President Pratibha Patil goes on mercy overdrive

June 22, 2012

Prathiba_OverdriveNew Delhi, June 22: Ahead of demitting office, President Pratibha Patil has scored a new record. She has commuted the death sentence of as many as 35 convicts to life — among them are those convicted of mass murder, kidnapping, rape and killing of children.

On June 2, Patil gave her pardon to four more — Bandu Baburao Tidke from Karnataka, Buntu from Uttar Pradesh and Lalchand alias Laliya Dhoom and Shiv Lal from Rajasthan. As a swami of Sadashiva Appana Math, Bagalkot, Tidke abducted a 16-year-old schoolgirl, raped and murdered her. UP's Bantu, on death row since July 2008, was convicted of raping and killing a five-year-old girl.

In fact, almost all the convicts pardoned are guilty of the most blood-curdling crimes. Piara Singh, Sarabjit Singh, Gurdev Singh and Satnam Singh had massacred 17 of a family at a marriage function. Gopi and Mohan (Tamil Nadu) and Molai Ram and Santosh (Madhya Pradesh) had raped and murdered little girls.

The large scale of presidential pardons is seen as surprising. That is because India has not yet abolished the death penalty.

Were these pardons diluting the legal provision through the backdoor? Archana Dutta, Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson, said the President was well aware of constitutional provisions as she was a lawyer herself. "The President only takes a decision to commute a death sentence or reject it after she is satisfied by the advice tendered by the government. The President ensures that the government has put in certain application of mind to give mitigating and extenuating circumstances for their advice,'' she said.

Notwithstanding Dutta's assertion, the speed with which Patil has granted pardons would indicate haste. Those shown clemency have been held guilty of barbaric crimes. These appear to have met the criterion of the "rarest of the rare" crimes that attract death penalty. While Patil has shown mercy to mass killers and rapists and killers of children, she has not given the same treatment to political assassins like the killers of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh or Rajiv Gandhi.

With the June 2 decision to grant four more pardons, the President boasts of a disposal rate of 200%. In recent times President K R Narayanan received 10 petitions and disposed of only one in his tenure. A P J Abdul Kalam inherited nine petitions with another 16 added in his term, taking the total to 25. He disposed of only two — rejecting one and pardoning the other.

Presidential pardon

Article 72 empowers President to pardon, grant reprieve or suspend, remit, commute sentence of person convicted of any offence

President guided by home minister, council of ministers

Exercise of the executive prerogative subject to judicial review

Pratibha Patil has granted clemency to 35 convicts — a record 22 of those killed by these 35 were women and children

Patil rejected 3 pleas

Afzal Guru's among pending mercy petitions

Since 1981, more than 90 have pleaded for clemency

Patil's disposal rate is about 200% unlike K R Narayanan who only disposed of one petition of the 10 he received and Kalam who had a disposal rate of 12.5%

Clemency call

APJ Abdul Kalam | Had 25 mercy petitions. Rejected plea of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, India's last recorded execution. Commuted one to life. Returned others

K R Narayanan | Sat on all pleas. Used delay as tactic. Received about 10 mercy pleas

S D Sharma | Rejected all 14 mercy petitions presented to him

Some sentences commuted

SATISH | Killed & brutalized Visakha, 6, a UP resident, in 2001

MOLAI RAM & SANTOSH YADAV | Raped and killed 10-yr-old daughter of jailor in MP prison in 1996

DHARMENDRA SINGH and NARENDRA YADAV | UP duo killed couple and their 3 minor kids in 1994

PIARA SINGH and HIS THREE SONS| From Punjab, massacred 17 of a wedding party

SHOBHIT CHAMAR | Of Bihar. Jailed for killing 6 of an upper caste landlord's family, including 2 kids

R GOVINDSWAMY | From Kerala, sentenced for murder of his paternal uncle, aunt, their three children over a land dispute

SHYAM MANOHAR, SHEO RAM, PRAKASH, RAVINDER SURESH and HARISH | Killed five, including a 10-yr-old boy, over a property dispute

OM PRAKASH | From Uttarakhand, murdered retired brigadier and two family members

SUSHIL MURMU | Sacrificed a 9-yr-old boy in Jharkhand for his own prosperity

MOHAN and GOPI | From TN, kidnapped 10-yr-old boy, strangled him, got Rs 5 lakh as ransom

JAIKUMAR | Murdered pregnant sister-in-law and niece

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News Network
April 3,2020

New Delhi, Apr 3: Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind leader Mahmood Madani on Thursday said that misbehaviour with doctors cannot be tolerated as they are working to protect everyone.

"We can only spread awareness about coronavirus that its only cure is by taking precautions. The government shared the precautions that people should not take part in any gathering, be clean and maintain social distance. After the reports, it will clear that how it is spread in the country," Madani told news agency.

"People who are objecting to testing in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital are very wrong and they should follow the instructions.

Hospital authorities and administration should talk to them. Today doctors are our soldiers who protect us and wrong behaviour with doctors cannot be tolerated," he added.

He further said that Jamiat wrote to the PM Narendra Modi that they will provide a place for 10,000 people in different states. Our workers also distributed food to one lakh people, he added.

People who attended a religious prayer meeting from March 13-15 at Markaz in the Nizamuddin area of Delhi were sent to Lok Nayak Hospital for coronavirus test on March 30.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday said that there are 2,069 coronavirus positive cases in India, including 1,860 active cases, 156 cured/discharged/migrated people and 53 deaths.

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News Network
May 18,2020

New Delhi, May 18: The nationwide tally of COVID-19 cases crossed one lakh on Monday with more people testing positive for the deadly virus in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and other states, even as a much-relaxed fourth phase of the lockdown began with restarting of market complexes, autos, taxis and inter-state buses in various parts of the country.

The death toll due to COVID-19 crossed the 3,000-mark too.

With an aim to reboot numerous locked down economic activities, authorities across the country ordered reopening of markets, intra-state transport services and even of barber shops and salons in some states, barring in containment zones.

However, schools, colleges, theatres, malls and religious gatherings are among those that would remain shut down, at least till May 31.

India has been under a lockdown since March 25, which was first supposed to be for 21 days or toll April 14, but was later extended till May 3, then further till May 17 and now for another two weeks till May 31.

However, a number of relaxations have been given in the current fourth phase, while states and union territories have also been granted significant flexibility for deciding the red, orange or green zones in terms of the quantum and severity of the virus spread.

In its morning 8 AM update, the Union Health Ministry put the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases 96,169 and the death toll at 3,029.

It also said that 36,824 people have so far recovered from the infection.

However, a news agency tally of figures announced by different states and UTs as of 9.40 PM put the number of those having tested positive for the infection at 1,00,096, with a death toll of 3,078 and recoveries at 38,596 across the country.

Maharashtra topped the nationwide tally with over 35,000 confirmed cases and 1,249 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 11,760 confirmed cases and 81 deaths.

Gujarat has also reported 11,746 confirmed cases, while its death toll is higher than that of Tamil Nadu at 694.

Delhi has also crossed the 10,000 mark in terms of the number of confirmed cases, while its death toll has now reached 160.

Gujarat, during the day, recorded 366 new COVID-19 cases and 35 deaths, including 31 from the worst-hit Ahmedabad, taking the state's case count to 11,746 and the number of fatalities to 694, a health department official said.

Maharashtra reported 2,033 new cases, taking the tally to 35,058.

This was the second consecutive day when the state has reported more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases.

Mumbai alone reported 1,185 fresh cases and 23 more deaths, taking the total count of the city to 21,152 and the fatalities to 757.

Of the 1,185 new cases, 300 samples were tested positive in private laboratories between May 12 and 16.

Kerala also saw 29 new cases -- all but one being returnees from overseas and other states --  raising concerns about the state witnessing a possible third wave of the dreaded virus infection.

The state was first to report the virus infection, but at least twice it has already been seen as having flattened the curve of the infection.

The nationwide count of confirmed infections incidentally crossed the crucial one-lakh mark on a day when the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown kicked in with several relaxations for economic and public activities, barring in containment zones or areas identified as serious hotspots of the virus infection.

Revising its strategy for COVID-19 testing, ICMR also said on Monday that returnees and migrants who show symptoms for influenza-like illness will be tested for coronavirus infection within seven days of ailment and stressed that no emergency clinical procedure, including deliveries, should be delayed for lack of testing.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in its revised strategy for coronavirus testing in India also added that all hospitalised patients who develop symptoms for influenza-like illness (ILI) and frontline workers involved in containment and mitigation of COVID-19 having such signs will also be tested for coronavirus infection through RT-PCR test.

Besides, asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts of a confirmed case are to be tested once between day five and day 10 of coming in contact, the new document stated.

Asymptomatic contacts of a confirmed case were being tested once between day five and day 14.

The Health Ministry also said that for every one lakh population, there are 7.1 coronavirus cases in India so far as against 60 globally.

It also said the recovery rate of coronavirus cases in India stood at 38.39 per cent.

Besides, India also joined nearly 120 countries at a crucial conference of the World Health Organisation in pushing for an impartial and comprehensive evaluation of the global response into the coronavirus crisis as well as to examine the origin of the deadly infection.

Since the first case of the deadly coronavirus was reported in China last December, more than 47 lakh people have tested for this virus across the world and over 3 lakh have lost their lives.

India is the 11th most affected country, while the US tops the chart with over 14.9 lakh confirmed cases so far.

China's official tally of confirmed infections is less than 84,000, while it has reported more than 4,600 deaths.

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News Network
January 13,2020

Jan 13: For the first time in years, the government of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing defense. Protests have sprung up across the country against an amendment to India’s laws — which came into effect on Friday — that makes it easier for members of some religions to become citizens of India. The government claims this is simply an attempt to protect religious minorities in the Muslim-majority countries that border India; but protesters see it as the first step toward a formal repudiation of India’s constitutionally guaranteed secularism — and one that must be resisted.

Modi was re-elected prime minister last year with an enhanced majority; his hold over the country’s politics is absolute. The formal opposition is weak, discredited and disorganized. Yet, somehow, the anti-Citizenship Act protests have taken hold. No political party is behind them; they are generally arranged by student unions, neighborhood associations and the like.

Yet this aspect of their character is precisely what will worry Modi and his right-hand man, Home Minister Amit Shah. They know how to mock and delegitimize opposition parties with ruthless efficiency. Yet creating a narrative that paints large, flag-waving crowds as traitors is not quite that easy.

For that is how these protests look: large groups of young people, many carrying witty signs and the national flag. They meet and read the preamble to India’s Constitution, into which the promise of secularism was written in the 1970’s.

They carry photographs of the Constitution’s drafter, the Columbia University-trained economist and lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. These are not the mobs the government wanted. They hoped for angry Muslims rampaging through the streets of India’s cities, whom they could point to and say: “See? We must protect you from them.” But, in spite of sometimes brutal repression, the protests have largely been nonviolent.

One, in Shaheen Bagh in a Muslim-dominated sector of New Delhi, began simply as a set of local women in a square, armed with hot tea and blankets against the chill Delhi winter. It has now become the focal point of a very different sort of resistance than what the government expected. Nothing could cure the delusions of India’s Hindu middle class, trained to see India’s Muslims as dangerous threats, as effectively as a group of otherwise clearly apolitical women sipping sweet tea and sharing their fears and food with anyone who will listen.

Modi was re-elected less than a year ago; what could have changed in India since then? Not much, I suspect, in most places that voted for him and his party — particularly the vast rural hinterland of northern India. But urban India was also possibly never quite as content as electoral results suggested. India’s growth dipped below 5% in recent quarters; demand has crashed, and uncertainty about the future is widespread. Worse, the government’s response to the protests was clearly ill-judged. University campuses were attacked, in one case by the police and later by masked men almost certainly connected to the ruling party.

Protesters were harassed and detained with little cause. The courts seemed uninterested. And, slowly, anger began to grow on social media — not just on Twitter, but also on Instagram, previously the preserve of pretty bowls of salad. Instagram is the one social medium over which Modi’s party does not have a stranglehold; and it is where these protests, with their photogenic signs and flags, have found a natural home. As a result, people across urban India who would never previously have gone to a demonstration or a political rally have been slowly politicized.

India is, in fact, becoming more like a normal democracy. “Normal,” that is, for the 2020’s. Liberal democracies across the world are politically divided, often between more liberal urban centers and coasts, and angrier, “left-behind” hinterlands. Modi’s political secret was that he was that rare populist who could unite both the hopeful cities and the resentful countryside. Yet this once magic formula seems to have become ineffective. Five of India’s six largest cities are not ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in any case — the financial hub of Mumbai changed hands recently. The BJP has set its sights on winning state elections in Delhi in a few weeks. Which way the capital’s voters will go is uncertain. But that itself is revealing — last year, Modi swept all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi.

In the end, the Citizenship Amendment Act is now law, the BJP might manage to win Delhi, and the protests might die down as the days get unmanageably hot and state repression increases. But urban India has put Modi on notice. His days of being India’s unifier are over: From now on, like all the other populists, he will have to keep one eye on the streets of his country’s cities.

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