Dilip Simeon's blog

Pradeep Sharma, a senior Gujarat bureaucrat who was suspended in 2010, has been arrested in a corruption case. Mr Sharma has, in court and elsewhere, claimed that he is being persecuted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state for exposing that as Chief Minister,  Mr Modi violated the law with assistance from his close aide Amit Shah, who served as his Home Minister, to reportedly spy upon a young woman architect.   Mr Sharma faces six criminal cases in Gujarat. He has unsuccessfully tried to convince the Supreme Court to order that the investigations against him be transferred from the Gujarat police to the federal CBI to ensure that he is given a free trial.   The top court has ordered him to delete what is described as "scurrilous" allegations against Mr Modi listed in his petition. Judges have also refused to permit him to travel to the US to meet his wife and son, who are American citizens.  Mr Sharma, 59, was suspended by the government in 2010 after he was...

NB - The deputy director of China's National People's Congress Internal and Judicial Affairs Committee, Li Shenming, wrote in the People's Daily: "In today's China, engaging in an election system of one-man-one-vote is bound to quickly lead to turmoil, unrest and even a situation of civil war." - If this is correctly reported, it must the official position of the CPC. In which case socialists all over the world are obliged to consider the status of democracy in the theory and practice of the communist movement as it exists today.  Here is an assessment of Chinese Communist culture:  The Crises of Party Culture: by Yang Guang   DS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters extended a blockade of Hong Kong streets on Tuesday, stockpiling supplies and erecting makeshift barricades ahead of what some fear may be a push by police to clear the roads before Chinese National Day. R iot police shot pepper spray and tear gas at protesters at the we...

"If you don’t stand up today there’s no tomorrow”  “Did you ever think you would see anything like this in Hong Kong? I never thought I would see anything like this in Hong Kong,” a resident marvelled as we rounded the corner of the flyover and saw for the first time just how many people had flowed into the roads around the government offices at Admiralty. Hong Kong is no stranger to large-scale protests pushing back against Beijing: huge numbers took to the streets over controversial security laws in 2003 and plans for compulsory “patriotic education” two years ago – on both occasions prompting backdowns, though few expect a similar outcome this time. Nor was Sunday night exactly chaotic, despite the bursts of teargas from police and the impromptu protests that sprang up at fresh locations. There were first-aid stations, litter-collection points and frequent bursts of applause: for people delivering water, or police helping an unconscious protester. The crowds swarmed arou...

‘रिवोल्यूशन हाइवे’  बेचैन दशक के नाम से विख्यात, पिछली सदी के सातवें दशक की स्मृतियों के गंभीर, विचारोत्तेजक और संवेदनशील मंथन का आख्यान है। नक्सलबाड़ी का किसान-विद्रोह, उस विद्रोह में बुद्धिजीवियों, छात्रों की भागीदारी, बांगलादेश का जन्म, वियतनाम युद्ध और  विश्वव्यापी छात्र-असंतोष इस आख्यान की पृष्ठभूमि में है। नक्सलवादी आंदोलन के उस दौर में लेखक की व्यक्तिगत संलग्नता जहाँ इस उपन्यास को  सर्जनात्मक संस्मरण की विश्वसनीयता देती है, वहीं समूचे घटनाक्रम पर नैतिक पुनर्विचार का साहस ‘रिवोल्यूशन हाइवे’ को एक वैचारिक चुनौती के धरातल पर भी ले जाता है।  यह कथा हिंसा-अहिंसा, इतिहास-राजनीति, सही-गलत, वर्तमान-भविष्य के यक्ष-प्रश्नों से जूझती बैचैन आत्माओं की कथा है। ‘रिवोल्यूशन हाइवे’  भीतर-बाहर के  द्वंद्वों में व्याप्त जीवनानुभव और मोहभंग पर विचार-पुनर्विचार के जरिए अर्जित होने वाले विवेक की कथा है। प्रतिशोध से पगलाया, विवेक-मणि से वंचित अमरता का अभिशाप ढो रहा  अश्वत्थामा इस आख्यान की मूल वेदना का रूपक है, उपन्यास एक तरह से अश्वत्थामा की आत्मा की...

HONG KONG, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Violent clashes between Hong Kong riot police and students galvanized tens of thousands of supporters for the city's pro-democracy movement and kick-started a plan to lock down the heart of the Asian financial center early on Sunday. Leaders and supporters of Occupy Central with Love and Peace rallied to support students who were doused with pepper spray early on Saturday after they broke through police barriers and stormed the city's government headquarters.  "Whoever loves Hong Kong should come and join us. This is for Hong Kong's future," publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of China's communist government who has backed pro-democracy activists through publications that include one of the city's biggest newspapers as well as donations, told Reuters.  Occupy demanded that Beijing withdraw its framework for political reform in the former British colony and resume talks. Hong Kong students begin democracy pro...

High Level Committee of Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change walks out of Public Consultation in Bangalore The High Level Committee headed by Mr. T. S. R. Subramanian, former Union Cabinet Secretary, constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change to review environment, pollution control and forest conservation laws, invited the public at large for a consultation between 12 and 1.30 pm today (27 th  September) at Vikas Soudha, the high security office complex of the Government of Karnataka. Advertisements to this effect had been issued by the Karnataka Department of Forest, Ecology and Environment in various newspapers on 21 st  September 2014, followed up by various press releases inviting the public to interact with the Committee. When various individuals and representatives of public interest environmental and social action groups turned up for the meeting, the police prevented their entry at the gates. It was only ...

The essay that follows was written by Zeng Jinyan, whose husband, Hu Jia, has been prominently involved in activism around environmental issues, AIDS, and human rights in China over the past decade and a half and is a winner of the European Parliament’s Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. From 2008 to 2011, he served a three and a half year prison sentence for inciting state subversion. Since his release, he has lived under varying degrees of surveillance and house arrest in his apartment in Beijing. He continues to write and is an active presence on Twitter. Zeng and Hu separated in 2012, and Zeng now lives in Hong Kong with their six-year-old daughter. * * * Baobao: “Fuck!” Me: “Where’d you learn that word?” Baobao: “Daddy’s good friends said it!” Me: “Which good friends?” Baobao: “Two of Daddy’s friends who stay in the same hotel with us, the ones who sleep in the rooms on either side of ours.” I was silent for a moment. Okay, I said finally: “Next time Daddy’s fr...

A battle is raging for the soul of activism. It is a struggle between digital activists, who have adopted the logic of the marketplace, and those organisers who vehemently oppose the marketisation of social change. At stake is the possibility of an emancipatory revolution in our lifetimes. The conflict can be traced back to 1997 when a quirky Berkeley, California-based  software company  known for its iconic flying toaster screensaver was purchased for $13.8m (£8.8m). The sale financially liberated the founders, a left-leaning husband-and-wife team. He was a computer programmer, she a vice-president of marketing. And a year later they founded an online political organisation known as  MoveOn . Novel for its  combination  of the ideology of marketing with the skills of computer programming, MoveOn is a major centre-leftist pro-Democrat force in the US. It has since been heralded as the model for 21st-century activism. The trouble is that this model of ac...