Monthly Archives: September 2010

Bad ideas, Frontiers, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

India and the Kantipur Saga

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New Delhi is ranged against not only Nepal’s biggest political party but also its largest media house.

First published in The Hindu, 2 September 2010

The Indian Embassy in Kathmandu is in the middle of a controversy. It stands accused, yet again, of ‘gross interference’ and ‘attacking press freedom in another country’, and faces censure from a parliamentary committee, politicians across the spectrum, and civil society groups. Last week, sections of the media, including Kantipur television which is a part of the larger Kantipur group, reported that a product of Dabur Nepal was substandard and contained harmful substances. On August 27, the embassy said, “Indian joint ventures have informed the embassy they have been approached by such media houses for advertisement and are being threatened with negative publicity if those requests are not met.” It termed the news reports as ‘baseless adverse publicity against products of such ventures’ and said such allegations in the past had proven to be false.

Organisations representing media owners, which included the Kantipur publisher, immediately condemned the statement, said media is free to choose its content, and cautioned the embassy to ‘respect diplomatic norms and values of press freedom’. The embassy reacted again, saying the statement by media organisations would have been more credible if backed by a condemnation of unethical practices adopted in eliciting advertising revenue from Indian joint ventures. Since then, the Parliament’s international relations and human rights committee has instructed the government to seek a clarification from the Indian envoy for the embassy’s statements and termed it as blatant interference in free press.

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Countryside, Debates, Left watch, Violence/Conflict

The Azad Murder and the CPM: Biswajit Roy

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Guest post by BISWAJIT ROY. Biswajit is a journalist based in Kolkata

The recent controversy over the Maoist top gun Cherukuri Rajkumar aka Azad’s killing by AP police has blurred the usual political division between the apostles of state security and human rights groups. P Chidambaram and AP police chief churned out the usual encounter death theory, but the Maoists and Mamata Banerjee as well as union home minister’s emissary to the rebels, Swami Agniwesh called it a cold-blooded murder and demanded judicial inquiry.

In the wake of Chidambaram’s refusal to ask Rosaiah government to go for a judicial probe, the Outlook investigation into Azad’s death and the forensic experts’ opinion on his post-mortem report only reinforced the suspicion about the fake encounter. While it is yet to be clear whether Azad will become Congress’s Sohrabuddin, CPM’s position on the issue is interesting if not unpredictable.

The CPM made a full-throated condemnation of the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife by the Gujarat-Rajasthan cops and demanded punishment of Narendra Modi’s protégé and former state home minister Amit Shah for masterminding the murder. Also, the party general secretary Prakash Karat condemned the ‘brutal policing’ against the stone-pelting youth in the valley while counting the mounting toll of young lives during his recent visit to Srinagar. He demanded curbing of the ‘draconian’ provisions of Armed Forces Special Power Act which confer licence to kill while asking the Centre to ‘stop repression and start dialogue’.

But when it comes to Maoists, the Marxists heavyweights kept mum over Azad’s mysterious death – in the parliament and outside and virtually accepted the police version about his death. Pressed about the CPM’s stand on Azad death controversy, its leaders spoke with a forked tongue. The party central committee member and Bengal spokesman, Md Selim was evasive.
He said his party always wanted Centre to reveal ‘truth’ about all such deaths. But he stopped short of supporting the police version on Azad’s end arguing that they had ‘no information to counter the police claims’ or buttress the demand for judicial probe.

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