Dilip Simeon's blog

NB: American investment bank Goldman Sachs  has focused on India's elections to advocate 'reforms' in Indian labour laws.. Their main objective seems to be an even further roll-back of basic trade-union rights, which are the crux of democracy.  It cited the example of Gujarat which had taken a series of steps to make its labour laws 'flexible' and West Bengal which made pro worker changes to drive home its point. The situation in SEZ's is far worse than noticed by these bankers; and is generally ignored by the 'mainstream' media, which (by and large) seems to assume that workers rights are a nuisance. Labour laws that are meant to be in force in SEZ's are in fact negated by the provision that all economic activity is dubbed 'public utility', & strikes therefore rendered  illegal. Minimum wages are not paid, long hours imposed, hirings & firings take place at whim & due benefits not implemented. I will add more on this shortly, ...

If the law has any sanctity, the Congress party's candidate for Saharanpur,  Imran Masood , who has now been arrested, ought to be speedily prosecuted for threatening to chop BJP prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi into pieces. And if politics was about morality, the Congress would quickly rid itself of this rabble-rousing oik and field someone else in his place, rather than merely condemning him and canceling a rally in his support where Rahul Gandhi was to speak.  (Congress candidate Imran Masood who threatened to kill Narendra Modi arrested)   But then we already know that in India today, the law has little sanctity and politics no room for morality of any kind.    Consider Exhibit No. 1, Varun Gandhi.   In 2009, video recordings emerged of the callow BJP leader boasting before a crowd in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh that his were not ordinary hands. "These are the hands of  the 'kamal' ," he roared, referring to the party's poll symbol, adding, "And...

In a seething tweet today, BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi attacked both his party and its newest recruit, Sabir Ali from Bihar. Mr Naqvi did not name Mr Ali, but posted, "Terrorist Bhatakal friend join BJP...soon accepting dawood........". The tweet linked Mr Ali to Yasin Bhatkal, the alleged chief of terror group Indian Mujahideen, who was arrested in August last year.  The Mujahideen, according to investigators, were behind October's bomb blasts in Patna at the venue of a rally for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate  Narendra Modi . Six people were killed and nearly 80 injured.  Mr Ali, 58, was recently expelled from the Janata Dal (United) or JD(U) by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Mr Naqvi's tweet is the latest installment of dissent within the BJP over its new inductees. "Everyone knows his background... it is public record. I'm asking for the party to correct an error," he said to reporters.  BJP spokesman Sudhanshu Trivedi said the indu...

We, the undersigned express our deep shock at the rejection of the anticipatory bail application of Teesta  Setalvad and four others in what is being called the Gulberg Embezzlement Case, by the City sessions court of Ahmedabad. From its beginning, the so-called embezzlement has been the concoction of elements instigated by the state government of Gujarat, including the Gujarat Crime Branch. In January 2014, an FIR was registered against the five accused for defrauding the members of the Gulberg Society of funds meant for the building of the Gulberg Memorial commemorating the state sponsored carnage.   It may be in order to recall the facts of the case, especially, since a section of the media is spreading canards that the funds thus raised were used for buying jewellery, wine and such like, and gloating over the possibility of the arrest of Teesta Setalvad and others. First, the complainant in the case, Feroze Khan, had forged the letterhead of the Gulberg Society to f...

NEW YORK (AP) — Jonathan Schell, the crusading author, journalist and anti-war activist who condemned conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq and warned of a nuclear holocaust in terrifying detail in his galvanizing best seller, The Fate of the Earth  has died at age 70.   Schell's companion, Irena Gross, told The Associated Press that he died Tuesday at their home in New York City. The cause was cancer, she said Wednesday. With a hatred of war shaped in part by his firsthand accounts of U.S. military operations in Vietnam, Schell wrote for decades about the consequences of violence — real and potential — with a rage and idealism that never seemed to wane. As gentle in person as he was impassioned on paper, Schell was a reporter and columnist for The New Yorker and Newsday among others and most recently the "peace and disarmament correspondent" for The Nation, where his last column appeared in the fall. He wrote several books, notably "The Village of Ben Suc" about ...