Mining – India
1. Vedanta employees charged after India chimney collapse
2. CBI to probe Andhra mining scam
3. Gold funds give double digit returns
4. Mafia attacks mining squad, three injured
5. Jharkhand government to renew SAIL mining licenses news
6. Orissa session opens to mining scam row
7. Discrepancies in information on mining leases given to Karnataka Minister
8. BJP to go strident on mining, Vedanta issues
9. AIL-NMDC to invest Rs 260 cr in Arki limestone mine
Mining – International
10. Atlas Mining unit makes 12th copper shipment to China
11. In WA, old mining town elects a Muslim mayor
12. Mine infrastructure an 'engineering wonder'
13. BHP chief says big mining will meet demand
Other News
14. NEAA Stays Environmental Clearance of ATHENA POWER PLANT
15. Over 600 million people to get UI cards till 2015: Nilekani
16. Society should take steps to end scavenging: President
17. Unwilling to act- Governments across the country have shown a remarkable reluctance to use the S.C./S.T. Act to protect Dalits from upper-caste violence.
18. Elephants don’t belong in zoos: Central Zoo Authority
Mining – India
Vedanta employees charged after India chimney collapse
• Three arrested at Balco subsidiary power plant
• Project manager among those charged
An activist protesting outside the Vedanta Resources annual meeting. Photograph: Graham Turner
Three officials at a subsidiary of the mining company Vedanta Resourceshave been arrested in India following the collapse of a chimney in one of its power stations which killed 41 people.
The incident occurred in September at Vedanta's Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) power plant in Chhattisgarh, central India, during heavy storms.
After a two-month investigation, local police have arrested Balco's vice-president, who was also the plant's project manager, its associate general manager and a graduate trainee engineer.
The three men have all been charged with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder".
The chimney that collapsed was being constructed for Balco by China's Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp (Sepco) as part of a 1,200 megawatt power plant. Chinese executives and engineers from Sepco were also questioned after the incident but none has been arrested.
However, the police insisted that the investigation is ongoing and more arrests could be made.
A Balco spokesman said the company was "surprised" by the arrests because it had cooperated fully with the police inquiry. "We are still in the process of finding out what happened. The investigation has not been completed," he said.
This is another embarrassment for Vedanta, which is listed on the FTSE100. Another of its subsidiaries, Sesa Goa, is being investigated over allegations of fraud and Vedanta has also faced criticism over its plans to open a bauxite mine in a sacred area of Orissa, eastern India.
A UK government agency recently ruled that Vedanta "did not respect the rights" of Orissa's indigenous people, "did not consider the impact of the construction of the mine on the [tribe's] rights" and "failed to put in place an adequate and timely consultation mechanism".
Vedanta defended its environmental and human rights record, insisting its work has had a positive impact on the lives of 2.5 million villagers in India and Zambia.
Vedanta plans an open-cast mine on Orissa's Niyamgiri mountain.Activists believe the mine will destroy the area's ecosystem and threaten the future of the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh tribe, who depend on the hills for their crops, water and livelihood. The tribe believes the mountain and the surrounding forest to be the sacred home of their god Niyam Raja.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/17/vedanta-inquiry-three-arrested
CBI to probe Andhra mining scam
TNN 18 November 2009, 04:03am IST
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HYDERABAD: The Congress high command on Tuesday decided to take on the powerful Bellary iron ore mining lobby by directing the Andhra Pradesh
government to request for a CBI probe into charges of irregularities, levelled by TDP, in the mining operations by Obulapuram Mining Corporation.
Analysts said that by giving the green signal for the CBI probe, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has shown her determination to prevent the mining lobby from influencing politics in Andhra in the manner that it had played havoc with Karnataka politics. It is also aimed at stemming the agitation launched by opposition TDP in the state, they said.
OMC is owned by Karnataka BJP minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, who along with his brother installed the first BJP government in power in Bangalore, but recently led a rebellion against CM B S Yeddyurappa. Gali was close to late Andhra CM Y S Rajasekhara Reddy as well as his son and Kadapa MP Jaganmohan Reddy.
After Gali held a press conference in Hyderabad last Friday and denied any irregularities in the mining activities of his company, Jagan had scheduled a press meet on Tuesday evening, ostensibly to clarify on the TDP's charges of his involvement in the alleged irregularities.
But according to sources, AICC secretaries K B Krishnamurthy and Praveen Davar contacted the Kadapa MP and told him to call off the press conference as the high command had decided to go for a CBI probe into the allegations of illegal mining by OMC. "The high command called up Andhra CM K Rosaiah around 10.30am and gave the directive," the sources said.
The CM soon summoned chief secretary P Ramakanth Reddy who was taking part in a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee headed by TDP MLA Nagam Janardhan Reddy. "After discussions between the CM and the chief secretary, the state government issued a three-line statement saying that it has decided to ask the Centre to order a CBI probe," the sources said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/CBI-to-probe-Andhra-mining-scam/articleshow/5241575.cms
Gold funds give double digit returns
M Allirajan, TNN 18 November 2009, 02:06am IST
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Topics:
• Returns
• Gold Fund
COIMBATORE: Even as prices of gold continue to scale new highs on a regular basis, gold funds that have their underlying exposure to stocks of
gold mining companies have sizzled delivering double digit returns in 15 days.
They have outperformed most other asset classes in three months and have given 10-12% higher returns than gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) during the period, data shows. The three gold-focused funds' average return of 22.1% in three months is almost equal to the performance top performing equity funds.
While gold ETFs that invest in units of gold closely track the prices of the yellow metal, gold funds have gained more due to the huge increase in profitability of mining companies. "Every increase in gold price improves the bottomline of gold mining companies significantly as the cost base (of these firms) is largely fixed," explains Ruchir N Parekh, fund manager, AIG world gold fund.
For instance, mining firms had net operating cash flows of around $450 per ounce when gold prices were ruling at $900 an ounce, he says. With prices now hovering around $1130 per ounce a large proportion of the incremental increase would go straight into the bottomline
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/Gold-funds-give-double-digit-returns/articleshow/5241437.cms
Mafia attacks mining squad, three injured
TNN 17 November 2009, 10:18pm IST
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|KEONJHAR: Officials of the special mining squad, constituted to track ore mafia, were attacked on Monday night in the Thakurani reserve forest
area close to the Jharkhand border.
The incident took place at Thakurani hill, about 80 km from here. Three members of the squad were injured. They are mining inspector Somendra Das, Satyabrata Rout and checkgate clerk Sukanta Behera. They have been admitted to the Central hospital, Joda.
Official sources said, Badbil police went to the spot for verification and inquiry, but no one has been arrested. "The exact nature of attack would be known after the police team returns," N D Sethy of Badbil police station said.
Official sources said, the squad detected about 550 tonne of iron ore near Tankurani reserve forest during the day time but could not transport it. They went there in the night when the smugglers were trying to transport the illegally mined ores and were attacked.
Though the squad went in three jeeps with one loaded with armed forces, they could do nothing much to keep the mafia at bay. The miscreants fled the place in about 20 motorcycles, sources said even as the force opened about 16 rounds of fire. "The gangsters also fired at the squad," sources said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Mafia-attacks-mining-squad-three-injured-/articleshow/5240748.cms
Jharkhand government to renew SAIL mining licenses news
18 November 2009
Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has achieved a breakthrough in the Chiria iron ore mines row with Jharkhand today recognising and agreeing to renew the mining leases to meet the company's current needs.
In the last couple of years the state government's refusal to renew the mining leases had thrown the race for Chiria wide open with global steel majors like ArcelorMittal eyeing a piece of the action in the area.
SAIL holds 10 mining leases in the area. These have an estimated two billion tonne (bt) of good quality ore.
''The state government has written to us on this. They have recently decided in-principle to renew lease on Gudaburu mines, which contain 810 million tonnes (mt) of iron ore reserves. They have also deceided to identify another 200 mt of reserves for lease renewal,'' SAIL chairman SK Roongta said in Kolkata on the sidelines of a national manufacturing symposium organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata.
Roongta has gone on record with claims of having written assurance from the state government on renewal of mining leases in Chiria.
When taken together the two reserves have around one billion tonne of ore which would serve the current iron ore needs of SAIL. Chiria mines were under the Burnpur-based Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO) later taken over by SAIL and renamed IISCO Steel Plant.
Roongta said another one billion tonnes would be likely to be made available to its future needs.
SAIL operates one of its largest steel plants at Bokaro. The capacity of the plant is under expansion from 5 to 7 mt. The company has also indicated plans to put up a greenfield unit in the state with a planned steel making capacity of upto 12 mt.
The developments will formalise an agreement of 2006-07 between the company and the state government under which it had promised to renew SAIL's mining leases on reserves of one billion tonnes. The Jharkhand government, on its part had also agreed to renew leases on the remaining amount of another one billion tonne, subject to the company's planning to invest in new steel making capacity in the state.
http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_s/Steel_Authority/20091118_jharkhand_government.html
Orissa session opens to mining scam row
Submitted by Sarthak Gupta on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 08:10.
The issue of illegalmining has taken centrestage in Orissa’s politics with the opposition preparing to corner Chief Minister Navin Patnaik on the alleged scam, when the winter session of thestate assembly begins on Wednesday.
Even as vigilance officials continue to raid mine operators, the scam — which surfaced in June and allegedly runs into thousands of crores of rupees — is hurting Patnaik’s image of being a clean politician. It has also given common ground to opposition parties — both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party — to take on the ruling Biju Janata Dal.
In a petition to the Supreme Court, Rabi Das, convenor of the civil society group Jan Sammelani, has alleged that valuable minerals including
iron ore, coal and manganese ore worth Rs 7,000 crore (Rs. 70 billion) are being smuggled out of Orissa every year. After the scandal came to light, the government launched a crackdown on illegal mining in the state in July.
Till October, 644 mining trading licences had been scrutinised. Of these, 482 licences were suspended owing to lack of legal documents.
Orissa Mines Minister Raghunath Mohanty told Hindustan Times: “The government has stopped work in more than 100 mines.” Anup Kumar Pattnaik, director, state vigilance department, said: “We have found several irregularities in the mines.” So far, 17 cases have been registered against mine operators, including the state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation. On November 6, the Supreme Court appointed a central-empowered-committee to probe themining scam and submit a report within six weeks.
Illegal mining can be carried out in three ways. First, if a firm continues mining after the lease has expired; by mining more than what has been sanctioned and finally, through excessivemining beyond the originally earmarked area.
Illegal mining has flourished even as the demand for minerals, especially iron ore, peaked in the world market. Shockingly, the bureaucracy in the state and the Centre has known about these activities for a long time.
A January 4, 2006 letter from the joint secretary to the Union government to the director ofmines, Orissa, expressed concern over numerous renewal mining lease applications pending with the state government.
On September 29, 2003 the deputy director of mines at Joda in Keonjhar district wrote to director of mines, saying that the state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) continuedmining on
1011 hectares despite expiry of its lease 10 years ago. Smuggled minerals from Orissa were allegedly bought by industries in the country as well as abroad.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Orissa BJP chief Suresh Pujari.
“We demand a CBI probe into the affair.”
A survey by Jan Sammelani revealed that at least 155 mine operators, including some national steel majors and even the state-owned OMC, continued mining after the expiry of their leases.
A mine operator whose lease-renewal application is pending with the state government can apply to the central government for a temporary mining order, subject to clearance from the Union ministry of forest and environment. Not a single mine operator has applied for it.
http://www.topnews.in/orissa-session-opens-mining-scam-row-2237464
Discrepancies in information on mining leases given to Karnataka Minister
S. Nagesh Kumar
Supreme Court panel seeks views of A.P. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests
HYDERABAD: A Central Empowered Committee (on Environment and Forests) of the Supreme Court has found certain “prima facie” discrepancies in the information furnished by Andhra Pradesh on the actual extent of the three mines given in lease to iron ore companies owned by Karnataka Tourism Minister Gali Janardhana Reddy.
The boundaries of the mines shown in the Survey Report are prima faciedifferent from the sketches on the approved mining leases, the committee said in a communication sent to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests on Friday. A copy of it is available with The Hindu.
In 2001, Mr. Reddy’s family was given leases of three mines, measuring 25.98, 39.50 and 68.5 hectares at Obulapuram and H. Siddapuram villages in Anantapur district. Following the Telugu Desam Party’s allegations that Mr. Reddy’s firms had encroached on land beyond the leased area, the then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy appointed a Survey Committee, which gave a clean chit to the companies.
The Empowered Committee significantly concluded that “if the village boundary as drawn by the State-level Committee is taken to be correct, at least one mining lease overlaps into two other mining leases. In other words, the combined sketch map of mining leases does not tally with the individual mining lease sketches,” the letter said and sought specific observations from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests.
The official was also asked to submit copies of the show-cause notices issued by the Anantapur Divisional Forest Officer. (DFO Kallol Biswas on October 28 served notices on the Obulapuram Mining Company for suspending its mining licences and subsequently received threats in person). Further, the Empowered Committee wanted copies of the sketch map of the five mines prepared by the Forest Department on the basis of the village boundary as demarcated by the Survey Committee, besides the sketch map of the sanctioned mining leases.
The five mining leases are a reference to the two given to the OMC, one to the Anantapur Mining Corporation, all owned by Mr. Reddy’s family, and the remaining two in the names of Bellary Iron Ore Co. Pvt. Ltd (BIOP) and Y. Mahabaleswarappa & Sons respectively.
The TDP has alleged that the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka governments had surrendered to the ‘mining mafia’, in a reference to Mr. Janardhana Reddy, while loyalists of Congress MP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy accused that party of dancing to the tunes of S.K. Modi, owner of BIOP. (The Central Empowered Committee was constituted under Section 3 of the Environment Protection Act on a direction from the Supreme Court in May 2002 in connection with two writ petitions to save India’s forests and wildlife.)
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/15/stories/2009111557230100.htm
BJP to go strident on mining, Vedanta issues
BJD Legislature Party meeting in progress under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
Express News Service
First Published : 18 Nov 2009 04:05:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 18 Nov 2009 07:58:23 AM IST
BHUBANESWAR: The BJP will raise four burning issues in the winter session of the Assembly to corner the ruling BJD.
The string of suicides by the farmers during the last two months, the multi-crore mining scam and the reluctance of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to order a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into it, handing over of land near Puri at a throwaway price for the proposed Vedanta University and deteriorating law and order situation including Balangir violence triggered by death of a student.
The meeting of the BJP Legislature Party presided over by its leader KV Singhdeo criticised the State Government for having no policy to extend support to the farmers who are committing suicide because of crop loss and caterpillars.
Singhdeo described the situation as unprecedented as 28 farmers have so far committed suicide. Instead of taking steps to save the situation, the State Government is making frivolous statements criticising the Opposition.
Statements like ‘Opposition is playing politics over the bodies of farmers is absurd,’ he said.
The BJP will raise the mining scam demanding a CBI probe into it. The Vigilance probe ordered by the Chief Minister is only an eyewash and is meant to protect the ruling party politicians. Besides, the party will also demand scrapping of the MoU signed between Vedanta Resources and the State Government to set up a university.
A national fact-finding team had visited Keonjhar and Puri to take stock of the situation. Five BJP MLAs and Independent MLA from Nilgiri Pratap Chandra Sarangi attended the meeting. Manoj Pradhan, the MLA from Kandhamal could not attend as he will be available tomorrow after the court process.
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=BJP+to+go+strident+on+mining,+Vedanta+issues&artid=1lI4tf36UEY=&SectionID=mvKkT3vj5ZA=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=nUFeEOBkuKw=&SEO=
AIL-NMDC to invest Rs 260 cr in Arki limestone mine
NEW DELHI: State-run steel producer SAIL and mining major NMDC will invest Rs 260 crore in developing the Arki limestone reserves in Himachal Pradesh.
The two PSUs today entered into a joint venture agreement aimed at starting production from the 100-million tonnes reserves in next three years. “The companies will together invest Rs 260 crore in development of the mines,'' Steel Minister Virbhadra Sin gh told reporters here.
Giving details, NMDC Chairman Rama Som said that the modalities of the joint venture will be worked out and a “task force for the purpose has been set up.''
“In three years time, we will aim to produce two million tonnes of limestone per annum from the reserves,'' he added. Arki reserves are rich in steel-grade limestone used in steel making. SAIL, being the joint venture partner, will have the right over t he limestone lumps produced from the mines, which will minimise its dependence on imports of the mineral.
“At present we require 1.6 million tonnes of limestone. We meet the requirement domestically as well as through imports. With our ongoing capacity expansion, the limestone requirement is pegged to go to 3 million tonnes in next few years,'' SAIL Chairman S K Roongta said. However, he maintained that SAIL would keep the “option open'' to import limestone which will heavily depend on the "freight rates.'' - PTI
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/blnus/03161805.htm
Mining – International
Atlas Mining unit makes 12th copper shipment to China
________________________________________
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 11/18/2009 2:51 PM
MANILA - Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. said its subsidiary has successfully loaded its 12th shipment of copper concentrates from the Toledo mine in Cebu.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Atlas Mining said Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC) shipped about 5,462.058 wet metric tons (wmt) of copper concentrates to Qingdao, China last November 15.
"The concentrates which were loaded on board M/V VSG Dream destined for Qingdao, China were consigned, through CCC's offtaker MRI Trading, to Yanggu Xingguang Copper Co. Ltd. of Shandong Province in China," Atlas Mining said.
The shipment contains about 28.48% copper, 2.83 grams of gold per dry metric ton (dmt), and 27.77 grams of silver per dmt. Atlas Mining said the latest shipment is worth over $9 million.
Since it started production late last year, Atlas Mining said CCC has already exported about 58,850.921 dmt of copper concentrates to China, which contain approximately 38.01 million pounds of copper.
"Milling performance has significantly improved with the recommissioning this month of Ball Mill No. 1 which was shut down on August 20, 2009 for repair work. Mill capacity is expected to reach 42,000 tons per day by the early part of 2010 upon the commissioning of CCC's Ball Mill No. 7," Atlas Mining said.
as of 11/18/2009 2:52 PM
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/11/18/09/atlas-mining-unit-makes-12th-copper-shipment-china
In WA, old mining town elects a Muslim mayor
By MANUEL VALDES (AP) – 10 hours ago
GRANITE FALLS, Wash. — Granite Falls residents are suspicious of any newcomers, let alone a Muslim native of Pakistan who moved to this rugged, blue-collar mining town to open his own bar.
But 54-year-old Haroon Saleem has thrived, winning over the town with hard work and an easy smile. He has become so popular that, on Nov. 3, he won the mayor's job in a landslide, getting 61 percent of the more than 800 votes cast — a result that residents say would have been inconceivable not long ago.
"In the old Granite Falls, there were no minorities. It was a rough, rough, logging town. Any outsider, whether a minority or somebody from Everett, was the same. It was very difficult to be accepted in this town," said Sharon Ashton, a close confidant of Saleem.
Saleem said he was nervous about being accepted, and hired a white assistant manager to ease local concerns when he opened his bar in 2000.
"I was kind of scared, you know," he says.
But he was embraced virtually from the start.
"That tells you how good and great of a community Granite Falls is," he says with a slight accent. "They didn't care ... I am who I am, and people love me for that, and I just love people. People know that I am smart, I am a businessman. In the big scheme of things, all these qualities have made me, got me to where I am today."
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saleem said community members reached out, letting him know he was one of them. No one seems to notice that his wife, Bushra, attends social events in a traditional shalwar dress.
Perhaps it helps that he owns one of the local watering holes, Saleem laughs. He admits that running the Timberline Cafe, with beer ads plastered everywhere, is not exactly a pious following of Islam, which forbids alcohol consumption. But Saleem's story isn't typical.
He emigrated from Rawalpindi, a city next to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital — where his father's business tanked and family feuds were a constant worry — to work in Iran as a seaman and then to the U.S. in 1979 on a visitor visa. When the visa expired, he decided to risk staying in the country.
In Los Angeles, Saleem made a living driving cabs — a time, he says, in which he struggled with a gambling problem. While living in San Francisco, he married a girlfriend, then fled after immigration authorities moved to expel him. They divorced soon after.
In the 1980s, he was granted amnesty. He looked at restaurant management as a way to turn his life around. He also accepted an arranged marriage, and now has an 11-year-old daughter. For years, he worked at Jack in the Box and Shari's restaurants before deciding to open his own place. He found a quaint saloon in Granite Falls, and says he fell in love with this old mining town after years hustling in big cities. He has found his niche.
In his cluttered office in the back, Saleem is still being congratulated by employees and patrons days after his election victory.
His challenges as new mayor are just beginning. Rolling Stone magazine in 2003 labeled Granite Falls as a methamphetamine town, an image that lingers. There are tense relations between Saleem and the police chief. Just this past week, local TV news crews descended after the fire chief was accused of drinking on the job.
And, despite his popularity at the ballot box, not everyone is a fan of the balding man with a graying mustache.
Supporters of the defeated mayor, Lyle Romack, contend Saleem ran a dirty campaign and question his integrity, pointing to liquor board citations at his saloon and his time living as an illegal immigrant.
"I'm extremely disappointed by the decisions he's made in the past that don't reflect good character to me, doesn't reflect good character to our government," says Debbie Taylor, a former city council member.
A Web site called anybodybutsaleem.com went up during the election campaign. It put emphasis on the fact that Saleem lists his name as Sheikh H. Saleem in business licenses and court documents. Sheikh means 'chief' in Arabic, and it is a common surname for males.
"Why would you not use your real name?" the site says. After the election, the home page read: "OMG! What have we done?"
An administrator who runs the Web site declined to comment.
Saleem said he didn't mind the attacks, calling the attention to his name the "only thing they could come up with."
Barbara Webster, who runs a hair salon near Saleem's bar, sees him as someone who wants to help small businesses like hers.
"He's always really been kind to me. I really didn't think of him as being Muslim. Some of the people in town — some of the older people in town — probably do, but I think for the most part, he overcame that," Webster said.
"To minorities, America's a great place, you can achieve whatever you want to. That's the American dream. That's why millions of people have come here and want to come here," Saleem says.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gl0Vj3_wOeua66V58NNs_q0sSb6AD9C1JGP81
Mine infrastructure an 'engineering wonder'
By Meera Nambiar and Paul Robinson
Posted Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:06am AEDT
• Map: Mount Isa 4825
Mining giant Xstrata's Mount Isa Mines has been included in the top 10 engineering projects of Queensland's 150-year history.
The mine, in the state's north-west, will be featured in the Engineers Australia's Engineering Wonders of Queensland publication.
Engineers Australia says Mount Isa Mines pioneered some of the first mining and processing practices used in the country, with many of the technologies being adopted across the world.
The Bowen Basin coal mine infrastructure and industry in Gladstone will also be featured in the publication.
Engineers Australia says central Queensland has world-class mines and infrastructure including electrified rail lines to transport coal to markets.
It says Gladstone has a reputation as Australia's economic powerhouse, with the second largest alumina refinery in the world, Australia's biggest aluminium smelter and the nation's largest power station.
Engineers Australia says Gladstone also has one of Australia's most substantial and sophisticated ports in the nation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745882.htm?section=business
BHP chief says big mining will meet demand
By Peter Smith in Sydney
Published: November 18 2009 08:45 | Last updated: November 18 2009 08:45
Marius Kloppers said the big mining houses had the capacity to meet the world’s rising demand for fuels and ores in the coming decades in a speech where he also sought to downplay fears expressed by industrialising nations over “resources security”.
But the BHP Billiton chief executive also underlined the scale of demand expected from fast-developing nations when he said China alone may require five times as much iron ore in the next 15 years as it had in the past 15 years. By 2030, China would have more than 220 cities with populations above 1m people, Mr Kloppers said.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Lex: Rio / BHP - Nov-18
Iron ore’s rise strengthens miners’ hand - Nov-10
Interactive feature: Iron ore pricing war - Oct-15
Eurofer statement - Nov-18
Australia says China extends Rio probe - Nov-12
BHP, the world’s biggest mining group, and Rio Tinto, its Anglo-Australian rival, are working to a December 5 deadline to agree an iron ore joint venture production company that would pool both groups’ operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The venture, which would dominate the global iron ore industry, is opposed by steelmakers in China, Japan and Europe that argue it would restrict competition. The European Commission is expected to be the most significant regulatory obstacle to the joint venture.
Mr Kloppers said that between now and 2025, China may require 18bn-25bn tonnes of iron ore to make steel, compared with about 5bn tonnes in the past 15 years.
“Companies like BHP, and many of our competitors, have deep commitments to delivering resources for which we are contracted,” he said.
He said Japan’s economic rise provided a lesson to other countries because it too had fears about securing its natural resources needs. “In time, and on the basis of experience, Japan came to trust markets to deliver the raw materials it needed,” he said.
Mr Kloppers also highlighted the deficiencies of the annual iron ore negotiations to set a benchmark price, which ended in acrimony earlier this year when the large mining groups refused to give Chinese steelmakers bigger price cuts than had already been agreed with other steelmakers.
In contrast, he said the price setting mechanism for exchange traded commodities was “very transparent, accessible to multiple parties and fully reflects global supply and demand dynamics”.
“Commercial market mechanism will ensure that developing nations’ raw material demand is met, that suppliers obtain sufficient investment to meet demand and that new deposits of raw materials are discovered,” he said.
Australia’s mining sector is expected to benefit materially from rising demand from Asia, led by China.
Including indirect effects on other sectors, Australia’s mining sector accounts for about 18 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
“Beyond this colossal size, the mining sector is growing at almost twice the rate as the rest of the economy,” Mr Kloppers said.
He added that export revenue from the mining and oil and gas sectors would surpass the A$100bn mark for the first time in 2009.
“And this at a time of demand slowdown and falling prices across commodity markets,” he said.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fa398e66-d418-11de-990c-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Other News
NEAA Stays Environmental Clearance of ATHENA POWER PLANT
The National Environment Appellate Authority today (17-11-2009) stayed the Environment Clearance granted to the 1200 MW Athena Thermal Power Plant at Raigarh, Chattisgarh. The decision came as a result of the Appeal filed by Ramesh Aggarwal and the "Villagers of Singhatarai" who challenged the environmental clearance on the ground that the Ministry of Environment and Forest approved the project without considering the fact that the Public Hearing was cancelled by the chairperson in view of the documents not being made available to the affected public and the procedure as contemplated in the EIA Notification was not followed. There was nothing on record to show that the Expert Appraisal committee of the MoEF took note of the concerns expressed by the people and even took note of the decision of the chairperson (additional Collector) to declare the hearing null and void.
The lone member of the NEAA, J.C Kala went through the video recording of the Public Hearing for over an hour which was provided by the Appellants and was convinced that there was discrepancy in what was recorded in the minutes of the public hearing and what was spoken in public by the Collector. The video recording clearly showed large scale opposition of the public to the project.
The Expert Appriasal Committee has been directed to look into the public hearing proceedings and take a decision. The NEAA stated that the Environmental Clearance could not have been granted without following the due procedure prescribed in the EIA Notification, 2006.
Soruce : The Access Initiative (TAI India)
Over 600 million people to get UI cards till 2015: Nilekani
PTI 17 November 2009, 07:42pm IST
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PATNA: Over 600 million people will get their Unique Identification cards within the next five and a half years, Chairman of Unique
Identification Authority of India Nandan Nilekani said on Tuesday.
Nilekani, after his meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, said the work for the UI cards will start in Bihar somewhere between August and December, 2010.
Kumar asked Nilekani to ensure preparations of the cards in the state at the time of festivals like Chhath, Holi, Diwali and Eid to ensure that more people are covered as the migrants return home during these festivities.
The chief minister said that the E-shakti scheme will be introduced in other parts of the state. It will help in weeding out corruption in implementing NREGA, he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Over-600-million-people-to-get-UI-cards-till-2015-Nilekani/articleshow/5240390.cms
Society should take steps to end scavenging: President
Updated on Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 18:44 ISTTags:President, scavenging, society
New Delhi: Lamenting that scavenging is still prevalent in some parts of the country despite a ban on it, President Pratibha Patil on Tuesday said society should take stern steps to end this inhuman practice.
"It is sad that scavenging is still prevalent in some parts of the country while it is legally banned. Society should take stern steps to end this inhuman practice so that an ideal society could be formed," she said.
Patil was addressing a programme organised here by the Rural Development Ministry to honour block panchayat presidents and district panchayat presidents for their contribution in making their villages "open-defecation free".
Twenty eight block panchayat presidents and 2 district panchayat presidents received Nirlam Gram Puraskar 2009 from Patil. Rural Development Minister CP Joshi, Ministers of State for Rural Development, Agatha Sangma and Pradeep Kumar Jain Aditya were also present.
Patil said to end the practice of scavenging, proper arrangements should be made for the rehabilitation of those engaged in the unclean occupation in a time bound manner.
Patil said the role of women in villages should be given utmost priority in the total sanitation campaign as providing facility of toilets to them would help in boosting their self-respect and honour.
"I want that self-help groups of women, Anganbaris and other women organisations pay special attention towards cleanliness of their villages and become part of the (total sanitation) campaign," Patil said.
Patil said proper toilet facility should necessarily be made available to school children and residents of Anganbaris.
"It is often seen that girls stop going to schools because of the non-availability of toilets. We should pay attention to this," she said.
Noting that Sikkim has already reached the target of total sanitation, Patil said it was an example that should be followed by other states.
Patil appreciated the work being done by Sulabh International and other similar organisations across the country and said total sanitation campaign is a kind of programme which requires peoples' active participation.
Listing the various rural development schemes including NREGA being run by the government, Patil said, people should not remain a spectator to development but actively ensure their participation in it.
She said Panchayati Raj Institutions can play an important role in successful implementation of all rural development schemes as they are in direct contact with the people and understand their problems and priorities better.
Bureau Report
http://www.zeenews.com/news579789.html
Unwilling to act
Governments across the country have shown a remarkable reluctance to use the S.C./S.T. Act to protect Dalits from upper-caste violence.
VIVEK BENDRE
Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange. Four members of his family, including two women, were hacked to death in September 2006. In September 2008, six persons were awarded the death sentence in the case, but their appeal is pending in the Bombay High Court.
GROWING UNEASE
By Lyla Bavadam in Mumbai
ATROCITIES against the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes registered a steady rise in Maharashtra from 890 cases in 1999 to 1,385 cases in 2007, the latest year for which government statistics are available. In 1995, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance promised to repeal the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, if voted to power. The reasoning was that it was a hindrance to communal harmony. One of the first moves of the Sena-BJP government (1995-2000) was to withdraw more than 1,000 cases registered under the Act, saying many of them were false. This in itself was illegal since it requires the court’s consent to withdraw cases. Most of the cases related to the aftermath of the violence that followed the renaming of Marathwada University as Dr Ambedkar University. Upper-caste Hindus protested violently at the time. Even now, caste tensions in the Marathwada region are the highest in the State.
Apart from the Sena-BJP’s attempt to get rid of the Act, there are doubts about the commitment of the government, of whichever party, towards it. Quoting figures from the 2007 annual report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the Asian Centre for Human Rights’ publication “Torture in India 2009” states that the NCRB “reported a total of 30,031 cases – including 206 cases under the Protection of Civil Rights Act and 9,819 cases under the S.C./S.T. Act – against the S.Cs in 2007. Although the average charge-sheeting rate for the crimes against the S.Cs was 90.6 per cent, the average conviction rate was only 30.9 per cent. A total of 51,705 persons (78.9 per cent) out of 65,554 persons arrested for crimes committed against Scheduled Castes were charge-sheeted, but only 29.4 per cent were convicted, consisting of 13,871 persons out of 47,136 persons against whom trials were completed.”
Special courts to try atrocity cases do not exist in Maharashtra. Instead, the government makes placatory gestures that do not go beyond reiterating the provisions of the S.C./S.T. Act. The most recent example was when the previous government said it would fine and curtail development funds to an entire village where a caste atrocity was committed . This provision exists in the Act. N.K. Sonare, national president of the Ambedkar Centre for Justice and Peace, India, said: “Everything is on paper. Nothing is applied. Instead there is always pressure on the people not to file complaints. The police are instructed not to file FIRs or to leave loopholes in investigation.” Sonare added that there were numerous conventions and recommendatory reports that supported victims of caste abuse, but the government was lax about following them.
If it had, then incidents such as the one that took place at Rajnai village in Beed district on August 23 could have been prevented. A 15-year-old S.C. girl was kidnapped and gangraped by three men, one of whom is believed to be a Hindu priest. She was left at a bus stand by her assailants. Her family filed an FIR but the police initially refused to register a case under the S.C./S.T. Act, though they did it later, under pressure from a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The main accused has not yet been arrested and the family is under pressure to withdraw the case. “They are landless people and depend on the upper castes for their income. This is being used to put pressure on them,” said a representative of the NGO.
If they did own some land and decide to grow something on it, they could meet the fate of Madhukar Ghatge of Kulakjai village in Satara district. When he retired from his job in the Railways in Mumbai in 2007, he only had one aim – cultivate his land in the village. One of the first things he did was to dig a well after acquiring the permission from the panchayat. It was, tragically, his last action. Ghatge’s upper-caste neighbours were enraged at his “audacity”. On April 26, 2007, he was attacked with rods and axes and he died on the way to hospital. Fourteen people were identified as the assailants and 12 were arrested and charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the S.C./S.T. Act. A charge sheet was filed and they were released on bail. They are now believed to be absconding.
VIVEK BENDRE
At Khairlanji village in Maharashtra's Bhandara district, outside the house of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange.
If Dalits raised their voice, they were silenced brutally, as a young mother (name withheld) was at Telgaon village in Solapur district in March 2006. She knew she was taking a bold step when she complained against the liquor barons in her village but had no idea that they would use her caste against her. The mother of a child was stripped, beaten, paraded and then kept on “display” for a few hours. Her child was with her through this humiliation. After media intervention an FIR was filed under the S.C./S.T. Act, but the young woman’s social, emotional and economic support systems had been destroyed. Social pressures forced her husband to abandon her. She has no land and others are unwilling to employ her. Under the Act she is eligible for rehabilitation, but the district administration refused this. Instead, she was told that she could live in a government institution for abandoned women. Her child lives in another such institution. Her case is in the sessions court at Solapur at present.
Caste hatred at its worst perhaps was witnessed at Khairlanji village in Bhandara district in September 2006 when four members of a Dalit family, the Bhotmanges, were lynched by their neighbours belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), apparently following a dispute over the ownership and use of land. The two women victims were paraded naked and were said to have been gangraped by the residents of the village. All of them were ultimately hacked to death. In September 2008, six people were given the death sentence for the crime but they went in appeal and the case is in the Bombay High Court.
The greatest criticism against the handling of the Khairlanji case was that it was handled from a purely criminal angle and without invoking the S.C./S.T. Act. The charges related to murder, outraging the modesty of women, criminal conspiracy and unlawful assembly with deadly weapons (rape charges were not brought since the post-mortem did not give proof of that). The caste hatred and atrocity angle was completely bypassed even though the Bhotmanges lost their lives because they were Dalits.
That a person’s Dalit identity still overrides everything else in the villages was something Mumbai-returned Dilip Shendge, 25, forgot when he presumed that the use of the public handpump in his village, Bhutegaon in Jalna district, would be on a first-come, first-served basis, in May 2003. For this “lapse” he was murdered and his sister was accosted by a group of upper-caste Patils who taunted her about her caste. Later, she was beaten unconscious when she intervened in a fight between another brother of hers and some boys. Later that evening, the brother, sister and their mother were set on fire outside their house by a mob of Patils. Neighbours doused the flames, but it took them three hours to get the victims to hospital on a bullock cart. Dilip died a few days later of severe burns. A fact-finding team from the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights was told at the police station that the register for the Bhutegaon case could not be found.
In July 1997, half way into the Sena-BJP government’s term, one morning the mainly Dalit residents of Ramabai Nagar in north Mumbai woke up to see a garland of slippers around a bust of Dr B.R. Ambedkar. They reacted violently, stoning vehicles on the nearby highway. The State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) was called in, and within minutes of their arrival they opened fire, killing 10 Dalits. On May 2009, a fast track court in Mumbai sentenced the SRPF platoon commander, Manohar Kadam, to life imprisonment. Though he was ultimately convicted of culpable homicide (and not under the S.C./S.T. Act), the real reason for the trouble remains a mystery.
The incident brought the Dalit population together in a way that Dalit leaders failed to. Already enraged by the 1995 decision to withdraw cases filed under the S.C./S.T. Act, Dalits were further infuriated by the defence of the firing by Chief Minister Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena and Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde of the BJP. In the 1999 Assembly elections the alliance was voted out and it is widely accepted that Dalits, who form 12 per cent of the State’s population, played a significant role in this.
HOSTILE ACTS
By T.K. Rajalakshmi in Jaipur
IT is still known as “Kumher kaand” (Kumher carnage). The massacre of Jatavs in Kumher town in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district 17 years ago is something that is not forgotten easily. The incident occurred on June 6, 1992, when 254 homes and hutments were set ablaze. Officially, 17 Jatavs were burnt alive, but independent sources put the number of dead at 30. There were cases of arson, molestation and destruction of property of Jatavs by Jats of the area. Some 600 families reportedly fled Kumher. The BJP was the ruling party in Rajasthan in 1992 and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat the Chief Minister.
P.L. Mimroth, founder of the Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR), recalls not only the incident but the struggle to make public the report of the K.S. Lodha Commission (also called the Kumher Inquiry Commission). The commission readied its report in 1996. The report, says Mimroth, was never tabled; only an Action Taken Report was submitted by the BJP government in 2006, after a lot of pressure was put through the courts, though the government claimed that it had tabled the actual report. “I asked many legislators. They denied seeing a copy of the Lodha Commission report,” he said.
Mimroth added that he could not obtain a copy of the report until 2006; he got it only after filing a writ petition and a petition under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. In 1992, Mimroth was the general secretary of the Society of Depressed People for Social Justice and had deposed before the Lodha Commission. “I have three gunny bags of affidavits relating to the Kumher case,” says Mimroth, who was entrusted with the task of conducting an inquiry by the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), an organisation based in Delhi.
Since 1992, there have been many incidents involving violence and atrocities against Dalits but none evoked the kind of revulsion “Kumher kaand” did. It started with a clash in a cinema hall when some Jatav youth were manhandled. Then the cinema hall was pelted with stones and rumours were spread that the modesty of upper-caste women had been outraged. The frenzy that was built up soon metamorphosed into an organised pogrom against Jatavs. Water supply to the Jatav locality was disconnected and the hutments were set afire.
In Bharatpur that day, Jats of 46 villages held a caste panchayat where aggressive speeches were made. Barring the victims and people representing them, no one else, including those representing the administration, found anything harmful in the aggressive posturing.
It is not surprising that the writ of caste and community panchayats continues to run in the face of administrative apathy and nonchalance in parts of western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. As a result the democratic rights of the poor, women and the socially marginalised are violated regularly. With widening economic inequalities and a section desirous of seeking the rights guaranteed under the Constitution, such clashes and tensions are likely to increase.
Most conflicts are related to land. The record of implementing land reforms is very poor in Rajasthan. There are at least 10 atrocity-prone districts but the State government has not declared a single one as such and the administrative infrastructure to deal with them under the provisions of the S.C./S.T. Act are missing. Of the 33 districts, only 17 have special courts to deal with atrocities against Dalits. “The Act provides for all these. It is a stringent and exhaustive piece of legislation provided it is implemented,” said Mimroth.
CENTRE FOR DALIT RIGHTS
A Dalit woman who was assaulted twice allegedly by a contractor appointed under the NREGA at Tikel village, 60 km from Jaipur, in June.
Curiously, in 1992, the advent of the Act seemed to have a direct bearing on the events that led to the Kumher incident. Among the many submissions made to the Lodha Commission, there was one, made by the Zila Nyaya Sangharsh Samiti, claiming that following the advent of the Act, Jatavs had trumped up several false cases against upper-caste people and that Congress politicians, with a view to suppress Jats had always appointed Jatavs in key posts in Bharatpur district. It was ironic that even this did little to prevent the carnage. The Sangharsh Samiti concluded that Jatavs were not Dalits, that they were economically sound.
Another organisation to submit a statement of facts was the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, which held, among other things, that in Bharatpur district, the relationship between Jatavs and Jats was very cordial and that only political parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) provided an impetus to the caste conflict. The Lodha Commission rubbished this assertion but averred that there had been indiscriminate use of the S.C./S.T. Act, which fractured “reciprocal relations between Jats and Jatavs at Kumher and its vicinity.”
While the Lodha Commission made broadly progressive recommendations and observations, it noted that the S.C./S.T. Act had become “the prime circumstance for deteriorated (sic) mutual harmony between Jatavs and other upper castes”. It is baffling that a piece of legislation, by its use, should lead to disharmony unless it upset the status quo to a large extent. More surprising is the fact that no government wanted the Lodha Commission report made public.
Eastern Rajasthan borders certain districts of Uttar Pradesh, which in that period had seen the rise of the BSP. Whether this acted as a catalyst is not certain, though clashes between Jatavs and Jats in these areas were reportedly common. The Lodha Commission was critical of the district administration for not carrying out preventive arrests and not issuing prohibitory orders. Instead, the Commission noted, an elaborate exercise was undertaken against Jatavs.
As in most States, the rate of registration of crimes against Dalits in Rajasthan is not very high. All ruling parties have done little to remedy this. A study conducted by the CDR in 2008 found that of the total 1,261 cases of atrocities against Dalits that year, nearly 380 related to the practice of untouchability; 149 related to violence against women; 140 involved land disputes; and 181 pertained to violence during elections.
Vasudev, State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), explained that eastern Rajasthan was particularly vulnerable to caste violence owing to the benefits of education percolating down. However, he said, the tribal people of southern Rajasthan were in a much worse state.
“Until and unless there is an organised protest, no first information report [FIRs] is registered. We need to bring land reforms centre stage,” he said, adding that the increasing economic deprivation of these sections made them more vulnerable than before. He mentioned the gangrape of a Dalit college student on August 15 at Neem Ka Thana in Sikar district. It was only after the CPI(M) and other organisations made a hue and cry the culprits, all upper-caste youth, were arrested.
The situation of S.Ts was no less different. Barring one dominant section residing in the eastern parts of the State, which benefited most from the reservation policy, the tribal people of southern Rajasthan remain more or less where they were before Independence.
Said Vasudev: “Twenty years ago, at a meeting in Dungarpur, I asked a group of Bhils what their concept of heaven was. An old lady, Mangi Bai, said heaven for her meant a bowl of sweet laapi [wheat porridge], a guthdi [a cover made from old clothes] and a jhompi [hut]. They dream of the same things even today.”
A State secretariat member of the CPI(M), Dhuli Chand Meena, who is associated with the Kisan Sabha in southern Rajasthan, said the atrocities against the tribal people were mainly land-related. In those parts, where the remnants of feudalism still persisted along with mixed populations, discrimination existed in the form of denying the tribal people the right to sit on cots or in chairs or even wear proper clothes, he said.
“Whenever cases are registered, they are not followed up and cognisable offences are not registered. The conviction rates for atrocities committed against the tribal people are very low. In fact, what can be said for the S.Cs can be safely extended to the S.Ts as well, the only difference being that all the human development indicators of the S.Ts in southern Rajasthan are very poor when compared with even the rest of the State,” Dhuli Chand Meena said.
If anything, the Act, along with other laws such as the Forest Rights Act, needs to be implemented rigorously. For a social reform measure to succeed one of the basic prerequisites is political will, which seems to be lacking.
CONSTANT VIGIL
By Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
in Bathani Tola and Patna
“THE senas [militia] are not very active and there have been no big attacks or mass killings. But life is still the same. We are here and they are there, in different parts of the village, with not much communication or contact. And, of course, there is the fear that something may break out unexpectedly. We need to keep vigil all the time.” This was how Lal Chand Chaudhary, 55, described the present situation at Bathani Tola in Bihar’s Bhojpur district.
Thirteen years ago, on July 11, 1996, he, a Dalit, lost his wife, Sancharu Devi, and one-and–a-half-year-old girl child, Baby Sugandhi, when members of the Ranveer Sena, the self-professed militia of the upper-caste Bhumihar community, launched a ferocious attack on the hamlet. Among the 22 people killed were 12 women and eight children. Lal Chand got a compensation of Rs.1 lakh from the government and help to set up a telephone booth, but that did not change social equations. As he says, his community of Dalits and a clutch of Muslims occupy the Tola and the Bhumihars stay a little distance away in the main part called Barki Kharaon.
Lal Chand and many others, including his neighbour Phaguni Chaudhary, whose mother and brother were killed that day, made bold to stay on in Bathani Tola and show that they would not succumb to terror. But not so Naimuddeen, the bangle seller who lost six members of his family in the attack; he moved to Ara, the district headquarters of Bhojpur. He, too, got a compensation for the lives lost and the job of a peon in a government office in Ara.
RANJEET KUMAR
Lal Chand Chaudhary (sitting) lost his wife and infant daughter in the massacre of Dalits by the Ranveer Sena at Bathani Tola village in Bihar's Bhojpur district in 1996. Twenty-two Dalits were killed in the attack. While many Dalits fled the village, Chaudhary stayed back and now runs a telephone booth at his house along with his son.
Talking to Frontline, Naimuddeen said that though he has a job the governments that came to power since 1996 are yet to fulfil the promises and assurances they gave. “As I lost six of my kin, the then government offered jobs to two survivors in the family. But the promise made to my son is yet to be kept despite our submitting innumerable applications to successive governments over the past decade,” he says.
Naimuddeen adds that the administration has failed to address the security concerns of the family. “As a family that got ravaged in a gruesome caste attack, I had asked for a gun licence to protect myself, but that has been denied systematically. There is the propaganda that the Ranveer Sena is a dead organisation, but that is entirely untrue,” he says. “They are regrouping under a new leadership and have stepped up their activities in many places, including Bhojpur district. The only succour we have is from the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-Liberation) led by leaders like Dipankar Bhattacharjee.”
The CPI (ML) has been active in the village since the early 1970s and has been winning panchayat elections in and around Bathani Tola since 1978. According to a number of Dalits and Muslims, this political affiliation does help in keeping the balance of power in the village. Still, there are stray attacks and skirmishes. Last year, two young men of the Tola, Dhanesh Kanu and his friend Tarakeshwar Yadav, were killed in the Barki Kharaon area. Kanu, a plus-two student, had gone for a function in his school and had taken a short-cut close to Barki Kharaon. He and Tarakeshwar Yadav were done to death in that part of the village. Kanu’s aunt Kunti Devi said her nephew was killed by members of the upper-caste militia in a clear instance of caste killing. However, the local police and the administration treated this as a case of personal vendetta.
According to activists of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), such official apathy is nothing new and is not confined to places like Bathani Tola. They point out that the families of the 10 Dalit victims belonging to the Nat community, who were lynched by upper-caste people on September 13, 2007, in Dhelpruva village in Vaishali district, were also given similar treatment by the administration. However, political mobilisation by different Dalit organisations, including the Ram Vilas Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), the CPI(ML) and the NCDHR, has strengthened the resolve of Dalit communities in many parts of the State to fight for their rights.
Lakshmanpur-Bathe, where 58 Dalits, including women and children, were killed on December 1, 1997, by Ranveer Sena activists, is cited as a case in point by many observers. Dalits of the village have reportedly become more organised after the incident and demand their rights in a collective and effective manner.
This has curtailed the strike power of many upper-caste militias. For 25 years, starting from the mid-1970s, Bihar had a large number of active upper-caste militia groups, making the State synonymous with atrocities against the S.C. Over 80 armed attacks took place against Dalits and other oppressed sections during this period and claimed more than 300 lives. Such rampant attacks have come down in the past five years.
However, as the people of Bathani Tola, including Lal Chand Chaudhary, noted, this by itself has not brought about dramatic changes in the social equations or in the discrimination against Dalits. A fear that things can take a turn for the worse rules large sections of the Dalit population in Bihar even today and the community exists in a state of eternal vigil.
LITTLE IMPACT
By S. Dorairaj in Chennai
IF the Kizhavenmani carnage of Dalits in 1968 in the then composite Thanjavur district is an indelible blot on the history of Tamil Nadu, there followed many more such crimes, each more heinous than the previous one. The Melavalavu multiple murders, the Tamiraparani massacre, the Kodiyankulam violence, the Nalumoolaikinaru atrocities, the Thinniyam humiliation and the murder of democracy in Pappapatti and three other reserved village panchayats where elections were scuttled for 10 years were the worst among them. The enactment of the S.C./S.T. Act in 1989 and the notification of its Rules in 1995 made no difference to this horrible situation.
According to the State Crime Records Bureau, from 2003 to 2008 a total of 8,209 crimes against Dalits were reported, including 5,047 cases under the S.C./S.T. Act and 3,162 under the IPC. The average conviction rate in both categories was only 24.26 per cent. But Evidence, a Madurai-based NGO, has put the average conviction rate in the cases registered under the S.C./S.T. Act alone at 5 per cent to 7 per cent.
Progressive and secular forces by their concerted efforts have recorded resounding successes in the legal battle against casteist forces in a few cases. In the Melavalavu (Madurai district) case, relating to the gruesome killing of the local panchayat president K. Murugesan and five other Dalits on June 30, 1997, the Supreme Court upheld the life sentence awarded to 17 persons in its order on October 22, 2009.
Uthapuram in Madurai district is another success story where a part of the “wall of untouchability” put up by casteist forces was demolished and the victims of police excesses were paid a total compensation of Rs.15 lakh on the recommendation of the inquiry commission appointed by the Madras High Court in January last. The Dalits’ struggle to end caste oppression in the village had the complete backing of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), the CPI(M) and the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).
Much ahead of these two cases, the apex court gave a landmark judgment in a case relating to police excesses in Nalumoolaikinaru in Tuticorin district in 1992, holding 82 police personnel, including a Deputy Inspector General of Police and the Superintendent of Police, guilty. The court also ordered disbursement of compensation, totalling Rs.23 lakh, to the victims, who were represented by AIDWA.
In several other cases, the perpetrators of violence went scot-free. Notable among these is the Kodiyankulam violence of August 31, 1995, in which the police let loose terror in a Dalit habitation, and the Thamiraparani massacre of July 23, 1999, which claimed 17 lives when the police launched a brutal attack on a rally of estate workers in Tirunelveli town even as they ran towards the river in a bid to escape.
In the Thinniyam torment of May 22, 2002, the accused got away with a mild punishment though they had committed the grave crime of forcing two Dalits to eat each other’s excreta. The issue was brought to the notice of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the National S.C.-S.T. Commission by the Tamil Nadu People’s Watch.
One reason why only a small number of cases are registered is that Dalits do not file complaints against the dominant communities fearing reprisal, as they depend mostly on the landholders for their livelihood. The time-consuming nature of litigation also forces them to keep away from police stations, says P. Sampath, TNUEF convener. “Even if they lodge a complaint under the S.C./S.T. Act, the police ask the caste Hindus to lodge a counter complaint so that a criminal case is filed against the Dalits, too. The negligible conviction rate in cases under the S.C./S.T. Act also demoralises the oppressed sections,” he adds.
Senior advocate P. Rathinam, who has fought many cases of atrocities against Dalits, says that most of the crimes against the oppressed sections are not registered under the S.C./S.T. Act. “Even when they are registered, the first information report is diluted deliberately. In certain cases, due compensation, as per an order issued by the State government in 1998, is not disbursed to the victims,” he alleges.
A. Kathir, director of Evidence, has urged the State government to conduct a detailed review of the implementation of the various aspects of the S.C./S.T. Act, such as the registering of cases and the preparation of charge sheets. Of a total of 6.68 lakh cases of cognisable crimes reported in 2008, only 0.24 per cent were under the S.C./S.T. Act.
The special courts set up by the government for quick disposal of cases relating to atrocities against Dalits need better infrastructure to achieve their objective, he says. “A detailed survey on the atrocity-prone villages is the need of the hour,” he added.
As per official data, discriminatory practices against Dalits exist in 28 districts in the State, which has been ruled by the two major Dravidian parties – Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) – since 1967.
Policy note
The government’s policy note on the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department for 2009-2010 refers to the “effective implementation” of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and the S.C./S.T. Act to abolish untouchability and to prevent atrocities against Dalits. It speaks about the role of the human rights and social justice wing of the State police in enforcing the provisions of the two Acts and of the four special sessions courts functioning in Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Madurai and Tirunelveli for the speedy disposal of cases.
R.M. RAJARATHINAM
One of the Dalit victims of an atrocity in 2002 at Thinniyam village in TamilNadu's Tiruchi district during an inquiry by the then District Collector K.Manivasan. He and another Dalit were forced to eat each other's excreta.
However, the government’s efforts to create awareness against untouchability have had very little impact going by Minister for Adi Dravidar Welfare A. Tamilarasi’s own admission in the policy note, which was tabled in the Assembly on July 3. In it she says the message of the “mass awareness campaign and the social justice tea parties” launched by the government has reached only six lakh people so far. Cosmetic measures will do nothing to bring about any significant change in the prevailing scenario, says P. Sampath. Several other activists who have been working for the welfare of Dalits in a focussed manner also feel that radical socio-economic programmes have to be implemented for the empowerment of Dalits and to end disparities in terms of productive resources such as land, finance, education and employment, besides taking stringent measures against the perpetrators of atrocities against them.
This becomes particularly important in a State where Dalits are numerically a significant section. As per the 2001 Census, Dalits form 19 per cent and the S.Ts 1.04 per cent, of the total population of 6.24 crore. Of the 385 blocks in the State, 153 have more than 25 per cent Dalit population and around 3,550 villages have more than 40 per cent Dalit population. S.Cs and S.Ts constitute more than 20 per cent of the population in six of the 30 districts (as of 2008). Among them, in Tiruvarur they form 32.35 per cent, Nilgris 31.23 per cent, Perambalur 30.21 per cent, Cuddalore 27.76 per cent and Villupuram 27.39 per cent.
Official data for 2008 indicate that curbing atrocities against the oppressed sections is a formidable task. There are 186 villages classified as “atrocity prone” and 230 that are “dormant atrocity prone”. Among them, 166 villages have been described as “highly sensitive”.
Various social indicators make it amply clear that the State has a poor record of empowerment of Dalits. According to official sources, 31.2 per cent of the Dalit population in rural areas and 40.2 per cent in urban areas are among the below-poverty-line social groups. Official documents also point out that the literacy level of Dalits is much lower than the general literacy rate. According to the 2001 Census, as against the State’s general literacy rate of 76.2 per cent, only 63.2 per cent of Dalits and 41.5 per cent of members of the S.Ts are literate. The lack of political will for radical land reforms and redistribution of surplus land to landless Dalits has contributed to conflicts in the rural areas. Even official sources point out that though 83.08 lakh Dalits live in villages, only 10 per cent of them are cultivators. Around 90 per cent of these cultivators have less than one hectare of land. As per the 2001 Census, 58.5 per cent of Dalits are agricultural workers and 29 per cent fall in the “other workers” category.
Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s statement on November 11 that surplus land has been distributed to 61,985 landless Dalits under the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Reduction of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1970, only shows the yawning gap between the Dalits’ quest for land and the government’s response, a veteran leader of the All India Kisan Sabha points out.
Demanding a holistic approach to the issue, the TNUEF, an umbrella organisation of 45 State-level class and mass outfits and 15 Dalit and human rights associations, took out a rally in Chennai on October 27. Besides calling for the strict implementation of the S.C./S.T. Act and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, it called for steps to redeem the 2.5 lakh acres (one lakh hectares) of “panchami” lands grabbed from Dalits. Setting up of a State Commission for S.C.-S.T. welfare; the formation of district-level panels with due representation to Dalit organisations and secular forces to monitor the implementation of these two Acts; and the raising of the percentage of reservation for S.Cs to 19, commensurate with their population, are among the other demands of the front.
COURTS NEEDED
By Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed in Bangalore
ON August 2, 1987, in Bendigere village of Belgaum district in northern Karnataka, four S.C. youth were forced to eat human excreta by caste Hindus who accused them of stealing maize. According to excerpts from a report of the Karnataka Legislature Committee for the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the year 1987-88, the upper-caste men abused the Dalit youth using their caste name and threatened them: “You bloody fellows, go and bring human shit and eat it, otherwise you will have to face severe consequences.”
Several days went by before this gross act was even reported, but the incident (along with other such instances across the country) was responsible for the inclusion of Section 3(1)(i) in the S.C./S.T. Act. However, the Act has not led to any significant reduction in atrocities reported against Dalits in the State.
According to the 2001 Census, the S.Cs constituted slightly over 16 per cent of the State’s population and the S.Ts around 6.5 per cent. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics for 2007, there were 205 incidents of crime against members of the S.Cs and 1,844 incidents against members of the S.Ts. This is partly because Dalits, more than Adivasis, have fixed roles in the political economy of a populated area.
According to the Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement, a State-level body that looks into complaints regarding atrocities against members of the S.Cs and the S.Ts, the number of convictions under the Act is insignificant. The majority of the cases are either pending trial or are classified as “B reports” (meaning that the complaint itself has been proved wrong or false).
According to the NCRB’s statistics, Karnataka ranks sixth in the country in the number of crimes against S.Cs and eighth in crimes against S.Ts. (By population, Karnataka ranks ninth in the country.)
According to S. Japhet, Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the National Law School of India University, part of the reason why the Act has failed to deter atrocities against Dalits is that Karnataka has some of the lowest conviction rates for complaints made under it. Japhet was the coordinator for a research that led to a report in 2005 evaluating the performance of special courts that were set up for dealing with cases of atrocities under the S.C./S.T. Act.
According to Japhet, this is one of the most serious drawbacks in the implementation of the Act. “In the majority of districts in the country, there are no special courts as mandated by the provisions of this Act,” he said. Between 1997 and 2000, only four districts in Karnataka had the special courts compared with 12 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Gujarat, 35 in Madhya Pradesh, 17 in Rajasthan and 40 in Uttar Pradesh.
According to K.L. Chandrashekhar Aijoor, research assistant at the same centre where Japhet works, the number of special courts in Karnataka has only gone up to seven now, but considering that every district is supposed to have a special court, Karnataka should have 29 such courts. (These are usually sessions courts that are briefly designated as special courts to deal with cases under the Act.)
FAILURE OF THE ACT
One of the most glaring examples of the failure of the Act in Karnataka was the acquittal of all the accused in the March 2000 massacre of seven Dalits at Kambalapalli village in Kolar district, around 80 kilometres from Bangalore. The massacre took place after a skirmish between Vokkaligas and Dalits. The gruesome killings were the result of a cumulative build-up of tension between the Vokkaliga and the increasingly aware Dalit communities in the region.
The immediate provocation was an altercation between two Dalit youth and a Reddy (Vokkaliga) man over the use of a certain stretch of road. Following this a mob of Vokkaligas attacked a group of Dalits who had returned after filing a police complaint. The houses of a Dalit and his neighbour were burnt. Among the seven Dalits who died were a woman and her two sons and daughter.
According to media reports, the witnesses turned hostile when the case came up for hearing in the local court. All the accused were acquitted. The matter is waiting to be heard in the Karnataka High Court.
Such prolonged delay demonstrates that the twofold purpose of the Act – to prevent atrocities and to provide compensation and rehabilitation to victims after a speedy trial – has not been fulfilled.
More than 25 per cent of the population in Kolar is Dalit and the district has a history of caste violence. In the decades before the massacre, there was resentment over the establishment of a Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (DSS) chapter in the district. Part of the discord between upper and lower castes stems from the seemingly upward mobility of Dalits.
Karnataka has an active Dalit movement, which started in the 1970s. As its effects began to filter down, the consciousness among Dalits about their constitutional rights increased. This has led to a change in their attitude towards caste. The upper castes have resented this change. Even trivial things like the way a Dalit dressed annoyed upper-caste members. In Kambalapalli, for example, one of the victims used to tuck in his shirt.
A report on the Kambalapalli carnage published by the People’s Democratic Forum in April 2000 said: “The tucked-in shirt is like a red rag for caste Hindus, for it symbolised the growing arrogance of Dalits and their modernisation.”
While the conscious identity of Dalits has led to resentment from the upper castes in rural areas, even urban areas like Bangalore are not immune to caste discrimination. “Over the past two years, two Dalit students committed suicide in Bangalore – one was a student of the Indian Institute of Science, while the other was a student of the University of Agricultural Sciences. The prejudiced mindset of caste-Hindu society led to creating a situation where these students committed suicide,” said Lolaksha, a social activist who follows closely the instances of discrimination against Dalits in the State.
MANY HURDLES
By Aparna Alluri in Hyderabad
LALITHA (name changed on request), 25, is awaiting her court summons. A member of the women’s wing of the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), she was active in her local community until she became a victim herself.
As part of community initiatives, she often visited the local police station. When a new circle inspector was appointed in March 2008, she had a minor altercation with him. She says his immediate response was, “You are a Madiga and you are wearing sunglasses, driving a bike and walking around so confidently. Who do you think you are?”
“For nearly eight months, every time I met him, he repeated the same thing. He abused me by my caste name several times.” The verbal taunts soon escalated to sexual overtures. When she questioned him about complaints she had received against him, things became worse. “In November, I was arrested and detained for one night. He threatened me, shoved me against a wall and warned me against confronting him again. I was shifted to the women’s police station only at 1-30 a.m.,” she says.
Her case is pending with the State Human Rights Commission. She is yet to file an FIR against the officer for fear of further harassment. “I don’t know what else to do,” she says. “He expects me to cower in fear, but why should I?” she says. “I am educated, I know right from wrong and I know my rights. In what way am I lesser than he?”
Lalitha’s case is more the rule than the exception. Counter-cases have become an easy recourse to delaying and eventually denying justice to historically disadvantaged groups. “For every case filed by a Dalit there is a counter case against him/her by the accused,” says M. Chalapathi, High Court advocate and Dalit rights coordinator, Human Rights Law Network (HRLN).
“The police register the second complaint and arrest the Dalit victim, compelling him/her to withdraw the case. Or, they keep both cases pending and use the case as ammunition when the victim pressures them to act,” says Bojja Tarakam, eminent lawyer and Dalit rights activist.
This remains the situation, even after 12 of the State’s 23 districts have been identified as atrocity-prone by the government. Attack is the most common form of atrocity, accounting for 27 per cent of the crimes.
Of the State’s population of 7,62,10,007 (2004-05), the S.Cs constitute 1,23,39,496 and the S.Ts 50,24,104. Dalits belong mainly to two castes – Mala and Madiga – and are agricultural labourers. The land-owning, politically dominant groups are Reddys, Kammas, Rajus and Kapus. This social and economic polarisation has had significant political implications. The 1980s marked the advent of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the rise of the Dalit movement. N.T. Rama Rao’s rise to power is often seen as the political ascendancy of coastal Andhra’s rich Kamma farmers. The atrocities against Dalits in Karamchedu (1985), Neerukonda (1987) and Chundur (1991) were seen as manifestations of a conflict caused by the shift in political power at the top and the rising consciousness below.
More than two decades later, the State’s record in checking atrocities against Dalits remains poor. According to figures with the Department of Social Welfare, 4,157 cases were registered in 2008 under the S.C./S.T. Act. Of these, 1,783 cases were closed as false and 1,004 are pending completion of investigation. For the same period, out of 3,661 cases brought to court, only 128 resulted in convictions. Interestingly, only in eight cases appeals were filed on the acquittals.
As for visits by the Vigilance and Monitoring Committees prescribed under the Act, only 45 visits were recorded for 19 districts in 2008. Information was cited as unavailable for the remaining four districts.
Currently, there is a writ petition pending in the Andhra Pradesh High Court demanding the effective implementation of the S.C./S.T. Act, 1989, and Rules 1995.
The counter-affidavits filed by the police in response to the petition speak for themselves. Police records in the period from 1995 to 2006 show that 21,000 cases were registered under the Act. Of these, more than 14,000 are pending without a charge sheet being filed, even though the Act stipulates that investigation must be completed within 30 days of the FIR being filed. “This is a clear violation of Section 4 of the Act, which deals with dereliction of duty,” says Chalapathi.
The petition demands that criminal proceedings be initiated against those police officers who fail to discharge their duties as prescribed under the Act. “The Act insists on special courts and special public prosecutors to enable speedy trial. But cases have been pending for nearly 10 years in the investigation stage itself,” says Bojja Tarakam. “Yet not a single police officer has been prosecuted for negligence.”
He says one reason for such high pendency is the many attempts to quash cases by claiming that they are false. “When the High Court receives such a petition, it stays all further proceedings, including investigation, though the Supreme Court has directed the High Court not to interfere in investigations.”
However, the reasons for delay cited in the counter-affidavits are far more incredulous. The reasons include “for want of accused”, “for want of examination of witness”, “no post-mortem report”, “no FSL [forensic science laboratory] certificate”, even for cases pending since 1995. Even VIP duty is submitted as a reason for numerous investigations pending since 1996.
“Whose fault is that?” asks Chalapathi. “Is this not negligence of duty?”
The delay itself seems to have become the reason in many instances. “Case Diary not available and as such unable to furnish the exact reason for delay,” or “as the case was registered in 1998, reasons not known to present Investigating Officer,” reads one entry in the register. “Close to 105 reasons have been furnished and not one is legally substantial,” says Chalapathi.
“I have personally told police officers that they may be technically right in closing certain cases, but the matter doesn’t end there. If witnesses turn hostile, they need to ask why that has happened,” says A. Vidyasagar, former Commissioner of Social Welfare. He agrees that special courts do exist, but says “the progress they have made seems to suggest that cases under the S.C./S.T. Act are only one of the things they address rather than their priority”. He says a review at the Chief Minister’s level in 2008 led to a suggestion that a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) must be made to supervise the inquiries in every district. “The idea was accepted,” he says. “The only solution is continuous review.”
Trial is a far cry for many because registering a case is often a struggle by itself. Getting a case registered under the S.C./S.T. Act is a bigger hurdle. Whether the accused abused the victim by his caste name is often seen as the grounds for registering cases under the Act. However, the Act only stipulates that the victim must belong to the S.C./S.T. community and the accused to another community. If the victim or his/her family has a Christian name, or is known to go to church, they are told they cannot register the case under the Act. “This is sufficient to file a petition quashing the case as false. The court gives the victims 15 days to file an objection, failing which the case is closed. Given that most of these people are poor and uneducated, they may not respond in time,” says Chalapathi.
Curiously, caste certificates are often demanded not just to register a case but also for the investigation to proceed. In numerous cases, this was cited as the reason for the delay in the investigation.
The hurdles are many and victories have been few and far between. Even as hundreds wait for justice, police records and trials only present a part of the picture. “Untouchability is still rampant. Dalits are still not treated as humans. Where is the question of human rights?” asks Chalapathi.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20091204262400900.htm
Elephants don’t belong in zoos: Central Zoo Authority
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APCAN'T BE LOCKED UP: Wild elephant crossing a railway track along Deepor Beel, a wild life sanctuary on the outskirts of Gauhati. The Central Zoo Authority of India has ruled that all elephants in zoos must be relocated to sanctuaries or forests. File photo
As per an order from the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) of India, “elephants have been banned from zoo collection throughout the country with immediate effect”. The order stipulates that all elephants kept at zoos should be immediately relocated to elephant camps and rehabilitation centres of the Forest Department or inside forest areas.
The order has been sent to all in charges of the zoos in the country and the Chief Wildlife Warden of the States. K.P. Ouseph, Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife and Chief Wildlife Warden) of Kerala confirmed receiving the order from Rajesh Gopal, Member Secretary of CZA on Tuesday.
The order states that upkeep of large animals like elephants are not only costly but create problems at zoos. When elephants come into musth the problems get aggravated. Moreover the zoo environment confines the animal to a very small area. The order directs the zoo authorities to carry out the same in consultation with the respective Chief Wildlife Wardens.
Relocating the elephants from the Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur zoos will take time, it has been reliably understood. This because the controlling authority of these two zoos is the Department of Culture, but in all other States the zoos are under the control of the respective Forest Department.
So the Forest Department will have to first obtain the green signal from the Department of Culture for relocating the elephants. According to sources, the elephants at the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo will be relocated to the Kappukad Elephant Rehabilitation Centre at Neyyar and the elephants are Thrissur to Kodanad.
As per CZA estimates, there are about 140 elephants kept at zoos in various parts of the country. All of them will have to be relocated. Sources said that the order comes in the wake of complaints from animal rights activists about the plight of captive elephants both zoos and under private ownership.
The order however does not talk about captive elephants owned by private individuals. However, the move has been welcomed by animal rights activists.
Keywords: Central Zoo Authority, Forest Department, wildlife, captive elephants
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