Providing food with dignity

The calamity times can be really bad on a person's dignity. In these times when one is fighting against the nature to feed his/her family, keeping ones dignity intact is even tougher. How to accept the relief material, the food, clothes and medicines. If it was from govt, there would be a right to ask for it. But if it comes from foreign corners, how would someone feel while taking it. What to do if there is no other alternative available?

Mukti, NGO being supported by AID made the dilemma easier for the people affected by cyclone Aila. The next biggest danger people in these areas were facing was the disaster coming in form of high tide at the full moon night. The embankments to the river need urgent repair to avoid the destruction by high tide. At one hand people are dying of hunger, on the other hand the embankment won't be repaired because of lack of manpower. Since the paycheck from govt comes really late, its hard to motivate people to work while their family is dying of hunger. Mukti volunteers proposed to give food to the people who worked to repair the embankment. "Mukti motivated the villagers by providing snacks (breakfast) in the morning session and 2kg of rice and 200 grams Dal and 250 grams potato 100 grams of onion at the end of the day in addition to wages which they will get in time." This was a good enough motivator to feed their family and save their village while keeping their dignity intact. There were 450 people working on first day and 900 from second day onwards. The model is being appreciated by the govt officials and other NGOs and is being replicated in other villages too.

Link for Mukti report

So end of the story is that even in middle of such devastation there are people working really hard and coming up with intelligent solution to odd problems.

Another news: A supporter have pledged to donate $1500 if AID can generate $5000 for cyclone aila relief fund. So go ahead and donate generously. Every $10 of yours will mean $13 to the needy people.

News reports: TheBigPicture | Telegraph | ToI | ToI | IndianExpress | DeccanHerald

Urban Legend - Act 49-O

While the parliamentary election were on in India, I received several emails to exercise my right of not giving my vote to anyone. The general email reads as follows:

"Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section "49-O" that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn't want to vote anyone !!!! Yes, such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called"49-O".
Why should you go and say "I VOTE NOBODY"... because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received "49-O" votes more than 123, then that polling will be canceled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way, of our whole political system... it is seemingly surprising why, and election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.... please spread this news to as many as you know... Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India... show your power, expressing your desire not to vote anybody, is even more powerful than voting... so don't miss your chance. So either vote, or vote not to vote (vote 49-O) and pass this info on..."

While there is some truth in the email, some of it is false.

Truth: Yes there is a clause in "Conduct of Election Rules, 1961" called 49-O, which is very similar to the one described in the email. The clause says:

"49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark." [Ref]

False: Although there is a clause named 49-O and it also give you a right not to vote, it has no tooth. I mean there is no provision for re-election, re-polling, or removal of the candidature of the candidates.

The clause is mainly to help avoid proxy voting. If you don't want to give your vote to anyone, and also don't want someone else to do proxy voting in your name, you can go and exercise your right to not to vote. This would make it impossible for someone else to cast vote in your name.

The problem in exercising this right is that your identity would be revealed. Earlier, in times of old Ballot Paper, you could leave the paper blank and drop it in the box. However, the new EVMs doesn't have an option of 'None of the above'. If you exercise this right, the polling official and the polling agent would come to know about it. The proposed election reforms have considered this issue, and have suggested an extra option on the EVMs. [Ref]

Now about the tooth part, there are PILs and several activists trying to convice Supreme Court and Election Commission to amend this clause and give it some tooth.

So there exists a clause named 49-O and it does take care of 'Negative / Neutral Voting'. However it doesn't have any option of cancelling the election in the particular are, or forcing re-polling.

Murder weapons of delhi back on the road

The Delhi govt has bowed to the blueline operators again. These are the same buses involved in rash drivings, tripping over and killing people and school kids. After the outcry over several cases in a row, the delhi police started enforcing law in proper way. The next thing you know is that all the blueline buses are on strike.

This is the respect of law in this country. The moment you try to force the law, we will hijack the basic services and disrupt the life of common public and force you to forget all the law and order. We will never tolerate the enforcement of law against us whatever happens. You can't make us follow these stupid laws of drivers license and vehicle insurance. Surprisingly, many people happily put life of their kids in hands of these law breaking drivers.

Right To Information!!

• Do you want to stop paying bribes but worried if your work will get done or not?

• Do you think your municipality is skipping the sanitation duty in your area?
• Do you wish to do social audit of a particular department in any area?
• Do you wish to inspect the material used in any government work?
• Do you want to see how the MLA of your constituency spent all that development fund?

Being an Indian if you haven't heard of RTI than you must have been deep asleep while a storm swept over the countries bureaucracy. If you have any of the questions above but don't know whom to ask or where to ask, then check this website out.

Parivartan

I am impressed by the work they are doing and the help they are providing to information seekers. Hope it helps to anyone who wants to change something in the system!!

Great Bihar Police

Bihar faced communal clash in January this year. Bihar policed filed FIR against 7 people for attack on police force and inciting riots. and guess who is among those 7.
A two year old kid who can't even eat his food on his own (according to his aunt). Now that the matter is in media, police says it might be a clerical error. I wonder how many clerical errors of this kind have gone unnoticed, and how many of those innocent people have been booked for the crimes they never did. If they can book a two year old for rioting then there is no stopping them to book anyone for any crime they want.

Link to the story

I remember a joke, once a police commissioner called inspector that his watch and ring are missing. The inspector gets on work. The commissioner calls back in few minutes saying he found his watch and ring in bathroom, the inspector says, "How is it possible sir, I have five different people locked up here saying they stole those items."

Slum Free Dharavi

This is a continuing post to my last post about slum free dharavi.
Here are many more links to the plan ...

Maharashtra Govt plan's ppt (beware its 118mbs)

Rediff

Hindu

Slum Rehabilitation Authority page.

DNA (Daily News & Analysis)

Mumbai NEWSLine1

Mumbai NewsLine2

Mumbai facelift: is it too good to be true?

Imagine 70 million sq ft land changing from slums to skyscrapers!!! That is the plan IAS officer I.S. Chahal (Vice-President of Maharashtra Housing And Area Development Authority) is looking after.

The plan include giving the land to a builder for development and major points are

• The slum dwellers will be given 225 sq ft flats in some of those buildings. I know the place would be very small but i guess its still more than the place they have currently.
• The govt. will get 450Rs per sq ft premium which would not be very great but still worth mentioning.
• There will be a focus on local amenities like building of schools, colleges, hospitals and police stations.

I know there will be questions about corruption, feasibility, resistance etc etc. But I am happy just to think that there are plans for this thing.
Some of the pluses I see in this:

• Think of all the problems slum dwellers have from from garbage, sanitation, roads, congestion, etc. Slum dwellers doesn't even have proper sanitary arrangements. It would be a change of lifetime for them.
  
• It would solve the land shortage problem of Mumbai to a very great extent.
  
• If planned and executed properly, it would have lots of schools, parks, hospitals etc. Social improvement in line.

The story : ibnlive

Do share your views on this.

Daughters of Bihar

Thanx to Dilip D'Souza for highlighting this.

Bihar ki Betiya, a wonderful festival to get the poorest of poor connected to mainstream. Educating them is the best thing you can give.

Two things I want to say:
1. Will Arjun Singh and other state's chief ministers open their eyes, and try to follow this?
2. Will media stop showing Cho Seung-Hui and give some time to this kind of stories??

Are you a voter?

I found this information while browsing through Indian Govt. official website. You can search the Electoral Rolls (Voter Lists) of the Election Commission of India. I found my information there, Check out if your name is there in it or not.

Search Electoral Rolls (Voter Lists)

Hope this information helps someone. You might want to browse National Portal of India, It has plethora of information on it.