Will Mallya extradition woes provide incentive to rectify conditions in Indian jails?
DailyO / By Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves
The truth is that almost all Indian prisons are far from compatible with Minimum Human Rights standards.
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Does Raising Questions on the Rights of Adivasis Make Me a ‘Deshdrohi’?
The Wire / By Stan Swamy
How questioning the validity, legality and justness of several steps taken by the government and the ruling class led to being charged with sedition.
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Gadchiroli Ground Zero: The Adivasi Struggle Against ‘Development’ That Displaces
The Wire / By Javed Iqbal
Activists opposed to displacement and mining in Gadchiroli speak about the new wave of state repression, adivasi culture, their own struggles with higher education, government policies and people’s movements.
(Conversation with Sainu Gotta, Lalsu Nogoti, Mahesh Raut)
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After almost five years in jail, alleged Maoist leader is found innocent
pic: scroll.in
Scroll.in / By Aarefa Johari
First published Feb 3, 2014
Mumbai political activist Arun Ferreira says that his spirit hasn’t been broken. At 42, he’s studying to become a criminal lawyer so that he can work with political prisoners.
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Video: Arun Ferreira – Life in an Indian Prison
en | 12:51 min | 2014
youtoube / produced by Faiza Khan
Arun Ferreira was arrested in May 2007 on fabricated charges under the Unlawful Activities and Prevention Act (UAPA). As soon as he was acquitted in a case, a new one would be conjured up. Finally out on bail in January 2012, Arun talks about life in prison and torture they were subjected to, through his sketches.
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‘UPA and NDA are two sides of the same coin’: Sudhir Dhawale
First published: May 27, 2014
Round Table India / Interview with Sudhir Dhawale by Round Table India
Round Table India spoke to writer and political activist Sudhir Dhawale in Mumbai last week, after his release from a long term spent in prison due to false charges of being involved in Naxal activities. Arrested in January 2011, he was acquitted last week by Gondia’s sessions court after the police failed to produce substantial evidence against him.
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Why Sudhir Dhawale’s acquittal in a 2014 case of Naxal involvement is relevant to the Bhima Koregaon arrests
The Caravan Magazine / By Arshu John
On 6 June, in a joint operation across Delhi, Nagpur and Mumbai, the Pune Police arrested five individuals for allegedly being “top urban Maoist operatives” who incited the violence in Bhima Koregaon—a town in Maharashtra—this January. Sudhir Dhawale, one of the five accused, is a prominent Mumbai-based activist who has worked extensively on Dalit rights. He has previously been arrested, and subsequently acquitted, in another case of alleged involvement with Maoist rebels.
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Disinheriting Adivasis – The Gadchiroli Game Plan
KAFILA / By Vidhya A
In a statement issued on April 16 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) claimed that the ‘National Policy and Action Plan’ to combat Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is ‘a multi-pronged strategy involving security and development related measures’[1]. This new policy, apparently in place since the NDA government came to power at the centre, claims to have ‘zero tolerance towards violence coupled with a big push to developmental activities so that benefits of development reached the poor and vulnerable in the affected areas’.
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Indian journalist Sudhir Dhawale discusses his release from prison
First published: Jun 3, 2014
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)/ By Sumit Galhotra
After languishing in jail for 40 months, Mumbai-based journalist and activist Sudhir Dhawale has walked free. Dhawale was the only journalist in jail in India in late 2013, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. With his release, there are currently no other journalists behind bars in the country for work-related reasons.
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Why activists like Sudhir Dhawale are seen as a threat by the BJP govt
Catchnews / By Rajeev Khanna
The arrest of Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut in the Bhima-Koregaon case by Maharashtra Police under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, has stunned the civil society. They have been termed as ‘urban’ or just plain Naxalites for the ever gullible self-styled nationalists and their arrest would form a part of the political debates where nationalism is the flavour.
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