September 2018

22 September 2018
WORLD
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
The morning news of raids and
arrest of five activists from different
parts of the country by the Pune police
is a chilling reminder that talks of political
dissent and human rights are a
crime and those who are lynching people
in public, threatening people to send
to Pakistan or openly threatening writers
and journalists are roaming free and
being awarded by the political leadership
of the ruling party, even following
them on the social media.
In democracy people have right to
differ and have their opinion on various
issues. Most of those arrested are well
known writers and activists. Many of
them are known through their work
with the marginalised communities
while some are known as ideologues of
the left, some of them are as old as to be
termed as senior citizens. Father Stan
Swamy would be around 80 and so is
Mr Varvara Rao. One is a human rights
defender who has devoted his life to
empower the adivasis of Jharkhand
leaving all the comforts of his home
state in Tamilnadu for the last three
decades while the other is a literary figure
based in Hyderabad and known as
an ideologue of the left.
Political thinker and public intellectual
Anand Teltumde's home too was
raided. He is a vocal critique of current
economic policies and has been articulating
bringing and merging the classcaste
issues to fight the bigger battle.
He is a prolific writer and his detailed
analysis are available on Economic and
Political Weekly. Gautam Navlakha
belong to PUDR and has been fighting
for the human rights of the marginalised
for long.
All of them are ideologues and
believe in countering an argument
through an argument. All believe in rule
of law and constitution of India. It is
therefore surprising what kind of
'clinching' evidence the Pune police has
got to arrest them. Good that the Delhi
High Court has stayed the arrest of
Gautam Navlakha till tomorrow when it
hear the petition on an urgency basis.
Ms Sudha Bharadwaj is a well known
activist dedicated her life for the rights
DEMOCRACY
under ASSAULT
of trade unions and fighting their cases
free of cost. She has been active also for
the rights of the adivasis. That a lawyer
who is fighting cases of the marginalised
and poor can be arrested by the police
send us the message that they can reach
to any one and criminalise them. It is a
direct assault on our democracy.
There are serious issues emerging
from these arrests which is why is the
Pune Police not able to finish the case.
Rather than arresting the goons who
resorted to violence in the aftermath of
the rally at Bhimakoregaon, it arrested
the Ambedkarite activists on a very
large scale in the entire Maharastra
state while completely leaving the
goons of Elgar Parishad to roam around
and threaten. So
many cases were
filed against the
Dalit activists that
they are fighting it now. Unfortunately,
it did not stop with that. Several
activists who might have participated in
the event at Bhimakoregaon were
arrested earlier and perhaps based on
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
social and human rights activist
extraction of statement from them,
there were raids on these five people.
This is difficult time for all who
believe in human rights and political
dissent. It is time to be together. As
elections draw nearer, such stories
would be cooked. You will get intimidated
by the goons in the street, threatened
with dire consequences and on
social media there will be character
assassination. More than that, on the
North Korean Channels and newspapers
you will get the 'break news'
through 'selective' leakages of stories
about the people
who are arrested.
The dalals
will shout loud
and bring out
stories while the
police will
intimidate, assault and silently leak the
stories to the obliging 'patrakars'.
The modus operandi of the power is
clear to get the activists physically
assaulted like what they did to Umar
Khalid or Swami Agnivesh then file
cases against the victims and allow the
goons and accused to go scot free,
lynch the victim on the TV trials
through their 'spokespersons' on the
channels, plant stories in the media,
drag the case as long as possible and
build up the narrative of threat to the
supreme leader.
And this is not alone. One side the
Maoist narrative, the other side the
Muslim, Pakistan, terrorism narrative.
With the most helping hand coming
from the Bania media, completely
exposing itself now, we can only fight
the battle through legal means and joining
hands together. The most unfortunate
part is the silence of political people
and parties who are unable to speak and
condemn such assault on our freedom.
This is the dark hour. During emergency,
the work of political parties,
activists, media and judiciary was complimentary.
When Jai Prakash Narain
gave a call, Ramnath Goenka and other
joined hand, though a majority of papers
surrendered but what is most threatening
and intimidating today is that state apparatus
is providing ammunition to
spokespersons in the North Korean
channels and cooking up new stories.
We blame social media but it is the electronic
media and print media whose
integrity and credibility is now under the
threat and a majority of who are openly
criminals and supporting them.
Democracy is under the stress today.
Our human liberties and values are
assaulted. Political freedom is endangered.
The message is clear for all of us
that you will be targeted for your views.
Dont speak of people's right over
resources. Dont talk about land rights.
Seal your lips and stay silence because
the greedy corporate want to make an
entry into your region to suck your
resources.
Will the political leadership of different
parties stand up together and
speak up against this intimidation. Will
our Courts speak up and send an unambiguous
message to those in power not
to cross the line and not to intimidate
activists. Will the international rights
bodies speak up. The space for civil
society is shrinking in this country. It is
these forces which can create an atmosphere
for peace and harmony. It is these
people who talk of democracy and constitution
to get people their rights and
not those who burn the constitution and
yet roam free.
We sincerely hope that the courts
will take cognizance the matter and
restore the confidence of the people in
our judiciary and political system.
There is a credibility crisis now and
only courts can save them by their
quick intervention. Let us wait for the
verdict of Delhi High court tomorrow
for one of the cases ?
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social
and human rights activist. He
blogs at
www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter
@freetohumanity
Email: vbrawat@gmail.com
AIR POLLUTION may
affect cognitive skills
Beijing : Besides harming physical
health, long-term exposure to air pollution
can also affect cognitive skills,
especially in elderly men, claims a
study.
The study, published in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, provided evidence that
verbal and math scores "decreased
with increasing cumulative air pollution
exposure".
This decline -- a potential risk factor
in developing Alzheimer's disease
or other forms of dementia -- becomes
more pronounced as people age, especially
for men and the less educated.
"The damage on the ageing brain by
air pollution likely imposes substantial
health and economic costs, considering
that cognitive functioning is critical for
the elderly for both running daily
errands and making high-stake decisions,"
said researchers including Xin
Zhang from Beijing Normal
University.
The team examined cognitive test
scores of nearly 32,000 people
between 2010 and 2014 against their
exposure to short and long-term air
pollution.
While the study adds to the already
numerous health concerns regarding
air pollution including damage to the
heart and kidneys, it will be of particular
concern to developing nations
whose smoggy cities could be hampering
national economic development,
CNN reported. "The damage on cognitive
ability by air pollution also likely
impedes the development of human
capital. Therefore, a narrow focus on
the negative effect on health may
underestimate the total cost of air pollution,"
Zhang said.
"Our findings on the damaging
effect of air pollution on cognition
imply that the indirect effect of pollution
on social welfare could be much
larger than previously thought."
According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), nine out of
every 10 people on the planet breathe
air containing a high level of pollutants,
with the worst affected regions
being Africa and Asia.
A recent study, published in the
journal Environmental Science and
Technology Letters, showed that if air
pollution were removed as a risk for
death, people in the world could live at
least a year longer and in India, which
is battling severe air pollution, the benefit
would be even more -- about 1.5
years.
NASA working for
better cancer treatments
in space: Report
Washington : Astronauts aboard the
International Space Station (ISS) are conducting
a blood cell experiment which
may improve treatments for cancer, the
media reported.
In a new video published by the US
space agency as part of the AngieX
Cancer Therapy study, the team led by
NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-
Chancellor were shown examining
endothelial cells that come
from blood vessels,
space.com reported on
Tuesday.
Several cartridge-shaped
containers on board the
ISS currently host the cells
as they undergo varying
amounts of chemotherapy
exposure.
The team is conducting blood experiments
in space because sometimes, cells
act differently in the weightless environment
of orbiting spacecraft, called microgravity.
Because these orbiting cells perform
more like they normally do inside
the body, cancer researchers can more
accurately test the cells for chemotherapy
responses, the report said.
In the video, Aunon-Chancellor said
the flat endothelial containers feel "all
nice and warm and comfortable," because
they are kept at body temperature aboard
the space lab.
"We've had them for almost two
months now up here in
ISS. We feed them. We
give them nutrients …
they are like miniature
crewmembers living with
us." According to NASA,
endothelial cells housed
within culture dishes (in
vitro) in microgravity seem
to perform as if they were in
blood vessels within a living
organism (in vivo) on Earth.
"The study may facilitate a cost-effective
method that does not require animal
testing, which may help develop safer
and more-effective vascular-targeted
drugs," the project page on NASA stated.