The Indian court ruling lifting the ban on gay sex is now being contested in the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court hearing begins on July 20.
The Indian Express reports:
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Centre (Indian government) on a petition challenging the Delhi High Court judgement legalizing gay sex among the consenting adults.
My goodness, Indians are voting in favour of same-sex marriage in a Times of India online poll. Add to that the Delhi High Court ruling that same-sex sex between consenting adults is okay, and you are blown away by the change in attitudes. The law against homosexual sex violates fundamental rights, ruled the High Court.
But the Indian government is in no rush to change the law, say news reports.
Speaking as a non-gay, I can understand the government's reluctance to be dragged into another culture war with the religious hardliners already decrying the High Court's ruling.
Still, there is no turning back the tide. Unless the High Court ruling is overturned by the Supreme Court, the law as it stands has been found unconstitutional. So it will have to be changed.
It is certainly outdated. Introduced by the British nearly 150 years ago, it is seldom enforced. I have never heard of any Oscar Wilde-like case in India. If it's not used, what's the point of having it in the law books?
The Times of India reports:
With Delhi High Court legalising gay sex, India on Thursday become the 127th country in the world to decriminalise homosexuality while 80 nations still consider it as an offence.
The process of legal sanction to homosexual acts began in 1989 when Denmark became the first country to grant a status on a par with married couples to same sex partners which was soon followed by other European countries.
Netherlands became the first nation to give full civil marriage rights to gay couples in 2001. Belgium allowed gay marriages in 2003. Spain too legalised full marriages for gay couples in June 2005.
In July 2005, Canada legalised same-sex marriage. New Zealand in 2004 recognised civil union between gay couples as valid and same sex union was recognised in 2005 in South Africa.
I was surprised to find homosexual acts (between males) are still illegal in Singapore. They are legal in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia (except in Aceh), East Timor and the Philippines but not in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Myanmar, according to Wikipedia.
GayLawNet says:
In October 2007, the Singapore government declared that private, consensual, adult homosexual sex would no longer be prosecuted but that its illegality would remain.
India After Gandhi: The History Of The World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi: The History Of The World's Largest Democracy is a riveting account of India since independence in 1947.
The narrative never flags. Historical figures are brought to life and history re-enacted in its pages. It makes you appreciate the greatness of Gandhi and Nehru as well as India as it is today.
The leaders may have shrunken in stature, the country pulled in different directions by political parties representing various groups and communities, but democracy has deepened, not weakened, says Guha. The coalition governments that have come and gone over the past two decades are a sign that the country today can be governed only by consensus. No one can do another Indira Gandhi.
Image via Wikipedia
She was Nehru's daughter in her secular outlook. Nobody can say she discriminated against any community though she was forced to fight Sikh separatists and sent the army after them into the Golden Temple, their holiest shrine, for which she paid with her life – killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards.
But, apart from their secular outlook, father and daughter had little in common. Nehru respected democracy, the independence of the media and the judiciary. The Congress party in his time was also more independent, run by powerful politicians who did not necessarily listen to him though he was the prime minister and their leader.
Nehru had friends even among his political opponents. Guha writes in absorbing detail about the countless actions taken by Gandhi and Nehru to keep India secular. He makes you admire them simply by describing what they did.
Continue reading "An absorbing history of India since independence" »
Soutik - our blogger
Originally uploaded by bbcworldservice
The BBC has long had a thing about railways. One recalls The Great Railway Journeys and Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar, which was broadcast on the BBC.
And now there's the BBC India Election Train running across India, covering the general election. It's starting a bit late. As this Wall Street Journal graphic shows, almost half the 543 parliamentary constituencies had already gone to the polls by the time the train pulled out of New Delhi at the weekend.
But the BBC's Soutik Biswas (see picture) is doing a nice job giving a chatty, picturesque account on his India Election Train Blog. The accompanying interactive map is a gem too. I am reminded of the BBC's Talking America blog which covered the presidential election last year. But while the BBC used a bus to cover the US election, in India it can afford a luxury train.
Biswas in his airconditioned coach is definitely enjoying greater luxury than Theroux or Gandhi, who travelled third class. Gandhi's railway journey across India was memorably depicted in Sir Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi, which won as many Oscars in its time as Slumdog Millionaire. Unfortunately I couldn't find any videoclip on YouTube to show the exhilarating railway journey. It was one of the highlights of the movie.
So was the BBC's India Election Train inspired by Gandhi or Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar? (Theroux has retraced the journey in Ghost Train To The Eastern Star.)
The "election train" shows how India has opened up, allowing the foreign media to cover the elections in a special train.
Indira Gandhi used to see the foreign hand behind every problem. Now the foreign hand is everywhere from telecoms – Bharti is partly owned by Singapore's SingTel – to banks: ICICI Bank's stakeholders include the Singapore sovereign wealth funds Temasek Holdings and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).
Few could possibly better describe the change than the BBC's former India correspondent, Mark Tully, who can still be heard on the World Service. More than 60 years have passed since India became independent in 1947. But few cover India better yet than the BBC.
Indian IT giant Infosys' founder, chairman and chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy is proud of his children. His employees don't have the same credentials, he told the Economic Times.
He admires Singapore's Mentor Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, hence the title, "chief mentor", reports the Telegraph.
The man, who started Infosys 28 years ago with Rs 10,000 borrowed from his wife, is now worth around $1.8 billion, says the Economic Times. The Nasdaq-registered Infosys is India's second largest IT firm.
The Economic Times reports:
He did not rule out the possibility of his son Rohan and daughter Akshata joining Infosys at some point, but said, “Ideally they may want to run their own marathon as today Infosys has reached a certain level where opportunities or rather rewards of being an entrepreneur are much less.”
The proud father said his daughter is an MBA from Stanford and son is doing his PhD at Harvard. “Both, by any standards, have done well for themselves. We don’t have any employee in the company today with those kind of credentials,” he said.
Now he wants to start a venture fund to invest in new ideas that create value for society.
Meanwhile, Sunanda K Datta-Ray, an eminent Indian journalist who has worked for the Straits Times in Singapore, writes in the Telegraph:
It’s not only his Chief Mentor title that N.R. Narayana Murthy, the Infosys founder, has taken from Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew whom he greeted in 2005 with the memorable words: “I have two heroes. One is Mahatma Gandhi, and the other is you!” Infosys’s CM seems also to have taken to heart the Singapore MM’s advice to join politics.
“When will we have people like you going for elections?” Lee had asked when they met, saying he could “transform India” by multiplying Infosys’s culture of excellence. Lee regretted later that Narayana Murthy laughed away his suggestion.
CM is still coy about taking the plunge. “I am too old to contest an election,” he says.
But he has extended support to a raft of Independent candidates.
A collection of his speeches is coming out as a book, A Better India, A Better World, tomorrow. The Times of India interviewed him about the book.
I tried following the Indian elections on Twitter yesterday, searching both "India" and "Indian elections" for election news. News came fast from various sources. But the BBC was the best, providing live coverage, interactive maps as well as in-depth analysis.
Analysis and perspective have become more valuable than ever because breaking news is so easy to get.
That's why I wasn't tempted to post a video of the slipper hurled at the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani, who wants to be India's next prime minister. (Videos here in Hindi and in English.)
Interestingly, almost half the eligible voters voted in Jammu and Kashmir -- and more than half in Arunachal Pradesh, which is claimed by China – according to the Hindu. Here's how Jammu and Kashmir was covered by the Chinese news agency, Xinhua. Thousands voted in Jammu, said another Xinhua report.
It was the Maoist rebels who waged a violent campaign to disrupt the polls, killing 16 people, including eight policemen, yesterday deep in the Indian countryside, reported The Times of India. Isn't that ironic? The worst-hit were the Maoist strongholds in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. The Maoists want revolution, not democracy.
The Hindu reports 58 to 62 percent turnout:
65 percent in Andhra Pradesh which includes the IT hub, Hyderabad; 62 percent in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam; 60 percent in Kerala; 50 percent in Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state whose chief minister, Mayawati, wants to be the next prime minister; 48 percent in Jammu and Kashmir; and 46 percent in Bihar. Parts of Bihar are inside what the BBC calls the Red Corridor – controlled by the Maoists.
Curiously, the Election Commission of India is not giving polling percentages in the publicly accessible sections -- maybe because the elections don't end till May 13. Elections were held only in 124 of the 543 constituencies yesterday.
Apart from the BBC, the other go-to site is Rediff's India Votes 2009. The Hindustan Times has the most interactive features among the Indian newspaper sites.
The bad news:
Incidentally, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which opposes America and supports China, wants a weaker Indian government. "We favour a truly federal structure in a country as vast as India," the Marxist leader Prakash Karat told the BBC. He wants more power for the states, three of which -- West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura -- have Marxist governments.
The CPI (M) has formed a Third Front with Mayawati and her BSP, the former Tamil film star Jayalalitha who leads the AIADMK strong in Tamil Nadu, and the Telugu Desam Party leader Chandra Babu Naidu who claims credit for the technology boom in Hyderabad. They make up the Third Front fighting the outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party as well as the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Meanwhile. the Times of India website leads with the news: Heed India, young and affluent wake up to vote. The young and the rich are voting like never before, it reports from Hyderabad. Elections in the other big cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore – will be held later.
This Google map of India is useful, showing the places in the news as the elections continue.
India has more than 32 million internet users – the seventh biggest online audience in the world. So the Indian political parties have also gone online. They do not really need the internet to reach the vast majority of more than 700 million voters. Nevertheless, every major party seems to have its own website.
Here are snapshots of the websites of the key political parties.
The Indian National Congress. The party of outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, led by the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi. It won only145 of the 543 seats in parliament in the 2004 election. But that still made it the biggest party in the legislature. And it happened to be the leader of the United Progressive Alliance of parties which together controlled 263 seats in the House, which gave it a parliamentary majority—enough to form a government. (All figures from the BBC's A Guide To Indian Coalitions.)
The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharitya Janata Party whose leader, Lal Krishna Advani, wants to be the next prime. The BJP was in power from 1998 to 2004 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was prime minister and Advani his deputy. It lost the 2004 election when it won 138 seats, seven short of the Congress.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) held 43 seats but wielded disproportionate influence on the Congress government, which needed its support. The Marxists eventually withdrew their support in protest against the nuclear agreement Manmohan Singh signed with President Bush. Singh then made new alliances.
This time the Marxists are part of a Third Front opposing the Congress as well as the BJP. But with no clear winner expected in this election, Congress may still have to make a deal with the Marxists, according to analysts.
What gives the Marxists clout is their strength in the key states of West Bengal and Kerala. But they are losing ground in West Bengal and Kerala has always been a tossup between the Congress and the Marxists.
The Communist Party of India is the junior partner of the Marxists. It held just 10 seats. It supported the former Soviet Union while the Marxists are pro-Beijing.
The Trinamool Congress (Grassroots Congress) is the Marxists' bete noire, gaining strength in West Bengal, which has been ruled by the Marxists for three decades. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee. She has formed an alliance with the Congress.
The Bahujan Samaj Party. Another party led by a woman: Mayawati. She is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and makes no secret of her ambition to be the next prime minister. The party had just 19 seats in parliament but is a key player in the Third Front because it controls Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state.
The All-India Anna DMK or AIADMK. Also led by a woman: the Tamil former film star Jayalalitha. A power to reckon with in Tamil Nadu.
The Telugu Desam Party has its base in Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh and is part of the Third Front. Its leader, Chandra Babu Naidu, claims credit for the IT boom in Hyderabad. He was formerly chief of Andhra Pradesh.
The outgoing Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife, Rabri Devi, who is the chief minister of Bihar – India's most backward state – also have an online website. This is the "unofficial" website of their party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (National People's Party.)
Bollywood meets Facebook in India's 2009 general elections as this CNN video shows.
The Congress Party of outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh is even cashing on the success of Slumdog Millionaire and the hit song, Jai Ho.
Here is an opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party campaign ad.
Websites are using blogs and social media to cover the elections, which began today and will end with the fifth and final phase of polling on May 13. The results will be known only on May 16 as exit polls are banned to prevent one phase of polling from affecting the next.
These websites, RSS feeds and searches may be useful.
Google Blog Search on Indian elections
Twitter on Indian elections and on India.
Friendfeed on Indian elections
And here's Technorati for what it's worth.
From the snowbound Chinese border to holy Ganges towns, Indians began voting today in the first stage of a staggered general election that will end with the fifth and the last round of polling on May 13. More than 700 million Indians are eligible to vote in 543 constituencies spanning the length and breadth of India.The results will be known only on May 16 as exit polls are banned.
This BBC map marks out in blue where more than 140 million people can vote today -- in 124 constituencies scattered across Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Lakshwadeep.
The polls today cover some of India's poorest and most insurgency-ridden states.
Six Indian paramilitary troopers were killed today by Maoist rebels in the eastern state of Jharkhand, reports Sky News.The government has deployed more than two million security personnel across India and is on heightened alert against terrorists from Pakistan.
The Financial Times graphic shows the polling dates and other election highlights.
The ruling Congress party-led coalition appears to lead against an alliance headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but both may need the support of smaller regional parties to win office.
Reuters says: The investor nightmare is the possibility of the rise of a group of smaller parties, known as the "Third Front", who are often seen as opportunist and an unknown quantity in government.
Investors would largely welcome the return of the main opposition, the pro-market BJP, which pushed liberalization and privatization until it lost power in 2004, says another Reuters report.
The BBC compares the election manifestos.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) says in its election manifesto that it wants to "improve relations with China".
So how does it plan to solve the border dispute?
Is it prepared to give away the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh?
China claims Arunachal Pradesh belongs to it. And it is beginning to apply pressure.
China has blocked an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan for India, the Financial Times reported recently. It said:
The Chinese did not give a reason for their intervention. But the ADB said Beijing was unhappy that its Indian plan proposed lending to projects in the disputed north-eastern region of Arunachal Pradesh. People familiar with the plan said the projects were for flood management, water supply and sanitation.
China and India fought a war in 1962 over disputed territory. China declared victory and then pulled back its troops.
Communist leaders such as BT Ranadive, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu supported the Chinese in the border war, according to Wikipedia.
The Marxists have close relations with the Chinese communist party.
China last year opened a consulate in Kolkata, the capital of the communist-ruled state of West Bengal. The state government is in talks with Chinese car makers exploring the possibility of launching production there.
So how do the communists plan to settle the border dispute if they come to power?
The question did not arise when they supported the Congress coalition government of Manmohan Singh from outside.
And they had no say when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party was in power.
But now they are part of a Third Front fighting against the Congress as well as the Hindu nationalists. They will be making the decisions if they come to power. So it's time they made their position clear.
