South Asia Citizens Web

We need to inquire why young Indian men are routinely committing gang rapes in metropolitan cities against women who are just going about their daily lives. What is the anger that motivates this level of violence? Is the sight of a young smartly-dressed educated female professional generating a sense of displacement in men? Over the past several decades, women’s rights have proliferated and they are claiming their subjectivity, asserting their identity as women as opposed to being someone’s wife, daughter or sister. And with the opening up of the market, women are more visible in the workplace. That they are entering male bastions of power has challenged the sense of superiority and entitlement of the traditional Indian male.

Elaborating the flimsy and fabricated case against Binayak, digging in to charge sheets and reading out from the judgment of the trial court, which convicted him with life imprisonment, the author raises certain pertinent questions not only about the Chhattisgarh government and its Police, on whose behest Binayak is convicted for no crime but also about the state of the judicial system in our country, especially in the state of Chhattisgarh. The author ably exposes the holes in the charge sheets, selectivity of the prosecution and the executive mentality of the judiciary.

Many garment workers died on the evening of November 24th when fire broke out in Tazreen Fashions in Ashulia’s Nischintapur. The exact death toll is still unknown. According to the government, 112 workers had died but many family members were unable to identify their beloved ones as the flesh had burnt away leaving behind only charred bones and skeletons. Fifty three unidentified bodies have been buried in Jurain graveyard. But several investigative reports have concluded that the death toll is higher. Some of us have conducted preliminary research in Nischintapur’s Buripara at our own initiative, and, we too, have been forced to reach the same conclusion. The government and the BGMEA should immediately have launched a serious drive to ascertain the exact number of those who have died, but instead they displayed a callous indifference which amounts to nothing short of criminal negligence.

SAHMAT pays tribute to Pandit Ravi Shankar, who has passed away in the US. A less remembered part of his long and illustrious history are his beginnings with IPTA in Bombay. Ravi Shankar composed the music for IPTA’s film on the Bengal famine "Dharti Ke Lal" directed by K.A. Abbas in 1946, as well as Chetan Anand’s "Neecha Nagar" also in 1946. "Dharti ke Lal was the debut film of Balraj Sahni and Zohra Segal, the songs were written by Ali Sardar Jaffri. He was an important part of the great moment of the progressive movement in the 1940s when the Communist affiliated IPTA and PWA had a huge impact in shaping modernism in the arts. His music for these two films was composed more than a decade before his music for Satyajit Ray’s film "Pather Panchali", with which both received lasting acclaim.

A Fact-Finding Committee comprising a professor and some students of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha (MGAHV), social activists and journalists visited Akot (District Akola in Maharashtra) on 23rd November’ 2012. An incident of communal violence occurred on 23rd October in Akot in which four people were killed and several injured. 22 homes of Muslim community and about 25 shops belonging to both Hindu & Muslim communities were set ablaze. All the deceased were from lower-middle class background.