Gujarat pogrom: SIT shielding the accused – By Sayema Sahar (Jan 27, 2012, TwoCircles.net)

Despite the availability of direct circumstantial evidence against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 63 others, SIT still needs legal help to conclude whether the evidences collected so far are prosecutable. It is important to note that the accused figuring in Zakia Jafri FIR includes the Chief Minister, other Ministers, Assembly Speaker, and some serving and retired Senior officers. In the Gulberg Society incident in 2002, some 69 persons including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri were killed. Mrs Zakia Jafri stands an eyewitness to this gruesome act. Records show that Ehsan Jaffri made nearly 200 calls for assistance; some of these were to the police control room. At that time cabinet ministers Ashok Bhatt and IK Jadeja were in the control room, yet Jaffri was killed. Some 69 Muslims were burnt or hacked to death over a period of 11 hours at Gulbarg Society. There are witnesses, hours and hours of phone call records for help but no help came for the residents of Gulbarg Society.

Officers like Sanjiv Bhatt kept informing the CM, the commissioner of police about the attack but it went unheard. The SIT wholly failed to inquire into/investigate the circumstances in which repeated calls for police assistance went unheeded. SIT is on its last lap of finalizing its report on the 2002 carnage. In one of the last ditch efforts the whistle blower cop Sanjiv Bhatt on Wednesday urged SIT chief Dr. Raghvan through his letter that the SIT should seek to prosecute Narendra Modi in the Gulbarg Society case. Further in his letter Mr. Bhatt also advised SIT that acts of commission and omission on part of the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gulberg Society case tantamount to abetment of gruesome carnage, thereby he should be charged under provisions of Section 107 (abetment to crime) of IPC.

Officer Bhatt in his previous communication to the investigating agencies has shared fax messages which he had sent to the CM, and the commissioner of police informing them of the mob mobilization outside the Gulbarg Society and requesting them for help. Officer Bhatt also suggested that Modi would be liable to be charged under sections 109, 112, 115, 117, 118 and 119 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC). Reiterating what he had already told to SIT and the Amicus Curiae Raju Ramachandran, Bhatt stated in his letter, by the time of second meeting that he claimed to have had with the Chief Minister on February 28, 2002, the carnage at Gulbarg Society had begun in full view of the police personnel who were deployed there for bandobust duties.

Excerpts from Sanjiv Bhatt’s letter: “The Gujarat CM was accordingly briefed about the police inaction and complicity. He was informed about the threat to the life of ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family,” said officer Bhatt in the letter. Surprisingly, on conclusion of second meeting, the Chief Minister instructed me to find out details regarding the past instances wherein Ehsan Jafri had supposedly opened fire on Hindus, during earlier communal riots in Ahmedabad City,” Bhatt claimed in the letter. I was informed by control room and other State Intelligence Bureau sources stationed at Gulbarg Society, that a few minutes ago Ehsan Jafri had opened fire on a riotous mobs,” Bhatt stated. “This makes it clear that the Chief Minister was fully aware of the on-going carnage and was independently getting real-time information updates on the developments taking place at Gulbarg Society”, he stated.

“Later, I was told to collect details regarding past offences registered against Ehsan Jafri, which was followed by a similar telephonic request from cabinet minister Ashok Bhatt who was stationed at Ahmedabad City Control Room, by the Chief Minister,” Bhatt stated. “All this, absolutely makes it clear that the Chief Minister Narendra Modi was not interested in directing the police to act with firmness to protect the life and property of helpless citizens. Instead, at the time of gory carnage, he (CM) sought to condone the police inaction,” he stated. The Supreme Court of India had ordered the SIT “to take steps as required in Law”, yet SIT is perplexed whether or not to prosecute the perpetrators of the bloodbath of 2002. The fact that this can happen even with the apex court keeping a sharp eye on these investigations speaks volumes about the Gujarat state’s adherence to constitutional governance or lack thereof.

http://twocircles.net/2012jan27/gujarat_pogrom_sit_shielding_accused.html

SEE ALSO:

• Madhya Pradesh: Path Way To Hindu Rashtra – By Ram Puniyani (Jan 20, 2012, Countercurrents)
  http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani200112.htm
• The siren song of Hindutva – By Vikas Pathak (Jan 24, 2012, Hindustan Times)
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/801736.aspx
• Two steps back – Editorial (Jan 21, 2012, Indian Express)
  http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/902077/

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Brutality on the border – Editorial (Jan 24, 2012, The Hindu)

New Delhi needs to make an unreserved apology to Bangladesh for the brutal conduct of its Border Security Force personnel who were seen in a recent video torturing a Bangladeshi man. Not surprisingly, the telltale video has caused widespread outrage in Bangladesh. A remark by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the incident must not be hyped, echoed by a Bangladeshi Minister, seems only to have provoked more anger and fuelled opposition allegations against the Sheikh Hasina government for being “pro-India”. With the Bangladesh Army claiming the other day that it averted a coup against the government by an “anti-India” section of officers, New Delhi needs to guard against becoming an unwitting cause for political instability in its eastern neighbour.

Anti-India sentiment has been high in Bangladesh since the killing of three of its nationals by the BSF in two separate incidents on the border last month. A March 2011 agreement between the two countries not to use firearms in dealing with illegal activities on the border has brought down the number of such incidents, but the video is evidence that the guards feel free to use other forms of violence. It underlines the fact that such bilateral agreements on the management of their complex boundary are worth nothing unless accompanied by a change in the mindset of those responsible for it on the ground.

The distressing 11.56 minute footage, circulated through YouTube, is quite evidently a trophy video, the guards happy to pose as they strip their victim, tie his hands and feet, and beat him mercilessly while discussing among themselves other severe options of dealing with him. The man was a suspected rustler – the border is notorious for cattle smuggling – and it has been alleged by rights activists in Bangladesh that the guards were punishing him for not paying them a bribe. The guards appear to have such an entrenched sense of impunity that the thought of being found out and punished does not seem to cross their minds as they participate in the abuse.

The BSF has suspended the eight guards involved in the distressing episode and ordered an investigation. While it may be convenient for the paramilitary to treat this as an isolated incident of “rogue” personnel, the enquiry needs to focus on the overall climate of impunity that makes such incidents possible. The BSF must also reflect if there is something missing in the training of its recruits that some of them are capable of such brutality. This is important because their conduct not only brings disrepute to the organisation but also risks jeopardising India’s relations with an important neighbour.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2826161.ece

SEE ALSO:

• Don’t Cry for Them India – By Anand Teltumbde (Feb 4, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17077.pdf

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War on terror: If you can’t find the terrorist, make one – By Md. Ali (Jan 26, 2012, TwoCircles.net)

Don’t get surprised by the title of this story, which, at several levels encapsulates the discourse of war on terror. As a series of court judgments in cases related to several blasts in and around Delhi will show, more often than not, method of terror investigation has its own pattern which defies logic, rule of law and sense of justice. In the post-blast scenario police and investigative agencies face a tough time dealing with the pressure of clamoring voices which call for bringing the culprits to book. Interestingly, even when just to deal with the pressure police picks up a few misidentified suspects, their arrest is not seen as wrong and illegal, but as something which fulfills the “collective conscience” of the society, which in turn justifies it as a balancing act and a compensation for the injustice done to the terror victims. In some cases, even the liberal voices of the influential and strongly opinionated Indian middle class, see it as an unavoidable collateral damage occurred in the “war against terror.” Now the question one asks is, what happens, when the same youths, who were arrested under terror charges, are later acquitted mainly because the prosecution could not produce an iota of evidence which could prove their involvement into the respective terror cases?

It’s in this context that one presents the case of Md. Amir Khan, who was charged with more than 19 cases of bomb blasts, which had taken place in 1997 in and around Delhi. His release in January this year after 14 continuous years in jail holds an important place in the series of acquittals in famous cases, whether it is Godhra 2002, the Delhi blasts of 2005 and 2008, the Mumbai train attacks of 2006, Mecca Masjid cases of 2007 or men and boys routinely picked up and charged with terrorism. The only difference with Amir’s case here is that these bomb blasts happened when there was no Indian Mujahidin (IM) in picture and when at least officially, there was no official confirmation on the existence of home grown terror in India. Amir, who had already been acquitted by the trial in 17 out of 20 cases, walked out free on January 9, 2012. Of the three remaining cases the Delhi High Court has overturned his conviction for life in one case. The remaining two are scheduled to come up for appeal. …

In the year 1997 there were more than 20 major and minor bomb blasts in and around Delhi and the NCR. Delhi police arrested Md. Amir Khan, who was in 10th standard at the time of his arrest in February 1998. He was initially arrested under the Explosive Substances Act but later, made the main accused in almost all the cases and charged under Sections 302, 435, 34, 121, 121A, 122, 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for murder and conspiracy. Minor and major bomb blasts with which Amir was gradually charged including those that happened under police jurisdiction of Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, Saraswati Vihar, Kotwali, Roop Nagar, Lahori Gate, Daryaganj, Mukharjee nagar and Sabzi Mandi police stations. After Amir was charge sheeted as the main accused and officially at least, all the bomb blasts in Delhi were “solved” the boy was also charged with bomb blasts outside in Sonepat and Rohtak in Haryana (1997)and with Frontier Mail bomb blasts in Ghaziabad (1997). Importantly one Shakeel Ahmad, a poor hawker from Ghaziabad, who was co-accused in most of the case, was poisoned by the Dasna jail authorities in Ghazaibad when he was an under-trial in the 1996 Frontier Mail bomb blast.

Shakeel was found hanging from the ceiling of his high-security barrack in Dasna Jail on June 19, 2009, and the then jail superintendent V K Singh had claimed that the accused had committed suicide. But an NHRC ordered magisterial enquiry found it to be a case of poisoning, after which the Session court, Ghaziabad ordered an FIR against former jail superintendent V K Singh. Shakeel was arrested in 1999 for carrying out the blast in which two persons were killed. The story which the Delhi police had made and which, later turned out to be a concocted one, was that Md. Amir Khan along with Shakeel Ahmad used to make bombs in the clothe printing factory at Pilakhua in Ghaziabad. According to the police story, the bombs made from this factory were used by Amir in all the bomb blasts he was charged with. To substantiate its claim police had shown several Kgs of RDX and other explosives seized from the factory, which was very strong evidence against Amir and Shakeel. Police had made Chandra Bhan the main seizure witness who as per the police story, had volunteered to be a witness, when they went to raid the factory. But the police and prosecution case against Amir collapsed like a pack of cards when Chandra Bhan, who was the only seizure witness, told the court that the police story was a concocted one and he never went with the police for seizure of alleged explosives in a factory in Pilakhua.

He also said that it was police who had taken him to the Chanakyapuri police station and had taken his signatures. “I don’t know from where and by whom those articles were recovered. I do not know any Amir Khan and Md. Shakeel. I saw them only in the court. I had not accompanied the police party to Pilakhuwa. I was taken (by police) to police station Chanakya Puri where I was asked to sign some documents,” Bhan said in his statement. “It is wrong to suggest that police had recovered the chemicals and other materials as mentioned in recovery memo. It is also wrong to suggest that I had witnessed the recovery from Pilakhua…,” Bhan said in the court. Besides the police story being concocted, another reason why prosecution’s case against Amir was rejected by the courts in most of the cases, was that prosecution didn’t have even a single strong witness or evidence which could either connect or identify Amir with the bomb blasts. Judgments after judgments by the High Court and Session Courts in Delhi, Session Courts in Rohtak, Ghaziabad and Sonepat, highlight just one and one point only. “From the record it is thus evident that there is absolutely no incriminating evidences against the accused person as none of the witnesses stated anything against the accused,” says Sabharwal while acquitting Amir in the Sabzi Mandi bomb blast case which occurred on February 25, 1997. The judgments repeatedly noted that no witness was able to identify the accused. &hellip

http://twocircles.net/2012jan26/war_terror_if_you_can%E2%80%99t_find_terrorist_make_one.html

SEE ALSO:

• In Chhattisgarh Assembly, RTI Applicants Face New Hurdles – By Prakhar Jain (Feb 4, 2012, Tehelka)
  http://tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ne040212Chhattisgarh.asp
• When you buy a haunted house, Dow, you get the ghost for free – By TK Arun (Jan 28, 2012, Economic Times)
  http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/Cursor/entry/when-you-buy-a-haunted-house-dow-you-get-the-ghost-for-free

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Where The Trail Stops – By Chandrani Banerjee (Jan 23, 2012, Outlook)

There’s now a new twist to the sensational Aarushi double murder case. On January 6, the Supreme Court upheld the CBI special court ruling that Aarushi’s parents, the dentist couple – Nupur and Rajesh Talwar – should be tried for the murder of their daughter and domestic help Hemraj Banjade. Aarushi, 14, the only child of the Talwars, was killed in mysterious circumstances in her bedroom at their flat in Noida near Delhi on the night of May 15-16, 2008. The next day Hemraj’s body was found on the terrace of the building. Rajesh was arrested on May 23, ’08, for the murder but was later granted bail on July 11. From then on, the case threw up several surprises – the domestic help and employees of the friends of the Talwars and even one of their neighbours were picked up as suspects. Krishna (Rajesh Talwar’s assistant), Rajkumar (domestic help of the Durranis, family friends of the Talwars) and a neighbour’s help, Vijay Mandal, were picked up as suspects, subjected to intense interrogation and later released after about three months in custody.

As the case dragged on, the CBI, which was handed the case on May 29, ’08, filed a closure report on December 29, ’10, before the special court after two-and-a-half years of investigation. Its plea was that there was insufficient evidence against all the suspects, including Rajesh Talwar. However, the CBI court, after going through the case papers, ordered a trial on February 9, 2011, of the parents and ruled that Nupur, who had till then not been a suspect, be also charged as an accomplice for dressing up the scene of the crime. Some evidence, perhaps, of this was the CBI’s comments in its closure report, points like how the bed and bedsheet where Aarushi’s body was found remained undisturbed despite the obvious use of violent force. The Talwars contested the special court’s order, but the SC upheld it last week. The Talwars have been given interim bail till February 4 when their trial begins. After Rajesh Talwar’s arrest, a campaign had been launched by friends and well-wishers of the Talwars to prove the couple’s innocence. The jury is still out on their plea that Aarushi’s parents were being victimised and that there is no conclusive evidence. The truth, hopefully, will come out in the trial. Interestingly, while the Talwars had considerable public sympathy and media support, the lesser set of accused (read Krishna & co), who had to go through the trauma of being labelled “prime murder suspects”, were largely ignored.

The life of the trio and their families have not been the same since. According to their lawyers and relatives they still live in fear of being arrested again. Two of them, Krishna and Rajkumar, who are Nepalese nationals, have fled to their home country. And no one knows the whereabouts of Mandal, who apparently went back to Jharkhand. He seems to have vanished without a trace. Krishna’s niece Sunita, who works at a travel agency, recalls what her maternal uncle had told after being released from custody. “He told me that during interrogation, he was beaten incessantly. Many nights, the investigators did not let him sleep. Third-degree methods were used to pressurise him to confess. At one point, they even announced to the world that Krishna had admitted to the crime. We had no access to him. It was frightening. We always believed in the judiciary. Krishna is out currently but is struggling to get by.”

She also speaks of how other members of the family suffered and the price they had to pay. “My father Bheem Bahadur Thapa was employed with a factory in Noida then. As soon as Krishna was taken into custody by the CBI, my father lost his job. Obviously, they didn’t want to employ a murder suspect’s relative. He still doesn’t have a job. My other maternal uncle, Mohan, also suddenly became unemployed. Once Krishna was released, Krishna and Mohan uncle tried to set up a makeshift momo stall in south Delhi. They got space before a big shop. The business was going well till the shopkeeper got to know that they were related to someone who was a suspect in the Aarushi murder case. The shopkeeper refused to rent them space.” She says other family members have been subjected to similar discrimination. As for Krishna, he went into a deep depression after the series of failures on every front. According to Sunita, he is still jobless, even in far away Nepal. Rajkumar has a relative in Noida – his brother-in-law Jeevan. But he is too scared to talk to the press.

Rajkumar’s lawyer D.S. Yadav says there was never any evidence against his client. As he puts it, “It’s all part of the court records that all three were ill-treated during the interrogation. They were grilled, subjected to narco-analysis and polygraph tests. Apparently, they confessed to the crime during the tests. However, it became difficult to corroborate the investigators’ claims about their involvement without any material evidence or witnesses. They had a traumatic time in custody.” S.C. Sharma, Krishna’s lawyer, adds, “The damage has been done but getting compensation is a long-drawn process. It’s a sorry state of affairs for Krishna and his family. We’ll surely be applying for compensation but….” The CBI says their case against the three was based on the narco-analysis and lie detector tests. The agency still has to find corroborative evidence. Which is why the CBI investigations had earlier exonerated the trio as well as Rajesh Talwar. Also, there are several grey areas with much of the material evidence lost in the initial round of investigations carried out by the UP police. In the final analysis, if the Talwars are innocent, they should be given justice. But then there’s also the big question – who killed Aarushi and Hemraj?

http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279555

SEE ALSO:

• Khap Panchayats: A Socio-Historical Overview – By Ajay Kumar (Jan 28, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17059.pdf

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Unpalatable truths – By T.K. Rajalakshmi (Jan 28, 2012, Frontline)

One area that has always bothered policymakers in a growth-obsessed economy is the state of the social sector, in particular figures indicating the numbers of people going hungry or are homeless and children who are out of school, the poor nutritional status of women and children, and the high infant and maternal mortality rates. Recent government surveys such as the National Family Health Survey (NHFS) – 3 and the District Level Household Survey (DLHS-2 in 2002-04) have repeatedly underscored several unpalatable facts relating to the well-being of the majority of the population. The HUNGaMA (Fighting Hunger and Malnutrition) report, a brain child of the Citizens’ Alliance against Malnutrition, a broad coalition of young Members of Parliament and non-governmental organisations and coordinated by the Naandi Foundation, is one such effort that has captured, albeit incompletely in a holistic sense, the state of hunger and malnutrition in the country. The report, which claims to cover 20 per cent of India’s children from 73,670 families in 112 rural districts in nine States, received a lot of prominence and media coverage not only because of its catchy title but also because it was released by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It claims to be the next best source of information after the publication of the DLHS-2, the last survey to have collected data on the nutritional status of children in the 0-71 months category. According to the report, the number of underweight children in 100 focus districts has decreased to 42.3 per cent from 53.1 per cent at the time of DLHS-2. The product of a collaboration with some corporate partners, the survey for the report was done in 100 districts categorised as high-focus from the “Bimaru” States (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh). Twelve more districts were added, the six best from the Bimaru States and six from the high-performing States. The report points out that the food crisis and the global economic downturn could have contributed to the deterioration in the state of affairs. Whether subsequent government data and surveys are going to corroborate the findings of the report needs to be seen. At the moment, the marginal improvement seems to suit one and all. But it is far from adequate. The Prime Minister’s Council on Nutrition Challenges, constituted in October 2008, has met only once – in November 2010.

The report has come up with many interesting facets, which need to be analysed in order to make meaningful interventions. It partially busts the myth that people do not access services. In the 100 high-focus districts surveyed, it was found that the immunisation facility for children through anganwadis was accessed by 85.8 per cent of the mothers interviewed; food for the 3-6 age group was also well patronised. In the better districts surveyed, the most accessed service was food. These districts also saw high attendance in the pre-school education for three- to six-year-olds. The report, however, does not venture to analyse these trends. What these figures essentially mean is that services are accessed by people, provided they are made available and information about them is disseminated aggressively. Immunisation is one such campaign that has grabbed the attention of people in general. And what is more, people access services based on their needs. Food being a primary need, the availability of the same in the anganwadis is a godsend to many impoverished families that may or may not have access to the public distribution system (PDS). The section on mothers highlights dominant feeding practices, issues relating to diet, hygiene, health care and the use of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The section looks at some of the issues from the perspective of mothers. It may be path-breaking as an idea, though the responses that have emerged are not exactly something that policymakers have not known for some time. Even journalists have encountered similar responses in their own limited ways. The section begins with the level of education of the mothers surveyed to highlight one fact: the higher the educational attainment of the woman of the house, the higher the likelihood of her accessing the services. In the 100 focus districts, 66.3 per cent of the mothers had never been to school, though 68.1 per cent said that they had a strong say in decision-making regarding their children. A small percentage reported that they were able to play a similar role in major household purchases.

The report does not elaborate what exactly the decisions that the mothers were allowed to make for their children. What remains a sad reality is that the majority of women in India today, including educated women, do not have the right to decide who they want to marry, when they can marry and the number of children they will have. Even the sex of their unborn offspring is often predetermined. Therefore, to say that almost 70 per cent of women have the right of decision-making may not be reflecting the true picture. The problem is that the priorities regarding the kind of services that are required to be disseminated have been lopsided and skewed. For instance, there is no reason why the campaign for immunisation should not be accompanied by an equally aggressive campaign to promote breastfeeding or to provide access to health care and a universal PDS. But it is precisely here that government policy on these issues comes to play. The report fails to underpin the systemic causes behind the indicators so elaborately studied. Arun Gupta, the regional coordinator of the International Baby Food Action Network-Asia, pointed out that despite all the discussion in the media and other platforms on the low rates of breastfeeding, as evidenced in the HUNGaMA report, there has barely been any improvement in the existing figures in the past two decades. “The ball is in the government’s court. Skilled counsellors trained in health and nutrition are needed to advise working women in both the organised and unorganised sector about the benefits of breastfeeding. Simultaneously, the aggressive promotion tactics of the baby food industry has to be strictly dealt with. If they do these things with the help of sufficient funds, breastfeeding rates will go up,” he said. The reasons why women did not breastfeed their children soon after birth ranged from ignorance to poor milk supply. Nearly 58 per cent of mothers in the high-focus districts fed water instead of breast milk to their infants until six months. Fewer than 20 per cent of mothers had heard the word malnutrition in their local language, which also was not surprising.

When larger survival issues are at stake and basic nutrition itself is a challenge, it is not surprising that people remain uninformed about malnutrition. While on an assignment on food security in Haryana, this correspondent was told by an anganwadi worker that it was pointless telling the women what to give their newborn and young children. They knew it all, she said; they just could not afford it. The HUNGaMA report has found that around 70 per cent of women feed solids and semi-solids to their infants in the six to eight month group while a small percentage begin earlier. When mothers were asked why they delayed non-cereal foods such as vegetables, dairy products and fruits, 93.7 per cent of them in the high-focus districts said that those foods were expensive. On using soap, a criterion for hygiene, almost all women in the three district clusters admitted having it at home though its use seemed to be very frugal. Only 19 per cent in the high-focus districts admitted to using soap after toilet use; the percentage was higher at 49.5 per cent in the better districts. Now this indicates that soap comes under the category of avoidable expenditure. The survey did not enquire what alternatives to soap people used. It is known that soil or ash is commonly used in place of soap. The availability of soap is not the question; it is its affordability. But the report does not explore this issue any further. The best districts from the best States showed higher usage of soap. Similarly, the usage of health-care facilities was also restricted to those who could afford them. The three main reasons cited by mothers for not taking their children to trained doctors were that it was expensive, it was time-consuming, and that the services were not perceived as useful. Girls, the report says, started off with a nutritional advantage only to fall behind after reaching four years of age. The pattern was common among children of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Muslim families. As a rule, children from richer families were found to have a better nutritional base. In the chapter “Demographics and Nutrition Status”, the authors Abhijit Banerjee and Ariel Zucker note that household socio-economic status is by far the most robust predictor of nutritional well-being in the focus States. The effect of village infrastructure on health outcomes was not very poignant.

In the section on anganwadi services, the survey revealed that only 41.7 per cent of anganwadi workers in the 100 high-focus districts said that their payments were up to date; over 20 per cent said they had been paid three months ago or even earlier. The report underscores the poor working conditions of ICDS workers and helpers. In all the three district clusters, the survey found that the number of anganwadi centres with functioning handpumps was low. Dry rations were available only to 61 per cent of the anganwadis in the 100 focus districts. The report is interesting, well-produced and replete with easy-to-understand graphs and district-level data. However, it should lead to something more productive than vague discussions aimed at raising the existing knowledge levels of mothers about malnutrition or providing better training for the anganwadi worker. It is not correct to pin the prime responsibility for the infant’s health and survival on the mother. The state does not seem to have any role here, barring the release of the report. The assertion that “the first and primary custodian and protector of a child’s health is her mother… she does the best she can, with information and resources available to her, to nurture her child” and that the mother’s poor knowledge of what is good for her baby and her poor decision-making skills are responsible for child malnutrition speaks very poorly of the otherwise rich findings of the report. Equally problematic and limited is the understanding that “social and economic backwardness is aggravated by inequality in access to information”. The report says that mothers, village-level service providers, panchayat members and village communities have poor access to information on the best practices in childbearing and child-rearing. It recommends an aggressive education-communication campaign using multiple media and formats in order to reach out to rural populations. Herein lies the limitation of this report. It is not enough to have 24×7 information blitzes as suggested in the report; what is needed is information backed by access and affordability.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2902/stories/20120210290210000.htm

SEE ALSO:

• The Forests and the Palaces – By Debasree De (Feb 4, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17080.pdf
• Barefoot: Children beyond divides – By Harsh Mander (Jan 28, 2012, The Hindu)
  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/article2840073.ece
• What is India? – By Markandey Katju (Jan 28, 2012, Frontline)
  http://www.flonnet.com/fl2902/stories/20120210290208900.htm
• ‘Human Safari’ in the Andamans – Editorial (Feb 4, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17075.pdf

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Battles within – By Purnima S. Tripathi (Jan 28, 2012, Frontline)

At this time of the year in the tiny hill State of Uttarakhand, inclement weather can upset any plan. It is spoiling the road shows of the major political parties. But the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, the two main contenders for power, have one more serious factor to contend with as they prepare for the January 30 elections to the 70-member Assembly: internal squabbles. For the BJP, anti-incumbency, along with the prospect of party rebels entering the fray, is causing a lot of distress. The Congress is harping on the theme that the BJP has been changing its Chief Ministers ever since it came to power in 2007 to “mask” its “dishonesty” and the scams dogging its government. The BJP leadership had replaced Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank as Chief Minister in September 2011 and installed B.C. Khanduri, for the second time (he resigned in 2009 to pave the way for Nishank to become Chief Minister), keeping the Assembly elections in mind. The frequent change of leadership since 2007 coupled with a lack of cohesion between the three power centres in the State party – Khanduri, Nishank and Bhagat Singh Koshyari, also a former Chief Minister – had posed a big challenge for the BJP national leadership in mid-2011 in planning a strategy for the elections. Now, more than a dozen sitting MLAs, who have been denied the ticket, are in the fray as rebel candidates. The Congress is in a slightly better mood because of the party’s good performance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. For the first time it won all the five seats from the State, a region considered to be a BJP stronghold. In 2007, the BJP was elected to power with 34 seats in a direct fight with the Congress. The Congress, which had won the 2002 elections and formed the government under party veteran N.D. Tiwari, won only 21 seats. But the BJP soon frittered away the support it had earned. Moreover, factions led by Koshyari, a favourite of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, and Nishank started working against the government. The result was the disastrous performance of the party in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the State. An inquiry held at that time hinted at sabotage by the rivals of Khanduri, who was then Chief Minister. Koshyari even threatened to resign his Rajya Sabha seat. He could be placated only after Khanduri offered to step down as Chief Minister. The party leadership readily accepted his resignation and replaced him with Nishank.

But the Nishank government came under fire following allegations of corruption and scams. Although Nishank himself was not named in any of the corruption scandals, his close associates figured in a number of scams and it became the bane of his government. The general impression at that time was that nothing moved in the government without money changing hands. The Congress issued a list of 419 scams, which related to mismanagement of the Kumbh mela, shoddy disaster management, the Sturdia land use scam (involving arbitrary change of land use policy) and corruption in the purchase of medicines. None of these charges, however, was proved. The BJP national leadership was embarrassed as it was keen to harness the wave of anti-corruption sentiment against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre and the State elections were just six months away. In September 2011, faced with the daunting task of putting the party back on the rails, the BJP brought back Khanduri. Khanduri went about his job ruthlessly though he admitted to this correspondent that he was indeed faced with a challenge. Given the fact that he took over the reins just a few months away from the scheduled elections, he has, no doubt, put the party back into fighting mode. Although he has as yet no concrete results to show on the ground, several initiatives taken by him have been appreciated by people at large. Among them are the legislative measures against the red tape. The most significant of the initiatives taken by the Khanduri government is the passage of the Uttarakhand Lokayukta Bill, 2011, to establish an independent authority to investigate offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, bringing into its ambit the Chief Minister, Ministers and MLAs. This is seen as a major achievement of the BJP as the Lokpal Bill has been stalled in Parliament. The State Bill is waiting for the Centre’s approval. The Khanduri government also passed the Uttarakhand Right to Service Act, bringing under its purview 80 basic services which are mandated to be provided within a prescribed time which is extendable twice under appeal. It passed the Uttarakhand Special Courts Act, 2011, to enable the setting up of special courts to deal with cases relating to corruption on a day-to-day basis, without adjournment. In these courts, a case is expected to be disposed of within a year. In order to deal with the issue of frequent transfers of government officials, which seriously hamper their performance, the government passed the Uttarakhand Transfer for Public Servants Act.

Besides, this time Khanduri is seen to be making a conscious effort to keep party workers happy and is taking other leaders along in decision-making, something which was missing during his previous stint. “We are absolutely confident of victory as we have worked for all sections of people and have taken effective steps to improve governance. We have taken measures to provide relief to people from spiralling prices by reducing VAT. Our vote percentage is going to increase by 2-4 per cent,” Naresh Bansal, BJP national executive member who is in charge of party affairs in the State, said. About the corruption charges against the Nishank government, he said they were only allegations. “Nothing was ever proved. Besides, we have shown our intent to curb corruption by passing the Lokayukta Bill, which brings even the Chief Minister in its ambit. What else can you ask for?” he said. The Congress hopes to revive the factors that gave it an impressive victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. It also banks on the obvious non-performance of the BJP government in the last five years. “We have a list of 419 scams that happened during the BJP regime. It has been a totally non-performing government. Whatever work the previous Congress government [2002-07] had started, this government stopped. For example, work on the medical college at Rishikesh on the lines of the AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences], which was started by the Tiwari government, has been abandoned. The BJP has brought back Khanduri who presided over the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, and nothing has changed since then,” Surinder Agrawal, a Congress spokesperson, said in Dehradun. He is confident that the Congress will form the government with a clear majority. Adding to the Congress’ high hopes is the presence of the Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM), which is in the fray for the first time. That party is headed by Lt. Gen. (retd) T.P.S. Rawat, a Minister in the Tiwari government. Rawat, who had joined the BJP, vacated the Dhumakot Assembly seat in 2007 to enable Khanduri, who had become Chief Minister, to contest from there. Disgusted with the corruption in the State and the BJP high command’s unsympathetic attitude towards his complaints in this regard, Rawat left the BJP in August 2011 to form the new party.

According to Rawat, the URM, which is attracting a number of educated and employed people, besides a substantial number of retired and serving defence personnel who form a major part of Uttarakhand’s population, will act as a “catalyst” to force the two main parties to talk about “real issues” like good governance, transparent administration and good leadership. “What we are saying is that despite the creation of a separate State, the quality of life has not really improved, the basic problems remain. We need good leadership to bring about change,” he said. If the URM remains in the fray, it could dent the BJP’s vote bank as the section of voters Rawat is targeting has been mainly BJP supporters. This has given the Congress an edge. “The URM will take away the BJP’s votes and in a State where candidates win with very thin margins, even a few hundred votes this way or that way can make a difference,” the Congress spokesman said. While the main contest is between the Congress and the BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which won eight seats and 12 per cent of the votes in 2007, is making its presence felt in the plains of Uttarakhand, especially in Haridwar and Udhamsingh Nagar districts. A triangular contest is on the cards in these constituencies, with the BSP in a comfortable position. Internal feuds, which are at times spilling over to the streets, are a serious problem facing both the Congress and the BJP. However, the BJP, having denied the ticket to some of its sitting MLAs, is the bigger victim of dissent. Kedar Singh Fonia, a BJP Minister who has been denied renomination, is contesting from Badrinath on the URM ticket. “The BJP is a party of bhai-bhatijawad [nepotism],” he told this correspondent. Other probable rebel candidates are former Ministers Khajan Das and Govind Singh Bisht. Khanduri himself may face trouble in Kotdwara, from where he is contesting, as the sitting MLA, Shailendra Singh Rawat, who has been denied the ticket, could jeopardise his prospects. In the Congress, N.D. Tiwari is known to be unhappy as several of his nominees have been denied the ticket and he is not likely to campaign for the party. Tiwari continues to be a force to reckon with in the Kumaon region, but even he had to face the ire of Congress workers in the Gadarpur area of Udhamsingh Nagar district from where his nephew, Manish Tiwari, is contesting. Congress workers were so unhappy that they attacked him when he went to file his nomination papers. N.D. Tiwari camped in the neighbouring Pantnagar area to “manage” the rebels. He held a three-hour-long meeting with them.

The Congress is also in trouble in the Haldwani seat from where Indira Hridayesh, number two in the Tiwari government, is the official candidate but is facing Renu Adhikari, who recently shifted allegiance to the BJP on being denied the Congress ticket. Since the difference in vote percentage between the BJP and the Congress was only 2 per cent last time, the contest becomes an interesting one as even a marginal shift can make a huge difference. The Congress had got 30 per cent of the votes and the BJP 32 per cent. It is interesting to note that the real issues, which affect the day-to-day lives of people, get buried in the hurly burly of politics as the election approaches. The basic needs such as roads, drinking water, health services and employment remain a pipe dream for the vast majority in the State, despite promises galore. “Nobody listens to the poor,” says Sohan Singh Rawat of Kaudia village in Rishikesh, summing up the despondency of the common man. “The aspirations of the people are high. They have realised that their lives have not improved despite the creation of the State and this is exactly what we are saying. We need change and we need good leadership to bring about that change,” says T.P.S. Rawat. It would be interesting to watch the impact of Team Anna on the elections. Members of the civil society movement are scheduled to campaign in the State as it has adopted the Lokayukta Bill.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2902/stories/20120210290212400.htm

SEE ALSO:

• The Tender Mercies of Mamata – Editorial (Jan 21, 2012, Economic & Political Weekly)
  http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/17015.pdf
• New formulations – By Venkitesh Ramakrishnan (Jan 28, 2012, Frontline)
  http://www.flonnet.com/fl2902/stories/20120210290212000.htm

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