काउंटरव्यू

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* Exactly seventy-three years ago on 27 January 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland. What was uncovered on that unforgettable winter morning was perhaps the most brutal stories in the history of humankind. Today a black-and –white plaque in Auschwitz stands testimony to this crime against humanity stating, “Auschwitz was the largest Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp in the years 1940-1945. The Nazis deported at least 1,300,000 people to Auschwitz:1,100,000 Jews;140,000- 150,000 Poles;23,000 Roma(Gypsies)15,000 Soviet Prisoners of War;25,000 Prisoners from other ethnic groups;1,100,000 of these people died in Auschwitz; approximately 90% of the victims were Jews. The SS murdered the majority of them in gas chambers”. The numbers are horrific enough; a chill goes down one’s spine when one realizes the barbaric methods used to torture the prisoners who lived in these concentration camps. Another board in Au

By Moin Qazi* Not long after Nirmala Geghate took over as sarpanch in Wanoja, a remote hamlet in northern Maharashtra, groups of young men stopped hanging out in front of the shop at the village square, where they used to ogle and catcall female laborers who walked by in dusty saris. There were several ripple effects of the new found women power in the village .Enrollment of girls in the local school increased. A mother asked for and received a mobile phone from her husband, which is a rare luxury for rural females. Other women who had been confined to their homes were suddenly allowed to venture outside the village boundaries for the first time. A unique policy experiment in village-level governance that mandates one-third representation of women in positions of local leadership has revolutionised gender status across millions of villages in India. In 1993, the government brought in an epochal legislation called the ‘Panchayati Raj Act’ which reserves seats for women on panchayats (co

By Moin Qazi* A development professional’s career demands not just technical skills but empathy; not a form of empathy that comes from superiority, but one born from a profound humility. l’ve learned hard lessons that have shaped my ideas about good principles and practices in development. The most abiding lesson is that we should value people over projects, and at the same time value effectiveness over good intentions. There was an occasion for me in my professional career when my managerial acumen was put to a rigorous test. The farmers in northern Maharashtra had poorly suffered on account of low yields of cotton. Additionally, the government procurement prices for cotton were pegged low. As a result, our loan recoveries plummeted. I conducted a detailed assessment of the farmers and realized that their plight was genuine and a rehabilitation package had to be worked out. I informed my bosses in my report that on account of the twin effect of low yield and low prices, the farmers di

By Moin Qazi* A recent report by IndiaSpend states that professional moneylenders, who can charge up to four times more interest than the government’s banking system, hold more rural debt than ever, from 19.6 percent in 2002 to 28.2 percent in 2013. According to a 2017 study by Stanford University’s Center on Global Poverty and Development, farmers take loans from informal sources at high rates of interest to meet the overall shortfall. They use the Kisan Credit Card loans, which are interest-free if repaid in time, to repay the moneylender’s loan. They repay the KCC loan on time to avoid the penalty by using the moneylender’s loan. This vicious and cruel cycle can be broken only if farmers get adequate credit from institutional sources. Almost every farmer in India’s massive rural swathes is tethered, in one way or the other, to the sahukar or the moneylender, the ubiquitous, ravenous loan shark. For centuries, moneylenders have monopolised rural Indian credit markets. Families have l

By Moin Qazi* Of all the lawful acts the most detestable to God is divorce. – Prophet Muhammad [This an authentic saying recorded by Abdullah ibn Umar, a highly respected companion of the prophet in an authoritative treatise “Divorce (Kitab Al-Talaq)” of Sunan Abu-Dawud (Ref. 63-2173)] India is currently mired in a war between theology and law as it tries to articulate an appropriate policy response to the controversial triple talaq issue. With the triple talaq already been declared invalid by the Supreme Court, the government’s haste in trying to criminalize it reeks of a misplaced agenda. Muslims have welcomed the judicial verdict and are themselves keen to build a cultural environment conducive to it to take firm roots. Wisdom demands that we wait and see how the law translates on the ground. The resistance to the government’s move is rooted in the Muslim community’s fear that it would amount to an encroachment on their cultural and religious space and would set precedence for the u

Several of Vadodora’s concerned citizens* have shot a letter to the Union minister for environment, forests and climate change, as also to senior Government of India and Gujarat officials, asking them to directly intervene with the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) to immediately stop all illegal debris dumping, construction, and any other such damaging activities in and around Vishwamitri river, especially at the Kala Ghoda Bridge, within Vadodara city. They have said, VMC’s activities are in violation of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Interim Order dated May 25, 2017, as also the direction by the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority dated August 9, 2016, the Gujarat High Court hudgement dated August 2, 2002. Text of the letter: This is with respect to the ongoing, illegal, and damaging activities in and around the Vishwamitri River that is being done in violation of the Interim Order dated 25.05.2017 passed by the Hon’ble National Green Tribunal (Western Bench) in Appl

By Venkatesh Nayak* While replying to an RTI application filed by members of the J&K RTI Movement (led by Dr. Shaikh Ghulam Rasool), the J&K Home Department , has admitted that the State Government has not made any Rules or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (J&KPSA) during the four decades of its existence. District Magistrates and Divisional Commissioners have been issuing hundreds and sometimes even thousands of detention orders every year, under the controversial J&KPSA, without much else to guide them except the reports and dossiers prepared by the J&K Police. Section 23 of the J&KPSA empowers the State Government to make Rules to implement this law. It is common practice for Legislatures to delegate powers to the Executive to make Rules to provide detailed procedures for implementing the bare bone provisions of the laws they enact. Yet, by the Home Dept.’s admission, J&K Government has not invoked

By Moin Qazi* "We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today." ― Gabriela Mistral A recent alarming signal in the health profile of Indian children went largely unnoticed. India, whose growing prosperity has hardly made any significant dent into chronic malnutrition of children, slipped three places to 100 in the 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 119 countries in which it has consistently ranked low .India has historically fared poorly on child nutrition indicators and has been plagued by periodical waves of malnutrition-related deaths in tribal areas. With 17% of the world’s population, India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry. A population almost the size of Uttar Prade