By this move, the government has made its intent to prevail over a series of court judgments, which held that the I-T department did not have the right to cancel registration of organisations with it.

The government provides relief to specified not-for-profit or charitable organisations under Section 12A of the Income Tax Act. A registration with the Income Tax department cannot be taken away by an I-T commissioner if violations are found, some courts had said earlier. read more

Source: Financial Express

Income Tax Department

Social activists of the network have been running series of awareness programmes in the tribal belt and now will urge tribals to take up their cause in line with the Act.

Member of Adivasi Mahasabha (AM), that held a meeting in the city on Tuesday, shared their plan of action. They will aggressively work to ensure that the Act be implemented as it stands and the extra ordinary power given to forest department should be removed or taken away.

“The Act is not implemented as per laws mentioned in it and grave injustice is done to tribal people as they end up losing their land. As per the Act, it’s stated that any officer who acts against the Act, should be punished, but this rule is not followed at any level,” said Xavier Manjooran, member of AM.

Manjooran added that state government should take note and act against officers who take an anti-tribal or anti-Act stand. “Claim applications sent to committee by tribal for ownership of the land most of the times are rejected without any valid reason. The Act is made to acknowledge the rights of the tribal and vest them with the power,” Manjooran told.

The members also shared that due to improper implementation of the Act, there is a continuous friction between the forest department and tribals. “The Act is made to pave way for harmony and justice, but with most officers not aware about the Act in totality, it ends up being misused. It’s mentioned that till the legal procedure of transfer of ownership is on, no action can be initiated by forest department officials. But, many a times stern action is taken right in the middle of the proceedings,” Manjooran added.

Bird Nest

An NGO named Trees For Free sent abandoned birds’ nests to CEOs of companies to make them realise the adverse impact their actions were having on the environment. “The purpose of the exercise was to make people involved in infrastructure development aware of the number of birds who had been left homeless as a result of development, and that it is time to take action,” said Janet Yegneswaran, founder member, Trees For Free. The NGO, dedicated to restoring the city’s greenery, had organised ‘Greeniversary’ on the occasion of Kannada Rajyotsava yesterday.

Over 425 trees were planted at the Charu Sharma Cricket Academy, J-Tennis Academy, and at the SPT Sports Academy on Sarjapur Road and Hennur, as part of the Greeniversary celebrations. “All the trees that were planted are ones that attract birds,” said Vinodh Lal Heera, creative director and volunteer, Trees For Free.

“It was hard to forget the old, beautiful Bangalore. That’s when we realised that the only way to restore its lost charm was by working towards bringing it back,” said Janet.

Trees For Free has planted 15,975 trees in and around Bangalore.

For more information about the NGO visit their website at http://www.treesforfree.org/

Pfizer Logo

US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and an Indian NGO Monday tied up to work together in the areas of public health, medical research and education with the goal of providing a better health system in India. Pfizer Inc, which is one the largest research based pharmaceutical company in the world, and Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) will work together on several initiatives to strengthen public health through education, training, research, community empowerment and improve access to health services.

PHFI works on strengthening training, research and policy development in the area of public health in the country.

PHFI president K. Srinath Reddy said the pharmaceutical company will provide partial support to them for establishing centres for strengthening health systems in the underdeveloped districts of Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh and Ganjam in Orissa.

“We are focused on strengthening the public health workforce capacity in India by estbalishing new institutes of public health, undertaking research, strengthening existing institutions, facilitating establishment of standards in public health education and wider access to health services,” he told reporters.

One of the subject closest to their hearts is dealing with the tobacco problem.

“Out of the 13.1 percent people who use tobacco are in the age group of 13-15 years. They want to quit but don’t know how,” he added.

“One of the goals in such a scenario would be to find ways to make people attend rehabilitation centres. Also, another way would be to make organizations at the rural level where women of the village could monitor the number of tobacco consumers. Then they could help with the provision of additional technology to help these people,” he added.

Jack Watters, Pfizer’s vice-president external medical affairs, said: “Our goal is to improve health in the public sector. We are looking for an establishment of a better health system through research in India.”

A delegation of the NGO comprising its President educationist Saiyid Hamid, General Secretary K Siddique Hassan and Mohammad Jafar, Vice President, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, met Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on October 24 and offered to adopt the village to set up and run a primary school, a dispensary and a vocational technical school there.

The NGO submitted a memorandum to the chief minister detailing that it visited the village after a media report and found it lacking all primary civic amenities.

“The Badarpur Khadar Village is a part of Karawal Nagar Assembly Segment of Delhi Pradesh, just 20 km from CM’s office. The village has a population of above 5000 and falls in the Karawal Nagar Assembly segment. A delegation of Human Welfare Foundation visited the village on 19.10.09 . This village does not have roads, electricity, school, dispensary, fair price shop and even NREGA Scheme. Most of the children and women reportedly are affected by dust allergy. These poor people have become destitute in their own home land,” reads the memorandum.

The HWF has proposed in the memorandum that it will set up and manage a primary school, a dispensary and will also run a vocational technical school if the Govt. provides them 2 acres of land.

In order to redeem this destitute village, the NGO has urged the government to provide following facilities: e lectricity, sanitation, B.T. approach road…brick or cc, village road, fair price shops and NREGA scheme.

Source: TwoCircles.net

The Indian Platform for Ship Breaking (IPSB), an environmental NGO, has now begun procedures to file a case in the Supreme Court against the inspection team’s report that the luxury liner — awaiting beaching permission at Alang — does not contain any hazardous material.

“The ship should not get a clearance as it contains hazardous materials like asbestos, PCB and other radioactive
substances, which can be disastrous for the people and the environment,” said Gopal Krishna of IPSB. He added: “We have initiated procedure to file a case. It will be filed by Monday.”

The group has decided to move the court just when the ship — now marooned off the Gopnath coast, some 25 km from Alang — is all set to get clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Earlier, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) had reported that the ship contains asbestos and PCB, and now the NGO has said that it also contains radioactive substance in the form of smoke detectors and other sensors. Following protests, Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh had sent a five-member team to Alang for verification of the NGO’s claims. The team had submitted its report by October 23.

Sources said the report did not mention about the presence of any objectionable material, while the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests is yet to give an official nod. Back home, till Sunday, GPCB did not receive any report from the Centre.

Even for Komalkant Sharma, the new owner of Platinum II, the wait on the fate of the Rs 35 crore ship continues.

“I haven’t received any information on the Central

committee’s report. We are still awaiting a response from the GPCB or the Centre,” he said.

PSI, which works in the area of health, including among the HIV patients, maternal and child health in 22 states, will be starting this initiative at places with high population, poor indicators and high need.

“These states are Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi,” Vajpayee told IANS.

Apart from focusing on maternal health, they will also be providing Copper Intrauterine Contraceptive Devices (IUCDs) as a safe, effective and reversible option for family planning. IUCD is commonly known as Copper-T.

“We want to create a service delivery network to improve access to affordable and high quality IUCD services and products to low and middle income groups and complement family planning efforts of the government,” she added.

She said they are providing an IUCD called Freedom Five at an highly subsidised cost of Rs.75. In the market, it costs Rs.250.

“Since many women like to avail family planning services from private providers, the potential of such providers located near areas where the urban poor reside, can be harnessed to address their needs,” she said.

Vajpayee said that evidence has long endorsed the IUCD as a long term, highly effective and reversible contraceptive method.

“The contraceptive effectiveness of the IUCD is very high and is comparable to that of male and female sterilization,” she added.

“It is a long-term method as it prevents pregnancy for three, five or 10 years depending on the type of IUCD inserted. As it is reversible, the IUCD has the potential to satisfy family planning needs of women who want to end childbearing, as well as those who wish to postpone childbearing for some time,” she said.

In India, 117,000 women die every year from complications arising out of pregnancy and childbirth, while many more suffer debilitating complications.

“Family planning is central to reduction of maternal mortality and ill health by reducing the number of pregnancies, unsafe abortions and high risk births,” she stressed.

Quoting the National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-06), Vajpayee said that it shows that nearly 21 percent of all pregnancies are either unintended or mistimed.

It also states that 13 percent of married women want to postpone their next pregnancy or stop having children altogether but for whatever reason are not using contraception.

“Thus, it becomes vital that quality family planning services are made available to lower income groups in urban areas, who are largely underserved in terms of quality health care,” Vajpayee told IANS.

C.N. Purandare, the president of FOGSI, said: “Family planning is helpful in saving lives of women and children lives because it prevents untimely and unintended pregnancy. Reduces women’s exposure to the health risks of unsafe childbirth and abortion and lessens the health risks associated with pregnancies that are early, closely spaced or very late.”

The FOGSI has 24,800 members and have worked on anaemia eradications, adolescent health and save the girl child initiatives in the country.

CAPART Logo

The government will hand over the running of the rural job scheme to a nation-wide network of NGOs, sidelining the panchayats and gram sabhas that managed the programme till now.

The official explanation is the “failure of the local-level political system” (sarpanches) in running the UPA’s flagship social programme that is mired in allegations of corruption and inefficiency.

Many NGOs had been monitoring the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme but now they will be virtually in charge and will be paid for their work. The central and state governments do not directly run the scheme — they provide the funds, fix the wages and “measure” (assess and quantify) the work done.

According to a draft note prepared by the rural development ministry, the NGOs will spread awareness about the scheme, train the workforce, monitor the muster rolls and all documents relating to the work done, ensure that grievances are redressed and, finally, evaluate the scheme’s implementation.

The panchayats will be kept in the loop but will no longer be the decision-makers.

The ministry will start the process of selecting the NGOs for the job in a few days, after notifying the new plan.

In the first phase, expected to start in a couple of months, the “NGOisation” will be implemented in 14 states, including Bengal. To start with, the voluntary organisations will be assigned just one district each and only for six months.

Each NGO will be paid Rs 4 lakh for these six months. For this, Rs 15 crore has been set aside in the current financial year.

According to the ministry draft note, the expected benefits of the move are “transparency and accountability (and) efficient grievance redress mechanism”.

“We had entrusted the responsibility of implementing the (scheme) with the village sarpanch,” rural development minister C.P. Joshi said. “But there are so many allegations against the local political representatives…. It is important to stop these manipulations.”

Not everyone is convinced, though.

“With this, the government is planning to give the NGOs the upper hand over elected representatives. It is being done on the wrong assumption that all NGOs are trustworthy. There are good and bad NGOs just as there are good sarpanches and bad sarpanches,” a ministry official said.

He added: “The elected representatives are at least accountable to the public and government but these NGOs are not. Even if they are found culpable, all that the government can do is blacklist them. But the same people can float another NGO in another name.”

A consortium of NGOs, that have so far been monitoring the scheme on their own, has asked the Centre to set up a national authority made up of NGOs to oversee the programme across the country. Their argument: “The largest employment programme in human history requires a separate authority to anchor it.”

“The intervention of NGOs (in the job scheme) has (already) had a dramatic impact on incomes, indebtedness and migration,” said Pramathesh Ambasta of Samaj Pragati Sahayog. He claimed that Rajasthan had witnessed a 175 per cent rise in work demand under the scheme.

A rural development ministry wing, the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology, will oversee the “NGOisation”.

Later, NGOs will be involved in other major schemes such as the Indira Awas Yojana, Prime Minister’s Gram Sadak Yojana and the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, officials said.

Source: TelegraphIndia.com

image courtesy womenofcaliber.files.wordpress.com

With the government deciding to launch an all-out offensive against Naxalites next month, an international human rights body today said that the “means” to be used by security forces in the anti-Naxalite operations should be consistent with human rights and international humanitarian laws.

“We very much recognise the seriousness of the threat posed by the Naxals and also the fact that they are responsible for a range of attacks on civilians and police and all this is clear violation of the laws. We also understand that India has a responsibility to contain this,” executive director of US-based organisation Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth said here.

“Our concern is that whatever means are used by security forces to confront the Naxalites need to be consistent with international human rights and humanitarian laws,” he added.

Roth said violation of human rights during counter-Naxalite operations may push ordinary Indian citizens into armed insurgency.

He was talking to reporters after a quarterly meeting of the board of directors of Human Rights Watch here.

He suggested India should end “repressive laws” like Armed Forces Special Powers Act to reform security forces, including the police, and to prioritise the protection of vulnerable groups such as Dalits, religious minorities and women.

Source: DNA India

Image courtesy vacationhousedisney.com

The city is going to have country’s first cyber cafe at Gurudwara Shri Guru Singh Sabha, Jamalpur, courtesy ‘Save my world,’ a non-government organization. Mehtab Singh, founder of the NGO, said, “We are going to start first free cyber cafe of India in a room at this gurudwara.

Anyone who is unable to afford expenses for visiting a cyber cafe, can use the internet facility free-of-cost for 55 minutes per day. One need not be a member of NGO for this. We will start this facility after August 25.

We will provide this facility at nine more places in the city by the end of this year. For the students, a separate corner will be there so that they may finish their homework.

Mehtab said that the aim behind this was to provide an opportunity to all the needy who want to get awareness. The founder chairman who graduated last year from GGN Khalsa College for Boys, said, “I have decided to serve the society. My father, pilot Mahinder Pal Singh is ready to help me in this.”

Mehtab will get the state award tomorrow by Parkash Singh BAdal chief minister of Punjab as his two photographs were decorated at UNO Headquarters last year.”

He is the first Indian whose photographs have been decorated at the UNO headquarters in New York. Making this claim, Mehtab Singh said,”I participated in a “conceptual photography competition’ organised by UNO on August 12 last year. I sent my three photographs for this, out of which my two photographs were selected among top two and have been decorated in the UNO HQ New York.”

He further said,”The theme was “future of world considering climactic changes” My first photo depicted that in the year 2050, the snowfall will be replaced with rainfall. For this, I sent the conceptual photo by clicking at Satluj river. While the second one was that after some years, there will be no safe place on earth other than Mount Everest. I showed that 12 top leaders along with their enemies are sitting on the Mount Everest and having their meals. Had they worked in team, the earth wouldnot have been in this shape.”

In this contest about 1676 people from 85 countries participated. He was ten years old when he started the hobby of photography. After doing schooling from Sacred Heart Senior secondary School, Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, he went to England for specialised training in speech therapy. He said,”I had a stammering problem, so I did two years special training in England. Now I am doing B.Com and afterwards I have thought of serving the society through the “Save my world” and make people aware about their rights and duties.

Fond of gliding and singing folk songs. His father M P Singh is also director of Global space Aviation company and mother is a home maker.

Source: Times Of India