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    Hunger strike by New York prison inmates

    OWSA Contributor
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    Hunger strike by New York prison inmates

    Inmates complain of human rights abuse and indifference by prison officials regarding the risk of COVID-19, inadequate heating during winter, lack of proper hygiene and rising violence in the prison.

    As many as 200 prisoners held at the Rikers Island correctional institution (jail) went on a hunger strike on 8 January 2022, decrying their inhuman living conditions. They said they were hungry and cited cold temperatures, vermin infestations, filthy living spaces, rising violence inside the prison and lack of medical attention during the COVID-19 outbreak as the reasons for their protest. The virus sickened more than 370 inmates and has taken 15 lives thus far.

    Detainees have refused food to protest the deteriorating living conditions inside the prison complex.

    The inmates say they have been subject to deplorable living conditions and are demanding fulfilment of basic human rights – including access to medical care, clean living spaces, mental health support and working toilets.

    An overwhelming majority of the detainees are being held in pre-trial detention, which is also common for most of the city’s prison systems. Data published by the Vera Institute for Justice from the New York City Open Data Website, 81.8 per cent of jailed people in the city happened to be pre-trial detained (as of October 8, 2021).

    The island houses some of the key prison complexes of New York City, with a combined capacity of holding anywhere between 10,000 to 15,000 detainees a day. But as the crises spiralled since the outbreak of the pandemic, the numbers have come down to about 5,400 prisoners.

    An array of abolitionists, legal activists and human rights organisations, including T’ruah, a Rabbinic Human Rights organisation and The Fortune Society have joined the cause of the prisoners. While some of the organisations are demanding improved living conditions, others believe the correctional facility should be shut down.

    Not the first protest

    According to creative commons platform, Peoples Dispatch, the prison complex has for long been ridden with issues such as staffing shortages, high levels of violence, and harsh living conditions. The pandemic only exacerbated the situation. “Despite early release of hundreds of inmates in 2020 and 2021 under consideration of the pandemic, thousands of unvaccinated and at-risk people continue to be admitted and detained in the island,” Peoples Dispatch said.

    NYC’s recently elected mayor Eric Adams is silent on the matter. The city administration’s department of corrections released a statement last week arguing that there was no hunger strike. It said that the detainees were only refusing food from services run by the department.

    This is not the first battle against inhumane living conditions in the Rikers Islands prison. Back in the 1980s, a dozen inmates voiced solidarity against the abominable treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS at the facility. While the country was focused on providing life-extending healthcare outside, the subhuman treatment inside Rikers Island was taking one life every two weeks. Akin to today, the correctional facility had failed to provide appropriate diet, prescribed medicines or even clean beds for the sick.

     

    Edited by Khushi Malhotra

    Image: Rikers Islands of Queens New York from Wikimedia
    Author Sfoskett

    Study says Taliban deprive women of livelihoods, identity

    OWSA Contributor
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    Study says Taliban deprive women of livelihoods, identity

    A study by Human Rights Watch and and San Jose State University reveals that Afghan women and girls are severely restricted, harassed and frightened and have become “virtual prisoners” in their own homes since the Taliban came to power.

    A new research finds that Taliban rule has had a devastating impact on Afghan women and girls. The study conducted jointly by Human Rights Watch and the San Jose State University (SJSU) says that since taking control of the city of Ghazni on 12 August 2021, days before entering Kabul, the Taliban imposed rights-violating policies that have created huge barriers to women’s and girls’ health and education.

    The researchers shared their findings Tuesday, detailing how the current rulers have curtailed freedom of movement, expression, and association, and deprived many of earned income. The interviews for the study of the interviews using secure communications with women.

    Ghazni province, in southeastern Afghanistan, has a population of about 1.3 million people, predominantly ethnic Pashtun and Hazara. The provincial capital, Ghazni, is on the road from Kabul to Kandahar, and was often attacked during the fighting of the past 20 years.

    Afghanistan’s rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis exacerbates these abuses, the researchers say. Following the Taliban takeover, millions of dollars in lost income, spiking prices, aid cut-offs, a liquidity crisis, and cash shortages triggered by former donor countries, especially the United States, have deprived much of the population of access to food, water, shelter, and health care.

    “Afghan women and girls are facing both the collapse of their rights and dreams and risks to their basic survival,” said SJSU’s scholar on Afghanistan, Halima Kazem-Stojanovic. “They are caught between Taliban abuses and actions by the international community that are pushing Afghans further into desperation every day.”

    Dark future

    The women interviewed included those who had worked in education, health care, social services, and business, and former students.

    They described spiraling prices for food staples, transportation, and schoolbooks, coupled with an abrupt and often total income loss. Many had been the sole or primary wage earner for their family, but most lost their employment due to Taliban policies restricting women’s access to work.

    “The future looks dark,” said one woman who had worked in the government. “I had many dreams, wanted to continue studying and working. I was thinking of doing my master’s. At the moment, they (the Taliban) don’t even allow girls to finish high school.”

    The women said they had acute feelings of insecurity because the Taliban have dismantled the formal police force and the Women’s Affairs Ministry, are extorting money and food from communities, and are targeting for intimidation women they see as enemies, such as those who worked for foreign organizations and the previous Afghan government.

    “The crisis for women and girls in Afghanistan is escalating with no end in sight,” said Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Taliban policies have rapidly turned many women and girls into virtual prisoners in their homes, depriving the country of one of its most precious resources, the skills and talents of the female half of the population.”

     

    Image: From Wikipedia.

    Caption: A member of the Taliban’s religious police beating an Afghan woman in Kabul in  2001.

    COVID-19, food shortage and inflation could bankrupt Sri Lanka

    OWSA Contributor
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    COVID-19, food shortage and inflation could bankrupt Sri Lanka

    Food shortage and inflation are causing distress and the government has barely any foreign exchange reserves to import food – especially as agricultural productivity has fallen.

    Sri Lankan writer Basil Fernando today shared two poignant tales. The first from Anuradhapura is about a man asking the owner of a small shop for two raw papayas from the shop owner’s garden to feed his starving children.

    In another instance, a family used up their last savings to purchase 200 grams of flour. The family’s breadwinner is bedridden they have no money to buy medicines.

    The Sri Lankan media is not telling any of these stories.

    On Monday, thousands, led by the country’s main opposition political party, the United People’s Force demonstrated in Colombo, blaming President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government for the economic crisis.

    “Reports of how people, particularly those from the lowest income groups, are coping with the present situation are not brought to the surface,” Fernando says.

    Sri Lanka is staring at bankruptcy and a widespread food crisis is engulfing the country together with a steady rise in inflation. Consumer prices reached 12.1 per cent year-on-year in December of 2021. This has been the highest inflation rate the country has witnessed since 2008 due to a record 22.1 per cent rise in price of food products in the space of one month.

    Food price inflation in December touched 22.1 per cent, up from 17.5 per cent in November.

    Foreign exchange reserves too have been dwindling. With just $1.5 billion in foreign reserves, the country will only be able to pay for a month’s imports. Sri Lanka is negotiating with China, its largest international lender for help. Simultaneously, a US$ 787 million of special drawing rights (SDR) from the IMF and a currency swap arrangement to the tune of US$ 150 million from Bangladesh’s Central Bank has not helped ease the price of food essentials, either.

    Sri Lanka finance minister Basil Rajapaksa has also held discussion with S Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister over a virtual meeting on Saturday.

    Crisis precipitated by COVID-19

    According to the US-based Trading Economics, “The cash-strapped economy is struggling to finance urgent imports to tackle an acute shortage of essentials in the country leading to rationing of food by supermarkets for quite a few months now.”

    End-August 2021, Sri Lanka had declared a food emergency as banks reported that their foreign funds had depleted.

    The crisis is the result of a cocktail of mishaps, primarily COVID-19 that hit its tourism economy. The economy diminished, shrinking by 3.6 per cent in 2020. This was the worst in 73 years.

    As agricultural input prices went through the roof, the government mandated an overnight shift to organic agriculture without consulting farmer groups. This has led to a bad harvest, resulting in run-away inflation. The country’s agricultural sector too has been experiencing the effects of changing climate and natural disasters.

    Besides, the garment manufactures too have been hit hard by COVID-19 and there are hardly any export orders.

    In 2020, IMF predicted a negative growth of 0.5 per cent for Sri Lanka and the government faced the challenges of reducing the fiscal deficit even as there were domestic and foreign debts to be serviced.

    In the meanwhile, 30-something Fathima Aroos tells her two young children that this is the month of Ramadan and that they are supposed to fast.

    She can’t feed the children three meals a day due to galloping food price.

    “This way, we can manage with a plain porridge after we break our fast and rice soaked in water and onion for suhoor (the early morning meal),” she says. “It keeps the children quiet.”

    Scientists explain why the sun has been quieter over the past decade

    OWSA Staff
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    Scientists explain why the sun has been quieter over the past decade

    A team of Indian astrophysicists are finding out the reason why the sun has been weakening decade over decade. This impacts daily life on earth because it can disturb Global Positioning Signals (GPS), long-distance radio communications, and power grids.

     

    Scientists have been tracing the intensity of solar activity during the last 100 years. Now, a team of Indian astrophysicists say that the sun has been much quieter between 2008 and 2019 than it was between 1996 and 2007. This quietness over the past 10 years is an area of interest for scientists, astrophysicists in particular.

    While there is agreement that the sun is hushing up itself with its solar storms getting smaller, there is a curiosity among scientists to know why exactly this is happening.

    Now, a joint team of Indian researchers is studying this phenomenon through the lens of the sun’s coronal mass ejections or CMEs. The scientists come from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, the M P Birla Institute of Fundamental Research and the Udaipur Solar Observatory.

    What are coronal mass ejections?

    The sun has a magnetic field of its own. All planets and stars in our solar system have their own magnetic fields. (The magnetic fields of Venus and Mars is too small to measure though. At least one star out there has a magnetic field larger than the sun’s – the Tiny Red Dwarf Star.)

    The sun is active with sunspots, solar flares and CMEs. The sun’s magnetic field causes instabilities on its surface. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are giant expanding bubbles of magnetized plasma erupting from the surface of the sun out into the space from time to time due to instabilities in the its magnetic field.

    CMEs can launch a billions of tons of super-heated gas into space, most of which drifts harmlessly across the solar system. Occasionally one of these is directed at the earth.

    The intensity of such solar activity is known to vary in decade-plus periodic cycles. Understanding the propagation of CMEs is important since these disturb earth’s magnetosphere.

    Are the CMSs getting smaller?

    The answer to the question is an emphatic yes! And finding out why is the astonishing discovery of the Indian scientists.

    The team has concluded that the size of CMEs between 2008 and 2019 is only two-thirds their size in the previous decade. They are startled by this decrease in the mass, size and the internal pressure of the explosive gurgling bubbles.

    The scientists did not expect this decrease in the size of the CMEs. On the contrary, astrophysicists had surmised that the decrease in the pressure in the (CMEs’) outer world would increase in radial size of CMEs. As one scientist explained: “Just imagine you have a bubble of gas in a vacuum that will not stop it from growing larger. That is the type of space the effervescent CMEs live in – but they have defied this logic.”

    Explaining how and why this logic has been defied, Dr. Wageesh Mishra suggests: “The reduced pressure in the interplanetary space (or the CMEs outside world) is compensated by a reduced magnetic content inside CMEs. This did not allow the CMEs to expand enough”. Mishra is from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

    The team also established that the gas pressure in the interplanetary space in the last decade they were studying was only 40 per cent of the pressure in the previous decade. Solar activities are measured by the number of sun spots. One would expect that the ejections would also reduce. In terms of CMEs, the rate at which the Sun has been losing its mass through these episodic ejections had also reduced by 15 per cent.

    Why is the study of CMEs so vital?

    The sun is known to be very active with sunspots, solar flares, and CMEs. Mishra says that understanding this is important because this solar activity effects life on earth.

    CMEs dictate a host of taken-for-granted modern day necessities because they disturb the near-earth space environment, in turn disturbing the orbit of satellites in low-earth orbits. This further disturbs global positioning signals (GPS), long-distance radio communications, and power grids are dependent on the CMEs, Dr Mishra says.

    The intensity of such solar activity is known to vary in decade-plus periodic cycles. It had earlier been traced that the last cycle (cycle 24 between 2008 and 2019) was weaker than the previous one (cycle 23 between 1996 and 2007), and the sun was weakest in 2019 during the last 100 years.

    All hands on the deck as Omicron stalks Nepal

    OWSA Staff
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    All hands on the deck as Omicron stalks Nepal

    As the Omicron virus spreads across the country, the government of Nepal isn’t taking chances. The government today took a series of decisions from banning worship in temples to procuring COVID-19 testing kits to importing vaccines.

    Nepal is staring at a likely third wave of COVID-19 and the government has brought forth a slew of measures. Since the detection of the first Omicron infection in the country in December 2021, the virus is now at its infectious worst, infecting health personnel, media persons, bankers, sportspersons, employees, professionals, shopkeepers or homemakers.

    8,730 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Tuesday. These include 35 employees of the Supreme Court of Nepal tested positive for COVID-19.

    117 doctors and health workers of different hospitals in Chitwan district have tested positive for coronavirus. 30 doctors from the Nuwakot district are also infected.

    Nuwakot district’s medical superintendent, Dipendra Pande said nurses, paramedics and lab technicians too have been found positive for coronavirus.” Gynaecology and obstetrics services too have been halted and the hospital has issued a notice and informing people of the closure of services, he said.

    According to reports, the infection rate per 15,000 tests has touched over 4,000 on Sunday. Active cases have crossed 25,500 on the WHO COVID-19 dashboard and seven people have been reported to have died.

    Lockdowns, vaccines and testing kits

    The sharp increase in disease today compelled the government to further impose lockdowns.

    All the three district administration in the Kathmandu valley have banned all worship till the middle of February. It is now mandatory for people entering premises of government offices to display their vaccination cards.

    The government began work today to procure 900,000 COVID-19 testing kits.
    Addressing the ninth meeting of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council on Monday, Prime Minister Deuba expressed his worry about Omicron’s rapid spread through the country.

    Sources say that the government is wary of any repeat of the flack it faced for its handling of the pandemic’s second wave in April 2021. Hospitals and medical personnel were then overwhelmed as people died for want of oxygen.

    Deuba directed the Ministry of Health and Population to immediately import enough COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate all Nepali citizens.

    So far, only 39 per cent have received both doses of the vaccine, according to the WHO COVID-19 dashboard.

    Earthquake kills dozens; tears down homes in distant Afghanistan province

    OWSA Staff
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    Earthquake kills dozens; tears down homes in distant Afghanistan province

    The Badghis province has been hit by an earthquake that has killed at least 26 people and damaged over 700 houses. Badghis is impoverished and particularly vulnerable to earthquakes as it sits in the Hindu Kush mountain range.

    How vulnerable is Afghanistan to even a shallow earthquake? Very much so, say aid workers in the country, pointing to an earthquake measuring a mere 5.3 on the Richter scale that killed at least 26 people and brought down homes in the Qadis district of Badghis province bordering Turkmenistan. north-east of Kabul on Monday.

    Provincial spokesman Baz Mohammad Sarwary said that several people were injured while more than 700 homes were damaged. He warned that the number of casualties could increase. Rescuers are working to remove debris even as it is raining heavily, he said.

    “Buildings and homes that have had very little maintenance over decades just crumbled,” an aid worker attached to the Afghan Red Crescent Society told OWSA over a phone call. “Many homes are just poorly constructed,” he said. The aid worker did not want to be identified and said that he was not authorised to give out numbers of casualties.

    The Hindu Kush mountain range encompassing Afghanistan has seen many earthquakes and Badghis is in a particularly seismic region.

    The Red Crescent aid worker said that Badghis is a distant, neglected place. The mountainous province is about 900 kilometres from Kabul and is poorly connected. The province has reported drought since 2018. Together with the conflict in the country, the drought has impoverished people in the province.

    “Nobody cares because it is so far away. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) provided 7,800 families with some seeds and fertilisers and hardly anybody came returned to see what happened to the people,” he said.

    “Farmers asked for onion seeds during the drought as that is what generations of farmers here have been producing. Onion can be stored after harvest, especially because the roads are so bad.”

     

    Image: For representational purposes only.

    Why is the National Health Authority so focused on the for-profit medical sector?

    OWSA Contributor
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    Why is the National Health Authority so focused on the for-profit medical sector?

    India’s health system needs transformative reforms. An institutional arrangement like the NHA legitimises the role of the “for-profit” private sector in government. Commercial or market-based health services are contradictory to the idea of health as a public good and a right.

    By Sulakshana Nandi

    Constituted as an autonomous entity through a decision of the union cabinet, the National Health Authority (NHA) was set up to implement Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana (PMJAY) the publicly funded health insurance scheme. NHA is currently also the implementing agency for the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission.

    Serious questions have emerged regarding the legitimacy and extent of public oversight of the NHA. NHA’s legality remains questionable since it was not passed by an Act of Parliament but through a cabinet decision. This institutional arrangement has enabled direct participation and influence of the healthcare industry and for-profit private players in various roles.

    All major health schemes and programmes in our country are implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Strangely, however, the NHA was set up as an implementer and regulatory arrangement for PMJAY bypassing the Health Ministry. It answers to a board which includes private (corporate) sector players.

    The involvement of for-profit private players such as hospitals, insurance companies, third party administrators or TPAs, software and IT companies etc. has increased manifold under the NHA. The NHA even outsources its own functions such as monitoring (medical audits), grievance redressal (Aarogya Mitra) and research and technical support to private agencies, multinational consultancies and the World Bank. Private players, therefore, have a vested interest in the continuation of the NHA.

    Public funds diverted to the private sector

    A defining feature of NHA is the lack of transparency and public accountability. Though PMJAY runs on public money, the data generated is treated as NHA’s private property and there is hardly any public disclosure of information. Despite a significant emphasis on and showcasing of IT systems, the public data on PMJAY available on the NHA website is extremely limited and difficult to access. However this data has been made available to select institutions like the World Bank to write policy briefs on behalf of the NHA.

    The involvement of the for-profit private players in the scheme (PMJAY) itself has led to negative consequences for people and the government health system. PMJAY is considered the government’s largest ever public private partnerships (PPP) in healthcare. Studies and reports show that PMJAY has not been able to ensure cashless health services in the private sector to all those who are eligible. A large proportion of eligible patients accessing private sector hospitals empaneled with PMJAY are forced to pay additional money out of pocket, incurring catastrophic health expenditure.

    Through PMJAY, public funds that should have gone into strengthening government hospitals are instead being diverted to the private sector. On the other hand, critical health programmes under the health ministry remain under-funded. The public sector and government hospitals cater to the more vulnerable groups, such as the poor, rural communities, tribal communities, women and other marginalized groups. The private sector on the other hand is concentrated in the urban areas and there have been several reports of unethical practices. Therefore, under-funding and neglect of the government health system has serious consequences for people’s health and their access to health services.

    Profiteering in times of COVID-19

    PMJAY and private players failed to provide the much needed support even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Government hospitals provided the major portion of free healthcare and free testing for COVID-19.Very few for-profit private players came forward to provide free services for COVID-19 patients needing hospitalisation, though it was widely publicised that testing and treatment would be free even in the private sector for those eligible under PMJAY.

    Hospitals that came forward also forced patients to pay additional money. Excessive billing, extortion and flouting of price ceilings by the private players increased the misery of people being treated for COVID-19 and pushed many families into poverty. During the vaccination drive too, the private sector flouted price regulations and also failed to deliver the number of vaccinations expected of them.

    The Digital Health Mission similarly opens the possibility for enhancing corporate profits from government coffers as its main beneficiaries would be IT companies, digital healthcare companies, insurance companies and other private players. In the absence of adequate data protection and consent procedures, private players can greatly benefit from data mining and commercialization of personal and aggregate health data, while the lack of public accountability and oversight continues. Moreover, mandating a digital health identity for being eligible to receive health services will lead to exclusion of the most vulnerable groups who need public healthcare the most.

    Need regulate private sector

    There is a clear need for transformative reforms in India’s health system. An institutional arrangement such as the NHA legitimises the role of the “for-profit” private sector in government, from decision-making to implementation to monitoring. This creates a possibility for conflict of interest and raises concerns whether public interest or interests of the healthcare industry will be the primary guiding force.

    The NITI Aayog that is responsible for conceptualising and operationalising the NHA has also been promoting a plethora of initiatives for healthcare privatization. Commercial or market-based health services are contradictory to the idea of health as a public good and a right.

    Therefore instead of diverting public funds to private players through NHA and PMJAY, the public sector must be strengthened to provide primary, secondary and tertiary level health services. The government must recruit adequate health workforce, expand public health infrastructure, and improve availability of medicines and diagnostics in the public sector. Regulation of the private sector in healthcare needs to be strengthened. Transparency of data, public accountability and public scrutiny of all health programmes must be improved. Experiences of states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu that have improved government health system and public hospitals must be replicated.

     

    Sulakshana Nandi is a public health researcher and National Joint-Convener of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan

    “Let us now praise brave women and men”: The Nobel Peace Prize 2021

    Inter Press Service
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    “Let us now praise brave women and men”: The Nobel Peace Prize 2021

    Communication technology connects people, allows sharing ideas and spreading awareness about human rights abuses. However, the web also spreads a virus of lies that incites people against one-another and sets the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators all over the world.

    By Jan Lundius 

    In several countries around the globe, telling the truth is according to its rulers and other influential, generally wealthy, persons a serious crime that might be punished by muzzling the truth-tellers, slandering and humiliating them, and threatening their families and friends. If that does not make them shut up and repent they might be tortured, imprisoned and even killed.

    Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 with the self-imposed task of acting as “an honest, independent, and rich source of information benefiting Russian citizens.” However, to provide a critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs is a precarious venture and Novaya Gazeta’s 60 journalists, divided between ten major Russian cities, are all living dangerously.

    Series of deaths. Or assassinations?

    In 2000, Igor Domnikov, who in Novaya Gazeta wrote witty essays about business corruption, had his skull crushed by a hammer blow by the door to his apartment . In 2001,Victor Popkov died after being wounded in a gunfight while on Novaya Gazeta’s behalf reporting about the Chechnyan war.

    In 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, human rights activist and Novaya Gazeta reporter, was in the elevator of her block of flats shot twice at point-blank range, in the chest and the head. In 2009, a human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, was shot to death while leaving a news conference in Moscow, less than 800 metres from the Kremlin, while Anastasia Baburova, a journalist from Novaya Gazeta who tried to come to his assistance was shot and killed as well.

    The same year, the Novaya Gazeta reporter Natalia Estemitrova had been seen screaming while she was forced into a car just outside her house in the Chechnyan capital Grozny. Two hours later she was found dead from one shot to the head and one to the chest.

    Shchekochikin, a member of the Parliament, was in Novaya Gazeta writing articles about criminal activities and corruption among officers of FSB RF, Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the main successor agency to KGB. Shchekochikin died suddenly on 3 July 2003 from a mysterious illness, a few days before his scheduled departure to the U.S., where he was going to meet with FBI agents investigating U.S. contacts with Russian oligarchs and FSB agents. Shchekochikin’s medical records were lost, though physicians who had treated him explained that their patient’s symptoms indicated poisoning from “radioactive materials”.

    True journalism

    It was not the first time KGB/FSB used radioactive substances to poison defectors and detractors. The first recorded incident was in 1957 when Nikolai Khoklov was poisoned by radioactive Thallium-201, suffering symptoms similar to those of Roman Tsepov, a corrupt businessman who in 2004 after drinking a cup of tea at a local FSB office experienced a sudden drop of white blood cells and died after two weeks. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenkov, a defector and former FSB agent died in London after being poisoned with polonium-210. In 2018, another defector and former military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, was in Salisbury with his daughter poisoned by a Novichok Nerve Agent and in 2020, anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a similar substance.

    When Novaya Gazeta’s editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, in Oslo was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize he lamented Russian limitations to free speech, adding that he was not the rightful receiver of the prestigious prize. Worthier men and women had lost their lives while defending the truth: “It’s just that the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t awarded posthumously, it’s awarded to living people.” Accordingly, in his Nobel speech Muratov stated that:

    “…this award is for all true journalism. This award is to my colleagues from Novaya Gazeta, who have lost their lives – Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekotschikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasija Baburova, Stas Markelov and Natasha Estemirova. This award is also to the colleagues who are alive, to the professional community who perform their professional duty.”

    Free Media in the Philippines

    The Philippine journalist Maria Angelita Ressa shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Dmitry Muratov. The prize was awarded for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

    In her speech, Maria Ressa mentioned that “in the Philippines, more lawyers have been killed – at least 63 compared to the 22 journalists murdered after President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.” Just the day before she was giving her Nobel speech, Maria Ressa’s colleague, Jesus “Jess” Malabanan, was killed in a street in Manila.

    Rodrigo Duterte remains popular among the majority of the Philippine population. After his election victory in 2016 something called DuterteNomics was introduced, including tax reforms, infrastructure development, social protection programs, a shift to a federal system of Government and strengthened relations with China and Russia. The infrastructure initiative was promoted through the slogan: “Build! Build! Build!” In 2021, 214 airport projects, 451 commercial social and tourism port projects, 29,264 kilometres of roads, 5,950 bridges, 11,340 flood control projects, 11,340 evacuation centres, and 150,149 classrooms were completed under the infrastructure program.

    In spite of this progress Duterte has from some quarters been severely criticized for his obvious authoritarianism, self-glorification, and rampant populism, expressed through callous and vulgar rhetoric, for example his trivialization of rape and the murderous activities of vigilante groups. Duterte has repeatedly confirmed to personally having killed suspected criminals during his term as mayor of Davao and he is the only Philippine president who has refused to declare his assets and liabilities. Furthermore, he has by human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, been directly linked to extrajudicial killings of over 1,400 alleged criminals and street children, while the International Criminal Court in The Hague currently is investigating his administration’s crackdown on narcotics, said to have left as many as 30,000 dead, while the administration listed the toll at around 8,000.

    Watchdog versus troll army

    Duterte’s image of being a strong-willed, controversial but highly efficient leader has been actively supported by a docile propaganda machinery which, among other means, allegedly is supported by a pro-Duterte online “troll army” that is pushing out fake news stories and manipulating the narrative around his presidency. Such misuse of the web was lamented by both Markelov and Ressa, who emphasized that one of the main tasks of journalism is to distinguish between facts and fiction, meaning that a reporter must patiently and objectively investigate as many angles as possible of an issue at large. Markelov quoted the famous war photographer Robert Capa: “If your picture isn’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”

    Both Markelov and Ressa declared that the immense power of a constantly and increasingly advanced communication technology is both beneficiary and harmful for upholding the truth. It connects people from all over the world, allows for sharing ideas and the spreading of awareness about human rights abuses. However, the web also spreads a virus of lies that incites us against each other, brings out our fears, anger and hate, and sets the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators all over the world. Journalists have to contradict that kind of hate and violence, which by Ressa is defined as:

    “the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us. […] What happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media. Online violence is real world violence. Social media is a deadly game for power and money. […] Our personal experiences are sucked into a database, organized by Artificial Intelligence, then sold to the highest bidder. Highly profitable micro-targeting operations are engineered to structurally undermine human will – a behavior modification system in which we are Pavlov’s dogs, experimented on in real time with disastrous consequences in countries like mine….”

    Markelov stated that much of the unfounded and manipulated information that spreads its poison through the web have dimmed our conscience and even worse, making people believe that:

    “… politicians who avoid bloodshed are weak. While threatening the world with violence and war is the duty of true patriots. Aggressive marketing of war affects people and they start thinking that war is acceptable.”

    In such a poisoned environment truth-telling journalists are suffering. In may countries they live under a real threat of being slandered and tortured, of spending the rest of their lives in jail, or being brutally murdered. They have no idea what the future holds for them. Nevertheless, these heroes of the free word assume that their sacrifices are worth the risks they are taking. They believe in their mission to bring the truth to people and thus support empathy, peace and critical thinking. In the words of Markelov:

    “Yes, we growl and bite. Yes, we have sharp teeth and strong grip. But we are the prerequisite for progress. We are the antidote against tyranny. […] I want journalists to die old.”

    Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2021/ceremony-speech/ 

    This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

    Image: Hippopx

    Sourced from hippox.com and licensed under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

    Richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 55.2 crore people: Oxfam

    OWSA Staff
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    Richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 55.2 crore people: Oxfam

    The richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 552 million people, the India supplement of Oxfam’s Inequality Kills report of 2022 says. India added 40 billionaires last year, but the number of its poor doubled.

    The India supplement of Oxfam’s Inequality Kills report reveals that the number of Indian billionaires grew from 102 to 142, while 84 per cent of households in the country suffered a decline in their income in the past year. India now has more billionaires than France, Sweden and Switzerland combined.

    The supplement centered on the impact of the pandemic on India’s poor also states that just a one per cent wealth tax on 98 richest billionaire families in India can finance Ayushman Bharat, the national public health insurance fund of the Government of India for more than seven years.

    The briefing was published Sunday, ahead of the of the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda. The briefing indicates that the collective wealth of India’s 100 richest people hit a record high of INR 57.3 lakh crore (USD 775 billion) in 2021. It discusses India’s governance structures that promote the accumulation of wealth by a few, while failing to provide safety nets to the rest of the population.

    While the report hinges on the tremendous loss of life and livelihoods during 2021, it cites the recent Pandora Papers investigation highlighting the loopholes that India’s rich exploit to conceal their assets and evade taxes.

    Stark inequalities

    According to the report, the wealth of Indian billionaires increased from INR 23.14 lakh crore (USD 313 billion) to INR 53.16 lakh crore (USD 719 billion) during the pandemic (since March 2020, through to 30 November 2021).

    In the meanwhile, more than 4.6 crore Indians have been estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020 (nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations).

    India added 40 billionaires during the last year but the number of poor doubled. The level of this inequality is so stark that the wealth of India’s 10 richest is enough to fund the school, higher education of every child for 25 years, say the authors of the report.

    Interestingly, a fifth of the increase in the wealth of India’s richest 100 families was accounted for by the surge in the fortunes of a single individual and business house – Adani. Gautam Adani’s net worth multiplied eight times in the space of one year, the Oxfam report says.

    Offering solutions

    The wealth inequality in India is a result of an economic system rigged in favour of the super-rich over the poor and marginalised, the report says, arguing that the richest 98 Indians own the same wealth as the bottom 552 million people, the report says.

    In this context, the report alludes to the abolition of ‘wealth tax’ in 2016. This abolition accompanied with steep cuts in corporate taxes and an increase in indirect taxation has removed the rich from being the primary source of tax revenue.

    The briefing advocates a one percent surcharge on the richest 10 percent of the Indian population to fund inequality combating measures such as higher investments in school education, universal healthcare, and social security benefits like maternity leaves, paid leaves and pension for all Indians.

    A 2021 OECD report for G-20 countries highlighted an inherent need to move beyond just improving individual taxes and looking at reformulating ‘tax systems’ to promote inclusive, sustainable, and equitable growth. “Unfortunately, not only has the taxation policy of the Indian government been pro-rich, it has also deprived India’s states of important fiscal resources—both particularly damaging in the context of the COVID-19 crisis,” the Oxfam report says.

    Sri Lankan fishermen restless

    OWSA Contributor
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    Sri Lankan fishermen restless

    Inflation has added to the woes of fishing communities, already anguished by a series of environmental and business developments.

    Rising fuel prices have Sri Lanka’s fishermen up in arms. They say that this will cripple the fishing sector along with the damage done over the past years to the marine ecosystem.

    “We consider the continuous price revisions of fuel and even other essential commodities as a move to destablise the fisheries sector,” says Aruna Roshantha Fernando, president of the All-Ceylon Fisher-Folks Trade Union. “This will enable global companies to expand their territories making use of the port city to exploit the marine resources of the country,” he said.

    Sri Lanka’s runaway inflation has led to a huge hike in the price of essential foods. The fishermen say that families will not be able to purchase fish, an essential for Sri Lankan households, if they factor in the price of the fuel costs. “Selling a catch without considering the hike in fuel prices is not viable,” said a fisher trade union leader, emphasising that the present situation was exceptionally difficult.

    An alliance of Sri Lankan fishermen trade unions is scheduled to meet this week to map out plans.

    “We have been battered for nearly two years with a meagre income due to the (COVID-19) pandemic which has shattered the hopes of the community for a better living,” local media quoted Fernando as saying.

    The rise in the cost of fuel that they need to run their fishing boat engines deep into the waters of the Indian ocean is the latest in a series of setbacks that the fishing communities of the island nation have faced in the past five years.

    2021 oil spill

    Oil spilling from a sinking ship off the coast in June 2021 impacted their living together with the COVID-19 pandemic at that time. The had to venture out in the deep sea to get a catch, spending more fuel and yet, unable to find buyers for their catch. “People were then scared to buy the fish because they thought it was contaminated.”

    The oil has had its share of environmental damages.

    An UN Environment Programme (UNEP) official described the event as “the biggest environmental catastrophe to hit Sri Lanka since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.”

    According to the UNEP, the ship’s cargo included 25 tonnes of nitric acid, 348 tonnes of oil and up to 75 billion small plastic pellets. “The crisis could plague Sri Lanka for years,’ UNEP has said.

    The Sri Lankan government had then granted Sri Lankan Rs. 5,000 as a compensation to fisher families to tide over the crisis. That was at the height of the pandemic. Fernando feels that the offering was a pittance and an insult to the sector which is a vital cog of the country’s economy.

    Foreign fishing companies

    Fisher society representatives say that they have never been consulted on government plans to make new harbours. On the other hand, they allege, larger fishing companies from outside the country have had a say in the planning process for the new harbours that will need draft up to 40 feet, which they say, is an evidence of the government accommodating larger fishing vessels.

    They fear that this will pave the way for foreign entities to grab land along the coastal belt and establish their businesses in Sri Lanka.

    Fernando feels that such plans will turn the fishermen into cheap labourers of the owners of larger fishing vessels belonging to foreign companies to in the businesses.
    The fisher community has been calling on lawmakers to formulate a national policy for the fisheries sector which has been a major need to develop the sector.

    “We have been clamouring for a national policy to streamline and upgrade the sector which has enormous potential to promote and expand nautical tourism which is a dynamic and lucrative industry globally,” Fernando says.

    “The need to use new technology for precision and risk mitigation has been a long-felt need for the fisheries sector,” Fernando opines. “Law makers talk high about the country being surrounded by the seas and marine resources but have done pretty little to support the sector especially during tough times.”

     

    Image: Hippopx

    Sourced from hippox.com and licensed under Creative Commons Zero – CC0 

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