Posts tagged ‘Uttar Pradesh’

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26/10/2013

Congress should apologise for Muslim ‘terror slur’, says Modi – The Hindu

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lashed out at his key rival Rahul Gandhi at a rally, alleging that the Congress vice-president defamed Muslims by suggesting some Muzaffarnagar riot victims were being cultivated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, party president Rajnath Singh and other leaders at a rally in Jhansi on Friday.

“Instead of levelling allegations at an entire qaum [community],” Mr. Modi said in Jhansi, “he should disclose the names of those who were in touch with the Inter-Services Intelligence.” “If he cannot do that, he should render a public apology to all Muslim youth.”

Mr. Modi’s effort to position himself as a defender of young Muslims against terror-related slurs comes against the backdrop of allegations he was personally complicit in faked encounters, as well as the pogrom of 2002.

Mr. Gandhi had sparked off a still-snowballing controversy on Thursday, saying that an intelligence official told him that the ISI had made contact with a group of 10 to 15 Muzaffarnagar Muslims who had lost kin in the riots. His remarks were made at a rally in Indore.

However, Uttar Pradesh Additional Director-General of Police Mukul Goel had said the authorities “have no such information.”

Mr. Modi criticised intelligence officials for sharing classified information with a Member of Parliament. “The nation wants to know why intelligence services are reporting to him and why they are giving input for his speeches,” he said.

These allegations were mirrored, almost word-for-word, by Uttar Pradesh’s Urban Development Minister Mohammad Azam Khan – ironically himself alleged by the BJP to have been involved in the riots. He said Mr. Gandhi “should reveal the names of the youths who were in contact with Pakistan’s intelligence agency or else he should apologise to Muslims.”

Influential clerics, including Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, Maulana Abdul Iran Miyan Farangi Mahal and Maulana Saif Avbas Naqvi, condemned Mr. Gandhi\’s statement.

via Congress should apologise for Muslim ‘terror slur’, says Modi – The Hindu.

Posted in India alert, Internal politics, Politics | 1 Comment »

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21/10/2013

Photo gallery: A walk through Mayawati’s Dalit park | India Insight

On a hot Tuesday afternoon, I walked into the recently reopened Dalit park in Noida, outside New Delhi. This is the park built by Mayawati, the 57-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, as a memorial to the class of people long known in India as “untouchables.” A Dalit herself, Mayawati is a symbol of what traditionally oppressed classes and castes in India can do with their lives.

Of course, Mayawati has been accused by her political opponents of wasting money — lots of it. She seems like an easy target, especially when she has commissioned statues of herself. For a senior Congress politician, erecting one’s own statue was an act of ‘megalomania’. But the symbolism that this structure seeks to attach itself with — asserting Dalit identity and acknowledging “sacrifices” made by people of backward classes — is hard to miss.

The high central chamber of the Dalit park, which is a short drive into Uttar Pradesh from Delhi, draws heavily on Buddhist architecture. It houses statues of B. R. Ambedkar, who helped draft India’s Constitution; Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party that Mayawati now heads; and the former chief minister herself with her ubiquitous handbag, an uncommon thing for a living politician to do.

The 40-metre-high structure is surrounded by 20 sculptures of elephants, 10 on either side. The remaining complex, built at a cost of nearly 7 billion rupees ($113 million), includes bronze statues of Ambedkar and other “pioneers of social transformation,” and replicas of the Ashoka Chakra.

“The Dalits fought like anybody else in the struggle against the British. She is underscoring it that it is this part of history that you have not talked about for the last 65 years,” said Sohail Hashmi, a Delhi-based historian.

The park was inaugurated by Mayawati two years ago. But when the Samajwadi Party came to power last year, led by Akhilesh Yadav, a probe was ordered into alleged irregularities in its construction. The investigation is still on but Yadav threw open the park on Oct. 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, a decision that caused controversy of its own.

Spread over some 80 acres, the “Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal” (or the national Dalit memorial)  is located on the banks of the Yamuna river.

One of the 4,000 visitors to visit the park in the week since it was reopened was Rajiv Prasad.

“I wanted to witness the history and achievements of our people. The history of the oppressed people that has been written gives us self-confidence. If money has been spent on this, it’s good,” said the college principal from Bihar, born in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh.

Neeraja Choudhury, a political analyst, said there probably are better ways to assert the identity of India’s so-called backward classes.“If I were to do it, I would certainly go in for Dalit education because the largest group of illiterates in the world is Dalit girls. Seven hundred crores would have gone a long way in building those high quality institutions to bring about educational revolution for Dalits.”

via Photo gallery: A walk through Mayawati’s Dalit park | India Insight.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/prognosis/indian-challenges/

Posted in Caste, Dalit, Economics, India alert, Politics, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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21/10/2013

Documentary ‘Katiyabaaz’ shines spotlight on India’s power shortage | India Insight

A documentary about a power thief, the government official who tries to stop him, and the larger story about the lack of power and infrastructure in India’s small towns is making news at the Mumbai Film Festival.

“Katiyabaaz” (Powerless) chronicles the clash between Loha Singh, a Robin Hood-style power thief who claims to be the best in the business, and Ritu Maheshwari, a government official who is determined to stop power theft in the industrial town of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The film will screen at the Mumbai Film Festival, which begins Friday.

Directed by documentary filmmakers Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar, the 84-minute movie screened at the Berlin and Tribeca film festivals before appearing in Mumbai.

“The film is as much about the energy crisis in India and globally as it is about the ingenuity and tenacity of the people in Kanpur. It is also a film about the challenges of governance, the numbers and scale that our policymakers must contend with,” Kakkar told Reuters in an email interview.

Mustafa, who is from Kanpur, and Kakkar spent more than two years following Loha Singh as he climbed electricity poles, strung together wires and brought power to several small workshops and businesses that need uninterrupted power to function.

“It’s all because of him – it is his blessing that this workshop is running,” one worker says as the lights flicker on.

The Indian government estimates that almost 20 percent of power generated in the country is stolen. The country has never overcome its chronic power crisis, and some analysts say it is a key reason why it might fall behind in its quest to compete with China and other developing nations. Peak demand shortage is pegged at 10 percent, according to government estimates.

In an industrial town like Kanpur, known for its leather and textile industries, lack of power can be crippling, and lives and livelihoods are at stake, Mustafa said.

“It is ostensibly a story about a lack of infrastructure, but I like to think that it also touches upon many other aspects of life in cities in India, the inequalities and struggles therein. For me, the city of Kanpur itself is a character to be reckoned with on film,”  he said.

The protagonist of the film, he said was a “discovery’, and symbolic of the travails that his city had to face.

“We met a lot of electricity thieves in Kanpur (indeed, it seems half the city steals electricity), but no one like Loha, a person who owned himself, a legend in his neighborhood, foul-mouthed, fiercely independent, a true working class hero, and a product of the travails of the city,” said Mustafa.

In the trailer of the film, Singh is shown biting off wires, attaching them to electricity poles, and laughing off threats from Maheshwari’s people, who are determined to stop power theft. Often, he is supported by citizens, who blame the government for not providing them with uninterrupted power.

“The electricity people force even an honest man to become a thief,” an irate man tells the  camera.

It is this inequality and dichotomy that both film-makers said stood out starkly during their film-making process.

“The scale of energy paucity in India is staggering. Of the 1.5 billion people worldwide who live without power, 400 million live in India. We want to put this crisis into perspective and bring it home to people,” Kakkar said.

via Documentary ‘Katiyabaaz’ shines spotlight on India’s power shortage | India Insight.

Posted in Economics, Electricity, energy, India alert | Leave a Comment »

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08/09/2013

Army summoned to quell communal violence that kills 15 in north Indian state

Reuters: “The Indian army was called in, an unusual measure, to contain communal violence pitting Hindus against Muslims that killed at least 15 people in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Indian army vehicles patrol on a deserted road during a curfew in Muzaffarnagar, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh September 8, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer

An army contingent of up to 800 was dispatched to the area on Saturday night, as armed gangs of Jats, a group practicing Hinduism, stormed a mosque and a village with Muslim residents, the state’s principal home secretary R.M. Srivastava said.

“We had sought assistance of the army last night after we found the violence spreading across to other villages,” Srivastava told Reuters.

“In fact, we were able to bring things under control until fresh violence broke out in (a) village Sunday morning.”

The violence erupted on Saturday following a meeting attended by Jats in Muzaffarnagar district, 140 km (90 miles) northeast of New Delhi. Police said 10 people died, including a journalist and photographer, and about 35 were injured.

Five more were killed in a fresh outbreak on Sunday morning.

A curfew was imposed in three districts,

“I would appeal to all the people there to maintain peace and do not trust or listen to any rumors,” Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, told reporters.

The Jats are demanding the rescinding of charges against members of their community in connection with a communal clash last month in which three people were killed.

Arun Kumar, a senior police official, said tensions were fuelled by an online video purporting to show the killing of two Muslim youths last month.

Local media said about 50 outbreaks of communal tension have occurred in populous Uttar Pradesh since the region’s Samajwadi (Socialist) Party came to power last year. More than 25 people have died.”

via Army summoned to quell communal violence that kills 15 in north Indian state | Reuters.

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25/08/2013

Police crack down on Ayodhya yatra

The Hindu: “With the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s 84 Kosi Parikrama Yatra set to begin from the banks of the Saryu River on Sunday, the Uttar Pradesh administration on Saturday cracked down on the Hindu rightwing organisation, arresting over 350 of its activists across the State.

Security personnel patrol a street in Ayodhya on Friday.

The administration sealed entry points into the district as the VHP remained defiant, determined to go ahead with its yatra, which is being held in support of a Ram Mandir at the disputed site here. The yatra has been banned by the State.

BJP MLA Savitri Bai Phule, VHP’s provincial coordinator Acharya Kushmuni and Mahant Santosh Das alias Sathu Baba, a VHP office-bearer in Varanasi, were taken into preventive custody or put under house arrest, while prominent VHP leader Mahant Ram Saran Das was held at Ram Sanehi Ghat in Ayodhya.

Scores of VHP activists were arrested in various parts of the State, including Kanpur (100), Allahabad (43) and Basti (18). Arrest warrants have been issued against VHP leaders Ashok Singhal, Praveen Togadia and Ram Vilas Vedanti, Faizabad district magistrate Vipin Kumar Dwivedi said.

The police raided the VHP’s suspected hideouts, forcing many of its leaders and activists to go underground. However, according to local sources, senior leaders could appear with seers.

Lucknow IG Subash Chandra, who conducted a tour of vulnerable spots, said, “This yatra goes against tradition. We are fully prepared not to let it happen. Section 144 Cr.PC has been imposed and action will be taken against those violating it.”

Schools have been converted into temporary jails to keep those booked under Section 144.

The administration expected around 40,000 people to participate. However, the VHP maintained that no common people were invited and that politicians would not get on the dais to address the seers or participants. Around 200-250 seers would participate in the yatra, which the VHP defined as a “padhyatra [march] to awaken the Hindus within the cultural boundary [roughly 250 km] of Ayodhya.”

VHP president Praveen Togadia said that it was “not a large congregation” so the State government should not panic. It was actually a march but since the saints termed it “parikrama” it was being viewed as a traditional parikrama. The State justified the ban, pointing out that the traditional period for staging the parikrama had passed in April-May. Sharad Sharma, VHP spokesperson said, “It is the right of the seers to carry out the yatra. This is religious, not political. The government has ruined the atmosphere for its political gains.”

Amid speculation that the VHP might cancel the yatra at the last moment fearing administrative action and considering the law and order situation, Mr. Sharma said, “This will be decided at the last moment. If the seers decide to carry out rituals at the starting point itself, that will be followed. But there is no possibility of cancellation.”

Mr. Sharma lashed out at the SP government for “working under the grip of Azam Khan [Minister]” to appease Muslims, who are a votebank for the party.”

via Police crack down on Ayodhya yatra – The Hindu.

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Posted in India alert, Politics, religion, Religious clash | Leave a Comment »

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31/07/2013

Divide Uttar Pradesh into four states, Mayawati says

As we said in our post yesterday – https://chindia-alert.org/2013/07/30/bbc-news-india-coalition-approves-new-state-of-telangana/, India now has double the states it started with after independence. And the more sub-divisions are approved, it seems that more ethnic/language groups want their own state.  Where will it all end?

Times of India: “The Bahujan Samaj Party demanded splitting of Uttar Pradesh into four smaller states on Wednesday, a day after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) urged the government to form a separate state of Telangana.

“We have always supported smaller states,” BSP chief Mayawati said here at a press conference.

She said Uttar Pradesh should be divided into four smaller states — Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Pashchim Pradesh.

English: Map of UP subregions. It has been bui...

English: Map of UP subregions. It has been built on the public domain work “Uttar Pradesh locator map.svg” in Wikipedia. This work is also public domain. Free for any and all use without any restrictions whatsoever. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“When this population is divided between four states, development will increase,” she said.

“Ministers in central government who hail from Uttar Pradesh should build pressure on the central government for formation of these states,” she added.”

via Divide Uttar Pradesh into four states, Mayawati says – The Times of India.

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06/04/2013

* Who Is Varun Gandhi?

WSJ: “Varun Gandhi has an impressive political pedigree. He belongs to the dynasty that gave India three prime ministers. All were members of the currently ruling Congress party.

His first cousin, Rahul Gandhi, 42, is the vice president of Congress, and viewed as a likely prime ministerial candidate for his party in next year’s national election.

But Varun, 33, has taken a different path. He was elected to Parliament in 2009 with the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, and last week was appointed as party general secretary.

Varun is the son of Sanjay Gandhi, who died in a plane crash in 1980. Until his death, Sanjay was being groomed to succeed his mother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, as leader of the Congress party.

Sanjay’s younger brother, Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul’s father, took up her mantle instead, and later became prime minister.

Varun was only a few months old when his father died. His mother Maneka Gandhi soon fell out with her mother-in-law, Indira, and in 1983 formed her own political party, the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch. In 2004, she joined the Hindu right-wing BJP.

Varun has been active in politics since he was 19, working with his mother in the Pilibhit constituency in Uttar Pradesh state.

Following in his mother’s footsteps, in the 2004 elections, he campaigned for the BJP.”

via Who Is Varun Gandhi? – India Real Time – WSJ.

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09/12/2012

* India’s UP saw over 100 communal clashes in 2012

Despite the notion of unity in diversity, India continues to suffer from communal / ethnic clashes over 60 years after independence.

The Hindu: “Uttar Pradesh has earned the dubious distinction of witnessing over 100 communal clashes this year that left 34 people dead.

File photo of the family of 55-year-old Mohammed Umar, who was beaten to death in Mukeempur Pahadpur village near Faizabad on October 25, 2012 as violence erupted during Durga Puja celebrations.

The towns where incidents of such violence took place are Kosi Kalan in Mathura, Faizabad, Pratapgarh, Sitapur, Ghaziabad and Bareilly.

More than 450 people were also injured in these clashes which took place from January till October 31, Home Ministry officials said.

There were 84 incidents of communal clashes in the state in 2011 in which 12 people lost their lives.

The country witnessed 560 incidents of violence this year till October end, which claimed 89 lives, while in 2011, 580 clashes took place that left 91 people dead.

Uttar Pradesh was followed by Maharashtra where 83 incidents were reported so far this year in which 13 people were killed and 88 incidents in 2011 which claimed 15 lives.

Madhya Pradesh saw 78 incidents of communal violence so far this year in which 11 people were killed and in 2011, 81 incidents of communal clashes were reported that left 15 dead.

In Karnataka, there were 54 incidents of communal clashes in 2012 and 70 incidents in 2011 in which three and four people lost their lives respectively.

Rajasthan had witnessed 42 incidents of communal clashes in 2011 leading to death of 16 people while this year the state has witnessed 30 incidents of such violence and six dead.

There were 47 incidents of communal clashes in Gujarat in 2011, in which three persons lost their lives, and 50 incidents so far this year in which five were killed.

Andhra Pradesh saw 33 communal clashes in 2011 in which one died and so far this year, 45 clashes took place in which two were killed.

There were 30 incidents of communal clashes in Kerala in 2011, in which one died, and 46 incidents in this year in which one was killed.

Bihar witnessed 26 incidents with four deaths last year and 17 incidents this year in which three persons were killed.

Tamil Nadu saw 21 incidents of communal violence and two deaths in 2011 and 11 incidents with two deaths this year so far.

There were 15 incidents in West Bengal in 2011 in which three persons were killed, and 22 incidents in this year, in which eight persons were killed.”

via The Hindu : News / National : UP saw over 100 communal clashes in 2012.

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07/09/2012

* Indian Caste affirmative action – controversy

Reuters: “Passions are running high in parliament and the stakes are huge. The contentious issue of reservation is back to haunt Indian politics and it may well decide who runs the next government in the world’s largest democracy. Sparks were seen flying in the upper house on Wednesday when two MPs from rival parties came to blows during the tabling of a bill to amend the Constitution, providing for reservations in promotions at work for backward castes.

Photo

The issue, however, is nothing new. Reservation is a recurring theme in India’s democracy. And Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s embattled government seems to be returning to identity politics at a time when it is badly cornered, thanks to a string of corruption scandals, a ballooning fiscal deficit and low investor sentiment.

The move comes after the Supreme Court in April struck down former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s policy of a promotion quota in government service.

It also comes at a time India is seeing something of an upsurge in communal tensions that seem to have been stoked by political parties — witness the Bodo-Muslim violence in the northeast, which the BJP has linked to illegal immigration, a favourite fallback of politicians around the world when they are short on ideas and achievements. At the other end of the country, in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has been stirring sentiment against Sri Lankans.

While affirmative action is recognised in several countries and even gender quotas for woman have been debated in Europe, the multiplicity of religious, cultural, caste and class identities in the world’s second most populous country make it a complex issue.

Reservation in jobs and educational institutions for the underprivileged in a country where the caste system reduced millions to the status of untouchables for centuries is much needed. And almost all opposition to reservation comes from the so-called higher castes who believe it isn’t fair to them.

A promotion quota is, however, a different ball game. After getting a job, shouldn’t all employees be given an equal opportunity to learn, prove themselves and move high up the organisational ladder? As it is, the practice of promoting employees on the basis of seniority — the case with almost all government service promotions — is an archaic idea. Add to it the reservation in promotions and it becomes a heady cocktail of low productivity and mismanagement.”

via India Insight.

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31/07/2012

* Powerless again: Northern, eastern grids fail

The Hindu: “The northern and eastern grids tripped on Tuesday, leading to power failure in several States of the country affecting hundreds of millions of people.

The northern grid collapsed for a second day on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the power supply was restored in the entire northern region following a disruption on Monday. The eastern transmission lines too failed on Tuesday afternoon, said officials at the Power Ministry and electricity companies.

Services in the national capital came to a grinding halt as power supply snapped around 1.30 p.m. The load fell to 40 MW and all of Delhi’s generation station stopped working, because of the cascading effect of the fault in the grid.

“We don’t have the details yet, but yes, there is a problem with the Grid again. Right now, the priority is to secure power supply for emergency services,” said a senior official of the Delhi Government’s Power Department.

On Monday, eight states attached to the Norther Region plunged into darkness after a grid collapse.

…

PTI adds:

Power supply was disrupted in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal, Assam and Punjab, among other States.

“Yes, I’ve heard that the northern and eastern grids have failed. We are looking into the matter. We are inquiring,” Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said.

The power crisis led to immediate shutdown of Delhi Metro lines in the national capital, while a host of other services including railways were also affected.

“We are again having problems in northern grid,” K. Soonee, CEO of Power System Operating Co said.

Power Ministry officials said that eastern grid has also failed. The reasons for the grid failure were not immediately known.

While an almost 15-hour power crisis was seen in the northern part on Monday, the crisis on Tuesday reached the eastern region as well.”

via The Hindu : News / National : Powerless again: Northern, eastern grids fail.

Posted in Economics, Electricity, India alert | 1 Comment »

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