Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Editorial, "Free Speech in peril," in 15 September 2012 issue of LAW ANIMATED WORLD, Vol. 8, Part 2, No. 17
FREE SPEECH IN PERIL
all over the world, not just in our country, by the
vile deeds of not only the State actors, but also of non-State actors – mostly
religious fundamentalist, chauvinist, extremist groups. Especially the killing
of Chris Stevens, U.S.
ambassador to Libya and a
staunch friend of Arab people, by a well-planned murderous attack, presumably
by al-Qaeda thugs, is quite heartrending and mourned even by several sane
elements in Libya
itself. That a pervert Egyptian Coptic Christian immigrant with a past criminal
record, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula @ Sam Bacile,
aided and funded by an Egyptian-Muslim-convert-to-Christianity, Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, founder of the organization Media for Christ, produced and
exhibited a highly critical, caricaturing, slanderous and negative-image-building
film titled ‘Innocence of Muslims’
months ago can never be an excuse for fanatic and chauvinistic Muslim groups
anywhere to go on violent orgies of attacking and killing persons and resorting
to all sorts of vandalism. That the gory slaughter of Chris Stevens and the
attacks on US embassies in Egypt, Libya and protests elsewhere occurred on the
11th anniversary of the 9/11 Massacre is a definite pointer to the
carefully pre-planned nature of such fundamentalist spree. Free speech is too
precious a right, a virtue, to be damned by the dastardly destructive and
murderous attacks of fanatics or the undue advantage taken by deceitful
hate-speakers like Sam Bacile. There is absolutely no reason for Muslims
anywhere to overreact and take to insane orgies of protest; they can well
repulse such attacks on their religious credentials by producing better and
more educative films – counter hate-speech by better propaganda. Likewise the nasty
attempts and actions of the Indian State to implicate and cause punished all
sorts of dissenters under the hated Section 124A of IPC with vague charges of
sedition is another big assault on democracy and free speech in our country.
Today it may be Aseem Trivedi or Seema Azad who face the music but tomorrow any
and every lover of democracy may be in danger due to such arbitrary and
authoritarian actions and statutes. This only reinforces our existing demand
for the immediate repeal of Section 124A, a nasty colonial legacy, from the
statute book. §§§
Editorial, 'CORRUPTION, SPORTS AND EDUCATION', in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 31 August 2012 issue, Vol. 8, Part 2, No. 16
CORRUPTION,
SPORTS AND EDUCATION
are hot news again, perhaps they will be ever so in our
Indian conditions, with what the Coal-gate Scam stalking and stalling the
Parliament now, with our country failing to get even a single gold medal in the
London Olympics and the fee reimbursement imbroglio for higher, more
specifically engineering, education in our State, rocking the governmental and
judicial boats. To take up the last first, the very scheme was ill advised from
inception, introduced out of populist vote bank considerations; it is doubtful
whether it would really promote the cause of better education for a better
society. Linked to the all pervasive corruption, the beneficiaries will in
general be from relatively better-off sections only with the general public that
cannot afford even a decent primary education burdened with the bill. Strangely
when public or state sector education is being cherished and fostered in
avowedly capitalist West, ‘we the people’ of India opting for a socialist
democratic republic have settled for a greedy capitalist private educational
system and criminally neglected the public education with even the judiciary
singing the tunes of a LPG economy of the globalization phase of a degenerate
capitalist system which is being loathed now by the agitated 99% all over the
awakened world. Likewise, when common people can’t have even moderate school
buildings with necessary playgrounds – even the ‘model’ Raj
Bhavan Govt
High School in Hyderabad has not a playground since decades – and requisite physical education training, how we can
dream of Olympic medals. The ‘investment’ by State in education is quite meager
compared to that in the developed or even many developing countries. The
beneficiaries of populist schemes rarely contribute to the real development of
the nation with themselves drawn into the vortex of corrupt systems of the day
while the more meritorious and deserving candidates are left in the lurch. Even
Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign has also, sadly, taken a U-turn with
virtual desertion from the battle-field, to plunge into the cesspool of the
rampant corrupt politics in the name of starting a political party, contesting
elections, etc. Here we only express these laments in which, of course, our
readers can, hopefully, find some suggestions too by ‘necessary implication’. §§§
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Editorial, 'WE THE UNDERACHIEVERS' in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 15 August 2012, Vol. 8, Part 2, No. 15 issue
WE THE UNDERACHIEVERS
on any count, if not totally failure statues, have to
pause and seriously introspect as to what went wrong with us in confidently
marching to our tryst with destiny and redeeming the pledges to the nation made
by innumerable freedom fighters for its full independence, true democracy, economic
prosperity, social justice and peaceful progress. No point in just engaging in any
blame-game; ‘we the people’ have to collectively rethink the strategies and
tactics to be adopted in our struggle for an egalitarian social democracy - the
vision of our national leaders of various hues – like Gandhi, Bose or Bhagat
Singh – instead of the current drift towards a rabid exploitative, eco-destructive
capitalization process in sad imitation of the greedy and over-consuming West
which achieved all its prosperity by downright swindling and pillage of the
vast majority of global population in colonial times and continues to do so
even now. It is true, as Pranab Mukherjee stressed in his presidential address
to the nation on the eve of this 66th ‘independence day’, that
British imperialism did wrought havoc; our economy, thriving in the 1750s with ~
24% of world’s manufacture to our credit, was smashed down to a mere 1.7% level
by 1900 and our growth rate during 1900-1947 was hardly 1% p.a. from which
point we have come a long way to the ~ 8% growth in the last 7 years period.
However, even smaller countries of Asia, not to speak of the bigger China , have
outpaced us in developmental/distributive achievements and are able to showcase
neater and more orderly models of growth. Especially in the last three decades
we are on a degenerative dissolution phase with what communal, casteist,
regional and other divisive factors dealing telling blows to the fabric of the
nation and the canker of corruption eating away the very vitals of the society.
Unless we imbibe the spirit of the universal man espoused by the Kannada rashtrakavi Kuvempu and, applying it to
our specific conditions, seriously fight corruption in the society together
with waging war against divisive factors and poverty, unless we feel and
breathe the spirit of unity irrespective of the various class/caste/communal
divides, ‘we the people’ of India cannot secure real redemption §§§
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