Send girls to school, or pay fine

Jaipur Jan. 27: Though girls are often asked to stay home instead of enrolling in school, a village called Dungero Ki Tala in the border district of Barmer has shown the way for other villages. The village slaps a fine if someone does not send their daughter to school. There is not a single house in the village, with 200 families, which has not sent its girls to study in schools. “Twenty years back, not a single girl was literate. Now the number of boy students is 180 while the girls’ number has jumped to 225,” says Kesar, a villager. Located only 25 km from the district headquarters of Barmer, the village does not has a senior-level secondary school. The girls used to walk 6 km to reach the nearest school at Sanavda village. According to the villagers, the year 1995 was a turning point for them when the elders decided to impose a fine if someone did not send their daughter to school. This also set an example for the neighbouring villages like Ramderia and Hathitala. The villagers there got inspiration from Dungero Ki Tala. The girls from Dungero Ki Tala also made their presence felt in khokho sport as students like Maya, Nemi, Veero, Priya and Pepi were selected for the national team. The same group of girls found a place in the state team. The border district of Barmer made a spectacular journey in education while achieving literacy of 59 per cent. But female literacy is still 44 per cent while male literacy is 73 per cent. According to sources, there are 13 schools in the district which do not have a single girl student while 17 such schools have only one or two girl student. *** SC notice on shelter to all S.S. NEGI New Delhi Jan. 27: After forcing the Delhi government to provide shelter to every street dweller in the national capital, the Supreme Court on Wednesday sought to expand the ambit of its direction to all the states to save urban homeless from the vagaries of the nature and issued notice to all the states and Union Territories for urgent responses. The Supreme Court acted on the reports of two panels appointed by it under two former bureaucrats to assess the implementation of Centrally-sponsored schemes on free shelters to the street dwellers and distribution of food items to the people living below the poverty line. The reports were submitted to a bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and K.S. Radhakrishnan by the court-appointed commissioners — N.C. Saxena and Harsh Mander — in a PIL by People’s Union of Civil Liberties relating to the plight of the poorest of the poor. The court commissioners said the street dwellers in urban areas are exposed to the vagaries of nature more as they are living in the open as compared to poor in rural areas who at least have a sort of roof on their heads. To ensure quick response, the bench directed that the notices to them be served through their standing counsel in the top court within a week. , while further hearing in the matter was deferred to March 9. “Living in the open is denial of the right to live with dignity, therefore similar direction is needed to be passed for entire country as was issued in case of the Delhi government on January 20,” said the two court commissioners in their reports. The two panels have recommended that the government should build at least one night shelter with the basic amenities to a population of one lakh in urban areas. Instead of providing them ration under the Antyodya Ann Yojna as demanded by PUCL, they recommended providing cooked food with a provision of a community kitchen for 20,000 street dwellers. After the Delhi government acted promptly on the top court direction, the bench appreciated its efforts to provide shelter to every street dweller within 24 hours by working on war footing to save them form the biting cold.

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