Counterview

Joint statement by Jay Sheth, Dr Nishith Shah, Rupa Chinai and Brijesh Chinai, Board Members, Chinai Maternity and Sarabhai General Hospitals, Ahmedabad: *** We, the independent and permanent members of the Board of Management, Chinai Maternity and Sarabhai General Hospitals (VSH), Ahmedabad, representing the donor families, wish to place the following concerns to the public and media of Ahmedabad on account of our holding these positions on a public Board: The 1155 bed VSH was a fully functioning institution providing quality and affordable medical care to the poorest citizens of Ahmedabad. The hospitals had well equipped multi-speciality departments and was manned by a trained, permanent staff that had a strong commitment to patient care and a sense of belonging to this institution. In combine, the staff and the independent VSH Board — a partnership between AMC Corporators and citizen representatives — worked to provide a unique model of quality and affordable health services that p...

By Rajiv Shah  A People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Karnataka, report “Criminalizing the Practice of Faith”, seeking to trace “hate crimes” on Christians in Karnataka between January and November this year, allegedly by Hindutva groups, has said that the “bogey” of conversion is being used by the current BJP rulers in the State in order to “target the Constitutional right to practice, profess and propagate religion, as recognized under Article 25.”

By Venkatesh Narayanan, Sandeep Pandey* The issue is not privacy -- it has never been. Millenials of all stripes today willingly sign-off most of their personal life fully well knowing that Big Tech is openly hoovering up their messages and posts. Mining every word and search term for valuable insights into users' behaviour leads to targeted advertising, ergo -- profits -- but the likes of Gen-Z, etc., couldn’t care less, shrugging away with a so-what when confronted with this ultra-personal intrusion. Indeed as the quip goes, youth is wasted on the young.

By Dr David Leffler* President Vladimir Putin! You are amassing (soon perhaps) up to 175,000 Russian military personnel on Ukraine's border. Are you afraid that Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members, threatening Russia's sovereignty? The presence of these Russian troops is triggering a response within the international community that could easily become volatile. Tensions are also simultaneously rising between the US and other countries such as China, North Korea and Iran. These hotspots could quickly escalate into global catastrophe. The Russian people have long been leaders in great military achievements and scientific innovation; now is the time for Russia to utilize the latest, most advanced military brain-based technology to defuse these dangerous rising tensions. We bring to the attention of your people a field-tested, scientifically-verified means to not only alleviate Russia's fears, and protect Russian soil and its people, but, mostly importantly, to replace...

By Harsh Thakor* On December 14th we commemorated the 35th death anniversary of Smita Patil. No Indian actress has as intensely explored the nature of oppression of women or done as much justice to the role of woman’s rebellion against male subjugation as Smita Patil. Tragically her illustrious career was abrupted with her sudden death in late 1986, due to a miscarriage. The film industry lost a genius. Few artists in film world were as down to earth as Smita Patil. Smita Patil portrayed justice to social reality prevailing like no other actress of her day, apart from Shabana Azmi. Smita was so natural that one virtually felt she was the very character herself.. The magnitude of her intensity in her roles confronting injustice was unmatched. She could express the rage of a thunderstorm bursting, the sweetness of river water or the beauty of a lotus in full bloom. Her facial expressions in different roles varied like the colours of a rainbow, taking malleability to depths rarely transce...

By Ashok Danavath, Taniya Laskar*  Two recent tragic incidents have left Indian people in shock and despair. One is the death of the former Army Chief and the first Chief of Defence of the Indian Armed Forces General Bipin Rawat along with 12 other defense personnel and another is the gunning down of 14 innocent civilians by the Indian Army under the alleged suspicion of them being militants. Both of these incidents are very disturbing and need the attention of Indian people in their own spaces. But if we examine closely, we see a disturbing silence around the Nagaland incident among all the media platforms, be it mainstream, alternative or social media. Major politicians , film actors, celebrated cricketers , social media influencers etc. have expressed their condolences over the former incident but kept almost a not-to-speak-of on the later one. Nagaland is a tribal dominated State. It has been under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) since 1958. Widely described as drac...

By A Representative  Afghanistan, Mexico, Pakistan and India are the "most dangerous" countries for media work this year, the Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) said in its annual report. Since January 1, as many as 76 media workers have been killed in 28 countries around the world. Afghanistan leads with 12 assassinations, ahead of Mexico where 10 journalists were killed. Among the most dangerous countries are Pakistan (7), India (6), Yemen (4), Democratic Republic of Congo (3) and the Philippines (3 killed).

By Shamsul Islam*  Narendra Modi, a senior swayamsevak (member) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, long back in 2013, declared himself to be a ‘Hindu nationalist’ [Modi interviewed by two Reuters journalists, Ross Colvin and Sruthi Gottipati, on July 12, 2013]. As the PM of the largest democracy in the world, India, he misses no opportunity to stress the favourite Hindutva binary of putting Hindus and Muslims as two communities at war in India.

By Harsh Thakor*  History of sorts was created in Punjab on December 12 when Dalit agricultural labour organisations for the first time conducted a rail blockade independently, without support of organisations of the landed peasantry. Around 20,000 labourers participated in 12 districts -- an event that may have embarrassed the ruling parties in their very belly.

By Simi Mehta, Sakshi Sharda, Swati Solanki, Mahima Kapoor, Arjun Kumar The need to address the vaccination gap through a gendered lens is imperative. COVID-19 is an issue that is being tackled globally, however, the need to address discrepancies in the same has been absolutely pivotal. IMPRI Gender Impact Studies Center (GISC), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi hosted a special talk on The Gender Gap in Vaccination with Prof Vina Vaswani as a part of The State of Gender Equality – #GenderGaps series. Professor Vina Vaswani, Director, Centre for Ethics, and Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Yenepoya (Deemed to be) University, Mangalore was the eminent speaker of the session. Professor Vibhuti Patel, Former Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai chaired the session. Dr. Mala Ramanathan, Working Editor, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME) and Dr. Medha Rajappa, Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Dean (Research), J...