Ugly truth: Manual scavenging is for real

Neha Lalchandani

New Delhi:





With only two weeks left for the monsoon to hit the city, desilting of drains by civic bodies and land-owning agencies is on at a frenetic pace.In Sultanpuri, 19-year-old Mohit, his shorts rolled up to almost invisibility and shirt open at the neck, jumps down an open manhole and, with the aid of a hoe, proceeds to pull out the muck that has been piling for months. Mohit, a manual scavenger, is working on daily wages to clear the city's underbelly , wading through silt, faeces and sewage without a single protective cover.
Manual scavenging is banned in Delhi, yet there are several others like Mohit, all of whom belong to the schedule caste of Valmikis, who are carrying out this work day-by-day each year, some of them even losing their lives in the process.
The founder of NGO Impasse in Sultanpuri, Ajay Raaj said that most manual scavengers do this work for about two months before monso on, which is when the maximum desilting of drains takes place. “They do this work for Rs 300 per day but get barely half since the contractors keep some of it. Many of them have to pay to get this work. In Sultanpuri, most such workers live in the slums having migrated from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh several years ago,“ he said.
Delhi banned scavenging in 2013, while the Employment of Manual Scavenging and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 prohibits hiring people for manually carrying human excreta and construction or maintenance of dry latrines.Manual scavenging not just includes cleaning of drains, but also septic tanks and insanitary toilets that contain untreated sewage and human waste.
Interestingly, all government agencies claim that manual scavenging is either not taking place at all or there is little taking place, and that too under supervision. Delhi Jal Board said it has moved to mechanised cleaning, while PWD claims it has been using machines with very small drains being cleaned manually. The three municipal corporations say there is negligible manual scavenging.
Delhi government has, thankfully , refused to accept these claims. The urban development department has asked the agencies to map every district, zone and ward for sa nitary toilets to see where septic tanks are still in use.“Almost 50% of the city is not connected to the sewer system, which makes it evident that manual scavenging is still taking place. But we will be able to issue regulatory directions only when we have data,“ said a senior official. “Due to the high cost of ta king a sewer connection, there are still households without toilets. In areas where DJB has sewers, we are going to start a campaign to first motivate people to take up the connection and later force them,“ added the official.
When manual scavenging was not outlawed, safety measures had to be taken before any individual was asked to step into a drain or pit. This included safety harness, gloves, boots, body oil to keep the muck off, among other equipment.
“In the absence of equipment, a common practice is to give cheap alcohol to the labourer who, after consuming it, won't realise the kind of waste he has to wade into,“ said Harnam Singh, former chairperson of Delhi Safai Karamchari Ayog.
“These workers are not gi ven any medical insurance even though their job results in infections and other diseases. There is no monitoring by senior staff. If the work has been allocated to a contractor, it is the responsibility of the government if there is any mishap,“ Singh added.

Source: Times of India, 16-05-2016

UGC to soon notify modified academic performance indicators





The contentious Academic Performance Indicators (API) that had the university teaching community up in arms across the country since 2010 has been modified and made flexible with onus back on teaching while caps on various sub-categories of research have been removed.Also for the first time, student feedback has been introduced. Only students with 75% or more attendance will be able to evaluate their teachers. UGC will shortly notify the modified API. “The existing API despite few amendments in the past was not favourable to teachers who only do teaching and was also resulting in poor quality research and publication in all sorts of academic journals,“ a source said.
In the new API, under the category of teachinglearning evaluation, a teacher will have to annually get 100 points at the level of assistant professor, 90 at the level of associate professor and 80 for professors. Student evaluation has been introduced and the five sub-categories of earlier API has been made into four.
Categories of co-curricular activities and research earlier evaluated together will now be evaluated individually as well as collectively depending on certain factors. Sources said in the earlier API too much subjectivity was involved in case of co-curricular activities with college principals and vice-chancellors often acting as final authority .Now it has been simplified and scores have been reduced. Also, evaluation of these two categories will not be done annually .Even new field of co-curricular activity has been introduced to inculcate value education. The new fields are sports, NSS, NCC, field trips and few others.
In case of research, sub-categories remain the same but cap of minimum score from each sub-category has been removed.For instance, in earlier API a teacher had to get 55% from research paperspublications, 20% from research projects, 10% from research guidance undergraduate dissertations and 15% from training course and conferenceseminars. Now a teacher can score from any sub-category .

Source| The Times of India (Mumbai), May 13 2016, p.17

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=UGC-to-soon-notify-modified-academic-performance-indicators-13052016015015

22 Fake Universities Functioning In Country, reveals HRD Minister

With a total of 22, Uttar Pradesh has recorded the highest number of fake universities functioning in the state, nine, followed by Delhi- five. This was told by the government to the Rajya Sabha. Adding to that, the respective governments have also been asked to initiate action.

Just so that students do not get trapped and duped overseas, Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani has said that her ministry is in the process of writing to Ministry of External Affairs to sought a list of fake universities there.

Apart from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, there are two in West Bengal and one each in Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.

Portals like, “Know Your College” and mobile app detailing about all universities and colleges have been developed in order to safeguard the students from being duped. A system for grievance redressal has also been developed internally said MHRD minister Smriti Irani.

To this effect the minister has also made it clear that the UGC has taken cognizance of the fact that some of these unauthorised universities that have tried to set up off-campus centres have been ordered shut down by UGC.

Bihar
Maithili University/Vishwavidyalaya, Darbhanga, Bihar.

Delhi
Commercial University Ltd., Daryaganj, Delhi.
United Nations University, Delhi.
Vocational University, Delhi.
ADR-Centric Juridical University, ADR House, 8J, Gopala Tower, 25 Rajendra Place, New Delhi – 110 008.
Indian Institute of Science and Engineering, New Delhi.

KarnatakaBadaganvi Sarkar World Open University Education Society, Gokak, Belgaum, Karnataka.

KeralaSt. John’s University, Kishanattam, Kerala.

MaharashtraRaja Arabic University, Nagpur, Maharashtra.

Tamil NaduD.D.B. Sanskrit University, Putur, Trichi, Tamil Nadu.

West BengalIndian Institute of Alternative Medicine, Kolkatta.
Institute of Alternative Medicine and Research,8-A, Diamond Harbour Road, Builtech inn, 2nd Floor, Thakurpurkur, Kolkatta – 700063

Uttar PradeshVaranaseya Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi (UP) Jagatpuri, Delhi.
Mahila Gram Vidyapith/Vishwavidyalaya, (Women’s University) Prayag, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Gandhi Hindi Vidyapith, Prayag, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.
National University of Electro Complex Homeopathy, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose University (Open University), Achaltal, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh Vishwavidyalaya, Kosi Kalan, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.
Maharana Pratap Shiksha Niketan Vishwavidyalaya, Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh.
Indraprastha Shiksha Parishad, Institutional Area,Khoda,Makanpur,Noida Phase-II, Uttar Pradesh.
Gurukul Vishwavidyala, Vridanvan, Uttar Pradesh.

OdishaNababharat Shiksha Parishad, Anupoorna Bhawan, Plot No. 242, Pani Tanki Road,Shaktinagar, Rourkela-769014.

Source: Digital Learning 

Deterioration in Indian political discourse

Both the selection of issues and the choice of language are deeply worrying

Woody Allen once said, “In Beverly Hills, they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.” While this quote is especially applicable to 24x7 news channels in India, it is difficult to claim that the political discourse in the country even outside the television studios is top-notch. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), to put it mildly, have not helped. Kejriwal’s claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faked his educational qualifications and forged his degrees is just the latest example. That the Delhi University has contradicted his claims has had little effect on AAP’s histrionics.

The controversy has thrown up two worrying features of the Indian political discourse. The first is the very shallow nature of the discourse itself. The prime minister’s educational qualification is the last concern on the minds of people after two consecutive years of drought have taken a toll on rural, and consequently national, purchasing power. Alleged corruption in the purchase of helicopters from an Italy-based firm is another area of concern. And there are innumerable other relevant issues if one were to scan the length and breadth of this country.

The second is the kind of language in use. Victims of unsavoury language themselves during the Delhi election campaign of 2015, AAP leaders have been quick to fall for the same cheap political thrill. Cabinet ministers of Delhi have used Twitter to ridicule Modi with “#12thPassModi” and accuse him of being an agent of Inter-Services Intelligence, the rogue intelligence agency of Pakistan. To be fair, AAP has no monopoly on crass language and third-rate political rhetoric. Many specimens in other established parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (think Yogi Adityanath, Giriraj Singh, etc.), behave similarly. The combatants in AAP, however, are led from the very top. Kejriwal has himself, at an earlier instance, called Modi “a coward and a psycopath [sic].”

Top leaders of other parties have also, at various instances, made avoidable comments. At a recent election rally in Kerala, Modi made insinuations about the role of Sonia Gandhi in the helicopter scam on the basis of her Italian origins. While campaigning for the 2007 Gujarat assembly elections, Gandhi had infamously used the phrase “merchants of death” for Modi and his administration. Condemnable as such utterances are, they perhaps can be explained to an extent by the charged atmosphere elections in India generate. However, no explanation can be conceived for a chief minister of an Indian state calling the prime minister of the Union a psychopath.

It is not at all inevitable that political and ideological differences translate into an abject lowering of the discourse and disappearance of interpersonal courtesies. The obituary C. Rajagopalachari wrote weeks after Jawaharlal Nehru’s demise is instructive in this regard. He wrote in Swarajya: “Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important to the nation, eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation, Sri Nehru has suddenly departed from our midst... I have been fighting Sri Nehru all these ten years over what I consider faults in public policies. But I knew all along that he alone could get them corrected.”

Even today, the grand old men of Indian politics such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Somnath Chatterjee and Sharad Pawar are good examples in how not to concede an inch politically to the BJP without resorting to foul language. Even Nitish Kumar, whose ego battles with Modi are well-known, has refused to be drawn into the degree controversy, declaring it to be a “nonissue”. But to learn from them would require Kejriwal to shed the illusion that his politics is superior to that of others in India. It simply is not.

An anecdote from the unpublished memoirs of the late filmmaker J.B.H. Wadia is a fitting note to end on. One particular morning in 1938, Wadia and his wife were surprised to find M.N. Roy, a founding member of Communist Party of India and someone Wadia admired immensely, dressed in “a long flowing dhoti in Bengali style, a kurta and shawl and a cap”. Roy cleared the air: “I am going to pay my respects to Veer Savarkar and I thought I should do it in the fittest manner possible. I am sure the old man will be pleased to see me dressed as a fullfledged Indian rather than a Westernised revolutionary.” Savarkar and Roy were ideologically poles apart. Yet, Wadia suspected that Roy “must have touched [Savarkar’s] feet in the traditional Indian way”.

Should political rivals resort to unseemly language just to score brownie points? Tell us at views@livemint.com

Source: Mintepaper, 13-05-2016

Like Tina

The story of Dabi’s achievement needs to become less heroic, more routine.

That Tina Dabi has topped the civil services examination at age 22 is an extraordinary achievement. Her success is about individual excellence, but it is about more than that. The powerful symbolism of a Dalit girl topping the IAS list must not be ignored. To be sure, her middle-class background — both her parents are engineers — may have relatively insulated her from the social and economic oppression a majority of Dalits in India are forced to endure and eased her pursuit of success. Yet, Dabi’s journey can become a source of inspiration for scores of students from underprivileged castes and communities — to fight prejudice and win against all odds. Symbols have the power to move people, to motivate them to break the limits set by history and society. Symbols can empower communities in unexpected ways. Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar recognised well the potential of symbols and used them astutely to undergird their respective emancipatory visions.

Even as we celebrate the symbolic resonance of Dabi’s achievement, this is also a moment to remind ourselves of the structural constraints that still hold back others like her. Systemic discrimination and institutional infirmities continue to prevent a large section of India’s population from realising its true potential. Despite the long history of social justice movements and constitutional safeguards, caste inequality remains an inescapable reality. Its dominance as a social institution may have diminished over the years, but caste continues to manifest itself as an instrument of power, including in the state’s institutions. The case of Rohith Vemula, who took his own life after what was, by all accounts, a tortuous battle against institutional discrimination, is telling. It was only the latest reminder that there remains a larger battle to be fought against deeply entrenched and routinised prejudices. Solitary success stories, however heartening, become meaningful only when they help build the momentum against the injustice and biases embedded in society. Dabi must not remain the exceptional hero. Her story must help open up greater possibilities of change.

Significantly, the second rank in the UPSC examination has gone to a Kashmiri Muslim. Athar Aamir ul Shafi Khan’s success is a welcome departure from the dominant Kashmir narrative about alienation, violence and oppression. As in the case of Dabi, this country needs many more stories like his.

Source: Indian Express, 13-05-2016

Iranian, Indian Cities Ranked Worst for Air Pollution: WHO

Geneva: Reuters





Geneva: India has four of the 10 cities in the world with the worst air pollution, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.But while WHO experts acknowledge India faces a “huge challenge“, many countries are so bad that they have no monitoring system and cannot be included in its ranking.The dirtiest air was recorded at Zabol in Iran, which suffers from months of dust storms in the summer, and which clocked a so-called PM2.5 measure of 217. The next pair were Indian -Gwalior and Allahabad -followed by Riyadh and Al Jubail in Saudi Arabia, then Patna and Raipur.
India's capital New Delhi was the survey's 11th worst city, measured by the amount of particu-late matter under 2.5 micrograms found in every cubic metre of air. Delhi had an annual average PM2.5 measurement of 122.
Tiny particulate matter can cause lung cancer, strokes and heart disease over the long term, as well as trigger symptoms such as heart attacks that kill more rapidly. The WHO says more than 7 million premature deaths occur every year due to air pollution, 3 million of them due to outdoor air quality.
New Delhi was ranked worst in 2014 with a PM2.5 reading of 153. It has since tried to tackle its toxic air by limiting the use of private cars on the road for short periods. Maria Neira, head of public health, environmental and social determinants of health at the WHO, praised India's government for developing a national plan to deal with the problem when others have been unable to.
“Probably some of the worst cities that are the most polluted ones in the world are not included in our list, just because they are so bad that they do not even have a good system of monitoring of air quality, so it's unfair to compare or give a rank,“ she said.

Source: Economic Times, 13-05-2016

Overcome Pain of Death

ANIL K RAJVANSHI





The soul clings to the body . So, the shedding of lifetime memories at the time of death is painful. That's why the yogic system stresses the liberation of soul so that the painful cycle of birth and death is stopped. Yogis also believe that reduction or elimination of pain would remove the fear of death. A major aim of yoga is to make the body and mind so powerful that pain is either reduced or removed completely .Pain and pleasure are complementary . The intense physical pain is probably an outcome of the body trying to repair itself. This requires intense concentration. All other sensory inputs or thoughts are blocked by the pain sensation.Single-pointed concentration helps in memory removal. So, pain could be one of the key mechanisms of removing or modifying memory . An intense experience can do the same.For example, intense pleasure of love for a chosen deity is the genesis of Bhakti Yoga.
Some yogis claim that pain can be blocked with Kundalini Yoga. Those of us who are not yogis, how can we achieve freedom from pain? Reduction and complete removal of greed brings happiness. Removal of greed can be achieved by cultivating a healthy body and nimble brain via Sanyam.
We should honestly evaluate our actions and should be able to live with them in peace.This act can help in freeing the mind from psychological knots, which can take up a major portion of the memory .Removal of these knots may help make the mind calm and fit for deep thought.