Bid to delegitimised Social Movements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiJDvgPusco  बदनामी और हमले कर सरकार जन-आंदोलनों को रोकना चाहती है" मेधा पाटकर से बातचीत
 Sep 4, 2022    This tirade against social movements is to cement vote bank. part of elections.. 

Medha Patkar was wrong on Narmada project https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/Swaminomics/medha-patkar-was-wrong-on-narmada-project/ September 4, 2022, Patkar said all micro-level struggles are key to building a macro-level agitation that questions the very paradigm of development at all levels. “Chunikaka said gaon ki zamin, gaon ki hai — but is it happening now? Do the villagers have control over the jal, jungle, zameen being given away to the corporate sector, the mining mafia? Where is the three-tier Panchayati Raj system?” Patkar said, and added there “is no alternative to people’s movements.”

When Narendra Modi Exhorted 'Andolanjivis' to Rise Up Against the Government in 1974 https://thewire.in/politics/narendra-modi-andolanjivis-protest-1974-message  A message written by the prime minister in his 20s provides valuable advice to the protesters of today but also represents the drastic swing in his opinion of protests. The Modi government’s second term has faced pan-India protests opposing controversial policy decisions such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the three farm laws.

‘Yes, We Are Andolanjeevi, You Have Forced Us’: Medha Patkar  https://thewire.in/rights/andolanjeevi-medha-patkar-sardar-sarovar-narmada-project-dam-water-crisis 
'Today’s centralised policies are pushing the marginalised communities further to the margins, squeezing all options for the poor but to take to the streets.'

“No Alternative to People’s Movements,” Says Internationally Acclaimed Human Rights Activist Medha Patkar

 https://indiatomorrow.net/2021/12/22/no-alternative-to-peoples-movements-says-internationally-acclaimed-human-rights-activist-medha-patkar/  December 22, 2021 -  In a sharp snub to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘andolanjeevi’ taunt at those leading people’s movements in the country, the firebrand activist declared in her true inimitable style, “Yes, we are andolanjeevi because today’s centralized policies are pushing the marginalized communities further to the margins, squeezing all options for the poor but to take to the streets.”

In another pointed rebuff on the charges levelled by the present government about NGOs receiving foreign funds, Patkar retorted, “They allege we receive foreign funding for our agitations while I had returned even my award money, but there is huge money coming into the country to implement the so-called PPP (Private-Public-Partnership) model policies.”

Launching a frontal attack, she questioned, “How much foreign funds came into the PM Cares Fund and for disaster management? Where is it?”

According to Patkar, the government, on the one hand, claimed had no money for the tribals, the landless, the poor, and the farmers. “But this very government has money for Central Vista, for Sardar Patel statue and waiving of corporate NPAs to the tune of Rs68,000cr.”  

The Making of Kishore Saint..

Kishore Saint was groomed in oral tradition by his grandmother in punjabi tradition as well as mid eastern folklore. He schooled in a Madrasa, and Convent and a Gurukul. More importantly being on the other side of the border, he was in the midst of the partition riots on both sides of the border. As a student and then a teacher in Kenya and in the UK, in the midst of the 60s youth movements, he felt the yearning for public work and the call to come back to India. This he says in his own words in this segment.  https://youtu.be/QnD1KajyMgI 

Now that an Adivasi is president, will Big Media finally report on Adivasi issues?

Now that an Adivasi is president, will Big Media finally report on Adivasi issues?  By Kalpana Sharma 28 Jul, 2022 https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/07/28/now-that-an-adivasi-is-president-will-big-media-finally-report-on-adivasi-issues
Droupadi Murmu’s election should be more than a temporary news peg, given most readers and viewers know nothing of Adivasi struggles or culture...
One of the reasons for this was the inability of jailed Adivasis to get adequate legal support. JagLAG, a group that did provide such support, was hounded out of Bastar.

Apart from Bastar, which comes into view whenever there is a so-called “encounter” between security forces and Maoists, there are struggles being waged by Adivasi groups in many other parts of the country, including Murmu’s home state of Odisha. Remember the extraordinary campaign by the Dongria Kondh tribe in Niyamgiri against the bauxite mine of the powerful business house Vedanta? Despite their success, their problems have not ended yet. Similar struggles continue in Jharkhand where local communities are challenging either infrastructure or the release of their lands for mining. Yet there is little written about these struggles except in alternative or non-mainstream media.

How can any media do this given the power the State has to intimidate media houses through their business interests?

How, given the latest Supreme Court ruling on the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the enhanced powers of the Enforcement Directorate, can any media house attempting to be “independent” or even “honest” survive in a regime where such laws and the ED have been weaponised to deal with all kinds of dissidence?

And finally how, when even those “independent” journalists who are doing their jobs of gathering facts and reporting them are either arrested, as in the recent case of Mohammed Zubair and earlier Siddique Kappan or Kashmiri journalists Asif Sultan, Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul? Or they are stopped from pursuing their professional commitments, as in the recent case of Aakash Hassan, a Kashmiri journalist stopped from going on a reporting assignment to Sri Lanka, and earlier the Pulitzer prize winning Kashmiri photographer Sana Irshad Mattoo, who was not permitted to board a flight to Paris without being given any reason.