Happy May Day!
The Semiotics of Happiness
Guest post by ABHIJIT DUTTA
MC Kash - Photo by Ashish Sharma / Openthemagazine.com
It is not every day that you wake up to find your Twitter timeline flooding with the assertion that Kashmir – of all places – is happy. Dangerous? Of course. Beautiful? well, yes, the postcards are pretty enough. Angry? Sure, they look it. Radical? Oh god, yes. Happy?
If you ask Manu Joseph, author of Serious Men and editor of Open, the answer is yes. In this article, he talks about his interactions with “regular” people in the valley – the non elite, the non journalist, the non artist, the non writer – and is convinced that Kashmir is ready to move on. That it has already moved on. That Kashmir is happy. As proof, he offers these exhibits: (a) record high tourism numbers, (b) 2010 IAS topper Shah Faesal (who tells him “commonsense is finally winning”), (c) a meeting of a District Magistrate with elected leaders of a village (“not a word about politics”, says the DM to Mr. Joseph, “They want to talk about things that matter to them and their families”) and (d) the desire for city life (“we want KFC”).
This guest post by SHOAIB RAFIQ is an analysis of the Home Ministry-appointed group of interlocutors’ report on Kashmir
We swear by the fundamentals of absurdism
of that all we have learned
our solutions will mimic the ludicrousness
that we employ in our education, research, and other related shit. Read more…
‘Sau Mein Pachees Haq Hamara’: Caste of a Scam
This press release was put out by the SC/ST BUDGET ADHIKAR ANDOLAN after a large protest in Delhi on 24 April
Massive uproar and agitation by over a thousand SC/ST’s marked the initiation of the campaign “Sau Mein Pachees Haq Hamara” at Jantar Mantar on 24 April, 2012. The protesters flooded the roads of Jantar Mantar as they marched along the high pitch drum beats, adding to the rhythm of the march. Even the scorching heat did not deter those who joined the protest march from several other states. They hooted in unison, “Hamara Haq Idhar Rakho!” Read more…
Things Fall Apart: A Review of Behind The Beautiful Forevers
This week, I reviewed Kate Boo’s Behind The Beautiful Forevers for The Hindu. At the outset, I liked the book and, as a reporter, was blown away by a number of things that the review doesn’t really address – the way the book was organised, the reporting and research process etc. The review also addresses some of the points made by Mitu Sengupta in her review of the book – published a few weeks ago on Kafila.
Behind a low wall near the taxi stand adjacent to the Sahar Police Station in Mumbai is a ledge of concrete suspended seventy feet above the Mithi River. “By some trick of wind in the sluice,” Katherine Boo writes in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, “trash tossed over the wall tended to blow back and settle on this sliver of concrete. It was a space on which a small boy could balance.”
That small boy is Sunil, a 12-year-old garbage collector determined to find as much trash as it takes to buy food lest hunger stunt his growth and leave him a runty man-child forever shorter than his younger sister. “To jump start his system, he saw he’d have to become a better scavenger. This entailed not dwelling on the obvious…” Read on
These photographs were taken at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Sunday, 22 April, by MUKUL DUBE. This protest was organised by the Aseem Trivedi led Save Your Voice campaign against India’s IT Rules 2011 that, as has been explained earlier on this blog, are a set of procedures that are already causing internet censorship in India bypassing the right to legal remedy and natural justice. Trivedi’s website, www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com, was taken down by its domain registrar and he was not even informed in advance, thanks to these rules. The Rajya Sabha, upper house of the Indian Parliament, will debate these rules any time between 24 April and 9 May. You can urge all Rajya Sabha MPs to vote for the motion in a petition here or write directly to Rajya Sabha MPs from your state, in just a few clicks, here.
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NWMI Condemns The Violent Abuse Of Meena Kandasamy
[We at Kafila are absolutely horrified at the abuse directed at poet and activist Meena Kandasamy for expressing her views on twitter regarding the beef-eating festival at Osmania University. That supposedly 'neutral' educational institutions replicate upper-caste Hindu dietary taboos, is no surprise, nor that the ABVP reacted with its customary violence to that questions upper caste privilege. What is shocking is the attitude of the Vice Chancellor and the sexist, misogynist, violent speech directed at her on the web. It is telling that those who take such umbrage at the eating of cows, think nothing of advocating the public rape of women. Below is a statement issued by the The Network of Women in Media condemning the hate speech directed at her. We stand in solidarity with Meena Kandasamy.]
The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI), strongly condemns the violent and sexist abuse unleashed on poet, writer, activist and translator Meena Kandasamy, presumably in response to her posts on Twitter about the beef-eating festival at Osmania University, Hyderabad, on 15 April 2012 and the ensuing clashes between groups of students. Read more…
Press Release Against IT 2011 Rules
PRESS RELEASE
The notification of the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 in April 2011 has resulted in the creation of a mechanism whereby intermediaries (such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc) receive protection from legal liability in return for trading away the freedom of expression and privacy of users.
The Rules demand that intermediaries, on receiving a complaint that any content posted online is considered grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner, have to disable the content within 36 hours of receipt of complaint. The rules also require the intermediaries to provide the Government agencies information of users without any safeguards.
Read more…
Freedom in the Cage: 22 April, 2012
Press Invitation
FREEDOM IN THE CAGE:
We urge the Parliament TO SAY NO TO INTERNET CENSORSHIP
Jantar Mantar, 22nd April 2012, Sunday, 11AM to 5PM
Artists, musicians and Internet users will participate and talk. We are putting cages at Jantar Mantar with artists inside playing guitars and painting canvases. This symbolises that IT rules have caged our freedom which was granted by the constitution of free India. It is about our basic democratic right of free speech. It is about police not knocking on our doors for forwarding emails. It is about what you and I can put up on our blogs without worrying whether it hurts the rich and the powerful.
We support free speech, free knowledge and free software. Read more…
Hyderabad Riots
Report of the Fact Finding Team
Civil Society Organisations of Hyderabad constituted a Fact Finding Team at a meeting held on 12th April to enquire into the riots and disturbances in Hyderabad between 8th to 12th April 2012.
The Team Comprised of Mr. Jeevan Kumar (HRF), Syed Bilal (HRF), Ms. Audhesh Rani, Mr. M.A. Hakeem, (ICAN), Mr. B. Ramakrishnam Raju (NAPM), Ms. Noor Jahan (COVA) and Dr. Mazher Hussain (COVA). The Fact Finding Team received local facilitation from Mr. Azeem Khan (Advocate), Mr. Vijay Kumar (AITUC), Mr. Yadgiri Reddy, Mr. Samad and Mr. Waheed Ansari.
The Team made field visits on 16 and 17 April 2012 and met the following:
1. Members of the Hindu and Muslim communities in Madannapet, Kurmaguda and Saidabad
2. Mr. Sahadev Yadav, Local Corporator
3. Mr. Iqbal Siddiqui- ACP Malakpet
4. Mr. Amit Garg IPS, Additional Commissioner, Law & Order, Hyderabad City Police
5. Mr Madan Mohan Rao District Revenue Officer, Hyderabad.6.
Earlier, on 14th April a team of Interfaith Forum had visited all the 7 places of worship that were desecrated between 8th and 12th of April and had met the priests and community leaders of these areas.
Events
At about 6.30 am on 8th April the priests of Sri Abhaya Anjaneya Swami Devalayam located in a by lane in Kurmaguda noticed green colour (associated with Islam and Muslims) sprayed on the walls of the temple and burnt leg pieces of a cow placed on the grill. The priests informed Mr.Sahadev Yadav, the local Corporator from the BJP party who in turn informed the police who reached the spot by about 7 am.
A pointless battle in Siachen: Saadut Hussain
Guest post by SAADUT HUSSAIN
“We, the willing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.” Notes from the diary of a soldier who served in Siachen. (Original quote by Mother Teresa.)
India and Pakistan may have their guns aimed on each other at Siachen, but in reality they are both fighting nature, nature defeating them and being defeated by them. At 20,000 feet the world’s largest glacier outside the North and South Poles, Siachen is the world’s highest battlefield. Read more…
What’s up with India’s IT Rules?
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The IT Rules of 2011 will come up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha very soon under an annulment motion.
Urge all Rajya Sabha MPs to vote for the motion in a petition here or write directly to Rajya Sabha MPs from your state, in just a few clicks, here.
Here’s an FAQ on the IT Rules by SFLC.in and here’s an analysis of the rules by PRS Legislative Research.
Is India’s HRD Ministry Barking Up The Wrong Tree?
Guest post by RAM KRISHNASWAMY
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal seems to be getting a lot of flak from so many quarters on Jan Lok Pal Bill, HRD Computer Tablet Aakash and now his backing of ISEET, one common national entrance exam for science and engineering. Now as HRD Minister he has inadvertently attracted the wrath of over 1,75,000 IIT alumni globally; as also faculty and students of all IITs who are opposed to his idea of killing IIT-JEE and replacing it with a common national exam called ISEET.
Yes, Kapil Sibal is the HRD Minister but he is a lawyer and a politician and is not a technologis. It appears that he is being advised by technologists who are misleading him and telling him what he wants to hear, as opposed to giving him solid advice in the interest of the nation.
Let us just look at IITs and JEE alone.
Let us see what truly is wrong with IITs & JEE and what recommendations the HRD Minister has received and from whom.
If we were to simplify the problem with JEE as it is administered in 2012 they can be listed as follows (not a comprehensive list):
Rajya Sabha to consider repealing Kapil Sibal’s IT Rules
When the Parliament’s budget session re-opens on April 24, the Rajya Sabha will vote on an annulment motion against the IT Rules promulgated in April 2011 that provide for “intermediaries” to remove the online content they are asked to by anyone. The motion has been moved by P Rajeeve, Rajya Sabha member from the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
Speaking on the phone from Thrissur, Rajeeve said, “The IT Rules go against the Fundamental Rights of the Constitution and against the principles of natural justice which are the foundation of our criminal justice system. The rules ask intermediaries to remove content without giving the content owner an opportunity to defend it. They will cause private censorship.”
The Left parties have decided to back the motion and efforts are on to mobilise members of Parliament across party lines. If the motion is accepted by the Rajya Sabha, it will be sent to the Lok Sabha, probably in the monsoon session. Read more…
Forget Hair-Oil-Powered Indulekha, Remember the Muditheyyam
Well, the truth is that I care two hoots for Indulekha Hair Oil, their stupid ads, and the wide-eyed chubby-cheeked teenage girls who they usually cast as epitomes of Malayalee feminine grace. All of Mallu FB world is agog with discussion about a brainless ad for the Indulekha Hair Oil, in which a fiery-looking woman whose dress-style follows the dress conventions of our Malayalee AIDWA Stars, bursts with indignation over the terrible harassment that women with long hair face on buses, how we are all forced to cut off “the hair that we have” (‘Ulla mudi’) and go about with short hair “like men” because of this horrible injustice, and finally, how we all ought to grow our hair long (and let it down, possibly) and hit back at such harassers. This stupid ad is actually only one among other stupid ads for this hair-oil which uses currently-common ideas like ‘women’s collectives’ (stree koottaimakal). All of them are jarring since the concepts they use, and what they aim at, simply don’t mix.Part of the outrage has been fueled by the fact that the ad uses as a model Sajitha Madathil, who is well-known as a feminist theatre activist in Kerala. Read more…
Updates from Koodankulam
Via NITYANAND JAYARAMAN
Koodankulam: Curb on Free Speech
Video Interviews with eminent legal scholar Dr. Usha Ramanathan and Adv. R. Vaigai, a senior lawyer from the Madras High Court.
Since March 19, 2012, when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced that work on the controversial Koodankulam nuclear plant could be resumed, and even before that actually, the protesting villagers have been at the receiving end of a vicious state led campaign to paint their non-violent struggle as a violent one, and to crush their campaign into silence by using harsh sections of the Indian Penal Code. More than 7000 cases of “sedition” and “waging war against the Government of India” have been filed just in the Koodankulam police station just between September and December 2011. These are part of 107 cases filed against 55,795 people during the same period. That is probably more than in any other police station in India. Certain sections of the media too have played the role of a willing partner in propagating the State’s propaganda. In pursuing this counter-campaign against its own people, the State Government has placed itself above the law of the land and pursued an openly anti-democratic agenda.
See interviews in two parts at at
PRESS RELEASE
Cases against K-protestors a parody of law: Fact Finding Team
18 April, 2012. CHENNAI – A fact-finding team headed by senior journalist Sam Rajappa confirmed that the Government had indeed restricted movement of essential goods and people in the days following the Chief Minister’s March 19th declaration announcing her support to the nuclear plant. The report, which was released at a press conference in Chennai, noted that the spirit of opposition to the nuclear power plant was very high, and warned that arresting the leaders could lead to a serious law and order problem in the region.
A meeting with Deepak Perwani
At the Lifestyle Pakistan trade exhibition that concluded in Delhi on Sunday, one stall stands out from a distance for just its name – Deepak Perwani, one of Pakistan’s most famous fashion designers. This was the first of its kind exposure for Perwani outside the Indian fashion circuit, of which he has long been a friend and fellow traveller. The humble Perwani, though, has long been used to facing Indian surprise. “People keep asking me, ‘Oh you guys didn’t migrate?’, ‘How are you treated there?’ and so on. The questions show a lack of awareness.” Pakistani Hindus do not exist in the Indian imagination, but Perwani is part of Karachi’s flourishing Hindu community, which is small but visible and influential even today. One lakh of Karachi’s 1.3 crore population is Hindu.
On the India hand in Nepal
In an interview with this writer for The Hindu newspaper last week, Maoist chairman Prachanda explained the sudden decision to send the Nepal Army to the cantonments, revealed the possible meeting points on constitutional issues, said that he would have no objection to an NC-led government promulgating the constitution, and declared his personal ambition of wanting “5-10 years” to “implement his vision”. But the bit that has drawn the most attention here in Kathmandu is his public acknowledgment of India’s role in Nepal’s political transformation—from the 12-point agreement, to the CA elections, to the declaration of republic and the progress in the peace process.
Expectedly, ultra-nationalist websites have latched onto this as proof of Prachanda’s “subservience”; right wing stalwarts have the “We told you so” smug look about how they were right all along that this was an external plot. In a different context, there has also been commentary projecting India’s current phase of engagement with the Maoist as somewhat opposed to the Nepali people’s aspirations for peace and democracy.
It would be useful to look at the several issues enmeshed here separately, based on the evidence currently available. Read more…
A turning point in Nepal
Manmohan Singh with Prachanda, circa 2008
Prashant Jha interviews the Nepali Maoist leader Prachanda:
All of us reviewed the situation. I presented a document in my party last April stating that the 12-point agreement must be the basis, and we must conclude the peace and the constitution process. India then changed the way it viewed Maoists, and realised it must help the process succeed. It was a realisation that we must revert to the environment of trust that existed during the 12-point pact.
Would it be right to say that Nepal’s peace process and the constitution would not have been possible without Indian support?
Definitely. Saying that the 12-point understanding was signed in Delhi means that there was India’s active support — otherwise it was not possible. CA elections would not have been possible. There could have been problems with the declaration of a republic. Now also, to take peace and the constitution to a logical conclusion, without Indian support, it will be very complex and difficult. [Full interview]
Kanak Mani Dixit critiques such a conclusion of the peace process: Read more…
April 14 was Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. There is no single pan-India political icon, certainly not Gandhi, whose birth and death anniversaries are celebrated as public festivals, by the public, in the way the Ambedkar’s is. Some newspapers on 15 April typically had photos of the top leaders of the country paying homage to Ambedkar but that’s about all. When historians turn these pages they will not find, in the first drafts of history, any reports about how people celebrated Ambedkar’s birthday like a festival. They will not find a record of the singing and dancing, of drums and plays, of Dalit housing socities and employees’ unions holding celebrations bang under the nose of the Indian Parliament at Parliament Street as much as in Dalit bastis is villages across India. Such is the public ignorance of this celebration at Parliament Street in Delhi that most Delhites enjoying a free holiday don’t even know about it. Parliament street is where SIDDHI BHANDARI took these photos in 2010.
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