WEST BENGAL CORRUPTION: Potato conundrum

INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES

The Left is in the lurch after another scam surfaces
Potato scam in West Bengal has been busted after the arrest of Yakub Ali, manager of the Chanditala agricultural cooperative society, on July 24. The scam surfaced only after CPI-backed farmers' organisation, Paschimbanga Krishak Sabha, complained to the Minister in Charge of Agricultural Marketing, Mortaza Hussaain, on July 8 of irregularities in purchase of potato.

According to some senior CPI leaders, some three state-owned marketing units ' BENFED, CONFED and West Bengal Essential Commodities Supply Corporation Ltd, were involved in the scam. Due to massive production this year, the actual rate for potato procurement came down heavily, leaving the growers in distress. To address the burning issue, the state government announced a rate of Rs 175 per sack (of 40 kgs) plus Rs 25 as other expenses as procurement price. Besides, the government ordered bulk potato procurement through these organisations.

Member of the district secretariat of CPI, Hooghly, Ajit Mukherjee said: 'We noticed that the procurement started only after the second week of March and ended by March 31. The ECSL issued order to selected Thana Marketing Societies on March 29, 2010 for procurement of huge quantity of potatoes and all was over by March 31. Procurement of tonnes of potatoes in just two or three days is impossible.' President of the Paschimbanga Krishak Sabha, Probodh Panda (CPI MP) said corrupt leaders and marketing agencies worked together to loot money in the name of procuring potatoes.

Ajit said: 'To conceal misdeeds, CPM leaders prepared fictitious master role of farmers. In fact things were procured from the cold-store owners. This way middlemen and traders benefitted.' President of the Potato Traders Association Swapan Samanta said: 'Strict action should be taken against CPM leaders who benefitted from this scam. Otherwise we will launch a state-wide protest soon.'

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ORISSA TORTURE: Wilted childhood

INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES

Some 2 lakh children continue to work as labourers
When police rescued Saraswati Pradhan, an eleven-year-old tribal girl, from Prem Nagar area of Berhampur, a southern Orissa town, she was in a bad shape. She was unable to see properly as both her eyes were swollen. It looked that somebody had beaten her up mercilessly. This was confirmed by a police report.

According to the report, a family residing in the town had brought her from Gresingia village of G.Udaygiri police station area in Kandhamal district to employ her as a domestic help. Her ordeal started five days ago. Her employers and their relatives tortured her after she failed to do domestic work assigned to her. She was allegedly locked up in a room without food for five days, a police source said.

Besides, she was ruthlessly beaten up and branded with hot iron rod. Such incidents of torture are unfailingly reported by the media. This incident too hogged limelight and most of the newspapers ran it on July 16. The dust had yet to settle down when another incident of torture surfaced from Kishan Nagar of Cuttack district. This time a seven-year-old girl was at her employers' mercy. She too was branded with hot iron rod and beaten up. In both these cases, the police arrested the culprits and jailed them. Despite stringent laws, children continue to be tortured and forced to work as domestic servant. Some 21,5222 children in Orissa are forced to work as labourers. It is not only child labourers who are tortured, even schoolchildren are at the receiving end. Recently, a teacher mercilessly thrashed a Class I student in Khantapada area in Balasore district.

Teacher Sandhyarani Panda punished Laxmidhar Majhi, a six-year-old student of Bistupur Upper Primary School, for ignoring her order of not blowing whistle during school hours. The government has failed to curb such incidents. 'More than 200 cases of atrocities against children have been reported in Orissa in 2009. The state government does nothing to save our children from being abused,' said Mahendra Parida, convener of Forum Against Child Exploitation, a NGO working for rescue of children.

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TAMIL NADU MURDER: Crime of passion soars

INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES

Spurned by lover, a woman kills his six-year-old son
When the media reported about the brutal killing of a six-year-old child by his father's girlfriend Poovarasi many in the sate were shocked. Sex has become the cause of many murders in Tamil Nadu.

Such cases have become common in Chennai and other parts of the state. It was September 2009 when for the first time such a case surfaced. Chennai was rattled by the murder of a music teacher. Initially nobody had expected that the unfolding of the woman's past would have a sexual angle to the case.

That was not only a one-off incident. Three more murders surfaced soon in that year only. And all of them had their root in passion. In one such incident, a nine-year-old girl was burned by an auto-driver. It was understood that the driver took this extreme step because he realised that the child was coming in way of his intimate encounter with the girl's mother.

In 2010 things drastically changed as more such cases came to the fore. Illicit relationship was the main reason behind five murders in Chennai and its suburbs. In the case of Poovarasi things were somewhat different. Police sources said that Poovarasi strangulated Aditya to death with a small rope to take revenge against his father Jayakumar, with whom she had been having an affair for the past few months.

Both of them developed intimate relationship at their workplace. During their close relationship, Poovarasi allegedly became pregnant twice. But she aborted the child on Jayakumar's insistence.

But after sometime Poovarasi insisted Jayakumar to marry her. When Jayakumar ' a father of two children ' refused to oblige her, she was furious. It was then that she thought of revenge and homed in on his young child. On the fateful day, she visited Jayakumar's house and took his son with his consent to a church. But she didn't return on that day.

The next day, far from Chennai in Nagappatinam bus stand a suspicious suitcase was found. When the cops opened it they found a dead body of a child. On further investigation it was found to be that of Aditya. Poovarasi succeeded in her devil design, but failed to take the cops for a ride. Now, she languishes in Puzhal prison in Chennai. Dr. Siva Nambi, a Chennai-based psychiatrist, said: 'It looks that this is the case of rejection. The woman was unable to control herself and thus committed a heinous crime. She had even gone to a church to seek forgiveness.'

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