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Bihar Times
News
Bihar panchayats deny Constitutional reservations
Panchayat elections in Bihar are being held after a gap of 23 years. In defiance of the Constitution, Bihar is going ahead with its village-level polls, without reserving posts for women, scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs).
Sub-clause 4 of Article 243 (D) of the Indian constitution clearly states, "When panchayats are constituted, one third of the posts of the panchayat president must be reserved for women. And there should be reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe, according to population in the state."
However in a 1996 judgment, the Patna High Court ruled that reservation of any post, which is a single post, is tantamount to 100 per cent reservation. And, therefore, any kind of reservation for posts, which are single, cannot be allowed.
The Supreme Court has also failed to intervene in the matter.
And, in this way 3,000 women and 1,500 SC and ST candidates will be deprived of the opportunity to hold posts of Mukhiyas, Pramukhs, and Adhyakshas that are guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
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NCERT offers an education-national curriculum
The National Council for Educational Research and training( NCERT) has chalked out a curriculum plan for pre-primary to Class XII students. There will be just one composite textbook for history, geography, economics and civics; no more logarithms, vital statistics and trigonometric tables. Emphasis has to be laid on Utilitarian courses in ''life skills'' to make students smart and worldly wise.
The new national curriculum framework for school education will strive for quality education and holistic development of the child.
Among other things, the document speaks of value development at all stages of school education, reduction of the curriculum load, ensuring availability of pre-school education to all children in the country, integrated thematic approach to the teaching of social sciences up to the secondary stage, wide flexibility and freedom in the choice of subjects, vocational stream for enhancing employability and entrepreneurship at the higher secondary stage, and use of different methods of grading scholastic and co-scholastic areas of learning.
The changes were initiated in November 1999, when NCERT drafted a curriculum framework and sent it out to education boards across the country. However, it may prove tough to convince state governments to agree to its ideas.
The Central Government and the NCERT has to take state governments into confidence to implement policies framed by them since education is still under the State List.
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More Central help towards modernizing Bihar Police
The Ministry of Home Affairs has increased the annual allocation from Rs. 388.53 lakhs last year to Rs 777.060 lakhs this 2000-2001 financial year, towards supplementing the efforts of the State Government in modernizing its Police Force. Matching contributions will be provided by the Bihar Government. The allocation will be used for purchasing more vehicles to improve police mobility; to upgrade the Forensic Science Laboratory equipments and buildings; to purchase traffic, crowd control and VIP security equipments and also light weaponary.
This non-plan scheme for modernisation will also help improve police communication system, introduce more scientific aids to investigation and upgrade the department's data processing abilities, besides helping in modernising office equipments.
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Death in judicial custody, Bihar tops again
On the whole, the National Human Rights Commission received 71,685 complaints of human rights violation in the year 2000-2001, 4895 of which were received from Bihar
Of the 910 deaths in judicial custody in 2000-2001, the
highest number was recorded in Bihar. It reported 137
judicial custody deaths followed by 121 from Uttar
Pradesh, 104 from Maharashtra, 76 from Andhra
Pradesh, 55 from Orissa and 48 from Punjab.
In the previous year also, Bihar had reported the highest
number of deaths in judicial custody - 155.
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Greed for power, dichotomy of views
Realising the importance of power at grassroot level, the two dreaded ultra-Left organisations - the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People's War Group have changed their mind set from giving a call to boycott parliamentary elections to participating in the Panchayat elections.
On the one hand they gave poll boycott call and punished their defiant cadres; on the other, they fielded dummy candidates and actively supported them in a bid to grab power at the grassroot level. But officially, MCC and PWG have expelled a no. of defiant cadres contesting the polls.
Nearly 150 hardcore supporters and activists of MCC and PWG are in the fray in Jehanabad alone, the hotbed of Naxalite actions. In Gaya and Aurangabad of Central Bihar, a strong contingent of Naxalite leaders and cadres are contesting panchayat election. The active participation of the two ultra outfits in democratic process has at least ensured that panchayat elections in these areas witness less violence.
Sources say that a large number of cadres are determined to contest election throwing the ideological garb of their organisation. These organisations have lost control over their followers.
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