Category Archives: Bad ideas

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Excavation, Law

Ravinder Tyagi of Batla House (in)fame in yet another frame up!: JTSA

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This release comes from the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION

10th February 2011

Ravinder Tyagi of Batla House (in)fame in yet another frame up!

Veteran of fake encounters must be suspended immediately!

It seems there is no end to Special Cell’s gallantry. One of its most celebrated and decorated heroes, Ravinder Tyagi, also the key architect of the Batla House ‘encounter’ has been found guilty of yet another frame-up of innocents as terrorists. The additional sessions judge Virendra Bhat yesterday absolved and acquitted seven men accused of terrorism in a case dating back to 2005; while pronouncing four officers of the Delhi Police guilty of manufacturing a fake story about an ‘encounter’. The Police had claimed to have recovered AK-47 assault rifles, fake currency and ammunition from the men they claimed were ISI agents—a brazenly false claim. Continue reading Ravinder Tyagi of Batla House (in)fame in yet another frame up!: JTSA →

Bad ideas, Law, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Blasphemy, Sedition, Democracy

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Have you ever wondered?

Why does our media get so worked up when someone in Pakistan is accused of or convicted for blasphemy but is not overly perturbed when someone is charged with or convicted for Sedition in India?

Is this differentiated response occasioned by the belief that a modern state should overlook things like blasphemy but give no quarter to sedition?

Do anti-Blasphemy laws encroach upon Individual freedom while anti-sedition laws protect national interests? Is convicting someone for blasphemy essentially undemocratic but doing the same for sedition not so?

Let’s for the time being leave these major issues aside and engage ourselves with more mundane issues. Continue reading Blasphemy, Sedition, Democracy →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Law

Md. Salman discharged from the 2008 Delhi Blasts Case

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Release from the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION
5th February 2011

Show me the evidence, says Judge
The Prosecution is able to produce none!
Md. Salman discharged from the 2008 Delhi Blasts Case!

Md. Salman, arrested by the Uttar Pradesh ATS from Siddharthnagar on 6 March 2010, was accused of being a conspirator in the 2008 Delhi blasts. Today (5th February 2011), additional sessions Judge Ms. Santosh Snehi Mann threw out all charges against him— at the point of charge—in all five cases in Delhi bomb blasts for lack of any evidence that could prove that he had conspired to bomb various places in Delhi in 2008. Continue reading Md. Salman discharged from the 2008 Delhi Blasts Case →

Bad ideas, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Excavation, Government, Metropolis

Death of a River

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This was first presented as a paper in a seminar on “The River” organised by the Max Muller Bhawan on 11 and 12 December 2010. Photo credits: Gigi Mon Scaria, Himanshu Joshi and Sohail Hashmi. Maps: The coloured map of Delhi is the restored version of an 1850 map; restoration is by E Ehlers and T Krafft. The black and white map is based on an 1807 map of the draingage of Delhi, made by a British cartographer. The three current three maps have been drawn by Shela Hashmi Grewal. You can stop at any image in the silde show above, by using the controls that you will discover once you hover the cursor over the slideshow.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Final scene in the epic tragedy of the Jamna is being enacted at these very moments and the agencies that have wrought this havoc continue to initiate decisions that will permanently erase all signs of the river that has sustained the city that you and I call Hamari Dilli.

Before coming to my understanding of what needs to be done to save the Jamna, instead of what is being done to destroy it. I would like to draw your attention to certain geographical features of the land around Delhi, in order to better understand the factors that contributed to the location of the several Delhis and their relationship to the river. Continue reading Death of a River →

Bad ideas, Frontiers, Media politics

The Flea Market of the Indian Media: Dibyesh Anand on the Karmapa story

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Guest post by DIBYESH ANAND

India prides itself for having a free and vibrant media. A recent story around Tibetan exile leader Karmapa lama has exposed the Indian media scene as closely resembling a chor bazaar. One where uninformed assertions, distorted facts, libelous statements, ad hominem attacks, and lazy analysis are recycled again and again to create a sensation.

The remarkable convergence in how the different channels and newspapers covered the story of police raids and findings of unaccounted foreign currencies at Karmapa’s temporary establishment near Dharamsala is conspicuous. In the media, the unaccounted money is however presented in salacious and sensationalist manner. Money is not the focus, the Karmapa’s alleged China connection is. A possible financial irregularity of $1.6 million is a non-story in India where scams, schemes and scandals of billions erupt with the regularity of tides. The story becomes one of Karmapa as a probable Chinese spy. Continue reading The Flea Market of the Indian Media: Dibyesh Anand on the Karmapa story →

Bad ideas, Law, Media politics, Mirror Worlds

My friend in Thailand, may you be free

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‘Prachatai’ means “free people” in Thai. Prachatai calls itself an online newspaper, with Thai and English versions. You can see the English version here. Prachatai in the Thai internet universe is a bit like this website, Kafila, only a lot more popular. Prachatai’s webmaster, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, is facing trial for comments posted on the site that allegedly violated Thailand’s lese majeste (insulting the monarch) laws. While the lese majeste charges against the person who wrote that comment have been dropped, Chiranuch is still being charged under lese majeste and other laws, including ‘intermediary liability’ laws. Intermediary liability laws in relation to internet freedom mean that if you post a comment on my site that violates the law, I too will be charged as having abetted the crime. India’s cyber crime laws were amended some time ago to remove the intermediary clause, not because the Government of India was concerned about free speech, but because of Ebay India, whose head was charged and arrested when a user uploaded a pornographic ‘MMS’ on Ebay India that featured minors.

I first met Chiranuch at an social media workshop in Thailand, and then again last September in Budapest, Hungary, at a Google conference on internet freedom across the world. It is curcuial to note that upon her return from Budapest, she was arrested, given bail for a very high bail amount, and fresh new charges – and a lot of them – were added against her – clearly, they don’t like her talking about internet freedom. If convicted, she faces up to 50 years in jail! See here an article in The Economist. The trial began today, 4 February, a few hours ago.

Chiranuch could easily have escaped Thailand and taken asylum elsewhere by now. She hasn’t done that because she is consciously fighting a battle for freedom of expression in Thailand. She didn’t want to run away because it would have discouraged, rather than encouraged, that crucial fight.

One expresses solidarity with her, one hopes she is free, and that her case becomes the turning point in the fight from democracy and democratic rights in Thailand. Above all, one salutes her courage. For those who are interested in the details, given below are notes from the Thai Netizen Network.

Continue reading My friend in Thailand, may you be free →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Countryside, Ecology/Environment

A “Green Signal” for The Rape of Justice and the People: POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti

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The following is the statement issued by the POSCO PRATIRODH SANGRAM SAMITI on the latest decision of the Environment Ministry on POSCO. The image below from an earlier round of land acquisition attempt is a telling illustration of how the ‘free market’ functions. Received via Shankar Gopalakrishnan.

Courtesy The Hindu
Land being acquired for POSCO. Image courtesy The Hindu

Jairam Ramesh and the UPA government have shown their true colours with their decision today on the POSCO project. Ignoring the reports of its own advisory bodies and enquiry committees, violating its own orders and the laws of the land, this Ministry has shown that the naked face of corporate greed – it is not the “rule of law”, the “aam aadmi”, “inclusive growth” or any of these other lies – that rules this country. The decision today can be summarised in one sentence:”Repeat your lies, give us promises that we all know are false, and then loot at will.”

We repeat: we will not give up our lands, our forests and our homes to this company. It is not the meaningless orders of a mercenary government that will decide this project’s fate, but the tears and blood of our people. Through the road of peaceful demonstrations and people’s resistance we have fought this project, in the face of torture, jail, firings and killings. If this project comes it will come over our dead bodies.
Continue reading A “Green Signal” for The Rape of Justice and the People: POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Empire/ Imperialism, Movements

Niyamgiri, You Are Still Alive

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This 17 minutes long film won the Vasudha, Environment Award at the International Film Festival of India in Goa, 2010.

Bad ideas

No Idiocy Day

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Apparently today is ‘No TV Day’. According to whom? According to Hindustan Times. I’m not sure if this is happening around the country, but here in Mumbai, according to Hindustan Times this means that we have to switch off our televisions and get in touch with the city, with ourselves, with our partners, families, friends, whoever. To help us in this undoubtedly difficult task, Hindustan Times has been providing little tips all week on what to do on the 29th of Jan, culminating in a glossy supplement on the 28th called “No TV Day: Things To Do”.

Continue reading No Idiocy Day →

Bad ideas

ATS Chief concedes “burst of over-enthusiasm” on part of Nagpur ATS: IAWS press release

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A small victory, but heartening in these times to see what solidarity and concerted political action can achieve…
But still worrying given that ATS Chief Rakesh Maria seems to be back-tracking, if he is correctly quoted in the Mumbai Mirror yesterday (see below), which is why the IAWS has issued this press release.

(Clarification – This is a random image and not from the IAWS National Conference! But if anybody can send us some pix from the Wardha Conference, that would be great.)

Press Release dated 28 January 2011 by IAWS Continue reading ATS Chief concedes “burst of over-enthusiasm” on part of Nagpur ATS: IAWS press release →

Bad ideas

Women Struggling Against Rape in India Find the Assange Case Hard to Digest: Kavita Krishnan

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Kavita Krishnan expresses the irritation and anger of many feminists at the attempt to distract attention from the damage Wikileaks has managed to inflict on the powerful, by doubtful charges of sexual harassment against Assange, its architect:

…Certainly, from the perspective of all those women in India who find the most brutal of rapists going free, protected by the police and the state, and their most serious charges of rape trivialized or even suppressed by force, the idea of a man being hunted down by Interpol on charges which are as complex and ambiguous as those in the Assange case is disturbing…. [Full article here]

Bad ideas

Letter from Dr. Ilina Sen to all the supporters of Dr. Binayak Sen

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Dear Friends,

As we celebrate 61 years of India becoming a Socialist Democratic Republic we are shocked to witness that the spirit of our Constitution stands violated every so often today, sacrificing people’s democratic rights and throttling the socialist dream of our Constitution makers.

Speaking out against the conviction and incarceration of Dr. Binayak Sen’s case has to be seen in that larger context of lending our voice against the gross injustice that  we witness as a daily happening in India day after day. Continue reading Letter from Dr. Ilina Sen to all the supporters of Dr. Binayak Sen →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Media politics, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

The Republic of Exploitation

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On this Republic Day, while armoured tanks muscle across Rajpath in New Delhi, little ossified museums of culture called tableaux charm the assembled pass-holding citizenry and the Prime Minister sits like a barely-sentient caricature of himself behind a bullet-proof screen, it may do well to think about the other republic that remains hidden within the bosom of Superpower India – the republic of unfree labour.

This is a world where the laws of the upside world are inverted – where the more you work, the less you are paid, the more your company profits, the poorer you end up and if you find yourself the victim of an injustice and god forbid complain about it, the police put your family in jail. It’s a great irony of our times that we believe the choice before us is between loving the Nation and loving the Corporation, not realising that most of the time its the same person wearing two grotesque masks.  All those who believe that the world begins with their newspapers and television sets and ends at their white picket fences (and all those who don’t), please take a minute to go through the excellent documentation of the war that is raging for workers in this country, put together by the Gurgaon Workers’ Solidarity Group, the Faridabad Mazdoor Sangathan and several other exemplary organisations.

GurgaonWorkersNews – Newsletter 35 (February 2011)

Continue reading The Republic of Exploitation →

Bad ideas, Debates, Identities, Politics, Right watch

The doom-sayers are wrong about Pakistan. Here’s proof

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If you click on it, you can also see the rest 3 parts of the show with Veena Malik and a maulvi on Pakistan’s Express TV.

Bad ideas

The dirty ‘S’ word in Pakistan: Urooj Zia

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Guest post by UROOJ ZIA

Images aired earlier this month where lawyers and other citizens in Pakistan were seen garlanding and felicitating the murderer of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer might have made those involved look tasteless and crude, but their acts were far from shocking. All his faults aside, Taseer had stood up for a Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death by a district and sessions (lower) court. He was killed because he had referred to the blasphemy statutes as ‘black laws’ which are abused at will, and had called for reform. As such, Taseer was killed because he had stood up, albeit in a roundabout way, for secularism and basic humanity.  Continue reading The dirty ‘S’ word in Pakistan: Urooj Zia →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

‘Kashmir ho ya Guwahati, Apna desh, apni maati’: Mahtab Alam

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This is a guest post by MAHTAB ALAM

The graffiti reads: '26 Janwari ko Kashmir chalein. Nivedak: Rakesh Kumar Munmun, BJYM'. Trans: 'Let's go to Kashmir on 26 January. Appeal by Raksh Kumar Munmun, BJYM.''

 

A policeman walks by a street in Kashmir, summer of 2010. Graffiti demanding azadi was all over the Valley this summer.

In Hazaribagh, one of the oldest cities of the newly formed state of Jharkhand, one is more likely to come across the word Kashmir than the name of the city itself these days. Kashmir, a place that most of the residents of Hazaribagh would have only heard of. At almost every nook and corner, teashop, wall of the city one would find an invitation to the ‘raashtriya ekta yatra’ from Kolkata to Kashmir to hoist the revered Indian flag at Lal Chowk. And this public invitation comes from none other than the youth wing of BJP, namely the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Continue reading ‘Kashmir ho ya Guwahati, Apna desh, apni maati’: Mahtab Alam →

Bad ideas, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Blasphemy, Bigotry

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From Kafila archives:

If blasphemy is an attempt to speak truth to power, bigotry is the reverse: an attempt by power to instrumentalize truth. [Mahmood Mamdani]

See also: Citizens for Democracy

Bad ideas, Culture, Media politics, Metropolis

Ab Bhi Dilli Dur Hain: On ‘No One Killed Jessica’: Kartik Nair

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Guest post by KARTIK NAIR

Why does No One Killed Jessica open with the execution of Jessica Lal but rush so quickly to the windswept altitudes of Kargil? And why, when she first blasts on to the screen as embedded journalist Meera reporting on the war, does Rani Mukerji look more like she’s embedded inside an SNL skit on Barkha Dutt? I let out a little laugh then, but the laughs only got bigger from there. Here is a film that knows nothing about how the media works; worse, it fails to pass off its version of the media as believable. Here are a few lessons I learned watching the film:

1. Aspiring reporters will be glad to note that though journalists generally fight tooth-and-nail at press conferences to get their questions heard, a helpful “Yaar, please, mujhe poochne do!” will elicit total co-operation and rapt attention.

Continue reading Ab Bhi Dilli Dur Hain: On ‘No One Killed Jessica’: Kartik Nair →

Bad ideas, Frontiers, Identities, Law, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Justice for Aasia Bibi; Speedy Trial of Salman Taseer’s Killers: New Socialist Initiative, Delhi

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Statement from the NEW SOCIALIST INITIATIVE, Delhi

History is said to be made when humanity has tried to break asunder forces of unreason, irrationality, bigotry, intolerance and reaction which keep reappearing in newer forms in its onward journey. But what can one say when it tries to do the exact opposite, or prefer to go back on the path undertaken.

Pakistan, a country of 170 millions, stands at a similar juncture today.  Continue reading Justice for Aasia Bibi; Speedy Trial of Salman Taseer’s Killers: New Socialist Initiative, Delhi →

Bad ideas, Debates, Law, Metropolis

New Delhi – A Heritage Zone at 80!

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[This article by Sohail Hashmi was earlier inadvertently posted under the name of Shivam Vij. The error is regretted.]

Connaught Place renovation for the Commonwealth Games, September 2010. Photo credit: AP

In 1988 Lutyen’s Delhi, was declared a heritage zone by prohibiting building activity within the 26 square kilometre area out of the 43 Sq. Km. area that falls within the civic control of New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC). A move has now been initiated to get the entire area declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The very logic of an area being declared a Heritage Zone should preclude any interference with the layout and design of the entire zone. Non-interference also means that, future building and development activity, if at all permitted, has to conform to the original parameters of design, materials, fittings and fixtures used, building techniques, landscaping and the kinds of trees planted in the heritage zone.

Even before the 1988 freeze on construction, there was a master plan for Delhi and it clearly identified the Lutyen’s Bungalow Zone as an area where high rises were not to be permitted. Continue reading New Delhi – A Heritage Zone at 80! →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Identities

Periyar on the Constitution

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As a follow up to the earlier piece, here is a translation of excerpts from Periyar’s speech on the constitution soon after it was framed.

Here there is a need for a note on how we can read these historic documents. This is not a call to burn the constitution (Figuratively maybe a little bit but not literally. That would be a waste of paper. We’d rather recycle it en masse as a symbolic gesture! ). The purpose is to break down into details, this ‘nation’ that we often use as a default construct. We know it has a history and a not so long one. We also know that it has been contested by many from its very inception. Independence day should also be observed as ‘partition into india and pakistan day’ for starters. There have always been challenges ranging from debates over secession of regional kings when independence was declared, to demands for a separate nation that always existed and continue to do so. Continue reading Periyar on the Constitution →