US body wants India on 'red list' for rights violation; says religious freedom worsened under BJP govt

New Delhi, June 7: Olympics bronze medallists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, along with Satyawart Kadiyan, visited Union sports minister Anurag Thakur’s residence today as he had tweeted last night that the government was “willing to have a discussion” with protesting wrestlers.

The wrestlers put forth five demands. According to sources, these include free and fair elections to the Wrestling Federation of India and the appointment of a woman chief.

BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, the accused in serious allegations of sexual harassment, or his family members, could not be part of the WFI, the wrestlers told Thakur.

According to sources, Union home minister Amit Shah, whom the wrestlers met last week, has also invited the wrestlers for a second round of talks.

Medal-winning wrestlers including Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia have been protesting against BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who they have accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers. One of the complaints against Singh was a minor. On Tuesday, some reports say the minor has “withdrawn” her complaint. However, the POCSO FIR against Singh – as well as another FIR based on complaints by six adult women wrestlers – are still in place.

Between April 23 and May 28, the wrestlers were on a sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar, where they received widespread support from various groups including farmers’ unions. On May 28 – the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was inaugurating the new parliament building, with Singh in attendance – the Delhi Police detained the protesting wrestlers, dismantled their protest sits and filed FIRs against them. The police has since refused them permission to return to Jantar Mantar or protest at India Gate.

Earlier, the wrestlers had accused Thakur of engaging in a “hush job” on Singh’s behalf. “When we met the sports minister, the women wrestlers shared individual incidents related to sexual harassment. The girls were crying before him, but no action was taken. The sports minister tried to hush up the matter yet again by forming a committee. We have tried to raise this issue at every level but the matter was always suppressed,” Vinesh Phogat had said.

The Bharatiya Janta Party-led government of India plans to push back against the country rankings produced by global agencies on topics like governance and press freedom, a key advisor to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quoted as saying by news agencies.

Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Modi's Economic Advisory Council, said India has begun to raise this issue at global forums. He said the indices were being compiled by a "tiny group of think tanks in the North Atlantic," sponsored by three or four funding agencies that are "driving a real-world agenda."

"It is not just narrative building in some diffused way. This has clear direct impact on trade, investment and other activities," Sanyal said.

India ranked lower than Afghanistan and Pakistan in the new World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. It was below Pakistan and Bhutan in an academic freedom index by V-Dem Institute.

Over the past year, Indian government has in various meetings pointed out the flaws in methods used to compile global indices used by institutions like the World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Sanyal said.

The "World Bank is involved in this discussion because it takes these opinions from these think tanks and effectively sanctifies it by putting it into something called the world governance index," Sanyal said.

The World Bank, WEF, Reporters Without Borders and V-DEM Institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment. UNDP said it would respond shortly.

Sanyal said the ratings also get hard-wired into decision-making through environmental, social and governance (ESG) norms and sovereign ratings. Multilateral development banks offer subsidised loans to ESG-compliant projects.

"The idea of having some ESG norms is not the problem in itself. The problem relates to how these norms are defined and who certifies or measures compliance to these norms," he said. "As things are currently evolving, developing countries have been completely left out of the conversation."

The matter is being taken up by the Cabinet Secretariat, which has held more than a dozen meetings on the issue this year, a government official said. The Cabinet Secretariat and finance ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

India has said it plans to be an advocate for developing countries under its G20 presidency. Sanyal did not say if India has flagged the issue of country rankings with the G20.

"There are other developing countries who are also concerned about this because effectively this is a form of neo-colonialism," he said, adding that concerned ministries have been asked to establish benchmarks and engage continuously with rating agencies.

Some of the upcoming indices being watched out by India are the financial development index by International Monetary Fund, gender inequality and human development indices by UNDP, logistics performance and worldwide governance indicators by the World Bank, sources said. 

New Delhi, June 3: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday described the Law Commission's recommendations backing the sedition law as "shocking" and said this must be "resisted" as the law is already grossly "misused".

The former Union minister's remarks came after the Law Commission proposed retaining the penal provision for the offence of sedition, saying repealing it altogether can have serious adverse ramifications for the country's security and integrity.

The commission, chaired by Justice (retired) Ritu Raj Awasthi, also suggested increasing the minimum jail term for the offence of sedition from three years to seven years, seeking to bring it in consonance with the scheme of punishment provided for other offences under Chapter VI of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with offences against the State.

Reacting to the development, Tharoor wrote on Twitter: "This is shocking and must be resisted. The law is already grossly and frequently misused in our country."

"My 2014 Private Members' Bill and @INCIndia's 2019 manifesto argued for amending the sedition law to bring it into conformity with Supreme Court rulings that restrict sedition to incitement to violence against the state," he said.

In 2022, the Supreme Court ordered that the sedition law under section 124A of the IPC should be kept in abeyance and asked the central and state governments to refrain from registering any FIR under it, the former Union minister pointed out.

In its report, the Law Commission has recommended enhancing the jail term in sedition cases from a minimum of three years to seven years, contending that it would allow courts greater room to award punishment in accordance with the scale and gravity of the act committed.

The view evoked a strong reaction from the Congress, which accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of planning to make the law more "draconian" and giving a message ahead of next year's general elections that it will be used against opposition leaders.