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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | People’s Assembly puts forward a manifesto of demands

People’s Assembly puts forward a manifesto of demands

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published Published on Dec 2, 2012   modified Modified on Dec 2, 2012
-Tehelka

On its fifth and the last day, the Assembly demands recognition of ASHA and aanganwadi workers as govt employees

The People’s Assembly being held at Jantar Mantar concluded on Friday 30 November with the release of a draft preliminary manifesto. The manifesto consists of resolutions adopted by the Assembly on issues like health, education, land acquisition and Lokpal Bill, among others. “We will intensify our demands with the People’s Manifesto and will send them to all the political parties before 2014 elections,” declared Aruna Roy, a prominent social activist and founding member of NGO Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan.

Organised by a collective of 56 organisations, the People’s Assembly was called to deliberate on issues affecting people’s rights and bring it to the attention of the Parliament and national political parties. Numerous eminent citizens, politicians and academics from across the spectrum addressed the people who had come from 17 states.

On the fifth day of the Assembly, issues afflicting the women, Dalits and Scheduled Class (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) were discussed. Paras Ram Banjara said that even after more than 65 years of independence there are no provisions to ensure that the benefits of government schemes reach the nomadic tribes. He also highlighted the fact there is no legislation to prevent atrocities against them, like the one meant for SC/STs. After hearing him, the Assembly demanded that the government bring out a white paper on the implementation of special component plan and the tribal sub-plan.

The plight of Dalits still involved in manual scavenging was also heard by the Assembly which agreed that only by education, a change in their mindset can be brought to enable them to break free from their traditional work. To make this happen, it has been demanded from the government that the reservation policy for education and other jobs should be implemented seriously.

Taking up the issues of women, Subhashini Ali of All India Democratic Women’s Federation said, “New words are being thrown to hide out exploitation from us. That is how the government is hiring ASHA workers, health workers, for as low as Rs 500 and Rs 1,200 without providing them with any benefits of labour laws.” She demanded that all these workers be made government employees and their exploitation be stopped.

Questions were also raised about unequal treatment of women, with Aruna Roy saying, “If women are considered equal to men, then even 33 percent reservation for them is less. But the government is refusing to give even that 33 percent.” The general consensus was that the crimes against women would not stop unless they have a fair representation in the law making process and in judiciary.

Representatives from various political parties and social organisations including Congress MPs Manik Tagore and Dr Balchandra Mungekar and National Advisory Council members Mirai Chatterjee and AK Shiva Kumar also extended their support to demands raised by the Assembly.

A panel discussion titled ‘Fourth Estate Inc’ was also held in the evening at India International Center, where Siddharth Vardarajan, Editor of The Hindu said, “The biggest constrain for Indian media is not corporatisation, but lack of imagination, courage and concern.” Expressing his views about the ever increasing demand for regulation of media, Justice JS Verma (retd.) said, Independent self-regulation is the answer. If media would not do it, then someone else would do it.” Mrinal Pande, Sukumar Muralidharan and Vipul Mudgal also took part in the panel discussion.

Prakhar Jain is a Correspondent with Tehelka.

Tehelka, 26 November, 2012, http://www.tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ws261112Sansad.asp


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