False Video Circulated To Discredit and Defame #ShaheenBagh Protestors

A video widely circulating in WhatsApp in India was sent by me to Webqoof for verification. Here's their response


 Hello

After ascertaining the location, The Quint's WebQoof team visited Old Mustafabad area and found out that the video was shot there. We also spoke to a local businessman, who could also be seen in the video, and he told us that he distributed the money to some women, who had come from Shiv Nagar after their houses were burnt or attacked following the violence in Delhi. According to him, they ran out of relief material supplies but some women were left, so he gave them money.

You can read the story here: https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/shaheen-bagh-women-protesters-being-paid-in-video-from-old-mustafabad

Delhi Violence Relief Video Used to Malign Shaheen Bagh Protests
The Quint found out that the video is neither from Shaheen Bagh, nor were the women being paid to protest.
www.thequint.com


Hope this clarifies your doubt.

Regards,
Team WebQoof

Help siblings Shakir and Rukaiya

Help siblings Shakir and Rukaiya

Have you ever thought of a 15-month-old baby suddenly rendered helpless, motionless by a stroke of medically induced spasticity, not even able to suckle her mother for the much-needed milk, How a father used a dropper like a pipette to put the milk in her mouth one drop at a time, How the family coped with this child as she grew up, her spinal cord paralyzed. The relentless effort by the father to get her back to "normal" making her sit, her back to the wall with two pillows on either side for support - at the age of four years! And as the years passed she improved but very slowly. She started walking only with someone at her side, which was to be a lifelong necessary precaution, as her balancing function was far from working optimally. She attended the Savera Special School (opp New  Excelsior Cinema) for children with special needs for almost three decades. After her parents passed away her brother was her sole caretaker who quit his job as a copywriter to be able to take care of Ruqaiyah full time...

But the loss of income has made there life really difficult as he takes her for her out for an outing throughout south Bombay in her wheelchair pushing it himself which is physically draining him since both are aged. Shakir bhai is 59 and Ruqaiyah bai is about 69 years of age.
Shakir bhai is her sole caregiver. They used to have a two-wheeler before but it has also broken down and funds for its repairs or replacement are not something he can afford with costs for her medical needs and diapers are continuously making it difficult for him to manage their lives. 
a few years back livemint even published an article about them. Here’s a link to the same https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/TIoEvzuPhNjv2hOC6lAYBM/The-ride-back-home.html

please do all you can to help them who have been struggling in old age.

Details for direct bank transfer / UPI

UPI ID
shakirvirpurwala@okhdfcbank

BANK OF INDIA

BENEFICIARY NAME- SHAKIR R VIRPURWALA,
BENEFICIARY BANK A/C
NO.002810110001297,
BENEFICIARY BANK-BANK OF INDIA, MAHALAXMI BRANCH,MUMBAI
400026.
BANK IFSC-BKID0000028,
BENEFICIARY PAN CARD NO.-AESPV5815J

KOTAK BANK

BENEFICIARY NAME- SHAKIR ROSHANALI VIRPURWALA.
BENEFICIARY BANK A/C
NO.0911973486
BENEFICIARY BANK-KOTAK BANK , WORLI BRANCH, MUMBAI
BANK IFSC-KKBK0000634
BENEFICIARY PAN CARD NO.-AESPV5815J

Please share with all

Relevance for our times is magnified by the conduct of those in governance today

Thought it is fitting to reproduce what a man by the name of Khushwant Singh wrote in his Editor's Page of 'The Illustrated Weekly of India' 50 years ago. It makes sense, and I believe is a must-read for all Indians in the present political situation. Looks like he just woke up from the dead and wrote the pièce yesterday. Don't miss the last
On Feb 15, 1970 Khushwant Singh wrote under the headline
'Why I am an Indian'.**_

I did not have any choice; I was born one. If the good Lord had consulted me on the subject I might have chosen a country more affluent, less crowded, less censorious in matters of food and drink, unconcerned with personal equations and free of religious bigotry.

Am I proud of being an India? I can't really answer this one. I can scarcely take credit for the achievements of my forefathers. And I have little reason to be proud of what we are doing today. On balance, I would say, 'No, I am not proud of being an Indian.'

'Why don't you get out and settle in some other country?' Once again, I have very little choice. All the countries I might like to live in have restricted quotas for emigrants; most of them are white and have prejudice against coloured people. In any case I feel more relaxed and at home in India. I dislike many things in my country--mostly the government. I know the government is never the same as the country, but it never stops trying to appear in that garb. This is where I belong, and this is where I intend to live and die. Of course, I like going abroad. Living is easier, wine and food are better, women are more forthcoming--it's more fun. However, I soon get tired of all those things and want to get back to my dung-heap and be among my loud-mouthed, sweaty, smelly countrymen. I am like my kinsmen in Africa and England and elsewhere. My head tells me it's better to live abroad, my belly tells me it is more fulfilling to be in 'phoren' but my heart tells me 'get back to Ind'. Each time I return home and drive through the stench of bare-bottomed defecators that line the road from Santa Crux airport to the city I ask myself:

"'Breathes there a man with soul so dead
who never to himself hath said
this is my own land, my native land?"

I can scarcely breathe, but I yell, 'Yeah, this is my native land. I don't like it, but I love it!'

Are you an Indian first and a Punjabi or Sikh second? Or is it the other round? I don't like the way those questions are framed. I am all three at the same time. If I was denied my Punjabiness or my community tradition, I would refuse to call myself Indian. I am Indian, Punjabi and Sikh. And even so I have a patriotic kinship one who says I am 'Indian, Hindu and Haryanvi' or 'I am Indian, Moplah Muslim and Malayali' or 'I am Indian, Christian and Assamese'. I want to retain my religious and linguistic identity without in any way making them exclusive.

I am convinced that in our guaranteed diversity is our strength as a nation. As soon as you try to obliterate regional languages in favour of one 'national' language or religion, in the name of some one Indian credo, you will destroy the unity of the country. Twice was our Indianness challenged: in 1962 by the Chinese; in 1965 by the Pakistanis. Then, despite our many differences of language, religion and faith, we rose as one to defend our country. In the ultimate analysis, it is the consciousness of the frontiers that makes a nation. We have proved that we are one nation.

What then this talk about Indianising people who are already Indian? And has anyone any right to arrogate to himself the right to decide who is and who is not a good Indian?

(Khushwant Singh's Editor's Page, Edited by Rahul Singh, IBH)

Fusion of Lohri and Pongal

Have you ever thought of a 15-month-old baby suddenly rendered helpless, motionless by a stroke of medically induced spasticity,

Help siblings Shakir Bhai and Ruqaiyah Bai

Have you ever thought of a 15-month-old baby suddenly rendered helpless, motionless by a stroke of medically induced spasticity, not even able to suckle her mother for the much-needed milk, How a father used a dropper like a pipette to put the milk in her mouth one drop at a time, How the family coped with this child as she grew up, her spinal cord paralyzed. The relentless effort by the father to get her back to "normal" making her sit, her back to the wall with two pillows on either side for support - at the age of four years! And as the years passed she improved but very slowly. She started walking only with someone at her side, which was to be a lifelong necessary precaution, as her balancing function was far from working optimally. She attended the Savera Special School (opp New  Excelsior Cinema) for children with special needs for almost three decades. After her parents passed away her brother was her sole caretaker who quit his job as a copywriter to be able to take care of Ruqaiyah full time...

Read more - https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-smiti-1?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=fundraisers-footer

To pay via Paytm (for Android users only) - http://m.p-y.tm/pay-milaap?comment=originId_130840&amount=2500&amount_editable=1

For UPI payment: *givetomlpshakirbhai@yesbankltd* https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-smiti-1/upi_deeplink (You can send money to this ID using BHIM, PhonePe or any UPI app)

You can also do a bank transfer to the below mentioned account:
Account number: 80808110130840
Account name: Shakir Bhai
IFSC code: YESB0CMSNOC

An Open Letter to The Chief Justice of India

DEAR Sir,

For the past seven decades, the Supreme Court of India has successfully acted as a ‘temple of justice’ for every citizen of this country. In this journey, it has assumed numerous roles, including the custodian of the Indian Constitution, guardian of human rights and defender of democracy. It has kept pace with the developments of society to retain its relevance and has never wavered in upholding constitutional values. But on December 18, 2019, the faith of these very people, especially the youth of this nation, suffered a huge setback when you declined to hear their voices.

As law students, it was extremely disturbing for us when we realized that “halting of riots” has been made a prerequisite by you for entertaining the pleas pertaining to the violent clamp down on the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act throughout the country. In the legendary history of this Hon’ble Court, this is the first time that the plight of the fundamental rights of the people is being heard on a “conditional” basis. We understand that the statements were made with the intention to stop the violence but they sounded too “culpable” in nature and seemed to insinuate that the students are the ones instigating violence and unrest. Irrespective of who started the violence, the students were not given even a single opportunity of being heard in these unfortunate circumstances thereby violating the basic principles of natural justice. On the same day, the Delhi High Court too refused to hear the students’ plea on an urgent basis, despite there being reports of numerous students being injured and illegally detained.

Following this, there were expectations that the apex court would restore the people’s faith by passing an appropriate order to bring peace to this situation. But to our dismay, My Lord did not even care to hear the matter and at the same time refused to even stay the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. In this infelicitous situation, where the executive is dismantling the Constitution, the police is wreaking havoc, an autocratic system is on the rise and voices are being suppressed, it becomes critical for the judiciary to act expeditiously and save the rights of the people; but your approach did not seem to conform to this principle, sir. My Lord refused to form a panel for a judicial probe and directed the petitioners to approach the respective high courts, completely disregarding the fact that the Delhi High Court had already refused to listen to these pleas on an urgent basis.

At this moment citizens are dying in police firing, thousands are being arrested and detained unlawfully, journalists are being thrashed for covering anti-CAA protests, in the name of “action”, shoot-at-sight orders are being given by ministers, empty cartridges are being found at protest sites, but still the Supreme Court is refusing to recognize the grimness of the situation. Internationally there has been an uproar, with more than 400 students from 19 foreign universities, including Harvard and Yale condemning the violence and Dr Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, even calling it a “preparation of genocide in India”.

If these considerations are not sufficient for an urgent hearing, we don’t know what is!

My Lords have turned their faces away, failing to discharge their positive obligations and becoming oblivious to the suffering of thousands of students. When the doors of two courts have been shut against my face, shrugging off my rights, I have nowhere to go for seeking justice. My Lords have said that “Public Trust is the only legitimate source of power for a judicial system” but I am afraid that with the recent action of yours it is the judiciary itself who is pushing this power into an abyss from which there is no returning. My Lords have expressed sympathy but haven’t chosen to act.

It is our earnest request to My Lords to help preserve the right to dissent when the dissenters of this nation are facing dire consequences including arrest, disappearances and death. Sir, in these vulnerable circumstances the judiciary is the only light of hope of the citizens. Let that hope prevail.

We lay our trust in the judicial fraternity of our nation!



Regards,

Samriddhi Chatterjee, Sayan Chandra and Aman Garg.



[The authors are under-graduate students of law pursuing B.A LL.B (Hons.) & B.Sc. LL.B. (Hons.) at Gujarat National Law University (GNLU)]

Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself BY MARIA POPOVA

“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

BY MARIA POPOVA
Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself

Something strange and wondrous begins to happen when one spends stretches of time in solitude, in the company of trees, far from the bustle of the human world with its echo chamber of judgments and opinions — a kind of rerooting in one’s deepest self-knowledge, a relearning of how to simply be oneself, one’s most authentic self. Wendell Berry knew this when he observed that “true solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation” — the places where “one’s inner voices become audible.”

But that inner voice, I have found, exists in counterpoise to the outer voice — the more we are tasked with speaking, with orienting lip and ear to the world without, the more difficult it becomes to hear the hum of the world within and feel its magmatic churns of self-knowledge. “Who knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in in her superb poetic, philosophical, feminist more-than-translation of the Tao te Ching.


Kahlil Gibran, self-portrait
Two and a half millennia after Lao Tzu, and a century before Le Guin and Berry, Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) — another philosopher-poet of the highest order and most timeless hold — addressed the relationship between silence, solitude, and self-knowledge in a portion of his 1923 classic The Prophet (public library).

When Gibran’s prophet-protagonist is asked to address the matter of talking, he responds:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.


One of Andrea Dezsö’s haunting illustrations for the original, uncensored edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales
Echoing Hermann Hesse’s insistence on the courage necessary for solitude, Gibran’s prophet adds:

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

Complement this fragment of the The Prophet — an abidingly rewarding read in its totality — with sound ecologist Gordon Hempton on the art of listening in a noisy world and Paul Goodman on the nine kinds of silence, then revisit Gibran on the building blocks of true friendship, the courage to weather the uncertainties of love, and what may be the finest advice ever offered on parenting and on the balance of intimacy and independence in a healthy relationship.

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