Over the top

The world’s most famous political prisoner was released today amidst jubilant supporters, hundreds and thousands of them, who flocked at her residence. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and Amnesty International’s most prominent prisoner of conscience was under house arrest with the latest period of detention spanning 7 1/2 years. She spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest or in jail.

Supporters flock as Aung San Suu Kyi is freed

In 1990, in her essay Freedom from Fear, she famously set right the equation between power and corruption expressed first by Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887.  Suu Kyi said–

‘It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it……..Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions, courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.’

Grace is Aung San Suu Kyi today.

Last week, one heard about the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) decision to impose a partial ban on The Baloch Hal, the first and only online newspaper that tells the story of Balochistan to the rest of Pakistan and the world-at-large. The reason for the ban, according to the PTA, was that The Baloch Hal published ‘anti-Pakistan material’. As expected, this vague claim remains unsubstantiated.
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The Nepali Dada declares that the older generation of Nepali citizens as the single most dangerous faction of people in Nepal. The official Nepali Dada Doctor in terms of reasons stated, “Old people are too old. Like a walkman trying to impress an ipods.” After much debate the Nepali Dada Party the official statement from the Nepali Dada Party stated, “We declare war on old people. We shall become death itself and kill off old people through our weapon of mass destruction – old age.”

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In a separate instance, the Nepali Dada Party is having a tough time controlling its male and female cadres, who having watched the Nepali mega blockbuster  movie “First Love” are raping everyone they fancy. (more…)

Ahmed Yusuf writes about the recent assassination of BNP-M Secretary-General Habib Jalib Baloch, and the life of his namesake.

BNP-M Secretary-General Habib Jalib Baloch

Habib Jalib Baloch, the secretary-general of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M), was gunned down on 14 July in Quetta, in what is believed to be a targeted attack. The incident took place in broad daylight, when Baloch was dropping his children off to school en route to work where he was to plead a case before a court of Pakistani law. (more…)

Meher Ali on Jairam Ramesh’s apology for the government’s role, 23 years ago, in the clandestine transportation of toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant to a TSD.

Jairam Ramesh, India’s Union minister of state for environment, apologised on Sunday. ‘Whoops!’ he said. The Madhya Pradesh government secretly transported 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal to a Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) facility in Indore in 2008, at a time when the curfew was imposed on the riot-affected city, the Times of India reported.

What do you say to that? ‘Go Ramesh!’ ‘Champion of transparency!’ ‘Of course you are not to be blamed. We agree, you were not the environment minister at that time, so environment was probably not one of your concerns.’

So what if 23 years ago, the country shook from the impact of the Bhopal gas tragedy. So what if the government that you work for has treated the victims of the tragedy with little more than contempt. So what that the state and central governments have both tried, with all their might, to brush Union Carbide’s role in the environment disaster, under the carpet?

You probably knew about it though didn’t you? For how long?

What happens now? Another Bhopal in the making, because we know it’ll probably take you another 20 years to shift the waste (clandestinely) to some other obscure place, or maybe you’ll wait for a riot to do the trick.

The UPA-II, it seems, is getting more arrogant by the day. Instead of chalking out a clear plan of action for disposing of toxic waste which has been in the country since 1984; instead of holding those responsible for the disaster accountable; instead of using this environmental disaster as a lesson in how to avoid similar tragedies, the government says, ‘Sorry! Whoops!’

Would it have been too much to expect the environment minister to have a plan of action on how he plans to now get rid of the toxic waste in Pithampur accompany his apology? Would it have been too much to ask him to explain how exactly he came to know of this and when? (Of course he would have to tell us the truth, which may be a stretch).

We want to know why the central and state government were working so hard to cover this up, not just in the 1980s but until 2008. We want to know how many Indian citizens’ lives equal that of Warren Anderson? We want to know if the government will take environmental hazards seriously or if it is waiting for another one to happen. When will it chalk out a clear plan of action with regard to compensation for victims of environmental disasters, protocols for cleaning up and emergency responses to such disasters?

We want to know if the government is serious about governance and if it values people over profits. The last point is important, because if it does not, as we have seen in the past; if the government is callous and irresponsible towards its people, if it treats corporations as kings and the people as ‘collateral damage’ in its quest to become a ’superpower,’ then the people may not accept. Whoops!

— The writer is the Assistant Editor (print) at Himal Southasian.