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Tag: prison conditions

Maharashtra: Families of Prison Inmates Worried / Lockdown for some, lockup for others

Maharashtra: Families of Prison Inmates Worried / Lockdown for some, lockup for others


Read PUCL Report: Imprisoned and Unsave

Lockdown for some, lockup for others

Deccan Chronicle / by Bela Bhatia

More humane provisions are needed for prisoners, including political prisoners and those charged under special laws.
It is obvious that the threat of the coronavirus, a communicable disease, is worst in places of high population density. The prison is one such place. About half a million persons are incarcerated in more than 1,300 jails scattered all over India. More than two thirds are undertrials… It is only high-profile cases like those of Binayak Sen, Varavara Rao and others incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case that attract national or even international attention. While this attention is justified, most people do not realise that thousands of powerless, impoverished people face similar or worse injustice.
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Maharashtra: Families of Prison Inmates with Co-morbidities and Age Issues Worried

News Click / by Varsha Torgalkar

Activists have been demanding the release of prisoners on health grounds. So far, six inmates have died of COVID-19 in prisons across state and 1,772 prisoners have tested positive out of total 11,267 tests conducted as per the Prison Department data.
Pune: On July 12, poet and activist Varavara Rao’s daughter addressed a press conference saying, “My father, Varavara Rao, an 81 years old poet, blabbered about his father’s funeral which was held 75 years ago. Whatever he talked was incoherent during the weekly call from prison to family. His co-prisoner, Vernon Gonsalves, told us that he is in no condition to walk and carry out his daily works,” The family had panicked after the call and held the press conference the next day.
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Byculla women’s prison – no bed or ceiling fan and a fear of covid-19 outbreak

Byculla women’s prison – no bed or ceiling fan and a fear of covid-19 outbreak

Live Mint / by Omkar Khandekar

The Byculla women’s prison complex has several high profile prisoners apart from the actor Rhea Chakraborty, including Shoma Sen, Sudha Bharadwaj and Indrani Mukherjea.
… Despite the opacity around India’s custody and incarceration system, reports over the years on the condition inside paint a poor picture of the prison.
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Maharashtra jails, hospitals: Iron curtain on Covid-19 ‘violates’ right to life, says PUCL

Maharashtra jails, hospitals: Iron curtain on Covid-19 ‘violates’ right to life, says PUCL

Counterview / by Counterview Desk

In first of the “Lockdown on Civil Liberties” series, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has pointed towards how many of the convicted prisoners in Maharashtra whose parole is depended on the prison authorities managed to get paroled as some of the prison authorities were keen to remove congestion amidst Covid-19 onslaught. However, undertrials, many them human rights activists and scholars, charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), failed to get bail even on pure humanitarian grounds.
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Report: Lockdown on Civil Liberties I – A PUCL (Maharashtra) series

03/09/2020

By PUCL (Maharashtra)

The Lockdown on Civil Liberties Series The lockdown and attendant issues have led to major violations of civil liberties and human rights… In this context the PUCL Maharashtra has decided to bring out various segmantwise reports to record the impact. While some of the reports like the present one focuses on Maharashtra others deal with all India situation.
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Why is Right to Health denied to political dissidents?

Why is Right to Health denied to political dissidents?

rediff.com / by Jyoti Punwani

The callousness with which these political dissidents are being treated goes against the Supreme Court’s directive, given right at the beginning of the lockdown.
The last few days have shown that the Right to Health, defined by the Supreme Court in more than one judgment as an integral part of the Right to Life, is being denied to the jailed intellectuals awaiting trial in the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Friends & family of Sudha Bharadwaj raise serious health concerns and seek her release

Friends & family of Sudha Bharadwaj raise serious health concerns and seek her release

Solidarity programs with Sudha Bharadwaj (click to enlarge)

Countercurrents / by friends and family of Sudha Bharadwaj

Keeping under trials in prison for two years deliberately stalling bail opportunities, with no effort for beginning the trial instead exposing them to serious health condition is a gross violation of rights of prisoners. This is further heightened in times of a global pandemic given the crowded situation in prisons…
Friends and family members of Sudha Bharadwaj gathered online Sunday to share series of serious concern over Sudha Bharadwaj’s health condition.
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What We Can Learn from Varavara Rao’s Prison Diary

What We Can Learn from Varavara Rao’s Prison Diary

News Click / by Shoili Kanungo

When all relations are defined by oppression and subjugation, and human relationships vanish, the oppressor fears the future.
… Captive Imagination is Varavara Rao´s prison journal from the 1980´s. It is a manual of life infused with love, longing, and the power of dreams and imagination – which he says are the limbs that support every prisoner and cannot be taken away.
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Prisons become breeding grounds for the coronavirus

Prisons become breeding grounds for the coronavirus


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Frontline / by Divya Trivedi

Overcrowded prisons across India have become fertile breeding grounds for the coronavirus.
As early as May, the International Legal Foundation, which has two decades of experience in protecting detainees impacted by infectious diseases, warned that it was not a question of if, but when, COVID-19 would overwhelm incarceration facilities.
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We are only as free as those we love / K Satyanrayana on Varavara Rao

We are only as free as those we love / K Satyanrayana on Varavara Rao

The Hindu Business / by Shriya Mohan

For the families of political prisoners, daily life is an endless rigmarole of legal battles for the bail of their loved ones.
The pandemic and the resulting curfew on prison visits and postal delivery have exacerbated the isolation of political prisoners like GN Saibaba, Varavara Rao, Dr Kafeel Khan, Sudha Bharadwaj and others, cutting them off further from their families — the very people who are rooting for their innocence and freedom.
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When the moon slips into Darkness: K Satyanrayana on Varavara Rao

15/08/2020

Gauri Lankesh News / by K Satyanarayana

A popular public speaker with eloquent oration and elephantine memory is now reduced to searching for words, incoherent delirium.
Varavara Rao, 80-year old Telugu revolutionary poet, now incarcerated in Bhima Koregaon case and ailing in Nanavati Hospital, should not be left to die, as he is a symbol of people’s poetry, chronicler of people’s movements, upholder of popular democracy and rule of law, a teacher and a public speaker. One can gauge his popularity from the world-wide upsurge of expressions of protest against his imprisonment and solidarity with him, pouring in for the last ten days.
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1.000 Taloja Jail inmates, including some BK case prisoners, have COVID-like symptoms, say families

1.000 Taloja Jail inmates, including some BK case prisoners, have COVID-like symptoms, say families


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

COVID-19, Political Prisoners, and the Overcrowding of Prisons

03/08/2020

Jurist / by Abhishek Chakravarty and Abhijit Rajkhowa

Barely a few months after news broke about a novel virus with the potential for a global pandemic, COVID-19 brought the entire world to a grinding halt … The virus has mercilessly affected all sections of our society whether rich or poor, young or old. Now the virus knocks at the door of a highly vulnerable group of people whose choices are limited – prisoners.
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1.000 Taloja Jail inmates, including some BK case prisoners, have COVID-like symptoms, say families

02/08/2020

Firstpost / by Parth MN

Anand Teltumbde’s family is anxiously awaiting his test results. The high court directed the state to inform the family on 1 August.
When Monali Raut spoke to her imprisoned brother Mahesh last week, it got her a bit worried. “He said almost half the prisoners in Taloja Central Prison have been suffering from flu, cough or cold in the past week,” she said.
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