Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Building, dead bodies and the emergency decree in Thailand

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This is a guest post with photographs by ANON.

Sunday 1 August 2010

Activists and people in the red shirt movement organized the event Building, dead bodies and the emergency decree at the memorial “14 October 1973”, a memorial built to remember those who died fighting against the dictator on that date.  This event was organized to raise funds to help the victims and their families, affected by the Thai government crack down during the pro-democracy Red Shirt Political protests in April 2010 and May 2010. Continue reading Building, dead bodies and the emergency decree in Thailand →

Government, Left watch, Politics

Naba Dutta of Nagarik Mancha Arrested Under False Charges

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[Well known labour and human rights activist and one of the important functionaries of Nagarik Mancha, Naba Dutta was arrested by the West Bengal police in extremely strange circumstances, after he along with his colleagues was returning from a sit-in programme at the Block Development Officer’s office. The following is a press release issued by Kirity Roy of the Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) and Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity (PACTI).]

Mr. Naba Dutta along with his 3 companions, Ms. Progna Paromita Dutta Roy Chowdhury, Mr. Gautam Ghosh and   Mr. Dipankar Mazumdar – all attached with Nagarik Mancha, a civil society organization mainly focused on environmental and labor issues –  proceeded for a preannounced programme of sit- in in front of the Block Development Officer’s office at Narayangarh block of West Midnapur. The programme was organized by Lodha Shabar Vumij Kalyan Smiti. Mr. Naba Datta and his companions started from Kolkata by a vehicle (Toyota – Qualis 2.4 D Model) with registration number WB-02M-8565. After reaching the place they peacefully completed the meeting and started for Kolkata by the said vehicle. The driver of the car Mr. Ashok Midhya and Mr. Joydeb Singh of Lodha Shabar Vumij Kalayan Samiti was also in the car with the abovementioned activists of Nagarik Mancha. While Mr. Naba Datta and his associates with the driver (names mentioned above) were on their way to Kolkata, one police vehicle intercepted them and asked to follow their vehicle without showing any reasons. When asked about the reason for such illegal act the police personnel who made the said persons captive replied as, ‘we are taking you at Narayangarh Police Station’. Mr. Naba Dutta’s car followed the police vehicle without making any further argument. All the police personnel who had taken the persons in hostage were not in police uniform but were using a police car while being in plain clothes. When the cars crossed the Narayangarh Police Station, Mr. Naba Dutta and his companions sensed some foul play and asked the police personnel about their actual motive and where they wanted to take them but the police personnel declined to give any answer and told the driver of Naba Datta’s car to follow their vehicle.

Continue reading Naba Dutta of Nagarik Mancha Arrested Under False Charges →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Countryside, Ecology/Environment, Movements

POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti to Jairam Ramesh

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This is a press release issued last week by PPSS, pointing out the illegalities   being committed by the Orissa government and the Central Ministry of Environment and Forests in connection with the POSCO project.

POSCO PRATIRODH SANGRAM SAMITI

Dhinkia, Nuagaon, Gadkujang; Jagatsinghpur District, Orissa

11.08.2010

To:

Shri Jairam Ramesh

Minister of Environment and Forests

Paryavaran Bhavan

New Delhi

Sub: Regarding POSCO project – need for withdrawal of illegal final clearance; new Meena Gupta Committee clearly aimed at delaying matters Continue reading POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti to Jairam Ramesh →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Genders, Politics

University Community for Democracy on relay hunger-strike against CWG evictions

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We have had an earlier post on the University Community for Democracy which was formed in the wake of the arbitrary and authoritarian eviction of students from the hostels of Delhi University for the Commonwealth Games, but which raises wider questions about the “reckless logic by which the city is being re-made”.

This is their latest press release, followed by their letter to the National Commission for Women.

University Community for Democracy

PRESS RELEASE 10/08/10

The University Community for Democracy is initiating a RELAY HUNGER STRIKE FROM  9 AM TO 9 PM, 12TH AUGUST THURSDAY ONWARDS at the Arts Faculty Main gate, North Campus. Each day there will be five people (teachers, students and researchers) who will be on a hunger strike, as well as many others who will sit in solidarity.

The University Community for Democracy has been challenging a number of decisions taken by both Delhi University and the government with regard to the commonwealth games for over a month now. The Forum is deeply concerned by the gross violations of rights that the city has witnessed in the name of the Games and condemns the irresponsible manner in which Delhi is being prepared for this mega- event.

Continue reading University Community for Democracy on relay hunger-strike against CWG evictions →

Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Images, Metropolis

Creative Destructions

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Part of a Series. See here.

In January of this year, I had taken a friend to Mumbai. One of the places we went to was Lower Parel – I wanted to show him what I could of the Mills. You could still see the Mills then, if not in the same form. The same compounds now housed small galleries and boutiques. There were advertisements for a ‘mills culture tour’, sold as something in between a bar hop and an art gallery cruise. I knew big clubs had opened here, as had malls. Phoenix Mills was Mumbai’s version of Delhi’s DLF Emporio – all the major global brands were there. Even here, however, I remember laughing and pointing out to him that some of Bombay’s stubborn egalitarianism remained. Armani was next to Addidas. Rohit Bal next to a paper store. Unlike in Delhi where no non-hyper-elite brand could get near DLF Emporio, in Bombay, even Armani couldn’t buy space away from Adiddas.

Continue reading Creative Destructions →

Countryside, Violence/Conflict

What if man dies in the forest, and no one is around to see it?

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Last week, the  Chhattisgarh police were caught in an extraordinary encounter in the forests of Dantewada. The encounter was interesting not just in the event itself, but also in the Police’s attempts to shape media perception during and long after the encounter.

On Kafila, we devote a considerable amount of our time trying to decode how the press covers particular events. Perhaps this post shall go some way in explaining why our morning papers look the way they do.

If the police are to believed, on August 4 this year, the Koya commandos were caught in a Maoist ambush, yet through brilliant rear-guard action emerged completely unscathed, along with the body of a “Maoist fighter”, a 12 bore shotgun and two IEDs to boot.

The “ambush” caught a lot of us in the press unawares: something had happened in the forest – but what? A series of strategic leaks had primed the media to expect “major losses” among the security forces – so when the police emerged from the jungle unscathed, everyone was expected to heave a collective sigh of relief.

However, for once, the Chhattisgarh based press was skeptical.

Continue reading What if man dies in the forest, and no one is around to see it? →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Genders, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Have I Joined the Popular Front?

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In the past few weeks, I have been asked over and over again, not always in jest, if I had joined the Popular Front. I am not surprised. The police investigation around the violence against the college teacher at Muvattupuzha has broken all previous records in not only the violation of human and civil rights, but also in the silence of Kerala’s enlightened intellectuals. If I recall right, only Nandigram evoked such a dense and deliberate silence from them. No wonder, anyone who speaks up against the manner in which the police is being armed and authorized against ‘bad muslims’ is immediately dubbed a supporter of the Popular Front. But I am intrigued by this simple question, by which the entire history of that person’s engagement with discussions around religion and the state is erased. Continue reading Have I Joined the Popular Front? →

Bad ideas

Kashmir Comes to Jantar Mantar

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A view of the crowd at Jantar Mantar - image taken on a cell phone camera

Last evening I went to Jantar Mantar after many years. It is a road I pass often, looking at the sad and melancholic little protests that line the kerb, whispering to an indifferent Capital the million mutinies of our banana plantation republic.

Last evening was different. There were perhaps four to five hundred people, many, but not all Kashmiri, men and women, who had gathered to protest against the wanton destruction of life in the Kashmir valley by the security apparatus of the Indian state in the last few weeks and months. 45 civilian deaths in 8 weeks signals a state losing its head. Especially when the deaths occur when the police and paramilitaries fire live bullets on unarmed or stone pelting mobs. When stones, or unarmed bodies are met with ammunition, you know that the state has no respect whatsoever for bare life. That this should happen in a state that calls itself a democracy should make all of us who are its citizens reflect on how hollow ‘democracy’ feels to the mother or friend of a young boy or girl who is felled by a ‘democratic’ bullet.

Continue reading Kashmir Comes to Jantar Mantar →

Everyday Life

Disability and the City Part III

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Bed pan stories

“Yet in the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection.”- Carol Gilligan.

This piece will stray away from, but not abandon, the discussion about navigating public space with reduced mobility. This time let’s take a little peek into private spaces (ok, let me admit it now:  this sounds more fun than it is!J)

After the initial shock and pain of this injury has worn off,  the first thing that hit me is how dependant I am on others for the most basic things. The excretory system takes on a whole new dimension. Mundane things like shitting and pissing become a chore.  When loved ones stick a bed pan under you and clean you up after, one is forced to break personal boundaries with those people or realize that the boundaries don’t actually exist.

While admitted at the general ward at the AIIMS Trauma Centre, the class pyramid could be seen and felt. I was at the very top. But class wasn’t the only difference between me and the other patients. With one exception, almost everybody else I could see around me were men. All of these men were being taken care of by women, presumably their mothers or wives. While in the hospital, I had four friends, (two men, two women) taking turns as my primary caregivers. Every time the curtain was pulled shut so I could pee, any one of them could have come out to empty the bed pan. The four friends told me that the fellow patients and their attendants would joke with them when they were leaving saying ‘duty over??!!’. No one could figure us out: not the hospital employees, not the patients, and definitely not the other caregivers. Not only was there the eternal mystery of what relationships exist between these people and me, but also a mild scandal when men walk out with my bed pan.

Continue reading Disability and the City Part III →

Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Politics, Violence/Conflict

Pushing the Kashmiri to the wall, again

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[An edited, shorter version of this article by me appeared last week in The Friday Times, Lahore.]

In the first week of June, I sat at a shopfront with a group of shopkeepers of Kalarus, a small town in Kupwara district in north Kashmir. In 1999, they collected money and bought land for a martyrs’ graveyard, one of many such in Kashmir. Whenever the Indian army killed militants trying to infiltrate from Pakistan to the Indian side of the Line of Control, they would hand over the bodies to the Kupwara police, who would give it to these people to bury after the autopsy.

“Look up at the mountain peak,” said one of them, “It is snow clad all twelve months. It is the LoC, 70 kms from here. Do you think anyone would cross that wearing the traditional Kashmiri Khan dress?” And yet, most of the hundred odd bodies in the graveyard had come wearing clothes unfit for snow. And, most of them had so many bullet marks on the face that they were unidentifiable. Continue reading Pushing the Kashmiri to the wall, again →

Capitalism, Government, Violence/Conflict

Interim Report of the Independent Fact-finding Team on the Sompeta Firings on 14 July 2010

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Interim Report of the Independent Fact-finding Team on the Sompeta Firings on 14 July 2010

The fact-find team (FFT), under the leadership of Justice P.K. Misra, former judge of the Orissa High Court, was an initiative of certain public-spirited individuals and organizations who were deeply concerned at the firing on the people protesting against the proposed thermal power plant by the Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) near Sompeta in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. The firing occurred on 14 July 2010 in which two persons died and five were injured by bullets (including a cameraman of TV-9 Telugu channel). In the events prior to the firing, about 300 people belonging to the neighbouring villages opposing the power plant and about 50-60 police personnel were injured.

During 24-25 July, the FFT visited Palasapuram, Lakkavaram, Isakalapalem and Ramaiahpatnam villages in Sompeta Mandal and talked to the local people who are resisting the proposed power plant to protect their life and livelihood. The Team met the District Collector, Mr. Srikanth (on the evening of 24 July), held discussions with the representatives and members of Sri Sri Sri Kanakadurga Taapi Mestri Sangam and Kalinga Vysya Sangam in Sompeta town, and visited the Government Community Hospital in Baruva Panchayat to meet some of the injured persons undergoing treatment. (Our effort to meet an injured police officer undergoing treatment in the Seven Hills Hospital in Vizag did not prove successful as he was discharged by the time we went there on the evening of 25 July).

Continue reading Interim Report of the Independent Fact-finding Team on the Sompeta Firings on 14 July 2010 →

Everyday Life

Disability and the City Part II

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Hobbling on the beach

I was born next to Elliot’s beach in Besant nagar in Chennai where I spent a large amount of my childhood and adolescence A small caveat about this area: Besant Nagar is considered one of the posh areas in Chennai. However, like many such places the combination of communities the class composition of this area is far more complex; large bungalows of film stars and the like co-exist with the Uroor slum. By co-exist of course, I don’t mean for a moment that they peacefully co-exist. They are next to one another (sort of) and there are many who are out there to change that. The slum has been destroyed by humans (more often) and natural disasters many a times. The latest being a bid by the government to build an elevated highway next to the ocean displacing the entire slum (again!). But that’s another story. (http://letsrob.org/home/)

The beach itself is an interesting space in my city, it is one of the few remaining public spaces that people can come and relax in without paying. But there are unsaid divisions within the beach. Having known this particular beach almost my whole life, I know that there are different unspoken, unmarked sections for the rich, the poor, the lovers, the lusters, the friends, the random teenagers who would have just met two minutes ago and aunty-uncle couples who have been married for time immemorial.  Of course, the way these boundaries are drawn and where you find yourself changes according to a variety of factors.

After a fascinating flight journey (which will be another piece in the series), my first outing in Chennai few days after I reached home was to my beloved beach. Continue reading Disability and the City Part II →

Debates, Identities, Movements, Politics, Violence/Conflict

What Went Wrong in Kashmir? Rekha Chowdhary

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Guest post by REKHA CHOWDHARY

This article was also published in Kashmir Times
What went wrong in Kashmir? This is one pertinent question that needs to be addressed seriously before any corrective measures can be applied. Situation would certainly normalise after some time, but apparently ‘normal’ situation in case of Kashmir does not indicate anything. The vibrancy of ordinary life and the day-to-day routine followed for days and even months, takes only moments to break. Underneath the normalcy, the turbulence is ever present and can surface at any point of time. Every turbulent period however provides clues to the real problem, and one should hold on to these clues, if one really wants to do something about it.

So what do we see in the present turbulence? Firstly, though the crisis revolves around the stone-pelting youth, one can clearly say that the real problem is not that of the stone-pelters. Neither the theory of LeT being responsible for it, nor the issue of money being paid to stone pelters, nor the vested interests making the most of the situation explains the crisis.

Continue reading What Went Wrong in Kashmir? Rekha Chowdhary →
Everyday Life

Disability and the city Part I

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I broke my leg three weeks ago. I cannot walk till end September. But I hope to get around the city a little bit during that time and I hope to record that experience. This I hope will be a multi-part series and here is the context:

I will be getting around either in a wheel chair or with my walker where I will be hobbling on one leg. Otherwise, my appearance right now is a bit ragged as my hair isn’t getting combed every day, primarily because I am lazy but I look like I am from a relatively well off family. And I look fair enough to be a Brahmin (a dark one) but can’t tell for sure immediately. Oh, and I am a woman. Visibly so.

Continue reading Disability and the city Part I →

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Pracharak as Terrorist – On the Bhasmasur of Hindutva Terror

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I.

Hindu mythology with its plethora of gods and goddesses (which according to a conservative estimate numbers around 330 millions or 33 crores) has n number of stories supposedly to show the human face of the almighty. One such story talks of the creation of a demon called Bhasmasur by one of the gods himself. The said demon had the unique power of turning everything into ash if he could touch anybody’s head. The story goes that after ‘conquering’ the world the demon tries to attack his ‘creator god’ namely Shiva himself and then Lord Vishnu intervenes and manages to eliminate the demon itself.

Whatever might have been the significance of the story then, it bears striking resemblance to the plight of the RSS – the biggest fountainhead of Hindutva politics in the country – today. And this relates to the arrest of many of its senior wholetimers (called Pracharaks in its lexicon) for their role as masterminds, instigators or patrons of terrorist acts in the country and the ongoing questioning of many other senior leaders for their role in aiding and abetting such acts. Interestingly the parent organisation has till date not formally denied their role in all these acts and nor called it witchhunting as it did when investigations into the Malegaon bomb blast II (Sept 2008) were on and the likes of Sadhvi Pragya, Lt Col Purohit and others from the larger Hindutva family found themselves behind bars. In fact, this time it appears more cautious and according to a report it has even sent few of its leaders who supposedly played some role in these acts on a compulsory leave and has plans to send few more. (Bhaskar, 7 th July 2010).

Continue reading Pracharak as Terrorist – On the Bhasmasur of Hindutva Terror →

Bad ideas, Frontiers, Government, Violence/Conflict

Dear Chattisgarh Police, Are You Mad?

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Javed Iqbal of The New Indian Express on being targeted by the Chattisgarh Police as being on the side of the Maoists:

A High Court lawyer from Mumbai was in Dantewada a few days ago and had gone to the police station to speak to the police and understand the ground realities of Dantewada. SSP Kalluri accused him of being a Naxalite informer, and had him locked up in the police station. He was eventually let off the same evening, visibly shaken, after some frantic phone calls.

The very fact that the Chhattisgarh police would rather target civil society activists, opposition party workers and journalists than investigate the Maoists, is explicit proof of their incompetence. A kind of fascinating wife-beating syndrome, where they can’t get the Maoists, so the insecure, frustrated police will go after soft targets like journalists, activists and opposition party members.

They arrested CPI party workers for the attack on Audesh Singh Gautams home, and adivasi CPI leader Manish Kunjam confirmed the same. He, himself, has no police security. It was withdrawn by the police months ago even though there have been numerous threats to his life. He has been openly critical of the Salwa Judum that roams around Bastar, armed to its teeth, and has spoken up against corporate land grab, supporting and helping to organize the anti-displacement movements across Bastar.

Now, according to the police press release that implicated Lingaram Kodopi, Nandini Sundar, Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy, I’ve been mentioned as someone who had gone with the Maoists, ‘videographing’ their failed assassination attempt on Audesh Singh Gautam.

Forget that they police don’t know the difference between a ‘photographer’ and a ‘videographer’. Forget that the police don’t know that at 1:00am there’s no light, and videography and photography is useless. And I believe the Maoists have infra-red cameras? Why? Because they’re ‘infra-red’? [Read the full post]

Debates, Identities, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Violence/Conflict

The Great Incendiary Hunt Takes Off in Kerala

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I have been watching the whole drama that has been unfolding after the unspeakable and utterly condemnable act of violence at Muvattupuzha in central Kerala early this month, which has been widely interpreted as the first instance of ‘Talibanist’ violence here, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A whole manhunt has followed it and this continues to be front-page news in many Malayalam newspapers, especially the Mathrubhumi. Continue reading The Great Incendiary Hunt Takes Off in Kerala →

Centre watch, Countryside, Scams, Violence/Conflict

Remember, what the dormouse said …

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Given the need to show ‘results’ in Chhattisgarh, the police are pulling some unlikely rabbits out of still stranger hats. The latest is Lingaram Kodopi, tipped by the police to be “Azad’s successor”, but as Jefferson Airplane reminds , If you go chasing rabbits…

The following piece appeared in The Hindu under the joint by-line of Aman Sethi and Smita Gupta.

In a press conference on Sunday, S.R.P Kalluri, Senior Superintendent of Police of Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, identified the prime suspect behind the July 6 attack on the house of Congress worker and civil contractor Avdesh Singh Gautam. According to a press release circulated by the Chhattisgarh police, “this attack was masterminded by Lingaram Kodopi, a resident of Sameli village.”
“In the last few months, Kodopi had received training in terrorist techniques in Delhi and Gujarat,” the release stated, claiming that Lingaram was “in touch” with writer Arundhati Roy, activist Medha Patkar and Nandini Sundar, a sociology professor at the Delhi School of Economics. The police also said that Kodopi was tipped to succeed Communist Party of India (Maoist) central spokesperson Azad, after the latter was killed by the Andhra Pradesh Police on July 2 this year.
Continue reading Remember, what the dormouse said … →
Bad ideas, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Violence/Conflict

In Kashmir, everyone’s losing the plot: Peerzada Aashiq

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Guest post by PEERZADA AASHIQ

Everyone is losing its plot in Kashmir — be it separatists, mainstream political parties, New Delhi or Pakistan. The biggest losers in the unarmed but stone-laden street uprising are Pakistan and separatists.

The failure of Pakistan in shifting paradigm of new realities in Kashmir can be gauged from its dwindling influence over separatists’ spectrum. It failed to unite fractured separatists to its 1992-like unified forum politics despite placing in half-a-dozen interlocutors between warring factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Its influence over separatists’ spectrum has been wavering and waning. It was after former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf pick-and-choose policy that saw separatists cocooning and ensconcing their politics as per the public mood in Kashmir. If Musharraf’s four-point formula convinced moderate Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, many hard-liners like Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and United Jehad Council chief Sayed Salahuddin rejected it. Continue reading In Kashmir, everyone’s losing the plot: Peerzada Aashiq →

Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Curbs continue on Kashmir media; is it martial law in Srinagar?

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Media persons stage protest at Press Enclave in Srinagar against Government’s decision to gag media. Habib Naqash/GK

Update 2 on 11 July: As was being feared, the state has begun to crackdown on Facebook users for ‘anti-India activiies’. I can already spot one Facebook account missing. Very soon they will ban eating, drinking, breathing and shitting and offer curfew passes to some for these activities.

Update: Appeals to the Indian government by the Committee to Protect Journalists and IFJ.

In a clear signal that it continues to dictate what we get to know about the ground situation in Kashmir, curbs on the local media in the Valley continue despite government claims that they have been lifted. At the same time, Delhi journalists are able to freely move around and report in Srinagar. This is yet another blatant example of how the Indian state considers Kashmir its private property and the rights of its residents are secondary. As the Delhi media continues to do the bidding of the Home Ministry, the best sources of news on what’s happening on the ground remain Twitter and Facebook. Those updating their profiles and pages with information are doing so with the apprehension of censorship, state reprisal, blocking of these sites and suspension of internet services altogether in Kashmir. Continue reading Curbs continue on Kashmir media; is it martial law in Srinagar? →

Empire/ Imperialism, Excavation, Media politics, Violence/Conflict

Kashmir, Lies and Audio Tape

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The disinformation war is underway. Kashmir’s local media has been BANNED (not censored but BANNED!) in the world’s largest democracy, and the Delhi media is being used to spread LIES.

DISSENT, DEBATE, CREATE