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| Dr APJ Abdul Kalam during a visit to Bunglon High School, Churachandpur, Manipur in 2006. Pic: N Jonish |
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| Mr Robin Hibu, IPS, Jt CP, Special Unit for Women and Children (SPUWAC) & Nodal Officer for North-East People, Delhi Police. Pic: BKT |
Ever year, I celebrated
the Republic Day and Independence Day. Watched all of Gandhi’s movies and a few
of Bhagat Singh’s. Learnt of our rich history of the Mughal Empire and
the Maurya dynasty.
"Apart from these, he also keeps many women in separate rooms built in each ashram. Though old, Asaram needs young girls in the age group of 15 to 25 daily. He may not touch the same woman for a year, as he needs a new girl every time," says Amrut Prajapati, who worked as a technical officer of the Ayurvedic division at Asaram's Motera ashram for 12 long years.
United Nations, Jun 14, 2013--- India will surpass China to become world's most populous nation around 2028, with its population crossing the 1.45 billion mark, according to latest report by the United Nations.
The report 'World Population Prospects' says the world's population will hit 7.2 billion next month and is projected to reach 10.9 billion by 2100, with the growth mainly occurring in developing countries, with more than half in Africa.
But, with the number of future global dwellers linked to fertility, the number at the end of the century could be as high 16.6 billion or even fall to 6.8 billion, it adds.
The report says India is expected to become the world's most populous country, passing China around 2028, when both countries will have populations of 1.45 billion.
After that, India's population will continue to grow and that of China is expected to start decreasing.
"Although population growth has slowed for the world as a whole, this report reminds us that some developing countries, especially in Africa, are still growing rapidly," Wu Hongbo, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said while releasing the report.
The report notes that the population of developed regions will remain largely unchanged at around 1.3 billion from now until 2050. In contrast, the 49 least developed countries are projected to double in size from around 900 million people in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050. Nigeria's population is expected to surpass that of the United States before 2050.
"While there has been a rapid fall in the average number of children per woman in large developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil and South Africa's rapid growth is expected to continue over the next few decades in countries with high levels of fertility such as Nigeria, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda but also Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, where there are more than five children per woman," said John Wilmoth, the Director of the Population Division in the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Overall, life expectancy is projected to increase in developed and developing countries in future years. At the global level, it is projected to reach 76 years in the period 2045-2050 and 82 years in 2095-2100.
The report's figures are based on a comprehensive review of available demographic data from 233 countries and areas around the world, including the 2010 round of population censuses.[TOI]
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New Delhi, June 11, 2013 --- The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee laid the foundation stone of 'Nirbhaya Bhawan' the permanent headquarters of National Commission for Women today (June 11, 2013) at a function at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that since it was established in 1992, the National Commission for Women has distinguished itself through its sincere initiatives for the rights, dignity and development of women in our country. It has been widely recognized and appreciated for the pivotal role that it has played in the empowerment of women in India. It is therefore, only appropriate that the Commission, after 20 years of service dedicated to the cause of Indian women, should finally have its own permanent headquarters. He added that once installed in its own premises, the Commission would be able to create a better infrastructure for its work, augment its capacity for outreach and also significantly enhance its functional efficiencies.
The President said that the Government of India is committed to equality and justice for all citizens - especially the marginalized - as envisaged in our Constitution. He said that women have played and aspire to play a pivotal role in shaping the socio-political and economic development of our country. He stated that the National Commission for Women has been rendering their support for increased participation of women in the democratic processes and the general up-liftment of women in India.
The President stated that a greater sensitization of society to the need to accord due respect of women is required. Only when our ancient civilizational values of treating women with respect and dignity are formally embraced by us, can we consider ourselves a civilized society. He said that his appeal was to ensure that adequate social awareness is created on women's rights and against the evil of barbaric acts of violence and atrocities against women and children, such as those witnessed in the recent past.
Among the dignitaries present on the occasion were Smt. Krishna Tirath, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Women and Child Development and Ms. Mamta Sharma, Chairperson, National Commission for Women.
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Amritsar/Lahore, May 1, 2013 [IANS] --- The distraught family of Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh, who was brutally assaulted in a Lahore jail last week, is likely to return home Wednesday after doctors have reportedly indicated that he was "clinically dead".
Raj Kumar Verka, vice chairman of the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes, said in Amritsar Tuesday that he spoke to Sarabjit's sister Dalbir Kaur who told him that doctors have told her that Sarabjit was "brain dead".
 "I think that Sarabjit had died earlier. Why did the Pakistan government have to do this drama (of allowing the family to visit him in Lahore) when he was already gone? They sought her permission to remove him from the ventilator," Verka, who was instrumental in securing visas for four members of Sarabjit's family from the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi Saturday, told media.
Sarabjit's lawyer Awais Sheikh told a news channel from Lahore that Sarabjit's sister had expressed the family's desire to return to India.
"After the doctors told her about Sarabjit's condition, she first told me that they wanted to go back today (Tuesday). But later, in their hotel, they said that they will go back tomorrow (Wednesday) morning," Sheikh told the channel.
Sarabjit Singh, 49, was admitted to a Lahore hospital in a critical condition after a vicious attack on him by fellow prisoners at the Kot Lakhpat Jail April 26. He has been on ventilator support ever since.
India Monday appealed to Pakistan for Sarabjit's release even while a medical board in Pakistan said that he would continue to get treatment in Pakistan and not shifted out.
The ministry of external affairs in New Delhi had asked Pakistan to take a "sympathetic and humanitarian" view on Sarabjit.
Dalbir Kaur, Sarabjit's wife Sukhpreet Kaur and daughters Swapandeep and Poonam, crossed from the Attari-Wagah border checkpost into Pakistan Sunday afternoon to visit him in a Lahore hospital.
He has been on death row in Pakistan since 1990 after being convicted by Pakistani courts for bomb blasts in Lahore and Multan, which left 14 people dead.
Sarabjit's family claims he is innocent, and that he crossed over to Pakistan in August 1990 in an inebriated state and was arrested there.
Police in Pakistan, however, claimed that Sarabjit Singh, known there as Manjit Singh, was involved in terrorist strikes.
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Washington, April 23, 2013 [PTI] --- Nearly half of India's population would have the Aadhaar card by 2014 and nearly one in three Indians by the end of this year, Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani said here today.
 The ambitious project - which has issued unique identification numbers to more than 380 million people, which is large than the population of several large countries in just a few years - would still take a few more years before every Indian resident is issued with this unique number and the card having the biometric information of the individual, Nilekani told a Washington audience.
Delivering the Eighth Annual Richard H Sabot Lecture 'Technology to Leapfrog Development: The Aadhaar Experience' organised by Center for Global Development - a Washington- based think-tank, Nilekani said UIDAI has leveraged the state of the art technology of the present days to provide unique identification number to every resident of the country.
"Today we have enrolled 380 million of the 1.2 billion people. Our daily processing is about a million people a day. Our goal is to reach 400 million this year and 600 million by 2014," he said, adding there are between 25,000 to 30,000 enrolment centers in the country.
Noting that this unique identification number is now becoming "an internal passport and gateway" to various services for Indians, Nilekani said by working with various regulators they have ensured that this ID is sufficient to get their services. It enables one to get services quick and hassle free, he said.
"People see this as a gateway to many services," he said, adding over the next few years he expects this to be used for different kinds of services including the ambitious direct cash transfer scheme of the Union government.
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New Delhi, April 23, 2013 [The Hindu] --- The former Chief Justice of India, J.S. Verma, who recently chaired the panel that came out with recommendations on improving women's security, died on Monday following multiple organ failure. He was 80.
 Justice Verma was admitted to Medanta Medicity Hospital in neighbouring Gurgaon on Friday with a serious liver condition. His condition deteriorated rapidly. Justice Verma, who became the 27th CJI on March 25, 1997 and retired on January 18, 1998, was appointed chairman of the three-member committee to suggest legal reforms to deal with sexual assault cases in the wake of the December 16, 2012 gang-rape case in Delhi.
The committee, which included the former Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court, Justice Leila Seth, and the former Solicitor-General of India Gopal Subramaniam, submitted its report within just 29 days following wide consultation with all stakeholders.
It recommended the death penalty in the rarest of the rare rape cases and opposed lowering the age of a juvenile from 18 to 16. It also called for enhancing the minimum sentence for rape from seven to 10-year jail.
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Raipur, April 9, 2013 [CNN-IBN] --- A mentally unstable man carried out a bloodbath in Chhattisgarh's impoverished tribal-dominated Balrampur district on Thursday (Apr 4), axing to death nine girls and women aged between 2-65 years, police and eyewitnesses said.
 The bodies of four female adults and five minors, were lying in a pool of blood for hours in the terror-hit Barhatola village under Samri police station, and the accused, Pandu Nageshia, 35, was tracked down when Balrampur District Collector CR Prasanna and Superintendent of Police GS Darro reached there with a police contingent.
"Its brutal killings by a man who is reportedly mentally unstable," Prasanna told IANS over phone from the village which comes under state's northern region, more than 400 km from Raipur.
The bodies of four female adults and five minors, were lying in a pool of blood for hours in the terror-hit Barhatola village.
"I am too in a state of shock after visiting the village and watching dead bodies scattered outside a house where the deceased belonging to two to three families had assembled as their male family members had gone out on daily work," he said.
Prasanna along with Darro found extremely difficult to console several poverty-hit tribal people whose innocent relatives were butchered.
Unfolding details of the shocking incident, Darro, quoting eye-witnesses, said Nageshia, who was armed with a sharp-edged weapon "tangia", suddenly went on a killing spree at around 1.30 pm and no one had an idea why he killed the nine - identified as Lalki Bai (60), Kusum Nageshia (4), Manju Nageshia (3), Sitamuni Bai (25), Priyanka (2), Machki Bai (65), Kalgi Bai (60), Sangeeta (10) and Sanjeeta (3).
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| New Delhi, 03 April 2013 [ANI] --- President Pranab Mukherjee has given his assent to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 and it will now be called the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was passed by the Lok Sabha on March 19 and by the Rajya Sabha on March 21. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was moved in the Rajya Sabha by Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde where he had termed it as a 'unique law'. Shinde had then said the purpose of the bill is to provide stringent punishment also for offences like stalking, voyeurism, acid attacks and human trafficking. The Union Cabinet had earlier last month approved the amendments to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 keeping the age of consent for sex to 18 instead of 16. The demand for having such a law picked up after the December 16, 2012 brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus in the national capital. |
JAIPUR, 26 Jan 2013 [PTI] --- The Jaipur literature festival today witnessed fireworks after political critic Ashis Nandy made a controversial comment on corruption and people belonging to OBC, SC and ST communities which drew a strong response from the audience.
At a panel discussion at the festival, Nandy said, "Most corrupt people come from OBC, SC and ST communities".
Journalist Ashutosh, who was among the panelists, and most members from the audience took strong exception to the statement.
"This is the most bizarre statement I have heard. The Brahmins and the upper cast can do away with all the corruption but when a low caste person emulates the same thing it becomes so wrong. Such statement is not right," he said.
"Most of the people who are doing corruption are people from OBC, SC and ST communities and as long as it remains Indian republic will survive," Nandy said. His comments were met with boos from the audience.
However, Nandy later clarified that what he meant was that most of the people getting caught are people from OBC, SC and ST communities as they don't have the means to save themselves unlike people from upper castes.
"You catch a poor person selling a black ticket for Rs 20 and say corruption but rich people with corruption of millions get away," he said.
Speaking at the first session here, on 'Republic of Ideas' which discussed the idea of Indian Republic, author-journalist Tarun Tejpal said corruption is a class equalizer.
"Many people who came from wrong side of society subvert the rules and move ahead using loopholes. That is the only way they have as we made such class barriers," he said.
However, a member from the audience said that "corruption is the most abusive power. We can't agree to what you said".
Indian Constitution, the panelists observed has tried to do very well to safeguard the freedom of speech by compromising on certain aspects.
Richard Sorabji, an author with around 120 books to his credit said, "Compromise is very important for a Constitution. Indian Constitution tried to do very well with safeguarding of freedom of speech. People should be free to say what they want to say against religion but not with deliberate malice. This is a compromise missing in us".
"America will do well to adopt India's idea of free speech," he added.
Patrick French, whose latest book focuses on India, said that the problems India is facing today are not the creation of Constitution but by problem of bureaucracy.
Talking on the idea of India, he said, which neighbouring country you look upto and say you want to live in it. That's the idea of India. The fact that you can't read does not stop you from voting. It was a great idea of Indian Constitution"
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Ashis Nandy clarifies stand on dalit corruption remark, cites 'misunderstanding'
JAIPUR, 26 Jan 2013 [IANS] --- Leading political psychologist, scholar and social scientist Ashis Nandy clarified on Saturday that he did not mean to hurt the sentiments of the country's disempowered groups with his comment about the equalizing force of corruption and that the scourge was rampant among the backward and dalit communities as well.
"I do believe that a zero corruption society will be despotic society. I also said that if people like Richard Sorabjee and I want to be corrupt, I shall possibly send his son to Harvard and give him a fellowship and he can send my daughter to Oxford," Nandy told the media following protests by dalit groups.
"No one will think it as corruption. Indeed it will look like supporting talent. But when dalits, tribals and the OBCs are corrupt, it looks very corrupt indeed. However, this second corruption equalizes. It gives them access to top their entitlements As long as this equation persists, I have hope for the republic," he said.
Nandy said he was sorry that he had been misunderstood. "As should be clear, there was neither any intention nor any attempt to hurt any community," he said.
The scholar said he had been supporting the cause of the marginalized and dispossessed in the last 40 years of his academic and intellectual life.
Earlier in the day, Nandy had stirred a hornet's nest at a panel discourse, "Republic of Ideas" when he said: "It will be an undignified and vulgar statement but the fact is that most of the corrupt come from the OBC, the scheduled castes and now increasingly STs. As long as it was the case, the Indian republic would survive."
"I will give an example. The state of least corruption is West Bengal. In the last 100 years, nobody from the backward classes and the SC and ST groups have come anywhere near power in West Bengal. It is an absolutely clean state," Nandy said.
Later Nandy set the record straight saying that he had meant to endorse fellow panelist Tarun Tejpal's statement that "corruption in India was an equalizing force" after dalit activists descended on the venue to protest Nandy's remarks.
Late in the evening dalit leader Kirorilal Meena filed an FIR against Nandy at the Ashok Nagar police station. This was despite festival producer Sanjoy K Roy explaining the import of Nandy's comments to Meena and other dalit leaders.
"They have clarified their position and have understood that it was a misunderstanding. Controversies are easily created. Please be responsible," Roy said.
A trained clinical psychologist and sociologist, Nandy works cover a variety of topics like politics, public conscience and dialogues of civilizations. Nandy has been honoured with the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize and has been named as one of top 100 public intellectuals by the Carnegie Foreign Policy magazine.
Panelist Tarun Tejpal, the editor in chief and publisher of Tehelka said: "It is sad that in a literary festival, people should be attacking the finest intellectual. When you come to literature festival, you are coming to play with ideas."
Like in 2012, the Jaipur Literature Festival this year too has lived up its reputation as a platform for free speech and diverse voices with Saturday's controversy over Nandy remarks and a heated exchange between lyricist-MP Javed Akhtar and dalit writer Kancha Ilaiah from Andhra Pradesh over religion.
Protests by hardline Muslim groups following speculation that author of "Satanic Verses" Salman Rushdie would attend the festival last year had kept the heat on for five days.
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Grounded in earlier remarks
JAIPUR, 28 Jan 2013 [The Hindu] --- Subsequent remarks made by Ashis Nandy need to be read and understood in the context of what Tarun Tejpal said speaking before Nandy did. Agreeing with Tejpal, Nandy went on to argue that such "corruption" of the excluded — the Dalits, tribals, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minorities — is inevitable if they are to break out from the bonds of an oppressive web of rules and regulations. He went on to say, referring to both himself and Richard Sorabji, that if they "arranged" to get fellowships for their children at Harvard or Oxford, as part of a trade in mutual and selective favours, none will comment about that, as if it is axiomatic that the fellowship was awarded on the basis of merit. Politicians or leaders of the oppressed strata, being new to the game and relatively untutored in the skills of manipulation, are unlikely to seek academic fellowships as a form of graft, and are more likely to covet and corner licences to operate petrol pumps. These pumps are publicly noticeable and can provoke outrage. Their licensees are linked to their "corrupt" benefactors, who are then condemned by the chattering classes in metropolitan cities.
So far so good. Nandy then went on to more provocatively stretch the argument, asserting that it is precisely this kind of "corruption" that has "saved" the Republic and democracy by enabling a degree of social and economic mobility and pluralising the composition of India's elite. Furthermore, he argued, that it is most likely the list of "corrupt" could be inordinately dominated by Dalits, tribals, minorities and OBCs. Despite his prefacing his last remarks, saying that what he was about to say may shock many people, and that he nevertheless wished to stress the point about how we understand corruption, many in the audience (and one on the panel) completely missed Nandy's point, and immediately accused him of casteist bias, calling upon him to withdraw his remarks and tender an apology. Some in the audience demanded that he should be charged under the Protection of Civil Rights Act for hurting the sentiments of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
Competitive outrage follows
Nandy's protestations that what he said and meant was completely the opposite of what he was being charged with were not persuasive once the atmosphere was charged with heightened emotions. Competitive outrage, taking on the familiar form favoured by some overly strident and aggressive TV anchors, evidently gives no quarter to nuanced arguments, any irony, or even black humour. When Nandy characterised the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda (now in jail), as India's first dollar billionaire, he was hardly extolling the virtues of corruption or turning a blind eye to the "perfidies" of upper caste politicians. At best, in an underhand and sly way, he was expressing admiration for the abilities of a tribal leader in matching up to what has hitherto been an exclusive preserve of India's upper caste elite.
Accusations of Nandy of being anti-Dalit/tribal/minority groups, the calls for registering a FIR against him, and demanding that he should be arrested would, in our better days, have been dismissed as an irrelevant, if not comic, aside. Such innocent days have faded, unfortunately, into a distant past. So quick are we now to take offence and demand immediate retributory action against alleged offenders that we almost never take a moment to pause, to ascertain the facts, understand what was said and meant, in what context, and to what ends. All we want is action, and now!
Signals shrinking discourse
Subsequent demands by the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mayawati, by the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes P.L. Punia, and others, to arrest Ashis Nandy, even though none of them was present during the discussion, illustrates the danger of a growing kind of prickliness and intolerance. Worse still, such occasions are used by politicians to signal their commitment to their constituencies and shore up their images. In the process we are left with a diminished public discourse. Even liberals, usually quick to defend "freedom of speech," advocate caution and temperance in the expression of reactions to intemperate allegations of the kind made against Nandy. Is this stance, one wonders, a compensatory guilt, marking what is politically correct, an obverse privileging of the erstwhile dispossessed?
Ashis Nandy's choice of words, phrases, and examples can be questioned. He is not an organised and scintillating public speaker. One can also differ with his argument and analysis, for instance, his failure to distinguish between "corruption of the poor" and the "corruption of their leaders," whose subversion of rules often results in them robbing the very poor who are also their constituents. Nevertheless, Nandy's argument that the "rules of the game" have been set by an elite class to which he belongs, which remains a privileged lot, and therefore, that the deliberate subversion of those rules is an inevitable strategy for those striving for survival and upward mobility, certainly has merit. Clamping down on nuanced utterances and elliptical statements of the kind Nandy made will only make us a poorer democracy and Republic.
*Harsh Sethi is Consulting Editor, Seminar magazine.
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