The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Mahalingam promises land for Sarvodaya movement

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Monday, May 19, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Mahalingam promises land for Sarvodaya movement

Staff Reporter

Anaimalai (Pollachi): Chairman of the Sakthi Group of Companies N. Mahalingam announced that he will give 30 to 50 acres of lands in Nagapattinam for activities relating to the propagation of Sarvodaya and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the 13th State Sarvodaya Conference on “Towards an Equalitarian Society” organised by the Tamil Nadu Sarvodaya Mandal. Mr. Mahalingam said that there was a pertinent need to socialise the big distribution systems to protect the poor from inflation and price rise. The producer and the consumer should benefit rather than allowing huge margins to the market forces and middlemen, wherein major chains thrive killing the local retailers.

Mr. Mahalingam called for a self-evaluation of Sarvodaya movements to assess performance, success and to plan the future course of action.

He exhorted the need for percolation of democracy to the grassroots by ensuring Gram Swaraj wherein villages would be able to ensure total sanitation, education and employment.

Local self-governance

He flayed the ineffective local self-governance, wherein Panchayat President would not have a place in Panchayat Union and a Panchayat Union President would not have a place in the District Development Council. He said “it was a confusion created by officialdom as bureaucrats wanted the system to fail.”

There was a pertinent need to carry out an overhaul of the entire machinery, he said. “Where there is concentration of wealth, the political system indulged in exploitation of the same.”

Stressing the need for a review of the relevant legal provisions including a review of the Indian Constitution, Mr. Mahalingam pointed out that the reports by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry for the purpose had not been acted up on.

Former Vice-Chancellor of Gandhigram Rural University N. Markandan blamed the society for having drifted away from Gandhian ideologies and principles in pursuit of power and money.

Media content

He lamented that the society had come to a stage of accepting deteriorating standards of media content, violence has become a way of life and poor continued to remain poor. Education and political standards prevalent today were not suitable for the needs of this country, he said. School education system was in a bad shape with medium of instruction in a foreign language depriving guidelines for life and self-confidence, he said.

K.M. Natarajan, President of the Gandhi Memorial Fund, Madurai; A. Kanagasabapathy, President of Tamil Nadu Sarvodaya Mandal; M. Mariappan of Sarvodaya Literature Forum; Ramachandra Raki, All India Sarvodaya Memorial Fund, New Delhi; Retired IAS Officer Lakshmikandan Bharathi, V. Vivekanandan of Gandhi Seva Maiyam of Shengottah;, Ramji Singh, former Vice-Chancellor of Jain University, Rajasthan; and a host of others spoke.

On Saturday evening, the Sarvodaya activists took out a march from Anaimalai bus stand to the Gandhi Ashram demanding enforcement of total prohibition.

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