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| | Popular angst against BJP, Modi about to explode | | | | Bureaucrats, scientists, academics mince no words
"For the BJP, therefore, the possible alienation of this group is worrisome at a time when the Dalits are perceived to be drifting away from the party to join the Muslims who are not known to be supporters of the BJP any way. Substantial sections of these groups - the middle class, the Dalits and the Muslims - stood by Modi in 2014 because of their faith in his promise of rapid and inclusive development."
Close on the heels of an open letter written to Narendra Modi by 49 former bureaucrats about the "terrifying state of affairs" in India, has come yet another missive by as many as 637 academics in India and abroad who have voiced a similar concern.
Not only that, they have underlined the "profoundly distasteful efforts of rationaliza... |  | |
| | Patriarchy | | End political impunity to rapists | | | By Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression | |
| | We strongly condemn the recent incidents of rape and sexual violence in the country: the rape of an 8-year old girl in Kathua, Jammu, of a 15-year old in Unnao, UP, of a tea-shop owner as well as 15 year old girl in Meghalaya, of an 11-year old girl in Surat, Gujarat, a 15-year old in Faridabad whose corpse was continually raped, another 11-year old girl in Panipat and closer home and even more recently, the rape of a four-month old child of balloon-sellers in Indore, MP while there is an outrage against rape in the country. We also unequivocally condemn the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018 which seeks to amend among other things the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (2012) by sanctioning the death penalty in cases of rape of minor girls.
A two day national meeting ... | | |
| | | Strong in polemics but bad in law | | Judgement on Loya's death shows CJI in poor light | | By Amritananda Chakravorty | |
| | On 19th April, 2018, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the series of petitionsseeking an independent probe into the death of CBI Special Judge Loya, who allegedly died of cardiac arrest on 1st December, 2014. Judge B.H. Loya was hearing the Sohrabuddin encounter case, wherein Amit Shah was the main accused, when he died. The story first brought out by the Caravan in November, 2017 indicated many suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Judge Loya, and how it seemed 'unnatural'. This created a huge outrage in the media and in public domain, thereby forcing the State Government to institute a 'discreet enquiry' into the matter on 23rd November, 2017.
Following this, two petitions were filed in the Bombay High Court asking for an independent and fair investigation into Judge Lo... | | |
| | Arts/Literature | | Molest Me No More, Rape Me No More | | | | Please allow me to walk the street
Without being for your eyes a treat
Don't look down my shirt
Don't check the length of my skirt
My bosom is round, my hips are tight
But none of these are for your delight
Burqua, jeans or any clothes are my fashion
Why should I dress with caution?
I may be a child, a girl, a woman, don't stare
To assault me like that, how do you dare?
I am your mother, your wife, your daughter, your sister
To abuse me this way, the courage how do you muster?
How can you put me through this degradtion?
I am not an object for your consumption
My body and soul is not for you to plunder
Why do you differentiate because of my gender?
After you destroy me, I am to blame
Live an entire lifetime of fear and shame
Why are you so drunken with power?
How on me t... | | |
| | | Cash crunch may continue beyond one and a half years | | Mismanagement of notes and coins adds to problems | | | Indians have been suffering in the grinding mill of Modi's monetary policy misadventure for one-and-half years, which began in November 2016 with the announcement of demonetization. Mismanagement of currency notes and coins created a severe "cash crunch" on the one hand, and excessive supply of coins in the market has created the problem of plenty on the other. There are no takers for the smaller coin of Re 1 denomination in several parts of the country. Government policies, Reserve Bank of India, and other banks are responsible for this. They also have failed to check the menace of counterfeit notes and coins, the entry of which in the banking system has broken all the records in 2017.
In recent months, millions of ATMs in several states were dispensing notes only for a few hours, and t... | | |
| | | Sitaram has historic tasks to do in 2nd term | | Broadening anti-BJP unity, Left renewal top agenda | | | The re-election of Sitaram Yechury as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the just ended 22nd congress of the CPI(M) assumes special significance in the present period of political turmoil when all opposition parties including the Congress are feeling the need for giving a sharp edge to the moves of all out unity of the anti-BJP parties to drive out the saffron forces from the seat of power at the centre after the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Till Sunday, the CPI(M) general secretary Yechury was hamhanded in dealing with the crucial issue of uniting the opposition forces against the BJP as the ties between the CPI(M) and the Congress were at the centre of controversy within the Party and the CPI(M) general secretary, despite his own preference, could not ac... | | |
| | | Hang the 'nuanced look', string the rapist high | | Making law is one thing, enforcing it is another | | | Now that there is an ordinance to deliver death to rapists of children below 12, there are those who are calling for a "nuanced look" at the whole thing. Their argument: Death penalty for both rape and murder will make rapists kill without compunction; most child and infant rapes are committed by relatives and if rape begets death then family councils will rule not to report; in cases of gang-rape, the judge will baulk at sentencing everyone in the group to death. Last, death penalty has failed as a deterrent to murder.
The Modi government need not be told of the "nuanced look". In fact, the government and the BJP will take credit for taking steps to "safeguard women" with the ordinance. The ordinance rules for speedy investigation and trial - a maximum of two months to each function, fo... | | |
| | | Dangerous portends of agenda-driven verdicts | | Justice must be seen to be done for credibility | | | "Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done." This remark of Lord Chief Justice Hewart of England, uttered nearly 100 years ago, is now heard throughout the world of common law. It reflects an ethical requirement that judges must not hear a case if their impartiality might reasonably appear to be compromised in the eye of an informed observer.
The Supreme Court verdict, dismissing the petitions seeking an independent investigation into the death of judge Loya, has everything mentioned by Chief Justice Hewart as a ground for impartiality to get compromised. A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra found the petitions as an effort to scandalise the judiciary and a "veiled attempt to launch a frontal attack on the independence of judiciary".... | | |
| | | Yashwant Sinha's warning bodes ill for Modi | | BJP crumbling under dead weight of top brass | | | The Narendra Modi government will complete four years next month (May 26, 2018). It has by now presented five budgets and used up all the opportunity available to it to show results. At the end, however, government seems to have lost its views and surrounded by problems of unprecedented magnitude. The economic situation is grim, despite tall claims to the contrary made by the government that it is the fastest growing economy of the world. A fast growing economy does not actually accumulate the kind of non-performing assets in his banks as the present dispensation has done over four years.
In a fast growing economy the farmers are not in distress, the youth are not without jobs, small business do not stand destroyed and savings and investment do not fall drastically as they have done over... | | |
| | | If the model is broken, fix it | | | | If the model is broken, should you try to fix it, or should you scrap it and get a new one?
In questions of technology, increasingly the answer is: scrap it. Computer repair shops are dying out: if your laptop doesn't work, just buy a new one. What applies to consumer technology, however, does not necessarily apply to politics.
The political model of Western-style democracy, which grew up alongside and then within a capitalist economic model, is now broken. Exhibit Number One is Donald Trump, but there's lots of other evidence too.
One-third of French voters backed Marine Le Pen, a cleaned-up, user-friendly neo-fascist, in last year's presidential election. In last September's German election, one-eighth of the electorate voted for Alternative for Germany, a party whose more extreme wi... | | |
| | EARTH DAY- April 22, 2018 | | Environmental Protection | | Human footprint devastating wildlife | | | Animals can be beautiful; they can be sleek, graceful, powerful, or just plain adorable, even cuddly. A field of wild flowers chanced upon can take your breath away. Wordsworth so moved by 'a host of golden daffodils' put pen to paper, and we are richer for his poem. And tourists in their thousands visit coral reefs for their stunning beauty and sea life. So it is distressing when scientists confirm our gut feelings about the human footprint on this natural environment.
Few people know that March 3 was World Wildlife Day, or this coming Sunday (April 22) is Earth Day - perhaps Trump sucking up all the media oxygen is responsible. The fact remains, world wildlife is under serious threat, and in ways we can't even imagine - not forgetting the eventual disaster due to climate change, unless... | | |
| | Environmental Protection | | Abolish the Ministry and the Departments of Forestry | | | | "In this context forget that the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change in India has just proposed a new forest policy and is asking for comment. Or if you do comment, comment just one line: abolish the Union and the State Ministries of Forestry."
Once the Brits came and imposed their capitalism in India the upper castes and the Brits took the common property resources and shared them out by privatising them. Everyone got to do what the hell they wanted and the poor lost everything. Now the end of capitalism is happening because the commons are getting wiped out. Now if anything is to be saved instead of capitalism we need communism. Communism is the ethos of the sharing the commons in order to preserve it.
The commons are the atmosphere, the air and its silences, the ai... | | |
| | | U.S. missile manufacturers reaping super-profits | | Syria air strikes bring Bonaza to selected companies | | | Since President Trump announced that he intended to bomb Syria, the stock values of some of the country's top weapons manufacturers have soared, adding a collective $10 billion in market capitalization values over the course of just one week. With Trump delivering on his promise this weekend, the rally on Wall Street continues.
A barrage of 118 (or more) U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles rained down on Syria Friday night-Trump's punishment for the alleged chemical weapons attack carried out by Bashar al-Assad's government in Douma (for which the world is still awaiting hard evidence). Trump's tweet on April 9 that he would be taking action against Syria launched the stock prices of some of America's major defense suppliers into the skies, and they are still climbing.
For Raytheon (RTN), the... | | |
| | | It's all about polls and cash on the barrel | | ATMs have a quirky connection with Karnataka | | | 'Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe,' says the Bible. Then, if 'no money in the ATM' is a 'sign', it will require a doomsday scenario to turn the phenomena into a 'wonder'. Rahul Gandhi and Derek O'Brien term it a 'Financial Emergency'. "But where are the facts to substantively advance that theory?" asks Alec Smart, not aware that Arnab Goswami had said much the same the night before on Republic TV. "For, isn't it just that: a theory, rumour and fear-mongering by the Opposition?"
Alec's roommate Jocko Street went out at noon Tuesday (April 17, 2018) and returned an hour later with five crisp 100 rupee notes. He struck cash at the sixth ATM. The old gatekeeper at the fourth told him there was a cash shortage. The grocer next door waved a new Rs 200 currency note in Jo... | | |
| | | Shoot the rapist at sight | | | By Salil Gewali, Shillong | |
| | "Let's assess the issues from another angle, given the advancement of medical science. Till some years back malaria, dengue, cholera, HIV and smallpox were life-taking diseases. But the medical science has pretty successfully eradicated or contained them all. The scientists have correctly identified the causes of those dangerous diseases and recommended the remedial measures."
Why the clamour only for the rigorous punishment for rape and other sadistic crimes which have their roots in the mental-degeneration? Apart from the toughest punishment to the perpetrators, let's go deeper to analyze what could be the possible "causes" that push men to commit rape. Why so much mental degeneration that certain individuals can stoop to the gutter being oblivious to their status, their position and... | | |
| | | Girl child becomes prime target of rape and murder | | | | "A top level BJP leader insisted that there was no attempt at sabotage, but a hefty looking right-wing disruptive lawyer of Jammu could be heard on a news channel repeatedly shouting at those condemning the Kathua rape of the eight-year-old girl. Have politically motivated outcries in support of criminals touched a new nadir?"
In spite of big talk about women's empowerment, how come the hapless girl child has become the prime victim and target of heinous cruelty, rapes and murders day after day at the hands of male marauders, including a number of male chauvinistic political animals? Close to 20,000 rapes, many of them followed by murder of women and girls were reported in the year of 2016, according to an official count. How many thousands more were unreported would not be difficult to ... | | |
| | Patriarchy | | Rapes around the country - A citizen Safety Perspective | | | | "It can hardly be over emphasised that from a citizen safety lens, it is pointless to rescue girls and educate them at one end and then harass and kill them when they begin to manifest one of the hallmarks of education - free and independent thinking. Time has changed, yet attitude towards women have never been changed. Indian society has always had a strong patriarchal streak and this no amount of education seems to have erased."
Today, as I write this, the country is outraged at rapes seemingly happening around the country and causing outrage- in Kathua, Unnao, Surat and now Etah. Nothing has much changed since December 2012 when the rape and murder of a 21-year-old college student on a bus in New Delhi shook the conscience of the entire nation. The incident led to public outcry, inclu... | | |
| | | Karnataka poll can be close call for congress | | | | The political parties in the upcoming assembly polls in Karnataka are eyeing to capture new voters that accounts for 12 percent of the state electorate as contest seems to be a close call. Working on a similar strategy three major political parties ruling Congress, and opposition BJP and Janata Dal (S) have set the winnability as the sole criteria for the selection of their party candidates.
After the incumbent chief minister Siddaramiah played a master stroke recommending religious minority status to politically significant Lingayat community, which holds influence over 17 percent of state electorate and has been staunch supporters of the BJP, the opposition parties are treading cautiously on the caste factor during the candidate selection process. With a vertical split likely to happe... | | |
| | | Theresa may caught in war vortex | | Poll reveals most Britons opposed to Syria attack | | | The allied attack on Syria was perceived to secure the political future of British Prime Minister Theresa May and boost nationalistic pride, but the results of the first opinion poll reveal that she was wrong to order strikes by the Royal Air Force Tornado without the consent of Parliament, while only 30 per cent backed her.
May nursed the view that people who were opposed to Brexit or who in recent months have made a tactical shift from supporting Brexit to maintaining neutral stance on it would rally behind her on the issue of nationalistic pride. But it did not happen. Instead Britons started questioning the wisdom of her supporting Trump's action. They are not ready to forget Trump's stance and d some of his remarks against Britain.
Large sections of British citizens are angry with... | | |
| | Arts/Literature | | A Small Little Girl | | | | A Small little Girl
With innocent smile on her face
Goes to the Forest
To bring back the horses
The drove of Horses
Returns back to home
But without the small little girl
Who is lost from the site
The life of charming little girl
Comes to an end
With all the running around
And play with the children
Not knowing the human beasts around
And an unpleasant world filled with hatred
The small little girl
Becomes a victim of human vultures
The tenderness and innocence
Comes to an end
In the world filled with savages
To pounce on human flesh
T H Sreerama is a Poet and retired from Central Warehousing Corporation. This is in relation to #Justice for Asifa
— (Countercurrents)... | | |
| | HUMAN RIGHTS | | Rape as a political tool | | | | Human Rights Watch investigations in the former Yugoslavia, Peru, Kashmir, conflicts, whether international or internal in scope. HRW found that rape of women civilians has been deployed as a tactical weapon to terrorize civilian communities or to achieve "ethnic cleansing," a tool in enforcing hostile occupations, a means of conquering or seeking revenge.
Yet rape in conflict or under repressive regimes is neither incidental nor private. It routinely serves a strategic function and acts as a tool for achieving specific military or political objectives. Like other human rights abuses, rape serves as a means of harming, intimidating and punishing individual women. Further, rape almost always occurs in connection with other forms of violence or abuse against women or their families. There... | | |
| | LEGAL WATCH | | State failure evident in Kathua, Unnao rape cases | | Basic adminstration of justice is under attack in India | | By Amritananda Chakravorty | |
| | In the last one week, the country has been rocked by the reports of two horrific rapes, one in Kathua, Jammu & Kashmir, and the other one in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, which indicate the considerable complicity of the State/politician machinery with the accused persons, and the impunity with which law is violated. In Kathua, Jammu, an eight year old girl, from the Bakarwal (nomadic) community was kidnapped, sedated, gangraped, tortured for over eight days in a temple and eventually killed. The crime was apparently masterminded by the Sanji Ram, a retired government employee, as part of a larger communal conspiracy to 'terrorise' the Bakarwal community to force them out of the area. The other accused includes four police officers, including Special Police Officers, Deepak Khajuria, and Surinder... | | |
| | | The 'Hindu' returns to another Mahabaharata | | ‘Saffron terrorism’ comes back to bite Congress | | | Top of the food chain in the Congress Party Rahul Gandhi sat next to the United States Ambassador at a lunch hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2009 and in between bites allegedly told the American envoy, to a question on threat from the Laskar-e-Thoiba (LeT), that "homegrown terror from radicalized Hindus" was the bigger worry. The US ambassador dutifully telegraphed a gist of his chit-chat with Rahul to his masters in the US. Picked up by the infamous Wikileaks, the telegram, with "classified" written all over it, became global.
April 17, 2018, a year short of a decade since Gandhi digested the fare he tasted at the lunch and the day after a Hyderabad NIA court acquitted five persons charged for engineering the Mecca Masjid blast that killed nine, the BJP resurrected Rahul... | | |
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