Monday, 29 January 2007
Authorities said he was trying to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex
By Charlie White,The Courier-Journal
A Lyndon man was arrested by federal agents inside Mall St. Matthews Monday afternoon after authorities said he tried to meet a 14-year-old girl there for sex.
Kishor Patel, 39, of the 8200 block of Coppercreek Drive, was taken into custody and will be arraigned in federal court Tuesday, said David Beyer, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Louisville.
Beyer said Patel had a “look of surprise on his face” as FBI agents handcuffed him and walked him out of the mall about 2:30 p.m.
Otherwise, the arrest took place without incident, Beyer said.
Tracy Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kentucky office, said Patel had been communicating online with an undercover agent whom Patel believed to be a 14-year-old girl.
In online discussions initiated by Patel, he made plans to meet his correspondent at the mall, then take her somewhere fox sex, authorities said.
Reporter Charlie White can be reached at (502) 582-4653.
Showing posts with label Crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crimes. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Friday, December 1, 2006
The Judiciary: Cutting Edge Of A Predator State
Author of this article, Mr. Prashant Bhushan is a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.
At a time when the dominant class in India is obsessed with power and when India appears to be at the threshold of becoming an “economic and military superpower”, it is interesting that Tehelka has organized this seminar called, “The summit of the powerless”. Though one hardly sees any powerless people here, or even many who represent them, it is still important that a meeting on this theme has been organized by Tehelka.
It is this obsession with power which is the driving force behind the vision of India of the ruling elite of this country. That is why we see the frequent “power summits” being organized by major media organizations which are dominated by talk of India as an “emerging superpower”, with a booming sensex and a GDP growth poised to reach 8, 9 and even 10%. And it is this power crazed libido of the elite which have made them the cheerleaders of the government which is straining to become the Asian right hand of the United States. This single minded pursuit of a strategic relationship with the US has made us lose our moral bearings as we vote against our old friends like Iran and keep quiet on unimaginable atrocities being committed by the US in Iraq and by Israel in Palestine.
What kind of society is this “power driven” vision of India producing. While the elite celebrate the booming sensex, the consumer boom among the middle classes which the spectacular GDP growth appear to be giving them, the poor are pushed to greater and greater destitution, as the agricultural economy collapses and they are sought to be deprived of whatever little they have in terms of land and other natural resources. After all, when agriculture is not contributing to the GDP growth, why not take away the land, water and other resources from agriculture and give them to the sectors which are leading the growth-the SEZs and the IT industry for example. That (and the opportunity for a real estate killing) explains the stampede for setting up SEZs and IT parks, which will be high growth privileged enclaves, helped no doubt by the cheap compulsory acquisition of land, the absence of taxes, labour and environmental laws. They are envisioned almost as private and self governing States with their own police and courts. It makes no difference to those who hope to occupy these enclaves that India is almost at the bottom of the heap in terms of the Human Development Index, in terms of the percentage of people in the country who have access to housing, food, water, sanitation, education and healthcare.
So as the rural economy is destroyed (partly by agricultural imports) and the poor are deprived of their land, their forests, their water and indeed all their resources, to make way for mining leases, dams, SEZs and IT parks, all of which augur faster GDP growth, the poor get pushed to suicide or to urban slums. Here they struggle for existence in subhuman conditions with no sanitation, water, electricity, and always at the mercy of the weather, corrupt policemen and municipal officials. These slums often exist side by side with luxurious enclaves of the ultra rich who pass by them with barely a scornful glance and regard them as a nuisance who should be put away beyond their gaze. And if the government cannot accomplish that, there are always the courts to lend a helping hand. In the past two years about 2 lakh slum dwellers from the Yamuna Pushta and other Jhuggi colonies of Delhi have been removed on the orders of the court and thrown to the streets or dumped in the boondocks of Bawana (40 Kms from Delhi) and without any sanitation, water, electricity or even drainage. It would be surprising if many of them do not become criminals or join the ranks of naxalites who have come to control greater and greater parts of the country.
What kind of society are we creating? A society which is not only deeply divided in economic classes with a vast chasm dividing them, but also one where the preoccupations of the dominant classes are becoming increasingly crassly materialistic, narcissistic and base. If one were to examine the content of the mainstream electronic media-even news channels, particularly private channels which are the main source of information and entertainment for the middle class elite, one would find that it is characterized by an increasingly vacuous intellectual content and pandering more and more to the baser instincts of sex, violence and a morbid fascination for gossip particularly about the private lives of Bollywood stars. Stories about real people and serious public interest issues have been reduced to mere sound bytes of a few seconds. The interest of the middle classes in and their attention span for serious issues of public interest have been reduced to a vanishing point, as the culture of consumerism and self indulgence has taken over contemporary society. Even as scientific evidence piles up about how the world is headed towards environmental catastrophe due to global warming, not many among our well to do elite have even bothered to understand the issue, let alone bother about tackling the problem. They are oblivious of and unconcerned about the disaster which will certainly affect their children if not themselves during their lifetimes.
A sickness afflicts the soul of the dominant elite of India today. It is a sickness which has led to a total loss of vision and has made us lose our moral bearings. It is this sickness which is allowing us to celebrate our great GDP growth and our emerging superpower status when the majority of our countrymen sink to deeper and deeper depths of destitution and despair. It is this sickness which allows us to rejoice in our becoming the main sidekick of the global bully, while we shut our eyes to the enormous injustice being done to the oppressed people of Iraq, Palestine and other countries at the receiving end of the bully’s muscle. It is this sickness which has produced the vision of the State as the facilitator of this rapaciously exploitative model of development. A vision where the State’s role is seen as an institution which tries to facilitate the maximization of GDP growth. Which naturally requires the State to withdraw from its welfare obligations and facilitate a privatized society run on laissez faire economics. After all, private enterprise, run on the profit motive is the best bet for maximizing GDP growth. It is this model which snatches land from the farmer for the SEZs, the IT parks and the mines. That vision is producing a society which is intoxicated with a kind of development and feeling of “power” which are sowing the seeds of its own destruction in not too far a future. We have become a society of many Neros who are fiddling while the country is on fire.
It is not surprising then that the “powerless” regard the State as predator rather than protector. Even more unfortunately, the recent role of the judiciary which was mandated by the constitution to protect the rights of the people is making it appear as if it has become the cutting edge of a predator State.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the Supreme Court of India waxed eloquent about the Fundamental right to life and liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution to include all that it takes to lead a decent and dignified life. They thus held that the right to life includes the right to Food, the right to employment and the right to shelter: in other words, the right to all the basic necessities of life. That was in the roaring 80’s when a new tool of public interest litigation was fashioned where anyone could invoke the jurisdiction of the Courts even by writing a post card on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged who were too weak to approach the courts themselves. It seemed that a new era was dawning and that the courts were emerging as a new liberal instrument within the State which the poor could access to get some respite from the various excesses and assaults of the executive.
Alas, all that seems a distant dream now, given the recent role of the courts in not just failing to protect the rights of the poor that they had themselves declared not long ago, but in fact spearheading the massive assault on the poor since the era of economic liberalization. This is happening in case after case, whether they are of the tribal oustees of the Narmada Dam, or the urban slum dwellers whose homes are being ruthlessly bulldozed without notice and without rehabilitation, on the orders of the court, or the urban hawkers and rickshaw pullers of Delhi and Mumbai who have been ordered to be removed from the streets again on the orders of the court. Public interest litigation has been turned on its head. Instead of being used to protect the rights of the poor, it is now being used by commercial interests and the upper middle classes to launch a massive assault in the poor in the drive to take over urban spaces and even rural land occupied by the poor, for commercial development. While the lands of the rural poor are being compulsorily taken over for commercial real estate development for the wealthy, the urban poor are being evicted from the public land that they have been occupying for decades for commercial development by big builders, for shopping malls and housing for the wealthy. Roadside hawkers are being evicted on the orders of the Courts (which will ensure that people will shop only in these shopping malls). All this is being done, not only in violation of the rights of the poor declared by the Courts, but also in violation of the policies for slum dwellers and hawkers which have been formulated by the governments. Usually these actions of the Court seem to have the tacit and covert approval of the government (and the court is used to do what a democratically accountable government cannot do). Let us examine a few of these cases.
In the Narmada case, the Court recently refused to restrain further construction of the Dam which would submerge thousands of families without rehabilitation even when it was clear that this was not only in violation of the Narmada Tribunal Award, but against their declared fundamental rights. The court’s behaviour in first refusing to hear the matter, then repeatedly adjourning it, then allowing the construction to be completed on the specious ground that they needed the report of the Shunglu Committee, clearly demonstrated a total lack of sensitivity to the oustees and a total subordination of their rights to the commercial interests of those industrialists led by Narendra Modi who are eyeing the Narmada waters for their industries, water parks and golf courses. The gap between the rhetoric and the actions of the Court could not be more yawning.
Meanwhile, as the Narmada oustees were being submerged without rehabilitation, a massive programme of urban displacement of slum dwellers without rehabilitation was being carried out in Delhi and Bombay, also on the orders of the High Courts. Sometimes on the applications of upper middle class colonies, sometimes on their own, the Courts have been issuing a spate of orders for clearing slums by bulldozing the jhuggis on them, on the ground that they are on public land. Some of this is being done with the tacit approval of the government, such as the slums on the banks of the Yamuna which are being cleared for making way for the constructions for the Commonwealth games. And all this, without even issuing notices to the slum dwellers, in violation of the principles of natural justice.
This was not all. The Court’s relentless assaults on the poor continued with the Supreme Court ordering the eviction of Hawkers from the streets of Bombay and Delhi. Again, turning their backs on Constitution bench judgements of the Court that Hawkers have a fundamental right to hawk on the streets, which could however be regulated, the Court now observed that streets exist primarily for traffic. They thus ordered the Municipality and the police to remove the “unlicenced hawkers” from the streets of Delhi. All this again without any notice or hearing to the hawkers. This effectively meant that almost all the more than 1.5 lakh hawkers would be placed at the mercy of the authorities, since less than 3 percent had been given licences.
More recently, the Delhi High Court has ordered the removal of rickshaws from the Chandni Chowk area, ostensively to pave the way for CNG buses. This order will not only deprive tens of thousands of rickshaw pullers of a harmless and environmentally friendly source of livelihood, it will also cause enormous inconvenience to tens of thousands of commuters who use that mode of transport.
Several recent judgements of the court have grossly diluted the various labour laws which were enacted to protect the rights of workers. The government has been wanting to dilute these laws for bringing about what they call “labour reforms”, in line with the new economic policies, but they have been unable to do so because of political opposition. The courts have thus stepped in to do what the government cannot do politically. They have not only diluted the protection afforded to workmen by various laws but have openly stated that the Court’s interpretation of the Laws must be in line with the government’s new economic policy- a fantastic proposition which means that the executive government can override parliamentary legislation by executive policy. The same proposition was enunciated by the Supreme Court in the Mauritius double taxation case, where the court said that the government can by executive notification give a tax holiday to Mauritius based companies, even though it is well settled that tax exemptions can only be given by the Finance Act which has to be passed by Parliament. Thus we find that the Courts are becoming a convenient instrument for the government to bypass Parliament and implement executive policy which is in violation of even Parliamentary legislation. This congruence of interest between the executive and the courts is most common when it comes to policies which are designed to benefit the wealthy elite.
One important reason why the court can do such things is because it is completely unaccountable. The executive government must seek reelection every 5 years which acts as a restraint on its anti poor policies. The court has no such restraint. There is no disciplinary authority over judges, with the system of impeachment having been found to be completely impractical. On top of this, the Supreme Court has by a self serving judgement removed judges from accountability from even criminal acts by declaring that no criminal investigation can be conducted against judges without the prior approval of the Chief Justice of India. This has resulted in a situation where no criminal investigation has been conducted against any judge in the last 15 years since this judgement despite common knowledge of widespread corruption in the judiciary. Even serious public criticism and scrutiny of the judiciary has been effectively barred by the threat of contempt of Court. And now, they have effectively declared themselves as exempt from even the right to information Act. Is it surprising then that they suffer from judicial arrogance which enables them to deliver such judgements.
This has bred and is continuing to breed enormous resentment among the poor and the destitute. Feeling helpless and abandoned, nay violated by every organ of the State, particularly the judiciary, many are committing suicides, but some are taking to violence. That explains the growing cadres of the Maoists who now control many districts and even States like Chhatisgarh. The government and the ruling establishment thinks that they can deal with this menace by stongarm military methods. That explains why the government relies more and more on the advice of former cops like Gill and Narayanan and why there is talk of using the Army and Air Force against the Maoists. Tribals in Chhattisgarh are being forced to join a mercenary army funded by the State by the name of Salva Judum to fight the Maoists. But all this will breed more Maoists. No insurrection bred out of desperation can be quelled by strongarm tactics. The very tactics breed more misery and desperation and will push more people to the Maoists.
Unless urgent steps are taken to correct the course that the elite establishment of this country is embarked upon, we will soon have an insurgency on our hands which will be impossible to control. Then, when the history of the country’s descent towards violence and chaos is written, the judiciary of the country can claim pride of place among those who speeded up this process.
We desperately and urgently need a new vision for the country as well as for the judiciary. We need to rediscover and perhaps reinvent the concept of the State as a welfare State. Our judiciary was created by the British who created it mainly to protect the interests of the empire. That is one of the reasons why it in inaccessible to the common people. We need to reinvent the judiciary in line with a new vision for India. A judiciary which will really be people friendly, which can be accessed without the mediation of professional lawyers and which will consider it its mission to protect the rights of the poor. Unless we can demonstrate the capacity to form that vision and translate in into action, we are headed for serious trouble.
At a time when the dominant class in India is obsessed with power and when India appears to be at the threshold of becoming an “economic and military superpower”, it is interesting that Tehelka has organized this seminar called, “The summit of the powerless”. Though one hardly sees any powerless people here, or even many who represent them, it is still important that a meeting on this theme has been organized by Tehelka.
It is this obsession with power which is the driving force behind the vision of India of the ruling elite of this country. That is why we see the frequent “power summits” being organized by major media organizations which are dominated by talk of India as an “emerging superpower”, with a booming sensex and a GDP growth poised to reach 8, 9 and even 10%. And it is this power crazed libido of the elite which have made them the cheerleaders of the government which is straining to become the Asian right hand of the United States. This single minded pursuit of a strategic relationship with the US has made us lose our moral bearings as we vote against our old friends like Iran and keep quiet on unimaginable atrocities being committed by the US in Iraq and by Israel in Palestine.
What kind of society is this “power driven” vision of India producing. While the elite celebrate the booming sensex, the consumer boom among the middle classes which the spectacular GDP growth appear to be giving them, the poor are pushed to greater and greater destitution, as the agricultural economy collapses and they are sought to be deprived of whatever little they have in terms of land and other natural resources. After all, when agriculture is not contributing to the GDP growth, why not take away the land, water and other resources from agriculture and give them to the sectors which are leading the growth-the SEZs and the IT industry for example. That (and the opportunity for a real estate killing) explains the stampede for setting up SEZs and IT parks, which will be high growth privileged enclaves, helped no doubt by the cheap compulsory acquisition of land, the absence of taxes, labour and environmental laws. They are envisioned almost as private and self governing States with their own police and courts. It makes no difference to those who hope to occupy these enclaves that India is almost at the bottom of the heap in terms of the Human Development Index, in terms of the percentage of people in the country who have access to housing, food, water, sanitation, education and healthcare.
So as the rural economy is destroyed (partly by agricultural imports) and the poor are deprived of their land, their forests, their water and indeed all their resources, to make way for mining leases, dams, SEZs and IT parks, all of which augur faster GDP growth, the poor get pushed to suicide or to urban slums. Here they struggle for existence in subhuman conditions with no sanitation, water, electricity, and always at the mercy of the weather, corrupt policemen and municipal officials. These slums often exist side by side with luxurious enclaves of the ultra rich who pass by them with barely a scornful glance and regard them as a nuisance who should be put away beyond their gaze. And if the government cannot accomplish that, there are always the courts to lend a helping hand. In the past two years about 2 lakh slum dwellers from the Yamuna Pushta and other Jhuggi colonies of Delhi have been removed on the orders of the court and thrown to the streets or dumped in the boondocks of Bawana (40 Kms from Delhi) and without any sanitation, water, electricity or even drainage. It would be surprising if many of them do not become criminals or join the ranks of naxalites who have come to control greater and greater parts of the country.
What kind of society are we creating? A society which is not only deeply divided in economic classes with a vast chasm dividing them, but also one where the preoccupations of the dominant classes are becoming increasingly crassly materialistic, narcissistic and base. If one were to examine the content of the mainstream electronic media-even news channels, particularly private channels which are the main source of information and entertainment for the middle class elite, one would find that it is characterized by an increasingly vacuous intellectual content and pandering more and more to the baser instincts of sex, violence and a morbid fascination for gossip particularly about the private lives of Bollywood stars. Stories about real people and serious public interest issues have been reduced to mere sound bytes of a few seconds. The interest of the middle classes in and their attention span for serious issues of public interest have been reduced to a vanishing point, as the culture of consumerism and self indulgence has taken over contemporary society. Even as scientific evidence piles up about how the world is headed towards environmental catastrophe due to global warming, not many among our well to do elite have even bothered to understand the issue, let alone bother about tackling the problem. They are oblivious of and unconcerned about the disaster which will certainly affect their children if not themselves during their lifetimes.
A sickness afflicts the soul of the dominant elite of India today. It is a sickness which has led to a total loss of vision and has made us lose our moral bearings. It is this sickness which is allowing us to celebrate our great GDP growth and our emerging superpower status when the majority of our countrymen sink to deeper and deeper depths of destitution and despair. It is this sickness which allows us to rejoice in our becoming the main sidekick of the global bully, while we shut our eyes to the enormous injustice being done to the oppressed people of Iraq, Palestine and other countries at the receiving end of the bully’s muscle. It is this sickness which has produced the vision of the State as the facilitator of this rapaciously exploitative model of development. A vision where the State’s role is seen as an institution which tries to facilitate the maximization of GDP growth. Which naturally requires the State to withdraw from its welfare obligations and facilitate a privatized society run on laissez faire economics. After all, private enterprise, run on the profit motive is the best bet for maximizing GDP growth. It is this model which snatches land from the farmer for the SEZs, the IT parks and the mines. That vision is producing a society which is intoxicated with a kind of development and feeling of “power” which are sowing the seeds of its own destruction in not too far a future. We have become a society of many Neros who are fiddling while the country is on fire.
It is not surprising then that the “powerless” regard the State as predator rather than protector. Even more unfortunately, the recent role of the judiciary which was mandated by the constitution to protect the rights of the people is making it appear as if it has become the cutting edge of a predator State.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the Supreme Court of India waxed eloquent about the Fundamental right to life and liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution to include all that it takes to lead a decent and dignified life. They thus held that the right to life includes the right to Food, the right to employment and the right to shelter: in other words, the right to all the basic necessities of life. That was in the roaring 80’s when a new tool of public interest litigation was fashioned where anyone could invoke the jurisdiction of the Courts even by writing a post card on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged who were too weak to approach the courts themselves. It seemed that a new era was dawning and that the courts were emerging as a new liberal instrument within the State which the poor could access to get some respite from the various excesses and assaults of the executive.
Alas, all that seems a distant dream now, given the recent role of the courts in not just failing to protect the rights of the poor that they had themselves declared not long ago, but in fact spearheading the massive assault on the poor since the era of economic liberalization. This is happening in case after case, whether they are of the tribal oustees of the Narmada Dam, or the urban slum dwellers whose homes are being ruthlessly bulldozed without notice and without rehabilitation, on the orders of the court, or the urban hawkers and rickshaw pullers of Delhi and Mumbai who have been ordered to be removed from the streets again on the orders of the court. Public interest litigation has been turned on its head. Instead of being used to protect the rights of the poor, it is now being used by commercial interests and the upper middle classes to launch a massive assault in the poor in the drive to take over urban spaces and even rural land occupied by the poor, for commercial development. While the lands of the rural poor are being compulsorily taken over for commercial real estate development for the wealthy, the urban poor are being evicted from the public land that they have been occupying for decades for commercial development by big builders, for shopping malls and housing for the wealthy. Roadside hawkers are being evicted on the orders of the Courts (which will ensure that people will shop only in these shopping malls). All this is being done, not only in violation of the rights of the poor declared by the Courts, but also in violation of the policies for slum dwellers and hawkers which have been formulated by the governments. Usually these actions of the Court seem to have the tacit and covert approval of the government (and the court is used to do what a democratically accountable government cannot do). Let us examine a few of these cases.
In the Narmada case, the Court recently refused to restrain further construction of the Dam which would submerge thousands of families without rehabilitation even when it was clear that this was not only in violation of the Narmada Tribunal Award, but against their declared fundamental rights. The court’s behaviour in first refusing to hear the matter, then repeatedly adjourning it, then allowing the construction to be completed on the specious ground that they needed the report of the Shunglu Committee, clearly demonstrated a total lack of sensitivity to the oustees and a total subordination of their rights to the commercial interests of those industrialists led by Narendra Modi who are eyeing the Narmada waters for their industries, water parks and golf courses. The gap between the rhetoric and the actions of the Court could not be more yawning.
Meanwhile, as the Narmada oustees were being submerged without rehabilitation, a massive programme of urban displacement of slum dwellers without rehabilitation was being carried out in Delhi and Bombay, also on the orders of the High Courts. Sometimes on the applications of upper middle class colonies, sometimes on their own, the Courts have been issuing a spate of orders for clearing slums by bulldozing the jhuggis on them, on the ground that they are on public land. Some of this is being done with the tacit approval of the government, such as the slums on the banks of the Yamuna which are being cleared for making way for the constructions for the Commonwealth games. And all this, without even issuing notices to the slum dwellers, in violation of the principles of natural justice.
This was not all. The Court’s relentless assaults on the poor continued with the Supreme Court ordering the eviction of Hawkers from the streets of Bombay and Delhi. Again, turning their backs on Constitution bench judgements of the Court that Hawkers have a fundamental right to hawk on the streets, which could however be regulated, the Court now observed that streets exist primarily for traffic. They thus ordered the Municipality and the police to remove the “unlicenced hawkers” from the streets of Delhi. All this again without any notice or hearing to the hawkers. This effectively meant that almost all the more than 1.5 lakh hawkers would be placed at the mercy of the authorities, since less than 3 percent had been given licences.
More recently, the Delhi High Court has ordered the removal of rickshaws from the Chandni Chowk area, ostensively to pave the way for CNG buses. This order will not only deprive tens of thousands of rickshaw pullers of a harmless and environmentally friendly source of livelihood, it will also cause enormous inconvenience to tens of thousands of commuters who use that mode of transport.
Several recent judgements of the court have grossly diluted the various labour laws which were enacted to protect the rights of workers. The government has been wanting to dilute these laws for bringing about what they call “labour reforms”, in line with the new economic policies, but they have been unable to do so because of political opposition. The courts have thus stepped in to do what the government cannot do politically. They have not only diluted the protection afforded to workmen by various laws but have openly stated that the Court’s interpretation of the Laws must be in line with the government’s new economic policy- a fantastic proposition which means that the executive government can override parliamentary legislation by executive policy. The same proposition was enunciated by the Supreme Court in the Mauritius double taxation case, where the court said that the government can by executive notification give a tax holiday to Mauritius based companies, even though it is well settled that tax exemptions can only be given by the Finance Act which has to be passed by Parliament. Thus we find that the Courts are becoming a convenient instrument for the government to bypass Parliament and implement executive policy which is in violation of even Parliamentary legislation. This congruence of interest between the executive and the courts is most common when it comes to policies which are designed to benefit the wealthy elite.
One important reason why the court can do such things is because it is completely unaccountable. The executive government must seek reelection every 5 years which acts as a restraint on its anti poor policies. The court has no such restraint. There is no disciplinary authority over judges, with the system of impeachment having been found to be completely impractical. On top of this, the Supreme Court has by a self serving judgement removed judges from accountability from even criminal acts by declaring that no criminal investigation can be conducted against judges without the prior approval of the Chief Justice of India. This has resulted in a situation where no criminal investigation has been conducted against any judge in the last 15 years since this judgement despite common knowledge of widespread corruption in the judiciary. Even serious public criticism and scrutiny of the judiciary has been effectively barred by the threat of contempt of Court. And now, they have effectively declared themselves as exempt from even the right to information Act. Is it surprising then that they suffer from judicial arrogance which enables them to deliver such judgements.
This has bred and is continuing to breed enormous resentment among the poor and the destitute. Feeling helpless and abandoned, nay violated by every organ of the State, particularly the judiciary, many are committing suicides, but some are taking to violence. That explains the growing cadres of the Maoists who now control many districts and even States like Chhatisgarh. The government and the ruling establishment thinks that they can deal with this menace by stongarm military methods. That explains why the government relies more and more on the advice of former cops like Gill and Narayanan and why there is talk of using the Army and Air Force against the Maoists. Tribals in Chhattisgarh are being forced to join a mercenary army funded by the State by the name of Salva Judum to fight the Maoists. But all this will breed more Maoists. No insurrection bred out of desperation can be quelled by strongarm tactics. The very tactics breed more misery and desperation and will push more people to the Maoists.
Unless urgent steps are taken to correct the course that the elite establishment of this country is embarked upon, we will soon have an insurgency on our hands which will be impossible to control. Then, when the history of the country’s descent towards violence and chaos is written, the judiciary of the country can claim pride of place among those who speeded up this process.
We desperately and urgently need a new vision for the country as well as for the judiciary. We need to rediscover and perhaps reinvent the concept of the State as a welfare State. Our judiciary was created by the British who created it mainly to protect the interests of the empire. That is one of the reasons why it in inaccessible to the common people. We need to reinvent the judiciary in line with a new vision for India. A judiciary which will really be people friendly, which can be accessed without the mediation of professional lawyers and which will consider it its mission to protect the rights of the poor. Unless we can demonstrate the capacity to form that vision and translate in into action, we are headed for serious trouble.
Saturday, September 9, 2006
India an 'all-rounder' in sex trade : UN Report
September 8, 2006
New Delhi - India has the dubious distinction of being a sort of 'all-rounder' in the sex trade. It is one of the very few countries in the globe that rank high as origin, destination as well as transit points in this murky business.
Among the others which are both major sources and destinations are Pakistan, China, Cambodia and, not surprisingly, Thailand.
This shameful fact emerges from State of the World Population 2006, a report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released on Wednesday.
The report, which focuses on migration, lists trafficking as one of the greatest risks to women during the process of migration.
According to the report, though the trafficking industry's revenue is globally estimated to be about $7 billion to $ 12 billion, the traffickers probably netted an additional $32 billion from re-trafficking and from the labour of the trafficked victim.
Southeast Asia and South Asia, the report says, are home to the largest numbers of internationally trafficked persons.
In Asia, most of the trafficking takes place within or from the region, which explains why India, Pakistan China, Thailand and Cambodia double up as both destinations as well as source areas for traffickers.
India and Pakistan also serve as transit points for trafficking into the Middle East, according to the report.
Though the report does not give any precise country-wise data on trafficking, there are two different colour-coded maps showing destination countries and origin countries for trafficking.
The five Asian countries figure in the "high" or "very high" category on both counts. In most other cases, countries that are major origins - like Russia or Brazil - rank as "very low" or "medium" when it comes to being destinations.
Similarly, major destinations like the US or Japan report either low or negligible numbers of outward movement of sex workers.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Are Hard Drugs Hitting a New High in India?
Tuesday, 13 June 2006
A lurid political family's scandal has many wondering if an upper-class drug scene is an inevitable consequence of the country's economic boom
By BENJAMIN SIEGEL/NEW DELHI
Time.COM, Monday, Jun. 12, 2006
The tabloidesque story is straight out of Hollywood: a politician's son is wheeled into the hospital after a night of partying, only a month after his father, a leading politician, was gunned down by his brother. The doctors admit that the prodigal son's blood is swimming with traces of cocaine, opiates, barbiturates and cannabis, among other substances. It's on the cover of every paper, with one daily dedicating half its front page to a graphic-novel style recreation of the fateful, bacchanalian night of partying.
But this isn't L.A. It's New Delhi, and the patient is Rahul Mahajan, son of Pramod, former leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, who was killed in a family dispute last month. In this conservative city of 14 million, corruption scandals may be routine, but designer drugs have historically seemed as easy to find as steak.
And yet, for the past week, the Indian media have been playing up the Mahajan scandal as emblematic of a hidden hard drug scourge among India's elite. Exposés detail how cocaine is purportedly all the rage among chic Delhi denizens, with posh South Delhi neighborhoods singled out as coke, acid, and ecstasy hotbeds. Journalists routinely quote anonymous socialites, designers, and models on the drug scene at clubs, raves, and even weddings. One paper went so far as to list Bollywood stars living in Bombay who are rumored to have hefty coke habits. A particularly juicy allegation making the rounds is that wealthy Indians frequently use 500 rupee notes — worth around ten dollars — to snort the stuff.
All the media attention has left a few lone voices wondering if a high-class drug scene is an inevitable consequence of India's recent economic growth and newfound wealth. It's no secret that there are drug-fueled raves on the outskirts of Delhi, and just last week, Indian authorities seized 200 kilograms of cocaine from a South African ship in a Bombay port. Authorities and journalists alike point fingers at India's Nigerian community, who they claim arrive on easily-obtainable student visas before beginning to deal cocaine and heroin to the wealthy. In the capital, four cocaine busts have been made this year — after nine busts in the whole of 2005. But the number of arrests may soon grow in the wake of the Mahajan scandal.
Soft drugs traditionally don't raise too many eyebrows in India — a vast swath of the population, from government ministers to saffron-clad Hindu holy men, occasionally consume bhang, a potent and popular cannabis tincture. But India's wealthy have hitherto frowned upon hard drugs, looking upon them as the purvey of the country's poor. For years, India has grappled with "brown sugar" —low-grade heroin produced locally or imported from Afghanistan or Burma — that has left a trail of overdoses and HIV infections in its wake.
While scandal-watching in India can often seem like a national pastime, this recent, rather breathless coverage of the party drug scene conveys a naivete that is almost endearing. Journalists are reporting that heroin is usually snorted, and while it's strange that papers are printing cocaine's street price, what's stranger still is that their estimates are all over the place. One paper reported matter-of-factly that cocaine "makes one euphoric and enhances sexual prowess on consumption," and boasted that "one can dance all night long after consuming it."
Last year, after a cocaine bust in a swanky Delhi restaurant, a Narcotics Control Bureau officer confidently declared that most of the cocaine users in the capital are fashion designers and hairdressers. But in a country of a billion, with more and more money to spend, it's becoming very clear just how much bigger and more diverse the market for hard drugs really is.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
US Judge reimposes 97-month term on Lakireddy Bali Reddy
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
Reddy sought reduction of sentence for illegally bringing girls and women into U.S.
By Josh Richman, insidebayarea.com
OAKLAND — A federal judge resentenced a Berkeley businessman Monday to the 97-month prison term he had drawn in 2001 for bringing girls and women from India to the Bay Area for cheap labor and sexual favors.
Despite statements in court Monday from five of Lakireddy Bali Reddy's seven living victims that they supported an earlier release, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken said the two other victims' unrebutted testimony of extreme emotional distress from Reddy's crimes was sufficient basis for her to reimpose the sentence term.
Reddy, 69, is in the federal prison at Lompoc; his projected release date, unchanged by Monday's hearing, remains April 2, 2008.
He and his son, Vijay Lakireddy, first were indicted in 2000, accused of having had an Indian man pose as the father of two sisters to bring them into the country on fraudulent temporary work visas. The elder sister died in November 1999 of carbon monoxide poisoning after a heater in her Berkeley apartment malfunctioned.
Prosecutors said these girls and others brought here by similar means were used by Reddy as workers at his and his family's businesses, and for his own sexual gratification.
Reddy pleaded guilty in 2001 to two counts of importing minors for immoral sexual purposes and one count each of tax fraud and conspiracy to commit immigration fraud.
Defense attorneys Cristina Arguedas and Ted Cassman in recent years had convinced Wilken to reexamine his sentence — imposed by Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, who since has recused herself from the case for unknown reasons — due to problems that came to light soon after his 2001 plea bargain. Several victims claimed Telegu-speaking interpreter Uma Rao of Berkeley had urged them to exaggerate or embellish their testimony, or had misrepresented their testimony in translation.
At issue was whether victims' statements to a probation officer for a preresentencing report were reliable and detailed enough. The defense argued for a maximum of 78 months.
"Judge Armstrong was reading lies" when she relied on the probation report to demand a tough sentence for Reddy, Arguedas said Monday, adding Rao's damage to the case "is something that affected everything that happened here. ... She should be prosecuted for what she did."
Eight victims figured in the case. One is the person who died in 1999; five of the others were in court to describe the case's impact on them. Some praised Reddy's role in bringing them to the United States and some actually urged his early release; none objected to reducing his sentence.
But Wilken said she was convinced to stick by the same 97-month term by the earlier testimony of two victims who've stuck by their original accounts, and who weren't present in court Monday. Reddy long since has paid the $2 million in restitution imposed with his original sentence.
Vijay Lakireddy pleaded guilty in 2002 to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and was sentenced to two years in prison, which he has served. Prasad Lakireddy pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of conspiracy to employ unauthorized aliens and was sentenced to one year of home detention, a $20,000 fine and 300 hours of community service.
Reddy's brother and sister-in-law, Jayaprakash and Annapurna Lakireddy, each pleaded guilty to one count of immigration fraud in 2001; he was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison and was released last June, while she served six months of home detention and paid a $2,000 fine. Venkateswara Vemireddy, who'd posed as the girls' father, was given probation and deported to India.
Judgements can be read from
http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/media/lbreddy.html
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
S African Indian minister resigns after sex scandal
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
DURBAN: South African Indian provincial government minister Narend Singh, who led several initiatives to improve ties with India, has resigned after newspapers splashed pictures of him in a sex romp at a hotel with the wife of a prominent local businessman.
A steamy DVD of a tryst between Singh and Roseanne Narandas, a boutique owner and wife of well-known jeweller Bob Narandas, has been circulating for weeks now.
Earlier this week, Singh was adamant that it was a personal matter and that he would not step down as minister of arts, culture and tourism in KwaZulu-Natal province, where he has also served a term as education minister.
But late Tuesday Singh announced his departure from politics at a tearful meeting at his palatial home south of here, in what was also a show of support from his wife of 30 years, Manitha, daughter Keshika Singh, son-in-law Raveen Behari and son Shikar.
Although the provincial premier, S'bu Ndebele, had given Singh 10 days leave of absence while police investigate the motives behind the distribution of the DVD at schools and in private home post boxes, Singh announced his resignation but said he would remain a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) led by Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Singh said he found it "sad" that such a personal and private thing had become a "part of the public domain, in a way that is highly destructive and embarrassing".
Singh said he had resigned because of the huge strain on his family, which he said had been totally supportive.
"While serving the community is close to my heart, I am not prepared to sacrifice the pride and dignity of my family at the altar of blackmail and political backstabbing," Singh said.
Police are investigating alleged blackmail attempts after Singh was told that the DVD would be distributed publicly if he did not withdraw from a provincial and local government election that was held across South Africa March 1 this year.
Singh, who has visited India a number of times, has always been a firm supporter of mutual cooperation between the two countries. A devout Hindu, Singh has also visited a number of Hindu shrines in India, and said he had received support from the head of the Divine Life Society in South Africa, Swami Sahajananda, during his crisis
Roseanne Narandas earlier rejected suggestions that she may have been instrumental in orchestrating the DVD after the national weekly Sunday Times printed extracts from the DVD with a report that Narandas had allegedly steered Singh towards the hidden camera.
Narandas, who also claimed that her husband and family were supporting her, said she would not do anything deliberately that would embarrass her family, which is also a prominent one here.
Although Singh claimed he had been forced to resign because his private life had been made public, supporters of the Moral Regeneration Campaign in South Africa have welcomed his move, saying as a minister of state, he had a duty to set an example.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1459106.cms
http://www.thepost.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1&fArticleId=3168771
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
British grooms fly out with dowry, but without the bride
Monday, 13 March 2006
The Times
NEW DELHI: Hundreds of British Asian men have been accused of abandoning new brides in India after securing lucrative dowry payments.
Police in India are investigating more than a thousand allegations from young women who claim that they have been lured into arranged marriages with the promise of a new life in Britain. Once dowries of up to £9,000 have been paid, the men abandon them, it is claimed.
The men, in some instances, return to India to marry a number of times, but the women’s lives are left in ruins in a society where divorce is still frowned upon.
“It’s a common sight: young girls with their parents, clutching their marriage papers and weeping. We have thousands of abandoned wives,” Parminder Kaur, chairwoman of the National Commission for Women in the Punjab, said.
Poorva Sharma, 24, from the village of Surajpur, Punjab, believed that her parents had found her a perfect partner in Rakesh Gupta, 35, a businessman from Coventry. They married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in India in July 2002 and lived together in India for a fortnight before he returned to Britain.
According to Ms Sharma’s solicitor, her father paid £5,625 to Gupta as a dowry payment: the now illegal deal, still widely practised, whereby a groom is paid for entering a marriage. The family was later asked for more money, it was alleged.
Ms Sharma’s dreams were shattered when she applied for permission to join her husband in Coventry and the British High Commission refused, because it said that Gupta had already married other Indian women.
“They told me he had been married a number of times, and they were suspicious of why I would want to go out there. I felt like dying. My life had ended before it had begun,” Ms Sharma said.
It emerged that Gupta was unemployed and had previously married two other women in the Punjab, according to court documents. One of them, Vandana Gupta, allegedly married Mr Gupta in July 1995 in Ludhiana. She left him in January 1996 after her parents repeatedly received demands for a dowry payment, she said. After parting, she discovered that she was pregnant.
She said that her husband obtained an ex parte divorce without informing her and had failed to pay maintenance for their son.
Following a complaint from Sharma, Gupta was arrested in March 2003 for dowry harassment but left India before the case came to court. Police documents show that he is now a “proclaimed offender” in India after skipping bail.
Rajinder Singh Rathi, Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Punjab, said: “We hope to get him through Interpol.”
The Times tracked down Mr Gupta to a terraced house that he owns in Coventry. He said that he had married only once in India — to Ms Sharma — and that he had been subjected to threats and blackmail from her family. “She was not a good wife,” he said. He added that he had never married Ms Gupta.
Gupta appears to have failed to tell his solicitors that he was wanted by Indian police. When The Times sent the law firm Heer Manak a police document proving this, the senior partner, Kulwant Manak, said that he was surprised to see it.
Social workers who help the Punjab’s abandoned women said that grooms exploited the overpowering desire of some Indians to go abroad. Britain, Canada and America still hold an allure for some in India as countries where jobs and good salaries are guaranteed.
Punjab police said that there had been a 40 per cent rise in the number of fraudulent marriages in the past three years. The authorities have issued a booklet warning parents to check the background of prospective grooms abroad.
In some cases software engineers have turned out to be welders, while doctors were waiters, social workers said.
Satnam Chana, a social worker in Jalandhar, Punjab, said that parents were often too eager to marry off their daughters quickly. “We tell parents that we can ask people in the UK to check a groom’s background but we’ve had only two requests in two years. They just hope blindly that it will be all right,” she said.
The motivations of British Asian men vary. Most, according to the authorities, are hoping for dowry payments. Others, however, are second-generation British Asians forced into marriages in India by their parents.
Many of the rejected women, convinced that their lives are over, become suicidal. Left in limbo, in a society obsessed with marriage, they are neither married in the real sense nor free to remarry.
Legal action against missing British grooms is difficult. An Indian family court can send a summons to a British Asian man but it can easily be ignored.
The extradition treaty between Britain and India does not cover matrimonial crimes, according to legal experts. The British High Commission in Delhi said that officials were examining ways of closing this legal loophole. There is, at least, a growing awareness of the problem in India. Ms Sharma said that her sister married last month — to a local man. “I didn’t want her to suffer the way I have. I’m rotting here, with no future. I just want my husband to rot in jail too,” she said.
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