Greetings to Dr Binayak Sen on his 61st birthday tomorrow

Dr Binayak Sen, who is in Raipur jail following his conviction by a Chhattisgrah sessions judge on a charge of sedition, will be 61 tomorrow.

People’s Watch has appealed to human rights defenders everywhere to demonstrate solidarity with him on his birthday.

Below is a message received from People's Watch in this connection:

January 03, 2011

Dear colleagues and friends,

New Year’s Greetings!

Tomorrow, the 4^th of January, 2011, is the 61^st birthday of Dr. Binayak Sen. Let us flood the Raipur Jail with greetings, telegrams and cards to Dr. Sen wishing him on his birthday.

Raipur Additional District and Sessions Judge B. P. Verma sentenced PUCL’s (People’s Union for Civil Liberties) National Vice President Dr. Binayak Sen to life imprisonment under charges of sedition 124 (A) of the IPC read with conspiracy (120-B IPC) along with convicting him concurrently u/s 8-(1), (2), (3) and (5) of the Chhattisgarh Vishesh Jan Suraksha Adhiniyam,2005 (Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act, 2005) and u/sec 39 (2) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004 (amended) on the 24^th of December 2010. Dr Binayak Sen is a pioneer of health care to marginalized and indigenous communities in Chhattisgarh, where the state police and armed Maoists have been engaged in clashes over the last seven years. He has reported on unlawful killings of Adivasis (Indigenous People) by the police and by Salwa Judum, a private militia widely held to be sponsored by the state authorities to fight the armed Maoists.

Appended (picture above) is a model greeting that you could use.

The email id to send messages to Dr. Binayak Sen on his birthday on 4th January 2011 is drkkgupta61@yahoo.com.

The fax number to send him birthday messages is 92-771- 2886313. The telephone number is 91- 771-2886027.

With best regards,

Sabitha

Secretariat,

HRD Alert - India and People's Watch

The Lesson of the Decade

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The United Nations had designated the first 10 years of this century as the “decade for a culture of peace and non-violence for the children of the world.” However, it is unlikely that anyone in India will see it as a time when children found themselves in a congenial environment. Chroniclers are calling it the decade of scams.

Three major financial swindles were reported in 2001, the first year of the decade. The biggest of them involved the Unit Trust of India, a mutual fund organisation set up under an act of Parliament nearly four decades earlier. The financial loss was estimated at Rs48 billion.

Every passing year since then threw up at least one major scam involving the Central government or one of the state governments. The last year, 2010, was the worst with large-scale irregularities in the grant of telecom licences, conduct of the Commonwealth Games, allotment of land in Maharashtra and Karnataka and sanction of loans by the state-owned LIC Housing Finance Limited coming to light

The telecom scam, currently under investigation, resulted in an estimated loss of Rs1,760 billion to the exchequer and is described as the biggest single swindle in the country’s history. Unofficial sources have put the total cost of all known scams at Rs73,000 billion.

A commentator has pointed out that the scam money is 27 per cent more than the gross domestic product of Rs53,000 billion and that this was enough to give the 400 million Indians living below the poverty line a cash subsidy of Rs182,000 each.

Businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians are the beneficiaries of the scams. Many of them have invested the ill-gotten money in land or parked it abroad. Indians are reportedly holding an estimated Rs71,000 billion in secret Swiss bank accounts.

Many of the scams can be linked directly to the big developmental effort set in motion by the economic liberalisation policy and the globalisation process which got under way in the 1990s. The shady stock market deals and corruption in the grant of licences fall in this category.

Corruption in a fast developing economy is not unusual. England went through such a phase as money flowing in from newly established colonies, notably India, fuelled industrial growth. The spread of corruption in China after the opening up of the economy in 1978 is well known.

Both England and China came down heavily on corruption. Robert Clive and Warren Hastings who looted India were tried by Parliament when they returned home. Chen Liangyu and Chen Xitong, who were both members of the powerful Politburo of the Communist Party of China, are now serving long prison terms on corruption charges.

In India, central and state ministers belonging to many political parties have attracted charges of corruption and some have been forced to step down but no one of consequence has been sent to jail. Biased investigation, inept prosecution and tardy court proceedings have helped the accused to get away.

When former Kerala chief minister K Karunakaran died last month, the corruption case registered against him two decades ago had not reached the trial stage. Madhu Koda, who allegedly amassed about Rs40 billion during 2006-08 when he was chief minister of Jharkhand, has been in judicial custody since November 2009 but there is no knowing when the case against him will come up in court.

Observers of a later period may not view the developments of the past decade in the same way as contemporary chroniclers. They may focus on the developmental activity of the period instead of the corruption that it generated. The 40 per cent growth in the telecom network in 2010 may interest them more than the big loot by politicians, officials and businessmen.

The decade saw Indian companies mopping up a staggering Rs2.09 trillion through public issues. Coal India, a big public sector undertaking, and Reliance Power, a big private corporation, made the biggest hauls.

Nine companies entered the capital market in the first three years of the decade and raised about Rs25 billion. Investors were shy at that time as a couple of stock market scams had just come to light. As the memory of the scandals receded, the market became buoyant.

Looking beyond the scams, the lesson of the decade is that if a reasonable level of accountability can be established the pace of development can be accelerated.--Gulf Today, Sharjah, January 3, 2011.

Binayak Sen: 'My prosecution is mala fide; it is persecution'

The following is the text of a statement which Dr. Binayak Sen submitted to the Chhattisgrah court during his trial:

I am a trained medical doctor with a specialization in child health. I completed my MBBS from the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1972, and completed studies leading to the award of the degree of MD (Paediatrics) of the Madras University, from the same institution in 1976. After this, I joined the faculty of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and worked there for two years, before leaving to join a field based health programme at the Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia in Hoshangabad, MP. During the two years I worked there, I worked intensively in the diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis and understood many of the social and economic causes of disease. I was also strongly influenced by the work of Marjorie Sykes, the biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, who lived at the Rasulia centre at that time.

I came to Chhattisgarh in 1981 and worked upto 1987 at Dalli Rajhara (district Durg), where, along with the late Shri Shankar Guha Niyogi and the workers of the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh, I helped to establish the Shaheed Hospital, that continues to practice low cost and rational medicine for the adivasis and working people of the surrounding areas upto the present. After leaving Dalli Rajhara, I worked to develop a health programme among the Adivasi population in and around village Bagrumnala, which today is in Dhamtari district.

This work depended on a large group of village based health workers who were trained and guided by me. When the new state of Chhattisgarh was formed, I was appointed a member of the advisory group on Health Care Sector reforms, and helped to develop the Mitanin programme, which in turn, became the role model for the ASHA of the National Rural Health Mission. A copy of the Order of the Department of Health and Family Welfare of the Govt. of Chhattisgarh regarding my nomination to the advisory group mentioned above is attached. (Annexure 1.)

My work in the area of community health, as well as my work on Human Rights which is detailed below, has been nationally and internationally recognized. I have been awarded the Paul Harrison Award by the CMC Vellore in 2004; the RR Keithan Gold medal by the Indian Academy of Social Sciences in 2007; and have received the Jonathan Mann award for Health and Human rights from the Global Health Council in 2008. I am attaching notarized copies of the citations of these awards with this statement, and am carrying the originals for the perusal of the court. (Annexures 2, 3, 4 and 5)

I have been a member of the Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) since 1981. The PUCL is an organization devoted to the preservation of constitutional civil liberties and human rights that was founded by the late Shri Jayprakash Narayan during the years of the Emergency. In Chhattisgarh, as well as in many other parts of the country, the PUCL led the campaign for the preservation of the freedom of speech, prevention of custodial violence, and for the public accountability of the police. I became General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh unit of the PUCL in 2004, and am currently the President of the State unit, and Vice President of its National body.

In Chhattisgarh, the PUCL has been in the forefront of exposing the atrocities of the police. Atrocities by men in uniform against vulnerable sections continue to be a serious problem in the state, as the front page news item in the "Sunday Times" dated 12th September 2010, annexed hereto as Annexure 6 shows. In this situation PUCL's efforts were always directed towards the establishment of good governance and constitutional values. PUCL findings and investigations were always made available in the public domain through press releases and its own publications. One such Press Release reporting investigation into police atrocities in Village Jiramtarai, Thana Koylibeda is annexed hereto as Annexure 7. The report of one such investigation pertaining to police atrocities in Katgaon (Kanker district) was published in the "Navbharat" and "Deshbandhu" newspapers which are annexed hereto as Annexure 8and 9 respectively. A PUCL publication on the State of Human Rights in Chhattisgarh is appended to this statement. (Annexure 10). In this connection PUCL regularly corresponded with the National and State Human Rights Commissions. Copies of some of the letters sent to the PUCL by the National Human Rights Commission (collectively) and the State Human Rights Commission are attached to this statement. (Annexure 11 and 12)

Apart from investigating and documenting many cases of Human Rights abuse involving the police, the PUCL has acted as a whistleblower in the matter of exposing the true nature of the Salwa Judum. The Salwa Judum, which began in the Dantewada district in 2005, has been represented by the state government as a spontaneous peoples' movement against the Maoists active in the area. However, an investigation led by the PUCL and involving several other Human Rights organizations revealed that it was in reality a state sponsored and state funded as well as completely unaccountable vigilante force, to which arms were provided by the government. The activities of the Salwa Judum have led to the emptying of more than 600 villages, and the forced displacement of over 60,000 people. Concerns regarding the activities of the Salwa Judum have been expressed by several independent organizations including the National Human Rights Commission. International organizations like the UNICEF have also voiced serious concern and have invited me to dialogue with them about the restoration of normalcy in the region affected by Salwa Judum. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has also, on several occasions, expressed its grave concern over the activities of the Salwa Judum and the deployment of armed vigilantes for the promotion of state policy. This has been widely reported in the press. A Table with an indicative list of agencies that have made critical observations on the Salwa Judum is attached (Annexure 13). A copy of the report on the Salwa Judum by the Chhattisgarh PUCL and other organizations (Annexure 14), and copies of the investigation reports on the Salwa Judum brought out by the Independent Citizens Initiative and Asian Centre for Human Rights are being filed along with this statement (Annexure 15 and 16 respectively). An invitation from the UNICEF, Chhattisgarh Regional Office to participate in a dialogue to seek a resolution to the crisis in Dantewada as a fallout of the Salwa Judum is similarly attached to my statement (Annexure 17). Press reports in the Hitavada, dated 23.10.2010 pertaining to the Hon. Supreme Court's critical observations are attached (Annexure no 29), as are Certified copies of Supreme Court orders that make critical observations on the Salwa Judum are also being attached (Annexure 18)

The PUCL has also, during 2006, organized two major conventions, opposing the proposal to enact the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, because it has been, and continues to be, our view that this Act contravenes the civil liberties assured to us in the constitution. I have expressed these views in the Press as well, and am attaching with this submission a copy of newspaper carrying a press report of such a convention (Annexure 19), as well as a copy of the newspaper "Chhattisgarh" dated 30th March 2006 in which my interview appears in this regard. (Annexure 20) A Civil Writ Petition (Writ Petition No 2163/2009) challenging the vires of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act has been filed by the PUCL in the Chhattisgarh High Court. Certified copies of the Court orders admitting this petition and issuing notice are being filed along with this statement (Annexure 21).

For all the reasons mentioned above, the Chhattisgarh police and the state government have harboured a grudge against me, and the then DGP of Chhattisgarh, Mr OP Rathore, has gone on record threatening to take action against the PUCL and its office bearers. Copies of a newspaper of 3rd January 2006 carrying a report to this effect are attached to my statement. (Annexure 22)

I have been concerned with the rights of prisoners in my capacity as a Human Rights worker and was approached by the family of Mr Narayan Sanyal to look after his health and well being after he was brought to Raipur jail in 2006. My first visit to him in jail was in the company of his family and lawyer. Subsequently, I obtained permission from the police authorities for visiting him in jail, and visited him several times, each time applying to do so in my capacity as a PUCL office bearer. After my visits, I informed his family members about his condition over the telephone. During the course of these visits, it was brought to my notice that the surgery on his hands that was necessary for medical purposes, was being delayed due to communication problems between the jail and the doctors in the Raipur Medical College. I played a role in facilitating his surgery and kept his family informed about the process. During this period there was considerable correspondence between the prisoner's family, jail administration and medical authorities, of which copies were marked to me. I attach along with this statement copies of the letter written by Mr Radha Madhav Sanyal (brother of Narayan Sanyal) to the Jail Superintendent with a copy to me (Annexure 23); copies of my applications to visit Mr Narayan Sanyal in jail which were obtained through an application under the RTI (Annexure 24); copy of the written permission given to me by Shri BS Maravi, Senior Superintendent of Police, Raipur (Annexure 25) and copies of the correspondence from the Jail authorities to the medical doctors mentioned above with copies marked to me (Annexure 26).

It was with similar concern for the situation of prisoners that I acted upon the letter received in the post from one Madanlal Barkhade about prison conditions in the Raipur Central Jail. I released his letter to the press in Raipur and attach the newspaper in which the aforesaid letter was published. (Annexure 27)

The documents seized from my house during the house search on 19.5.2007 were those of concern to me in the ordinary and transparent conduct of my work. Human rights organizations from all over the country used to send me books, pamphlets and documents, and there were thousands of these lying in my residence, which I also used as my office. None of the seized documents had been secretly or clandestinely obtained. Document No. A 19 was sent to me by post by Shri Govindan Kutty, Editor, Peoples' March. Document no A 20, purported to be written by Madanlal Barkhade was similarly received by me in the regular post. The document A 21 was sent to me by Dr Kalpana Kannabiran, one of the authors of the article, then Professor at the National Law School Hyderabad, by e-mail. Article A 22, photocopy of a hand written document, and Articles A 23 and A 36 were available for distribution at a seminar on the Salwa Judum organized by the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi in January, 2007, to which I was invited , and were picked up by me there. Article A 24 was received by me in the post. Newspaper clippings A 25 to A 35 are newspaper clippings that I had maintained in furtherance of my interest in the emerging situation in Chhattisgarh.

Several policemen in the search party were involved in the process of the search at my house. Having found a document, the person finding it would hand it over to Mr Rajput. Mr Rajput would first read it, and then hand it over to me for my signature. He would also sign it himself. After we had both put our signatures on the document, he would dictate to TI Jagrit what was to be written in the seizure memo. Mr Jagrit would then make the entry, following which Mr Rajput would then hand over the document to Mr Jagrit. In this manner, each document was seized, signed, and entered in the seizure memo. None of the documents were signed by the public witnesses in my presence. Nor were the documents sealed in my presence. At the end of the search process the documents were carried away in a paper bag in an unsealed condition. Document A37 was never received by me to sign. It was not in my office, and was not seized during the search. It was fabricated after the search by the police to implicate me falsely.

When the challan in my case was filed, my advocate, Mr Amit Banerjee was present in court and received the chargesheet on my behalf. A copy of the chargesheet is annexed hereto as Annexure 28. Upon going through the charegesheet, we noticed that in the copies of articles A 19 to A 24, the signatures of the panch witnesses were not present in the documents. Copies of articles A 25 to A 37 were not supplied to us at the time. Despite a court order, the contents of the computer were copied onto DVDs without the presence of my advocate, and only DVDs of selected material from the computer were supplied later during the course of the trial. Out of the DVDs supplied, three relate to investigation of police atrocities / fake encounters in Golapally, Jiramtarai and Katgaon. My images on these tapes are in conversation with the villagers who are affected by these atrocities.

I have never seen Deepak Chaubey (PW7) until the time he testified in the court. I did not introduce Narayan Sanyal to him and his story that Narayan Sanyal was arrested from his house is patently untrue as, in fact, Sanyal was arrested in Bhadrachalam.

I submit that my prosecution is mala fide; in fact it is a persecution. I am being made an example of by the state government of Chhattisgarh as a warning to others not to expose the patent trampling of human rights taking place in the state. Documents have been fabricated by the police and false witnesses introduced in order to falsely implicate me.

Binayak Sen

Fighting off fascism

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

There are ominous signs on the Indian horizon. Two weeks ago Parliament ended its winter session without transacting any worthwhile business. Last week a district court in Chhattisgarh state sentenced a highly respected paediatric surgeon to life imprisonment on a charge of sedition.

Both houses of Parliament had remained paralysed throughout the session as a result of a strategy worked out by the main opposition, the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, to force the government to accept its demand for a joint parliamentary committee to go into what is believed to be the worst scam in the country’s history. The Left parties, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, worked with it on this issue.

The scam relates to the allocation of 2G spectrum by A Raja of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as Telecom minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. He resigned a few days ago and the Central Bureau of Investigation later interrogated him.

The last time the CPI-M and the BJP came together was in the early 1980s when both backed and sustained the government led by VP Singh. At that time the BJP raised the communal temperature in the country by mounting a campaign in support of the demand of its Sangh Parivar patrons for the construction of a Ram temple at the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya. Earlier, Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime had thrown the CPI-M and the BJP’s predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, together by targeting both simultaneously. The new camaraderie between the two parties is a matter of concern as the previous joint ventures had resulted in a weakening of the secular fabric.

Both the BJP and the Left have indicated that they will stall the budget session of Parliament also if the demand for JPC is not conceded. If the government is unable to present the budget and get a vote of account passed before the current financial year ends on March 31, 2011, there will be a constitutional crisis. It was stultification of the parliamentary process that had paved the way for the rise of fascism in Europe in the period between the two World Wars.

The Congress has its share of responsibility for the current impasse. There is reason believe that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was aware of the 2G scam but did not act in time.

The opposition’s fondness for JPC is misplaced inasmuch as previous JPCs did not yield any concrete results. The JPC on the Bofors scandal is an example. The government’s dislike of JPC is equally misplaced inasmuch as previous JPCs did not pose any insurmountable problems for the government of the day.

Developments on the judicial front, like those on the parliamentary front, are fraught with serious consequences for the future of the democratic set-up. The conviction of Dr Binayak Sen, who was working in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, is a case in point. What brought him into conflict with the authorities was his championship of human rights as president of the state unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

Chhattisgarh has been witnessing armed conflicts between Maoists and government forces for a few years. The support the rebels get from the tribal population has been a source of worry for the authorities as it hampers the operations of the police and paramilitary forces.

Sen was arrested in 2007 for allegedly aiding the banned Maoist party and held without bail for two years before the Supreme Court ordered his release and directed that the trial be concluded expeditiously. The trial court delivered judgment within the deadline set by the apex court but its finding has been received with shock and dismay by human rights activists in India and abroad. Amnesty International has declared Dr Sen a Prisoner of Conscience.

So flimsy was the evidence the prosecution presented that the judge could not clearly define the nature of the relationship between the rebels and Sen and his co-accused. He could only say they were “either members or supporters” of the banned group and “either participated in its organisational work or provided support and encouragement.” He justified the harsh sentence by pointing to the ruthless and merciless killing policemen and tribals by Maoists. His reasoning echoes the jingoist arguments of right-wing propagandists.

These developments suggest that the time has come for secular and democratic forces to mount an all-out campaign against incipient fascism.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 27, 2010.

A good doctor condemned to life term in jail: let this not go unchallenged

Amit Sengupta writes from Delhi:

The horrifying verdict of life imprisonment for Dr Binayak Sen, accused of unimaginable crimes such as treason and sedition, has come as a real new low in the dirty quagmire of a litany of injustices in this fragmented and corrupt, largest democracy in the world. It will immediately polarize the civil society with a collective howl of protest against this brazen injustice and the recharged longing for justice so brazenly denied to someone called 'the good doctor' all over the world. The judgment will definitely sharpen the solidarity of all sensitive, secular and democratic opinion in India and across the world, and prove the brazenly undemocratic and fascistic character of the BJP regime in Chhattisgarh, who went about concocting false charges against Dr Sen, despite almost no tangible evidence.

Raipur District and Sessions Court judge BP Varma on Friday found Dr Sen guilty on a variety of counts and also under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act.

According to the latest dispatch from PUCL General Secretary Kavita Srivastava from Raipur: "By now you all must have got to know about the conviction of Dr Binayak Sen u/s of 120(B), 124(A) of the IPC and 1,2,3,5, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Sec 39 (2) of the UAPA (2004 amended). Binayak was taken away immediately into custody. He was extremely equanimous. It was an emotional moment for Dr Sen's daughters and brother Dipanker Sen. His wife, Professor Ilina Sen, is upset but thinking ahead...

Said Prof Sen, "It is a sad day for me. It is a sadder day for Indian democracy. They had no evidence, nothing to prove the charges. They even termed me an ISI agent (ISI turned out to be the Indian Social Institute in Delhi). This is injustice and it's for all to see."

"This judgment is really unacceptable and unconstitutional. After all, two of the laws under which he has been convicted are themselves being questioned as far as their constitutional validity is concerned... We need to really build a campaign again. There was really no evidence," said Kavita Srivastava.

Dr Binayak Sen will appeal in the High Court at the earliest, though the court, in an uncanny timing of the judgement, will go on vacation from December 25. The other two co-accused,

Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal, have also been convicted. Some extra sections have been applied to Sanyal, accused of being a Maoist leader.

Most human rights activists, academics and even journalists who have covered the long imprisonment of Dr Sen in the past have reacted with utmost horror at the sheer injustice of the judgment, despite such widespread public opinion and factual evidence against the false cases against Dr Sen by the BJP-led regime in Chhattisgarh. "This is bizarre, shocking, inhuman, unjust, absolutely incomprehensible. How can the judge do that? How can they so publicly demonstrate such irrational behaviour? Such brazen injustice?" - this is the kind of remorse and anger flowing out of all over the country after the shocking judgment.

From university campuses to newspaper offices to middle-class homes and power corridors across India, this is a judgement which is seen to be clearly destroying the last edifices of the public perception of the Indian justice system, the faith in the judiciary and the idea of justice, and the faith which the civil society has on the edifices of democracy. "All kinds of scamsters and mass murderers are all over the power establishment and a man who lived and worked for the poor all this life, he is charged with sedition. What utter nonsense is this," said a JNU student.

Said Thomas Kocherry, leader of the National Fishermen's Federation, in a bulk email from Kochi: "Let us send out protest letters to the Chhattisgarh court and the state government and send out this to the whole world. It is unjust. An innocent man is arrested again. Is there any justice in this country? We have to keep protesting till Binayak Sen gets justice. We cannot keep quiet. We have to fight for the rights of the people. We cannot organise the people. This is the character of the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. Another Emergency is in the making in MP."

Dr Sen is currently a professor at the prestigious Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, of which he is an eminent alumnus. The entire alumni of CMC had petitioned for his release during his imprisonment. At least 22 Nobel Prize winners from all over the world had sought his immediate freedom and lauded the exemplary work Dr Sen had in the medical sciences, in it among the poorest of the poor, and in providing the best of treatment to the impoverished adivasis in the Hindi heartland. Distinguished artists, academics, filmmakers and writers like Sudhir Mishra, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Arundhati Roy, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Dilip Simeon, Praful Bidwai, Sanjay Kak, among others, had campaigned and petitioned for his freedom. Even Sri Sri Ravishankar had visited him at Raipur jail and sought his release, even as singers like Rabbi and Indian Ocean, and students from all across India and the world, organised protests, campaigns and concerts demanding freedom for the good doctor. In fact, the website www.binayaksen.net became an international forum for a vigorous and relentless campaign.

"This campaign will become national and global soon. This is certain. We start with a list of all those who have not been given life imprisonment for sedition and treason, including scamsters, criminals and mass murderers who call the shots in the Indian power establishment. We all know their names. Their names will be put up on the website. And the mass protests all over the world against the brazen injustice will start from now, right now, at this moment," said Satya Sivaraman, journalist, filmmaker and activist, who was one of the key catalysts in the campaign last time. This, when news is still trickling in, and a global and national web and SMS campaign is already underway. Indeed, TV channels are already moving in with the news.

'Free Dr Binayak Sen.' 'Freedom for the good doctor.' Surely, the old slogans are coming back

Protests against Binayak Sen's conviction

Human Rights activists are planning demonstrations outside the Chhattisgarh Bhavan and Jantar Mantar in New Delhi tomorrow in protest against the Raipur sessions court’s judgment holding famed pediatric surgeon and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties leader Dr Binayak Sen guilty of sedition and sentencing him to life imprisonment.

Details at http://www.facebook.com/l/09523;www.binayaksen.net

Henri Tiphange, Executive Director, People’s Watch, writes:

Dear Colleagues,

I have been wanting to wait for this judgement before mentioning anything about Xmas this Year .It is so unfortunate to hear the judgement of the Court on Dr. Binayak Sen . Let us only resolve as we get ready to celebrate the spirit of Xmas that our struggle for freedom and rights to human rights defenders have to continue.

Let me wish all of you a meaningful Christmas and challenging New Year 2011.
Let the visit of Ms. Margaret Sekagya , the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders to India from January10 to20, 2011 be an occasion when HR defenders all over the country will place sufficient pressure on the Government to ensure that Human Rights defenders are protected.

Shape of things to come

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Big Power status which five nations nominally enjoyed at the end of World War II ended and enabled them to become permanent members of the United Nations Security Council may be irrelevant today but it is not without significance that the heads of all five governments figure in India’s 2010 guest list.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was in New Delhi in July, United States President Barack Obama in November and French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao this month. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came in March and President Dmitry Medvedev is coming this week.

Business was high on the agenda of all visitors and they struck many deals. The embargo imposed on India after the nuclear tests of 1998 having been lifted, some were seeking orders for nuclear equipment and military hardware.

Britain got orders for 47 military aircraft under a $1 billion deal. The US, which was ready to provide equipment for power plants and civilian aircraft, secured orders worth $10 billion. France, which offered equipment and fuel for two nuclear plants, did business worth $13 billion.

Wen’s delegation, which included about 400 businessmen, signed 49 agreements valued at more than $16 billion. The size of the transaction testifies to the growing economic ties between China, which is already the world’s second largest economy, and India, which is tipped to take the third place in the not-too-distant future.

India has a trade deficit of about $16 billion with China, which has replaced the US as its biggest trading partner. This has not deterred it from planning to boost the two-way trade, now estimated at $60 billion, to $100 billion in five years.

The two countries have a combined market of $7 trillion. Clearly, it is in the interests of both to raise the level of economic cooperation. However, there are inhibiting factors. India complains of hurdles in the way of increased exports to China. India has not so far allowed any Chinese bank into the country although 10 Indian banks operate in China.

It should cause no surprise if Medvedev, who arrives today (Monday) pulls off even more than Wen. At least 15 pacts will be signed during his visit. While the agreements will be fewer in number than were signed during Wen’s visit, they have greater significance in strategic terms as they cover vital areas of fighter aircraft manufacture and nuclear power production. They underscore the strength of the ties built up during the Soviet days.

As early as 1961 India had opted for MiG fighter planes in preference to western aircraft as Moscow was ready to transfer technology and allow local assembly of aircraft. The new agreement will give India access to fifth generation fighter aircraft.

The first of four units of the 4,000 megawatt nuclear power plant being built in Tamil Nadu with Russian assistance is due to be commissioned shortly. Although Russia has reservations about some provisions of India’s new civil nuclear liability law, it has offered to help build a dozen more nuclear plants in the next 15 or 20 years. Agreements to set up two plants are expected to be signed during Medvedev’s visit.

While economic matters were uppermost in the visitors’ minds, the host was looking for political dividends as well. India is an advocate of reform of the UN and an aspirant for a permanent Security Council seat. Since the UN system cannot be changed without the concurrence of the existing permanent members, India has been raising the topic in all top-level meetings.

After Obama committed US support to India’s claim for a permanent seat when he was in New Delhi, China was the only P5 country still holding out. Wen signalled no change in its position. He only offered support for “India’s aspirations to play a greater role in the Security Council.” This suggests Beijing does not favour India’s elevation to the status of a permanent member with the right of veto.

From India Wen went to Pakistan and reiterated China’s desire to strengthen its strategic relationship with that country. Around the same time Japan said it was “realigning its resources” from the north to the south, indicating it views China as a greater potential threat than Russia. Evidently, geopolitical factors are as important as economic factors in determining the shape of things to come. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 20, 2010

AHRC’s 10 questions to Chidambaram on Manipur

The Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, today expressed appreciation of Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s effort to visit the trouble-torn state of Manipur. At the same time it posed 10 questions to him.

In a statement, the AHRC said:

Manipur is one of the states in India with a poor human rights record. During the past three years the number of encounter killings reported from the state has steadily increased, until the state administration faced severe criticism for the public execution of two persons on July 23, 2009 by the state police. Mr. P. Chidambaram and a team of officers from the Union Home Ministry are visiting Manipur today and tomorrow.

The Home Minister is known to be having a professional as well as no-nonsense approach in work. Many in India hold him at a high esteem, referring to the Minister as a person who assesses officers and institutions under his command on the basis of their performance. Based on these references, the AHRC wishes to place before the Home Minister the following questions, so that the Minister will be able to help the state administration and the people of Manipur in finding a sensible solution to the six decade long internal conflict in that state.

1. Can the state administration account for the money that it has spent in the past five years for countering insurgent activities in the state? Can it provide the exact details as to who was paid what amount? It is not required for the state government to publicly account every single Rupee of the tax money that it has spent on countering insurgency. But it must be able to produce records to the satisfaction of the Union Home Ministry for at least those expenses, where the spending was Rs. 200,000 or above in a single payment. The state administration must be able to account to the Union Home Ministry that supports the release of such 'Central Funds' to state government.

2. What training was provided to the Manipur State Police and its State Police Commando Unit in the past two years to deal with insurgency? Does it meet the requirements of training offered to a civilian police force that is to undertake counter insurgency activities respecting the rule of law? How many police officers have received such training?

3. What is the process of recruitment to the state police in Manipur? What is the guarantee that the candidates selected for training and appointment in the state police are not selected on the basis of bribes paid to the Chief Minister or to his party's MLAs?

The AHRC has credible information that to secure appointment as a Trainee Sub-Inspector in Manipur, a candidate is required to pay Rs. 1,400,000 to Rs. 1,800,000 as bribe to the Chief Minister or to a designated MLA as of 2010. The AHRC is informed that the officers upon appointment, realises through various means from the public the bribe they have paid to secure a job in the state police service. The AHRC also has credible information that in the process police officers are engaged in extortion, conniving with some of the criminal elements that are also listed in the prohibited organisations' list by the Union Government. It is reported that such widespread corruption is one of the important reasons for a high number of encounter killings and unabated criminal extortion in the state.

4. How many police officers have been investigated in the past three years for crimes alleged to have committed by them, in particular torture and criminal extortion? If any such investigation has been conducted, who has been prosecuted?

If not why?

5. How many instances of encounter killing -- other than the July 23 incident -- have been investigated in the past three years in Manipur? What prevents the state from complying the recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission concerning encounter killing? If the state administration has conducted such investigations, why is that the reports not sent to the Commission?

6. Why is that most cases of encounter killing show the same pattern?

Most of the cases of encounter killing documented by human rights organisations in Manipur, shows the following pattern: a person is arrested by unidentified police commandos who are often accompanied by officers from a para-military unit or from a military detachment stationed in the state; the arrested person is detained in custody illegally, often for days; later the person found dead at a distant place; the state police immediately release a press note saying that the person was shot dead in an armed encounter; weapons (mostly 0.9 mm pistols, grenades, live cartridges) are shown as recovered from the deceased insurgent.

It would be interesting for the Union Home Ministry to verify how many such recovered/seized articles are produced in courts as material objects recovered from armed insurgents. How many of such recovered materials are kept in police custody? Do they all have separate identification marks? Does the articles and their number tally with the statements issued by the state police in each case? Does the state police have any such accounting system? If so, will the state police dare to make the list public? If not why?

Will the Home Ministry be willing to undertake an impartial accounting of recovered articles? The AHRC is willing to collaborate in such a process with the Union as well as State administration.

In 2009, between January and November, the state police reported 272 executions, which was publicly admitted by Mr. Joykumar Singh, the Director General of Police. In most of the cases, the above pattern has been noted.

This proves two things. One, it defies logic. Further it could also suggest that the state police are ill equipped and ill prepared that many persons they arrest escape from their custody. Or, it has to be assumed that the state police is well informed that at least 24 times each month in 2009, the state police were able to intercept and engage an armed insurgent invariably resulting in the murder of the armed insurgent. If the latter were the case, there must be no more armed insurgents operating openly in the state, or the insurgents are so naïve that they always expose their armed presence to the state police. None of these would satisfy commonsense or the acumen of a lawyer, which Mr. Chidambaram is.

8. Will the state administration put an end to the illegal tax collection of some of the armed insurgent groups in Manipur? It is common knowledge that in Manipur many armed insurgent groups prohibited by the Union Government have setup illegal tax collection (criminal extortion) counters adjacent to police check posts on public roads. Every person, particularly drivers in Manipur know this or are their victims. Why have the state police not stopped it? Or are they hand-in-glove with the insurgents? Or is it the police themselves posing as insurgents?

The Home Minister must know that today in Manipur, it is hard to distinguish between an insurgent and a police officer. Both kills with impunity, extorts money by force from the people and are unaccountable to everything under the sun. Can the Home Minister contribute to change this situation?

8. What plans has the state administration made and executed to regain the confidence of the public? At the moment, Manipur is like a volcano that could erupt anytime. Has the state administration taken the effort to make public its public confidence building plans if they have any? If not, what prevented them in doing so?

9. Will the Home Minister meet Ms. Irom Chanu Sharmila? Reports from India inform that the Home Minister will meet human rights activists in Imphal. Does the Home Minister see Sharmila as a threat to the peace of Manipur or a unifying factor to its fragile social fabric?

10. Will the Home Minister make a public report about his visit to Manipur? The public need not know the nuances of the state's security scenario. But every Indian, especially each person in Manipur has a right to know what is their future in terms of their safety and security. Today they have only stories of fear and anger to say about their Chief Minister and the administration he leads. Can the Union Home Minister bring a difference?

If not what hope does Manipuris have of being part of the world's largest democracy?