Issue 63 Vol III, May 15, 2008
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Issue 63 Vol III, May 15, 2008 |
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C O M M E N T Kashmir: Rights
watchdog voices concern
HRW conducted a survey, titled ‘Everyone Lives in Fear: Patterns of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir,’ from 2004 to February 2006 in Indian-controlled Kashmir. It was the first time since 1989 that the Indian Government had allowed an International human rights body to visit and report. HRW also conducted research in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir in 2005 and 2006. The report provides detailed accounts and interviews implicating the Indian security forces in torture, disappearances, arbitrary detentions and summary executions, which are concealed as ‘encounter killings’. The Asian Director of Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams expressing concern said, “Human Rights abuses have been a cause as well as a consequence of the insurgency in Kashmir. Kashmiris continue to live in constant fear because perpetrators of abuses are not punished. Unless the Indian authorities address the Human Rights crisis in Jammu and Kashmir, a political settlement of the conflict will remain illusory.” The report also covers in significant detail the massacres, bombings and political killings committed by various armed groups opposed to Indian rule of Kashmir. While HRW equates the violence of the Indian military and that of the militants, the outbreak of the armed conflict in the late 1980s resulted from decades of anti-democratic Indian rule. The continuing conflict in Kashmir underlines the inherently reactionary character of the 1947 partition of British India into the current Muslim Pakistan and a Hindu-dominated India. The division of the subcontinent along artificial boundaries that cut across national, ethnic and language groupings laid the groundwork for future conflicts and wars that resulted in some two million deaths, turned millions more into refugees and divided the Kashmiri region into Indian and Pakistani-held areas. Subsequently, successive Indian governments have proved incapable of meeting the aspirations of the Kashmiris for a genuine democratic rights and decent living standards. Seeking to ensure Indian domination over Kashmir, the Indian elite rescinded an agreement to give more autonomy to the State. Kashmiris began to take up arms in the late 1980s after the Indian Government blatantly rigged elections in Jammu and Kashmir. Since 1989, some estimate that at least 20,000 Kashmiri civilians have been killed as a result of the armed conflict and tens of thousands more have been injured according to the HRW report. About 3, 00,000 Hindu Kashmiris have been internally displaced and another 30,000 Muslim Kashmiris have fled to neighbouring Pakistan as refugees. The report cited evidence of summary killings of suspected militants. Police and army officials told HRW that detained suspects were often executed rather than being brought to jail, on the grounds that ‘keeping hardcore militants in gaol is a security risk’. The deaths were often falsely recorded as the result of ‘encounter killings’. One example was the case of five men shot supposedly in an armed ‘encounter’. While the army and police claimed the men were responsible for the massacre of 36 Kashmiri Sikhs in 2000, forensic tests later showed the men to be innocent local villagers. Kashmiri human rights defenders allege that over 8,000 Kashmiris have simply ‘disappeared’ since 1989. Most were last seen in the custody of Indian troops, who in turn denied holding the person. Many were tortured and then executed. The HRW report stated that thousands of Kashmiris have been arbitrarily and illegally detained. One of India’s Additional Advocate Generals (AAGs) recently stated there were 4,500 suspected militants awaiting trial in jail. Many have been held for 10 years or more without being brought before a Court. Indian authorities often detain Kashmiris under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, which allows for detention without trial for up to two years, because they have no evidence of guilt. Many people have been detained beyond two years by simply rolling over preventative detention orders. Amnesty International reported on the case of Farooq Ahmad Dar, who was detained in November last year under his ninth consecutive PSA order. He has been in continuous detention since 1991. Based on information from Mian Abdul Qayoom, President of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association, HRW reported that individuals had filed at least 60,000 habeas corpus petitions since 1990 to contest detentions or ‘disappearances’. However, according to HRW, there are few, if any, cases in which ‘officials have been held responsible for failing to respond in a timely manner to a court order in a habeas corpus case or for failing to release a detainee pursuant to a court order in Jammu and Kashmir’. Most cases of serious Human Rights abuse in the Jammu and Kashmir region are not officially investigated. In the rare instances where abuses are probed, there has not been a single individual in the Indian Army, paramilitary or the police convicted of a criminal offence. In fact, since 1989 only 134 army personnel, 79 members of the Border Security Force (BSF) and 60 policemen have been subjected to ‘disciplinary action’. There is no civilian control over the proceedings of the military justice system. In addition, the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973 protect any member of the armed forces from arrest for ‘anything done or purported to be done by him in the discharge of his official duties except after obtaining the consent of the Central Government’. Section 197(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code is a sweeping immunity provision that applies throughout India. In the words of the HRW report, this code ‘makes it mandatory for a prosecutor to obtain permission from the federal government to initiate criminal proceedings against public servants, including armed forces personnel’. According to Amnesty International, the Jammu and Kashmir Government had made almost 300 requests for permission to prosecute last year, but none were granted. Security forces have used the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act to justify firing indiscriminately on peaceful demonstrations, including protests in January and October 1990 in Srinagar and in 1993 in Beijbehara. The HRW report is one more account of the widespread and sustained use of repression for over a decade in Jammu and Kashmir. There is no reason to believe that the current Congress-led Government in New Delhi will take any more notice of its recommendations than any of the previous calls for justice. The report underscores the fact that in India, which is commonly referred to as the world’s largest democracy, the systematic abuse of basic democratic rights is widespread. Same is true about Pakistan and its administered Jammu and Kashmir.
PunjabiKhoj: First Multi-lingual Search Engine for Punjabi PUNJABI University Patiala launched the first multi-lingual customized search engine for Punjabi on April 30 2008. The software suitably named as PunjabiKhoj can search the Punjabi terms in Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi documents.
PunjabiKhoj has provided the user the virtual keyboard facility as well as phonetic and Remington keyboard layouts for typing Punjabi words in Unicode. The software also handles the multiple spelling variants for the same word in Punjabi. For example it was found that there were 12 Punjabi spelling variations for the word 'Pervez Musharaff' (ਪਰਵੇਜ ਮੁਸ਼ਰਫ, ਪਰਵੇਜ ਮੁਸ਼ਰਫ਼, ਪਰਵੇਜ ਮੁਸ਼ਰੱਫ, ਪਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ਰਫ, ਪਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ਰੱਫ, ਪਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ੱਰਫ, ਪਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ੱਰਫ਼, ਪ੍ਰਵੇਜ ਮੁਸ਼ਰਫ, ਪ੍ਰਵੇਜ ਮੁਸ਼ਰੱਫ, ਪ੍ਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ਰਫ, ਪ੍ਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ੱਰਫ, ਪ੍ਰਵੇਜ਼ ਮੁਸ਼ੱਰਫ਼) and 4 variations for 'Sheikh Farid'. The software locates all the documents containing any of the spelling variant. Besides that it can also search for similar meaning words, such as if a user types Bharat, the software displays the documents containing words Bharat, Hindustan or India. Though currently this facility can handle a limited number of words but in future the vocabulary will be increased. The system has been developed by team led by Dr Gurpreet Singh Lehal, Director Advanced Centre for Technical Development of Punjabi Language, Literature and Culture. The coding has been done by Tejinder Singh Saini, while Gurpreet Singh Joshan developed the Punjabi to Hindi Transliteration module and the web designing was done by Rakesh Dawra. According to Dr Lehal, in the next stage a cross lingual information retrieval system for Punjabi will be developed by adding the translation facilities to convert the Hindi and Urdu web pages to Punjabi in PunjabiKhoj. This will enable the users to search the Punjabi terms in Hindi/Urdu documents and read back them in Punjabi. This will be a big boon for researchers, who can search for their relevant information in Punjabi as well as Hindi and Urdu documents, even if they do not know these languages. This involves the development of automatic Hindi-Punjabi and Urdu-Punjabi machine translation systems. Already work in this direction has started and the second version of PunjabiKhoj will be ready in one year. The software is accessible at website www.punjabikhoj.com |
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Gopalkrishna Gandhi: a governor and his politics
The latest instance concerns otherwise an acclaimed intellectual. The West Bengal Raj Bhavan observed “voluntary” power cuts for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening here on May 7 in view of a decision by Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi that it “need not be an exception to the city’s electricity supply situation.” The governor chose to observe this voluntary cut after four months of electricity cuts in many parts of West Bengal and the timing was excellent for a governor who boasts of not only his linage with the great Mahatma Gandhi whose grandson he is, but to the basic principles of Gandhism. Keeping aside the debate of usefulness of the institution of governor in a free democratic country, what exactly governor Gandhi is trying to achieve by observing a voluntary power cut. Calcutta and other parts of west Bengal are suffering from power cuts for the past couple of months like rest of India including, New Delhi, the national capital. Timing tells of the cool politics he is playing. He did the same on Nandigram. Apparently he did not agree with the state Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb who maintained the power situation in West Bengal was better than what it was in many other States. Let us stretch the logic a little further. Who should a Gandhian by blood and conviction stay in a palatial Raj Bhawan and spend millions of public money on its upkeep. Why should he use his staff to pen down books from which earns for his own pocket and not for charity? Why not comment on what is happening in rest of India? He shall have to answer to Shyamal Chakravarty, central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who said he “welcomed the step taken” by the Governor and expressed the hope that it was a “pioneering” one that would show the way for similar moves to be taken in the future. He [the Governor] stays in a palatial place which he could let go off given the housing problem faced by the people and choose instead to live in a more modest quarter as do the Chief Minister and several Ministers.” Chakravarty who is also president of the CITU also said, “Fifty per cent of the salary the Governor earned could be given to the needy as it might be more than what is required by a small family like his. He could also choose to walk the distance to inaugurate a function he might be invited to and save petrol which has become dear.” It should not be galling to anyone including the illustrious Governor Gandhi.
Final tally of results from Nepal vote FORMER Maoist rebels won 220 seats in the 601-member assembly, results showed on Friday, making them the largest party and giving them a chance to form a minority government. Voting for a special assembly meant to write a new constitution was a mix of a first-past-the-post system, for 240 seats, and proportional representation, for 335 seats. The new cabinet will nominate 26 members. Some 25 parties are represented in the assembly. The following shows the final number of seats won in the April 10 election: Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) 220 Nepali Congress 110 Communist UML 103 Madheshi People's Rights Forum 52 Terai Madhesh Democratic Party 20 Sadbhavana Party 9 National Royalist Party 8 Communist Party of Nepal (M-L) 8 Other parties and independents 45 Total seats declared 575 |
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A
recent report by the US-based Human
Rights Watch (HRW) documents the systematic Human Rights abuses carried out by
the Indian security forces in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Punjabikhoj uses the Google custom
search engine for searching all the Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi documents encoded in
Unicode. For searching the Hindi/Urdu documents, the Punjabi search words are
transliterated/translated to equivalent Hindi and Urdu words respectively using
the transliteration mapping rules and Punjabi-Hindi and Gurmukhi-Shahmukhi
dictionaries.
To
Purchase or Sell any Land, commercial or residential property in Canada,
GOVERNORS
in India, a legacy of the old British system kept alive at huge cost to the
exchequer are either the dumping ground of old unwanted and defeated politicians
or as rewards for ‘useful’ civil servants. Exceptions are always there of the
governors who stood up powers that be and discharged their role in a befitting
manner. Many have neither been eyes or ears of the Center nor worthy of the
exalted positions. Most of them have been either agents provocateurs or tools
for imposition of central rule. Generally they are anathema to democratic polity
and against the grain of true federal character of the constitution.