Quantcast
Channel: Huffington Post India
Viewing all 46147 articles
Browse latest View live

2019 Grammy Awards: The Wildest And Weirdest Red Carpet Looks

$
0
0
Where to begin? 

The 2019 Grammy Awards red carpet had multiple MAGA moments and more than a few fashion faux pas on Sunday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Singer and notorious red carpet troll Joy Villa showed up in a border wall-inspired dress, complete with a “Make America Great Again” purse and barbed wire-like material on her shoulders.

Joy Villa attends the 2019 Grammy Awards at Staples Center on Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.

Singer Ricky Rebel, another supporter of President Donald Trump, turned heads with a reversible white-to-blue sequined jacket that sported the words “Trump,” “2020” and “Keep America Great!” He paired the mirrored jacket with matching sunglasses, white pants and calf-length, heeled white boots. 

Rebel explained that he wore the jacket to promote his latest album, “The New Alpha.”

“I wanted to wear something that represented what an alpha is and who an alpha is and I am the new alpha,” Rebel told Entertainment Tonight. “And I’m reflecting millions of Americans out there who voted for Trump. Keep America great. That’s right, baby. We are here. We’re here all around the world, 50 million of us.” 

Ricky Rebel revealing his Trump jacket on the red carpet. 

Check out the rest of the wild looks below: 


Michelle Obama Made A Surprise Appearance At The 2019 Grammys And People Freaked

$
0
0

The 2019 Grammy Awards started off with a bang Sunday night. 

Alicia Keys began her opening monologue by bringing out an iconic cast of women, including former first lady Michelle Obama. Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith and Jennifer Lopez joined as well to share what music has done for them over the years. 

“They said I was weird. That my look, my choices, my sound, that it wouldn’t work. But music told me not to listen to them,” Lady Gaga said to the cheering crowd.

Lopez added that music gave her “a reason to dance” and brought her the success she has today. 

“It reminds me of where I come from but it also reminds me of all the places I can go,” she continued. “Music has always been the place we can all feel truly free.” 

Pinkett Smith reminded the crowd that we “express our pain, power and progress through music.” 

Obama barely got a word in before the audience erupted in applause. The former first lady paused before dropping some wisdom on the crowd.

“Music has always helped me tell my story... whether we like country or rap or rock, music helps us share ourselves, our dignity and sorrows, our hopes and joys,” she said. “It allows us to hear one another. To invite one another in.” 

Keys closed out the historic moment, telling the crowd, “Tonight we celebrate the greatness in each other. All of us,” later adding, “Who runs the world?”

Watch the iconic moment in its entirety below. 

Obama posted a photo of the historic group on Instagram after her surprise appearance, writing that she was “thrilled” to share the stage with such amazing women.  

“For me, a big part of friendship is showing up for your girls ― whether that’s for a birthday, a quick catch-up after work, or a major milestone,” Obama wrote to Lady Gaga, Pinkett Smith, Lopez and Keys. “So I was thrilled to be there for the one and only @aliciakeys at the #GRAMMYs. She is one of the most genuine, caring, and thoughtful people I know ― there’s no one better to help us all celebrate the unifying power of music!”

People on Twitter, obviously, freaked out over Obama’s appearance at the Grammys. 

“There are world famous pop stars in the audience hyperventilating over Michelle Obama,” Twitter user Charlotte Clymer wrote. “That really says it all.”

Another user added: “I literally screamed when Michelle Obama got on stage at the #Grammy2019.” 

Scroll below to read more reactions from Twitter users. 

Elizabeth Warren Suggests Trump May Be In Prison By 2020

$
0
0
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks to local residents during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Sunday.

President Donald Trump could soon be trading the White House for the big house if you ask Elizabeth Warren.

The Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate suggested at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Sunday that Trump, who is facing an ongoing federal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, may be behind bars by the next presidential election.

“By the time we get to 2020, Donald Trump may not even be president,” she said to applause. “In fact, he may not even be a free person.”

Warren went on to depict Trump as being “the symptom of a badly broken system,” which she said requires not a reaction, but action.

“So our job, as we start rolling into the next election, is not just to respond on a daily basis, it’s to talk about what we understand that is broken in this country, talk about what needs to be done to change it, and talk about how we’re going to do it,” she said. “Because that is not only how we win, it’s how we make the change we need to make.”

Warren’s direct hit at Trump comes one day after Trump recycled his use of “Pocohontas” as a racial slur against Warren after she announced her candidacy for president.

“Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President,” he tweeted, ignoring tribal leaders’ past calls to stop using the name of a historical Native American figure to criticize a political opponent. “Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!”

His capitalization of the word “trail” also sparked backlash over the apparent reference to the “Trail of Tears,” which was the extremely brutal and forced relocation of Native Americans by the government.

Warren has taken heat for claims to Native American ancestry. She apologized to the Cherokee Nation earlier this month for releasing a DNA test in an attempt to prove it. 

H/T Mediaite

Grammys 2019: Everything You Missed During This Year's Ceremony

$
0
0

With what felt like about 800 performances in the space of three and a half hours, with a couple of awards dished out every 45 minutes or so, it’s fair to say that this year’s Grammys were a jam-packed affair.

Because there was so much to take in, we’ve done a helpful guide to the night’s most important, silliest and at times cringiest moments, just in case you had better things to do on a Sunday night than watching the show live.

Y’know, like sleeping for example.

Here are our 21 biggest moments of this year’s Grammys...

1. Camila Cabello’s star-studded opening number

Opening the biggest show in the music calendar is a daunting task for any artist, but fortunately Camila Cabello had a full production to get the night off with a bang.

Starting with a performance of her chart-topping hit Havana, performed against an elaborate and colourful backdrop, she was joined by a host of all-star guests, including singers J Balvin and Ricky Martin, musician Arturo Sandoval and rapper Young Thug.

2. The introduction of the all-star girl group we really deserve in 2019

As presenter Alicia Keys assured Grammy viewers she had every intention of “taking care” of us, she swiftly delivered by an amazing handful of powerful women, including Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez and, oh yeah, the literal former First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Reminding everyone what the night was really about, each of the women revealed what music meant to them, with Michelle saying: ““Music has always helped me tell my story... whether we like country or rap or rock, music helps us share ourselves, our dignity and sorrows, our hopes and joys. It allows us to hear one another. To invite one another in.”

Alicia said it best as she asked the crowd: “Who run the world?”

3. Shawn Mendes and Miley Cyrus perform a duet 

The Grammys are renowned for their big-name collaborations, and this year saw Miley Cyrus joining Shawn Mendes on stage to help him beef up an already-powerful rendition of his recent hit In My Blood.

They also both went sleeveless, which we weren’t mad about, either.

4. Janelle Monáe completely steals the show

There was just no question that Janelle Monáe delivered the performance of the night.

She sang, she served choreography, she gave us looks, she played guitar, she  made statements about feminism and sexuality – and she made it look absolutely effortless.

Janelle Monáe is quite simply a top-notch talent, and even at her best like she was during the Grammys, there’s an exciting feeling that the best is yet to come. A real capital “m” Moment.

5. John Mayer and Alicia Keys come full circle 

Ahead of the Song Of The Year result, Grammys host Alicia Keys was joined on stage by musician John Mayer, and recalled the year they were both up in that same category.

“When hero Stevie Wonder opened up that card,” she recalled. “And started reading in Braille... I knew he was going to feel my name.”

A clip from that night then revealed that John Mayer was its actual winner, but Alicia revealed that after the show, he split his Grammy in two so they could share it, as he felt she deserved it as much as he did.

The two then revealed that Childish Gambino – one of several nominees not in attendance – was this year’s recipient, for his critically-acclaimed track This Is America, which also won Best Music Video and Record Of The Year.

6. An absolutely killer tribute to Dolly Parton

What could be better than stars like Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves coming together to pay homage to the Queen of Country, Dolly Parton?

Why, the woman herself joining them on stage for a group performance of 9 To 5, of course.

Dolly also gave a solo rendition of her recent track Red Shoes, reminding everyone that she’s a force to be reckoned with, and there’s a reason she’s lasted so long in the music industry.

8. Cardi B slays everyone with Money performance

This performance was pretty much everything we love about Cardi B. It was in-your-face, it was loud, it was confident, it was totally extra, it was brilliant.

No, we’re not 100% convinced there wasn’t a bit of *ahem* help in the ol’ vocal department, but who else in the industry right now is going to give us a perfectly-executed twerking routine on top of a grand piano, before giving a shout out to her infant daughter and strutting about in a leopard-print peacock tail?

9. Although we probably could have done without this red carpet moment

Wow.

10. ...and this one, come to think of it

*sigh*

11. Alicia Keys couldn’t resist performing herself

And this was no “James Corden and Kylie Minogue at the Brit Awards” moment, Alicia Keys’ performance was one of our faves of the night.

Sitting down to not one but two pianos (a single piano performance is so passé, don’t you think), she went through some of the songs she “wishes she’d written”, covering artists like Coldplay, Kings Of Leon, Ella Mai, Lauryn Hill, Roberta Flack and Nat King Cole.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be an Alicia Keys set without a bit of Empire State Of Mind, which she ended on a powerful rendition of, even though this year’s Grammys were actually held in LA.

12. Was that... Drake?!

Yeah, despite leaving everyone under the impression he wouldn’t be showing up to the Grammys this year (even swerving the red carpet completely), Drake made a surprise appearance when God’s Plan was named Best Rap Song.

During his acceptance speech, he began musing about how unimportant awards shows actually are, only for Grammys bosses to suddenly pull the plug on him, which we’re sure was a total coincidence.

13. Diana Ross’ grandson, Raif-Henok Emmanuel Kendrick

“Did she say little guy? I’m almost four foot nine.”

Absolutely adorable.

14. Diana Ross’ performance was all kinds of iconic

We’re not sure where to even start with this one. Diana Ross was invited to perform to commemorate her upcoming 75th birthday, and after a cute introduction from her aforementioned adorable grandson, she gave an enthusiastic rendition of The Best Years Of My Life.

She then moved on to Reach Out And Touch (Somebody’s Hand), urging everyone to put up their hands and “move the energy of the room”. She then moved into the audience, began putting her microphone into people’s faces and inviting them to sing along, before remind them not to “be lazy” and continue moving their hands.

Miss Ross ended by wishing herself a happy birthday (“happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me”), despite the fact that her birthday isn’t actually until the end of last month.

There was nothing we didn’t love about it.

15. Lady Gaga’s performance of Shallow was... energetic

With Bradley Cooper in the UK for the Baftas, Gaga was left flying solo for this performance of their Grammy-winning duet, and she was fully ready to rock out.

Unfortunately, the song she was performing didn’t really allow for this, meaning she was left head-banging, hair-flipping and doing jerking dance moves to an emotional low-tempo ballad.

Still, she gets full points for that growl midway through, which we’re never not in the mood for.

16. Smokey Robinson and Alicia Keys do an impromptu duet

Live awards show moments like this always have the potential to be toe-curling and uncomfortable, but the mutual respect from this pair as they traded lines on Tracks Of My Tears actually just made for an impressive a capella rendition.

17. Cardi B has a rare speechless moment as she wins Best Rap Album

And yes, Offset obviously joined her on stage for her speech...

18. But not everyone was impressed with Cardi’s win

Ariana Grande has since insisted she wasn’t calling Cardi “trash”, but was actually upset that the Grammys invited Mac Miller’s family to the awards show despite the fact he didn’t win anything.

19. Dua Lipa’s acceptance speech was our favourite of the night

Immediately after performing a duet with fellow singer/songwriter St Vincent, Dua Lipa was awarded Best New Artist, taking the opportunity to throw shade at Grammys boss Neil Portnow over his comments about women in music last year.

She also told viewers: “I have one thing that I really want to say... for anyone that hasn’t realised how special they are to have a different story, a different background, or a name that honours their roots because they just want to be norma – whatever the hell that means – just know that no matter where you’re from or your background or what you believe in, never let that get in the way of your dreams because you deserve it.

“And I’m proof that you can do whatever you put your mind to.”

Regrettably, by that stage of the night, time was really getting on, and producers pulled the plug before she had the chance to finish up.

Still, a good speech all the same.

20. This remarkable tribute to Aretha Franklin

If you’re going to put together a tribute performance to Aretha Franklin, then you are going to have to bring vocals. Luckily, Fantasia, Andra Day and Yolanda Adams nailed it, delivering a version of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman that the Queen Of Soul would be proud of.

21. Kacey Musgraves wins Album Of The Year

This year’s top award went to country singer Kacey Musgraves, who won four awards over the course of the evening including Best Album, Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Album.

She beat stiff competition from Cardi B, Janelle Monáe, Post Malone and Drake, and dedicated the victory to her husband.

Priyanka, Rahul And Jyotiraditya Begin Congress Road Show In Lucknow

$
0
0

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, general secretaries for eastern and western Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia reached Lucknow at noon on Monday to begin their roadshow. 

They were welcomed by jubilant Congress workers and MP Raj Babbar. In what is being seen as the Grand Old Party’s effort to revive its strongholds in UP, Priyanka Gandhi made her first public appearance since she stepped into active politics. While she has campaigned for her brother Rahul and mother Sonia, this is the first time she is participating in a rally officially as a Congress leader. 

The Congress leaders were seen passing through the streets of Lucknow, amid much fanfare and a good turnout, on top of a volvo bus. 

PTI reported that when the trio embarked on a roughly 25-km-long roadshow through major thoroughfares of the state capital, rose petals were sprinkled and marigold garlands showered at their cavalcade.

A day before her maiden visit to the state as Congress general secretary in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi said she hopes to start a “new kind of politics” in which everyone will be a stakeholder.

Here are some photos and videos from the road show.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the visit. Special Protection Group personnel, who provide security to the Gandhis, on Thursday visited the UPCC office, party sources told PTI.

Priyanka Gandhi will meet leaders and office-bearers from 42 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh (East) during her visit till February 14.

“Congress workers are excited about the visit of party leaders and we are awaiting to give them a rousing welcome... We hope that with her (Priyanka Vadra) joining active politics, the state will also get a new energy,” chief state Congress spokesperson Rajiv Bakshi said.

“This is a very auspicious time for us and a good omen for the party,” he said.

 (With PTI inputs)

'Many Other Things To Be Frightened About Now,' Says Salman Rushdie, 30 Years After Fatwa

$
0
0

PARIS — After decades spent in the shadow of a death sentence pronounced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Salman Rushdie is quietly defiant.

“I don’t want to live hidden away,” he told AFP during a visit to Paris.

The novelist’s life changed forever on February 14, 1989, when Iran’s spiritual leader ordered Rushdie’s execution after branding his novel The Satanic Verses blasphemous.

Like a kind of reverse Valentine, Tehran renewed the fatwa year after year.

Rushdie, who some say is the greatest writer India has produced since Tagore, spent 13 years living under a false name and constant police protection.

“I was 41 back then, now I am 71. Things are fine now,” he said in September.

“We live in a world where the subject changes very fast. And this is a very old subject. There are now many other things to be frightened about ― and other people to kill,” he added ruefully.

Rushdie stopped using an assumed name in the months after September 11 2001, three years after Tehran had said the threat against him was “over”.

But armed plainclothes police nonetheless sat outside the door of his French publisher’s office in Paris during an interview with AFP. Several others had taken up positions in the courtyard.

Earlier, Rushdie had assured a sceptical audience at a book festival in eastern France that he led a “completely normal life” in New York, where he has lived for nearly two decades.

“I take the subway,” he said. 

The Satanic Verses was Rushdie’s fifth book, he has now written his 18th. 

Titled The Golden House, it is about a man from Mumbai, who much like the author, reinvents himself in the Big Apple in a bid to shake off his past.

The dark years of riots, bomb plots and the murder of one of the book’s translators and the shooting and stabbing of two others now “feels like a very long time ago,” he said.

“Islam was not a thing. No one was thinking in that way,” he explained of the period when The Satanic Verses was written.

“One of the things that has happened is that people in the West are more informed than they used to be,” he added.

Even so, the book was greatly misunderstood, he insisted: “Really it’s a novel about South Asian immigrants in London.” 

Rushdie’s friend, the British Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi, reckons no one “would have the balls today to write The Satanic Verses, let alone publish it.” 

But even Kureishi, who wrote an acclaimed novel The Black Album in its aftermath about young British Muslims radicalising themselves, admitted that he never saw the controversy coming when he read a proof copy.

He mused: “I didn’t notice anything about it that might rouse the fundamentalists. I saw it as a book about psychosis, about newness and change.” 

Indian author and journalist Salil Tripathi of PEN International, which campaigns for writers’ rights, said he hoped major publishers would still be brave enough to publish The Satanic Verses.

“I have not totally lost hope, but undoubtedly the Rushdie case has created a mental brake. A lot of subjects are now seen as taboo,” he conceded.

Today, intimidation is carried out by foot soldiers rather than declared by governments, he said, suggesting that now all religious clerics have to do to rouse the angry masses is to voice their dislike for a publication.

Priyanka Gandhi Makes Twitter Debut Ahead Of Lucknow Road Show

$
0
0

Congress general secretary for easter Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on Monday made her Twitter debut and amassed thousands of followers soon after. 

While she hasn’t tweeted yet, Congress announced her official handle on the microblogging site.

Accompanied by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and in-charge of the western region, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Priyanka is holding a massive roadshow in Lucknow on Monday. 

The Congress is expecting the visit to become a virtual launch of its campaign in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of Lok Sabha elections due by May.

Priyanka will meet leaders and office-bearers from 42 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh (East) during her visit till 14 February.

Recently BSP chief Mayawati also joined Twitter and the party said she decided to do so “for speedy interaction with media and masses, besides expressing her views on various issues of national and political importance.”

(With PTI inputs)

'Super 30': Anurag Kashyap Roped In By Hrithik Roshan To Oversee Post-Production Work

$
0
0

Anurag Kashyap has agreed to oversee the post-production work of Hrithik Roshan-starrer Super 30, which had gone into limbo after its director Vikas Bahl was accused of sexually assaulting a woman, HuffPost India has learnt.

Kashyap confirmed the news, saying, “At the moment I am getting Womaniya (another production) started, but yes, I will be overseeing the post-production of Super 30.”

Kashyap and Bahl were partners at the now-defunct Phantom Films, which was dissolved hours before HuffPost India published a detailed account of the allegations against Bahl. 

The Roshans, who are also co-producers of Super 30, had distanced themselves from Bahl after the story was published, and the film’s release had been delayed by months. It is now scheduled to release on 26 July.

Sources said that lead star Hrithik Roshan was keen to have Kashyap supervise the post-production work, although the director agreed to come on board only after Bahl gave his consent and said that he had no objection to the decision.

Yes, I will be overseeing the post-production of Super 30Anurag Kashyap

Kashyap, who previously edited Bahl’s Queen, will be closely involved with the film’s editing to help finish the project ahead of its release date.

While the film’s producers Reliance Entertainment released a statement over the weekend saying that the film is being ‘currently completed with in-house creative resources,’ Kashyap confirmed to HuffPost India that he agreed to supervise the project only after the production house had taken Bahl’s consent.

Kashyap will not be taking any credits for his new role in Super 30.

Asked what made him agree to work on Super 30, given the history between him and Bahl, Kashyap said, “There are at least 30 new people debuting with this film. It’s just out of responsibility for the money put in production.”

Kashyap also shut down rumours of a patch-up between Bahl and him.

“It’s utter crap,” he said, refuting stories that suggested that the one-time close friends and business partners have repaired their relationship.

Bahl has disputed the account published by HuffPost India, and has filed a defamation case against Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. The suit also names HuffPost India, the Times Group of Publications and the Deccan Chronicle newspaper.

HuffPost India has sent a message to Hrithik Roshan and will update this story when he responds.


'BJP Isn't Invincible': Chinese Daily's Warning And Advice To PM Modi

$
0
0

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rattled after its defeat in the five state elections in December 2018 and polls predicting that NDA will fall short of the majority mark in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received advice from an unlikely source. 

An op-ed piece in China’s state-run Global Times said, “If the BJP wants to win the 2019 election, the priority should be to win people’s hearts and improve their livelihoods, not visiting a disputed region and hyping nationalism.”

Global Times is run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

While protesting against the Prime Minister’s recent visit to Arunachal Pradesh, the piece went on to say that “nationalism has been rising in India and the country’s current conditions are unfavorable for Modi’s re-election.”

After the defeat in the five-state elections, it says that Modi has understood that his party is not invincible.

In what seems like a warning to Modi, the piece further said that if “Modi wants to solicit votes by hyping up nationalism, he will not only hinder India’s political and economic development but also harm China-India relations.”

China had strongly objected to Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying saying, “China’s position on the China-India boundary question is consistent and clear-cut. The Chinese government has never recognised the so-called ‘Arunachal Pradesh’ and is firmly opposed to the Indian leader’s visit to the East Section of the China-India boundary.”

India asserted that Arunachal Pradesh is its “integral and inalienable” part after China’s opposition. The Ministry of External Affairs said India has conveyed its “consistent position” on the issue to China on several occasions.

(With PTI inputs)

'It's Like Indira Is Back': Congress Pins UP Hopes On Priyanka Gandhi

$
0
0

LUCKNOW — Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her political debut on Monday with a roadshow drawing thousands in India’s most populous state months before a general election due by May.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi pulled a surprise last month by appointing his younger sister a party general secretary. She will also be its face in Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends the highest number of lawmakers to the Lok Sabha and is currently dominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

But a string of BJP defeats in state elections late last year and rising discontent over a weak farm economy and lacklustre jobs growth have weakened Modi’s position, which an increasingly aggressive Congress is looking to capitalise on.

The 47-year-old Priyanka — she is usually referred to by just her first name — bears a striking resemblance to her grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and is known for her gifts as a speaker able to connect with voters. Congress hopes that the eyeballs she’s able to generate will turn into votes.

“It’s like Indira Gandhi has come back,” said Fuzail Ahmed Khan, 45, a Congress supporter. “The state’s farmers want Rahul Gandhi to be prime minister, Priyanka to be chief minister.”

Indira Gandhi, India’s only woman prime minister known as the “Iron Lady”, was criticised for suspending civil liberties for nearly two years starting in 1975.

Posters of Priyanka lined the streets of the state capital, Lucknow, and hundreds of Congress supporters, accompanied by drummers, chanted her name after she emerged from the airport with her brother.

The siblings later waved at supporters from atop a bus as it slowly made its way out of the airport for the 20 km roadshow.

Congress officials hope Priyanka’s entry into politics will improve its chances across Uttar Pradesh, a vast agrarian state of 220 million people that the BJP nearly swept in the last general election in 2014, winning 73 of the 80 seats there. 

I hope that we can together start a new kind of politics.Priyanka Gandhi

Although Priyanka has helped manage elections for her brother and her mother, former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, she has never held an official party post until now.

“I hope that we can together start a new kind of politics,” she said in an audio message shared by Congress.

Since the announcement of Priyanka’s entry into politics, India’s financial crime-fighting agency Enforcement Directorate has questioned her husband, Robert Vadra, for several hours in a case relating to alleged ownership of 1.9 million pounds ($2.45 million) of undisclosed assets abroad. His lawyer and Congress have dismissed the charges as politically motivated.

Priyanka, who drew more than 42,000 followers soon after joining Twitter on Monday, will spend three days in Lucknow meeting workers from more than 40 constituencies.

Described by Congress officials as a gifted orator and a strong manager, Priyanka has been entrusted with resuscitating the party’s organisation in the state, where it has endured a succession of crushing results.

From 21 seats in the 2009 general election in Uttar Pradesh, Congress’ tally fell to just 2 in 2014.

Massive And Terrifying ‘God Emperor Trump’ Presides Over Parade In Italy

$
0
0

A massive likeness of US President Donald Trump mashed up with the “God-Emperor” character of the Warhammer 40K video games presided over a parade in Italy over the weekend.   

The float at the Viareggio Carnevale featured a giant Twitter sword and clawed hand, and was animated to turn and shift as it moved through the procession.

Fabrizio Galli, who created the float, said in an interview that the sword contains a phrase that can mean “here’s your fucking tariffs,” according to Heavy.com. 

“It’s a joke, but in fact he’s trying to destroy nations with the economy instead of nuclear missiles,” he was quoted as saying. “This is one of the strongest actions, let’s say, that powerful people like Trump can use.”

Galli went into more depth on the festival’s website, which listed the float’s title as “The Master Drone” and referred to the president as “God Emperor Trump.”

He wrote: 

“Donald wants to go back to the moon, travel to Mars and create the first space army. Ultras Marines? Mega Marines? The time of intellectuals, philosophers and of old and worn culture is over. We have entered the era of fantasy, videogames and virtual life.”

The Master-Drone flies over the Viareggio boardwalk as we prepare to pay the price,” he added. 

Chandrababu Naidu's Day-Long Fast Turns Into Show Of Opposition Unity

$
0
0

NEW DELHI — Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s day-long fast demanding special status for his state on Monday became a rallying point for the opposition, which got together for the second time in less than a month to present a united front against the government.

Bringing state issues on a central stage, a series of opposition leaders made a beeline for Andhra Bhavan, where Naidu staged his protest.

Those who met Naidu included former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, National Congress chairperson Farooq Abdullah, NCP’s Majeed Memon, Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’ Brien, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, Loktantrik Janata Dal’s Sharad Yadav, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The last time the parties came together the same way was on 19 January, when 22 opposition parties supported West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in her agitation against the CBI’s alleged misconduct.

The TDP president is demanding that the Centre fulfil promises made during Andhra Pradesh’s bifurcation in 2014 and alleges that Modi was not following ‘raj dharma’ by denying the state special status.

“The prime minister has stolen from the people from Andhra Pradesh and he has given that money to Anil Ambani. That is the fact of the matter,” Gandhi alleged at the protest venue in an apparent reference to the Rafale fighter jet deal with France.

The government and Ambani have rejected Gandhi’s allegations of corruption in the deal.

O’Brien recalled Modi’s speech in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, on Sunday and said he didn’t talk about development or special category status but “started a personal attack”.

“Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others...BC is before chaiwala and AD is after dhoka...Modi has lost all his allies and formed a new ally in CBI,” he alleged.

The PM in his rally had remarked that Naidu was a senior, but only in losing elections, switching alliances and ditching his father-in-law, NT Rama Rao.

Lashing out at the prime minister, Abdullah said, Modi has stooped so low. He’s making personal attacks against Naidu, who is doing great service for the country.

“The Jammu-Srinagar highway is closed for six days. They cannot clear the 30km road, but they want to rule the country,” he added.

Adding his voice to the chorus of criticism, Memon alleged that the Central government was meting out step motherly treatment to the state and the BJP was attacking Naidu because he has taken the lead in uniting rival parties against it.

We will show the BJP its place in the elections. I assure you on behalf of Sharad Pawar ji, Memon stated.

SP leader, Yadav said he was not well but had come to show endorse Naidu’s stand.

“Naidu is fighting the battle for the poor, the farmers and all those who are oppressed,” he added.

Stating that Naidu was fighting for a just cause, DMK leader Siva said the Modi government would be ousted in three months.

“The powers of the state are being encroached upon...the rights of the minorities are being violated.”

The TDP had walked out the BJP-led NDA last year protesting the “injustice” done to Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation.

Loktantrik Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav blamed the Modi government for unemployment, joblessness which he said were a result of demonetisation.

The Constitution is being systematically destroyed, added former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who gave the BJP its first government in the Northeast 16 years ago.

Congress leaders Anand Sharma, Ahmed Patel and Jairam Ramesh were also at the venue to express their support.

Kejriwal hit out at the prime minister over the alleged mistreatment meted out to states being run by governments of opposition parties.

One may have voted for any party but after elections, whoever wins and becomes the CM, is the CM of the entire state and not of a particular party. Similarly, when one becomes the PM, then he is the PM of the entire country, not just one party.

The way PM Modi treats governments of opposition parties in states, he behaves like he is not the PM of India but PM of Pakistan, Kejriwal said.

Naidu’s ‘Dharma Porata Deeksha’ (a day-long protest for justice), which began at 8 am, is likely to end at around 8 pm. He will also submit a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind on 12 February.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Summoned By Parliamentary Panel On 25 February

$
0
0

NEW DELHI — The Parliamentary panel on information technology Monday summoned the CEO of microblogging site Twitter to appear before it on 25 February, according to the committee’s chairman.

Sources said the panel members took a serious note about the Twitter head not appearing before it on Monday.

The committee’s chairman and BJP MP Anurag Thakur said Twitter head and other representatives have been “summoned” to appear before it on 25 February.

Representatives from the India office of Twitter had reached the Parliament annex to attend the panel’s scheduled meeting but they were not called into the meeting.

The committee meeting was scheduled for 7 February but was later postponed to 11 February to allow the Twitter CEO and senior officials more time to make themselves available, the sources had said on Saturday.

Jack Dorsey is the CEO of Twitter.

Sachin Pilot's Remarks On MP Cow Slaughter NSA Show Congress Confusion Yet Again

$
0
0

On Sunday, Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot said his government would have handled the “cow issue” differently from how Congress colleague Kamal Nath’s government has in Madhya Pradesh.

“It is fine to protect animals that are sacred and I believe in that too, but I think we could have done a better job by prioritising those issues first and then taken on the cow issue. I think that for Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Kamal Nath is the best person to decide on the issue, but for Rajasthan, this is what I feel,” he said.

Pilot’s comments, made at The Hindu Huddle Conclave, came after the Congress government in MP last week charged five men in two cases under the National Security Act for alleged cow slaughter and illegal transportation of cattle.

Many states in India, especially in the Hindi heartland, are grappling with an overrun of stray cows that destroy crops after the BJP government’s ill-thought-out decision to ban cow slaughter without providing other resources for farmers to care for their ageing livestock.

The Congress had faced criticism for following the BJP’s script on cow protection after including a promise to construct gaushalas in its Madhya Pradesh manifesto.

But even here, as with other issues, the Congress seems to be confused about which constituency of voters it is appealing to. While Pilot’s comments echo the sentiments expressed by other senior Congress leaders such as P Chidambaram, Digvijaya Singh and Salman Khurshid, who had also criticised the move, spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the party would not interfere in the matter, leaving it to CM Kamal Nath.

The divided views emerging from the party are similar to its position on the Sabarimala row. While the party’s Kerala unit vehemently opposed the state Left government’s efforts to implement the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all ages to enter the temple, party president Rahul Gandhi backed women’s entry, while Sonia Gandhi intervened to prevent senior MPs from holding a “black band” protest. Later, Rahul drew criticism for tweaking his position and saying he sees the merit of the protesters’ argument as well.

The Congress in Kerala found itself on the backfoot on the issue, often echoing the BJP’s arguments while trying to explain its stand.

While placing itself diametrically opposite to the BJP at the centre, Congress has found itself aligning more and more with the saffron party’s ideological positions at the state level. 

The party’s lack of a comprehensive ‘line’ on these issues betrays an uncertainty in comprehending who its voters actually are and what they want.

Congress Will Play On 'Front Foot' In UP, Says Rahul Gandhi At Roadshow With Priyanka

$
0
0

LUCKNOW — Asserting that Congress will “play on front foot” in Uttar Pradesh, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he and his party will not sit idle till it forms a government in the state and that is the mandate given to Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

During a roadshow that marked his sister Priyanka’s first public event after being appointed as national general secretary with charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, the Congress president said he has asked her and Scindia, who has been made general secretary for western UP, their mandate is to bring a government in the state that will ensure justice for all.

“Their aim is definitely the Lok Sabha elections, but also to bring a Congress government here,” he said.

Asking crowd to repeat his “chowkidar chor hai” (guard is the thief) barb against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in connection with the Congress party’s corruption allegation in the Rafale fighter jet deal, Gandhi alleged that the prime minister has “stolen” money from Uttar Pradesh and other states to benefit industrialist Anil Ambani. 

The government and Ambani’s Reliance Group have denied the allegations levelled against them by Congress and other opposition parties.

On Uttar Pradesh, where his party is struggling to regain lost grounds, the Congress chief said, “Uttar Pradesh is the centre (and) heart of country. I have made Priyanka and Scindiaji general secretaries and told them that they have to fight injustice that is rampant in the state for years. They have to fight against it and bring a government that gives justice.”

Priyanka and Scindia were recently appointed by him as Congress general secretaries with charge of eastern and western UP, respectively, keeping in mind the Lok Sabha elections expected to take place in April-May. The Congress party had fared miserably in the state during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections by winning just two of 80 seats in the state.

Using a cricket analogy, he said the Congress will play on the front foot and not on the back foot in the state.

“Till a Congress ideology government is installed here (UP), we will not sit idle and ensure justice to the farmers, the youth, the poor,” he added.


Jennifer Aniston Turns 50 With Her Famous Friends And Ex Brad Pitt

$
0
0

Jennifer Aniston turns 50 on Monday. If that makes you feel old, some photo booth pictures (see below) from her birthday party over the weekend might lift your spirits.

The bash, at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles, sported A-listers like Kate Hudson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Ellen DeGeneres, George and Amal Clooney and ― Aniston’s ex-husband Brad Pitt, People reported.

Her friends from “Friends,” Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, were at Saturday’s shindig, too

If anybody knows how to mug for the camera in a photo booth, it’s famous people.

Check out the party snaps below.

She Spoke Up About Sexual Harassment At Ernst & Young And Got Caught In A Web Of Retaliation

$
0
0
Karen Ward outside her home in Waxhaw, North Carolina. She is suing major consulting company Ernst and Young for sexual discrimination.

WAXSHAW, N.C. ― When Karen Ward started at Ernst & Young in 2013, only four senior managers in her division at the consulting megafirm were women. All the partners were men.

This was a red flag, but she didn’t see it then.

After all, Ward spent her career surrounded by men, working in the overwhelmingly male world of investment banking — at Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, a stint as a vice president at Goldman Sachs.

“It never crossed my mind to even notice or be bothered there weren’t women in leadership positions,” Ward, 48, told HuffPost recently in her well-appointed house in Waxshaw, a small bedroom community near Charlotte.

She sees it differently now. EY’s lack of female leaders is no accident, she said, but the result of a hostile environment where women are demeaned, devalued and isolated.

Ward filed a sexual discrimination complaint in late September against EY at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that handles civil rights complaints. It was the second sex discrimination complaint filed last year against the firm, which employs 261,000 people worldwide.

She claims she was sexually harassed by her direct supervisor, Michael McNamara, who she said told her he liked her “great big boobs” and “nice ass” and worked to undermine her authority, stealing credit for her work.

McNamara did not respond to requests for comment. EY said he denied this behavior.

But those incidents were only the start of Ward’s troubles. What followed was a complex web of retaliation that she is still trying to process.

She said that for years the men in McNamara’s circle undermined her work and that even after he was eventually fired, she experienced retaliation from a whole boys’ club in his network, eventually losing her job and hundreds of thousands of dollars — at a minimum — in potential earnings.

Her story shows the limits of the Me Too era. Simply firing or forcing out a sexual harasser often does little to change a company’s culture, as she learned. It’s also a reminder that, for women, privilege can’t always confer protection from sexual discrimination and harassment. Degrees from Stanford and Wharton and roots in the upper echelons of Wall Street hardly warded off harassment.

What happened to Ward contradicts the picture EY likes to paint of itself as an enlightened company committed to diversity and inclusion.

The firm vigorously and repeatedly insisted that her firing had nothing to do with sexual harassment or discrimination. “Throughout her time at the firm, EY took measures to promote and support Karen,” the company told HuffPost in a statement. “The decision to separate Karen was wholly unrelated to her gender. It was solely related to her inability to meet performance goals.”

HuffPost is the only news outlet to speak to Ward, who received some attention in September when she filed her complaint.

Told in a series of interviewsover the phone and in person at her home, her story was corroborated by 22 contemporaneous emails, one letter and meeting notes she sent to EY executives, as well as interviews with two other former EY employees anda close friend in whom she confided in throughout the ordeal.

Ernst & Young CEO Mark Weinberger has spoken publicly about his commitment to gender equality but has not said anything about Ward's case or responded to her request to make her lawsuit public.

Sleepless Nights Are Not Uncommon

Born and raised in California, Ward moved to New York City to get her start in finance, working endless hours in investment banking. On 9/11 she was walking to work at Goldman Sachs’ headquarters, a few blocks from the World Trade Center, when the planes hit.

The bank’s CEO Hank Paulson and President John Thain were downstairs at 85 Broad Street, she recalled, telling people to go up to their desks, despite the chaos. Unconvinced, Ward and a friend took off walking. In the ensuing weeks, unable to go back home to her downtown apartment, she wound up staying with a friend in midtown Manhattan.

That was it for New York for Ward. She started looking for jobs and places that weren’t in the “crosshairs,” she said.

She wound up at EY in North Carolina, where the pace is slower. There she has been able to put down roots with her husband and raise their son in this quiet, affluent community. (They call it the “mink and manure belt” for the area’s mix of well-paid executives and horse farms.)

“I don’t think my schedule at Goldman was very adaptive to having kids and all of that kind of stuff,” Ward said, standing in front of a marble island in her house’s open kitchen.

Her manner was unfailingly polite and generous. She offered coffee, bagels, fruit and a tour of the couple’s well-appointed house after making sure her son, who was doing homework, was OK with that.

Though she got away from the stress of Manhattan, working at EY brought a whole other level of anxiety.

Speaking by phone in December, Ward said that talking about her experiences at the firm for this story is forcing her to relive a lot of that stress. Sleepless nights aren’t uncommon, she said. “It’s really upsetting,” she said, once again launching into the details of what happened.

A Warning About ‘Being Perceived As A Bitch’

On a business trip early in Ward’s EY tenure in 2013, McNamara texted her at 2 a.m. asking if she wanted to get a drink. She turned him down. After that, he started undercutting her authority, Ward said.

Around the same time, minutes before she was scheduled to appear on a panel at a sales conference, she said, he told her “to stand at the back with the other gals.” He was referring to the administrative assistants who were in attendance. He then took her place on the stage and even used her notes. She flagged the incident to an EY partner in an email reviewed by HuffPost.

McNamara also took credit for her work, she said, by removing her name from paperwork after deals were inked. 

When Ward alerted other executives about his behavior, she was initially ignored or told to tone down her complaints, she said. One male executive told her to “be careful” because she was “being perceived as a bitch,” according to her complaint.

She said she experienced the kind of insidious sexual textbook harassment that has less to do with sex and more to do with power. Under threat, men in charge, just as she said McNamara did, may use harassment — hostile or inappropriate comments, exclusion, sexual overtures — to make a woman feel like an outsider and essentially keep her in her place.

“Harassment aims to shore up masculine workplace superiority,” Yale Law School professor Vicki Shultz explained in a recent paper.

In the EY offices in New York, where Ward attended meetings, she said, she would hear some of the men in the transaction real estate group, her division, talk about women’s body parts. The men, hired by McNamara, discussed seeing a colleague’s “snatch” if they positioned their chairs just so in their open-plan office, according to the complaint. They also entertained clients at strip clubs, Ward said, or what many of them called “titty bars.”

They didn’t exclude her from outings. In fact, they invited her to join them. She declined. It was an “awkward situation,” she said.

EY released a statementabout Ward in September, after she filed her complaint, calling her allegations “unfounded and baseless.” In statements and background briefings to HuffPost more recently, EY again strongly denied her claims. 

‘You Got My Guy Fired’

In 2015, EY moved her away from McNamara, transferring her out of the real estate group and into the company’s investment banking division.

At the time it looked like a win for Ward, and EY still sees it that way. She was promoted to partner, and she said she was told the bonuses would be better. 

But the promotion glow didn’t last long. After her move was announced, she got a call from Troy Jones, a sympathetic partner who worked in the same division in EY’s Los Angeles office. He was distressed, she said.

He thought they were moving her because they didn’t like her, she said. She complained too much, he told her in a phone call, according to her complaint. He warned her that she probably wouldn’t be getting any deal referrals from her old team, and a key part of the job was the bringing in and sharing business.

“There is an issue here because you are a woman,” Jones said, according to her complaint. “Women do not succeed here.”

Jones did not respond to emailed requests for comment. EY said he denied saying this.

To complicate matters, a few months after Ward was transferred, McNamara was fired. EY insisted that it wasn’t because of Ward and that he was let go for failing to meet revenue targets.

But his departure probably made things worse for her. “You got my guy fired,” one of his former colleagues told her, according to her complaint.

McNamara was gone, in other words, but his friends hadn’t forgotten him.

What came next, Ward said, was retaliation for speaking up. Jones’ warning of a lack of cooperation from the team came to pass.

In her new role at EY, she grew increasingly isolated. Real estate deals were mostly getting done by her old group, which purposefully excluded her from the work, according to her EEOC complaint.

HuffPost reviewed emails sent by Ward to her supervisor and other higher-ups. She regularly communicated her concerns about being cut off from her colleagues, but her complaints went unheard.

In a phone call with her new boss, James Carter, the head of the investment banking division, she complained about the lack of cooperation and wondered aloud, “Could this be because I’m a woman?” she said.

He dismissed the idea, she said, and told her to be careful about raising the gender issue. “Don’t push that rock up the hill, it will roll back on you and crush you,” he told her, according to her complaint.

Ward’s husband, Rick Littlejohn, a real estate investor, was by her side at the time of the call. “I was holding her hand. She had the phone on speakerphone, and I was sitting right next to her to calm her down,” he said. “She’s reporting discrimination to her boss, who basically tells her to F off.”

Carter did not respond to emails requesting comment, but EY said he denied her account.

‘That Wouldn’t Have Occurred If She Were A Man’

Ward held out hope that this was Carter’s way of supporting her. He told her not to raise the issue of gender, and she complied. 

Initially, the senior men at EY sent out notes outlining her new role. One memo in 2016, read by HuffPost, made it clear that she would be in charge of all real estate transactions.

Yet there was little done to cement her authority in practice, according to the two former employees who spoke to HuffPost. “They never followed up,” one said.

On calls between her new and old groups, the men on her former team treated Ward dismissively, speaking down to her or cutting her off. “That wouldn’t have occurred if she were a man,” one former employee said.

After about three years in her role, she was given notice last August to finish up her deals. Her last day was Oct. 31. She was fired, like McNamara, for supposedly not making revenue goals.

EY spoke to HuffPost at length, arguing that it had no record of Ward complaining of sexual discrimination or gender bias while she was employed at the firm. It insisted that she was promoted and transferred to her new group in order to help her do her job. And that she was fired for failing to meet her revenue goals.

The firm shared documents detailing her declining performance during her time in the investment banking group. She failed to close many deals and was repeatedly warned that she needed to turn things around, the documents showed.

Ward kept emails and documents too. She shared them with HuffPost, and they paint a more complicated picture. She clearly did complain about mistreatment by her male colleagues, though she never explicitly labeled it sexual harassment or discrimination. EY characterized these complaints as office politics. And she appears to have made significant revenue targets, including a $4.95 million dollar deal the month before she was fired. (EY insisted that she did not play a lead role in that deal and did not deserve full credit for it.)

Death By A Thousand Cuts 

What happened to Ward is a more sophisticated version of retaliation, said Nancy Erika Smith, a New Jersey lawyer who handles sexual harassment and discrimination cases.

She referred to the cat’s-paw theory, in which the blowback doesn’t come directly from the harasser but from his allies or anyone who feels offended that a woman complained.

Smith, who represented former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson in her case against the company’s then-chairman, Roger Ailes, said that as companies become more savvy about handling sexual harassment allegations, the retaliation can happen fairly slowly, through isolation and ostracization.

“Death by a thousand cuts is a hell of a lot harder to prove than ‘She complained, and we fired her,’” Smith said.

Former EY partner Jessica Casucci lodged an EEOC claim against EY last April. The details of their complaints initially seem wildly different: She said that she was sexually assaulted by a male EY partner, that he groped her breasts and buttocks at a bar in front of several other EY partners.

Yet Casucci has this in common with Ward: When Casucci complained about her assailant’s alleged behavior, the firm did nothing about it. 

Now Should Be Smooth Sailing

As Ward recalled her time at EY over coffee at her home in November, her wide eyes conveyed disbelief, even now.

“I thought going to the best schools, working my tail off on Wall Street and having all of these things would be — now should be smooth sailing,” she said. “It’s anything but, you know.”

Ward said she tried to make the most of her new role. Without referrals for new business from her colleagues, she hustled, logging extensive travel in search of deals to bring in.

The isolation really amped up the stress. Littlejohn said she was depressed toward the end of her tenure at EY, often unable to sleep.

When Ward raised the issue of being isolated from her old group in an email to Carter in March 2016, he gave her a terse, dismissive response. “You need not ask me again. It is fully on my agenda, but recall my request for patience,” he wrote. “I cannot force it to occur.”

But as she starting bringing in work on her own, she noticed that he asked her to write elaborate memos to justify her deals before he would greenlight them. Her male colleagues didn’t have to jump through the same hoops, she said.

EY strongly denied this account, saying that Carter would have every incentive to make sure Ward’s deals went through so she could bring in money for his group.

And throughout this time, she kept speaking up ― at one point sitting down with an HR representative to complain about getting iced out by her former colleagues, according to notes reviewed by HuffPost.

She tried to stick it out, until last August, when Carter called, telling her they were shutting down her group in the banking division. She and her team were fired. He gave her time to wind down her deals. Ward’s last day at EY was Oct. 31. “I thought it would turn around,” she said. “Now I see that the rock crushed me.”

Trust The Firm

Just a few days after Ward’s last day, in New York City in a gleaming corner conference room with expansive views of the Hudson River, Ernst and Young’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Karyn Twaronite, sat at the helm of a long conference table to convene something called a Belonging Breakfast. Platters of pastry and fruit were close at hand.

Ten or so journalists — all women, except for a single black man — gathered to hear about EYs latest research, a survey that showed how important it is to feel included at work. The findings were just the latest push in EYs long-standing effort to portray itself as an enlightened and diverse company, despite its overwhelmingly white and male leadership.

“We aspire for everyone to feel like they belong,” said Twaronite.

She featured prominently in the sexual discrimination complaint filed by Casucci.

Casucci told Twaronite in 2016 that a senior tax partner groped her breasts and buttocks in front of two other partners on a business trip to Florida. While assaulting her, the partner said, “I’ve wanted to fuck you for so long,” according to Casucci’s federal complaint.

There were also emails, she said, in which the partner propositioned her. “Why would you keep those emails?” Twaronite asked her, according to the complaint. It was as though Twaronite had no sympathy for her and was interested only in protecting the male partner, according to the complaint.

Twaronite told her to “trust the firm” to handle her allegations seriously. Yet in the ensuing months and years, Casucci was the one to decline work projects to avoid seeing this man.

The male executive was fired, only after she filed a discrimination claim and the story was picked up in the press. 

Casucci’s claims against EY were settled privately, and the parties are bound by confidentiality requirements, leaving the truth forever unknown to the public.

“The various allegations have been examined, anyone deserving of punishment has received it, all other mentioned have been cleared, and we consider the matter closed,” EY said in a statement to HuffPost. The firm said it “shared with our people what happened, where processes broke down, what we learned and how we are getting stronger.”

The firm also detailed a long list of reforms and new measures it has since put in place, including creating and implementing a “consequences framework,” beefing up training, establishing anti-bullying policies, requiring reporting of personal relationships and improving the investigation process, along with programs to ensure follow-up and protections for employees who complain. 

Ward is looking for work but said she suspects that Ernst & Young's comments about her have made her search more difficult.

It’s Lonely Out Here

These days, Ward is looking for work. “It is lonely out here,” she said. A few times, she has had promising leads go dark, and she said she suspects that EYs public comments about her last fall are a contributing factor.

There’s a good chance her case will go the same route as Casucci’s. Before Ward was hired, she signed away her right to sue EY in public court, agreeing instead to arbitration. And right now her case is being heard in this private and often secret world. She has limited discovery in the case, meaning she may not be able to obtain all the necessary evidence to demonstrate discrimination.

If the judge rules against her, she will have little recourse to appeal.

Recently, facing widespread criticism over this practice, several major companies ― including Microsoft, Uber and Google ― have disavowed these arbitration clauses and will allow employees to press sex discrimination charges in public.

Not EY

Though Ward and her lawyers have repeatedly asked the company to release her from the arbitration requirement, the firm has declined to do so.

After she filed her complaint, she wrote a letter last fall to EY CEO Mark Weinberger, who has been outspoken about gender equality. She recounted her experiences at the firm and begged him to release her from her arbitration clause.

“Mr. Weinberger, you have said that you would not want your own daughter to be treated any differently in the workplace than your three sons. Yet, you run a company that treats women as second class citizens as a matter of course,” she wrote. 

He never responded. 

Anand Teltumbde Granted Interim Bail Till 22 February By Bombay HC

$
0
0

NAGPUR, Maharashtra —The Bombay High Court on Monday granted interim bail to Dalit intellectual Anand Teltumbde in Elgar-Bhima Koregaon violence case.

Teltumbde, a renowned academic and professor at Goa Institute of Management, has been accused of being a member of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) and associated with a Dalit platform Elgar, which the police believe, triggered violence in the Bhima Koregaon area of Maharashtra last year.

A single judge bench of Justice NW Sambre has granted interim bail to Teltumbde till 22 February. He has, however, been directed to appear before the investigating officer on 14 and 18 February.

Teltumbde had moved the Supreme Court last month to quash the FIR filed against him in the Elgar case, however, the apex court refused to do so and asked him to seek bail from lower courts.

The top court had also granted him four weeks protection from arrest till 11 February. Teltumbde had then filed a bail application in the Pune sessions court.

Despite the Supreme Court’s protection from arrest, the Pune police had arrested Teltumbde on 2 February after the Pune court rejected his bail application.

However, the Pune court termed his arrest “illegal” and ordered his immediate release. Teltumbde then moved the Bombay High Court, seeking anticipatory bail. 

“It is an anticipatory bail which can be canceled or confirmed on 22 February. Even if the police arrest him (Teltumbde), he will have to be released immediately. He can’t be taken into custody,” Teltumbde’s lawyer Mihir Desai told HuffPost India.

When asked about the court’s direction to his client to appear before the investigating officer, Desai said that his client was willing to do so.

“We have been willing to come for questioning for the last five months. We had been objecting to the custodial investigation,” he added.

Teltumbde’s matter was listed very low down in Monday’s court proceedings and it was unlikely to come up for hearing. However, Desai mentioned to the judge that the protection from arrest ends today and the matter was taken up urgently.

In another development related to the Elgar case, a court in Aheri town in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra directed the police to shift human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling and activist Varavara Rao to Yerwada jail in Pune.

Gadling and Rao were shifted to Gadchiroli jail last month after the police named them in a separate case of Maoist violence in Gadchiroli.

“The court rejected police’s demand for further custody of seven days, holding that no case was made out and no progress is shown in the case. The court also noted that all the grounds are the same and repetitive. Both the activists submitted to the court that they were kept in solitary confinement separately for 23 hours every day and one hour of interaction/interrogation for the past 12 days. They were kept in cells which had no lights or ventilation and no one to speak with. The court has placed them under judicial remand, with direction to send them back to Yerwada jail,” informed Gadling and Rao’s lawyer Nihal Sing Rathod.

Modi Govt’s Obsession With World Bank Ranking Led To Weaker Green Laws

$
0
0
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) gestures to the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim (L) to sit while meeting him in New Delhi in July 2014. Kim was on a three-day visit to India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office pushed to overturn a decade’s worth of environmental law and regulations, putting the health of millions of Indians at risk, to aid the real estate lobby and improve India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, HuffPost India can establish.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party-led regime’s diverse policy measures to dismantle environmental safeguards have been documented over its five-year tenure, this is the first blow-by-blow account — relying on previously undisclosed documents obtained under the Right to Information Act —to illustrate precisely how the Modi government made seemingly innocuous changes to India’s elaborate laws and regulations in the building construction sector to achieve its aims.

Crucially, this account establishes how these changes originated in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO): Prime Minister Modi was personally informed of these changes, and his favourite bureaucrats pressed their colleagues in the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Environment and Forests to ensure the changes were rammed through in time for the World Bank’s Doing Business team to include them in their annual reports.

Some of the policy changes, the documents indicate, may have been influenced by India’s apex body of private real estate developers, the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI). These changes, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) later ruled, “cannot stand the scrutiny of law”.

Neither the PMO nor CREDAI responded to requests for comment. This report will be updated if and when they respond.

In a nutshell, Prime Minister Modi’s obsessive quest to get India ranked as one of the World Bank’s top 50 most convenient countries to do business in, meant his office pushed for the so-called streamlining of building bye-laws and environment clearance processes. This resulted in the dilution of safeguards meant to curb air and water pollution caused by large-scale building construction projects.

At the PMO’s bidding, the Environment ministry gave up its power to grant environmental clearances for mega-construction projects like malls, offices, residential apartments, and gave it to local municipal bodies — institutions with no scientific expertise or resources to carry out prior assessment of the adverse environmental impact likely to be caused by large projects.

These changes were made through a notification passed by the environment ministry in two stages in 2016: a draft notification in April that year, followed by a final notification in December 2016.

This decision, the NGT subsequently noted, was taken without conducting any scientific studies to assess its likely impact on the urban environment. The 2016 notification sought to overturn an older subordinate legislation— known as the Environmental Impact Notification of 2006, which imposed more rigorous compliance standards, according to environmentalists.

The vital need for such safeguards is evident from the fact that 14 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world are in India, according to  a 2018 World Health Organisation report. In 2017, a rigorous two-year study published in Lancet found that more people died of pollution in India than anywhere else in the world.  A scientific research paper published in Lancet in December 2018, and backed by the Modi government’s health ministry, said one in eight deaths in India could be caused due to air pollution. The construction sector, the NGT order itself notes, emits 22 percent of India’s total annual carbon-dioxide (CO2) emission. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and contributes significantly to global warming and heat waves which adversely affect public health. 

The PMO’s eagerness to ease conditions of doing business for the builders to ensure a jump in the World Bank’s controversial global ranking system, paid off in part: India rose 65 ranks over four years despite lacklustre private investment, demonetisation, a poorly implemented Goods and Sales Tax regime, and the worst rate of unemployment in 45 years.

The PMO’s eagerness to ease conditions of doing business for the builders to ensure a jump in the World Bank’s controversial global ranking system, paid off in part: India rose 65 ranks over four years despite lacklustre private investment, demonetisation, a poorly implemented Goods and Sales Tax regime, and the worst rate of unemployment in 45 years.

Last year’s jump from a rank of 100 to 77 occurred specifically because India’s individual rank for World Bank’s construction permits indicator saw a “dramatic improvement” from 182 to 52.    

Yet, the move to ease building permits was struck down by the National Green Tribunal (NGT). These changes, the tribunal noted, would “lead to severe environmental impacts.”

“The Government must decide if it wants to improve its ranking before a Bank or endanger the lives of its citizens due to lax environmental norms,” said Ritwick Dutta, an environmental lawyer who successfully argued against these measures at the National Green Tribunal.

“What is the use of improved ranking in ease of doing business if the people are sick and dying because of air pollution and poor quality water?” Dutta asked. “India today may figure in the top 100 in ease of doing business, but then it ranks at the bottom at 177 out of 180 countries in terms of environmental health.”

Senior IAS officer C K Mishra, who is the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, strongly contested the assertion that his ministry had favoured big business at the cost of the environment.

“We are not diluting anything, we are simplifying things,” Mishra emphasised in an interview with HuffPost India.

Yet this “simplification”, HuffPost India found, did not find any purchase in the NGT, which termed the Modi government’s specific policy measures as “dilution” after they were challenged by civil society groups.

The PMO sets the ball rolling

The Modi government started working on improving India’s doing business rankings soon after it came to power. In July 2014, official documents accessed under the Right to Information show, the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra began holding meetings to discuss specific measures as well as a “concrete strategy” to “move up” the country’s rank.

On 15 November 2014, S. Selvakumar, a director-ranked official in the PMO, sent a notice about a top-level meeting to be chaired by Misra on 22 November 2014 to discuss the “issues relating to the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in India”. The notice was sent to secretaries of 13 ministries as well as the Reserve Bank of India’s Governor, who was asked to nominate one of his deputy governors to attend. The revenue secretary was asked to invite the chiefs of both the Central Board of Excise and Customs and Central Board of Direct Taxes.

 “Concerned ministries are also requested to complete the tasks as indicated or to give definite strategy and timeframe for their completion,” Selvakumar wrote.“It is also requested that each ministry may put up a team to specifically attend to these issues in a proactive and positive manner.”   

Each ministry was given a checklist of time-bound tasks, based on 10 indicators the World Bank evaluates whilst calculating its annual Doing Business rankings. One of these indicators related to ease in obtaining a construction permit.

According to the World Bank, the ideal number of  bureaucratic procedures to give construction permits is eight or fewer. In India, at the time, this number was 33. Therefore, the government focused on reducing the number of steps required for builders to get clearances from different government agencies at the central, state and municipal levels.

Selvakumar’s meeting notice asked the urban development ministry to streamline this process by April 31, 2015 by creating a simplified model building bye-law that each state could tweak to account for local factors.

The environment ministry was tasked with streamlining environment clearances, ensuring that project proponents could file online applications for environment clearance, and was told to introduce an online portal with a Composite Application Form (CAF) by April 30, 2015. The CAF was intended to reduce paperwork for builders.

On 4 March 2015, Selvakumar sent another notice to the same set of officials with a more specific list of tasks. Under a sub-head marked, the World Bank indicator of ‘Dealing with Construction Permits’, both the urban development and environment ministries were asked to amend the relevant “acts/rules/bye-laws” to facilitate “delegation of powers to municipal bodies”.

The urban development ministry was also asked to ensure rationalisation of procedures, resolve interdepartmental issues with central agencies such as the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and “create one stop-shop” in coordination with “state/central/autonomous bodies” to “delegate powers at municipal bodies.”

In plain English, this meant powers of regulation once held by central agencies and departments were to be given to local municipalities — bodies with no resources or independence to implement these regulations.

In early 2016, three policy changes were announced after elaborate discussions between the PMO and the two ministries. The aim of these changes, the Modi government’s press releases made clear, was to improve the ease of doing business for the construction sector.

The first of these announcements, by the urban development ministry on 18 March 2016, was the ‘Model Building Bye-Laws 2016’ for all states and union territories. These model Bye-laws were adopted for the national capital by the Delhi Development Authority and published four days later on March 22, 2016.

The reason for these changes, a press note quoted then urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu as saying, was “to improve the ease of doing construction business in the national capital as desired by the Prime Minister’s Office.”

On April 29, 2016,  the environment ministry announced a draft notification to amend the 2006 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. Public comments were invited, and a final version of this notification was published 10 months later on 9 December 2016.

The 2006 EIA notification, as noted earlier in this article, is a landmark piece of legislation that required that projects with a built-up area of 20, 000 square metres and above be put through a rigorous impact assessment process before environment clearance had been granted.

File photo of labourers working in an under-construction building as smog covers the capital's skyline in New Delhi on November 2, 2016. A scientific research paper published in Lancet in December 2018, and backed by the Modi government’s health ministry, said one in eight deaths in India could be caused due to air pollution.

Implications of the policy measures 

Taken together, these changes by the urban development ministry on the one hand and the environment ministry on the other, enabled the integration of building plan approvals with environment clearances at the level of municipal corporations for large-scale construction projects such as malls and residential complexes.

Prior to this change, large-scale construction projects with a built up area of 20,000 square metres and above needed permission from two state-level expert committees: the State Expert Appraisal Committee and State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (both committees were set-up by the environment ministry). Small-scale projects did not require such elaborate clearances from the environment ministry.

Under the new regime, builders could get both the building plan approvals and environment clearances for their large-scale construction projects approved from their respective local municipal corporations, which were expected to set up their own environmental cells.

These cells replaced the environment ministry’s expert committees but were designed to be under the municipal corporations. This arrangement, the NGT said, created a “conflict of interest” as these environmental cells could be influenced by municipal corporations in a way that the ministry’s committees could not have been.

Worse, this bouquet of changes also exempted building projects from the consent to operate and consent to establish provisions of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974  that provided crucial protection to homeowners. Dutta, the environmental lawyer, explained that putting builders under the purview of these two acts, along with the Environment Protection Act, 1986, gave homeowners an opportunity to approach the NGT,  if the builders violate environment clearance conditions.

For example, all buildings must have green space and adequate parking. Most often, the green spaces are compromised to build additional structures. In such a situation, the residents can approach the NGT,” Dutta said. “Similar is the case with waste water treatment, solar lighting which are required to be installed but rarely done. By ousting the jurisdiction of the NGT and Air Act and Water Act, the builders are free to do what they want and the residents will be at their mercy.”

Dutta noted that the real estate sector was being handed a free pass at a time when the air in India’s cities was almost unbreathable, and the water was highly toxic.What is unfortunate is the fact that the changes in the EIA regime were brought about at a time when there is a severe air pollution crisis in India,” Dutta said. “At a time when we need stringent laws on air pollution, the Government chose not to apply the provisions of the Air Act to the construction sector.”

C K Mishra,  the environment secretary, told HuffPost India that the ease of getting construction permits was a happy byproduct of a necessary overhaul of bureaucratic procedures of his ministry. “Ease of business is rarely a basis. It is an outcome,” Mishra said. “When you issue a notification, you issue it so that you find that the process that was being followed is not required. So you simplify that. That results in ease of doing business.”

The vision and direction of these changes, Mishra confirmed in response to a question, came directly from the Prime Minister’s office. “They have been the guiding force. Certainly,” Mishra said.

Modi held a review meeting about Ease of Doing Business with top cabinet ministers and officials on December 13, 2018 in the PMO.  

Modi gets Naidu’s help

Under Prime Minister Modi’s benevolent gaze, urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu and his ministry appear to have played a significant role with the enthusiastic cooperation of the then environment minister Prakash Javadekar in laying the grounds for what became known as the “December 2016 notification” — the proposed subordinate legislation to replace the 2006 EIA notification mentioned before.

Official documents and interviews with bureaucrats both indicate this.

“If you look at my ministry, we pillar ourselves on various other ministries,” environment secretary CK Mishra told HuffPost India. “What we do is for other ministries. If we are doing something relating to cities and buildings, it’s for the urban development ministry.”

On February 15, 2016, Naidu, who is now the Vice President, wrote to Javadekar, thanking him for sending a letter on February 8, 2016, which discussed a proposal with a ‘framework’ to ‘streamline’ the environment clearances for building and real estate sector.

Informing Javadekar that the top mandarins of the urban development and environment ministries held a meeting on February 11, 2016 to discuss the proposal, Naidu wrote in his letter that, “My ministry supported the proposed framework for integrating environmental clearances with the permission to construct buildings.”

Further, in the letter accessed by HuffPost India, Naidu wrote, “It is hoped that this will immensely help the real estate business as a landmark step in Ease of Doing business by ensuring the environmental concerns related to construction of buildings addressed through different stipulated conditions laid down for different sizes of buildings.”

“This will also facilitate in improving the country’s ranking in Ease of Doing Business, which is dream of our honourable Prime Minister to make efforts for bringing the country in top 50 rank in the world,” Naidu continued.

Once the draft building bye-laws were ready, Naidu said, the environment ministry could issue its own notification. This way, the transfer of power to grant environment clearance from the environment ministry to the local municipal bodies would be complete.

Naidu’s ministry released the draft bye-laws on March 18, 2016 after elaborate discussions with states. The Delhi Development Authority, which reports to Naidu’s ministry, adopted this framework quickly on March 22, 2016.

On April 29, Javadekar’s ministry followed suit, issuing the draft notification and opening it up for the legally mandated public consultation. People were asked to send in their objections and suggestions within sixty days. The final notification was issued in December.

An internal, hand-written note by an environment ministry official about finalising the notification, dated 9 August 2016, indicates that Naidu kept Modi updated about the progress in implementation of the controversial proposals.

“This issue has been discussed for last one year. It has been discussed in PMO, and several round of meetings were organised at the level of Hon’ble Minister, MoUD. Hon’ble Minister has also written to Hon’ble Prime Minister on the subject,” an environment ministry official, who signed off as Manoj on the note, wrote.

“This issue has been discussed for last one year. It has been discussed in PMO, and several round of meetings were organised at the level of Hon’ble Minister, MoUD. Hon’ble Minister has also written to Hon’ble Prime Minister on the subject,” an environment ministry official, who signed off as Manoj on the note, wrote.

Sources told HuffPost India this official is most likely Manoj Kumar Singh, the Joint Secretary who was leading the effort within the environment ministry for getting this notification drafted and implemented.  

Then Environment Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha also saw this note. When reached for comment, Jha, who is now the Finance Secretary, said his office will call this reporter according to his convenience but, at the time of publication, a response was still awaited.

It wasn’t just Naidu and Javadekar who were eager to push through the controversial policy measures. Documents reviewed by HuffPost India show Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was also keen to implement them in his state.

In a letter written on October 7, 2016 to the then environment minister Anil Dave, who had taken over from Javadekar in early July that year, Fadnavis mentioned that Naidu’s ministry had asked Maharashtra to make the same changes to Mumbai’s building bylaws.

Yet Maharashtra could not proceed without permission from the environment ministry. So in his October 7, 2016 letter, Fadnavis asked Dave to “kindly give clearance expeditiously, so as to achieve the objectives of Ease of Doing Business”.

The enthusiasm of civic bodies in Delhi as well as Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, to adopt the new bylaws is not incidental to this story. These are the only two cities that the World Bank evaluates when assessing the ease of doing business in India.

In fact, official documents accessed by HuffPost India show that the bureaucrats helming the municipal corporations in Delhi and Mumbai were asked to attend review meetings that Prime Minister Modi’s office continued to organise much after the initial meetings in 2014 to keep a close track of policy measures it had asked the ministries to implement in past meetings regarding Ease of Doing Business.

On 2 May 2016, for example, Joint Secretary to the Prime Minister, A K Sharma, wrote to the secretaries of at least eight central ministries as well as commissioners of the municipal corporations in Mumbai and South Delhi  informing that the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, Nripendra Misra, will hold a meeting on May 7, 2016.

The purpose of the meeting, Sharma’s note made clear, was “a review of compliance of the decisions taken in the last meetings on the subject, so as to make an impact in this year’s report of World Bank.”

Why the National Green Tribunal criticised the policy changes

The Environment Ministry’s decision to essentially junk a decade’s worth of significant legal safeguards provoked concern among environment groups and hope in the real estate industry. The ministry was inundated with objections and suggestions from both sides almost immediately after the first draft of the notification was published in April 2016.

Environmentalists were worried that  the notification would worsen the already bad management of India’s urban environment. Local municipalities, they argued, simply did not have the expertise to evaluate the environmental impact of mega-construction projects.

The real estate lobby, represented by CREDAI sent their suggestions as well in over half a dozen letters written to then environment minister Anil Dave and Environment Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha. 

In a letter to Jha dated 5 October 2016, accessed by HuffPost India, then CREDAI President Getamber Anand and the chairman of CREDAI’s environment committee, Shantilal Kataria, said “we as CREDAI would like to assure you that we welcome this move” to give municipalities the power to grant mega-construction projects.

In a letter to Jha dated 5 October 2016, accessed by HuffPost India, then CREDAI President Getamber Anand and the chairman of CREDAI’s environment committee, Shantilal Kataria, said “we as CREDAI would like to assure you that we welcome this move” to give municipalities the power to grant mega-construction projects. 

The letter also requested him to “expedite the notification process so that they can be included in the local bye-laws for ease of doing business and boost the common vision of “Housing for All by 2022”’.  

They also asked that housing projects be spared the need to get “Consent to Establish” and “Consent to Operate” clearances from state pollution control boards citing a Delhi High Court order.

In June 2016, CREDAI’s Maharashtra unit made similar demands in a letter to the then environment secretary Ajay Narayan Jha.

The environment ministry constituted a committee of four experts to review these suggestions and objections: Chandrabhushan, Deputy Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an advocacy non-profit; Mili Majumdar, Managing Director of Green Business Certification Inc, a private green-rating and certification organisation; Tanmay Tathagat, Executive Director of Environmental Design Solutions, a consulting firm; and S.K.Srivastava, a senior bureaucrat at the ministry.

Their report, which was not made public but accessed by HuffPost India, echoed some of the CREDAI’s recommendations. One of them was that residential buildings up to 1,50,000 square meters of built up area would be spared the need to obtain Consent to Establish and Consent to Operate clearances as previously required.

“It’s a very clear case of multiplicity,” said expert committee member Chandrabhushan, justifying the recommendation. “Instead of having multiplicity of clearances, we need to have one clearance which is done well.” He claimed the committee did not make this recommendation based on what CREDAI had suggested and that it was based on a presentation made by the CSE to the TSR Subramanian committee. His colleague on the panel, Tathagat, simply stated that it was removed because the provisions were originally conceived for industrial establishments, not residential projects.

The report sought to assuage the concerns of environmentalists by recommending the creation of an environment cell to clear and monitor construction projects at the municipal level.

The idea for municipal environmental cells, Chandrabhushan said, came from Mexico City, which has an independent office of environmental management. “You need to have a separate office of environmental management in urban local bodies,” he said.“We took a small, four line notification and converted it into a clear roadmap for the urban sector in India.”

The final notification dated 9 December 2016, which was released by the ministry, therefore, looked much more different from the April 2016 draft.

Chandrabhushan explained the differences, saying, “Based on our experience we gave these recommendations and charted a course which is very different than what anyone, even (environment) ministry, was thinking about.”

The official justification for defanging the 2006 Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification, as described in the 9 December 2016 notification, appeared laudable: the ‘ease of doing responsible business’ and helping the government’s Housing for All by 2022 scheme which has an objective of “making available affordable housing to weaker sections in urban areas”.

But the environment groups were anything but impressed. Five separate petitions were filed at the Principal Bench of the NGT in early 2017. One of them was by Pushp Jain, who was represented by  Ritwik Dutta. His petition asked for the environment ministry to set aside the notification, terming it “illegal and bad in law”. The petition also said that citing “Housing for All” as one of the motives in the notification, when it was clearly pro-builder, was a case of “hiding behind the poor”.

By the end of 2017, after multiple hearings, a three member bench at the National Green Tribunal struck down the notification. On 8 December 2017, the tribunal asked the ministry to “reexamine” the notification and “delete, amend and rectify” clauses which were problematic.

In the past, the tribunal noted, municipalities had failed to adequately monitor construction projects. This was the very reason that the 2006 law had been passed. Overturning the law would amount to asking municipalities to monitor projects again — something they had demonstrably failed to do in the past and nothing had been done to improve their capabilities to ensure they could do it now.

Removing the consent to establish and consent to operate provisions of the Air (Prevention of Pollution) and Water (Prevention of Pollution) Acts also did not go down well with the tribunal.

“This action of the MoEF&CC cannot stand the scrutiny of law. (It) lacks legislative competence,” the order stated.

Chandrabhushan, the expert from the government panel, said some of this fracas could have been avoided if the laws had been amended by Parliament.

I agree here with the NGT,” he said.“Since Water and Air Act was passed by the parliament, the ministry should have taken it to the parliament if they wanted this amendment to be done.”

Barely three months later, the environment ministry appealed against the National Green Tribunal order in the Supreme Court. The ministry sought an immediate stay on the Tribunal’s judgement —which was not granted by the SC.

At the time of writing, the Supreme Court is yet to give its final decision on the ministry’s appeal while the tribunal’s order remains in force and projects are being cleared as per the provisions of the 2006 notification.

CK Mishra, the environment secretary, said, “Every notification that we issue is subject to legal scrutiny. And very few notifications have been permanently rejected or stayed or anything.”

Tathagat, one of the members of the expert committee, was more candid.

From the builders’ standpoint, there was and there is a lobby,” he said. The lobby, he said, existed because the government had created an opaque system of clearances that was riddled with inexplicable delays.”

“The builders were predominantly concerned about the delays and ambiguity of requirements,” Tathagat said. “So therefore there is a lobby that says, ‘Make it transparent, make it easier.’ And I understand that.”

He added that he disagreed with the Tribunal’s order.

“The government has made the requirements more stringent in the December 2016 notification,” he said, explaining that that old notification was applicable to a very small number of very large buildings. The 2016 notification, which the tribunal shot down, was applicable to a larger number of buildings.  

“It was including smaller buildings and making them liable for environment protection as well.” Tathagat concluded.

Dutta, the lawyer opposed to the petition, said the proposed changes in the law had to been seen in the broader context of the Modi government’s actions over five years.

“Earlier we used to say that the law is good, but implementation is poor,”Dutta said. “Today, the law itself is not there to implement. The fundamental right to a clean environment which is guaranteed under Article 21 is subordinated to ‘ease of doing business’.”

Bhupen Hazarika's Family Divided On Accepting His Bharat Ratna Amid Protests Against Citizenship Bill

$
0
0

GUWAHATI — Taking a swipe at the BJP, legendary Assamese singer-composer Bhupen Hazarika’s son Tez Hazarika said on Monday his father’s name and words were being invoked and celebrated publicly while plans were afoot to pass the “painfully unpopular” Citizenship (Amendment) Bill against the wish of the people of the Northeast.

In a Facebook post, Tez said the proposed legislation undermines the “documented position” of his father, who was awarded the country’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna posthumously by the Narendra Modi government last month.

“Numerous media journalists are now asking me whether or not I will accept the Bharat Ratna for my father. I go on record here to answer that A), I have not received any invitation so far there is nothing to reject. And B), how the Centre moves on this matter far outweighs in importance the awarding and receiving of such national recognition - a display of short lived cheap thrills,” he wrote.

“For his fans - a vast majority of people of the Northeast - and India’s great diversity including all indigenous populations of India, he would never have endorsed what appears, quite transparently, to be an underhanded way of pushing a law against the will and benefit of the majority in a manner that also seems to be grossly unconstitutional, undemocratic and un-Indian,” said Tez, who resides in the US.

“I believe that my father’s name and words are being invoked and celebrated publicly while plans are afoot to pass a painfully unpopular bill regarding citizenship that is actually undermining his documented position. It would in reality be in direct opposition to what Bhupen da believed in his heart of hearts,” he said, without naming any political party.

“Adopting any form of this bill at this point in the manner in which it is being proffered, now or in the future, will ultimately have the sad and undesirable effect of not only disrupting the quality of life, language, identity and power balance of the region, but that of undermining my father’s position - by delivering a wreaking blow to the harmony, inner integrity and unity of the secular and democratic Republic of India,” he said.

The BJP government at the Centre has been pitching for the early passage of the legislation, which promises Indian citizenship to religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. It has triggered massive protests across the Northeast with many organisations and parties claiming that it would have a negative impact on the demography of the region.

“Bharat Ratna and longest bridges, while necessary, will not promote the peace and prosperity of the citizens of India. Only just popular laws and foresight on the part of the leadership will,” Tez added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently inaugurated Bogibeel Bridge ― the country’s longest railroad bridge ― in Assam.

PTI’s efforts to reach Tez did not yield results.

Meanwhile, Bhupen Hazarika’s brother and prominent singer Saumer Hazarika as well as his sister-in-law and popular singer Manisha Hazarika told the media that the family has neither rejected the award nor criticised the Centre for conferring the Bharat Ratna posthumously.

Saumar Hazarika said, “Tez has not contacted me on the issue of his Facebook post today. We as Bhupen da’s family have welcome the Bharat Ratna award to him. We had attended the Assam government’s programme celebrating the conferring of the honour to my brother who always stood for unity of the people of the Northeast and the country.”

Manisha Hazarika, who is the wife of Bhupen Hazarika’s late brother and well-known singer Jayanta Hazarika, said, “Bhupen Hazarika was an institution. He is above politics and because he took Assam to the world that he has been honoured with the highest civilian award. If this award is made family centric, then it will be a dishonour to the award, the entire northeast region and the country.”

Viewing all 46147 articles
Browse latest View live


<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>