by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Chandigarh, (IANS) With a section of the Jat community leadership going ahead with its call for agitation for reservation from Sunday, the administration in Haryana’s Sonipat district banned all Internet services.
“With a view to ward off any tension, fights, threats to human life, damage to property and deterioration in the law and order situation, District Magistrate, Sonipat, K. Makarand Pandurang, has issued orders to ban all Internet services, including Internet 2G, 3G, 4G, Edge, GPRS and Bulk SMS sent via mobile, under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code with effect from June 4, 2016.
“This ban would be effective till further orders,” a state government spokesman said here on Saturday.
The ban has been imposed to prevent people from misusing these services might be used to spread wrong information and rumours, the district magistrate said.
“These services could also be used in illegal activities such as blocking roads, highways and railway tracks, damaging government property and disrupting essential services and supply of food. Social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr, Google Plus and mobile internet could be misused for this purpose,” he added.
All telecom service providers have been directed to strictly abide by these orders, he added.
The Rohtak district administration on Saturday issued notices to four people for violating Section 144 imposed in the district by pitching tents for ‘dharna’ without permission of the competent authority.
Rohtak Deputy Commissioner Atul Kumar said that notices have been issued to former sarpanch of village Rithal, Umed Singh, Sombir Singh, resident of village Jasiya, Ashok Balhara of Dev Colony and Vijaydeep of Rohtak, for pitching tents near Kanhi Chowk in village Jasiya, for which permission was not sought from the administration.
“They have been directed to remove the tents immediately,” he said, adding that the ground in Sector 6 had been earmarked for the dharna and restriction has been imposed on gathering of five or more persons within 500 metres of all national and state highways, railway lines and stations and connecting roads in the district.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Economy, News
By Jaideep Sarin
Rohtak (Haryana) (IANS) “I have got RTGS of Rs.10 lakh in my account. With this amount I cannot even get my mall cleaned, leave alone rebuilding the entire thing. All my hard work of so many years has been reduced to rubble,” Suresh Sharma, the owner of Rohtak’s burnt down RN Mall, rued.
Sharma, like scores of others whose shops, business establishments and institutions were looted and completely burnt down in the mindless arson by Jat protesters in last month’s violent agitation for reservation, says that non-Jat community businessmen are uncertain whether they want to re-build their establishments in Haryana or move out to other places.
Rohtak’s only McDonald’s outlet, which Sharma brought here almost 18 months ago after a lot of effort, has been charred along with the multiplex cinema halls, high-end gyms and other showrooms in the RN Mall. The mall’s staff, numbering over 100, stare at a jobless future.
“My estimated loss in the Mall alone is over Rs.7 crore. Even I am jobless as of today. So is all my staff. We don’t even know where the money for re-building the whole thing will come from. The interim relief is hardly of any use. The government should compensate the whole loss immediately as the police and administration failed to provide security for our establishments,” Sharma told IANS.
“I don’t understand how the Khattar government is going ahead with the ‘Happening Haryana’ investors’ summit when the existing ones have suffered losses of hundreds of crores. Who will invest in a state where such lawlessness prevails?” he said.
The protesters even set the RN Engineering College, owned by Sharma and his family, at Makroli Kalan near here. “They took away all computers and other equipment and burnt down the building. The loss at the college is around Rs.4 crore,” Sharma said.
The arsonists specifically targeted establishments owned by people from non-Jat communities like Punjabis, Sainis, Brahmins and others, local traders point out.
The BJP government in Haryana, led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, having failed to contain the violence, is trying to give an impression that it will compensate all losses suffered by people. Much of this is being done ahead of the March 7-8 ‘Happening Haryana Global Investors’ Summit’ being held in Gurgaon.
“Haryana government has so far released an interim assistance of Rs 20,04,75,291 (Rs 20.04 crore) to 1,537 persons whose properties were damaged in the recent agitation in the state,” an official claimed in Chandigarh.
Among the sufferers of the violence is the family of Haryana’s Finance and Industries Minister Abhimanyu Sindhu.
The minister’s house was set on fire continuously for three days. Nearly a dozen cars, including high-end luxury ones, were burnt down. His family members had to take refuge in a neighbour’s house to save themselves and were later airlifted in a chartered helicopter.
Indus Public School, a big private school owned by his family, in which his wife Ekta Sindhu is the chairperson, was set ablaze, along with 18 school buses.
The Sindhu family is reported to have made a claim of Rs. 25 crore to the Haryana government for the losses suffered by it in the agitation.
Three other prominent schools (Scholars Rosery School, Pathania School and Shriram Global School) in and around Rohtak were also ransacked and burnt down by the protesters. Studies of nearly 15,000 students have been affected by the closure of schools.
Trade and industry body Assocham has projected the loss in the violence at around Rs 20,000 crore.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (Photo Credit- Reuters)
By Dr. Javed Jamil
If they still feel that rather than their own doing, Muslims are responsible for it, they will have to understand that the larger growth rate among Muslims owes mainly to poverty and relative lack of education. The best way to further reduce the gap will be to ensure that more and more Muslim boys and girls get higher education and employment. This will require reservation, both in education and jobs. They must also know that women in jobs are likely to have less number of children than the women not in jobs. Opening job facilities for Muslim girls would therefore be a positive stop.
Dr.Javed Jamil
“Hindu Population falls below 80 percent” – this and similar headlines appear at the top of almost all newspapers today. The debate is on again. It may rage in coming days and hopefully for the ruling party will help its Bihar campaign.
The data show that
- While the general population grew at the rate of 17.7% between 2001 and 2011, the growth rate was 16.8% for Hindus, 24.6% for Muslims, 15.5% for Christians, 8.4% for Sikhs, 6.1% for Buddhists, and 5.4% for Jains.
- Indeed, between 1991 and 2001, the Muslim population grew 29.3%, indicating that the 24.6% growth seen between 2001 and 2011 marks a slowing.
- According to the National Family Health Survey-3, Muslim fertility is decreasing faster than Hindu fertility, which means a narrowing of Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials.
- The census data, which was compiled in 2011, says India is home to 966.3 million Hindus, who make up 79.8% of the population. There are 172.2 million Muslims (14.2% of the population); 27.8 million Christians (2.3%) and 20.8 million Sikhs (1.7%). The data also shows there are 8.4 million Buddhists with a 0.7% share of the population and 4.5 million Jains, making up 0.4% of the population
When an analyst from Financial Mint of the Hindustan Times group called me last afternoon on phone asking my reaction to the latest report, I had not yet read it. When she told that it has shown Islam as the fastest growing religion in India, my immediate reaction was that it was a global phenomenon. But then I explained the difference between India and rest of the world. While the reasons for fastest growth of Islam in the world owe significantly if not wholly to conversion, in India the phenomenon is almost wholly to the higher growth rate of Muslim population compared to Muslims, although the difference is fast narrowing.
The report is sure to infuse huge activity in the Hindutva lobby. Even decades before the Partition, they had a keen eye on demographic realities in the country. If the country got partitioned, it was not merely because a section of Muslims led by Jinnah demanded it and they got it. It was also because certain Hindu lobbies deliberately allowed, even facilitated it. While the Muslim supporters of Partition believed they would be able to carve a better future for Muslims in a separate country, the Hindu supporters thought that he Partition would in effect partition Muslim population, and Hindus would have an overwhelming dominance in what would become new India. And seen from their point of view, they were perhaps right. If the country had not witnessed Partition, India would have had about 50 crore Muslims out of about 155. This would have been around 33 per cent of the population. With that kind of Muslim share, Hindus would not have been able to achieve the kind of total dominance they have achieved on almost all fronts. They have ensured enacted legislations like Art 341, which has blocked any conversion of Dalits to Islam. The constitutional guarantees to Dalits are less out of love for them and more out of the desire to maintain the current demography. They have also ensured that while almost half of the population of Hindus get reservation in jobs and colleges, Muslims do not get it. With much less than the adequate Muslim presence in political institutions, Administration, Executive and Judiciary, they have sidelined Muslim influence in the country.
The data have clearly shown that the fall in the growth of Muslims has been far more than that of Hindus in the last decade. This clearly shows that Muslims have adopted FP measures in increasingly large numbers. But Hindutva lobby will again cry foul trying to prove that “Muslims marry four wives and produce 25 children”.
The truth however is that if Hindu population has been showing a declining trend, it is almost wholly due to their own fault. Their dislike for daughters has grown despite severe laws against Sex Determination Test. Reports have shown that in the 9-5 years age group, the Male/Female ratio among Muslims is 950 compared to 925 among Hindus. In Muslim families close to me, there are many with more daughters than boys or only daughters. I have seen this rarely in Hindu families. The Hindu experts forget that the growth rate within a community ultimately depends upon the number of fertile women and not men. If they are really interested in maintaining their lead in the population, they will have to produce more daughters and not kill them in the wombs of their mothers.
If they still feel that rather than their own doing, Muslims are responsible for it, they will have to understand that the larger growth rate among Muslims owes mainly to poverty and relative lack of education. The best way to further reduce the gap will be to ensure that more and more Muslim boys and girls get higher education and employment. This will require reservation, both in education and jobs. They must also know that women in jobs are likely to have less number of children than the women not in jobs. Opening job facilities for Muslim girls would therefore be a positive stop.
Another important step would be to involve more and more Muslim NGOs in health and education and to grant them funds. I am saying this on the basis of my personal experience. Around 2000, I organised mother and child care and vaccination camps in around 200 Muslim villages of District Saharanpur. The performance of those camps was so overwhelmingly superior to the camps organisation by District Health Administration that CMO called for a special meeting to analyse this. While the number of vaccinations in the governmental camps would not exceed 8-10 a day, the numbers in our camps would cross 100 mark, and in one camp it crossed 400. ORG even conducted a survey in these villages and found huge success rate. This was mainly due to the lack of credibility for the government teams in Muslim villages.
Lastly, Hindutva organisations should refrain from making it a big issue. If they do, it will only prove to be counterproductive. The rate of the decline of their population is too slow to warrant any panic, and with time this gap is bound to decrease. Let this issue not allow an already galloping communal situation to worsen further.
- Dr Javed Jamil is Delhi based thinker and writer with over a dozen books including his latest, “Quranic Paradigms of Sciences & Society” (First Vol: Health), “Muslims Most Civilised, Yet Not Enough” and “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & Road-map”.
