The Supreme Court of India Now Directs ‘Those Seeking Justice’ to Be Put in the Dock July 3, 2022
Introduction:
(Janata Weekly) Revenge for seeking justice. This is not coming from a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. It is the Supreme Court, which calls for revenge against those who seek to pursue the cause of justice. It describes the long battle for justice fought in the courts as a nefarious design to keep the pot boiling. For some ulterior motive. And it wants them to be punished.
So, it is the Supreme court which condemns those who have the audacity to question officials. Not only that it seeks them to be put in the dock.
The court is heard by the law abiding Gujarat police and as its first response, Teesta Setalvad and Sreekumar, former DGP of the Gujarat police, are arrested promptly. Between the outrage by the court against the trouble-makers and the arrest was an interview in which the home minister of the Union government of India names the organisation of Teesta Setalvad and indicates that some officials of the state worked to defame the then state government and the chief minister.
“The Supreme Court has said that Zakia Jafri used to work at someone else’s insistence. Many victims’ affidavits were signed by the NGO. Everyone knew Teesta Setalvad’s NGO was doing it. The UPA government helped Teesta Setalvad’s NGO a lot, the whole of Lutyens Delhi knows it. This was solely done to target Modiji, to tarnish his image,” he said.
It seems that the interview and the work on the first information report (FIR) by an officer of the Gujarat police naming Teesta, Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt were going on simultaneously. What else explains the knock on the doors of Teesta and Sreekumar within hours of the airing of the interview.
The Story of the Rise and Fall of Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa Family by Nirupama Subramanian
July 10, 2022
Extract:
(The Indian Express) What went wrong for Gotabaya Rajapaksa?
Since March, when anti-government protesters found a rallying cry in “Gota Go Home”, the President was determined that he would not step down. His reasoning was that he had been elected “by 6.92 million people” which translates into a majority of 52.25 percent (Sri Lanka has an executive presidential system and the office is filled through direct elections), and that he was entitled to the rest of his five year term, which began in 2019.
But he clearly did not fathom the extent of public anger at the government’s mismanagement of the economy, in which he played a directly crippling role. Gotabaya appeared to believe that his image as the “saviour” of the country from terrorism — he was Defence Secretary in his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government at the time of the LTTE’s military defeat in 2009 — would see him through.
So, is this the political end of the President?
Gotabaya Rajapaksa believed his planning of military strategies against the LTTE and later, the much praised beautification of the capital city, equipped him to run the country. But clearly it did not, and he goofed it up with his ill informed tax cuts, and his sudden edict to farmers to switch to organic farming. Along with the coronavirus pandemic, all of it added to the economic pain inflicted by the collapse of tourism in the aftermath of the Easter bombings.
Protesters break into home of Sri Lankan PM, set it on fire
Source: AP
By KRISHAN FRANCIS
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Protesters broke into the Sri Lankan prime minister’s private residence and set it on fire, hours after he said he would resign when a new government is formed, in the biggest day of angry demonstrations on Saturday that also saw crowds storming the president’s home and office.
The office of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the protesters forced their way into his Colombo home on Saturday evening. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was inside at the time of the attack.
Wickremesinghe said earlier that he will resign only when all parties have agreed on a new government.
He was responding to a call by leaders of political parties represented in Parliament that he and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa quit, after tens of thousands of people trooped to the capital to vent their fury at the leaders they hold responsible for the nation’s worst economic and political crisis.
A man throws back a tear gas canister after it was fired by police to disperse protesters in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, July 9, 2022. Sri Lankan protesters demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign forced their way into his official residence on Saturday, a local television report said, as thousands of people took to the streets in the capital decrying the island nation's worst economic crisis in recent memory. (AP Photo/Amitha Thennakoon)
Original post: By KRISHAN FRANCIS
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lankan protesters demanding President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign forced their way into his official residence and nearby office on Saturday, local television reports said, as thousands of people demonstrated in the capital against the island nation’s worst economic crisis in recent memory.
It was not clear if Rajapaksa was inside the residence in Colombo but footage shot on mobile phones showed a large number of people inside the well-fortified house and on the grounds outside.
A government spokesman, Mohana Samaranayake, said he had no information about whether Rajapaksa had left the residence.
Hundreds of protesters, some carrying national flags, also entered the president’s office in another nearby building, television footage showed. Protesters blame Rajapaksa for the economic woes and had occupied the entrance to his office building for the past three months calling on him to step down.
Protesters Abandon Seized Buildings With Sri Lanka in Limbo July 14, 2022
Introduction:
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP via Courthouse News) — Sri Lankan protesters retreated from government buildings they seized and military troops reinforced security at the Parliament on Thursday, establishing a tenuous calm in a country in both economic meltdown and political limbo.
Conclusion:
The political impasse threatens to worsen the bankrupt nation’s economic collapse since the absence of an alternative government could delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from India and China.
The shortages of basic necessities have sown despair among Sri Lanka’s 22 million people. The country’s rapid decline was all the more shocking because, before the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding, with a growing, comfortable middle class.
It was not immediately clear if Singapore would be Rajapaksa’s final destination, but he has previously sought medical care there, including undergoing heart surgery.
Sri Lankan lawmakers have agreed to elect a new president from their ranks on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.
Sadhguru, the Spiritual Leader with Ties to Will Smith and Modi, Explained by Sonia Paul
July 18, 2022
Introduction:
(Vox) In October 2020, the Indian spiritual leader who calls himself Sadhguru posted a video to his Instagram account that seemed to cement his celebrity status in the West.
In it, Will Smith reveals that he’s been following Sadhguru for a while and praises his New York Times bestselling self-help book, Inner Engineering. The actor is now welcoming one of India’s most powerful gurus into his home so that his family can also be inspired by his spirituality. The video then turns to Sadhguru, who has pulled up on the driveway on a motorcycle. He’s dressed in a long tan-colored kurta, black salwar trousers, and white high-top shoes, his white beard fluffed out like Santa Claus. Like other celebrity gurus before him, he seems both foreign and familiar as he translates what often sounds like timeless teachings for our modern era. As Jagadish “Jaggi” Vasudev — the man popularly known as Sadhguru — asserts that the most successful people are the most miserable people and that we perpetuate our own suffering, Smith and his daughter, Willow, hang on his every word. “You’re a bad director of your own drama!” Sadhguru jokes with Smith over the dinner table discussion.
So it was no wonder that when Smith was spotted in Mumbai in late April, in his first public outing since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, rumor had it that he intended to meet with Sadhguru. That was not true, however, because Vasudev has been preoccupied with his own affairs.
The self-proclaimed mystic is the founder of the Isha Foundation, a nonprofit spiritual center that houses a yoga center and claims over 300 offshoots around the world. He also has a radio show and a popular YouTube channel, and, earlier this year, stopped by Trevor Noah’s show and Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss his latest environmental crusade, “Save Soil.” On June 21, he finished a 100-day motorcycle journey intended to continue to rally support for his environmental cause, which took him across Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
How Can Sri Lanka Move Forward? by Ellen Ioanes
July 16, 2022
Introduction:
(Vox) Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned Thursday by email, after a herculean people-power movement fueled by anger over corruption and massive inflation toppled his government. Although it’s a major victory for Sri Lankan activists, Rajapaksa’s resignation raises existential questions about how the country’s political structure, economy, and the protest movement that brought him down will forge ahead.
Gotabaya fled the country earlier this week, reportedly heading first to the Maldives, then on Thursday boarding a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Singapore, flight tracking data shows. His resignation has been a key demand of protesters, but it’s far from the political overhaul many see as critical to getting the country functional again.
The Rajapaksa administration’s rampant corruption and disastrous economic policies culminated in months of sustained, nonviolent action by hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans from all over the country, of a wide variety of ethnicities and backgrounds — a testament to the severity of the economic and political catastrophes, including unsustainable debt, staggering inflation, and general, overwhelming scarcity that Gotabaya, his brothers, and his cronies brought on the nation.
“All the countries of South Asia used to look at Sri Lanka as the place with the highest development indices — definitely highest literacy,” Tamanna Salikuddin, director of South Asia programs at the US Institute of Peace, told Vox in an interview Saturday. “It’s obviously a much smaller population than any of its neighbors — India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh — but it’s always had a high GDP per capita, high standard of living, Colombo was this sort of modern, fancy city with the nice restaurants and all of that.”
Now, people wait in line for days just to buy fuel; inflation was at 54.6 percent as of June according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka; and the government owes its various creditors $51 billion after having defaulted on its repayments for the first time in May.
Sri Lankan Troops Forcefully Clear Protesters; New PM Named July 22, 2022
Introduction:
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP via Courthouse News) — Sri Lankan forces violently cleared the main protest camp of demonstrators outraged by the country’s economic meltdown as the newly elected and deeply unpopular president put army troops in the streets of the capital Friday to maintain order.
Security forces were seen beating at least two journalists during the overnight raid, and the bar association said two lawyers were also assaulted — heavy-handed tactics denounced by the opposition, the U.N., and the U.S. The troops moved in even though protesters had announced they would vacate the site on Friday voluntarily.
Unbowed, the protesters vowed to continue their efforts to change their leadership. A crowd rallied for a few hours outside the main rail station, while some people also gathered as close as they could to the former demonstration site outside the presidential office.
Adding to signs that President Ranil Wickremesinghe would not address the concerns of protesters, he chose a prime minister on Friday with close ties to the political establishment that the demonstrators blame for the country’s collapse.
…
Wickremesinghe, who had been prime minister, was elevated to president by lawmakers this week — apparently seen as a safe pair of hands to lead Sri Lanka out of the crisis, even though he, too, was a target of the demonstrations. On Friday, he appointed as prime minister a Rajapaksa ally, Dinesh Gunawardena, who is 73 and from a prominent political family.
India’s Auction of 5G Airwaves tops $19 Billion by Manish Singh
August 1, 2022
Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Telecom operators in India bid slightly over $19 billion in the government auction for the 5G airwaves, New Delhi said Monday, the highest from them in any spectrum sale, as the world’s second-largest wireless market readies the rollout of improved and faster voice and data speeds.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea competed with one another for seven days and made majority of the bids to acquire 71% of all offered spectrum, which the government said exceeded its expectations. Tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, which counts Google and Meta among its backers, was the most aggressive participant with bids of worth $11.13 billion, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Monday in a press briefing.
Google-backed Airtel made bids of worth $5.44 billion, whereas Vodafone Idea, the Indian unit of British giant Vodafone Group and billionaire Kumar Mangalam’s Idea Cellular, made bids of worth $2.37 billion.
India’s richest man Gautam Adani’s firm also made its debut in the auction, but kept its interest largely limited with bidding of just $26.8 million. The company said last month that it was participating in the spectrum auction to provide private network solutions with enhanced cyber security in “the airport, ports & logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution, and various manufacturing operations.”
Even as India is the second largest wireless market, it has been slow in comparison to several markets in setting up the networks for the rollout of 5G technology, which carriers across the globe say offers significantly faster data speeds and could play an instrumental role in applications around innovations in autonomous mobility and telemedicines and robotics among other industries.
Sri Lanka to end state of emergency
Source: Dhaka Tribune
Sri Lanka will not extend a state of emergency imposed to control anti-government protests as the situation in the impoverished nation has "stabilized", the president's office said Tuesday.
Ranil Wickremesinghe invoked the tough laws four days after his predecessor fled the country and resigned on July 14 after months of protests over acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
The emergency imposed by Wickremesinghe is due to lapse on Thursday and he has the power to renew it every month thereafter.
"The situation in the country has stabilized, there is no need to reimpose the state of emergency when it lapses this week," Wickremesinghe's office quoted him as saying.
Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa Returns Weeks After Fleeing Island September 2, 2022
Introduction:
(Al Jazeera) Sri Lanka’s deposed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has returned home weeks after fleeing the crisis-hit country, officials said.
The 73-year-old former leader landed in the capital, Colombo, on a Singapore Airlines flight from Thailand in the early hours of Saturday, local media reports said.
Further extract:
“What his options are in the coming days and months will remain to be seen. He’s obviously relinquished office, but he’s very much part of the Rajapaksa clan and the family and they haven’t given up, as far as we’re hearing, in terms of politics.”
Modi Unveils an Extraordinary Edition of His Personality Cult by Harish Kare
August 28, 2022
Introduction:
(Janata Weekly) The prime minister who unfurled the National Flag at the historic Red Fort 75 years ago was a man whose political persona had been consecrated by nearly a decade-long incarceration in British jails, by an intimate discipleship of the greatest moral leader of the 20th century, by a joyful immersion in a soul-uplifting struggle and the comradeship of a nationalist movement.
The prime minister who presided over the 75th-year celebration is a man whose political personality has been shaped by the narrow theology minted in Nagpur, by the petty factionalism inherent in the Sangh Parivar and the Jan Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party – and by an extraordinary self-centredness.
If anybody was expecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give an honest account of our national journey these past 75 years, they would have been rudely jolted within a few minutes when Nehru was excluded and Savarkar was included from the catalogue of those whose vision steered India towards freedom. Personal pettiness and ideological partisanship continue to define the man. As a dedicated soldier of the Sangh Parivar, the prime minister naturally sought to rewrite the national narrative of last 75 years, a nuanced exercise in exclusion and inclusion.
That, of course, is a prime minister’s prerogative on August 15.
Apart from this, the overwhelming impression that Prime Minister Modi managed to convey this year from the Red Fort was that he remains the greatest demagogue this part of the world has seen in a long, long time.
India’s Economic Narrative Might Be Glowing. The Economy Isn’t. by Kaushal Shroff and Wire Staff
September 25, 2022
Introduction:
(Janata Weekly) The latest, June quarter gross domestic product (GDP) figures for fiscal year (FY) 23 delivered some much-needed grist for the BJP’s spin mills. Prima facie, the numbers look impressive and, to nobody’s surprise, the party machinery is leaving no stone unturned in trumpeting the figures as evidence that the Modi government is indeed grafting together an impressive growth narrative for India. However, the catch here is that under the window dressing of the GDP figures, the economy is unmistakably tottering and the growth trajectory since the pandemic has been ramshackle at best.
Contrasted with the 16.2% growth rate projection given by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and a median projection of 15.2% by economists surveyed by Reuters, the latest quarter growth rate numbers surprised everyone by coming in lower at 13.5%. A real GDP growth rate of 13.5% sounds incredible and this growth spurt can be attributed to the second wave of COVID-19 that devastated the subcontinent during the same quarter last year. Naturally, economic activity in large swathes across India took a beating and real GDP figures tanked. This made for a low base compared to which the Indian economy registered a 13.5% real GDP growth rate in the last quarter.
As for the claim of the Indian economy pipping the UK to become the fifth largest economy, the latest GDP figures might not be the best compass through this economic terrain. Consider, for a moment, the per capita GDP gulf between the two nations, which is staggeringly large and truly embarrassing for India. For the UK, per capita figure of $47,000, India’s per capita figures scrape in at barely $2,500. In any case, the GDP is a measure of income and not wealth. Reliance on GDP figures as an indicator to suggest that India’s wealth has shot up or its poverty levels have plummeted is a disingenuous ploy that massages economic statistics for the larger goal of creating a sellable narrative.
Sri Lanka's Parliament Votes to Trim Presidential Powers After Widespread Protest October 21, 2022
Introduction:
(AP via The National) Sri Lanka's Members of Parliament overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment on Friday that trims the powers of the president, a key demand of protesters who are seeking political reforms and solutions to the country’s economic crisis.
Debate on the bill began on Thursday, and on Friday, 179 politicians from the governing coalition and opposition voted in favor of the motion and only one voted against it, ensuring the two-thirds majority in the 225-member house required to make the amendment law.
The amendment transfers some presidential powers, including the appointment of officials, to a constitutional council comprising politicians and respected non-politicians. The council will recommend candidates to the president for appointment.
The council’s recommendation is required for presidential appointments of senior judges, attorneys general, central bank governors, police, election commissioners, and bribery and corruption investigators. The prime minister will recommend Cabinet appointments, and the president will not be allowed to hold any Cabinet positions except defence.
The government says the changes will help ensure the independence of the judiciary and public service.
India Added 56 Million or Whopping 79% to Global ‘Extreme Poor’ in 2020 by Prasanna Mohanty
October 23, 2022
Introduction:
(Janata Weekly)The World Bank’s latest poverty estimate delivers shocking news: India added a whopping 79% of new extreme poor to the world population in 2020. In absolute numbers, it says, the global population of extreme poor grew by 71 million and India added 56 million to this.
In this estimate, extreme poverty is redefined as per capita per day expenditure of $2.15 (earlier $1.9) based on 2017 PPP (purchasing power parity). As for estimating India’s new extreme poor, here is another shocker. It used “new household survey data” of a private entity, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), not the official data. That is because India simply doesn’t have official data on household consumption expenditure (proxy for household income) after 2011-12.
The CMIE data was, however, used after suitably adjusting it to the official National Sample Survey (NSS)-type consumption measure – last collected in 2011-12. There indeed was an NSS for 2017-18, but its data was junked after a leaked report revealed that “real” household expenditure had fallen for the first time in four decades.
This wasn’t surprising, given that it came soon after the twin shocks of demonetization and GST. Besides, the economy was slowing down in the end years of the previous UPA-II government.
Further extract:
That India’s high GDP growth has accompanied even higher inequality growth is no secret. The benefits of high growth (income and wealth) have gone to the top – the top 1% and the top 10%, at the cost of the middle 40% and the bottom 50%.
India’s Richest 1% Own More Than 40% of Total Wealth, Bottom Half Has Just 3%: Oxfam January 22, 2023
Introduction:
(Janata Weekly) The richest 1% in India now own more than 40% of the country’s total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3% of wealth, a new study showed on Monday.
Releasing the India supplement of its annual inequality report on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting here, rights group Oxfam International said that taxing India’s 10 richest at 5% can fetch entire money to bring children back to school.
“A one-off tax on unrealised gains from 2017–2021 on just one billionaire, Gautam Adani, could have raised Rs 1.79 lakh crore, enough to employ more than five million Indian primary school teachers for a year,” it added.
The report titled ‘Survival of the Richest‘ further said that if India’s billionaires are taxed once at 2% on their entire wealth, it would support the requirement of Rs 40,423 crore for the nutrition of malnourished in the country for the next three years.
“A one-time tax of 5 per cent on the 10 richest billionaires in the country (Rs 1.37 lakh crore) is more than 1.5 times the funds estimated by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry (Rs 86,200 crore) and the Ministry of Ayush (Rs 3,050 crore) for the year 2022-23,” it added.
The Politico-Cultural Agenda Behind Renaming The Iconic ‘Mughal Gardens’ In Delhi by P. K. Balachandran
January 30, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) It is part of a campaign to erase the Muslims’ contribution to India’s culture. The Mughal dynasty (1526-1858) pioneered the concept of “pleasure gardens”, vast and well laid-out retreats with trees, flowers, artificial streams and fountains.
The iconic Mughal Gardens in the Indian Presidential palace (Rashtrapati Bhavan) in New Delhi, laid out by the British rulers in 1929, was renamed “Amrit Udyan” or the Garden of Nectar, by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on January 28.
Navika Gupta, Deputy Press Secretary to President Droupadi Murmu said in a statement that “Amrit Udyan” was a “common name”, presumably unlike the name “Mughal” gardens. Welcoming the change, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that with the change, “another colonial relic” has been removed “reflecting India’s aspirations for the Amrit Kaal”.
The characterization of “Amrit Udyan” as a “common name” as opposed to “Mughal Gardens” makes the latter “sectional” or “communal” in character when the moniker “Mughal” only indicates that the garden is laid in the “Mughal pattern.” True, the Mughals were Muslim invaders from Central Asia, but they cannot be considered the “other” because they settled down in India becoming natives. They cannot be considered “colonials” either, because, unlike the typical colonial rulers, they did not take away the wealth of India. In fact, they added to its wealth.
Further, shedding the name “Mughal” also does violence to the design of the Mughal gardens, which is a pleasing mix of the Mughal and the British styles, but predominantly Mughal. The garden has two channels intersecting at right angles. It is a “Charbagh” or a four-cornered garden, which is typical of gardens laid by Mughals in many parts of North India. Noted architect K.T Ravindan told The Hindu that the Mughal garden was designed in the Persian style of landscaping typical of Mughal gardens. “You will see Chajja (dripstone), the chattri (domed kiosk), the jali (pierced screen),” he said.
Sri Lanka police fire tear gas at election protest; 15 hurt
Source: AP
By KRISHAN FRANCIS 2 hours ago
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Police in Sri Lanka on Sunday fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters angry over a decision to postpone local elections after the government said it cannot finance them because of the country’s crippling economic crisis.
About 15 people were treated for minor injuries, according to Colombo National Hospital.
Thousands of supporters of the opposition National People’s Power party tried to march toward the main business district in capital Colombo, ignoring police warnings after a court order barred them from entering the area, which includes the president’s residence, office and several key government buildings.
The order had been obtained in the backdrop of last July’s massive protests, when thousands of people stormed the presidential office and residence and occupied them for days. The crisis forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.
