Linking Mid-Day Meal to Aadhar is Illegal and Outrageous: Right to Food Campaign

March 4, 2017

The right to food campaign strongly opposes the central government’s move to make Aadhaar compulsory for children under the midday meal scheme in government schools. This is nothing but an attempt to coerce people to enrol their children under Aadhaar.

Image: Indian Express

School meals are an important entitlement of Indian children, legally enforceable under Supreme Court orders as well as under the National Food Security Act. Numerous studies show that India’s midday meal scheme has made an important contribution to higher school attendance, better child nutrition and more effective learning. Midday meals also help to break the barriers of class and caste by imparting to children of diverse backgrounds a habit of sharing meals.

No conditionalities can be imposed on this critical entitlement of Indian children. Making Aadhaaar compulsory for the midday meal would serve no purpose, and is bound to disrupt instead of helping this important programme. Further, this move is a violation of Supreme Court orders.

In a series of orders, the Supreme Court has made it clear that Aadhaar cannot be made compulsory for any services to which people are otherwise entitled. It has also made it clear that the Aadhaar Act does not supersede these orders, until such time as the Court settles the issue of compatibility of Aadhaar with the right to privacy.

During the last few years, Aadhaar has been made compulsory for a growing list of welfare schemes, under the garb of making them more effective. In fact, this imposition has led to serious disruptions, such as elderly people without Aadhaar being bumped off pension lists, NREGA workers being denied their wages due to Aadhaar seeding errors and PDS cardholders being deprived of their food rations because of technical glitches with Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. The government has paid no attention to the mounting evidence of these disruptive effects. Reason: the real purpose of this drive is to put pressure on people to enrol with Aadhaar. The need of the hour is to stop this rampage, not to extend it further, least of all to programmes like midday meals that are critical for the wellbeing of Indian children.

The right to food campaign demands immediate withdrawal of the illegal notification seeking to make Aadhaar compulsory for midday meals. It also calls on state governments to desist from implementing this illegal notification.

Courtesy: India Resist

The Latest GDP Estimates: ‘Shameful Use of a Govt Body for Propaganda’

March 4, 2017

Perhaps no other public policy debate in post-independence India has seen as much of an “inversion of reason” on the part of the government as the demonetization debate.

Perhaps no other public policy debate in post-independence India has seen as much of an “inversion of reason” on the part of the government as the demonetization debate.

When critics were pointing, on the basis of government statistics themselves, to the palpable failure of the demonetization measure to achieve its purported objective, which was to cripple the black economy, the government kept harping, in its justification, on the extraordinary “boldness” of the move.

Its position in effect amounted to saying that any move, no matter how irrational, is justified if it involves “courage”, i.e. invokes “shock and awe”, which was a sheer “inversion of reason”.

This “inversion of reason” is carried much further now by the use the government is making of the latest GDP estimates. One just has to step out of one’s home to the grocery shop round the corner to acquaint oneself of the drop in business which the grocer has suffered owing to demonetization.

The shopkeeper from whom I buy my grocery had told me that he had experienced a 50-60 percent drop in his business in the immediate aftermath of demonetization; he says that even now he is still facing a 20 percent drop in business compared to its pre-demonetization level. What he says about the drop in his business is echoed by countless other shopkeepers all over the country; and numerous journalists, academics and observers who have talked to shopkeepers across the country have testified to this fact.

The recessionary effect of demonetization on the economy in short is an indisputable and established fact; if the GDP statistics of a government organization do not bear this out, then that should be an occasion not for asserting that there has been no recessionary effect, but for asking why they do not bear this out, i.e. what is wrong with the estimates.

And yet this is not what the government is doing. On the contrary it is asserting that there has been no shortfall in demand and mocking its critics on this score, with the Prime Minster even targeting a person of Professor Amartya Sen’s eminence through some fatuous and meaningless remarks about Harvard and “Hard Work”. This constitutes an “inversion of reason”. It is like the naked emperor strutting around in his nakedness and ridiculing all those who had called him naked with the words: “See how wrong and stupid you were. My courtiers have shown I am fully clothed!”

Arthur Bowley the renowned British statistician who had taught for years at the London School of Economics used to say: “The most significant facts of social life cannot be exactly quantified, but they can be directly observed”. In India today we are being asked to disbelieve what we directly observed in consequence of demonetization, on the basis of some totally spurious quantification. And that constitutes an “inversion of reason”.

The issue that arises because of the latest GDP estimates provided by the Central Statistical Organization, therefore, is not whether demonetization has had a recessionary impact (which it indubitably has had), but why these estimates do not capture it. And three reasons have been adduced in the writings of some distinguished quantitative economists who are either working or have worked within the government.

The first reason is a downward revision of the third quarter GDP estimate for 2015-16, which provides the base for calculating the growth rate in the third quarter of 2016-17. (Growth rates for any period are usually calculated over the corresponding period of the previous year). The GDP figure for the third quarter of 2016-17 (October-December) when the impact of the demonetization of November 8 is supposed to have been felt, is estimated to be Rs. 30, 27, 893 crores. How much of a growth it represents over the previous third quarter GDP depends upon what the latter is estimated to be. And here we come to the crux of the matter.

The third quarter GDP estimate for 2015-16 announced on February 9, 2016, was Rs.28, 52, 339 crores, on the basis of which the growth rate for 2016-17 third quarter comes to 6.2 percent. On May 31, 2016, this figure was slightly revised downwards to Rs.28, 51, 682 crores, which still implies a 6.2 percent growth-rate for 2016-17. Since, with these estimates for 2015-16, the third quarter growth rate for that year, i.e. for 2015-16, comes respectively to 7.3 percent and 7.2 percent, there has clearly been a deceleration of growth in 2016-17, as the critics of demonetization have been predicting, by at least one percentage point.

But the CSO on February 28, 2017, suddenly reduced the estimate of GDP for the third quarter of 2015-16 to Rs. 28, 30, 760 crores, which gives a third quarter growth rate of 7 percent for 2016-17. There is in other words a jump in the growth rate from 6.2 to 7 percent simply by revising downwards the base upon which this growth-rate is calculated, a point that has been made by Soumya Kanti Ghosh who is the Chief Economic Advisor of the State Bank of India. Why there should have been such a downward revision by the CSO remains a mystery. The obvious explanation that comes to mind is a “doctoring of statistics” on the part of the CSO at the behest of the government.

The second reason why the GDP estimates do not capture the impact of demonetization, has simply to do with the fact that of late the GDP is being estimated not on the basis of value added figures taken from the producing units, but from company balance sheet data. This obviously means a lower coverage for informal sector producers who are not listed as companies and who are the ones that have faced the brunt of the impact of demonetization. The very method of estimating GDP that is adopted of late by the CSO therefore is simply tailor-made to underestimate the impact of demonetization.

The third reason, put forward by Pronab Sen who had been until recently the Chief Statistician of the Government of India, is as follows. The GDP estimates at market prices, which are the centre of attention at present, are arrived at by adding to the gross value added the net indirect taxes. Because of demonetization the trade channels to which producers sell their goods and which make payments for these goods over a certain period of time, paid promptly to the producers through currency notes that had been demonetized, and the producers in turn made larger tax payments than usual to the government in the form of such demonetized currency.

The net indirect tax collections therefore were far larger than usual, which, when added to the gross value added, boosted GDP figures significantly, and hence the growth rate too. The increase in growth rate that the CSO shows, far from showing the absence of any impact of demonetization, is attributable partly at least to a bizarre consequence of it.

These three reasons are additive. The fact that there is a suspicious downward revision in the 2015-16 third quarter GDP estimate, the fact that the informal sector is inadequately represented in the GDP estimates, and the fact that demonetization brought in larger net indirect taxes than usual, conjointly contribute to an exaggeration of the growth rate figure for the third quarter of 2016-17.

The 7 percent growth rate for the third quarter of 2016-17 claimed by the government which would come down to 6.2 percent if the base figure is not adjusted, would come down further if the under-representation of the informal sector in GDP estimates is taken note of, and would come down still further if the effect of arbitrarily large net indirect tax collections is additionally taken note of.

Compared to the 7.2 percent growth rate in the third quarter of 2015-16 (over the previous year’s third quarter), if the unrevised figures are taken, the drop in growth rate in the third quarter of 2016-17, in the wake of demonetization, therefore could well be about 2 percent which is what many of the critics of demonetization had been anticipating.

The Narendra Modi regime for many has been reminiscent of the Emergency of the mid-seventies, though even the Emergency, while witnessing the use of State power against opponents, had not seen the use of vigilante groups, consisting of hooligans, to stifle the freedom of thought and expression as we see today. But the CSO had been used by the ruling government of that time to doctor statistics in the run up to the Emergency, exactly as it is being used today.

The only saving grace at that time in this shameful use of a government organization for propaganda purposes had been the fact that the doctored statistics had not flown in the face of direct observation; such alas is not the case today.

Courtesy: The Citizen

“Abused for my journalism” – a chronicle of online hate

March 4, 2017

Neha Dixit received the Chameli Devi Jain Award for “Operation Babylift” and other stories. We reprint her acceptance speech.

Neha Dixit receives the Chameli Devi Jain award for an outstanding woman mediaperson from Pratap Bhanu Mehta on March 1.

After being called an anti-national for months on end, it is nice to receive an award that is named after a freedom fighter. Thanks to the jury and the organisers.

On 29 July, last year, I published a story in Outlook magazine called ‘Operation Babylift,’ a story that took three long months of painstaking reportage. It exposed how 31 tribal girls, between three and eleven years of age, from five border districts of Assam in Northeast India, were illegally taken to Punjab and Gujarat by three Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) affiliated outfits, namely the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Sewa Bharati and Vidya Bharti. The girls, all from remote villages, were taken away from their parents in June 2015 with the promise that they would be educated for free. But since they left their parents have not heard from them. Various government statutory bodies like the Child Welfare Committee, the Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Childline India Foundation, under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, had written several letters to various RSS outfits, and also the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights under the Central government, in a bid to return the girls to their parents. The letters cited the violation of several Indian and international child-rights laws and they officially termed the episode as “child trafficking”.

Once the story was published, it was widely read and circulated, garnering a huge online readership. In response, the RSS and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members and office bearers used empty rhetoric to eulogise RSS outfits instead of countering facts with facts. They indulged in mudslinging, name-calling and one of the official rebuttals spoke about my “depraved mind”, questioning my intention behind covering the story. And then came the news that the Assistant Solicitor General of the Guwahati High Court and a few BJP members had registered a police complaint against me, and the editor and publisher of Outlook magazine for “inciting communal hatred amongst communities” by selectively quoting the concluding paragraph of my story.

In the last 10 years of my journalism career, I have covered child trafficking extensively. In 2010, when I wrote about child trafficking by some madrassas in North Delhi running sweatshops inside their compounds, it was a crime story for me and my editors. After the story was published, over 250 children were rescued. Similarly, in 2011, I did a story in the dense Saranda forests at the Odisha-Jharkhand border on the training camps of child soldiers by several Maoist groups. These articles won national and international awards and I wasn’t branded a Hindu fundamentalist Sanghi, a rabid nationalist or a capitalist thug for covering these stories. The difference in reaction to these two stories and the RSS story raises two very pressing questions – are journalistic duties subject to the whims of political regimes in power? And how can political regimes remain unaccountable for curbing the basic freedom of expression?

"The difference in reaction to these two stories and the RSS story raises two very pressing questions"

Within a week of the reporting of the story and the subsequent media reports about the case filed against me and Outlook, the actual issue of the girls being trafficked was submerged in debates about my credentials as a reporter, my character and my ‘intentions’ behind doing the story and the reasons behind Outlook publishing it. Soon after, the Outlook editor, Krishna Prasad, was replaced by the magazine’s publishers without any public explanation. Instead of media outlets following up on the criminal activities of the RSS cadre and building pressure so that the marginalised, tribal parents could be reunited with their daughters, we – the journalist, the editor and the publisher – became the story instead. Even public discourse, after it shifted to debates about freedom of speech, became a handy tool to completely divert attention from the actual issue of marginalisation and criminality.

No woman writer, journalist or artist is untouched by such attacks by online trolls. In the past, I have had dedicated forums strategising about how I should be beaten “black and blue” when I reported on Khap panchayats. I have also received rape threats, often describing how thorny sticks or sharp metal rods should be shoved inside my private parts when I wrote about bride trafficking in North India. When I reported on ‘love jihad’, I was called a “member of Lashkar-e-Taiba”, and when I wrote about Hindutva-driven nationalism, I was called a “concubine of Rahul Gandhi”. Sexually explicit abuses and pictures of human private parts often land up in my inbox. When this is the response for a watertight story, it can be unnerving for a reporter. It can, in many cases, intimidate reporters enough to shut them up.

In the past, each time I received a legal notice, my senior colleagues in journalism would tell me that I had received “a badge of honour” and that it was proof that my story had made an impact. Back then, there was at least an outward show of adhering to the law of the country. Journalists could stand by their stories and present facts when they had their day in court. Now, these legal notices have been replaced by a paid troll army. Every morning, a few self-proclaimed intellectuals, columnists and writers identify a few anti-government articles and pick on them systematically. All of them have a colossal number of followers, sometimes running into several thousand. These followers then abuse and troll writers who have taken on the establishment by writing about their wrong-doings.

"Now, these legal notices have been replaced by a paid troll army."

If it is a woman, the task of online trolls becomes even easier. All they have to do is question her intention, agency, intellect and her character. That way, they not just affect the morale of the writer who then resorts to self-censorship but also promote an abysmal quality of public discourse that relies more on mob justice than intellectual or legal arguments. Any dissent in the social space is reduced to binaries and juvenile name-calling. In this space, all progressive, secular liberals are either “anti-national” or “Commie Naxals” and all those with right-wing political leanings are “Sanghis” or “bhakts”.

There is an increasing attrition of independent spaces that are devoid of these tags and baggage that allow people from diverse political and intellectual leanings to brainstorm, ideate, report, argue and debate. And ‘democratic’ governments are most happy with this development.

In March 2016, a team from the Editors Guild of India, visited Jagdalpur in Bastar and Raipur in Chhattisgarh’s conflict zones. They reported that “there is pressure from the state administration, especially the police, on journalists to write what they want or not to publish reports that the administration sees as hostile. There is pressure from Maoists as well on the journalists working in the area. There is a general perception that every single journalist is under the government scanner and all their activities are under surveillance”. Similarly, a number of journalists in Kashmir have been attacked by security forces while reporting on the human-rights abuses in the state.

According to a 2016 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, since 1992, 27 Indian journalists have been murdered and there has only been one conviction in the last 10 years. Most of these journalists are from small towns, often working on contracts, on a project-to-project basis. Mainstream media often commission these stories without legal contracts that outline terms like wages, accident or life insurance cover, or even the basic legal backing. This makes these independent journalists all the more vulnerable. The absence of strong media-centric bodies, unions and institutional support means that, even in the best of times, there isn’t much institutional support when it comes to upholding causes like the freedom of expression. This is especially worrying when the corporate-political nexus can determine news content and often does, by ‘killing’ stories or verbally intimidating reporters or physically harming them, sometimes fatally.

The question of freedom of expression applies to more than just extreme cases like mine, with respect to the ‘Operation Babylift’ story. It is also about how higher-ups in established media houses, under pressure from the corporate-driven advertising compulsions and steeped in upper-class privilege, manipulate the news the public hears, reads or sees.

The same television news channels that covered the anti rape movement and long half an hours on self defence classes for urban women, found no space to debate or report the mass rapes amidst the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh in September 2013, when over a hundred women were raped but only seven women mustered the courage to fight it out in court. These women, all of them lower-caste Muslims, landless and from working class backgrounds, registered cases against their rapists while living in the same vicinity as them. These women could not generate enough support and attention of the mainstream media because of their class and caste background. They are not articulate, they cannot speak in English, the crimes against them are communal and political in nature and that is why an editor told me “they do not make for good TV”. When news content is meant to clearly cater to the urban upper and middle-class audience, it leaves no space to question prejudices of class, caste, and gender.

A 2013 report by The Hoot suggests there are only 21 identified, registered Dalit journalists in mainstream Indian media. Similarly, tribal journalists often end up working as unidentified stringers, aiding national and international journalists as ‘fixers’ for local stories. There is no cohesive study that looks at the magnitude of the social exclusion that exists within Indian media. Most women journalists are also stuck in the middle and lower rungs of the media hierarchy. Not surprisingly, while on one hand the corporate marketing structure keeps them away from covering grassroots issues, the lack of representation from different sections of society in decision-making positions further desensitises mainstream media to the stories that affect people from the margins.

So at a time like this, I am honoured to receive this award. I would like to thank my family, my friends and colleagues who have supported me. My partner Nakul who has helped me to look at intersectionality of caste, class, gender and religion and the marginalisation that stems from it. The over 1000 women journalists from Network of Women in Media in India who have provided moral support unconditionally. I would especially like to thank Krishna Prasad, the former Outlook editor for publishing many of my sensitive stories without battling an eyelid.

I dedicate this award to all the senior women journalists, who have battled for generations so that women my generation can report things beyond flower shows and baby show and to the unacknowledged journalists who have who have suffered and survived repression and still told stories that need to be told.

Neha Dixit is an award winning independent journalist based in Delhi.

This article was first published on The Hoot

Why setting up a Bad Bank is a really Bad Idea and what can be its Alternative?

March 4, 2017

When not one but three central government ministers get involved in a controversy over an inconsequential issue like what a 20 year Old’s placard reads, it only means one thing- the government want to keep another far more important issue away from the limelight. This issue might very well be the government’s attempt to set up a “bad bank” which will have serious economic repercussions for all of us.

What is a Bad Bank?

A bad bank is basically a bank which will buy the bad loans from different banks and try to “reconstruct” the assets to get back the money that was due.

With the main opponent to this plan- Raghuram Rajan out of office- the finance minister of India, the chief economic advisor to the Indian government and a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India have recently opined that a bad bank should be established as soon as possible.

Why did Raghuram Rajan oppose it?

He opposed it because of the Indian banks’ debt profile. Almost all the bad loans or NPAs are in government owned public sector banks and almost all of these are a result of loans being given to privately owned corporation and business houses. The private sector will not invest in a bad bank because it is a venture which guarantees loss. So, Raghuram Rajan was worried about the government using public money in order to settle private debts which might have serious consequences for India’s debt to GDP ratio.

In other words, Raghuram Rajan implied that if most of the loans were in the private sector banks then the banks would/could have been forced to raise money from the public through securities to solve that problem. But now the government will be forced to do that if it decides to set up a bad bank which will increase government debt and force them to limit expenditure.

What does it mean in simple words?

Well, we as a nation have watched in slow-motion all the bad business decisions of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, such as, buying an IPL team, buying a Formula 1 racing team, private jets, expensive cars and last but not least swimsuit calendars. If a “bad bank” is formed all of Vijay Mallya’s bad loans could be transferred to it and the government will have to use our money to right Vijay Mallya’s mistakes. I don’t know about you but I find this completely unacceptable. But, Vijay Mallya is just one example- there are hundreds of people like him, many of whom are even bigger spenders than Mallya.

If this plan is so bad then who is supporting it?

Last year the former RBI governor Rajan forced all banks to disclose their Non-performing assets. This led to a lot of embarrassment for many bank officials when it emerged that they gave loans to private business concerns which should not have got any if normal banking procedures were followed. Investigative journalists also soon found out that many of these loans were given out due to pressure being exerted by government bureaucrats on the banks.

But now with a bad bank buying up all the banks’ bad loans and NPAs- the bank officials and bureaucrats can wash their hands off of their misdemeanours and pass the responsibility for an asset’s “non-performance” onto this newly founded institution.
Bankers have a second reason to support this plan. If a bad bank is set up then the responsibility of banks to lend money responsibly considerably decreases because after all if the loan becomes a Non-Performing Asset then they can simply sell it to the Bad Bank and wash their hands off from any fallout.

Is there any alternative to deal with NPAs other than opening a Bad Bank?

In order to deal with bad loans the government owned banks have been engaging in “assets reconstruction” either by themselves or by employing privately owned Assets Reconstruction Companies, but this initiative has been a failure. Now with a bad bank the government is hoping to succeed by setting up a big government owned Assets Reconstruction Company to deal with NPAs. I have only one thing to say here, that is to quote Albert Einstein- Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different outcomes.

Indian government should seriously and sincerely think of a different way to deal with these Non-performing assets. Below I have mentioned a suggestion- please have a look at it.

Possible Solution

One of the meanings of the word “democratise” is to make something available to all. Why don’t we democratise the NPAs?

Keep the NPAs with the respective banks. The banks know who their high value customers are. Banks can contact the assets reconstruction companies and not ask them to reconstruct the non-performing assets which take a lot of time without any guarantee of success but asks them which failed assets can most easily be reconstructed or re-converted into a profitable asset. This is not a difficult job to do and frankly there are many private consultancy firms in India which can do this job. The banks then should offer to sell these NPAs which have high probability of success to their high value customers. Only those customers who have impeccable credit record which can be easily determined with the help of CIBIL or Credit Information Bureau of India Limited should be made eligible to buy such an asset.

Any asset thusly sold to a private party should for a particular time period be made eligible for loans based only on the immovable assets of the business or the high value customer to whom this NPA had been solved. Moreover, loans should only be approved if the buyer of these assets agrees to implement the changes which have been proposed in a plan drawn up by the bank and the firm which assessed the non-performing asset before it is sold to the high value customer.

There are many high value individuals banking with Indian banks but most do not have any business background or entrepreneurial acumen. The pre-conditions to sell NPAs to such individuals should also be that they agree to set up an independent board of directors who can run the everyday operations of the newly acquired asset. The size of this board must vary according to the size of the asset and always be an odd number to avoid indecision.

I think this plan will work because there are many NPAs which have a lot of potential but have been run down by bad business decisions. I also think that there are sufficient number of high value individuals using the Indian banking system who would love to own a business but are hesitant to do it because they do not want to start from scratch and because they are ill-equipped to run the day to day operations of such a business. Moreover, a high value individual will most likely “adopt” a business close to where he/she resides, this will help in the welfare of local communities since NPAs and high value bank customers can be found everywhere in India.

If you like this suggestion on an alternate method to deal with NPAs, please share it online and on government portals.

(Full disclosure– There was recently a similar move to create a bad bank for Europe, but it has been shot down by EU’s biggest economy- Germany. I have been trained by and worked closely with at least 3 leading German economists and economic historians so the above article might be a result of my pre-conceived ideas.)

Assam’s plan to make Sanskrit compulsory draws flak from teachers, but the RSS is pleased

March 4, 2017

A state government decision means that children in government schools will study four languages till Class Seven.

Biju Boro/AFP

Mukul Hazarika graduated with a degree in Sanskrit in 1976. He used to teach the ancient language in an Assamese-medium government school in Assam’s Jorhat district till it gradually faded out of the school’s curriculum due to waning interest. Hazarika now teaches English and Hindi in the same school.

One would assume that he would be happy at the Assam government’s decision, announced earlier this week, to make Sanskrit compulsory till Class eight in all schools run by the government. But that is not the case.

“This is an absurd move,” he said. “Students will be unnecessarily burdened. They already study three languages. This was completely unwarranted.”

He insisted that his views on the subject had nothing to do with his personal politics.

Hazarika isn’t the only person to contend that the government’s decision has not been well thought out. In debates on the subject on Assamese news channels, spokespersons of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have not done well as they have tried to defend a decision in which very few see any merit.

Local student organisations, traditionally powerful entities in the state’s political ecosystem, have criticised Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s government, accusing it of pandering to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological mentor.

While the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad called the decision a “well-orchestrated conspiracy being micro-managed and monitored from Nagpur [where the RSS headquarters are]”, the All Assam Students Union took a more moderate view. It focused on the fact that school students would now be forced to study four languages in Assam even as children in other parts of the country learn three or even two.

Not enough teachers

At present, students in Assam’s government-run schools that are affiliated to the state education board must study three languages: Hindi till Class Seven, English, and Assamese or Bengali or Bodo – depending upon the region the school is in – till Class 10.

“While it is great that the government wants to rekindle an interest in Sanskrit, they could have kept the option of students having a choice between Hindi and Sanskrit,” said the principal of a government school in Guwahati, who did not want to be identified. The principal added that the average student would find it difficult to cope with studying four languages.

Critics of the government’s decision also point out that there aren’t enough teachers qualified to teach Sanskrit. Assam has 56,000 government-run schools, which means the state has to hire at least as many teachers for its new plan.

“Consider Upper Assam – only a few colleges offer degrees in Sanskrit [here],” said Hazarika. “It will be practically impossible to fill so many vacancies.”

Said Hemen Saikia, who teaches in a government school in Teok, a small town in Jorhat district: “How will the government hire so many teachers in such a short span of time?”

Even parents of school-going children were sceptical.

“This basically means one more tuition,” said Riniki Bhattacharya, whose son attends an English-medium school affiliated to the state education board. “As it is, there are three languages – and Sanskrit is supposed to be a tough language to learn. So just learning at school will definitely not be enough.”

A sensitive subject

Language has always been a touchy subject in Assam. In the 1960s, the state saw a massive uprising by its Bengali-speaking residents when state’s Congress government passed a bill pronouncing Assamese as the state’s sole official language.

There are three official languages in the state: Assamese, Bengali and Bodo of which Assamese is dominant. According to the 2001 census, the percentage of Assamese speakers in Assam was 49.4%. Apart from these three languages, almost all the 25-odd tribes have their own languages, written using the Roman script.

Like elsewhere in India, government schools are mainly patronised by communities that are socially and economically disadvantaged.

Academic Sanjib Baruah said that it was unfair for the political class to thrust any language or subject upon students in schools that they are percieved as having no direct connection with.

“If our political classes have strong feelings about a curricular matter – whether it is about Sanskrit or the history of Assam – shouldn’t they first try to make the change in schools where their children and grandchildren go to?” asked Baruah. “Why only in government schools? What about the private schools? Do they have the moral right to make such a change if they are not direct stakeholders?”

RSS happy

But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is pleased. It now wants the Union Human Resources Development Ministry to emulate the Assam model across the country.

“This is our longstanding demand,” said Atul Kothari, general secretary of Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, an RSS affiliate, on Thursday. “The time has come when the HRD ministry should take the issue seriously and make Sanskrit compulsory schools throughout the country.”

Kothari added: “There is a prominent school in United Kingdom where Sanskrit is being taught. Even a study conducted by NASA has concluded that Sanskrit is a truly scientific language. It is also the mother of most languages in India.”

The NASA claim is based on a misreading of a 1995 paper in a scientific magazine.

The RSS has been pursuing its demand to make Sanskrit mandatory in schools throughout the country ever since the BJP government took over at the Centre in 2014. It believes that the move would not only prevent the impact of the West on India’s culture but would also promote its version of cultural nationalism.

In November 2014, months after the formation of the Narendra Modi government, the parent body of the BJP publicly underlined the importance it gave to the issue when senior RSS member Dinesh Kamath threatened to launch a nationwide agitation if the Union government did not make Sanskrit education compulsory up to Class 12 in all schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education.

A year later, the Human Resources Development ministry set up a 13-member expert committee to recommend measures to integrate the study of Sanskrit with other disciplines like physics, chemistry, mathematics, medical science and law, suggest changes in Sanskrit education in schools and universities and point out ways to impart Sanskrit education through modern tools.

Though the committee, headed by former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami, did not recommend making Sanskrit education mandatory, it suggested, in its report submitted about a year back, that the ministry establish a Central Board of Veda and Sanskrit Secondary Education that would affiliate Sanskrit pathshalas across the country, conduct exams and make available grant-in-aid.

We expect the government not to delay the implementation of its new education policy any further and make Sanskrit mandatory throughout the country, said Kothari.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

After ‘Talaq’ over Whatsapp, two women in Hyderabad file police complaint

March 4, 2017

The two women who approached the police, are sisters-in-law, and alleged that they were harassed.

PTI: Image for representation

Two women from Hyderabad's Old City area have filed police cases against their relatives, alleging that they have been harassed, after receiving a 'Talaq' from their husbands via Whatsapp.

The Moghulpura police registered a case on Friday against the relatives of Mehreen Noor, for allegedly harassing her, after her husband sent her a 'divorce' from the US.

According to reports, two people have been arrested and the police booked cases under the IPC that deal with outraging the modesty of a woman and attempt to murder against the in-laws.

“After marriage I found out that my husband’s name is Usman Qureshi. And now, without a reason, he sent me a divorce notice. They have made marriage into a joke,” Mehreen told Times Now.

Mehreen's sister-in-law, Syed Heena Fatima, has also lodged a separate complaint against her husband, for similar reasons.

Fatima told Times Now, “I have two children, who will take care of my children? Sharia law lets you divorce me, but who is going to look after our children? Doesn’t Sharia law ask of you to take care of your children?”

Triple talaq is interpreted as the Islamic practice of divorcing a woman by uttering the word talaq thrice.

Already, the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) has demanded a ban on triple talaq and also stated that men who arbitrarily give divorce must be punished.

The board had also sought a ban on 'Nikal halala', which mandates that a woman divorced through triple talaq has to marry another man and consummate the second marriage before she is eligible to remarry her first husband.

"Quran says there must be time for reconciliation between partners. It says when a man gives talaq he must pause and consult his wife. Otherwise, triple talaq is like a hanging dagger for muslim women," IMWPLB President Shaista Amber had said at the time.

Courtesy: The News Minute

EC orders filing of FIR against Manipur BJP office bearers over code violation

March 4, 2017

The Election Commission has ordered registration of an FIR against certain office bearers of the Manipur BJP and eight newspapers for publishing an advertisement without approval of its monitoring committee.

On the basis of a report by poll authorities in Manipur, the EC had yesterday directed the state chief electoral officer to get the FIRs filed.

The advertisements were published yesterday ahead of the first phase of elections in the state.

The Commission identified the papers as Sangai Express — Manipuri and English editions — Poknapham, People’s Chronicle, Naharolgi, Thoudang, Imphal free press, Echel Express and Huiyen Lanpao.

While there is no bar on the publication of election advertisements 48 hours before the polling, a rule introduced by the Commission during the Bihar Assembly polls says that such advertisements should be cleared by its media certification and monitoring committee.

It states that without approval no newspaper will publish such advertisements.

The new rule was enforced after the BJP brought out some controversial advertisements during the Bihar elections.

PU campus tense after permission for left-leaning event denied

March 3, 2017

Tension prevailed on the Panjab University (PU) campus today as left-leaning Students For Society (SFS) activists staged a demonstration after they were denied permission by the authorities to organising a seminar.

SFS had proposed a seminar on the campus today which was to be addressed by human rights activist and journalist Seema Azad.

She, along with her husband, was arrested by the UP Police in 2010 after being charged with sedition for alleged Maoist links. They were later released on bail.

Even as Seema was not allowed for the event, police took SFS president Damanpreet Singh into preventive custody so as to maintain law and order on the campus.

However, SFS activists staged a protest outside the office of Vice Chancellor, demanding they should be allowed to hold the event which was to be addressed by Seema, party members Arshdeep Singh said, adding police should immediately release Damanpreet.

The SFS activists threatened to hold the event outside the office of the Vice Chancellor even as rival ABVP opposed.

Yesterday, activists of ABVP had staged a Tiranga Yatra on the campus against the SFS for allegedly including Naxalite extremists in the audience.

“We will not allow Seema to enter the university,” ABVP member Harmanjot Singh Gill said. “How can SFS dub Army as rapist,” he said?

SFS members said they expect support from the authorities of PU for peacefully conducting the seminar.

“When PU authorities allowed the ABVP to hold Tiranga Yatra yesterday, we expect them to cooperate with us too,” SFS member Harman said.

“It is surprising to see the name of Naxal leader Seema among the speakers in the seminar. The PU authorities have withdrawn the permission to SFS for the event,” university syndicate member Subhash Sharma said.

The stalemate over holding the seminar continued as SFS members were adamant to hold the event.

Earlier, security was beefed up at the university to avoid any untoward incident in view of the SFS proposed event.

Heavy police force has been deployed on the campus, officials said.

Earlier on February 27, the echo of the violence in Delhi’s Ramjas College was felt on campus of PU where activists of ABVP and rival Students For Society (SFS) clashed with each other.

The incident took place when the ABVP activists were staging a protest against certain ‘derogatory comments’ allegedly made by some SFS activists against the security forces.

(With inputs from PTI)

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After ‘Talaq’ over Whatsapp, two women in Hyderabad file police complaint

The two women who approached the police, are sisters-in-law, and alleged that they were harassed.

EC orders filing of FIR against Manipur BJP office bearers over code violation

PU campus tense after permission for left-leaning event denied

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