Issue 33

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Activist flays ‘lawless’ govt for attacks on press

Volume 15 Issue 33

THE

An IIJNM Publication

Page 4

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016

State’s infant hunger shame Page 3

DAILY OBSERVER

‘Crucified’ priest story a ‘rumour’ at present: Indian government Irien Joseph The alleged abduction and crucifixion of an Indian priest by ISIS-linked terrorists is yet to be verified, claims the government of India.

Vikas Swarup, Joint Sec-

catholic priest who formerly worked in Bangalore, was reportedly crucified on Good Friday by ISIS terrorists after being abducted on March 4 from a care home in Yemen following the murder of nuns and others working there.

His murder on Good Friday was then “confirmed: at

Father Tom (leftmost) and his family retary & Official Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, said,” There is no confirmation about Fr. Tom’s crucifixion. There are only rumours at present.”

Fr Tom Kuzhunnalil, a

an Easter Vigil Mass in Vienna, Austria, by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, but the Indian government has yet to give any confirmation and the Austrian cardinal has since clarified that he

had based his remarks on media reports.

Fr. Tom was reportedly kidnapped on March 4 by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic State has been in Yemen since March 2015.

ISIS entered Yemen during the ongoing turmoil which saw the resignations of key government officials and the beginning of a civil war last year.

Lijo George, a software engineer in Yemen and also a close friend of father Tom’s, said, “ISIS is not behind this, it is just rumours. If it was ISIS behind the attack, videos would have come out by now.

“A nun who worked with him saw him being kidnapped, with his hands tied behind him and he was taken away in a van.”

Lijo was working in Sana and Fr. Tom and other missionaries used to visit Sana every week for missionary work. Fr Tom and Lijo used to meet regularly and hailed from the same city in Kerala.

Fr. Tom, 56, was allegedly taken by ISIS terrorists

Fund shortage crippling health plan Oindrila Sarkar Almost every government hospital in the state is severely understaffed, according to a report.

Understaffing is so common that hi-tech equipment is lying unused as hospitals do not have trained medics.

National Health Mission statistics show health infrastructure in the state violates Indian Public Health Standards. There is a shortage of 5,723 male workers in the sub-centres of Karnataka, 1,274 female and 1,487 male health assistants in Primary Health Centres (PHCs).

There are far fewer doctors than required. Only 2,089 doctors are available in the

PHCs while there should be at least 2,310. Only 95 of 180 pediatricians are available and only 495 out of 720 specialists are available.

Karnataka has 8,871 of the 9,063 mandatory sub-centres There is a shortage of 192 sub-centres, 181 CHCs, 73 pharmacists and 1,432 lab technicians in PHCs and CHCs. N.R Suresh, Senior Regional Director of the NHM said, “Around 75% of the hospitals are violating the IPHS guidelines in terms of staff, including specialists, nurses and lab technicians.”

NHM was meant to make affordable and quality healthcare available to everyone.

Suresh added: “Shortage of staff is the reason behind high end medical equipment lying unused in government

run hospitals. There are very few skilled technicians to handle them.”

NHM Director for Bengaluru, Sowjanya, said, “We are aware of shortfalls in public health infrastructure. It is because of money allocated to the PHCs and percentage of GDP that India spends on health that conditions are so dismal.”

India’s infant mortality rate is 43.19 deaths per 1,000 births, and life expectancy is 67.8 years.

The HIV prevalence rate in India is 0.3 percent whereas the same figure for Sri lanka is 0.1 percent. Sex ratio in India is skewed at 1.08 males for every female while the island state fares better at 0.96 males per female.

contd. on page 3

during the attack on an old age home in southern Yemen, which was run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in the main southern city of Aden.

Fr. Tom hailed from Palai, Kerala and worked in Bangalore before leaving for Yemen. He belonged to the Salesians’ Bangalore province. He had served as the chaplain in the old people’s home since 2011.

A handwritten account of the attack, purporting to quote the only nun at the home to survive the attack, has been published online and Pope Francis condemned the slaughter – in which ?? people died - in the strongest terms.

Pope Francis said “I was shocked and profoundly saddened to learn of the killing of four Missionaries of Charity and twelve others at the home in the port city of Aden.” He also referred the incident as a ‘diabolical violence’.

The women were all members of Kolkata based Missionaries of Charity. In the

letter, the nun wrote, “Five Ethiopian men came running to the sisters saying ISIS is here to kill them. They were tied up, shot them in the heads and smashed their heads.

“A neighbour saw the attackers put Fr. Tom in their car. They did not find any trace of father anywhere. All the religious articles were smashed and destroyed- our Lady, crucifix, altar, tabernacle, prayer books and Bible.”

Lijo added, “We don’t believe he is crucified.

“The church has given us specific orders not to say anything. The archbishop of Abu Dhabi has made it clear that there has not been a crucifixion.”

A spokesman at Don Bosco province, Bangalore said, “They have no confirmation and they believe that Fr.Tom is alright.”

During the massacre, the attackers killed four Indian nuns, two Yemeni female staff members, eight elderly residents and a guard, according to reports.

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theweeklyobserver.in

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016

Did Modi’s Assam tea comment strike a chord with the voters?

Today, politicians are not so much leaders but products to be sold, and all subtlety has been lost..

Rallies are shameless advertisements and campaigns are built entirely on voters’ weaknesses.

Politics is the marketplace where the clever survive, while the best keep trying to revive.

Politicians, like all other prod-

Crazy, but There are arguments that voters in a can’t deny democracy must not it works be underestimated. But Tanay Sukumar

Sweet and low, Mr.Modi?

Maqsood Maniyar

the same holds true for political campaigns too: the power of a clever campaign and propaganda must not be underestimated.

BJP has been pushing hard to seize power in the upcoming Assam assembly elections. In what has been yet another bizarre overture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been at the forefront of this push. The BJP is going to contest 91 out of 126 assembly seats leaving a minor share for their electoral partners.

These are some of the pearls of wisdom that Modi had to offer a rally in Tinsukhia, “When I was a tea-seller, it was Assam tea I sold which refreshed people; I owe a debt to Assam for that.”

“People of the country have been sipping Assam tea and it has been refreshing them.” Plenty of puns were thrown around in his characteristically exaggerated Hindi speeches.

He was trying to find common ground with the people of Assam.

What better thing to talk about than tea? Praise Assam tea and win over the ‘tea people’.

The attempt was roundly ridiculed on social media. Some people asked if Modi thought that all Assamese people were stupid.

Left leader Brinda Karat came out all guns blazing and blasted Modi for ‘bulldozing’ rights of tea garden workers. She pointed out

ucts, connect with hearts of the consumers – voters – by bringing personal facts to them.

When Narendra Modi goes to Assam, it is not too much of a stretch to imaginethat he will draw connections between his chaiwala“identity” with Assam tea.

But for thosetargeted–the voters – it is new, unexpected, and wonderful. And that’s why it works.

There are arguments that voters in a democracy must not be underestimated. But the same holds true for political campaigns too: the power of a clever campaign and propaganda must not be underestimated.

If voters could be trusted to make informed choices by distinguishing the truth from propaganda, our political campaigns would not still be built around liquor, cash, and communal divide.

Unlike campaigns for most products – which consumers see on TV or in newspapers – political campaigns are built in flesh and blood: right there, within the crowds. This gives them immediate impact.

In a rally, the opinion about the

that tea garden workers are being denied ration under the BJP led union government.

“You have not given the ST status to six tribes, among which one is tea tribe. And you talk about being a chaiwala (tea seller)! You

What better thing to talk about than tea?

Praise Assam tea and win over the ‘tea people’.

The attempt was roundly ridiculed on social media. Some people asked if Modi thought that all Assamese people were stupid.

are far away from the problems of tea garden workers,” she said.

He even went on to claim that he was letting go of a bright ministerial colleague (Sarbananda

leader bounces from one voter to another, and what might not have made sense to them a day earlier, suddenly appeals to their psyche.

It could be Indira Gandhi back in 1971, when she told crowds, “They say Indira Hatao, I say Garibi Hatao” (not verbatim).

Or it could be Donald Trump in 2015, who tells crowds that muslims should not enter America.

The statements change, the leader changes, the audience changes, but the applause remains the same.

If voters could be trusted to make informed choices by distinguishing truth from propaganda, our politics would not still be built around liquor, cash, and communal divide.

Sonowal) to make him chief minister of Assam. In an emotional tone Modi claimed that this will hurt India but benefit Assam and he was willing to make this ‘sacrifice’.

Instead of all this, the Prime Minister could have tried to be genuine in his attempt to strike a chord with the people of the north eastern state.

For one thing, Modi and his party members could have refrained from making use of divisive politics.

The BJP like many other political parties has suggested that it will send the alleged “Illegal Bangladeshi Muslims” packing but give refugee status to Bangladeshi Hindus for supposedly having fled religious persecution.

Also, the BJP has once again allied with the far right party ‘Asom Gana Parishad’ and other controversial separatist groups such as communally inclined ‘Bodo people’s front’ among others.

Modi had done something similar during the general elections by flaunting his OBC (Other Backward Classes) status.

He tried to woo voters in Kerala by dramatically stating that he would make them proud by be-

A political strategist like Narendra Modi, backed by a world-class PR team, knows the pulse of the nation.

He showed this in the intelligent mega-crore campaign, when social media, mainstream international media, the common man on the ground, and even the foreign policies of countries suddenly saw the “architect of the 2002 riots” as the “architect of 21st century India”.

Human psychology is not yet immune to clever advertising campaigns.

When he wanted to appeal to the quintessential Indian common man, Modi was the chaiwala.

For the Assamese people, he is the chaiwala who sold Assam tea.

When he meets sugarcane growers, he might have a story to tell about how his tea tasted bad without the sugar.

But, when he meets the Facebook CEO, will he claim (admit?) that it was Facebook that helped him manipulate the minds of the voters, so that India could see “achchhe din”?

Instead of all this, the Prime Minister could have tried to be genuine in his attempt to strike a chord with the people of the north eastern state. coming an ‘OBC Prime Minister’.

This is a member of the same ‘sangh parivar’ that vehemently opposed the ‘Mandal commission’ which classified several castes and religious groups as OBCs and granted them reservation.

The gestures are superficial and silly at best and in the worst of cases, disingenuous.

If Modi travelled to Darjeeling, he’d say “I used to sell Darjeeling tea”, if he was doing a rally in Coorg , he’d claim that he used to sell Coorg coffee in the same stall.

Modi has to realize that selling the same old tea won’t work. The BJP has a mountain to climb in Assam. They can’t scale it with hollow slogans.

theweeklyobserver.in

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016

State’s infant hunger shame Laxmi Narayani With one in three kids underweight, Karnataka ranks worst among south Indian states in malnourishment.

The state also has the highest number of stillborn babies in India, according to the sample registration survey of 2013, the latest available data.

Legislator R. V. Venkatesh admitted at a discussion today that poor infrastructure in anganwadis leads to malnourishment and disease.

According to policy expert Dr Madhusudan of the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, this is the result of poor government expenditure on child development.

He said: “The government should invest more in child development for healthy childhood.” Despite high malnourishment rates, the Balasanjeevani scheme for such children had only 6477 beneficiaries in 2014-15.

Madhusudan added that while the state aims to reduce infant mortality to single digits by 2020, the current figure is still 28 per 1000 births, according to the national family health survey.

The mortality rate is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Infant mortality rate in rural areas is 39 per 1000 whereas in urban areas, it is 23 per 1000.

In other data in the 2015-16 survey,

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Flagship scheme failing women in state

Karnataka has 36.2 per cent kids with stunted growth, the highest in south India. Also, 17.2 per cent of infants weigh less than the average of 2.5 kg at birth.

Dr Madhusudhan said, “The state health department has come out with Karnataka Child Health Action Plan aimed at ending preventable newborn deaths and achieving single digit infant mortality rate by 2020.”

Nutrition specialist Dr Laxmi Bhavani said, “Child deaths happen every year due to malnourishment.

Anganwadis are taking care of the children aged between 3 and 6 years old but nutritional issues mainly happen between 0 to 3 years.

“The government should concentrate more on diets for both pregnant women and children. Even during pregnancy, the mother faces many health issues.”

According to the NFHS reports 2015-16, three out of five children between six and 59 months in the state are anaemic. The figure for Bengaluru Urban is 52.2 per cent.

R. V. Venkatesh, convenor of Karnataka Legislators Forum for Child Rights, during the discussion on infant young child nutrition and development, said, “The infrastructure facilities in anganwadis are poor and because of that the children are exposed to many diseases such as malaria, dengue and low stamina. No new plans are made for (controlling) malnourishment in the state. We might do it in the next budget.”

Payal Despite funding for five One Stop Crisis Centres in the city only two have actually been set up.

An official from the Women and Child Welfare Department, (DWCD) who declined to be named, said, “We proposed five centres in the city, including in NIMHANS, but due to space constraints we are unable to proceed further.”

One Stop Crisis Centres (OSCC) for women were set up under the Women and Child Development Ministry in 2014 to cater to the needs of women who are victims of rape, domestic violence and sexual assault.

The centres are supposed to provide victims with medical help, counselling and psychological assistance.

The central government sponsored the major flagship program for women in distress and it was inaugurated with much fanfare but has limited awareness, according to counsellors.

There are currently two centres; one at Bowring Hospital which operates for urban population, and another at K.C. General Hospital which operates for the rural population, but people are not aware they exist.

While Urban Bangalore registered 102 cases, rural areas registered 64 cases of rape and sexual assault from November 2014 to December 2015.

Anupama, a counsellor at Kempu Cheluvarajamanni General Hospital, said: “These are not even half of the crime rates that are happening.

“Though we have a helpline, not many are aware of it. This is one reason that many cases go unregistered.”

She added, “An initiative should be taken to spread awareness in higher secondary schools and PU colleges as most of the cases that get registered are below 17 years.”

Hospital staff were unaware about the OSCC centre within the premises and there are no signboards directing one towards these centres.

Margarita Sampath, Deputy Director of South (SICHREM), said, “The concerned authorities should take measures to spread awareness and help women in distress.”

She added, “Sign boards are the first priority that should be taken into consideration to be set up in hospitals.”

Addressing the lack of access for rural women, the official from DWCD said: “Government is planning to set up these centres in taluka hospitals making it easily accessible. Only if the counsellors give us a complaint in writing, then can we take measures to solve the problem.

“We are planning to conduct awareness programmes in coordination with Karnataka State Legal Cell authorities. Brochures are being displayed in the hospitals.

“Another OSCC is coming up shortly at Vani Vilas Hospital.”

These centres were set up under the Nirbhya Fund announced by then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in 2013, following a rape of a medical student in Delhi.

According to the budgetary allocation Rs.37 lakh was given to establish these centres and an addition of Rs.1,000 crore has been proposed in the budget to set up these centres in different parts of the country.

Fund shortage crippling health plan Contd. from Page 1 A single PHC in Karnataka receives annual grants worth Rs.1,75,000 under various schemes.

She added, Sowjanya added: “This is a very small amount to look after the emergency medical requirements of any nature, anywhere.”

But she believes that state and union governments are reexamining health policies. “Even the union and state budgets on health have a different narrative this time,” she added.

The budget allocation to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for 2016-2017 is Rs 39,532.55 crore. The total health expenditure is 1.62% of the whole budget out of which the NHM has a share of less than 1%.

The budget is still far from the Draft National Health Policy, 2015 which envisaged public health expenditure as 2.5% of the budget.

Mallesh M., a researcher from the Institute of Public Health said, “The public health infrastructure

is understaffed and underfinanced - a reason that is forcing many individuals to opt for private hospitals. The funds are directed towards health insurance schemes instead of allocating money to rural and urban primary health services and district hospitals.”

He claimed that insurance schemes ensure growing privatization of health care. “Insurance schemes will only secure one particular type (private) of hospitalized care.” The Union budget gives a health insurance cover of Rs.1 lakh to BPL families and additional Rs.30,000 to the elderly.

The centre has asked the states to share the funding for the country’s main health program to provide basic medical services to millions of poor people under the National Health Mission.

The Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) gives details and specifies the standards of primary health care institutions in India.

A recent CAG report which was made public in January 2016 checked 29 hospitals in Karnataka

found most of the X-ray, ultrasound, treadmill, echocardiogram, scanner and other diagnostic facilities there but not being put to use.

The position of lab technicians lying vacant in the state due to non-appointment.

The audit was done in six district hospitals, six teaching hospitals, two super specialty & 15 general hospitals. Suresh said, “The rise in import duty on medical devices will also make it difficult to import high end equipment.”

The customs department had raised the import duty on medical devices used for surgical, dental and veterinary use, for the Make in India scheme.

According to Directorate of Foreign Trade, more than 75% of the medical equipment are imported. The rise in duty will increase the health care cost making it difficult to deliver high levels of healthcare. Import duty on medical equipment was increased from 5 per cent to 7.5 per cent in February.

By the end of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017), the total

public funding on core health was planned as 1.87 percent of the

GDP. But there has been no increase in expenditure in 2016.

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theweeklyobserver.in

TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016

Activist flays ‘lawless’ govt for attacks on press “It is the Modus Operandi of the Inspector General of Bastar, SRP Kalluri. In 2010, he was posted to Dantewada as the SSP, back then he had unleashed a reign of terror and arrested protesting CPI activists.

Maqsood Maniyar Human rights activist Nandini Sundar says Chattisgarh’s most senior police officer and the government are to blame for recent attacks on journalists.

On, Prabhat Singh, who works for a Hindi language newspaper, was picked up from Dantewada by the police for reportedly ‘posting confrontational material’ on a Whatsapp group.

Singh allegedly called the nspector eneral (IG) of Bastar, SRP Kalluri ‘Kallu mama’, a reference to a gangster in the Hindi movie ‘Satya’.

Singh has been arrested under section 67 of the Information Technology Act. A court has ordered his detention until March 30.

Two other journalists, Malini Subramaniam, a freelancer, and Alok Pratap Putul, of the BBC’s Hindi service, have been forced to flee Bastar, the tribal dominated region in southern Chattisgarh.

Others like Sumaru Nag and Santosh Yadav are in jail.

The region has witnessed a communist insurgency mostly peopled by tribal communities.

Nandini Sundar, a professor of sociology at Delhi University, said, “It is the Modus Operandi of the Inspector General of Bastar, SRP Kalluri. In 2010, he was posted

Nandini Sundar has been vocal about state oppression in Chhattisgarh. to Dantewada as the SSP (Senior Superintendent of Police), back then he had unleashed a reign of terror and arrested protesting CPI (Communist Party of India) activists. They spent two years in jail.”

“He had used the Salwa Judum, a pro government militia to attack activists like Medha Patkar and Swami Agnivesh with stones and heavy rocks. He has been using these so called civil society organizations like Samajik Ekta Manch to attack human rights activists.

So, this Kalluri’s style of operating and partly the decision of the Chattisgarh government to intensify the war.” She added.

Sundar that it has always been

difficult for journalists to cover events but the situation had intensified recently.

“There is now more coverage of the region than there used to be.

This is one of the reasons for the recent crackdown. Journalists like Kamal Shukla have also received death threats.” She said.

She added that this was done to clear the region of all fair observers.

She said that Prabhat Singh’s arrest was a dubious one.

“If I call you a name on a Whatsapp group, it’s hardly a criminal offence.

“The government there has goncrazy. It follows no rule of law, no constitutional procedure. It has

flouted all Supreme Court orders.

It has no right to exist.”

Nandini Sundar, who has visited Bastar on several occasions, had filed a writ in the Supreme Court against Salwa Judum (literally ‘peace march’ in tribal language Gondhi) in 2007.

In response, the 2011 Supreme Court order had said, “The State of Chattisgarh shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the operation of any group, including but not limited to Salwa Judum and Koya Commandos, that in any manner or form seek to take law into private hands, act unconstitutionally or otherwise violate the human rights of any person.”

She also said that the Salwa Judum had been forcing ordinary villagers to ‘surrender’ and they

were being portrayed as naxalites.

“Salwa Judum takes many different forms.

It is mostly about getting non tribal castes and immigrants and mobilizing them to fight against the Naxalites.

So, Salwa Judum members are active in both Samajik Ekta Manch (SEM) and Jan Jagran Abhiyan (JJA).

They have been carrying out fake encounters on a mass scale and rapes. They have been doing it with active police help.” Corroborate.

She criticized the Samajik Ekta Manch, which was instrumental in getting Prabhat Singh arrested.

“Samajik Ekta Manch is a group of non tribal, urban, upper caste men who believe that their right to exploit the adivasis (indigenous people/tribals) was being stopped by the axalites.

They have ties with the police.

They are aggressive, right wing vigilantes.

The Jan Jagran Abhiyan is a police operation but vigilantes are part of it too.”

She added that it was difficult to disarm the Salwa Judum because they had been ‘regularized’ as part of the police force.

“Earlier these vigilantes were labeled as SPOs (Special Police Officers), now they are being called District Police Group (DRG).”

BBMP budget pledges broken before, say wary TG groups Akshaya N.A The transgender community is sceptical about the welfare benefit allotted to them in the BBMP budget.

The BBMP, in its 2016-17 budget, announced that Rs2 crore is to be set aside to provide skill training to the transgender community.

“We are more than happy to see the government taking into consideration our problems.

It is high time that the society stops looking at us as sex workers or labourers,” said Akkai Padmashalli, a transgender activist.

“But the success depends on the proper utilisation of the money,” she added.

Activists and community members allege that various schemes and subsidies announced by the government earlier were only oin papers and there was nothing put into effect.

In 2014, the state government

introduced the country’s first transgender policy that included job generation schemes. It also promised the members an amount of RS 20,000 for setting up their own businesses.

“It is high time that the society stops looking at us as sex workers or labourers.”

- Akkai Padmashali, transgender activist Akkai Padmashali sharing a laugh with Rakshida, another transgender.

Criticising the existing scheme, Swaraj P R, an activist for Praja Rajakiya Vedike, a political platform for the minorities, said, “The government has been handing out the money, but how is a mere sum of Rs 20,000 supposed to ensure a good future to the community. At a time when an apartment lease

charges them lakhs, this small amount can’t help them. The government needs to reconsider the amount.

A minimum amount of Rs1 lakh has to be given to them,” Karnataka has no official data on the numbers of transgender community people. The Minister

of Health, U.T Khader, in 2015 had promised that the official transgender survey will be taken under the health department.

It was announced to ensure the community the right to constitutional rights and access to social entitlements.

However, this has not been im-

plemented to the satisfaction of the transgender community. “The Karnataka government needs to learn from the Kerala model. Not only did the Kerala government successfully complete the survey, they also set up TG Justice Board,” Swaraj added.

Team Observer Editor: Parvathi Benu | News Editor: Aparajita Khandelwal | Chief Sub-Editor: Maqsood Maniyar Sub-Editors: Irien Joseph, Mouli Shree, Sanskriti Talwar | Picture Editor: Akshaya NA