Things Are Not What They Seem to Be
In his weekly column in The Indian Express, Congress' P Chidambaram draws attention to the recent Hindenburg Research findings and the allegations against Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson of SEBI and her husband, Dhaval Buch. He looks back at the SEBI's investigation, the Justice Sapre Committee and the subsequent Supreme Court's order that upheld SEBI's actions.
Chidambaram points out accusations of conflict that both of them had economic interests in entities that were investigated by SEBI and reviewed by the Justice Sapre Committee.
The issue is not whether there was wrongdoing or actual conflict of interest on the part of Ms Buch. The issue is not whether the government is shielding Ms Buch in order to shield the business group. Rather, the issue is a simple and straightforward one: Did Ms Buch disclose her past connections and actions — and the potential conflict of interest — to SEBI, to the government, to the Justice Sapre Committee, and to the Supreme Court? Apparently not. Nor did Ms Buch recuse herself from the investigations.P Chidambaram, The Indian Express
Long Way to Go to Make India a Sporting Nation
Diplomat Pavan K Varma for the Deccan Chronicle underscores the glaring problems in nurturing talent in sports industry and India's threshold for satisfaction in sports which is unacceptably low. "The real priority is to seriously review the foundational reasons for our continuously sub-par performance in the Olympics," he writes.
He takes on the sports infrastructure, the quality of training, bureaucratic red tape, obsession with cricket and neglect of other sports, the need to increase the catchment area to identify athletes and the nexus between politics and sports with reference to BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan's case.
The irony is that when Brij Bhushan resigned, in the ensuing elections for presidentship of the Federation, his close aide, Sanjay Singh won, and it was Brij Bhushan who was triumphantly garlanded and paraded. In such circumstances, it is a miracle that Vinesh Phogat not only qualified for the Olympics but managed to reach the finals, losing the gold only due to being 100 grams overweight for her category.Pavan K Varma, Deccan Chronicle
Kol Rape: Rage Is Justified, Revenge Is Not
Maitreyi Misra who works with Project 39A in National Law University, Delhi writes in The Times of India about India's policies to tackle sexual violence against women in light of the RG Kar hospital case in Kolkata. She argues that popular narrative after such outrage is to seek revenge instead of justice and not to address sexual violence as a persistent and systemic problem. She expands on the problem with our approach and pre-existing problems plaguing the police, forensic labs and the judiciary, among others.
"These kinds of seemingly 'instant' solutions do nothing to ensure justice to victims and survivors," she writes.
Instead of relying on the persistence of violence, we rely on particular incidents in framing our criminal justice policy. This, in turn, has led us to believe that such incidents are exceptional, and perpetrated by an individual who is fundamentally different from an imagined ‘us’ but who cunningly looks like us. Preventing sexual violence must require us to look at reasons that create and encourage conditions that make women feel unsafe in all aspects of their lives. Unless we do so, we will continue to confound systemic violence with episodic aberrations. We will continue to punish people with increasingly harsher sentences, without being sure that they are even guilty.Maitreyi Misra, The Times of India
Neeraj-Arshad Warmth Echoes Shared Culture
Journalist Karan Thapar writes an evocative column in the Hindustan Times on how Punjabis share a unique bond across India and Pakistan, transcending political divides which explains the camaraderie between athletes like Neeraj Chopra and Arshad Nadeem.
How their mothers spoke well of each other's sons and why it's not surprising that Neeraj and Arshad would gravitate towards each other. "Not just their sport but their culture determined it." In this regard, he also talks about his own trip to Lahore in 1980.
The only separation is religion and a line on a British-drawn map. The Punjabi connection is strong enough to overcome that. This is what drew Neeraj and Arshad to each other. It’s also the reason why Indians and Pakistanis — whether Punjabi or not — gravitate to each other abroad. They feel comfortable in each other’s company. They don’t need to explain themselves. They know they’ll be understood. A shared culture is stronger than divisive politics. If only our politicians understood that.Karan Thapar, Hindustan Times
Musings on India Today
In her weekly column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh takes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech at the Red Fort and why it is not true when he asserted that he had transformed governance. She observes, "The reason why none of the new denizens of that privileged enclave known as Lutyens' Delhi has discovered this is because there is an iron dome above this piece of expensive real estate that prevents all real information from breaking through."
Essentially, she argues how even Modi's ministers have failed in improving spheres such as Education or other portfolios they have held.
When Modi became Prime Minister a decade ago, he seemed to mean it when he promised economic liberalisation, but this has turned out to be a false promise. When was the last time you heard of a government company being privatised? When was the last time you heard an official mention the word? It must be sadly said that Modi has spent ten years walking along the same path that Congress prime ministers walked and it is a path that leads to that decrepit socialist India in which midnight's children and some who came a few years later spent their childhood and youth.Tavleen Singh, The Indian Express
When a Ghastly Crime Becomes Fodder for 'Khela Hobey' Politics, It's Changing Time
Writing for the Economic Times, Indrajit Hazra states that Mamata Banerjee's 'order' to the police to find the perpetrator(s) by 18 August or else she would transfer the case to CBI sounds like a "deadline to clean up evidence."
He writes how Mamata and TMC MP and 'Dada' Abhishek Banerjee have found a 'conspiracy' in the 'Women, Reclaim The Night' protest march by linking it with CPI (M) and BJP's attempts to trigger a 'Bangladesh-like mass movement to capture power'.
In all this fog of deception, appropriation, whataboutery, protest aesthetics, two things mustn't be lost sight of: the need to build a case that puts away the perps. And removal of an administration doing its best to make a horrifying crime, its perpetrators, and their facilitators vanish. If this doesn't make a people demand a 'poriborton', nothing should.Indrajit Hazra, Economic Times
EC Claims Free and Fair Elections. It Must Enable Citizens to Verify the Claim
Venkatesh Nayak of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in the Deccan Herald brings focus on the discrepancies pointed out by several citizen action platforms on the voter turnout figures announced for 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the Election Commission's response to them.
"EC officials continue to deny access to crucial information that can enable citizens to ascertain for themselves the veracity of the election results," he adds.
The EC could do itself a favour by using this segment of its website to publish actionable information like it used to a decade ago — such as voter turnout data in Form 17C and the vote-count data in Form 20 for all polling stations, along with the ROs' 'morning-after-reports' from all constituencies. Many doubts about the truth of the election results could be set to rest by publishing such information for the voters, whom the EC is both constitutionally and statutorily mandated to serve.Venkatesh Nayak, Deccan Herald
Disparity Among Dalits Needs to Be Acknowledged
Milind E Awad in The Indian Express' 'Dalitality' column, talks about the Supreme Court's controversial decision that states can create sub-classifications within the reserved categories for SCs and STs. He elaborates on how the demand for this sub-classification in SC reservation by state and non-state actors was not an isolated case.
I argue for extending the social justice principle underlying the SC/ST reservation to castes that have not been able to access welfare resources. If reservation was introduced to redress the enormous socio-economic inequality among historically disadvantaged castes through proportional representation, then why not use the same principle for backward castes within the SC category? In the same context, the Supreme Court’s 2024 verdict takes note of the data and rationalises the necessity of sub-classification for the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups that have failed to access the benefits of reservation.Milind E Awad, The Indian Express
Khan and Able: How Bollywood Restored Our Faith in Secularism
In his weekly column for The Times of India, Swaminathan S Aiyar analyses that the Khan trinity: Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan and their box office setbacks. Do they indicate the audiences have rejected them because of ideological reasons or is it just bad scripting?
Aiyar talks about their pre-2014 and post-2014 hits and flops and the scathing attacks they faced when they were vocal.
At this point, I had to wonder if I had been mistaken in my assessment that the success of the three Khans proved that India was solidly secular. Had a hidden Hindutva India, lurking below the surface, come out in the open after 2019, and started carrying all before it? Even Congress had stopped mentioning the word secularism, having concluded that this was somehow associated with being anti-Hindu. Rahul Gandhi had started wearing a sacred thread and calling himself a Shiv bhakt. Was the whole of India turning in the Hindutva direction? Were the flopping Khan films part of the process?Swaminathan S Aiyar, The Times of India
More From The Quint
1. Hindenburg vs SEBI: The Best Course of Action for Madhabi Buch is to Resign
2. Will Mamata's Terrible Handling of the RG Kar Rape and Murder Seal Her Fate?
3. Gulzar Turns 90 | Celebrating a Literary and Cinematic Icon
4. 'Secular' Civil Code is Modi's Bid to Placate His Allies Over a Polarising Issue
5. Yogi Adityanath’s Troubles Are Far From Over
6. Vinesh Phogat’s Story Has Shattered the Chimera of a Government That Cares
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