S
|
Vivekananda Sewa Samman to Dada Idate FOC Shri Bhiku Ramji Idate, popularly known as Dada Idate, of Pune has been honoured with the 19th Vivekananda Sewa Samman of 2005 for his outstanding services to bring in reforms among several professional criminal communities of Maharashtra. The Samman carries with it Rs 51,000 and a citation, which will be given by Acharya Vishnukant Shastri on January 30 in Kolkata. The Samman is given every year by Shree Burrabazar Kumar-sabha Pustakalaya of Kolkata. Born on June 2, 1949, at Tetvali village of Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra, Shri Idate has been a Sangh Swayamsevak since childhood. After completing his B.Sc., he took up teaching and simultaneously started educational and reformation activities among several nomadic communities of Maharashtra. He established several educational institutions, hostels, training centres, children’s homes, etc. to rehabilitate them. Impressed with his activities, the Maharashtra government constituted an Idate Commission in 1997 and asked it to prepare a comprehensive report on the uplift of these backward communities, which submitted the report in 1999. (FOC) |
SC issues notice on resettlement of Reangs FOC The Supreme Court has issued notices to Ministry of Home Affairs, Election Commission and state governments of Mizoram and Tripura on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking resettlement and enrolment of names of around 40,000 displaced Reang Vanvasis in the revised electoral rolls. The PIL, which came up for hearing before Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti and Justice G.P. Mathur, sought direction for the Mizoram government to take back the Reang/Bru Vanvasis in its territory who were forced to leave their villages in 1997 following sectarian violence. The petition, filed by Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, a voluntary organisation working for the welfare of the Vanvasis, submitted that the members of the community who took shelter in Tripura were living a miserable life in refugee camps maintained by the state government with help from the Centre as they were being provided only with minimum means of survival. Besides restoration of the names of the people who were duly listed in the electoral rolls till 1995, the Ashram has sought inclusion of the names of members of the community who have become eligible to vote during the period 1995-2000. The voluntary organisation also alleged that Mizoram government had adopted a hostile attitude towards the Vanvasis as the majority community in the state happened to be Christian. The PIL submitted that even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had confirmed that the Reangs were subjected to atrocities and it was incumbent upon the Mizoram government to resettle them with adequate compensation and thus restore their fundamental and constitutional rights. (FOC) |
Comments