OCTOBER 02, 2018

Dear Secretary-General,

I write to you in great hope. Your human rights credentials are impeccable. You fought the Salazar and Caetano dictatorships. As UN High Commissioner for Refugees, you put the protection of refugees back at the centre of UNHCR’s work.

Your present visit to India comes at a time of a serious backlash against human rights. I hope you will speak about some of these issues, in your public pronouncements and in your talks with government. Some key questions I hope you will raise are:

Caste and sanitation– As the Government of India observes Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary at the grand conference on sanitation that you will be attending, we ask you to urge the organisers to take a close look at the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on water and sanitation who visited India recently. The rapporteur emphasized that “States cannot fully realize the human rights to water and sanitation without addressing stigma as a root cause of discrimination and other human rights violations”.

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Open Letter to the UN Secretary-GeneralRead More »

 October 01, 2018

Uncivil Law,  Lessons from India’s failed “anti-terror” legislation

In late August, while investigating the violence at the Bhima Koregaon memorial in Pune earlier this year, the Pune police raided the homes of several well-known human-rights activists, scholars and lawyers, and arrested five among them. The arrests were made under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act—a law that has been widely criticised for its draconian nature. Amid public outcry over the arrests, the Congress too panned the government.

“There is only place for one NGO in India and it’s called the RSS,” the Congress’s president, Rahul Gandhi, tweeted. “Shut down all other NGOs. Jail all activists and shoot those that complain. Welcome to the new India. #BhimaKoregaon.” The Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi stepped up to argue in favour of the accused in the Supreme Court.

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Uncivil Law, Lessons from India’s failed “anti-terror” legislationRead More »

28 August, 2018

नज़रिया: ‘नक्सलवादी हौआ से फ़ायदा लेने की कोशिश में मोदी सरकार’

https://www.bbc.com/hindi/india-45339311?ocid=socialflow_facebook

English translation of original in Hindi at url given above
 
28 August 2018 or 28 August 1933
India faced with stark choices
 
The arrests of  5  senior activists on 28 August 2018 and the searches conducted on the homes of other well known Activists is a premonition of things to come.   It is evident that the Modi Government is now trying to play on fears of a deep rooted Maoist conspiracy to shore up its fast eroding electoral fortunes. “Urban Naxals”, have been conjured up from the Deep State’s copious magic hat. “Naxalites” is a term that is used to denote tribal Maoists engaged in armed opposition activities in Central India. The ragtag Maoist Peoples Liberation Army is now sought to be portrayed as the greatest threat to Modi and his vision of a corporate India.

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28 August 2018 or 28 August 1933 India faced with stark choicesRead More »

September 22, 2017

Of interest was the statement by the NHRC. It was a vastly improved statement than the one made in May. Though the NHRC claims it differs from the Home Ministry on the proposed deportation of Rohingya refugees, it is yet to intervene in the Supreme Court on this matter

The adoption of India’s report to the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last evening, by consensus, hid more than it revealed to the public eye. India blunted the criticism of member states by stating it had accepted 152 out of the 250 recommendations made to it in May, when India’s third periodic report was reviewed. As for the remaining 98 recommendations, India merely took “note” of them.

Human rights worthies like China, the Ivory Coast, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Iraq, Kyrghyzstan, Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos and Libya lauded India’s efforts. It was difficult not to notice the raised eyebrows in many parts of the room when the very democratic Lao People’s Democratic Republic lauded freedom of religion in India!

Estonia, the little Baltic state which is currently President of the European Council, was honest. It welcomed India’s decision to ratify the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), which India had signed in 1997. India had made a similar commitment during the earlier second periodic review process in 2012. Only to forget it before the ink was dry.

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Once again, India promises to ratify Torture convention in GenevaRead More »

September 09,2017

NEW DELHI: Unlike the Hindu Brahminical oral tradition where one does not know where myth ends and history begins, thanks to the Buddhist Pali tradition of reducing everything to writing, the Burmese have a more realistic appreciation of themselves on the difficult terrain of being where Indian and Chinese aspirations meet.

The Qing invasions of Burma while not forgotten are behind them. Modern China has found that power flows through cheque book diplomacy.

The Burmese have a better measure of New Delhi. They are aware that they almost made Assam part of Burma in 1819. If it was not for British intervention, the Indian map of the Northeast would have looked very different.

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The Poverty of Imagination- Indian Foreign Policy in MyanmarRead More »

September 7, 2017

It is clear that the Chinese have a better appreciation of what the ground situation is in Myanmar. The difference is in long term policy formulated by sagacious mandarins in Beijing and the establishment in New Delhi

The Ministry of External Affairs statement of August 26, titled ‘Situation in Rakhine State of Myanmar’ gave the plot away prior to the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Myanmar from September 5-7, 2017. “India is seriously concerned by reports of renewed violence and attacks by terrorists in northern Rakhine State Myanmar. We are deeply saddened at the loss of lives among members of the Myanmar security forces…..” the statement said.

In the joint statement issued by India and Myanmar on September 6, the previous formulation is repeated. “India condemned the recent terrorist attacks in northern Rakhine State, wherein several members of the Myanmar security forces lost their lives.”

Nothing about the enormity of the humanitarian crisis, nothing about the continuing refugee flow into Bangladesh and the miniscule earlier spillover into India.

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India adrift on its Myanmar PolicyRead More »