Issue 35

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THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2016

Once mocked by boys, now applauded by men

Chhattisgarh, battleground for BJP and Congress - Page 3

Volume 15 Issue 35

THE

An IIJNM Publication

-Page 4

In this bloody game, guns won’t bring peace

DAILY OBSERVER

Parvathi Benu

EXCLUSIVE “These days, it is Soni Sori who is being discussed more than Bastar and its people. I do not like this.

“There are many women who were tortured like me.

Many are getting raped, many are getting killed. I want people to talk about them and raise the real issues.

“More stories should come out. More voices should be heard. I’m not the only one who fights for their rights.”

Soni Sori believes she is only alive today because the police realise they cannot touch her again.

Five years ago, she was jailed, beaten and, she claims, stones were inserted in her private parts when police tried to silence this slightly built Bastar teacher who speaks up for Adivasi rights in the tribal region of Chhattisgarh.

She believes she is only alive today because the police have realised beating her brought unwelcome attention to the Adivasi plight.

“WhenI was arrested and tortured, the police didn’t know that I was someone who would raise my voice

and fight for justice. Such tortures have happened to umpteen number of Adivasi women many times in the past,” she said.

“They thought even I’m one among them who would keep quiet about this, stay inside her house forever or kill herself.

“They found out that if they hadn’t done something like this to me, the issue wouldn’t have been this serious. They regret doing so and know that attacking me further would create a worse situation. This is why I’m alive,” she said.

Sori, an Adivasi teacher in Bastar, was arrested in 2011, accused of helping Maoists.

The

Indian government claims it is trying to quell a Maoist/ Naxal uprising in the Chhat-

tisgarh region, with Bastar bearing the brunt of clearances and searches.

Many tribal communities – and Adivasis – have been caught up in this. They claim they are being forcibly evicted from their lands so that huge swathes of forest can be cleared for corporate use.

She reportedly underwent a series of attacks by the police. Earlier this year, an acid-like substance was thrown in her face resulting in chemical burns.

Speaking to the Observer, Soni said that things are calm, for the time being.

More forces were sent to the region last week and seven Central Reserve Police Force officers were killed yesterday when the truck they were in hit a land mine in Dantewada, 220 miles south of the capital, Raipur.

The attack was blamed on Naxals.

Commenting on

A decade of doubt: empowerment scheme cannot decipher gender Tanay Sukumar Almost a decade after the launch of a “gender budget” in Karnataka, the state does not collect gender specific data to establish if the schemes actually help women.

Data of beneficiaries and expenditure is not collected separately for men and women, according to a budget official, despite the last CAG audit telling them to do so.

This year’s budget document allocates Rs 66694 crore to gender budget and repeats what was stated in last year’s document: “Lack of sex-disaggregated data is

an impediment to disclosure to be made in the GB (gender budget) document.”

Poor data could be a reason behind poor impact of the budget on women, said policy expert Jyotsna Jha. Only one in five group A government employees is a woman, and the sex ratio fell in 2011 census after five years of a scheme meant to improve it.

Moreover, Jha also observed that skill development schemes under the budget enforce gender stereotypes rather than break them.

Still, the allocations went up by 8.5 per cent this year.

The annual gender budget was first introduced by the government of Karnataka in 2007-08 to address gender-related issues and to

empower women.

Gender and seniority: there’s a connection The percentage of women in the government workforce goes up as seniority goes down: 33 per cent group C employees are women, while the figure is 22 per cent for group A officers.According to the budget document, 3,548 of 15,484 group A employees are women, as compared to 11,936 men. One-fourth of 38,478 group B employees, and 1,39,273 out of 4,23,200 group C workers are women.However, Jha, who is director of the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, said: “It’s a good thing they are at least sharing this data now.”

contd. on page 3

the bomb blast, Soni said: “In the end these are our brothers who are killed, may it be Adivasis or soldiers. It is a pathetic situation.” She added that Naxals and Maoists are still operating freely in the area and they were responsible for the blast.

“Naxals are still strong.

But it is a wrong thing that the Adivasis are tortured in this bloody game”. She said that the term ‘Naxalite’ is being misused in Chhattisgarh to torture the Adivasis and there is hardly any Naxalite arrest.

“The government wants the Adivasis to move out of the forests so that big companies can acquire their land. The poor tribals are being dragged out of their homeland. They are doing it in the pretence of eliminating Naxals from the area.

In the end, the Adivasis are dying. There is a reason for this.

She added that fake encounters are still happening and Adivasis are routinely arrested on fake charges.

“The government is helping everyone who is against the Adivasis. We have seen officers leading these encounters reaching heights very quickly. Who wouldn’t need an easy promotion and a name in government’s good books? Of course they’ll follow the government’s orders.”

Sori said that she had seen and experienced fights from

all sides. “The Chhattisgarh government has tortured and is still torturing our brothers here. I’ve seen how my father was shot at. In fact I was a part of this and my father and I have gone to prison as a part of this.”

“I think guns can never bring peace,” Sori said.

“Only a proper face to face discussion can bring solutions. We need it soon”.

Sori said that despite being tortured by the police, her whole family is with her in this fight. “My family is much tensed. But still they stand strong with me to fight all the issues.

“We know that we’re fighting for the right thing.

We’ll keep fighting. My Adivasi brothers and sisters are killed in front of me every day. I cannot keep quiet. I’ll fight until my last breath”.

She added that problems existed even when Congress was in power in the state. “We all know about Salwa Judung. They too fought against the tribals.

Many people had to leave their houses .But now, the situation has worsened” she added.

She said that she wants Narendra Modi to do his best to bring peace to the state. “People are dying here every day. There are atrocities done against them.

I request the Prime Minister to organise a peaceful discussion to solve the problems here.”

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THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2016

Are television debates constructive?

21st century journalism has changed, accept it Tanay Sukumar

The 21st century format of prime time television debates is often accused of being loud and opinionated journalism, and hence poor.

It is important to understand that this is how journalism has naturally evolved and there should be no going back.

In the interest of conventional journalistic ideals of ‘news, not views’, ‘no editorialization’, and ‘be non-partisan’, the bigger picture still stands: journalism must spark important conversation.The way to do that today is, unfortunately, through being loud and proud.

A television debate that is chaotic and forces interest among viewers, in creative ways, makes sure that people talk about the topic.

Strong views engage viewers, forcing deeper thought than mere news stories would.

These debate shows,

now a regular on all news channels, often involve panellists, a shouting moderator, and a screen space shrieking for attention with equal vigour. Panellists yell at each other, talk about the topic and present arguments.

The moderator usually tries to push the agenda of one particular side of the debate. There are problems in cases where one side does not get adequately represented, but this does not mean the debate is not constructive. These debates compete with a number of other media sources, including the internet, and this is how they are forced to be.

Methods evolve, but ethics or the lack of them remain the same. Bias, lack of fairness and accuracy, and disrespect towards panellists for the opinions they hold: these are still not things that the profession stands for. But it is easy to

see that evolution of mass media has taken us to a point where colourful decibels and pixels are how you get your audience engaged.

The attention span is low, the information overload is mind-boggling, and the luxury of leisure time is gone. In this situation, how does one get an entire generation to talk about things that matter? Loudness and strong editorialization do not remain merely an option, they become a necessity.

This is because like all other things around us, our generation needs opinion delivered on a platter.

In this era, a soft non-partisan television debate with a corrupt politician will neither grab eyeballs nor will it help the public discourse on corruption. It needs an Arnab Goswami to grab the politician by his neck and ask him questions that not only shame him, but also

make the common citizenry feel empowered. Sparking debates and discussions in social circles is becoming increasingly difficult if our media goes back to the quietness of a few decades ago.

We must ask whether the purpose is more important or the process. In today’s times, to achieve its purpose, journalism must turn into activism at times, and leadership at others. Merely “informing” and “entertaining” citizens fulfils an incomplete goal.

The third goal, the most important, that to “educate” masses, is no more easy if the approach remains mild, given the nature of social life today.

Prime-time television debates are just an example of how journalism, like all professions, has adjusted itself to today’s society.

Poor ethics must be criticized, but evolving methods will have to be accepted if they serve the purpose.

In his Oscar-winning 1976 film “Network”, Peter Finch said: “TV is not the truth. It is a goddamn amusement park. It is a circus, a carnival. A travelling group of acrobats, storytellers, lion-tamers, sideshow freaks. We are in the boredom-killing business.”

that the quality of TV news is better. It just means that they give the people what they want.

This is not to say that journalists who work in an audio visual format should not be taken seriously.

Indeed, we find many admirable journalistic minds who work for news channels. The poor quality of debate is, to a great degree, the fault of the nature of the audio visual medium.

It emphasizes the attractive over the sensible. It also facilitates functional illiteracy. In a country like India where even the literate hardly ever read, this is a problem.

Moreover, more time is allotted to advertisements rather than individual speakers on a panel, something that is unique to the medium.

One only needs to take a look at some of the popular news debate shows in the country to guauge the

situation. Arnab Goswami’s “Newshour” debate is one such egregious example.

The show was aptly described as ‘Fox news on steroids’. On it, Goswami is the judge, jury and executioner in his own hyper nationalist world. On your television screen, about a dozen people pop out of little windows with flames threatening to consume them.

Besides, the editorial stances that Times Now has taken are highly questionable, stances that favour the ruling dispensation. Recently, Goswami was even accused of instigating violence against JNU student leaders based on concocted evidence which the channel aired.

Goswami has gone from speaking truth to power to relaying lies to the masses to protect those in power.

As it turns out, it was Zee news which had recorded and allegedly doctored the

video. No wonder then that legendary CBS news reader, Walter Cronkite, once called himself an “opinion moulder”.

A producer on Zee news quit and claimed that the channel had doctored videos and relayed them.

Similarly, just before the BJP came to power, Hindi news channel ABP news programme ‘Ghoshana atra’ allowed Modi to deliver a speech at the end of it. A producer who claimed that the debate was rigged also quit. The same show flayed Congress’ Amarinder Singh for ongress’ complicity in the 1984 anti Sikh riots whilst refusing to pose tough questions to Arun Jaitley (who was to contest from the same parliamentary constituency as Singh).

It would be wise not to get your knowledge from a TV debate. Only reading allows for deeper understanding of complicated subject matters.

Debate is often reduced to drama on the The trouble is that killing boredom requires you idiot box Maqsood Maniyar

dumb yourself down to the point where what you’re doing is not just unproductive but does great harm.

Television news debates are without a doubt the least objective and most sensational form of news there is. The kind of form these ‘debates’ take can hardly even be called news.

News debates in India have taken on a particularly nasty avatar. The fact that TV news is more popular in this country than news in print and multimedia doesn’t necessarily mean

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2016 3

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‘Hare-brained’ elephant plan will not work, say experts Maqsood Maniyar Wildlife experts in the state have condemned the forest minister’s plan to clear 10,000 acres of forest land in Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarhole) Tiger Reserve.

In a meeting convened at the Vidhana Soudha on Tuesday, the forest minister B. Ramantaha Rai, officials of the Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) and state legislators discussed the plan to reduce human-animal conflict in the Mysore and Kodagu region. Destruction of crops by elephants was cited as a problem.

The minister suggested that 10,000 acres of teakwood plantation be cleared and fruit bearing trees be planted in their place. It was argued that other vegetation doesn’t grow beneath the teak trees and that fruit trees will help address the issue of scarcity of food within the forest.

This would, they reckoned, prevent elephants from leaving the forest for food. They said that this would aid efforts such as building trenches and fencing the forests.

Dr. M.D. Madhusudhan, a scientist at the Nature Conservation Foundation, said that it was a har-brained scheme and that some historical context was needed to understand this. “The forest department of today was

set up as the Imperial Forest Department. Their job was to contribute valuable timber for a number of developmental activities.

“So, what they did was they cleared out diverse forests and replaced them with a single species – teak. It was made into a ‘monoculture’. A single species cannot support a diversity of species. For instance, teak constitutes about a third of the Nagarhole forest cover.” He said.

Greenpeace executive director Ravi Chellam concurred with this position. “Once a multi storied forest, the Nagarhole forest was converted into a plantation.

All species suffered a shock.

However, animals adapted to it.

So, many species are going to be using it. Clearing out the teak will have a completely different impact; you cannot predict the impact of such a large scale intervention.”

He panned the forest ministry for approaching the problem in an unscientific manner. “If your diagnosis is faulty, then your solutions will also be faulty. First of all, elephants are not fruit eating animals. They are primarily grass and browse (bark, broken branches and leaves) eating animals. They also eat bamboo which is also a kind of grass. Of course, if they get fruit they’ll eat it. Secondly, you cannot go around planting apples and oranges in a forest. It is an intervention on a massive scale. You cannot predict what will happen if you do.” Chellam said.

He also said that presence of teak was not the lone reason for scarcity of food in the forest.

“The problem is lantana. It is an invasive South American species.

It bears attractive flowers and tasty fruit. Birds spread them.

Our forests are being taken over by lantana. No state authority has tried to rectify this. For example, a bulk of western ghat forests has been taken over by lantana.”

He added that because of this the floor of the forest did not produce much vegetation because of this weed like species.

He also said that the idea that wild animals can be controlled and prevented from entering human habitations is also flawed.

“The whole idea of constructing trenches to keep wild animals

out doesn’t work. They’re wild animals!”

Madhusudhan mooted the idea of restoring diversity of forests in a number of pilot projects over a number of years.

“Restoration is a worthy idea.

Replacing one plantation with another is not. The Minister is no expert on environmental issues.

It is an utterly hare-brained idea,” he said.

He said that wild animals will always be attracted to crops grown by human beings. “It’s not that if animals have enough food in the forest, they’ll not move out for food. The food we grow is very nutritious. There are no poisonous compounds in our food, unlike vegetation in the forest.

It’s like saying if your child is well

fed, he won’t raid the fridge for chocolate. It is intrinsic.”

Chellum said: “The forests are dry. Our farms are well irrigated. Of course, elephants will be drawn to a bite of sugarcane rather than a bite of dry grass.”

However, National Wildlife Board (NWB) member famed for his work on Asiatic elephants, Raman Sukumar, was cautious about commenting on the issue.

“Before I comment on any issue, I like to check with the actual conversation rather than newspaper reports. Any proposed intervention in a forest has to go through multiple statutory bodies before it is implemented.”

He said.The forest minister, B. Ramanatha Rai was unavailable for comment.

A decade of doubt: empowerment scheme cannot decipher gender Contd. from Page 1

Male beneficiaries for women schemes? Quite possible Lack of sex-segregated data has its own issues. Giving the ex-

ample of micro-finance subsidy scheme for women from scheduled castes and tribes, Jha said: “The data for both gender and social group are not recorded to-

gether.

So, even an SC male may be counted as a beneficiary of the scheme under gender budget.

Then there are lending schemes where women are debtors but men are actually using the money.”

Jha said: “There is lack of clarity on whether the schemes are reaching women or not. If one is serious about gender budgeting, there should be sex-based monitoring and evaluation.”

There is no evaluation of schemes from a gender perspective currently. She suggested that it can be done for one or two schemes initially to see if the gender budgeting is working.

Shashikala U. Shetty, the project director of Stree Shakti scheme run by the women and child welfare department, admitted that sex-disaggregated data is still not available. She said: “We are requesting the planning department to provide information with separate columns for men and women from all departments when they give their progress report. Right now, it doesn’t show how many are male beneficiaries and how many are female. We hope to do something about it soon.”

Jha said that reporting should be stronger, and we should know how much money was spent and what was unspent.

Impact on sex ratio?

The Bhagya Lakshmi scheme to improve the sex ratio by depositing money in banks for females until the age of 18, was introduced in 2006-07.

However, five years after its implementation, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group dropped to 943 females per 1000 males in 2011.

The 2001 figure was 946.

The number of beneficiaries has gone down from 4,01,370 girls in 2012-13 to 1,83,351 in 2015-16. Allocation this year went down by 30 per cent to Rs.333.66 crore.

Poor Categorization The budget has schemes classified as categories A and B. While schemes with only women beneficiaries are put under category A, category B schemes have more than 30 per cent female beneficiaries.

“There is lack of clarity on how the categories are decided,” said Jha. She said: “A scheme such as Indira Awaas Yojana has male ben-

eficiaries also, as various studies have shown.

“Still it is classified as category A. Education-based schemes assume that 50 per cent of beneficiaries are girls, which may not be true. These assumptions are not mentioned anywhere.”

Gender stereotypes Vocational education schemes for women often focus on becoming a beautician or tailor, according to Jyotsna Jha. “Gender budget should be used to promote women’s status in society.

“But these schemes are only propagating the existing stereotypes.

“This way, young girls grow up with an idea of beauty which is highly problematic.”

However, she said that these are the more sophisticated points, and the government should at least start by assessing whether schemes are reaching women.

“If you do it in a faulty manner, then it’s more problematic than not doing it,” she said.

Shetty said: “Gender budget is still in preliminary stage, we are trying hard to assess it.”

She added, “How far it is successful, it’s difficult to tell.”

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THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2016

Chhattisgarh, a battleground for BJP and Congress Parvathi Benu BJP alone cannot be blamed for the situation in Chhattisgarh, said Shubhranshu Choudhary, a journalist who helps tribals to connect with the outer world using mobile phones.

“Congress also had bloodied hands in the past. The situation in Chhattisgarh wasn’t different when they were in power,” he said.

Choudhary was in the region a week ago as part of his work with his organisation CG Net-Swara.

“Every party raises the right voice when in opposition. In reality, we live in a non-democratic world,” he said.

“The BJP and Congress are muzzling with each other. Real problems are not addressed. The rich are getting richer and the situation of poor is turning worse,” he said.

He works in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh with a mission of giving voice to the voiceless. His portal works as a communication platform between the tribals and the outer world.

Chaudhary is working in his homeland to drill down the issues of the “poorest of the poor” by exploring the idea of using mobile phones as a platform.

He said that the state has always faced such situations.

He talked about similar threats he had faced in the past.

“Currently, there is no threat against me or Swara.

“But we’ve faced similar situations many times in the past,” he said. “We were thrown out of our office in the past. There were situations where our funding was cut,” he said.

He added that in the past, it was Congress which started the emergency in the nation.

“I was not a child at the time of emergency, but this is one of the worst situations I’ve faced as a journalist,” he said.

Choudhary said that fear is what he can see in the eyes of journalists in Chhattisgarh.”Everyone is worried about the current situation. Journalists are discussing who’ll be arrested next, “he said.

“All are frightened to write anything against the state,” he added.

He also talked about journalists being threatened by an organisation ‘Samajik Ekta Manch.’ They are a self-proclaimed anti-Maoist group, who say they are fighting corruption. “I know a leader of them, Sampath Jha, who is raising threats to many journalists here,” he said.

He also said that many of them are arrested on false charges. “A journalist was even arrested alleging that he encouraged cheating in an exam hall,” he added.

Once mocked by boys, now applauded by men Payal “I was treated like a boy and always wanted to hit the ball as hard as men did. This mindset has helped me become an attacking batsman.”

Bangalore girl Veenaswamy Vanitha now opens the batting for the Indian women’s cricket team, but when she first lifted a bat at the age of 12, she had no idea how to hold it.

The 25-year-old first dreamt of becoming a cricketer when her father took her to join Karnataka Institute of Cricket.

“I used to play cricket on the streets with boys. For the first three years, I was not interested in cricket. I did not like the game because the ball was too hard. But it was my father who was my support and who motivated me.”

If not for her father she would not have been a cricketer today, she said. Playing for the state team made Vanitha realise the worth of cricket. But for this young cricketer, there came a time when she had to make a choice between her academics and the sport that had her newfound interest.

Her grades started falling when she was 14. It was then that her mother forced her to stop playing

Vanitha VR

Vanitha VR, 25, in action during T20 Women World Cup in Australia. the game. But that was not the end for her.

At this point her coach Irfan Sait became her saviour. She remembers him saying to her parents, “I will train your daughter.

Leave her to me.”

That was the turning point for her after which there was no looking back.

This young player saw her first victory at the age of 16 when she was adjudged best batsman of the series in Bengal. She thinks this is her most cherished moment in

life.

Talking about gender discrimination in a male-dominated sport, Vanitha said, “When I started playing cricket, boys used to comment that girls cannot hit a boundary and that this game is not meant for girls, but today, the scenario is far better where we get to see them applauding.”

She remembers the time when she had to travel during state tournaments in trains sitting next to toilets for hours, but today she feels that it was all worth it.

Vanitha lives in C. V. Raman Nagar with her parents and three siblings, an elder brother, and two sisters one elder and younger.

She said, “ My younger sister is very fond of me playing cricket, she makes sure she watches me play on field. All my siblings are extremely proud of me.”

She also said that, at present, the funds that they receive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are far better than what they used to receive.

“The pay that we get is not very

much but it’s sufficient and we are happy about it,” she said.

But she regrets the fact that Indian women’s cricket team lacks good support staff.

“When compared to teams from other countries we lack support staff which I think the board should take care,” she said.

Vanitha is a final year law student and is keen to complete her education as she wants to secure her future.

Her family has been supportive of her career. She said, “My family is my backbone. ” One message that she wants to give to the younger generation who wish to pursue cricket as a profession is: “Fitness is what is important in this sport.

So being physically fit is very crucial.” She also said that the idea of women gaining weight due to sports training activities is a myth.

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