Message from Bangladesh

Bangladesh celebrated Armed Forces Day on November 21. It is appropriate to pay homage to the soldiers who laid down their lives for their country and remember India, which has always stood by us

Bangladesh Independence War is the finest moment in the thousand years of the nation’s history. Unarmed and peace-loving Bangladeshi people, in response to the clarion call by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, on March 7 and 26, 1971, had valiantly fought the Pakistani occupation forces that had launched the treacherous genocidal war on our people on March 26, 1971.

The entire nation had risen like a man to defend the motherland, and to make Bangladesh free from alien rule. It was a people’s war — people from all walks of life had come forward and fought the war on every front. While our valiant soldiers and freedom fighters fought the war on the battlefield, our journalists, educationists, civil servants, administrators, diplomats, singers and cultural activists confronted the challenges in their respective areas.

It is a matter of pride and honour for the nation that Bangabandhu’s historic speech of March 7, 1971, has now been included in the memory of the World International Register, a list of world’s important documentary heritage, maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and an announcement to that effect was made by the Director General of Unesco on October 30, 2017. What a befitting tribute to a historic speech by the Father of our Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman!

Armed Forces Day is observed in Bangladesh on November 21. It signifies the day in 1971 when the members of the Army, Navy and Air Forces of Bangladesh were fully operational and had launched a coordinated offensive against the Pakistani occupation forces, although our Armed Forces had been fighting since the beginning of the liberation struggle, November 21, marks the formal ‘Raising Day’ of our combined Armed forces. It is their ceremonial birthday, a day of rejoicing and celebration, a day of remembrance and paying gratitude and tribute to our valiant martyrs and freedom fighters, and our Indian friends who had fought side by side with us in our War of Independence.

On this day, we pay homage to the Father of our Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had led and inspired our people to fight for our freedom and independence despite heavy odds.

Our people paid a very heavy price for our freedom and independence. Three million people were killed, 10 million had to take shelter in India, millions were internally uprooted from their homes, thousands of women were raped and assaulted, countless number of people were injured and maimed and our economic infrastructure was totally destroyed. Here, I recall a British journalist once commenting in an article, “If blood is the price for freedom and independence, then Bangladesh has overpaid.”

As a freedom fighter diplomat staying in Washington, DC, at that time, I recall with deep appreciation and gratitude the whole-hearted support which we had received from the Government and people of India, in their country and abroad. They not only gave shelter to millions of our people but also extended all possible assistance to us at those critical hours of our nationhood.

On this day, we pay homage to those brave Indian soldiers, who had laid down their lives for our independence. We also pay tributes to the valiant war veterans who had fought side by side with us in our War of Independence. They are our comrades-in-arms. We will always remember their contributions and they remain the most endurable link in friendship and cooperation between our two countries.

After assumption of office for the second time in 2009, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — the able daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, decided to confer ‘Friends of Bangladesh’ award on our Indian and other foreign friends, who had stood by us during our War of Independence through award-giving ceremonies in Dhaka.

During her state visit to India last April, she personally honored members of families of war martyrs through an unprecedentedSommanona ceremony in New Delhi. At that ceremony, she said, “History of Bangladesh has been written by the blood of Indian martyrs along with valiant freedom fighters of Bangladesh. They fought together for the independence of Bangladesh. The story of their sacrifice would be remembered from generation to generation in our countries”.

This year, we will be observing the day at a watershed moment, when our two Prime Ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi have taken our bilateral ties to a new level which is well beyond ‘strategic partnership’. The 11 agreements and 24 Memorandum of Understandings, signed during the visit, virtually encompass every important sector in our bilateral cooperation, namely security, trade, connectivity, energy, civil nuclear agreement and defence.

The visit was also high on optics. The fact that Prime Minister Modi broke protocol and received our Prime Minister at the airport and was present at Sommanona and other events clearly underscored the very special relationship which exists between the two countries. Moreover, a prominent road in New Delhi has been named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of our Nation.

In addition to the two earlier Line of Credits (LoC), India, during this visit has extended a fresh LoC to the tune of five billion dollars, which also includes $500 million for defence purchase. Bangladesh will utilise this credit for the projects that it needs on priority basis.

The country’s private sector also made valuable inputs when they signed MoUs for the investment to the tune of $13 billion. primarily in the energy sector.

Bangladesh also figures prominently in India’s ‘Look East, Act East policy’ and both the countries are currently cooperating actively with each other as well as with other countries in the region under the aegis of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMESTEC) and other regional fora.

In sum, our relations is “best ever since 1974” as was noted by former President Pranab Mukherjee. President Ram Nath Kovind has also termed Bangladesh as “India’s closest neighbour”.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/message-from-bangladesh.html

Ram Temple movement erected a big tent

The project to ensure India's emergence as an Indic civilizational-rooted modern state will come undone if lumpen anti-intellectualism continues.

Happenstance, perhaps, but as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Ayodhya Demolition on December 6, I received a phone call from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), informing me that my deposition as a witness is overdue before the CBI Special Court in Lucknow where the case on the “criminal conspiracy” aspect of the demolition is being heard. It brought home to me, apart from the reality that I’m no longer a tyro 20-year-old political reporter for a national newspaper (not The Pioneer) who was the first in and among the last out of Ayodhya in November-December 1992, that many a political fortune has turned over this passage of time. But the discourse against the Ram Temple continues — tired, regurgitative and banal in the main.

So, I start by paying tribute to LK Advani, whose 90th birthday was last week. Not because I necessarily agree with everything he has said, done, or stood for but as an exemplar of probity in public life and as the arch-disrupter of public discourse who raised the political issue of the Ram Temple as a symbol of national and not denominational pride. Ever since the late 1980s, Advani has earned the undying viciousness of the Commentariat for his politics which made it possible for new thinking on the nature of our nationhood and the agency of nationalism — an Idea of India, in Mickey Mouse terms — to emerge.

Till Advani’s intervention in the political sphere with the Ram Temple issue as a symbol of civilizational/cultural India in the manner he did, the dominant post-colonial narrative was statist, derivate and located in a Semitic-originated Abrahamic religious tradition-infused cultural consciousness, pushed especially vociferously by the post-Nehru Indian power elite via their academic co-travellers presumably in good faith (no sarcasm intended). To be fair, though, the latter did produce some high quality traditional academic output in the social sciences. The Ayodhya movement, however, came at a time when two key concepts in academic-public discourse found resonance among those who retained a degree of intellectual curiosity and were willing to incorporate lived experiences and oral histories along with critical readings of extant literature on culture, community, caste et.al into original scholarship as opposed to being confined to the knowledge claims made by Western social “science” which in themselves were not unproblematic, an aspect brought out in his ground-breaking work by the philosopher SN Balagangadhara, a major voice in the study of the cultural differences between India and the West who has developed his own research programme devoted to it.

First, was Advani’s assertion that the Ram Temple movement was intrinsic to the notion of an Indian exceptionalism, in a value-neutral sense, which is to say, not better or worse than others but, like the ketchup advertisement, “different”. Seizing the opportunity thus provided, some Hindutvawadis pushed the cultural nationalism thesis and others the Hindu Rashtra (as a cultural concept and/or a theocratic state depending on their provenance) while Sangh Parivar elements tagged to the Ram Temple the demand for a Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple in Mathura and the restoration of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple to achieve closure once and for all on the festering wound of “40,000 temples destroyed over 800 years”. A minority, as is historically evident with vanguards, if you will, ploughed more or less co-terminus with Advani’s intervention its own lonely furrow in the academic project of addressing the conceptually problematic issues with post-colonial studies, India studies and Indology as practiced till then, an effort in which Balagangadhara played the pivotal role as at the heart of his work is the proposition that research objects cannot escape from the scope of a secularized Christian discourse.

Secondly, allied to the notion of an Indian exceptionalism, came the very welcome propagation post-1992 by sober voices from the Sangh of what is in effect the notion of “folk multiculturalism” as a means of accommodative nation-building. This translated on the ground into celebrating differences in language, food, dress, music and mode of worship but drawing a line at separate and/or exclusive legal rights for any group whether religious, cultural, linguistic or other, and campaigning for a single, uniform civil and criminal legal framework that has at its core the individual rights of every Indian citizen. There was a reason, it must be remembered, why by the early 1990s Advani’s stand against what he termed “minority appeasement”, freighted as it was to the Ram Temple movement, gained such traction. For, the contours of a de facto differential citizenship model had begun to emerge in India which may have irrevocably damaged not just the Indic civilizational trajectory but also threatened to muscle the way of life of an overwhelming majority of the people of India into becoming just another “religion”.

As a modern state in the making, however, there is no running away from the demographic fact that millions of Indians do follow non-Indic religions and have a Constitutional right to do so freely. Which is why propagating a robust folk multiculturalism simultaneously with a Uniform Civil Code became part of the national conversation sparked by the Ram Temple movement, which was, let’s not forget, symbolic in more ways than one. These solutions are never ideal, of course, but as the political philosopher Joseph Raz put it rather pithily: “Conflict is endemic to value pluralism in all its forms”. We can at best hope to manage such conflicts in the most reasonable manner possible.

It was, thus, the proverbial ideological big tent that Advani’s political intervention with the Ram Temple issue ended up erecting. But the criminal-lumpen and anti-intellectual element within is threatening to derail the project — whether it is louts threatening bodily harm to actor Deepika Padukone today or those in the Ram Temple movement who threatened, and in some cases inflicted, brutality and violence against fellow citizens who happened to be Muslims 25 years ago, or indeed those who have internalised a Western social sciences’ predicated view of India’s past and are busy creating their own “Hindu” version of a Biblical/Koranic history.

To quote Balagangadhara who, ironically, has in an online academic publication been identified by historian Shalini Sharma as being at the centre of the “resurgence of all (nationalist) historical revisionism” post the 1992 Ayodhya events and is alleged to have the Modi Government’s ear: “The ideologues of the Sangh Parivar might do what centuries of colonialism tried but could not accomplish: Destroy Indian culture and her traditions irreplaceably and irrevocably. They might do that while truly believing that they are ‘saving’ Indian culture and her traditions.”

Back to Ayodhya, and not to Methuselah, ought to be the rallying cry.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists

A Capital under pollution lockdown

Air pollution has once again brought the Capital to a grinding halt. It’s high time authorities look for long-term policy measures and implement them faithfully

The ongoing onslaught of air pollution has crossed all safety limits and has virtually put the citizens, especially children and the elderly of the Capital city under house arrest. This state of affairs was inevitable given the Diwali festival followed by crop stubble burning in States of Haryana and Punjab. These developments in the face of an approaching winter season and higher moisture content in the air have culminated and given rise to the worst air quality ever seen in recent times. Authorities have responded with counter measures such as slashing of metro fares during peak hours, coupled with increasing the frequency of metro trains. Additionally, parking rates have been quadrupled ostensibly to discourage people from taking out their vehicles and, hence, curb pollution. However, the measures taken to stem the impact of air pollution seem too little and have been executed too late.

Crop stubble burning has been a major contributory factor in the air pollution fiasco currently being faced by Delhites, yet the National Green Tribunal or the authorities have still been unable to dissuade the farmers from proceeding ahead and resorting to the age-old practice of burning crop stubble. The panicky initiatives undertaken currently by the authorities are only symptomatic treatment of the much larger problem that is unfortunately not getting addressed. According to the Central Pollution Control Board, a level of 100 as Air Quality Index (AQI) is deemed satisfactory, but Delhi's AQI already has an average range of 300 to 400. However, the current conditions have caused a severe spike in pollution levels with the AQI crossing 450 mark in several parts of Delhi.

The lack of a concentrated strategy to identify and shut down the sources of air pollution has meant that Delhi, and increasingly other cities in India, continue to go through the roller coaster ride of better days and worse days — pollution wise. Delhi's deteriorating air quality is already taking a toll and if left like this, pollution levels can lead to disastrous consequences for its population. A Greenpeace India report states that the National Capital Territory of Delhi already witnesses approximately 1.2 million deaths every year that can be attributed to air pollution. To make matters worse, along with the rising levels of particulate matter and noxious gases, the compliance with air pollution control measures by private entities is also becoming more and more difficult to supervise.

Authorities must aim to subdue pollution arising from large sources such as construction sites in and around the Capital. Emission load in the form of PM 2.5 levels from building sites is estimated to be 1,017 kg per day, whereas roads and flyover construction contributes to nearly 274 kg per day. Merely imposing restrictions on construction activities is just not sufficient as the compliance across the NCR is dismal given the lack of manpower and resolve with the civic bodies to implement the restrictions. Given these challenges, the Government must rope in the resident welfare associations through the Bhagidari scheme whereby the residents of every locality are sensitized to pollution consequences and sources and suitably empowered to control pollution in their specific municipal areas.

The Supreme Court-appointed Environmental Pollution Contra Authority (EPCA) is proceeding as per the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) in order to manage the current pollution crises. But the need of the hour is to see that the plans translate into action on the ground. Unless this is ensured, next year's winter season will be no different from this year. For a better measure, and better results in curbing pollution, the EPCA could integrate public participation in order to help Delhi breath easy. The involvement of citizens could be to generate innovative ideas to control air pollution. For instance, globally carbon from polluted air is now being harvested to make tangible products such as building material and ink. These path-breaking ideas are attracting attention of innovation and research centers of various ivy league universities across the world. Once these R&D labs are able to attach suitable technologies to productize the material present in the polluted air the recycling of air pollution could begin in volume and scale.

Countries are also quickly developing and installing mammoth air purifiers to take on the polluted air in their cities. The Smog Free Tower being built by Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde in China is being described as “the world's largest smog vacuum cleaner”. The tower with an appearance of an air ioniser is nearly seven meters high, and is capable of to cleaning 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour, with power consumption as low as 1,700 watts. India has a robust science and technology base and utilising this, the Government can explore installation of mass scale air purifiers on building tops and other public places so that a considerable dent can be made in the fight against air pollution.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/a-capital-under-pollution-lockdown.html

BJP announced 14th Mayoral candidate in UP

By giving its nod for sitting Allahabad Mayor Abhilasha Gupta, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday announced its 14th Mayoral candidate in Uttar Pradesh. With this, the party has announced 14 of the 16 Mayoral candidates in the state. Gupta was elected as Mayor as an independent candidate in 2012 civic body elections and is the wife of cabinet minister Nand Gopal Gupta alias Nandi. On Sunday night, state BJP president Mahendra Nath Pandey had declared Sanyukta Bhatia as Mayoral candidate for Lucknow and Mridula Jaiswal for Varanasi. Other Mayoral candidates announced late Sunday night were Dr Rajiv Agarwal from Aligarh, Dr Mukesh Arya Bandhu from Mathura, Ramtirath Singhal from Jhansi, Vinod Agarwal from Moradabad, Sanjeev Walia from Saharanpur and Asha Sharma from Ghaziabad. The Urban Local Bodies poll is likely to see the BJP coming out with its election manifesto, which may be similar in nature to its Lok Sankalp Patra, brought out before Assembly polls. The three-phase civic polls from 22 November will be the rulingparty’s first electoral test after it stormed to power afterthe Assembly poll in March this year.

“The party is planning to come up with an election manifesto for ULB elections. The aim is to ensure overall improvement of municipal corporations and other civic bodies. Through the manifesto, the party’s endeavor will be to establish a direct connect with the public and find alternatives to their problems,” state BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said in Lucknow on Monday. “The manifesto will be a pledge to simplify complex tax structure in urban, local bodies and simultaneously increase revenue of municipal bodies by widening the tax base. It will also focus on strengthening urban public transportat and improve drinking water,” he said.

Exuding confidence of his party sweeping the ULB poll, Tripathi said, “We aim to win all 16 municipal corporations. It will be a hattrick for us after the massive wins in 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 Assembly polls.” As per the election schedule, 24 districts will go to polls on 22 November, while 25 districts on 26 November, and 26 districts on 29 November. Counting of votes polled for 16 nagar nigam, 198 nagar palika parishad and 438 nagar panchyart will be done on 1 December. More than 3.32 crore voters will be eligible to cast their ballots at 36,269 polling booths and 11,389 polling stations.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/lucknow/bjp--announced-14th-mayoral-candidate-in-up.html

TDP confident of strengthening base in Telangana

Undeterred by the exit of its 13 MLAs and other key leaders in Telangana, the Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) state unit is hopeful of emerging stronger in the next elections.

The TDP, led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, had won 15 Assembly segments and a Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana in the 2014 state and general elections, respectively.

However, since then its 12 MLAs and the lone MP have switched over to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).

The party received further setback as the Telangana unit's working president and MLA A Revanth Reddy recently joined the Congress along with a considerable number of state and district-level functionaries.

The TDP is now left with just two MLAs in Telangana.

"I don't see any crisis. We have lakhs of members, thousands of activists and hundreds of leaders. We feel we are out of disturbances. Our responsibility is to take forward the people's struggles more effectively," the TDP's Telangana unit president, L Ramana, told PTI.

He said people still remember the development works and services carried out by the party when it was in power (in the undivided Andhra Pradesh).

The TDP, in the coming days, would reach out to the people by strengthening its district units and making the party cadre more active, Ramana said.

Chandrababu Naidu, who shifted his base to Vijayawada where the permanent capital city of Andhra Pradesh is coming up, addressed the general body meeting of the TDP's Telangana unit in Hyderabad last week.

He visits Hyderabad occasionally after shifting to Vijayawada.

While addressing the meeting, Naidu asked the party activists to focus on strengthening the organisation and leave the task of formulating strategy to him.

"I too have experience...What to speak and what to do when and what strategy to follow, you leave it to me. You keep faith in people. Work with the party's flag. It is my responsibility to give you direction and strategy from time-to-time," the chief minister said.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/top-stories/tdp-confident-of-strengthening-base-in-telangana.html

SC seeks Centres reply on pleas challenging Aadhaar

The Supreme Court today sought the government's response on four petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and linking of bank accounts and mobile numbers with the 12-digit biometric identification number.

The apex court did not pass any interim order in the matter saying that final hearing in all Aadhaar-related issues would start before another bench in the last week of this month and the Centre has already extended the deadline till December 31.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, however, said that the banks and telecom service providers should indicate the last date of linking bank accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar in the messages sent by them to their customers.

"We make it clear that in the messages sent by banks and telecom service providers, the date of December 31, 2017 and February 6, 2018, shall also be indicated as the last date of linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile numbers," the bench said.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for one of the petitioners, referred to a recently filed affidavit by the Centre and said the government has said the deadline for linking Aadhaar may be extended till March 31, 2018.

The bench, however, said the petitioners can raise this issue before the court which would hear all Aadhaar-related matters in the last week of November.

"There is no doubt that these arguments need consideration. The matter is going to come up in the last week of November and the time (to link Aadhaar with bank accounts) has been extended till December 31," the bench said.

On October 30, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said that a constitution bench would be constituted and Aadhaar-related matters would come up for hearing before it in November last.

Several petitions challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for availing various services and benefits of welfare schemes have been filed in the apex court.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights.

The Centre had on October 25 told the top court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive benefits of government schemes has been extended till March 31, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enroll for it.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

They have also objected to the CBSE's alleged move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for students appearing for examinations, a contention denied by the Centre.

One of the counsel representing the petitioners had earlier said the final hearing in the main Aadhaar matter, which is pending before the apex court, was necessary as the government "cannot compel" citizens to link their Aadhaar with either bank accounts or cell phone numbers.

Source : http://www.dailypioneer.com/top-stories/sc-seeks-centres-reply-on-pleas-challenging-aadhaar-act.html