[GOTFIVEONIT]

after all the bad new's i have been posting, i thought some good news should cheer up folks. let's hope that these plans are not only implemented but that they actually work. India's secular parties have a history of talking alot of hot air in efforts to simply court Muslim votes, while forgetting about them after the elections are done and over with. After the Babri Masjid debacle, I think the Congress party has finally learned a good hard lesson after being denied power between 96' to 04' that they can no longer take Muslim support for granted while doing nothing for the community in return. They even apologized back in 99' for not doing enough to stop the Babri Masjid demolition.

Govt unveils "historic" package for Muslims

Sumit Pande / CNN-INDIA

Published on Friday , August 31, 2007 at 13:09

New Delhi: Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay is to submitted the National Govt. Action Taken Report on the Sachar Committee report in Parliament on Friday.

Tabling the statement in Lok Sabha (Parliament), Antulay hailed the move saying, "It is a historic occasion and it is a historic statement."

Last week, he had told Lok Sabha (Parliament), that the government had accepted all but three of the several recommendations and suggestions of the Sachar panel, all of which would be unveiled in Parliament.

The Sachar Committee, headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar, had found that Muslims lag behind on all socio-economic indices, such as education, health and employment.

The Cabinet had earlier discussed the Prime Minister's 15-point programme to implement the Sachar Panel recommendations.

The National Govt., however, remained silent on the Sachar Committee's recommendation favouring reservation for the most backward in the 150-million strong Muslim community.

The Government intends to initiate special coaching and scholarship schemes for minority students. The center also wants to identify Muslim-dominated districts for running special schemes.

As per the recommendations in the report, an Equal Opportunities Commission will be set up along with a nomination procedure for their political involvement at the grassroots.

The Government also intends to set aside a portion of priority sector loans, especially in agriculture and industry, for minorities. Public sector banks will open more branches in Muslim concentrated areas and 15 per cent of the priority sector lendings will go to Muslims in the next three years.

It will try improving basic amenities in 90 identified minority concentrated districts and 338 towns.

The Sachar Committee, constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in March 2005, had made comprehensive recommendations for "setting the community on the road to progress".

It pointed out that the percentage of Muslims in Government employment was a mere 4.9 per cent of the total 88,44,669 employees, indicating that all was not well for the 150 million Muslim population in the country.