asked a man to repay a loan.
The women meet regularly at ANANDI’s regional office in Dahod District. One morning last month 15 women sat in a circle on chadors they had draped over the floor. They shared samosas and sang songs about the violence they suffer from men. “Who can I tell about my pain?” sang one woman. Those in the circle responded, singing that they would listen and help.
The group of women work as on-call responders to gender violence. On a visit to a nearby village where a recently widowed woman had been accused of being a dakan, one of the group told her: “Remember our number. Teach the number to your children. If anyone hurts you, call us. We will come and we will even bring the police.”
The women travel from village to village using songs and plays to get the attention of locals while warning village women about the early symptoms of malaria and cholera, teaching them which foods to feed a weaning child, and reminding them that accusations of witchcraft should be reported to the police. “The police don’t write dakan in the [first information report] but we go to the police station and we tell them, ‘This woman was beaten in a witch hunt. Write dakan in your report,’” one member of the group says. She adds that accurate reporting will shed light on the extent of the problem. The organization is pushing the state to enact laws that punish men for branding women dakan.
Susilaben and her two sisters-in-law are taking their case to the courts with the help of ANANDI. They hope to challenge the men who took their land and accused them of witchcraft. In addition to the land grab, the sisters say, the men found a holy man who agreed with the dakan charge and insisted the women pay 30,000 rupees to their male relatives. The sisters-in-law took out a loan to pay the money.
At the morning meeting in ANANDI’s Dahod office, after samosas and masala chai tea are passed around the circle, one woman asks: “Does this kind of thing happen to women elsewhere?” Somebody mentions witch trials in Salem, Mass., in the late 1600s as well as continuing domestic violence in the West. “Yes, it does,” an ANANDI staffer responds. “One way or another, women are under attack everywhere.”
CBI court grants bail to Hooda in Manesar land scam
In a breather for former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a special CBI court on Tuesday granted him bail in a multi-crore rupee Manesar land scam.
Hooda appeared before the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Panchkkula, adjoining Chandigarh, on Tuesday.
The bail was granted after Hooda furnished two bonds of Rs 5 lakh each through his counsel.
Alleging a multi-crore scam of prime land in Manesar in Haryana’s realty goldmine district of Gurugram, the CBI, in February this year, filed a chargesheet in the land deal against Hooda, senior bureaucrats and others.
The chargesheet named 34 accused including senior bureaucrats Chhattar Singh, S.S. Dhillon and M.L. Tayal and promoter of Gurgaon-based real estate company ABW Builders, Atul Bansal.
All three officers were powerful principal secretaries to the Chief Minister.
The CBI registered a case against the accused in September 2015 following allegations that private builders, in conspiracy with public servants of the Haryana government, had bought around 400 acres of land from farmers and landowners of Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula villages in Gurugram (then Gurgaon) district at throwaway prices.
The land was valued, at that time, at around Rs 1,600 crore but it was bought by the builders for around Rs 100 crore.
The land was bought in the period from August 2004 to August 2007. The Congress government in Haryana, led by Chief Minister Hooda, remained in power from March 2005 to October 2014.
The CBI alleged that ABW Builders conspired with officers during the tenure of the previous Congress government to purchase the land.
India U-16 football team to play in 4-nation meet
The Indian U-16 football team will face Jordan, Tajikistan and hosts Serbia in May in a four-nation tournament, an exposure meet to accelerate the preparations for the AFC Under-16 Championship later this year, it was announced on Tuesday.
The exposure tournament comes less than a month after the team played against the U-16 National teams of the US and Norway in the Sportchain International Friendlies.
All the exposure tours have been planned to help the team prepare in the best possible fashion for the forthcoming Asia U-16 Championship in Malaysia between September 20 and October 7. This is India’s third qualification to the AFC U-16 in the last four editions.
India have been clubbed with current runners-up Iran, Vietnam and Indonesia in Group C. Both Jordan and Tajikistan have also qualified for the AFC U-16 Finals.
India head Coach Bibiano Fernandes feels it’s a “marvellous opportunity before the real test”.
“This 4-nation tournament is an extremely helpful project for us before the real test in September. It will help us gauge ourselves where we stand against the likes of Jordan, Tajikistan and of course Serbia. It will help us assert the areas which we need to plug in,” he was quoted as saying by a statement from the All Indian Football Federation (AIFF).
Referring to his team’s matches against a strong US and Norway, Bibiano stated the “boys have shown their mettle against them”.
“The US and Norway are much-respected footballing nations. But the boys played their hearts out. They look in good shape and are hungry to achieve more,” he added.
India’s fixtures in the U-16 four-nation tournament in Serbia is as follows:
May 9, 2018: India vs Jordan (IST 1930hrs)
May 11, 2018: Serbia vs India (IST 2230hrs)
May 13, 2018: Tajikistan vs India (IST 1930hrs).