Month: July 2019

Ceasfire Violations: After India Issues ‘Strong’ Demarche, Pak Summons Indian Diplomat

Pakistan, on Wednesday, summoned India’s deputy high commissioner to Islamabad, Gaurav Ahluwalia, to protest “unprovoked ceasefire violations” along the LoC.

New Delhi: The Line of Control (LoC) has again become a theatre of cross-border firing after a relative peaceful lull of nearly two months.

On Tuesday, according to official sources, India had issued a “strong demarche” to the Pakistan high commission over the killing of Indian civilians due to cross-border shelling.

A 15-day-old baby succumbed to his injuries on Monday after being hit by splinters from mortar shelling across the border in the Shahpur sector. Another woman also died after being injured in the Gurez sector on Tuesday.

According to NDTV, an Indian soldier, Naik Krishan Lal, also died during intense exchange of artillery fire between Indian and Pakistani forces at Tangdhar sector on Tuesday.

Pakistan, on Wednesday, summoned India’s deputy high commissioner to Islamabad, Gaurav Ahluwalia, to protest “unprovoked ceasefire violations” along the LoC. Pakistan claimed that a 26-year-old civilian had died and nine others were injured due to shelling from the Indian side.

Also read: Ceasefire Violations Along the India-Pakistan Border in Jammu Continue

As per the Pakistan foreign office, director general (South Asia and SAARC) Mohammad Faisal told the Indian side to “respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement” and to maintain peace on the LoC and the Working Boundary.

This was the second time that an Indian diplomat had been summoned by Pakistan. On July 29, Ahluwalia had been called to the foreign office following the death of a Pakistan woman and serious injuries to four others due to the cross-border shelling.

Watch | V.G. Siddhartha Death: A Symbol of India Inc’s Debt Crisis?

The founder of India’s biggest coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day was confirmed dead on Wednesday, days after he went missing.

V.G. Siddhartha, the founder of India’s biggest coffee chain, Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), was confirmed dead on Wednesday, days after he went missing. The Wire‘s reporter Anuj Srivas discuss the series of events with founding editor M.K. Venu.

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi: A Powerful Face of Nationalist Feminism

A tribute to mark the 133rd birth anniversary of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi – a legislator, educationist and social reformer who infused the ethic of care in the institutions she built.

She has a visible presence in Chennai; her statue stands in the premises of the Cancer Institute at Adyar, a leading centre for oncology in the country. The road leading to Besant Nagar from Adyar bridge is named after her. Yesterday, the Tamil Nadu government announced that her birthday would be celebrated every year as ‘Hospital Day’.

For the millennials and post-millennials in the city, however, Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi is a hazy, hearsay figure of the nationalist era – feisty and articulate, but as to what exactly about, they would have to scratch their heads and think. On the other hand, the older generation of politically aware denizens of Tamil Nadu know about her accomplishments, but mostly as a chronological narrative of positions held and organisations established.

Also read: Discovering the First Generation of Feminists in Kerala

From the vantage point of hindsight, I think there is no doubt that Muthulakshmi was a powerful face of nationalist feminism in the first half of the 20th century, with all the complexities that this entailed. Her voluminous speeches and writings are indeed ideologically driven, with elements from the discourses of social reform and nationalism combined with empathy for the issues espoused by the Justice Party and a bent towards international feminism.

But it is in her concrete actions, specifically in establishing the Avvai Home in 1932 for destitute and abandoned girls and women, and the Cancer Institute under the aegis of the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) in 1952 that we see the unique nature of her contribution. The protocols and ethos she created in these institutions are exemplars of an ethic of care, inspired both by feminism and Gandhian nationalism. But more on this later.

Also read: A Woman Pioneer in the Male World of Oncology

Born in Pudukkottai to Chandramma, a former devadasi and Narayanaswami Iyer, principal of the Maharaja college, Muthulakshmi had to surmount huge obstacles created by her gender and caste, and struggle to get an education. 

In 1912, she became the first woman medical graduate from the Madras Presidency; she went on to become an obstetrician.

Muthulakshmi Reddi (holding file) with parents and siblings. Photo: Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai

In an interview in 2010, Sarojini Varadappan, a renowned social worker who worked closely with Muthulakshmi, remembers her as an impressive, even formidable, personality. Immaculately dressed in heavy Kanjeevaram saris pinned with a brooch, and shining diamond earrings, Muthulakshmi had a flourishing practice delivering the babies of all the rich Mylapore professionals.

Influenced by the women’s movement and the national movement, Muthulakshmi turned her attention to politics and public life. From 1926 to 1930, she was a member of the legislative council in British India, the first woman to be so nominated. She became the first woman in the world to become the Deputy President of a legislative council.

As a legislator she was an indefatigable campaigner and lobbyist for women’s rights on a range of issues, including medical inspection in girls’ schools, exemption from school fees for poor girls, maternity and child welfare, and reservation for women in various structures of civic administration. She was closely associated with the All India Women’s Conference and the Women’s India Association. She edited the multilingual quarterly journal, Stree Dharma, started in 1918.

Also read: The Bhasha Writer and Her Women

Most notably, Muthulakshmi brought in legislation to abolish the devadasi system and child marriage. This campaign triggered stiff opposition from Congress stalwarts like Rajaji and S. Satyamurthi. When Satyamurthi argued in the Legislative Council that the devadasi system was an ancient religious custom, with devadasis being the custodians of the traditional arts, she famously retorted that if such a caste was indeed necessary and since the devadasis had done it for so long, why did the Brahmin women not take over?

Muthulakshmi would not have imagined that decades later she would be criticised by contemporary feminists and her campaign would be seen as a patronising gesture. Sociologist Amrit Srinivasan’s 1985 article, ‘Reform and Revival: The devadasi and her dance’, was followed by much writing on the devadasis, their original putative respected social status and their later ‘fall’, and the loss for the classical performing arts traditions of South India. 

In particular, Muthulakshmi’s campaign was criticised as it was perceived as disenfranchising devadasis from traditional privileges and denying them subjecthood and agency. Historian S. Anandi, while lauding her undeniable commitment to women’s rights, sees her as ‘othering’ devadasis and moralising on their liberation from the clutches of the system as the only way out. 

But look at it from Muthulakshmi’s perspective. Given the humiliations she underwent, unsurprisingly she saw the devadasi system as a social evil. In fact, one could infer that to a large extent, her personal anger was what gave her campaign its sharp edge.

Modern education was, for her, the answer – again understandable given her own achievements in her profession and in public service. The sincerity of her efforts to improve the situation of devadasi women is undeniable. Her tone inevitably echoed that of the entire social reform movement in that era, warts and all; it did not eclipse the basic drive for emancipation and equality.

In fact, Avvai Home and Orphanage, that venerable institution established by Muthulakshmi in 1931, started spontaneously when three girls from Namakkal, from devadasi families, arrived unannounced at her doorstep one night. They had run away from home with nowhere to go.

Immediately she took them into her own home and that became Avvai Home, later shifting to its own premises. It has since expanded to include a school and also a teacher’s training school, and is one of the early and enduring examples of formalising the ethic of care in a public voluntary institution.

Also read: How Cultural Nationalism and Women’s Rights Locked Horns in the 19th Century

The other institution, the Cancer Institute, is an even brighter testimony to Muthulakshmi’s qualities of head and heart. I experienced this personally in 2005, long after she had passed on. The institute was like no other medical institution I knew – without the feel of either a government or private hospital. 

As I went through my own treatment, the institute’s underlying approach gradually unfolded: accord priority to saving life at all costs, cutting out the frills, advanced technology for core treatment alone, no differentiation between different classes of patients in medical treatment.

Much has been written about the Cancer Institute as a pioneering oncology centre in the country – its outstanding accomplishments in acquiring cutting edge technology, developing stringent protocols and yet giving affordable care; its challenges and limitations. 

What struck me, above all, is how Dr. V. Shanta, at its helm for many decades, has kept patient care – medical, psychological and social – at the centre. She verily embodies an ethic of care over and above medical protocols. Shanta, however, attributes these features of the Institute to the inspiration and efforts of its founder, Dr. Muthulakshmi, whom she refers to as Mother, and her son Dr. S. Krishnamurthi who was the force behind the institute in Muthulakshmi’s final days and after her passing. Krishnamurthi was a mentor to Shanta, she was his loyal colleague and together they steered the institute to reflect the values and ethos of Muthulakshmi, while striving for excellence.

Muthulakshmi herself was inspired to start the institute as a result of a personal bereavement. She lost her sister to undiagnosed cancer in1923. She had nursed her through her last painful days. Amidst her grief, she vowed to establish a specialised hospital for the treatment of cancer. She was inspired by the emerging advances in cancer treatment in the West and in 1925 spent a year at Royal Marsden Hospital, in London, to specialise in the subject. She got the Women’s Indian Association involved in her mission. It was an unusual issue for a women’s organisation to take up but the sheer force and dynamism of her personality made this a major activity of WIA for many years, says Sarojini Varadappan.

Also read: The Indian Women Who Fought Their Way Into the Legal Profession

Muthulakshmi went about her mission with, well, missionary zeal. Her son Krishnamurthi, then a doctor in the Royal Cancer Hospital in London, was not keen to get involved. In an interview with me in 2010, weeks before his death, he remembered with a smile, “I got a telegram, ‘Mother serious. Start immediately’. I came back to find her hale and hearty and what else, I joined her mission.” 

No one – doctors, funders or the government – would take Muthulakshmi seriously. They thought it was a waste of time. There was a complete lack of public awareness about cancer as an illness curable with specialised treatment. Among the various documents of the institute is a printed appeal in 1935 to the King George V Fund Committee from five women’s organisations in the city, mobilised by Muthulakshmi.

Tireless campaigner: In 1935, Muthulakshmi mobilised five women’s organisations in the city to collectively issue an appeal for funds for building a specialised centre for cancer treatment. Photo: Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai

She was tireless in her crusade and it was through the force of her individual convictions and the mobilisation of her social and political connections that Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone in 1952 for the first specialised hospital for cancer in South India.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister, laying the foundation stone of the Cancer Institute in 1952. Photo: Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai

The drive to raise funds under the aegis of the Women’s India Association. Photo: Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai

The character and thrust of the institute thus become comprehensible only through the personal lives of its three protagonists and their inter-relations. The micro worlds of family and friendship and of ideology and emotion fuelled the dynamism of the macro arena of advanced oncology.

And behind the technological and organisational strengths of the institution lies an ethic of care that has evolved through the personal concerns of Dr. Muthulakshmi.

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi (second from right) at the National Cancer Conference in 1964. Photo: Cancer Institute, Adyar, Chennai

While the larger social and historical contexts no doubt impacted upon Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi’s life trajectory, in many ways, her story exemplifies the idea of ultimately the personal being the political.

Kamala Ganesh is a sociologist based in Mumbai.

As Zomato Confronts Communal Bias, Liberal Stand Could Bring It Some Pain and Gain

It remains to be seen how much brands really stand to lose by appealing to a more moderate audience.

New Delhi: On Wednesday afternoon, a communal Hindu man caused a ripple on Twitter by complaining about the service he had received from Zomato, the food delivery company. The man, whose Twitter handle was @NaMo_Sarkaar, was angry that he had been assigned a Muslim delivery agent, and wanted Zomato to send his food through someone else or refund his money.

The Zomato support desk said they could not change the rider, and also would not refund his money, at which point he said he would be removing the company’s app and consulting his lawyers. “We have Shrawan and I don’t need a delivery from a Muslim fellow”, wrote @NaMoSarkaar in the conversation.

Unusually for a company in these polarised times, when right-wing internet lobbies draw added clout from their ideological proximity to the ruling ‘parivar’, Zomato took the opportunity to take a stand against communalism, tweeting: “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion.”

The response led Zomato to the #1 trending slot across the country, with Twitter curating a moment celebrating the positive responses aimed at Zomato.


Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal added an extra helping of bite to his company’s original response, saying, “We are proud of the idea of India – and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We aren’t sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values. ??”

Predictably, the right wing backlash began almost immediately, with various Twitter users pointing out that Zomato had made exceptions to return food that was not Halal, but was declining to do so if there were Hindu religious requirements (shravan), with right wing website OpIndia going on to make the hysterical claim that “Companies like Zomato are feeding the chaos that is threatening to take over the country.”

That the comparison was a false one was obvious to many – customers have the right to reject food they didn’t order and can’t eat but not the religion of the delivery agent –  but was best summed up by one Twitter use: “Was [@NaMo_Sarkaar] going to eat the delivery guy?”

Journalist Sandhya Ramesh also brought to the attention of @NaMoSarkaar that Twitter, the platform on which he was voicing his protest, was also owned by a non-Hindu.

(Of course it isn’t; Raheel Khursheed was the site’s India Head of News Partnerships for a while.)

The @Namo_Sarkaar account also featured a number of communal comments, screenshots of which are below.

It was also found to have been followed by the Official Account of Piyush Goyal. The account has since locked its handle and privacy settings.

 

 

The warmth generated by Zomato’s stance stands out at a time when communalism has been steadily normalised in New India. This is not the first time that brands have had to risk the wrath of the right wing while capitalising on secular credentials.

Hindutva bigots also targeted Hindustan Unilever’s Surf Excel ad campaign #RangLayeSang, which featured a young (Hindu) girl helping a young (Muslim) boy in March of this year. Earlier that month they had also targeted a tea brand (Brook Bond) for ‘projecting the Kumbh in the wrong light’ by showing a (presumably Hindu) man deliberately attempting to abandon his father there. The troll brigade aimed to boycott all HUL products, trending the hashtag #BoycottHUL on twitter with pictures of an assortment of products they had bought in the trash.

This is also not an India specific trend – across America as well, conservative groups have protested brands taking up a stance against brands that support liberal causes – even when they are as vague as the Gilette ad in January of this year.

Gilette had a simple message protesting toxic masculinity, saying, “We can’t laugh it off. Making the same old excuses. But something has finally changed. And there will be no going back. Because we believe the best in men.”

Twitter was rife with pictures of men abandoning their razors, one memorably in a toilet (the manly approach to dealing with one’s feelings).


While the backlash has been dependable, it remains to be seen how much brands really stand to lose by appealing to a more moderate audience. ‘Woke Marketing’ has been a burgeoning phenomenon in the advertising space, with huge budgets being spent on appealing to demographics that care about social justice, with sometimes undependenable results. Pepsi had to withdraw an ad featuring Kendal Jenner appearing to defuse tensions at a Black Lives Matter protest by offering a policeman a can of the multinational corporation’s beverage.

But those that have managed to do it right stand to gain financially, according to the Economist. The gamble is that the free publicity from the controversy offsets the sales lost to hardliners who care more about ideology than they do their products. Nike was among the early adopters of this strategy, having consistently delivered advertising focusing on social inclusion after their campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick taking the knee in 2018.

An IBM report on the marketing trends to watch out for in 2019 featured this campaign to illustrate the criticality of brands forging connections to their younger cohort by emphasising loyalty to the brand’s purpose rather than simply providing a service. Nike appealed to the social justice mindset of a new generation of consumers – and ultimately generated around $43 million. The data in America suggests that the millennial demographic is more socially conscious, and cares about companies – and is growing large enough to discard an older, more conservative generation without much loss.

While we don’t know if this data can necessarily be applied to the Indian millennial demographic, what these brands do have in common is that they capitalise on a feel-good sense of personal justice, even if their in-house business practices are not so just.

While Nike captures hearts at home, the Ethical Fashion Report gave them the lowest score in terms of employing people at living wage as well as transparency in terms of their workers conditions, while also blocking labour rights experts from monitoring their supplier factories. Gilette strongly condemns toxic masculinity while ensuring women pay the ‘pink tax’ by making their ‘women’s’ products more expensive than those for men.

HUL, whose heartwarming ad beamed a message of equal human rights, fell somewhat short of that when it refused to take responsibility for causing widespread mercury poisoning in Kodaikanal, with crony capitalism ensuring that the government let it off the hook.

And Zomato, today the liberal darling, has consistently had a terrible track record when it comes to labour rights for their contract workers. A study by the Fairwork Project led by two Oxford researchers  ranked it as having among the worst working conditions in Indian startups. It gave it a score of 4/10 based on five core areas: pay, conditions, contracts, management, and representation. Zomato did not recognise a worker’s union, and their point-system based on how many kilometres the payment model forces workers to work unreasonable hours, and incentivises travelling 180 km to 200 km over five days. IndiaSpend reported one Zomato worker saying that “At Zomato, people have to be logged in constantly for a certain period otherwise they do not get the health benefit.”

Nagaland Forms Panel to Outline Criteria for Inclusion in Planned Indigenous Register

The register of indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland will not challenge the citizenship of those excluded, but will deny them land rights and certain other benefits.

New Delhi: At a time when the ongoing National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam has run into a storm over procedural anomalies, Nagaland has embarked on a drive to prepare a register of indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland (RIIN).

Following a notification to this effect, issued by the state’s home commissioner R. Ramakrishnan on June 29, the process of identification began on July 10. However, on July 28, taking into consideration a volley of opinions for and against it from stakeholders, the state government decided to form a three-member committee to fix the modalities to be used to identify who would be eligible to be included in the RIIN.

As per local news reports, the commission would be headed by retired state chief secretary Banuo Z. Jamir, with T. Kiheto Sema and S. Chingwang Konyak as members. Reports quoting government sources said Justice (retired) Zelre Angami would play the role of advisor to the panel. The government’s representative would be the home commissioner and the commissioner Nagaland. The committee is mandated to submit its report within three months.

According to the June 29 notification, the cut-off year for a person or her descendants to be considered indigenous resident/s of the state was December 1, 1963, the day it was carved out of Assam. However, the committee is likely to also look into a demand from a section of stakeholders to consider April 28, 1977 as the cut-of date. The 1977 date was because of a notification issued by the then joint secretary, which laid down the criteria for issuance of indigenous inhabitant certificates (IIC) to the residents when the state was formed on December 1, 1963. The notification didn’t mention that those who would be granted an IIC would have to a Naga. It is also because of this notification that a Naga from Assam or Manipur would not be considered an an ‘indigenous’ resident of  Nagaland state.

Opposition from some Naga groups

Two consultative meetings were held with various tribal bodies on the issue, and they reportedly backed the Nationalist Democratic Party of Nagaland (NDPP)-led state government, of which the BJP is a part. The Naga Hoho, a primary body of the Nagas, has opposed the move. The Hoho’s opposition is on the argument that it would “divide the Nagas”.

The NSCN (Isak-Muivah), which is in peace talks with the Central government, too is not in favour of it on the same grounds. One of the primary demands of the NSCN (I-M) to the Centre to sign a Naga Accord is to acknowledge that all the traditional Naga-inhabited areas across different states of the Northeast as one, and bring them under some administrative formulation. The armed group, under a ceasefire agreement with the government, has reportedly said that “All Nagas are indigenous in (to) their ancestral homeland which is contiguous. It is the legitimate rights and political decision of the Nagas to live together under one political roof. The Nagas do not and will not accept their division by imposed artificial state and international boundaries”.

Though the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution protects mainly the land of the tribal residents of Nagaland and the inner line permit (ILP) is required by non-residents to enter the state, its business hub, Dimapur, doesn’t come under the purview of the ILP. Several Naga groups have demanded its inclusion over the years, arguing that many ‘outsiders’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ have settled in that area due to it, ‘grabbing’ the state’s economy from the Nagas. According to a government instituted committee report in 2018, the ILP, under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, was to be implemented in Dimapur.

Also Read: Naga CM: Citizenship Bill Not Applicable as State Protected Under Article 371(A)

This past June, a BJP member and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to lift the ILP from Nagaland. The SC, on July 2, dismissed it.

With the government unrolling the RIIN procedure in the cosmopolitan Dimapur, there is considerable apprehension among the non-tribals. However, chief minister Neiphu Rio has said that “non-Nagas will not be harassed during the preparation of the list of indigenous people,” adding, “the RIIN would provide protection to genuine citizens who are permanent settlers of Nagaland”.

Though non-inclusion of one’s name in RIIN, unlike the NRC update process in Assam, would not lead to denial of one’s citizenship or anyway challenge it, it would certainly deny them land rights, benefits from government schemes, among others.

After CJI’s Request, Cabinet Approves Move to Increase SC Strength from 31 to 34

In letters to Prime Minister Modi, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said to expedite the disposal of cases, the strength of the Supreme Court should be increased.

New Delhi: Acting on the request of the chief justice of India made in June, the government on Wednesday decided to increase the number of Supreme Court judges from the present 30 to 33, excluding the CJI.

The move also comes against the backdrop of rising cases in the top court which stand at nearly 60,000.

At present, the sanctioned strength of the apex court is 30, excluding the chief justice of India (CJI).

Once the bill to increase the number of judges gets parliamentary nod, the number of judges would go up to 33, excluding the CJI. The strength will be 34, including the CJI, Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

The decision of the cabinet came days after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the number of judges in the top court.

According to a written reply by the law ministry to a Rajya Sabha question on July 11, 59,331 cases are pending in the top court.

Due to paucity of judges, the required number of constitution benches to decide important cases involving questions of law were not being formed, the CJI said.

“You would recall that way back in 1988, about three decades ago, the judge strength of the SC was increased from 18 to 26, and then again after two decades in 2009, it was increased to 31, including the CJI, to expedite disposal of cases to keep pace with the rate of institution,” he wrote.

Also read: Chief Justice Gogoi Asks PM to Increase SC Strength, Retirement Age of HC Judges

“I request you to kindly consider, on top priority, to augment the judge strength in the SC appropriately so that it can function more efficiently and effectively as it will go a long way to attain the ultimate goal of rendering timely justice to the litigant public,” Gogoi wrote.

He said since the last time the strength of the apex court was hiked, pending cases have increased from 41,078 to 58,669.

The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 was last amended in 2009 to increase the judges strength from 25 to 30 (excluding the CJI).

The Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Act, 1956 originally provided for a maximum of 10 judges (excluding the CJI).

Also read: Why Courts and Tribunals Are Still Playing Catch-Up With Backlog

This number was increased to 13 by the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 1960, and to 17 in 1977.

The working strength of the Supreme Court was, however, restricted to 15 judges by the cabinet (excluding the chief Justice of India) till the end of 1979. But the restriction was withdrawn at the request of the chief justice of India.

In 1986, the strength of the top court was increased to 25, excluding the CJI. Subsequently, the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Act, 2009 further augmented the strength of the court from 25 to 30.

(With inputs from PTI)

VVIP Chopper Scam: IT Dept Finds Fresh Evidence After Raids on Hyderabad Group

Officials found four undisclosed foreign bank accounts, three un-reported companies based in tax havens, unexplained cash of Rs 45 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 3.1 crore.

New Delhi: The income tax department has unearthed fresh evidence in the VVIP choppers scam case after raiding a Hyderabad-based group which purportedly had dealings with Rajiv Saxena, who has been arrested in the case, the CBDT said on Wednesday.

It said in a statement that tax sleuths on July 24 searched the premises of a business group that is engaged in conducting seismic data analysis, and found four undisclosed foreign bank accounts, three un-reported companies based in tax havens, unexplained cash of Rs 45 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 3.1 crore.

While the statement did not identify the company or its promoter, official sources named the Hyderabad-based firm as AlphaGeo and its promoter and CMD as Dinesh Alla.

The company did not respond to email and phone calls made by PTI.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes, which frames policy for the tax department, alleged in the statement the group “indulged in large scale over-invoicing of imports through a Dubai-based operator who is an accused in a VVIP chopper scam.”

The sources identified the accused as Rajiv Saxena, deported to India from Dubai early this year in connection with the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers scam case.

On his deportation, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Saxena and he is now in judicial custody.

Also Read: VVIP Chopper Case Dubai-Based Accountant Rajiv Saxena Brought to India

The CBDT said the surplus funds generated by the Hyderabad-based firm through alleged over-invoicing totalled $6 million and it was parked in Dubai-based accounts of Saxena.

“During the search, incriminating evidence including email and mobile conversations were found between the main director of the searched company and the Dubai-based operator (Saxena), pertaining to over-invoicing of imports,” it said.

When confronted, the statement said, the persons concerned admitted to over-invoicing.

The raid, conducted by the Delhi investigation wing of the department, led to detection of at least four additional undisclosed foreign bank accounts in UBS Bank in Switzerland, OCBC Bank in Singapore, Citizens Bank in the US and Bank of Nevis International in St Kitts (Caribbean islands).

Moreover, three undisclosed companies of the promoter in tax havens like British Virgin Islands, Island of Nevis and Singapore were also detected, it said.

The unexplained cash amounting to Rs 45 lakh has been seized and the jewellery with an estimated worth of Rs 3.1 crore is being verified, the statement added.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the Indian Air Force over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of paying kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore by it to secure the deal.

A Charter of Demands for Rural Sanitation

Financial incentives for rural households and an integrated water supply are essential for the effective implementation of rural sanitation schemes.

There are studies and field reports that have analysed the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in terms of coverage and use of toilets in rural India. The official government survey, the NARSS 2018-19, shows that 93% of rural households have access to a toilet and 96% of those having a toilet use them.

Critiques of the survey point out the contradictions between NARSS and micro-level assessments in different parts of India. Other studies point out issues related to how comprehensive the approach to sanitation needs to be, if SBM is to truly address the large scale problems of ill-health, malnutrition, and poor quality of life caused by poor sanitation practices.

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has already issued guidelines for follow-up components, such as the ‘Advisory on ODF Sustainability interventions‘. It is quite likely that with the Prime Minister and his government taking charge for the second term, the sustainability of the first generation SBM efforts will be given high priority. In this context, it is pertinent to throw light on some micro-level issues, based on more than two decades of experience in rural Odisha.

A rural sanitation model that works

Gram Vikas, the organisation I lead, started its work in rural sanitation in the year 1994. Our model of 100% coverage of all households in a village, all of them building and using household level toilets and a bathing room with piped water supply, has been recognised as a best practice nationally and globally.

The integrated water, sanitation, and hygiene (WSH) intervention that we support rural communities with, is built on the following principles:

  • Participation of 100% of the habitation’s households; it is all, or none.
  • Cost sharing by the household, partially towards construction of the facilities, and fully for operations and maintenance.
  • Ownership and management by a village water and sanitation committee, consisting of representatives of all sections in the village.
  • A sanitation corpus fund built from a one-time contribution by all, towards providing cash incentives for future families in the village to build toilets and bathing rooms (ensuring 100% coverage at all times).
  • A maintenance fund through regular household fee collection, for maintenance of the piped water supply system.

Also read: What Does the Right to Sanitation Mean in India?

In 25 years (up to March 2019), the Gram Vikas WSH model has been implemented in more than 1,400 villages, covering close to 90,000 households. The villages are financed primarily through the sanitation and rural drinking water schemes of the government, and Gram Vikas has mobilised private resources to fill in gaps.

What we learnt

Over the past two decades, working with rural communities of different types, we have realised that bringing about attitudinal and behaviour changes towards safe sanitation is not easy. When we began in the mid-1990s, saying that every house in the village will have toilets, bathing rooms, and piped water, most people laughed.

Raibari Bewa standing near the toilet, bathroom unit and collecting water from the third tap in Dudukaguda village, in Thuamul Rampur block, Kalahandi district of Odisha. On the walls, details of Swachh Bharat Mission benefits availed by her in Odia. Photo: Ajaya Behera

Between 1994 and 1999, we could cover only 30 villages—this resulted from our own efforts at motivating people, and not any felt desire on their part. Then started the gradual process of change—fathers of unmarried girls motivating future sons-in-laws’ village elders to take up the sanitation project; women taking the lead to convince their men to build toilets, and even stopping cooking for a day or two to make their husbands see reason; migrants who worked outside Odisha coming back to their own villages and motivating their parents, and so on.

When it comes to rural sanitation, government financial assistance matters

Between 1999 and 2007, the government’s support to sanitation, as part of the then newly launched Total Sanitation Campaign, was INR 300 per household, for below poverty line families. Support for community-led, piped water supply projects came much later, in the form of Swajaldhara in 2003.

The prevalent thinking among policymakers in the early 2000s was that financial incentives were not necessary to promote rural sanitation. This was based on the limited success of the subsidy-led Central Rural Sanitation Programme, that ran between 1986 and 1998.

Financial incentives to rural households for building toilets is more than a subsidy, it’s about society meeting part of the costs of helping rural communities build a better life. To compare, urban dwellers who may have built their own household toilets, do not pay anything for removing the human waste from their premises; municipal governments ensure sewage lines and treatment plants. The cost of this (which is borne by the government) is not seen as a subsidy. And yet, the upfront payment made to rural households to help build toilets is looked down upon as wasteful expenditure.

In 2011, the policy moved to a higher level of financial incentives to rural households for constructing individual household latrines, mostly likely in recognition of the fact that rural households needed the financial incentive as motivation to change sanitation behaviours.

But today, with statistics showing 93% or more coverage of toilets, the policy prescription is likely to move to the pre-2011 phase–big financial incentives are not needed for building rural household toilets.

Our experience has taught us that nothing can be further from the truth. First, actual coverage of usable toilets is likely much less than what the numbers show. Second, households will need support for repairs and upgradation of the already built latrines.

In addition, there are two categories for whom the financial assistance must continue: those who, for various reasons, have not constructed latrines so far; and new households that have come up in villages that have already been declared open defecation free (ODF).

Availability of water in the toilet is critical to encouraging use and maintenance of the facility

In most cases, where water is not available in proximity, the load on women to carry water has increased. A pour-flush latrine, the type mostly preferred, requires at least 12 litres of water per use. With 4-5 members in the household, the minimum daily requirement becomes about 60 litres, forcing women to collect at least three times the water they would otherwise collect.

We have observed that without water in the household premises, women’s water-carrying load increases to more than twice the pre-latrine times.

Also read: For Sanitation Workers in Aizawl, Stigma Isn’t a Problem

The addition of a bathing room, affords women more privacy, and a better way to keep themselves clean and hygienic. In most villages we have worked with, women especially, equate this part of their physical quality of life to what people in the city enjoy.

During the last few years, financial allocation for rural water supply has decreased. While the allocation to drinking water has reduced from 87% (2009-10) to 31% (2018-19), the allocation to rural sanitation has increased from 13% to 69% in the same period. This is definitely not a desirable situation, as noted by many.

Mainstreaming the community-owned and managed method of rural water supply will ensure equitable distribution

Doing this, rather than pushing for large water supply projects across many villages, will give rural communities and local governments greater control over managing their resources and meeting the needs of every household in an equitable manner.

The Swajal programme of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, which talks about village level, community-based water projects, is a step in the right direction. Much greater push is needed by the central government to ensure that the state-level apparatus moves to a more enabling and empowering approach in addressing rural drinking water needs.

A woman collects the drinking water from the third tap in Simlipadar village in Thuamul Rampur, Kalahandi. Photo: Ajaya Behera

Second generation challenges

The water and sanitation infrastructure, when first built, contributes to a substantial decrease in water-borne diseases in villages. These are borne out of several studies conducted in villages in Odisha.

After the initial round of benefits, we find that the infrastructure alone is insufficient to sustain health benefits. Additional efforts are needed to motivate people to adopt safe sanitation practices.

The ensuing issues have been highlighted by many.

For instance, changing long-standing beliefs and attitudes related to toilet use requires intensive hand holding, particularly for older people. There are other aspects of personal hygiene and sanitation, including personal habits, disposal of child faeces, and menstrual hygiene; these need to be addressed by demonstrating workable models, accompanied by education.

From Gram Vikas’ experience in Odisha, we have been able to enumerate several challenges that need to be addressed. Even when piped drinking water exists, households prefer to store drinking water. We have found that handling of stored drinking water is an area that needs better education.

Disposal of child faeces, especially by mothers who do not think the child’s faecal matter is harmful, is another area of concern. We are also coming across new forms of discrimination in households, where menstruating women are not allowed to use the toilets and bathrooms.

While issues related to personal hygiene and washing hands with soap are already quite widely discussed, the next set of challenges relate to safe disposal and/or managing liquid and solid waste at the household and community level.

Also read: India Urgently Needs Safer Sanitation Solutions

A charter of demands

We hope that the next iteration of Swachh Bharat Mission will truly lead to a Swachh Bharat. Based on our experience, we would like to draw the following charter of demands:

1. Strengthen the ways of providing household sanitation infrastructure

  • Add a bathing room component to the design and costing provided in the national guidelines; increase financial support per household to INR 18,000 for new entrants; allow additional funding of INR 6,000 per household for those wanting to add a bathroom to their existing toilets.
  • Create provisions for repair or upgradation of toilets built, till 2018; provide for additional assistance to households whose toilets were built by contractors without involvement of the household.
  • Provide financial assistance for new households in villages already declared ODF.
  • Correct errors in the baseline of deserving households.

2. Integrate piped water supply with sanitation at the household level, and facilitate greater community control over rural drinking water projects

  • Enlarge the scope for Swajal scheme by allocating more funds.
  • Where ground water availability challenges dictate building of larger projects, it will make sense to separate the pumping and supply, from household distribution of water. The former could be done centrally for a large number of villages, while the latter could be managed by the communities at their level.
  • Make individual household–level piped water supply the standard design principle for rural water supply projects.
  • Build community capacities to manage groundwater resources and undertake watershed and springshed interventions.
  • Integrate water quality management as a community–level initiative, by demystifying testing technologies, and creating a wider network of testing laboratories.

3. Deepen and integrate WSH interventions for better health and nutrition outcomes at the community-level

  • Incentivise states to achieve stronger schematic and financial convergence between National Health Mission and the Integrated Child Development Services at the intermediate and gram panchayat level.

4. Create a multi-stakeholder institutional platform to deepen and sustain SBM across rural India

  • Incentivise states to enable Panchayati Raj Institutions to play a greater role in the SBM process.
  • Allow for more active participation of civil society organisations as facilitators and implementors, to support rural community–based institutions to adopt sustainable sanitation interventions. Provide financial incentives to such organisations based on outputs and outcomes.

This article was originally published on India Development Review and can be viewed here.

Maharashtra: One Dead, 20 Hurt as Roof of Bank Collapses

This is the third reported instance of structures collapsing and causing casualties in little more than a month.

Solapur: A person was killed and 20 injured after the roof of a bank building in Solapur district of Maharashtra collapsed on Wednesday, officials said.

The roof of the building which houses the Bank of Maharashtra’s branch at Karmala collapsed at around 11.30 am, PTI reported.


While some bank officials managed to come outside, a few staff members and customers were trapped under the debris and got injured, a police officer was quoted as having said.

Also read | Death by Apathy: The Aftermath of the Malad Wall Collapse

Indian Express quoted Karmala superintendent of police Vishal Hire as having said that seven people had been rescued until 1:15 pm.

As many as 15 people were recently killed when the wall of a building in Pune’s Kondhwa collapsed. As many as 29 more died when a 15-feet wall collapsed in Malad, outside Mumbai.

(With PTI inputs)

Aided by Watered Down Laws, Hyderabad’s Pharma City Is Bypassing People’s Protests

Locals accuse the government of providing unfair compensation, while the project is also causing concerns about pollution.

Hyderabad: The planned greenfield pharma city, which will come up within 40 kilometres of Hyderabad, is in the news for all the wrong reasons. The project involves acquisition of 19,333 acres of agricultural land. The controversy that dogs it stems from issues around land acquisition, compensation and relief & rehabilitation of people who live in the area.

The government plans to acquire land in Yacharam, Kandukur and Kadtal mandals of Ranga Reddy district (adjacent to Hyderabad). But green activists and locals are opposing the move. The moniker of Hyderabad as the ‘bulk drug capital of India’ is not something that the local people are proud of.

Under the Environment Protection Act, the government is mandated to inform locals of full details of the project, at least one month before the public hearing. These details are supposed to be provided through the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), in the local language. Locals should be informed about the expected pollution and the mitigation measures proposed.

But people of the villages where the land acquisition is being undertaken say that the public consultation process was not fair. They say non-locals were ushered in to ensure that the project gets local consent. The land acquisition notices were published in the lesser circulated newspapers in the area, locals say, adding that the notices were not put up in the village panchayat office, as required by law.

Aided by the state watering down the land acquisition law, the project has gained clearance despite protests and opposition. D. Ramesh, the sarpanch of Tadiparthy, (a village in Yacharam mandal), was elected by the villagers for his anti-pharma hub plank. He says, “The state government’s amendments have made my position redundant. It has stripped the local bodies of all powers.”

Violation of Supreme Court judgment

In the Mekala Pandu case, the Supreme Court held that compensation given to assigned (lands owned by the government but farmers enjoy tilling rights) and patta lands should be the same. But the government has paid only Rs 7.5 lakh per acre to assigned lands, paying Rs 12.5 lakh for patta lands. Locals feel the compensation is not fair, as land rates have now skyrocketed to Rs 30-40 lakh per acre.

Saraswathi Kavula, an environmental activist, says that farmers in Mucherla and Saireddy gudem of Kandukur mandal should a compensation of Rs 22.5 lakh. “They were given Rs 7.5 lakh for assigned lands based on the market values in Yacharam mandal. In Kandukur mandal, the rate is up to Rs 80 lakh per acre,” she said.

A view of Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. Credit: PTI

The Supreme Court’s directive on assigned and patta lands has been violated, locals say. Photo: PTI

B. Raju is an engineering student in Hyderabad, and hails from the Tatiparthy village of Yacharam mandal. His village is just 40 km from the city’s airport and his family sells milk and vegetables to the city. If his family is deprived of these sources of income, Raju says he will have to discontinue his education.

Also Read: In State-Level Changes to Land Laws, a Return to Land Grabbing in Development’s Name

J. Venkatesh, a farmer in Kurmidda village, says the pharma city will not employ all the people whose land has been acquired. “We earn anywhere around Rs 25,000 every month by selling milk. How will we replace this?” he asks. He says the public hearing was a farce. “We want a referendum on the issue in all villages. Either give us land for land,” Venkatesh says.

Even the farmers who surrendered their lands have started tilling it, saying adequate compensation was not paid. In some cases, they say compensation was paid to the wrong persons. Some people have been denied compensation because the ownership of the land is under a legal tussle.

Lack of transparency

Flagging the opaqueness in the acquisition process, Kavula, who has been helping the locals in the struggle against the pharma hub says, “Even the land acquisition notification had to be obtained by filing an RTI application. This resulted in the people not being able to give their objections to the land acquisition within two months, as per the law.”

The lack of information, activists say, led to a delay in challenging the environmental clearances given to the project before the National Green Tribunal (NGT). Challenges must be made within 90 days of the clearance being given.

K. Babu Rao, a retired chief scientist from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, says a PIL was filed before the Telangana high court, and the process resulted in a delay of more than 90 days. “We have filed a petition for condonation of delay in approaching the NGT. But the petition is yet to be heard. Sans the clearance from the HC, any attempt to approach the NGT would fail, courtesy the delay,” he said.

The pharma hub is set to be designated a National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) and will be managed by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up by the state government. The EIA report, activists say, is misleading the public by saying that each individual unit will have to conduct EIA studies. They add once the NIMZ gets environmental clearance, no individual unit will be asked for clearances.

Fears of pollution

The track record of the pharma industry in and around Hyderabad doesn’t elicit confidence among the people. The net value of the products manufactured after the processing would be lower than the cost that would accrue to clean the effluents the procedure would generate. The technology to separate them is not available now. To undercut costs, local generic pharma companies use cheap labour and do not follow environmental norms. Typically, for every kilogram of finished product, hazardous waste of 20 kg or more is generated in liquid, solid or gaseous states.

Also Read: How Hyderabad’s Pharma City is Flouting Environmental Norms

Environmental economist G. Vijay, a professor at the University of Hyderabad, says the industry finds it convenient to flout norms. “Big pharma companies outsource the polluting processes to smaller companies, allowing them to steer clear of legal liability. In case of violations, instead of closing down units, bank guarantees of Rs 25 lakhs are being sought by the Pollution Control Board from companies whose profits run into thousands of crores. These guarantees are broken with impunity and money is encashed by the board. Pharma companies, bureaucrats and politicians form a nexus and the police is used to stub out peoples’ struggles against these projects.”

While the project claims that there will be zero liquid discharge, Babu Rao says this is “a myth”. “Why can’t these companies demonstrate their green technologies in the already polluted Bollaram, Jeedimetla and Patancheruvu industrial clusters in and around Hyderabad?” he asks.

Representative image. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Some areas of Hyderabad have been heavily polluted because of the pharma city. Representative image. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Other concerns

Activists also express concerns about damage to wildlife, threat of ‘superbugs’, while throwing some doubt on the claims that the hub would create lakhs of jobs. They also say that the proposed pharma university will not have the claimed student strength of 24,000, as even a multidisciplinary university like the Osmania has a total strength of only 18,000.

A questionnaire sent to the TSPCB (Telangana State Pollution Control Board) on June 13 has gone unanswered. The story will be updated if and when a response is received.