Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Telegraph: Opinion | The world food crisis by Prabhat Patnaik

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | The world food crisis

India v England, World Cup 2011: India have lost the favourites tag | Cricket Features | ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo

India v England, World Cup 2011: India have lost the favourites tag | Cricket Features | ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo (Draw with England at Bangalore)

Disabled student all set to graduate from IIT Madras « Inspire Minds

Disabled student all set to graduate from IIT Madras « Inspire Minds

Sex-and-Lies: Fox and Roger Ailes

Sex-and-Lies: Fox and Roger Ailes
(Fox Executive encourages journalist to lie under oath to Feds)

Amitava Kumar interviews Arundhati Roy:The Un-Victim

Amitava Kumar interviews Arundhati Roy:The Un-Victim

USW Blog » In a Democracy, Freedom of Assembly Trumps “Free Enterprise”

USW Blog » Blog Archive » In a Democracy, Freedom of Assembly Trumps “Free Enterprise”

In a Democracy, Freedom of Assembly Trumps “Free Enterprise”

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

It’s illegal in America now to buy or sell a human being, but a recorded telephone conversation between a Republican governor and a guy he thought was a billionaire benefactor shows that it’s still possible to own a politician.

Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker didn’t have time to talk to Democratic leaders or union officials about his anti-union legislation – a proposal that has incited protests by tens of thousands for more than a week in Madison. But he jumped on the phone for 20 minutes this week when told the caller was billionaire David Koch,who was Walker’s second largest campaign contributor, who provided $1 million to a GOP fund to attack Walker’s opponent and who bankrolls radical libertarian organizations and the Tea Party.

Republicans like Walker, owned by billionaires like Koch, are fulfilling demands from corporate interests that government “free” enterprise by slashing corporate taxes and regulation. Over the past three years, America has suffered the consequences of a government under-funded after tax breaks to the rich and under-performing after years of lax regulation. The result: a growing federal deficit, the Wall Street collapse, the BP oil spill and the deaths of 29 Upper Big Branch miners. Still, Republicans want more government atrophy. That would leave only one restraint on corporate control of the economy, environment and government.

That one restraint is labor unions. A union is workers using their constitutionally-guaranteed freedom to assemble, the right to get together as a group, in this case a labor organization, to negotiate collectively with employers for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

Workers who gathered together in unions over two centuries in this country have succeeded in raising their wages, as well as the wages of non-union workers in competing industries. Union workers secured improved working conditions so fewer were killed on the job. And they achieved creation of the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which protects the safety of all workers. Over the decades, unions played a major role is obtaining legislation barring child labor, standardizing the 40-hour work week, and creating both Social Security and Medicare.

Similarly, studies show union successes enhance the lives of all workers in a state. In anti-union states, the average worker earns $5,333 less a year, the proportion of people without health insurance is 21 percent higher and the rate of workplace death is 51 percent higher. In addition, there’s evidence that union workers improve quality. Currently, after receiving an education from union teachers, Wisconsin youngsters collectively score second highest in the nation on the ACT/SAT college admission tests. By contrast, the five states barring teacher unions rank at the bottom of the pack: South Carolina dead last at 50th; North Carolina, second last at 49th; Georgia third from last at 47th; Texas fourth from last at 47th, and Virginia ever so slightly better at 44th.

Still, Wisconsin Gov. Walker wants to destroy his state’s teachers unions. Two studies determined that public workers, that is those employed by governments such as teachers, firefighters and police officers, earn less than their counterparts in the private sector when both benefits and education are factored into the calculation. It wasn’t union workers, in the public or the private sector, who caused states’ financial crises. That was gambling on Wall Street, which ravaged the economy. Still, Republican governors across the country are demanding that government workers pay.

The government workers in Wisconsin already agreed to accept Walker’s financial demands – that they pay more for their pensions and health care. This negates Walker’s contention that this dispute is about the budget. The governor is demanding more than those financial concessions. He wants the legislature to cripple the unions’ ability to bargain for improvements in the future. In his “budget repair bill,” he would strip government workers of their right to negotiate over working conditions and benefits. They’d be able to discuss wages but could never get an increase above inflation.

This is union busting. At the demand of corporate interests. And Walker is joined by Republicans in Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and others in attempting to do it, both to private and public sector workers.

This is not about money. It’s about controlling America. Corporations have bought Republicans, who now chant the corporate mantra that government coddles its citizens with the likes of mine and food safety rules.

Walker’s eagerness to talk to David Koch illustrates this. Koch and his brother Charles own the second largest privately-held company in America. Only the fortunes of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates exceed the Kochs’ $35 billion. They’ve used that money to finance the supposedly-grassroots Tea Party and conservative groups like theAmericans for Prosperity Foundation (APF) that have funneled money into anti-reform policies – including attempts to reverse environmental and health care legislation.

It’s a giant circle. Koch got Walker elected. The Koch-backed Tea Party now rallies in Madison against the public employees. The Koch-financed APF bought $320,000 in TV ads against the public workers. Other Koch-financed GOP governors are sending letters of support to Walker. In his few weeks as governor, Walker passed legislationto lower tax rates for and limit damage awards against businesses like the Kochs’. In addition, tucked into the anti-union bill is a provision that would enable Walker to sell the state’s power plants to the Kochs without bids or state agency review.

Corporations are accomplishing their goal of shriveling government to the point of ineffectiveness so “enterprise” is “free” to run rogue. Now with their purchased politicians, corporations are trying to do the same to unions – the only organization other than government that has traditionally effectively defended working Americans.

In the recorded conversation between Walker and a liberal blogger posing as Koch, Walker accepted an offer of a vacation trip from the “billionaire” if he “crushed” the public employee unions and said his effort was to get “our freedoms back.”

That’s exactly right. This is a contest between the excesses of “free” enterprise and the constitutionally-protected freedom of assembly. And getting “our freedoms back” means wresting them back from corporations.

***

Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute. He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

'The SIMI I founded was completely different'

'The SIMI I founded was completely different': "The Rediff Interview/SIMI founder Dr Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi

September 02, 2003"

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan - VIEW: Choosing sovereignty over servitude —C. Christine Fair

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan - VIEW: Choosing sovereignty over servitude —C. Christine Fair

VIEW: Choosing sovereignty over servitude —C. Christine Fair

What does it mean for a state to be sovereign? Apart from exercising monopoly of force and writ of law more or less homogenously over the state territory, one of the most important elements of state sovereignty is the ability to pay its own bills. While Pakistan is making strides in the former, it has made no progress in the latter

Pakistanis are outraged by US Ambassador Munter’s reported assertion that the US government is entitled to influence Pakistan’s internal affairs in exchange for US assistance. The US is Pakistan’s largest source of economic support either directly or through international financial institutions. These funds enable the government of Pakistan — if not the state — to survive.

Pakistanis naturally resent this situation because they have no leverage in Pakistan’s relationship with Washington and thus are beholden to Washington’s diktat. They are right: this funding renders Pakistan answerable to the US taxpayer (e.g. me) rather than Pakistanis (e.g. you).

But this anger towards Washington is misplaced. Pakistanis should ask why it is that their state — including its massive, nuclear-armed military — requires outside assistance on the scale it does when Pakistan in fact has considerable national wealth.

Pakistan is not a Somalia. Why is that neighbouring India can pay its way, having transformed itself from an aid-receiving to an aid-granting state, while Pakistan must grovel at the table of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral and bilateral donors? Indeed it is India’s financial success that has drawn global capitals to its doorstep seeking to sell India’s state and central governments weapon systems, surveillance technology, power plants, and other needed infrastructure and commodities needed and demanded by the growing country and its millions. It is India’s growing economic heft that gives it leverage in the strategic partnerships it forges — including those with the US and Israel.

There is no reason why Pakistan cannot step out of the shadow of its servitude and into the light of sovereignty. After all, Pakistanis are hardworking and proud patriots.

What does it mean for a state to be sovereign? Apart from exercising monopoly of force and writ of law more or less homogenously over the state territory, one of the most important elements of state sovereignty is the ability to pay its own bills. While Pakistan is making strides in the former, it has made no progress in the latter.

To free Pakistan of international meddling, Pakistan’s political leaders need only to subject themselves and their patronage networks to an agricultural and industrial tax, a move which Pakistan’s leadership has steadfastly avoided throughout the state’s entire history. Of course, it must improve income tax compliance too.

Given this refusal to expand its tax net, the state relies upon an admixture of international assistance and punitive and regressive domestic sales and income taxes to pay its bills. Sales taxes are especially regressive because they affect the poor far more than the wealthy. Government servants — whose income tax is deducted from their wages — and other honest income tax payers pay their way while the wealthy agriculturalists and business elite abscond. Bangladesh has a better tax compliance record than Pakistan.

The sad truth is that Pakistan’s elites –many of whom sit and have sat and will sit in parliament—have chosen to subjugate their country for their own personal accumulation and preservation of wealth. This should be the focus of public outrage: not Washington’s expectation that its massive investment in Pakistan yield some return for the interests of its taxpayers.

Some readers of this missive may counter that China and Saudi Arabia help Pakistan without such expectations. These cherished myths are rubbish.

What has China done for Pakistan? It did not help Pakistan in any of its wars with India in 1965, 1971 or the Kargil crisis of 1999, when it took the same line as the US and even India. It did little to help Pakistan in the 2001-2002 crisis with India and it even voted in the UN Security Council to declare Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a terrorist organisation in 2009 in the wake of the Mumbai terror outrage.

The roads and ports and other infrastructure that the Chinese are building in Pakistan principally benefit China. Pakistanis are an afterthought. The Chinese obtain contracts on favourable and profitable investment terms, use their own employees, and contribute little to the local economy ultimately to build projects that facilitate the movement and sales of cheap (but also dangerous and poorly crafted) Chinese goods and products into and through Pakistan.

It is a sad fact that China uses Pakistan for its foreign policy aims as well. It provides Pakistan nuclear assistance and large amounts of military assistance to purchase subpar military platforms in hopes of sustaining Pakistan’s anti-status quo policy towards India. By encouraging Pakistani adventurism towards India, Beijing hopes that India’s massive defence modernisation and status of forces remain focused upon Pakistan — not China. China wants to sustain the animosity between India and Pakistan but it certainly does not want an actual conflict to ensue as it would then be forced to show its hand again — by not supporting Pakistan in such a conflict.

What about Saudi Arabia? The increasingly broke US citizen provided more assistance to Pakistan’s flood victims than Pakistan’s Islamic, oil tycoon brethren in Saudi Arabia. While the US government has not figured out how to give aid in a way that minimises corruption and maximises benefit, Pakistanis should note that at least the US tries to do so in contrast to Saudi Arabia, which simply abdicates.

Saudi Arabia does fund madrassas, albeit of a highly sectarian variety. Yet, Pakistan does not need more madrassas. In fact, the educational market shows that Pakistani interest in madrassa education is stagnant while interest in private schooling is expanding. Unfortunately, those madrassas and Islamic institutions that Saudi Arabia does support have contributed to a bloody sectarian divide in Pakistan that has killed far more innocent Pakistanis than the inaccurately reviled US drone programme a thousand times over.

In short, Saudi Arabia too uses Pakistan to isolate Shia Iran and to promote the dominance of Wahabiism over other Sunni maslaks (sub-sects) and over all Shia maslaks. Pakistan has paid a bloody price for the Saudis’ assistance.

There is no such thing as “friends” in international relations. Any country will help Pakistan because it expects that doing so will advance its interests, not necessarily those of Pakistan and its citizenry. Pakistan will never be free of the “nok” of donors until it raises its own revenue from its own domestic resources.

There is another important reason why all Pakistanis should pay local and federal taxes according to their means: it is the bond that ties the governed to the government. When the state extracts taxes from its citizenry, the citizens demand services in return. When the government fails to perform at either local or federal levels, the citizens have the opportunity to vote the miscreants out of office. The incoming elected officials learn, over the course of several electoral cycles, to be responsive to the voters, not dismissive of the same. Within constitutional democracies, payment of taxes is the most important mechanism by which citizens exert control over their government.

If Pakistanis genuinely want to toss off the yoke of financial servitude and gain a genuine stake in their government, they should stop howling at the US government. Instead, the street power mobilised to support a flawed law and a murderer should be redirected to policy issues that are critical to the state’s survival. And rest assured, financial sovereignty is one such issue.

The writer is an assistant professor at Georgetown University, Peace and Security Studies Programme. She can be reached by Christinefair.net

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest 'burning platform' memo? (update: it's real!) -- Engadget

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop rallies troops in brutally honest 'burning platform' memo? (update: it's real!) -- Engadget

Elop Outlines Further Vision for Nokia, Microsoft | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Elop Outlines Further Vision for Nokia, Microsoft | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Ex-IITian starts world-class school in Bihar village - The Times of India

Ex-IITian starts world-class school in Bihar village - The Times of India

P A Sebastian, "Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent: The Judgment against Binayak Sen"

P A Sebastian, "Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent: The Judgment against Binayak Sen"
Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent:
The Judgment against Binayak Sen
by P A Sebastian
Introduction
by Analytical Monthly Review

There have been moments when an event catches the public eye, and suddenly illuminates a process of decay and disintegration that has been proceeding in the background, slowly, step-by-step. The outrage and national attention focused on the conviction of, and imposition of life sentence on, Dr. Binayak Sen for "Sedition" is such a case. The process in question is the utter collapse of the majority of the Indian Judiciary into an agency of the political police.

Our reality is that the supposed "rule of law" has decayed into a sinister farce over vast areas: most notably Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, and much of the northeast. A police state regime that arose on the frontiers is slowly, step-by-step, extending itself into the core. The rot of corruption and injustice has now reached the heart. The immense significance of the judgment against Binayak Sen is that it strikes directly at whatever hope remains for a peaceful means of arresting, or even reversing, this deadly process.

Our responsibility is to insist on the right of political dissent, though without illusions. So long as the regime maintains the forms of the electoral exercise, of democratic rights, and of argued "judgments" in its courts, we must, as best we are able, strive to expose the substantive reality.

From this perspective we sought an informed legal opinion on the written judgment issued against Binayak Sen by second additional sessions' judge, Raipur, B P Verma. P A Sebastian, a Mumbai-based lawyer and democratic rights activist, and a leading figure of the International Association of People's Lawyers, its Indian constituent, the Indian Association of People's Lawyers, and the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai, has provided for us the following analysis.

Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent:
The Judgment against Binayak Sen
by P A Sebastian

The charge against the accused in the case of Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal is that they have aided and abetted the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which has been banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The case starts with the arrest of Piyush Guha, a tendu leaf trader. The prosecution says that on 6 May 2007 the police superintendent, Raipur sent a wireless message to all the police stations under him that the police should closely search suspicious persons, suspicious vehicles, hotels, lodges, rest houses and dhabas. They were also directed to search thoroughly the street vendors, detain all suspicious characters and legally proceed against them. In the course of carrying out such a search, B S Jagrit, the inspector of Raipur police station, was told by an informer to keep an eye on all those walking towards the railway station. Then he says that he suddenly spotted Piyush Guha. The police stopped and questioned him on the basis of suspicion, but not receiving satisfactory answers, the police called one Anil Kumar Singh, a passer-by, and took both to the police station and opened the bag of Piyush Guha and found in his bag three magazines, a newspaper and three letters among some other things. Anil Kumar Singh, the passer-by, deposed before the court that he heard Guha say to the police that Binayak Sen used to meet Narayan Sanyal, one of the three accused, in jail and collect letters from him. Binayak Sen passed on the three letters concerned to Guha, who, in turn, passed on them to the CPI(Maoist).

The whole case revolves around this story which has many loopholes. Piyush Guha was produced before a magistrate on 7 May 2007 under Section 167 of the CrPC [Criminal Procedure Code]. He stated before the magistrate that he was actually detained on 1 May 2007, not on 6 May as claimed by the police. He was kept in illegal custody, blindfolded and incommunicado for 6 days in violation of CrPC, which stipulates that an accused should be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest. He further said that he was picked up by the police not from the road leading to Raipur railway station as stated by the police but from Mahindra Hotel. The statement of Guha that he was picked up by the police from Mahindra Hotel is supported by the affidavit of the government filed in the Supreme Court while opposing the bail application of Binayak Sen.

However, the judge accepted the police claim that the statement in the Supreme Court (SC) was a "typographical error". Here are two statements which are different from each other. Both of them were made on oath. A word, a figure or a few letters can be treated as typographical error. It goes against common sense and rationality to say that an important statement made in the SC on oath is typographical error. The second additional sessions' judge, Raipur, B P Verma, has done a disservice by this statement to the Indian judicial system, which is already sinking under the burden of corruption and other misdemeanours.

The prosecution states that the police recovered three letters written by Narayan Sanyal and addressed to his party comrades from the bag of Piyush Guha. The only evidence produced by the prosecution in this respect is the deposition by one Anil Kumar Singh, the "passer-by" mentioned above. He said that the police called him by gesture and introduced to him a person called Piyush Guha. The police told him that Guha was a suspected person. Then they opened his bag and recovered some CPI(Maoist) literature and three letters, which later on the police claimed were written by Narayan Sanyal. Anil Kumar Singh further said that he overheard Guha say to the police that those three letters were given to him by Binayak Sen. The narration of the event shows that he did not know when the police took Guha into custody. When he saw Guha, he was already in police custody. He did not know whether the police had picked up Guha on 1 May and planted the letters and other articles on him. Yet the whole case rests on this Anil Kumar Singh assertion that he heard Guha say to the police that Binayak Sen had given him the letters. This hearsay has no evidentiary value. The statement made in police custody is not admissible against the accused. Once the police fail to prove that they caught Guha from station road, the whole edifice of the case falls.

Besides, Binayak Sen visited Narayan Sanyal with the permission of the senior superintendent of police. The prisoners are permitted to write letters. The restriction is that the prison authorities will read the letters and censor them, if necessary, before they are sent out. So the presumption is that the letters did not contain anything objectionable unless one concludes that the jail authorities collaborated with Sanyal to carry on illegal activities, in which case the judge should have asked the government to take legal action against the jail authorities. The judgment does not say whether the content of the letters was objectionable or not. No action could have been taken against the accused unless the content was unlawful. A discussion about the central point is missing in the judgment. Carrying letters from prisoners is not unlawful in itself.

Some of the things which the judge says are strange, and they do not go well with a supposed judicial mind. The judge refers to several people as Naxalites and treats them as criminals. There is no law in India or anywhere else in the world which defines the term "Naxalite" and treats them as criminals. However, the burden of the judgment is the term "Naxalite" and the inherent criminality of the term "Naxalite". The judgment keeps on saying that Binayak Sen and Piyush Guha knew Naxalites and met them. The judgment uses interchangeably the terms "Naxalite" and CPI(Maoist) and concludes that Sen and Guha aided and abetted the CPI(Maoist), which is a banned organisation.

The judgment repeats that some letter or letters recovered from Sen's house address him as "comrade". The learned judge takes it for granted that "comrade" meant that Binayak Sen was a member or supporter of the CPI(Maoist). The English dictionaries state that "comrade" means an intimate friend or associate or companion. Does the judge know that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Jayaprakash Narayan were addressed as "comrades"? Clement Attlee, the former prime minister of England, was addressed as "comrade". One can rest assured that he does not know. Can India afford to have such judges to decide the fate of human life? The judgment is arbitrary to the extreme. It does not define the terms; it does not set up a nexus.

Just one instance will demonstrate the whimsicality and ideological bias of the judge: "Amita Shrivastav was a teacher in Daga Higher Secondary School two years ago. She came to the school through Ilina Sen who is acknowledged by Binayak Sen as his wife. She worked in the school for seven months and then stopped coming to the school. Amita had a CD related to the Second World War Nazi camps. This was shown to the students in the school. Later it was found that Amita was connected to Naxalites and had absconded". It is really shocking that the judge interprets anti-Nazism as Communism. How did the judge know that she was connected to Naxalites and she had absconded? How did he know that she had not been abducted and killed by some criminals like Salwa Judum?

The judgment is full of such absurdities. Two examples will further illustrate the point. One case is the way he deals with a telephone conversation between Bula Sanyal and Binayak Sen. Bula Sanyal is the sister-in-law of Narayan Sanyal. The judge concluded from this that there was contact between Binayak Sen, the family of Narayan Sanyal and CPI(Maoist) supporters. Narayan Sanyal being a Naxalite the judge inferred that his whole family consisted of supporters of CPI(Maoist). Sen's conversation with one of the family was sufficient proof that he was also a CPI(Maoist) activist. The contentions of this sort are really asinine.

The judge accepts the police version of Salwa Judum and says that it is not a state organised vigilante squad and is a spontaneous reaction of the tribals against Naxalites. The judgment indicates that "terrorism and oppression of the Naxalites increased so much that it became a question of life and death for the tribals of the area. Such reasons led to the launching of anti-Naxalite Salwa Judum campaign". The judgment tries to explain what the 'Salwa Judum' means. "'Salwa' means peace and 'Judum' means meeting at one place for some specific purpose". The judge makes reference to some articles seized from Piyush Guha and states that "they have demonstrated opposition to Salwa Judum and praised People's Liberation Army and paid homage to the killed Maoist comrades".

On the basis of such facts and logic, the judgment pronounces that Piyush Guha, Binayak Sen and Narayan Sanyal have committed sedition.

The accused have been punished under Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sedition. It says that "whoever by words, either spoken or written . . . brings or attempts to bring into hatred, contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the government established by law in India, shall be punished with imprisonment for life. . . ." A literal adherence to the Section makes every opposition to the government an offence punishable with life imprisonment. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report states that the Indian state has lost 1.76 lakh crore because of the fraudulent dealings in the allotment of 2-G spectrum. A writ petition pending in the Supreme Court alleges that Rs 70 lakh crore has been deposited abroad to evade tax. These are enormous sums which could have made a difference to the quality of life which the Indian masses lead. Free education and free medical treatment are constitutional mandates. However, they have not been implemented on the plea that there was no money. If one articulates such matters, it naturally brings the government established by law into contempt and hatred and causes disaffection towards the government. It means that the vast majority of people can be prosecuted and jailed under this section. But where do we keep them? The whole country will have to be converted into the prison camp. Is this not an irredeemably absurd idea?

The constitutional validity of the Section 124-A the IPC has been challenged in the Supreme Court and the Court has repeatedly said that the sedition as defined under Section 124-A can be constitutionally tolerated only if the prosecution proves that the statement of the accused has led to violence. The judgment in this case does not even discuss the content of the letters allegedly recovered from Piyush Guha and whether he delivered them to the CPI(Maoist). If he delivered them to the party, the prosecution had to further prove that the letters led to such and such specific incidents of violence. The judgment is absolutely silent on such points. The judgment manifests the misuse and abuse of Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. A law which is so susceptible to misuse and abuse in raw hands or biased minds should be deleted from the statute book of India, which claims to be the largest democracy in the world.

This judgment is one more symptom of the ideological degeneration of the Indian judicial system. The judgment in the Babri Masjid case resorted to rule of faith in place of rule of law. In this case, the judge says that Piyush Guha has to prove that he was arrested from Mahindra Hotel on 1 May, not on 6 May and the letters were planted on him new through the prima facie evidence was in favour of Guha. The judge shifted the burden of proof to the accused, which violated the basics of the criminal justice system. The judgment indicates that the Indian judiciary is moving backward.

This article was first published in the January 2011 issue of Analytical Monthly Review.

P A Sebastian, "Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent: The Judgment against Binayak Sen"

P A Sebastian, "Manufacturing Sedition from Political Dissent: The Judgment against Binayak Sen"

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Arise Awake Stop not till the goal is reached. - Swami Vivekananda Swami ji is my inspiration, not as a monk but as a social reformer and for his universal-ism.