Issue 237

www.samajweekly.com
NEWS ART & CULTURE POLITICS RELIGION LITERATURE FASHION KIDS FILMS
06/07/2017
15
The Challenges Facing Ram Nath Kovind as
President Are Both Particular and National
Will Kovind as president
be a champion for
Dalit justice? Will he
uphold the values of the
constitution?
It is still not very clear why
the BJP made Ram Nath Kovind,
a non-Jatav Dalit from Uttar
Pradesh, its nominee for the
president’s post. Is it to arrest the
disenchantment and alienation of
Dalits with the BJP over the last
three years? Is it to counter the
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP),
which still has 22% vote share in
UP? Is it to neutralise the opposition
and Dalits so they cannot
brand the BJP as anti-Dalit? Is it
to silence the educated and
mobile Dalits who are fed up
with the politics of symbolism
and patron-client politics, and
are demanding effective representation
in the decision-making
process? Or does it have some
other hidden ideological agenda?
Whatever the long term agenda,
Karbonn 'K9 Kavach 4G' launched
with integrated BHIM app
New Delhi : Karbonn
Mobiles on Tuesday
announced its partnership
with National
Payments Corporation
of India (NCPI) to
become the first Indian
smartphone brand to
integrate BHIM (Bharat
Interface for Money)
app in its latest device
'K9 Kavach 4G' which
is priced at Rs 5,290.
With the launch of
Karbonn Mobiles Executive Director Shashin
Devsare, Director Ashish Aggarwal and NPCI
CEO A P Hota at the launch of Karbonn K9
Kavach with BHIM app Integration in New Delhi,
on July 4, 2017
the BHIM-enabled
smartphone, Karbonn
Mobiles has taken a big
step towards strengthening
its service portfolio while contributing
towards the 'Digital India' initiative
and creating a less-cash economy,
the company said in a statement. "The
partnership is an epitome of two 'Made
in India' entities joining hands to enable
digital Indians with smart telephones
solutions. Our aim is to promote a cashless
economy empowering and educating
more and more people in tier 2,3
cities and rural areas about digital transactions
and benefits," Pardeep Jain,
Managing Director, Karbonn Mobiles,
told reporters here.
The K9 Kavach 4G is powered with
finger touch sensors in securing other
applications and access to phone.
"This strategic partnership is a significant
step towards providing acceptance
tools for facilitating digital payments in
India," added A.P. Hota, Managing
Director and CEO, NCPI.
the immediate agenda is very
clear. It is to cajole the anger of
the agitating Dalit youths from
Hyderabad to UP via Gujarat.
Humiliation, exclusion and
suppression : We have seen how
Dalits have suffered exclusion
and suppression over the last
three years, how have they faced
the worst type of humiliation
under BJP regimes. First, Rohith
Vemula, a research scholar from
Hyderabad Central University,
was driven to suicide by the draconian
university administration.
However, the victim’s mother
and friends have alleged that it
all happened because of the pressure
mounted by local and
national BJP leadership in the
university’s administration.
When his mother demanded justice,
a member of the commission
set up by central government
humiliated her by going
beyond its mandate to ascertain
her pedigree.
Dalits were humiliated by
V.K. Singh, a cabinet minister in
the NDA government, who compared
them to dogs and went
scot-free. Who can forget Una
where Dalits were mercilessly
beaten by gau rakshaks in broad
daylight? The Gujarat government
took cognisance of the
incident only because it went
viral on social media. After that,
whenever Dalits protested, they
were attacked. The Dalits continue
to be agitated without justice.
The BJP’s anti-Dalit face
came to fore once again in UP,
where its vice president used
obnoxious and vulgar language
to describe Mayawati, one of the
tallest Dalit leaders. After BSP
cadres, as well as Mayawati herself,
protested against him in the
Rajya Sabha, he was symbolically
shown the door.
Later, the BJP’s leadership
further humiliated Dalits by not
only giving an assembly ticket to
the ousted leader’s wife, but also
making her a cabinet minister
when the BJP came to power in
UP. To rub salt on the wound of
Dalits, soon after the formation
of the government, the same
leader was reinstated in the party
with great fanfare.
Then came the cases of Delta
Meghwal in Rajasthan and the
rape of Dalit women in Bhadana,
Haryana. Dalit women were
raped and the guilty were not
brought to book. One can add
Saharanpur in UP to this list,
where Dalits were beaten and
their huts were burnt by socalled
upper castes. The newly
elected BJP government portrayed
the Dalit youth-led Bhim
Army to be the villain. Dalits
were further humiliated in UP
when the civil administration
gave Dalits soap and shampoo
before chief minster
Adityanath’s visit. When people
protested, no satisfactory answer
was given by the government.
A leadership problem : On
each of these occasions, angry
Dalits protested with full might,
on the roads and on virtual
media, but they did not get justice.
See on Page 23
Equities trade flat; IT, FMCG
stocks face selling pressure
Mumbai : Following broadly
mixed global indices, the Indian equity
markets traded on a flat note during
the mid-afternoon session on
Wednesday. Market observers opined
that investors booked profits in IT,
FMCG and Teck (technology, media
and entertainment) sectors.
Around 12.55 p.m., the wider Nifty
of the National Stock Exchange (NSE)
inched up by 8.45 points or 0.09 per
cent to 9,621.75 points. The 30-scrip
Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE,
which opened at 31,272.72 points,
traded at 31,213.13 points -- up 3.34
points, or 0.01 per cent, from its previous
close at 31,209.79 points.
It has so far touched a high of
31,284.64 points and a low of
31,189.90 points. However, the BSE
market breadth was slightly bullish --
with 1,527 advances and 938 declines.
"Equity benchmarks opened moderately
higher after mixed Asian markets.
The mid-cap and small-cap
indices traded in the positive with
more than 0.50 per cent gains," said
Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief
Operating Officer of Tradebulls.
"Auto, capital goods, metal and oil
and gas traded in the positive, while
FMCG and IT sectors traded negative."
On Tuesday, geo-political tensions
and subdued global indices
pulled the equity indices lower. The
Sensex closed at 31,209.79 points --
down 11.83 points, or 0.04 per cent,
and the Nifty slipped by 1.70 points or
0.02 per cent to end the day's trade at
9,613.30 points.
Gemini telescope aids Juno’s
mission through Jupiter
San Francisco : Researchers are using
very detailed Gemini Observatory images
to help guide the Juno spacecraft's exploration
of Jupiter, a media eport said.
The high-resolution imaging by the
Gemini North telescope on Maunakea in
Hawaii was informing the Juno mission of
compelling events in Jupiter's atmosphere,
Xinhua news agency reported.
"These observations trace vertical flows
that cannot be measured any other way,
illuminating the weather, climate and general
circulation in Jupiter's atmosphere,"
Michael Wong of the University of
California, Berkeley, said.
The scientists were using a longerwavelength
filter on the telescope to look
at cloud opacity on the giant planet. Being
supported by Earth-based observations,
according to a news release from UC
Berkeley on Saturday, the Juno spacecraft,
of the US National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), was currently
looping around Jupiter. Using adaptive
optics that removes atmospheric blur,
astronomers at the Gemini North telescope
were revealing "a treasure-trove of fascinating
events in Jupiter's atmosphere," said
Glenn Orton, the principal investigator for
this Gemini adaptive optics investigation
and coordinator for Earth-based observations
supporting the Juno project at
Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The observations have produced a composite
colour infrared image of Jupiter
showing haze particles over a range of altitudes.
"Events like this show that there's
still much to learn about Jupiter's atmosphere,"
Orton was quoted as saying. "The
combination of Earth-based and spacecraft
observations is a powerful one-two punch
in exploring Jupiter."
(Continue from 12 & 13 Page)
Taking The Concept of “his” And “her” To The ...
Keshav’s house for good, after
discovering that there is no toilet.
Distraught and desperate, Keshav
sets out on mission to win back his
love- by battling against the age old
traditions, mind-set and value system
of his country. Set against the
backdrop of Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s initiative to
improve sanitation across India,
‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ (‘Clean
India Movement’), TOILET: EK
PREM KATHA is the latest statement
of intent from Akshay Kumar
in his bid to galvanise modernisation
and equality in his home country.
The film tackles the fundamental
need to provide households across
the nation with a functioning toilet to
reduce open defecation in public,
which is intricately linked to issues
of women safety.
TOILET: EK PREM KATHA is
directed by Shree Narayan Singh,
best known for his work editing
smash hits such as Baby (2015), M.S
Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016) and
Rustom (2016), and co-produced by
dream team Neeraj Pandey and
Akshay Kumar himself. The ensemble
of cast is led by Akshay Kumar,
who is joined by Bhumi Pednekar
(Dum Laga Ke Haisha), Anupam
Kher (Bend It Like Beckham, Silver
Lining Playbook) - to condense a
star-studded cast.
A revolution in the making, TOI-
LET: EK PREM KATHA uses
humour to educate the world and
bring to light the issues surrounding
sanitation and women safety in
India.
Not to be missed, be sure to
catch the film’s release internationally
in cinemas on 11th August by
Reliance Entertainment and KriArj
Entertainment. And remember, don’t
forget to flush!