By Our Representative
Reporting 29th case of National Register of Citizens (NRC)-driven suicide in Assam, one of India’s human rights campaign sites has said that, on October 20, tragedy struck Kharupetia town in Darrang district of Assam, when a retired school teacher and advocate Nirod Baran Das “took his life by hanging himself to a fan in his home.” The report adds, “The NRC process has so far claimed over two dozen such lives in the past four months alone.”
Forced to sign blank paper, cops detain, "falsely implicate" video volunteer, others: Bhopal health workers' rally
Counterview Desk
Seeking urgent help from concerned citizens, Video Volunteers (VV), a well-known human rights NGO that promotes community media to enable citizen participation in marginalized and poor communities team, has said that one its workers and her friends, who had gone to a community health workers protest rally in Bhopal, were maltreated and falsely implicated by the police.
Pointing out that the "troubling case" is still unfolding, VV's programme manager, networking and advocacy, Amrita Sunita Anand has sought "legal advice and support" by contacting on info@videovolunteers.org.
Text of VV's appeal:
On October 2, 2018, more than 2500 ASHA and USHA (community health) workers from 17 districts reached the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister's doorstep in Bhopal to bring to his notice their long standing demand of their rights. The police detained hundreds of ASHA & USHA workers, drove them around Bhopal in police vans, and most were later dropped off at the railway station. However, not all have safely reached home. We have been in constant touch with Laxmi Kaurav, an ASHA Sahyogini, and a VV Community Correspondent.
Laxmi was dropped off at Hamidiya Hospital, Bhopal, by the police, to meet with Mamta Rajawat -- an ASHA worker injured during the protest. Mamta had climbed up a tower, for reasons yet not known, and in the chaotic rescue effort by, what seems like a plain-clothed policeman and uniformed women police personnel Mamta fell off the tower. See the video here:
Laxmi who came to check on her injured colleague (at Hamidiya Hospital) was unofficially detained in the hospital premise and was not allowed to leave for the next four days. She had to spent her nights sleeping in a chair in the hospital waiting room under strict vigilance of male police personnel stationed there in uniform and in plain clothes. There were also two women officers present. They identified themselves as representatives of the CID.
Braving these odds, she sent us audio and video recordings of how she was being treated. Click for videos HERE and HERE. The police did not give her any clear reason as to why she wasn't allowed to leave the premises. "I want the world to know how they treat hard-working and poor health workers who demand for their rights", says Laxmi.
Laxmi
At the police station they were all asked to sign on a blank paper by the police and threatened with violence if they didn't comply. After hours of arguing and standing up against this illegality Laxmi and her friends signed something that appears to be a bail-bond. No one is clear about the content of this paper because the women were not given a copy of it nor were they allowed to read it!
Laxmi later learnt that a case has been filed against her and five others.
Though the local media covered these incidents (click HERE and HERE), the coverage by national media is negligible. We are therefore writing this to inform you of this troubling case that is still unfolding and to appeal for your solidarity and help. Very urgently, we need legal advice and support. Do write to info@videovolunteers.org if you can help.
By Our Representative In a sharply-worded editorial, a top Chinese media outfit, described by BBC as state-run, has said, commenting on India's foreign relations with its neighbours, that "speculation and suspicion" is "certainly not diplomacy". Published in "China Daily", the largest circulating English Monday-to-Saturday newspaper with branches across the world, the editorial notes (September 20) that "several recent events" in Nepal and Bhutan, are "gnawing worrywarts in New Delhi". The editorial -- which comes close on the heels of a sharp critique of India's foreign policy in a state-supported Russian media outfit, Sputnik International, calling India's anti-Pak diplomacy as having "gone awry" following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "half-baked" push for anti-terror drill down "others' throat" -- says, the " worrywarts" include "Nepalese troops taking part in a joint…
Counterview Desk
Well-known farmer rights leader Sagar Rabari, in an open letter to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, has demanded a transparent account of Narmada water, saying, while he has received a "routine reply" from him to his earlier, the data emerging from his RTI application show huge quantity of water being directed to Ahmedabad, the 10 km stretch of Sabarmati for the Ahmedabad riverfront, and nearby elite urban areas, including the Adanis' Shantigram township and GIFT City.
Counterview Desk
Senior Gujarat Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, currently in charge of Bihar and national spokesperson, All-India Congress Committee, has sent a legal notice to chief minister Vijay Rupani threatening criminal case and civil defamation suit for accusing him with "baseless statement" that he was responsible for attacks on north Indians in Gujarat.
By Our Representative
Hundreds of elderly, widows, single women and differently-abled persons from different districts of Jharkhand gathered near the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi for a public hearing organized by the Jharkhand Right to Food Campaign and Pension Parishad demanding the right to universal social security pensions ahead of World Elderly Day on October 1.
International awards winner for Best Feature Documentary Linda Aïnouche for “Dreadlocks Story” (2014), which shows how Indians are entangled in the Jamaican society, and how Hinduism was a source of inspiration for the Rastafari movement, is all set to release her new documentary, “Marooned in the Caribbean”, which aims at documenting the awful desolating living conditions that Raizal people, the native inhabitants of San Andres Archipelago, endure.
Sons of slaves, these islanders have fallen prey to what the Colombian government calls Colombianization. “It’s a process”, according to her, “which kills the Raizal culture; it’s the killing of the Raizal soul. Colombianization subjugates Afro-descendants of San Andres to an ethnocide.” Explorer, director and producer, Linda Aïnouche writes exclusively for Counterview:***
Nobody escapes from blood and thunder in Colombia, and definitely not in the archipelago of San Andres, situated closer to Managua and Kingston than Bogota. The Raizal p…
By Tapan Bose* Seven Rohingya Muslims refugees who were held at a detention centre in Assam since 2012 will be handed over to Myanmar. The Supreme Court of India has refused to stop their deportation. The new Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gagoi said, "We are not inclined to interfere on the decision taken".
By Rajiv Shah
Have you ever heard of a Gandhi museum, sough to be projected as the “largest” on the Mahatma, yet totally inaccessible, in sharp contrast to Ahmedabad’s humble, approachable and unassuming Gandhi Ashram on the banks of Sabarmati, set up by the Mahatma during the heydays of the freedom movement? It exists about 30 kilometres away, its idea was conceived by none other than a person who has today become even more inaccessible than he ever was: Narendra Modi, India's Prime Minister.
Counterview Desk Refused entry in the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), the central university's newly appointed chancellor Firoz Bakht Ahmed, who claims to be grand nephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, has, in a letter to the President of India, said that MANUU vice-chancellor (V-C) Dr Aslam Parvaiz has accused him of being an RSS plant and a Modi man, whose sole aim is to "interfere in the working of the university".
By Nandini Oza*
Even the most deserving of women do not find a place that equals their worth in history. Kasturba is one such woman whose contribution to India’s struggle for freedom has been exemplary, and yet, it has not received the recognition it deserves. Kastur Makhanji Kapadia was born in the year 1869, the same year and in the same town of Porbandar in Gujarat as Gandhiji. In fact she was older than Gandhiji by a few months.
By Sheshu Babu*
For the last few days, #MeToo movement has picked up momentum and many women are coming out with horrific tales of severe harassment in their past lives. They are not afraid anymore to expose famous persons including those at ministerial levels. As a senior journalist Neeraja Chowdhury opined (“An exit, a beginning”, October 18, 2018, indianexpress.com), "The #MeToo revelations are like the eruption of a volcano which was imminent, given the journey working women have covered. It was not easy to make public what they had gone through,and take on powerful men.”
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