Saturday, August 22, 2020

[IAC#RG] INDIA’S JUDICIARY AT CROSS ROADS

Not just the legal fraternity but every true Indian should stand by Senior Counsel Prashant Bhushan in his untiring crusade to clean the prevailing stinking rot in the Judiciary.

The loyalty of every Judge in our country has to be only to the very sacred Constitution of India. The not so long ago eulogizing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Supreme Court Judge Arun Mishra was totally uncalled for and in utter bad taste. Justice Mishra who is due to retire on 2nd September went well overboard.  We all saw how then Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam who within weeks of his retirement was rewarded by Narendra Modi with an appointment on 31st August 2014 as the Governor of Kerala. On the retired Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, the less said the better. 

As a desperate BJP wants to overpower the Judiciary too, there is a very disturbing disquiet over the slippery slope,down which judicial values are slithering. With Narendra Modi all out to corrode and corrupt even the Independence of the Judiciary, to ensure the highest standards of judicial independence and to ward off even the faintest trace of governmental influence on the judiciary, there needs to be at least a two year "cooling off period" for retiring judges before they accept any posting after retirement.

Any award or posting must always be made on merit and not for special favours received. No Government must dangle a carrot or put a price on the heads of our Judiciary or senior civil servants to perform in a way that bends the rules rather than in the public interests or according to the letter and spirit of the law. The need for the rule of law and separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary is paramount in any democracy with good governance. An independent judiciary can properly enforce the rule of law only if it is learned in the law and is characterized by impartiality and integrity.

As judicial independence of Judges rests entirely on maintaining an incorruptible detachment from the government of the day, it cannot be allowed to be morally compromised by lobbying for cushy post-retirement sinecure postings. We have witnessed instances where Judges have fixed their retirement nests much prior to even demitting office.

In times when the Indian Judiciary is passing through a very turbulent phase, this "jobs-for-the-judges" syndrome could place judges potentially open to governmental influence leaving scope for "pre-retirement judgments" being predisposed by the craving of a "post-retirement job".

A former Chief Justice of India Justice R M Lodha led by example that judges should not take any constitutional or other position for at least two years after demitting office. The Constitution of India is very clear on the distinct roles of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. It envisages a free, fair and independent Judiciary. The highest standards of judicial independence must be ensured by warding off even the faintest trace of governmental influence on the judiciary.

The demand to keep Supreme Court and High Court Judges away from immediately taking such post retirement benefits becomes the need of the hour and will thus ensure that those about to retire do not run behind those in the establishment thus giving a death knell to the independence of the judiciary. There is a need of concerted efforts towards propping up highest standards of judicial accountability.

The Judiciary should never be manned by persons who are tilted or aligned to any political party. Judges should have the spine to crack on illegalities done by all politicians, regardless of how high positions they hold. It has to be ensured that judicial accountability is maintained at all times with every Judge conforming to the highest standards of uprightness and integrity. If Judges cannot independently balance the scales of Justice, the Temples of Justice become pointless ending up as dens of chicanery and jugglery. 

Andrew Jackson, the late American President believed that all the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous judiciary.  


Aires Rodrigues

Advocate High Court

C/G-2, Shopping Complex

Ribandar Retreat,

Ribandar – Goa – 403006


Mobile No: 9822684372


Office Tel  No: (0832) 2444012

Email: airesrodrigues1@gmail.com

                         Or

           airesrodrigues@yahoo.com


You can also reach me on


Facebook.com/ AiresRodrigues


Twitter@rodrigues_aires


www.airesrodrigues.com


Thursday, August 20, 2020

[IAC#RG] THE WELFARE OF THECISF PERSONNEL NEEDS TO BE SECURED

The Central Government is duty bound to ensure on a priority the utmost well being of the officers and constabulary of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). It is so horrifying to see the pathetic working and living conditions of these personnel who are shunted around the country wherever their services are requisitioned.

 

It is so painful that due to the work related stress, the suicide rate amongst the CISF is very high.  This force which works so dedicatedly and very professionally, at times even putting their lives at risk must be well taken care of.

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi must ensure that the salaries, perks and benefits of the CISF and the welfare of their families is enhanced to commensurate with the extremely hard work they put in their line of duty.  

 

The government must Walk the Talk and 'Sab ka Saath Sab Ka Vikas' cannot be its hollow slogan. If the Government does not come to the rescue of the toiling CISF, this would be a fit case for the National Human Rights Commission to intervene.

 


Aires Rodrigues

Advocate High Court

C/G-2, Shopping Complex

Ribandar Retreat,

Ribandar – Goa – 403006


Mobile No: 9822684372


Office Tel  No: (0832) 2444012

Email: airesrodrigues1@gmail.com

                         Or

           airesrodrigues@yahoo.com


You can also reach me on


Facebook.com/ AiresRodrigues


Twitter@rodrigues_aires


www.airesrodrigues.com


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Re: [IAC#RG] Govt has been lying all along on COVID

It would be appreciated if members do not distort and cherry pick comments of co-members.

1.  Dr. Kapoor did not say that anyone other than mathematicians are fools. His point was that the persons in medical streams are deficient in higher mathematical knowledge due to the shortcomings in the Indian education system . Consequently medical experts lacked the mathematical skills required to predict the course of the outbreak, and made incompetent projections which were used by Govt to make key decisions..

2. If I remember rightly, Dr. Kapoor had uploaded his predictions to Twitter on 30 March 2020 which closely correlated for the next 15 days. Thereafter the substandard Chinese testing kits ordered through Shri Modi's single point online window for corruption were found to be defective and overpriced. Consequently in the absence of accurate statistics on infection numbers nobody's predictive model could be validated. Had the testing actually happened  I am certain that Dr. Kapoor's predictions (which are in public domain and intimated to every member of his list) would have been validated and found on the conservative side.

3. The echo-chamber under-qualified RSS fools whom Mr. Modi relies on have exposed their ignorance for the entire world to see.. Here is what an anguished medical professional wrote to us just today:-

Since March 2020, Indians have been staring into a distant and unpredictable future where the country is free from the raging pandemic of Coronavirus infection, the disease named COVID-19 now. However, the future proceeds to seem very bleak due to the recent developments of the disease. With a daily rise of 60,000 cases in the last 5 days, fear continues to escalate among citizens owing to the fact that the pandemic seems to be out of control as compared to other nations. The Indian government is largely to blame for that, as well as the downward spiralling pride of the nation. A basic overpopulation problem stands as a major cause of lack of control. State-of-the-art ventilators and supportive treatment are the key to recovery for patients in agony and serious conditions. Government funded hospitals lack the necessary infrastructure to cure patients, as a result of which people are dying and those who are discharged face recurrence of COVID-19, spreading the disease further to others around them. Private hospitals, having better technology as capability of treating people, have resorted to sky-high billing amounts which the poor folks are not able to afford. There is still a general lack of awareness about the pandemic in many regions of the country, where people are infected in large numbers continuously. Supply of masks, hand sanitizers and protective items is also scarce is a large number of areas. The most promising technology used by other nations is the negative-pressure ventilator rooms, which prevent the virus from being suspended in the air, which is something that regular ventilators do. Common people are completely unaware of that and hence demand no such machinery. Even after the formulation of a vaccine by Russia, high recovery rates in the US, almost nil cases in New Zealand, a large fraction of Indians are made to believe there are no scientific advancements or preventive measures for COVID. The government also makes very inefficient attempts in stopping the spread of baseless rumours- there have even been accounts of patients asking doctors for a hydroxychloroquine prescription when the drug has clearly been proved to be of no use, much less have dangerous side effects. With growing uncertainty about authorities' attempts, the techniques used by India to manage the spread of COVID-19 is a compelling matter of shame for the whole country.

4. Looking at the charts, it is possible that India is approaching the peak of the Covid curve. It requires great care now not to repeat the same corrupt deliberate policy decision of profit minded bania governments to spread infection  throughout the country merely to keep their shops and factories open. You can be sure that somebody very high up wants Covid to spike again by opening metro rail and resuming railways on large scale on or around 1st September.

Dalvi

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 11:08 PM Akash Saini <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:
So anyone other than mathematicians, however educated, are fools? This is so condescending and reeks of  insecurity. What we are witnessing has never been witnessed in modern human history, and people/experts from all academic domains are learning from the pandemic. So you can't expect experts to come out and predict precisely what is going to happen. NO-ONE, including mathematicians and statisticians, in any part of the world, has been able to precisely predict anything related to COVID-19. This is how science grows, and this is how science is different from religion, in that it does not claim to be perfect and all-knowing. So mistakes have been, and will be, made, by governments, by experts, and by common people. This is part of the learning curve, a reminder that we are still far from uncovering the mysteries of nature. Which country has done wonders in dealing with the pandemic? if they say they have done well, either they are lying or they are yet to deal with it.
if you are so sure that you can solve the problem with your mathematical and statistical knowledge, where are your models and why have you not published them? I'm sure there would be many journals interested in publishing useful content related to Covid that can help governments worldwide. If you haven't, then stop bashing and criticizing biologists because they did not study mathematics after high school. Most Nobel laureates in Biology did not.

Coming to the question of government; i'm not defending the government, but there has to be some clarity in what you are criticizing them for. You can't charge someone who committed theft for murder. Or with rape for eve teasing. Taking an ultra left stand has not, and will not, solve anything. Grow up!

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:47 PM ravi kapoor <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:
Instead of suggesting a basic lesson in infection biology, it seems what you need is a basic course in MATHEMATICS.

It is a sad reality of the complete  anarchy in the Indian education system that academics in BIOLOGY stream mostly stop learning mathematics after class 10 due to PCB "stream" system and so are far less competent than their PCM stream peers.The PM's chosen 10th class maths pass Chairman of Covid empowered committee at NITI AYG who publicly predicted that Covid-19 would be snuffed out by 16 May 2020 being a prize example.

Since we seem to agree agree that Govt should have done very much more testing and been open about their numbers, one can very safely conclude that all statistics disseminated till date by them are actually BOGUS and fictitious.

Dr. Roy is correct when he says that this government has deliberately set out  toinfect as many Indians as possible as rapidly as possible. I have also said much the same thing on this forum  Some very PRAGMATIC people in government had decided between a millions Indian dying versus boosting Mukesh Ambani's trillions on the "frothy" stock markets where they booked their profit so long as SEBI was not enforcing margins. Every IAS / IPS officer on Ambani's "payroll" is a multi crore-pati now due to Covid.

Regarding paras 3, 4,5 of your email it is very difficult to discuss such things with a person who is not well grounded in mathematics and statistics. Even the most basic global population weighted  metrics of deaths/million or cases/million or testing per million of India versus the rest of the world would educate you on where .India ranks  under this INCOMPETENT and CORRUPT government.

Numbers don't lie, people do.

Ravi, Ph.D.

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 3:48 AM Akash Saini <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:
What you probably need is a basic lesson in infection biology. 

1. Just because the sero survey suggests 23% infection rate, does not mean that everyone else is lying about it. It just means that a lot more people than previously thought are asymptomatic. Yes, they should have done more tests than they have, and they should have been more transparent, but not everything is cooked up like you say. And to assume that, like the infection rate, the death rate is also 10 times higher than reported, is utter stupidity. Because as the science is revealing, its a primarily asymptomatic disease and most people do not show symptoms and therefore do not get tested. This is also why the disease is spreading so rapidly and widely, because the asymptomatic people do not know that they have it and therefore have no idea that they are spreading it. However, while infection can be asymptomatic (and therefore remain hidden), death is not associated with asymptomatic infections and is very much noticeable. 

2. That governments deliberately wanted to infect people, is a baseless and a rather stupid claim. I can understand (and to some extent agree) if you say that they are incompetent or could have done better, but calling them murderous is outrageous and only shows how logically bankrupt you are.

3. There is no evidence to suggest that declining rate means 60% have been infected. You are probably talking about herd immunity, but please know that passing the peak of infection does not mean that herd immunity has been kicked in. Studies have shown no trace of herd immunity having developed in Italy and New York, where Covid has created havoc.

4. What studies have shown is that antibody protection lasts for 75 days; however T-cell response can last for longer and can provide protection from re-infection. This is still being studied and the jury is still out on the level of immunity that a single infection provides. Please refrain from coming to (stupid) conclusions on the basis of WhatsApp forwards. Yes, there is a good chance of second wave, but not for the reasons you mentioned.

Please do some reading and use logic before you send group emails like this.

Thanks

--

Best regards,

Akash Saini, Ph.D.
Ph: +91-9717616746
Post: "indiaresists@lists.riseup.net"
Exit: "indiaresists-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net"
Quit: "https://lists.riseup.net/www/signoff/indiaresists"
Help: https://help.riseup.net/en/list-user
WWW : http://indiaagainstcorruption.net.in


--
Best regards,

Akash Saini, Ph.D.
Ph: +91-9717616746



Post: "indiaresists@lists.riseup.net"
Exit: "indiaresists-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net"
Quit: "https://lists.riseup.net/www/signoff/indiaresists"
Help: https://help.riseup.net/en/list-user
WWW : http://indiaagainstcorruption.net.in

Monday, August 17, 2020

Re: [IAC#RG] Govt has been lying all along on COVID

So anyone other than mathematicians, however educated, are fools? This is so condescending and reeks of  insecurity. What we are witnessing has never been witnessed in modern human history, and people/experts from all academic domains are learning from the pandemic. So you can't expect experts to come out and predict precisely what is going to happen. NO-ONE, including mathematicians and statisticians, in any part of the world, has been able to precisely predict anything related to COVID-19. This is how science grows, and this is how science is different from religion, in that it does not claim to be perfect and all-knowing. So mistakes have been, and will be, made, by governments, by experts, and by common people. This is part of the learning curve, a reminder that we are still far from uncovering the mysteries of nature. Which country has done wonders in dealing with the pandemic? if they say they have done well, either they are lying or they are yet to deal with it.
if you are so sure that you can solve the problem with your mathematical and statistical knowledge, where are your models and why have you not published them? I'm sure there would be many journals interested in publishing useful content related to Covid that can help governments worldwide. If you haven't, then stop bashing and criticizing biologists because they did not study mathematics after high school. Most Nobel laureates in Biology did not.

Coming to the question of government; i'm not defending the government, but there has to be some clarity in what you are criticizing them for. You can't charge someone who committed theft for murder. Or with rape for eve teasing. Taking an ultra left stand has not, and will not, solve anything. Grow up!

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:47 PM ravi kapoor <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:
Instead of suggesting a basic lesson in infection biology, it seems what you need is a basic course in MATHEMATICS.

It is a sad reality of the complete  anarchy in the Indian education system that academics in BIOLOGY stream mostly stop learning mathematics after class 10 due to PCB "stream" system and so are far less competent than their PCM stream peers.The PM's chosen 10th class maths pass Chairman of Covid empowered committee at NITI AYG who publicly predicted that Covid-19 would be snuffed out by 16 May 2020 being a prize example.

Since we seem to agree agree that Govt should have done very much more testing and been open about their numbers, one can very safely conclude that all statistics disseminated till date by them are actually BOGUS and fictitious.

Dr. Roy is correct when he says that this government has deliberately set out  toinfect as many Indians as possible as rapidly as possible. I have also said much the same thing on this forum  Some very PRAGMATIC people in government had decided between a millions Indian dying versus boosting Mukesh Ambani's trillions on the "frothy" stock markets where they booked their profit so long as SEBI was not enforcing margins. Every IAS / IPS officer on Ambani's "payroll" is a multi crore-pati now due to Covid.

Regarding paras 3, 4,5 of your email it is very difficult to discuss such things with a person who is not well grounded in mathematics and statistics. Even the most basic global population weighted  metrics of deaths/million or cases/million or testing per million of India versus the rest of the world would educate you on where .India ranks  under this INCOMPETENT and CORRUPT government.

Numbers don't lie, people do.

Ravi, Ph.D.

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 3:48 AM Akash Saini <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:
What you probably need is a basic lesson in infection biology. 

1. Just because the sero survey suggests 23% infection rate, does not mean that everyone else is lying about it. It just means that a lot more people than previously thought are asymptomatic. Yes, they should have done more tests than they have, and they should have been more transparent, but not everything is cooked up like you say. And to assume that, like the infection rate, the death rate is also 10 times higher than reported, is utter stupidity. Because as the science is revealing, its a primarily asymptomatic disease and most people do not show symptoms and therefore do not get tested. This is also why the disease is spreading so rapidly and widely, because the asymptomatic people do not know that they have it and therefore have no idea that they are spreading it. However, while infection can be asymptomatic (and therefore remain hidden), death is not associated with asymptomatic infections and is very much noticeable. 

2. That governments deliberately wanted to infect people, is a baseless and a rather stupid claim. I can understand (and to some extent agree) if you say that they are incompetent or could have done better, but calling them murderous is outrageous and only shows how logically bankrupt you are.

3. There is no evidence to suggest that declining rate means 60% have been infected. You are probably talking about herd immunity, but please know that passing the peak of infection does not mean that herd immunity has been kicked in. Studies have shown no trace of herd immunity having developed in Italy and New York, where Covid has created havoc.

4. What studies have shown is that antibody protection lasts for 75 days; however T-cell response can last for longer and can provide protection from re-infection. This is still being studied and the jury is still out on the level of immunity that a single infection provides. Please refrain from coming to (stupid) conclusions on the basis of WhatsApp forwards. Yes, there is a good chance of second wave, but not for the reasons you mentioned.

Please do some reading and use logic before you send group emails like this.

Thanks

--

Best regards,

Akash Saini, Ph.D.
Ph: +91-9717616746
Post: "indiaresists@lists.riseup.net"
Exit: "indiaresists-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net"
Quit: "https://lists.riseup.net/www/signoff/indiaresists"
Help: https://help.riseup.net/en/list-user
WWW : http://indiaagainstcorruption.net.in


--
Best regards,

Akash Saini, Ph.D.
Ph: +91-9717616746