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Showing posts from April, 2018

J&K: Defence personnel prosecution: Defence Dept, Army replies contradict

By Venkatesh Nayak* Last week, there was both good news and “not so good” news on the AFSPA front across the country. The good news is, people in Meghalaya can heave a sigh of relief over the lifting of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) from their State. Meanwhile, the Central Government has claimed that it does not hold files of 47 cases in which it denied sanction to prosecute members of the defence forces for alleged offences and human rights violations said to have been committed in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) while operating under a similar law of 1990 vintage. On new year’s day, this year (2018), the Ministry of Defence informed Parliament that it had received requests from the J&K Government for sanction to prosecute security personnel in 50 cases that occurred between 2001-2016. While the requests were pending in three cases, the Government had denied sanction to prosecute the accused in other cases involving allegations of “murder or killing of

Socil entrepreneurs as harbingers of development navigate in complex world

By Moin Qazi* “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead Historians will tell you that an explosion of creativity occurs the moment the world starts complaining that there is nothing left to invent, or that the search for solutions to complex problems has come to an end. This explosion is fate’s way of reminding us that there is always something just over the horizon of knowledge. Social entrepreneurs are now using their talent to seek better answers to tough social problems at a time when the world has never needed them more. They are responding to challenges with solutions that leave business-as-usual in the dust. They want to use the power of knowledge and the principles of business to create a better world. Making money is not necessarily their first objective. Their primary objective is to make a contribution. The rise of soloists signals the ultimate atomisation of the modern w

In the time of crisis Public Sector Banks reject more RTIs than ever before

By Venkatesh Nayak* To say that the banking sector in India is going through a “crisis phase” would be a bald understatement. Bad loans or “non-performing assets” (NPAs) have risen to unprecedented levels in 2018. According to the statistics that the Union Minister of State for Finance, tabled in the Lok Sabha on 06 April, 2018, NPAs in gross numbers (pun intended) stood at INR 6.89 lakh (more than USD 150 billion) crores at the end of June, 2017. There is speculation in the media that this figure might have reached INR 9 lakh crores by now. The banking sector was saddled with INR 2.67 lakh crores worth of gross NPAs at the end of the fiscal year 2014-15 — almost a year after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) took over the reins of government. More recent reports indicate that the rate of recovery of written off bad loans has also been extremely poor during the last four years. Some economists are once again calling for the privatisation of public sector banks (PSBs) to improve th

Us and Them: When line turns into a growing wall...

By Fr Cedric Prakash sj* The late 1960s and the early 1970s are historically a watershed. This period was marked with protests against racism and injustices; against war and violence. The Civil Rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War protests saw millions come out in the United States. In Europe, there were student uprisings. The hippie culture which was against what was happening in society, attracted youth from across the social spectrum. In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated; the years after that, witnessed a global social turmoil. People were genuinely angry with the growing divisions in society. Those years were also pregnant with new hope and yearnings for greater social cohesion, a better future for all. David Campton, a prolific British dramatist, wrote in 1972 an apparently innocuous and simple one-act play entitled “Us and Them”. The play begins innocently enough with two groups of wanderers looking for an ideal place to settle. Once they each find a piece of

Farm yields can increase by 20% if women get decision-making powers

By Moin Qazi* Gender remains a critically important but largely ignored lens to view development issues across the world. Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. India has a larger relative economic value at stake in advancing gender equality. However, despite some significant gains, some gaps remain. Although India has narrowed the divide between men and women in primary education and health sector, it doesn’t measure well in other major development metrics. Gender equality has become a highly publicised development goal, but data show how slow progress has been. Gender equality refers to the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of women and men, girls and boys. It does not imply that women and men are the same, but that the interests, needs, and priorities of both women and men should be taken into consideration while recognizing diversity across different populations. According to the World Economic Forum’s Globa

Your Lordship, you aren't Lord Almighty. What about caste prejudice in judiciary?

By Martin Macwan* To protect innocent citizens against false criminal cases is a noble principle of any caste on earth and it is not a new principle that India has discovered. However, the element of ‘innocence’ is a subjective perception in a society where the origin, preservation and protection of the caste system manifested through one’s social status as a ‘pure’ or ‘impure, and ‘high’ or ‘low’ caste, leading to the chain behaviour that multiple forms of untouchability are a creation of God. The Indian law has criminalized discriminatory behaviour under the influence of caste in public sphere only, but has refrained from upholding caste as anti-national, immoral and irreligious, even when it has failed miserably to abolish untouchability and practices such as manual scavenging after seven decades of its independence. The recent and controversial guidelines issued by the judges of the Supreme Court in relation to the Prevention of Atrocities Act (PAA) are not free from caste prejudic