News Alerts – India

Rajdeep Sardesai

‘Why don’t you cover Irom Sharmila’s decade-old fast with the same intensity as you did Anna Hazare’s 12-day fast?’ asked Binalakshmi Nepram, the founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network with characteristic passion. On stage in a live programme, there was no escape. “Perhaps, it’s because Ramlila Maidan is closer to television studios than Imphal,” was my feeble response.
The ‘tyranny of distance’ can only be a part-explanation for why a 39-year-old Manipuri woman’s fast that began in November 2000 for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has not resonated across TV channels and the nation in the manner that Anna Hazare’s did.

BANGALORE: Amnesty International may soon set up shop in India.

At a lecture on ‘Whether India could become a global leader in the area of human rights’ organized by the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) on Saturday, Salil Shetty, secretary general, Amnesty International, listed the issues India faced despite managing to retain a host of vital institutions and a powerful Constitution.

He pointed out the increasingly entrenched divide between different communities in some parts of the country, the lopsided economic growth and, most of all, the inability of the Indian establishment to translate intent into reality.

”Amnesty has been involved with India for a long time. It was involved even during the Emergency when JP was a prisoner of conscience. Most of Amnesty’s work is done out of London, but the organization will soon operate out of India. You’d normally be wary of an organization with the word ‘International’ in the title — it usually means it’s North dominated. But Amnesty is different. It’s a membership-driven, democratic organization and all representatives are elected. We accept neither government aid nor corporate contributions. One of our most important tasks in India would be outreach,” he said.

By Sajjad Shaukat

During the Bosnian War (1992–1995), Serb forces slaughtered more than 10,000 Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and buried them in the unamed mass graves. The ethnic leansing campaign of the state eliminators continued throughout areas controlled by the Serb Army. That genocide was repeated in Kosovo where several men and women were massacred and buried in a field.

Jason Burke

By Priyadarshni M. Gangte

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding” – – Albert Einstein.

The word “Peace” means freedom from cessation of war, i.e. peace with honour, peace at any price (J.B. Sykes (ed) : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (7th Edition), Oxford University Press, 1987, p.753). Leiren (Dr. L. Leiren’s Article, “Peace Education in the 21st Century.” Imphal Free Press, 1st Sept., 2006) has elegantly contended that “peace” as a comprehensive enterprise that requires a transformation in our thinking sense of valued wills, resources and solidarity of all. Thus, it is a way of life in which one experiences inner tranquility, harmonious relationships and an interconnectedness with the world. Moreover, the term connotes in the real sense a state of Being (Net). It is about honouring and nurturing our spiritual side.

David Shaftel

Mumbai: A damning report containing new allegations of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe’s diamond fields has cast further doubt on the clearance of exports of “Zimba diamonds”, as they are known in the trade, at a time when India’s diamantaires are more eager than ever for raw diamonds from the African nation.

The report, a BBC investigation, was released on Monday and alleges that the Zimbabwe government runs a “torture camp” in the Marange diamond fields, in which “severe beatings and sexual assault” are commonplace. The Kimberley Process (KP), the body charged with banning the trade in so-called “blood diamonds”, currently blocks diamond exports from Zimbabwe.

When the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe were discovered in 2006, they were regarded as the biggest diamond find in more than a century. Besides being a bonanza for Zimbabwe, the find was also viewed as a boon for India, where it is estimated that 10 out of 11 of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished.

MIRPUR (AJK) – Like rest of both sides of the line of control in Jammu & Kashmir Indian Independence Day was observed as black day in Mirpur on Monday in protest against the continued Indian occupation of Jammu & Kashmir.

The Indian Independence Day is observed every year as black day by Jammu & Kashmir people to mark extreme resentment and indignation against the continued unlawful occupation of Jammu Kashmir state by the Indian tyrannical forces and escalating human rights abuses by the occupying forces in the Held Valley.

India had landed her armed military troops in Srinagar 64 years ago on October 27, 1947.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court’s threat to award death penalty for fake encounters will make little difference to the impunity enjoyed by security forces. For, its own stay order in another case comes in the way of any murder case being booked against killers in uniform.

The stay order, passed two years ago by a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, has rolled back an attempt made by the Andhra Pradesh high court to plug a major loophole in the law relating to fake encounters.

Naveed Qazi

Draco [7th century B.C] was an Athenian lawmaker whose code of conduct prescribed cruelty and severity. His constitution endorsed laws based on homicide and abuse. Lawmakers who endorse this legal philosophy dishonor fundamental human rights and enjoy immunity. Armed personnels, in India, with such bestowed powers, can beat a person to pulp without any warrant, can endorse arbitrary detention, give electric shocks and perform simulated drowning – basically can kill a person without any justification. They can do this because they have been shielded by clauses in ‘draconian-like laws’ that allow initiating of a prosecution, without the permission from the government. Such permission is rarely granted in any world order today or in places where life is of well meaning and is well respected.

The Dongria Kondh are an Indian adivasi (Indigenous) community living in the Niyamgiri Hills in the eastern state of Orissa. The Dongria Kondh consider the Niyamgiri Hills as sacred and depend on them as their source for water, food and cultural values.

Over the last few years, the human rights of the Dongria Kondh have been under threat by commercial plans to develop a bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hills without the free, prior and informed consent of the community.