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Tag: prison conditions

India Justice Report 2019 shows country’s failing criminal justice system

India Justice Report 2019 shows country’s failing criminal justice system


Pic: Arun Ferreira

Sabrgangindia.in / by Sanchita Kadam

India has only 1 police personnel for every 663 individuals. Most states and Union Territories (UTs) spend less than Rs. 100 per prisoner per day.
The report also states that in India, per capita public spending on legal aid is only Rs. 0.75 per annum. In a country where over 1.25 billion population is eligible for free legal aid, the per capita spending of 75 paise is quite a disgrace.
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Kolkata Prof Got an Alert From Yahoo Over ‘Govt-Backed’ Email Snooping Attempt

Kolkata Prof Got an Alert From Yahoo Over ‘Govt-Backed’ Email Snooping Attempt

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha and Anuj Srivas

Just around the time when news of Israeli spyware Pegasus being used to target activists and human rights lawyers was breaking in India, Partho Sarothi Ray, a 42-year-old Kolkata-based molecular biologist, was dealing with another peculiar problem.
… Although perturbed, Ray says he was not surprised. His activism and his writings have been considered anti-government. He has been organising and campaigning against incarceration of political prisoners in West Bengal. During his work, he says, he has come across several activists across the country, including those arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Rights are relative in New India: some have them, some cannot

Rights are relative in New India: some have them, some cannot

The Telegraph / by The Editorial Board

No country that claims to uphold human rights deprives prisoners of the right to self-improvement or the peaceful habit of reading. Yet Shalini Gera, an activist who went to visit the lawyer, Sudha Bharadwaj, imprisoned in Pune’s Yerwada jail since October 2018 for alleged links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the – rather enigmatic – Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, had her birthday gift of two books returned.
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Pendyala tag allows daughters to meet Varavara Rao in jail

Pendyala tag allows daughters to meet Varavara Rao in jail

The Times of India / by Srinath Vudali

Hyderabad: Three daughters of Pendyala Varavara Rao, key accused in the Elgar Parishad case, are happy they didn’t drop their surname after marriage.
As luck would have it, the decision to retain the “Pendyala” name has helped them meet Varavara Rao, who is lodged in Yerawada jail in Pune for the past one year.
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‘Life not comfortable in jail, Shoma has lost 7 kgs´

‘Life not comfortable in jail, Shoma has lost 7 kgs´

The Times of India / by Shishir Arya

Nagpur: “It’s Independence Day and the second year of my unfreedom begins. Last year on 14th August, I was shifted into the separate cell, my compact little world,” reads a letter written from Yerawada Jail by Shoma Sen, one of the five accused in Bhima Koregaon violence case, to her husband, Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya in Nagpur on August 15 this year.
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‘This too shall pass’: Sudha Bharadwaj’s daughter writes to her on her birthday

‘This too shall pass’: Sudha Bharadwaj’s daughter writes to her on her birthday

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

It was the second time, on Friday, that trade unionist and human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, lodged at Pune’s Yerwada jail for her alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence, spent her birthday away from home. In an emotional letter, her 22-year-old daughter, Maaysha, expressed how proud she is of her mother, and assured her that this too shall pass.
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‘My life hangs by a thread’: Activist Stan Swamy on Bhima Koregaon, Adivasi resistance in Jharkhand

‘My life hangs by a thread’: Activist Stan Swamy on Bhima Koregaon, Adivasi resistance in Jharkhand

Scroll.in / by Sneha Philip & Smarnita Shetty

Criminal justice procedures are being misused to repress undertrials in the state’s jails who are falsely accused of being Maoists.
In this interview Swamy discusses the emergence and growth of people’s movements, his work with young Adivasi undertrials who are falsely accused of being Maoists, the difficult choices that confront young Adivasis today and the ongoing case against him in connection with the Bhima Koregaon caste clashes near Pune in 2018.
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IDR Interviews Stan Swamy

IDR Interviews Stan Swamy

India Development Review (IDR) / by Sneha Philip and Smarinita Shetty

Stan Swamy [one of accused in the Bhima Koregaon case] is an activist, a social worker and a Jesuit priest who has spent many decades fighting for the rights of Adivasis in Jharkhand.
In this interview with IDR, Stan discusses the emergence and growth of people’s movements, his work with young Adivasi undertrials who are falsely accused of being Naxalites and the difficult choices that confront young Adivasis today.
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