Manipur Augurs Ill for the Rest of India; Need for Speed Has Taken Focus Off Rail Safety

Wrestlers dispel rumours on protest, census to box Adivasis into faiths, ‘Organiser’ brings down curtain on ‘Modi magic’, Allahabad HC ventured into astrology, Kuno not room enough for cheetahs

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | With inputs from Kalrav Joshi | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal

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Snapshot of the day

June 5, 2023

Pratik Kanjilal

“Dead 288, Responsible 0” ― Dainik Bhaskar’s scathing headline says that the BJP’s spin factories are working to insulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railway Minister Ashiwini Vaishnav after the disastrous rail crash in Odisha. 

The PM visited the crash site and said that “no one responsible” for the crash would be spared. Railway audit documents show that while the government has made haste to launch high-speed trains, it is at the expense of budgets for track inspection and safety work. The internally generated budget for a safety initiative launched in 2017-18 fell short for four years, says The Telegraph. A CAG audit on the railways’ safety performance two years ago attributed 70% of all accidents to derailments, which are in turn attributable to poor track maintenance. The New York Times agrees that though rail safety has improved dramatically, the government preferentially allocates “money for show horses, not work horses, on India’s rails”. The fiscal choice has now had lethal consequences. The blame for the accident has been ascribed to signalling, but the Railway Board wants the probe to be entrusted to the CBI. Is the search for a ‘criminal’ hand being politically driven? (see item below) Hours ago, services resumed on the tracks in Balasore where the accident happened.  

Meanwhile, a Rs 1,700 crore bridge being built across the Ganga in Khagaria, Bihar, has collapsed ― for the second time. Amidst demands for his resignation, Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav said that it was deliberately demolished, because IIT Roorkee engineers had discovered a design flaw. This may not have been effectively communicated before the demolition. 

https://twitter.com/ranvijaylive/status/1665361801070911488?t=92h99SBdTpg5pzf7RSKovg&s=08

“The darkness may not allow many to see what is happening in the state, but there are others who can hear the canary in the coalmine. What’s happening to Manipur can happen to the rest of India,” writes Sushant Singh. The situation is such that Amit Shah, who has no affection at all for NGOs, has urged civil organisations to step in to supply basic necessities and ensure last mile delivery. 

The Indian Express reports that by Friday last week, there were 37,450 people in relief camps across Manipur. Many of them had been displaced in their home state for a month.  

Wrestler Sakshi Malik, one of the leaders of the ongoing protest against sexual harassment within the wrestling federation, has dispelled rumours that she or her fellow grapplers are calling off their struggle after meeting Amit Shah:

"We met Union Home Minister Amit Shah, it was a normal conversation, we have only one demand and that is to arrest him (Brij Bhushan Singh). I have not stepped back from the protest, I have resumed my work as OSD in Railways. I want to clarify that we will keep protesting until we get justice. We will not step back. She (minor girl) has not taken back any FIR, all this is fake,"

The income tax ‘survey’ last September on the Centre for Policy Research, along with two other organisations, has severely affected the functioning of India’s leading think tank. Nine months later, the reason for the raids, according to the Washington Post lies in a common factor between the three organisations affected ― resistance to Gautam Adani’s coal mining project in the forest of Hasdeo Arand, Chhattisgarh. The three organisations had either highlighted the issue or been associated with people involved in the protests, which inconvenienced the government’s favourite. Coverage of the issue also highlighted the fact that the Modi government has resisted the global commitment to withdraw from coal power, and tried to turn an environmental question into a national security issue.

In an editorial written in response to BJP’s defeat in Karnataka, the RSS weekly Organiser has said that “Modi magic” and Hindutva are no longer sufficient for winning elections, in the absence of local leadership. 

National Cybersecurity Coordinator Lt Gen (Retd) Rajesh Pant has drafted a ‘Delhi Declaration’ for responsible state action in cyberspace for the G20 nations, which includes commitments not to damage communications infrastructure, to cooperate in investigating digital incidents and, in particular, to deal with ransomware. In recent years, attacks originating from China have been noted against Indian infrastructure and systems.  

The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has urged the government towards bilateral agreements with more countries to use the Indian rupee to settle international trades. At present, the rupee trade is supported by 18 countries. 

Jaipur’s Malviya National Institute of Technology has been identified as the National Centre for Earthquake Safety of Dams. Seismic events pose critical threats to dams and populations downstream, and they have also been targets for airstrikes designed to starve industries of energy since World War II. The Dam Safety Act of 2021 covers 5,500 dams, of which 70 are of national importance.   

The UP government wants to take migration pressures off Lucknow by creating a State Capital Region on the lines of the National Capital Region surrounding Delhi. 

Sulochana, who was one of the most enduring mother figures of Hindi cinema, has died aged 94. She had featured in films across a generation, starring with Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor, and also playing mother to Vinod Khanna and Jackie Shroff. 

Naseeruddin Shah, who has never had much patience for pomp and circumstance, has admitted to the Lallantop that the rumours are true: he has crafted his many industry awards into door handles for his farmhouse near Mumbai. Well, they always said that awards open doors. 

The Supreme Court has stayed a strange order of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, which had wandered into the realm of astrology. The plot is not unfamiliar: boy meets girl, boy and girl get engaged, boy has relations with girl, boy learns that girl’s horoscope has the infamous manglik dosh (flaw of Mars), boy fears the worst and refuses to marry girl. At this point, wise elders usually play-act at marrying girl to a handy object, such as a tree, on which Mars can expend his wrath, after which boy can marry girl safely and live happily ever after. But in this case, the girl alleged rape and the court ordered boy and girl to submit their horoscopes to the astrology department of Lucknow University for examination. Just goes to show that astrology departments shouldn’t be allowed.    

Malini Parthasarathy, a former editor of The Hindu, has resigned from the newspaper’s board, saying she finds “the space and scope for my editorial views shrinking.” She was seen as someone keen on keeping a line open between the independent-minded newspaper and the Modi government.

And Rahul da Cunha predicts that after all the pink Rs 2,000 notes have been hoovered up, casatta-coloured banknotes will be unleashed to daze and confuse the public.