Only 1% disabled children are in mainstream schools

New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Suraj, a 12-year-old physically disabled child from

Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh, was among the hundreds of children with

disabilities, who marched to Parliament today demanding their Right

to Education.

His mother carrying him on a wheelchair hoped that her child will get proper education and health treatment to be able to lead a normal life.

They were part of a movement, initiated by All India Parents Association (AIPA) and supported by many NGOs working for children to ensure more than two crore
disabled children their Right to Education.

AIPA president Ashok Aggarwal said, ''Even after 62 years of Independence, only one per cent out of two crore disabled children are in the mainstream schools.''
Saying that the children with disabilities are grossly deprived of all fundamental rights, Mr Aggarwal told UNI

''There is a need to enact a national law specifically for the children with special needs and enforce all the authorities to implement it.''

He also mentioned that there was a dearth of staff in schools to take care of their educational needs, which shows the government's apathy towards the educational needs of such children.

The AIPA on behalf of all other human rights organisations wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to look into the matter.

In the letter, it was demanded that all the government schools in the country should be upgraded to the minimum level of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan
(KVS) schools.

Articulating that there was a widespread exploitation of parents of disabled children by private schools, General Secretary of Summer Fields Public School Parents Association Bipin Arora noted, ''Commercialisation of education should be immediately curbed.''

Reiterating Mr Aggarwal's demand of national law, he stated that a lot of things were missing in the existing laws so enactment of new law was necessary.

Director of Chetnalya, an NGO, Father Susai Sebastian pointed out few necessary things for all the schools in India to educate special children.

He said, ''Basic facilities like resource centre and special ramp are must for every school to support children with special needs.''

He also urged the parents and the whole community to support and work for these children.

During the ninth national meeting of State Commissioners for Persons with Disabilities here two days ago, Union Minister for Social Justice and
Empowerment Mukul Wasnik accepted that lakhs of disabled children were yet to identified.

There is a need to identify such children across the country especially in the rural areas as more than 75 per cent of the disabled lived there, he observed.

Kashmir Times

Commodity exchanges are scam, Govt working for MNCs: Gadkari

New Delhi, Feb 10 (UNI) BJP president Nitin Gadkari today attacked the ruling UPA Government alleging that commodity exchanges are a scam and the government is working for big corporates and multi-national companies.

''People sitting in rooms are selling essential commodities on papers. There is a huge difference between speculated and actual amount of commodities, which is creating false sense of availability leading to price rise,'' Mr Gadkari said during a protest against price rise at Jantar Mantar here.

''It is a scam of around Rs 2.8 lakh crore and the UPA Government is also involved in this,'' he added.

He also accused UPA Ministers of passing the buck and opined that the Congress, including allies of the UPA, was responsible for inflation in the country.

Commenting on the UPA Government's claims that the country was going to achieve double digit economic growth very soon which was an indication of development, the BJP leader said, ''The country may or may not achieve double digit growth but inflation is definitely growing in double digits.'' Pointing out the Congress' reiteration that the saffron party was communal, he said inflation was not related to religion or caste, it was related to the wrong policies of the government.

Despite numerous programmes announced by the UPA to reduce poverty, population of the poor has increased and they had become poorer and poorer, he stated.

Expressing disappointment over agriculture, Mr Gadkari said Minimum Support Price given to farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab last year was Rs 9.5 per kg for wheat and imported at Rs 19 per kg from foreign countries.

He said in fact, the imported wheat was of worst quality which was used to feed pigs in those countries.

Saying that government policies were helping big corporates and multi-national companies in exploiting the poor, Mr Gadkari exhorted people to stand up and ask the government to control the sky-rocketed prices or step down.

''This is a struggle and we have to fight against government.

We welcome all the people and parties who want to join us in this struggle,'' the BJP president announced.

Kalam views books building blocks of country

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Delhi, Feb 4 (UNI) Emphasising the importance of reading and its effect on youth, former President A P J Abdul Kalam here today said it helps children viewing the past, experience the present and dream about the future.

Speaking at the International Conference on Children's Libraries - Building a Book Culture, organised by the Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children (AWIC) with an aim to discuss the potential and scope of libraries in strengthening the book culture, the former president said every school should have libraries as they stimulates the reading habit in children which creates an urge to learn new things.

''Learning gives creativity, creativity leads to thinking, thinking in turn leads to knowledge and knowledge makes us great,'' Dr Kalam said and added that this is the purpose of libraries.

The former President said the dreams and aspirations of the children shapes the future of any country.

Though many educationists and thinkers believes that the technological advancement has eroded the book reading culture, Dr Kalam thinks otherwise and advocates the need to provide book content in electronic form also.

''Knowledge content especially for the urban children should be in electronic form. Computer books have provided a new arena for book reading,'' he added.

Advising that everybody should allocate at least an hour everyday to read quality books and parents should develop a library at their homes Dr Kalam asserted that home library would help children gain the knowledge what their parents had gained through those books.

Children learn through their environment so it is imperative for the parents and teachers to present an inspiring and ideal behaviour, he advised and added that their questions should be answered with earnest.

He also said that libraries must try to keep themselves updated with the latest books from all around the world so that children get an exposure to different countries, cultures and religions.

''There should be books about national heroes,'' he mentioned.

SAD to NHRC: Treat '84 riot victims at par with Godhra

New Delhi, Feb 2 (UNI) Activists of Delhi unit of Shriomani Akali Dal (Badal) today marched to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) office here and demanded its intervention in the 1984 Riot cases, wherein thousands of Sikhs were massacred.

Asking why NHRC had not treated 1984 Riot victims at par with those of Godhra Riots in, SAD Delhi unit President Manjeet Singh G K said, ''The magnitude of 1984 massacre was much higher than the Gujarat riots.''

''Without any disrespect to Godhra victims, we want to specify that in Gujarat only around 800 people were killed but in 1984 riots more than 2700 Sikhs were butchered by the mob,'' he added.

''Why NHRC, even after 25 years of riots, has not taken any step to uphold the human rights and the rights of the victims,'' Mr Singh questioned.

Reiterating their demand for penal action against Sajjan Kumar and other accused, SAD National General Secretary Avtar Singh Hit said, ''We want to ask why are we being ignored.''

''Until all the accused persons are booked under law and victims not given justice this movement will continue,'' he added.

BJP candidate from Jangpura in 2008 Delhi Assembly Elections Manjinder Singh Sirsa said he has no hope of justice as the Congress, which had orchestrated these riots, was currently
holding power at the Centre.

The SAD had submitted a memorandum before the NHRC on Novemeber 4, 2009 but NHRC had not done anything in this regard, Mr Singh said.

''So, we request the NHRC to intervene in this matter and approach the High Court for appointment of a monitoring committee to monitor these cases,'' he urged.