Home > 2005 Issues > September 18, 2005

At Random By Rambler Another book banned After Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, now to please Muslim sentiments the Congress led UPA government has banned the book, The True Furqan authored by Saffee and Mehdi and published by Omega and Wine Press in America. And the logic given by Shivraj Patil, Home Minister is that it hurts the sentiments of Muslims. So it has alerted the customs department and other law enforcing agencies to stop its entry and circulation in India. A circular was issued on August 25 by Union Home Ministry, banning the book for having "quite objectionable" contents. The 366-page book, written both in English and Arabic in a style and format of the Quran has been put in the `hate literature' category as the government led by intellectual Prime Minister thinks its circulation could raise a religious and political storm. Marginal drop in child labour According to the latest census figures (2001), the number child labour in India has registered a slight increase over that in 1991 in absolute terms. However, the percentage of child labour to that of child population has come down. The number of working children in the country as per the 1991 census was 1.12 crore and 2001 census 1.26 crore. Infrastructure growth slows down In the regime of an economist Prime Minister the basic infrastructure sectors are not performing well although both Manmohan Singh and his trusted aide Deputy Chairman Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia are claiming big on all economic fronts. All infrastructure sectors except fertilizers, petroleum and net-telephony saw positive growth during the first quarter of the year (April-June). All the three important infrastructure sectors petroleum, fertilizers and net-telephony have witnessed a slower growth which is not a good sign, for the economy. The growth rate during the first quarter has come down in respect of steel, coal, fertilizers, petroleum and telecom compared with the performance in the first quarter of the previous year. This is revealed in the latest report issued by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation after reviewing the performance of the infrastructure sector, during the first quarter of current fiscal. An important Infrastructure Sector, Petroleum had a positive growth in the previous quarter but this time it has reported a minus 0.7 per cent negative growth in crude oil production and minus 4.9 per cent in refinery production. Whereas, in fertilizer production, which witnessed a growth of 15.5 per cent in the previous quarter, reported minus 3 per cent growth during April-June this year. The telecom sector has also witnessed a negative growth in addition in switching capacity minus 3.7 per cent, telephone connections minus 28.6 per cent during this first quarter. In the same period last year, it had witnessed a growth of over 600 per cent in addition in switching capacity without much change in land lines. Who will be next CMD of IA After the term of former CMD Sunil Arora expired, Indian Airlines is virtually running headless although for the time being a woman officer has been given an additional charge. Now grapevine has it that Raghu Menon is in top for the post of CMD of the Indian Airlines. Menon is a 1974 batch Nagaland cadre IAS officer presently posted as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Delhi's old monuments Recently, Unesco in a statement underlined the potential of Delhi joining the famed list of world heritage cities as its 3000-year-old history made it a strong contender for it. But on the contrary the ground situation is not only bad but worse. One month back, one PIL was filed in the Delhi High Court seeking the protection of five medieval monuments rear Badarpur which were in a state of neglect. After hearing the PIL, a division bench of the Delhi High Court issued notices to the Archaeological Survey of India, Delhi Government, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Urban Art Commission and Ministry of Culture on the protection of Central Gateway, Southern Gateway, Northern Gateway, Kos Minars and Shahi Masjid. The court asked the respondents to file their replies. It is important to note that apart from the Archaeological Survey of India and Delhi Government's list of monuments in the Capital, there are many monuments which are not declared protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, as they are not considered to be of national importance. While the Shahi Masjid is under the guardianship of Delhi Wakf Board, the other four monuments are looked after by the MCD. These monuments were not covered under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. Although, Delhi Assembly had passed a Bill called the `Delhi Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Bill, 2004, it is still awaiting President's assent. On the other hand, the State Archaeological Department with an annual budget of Rs 2 crore has spent not a single penny in the last five years for preservation work in the Capital as the department does not have any monument under its jurisdiction. More women seeking jobs An analysis of the Employment Exchange Statistics of the Directorate General of Employment and Training of the Ministry of Labour has revealed that the number of women job seekers have increased from 95.3 lakh in 1998 to 107.5 lakh in 2003 reflecting an increase from 23.8 per cent to 26.0 per cent. Similar trend has been observed in case of SC and ST job-seekers where the number has increased from 58.0 lakh and 16.9 lakh in 1998 to 66.3 lakh and 23.1 lakh in 2003 respectively. The number of physically handicapped persons seeking employment has also increased from 4.2 lakh in 1998 to 6.6 lakh in 2003. An analysis of age-wise job seekers reveals that approximately 71 per cent of them are below the age of 29 years. The percentage of job seekers has gone up in the age groups up to 29 years while there has been a decline in higher age groups. This is in contrast to the trend witnessed till 2002 when there was a gradual shift of job seekers from lower age groups ( 20-29 years) to upper age groups (30 years or more) indicating that the job seekers at younger age faced difficulty in seeking employment. Another notable feature of the analysis is that people in the age group of 60 years and above were also in queue for jobs. Maximum number of 51,500 of them were from West Bengal out of the all India total of 59,300. West Bengal has also had 84,800 persons in age group of 50-59 years registered with employment exchanges followed by 48.600 in Tamil Nadu and 36.900 in Kerala at the end of 2003. The classification of job seekers into broad occupational groups has revealed that 72.5 per cent of them were in the category of workers not classified into any occupation implying that a majority of the job seekers are inexperienced. The second highest group of 10.7 per cent was in the category of production and related workers, transport equipment labourers etc. Minimum number of job seekers belonged to administrative, executive and managerial workers category. In case of women job seekers again, the maximum number of 73.5 per cent were in the category of workers not classified elsewhere followed by 12.1 per cent in the category of professional, technical and related workers. Only around 0.1 per cent job seekers were in administrative, executive and managerial and sales workers category.

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