Outlook TruePDF 25 february 2019

The people of India drove out the British from this country and elected these Congress goondas to the gaddi…We will strike and throw out these Congress goondas as well,” he said about

INDIA-SAUDI ARABIA TIES POISED FOR GIANT LEAP

Web of Seduction

February 25, 2019 Rs 60www.outlookindia.com

RNI NO 7044/1961

BULLY Indiscriminate use of draconian laws LAW IS A

puts citizens’ freedom in peril

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Volume LIX, No 7

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12 Snowed Out Of Service

Snow chokes the vital Srinagar-Jammu highway to a shutdown again

22 Good For Hearts

The heart stent market, an unregulated space for long, is going to be under stricter watch from the NPPA In a first, Kerala will shortly open its own stent monitoring system

26 National Insecurity Act

The NSA and other laws around sedition are being invoked way too frequently by the State and, at times, for minor, even bizzarre offences What’s with the insecurity!

44 The Gulf of Tech

Saudi Arabia’s ties with India come into greater focus as the kingdom, under the guidance

of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, prepares for a tech-driven future

70 Soft-core Subscription Route

A look at the range of over-the-top video streaming platforms attracting audiences

in small towns and villages through titillating content

ENRAGED Protests for the release of student activist Kanhaiya Kumar in Delhi, 2016

4 LETTERS 10 DEEP THROAT 78 BOOKS 80 GLITTERATI 82 DIARY

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ON E-MAIL Vijai Pant: This is with

reference to your cover story Deccan

Can They? (Feb 11) BJP’S north Indian

roots, its overwhelmingly Hindutva

image, lack of regional leadership

down south and the mistrust the party

carries among the people of the south

are hurdles which will not be easy for

the saffron party to surmount,

irre-spective of its focussed southward

push The only way forward for BJP is

to groom leaders, bolster its

organisa-tional structure in the south, stitch

umbrella alliances with regional

par-ties and, most of all, dilute its strong

Hindutva image A long-term strategy

with loads of patience is the need of

the hour for this party which has

always been in fast forward mode

CHENNAI Kangayam R

Narasimhan: The BJP, by its very

nature, is prone to rub the Tamils the

wrong way The party has failed to read

the pulse of the people over a raft of

issues such as the Salem-Chennai

green corridor project, oil and natural

gas exp loration and the neutrino

pro-ject The common refrain is that PM

Modi does not want to give Tamils what

they want, but thrusts down their

throats what they don’t want We ask

for a halt to Karnataka’s plan to build a

new dam across river Cauvery at

Meketadu but what we get in return is

the neutrino project—a wild goose

chase for God’s particle! The political

untouchability practised against the

saffron outfit by the Dravidian majors

and half-a-dozen fringe groups runs so

deep that they don’t lose opportunities

for blaming the BJP for anything going

wrong in Tamil Nadu AIADMK’s

Namadu MGR has blamed the BJP for

its failures to act on promises like

pro-viding two crore jobs a year or giving

Rs15 lakh to each citizen from the black

money retrieved from safe havens

abroad BJP’s corruption outcry has few takers because corruption is never

a major issue in a state that has gained notoriety for scientific corruption, and where most people sell their ballots for

a price Amid all these conundrums it is surprising how the BJP is pushing for a coalition with strange bed fellows like the AIADMK—T.T.V Dinakaran or PMK—to fight the Lok Sabha polls

ON E-MAIL Shailesh Kumar:

Political vocabulary is developed over decades and can only be used effec-tively if those being addressed are in on the words and phrases The BJP simply hasn’t one for the south The Ram mandir catchphrase may still stir up an agenda storm in the northern main-lands but speeches down south are nuanced and local And identities in the southern states are more confident about their origins and evolution, so, a broad-based, flimsy Hindutva bid just doesn’t get you the mandate Even the carefully crafted cult of Modi finds lit-

tle resonance here The BJP needs to visibly change its positions while cam-paigning in states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala But then, that would need them

to get rid of the arrogance they have accumulated from an anti-Congress wave in the last five years or so

The Last Gandhi

NOIDA Bal Govind: This refers to The Face For The Other Side Of U.P (Feb

11) The Congress remains a fringe player in the politics of the most popu-lous state in the country It seems to be trailing far behind the SP-BSP alliance and BJP in UP Having said that, by sending Priyanka Gandhi to UP east, the Congress has pitched her directly against both the CM and the PM—both have won from this belt Though she may not be able to fetch her party their old bastion back, she can definitely put

a dent in the hopes of the SP-BSP ance and ruling BJP in that region Till date, she has restricted herself to her mother and brother’s constituencies, but now she will have to dig deep into dirty politics and prove that she can be

alli-a serious contender in future And, mind you, she is no small fish

SECUNDERABAD K.R.Srinivasan: The Congress under Rahul Gandhi is still struggling to come to grips, but Priyanka’s entry into politics should give a fillip to the rank and file of the party and enthuse them to work with greater vigour in UP As general secre-tary UP east, she has a tough task cut-out ahead of her Her oratory skills and mass appeal appear to have a greater edge than Rahul’s

NEW DELHI Aditya Mukherjee: Indian politics undoubtedly tends to

be red in tooth and claw come election time These days the only debate that

is reverberating in the corridors of

power concerns is Priyanka Gandhi’s

sudden entry into politics While the

BJP, as expected, is busy unleashing a

stream of vitriol against the Congress

by invoking the dynasty trope, a

frisson of hope and euphoria has

gripped the Congress

After being hung out to dry by the

SP-BSP alliance, the Congress has had

no option but to fall back on the

cha-rismatic Priyanka It is obvious that

she has been made to draw the short

straw, being asked to take charge of a

tough and volatile eastern UP to

im-prove the political fortunes of the

party Priyanka is no babe in the woods

in matters political as she has

cam-paigned successfully in previous

elec-tions for the party Now having decided

to cross the rubicon, Priyanka has to

punch above her weight to take the

fight to the opposition led by BJP and

SP-BSP alliance At the same time,

while Priyanka is personally

inc-orruptible and enjoys a relatively clean

image, her husband Robert Vadra’s

involvement in dubious business deals

can become an albatross around her

neck Can she turn things around in

what looks to be one of the most tough

and nerve-wracking election battles of

UP in recent times?

BANGALORE K.S Jayatheertha:

So, has Congress eventually realised that it will take more than a Rahul Gandhi to revive itself in a state widely believed to hold the key to Raisina Hill

Either way, it is an admission that the party stands virtually decimated in UP, and is so pol itically distraught that it has been pressured into playing its last

“Gandhi card” to ward off being duced to a marginal player Whether the Congress president’s “front foot strategy” and Priyanka’s entry actually revives the party’s prospects are the big imponderable of the 2019 election

re-However, the BJP has certainly been impacted, its revival of the ‘dynasty’

criticism proves precisely that

The Age of Freedom

BANGALORE Minati Pradhan:

Your story, Last of the Nation’s First, on

freedom fighters reminded me of my freedom fighter grandfather, Sachindra Pradhan, who passed away

in 2001, at the age of 84, after a brief age-related illness (Feb 11) I cherish

my childhood days when I was keen on listening to him as he narrated his exp-erience as a young freedom fighter At the age of 12-13, he joined a group of freedom fighters led by a fierce village leader, Pranabandhu Awasthi They were arr ested and jailed by the British government The leaders were left on

the trail of red ants in the scorching hot sun with all their limbs tied They were beaten and tortured by the police

He used to show the scar he had below his nose—a cut mark from a hunter Despite of all this, they used to meet in the dark of the night to discuss their Freedom fighter K.C Narayanappa

plans, prepare pamphlets etc Thanks

Outlook for bringing out the stories of

these people

Don’t Lose Faith

ON E-MAIL Milind Jaswal: This

refers to Heer, Ranjha and a Mom’s

Hitman (Feb 11) The details of this

murder were hair-raising It’s the kind

of thing that makes you lose your faith

in humanity But then, that wouldn’t

have landed the survivor in this case—

Jassi’s husband Mithu—anywhere He

fought a tough battle for justice and it’s

heartening to see that Punjab cops have

extradited the accused murderers to

face trial Hope justice is done swiftly

now, after this long delay

Our Soul Food

ON E-MAIL Yusuf Shariff: Every

country has its own specific art forms

and culture, but India is blessed with

enviable and unmatched fountains of

art, culture, heritage, rituals, music,

dance, theatre and cinema (India: A

Dance Penumbral Feb 4) Our diversity

has been our biggest strength Without

it, India would have been a barren soil

without soul and would have adopted

western forms of arts and culture

which do not at all suit our country

Pilfering the Pledge

GOA M.N Bhartiya: This refers to the

article We The People At The

Crossroads (Feb 4) After the end of the

monarchical system and freedom in

1947, the int roduction of the

Constitution in 1950 sought to make

pluralism the cornerstone for

democ-racy in India All adults, irrespective of

their properties, caste and creed or

gender got the right to franchise The

rule of law’ and ‘principles of equity’

got supremacy in governance It was

once “assaulted” by Emergency during

1975 - 1977 by then PM Indira Gandhi

to save her chair and save the country from internal anarchy This was the turning point in the history of Indian polity People proved worthy of de-mocracy; it survived But now, secular-ism is at stake We already live under

an undeclared emergency The civil rights of citizens, pluralism, autono-mous constitutional institutions, rationality and scientific tamper in public life are under seige The lower middle and the weaker class are con-fused with various ambiguous tax con-cessions and grants declared in the latest budget The Opposition too is acting most irresponsibly They are not united—their selfish ambitions are get-ting an edge over saving the fibre of democracy They are trapped in the tone and tenor of the agenda fixed by the government and Hindu organisa-tions for electioneering debates

VARANASI R Raman: Mahesh Rangarajan’s article on the current socio-political scenario of the Republic

is in fact a call to the reason of the cerning What happened in 2014 was inevitable Such was the disillusion with the then ruling dispensation that Modi’s triumph was less of his own than

dis-of the failure dis-of his adversaries The perception about a Congress hollowed

by corruption put paid to their fate The present dispensation is on an overdrive

to do the opposite Their shrill, tall claims of social reforms (‘sabka saath-sabka vikas’), and the upliftment of the economy with ease of business and job creation have fallen flat with the BJP doing no better than their ‘paralysed’ predecessors Yet the powers that be, and their crony officialdom, have been spinning spools of lies and myth to paint a rosy picture by debunking the standard methods of evaluation The present dispensation’s interfer-ence with institutional autonomy is increasing with every passing day But what threatens to devastate the fabric

of the country is the agenda of tarian writ on life of the citizen The whole discourse on social, political, religious, even scientific, matters is so dramatically and emphatically driven towards a thinking that not only mili-tates rational thinking but runs coun-ter to the centuries old ethos of Indian life And that plague, one fears, will become an epidemic if not turned around immediately The next election, therefore is indeed a watershed elec-tion where choices are limited but they need to be made, and decisively I am rem inded of a famous mastline of ear-lier years that once adorned the top of

majori-a newspmajori-aper, “Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might”

letters

6 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

The Outsider’s Mischief

ON E-MAIL Bipin Ram: This

refers to The Angry Citizens

(Feb 11) The backlash after the BJP’s citizenship bill that the party is pushing in the Northeast is telling of the makeshift arrangement it had managed in the region devoid

of any real influence Mainstream political outfits have, at best, acted as kers for the peculiar politics in the Northeast which is very region specific BJP had won a great deal in the past few years But they forget that they don’t have any real significance anywhere out of the cow belt The Sangh tried to single out Muslims in the Assam, thinking that would be enough to appease the people facing a sustained demographic crisis Some would say that it worked to some extent However, when the BJP tried to bring in other identi-ties in order to rejig the population equation with the ultimate aim of creating

bro-a vote bbro-ank from, literbro-ally, thin bro-air, the locbro-als sbro-aw through the cunning strbro-at-egy immediately and are now up in protest They are making Modi’s caravans realise that they are ultimately outsiders in the seven sister states who can be kicked out of the political equation if they try to play too smart Also, the next time Modi visits a Northeast state, he should leave the traditional headgear alone It’s obnoxious and is winning him no votes

strat-INBOXED

GOLDEN PENGUINS

THEY are from the frozen land of peeny-weeny,

piffling piccolini, piddily-diddily pooft, until the

Happy Feet gang of eight waddled into Byculla zoo

in August 2016 And ever since they put their flippers

up for the public next March, all footfalls have been

directed to their water-and-pebble, climate-controlled

corral Their hippity-hoppity is keeping the till jingling

for keepers Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation—

Rs 11 crore at the last count How is this penguinely

possible? You may ask Donald, Daisy, Popeye, Olive,

Flipper, Bubble, Mr Molt and Dory from the Humboldt

family Well, they are bending to the fetid fantasies of

a miserable species

THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU

I N & A R O U N D

HANUMAN’S REVENGE

THE odds were 400:1 and the

lone monkey won For the quished—an entire village in coastal Tamil Nadu’s Nagapattinam—their conqueror embodies the Kiplingesque nature of monkeys Grotesque, rabid and lawless Many fled their homes and some took

And then, Bilawal Bhutto also has the casually sexist sense

of humour of the average Pakistani male He exhibited that in good measure in a riposte to a recent query

on his marriage plans

“We are having detailed, comprehensive strategic meetings about this…if I should marry one woman

or four one from each of Pakistan’s provinces,” he said, with a big grin to a chortling home audience But the world frowned upon his remarks—a person of Bilawal’s education and exposure should know how to better navigate gender politics.

Illustrations by MANJUL

IT’S A TREET!

BRING your old jeans and take

home a baby Deodar Sounds

like an advert for a plant nursery

or a supermarket, right? Not

quite When just-married Bhupen

Rabha and Babita Boro of Assam’s

Baksa district invited guests to

their wedding feast, they dropped

a request to bring old clothes and

books for the poor The couple gave

Deodar saplings as return gifts

The clothes will be distributed

and the books will find place in a

library in the couple’s village—No

2 Kataligaon, one of the cleanest

in Baksa We congratulate

Rabha, who teaches English at

a government college, and his

wife for choosing this ‘Service to

Mankind’ theme for their wedding

Sometimes one can make a loud

and memorable statement without

the DJ’s assistance

shelter in a temple on the outskirts

as the rogue shank his sharp canines

on more than 20 villagers as well as livestock in 20 days Foresters are now camping with nets, traps and darts to catch the slippery simian which, it seems, has escaped from captivity and had suffered horri-fic abuse Or is he waging a war to avenge his kind in a world where men are pushing animals to the margins? “All of human history has led to this moment.” Sounds famil-iar? Ah, the Planet of the Apes!

8 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

CANDY MEN TO HANG IN LANKA

like “give me salt and vinegar and I’ll

eat his liver”, and follows each warning shot

with body hits, the enthusiasm rubs off on you

So, high on a hands-on with Rodrigo ‘Death

Squad’ Duterte, Sri Lanka’s Maithripala

Sirise-na warned replicating the Filipino leader’s

take-no-prisoners approach on drug dealers

Which means a decades-old moratorium on

the death penalty will end with the hanging of

five drug convicts But Lanka needs a hangman,

as the last one retired in 2014 and his three

suc-cessors quit too, bored by the unused gallows.

THE Kama Sutra calls

them the ‘third sex’, they

were royal servants for the

Mughals, but prudish British

morality upturned centuries

of acceptance Transgenders

now live on the fringes of

soc iety, begging or

pros-tituting So, it makes

for a rare welcome

sight when you

see eight of them

toiling hard at a

farm—their

4.5-acre window to a suitable life They grow their own food at a village in Karnata-ka’s Chikmagalur district

But acceptance didn’t come easily, recalls Anju, as scep-tical villagers took her for a sorcerer Change came when they donated

Rs 25,000 to Kodagu flood survivors

They are raising funds for a toddler battling cancer

THE best pest control

is organic and

nutri-tious Just cook and eat

the baby beetles bugging

your harvest That’s what

many villagers in Majuli

island, a dollop of land

bound by the

Brahmapu-tra in Assam, are doing

to the white grub beetle

larvae that are chomping

away at their spuds, greens

and major crops These

are root-eaters, hiding in

the soil The adults don’t attack the plants The juicy babies—fried or roasted—

are adding to the nutrition

of villagers And you can order some in a ‘pestau-rant’ on a sandbar Now, most of us will turn up our noses at the idea of eating insects—Pumba and Timon food But crickets, for instance, outrank live-stock meat in protein and vitamin content per gram

NEPAL has brought a proposal to gag its civil servants from expressing critical views of the government in public The restrictions, interestingly, would be in place even after the officials retire from service.

A new bill tabled in the Nepalese House of Representatives proposes to restrict civil servants from expressing their views through the media, including micro-blogging sites that many officials had put up to air their opinions on develop- ments in the country that were of interest to them.

According to the Nepalese media, the Federal Civil Service Bill proposes strict provisions for civil servants, which will remain in effect even after their retirement Though the Civil Service Act, 1993, has similar restrictions in force, the new bill has strengthened it further.

Media reports have quoted Clause 75 of the bill as saying,

“No civil employee shall, on his/her real or pseudo name or anonymity, publish any feature

article, provide any news to the press, broadcast a speech through radio or television etc, make any public speech or publish any state- ment via broadcast or social media

in such a manner as to be contrary

to the policies of the Government

of Nepal or to undermine mutual relationship between the Govern- ment of Nepal and the people or the relationship with any foreign country.” It adds, ”This restriction will also apply to a person who has been relieved of government service for any reason whatsoever.”

The new bill that replaces the existing Civil Service Act has

a provision that restricts retired public officials from sharing the information they are privy to It also adds that pension

of retired civil servants could be stopped if they violated the new provision, which was included after retired civil servants made critical comments in the media against the govern- ment Nepal’s Prime Minister, K.P Sharma Oli, and his advisors had on a number of occasions been critical

of such comments by former civil servants.

On October 31 last year, Nepal’s ministry of education, science and technology endorsed a policy barring all staff and teachers from criticising the government and political parties

or posting comments to that effect on social media.

Serving bureaucrats in all countries are often prevented from publicly criticising policies of the government they serve But such gag orders are not valid once they retire

Former civil servants have been allowed in most democracies

to express their views on policies once they are out of vice Nepal’s new law certainly doesn’t take any chances.

ser-A Watertight Gag

On pain of their pensions being stopped, Nepal’s retired public officials are barred from sharing information or criticising the government—a blanket ban

A DAILY NUTRITIOUS DOSE OF BEETLE

THE TRANSCENDERS AT THEIR GARDEN

25 February 2019 OUTLOOK 9

a situation an AIADMK without Jayalalitha’s charisma can’t afford The party can’t ignore the possible partners as well The BJP, PMK, Vijayakanth and G.K Vasan are keen to come on board with their own numbers and choice

of seats The BJP is insisting on

‘winnnable’ seats in AIADMK strongholds such as Krishnagiri, that Lok Sabha deputy speaker

M Thambidurai represents No wonder he is spewing anger at the NDA government.

SAHIB BAHADUR

J&K governor Satya Pal Malik courts controversies at the rate of almost one every week The latest is about Kargil’s demand to ‘share’ the head­

quarters of the new Ladakh division Leh is the HQ cur­

rently but Kargil wants it to be rotated between the two The governor is facing criticism over his stand, or the lack of it And in a riposte to barbs from political leaders, he said he is the governor as well as the CM The PDP responded by calling him Sahib Bahadur “Beg your pardon Excellency! Wrongly advised You are only constitu­tional head running makeshift administration Pl recall LK Jha, NN Vohra for guidance,”

the PDP tweeted

NO-FLY ZONE

Sachin Pilot is often found

dodging questions on the

Gujjar quota stir But the

Rajasthan deputy CM, who is a

Gujjar, couldn’t wriggle out of

an ambush at a recent media

briefing in Jaipur with CM

Ashok Gehlot by his side This

happened when a journalist

asked about the stir Pilot enq­

uired if the question was for

the party or the government,

to which the journalist pointed

to the latter Pilot then steered

the microphone towards the

CM, who turned it back to the

young leader and said: “You

are both, the party and the gov­

ernment So, you will have to

answer.” Pilot, the state

Congress chief, saw through

the trap and laughed

Image of the Week

deep throat

THE NIGHT’S CATCH A fisherman attracts young Yoshino river Shirasu eels, delicacies in Japan, with a lamp

10 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

GETTY IMAGES

12 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

by Naseer Ganai in Srinagar

53-year-old truck driver from

Punjab, entered his sixth day of

being stranded on the Srinagar-

Jammu National Highway at

Qazigund “We don’t know

when the road will open,” he says

Sin-gh’s fellow drivers say two of their

col-leagues fell seriously ill on the night of

February 10 and had to be taken to

hospital The locals have come

forw-ard to help, bringing along water to

offer the thirsty “But how long can

they do it? This looks like unending trauma,” says Kashmira Singh, anot-her driver from Punjab Pointing out that the highway is becoming more and more unpredictable by the year, Kewal adds: “The condition is just not improving Now you don’t know when you’ll find the road closed and how long it would be before it reopens.”

Near the other end of the road, at Udh­

ampur in the plains of Jammu, drivers say they have been stranded for six days “Our vehicles are all parked on one side of the road, but the police, instead of helping us and providing some drinking water, are

harassing us,” complains a truck driver, who doesn’t wish to be named

On an average, around 1,200 trucks and

as many fuel tankers, besides 1,000 vehi­cles ferrying passengers, ply on the Srinagar­Jammu highway on a routine day The numbers increase during the

‘fruit season’, when around 1,000 trucks laden with apples and other fruits move out of Kashmir daily And then there are over 500 vehicles of government forces

on the road every day Nearly 7,000 vehi­cles cross the Banihal toll post on an aver­age day No wonder, frequent closure of the road plunges the Valley into a crisis

Rockslides, heavy snow put the Srinagar-Jammu highway out of action again Annual Lifeline Choke

SNOWED IN

25 February 2019 OUTLOOK 13

Political parties in J&K are seeking the

defence ministry’s assistance in airlifting

passengers stuck on the 300­km highway

Rockslides hitting the road again on

February 11 at Panthal in Ramban ended

all hope of the road opening that day, and

Kashmir’s divisional commissioner iss­

ued a circular asking fuel stations to sell

only three litres of petrol a day for each

vehicle and no more than 10 litres of die­

sel to commercial vehicles Fuel compa­

nies were directed to supply only 1,000

litres a day to the petrol pumps and to

“reserve a separate quota for emergency

vehicles, ambulances, water tankers and

snow clearance machines” Earlier, on

February 7, an avalanche hit a police post

near the Jawahar tunnel, killing eight

policemen Locals who rushed to the

rescue could save only two personnel

After most parts of Kashmir received

heavy to moderate snowfall since Feb­

ruary 6, the crisis hit air passengers too,

with airlines charging Rs 20,000­25,000 for a Srinagar­Delhi flight Passengers who had booked the ticket for February

10 found their flight cancelled by the air­

line, which claimed it was an “additional”

flight “They offered a refund,” said a passenger who had bought the ticket for

Rs 5,000 and had to shell out Rs 20,000 the next day to the same airline for re­

scheduling his flight

“For years, we have been hearing that the road from Banihal to Ramban will be imp roved, but it has not happened,” says former CM Farooq Abdullah “It is blocked all the time and has led to sky­

rocketing airfares.” Since the onset of winter, the Srinagar­Jammu highway has remained closed for over 30 days “This is due to the mountain­cutting work being done by the National Highways Authority

of India (NHAI),” says a senior police off cer, adding that it is usually the police who are blamed for such closures as no one looks at the NHAI’s role “Our job is

to ensure smooth traffc, which can only happen if the road is not blocked due to rockslides and landslides.”

The police believe the road­widening is being done unscientifically, without mai­

ntaining slope safety Offcers say exc a­

vation is being done in a way that makes the mountain’s top portion slide down

“Debris gets pushed down to the stream, doing away with the need to transport it

to a disposal site and saving the agency a lot of money,” says an offcial

NHAI regional offcer Hem Raj says his

organisation cannot be blamed for being solely responsible for the problem “The majority of critical areas where rockslides are taking place aren’t where the NHAI has done excavation work so far,” he says, adding that the issue is being raised by state government offcials with the NHAI

Conceding that the excavation was being done from below in the “cave manner”, the offcial insists it is now being done professionally, but adds, “The area does not allow much room for manoeuvre The project will be completed by 2021.”

The four­laning of the Ramban­Banihal (32.10 km), and Udhampur­Ramban (40.07 km) stretches of the Srinagar­Jammu National Highway, now called NH­44, was approved in 2015 after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave the go­ahead The Ramban to Banihal stretch comprises two bypasses, six major and 21 minor bridges, 152 cul­verts, seven pedestrian and cattle under­passes, and six tunnels with a total length

of 2,967.50 metres The Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), a leading infrastructure firm, has been contracted the work on this stretch

THE police fear the road will be closed

frequently in the rainy season “HCC has hired small­time contractors with little expertise in mountain­cut­ting The government will think about it only if lives are lost in a big accident,” says

a police offcer, adding that the HCC had done the excavation near Marog at the Ramban axis, which was hit by heavy landslides on February 11 The HCC ref­used to speak on the subject “We are doing mountain­cutting as per specifics fixed by the NHAI and we don’t employ small­time contractors,” says an HCC off cial who doesn’t wish to be named J&K’s geology and mining director Farooq Ahmad Khan admits that no geo­logical survey has been done in the area from Ramban to Banihal “No one refer­red it to us or to the Geological Survey of India for the survey,” he says

Former roads and building minister and PDP leader Naeem Akhtar says the Ram­ban to Banihal stretch is the most unsta­ble “The more you dig it up, the more unstable it will become and remain so for the next four generations,” he says, add­ing he had taken up the issue with Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari when the PDP­BJP coalition government was in offce, and that Gadkari had app­roved the tunnelling of a major portion

“Then our government fell and we don’t know what the governor’s administration

is doing Every morning we wake up and hear the road is closed,” says Akhtar “In

70 years, all natural routes like the Srinagar­Muzaffarabad road were closed, and the Srinagar­Jammu highway has become a fair­weather road and off the priority list.” Advisor to the governor, Kewal Kumar Sharma, who looks after the roads and building department, didn’t respond to calls and SMSes O

The police believe the road-widening is being done unscientifically by the NHAI and the HCC, without slope safety being maintained.

ALL QUIET

ON NH-44

Closure of the 300-km

Srinagar-Jammu

National HIghway due to

heavy snowfall and

rockslides has led to

demands for airlifting

stranded passengers.

Some Kashmiris stuck in

the Jammu stretch and

demanding to be airlifted

to Srinagar were pelted

with stones on February

11 The victims deny the

allegation of having

shouted pro-Pak slogans.

Routine daily traffic:

Around 1,200 trucks and

How Hitachi’s holistic transportation solutions are helping India accelerate growth

The earlier resistance to change

has been replaced by a growing

eagerness to infuse technology

into virtually every aspect of

our daily lives While governments

traditionally have been overburdened by

the widening economic gap and

inequitable wealth distribution,

technology and rapid transportation

development are two pivotal factors that

offer some hope in bridging that crucial

gap

Digitalisation can save time and cut

costs in India’s development agenda The

transformation through informed

consumers, performance-driven

governments and high growth-focused

industry leaders like Hitachi are poised to

change the fortunes of its citizens

Newer technologies like Internet of

Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence and

Robotics are reshaping how goods and

services are delivered and how they are

carried On consumer level, the world is

yearning for increased comfort and

convenience in public and private

transport preferences

Hitachi, a leading Japanese

conglomerate with a widespread global

footprint, is a pioneer in new-age

technologies Its diverse realms of

operation have offered a wide range of

products and services, from information

and telecommunication systems, digital

solutions & services, infrastructure

systems, industrial systems like water, oil

& gas supply & management, to

transportation and urban development

systems

The government’s ambitious

digitalisation initiative has geared

towards radical and rapid transformation

The technology focus on creating

channels like an upgraded public

transportation system is part of a cohesive

master plan To take the digital dream to

a billion citizens, ‘Digital India’, ‘Make in

India’, ‘Skill India’, etc were launched

Hitachi has brought in its rich global

industrial heritage and leveraged its

playing a prominent role in shaping the way citizens will travel in the future

Digi-speeD trains

About 30 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population lives in cities and the

(Source:firstpost.com) numbers are

expected to further grow More new cities are being built foreseeing the shift of economic growth in urban areas Besides

the 100 smart cities (Source: thehindu.

com), another 500 cities in India will be

transformed with an allocation of close to

Rs 1 lakh crore The urgency and scale to upgrade urban infrastructure is a challenge Hitachi is equipped to handle Transport reforms are rolled out at state and national levels

With new centres of commerce emerging, an influx of people will bring

in issues of congestion and safety Thus, Technology and smarter planning will elevate living standards in our future metropolises The future promises us shorter travel times with highspeed rail systems The success of future and Smart

strength in Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) to actively collaborate and for successful implementation

Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business delivers a multi-disciplinary approach to crucial business and social problems from

a holistic perspective With over five decades of IT leadership, Hitachi is offering a ‘single-eye view of macro solutions Hitachi is a diversified group with established strengths in infrastructure, railways, energy, construction machinery, healthcare, IT, and automotive systems Its contributions are as diverse as urbanisation, water management, more robust security solutions, smarter manufacturing, financial solutions and transportation

Hitachi has been engaged in upgrading transportation systems for around 100 years Its subsequent and early foray into

IT applications, analytics, content, cloud and infrastructure solutions have transformed the way cities have addressed the demands of urban living Now, it is

The fuTure is

on Track

14 OutlOOk 25 February 2019

Cities will involve developing an efficient

urban mobility and public transport

system providing city commuters both

economical and eco-friendly options

City borders are fast expanding into the

suburbs Inter-city travel is becoming a

key index of living standards, and an

essential driver of real estate,

infrastructural and commercial growth

Governments have devised plans to

introduce new-age railway systems to

meet expected demands

Upholding ethos of creating large scale

social impact globally Hitachi is partnering

with the government’s mission to enhance

commuter experience on Indian roads

Besides, it is parallelly laying tracks to

enable safer, speedier rail commutes across

Mass Rail Transit and Monorails Hitachi’s

relationship with Indian Railways began in

1950s, when it delivered the first steam

locomotive to India It was also one of the

first companies to deliver electric

locomotives Hitachi’s valuable

contributions to the Indian railways has

evolved into a trusted and enduring

association

Indian Railways has the world’s fourth

largest network Growth in this sector has

a ripple effect on allied industries While it

provides significant employment

opportunities it also creates business and

assures accessibility to the lakhs of stations

it connects

A robust and sustainable transportation

network ought to guarantee efficiency,

safety and performance Hitachi’s

multi-faceted technological edge is building up

large scale infrastructure Furthermore,

Hitachi is playing an active role in

co-developing a range of railway initiatives

for better citizen experience in a sustainable

environment Speed can’t be at the cost of

safety Both aspects need to have equal

weightage in the modern transportation

system

Hitachi is implementing the ‘Dedicated Freight Corridor’ (DFC) with Automatic Block Signaling and the European Train Control System (ETCS) between Rewari and Vadodara to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), the contract was awarded in 2015-16 Hitachi has introduced state-of-the-art technology in signaling and telecommunications on the DFC from Delhi to Mumbai

Electronic Interlocking that is serially interfaced with Multi-Section Digital Axle Counter (MSDAC) is updating signaling systems technologies as we know them

One centralised control center for Train Management System (TMS) at Ahmedabad will seamlessly gear to ensure peak capacity and streamline time-tables for stations in that corridor The European Train Control System (ETCS) will for the first time in India help freight trains run at the speed of 100kms/hr to halt automatically if train drivers fail to detect

a signal at danger (SPAD)

Hitachi’s involvement is end-to-end

From rolling stock to signaling and train control systems, on-board components, traffic management, passenger information services and maintenance, it is managing the complex system and bringing flexibility into the system

Hitachi has undertaken the complete digital upgrade of the railway’s multiple systems as it reviews and reinvent functions across the board Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will consolidate data gathered from multiple sources The ambitious project is another feather in Hitachi’s contributions for India

Interestingly, while it is an established global player, Hitachi has been an active collaborator in ‘Make in India’ initiative

In a conscious bid to employ local engineering talent and to boost indigenous manufacturing capabilities, the company has sourced and utilised localised

manufacturers, while ensuring the highest standards in the execution

Mangal Dev, Head of Hitachi railway systems, india & south asia region, points out, “Hitachi has close to 250 railway engineers working on different projects The company is doing a lot of localisation in terms of signaling equipment The interlocking system and MsDaC is now manufactured in india also.”

Hitachi has worked on developing such future-ready railways in multiple countries across continents, garnering rich multi-level, multi-cultural experience in tackling

a gamut of practical and local issues in the execution The country’s first high speed railway project in India, is slated to connect the 508 kilometer stretch from Mumbai to Ahmedabad The bullet train will be heralding a new era in speed, with an operational speed of 320 kmph and will also aim to imbibe the Shinkansen culture

of apologising to each and every passenger for even a slight delay The project will be a decisive move forward in putting India at par with other modern cities in the world

As cities become home to more people, and the times demand easier mobility, smart transport for smart cities will increasingly not be a matter of luxury, but

a dire necessity One is reminded of the dictum, ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’ Creating brand new benchmarks in transportation systems for India, technical and social innovation are definitely high on Hitachi’s agenda

25 February 2019 OutlOOk 15

To learn more visit - http://social-innovation.hitachi/in/

16 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

by Siddhartha Mishra

THE country is one of the world’s

largest food producers but

around 194 million Indians go

hungry every day because we

waste thousands of tonnes of

grain every year Successive govern­

ments had promised and initiated

poli cies to stop the wastage—mounds

of grain left to rot in the sun, rain and

floods in decrepit Food Corporation of

India (FCI) granaries, or eaten by ins­

ects and rats But the rot continues, as

does the paradox of millions going

hungry This reeks of callousness,

pos-sibly even trickery, in a country that

ranks 100 out of 119 on the Global

Hunger Index

On February 5, minister of state for

consumer affairs, food and public

distri-bution, C.R Chaudhary, told the Lok

Sabha that India had

This grain is then

auc-tioned to those primarily

interested in making feed

for cattle and poultry

“The FCI is the biggest

racket the country has

ever seen,” says former UP

legislator V.M Singh,

na-tional convenor of the All

India Kisan Sangharsh

Coordination Committee

“The corporation buys the

grain and keeps it on open

fields If you go to Punjab,

Haryana or Bihar, you will see how they keep the grain out in the open, on black tarpaulin sheets The grain is stacked up

in a pyramidal structure comprising about 50 layers If it is flooded with, say, four feet of water, only four or five layers from the bottom are affected And yet they auction the entire pile at dirt cheap rates—even though most of it is absolutely clean wheat That is how the racket functions.”

According to Singh, while storage is a problem across the country, local solu-tions like makeshift platforms can be constructed in areas where the authori-ties are aware of adverse conditions

“They know these areas are prone to floods and yet they use only those spaces for storage Why are they keeping the grain there? Because they want it to be declared rotten so they can sell it If there is no rotten wheat and paddy, what

will the corrupt do? To

an-gements and put the grain

in sheds would need estment instead of help-ing the corrupt make money,” he says

inv-An FCI official, who doesn’t wish to be named, insists that ‘procedures’

are being followed and auctions happen only after

a decision to grade the grain in a three-tier system

is taken after checks by the vigilance dep artment

“You can’t throw away the damaged grain Tenders have to be floated for the auction, be it for a kilo or a tonne,” he says

Though the quantity of damaged grain is low compared to the stock issued every year—India produces 265 million tonnes annually, according to the National E-Repository Limited (NERL)—if we take three ounces to be a person’s average daily intake of food-grain, the amount wasted was enough to feed Calcutta for over a week

food-A state-wise breakdown of the 2019 figure reveals that Bihar accounts for 3,567.65 tonnes (86 per cent of the total damaged grain), comprising 1,267.69 tonnes of wheat and 2,299.97 tonnes of paddy, followed by Punjab with 324.39 tonnes “Grain damage is generally high

in Punjab as substantial quantities are stored in the open, or in cover-and-plinth storage, where chances of damage are higher There’s also damage due to rain and poor transportation,” says Siraj Hussain, former Union secretary for ag-riculture and farmers’ welfare

What is also an aberration is the graph

of wastage, especially in Bihar, over a five-year period While Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha fared better than their previous history suggests, Bihar was chugging along fine too —according to government data Bihar’s damaged stock was 3,909.41 tonnes in 2013-14, 703.65 tonnes in 2014-

15, 46.931 tonnes in 2015-16 and nil in 2016-17 The wasted stock in 2019 was thus accumulated over two years

“The damage was due to the floods.Some godowns were entirely flooded,” says the FCI official “For minimising the damage, there is a process to get

it checked with a stack-wise analysis.” Since 2000, there have been 11 years when Bihar was flooded In 2016 and

2017, over 700 people lost their lives O

Turning Food To Feed

Between the farm and the table lies the rot and a racket

GRAIN DRAIN

Punjab, with about 324.39 tonnes and

a history of storage issues, comes second among the states.

Maharashtra, UP, West Bengal and Odisha fared better this time than in the five preceding years.

Of the total 4,135.224 tonnes of “damaged/

non-issuable” grain, Bihar accounts for 3,567.65 tonnes (86%).

WASTED

As of January 1, there were 4,135.224 tonnes of ‘damaged’ grain

in FCI godowns

STATE OF UNREST

25 February 2019 OUTLOOK 17

by Ajay Sukumaran in Bangalore

THE audio clips have taken

Karna-taka by storm and created a

furo-re in Parliament Coming amidst

the state’s volatile political

situa-tion, the clips—released by chief

minister H.D Kumaraswamy as proof

of all eged horse-trading attempts by

the oppo sition BJP—prompted intense

deb ate in the assembly, with speaker

K.R.Ramesh Kumar expressing his

ang uish about the insinuations One of

the purported conversations men

tio-ned a bribe of Rs 50 crore to the

spea-ker “It’s the wearer who knows where

the shoe pinches,” said Ramesh Kumar

as he requested the government for a

fast-tracked probe into the matter

Before Kumaraswamy’s dramatic press

conference on February 8, an air of

uncer-tainty hung over his government’s

sur-vival The JD(S)-Congress coalition has

been struggling to contain four of its

leg-islators who have struck a rebellious

stand, with concerns that a few others

could also abstain or cross-vote, if such a

situation arose during the ongoing budget

session But, by releasing the audio clips,

he caught the BJP off-guard, sharpening

focus on the Opposition’s alleged

attem-pts to topple his government by inducing

defections Identifying the voices in the

conversation, Kumara swamy claimed it

was state BJP chief B.S Yeddiurappa

off-ering allurements to JD(S) MLA Naga

na-gouda Kandakur’s son Sharana na-gouda to

convince his father to resign Since May, when they formed a govern ment, the Congress and JD(S) have regularly com-plained about the BJP’s atte mpts to woo their legislators The BJP rebuffed such charges, saying the coalition’s troubles were its internal matter

With his ‘expose’, the CM alleged that the attempts to lure ruling party legis-lators with bribes of crores of rupees couldn’t have taken place without the BJP central leadership’s knowledge

“The PM has to answer for this,” said Kumaraswamy in his press conference

For the BJP, the Karnataka coalition’s constant firefighting—given the discord-ant voices within its ranks—has so far been convenient ground to attack the pre-poll mahagathbandhan taking shape before this summer’s Lok Sabha elections

The approach was evident at PM endra Modi’s February 10 election rally in Hubli Kumaraswamy, the PM said, had become “everybody’s punching bag”

Nar-“They want to foist Karnataka’s majboor (weak) model on the country too,” he said

Yeddiurappa initially cried that the clips were fake, but later adm-

itted to a late- night ing with Sha ranagouda, son of Gur mitkal MLA Nag ana gouda, in a circuit house in Devadurga How -ever, he mai n tained that they were doc tored, and filed a police complaint

meet-Sharanagouda, also

pres-ent in Kumaraswamy’s press conference, narrated how at least 11 other legislators had been approached as well He said

he had been offered funds to contest elections after his father resigned

In a second audio clip, another person whom Kumaraswamy identified as BJP MLA Shivanagouda Nayak purportedly tells Sharanagouda that the speaker will approve the resignations and that a Rs 50 crore deal has been made At the Kar na-taka assembly on February 11, these insin-uations was the subject of deep debate, with members expressing indignation over the reference to the speaker “Asp-ersions are cast on me,” said an emotional Ramesh Kumar “I cannot take this (ble-mish).” The speaker has suggested that the Karnataka government set up a spe-cial investigation team to probe the mat-ter and report within 15 days “This is a question of relief for me,” said the speaker.Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the contro-versy makes it somewhat of a tightrope walk for the BJP, reckons political ana-lyst Sandeep Shastri “If the BJP had all owed the alliance to reflect its own

contradictions, it would have been more vis ible to people,” he says Now, it has to battle the impres-sion that it was behind much of the crisis Karna-taka, after all, is cru cial for the party, being the one southern state where

it has a strong presence O

Playlist Of The Besieged

The malodorous audio clips controversy further muddies Karnataka’s political waters

The Congress and JD(S) have long complained about the BJP’s designs on their MLAs The BJP denies it flatly.

SOUTH SHOW Narendra Modi at

a public meeting

in Hubli, 400 kms north of

Bangalore, on February 10PTI

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BARBS IN ODISHA

20 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

by Sandeep Sahu in Bhubaneswar

THE CBI vs state police tug-of-war

happened in the full glare of TV

cameras in Bengal Around the

same time, a similar tit-for-tat

drama unfolded in neighbouring

Odisha On January 29, the CBI

sud-denly woke up to serve notices to two

BJD leaders and former ministers—

Arun Sahu and Atanu Sabyasachi—to

appear before it in connection with the

chit fund scam in the state Within

hours, police in Chhatrapur town in

south Odisha served notices to two

BJP leaders—Golak Mohapatra and

Bhrugu Buxipatra—to appear before it

on February 7 and 9 respectively in

connection with the brutal murder of a

BJD councillor, Laximdatta Pradhan,

on September 16, 2017 in what was

widely seen as a retaliatory measure by

the BJD government

No one has complied with the summons

so far While Mohapatra and Buxipatra

filed a petition seeking anticipatory bail

in the Orissa High Court, Sahu, who

missed his date with the CBI, has said he

would present himself before the agency

soon “Like you, I also want to know why

I have been summoned after four-and-

a-half years,” he told reporters three days

after being served the notice Nayak has

not reacted to the summons so far

The CBI’s sudden notices and the

Odi-sha police’s reactions are being viewed

as part of the pre-election political battle

of wits between the BJD and the BJP

rather than logical outcomes of ong oing

investigations The CBI, which has been probing the chit fund scam since May,

2014, has made little headway in the case since the flurry of arrests and interroga-tions in the first few months The names

of Sahu and Nayak, besides several other leaders of the ruling party, have been doing the rounds as those who facilitated the huge scam in which over 10 lakh dep ositors lost their money But the CBI never thought it necessary to summon any of them all these years

The timing of the summons is tune: Lok Sabha polls as well as the as-sembly elections are close Also, they came just a day after BJP president Amit Shah raised the pitch against the Naveen Patnaik government terming it a “burnt transformer” and urging the people to

oppor-“throw it into the Bay of Bengal”

The strike by the Odisha Police is pect too, coming barely hours after the CBI move Mohapatra had already been grilled by Chhatrapur police for five hours about his links with Krushna Nayak, the main accused in the murder of Pradhan,

sus-on November 2, 2017 “If I was part of the conspiracy, what was the police doing for

so long? Why didn’t it arrest or question

me after I deposed?” asks Mohapatra Pointing to the fact that the charge sheet had already been filed in the case, he dubbed the police move as “nothing but political vendetta and an attempt to harass me just before the election”.The notice on Buxipatra appears even more bizarre since his name has never cropped up in connection with the case so far “My name did not appear in the FIR

or during the investigation Since they had nothing to link me with the case, they have chosen to serve the notice under Section 120 (C) of the CrPC, which is served on those police suspect may have some information relating to the case,” says the BJP state general secretary.Sources say Buxipatra was given the notice for two reasons First, he is believed to be the man who facilitated the entry of prime accused Krushna Nayak, a former CPI leader, into the BJP Second,

he is tipped to be the BJP candidate for the Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency under which Chhatrapur falls

Efforts to contact Sahu and Nayak, the two BJD leaders summoned by the CBI, for their version proved futile Neither side appears to be particularly concer-ned about the summons Observers also believe that nothing much will come out

of this latest round of shadow boxing after the showdown in Bengal except providing some ammunition to the two parties for political rabble-rousing in the run-up to the elections O

Summons Versus Summons

A skirmish in Odisha between the CBI and the state police

After the CBI-Calcutta police showdown

in Bengal, the central agency’s abrupt

moves in Odisha spark a reaction by

the Odisha Police.

Barely hours after the CBI served summons to two BJD leaders in the chit fund scam, the Odisha Police gave notices

to two BJP leaders in an old murder case

All four leaders, summoned by these two institutions, have not complied with the summons so far, with some saying these decisions are politically motivated

(From far left) Arun Sahu and Atanu Sabyasachi;

Bhrugu Buxipatra and Golak Mohapatra

Photographs: SANJIB MUKHERJEE

Shri Jai Kumar Singh

Hon’ble Minister

Department of Industries, Bihar

FUTURE-FRIENDLY START-UP HUB

Bright Prospects Beckon from This Cutting-Edge, World-Class, Supportive Ecosystem

One of India’s fastest growing states Bihar—

ranked by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (GOI) amongst the six leader states in the country — is upping the ante for investments and industry growth with a slew of attractive incentives Pivotal to this movement has been the state’s robust start-up ecosystem, which has been given fresh teeth by its visionary “Bihar Start-up Policy” which fosters ventures from concept

to commercialisation The gathering momentum of potential start-up investors finds excellent support from Bihar’s geographical, institutional and policy narratives, as well as a diverse talent pool The state has long been recognized as an educational and tech hub, and has emerged as a strong leader

as a start-up incubator backed by its world-class incubation facilities and mentorship With its host of campaigns and on-going dedicated programmes, Bihar has worked apace, to expand the outreach

of this future-friendly policy and its support to innovation and ideas—especially amongst its youth populace at the grassroots level

For Further Queries

Department of InDuStrIeS udyog mitra, Indira Bhawan, Ground Floor

RCS Path, Boring Canal Road, Patna 1

Email: udyogmitrabihar@yahoo.co.in Toll Free No: 1800-345-6214 For More INFO Log on to: http://www.startup.bihar.gov.in

ADVANTAGE BIHAR

Vast consumption market for products and services

Emerging Hospitality Sector Emerging High-End Healthcare Sector

Strong Agriculture Base Growing Education System

1000 +

Potential ups (Assigned for 100% free-of-cost incubation to State Notified)

Start-100+

Start-up Outreach Programmes (Organized

by the State Government)

104

Start-ups Incubated

70

Certified ups—availing fiscal benefits under the Bihar Start-up

Start-5

Women Entrepreneurs

5500+

Applications (Received on Bihar Start-up Portal for certification)

SPOTLIGHT Support to Start-ups

Financial assistance up to Rs 10 lakhs per Start-up as interest-free loan for 10 years

Facilitation for access to Angel investors

Free of cost valuation for Start-ups

Facilitation in listing and public issue of Start-ups in collaboration with National Level Stock Exchanges

Government to bear all costs towards filing domestic patents and Reimbursement of fees for awarded foreign patents

Additional 15% incentive for SC and ST entrepreneurs — as also for women and differently-abled persons

SPOTLIGHT Support to Incubators

Financial assistance for setting up of new incubators and expanding State-supported Incubators

Reimbursement cost of incubating a start-up maximum up to Rs 2 lakhs per incubate Government-recognized private/state-supported incubators

Fiscal incentive to incubators@2% of the investment received from SEBI-registered Alternate Investment Funds

Fiscal Grant to State-Supported Incubators @ 3% of the investment received by its incubators from SEBI-registered Alternate Investment Funds

or Grant received from Government of India for promoting technology-based (IPR) and at 5% for startups in social sectors providing solutions to

public service access problems in Bihar in areas like health, education, nutrition etc

Financial assistance to match the funding raised by Incubator from Government of India and Multilateral donor agencies on 1:1 basis

CloSE ProximiTy To VaST NaTioNal aNd iNTErNaTioNal markETS

Govt of Bihar

HEALTHY PRICING

by Lola Nayar

supplied by manufacturers or

complaints from patients or their

aggrieved families, the National

Pharmaceutical Pricing Autho -

r ity (NPPA) is soon expected to

have more eyes and ears on the

ground Several states led by Kerala

are taking steps to better serve the

regulatory aut hority By the end of

February or early March, Kerala

exp-ects to have its price monitoring and

research unit (PMRU) in operation

“The NPPA had wanted every state to

have a monitoring unit; now they want

it to be done through a registered

soci-ety,” says Ravi S Menon, Kerala’s state

drugs controller “By early next month,

once the hiring of staff and other

infra-structure issues have been dealt with,

Kerala hopes to have its registered

soci-ety in operation.” To be headed by the

state health secretary, the society will

have representatives from the

pharma-ceutical industry and consumer rights

groups, besides government officials,

including the drugs controller, who will

head the executive committee

The PMRU will keep tabs on the prices

and quality of drugs being sold, focusing

primarily on overcharging The NPPA

currently controls the prices of nearly

1,000 drugs and medical devices Earlier

this month, the health ministry had

noti-fied the inclusion of eight more medical

equipment in the ‘drugs’ category under

Section 3 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act,

and they too would come under price

control from April next year With this, all

implantable medical devices and CT scan

equipment, among others, would

hope-fully become cheaper Many of these

products are now being sold through drug

stores and hospitals with 100-400 per

cent trade margins over

their procurement prices

So far, besides following

up on complaints by

pat-ients, the NPPA has been

tracking compliance

mostly through data

sup-plied by hospitals,

manu-facturers, etc This,

however, has its

limita-tions As the Central Drugs

Standard Control

Organ-isation, the national

regu-latory body for Indian

A Kerala Cure For Healthcare Con Patients and kin may be in for some relief as state-level price monitoring of medical devices and drugs kicks in

pharmaceuticals and medical devices, has limited staff, it relies on the states to fol-low up with checks on medical stores, hospitals, laboratories and so on

Now, with the help of field workers, the

PMRU will check the MRP

of price-controlled ucts being sold through drug stores and hospitals

prod-“If anyone is found selling

a drug or device at higher than the MRP, then we can take action under the Essential Commodities Act And if someone is selling the product at a higher price than that fixed

by the NPPA, then we can report it and take legal act-

ion for a refund as the NPPA has the power to do so,” says Menon

The PMRU will also look into cases where there is considerable disparity bet ween the procurement price and sell-ing price of a product even if the NPPA has not fixed its price These could include medical implants like heart stents, cancer drugs, etc, given that there have been a large number of complaints of overcharg-ing In such cases, the PMRU will inform the NPPA for initiating action In cases where the manufacturers are found to be unreliable, the PMRU will also initiate action through the NPPA, which will be funding the states’ efforts

On the issue of quality, Menon reveals that the Kerala government is planning

to set up another laboratory, taking the

Kerala’s Price Monitoring and Research Unit will keep tabs on the prices and quality of drugs and medical devices.

The PMRU will also look into cases where there

is considerable disparity between procurement and selling prices.

22 OUTLOOK 25 February 2019

A Kerala Cure For Healthcare Con

Patients and kin may be in for some relief as state-level price monitoring of medical devices and drugs kicks in

NPPA can be approached to help patient get refund in case overcharging is established by the PMRU

Kerala is setting up one more testing lab for ensuring quality

of drugs and disposable medical devices

Field workers

of PMRU will track drug stores and hospitals to monitory any violations

Patients will benefit from cheaper and better quality products if the system delivers

Kerala leads in following up the NPPA directive on setting up monitoring unit

Kerala Model

in the Making

total to three Samples of drugs and posable medical devices such as needles, bandages and syringes would be col-lected on a regular basis and tested in these labs However, the labs won’t be testing implants and bigger medical devices, some of which have been under the scanner following the recent scam related to implants supplied by a leading global company

dis-“It is good that Kerala has started the process of monitoring the pricing of drugs and medical devices, and is trying to ens-ure NPPA orders are enforced in letter and spirit,” says Rajiv Nath, coordinator

of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry “As health is a state subject, it’s the state governments that have to implement and enforce laws

framed by the Centre So the NPPA has been relying on the states to enforce the regulations that are in place.”

Some states like Maharashtra have been following up on complaints by consumer and health activists, though randomly in most cases Activists hope more states would adopt the Kerala model as it is exp ected to have a proper structure and not be arbitrary in its functioning Dr Abhay Shukla of the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare emphasises that state-level monitoring should have been happening automatically under the drugs controller “But what is written in the law does not always happen in our country,”

he says “The Kerala government’s move

to create this additional mechanism is in the right direction as it would help the

drug controller and the NPPA to find out and follow up on what is actually happen-ing on the ground.”

Shukla points out while the Maharashtra government did a study on medical mal-practices and assured it would take action,

but nothing significant has pened “Even if one state does

hap-it, it is an important step in helping the central govern-ment implement the law, which has to be enforced

by all the states under the Drug Prices Control Order, but, unfortunately, does not happen automatically,” he says

“There is a very poor ing system in place across the country and it would be a very welcome step if the states assist in monitor-ing,” says Malini Aisola, co-convenor of the All India Drug Action Network, adding that states have ample powers

monitor-to follow up on patient safety sues as was seen in the Johnson and Johnson case State governments can look into issues regarding manufacture and sale of products that are currently being regulated They can also look into the working of unlicensed manufacturers and get them to shut shop or bring them under scrutiny They can solicit informa-tion from the public about unreported cases, and also look into supply chain and corruption issues, besides problems in distribution More studies could be und-ertaken and the results amplified and shared with the central government for policy decisions or put in the public dom-ain for creating better awareness

is-For several years, some states like Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have had a system of procure-ment and supply of drugs and medical devices through state outlets or public hospitals at below MRP But this effort, for all its benefits, has limited reach as not everyone goes to public hospitals Pro-curement is also far below the demand in many cases, because of which people end

up facing malpractices even in ment facilities A state-level monitoring body with adequate infrastructure could bring some relief to patients and their families As health experts point out, while quality is a concern, price is a bigger concern right now, particularly where branded products are concerned O

govern-VIolations may invite action under the Essential Commodities Act

The drugs and medical devices price monitoring body will be operational by early March

25 February 2019 OUTLOOK 23

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LAWS UNTO THEIR

OWN

Cow smuggling, dancing to a DJ’s song, criticising the government Do they constitute sedition? Do these acts threaten national security?

COVER STORY

Independent India’s first sedition case

Kedar Nath Singh, a member

of the Forward Communist Party in Bihar, made a fiery speech in Begusarai on May

26, 1953 “Today the dogs of the CID are loitering round Barauni (in Begusarai) Many official dogs are sitting even

in this meeting The people

of India drove out the British from this country and elected these Congress goondas

to the gaddi…We will strike and throw out these Congress goondas as well,” he said about the Congress government in the state His sedition case went up

to the Supreme Court in 1962 The court’s landmark ruling—

in which it narrowed the scope of Section 124A—is still taken as the reference point for all sedition cases in India The court said mere “strong words used to express disap­ probation of the measures of government” are not sedi­ tious It also clarified that

“comments, however, strongly worded without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence” are not sedition.

Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

It gives the State the power to combat terrorist activities that threaten,

or are likely to threaten the unity, integrity, secu­

rity, or sovereignty of India, or activities done with the intent to strike terror or those which are likely to strike terror in the people of India or any foreign country.

The act was amended in

2008 after the Mumbai terror attacks and became almo st a mirror image of POTA, which was repealed four years earlier.

Under UAPA, enacted in

1967, a person can be detained for up to six months without a charge.

Section 124A

of IPC: Sedition

The sedition law can

be applied to anyone who through “words, either spoken or written, or

by signs, or by visible representation, or other­

wise, brings or attempts

to bring into hatred

or contempt, or excites

or atte mpts to excite disaffection towards the government estab lished

by law in India”.

Maximum punishment is jail for life, to which fine may be added Or impris­

onment up to three years.

Sedition is a non­bailable offence Anyone charged under this law can’t get

a government job.

The law was originally drafted in 1837 by Thomas Macaulay, the British historian­politician who introduced western educa­

tion in India and famously said, “It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical informa­

tion which has been col­

lected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found

in the most paltry abridge­

ment used at preparatory schools in England”.

National Security

Act

The law was introduced in

1980 to enable “preven­

tive detention in certain

cases and for matters

connected therewith”.

The NSA empowers the

central and state govern­

ments to detain a person

with a view to prevent

him/her from acting in

any manner prejudicial to

the security of the state,

or maintenance of public

order, or maintenance of

supplies/services essen­

tial to the community.

Under this act, a person

can be detained without

a charge for up to a year.

A person can be detained

for up to 10 days without

being informed about the

reasons for the detention.

The act is often com­

pared with the British

Raj’s Rowlatt Act, which

denied access to courts

or lawyers to those who

were detained, leading

to the coining of the

phrase ‘No vakil, no

appeal, no daleel’.

“Section 124A, under which I am happily charged,

is perhaps the prince among the political sections

of the IPC designed

to suppress the liberty of the citizen.”

Mahatma GandhiMarch 18, 1922

by Anupam Bordoloi with Preetha Nair and Salik Ahmed in Delhi,

Abdul Gani in Guwahati, G.C Shekhar in Chennai, Naseer Ganai in

Srinagar and K.S Shaini in Bhopal

“If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.”

—Voltaire

ON February 12, at least 14 students of Aligarh Muslim University

(AMU) and several ‘unidentified’ people were charged with sedition in

Uttar Pradesh Their crime: alleged assault on an English TV news

channel crew If that sounds bizarre, consider this In the first week of

this month, five people were sent to jail under the National Security

Act (NSA) in two separate cases of cow slaughter and ‘cattle smuggling’

in Madhya Pradesh The NSA for cow-related cases could, perhaps, have been

understandable had the state continued to be under a BJP government But

there has been a change of guard in Madhya Pradesh and it is a Congress-led

government which decided that

killing and smuggling cows are

crimes that “threaten the security” of

India Though state home minister

Bala Bachchan defended the action,

saying the suspects were

repeat-offenders, senior Congress leaders

were aghast at the use of a law fit only

for terrorists Former finance

minister P Chidambaram said the

use of NSA by the MP government

was “wrong” The five men are now

locked up in separate jails The AMU

case would not come as a surprise for

many as Uttar Pradesh has a long list

of cases filed for sedition or under

provisions of the NSA, a fact

acknowledged officially by the Yogi

Adityanath government

cases are just symptoms of a

bigger malaise sweeping through

India—the indiscriminate use

of harsh and archaic laws, mostly

against people seen to be dissenting

against the Centre and state

govern-ments People protesting against a

contentious bill have been charged

with sedition in Assam, a journalist

critical of a chief minister has been

booked under the NSA in Manipur

and left-leaning activists have been

slapped with the draconian Unlawful

Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)

in Maharashtra Activists and critics see a pattern in the crackdown, saying the use of such laws—which allow the government to jail people for long periods without trial—is meant

to browbeat dissenters and political opponents into submission (see p 29,

‘Sshh! Government is Working’).

“There is something that unites all of them (sedition law, NSA, UAPA) It is the inherent undemocratic tendency

of these laws which somewhere trict the fundamental freedoms that

res-the Constitution guarantees to ple,” says law expert Anushka Singh,

peo-an assistpeo-ant professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi “At one level, every law restricts the liberties of the peo-ple by laying down norms of conduct, but there is a justification for penal provision in a democracy; the justifi-cation could be anything related to law and order and personal security

of citizens involved But these laws are particularly prone to undemo-cratic tendencies of the state because

of their vague nature and the ing powers they give to the executive allowing for their arbitrary use,” adds Singh, who has written the book

overrid-Sedition in Liberal Democracies.

Sedition—written into Section 124A

of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)—has arguably emerged as the most abused law in recent times; it’s apparently the answer to all opponents and dis-senting voices that the party in power wants to stifle The law has come in handy at least in two states of the Northeast, where at least six people, including a Sahitya Akademi award winner, a journalist and an activist, have been charged with sedition since January They were opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

2016, which aims to ease the process

of getting Indian citizenship for

CATTLE CLASS Two men booked under NSA for alleged cow slaughter in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh

The sedition law is a low

IQ piece of legislation

If we want to improve the national intelligence quotient, we should scrap it.

Arundhati Roy

WritercOver sTOry

28 OutlOOk 25 February 2019

of an English TV channel.

Jagadish Debbarma of INPT among three people charged with sedition by Tripura Police for alleged “anti­India” slogans during a protest rally.

Delhi Police charge student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid among 10 others of sedition over a 2016 event in JNU.

Manipur TV journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem arrested under NSA for Facebook post criticis­ ing chief minister N Biren Singh

Jharkhand Police slap sedition charges on 20 activists, including Stan Swamy, who were critical

of the then BJP government.

Six people charged under NSA over violence at Sterlite plant in Tuticorin where thirteen people were killed in police firing in May.

Two more people charged under

NSA for cow smuggling in

Madhya Pradesh.

Three people charged under

NSA in Madhya Pradesh for

cow slaughter

Three people inclduing Sahitya

Akademi winner Hiren Gohain

charged with sedition by Assam

Police for ‘inflammatory’ speech.

Police arrest several activists/

intelllectuals, including Telugu poet

Varavara Rao, under UAPA over the

Bhima­Koregaon violence.

Five minors charged with sedition

in Bihar for allegedly dancing to an

alleged anti­India song that featured

the word “mujahid”.

Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar

Azad arrested under NSA for alleg­

edly inciting violence in Saharanpur.

SShh! goveRnment

IS woRkIng

Illustrations & Graphics by SAJI C.S.

non-Muslims from three

neighbour-ing countries

One of those charged with sedition

is Assam’s firebrand activist Akhil

Gogoi, who was once part of Anna

hazare’s anti-corruption movement

“We have been carrying out agitations

since the time hiteswar Saikia was

the Congress chief minister in the

early 1990s We had also agitated

against the 15-year Congress rule in

Assam I have even said former CM

Tarun Gogoi should be thrown into

the Brahmaputra But I have never

felt so threatened in my life…Any

ind-ividual who believes in democracy

feels threatened under the BJP rule,”

says Gogoi, who has been charged

along with journalist Manjit Mahanta

and writer-intellectual hiren Gohain

(see p 32, ‘Any Criticism is

Wormwood’) “I have been sent to jail

at least 36 times, many a time during

the Congress regime but never

charged with sedition,” Gogoi adds

Former Assam Police director

general harekrishna Deka agrees

that the charges against the three

Assam activists are unwarranted

“hiren Gohain (and the others) has

said nothing provocative or

threa-tening to the state or the

govern-ment…By slapping sedition charges,

the BJP government has shown its

intolerance towards a democratic

movement,” Deka says

IN Manipur, TV journalist

Kishorechandra Wangkhem is

in jail for more than two months,

charged under the NSA for an

exple-tive-laden Facebook video criticising

chief minister N Biren Singh Ranjita

elangbam, his wife, questions how

her husband could be a “threat to the

state” for merely criticising the chief

minister or the government “This

is complete misuse of power The

government is so scared of the voice

of the people They don’t want anyone

to question them The government is

trying to create a sense of fear among

the people in general by jailing my

husband under the NSA,” Ranjita tells

Outlook “The people of Manipur have

been suffering for long for various

reasons Under the Armed Forces

(Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), human

rights have been snatched away,”

she adds Kishorechandra was first

accused of sedition—the charge was thrown out by a local court in Imphal

Two days later, he was charged with harsher provisions of the NSA and sent to jail on November 27

In the AMU case, the sedition charge appears ridiculous, says a former stu-dent union leader “It’s so fake, bey ond any logic even a rickshaw-puller will tell you it defies all logic These days, anybody can come and say that pro-Pakistan slogans were shouted and police will slap sedition charges against us,” says Faizul hasan, a for-mer president of the AMU Students’

Union “When it comes to AMU, pol ice will immediately slap sedition charges

And when we give a thousand evidence against right-wing goons, not a single person is charged,” he adds

Official data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show nearly

180 arrests under the sedition law since 2014 till 2016-end, when the NCRB’s yearly crime report was pub-lished In Assam alone, police have registered at least 245 sedition cases since 2016, when the BJP came to power in the state In many of these, the accused are “unknown people” and the majority are against militants Jayshree Bajoria, author of the

human Rights Watch report Stifling Dissent, points out that police had not

filed charge-sheets in over 70 per cent

of the cases between 2014 and 2016, while only two people were convicted

(see p 36, ‘In Course of Persecution’).

Some of the cases make no sense Last year, Jharkhand Police charged

20 Adivasi rights activists with tion for Facebook posts criticising the BJP government and for allegedly inc-iting villagers to bar “outsiders” More bizarre is the case from Bihar’s Rohtas district where eight people, including five children, were charged with sedi-tion for dancing to a song carrying the word “mujahid”, or holy warrior The boys were dancing at a function where

sedi-a DJ wsedi-as plsedi-aying the tune In December 2017, four women were charged with sedition in Uttar Pradesh after they blocked chief minister

NEWSBREAK Manipur TV journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem, booked under NSA for criticising chief minister

N Biren Singh

Respect and commitment

to the cow is deep-rooted and any outage on this

Time to Overhaul the

sedition Law for Good

jump cut ShaShi Tharoor

as told to Preetha Nair

THE sedition law is archaic, introduced by the British in order to keep its former

colony on its knees The language was toughened in the 1890s, precisely because the British attorney general felt the colonial masters could not give Indians a law that is common for British citizens as well The Indians were subjects and had to be subjugated This law was an instrument of colonial oppression And Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and others who were victims of it had all promised that it will be done away with It is one of the major oversights of Indian democracy that this law has not changed.

In the early 1960s, there were a couple of cases in which the Supreme Court clarified the interpretation of sedition The top court said unless words incite vio­ lence, sedition can’t be applied The more important principle is that because of that judgment, whenever sedition cases reach the top court, the accused are invariably let off the hook Why we haven’t updated the law is still not understandable I have introduced a private member’s bill with an aim to rewrite the sedition law that would read and bind a Supreme Court judgment.

Merely saying ‘we want azadi from the state’ is not sedition, that’s a political opinion We must behave like a mature democracy For us to punish irresponsible slogans shouted by students as seditious shows the retreat of our democracy We don’t need oppressive colonial rules anymore.

On the BJP government

The state authorities slap sedition charges

mostly because law and order is a state

subject I haven’t done a detailed study on

whether BJP governments have done worse

than others Our problem is that as long as

the law is not updated, police stations and

the lower level judiciary will continue to slap

sedition charges People will be unnecessar­

ily jailed and harassed and so on That

wouldn’t be the case if the law is changed

and brought in line.

On scrapping the law

The job of repealing or amending a law is the job of the legislature That’s why I introduced a private member’s bill in Parliament (after several students were charged with sedition for allegedly shouting anti­India slogans in JNU in 2016) Interpreting a law is the job of the judiciary Recently, the law ministry told Parliament that no proposal is being considered to scrap the sedition law I think this is deplorable This shows the BJP government’s attitude.

On sedition/NSA in Congress-ruled MP

That’s why it’s time we introspect And it’s capable of changing I will give you an example When the Madhya Pradesh government invoked NSA for cow slaughter, the Congress headquarters immediately told them this is not how we should begin People are taking a more democratic stand in the Congress leadership and I am sure there will be a reflection of it.

The Kanhaiya Kumar case

He strongly denies saying anything seditious, as shown in a fake video He was not there when some irresponsible slogans were allegedly shouted Even if such slogans were shouted, it’s not sedition, according to the Supreme Court So, the law has definitely been misused and his case is more of an abuse.O

“Merely saying ‘we want azadi’ isn’t sedition, that’s a political opinion.”

Tharoor is the Congress MP for Thiruvananthapuram

25 February 2019 OutlOOk 31

Adityanath’s convoy In January 2018,

the UP government said it had invoked

NSA against 160 people since

assum-ing office a year earlier Since then, the

government has ordered NSA even on

people accused of stealing test papers

for college admission and jobs

The NSA net had also caught

Chandrashekar Azad, founder of Dalit

group Bhim Army he was released

from jail last September after more

than a year The Congress and other

political parties say Azad was a victim

of the UP government’s “political

vendetta” Umar Khalid, an activist

who was charged with sedition along

with former Jawaharlal Nehru

University Students’ Union president

Kanhaiya Kumar and eight others,

says the law “gives extraordinary

power to any government in power,

whether it’s the BJP today or Congress tomorrow” These students were accused of shouting anti-India slogans in JNU in February 2016 The charge-sheet was filed three years later “This government doesn’t toler-ate any opinion contrary to its world-view There is an attempt to make hindutva ideology the nationalist narrative Anyone who doesn’t fit into the hindutva agenda is termed anti-national and sedition charges are applied,” Khalid says

Their widespread use ing, sedition charges invariably fail judicial scrutiny in most cases In Tamil Nadu, a magistrate court asked police to drop sedition charges against journalist R Gopal of Nakkheeran, a bi-weekly magazine that had published a series of sala-

notwithstand-Cambridge scholar and Sahitya

Akademi award­winning author

Hiren Gogoi has criticised the BJP

government over several issues He

has recently been charged with sedi­

tion for his comments The 80­year­

old former Gauhati University

professor shares his thoughts with

Abdul Gani Excerpts:

How do you describe the situation in

Assam and the Northeast?

The scenario in the Northeast varies

across states But one common anx­

iety seems to be bringing all on the

same platform: the fear of sudden

relaxation of citizenship norms to

make room for lakhs of Bangladeshi Hindus

and Buddhists The label of religious victim­

hood does not fit most cases The region is

woefully underdeveloped for which the

Centre is mainly to blame, along with local

elites who pick up leftovers from brazen

plunder of the region’s resources Jobs are

scarce and the youth are frustrated

Farming has crumbled and money from any

source is shrinking for the common man.

Instead of addressing these grim prob­

lems, the government is opening the door

wide for an avalanche of competitors The

skilling projects make no sense as those

skills are going out of use Who needs a tai­

lor in these days of enormous markets of

readymade goods?

You have been a victim too How did this

case come about?

We, the Forum Against Citizenship Amendment Bill, had organised a rally on January 7 to condemn the government’s apathy towards widespread public protests against the bill Different organisations were invited and their leaders spoke One or

two mentioned swadhinota (free­ dom) as an option if our voices are not heard I intervened to explain that such a demand might arise if and when all democratic and consti­ tutional avenues fail and the rest of India turns its back on us They did not demur And I am charged with sedition for that!

Do you think the government is scared of voices? In Manipur, the government imprisoned a jour- nalist for criticising the CM Only those with their eyes firmly shut and ears covered deliberately can fail to see that any criticism, however reasonable, is gall and wormwood to this government They live

a fantasy of infallibility, and any sign call­ ing them to rea lity upsets them Their tall claims are dust and ashes to the people, their promises are cruel farces They don’t want to face this Hence, the gagging and legalised forcing.

How has the government handicapped the common people with these laws?

The AFSPA, even for die­hard worshippers

of autocracy, has long outlived its useful­ ness Even the army calls for political solu­ tions which unfortunately turn into useless sops not meeting fundamentals, thanks to the Centre’s rigid mindset Hence, the crass persistence in cruel and wasteful methods

of repression that redouble people’s woes and degrade democracy.O

‘Any CRItICISm IS woRmwooD’

‘Only those with their eyes and ears shut deliberately fail to see any criticism, however reasonable.’

Sedition law protects the ruling political authority

words or actions against the government become offences against the state.

cious reports on governor Banwarilal

Purohit The reports had linked

Purohit and his secretary Rajagopal

to Nirmala Devi, a professor arrested

for soliciting girls for top officials of

Madurai Kamaraj University The

court said sedition was not the

ap-propriate law for taking action

against Gopal

In 2015, the Supreme Court had

warned police against the

indiscrim-inate use of Section 124A, saying

authorities are bound by its

judg-ment in the 1962 Kedar Nath Singh

case, the first person to be tried for

sedition in independent India In the

case, the top court had limited the

scope for invoking sedition charges

and pointed out that mere criticism

of the government was not seditious

As the debate over draconian laws

spread, the Law Commission of India circulated last year a consulta-tion paper which gave broad hints that the sedition law is being mis-used and needs redefining “Given the fact that all the existing statutes cover the various offences against the individual and/or the offences against society, will reducing the rig-our of Section124A or repealing it be detrimental or beneficial, to the nat-ion?” the paper asked The paper, as expected, didn’t see any forward movement On February 5, junior home minister hansraj Ahir told Parliament that there is no proposal

to scrap the law People, especially

those on the right of the political

div-ide, even argue that the law is sary to maintain India’s territorial integrity Former Union minister

neces-BIG FIGHT(Top) AMU officials and students argue with a TV journalist; Assam activist Akhil Gogoi taken into custody

25 February 2019 OutlOOk 33

and senior lawyer Jagdeep Dhankar,

who heads the BJP’s legal affairs

de-partment, says sedition is

“indisputa-bly anti-national” and it cannot be

viewed through a political prism

“Tukde-tukde cannot be justified

Security of the nation is

non-negotia-ble and calls for zero tolerance,” he

says, using a term often used by the

right-wing to describe people they

consider anti-national he defends

the use of NSA for cow slaughter,

vis-a-vis the latest case in Congress-ruled

MP, saying: “Respect and

commit-ment to the cow is deep-rooted and

any outage on this is an obvious

chal-lenge to public order.” Any law can be

misused and to focus on a few laws is

inappropriate, he warns

experts don’t agree They say some

laws are more evil and enacted to

serve an evil purpose Anushka Singh

points out the inherent problems in

UAPA “In all extraordinary laws —it

was the case with TADA, POTA, and

now UAPA—the starting point is they

are not going to follow ordinary

dem-ocratic procedures and will not

guar-antee safeguards that ordinary laws

allow us The rights of the accused are

restricted To begin with, these are

laws that have no reason to exist in a

democracy,” she says

ACTIVISTS and lawyers in

Jammu and Kashmir and the

Northeast hold the AFSPA as a

primary example for an evil law

as it gives sweeping extra-judicial

powers to soldiers during

coun-ter-insurgency ops, leaving scope

for misuse “It is this immunity to

the armed forces that leads to their

impunity, and vulnerability among

civilians Women are particularly

vulnerable to sexual assault and rape

in such conflict situations We need

more humane legislation to deal with

protests and dissent,” says Teresa

Rehman, author of the book The

Mothers of Manipur, chronicling the

story of 12 women who had stripped

naked in front of the Assam Rifles hQ

in Imphal in July 2004, protesting

against the rape and murder of

Thangjam Manorama, 32 Days after

that momentous protest, a young

Irom Sharmila began what would

become the world’s longest hunger

strike, demanding repealing of the

AFSPA Sharmila, 46, broke her fast in

2016, her battle abandoned halfway

The stifling law remains as the army says it needs it in militancy-hit areas

Reports of human rights violations abound but successive governments have refused to axe the law—enforced

in the Northeast and Kashmir

Kashmir has to deal with not one but two laws that activists say are equally suppressive earlier this month, former chief minister Omar Abdullah brought the spotlight back on the much-de-tested preventive detention law, the Public Safety Act (PSA), saying if his party forms the government, he would

do away with the law The PSA allows authorities to detain a person for six months without trial; and the deten-tion can be extended to another six months Last year, then governor N.N

Vohra removed a legal provision that barred the government from shifting people detained under PSA to jails out-side the state Since then, several politi-cal detainees have been moved out of Srinagar and thrust in jails across the country “The PSA is part of the institu-tional mechanism of torture, used to si-lence or keep out of circulation those the state doesn’t want to create public influence,” says human rights activist Khurram Parvez, who faced the PSA whip in 2016 The case of separatist leader Masrat Alam Bhat, 48, is an ex-ample of endless detention Alam was arrested in 2008 he is now serving his 37th preventive detention Over the years, police have named Alam in 50 cases, including inciting protests and waging war against the state But he is yet to be convicted in a single case.For Bhat, the government’s alibi remains constant—he is a separatist and needs to be behind bars For hun-dreds of people languishing in jails across the country for reasons as out-landish as dancing to a DJ’s tune, the concept of human rights would appear a crude joke For activists and political opponents who strive to keep the flame of individual rights burning, this is a battle worth fighting Last year, Supreme Court judge D.Y Chand-rachud laid down the guiding principle

of a true democracy “Dissent is the safety valve of democracy If dissent is not allowed, the pressure cooker may burst,” he said at a three-judge bench hearing on the Bhima-Koregaon vio-lence his caveat is hard to miss The red flag cannot be ignored O

YOUNG AND ANGRYStudents rally

in support of Kanhaiya Kumar, charged with sedition

Where there are political disputes, these laws are used to silence

a particular political viewpoint and ideology.

vrinda grover

Delhi­based lawyercOver sTOry

34 OutlOOk 25 February 2019

geTTy iMages

Jayshree

BaJoria

On February 2, the Maharashtra police arrested activist

and academic Anand Teltumbde at the Mumbai

air-port in spite of the Supreme Court’s January 14 order

granting him four weeks to apply for anticipatory bail

The police allege Teltumbde incited caste-based

vio-lence on January 1 at Bhima-Koregaon and

neighbor-ing villages in the state Describneighbor-ing the arrest as “humiliatneighbor-ing”,

Teltumbde said, “The State does not have anything against

me in particular It is against the whole idea of dissent It is

me today It can be anyone else tomorrow.”

Hours after the arrest, a lower court in Pune ordered his

imm ediate release, calling the arrest “illegal” and in contempt

of court The police action against Teltumbde was only the

latest move in a sustained effort to use India’s draconian laws

to harass and punish defenders of democratic rights and

opp-onents of the government People exercising their rights to

freedom of expression and peaceful assembly have been

slapped with statutes such as the sedition law, the

“coun-ter-terrorist” Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)and

the preventive-detention national Security Act

(nSA) Those who criticise the authorities are

also frequently targeted by elected officials,

pro-government media and social media trolls

Before Teltumbde, the Maharashtra police

had arrested nine civil rights activists, lawyers

and writers last year in connection with the

same case and accused them of being members

of the outlawed CPI(Maoist) Legal procedures

were violated in some of the arrests A

fact-find-ing committee headed by Pune’s deputy mayor

found that the violence at and around

Bhima-Koregaon was planned by Hindu extremist groups, but the

police targeted the activists due to pressure from the state

government to protect the perpetrators

The government has also engaged in retaliatory legal

act ions against activists who discuss India’s human rights

abuses at international forums Laws such as the Foreign

Contribution (Regulation) Act are used to shut down foreign

funding for civil society organisations critical of the

aut horities India deservedly earned a place alongside 37

other countries, including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia,

in the annual United nations report documenting reprisals

against civil society

On January 10, authorities in Assam charged writer Hiren

Gohain and two others with sedition for criticising the

citi-zenship amendment bill at a rally Sedition charges are pending against former JnU students, including student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, for allegedly shouting anti-national slogans at

a campus event on February 9, 2016, marking the hanging of Afzal Guru three years earlier on that day As in other cases, the police failed to follow Supreme Court regulations on the sedition charge The court has repeatedly said incitement to violence is a necessary element for the sedition law to be applied, and yet the police used it in the JnU case despite no evidence of incitement They took three years to come up with a chargesheet That’s routine in sedition cases as the authorities know the charges rarely stick in court

national Crime Records Bureau data from 2014 to 2016 show 179 sedition arrests, but no chargesheet had been filed

by the end of 2016 in over 70 per cent of the cases, and only two of the accused had been convicted As Human Rights Watch and others have documented, the very process of investigation and prosecution becomes the punishment So

is that the factor tempting the police to bring

in the sedition charge?

In november, Manipur authorities arrested

TV journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem under the sedition law for posting videos criticising the CM and the BJP government

at the Centre Releasing him on bail, the court said it was “mere expression of opin-ion” And then the authorities re-arrested him under the nSA, which allows detention without charge for up to a year, in violation

of the right to due process

When asked tough questions on freedom of speech and assembly during their travels abroad, Indian leaders and officials often cite India’s diverse and vocal civil society as proof of the strength of our democracy At home, however, the government systematically uses all available tools to crush dissent

The government should repeal the sedition law, review and amend the repressive provisions of the UAPA, cease the use

of the nSA to target its opponents and rights defenders, release the activists arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case, and drop all charges against those engaged in peaceful dis-sent There is no democracy without dissent O

(Jayshree Bajoria is author of the Human Rights Watch report Stifling Dissent Views expressed are personal)

in course of Persecution

Draconian laws are used to harass dissidents, violating their right to due process

ncrB data of 2014-16 show

179 sedition arrests, with no chargesheets filed in 70 per cent cases.

36 OutlOOk 25 February 2019

cOver stOry

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by Preetha Nair

makes a comeback with

Delhi police finally filing the

charge-sheet after three

years, the spotlight is back

on sedition—a colonial-era

law described by Mahatma Gandhi

as the “prince of the political

sections of the IPC designed to

suppress the liberty of the citizen”

sedition charges were slapped on 10

students for allegedly shouting

anti-national slogans in a gathering,

rekindling the debate on scrapping

the law The court slammed the

police for filing the 1,200-page

charge-sheet without approval

from the Delhi government

Amnesty India head Aakar Patel,

who wrote to Delhi CM Arvind

Kejriwal asking him not to miss the

opportunity to end the use of the

“repressive” law, says it is frequently

used against activists, journalists,

lawyers and rights defenders

Amnesty India too was charged with sedition in 2016, in a case related to an event held in Bangalore

to seek justice for victims of violence

in Jammu and Kashmir Though a local court closed the case recently, the organisation was “branded anti- national and criminalised” during the two years, points out Patel “A remnant of colonial power, Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has no place in a society governed by the rule of law,” he says “As it is exc-essively vague and broad, the State uses it as a tool to stifle dissent and debate Although courts have repeat-edly held that an expression must involve incitement to imminent violence for it to amount to sedition,

it is regularly used against those voicing critical opinions.”

The Supreme Court narrowed down the purview of sedition in the Kedar Nath Singh case (1962), making it app licable only when provocative lan-guage is backed up with actions to overthrow the State, but activists and

lawyers complain that the police largely do not abide by this, and that the law is used to target political opp-onents as well as citizens dissenting against the State Among recent cases are those against Sahitya Akademi award-wining Assamese writer Hiren Gohain, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti leader Akhil Gogoi and jour-nalist Manjit Mahanta for criticising the citizenship amendment bill.Delhi-based lawyer Vrinda Grover says there is sufficient evidence to show rampant misuse and abuse

“The law is frequently invoked, and by the time there’s judicial appreciation, whether in a trial court or a higher court, the targeted person would have faced much suffering It should be del eted altogether or strict guidelines laid down and enforced,” she says Agrees Colin Gonsalves of the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) “Just like it did with Section 377, the Supreme Court must now declare the sedition law unconstitutional so there is no further ambiguity as to its

cover story

laws

against

justice

Rights activists and lawyers demand

the repeal of laws like sedition and

uaPa that used to silence dissent

40 OutlOOk 25 February 2019