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In her handling of heinous rape and murder, Mamatadi has failed her gender and opposition By Alok Tiwari If there is one thing that lays to waste all tall claims, all achievements, all ancient knowledge of this country, it is recurrence of horrifying instances of rape-murder. It has gotten to a stage when there are no words that can cover the shame, the impotent rage, the sheer hopelessness of the situation felt when another such case is hurled upon us. The words of condemnation, outrage, and despair seem to have lost their meaning. The language itself seems inadequate to express the feelings. And it happens with sickening, unfailing regularity. If that were not bad enough, we know that such high-profile cases are but a small fraction of the total. The rollcall of shame continues unabated. Nirbhaya, Kathua, Hathras, Unnao, Hyderabad, Rishikesh and now Kolkata. For each of them, there are hundreds that got buried because the victims were just not important enough or it was not pol...

Modernising labour laws is good but where is social security for workers? Alok Tiwari As is usual in India, opinions are divided on the new labour codes that the central government finally notified. The four codes were enacted by the Parliament five years ago, during prime minister Narendra Modi’s second term. That the government sat on it for five long years and mustered courage to notify them only now indicates the government’s own extreme wariness on the subject. Despite the fanfare accompanying the notification, the new codes are far from becoming a reality on the ground. Both central and state governments must undertake several steps to make them operational. The government, through massive advertisements, is projecting the welfare measures the new code provide for the workers. These are extending benefits of regular employment like provident fund and gratuity to gig workers who now make up a significant section of the workforce. Labour organizations, on the other hand, ar...

Performances in international sports are no indication of a country’s sporting culture Alok Tiwari Wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s missing the gold medal bout by weighing in just 100gms more provided plenty of heartbreaks to Indian fans. Thanks to the divisive times we live in, it also provided plenty of fodder for recriminations. The treatment meted out to Vinesh, who had participated in wrestlers’ protests over the alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers by the then Indian boxing chief and BJP leader Brijbhushan Sharan Singh and had been roughly handled by the police at the time, meant that she quickly became rallying point for those critical of government. At the same time, the usual suspects on the government side began finding fault with how casually she and her team had approached the bout. Many faulted her for competing in weight category lower than her natural weight implying she was not being a ‘good sport’. Then the eventual gold medallist US’s Sarah Hildebrandt reveale...

The fall Bangladeshi leader has a lesson for all: dictators end badly Alok Tiwari Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed was not a dictator. At least, not in the classic meaning of the term. She was, technically speaking, an elected leader. Yet, she had to pick up her bags and flee the country she ran for 15 years within hours as her regime unravelled in the manner that many dictators in many countries have done previously. She was lucky to get out alive. Much worse fate has fallen upon others in her own country including her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of the country. Now her son, already living abroad, has declared that she has no intention to return to Bangladesh. As she quit, she has left not only her legacy in the mud but also her country in turmoil. I said Sheikh Hasina wasn’t a dictator, but she was definitely dictatorial. Her years in power progressively saw her getting more intolerant of dissent till it got to the point that she brazenly stole th...

Hasina’s death sentence shows country’s institutions remain compromised Alok Tiwari Last week’s verdict of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal sentencing its deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to death surprised no one. It did remind the people of similar trial and execution of Pakistan’s former president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979. Only, Sheikh Hasina, in exile in India at present, is out of reach of Bangladesh law enforcement and hence safe. Ironically, she was handed over the death penalty by the tribunal she herself set up to try the alleged collaborators with Pakistani regime during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. Given the current state of India-Bangladesh relations and the fact that she had been largely pro-India during her 15-year rule, it is almost certain that India will not extradite her. Her presence along with that of her home minister Asaduzzaman Khan in India will be one more festering wound in the relations between the two countries. Ba...

Government needs to think out of the box to meet its biggest challenge: job creation Alok Tiwari Among the failings of the Modi government in the last 10 years, the biggest has been on the employment front. True to its form, the government responded to the challenge by stopping publication of employment figures. Now though, the annual payroll data from Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) that tracks organized employment presents a damning picture. In the last one year, country’s private sector has shed 7 lakh jobs. This trend is seen across top five industrialized states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Haryana. This fall, besides being worst in last five years, is an order of magnitude bigger than what was seen even during Covid time in the same data. The data indicate that the trend of rising freshers’ jobs seen after Covid setback has also been reversed. The figures are as grim as they can be. They reveal that despite slogans and half measures, jo...

The UP order on food vendors legalizes untouchability and must be fought by all Alok Tiwari Just when you think you have seen the worst of now all too frequent Hindu-Muslim games in politics, along comes somebody to prove you wrong. The order of Uttar Pradesh government forcing all food vendors along the route of Kanwariya yatra to display their nameplate is one such. It is ostensibly to enable the Yatris to determine if they were eating food from “proper” source so as not to violate their religious beliefs. In reality, it is just to point to the Yatris and others which food outlets were owned by Muslims so that an unspoken boycott could be imposed on them. Political observers say the move is result of BJP’s internecine battle between UP chief minister Adityanath and Union home minister Amit Shah. Apparently, the UP CM has moved to establish himself as standard bearers of Hindus before the preparations for state assembly elections begin in UP. In doing so, he has queered the pitc...

Pahalgam and Delhi show terror network is alive and kicking despite muscular responses Alok Tiwari All indications in the initial probe of Delhi blast point towards a Kashmir-linked terror angle. It is not clear whether this explosion, that has already claimed 13 lives, was triggered intentionally or the explosives went off accidentally while being transported. Either way, this was clearly part of a terrorist operation. Investigators are also trying to find links of this incident with a haul of nearly 3 tonnes of explosive material in Faridabad from a doctor of Kashmiri origin. This comes within months of Pahalgam attack in which terrorists mercilessly gunned down over two dozen innocent people. That led to a mini war with Pakistan. Together the incidents have once again left people feeling helpless, vulnerable, and angry. They will also serve to further widen the communal divide in India. They thus serve the agenda of those who thrive at these divisions. The probe agencies are...

We should be grateful to the young officer for having exposed vulnerabilities of the system Alok Tiwari You must be from another planet if by now you do not know about the Puja Khedkar case. Unless, of course, you have been an invitee to THE wedding, in which case you would, indeed, be on another planet. But we are talking about the young IAS officer who, while being posted in Pune district collectorate, cheesed off enough people in her office to have herself shunted to Washim. This middle of nowhere posting from a prime place in the state came after Puja’s relentless demands for perks like official residence, car, a biggish chamber etc. As an IAS officer all these would have come to her anyway, but she seemed too much in a hurry. This led her boss, the district’s collector, to report her demands to the government, which was embarrassed enough to shunt her to Washim immediately. This country can forgive a lot of things, especially among the rich and the powerful, but one thing it...

Hathras tragedy and cricket victory parade expose our nationalism as a sham Alok Tiwari The defining images of last week emerged from two crowded events. One set was from the tragic stampede at Hathras in UP that on July 2 ended up costing lives of more than 120 persons. The other was from the victory parade of Team India on July 4 at Mumbai following India’s triumph at T20 world cup. These events, held just two days apart, could not be more contrasting. Even in a country accustomed to large scale tragedies, Hathras was disturbing and numbing at the same time. The photos and videos of bodies, mostly of women, lying in the open could have shaken the most stoic of persons. That those killed had gone to listen to some sort of spiritual sermon made the tragedy that much more poignant. If that was one extreme, the victory parade that turned Mumbai’s Marine Drive into a sea of humanity was another. The triumphalism, the celebration, the chest thumping topped by singing of Maa Tujhe Sal...

Can India seize the redeeming moments our women cricketers have provided? Alok Tiwari Last Sunday, as Indian women’s cricket team lifted the World Cup, it virtually raised from dead the cricket fan in me. It brought back, even if fleetingly, some of the innocent purity that most of us used to enjoy about the game. As the long-denied team found its moment, the game too found its soul. The spirit that brought together a diverse set of people who found common sentiments in the win or loss of the national team. There was a time like this, I knew part from memory and part from folklore, about the hockey team. That era had ended before the time I can remember, existing only in the memory of old timers or nostalgic newspaper pieces. Cricket took some time taking its place. But it eventually did and how. Indian men’s cricket team may never have dominated the game the way Indian hockey team did but India as a nation has been dominating the game itself for past couple of decades. Hockey never sa...

New crime laws strengthen police powers but offer little protection to the innocent Alok Tiwari As the month of July began, the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, and Indian Evidence Act became history. They were replaced by new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam respectively in the first complete overhaul of basic criminal laws of the country. The government has projected the development as a long-awaited progressive step that did away with colonial approach to criminal justice. It points to new definition of crimes to suit the modern era, particularly crimes against women and children and mob lynching. It also claims that while the old laws were designed to help the police, the new laws seek to protect the victim of the crime. There are provisions for more use of scientific methods of detection. Union Home Minister Amit Shah even claimed it would speed up justice by ensuring everything from FIR to final appea...

It is time the judiciary intervened decisively to safeguard personal freedoms of citizens Alok Tiwari Last few months have seen two sitting chief ministers arrested forcing the resignation of one of them. Delhi’s deputy chief minister and health ministers have been languishing in jail for a long time with no hope of getting out. There are others like Umar Khalid who have been locked up for years together without being convicted of any offence. Several accused in the so-called Bheema-Koregaon case spent years in custody. Some could secure their release only after repeatedly approaching the highest courts in the land. As we observe the 49 th anniversary of the infamous Emergency, it is time to look at how far the Indian state has shed its authoritarian tendencies and how much it cares for human rights. The sad answer on both counts is not a lot. The examples quoted above are just a handful of high-profile cases. These citizens had to lose their liberty for prolonged periods despit...