Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Koodankulam: The Situation Is Grim By Dr. S.P Udayakumar

Koodankulam: The Situation Is Grim By Dr. S.P Udayakumar:

Koodankulam: The Situation Is Grim

By Dr. S.P Udayakumar

23 March, 2012
Countercurrents.org

The situation here is still grim. There are some 10,000 people from coastal and interior villages. Most of them are women including pregnant women and nursing women. I myself saw many nursing women feeding their babies sweetened water as there was no milk coming to the village. More people are coming by boats and on foot as the access roads are all blocked by police. There is no bus service to this place. There is no sanitary complex and women bear the brunt of it. No public health official has ever come to help the people.

Some 15 of us have been on indefinite hunger strike and no medical doctor has ever come here to check our health. The Dinamalam newspaper has reported today that we have all been eating heartily and pretending to be fasting. If this anti-Tamil newspaper can prove that there is a trace of food in my or Pushparayan’s stomach, we are ready to leave this protest. Otherwise, will they stop publishing this stupid paper? We are fighting for a cause not prostituting our soul like the Dinamalam does.

On March 21, my mother had received a phone call from one advocate by the name T. Udayakumar and he claimed he was calling from the DGP office in Chennai. He asked my mother to ask me to leave the protest so that all the cases against me would be dropped and I would get whatever I ask for. My mother told him that I was not a man of that nature and ended the conversation. That evening the Superintendent of Police of Tirunelveli District called me on my mobile and asked me to surrender alone so that people would not be affected. I told him that I was all ready for that but the people here at Idinthakarai also wanted to get arrested along with me and they would not let me go alone. I proposed to the SP to send enough number of buses and two police officers so that there would not be any stampede or tussle and we all would board the buses peacefully and go wherever they wanted us to go. He would not accept that proposition and said in anger: “This is the last time I talk to you.” There ended our conversation.

That night the police officer who was on security duty at our SACCER Matriculation School outside Nagercoil town had received a phone call from the Kanyakumari District SP office to go away from the school. Then a group of vandals, obviously with the blessings of the police, had entered the school and destroyed it very badly. The compound wall was completely demolished and the gate damaged. They ransacked the school bus after tearing down the car shed’s iron shutters. They had entered the KG classrooms and destroyed all the small little chairs which my children were using to sit on. They had broken all the tables and chairs and I do not understand why they punished my little children like this. The vandals had entered our school library and destroyed all the 12 glass bookshelves and tables and threw away the books. My 250 children are all avid readers and have been using our library extensively. This reminds me of the burning of the Public Library at Jaffna a few years ago.

The governments and the police treat and speak of me as if I were Osama bin Laden and our people some mindless terrorists. We resent this inhuman and brutal treatment . Electricity, water, milk and other essentials have been cut for two days; people cannot go out of and come into Idinthakarai as there is brutal police control. We are surrounded by police and I truly feel like I am at Mullivaickal. We are a group of simple people who have been fighting nonviolently and democratically against an untested foreign reactor with all kinds of problems and hiccups. We have not done any harm to anybody or anybody’s property in our eight-month long struggle. The whole country is proud of our people.

The stalemate continues. There are protests happening all over the country and the state of Tamil Nadu. Whoever is farsighted enough to worry about the future of India’s “ordinary citizens,” our natural resources, the well-being of our progeny, the possibility of losing our freedom to the New Nuclear East India Companies and most importantly, the democratic fabric of our country support us. We thank them and you for standing with us. We are ready for any brutal police action but will not give up our nonviolent noncooperation campaign.

Dr. SP Udayakumar is Coordinator, People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the movement in Koodankulam

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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Lloyd Blankfein's the Wrong Spokesman for Gay Rights | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

Lloyd Blankfein's the Wrong Spokesman for Gay Rights | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone:

Lloyd Blankfein's the Wrong Spokesman for Gay Rights

POSTED: February 14, 4:55 PM ET

Comment50

Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of The Goldman Sachs Group

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Courtesy of good friend David Sirota, who has also written on the subject, I heard today that the Human Rights Campaign, the organization that advocates for equal rights for gay, lesbian, and transgender people, has named Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein its “national corporate spokesman for same-sex marriage.”

This is an extremely unfortunate error by the HRC, which in making Blankfein a spokesman for this important political campaign has allowed one of the most relentless enemies of the poor and the disadvantaged to use the gay and lesbian community to buy moral credibility.

What’s most distressing about this decision is that the HRC has decided to honor and celebrate the CEO of a company with an extensive record of promoting inequality and preying upon ordinary working people.

How would the members of the HRC board feel if a group of labor unions got together and decided to nominate an antigay bigot like Rick Santorum, Gary Bauer or James Dobson to head a national campaign for workers’ rights?

Well, state workers in Mississippi might very well ask a version of that question about the HRC, now that the HRC has made a spokesman out of a man whose company, Goldman, Sachs, reportedly bilked the Public Employees’ Retirement Fund of Mississippi out of nearly $700 million, by selling those pensioners the toxic mortgages issued by corrupt lender New Century.

So maybe the HRC will avoid doing work in Mississippi, then – no big deal. Of course, there’s also Arkansas, where Goldman is being sued by the Arkansas Teachers’ Retirement System for fraud involving the notorious Abacus deals… and Virginia, where the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Group is bringing suit… and there’s also Illinois, where the Central Laborer’s Pension Fund, a major holder of Goldman stock, is suing Goldman (and Blankfein personally) for devoting too much money to compensation and not leaving enough for shareholders (there are a bunch of those suits out there). The Teamsters, the SEIU, Workers United – they’ve all targeted Goldman for one ugly reason or another.

In fact, in most every state in America, some major institutional investor, union, pension fund, or shareholder is either suing Goldman, Sachs or Blankfein for unethical business practices, or actively protesting the bank’s extreme greed and seeming disregard for the well-being of ordinary people.

How about overseas? Well, the HRC might want to avoid agitating in Holland, where the Dutch pension fund ABP is suing Goldman for more mortgage ripoffs. It might want to avoid Australia, where Goldman helped sink a hedge fund called Basis Capital by putting it into $100 million worth of a toxic deal called Timberwolf (that’s the one where Blankfein’s subordinates were celebrating after they found such a dumb customer, with one Goldman bragging he’d found a “white elephant, flying pig and unicorn all at once”).

The HRC should probably also stay out of South Korea, where Goldman settled with the Heungkuk Life Insurance company, which also was suckered into the deadly Timberwolf deal to the tune of tens of millions. And those disturbances in Greece you’re watching on TV this week? You might want to look into Goldman’s history of larding up that country with deadly swap deals, and then helping create an index for speculators to bet against Greek debt. Then there are the Dutch and German banks who collectively lost over a billion dollars though Goldman's Abacus scam...

All over the world, Goldman is famous for lying and cheating people out of their money, profiting from the misfortunes of others, and saving its own neck through political influence and bailouts. This is who HRC wants representing the gay and lesbian community?

As for Blankfein personally, he’s only a guy whom a U.S. Senate subcommittee recommended for perjury charges, who told a British newspaper he was doing “God’s work,” and who took home $53 million in compensation in 2007, the worst year of a national financial crisis he had a big hand in creating. So it’s not like he’s personally a dick in addition to running one of the most corrupt and predatory firms in the history of international capitalism.

There is a long tradition of Wall Street predators mesmerizing the liberal press through their advocacy – often sincere advocacy – of socially liberal causes. Traditionally a homogenous bastion of rightist politics, Wall Street’s end-of-last-century shift toward an embrace of social issues dear to progressives and Democrats was a key to the finance community’s success in finally seducing both major parties.

Crossover types like Bob Rubin, another former Goldman head who made it fashionable for a depraved finance pirate to vote Democratic, paved the way for the modern phenomenon of corrupt financiers escaping media scrutiny through the careful nurturing of good-guy images through advocacy on issues like environmentalism and gay rights.

The good p.r. these guys buy with this activity is, quite literally, the least they can do. What I mean by that is that coming out for gay rights or green energy is utterly inexpensive, from either a dollar standpoint or an ideological standpoint, for the Blankfeins of the world – it costs them nothing, but there’s a gain there. Sirota put it eloquently:

Not surprisingly, the particular progressive causes they choose tend to be those that do not impact their businesses or personal economic situations. In some cases, in fact, these thugs seem as if they are leveraging their stands on such progressive issues as a quid pro quo bargaining chip for their personal financial interests. As just one example of where that kind of dynamic may have played out, recall that almost immediately after Wall Streeters underwrote Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s campaign to legalize gay marriage, Cuomo launched a public (though ultimately unsuccessful) campaign to halt the extension of a so-called millionaires tax on those same Wall Streeters.

The fight for gay and lesbian rights is ongoing and important, and same-sex marriage is an important battle in that war. I’m glad Blankfein is on the right side of it – he ought to be, everybody ought to be. But the HRC stepped in it on this one. I hope they rethink their decision.

p.s. Maybe I'm misreading something, but if I'm going to let Lloyd Blankfein run around town dressed in my own personal cloak of liberal do-gooderism, I want him paying top dollar for the privilege. So how is Goldman only listed as a Bronze Partner in the HRC list of corporate partners, when companies like American Airlines and Citi are Platinum Partners? Hell, HRC should've come away from this transaction owning all of Greece's debt and that entire Maiden Lane bond portfolio Goldman just bought from the Fed. Sigh... on the other hand, no one ever accused Lloyd of being a bad negotiator.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

China's 'Occupy men's toilet' drive inspires Pune women - India News - IBNLive

China's 'Occupy men's toilet' drive inspires Pune women - India News - IBNLive:

Pune: The 'Occupy Men's Toilet' campaign started by women in China to protest against the lack of sanitation facilities for them is beginning to grip the imagination of women in the city.

Activists, working women and college students are now saying that if the 78 newly elected women representatives in the civic house do nothing on the issue, they will launch a similar drive in the city.

The PMC has been allocating money for women's toilets since 2009 and it even decided to build toilets under the JNNURM. Toilet projects were also mooted on a buy, own and transfer (BOT) basis. But precious little has come of it, and three years on none of the projects have progressed beyond the drawing board.

China's 'Occupy men's toilet' drive inspires Pune women

Mid-Day.com

"In 2009, Rs 60 lakh was allocated for public toilets and this was increased to Rs 1 crore in 2010. It is not the funds but lack of political will that is responsible for the lack of toilets in the city," said RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar.

The PMC decided that public toilets would be built on BOT basis. "The standing committee pulled back its proposal of building fibre public toilets since the material is not conducive to our health," Kumbhar said.

According to the World Health Organisation, there should be one public toilet for every 100 people. In the city, there is one public toilet for 9,100 people.

Activist Mukta Manohar said it was unfortunate that women had to fight for these basic amenities.

"When thousands of people hit the streets in protest against such apathy, the administration will have no option but to take notice," Manohar said.

She also said that the upcoming Women's Day was just the right occasion to conduct such protests.

Health activist Chetan Gandhi, who has been raising the issue of separate public toilets for women for the past few years, said the PMC had only reserved 63 blocks for public toilets and that too on a temporary basis.

"Infections and kidney stone are the most common problems among women," Gandhi said.

Woman activist Vidya Bal even petitioned the high court in this regard in September.

"Besides protesting on the streets, it's the responsibility of newly elected women corporators to take up this issue in the General Body meeting. This time women corporators already outnumber men. If they ignore the issue, they have no right to sit in the House," Bal said.

Neha Visani, a student of Wadia College, said, "Women should be provided the same facilities that men enjoy. A movement like the Occupy Men's Toilet in China must be initiated here. Even the pay toilets are filthy as ever.

Are the women who have their menstrual cycles or those who are pregnant supposed to sit at home to avail of clean washrooms?"

Esha Goyal, an executive with a marketing firm said women must shed inhibitions and raise their voice against such injustice.

Nikita Smyth, a student, said, "The movement in China is perfectly logical. Where else will the women go if there are toilets only for men all around? It is a bold step but we must not hesitate to take such steps if pushed against the wall."

Former mayors blame citizens for opposing toilets in their respective area and raising hygiene issues.

Former mayor Mohansingh Rajpal said that he had made a budgetary provision of Rs 2 crore in his tenure but he could complete only 60 per cent of the work. "At least 25 locations were opposed by the citizens and the project was further delayed because of administrative issues," he said.

Rajpal's predecessor Rajalaxmi Bhosale said she too had proposed a Rs 1 crore project but the PMC could not find land for the structures. Bhosale, who was first elected in 1997, constructed five units in Hadapsar.

China's equal toilet rights movement

Fed up with long queues for women at public toilets, 23-year-old student Li Tingting and 20 other women marched into a men's public toilet in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou carrying colourful placards calling for equal waiting times for both men and women. Tingting now plans to take her protest to Beijing, where China's leaders will gather next month for the annual meeting of the country's parliament.

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