Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeMediaLeft-wing watch: 10th October

Left-wing watch: 10th October

Also Read

WIRE AND THE NCPCR-CHILD CARE HOME ISSUE

On 26th September NCPCR directed 8 states that account for over 72 percent of children in care homes to ensure their return to their families. After an outrage by Human Rights NGOs, the Apex Court sought NCPCR a reply over its letter to the State Authorities on Friday. In the article published on Saturday Wire says “NCPCR’s letter to all the district magistrates of Karnataka directing repatriation and restoration of children in children homes is found to be inconsistent with law.” quoting the Amicus Curiae Adv. Gaurav Agrawal, who also represented Ajmal Kasab in Supreme Court.

The article tries to portray that ‘Centre is compromising Institutional Care for children amid COVID-19’. Article selectively quotes the NCPCR and only mentions “the NCPCR has observed that poverty cannot be assumed to be a justification for not repatriating and restoring the children by the CWCs.” whereas completely omits another statement of NCPCR which says “NCPCR also wants all district authorities to submit details based on CWC orders and reasons in cases where the child could not be sent back to their homes including details of orphan children, those from very poor families and also children who are without families and past the age of adoption.”

The Wire also shows clear hypocrisy where it expresses its concern for Child Rights on one hand but completely forgets the discrepancies observed in these CII’s. According to Priyank Kanoongo, Chairperson of NCPCR, “A total 7163 CCI were inspected, and cognisances were taken on discrepancies observed and were communicated to concerned district authorities during 2019-20 and about 1500 CCI were inspected again by the authorities.” In recent times’ many cases of discrepancies were reported in the Media which involved illegal orphanages, rapes and sexual assault on children, fraud in grants, lack of resources and pathetic conditions in these Orphanages and much more. Due to this very reason, the reconciliation of these Children with their families provided that the essential requirements listed by NCPCR are fulfilled becomes even more important. Some of these cases, as they were reported in Times of India, are listed below:

  1. Over 200 Illegal Children Homes in Telangana – As reported by TOI, According to Mamatha Raghuveer, founder of Tharuni NGO, who works with Telangana Women Safety Wing, “The children in these places (Illegal Orphanages) are very vulnerable to all kinds of abuse. Since these CCIs — rapidly growing in numbers — are not on the government’s radar, nobody knows what happens inside the homes. The children could be abused or forced to beg by the staff or even trafficked. Most of them are running a business, using those kids to attract charity funds…Maybe just 10% of these unregistered orphanages are genuine.”
  2. Rape of Minor Girl in a Hyderabad Orphanage
  3. Orphanage Running Out of Stock due to Lockdown
  4. Orphanage Fraud in Kerala – Orphanages (Including Illegal institutions) reported a false number of permanent residing children to State Government for receiving grants. These institutions received a grant of worth INR12.53 Cr. but it was found that almost 50% of these institutes didn’t have even a single child!
  5. In Navi Mumbai, two men were jailed for raping eight minor girls in an Orphanage.
  6. 18 girls in an orphanage were made to clean it and were beaten by the guard when they refused to do so.

OTHER ARTICLES IN THE WIRE

The Indomitable Spirit of Father Stan Swamy

Another episode of Wire’s foul cry over the arrest of Maoist Stan Swamy. Old tactics of alleging that “Falsely branding activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn to enable vested interests to finish them off.”, showing the person as some saint or incarnation of God by using phrases like “The rights activist is one of the gentlest and kindest men I have ever met” and then continuous ranting in the whole article. The Wire tried same stuff when it called M.A Jinnah an “Indian Nationalist”. It must also be noted that Stan Swamy belonged to the notorious PUCL which had a history of showing solidarity with the banned People’s Front of India (PFI) and with Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Menon. Interestingly the CPI(Maoist) document titled “STRATEGY & TACTICS OF THE INDIAN REVOLUTION ” says:

These regions have strategic importance for the Indian revolution from the military viewpoint due to their favourable terrain that facilitates the establishment of base areas. Hence the Party should organise Adivasis with the slogans, “Right over the forest belongs to people and Adivasis“, “Politica Autonomy to the Adivasi territories’ and transform the territory as exploitationfree territory i.e ‘red land’, ‘don’t be divided, be united’ ‘unite the real friends against the real enemies’.’right over all the resources including water, forest etc.’ ‘right for protecting their own culture and development’, and draw up a specific plan for work among them to mobilise them against economic, political, social and cultural oppression by imperialism, CBB and feudalism.

Article related to PFI, BHIM Army and ED Twisting of Statements

As reported by Swarajya “The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday (7 October) said that there were evidences of approximately Rs 100 crore being routed to Uttar Pradesh to instigate caste and communal conflict in the wake of alleged gang-rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Hathras.” Now a clarification by ED comes on 9th October. As reported by India Today “ED has also said that the talks of Rs 100 crore being recovered is untrue. ” The latter statement nowhere contradicts the former.

Now The Wire says in its article “It (Enforcement Directorate) has also said that talk of Rs 100 crore having been pumped into instigating protests over the Hathras brutality was untrue and that no such amount has been recovered.” As per The Wire, the entire Talks are false whereas the truth is that the evidence of 100Cr. being pumped are found but it has not been recovered. This is a complete twisting of statements.

Another laughable stock from the same article “PFI is a Muslim organisation that is seen as radical.”, “and it has been a particular target of the Uttar Pradesh government, which earlier repeatedly sought to establish connections between anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests and funding by PFI.”

The WIRE slams Prashant Bhushan for Opposing Reservation in Higher Judiciary

Another standard ‘class struggle’ based, ‘patriarchy smashing’, ‘bold’ article in The Wire. The author of this article alleges that “The argument that it is the quality of the individual that matters, and not the caste, is flawed and myopic. The entire selection process for judges is entrenched in patriarchy and casteism. A collegium filled with upper-caste men will primarily select their own kind.” Attacking Bhushan he says “When someone like Prashant Bhushan argues against reservation in the higher judiciary, liberals who disagree must stand up. Otherwise, there is no difference between the parochial mob and us. I failed.” He adds further “for Prashant Bhushan to imply that the caste of a judge is irrelevant is erroneous.”.

He again slams Bhushan and says “Prashant Bhushan’s argument that the deserving will come through the normal course — that they will find their way to the Supreme Court if they are good enough — is dangerously close to the commonly held upper-caste argument of merit. It is no different from people with caste privilege saying that Dalits who are really talented will make it to the elite colleges; that they need no reservation. What is this idea of ‘deserving’? Are we to just accept that judges, unlike all other human beings, are bias-less? We have to understand that words like ‘merit’ and ‘deserving’ are smokescreens that enable the powerful to keep control and maintain the status quo.”

  Support Us  

OpIndia is not rich like the mainstream media. Even a small contribution by you will help us keep running. Consider making a voluntary payment.

Trending now

- Advertisement -

Latest News

Recently Popular