Recently I read about a heart-warming story from my birthplace Ludhiana (Punjab) about Sikh residents of village Hedon Bet who refuse to let anyone demolish the 100 year old Mosque in their village despite having no Muslim residents. The village elders stated that the Mosque is the house of God and no one has the right to demolish it. An old man quipped, “If any Muslim brothers happen to come through here, they can pray and visit the Mosque, and we will invite them into our home and serve them food.”
There are similar stories of Sikhs in Ludhiana building a mosque for the two Muslim families who lived in their village Sawarpur and of them sitting down with the families to break Ramzan fast, Sikh and Muslim residents coming together to renovate a Mosque in Malla village, and Sikhs in another village donating land to build a Mosque.
Ludhiana is Punjab’s largest city and is one of the best cities to do business in.I lived in Ludhiana for 15 years and I grew up with a complete sense of communal harmony all around. The people of Ludhiana are hardworking, creative, resilient, and they cherish their brotherhood. As an artist, I have witnessed the rich culture which is an amalgamation of Sufism, shayari, ghazals, Punjabi poetry, folk songs and dances.
The city has been witnessing a folk revival in the past year with initiatives like Jeevay Punjabwhich provides a platform to folk performers keeping away from political and religious differences. Founded by Kumar Saurabh, Inderpreet Singh, and Harnoor Singh, Jeevay Punjab promotes quality poetry and music in an eclectic manner. When Sabrang India talked to Kumar Saurabh about the inclusivity of their platform, he commented, “When we talk about Jeevay Punjab, we are referring to the ‘entire’ Punjab and its art forms, be it in India or Pakistan. Majority of our viewers on YouTube are Pakistani Punjabis. Our platform started in Ludhiana with small audiences and now we’re doing shows that accommodate 700-800 audience in cities like Chandigarh and Delhi, besides Ludhiana. We have always made a conscious effort to showcase artists from all communities. Some of our Muslim artists are most beloved by the audiences which is also composed of people from all religions. One of the artists, Adil Khan from the Patiala Gharana, plays the sarangi beautifully.UstadJohar Ali Khan, the famous violinist, has also performed for us and lent his support. We promote the celebrated artists along with the young budding talent from the Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu communities. This is how communal harmony grows in the culture, through art.”
To truly illustrate the beauty and harmony of Ludhiana, Sabrang India spoke to young residents from the city about stories from their daily lives. Nusrat* was born in a village near Jammu and came to Ludhiana a year ago to pursue higher studies. She told us the story of her first day at college, “I was nervous as I didn’t know how my classmates and teachers would react to my Hijab. Just as I entered class, I spotted a Sikh girl wearing a Turban and dupatta on her head. I immediately went and sat next to her. I have formed such a nice friendship with her. I am happy to see that as different as our religions are, we are both strong and pious girls wearing our religious clothing by our choice.” She also narrated a recent incident that moved her to tears, “After the Article 370 abrogation, I lost touch with my family for many days. I was sitting in canteen with red eyes. Two senior boys I hadn’t even talked to, came to me, gave me a chocolate and told me it’s my Rakhi gift. They saidthey are my big brothers and I should not cry,everything will be okay. At such a time when I used to cry every day thinking of my family, they made me smile.”
Madan Kumar (35) works in a garment store in the Chaura Bazar area of Ludhiana. He migrated there from his birthplace in UP when he was 15. He recounted the different experiences from his native village and Ludhiana, “The situation in my village was very different. We had separate neighborhoods where Muslims lived. Elders would tell us children to not venture into their area. I was scared. When I came to Ludhiana, I made friends with a Muslim boy who was training to be a tailor. He shared his meals with me and he was the one who got me my first job in a garment shop.I learned to speak good Punjabi there. Then I joined this job in main market 10 years ago and lost touch with him, but I always remember how he would call me by shouting ‘Chhotey!’ (a reference to his short height) and hand over his tiffin. I have put both my children in a good school now and I teach them to always share their food.”
Mohammad Ali, a 27 year oldwriter who has been a lifelong resident of Samrala, Ludhiana district, has a wonderful story of friendship transcending religion which he shared with Sabrang India. Mohammad, who works for Jag Bani newspaper, recounts how his group of friends supported each other through thick and thin, “We were working in another newspaper earlier and my friend was pushed out due to office politics. Our group supported him and helped him find this new job at Jag Bani where I have also shifted. We go out for dinners every 3-4 days and we have pure vegetarians and non-vegetarians eating comfortably next to each other on the same table. The question of religion has never even come up in my entire life here. My cousins from other cities of India tell me about how people are insensitive to them, and I feel bad. In my Punjab, my Samrala, we are all so mixed with each other, we don’t even remember religion is there.”
Where vested political agendas are using divisive tactics to cause communal disturbances, these stories of ordinary people in Ludhiana can not only pull at our heart-strings but also act as an inspiration. Prayers and practices may change, but the faith and love preached by all religions is the same. As Rumi wrote, “All religions. All this singing. One song. Peace be with you.”
That the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) uses the tool of the ongoing NRC process, the citizenship issue, not as a ‘genuine’ process to establish the worth of citizens, but as a means towards its particular brand of whiplash politics is clear from the contrarian statements from its prominent top brass as the date for the publication of the final draft NRC list drew close.
For the past week, the state government and even the central ministry of home affairs have been sending out ‘re-assuring signals’ on the issue of both legal aid and generally. While the chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal’s was the softer voice, urging people to behave as “a mature society” and not treat those whose names are not in the rolls as foreigners illegally staying in Assam until the tribunals decide so, cleary Biswas his deputy has no qualms toeing a more belligerent, even provocative line.
“We have lost hope in the present form of the NRC right after the draft,” Himanta Sarma, a minister in the state cabinet and a hardliner is reported to have said. NDTV.com reported that he went further to ‘warn’ that the National Register of Citizens or NRC — the list intended to identify legal residents and weed out illegal immigrants from the northeastern state – cannot be viewed as a “red letter” for the Assamese society. The senior BJP leader indicated that he had little faith the list would really help get rid of foreigners. There is worse in store for the hapless unlettered millions of the state who have barely survived six years of this tortuous process. Sarma said that the government was already looking beyond and discussions were on both in Assam and at the centre on new strategy on tackling illegal migrants. “At Dispur and Delhi we have already started fresh strategy on how we can drive out the illegal migrants and we will so come up with new plans,” he said.
So another threat? And who is this aimed at ? The Bharatiya Janata Party Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari says that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is also needed in Delhi. “NRC needed in Delhi as situation is becoming dangerous. Illegal immigrants who have settled here are the most dangerous. We will implement NRC here as well,” he said. Clearly for the rabidly rightwing outfit, their politics is one of negativism built on a a perpetual demonisation of sections of the population, sometimes questioning their patriotism, other times even their nationality. At the heart of these rants is always a deeply anti-Muslim sentiment. Mark the recent words of a central minister on minority dominated seats like Wayanad, or the constant use of phrases by the central BJP leadership when referring to migrants as ‘termites.’
Clearly for the sabgh parivar and its parliamentary wing, the issue is simply about Muslim-baiting. Not only have many BJP leaders have raised concerns over a large number of Bengali Hindus being left out of the NRC. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, after meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah last week, had said the centre may consider a law to remove foreigners who could have entered the list and add genuine citizens who could have been left out. The NRC, first published in Assam in 1951, is being updated following Supreme Court orders to segregate Indian citizens living in Assam from those who have illegally entered the state from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971.
Assam’s Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held discussions on the impending situation arising out the final publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) list on August 31,2019. Following these meetings, local media reported that a policy decision has been taken to give legal aid to all those excluded from the list.
Significantly, Sonowal has gone out of the way to assert that there was no need to panic and not all those excluded from the final list are ‘not necessarily not Indians.’ With a week to go, and anxieties mounting on the situation that hundreds of thousands may have to face given the bureaucratic hurdles and ‘mistakes’ that are anticipated, these announcements are welcome, if not overdue.
The MHA has also reportedly extended the deadline for the filing of appeals to 120 days (two months). What is still unclear is whether this date will start getting counted from the date when the victims of exclusion get the ‘certified copy of the order from NRC and all documents’ or not. This would be crucial in making these appeals viable and effective. The MHA press release may be .read here.
A separate petition to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, floated by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), close on the heels of a similar plea by “Friends of Narmada” to the President, the Chief Justice of India, and the Prime Minister, has sought “immediate action” to rehabilitate thousands who have been displaced due to the Sardar Sarovar project in Gujarat.
Medha Patkar with supporters on the bank of Narmada
Seeking signatures from supporters, the petition, which has been released a day after Parkar rejected Kamal Nath’s offer to quit hunger strike, insists, “Until the rehabilitation is complete, the water level of Sardar Sarovar should remain till 122 meters. In the Narmada valley, Medha Patkar and 24 other women from the affected villages continue to remain on an indefinite fast.”
Kamal Nath
Those willing to sign the petition have been asked to email the following text to Kamal Nath:
Thousands of families in the affected villages of the Narmada valley Sardar Sarovar project are being inundated by the reservoir water. So far, three poor farmers from Nimar and other tribal regions have died as they combated the rising water levels.
Even as your government has protested against the decision of filling the reservoir to its limit of 139 meters, but the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL) affiliated with the Gujarat and Central government have continued to fill the reservoir without paying any heed to the concerns of rehabilitation of the displaced, environmental damage, and in the absence of any fact-finding reports or affidavits.
Thousands of families in Madhya Pradesh have not yet been fully rehabilitated, as residents at the rehabilitation site have not been granted adequate access to facilities as per their legal rights. In this context, the displaced people are made to witness their farms and livelihoods being submerged under the water. In this situation, we are confident that the Government of Madhya Pradesh will stand on the side of the people.
According to the letter sent by the Chief Secretary of the state of Madhya Pradesh to the Narmada Control Authority (NCA), dated May 27, 2019, a total of 6,000 families from 76 villages are residing in the submergence area. 8,500 applications, 2,952 for farmlands and others for the eligibility of compensation of rupees 60 lakh, are still pending.
According to the Narmada Bachao Andolan, not just 6,000 people from the 76 villages, but many more families (approximately 32,000 families) are affected. Can the shopkeepers, small business people, artisans, potters, boat people allow the destruction of their villages, in the absence of access to rightful alternate livelihoods?
A temporary rehab centre in MP
There is very slow progress on these issues. Today, it is important to follow the right procedures, as the last 15 years have seen a lot of corruption, lies and confusion. Unfortunately, the corrupt activities have still not been arrested. Since the previous government, assurances given to withdraw the petitions filed in the High Court and Supreme Court have not yet been fulfilled.
Therefore, Madhya Pradesh must see to it that the water level in the Sardar Sarovar does not rise above 122 meters. We seek your support for Narmada Bachao Andolan towards this goal.
You and your party have supported the displaced people by not only providing assurances in your election manifesto, but also by standing directly with them. In 1996 as well as in 1978 Narmada Bachao Andolan, all party agreement had been reached on this issue.
After 34 years of non-violent struggle, Medha Patkar Ji and 24 other women from the affected areas have been forced to sit on an indefinite fast.
According to the Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal and the orders of the Supreme Court, ensuring complete rehabilitation of the people in the submergence area is their right as well as the legal responsibility of the state.
We, therefore, expect that your government takes sensitive, just and immediate action on a war footing.
What is the similarity between reservation and the special status granted to Kashmir ?
The issue is of relevance since Mohan Bhagwat raked up the issue of reservation within a fortnight after Article 370 providing special status to Kashmir was abrogated. Mohan Bhagwat speaking at Gyan Utsav event at IGNOU in New Delhi on August 18 called for a discussion on the contentious issue of reservation in a “harmonious atmosphere”. Although this wasn’t the first time the RSS chief was pushing forward the debate around reservation, the present timing is of significance.
So far as constitutional provisions are considered, Article 370 providing special status to Kashmir is listed in part twenty one containing Temporary, transitional and special provisions. Article 46 on the other hand providing the basis for affirmative actions commonly called reservation is contained in part four of the constitution as one of the Directive Principles of state policy. The two provisions unrelated though have one thing in common, the constituent assembly debates establish that both were included in the constitution as a temporary measure.
Article 370 was included as a special provision which was supposed to be effective till the time Kashmiris themselves decided upon their fate as per the guidelines mentioned in their constitution. It was other matter that since after the dissolution of the constituent assembly of J&K and after the refusal of India to withdraw it’s army and create enabling atmosphere for conducting a plebiscite, and after the numerous presidential orders that diluted the ambit of Article 370, it’s nature as a temporary provision had changed to being permanent at least in practice.
Similarly the provision for affirmative actions in the form of reservation were in principle a temporary relief with the aim that the historically marginalized and oppressed sections would be provided with certain preferential treatment till the time they achieve a socio-economic status at par with the fellow citizens. However, the widely prevalent numerous social malaise and demand for inclusion in mainstream from representative voices have ensured that the range of affirmative actions only gets wider with time instead of being phased out.
Just like the nationalistic politics of mainland India ensured the dilution of Article 370 & changed its nature from temporary to permanent, it was the caste politics and evils associated with caste that prolonged the concept of reservation.
Sangh which has forever been against reservation, after abrogation of Article 370 is smelling an opportunity and is smartly trying to push the debate against reservation by raising questions that reinforce in public memory the in principle temporary nature of this extraordinary provision. A commonly posed question by Sangh and it’s affiliated outfits is why is the provision of reservation based on caste and not on income. Another question they ask which underlines the temporary nature of reservation is that “how long” the reservations will be given on caste. Mohan Bhagwat in the IGNOU event repeated this question and urged people to engage in a dialogue around the subject, sufficiently indicating that the time has come for temporary provisions to be done away with.
It’s in the interest of citizens that they exercise caution and guard themselves from falling prey to any such propaganda. The Dalits and OBC’s who are nurturing ambitions of an upward mobility and have developed Hindutva affinity after investing their time and resources in the last five years should be very careful of the tide of communal polarization that has swept them off their foot. In their fit of insanity before rejoicing at the injustice done to Kashmir, they must think about their own future as to what would it be to be robbed of the constitutional protection, to be once again reduced to the level of serfs in a Brahmanical structure.
Md. Aariz Imam is a Jamia Millia Islamia alumni, freelancing for citizen journalism portals reflecting upon the old and contemporary from the sub altern’s point of view .
Rajahmundry (East Godavari district), Andhra Pradesh: The most significant difference between Ushasri’s two sons–born seven years apart–was their weight.
Ushasri with her three-month-old son and anganwadi worker T Vijaya. Ushashri’s first son was 2.5 kg at birth, while her younger son was 3 kg, apparently heavier because she was better fed.
The first was 2.5 kg, just above the low birth-weight category, which is linked to long-term health risks, as a fifth of Indian babies are, as are 17.6% in Andhra Pradesh (AP). Ushashri’s second son, born here three months ago, 150 km north of Vijayawada, was a healthy 3 kg.
What changed during her two pregnancies was the universalisation of an AP government programme that began in 2013 in 102 so-called “high risk” blocks to all 676 blocks in 2017 to provide a hot, cooked meal of rice, sambar, milk and eggs to nearly 600,000 pregnant and lactating mothers at local anganwadis or government day-care centres.
Before the programme, YSR Amrutha Hastham–earlier known as Anna Amrutha Hastham and Indiramma Amrutha Hastham–the state provided pregnant and lactating mothers with raw rice, dal, vegetable oil and four eggs at home.
“Now, I eat (cooked food) at the anganwadi,” said Ushasri, dressed in a pink kurta and salwar, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, as she spoke to a visiting anganwadi worker and four visitors at her home in Aryapuram, a Rajahmundry suburb.
“Both ways [of giving food] are fine–but this is better,” said Ushasri, who is a graduate and takes tuition classes at home. Her husband works in a private company and their monthly income is Rs 6,000, above erstwhile undivided AP’s urban poverty line of Rs 1,009. Her only complaint: eating an egg is difficult because she is a vegetarian. At the anganwadi, health workers have told her the egg is good for her.
“I have the rice and milk, but the egg is a little difficult,” said Ushasri.
There have not been many independent assessments of YSR Amrutha Hastham, and the benefit of such feeding programmes is contested–as we explain later–but a limited 2019 evaluation by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that it satisfied mothers, boosted their dietary diversity to 57-59%, egg and milk consumption to 74-96% and calcium intake through tablets to 87%.
Our check of the AP programme confirmed some benefits and found logistical shortcomings related to unpaid anganwadi rents and staff salaries and staff shortages. But the data from the UNICEF evaluation have implications for AP’s and India’s future.
Undernourished children: India’s lost opportunity
With over 48 million children malnourished and two of every five Indian children stunted, or short for age, India has the highest number of undernourished children in the world.
For most children, the problem starts before they are born.
Children who received extra nutrition through government-run programmes from the time they were in their mothers’ wombs until age three were 11% more likely to acquire a graduate degree than those who received them between ages three and six, according to a January 2018 study published in the Journal of Nutrition.
Children eat hot meals at the Kothalanka anganwadi centre in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district.
The study offered conclusive evidence that adequate nourishment to unborn babies and infants creates benefits that enhance their education and employment prospects in later life.
With the education benefit of early-life nutrition extending to college, the researchers estimated that such daily exposure could potentially increase India’s college graduates from 7.5% of the country’s 73.8 million Indians aged 20 to 24 to 11.8%. An increase in the college graduation rate, in turn, would deliver economic gains from higher wages.
This would be a significant economic achievement for a country with one in three of the world’s 156 million stunted children under five. In 2016, it was estimated that undernourishment among India’s children under five years would cost $37.9 billion–Rs 27,240 crore or about as much as India’s 2019-20 budget for the National Rural Health Mission–in future, through lost schooling and economic productivity.
YSR Amrutha Hastham is one of five state programmes that aim to reverse current nutrition trends. Healthy children are a prerequisite to take advantage of India’s demographic dividend, the economic benefits of having the world’s second largest working population, which is now in danger, as IndiaSpend reported in August 2019.
Getting to know what’s best for baby
“I breastfed my son within an hour of his birth,” said Ushasri. “At the anganwadi, they explained to me that I have to breastfeed up to six months. So, I am not giving him anything else–like water or other milk.”
The result of the fresh, nutritious meals was that Ushasri gained 12 kg during her second pregnancy, and her second son is healthy.
Most Indian mothers enter pregnancy with poor nutrition: 23% of reproductive-age women are too thin for their height and 58% of pregnant women are anaemic, increasing the risk of death for them and their babies. Additionally, 8% of pregnant women–approximately 4.5 million–are adolescents, according to the National Family Health Survey (2015-16).
This is why improving the nutritional status of mothers is important.
Only 46% of pregnant women and 51% of lactating mothers nationwide received supplementary nutrition services from anganwadi centres under India’s flagship 44-year-old scheme for maternal and child health, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), the world’s largest such effort.
The average birth-weight of children whose mothers are enrolled in the YSR Amrutha Hastham was 2.9 kg in 2019–babies above 2.5 kg are termed normal weight babies. There were about 300,000 each pregnant and lactating mothers enrolled in financial year 2019-20.
The programme in AP runs under the ICDS and the supplementary nutrition programme, with a budget of Rs 2,219 crore, with the state government putting in Rs 17.75 to the central government’s share of Rs 4.75 for each meal.
Five states–Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra–in India offer mothers some form of hot cooked meals in their anganwadi centres. Two states, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, have discontinued the programme, and Odisha is about to begin the programme.
Since the hot-cooked-meals-for-mothers programme replaced take-home rations (THR)–fortified supplementary nutrition for children under six and lactating and pregnant mothers for home use–traditionally distributed by the AP government, experts said it is important to assess the performance of the hot-cooked-meals programme against THR.
In early August 2019, we travelled to urban, rural and tribal areas of AP’s East Godavari district and found widespread acceptance of the hot-cooked-meals programme and satisfaction among beneficiaries. We also found that anganwadi workers who implemented the scheme needed more support from the government and better infrastructure.
More dietary diversity, limited weight gain
While the supplementary nutrition programme already supplied raw rations to mothers, the rationale behind a hot meal at the anganwadi is to ensure the mother consumes the meal (and not someone else at home), receives antenatal services and other nutrition support, such as iron and folic supplements, calcium tablets, deworming tablets and health information.
A hot, cooked meal is served to pregnant and lactating mothers at the Kothlanka anganwadi centre in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
In AP’s YSR Amrutha Hastham, the hot, cooked meal is served six days a week between 11 am and 2 pm to pregnant and lactating mothers, prepared by anganwadi workers who also prepare it for children who come there in the morning. In addition to what the supplementary nutrition programme provided at home, the state has added on an egg and 200 ml of milk every day.
Anganwadi workers are expected to keep a record, through a mobile application, of women enrolled in the programme, the services they received, weight gained during pregnancy and birth-weight of the babies.
The 2019 UNICEF evaluation we referred to was carried out in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, based on interviews with 360 pregnant and lactating mothers and a review of data from the state government’s management information system. It also found:
While on-the-spot consumption of iron folic acid tablets was “poor” (22.6%) because most respondents took the tablets at home (77%), 87% of mothers took calcium and 56% deworming tablets.
Most beneficiaries consumed the meal on 21 out of 25 days in a month.
The estimated mean weight gain between the second and the ninth month of pregnancy ranged from 8.3 to 9.7 kg
Malnutrition among women was greater in tribal areas as compared to rural areas, according to the evaluation: 19% were wasted compared to 12% in rural areas, and 79% of tribal women using the programme had the minimum nutritional diversity compared to 89% in other rural areas.
While most respondents found the food tasty and the quantity sufficient in the evaluation, most enrolled mothers gained less than 6 kg, while only 6.8% gained more than 9 kg, according to the latest data provided by the state government.
This is within India’s average maternal weight gain–5.1 kg to 8.3 kg but below the global average–8.3 kg to 15.3 kg.
The average weight of the baby born to the women enrolled (between January and July 2019) was 2.9 kg, according to government data, which is within the average birth-weight (2.8 to 3 kg) in India.
In deprived tribal areas, most enthusiasm
Surrounded by verdant hills and paddy fields, Devarapalle is a small tribal village in Maredumilli mandal of East Godavari district. The Devarapalle anganwadi was destroyed in a flood and classes are held in a community centre. There is no toilet or kitchen.
The position of a helper has not been filled for many years and anganwadi worker Ganga Bhawari, 29, does the cooking as well. “There is no anganwadi building, no compound, no power and no water supply,” she said. A teaching assistant, recruited by a nonprofit, who works with children, helps Bhawari.
Loeshwari, 21, is a mother of two–a three-year-old and seven-month-old. The meal she ate at the anganwadi was invaluable, says Loeshwari, who got an egg, milk, sambar and rice. “We can’t afford to eat an egg every day,” she said.
At the Devarapalle anganwadi, we met Loeshwari, 21, a mother of two–a three-year-old and seven-month-old–who looked much younger because she was thin and small. She weighs about 42 kg, and came to the anganwadi every day during pregnancy and till her second child was six months old.
The meal she ate at the anganwadi was invaluable, said Loeshwari. “We can’t afford to eat egg every day,” she said. Tribal communities do not milk their cows, so mothers had limited access to protein.
Life is tough for women here, they have three to five children, work through pregnancy, and they do not go to their maternal homes for delivery–as many in India do–so mothers are back to household chores immediately after birth.
There are two additional programmes for women and children in tribal areas: while anganwadi centres statewide feed children aged three to six, those in tribal areas feed children six months onwards. Lactating mothers receive additional packet of dates, jaggery and peanut chikki–a kind of candy–and ragi malt to improve nutrition.
“Two of my children come to the centre, eat and like the meals,” said Kadavala Sugunavati, 26. “My children fall sick less often since they started the meals.”
There are five pregnant women, three lactating mothers and 33 children, aged seven months to seven years, registered at the Devarapalle anganwadi. Almost all come by for their daily meal.
“Some women come early in the morning, when they leave for work, for eggs and milk, the rest come in the afternoon for rice and sambar,” said Ganga Bhawari, the anganwadi worker.
This enthusiasm was evident in other rural centres we visited, but it was not in urban anganwadis.
More gripes in urban areas
At the Lishbarpeta municipality primary school in Aryapuram, two anganwadi centres have been merged. More than 30 children below six were studying in the classroom, and two anganwadi workers and two helpers were cooking the meals. However, out of the six pregnant and four lactating mothers registered here, only two or three come to the centre every day.
Pregnant and lactating mothers being counselled by child development project officer C H V Narsamma at Lishbarpeta Municipal School, Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh’s East Godavari district.
“They say that it is too far off to travel, and there are flights of stairs to climb up and down, which they find difficult,” said anganwadi worker Vijaya. Many mothers prefer their meals to be packed and brought to them by their family members which they eat at home.
“It takes me a whole hour to come here to have the meal and I have a young baby at home and another child,” said a mother who had visited the centre to have the meal that day on the request of the anganwadi worker.
“Beneficiaries feel that it is free food, why to go and eat at the [anganwadi] centre,” said D Sukhajeevan Babu, project director for the ICDS in East Godavari district. He said at least 10-20% of women do not show up for the meals.
“There should be a flexibility (offered) for mothers between getting take-home ration and hot meals,” said Babu.
Does the evidence support hot, cooked meals?
Not everyone is convinced of the benefits of “spot-feeding programmes”, such as YSR Amrutha Hastham.
While maternal malnutrition–a mother’s height, body mass index and anaemia–is a risk factor for poor child outcomes, the impact of one hot-cooked daily meal on child health or other supplementary foods on maternal diets is not evident, said Purnima Menon, senior research fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute.
“That said, I understand that these programmes also include additional inputs at the time of the meals–provision of iron tablets and behaviour change communications,” said Menon. “This is good, but it also makes it challenging to disentangle the effects of the meals per se from the other components offered alongside.”
Menon had two other reservations:
While programmes such as the YSR Amrutha Hastham may benefit mothers who attend, evidence has shown centre-based feeding programmes exclude those who cannot attend every day.
Feeding programmes for pregnant mothers who are already calorie-sufficient may lead to excess weight gain and retention after pregnancy, which is a concern for southern states.
Other experts have said there is enough evidence to support spot-feeding programmes.
The risk of stillborn babies was significantly reduced for women given balanced energy and protein supplementation, according to a 2015 review of several studies. Other reviews and studies (here, here and here) found a significant increase in the mean birth-weight of new-born infants whose mothers were provided nutritional supplements during pregnancy, wrote Prasanta Tripathy, public health researcher and activist and co-founder of Ekjut, a non-profit working in Keonjhar, Odisha in an email response.
Governments should invest in addressing the intergenerational cycle of undernutrition in the first 1,000 days of birth, said Tripathy. States should map “food-insecure regions” and target them with not just supplementary nutrition but also to other determinants of undernutrition, such as drinking water, he said.
Venkat Laxmi, 28, with her seven-month-old son, who was a healthy 3 kg at birth. She is a beneficiary of the Andhra Pradesh government’s hot, cooked meal programme, which offers this meal for 25 days a month.
Without adequate human resources and infrastructure, even the best schemes cannot reach their potential, said experts. While the AP government has been committed to run the YSR Amrutha Hastham, there are some obvious gaps relating to unpaid salaries, rent and staff shortages.
Every anganwadi worker we spoke to admitted to getting her salary after a delay of two to four months. Since many of the anganwadi centres are not in government buildings, rent for some centres had not paid for the last six months. Many anganwadi workers paid for the cost of running the centre from their own pockets. Vacancies at every level affect the efficiency of the programme: the anganwadi in Devarapalle did not have an anganwadi helper; there is 8% vacancy in anganwadi helpers, 23% vacancies in supervisors in the district, government records show.
The vacancy in supervisors affects the effective monitoring of the services. Many centres we went to had weighing scales that were not working. On the larger front, there are concerns that the most vulnerable mothers may have been left out of the scheme as the percentage of food-insecure beneficiaires in the scheme was much lower than expected, said the UNICEFevaluation.
This report has been supported by ROSHNI-Centre of Women Collectives Led Social Action.
This story was first published here on Healthcheck.
(Yadavar is a special correspondent with IndiaSpend.)
A woman identified as Sayera Begum reportedly committed suicide ind epair of non-inclusion in the NRC final list, reports Pratidintime.com. In the first of the post-NRC final list publication casualties, Sayera Begum, from 1. No Dulabari in Rezpur reportedly jumped into a well when she read that her name was not the on the final list. There is no confirmation at all whether her exclusion from the NRC list was real or not. Reports of the death were known within an hour and fifteen minutes of the list being made public.
Minutes past 10 a.m. on August 31, the NRC Coordinator’s office through its office in Guwahati announced that as many as 3,11,21,004 have been included in the final NRC list and 19,06,657 have been left out. The NRC is a process being undertaken by the Coordinator under the supervision of the Supreme Court of India since 2009. Reports of the suicide were reported by the web portal by 11.40 a.m.
While over the past week, the Assam government and even its police were appealing to people not to despair, the NRC and Citizenship process has taken its toll on the unlettered and marginalised in Assam. Until August 22, 2019 a week before the publication of the final list, there were no reassuring statements forthcoming from the state government. Last Saturday, for the first time, Sabaranandan Sonowal appealed to people on all local television channels ‘not to despair’ as not all those excluded were not Indian citizens. He hd also stated that legal aid would be provided to all those excluded to navigate the tortuous route of establishing their existence in Foreigners Tribunals.
In July 2019, CJP compiled a list of citizenship and NRC related deaths in Assam: In Assam, nearly 60 people have lost their lives and their deaths are connected to citizenship related issues. While some have allegedly committed suicide due to frustration, anxiety and helplessness related to the National Register of Citizens (NRC), some allegedly took their own lives fearing incarceration in detention camps. There are also some people who died under rather mysterious circumstances in detention camps. The CJP team has painstakingly compiled and verified these deaths and here is the list as of July 18, 2019.
Assam’s Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held discussions on the impending situation arising out the final publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) list on August 31,2019. Following these meetings, local media reported that a policy decision has been taken to give legal aid to all those excluded from the list.
Significantly, Sonowal has gone out of the way to assert that there was no need to panic and not all those excluded from the final list are ‘not necessarily not Indians.’ With a week to go, and anxieties mounting on the situation that hundreds of thousands may have to face given the bureaucratic hurdles and ‘mistakes’ that are anticipated, these announcements are welcome, if not overdue. The MHA has also reportedly extended the deadline for the filing of appeals to 120 days (two months). What is still unclear is whether this date will start getting counted from the date when the victims of exclusion get the ‘certified copy of the order from NRC and all documents’ or not. This would be crucial in making these appeals viable and effective. The MHA press release may be read here,
Four years ago, academic and activist MM Kalburgi was gunned down at his residence in Dharwad by Ganesh Miskin & Praveen Chatur, both linked to Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindutva outfit. Kalburgi was a vocal critic of idol worship and superstition, which often got him locking horns with Hindutva groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which made Kalburgi the target of their campaign during the years following up to his assassination on 30th August, 2015.
As a tribute to Kalburgi and to the countless other pens that will not be put down, ICF presents an impassioned Kannada poem on political killings, by poet-activist Huchangi Prasad.
You cowards — firing at us who wield pens. You murderers — celebrating the cold-hearted killing of innocents.
Let the sparrows build nests at your gunpoints.
Your guns may have wounded us. But we are not just bodies, Mute bodies.
We are children of the earth, our mother gives us life with every letter, strength with every word.
Look, this is not blood we shed but ink, fresh and indelible, writing the history of truth.
Every drop of blood now reborn into a thousand truths.
Listen — I know, you Great Devotees! I know the sword that chopped Shambuka’s head. I know who demanded Eklavya’s thumb. I know the truth: I know that sword. I know you who became a gun to kill me.
Listen — lies are not termites eating away at truth. Guns cannot destroy it either. But these pens, these countless pens, How they grow, tall, strong, like a gigantic tree of many truths.
A series of moves by the government on FDI, tax concessions, public sector disinvestment, labour reforms and low wages should be seen as a sell-out package.
It is ironical that the Narendra Modi government, which never tires of reminding everybody about their nationalism and patriotism, is actually following an economic policy of selling off the country’s national resources to foreign companies. It recently announced measures of easing foreign direct investment (FDI) in coal mining and associated infrastructure, contract manufacturing, single brand retail and digital media.
The easing of foreign investment in coal mining will open the way to big multinational mining conglomerates (BHP, Rio Tinto, etc.) to not only extract coal but also export it abroad, retaining the profits. It will destroy the public sector enterprise Coal India Ltd. Which could have very well done the job itself and helped the country by keeping the earnings within the country. Similarly, by allowing FDI in contract manufacturing, it will allow giant companies like Apple to use India’s cheap labour and overheads to manufacture their overpriced devices and sell them abroad at super profits. Easing FDI in single brand retail will mean global companies like Ikea (furniture maker) and H&M (clothing) will start functioning and capturing Indian markets, destroying domestic makers. Even the weak norms for local sourcing have now been removed.
Earlier, during its first term, the Modi government had eased FDI norms in a slew of sectors, including non-banking financial services, defence, construction development, insurance, pension, asset reconstruction companies, broadcasting, civil aviation, pharmaceuticals, trading, plantation crops, satellites, etc.
The Prime Minister once defended this policy of allowing foreign capital to take over economic activity in India as based on his definition of FDI as “First Develop India”. He meant that foreign capital inflows will generate jobs and thus the country will develop. But the record inflow of foreign capital in the past 5+ years has seen less than 28% invested in productive activities with most of it going into stocks and low employment entities like financial services and information technology.
Earlier, the government had given tax concessions to foreign investors in the stock markets too, along with other concessions, supposedly to spur investment and growth. In fact, it appears that the Modi government is using the current economic slump to push through economic policies that will dangerously undermine India’s economy.
But there is a larger game that is being played out here. To understand this, let us look at some of the other policies and legislations adopted by the Modi government recently.
Disinvestment It is a wonder that selling strategic industrial assets to private sector is described as “nationalist” and “patriotic” by the Modi government. Already having set a record of selling off public sector enterprises through piecemeal disinvestment of Rs.2 lakh crore, the government has declared that it will now go for decisive privatisation of CPSUs through multi-pronged routes. Already sale of major PSUs in steel, pharmaceutical, engineering and other sectors, have taken place. Now, on the selling block are some of the best performing public sector companies including IOC, NTPC, Powergrid, Oil India, GAIL, NALCO, BPCL, EIL, BEML etc. A target of divesting Rs.1 lakh crore worth of public sector units has been set this year, which has been described as “suicidal” by leading trade union, Ventre of Indian Trade Unions or CITU.
Many other units or sectors are being corporatized, which is just a first, covert step to ultimate privatisation. These include units in railways and even defence sector (ordnance factories).
The problem with such reckless privatisation is not just that it will lead to job losses or more onerous conditions of work for the lakhs of workers. That will happen, of course. But the larger issue is that what were once national assets, whose functioning ensured our country’s self-reliance and economic sovereignty will now be private property. In future, the private owners may decide to sell off their holdings to foreign players also. So, it is not too far-fetched to see a future where key industries will be controlled by big foreign conglomerates, who will determine – blackmail and arm-twist – the country to ensure their profits.
Forcing Cheap Labour There is another element to this “nationalist” and “patriotic” outlook that is even more lethal. The labourers who work to produce wealth are being forced to become slaves with a pittance given for their wages and curbs on their rights. This has been wrought through changes in labour laws like the recently passed Code on Wages, and the pending Code on Occupational Safety, Health & Working Conditions Bill. In the name of merging several distinct labour laws and making them simpler and more harmonised, these new laws ensure that working hours will no longer be statutorily fixed and that wages will not be determined by needs.
Such was the euphoria of the Modi government after its recent victory in the general elections that the Labour Minister announced that the national floor level minimum wage would be just Rs.178 per day, a mere Rs.2 more than what was fixed in 2016! This wage level is almost one third of the minimum recommended by the accepted formula used for decades, based on minimum requirements of food clothing, shelter and other necessities. Since the new law on wages has no place for considering needs of workers, the Modi government has effectively given a free hand to industrialists to push down wages as much as possible. The 45-year high of unemployment has already created an army of unemployed which helps in keeping the wage levels to a minimum.
This third element of shackling workers and extracting the maximum out of their labour at the lowest cost is the great “advantage” Modi government is offering investors and industrialists, both domestic and foreign. Does the defence of country and slogans like “India First!” not include the people of the country?
Taken together it is difficult not to see that the present government is single-mindedly pursuing a path of enslavement. But it is cloaked in rhetoric of “nationalism” and “patriotism”. This may fool many people but very soon the reality of this enslavement is sure to dawn on people.
