TIT-FOR-TAT DIPLOMACY OF INDIA WITH PAKISTAN WILL NOT WORK ! Baluchistan and Kashmir cannot be equated

Will the tit-for-tat diplomacy of India under much-hyped 'DOVAL DOCTRINE" with Pakistan work? Baluchistan is not Kashmir. Unnecessarily raising the issue of  atrocity in Baluchistan by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Red Fort speech, will rather harm India. Baluchistan issue cannot be equated with Kashmir problem between Pakistan and India. Baluchistan is integral part of Pakistan since independence of both India and Pakistan. But Kashmir always remained bone of contention among the people of Kashmir, Pakistan and India since its accession with India by Maharaja Hari Singh. Any encouragement of Baluchs  by India to create problem will be considered interference of India in the internal affairs of Pakistan ! Kashmir issue is still hanging fire on International platform---UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION (UNO).

 A book--Not War, Not Peace by George Perkovich and Toby Dalton (Oxford University Press,2016) has described, "The American scholar Christine Fair reported that in 2009 she visited the Indian mission in ZXaedan, Iran and concluded that it was an element of a broader covert action program me against Pakistan. I can assure you they are not issuing visits as the main activity ! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar-i-Sharif (through which it supported the nothern alliance)and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Kandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan.Reports and allegations of Indian covert involved in Baluchistan and elsewhere invite distinction to be made and debated. India, like other states and sympathetic outsiders, could draw a line, between providing funds, logistical support, and political encouragement to dissident groups in Pakistan and alternatively providing equipment, training and operational support for violent action. Pakistan naturally would oppose both categories of interference.......From this brief survey, it is safe to say that India has not been purely abstemious in the use of covert agents and actions against Pakistan. This is especially evident when Afghanistan is included along with Pakistani territory as the area of operations for Indian agents--page 147-149.."

Ongoing crisis in Kashmir in the wake of Burhan Wani's murder on July 8,2016 set the entire areas aflame. Days after the crisis erupted in Kashmir, Narendra Modi took the familiar route of blame Pakistan. On the advice of Doval, Modi opened Baluchistan front and on August 12, 2016, Modi said, " Time has come that Pakistan will have to answer to the world about the atrocities being committed on people in Baluchistan and  Pakistan-Occupied -Kashmir (POK) Will the world shut eyes to the Indian part of Kashmir ?. A fine invitation to the internationalization", that India dreads. Since than Baluch rebel leaders  leaders are coming and going Delhi for united resentment against Pakistan over Baluchistan atrocity. They have also opened front in London against Pakistan,. More over , India has begun to develop cold feet. These squabbling Baloch leaders will ruin India's relation with China as well as Iran. Amid India's haughtiness in the affairs of Pakistan, in August 20, 2015, the Special Assistant of President Barack Obama, Peter R Lavoy, asserted , : Jammu and Kashmir is disputed territory.. There was no change in U S position." To this day, United Nations maps carry the legend--"The final Status of Jammu and Kashmir has not been agreed upon by the parties. Kashmir cannot be put on  par with Baluchistan !"

While the final Instrument of Accession was signed by the Khan of Kalat (princely state of Bakuchistan) on Mrach 27, it was placed before Jinnah on March 31,1948 and he accepted it.' There was no kind of resistance to the accession......(Dushka H Saiyid, The Accession of  Kalat: Myth and Reality, Strategic Studies, page 43). "Many in India claim that Pakistan forcefully occupied Baluchistan in 1948. But facts are different from fiction. There were four princely states ruled by Baloch leaders in 1947 under  Nawab Akbar Bugati, grand father of Brahmdarg Bugti, who is these days rebel.Akbar Bugti, who not only voted for Pakistan but also helped Mohammad Ali Jinnah' s Muslim League........"The Outlook has commented, " Time will prove the speech of Modi on Baluchistan was one of the biggest mistakes,,,,,The Indian PM tried to internationalize Baluchistan but in fact he internationalized hatred between India and Pakistan and helped the hate-mongers--OUTLOOK, September 5)" The result is that India cannot question Kalat's status status nor the Durand line and the Pakistan cannot question McMahon line either ( Partition Proceedings, Vol.-three, Excerpts Committees, nos..three-eleven, Government of India press, 1948, Pages-226-230).

With regards to Jammu and Kashmir, on August 13,1947, Kashmir's prime minister Janak Singh---no friend of Pakistan--opined " the bulk of Muslims will not accept a decision to accede to India." However, the instrument of accession of Jammu and Kashmir was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh in jet-set speed on the pressure of Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru and his  home minister Sardar Ballabh Bhai Patel. People of Kashmir led by Sheikh Abdullah had opposed the accession and was in favor of independent country.. Amid the melee , war between Pakistan and India broke over Kashmir. The matter was internationalized, The UNO intervened. Sir Girija  Shankar Vajpayee, the Secretary General of the Ministry of External Affairs, in a letter to the U N  Commission for India and Pakistan on November 21, 1949, spoke of "Government of India's determination to abide, in the matter of accession, by the freely declared will be  of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Should that will be against the state continuing to be part of India, if and when it comes to be expressed in a constitutional way under conditions of peace and impratiality, the representation of the State in Indian Parliament would automatically cease and the provision of the Constitution of India that govern the relations of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with the Union f India will also cease to operate.."

Since then Jammu and Kashmir issue is hanging fire among the people of the State, India and Pakistan. Modi government must think to drop Baluchistan card and work for a settlement of Kashmir in both its dimension, external and internal.

WOMEN ARE NOT SAFE IN THE WORLD !

Countries in the world are not safe for women ! Violence against women and public  harassment to girls is very common and these are widespread problem. Documented facts say that women across the globe fear and experience all manners of sexual violence in public spaces. There are lot of instances from lewd and verbally abusive remarks, touching and groping to rape, there are innumerable instances in some of the safest cities. " Such evils have restricted the freedom of movement  of girls and women, leading inability to study, work and participate in the community and recreational activities, the women's right activities said" commented Anupama Katakam in a recent article. Medhavince Namjoshi from Vacha, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works with adolescent girls, says, "The enormity of  the problem has to be understood and the issue has to be addressed on mature and massive scale."

The Action Aid UK, this year has conducted survey across four countries has many shocking data on India.The study says that four of the five women in India experience some form of sexual harassment of violence. The north in India is the least safe for women in the overall figures. The average shows a staggering 74 percent of women in the north having experienced harassment. At 67 percent, the south is not far behind. Seventy percent of the women in the north were harassed on the street, says the study. In the north-eastern region, 63 percent of the respondents said they faced harassment while returning after dark.Staring seems to be most common form of harassment. Sixty-two percent of the respondents had experienced it. It may be relatively mild form of abuse, yet uncomfortable and should not be dismissed.Being followed came in second at 53 percent. Insults- name calling and wolf-whistling polled 43 percent and 44 percent respectively. Sexual comments polled 38 percent, groping 38 percent, and indecent exposure 34 percent. The north recorded the highest percentages in all categories.


The Action Aid UK study says respondents in the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups have emerged as most vulnerable:92 percent and 87 percent of them, respectively, have said that they feel at risk in the cities. Additionally, 84 percent of women between 25 and 34 experience some manner of public harassment. Seventy-nine percent of the women surveyed in the age group of 18 to 55 say they have been publicly harassed. The survey reached out to 502 women living in cities across India. Sahjo Singh, director, programmes and policy. Action Aid in India says, " A girl's or woman's ,movements are seriously hampered by unsafe public areas. This can have an effect on many aspects, including the main one of earning an income. It required a a collaborative effort between the state and volunteer agencies to ensure safer spaces. The system and processes have to reform for us to see improvement."


The survey mainly set in two categories:" location of harassment and type of harassment. Public transport was the most unsafe of public spaces, said close to 65 percent of  the respondents. Among working women (18-24) and 25-35), 67 percent  and 70 percent said this. The next most unsafe things was returning home from work after dark;58 percent of the respondents said they had had experiences.Fifty eight percent said they had been harassed while waking on the streets. In this category 73 percent in the 18-24 age group had experienced abuse. Approximately 40 percent of the respondents felt unsafe and had experienced harassment in parks and other public spaces for leisure activities. About 30 percent of the student categories polled said they dealt with harassment on university campuses; 42 percent said they had to tackle harassment on the way to schools and colleges."

Anupama says in his article, " the state needs to address the problem Mumbai and Chennai have been listed among the safest cities in India. A Quality of  Living Survey, conducted by a private consultancy firm released released in February 2016 rates Hennai as the number one among Indian cities. Mumbai has held the 'safest city' position for decades but in is now grappling with the problem of women's safety.........If such deterioration continues , Mumbai will lose its safe city tag."Sanchal Velkar, programme coordinator for the Youth Change and Safe City projects Akshara, an NGO in Mumbai said," when we interviewed 5,000 women in Mumbai as part of the a study on women and public safety in 2011, 95 percent of them said they had experienced staring, pushing, lewd comments and groping in public transport. The problem is that most of the time the women ignores it and so it is not addressed."

In a study conducted by Akshara, Sneha Velkasr said, "public transport was the critical areas of concern in Mumbai. Akshara created a database in 2015 of 522 women and interviewed that extensively on their travelling experiences; 317 were regular commuters while 175 said that they were occasional commuters. Here are the results: staring-56.13 percent, commenting-51.34 percent, unwanted touch-60.92 percent. Some women also named more serious forms of sexual harassment; stalking-29.69 percent, flashing-14.37 percent, pinching-20.50 percent and griping- 15.52 percent. The Ashkara report says, that the percentage of women, who preferred to ignore the harassment meted against them in public places, Many would also hesitate to take action against the harassers for fear of their actions might provoke more harassment."

TALE OF TWO STATES---BALUCHISTAN (PAKISTAN) AND JAMMU AND KASHMIR ( INDIA) !

Many things and events remind one about the history ! Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently raised the issue of human rights violation in Baluchistan, a so called state of Pakistan , even going to the extent of referring to the Baluch freedom struggle. But Modi forgot to mention such barbarism in Jammu and Kashmir in India. A recent book--A PRINCELY AFFAIRS-The Accession and Integration of the Princely states of Pakistan,1947-1955---, authored by Yaqoob Khan Bangash, Oxford University Press, Karachi, has vividly scripted Pakistan's excesses in suppressing Balooch separatists. And at the same time, separatists continue to find support in Kashmir in India.

Significantly both of these areas--Baluchistan (now in Pakistan) and Jammu and Kashmir (now in India) were parts of princely states before their integration into Pakistan and India respectively. A columnist Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed has written in The Frontline "thus,it is useful to understand the nature and the process of accession of these states to find long-term solutions to the situation there in both India and Pakistan. The story of princely states of India, including Jammu and Kashmir, is fairly well documented, Barbara N Ramusack's The Indian Princes and Their states (2004) is a comprehensive work that discusses the nature of the princely states in India."

The book-A PRINCELY AFFAIRS-The Accession and Integration of Princely states of Pakistan, 1947-1955, has moreover, same tale to tell. The book looks at the events surrounding the accession of Kalat (that forms the large parts of Baluchistan province) apart from several other states, including large entities such as Bahawalpur that bordered  India.Bangash's research identifies the flowing states: Kalat (now part of the province of Baluchistan): Bahawalpur (now part of Punjab); Khairpur (now part of Sind); Chitrral , Dir, Swat and Amb (now in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province); and Hiunza and Nagar (now part of the disputed Gilgit-Balistan region) in Pakistan. After the formation of Pakistan, all the princely states, mentioned above did accede to it but not before Bahawalpur and Kalat seriously considered the idea of independence.

Bangash, in the detailed chapter in the book, explains the circumstances under which the state of Kalat (Baluchistan) became part of Pakistan. There was a nascent democratic nationalist movement in Kalat before it became part of Pakistan. The Kalat  State Nationalist Party (KSNP) even joined the All -India State People's Conference in 1945 when Jawaharlal Nehru was its president. On the other hand Muslim League could never gain a lot of support in Baluchistan. Bangesh writes, " The democratic ideals of the Khan (of Kalat) and the KSNP was not eager to join a Pakistan-led by the Muslim League and preferred either a relationship with India or, in agreement with the objective of the Khan, complete independence". Support of a democratic movement, led by Khan  gained momentum in Kalat even led the formation of Parliament. Kalat's parliament even felt that the state should not accede to Pakistan just because Balochis are Muslims". This resistance was broken by Pakistan government  forcibly, which sent its forces to overrun Baluchistan and ensured succession. Later Pakistan enacted ESTABLISHMENT OF WEST PAKISTAN ACT 1955 to include Kalat as state of Pakistan.

Just on that pattern there was a similar  Act in India-States Reorganisation Act of 1956. Significantly, govt of India , after independence, also usurped Jammu and Kashmir, which was a princely state. Despite serious objection of even the then National conference Leader and political stalwart of J&K Shiekh Abdullah, people of J&K and King of J&K himself had also vehemently objected the forcible occupation of Jammu and Kashmir and got instrument of accession signed by King of J&K Raja Hari Singh. India has  had also sent military to capture Jammu and Kashmir to merge the state with India. Sardar Patel and Pundit Jawaharlal played nasty games to capture the Jammu and Kashmir. Much hue and cry was raised at international forum and India had accepted UN resolution to hold plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir to decide the fate of Kashmir and its people. In the process, a war with Pakistan also broke out over Jammu and Kashmir accession and a huge portion of Kashmir became 'Azad Kashmir' still being controlled by Pakistan.People of J&K wanted to remain an independent state. Now the situation has completely changed in Kashmir and the state is sitting on volcano. People of state demand 'azadi' from India. Since the so called accession of J&K in India, Government of India had sent huge forces to the state in the name of tackling the situation. But the situation became graver and graver gradually and now on the flash point. Rape, loot , murder in encounter have become order of the day in Jammu and Kashmir by Indian security forces. Over 50,000 people have been killed by security forces of India in Jammu and Kashmir since its accession to India

Similar situation is prevailing in Baluchistan state of Pakistan. Pakistan's security forces are maiming Balochas. Baluchistan is also sitting on volcano and Balochas are demanding 'azadi' from Pakistan. The author of the book, in his concluding  chapter, uses his research on the princely states in Pakistan to ponder the idea of Pakistan state. He quotes from Mohanned Ali Jinnah, famous  August 11, 1947, speech in which he articulated a universal idea of Pakistan of  Pakistan citizenship rather a than a state based only on religious identity. In this speech , Jinnah had articulated," You are free, you are free to go your temples, you are free to go your mosques or to any other places w of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion of caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the state." Jinnah died the next  year, and the Pakistan state took an Islamic turn with the objective resolution being adopted by the Constituent assembly in March 1949.  By the time Pakistan's first Constitution came in effect in 1956, the bureaucracy and the military had a  stranglehold on the princely states. Although geographical integration into Pakistan was complete, social integration was yet to happen. In Kkalat, especially, with the lack of space for political activities, much of the underground Balochis discourse turned against Pakistan.Bangesh, in his book, concludes, ""Therefore, by the time of the much-lauded inauguration of one unit in October 1955, Pakistan has achieved only 'notional' sovereignty in the states, no national discourse had been developed, national identity remained uncontested, and the state and society remained in a constant state of flux. These issues still haunt Pakistan."

'JUSTICE' HAS BECOME 'COMMODITY' IN INDIA !

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'JUSTICE' has become 'COMMODITY' in INDIA ! AND the judges and politicians are biggest 'suppliers and buyers' of the system. Perhaps, it is only because of that both the Supreme Court and Union Government want 'Supremacy and hegemony" in the appointment of judges for both the Supreme Court and high courts for their 'smooth sail' of their 'nefarious activities' to bend or destroy the system for their 'enlightened self-interest'. And the poor people are crying for justice in India. Moot point appears that both the Supreme Court collegium and Union Government have become funniest in one aspect at least-that is to accommodate the relatives , and kith and kin of  of both judges and politicians, solely to subvert the Judicial System in the country.

Following the revival of the collegium system after scrapping NJAC,, enacted by the Parliament,of the Supreme Court to appoint judges, the Chief Justice of India Justice Thakur is crying for the approval of the appointment of judges to fill up la huge vacancies of judges in the Supreme Court as well as high courts by the Union Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the other hand, Union Government is crying wolf that recommendations of the Supreme Court's collegium are binding on the government only if they are backed by consensus among the  collegium members.

Amid such controversy, there are sharp differences among the member -judges of the collegium of the Supreme Court over the question in public the lack of transparency in the functioning of  the collegium. Recently, one of the members of the collegium Justice Jasti Chelameswar of the Supreme Court became the first sitting judge and member of the Supreme Court's collegium to question in public the lack of transparency in the functioning of the collegium. In a letter to the Chief Justice of India  Justice Thakur, Justice Chelameswar refused to take part in the collegium meetings until it evolved a proper procedure to records its minutes. However, in three-page letter, he suggested to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) that the record recommendations of the colleagues be sent to him in writing so that he could record his views and return them to him for onward submission to the government. With such development, Justice Chelameswar's protest against collegium's style of functioning has brought to the surface the resentment within the collegium to the absence of any semblance of transparency and openness in its its decision -making process. 

On the other hand, the Union Government is disputing the Memorandum of Understanding for implementing the appointment and transfer of judges of the SC and high courts. The union Law ministry is harping that recommendations of the collegium are binding on the government only if they are backed by consensus. If there is any dissent within the collegium, the CJI is expected to communicate such dissenting views, along with the recommendations to the government. If there is dissent in the collegium regarding a recommendation, the government can ask the collegium to reconsider it in the light of reservations expressed by the dissenting member. The collegium has to reiterate the recommendation by consensus; only then it is binding on the government. In the light of Justice Chelameswar's protest, the union Law ministry is flexing its muscles for confrontation with CJI, resulting into deadlock over the functioning of the collegium.

 However, CJI has promised that Justice's Chelameswar's views will be thrashed out. In the process CJI, who is expressing anger over the stand of the Union Law Ministry, has warned the centre that court would consider withdrawing judicial in some cases , at least !

In the meantime, huge number of vacancies of judges is hampering the already worrisome backlog cases. According to the "State of Indian Judiciary:A Report", brought out by Dakash, A Banglore-based non-governmental organisation, there are currently 17,95,036 pending cases in the high courts. Judicial observers compliment Justice Chelameswar for his boldness in seeking the reform of the collegium even while serving on the bench and interacting with the colleagues on a daily basis although they may have been unhappy with him. One reason, surprisingly, mentioned in the collegium that recording the minutes of the collegium meetings is that the grounds for rejecting a candidate should not be made public. Is it not funniest ?

V Venkatesan has written in the Frontline " the collegium system has certain aberrations which have so far evaded public scrutiny. One such aberration came to light when a former CJI, during his term in office, wrote to all the high court chief justices to ensure that when they recommended district judges for high courts, their performances during the previous three years was assessed by a committee of judges other than members of high court judges......."

There are only three vacancies in the Supreme Court with an approval strength of 31, the number of vacancies in the high courts as on September 1 is alarming. The combined approved strength in the 24 high courts is 1,079, which is inclusive of 771 permanent judges and 308 additional judges. Of these, 485 positions are vacant. The number of vacancies include the posts of 268 permanent judges and 217 additional judges. Additional judges not be appointed in a high courts that has vacancies of permanent judges. Currently  all the high courts, except that of Meghalaya, have vacancies of permanent judges. The Karnataka and Calcutta high courts have the highest number of vacancies of permanent judges-25 each. The Punjab and Hrayana high courts and the Hyderabad high court have 22 vacancies of permanent judges each. The Allahabad and Bombay high courts have 16 such vacancies each, while the madhya Pradesh and Madras high courts show 19 and 18 vacancies respectively. The collegium system is itself violating its norms, One case is that in Patna High , a few months back that additional judges have been appointed when there is already existence of  vacancies of permanent judges!

Apart from that, Poor are left ti fend to get justice while rich and the highest get justice according to their wishes or will. Shall the system survive in the present circumstances in India ? Is it not million dollar question ?




REFERENCESS: THE FRONTLINE FORTNIGHTLY MAGAZINE

SEDITION LAW IN INDIA : MISUSE BY SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS !

MUCH TALKED ABOUT use or misuse of sedition law is making headlines these days in India! IN fact sedition law and its incorporation in ( Indian Penal Code ) IPC Section-124-A was first enacted by British Parliament in 1860s for India especially when India was enslaved by Britishers. And successive India governments, after independence, have used and misused the law  for enlightened self-interest, mainly to stifle the voices of dissent !

Before I discuss in detail the sedition law, enacted by British Parliament and its fall-out in India, I want to mention that the first person to be convicted under Section-124A was a prominent Nationalist leader, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. His newspaper--Kesari-- had carried a report on Shivaji......Tilak was charged with sedition before Bombay High Court in Queen Empress vs Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1897). Tilak was imprisoned in Burma jail from where it became a boon for Tilak as he authored the famous book---Geeeta Rahashaya---, a critical appreciation of Bhagwad Geeta.

Since than much hue and cry was raised over sedition law. After the independence of India from foreign yoke, the framers of the Constitution decided to adopt the model of the Irish Constitution in specifically enumerating exceptions to the right to free speech. In early draft of the Constitution that were circulated within the Constituent Assembly(CA) 'sedition' was set out as one such exception to the right of free speech. During debate on the floor of the CA, a champion of the 'free speech" K M Munshi moved an 'amendment' to remove the word 'sedition; from the exceptions. Abhinava Chandrachud, in an essay in The Frontline, has written, although the historian Granville considered Munshi to be one of the 'strongest advocates' on the 'limitation of rights', Munshi by contrast, mounted one of the greatest defence of the right of free speech. He argued  in the CA that the view taken by the Federal Court ion Majumdar's case was the correct one. It was partly because of his 'efforts' that  'sedition' was finally deleted as an exception to the right to free speech in what would become Article 19(2) of the Constitution. 

"....Shortly after the Constitution came into being, in November 1950, The Punjab High Court held Section 124-A to be unconstitutinal. However , thereafter the first amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1951 and the words 'public order' were inserted as an exception to the right to free speech. Soon , in Kedar Nath vs state of Bihar (AIR 1962 SC 955) the Supreme Court held that Section 124-A was vakid restriction on the fundamental rights to free speech.Even so, the court accepted the view adopted by Chief Justice Gawyer in Majumdar's case. Kedar Nath was a communist, who had made a fiery speech in Bihar in which he said, among other things: We believe in that revolution....which will come and in the flames of which the capitalists, zamindars and the Congress leaders of India, who have made it profession  to loot the country, will be reduced to ashes."

The SC  had held that Section 124-A was aimed at 'rendering penal only such activities as would be intended, or have a tendency, to create disorder or disturbances of public peace by resort to violence.' Merely arousing 'bad feelings or feelings of enmity or hatred towards government would not be considered sedition.

Chandrachud has further written, "In 1941, the Federal Court in India attempted to bring the Indian law of sedition in the lines with Enlgish counterparts. A case was brought befire it by Niharendu Dutta Mazumdar, a member of the Bengal legislature, who had, in the words of the Federal Court, made a 'violent' forthy and irresponsible' speech criticizing the Governor and Ministry of Bengal for their inaction during the Dacca riots. Chief Justice Maurice Gwyer sdopted the post -1832 English law of sedition libel in order to interpreet Section 124-A of the IPC.'The act or words complained of must either incite to disorder or must be such as to satisfy reasonable men that their intention or tendency.' Mazumdar was, however, let off as the court did nit consider his speech 'as inciting those who heard it...to attempt by violence or by public disorder to subvert the government.'"

The court had considered the intention and tendency of speech for framing anybody under sedition law.  Under the present circumstances of imposing sedition law in indiscriminately in India Chandrachud has aptly written, " policemen who investigate complaints of sedition must therefore ask themselves a simple question: Does the speech which has been called into question merely express hatred, contempt or illwill against the government, or does it incite others to commit acts of insurrection, rebellion or public disorder? It is only when a speech falls in the latter category that it can be considered as constituting the offence of sedition. Merely raising anti-India slogans, reprehensible though this may be, would by itself be insufficient to sustain a conviction under Section-124A. A public interest petition has been filed in the Supreme Court by non-governmental organisation--Common Cause--, seeking, among other things that before any FIR is filed or arrest made by the police under Section 124-A, the Commissioner of Police or Director General of Police must certify that the test in Kedarnath has been satisfied."

Before 1832 the English law of sedition had provision that a person could be convicted for sedition for saying anything that brought the government into 'hatred or contempt' or even for merely raising 'discontent or disaffection' against the government. Later it was changed to some extend. The original draft of the IPC was drawn up in 1837 by the Indian Law Commission headed by T B Macaulay.Section 113 of this draft made it an offence to 'excite feelings of disaffection against the government................But it was not included in final draft version of the draft of the IPC in 1860.......they considered British India a  was a laboratory where they could test how a code would function.......Finally an amendment was introduced in British Parliament in 1870 and Section 113 of Macaulay's draft was inserted into code as Section 124-A. It appears that British government though t of revolution in India for independence and thus 'treacherous section was inserted to curb the freedom of speech in India that time.

Moreover, it has become a fact that India is yet to keep herself for from colonial rule and the pre-1832 English law of seditious libels now become the law of sedition in India. And Narendra Modi government is abusing the provisions to stifle people's voice

KASHMIR MAY BE AN INDEPENDENT COUNTRY!

We Indians must exactly remember the splitting. of Unified Pakistan--East Pakistan and West Pakistan-- within 17 years of independence in 1947.Because of step-motherly treatment, torture and atrocity, committed by the elite political class of West Pakistan on East Pakistan brothers and sisters, A long agitation was launched by the people of East Pakistan under the leadership Sheikh Muzibur Rehman. And at last under the patronage of India led by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, Bangladesh was created following bloody revolution. And a history was created in the South-East Asia !

Now history is expected to be repeated. Similar things are happening in Kashmir.Kashmir has long history of the 'so called foreign interference' and ignoring of the sentiments of the people of Kashmir. Kashmir was independent country! "Akbar was the first outsider, who destroyed in 1589 the independence of Kashmir. No body had succeeded in doing so before then"-(Nice Guys Finish Second, page 610) Freedom movement" began with the conquest of Kashmir by the Mughal Armies".Akbar's armies marched into Kashmir on June 28, 1586. Mughal rule lasted in Kashmir for 166 years until 1752, when a brutal reign of the Afghan began. In 1814, Maharaja Ranjit Singh invaded Kashmir The Lahore Darbar was betrayed by its Dogra feudatory. Gulab Singh of Jammu, who was in league with the British. He acquired Kashmir by the infamous Treaty of Amritsar, signed on March 16,1846, for Rs 75 lakh. It was aptly, called a 'deed of sale' And last but not the least, after independence, the India Government led by Prime minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru and union Home minister Sardar Ballava Bhai Patel had forced and coerced Maharaja Hari Singh, son of late Maharaja Gulab Singh to merge the state with Indian Union. Kashmir became part of India despite opposition of Kashmiris.

Since than Kashmir is practically under seize by India government in the name pf restoring so called peace in the valley.Thousands of Indian security forces were deployed in the valley. In the process, over 25,000 Kashnmiri were killed and many injured and remained paralyzed . Women were raped; children were kidnapped. And in all theses nefarious acts, security forces were involved.. For over last two months, the Kashmir is boiling-unrest and agitation is there in entire Kashmir. And atrocity of security forces are going on. Kashmiris are crying for 'azadi' ! Even on Eid , all mosques and shrines were closed by J&K government, escalating further resentment.

KILLING THE SOUL OF KASHMIR:--Today the situation is getting grimmer and grimmer in Kashmir. Noted Columnist A G Noorani has written in The Frontline, "The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to kill the soul of Kashmir and has provided ample warning that worst is yet to come. The people's revolt will be crushed by military force, deployed under a thick smokescreen of falsehoods to silence whatever little dissent there is in India on Kashmir,delude international public opinion and appease the United States in the name of combating terrorism.The door is shut on any real dialogue on Kashmir with Pakistan or with the people of Kashmir.The real agenda, which is viciously communal, has been laid bare.Worst of all ,Modi has decided, like his natural ally, the U S , to trample on international law.It is reckless game to play buttress power at home.The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti, is a willing accomplice, using her own brand of rhetoric to deceive her people."

Kashmir always remained an open question. But the India government is branding protesters as terrorists and using brute force to stifle dissent. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said in the Lok Sabha on March 31, 1955 (Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Volume 28, page -318), "We must always remember that Kashmir is not a thing to be bandied between India and Pakistan. It has a soul of its own, it has an individuality of its own.We cannot, certainly much less can Pakistan, play with it as if it were something in the political game between the two countries.Nothing can be done without the goodwill of the people of Kashmir."

Many reports are pouring up on the present crisis in Kashmir. Well-informed journalist Shankarshan Thakur from New Delhi has written in The Telegraph on August 8, " This newspaper has been given to understand by those close to formulating the strategy in Kashmir that the Centre is inclined to move even further away from political engagement and deploy a stricter security across the Valley. Top army commanders based in the state met Mehbooba Mufti two days ago; they are meant to have discussed contingency plans to deploy the armed forces visibly across the valley and along the national highway to Jammu, a chronic militant ambush zone."Similar report has been published in The Asian Age, written by its Srinagar correspondent Yusuf Jameel, the same day,, which said, " The government is reported to have decided to assign the Army a "bigger and more useful role in resolving the crisis triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani on July 8."Again on August 9, The Telegraph published Imran Ahmed Siddique's report from New Delhi:" Sources in the Union Hiome Ministry said the government intended to act tough and would deploy more armed forces across the Valley to tackle the surge of protests."

NARENDRA MODI'S 'S INDIFFERENCE:-----Are these things giving any signal to solve Kashmir crisis by India government ? Narendra Modi spoke after one month of crisis in Kashmir, a month later on August 9 at Bhabra in Madhya Pradesh and said 'Gullible and simple youths" are being misguided. Statement of Modi is just contradictory to the reports on Kashmir situation in different newspapers of the country. Main question is Kashmir is its people's aspiration--neither about any other country nor about terrorism ! Only need of the hour is to "engage with the people of Kashmir and have a sustained dialogue on Kashmir." with Pakistan and other affected people in Kashmir itself..But these things are not happening ! Modi government is not permitting the U N High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'sad al-Hussein to permit his team access to Jammu and Kashmir and PoK, as he requested Pakistan !"India has very bad record of refusal to the U N 's Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights," commented A G Noorani.The Indian Express has written on August 8, "'Mehbooba Mufti's statement that the violent is senseless appears truly juxtaposition. It is senseless because a five-year-old Nasir Ahmed Khan is found on the street with a needle and sand pierced into his eyes---Kashmir has been independent and existed outside of the Indian nation--state for a long time now. Today, if there is a silver lining amid its time of bleeding and mourning, it is that it inches closer to standing independent of those forces that act, oppress and deceive from within........"

Worse situation is prevailing in Kashmir today since July 8. We must remember Bhagalpur blindings  and subsequent uproars and know that how the people of Kashmir are being blinded? People are shot at in order to kill them and not protesters alone. Police and security forces are raiding hospitals to arrest the agitating and injured people. A G Noorani has written, " This technique was tried out by Latin American dictators. It is being used in Kashmir by New Delhi in the name of democracy. This pattern of security forces' intrusion into hospitals was in evidence after July 8, 2016. Incidentally, we had the demolition of the Barbri Masjid  which L K Advani called' a political offence'; the Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts---all of them evaded accountability before the law." Veteran Economist Jean Dreze wrote in The Hindu, " on march 29,2002, " My initial purpose was to study the schooling situation but it turned out to be difficult not to focus on people's overwhelming concern; the endless zulum unleashed by the security  forces.The security forces were rarely out of sight, even in remote villages. As far as local population is concerned, Kashmir is occupied by a foreign army. Everywhere I went, there was sobering tales of harassment at the hands of Indian Army and paramilitary forces; curfews, searches, interrogation, killings of suspected militants and accidental as well as intentional killings of the innocent civilians, to name a few complaints."

Today pellets and bullets are being fired indiscriminately on Kashmiri. Sonia Gandhi has described "a grave danger to the country." The Indian express reported that being afraid of being harassed by security forces, parents are taking their boys with pellet wounds to Amritsar. Security forces are firing guns above the waist on protesters with intention to killing and maiming them.The CRPF admitted that it has fired 3,000 pellets cartridges, each containing 450 metallic balls between July 9 to August 14. Many more atrocities and harassment in Kashmir. Less said is better.

Under present circumstances History will repeat itself, And Kashmir will split from India like East Pakistan split from united Pakistan and Bangaladesh was created, Fight for 'azadi' and international support are  getting momentum and world will see how India lost Kashmir only because of tactless handling of situation by union government led by Narendra Modi.!

J

J: Jammu and Kashmir has received 10 per cent of all Central grants given to states over the 2000-2016 period, despite having only one per cent of the country’s population, analysis by of Central and S

(Bihar Elections News) | Verdict - Oct 27, 2015 (10 am)

INDIAN BUREAUCRACY, LEGACY OF BRITISH EMPIRE, ARE MOST CORRUPT IN LEAGUE WITH POLITICAL CLASSES !

     Indian bureaucracy -----Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Secrvice ( IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and other central services and states services----have become much-maligned today in the wake of the degeneration of India with creeping corruption, inefficiency and of all lack of vision  because of  the encouragement of corrupt and thug political classes ,ruling the India successively since independence ! Among the many things our bureaucrats are worse legacies of the British Empire ! The Indian civil servants have become massively corrupt. Even Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India had little respect for the bureaucrats in India .As Pundit Nehru put in his autobiography, written in 1935, ' few things are more striking  today in India than the progressive deterioration, moral and intellectual, of the higher services, more specially, the Indian Civil Services (ICS). This is most in evidence  in the superior officials, but it runs like a thread  throughout the services'. Nehru had called officials as 'imperialists  stooges'.The time changed. And after independence, Nehru entrusted the officials of the ICS to conduct the gigantic tasks of 1952 general elections, the first elections in independence India hesitatingly because there were no alternatives. Moreover,'great credit  is  due to those who are in charge of this stupendous first experiment in Indian history. Bureaucracy has certainly proved its worth by honestly discharging the duties imposed on it by a honest prime minister', Lucknow based sociologist D P Mukherji commented.  The author of the book-India After Gandhi--Ramachandra Guha has written," in this respect, the 1952 elections was a script jointly authored by  historical forces for so long opposed to one another: British colonialism and Indian Nationalism. Between them these forces had given this new nation what could be fairly described jump -start to democracy."

   In fact the bureaucracy, as it exists today, is essentially, a creation of British Raj. At that time, it gave slaved India, and administration that was impartial but insensitivity. Eminent bureaucrat of independent India T N  Seshan, in his book---The  Degeneration of India---with his co-author journalist Sanjoy Hazarika has written, " the close association of the administration with the ruling colonial regime bred a natural suspicion of them among political activists. After all, the politicians were involved in the independence movement. The job of the administration was to suppress that campaign -any movement that constituted a challenge to colonial authority---and toss people in jail................The suspicion and hostility of the politicians towards civil servant and vice-versa has continued even after independence.. Each saw the other as a threat to his or her position and a competing centre of power...........The main civil service as it operates across the country's districts, which is where its impact is most pronounced, has two arms: the Collector (also known as the district magistrate or deputy commissioner) and the  Superintendent of police. Several  collector ates are grouped under a senior administrator, known as commissioner to form a division. The senior police officials, who ranks at the same level as the commissioner, is a deputy inspector general of police, some time an inspector general...At the second tier, the state level , the top officials is the chief secretary.......director general of [police is similar.....the top layer in the whole country comprises, the cabinet secretary, who is supposed to do on a national level what the chief secretary of a state does............" In nut sell this is the structures of bureaucracy in India.
        There were a few officials like Lalan Prasad Singh, ICS, former union home secretary. P C Alexander, secretary to Indira Gandhi ands Rajiv Gandhi, K Pradhan, former union home secretary, T N Seshan, former chief of the Election Commissioner of India, former rural development secretary  N C Saxena etc, who proved their metal and did not  buckle under political pressures and remained officials of proven integrity. Although political interferences in administrative work started  just after independence ,Pundit Nehru, Sardar Patel, the chief ministers, B C Roy (West Bengal , B G Kher (Bombay), S K Sinha (Bihar), G V Pant (Uttar Pradesh), R S Shukla (central province ), Kamaraj ((Tamil Nadu)  were the political personalities, who never tolerated any interferences in the domains of bureaucrats  by ruling or opposition political elites and rather, they protected the officials from any wrong-doings of ruling political classes  in the respective states and at the centre.

        But the deterioration in civil service began in 1960s. The successive brand of politicians in league with officials started indulging in corruption to mint money. Not only in corruption, they indulged but both officials and political classes bended rules, acts, and some cases even the Constitution for ' wrong doings.' Both the groups ganged up together in defeating India's first post-independence experiment with devolution of power to the villagers or the panchayati raj system. Both the groups ganged up in such way while implementing the system,, the experiment ended up in joke in early 1950s to 1970s. It was corrected only the prime minister ship of Rajiv Gandhi when an Act for Panchayati Raj was enacted .Another casualty in the confrontation between the civil service and politicians was the police, especially the lower constabulary and the general administration. Officials began siding with the ruling politicians because they were more vulnerable. Police connived with the ruling politicians for creating jungle raj instead of rule of law. In the merciless attack on bureaucracy, the American humorist P J O'Rourke says that since the 'actual work of government is too unglamourous for the people who govern us', they create' bureaucratic departments to perform the humdrum tasks of national supervision. Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us' (O'Rourke, 1992)

       These days civil service is confused It is in search of an identity, but its role is determined by the perception of its political masters, not by the people. In this manner, the Indian  bureaucracy , like other arms of governance in India is on 'slippery downward slope' Rewards are sought and given not for merit and efforts but for those who can cut deals, broker arrangements. Seshan says in his book, " India's political structure and philosophy now says that  everything is acceptable unless you are caught or being blackmailed. Civil servants have taken a leaf from politicians in this regard:if you find some thing illegal, like accepting or demanding dowry, then there are two options before you. Neither option is honest one. It is a choice, these days, between resorting to influence peddling to get out of a fix or just brazening it out.. In addition, civil servants are battered to death, openly assaulted in their offices, intimidated in other ways including transfers and threat of foisted corruption charges "

        .The Indian civil service is still on the same pattern of frame built by  the British Raj. In India, IAS and other allied services men are considered  'highest elite classes' in the society even today. These IAS officials get training in British pattern since they join as probationers in Mussoorie. IAS probationers have been allotted to stay at the grandest, the Charleville, that stood on a ridge in Happy Valley and boasted a stay by the Prince of Wales (later George fifth) and Princess Mary of Teck, who in 1906 could never have envisaged that 50 years later everything devised for their comforts-the kitchens, the stables, the dinning rooms, the linen cupboards--would be in the hands of the people banned from the mall. Ian Jack  has written in the Guardian , " everything has changed , nothing has changed. The era that produced hill stations also laid down the foundations of the Indian Administrative Service, the IAS, which together with the Indian Foreign Service used to attract (and arguably still does) the brightest from each generation.. The IAS owes its structures to the British India Civil service, the ICS, which administered the country as a colonial possession from 1858 until 1947 through district officer system, in which a young Briton, public school and Ox bridge educated, passed a  highly competitive examination and after some  tuition in Indian languages and customs was given charge of an Indian district as populous as an English country, where under various titles (collector, district magistrate, deputy commissioners) he took charge of law and order and land revenues and any other piece of government policy that needed enforcing........."

        "............Lloyd George called it "the steel frame on which  the whole structure of our government and of our administration in India rests" and the IAS has kept the steel frame pretty much intact. Its officers exercise enormous authority over a district population of between one and two million, some time barely familiar with the  local language, apt to be lonely, forever facing the temptation of bribery. And they start so young, so terribly young. The new  recruits in Mussoorie, the lucky thousands who have been chosen from 500,000 candidates by excelling in exams and interviews  , are young enough to address visitors as Sir or Madam, but in a year or two they will sit as rulers of their small kingdoms,  having been examined in Hindi, the Constitution and the Laws. A young ICS man, setting out from Tilbury to India in 1910, would have felt no less blessed or anxious."

     In a country that over the past 20 years has been transformed -some would say disfigured-by private money, the IAS has survived as a a still-impressive public institution. As the College's deputy director Ranjana Chopra, said, speaking to the IAS's ability to handle natural disasters better than George Bush's Washington. "Everything may not work well in India, but here is something that does."

But the facts are otherwise about IAS, IFS, IPS and central and state services, these cadre men have now become most corrupt, barring a few. One politicians quipped, " it is the officers who teach us the first lesson of wrong doings by bending rules, laws and ultimately the Constitution, for minting money in present day India". Entire edifice of these cadres have crumbled under the pressure of corruption to mint money and also to give favours to persons of influence and in this game poor people of India are worse sufferers !

        Before I sum up the  essay, I think it proper to quote T N Seshan, who has said, " I spend sleepless nights worrying about the degeneration of  the country  and wandering what my contribution to the  regenerative process..........." and also the dream of Mahatma Gandhi for just and equatable society  ! In both the sections, these elite bureaucrats have failed miserably by succumbing to the pressure of successive brands of politicians !

ACCUMULATION OF BLACK MONEY IN INDIA HOLDING DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE MEASURES FOR POOR !

       INDIA has notoriety in gaining top positions in many ills in the society , being a largest democracy in the globe ,among the world's nations !  Black money, discrimination against poor and dalits, atrocity on women, malnutrition, illiteracy etc are the few examples, which have put INDIA on 'shanme list' in among the global countries. Today, I will put a few facts on accumulation of black money and deposited by Indian illegally in the foreign countries and cases of corruption , posing a serious threat on the development agenda of India.

       Sadly and curiously, INDIA ranks eighth and among the top ten in developing countries with illicit fund outflow at $ 1.6 billion . India particularly saw black money outflow of $ 123 billion from 2001-2010; according to the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) in December 2012. Apart from these black money of Indian stashed abroad, in the country itself over Rs 10 lakh crore are hidden by Indian capitalists, political classes, professionals, industrialists, corporates and multinationals etc, without being accounted. This is what is happening in India where development projects and welfare measures for over 70 percent of persons , below poverty line , are suffering due to lack of fund !

     The report of the GFI  has said that the total outflow of black money from India since independence until 2010 was $  232 billion. The aggregate value of illicit assets held by Indians from 1947 to 2010 is estimated at $ 487 billion. The report, titled ILLICIT FINANCIAL FLOWS, has found that only 27.8 percent of India's illicit assets are held domestically and 73 percent make their way overseas. But independent surveys have put the figures just vice-versa. Crores of black money inside the country are in the shape of benami illicit money and other assets, owned through black money. These black money are kept in fake bank accounts besides stashed in bags in the respective houses , especially by professionals and industrialists, capitalists etc.

      THE GFI has said, in 2012 alone, India was ranked 94 out of 176 countries in the Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index. India was tied with Benin, Columbia, Djibouti, Greece, Moldova, Mongolia and Senegal. Apart from that, The Transparency International, which has put India as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, has  said, in its report in 2008 ,that  40 percent of Indians have paid bribes to get a job done in public offices. This figure was 62 percent in a study conducted by the same firm in in 2005.

    The Indian government report itself has admitted that as of December 2012, the government has conducted 2603 surveys and has detected Rs 8255 crore in undisclosed income in the country. This figure was Rs 6572.75 crore in the year 2011-12 when 3706 surveys were conducted. In a White paper on black money, tabled in the Indian Parliament in 2012, the Indian government conceded that real estate sector is one of the largest holders of illicit income and unaccounted funds. A large number of transactions are not reported and a vast number are under-reported. As the realty sector contributes 11 percent to GDP, this huge amount of under reporting is a huge dent to the treasury.

          Independent  surveys have, however, while confirming the government's facts on realty sectors , also  pointed out that professionals like doctors, lawyers, contractors, neo-rich business men etc have huge black money and undisclosed income. BUT successive union and state governments have failed in its endeavour to unearth illicit and black money because of the connivance of political classes in black money holders in last many years. Not only Swiss  banks, there are many countries' banks, especially Nepal banks , where Indians have deposited or accumulated huge amount of black and illicit money. In the name of religion, many religious places like temples , matths, mosques, religious trusts are under the control of huge property and cash, totalling over Rs two.five  lakh crores without any account to the government.

     According to Yahoo news Website report; Swiss National Bank 's report also states as of end 2012, out of the total 2.18 billion Swiss franc, deposits by Indian individuals and entities-1.34 billion Swiss francs were held directly by Indian individuals and entities and the rest 77 million Swiss franks  was via 'fiduciaries' or wealth managers. The Swiss Bank report has said that Indians hold Rs 9,000 crore or 2.18 billion Swiss franks in Swiss banks at the end of 2012, according to data released by Swiss National Bank. The overall amount held in Swiss banks by entities from across the world is estimated at around Rs 90 lakh crore.

     India will now be able to track down the illicit money of Indians deposited in Swiss banks with an international agreement among 58 countries worldwide with Swiss government. The agreement is called, " Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administration Assistance in Tax Matters. Switzerland has finally agreed to share information on funds held in its banks to fight tax evasion and concealment of illicit funds. Switzerland was under tremendous pressure for co-operating with countries across the globe and divulge data on funds parked in Swiss Banks. It may be recalled that Swiss Banks have had strict client confidentiality clause and hence are a popular haven for illicit income. Now with the agreement Swiss Banks will have to bring down the wall of secrecy around its account holders and divulge information regarding overseas money held in the banks.

REFERENCES:- THE WEBSITES OF INDIA AND SWISS GOVERNMENTS, THE SWISS NATIONAL BANK,  THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL INTEGRITY,  THE TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL, THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT, The YAHOO NEWS 

MANMOHAN GOVT BENT TO WEAKEN RTI ACT!

I Have no knowledge of Arabic Text as written  in The Koran. Just I am mentioning the English translation of HUD, "In the name of God, the compassionate, the Mercuful" translation of Arabic text in English by the writer J N Dawood, born in Bagdad in his book in the chapetr on  on JONAH***"The Koran---with parallel Arabic text" The writer translates the HUD in English---"----they cover up their breasts to conceal their thoughts from Him. But when they put on their garments, does He not know what they hide and what they reveal? He knows their inmost thoughts****"

Exactly this verse of the Koran reveals the surreptious move of the Manmohan Singh Govternment to exempt the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the perview of the Right to nformation Act despite vehement opposition by different sections of the society and government's other departments' views. Strangely bringing such move the union government has also ignored the Parliament and even National Advisiory Committee led by Sonia Gandhi. This is what is happening in democratic secular country--India. A very good thing enacted by UPA-1 as weapon to provide the citiozens to secure aceess to information under the control of public authorities in order to promote transparency and accountablity in the working of every public authority. But the Act is being silently and surreptiously being tramplated by the Manmohan Singh Government! What has gone wrong withis great economist Manmohan singh, prime minister of India? Manmohan will ultimately answerable to all these misdeeds not only for future generation but also the people of the country living presently!

Sadly , the Law Ministry had moooted the partial proposal to exempt CBI from RTI Act-the Department of  Personnel initially opposedthe move. And final curtain was down with the Attorney-General of India G E Vanamati pushing for total exemption of the CBI from the perview of RTI Act.

Suspicion of people arose right from the very beginning over the proposal to keep the CBI from the perview of the Act. Because the CBI handles important corruption cases, involving big politicians, top officials etc. Successive union governments always put the CBI under the thumb to help the big culprits from the net. Now it has been justified hundred percent that union government wants to keep CBI under thumb to suit its  political intesrest.Right to Information Act weapons of people were always putting the CBI and the union government under tenterhook by knowing what is happening and progress in the investigations of much-maligned cases, involving big politicians and officials as well as cronies of the ruling elites.

Originally RTI Act has exempted 18 public authorities under central government from disclosure of information under Section 24 of The Act, which included intelligence and security organisations in the interest of the country. For further exemption, the union govternment could broaden the areas in the name "security of the nation" without seeking any permission from the Parliament for its sanction but it is mandatory to place every such exemption and subsequent notification before each houses of the Parliament. Now the Indian people will must watch how the representatives of different hues in the both houses react over this exemption to the CBI! Moreover the Union cabinet okayed the exemption to the public authorities like CBI, National Investigation Agency, (NIA) And National Intelligence Grid in its meeting in the first week of June 2011 and exemption notices  were issued by the Joint Secretary in the  Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension on June 9, 2011. Instead of bringing more and arenas for under RTI Act for more and more transparency -this is what union government has been doing gradually to weaken the RTI Act. Vanamati has put very funny logic of the CBI that as the agency that cases are referred to it for lodging cases from the courts as well as the economic cases and economic security of the country at risk etc.Vanamati has placed hollow logic to exempt the CBI-- CBI is not an intelligence gathering organisation and Section 24(1) of the Act clearly states that information pertaining the allegation of corruption andf human right violations shall not be execulded under this sub-section and that such information should be provided after the approval of the central Information Commission.Strangely, many government agencies were violating such provisions and not responding to the petitions, referred by CIC, Subhash agrawal, a noted RTI Act activist said, while deploring the exemption to the CBI.

Even the member of the A NAC Aruna Roy and Wajahat Habubullah former CIC have opposed the exemption and hacve pointed out that there were conpiracies from the very beginning to weaken this bright and people firiendly Act to expose the governments both at union level and state levels. CBI is not a intelligence gathering organisation but it is investigating serious corruption cases like loot of public funds manily by politicians and officials, they remarked.Vehement opposition are goning on to protest the exemption but the union government is in its deep slumber and opposition leaders do not have time to take up such important issues. Here we must remember the weakening of left parties in the country, which would have initiated protests strongly to condemn such morve of the union government and restore earlier position!

Sadly what has gone wrong with newsapers, news magazines, electronic channels? Why they are silent over such serious development? Except Hindu and Front line fortnightly , none of of the media have paid attention over such serious issues! Are they realy under "undeclared censorship" imposed by the governments of Union and states and also the proprietors of media houses for their englightened self interest? This is freedom of expression and press , enshrined in the Constitution. And we the people have also become worse than Murda (dead bodies) or this country has become "murdon ka desh( country of dead bodies) and we are tolerating atrocities by the government in our decadent society.

At this moment I exactly remeber a verse of Upanishad, "uttishth jagrat prapy barniin bodhat! (uttho jago aur bare se gyan prapt karo duniyan to jitene ke liye- awoke from deep slumber and finally become consicious

INDIA RANKED FIRST IN PREVALENCE OF SLAVERY AND FORCED LABOUR IN THE WORLD; SURVEY !

       One can never change his or her mind-set in the feudal-minded  society in  India ! Discrimination of dalits and poor in India is order of the day. Untouchablity  Act  is rarely implemented hardly in the country. Untouchablity prevails everywhere in India. Cases of untouchablity  are again order of the day in Tamil Nadu by Orthodox Tamilians, especially Brahimins.(Essays on discrimination in India on my link-www.kksingh1.blogspot.com).Notwithstanding, the India has abolished three decades back the bonded labour system under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, the system "continues  to be prevalent"  in the country.. This year also, amendments were, enacted to the Penal Code, in the wake of Delhi gang rape uproar in the Indian Parliament , which Act  now criminalises most forms of human trafficking and forced labour !
     
      India has the largest number of  people in the  world, who are living in conditions of  slavery caused by poverty, handed-down social customs and weak  enforcement of anti-slavery laws. Of the 30 million people world-wide, living in slavery-like conditions,14 million are Indians. The west African nation of  Mauritania ranked highest in the index in terms of percentage of population living in slavery-like conditions ( with about 150,000 out of a population of 3.8 million)..But in absolute numbers, India ranked the highest; While India leads in forced labour, the Communist China has some 2.9 million and Pakistan just above two million. bonded persons, Nigeria, Ethiopia,Russia, Thailand,the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma and Bangladesh round out the top ten, measured in absolute numbers. With about 4,000 slaves each, the UK, Ireland and Iceland claim the bottom spot. There are many faces of modern slavery ; according to a global survey report, published recently  by the Australia-based rights group-Walk Free Foundation at  Chatham House.

        The global survey index, compiled by the Walk Free Foundation, is the first global survey cataloguing forced labour on a country-to-country basis. "modern slavery is a  hidden crime,"notes Walk Free Foundation CEO Nick Grono. "it is forced labour, bounded labour. And everyone is tainted by it. The clothes we wear might be made from cotton picked by forced labour in Uzbekistan. The electronic games we play with might contain minerals extracted by forced labour in the Congo," Says Grono. Uzbekistan cotton pickers are not like U S's cotton-picking slaves of past generations; no body owns them. But they are in servitude nonetheless, children and adults forced by the government to work in cotton fields.. The co-founder of the organisation' Free The Slaves' and the index's author Prof. Kevin Bales says, " slavery takes place at the bottom of the ladder with small mom-and-pop criminal enterprises.. But some of these concerns grow. For example, fish and shrimp  processing in Bangladesh and India can get very big and these companies are supplying the European and North American frozen seafood market." .

       The report says , " today some people are still being born into hereditary slavery, a staggering but harsh reality, particularly in parts of West Africa  and South Asia. Other victims are captured  or kidnapped before being sold or kept for exploitation, whether through marriage, unpaid labour on fishing boats  or as domestic workers."The index ranked 162 countries based on human trafficking, forced labour, slavery or slavery-like  practices including debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, sale or exploitation of children including in armed conflict/ ( INDIA HAS BOOMING SEX TRADE-my essay on www.kksingh1.blogspot.com) The index says, " India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh together constitute 75 percent of the total estimate of 29.8 million people  in modern slavery. That estimates is higher than the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO)'s estimate of 21 million victims of forced labour."

       As the story goes if you visit a Haitian home and see a child making coffee or washing dishes, do not assume it is one of the family's children going about their weekly chores. It is more likely that the child is a restavek, forced domestic labour. A Port-au- Prince-based social entrepreneur and presidential adviser Hans Tippeenhauer has explained, "there is supposed to be a social contract whereby the employees take care of their restaveks and send them to school. But most often that is not the case. these children are abused". Though Mauritania is worse than Haiti, restaveks make up the lion's share of the Caribbean nation's forced labour. Some 250,00 to 3000,000 children cook and clean for families in large cities. they have no choice because their own parents are unable to look after them. A Haitian construction executive Greg Figaro, has explained, " it is not even seen as abuse. It is also a bit of status symbol. If you have a restavek, it means you are better off than the child's parents

       With regards to India, the report (index) points out the failure of the Indian government to make use of its "power and resources" to eradicate slavery. "Until recently, the response to human trafficking focused almost exclusively on the sexual exploitation of women and children and other forms of human trafficking including those affecting men were barely recognised", the report says and adds," national leaders tend not to recognise the violent criminality of bonded labour and instead see it as a vestige of poverty."

      But the hidden crime by definition, is hard to tackle. Andrew Forrest, the Australian mining magnate and founder of the Walk Free Foundation, was not even aware of forced until his daughter unwittingly worked alongside African slaves labourers during gap year. And corporations often turn a blind eye. Nintendo, for example is accused of  remaining cavalier about the possibility of slave labour in its supply chain. The anti- slavery group Walk Free has launched a petition to make the electronics company take further steps to ensure slave-minded minerals are not used in their gaming consoles. As the grassroots campaign against blood diamonds has shown, consumers can be  a formidable power. : Slaves labour is becoming an increasing reputational problem" says Grono. "Even if companies do not want to end forced labour because its unethical, they will be forced to do so because being tainted by slave labour is bad for business."

         The Guardian  Professional essay, written by  Elisabeth Braw has disclosed that bowing to customer pressure, H&M and Machael Kors recently banned supplies that use Uzbek cotton. Now activists are pressing Nike to take similar action. While Nike has pledged not to buy Uzbek cotton, it still sources synthetics from Daewoo International, the largest processor of cotton in Uzbekistan. According to a recent report by the Enough Project, while Nintendo has made little efforts to eliminate conflict materials from its devices, manufacturers like Intel and HP have taken decisive action. But the consumer activism will not help the slaves whose toil never touches the global supply chain. In Haiti, no politician would dare tackle the restavek issue, reports Tippenhauer. " we need a law regulating how domestic work should be remunerated. The restaveks get food, board and nothing else.But parties do not win votes by having restaveks on their agendas,  and the parliamentarians have domestic workers themselves. Those domestic workers, in turn, often employ restaveks in their own homes. In Order to pay restaveks popular wages, you would have to pay your own employees better. So nothing happens."

REFERENCES :- Websites of The INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION;  The WALK FREE  FOUNDATION;  THE TIMES WEEKLY; THE GUARDIAN; THE INDIA GOVERNMENT; THE GLOBAL SURVEY INDEX; THE UZBEKISTAN GOVERNMENT; AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT;THE H&M; THE MICHAEL KORS; THE DAEWOO INTERNATIONAL;etc 

" INDIA'S SEX TRADE IS BOOMING": NEW YORK TIMES

     
       ".........India's own sex trade is booming. The New York Times recently reported on widespread human trafficking of young girls in the state of Jharkhand and on the trafficking of impoverished girls  into India from neighbouring Nepal. Girls are also exported from India and other South Asian countries to the GULF and south-east Asia...." Says an EDITORIAL BOARD OPINION of the NEW YORK TIMES recently.

            I have mentioned in my number of essays on my link------www.kksingh1.blogspot.com----about shames after shames in India, thanks to the lack-lustre approaches and attitudes of India's successive union and state governments in the last over 65 years, even being called one of the largest democracy in the world! Practically women are being treated in this present social structures of India as "toys". And the women are being discriminated without any rhymes and reasons even with the heralding of 20th century.  No doubt,  in the wake of brutal gang rape in last December ,in Delhi, which grabbed national and international headlines and also caused public outrage, lamentably  huge sex-trafficking in India have not attracted the same  public attention or provocation in the last several years..India has been identified as a major hub in the international sex trade, a global phenomenon that may involve upwards of 27 million people, by the United States State Department, the United Nations and the India's Human Right Commission.

           Corruption among officials, police and political classes is widespread in India . Trafficking in sex has become a thriving business in India ! Particularly the political classes , except a few, in India give long ropes to the criminals and vested interests to thrive in the nefarious business in trafficking in sex of for money. The political classes get huge share and  protection money for encouraging, protecting and shielding the persons, engaged in the business. Now it is generally said in India that these decadent political classes can go to any extent to  stay in power and to earn money for their hegemony on the political scenes in the country.People by and large consider in India that politicians , except a   few are roots of all the evils in the system! All hues of politicians  are strangely united in running the inhuman and dishonest businesses for the sake of money and power secretly but daggers drawn in public . Business in the Parliament is installed invariably on flimsy issues , obviously to show the public that are raising the issues of   public interest! Police and civil officials, for the sake of money and good posting involved themselves in corrupt businesses in league with politicians throughout the country. Entire system in India has been corrupted and degenerated.. Trafficking is profitable and corruption is widespread in India! It is all too easy  to buy off police and other law-enforcing agencies. by traffickers

     Persistent poverty is a major factor. Many vulnerable  women and girls are lured by promises of employment and some parents are desperate enough to sell their daughters to
traffickers, Rapid urbanisation and migration of large numbers of men into India's growing cities creates a market of commercial sex, as does a gender imbalance resulting from sex-selective abortion practices that has created a generation of young men, who have little hope of finding female partners. India's a affluence is also a factor, luring European women into India;s sex trade. The caste system compounds the problem. Victims of   trafficking disproportionately come from disadvantaged segments of Indian society.Trafficking is profitable and corruption is widespread.  It is invariably seen that traffickers, alluring the women and girls, sold them to Gulf. Many of them are forced to marry and girl lured from rural  India are got married to Shiekhs in the Gulf and also sexually exploited. In many cases, women and girls of India are sold to European, American, Australian, African countries and they are either sexually-assaulted or forced to do menial and other domestic work. Women and girls, mainly lured from rural   India are brought in cities and towns and they are sexually exploited in "big   bazaars of prostitutes"   and also sold to big people for sexual pleasures  in the name of domestic work ! Women and girls from Bihar, Jharkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and other eastern states are trafficked by sex-traffickers and after sexual assaults, they are forced to marry with people of old age in Haryana, Delhi, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan for giving birth to their children and later they are formalised as wives and husbands after much hue and cry ! Even in rural areas in India, girls and women of lower caste   are made show-cases for "nautch and gaan". Nothing substantial  is being done to improve the lots of women in India !

         In March, in the wake of Delhi rape, India's Parliament passed a bill amending  laws concerning sexual violence and making sex-trafficking a criminal offence. But the gap between enactment and enforcement remains unacceptable  wide. Parliament acted in response to the recommendations of judicial committee led by the late Justice Jagdish Sharan Verma. In addition to urging tougher laws protecting women and children from abuse, the Verma report recommended stiffer penalties for sex related crimes as well as swifter justice for the perpetrators.Amending law is good step but law is only as good as its enforcement.Police are mainly very easily saleable, thanks to protection by political classes mainly in trafficking cases, Measures must be initiated  so that police must face strong disciplinary consequences for turning a blind eye, and those who commit sex crimes must know that they risk speedy prosecution and stiff sentences.

       Apart from that Indian government should address historic patterns of discrimination and focus increased resources on educating disadvantaged girls. Until attitudes in India towards women change and poor children gain the skills they need to control of their futures, sex-trafficking and the damage  it inflicts will continue ! 

BOOK REVIEW:- BOOK ON BIHAR REKINDLES NEW HOPE AND ASPIRATION IN BIHAR MINUS NOT ' NITISHNOMICS' BUT 'NITISHOHYPOCRACY' !

       

      Before I start to come to the points about the book-THE NEW BIHAR: REKINLING GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT-, authored by N K Singh, retired IAS official and Rajya Sabha Member from Bihar, and his co-author Lord  Nicholas Stern, an IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, I want to put some of my old reminiscences of 1980s about Bihar when everybody in India has ruled out the state because of its growing backwardness and no sign of development. Some of them used to comment, " Bihar has withered away." I was in Delhi in late 1980s. Just out of curiosity, I went to meet an acquainted  senior IAS official of Bihar cadre that  time posted on senior slot in the Union Home Ministry (UHM). In course of talks of over half-an -hour, I usually asked him when he is returning to Bihar to his parent cadre. Just after that senior official  first gazed the ceiling of his well-decorated office chamber in the magnificent North Block, which houses  UHM and thereafter he started looking towards adjacent India Gate from across the room through big window. After after half a minute, he told me ," who bothers for your Bihar......, which have been ruled out because of misgoverning and no-sign of development........." I was not amazed but simply I smiled  ! The senior IAS official was no other but N K Singh. Now after the long gap of over 24 years, the same IAS official, now retired, after holding important position in union government, is Janata Dal (U) MP from Bihar, has penned the book, arising new hopes and aspirations to the people of Bihar with regards to all round development of Bihar, which was in moribund stage over nine years back !
         Apart from the NOTES THE PREFACE AND, THE  INTRODUCTIONS by authors and co-author, the book is by and large compilations of essays on Bihar's economy and its  tempo in all round development in recent years  written by eminent economists, writers, analysts, commentators etc Mr N K Singh and Nicholas Stern have introduced the subject about Bihar's development in very lucid style. Other essayists including Nobel Prize winner in Economics Amartya Sen have also traced the facts very aptly about Bihar, its culture, glory, economy, education, society, health etc since ancient and medieval period . The Authors and essayists have simply argued the hopes of desired development of Bihar------"like as straw man lies dead, what is ignored is the development in the room..." Author and his co-author as well as essayists have failed to mention about  lack of land reforms measures, the bane of poverty  in the state. However here and there there are just passing references. Although the essayists and author and his co-author have heaped praise on the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar for bringing the backward state on the development path, there are many discernible factors about backwardness and recent tempo of developments  in Bihar, which have rarely found place in the book-that is , in my opinion, percolating of the fruits of development at grass-root level for major sections of society in social indicator during the so called sharp rise in GDP. of Bihar in comparision to other developed states of India. Many 'metaphors' like free market paradigm that economic growth in Bihar during Nitish regime has brought wide-ranging development. Whether Bihar developed at desired level or not but essayists have tried to rewrite the history of Bihar, which continues to languish on almost all parameters of development and social indicators. No doubt, both the authors and essayists of the book have been gifted with sense of  history but lack in experimenting the economy of Bihar, which is primarily agriculture based..

        After reading the book, exactly I remember the announcements of Nitish Kumar after assuming chief minister ship of the state about eight years back, that his topmost priority will be improving of education and health sectors besides land reforms. But in all  the cases, probably Nitish Kumar has failed to achieve desired result. Education and health are most important parameters of development-of course a number of measures have been taken by Bihar government but results are hardly 20 to 25 percent on the surface.All these failures of Bihar government and hammering of the subjects by the essayists for their success , remind me Rabindranath Tagore, who had once said, " In my view the imposing tower of misery which today rests on the heart of India has its sole foundation in the absence of education."

          At least in one aspect, the author and his co-author have admitted that Bihar has long history of backwardness. even as historically, Bihar has glorious past. They have also made honest appraisal of facts in the book that Bihar has lowest electrification rates in the country with only 16 percent of the households having access to electricity much lower than the national average of 67 percent. Forty percent of electricity is consumed only in the.one city-Patna, the state capital, which also does not have constant power supply; the authors point out and add, "that it is surely extraordinary that having reached the nadir Bihar rejuvenated itself in less than a decade to become fastest growing state even as India's own growth gathered momentum. Many have attributed this rapid turn-around to Nitishnomics, meaning improved governance and a more inclusive growth strategy. There are many facetes of Nitishonomics. But the picture appears some thing different.There are many  glaring mention of facts in the book , one can imagine how the Bihar is
developing ? There are many instances that it is not Nitishonomics but the so called turn around in Bihar "Nitishohypocracy" !Deprived majority are still languishing because of faulty implementation of welfare measures and large scale corruption, which have become greatest menace during Nitish regime in Bihar. The book does give a clean scenario of what is happenings in Bihar under democratic fabrics of India. Elites and neo-rich class , closure to corridor of power, are cornering all benefits , meant for poor in Bihar.

          When I look such painful pathetic picture of human condition in rural areas in  Bihar, it reminds the well-known Mahamta Gandhi's Talisman of 1948 when Gandhi  had said , " I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when your self becomes too much with you, apply the following test,, Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man and woman, whom you may have seen and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him (her). will he (she) gain anything by it ? will it restore him (her)  to a control over his (her)  own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj (freedom0 for the hungry and spiritually starving millions ? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away." If these things do not reflect the minds of ruling elite in Bihar, then we must call them thieves and looteras of public funds Nitish Kumar does behave like a feudal ruler. of Bihar, which hardly finds place in the book. Nitish Kumar held Janata Darwars at his official residence once in a week After attending the so called darwar for registering their complaints, people returned disappointed and call the janta darwar a feudal darwar like of British Raj and landlords during pre-independence days !  A recent essay  on the website of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (http:\\carnegieendowment,org) has compared  Nitish Kumar no less autocrat than Narendra Modi. Both have autocratic tendencies  Nitish has developed a worrying reputation for leveraging his state government'd hefty advertisement budget to punish media outlets who dare publish negative stories about his administration. Not only that Nitish Kumar has given free hands to officials and other government staff to carry his programmes and policies without caring even the ruling class politicians, resulting into wide-spread corruption in government machinery. Virtually there is no democracy in Bihar but bureaucracy is prevailing-even ministers are not allowed to speak about officials , thanks to the autocratic style of Nitish Kumar!These are some hard facts which should have found  mention in the books either by essayists or authors themselves . Is the book one -side about Nitish's dream Bihar?  At one place in the book, one essayist  Pawan Kumar Verma has virtually, while praising Nitish Kumar like a sycophant number one , has heaped abuses -like words on  Biharis and its culture, prior to what was happenings in Bihar. Were  Bihar and Biharis before Nitish Kumar rule  have had gone uncultured and forgotten the unique culture of Bihar ? Shame to Pawan Kumar Verma for such remarks in N K Singh's book !

        No doubt Bihar is developing during Nitish regime in the wake of allround economic turn around in India, it does not mean that it is because of Nitishnomics but to some extent streamlining of governance in Bihar, which had lacked during Laloo-Rabri regime as well as new economic policy being implemented in India as a whole and massive funds of centrally-sponsored programmes, Backwardness of Bihar is also contribution successive Congress governments in Bihar.  But during Laloo Prasad regime, the poor , the dalits, the adivasis and downtrodden got their voices and Laloo was instrumental for that-but during Nitish regime dalits are being tortured by upper caste people . There are many instances of such atrocities in Bihar during Nitish regime. Both economically and politically, dalits are being deprived of their rights by land-owing classes and neo-rich classes , cropped during Nitish regime One essayist Meghnad Desai, an eminent economist and professor of Economics at the London School of  Economics has rightly commented in his writings, " The collapse of the Congress hegemony at the national level in 1989 and the emergence of the Mandal reforms brought about the first profound change in Bihar.....This was assertion of power by the other backward class (OBC)..........The Janata Dal, which later became Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) during its 15 years tenure (1990-2005) concentrated on what one may call the 'respect' agenda. This was to give dignity and respect to the previously downtrodden social groups and challenge the upper caste hegemony with the help of state power. It was acknowledged by the leaders of the RJD that development was not his priority but the righting of the old oppression was It is correct to say that in the respect agenda the RJD was successful. As Jeffrey Witsoe  says in his article in the Lall and Gupta volume: While Lalu systematically destabilised the institution of governance and state directed development, i suggest that this was catalysed a meaningful although partial empowerment of lower caste' A [popular RJD slogan was "vikas nahi samman chahiye"........." But what happened to empowerment of dalits and backwards during Nitish regime, the agenda was not cared and today atrocity on them is continuing as reflected ion the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

     .The importance of the N K Singh's  book would have comparatively lesser impact about the development of Bihar with the recent blasting of Bihar government and its chief minister Nitish Kumar by the well known development economist Jean Dreze, a co-author of the book, written by Amartya Sen-AN UNCERTAIN GLORY: INDIA AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS while delivering a lecture on  the food security at Patna. Dreze has said, " Bihar is capital of corruption and exploitation in the world. The living condition of the people in some of Bihar villages is more grim and horrifying than at most places in the world. In fact in terms of scheme implementation, corruption is at its zenith. Bihar is sitting on the hotbeds of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and could be potentially the biggest beneficiary of the National Food Security Act, 2013. Eighty -five percent of rural population and 62 percent of urban residents in Bihar have calorie deficiency during 2009-10 as per reports of the National Sample Survey office. In Fact Bihar ranked 74th in global hunger index of 88 countries, according to Survey of India State Hunger Index -2008. In the same survey Jharkhand ranked 76th, Odisha 67th and UP 61st all in the alarming zone."

However N K Singh and Lord Nicholas Stern's book has  rekindled the hopes and aspiration among Biharis and if the measures to develop the state are taken in right direction till next  15 years , Bihar will regain its lost glory of development once again. For the first time in many years, a book on Bihar has pictured the ways and means for the  real development of the State, The book is definitely a good reading in lucidity, style and detailed facts !