Are you ready for a public interest story?

So, there was a training session for Maharashtra's Judges (JMFC & MM) at judicial academy on the 3 new criminal laws that are set to screw your freedom & dignity.

About 187 Judges were called for it.

A retired Madras HC judge And, a Retired UP Sessions Judge was called in as speakers.

A training of barely 1 & half day is actually no training at all.

It was reflected in the responses of those who attended.

1. Why ? If you merely wanted to change the nomenclature - why not through an amendment?

Dindori, LS constituency in Maharashtra is an amazing story of @ECISVEEP & @rajivkumarec's questionable conduct AND @PawarSpeaks's remarkable political smarts.

Mr. Pawar had fielded, an ordinary party Karyakarta, a teacher, Mr. Bhagare (also known as 'guruji' being a teacher) He was facing a sitting Minister of State in Modi's Cabinet & political heavyweight, Bharti Pawar.

BJP also fielded one Babu Sadu Bhagre. A commoner with the same surname as that of NCP (SP) candidate.

ECI gave him 🎺 trumpet as a symbol which resembled NCP(SP)'s symbol.

Here's a small incident to show how privilege works in India :

The son hasn't enrolled in #Aadhaar .

His College's Administration staff (one of the most prominent in Mumbai) told him :- either you'll have to enroll or forget about sitting for the Std XII Boards exam. The 17 was made to stand outside the Admin block when he was trying to reason with the In-charge that Aadhaar is not mandatory for attempting Std XII exams.

Mr. Dubey, the all knowing God of Admin was pretty harsh to him.
Dubey: "Kya tum Indian citizen nahi ho"?

There's too much noise floating around the PMLA and ED on mainstream media and SM.

Let's try and understand what the beast is?

PMLA criminalizes proceeds of crime being used, enjoyed or shown in your books as legitimate money or gains.

That's the heart & soul of the Act. Trivia : just before Modi came to power - IRS and the cadre did not want to be placed in @dir_ed .

They would rather get a posting in one of the meatier places - Customs or Excise or State Sales Tax dept like VAT in Maharashtra.

Paisa banaao aur aish karo.

ED was a side Post.

Have I understood it correctly?
On #PMLA SC has said : declaration by Parliament, ipso facto, satisfies the 'test' of compelling State interest.

Does that leave room for judicial scrutiny of a Law as all of them are passed / declared by the Parliament. Often, w/o debate. More shocking is pulling up directive principles in support of upholding sections that are inversion of justice and due process.
Mind boggling is citation of State's obligation to prevent concentration of wealth in a few hands to justify draconian powers of arrest & detention.

The least that's expected of a ruling dispensation is that it will not mislead the Parliament.

Mumbai has 5 Benches of NCLT.

Bench 1 & 2 are presided by the same members. Bench 1 in the morning session - from 11 AM to 2 PM & Bench 2 in post lunch - 3 PM to 4.30 PM First up : fresh matters are taken up as Supplimentary board. Here, at the most, notices are issued. Zero adjudication.

Then, 1 or 2 heavy duty cases are heard where Sr. Counsels make never-ending arguments to end the session on being adjourned to some other day.

Let's try to put this in context:

Minister @smritiirani 's husband and his business partner start a restaurant in Goa.

The good @kunalvijayakar visits the place.

He's greeted by none less than Minister @smritiirani 's daughter. A youngster doing her culinary education. The daughter basks in the limelight of the credit for the f & b at the restaurant.

And, a bar. i e. A place that's licensed to serve liquor.

Kunal likes the food and the ambiance.

The daughter claims credit for it & gladly talks to Kunal.

Minister @smritiirani is happy.

A day spent in Malegaon:
1. The textile industry is in doldrums. The powerloom factories are working only for 3-4 days a week. Massive under costing. Losses per meter of cloth production are Rs.1 to 3 .

Same with cotton yarn prices. Despite 30 to 40 per kg fall- sales r subdued It's a situation where cotton spinning mills of Tamil Nadu are making huge losses. Again, despite a steep fall in cotton prices.

Perils of non-existent demand.

India's economy is facing massive demand constraints. Exports are contracting.

Burrre din.

Apropos to my earlier trip to Rajasthan :

The Hindu (I mean, the real & true Hindus - as against the political Hindutva) society is deeply broken.

Since it's an anecdotal account - i must qualify it by saying - North Indian UC Hindu society.

It's broken. It's rotten. Each one is on a quest to bad-mouth or degrade the other. No matter who the other is. It could be brother, sister, father or even mother. Nothing said about other close relatives is better.

There's no love. No compassion. No fraternity. It's all a show-biz.
Love is a show.

What we know so far :

Take out a procession on a Hindu religious occasion.

Take it out even if there's no tradition of a procession.

Play loud music. Play songs dehumanising Islam religion and Muslims.

Take the procession to a Masjid.

Increase the sound decibel. Go crazy. Step up on dehumanising chants. Give calls for a gen#cide.

If there's a retaliation, you've achieved your goal. Let the police take over. Arrest anyone that they can lay their hands on.

Invoke strictest IPC sections and ensure that they spend years w/o bail or trial.

Anatomy of an averted communal riot :

Place : Malegaon, Dist : Nashik, Maharashtra State.

On the eve of Ram Navami, an attempt was made to engineer communal riots in Malegaon.

Saptashrungi Devi temple is located in a scenic mountain in Nashik Dist.

Amazing place. Every year, devotees from Khandesh i.e Jalgaon & other Districts travel on foot for the pilgrimage of Saptashrungi temple.

They travel in groups. On foot. Singing bhajans, braving hot summer, most travel w/o footwear. Their connection with Devi is sacred. It gives them strength

Mohan Bhagwat's statement is radical. He is equating India's 'progress' with establishment of Hindu Rashtra, an apartheid State.

Ideas are required to be debated & countered with alternate ideas on the public square.

Problem here is - he controls the public square & State.

https://twitter.com/thewire_in/status/1514820835282124808

You can't debate him. If you try doing that - like Sudha, Umar, Pinjara Tod activists, Jamia students, anti CAA protesters tried to do - the State will put you in jail.

Once there, you will stay there. Unlike the evil Brits, this State wouldn't allow you a trial or bail.

Okay !

So, the Jains of Indian @Twitter are trending #ApologizeMoitra :

A few Jain takes. All from my personal interactions. All from my anecdotal personal observations.

Jains that follow me or see this thread : introspect or Fcuk Off. Firstly, Jains, predominantly believe in displaying their religious identity. You may call it bigotry. They may or may not be religious, but, they wouldn't spare no efforts in displaying it to the public at large.

Secondly, they're duplicitous. The vocal ones. Not all.

Think about it:

UPA government is by far the best that has happened to this nascent democracy.

A PM was an intellectual par excellence. An economist who knew what he was doing.
An astute politician who built consensus

A FM, PC & not Pranab Da, who was an expert in his domain Ministers with intellect - @Jairam_Ramesh , Mani Shankar Aiyar & practical knowledge & street smartness, like Murali Deora etc.

They had no compulsions to embark on campaign trails. Every few days or months.

The vote catchers were different - YSR, Vilasrao, Gehlot, Amrinder etc

There's a huge scam going on in the stock markeeet.

Valuations are defying underlying profitability on the balance sheets

It's a game being played on the backing of unprecedented liquidity provided by the Central Bankers

The irrational exuberance will sink the retail investors Most of the fresh equity offerings are in the nature of existing investors offloading their loss making deals at exorbitant valuations.

Just by the hype being created by the eco-system of investment bankers, underwriting Agents, shady money laundering criminals etc

I come from a India - Legal version :

Where the Top judiciary sings hosannas for personal liberty, but selectively.

Where the Lower Judiciary is trained to be antithetical to personal liberty. Where The Top Judiciary thanks the Executive for Court infra development - the Thane Court functions out of a dungeon. A veritable hell-hole. No place to even stand in the Court w/o rubbing a 100 people on their public & private parts.

#ShivSena Chief @OfficeofUT 's speech on the occasion of #DasaraMelava - My take:
Caveat : I heard only 30 mnts or so at the end.
1. He made a distinction between #Hindutva as practiced by RSS & as understood by him. He said - my Hindutva doesn't make me hate people. 2. RSS Chief's persistent claim that all Indians had the same ancestors, meaning Hindus - UT had a 2 fold answer - If you talk of the ancestors, you will have to go back to monkeys, and, if ancestors of all Indians were Hindus - why u behave as if ancestors of opposition ..

We all may show our exasperation at what's happening with Aryan Khan. Rightly so.

But, remember that, our judicial system cares as much for personal liberty as we care for it's decay.

Bail applications are usually not heard for months.
Aryan's is being heard within 3 days. Courts grant urgency to anticipatory bail applications, not bail.

If you're sent to jail by a Magistrate, the curtailment of your personal liberty ceases to remain a concern for higher judiciary

You become 1 of the thousands that are languishing. Judiciary is short of manpower

On the eve of #75thIndependenceDay : I want to address fellow citizens: I know I'm inconsequential. I also know that I'm the ultimate source of power. The power of my Corporator, the MLA, the Chief Minister, the Prime Minister, the CJ of my High Court, the CJI ... All of them assume power from me. They're there to 'serve' me & you.

How would they serve 'us' ??

Well.....

Not at their whims & fancies.

Not at their biases.

Not at their ideological preferences.

All of them are there to serve 'us' - in accordance with the Constitution.

Namaste sada vatsale matrubhume, tvaya hindu bhume sukhamvartitoham......

I sang this every evening when I headed RSS shishu shakha at 12.

It was fun. The evenings, the small little games. The बौद्धिक। Stories of great kings & heroes. The sense of pride, the fulfilment. Went on for a few months. Then, my ताऊजी got to know that I'm attending Shakha.

ताऊजी was an amazingly simple person. A Brahmin who lived in poverty despite his father being the Chairman of local municipality for 20 years. Despite his father being a person friend of Rajasthan CM

How can I not share the real life experiences here on Twitter?

This is an interesting story :

A businessman, resident of the uppest-upscale of Mumbai.

In partnership with a man living in the most downtrodden neighborhood of a small town.

A business partnership. Strange, you would say. But, it's real. And, it's the India aka Bharat in which we grew up. Not the phony #NewIndia that's being propagated and thrust down our throats.

The Mumbaikar is Hindu & the small town gentleman is Muslim.

They've an inherited business partnership.