|
Dear Reader,
Journalists have been under the cosh in India in the recent past. Intimidation, harassment and criminal cases have been their lot. Now, Mohammed Zubair, the cofounder of AltNews, one of the pioneers of fact-checking in India, has just seen the price of his freedom notched up to unprecedented levels.
Zubair is no stranger to legal intimidation – he has 12 cases against him on the last count. But what has raised eyebrows and sent shockwaves was that the latest case filed against him, on October 7 in Ghaziabad, for red-flagging a Hindu cleric’s alleged “derogatory remarks” against a revered prophet of another religion, through a Twitter repost, included the dreaded section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023. The case accuses Zubair of an “act endangering the unity, sovereignty and integrity of India’, which mandates a life sentence, other than long prison terms and fines—a new and dangerous low for a mere repost which, in fact, called out religious bigotry.
Ironically, Article 14 points out, the case was filed despite a warning from the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of dire consequences for speeches against other communities. A warning issued in the context of the very speech made by the cleric who was then booked by the state police. Ironically, when Zubair raised an alarm about the same speech he was booked under one of the most draconian laws in the book.
You may recall how the central government's imposition of retrospective taxation on Vodafone, for instance, in the period between 2007 and 2014, led the mobile giant to seek international arbitration. Observers point out that the case, which was finally settled heavily in favour of Vodafone six years later in 2020, might have been avoided had the government agreed to fairer arbitration terms within the country. Since 2015, the government has been working to amend the Arbitration and Conciliation Act ostensibly to make the arbitration process, faster, smoother and more importantly, fairer and implementable.
However, the Supreme Court Observer points out that while the government, in its administrative and regulatory capacity, has been positive towards arbitration, it has shown the opposite attitude as a litigant. Now, last month, on 8 November 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court ruled that the clauses which empower the government to unilaterally appoint its choice of arbitration tribunals were invalid. The story analyses the Court’s judgement and what it means for public-private arbitrations in India.
With a legacy of over two-and-a-half centuries, handmade wall hangings, made of jute, are a part of the cultural heritage of India, once sold and exported in their thousands. Now in Purvanchal’s Ghazipur, the hub of the art form in Uttar Pradesh, times have changed and what was once a lucrative cottage industry has turned lukewarm, with local artisans increasingly turning to manual labour to get by.
Janchowk reports that recently the 'One District, One Product’ (ODOP) scheme and the conferring of the Geographical Indication (GI) Tag in 2022—signifying its specific origin and quality—could power the effort to revive and popularise the art of jute wall hangings.
On August 8, 2019, due to heavy rainfall during the monsoon season, severe floods and landslides devastated the state of Kerala. A massive landslide occurred in Puthumala village. Around 17 people lost their lives and 5 are still reported missing. On the same day, the Chaliyar River overflowed, wreaking havoc in the Nilambur Muderi Forest. Around 300 tribal families live in the Muderi Forest, many of whose homes were destroyed at the time, and the main bridge connecting them to the township was washed away.
TrueCopy Think’s documentary reports that five years later, the tribal families in the Muderi Forest still live in houses made of plastic sheets without adequate water, electricity, or sanitation. Since the bridge was washed away, these families have been using bamboo rafts to cross the Chaliyar River. Students, patients, elderly residents, and pregnant women are forced to rely on these precarious rafts for their daily travel.
Despite the hardships of their daily lives, their resilience remains unshaken. However, the Kerala government has yet to take significant action to support the tribal communities in the Muderi Forest or improve their living conditions.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
|
