by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
While the Indian Constitution is imbued with the spirit to maintain communal harmony, Delhi’s Jamia Nagar will set an example of unity in diversity as people of different castes and religions on the eve of Republic Day on Friday evening and Saturday.
The celebration will be attended by the residents as well as religious leaders.
In Jamia’s Tricona Park, the Republic Day celebration will not lack the grandeur and zeal.
Scores of people will gather and voice their opinion on the importance of Constitution at Tricona Park on Friday evening.
“The main objective of organising the event is to make people that Constitution has enforced laws to ensure communal harmony in the country. The Indian Constitution gives each of its citizens the right to choose his/ her religion. Our country is one of the biggest examples of unity in diversity,” said Danish Reyaz, organiser of the event and managing director of Maeeshat Media Private Limited.
Children and elderly persons (including ulemas and religious leaders) will also participate in the Republic Day celebration scheduled to be held at the Kalilullah Mosque (Batla House) on Saturday.
Attractions of Republic Day Celebration
The main attraction will be singing of National Anthem.
Discussion on the following topics.
Communal Harmony
India as a secular state
About Republic Day
The Indian Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949. It came into effect across the country on January 26, 1950. The day on which India adopted its new constitution is known as Republic day.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
By Nivedita Singh,
New Delhi : The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which took power in Delhi four years ago with a promise to build 1,000 Mohalla (neighbourhood) Clinics in the national capital, has managed to provide only 189 of the widely-praised clinics, blaming the central government for the slow pace of execution.
The Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinic (AAMC) project — the opening of primary healthcare centres to ensure free doctor consultations, tests and medicines to people — was one of the flagship schemes of the AAP for which the initial deadline was December 2016. But it was extended to March 2017 and the government failed to meet that target as well.
The tussle between the central and the Delhi governments has been blamed the most by the AAP for the delay in the construction of the clinics as the government lacked the power to take decisions until July 4, 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that Delhi’s Lt Governor was bound by the “aid and advice” of the Delhi government, bringing powers back to the AAP government.
The AAP, which came to power in February 2015, had a plan to have a clinic each — with a doctor, a pharmacist, a clinic assistant/multitasking worker — in a radius of five kilometres over a population of 10,000-15,000.
“Mohalla Clinics have been conceptualised as a mechanism to provide quality primary health care services accessible within the communities in Delhi at their doorstep. In the past three years, 164 clinics could be established. In just five months, 25 more clinics were opened. We can, for sure, say that the court ruling has given momentum to the work,” an official told IANS on the condition of anonymity.
The official said the tender to build 300 additional clinics had been finalised after land was identified. “The construction work is going on in full swing.”
“Identification and finalisation of land have been a major issue (as the subject of land is not under the Delhi government). Acquiring land takes most of the time… The other agencies are not very keen in giving us the land for clinics. As soon as we identify and finalise the land, construction is initiated.”
The PWD is given six months to build the clinic while three months time is assigned to ensure electricity and water supply along with posting of the staff — a doctor, a pharmacist and a multi-tasker worker.
The setting up of clinics has been envisaged in the form of a Pre-Engineered Insulated Box Type Re-located Structure which are to be manufactured and installed through PWD.
The clinics, functional from 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on all days except Sundays, provide services like basic medical care based on standard treatment protocols which include curative care for common illnesses like fever, diarrhoea, skin problems, respiratory problems, first aid for injuries and burns, dressing and management of minor wounds and referral services.
While medicines are provided free of cost to the patients as per the essential drug list, the lab investigations were carried out by the empanelled laboratories. Officials said a total of 214 tests can be done for free through the clinics.
Along with providing health-related information, education and awareness, the clinics also provide preventive services such as antenatal and postnatal care of pregnant women, assessment of nutritional status and counselling and a preventive and promotive component of National/State Health Programmes.
The Mohalla Clinic project has been widely praised, including by the late Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and a former Director-General of World Health Organisation.
Another former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, along with Brundtland visited some clinics last year and were “deeply impressed” by it.
The Delhi government was providing health care services through primary, secondary and tertiary facilities out of which the primary care is delivered through dispensaries, secondary health care through multi-speciality hospitals and tertiary health care services through super-speciality hospitals.
After the AAP came to power, in order to fill the gaps in services, there has been a paradigm shift in reorganising health care services.
Now the Delhi government provides a four-tier health care delivery system, with Mohalla Clinics for primary health care, multi-speciality poly-clinics for secondary health care in the form of OPD consultation by specialist doctors including diagnostics, multi-speciality Hospitals for IPD care (earlier called secondary level hospital) and super-speciality hospitals (earlier called tertiary level hospital).
The health services also cater to people from neighbouring states.
The government is also planning school clinics, to be started on the lines of the Mohalla Clinic.
“The school clinics will be started in Delhi government schools with an aim to improve the health and nutrition of the students. Locations of 265 School Clinics have been finalised,” another officer said.
The government has also proposed 94 additional polyclinics, apart from 25 functional ones in the city. “These will act as a satellite centre for outdoor specialised medical treatment centres,” the official said.
(Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Social Entrepreneur
By Nivedita Singh,
New Delhi : On a scorching summer day, the likes of which are plentiful in Delhi, what one needs most is a glass of water to quench one’s thirst, more so for those who toil in the unbearable heat to earn their livelihoods. The hundreds of civic workers, rickshaw pullers, street vendors and road sweepers cannot afford to buy water several times a day from vending kiosks. To their rescue come the “matkas”, or traditional earthen pitchers, installed at different parts of the city which seem to get magically filled up with water every single day.
Behind these matkas is a 69-year-old man who wakes up every morning before dawn and steps out in his van to fill up the 70 matkas — used to store water in homes before refrigerators and coolers arrived — he has installed in the city to ensure the poor don’t go thirsty. The man who overcame cancer and gave up his business in Britain, finally found happiness in this daily routine with which he gives back to what he says is an “interconnected” community that has lost its social purpose.
He says he wants to start a “revolution in human kindness”.
The story began in the summer of 2014 when Alagarathanam Natarajan — now known as Delhi’s Matka Man — realised that even something as basic as cold drinking water was not accessible to all even in the national capital. So he put a water-cooler outside his home.
“Once, I casually asked one of the guards who came to take water from the cooler why he was coming here and not taking water from where he worked. He said they did not provide him water,” said Natarajan, who earlier ran a corner store in upscale Oxford Street in London.
The answer shocked Natarajan and also motivated him to do something.
“It was always on my mind to do something for my community. I discussed it with my family. But installing water coolers was difficult as it required space, electricity and also needed a lot of maintenance. So, I thought of installing matkas to help people in the hot summers,” he said.
However, it became a throughout the year ritual to wake up in the morning and fill the pitchers. During the initial days, people used to consider him as someone appointed by the Delhi government.
“I am not backed by an NGO, nor am I a government-sponsored organisation. I am mostly self-funded through my pension and life savings. I do get a few donations and, most importantly, lots of help and support from my family,” he said.
Brought up in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), Natarajan moved to London as a young man and spent 40-years there as a businessman running a souvenir shop. There he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and, after his treatment, he decided to return to India and do something for the less privileged.
“It was always on my mind to come back to the country. I saw cancer as nature’s reminder of my wish.”
After returning to India, he volunteered at an orphanage, a last-stage cancer hospice, served langar (free food) to the homeless in Chandni Chowk and even carried out the cremation of destitutes to give them a dignified end.
In 2014, he turned his attention to water which then expanded to encompass a much larger range of activities for the poor. Natarajan not only provides free drinking water to the poor but also distributes food and fresh fruits.
“I distribute seasonal fruits and vegetables like cucumber, watermelon, white radish twice a week to labourers and the poor when I go to distribute water in my van. It also include other items like ‘lassi’ (a curd-based summer drink) or ‘jalebi’ (a popular syrupy sweet snack) as well,” he said.
“Through this work, I have come to believe that we are all crucially linked together but that society today has abandoned this inter-connectedness,” he said.
For the water distribution, Natarajan has modified a van fitted with a 800 litre tank, a pump and a generator to run it. From the van, he fills the matkas daily and maintains the stands.
“In the summer, I do up to four rounds a day to ensure the matkas are always filled.”
“The matkas need around 2,000 litres of water a day in the summer months. The water is supplied by a school nearby and two kind souls. The rest I supplement from my own home. I maintain these stands daily with my van.”
“The stands have a sign with my personal telephone number, so people can notify me when a matka is empty. I have also installed a bench for people to sit,” he said.
He also urges people to place matkas outside their homes so that he can fill those up as well, an advice that many have taken seriously.
With each trip to fill water taking three to four hours, Natarajan now also has an assistant who helps him in doing this.
Apart from the matkas, he has also placed 100 cycle pumps around the neighbourhood to help those in need.
“Delhi roads are hard on cycles. These pumps give poor people the flexibility to fill air 24/7. Some are stand-alone units and some are part of the matka stands. I also distribute glow-in-the-dark stickers for safety purposes and spare nozzles for their wheels.”
He believes that people in a community must sincerely care for one another. “Every one of us has something to give and share with society.” Unfortunately, today we live in a culture where we, as a society, have become greedier and more self-indulgent, he said.
“As a consequence, the poor, who are watching this growing inequality from the periphery, have become angrier; and as a result of this injustice, crime is on a rise.
“I wish to help those in need around me and also to inspire people to help those around them. Perhaps then, I can start a quiet revolution of human kindness,” he adds.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Garbage in Taimur Nagar slum area in New Delhi. (Image The Asian Age)
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed displeasure on the failure of Delhi Lt Governor, whom it termed “Superman”, for not taking effective steps to tackle garbage problem in the city, after his office admitted that waste management comes within its jurisdiction.
A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta slammed Lt. Governor Anil Baijal for not taking appropriate action on the issue of solid waste management in Delhi and took into note that he did not attend crucial meetings on the issue and had not passed any directions too.
On Tuesday, the bench had asked who is responsible for clearing the “mountain loads of garbage” – those answerable to the Delhi Lt Governor or the Chief Minister. In response, both the Delhi government and the Lt Governor on Thursday told the court that the Lt Governot has the power to issue directions to authorities concerned under the provisions of Delhi Municipal Corporation Act on disposal of solid waste.
The bench said the meetings held by the Delhi Health Minister would not be not accepted by the Lt Governor because he would say it was chaired by someone without authority. “Who is the Health Minister according to LG?” asked the court.
“Nobody from LG’s office bothered to attend meetings and he says I have the power. I am Superman… It’s passing buck, he says ‘I am responsible, I will not do anything, but you will be blamed’,” the bench said.
“Your (LG) affidavit says it’s (solid waste management) your responsibility. So don’t bring Chief Minister into the picture,” it added.
The court, which was upset as there was no concrete plan for solid waste management in the city and said “mountains of garbage” (three landfill sites) – Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa – indicate that Delhi is facing a grave situation and directed the Lt Governor’s office to file an affidavit by July 16 on the time frame about the steps to be taken to deal with the situation.
The bench said the situation in Delhi was “absolutely bizarre”, and referred to three landfill sites as “mountains of garbage”.
It said there was a 65-metre mound at Ghazipur which was “only eight metres less than the historic Qutub Minar”.
“What about Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa. Last time, we were told that it Ghazipur landfill had 62 metre mountain of garbage. Now your affidavit says it is 65 metre which is only eight metre less than the Qutub Minar,” the bench added.
The top court, hearing a matter related to implementation of the Solid Waste Management Rules, had earlier directed the Central government to file a chart indicating whether the states and union territories have constituted state-level advisory boards in accordance with the provisions of Solid Waste Management Rules 2016.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The row over who controls Delhi’s bureaucracy escalated on Wednesday as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia launched a full attack against the Centre for not letting the city government implement some major schemes by pressurising the officers.
“Delhi government’s scheme of doorstep ration delivery and CCTV installation have been left in a limbo,” Sisodia said, adding, “even though we have decision-making powers, the officers who implement these projects are under the Central government, which is deliberately causing obstruction in our work”.
“In a way, BJP (central government) is saying that you have been given the powers to take decisions, keep taking those decisions, but we won’t implement it,” he said.
On July 6, the Delhi government approved doorstep ration delivery scheme but Sisodia said that the officer rejected it by saying that he will ask the Law Department first. “They are just rotating the files to cause hindrance in the elected government’s work.”
“The big question that arises is if the Delhi government is taking a step in stopping black marketing in ration delivery, then why is the Central government, through their officers, trying to stop it,” he asked.
He also mentioned the proposal where people working on a contractual basis would be given 20 per cent bonus and how the officers, despite ministers’ approval of the project, rejected the decision.
He also said that the government’s CCTV installation project has again hit a snag due to recommendations made by Lt Governor’s committee which mandates permission from police before installation.
“According to the recommendations by the LG’s committee, anyone who wants to install CCTV cameras would have to get police permission. This is a huge setback for women safety,” he said.
Kejriwal also said that the licensing process will only increase corruption.
“What will police see before giving CCTV license? On what basis will police give license? It will only increase bribery. It’s a huge blow to women safety because all existing cameras in Delhi will have to be removed till they obtain a license and all new CCTVs will have to wait for a license,” he tweeted.
Kejriwal, on Wednesday, also approached Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and told him how the Lt Governor and Centre are “twisting the orders of Supreme Court.”
“He said that he will discuss the matter with his officers and meet me again on July 16,” Kejriwal said after the meeting.
Last week, the Supreme Court held that the executive power of the Centre is limited to only land, public order, and police, while the elected government of Delhi enjoys powers on all other subjects, including “services”.
Lt. Governor Anil Baijal has, however, maintained that the Union Home Ministry has advised him to keep exercising powers over “services” because the 2015 MHA notification remains valid until the regular bench of the apex court decides on it.
—IANS
