| Right to Food Campaign | |||
|
UPDATE 39: ROZGAR YATRA TO BEGIN ON 13 MAY Dear friends, This Update begins with an important announcement, regarding the "rozgar adhikar yatra" to be launched from Delhi on 13 May (the last day of the Budget Session of Parliament). The main objective of this yatra is to consolidate the campaign for a full-fledged Employment Guarantee Act. Please note that a transition is about to be made to a new system whereby updates are sent from a "Googlegroup". Sometime duringthe next few weeks you will be receiving a greeting message signalling your inclusion in the list. Please don't "unsubscribe", unless you are fed up with these Updates. This Googlegroup is not a "discussion group", it is just a new device to continue sending the same Updates more efficiently. We are planning to send Updates about once a month from now on. Today's headlines:
1. ROZGAR ADHIKAR YATRA (May-June 2005) A country-wide "rozgar adhikar yatra" (right to work convoy) will be launched from Delhi on 13 May 2005. The main objective of this yatra is to consolidate the campaign for a full-fledged Employment Guarantee Act (EGA). The yatra is a follow-up to the "display of banners" of 21 December 2005, when thousands of banners from all over the country, bearing about 10 lakh signatures demanding a full-fledged EGA, were displayed in Parliament Street (New Delhi). The banners will travel with the yatra and be displayed in various places on the way. The yatra will go through ten states (Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh) before returning to Delhi at the end of June. Public meetings, cultural activities, training workshops, press conferences, etc., will be taking place on the way. All organizations committed to the right to work are invited to take part in these activities. They are also welcome to the next preparatory meeting, to be held on 21 April (10 am to 2 pm) at the office of the National Federation of Indian Women in New Delhi (1002 Ansal Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, tel 2331 9541). For further information, please send a line to rozgar@gmail.com, contact "People's Action for Employment Guarantee" (9811553633 [Annie], 9810810365 [Subhash] or 9811087811 [Navjyoti]), or check the Employment Guarantee section at www.righttofoodindia.org. The proposed itinerary of the yatra is also available on this website. 2. REPORT FROM UDAIPUR TRAINING A training workshop for activists working in "Food-For-Work" districts took place in Udaipur on 13-17 March. The workshop was a great success and generated much new energy, ideas, material, etc. About 100 activists participated, not only from Rajasthan but also from other states including Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Among other activities, the participants studied the "Guidelines" of the National Food-For-Work Programme (NFFWP). These turned out to be highly defective, e.g. there is no attempt to assess the demand for work (let alone respond to it), the transparency provisions are very weak, and the institutions of local democracy (e.g. Gram Panchayats and Gram Sabhas) have been sidelined. A critique of the Guidelines was prepared and is available in the EGA section at www.righttofoodindia.org. Another useful product of the workshop is a "Primer" for activists working in the Food-For-Work districts. This includes a presentation and critique of the Guidelines in simple question-answer form, plenty of ideas for action, and a detailed section on "social audits". This Primer was written in Hindi and is in the process of being translated in English. If you are interested in a copy of the Hindi version, pleasesend a line to rozgar@gmail.com. The English version will be posted at www.righttofoodindia.org as soon as possible. 3. MID-DAY MEALS: NEW STUDIES GALORE There is an epidemic of new studies on mid-day meals, including recent field surveys in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal. Most of these are available in the Mid-Day Meal section at www.righttofoodindia.org (see also Farzana Afridi's article on MDMs in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka in the latest issue of Economic and Political Weekly). In Jharkhand, a survey was recently conducted by Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 22 randomly-selected schools and the results are reasonably encouraging. For instance, mid-day meals were being provided every day in 95% of these schools. Further, the quality of food was found to be generally good. In all schools a cook had been employed to cook the food and all teachers except one wanted mid-day meals to continue. Almost all of them reported a substantial increase in enrolment and attendance after mid-day meals were initiated. This was verified on the basis of attendance and enrolment data. The percentage increase in enrolment was larger for girls than for boys, and particularly large among disadvantaged households (e.g. SC and ST households). In contrast, the findings from the Bihar survey are dismal. Among 52 schools from 13 districts surveyed in February 2005, only 4 were found to have functioning Mid-Day Meals. However this survey was done within a month of the introduction of the mid-day meal scheme and hopefully the situation will improve over time. Turning to West Bengal, the Pratichi Trust recently conducted a field study in Birbhum District. Attendance records showed a much higher impact of mid-day meals on the attendance of SC, ST and Muslim children. A majority of wage earners and small cultivators felt that the MDMs had a strong impact, whereas relatively affluent households felt that the programme had little impact. About 73 percent of teachers found some positive impact of the programme, especially in terms of increased attendance of children. Some of the problems identified in the Pratichi Trust study are poor quality of food, boring menu, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient budget allocation, caste and religious bias, and limited scope for participation of parents in the programme. 4. MID-DAY MEAL HANDBOOK MAKES HEADWAY There have been periodic efforts to prepare a "Mid-Day Meal Handbook" for village-level workers (teachers, cooks, sarpanchs, activists, etc.). An outline was prepared a year ago and some intermittent work has been done on different chapters. A breakthrough was achieved recently in Bhopal, at a workshop convened for this purpose by Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti. An attempt is being made to finalise the draft of the Handbook within a month or so. If you are interested in this Handbook please write to Vivek at vivekdse@gmail.com. The outline is available inthe mid-day meal section of the campaign website (www.righttofoodindia.org) and the draft Handbook will be posted there as soon as possible. 5. IMS ACT SAVED In an earlier update we mentioned the campaign to prevent the repeal of the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 (or "IMS Act" for short). You will be glad to know that the IMS Act has been saved. Hats off to the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) and its partners. For further info see bpni@bpni.org. 6. CHILD RIGHTS AND THE UNION BUDGET 2005-6 HAQ, Centre for Child Rights has prepared a critical note on the Union Budget 2005-6 from a child rights perspective. The note "uncovers the myth of increased allocations for Elementary Education, Mid Day Meal and ICDS." This note is available in the "ICDS" section of the campaign website (see http://www.righttofoodindia.org/data/haq-report.pdf). We take this opportunity to draw your attention to this new sectionof the website. As of now it is a little thin but we expect it to grow fast in the near future. 7. DELHI: BREAKTHROUGH IN PDS ACCOUNTABILITY In Delhi, Parivartan's struggle (see earlier Updates) has led the Government to agree to some systemic changes in the public distribution system (PDS). The shops were economically unviable due to very low commissions for the PDS dealers. The government recently announced that they would raise the commissions to make the PDS shops viable. Following dramatic improvements in the PDS in Sundernagari (a resettlement colony), the government has agreed to throw open the records of all the PDS shops in Delhi for public inspection every Saturday from 1.00 pm to 4.00 pm. People will be able to go to any office of the Food Department in Delhi and inspect the records of any shop falling in the jurisdiction of that office, without paying any fee and without giving any prior intimation. This is to be implemented in phases, starting on 1 April in two districts (East and North East). In the coming months, the rest of Delhi will also be covered. If any discrepancy is found in the records during public inspection, the shop will be suspended immediately and criminal proceedings will be initiated. 8. NEW CAMPAIGN SECRETARIAT The Secretariat of the Right to Food Campaign is moving to new premises, located in Siddiqui Building, Bara Hindu Rao, 6122, Bahadurgarh Road, Delhi 110 006 (tel 2351 0042). The premises are shared with two related campaigns: the National Campaign Committee for Unorganised Sector Workers (NCC-USW) and People's Action for Employment Guarantee. The secretariat is currently coordinated by Navjyoti (tel 9811087811). The new Secretariat badly needs furniture and equipment such as computers, printers, shelves etc. If you are able to help please send a line to righttofood@gmail.com or call Navjyoti. The Secretariat is funded entirely from individual donations in rupees with no strings attached. 9. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
10. REMINDERS We end with a few reminders:
|
|||