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PUCL’s Demands regarding the Manipur crisis
Accountability
1. PUCL strongly condemns the use of sexual violence as an instrument of control, terror and/or
ethnic cleansing and gives a call to all groups in the conflict that has engulfed Manipur to
immediately stop attacks on women and children.
2. The PUCL demands that there must be an immediate stop to all forms of violence and gives a
call to all groups to immediately ceasefire and stop attacks and inflicting violence on the
lives, livelihoods and properties of different communities and adopt peaceful measures to
reconcile differences.
3. The PUCL demands that both the state and central government must fulfil their constitutional
responsibility to ensure that perpetrators involved in the murder, torture, beheadings, sexual
violence, violence against women and children must be arrested by following due process of
law.
4. The PUCL also points out that the Hon’ble Supreme Court has in the Tehseen Poonawala case
(2018) pointed out that it is the fundamental duty and responsibility of the State to immediately
stop and curb dissemination of hate speech which contain irresponsible and explosive messages
on various (social) media platforms which have the tendency to incite mob violence and killings
and demands that FIRs and other appropriate legal proceedings be launched against all those who
are indulging in hate speech in Manipur.
5. The State and Central government must both be held accountable for their absolute failure in
preventing the breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state of Manipur.
6. State and central govt must apply the law with respect to accountability, relief and
rehabilitation in a non-discriminatory manner and take concrete action to counter the
impression that till today the state administration is biased and discriminatory towards one
community.
7. All false cases filed by the state which seek to challenge the narrative of the state and protect
the constitutional right to seek information under article 19 (a) must be withdrawn.
Appeal to the Hon’ble Supreme Court
8. The PUCL appeals to the Supreme Court to appoint a Supreme Court monitored - Special
Investigation Team (SIT) drawn with police officials of proven integrity from outside the state,
to investigate all the significant criminal cases registered in the wake of the ethnic violence. The
names must include those suggested by civil society and fresh FIR’s must be lodged wherever
PUCL
necessary. At least three major alleged
incidents need to be investigated. The SIT should necessarily investigate:
A. 3rd May incident in Churachandpur
B. Sexual violence incidents reported across the state
C. Khamen Lok massacre
9. The PUCL also appeals to the Supreme Court to appoint a Women's Committee made up of
respected women’s jurists, academics, activists and others, whose names should include
suggestions by civil society, to visit Manipur and give an independent report directly to the
SC.
10. Considering the difficult nature of the terrain and the large number of victims who still live in
their thousands in IDP Camps, the PUCL requests the Supreme Court to appoint a Team of
Advocate Commissioners, based on suggestion by civil society, to visit all the camps and
record statements of victims.
10. The PUCL also appeals to the Supreme Court to appoint a Committee of Mental Health
Experts including Trained Counsellors, Psychiatric doctors, Trauma specialists and others to
give a report on the state of mental health and remedial measures to be undertaken on an
Emergency basis.
Humanitarian Relief
11. On an urgent basis, the Government of Manipur with the support of the Government of
India must provide nutritious food, clothing, safe shelter with proper drinking water and
sanitation to all those in need, not limited to the relief camps.
12. The State must prepare a comprehensive policy for relief and rehabilitation urgently. In
providing compensations, the policy should look at the loss of homes, loss of livelihood, loss
of possessions, trauma caused, loss of lives/limbs and a separate category of survivors of
sexual violence.
13. This policy must identify the needs of infants, children, lactating mothers, women who
have survived sexual violence/witnessed violence, persons who have witnessed/ survived
violence, senior citizens, individuals with chronic health concerns, individuals in need of
continuous medical treatment such as dialysis, blood pressure, arthritis.
14. Doctors, medicines and medical supplies are in short supply and the Court should direct
the authorities to ensure supply of adequate medical facilities on a war footing.
30.07.2023
Kavita Srivastava        Dr. V. Suresh
President, PUCL         General Secretary, PUCL

 in a new book https://theprint.in/feature/around-town/atal-bihari-vajpayee-has-just-been-gift-wrapped-returned-to-the-rss-in-a-new-book/1637337/ Rama Lakshmi 22 June, 2023 Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924–1977 shatters BJP poet-politician’s reputation as a liberal hero. “I recognise more of Vajpayee in this book," said BJP's Swapan Dasgupta.

The younger Vajpayee, the book says, was a loyal soldier of the RSS, internalised Hindu victimhood and regarded Muslims as inherently disloyal to India — and not the hero of the liberals that he is today. ...

Called Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924–1977, the book’s author Abhishek Choudhary spent seven years trying to peel the layers off one of the most enigmatic politicians of the BJP.

...Former BJP general secretary Govindacharya had famously called Vajpayee a ‘mukhota’ or a mask in 1997, referring to him as being the acceptable face of the BJP. His moderate mask was, of course, immensely useful for the party. In

...Other than ‘mukhota’, another label that got stuck to Vajpayee’s image was the much-used media phrase ‘right man in the wrong party’. It was a measure of how much non-BJP voters, politicians and intellectuals wished to appropriate him.

...This dichotomous insider-outsider image of Vajpayee has had many benefits. It attracted non-BJP centrists and liberals and also hoisted Modi as the proto Hindutva icon. Vajpayee is not counted as a Hindutva Hall of Famer today. His iconography was edging alarmingly close to the ideological centrism of Indian politics and farther and farther away from the RSS. It’s a lot like how Sardar Patel is not seen as a Congress leader but has been grafted on to the BJP today.

But now Abhishek Choudhary’s new book has placed Vajpayee right back into the Hindutva history of India.

Whatapp post from LS: The MoEF&CC is at  the edge of the precipice whihch is  dragging the nation to with its comprehensive dilution of FCA all to support Indian and transnational corporations to exploit our forests and take over tribal lands. This needs to be read with the parallel comprehensive dilution of Biodiversity Act which promotes the interests of Indian AYUSH companies (Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali, for instance, which funnels funds…) and which would have disastrous consequences not limited to India losing its biodiversity - democratic polity itself is at risk with hegemonic forces benefiting from perpetual money pipes that such extraction provides.

Amendments to Forest Conservation Act: Activists cry foul over neglect of tribal rights
https://www.news9live.com/india/amendments-to-forest-conservation-act-activists-cry-foul-over-neglect-of-tribal-rights-2229888

So, Tudu reiterated the MoEF&CC’s stand without voicing the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ position.
Environment Support Group, a Bengaluru-based think tank alleges that the Ministry of Tribal Affairs hasn’t done its due diligence.
“From the reply/replies of the Minister/s, it appears that MOTA has not, in any manner, undertaken its own due diligence with regard to the impact of the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023 on rights of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers, as it is required to as per the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the Allocation of Business Rules,” says Leo Saldanha, trustee of the Environment Support Group.
“What is worse is that MOTA appears to not even have formulated its independent opinion in regard to this very serious and critical question regarding implications of various amendments proposed to the FCA by this Bill, especially given statements issued by movements and research organisations that the proposed changes in the forest law will, without any doubt, affect grievously rights of Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers,” points out Nidhi Hanji, ESG’s Legal Research Associate.

Environment ministry violated rules in pushing Forest Conservation Bill, say activists https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/environment-ministry-violated-rules-pushing-forest-conservation-bill-say-activists-180359

"MoTA should have been fundamentally involved, even co-leading, any amendment to any existing laws, or in shaping any new law, or in formulation of a policy or scheme, that are “relating to the rights of the forest-dwelling Schedule Tribes on forest lands”. When what has been stated by MoTA and MoEF&CC in the Rajya Sabha are read together, it is glaring that the Ministries have not worked in conformance with the Doctrine of Harmonious Construction," a statement by ESG said.

https://www.deccanherald.com/state/top-karnataka-stories/ministry-violated-rules-in-pushing-forest-bill-activists-1241726.html
"A review of the JPC report reveals that no person, who is a forest-dwelling schedule tribe or other traditional forest dwellers, was invited to depose before the committee," the ESG said.