South Asia Citizens Web

This Peace Buzz interview with Nyla Ali Khan was conducted in August 2016

The Supreme Court of India has time and again restricted use of unique identification (UID) number or Aadhaar to public distribution system (PDS) Scheme, the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) distribution scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), National Social Assistance Programme (Old Age Pensions, Widow Pensions, Disability Pensions), Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that the UID number where permitted “is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by the Court one way or the other“

September 12, 2015, was a black night for Moyna Murmu, a woman in her mid-forties. The residents of Salboni village, West Midnapore, dragged her to the ojha (witch doctor), holding her responsible for her sister-in-law’s cancer. They believed she had used jaadu-tona to make her sister-in-law sick. To remove the evil spirit inside her, Moyna was severely beaten, her clothes torn off and she was nearly raped by the witch doctor. Moyna managed to escape and went to the police who failed to take any action. On a lawyer’s advice, she and her husband gathered their tattered pride to file a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court (CHC) against police inaction in the area and the need for a law to prevent horrific crimes such as witch-hunting.

Forest rights activists, people’s movements and farmer’s unions from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Assam and Andhra Pradesh converged at Jantar Mantar to mark 10 years of the enactment of the Scheduled Tribe and other Forest Dwellers, Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2006. A press release from Bhumi Adhikar Andolan Photos of the event (by Mukul Dube) are posted here

Photos an documentation from Bhopal medical appeal and link to a recent (dec 2016) article in the media