Ananthoo's updates

When all trees have been cut down, when all animals have been hunted, when all waters are polluted, when all air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money. - Cree Prophecy

Friday, June 10, 2022

Usha and the Red brigade

Usha is an energy bomb who trains 1000s of women (more than 2 Lakh women ) esp young ones on self defense to avert any sort of domestic violence and mainly for the young girls in their daily life at home and school or office..they have covered 225 schools in Lucknow and 200 villages around. she has been doing this untiringly for years now in Lucknow and see the number of awards and shields she has got in the background of one of the photos. Meanwhile an interesting anecdote: a young girl by accident is exposed to her training, uses the self defence skills.. Red brigade doesn’t allow girls below 11 to their trainings bcos they have to mention about some uncomfy incidents/words/acts of men. so as not to expose these kids to such shameful stuff they avoid girls younger than 11/12..But since this one in our story had come along with an elder sister and they couldn’t send her away or keep her alone else where, she also participated..(but Usha didn’t know of this) It so happened that there was a neighbourhood jerk, hefty and old and who used to harass this kid, who forced himself on this kid the next day (of training) too..This kid just fresh from the previous day's accidental training, manages to push him away using the technique that was taught, twist his arm and kick in his privy..so he was down wailing in pain.. the neighbours come and see this man in pain, understand what shud have happened and informs police & 1090- the women powerline! From there, escalation happens and they organise a counselling for the kid bcos of her age..this news goes up to the top of the women commission and a top police women (IPS) officer.. who calls Usha “hey. Lal Batte! Did u know a kid averted a crisis bcos of your training!” and goes on to tell her this story and later on she gets to listen to the kid too for a first hand narration.. Usha is full of such anecdotes..when ever with her we just ask for some and she keeps dishing out so many interesting anecdotes..all filled with hope and women valour! Its a pleasure that the Gandhian movement is throwing such interesting and fantastic folks in to my life..and am so happy to not just see their work closely but also travel along.. about the Red brigade: Red Brigade Lucknow is a women-led organization dedicated entirely to eradicating sexual violence. It was founded in 2011 by Usha Vishwakarma, herself a sexual violence survivor. Usha started this initiative along with 15 young women and girls, most of them also survivors of sexual violence coming from socially and economically marginalized sections of our community. More than 75 percent of the organization is lead and run by young women and girls, a majority of them represent the socio economically marginalized social groups (in particular, Dalits and Muslims). The organization believes in inculcating the principles of participation, representation and decision-making powers within young women and girls from the lower strata of the society as they face multiple and compound forms of discrimination. They all sport Red (& black) dresses, have more than 100 volunteers and have won soooooo many awards. Its just too much to type all those names here:) PS: This post just doesnt do justice to what they do..esp Usha just works incessantly and on so many issues..during the migrants issue and pandemic they started distributing groceries and food to so many poor neighbourhoods..she has so many stories around that too! now she is in to creating livelihoods, to try and revive some artisans..

Thursday, December 10, 2020

மெச்சியுனை...


 தேடிச் சோறு

நிதந் தின்று...

பல சின்னஞ்

சிறுகதைகள் பேசி...

மனம் வாடித்

துன்பமிக உழன்று...

பிறர் வாடப் பல

செயல்கள் செய்து...

நரை கூடி கிழப்

பருவமெய்தி...

கொடுங் கூற்றுக்

கிரையெனப்பின் மா

யும்...

பல வேடிக்கை

மனிதரைப் போலே...

நான் வீழ்வேனென்று

நினைத்தாயோ...?


டிசம்பர்-11: பாரதி பிறந்தநாள்







Thursday, April 23, 2020

Arnabs Bluff in 2002!

just in case!
dont miss the video in this.. Arnab the Liar!! asalways..
https://www.altnews.in/arnab-goswami-bluff-car-attacked-2002-riots/


Did Arnab Goswami bluff about his car being attacked during 2002 riots?


On the back of Amit Shah’s testimony in court in the 2002 Naroda Gam riots case, an old video of Arnab Goswami resurfaced on social media in which he talks about his experience while he was in Gujarat covering the 2002 riots. In this video, he claims that the car in which he was traveling was attacked near then Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s residence. The original video has been deleted hence we have re-uploaded the video.

The rough transcript of the video is as follows:
And we came out 50m from his residence and we were stopped. Suddenly our Ambassador car is stopped and there are people who are breaking the windows with trishuls. They are breaking the windows..all the windows are broken. It’s almost as if there are trishuls all around and I know this is very unsavory but I must share with you the reality of life as I have seen it. When that happens we are all going to reveal our religion. It is 50m from the Chief Minister’s house. How it happened, I don’t know. We said we are journalists .. (No, No.. what is your religion, what is your religion) And thankfully there was nobody from minority community with us…We had our identity cards, press cards, my driver didn’t have a press card, I looked at him, and I was sitting in the front, I have an obsession with sitting in the front seat and I looked to my right and I can see the look on my driver’s face. When people talk of secularism, I have seen hate from up close and I know that group of people would have killed him. He had a Tattoo, he put a ‘hey ram’ or something on his .. it is not a tattoo, it is just actually an imprint that you put which stays with you. He showed that and we walked out. But I saw for that moment how scared you..
However, soon after the video reappeared on social media, Rajdeep Sardesai in a series of tweets claimed that Arnab was misrepresenting facts. It was actually Rajdeep himself who was in the car and he had written about this in his book “2014: The Election That Changed India”.


He also retweeted a couple of journalists who were in Ahmedabad with Rajdeep during this period with Sanjeev Singh being the NDTV Correspondent based out of Ahmedabad during this time period.


Alt News spoke to Sanjeev Singh and he told us that Rajdeep had gone to CM Modi’s place to get his views on the Godhra train burning incident and the ensuing riots on Feb 28th. Later they realised that the clip did not have any audio which meant that the interview had to be re-recorded. At this point, Rajdeep and the crew had to go back to CM Modi’s place. There were 5 people in the car including Rajdeep. When they left from CM’s residence after recording the interview, their car was gheraoed by a mob. Sanjeev Singh also told Alt news that Arnab Goswami came later and he was deputed to Kheda district in Gujarat.
Alt News further spoke to one of the camera technicians who was in the crew that visited CM Modi’s place on that day. He confirmed that the sequence of events that were narrated by Arnab Goswami actually happened but Arnab was not present in the car.
As a face saving measure, a Republic TV employee Prema Sridevi has put out a picture in which Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai are seen in the same frame with the text, “The crew that covered 2002 Gujarat riots”.


However, Maya Mirchandani of NDTV confirmed that the picture was taken at a later date.


It is shameful enough that Arnab Goswami passed off an incident that happened with someone else in a first person narrative but the backhanded attempts of putting out misleading pictures via a Republic Employee puts a further question mark on Arnab Goswami’s journalistic ethics.