A CLOSER INSPECTION OF THE BSF HAPPENINGS The Border Security Forces or the BSF were formed as a response to superintending the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. It also makes up the world's largest guarding force today. Since then, it has reached an extremely important echelon in budget allocations. The BSF is to be provided with a budget of USD 70.6 billion (a 9.8% increase) according to the union budget of 2022-2023. However, what comprises this budget is very obfuscated and vague. Certain areas regarding paramilitary mental health remain neglected. This also comes with the annexation of lands owned by farmers (admitted in the 203rd Rajya Sabha report) for the sake of extending jurisdiction. But is bigger genuinely better, with the kind of implications the pre-existing structure has bought? There seems to be a causal nexus at play with the latest occurrences of fratricide and suicide killings of our brothers in the squadron. We take one such incident of Murshidabad. A BSF head shoots...
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Book Launch & Discussion of The Last Heroes with P. Saintath
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The book launch of P. Sainath's book The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom at its core, was about the necessity of rewriting and reimagining history through a subaltern perspective . In his book, he challenges the popular conception of the Indian freedom movement and attempts to redefine the words "freedom" and "fighter" itself. In popular imagination, the phrase "freedom fighter" evokes certain images. One thinks of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Chandra Shekhar Azad etc. the blueprint of a typical Indian freedom fighter is a male, politically affiliated patriot. While it is true that many leaders of the independence movement embodied these characteristics, it is important to note that the movement wasn't sustained only by the so called "leaders". Indian Independence materialized due to the struggle carried out by the masses and the marginalized, who were fighting on two fronts: independe...
Single Parenting Ramani M. / 5th January, 2023/ Wilson College, Mumbai. ‘Single parenting’, common right? What do all of us really know about single parenting? Firstly, before we stress our brains to answer this question let’s consider one more question in frame. What are we all taught about single parenting till date? Well the question itself is invalid. Single parenting is known only by those who have been raised by a single parent or are single parents themselves. Schools taught us two types of families; nuclear and joint. The concept of single parenting is as alien as the concept of mental health and sex education in schools. One can say that the term ‘single parenting’ itself says it all. But that’s not how it works. In single parenting everything is doubled. Single parents struggle to give their children everything what all other parents give their kids altogether. In most of the cases single parents only aim to give in all their energy and their whole lifetime for the...
Prison Reforms in India with Vijay Raghavan (HRW'21 Day 6)
Prison Reforms in India with Vijay Raghavan Session Topic: Prison Reforms in India Speaker: Mr. Vijay Raghavan Date: 15th December 2021. Time: 5:00 to 6:30 PM. Bio: Vijay Raghavan, MA in Social Work with Specialisation in Criminology and Correctional Administration (TISS) and Ph.D. in Social Work (TISS) Working with the Centre for Criminology and Justice (CCJ), School of Social Work, TISS, since 2005, and currently as a Professor with the Centre. What comes to one’s mind when they think about prisons…Human society has suffered from crimes and deviance for a long time. ‘Crime is a very normal part of society', says Durkheim. He also says, ‘Crime helps define outer boundaries of that society.’ Homosexuality has been criminalised in one place and not others. 70 %of the undertrials are yet to be convicted. Bureaucracy has crept into Indian prisons as well. Undertrials can wear normal clothes, meet families, have free legal aid, etc. The judge-population r...
Film Screening: The Unreserved (HRW Day 5)
Film Screening The Unreserved Time : 4:00 to 5:30 pm Date : 14th December 2021 The Unreserved: People's lives and their Conversation. The documentary, which is directed by Samarth Mahajan, has won the National Award for Best Audiography in the year 2018, and also premiered at the Film South Asia. 'Unreserved', is the first feature-length documentary of Samarth Mahajan, which includes the lives and stories of working-class travelling passengers in the Unreserved Indian Railway Compartments. It was a journey of 17 days across India in 10 different departments. The movie started with an 81-year-old man performing various Yogas, beyond our scope of imagery. He was also mimicking the sounds of various domestic animals and female crying voices. The participants who joined the meeting were enjoying and passed a lot of comments, like Yogic Dadaji, Legend old man, etc. Then the camera started rolling the stories of passengers, and a conversat...
Student Debate: Freedom of Speech is Non-Negotiable (HRW Day 4)
STUDENT DEBATE: Freedom of Speech is Non-Negotiable TOPIC: Freedom of Speech is Non-negotiable. DATE: 13th December, 2021. PRIZE : RS 500. NO. OF PRIZES : 2 TIME: 4:00 PM MODERATOR : Prof. Sham Gulve and Atharva Kanthi. JUGDE: Prof. Sham Gulve. PLATFORM: Google Meet. NO. OF PARTICIPANTS : 8 ( Agree Team- 4 & Disagree Team- 4) Agree Team Members : 1- Soumiya Pabba. 2- Rohit Gupta. 3- Pallavi Rathod. 4- Sanjeevan Dab Disagree Team Members: 1- Vedanti Patil. 2- Yamunadevi Gupta. 3- Khushi Vaishya. 4- Keisha Singh. “For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate”. -- Margaret Heffernan In amidst of Political Science Association’s (PSA) celebration of its flagship event the 'HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK', on Day 4, after having three sessions consecutively, PSA organized a Student Debate Competition for the students of the Wilson College. The topic opted for this competition ...
श्रम की महँगाई/ Cost of Labour with Chandan Kumar (HRW'21 Day 7)
श्रम की महँगाई/ Cost of Labour Session Topic: श्रम की महँगाई/ Cost of Labour. Speaker: Mr. Chandan Kumar (Trade Unionist & National Coordinator at Working people's Charter). Date: 16th December 2021. Time: 5:00 to 6:30 PM. Moderator: Atiya Memon, Social Media and PR Head of PSA and Sakshi Jadhav, Joint Secretary of PSA. “This pandemic is a collective crisis, more so for daily-wage workers who have been rendered without work and therefore meals.” ~K Ganesh Politics and Economics both are somewhere down the line as a core of the entire situation of this topic and the situation of the labourers. When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world, India was one of the main Nations, which has had to face such an ugly and brutal phase of society where it witnessed millions of people walking on the streets without any employment and food. Many people migrate to the Financial Capital of India- Mumbai, where such a huge n...