Volume 15 | Issue 4
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
In class without benches or BRIEFS fans, kids use art to raise funds With deadline a month away, 60 percent guns still unregistered
With less than a month to go until the deadline, the Unique Identity Number scheme has managed to issue tags to just 40 percent of gun owners in Karnataka.
Page 2
Struggle for hike in stipend continues Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors plan to hold a rally on September 9 and 10. KARD protests entered their ninth day today pressing for a hike in their stipend. Naina with her students in the school premises. Some students are playing on stones without footwear
Page 2
Tanay Sukumar
called “Citizens of Tomorrow”, shaiah. “This is same all over We did not expect the turnout Naina’s students were able to the state. If a school wants to be so great.” The students group of nine-year-old raise Rs.2000. They are still more, there are no provisions treat Citizens of Tomorrow as a “company”, and she has also government school stu- preparing some of the ordered for it currently.” “Chalkboxes cost Rs.650 a been giving them lessons in dents is selling their art- paintings. The classroom that Naina month and each room needs business so that they get exwork in exhibitions to raise money for their classroom. teaches in has no benches or one broomstick per month, posed to student leadership. “I wanted to expose the stuMoney that they earn will be fans. “There are just two bulbs which costs anything from used to buy basic necessities for the entire class, and stu- Rs.60 to Rs.100,” said dents to more and more peowhich the classroom lacks, dents get just one set of uni- Yashoda B.K., principal of ple,” said Naina. “I realized my such as floor mats, stationery form from the school,” she Government Kannada English students are very interested in said. Several children do not Medium Primary School, K. P. art, and I love art too, so I deand shoes. Agrahara. “This alone takes up cided to do this. At the exhibiThe project was started by wear shoes to school. “The school has no drinking most of the funds. We would tion, a visitor offered to visit the their teacher, Naina, last month. “The school gets water, TV, fans,” said Vijayaku- need better teaching aids and class to teach kids money Rs.32000 per year from the mari. “We do not have enough projector. For better mainte- management and another volSarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds for teaching aids or car- nance, we need at least Rs.1 unteered for career counselling. The ones who went for funds, which is not enough,” pets for students to sit on. lakh per year,” she said. “Nine of the 27 students par- the exhibition are also putting said Vijayakumari R., principal There is no way to get more ticipated in the first exhibition,” in more effort to learn English of Government Higher Primary funds yet.” There are 259 higher primary said Naina. “We had a sepa- now, after seeing people talk in School, Medahalli, where Naina teaches. “It is possible to schools (classes 1 to 8) and rate stall in that exhibition. Two English.” use funds raised by the kids to 238 lower primary schools of our paintings got sold out. (classes 1 to 5) in the improve infrastructure.” Most of the students in the state, according to K. L. school come from families of Rameshaiah, Deputy Projdaily wage workers and au- ect Coordinator for the torickshaw drivers. In the first Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in art exhibition under the project, Bangalore North. Funding from the SSA depends on the number of rooms and type of school. “Each school up to class 8 which has five or more classrooms gets Rs.20000 as school Paintings prepared by students grant and Rs.12000 as maintenance for the exhibition Students sitting in the classroom without benches grant,” said Rame-
A
Villagers allege illegal cement factory run by corporator K. Somashekhar, a newly-elected councillor in the city, illegally owns a cement factory on agricultural land near Kengeri, according to allegations from villagers in Gangasandra.
Page 3
City Anganwadi centres have poor facilities Out of the total number of Anganwadi centres needed in the city, less than 10% are working and many of those lack basic facilities like toilets and electricity.
Page 4
2 THE OBSERVER
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
With deadline a month away, 60 percent guns still unregistered Regina Gurung A Home Ministry scheme to tag licensed firearms in the state is failing to hit its target. With less than a month to go until the deadline, the Unique Identity Number scheme has managed to issue tags to just 40 percent of gun owners in Karnataka. "Many licensed gun owners may have travelled abroad or may not be present within the timeframe so they will be excused," said Additional Commissioner of Police, B. N. S. Reddy. As of September 8, 2015, 3,883 licensed guns have been registered out of the total 11,248 licensed guns. The program, initiated in March, under Home Ministry’s project of National Database Arms License (NDAL) is operated by a trained staff of five police personnel. The Unique Identity Number (UIN) or Unique Case File (UCF) is a 16-digit and another 13-digit number that is being issued to licensed guns.
Police personnel working on NDAL project in City Armed Reserve Though the scheme is said to be of high importance and will provide transparency and accuracy in licensing weapons, the In-charge Deputy Commis-
sioner of Police Abhishek Goyal said, “To find information on guns even within our department is a hectic task. Even if we do find it why should the
media know?” “The license gun holders do not come up here, we don’t let that happen because we don’t want public queue in the office,
so local police plays an active role,” said Jitendra, a staff working in CAR for 10 years. On August 31, a fourth written order was sent to 110 local police stations by City Armed Reserve giving strict orders to collect information on weapon holders.“ The working staff expects an extension of deadline. The first phase deadline to apply for Unique Identity Numbers for guns was set as October 1 by the Ministry of Home Affairs. For the past few days there has been a glitch in the NDAL website that has slowed down the work. “The updating and introduction of new dialogue boxes in the website could be the reason we cannot access,” said a staff member. The Additional Commissioner of Police is hoping that 90 percent of this program will be completed before deadline. “We will adhere to the deadline set by the Ministry of Home Affairs but reaching target takes time. Deadline is not the end of the process.”
Struggle for hike in stipend continues
Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors during the protests Aparajita Khandelwal Medical services at Victoria Hospital have been affected due to a prolonged strike by doctors, causing inconvenience to patients. Dr. Shali Sohail, a house surgeon at the Victoria Hospital, said, “Our Dean, Dr. Devadass P. K.,has verbally informed us that the OPD will remain open only from 9am to 1pm due to shortage of doctors. We will also be attending on emergency cases and not elective surgeries.” Karnataka Association of Resident Doctors have planned to hold a rally on September 9 and 10. KARD en-
tered the ninth day of protest today demanding a hike in their stipend. About 600 doctors from various hospitals in the state gathered in Victoria Hospital to participate in the protest. Dr. Kalyani Borde, vice-president of KARD said that the resident doctors will hold a rally at 10am tomorrow from Victoria Hospital to Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences and Minto Eye Hospital, among others. September 10 is expected to witness a major rally of 2,500 doctors from BMCRI, KIMS Hubli, VIMS Bellary, MIMS Mandya and MMC Mysore starting from Victoria
Hospital to Freedom Park. The rally will be addressed by the president of KARD and its general secretaries. “Other hospitals have stopped referring patients to BMCRI hospitals because we are unable to treat them”, said Dr. Borde. The striking residents want a hike in their stipend for the post-graduates from 25,000 to 40,000, for the house surgeons from 15,000 to 20,000 and for the super speciality residents from 30,000 to 50,000. The Director of Medical Education called for a meeting late in the evening today to address the issue.
Agitated doctors waiting to be answered
Tuesday, September 8, 2015 3
THE OBSERVER
Corporator-owned cement factory on farmland “illegal” claim villagers
Cement dust powder deposits on crops in the region, damaging the cultivation of Ragi crops Sanskriti Talwar K. Somashekhar, a newlyelected councillor in the city, illegally owns a cement factory on agricultural land near Kengeri, villagers from Gangasandra have alleged. Somashekhar of the Bharatiya Janata Party won the BBMP elections recently from ward number 196, Anjanapura. “He is being supported from the BJP members within the
village Panchayat,” claimed Deepak, a farmer in the village. He said that Somashekhar is a partner in Sri Raghavendra Ready Mix Concrete, which has existed on this one-acre land for the last three years. Construction of factories on agricultural land needs to be approved under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act 1964. “Agricultural land can be converted to non-agricultural land, but there is a procedure for that.
FACT BOX • Maharashtra government has recently hiked the stipend for Anganwadi sevikas and attendants by Rs.950 and Rs.500 respectively. • Of the 2,097 Anganwadis in Bangalore (Urban), 489 operate out of rented buildings. Only 1,134 of the 2,097 anganwadis have toilets on their premises. • The ICDS is also one of the centrally sponsored schemes in which the Centre is looking at changing the funding pattern from 50:50 to 75:25. • A recent ICDS survey found one in four kids at anganwadi centres is malnourished, the Women and Child Development Ministry is planning to revamp its four quality control laboratories for monitoring nutrition level of supplements given to children in the 13.3 lakh centres across the country. • Under ICDS, the Centre provides fifty percent of the total expenditure incurred by state administrations on supplementary nutrition. • Tripura is one among the first states to introduce the state's contribution in the remuneration of the anganwadi
workers and helpers. • The present study reports 80.4 percent AWCs in rural areas and 50.0 percent in urban areas have pucca type of building, which was 63.6 percent and 81.8 percent in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, indicating more developed infrastructure in rural areas compared to urban in the present study. Findings for availability of separate toilet facility in rural (69.6 percent) and urban (35.7 percent) areas in the present study are opposite to findings of Tamil Nadu study again indicating better infrastructure development in rural areas.
Permission from the district officer is required to convert the land for a non-agricultural activity,” said an official of Department of Agriculture, Karnataka. According to villagers, cement production in the village has caused negative impact in the area. “We used to cultivate rice but because of the contamination of soil its quality tends to reduce, affecting the production,” said a farmer in Gangasandra village. High
level of soil contamination and untreated waste water discharged by the factory has affected vegetation. The fine dust powder gets deposited on crops, resulting in poor quality of soil for cultivation due to increase in acid content. “Cement dust covering the fodder crops has resulted in decline in quality of the forage causing a direct impact on the milk production,” said Prashanth, a farmer.
Dr. Anisa Atthar, associate professor in Department of Microbiology at Government Science College said if cement factories are built on agricultural land, then pollutants coming out of factories will restrict the photosynthetic area in plants. She said that due to this, sunlight does not get trapped by leaves because of cement layers on them. This results in nutritional value of the crop getting lost.
Demands met after a day’s protest Rishi Sabharwal The registrar of NIMHANS, who was sacked after just eight weeks in the post, has been reinstated after a staff protest today. The removal of K. Sekhar from his post has sparked a of meetings between staff and management earlier today. K.R. Raju, the Head of the Department, neurophysiology, replaced K. Sekhar, raising questions over why a newly appointed registrar was ousted and if this was a case of
favouritism. J. Murugan, the president of the employees’ association of NIMHANS, held two meetings with the present director of the institute to discuss the future course of action. In the evening, director Satish Chandra agreed to the demands of the staff, and K. Sekhar was reappointed as the registrar. The decision was confirmed by J. Murugan. "K. Sekhar has been reappointed as the registrar, NIMHANS,” he said. “He
has joined office shortly after the meeting." In the first meeting, the problems of the employees were acknowledged, and the director said that he would discuss the matter in the second session. The second session of the meeting started at 3pm and continued for about three hours. The other demands made by the staff, such as promotion of employees, increment in salaries etc. have also been considered, said Murugan.
• Majority of anganwadi workers (AWWs) were educated and working in their respective AWCs for long duration and had also received job training, but only 7.1 percent AWWs in urban areas received induction training. It has been documented that proper training improves AWWs performances, and inadequate training of AWWs may be the reason for poor performance AWCs. • The ICDS recently faced a budgetary cut and its funds were slashed by half, causing outrage among activists.
The Administrative Block of NIMHANS
4 THE OBSERVER
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Children in Anganwadi centres lack basic facilities Tweets of the day
@EconomicTimes .@Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma likely to shift to #Bengaluru http://ow.ly/RRZ3t
Children during their lunch time in Okalipuram Anganwadi centre Payal Gangishetty
O
ut of the total number of Anganwadi centres needed in the city, less than 7 percent are working and many of those lack basic facilities like toilets and electricity. Anganwadi centres provide basic health care facilities to the economically backward children from the age group of six months to six years old and pregnant women. The health care facilities include nutrition’s food which includes milk, breakfast and lunch. Which are run by the Women and Child Development department. “The city requires 26,320 Anganwadi centres to cater to the needs of 4,21,135 children but at present only 2,137 are functioning, that too with lack of facilities,” said Kathiyani Chamraj, Executive Trustee CIVIC, NGO which works for the state anganwadi centres
Bangalore. Only 42.09 percent Anganwadi centres in Karnataka have toilets. In June 2014 the AdvocateGeneral of Karnataka assured the High Court of Karnataka that all anganwadis would have drinking water and toilets by June 2014. But nothing has been done so far. “We are helpless as the centre does not have a toilet,” said Sadguna, Anganwadi teacher in Okalipuram. “Most of the time children urinate on the road, and we cannot send them back to home just to urinate. Once they go they will not come back.” Across the city, Anganwadi
centres are run in rooms of sizes less than 10’ × 15’, often with a kitchen in the same room, said Chamraj. There is no electricity connection either. “Most of the centres are in buildings run by BBMP. Due to failure in payment of electricity bills for one year, electricity was disconnected. Despite many complaints to the union members, no one bothers to listen,” said Laxmiamma, an Anganwadi teacher in N. R. Colony. Chamraj said that due to lack of space for Anganwadis, these centres are operated in rented buildings. In return, they are paid Rs.5000 by the state government to meet the rental
expense. But the state government is making no effort in allocating land to run these centres due to lack of funds. Jyothi , Paediatrician at the Srirampuram Referral hospital, said, “The children of centres in Okalipuram and N. R. Colony often fall ill due to diarrhoea. The food cooked in these centres is unhygienic which often leads to these problems. We get around five to six cases every month of children suffering with diarrhoea. One more reason to it is the quality of water and unhygienic cooking conditions in these centres.”
@The Indian Express #ExpressOpinion Bangalore, missing from smart cities list, has been let down by its leaders http://iexp.in/nQA187234 @ Indian Super League A determined Team India buckles up as they face Iran tonight in the 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifier. #BackTheBlue @TheNewsMinute After Mahesh Babu, actor Prakash Raj adopts #Telangana village http://bit.ly/1XDUH7i @ndtv DNA reports confirm that Indrani Mukerjea is #SheenaBora's biological mother: Mumbai Police Chief Rakesh Maria @bangalore_pulse #Bangalore IMD predicts two more days of rain in City http://tinyurl.com/oadqhad @Firstpost BMC bans sales of meat for 4 days during Jain fasting season, Cong dubs move anti-democratic. http://bit.ly/1XCi01a @Forbes Uber is getting what it wants, wherever it wants.http://onforb.es/1UylHpF @Times Now India will be among lesser impacted economies becuse of the global economic turmoil: Finance Minister
Kathyayini Chamraj, Executive Trustee, Civic, NGO
Okalipuram Anganwadi centre located in municipal corporation building has 51 children
@BDUTT Dear @sabitswaraj link to what you said ‘J&K govt must succeed to prove hindus & muslims can live together and govern.
THE OBSERVER Editor: Reema Mukherjee | News Editor: Prabhpreet Singh Sood | Chief Sub-Editor: Sanskriti Talwar Picture Editor: Sutanu Guha | Sub-Editors: Rajarshi Das, Regina Gurung, Tanay Sukumar Reporters: Payal Gangishetty, Rishi Sabharwal, Sana Husain | Design and Layout: Raina Paul