Dear friends and well-wishers, It is a great occasion for us to bring to you a new newspaper-`PanchsheelSandesh’ through our `Panchsheel Publication’ in both English and Hindi from Chandigarh. With your support and well wishes the title of the publication was approved recently by the Registrar of Newspapers-(Title Code-CHABIL00219). At the very outset we would like to admit that `PanchsheelSandesh’ is not just a mere newspaper that we are launching. We very humbly admit that it is going to be a voice of every section of society, especially that of the weaker section, the oppressed class and the people who are considered somewhat less than other human beings because of their caste. Dear friends, the dictum, `India is united despite its differences’ is simply a myth. The fact is we as a society are totally divided, be it on the issues of caste or class, religion or political beliefs. There are serious social, political and economic issues confronting our society for which we don’t have any answer at all. We do not claim to deliver solutions to all these problems. We only aim to point out at the evils dogging our society and seek answers to them to be able to live in peace, harmony and happiness. We wish to help create an India that does not differentiate between human beings, a country where religion binds people, not divides them, a country where a person is respected because of his works and not because of his caste, a country where there is respect for the poorest of the poor, irrespective of his caste, creed or class. Despite 67 years of India’s independence, there is backwardness in many fields. A large number of our populace is still illiterate. Lakhs of people in this country are shelterless. Ordinary people find it difficult to take recourse to law and justice, while there are people who misuse power according to their whims and fancies. The national wealth is concentrated in a miniscule section of society.

A small section of the population is extremely powerful and rich. A large number of the people are forced to struggle in life to make two ends meet. Power is concentrated in the and of the politicians and the bureaucrats. The rich use money power to exploit all. Atrocities on the have nots and the Dalits are on the rise, while justice many times eludes the common man. Friends, we want to stress that -Confederation of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/ Backward Classes Organisations (coso)has launched this newspaper, for highlighting the problems of society and the distressed people in need. This has been our endeavour in the past as well.Confederation of SC/ST/BC Organisations (COSO), found in 1997 for building the capacities of Dalit organizations, weaker and deprived section of society has been working relentlessly for the welfare of the people for the last 18 years. The organization, which has made a name for itself, has fought for the rights of the oppressed and the deprived classes and has worked hard to provide education to the children and shaping the leadership skills of the youth, men and women. We have also tried to create a political and a social climate of opinion for developing the best social policy for the realization of the rights of the Dalits, marginalized the most oppressed people for the creation of a just, equitable and harmonious society. The efforts of the Confederation has started showing been fruitful and satisfying. We have emerged a as a powerful organization working for taking up the critical issues of Dalits and minorities at the state, national and international levels. Impressed by the self-less service of our organization, several intellectuals have got connected to us. We would heartly like to thank all the well wishers and the intellectuals connected with us, whom had the pain and concern for the people of minority and dalits communities. We are working sleeplessly to fullfill their aims and concern for the society. In the coming future we will be able to setup the free school for the minorities class with the prime concern of giving them the best and free education to childrensof dalit and minorities and the needy one, who can not afford to go to school due financial crises and the families responsibilities of a poor families at the early stages. The objective of COSO has been Socio-Economic, Health care and Educational upliftmentof the Dalits and the minorities, which are deprived from the centuries.

FOCUS ON EDUCATION: The main focus of COSO has been in the educational field. The Organisation has been working for the realization of education to all the Dalits who have been historicically marginalized and pushed out from the mainstream education. Without education there can be no social justice and equality in society. With this objective the organization has been holding camps in different districts of Haryana sharing information on the government schemes, motivating children, women and youth to avail the benefits of the welfare schemes of the government and demand their rights to equitable development through active participation in the local governance institutions. The Confederation of SC/ST BC organizations has helped thousands of children to get education who had been deprived of it either for lack of awareness or because the parents and relatives did not care much. One of the main concern of the organization has been to take care of the school drop-out children. In the absence of proper education in government schools and the non-caring attitude of the parents and guardian, the school drop-out rate of children is very high in Haryana. It has been the endeavour of COSO to bring back all such children to the schools, so that they can get proper education. COSO opened 986 free coaching centres in Haryana in the year 2014 to provide education to the socially backward and deprived children. Our organization also provided free study materials to such children so that they had no problem in learning the subject.

FREE COACHING: We are giving coaching to some 15,000 to 16,000 socially and educationally deprived children. We want to give quality education to all these and many more children. For this we want to open a permanent coaching centre for children, but because of financial constraints we have not been able to achieve our objective. For this we need to buy land at a suitable place to open a new educational institution. If we are able to do this we will immediately start giving free coaching classes at the primary level to the socially deprived children. We want to show that good results can be procured even by children who do not have proper coaching classes.

VOCATIONAL COURSE, HEALTH CARE: 30 vocational centres in Yamuna Nagar and 25 vocational centres in Ambala were initiated with enthusiastic particiaption of out of drop out and out of school girl children in the age group of the 9-14. The vocations that were chosen for the training included tailoring , beauty care , fashion designing, computer hardware and software, electrical and mobile repair. Vocational Centers were provided with Scissors,Threadbox,Inch and tape,Scale,needle,crosia and threads,wooden frame and clothes for the courses in sewing ,knitting and embroidery: We also provided tailoring coaching to the children free of cost under the vocational guidance programme to make them self-dependent. Besides several health care camps have been held for the women from the weaker section of society.Vocational Centre for Technical Education of Out of School Children.

BEAUTICIAN COURSE: Out of school girls interested in Beautician course are getting trained .There are some children who have dropped out and crossed the age of 14.The idea is to make these girls self-dependent so that later in life they can start their own beauty parlours to earn money.They are also being educated at the centers. COSO has not been able to be strict with the age group with respect to some children as they have been keen in participating at the vocational centresThey are being taught English language considering their interest in the same and then considering the requirements of careers.Accessories for the other vocations have been provided as per the requirement.

INTER-CASTE MARRIAGES: Untouchability is a curse on the country. It divides people and creates ill-will among fellow human beings. We have tried hard in the past to remove the practice of untouchability so that there is no feeling of upper or lower caste, rich and poor. We have stressed the point that all human beings are equal and no one should make any difference among them.To remove

feeling of untouchability, our organization, COSO, has promoted inter-caste marriages among various communities. On a number of occasions we have served community food where people of all caste and religions have sat together and have had meals. We also fought for the promotional rights of those Scheduled Caste people who were being deprived of it. In the past we have run several campaigns in this regard.

PREVENTION OF ATROCITIES COSO continues to take up the issues of violence against dalits in the various districts of Haryana as it considered the protection of the human rights of dalit its foremost responsibility.Communication about the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989 continued and special efforts were made for the implementation of the ACT in the state of Haryana that continues to witness violence against dalits for assertion of their rights. Organisation is congnisant of the need for building a climate of opinion for delivery of justice through empowering leaderships and taking up confidence building measures among the social groups in order to prevent the occurence of caste based atrocities.

ALL INDIA AMBEDKAR VOLUNTARY FORCE(AIAVF): Coso has also formed All India Ambedkar Volunteer Force (AIAVF). As many as 2000 youth students are members of the AIAVF. The objective of the Force will be to encourage and inspire drop-out children from poor and weaker section of society to come back to schools. Members of the Force will launch a education campaign in this regard.In the last few years number of sexual assaults and rapes have increased in the country. The shocking fact in this is that almost 90 per cent of the victims of sex violence are from Dalit and minority communities. Unfortunately such facts are not

properly highlighted by the media in our country. For long it has been felt that the needs and concerns of the poor, Dalits, weaker section of society and the minorities are not properly highlighted by the mainline media in India. Dalits and minorities are generally shown in poor light. This bias is condemnable. There is a need to voice their concerns. Mainline media from time to time does raise a few stray issues, but the idea is to sensationalise the incidents rather than creating an atmosphere where such incidents are reduced

AWARENESS CAMPS AND CADRE CAMP More than 100 awareness camps an cadre camp wereorganised by the various units of the organisation all over Haryana . The key issues of the camps were governance , welfare schemes, access deficits, empowerment, leadership building among youths for realising entitlements, promotion of education and community support for prevention of atrocities, right to information, National Flagship Programmes. The awareness camps has been an important tool for building leaderships across the districts of Haryana that works for realising the rights to equitable development with special focus on dalits,OBCs and minorities.

POOR REPRESENTATION IN GOVT/PRIVATE JOBS: On the other hand the representation of the Dalits and the minorities in the government jobs is very little. Out of the approximately 125 crore total population of India the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribes population is around 27 per cent, while 30 per cent of the population of the country is Other backward Caste (OBC). Minorities form 5 per cent and together the Dalits and minorities are 62 per cent. But their representation in the government jobs is just 10 to 15 per cent. In the private organisations their representation is even more poor at just around 1 per cent. In the Supreme court and the various High Courts of the country their representation is a mere 2 per cent. This class has just 2 per cent of land ownership and their literacy level is a poor 10-12 per cent. Dalits own just 2 per cent of the total industries in the country. This is gross injustice and efforts must be made to increase their representation. COSO has been trying hard for this through awareness campaigns and programmes.

Dalits representation in the media is a mere 2-3 per cent and the Dalit billionaires in the country can be counted on fingers. This is a sorry state of affairs in a country which promises equal rights and opportunities for all caste and class and religions of the country.COSO has been carrying out awareness campaigns to highlight such anomalies in societies so that they can be rectified and social justice can be ensured. Over the years we have felt the need for a newspaper which can give voice to the concerns and issues of the Dalits and the minorities. We therefore decided to launch a new newspaper-PANCHSHEEL SANDESH for this purpose. We are therefore extremely happy to bring to you our new newspaper-`PANCHSHEEL SANDESH’ through our `Panchsheel Publication’ in both English and Hindi from Chandigarh. Although it is a quarterly newspaper at present because of our limited resources, we want to make it monthly soon and later a fortnightly if possible.Friends, we want to stress that -Confederation of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/ Backward Classes Organisations (COSO), which has launched this newspaper, is not profit-driven. Though we require funds for running the newspaper, we are not a commercial organization. We want to make it very clear that we are not here to make money, but to bring to your notice various reports highlighting the problems of society and the distressed people in need. This has been our endeavour in the past as well. At this point we would like to tell you that we are very different from the other run-of-the- mill newspapers and magazines who work without any social responsibility. We are actually a social entity which aims to lend

voice to the weak and distressed people in society. Our motto is to lend support to the helpless and the needy people by voicing their needs, hopes, concerns and aspirations. Friends, our intention isclear.We want to become the voice of the weaker section of society. Unfortunately our resources are very limited and we are depending on all our well-wishers to help us in our endeavour.We need monetary support to sustain our efforts. For bringing out a quality newspaper we need finances and resources which cannot be possible without your help and support. Dear friends, this may be just a small and a humble beginning for our newspaper-`PanchsheelSandesh’. But we promise to go far with your well wishes, encouragement and support. We are sure that in the times to come our humble effort will become a major social initiative. We seek your help and support monetarily or otherwise to make our endeavour a huge success. We are confident that with your goodwill and support we will go far in reaching our goal of fulfilling the much needed social needs and expectations. Like the Principles of Panchsheel, peaceful co-existence is what we seek and pray for the people of this great country. Thanking you, Yours Faithfully, KARAMVIR SINGH, PRESIDENT, COSO AND FOUNDER MEMBER, PANCHSHEEL SANDESH MEDIA PUBLICATION, 1039, DEEP COMLEX, HALLOMAJRA, CHANDIGARH M0 09417302104, 0172-5049-554, 09417303129 Panchsheelsandesh@gmail.com