New Law For Communal Violence Soon

fullhyderabad.com

Chidambaram says the government of India is committed to preserve, protect and promote secular values and provide equality of opportunity to all religious minorities

31st Mar, 2010

In the wake of riots that are taking place in Hyderabad as well as those that took place in Bareilly earlier this month, the Centre on Wednesday, assured the minorities that it was committed to protecting their interests. Apparently, a new law to deal with communal violence will be put in place by the end of this year.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, while addressing a conference of the State Minorities Commissions in New Delhi on Wednesday, said that there is an urgent need to dispel any misgiving on the part of the minority community and to assure the community that the government of India is committed to preserve, protect and promote secular values and provide equality of opportunity to all religious minorities. He hoped that by the end of the year, there will be a law for the prevention and control of communal violence and rehabilitation of the victims in the country.

In other news, AP’s Chief Minister K Rosaiah, who was scheduled to visit Delhi in the first week of April to seek an approval for his proposal for the Cabinet reshuffle, has put off his tour at the moment, thanks to the distress the AP capital is in. The CM, mostly preoccupied with reports from the Commissioner the entire day, has said that he would consider touring Delhi only after normalcy is restored in Hyderabad.

Conference on minority commissions today

indiatoday.intoday.in

March 31, 2010

Failure of over a dozen state governments to set up minority commissions is likely to figure prominently at a conference today to be inaugurated by Home Minister P Chidambaram.

« 13 of the 28 states in the country are yet to have their minority bodies. Absence of such bodies in the state deprive minorities from airing their grievances at an appropriate forum. The issue will be raised in the conference and an attempt would be made to impress upon such states on the need and significance of such bodies, » NCM Chairman Md Shafi Qureshi told PTI.

The Conference to be attended by the chairpersons and members of the existing state minority commissions will take up important issues like Communal Violence Bill, Conferment of Constitutional Status to NCM, Reservation for Minorities, Micro Financing for Minorities and Discussion on Various Minority Welfare Schemes.

While Chidambaram would inaugurate the conference, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will be the Chief Guest on the occasion.

Qureshi had last week said he would request Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to step in to prevail upon the states to constitute minority commissions as a number of states have failed to even respond to the NCM’s numerous reminders in this regard.

The Commission believes that if the effort is made from the government level, it will perhaps ensure better results.

The commission had initiated the move last year to ensure that states, which have no minority body, constitute the same and even framed a Model Act under which they could function.

NCM’s move was aimed at doing away with anomalies in the existing state minority commissions after it came to light that there is no uniformity either in the number of members of various state commissions, their salary and service rules.

NCM had even sought views of the states on further modifying the provisions of the Model Act and also allowed them the liberty to carry out necessary modifications themselves. However, barring a few states, most of them did not respond to the national commission’s missive.

Till date, 13 states including Haryana, Gujarat and Orissa are yet to have their own minority commissions despite recurrence of communal riots in Gujarat and Orissa, which has invited sharp criticism from the NCM.

Though Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Manipur have minority commissions, they are non-statutory in nature.

~ par Alain Bertho sur 31 mars 2010.

Publié dans दंगा, émeutes, riots