The Weekly Observer Vol.14 Issue 26

OBSERVER The Weekly

Volume 14 | Issue 26

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Prison guards demand Rs 1,500 for visit DIG pledges probe Elizabeth Mani EXCLUSIVE

Police officers at Bangalore Central Prison are demanding bribes from families desperate to see their loved ones.

Police officers there even have a series of collection points where people visiting inmates have to pay Rs 100 to progress. The state’s Deputy Inspector General of Prisons has asked for our dossier and promised to investigate.

In a Weekly Observer investigation, our reporter recorded conversations with police officers at the entrance to the jail and was asked to pay Rs 1,000 just to gain entry.

At various points along the way to see the prisoner she was visiting, she had to pay up.

Guards demanded Rs 100 each at the different checkpoints.

P.M. Jaisimha, DIG Pic Courtesy : Thanthi TV

“Even though I miss my family I don’t ask them to visit me,” says Kumar, a prisoner at BCP She handed over a total of Rs 1,500 just to visit one prisoner.

Reporters from the Weekly Observer who visited the jail were asked to pay Rs 1,000 for special entrance and Rs 100 for each counter on the way. The number of counters one has to pass in order to meet the prisoners is five.

Deepak, a prisoner, said: “Police here are corrupt. They take bribe for everything. Though it’s illegal to take money from the visitors, the police still do it. They get lots of money from the visitors. Whenever

my family comes to visit me they have to pay at least Rs 1,000 to see me. So I don’t ask them to visit me.”

Muthu, 24, a prisoner from Kerala convicted for murder, said, “We don’t have any problem in prison.

Only problem is that we have to pay lots of bribe to the police.”

Chandru also said that though there are posters around the premises which state that giving phones, SIM cards, alcohol, cannabis and cigarettes to the convicts is a punishable offence, officials themselves do that to earn money.

Kumar, another prisoner said: “Even though I miss my family I don’t ask them to visit me because they have to pay lots of money to the police.”

Sheshu Murthy, Superintendent of the jail said: “I don’t know about the issue. Please talk to the DIG for further details.”

He further asked about the details of the reporter and their visit to the prison.

PM Jaisimha, DIG, Prisons said: “I want a written copy of the statement from the person involved

in investigation. It is not true that counters charge money. I will take necessary action on the issue based on the written statement.”

Chandru, from Malur, who has been in prison for two years for murder, said: “If we have money we can do anything in prison.

We get cigarettes, drinks, weed.

We can even get prostitutes.”

He added: “The food we get in prison is not good; we often find insects and worms in the food. When I was in prison, the policemen arranged a small kitchen in my cell and they would bring things to cook food. All I had to do was to pay them.

“Murderers have more power to ask cops than normal cases.

The superintendent and police take advantage of robbery and theft convicts,” he added.

He said that a new prisoner would face problems adjusting to life inside for around two months.

The prisoners have everything available there but miss their families.

Elumalai, from Vaniyampaadi in Tamil Nadu, said: “It’s been 60 days since police arrested my son Ramesh for a false robbery case against him and he is getting released today but I’m scared that the police will catch my son again. My son was so scared that he used to call me every day.”

(The names of all the prisoners have been modified)

We’re giving it back: Oz book finals slot Tushar Kaushik India left at least a billion cricket fans distraught as they crashed out of the cricket World Cup - losing to Australia by 95 runs in a one-sided semi-final.

High hopes were pinned on the Indian side, unbeaten in the tournament until today’s fateful meeting with Australia.

With Indian fans occupying up to 70% of the seats at the Sydney Cricket Ground, they more than met their match in Australia, who outplayed India in all three departments – batting, bowling and fielding.

@PrannoyRoyNDTV: Just got official estimate.

Crowd 65% India; 25% Australia and 10% nonaligned. India fights back.

Australia rode on a fine century by Steve Smith, and a patient 81 by Aaron Finch, to set India a stiff but gettable target of 329. The pair stitched together a match-winning partnership of 182 for the second wicket, with Finch’s persistence serving as the perfect foil for Smith’s aggression.

Apart from the two spinners Ashwin and Jadeja, all of India’s bowlers were expensive, with Yadav’s four wickets coming at an economy of eight.

@bhogleharsha: India did many things right at the World Cup. Then, they came up against a better team.

India started well, with a partnership of 76 for the first wicket, but it went downhill from there,

as they lost wickets at regular intervals to fold up for 233, with only Dhoni offering substantial resistance with a run-a-ball 65.

In Bangalore, attendance at corporate offices took a hit as employees took leave from offices to watch the match. Praneeth Shetty, an employee of TE Connectivity, said about 30% of employees had taken leave, and even the ones in the office were crowded around the television during the match.

However, not every Indian was sad, as shown by this tweet by Hindi film director Ram Gopal Verma:

@RGVzoomin: I am sooooo happyyy India lost because I hate cricket..nd if there’s anything I hate more than cricket then it’s people who love cricket

Kohli succumbed to the pressure and could score only one run

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Thursday, March 26, 2015

NEWS Women paid to get sterilized DIGEST Men term this process only for women Bangalore Police became the first in the country to be selected by Twitter for the ‘Twitter Samvad’ project It will help the police during emergencies and rescue operations.

In the on-going case of the death of DK Ravi, recent reports claim that state government’s Crime Investigative Bureau has spread wrong information. The husband of the IAS officer, whose name is involved in the case, said that he was with her when the calls were made and there were not 44 but merely four calls.

Carrom boards are used by the inmates of Parappana Agrahara Central Prison to smuggle marijuana to sell it to the inmates at wholesale or retail prices. In a drug haul 1.5 kilograms of marijuana, 500 packets was found by the police stuffed inside the four frames of a carrom board.

Scholar and researcher, Dr Chidananda Murthy was detained by the Vidhan Soudha police for raising slogans against the state government. The cause of the protest was the inconclusive debate that has been going on for several years over the authentication of the saint Dasiamaiah.

Taxi service company Ola has been told by regulators that its feature of ‘peak hour surcharge’ is illegal.

This feature is included in the new pricing policy of the company where the prices rise or fall based on the demand. The government officials visited the office in Bangalore as part of the inquiry.

A 26-year-old woman who works as a business consultant approached the HSR Layout police after she was allegedly abused by an autorickshaw driver. She said the driver threatened her with rape and claims she was intimidated physically after he took a wrong turn and the woman started shouting and tried to flee.

Divya Kishore Over a third of women in India between the ages of 15-54 have been paid to be sterilized, according to a government survey.

The National Family Health Survey conducted interviews with more than 2, 30, 000 women age 15-54 throughout India, and found that 37% of all married Indian women of reproductive age are sterilized.

Some state-employed surgeons operate on as many as 13,000 women per year.

However, the numbers opting for the procedure, in a country with at least 1.2 billion people, has de-

Naresh thinks that the birth control process should be only for women

creased in Karnataka.

“Sterilization of women to control birth rates has decreased in Karnataka from previous year. But it doesn’t mean women are out of danger because most men in India still believe that women alone bear the responsibility of family planning,” said Dr Rajesh, consultant and pediatrician, Vani Vilas Hospital.

According to reports of the State Health Department, Karnataka, in 2013-14, around 2, 75, 925 women were sterilized; however in 2014-15 (up to January), 2, 01, 555 women were sterilized.

“Women, especially from rural areas, don’t use contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. They prefer to get sterilized rather than using other methods. Women, often poor and illiterate, pay the price,” added Dr. Rajesh.

Most people are not informed about other types of family planning methods. Informed choice is consistently higher in urban areas, and is somewhat more common in private than in public medical facilities, according to the National Health Survey.

Sunaina (name changed), 24, said: “I got sterilized last month in a primary health care centre in my village. I had my third child last year, after which my in-laws asked me to undergo sterilization.”

Sunaina (middle) was sterilized in January in a PHC in her village She said: “I agreed to get sterilized because it is the only permanent solution. I was also paid Rs.600 from the government for that. However, if my husband would have gotten sterilized, he would have been paid Rs.300.”

Dr. Kamalakshi, Resident Medical Officer (RMO), said: “We encourage and counsel males too to share the responsibility of family planning with their partners. However, it would take time to make them understand because most of the men, especially from rural background, believe that sterilization or other methods done on them to control birth rates would make

them impotent.

“These birth control processes are for women only, they don’t suit men personality. Just imagine, how it will sound if I say, I can’t reproduce now,” said Naresh (name changed), 26.

Dr. Kamalakshi believes that this is not the case with rural male only.

“We came across men from wellheeled families too, who think these types of birth-control operations are for women only.

The national survey is due to be conducted again next year. the World Health Organisation states that India is the world leader in steriliziing women.

Karnataka political parties unite against land acquisition bill Vignesh S. G Political parties in the state have labelled the Land Bill anti-national claiming it was a move by Modi to be pro-corporate.

As central government tries to fight back against the perceived anti-farmer image of the Land Acquisition Bill, the major Karnataka political parties came together to fight it. Politicians pointed to the Bangalore- Mysore infrastructure corridor projects to show the anti

Danish Ali did not mince any words in slamming the bill

farmer features of the bill.

Danish Ali, JD(S) spokeperson and national general secretary, said: “We are against the amendment of the bill. The old land acquisition bill was good. The Modi government made amendments to encourage the corporates. The land amendment bill is sponsored by corporate houses. The Bangalore Mysore infrastructure corridor project is an example how poor people’s land has been looted and thousands of crores are involved in that scam.

The poor farmers got nothing.”

If people and opposition aren’t convinced, the bill is going to lapse on April 8 as the government cannot pass the bill in parliament. The government cannot re-issue an ordinance when parliament is in session.

The way out will be conducting a joined session to pass the bill.

G.V. Sreeram Reddy, CPI (M) state general secretary, said: “It is totally anti-peasant, anti-agriculture. It is only to satisfy the corporate companies - particularly American conglomerates. The ordinance by Modi was on the eve of Obama’s visit to India on 26th - Republic Day. There

Sri Ram Reddy addressing workers at a protest was no urgency for the ordinance but to satisfy Obama, Modi passed that ordinance.”

He added: “This bill will only benefit corporate companies and it will enable them to grab as much land without restriction for real estate business. The bill was passed in parliament only because BJP have a majority. All the points in that bill are against peasants and agriculture.

It is an anti-national bill.”

Modi, in his ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio program, told farmers: “Farmers’ interests will be taken care of in the new bill, which will enhance development work.”

At Tuesday’s meeting in Delhi, BJP’s core committee showed their disagreement to implement the bill but the party is said to be considering a way to make small changes to make the bill more farmer friendly.

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Thursday, March 26, 2015

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Lost the plot? Court for Country Club Nikhil M Babu A well known Indian leisure club chain allegedly sold plots of land to people after the land had been notified for government use.

Country Club offered sites to people along with lifetime memberships for Rs 1,15,000 and registered the property in their name.

They even charged extra for registration and maintenance of the property.

“Country club knew that the land was notified by Karnataka Industrial Development Authority Board and even after that they sold the sites to people,” said advocate Vasanth Adithya, who has filed a case for 14 people who were sold land by Country Club.

Members were allotted a 1089 sq ft site at Country Club, Coconut Grove in Tumkur, Karnataka. The transfer of the allotted sites were done at the sub registrar’s office, Tumkur and the people were even asked to pay more than Rs 30,000 for registration and the maintenance of the plot.

Ravi said that the land is still in the name of the farmers from whom Country Club is alleged to have purchased it.

KIADB has acquired the land Rajeev Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director of Country Club and compensation money has Picture Cortesy - ProKerela.com been deposited in the Tumkur Civil Court. Now people have in 2009. “Country Club knew about a reflection of rest of the country.

Online forums across the to prove their ownership in the this but they cheated me,” he said.

How Country Club registered country are flooded with comcourt to get the compensation.

“Country club didn’t put up a the sites area at Tumkur sub reg- plaints against Country Club.

On May 14 2014, board or at least Times of India has it should be in the reported a simidocuments that “Nowhere in the revenue records the name of lar case in Mumbai they have conwhere a court ruled verted the land Country Club appears” and allotted as - Ravi Thirilapur, Special Land Acquisition Officer, against Country Club for luring people into sites,” he added.

KIADB, Tumkur. buying fake plots.

Ramesh ChanDespite redra from Bangapeated attempts, lore, one of the 14 complainants, said that the site istrar office which is in the name nobody from Country Club was registered in his name in 2010 of farmers remains a mystery. was available to comment.

What happened in Karnataka is but it was notified by the KIADB

Go Goa gone Ram Prasad from Orissa was holidaying in Goa with his wife when a guy approached him with two scratch cards.

“After I scratched the first card and got nothing, I still remember that bastard telling - ask your wife to scratch the second one, you will surely win something,” said Ram. “Even though I beacame a bit suspicious as I was in a holiday mood I didn’t think much.”

She won a camera and they were taken to a resort and he introduced them to a senior manager. “the manager said that they will give a presentation. I thought that it will be about the camera and I agreed,” said ram.

Later they were given a presentation about the club in which they were told that they can get a Country Club membership at Rs 8000. “When the SMS from HDFC bank came about my credit card withdrawal only I realized that it was not 8,000 but 80,000.”

Ram sent many mails to the club and its owner and also logged case in an online forum but didn’t get his money back. “The ‘funny thing’ is that I didn’t get any reply for my complaint but they still call me asking for the renewal charge of my membership,” Ram added.

Please give me justice Rebecca Vanlalhumi, from Manchester was in Kolkata on a holiday when she put her name down for a lucky draw in a shopping mall. Next day Country Club contacted her and said that she has won a price and could collect it from their office.

There they told about the membership and told that they have hotels and properties in London.

As she visited London frequently she paid Rs 55,000 for the membership. But later when she tried to book a room only she found out that Country Club didn’t have any properties in London and she was conned.

Her complaint in a consumer forum reads “PLEASE GIVE ME JUSTICE.”

The fake cut of an interview placed on the front page of the Economic Times (L) against the original front page of the newspaper. The interview with Reddy appeared on the 27th page of the newspaper. On Country Club’s website, the fake cut is displayed as the original interview.

4 The Weekly OBSERVER

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Activists rejoice as SC st

enough, and it is time to d In spite of this decision will still hesitate to post fr forms as an inbuilt fear ha due to the arrests. Howeve been sent to them as of note, Trivedi said that he w online portal where he wo

Shreya - The toast of Shreya Singhal, who h of an entire nation by win down section 66A, said th this issue, as it affected ev ternet.

Shreya said: “Free spee secular democracy like Ind mation of ideas and opinio what we feel; we’ve alway ciety.”

Talking about the issue said, “The thing with sectio that it was a blanket prov that was used in conjunc tion with other provisions of the IPC. You can be arrested immediately (after a post), within 24 hours.” sues Expressing her shock for m over the arrest Mumbai includin cident where two girls were arrested, one for her post on Facebook regarding the Mumbai bandh and the other one for liking the post, Shreya said: “People were discussing Mumbai bandh on TV, bu was arrested for that. The arrested was just shocking.

Shreya, herself a thirdUniversity, said that the ve true for her, and said that th file would be the one that

“

Pulaha Ray Soumya Chatterjee Tushar Kaushik In a landmark verdict the Supreme Court of India quashed the controversial section 66A of the IT Act on March 24.

The law allowed enforcement agencies to arrest people for posting ‘objectionable’ content on the Internet. Below are the reactions of the people who were most affected by the section 66A of the IT Act when the ‘Weekly Observer’ spoke to them.

In a landmark verdict, The Supreme Court of India quashed section 66A of the constitution which gave the Jailed for a cartoon Aseem Trivedi is a political cartoonist and activist, and also the founder of Save Your Voice, a movement against internet censorship.

Trivedi, who had been booked under section 66A for one of his cartoons, termed the decision a “very big verdict,” and said he appreciated the fact that the court had taken a stand. Talking about the people responsible for this verdict, Trivedi said, “Credited goes to not only Shreya, but all those who had raised their voices against section 66A.” However, he also voiced concern for the other existing laws which could still be misused to curb freedom of expression. He especially singled out article 19(2), which restricts a citizen’s rights to free speech. “The article hasn’t been defined well

The legal technicalitie Smarika Kumar, a Ban

Smarika Kumaris a Banga

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Thursday, March 26, 2015

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trikes out unlawful law

debate on this law.” n, Trivedi said that people reely on social media platas been ingrained in them er, a positive message has now. On an encouraging would now be starting an ould publish his cartoons.

tional Law University, Bangalore, specializes in the fields of intellectual property, media laws and Internet Governance.

Talking about how such a draconian law came to be passed, Smarika said: “66A and other contested sections were passed through an amendment in the IT Act 2008 by the Parliament with a namesake discussion of eight minutes. Whatever the BJP or the Congress may be saying now, neither of them spoke a nation anything against the law then. An arbitrary law like has earned the gratitude 66A will ultimately favor the powerful. Because of nning her PIL for striking its vagueness, it could be interpreted any which way hat she felt strongly about whatsoever and be misused by whichever governveryone who uses the in- ment was in power.

“Sec 66A created law and order issues rather than ech is fundamental for a tackling them by allowing for misuse of power and dia, with such an amalga- multiple arbitrary arrests as illustrated by a plethora ons. We like to talk about of cases including Shaheen Dhada, Aseem Trivedi,” ys been an outspoken so- she added.

She said that the Supreme Court, however, did with section 66A, Shreya not declare section 69A unconstitutional, and said tion 66A was that it was that there was a need for a larger discussion over was used in this section, which gives the governroviment power to block websites. n But she doesn’t rule out the possibility of the law coming back in another form, and said, “There is of course the danger that Sec 66A created law and order ismay s rather than tackling them by allowing parliament come up with misuse of power and multiple arbitrary a differently ts as illustrated by a plethora of cases in- inane legislation which has the ng Shaheen Dhada, Aseem Trivedi. same import as section 66A.” Smarika said - Smarika Kumar she believes this to be a “progressive and landmark judgment” and the first one since 1960 where a law which compromises the sted freedom promised in our constibeing artution was struck down.

“

-year law student at Delhi erdict was a dream come he next petition she would she would fight herself.

es ngalore-based lawyer for m and an alumna of Na-

alore based legal expert

Free speech is our birth right In April 2012, Ambikesh Mahapatra was booked for sharing a cartoon by Subrata Sengupta, who was also booked under the act.

Responding to the verdict, Mahapatra said, “I’m very happy; I’m much happier than others because I was a victim of this section. My fight has been worth it.” He said that the section had certain grey areas which were misinterpreted several times, leading to unjust arrests.

After his arrest, Mahapatra said that the state’s Human Rights Commission had investigated the incident, and had found that the police were at fault, and had crossed the boundaries. However, the government did not take any action against the police.

On March 10, the state government was directed by the Calcutta High Court of West Bengal to pay Rs. 50,000 compensation each to both Mahapatra and Sengupta. The govt has a month to appeal this decision, and Mahapatra said that according to sources, the government plans to do so.

His message to people is loud and clear: “Do not get scared. Free speech is our birthright. Even after the incident, I’ve been sharing cartoons, and will keep doing so.”

However, with all the euphoria, Mahapatra also added a word of caution, saying that crimes were committed in the cyber world too, and a person should be arrested if he is spreading hate speech.

Aseem Trivedi is a well-known political cartoonist and a free-speech activist “On September 8 I was arrested, and was under police custody. I neither applied for bail, nor did I hire any lawyer. I went to the court on September 9, and again on the 10th, when I was sentenced to judicial custody, and sent to Arthur Road jail.

Had I opted for a bail I would have supported the government’s claim that I was a traitor. I found the governments allegations baseless. Just by drawing cartoons you can’t be booked for sedition. Making such cartoons isn’t unpatriotic. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I had decided not to give any explanations. I had complete confidence that the right decision would be taken.

When in jail, I got a lot of support from my family, politicians and artists. My family wasn’t scared because they realized I was getting a lot f support from outside. Amitabh Bachchan expressed his concerns. Advaniji compared my arrest back to the days of emergency. When my family heard about this they realized they had nothing to fear about their son. Even Mr. Arvind Kejriwal visited me in jail, and told me that if I wouldn’t be released in two to three days, he would stage a protest. Even my lawyer, Desai, took up my case without accepting any money.”

A famous scene from Stayajit Ray’s film is being parodied in the cartoon below., in the aftermath of Dinesh Trivedi being shunted out from the Union Cabinet for not listening to Mamta Banerjee.

6 The Weekly OBSERVER

Thursday, March 26, 2015

8 years and still no money for women’s hostels in the city Apoorva Choubey At least seven of the working women’s hostels under the Karnataka Government in Bangalore claim that they did not receive the money allocated since 2006.

According to the Karnataka Government website, the Government of India provides financial assistance to the extent of 75 percent of the estimated cost for the construction/maintenance of the hostel and the state Government provides 12.5 percent.

So far, 76 Working Women’s Hostels have been sanctioned in Karnataka, of which 66 hostels were functioning. A budget of Rs.15.60 lakhs was allocated for the year 2013-14.

Thirteen hostels in Bangalore are listed under this scheme.

K. Radhika, Warden and Accountant of Sri Sharda Kutira Hostel in Shankarapura, said:”The state and union government gave 3 lakhs for the construction in 1990’s.

Radhika hasn’t recieved any aassistance for 20 years

paid us.”

I have been working here Usha, In charge of the for the last 20 years. They hostel in Basavangudi, have not given any finansaid: “Our All India Womcial assistance even after en’s Association takes the hostel was listed under care of the maintenance. the care of Women and We do not send reports to Child Welfare Department the government.” in 2006.”

Four of these hostels According to her, the have been shut down trust had requested some including the ones in monetary assistance in Gnanabharti campus and the years 2007-08, but no National Law University money was sanctioned eicampus. ther by the state or by the Gangadhar, Personal central government.

Assistant to the Direc“The trust, Sharda, tor of Regional Institute takes care of the most of Studies in Bangalore of the expenses; we also University, said: “There charge the women livwas a pact in the year ing here. The rent of the 2005 when this scheme rooms ranges from 4,200 was started. The women per month to 8,000 per development department month depending on the formed a committee to sharing and facilities,” she Sharada kuteera was established in the 1970s look after the hostel but added. only for about two years. in Tippasandra. We requested the Neela, Warden of the University Women’s Association money three years ago but did not They have not funded us although Hostel in Sampangiramanagar, said: receive any help. Now the welfare we send them a quarterly report.

The hostel is being used by us “I am the warden of this hostel department is asking us to contact for conducting training programs. for 23 years. The union govern- central government.”

Neela added: “They came for The women do not stay here anyment funded Rs. 1.5lakh sometime around the year 2001. The state inspection in July last year, after I more as it is too far and they say it is government however, has not pro- think three years or so. The scheme too difficult to travel,” he added.

Babu, In charge of the Hostels vided any money for maintenance must be implemented upon; these hostels are very helpful to working at National Law University, said: or expansion of the hostel.

Ramachandra Upadhyay, Ac- women especially from the lower “We use the hostel for our teachcountant of the same hostel, said: classes, who cannot afford living in ers now. The state department does not come and ask about anything. I “The state government is supposed other private PG’s or hostels.”

Shushilamma, President of Stree don’t remember them coming ever, to look after these hostels but they hardly see our quarterly reports let Samiti Hostel in Jayanagar, said: since 2005 when the hostel was alone give any money or inspect the “The trust takes care of the work- built. They have not assisted us fiing women’s hostels. About 50 nancially also.” condition of the hostels.

Gangadhar, Assistant DirecHe added, “Our association women live here. We are not under has asked money for a new hostel the government and they have not tor of Department of Women and

Neela, warden said that the last inspection was in July Child Welfare Department, said: “We are paying the hostels who have requested for assistance. The inspections also happen once in six months, but now the rules have changed.”

Lata, a Superintendent, said: “The state asked for approval of the budget of the hostels under a different scheme this year and 100 lakhs was allocated. The previous hostels are now under the central government. We have paid the money till 2013.”

Chaitra, a resident of Basava Samithi Working Women’s Hostel, said: “The hostel facilities are good here. The in timing is 7 pm. About 100 working women live here. I work in Padmanabhanagar.”

Kavya, another resident, said: “I have been living here since three years. There are 100 of us here. The numbers are increasing as the facilities are good.”

The Ministry of Women and Child Development was unavailable to comment.

A siren of hope to save lives

A skit performed at Sunday Soul Sante to demonstrate the importance of giving way to ambulance.

Picture courtesy - Sandeep Chavate Ridhi Agrawal IT employees in Bangalore are on a drive to ensure patients reach hospital as quickly as possible by asking motorists to give way to ambulances.

Ananthalakshmi Krishnan, an employee of Monsanto, came up with the idea of Lifelane- an initiative to encourage citizens to move immediately to the left to give way to the ambulance, thereby saving more lives.

Under her guidance, 15 employ-

ees of the IT wing of Monsanto performed a skit to demonstrate its importance at its tech park in Hebbal, Bangalore. After the overwhelming response, a skit and a flash mob was also performed at Sunday Soul Sante, a flea market which attracts both young and old, a fortnight back.

According to reports, most ‘brought dead’ and ‘died en route’ cases happen where there is a time lapse in shifting the patient from one place to another due to traffic snarls, the bane of Bangalore.

Ananthalakshmi, said: “No one wants to intentionally block an ambulance. But unfortunately intentions alone cannot carry us through.

Our idea is to build an emergency response reaction in people; one where they don’t think but just react—‘move left and give way.’”

There are plans to take this initiative forward to other technology parks as well along with a live demo which involves the use of actual ambulances and cars.

Megan Mahesh, a participant, said, “In other countries, people give first priority to ambulances and immediately make way for the ambulance no matter what the situation is on the road.”

She added, “This lane discipline may take a while to sink in here in India but with our efforts in raising awareness we can definitely strive towards making a difference and saving more lives.”

GVK is a non-profit organization that is tied up with Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), to attend to emergency situations in the country.

On average, in one hour, GVK-

EMRI gets around 100-120 calls during peak hours (from 7pm to 9pm) in Karnataka. Most of them are heart attacks, road accidents and respiratory problems. In rural areas, a large number of calls are related to maternity cases. During non-peak hours, around 50-60 calls per hour are recorded which also include suicide cases.

According to GVK, this service is spread across 15 states (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhat-

tisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kerala) and two Union Territories (Diu Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli). With the help of this widespread initiative and equipped with over 9000 ambulances, around 30 million cases have been attended to and over 1 million lives saved.

They have served 34,91,561 emergency cases, saved 1,15,980 lives and assisted with 34,640 deliveries in Karnataka since its inception. As per GVK- Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) there are 52 108ambulances in Bangalore.

An ambulance (red) makes way in heavy traffic on Queen’s Road

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Crores of cases pending in nation’s courts Apoorva Choubey Aparna Singh The total number of cases pending at Karnataka High Court is over 2.7 lakhs, the oldest among these being a petition from 1985, according to a study.

The Daksh Foundation study also shows that the number of pending cases at the Supreme Court is over 65,000, with 45 lakh cases still pending in all the High Courts in the country.

They also state that the lower courts have more than 2.8 crore pending cases.

Ramya, an associate lawyer with the Daksh Foundation in Bangalore, said: “Our organization started

Ramya Tirumalai, an associate lawyer with the Daksh foundation

this ‘Rule of Law Project’ in October, 2014. The main objective of this project is to collate data on the pending cases and eventually produce this data to the government, so that sustainable solutions can be provided to reduce the pendency.

“There is no concrete data on pending cases in the country; people just keep throwing numbers. We have collected this data by the cause lists put out in the various courts. So far we have the complete case lists of 10 High Courts. We plan on getting the data for the remaining 14 courts within six months.

“The oldest case in our records dates back to 1956, and was filed at the Jharkhand High Court. In Karnataka, the oldest pending case is from 1985.”

According to reports in December last year, the total number of judges to be sanctioned in a High Court was changed to 62 from the existing 50 by the Union Government.

The High Court of Karnataka is short by 27 judges as the number of judges sanctioned in the court is 35.

Three new judges were appointed in December 2014 who took office in January this year.

Darshana, a lawyer at The Alternative Law Forum, said: “The judiciary is very understaffed most of the time. There are also times

when the judge is changed where you have to make your arguments from the very beginning in front of a new judge.”

In these situations the cases are delayed further, she said.

According to reports of the state law ministry in 2014, the number of cases pending in the High Court of Karnataka was 12,935.

Six of these cases are over 20 years old. A further 531 cases are 10 years old and 44 have been pending for more than 15 years.

Darshana said, “There is no single reason as to why these cases are pending. Sometimes the lawyers are dragging the cases and sometimes they are not listed.”

She said that unlike the trial courts, the High Court does not give dates on which cases are taken forward.

“You may be given a date but most of the time you are not given a date. In that case what a person has to do is ask for your case to be posted.

Sometimes a litigant does not want to take the case forward hence they do not post for a future date,” she added.

There are times when the cases are dragged so much that the litigants cannot afford to take the cases further because of financial reasons, she said.

Daksh believes that the pendency can be cleared after collecting the whole data. Kavya, another associate lawyer with Daksh, said: “After evaluating the average time taken for a case to get disposed, we can then work on the steps like appointment of more judges and building new courts. We can then analyze the data on criminal cases in comparison to the data on civil cases.”

Over 10 lakh cases out of the 45 lakh cases pending at high courts are criminal cases, according to reports.

Delhi district courts have more than 5 lakh cases pending and 27 percent of these are criminal cases.

In December 2014, Minister of Law, T B Jayachandra, said that there were more than 12 lakh cases pending at district level courts in Karnataka.

Gowthaman, a lawyer from the Alternative Law Forum, said, “If you ask me, it is an effective way to actually compile this kind of data and work towards clearing the backlog of pending cases.”

Return to sender? Address unknown Agnivesh Harshan The Bangalore postal circle has seen a huge increase in the number of undelivered letters, according to data received from a Right to Information request.

In 2013, the Returned Letters Office (RLO), a wing of the Indian Postal Service which deals with undelivered letters and articles, had 3,658 items in their records.

However in 2014 the number of items with the RLO rose to 24,169, an increase of over 500 percent. Out of all the objects with the RLO only 57 were reclaimed.

The net worth of all the articles in the possession of the Bangalore RLO as of now is about three lakhs.

B. Vijayakumar, Manager of mail motor service, Bangalore said, “The major reasons for these returned letters/articles is insufficient or unclear addresses. Sometimes the addressee refuses to accept the item or has left the country. There have also been instances of death of the addressee.”

“As per instructions contained in volume VIII of rule 413, the unregistered articles that are not collected either by the addressee or the sender are treated as old records of the RLO and disposed of.

Registered articles of low value are kept in deposit for a period of three months after which they are burned and registered articles

A pile of RTI applications with no return addresses on the back of value are kept in possession of the RLO for a year after which they are auctioned,” he added.

The Bangalore RLO received 3, 82,350 unregistered letters and 7,000 registered letters and parcels in 2014.

This is less than half the letters/articles received by the Mumbai RLO in

a year which is over ten lakhs. However, The Mumbai RLO had 12,823 articles in its possession in 2014, out of which 292 have been reclaimed.

The Mumbai RLO receives more than twice the number of letters/articles Bangalore does but has less than half the un-

claimed letters RLO Bangalore has.

Apart from the above stats, the Mumbai RLO has international mail in its possession; it has 3500 unclaimed letters and 808 articles. The Mumbai office has only 8,624 articles in its possession as of March 3, 2015.

There have been several cases of missing international mail.

The Indian Postal Service has refused to give out information regarding international mails even after filing RTIs and appeals.

“I had sent a very expensive parcel through the Hellenic post to my boyfriend in India. It did not reach him even after six months. We had filed complaints in our respective post offices. The Greek office said it had a confirmation of the arrival of the mail in Mumbai. The Hellenic post compensated 10% of the net value but there was no response from India,” said Maria Skourteli, a resident of Athens, Greece.

As per the RTI response to The Observer, The capital city does not maintain records on unclaimed letters. Apart from Delhi, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have no proper records on undelivered mail.

Jammu and Kashmir has no RLO or any other dedicated department within the post office that deals with returned letters.

Jaipur office received 2, 78,404 in 2014 of which

15,643 could not be delivered.

It is an improvement from the 2013 stat of 16,256. Jaipur also has international mail in its inventory, this includes 46 registered mail and 238 registered articles.

“Chennai receives 14,40,000 articles a year. It had in its deposit 85,724 articles in 2013 and 84,136 articles in 2014.

The major reasons for returned letters are insufficient or illegible address. Sometimes it is washed of or is smudged.

“The most common items we have in deposit are news papers, magazines, correspondences, legal notices, call letters utility service bills, gifts etc. The value of these articles can be estimated only during the public auction at the end of the year,” said P. Michael Raj, Assistant Director (Mails) & CPIO of Chennai.

RLO Lucknow had an inflow of 7, 41,260 postal articles which went down to 6, 24,763 in 2014, of which Lucknow dispatched 5,26,372 of them.

Ahmedabad dealt with over two lakh mails in 2014 and has only 1956 articles yet to be claimed. Dhanbad RLO has 600 articles in its possession.

Hyderabad RLO receives 12,000 articles a year out of which 1,083 are unclaimed so far.

All statistics mentioned above was obtained through RTI applications.

8 The Weekly OBSERVER

Thursday, March 26, 2015

9 day liquor ban called off

TWEETS OF THE DAY @chetan_bhagat : Deep seated Indian sexism of women being distracting objects while men are persevering saints in all the hate against players’ girlfriends. @abdullah_omar : Anyone have any spare miracles lying around? @SalmanRushdie : @ VikingBooksUK Happy retirement Tony Lacey.

A beach somewhere, an umbrella drink... I might join you.

Wine shops granted permit to buy fresh stock of liquor today Natasha Singh A planned nine day liquor strike has been called off after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah gave assurances that VAT rates would be re-examined.

The Federation of Wine Merchants Association, Karnataka had called for a nine-day strike starting Monday, 24th March to protest the 5.5% VAT on urban bars and restaurants. The strike was called after the CM declared no respite for the liquor shops in his State Budget 2015-16. The VAT is applicable to

bars, restaurants, clubs, lodgings and star hotels in urban areas. Rural area shops were not included.

Sandeep, Operations Manager of Madhuloka, said: “We have not been able to purchase alcohol because of the strike. Bars were closed since Monday. It has not affected us till now as it was only for two days and we had enough stock.”

The Federation had earlier announced that all shops will be closed on March 26 and 27 and no shop will procure fresh stock from Monday to March 31.

“We might have had to close our

“The strike has been taken back after the meeting

with the CM. He assured us of consideration and asked to be given some time.

- Lokesh, M. D of Madhuloka

Courtesy - Karnataka State Excise Department

bar today considering the ban had not been called off. But it is a big relief,” said Sandeep.

On Monday, a protest was held at Udupi DC office in which many liquor shop owners and the Federation of Wine Merchants Association participated.

Lokesh, the Managing Director of Madhuloka, said, “The strike has been taken back after the meeting with the CM. He assured us of consideration and asked to be given some time.”

Explaining the demand, Lokesh said that the VAT is nothing new. “It

had been there for the past one year but the CM had ensured its removal in this budget which did not take place. Thus the Federation called for a strike,” said Lokesh.

Harish from the Federation of Wine Merchants Association confirmed that the strike has been called off.

It has been reported that the Federation, which constitutes 29 districts of Karnataka, wants the government to dissolve the Anti Lottery and the Excise Wing of the Police, claiming that they loot the liquor shop owners.

Inaction by cops leads to cases piling up with city police C. L Ramakrishnan Over 80 percent of murders and robberies reported in Bangalore this year have not been solved.

The Bangalore City Police statistics also reveal that police solved just 3845 cases out of the 14356 cases filed in 2014 whereas the percentage of cracked cases was 28% in 2013.

This is almost half the number of cases resolved in 2012, where the city police solved 57% of all murder and robbery cases.

Of the 2509 murder and robbery incidents registered in 2015 till February, only 378 cases have been solved. That means over 80 percent of cases filed this year have not been closed.

H.T. Sangliana, former Bangalore City Police Commissioner said: “The fall in the quality of investigation and collection of evidence has contributed to the downward trend

Former Commissioner of Police Bangalore City Sangliana in the crimes being solved. The cops should keep a constant supervision

of the happenings in the city but that’s not possible due to the lack

of manpower. The slow progress of the trials in the court is also a factor for this fall in crimes being resolved.”

Surya, a High Court lawyer said: “After committing a crime the culprits go back to their home town.

That’s the reason behind lot of cases remaining pending in the city as it is difficult to nab the perpetrator.

“Moreover the cops are not involved in proper investigation of these incidents (murder and robbery) which has led to this decline,” he added.

Gauthaman, a lawyer at Alternative Law Firm said, “The action taken regarding crimes like murder and robbery are slow as it depends on the nature of the case and how many people are involved in it.”

“More time is spent on the investigation which leads to the delay in action,” he added.

@suhelseth : Has Anushka come in to bat? Oops I meant has VIRAT descended? @digvijaya_28 : Coal Block allocation Bill is Anti Constitution Anti Consumers Anti Labour Anti Tribal. May see. @PritishNandy : My middle finger to all those in power, especially politicians, who used #Section66A to harass and intimidate those who spoke their mind. @Swamy39 : Hansraj Bhardwaj has spoken up. According to him a Minister in UPA insisted on 66A of ITA to save his son. Guess who? PC for BC!! @alokag : Looking at the #INDvsAUS audience, it looks almost as if the match is played in India. @smitadeshmukj : I believe Anushka Sharma may need protection from nationalist cricket fans on her way back

OBSERVER Team: Editor - Punita Maheshwari, Chief Sub Editor - Nikhil M. Babu, News Editor - Pulaha Roy, News Desk - Shruti Suresh, Agnivesh Harshan, C.L Ramakrishnan, Sub Editors - Aparna Singh, Apoorva Choubey, Ridhi Agrawal, Devdutta Sukhdev, Design head - Kimaya Varude, Design desk - Tushar Kaushik, Elizabeth Mani, Suharika Rachavelpula, Soumya Chatterjee, Photo Editor - Saheli Sen Gupta, Vignesh SG, Reporters - Natasha Singh, Divya Kishore