Corona Virus Asian roundup in ZDF

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FCC Beast - The Art of Taking Great News Pictures

The Art Of Taking Great News Pictures Without Getting Hurt

The Art Of Taking Great News Pictures Without Getting HurtViolence, danger, caution, anger and suffering were the recurring themes in the February episode of the FCC’s new Lecture Series, “Coffee With A Correspondent.” It featured Reuters Chief Photographer in India, Danish Siddiqui. The focus of the discussion was not surprising, as two widely acclaimed recent pictures of his happen to be from the clashes in Delhi. It was journalistically very enriching to know the details from behind the scene.

Our host Emily Schmall of the Associated Press asked Danish how he dealt with a dangerous and risky environment in Delhi’s February communal riots when journalists came under attack. He said he always carries protective gear that includes helmet and gas mask. More importantly, he said that, before taking any picture he interacted with the crowd as part of a confidence-building exercise that lasted for about two hours.

Later on, while taking pictures, he always retreated with the gang rather than waiting to take a better angle. “At that time, you have to think about the picture that you have already got, you don’t want to lose that,” he said.

Danish also described meeting the man he photographed being beaten by a mob with sticks during the riot. The man hadn’t seen his picture.

Danish said that photojournalism is 80 percent about planning, 10 percent of it is making sure that you don’t lose your equipment, and the rest is luck. He emphasised the importance of hostile area training and strictly advised against taking undue risk while capturing any image. “If you miss one picture, it is fine,” he said.

At the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, when a shooter fired at a crowd protesting India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Danish was shocked to see other camera people walking in front of the gun. He knew from hostile environment training to place himself on the side to click the image with policemen in the background. “These are once-in-a-lifetime moments for a lot of people, but it is just a picture, which is not worth your life or injury,” he said.

The sequence of pictures of a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh that won him and other Reuters colleagues the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 was also discussed in detail. So was his experience of being arrested in Sri Lanka after the Easter suicide bombing terrorist attack on charges of trespassing.

During an hour-long discussion, Danish agreed with a fellow journalist that photojournalism by nature is more objective than print. “It is like take it or leave it,” he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kESsEAWu63g                                       --Raghavendra Verma

INDIA: BANKNOTES FOR VOTES CORRUPTS BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

June 2019

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

INDIAN authorities have seized more than US$120 million worth of unaccounted cash during the six-week long general election that concluded in May. Law enforcers have warned that this could be for vote buying, making a future government susceptible to corruption, promoting graft in business. Raghavendra Verma reports from New Delhi.

AS the afternoon heat ebbs in the middle of this Indian summer, a police team block a major highway outside the city of Nashik, in the western state of Maharashtra, rolling in wheeled yellow-coloured barricades. Soon a traffic jam builds up and policemen move from one car to another in search for cash, often hidden in door cavities or spare wheels.With general election polling due the following morning in the city, this is a last-ditch effort to disrupt the movement of cash that many political parties and candidates use for bribing voters. The task is not easy, as couriers employ highly innovative ways to transport money.

Trains are also checked -there have been reports of railway engine drivers becoming carriers. They slow down trains at certain predetermined spots to throw out cash-filled bags to election campaigners, who are breaking election spending limits and vote buying laws.

Corrupt conduct

The distribution of money or any other item to influence voters is an offence under the Indian Penal Code and is outlawed as corrupt conduct under the Public Representation Act. In another western state, Gujarat, a team of 400 police officers has been formed to track down unaccounted cash during the elections. You have to admire police officers undertaking this work. But they do receive support from government officials. Income tax authorities in the southern city of Bangalore have set up a special toll-free number to collect intelligence on vote buying. Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath, a former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India, told Commercial Crime International (CCI) that any large sums of cash found during the election period is seized by police “unless the person holding it is able to explain its source.” Otherwise, such money is assumed to be election spending breaching the statutory spending limit of Indian Rupees INR7 million (US$100,500) per candidate in parliamentary elections. This limit is widely believed to be dwarfed by actual spending.

Spending increased

The legal situation is muddied by the fact that central party campaigns have no financial limits. Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management has predicted US$8 billion will be spent on the current electoral cycle, which includes votes in 543 parliamentary constituencies. Speaking last month in New Delhi, Mr Sharma said that total election spending in India in this cycle is likely to be 25 percent higher than the money spent in the 2016 US presidential and congressional election campaigns (estimated at US$6.25 billion).Moreover, according to Shahabuddin Yaqoob Quraishi, another former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), his agency regularly receives complaints from political parties that rival ministers and even some corrupt senior police officers “carry money in their cars to bribe voters,” a claim made in his 2014 book ‘An Undocumented Wonder –Making of The Great Indian Election’. The government says it is not blind to the problem –highlighting that it has introduced electoral bonds, issued by the government-owned State Bank of India for the purpose of donating money to political parties. “Through electoral bonds now we moved a little forward but there can be obviously more things to do…,” regarding boosting electoral finance transparency, said Nirmala Sitharaman, a spokesperson of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and India’s defence minister. She told CCI that electoral corruption had declined, and the new system has boosted accountability.

Retrograde step

However, the new system has its critics, with even the election commission having concerns. It said in submission to the supreme court on the issue: “This is a retrograde step as far as transparency of donations is concerned,” as it “opens up the possibility of shell companies being set up for the sole purpose of making donations to political parties.” The court is currently hearing a petition by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) to quash the bonds. In March and April this year, US$510 million’s worth of electoral bonds were purchased, with an overwhelming majority of them bought for the ruling BJP. One useful outcome of the case is that US$44 million in cash seized during the 2014 general elections was refunded to the owners after they had made a new updated income assessment. Judges were not amused: “You [just] kept the money in safe custody for a month,” said one.

Anil Verma, head of the ADR told CCI that “the bulk of the money which is being used [in elections] is cash, which is not accounted for, not shown anywhere, nobody knows how much it is and where it comes from.” Furthermore, the Indian criminal procedure code does not list bribery in elections as a serious ‘cognisable’ offence which can be investigated without a warrant, and, therefore private property cannot be searched without permission from a court. That means raids cannot be held with “surprise and secrecy”, forcing the authorities to intercept cash during its transit, said former CEC Sampath.During his tenure as CEC between 2012 and 2015, Mr Sampath said that he worked hard to amend the law, but as many politicians were elected using unfair means, they were not interested in curbing this practice. “Why should they make [into] law [something] which will tie their own hands,” he said. In such a complex environment, businesses face difficult choices, according to Alexandra Wrage, president of TRACE, a US based anti-bribery business organisation. They “will find themselves targeted for payments that, if made, would expose them to both legal and reputational jeopardy,” she said.Corporations can protect themselves by emphasising a corporate commitment to refuse such demands and backing that up with well-structured and well-supported anti-bribery compliance programmes, Ms Wrage told CCI. Certainly, major corporations operating in India are already very cautious about issues relating to money given to political parties, Harinderjit Singh, a senior partner at Price Waterhouse India, the Indian branch of international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) told CCI. “In our experience this money is very transparently disclosed to the [corporate governing] boards and all the procedures required under the Companies Act are being followed,” he said. However, according to Mr Verma, many businesses are not the victims of Indian electoral bribery and excess spending as they make donations for future favours: “They are not going to be harmed, [but in fact] benefit from it,” he said, “They will expect policies which will benefit them and receive [government] contracts.”

This article was first published in Commercial Crime International www.icc-ccs.org.

Opposition to Citizen Amendment Bill

India's recently passed Citizen Amendment Bill (CAB) is being opposed on three grounds and the most serious violence is happening over the least reported one. The liberals and the political parties on the left and the centre are opposing it for its religious discrimination which attacks the basic foundation of Indian constitution. This is because this legislation would bar only Muslims from seeking refuge in India. Many Muslims are protesting because they fear that a large number of them could lose their citizenship. During the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in the small state of Assam, 1.9 million people could not present documents proving that they belong to India. A vast majority of them must be Muslims. Under CAB everyone except Muslims can get away by claiming that they have been persecuted in Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan. The third group, original residents of Assam and Tripura are protesting because the bill guarantees citizenship to all Hindus migrants. There have been a long history of violent attacks by Assamese against migrant Bengalis, irrespective of they being Hindus or Muslims. As in any other ethnic conflict, locals here feel that Bengalis are taking away their jobs and benefits meant for the original inhabitants of the state. Once the new law is implemented these Bengali Hindus would officially be considered as citizens of these states with equal rights and the locals are loathing that scenario. The NRC exercise was launched after strong demand from the Assamese people to identify all the migrant from Bangladesh. The locals were hoping that one day all of these 'outsiders' would either be deported or be barred from claiming any right in the state. Now there is a new religious twist though CAB that no one had anticipated. The situation in Tripura is almost the same. BJP does not know how to respond to this violent fallout. The party probably never though about this aspect or considered it to be a trivial one. There are no doubts that NRC and CAB are being used to further the Hindu nationalist agenda where Muslims are to be disenfranchised. The share of Muslims in Indian population has constantly been rising - from 9.8% in 1951 to 14.2% in 2011. This is a very potent piece of statistic for BJP to create a fear among its hardline Hindu supporters, propagating that in the future Muslims could force another partition of India or become the rulers of the whole country. NRC and CAB seems to be the least controversial way for the BJP to achieve its goal of an Hindu nation and to keep winning elections. NRC was already going on before BJP came into power in 2014 and now CAB has been created. It could be used as a tool to take away the voting rights from the Muslims who not only vote against BJP but also vote strategically and as one block for a candidate most likely to defeat BJP. When NRC will be implemented all over India there would certainly be tens of millions of people who would not be able to prove their citizenship because possessing proper documentation is always a problem in India. Under CAB, those belonging to Hinduism, Sikh, Christianity and other religions could get away by saying that they have escaped religious persecution from other countries and only  the Muslims would be targeted and lose their citizenship rights and have no say in future government.

Reporter’s diary from 26/11 Mumbai attack

10 years ago, it was a war zone around the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Explosions, gunfire, raging flames, armoured vehicles and commandos sliding down from helicopters were enough to overwhelm anyone. All this could be  seen or heard on television but not the most pervading element – the stench of burning Taj Mahal hotel that remained in the air for several days. Even while concentrating on the story or trying to take a small nap inside a hotel room, the mind was constantly reminded of the situation with every breath filled with toxic smell.

As a reporter, the strangeness of the situation could be difficult to explain. We chose to stay close to the place of action in a hotel between the Taj and the Jewish centre, but that also meant that we were always on our guard. There were constant rumours of more terrorists moving around to target other hotels. And as we reported the fact that hostages at Taj and Trident were surviving on their minibar stuff, we ourselves were checking as to how much was there in our hotel rooms.

Several years later during a Mumbai trip, a war correspondent told me that the best way to deal with such a situation is to fight back. “They will definitely find you under the bed or anywhere else in the room,” he said, “Try and snatch the attacker’s gun as soon as you see him.” Well, I must admit that such thoughts never passed by my mind at that time.

At the Gateway of India, hundreds of reporters and security men were fully in range of the gunmen hiding inside the Taj hotel. Still none of us felt a need to be taking an evasive position – if there was any – but luckily no shot was fired towards us.

It also felt weird as other than the intermittent gunshots and explosions, there was a total quietness in the area. That prompted everyone to remain calm and speak very softly. The only exceptions were the colleagues from the TV channels giving live feeds. They had to convey the explosive nature of the situation and it seemed that the only way to do that was to be very loud and sounding breathless.

There were even lighter moments in between as a fellow journalist form major national channel said that now he would not be in front of the camera. Why? “Our howitzer has arrived from Delhi (referring to their star women reporter),” he said, “We are just pellets.”

One of the side stories came from a local resident. A survivor escaping from his Taj room was so used to ultimate luxury that even after long days of captivity and strong likelihood of being shot dead, he was complaining about the condition of Mumbai’s black and yellow taxis in which he was made to travel to the airport.  

-End-

BATAR - A news photo feature, Nov 2017

Bastar, an erstwhile princely state and India’s most backward region located in the central state of Chhattisgarh, provided a fertile ground for a radical Maoist ideology to spread among the local tribal population. An armed Naxalite insurgency controlled from dense forests and among illiterate inhabitants has claimed thousands of lives over the past decades but now it may finally be tackled with heavy deployment of security forces and express delivery of development schemes.

Castling returns: High stake moves by Indian security forces in Bastar to checkmate the Naxal rebels.

With the increasing number of central security forces pouring into Bastar, the architecture of several sensitive police stations in the region is being modified to provide extra protection against armed Naxalite attacks. This one (rear view) in Bhairamgarh, has reinforced walls and cylindrical wings with slits for positioning rifles. It also has space for accommodating a big contingent of security forces overnight and is positioned more than 100 metres away from the main street

The women commandos unit formed in summer 2017 mostly operates in Sukhma and Bijapur districts of Bastar region to carry out duties in all women units as well as mixed with male colleagues. The recruits are from existing local police force and are mostly tribal. Their initial duties have been in Road Operation Party (ROP) to provide security to the road construction workers in the interior regions venerable to militant attacks. They carry AK-47s, self-loading rifles and other automatic weapons. 

The main reason for recruiting these women commandos was to fight the allegation of accesses by all-male forces during “area domination exercises” in the Naxal affected regions. They play a crucial role on the arrival of any police party in a village, as all men folks run away in the jungles fearing arrests. The village women who stay back are reluctant to speak to the forces, which is no more the case and a trust is being developed between the two sides, claim senior police officers.

At one time, the tribal youth were fascinated by the life with a gun. Naxal message brought through drama skits also had a powerful impact. Rural economy anyway provided little employment. However, the harsh life in their jungle camps did not take long to reveals itself. They are barred from marrying and meeting their family members and even had to undergo vasectomy. After minimal military training they got rudimentary guns to carry. In the end most get sick of running away from police.

The number of new recruits to Naxal ranks has gone down drastically in the last year. According to the police, instead of usual 500 villagers joining Naxal ranks in 2016-17 (monsoon to monsoon year) the number was only 141. The change is attributed to better education facilities in villages, better road connectivity, fear of security forces and realisation that Naxalism has no future.

A reward awaits every Naxal who chooses to surrender with their weapons. For those bringing in a Light Machine Gun can get Rs. 450,000 ($ 7,000). Many of those wishing to surrender delay their decision until they get a hand on a gun to carry along. Some negotiate with their former comrades in the police force to get them a similar deal, but now these positions are not on the table. Bijapur district already has 200 of them. Their knowledge of terrain has made them an invaluable asset during operations.

Police refutes the allegations of sexual assaults by security forces during their exercises in the villages. It has some strange and thought provoking explanations to offer. “After tracking for hours and being attentive to a possible Naxal attack at any moment, sex would be the last thing on their mind. The male organ would not work,” said a senior officer.

Isha Khandelwal, a young lawyer from Madhya Pradesh is the co-founder of Legal Aid Group for Bastar’s tribal women who have serious grievances against security forces. Very angry with the administration and filled with passion to work only in Bastar, she fears that her phones are been tapped and movements monitored. It is clear that administration considers her to be a Naxal sympathiser. In 2016 she left Jagdalpur district headquarters in the heart of Bastar after her landlord was allegedly picked up by police to ensure her and her colleagues ouster. She now operates from Bilaspur, 110 KM north for capital Raipur, where Chhattisgarh’s High Court is located. However, she still makes frequent trips to Bastar.

Security forces have a tough task at hand as there are many areas in Bastar that are too dangerous to venture and also deciphering between an innocent villager and a Naxalite is never easy. The stakes become even higher when these forces themselves become the primary target of the rebels. The number of security personnel, including those from Border Security Force, has increased to 50,000 and the stronger presence does make a difference on their moral. 

Landmine resistant vehicles are a common site on the Bastar roads and are even parked at public places. They are supported by commandos carrying automatic weapons on motorcycles and even slow walking sniffer dogs to check for mines on long unwinding forested roads.

Situated between Bhairamgarh and Bijapur, this is a special showcase road for the police that deployed women commandos to protect the road workers from Naxalites. The rebels oppose roads as they bring security forces closure to their jungle hideouts and perhaps more so because these roads bring development to villages and connect them to the mainstream, in the process diminishing the influence of the Naxals.

The new concrete roads are made especially strong to prevent an easy damage with hand-held tools. Attempts are still made by the rebels as at this patch of rural road near Bijapur, which has now been repaired. However, the so called liberated zones are in the dense forests where the nearest police camp is located at more than 35 km distance. According to the police, in those areas the locals are forced to contribute two days of their wages every month to the rebels.

Soni Sori has made serious custodial torture allegations against the local police, but strangely her house is protected by at least eight policemen who live in a semi-permanent camp at the front entrance of her house. A tribal school teacher who claims to have successfully negotiated with Naxals in 2008 to protect her school/hostel, Sori is now a politician for Aam Admi Party. She dismisses the left-wing propaganda that tribal do not want development. Everyone wants roads, schools and health centres, she insists.

In the interiors of Jabali village, 50 km from the district headquarter of Dantewada and famous for Soni Sori’s hostel, everyone is still scared of speaking about Naxals. Close to the borders with Telangana and Odisha, the local language is Kondh, but even those people who understand Hindi, pretend to have not understood any question relating to Naxals.

Midday meals, prepared here on makeshift stove, for the school children is always a big factor for ensuring higher attendance. The state government has finally understood that such schemes for the tribal villages are the only way to control Naxalism. Initial success is very visible in form of free passage for outsiders in the interior areas and the hectic economic activities all around.

Children from the interior areas of Bastar are now brought to study in the hostels, which is something that is not appreciated by the pro-Naxal activists. They allege that the government is snatching away their culture and making them just like the city dwellers. However, do tribal want an end to this practice? It does not look like so. The outsiders with romantic ideology may be trying to decide what is good or bad for the tribals.

One of the success stories of the administration talked about in the region has been a recent medical help provided to a pregnant women in a remote village of Bastar. With her life in danger, she was airlifted in a helicopter to the district hospital. It really won the hearts of the local population. Otherwise too, medical help it provided to the locals at the police camps.

With the population 5.5 million, the original Bastar district is now divided into seven districts – Kanker, Dantewada, Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Bastar. Though most carders fighting for Naxalism are from these districts, almost all their leaders are from other states, mainly Telangana.

Mud and thrash are still the most common material to make houses in the forested villages of Bastar. They however do not have to worry about attacks or nuisance of wild animals as there are none in Bastar, not even many birds. Some say, tribal kill them for food while according to others Bastar never had much wildlife despite rich and thick forests.

The grain storing baskets are indeed huge in Bastar, but for a backward region the price of Rs.600 ($10) seems rather steep. The grains they store have to be shared with the Naxal Guerrillas. There were allegations that sometimes the villagers also have to feed the security forces on area domination exercises. 

With power yet to reach most villages in the forests the battery powered torches are in big demand in the weekly markets.

Local liquor made from ‘Mahua’ tree is very popular even among women. It costs Rs.10 ($0.15) a leaf-bowl and in the weekly market, women constitute the biggest group of liquor merchants as well as the consumers.

What the tribal come to sell in the market is a good indication of the resourcefulness of the inhabitants. Parts of Bastar, no doubt, remain the most backward region of the country. Some district headquarters don't have hotels for visitors. In Dantewada, there is only one really run-down hotel and no shop in the market sells toilet paper, though tissue papers are available.

Naxals also visit such weekly markets to purchase supplies for their jungle camps. Milk power, cashew nuts and resigns are among the top of the shopping list. Expenses are accounted for very minutely and any corruption is severely punished.

The much publicised cashless village of Palnar in the middle of Naxal affected poor tribal region is a sham. Mobile signals of most telecom providers do not reach and the free local WiFi, activated with several browsing steps, remains non-functional.

Backpacks have still not arrived in Bastar and balancing load on the head is something that people learn early. Track to home could be several kilometres from the markets but quietness and serenity of the path might make the journey less tiresome.

Dry fish are as popular as any other vegetable in the weekly markets. 

SOME VIDEOS FROM BASTAR

Mahua trading in weekly market.

Security Personnel through a busy market

Jabali village scene

Bastar from roadside

Myself on the rural road near Behramnagar in Bijapur district of Bastar.

                                                                                                                                      -Ends-

Indian Government Commits to Electric-Vehicle Future

Raghavendra Verma | WardsAuto

NEW DELHI Nov 1, 2017 – India’s automobile manufacturing industry, which already has an annual output of 25 million vehicles, is bracing itself for a comprehensive switchover to electric vehicles, with the government forming a clear policy that it wants combustion engines off the country’s roads.

This push is grounded in a report from the government’s key think tank, NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India), which is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and thus is highly influential. A paper released in May, titled “India Leaps Ahead: Transformative Mobility Solutions for All,” stresses the current central government dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to see a 100% switchover to EVs on Indian roads by 2030.

“India can save 64% of anticipated passenger road-based mobility-related energy demand and 37% of carbon emissions in 2030 by pursuing a shared, electric, and connected mobility future,” the report says.  - Read More -