MUDA to release 109 CA sites on lease

6-Jan-2012

MYSORE: The Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) will release civic amenity (CA) sites on lease to organisations and societies engaged in public works in the city.

There are 109 sites ready for allotment. MUDA is releasing these sites for public purposes after a gap of seven years, as the last such allotment (of CA sites) was conducted in 2005.

In addition, 20 CA sites have been reserved for boards or corporations established by either the State or Union governments.

MUDA chairman P. Nagendra told presspersons here on Saturday that allotment would be based on MUDA guidelines. Only institutions, societies or associations registered under the Karnataka Society Registration Act 1960 or a cooperative society registered under the Cooperative Societies Act are eligible to apply. The last date for submission of applications is February 8.

The lease period will be 30 years and the amount has been fixed at Rs. 1,087 per sq m, Mr. Nagendra said. Organisations representing Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, those engaged in the rehabilitation of the mentally challenged and disabled, and Kannada medium schools will be given 50 per cent concession. However, MUDA officials have clarified that they cannot release sites for residential purposes. Of 129 sites, 15 per cent has been reserved for institutions working for the welfare of SC groups and 3 per cent for those working for ST communities.

Officials have clarified that no changes in land-use would be permitted, and beneficiaries should adhere to the purpose for which the site was allotted in the first place.

MUDA Commissioner C.G. Betsurmath pointed out that there have been instances in which the CA allotment was rescinded due to violations, the most common being the failure to utilise the land for which it was allotted.

In recent months, MUDA launched a drive to ascertain whether CA sites are being used for the same purpose for which they were released. There have been 16 cancellations so far, of which nine were due to non-payment of equated monthly instalments and seven for not using the land for the purpose for which it was allotted.

Lease period will be 30 years, says MUDA chairman

15 per cent of the sites reserved for institutions working for SC, ST communities

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/muda-to-release-109-ca-sites-on-lease/article4278964.ece

 

 

 

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Don't we have the right to get married too?

Ranjitha Gunasekaran

7-DEC-2012

CHENNAI : Bhagya (name changed) falters as she tells me what happened when she said she wanted to get married.

“Do you know what my parents asked me? They said, ‘Yevan irrukkan unnai kattikrathuku?’ (Who is there to marry you?) I was so upset. I went into a long depression,” she recalls, over tea.

Bhagya has a disability. She has cerebral palsy. Still, she completed her school and college education. She says her parents have always been supportive – her father quit his job to take care of her — but she cannot get over how they reacted when she expressed her interest in marriage.

“They just started using bad language and getting frustrated with me. I am talking to them about something important in my life. Who else will I speak to about this?” she asks.

Bhagya’s experience is not unusual.

“The view of disabled women is as asexual beings,” S.S. Smitha, the co-founder of Tejas (an advocacy group of disabled women), explains. “Caregivers of so many women do not even consider marriage for them and often treat the woman as a child,” she says.

The result of this attitude is often a profound lack of information and knowledge about the woman’s own sexuality.

Even Smitha, a 32-year-old well-travelled activist, did not consider the issue of sexual health and well-being until she attended a session on the subject at the Women’s Institute of Leadership in Disability earlier this year. The experience inspired her to organise a cross-disability workshop on sexuality and women’s rights in Chennai early this week. Bhagya was one of the 25 disabled women who participated.

At the workshop, others echoed Bhagya’s views. Punitha Suresh, from The Banyan, spoke of how women with mental illness were dissuaded from getting married.

The reasons given for these attitudes of the caregivers often seemed to stem from a flawed belief that the children of persons with disabilities will also be born disabled.

Then there is the overprotective concern of some caregivers who worried that the woman will not be looked after well, or will be ill-treated.

Chaitali (name changed) pointed out that the caregivers often viewed the young women as still little girls or children. “Other than asking who will marry us, even when we do have male friends, people tend to frame that relationship in terms of a brother-sister bond,” she said.

This of course is once a male friend has been found – Bhagya had earlier raised the question of how disabled women were supposed to socialise and meet people to begin with.

Ranjini K Moorthy, an activist, who was facilitating the session on reproductive and sexual health summed up the situation: “We are seen as sexless human beings who are expected to live life without experiencing sexuality, dissuaded from marriage, socialisation is not encouraged and our relationships are desexualised.”

Life is not rosy for married disabled women either. One hearing impaired woman said her husband found her gestures embarrassing and refused to visit public places with her.

Another said her husband had married her for her money. “We are told not to marry disabled men but when we marry an able-bodied person, there are gaps in understanding and the marriage doesn’t work out,” a woman said.

The belief that their children too might be born with a disability had led at least one participant to be forced into an abortion.

Ranjini and others said they had heard of disabled women being given hysterectomies, sometimes without their informed consent.

To underline how prevalent this view of disabled women as asexual was, Smitha later told me that some parents and caregivers left with their wards when they were told the sessions were for the women alone – even though the women themselves were interested in attending.

“The question is one of information. Crucial information is not reaching disabled women because we are seen as asexual. The view is ‘this information is not applicable to my daughter’s life’,” she said. (Another barrier to information reaching the women is accessibility, something that Tejas tried to address with material in braille or as visuals, etc.)

Disabled women, especially in India, already have to make their peace with having a limited control over their bodies and lives. Some have to get accustomed to being carried, sometimes by strangers.

Some are not allowed to grow their hair to make life simpler for their caregivers. Many choose not to do things that interest them so that their caregivers are not inconvenienced.

But perhaps one of the greatest of indignities that women with disabilities endure has to be friends, family, doctors, teachers making assessments of and decisions for them on the most personal and intimate aspects of their lives: “Can she have a relationship? Will anyone want to marry her? Can she have children? How will she take care of them?”

http://www.sify.com/news/don-t-we-have-the-right-to-get-married-too-news-columns-mmhtE9egcgd.html

Image credit: thebanyan.org

Ranjitha Gunasekaran studied English and Mass Communications before joining The New Indian Express reporting team in 2006, covering urban local bodies and heritage. She left the paper to help the Communications department of The Banyan, an NGO which works with destitute mentally ill women before rejoining the Express Weekend section. She covered gender, mental health, development and edited the paper’s Sexualities section, the first of its kind in the country. She headed the Weekend section from August 2010 to April 2011 before leaving to help ideate on and launch a daily school edition of the newspaper. She loves dogs and food and has written about the latter for the Express lifestyle magazine, Indulge, from 2009. She quit her job in October to focus on her writing.

 

 

 

 

 

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A better deal for differently abled flyers in the air

Ramya Kannan

27-Nov-2012

CHENNAI: The Asok Kumar Committee, which examined ways to make air travel hassle-free for persons with disabilities and reduced mobility, has assessed the situation in airports across the country and made recommendations to ease their travel travails.

The committee was constituted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to review the existing Civil Aviation Requirements on Carriage by Air of Persons with Disability and/or Persons with Reduced Mobility (CAR), examine best practices in the world and present a detailed set of guidelines to improve the experience.

The report, which was ready in October, highlights the need to bring in amendments to the existing CAR and covers other important areas hitherto not covered.

“What we have tried to do is to make air travel comfortable for all and with dignity,” says Mr. Asok Kumar, chairperson of the committee. “With every step there are numerous difficulties if you put yourself in the shoes of persons with disabilities, and different agencies are constantly shifting responsibilities. We have addressed all that.”

It has been recommended to clearly allocate responsibility between airports and airlines to avoid delays and inconvenience and standardise equipment and facilities in consultation with government departments overseeing implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act. Internal audits should be introduced to ensure that assistive devices are available in good condition and persons handling these are well trained.

The draft, which is being circulated for comments, insists that responsibilities be fixed on each stakeholder — not just airport and airlines, but agents, ticketing websites, airport operator and CISF.

A complaints resolution officer to deal with these issues relating to persons with disabilities must be appointed at each airport. An ombudsman should be appointed to settle complaints between different service providers and passengers.

A comprehensive disabled — friendly airport design has also been drawn up, according to committee member Rahul Cherian Jacob of the Inclusive Planet, Centre for Disability, Law and Policy.

The committee has urged the Ministry to ensure compliance of recommendations within three years at major airports, and then at others in a phased manner.

Significantly, it has built into the recommendations penal provisions for all violators, including private airlines

http://www.thehindu.com/health/policy-and-issues/a-better-deal-for-differently-abled-flyers-in-the-air/article4140900.ece

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Schoolkids make the grade with mental health

18-June-2012

ARTI S. SAHULIYAR

With stigma waning, counselling of children with learning disability is on the rise, says Rinpas expert

JHARKHAND : A hyperactive eight-year-old is smart enough to operate all the functions of his parents’ high-end mobile phone, but fumbles when asked to rattle off math tables. A sensitive teenager is a bookworm, but exams stump her.

 

These are not mentally challenged children with below-average IQ. On the contrary, they are intelligent in every way, but parental and social pressure to excel has robbed them of their focus — and sometimes, confidence to cope.

 

Earlier, these children did not get a second chance. But now, counsellors, parents and teachers in Ranchi have teamed up to give these children with “learning disabilities” a shot at being well-adjusted students.

 

Currently, the capital’s premier mental health institute Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (Rinpas) registers 12 to 15 cases of such children in a month.

 

Experts say parental or peer pressure results in developmental disorder or disturbances. Social and biological conflicts also adversely impact a child’s overall mental development.

 

Unlike earlier, the capital is not brushing these cases under the carpet. More and more parents approach psychologists.

 

“Earlier, stigma held parents back from bringing their wards for professional guidance. Now, with extensive counselling, we have convinced parents and teachers that instead of keeping quiet, they should come to us,” said Rinpas director Amool Ranjan Singh.

 

M.K. Sinha, the principal of a well-known cradle DAV Kapil Dev, admitted that learning disabilities were on the rise, but said increased parental pressure had a large part to play in making a child more vulnerable or anxious.

 

“Every child can’t come first in class. But unrealistic expectations harm both the child and the parent. We invite counsellors on regular basis to overcome such situations so that the children’s academics do not suffer,” Sinha said.

 

The Rinpas director added learning disorder had always been prevalent, but not classified as such earlier.

 

In the past, neither were people aware of psychological stumbling blocks and nor was doing superlatively in academics the overwhelming priority in all homes, he said.

 

“It is indeed a good sign that even parents are sensitive to this issue now and bring youngsters to us. But though taboos related to counselling have loosened, the problem has also grown. Children confide that their parents put pressure on them to perform well in academics. The definition of ‘doing well’ confuses them and makes them feel they are not good enough even if they are otherwise okay,” the Rinpas director said.

 

Children and parents are counselled extensively. In extreme cases, schoolchildren aged 10-14 years are admitted at the 22-bed child ward.

 

“Normally, we don’t admit children. If needed, they are admitted between 10 days and a month for behavioural therapy,” the director added.

 

 

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120618/jsp/jharkhand/story_15623377.jsp#.T98XGxdo3xo

 

A law that enables

18-JUNE-2012

The National Advisory Council’s suggestions for strengthening the draft law on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (PWD) is a potentially far-reaching intervention. The step is in sync with the recent notification of a separate Department for Disabilities in the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which was announced in the President’s 2012 address to Parliament. Ever since India ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of PWDs in 2007, the formulation of a comprehensive law became imperative and these two developments suggest things are finally moving ahead. Currently, there are four separate pieces of legislation pertaining to India’s disabled population. The earliest, the 1987 Mental Health Act, predates the discourse on affirmative action for the disabled in India and, to that extent, the status of mental illness as a disability remains ambiguous. Then, there is a separate law that deals with the creation of qualified and trained personnel for the provision of rehabilitation and education services for this segment of the population. The third, the PWD Act of 1995, is underpinned by an emphasis on anti-discrimination and guarantees of equal opportunities. Although the latter was envisaged as a comprehensive law, it did not address fully the conditions of persons with other equally severe disabling conditions. Hence the 1999 Act for people with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities.

It is hardly surprising that these four laws in themselves have not mitigated the sense of apathy and bureaucratic red tape that hamper the creation of an enabling environment. The mechanisms and procedures involved are riddled with duplication and inconsistencies, as evidenced by the evolving case law over questions of jurisdiction and interpretation of different laws. More than a billion people around the world experience one or another form of disability, according to the World Health Organisation and World Bank 2011 report. On other estimates, about 10 per cent of the population in developing countries is disabled. By any reckoning, India’s numbers would be much larger than what governments are prepared to acknowledge, given the detrimental influences of poverty, illiteracy and poor health on disability. It follows that stepping up investments in health and education is one of the important ways of preventing disabilities and mitigating their impact over the long term. Requiring service providers to furnish a declaration of conformity with the relevant laws is the other means to ensure accountability and effective enforcement. An umbrella legislation will go a long way in altering the present state of affairs.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article3540036.ece