Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00in terms of some kind
00:00:01of of serious solution, how would you rate it? because we've also
00:00:05of seen of what happened in the the war
00:00:08recently
00:00:10of between Pakistan and India in which of course we saw the role
00:00:12of the US president
00:00:14of also, so so there is you a certain background to what
00:00:17happened, so so what are your thoughts at this time of that kind of
00:00:21a diplomatic success of of that kind of
00:00:24of a diplomatic effort?
00:00:3010% uh at
00:00:33first, but then you bring
00:00:37of in the the um global powers, including the global south,
00:00:41including the western powers
00:00:42of and you start to make progress. um, and the
00:00:46Vietnam settlement, years were
00:00:50spent debating the size
00:00:52of the table that diplomats would set sit at and
00:00:56how many people would be at that
00:00:58of table, so... It's a slow
00:01:01painstaking process that requires
00:01:04patience, which you maybe in
00:01:08two years we'll say it's a 30% chance, maybe in five years
00:01:12we'll say it's a 50% chance. I'm not number one
00:01:16mathematician, but I do know these things take
00:01:20time, and I would, I
00:01:24think the world would celebrate if India and Pakistan
00:01:28came to some.
00:01:32in sort of a dat, thank you so
00:01:36much Richard, on that note, thank
00:01:37you so much for joining us, thank you for your very valuable
00:01:39of input, it was a pleasure having you, I want to move
00:01:42on, we have with us
00:01:46of joining of Tarushi Aswani who is an
00:01:50independent
00:01:50of journalist based in New Delhi,
00:01:52of India joining us, Tarushi, you've been
00:01:55reporting from the ground since yesterday, what have you witnessed how
00:02:00would you describe the atmosphere in Delhi at this time, as of
00:02:03course these protests continue, what are you
00:02:06witnessing? as somebody who's
00:02:10been on the ground for the last two days, I
00:02:13of have seen that lot of protesters are being
00:02:16brutally detained, but that is not stopping their
00:02:20courage from protesting against the government, and apart from this,
00:02:24you also have to know that we are currently
00:02:27of facing
00:02:28of a crackdown of sorts in the heart, of delhi
00:02:30so this place that we read about the jantar mantar
00:02:33enclave
00:02:35of and how it's situated in kanot place which is like the heartbeat
00:02:38of delhi which has our supreme court of india which also
00:02:42has the
00:02:43of president's house, the prime minister's house, the parliament of
00:02:46India,
00:02:55we also have with us Tania Bazai who's in human rights.
00:03:00lawyer joining us. Tanya, in terms
00:03:03of the Delhi crackdown, is it is is in your
00:03:07opinion quite frankly, is peaceful descent being
00:03:10criminalized? Of course thousands of people are reportedly being
00:03:14detained in Delhi, of course, as these
00:03:17reporters are wanting to demonstrate against the chief election
00:03:21commissioner and of course the electoral revision, the CGP
00:03:25leaders, CJP leaders also detained upon arriving in
00:03:29the cap. is it is the response in your
00:03:32opinion proportionate and what is it reveal about the Modi
00:03:37of government and of course their tolerance of peaceful
00:03:42of protesting?
00:03:43of see the if we go through the laws and constitution
00:03:47of the India, they have given right to
00:03:50of assemble and this give them protection to protest peacefully. when it comes to
00:03:53article 19 subsection one and article 19 subsection
00:03:57two, they have given them all the right to protest. peacefully
00:04:01and on the other hand, the supreme court has also emphasized that
00:04:04the protester doing protest are is the fundamental
00:04:08right of all the
00:04:09of citizen and the unreasonable restrictions can lead to constitutional
00:04:13crisis, so if it come to the mass
00:04:16disfranchisement, they can also invoke the sections
00:04:20of section 21, 22, 23, 24
00:04:24of the representation of people's act 1950, so
00:04:27they have all the sections, all the provisions even the
00:04:31constitution
00:04:32of the India has
00:04:33of given them all the rights to do the peaceful protest,
00:04:37even the supreme
00:04:38of court has the rulings that they can protest peacefully unless and until they
00:04:42don't
00:04:42of breach the law, so I think that there is no criminality
00:04:46in all this process, if we go through the provisions of
00:04:50India and the constitution, they have given them all the right under article
00:04:54191 and 192
00:04:56of the constitution of India, how
00:04:58of would you look at the practical? sort of
00:05:01practicality
00:05:02of these rights in terms of how are they practically being
00:05:05imposed, are they being imposed the way that the
00:05:08constitution sort of forces?
00:05:13"I think practically they they should be, I
00:05:17think more peaceful and has there are a lot of sanction already
00:05:21imposed on them a lot them are detained already, even
00:05:24the the the the the head the Cookro Janata
00:05:28party has been detained and even detention itself is a crime
00:05:32in law, you cannot detain someone for more than 24 hours and you have to
00:05:36produce them before the magistrate as soon as possible, so practically I
00:05:40think they are very influential, if you see the opposition. leaders are also in
00:05:43their favor and the opposition leaders in according to
00:05:47article 84 and 102 the constitution allow them to join
00:05:51them and promote their
00:05:53narrative. fair enough, let me let me
00:05:57come back to you, let let's go to Tarushi to hear what's happening on the ground.
00:06:01Tarushi, what are the processors demanding,
00:06:04you know, why has the revision of electoral roles become such
00:06:07major flash point when we look at the demonstrators calling
00:06:11for chief election. Kumar to resign, is it is
00:06:15it? what is behind this this kind of
00:06:19protest that we are looking
00:06:20at? essentially we have
00:06:24to look a lot of factors here, because there was a story done by an
00:06:27Indian newspaper on September 24, after which there was
00:06:31a wide spread protest across India demanding that 13
00:06:35crore votes which have been deleted be taken back and the
00:06:39election commission must take accountability for it. However, what is
00:06:43coming to notice of protesters, citizens and opposition leaders
00:06:47is that there is no acknowledgement on the part of Gnyanesh Kumar who is
00:06:51the chief election commissioner of India and neither has there been any
00:06:54accountability on part the BJP on part
00:06:58the Modi government that there is deletion of 13 crore
00:07:02voters across India. What they are saying is is that procedures
00:07:06going on and these visions happened. However we must also
00:07:10understand that there. is an overwhelming
00:07:13sentiment that these voters were deleted in fact, there is an
00:07:17allegation that these voters were deleted in fact to make Mr. Modi
00:07:21win in these states where the elections happened with deleted
00:07:24voters, for example Bihar where the BJP has won in
00:07:28coalition and also in West Bengal where the BJP has
00:07:32won, so there are a lot of questions that the protesters are
00:07:35asking about how this is happening and India
00:07:39is one the largest democracies in the world. we
00:07:42have around 970 million registered
00:07:46voters, out these such a big deletion
00:07:49is
00:07:56one the a largest problem tarushi, tarushi, when you, like democracies you said, India is in the world, but as you know, we just spoke
00:07:59to Tania Bazai also,
00:08:01you know, and there are some constitutional freedoms that are granted to the
00:08:05citizens of India, in terms of detention, are they
00:08:09being followed, are they being
00:08:11you know in terms of are they being? abused, are they being followed? when we look at the
00:08:15rules regarding detention, the time periods, as far
00:08:19as
00:08:19you know the leaders are concerned, the opposition parties are, those that are protesting from
00:08:23the opposition parties also, so so on the ground, what is the
00:08:27situation with regard to those constitutional
00:08:29freedoms?
00:08:36so on the ground, the sentiment is like about detentions, i
00:08:40will give you very official figure which is:
00:08:42700 protesters were detained yesterday, this
00:08:45includes former chief ministers, this includes lot of members
00:08:49the opposition party and also includes youth
00:08:52organizations, however many them were released, almost
00:08:56all them in fact were released late night yesterday
00:09:00and even early morning today Sunday on October 11, so
00:09:03regarding rules and regulations, the Indian constitution has
00:09:07stipulated sections which talk about the freedom to
00:09:10protest, the freedom of expression and freedom for peaceful
00:09:13assembly and expressing one in terms of writing in
00:09:17posters, using photographs, however these rights
00:09:20in section 19 the Indian constitution are
00:09:23being massively overlooked when it comes to these
00:09:27protests which actually point massive
00:09:30fingers at the modi government and what
00:09:34is also come to notice is that while the Supreme Court of
00:09:38India has intervened while they also said that internet must not be
00:09:42shut.
00:09:42down in the Indian capital while the Supreme Court also said that you
00:09:46must not use excessive force while battling protesters.
00:09:50All of this was ignored by the Ministry of Home Affairs under Mr.
00:09:54Amit Shah, all these orders were ignored. I was
00:09:57reporting from the ground yesterday from 8 am till 8
00:10:01pm in the night, we did not have internet the whole day,
00:10:05and wherever we had internet, it was very patchy.
00:10:09area So the whole the capital, as I explain
00:10:12to you, cannot place area where this is happening, it is the heartbeat of Delhi,
00:10:16you have the parliament of India there, you have the prime minister house, you have the president
00:10:20house, you have the Supreme Court of India situated
00:10:24there, imagine having no internet there for 24 hours, how would
00:10:27people move around and this would especially being done to
00:10:31you know nullify or zero five protesters, however
00:10:34protesters still gathered in massive numbers and in front of my eyes
00:10:38protesters were thrashed, they were beaten, they were dragged, their clothes were
00:10:42tone and the police was stuffing them into detention vans like one
00:10:46stuff cattle into vans, this is what was happening today as well as
00:10:49yesterday right, let me come back to you, let us go to Tania and then I'll come
00:10:53back to you, Tania, when we look at like you said, it doesn't seem like those constitutional
00:10:57freedoms, those constitutional rights when you talk about detention
00:11:01are being upheld, when we look at what Tarushi is
00:11:05telling us about what's happening on the ground, but in terms the election
00:11:08commission's independence and accountability, these
00:11:11demon demonstrations demanding that the
00:11:15CEC of CEC Kumar's
00:11:19resignation, when we look at the opposition parties questioning the
00:11:22transparency the electoral role division,
00:11:25how do you look at this? because when an institution of course is responsible for
00:11:29ensuring free and fair elections is and it's
00:11:32facing these kind of allegations of political bias, what
00:11:36legal mechanisms exist to hold it
00:11:39accountable? you now does the current controversy
00:11:43weaken India's constitutional freedoms,
00:11:47institutional safeguards, what reforms in your opinion
00:11:51would help restore the public confidence at this time?
00:11:56If I talk according to legal perspective, they have very good
00:12:00legal framework that comes under article 32 and
00:12:04226 the constitution that they can hold the commission accountable
00:12:07for transparency and fostering the public engagement and on the other
00:12:11side if you see the the this this entire battle is
00:12:15the transparency and fostering the public opinion and public
00:12:19engagement so they have that article 32 and
00:12:23article 226 they can invoke. anyt the protesters and
00:12:26voters, they can go before the high court, they can go for the the
00:12:30courts can go for the suoto cognisance, so
00:12:34they have all the legal, you can say framework in front
00:12:38them, and they can adopt them, they can invoke them. on the
00:12:42other hand, as you know that the India is also
00:12:46signatory to the ICCPR, article 21 and
00:12:5025, but after the invention the intervention
00:12:53the uh united nation or you can say the international
00:12:57convenient, even india,
00:13:01india just you
00:13:02can say said that
00:13:03we don't want any internal interference in our country, whereas it is
00:13:07already signatory to all the these
00:13:10laws and they have to abide by. let me interject here,
00:13:14when we look at
00:13:15you know on the one hand constitutional rights versus
00:13:19state restrictions, how would you look at the
00:13:22situation at this time?
00:13:24you know on the one and of course like you are saying there are all these statutes in
00:13:28place, there all these constitutional
00:13:31provisions that and constitutional safegards,
00:13:34also legal safegards that you are talking about, but when we look at
00:13:38practically the situation on ground, how do you
00:13:42look at things? let's talk about the practicality
00:13:45versus the you know whatever checks are
00:13:48procedurally in place, because we
00:13:51are looking a state placing restrictions, we are looking a st
00:13:55that seems according to what Tarushi is
00:13:59saying, that is ignoring what are frankly
00:14:03constitutional safegards? i think Modi
00:14:07government must engage constructively rather than dismissively. when it
00:14:11comes to reasonable restrictions, yes it is mentioned in article 19 subsection
00:14:14two the constitution, there are some reason restrictions when it
00:14:18comes freedom of speech when it comes to right to assemble, but on
00:14:22the other hand supreme court is very clear and Supreme Court ruling is very
00:14:26clear that there are some reasonable restrictions, but that
00:14:29restrictions can become disproportionate when they
00:14:33suppress lawful descent. If they are like protesting
00:14:37legally and peacefully then these provisions and
00:14:41these restrictions do not apply and they cannot impose these
00:14:44restrictions because they are suppressing lawful
00:14:47descents. Fair enough. Let me come back to
00:14:51you. Tarushi, when we look at the government's response. "the
00:14:55Modi government the authorities justified their handling the
00:14:58protests, they've you know how in terms of
00:15:02what they've said at this time, in terms of officials directly addressing
00:15:06protests concerns, have they really
00:15:10addressed these concerns, have the response focused
00:15:13primarily on maintaining public order or or does the
00:15:17state look like it's in mood to listen to what is
00:15:20being said on on such huge scale at this time?"
00:15:26Marok the state is not ready to listen at all, even as I speaking to
00:15:30you at the moment, there are protesters, men, women,
00:15:34children, elderly, they are all in connot place right now. we
00:15:37speaking, some them are climbing buses, some them are you know
00:15:41walking on the road, some them are demanding that the others be released who have been
00:15:45detained at 3 pm today, but what it seems like
00:15:49is that the Modi government is using the state
00:15:52machinery to very conveniently protect the chief election
00:15:56commissioner Mr. Kumar, and it appears as though they are not in mood
00:16:00to comment or cater to any the demands the protesters have
00:16:03laid forward, while the protesters have always
00:16:07even back in July when we had mass protest here led by the Cocker Janata
00:16:11Party, protesters maintained that please
00:16:14understand that these protests are going to be peaceful, we are the
00:16:18believers of Gandhi and we want to have peaceful protests here,
00:16:22however in my opinion the government is ready to make
00:16:26the experience of protesting in India very humiliating
00:16:30activity, they want to humiliate protesters, journalists who are
00:16:33covering this to the extent that we do not feel
00:16:37like covering the protests ever again, because the way the police has
00:16:41been dealing with protesters is inhuman by
00:16:45the max, they have been detaining protesters, journalists and they
00:16:49are not releasing them even when people are showing their press cards,
00:16:53so that says a lot about where the orders are coming from, what the state
00:16:57orders are, and even currently when I am moving in Delhi at
00:17:01the moment, there is section called 163 in place
00:17:05which forbids the assembly of more than four. people, so we
00:17:08are basically a state of undeclared emergency
00:17:12and rights of people are being trampled just because they are daring to question the modi
00:17:16government. what happens next in
00:17:20your opinion, are the protesters preparing to continue these
00:17:24demonstrations? what is the government's response like you said
00:17:28in terms of are they going to be continuing to confront? like
00:17:32you said they're even confronting and making things difficult for those that that
00:17:36want to cover these. protest, of course journalists like yourself,
00:17:39journalists who really have only one interest to tell what tell
00:17:43everyone, what's exactly happening, tell it like it is, in your
00:17:47opinion is civil liberties, democratic accountability
00:17:50under Modi's leadership, how how is
00:17:54it taking, of course it's taking a blow, but what
00:17:58happens next in your
00:17:59opinion? so
00:18:03today also a protest was foiled, protesters were not allowed to move beyond the
00:18:07point in the central location where the protest was planned, however
00:18:11protesters are not backing down, they have one goal which is the
00:18:15resignation of Gnyanesh Kumar and the
00:18:18other thing is that we also have a protest tomorrow in the
00:18:22morning led by Rahul Gandhi who is marching
00:18:26in the same area, is going to be marching tomorrow, so we are waiting to see what
00:18:30happens next, because frankly at this moment it is very
00:18:34difficult and unpredictable to tell what
00:18:36the next step is going
00:18:37to be, However, one thing remains certain is that the
00:18:40protesters are not backing down, whether it's the corporate Janata party,
00:18:44whether it's normal citizens, whether it's people who are engaged in
00:18:48politics, youth activists or opposition leaders, chief
00:18:52ministers, former people who been associated with the government, lot of
00:18:55IAS, Indian administrative service officers have also written to the
00:18:59Supreme Court of India asking for clarity about whatever has
00:19:03happened with the electoral role, so what we are
00:19:06seeing in is basically pointing of fingers
00:19:10a posing of questions and all
00:19:14this is unanimously questioning what the Modi government has been
00:19:18doing and planning to do in the last 12 years. why
00:19:22has it become so important for
00:19:25you know
00:19:26for for not to sort of lay off as far as this
00:19:30CAC, the chief election commissioner is concerned, why is it become such
00:19:34huge deal for the current government in your opinion?
00:19:41I think what one must observe, I
00:19:45think people who watch India globally must understand that there is
00:19:49pattern that the government follows, so the pattern is to never accept its
00:19:53mistakes, so while we saw the resignation of
00:19:56education minister of India Dharmendra Pradhan resignation we saw in July
00:20:00itself when the protesters were all over Delhi again asking for
00:20:04his resignation because lot of exam. government exam
00:20:08medical papers had been lead and that had led to the suicide of
00:20:1125 students who were under pressure of giving reexams because
00:20:15the government's failure to contain the confidentiality of exam
00:20:19papers, this man who is the CEC cannot be
00:20:22sacrificed this time. Dharmendra Pradhan could have been
00:20:26sacrificed because it was about education, but what we are
00:20:29seeing is a man who has been alleged to have rigged
00:20:33elections which made the BJP win in two states.
00:20:37so the moment if and when Gnyanesh Kumar resigns,
00:20:41questions will now surface on Modi and all the election
00:20:45state elections he has won in the last 12 years, so I do not think that the Modi
00:20:49government is... is ready to face the floor when it comes to
00:20:52accountability over all the state elections we have
00:20:56had, like we just had elections in three states this year, we
00:20:59also have elections in two to three other states the next year, so what
00:21:03is coming is greater for them than what has gone by, so in
00:21:07order to hold to the power they have had since 12 years,
00:21:11they will not let Gnyanesh Kumar resign, because once he resigns
00:21:15he will also have to answer who are the people who
00:21:18you know if he has actually rigged votes, who were the people who made him
00:21:22rig those votes, so that's like very complicated
00:21:26calculation we have right now, a quick
00:21:28question Tanya, when we look at detention of journalists, for
00:21:32example, activists, political leaders, you now
00:21:36when what what Tarushi is saying, making it difficult for
00:21:40those journalists like herself who want to cover what's happening,
00:21:44you want to tell the world you know of course what is happening
00:21:47at this time, what legal protection? exist or should
00:21:51apply, when reporters document public protests, what
00:21:55remedies are available, if individuals are detained without
00:21:58adequate legal grounds, and what message lastly does this
00:22:02response send to the civil society and ordinary citizens
00:22:06who want to challenge these this kind of
00:22:09inequality, this kind of injustice that is at
00:22:12play? illegal detention itself
00:22:16is unlawful and it's not allowed in law and for
00:22:20illegal detention you have to go before the high court in the rit of hebious
00:22:23corpus and you have to file a rit and you have to produce
00:22:27the the
00:22:31whosoever the protester or voter is, you have to
00:22:34bef appear before the court within 24 hours, so you cannot
00:22:38detain someone more than 24 hours,
00:22:42it's illegal and pakistan even otherwise,
00:22:46and what i see that the journalists they have freedom of speech right?
00:22:50to assemble I told you under article 19 subsection one
00:22:53and they have all the right and Supreme Court of Pakistan is
00:22:57very sorry supreme court of India is very clear on this that
00:23:01the protest is the fundamental right and the unreasonable
00:23:05restrictions can lead to the constitutional crisis and you cannot
00:23:08stop them from protesting when it comes to peaceful
00:23:12protest so illegal detention cannot go
00:23:16beyond 24 hours you have to present that person before the
00:23:20magistrate within 24 hours right, fair enough, thank you so
00:23:24much for being with us, thank you for updating us, taushi, thank you for letting
00:23:27us know exactly what's happening, thank you for joining
00:23:31us, when we look at what's happening
00:23:33in India, of course under the Modi rule things seem to be in shambles,
00:23:37when we look at democracy, when we look at right to peaceful protest, when we
00:23:41look at accountability, when we look at the right to
00:23:45assembly, the government seems to be coming down on all those
00:23:48rights, country that calls itself the greater democracy, greatest
00:23:52democracy in the world seems to be
00:23:56flagrantly abusing all sorts of human
00:24:00rights, the right of journalists to cover the events, making it
00:24:03difficult like Tarushi said even report
00:24:07what's happening on the ground, one certainly hopes that
00:24:11some sort of sanity will prevail. Thank you so much for joining us
00:24:15today on
00:24:16perspective.
00:30:00Good morning, assalamualaikum, you're watching. on TV with the news at
00:30:04this hour, I'm Fair Fayaz, let's begin with the
00:30:07headlines,
00:30:25a Pakistani resident has been killed and 11 others wounded in a
00:30:29fresh hoothi strike on Raad's international air.
00:30:32reported.
00:30:41The Saudi led coalition says it has intercepted a hoouti launched ballistic
00:30:45missile targeting Amis Mushed while Saudi civil
00:30:49defense has declared
00:30:50the threat over in Abha following earlier
00:30:53alert.