Mariam Mokhtar one prying finger has prised open all of IGP Khalid ’s sins. No decent person can justify his attack Mariam Mokhtar , even less his obscene attempts at cover-up. But in all the indignation being rightly expressed, we do need to give pause and address one gnawing doubt. In his clamorous pursuit of his glory he has violated her civil rights, our strident demand for the severest punishment for top cop . Today’s hyperventilating atmosphere, it’s a dodgy question. But the red flag has to be raised if we also believe that summaryexecutions s are the hallmark of Mahathir;s era– an entity which has no time for the very values that we are fighting to safeguard.Don’t shoot the messenger. My bona fides on gender violations, IGP Khalid no urge to ‘protect the institution’.marvelled at this new enfant terrible rampaging across the mediascape, but, as an old-fashioned journalist was uncomfortable with stingfests passing off his remark on Mariam Mokhtar
Does Khalid suffer from an inferiority complex or was he under extreme pressure to explain Several instances of harassment recently reported by the media — some in retrospect, one immediate and alarming — gave readers fodder for genuine concern IGP Khalid Careful his the eyes and his mouth and behaviour: How to avoid crossing the red line .
Who would have realised that a well-meaning article ‘One Idealogy, Two Reactions’ about the need to be compassionate to Malaysians, regardless of their political leanings or social background, would have upset the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar?
IGP Khalid Ashburn the Metropolitan Police in England refused to divulge the identity of the Malaysian woman who had been “freed”, but Khalid jumped the gun and blurted out her name before the English Police were ready to make this public.
GP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar should refrain from threatening people who criticise him.
He has threatened Mariam Mokhtar with criminal prosecution, in particular sedition, for her post entitled ‘One ideology, two reactions’.
This is most unbecoming of Khalid. There is no need to resort to bullying people who criticise. He should also not abuse his position by issuing threats against them. As IGP he has no business to focus attacks on individuals who question him.
Being the IGP, he must be prepared to face criticism over the way in which he conducts himself and handles issues of interest to the public. If he cannot understand this, he should resign.
A reading of the article reflects a reasonable analysis of two situations somewhat similar factually but drawing different reactions by the police and the government. How is making that point even by the greatest stretch of the imagination seditious?
How is the calling upon Khalid and the Malaysian government to show compassion to all Malaysians and not merely a select few seditious?
This is again a classic example of how it is sedition laws can be abused and used to suppress criticism and dissent.
Women have sharper memory while men coordinate things better.
An Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi alumni has created the first ever map of neural circuitry inside a human brain which has confirms that women’s brains are designed for social skills and memory while men’s are for perception and co-ordination.
However, there is one field in which women beat men hollow – multitasking, finds the study that looks at brain connectivity.
A new brain connectivity study from Penn Medicine published on Monday has found striking differences in the neural wiring of men and women that’s lending credence to some commonly-held beliefs about their behaviour.
In one of the largest studies looking at the “connectomes” of the sexes, Ragini Verma, an associate professor in the department of radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found greater neural connectivity from front to back and within one hemisphere in males, suggesting their brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action.
In contrast, in females, the wiring goes between the left and right hemispheres, suggesting that they facilitate communication between the analytical and intuition.
Ragini who completed her masters in mathematics and computer applications followed by a PhD in computer vision and mathematics from IIT Delhi says “These maps show us a stark difference – and complementarity – in the architecture of the human brain that helps provide a potential neural basis as to why men excel at certain tasks, and women at others”.
According to Verma, on average, men are more likely better at learning and performing a single task at hand, like cycling or navigating directions, whereas women have superior memory and social cognition skills, making them more equipped for multitasking and creating solutions that work for a group.
In the study, the researchers found that females displayed greater connectivity in the supratentorial region, which contains the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, between the left and right hemispheres. Males, on the other hand, displayed greater connectivity within each hemisphere.
By contrast, the opposite prevailed in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that plays a major role in motor control, where males displayed greater inter-hemispheric connectivity and females displayed greater intra-hemispheric connectivity.
These connections likely give men an efficient system for coordinated action, where the cerebellum, which involves perception, and the front of the brain, which involves action, are bridged together, according to the authors.
The female connections likely facilitate integration of the analytic and sequential processing modes of the left hemisphere with the spatial, intuitive information processing modes of the right side.
The authors observed only a few gender differences in the connectivity in children younger than 13 years, but the differences were more pronounced in adolescents aged 14 to 17 years and young adults older than 17.
Past studies have shown sex differences in the brain, but the neural wiring connecting regions across the whole brain that have been tied to such cognitive skills has never been fully shown in a large population.
In the study, Verma and colleagues investigated the gender-specific differences in brain connectivity during the course of development in 949 individuals (521 females and 428 males) aged 8 to 22 years using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
DTI is water-based imaging technique that can trace and highlight the fibre pathways connecting the different regions of the brain, laying the foundation for a structural connectome or network of the whole brain.
The brain is a roadmap of neural pathways linking many networks that help us process information and react accordingly, with behaviour controlled by several of these sub-networks working in conjunction.
The findings were also consistent with a Penn behavior study, of which this imaging study was a subset of, that demonstrated pronounced sexual differences.
Females outperformed males on attention, word and face memory, and social cognition tests. Males performed better on spatial processing and sensorimotor speed. “It’s quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are. Detailed connectome maps of the brain will not only help us better understand the differences between how men and women think, but it will also give us more insight into the roots of neurological disorders, which are often sex related”.
Next steps are to quantify how an individual’s neural connections are different from the population; identify which neural connections are gender specific and common in both and to see if findings from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies fall in line with the connectome data.
drawings, sparking debate on freedom of expression.
A few years ago MF Husain painted Bharat Mata in a way, it was objected by a section of society. He apologised, yet numerous cases were filed against him in different cities by several groups.
Intolerance plays at many levels in India.
Trivedi had been arrested on charges of sedition for drawings to satirise corruption in Indian politics [EPA]
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| An Indian cartoonist detained on sedition charges for drawings that satirise corruption in Indian politics has been released on bail, according to media reports.Supporters cheered and waved flags as Aseem Trivedi, a freelance cartoonist and anti-corruption campaigner, walked out of Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail on Wednesday after a court ruled there was no need to hold him in custody.
The arrest of a cartoonist on sedition charges had rekindled a national debate on freedom of speech, weeks after a clampdown on Twitter in the world’s largest democracy. Trivedi, 25, had originally refused to seek bail, demanding the charges be dropped, but accepted the Mumbai High Court’s bail grant of Rs5,000 ($90) after the local government promised to review the charges against him. Trivedi was arrested on Sunday, after a private complaint was filed in a Mumbai court by a young lawyer who charged that the pictures mocked national symbols. If found guilty, the satirist could face up to three years in prison. Continued crusade Upon release, Trivedi said that that he would continue to his crusade through caricatures portraying the truth in the “This battle against sedition and censorship will continue till the time 124A Section is not eliminated from our Constitution. This battle was not confined till my release. It was for the Right of Freedom of Speech, which is not being allowed to exercise across the country,” Trivedi said. Trivedi became an instant cause celebre among free-speech and anti-corruption activists who complain India’s corruption-plagued government is increasingly intolerant of criticism. Just last month, Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, temporarily blocked access to a number of Twitter accounts, including several spoof accounts imitating his. Trivedi’s arrest has also sparked a mounting domestic and international backlash against the government, accused by critics of using colonial era laws to crush dissent. “Politicians must learn to be tolerant. This is not a dictatorship,” Markandey Katju, a former supreme court justice who now heads the Press Council of India, told CNN-IBN television. Anti-corruption campaign Taken aback by the vehement protests, RR Patel, home minister of Maharashtra state, said the government would review Trivedi’s case and the charge. Trivedi, a freelance cartoonist, was one of two winners of the 2012 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award by the US-based Cartoonists Rights Network International. His cartoons, lampooning widespread corruption among Indian politicians, were displayed at a Mumbai protest in December by the anti-corruption crusader, Anna Hazare. The Mumbai-based lawyer’s complaint to police cited one of those drawings that showed the four lions that form India’s national symbol replaced by four wolves and the national slogan “truth shall prevail” replaced by “corruption shall prevail”. Ambika Soni, India’s information minister, stressed that the constitution guaranteed freedom of expression but “also lays downs that we as Indian citizens should respect all national symbols”. “Our government is not for censorship; it is for self-regulation at every step,” she said. Troubling precedents Trivedi’s arrest came five months after a university professor was arrested in West Bengal for forwarding an email cartoon that caricatured Mamata Banerjee, the state’s chief minister. Last month, a farmer in West Bengal was arrested and branded a Maoist sympathiser after questioning Banerjee on her farm policy at a public meeting. Both are out on bail and face lesser charges than sedition. Earlier this year, senior education officials resigned amid a parliamentary uproar over a textbook that included a six-decade-old cartoon criticising delays in crafting the constitution. Indian law defines sedition as an act that brings hatred or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government. The law dates from India’s colonial era when British rulers used it against Indian freedom fighters, including India’s independence leader Mohandas K Gandhi. |
We now have the case of a cartoonist, Aseem Trivedi, who was arrested on charges of sedition. Later, he was freed on bail.
Trivedi, who has been part of the anti-corruption movement in India led by the self-styled Gandhian, Anna Hazare, drew a cartoon where he replaced the customary lions in the country’s national emblem with wolves, their teeth dripping with blood. The caption read, Long live corruption.
Another of Trivedi’s cartoons shows the Indian parliament (non-functioning in recent months) as a giant toilet bowl.
Browbeaten into submission
India’s best regarded political cartoonist, EP Unny, wrote in The Indian Express, a paper where he draws:
“We got both our cartoon art and the sedition law from Britain. The two carried on all these decades, including those 21 months of national emergency and censorship in the mid- (nineteen) seventies, without coming to televised blows. Now Aseem Trivedi, a 25-year old cartoonist has been sent to Mumbai jail for the seditious act of insulting the national symbol.”
“The Indian state seems to be more loyal and lawful than the queen. If you Google Steve Bell, The Guardian’s editorial cartoonist, you would think he is cooling his heels in Her Majesty’s prison. Through some 30 years of merciless cartooning, he gleefully tore into most things British, symbolic and otherwise. Often reduced to bottom wear in Steve’s work, the Union Jack still flies high over Westminster Palace.
“Do four Asiatic lions standing back to back and tall need protection from a doodler, however activist or agitated? There is bound to be inherent tension between any national symbol and the cartoon. One is meant to be revered and the other is nothing if not irreverent. The two should naturally clash as they do in mature democracies. Between spats they manage to live together – the symbol on its pedestal and the cartoonist at the drawing board.
“Back in 1976 in a Playboy interview when Jimmy Carter confessed to having looked on a lot of women with lust, a cartoonist put a denuded Statue of Liberty into the Presidential thought balloon. Carter didn’t wage a war on the cartoonist; he worked his way to the Nobel Peace Prize”.
Sedition laws can be meaningless in a democracy, a governance based on the principle of free speech.
A democracy asks its citizens to speak their mind. Provided it does not cause riots or public harm.
But when citizens do that in India, they are warned and browbeaten into submission – even sent to jail. India’s sedition law was written in 1860 to empower the British masters ruling India to punish “natives”.
Yes, when a writer or cartoonist says what pleases the ears of the powers that be, he is encouraged to write or draw more. However, when he comments in words or pictures something critical, heavens fall.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the ugh-est of them all? That’s the question Aseem Trivedi seems to ask in his latest cartoon. Errr, Aseem? Yup. The same. This is what happens when an utterly nonsensical sedition case is filed against a cartoonist (high on anger, low on talent) — it’s called a oneday phenomenon. But here’s the upside to the controversy. The recent furor has drawn public attention to the growing antipathy against the ‘ugly politician’. It sure looks likes this is going to be the winter of our discontent.
First came the brutal attack on traffic cop Mohan Lal by a minister’s security personnel. Lal’s crime? He had dared to stop the minister’s convoy for jumping a red light. Then came news of some obscure cartoonist’s arrest in Mumbai. In both these seemingly unrelated cases, the strident howls of protest from the aam junta were similar in nature — they were more against the abuse of power by the high and mighty than in support of two wronged individuals . The big question in both cases — how long before we move on?
Mohan Lal may end up nursing a bloodied and bulbous eye all by himself, once the media pounces on an even grislier story. After all, Mohan Lal has not announced his intentions of joining a citizens’ movement or turning into an activist . There is nothing ‘sensational’ about Mohan Lal’s predicament. This beastly incident is just another tragic case of an earnest government servant paying a huge price for doing what he’s paid to — his duty. Congress minister Taj Moiuddin will carry on, unapologetic, unscathed and unmoved. His repeated chant that he doesn’t have eyes at the back of his head, will also be filed away indifferently and soon forgotten.
But what happens from this moment on to young Aseem Trivedi will be far more interesting to monitor. Here’s a likely scenario: as of now, Aseem is the newest darling of the media. He has been completely co-opted by those crying hoarse against an archaic law. So far, it reads like a meaty story. Aseem, with disheveled hair and wearing the mandatory black kurta, lends himself perfectly to the darkness of the moment , as he plays to the gallery, spewing contempt and talking of freedom of expression. He is also producing cartoons on command as apt photo-ops . That is, when he isn’t posing for shutter bugs, hugging well-known people like Dr Binayak Sen. Aseem’s minders may have taken over his image building, going by how swiftly he undertook an expeditious damage control exercise when the Dalit heat was about to get to him.
Once out of jail, what did our cartoonist friend do — he rushed to Buddh Vihar to pay his respects to Babasaheb Ambedkar, adding he had the ‘greatest respect” for the Dalit leader and the Constitution . He also grabbed a quick lunch at Mayank (India Against Corruption) Gandhi’s office, before addressing a packed press conference.
What does the future hold for disgruntled young people like Aseem when they are suddenly propelled into the limelight and converted into overnight martyrs? What happens when an Aseem becomes a pivot, a symbol, even a hero? Does collective anger find the outlet it seeks? Or does the initial emotional outpouring get dissipated , leading to absolutely nothing but a few dramatic media clips? Political parties are quick to swoop down on people like Aseem.
Any person who can grab headlines is worth courting . In such a cynical scenario, someone like him is a catch.
So far, he has presented himself as a somewhat naïve but reasonably sensitized young man, using crude cartoons to express his disillusionment . His life has undergone a 360-degrees change after the misplaced sedition charge. He is now owned by the media. He is hot property. He will make it to international publications and global channels. For a short while at least, Aseem will gobble up publicity and share front page space with movie stars and sports heroes. Someone smart will ask him to walk the ramp— for a cause, of course. He will be wooed to play showstopper during the unending Fashion Weeks. Reality shows will chase him. He may enter the Big Boss house. Get a publishing deal. His career as a budding cartoonist may end abruptly. But so what? For another 15 minutes, or perhaps 15 days, Aseem will be hailed as a bona fide celebrity , a star. The ravenous media monster isn’t done with him yet. And yes,he also drawscartoons for aliving.
Was that caricature really denigrating or obscene? Anyway.
The strong support the activist-cartoonist has got, political parties standing for his right to expression and state government forced to review its decision–all these are things that would be unthinkable in the past.
