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record Pradeep Sharma talks to Justice KC Gupta (retd) head of Haryana State Backward Classes Commission ‘Haryana OBCs fear overcrowding’ Justice KC Gupta is an eminent jurist who heads the Haryana State Backward Classes Commission (HSBCC) that recommended 10 per cent reservation for five castes, including the Jats in Haryana, under the special backward class category and 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections among the general categories.
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Justice KC Gupta is an eminent jurist who heads the Haryana State Backward Classes Commission (HSBCC) that recommended 10 per cent reservation for five castes, including the Jats in Haryana, under the special backward class category and 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections among the general categories.
As a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Gupta had a brilliant record. He was appointed president of the UT State Consumer Redressal Forum, Chandigarh, where his focused approach on granting social justice and liberal compensation to the aggrieved won him appreciation. He talks about recommendations of the 256-page report that has vertically split the influential Jat community in Haryana. Excerpts: What was the mandate of the HSBCC formed by the Haryana Government? The Haryana Government constituted the Backward Classes Commission on April 8, 2011, for three years for entertaining, examining and recommending the requests of Jats, Jat Sikhs, Rods, Tyagis and Bishnois or any other caste for inclusion in the list of Other Backward Classes. The commission was mandated to hear the complaints of over-inclusion or under-inclusion of any backward class on the list. Initially, besides me, two other members were appointed by the government.
Why was the commission expanded later? To give the commission a wider representation, the government appointed a third member. However, against the backdrop of the allegations that members belonging to the backward classes were not included in the commission, the government included two more members belonging to the backward classes. What is the methodology adopted to zero in on the five castes? The commission formulated comprehensive social, educational and economic criteria for determining backwardness among various castes. The total score of 90 carried 45 points for social indicators, 30 for educational and 15 for economic indicators. The scores were in the ratio of 3:2:1 and any caste or community getting 50 per cent or more was to be declared backward. A former head of the department of sociology, Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU), helped conduct a survey of about 50,000 houses across the state before submitting his recommendations to us. How many castes approached the commission for inclusion or exclusion? We received 340 applications from various organisations and individuals for inclusion or exclusion of castes and communities such as Ahit, Yadav, Arkwanshi, Bhargva, Bishnoi, Brahman, Gaur, Goswami, Gosai, Gujjar, Jat, Jat Sikh, Kalal, Kushwaha, Lodhi, Lodha, Meo, Punjabi, Rajput, Rod, Saini, Tyagi and Vaish. While 169 applications were received for the inclusion of these castes in the OBC list, 171 applications were received against the inclusion of Jats, Jat Sikhs, Bishnois, Rods and Tyagis in the list of backward classes. Prominent persons, including Cabinet ministers, made representation to the commission. With 10 per cent quota for the five castes and 10 per cent for the economically weaker sections, reservation would go up to 67 per cent. Does it violate the Supreme Court order that quota should not exceed 50 per cent? It is not violative of the Supreme Court judgment as several other states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka reserve over 50 per cent seats in state government jobs and educational institutions. Even in the Indira Sawhney case, the Supreme Court had said while 50 per cent shall be the rule, it was necessary not to put out of consideration certain extraordinary situations inherent in the great diversity of the country and people. What were the ‘extraordinary’ situations that prompted the recommendation of 10 per cent quota for the five castes? The castes recommended for special quota in Haryana are the castes that had been oppressed for centuries and an overwhelmingly majority of them (around 80 per cent) live in rural areas. Besides, they were farming communities with landholdings less than 1.5 acres of land, making farming unviable. Over the years, they have been caught in a debt trap, with even cooperative banks not making any efforts to help them. Why not adjust them in the 27 per cent OBC quota as demanded by certain sections of the dominant Jat community? These castes constitute around 31 per cent of the state’s population. There was vehement opposition from existing castes against the inclusion of the Jats and four other castes on the OBC list as this would result in crowding of the existing backward classes. This would have diminished employment chances of the existing castes on the list. The inclusion of an additional nearly one-third of the population in the already existing population with the quota of 27 per cent would amount to denial of protection. There can be no justification for providing a meager 27 per cent reservation to such a large segment of population. What about 10 per quota for the economically weaker sections among the general category? The Haryana Government had formed a sub-committee under the Finance Minister to work out the modalities for 10 per reservation for general caste on economic basis. With the state government accepting the report of the Finance Minister, the 10 per cent for the poor in the general category would also be a reality soon. The government had come out with detailed guidelines for the implementation of quota for the economically weaker sections.
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Born in a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family in Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), she evinced interest in music when she was a toddler. Her father was a teacher and an ayurveda doctor. Janaki moved to Chennai on the advice of her uncle and joined AVM studios as a singer. She began her career in movies by singing songs in a Tamil film in 1957. Subsequently, she performed in the Telugu film “MLA Singara Velane Deva” that made her a star overnight. She became one of the most preferred female singers of South India. Janaki sang in almost every major South Indian film in the 1980s and 1990s. She won several awards from government and private institutions during this period and reigned over Kannada music till the late 80s. She was invited to the Hindi film industry by Bappi Lahri for “Saheb” and she delivered the super hit song “Yaar bina kahare”. She sang around 100 compositions of Jaidev, Lakshmi Kant-Pyarelal, RD Burman, OP Nayyar, Bappi Lahri, Anu Malik and others. She recorded duets with Mohd Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Bhupinder. She also penned songs for Tamil and Telugu albums. A devotee of Lord Krishna and Shirdi Sai Baba, Janaki spends a lot of time praying. “Do you know how I perform?” she asks and replies, “the truth is that I don’t sing at all. It is Krishna, the dweller of my heart, who sings”. Janaki has a unique ability to change her voice and sing in a range of tone. She can sing in the voice of a child, an old woman or along with a “shennai”. She is also a good lyricist and composer. She has sung about 20,000 songs in her career, in almost all languages of South India as well as in Hindi. She says it is better to “honour me now rather than after my demise”. Janaki almost retired from the film industry after the death of her husband, V Rama Prasad. She lives with her son.
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good news
IT
all started with a small incident in which a motorcyclist hit the child of a domestic help and no one came forward to help the little girl crying in pain on a road in Hisar nearly two years ago.
Sanjeev Bhojraj requested the motorcyclist to take the injured girl to hospital, but he sped away. Sanjeev rushed her to an orthopaedic surgeon and soon, her also parents arrived. Since then, it became his mission to rush to accident sites and take victims to hospital. Through his NGO, Madad, he has helped over 250 accident victims. The call “That incident gave me so much satisfaction that it changed my outlook towards life. I realised life is fragile. A small accident can take it away. Lying on the road, victims are extremely vulnerable and can feel life slipping away but are unable to do anything. If someone comes to their rescue, many lives can be saved,” he says. There has been no looking back for 24-year-old Sanjeev, a diploma holder in animation from Delhi who has joined his brother’s transport business. Sanjeev set up Madad on May 7, 2011. Today, he has a team of 15 like-minded friends, who help him in his endeavour, both by contributing money at the time of need and offering their services when required. Generally, when accident victims are crying for help, very few people care to come to their rescue, partly for the fear of possible harassment by the police and also due to the self-centred attitude of society. People prefer to look the other way. Some curious ones stop to see what has happened, but then move on,” he says. Initially, he would take a round of the railway station, bus stand and hospital to see if any accident victim or patient needed his help, but now people call him from different parts of Hisar. Help radius After he started receiving calls from Adamapur and Ratia, he set up branches there too. In most cases, people call him to tell him about an accident and sometimes, even drivers of ambulances of the health department inform him about mishaps. Without losing time, he rushes to the accident site on his motorcycle. “Many a time, I have seen people, including ambulance drivers, hesitating to pick victims for fear of soiling their clothes. They call me,” he says. Sanjeev arranges for medicines, informs the victim’s kin and either he or his volunteers remain in the hospital till the family arrives. He does not collect donations for carrying out his activities. Nor does the NGO get any financial help from the government. “Most of the time, we don’t have to spend any money while helping victims in their hour of need. When doctors prescribe medicines, we get some free of cost from government supplies. We arrange the rest from chemists outside hospitals and when the victims’ attendants arrive, we hand over the bill to them,” says Sanjeev. He generally shifts the victims to government healthcare facilities and leaves it to the family to shift the victim elsewhere as per their financial capacities. In cases, where the victims are poor and their kin are not in a position to pay for medicines, Sanjeev and his volunteers approach the Red Cross or any other welfare scheme of the government for reimbursement. Some of the fiercest accidents where he and his team had to work overtime were an accident involving two trucks carrying pilgrims near Jhuppa, Siwani, where 32 persons were killed on July 3, 2012; an accident between a truck and a pick-up van near Talwandi in August 2011 killing 12; and an accident between two Haryana Roadways buses that left over 50 passengers injured near Chickenwas, Hisar. “These were very challenging accidents, particularly the one involving injuries to over 50 passengers near Chickenwas. It was important to rush all the injured to hospital immediately and ensure that they did not land in the same hospital as it would be difficult for doctors to manage them. I stopped vehicles on the road and shifted some victims to Maharaja Agarsen Medical College, Agroha, and others to General Hospital, Hisar, and private hospitals,” he says. Awards don’t drive him For his philanthropic activities, Sanjeev has received acclaims from the authorities as well as residents from time to time. The district administration honoured him during the Independence Day function last year when Randeep Singh Surjewala, a minister, bestowed upon him a certificate of commendation. But for Sanjeev, the satisfaction he gets in providing timely help to the victims is far more important than any award or certificate.
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Sitaram
Yechuri, CPM leader Mehbooba
Mufti, PDP Chief Anoushka Shankar,
Ravi Shankar’s daughter Silvio
Berlusconi, three-time former Italian PM It is no longer the same Akali Dal that had participated in the freedom struggle and whose leaders sacrificed everything for the sake of the nation. It is now a private company. Capt
Amarinder Singh, PCC chief |
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THE
melody queen of South India, S Janaki, started singing at three, perfected music at 10 and became a singer at 19. Now at 75, she rejected the Padma Bhushan announced on the eve of the Republic Day, saying “it is too late, too little”. She, however, added: “I am not finding fault with anyone for this late recognition. I have no grouse against the government. I am happy that it has belatedly recognised my talent and the long years devoted to music. I should have been given the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, if the government wanted to recognise my work. I am not interested in any other award.” 
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