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Prakash Amte, son of well-known social activist Baba Amte and his wife Mandakini Amte have been awarded the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership.
“In electing Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognises their enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions,” the board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation said while naming the couple for the award.
“Prakash Amte grew up in Anandwan, an ashram and rehabilitation center for lepers in Maharashtra founded by his father, the renowned Gandhian humanitarian Murlidhar Devidas Amte, or Baba Amte. Prakash was busy with post-graduate surgical studies in Nagpur when Baba Amte called him, in 1974, to take over a new project among the Madia Gonds. In a leap of faith, he and his wife Mandakini abandoned their urban practices and moved to remote Hemalkasa,” the citation reads.
Originally published on Rediff News, to read the original version click here or go to: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/31amte.htm
To read the original citation for Prakash and Mandakini Amte’s Magsaysay Award, click here
107 families of Gram Panchayat Jajpur, Tehsil Sandila, district Hardoi, were given ‘patta’ of the lands allotted to them 32 years before, but till-date they haven’t got the possession. Powerful landlords still occupy the land allotted to these families. 16 people of these families are fasting since 28 July 2008 in front of Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow demanding justice overdue since past 32 years.
Dr Sandeep Pandey, Ramon Magsaysay Awardee (2002) and national convener of National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) supported the fast.
Powerful landlords have been illegally occupying the land which rightfully belongs to 107 familes since past 32 years. These landlords have family members which include Shriram Singh Tomar and Advocate Nageshwar Singh, who is the gram pradhan too.
These landlords are politically connected and have been maneuvering their might to douse the people’s agitation for land rights. These landlords are also accused of forcibly taking away the crop harvest from the fields of these 107 families.
Lekhpal asks for Rs 2000 or more money, and some family members have even paid this amount to Lekhpal, despite of which they couldn’t get the land possession.
Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) met the agitators in Lucknow and assured them that police will accompany them tomorrow to give them their much-awaited right to the land. But the people have no trust on verbal assurances and have decided to continue the agitation and fast in front of vidhan sabha.
This fast is led by Rajesh, who can be contacted at 9793271930
( for further information, please get in touch with indopakpeacemarch@yahoo.co.uk.)
” My parents were told that I will have a better future,good food and they ( parents) will never have to go hungry.My siblings will be able to study and they too will have a good future…I was raped by the ‘uncle’-on my to Mumbai.. and later sold off to a brothel. There I was raped and humiliated. Today, even after 8 years, the pain refuses to leave me. My parents don’t know about this, they are happy with the money I send them. What was my fault?” narrates a victim of human trafficking.
| “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. Trafficking invariably involves forcible movement of a person from one place to another and forcible utilization of their services with the intention of inducting them into trade for commercial gains. When we say ‘forcible’, it signifies that the action is against the person’s will or that consensus has been obtained by making deceptive claims and false allurements. In some cases, consensus is obtained because of the victim’s social conditioning, where the victim is not even aware that s/he is being exploited.
Factors contributing to Human Trafficking
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MEET MRINAL from Kanpur. He is 16 years old and has already been to a rehabilitation centre. He started drinking and smoking since he was 13. Meet Manoj and Vijay from Delhi, aged 17. They are famous among their group for throwing big parties with unlimited flow of alcohol and marijuana.
These characters have not been pulled out from any Bollywood movies or fiction. Unfortunately, they are ‘real’ children who see no wrong in abusing substances and drugs. Rather, without any remorse, they feel that by doing so, they are confirming to the ‘cool’ image. And this phenomenon is no longer limited to cities or within a particular section of society. Worse, it is fast catching popularity among today’s children.
Exposure and addiction to alcohol, tobacco (gutka), sedatives sold over medical counters despite regulations, sniffing of inhalants such as glue, whitener are posing a serious problem. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) report titled ’The Tobacco Use and Control Efforts’, 9.7 per cent teenage girls in India use some form of tobacco. Similarly, 17.3 per cent teenage boys have taken to smoking. The study also revealed that tobacco use in India started at quite a young age and in many cases at schools. 14.1 per cent of youngsters consume tobacco products like cigarettes and bidis. Read the rest of this entry »
Kumari and Jayanti start their day’s work at 4 am every morning. This is the only time these two women get to talk and discuss their problems, before the others arrive. Jayanti has been upset for the last few months. Her teenage daughter ran away with the boy in the next village. How could she have done that? Did she not think of the shame it would bring to the family ? Did she not think of what repercussions it would have for her sister who was yet to be married or the difficulty her father would have now to raise a loan for the tractor? But Kumari was wise, she was a true friend. She tried hard to explain to Jayanti that the only way was to accept and forget; after all, 3 years ago her daughter had run away with someone too but with time life had return to routine comfort for her and her family.
While this family rejoices the return of normalcy, there are others, elsewhere who have stopped waiting for normalcy to return. Instead they have gone ahead and created a different normalcy for themselves, very different from what you and I understand. Rashmi, a teenager on the brink of adulthood, likes music, jeans and Bolywood movies. She giggles while saying that, she is an ardent fan of Hrithik Roshan and doesn’t miss a single movie of his. But, Rashmi faces a daily cruel ordeal which she fervently prays no other human being or child faces. In any given day, she has to serve to 5-6 men-her clients. She is a commercial sex worker, operating from a house which has 7 other girls like her. Rashmi is seventeen years old; she was taken away from her village when she was only fourteen. Read the rest of this entry »
AS THE big doors of gate no 1 of Tihar prison, in New Delhi, opened my spirits sank. I was living my worst fear — a visit to the prison. But, as I walked in clear open sky, lush green landscape, a volleyball court and a drug rehabilitation centre welcomed me. This was my first ever visit to a prison, and thankfully, not as a convict. I was invited to be a part of a unique celebration — a celebration against drug abuse. World over, June 26, is observed as the International Day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking. My voice melted in unison along with the 3,000 voices of prison inmate — brought together from the nine prisons of Delhi — as we vowed to stay away from drugs and make the community drug free.
Out of the 13,000 inmates in Tihar, approximately eight per cent of them are drug users. Rajesh, a recovered drug user and an ex-convict, shared his experience, “I got addicted to heroin and took to crimes. Soon small petty crimes led to bigger ones. I wanted to stop, but couldn’t. But today, I am clean and for two and a half years haven’t touched any drugs- not even alcohol. The drug rehabilitation programme worked for me. I want others to learn from my drug abuse experience.” Rajesh, a father of two children, is now associated with an NGO engaged in the counseling and rehabilitation of drug users. According to prison inmate Mahdev, who is still trying to recover, “It’s a huge bottomless pit. Once you get sucked in, it is very difficult to come out of it. I want to leave it for my daughter.” Read the rest of this entry »
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