May 2017 Archives

South Korea Media Warn of ‘Trump Risk’ to Alliance

Amid rising tensions over the North’s nukes, South Korean media has warned that Trump’s contradictory messages could affect the Seoul-Washington alliance.

US President Donald Trump appears on stage at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. April 29, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri

Seoul: South Korean media on Monday warned of a “Trump risk” threatening the alliance between Washington and Seoul amid high tensions over the North’s weapons ambitions.

The two countries are bound by a defence pact and 28,500 US troops are stationed in the South.

But the new US president has said in recent interviews that Seoul should pay for a “billion-dollar” US missile defence system being deployed in the South to guard against threats from the nuclear-armed North.

He has also pushed for renegotiation of what he called a “horrible” bilateral free trade pact that went into effect five years ago, calling it an “unacceptable… deal made by Hillary”.

The remarks stunned Seoul, with South Korean politicians immediately rejecting his push for payment for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery.

Tensions are high over the North’s nuclear and missile programmes – it has ambitions to develop a rocket that can deliver a warhead to the US mainland – and threats on both sides have raised fears of conflict.

“Trump’s mouth rattling Korea-US alliance” said a front-page headline in South Korea’s top-selling daily, Chosun, today.

“There are issues that are far more important than just money,” it said in an editorial.

“If either country keeps reducing the alliance to the matter of money or the economy, it is bound to undermine basic trust.”

Seoul, it said, needed to come up with “various Plan Bs” for the future.

The THAAD system is being installed at a former golf course in the South.

This has infuriated China, which sees it as compromising its own capabilities and has responded with a series of measures seen as economic retaliation, even as Washington looks to Beijing to rein in Pyongyang.

At the weekend Seoul’s presidential office said US national security advisor H.R. McMaster had appeared to backtrack on THAAD, telling his South Korean counterpart by phone that the US would bear the cost of the missile deployment as initially agreed.

But McMaster told Fox News on Sunday that the “last thing” he would ever do was contradict the president and that “the relationship on THAAD, on our defence relationship going forward, will be renegotiated as it’s going to be with all of our allies”.

Another major South Korean newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo, accused Trump’s administration of sending “confusing and contradictory messages”, creating a “chaotic situation” that dealt a “huge blow” to the bilateral alliance.

“The US must be well aware of the pain and backlash Seoul has endured to push for the THAAD deployment,” it added.

No, Mr Naidu, Human Rights Activists Are Not Actually Silent Over the Sukma Attack

Human rights activists have maintained that they are against all forms of violence, but continue to come under attack by the state.

Human rights activists have maintained that they are against all forms of violence, yet continue to come under attack by the state.

Every time there is an attack or killing by Maoists or a terror attack, a set of people otherwise contemptuous of human rights start asking questions like “Where are human rights wallahs? Why are they silent now?” Joining the bandwagon after the Sukma attack is Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, who recently issued an official statement titled ‘Why human rights activists silent on dastardly killing of CRPF Jawans in Sukma?’

This isn’t a rhetorical (and ungrammatical) question raised in a press conference, but a formal statement released by his office, with the minister asking if human rights are meant only “for those who chose violence in furtherance of their outdated ideologies and not for security personnel and common people?”

There are two questions here. Are human rights activists and organisations really silent on the Sukma attack? And second, do they believe that human rights are only meant for a few people, especially those who, in the minister’s words, indulge in violence? The answer to both questions is no.

Let us address the first question. Contrary to the minister’s claim, human rights organisations and activists condemned the Sukma incident within a few hours. “The Chhattisgarh PUCL severely condemns the ruthless ambush carried out by Maoists at the Burkapal area under police station Chintagufa limits in district Sukma on April 24, 2017, and expresses its deep grief at the killing of 25 jawans, mostly young persons of poor families,” read the opening sentence of the statement released by the Chhattisgarh chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

Similarly, several activists have expressed their shock and anger over the incident and done so publicly. Among those who condemned the killing, to name a few, are Nandini Sundar, Swami Agnivesh, Himanshu Kumar, Soni Sori and Bela Bhatia. These names are significant because they are often accused of being Maoist sympathisers and labelled ‘anti-national’ for upholding human rights and constitutional values.

Moreover, a number of activists and organisations also carried out a candle-light march in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, where they paid tribute to the security personnel killed and injured in the incident.

However, Naidu and those who brief him conveniently ignored all these facts – because acknowledging them would not serve their purpose and would rob them of a chance to demonise human rights activists. This is a pattern that is all too familiar by now.

But why should the blame only rest with Naidu when most media organisations also did not publish the statements by human rights activists? Most strikingly, the Indian Express, which ran Naidu’s statement, did not mention the fact that several human rights activists and organisation had indeed spoken against the Maoist attack. In fact, on May 1, the daily published an opinion column written by Naidu titled ‘Romancing the Maoists’. The Times of India, on the other hand, did carry PUCL’s statement, but only online.

As for the second question – do human rights activists believe rights belong only to those who ‘indulge in violence’, as Naidu alleged? Certainly not. No human rights organisation subscribes to this view, or to the suggestion that the state is violating the human rights of armed militants when the latter are killed in the course of an operation. Let us be clear: human rights groups criticise the state for human rights violations only when the security forces kill unarmed, non-combatants – and subsequently pass them off as militants, Maoists and terrorists.

Defining human rights, section 2 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 clearly states that “Human rights means the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the constitution or embodied in the international covenants and enforceable by courts in India.”

The constitution and international covenants make it mandatory for the state to uphold, protect and promote human rights. NGOs, civil society groups and activists can only assist the institutions entrusted to carry out these duties. But unfortunately, most of the time their attempt to uphold constitutional values is seen and projected as not just anti-state or anti-government, but also ‘anti-national’. Activists are often termed as ‘so-called human rights activist’ or ‘activists with double standards’. This despite the fact that human rights organisations and activists across the country have repeatedly maintained that they are against all kinds of violence. It is no surprise, then, that human rights defenders and activists are under attack. Naidu’s statement, appealing for the building of “strong opinion” against human rights activists, is likely to increase and further legitimise the formation of civil vigilante groups like those seen in Bastar, such as the Samajik Ekta Manch and AGNI.

If Naidu is really interested in solving the problem then he should listen to the activists instead of slamming them. As the Bastar-based Bela Bhatia and others have rightly suggested, “The war must end. There have been enough killings and counter-killings. Nothing has been achieved. Actions of both sides have taken the society backwards, not forward. A public call for a ceasefire should be given. In the interest of the people of Bastar, both sides should respect it. Both sides should work towards finding a political solution. The ordinary citizen should no longer remain a mute witness to a war that has lost all meaning and in which there will be no winners.”

One hopes Naidu and those at the helm of affairs are listening.

Mahtab Alam is an activist turned journalist and writer. He writes on issues related to politics, law, literature, human rights and tweets @MahtabNama.

Why Are Cesses Meant For Workers’ Social Security Being Abolished?

After the government cancelled certain cesses that were meant for labourers’ welfare in preparation for the GST, activists suspect that many such moves may be around the corner.

Workers at a construction site on the outskirts of Kolkata. Credit: Reuters/Files

The cess in the construction industry is currently activists’ biggest concern, since it affects the highest number of workers. Credit: Reuters/Files

Assaults on the hard-earned rights of several categories of workers have been on the rise in recent times, evidenced by the cancellation of cesses meant to be utilised for workers’ social security. If left unchecked, such changes can lead to much bigger losses for workers at large and undo any positive changes we have seen in their working and living conditions.

Some MPs have tried to raise the issue. Sharad Yadav, a senior political leader and member of the Rajya Sabha, wrote a letter on March 17 to finance minister Arun Jaitley. “I write this to express my great concern about salt, mica, coal, dolomite, cine, iron ore, manganese and chrome ore workers as welfare cesses being collected for their social security have been cancelled without consulting the trade unions,” he said.

Saying that the removal of these cesses was in preparation for the introduction of the GST, Yadav expressed apprehensions about the possibility of such cesses in the construction and beedi industries also being cancelled, where the number of workers is much higher.

Yadav is not alone in being apprehensive. In Tamil Nadu, representatives of central as well as local unions have got together to form a Joint Action Committee on the GST Bill and the abolition of cesses. This committee organised a seminar on this issue at Chennai on March 2. Speaking at the seminar, R. Geetha of the Federation of Unorganised Workers said that trade unions and workers have been shocked by the likely impact of the GST on the social security of workers. Participants at the seminar expressed their dismay that cesses collected for the welfare of workers in the salt , mica, coal, limestone, dolomite and iron ore sectors have been abolished and hence the welfare schemes for these workers (if they have been retained at all) may be starved of resources. People at the seminar also expressed the need to protect the surviving cesses meant for construction and beedi workers.

The biggest concern is to protect the cess in the construction industry, as this covers the welfare and social security of the largest number of workers. A long battle was fought by workers organised under the National Campaign Committee-Construction Labour (NCC-CL) for a legislation to be enacted that mandated a cess be collected on all construction beyond a certain budget. This cess was to be spent on the welfare and social security of workers under the supervision of a board. The legislation was enacted in 1996, but not implemented properly. The NCC-CL continued to fight in courts for better implementation. Despite the many hurdles, about Rs 36,000 crore has been collected so far at the national level for the welfare of construction workers under this law. And despite the delays in proper utilisation of these funds, thousands of workers and their families have benefited in the form of pensions, scholarships for children and healthcare. It is widely expected that much more can be achieved, especially if the Supreme Court gives an order in favour of the committee in the case before it, on implementation of the legislation.

Activists associated with these campaigns panicked when they received the news of the abolition of cesses for the welfare of a wide range of workers. On July 27, 2016, the finance ministry arbitrarily issued orders to stop the collection of these cesses, but for a long time workers and their representatives were not aware of these orders.

Subhash Bhatnagar, coordinator of the NCC-CL, says that a senior official from the Union labour ministry told him that the cess collected from the construction industry is also likely to be stopped soon. Another official from the same ministry denied this claim. However, worrying about the withdrawal of cesses led Bhatnagar to suffer a heart attack. After a partial recovery and his return from hospital, he has continued his efforts to oppose any move to cancel this cess.

Another factor that worries Bhatnagar is that with the coding of various social security laws, boards of various categories of workers are likely to be brought together. He fears that since it has been very difficult to get the board to play an active role and take interest in ensuring workers’ rights, everything being under one board may lead to further delays and hurdles.

Although all aspects of the upcoming changes are not clear, trade union leaders and activists feel they need to be more assertive about protecting the hard-earned rights of workers. According to them, the collection of cesses and their utilisation needed to be improved, but instead the government is slowly abolishing these cesses without informing or consulting workers.

Bharat Dogra is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements and initiatives.

Niti Aayog Suggests Introduction of ‘Judicial Performance Index’

The Niti Aayog has suggested the introduction of a ‘judicial performance index’ to check the delay in trials and look into the pendency of cases.

The Niti Aayog has suggested several judicial reforms. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: The Niti Aayog has suggested the introduction of a ‘judicial performance index’ to check delay in trial and address the issue of pendency of cases.

Asserting that corruption cases get held up in the judicial system inordinately, the policy think tank has also recommended putting a time limit for processing them.

In its draft three-year action agenda (for 2017-18 to 2019-20), the Aayog has suggested several judicial reforms, including increasing the use of information and communication technology and streamlining judicial appointments.

The draft was circulated among the Niti Aayog’s Governing Council members (consisting of chief ministers of all states and others) on April 23.

The report says it takes over “eight years to finalise a major vigilance case from the date of occurrence of irregularity” and underlined the need to speed up decision-making process in corruption cases.

“The judicial system is another avenue where corruption cases get held up. Delays in obtaining justice encourage the corrupt and discourage those who are honest.”

“Beyond the larger reforms in the justice system to reduce pendency, special courts set up to try corruption cases should be strengthened and time limits to process corruption cases should be introduced,” the draft report said.

The report has also suggested the introduction of a ‘judicial performance index’.

“Such an index could be established to help high courts and high court chief justices keep a track of performance and process improvement at the district courts and subordinate levels for reducing delay,” the draft said.

This would require fixing non-mandatory timeframes for different types of cases as broad guidelines to benchmark when a case has been delayed, it said.

“The index can also include certain progress on process steps that have already been approved by high courts, like the burden of day-to-day activity being removed from judges and given to administrative officials.

“This annual evaluation should give judges in high courts and district courts a sense of where they are failing and what they need to fix. Since the subordinate judiciary is largely within the domain of the high courts, this could also spur competitive reform of the judiciary in those states,” it said.

The Niti Aayog report has also suggested shifting some workload out of the regular court system and the introduction of an administrative cadre in the judicial system.

Impeachment Motion Registered Against Nepal’s First Woman Chief Justice

The impeachment motion accused Sushila Karki of “interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced”.

Representative image. Nepalese child waving a flag during peaceful protest. Credit: Reuters

Kathmandu: Nepal’s first woman chief justice Sushila Karki was suspended on Sunday after an impeachment motion against her was registered in parliament by two major ruling parties that accused her of “interfering” with the executive and issuing “prejudiced” verdicts.

As a fallout of the impeachment motion registered by the lawmakers of the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), deputy prime minister and home affairs minister Bimalendra Nidhi resigned over his dissatisfaction with the move.

A close associate of Nidhi told reporters that he has serious reservations over the move.

Nidhi leads the Nepali Congress, the largest constituent of the current ruling coalition, in the cabinet.

Nepal’s first woman chief justice Sushila Karki. Credit: PTI

Karki, 64, who has done her masters in political science from Banaras Hindu University, was automatically suspended from the post after the registration of the motion.

Nepali Congress lawmaker Min Bishwokarma and CPN (Maoist Centre) chief whip Tek Bahadur Basnet, among other lawmakers, registered the motion in the parliament secretariat on Sunday afternoon.

A total of 249 lawmakers from the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre) have signed the motion which has accused Karki of “interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced”.

According to the constitutional provision, an amendment motion can be filed in the parliament secretariat by securing the support of at least one-fourth of the total number of lawmakers.

Deputy prime minister and minister for local development Kamal Thapa also expressed his displeasure over the impeachment motion.

In a tweet, Thapa, chairman of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, said the impeachment motion registered by the Nepali Congress and Maoist lawmakers was objectionable and unfortunate.

Attorney general Raman Shrestha said it was necessary to impeach the chief justice for her tampering with the work performance evaluation of the inspector general of police candidates during a recent controversy over the promotion of Nepal police chief.

Karki had assumed office as Nepal’s first woman chief justice on August 1 last year.

Meanwhile, Gopal Parajuli was appointed as the acting chief justice.

(PTI)

Trump Set to Meet Palestinian Leader Abbas

Palestinian officials have seen their cause overshadowed by global concerns such as the Syrian war and ISIS, and want Trump’s White House to bring it back to the forefront.

Trump to meet Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in their first face-to-face talks. Credit: PTI

Ramallah: US President Donald Trump will meet Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday for their first face-to-face talks, with the Palestinian leader hoping the billionaire businessman’s unpredictable approach can inject life into long-stalled peace efforts.

Abbas makes the trip to Washington while politically unpopular back home, but hoping Trump can pressure Israel into concessions he believes are necessary to salvage a two-state solution to one of the world’s oldest conflicts.

Palestinian officials have seen their cause overshadowed by global concerns such as the Syrian war and ISIS, and want Trump’s White House to bring it back to the forefront.

“Palestinians are hoping that Trump’s unpredictability might play in their favour,” one Jerusalem-based European official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“They are going to be very disappointed. They can’t be sure of anything.”

Examples were seen early on, with Trump backing away from the US commitment to the two-state solution when he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February.

He said he would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting Israeli right-wingers who want to see their country annex most of the occupied West Bank.

Trump also vowed to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem, a prospect that alarmed Palestinians but which has been put on the back burner for now.

At the same time, he urged Israel to hold back on settlement building in the West Bank, a longstanding concern of Palestinians and much of the world.

One of Trump’s top advisers, Jason Greenblatt, held wide-ranging talks with both Israelis and Palestinians during a visit in March.

Abbas and Trump spoke by phone on March 11.

Trump’s unpredictability is far from Abbas’s only concern, with polls suggesting most Palestinians want the 82- year-old to resign.

Abbas’s term was meant to expire in 2009, but he has remained in office with no elections held.

The bitter split between Abbas’s Fatah party, based in the West Bank, and Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, has also taken a new turn in recent days.

Some analysts say it seems Abbas is seeking to increase pressure on Hamas in the impoverished strip, but he risks being blamed for worsening conditions in the enclave of two million people.

Israeli officials say the Palestinian Authority dominated by Abbas’s Fatah has begun refusing to pay Israel for electricity it supplies to Gaza.

Infinite in All Directions: Why Scientists Should Be Political

Infinite in All Directions is The Wire‘s science newsletter. Subscribe and receive a digest of sciencey curiosities from around the web, on Mondays at 10 am.

Infinite in All Directions is The Wire‘s science newsletter. Click here to subscribe and receive a digest of sciencey curiosities from around the web, on Mondays at 10 am.

Credit: bones64/pixabay

p-values in history

A two-week old pre-print in the journal PeerJ discusses the history of p-value interpretations in the scientific literature. According to the authors, the modern tendency to overestimate the importance of p-values can be “can be traced back to historical disputes among the founders of modern statistics”. Be warned: it’s less a sequence-of-events story and more a recounting of the evolution of statistical techniques. Nonetheless, those really interested in how p-values have come to cause so much confusion will find the paper useful.

Fusion update

Has another company beat the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor to creating the first plasma in a tokamak? Science reports so:

The UK-based company Tokamak Energy has created the first plasma in its ST40 tokamak reactor. The firm will now complete the commissioning and installation of a full set of magnetic coils for the device, which will provide greater control over the plasma. The company plans to achieve a plasma temperature of 15 million degrees by autumn 2017 and have the plasma at 100 million degrees in 2018. At this temperature it should be possible for hydrogen nuclei in the plasma to fuse together, releasing large amounts of energy. Tokamak Energy has ambitious plans to create a fusion reactor capable of generating electricity by 2025 and have a commercially viable source of fusion power by 2030. Unlike the much larger ITER tokamak fusion reactor that is being built in France, the ST40 is a compact device that can run at a much higher plasma pressure. This, according to Tokamak Energy, should make more efficient at achieving fusion.

Let’s still be clear – as we have been with the inertial containment fusion experiment at the US National Ignition Facility: from plasma to fusion is still going to be a billion-dollar engineering nightmare.

Poverty as disease

The sort of thing we’ve all suspected is the case and for which science might finally have conclusive evidence: poverty might be like a disease – in that being poor can cause epigenetic changes in the body that affect our biological wellbeing. Christian Cooper in Nautilus:

The science of the biological effects of the stresses of poverty is in its early stages. Still, it has presented us with multiple mechanisms through which such effects could happen, and many of these admit an inheritable component. If a pregnant woman, for example, is exposed to the stresses of poverty, her fetus and that fetus’ gametes can both be affected, extending the effects of poverty to at least her grandchildren. And it could go further.

I remember reading elsewhere (not able to find the link now) that poverty and mental illnesses may be directly related simply because poor people are more likely to have their lives affected by smaller problems than are those better off. One obvious reason this is the case is that those better off are more able to find short-term alternatives for lapsed services.

Shortcut to sex

An article in Psychology Today details a curious study, which found that after men look at pictures of sexy women, their moral compass goes haywire. The relevant neurological pathway is that women cause men to lose self-control. The study’s author told Psychology Today, “Given that dishonesty can serve as a low-cost and convenient shortcut to acquire resources, power, status, and reputation, men with a heightened mating motive may engage in dishonest behaviours to display preferred characteristics to women in order to promote mate attraction.”

There is an issue with the article’s headline: Sexy Women Sway Men to Do Bad Things, which makes it sound like the women are responsible for the men’s consequent bad choices/actions. Not cool.

Three-pass evaluation

This paper on how to read a paper for researchers throws some light on what reviewers/editors are required to do. S. Keshav, the author, a computer scientist at the University of Waterloo, recommends a ‘three-pass method’, with passes designed such that, when taken together, they allow the reader to assimilate the paper in a critical way. The first pass provides a bird’s-eye view and allows the reader to decide for more passes are necessary. The second pass reveals the paper’s major claims. The final, third pass forces the reader to re-perform the experiment the paper’s authors have conducted (or a solution they’ve attempted, etc.) but knowing only the inputs and outputs, not the logical mechanism in between.

Keshav expects the entire process will take a few hours for experienced readers – i.e. reviewers who are familiar with the subject. For science journalists, this is no good; on some days, I’ve to go through three or four papers in a few hours. And I’ve found the quickest way to deal with them is to simply shoot off an email to a scientist whom you trust as well as someone who is familiar with the contents of the paper. Ask them what they think, what you should be looking out for, whether it’s really significant, if it has any loopholes, etc. Saves you loads of time and also gets you off on the right foot. Scientists are also happy that you’re checking. 🙂

Politicising science

A Quartz article discusses the demerits of politicising movements by scientists, with its thrust being that doing so alienates people who fall elsewhere on the political spectrum and who’d probably decided to join you for apolitical reasons. It also suggests that scientists need all the support they can get, so it might be wiser for them to leave the politics out. I’m not sure I agreed but I don’t have to defend myself – Robinson Meyer over at The Atlantic (Quartz‘s parent org) did that very well.

While there is a real risk of alienation when you politicise science, Meyer argues that it’s more important for scientists to stop worrying about who they’re pissing off and actively ensure their self-preservation. And this won’t happen without political involvement: unless you take sides, you’re betting on politicians – effectively, other persons who represent many interests, not just yours – to see sense in supporting you, to perceive lasting value in your endorsement. That can be a lot to ask in times as fraught as these.

I’d like to recommend two blogs for readers to follow.

Suvrat Kher writes Rapid Uplift, a geology blog that can be on the slightly technical side for the casual reader. However, there are often many nuggets on the other side – especially when Kher breaks down something that’s recently been in the news.

Rachana Reddy writes on her blog about space policy, space history and New Space. Her subject can seem daunting at first but read her regularly and you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable, especially about the commerce of space.

From The Wire

Let’s talk (right) about Eman Ahmed

India has an ammonia problem but no policy to deal with it

The marsh of failures that the India-based Neutrino Observatory is stranded in

What made lakhs of scientists march for science across the globe?

An inquiry into common misconceptions about theory and fact

Stories from Renuka Valley as it languishes in the shadow of an unbuilt dam

Do we finally have an anti-ageing drug? No, it’s not that simple.

ISRO is not going to mine the Moon for helium-3

Other bits of interestingness

A small piece of history suggests we should take Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface idea seriously
Is this the best anagram in the English language?
The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative is batting for bioRxiv
Jigsaw puzzles: a good, simple metaphor through which to understand why more knowledge makes us more polarised, not less
Evidence, and Saganian wisdom, would suggest humans aren’t all that significant in this universe – but astrophysicists have reason to doubt this
Mindstorms is available to read online for free

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The Life of Labour: May Day Special Issue

Why we celebrate May Day.

The Life of Labour, a compilation of important labour developments from around the world, will be delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 10 am. Click here to subscribe.

What has the labour movement ever done for you? Apart from the 8-hour work day, the 5-day work week and the weekend, minimum wages, benefits and social security, and the movement against child labour? Not much.

This 1886 engraving was the most widely reproduced image of the Haymarket affair. Credit: Harper’s Weekly

It’s easy to forget how bad things were in the West around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Consider the status of children – who were regularly used to do work that adults couldn’t (or wouldn’t) undertake. They were also employed simply because they were cheaper. In a chapter of Das Kapital on the working day, Karl Marx quotes factory inspectors who have interviewed working children: William Wood, 9 years old, was 7 years and 10 months when he began to work. He “ran moulds” (carried ready-moulded articles into the drying-room, afterwards bringing back the empty mould) from the beginning. He came to work every day in the week at 6 a.m., and was let off about 9 p.m. “I work till 9 o’clock at night six days in the week. I have done so seven or eight weeks.” Fifteen hours of labour for a child 7 years old! J. Murray, 12 years of age, says: “I turn jigger, and run moulds. I come at 6. Sometimes I come at 4. I worked all night last night, till 6 o’clock this morning. I have not been in bed since the night before last. There were eight or nine other boys working last night. All but one have come this morning. I get 3 shillings and sixpence. I do not get any more for working at night. I worked two nights last week.” Fernyhough, a boy of ten: “I have not always an hour (for dinner). I have only half an hour sometimes; on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.”

It was only with the 1938 Fair Labour Standards Act that child labour was regulated in America. The same act enforced an 8-hour work day and the 5-day workweek – about 150 years since the demand was first articulated. The demand for a regulated 8-hour work day started in the beginning of the 19^th century and was a constant demand by the labour movement across the United States, the UK, etc. for the next 150 years. Over these years, numerous rallies, protests and strikes had been undertaken by various groups within the broader movement. Many of these had been militant actions and many more had been brutally put down by police or private security. The Haymarket Massacre of 1886 was one such event.

On 1^st May 1886, tens of thousands of working class men and women in Chicago went on strike to demand the 8-hour work day. Despite the numbers, it was a peaceful march. But a few days later, on 3^rd May, violence broke out between police, private guards and workers at a strike at a metalwork factory. The next day a public rally was held at the Haymarket Square to condemn the police brutality. The police came down on the rally and as they began to disperse the crowd, a bomb went off. The police started firing. The organisers of the protest were arrested and condemned to death despite the fact that they were almost definitely not the ones who threw the bomb. It isn’t clear whether it was an anarchist who threw the bomb or an agent provocateur working for the police but the resulting backlash against ‘the reds” led to the suppression of a number of important political and social causes.

As Eric Chase wrote in 1993, “When we remember that people were shot so we could have the 8-hour day, if we acknowledge that homes with families in them were burned to the ground so we could have Saturday as part of the weekend; when we recall 8-year old victims of industrial accidents who marched through the streets protesting working conditions and child labour only to be beat down by the police and company thugs, we understand that our current condition cannot be taken for granted – people fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today, and there is still a lot more to fight for. The sacrifices of so many people cannot be forgotten or we’ll end up fighting for those same gains all over again. This is why we celebrate May day.”

The message has resonated in India as well. As a country, we went in a very short span of time from being under the yoke of a foreign rule to a free nation with progressive laws that complied with the standards of the International Labour Organisation. The idea of being ‘business-friendly’ wasn’t the primary intention of those who drafted our constitution. There were genuinely more important things to be done. But today, we live in a time where business is seen as the best way to uplift the poorest of the poor. And a country trying to be business-friendly has little scope for a labour movement. This is tragic because the labour movement in many ways ensures the soul of business – usually against its own will.

Art by Ricardo Levins Morales

The Indian labour movement today is fighting to protect workers’ rights, improve their implementation and even asking for new rights – the rights of the future. These rights will be the ones that in 150 years might be taken for granted. It is in this spirit of this vital movement that this newsletter collects, summarises and comments on labour news from around India and the world.

The news:

Haryana Government to not commemorate May Day from this year

BJP-led Haryana Government, which has been facing severe criticism from workers for anti-labour actions, has declared that it will not commemorate May Day as Labour Day and instead celebrate it on Vishwakarma Divas, in honour of the mythical architect of the Gods. Sugarcoating this decision, it also announced a slew of enhancements to the welfare benefits for unorganised workers.

Tamil Nadu on strike

Major opposition parties in Tamil Nadu, including the Left, enforced a state-wide bandh on April 25, demanding that the central government constitute the Cauvery River Management Board and provide adequate relief to the drought affected farmers. Central Trade Unions, barring BMS (which has only a nominal presence in Tamil Nadu), supported the call by striking work and joining protests across Tamil Nadu. Earlier on April 22, farmers suspended their protest in New Delhi till May 15. This came after the Tamil Nadu CM personally visited the protesting farmers and assured them that he will engage with the central government to provide necessary drought relief and farm loan waiver. LiveMint reported that Tamil Nadu farmers fared the worst on their rural distress index.

Coinciding with the general strike, Tamil Nadu government employees, represented by TNGEA, began an indefinite strike on April 25. Among other issues, they were demanding the roll back of the new pension scheme and re-enactment of the old scheme. The strike was withdrawn the next day following assurances from the state government.

Azim Premji Foundation finds teacher absenteeism is a “false narrative”

Anurag Behar, CEO of the Azim Premji Foundation, writes in Livemint, “People easily talk of absenteeism ranging from 25- 50%. This matter has such grip over the popular imagination that it is often talked of as the single biggest problem in the Indian school education. Many of our policy-makers tend to believe in and feed this narrative, and use it to inform policy action. With all our experience, across years, with hundreds of thousands of teachers, we have never seen absenteeism rates even close to the numbers that are often talked of.” Their study found that the rates of absenteeism were comparable to other sectors.

Job growth quadruples during demonetisation

Yet another perplexing revelation of Indian economy under demonetisation. A quarterly survey by the Labour Bureau finds that permanent job growth quadrupled in the October – December quarter over the previous three months. Growth in formal jobs was seen at 1.22 lakhs during the peak demonetisation period as against a dismal increase of 32,000 in the 3 months prior to October. However, the survey does record the fall of contractual jobs by 1.52 lakhs.

While there are doubts regarding the data and sampling methods, an article by SIndhu Bhattacharya in FirstPost questions the shrinking employment growth during the tenure of the present government.

Sri Lanka-India oil deal faces workers’ ire

Workers of State-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation struck work on April 24 against a proposed deal between India and Sri Lanka to upgrade and maintain oil storage tanks in Trincomalee. The strike, which had a crippling effect on transport, forced the Sri Lankan government to assure that no binding deals will be made with India without consultation with the workers. The petroleum workers were also against the joint venture with China to set up a new refinery. They fear the loss of national sovereignty if national assets are placed under the management of powerful neighbouring nations. Yet on April 28, India and Sri Lanka signed an MoU on joint investments in energy, ports and industrial zones. The government, downplaying the importance, maintained that it was only a ‘road map’ for future investments.

Astrologers, Refugees and Gandhi in Cartier-Bresson’s New York Show

The celebrated French photographer visited India several times and captured scenes of everyday life

The celebrated French photographer visited India several times and captured scenes of everyday life.

Gandhi dictates a message just after breaking his fast. Birla House, Delhi, 1948. Credit: ©Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

New York: Far from the stretch of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue known as the ‘Museum Mile’ – where New York’s grandest, Western-art museums squat – is a little gem, the Rubin Museum. Himalayan art, donated by the wealthy Rubins, forms this museum’s core collection. In open circular galleries, surrounding the central spiral staircase that connects its seven floors, almost mystically, it usually hosts colourful Oriental shows – Jain art, Tibetan tangkas, Buddhist sculptures, Pahari paintings—and highly-regarded performance events related to Asian arts. This week, in a striking departure, its latest offering, ‘Henri Cartier-Bresson: India in Full Frame’, is totally modern and all black-and-white, consisting of 69 stunning photographs chronicling mid-20th century India.

French photographer, Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) first came to India in 1947 to photograph Mahatma Gandhi during his internationally publicised fast, protesting post-partition Hindu-Muslim violence. Gandhi agreed to meet him because, unlike his “torturer,” Margaret Bourke-White (Life magazine’s famed war photographer, also documenting Gandhi), Cartier-Bresson never used flash.

At their meeting, Gandhi asked about Cartier-Bresson’s picture of a hearse and, learning what it was, lamented, “Death, death, death, death,” ironically unaware that, within hours, he himself would be assassinated. No photographer was present at that fateful prayer meeting to record the shooting. But upon hearing the news, Cartier-Bresson rushed over to Birla House where “All night the crowds rushed into the garden…and pressed forward to see him,” he later recalled. “I managed to reach one window, greasy from the pressure of many foreheads, and polished with my elbow a place big enough for the lens of my camera.” He was permitted into the bedroom where Gandhi’s body lay because, respecting the mourners’ privacy, he did not use flash – despite the evening’s fading light. (Bourke-White’s huge camera, flash and film, were snatched away by angry mourners who did not allow her to photograph them.) Those deeply moving, exclusive close-ups of the aftermath, enabled by Cartier-Bresson’s unobtrusive little camera, ran in Life, catapulting him to international fame.

Some of those remarkably un-sensational pictures form the heart of this exhibit and are surrounded by others, shot on several subsequent visits. Living in Ahmedabad for three years, Cartier-Bresson criss-crossed the subcontinent, recording street life and ordinary people, religious and artistic communities (Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in Tamil Nadu, kathakali dancers in Kerala), political landscapes in Kashmir, architecture in Ahmedabad’s pols (narrow alleys), its old havelis and, a dynamic, roof-top kite-flying picture – without showing a single kite!

Opening the show, however, are dramatic portrayals of Gandhi’s chief lieutenants: the popular, near-iconic photo of Jawaharlal Nehru, bent over laughing, with the Mountbattens; and, a rare, stereotype-shattering portrait of India’s grim “Iron man,” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, caught smiling widely. In a glass case nearby are an Indian government-issued press pass and the tiny, 35 mm Leica camera that Cartier-Bresson used, with fast lenses, as he disappeared into crowds quietly, unobtrusively, to capture sensitive, revealing shots. In other cases are letters detailing his experiences to “Cher Papa et chere Maman” in Paris.

Muslim refugee train from Delhi to Lahore, Pakistan, passing through Kuinkshaha station, Kuinkshaha, North India, India, 1947. Credit: ©Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

The exhibit is not arranged chronologically and though it offers some thematic groupings, most pictures are randomly hung, organised neither by location nor subject. Thus, there are witty street pictures of an astrologer’s shop (a perennial Western fascination), and a bazaar photographer’s melodramatically back-dropped studio – perhaps an “in” joke? – inexplicably followed by moving pictures of the partition: the Kurukshetra camp with 300,000 Hindu refugees, a Delhi-Lahore train overflowing with Muslim migrants. Typically, Cartier-Bresson shows not the Kurukshetra multitudes but references them obliquely through the camp’s innumerable tents, its laundry fluttering on trees, its residents exercising. Much further in the show is a smug, smiling money-lender, sitting with piles of coins – why was this not nearer the photographer and astrologer? Surely, they are all examples of Cartier-Bresson’s renowned “street photography,” his depiction of life in India, shown through professions that were unique from a Western perspective.

In the central section of the show, pictures of Gandhi’s everyday life – breaking his fast, visiting a Muslim shrine, dictating a note – are incongruously preceded by the more compelling, climactic funeral photos: a stunning picture of a visibly grieving Nehru, the funeral pyre at the “Sumna (sic?) river,” mourners precariously balanced on treetops, weeping masses throwing flowers at the train carrying Gandhiji’s ashes. So heart-rending are these depictions of a traumatised nation in deepest grief that, even today, one relives the tragedy through the photographer’s eye. Immortalised by Life, these obituary pictures ran alongside those of Bourke-White, on special assignment to cover Gandhi.

Returning to India to photograph Ramana Maharshi’s ashram, Cartier-Bresson ended up covering the death and funeral of the saint. A picture of the Maharshi, staring straight into the camera, surprises with a life-size portrait of Gandhiji hanging behind his sick bed. Next, the dead saint, sitting upright before his burial – since “realised” souls are buried, not cremated, an interesting factoid for a Frenchman.

Kathakali dance drama. A guru teaches the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata Cheruthuruthi, Kerala, India 1950. Credit: ©Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

Another, more egalitarian, Gallic perspective is evidenced in the photographs of two princes – Baroda and Baria – that follow. The playboy Maharaja of Baroda celebrates his 39th birthday, Baria his wedding, both with obscene displays of wealth. The photogenic Maharani Shantadevi, posing in Baroda’s opulent Laxmi Vilas palace, dons a garland of humongous diamonds that once belonged to Napoleon; an elephant fight is captured in a photo evoking the elegance of a Mughal painting; the king is in formal regalia, celebratory laddoos are distributed to jostling crowds, hands outstretched. Not so subtle echoes of “let them eat cake” here?

Cartier-Bresson hailed from a wealthy haute-bourgeois family, began his career as a painter in the 1920s and worked as an assistant – and actor – for legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir in the 1930s. After making an anti-fascist documentary in Spain, he was captured by Germans and spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps. Then, in 1947, he co-founded the co-operative photo agency Magnum, with war photographer Robert Capa, and came to India soon after. (This exhibition is a celebration of Magnum’s 70th anniversary.)

For his first photo credit, Cartier-Bresson dropped his double-barreled surname for the modest “Cartier.” That is how Satyajit Ray discovered him “way back in the 1930s.” When a Museum of Modern Art catalogue revealed the photographer’s real identity, Ray said, “I became an instant and lifelong aficionado…of the compelling, mysterious and memorable quality [of his photographs], as distinctive and as instantly recognisable as the work of any great painter. Here was a new way of looking at things.” Ray praised his “palpable humanism,” and called Cartier-Bresson “the greatest photographer of our time.” High praise from a filmmaker who used the camera just as memorably and whose style, like the photographer’s, was deeply influenced by their shared mentor, Jean Renoir.

One Hundred Days With Donald Trump as US President

Are Trump’s stumbles a brilliant ploy to “deconstruct the state,” a political performance, or actual incompetence?

US President Donald Trump walks through a curtain onstage to deliver remarks at the National Rifle Association (NRA) Leadership Forum at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, US, April 28, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

If I were a Trump supporter, I’d be furious at the coverage of the president’s first 100 days. The mainstream media has engaged in a bout of competitive schadenfreude as headline writers and columnists vie for the distinction of deriving the most pleasure from the administration’s failures.

Pundits and journalists have made much of the legislation unpassed, the positions unfilled, the appointments unseated, and the promises unmet. It is of a piece with the campaign coverage.

This was, after all, the un-president: a man without qualifications to serve, without a popular mandate from the voters, and, once elected, without much interest in the day-to-day slog of governing. At every opportunity, he seems to prefer to decamp to his Florida mansion, retreat to the nearest links, or set off on yet another “victory tour” of the states he won in the election.

In the lead up to the 100-day mark on April 29, ABC and The Washington Post published a poll demonstrating that Trump, at this juncture in his tenure, is also the most unpopular president in the modern age. Even the administration’s last-minute efforts to tap into the more nationalistic sentiments of the electorate by bombing the Syrian army, bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan, and threatening to bomb the North Koreans seemed to make little difference. Only 42% of the country approve of the president’s performance (compared to Obama’s 69% at the same point in his first term).

At the bottom of The Washington Post article on this poll, however, is a fascinating little tidbit. Pollsters asked the respondents which candidate they supported in the presidential election. Not surprisingly, the figures corresponded more or less to the popular vote. Respondents said that they favoured Clinton over Trump by 46% to 43%.

But then, when asked whom they would vote for if the election were held again today, the respondents delivered a surprise. They actually favoured Trump over Clinton, 43 to 40%.

That’s astonishing. The candidate who lost the popular vote, who has done pretty much nothing since the inauguration other than put his foot in his mouth or on the putting green, who has the lowest approval ratings after 100 days of any president in the modern era, would still beat Hillary Clinton in a rematch — and probably not just in the Electoral College either.

There are three reasons for this cognitive dissonance. First, although her greatest sin is that she’s a conventional politician, Hillary Clinton inspires considerable hatred across large tracts of American politics. Second, a certain fraction of Trump supporters will stand by their man even if he were to sweep aside his orange comb-over to reveal a pair of devil’s horns. According to the same poll, although only 85% of Clinton voters pledged their continued allegiance to their candidate, a remarkable 96% of Trump voters refused to budge in their support. Talk about brand loyalty.

Which brings us to the third reason. The Trump administration has indeed displayed unprecedented incompetence in its first 100 days. But not everyone in the country views that incompetence the same way that the mainstream media does. Indeed, two separate and opposite theories have emerged to explain away what, according to the common-sense view, looks like a lot of people in high places who just don’t know what they’re doing.

The uses of incompetence

According to the adherents of the first theory, the administration of Donald Trump is so dedicated to the deconstruction of the state that it’s using incompetence as a tool. What better way to tear down liberal social programs and undo the regulatory apparatus than to install the manifestly ill-equipped, like Scott Pruitt at EPA or Rick Perry at DOE, in agencies devoted to missions they either don’t understand or don’t appreciate?

Meanwhile, President Trump is making contradictory statements, changing his positions on a daily basis, and spouting outright falsehoods in order to throw off his adversaries, both domestically and abroad. His enemies will underestimate him. They won’t be able to predict his actions. They’ll be scared into adopting conciliatory positions for fear that, like a ruthless and entirely unprepared narcissist, he’ll lash out irrationally and without his country’s best interests at heart.

In other words, what might seem like mental illness is in fact deliberate craftiness.

The second theory holds that the Trump administration is honestly trying to get things done, but a “deep state” – composed either of Obama appointees or national security operatives – is opposing him at every turn. Indeed, this deep state is so influential that it’s turned Trump’s head on Syria (to bomb Assad), China (to make nice), Russia (to destroy the promise of détente), and trade (to back away from a border-adjustment tax).

The “deep state,” according to the more conspiratorial sources, is aligned with a range of international actors, all arrayed against Trump. This list includes international financial institutions, transnational political entities like the UN, and liberal elites (who might not even be liberal, like Angela Merkel of Germany).

Certainly Trump advisers like Steve Bannon are committed to cutting back on all the parts of the government they don’t like (while beefing up those parts they do). And certainly the administration has encountered considerable resistance inside the Beltway and in the world at large to its more radical programs. Yet these explanations are not fully satisfactory.

Which leaves the third possibility – that the incompetence of Trump and his cronies is neither a strategy nor the result of a counter-strategy. The US government is a tremendously complex mechanism, and even smart policy wonks like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama made big mistakes in their first 100 days. Install an ignorant and incurious president who’s brought in a coterie of the narrow-minded and what do you expect?

Thus, the Trump administration has engaged in a stunning display of ham-fisted, tone-deaf, and downright incomprehensible policy maneuvers. It mishandled its travel ban (twice), fumbled the health-care replacement bill, and alienated members of congress on both sides of the aisle with its initial budget proposal. Trump has had embarrassing interactions with the leaders of Russia, Australia, and Germany (among others). The only obvious victory in its first three months has been the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, but that required Senate Republicans to deploy the “nuclear option” and confirm with a simple majority (rather than the hallowed tradition of the filibuster-proof 60 votes).

Then there have been the self-destructive appointments. The congressional confirmation process weeded out a few of the worst performers, like labour department designee Andrew Puzder, while scandal claimed others, like national security adviser Michael Flynn and would-be NSC communications head Monica Crowley.

But the Trump administration has also been quite effective in auto-destruction, as James Hohmann points out in the Post. Here are some of the early departures from the Trump team: Chris Christie (head of the transition team), Katie Walsh (deputy chief of staff), Boris Epshteyn (special assistant to the president), Gerrit Lansing (chief digital adviser), Anthony Scaramucci (head of the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs), K.T. McFarland (deputy national security advisor), Craig Deere (NSC senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs), and Shermichael Singleton (senior adviser to Ben Carson). Close to the exit door are counter-terrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka (for his ties to a Nazi-affiliated organisation) and Sean Spicer (whose incompetence as press secretary has become legendary).

The Trump revolution has been devouring itself at record speed.

What Americans think

Public opinion pollsters suffered a huge loss of credibility after the results of the 2016 presidential election came in. Up to the last minute, the well-respected FiveThirtyEight site was giving Hillary Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning.

One of the problems with polling is that it doesn’t capture the relative fervency of the respective constituencies. Hillary Clinton had fire in the belly, but many of her supporters did not. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, were more fired up than even their candidate.

That’s why the latest poll out of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs is somewhat misleading. The headline is that the US public sides more with the mainstream foreign policy establishment than with Donald Trump on issues from trade to NATO. Thus, according to the poll, a clear majority of Americans favor US commitment to existing security alliances, embrace economic globalisation and free trade, and support robust engagement in world affairs.

The council acknowledges, however, that on certain key issues, the public diverges from the elite:

The American public and opinion leaders are in fact divided over several key issues, including the importance of protecting American jobs, US immigration policy, and the importance of protecting US allies’ security. Perhaps not coincidentally, these areas where elite-public gaps exist are also the issue areas where Donald Trump’s message has resounded the loudest.

Wait a second. These three positions are in fact the flip side of the three issues where the preferences of the public and the Blob supposedly overlap. Americans have a rhetorical commitment to globalisation but they actually put American jobs first. They believe in NATO but they actually don’t see the important of coming to the defence of allies, which is the essential element of the security alliance. And they want the US to remain engaged in the world but not to the extent that the world engages with us by coming to our shores.

Then, if you look closer at the supposed overlap, it dissolves into the same problem of fervency that threw off the compasses of pollsters in November 2016. For instance, 41% of Republican voters view globalisation negatively and 36% want the US to stay out of world affairs. Meanwhile, 79% want to “build a wall” to keep out immigrants, and 75% see Islamic fundamentalism as a critical threat. The numbers are even starker for Trump’s core supporters.

Now take another look at Trump’s first 100 days from this perspective. The administration cancelled US participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and made an expensive bid to keep US manufacturing jobs. It has continued to press for the “Wall” on the border with Mexico in the face of congressional opposition. It signed executive orders to keep out people from seven (then six) predominantly Muslim countries.

Everything else is noise. Sure, some of Trump’s far-right supporters were angry that he bombed the Syrian Army, didn’t withdraw the US from NATO, alienated Moscow, and banished Steve Bannon from the National Security Council. But Trump’s core supporters don’t care much about these issues. What the liberal media sees as failures, flip-flops, or sheer incompetence comes across, in Trump country, as good-faith efforts to upend the foreign policy consensus and fundamentally reorient US priorities.

Incompetence, in their view, is fake news. The first 100 days, as staged by fading reality star Donald Trump, has been practically a second American Revolution.

But incompetence has very real effects. Domestically, the courts and congress and civil society can contain the damage to a certain extent. Internationally, the damage could be catastrophic.

This week, Trump invited the Senate to the White House for a briefing on North Korea. Virtually every expert on North Korea from across the political spectrum has called a preemptive strike a very bad idea. A competent administration would heed these words. An incompetent administration might decide to roll the dice because it doesn’t understand the game, the odds, or the consequences.

If you thought the first 100 days were bad, prepare yourself for something incomparably worse, something that even Trump country would recognise as an epic fail.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands.

This article was originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus