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Teacher
thrashed by four students in Greater Noida |
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Delhi to
get a taste of Commonwealth literature |
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Malegaon
blast accused allowed to undergo medical treatment |
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Two
killed in Mexico earthquake |
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US Muslim
group applauds policy change on Airline Profiling |
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Bhopal
Shahar Qazi passes away |
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Delhi HC snubs
school for violating Right to Education Act |
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Hyderabad riots: 39 key conspirators held |
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West Bengal Govt sitting on its
Muslim quota decision |
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 Women Reservation Bill:
All party meet fails to end impasse:
Consensus eluded the all-party meeting held here on Monday to break
the logjam over the Women's .....Read
Full
Congress strives for
consensus on women's bill |
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Mumbai HC
dismisses Malegaon blast accused plea seeking fresh probe:
Bombay High court today refused to order a fresh probe .....Read
Full
Congress strives for
consensus on women's bill
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 Apex
court removes two Gujarat cops from riots probe panel: The
Supreme Court Tuesday removed two senior Gujarat police officers
from its special probe panel investigating ....Read
Full |
 World’s tallest tower
saves 3,200 KW daily :
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, saves up to 3,200
KW of energy every day by tapping solar power to heat the 140,000
....Read
Full |
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Delhi HC snubs
school for violating Right to Education Act:
The Delhi High Court
Monday directed a private school to take back its class VI student,
whom they had expelled because she had failed in the exams.....Read
Full |
 Ranganath
Mishra report may be discussed in parliament:
Amid political stalemate over introduction of the women's
reservation bill in the Lok Sabha, the United ....Read
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 Shahi Imam meets PM on
Batla House shootout :
A top Muslim cleric Saturday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over
the alleged fake shootout at the Batla
.....Read
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 Keep us away from sadhvi:
Malegaon accused: Apparently not happy with the media spotlight on sadhvi Pragya Singh
Thakur, nine of the 11 co-accused ....Read
Full |
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 Govt. committed to quota
for 'backward Muslims':
Government on Wednesday
said it is committed to providing reservation to the backward
sections .....Read
Full |
 2011 population census
begins April 1:
One of the largest
census exercises, to compile India’s estimated 1.2 billion people
into one single database .....Read
Full |
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 Problems and Prospects of
Islamic Banking in India – Road Map ahead:
Modern, secular and
industrialized countries like Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong and
Japan have become hub of .....Read
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Will Dawood's facing law
be a favour? Congress asks BJP:
The Congress Tuesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for
lauding Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's appearance before the
Special Investigation Team .....Read
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Heated debate has been generated
around women’s reservation bill (WRB) with both sides having their
inflexible positions. On one side there are those calling for its
implementation and on the other those who are opposing it. This is a
superficial view of debate. As such the debate is, on side are those
saying that it should be implemented as it is and on the other side
are those who say that there should be quota for OBC dalit,
minorities within the quota. There are very few who are totally
opposed to WRB, there are many willing to support it if quota within
quota is accepted, so to paint them as being against Women’s
reservation is unfair. The bill is hanging fire from last one and a
half decade, and the rigidity of both sides is so obvious. In
democracy it need not be just a brute majority which should work; a
process of consensus should be tried before polarizing the issue.
One can very well say it is a bit of the reminder of Mandal days.
Many of those opposing Mandal are the strongest champions of this
bill while the supporters of Mandal are trying to argue that if
implemented in the present form, it will increase the hegemony of
upper castes, as the upper caste women are in a better position to
compete, while the lower castes and Minorities will be left behind.
The supporters of reservation as WRB is, rhetorically dismiss the
concern of quota within quota by saying that if these parties are so
concerned with that section of women, why have they not given them
more seats so far? The same argument can be turned up side down to
say that those who are strong proponents of the bill as it is; how
much they have bothered to give the tickets to women. By present
estimates the three major parties Congress, BJP and Communists, if
they would have followed this in allotting more tickets to women, by
now the composition of parliament would have been very different.
The point is that, precisely because parties give tickets on
winnablity criterion, women are not given tickets in proportion to
their percentage in population, and so the need for reservation. The
opponents of quota within quota argue that this will divide the
women! Question is, are all the women united? The upper caste women,
do they supp comfortably with the lower caste? What type of unity of
women prevails when a large section of Muslim women have been forced
into ghettoes in the aftermath of massive carnage, which in turn has
created fear amongst minorities and a situation where they are
excluded from social space.
One recalls with pain and horror that during communal violence a
section of the women from majority community have been bystanders,
if not outright assisters, when the women from minority community
were raped! What unity we are talking about? There are surely many
concerns which are common to all the women, but in our society
unfortunately the caste, class and religion divide has affected the
concerns of different sections of women.
The empowerment of women is an absolute must for democratization
process of society, so rather than polarizing the debate there is a
need to pass the bill with some modifications with a consensus,
brought in by taking the concerns of its opponents in present form
seriously. Those who oppose the women’s reservations in toto can be
bypassed but the opinion of quota within quota is a different
terrain.
There is another glaring phenomenon taking place in the society
since independence. The representation of Muslims in Parliament is
on a constant decline. From last Lok Sabha to the present one there
is a reduction, from 36 to current just 29 of them. The present
number of Muslim MPs is close to half of what it was in the initial
period of the republic. One welcomes the move to ensure the
improvement of empowerment of women, but what about declining
representation of Muslim minority? One is sure with present social
dynamics it is going to slide down further. Is it a sign of health
of democracy or does it indicate that democratic process is being
subverted from deep within the system by the communalization of
society.
At another level one can safely talk about the reservation for
dalits, OBC's and women, but when it comes to the question of Muslim
minorities; all the antennas are up to sense that it is dividing the
nation. What in fact is dividing the nation is the regular
occurrence of violence against minorities, what is dividing the
nation is the ghettoisation of minorities and the constant
propaganda demonizing them on one pretext or the other.
It is in this context that the Judgment of Supreme Court restoring
the Andhra Pradesh law for 4 percent quota for backward Muslims in
Jobs and colleges is most welcome. We are going through delicate
times when there is some superficial concern shown for minorities,
Sachar Committee is appointed, Rangnath Mishra Commission is
appointed, but the rulers get cold feet when their recommendation
are to be implemented. Rangnath Mishra Commission recommends 15%
reservation for Muslims, but not much is being heard on this front.
Most hypocritical stance on the issue of reservation has been that
of BJP. It has been the constant opponent of reservations for dalits
and OBCs on the ground that this is discriminatory, and due to this
the meritorious candidates will be left behind. During the speech in
Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitly of BJP (March 09, 2010) while defending the
WRB, stated that it is a myth that reservation creates privileged
society. He also said that with WRB politics of tokenism will be
replaced by that of representation. Sane words. Only thing is there
are double standards in this. So far we heard something totally
contrary from BJP worthies as far as reservations were concerned.
Unfortunately the reservation has to be resorted to in our democracy
as the proper democratic process has failed to take care of the
needs of deprived sections of society. A holistic approach to
reservation to all sections of deprived communities is what we need
and that’s what will ensure that the gross disparities are done away
and justice reaches to all section of society.
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