In recent months, Orissa has witnessed a spate of attacks on journalists and writers.on 14th August just before Independence day celebration, a Journalist form the pioneer, Aravinda Mahapatro was severely beaten by a traffic police for not just listening his direction not to cross Zebra Crossing, at AG square, Bhubaneswar. After this that journalist lodged an FIR in Capital police station, and police taken away that Traffic police but not forwarded him to the court.
Since January 2010, There have been 12 physical attacks and six incidents of threats and intimidation
Since January this year, the Free Speech Hub has been tracking threats to freedom of speech and expression in India. We decided to document and investigate the incidents in Orissa to arrive at some understanding of their underlying causes.
Among other issues, those attacked have been reporting on the Maoist conflict, movements resisting displacement due to mining and steel projects, instances of corruption in government-sponsored projects like the NREGA, illegal activities of elected representatives, and have been covering spontaneous student protests or those of families of victims of medical negligence
These assaults on the media have been preceded by the Orissa government slapping four cases of sedition against journalists between 2004 and 2009.
Attacks on journalists in 2010:
• On February 9, Dinesh Das and Ashok Pradhan, journalists from Pioneer and a local Orissa newspaper, Athgarh Prahari, respectively, were assaulted by Premananda Gochchayat, the Sarpanch of Dhaipur, Athgarh, for reporting on corruption in the NREGA scheme.
• On February 20, Abhay Pati, a reporter of OTV, was assaulted by the Manager of Cuttack Urban Co-operative Bank, Jajpur, Gour Prasad Das, when he was covering a vigilance raid on the banker’s house.
• On March 16, journalists covering a clash between members of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the opposition Congress party were attacked allegedly by BJD workers and police personnel in Bhaapur Block of Nayagarh district.
• On April 5, three journalists - Amulya Kumar Pati of the New Indian Express, Manas Jena and Sujit Mullick, stringers for Oriya newspapers - were attacked by supporters of State Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei when they went to report a police lathi-charge and firing on villagers of Baligotha, Gobaghat and other villages in Kalinganagar on March 30.
• On April 22, ten journalists representing different newspapers and television channels were severely beaten up by the management and hired security guards of the privately-owned Silicon Institute of Technology in Bhubaneswar, when they went to cover students protesting the death of their colleague, Shamsuddin, allegedly due to food poisoning in the college canteen.
• On May 6, Biranjan Mallick, a journalist working for Khabar, an Oriya newspaper, was tied to a tree and beaten up for investigating an NREGA scam in Balanga, Puri district.
• On May 8, several jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), a paramilitary force, attacked journalists and a television camera crew to prevent them from filming their assault on a truck driver who had fatally run over the young daughter of a CISF jawan in Angul.
• On May 31, journalists who went to MKCG Medical College, Behrampur, to cover a clash between relatives of a patient who had died due to the alleged negligence of the medical students in charge, were attacked by the students in full view of the police.
• On June 9, Akhand, a journalist working for Kanak TV in Pipili, Puri district, was severely beaten up by Pravakar Behera, a local politician and ward member of the ruling BJD, for writing about the latter’s illegal tree-felling.
• On July 1, Suryamani Mishra, a journalist working with Khabar who has written against communalism, land scams and the builder mafia, was attacked by unidentified persons in Bhubaneswar.
• On July 13, Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel molested an ETV journalist (name withheld) and her cameraman, Debasis Mullick, when they were covering the ISKCON rath yatra in Bhubaneswar.
• On July 23, Ramnarayan Das, a reporter of ‘The Samaja, was assaulted by the former sarpanch of Nirakapur in Khurda district when he went to report on the self-immolation bid of a social worker. The attack took place in the presence of the area tahsildar and the police.
Threats and intimidation :
• On January 3, 2010, Banka Bihari Bishoi, a, reporter The Samaja, was abused and threatened by the Nabrangpur District Collector Rupa Mishra, ostensibly because his newspaper did not give the latter adequate coverage.
• On February 13, Bolun Gangopadhyay, a freelance journalist from West Bengal, who was on her way to Niyamgiri, site of the resistance to the Vedanta Alumina refinery and bauxite mining projects, was picked up by police on suspicion of being a Maoist.
• On March 11, the Chhatrapur police raided the residence of well-known journalist and writer, Dandapani Mohapatra, without a search warrant, alleging ‘links’ with Maoist leaders.
• On April 6, the Lok Pal, Justice P K Patra, was asked to take action against the media for reporting on his order on the irregularities in the acquisition of land for the Rs 15,000 crore Vedanta University project of the Anil Agarwal Foundation.
• On May 10, senior journalist and correspondent of India TV, Prasanta Patnaik protested the increasing surveillance and monitoring of his movements by police in Bhubaneswar and demanded security for himself and his family.
• On June 9, accomplices of a Bhubaneswar ganglord sent a dire warning to Bhabani Das, a photojournalist working for Orissa daily, The Dharitri, and asked him not to report on their activities.
Sedition cases between 2004-2009:
• In February 2004, Keerti Chandra Sahu, working for a Behrampur-based Orissa daily, Anupam Bharat, was charged with sedition for allegedly aiding Maoists.
• In May 2007, Khaturam Sunani, a reporter working for OTV channel, was charged with sedition for filing a report that Pahariya tribals were consuming ‘soft’ dolomite stones (known locally as jhikiri) in Nuapada district due to acute hunger.
• On December 8, 2008, Lenin Ray, editor of Nissan, a radical literary magazine in Oriya, was picked up by police after a special booklet on the Kandhamal riots entitled ‘Dharmanare Kandhamalre Raktonadhi’ (Kandhamal’s rivers of blood) was published by the magazine.
• On September 20, 2009, Laxman Chaudhary, a stringer with Oriya daily, Sambad, was arrested by Mohana police in Gajapati district and charged with sedition for possessing Maoist literature. Chaudhury had been writing about the involvement of local police in illegal drug trafficking.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Skewed growth to blame for rise of Naxals: SC
NEW DELHI: july 21: This is the worst that the government could have ever got from the Supreme Court. Terming the developmental policies as “blinkered”, the apex court has said that the promised rights and benefits never reached marginalised citizens fuelling extreme discontent and giving birth to naxalism and militancy, which are threatening the sovereignty of the country. Referring to largescale displacement of tribals from forest land in the name of mining and development, the SC said non-settlement of their rights and non-provision for timely compensation of their lost land has created the worst kind of hatred among them towards development, possibly giving birth to extremism. “To millions of Indians, development is a dreadful and hateful word that is aimed at denying them even the source of their sustenance,” a Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and B S Chauhan said on Monday. “It is cynically said that on the path of `maldevelopment’ almost every step that we take seems to give rise to insurgency and political extremism which along with terrorism are supposed to be the three gravest threats to India’s integrity and sovereignty,” it said. The anguish of the apex court brimmed over when it dealt with a case relating to acquisition of tribal land by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd in Sundergarh district of Orissa, which is a Maoist hotbed, and found that those who lost their land were not paid compensation for 23 years. This extreme example of governmental apathy shook the conscience of a Bench forcing it to ask a series of questions — “Why is the state’s perception and vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? And why are their rights so dispensable? Why do India’s GDP and human development index (which is based broadly using measures of life expectancy, adult literacy and standard of living) present such vastly different pictures?” It said: “With the GDP of $1.16 trillion (of 2008) Indian economy is 12th largest in US dollar terms and it is the second fastest growing economy in the world. But according to the Human Development Report 2009 (published by UNDP), the HDI for India is 0.612 which puts it at 134th place among 182 countries.” It said the counter argument was that very often the process of development that most starkly confirms the fears expressed by Dr Ambedkar, who had said though politically one man had one vote of equal value, in social life one continues to deny one man one value. Justice Alam, writing the judgment for the Bench, said this was because despite the philanthropist approach of entrepreneurs and governmental efforts the human factor in the most mineral rich areas have not been able to solve their displacement from forests, despite they being called the oldest dwellers of the area. On the yet-to be-settled rights of tribals whose land was acquired and no compensation was paid for 23 years, the Bench took assistance from Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam and counsel Janaranjan Das to frame a scheme. Under the scheme, the Centre being the owner of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd would determine and pay the compensation to the erstwhile landowners. The SC appointed a former judge of the Orissa HC, Justice A K Pasricha, as chairman of a commission to prepare a report on the land acquired within four months and submit a report to the apex court.
IAF gets permission to fire at Naxals in self-defence PTI, Aug 12, 2010, 06.50pm IST Read more: IAF gets permission to fire at Naxals in self defense
NEW DELHI: The IAF has got the government's permission to fire back at Naxals in extremist-hit areas in self-defence, highly-placed Air Force sources said on Thursday.
The government's nod to the IAF's request made in September last year comes at a time when a debate is raging on whether India should use its armed forces against left-wing extremists, whom Prime MinisterManmohan Singh has described as the gravest internal security threat.
The IAF currently deploys two of its Mi-17s and two Dhruv helicopters in anti-Naxal operations. It had lost one of its personnel when a helicopter ferrying election officials and material during the Chattisgarh assembly polls was fired at by suspected Naxals a couple of years ago.
The government had given permission to the IAF to defend itself from the extremists' fire and had laid out conditions on the use of small arms in self-defence sometime in October-November last year.
Consequently, the IAF has fitted sideward-mounted machine guns on its helicopters flying in Naxal-affected areas basically for logistics, personnel transport and casualty evacuation of paramilitary forces engaged in fighting the Maoists, the sources said.
These guns would be operated by IAF commandos belonging to Garud units, who would be on board the helicopters every time they go out on sorties, the sources said.
Defence ministerA K Antony had told Parliament in November last year that though no offensive military action had been envisaged while using the IAF helicopters in anti-Naxal operations, there was no specific approval required for action in self-defence.
However, the IAF has proposed a draft 'Rules of Engagement' to regulate such action, in order to avoid any ambiguity and damage to the helicopters or injury to their occupants, he had said replying to members' questions.
Among the conditions laid out were that no indiscriminate firing should be carried out and that the Garuds should be sure of the source of the attack on the helicopters before retaliatory fire was unleashed.
These guidelines were issued to ensure there were no civilian causalities in case the IAF used its guns in self-defence, the defence ministry had explained then.
"The IAF helicopter crew will not use the conventional heavy fire power weapons such as rockets and other guns on board, but only the sideward-mounted machine guns. They will use the weapons only if fired upon," the sources said.
"Fortunately, in these months that we have been allowed to defend our assets, there has been no occasion when we had to use the sideward-mounted guns," they said.
The IAF, the sources said, had obtained the government's approval recently to withdraw 17 of its Mi-17 helicopters that are currently in operation with various UN missions.
Once the number of its helicopters increased, it could think of sparing more choppers for the paramilitary forces that were combating the Maoists after assessing the situation, the sources said.
They said for the use of its helicopters in Maoist-hit areas, the IAF had asked the state police and the paramilitary to take a number of precautions such as sanitising the helipad areas.
"If the Naxals have rockets, as it is being suggested, the security forces would sanitise the area up to the range of these rockets, be it 600 metres or more, from the helipads," the sources said.
Admitting that the IAF had imposed an 80-hour per month per helicopter limit for flying, they said it had, in fact, done more hour-sorties in the last four months than the prescribed limit.
The helicopters had done an average of 169 hours in April, 91 hours in May, 118 hours in June and 89 hours in July this year, they said, denying media reports that the IAF had refused to fly in the Naxal-affected regions during certain operations recently.
They said the time limit was set as per IAF's norms for all its helicopters, keeping in mind the maintenance and repairs required for these machines after they had flown for a specified number of hours.
It was also to have a certain number of platforms available for operations at any given time.
"In case of a crisis, like the Leh cloudburst, there is no question of IAF helicopters being denied, so let's not get into a blame game," the sources said.
On the question of paramilitary forces wanting a separate air wing for themselves, the sources said the issue of operating an aircraft or a helicopter fleet was "complicated and not simplistic" as it sounded.
They said an air fleet required a large supply chain for spares, support systems and other logistics, which was not an easy task.
"Some state governments bought helicopters but found it difficult to operate them due to the lack of support systems," they said.
The government's nod to the IAF's request made in September last year comes at a time when a debate is raging on whether India should use its armed forces against left-wing extremists, whom Prime MinisterManmohan Singh has described as the gravest internal security threat.
The IAF currently deploys two of its Mi-17s and two Dhruv helicopters in anti-Naxal operations. It had lost one of its personnel when a helicopter ferrying election officials and material during the Chattisgarh assembly polls was fired at by suspected Naxals a couple of years ago.
The government had given permission to the IAF to defend itself from the extremists' fire and had laid out conditions on the use of small arms in self-defence sometime in October-November last year.
Consequently, the IAF has fitted sideward-mounted machine guns on its helicopters flying in Naxal-affected areas basically for logistics, personnel transport and casualty evacuation of paramilitary forces engaged in fighting the Maoists, the sources said.
These guns would be operated by IAF commandos belonging to Garud units, who would be on board the helicopters every time they go out on sorties, the sources said.
Defence ministerA K Antony had told Parliament in November last year that though no offensive military action had been envisaged while using the IAF helicopters in anti-Naxal operations, there was no specific approval required for action in self-defence.
However, the IAF has proposed a draft 'Rules of Engagement' to regulate such action, in order to avoid any ambiguity and damage to the helicopters or injury to their occupants, he had said replying to members' questions.
Among the conditions laid out were that no indiscriminate firing should be carried out and that the Garuds should be sure of the source of the attack on the helicopters before retaliatory fire was unleashed.
These guidelines were issued to ensure there were no civilian causalities in case the IAF used its guns in self-defence, the defence ministry had explained then.
"The IAF helicopter crew will not use the conventional heavy fire power weapons such as rockets and other guns on board, but only the sideward-mounted machine guns. They will use the weapons only if fired upon," the sources said.
"Fortunately, in these months that we have been allowed to defend our assets, there has been no occasion when we had to use the sideward-mounted guns," they said.
The IAF, the sources said, had obtained the government's approval recently to withdraw 17 of its Mi-17 helicopters that are currently in operation with various UN missions.
Once the number of its helicopters increased, it could think of sparing more choppers for the paramilitary forces that were combating the Maoists after assessing the situation, the sources said.
They said for the use of its helicopters in Maoist-hit areas, the IAF had asked the state police and the paramilitary to take a number of precautions such as sanitising the helipad areas.
"If the Naxals have rockets, as it is being suggested, the security forces would sanitise the area up to the range of these rockets, be it 600 metres or more, from the helipads," the sources said.
Admitting that the IAF had imposed an 80-hour per month per helicopter limit for flying, they said it had, in fact, done more hour-sorties in the last four months than the prescribed limit.
The helicopters had done an average of 169 hours in April, 91 hours in May, 118 hours in June and 89 hours in July this year, they said, denying media reports that the IAF had refused to fly in the Naxal-affected regions during certain operations recently.
They said the time limit was set as per IAF's norms for all its helicopters, keeping in mind the maintenance and repairs required for these machines after they had flown for a specified number of hours.
It was also to have a certain number of platforms available for operations at any given time.
"In case of a crisis, like the Leh cloudburst, there is no question of IAF helicopters being denied, so let's not get into a blame game," the sources said.
On the question of paramilitary forces wanting a separate air wing for themselves, the sources said the issue of operating an aircraft or a helicopter fleet was "complicated and not simplistic" as it sounded.
They said an air fleet required a large supply chain for spares, support systems and other logistics, which was not an easy task.
"Some state governments bought helicopters but found it difficult to operate them due to the lack of support systems," they said.
Maoists are born because of govt attitude: Court
Mumbai: AUg 12: Government's apathetic attitude towards the problems of project-affected people breeds Maoists, the Bombay High Court remarked Thursday.
The division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice S C Dharmadhikari was hearing a PIL filed by one Baban Kadam, on behalf of those farmers who lost their lands to the Chaskaman dam, situated in Pune district.
Petition contends that despite a scheme to allot alternate land, 90 per cent of around 3000 project-affected families haven't got land.
"Maoists and Naxalites are born because of this kind of attitude," an angry bench remarked, seeking reply from the state government.
Government's contention is that people haven't come forward to take advantage of the scheme, under which a person may get alternate land if he deposits 65 per cent of the cost of land with government within 45 days of land acquisition.
But advocate Shakuntala Wadekar, for the petitioner, said that most people in this tribal area were "100 per cent illiterate" and were not aware of the scheme when their own lands were acquired.
The division bench remarked that three decades have passed after land acquisition began in 1976. "You must reach out to people. You must not expect them to come to you," the judges said.
The court asked state to file affidavit, seeking information as to how many project affected families got alternate land, and how relief could be given to the rest.
Advocate Wadekar said that government is supposed to maintain a register of project-affected persons, but it has not been updated in this case.
Many names are missing from it, she said.
The division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice S C Dharmadhikari was hearing a PIL filed by one Baban Kadam, on behalf of those farmers who lost their lands to the Chaskaman dam, situated in Pune district.
Petition contends that despite a scheme to allot alternate land, 90 per cent of around 3000 project-affected families haven't got land.
"Maoists and Naxalites are born because of this kind of attitude," an angry bench remarked, seeking reply from the state government.
Government's contention is that people haven't come forward to take advantage of the scheme, under which a person may get alternate land if he deposits 65 per cent of the cost of land with government within 45 days of land acquisition.
But advocate Shakuntala Wadekar, for the petitioner, said that most people in this tribal area were "100 per cent illiterate" and were not aware of the scheme when their own lands were acquired.
The division bench remarked that three decades have passed after land acquisition began in 1976. "You must reach out to people. You must not expect them to come to you," the judges said.
The court asked state to file affidavit, seeking information as to how many project affected families got alternate land, and how relief could be given to the rest.
Advocate Wadekar said that government is supposed to maintain a register of project-affected persons, but it has not been updated in this case.
Many names are missing from it, she said.
Centre to SC: Maoists striking despite our sincere efforts
NEW DELHI: Drawing flak for its policy on Maoists, the Centre on Tuesday told the
Supreme Court that despite its sincere efforts to solve the problems confronting tribals, the
rebels are not shunning violence and carrying on attacks as they did on Monday in West
Bengal.
"The home minister (P Chidambaram) has made a public statement that government is ready
to talk to them (Maoists) provided they eschew violence. And the answer we have got on
Monday from West Bengal," Attorney General G E Vahanvati told a bench comprising
justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar.
Vahanvati made the statement after advocatePrashant Bhushan spoke about the alleged
human rights violation by state agencies in their fight against Naxals in Chhattisgarh.
In the backdrop of the killing of 24 paramilitary personnel at a camp at Silda in West
Midnapore district, Vahanvati said he was sharing the view of Solicitor GeneralGopal
Subramanium that nobody want to go (to fight Naxals) with a death band on forehead.
"We do not want to perpetuate a situation like a civil war," he said before a bench which was
hearing the petitions relating to the Chhattisgarh tribals, who had allegedly gone missing after
the filing of petition seeking CBI probe into killing of about 10 people during the anti-Naxal
operations.
The bench pacified him saying "we are not on anything like war but for solving the problem".
Subramanium said "the fight against Naxals are not based on any political line and both the
Centre and the Chhattisgarh government are equally concerned about the human rights".
Supreme Court that despite its sincere efforts to solve the problems confronting tribals, the
rebels are not shunning violence and carrying on attacks as they did on Monday in West
Bengal.
"The home minister (P Chidambaram) has made a public statement that government is ready
to talk to them (Maoists) provided they eschew violence. And the answer we have got on
Monday from West Bengal," Attorney General G E Vahanvati told a bench comprising
justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar.
Vahanvati made the statement after advocatePrashant Bhushan spoke about the alleged
human rights violation by state agencies in their fight against Naxals in Chhattisgarh.
In the backdrop of the killing of 24 paramilitary personnel at a camp at Silda in West
Midnapore district, Vahanvati said he was sharing the view of Solicitor GeneralGopal
Subramanium that nobody want to go (to fight Naxals) with a death band on forehead.
"We do not want to perpetuate a situation like a civil war," he said before a bench which was
hearing the petitions relating to the Chhattisgarh tribals, who had allegedly gone missing after
the filing of petition seeking CBI probe into killing of about 10 people during the anti-Naxal
operations.
The bench pacified him saying "we are not on anything like war but for solving the problem".
Subramanium said "the fight against Naxals are not based on any political line and both the
Centre and the Chhattisgarh government are equally concerned about the human rights".
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
State of the Nation: half of the people fell safe due to naxals
The CNN-IBN State of the Nation poll has found that over 50 per cent feel safe living in the Red war zone and impressions of Naxal domination have been highly exaggerated. The CNN-IBN -The Week State Of The Nation poll conducted by CSDS has come up with some startling findings.
Even as politicians made their claims along with human rights activists and the death toll in the conflict mounts, the voice of those living in Naxal-hit areas have remained in the background. Now the first ever exclusive opinion poll conducted by CNN-IBN and The Week State Of The Nation poll in the worst Naxal-hit areas blows the myth of rebel dominance.
Only two per cent of those polled said that Naxalites were in full control while 49 per cent felt that the government has full control; 13 per cent felt that the government has lost some control to Naxals and only eight per cent felt that Naxals rule in the night.
The common perception is that people living in the conflict zone feel unsafe but the findings are surprising.
Just 10 per cent, felt very unsafe, 34 per cent of the people felt somewhat unsafe but an overwhelming 50 per cent of the people felt very safe living in the Naxal-hit areas.
But there were contrasting findings on who was perceived to be more active and powerful.
Out of those polled 30 per cent said that security forces have been more active while 14 per cent said that security forces were less active. But 31 per cent also said that Naxals were more powerful now and less than half that figure, 17 per cent, felt that Naxals had become less powerful.
There was split opinion on the locals experience with the Naxalites with 20 per cent saying that they had a positive experience. An equal number, 20 per cent, said that they had a negative experience. But a majority of 44 per cent had a neutral experience that is neither positive nor negative.
Ironically the locals did not report a very negative view of the security forces with 36 per cent saying they had a positive experience with the security forces while 11 per cent had a negative experience. But a majority of 48 per cent had a neutral interaction with security forces.
The opinion poll suggested that claims of Naxalites control of the conflict zone have been exaggerated but also stresses the majority is equidistant from both the security forces and Naxalites.
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