Namami Gange Mission on War Footing

New Delhi

Scaling and speeding up the efforts, Central Government has approved raising three Territorial Army (TA) battalions. Specially trained engineers, environmentalists and scientists will be an integral part of the battalions along with fully skilled manpower.

The battalions will work in phases and will initiate with cleaning of banks of the holy river zones designated by the experts in commencement with ministries. Post cleaning of banks the battalions will undertake water desalination, purification and afforestation along the Ganga.

It should be noted here that a battalion constitutes of thousand well trained members. These three battalions will work under the guidance and directions of Ministry of Water Resources, responsible for ambitious Clean Ganga Campaign to achieve Namami Gange aims. Indian army will train these personnel who will write the new script of Ganga cleaning.

Specially trained engineers, environmentalists and scientists along with skilled manpower will handle complex water purifying plants, sources said. Funds for equipment like desalination plants and sewage treatment units will be provided by the Water Resources.

The battalions will also help agencies (roped in by Ministry) in soil treatment to enhance the fertility of land for agricultural purposes, along the banks of revered river Ganga.

Government has given in-principle approval, Ministry of Defence and Water Resources are working out modalities to design a framework of operations and work share (this includes allotment of zones to TA battalions for operations). It is expected that the battalions will be operative within six months.

Territorial Army has expertise in improving environment, their Ecological battalions (eight specialized battalions) are engaged in preserving environment and eco­system. Greening of barren Aravali hills  around National Capital Region is result of the hard work put up by these units.

The ecological units have arrested environmental degradation by planting more than 25 million trees over 22,000 hectares of land in Mussoorie hills and Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand, Bikaner and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and Chambal ravines in Madhya Pradesh.

Part of regular Indian Army, TA battalions comprise volunteers in the age group of 18­ to 40 and receive military training for a specified period in a year. Raised in 1949, TA is governed by Army Act and has taken part in 1971 India­Pakistan war apart from helping civil administration in times of natural calamities like earthquake in Latur (Maharashtra) and Uttarkashi and super cyclone in Odisha.

Personnel of TA are drawn from various fields in civilian domain and have to serve for a designated period. They comprise doctors, engineers, management professionals, businessmen and farmers. Known as second line of the Defence, the TA units relieve the regular Army units from static duties and assist civil administration in times of natural calamities. They also provide units to the regular Army in times of war.

There is nothing wrong in making a documentary movie on the actual story or the visual depiction because everyone has the right to know but the question here is are we documenting it to analyze the reasons or the root cause for preventing such heinous crime in future? 

Are we going to dome something to address this big elephant in the room? Is this going to be one of the tools for reeducating the offenders convicted under such crime ? Is this going to change the mindset?

If the answer is yes to ate last two of the questions mentioned above then I have no problems of any sort for such visual depiction. The irony is we have only seen different version of storytelling that has taken place after this incident. 

Everyone used it as plot to use it for their own obvious reasons. We keep talking about women security but nobody comes out and do anything fruitful. It always gets its place in the bottom of priority list. I don’t want to think only negative and I am sure there are cases where people have come up and done something fruitful for stopping crime against women. 

I would rather like to see documentaries made on some positive change/development or on ways to handle such situations. I am sure there will be cases in western country of counselling such criminals to work on a road map for preventing such issues in the future. In a way this documentary also shows/depicts our useless judicial system.

I hope the judges involved in the trial of this case would now realise that they were wasting their time in even giving the accused an opportunity to defend himself who shows no signs of remorse. The Nirbhaya fund, set up by the UPA government in the aftermath of the December 16 Delhi gang rape, has made more news for being alarmingly underutilized than for making any significant improvement to women's safety. 

I’ll be more happy to see some movement in this direction rather than repetitive storytelling sessions of the same issue again and again. As mentioned in my yesterday’s post- It is really unfortunate that our police/law/court system is letting these criminal to talk even after 2 years of trail. India is the only country where a case goes from the lower courts to the supreme court, then to the president's table for the mercy plea and the same case bounces back to the Supreme court in order to challenge the president's verdict and the vicious circle continues to loop around. 

As a matter of fact it is high time for us to change the real status of women formed over the years--“The classified minorities”. It’s high time that we find remedy for this evil and execute the guilty without probing anything further and this will surely stop this issue from being a mere coffee table talk @ Cafeteria of the Indian Habitat Centre where all the "tired" MPs meet in the evening !!!!!!!

Upasana Pathak

Am a woman, a single woman, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a colleague...

Am a woman, a single woman, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a colleague.. There are so many men around me who care for me- my father, brother and brothers, friends, colleagues. Being a part of society am bombarded with news of rapes, eve teasing, physical abuse, emotional abuse of women, all the time. All of sudden, am informed that an Indian channel buys rights of a documentary made on a woman who was brutally raped and barbarically killed by some 'Men'. Now one women (who shares my gender but with a different nationality) interviews a 'man' who is a rapist, who without remorse says that if women will roam after 9pm then they will get raped.

Am now confused - is being a woman means being a second class citizen?

Am confused- is being an Indian independent woman and a woman of different nationality has some difference?

Had this rape incident happened in UK or US (which factually have larger number of such reported incidents) would have encouraged India women to make such a documentary on foreign convicts?

I though appreciate efforts of a woman of different nationality to make and produce such visual documents for experts.

BUT PLEASE ALLOW US TO LIVE...WE INDIANS ALREADY HAVE TOO MUCH TO TOLERATE TO AND LIVE WITH..

DOCUMENTARIES LIKE YOUR ONLY DEEPEN THE DIVIDES IN OUR SOCIETY...

INDEED YOU HAVE PUT EFFORTS MADAM...BUT HAD NIRBHAYA BEEN YOUR DAUGHTER, SISTER, FRIEND OR COLLEAGUE - YOU WOULD HAVE GONE ON RECORD WITH THE SAME CONTENT...????

NDTV- WE KNOW YOU ARE TOO GOOD...BUT IT SEEMS THIS TIME YOU ARE TOO GOOD TO BE INDIAN...

PLEASE STOP PUBLIC DISPLAY OF WRONGS THAT WAS COMMITTED BY FEW MEN....THIS WAY YOU ARE FORCING ME AND WOMEN ALIKE TO SEE EVERY MEN AROUND THEM WITH AN EYE OF CAUTION...

PLEASE AS WOMEN WE LOVE OUR FATHER, BROTHER & BROTHERS, FRIENDS & COLLEAGUES... STOP RIDICULING WOMEN & PLAYING WITH THEIR SENTIMENTS...