Counterview

By Samina Akhter*  Myanmar's persistent use of mortars to invade Bangladeshi land amounts to a declaration of war on Myanmar's part and diplomatic blunder on the part of the government of Bangladesh. In the most recent incident, Myanmar fired three mortar bombs on September 16 into Bangladeshi territory near Tambru border in Bandarban, killing one man and injuring six others, who were taken to the hospital that night. On September 3, Myanmar fired at least two deadly shells 120 meters into Bangladesh at the Tambru border. On August 28, it launched two additional mortar shells across the same border into Bangladesh, but they did not explode. On August 20, a comparable occurrence occurred at the same border. Following each incidence, Bangladeshi authorities called the ambassador of Myanmar to Dhaka and gave him protest letters. What started with mortar rounds that hadn't detonated has so far come to a close with the deaths and injuries caused by shell explosions. Bangladesh h...

By NS Venkataraman*  Nano urea, a fertilizer patented and sold by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), has been approved by the Government of India for commercial use because of its various benefits. Unfortunately, a counter-productive media campaign has been levelled against nano urea, ignoring its merits. When extensive field trials have been carried out on more than 94 crops across 11,000 farmer fields in different parts of the country by several organisations , research institutions putting their efforts together and results have been proved as per the claims , it is counter productive that some controversial views appear in the media, which cause only sensation and nothing more than that.Product details:Nano urea is about a billionth of a metre in surface area and contains nitrogen particles of 20 -50 nanometres. The average thickness of conventional urea particle is 2.8 mm, which is equal to around 55,000 nano urea particles in size. Chemically, conventi...

By Gopal Krishna*  Disregarding the ten fathom deep burial of the notorious majority opinion of the Supreme Court Justices P. N. Bhagwati, A.N. Ray, M.H. Beg and Y.V. Chandrachud in ADM Jabalpur v. Shivkant Shukla (1976) case that had suspended a person's right to not be unlawfully detained by 9-Judge Constitution Bench in Justice Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the majority opinion of Justices A. K. Sikri, Ashok Bhushan, A.M. Khanwilkar and D. Misra in Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2018) resurrected the notorious verdict by declaring Aadhaar Act to be partially constitutional on 26 September 2018. Court declared Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which enabled body corporate and individual to seek authentication is held to be unconstitutional. Section 57 which was titled “Act not to prevent use of Aadhaar number for other purposes under law” has been “Omitted by the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act 2019”. Section 57 provided that “nothing contained in this Act (Aadhaar Act...

Counterview Desk  The ‘Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace’which held its 17th National Convention at the Montfort Social Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana from 22 to 24 September 2022 on the theme “Deepening our Identity as Religious: Responding to the Signs of the Times”, has expressed concern “at the deteriorating situation of our nation on every front”, especially stating, “Fascism seems to have come to stay” in India. At the same time, the convention, which took place with the participation of 60 persons from 16 states representing 20 religious congregations, in its unanimously-adopted statement added, “We have reached abysmal depths on every parameter: be it social, economic and political”, underlining, “The poor in India become poorer every day; the rich and powerful continue to profiteer at their expense and amass scandalous amounts of wealth.” Text: We, members (63 women and men Religious, from 16 states representing 20 Congregations) of the Forum of Religious for Just...

By A Representative  In a gruesome incident, brought to light by a senior West Bengal activist, the Border Security force (BSF) appears to have begun using pellet guns to control cross-border smuggling. Binging this to light, Kirity Roy, secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said, BSF personnel attached with Karola border outpost under 90 Battalion fired pellets on a villager of Karola village under Dinhata-II Block and Sahebganj police station area of Cooch Behar district. Roy, who is also national convenor, Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity (PACTI), said, "The victim was severely injured and became completely blind in the sudden pellet firing by BSF", adding, "Our fact finding has revealed that the victim is associated with smuggling activities. The on-duty BSF personnel without any warning fired pellets from the pump gun which caused complete blindness to the victim." Stating that such use of pellet guns is against the the...

By Harasankar Adhikari  The government of West Bengal has totally failed to combat unemployment in the state for the last decade. The rate of educated unemployment (or all sorts of unemployment) increased during the era of the left-front government. The reasons are diversified. Of course, lack of industrial initiative, surplus agricultural labor, land policy, etc. are primary reasons. It has broken the mental state and other qualities of the youth. But youth unrest has been resisted by political parties and their crude politics. They are mishandled by the political parties. It influences the migration rate undoubtedly. On the other hand, the youth of this state are cheaply directed to actively get involved in politics, which creates a hope for employment through patronization of the political party in power. Therefore, ‘doing party’ has become a new job venue for the youth of West Bengal. In particular, the educated youth use the scope of political patronization to get a gove...

By Rafeek Ravuther, Chandan Kumar, Dharmendra Kumar*  The migrant workers were one of the most vulnerable sections during the pandemic. India experiences large-scale movement of migrants internally and internationally. After the outbreak of the pandemic, migrant workers continued to face injustice especially in getting wages in expedited manner. In the international context, India, the home of 9 million cross-border temporary labour migrants, carried out the largest repatriation exercise ‘Vande Bharat Mission’. Even though the Indian government addressed the immediate requirement of repatriation, it failed to understand and recognise their post-arrival grievances, like back wages, social protection etc. Recently many workers were deported from the middle- east region. Amidst the establishment of grievance mechanisms such as Consular Services Management System (MADAD) and helplines in Pravasi Bharatiya Sahayata Kendra (PBSK), the unresolved grievances remain high. The number of...

By A Representative  In September third week, NREGA workers across the country were mobilised for two day so raise their issues and submit a memorandum to the Prime Minister. Organised the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a collective of groups that work with NREGA labourers across the country, workers from 13 states -- Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- carried out Kaam Do Abhiyaan, staging demonstrations and rallies against what they called blatant violation of law by the Central government in making NREGA payments. While NREGA has had very positive impacts, it has lately become fruitless, exploiting labour, even though workers who have put in honest hard work have to wait for their wages endlessly, it was suggested.  In such a situation, there is a need to firm up NREGA implementation and end systematic corruption to ensure that workers get their basic NREG...

By Gajanan Khergamker  Probably the most peaceful yet powerful influence of Street Art can be gauged by Japanese garden designer Itaru Sasaki who initiated the Wind Phone project in 2010 to help cope with his cousin's death. After Itaru lost his cousin to terminal cancer, he set up an old telephone booth in his garden in December 2010, to continue to feel connected to him by "talking" to him on the phone. The wind phone was not designed with any specific religious connotation but as a way to reflect on his loss. However, in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 people in the Tohoku region, including over 1,200 people in Ōtsuchi (about 10 percent of the town's population), he threw access to the structure open to the public. The wind phone since, received more than 30,000 visitors. On 7 January 2017, strong winds blew off the roof of the wind phone and broke the glass doors. On hearing about it, local carpenters, including ones who had previously visi...

By Sandeep Pandey*  It is a matter of shame for us as a society that Bilkis Bano's rapists have been released by a District level committee of Gujarat Government. Some people in the Hindutva family are also justifying the act by claiming that a few of the rapists are Sanskari Brahmans. If rapists and murderers will be called Sanskari, then we as a society have to rethink about the moral values and ethical standards necessary to be upheld for us to be called a civilised society. Besides Biliks Bano feeling cheated by the act of Gujarat government, what would be the feelings of women of family of convicts? We're sure no woman would feel that men of their family are sanskari if they indulge in violating the modesty of other women, irrespective of which caste or religion they belong to. We take pride that India is known in the world over for its spirituality. India is identified by Mahatma Gandhi who himself is a symbol of values and virtues. It is a shame that Gujarat which produc...