Dalits are agitated, Patels are angry, adivasis are furious, Muslims are frightened- all these are bound to affect the election results.
The Modi-Shah duo take the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat as their personal agenda. They are leaving no stones unturned to win, Congress leaders continue to join BJP, but all these don’t seem to be making any impact on the ground. This is an old political trick for the people of Gujarat.
Dalits are agitated, Patels are angry, adivasis are furious, Muslims are frightened- all these are bound to affect the election results.
The Kashi Vishwanath Precinct Development Project has gained momentum with the Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, who also represents the Varanasi constituency in the Lok Sabha, laying the foundation stone on 8th March, 2019. The 600 crore project spread over 43,636 sq.km claims to have the aim of building a 50 feet wide corridor that will link the Kashi Vishwanath Temple to the Ganga river. It is being said that demolitions are being carried out with the objective to decongest the area and give pilgrims a swift access to one of the holiest Hindu temples. But this demolition drive is creating a chaotic situation with centuries old houses, institutions, temples being razed affecting thousands of people. For some residents of Kashi, this ‘development’ work is messing with the fundamental character of the city itself. More worryingly, observers fear that this work exposes the famous Gyanvapi mosque to the possibility of a communal attack. Afterall, the most famous Hindutva slogan after the demolition of the Babri masjid was, ‘ye to bas ek jhanki hai, Kashi, Mathura baaki hai’, or this is just a trailer, Kashi and Mathura are still to come. Gyanvapi Mosque, sitting right next to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, is the ‘Kashi’ of this slogan.
For now, the resentment against the demolitions have only grown – as can be seen in this video. The shopkeepers have put up banners outside their shops as a mark of protest. The banner says “Ek hi Bhool, Kamal Ka phool. Modiji ek kaam karo, pehle roti ka intejaam karo fir humko berojgar karo” (The only mistake is that we voted for the Lotus which represents the BJP. Mr. Modi please arrange for our food before making us unemployed). The shopkeepers say that this corridor is turning their years of hard work into dust. They say that they have reached a stage where they do not have money to buy food as the police has closed the roads from both sides which has stopped customers’ access to their shops.
Another shopkeeper was asked whether Modi’s claim that the congestion made it difficult for Lord Shiva to breathe, thus it was necessary to decongest it is justified. He said that Varanasi is known for its maze of narrow lanes; it has always been a city of alleys and this beautification drive is taking away the identity of the 3000 year old city. The administration is trying to build a new Kashi by destroying its ancient culture and heritage.
The shopkeepers are losing their livelihoods with no clarity over the rehabilitation process. They have just been verbally assured that they will be given the shops in the corridor. But what will they do until then? They were not even consulted or warned before the project started. Suddenly, the authorities came to them and told to vacate the shops within three days or be ready for demolition. The shopkeepers were left baffled with no clue as to where should they go with a stock worth lakhs of rupees. With the skyrocketing rates, they cannot even afford to buy new shops.
Some of the shop-owners have been given a compensation but they do not even run the shops; most of them are rented since years. Thus, the worst-affected are the employees in the shop who are left to fetch for themselves and their families. The situation has become so grievous that they have been pushed to an acute state of destitution forcing them to beg or find other means to survive. They are trying all means possible to stop the rampant demolition and demand for rehabilitation; they have sent numerous letters to various official authorities for the same, but to no avail.
The protesters are even being threatened that they will be taken to the courts for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). However, the shopkeepers are fearless and say that the government is violating the MCC by screening the NaMo channel in the streets of Varanasi. They are even unhappy with the Election Commission as it is not stopping the infinite violations done by the BJP. They therefore believe that it is their right to express their concerns and demand for rehabilitation. The people in Kashi say that people are losing their lives but the government is just acting as a spectator. The Prime Minister is destroying numerous lives for his own dream project. They are completely against this corridor and are demanding to get their livelihood back.
Then there is the fear of another Babri Masjid like disaster in Kashi. This is because the Kashi Vishwanath Temple shares its wall with the 17th century Gyanvapi mosque. In fact the mosque does not find place in the design plan released by the PM. Earlier the Supreme Court had dismissed a writ petition filed by Anjuman Intazamiya Masjid (the caretaker of the mosque) and Jitendra Vyas (the manager of the temple) for putting a stay on the demolition and assured the petitioners that there is no threat to the mosque. However, the Sangh parivar’s hindutva designs are not hidden. Not surprisingly, the priests of the temple feel that this project is an attack on the Hindu culture and called the Modi-Yodi duo, Dharam Vyaparis (Religion Traders) and not Dharam Adhikari (Religion Upholders). Swami Avimukteshwaranand, the head of Sri Vidya Math in Varanasi said, “Jo pradhan mantri bana hua hai wo kehta hai ki wo hinduo ka sabse bada neta hai aur jo Uttar Pradesh ka mukhya mantri hai wo gerua kapda pehenta hai aur apne aap ko sant kehta hai lekin yeh log aisa kaam kar rahe hai jo Hinduo ke ghor virodhi bhi na kare. Yeh asli sanyasi nai hai, balki yeh asli Hindu hi nahi hai. Yeh Hindu ho hi nahi sakte.” (The PM says that he is the protector of all Hindus and the UP CM wears a saffron robe and calls himself a priest, but they are doing things that no true Hindu will do. They are fake saints; they are not even real Hindus.)
Varanasi is a city of harmony, where people from all religions have been staying together for ages. It is celebrated for its old world feel, picturesque temples, buzzling ghats and a maze of narrow lanes. The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor is destroying all of this. Its imposition on the people of Varanasi is not only destroying ancestral homes, livelihoods and age old temples but also a way of life that is ancient and distinct.
On April 11, when Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Ripun Bora visited Majaliya Vidyalaya polling booth in Gohpur in Assam’s Biswanath district to cast his vote, he was in for a rude shock.
Bora discovered that officials deputed at the booth were allegedly violating the election code by attempting to influence voters. A video of Bora demanding the suspension of the accused officials may be viewed here:
Bora alleged that officials deputed at the booth were peeping into the booth when people were casting their votes. This can be viewed as an attempt to intimidate voters using surveillance, and is therefore against the strict rules and regulations that govern the conduct of officials at polling booths. After Bora complained, all officials at the booth were replaced and polling was allowed to continue only after that. Gohpur falls under the Tezpur parliamentary constituency.
Taking to social media, Bora said, “I strongly demand suspension of Presiding electoral officer for breach of poll conduct in the Majaliya Vidyalaya Gohpur.”
Meanwhile, in a letter to the DEO of Nazira and the Election Commissioner, D Saikia who is the leader of the opposition in the Assam state assembly, pointed towards “a disturbing trend” of “workers of the Opposition party being threatened with harm” allegedly by “some workers of the ruling alliance in Assam.” He further warned of a possible outbreak of violence among political adversaries saying, “There are unimpeachable reports that in Simaluguri town, the Rohdoi Gaon Panchatat area and some other places, Congress workers have been accosted and warned of dire consequences by BJP workers who are apparently irate over voting patterns in the said areas. There is consequently strong ground for being apprehensive about violent incidents occurring at any moment.”
Sakia requested for security to be beefed up in the region. Saikia’s entire letter may be read here.
Replying to a Right to Information plea by Mumbai based RTI activist Anil Galgali, Praveen Kumar, Under Secretary in the PMO and Central Public Information Officer, said that information about the prime minister’s domestic visits do not come under the purview of any one authority as there are different organisers for the various trips.
Mumbai: The Prime Minister’s Office has said that it does not maintain expense records of the prime minister’s domestic trips, PTI reported on Thursday.
Replying to a Right to Information plea by Mumbai based RTI activist Anil Galgali, Praveen Kumar, Under Secretary in the PMO and Central Public Information Officer, said that information about the prime minister’s domestic visits do not come under the purview of any one authority as there are different organisers for the various trips.
Galgali had sought details about international and domestic visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his council of ministers since 2014, when the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.
Kumar also replied that the prime minister’s tours related to the poll campaigns are not official ones and the PMO does not have to incur any expenditure on these visits and therefore, details cannot be provided.
According to election laws, state machinery cannot be used for campaigning purposes.
With regard to expenses on foreign trips, Kumar said Galgali can find the information on the prime minister’s official website. On details of the Union ministers’ visits, the PMO sent Galgali’s query to Ministry of Home Affairs.
The prime minister’s website says that his domestic visits are paid for by the Ministry of Defence. On foreign visits, the website lists out 49 trips since June 2014 and the expenses incurred on chartered flights for each. According to the PMO website, Modi had made 49 foreign trips since May 2014 till 22 February, 2019.
According to a News18 analysis of the prime minister’s travel information between May 2014 and March this year, Modi had made 328 domestic trips.
The cost of his chartered flight, hotline and aircraft maintenance charges for the foreign trips, as per the official data, come to Rs 2021.59 crore, the report said. The focus of Modi’s domestic visit travels have been states that send most MPs to the Lok Sabha — Uttar Pradesh (66 times) followed by Gujarat (38 times), Maharashtra (29 times), Bihar and Madhya Pradesh (20 times each) the report found.
In February, Scroll.in had analysed Modi’s domestic visits from January 2019. It found that he had made 27 trips in 42 days, covering 18 states and union territories. “On many trips, he combined official work with campaign meetings of the Bharatiya Janata Party,” the report said.
Modi has recently visited several states including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir to address poll rallies.
According to the PMO website, the expenses on domestic visits of the prime minister are met out of the budget of Ministry of Defence, while the expenses on foreign tours of the prime minister are met out of the budget head “Cabinet Ministers Maintenance of PM’s aircraft Other charges”.
Union Minister Maneka Gandhi stoked a controversy by asking the Muslim community to vote for her else she will not be inclined to pay heed to their requests as a lawmaker.
Sultanpur: Union Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi, while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur on Thursday, April 11, was recorded on camera ‘pressuring’ members of the Muslim community to vote for her or else ‘she may not work towards fulfilling their needs when she wins’.
Videos of the Bharatiya Janata Party leader’s speech surfaced on social media.
She said that Muslim voters need to understand that it is a give and take relation. She added that she would not want to give them jobs if they do not vote for her.
“I am winning… I am winning because of the support of the people. But, if my win is sans the support of Muslims… then I wouldn’t feel too good… things will then turn sour. In such a scenario, if a Muslim comes to me for work, I will not be inclined to do it… I’ll think ‘how does it matter?’. A job is about give and take… it’s not like we all are Mahatma Gandhi’s children,” Gandhi said at the rally.
“I will win even without you… but you need me. When the results come out, and I see that this booth voted only 50-100 times… I will be pained. So, it is all up to you,” she added.
Gandhi asked those gathered to spread the word about voting for her. “I am extending a hand of friendship,” she is heard saying. “You can ask anyone in my former constituency of Pilibhit about my work. I have already won this election, the rest is up to you,” implying that it was the people who needed her, not the other way around.
Maneka Gandhi, the MP from Pilibhit, began her campaign from the Sultanpur seat about 10 days ago. The seat is currently held by her son Varun Gandhi. But this election, Varun has shifted back to Pilibhit, a seat he won in 2009. Maneka Gandhi has won the Pilibhit seat six times.
The General Rules of the Model Code of Conduct imposed by the Election Commission of India (EC) clearly state that, “There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes.”
Prima Facie, Gandhi stands in clear violation of the rule. The EC is yet to take cognisance of the matter.
Writing a concurrent judgement in the review petition of the Rafale case, the Supreme Court (SC) judge Justice K.M. Joseph pointed towards a disturbing trend of bias in some sections of the media that was threatening the freedom of speech and expression.
Image Courtesy: PTI
He wrote, “If freedom is enjoyed by the Press without a deep sense of responsibility, it can weaken democracy. In some sections, there appears to be a disturbing trend of bias. Controlling business interests and political allegiances appear to erode the duty of dispassionate and impartial purveying of information.” He further said that the rights of the press in India is not higher than the right of the citizens under Article 19(1)(a) and a biased information violates this right of the citizens. He then emphasized on the significance of the Right to Information Act that has helped in refuting the privilege claims of the government over certain controversial documents relating to the € 7.87 Billion Rafale Aircraft deal.
This judgement comes after the petitioners – Arun Shourie, Prashant Bhushan and Yashwant Sinha – had made a fresh application in the SC for a CBI inquiry after their initial request in October, 2018 was rejected. The new application was made as the petitioners found some factual and legal errors in the December, 2018 order. The case took a new turn on March 6, 2019 when The Hindu released documents that revealed the discrepancies and corruptive practices by the Central Government in the Rafale deal. It exposed the major and unprecedented concessions offered to France.
This was a big blow to the government as it has been under the scanner since the time the deal was made public. Thus, in response, the Attorney General (AG) K.K. Venugopal, in the hearing scheduled on the same day, made allegations that these documents were stolen from the Ministry of Defence and were released on the same day to influence the hearing. He even threatened The Hindu that criminal action will be taken against it under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1926 on the grounds that leaking of these documents poses a threat on the national security. However, Justice K.M. Joseph said that these documents were well within the Evidence Act, 1872, thus the question of national security cannot arise. He further said that the government cannot take shelter under the OSA if an act of corruption is committed. The AG then compelled The Hindu to reveal the source of the information, but nowhere in the entire course did he question the authenticity of the documents.
This entire episode is unsettling given how the government is determined to undermine the independent media by posing such unprecedented threat under the guise of ‘national security’ and ‘official secrets.’ Thus, the SC’s judgement to consider the documents is a firm and necessary rebuff to the Central Government’s attempts to de-legitimise any kind of investigative journalism on this controversial subject.
Besides the Rafale issue, this judgement is significant on various lines. Time and again, the current ruling dispensation has tried to curb the freedom to speak and tag dissenters as anti-national. It has went to an extent to charge sedition cases or use section 66A of the Information Technology Act against such people and arrest them for spreading “fake news”. Afterwards the SC had struck down section 66A and termed it as unconstitutional in the Shreya Singhal V. Union of India judgement in March, 2015. With this judgement too, Justice Joseph has re-emphasized the significance of a free and an unbiased press, the fourth and an essential pillar in the functioning of a constitutional democracy.
She is the first woman to hold the post in the university’s nearly 100-year-long history.
Image Courtesy: Indian Express
New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia University has appointed Najma Akhtar as its vice-chancellor, the first woman to hold the post in the university’s nearly 100-year-long history.
She replaced Talat Ahmad, who resigned from the post last year before completion of his tenure. Akhtar’s appointment as Jamia Millia Islamia’s vice-chancellor was approved by President Ram Nath Kovind, the university said Thursday. She has been appointed for a period of five years.
Following a selection committee meeting, the HRD ministry had sent three names to the president for taking a call on one. Along with Akhtar, two other names—Furqan Qamar, secretary general of Association of Indian Universities, and S.M. Ishtiaque, a professor at IIT Delhi—were sent to the president earlier this year.
The President of India is the visitor (head) of all central universities.
“In exercise of powers conferred under Statutes of Jamia Millia Islamia Act, 1988, the President of India, in his capacity as the Visitor of the JMI, has been pleased to appoint Prof Najma Akhtar, NIEPA, New Delhi as the vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, for a period of five years,” said an official order.
A widely acclaimed educationist, Professor Akhtar is also the first lady vice chancellor of any central university in Delhi.
She is known for spearheading international educational administrators’ course for senior officials from 130 countries for more than 15 years at National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), reported PTI.
A widely acclaimed educationist, Prof. Akhtar is a gold medalist from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and completed her PhD (Education) from Kurukshetra University.
She held posts of faculty and Controller of Examinations and Admissions and Director, Academic Programmes at AMU.
She was the founder director of State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT), Uttar Pradesh, which was established for developing educational administrators for the country.
She has earned international accolades, including Commonwealth scholarship and the prestigious National Science Talent scholarship.
She studied in international institutes such as University of Warwick and Nottingham UK and IIEP Paris (UNESCO).
She has been involved in collaborative research works with developing and developed countries.
She has been actively consulted by UNESCO, UNICEF, DANIDA and other international organisations.
Gender Equity has been part of most of her projects, the varsity said.
The other persons, who were shortlisted by the government for the post were S M Ishtiaque of IIT-Delhi and Furqan Qamar, currently the secretary-general of Association of Universities.
Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla is the chancellor of the varsity.
Jamia Millia Islamia was originally established at Aligarh in 1920 and became a central university by an act of the Indian Parliament in 1988.
On Thursday, April 11, Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange was arrested from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after Ecuador withdrew his asylum. CNN reported that Assange was presented at London’s Westminster Magistrate’s court, where he appeared “calm and confident”.
Assange sought asylum seven years ago to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault case that was later dropped.
Although Ecuador President Lenin Moreno said that the asylum was withdrawn after “repeated violations of international conventions,” Wikileaks tweeted that Ecuador acted illegally in terminating Assange’s political asylum “in violation of international law”. The organisation’s official Twitter handle had, on April 5, tweeted that Assange would be “expelled within ‘hours or days’ using the #INAPapers offshore scandal as a pretext,” citing a high-level source within the Ecuadorian state, and saying that Ecuador already had an agreement with the United Kingdom for his arrest.
The United States’ Department of Justice confirmed that Assange had been indicted over a conspiracy with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to commit computer intrusion in 2010.
US prosecutors have alleged that Assange “engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password” on classified Department of Defence (DoD) computer systems, CNN reported.
Sweden’s Prosecution Authority also said in a statement that it may re-open its sexual assault probe into Assange.
Assange is an Australian national, and set up Wikileaks in 2006 with the aim of “obtaining and publishing” confidential documents and images. In 2010, it released footages of US soldiers killing civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.
Many tweeted in support of Assange:
The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald called the move “criminalization of journalism”
Assange’s attorney in the US, Barry Pollack, said:
Chelsea Manning a former soldier in the US Army, was arrested in 2010, and convicted in 2013 for releasing nearly 750,000 classified, and unclassified but sensitive, military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks. Her sentence was commuted in January 2017, but in March 2019, she was once again imprisoned for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks.
