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Tag: prison conditions

Poor Medical Care for Prisoners Explains Why Number of Custodial Deaths Is Only Rising

Poor Medical Care for Prisoners Explains Why Number of Custodial Deaths Is Only Rising


Drawing by Arun Ferreire

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

In 2018, 1,845 people died while incarcerated. That’s the highest number India has seen so far.
Mumbai: “I would see this one prison inmate being brought to the hospital every day for an entire week, and each time turned away. The escort police would invariably walk in around 2:30-3 pm, over an hour after the OPD (out-patient department) hours, and no doctor would be available to treat patients then. The inmate went untreated for over a week,” recalls a young doctor at Maharashtra’s state-run JJ hospital.
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Letters from jail: Elgaar Parishad detainees pen thoughts and experiences

Letters from jail: Elgaar Parishad detainees pen thoughts and experiences

Paintings by Arun Ferreira

The Indian Express / by Seema Chishti

The letters, which The Indian Express has access to, reveal a slice of their lives behind bars. Some talk about when they can possibly see the gallows, some are abstract ruminations on life and freedom, while some dwell on the circumstances of their arrest and merits of the case.
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Elgar Parishad case accused VV Rao, 82, hospitalised in Pune before hearing

Elgar Parishad case accused VV Rao, 82, hospitalised in Pune before hearing

Hindustan Times / by Shalaka Shinde

He was discharged on Wednesday evening.
Varavara Rao, 82, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, has been hospitalised on Wednesday when he was scheduled for a hearing in the case.
As per protocol, the accused are brought to a lock-up at the Shivajinagar district court premises and then brought to the specific court they are scheduled to appear in.
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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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