Dailies 2013, Issue 10 Indian Institute Of Journalism and New Media, Bangalore March 22, 2013

Lokayukta raid homes of 10 government officials

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Dropout rates high among Muslim children

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Bangalore pollution thrice the safe threshold

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The ghost electorate PAGE 3 >>>

The Daily Observer| March 22, 2013 02

Police bust forgery gangPOLICE busted a counter-feit gang in the city yester-day and recovered Rs 19 lakhs and a huge array of forged seals.

Bangalore Police paraded four of the seven man gang and claimed the arrested came after a lengthy “col-lective effort” across depart-ments.

Three of the gang is still being sought.

The four nabbed were ar-

rested by Bangalore police in Yeshwantpur for cheating and money laundering.

Police seized a large num-ber of forged documents, fake seals, bogus identity cards and unaccounted In-dian money.

Lokesh , G D Shadakshari aka Manju, M S Vadivelu aka Jaganath and Nagaraj N E aka Mohan K were arrested in an operation led by S N Sidharamappa I P S, north division Assistant Commis-sioner of Police (ACP) and

Mr. Chandrappa, Yeshwant-pur sub-division ACP.

“Busting the racket was the result of a collective effort by the police and indeed it’s an achievement.

But three others including a Raghavendra alias Raju also has to be arrested in connection with the case,” said Sidharamappa.

Officers also seized a Mar-uthi Swift car, 46 fake seals including the seals of nation-alized banks, sales tax de-partment, accountants and lawyers. The scale of the bust is huge.

Cops also recovered 175 seals, bank documents, 37 marriage certificates, 11 in-come tax return forms, 16 accountant seals, two law-yer seals, 47 duplicate pan cards, 17 ATM cards, one roll of fake electricity bills, fake election voter ID, fake driv-ing licenses, VAT certificates, six fake bank statements, 38

two rupee s t a m p s , four fake s a l e deeds and 36 bank c h e q u e books.

T h e gang ob-t a i n e d loans from na t iona l -ized bank with forged bank docu-ments and fake iden-tity cards.

T h e m o n e y was lent to individ-uals and institutions at high interest rates, according to the police.

The racket worked under the names of R M traders, Balaji traders, Vijay Enter-

prises, Vinayak Steels, Sai Traders and M K Traders trading steel, iron and sani-tary wares. It operated from Vidyaranyapura, Kalyan Na-gar and Kamakshipalaya.

By Deepu Aby Varghese

Counterfeit cash seized by Yeshwanthpur Police

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Arrested men: Clockwise, Mohan K, M.s Vedivelu, G.D.Sadakshari and Lokesh

Senior officials in corruption probeBy KrishnaPrasad

Lokayukta officers raided 10 government officials assets

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TEN senior government officials had their homes raided as part of a massive corruption clampdown.

One of the men targeted had assets worth over 486per cent of his annual salary.

Houses, cars and other undeclared assets werseized by Lokayukta Police.

Among the men whose homes were raided was a di-rector of the Agriculture De-partment and a Commission-er of Urban Development.

Criminal cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act were filed on Mar. 21 2013.

Additional Director Gen-eral of Police of Lokayukta, Mr. H.N.Sathyanarayana Rao, addressed the press today with audit reports that claimed heavy corruption in different government sec-tors.

Mr. Rao said: “In the last three years there are 22-40 cases registered. In 2008,

there were 97 cases and in 2009 there were 57 cases.” The Deputy Inspector Gen-eral for Audit, Mr.Panduranga Rane, was also present at the press meet.

Mr. Rao also confirmed that the accuracy of the re-ports was “good”.

Highest value of assets was discovered from the res-idence of K.Ramdas; Range Forest Officer at Srirangapat-nam in Mandya. Illegal assets worth Rs.1,79,70,000 was found from his residence. His assets were revealed to be 486.56% more than his an-nual income.

Assets worth Rs. 1,00,31,648 lakhs was dis-covered from the residence of Mr. L.Sayed Anwar Is-lam, Junior Engineer at Zila Panchayat Sub-division of the Public Works Department at Srinivasapura. This was valued to be 184.76% more than his legal income.

Assets worth Rs. 91,

70,125 were discovered from the residence of Mr.Raja Paksha, Assistant Agricul-tural Officer of Haveri district. His assets were calculated to be 58.52% more than his le-gal income.

According to the Lok-ayukta officials, the most curious case was that of Mr.K.V.Sarvesh, Director of Agriculture Department of Bangalore. Foreign currency worth 3100 Euros was dis-covered from his residence and his calculation of his as-sets is still being carried on.

Assets worth Rs.2, 21,000 were discovered from the residence of Mr.Thippeshi M., Commissioner of Urban Development Authorityof Hubli. This was 130% more than his annual income

Assets worth Rs.46, 84,965 were discovered from Mr.Muhammad Yaseen, Revenue Inspector at the Tahsildaar office at Haveri district. His assets were val-

ued to be 212.33% than his income.

Assets worth Rs.1, 56, 15,550 were discov-ered from the residence of Mr.P.B.Channabassapa, Ex-ecutive Engineer at Chitra-durga. The auditors are yet to compare the value of his assets to his actual income.

Assets worth Rs. 98,92,626 were discov-ered from the residence of Mr.K.Jagdeesh, Range Medi-cal Officer at Srirangapatnam

in Mandya district. His assets were valued to be 198% more than his income.

Assets of Mr.S.M.Basvaraju , Chief En-gineer of Waste Water Man-agement of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board was valued to be 166% more than his income.

Assets of Mr. Channabas-sapa, Executive Officer of Mudigare taluk panchayat was valued to be 287.98% more than his income.

March 22, 2013| The Daily Observer 03

Dropout rates high among Muslim children

The dropout numbers among Muslim children in Karnataka are higher at high school level, claims the State Department of Education.

The findings produced by the department show that while dropout rates in other categories have increased by 5.40 percent, the dropout rate among Muslim children has increased at a pace of 7.66 percent.

Mr. Puroshottam, the Proj-ect Director of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, said: “The dropout rates are certainly higher among Muslim children and it’s not only in this state but all over India. Family pressure and religious constraints are mainly responsible for this.”

He mentioned that most of the children take up labor jobs at a very early age so numbers are higher among Muslim boys compared to girls.

But girls are no exception as they are forced by family members to leave school and help with domestic work.

Mr. Puroshottam added: “The rate is higher among high school level children who are mostly aged be-tween 11-17 years.”

Though the state educa-tion department doesn’t have data to show the exact num-ber of Madrasa schools in the city, but they mentioned that both recognized and un-recognised schools exists in the city.

Mr Irshad Ahmed, the principal of SJM School one of the Madrasah Institutions in the city, said: “We have less number of st dents in the school and the enrolment rate has also dropped than in earlier days.”

Muskan, a student of SJM, who is studying at class six, said that she has three broth-ers and two sisters of whom one have already dropped out of school at class eight.

Mr.Puroshottam said that the numbers are higher in rural areas for lack of aware-ness and economical issues.

The Sarva Siksha Abhi-yan, a section of State Edu-cation department, has con-ducted various awareness programs for the children, their mother and head of the religious institutions.

Also they have urged the government to extend finan-cial help for the Madrasah Schools for renovating its in-frastructure and maintaining sound educational models.

By Priyanka Roy

One of the muslim students of S. J. M. School.

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The disappeared electorate

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PEOPLE purged from the updated electoral rolls have spoken out about being de-nied their right to vote.The 20 people, from all walks of life across Karna-taka state, represent just 0.006 percent of the 3, 32, 131 names removed from the latest state voter roll.Predominantly from lower castes or of Muslim descent, they say their rights have been trampled by the BJP as they attempt to cling on to power at the May 5 elec-tions.This came after the Ex-Mayor sparked fury at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging them for deleting a total of 3, 32, 131 names from the elec-toral list, which was updated in January 2013. Ex-Mayor, P. R. Ramesh, had filed an RTI, seeking the details of the voter list of the previous elections and the updated voter list, which re-vealed that more than three lakh names have disap-peared from the updated list. Most of the names that were deleted where either Muslims or the economically weaker sections. Congress party leaders and minority community leaders had affirmed the allegations of the Ex-Mayor and they had all gone together and registered a complaint at the Election Commission (EC). The EC, after investigations confirmed that the names have been deleted. Among the ghost voters are merchants, fruit sellers, steel and timber salesmen, con-struction laborers and house-wives.They range in age from 21 to 84-year-old Sardar Khan, who said: “88 out of 100 Mus-

lims names are willfully de-leted. All parties are except Congress is useless. Now only if Congress wins, can some help be done to Mus-lims here. According to BJP, we Muslims are either killers or thieves or stabbers or ter-rorists. BJP leaders are not honest at all. They want only money and power.”Not only do they claim that they are being discriminated based on religion, they also say that some of were forced to vote by the leaders in the previous elections, even if

they do not have their voter ID cards. Now, they are de-nied the right to even apply for one. Manjula, 27, a sales woman, said: “I voted last time with-out having voter ID card as they told me it’s ok if I vote without one. This time when I applied for one, they are re-fusing to give me one stating that I am from a poor back-ground and my vote is not that worth. It is making me to think that this time also I will vote without card.”There have been cases as well, where the innocent ghost voters claim that their names have been deleted from the list even though they

had voted for the BJP last elections. Gundappa Rao, 54, a con-struction laborer, said: “I voted for BJP only during the previous BBMP elections. I do not know why they took away my name from the list. I did not do any harm to them and I am not even a Mus-lim. Now I can’t vote until my name is registered again on the electoral list.”Muslims especially have a lot to worry about because of the deletion based on re-ligion. While some are angry

with the fact that their name did not appear on the list, there are a few others who fear that there is more hard times for them to face in the near future.Mohammad Nafeez, 40, a meat merchant, said: “As it is, it is hard for us to meet our daily wages and routines. Not that so much misery is enough for us, the govern-ment has suddenly decided to delete our names from the electoral rolls. God knows when they will throw us out of the city as well, stating the excuse that we are Muslims and that we do not have any place in a city which is ruled by pro-Hindu party.”

The voter ID cards issued to two purged voters.

By Hansa VPhoto Credits: Satyajith GD

The Daily Observer| March 20, 2013 04

WATER WOES

THIS year the global theme for the World Water Day is ‘Water coopera-tion’. We Indians need to emulate some of the best examples of water coop-eration elsewhere in the planet. Like for example the river Danube. It flows through some 18 coun-tries and each drop of its water is used and reused some 80 times during before it reaches the sea. And it remains quite clean till the end. There is a great lesson in it for us.

We generally quarrel a lot a about water. We misuse it a lot. And we dirty it with im-punity as if there is an end-less stock of it underneath our feet. Although 70 per cent of our planet is covered with water, 97.4 percent is saline. A large proportion of the remaining fresh water is bound either in the form of permafrost or is hidden deep underground. Hardly 0.86

percent of the total water is available to us. We need to use it judiciuosly.

But our consumerist so-ciety is recklessly pollut-ing it and throwing it away. We need to become water literate. Generally we are unaware of the enormous amount of virtual water that is hidden in our day to day goods and services. A litre of milk, for example uses up nearly 500 litres of water. In some places like Gujrat the farmers consume up to 1800 litres of water to pro-duce one litre of milk. A litre of mineral water will have consumed nearly 50 litres of it before it reaches our hand. One kilogram of rice will have used up 5000 litres and one kilogram of meat some 12,000 litres of water.

During the days of tra-ditional, organic agriculture it was possible that water consumed during food pro-duction generally went back to nature to join the water

cycle. But the modern indus-trial society is contaminating the entire cycle with chemi-cals.

Truckloads of hazadrous pesticides keep going from cities to farms and trainloads

of cancer patients keep pouring in to city hospitals from villages. We already have a ‘cancer train’ which transports farmers of Bhat-

inda in Punjab to hospitals in Amritsar.

For those farmers who put food in our plate wa-ter has become a carrier of disease and deformities. We can feel virtual water in

every consumer good, from shoes to clothes to papers to plastics ad nausem. Each and every cosumer item will have consumed and wasted

a large quantity of this vital resource.

As a growing nation we are becoming an effluent society and play a poignant role in converting a renew-able resource into a non re-newable one.

This cannot go on forever. We are an intelligent species and our brain with its gray matter is immersed in water. We need to think clearly and think of achieving a sustain-able and peaceful society sharing the available wa-ter with everyone else and making every drop of water rejoin the water cycle in its purest form.

Reduce, Reuse and Re-cycle should become our water mantra. We need to teach this mantra to every-one else. Lest we will be left with mirages everywhere.

Lest we be left with miragesNagesh Hegde

(Nagesh Hegde is an environmental scientist and a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media)

Water loss is not a new phenomenon in India. However, Bangalore has been given an unpleasant surprise this summer.

Non revenue water is the water that is pumped from ei-ther the river or the borewells but does not generate any income, due to loss of wa-ter. Loss of water can either be through leaks or through metering inaccuracies or in

yet some other cases theft of water from the pipelines. The probability of water loss has hit the city very hard indeed; more so when a drought is possibly just around the cor-ner.

Naseema Khanat, a wom-an living in K.R. Market says, “It is difficult for people like us because the municipality tank comes once in three days. So we have to use water judi-ciously and exercise extreme caution. Not to mention, fight

with our neighbors to be first in line to collect water.”

Some citizens have not felt the impact yet but be-lieve they soon will. Vinay Vishwanath says, “Thank-fully I’ve not felt the pinch so far. Koramangala always got metro water and the HSR layout is so far unaffected but I guess it’s really just a matter of time.”

According to Mrs. Sarala Kumari the PRO of Banga-lore Water Supply and Sew-

erage Board, “The interna-tional standards have around 16-20% of non-revenue water.”Leakages are appar-ently a part and parcel of wa-ter supply.

There is around 30%-37% of leakage in Bangalore. There is a project underway to reduce it to 25%.”The wa-ter that is being supplied to the poor (excluding the leak-ages) will be around 20%.

The project is called Un-accounted For Water (UFW)

and it has been undertaken by Larsen&Turbo (L&T). It is a 6 year project that com-menced sometime early this year. The first three years will be dedicated to survey and replacement of leaking pipes. The project will also include installing 16 or 17 meters that will be installed in South Ban-galore to determine the leak-age.

In spite of repeated at-tempts, the L&T remained unavailable for comments.

By Aheli R

Officials grapple with water loss

The Daily Observer| March 22, 2013 05

DESPITE a pledge of Rs 14,873 crore in the recent budget, residents housed under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Ru-ral Mission scheme years ago are still awaiting water supplie.

The scheme has provided the very basic homes the former slum dwellers craved but the drinking water facili-ties promised for each home have yet to materialise.

Some 1,096 families in the Nayanadhalli slums, who shifted three years ago to their new apartments built by Karnataka Slum Devel-opment board under the JN-NURM scheme, rely on 12 public water taps outside their homes. These water connections supply water ev-ery other day for only an hour in the morning.

There is no direct potable water connection to their rooms. Chandramma, 42, a pourkarmika said, “We have borewell connection to our taps but the water is not po-table and it last for only one hour.”

The rooms have bath-rooms and toilets but no taps for the water connection. Rajeshwari, 19, said “It has been more than three years that there is no water in these pipes.”

The JNNURM scheme was introduced by the cen-tral government in 2005 , and aimed to make cities slum free by providing them hous-ing with good infrastructure facilities.

Two programmes were initiated under the scheme, Basic Services to the Urban Poor and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Pro-gramme.

Bangalore was among the seven metropolitan cities of India eligible to receive hous-

ing aid for the urban poor un-der the Basic Services to the Urban Poor scheme.

It promised housing along with a supply of drinking water, street lights, roads, drains, rooms with bathroom and toilet, drainage of storm water and good sanitation.

The Karnataka Slum Development Board acts as an im-plementing agency for the programme to construct houses and provide infrastructure to urban poor.

Rajeshwari , 29, works at Bangalore Museum and starts her day at 5am to fetch potable water to avoid long queues, “If I am late I am sure I won’t get water then I have to walk two kilometres down the lane and get a pot full of water for Rs. 5 each. I can’t af-ford it everyday.”

The residents of the Nayandahalli government quarters complained many times to the leaders and also the KSDB board but nobody paid attention, they claim.

The MLA Mr. Munniraj at times provided tankers to them.

Kishor Kamat, a lo-cal leader and agent of the KSCB, disagreed with resi-dents: “ We have no problem here, we get water very well on time.”

Another small government quarters built in 2008 under JNNURM, at Kengeri, has only 64 families. Even their rooms are not directly con-nected with BBMP water.

They use water from the two public water taps outside their apartments. Two bore-wells are dug which do not connect to their taps. Recent-ly they affixed a new borewell with the aid of Karnataka

Slum Development Board.Basvaraj, 52, has been

staying at Kengeri since his childhood.

He said, “We go door to door knocking and beg for water when we don’t get wa-ter for three or four days. I can live without water but not

my grandchildren”Bungalows near the

Kengeri quarters have no water problem.

They have direct cauvery connect ion to their taps which pro-vides water every alter-nate day.

But each b u n g a l o w has their p e r s o n a l public water tap outside their homes that provide water for two to three hours every morn-ing and night, confirmed the owner of the Bungalow J.N. Jayasimha.

The quarters at Kengeri

have three floors. The resi-dents living on the top floor find it difficult to fetch water to their homes so they have built news small houses around the building.

Souraja, 28, garbage collector said, “I don’t have strength to climb the stair

case with a bucket full of wa-ter, so to save me from the pains, we have built a house on the ground floor.”

Local leader of Kengeri slum quarters, Ravi, who is the president of the KSCB of Kengeri slums said, So many years we didn’t have any prob-lem. Only from last year we are facing wa-ter problem. ”

Vinay, a human rights activist, blamed the implementation of the JN-NURM and said, “Nobody is willing to provide these ur-ban poor with facilities. Even when there is a board set up

for the upliftment of the poor nobody keeps a check on its implementation.

“Orders are passed but who does follow up whether the machines or the facilities provided are still in the work-ing condition or not. Slum dwellers complain about the

breakdown of the borewells but ask them how many times they have run behind the officials to repair it.”

In Banga-lore a total of 18180 slums were sanctioned for Rs. 522.23 Crores in dif-ferent phases under BSUP but only 11326 houses were completed which cost KSDB Rs. 288.60 Crores.

While in Mysore, 6328 dwellings were sanctioned un-

der the BSUP programme at a cost of Rs.203.96

crores. Out of which 5,314 hous-

es were completed for Rs. 131.87 Crores.The costs of the houses are shared equal-ly between central and state government

For schedule caste and schedule tribes and other backwards classes are ex-pected to pay 12%.Human rights advocate R.S. Vijay, talking about the lengthy pro-cedures and involvement of the local leader, politicians said, “The money goes from the hands of the government to the politicians and local leaders. It is big chain.”

“To convince the poor for building houses you first need to convince the leaders who will let the construction com-plete without any hassles.”

By Nikita Malusare

Water supply still a pipe dream for Nayandahalli slum dwellers

Nayandahalli residents are still unsure if they will get water supplied to their homes

The Daily Observer| March 22, 2013 06

ObserverTeam

An IIJNM Publicaton(For private circulation)

EditorShreya Mukherji

Sub-editorUrmi Sengupta

Special CorrespondentsHansa V

Satyajith G DNikita Malusare

Page EditorsRohan P

Sneha BanerjeeKrishnaprasad S

Deepu Aby Varghese

Proof ReaderKakoli Mukherjee

Aheli RaychaudhuriPriyanka Roy

E-maileditor@iijnm.org

Don’t waste water, have a dry holi: Priyanka

INDISCRIMINATE use of water and the rapid decrease in groundwater levels are the grave concerns facing Bangalore today.

In a campaign organized by the environment wing

of Young Men’s Christian Association(YMCA), people from different walks of life came together to raise awareness about the pressing need to conserve water.

Sumangala S Mummigatti, Transmission Executive (Science) at All India Radio

(AIR), Bangalore was the Chief Guest on the occasion. She said: “Though we are taught in our childhood that 71percent of the earth is covered by water, it is necessary to know that only 0.2 percent of that water is potable.”

“Unless we store and harvest rainwater, we will be facing a very grim situation soon.” she added.

Popular Kannada actress, Priyanka Upendra, was present in the event.

The actress presented badges to the members and said: “Water scarcity is a serious problem being faced in states like Karnataka and Maharashtra.”

“We are distributing pamphlets to make people aware of the various ways to save water. I would also like to urge people not to waste much water this Holi and go for a dry Holi instead.” she added

A workshop on water conservation techniques was

held for young people by the YMCA.

SV Rathnakumar, General Secretary, YMCA, Bangalore, said: “We have been organizing this campaign annually for the last 28 years.”

He added: “We are trying to focus on leakages of pipelines and strict

enforcement of laws against wasting water.”

Sheikh Rajiya, a student participating in the campaign, said: “Every locality in Bangalore faces water shortage nowadays.”

“If we do not come out and raise awareness about this, then one day we will have no water to drink” she added.

By Kakoli Mukherjee

Every drop counts, say YMCA campaigners.

Priyanka Upendra does her bit for water conservation.

Bangalore pollution three times the safe rate AIR pollution monitors around Bangalore detect almost three times the dai-ly safe rate, according to a new report by the State Pollution Board.

The report also found that an average Bangalorean spends around 240 hours stuck in traffic jams breath-ing in the toxins, leading to health problems and a loss in productivity.

To monitor air pollution in the city, the KSPCB installed around six “air-monitoring systems” that check the qual-ity of air around Bangalore.

Safe particle limits should be between 60 to 70 particles per million.

Sadly, the Bangalore re-sults (particulate measure) regularly crosses 200 units every day.

A workshop organized by the Karnataka State Pollu-tion Control Board (KSPCB) and Centre for Science talk-

ed about the rising pollution emissions in Bangalore.

Air pollution is one of the biggest problems in the city. One of the reasons is diesel emitted by vehicles in the city.

Noise pollution is another cause of grief in terms of pol-lution. This is mainly due to incessant honking by cars.

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Egypt are the world’s worst offenders in terms of

noise pollution. However, due to active

campaigns the board be-lieves pollution levels are re-ducing.

Diesel is considered clean when it is 10ppm (parts per million). However, the diesel sulphur level in India is as high as 30ppm.

In Bangalore, vehicles are responsible for 41 and road dust contributes 67 per cent to the pollution respectively.

Mr Acharya said “Trans-port contributes to 42% of pollution and road dust is ap-proximately 20%.”

Ms. Anumita Roychoud-hury, Executive Director-Re-search Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said, “There are more than 1,200 vehicles that are registered everyday, of which 20 are cars and close to 900 are two-wheelers. The city is badly gridlocked too.To counter the problem of pollution, buses and metro rail are excellent transport modes in the city.”

Increasing number of vehicles in Bangalore causes maximum pollution

By Aheli Raychaudhuri

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