Indian police use violence as a shortcut to justice. It's the poorest who bear the scars. By Mohit Rao

By Dilip -

It was minutes into India's Independence Day when police stormed a slum in the western state of Gujarat where Hira Bajania, 65, was sleeping. In the black of night, he was dragged from his home, taken to a nearby police station and accused, with 11 other men, of stealing cell phones. As dawn broke on a day commemorating India's freedom, one by one the men were taken from their cell to be interrogated for up to 30 minutes, according to a complaint subsequently filed to police, and seen by CNN. They were bound, stripped, beaten, abused and, according to two people in the group, tortured sexually and told to confess. Many returned to their cell limping, unable to stand or sit, say several of the men. All denied the charges.

At around 5.30 p.m. the next day, Hira Bajania, a ragpicker, collapsed after being beaten. "We told them, 'He is dead. You've killed him.' The police thought he was pretending," says Shankar Bajania, no relation, who is one of the men picked up on August 15, 2019. Hira Bajania was not pretending. Shankar Bajania says he saw, through the police station windows, his lifeless body put in a police jeep. At the hospital, he was pronounced dead…

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/india/police-brutality-india-dst-intl-hnk/index.html

Supreme Court lays emphasis on protecting personal liberty

Tavleen Singh on government ministers suddenly defending press freedom / Arfa Khanum Sherwani: I’m a Journalist, That’s Why I Don’t Stand With Arnab Goswami

Avay Shukla: Acts Of God And Follies Of Man

Is all this too much to ask?

Colin Gonsalves: Refusal of bail to Sudha Bharadwaj is based on inadmissible evidence

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The loneliness of Varavara Rao, Anand Teltumbde, Sudha Bharadwaj tells a disquieting tale

Samjhauta Express blast case verdict: ‘Who will answer for death of my five children?’

Jailed and Harassed Former IGP Darapuri, 76, Shares His Ordeal

Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra

Nikhila Henry - Ex CJI Gogoi's RS Nomination Calls All His Judgments Into Question, Says Legal Expert

‘This episode is going to haunt SC in years to come’: Justice AP Shah on CJI sexual harassment case

Hathras gang-rape and murder / Protests erupt across country as political leaders, activists add voice to chorus of condemnation

Shalini Langer: Give me Rhea’s fortitude any day // Tavleen Singh: Rhea and her family have been sacrificed at the altar of lynch mob journalism

Hannah Ellis-Petersen: Actor's death fuels media frenzy in India

Sameera Sood: Bollywood is the new JNU and Deepika Padukone the new opium of distraction / Tavleen Singh: ‘Reporters’ were so drunk with their power to smear that they failed to fulfill their primary role

Why is Dr Kafeel Khan Still In Jail On The Eve Of Independence Day? BY BETWA SHARMA

Ramachandra Guha: Supreme Court must reflect on its calling as defined by the Constitution - and the direction it is taking

First Among Equals? // Laws, legal system totally geared in favour of rich and powerful: Justice Deepak Gupta

Express editorial on SC in-house inquiry: Not justice

https://dilipsimeon.blogspot.com/2017/08/independence-day-in-gorakhpur.html

#HumDekhenge Trends On Twitter As People Show Solidarity With Prashant Bhushan

VAKASHA SACHDEV: In Reply to Contempt Case, Bhushan Offers Detailed Critique of SC

Anil Nauriya - The Angst of August: Reading The Recent Political History of India // Express editorial: Prashant Bhushan judgement - the Supreme Court has diminished itself

Facing Contempt Case, Prashant Bhushan Says Sorry for Just One Remark; 'Why No Helmet by CJI?'

Confrontation in Supreme Court Of India bodes ill // Prashant Bhushan on the CJI’s ‘Extraordinary Interest’ in a Matter Directly Concerning Himself

Bharat Bhushan: A hanging in Dhaka, courtesy Delhi

Deputy National Security Advisor questioned by CBI in 2003 encounter case in Gujarat (2013)

Govt uses ‘adverse’ IB reports to reject names of 6 former judges for tribunals, commissions

CBI court raps Amit Shah for non-appearance in fake encounter case // Amit Shah all set to become BJP chief
Neelabh Mishra - Modi Sarkar, beware of tampering with the Constitution / Soli Sorabjee: What we need to guard / Arun Shourie: "What we are going towards is a pyramidal decentralised mafia state"

Ajmer blast case: Two including a former RSS worker get life imprisonment
Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged

Terrifying implications of the SC's Staines Judgement

The Supreme Court, Gandhi and the RSS
The BJP and Justice, Chapter 2

Vyapam

Vanzara

VINOD K JOSE - Narendra Modi’s shadow lies all over the Haren Pandya case

Sanjiv Bhatt Sentenced To Life Imprisonment In 30 Year Old Custodial Death Case // Message from Shweta Bhatt

Mohan Bhagwat

BHARAT BHUSHAN - Narendra Modi's Republic of fear ...

Public Appeal - Resist degradation of Indian criminal justice system

The emperor's masks: 'apolitical' RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar         

The law of killing - a brief history of Indian fascism

List of serious criminal charges against new UP CM Yogi Adityanath

Julio Ribeiro - Burying Karkare: I cannot let these forces go unchallenged

Public Appeal - Resist degradation of Indian criminal justice system

Bombay HC Grants Bail To 3 Men, Saying They Were 'Provoked To Kill In The Name Of Religion'

Margaret Wertheim - I feel therefore I am

Sabotage of Indian criminal justice continues unchecked: Aseemanand’s ‘disclosure’ missing from court

India: End Bias in Prosecuting Delhi Violence

Betwa Sharma: UP Cop Booked Yogi Adityanath Under NSA, Spent 20 Years In The Wilderness

Press Statement by concerned citizens on the interrogation of Professor Apoorvanand by the Special Branch

CJI on dais, Dosanjh recites ‘first they came for…’, talks of Auschwitz

Safoora Zargar: Why did India jail a pregnant student during Covid-19? By Geeta Pandey

Suhas Palshikar: Bhoomi pujan of the new republic // Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Political colonisation of Hinduism

Do our leaders want to certify political assassination?

Decline, Debasement and Devastation in the All India Services. By P. S. Appu (IAS, Retd)

The Broken Middle - on the 30th anniversary of 1984
Sulphur in the air: 1984 is not forgotten

Apoorva Mandhani: Judge Loya's Confidants Died Mysterious Deaths

Investigate Death Of Judge Who Was Hearing Sohrabuddin Sheikh Case: Justice AP Shah

Arun Shourie On Why The SC Must Enquire Into Loya’s Death, And Erosion of Institutions

सीबीआई जज की मौत को लेकर उठे सवाल

 सलाम, एदुआर्दो गालियानो , अलविदा !! // Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015)

मुझे पूरी उम्मीद है कि आप अपनी बारी आने से पहले बोलेंगे- डॉ.आनंद तेलतुंबड़े

Re-investigate Judge Loya’s death: Sharad Pawar // सीबीआई जज की मौत को लेकर उठे सवाल

अपूर्वानंद - भागवत और वंजारा साथ-साथ: हम कौन थे, क्या हो गए हैं और क्या होंगे अभी?

बॉम्बे हाईकोर्ट के पूर्व जज ने Amit Shah की पूरी कुंडली खोल कर रख दी  Former Judge Exposes Shah

Book Review: 'Secrecy World' by Jake Bernstein


Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the PUDR stat
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certainty which a c
Read more

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

By Dilip -
Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait  Rudyard Kipling , To the City of Bombay "Few people who have criticized England from the inside have said bitterer things about her than this gutter patriot" : George Orwell IT WAS a pity that Mr. Eliot should be so much on the defensive in the long essay with which he prefaces this selection of Kipling's poetry, but it was not to be avoided, because before one can even speak about Kipling one has to clear away a legend that has been created by two sets of people who have not read his works. Kipling is in the peculiar position of having been a byword for fifty years. During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. Mr. Eliot never satisfactorily explains this fact, because in answering the shal
Read more

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

By Dilip -
NB: This is the text of my address to the Eighth East-West Inter-cultural Relations Conference held at Ramjas College, the University of Delhi, on March 17.  The details of the conference may be read here . A pdf file of the address is downloadable here  -  DS Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism Dilip Simeon Keynote address to the Eighth East-West Inter-cultural Relations Conference Ramjas College, March 17-18 2016 Zilu stopped for the night at Stone Gate. The gatekeeper said, Where are you from? Zilu said, From the household of Confucius. The gatekeeper said, The one who knows there’s nothing that can be done but keeps on trying?  -  from the Analects of Confucius (14:40) What is truth? asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer – Francis Bacon In fact it is more correct to say Truth is God than to say God is Truth – Mohandas Gandhi Introduction: The human being is the speaking animal, the discerner of good and evil. This featur
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested that I might
Read more

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime

By Dilip -
NB:  An interesting obituary to a great intellectual. My knowledge of the situation is limited, but as regards this article,  I'm uncomfortable with the argument that there should be no objection to the participation  of communal parties  in a democratic alliance. My views on this are conditioned by the history of religion-based mobilisations in India, where the communist movement has from time to time allied with communal groups of all colours, with disastrous consequences. Some material on this theme may be read here .  Nor can I agree that Islamists, Hindutva groups or Khalistanis etc. can be described as 'religious parties'. I do not mean to justify alliances with 'secular' tyrants, but to remind anyone who cares to listen, that communalism is also an expression of tyranny.  Communalists proceed on the assumption that membership of a religious community automatically produces a political interest, and strive to create that interest. They enter democratic move
Read more