MONTH THAT WAS
Caste Census futile: Experts
New Delhi: Experts say the headcount of castes through a separate standalone caste census in June-September as decided by the Cabinet will be a futile exercise, defeating the very purpose of social justice for which the opposition parties wanted reintroduction of the caste enumeration scrapped since after the 1931 Census.
Advocating collection of the caste data in the main Census 2011 to be carried out in February, they say the separate headcount will not integrate the caste data with the socio-economic, educational and demographic data like literacy, education, martial status, life expectancy, occupation, etc. that be gathered during the Census headcount. In a public appeal, nine experts have called for an urgent course correction to achieve the intended policy benefits, pointing out that repeating the gigantic exercise within two months of the main Census cannot be defended in “administrative, logical or financial terms.” The experts, who have pointed out that the caste count can be carried out by just networking the column for “SC-ST” as “Caste” in the schedule used in the house-to-house census enumeration in February. Include former Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India Dr M Vijayanunni who had headed the Census exercises in the country.
They say recording “Caste” in the column for “SC-ST” will straightaway ensure correction with all the other data and make for quick and simultaneous processing and publication of caste data along with other 2011 Census tables.
“The main reason to enumerate caste is to enable the distribution of national resources and opportunities informed by reliable empirical evidence on the socio-economic levels of different communities now and in future. Without such evidence, all the problems blocking the implementation of social justice policies will remain unsolved,” the experts warned.
In China, labour disputes overwhelm courts
Beijing: Chinese court officials say they are struggling to handle a surging number of labor dispute cases that have arisen in part because of the global financial crisis, according to a report in 'China Daily', an official-English-language newspaper. The number of labor disputes brought to court also has grown as the Chinese government has generally sought to improve work place conditions and make workers more aware of their rights. A rash of factory strikes this year, most notably at plants that make parts for Japanese automobile companies, cast a spotlight on working conditions in manufacturing hubs along the coastal provinces.
China Daily reported that statistics from the Supreme People’s Court show 295,000 labor dispute cases brought to court in 2008, an increase of 95 per cent from the previous year. That statistics is slightly higher than the 280,000 that Chinese news organisations had previously reported.
The figure in 2009 was 318,000 and it was 207,400 in the first eight months of this year, China Daily said. “A lot of enterprises, especially export companies, are unable to satisfy workers’ requirements for higher wages,” Sun Jungong, a spokesman for the Supreme People’s Court, said at a news conference, according to China Daily.
“Some enterprises tend to ignore the protection of workers’ rights in order to maximise profits and minimise labor costs, with illegal unemployment and violations of employees’ legitimate rights being common,” Sun added.
In early 2008 the Chinese government enacted two laws – the Labour Contract Law and the Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labour Disputes – that did much to raise worker awareness, even if strict enforcement was lacking, scholars of Chinese labour issues said. The first law tries to guarantee contracts for full-time workers while the second law is intended to streamline the system of arbitration and lawsuits.
In late 2008 many low-margin manufacturing companies in the coastal provinces shut down. Provincial governments had wanted to clear out some of these companies anyway and their demise was accelerated by the global financial crisis, which had dealt a blow to exports from China.
Chinese official drowns trying to save barrels
Beijing: A senior Chinese military officer drowned while trying to retrieve chemical-filled barrels swept away by floods, even as a grim situation prevailed in the northwestern Heilongjiang province as waters of a river were found to be contaminated with chemicals.
Meanwhile, officials have recovered 6,387 chemical barrels from the Songhua River, official ‘Xinhua’ news agency reported. Guan Xizhi, Chief of Staff in an Engineer Corps based at Shenyang Military Command, was swept away by floodwaters on the Songhua River near Hadashan Dam, Songyuan City.
His body was found, official ‘Xinhua’ news agency reported. Guan and four others soldiers were chaining boats together on the river to block the downstream passage of the thousands of barrels when a flash flood hit them.
The five were forced to jump into the rushing waters. All but Guan were rescued, it said. China mobilised thousands of soldiers to retrieve 7,000 chemical barrels washed away by floods from two warehouses. Official said a total of 3,662 barrels filled with colorless and highly explosive chemicals-mainly trimethyl chloro silicane and hexamethyl disilazane-and 3,476 empty ones were swept into Wende River after floods destroyed the warehouses of two chemical plants in Jilin City, Jilin Province. The barrels were intercepted after more than 12,000 soldiers, armed police, emergency workers and local residents in Jilin fanned out along the river’s 235km waterways to collect the barrels, the official said.
Schools cannot force veils: Bangladesh
Dhaka: Bangladesh issued a strict directive asking authorities at schools and other seminaries not to force girl students to wear veils or bar them from participating in sports and cultural activities.
“No female student can be forced to wear religious clothing or ‘burqa’ (veil) in educational institutions or be barred from taking part in sports and cultural activities,” an education ministry spokesman said quoting the official circular.
He said the violation of the directives would be treated as “ill-conduct” on the part of seminary authorities and they would have to face legal actions.
The education ministry circular came three days after the High Court issued an order asking the government to ensure that no women are forced to wear “burqas” or veils or any religious dress in educational institutions or offices.
A two member bench comprising A H M Shamsuddin Chowdhary Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain issued the suo moto order after a lawyer drew its attention to a report that the principal of a government women’s college in north western Natore had asked his students to come to the college wearing veils. Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country, but only a small number of women wear burqas or full veils.
Women banned from wearing mini-skirt to work in UK
London: Women in Britain’s offices have been banned from wearing mini-skirts to work, and people involved in ‘customer-facing roles’ have been told to look more professional “in a way that shows respect to children and families”. Around 400 staff in Southampton City Council’s children’s services department received a memo telling them they should dress respectfully and “carefully consider their work attire”, the Daily Mail reported. Council bosses said in the memo that women wearing mini-skirt could be sent home, while men have been advised to wear “collared or polo shirts, cotton trousers such as khakis or chinos with a belt”. Women can wear trousers, informal dresses or skirts of “reasonable” length, but “not mini-skirts”. “Please try to dress smartly and thoughtfully, in line with other professionals you come across in your day-to-day work, and in a way that shows respect to children and families,” it said. Women, however, have threatened to fight the ban, as one of them said “Are they going to come around with a tape measure?” “I would have thought the council has got better things to do than impose a regimented approach to what people wear,” said Mike Tucker, secretary of a union.
Iraq: New order - same abuses - Amensty
Cairo: Iraqi authorities are holding some 30,000 people without trial and denying them access to lawyers, leaving them at risk of torture, the leading human rights organisation Amnesty International said in a report. Secret prisons are allegedly being used to house detainees. The report – entitled New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful detentions and torture in Iraq – also charged that some prisoners had died from maltreatment while in custody.
EVM & foreign hand
Mumbai: Investigators probing the EVM theft case have found that three foreigners had provided technical help to accused Hari Prasad in tampering with it and suspect that the machine might have been smuggled out of the country.
Investigators have found that two US and one Dutch national had helped Prasad, technical coordinator of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), to show how the machine can be tampered with. Besides, it is suspected that EVM might have been smuggled out of India, possibly to an European country, deepening the suspicion that there could be a larger “conspiracy angle” in the whole case, a top official said.
“There seems to be a bigger picture than what it looked like initially. We are conducting a through probe to find out who was actually behind it, why it has been done and whether there is a conspiracy to discredit India’s election process,” the official said.
The Union Home Ministry is constantly monitoring the development and giving regular directions to the investigators. Besides, the investigators are trying to find out whether any domestic or foreign private corporate was indirectly involved in the theft case to make a clone as the theft case to make a clone as the EVMs are manufactured only by two government undertakings – Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronic Corporation of India. Both these organisations also export EVMs to a few foreign countries.
Prasad, who hails from Hyderabad, was arrested for allegedly stealing an EVM from the Mumbai Collector’s office.
Britons no longer well mannered: Survey
London: Britons, who have always prided themselves on being well mannered, are no longer well mannered, are no longer so, a survey has showed.
Two-thirds of the respondents, in the survey carried out among 3,000 people, believe that Britain is a rude country and Britons are just as likely to utter an offhand “cheers” than say a formal “Thank You”.
‘Daily Express’ reported that 84 percent complained that Britons don’t know how to show appreciation. Four in ten said they don’t write “Thank You” letters to relatives for Christmas or birthday presents while a significant 77 percent of the respondents believe that even saying “Thank You” is not important as some other kind of “nice gesture” was good enough. Almost 50 percent said they were more likely to say “Cheers” rather than “Thank You”.
The research was carried out by ‘OnePoll.com’ for Me To You toy range.
“Society seems increasingly scared of expressing good, honest, truthful words. We would rather follow politicians and hide behind language instead of saying what we really think, “Marie Clair, of the Plain English Campaign, was quoted as saying.
New Delhi: Experts say the headcount of castes through a separate standalone caste census in June-September as decided by the Cabinet will be a futile exercise, defeating the very purpose of social justice for which the opposition parties wanted reintroduction of the caste enumeration scrapped since after the 1931 Census.
Advocating collection of the caste data in the main Census 2011 to be carried out in February, they say the separate headcount will not integrate the caste data with the socio-economic, educational and demographic data like literacy, education, martial status, life expectancy, occupation, etc. that be gathered during the Census headcount. In a public appeal, nine experts have called for an urgent course correction to achieve the intended policy benefits, pointing out that repeating the gigantic exercise within two months of the main Census cannot be defended in “administrative, logical or financial terms.” The experts, who have pointed out that the caste count can be carried out by just networking the column for “SC-ST” as “Caste” in the schedule used in the house-to-house census enumeration in February. Include former Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India Dr M Vijayanunni who had headed the Census exercises in the country.
They say recording “Caste” in the column for “SC-ST” will straightaway ensure correction with all the other data and make for quick and simultaneous processing and publication of caste data along with other 2011 Census tables.
“The main reason to enumerate caste is to enable the distribution of national resources and opportunities informed by reliable empirical evidence on the socio-economic levels of different communities now and in future. Without such evidence, all the problems blocking the implementation of social justice policies will remain unsolved,” the experts warned.
In China, labour disputes overwhelm courts
Beijing: Chinese court officials say they are struggling to handle a surging number of labor dispute cases that have arisen in part because of the global financial crisis, according to a report in 'China Daily', an official-English-language newspaper. The number of labor disputes brought to court also has grown as the Chinese government has generally sought to improve work place conditions and make workers more aware of their rights. A rash of factory strikes this year, most notably at plants that make parts for Japanese automobile companies, cast a spotlight on working conditions in manufacturing hubs along the coastal provinces.
China Daily reported that statistics from the Supreme People’s Court show 295,000 labor dispute cases brought to court in 2008, an increase of 95 per cent from the previous year. That statistics is slightly higher than the 280,000 that Chinese news organisations had previously reported.
The figure in 2009 was 318,000 and it was 207,400 in the first eight months of this year, China Daily said. “A lot of enterprises, especially export companies, are unable to satisfy workers’ requirements for higher wages,” Sun Jungong, a spokesman for the Supreme People’s Court, said at a news conference, according to China Daily.
“Some enterprises tend to ignore the protection of workers’ rights in order to maximise profits and minimise labor costs, with illegal unemployment and violations of employees’ legitimate rights being common,” Sun added.
In early 2008 the Chinese government enacted two laws – the Labour Contract Law and the Law on Mediation and Arbitration of Labour Disputes – that did much to raise worker awareness, even if strict enforcement was lacking, scholars of Chinese labour issues said. The first law tries to guarantee contracts for full-time workers while the second law is intended to streamline the system of arbitration and lawsuits.
In late 2008 many low-margin manufacturing companies in the coastal provinces shut down. Provincial governments had wanted to clear out some of these companies anyway and their demise was accelerated by the global financial crisis, which had dealt a blow to exports from China.
Chinese official drowns trying to save barrels
Beijing: A senior Chinese military officer drowned while trying to retrieve chemical-filled barrels swept away by floods, even as a grim situation prevailed in the northwestern Heilongjiang province as waters of a river were found to be contaminated with chemicals.
Meanwhile, officials have recovered 6,387 chemical barrels from the Songhua River, official ‘Xinhua’ news agency reported. Guan Xizhi, Chief of Staff in an Engineer Corps based at Shenyang Military Command, was swept away by floodwaters on the Songhua River near Hadashan Dam, Songyuan City.
His body was found, official ‘Xinhua’ news agency reported. Guan and four others soldiers were chaining boats together on the river to block the downstream passage of the thousands of barrels when a flash flood hit them.
The five were forced to jump into the rushing waters. All but Guan were rescued, it said. China mobilised thousands of soldiers to retrieve 7,000 chemical barrels washed away by floods from two warehouses. Official said a total of 3,662 barrels filled with colorless and highly explosive chemicals-mainly trimethyl chloro silicane and hexamethyl disilazane-and 3,476 empty ones were swept into Wende River after floods destroyed the warehouses of two chemical plants in Jilin City, Jilin Province. The barrels were intercepted after more than 12,000 soldiers, armed police, emergency workers and local residents in Jilin fanned out along the river’s 235km waterways to collect the barrels, the official said.
Schools cannot force veils: Bangladesh
Dhaka: Bangladesh issued a strict directive asking authorities at schools and other seminaries not to force girl students to wear veils or bar them from participating in sports and cultural activities.
“No female student can be forced to wear religious clothing or ‘burqa’ (veil) in educational institutions or be barred from taking part in sports and cultural activities,” an education ministry spokesman said quoting the official circular.
He said the violation of the directives would be treated as “ill-conduct” on the part of seminary authorities and they would have to face legal actions.
The education ministry circular came three days after the High Court issued an order asking the government to ensure that no women are forced to wear “burqas” or veils or any religious dress in educational institutions or offices.
A two member bench comprising A H M Shamsuddin Chowdhary Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain issued the suo moto order after a lawyer drew its attention to a report that the principal of a government women’s college in north western Natore had asked his students to come to the college wearing veils. Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country, but only a small number of women wear burqas or full veils.
Women banned from wearing mini-skirt to work in UK
London: Women in Britain’s offices have been banned from wearing mini-skirts to work, and people involved in ‘customer-facing roles’ have been told to look more professional “in a way that shows respect to children and families”. Around 400 staff in Southampton City Council’s children’s services department received a memo telling them they should dress respectfully and “carefully consider their work attire”, the Daily Mail reported. Council bosses said in the memo that women wearing mini-skirt could be sent home, while men have been advised to wear “collared or polo shirts, cotton trousers such as khakis or chinos with a belt”. Women can wear trousers, informal dresses or skirts of “reasonable” length, but “not mini-skirts”. “Please try to dress smartly and thoughtfully, in line with other professionals you come across in your day-to-day work, and in a way that shows respect to children and families,” it said. Women, however, have threatened to fight the ban, as one of them said “Are they going to come around with a tape measure?” “I would have thought the council has got better things to do than impose a regimented approach to what people wear,” said Mike Tucker, secretary of a union.
Iraq: New order - same abuses - Amensty
Cairo: Iraqi authorities are holding some 30,000 people without trial and denying them access to lawyers, leaving them at risk of torture, the leading human rights organisation Amnesty International said in a report. Secret prisons are allegedly being used to house detainees. The report – entitled New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful detentions and torture in Iraq – also charged that some prisoners had died from maltreatment while in custody.
EVM & foreign hand
Mumbai: Investigators probing the EVM theft case have found that three foreigners had provided technical help to accused Hari Prasad in tampering with it and suspect that the machine might have been smuggled out of the country.
Investigators have found that two US and one Dutch national had helped Prasad, technical coordinator of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), to show how the machine can be tampered with. Besides, it is suspected that EVM might have been smuggled out of India, possibly to an European country, deepening the suspicion that there could be a larger “conspiracy angle” in the whole case, a top official said.
“There seems to be a bigger picture than what it looked like initially. We are conducting a through probe to find out who was actually behind it, why it has been done and whether there is a conspiracy to discredit India’s election process,” the official said.
The Union Home Ministry is constantly monitoring the development and giving regular directions to the investigators. Besides, the investigators are trying to find out whether any domestic or foreign private corporate was indirectly involved in the theft case to make a clone as the theft case to make a clone as the EVMs are manufactured only by two government undertakings – Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronic Corporation of India. Both these organisations also export EVMs to a few foreign countries.
Prasad, who hails from Hyderabad, was arrested for allegedly stealing an EVM from the Mumbai Collector’s office.
Britons no longer well mannered: Survey
London: Britons, who have always prided themselves on being well mannered, are no longer well mannered, are no longer so, a survey has showed.
Two-thirds of the respondents, in the survey carried out among 3,000 people, believe that Britain is a rude country and Britons are just as likely to utter an offhand “cheers” than say a formal “Thank You”.
‘Daily Express’ reported that 84 percent complained that Britons don’t know how to show appreciation. Four in ten said they don’t write “Thank You” letters to relatives for Christmas or birthday presents while a significant 77 percent of the respondents believe that even saying “Thank You” is not important as some other kind of “nice gesture” was good enough. Almost 50 percent said they were more likely to say “Cheers” rather than “Thank You”.
The research was carried out by ‘OnePoll.com’ for Me To You toy range.
“Society seems increasingly scared of expressing good, honest, truthful words. We would rather follow politicians and hide behind language instead of saying what we really think, “Marie Clair, of the Plain English Campaign, was quoted as saying.
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