Special to the Tribune – Another protest held in UK

Shyam Bhatia in London

British NRIs once again came together to express their solidarity with the family of Delhi gang-rape victim who later died.

This is the third time in a week that NRIs from the UK have rallied in support of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim. The first rally was organised by an IT engineer from Hyderabad last Saturday. It was followed by a meeting the following day for which a former Delhi police sub-inspector, Darshan Singh Grewal, was responsible.

Shades of political rivalry have already crept into the NRI meetings because Grewal and his supporters are associated with the BJP.

Yesterday’s condolence meeting at Ram Mandir in Southall, West London, had the backing of Labour MP Virendra Sharma, who represents the constituency of Ealing Southall and is broadly sympathetic to India’s Congress party.

Speaking before the meeting, Sharma said, “I don’t want to give the impression that this is a political issue. It is a social issue affecting our society in general. It’s an issue of women in general and their protection. Women are suffering for certain and we need to fight against that.”

The British media, meanwhile, continues to maintain an unprecedented level of interest in what happened to the Delhi gang-rape victim and the subsequent social and political fallout.

Earlier this week, the London Times commented that India is a country “that has been called the worst in the world to be a woman and after the events of the past fortnight it is not hard to see why… It is truly shocking that in a country whose democracy has survived for three quarters of a century, its daughters are not safe to travel home on the bus.”

British media columnist Libby Purves commented on how “the leader of the ruling party, Sonia Gandhi, is a woman; so are the Speaker of the lower house of Parliament and at least three chief ministers. They should be mired in bitter shame at their failure to make a difference to women below their own social and professional level”.

However, there is reluctance in the West to acknowledge that their own societies are also affected by similar and even worse cases of male-dominated brutality.

According to the UK government’s action plan on violence against women and girls, “around 400,000 women are sexually assaulted and 80,000 raped each year. In the UK, more than one in four women will experience domestic abuse since the age of 16, often with years of psychological abuse”.

Across the Channel in France, the public has yet to come to terms with the plight of two young teenagers, named only as Nina and Stephanie, who were raped virtually every day for six months by queues of young men who waited patiently for their friends to finish so that they could have a go. Following a trial last year, 10 out of 14 accused were acquitted and the remaining four were given lenient sentences.

Two weeks ago, German-born Internet tycoon Stefan Glaenzer was given an eight-week suspended sentence for thrusting his groin into an American female tourist on a train during the Olympics.

The woman tourist he assaulted was said to be disgusted and violated. Sentencing Glaenzer, Judge Michael Snow told him, “Women on the Underground are easy prey for men like you.”

West is just as culpable

Around 400,000 women are sexually assaulted and 80,000 raped each year in the UK while in four experiences domestic abuse after the age of 16

In France, two teenagers were raped virtually every day for six months by queues of young men

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130104/nation.htm#2

Special to The Tribune – 59% Indian students in UK were ‘bogus’ last year

Shyam Bhatia in London

An estimated 59 per cent of Indian students admitted to the UK last year may have been bogus applicants, a newly published study says.

The startling claim is made by London-based think tank Migration Watch UK which bases its assessment on the findings of a Home Office pilot scheme that examined student visa applications to see if they were genuine.

The Home Office scheme applied two tests to determine whether applicants were genuine students and also if they intended to return to their home countries after completing their studies.

The tests found that the highest percentage of bogus students came from Burma (63%), followed closely by Bangladesh, India and Nigeria (59%). Based on these statistics the total number of bogus students entering the UK last year is estimated at some 63,000.

“Following this pilot, the Home Office has introduced plans to interview 10,000 students a year and has set out the criteria on which they will be judged”, said a spokesman for Migration Watch. But it is now clear that the government has lost its nerve and has dropped the second test (intention to return) from the student interview scheme which comes into force as the end of July.

The latest figures have intensified the debate about how many international students should be allowed into the UK and under what conditions, including the right to work after they graduate. Adding to the controversy is the awareness that foreign student tuition fees (£5billion) make a massive contribution to the UK exchequer.

Foreign students are also seen as making an important contribution to British business. Hence the recent call by top UK business leaders for a more flexible visa regime to attract greater number of foreign students.

These considerations have been brushed aside by Migration Watch Chairman, Sir Andrew Green, who said: “We now have clear evidence of abuse on a major scale. Bogus students come here to work illegally and thus take jobs from British workers.

If it is clear from the circumstances that a student is unlikely to go home, the visa should not be granted in the first place.

After all, many of the advantages claimed for foreign students depend on their going home after their studies.

“These half measures simply will not do. The government have bottled out on bogus students. If they are serious about immigration, they must face down the self-interested demands of the higher education sector and pursue the public interest.”

Commenting on the call by UK business leaders for students to be taken out of net migration statistics, Sir Andrew said: “It is, in fact, impossible to take students out of net migration because, unlike the US and Australia, we still have no exit checks so nobody knows how many who came as students have actually left the UK. It seems that business leaders are clueless about immigration policy and will sign whatever is put in front of them.”

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120725/main7.htm

The Tribune Special – Panjab Mass Cremation 1; How a habeas corpus & a press note nailed culprits

Aditi Tandon, Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 5. Had it not been for a petition filed in the Supreme Court way back in 1995 by Paramjit Kaur of Amritsar, whose husband had gone missing, the truth of killings and mass cremations of thousands of young men in Punjab would have never come to light.

What later came to be known as the “Punjab mass cremation case” actually originated in Paramjit Kaur’s habeas corpus petition in the apex court wherein she sought production of her missing husband Jaswant Singh Khalra, one of the two men who first documented extra-judicial killings in the state during militancy days.

It was in fact a press note (detailing these killings) issued by Khalra and JS Dhillon, both members of Shiromani Akali Dal’s human rights wing, which served as a tipping point for the case that later revealed gory details before ending yesterday with the National Human Rights Commission’s awarding Rs 27.40 crore compensation to kin of 1513 victims who were identified out of 2097, cases pertaining to whom were probed.

The Tribune dug into the files of this 17-year-old case which started when the Supreme Court took cognisance of Kaur’s petition and another filed by Tapan Basu of the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab. The first related to abduction and disappearance of Khalra and the second, to a press note dated November 16, 1995 issued by Dhillon and Khalra, general secretary of Akali Dal’s human rights wing. Khalra went missing soon as this press statement came out.

Captioned “Disappeared Cremation Grounds”, the press note contained investigations of the killings of 3100 men whose bodies were labelled as “unidentified” and cremated in three Punjab Police districts of Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran.

The press note, which became the basis for a CBI and later an NHRC probe into the killings, stated, “Several bodies were cremated as unidentified in Punjab between June 1984 and December 1994 – 700 at Tarn Taran’s Municipal crematorium; 400 at Patti municipal crematorium and 2000 at Durgiana Mandir crematorium in Amritsar.”

Records of the court and NHRC, which The Tribune exclusively accessed, show that the Supreme Court awarded compensation to Kaur and took up the press note for investigation, directing the CBI to report back on its contents.

The court observed in its November 15, 1995 order, “This court cannot close its eyes to the contents of the press note stated to be investigated by Khalra and Dhillon. In case these are correct, it would be a gory tale of human rights violations. It is horrifying to visualise that bodies of thousands could be cremated unceremoniously by the police with a label – unidentified.

Contents of this press note are horrendous and we direct the CBI Director to investigate these.”

The CBI investigated 2097 bodies. In its fifth and final report to the SC submitted on December 9, 1996, CBI said, “585 bodies had been fully identified; 274 partially and 1238 are unidentified.”

Following the CBI’s report, the apex court, on December 12, 1996, invoked its powers under Article 32 of the Constitution, asking the NHRC to probe further. In all, out of 2097 bodies, 1513 were identified. Of these 1513, 109 involve young men who were in police custody when killed. These were later disposed of as unidentified. Their families were awarded Rs 2.50 lakh each as against 1.75 lakh to the families of those who were killed but were not in police custody prior to the killing.

(To be concluded)

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120406/main6.htm

Special to the Tribune – Dalip Singh’s guardian wanted £1,000 annuity from Maharaja

Shyam Bhatia in London

The Scottish surgeon who was appointed as guardian to Maharaja Dalip Singh was not above trying to feather his own nest at the Maharaja’s expense. Newly released documents show that Dr John Login tried and failed to persuade the East India Company to give him a £1,000 annuity from the personal privy purse of the deposed Maharaja.

In terms of present day values measured by average earnings, this amounted to more than £600,000 per annum.

Login was appointed as Dalip Singh’s guardian in 1849 shortly after the Second Anglo Sikh war. At the time, the young Maharaja and son of the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh was only 11-year old.

Login’s controversial duties at the time included taking charge of Dalip Singh’s impressive legacy, including land, palaces and, most importantly, the legendary Kohinoor diamond which was presented to Queen Victoria.

The 186 carat diamond, a prized asset of the Mughal dynasty, was said to be the size of a large egg. Victoria sent it to diamond cutters in Amsterdam who re-shaped and reduced the gem to 108.9 carats before it was placed on the imperial crown.

Login was Dalip Singh’s guardian for nine key years, effectively his mother, father and guardian all rolled into one, both in India and later in the United Kingdom.

When Dalip Singh came to London in 1851, shortly after converting to Christianity, it was Login and his wife who took care of him and introduced him to the British society.

One well documented anecdote has Login showing Dalip Singh the re-cut Kohinoor and allowing him to handle it shortly before the deposed ruler handed it over formally to Victoria.

Although Login retired from his job as guardian in 1858, after Dalip Singh came of age, he was awarded a generous annual pension of £300. Measured by the average earnings index this would today amount to more than £180,000.

Not content with the pension he had been awarded, Login wrote to the East India Company on March 1858: “Having been aware that it has not been in my power to save much from my allowances or make sufficient provision for my family during the nine years in which I acted as his guardian, he (Dalip Singh) has in a very generous and considerate manner spontaneously proposed to settle an annuity upon me during his life of £1,000.”

Earlier, in support of his application for the £1,000 from Dalip Singh’s privy purse, Login wrote in a letter seen by The Tribune, “It has been a source of much gratification and thankfulness to me that I have been able with God’s blessing to establish and confirm a feeling of goodwill, loyalty and respect towards the British government on the part of one from whom such sentiments could scarcely be expected.”

Notwithstanding all his efforts, Login was destined to be disappointed. East India Company Secretary Norman Melvill wrote back to him saying, “The receipt of any present or gratuity from a native of India, by any officer of the Company, is prohibited..the arrangement cannot receive either the approval or the sanction of the Court of Directors.”

Login died in 1863 and Dalip Singh paid for the headstone above his grave.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120131/main8.htm