Category Archives: Scams

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Education, Government, Right watch, Scams

Another One Bites the Dust: “Cultural Pollution” and the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library: Niyati Sharma and Snigdha Kumar

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This is a guest post by NIYATI SHARMA AND SNIGDHA KUMAR

Courtesy thequint.com.
Courtesy thequint.com.

The latest in a line of institutions to fall victim to the BJP government’s campaign against “cultural pollution” is The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML). The agenda is loud and clear – anything which ‘pollutes’ the current government’s preferred way of life and thinking will be done away with. Bans such as the recent ones on porn and meat are the most obvious instruments at the disposal of the government to achieve this goal. The more effective interventions, however, are not those which instantly deny people their choices and freedoms. Presented instead as minor improvements and renovations, interventions in art, history and academic institutions allow the government to introduce subtle long term changes – changes with the capacity to access and alter our very being.

Given the enormity of these interventions in the long run then, it is particularly curious how the clear recent attempts to take over academic institutions such as the ICHR, FTII and now NMML have managed to raise only a few eyebrows while the bans on porn (and meat to an extent) have met with much protest and were subsequently lifted. Perhaps this is because such spaces appear to be remote islands inhabited only by those interested in history, film and/or academic research. Only such an impression can explain the rather meek public debate and outcry that these clearly targeted changes have generated.

Continue reading Another One Bites the Dust: “Cultural Pollution” and the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library: Niyati Sharma and Snigdha Kumar →

Capitalism, Ecology/Environment, Scams

Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank and Ordoliberalism: Shrinivas Dharma

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Guest post by SHRINIVAS DHARMA

News of Volkswagen’s systematic cheating in emission tests by making its cars appear far less polluting than they are, has proved to be a bolt from the blue for the Global Automobile industry, financial markets, European politicians and German society at large. VW is more than just another car company. For German society, it is a heritage brand with iconic status. In a reputed poll last month, two-thirds of Germans named Volkswagen as the country’s number one national symbol, putting it before Merkel, the national football team and Goethe. No wonder, this news destroyed 10% of market value of the VW brand in a single trading day.

VW’s so-called “defeat device”  a piece of software in the car’s computer is already there on 11 million cars on the road which are emitting up to an extra 1m ton of a toxic gas responsible for killing tens of thousands people in various countries. With this insidious deception, VW has not only let down Germans but the entire Global Society by showing sheer contempt typical of a Big Business towards the continuing environmental degradation. No wonder, the news wiped out billions of dollars off the market value of entire car industry providing credence to the suspicion that emissions test rigging may be more widely practiced art, than what has come to light so far. Continue reading Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank and Ordoliberalism: Shrinivas Dharma →

Capitalism, Feminism, Government, Right watch, Scams

A Statement Protesting Approval to Introduce Injectable Contraceptives in the National Family Planning Programme

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The following is the text of a letter written by activists and scholars working in the field of medicine, public health and women’s rights, to the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare:

To

Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda,

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare,
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,
Nirman Bhavan, Maulana Azad Road,
New Delhi 110 011

22nd September 2015

Statement Protesting the Approval to Introduce Injectable Contraceptives in the National Family Planning Programme

We, the following health groups, women’s organisations, peoples’ networks and individuals are extremely disturbed by the news report published in the Times of India (dated 16th September 2015) that the Union Health Ministry has approved Depo Medroxy Progesterone Acetate (DMPA) for use in the National Family Planning Programme (FPP).

It may be re-called that following a Supreme Court case filed in 1986 by women’s groups regarding serious problems with injectable contraceptives like Depo and Net-En, the Court directed the government to monitor safety issues in use of injectable contraceptives but did not ban its use. While they are available in the private medical sector, the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), the highest decision-making body on technical matters in the Ministry of Health &Family Welfare, in 1995 held that Depo-Provera is not recommended for inclusion in the FPP. Continue reading A Statement Protesting Approval to Introduce Injectable Contraceptives in the National Family Planning Programme →

Debates, Government, Identities, Right watch, Scams

Cow Slaughter – Can a Directive Principle Trump Fundamental Rights of the Most Marginalized? Mariya Salim

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Guest post by MARIYA SALIM

The debates and demands around the issue of the prohibition of cow slaughter in India are a highly volatile, political and contentious subject, with the cow being revered as sacred by most Hindus in the country. Although almost all the proponents calling for a national legislation for a total ban on slaughter of cow and other cattle today look to the directive principles of state policy and use an economic and agrarian argument to defend their demand, it is interesting to note that the constituent assembly debates around this directive principle clearly indicate that it was as much a religious issue, reasoned on science and agriculture instead however, for some of those who wanted it to be an integral part of the Indian Constitution.

After much debate and deliberation in the Constituent Assembly and a demand from a few members of the assembly, to include a total ban on the slaughter of cows as part of fundamental rights in the Indian Constitution, a compromise was reached and the protection of the revered bovine found place in the Directive Principles of state policy, which incorporates this Hindu sentiment in a somewhat guarded and hesitant form[1]. Most notable among the members raising the issue were Pandit Thakur Dass Bhargava and Seth Govind Das[2]. Syed Muhammad Sa’adulla, another member argued that he would rather have the insertion on the protection of cow slaughter as a religious ground, as, the argument on economic grounds will ‘create a suspicion in the minds of many that the ingrained Hindu feeling against cow slaughter is being satisfied by the backdoor’ and he went on to give facts and figures on how cow slaughter is not as bad ‘as it is being made out to be’ from the economic point of view. [3]  Continue reading Cow Slaughter – Can a Directive Principle Trump Fundamental Rights of the Most Marginalized? Mariya Salim →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Politics, Right watch, Scams

Old Age Culture Homes and other Cultural Pollutants – Lessons in Toxicity from the Minister of Culture

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The world’s largest ‘cultural’ organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organization) recently met with the minister responsible for what is probably, in real terms, the world’s smallest ‘culture’ ministry, the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Under Khaki shorts, size does matter. The big tell the small, what’s what.

Continue reading Old Age Culture Homes and other Cultural Pollutants – Lessons in Toxicity from the Minister of Culture →

Bad ideas, Ecology/Environment, Government, Metropolis, Movements, Politics, Scams

Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R

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This is a guest post by Sriranjini R.

Cheralam Sriranjani

ISIS in Syria, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Taliban in Pakistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, ecological problems, climate change … the list of the world’s ‘security’ problems seems endless. India has its own share of course – the India-Pakistan conflict, India-China problems, Maoism and so on. In Kerala, police have been desperate to find ‘security threats’ of their own. They first tried hunting down a ‘druglord’ whose picture was found on T-shirts of young people suspected of drug use. His name is Bob Marley. Please give the man up if you find him anywhere. Then they tried looking for Maoists. Every state has some, how come we have so few, was their complaint. After going after thin, dark-skinned, bearded fellows, Kiss of Love activists, and sundry others, hoping that one of these will be a Maoist, finally they caught one. And he didn’t look like any threat to most Malayalis.

Continue reading Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Images, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Scams

The Murky Fourth Estate: Asifa Zunaidha

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This is a guest post by ASIFA ZUNAIDHA.

[Some time ago, I wrote on Kafila about my experience of attending a televised interaction with HRD Minister Smriti Irani. The audience, packed with supporters of the particular party Irani belongs to, was set up in that debate as the neutral ‘public’, thereby killing two birds with one stone – boosting the popularity of the Minister on news media, and legitimising the news channel as a site of punchy political debate. We have below a similar case of manipulation of the powerful medium of electronic news media, this time by another channel.] 

What is the role of the news media in a society if not to disseminate information and opinions as an impartial media(tor)? ‘Half truth is no truth’ is a popular aphorism, but ‘selective’ truth is also a lie and certainly does not befit the content of a news channel. It seems that in an age of corporate media, one would be foolish to expect impartial truths, let alone ‘undiluted or uncensored’ opinion of diverse groups. A recent episode inside the JNU campus shows how ‘news’ presented by News Channels can be easily manipulated and the opinion of a ‘select few’ is showcased as the ‘unanimous opinion’ emerging from the premier higher educational institute of the country.

Continue reading The Murky Fourth Estate: Asifa Zunaidha →

Culture, Debates, Government, Media politics, Scams

A Demand to Restore the Stature and Reputation of FTII: Statement by Media Scholars and Teachers

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PUBLIC STATEMENT BY MEDIA SCHOLARS AND TEACHERS ON FTII

As teachers, scholars and researchers of the media we are deeply disturbed by the obduracy and high-handedness shown by the authorities to the legitimate issues and questions raised by the students of FTII who have been on strike since June 12, 2015.

It has now been established that Gajendra Chauhan, an official member of the BJP since 2004, was chosen to be the Chairman of the Governing Council and consequently, President of the FTII Society for his loyalty to the party and not because he has any credentials to occupy these posts. A `star campaigner” for the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections, Chauhan’s only claim to visibility has been his role as Yudhisthir in the TV series Mahabharata and his role in the current controversy. He does not possess any professional or academic qualification that makes him remotely eligible for the job.  It is a an absolute travesty that Chauhan should be handed a chair that has in the past been occupied by nationally and internationally recognized personalities like UR Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad, Shyam Benegal, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mahesh Bhatt and Mrinal Sen. Continue reading A Demand to Restore the Stature and Reputation of FTII: Statement by Media Scholars and Teachers →

Capitalism, Debates, Government, Right watch, Scams

Iceland Jailed Bad Bankers While Modi Govt Bails Out Defaulting Sugar Mills

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In February this year, Iceland jailed four of its rogue bankers for market manipulation and for defrauding ordinary people. No, the heavens did not fall. Thunder and lightning did not strike. The wrath of God did not descend upon the people of Iceland. On 13 February 2015, Reuters had reported:

Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld convictions of market manipulation for four former executives of the failed Kaupthing bank in a landmark case that the country’s special prosecutor said showed it was possible to crack down on fraudulent bankers. Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, Kaupthing’s former chief executive, former chairman Sigurdur Einarsson, former CEO of Kaupthing Luxembourg Magnus Gudmundsson, and Olafur Olafsson, the bank’s second largest shareholder at the time, were all sentenced on Thursday to between four and five and a half years. –

In less than four months since this happened, Mathew Yglesias reported in Vox Business and Finance two days ago that the economy had in the meanwhile done quite well:

Yesterday, Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, announced a plan that will essentially close the books on his country’s approach to handling the financial crisis — an approach that deviated greatly from the preferences of global financial elites and succeeded quite well. Instead of embracing the orthodoxy of bank bailouts, austerity, and low inflation, Iceland did just the opposite. And even though its economy was hammered by the banking crisis perhaps harder than any other in the world, its labor didn’t deteriorate all that much, and it had a great recovery.

For those who have seen the brilliant documentary film Inside Job, which exposed the unscrupulous game played by the bankers and the financial oligarchy in defrauding millions of ordinary people and eventually triggering of the financial crisis in the US and the world at large, the story of Iceland’s descent into the dystopic neoliberal world must still be fresh in their minds. Continue reading Iceland Jailed Bad Bankers While Modi Govt Bails Out Defaulting Sugar Mills →

Centre watch, Debates, Education, Government, Images, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Scams

Bread and Circuses? No sir, circuses alone will do.

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Edited and updated version of the post.

I had the great fortune to be invited as an audience member to a live interaction with Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani last evening, televised live on Aaj Tak. I say “great fortune” because despite the fact that I walked out of this “interaction” in speechless disgust around an hour into the programme, I probably learned more about the state of politics and media in this country in one evening than I could have from years of academic study. And the irrelevance of academics was exactly what was on display last evening, never mind that the topic of the interaction was the state of higher education in the country.

I reached the venue – the auditorium of Khalsa College, Delhi University – at about 5.15 pm for a 5.30 pm programme. The mood was surprisingly charged, even electric for what I imagined would be a sober discussion on somewhat boring topics like syllabus formation, university infrastructure, promotions and pensions, the points system, and most importantly, the changes proposed under the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). The auditorium was already packed – not so much with teachers and students – but with a large number of ABVP activists, BJP volunteers, and committed party supporters from within and outside the University. Nothing wrong with having a politically committed section dominating the audience of course. But if the resultant mix is innocently termed “the public” – the term the anchor used was “janta” – then that constitutes the first point of deception. I took a seat in the second row as instructed, surrounded by triumphant, pumped-up BJP supporters shaking hands with each other, suddenly feeling small and irrelevant, having come prepared with questions on Delhi University. At one point, turning to speak to the person next to me, I encountered a gentleman who introduced himself only as a “social worker” and asked me to elaborate on the problems with the university. As I began to list them however, he cut me short with a wave of a hand to say the government will prevail over all of them, and turned back to gaze admiringly at the life-sized posters of Modi all around us. I realised the person knew absolutely nothing about the University or teaching as a profession, and couldn’t care less.

Two anchors from Aaj Tak – Anjana Om Kashyap and Ashok Singhal – were on stage, interacting intermittently with the audience. At one point, Kashyap turned to the audience and said she was aware that there were many eminent professors in the first two rows who had been invited by Aaj Tak, but that she would begin the interaction with the Minister first with general questions on politics, and then move on to the topic of the evening – higher education. Nobody seemed happy with this, but having little choice, we vaguely nodded our assent. In walked Irani, striding up confidently on to the stage. Without so much as acknowledging the audience or making eye contact, she began to banter with the anchors, saying she only had half an hour and had not agreed to two hours, etc. While this time bargaining was going on, the crowd began to settle down somewhat, and the cameras began to roll. As planned and announced, Kashyap began with politics, asking Irani about her Twitter war with Rahul Gandhi and with her frequent visits to Amethi. As far as I or anybody who cares deeply about what is happening to Delhi University and other universities in the country was concerned, THAT WAS THE END OF THE EVENING.

Continue reading Bread and Circuses? No sir, circuses alone will do. →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Law, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Much Better to Run Over the Poor Than to Speak Up for Them

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Yesterday, the 9th of May, one day after the court granted what must be the fastest bail and suspension of sentence in the history of India to India’s favourite Dabangg, a diminutive woman stood under the blazing Delhi sun and spoke of her husband who had been in jail for the past one year. In May 2014, lecturer in English at Ramlal Anand College, Delhi University, G. N Saibaba was returning home after evaluating answer scripts when he was abducted by unknown men, who later identified themselves as Maharashtra Police.

Professor Saibaba. Image Courtesy FRS Blog
Professor Saibaba. Image Courtesy FRS Blog

Saibaba was not produced before a magistrate in Delhi but taken directly to Aheri, a small town in Maharashtra and then to Nagpur, to be put in solitary confinement in the famous anda cell of Nagpur jail. Let’s call this cell famous instead of the usual epithet “notorious” because all over the country, children are probably playing with each other right now saying to each other, “saale main tujhe anda cell mein daal doonga“, while their parents look on indulgently, congratulating themselves on the kid’s excellent G.K.

Continue reading Much Better to Run Over the Poor Than to Speak Up for Them →

Bad ideas, Government, Law, Right watch, Scams

Delhi Police Blames AAP for Gajendra Suicide – Remember Constable Tomar’s Death?

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Reports have it that Delhi Police has blamed the AAP for the death of Gajendra Singh at its rally recently – not surprisingly, as we had noted in our previous post on the suicide. We had suggested in that post there seemed to have been prior instructions to the Police from the Central government, under which it functions, not to act. And the reports today about Delhi Police reporting to their higher ups only confirm our suspicions.

Here is what one of the reports has to say:

In a letter to the Home Ministry, the Delhi Police has claimed that the mob including Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers incited Gajendra Singh to commit suicide at a party rally in Delhi. The letter also claims that untrained volunteers climbed the tree which led to Gajendra falling off.

The report states that AAP volunteers and leaders were clapping and raising slogans which incited him to engage in more dangerous acts. It also adds on to say that though police requested AAP volunteers to stop provoking him through clapping and solganeering, neither the volunteers nor the leaders present on the state acceded to the request info.

Another report in a channel known for its BJP connections, says:

As per the Delhi Police report, AAP leaders were making provocative speeches, and the crowd present at the rally venue instigated and provoked Gajendra to commit suicide. The report also alleged that AAP did not heed to the police’s request to change the rally’s venue to Ram Lila Maidan.

Continue reading Delhi Police Blames AAP for Gajendra Suicide – Remember Constable Tomar’s Death? →

Bad ideas, Government, Language, Media politics, Right watch, Scams

Beware BJP’s Filthy Campaign and Desperate Bid to Steal the Elections!

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Avam characters

As the AVAM drama unfolds and much more detective work remains to be done, some other disturbing news has also started trickling in. A journalist friend got a mail from an official yesterday, who confided to this journalist:

Dear Sir,
We would like to bring to your notice that our volunteer Mr. XYZ (name withheld for obvious reasons) has attended the preparation of Electronic Voting Machine on 31st January & 1st February and he noticed some discripencies in the EVMs of Booth No. 26, 47A, 75 & 87.
Whichever button he was pushing the vote was being casted in favour of BJP only.
However, after his objection the EVM machines were replaced.

We of course, do not know how many such machines there are.

Meanwhile, another friend – an academic – sent this mail, which tells us something of the sense he got from a tour around Delhi areas – along with his deep suspicion that once again, through some machinations, the elections may be stolen:

This is just to tell you that I accompanied two journalist friends to go on an election tour of Delhi (targetting trader bases with BJP support) and most of the people that we talked to openly supported AAP. Attitudes to Modi ranged from indifference to criticism for blabbering away and not doing anything to plain abuse. Many have started identifying the BJP as a “syndicate” party i.e. as a party of rich businessmen. Above all people think that the 49 day government was a period they felt empowered – and they compare it to the lack of any improvements under Modi for the last 8 months!

This still does not let me lose my belief in the worst: But it gives me a warm feeling when I keep my fingers crossed!

Continue reading Beware BJP’s Filthy Campaign and Desperate Bid to Steal the Elections! →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Politics, Scams

Bhopal Victims Neglect a Consequence of Disinvestment and Low Value of Life: Sagar Dhara

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Guest post by SAGAR DHARA

On 2 Dec 1984, Bhopal’s unsuspecting population was hit in the stealth of the night by methyl isocyanate (MIC), a killer gas that leaked from the Union Carbide plant located on the northern edge of the city.  The official immediate death toll was 2,259, though journalists estimated it to be thrice that number.  Government of India now admits that the cumulative number of deaths is more than 20,000.

At first glance, the event looks like an engineering accident.  Wash water seeped through a closed valve, got into MIC Tank 610 and triggered a runaway reaction that ruptured it and spilt 42 tonnes of MIC.  Low wind speeds made the heavier-than-air gas cloud hug the ground at high concentrations as it drifted towards nearby slums.  The highly corrosive gas caused massive edema in the lungs.

Economics is root cause for accident

The cause for the accident can be traced to low product sales that made the company disinvest in safety and environmental systems. Prior to 1980, Carbide formulated Sevin, a carbamate group pesticide, with imported chemicals at their Mumbai plant.  Because of Sevin’s popularity, Carbide built a new plant in Bhopal to manufacture it.  By then synthetic pyrethroids, the next generation pesticide, started pushing carbamates out of the Indian market.  Consequently, the Bhopal plant never produced more than 50% of its installed capacity and its financial returns were unhappy. Continue reading Bhopal Victims Neglect a Consequence of Disinvestment and Low Value of Life: Sagar Dhara →

Ecology/Environment, Politics, Scams

High Level Committee of Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change walks out of Public Consultation in Bangalore: Press Release

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High Level Committee of Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change walks out of Public Consultation in Bangalore

The High Level Committee headed by Mr. T. S. R. Subramanian, former Union Cabinet Secretary, constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change to review environment, pollution control and forest conservation laws, invited the public at large for a consultation between 12 and 1.30 pm today (27th September) at Vikas Soudha, the high security office complex of the Government of Karnataka. Advertisements to this effect had been issued by the Karnataka Department of Forest, Ecology and Environment in various newspapers on 21st September 2014, followed up by various press releases inviting the public to interact with the Committee.

When various individuals and representatives of public interest environmental and social action groups turned up for the meeting, the police prevented their entry at the gates. It was only following a spot protest that the police consented to allow them to participate in the consultation. Despite this indignifying experience, all who gathered proceeded to the meeting hall with the intent of engaging with the High Level Committee.

Continue reading High Level Committee of Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change walks out of Public Consultation in Bangalore: Press Release →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Ecology/Environment, Movements, Scams

Long Years Ago We Made a Tryst, with…Mathematics

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I thought it wasn’t that complicated. When you make a new nation, make sure everybody gets a place. A roughly equal place. When you undertake any development in that new nation, make sure the benefits equal the costs. These are easy equations, easy maths. Maa-tha-maa-tics, my school maths teacher would say portentously, full of meaning and threatening.

This summer, quietly, safe from the media’s attention, 17 more metres were added to the biggest dam of the Sardar Sarovar Project, a dam that was already 400-plus metres high. Being ‘weak at maths’, I hesitate to calculate the catchment area of this big big dam, only one of many big dams in the web of waterworks created by the Sardar Sarovar project. I am getting goosebumps writing these words – the Sardar Sarovar project. As I did way back in school, as a fifteen-year old with a mind like an occupation zone for textbooks. Nehru’s photo radiates in waves out from that mind, that iconic Bhakra Nangal photo with him pointing to something in the far distance. The blazing sun, the deep shadows, the monumental respectability of it all…now the photo is fused with a different, equally iconic image – that of Sunil Dutt’s youthful strides across a dam site in Hum Hindustani. Continue reading Long Years Ago We Made a Tryst, with…Mathematics →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Language, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Delhi Protests Gaza Bombing: 9 August 2014

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Let it not be said that nobody cried when the news came. Let it not be remembered by the children that India “stood with” Israel through the Gaza bombings of August 2014 (God, let it not continue beyond August 2014). Let no-one assume that all 1.3 billion of us continued – as the bombs fell on fields and courtyards and washing hung up to dry in Gaza – that we in India defined our ethical positions purely within the unholy triad of family, community, nation. Let there be a tiny record of protest. A tiny record of a tiny protest, given the monstrosity of the crime. But we are in the business of remembering, since they are profiting from our forgetting. They profit from our forgetting language, since we can’t name what is going on in Gaza as war. They profit from our not being able to remember our mythologies, because this is a war in which one side is David and the other Goliath, but Goliath is winning, because the world has been told he is David. In a nation without language, without myths, without memory, without ethics, jealously holding a tattered banner, with a single word on it – ‘development’ – some Indians protested.

Global Day of Rage against Gaza, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi August 2014:

WP_20140809_001

Continue reading Delhi Protests Gaza Bombing: 9 August 2014 →

Culture, Politics, Right watch, Scams

The ‘Patriots’ of Our Times !

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India is a land of surprises, say many.

And how can Bihar, which they say has been witness to a glorious past, be an exception. Of course nobody could have imagined that ‘surprise of surprises’ or (should I call) ‘mother of all surprises’ would be reserved for the Bihar police. In fact it was one life time experience for all of them there where they found how ‘Rs 50,000 can balloon into Rs 1.14 crore’.

The central character in the still unfolding drama is Giriraj Singh, a RSS activist since his childhood days, and a senior leader in the state, who has already carved out a name for himself nationally for his controversial statements. People would remember how he proposed to Modi opponents to go to Pakistan during election campaign or how he eulogized Brahmeshwar Singh, leader of Ranveer Sena, the private army of landlords which had been allegedly responsible for hundreds of killings of innocents as ‘true Gandhian of our times’ when the dreaded figure was killed in a gang war. As an aside it needs be mentioned here that Giriraj Singh was one of the first in the state who had vouched for Mr Narendra Modi’s PM candidature also. Continue reading The ‘Patriots’ of Our Times ! →

Law, Right watch, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Pearls of Wisdom of A RSS Leader – ‘Elections equivalent to Independence Struggle’

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Suresh Soni, RSS’s point person with the BJP, who facilitated ‘anointment’ of fellow Pracharak as PM candidate last year and smoothly engineered the marginalisation of the senior Advani and proved his clout within the organisation, is in news these days albeit for wrong reasons.

News has come in that he along with his former supremo (the late) K S Sudarshan were also beneficiaries of the yet unfolding MPEB scam which has already claimed the head of a senior minister – another fellow Pracharak – in Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s cabinet. Laxmikant Sharma, the said minister, who earlier handled important portfolios like mining, culture, human resources had claimed at the time of his arrest that he has been made a sacrificial lamb and when time comes he would also ‘reveal the truth’. He allegedly facilitated appointment of Mihir, a personal assistant to the late Sudarshan, as a ‘Nap Taul Inspector’ at the behest of Suresh Soni. Continue reading Pearls of Wisdom of A RSS Leader – ‘Elections equivalent to Independence Struggle’ →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Politics, Right watch, Scams

A Stolen Verdict: Nirmalangshu Mukherji

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Guest Post by NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJI

The Bharatiya Janata Party secured about 19% votes in the general elections of 2009 to win 116 seats in the Parliament. With this most impressive conversion ratio, they had more or less exhausted their possibilities in their ‘safe’ states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, and the like. They were still 157 seats away from a simple majority in the Loksabha. Even assuming the impressive conversion ratio, they needed at least 26% more of the vote share, that is 45% in all, to form a government.

When the elections for 2014 were announced, it was hard to see where the BJP would get these additional votes from. Moreover, unlike the NDA of 1999-2004, they had rather modest support from other parties with most of the big parties like AIADMK, TMC, JDU, BJD, and the like staying away. Hence, even if we factor in some rise in number of seats in ‘safe’ states, plus handsome gains in Rajasthan, Maharashtra etc., their ability to reach anywhere near the 272+ mark looked rather dim.

Continue reading A Stolen Verdict: Nirmalangshu Mukherji →

Debates, Government, Right watch, Scams

Tampering of EVMs, Benaras Magistrate in Trouble

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Reports of manipulations of Electronic Voting Machines across constituencies have been coming in, and discrepancies in voting figures have been noted in some constituencies. Earlier, before the elections, there had been reports of two machines in Assam that were so programmed as to vote BJP, whichever button you pressed. A Congress counterpart of this was also discovered in Maharashtra. These reports were then dismissed as aberrations. The question now, it seems, is far more serious. Here is a report from Dainik Jagaran (Varanasi edition), that reports that a Sector Magistrate who had taken the machines home is now in trouble after the EC had to investigate an allegation to this effect and found it to be true. Acdcording to the report, the son of the magistrate concerned took some photographs and posted them on Facebook. One of them went viral.

The self-righteous Delhi based mainstream media has of course chosen to ignore this news completely; Jagaran has at least reported it, even it actually minimizes the significance of this lapse. Here is the Jagaran report:

Jagaran photo on EVM manipulation
Jagaran report EVM manipulation and the photograph that went viral, courtesy Naveen Gaur

 

Of course, this is not the first time that this has happened. Earlier, soon after the 2009 elections too, serious allegations had been raised and this is what one report in Huffington Post had observed:

From May 6 onwards, the candidate’s name was ‘coded’, based on their position on the EVM, and the number of ‘votes polled’ were added, even though voting had yet to take place in many constituencies and, even where voting had taken place, votes were yet to be counted. Even more confounding, the ‘votes polled’ numbers were adjusted in subsequent spreadsheets before the results were announced.

 

The matter is very serious and needs to be pursued. Investigations continue.