'The first 100 days of Modi 2.0 has firmly placed Union home minister Amit Shah at the top of government affairs. From criminalising triple talaq to the Centre’s decision to read down Article 370 and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories, the Gandhinagar MP has been at the forefront of implementing the BJP’s political agenda. Even after J.P.Nadda was appointed BJP working president at the start of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term, Shah has still found time to chalk out the party’s election strategies in various states.
'The Election Commission and manufacturing companies are reluctant to place detailed information about the working of EVMs and VVPATs beyond what they decide that the citizenry must know... In June, 2019 I had sought detailed information about electronic voting machines (EVMs), voter verified paper trail (VVPAT) units and symbol loading units (SLUs), from Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) by filing identical requests under the RTI Act.
'An order passed by the administration of union territory Dadra and Nagar Haveli, on the “mobilisation of industrial workers by the officers” during Amit Shah’s visit, has been criticised for involving the government machinery in political events. The Union home minister and Bharatiya Janata Party president is addressing a rally in Silvassa on September 1.
'In yet another instance of an institution bowing to political pressure, the Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya Memorial Trust, created in memory of the pre-independence nationalist leader and educationist, cancelled permission for a seminar on democratic rights. The Trust had given permission to the organisers to use the premises of the Malaviya Smriti Bhawan, which it owns, to hold a seminar titled ‘National Convention in Defence of Democratic Rights’ on August 31 and September 1.
'On a cold December morning in 2018, a strange event occurred on the grounds of D.E.S. Navalmal Firodia Law College in Pune. The staff was gingerly led into their staff room for an unexpected meeting. The room was crowded with extra chairs and the doors were closed. Inside the room stood solemn-faced police officials flanked by members from the college’s senior management. The management began the meeting with a patriotic song that somehow led to a speech on nationalism and how it was time to repay one's debt to the motherland.
'The Press Council of India (PCI) has sought permission from the Supreme Court to intervene in a petition filed by Kashmir Times executive editor Anuradha Bhasin which demands an end to communications restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir.
But though the statutory object of the country’s media watchdog is to “preserve the freedom of the press”, the PCI petition describes the ban on communication and free movement, which many local journalists say has severely affected the functioning of the press in J&K, as being “in the interest of the integrity and sovereignty of the nation”.
'The editorial on the current situation in Kashmir, published in the reputed British medical journal the Lancet, has stirred up a hornet’s nest. The journal has been criticised by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and by the Indian Association of Surgeons, who termed it a ‘unsolicited’ meddling with the internal affairs of India. On a laughable note, in a letter to Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet, the IMA has said, “Indian Medical Association on behalf of the medical fraternity of India withdraws the esteem we had for the Lancet” (sic).
'Both the CBI and the ED were extremely assiduous in using a two-day window afforded by the Supreme Court’s listing for Friday of an anticipatory bail plea to arrest Chidambaram, scaling the wall to enter the premises of his house... It may be worth inquiring into what kind of due diligence these agencies have displayed in pursuing cases against those members of the BJP or its allies against whom charges of corruption have been levelled... Mukul Roy, now a leading light in the West Bengal BJP, was one of those implicated and questioned in connection with the scam.
'These are strange times. A state can just get ‘obliterated’ from the map of the nation. Constitutional propriety is set aside to deprive millions of citizens of their basic human rights while a significant section of the rest of the country ‘rejoices’ over it all.
A large section of the media has abandoned its role as watchdog of democracy but health professionals are coming forward to speak truth to power.
(An open letter to Prof Subhasis Chaudhuri, director of IIT Bombay, following his silence over Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal's pseudoscientific claims at a recent convocation ceremony.)
