NIA files chargesheet against Zakir Naik and Islamic Research Foundation

October 27, 2017

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday filed a chargesheet before the NIA special court, Mumbai in a case pertaining to Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and his organisation Islamic Research Foundation along with Harmony Media Private Limited.

The charge sheet has been filed under the section 10 UA(P) Act and Sections 120B, 153A, 295A, 298 and 505(2) of Indian Penal Code.

In a press statement released regarding the same matter, NIA said, “He (Naik) has been promoting enmity and hatred between different religious groups in India through his public speeches and lectures.

51-year-old Naik, who is currently living outside of India was charged by the NIA for his alleged influence over the terrorists responsible for a shootout in Dhaka, Bangladesh last year.

NIA registered a case against Naik on November 1, 2016 in Mumbai. Zakir Naik has been residing out of India since July 1, 2016 and has offered investigative agencies to question him through Skype or digital means, but agencies have been pushing Naik to come to India.
Even Union Home ministry stepped into the matter and declared Naik’s NGO an unlawful association.

In a rather accusatory tone, NIA statement said, “During the investigation, it was found that through his public lectures/speeches, accused Zakir Naik deliberately and maliciously insulted the religious beliefs of Hindus, Christians and non-Wahabi Muslims, particularly Shia, Sufi, and Barelwis, with intentions of outraging their religious feelings,” while accusing IRF and HMPL of providing the necessary modes and resources for propagating the same.

While raising questions over funding of IRF operations, NIA charge sheet also lists the particular speeches of Zakir Naik, which could hurt the religious sentiments, the statement said.

Courtesy: Two Circles

Right to education was never designed to give rights to the masses: Anil Sadgopal

October 27, 2017

In the third part of a talk titled “End of Legacy of Freedom Struggle: Education for Exclusion and Enslavement” educationist Anil Sadgopal discusses the Right to Education act, its limitations and the way India continues to make education a commodity that can only be accessed by the elite.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

Delhi High Court calls Subramanian Swamy’s PIL as political interest litigation

October 27, 2017

The Delhi High Court has dismissed BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking a court-monitored SIT probe into the death of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar, terming his PIL as a “textbook example of a political interest litigation”.

Subramanian Swamy

A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta said the petition by Swamy could not be entertained as a PIL, reported PTI.

The death of Pushkar has been recently in news after Tharoor moved the High Court seeking restriction for Republic TV and its founder Arnab Goswami on the coverage.

On Swamy, the High Court bench also said that from what was placed before the court, it was unable to be persuaded that the probe, being carried out by the SIT, is botched up or under the influence of any party.

The court was also of the view that Swamy concealed information, based on which he had made “sweeping allegations” against Tharoor and Delhi Police, as he today offered to file an affidavit disclosing his source or reason based on which he had made the accusation.
“Although Subramanian Swamy claimed he has not concealed any data or information, when asked specifically about the basis of his allegations in the petition, his response was to seek time to file affidavit thereby clearly showing that what was to be disclosed at the first instance was not done,” the court said.

The bench also said that “Courts need to be careful that judicial process is not used by political persons for their own purposes”.

“This is not to say that political persons cannot file PILs, but courts have to be extra cautious when allegations are made against other political persons,” the bench added.

The court said the petition by Swamy cannot be entertained as a PIL as it appears to be “a textbook example of political interest litigation being dressed up as a PIL”.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Centre and the Delhi Police, said that they do not subscribe to the views expressed by Swamy that the Congress leader continues to interfere in the investigation.

Pushkar was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a suite of a five-star hotel in Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter

The Murder of Pehlu Khan

October 26, 2017

Pehlu Khan was killed on a busy highway in Rajasthan by a mob of self-proclaimed cow protectors. Now in an exclusive investigation, senior investigative journalist Ajit Sahi has discovered that this was in fact murder. He has also found that the police sabotaged the investigation and engaged in an elaborate cover up. This weakened the case against the Gau Rakshaks. Here is a summary of the report titled How the Police are Protecting the Murderers of Pehlu Khan.

The story so far

On April 1, 2017, a small group of dairy farmers was driving up along the Jaipur-Delhi highway in Rajasthan with a few cows they had purchased at a cattle fair in Jaipur. The group included Pehlu Khan and his sons Irshad and Arif, who were returning to their village Nuh in Haryana. But just as they reached Behror tehsil in Alwar district, they were attacked by over 200 Gau Rakshaks or cow vigilantes. Khan kept pleading with his assailants to let them go and even produced paper work from civic authorities that stated that the cows were purchased for milk production and not for slaughter. But the attackers tore up the documents and mercilessly beat the hapless men with sticks. The Gau Rakshaks kicked and punched them causing many grievous injuries to Pehlu Khan and his companions. Khan who was a heart patient suffered cracked ribs, a bloody nose and even injuries to his eye. Two days later Pehlu died of his injuries at a private hospital.

Watch our exclusive video report here:

You can also read the full report here.

The FIR stage cover up

The cover began at the stage of filing the First Information Report (FIR) itself. Before Pehlu Khan died, he clearly named six men as his attackers. These men were Om Yadav, Hukum Chand Yadav, Sudhir Yadav, Jagmal Yadav, Naveen Sharma and Rahul Saini. This statement later became his ‘dying declaration’ and ought to have been accepted as such. But the police did not include these six names in the FIR. Subsequently, the police claimed that none of these men was even at the crime scene during the lynching. This virtual clean chit ensured that Pehlu’s attackers got bail despite their heinous crime.

Click here for full article

The Fall of the House of ISIS

October 26, 2017

ISIS is on the decline, but the catastrophic political divisions in Iraq and Syria that gave rise to it are no closer to being mended.

(Photo: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús / Flickr)

The Middle East today is enduring a replay of World War II — with the Islamic State in the role of Nazi Germany.

Having seized much of Europe and parts of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany reached the peak of its expansion by the fall of 1942. Then, stopped at Stalingrad and unable to overwhelm Britain, the Nazis began to fall back, and the war turned into a race between the Soviet troops marching from the east and the Allied soldiers surging from the west. After the war, as a result of the competition between these two sets of armed forces, Europe would remain divided for the next half century.

The Islamic State likewise reached its peak expansion in mid-2014 when it controlled large chunks of Iraq and Syria. It has experienced a rise and fall even more precipitous than the Nazis’. By mid-2016, a mere two years later, it had already lost 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent of its territory in Iraq.

Today, with the fall of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the Islamic State has dwindled to a swath of land around the border of the two countries. Once a “state” of 11 million people with an economy worth about $1 billion a year — the size of Great Britain, the population of Greece, the economic output of Gambia — ISIS is now little more than the several thousand fighters desperately fending off attacks from all sides. From the west, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is attempting to retake as much of Syria as it can. From the east, Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga operating under the cover of U.S. air support have been steadily ejecting the would-be caliphate from Iraqi territory.

In both Iraq and Syria, significant divisions exist among the anti-ISIS fighters. Indeed, the lands encompassing Iraq and Syria would be lucky to experience the frozen hatreds of a Cold War in the wake of the fall of the house of ISIS. The shrinking of the caliphate will more likely lead to a new level of fighting — over the future structure of both Iraq and Syria and, more ominously, the dispensation of the region as a whole.

In Syria
It not only feels like 1945 in Syria, it looks that way as well. After months of saturation bombing, the cities that ISIS once controlled look like Germany after it had been reduced to rubble in the final months of World War II, as the Allies and the Soviets tightened their vise grip on the Nazis.

Thanks to the help of both Russia and Iran and to its ruthless aerial campaign, the Syrian government has managed to regain 60 percent of the country. Syrian forces have continuously bombed civilian targets, such as hospitals. Of the 1,373 attacks on civilian infrastructure in 2016, for instance, Syrian and Russian forces were responsible for 1,198. Last month, September, registered the largest number of casualties for 2017, with nearly 1,000 civilians killed, including over 200 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Assad regime has specialized in the comparatively low-tech barrel bombs, which maximize civilian casualties, dropping nearly 13,000 of them in 2016.

The U.S.-led coalition, meanwhile, has been equally brutal in its effort to dislodge the Islamic State from its capital of Raqqa. The city now looks like Dresden after the firebombing of World War II, as the Russian government has rightly pointed out. According to Syrian activists, over 1,000 civilians died in the bombing.

The third leg of brutality in Syria is Sunni extremism. True, ISIS is on the decline. But other militant forces aspire to kick Assad aside, keep the Kurds down, and beat back the Americans, Russians, and Iranians. After several name changes, the latest collection of al-Qaeda-like factions in Syria — which may or may not maintain a link to al-Qaeda itself — is the Levant Liberation Committee (Tahrir al-Sham or HTS). With its ISIS rival shrinking daily, HTS could emerge as the insurgency of choice for those who hate Assad as well as anything associated with the Americans.

Large tracts of ISIS territory in Syria were thinly populated desert, but the caliphate possessed some jewels in their crown. This weekend, on the heels of the liberation of Raqqa, U.S.-backed militias took over the Islamic State’s largest oil field. Syrian government forces were reportedly within a few miles of the strategic asset, but were pushed back by ISIS fighters. The Syrian Democratic Forces that took over the Omar oil field are led by Kurds, but some of the soldiers are also Arab. Although the SDF as a whole is putatively fighting for a secular democratic Syria, the Kurds are more pragmatically trying to gain leverage to safeguard their gains in the north where they have established the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.

Hatred of ISIS has been the lowest common denominator for a broad range of actors in Syria, from American neocons and Syrian generals to Kurdish militias and al-Qaeda sympathizers to Kremlin geopoliticians and Hezbollah. ISIS has been a knife stuck deep into Syria. There’s no argument that the knife is life threatening. But remove it, and Syria risks bleeding out.

In Iraq
On his recent swing through the Persian Gulf, where he failed to get Qatar and Saudi Arabia to kiss and make up, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also made some especially ill-conceived comments about Iraq.

“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home,” he said.

There aren’t any Iranian militias in Iraq. The Popular Mobilization Forces that have played a major role in pushing the Islamic State out of Iraq are largely Shiite, but they also contain Sunnis and Christians. Many of the brigades in this coalition force have links to Iran, but at least one major unit so far has been incorporated into the Iraqi army. In other words, the so-called “Iranian militias” are already home. They’re Iraqis, after all.

Tillerson also said, “Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home, and allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors.” Was Tillerson announcing that all U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq — 5,262 according to the Pentagon, but possibly as high as 7,000 — are about to go home? If so, everyone in the media and the U.S. government seems to have missed this second “mission accomplished” announcement.

Thanks largely to the United States and its earlier decision to invade and occupy the country, Iraq faces the same kind of fragmentation problem as Syria. Iraqis have divided loyalties. Now that the acute threat of ISIS has passed, the fissures in Iraqi society are once again widening.

Consider the ongoing conflict between Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad. The residents of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq went to the polls last month and overwhelmingly endorsed independence. The central government immediately went on the offensive, putting economic pressure on the wayward province and sending army units to seize the disputed oil-rich region around the city of Kirkuk. With ISIS on the decline, anti-Kurdish sentiment can unite the rest of Iraq. As Juan Cole points out, the Kurdish move brought out Iraqi nationalism even in the Shiite militias that helped the Iraqi army retake Kirkuk.

In retrospect, Kurdistan President Mahmoud Barzani’s bid to use the independence referendum to boost his own political fortunes was, according to veteran Kurdish politician Mahmoud Osman, a “miscalculation.” It may revive Iraqi nationalism and thwart Kurdish aspirations. Or it could trigger more centrifugal forces. With ISIS on its way out and the U.S. military presence relatively modest, Iraqis may well turn back to their post-invasion preoccupation of fighting each other to the point of the country’s dissolution.

After ISIS
The war against ISIS is like a matryoshka “nesting doll” from hell. The campaign against the caliphate is inset in the larger Syrian civil war and the Iraqi federal conflict. These are in turn nested within a larger confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And this regional tug-of-war is itself part of an even larger competition for influence between the United States and Russia.

Now, imagine giving this matryoshka doll to a six-year-old child prone to tantrums. Enter Donald Trump. He has done just about everything he can to make a bad situation worse short of destroying the doll with nuclear weapons. He has antagonized the Iranians at every turn, encouraged the worst tendencies of the Saudis, done little to keep Iraq together, made no effort to push the warring sides in Syria back to the negotiating table, and pursued a woefully inconsistent policy toward Russia.

Yes, the looming defeat of ISIS is to be cheered, but the costs have been huge. There’s the enormous loss of civilian life and the destruction of ancient cities. There’s the uptick in ISIS attacks abroad. Iraq remains fragile, though the Kurds have offered to freeze their independence vote. Syria is no closer to an end to its civil war, though more rounds of peace talks are set to begin shortly. Human rights violations by the Assad government continue, though the first trials have taken place in Europe to hold those responsible for those violations.

Most importantly, no one is tackling the nested conflicts in the region. The first step is to take the matryoshka doll out of Donald Trump’s hands. Give him something else to play with, perhaps another tour of his favorite campaign stops in the United States. Then let some real adults — the UN, the EU, Jimmy Carter? — grapple with the post-ISIS realities of the Middle East.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands.

Courtesy: http://fpif.org

In the ongoing war between fake news and evidence-based information, facts do not matter

October 26, 2017

To influence policymaking we need to engage both with policymakers and society, to break the cycle and restart, using concepts and narratives with equality and human rights at their core.

Post truth and fake news are the current hip terms circulating in the public sphere that are being used both as a tool for attack on, and an explanation for the current state of regress of democratic values and civil liberties.

The spread of hateful sentiments and the rise in violence against various minority groups is very often put down to the proliferation of fake news and populist narratives. It seems that the common strategy of resistance is the provision of facts.

Civil societies and individuals alike are trying to resist and reverse fake news by providing evidence-based information. Initiatives like the Anti-Rumour Campaign from Barcelona were replicated in many cities across the world, to tackle the myths and misconceptions about migrants and refugees with ‘real’ facts. Many people, including myself, are regularly posting statistics, charts, and photos of the ‘real’ facts, to respond to instances of fake news appearing on our Facebook walls.

This strategy seems pretty logical, right? Fake news could/should only be trumped by real news based on the truth. And what is real and true? Facts. We just need to figure out how to seek better, more convincing facts, and how to do it in a real time to respond to the fast pace of ever-emerging fake news. Problem solved. And what is real and true? Facts.

The problem is however, that facts do not matter. At least not in the ongoing war between fake news and evidence-based information. Facts per se, scientifically researched and measured numbers and data, exist in a vacuum. Facts, numbers and data do not describe or explain the reality as such; they just give an isolated snapshot of a particular phenomenon. Facts, number, and data need to be interpreted before becoming a communicable narrative reflecting reality.

And when facts are interpreted then they relate to measures of truthfulness other than science or expertise. A classic example of this catch is the never-ending dispute about a glass that is either half full or half empty. Both options are true, but neither of them is a fact. The scientific fact in this case is; a glass of a capacity let’s say 250ml is filled with 125ml of liquid. The capacity of the glass and the quantity of the liquid have both been measured: these are the facts. But when we argue about the state of the glass in question, we do not discuss facts sensu stricto but concepts that are based upon the interpretation of facts.

Facts, numbers, and data are dry and boring; it is easy to forget them or to mix them up. Apart from a small group of people, usually academics, who love the intellectual exercise of discussing research methodologies and fact collecting, ordinary people are neither interested nor have they time to analyse the epistemology of facts.

The only thing that people want, is to know; who are the goodies, and who are the baddies? And that is what populism and fake news do. They give a clear-cut version of the good and the bad, presenting clarity in the chaos of contradictory information and ideas. Fake news not only tell people that ‘we’ are the goodies and ‘they’ are the baddies, but they also give a purchase on the future by transforming current events and past experiences into one coherent perception of what it will mean to uphold (or lose) power. ‘Us’ ‘them’ ‘power’ ‘right/wrong way’ these are all concepts expressed by a narrative, and they are not facts.

We can say that the role of fake news is to reinforce power by matching concepts with ideologies. Populist narratives and fake news in most cases are created by people who want to uphold the status quo that revolves around a dominant concept of prescribed identity, creating a clear cut division between ‘us’ and ‘them’. In this simple formula for fake news ‘us’ are the people who look, talk, behave and pray the same way. Our way is the right and safe way, but ‘they’ want to take it away from us. Whereas, the other side is asking us to make room for ‘them’ because ‘they’ are part of ‘us’, and they say that this sharing of power is cool. ‘Us’ ‘them’ ‘power’ ‘right/wrong way’ these are all concepts expressed by a narrative, and they are not facts.

Concepts more than facts are grabbing people’s attention because concepts are directly related to emotions and values. Emotions and values are what people care most about because they guide people’s aspirations, hopes, and fears and influence the way people perceive struggles and disappointments. That is why fake news is taking off like wildfire, because it is designed to play on people’s emotions and values, to raise their hopes of winning their subjective struggle, whatever that struggle may be. How can you fight subjective narratives of hope, fear, or self-hatred with objective facts?

Fake news also validates people’s fears against failed aspirations, whatever they have aspired to become or to have. That is why fighting fake news with facts is pointless because, how can you fight subjective narratives of hope, fear, or self-hatred with objective facts? Objective facts very often have rather little relevance to the reality of people’s lived experiences, everyday real live experiences can be better expressed by narratives. So narratives matter and concepts matter, as well as contexts.

Context is key

Why is context another key element? Let me go back to the case study of a glass filled with liquid. The argument whether the glass is half full or half empty is not a philosophical question about people’s positive or negative attitudes. People take sides depending on the context that they are situated in, and that is a pragmatic decision. If a person is thirsty then the glass if half empty, if a person is not thirsty then the glass can be half full. One concept can have a few different meanings for different people, depending on the context that they are positioned in.

The issue of fake new is particularly worrying in the context of making social policy and laws because, fake news can very easily create a sense of urgency and need for intervention, tinted with feelings of threat or the danger of losing power. And when people feel that they are under a threat they act accordingly, to uphold the status quo.

And politicians and policy makers are not exempt from the perception of feeling that they may be under threat. They are not individuals hanging in a vacuum thanks to their position as decision makers; they are architects of the society but they are also a product of the very same society.

They hold beliefs and opinions that correlate with their upbringing, education, life experiences and access to information. And these beliefs and opinions form a prism through which they are interpreting the facts to form concepts. In the absence of an effective counter-narrative to fake news, the political class is being pulled in one direction by the dominance of hateful and stigmatising populist narrative in media coverage and fake news in social media debate.

What is more, politicians are being elected by members of the public based on their political platform that is not built on facts but on concepts, emotions and values that they share with members of the public. Therefore this is a self-perpetuating cycle of action and reaction that needs to be addressed as a whole. To influence policymaking we need to engage with both policy makers and the society at large, to break the cycle and restart it with concepts and narratives of democratic values of equality and human rights at its core.

An effective counter-narrative?

The question is then how to build an effective counter-narrative to fake news? Definitely not by a provision of facts, but by engaging with concepts, emotions, and values. First we need to unpack the meaning of concepts that operate in the society, and we need to investigate how these concepts re/produce misconception, inequalities, and oppression in contemporary societies and what emotions they instigate in people.

Concepts are schematically organised depictions and attitudes with regard to certain aspects of the world. Unpacking concepts and realising their contexts means understanding the hidden or unconscious motivations in others and ourselves too. This will enable us to address concrete problems – not by providing indisputable answers, but by challenging the populist application of concepts.

Confronting and demystifying ideologies can’t happen through the systematic investigation of semiotic data but by systematic investigation of concepts and contexts to build better narratives. Therefore my argument is that it is not the facts per se that we should focus on when tackling fake news, but it is the concepts and contexts that are important to be attentive to.

Concepts convey values and emotions, and context is the pragmatic framework where the concepts take root. Fake news are playing with them, and we should enter that game too. Not to twist or stretch concepts and contexts to fit our purpose, but rather to protect them from the distorted twisting and stretching that they are subjected to by fake news and populist narratives.

Water for everyone

We don’t need better facts, we need better interpretation of facts. We also need to reconnect concepts with democratic values of equality and human rights and we need to be mindful of the particular context that people live in.

To achieve that we need better communication strategy, a strategy that works both ways. As civil societies we can’t only ‘lecture’ people about values of equality, inclusiveness, social justice, and human rights. We also need to provide channels through which people can voice their concerns without being afraid of being shut down at a first sign of a discrepancy with values that are perceived as at the core of well-being for our societies. Without knowing what people’s concerns are, and context their concerns reflect, it is quite impossible to unpack the concepts and build them back up with a new, emancipatory meaning. A large part of the society is being lost to the populist application of concepts and their ideology of division. That’s how.

The war between populist narratives and evidence-based information is currently being won by fake news not because of its ability to connect with peoples’ emotions and concerns, but because of the inability of the other side to do the same. And that’s how a large part of the society is being lost to the populist application of concepts and their ideology of division.

People have emotions and concerns, and they want to voice them, not to spread hate, but to find reassurance that their concerns will not become their reality. And this is the space for the two way channel of communication that is not reacting with facts, but is responding with a vision of a collective future of ‘us’ where everyone deserves their glass of water.

Teresa Buczkowska is Integration Team Coordinator at the Immigrant Council of Ireland. A migrant herself from Poland in Ireland since 2005, she has completed a study on racism in the taxi industry and co-authored a report on racially motivated anti-social behaviour in social housing. Between May 2016 and May 2017 she served on the Board of the European Network of Migrant Women. She holds an MA in Ethnography and Social Anthropology from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

New law on foreign funding tightens the screws on NGOs in Bangladesh

October 26, 2017

Rights and advocacy-based NGOs face funding crunch after new regulations come into force

According to recent data from the NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB), as many as 2553 NGOs have registered till July 12 Syed Zakir Hossain

After decades of successful collaboration with the government, non-government organisations (NGOs) are currently experiencing an existential crisis in Bangladesh.

Asian Development Bank in its profile of Bangladesh states that from relief and rehabilitation, microcredit loan programs, and education to strategies for water treatment and agriculture, NGOs have found a niche for themselves in the gap between society and state, seeking to promote the people’s welfare through grassroots initiatives and development programs.

But between the new NGO law the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Bill 2016 (FDRB) that came into effect on October 13, 2016 and Bangladesh attaining the middle income status from the World Bank, NGOs now find themselves in an uncomfortable position – running out of funds and enduring bureaucratic delays and tighter scrutiny from the government.

Talking about the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Act, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said: “NGOs are not only supposed to praise the government’s positive work, but also criticise its shortcomings.”

The law is causing difficulties for many NGOs, especially the rights and advocacy-based ones, observed Iftekharuzzaman, who termed the law contradictory to the rules of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

There is also a funding shortage from foreign donors and development partners for rights advocacy programmes following the new NGO law, where one of the provisions allows the NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB) to suspend the registration of an NGO or to close it down if it makes any ‘derogatory’ remarks about the constitution or constitutional bodies.

Terror financing is the worst thing that such NGOs are doing, while some other NGOs are involved in conspiracy against our apparel sector

According to recent data from the NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB), as many as 2553 NGOs have registered till July 12. The NGOAB estimate reads that the average annual registration during the Awami League-led government’s 1996-2001 tenure stood at 121, while the number dropped to only 78 in each of the last three years of the party’s current tenure. It is obvious that NGO registration numbers have been gradually declining.

Government seeking to rein in NGOs?

The civil society’s role and function within a democracy is crucial in critically understanding how society has developed and should develop, said an NGO insider asking not to be named.

After attaining the lower-middle-income country status the government has started showing an authoritarian tendency towards NGOs, alleged the insiders.

The government is yet to clarify about the role of NGOs in helping to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The government had previously partnered with the NGOs on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015.

In an effort to be involved in the process, NGOs formed a platform called Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh under the leadership of Centre for Policy dialogue (CPD), an independent think tank, to help implement SDGs.

CPD’s Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, convener of the platform, in a recent conference, titled “NGO’s role in achieving SDGs”, said: “The efforts of the NGOs coupled with government initiatives can play a vital role in achieving SDGs.”

Abul Kalam Azad, chief coordinator of SDG affairs at the PMO, urged NGOs to make plans individually to achieving SDGs. Azad then hinted at approving new NGOs soon, but experts said it would take more time.

Many experts said the government took a strict position after allegations of NGOs taking political sides emerged. Some ruling party leaders said many NGOs work as a pressure group and supported civil society positions during the parliamentary elections.

NGO face funding crunch

As NGOs in Bangladesh are mainly dependent on foreign assistance, global economics and politics play a vital role in how development funding is allocated in donor country’s budgets.

Many NGOs, mostly the small ones, have been forced to close their operations because of a funding crisis, say insiders. Monir Hossain, an NGO project

coordinator in Gaibandha, said: “A number of NGOs have suspended their work in many projects in the area since they are not getting enough funds. Many of the NGOs only have offices here without any work.”

TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said: “The development partners have shifted their priorities towards the Middle East crisis and Africa. We have to bear in mind that developed countries are also going through a recession. There is also changing attitude in the political discourse in Europe and North America.”

“The donors now want to provide money to sectors related to human rights, instead of the service sector,” said Towfikul Islam Khan, Research Director of CPD.

However, NGOAB Director General (DG) Khandakar Rakibur Rahman said they are keen to promote small-scale local NGOs by providing them with support including funds.

CPD’s Dr Debapriya proposed the government to create a yearly trust fund of Tk100 crore for the NGOs: “NGOs have been dependent on foreign donors but it is not possible to achieve SDGs by only depending on foreign aid-run organisations.”

Abul Kalam Azad said he would advocate for the trust fund at the ministerial level.

Controversy surrounds some NGOs

Critics of the NGO sector have occasionally raised concerns about some NGOs, especially those receiving funds from Middle Eastern countries, alleging they could have links to terror financing.

Dhaka University Economics Department Professor MM Akash said some NGO are doing controversial work in the name of development.

“Terror financing is the worst thing that such NGOs are doing, while some other NGOs are involved in conspiracy against our apparel sector,” he claimed.

“In order to tackle such controversial activities, the capacity and power of the NGOAB has to be increased,” he added.

When asked about the allegation of terror funding, NGOAB’s Khandakar Rakibur Rahman said: “Our respective departments are working in this regard.”

He stressed on capacity building of both local NGOs and NGOAB in this regard and asked the local NGOs to maintain a close link with the bureau for providing better services to the people.

Talking about engaging NGOs in SDG implementation, he said, “The process is ongoing.”

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

Kashmir: Charade of Dialogue

October 26, 2017

This is the fourth such effort since Atal Bihari Vajpaye Government appointed KC Pant in 2001.

Image Courtesy: Emaze

It would be churlish to criticize the Government of India for appointing a new interlocutor for “sustained dialogue” but for the fact that the same official statement qualifies “aspirations” with a prefix “legitimate” and evident that even this dialogue will be conditional. We know that for successive Governments any espousal of demand outside the confines of Indian Constitution is considered anathema. With the RSS-BJP Government contours of “legitimate” has narrowed as their understanding of Constitution is informed by their ideological demand for doing away with Article 370 and 35A as well as their championing of settling “nationalists” in Kashmir, an euphemism for demographic transformation of Kashmir. As a result list, of what constitutes illegitimate aspirations to the votaries of RSS-BJP is long. The other problem is that the intended focus of the interlocutor is reaching out to youth and there is ambiguity over talking to votaries of “Azaadi”. Because NIA is neither climbing down from targeting Hurriyet (Geelani) nor relenting in its efforts to make high profile arrests, as they did within 24 hours of announcing dialogue by arresting son of Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin. The message is that ‘separatists’ are on backfoot, militants on the run, and people in disarray, so the time is propitious for engaging in dialogue.

This is the fourth such effort since Atal Bihari Vajpaye Government appointed KC Pant in 2001 followed by appointment of NN Vohra (current Governor) in 2003-08, and the 3 member interlocutors appointed by UPA II Government in 2010 comprising Dileep Padgaonkar, Prof MM Ansari and Radha Kumar. While first two were boycotted by Hurriyet, the third one submitted a report which was rejected by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. So why should the appointment of a fourth interlocutor, a former head of the Intelligence Bureau arouse confidence, especially when RSS-BJP has vitiated an already worsening situation with its support for military suppression of not just armed militants but even unarmed civilians..

Not too long back, on October 14 Union Minister of State in PM’s Office, Jitendra Singh was reported as saying that militancy is in the “last phase” and militants’ “lifespan…. has been shortened.” Same day Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh disclosed that Army has been given a “free hand” to act against “terrorists”. The news reports citing official data show how successful ‘Operation All Out’ has been and senior officials of Police claimed that this year 12 commanders and 140 other militants have been killed. Although they hastened to add that “recruitment” carries on unabated. Official and corporate media have been over the moon for Government backing military solution, setting NIA sleuths after Hurriyet (Geelani), and for challenging Article 35A in the apex court.

What has receded into background is the fact that since last year, July 8th 2016 killing of Burhan Wani, 90 civilians were killed by the Government forces, 15,000 protestors were injured due to bullets, pellets, tear gas, 1100 suffered eye injuries which blinded scores of people. This apart 11,000 people were detained/arrested and threat of criminal prosecution hangs over them which could financially ruin their families or jeopardize their future. In addition NIA’s targeting of Hurriyet (Geelani) in the name of cracking down on foreign support for resistance, while simultaneously the BJP Government and leaders rake up the issue of Article 35A of the Constitution muddied the ‘troubled waters’. As though this was not bad enough, since September J&K has been gripped by incidence of braid chopping.

Is militancy on its last legs and a military solution achievable through Operation All Out?

If killings were to be measure of success then killing of 12 commanders and 140 militants in encounters is an achievement. But it is always advisable that when looking at J&K we look closely at data thrown at us. Militancy had declined from the peak of 20,000 militants in 1990s to few hundred by 2012-13. This ought to have heralded de-militarisation in J&K. That it did not was because this decline in number of militants did not mean that people had given up on “Azaadi”. Therefore, number of Government forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir remained by and large unchanged. Also exultation at the decimation in ranks of these 250—300 militants is tempered by anxiety over recruitment. The reason is not far to seek. For all its military successes it has not brought about a transformation in attitude and will of the people. When on October 16 militants attacked a former Sarpanch and PDP leader Mohammed Ramzan Sheikh in which he died and so did a militant of Hizbul Mujahideen the thing to note is that thousands came for funeral of the militant but few went to PDP leader’s funeral. Who is owned as their own and who is disowned tells its story. At encounter sites people still gather and hold protest, shows that although more militants are getting killed the popular mood remains defiant.

Look at the braid chopping incidents which have brought to surface the utter distrust expressed by people towards the Government, military forces and agencies whose presence is ubiquitous. The claim of the Police that it is an issue of mass hysteria and that anti-socials are helping fuel it, finds very few takers. Neither the Chief Minister nor the State Women’s Commission is convinced of this and the latter has begun its own investigation to get to bottom of it.

My own visit to Boniyar last week to inquire into one such incident brings out the difficulty in sifting chaff from the wheat. On October 12 at around 7.30 pm a young mother of two Tabassum in village Batangi A said that while she was moving towards the bathroom someone came from behind used her ‘dupatta’ to cover her face and her braids were chopped. No spray was used. When she recovered and screamed neighbours gathered and some saw two men fleeing. Later three persons were picked up by villagers of Bernatt a short distance from Batangi A. A FIR 37/2017 was registered and Tabassum went to the Boniyar Police Station the very next day and recorded her statement under section 161 of CrPC, in which she also identified two persons from among the three caught by Bernatt villagers. She claimed that these two had come in the afternoon to the village of 12th October to sell Tarpaulin. The Police on the other hand say that they suspect that Tabassum was prompted by villagers to identify two persons. They accept that although two of the three were “Army sources” (locals who work for the army) they were not in the area in the afternoon of 12th October, but actually somewhere else. They further claim that the two “army sources” were on anti-militancy work and had come to meet Manzoor Ahmed Mir of Bernatt who had assured them to effect surrender of a militant presently in Pakistan. Call records would verify their movement and location but police had not asked for this to corroborate their story. The point is that Police go to great lengths to rubbish the braid chopping incident and exonerate the ‘army sources”.
Trouble does not end there as the communal divide between Jammu and Kashmir regions continues to widen. The resignation of Maharaja Hari Singh’s grandson Vikramaditya Singh from PDP because the Party was reluctant to include 100 years of Dogra Rule in school curriculum, declare September 25th as holiday to commemorate Maharaja Hari Singh as well as refusal of the Government to throw out 3000 Rohingyas exposes the attempt to widen polarization between Jammu and Kashmir along communal lines.

It is important to note that Kashmir was sold in 1846 to Raja Gulab Singh in lieu of services rendered to East Indian Company against the Lahore’s Sikh rulers. And they remained the staunchest supporters of British Rule. Besides, Dogra Hindu rule was an unmitigated disaster for people of J&K, in which Kashmiri Muslims bore the brunt of feudal exactions and excesses. So to push for teaching 100 years of Dogra rule to appease the old ruling class which lost power post-1947 arouses strong resentment in Kashmir. As for throwing out 3000 Rohingyas from Jammu it smacks of being a deliberate pursuit of communal fear mongering.

Against chasms which exist in J&K the appointment of a new interlocutor has to be weighed. If it does not inspire confidence in Kashmir the reasons are not far to seek. Successive governments have made it clear that dialogue is a ruse because Indian Government has nothing concrete to offer. Lest we forget Article 370 has been reduced to an empty shell and Government has reiterated that ‘clock cannot be turned back’, implying that what has been eroded cannot be restored. So what is it that the RSS-BJP Government, wedded to repression, to offer when they consider even this eroded autonomy unacceptable?

The charade continues.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

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