Excavation, Law, Violence/Conflict

The Case That Never Was: A JTSA Report on the ‘SIMI’ Trial of Jaipur

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In September 2001, the central government banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) through a notification. Since then, the ban has become a convenient pretext for the police and investigative agencies to arbitrarily pick, detain and then arrest and frame Muslim youth, ostensibly on charges of carrying on the activities of the banned organization. Sections 3, 10, 13 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA 1967) have been invoked against scores, if not hundreds of Muslim youth across the country. Some of these men had been active in SIMI prior to its ban; some had outgrown the organization because they had crossed 30 years—the age limit for membership in the organization; some were guilty of having acquaintances, friends or relatives who had been involved or had been office bearers in SIMI.  On most occasions, the cases against former members or purported activists of SIMI have rested on seizure of banned literature, namely copies of magazines published by SIMI before the ban. The flimsiness of evidence –and the sketchiness of charges— has resulted in dozens of acquittals; but equally true is the fact that the overwhelming nature of the ‘war on terror’ discourse and its institutional structures has allowed the conviction of many even in face of glaring lack of evidence.

The JAMIA TEACHERS SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION (JTSA) profiles here one such case, which came to be known as the Jaipur blasts case, even though the accused were not charged with either conspiracy or execution of bomb blasts in Jaipur in 2008.  So what were these men guilty of? According to the FIR and chargesheet, they were responsible for carrying out activities of the banned SIMI.  How and why did these men come to be identified with the Jaipur blasts? Theirs is a terrible and tragic tale of frame up by the Rajasthan police.  It is above all testimony to the employment of UAPA against alleged or former members of SIMI and of the manner in which rule of law is subverted, violated and discarded as soon as the ‘T’ word is uttered.

Download the full report here (.pdf, 1.1 MB, 36 pages).

Frontiers, Violence/Conflict

Bring home the crew of MV Albedo: Yusra Askari

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Guest post by YUSRA ASKARI

Karachi: The MV Albedo and its crew; 7 Pakistanis, 7 Bangladeshis, 6 Sri Lankans, 2 Indians and 1 Iranian national have been held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia, for over 17 months now. With the final deadline fast approaching, last ditch efforts are underway in Pakistan to ensure the safe return of all 22 sailors. Continue reading Bring home the crew of MV Albedo: Yusra Askari →

Centre watch, Excavation, Frontiers, Violence/Conflict

Who killed four foreign tourists in Kashmir in 1995?

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Given below is the text of a petition submitted to the Jammu & Kashmir State Human Rights Commission by the INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE IN INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR (IPTK) together with the ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS. A Division Bench of the SHRC will hear the case on 17 April 

To,
Mr. Tariq Ahmad Banday,
Secretary,
Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission,
Srinagar

Date: 6 April 2012

Dear Mr. Banday,

The International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir [IPTK] (a brief on the Tribunal’s premise and objectives may be found here) and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons [APDP], present before you the following submission:

  1. In July 1995, during a trekking expedition, six persons were reportedly kidnapped by a group that referred to itself as “Al-Faran” [a front of the Harkat-ul-Ansar]. The six persons kidnapped were: John Childs [Simsbury, Connecticut, USA], Dirk Hasert [Bad Langensalza, Germany], Don Hutchings [Spokane, Washington State, USA], Keith Mangan [Teesside, Middlesbrough, England], Hans Christian Ostrø [Oslo, Norway], and Paul Wells [Blackburn, Lancashire, England]. Continue reading Who killed four foreign tourists in Kashmir in 1995? →
Everyday Life, Government, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

My Days in Tihar Jail

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Mrs Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, represented the Rai Bareli seat in the Lok Sabha. On 12th June 1975 she was unseated on charges of election fraud and misuse of state machinery in a landmark judgement by Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court.  Fakhr-ud-Din Ali Ahmad, the then President of India, declared internal emergency on the 25th of June,  on the recommendation of a pliable cabinet presided over by Mrs G. The people of India lost all civil liberties for a period of 21 months.

Trade unions were emasculated, political opponents were arrested, newspapers censored, the only place where a semblance of freedom survived, for a short while, were the universities, most were in turmoil and were being singled out for special attention. Students unions were being banned and activists were being picked up and thrown in jail.

Continue reading My Days in Tihar Jail →

Debates, Government, Identities, Politics, Sex

Between Aid Conditionality and Identity Politics – The MSM-Transgender Divide and Normative Cartographies of Gender vs. Sexuality: Aniruddha Dutta

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This guest post by ANIRUDDHA DUTTA continues a theme raised on Kafila by Rahul Rao

Late last year, the UK and US governments made announcements supporting the global propagation of LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) rights as human rights, suggesting that the future disbursal of aid might be made conditional on how LGBT-friendly recipient countries are perceived to be. The potential imposition of ‘gay conditionality’ on aid has been rightly critiqued for imposing a US/European model of sexual progress on ‘developing’ countries, which may justify covert geopolitical agendas and fail to actually benefit marginalized groups. But whatever form such conditionalities may take in the future, a more implicit and routine form of aid conditionality has been already at work, relatively unnoticed, for several years now – the presumption of distinct and enumerable minorities corresponding to categories like homosexual or transgender as target groups for aid in socio-cultural contexts where gender/sexual variance may not be reducible to such clear-cut categories or identities. Increasingly, community-based organizations (CBOs) working to gain gender/sexual rights or freedoms need to define themselves in accordance with dominant frameworks of gender-sexual identity to get funding both from foreign donors and the Indian state, creating identity-based divisions among CBOs and presenting existential challenges to communities that do not exactly fit these categories.

Continue reading Between Aid Conditionality and Identity Politics – The MSM-Transgender Divide and Normative Cartographies of Gender vs. Sexuality: Aniruddha Dutta →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Politics, Theory

Life After Capitalism? A Document From Another Time

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The French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, who perhaps reflected most on the question of ‘ideology’, once wrote that “ideology moves, but with an immobile motion that keeps it where it is”. Althusser did not make any claim about the truth or falsity of ideology. At a certain level, ideology undoubtedly refers to something that is real or true. What interested Althusser instead, was the relationship of ‘ideology’ to what he called ‘science’ – namely, that critical activity, which continuously works to take knowledge forward. Science, according to him, always lived by focusing on that which it did not know; ideology on the other hand, was that which remained with the obviousness of the already-known. Every new question that a science poses is effectively subsumed by ideology to give us something that we already knew. That is why science, he believed, was always  pursued, beseiged and occupied by ideology and had to continuously struggle to free itself from its grasp in order to live.

The CPI(M)’s ‘Draft Resolution on Some Ideological Issues’ prepared by the party for discussion and adoption at the party’s 20th Congress that began in Kozhikode today, is truly an ideological document in Althusser’s sense. It claims to move with the times and update the party thought apparatus but in reality, moves in order to stay where it is. It works to relentlessly re-present all the difficult questions of our times as if they were already known to the founders of something called ‘Marxism-Leninism’.

Continue reading Life After Capitalism? A Document From Another Time →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Politics

CPI(M) shelves class struggle in action: Sankar Ray

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Guest post by SANKAR RAY

[As the CPIM)’s 20th Congress began in Kozhikhode today, we bring two pieces marking the occasion. AN]

Unbelievable though it may seem even to the staunchest critic of CPI(M), ‘class struggle’ is totally missing in the 20950-plus word Draft Political Resolution (DPR) of the CPI(M), circulated and debated inside the party for over two months, that will be finalized with amendments, deletions and additions, at the 20th party Congress at Kozhikode between 4 and 9 April. The finalized political resolution is to be party’s tactical line until the 21st Congress four years later. The omission of ‘class struggle’ in the DPR, a basic document for committed struggle is stupefying as communists the world over frequently quote Marx that the history of mankind is “the history of class struggles”.

It’s not new as class struggle was omitted in the Political Resolution adopted at the 19th Congress ( Coimbatore, 29 March- 3 April 2008). But unlike at Coimbatore, the latest draft document talks of ‘people’s democracy’, CPI(M)’s main ideology, enshrined in the Updated Party Programme ( adopted at a special party conference in October 2000 at Thiruvananthapuram). But the pledge for moving forward to “a new, alternative path – towards people’s democracy and socialism” is vague.

Continue reading CPI(M) shelves class struggle in action: Sankar Ray →

Countryside, Government, Law, Politics, Violence/Conflict

सत्ता और हिंसा : बद्री नारायण

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बद्री नारायण का यह लेख लखनऊ के एक हिंदी अख़बार को दिया गया था पर उन्होंने छापने से मना कर दिया.

शक्ति अपने संस्थागत रुप में सत्ता में तब्दील हो जाती है। सत्ता अपने मूल अर्थ में भय एवं हिंसा पर टिकी होती है। सत्ता का अभ्यांतरिकरण हो या सत्ता का प्रतिरोध, दोनों ही अर्थो में हिंसा उसके सह उत्पादक के रुप में दिखाई पड़ती है। जनतंत्र को एक ऐसी प्रक्रिया के रुप में परिकल्पित किया गया था जो सत्ता को उसके हिंसक पक्ष से मुक्त कराके सेवाभाव के एजेन्सी के रुप में सक्रिय रखे। यह माना जा रहा था कि जनतंत्र सत्ता को रेशनालाइज कर उसे सेवा-भावि प्रशासकीय स्वरुप में तब्दील कर देती है। यह काफी कुछ हुआ भी किन्तु अपने कार्य-प्रक्रिया में इस जनतांत्रिक समय में भी सत्ता हिंसा को उत्पादित करते रहने वाली शक्तिस्रोत के रुप में सामने आई है। सत्ता पहले अपने भीतर अपने ही कारणो से क्राइसिस को जन्म देती है, फिर उससे उबरने के लिए हिंसा रचती है। बंगाल, झारखण्ड, आन्ध्र के जंगलों में पहले तो बाजार शासित विकास के तहत आदिवासी जीवन के संसाधनों पर कब्जा कर उन्हे बहुराष्ट्रीय कम्पनियों को बेचना, फिर उसके विरोध में आदिवासी जनता का नक्सलवादी विचारों एवं नेतृत्व में हिंसक प्रतिरोध का बढ़ते जाना, पुनः उसे दबाने के लिए राज्य द्वारा की जाने वाली ज्यादा आक्रामक एवं खुंखार हिंसा को इसी रुप में देखा जा सकता है। Continue reading सत्ता और हिंसा : बद्री नारायण →

Centre watch, Debates, Frontiers, Government, Mirror Worlds, Violence/Conflict

Who are the real stakeholders of Indo-Pak peace?: Ayesha Siddiqa

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This guest post by AYESHA SIDDIQA is the text of a speech delivered by her at a recent civil society review of the India-Pakistan peace process, organised by the Centre for Policy Analysis in Delhi.

This time it seems better then last time! I suppose this is what we said the last time as well. India–Pakistan relations have a cycle of ups and down: a crest followed by a trough and then a crest again. Although there is increased frustration on both sides for not being able to solve the ‘relationship’ mystery, the leadership and people in general remain eager to have peace rather than war. However, we also remain elusive regarding our threshold of peace, or what would be the cut-off point in settling for peace with each other. This cyclic peace of war and peace has remained primarily due to the peace process being elitist and confined to the strategic/security community. Therefore, I would like to argue three points: Continue reading Who are the real stakeholders of Indo-Pak peace?: Ayesha Siddiqa →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Identities, Metropolis, Politics, Theory

The Many Uses of a U.P Election

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I live in Noida, which is the child of an extra-legal union between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Noida is not-quite Delhi, not-quite U.P, not quite itself on most days. Living in a cusp has several advantages, however, the main one being that one can look either way, up at Delhi and right down over U.P’s scruffy head. I found myself doing both in the recently-concluded U.P election. Curiously it seemed, for Delhi people, U.P’s 2012 elections were flush with new meaning. For decades the favourite whipping boy of Delhi, U.P had overnight become its favourite gap-toothed angel. For Pratap Bhanu Mehta of the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, the U.P election was a historic battle between empowerment and patronage, the future and the past, performance and rhetoric, sincerity and cynicism, and (this is my favourite) ‘rootedness over disembodied charm’. Mehta believes that while voters ‘carefully assessed’ candidates through the ‘prism of local circumstances’, they were no longer prisoners of their identity. Most confounding is Mehta’s view of democracy, “In a democracy, where you are going should be more important than where you are coming from”. These U.P elections “redeemed that promise” according to Mehta, since they were “without a trace of community polarisation: no one felt on the edge or under siege, all could exercise options without being unduly burdened by the past.”

Continue reading The Many Uses of a U.P Election →

Everyday Life, Government

The King and I: Dispatches from Morocco

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Rapper El Haked, or The Spiteful One, with translator Maria Karim in Casablanca

Last month, I spent a fortnight in Morocco speaking to people about the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The Moroccan establishment has spoken often of “The Moroccan Exception” – where the King acted quickly to usher in reforms and  defuse the protests.

Yet, many – such as the two young people in this photograph – feel that the reforms were largely superficial.

El Haked – or The Spiteful One – is young rapper from Casablanca’s working class neighbourhood of Oukacha. He was arrested yesterday for singing and uploading songs critical of the King and the establishment. My article on him, His songs on Youtube

Centre watch, Government, Law, Movements, Politics

Happy Kapil Sibal’s Day

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Aseem Trivedi is a cartoonist in Kanpur. Or was. He has, for some months, been a full-time activist against internet censorship in India. As 2011 was turning into 2012, the Maharashtra police got his domain registrar to suspend his domain, http://cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, which was in support of the Anna Hazare-led Lokpal movement. His website wasn’t blocked, but the domain name suspended – the equivalent of shutting down a printing press. This was done in no time, and he wasn’t given an opportunity to defend his content. This was done thanks to the IT Rules 2011, a simple FAQ about which can be found here. Today, 1 April, Trivedi celebrated “Kapil Sibal’s Day,” calling the Communications minister the fool that he is. In the image below, taken at Delhi’s Rajghat today, Trivedi is standing on the extreme right. For more on Trivedi’s campaign, see http://www.saveyourvoice.in.

Hindi Press Release:

पुलिस प्रशासन के अवरोध के बावजूद राजघाट पर मनाया गया सिब्बल्स डे, पहुचे ब्लोगर्स और सोशल एक्टिविस्ट
1 अप्रैल के दिन पर राजघाट पर सेव योर वाइस की टीम ने आईटी मिनिस्टर कपिल सिब्बल को प्री सेंसरशिप पर दिए गए उनके बयानों के लिए  मूर्ख दिवस की शुभकामनाएं दीं. राजघाट परिसर में बड़ी संख्या में पुलिस बल, आईबी, सीआईडी और सीबीआई के लोग मौजूद थे और सेव योर वाइस के सदस्यों को बापू की समाधि पर जाने से रोका गया. केवल कुछ गिने चुने लोग ही चुपचाप राजघाट पर पहुच पाए. पुलिस ने पूर्व अनुमति होने के बावजूद सिब्बल दिवस का आयोजन नहीं होने दिया. कारण पूछने पर उच्चस्तरीय आदेशों का हवाला दिया गया और कहा गया कि उन्हें पीएमओ . और आईटी मिनिस्ट्री से आदेश दिए गए हैं. काफी गहमागहमी के बाद टीम के सदस्य राजघाट के बाहर समता स्थल पर एकत्र हुए.  Continue reading Happy Kapil Sibal’s Day →
Genders, Identities, Images, Law, Sex

Nigah statement condemning the shutting down of Sunil Gupta’s exhibition ‘Sun City & Other Stories’

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This statement has been put out by NIGAH

On Friday, March 23 2012, Sunil Gupta’s photographic exhibition ‘Sun City & Other Stories’ opened at the Alliance Francaise in Delhi. That evening itself, plainclothes men of the Delhi Police from the Tughlaq Road Police Station arrived at the show and ordered the removal of numerous photographs. In the chaos that followed, the photographs were removed by the Alliance Francaise under the ‘supervision’ of the Delhi Police and the exhibition was closed for the evening. The next day, the Alliance Francaise informed Sunil -via a third party – that the entire show would be shut down.

Why did this happen? On that day itself the Delhi Police said that someone had called the emergency police hotline, and complained to the Delhi Police about this exhibition which, according to the complainant, was ‘against Hindu culture’. Another version of events, also produced by the Delhi Police, claims that they received a complaint at the Tughlaq Road Police Station from someone who had made a video of the exhibition, complaining about the nudity in the photographs. Continue reading Nigah statement condemning the shutting down of Sunil Gupta’s exhibition ‘Sun City & Other Stories’ →

Debates, Everyday Life, Government, Politics, Theory

Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’

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Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’

 Book Review 

Lineages of Political Society, by Partha Chatterjee, Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2011. Pages: 278, hardcover, Rs 750.

 

Lineages of Political Society

 Over a decade ago, political theorist Partha Chatterjee embarked on what was a novel journey in the history of political thought in India and perhaps, in the postcolonial, non-Western world. Bringing together the results of decades of his own intellectual engagement with Indian politics and the question of subalternity in particular, Chatterjee began articulating a concept that has now acquired wide currency: his concept of ‘political society’. ‘Political society’, in Chatterjee’s hands, was a way of recuperating a sphere of politics that had been a permanent source of anxiety for theorists of Indian (and postcolonial) modernity and democracy – the vast domain that existed outside the designated spheres of modern politics, where the untutored masses made claims on the state and formed their own associations and organizations, unmindful of the formal grammar of rights and citizenship. A crucial part of what defines activities in this domain is ‘illegality’, or, at any rate, non-legality, where the state itself places the law in suspension in order to recognize the claims of the governed. Thus for instance, squatting by the poor on government land that is strictly speaking, encroachment in legal terms and can never acquire the status of a ‘right’, is nevertheless allowed by governments to continue through the recognition of some kind of moral claim of the poor on governments and society at large.

Continue reading Politics, ‘Political Society’ and ‘the Everyday’ →

Centre watch, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Law, Violence/Conflict

Will Sri Lanka now get on with the job?: Kusal Perera

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Guest post by KUSAL PERERA

Its now post-Geneva in Sri Lanka. Prime Minister of neighbouring Bharat Ganarajya, the Republic of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh thus wrote to His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka on 24 March, to say, “Your Excellency would be aware that we spared no effort and were successful in introducing an element of balance in the language of the resolution”  and the Indian delegation to the UNHRC had been advised to keep close contact with its Sri Lanka counterparts “in an attempt to find a positive way forward”. The implied message is that New Delhi played its role to hook Sri Lanka to a US sponsored resolution in Geneva, over post war reconciliation and rehabilitation and on accountability during war.

The resolution in short, requires the SL government to, Continue reading Will Sri Lanka now get on with the job?: Kusal Perera →

Countryside, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Government, Mirror Worlds

Oru Kili Iru Kili – A Party in Dubai: Alia Allana

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Guest post by ALIA ALLANA

For the Pilipino there was no escaping the Indian song and dance.

A tube-light flickered as loud music blared from a room at the far end of the corridor. The flickering light and the ensuing cacophony gave the corridor in Sonapur Labour Camp a surreal discotheque feel: one that the Pilipino was no longer game to. Nearer the door, voices of men dipped low and then travelled high past the room in which the tired labourer from Cebu lived.

“Oru Kili Iru Kili,” they bellowed in Malayalam and the tune filtered through the flimsy plywood door. The tired looking Pilipino pulled a face as he described the scene he had once encountered when the door was left ajar. The “party” room was clouded over with smoke and six Indian labourers from Kerala lounged cross-legged in a circle, smoking cigarettes and drinking from steel cups, writhing their bodies and shaking their hands up in the air. A bottle with no label was passed around and the brouhaha escalated to a feverish pitch. Once again the merry men burst out, “Oru Killi Iru Killi”. Continue reading Oru Kili Iru Kili – A Party in Dubai: Alia Allana →

Violence/Conflict

Kudankulam Update

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This document has come to us via NITYANAND JAYARAMAN

The following is a rough and quick translation of the Demands placed by a delegation on behalf of the Struggle Committee of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy.

TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT FROM TAMIL, CONTAINING DEMANDS

“DEMANDS OF THE PROTESTING PEOPLE” Continue reading Kudankulam Update →

Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Letter to the Press Council Chair Person Justice Markandey Katju about SUN News reportage of the arrest of the supporters of the Kudankulam Struggle

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Guest Post by V.GEETHA

My name is V. Geetha, and I live in Chennai. I am a writer, with an interest in civil rights issues. I write this note to register my shock and bewilderment at some recent developments in my state. Given your concerns about the relationship between freedom and responsibility as far as the media is concerned, I felt it important to convey some of my – and other peoples’ – misgivings over media reporting of sensitive political events.

Throughout today, March 25, SUN News, part of the SUN TV network, while reporting on three men arrested over the last few days, for supporting the anti-nuclear plant struggle at Kudankulam has alleged they are all ‘Maoists. The channel has further gone on to note that it has got wind of a ‘ naxalite plot’ that is all set to take over the anti-nuclear plant protests at Idinthakarai. Continue reading Letter to the Press Council Chair Person Justice Markandey Katju about SUN News reportage of the arrest of the supporters of the Kudankulam Struggle →

Bad ideas, Countryside, Debates, Law

Kerala and Kudankulam: The Media Sleeps

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It is amazing how the very same Malayalees and their media, which made Mount Everest out of that molehill of Mullaperiyar, remain sweetly calm in comparison at the events unfolding in Kudankulam. In fact the amnesia is so complete that it is as if few remember (except the anti-nuclear activists in Kerala who have been consistently supporting the struggles of the local people) that it was common knowledge in the late 1980s that the plant would affect both Tamil Nadu and Kerala.There was far greater awareness of the special problems of locating the plant in Kudankulam for Kerala, where natural radiation levels are already very high. The violence too had an early start, with the police firing on a people’s rally against the plant in 1989, which killed one person.

Continue reading Kerala and Kudankulam: The Media Sleeps →

Capitalism, Everyday Life, Movements, Politics

Occupy Monsanto!

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Some good news for a change…

Peru Passes Monumental Ten Year Ban on Genetically Engineered Foods

In a massive blow to multinational agribiz corporations such as Monsanto, Bayer, and Dow, Peru has officially passed a law banning genetically modified ingredients anywhere within the country for a full decade before coming up for another review. Peru’s Plenary Session of the Congress made the decision 3 years after the decree was written despite previous governmental pushes for GM legalization due largely to the pressure from farmers that together form the Parque de la Papa in Cusco, a farming community of 6,000 people that represent six communities. They worry the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will compromise the native species of Peru, such as the giant white corn, purple corn and, of course, the famous species of Peruvian potatoes. Anibal Huerta, President of Peru’s Agrarian Commission, said the ban was needed to prevent the ”danger that can arise from the use of biotechnology.”

Read the rest of this story here.

Violence/Conflict

Kudankulam Updates

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Below is the latest update from Kudankulam.

Click here for the Letter from the National Fishworkers Forum to the Prime Minister.

Further below is a press statement released on 23/03/2012 about the arbitrary arrests, illegal detention and custodial torture of three activists whose politicl affiliations are being wrongly read on to the Kudankulam struggle in order to take focus way from the issues in question and malign the people’s struggle that continues.

KOODANKULAM – PMANE UPDATE – 25.03.2012

Dear Friends:

Greetings! Pushparayan, the other 13 friends and I have become weaker and tired; but we are still able to sit up and talk to people. Today is the seventh day of the indefinite hunger strike. Nobody from the State Government or the Central Government has bothered to come and see us or talk to us. A medical team came to check our health day before yesterday (March 23) but no public health officials came and offered any help even though some 10,000 people have been congregating here at Idinthakarai every day since March 19th. Our friends from Idinthakarai have been cooking some simple meals for all these people and most of the people are sleeping here as there is the prohibitory order of 144 still in effect. They are scared of going out of this foot-ball stadium sized space in front of the St. Lourdes church. The police are waiting for me and Pushparayan to collapse so that we would go to an hospital for treatment and they could arrest us there. How cruel and anti-people our governments could become!

Continue reading Kudankulam Updates →

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE