Bezwada Wilson, Magsaysay awardee, had said, "who wants award from this govt?", when chased for Padma

By Our Representative
Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), who has won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2016 for “asserting the inalienable right to a life of human dignity” was being “chased” by the Narendra Modi government for the Padma award, one of India's highest awards.
However, Wilson showed “no interest” in the matter.
A well-known scribe, Vidya Subramaniam, says in a Facebook post, “Top official at the social Justice ministry told me they had been chasing him for a Padma award a few months back, and he showed no interest. When they persisted, he told them he is hard pressed for time and couldn't be bothered filling up forms.”
When th scribe crossed checked with Wilson, he told her: "That's true, but who wants an award from this government?"
Others who have been chosen for the Magsaysay award, also called Asian Nobel prize, are South Indian classical musician TM Krishna, Philippine ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Indonesian charity organisation Dompet Dhuafa, Laos’ free ambulance service Vientiane Rescue and Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers.
In its citation for award, Magsaysay recalls Wilson and SKA's fight against manual scavenging, calling it a “blight on humanity in India”, insisting, thanks to lobbying by him and SKA, in 2013 a new law that includes rehabilitation support for scavengers was passed in Parliament..
Pointing out that “SKA has grown into a network of 7,000 members in 500 districts across the country. Of the estimated 600,000 scavengers in India, SKA has liberated around 300,000”, the citation says, it has been vigorously involved in raising awareness about scavenging, the caste system, and the 1993 Prohibition Act, training local leaders and volunteers for the movement.
Giving examples of SKA's campaign, the citation says, “In 2004-2005, it undertook a mass latrine demolition drive across Andhra Pradesh; exposed the occupational violence faced by female scavengers; and met with officials to demand the demolition of dry latrines and the provision of alternative occupations for scavengers.”
Then, it says, “In 2010, SKA led an India-wide march for the total eradication of scavenging, and again in 2015 undertook a 125-day bus journey across 30 states to mobilize the public against manual scavenging.”
Wilson launched these campaigns in a country riddled with “structural inequality”, in which the Dalits' most exploited section, manual scavengers, work for “removing by hand human excrement from dry latrines and carrying on the head the baskets of excrement to designated disposal sites.”
“A hereditary occupation, manual scavenging involves 180,000 dalit households cleaning the 790,000 public and private dry latrines across India; 98 percent of scavengers are meagerly paid women and girls”, it citation says.
Wilson was born in the Kolar Gold Fields township in Karnataka state where his family had been engaged in manual scavenging for generations. However, Wilson was spared the labour to be the first in his family to pursue a higher education.
Treated as an outcast in school and acutely aware of his family’s lot, Bezwada was filled with great anger; but he would later channel this anger to a crusade to eradicate manual scavenging. Beginning by “changing the mindsets of his family and relatives” – that being a Dalit is not their fate but a status imposed by how society has been organized – in 1986 made his first public intervention by sending a complaint about dry latrines to the authorities of their town.
When he was ignored, he sent the complaint to the Prime Minister, threatening legal action. As a result, the town’s dry latrines were converted into water-seal latrines and the scavengers transferred to non-scavenging jobs. This emboldened him move to other states, and working with Dalit activists, launch SKA in 1993.
Its first major policy intervention was, when it initiated a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court, naming all states, union territories, and the government departments of railways, defence, judiciary and education as violators of the 1993 Prohibition Act banning dry latrines and the employment of manual scavengers.

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World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

India, Pakistan told to eliminate nuclear weapons: N-war "would kill" 2 billion

Counterview Desk
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.

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