Re: [Assam] From Tehelka

[umesh sharma]

FYI Tehelka has some Hindus too. Others like you perhaps seem to be trying hard as well.

 

 

Happy New Year Mukul-da!!

 

Umesh

mc mahant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

What are the great Hindu intellectuals doing about it?

If you can't-say  ' I give up' and let the"Foreign" Muslims do it .

mm

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From:  umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To:  Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC:  assam@assamnet.org
Subject:  Re: [Assam] From Tehelka
Date:  Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:10:52 +0000 (GMT)

I think Tehelka is doing a great job in highlighting issues which are not being addressed or where problems lie - but it only identifies the symptoms -and offers little diagnosis and no cures.

  

 

  

Umesh 

Ram Sarangapani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  

C'da,

> *** How about a REAL democracy?
> > That is what *MY* dream for Assam envisions.

That is very admirable, and we all want that too. The questions that
arise though would be:

(a) is it feasible

(b) and who, in an independent Assam, will ensure that 'real
democracy' will exist - given that the Indians have taught the
indigenous people all the wrong stuff.

(c) or will this be just a dream and ulimately we will settle for an
India-like 'debased, dysfunctional desi-demokrasy' and life goes

on.

--Ram



On 12/31/05, Chan Mahanta wrote:
> > >C'da, I agree that there are lots of problems in India - specially
> >when we consider the plight of poor people. Would some other system
> >(other than a democracy) work, so that the poor can be brought into
> >the mainstream?
>
>
> *** How about a REAL democracy?
>
> That is what *MY* dream for Assam envisions.
>
> And it would be NOTHING like the debased, dysfunctional desi-demokrasy.
>
>
>
>
>
> At 1:23 PM -0600 12/31/05, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
> >C'da,
> >
> >Tehelka does brings up issues we normally gloss over and these are
> >poignant issues. The numbers are mind-boggling -- '320 million going
> >hungry'.... even for a population of 1.2 billion. It is saddening.
> >
> >But, we have to recognize that India has

come a long way - since the
> >great Bihar famine of '67-'68. Today, the problem with foodgrains is
> >more of a question of mal-distribution and corruption than anything
> >else.
> >
> >Rates of growth may not tell the whole picture, but it is a strong
> >indicator of how things are faring. How else would you quantify
> >progress? By counting how many died of hunger? These numbers thrown in
> >by Tehelka really do not give sources ( except to say from experts).
> >
> >The bottomline though is even with these numbers, some states are
> >better able to cope with such problems than others.
> >
> >>For the hard working, honest, poor people who run the unorganised
> >sector of >India's neo-liberalised cities, and serve elite households
> >as domestic and skilled >workers, it was yet another signal that this
> >democracy does not belong

to them.
> >
> >OK, then are we to assume that this is the basis for the separatist
> >movement in Assam?
> >Are the separatists fighting for the poor and downtroden of Assam (as
> >opposed to the middle and upper classes of Assam).
> >
> >C'da, I agree that there are lots of problems in India - specially
> >when we consider the plight of poor people. Would some other system
> >(other than a democracy) work, so that the poor can be brought into
> >the mainstream?
> >
> >What is the alternate form of Govt?
> >
> >And can those who propose some other form of governance guarantee that
> >there will be no one dying of hunger, that the poor, hardworking will
> >be cared for, and that the rich and powerful DO NOT get all the
> >benefits at the expense of the poor?
> >
> >One would like to get answers for these - be it in

the case of India
> >or an independent Assam.
> >
> >--Ram
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >On 12/30/05, Chan Mahanta wrote:
> >> Try this for growth Ram.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> 5 ISSUES THAT REMAINED BURIED ( Tehelka)
> >>
> >> 1 } RIGHT TO FOOD
> >>
> >> The republic of hunger
> >>
> >> A country that has 70 percent of the population depending upon
> >> agriculture for its livelihood and where rats eat a major portion of
> >> the foodgrain in its overflowing godowns (60 million tonnes last
> >> year), has 320 million people going to bed without food and 10,000
> >> dying of hunger-related pangs every day, as experts point out.
>

>> Ninety-nine percent of adivasi families in Jharkhand and Rajasthan
> >> are facing chronic hunger this year. Also, 2005 hasn't been good for
> >> the farmer, ironically, under the upa regime that claims to stand for
> >> the aam aadmi. At least 250 farmers committed suicide in Yavatmal in
> >> Vidarbha, Maharashtra this year alone. In the past five years the
> >> region has seen 850 suicides by farmers. Ninety-three percent of the
> >> suicides reported were due to overriding debts. Since 1997, 25,000
> >> farmers have committed suicides across India - 4,500 in Andhra
> >> Pradesh alone, while thousands of children have died in
> >> Melghat/Nandurbar in Maharashtra due to malnutrition and absence of
> >> administrative support. The right to food remains elusive for
> >> millions of Indians but the establishment remains as cold-blooded

as
> >> ever.
> >>
> >>
> >> 2 } UNORGANISED WORKERS
> >>
> >> One Gurgaon too many
> >>
> >> They constitute 90 percent of the labour force in India, but they
> >> have no unions, no rights, no social safety nets, no provident fund,
> >> no pension, no job security, no schools or health centres for their
> >> children, no future or hope. Instead, they are the eternal victims of
> > > the latest profit-making ventures of the Indian and mnc fat cats:
> >> retrenchment, contract labour, ad hoc and low wages, mass sacking.
> >> And if they protest, they are brutally assaulted, as the cops did
> >> with the workers in Gurgaon: globalisation's latest glam doll.
> >>
> >>
> >> 3 } STREET KIDS
> >>
> >> Death of a newspaper boy
> >>
>

>> They have black eyes and smiles which spread like sunshine: but their
> >> hands have shrivelled, and so have their bodies, and they are out
> >> there in the cold, homeless, imagined communities of an imagined
> >> homeland. Street kids: they work at the traffic crossings, as child
> >> labourers, ragpickers, hounded by the police, brutalised, packed in
> >> ugly, perverse juvenile homes, even adult prisons, left to die in a
> >> democracy where President Kalam says that the children are the future
> >> of the nation. Which children? Of which country?
> >>
> >>
> >> 4 } FEMALE FOETICIDE
> >>
> >> One by one they went away
> >>
> >> The longing for the male child and scorn for the girl in India has
> >> drastically increased in the last decade, more so in prosperous parts
> >> of the

country. Rich states like Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat, among
> >> others, witnessed a drastic decline in the child sex ratio from 900
> >> girls for every 1000 boys in 1991 to less than 8oo girls in 2001.
> >> Fatehgarh Sahib, a district in Punjab, has the lowest child sex ratio
> >> with 754 girls for every 1,000 boys. In Haryana's Kurukshetra
> >> district, the child sex ratio has fallen from 860 girls to just 770.
> >> In Rajkot, the decline was from 914 in 1991 to 844 in 2001. Posh
> >> southwest Delhi shows an abysmal child sex ratio of less than 845
> >> girls.
> >>
> >> In the last 10 years, 70 districts in 16 states and union
> >> territories have recorded a 50-point plus decline in the sex ratio.
> >> The ratio has gone down to 800 girls for every 1,000 boys.
> >> Amniocentesis, originally intended as a prenatal test, is

now widely
> >> used, illegally, to determine the sex of the foetus and abort it if
> >> it happens to be female. But the medical and political apparatus
> >> doesn't care.
> >>
> >>
> >> 5 } RIGHT TO SHELTER
> >>
> >> It's a rich man's world
> >>
> >> When the Congress-ncp government in Maharashtra tied its laces for
> >> the ridiculously ambitious plan of turning Mumbai into Shanghai,
> >> slums were the first casualty: 90,000 people marooned and their homes
> >> bulldozed. The poor found shelter under the open sky in graveyards
> >> and garbage dumps. When they protested, led by Medha Patkar, they
> >> were brutally crushed. Whenever the question of encroachment on
> >> public land was raised, the poor were targeted, as also in Delhi and
> >> other metros. Hundreds of homes razed

overnight, thousands rendered
> >> homeless in a flash. For the hard working, honest, poor people who
> >> run the unorganised sector of India's neo-liberalised cities, and
> >> serve elite households as domestic and skilled workers, it was yet
> >> another signal that this democracy does not belong to them. Compare
> >> their tragedy with the massive media and political attention for the
> >> 18,000 swanky, illegal structures being demolished in Delhi!
> >>
>

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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackwanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackwanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

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