Didi flags off relief material for Bulbul-affected families

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today flagged off from Nabanna relief material for Cyclone Bulbul-affected families. These “Dignity Kits” or disaster management kits will be given to the over 6 lakh affected families by the State Government.

Each of these kits contain a tarpaulin, two sarees, lungi, dhoti, children’s garments, sheets, dry food, stove and utensils and other day-to-day necessities. The families of the deceased will get an assistance of Rs 2 lakh each, as announced earlier.

Main points of her speech:

The State Government has as much as possible covered all aspects to make good the loss suffered by the cyclone. Even if resources are drained, all efforts have been made so that the relief material reaches those affected as soon as possible. So far, 5 lakh tarpaulins, around 45,000 lanterns areas where there is power disruption, have been sent. Rice will be given to the families till the situation becomes normal.

Till now, 47,000 kits have reached. Another 6 lakh kits have been prepared, of which 10,000 will be sent daily. Paddy has been destroyed in many areas, and there are some areas where water has stagnated. The agriculture department is carrying out a survey, based on which farming assistance will be given.

About 60% people have crop insurance. Now that coverage will be 100%. This funding is given entirely by the State Government. Houses will be built under the ‘Bangla Awas Yojana’. This and compensation for damaged farmland will be sent to respective bank accounts directly.

In order to be prepared for such calamities in the future, the State Government has decided to place orders for relief material with MSME units so that three years’ stocks are always available.

The State Government has distributed over 1 crore cycles under the Sabuj Sathi scheme. Since more will be needed, cycle manufacturing and repairing units will be set up in Bangla. Simultaneously, cycle repairing training will be imparted by the skills development department. This will result in employment for many.

World Bank fund for renovation of 29 jetties

The State Government is giving a lot of priority to water transport, in order to control traffic jams and air pollution in and around Kolkata. In line with this plan, the government has decided to renovate 29 jetties, with funds from the World Bank.

The ferry ghats which will be revamped include Kutighat, Kashipur, Sovabazar, Ratanbabur Ghat, Metiabruz Ghat, Budge Budge Ghat. Soon, 50 more ferry ghats from Hooghly, Bardhaman, Nadia, North & South 24 Parganas will be renovated. Some of the ghats will be equipped to handle Ro-Ro services.

Not just the jetties, the roads adjoining them will also be renovated, keeping passenger-welfare in mind. In the next five years, most jetties in the Haldia-Tribeni route will be revamped to boost water transport. In the second phase, the work will be done till Farakka.

Didi trains guns on Centre over zero dredging at Farakka Barrage

Bangla Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on November 20 blamed the Centre for not carrying out dredging in Farakka Barrage for several years, despite repeated pleas from the state government. She was addressing an administrative meeting in Murshidabad’s Berhampore.

Mamata Banerjee pointed out that navigability of the barrage has been badly affected due to lack of dredging and added that adjoining areas often get flooded during heavy rain, as the barrage loses the capacity to hold water.

Senior state government officials who were present at the meeting told the Chief Minister that during a meeting in 2005, barrage authorities had said that they would conduct dredging from time to time. But unfortunately, dredging has not been done even once till now.

Second edition of ‘Tejaswini’ workshop from Nov 23

The second edition of Tejaswini, a self defense workshop for women, will kick off on November 23. The workshop will continue till November 27. During the workshop, women police personnel will also be given self defense training along with the citizens.

In 2018, Kolkata Police officials got some ideas on training women after the Sukanya project was a hit. The police thought of providing self-defence training to women citizens. Last year more than 350 women took part in the workshop of which majority of the participants were from the age group of 20-25 years.

Experts in martial arts and combat styles will train the participants. They will be taught how to resist a sudden attack and buy time before help arrives. The aim is to build confidence among the women who goes out of their homes regularly.

To participate in the workshop, willing applicants may apply on the website of Kolkata Police. They can also register themselves at the Police Athletic Club located opposite East Bengal Club, which is also the venue for the workshop. The workshop will be held from 8 AM and 10 AM from November 23 till November 27. The applicants will have to go through a preliminary fitness check to ascertain their mental and physical preparedness before the start their training.

‘Ahare Bangla’ 2019 begins

The annual food festival, ‘Ahare Bangla’ is back. The festival was inaugurated at the Bidhannagar Mela Prangan, Central Park in Salt Lake.

Starting from today, the food festival will be open for common people. It will continue till November 24, 2019. The festival will be open from 12 noon till 9 PM daily.

‘Ahare Bangla’ is a novel venture by the Government of Bangla to serve the people with age-old as well as modern delicacies of Bengali food with an aim to create awareness about the irresistible taste and convenient source of food products, along with the promotion of the food industry in the state.

This pro-people endeavor would also boost up the production and sale of the raw ingredients of the food products resulting in an enhanced remuneration to the farming community of Bengal. The model of ‘Ahare Bangla’ is the complete conception of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The Government has organised the festival under her directive.

The best restaurants in the city will put up stalls at the festival, offering delicious cuisines. From kids’ zone, retail outlets, entertainment zone to cookery shows and cultural events – the festival has a lot to offer to the visitors. Special focus will the desserts and sweets created by Mother Dairy, which will be on offer here.

Shanta Chhetri makes a Special Mention regarding inclusion of Hill tribes in ST list

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Thank you Sir. It is observed that the majority of the Gorkha people living in the Darjeeling Hills were considered as Hill tribes in the British India. In the early independent India, Government of India had granted numbers of government facilities like Darjeeling Government College and other institutions on the above context. 

Sir, while few Hill tribes like Limbu, Tamang, Sherpa, Yelmo etc have been given ST status, similar tribes like Raikirat, Gurung, Tangar, Kharse, Mewar, Akkhadeva, Devan, Mukhiya, Thapa, Yami, Jogi, Bhujel etc have been left out in spite of their similar social, economic and cultural types. The left out of tribal Gorkha communities could not claim their tribal status when committees were set up for rescheduling the tribes after independence due shyness, ignorance and isolation from the mainstream.

I humbly request the Hon’ble Minister for Tribal Affairs whether the ministry has any policy to include left out of Hill tribes in the list of Scheduled Tribes. Sir, furthermore, on behalf of the Hill people I would request the Hon’ble minister to let us know the details of the following committees: Ashok Pai Committee, Vishu Miley Committee and more recently Tshering Ranjan Committee. 

Further still, the people of Darjeeling would like to know the steps taken by the government to preserve the Himalayan cultural ethnic identity of the Darjeeling Hill tribes. 

Thank you, Sir.

Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar speaks during a discussion on air pollution and climate change

FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Shukriya mananiya Adhyaksh mahoday. Main apni abhar vyakt karti hoon. Adhyaksh mahoday jo nirnay kiya ki humein bachne ke liye shuddh hawa ki zaroorat hain aur yeh mahatwa mehsoos karte huye unhone is baat par aaj samay nischit kiya isiliye abhar vyakt karti hoon. 

Sir, are we choking? Is Delhi choking? Out of the 10 most polluted cities in the world, nine are in India. It was quite unnerving, I have the record Sir, when a foreign premier – I do not want to name her – on her visit to our nation, our India, about which we are so proud, made an adverse comment. So, I would like to draw the attention of the Government and Minister here. We heard about Swachh Bharat Mission. Can we launch a Swachh Hawa Mission? Shall we give it a thought? Another point to Hon’ble Member Kapil ji, when I was studying medical in MBBS course, the teachers would always tell us read the question properly before writing the answer. Hon’ble Member did not read the question, not on the prevalent success of the Delhi Government, it was on pollution and climate change. He should read the question before answering.

We have the right to breathe, should we not ensure right to breathe clean air in India? It is our human right to breathe clean air. We are actually standing in the face of natural calamity. It is a very serious calamity. Because a rich man feeling hot may put on the AC, a rich man feeling very cold may change the Daikin AC to a hotter temperature. But, when you are breathing, whether you are rich or poor, you are breathing the same air, whether the air in Delhi or the air in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which houses most number of Indians. Forty percent of the population i.e. 55 crore people live in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Due to that topography and geography of this place, there is an air lock in this area and the air keeps moving.

 So, even if a strong dust of wind east or west comes and blows away and the particle size and the particle presence reduces over Delhi it might be over Kanpur, it might be over Varanasi it might be over Kolkata and it is going back. 

So, you have to ensure clean air for not only our country India but we have to ensure clean climate, clean air, clean water for the world. It is the only planet as we know – there might be others which we do not know – but climate change is affecting the whole planet. Today’s discussion included climate change along with pollution’ and climate change is a very serious matter. We might be staring at the face of mass asphyxia. I think Hon’ble Member here were talking about the death of many people in London, in 1952. In India, in Delhi, we might be wearing a mask on face asphyxia, because the particulate matter, because of the sulphur dioxide, because of the nitrous oxide, because of the lead present, the ozone present, the carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas.

Being a doctor I know, when somebody suggests to put off the generator to keep warm, it leads to incomplete combustion. Carbon monoxide is produced not carbon dioxide that reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of the RBC within the body and the person will silently die in sleep due to carbon monoxide poisoning. So are we staring into asphyxia like that in our country, in Delhi? Shouldn’t we all sit up instead of politicising this issue. Shouldn’t we leave politics out of this and shouldn’t we for once think about human good, whether it is about posterity, whether it is today’s society, whether it is the elderly people. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the climate first, because we are really facing this danger?

Every individual has a right to breathe clean air, so let us strive towards this. Climate change is real, though there are many many premiers, I don’t want to name them here, of large nations who feel climate change is unreal. I don’t want to name them. 193 countries got together, they signed the Kyoto Protocol. They sat nights together in Paris, working on the do’s and don’ts to prevent such hazardous result from climate change. Not to be thrown into the dustbin.

Depending on the success of the millennium development goals, the sustainable development goals were done up with 17 goals and 169 targets. Out of which, a very important one was the climate change and this climate change. Funds must be spent on literacy or illiteracy and poverty. Because if people are illiterate, how can you prevent them from doing things like they are doing stubble burning, leading to the release of poisonous gas from the west? Many poor people burn cow dung cakes. In our state we call it “ gutiya ”; that is used for cooking. Cow dung cakes pollute the air but that same cow dung if we convert to gas (gobar gas) it is not polluting. So poverty is also linked to it. And poverty alleviation if done properly it will take care of climate change also. 

We have to be talking about water pollution, about air pollution, about the food that we are eating, the pesticides being used, the fertilisers being used, they are causing cancer. The incidents of cancer has risen, the incidents of heart attacks have risen, the incidents of lung diseases have risen because of this uncontrolled use of chemicals. The government really has to sit up and do something about that and what is air pollution we have to know. 

Forty one per cent of the air pollution is vehicular, due to the automobile emissions. As Madam was speaking there, the automobile industry doesn’t like it. Well if they don’t like it, it is their problem, it is not the problem of the people who have the right to breathe clean air. Twenty one per cent is the wind blown dust. This dust includes dry mud, asbestos, includes silicon, these little particles when they are less than 2.5 microns. They can easily go into our respiratory system and cause inflammatory reactions in our breathing apparatus and make inflammatous change in the lungs, which means the lungs become inefficient. They can not take in oxygen; even if you’re breathing the oxygen will not go into the blood, it will not supply the brain or important structures like heart and kidney. Emphysema till today has no cure, unless we are replacing the lungs, we are transplanting the lungs, which is not so common, very expensive. So Emphysema change in the lungs is going on in each of us. 

This is not a matter of tu tu main main, let us keep politics out of it. Let us not sit here and say that MP was not there, his Minister has done this, his Chief Minister has done this. Let us all work together towards giving our children, our country, our people clean air, clean water, clean atmosphere and stop, or at least try to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Eighteen per cent is contributed by industry. Why can’t we have a check on the industry? What kind of pollution they are causing? Why can’t the construction be done under cover? When buildings are being made they should be covered. Otherwise the cement is coming into the air and we are breathing it. Unknowingly we are smoking cigarettes. 

In the answer to an Unstarred Question in Lok Sabha on June 28, 2019, Hon’ble Environment Minister stated that the Central Government has notified the Comprehensive Action Plan in 2018 for prevention, control and mitigation of air pollution. Now what I want to know from Hon’ble Minister is what about the assurance Sir? Only notification will not help. We will have to monitor what is actually happening on the ground level. Monitoring and the implementation is imperative.

As I said,  even after that, power production is also giving rise to pollution because even today most of the electric power is produced by fossil fuel and that is causing pollution. So what about the commitment of moving towards renewable energy? Forty per cent of the produced energy should be renewable electricity. I don’t know what are you thinking about that.

In 2016, Government of India had come out with the draft National Wind Solar Hybrid Policy with the aim of facilitating the functioning of 10,000 MW of hybrid wind-solar plant by 2022. What is the status of that? We don’t know. In 2016 again, the Government of India had decided to instal 175 GW solar power capacity building by 2020. What about that status? 

Are you serious when we are thinking of climate change? I have been fortunate to attend few climate parliaments and also the meetings of the international renewable energy agencies, and these things have been discussed. But when I seek permission to attend a conference to be held in Abu Dhabi, I don’t get NOC from the Government. I can attend and enrich my country but we are not given NOC. 

Air quality is judged by the presence of emissions in hazardous amount. It may be sulphur dioxide (as I mentioned Ozone lid) and the annual concentration of sulphur dioxide in industrial, residential area should not be more than 50. We having more than 100 here. Nitrous oxide should not be more than 40. The particulate matter of size 10 micron per cubic metre should be less than 60.Pparticulate matter of 2.5 micron size should be less than 40. And the hazardous quality that we have here is emergency benchmark, in the level of 300 micron or 500 micron per cubic metre. Lead poisoning develops after the air polluted with lead is inhaled and people might die. People might die due to carbon monoxide poisoning. 

The gentleman here was saying that all pollution in the country is settled in Delhi. No, I have the report of the Hon’ble Minister here, which says that particles of 10 micron – they are present in Bihar in 212 per cubic metre, in Chandigarh 105, in Delhi 278, in Ranchi it is like 196, in Mumbai 119, in Pune 107, in Amritsar… I don’t want to read it. It is very long, but I have the list. So, that government should take up this matter very seriously. 

The efforts of the Hon’ble Prime Minister are definitely laudable when they have eight National Missions. Out of the eight National Missions, I find the National Solar Mission, the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, National Water Mission, the National Mission for Sustainable Himalayan Ecosystem, National Mission for Green India, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture,  National Mission for Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change, it is definitely laudable.

I am sure we are moving forward. Let us work together so that we can give a clean environment to our future. Not Delhi, not Kolkata, not the country. I am talking about the world, the planet. Let us work together to save our planet.

Thank you, Sir.

Abir Ranjan Biswas speaks on The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019

FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Today is the second day of the session. Full afternoon, Rajya Sabha is running smoothly. Government Legislative Business is on track because all of us are cooperating 100%. We can also expect that the Government shows the same spirit of cooperation every morning always and also when Opposition voices are heard in the morning during Zero Hour and Question Hour.

My party All India Trinamool Congress stands and strongly believes that Bills must be scrutinised by Standing Committees before they are passed. This is a good way to improve legislation and not rush with them. This was one of the few Bills to be scrutinised by the Standing Committee and we welcome it, though the recommendations were not aptly taken. Sir, even though the BJP speaker who spoke highlighted the shortcomings of the Bill, you can really imagine the quality of drafting.

Sir, Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, in his novel, Never Let Me Go, portrays a scenario where a community of human clones exist only to serve the medical needs of more privileged class providing organs and bodies for use. Arti Prasad, eminent biologist and author of several nonfiction books have observed in her book, Like A Virgin, and I quote, “In the last few years, India has actually illustrated the extreme of what commercialising women’s body for reproduction looks like, something akin to the handmade steel come to life with a certain demographic, taking away the responsibility of producing children, for those who can afford the service.

Surrogacy is inherently a practice of open exploitation, particularly in a place like India, where gender inequality is so marked. In United Nations Development Programme Report 2017 on Gender Inequality, India ranked 125th among 129 countries. In 2016, Sir, a study found that expenditure on major illness for women was 28% lesser than on men in India. An analysis of (?) from numerous medical and research institutions reveal that Indian women are 74% of living kidney donors and 61% of living liver donors, but only a meagre 19% of kidney and 24% of liver recipients. Each was a legitimate donation where the woman had given consent. 

Thus we can easily say,  that in South Asian patriarchal society, in general and in Indian particularly, they are often told to donate organs and not asked to do so. Now, if this is the situation, an altruistic donation that is related to livers and kidneys we can well imagine the plight of Indian women in case of commercial surrogacy – a system only women are biologically equipped for. Poor women folk in India can be pressured to the brink of their existence by the family to bear a child of a rich couple who fancies such commercial surrogacy as going to a luxury store and asking for a service in view of money, may be little for them, but a questionable amount for the poor surrogate family.

I welcome this Bill as it will, with the provisions in it, serve as a good deterrent against repeat surrogates due to family pressure. Gynaecologists are often of the opinion that only women who do not have wombs, or have cancer, actually require surrogacy. But taking unethical advantages of situations, there are unethical practitioners and unscrupulous fertility clinics who make billions of people’s natural inability to conceive advertising themselves by inviting media to their facilities to exhibit the stay homes for surrogate mothers which are essentially jails. They appear on paid slots of TV, these professionals and fraudulent representatives. They appear on TV channels to advocate the pros and cons of surrogacy in a way as if bearing a child in a natural way is unfashionable and we find most eminent of Bollywood stars getting carried away by it and falling into the trap.

Many such clinics are rampantly present in the western part of India. Recent stories have come up in the media that rural women being exploited severely by certain unscrupulous persons by clinically unethical medical persons where a paltry sum is paid to them but they charge few millions in each case.

Sir, the Confederation of Indian Industries valued the surrogacy industry to the tune of $2 billion as per their report in 2012 and it has grown much meantime. This has been a result of processes of surrogacy by being governed by mere sort of guidelines of Indian Council of Medical Resource in 2002 which permitted the use of women to bear a child at a price. Such lax regulations gave rise to the term ‘rent ovum’.

Sir, this has unsettling implications despite its mainly ubiquitous use. The spirit of the new Surrogacy Bill seems to be guided by the framework of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, which permits only altruistic donations for all donors living or deceased and Sir Donations must be weighed for a reason of love though the donor can be compensated for medical and surgical costs.

Sir, we welcome this Bill as it will make legal provisions to take care, also legal and illegal ventures but also there are a number of areas of which more and legal provisions are needed by which this Bill can achieve the goal it is for.

Sir, I would like to elaborate on these but there are a number of cases which need our immediate attention. Firstly Sir, relating to concerns to check the rampant use of commissions and services at National and Regional levels when Boards are formed. There should be a highly powered committee in place till these are formed, which includes Members of Parliament and eminent persons in the field of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) which could inspect and monitor these clinics. The composition of national, regional service boards are dubious Sir. It should be seen that the ones who head the boards as Directors have at least 25 years of experience in ART and the members should also have experience of 20 years.

Also Sir, we can say that there are many clauses which my colleagues have mentioned, I would not repeat them but few things. Like in case of abortion, in addition to Medical Termination Of Pregnancy Act ,1971, the approval of appropriate authority and surrogate mother is required. There is no time limit to grant such an approval but this time is crucial in the times of medical emergencies and pregnancies and this could prove fatal for a surrogate mother. This should be taken care of.

Sir, this is discriminatory in nature as it limits the option of surrogacy to legally married Indian couples. The Standing Committee that was headed by one of our Hon’ble colleagues in this August House, Ram Gopal Yadav Ji, recommended that this overlooks a section of society that wants a surrogate child. Sir, they recommended the eligibility be widened to include live-in couples, divorced women, widows, NRIs, Person of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizen of India Card Holders, This is Sir, because if NRIs are going to take these opportunities outside it would be very costly for them.

Also Sir, there is a clause that to initiate the surrogacy procedure the couple needs to obtain an eligibility certificate. But for which there is time limit mentioned in this Bill. This is not in right spirit. There is no scope for appeal once the application is rejected. This should be recommended to the Standing Committee and this should be taken care of.

Thank you, Sir.       

Films at rates affordable for all

In order to enable many more people to enjoy good films in a theatre, the State Government-owned Chalachchitra Satabarsha Bhaban in Tollygunge has started shows at affordable rates of Rs 30 and Rs 50 (when multiplex shows at Rs 200 or higher are not an affordable option for many). The hall has capacity for seating 157 people.

This complex is located beside MR Bangur Hospital, at the site that once housed Radha Studio. The complex also has a separate division for film preservation.

There would be three shows from 2 PM. From 10 AM to 2 PM, the hall would function as a preview theatre, where previews of films would be held.

Films in three formats can be shown here – DCP (digital cinema package, the current popular format), film and DVD.

For showing from films, a projector for projecting 35mm films has been set up. Many old films which have not been digitised can be shown using this and hence, this arrangement would help many students and scholars of cinema. The DVD format would help new filmmakers to show their work as converting to DCP format is costly.

Bangla excels in child health

The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey, conducted by the Central Government in collaboration with UNICEF, whose report was released recently, has shown that Bangla is ahead of many States on certain aspects of child nutrition, like stunted growth and underweight children. In some cases, the State’s performance is also better than the national average.

The study was conducted to collect a set of data on the nutritional status of children of 0 to 19 years.

The findings, when compared to previous data from studies conducted by the Union Health Ministry, revealed that Bangla had recorded a sharp drop in the number of children below five years with stunted growth, in the percentage of under-five underweight children, and vitamin A and iron deficiency.

The rate of decline of stunted growth in Bangla was 19.3 per cent in the period 2005-18, as against 13.3 per cent nationally. Prevalence of iron deficiency was found below 22 per cent, while Punjab and Gujarat topped the chart.

The State Women & Child Development and Social Welfare Minister said the survey shows that the Trinamool Congress Government’s sustained efforts in providing the right nutrition to children at the grassroots level are bearing fruit. New techniques are being adopted to improve the overall nutrition profile of Bangla.