Archives for 2018

Dalits in a Madhya Pradesh city on Thursday protested the violent incident in a Pune village.

Parts of Burhanpur city were tense after a shutdown was called and more than 10 buses were damaged.

Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Sagar said the situation was under control.

On Monday, disturbances erupted in Maharashtra’s Koregaon-Bhima village during celebrations to mark the bicentenary of the Anglo-Peshwa war.

Hundreds of thousands of Dalits had congregated around the Victory Pillar (Vijay Stambh) erected by the British in Sanaswadi village when suddenly stone-pelting started, allegedly by some rightwing groups carrying saffron flags.

In the clashes that ensued between the two groups, a youth was killed.

Dalit parties had called a Maharashtra shutdown on Wednesday to protest the incident.

(IANS)

An incident of a Chinese road construction party entering Indian territory and Beijing’s statement on not recognising Arunachal Pradesh was raised in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

Revolutionary Socialist Party member N.K. Premchandran urged the government to make a statement on the incident.

“Chinese entered Indian territory, there were attempts to construct a road. Upto one kilometre they constructed. They were then stopped by people and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police force.

“They had come up till the Siang river basin, so my point is upper Siang basin is being aggressed upon,” Premchandran said.

“Further the Chinese spokesperson openly stated that Beijing has never recognised the state of Arunachal Pradesh. It is a provoking statement on China’s part,” he added.

“I would like to know the response of government of India on the Chinese aggression,” he said.

A road building party from China entered Indian territory in a remote part of Arunachal Pradesh in December-end and were sent back by the Indian troops.

Around December 26, they were found constructing a track around two kilometres away from the nearest Indo-Tibetan Border Police post.

A nearly 600 metre long and 12 feet wide track was constructed on Indian territory when the Chinese party was stopped.

The area where the Chinese workers entered is close to the place where Brahmaputra river enters India.

Indian troops pushed back the labourers and seized the equipment. While there was no confrontation between troops on both side, Indian troops have barricaded the area since and have been guarding it.

Asked about the incident, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said: “First of all, on border issues with India, China is clear and consistent.

“We never acknowledge the existence of so-called Arunachal Pradesh,” Geng said.

(IANS)

Pune: An FIR was filed against Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Umar Khalid for their alleged “provocative” speeches during an event here on December 31, an official said today. Both were charged for allegedly creating a rift and spreading disharmony between the Maratha and Dalit communities.

Mevani, the newly elected MLA from Gujarat, and Khalid had attended the “Elgar Parishad”, an event organised to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the battle of Bhima- Koregaon, at Shaniwar Wada in the city on December 31.

According to a complaint filed by city resident Akshay Bikkad, Mevani and Khalid allegedly made “provocative” speeches at the event and their remarks were aimed at creating disharmony and rift between the communities, which led to the violence in Bhima Koregaon on January 1.

Bikkad approached the Deccan-Gymkhana police with the complaint, which was forwarded to the Vishrambaug police station, since Shaniwarwada falls under its jurisdiction. The Vishrambaug police registered the FIR against the two leaders yesterday, the official said.

According to the complaint, Mevani at the Pune event said, “If we want to win over this new Peshwai, the battle of Bhima Koregaon needs to be taken ahead.” The Dalit leader said it was right that people fighting the battle needed to be in assemblies and Parliament, but if one had to eradicate casteism, it would happen only by taking to the streets.

According to the complaint, Khalid, the student leader from JNU in New Delhi, said the battle of Bhima Koregaon had to be taken ahead. “They had attacked. It is time to retaliate and we will fight this battle and we will win and this victory over new Peshwai will be the true homage to the martyrs of Bhima Koregaon battle,” the complaint quoted Khalid as saying.

Based on the complaint, offences were registered against Mevani and Khalid under IPC sections 153 (a) (delivering speech to create disharmony or feelings of enmity), section 505 (giving statement conducing to public mischief) and 117 (abetting commission of offence by the public or by more than ten persons), the police official said.

Normal life was crippled in Maharashtra yesterday due to a bandh called by Dalit groups to protest the violence on the anniversary of a battle fought 200 years ago. Violence erupted in Pune on January 1 when Dalit groups were celebrating the bicentenary of the Bhima-Koregaon battle in which the British defeated the Peshwas of Maharashtra.

Dalit leaders commemorate the British victory as it is believed that soldiers from the Mahar community were part of the East India Company’s forces. The Peshwas were Brahmins, and the victory is seen as a symbol of assertiveness by Dalits.

(PTI)

by Al Jazeera

Iran’s supreme leader has blamed external “enemies” for heightening turmoil in the country, as the death toll in ongoing nationwide anti-government rallies has passed 20.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, came on Tuesday hours before the US said that it would seek emergency United Nations talks on the protests in the Islamic republic.

At least eight people were killed on Monday night, according to state media, taking the number of people killed since the demonstrations began on December 28 to at least 22.

In his first public remarks since the rallies began, Khamenei said that “enemies” of Iran have allied and used the various means they have available, including “money, weapons, politics, and intelligence services”, to stir unrest.

“The dignity, security, and progress of the Iranian nation are owed to the self-sacrifice of the martyrs. What prevents enemies from exerting their atrocities is the spirit of courage, sacrifice, and faith within the nation,” he said in a statement posted on his official website.

“I have something to say on these events, and I will speak to the dear people when the time is right.

“The Iranian nation will forever owe the dear martyrs, who left behind their homes and families, to stand against the wicked enemies.”

US President Donald Trump, who has used Twitter to criticise Tehran since the rallies erupted, hailed the protesters for acting against the “brutal and corrupt” regime and said Iranians had “little food, big inflation and no human rights”.

Iran’s foreign ministry hit back, saying the US president was “wasting his time sending useless and insulting tweets” and would be better off focusing on “homeless and hungry people” in his own country.

Later on Tuesday, Nikki Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the UN, said the US would seek an emergency session of the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council to discuss Iran.

“The people of Iran are crying out for freedom,” she told reporters. “All freedom-loving people must stand with their cause.”

‘Most politicised rallies in years’

The anti-government rallies first erupted in the second-largest city in Iran, Mashhad, prompted by anger over the high cost of living, rising unemployment and the overall state of the economy under the government of President Hassan Rouhani.

They quickly spread to other parts of Iran and turned political, with some protesters chanting slogans against Iran’s foreign policy, as well as against Khamenei and Rouhani.

Despite threats by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to put down the demonstrations, protesters have continued taking to the streets, in what has been described as the biggest show of dissent in the country since huge rallies took place in 2009.

So far, at least 530 people – 450 in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and 80 in the central city of Arak – have been arrested, according to state media.

Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a visiting fellow at Brookings Doha Center, said the past week’s rallies “are the most politicised demonstrations we’ve had in Iran for a very long time.

“Clearly, the slogans are anti-regime and they target all factions of the Islamic Republic [of Iran], all factions of the establishment,” he added, noting, however, that “regime change is such a loaded term because it was misused by a lot of imperialist projects in the past”.

Commenting on the allegations that outside actors were stirring unrest, Fathollah-Nejad said that while there is “no doubt” that there are “some external forces who are instrumentalising” what is currently taking place in the country, it must also be acknowledged that these powers “don’t have enough influence in Iran anyway.

“The claim by the government to say that a lot of those protests are instigated by the outside, when in the past the same government would say that those forces don’t have a following, for example, inside Iran, is just ironic,” he told Al Jazeera.

“There are a lot of different interests that are whirling around Iran, but at the same time those protests are somehow organic,” added Fathollah-Nejad, noting that the rallies are a backlash against Iran’s deeply rooted problems.

“The truth of the matter lies not within the outside world, or with outside forces, but with the very real structural problems that Iranian people have felt over the last few years.”

Structural and contingent factors
In May 2017, Rouhani, who belongs to the reformist bloc of Iran’s political spectrum, decisively won re-election after garnering 57 percent of the vote in the country’s presidential election.

That poll was the first since Rouhani negotiated an historic deal with world powers in 2015, to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Many in Iran hoped that the deal, by lifting many international sanctions, would ease the country’s financial struggles.

Yet, the benefits do not seem to have trickled down, with critics blaming the ruling religious elite for economic mismanagement and alleged corruption.

Last month’s budget, which included cuts to vital social welfare programmes while giving more money to religious and revolutionary institutions, exacerbated tensions, according to analysts.

“If you have been objectively following the socioeconomic indicators in Iran, you’ll see a huge portion of the population has not been benefitting from neither the reformist policies, nor from the conservative ones,” said Fathollah-Nejad.

“If you take all those structural factors, plus the more recent contingent factors – the government’s response to the [December] earthquakes, student and labour protests, and the budget announcement … you cannot be very much surprised.”