Water, water nowhere

Striking? Well, it ought to be. There is a huge scarcity of water everywhere, and yet there is no judicious use of it. Instead, the powers that be are only making a mess of it. Not only is water being diverted for different purposes without any prioritization, there is clearly a huge conspiracy to hand over the extremely important natural resource to corporates at negligible cost. Not just in villages, even in cities there is a clear discrimination in favour of the rich as opposed to the poor. In areas that receive water from the municipality, the water first reaches the flats, thanks to an illegitimate way of putting the pipes in an inclined way. The not so well to do residents in ordinary dwellings suffer from lack of water, even as the rich have water for luxurious purposes like gardening (which is only for show off and not proper kitchen gardening either).

This article from The Hindu only reinstates the extent of mismanagement of water :

The HPC in its 21 meetings which were analysed gave speedy approval without following any norms, the report said. The bulk of the allocations, 46 per cent were reserved for industries and 54 per cent for drinking water and domestic use, belying the popular notion that industries got very little water from dams. The largest chunk of water for domestic use —16.94 per cent went for drinking water to big and small cities and gram panchayats. Mumbai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Nagpur were the beneficiaries while only 1.75 per cent went to gram panchyats. Of the industrial allocations, thermal power plants received the largest amount of water — a whopping 64 per cent, MIDC 19 per cent and SEZ 14 per cent.

Forty-seven companies benefited from water allocations and of this 12 companies or one-fourth of them got 90 per cent. Of the 15 thermal power plants which benefitted, 13 were private power companies including Sofia Power Company (India Bulls) Amravati, India Bulls Mega Power plant, Adani, Lanco, apart from two National Thermal Power Company plants in Nagpur and Solapur. Of the industries, three private companies– Reliance got eight per cent, India Bulls -17 per cent and Adani 7. 7 per cent of the water allocations. Prayas notes that HPC gave the highest benefits to private companies and clearly the dam waters instead of going to farmers went to industries or cities.

Conspiracy to Tag Soni Suri as Mentally Unstable

Soni Suri, the adivasi cultural activist and teacher from Chattisgarh, who was arrested under suspicious grounds [by slapping the easiest charge to detain someone and keep them incommunicado at their own free will - that of being a "Naxalite"
or "Maoist" - the same thing they did to Binayak Sen) and then brutally raped and tortured by police officers while in custody, the same officer Ankit Garg going on to receive a presidential award for his "exemplary performance" [of using rape as a tool to intimidate and repress the powerless!] – is once again in the news. This time, there is an attempt to paint her as mentally unstable, which would reduce the importance of her serious allegations of the inhuman torture that she had to endure, which included forceful insertion of stones and other alien objects into her vagina.

But women’s groups, activists and other progressives can clearly see through this mischievous attempt to dilute the value of Soni Suri’s complaint against the pawns of the repressive state machinery. It has been learnt attempts were made to molest once more in recent times, while in custody. So naturally her life is constantly threatened and despite there being no proof of her involvement with any “anti people” activity, she has been declared terrorist – which is always how things work for the ordinary people of the country – guilty till proven innocent!

Following is an excerpt from the following article:

Women’s rights groups condemn ‘move’ to declare Soni Sori mentally unsound

In the conversation with the psychiatrist in the presence of the Superintendent, Ms. Soni was asked questions related to “anger” and advised not to complain all the time. Otherwise there was a good chance that she would be sent to Agra, according to a women’s rights activist.

“This is a devious attempt to declare her mentally unsound and create doubts about the veracity of her complaints of sexual torture in police custody and subsequent harassment in jail,” said the rights groups. Strongly condemning this act of the government, which comes on the back of a stray comment by Shamina Shafiq, member of the National Commission for Women (NCW), made to the press right after meeting Ms. Sori at the Raipur Central Jail on December 4 last year, the rights groups are demanding that the NCW make its report public.

Caste discrimination – a thing of the past? Reality says otherwise.

To those who say that caste no longer matters and that casteism is a thing of the past, the following news scoops should really be of particular significance:

The study team, which had taken up 370 cases registered under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989, last year alone, 106 figured on physical assaults and clash against the Dalits in different parts of Tamil Nadu. This apart, crimes grievous in nature and heinous ones accounted for 28 cases. Torching of dwellings stood at 36, executive director A. Kathir said.

Of course it is not just Tamil Nadu but other states also where caste is still very much an important part of everyday life. From making small school children of so called lower castes to not only sit away from the rest of the class (as shown in this documentary called India Untouched) but also clean toilets, to repressing and humiliating the dalits and OBCs in every way possible is part of the means of exploitation by the upper castes.

Often we hear the notorious and much dreaded upper castes gangs or militia like Ranvir Sena making brutal attacks on Dalits and their villages – hacking them, raping the women and setting their houses on fire. It is a sure shot way of propagating the intimidation. As without fear, there is no subordination, and without that, there will be protest against exploitation.

The police and other wings of the state machinery are, not surprisingly, in cahoots with these unscrupulous elements. Not only that, they actually play an active role in exploiting the lower castes.

And yet, we see such massive protests against reservations and quotas, by those who claim that “merit” will not be given priority. Perhaps they should think that for this “merit” they required certain material conditions which most of the dalits and OBCs have never had the privilege of enjoying.

Here are some recent incidents of violence and fear mongering tactics employed by the upper caste hooligans:

From Dalit woman’s family alleges foul play

Discontent is rife in Mandai village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, where a dalit woman activist from the Mushahar caste, the most impoverished among dalits, was found ‘murdered.’ She was a member of the Janwadi Mahila Samiti. The victim’s family and village women, who bathed her body, claim that she was gang-raped, going by the injuries on her body.

And another:

After attack, Dalits here still get threats

“The group was led by Mulayam Yadav and Satyendra Singh. They came with rifles and started abusing us, saying ‘How dare you do the Holika dahan before us?’ A few youngsters had done it what could we do. We tried to flee and they started attacking the women. Some of them caught hold of Ramni Devi and threw her to the ground. They set fire to Lalo Devi’s hair,” said Chitranjan Ram, who runs a Public Distribution System.

“The next day, we went to the police station but they sent us back saying this was the village’s internal matter and refused to register an FIR. The next day we met the Assistant Superintendent of Police in Chatarpur, 20 km away. He said he would ask the station officer to take action but nothing happened. The men in Barbaag still come and threaten us,” Chitranjan Ram said.

“Facebook users could swing the results in 160 Lok Sabha constituencies”

The latent potential that is social networking, Facebook being one of the most major tools of the same.

One of the main advantages of social networking sites is that they allow people who would otherwise have never met or known each other, actually get acquainted. It helps to organize the powerless, it fosters solidarity, it favors unity. It also dispels misconceptions and myths, while only bolstering others.

But if used properly and democratically, social networking has enormous prospects to yield useful dividends.

Some excerpts from The Hindu article:

A study, a copy of which is with The Hindu, has, for the first time, shown how social media can affect the results of the next Lok Sabha elections. Conducted by the IRIS Knowledge Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the research claims that results in over 150 constituencies could be decided by ‘Facebook users, making them the newest vote-bank with the power to shape Indian politics.’

Regarding the limitations, those conducting the study informed:

Admitting that the ‘approach may seem simple to the point of being simplistic,’ it lists out the caveats. It does not factor in whether the social media users in each constituency are active. It does not examine other factors like ‘anti-incumbency or political realignments.’ And while Facebook may be a common medium, those using it are a heterogeneous lot.

However, researchers say their limited objective is to assess the ‘clout of the social media … and if Facebook users will have an impact, if they so choose.’

Ajit Pawar’s “urinate in dam” comment shows insensitivity of the powers that be

Referring to the hunger strike by a drought-affected farmer at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan, Pawar had said “He has been on fast for the last 55 days. (But)If there is no water in the dam, how can we release it? Should we urinate into it? If there is no water to drink, even urinating is not possible.”

This is what Mr. Ajit Pawar said in relation to something as tragic and yet as common and equally dismal a state of affairs of Indian farmers. Crores of rupees in the form of revenue foregone are lost because of no taxation on corporates.

And yet, there is no money for improvement of infrastructure, inputs and irrigation for more sustainable and profitable farming – a sector which accounts for an overwhelming chunk of this agro based economy.

It is a well known fact that in India a farmer commits suicide every half an hour. And the kind of insensitivity manifested by Mr. Ajit Pawar here is hardly anything new. Earlier also, similar hurtful and shameless remarks have been made by our “esteemed” leaders [question is: where do they lead us to?!]. Farmers who took their lives were said to have had “family feuds” and other such blatant attempts were made to shift the blame and evade responsibility by those in power. 

P. Sainath’s articles on farmer suicides in India will be a good place to start digging up the mountains of information on the deplorable state of agriculture and the people associated with it.

Muslims, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Our Duties as Indians

Watch the trailer of the movie The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mira Nair. The film is expected to be a different take on the issue of “terrorism”, the 9/11 attacks and the post 9/11 so-called “war on terror” by America. Will this Mira Nair movie only make the stereotypes against Muslims stronger, or will it help dispel the wrong notions? Only time will tell.

Here is what is the official description under the trailer:

A young Pakistani man is chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American Dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family’s homeland.

In this context, it is worthwhile giving the link of this particular post in Tehelka by Shoma Chaudhury on how important it is to safeguard the rights of Muslims in India for upholding true democracy.

Innocent Muslims have been jailed with impunity in India over the past decade because it was easy to jail them. Within hours of any terror attack, a bunch of Muslim boys would be arrested and their names aired in the media as “masterminds”. Then they would disappear from mainstream consciousness. Their guilt was assumed: it did not need to be proved.

Google Map Controversy

As a continuation of the previous article on Google Glasses, here is an excerpt from an Open Magazine article on how absurd the Indian government and police’s claim of violation of national security is, in connection with Google’s Map Contest, Mapathon:

The police complaint against Google is all the more pointless because even when there is no contest, users can and do update Google Mapssimply because there is a utility to it. If your office or home is put up onGoogle Maps, then it makes it easy to direct anyone with a smartphone towards it. Technology doesn’t go backwards and Google is not the only one with satellites. More and more people will continue to use such services and add to it.

At the heart of this issue is also India’s fixation with labels like ‘security’ and ‘sensitive’ that let governments get away with anything.