July 2019

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6 July 2019 ASIA www.theasianindependent.co.uk Karnataka CM to seek trust vote on July 18 Bengaluru : Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy will seek a vote of confidence of the state Assembly on July 18, against the backdrop of 16 MLAs of the ruling Congress and JD(S) tendering their resignation. "I have directed the Chief Minister to hold the floor test in the Assembly on Thursday (July 18)," Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar told reporters after a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee of the House here on Monday. The meeting was attended by Kumarswamy, Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah and opposition BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa. The floor test will be held at 11 am on Thursday. The BJP has been demanding the floor test in the wake of resignation by 16 MLAs of the ruling alliance— 13 of the Congress and 3 of the JD(S)—and withdrawal of support to the Kumaraswamy government by two other legislators. The resignations have not yet been accepted by the Speaker, who has said he would need time to study whether these were in proper format. Unhappy with the delay by the Speaker in accepting their resignations, 15 of the rebel MLAs have moved the Supreme Court, apprehending that they could be disqualified. The top court on July 12 ordered a status quo on the petitions till Tuesday when the matter would be heard again. The Congress-JD(S), along with lone legislators each of BSP and a regional party and an Independent, had 118 MLAs, including the Speaker, in the 225-member House, when the staked claim to form government last year. If all the 18 legislators, including 16 rebels and 2 Independents do not attend the session, the effective strength of the House for voting will be 205, including 105 of the BJP and excluding the Speaker and the nominated member. The BJP has issued a notice to Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar during the Business Advisory Committee meeting attended by party leader BS Yeddyurappa seeking to move the noconfidence motion, party state general secretary CT Ravi said. “Yes, we have given a notice to move a no-confidence motion,” he said. "As the new halfway mark will be 103 for a simple majority, the ruling combine with 100, including one from the supporting party BSP will fall 3 short off it (halfway mark) to win the trust vote and certain to be defeated," according to BJP spokesman G. Madhusudana. The Supreme Court will take up petitions of 15 rebel MLAs of Congress- JD(S) coalition seeking a direction to assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignations on Tuesday. Ahead of by-polls, Mayawati, Akhilesh under CBI scanner Pak anti-terror court grants pre-arrest bail to Hafiz Saeed, 3 aides Lahore : Mumbai terror attack mastermind and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed and his three aides were granted pre-arrest bail on Monday by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in a case pertaining to the banned outfit’s illegal use of land for its seminary. The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore granted interim bail to Saeed and his aides -- Hafiz Masood, Ameer Hamza, and Malik Zafar -- until August 31 against surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each, Dawn newspaper reported. During the hearing, Saeed’s counsel insisted that Jamat-ud Dawah (JuD) was not using any piece of land illegally and urged the court to accept bail pleas. According to officials, JuD’s network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house New Delhi : Ahead of the crucial assembly by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, dates for which are expected to be announced soon, the two key opposition leaders of the ruling BJP, Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP), appear to be in big trouble as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing two fresh cases of corruption against them. The by-elections will be for 12 assembly seats. The Rs 1,100 crore sugar mills scam, which is unraveling the bureaucrat-political nexus in selling state assets, involves Mayawati's former secretary Netram while a multicrore sand mining scam links Akhilesh Yadav's aide Gayatri Prajapati with six bureaucrats in looting public resources. Sources in the CBI said that after Wednesday's raids at various premises of former SP Minister Prajapti and three IAS officers in UP, the agency can question Yadav during whose tenure, as UP chief minister, the mining scam took place. Sources said that before Prajapati was appointed cabinet minister, then chief minister Yadav had held the mining portfolio from March 2012 to July 2013. During this period, the chief minister's office had reportedly cleared several files related to lease of mines. The CBI would be auditing these files to ascertain whether the then chief minister's office had followed laid down procedure for approving the lease of mines. In Prajapati's case, CBI discovered that mandatory e-tendering norms were grossly violated. As minister, Prajapati approved the lease of mines directly for contractors of his choice. Subsequently, on Prajapati's instruction, the then mining secretary and district magistrates concerned signed on the files to execute the lease. Sources said that though Prajapati and ambulance service. In March, Punjab police said that government seized control of 160 seminaries, 32 schools, two colleges, four hospitals, 178 ambulances and 153 dispensaries associated with the JuD and its charity wing the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) in province.At least 56 seminaries and facilities being run by the JuD and FIF in southern Sindh province were also taken over by authorities in the same month. Saeed-led JuD is believed to be the was sacked by Yadav at a later stage, the violations were ignored by the chief minister's office. As of now, the CBI is gathering more evidence on the scam and would further interrogate three IAS officers of UP to establish the role of the chief minister's office during Yadav's tenure. While Yadav faces trouble in the days to come, his erstwhile alliance partner Mayawati too seems to be in deep waters. For Mayawati the problem stems from the fact that her most trusted bureaucrat, Netram, has been raided by CBI in the sugar mills scam. Sources said that Mayawati's fate now depends on the disclosure statement of Netram to CBI relating to approvals for disinvestment of 21 sugar mills. According to the CBI FIR, sugar mills were sold at throwaway prices in 2010-11. Mayawati was UP chief minister from 2007 to 2012. Sources said that Netram, who ruled the roost in UP during Mayawati's chief ministership, has earlier faced income tax raids over suspected tax evasion amounting to Rs 100 crore. Another close aide of Mayawati, Vinay Priya Dubey, a former managing director of UP State Sugar Corporation, has also been raided by the CBI in connection with the sugar mills scam. Sources said that Mayawati, who steered away from the Disproportionate Assets Case earlier, now faces a tough time as CBI interrogates members of the inner coterie of the BSP supremo in the scandal which has of late rocked politics in Lucknow. The by-elections are crucial for both Mayawati and Yadav because, after the poor showing by their parties in the Lok Sabha polls, they will decide who is the principal opponent of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state. front organisation for the Lashkar-e- Toiba which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a S p e c i a l l y Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice. Under pressure from the international community, Pakistani authorities have launched investigations into matters of the JuD, LeT and the FIF regarding their holding and use of trusts to raise funds for terrorism financing. Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court (LHC) issued notices to the federal government, the Punjab government and the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) regarding a petition filed by Saeed and his seven aides, challenging charges of terror financing and money laundering against them. A two-member bench of the LHC comprising Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry and Justice Mohammad Waheed Khan asked the parties to submit their replies within two weeks. A lawyer for the federal government objected to the notices, arguing that the petition was non-maintainable. The bench, however, dismissed the objection and adjourned proceedings until TDP MP asks Naidu to control his 'pet dog' Amaravati : The war of words between two leaders of the TDP in Andhra Pradesh touched a new low with Vijayawada MP Kesineni Nani on Monday asking the party President N. Chandrababu Naidu to control his "pet dog". The MP asked the former Chief Minister to clarify whether he wants him to continue in Telugu Desam Party (TDP) or not. "Chandra Babu Garu if you don't want people like me in the party you can let me know. I will resign as Member of Parliament and also to the Party membership. If you want people like me to continue, please control your pet dog," tweeted Nani. The tweet has an obvious referrence to TDP leader and Member of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Buddha Venkanna with whom Nani had a war of words on the micro blogging site. Reacting to the MP's latest tweet, Venkanna announced that he was putting an end to the 'twitter war' for the sake of the party and Chandrababu Naidu. July 30, the paper said. The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police on July 3 registered 23 FIRs against 13 leaders of the JuD, including Saeed, on the charges of “terror financing” in different cities of Punjab province. On Friday, Saeed, who is reportedly living at his Jauhar Town residence in Lahore, challenged these FIRs in the Lahore High Court. “Hafiz Saeed and other (petitioners) are not members of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) as per the (earlier) judgement of the LHC. The petitioners have no nexus with LeT or Al-Qaeda,” the petition said. It urged the LHC to declare that the petitioners are not linked with the LeT and therefore the CTD’s FIRs be declared illegal.
www.theasianindependent.co.uk ASIA July 2019 Bambai’s Cinema and its cultural biases 7 Caste, gender and religious biases are a norm in Bambai cinema. Ofcourse, there was a time when cinema sophistry was due to the beauty of Urdu language as Yusuf Khan, Naushad, Sahir, Kaifi Azami, Jaan Nisar Akhtar, Gulam Mohammad, Mehboob, Kamal Amrohi, and so many others were part of it. Even the non Muslims used to speak Urdu and the script was urdu. I am sure, Raj Kapoor, Devanand, Dharmendra, Manoj Kumar, Ashok Kumar all had known Urdu language and were comfortable with it. So, in that way, it was a Hindustani Cinema or Urdu language cinema. The Hindi Cinema, as it is called today, has more contribution from the non Hindi speaking people. Whether it is Lata Mangeshkar or her sisters, Mohammad Rafi, Sachin Dev Barman, Salil Chaudhury, Hemant Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Yeshu Das, S P Bala Subramanywam, and others, Hindi was not their first language but they enriched this. The greatest of all was Shailendra whose poetry touched our heart as it came from his own experiences of life. And who was Shailendra and why has he been so spiritual and why was his poetry so inspiring. Our left friends suggested that he was a worker in the railway and that he remained a ‘communist’. But none tried to put ‘Pandit’ Shailendra before his name. Shailendra’s caste remained unknown. Was it deliberate not to know abouit it or the cinema wanted to let it remain as usual. What would have happened if Shailendra had declared his caste identity in a cinema where hero always come from a ‘poor’ brahmin families i.ie ‘economically poor’ and fight for the have nots. Yes, this question itself was answered by Dinesh Shankar Shailendra about a year back when we discussed things. Though it does not matter but it matter a lot too. He said, his father belong to Chamar community but then probably was fearful in those days, his ‘acceptance’ would be affected if he reveal it. This is a dirty fact otherwise why efforts were not made by our researchers to know more about him. There are definitely good films but as the tradition of this cinema is, the main patrons of it are the Savarna ‘progressive’ and therefore anything and any solution has to come according to their wish. So, a good Samaritan always come from the powerful castes, preferably Brahmin who will ‘help’ the ‘poor’ and redefine what the ‘dharma’ is. Blacks, physically challenged, people with obscenities are mostly laughed at and can never be heroes. Most of the characters in these characteristics are vilified. There was a famous song where Hema Malini plays as a nat or Banjara woman dancer, which is a lively nomadic community, ‘duniya ka mela, mele me ladki, ladki akeli sanno, naam uska’, 1972 Raja Jani or hum banjaro kee baat mat poocho di from dharmvir played by Dharmendra and Jeetendra.. She played that in Sita aur Gita too and there are many other films. Having seen and known these communities from close quarters, I can say they have more talent in singing and acting than those who pass through the ‘acting’ classes yet it never occurred to our star By Vidya Bhushan Rawat social and human rights activist directors and producers to look for the talent from the community. If you visit Rajasthan, there is a community called Bahurupiyas and watch their talent when they act live in solo performances but then their caste become the biggest hurdle. You watch their shows and give them ‘alms’. So caste decide your telent. These Bahurupiyas are so talented and yet they are an absolutely landless community in Rajasthan and isolated. They have to beg for their survival. The government might give some hand outs to a few of them who participate in a ‘cultural’ festivals but broadly their caste identity become bigger than their talent. It is only when a brahmin or a savarna play Bahurupiya or Banjara in the film that ensures the ‘success’ of the film. The similar things can be spoken about many other films. I can believe in good intentions but why the film makers not attempt to look a character from the community who can speak on the issue with conviction. It is like this, we ask the extras of the dark colour or obese to mock at themselves and this practice is from good old days when Tuntun used to make fun of herself. Can the cinema ask blacks from South Africa to play and mock at themselves. Cinema need Mohammad Ali who was unambiguous about his identity and very clear about the oppressor. The Holllywood is changing as there is space and they are still clear about the dangers of the racism but the issue of caste discrimination has not reached there. Perhaps, one day, they will explore the issue. One thing is clear, it is good to speak about discrimination but equally important is to find voices from the communities and encourage them. I can say firmly, they will play a much better role and can show the discrimination in a much powerful way. I read many reactions about a film which has released recently and about its upper caste hero who plays as a messiah. One friend wrote in his facebook post that Dalits in India needed a Martin Luther King and only then they will be able to play their roles, till then the Brahmins will always enjoy the hegemony. Well, I am sorry to say that revolution brought by Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar is far bigger and superior than what Martin Luther King could do. The new generations of Assertive Ambedakarites will not wait for Holly wood to make a film but they will themselves do it and expose the various facets of discrimination. Any effort done by any one to being an issue to limelight should be appreciated but it is equally important to see how the issue is addressed. Issue of participation and fair representation is equally important to address an issue in all fairness. Whether the star directors and producers are able to see it or not, the new generation Ambedkarites are ready and will surprise you in the coming days with their creativity and ideas. After all, 21st century belong to Ambedkarism and Ambedkarite assertion. Power situation precarious, can’t help if Sidhu doesn’t want to do his job: Capt New Delhi-Talking about the resignation of his cabinet colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday said he could not help if the power minister didn’t want to do his job. Singh said he was told Sidhu had sent his resignation to Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday and delivered a copy to the CM residence in Chandigarh on Monday morning. “I will have a look at the resignation once I return to Chandigarh in a day or two,” Singh said after paying a courtesy visit to PM Narendra Modi in Parliament on Monday. Singh said the power situation of the state is very precarious. “This is our most critical time--June to October--since it is the paddy season. Seventy per cent Punjab has received rains while 30 per cent hasn’t received even one shower. The power situation in the state is very bad and I daily receive reports on the power situation. This is the job of the power minister but if he doesn’t want to do it, I cannot help it,” said Amarinder. Singh had changed Sidhu’s portfolio from local bodies to power in an early July state cabinet reshuffle. Sidhu came to Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi complaining that he had been singled out for punishment over non-performance in the Lok Sabha polls. After waiting for almost a month, Sidhu resigned from the Punjab cabinet on Sunday protesting against the change of his ministry. Sometimes, I would prefer to be bitterly frank. These days, I feel that people get what they deserve. You have a PM whose credentials in Babari Masjid demolition and Gujarat violence and many other issues are well established. You have a Home Minister whose credentials are also well established. So, why are they there on top of us? There are only two answers for this question. The first one is that those who are aware do not speak out. It could be because of fear or it could be because of their selfish reasons. We have around a couple of dozen crores of middle class population. They are still waiting to see what is there for them. Among this population, a small minority is also living with pretensions of radical and critical minds. What have they been doing so far? Therefore, either we will have to come to a conclusion that `people do not have strength’ or that `people would get what they deserve’. If people had strength then these guys won’t be sitting on top of us. And if the critical minds could perform united actions without fear, then also we would not have faced this situation. I remember a similar situation which affected me deeply 3 or 4 decades back. The post emergency situation in India saw a large number of youth and students’ groups extremely active in criticising emergency. But during emergency, most of them did not have the guts to do so. Lifting of emergency was a liberation for many. For those who kept quiet in fear as well those who fought. So, between 1977 to 1980, I would call it as a period of renaissance in India. People came out with radical literature, paintings, films and many creative and political works. Those who keep mum today are Bitterly Frank ! waiting for a period of renaissance, so that they can express themselves without hurting themselves. The post 1980 period was not very healthy for many. The groups started splintering. The political opposition called Janata Dal comprising of many diverse sections of different ideologies also fell apart. Many youngsters could not take the transformation from liberation to nothingness. Some became mad, some became religious, some committed suicide, some went to make money and some went in search of comfortable jobs where they could keep mum again. While this process was happening, one of my -K.P. Sasi friends who used to draw political poster with me in JNU also was psychologically affected. Some people felt that he became mad. But he did one of the sanest things at that time. He put up poster in front of the JNU library which said: `You Middle Class Buffoons, Come Out Of Your Cocoons !’. It was the sanest thing to say at that time. After four decades, at this point of time, I am eager to meet this friend. I still remember the visual he drew on the poster. These are the situations where I feel that the notions of sanity and insanity should be placed upside down. We may survive as free citizens if we start doing that.
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July 2019

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