Daily Archives: June 1, 2020

Unprecedented crises such as the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pose huge challenges not just to the socio-economic fabric of the country but also to the quality of leadership. At moments like this, it is important that the central leadership in India is able to work in collaboration with states as well as global leaders. To Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modis credit, he has built up strong ties with world leaders, especially United States (US) President Donald Trump. On February 25, Modi hosted Trump and his family at Hyderabad House for lunch. In a reflection of the warmth and the cordiality that marked the event, talks between the two leaders and delegations went on for so long that USembassy officials had to step in to remind the guests that they had to leave for the next destination.

Among those present were top industrialists and dignitaries from both countries. Even when others began to leave, albeit reluctantly, Modi and Trump continued their discussions. Many noted that this sort of warm relationship between an Indian PM and a US President was rare, in fact, unprecedented.

Also read: Leading India to full independence, writes Rajnath Singh

But, there were already dark clouds on the horizon. A few kilometres from Hyderabad House, the government was struggling to control a terrifying communal riot that had got India much negative press across the world and tarnished its image to some extent. To add to this violence was the fact that a grave economic crisis was upon us. And then, Covid-19 began its lethal spread across the world, creating what is one of the biggest tragedies the world has faced in the past century.

This then is the time for Modi to take hard, perhaps even unpopular, decisions. He is often compared with the imperious Indira Gandhi. There are some similarities between the two leaders. Gandhi had total control of her party and the government, and so does Modi. She could take hard decisions and so does he. She was able to win over friends on the international circuit and he has been able to do so too. Both were backed by a commanding poll mandate.

Over the last six years, Modi has been firm in executing his decisions,. He started his second term with controversial decisions on issues such as the triple talaq law, striking down Article 370, and introducing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. He had just begun on big ticket economic reforms when the pandemic swept through the country. Now, the question is whether he will be able to handle this successfully and get the economy back on track.

Also read | From petrol price, new trains and flights: What will change in lockdown 5.0

Millions of migrant workers have returned home. They have no jobs, no food security and little hope for the future at the moment. He has to instil confidence in them, kickstart the rural economy and oversee a revival of the industrial sector. All this requires enormous leadership skills.

The fifth phase of the lockdown has begun. The earlier lockdowns have not been able to stop the pandemic, but they have brought time to mitigate its effects. A number of financial institutions have predicted that the economy will contract, and Reserve Bank of Indias governor seems to be of the same opinion.

Let us look to the past to see if there are lessons for the future. In 1965 when India was attacked by Pakistan, then PM Lal Bahadur Shastri formulated viable agricultural policies. He evaluated central planning and price control policies. In August 1965, he told Parliament that the government would lift many economic restrictions. He even wanted to devalue the currency, but his finance minister TT Krishnamachari stood in the way. But, unfortunately, Shastri passed away after this. His successor Indira Gandhi continued with his policies; she devalued the rupee in 1966. She pushed ahead with bank nationalisation and the abolition of privy purses.

The green revolution and the increase in industrialisation are the products of that era. All this helped her to deal with the drought of 1967. Again in 1979, during the Janata Party regime, GDP contracted. When Gandhi came back to power in 1980, she brought in a new industrial policy but also formed committees for trade and financial reforms. The role of the private sector was enlarged, though the government couched this in socialist jargon.

Testing times bring out the best and boldest in leaders. Modi does not have a family lineage like Indira Gandhi did, nor is he an accidental PM like PV Narasimha Rao or Manmohan Singh. Like his predecessors, he will have to navigate his way around many crises, the most severe of which confronts us today. He is not one to shy away from taking difficult decisions. Now, the PM has written a letter to his countrymen, with an appeal to unite. Trust generated by dialogue with common man was always his strength, now he is going to fight this battle with it.

Shashi Shekhar is the editor-in-chief, Hindustan

The views expressed are personal

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The PM must support workers, encourage rural economy, revive industry | Opinion - Hindustan Times

With almost 400,000 confirmed cases and more than 24,000 deaths caused by Covid-19, Brazil has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America. If health care services in major cities like Rio de Janeiro and Manaus are on the verge of collapsing, conditions in traditional rural communities are even more distressed.

That is certainly the case in the quilombola settlements, communities founded by African slaves who fled captivity before the abolition of slavery in 1888. The name comes from the Kimbundu Bantu word, quilombo, for war camp.

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There are about 3,000 officially recognized quilombola communities in Brazil, but the actual number is much higher, according to researchers. They are often found in hard-to-reach regions of Brazil where infrastructure and social services are extremely weak. Most of the quilombola settlements are located in the northeast of Brazil, especially in Maranho State, with 734 settlements, and Bahia State, with 469. Par State in the north of Brazil is home to 403 communities.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Catholic missionaries and pastoral commissions that work with quilombolas feared the consequences of the coronavirus reaching their villages. By April the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed. So far, the National Coordination of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (known as Conaq, in Portuguese) counts 197 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in quilombola settlements, with 46 deaths.

[Explore all of Americas in-depth coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]

One of the affected communities is Itaco-Miri, close to Belm, the capital city of Par State, in the Amazon. After an elderly community member died in April, many families panicked, said resident lida Monteiro. His body was taken straight to the cemetery, and there wasnt a proper funeral. His family felt abandoned by the community...that people didnt want to pay respects to him, she said.

As more people got sick, everything changed in Itaco-Miri, even religious life. Most of its 185 families are Catholic and regularly organize celebrations in honor of saints. Since the outbreak, Itaco-Miri has had to adapt. The other day we had the feast of St. Mary, the patroness of families. One of the organizers took the statue on a motorcycle and passed in front of all houses as if it were a procession, she said.

But those precautions cannot be taken by people who still have to work in the city or those who must travel to Belm to access the small financial assistance provided by the federal government during the pandemic. A little more than $100 each month, the assistance is expected to end in June. The risks are huge for those who leave the settlements. We dont have any local health care assistance. In Belm, hospitals are overcrowded, Ms. Monteiro said.

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The situation is the same in other rural parts of the country. Quilombola communities are very fragile, said Givnia Silva, a founding member of Conaq. Their isolation can be a positivein this case it has kept the coronavirus at baybut they cant count on government health care services and have to deal with a deep racism in all levels [of social services], she said.

According to Ms. Silva, many quilombola communities have a significant number of elderly people and comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension are common. Conaq has sponsored campaigns to raise awareness of precautionary measures, but it has strong counter forces to overcome in that effort.

Most quilombola communities were traditionally Catholic, but in the past few decades there has been a strong advance of evangelical Christians in many of them, Ms. Silva said. Those people are now providing a disservice concerning the pandemic.

President Jair Bolsonaro was strongly supported by evangelicals in the 2018 presidential election, and most leading pastors in Brazil still back him. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Mr. Bolsonaro has been minimizing its seriousness. He rejected the idea of imposing social distancing measures. Top evangelical leaders adopted the same policy, and some of them kept holding church services until they were forbidden to continue by Brazils judiciary.

They can help to influence people in quilombola communities against the recommendations given by science and health care authorities, Ms. Silva said.

Despite such influences, most communities have been taking precautions, according to Sister ngela Biagioni, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd. She has worked with quilombolas for decades in the Vale do Ribeira region shared by the states of Paran and So Paulo.

A community in the city of Eldorado even asked the help of the local [state prosecutors] office to secure its isolation, given that the number of hunters, fishermen and illegal miners getting into their lands had grown very much, she told America.

In a very isolated area in the Amazonian State of Rondnia, the quilombola community of Pedras Negras, composed mainly of elderly people, has been making a strong effort to keep the coronavirus from reaching the settlement. Manoel Santiago, at 33 one of the younger residents of Pedras Negras, was visiting Porto Velho, the state capital, when the pandemic reached Rondnia State. He decided to stay put for the duration of the quarantine, worried that he might bring the virus back to Pedras Negras.

Mr. Santiago said that most people suffer from diabetes, hypertension or both in Pedras Negras. If the disease hits our community, itll be over, he said.

The nearest health care clinic in the region sends a doctor to see us only once a month. Theres no emergency medical service in the area, Mr. Santiago said. A trip to the nearest city takes at least three hours, two of them by boat on the Guapor River.

Because of its isolation, Pedras Negras is visited by a priest only a few times each year. The last visit was in December 2019 before the pandemic began. It is impossible to say now when the next visit can be expected.

The neighboring quilombola community of Santo Antnio do Guapor is a little closer to an urban area. In an emergency it would take more than 90 minutes to reach a health care clinic in the city of So Francisco, so Santo Antnio residents are just as concerned about their safety.

Its a region visited by many tourists interested in sport fishing, Ronaldo Barros, a community member said. This kind of activity has been restricted by the state government, but we talked to local hotel owners anyway and asked them not to accept newcomers.

He said people currently only leave this community of 76 people to access federal aid in the city. But everybody always wears a face mask.

In the cities of Porto de Moz and Gurup, part of the Diocese of Xingu-Altamira in the Amazonian State of Par, several quilombola communities have completely cut themselves off from contact with the outside world. I havent been able to talk to some of them since the pandemic started. We were informed that they retreated and are waiting for all this to go away, Franciscan Sister Telma Barbosa said.

Sister Barbosa, whose father is a quilombola, has worked with quilombola communities for 15 years. She worries that the precariousness of quilombola life makes these communities totally vulnerable to the coronavirus. Several settlements dont have a toilet, so sanitary conditions can be a problem. Its also common that many people share small houses, she said.

In recent weeks, Sister Barbosa has been monitoring conditions of several quilombola groups, trying to coordinate food donations to the ones she is able to reach. Thats the first thing to do. We cant let them starve to death, she said.

She is concerned by the practical impossibility of extracting a patient because of a medical emergency from the region. The only way to the cities is the river, she said. A boat journey can take many hours. There isnt enough time if a person cant breathe.

The Most Rev. Joo Muniz, the bishop of the Diocese of Xingu-Altamira, said that the quilombolas used to be visited by Cuban doctors who worked in the region thanks to an agreement established with Cuba by former presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, members of the Workers Party of Brazil.

Those arrangements were quickly terminated when Mr. Bolsonaro came to power, and the quilombola communities were left bereft of medical support. The current political situation has been very negative for them, Bishop Muniz said.

Land conflicts have also escalated in recent months, he said. Mr. Bolsonaro supporters include big landowners, who have been expanding their holdings by invading indigenous, quilombola and forest reservations in the Amazon. Since Mr. Bolsonaro took office, the number of land invasions in Brazil grew exponentially.

In the region of the city of Senador Porfrio, the deforestation rate in March was gigantic. Invaders usually menace the traditional peoples who live in such lands, like the quilombolas, Bishop Muniz said.

Quilombolas face other challenges. Many are worried about the economic impact of the pandemic. In Pedras Negras, most residents depend on tourism. The next tourism season should begin in August, but now we dont know how things will be, Mr. Santiago said.

The Diocese of Xingu-Altamira has been raising funds for members of quilombola communities and is coordinating food and other assistance for its registered families. In the State of Par, parishes are often the only civic institutions that have detailed information on the economic status of local families. The diocese has records of the neediest ones and knows who has to be helped.

The church in the Vale do Ribeira region is also concerned about the food security of the quilombola population, said Sister Biagioni. The communities usually sell the surplus of their agricultural production, but now they cant do it. The church and nongovernmental organizations are distributing food to many families, she said.

Her congregation is also helping quilombolas register in Brazils social service system, so they can receive the small emergency aid. Not everybody can access the internet. Weve been doing dozens of registrations and many people are already getting their money, she said.

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Brazil is the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic in Latin America. Rural communities have it worse. - America Magazine

Prior to the advent of the Factories Act of 1883, India had seen the worst of an unregulated labour market, a convenient indentured labour base for the British Empire which saw workers as dispensable commodities to its profit-making industries.

This thought came to be discarded swiftly in a socialist welfare state freshly independent of such colonialism. Sadly, in the recent statements surrounding the dilution of labour laws by Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with Gujarat soon to follow, one sees a foreboding resurrection of thoughts long relegated to a period of exploitation.

The recent deregulation spree

A disdain towards labour laws seems to have emerged in multiple legislative and policy measures in the recent past. While the Economic Survey of India 2019-20 seemed to pin the blame of modest entrepreneurial indicators to labour regulation, it was only to build a case for increasing deregulation as a way to bolster employment figures.

Even more disconcerting is that the laws which are being sought to be restricted today are no strangers to legislative efforts at dilution. Laws on minimum wages, bonus, contract labour and interstate migration covered by the Uttar Pradesh Temporary Exemption from Certain Labour Laws Ordinance, 2020 have previously been subjects of the Code on Wages 2019 and the Occupational Health, Safety and Working Conditions Code of 2019. It is not an unwarranted concern therefore, that the lockdown may have provided a convenient window to effect a long-held aspiration.

Criticisms of these codes have regularly pointed out that they seem to be instruments of securing employers interests at the cost of workers rights.

Also read: The Urban Service Workforce Will Be the Next Casualty of the COVID-19 Lockdown

Definitions of critical components such as minimum wages are missing and discretion is granted to governments to determine their own methodology to categorise them. Principal employers are protected from financial and criminal responsibility, such as from workplace accidents or death. Deterrents such as penal provisions also stand removed, enforcement mechanisms are dismantled and employers have been provided a self-certification scheme to show compliance with regulations.

Trade unions in the past year had been agitating against the Trade Unions Amendment Bill of 2019 which vests complete control in the hands of the government to recognise trade unions. This move has been seen as an attack on the tripartite consensus between employers, employees and government and most crucially, on collective bargaining powers, a critical element of workers rights.

Collective bargaining would have taken on an even more important role in putting forward the abject distress workers have been facing since the beginning of the lockdown. In this background, the current step towards the temporary removal of labour protections seems to be the penultimate step off a slippery slope.

One is therefore left confounded by the argument which in effect states that since the protection of existing legislation only extends to 10% of the national workforce, it is no loss to strip away entirely this fig leaf of the pretence of labour rights. Orwellian doublespeak is alive and kicking when such determination is proclaimed to be a measure to protect workers.

A tenuous link

Does the dilution of labour laws indeed provide a feasible tradeoff for economic benefits? Most previous engagements would show otherwise. A study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Employment Protection Legislation showed negative effects of deregulatory market reform in developing countries in terms of tackling unemployment, a scenario which India cannot afford to exacerbate as it undergoes a record unemployment high. The tenuous link between dilutionary measures and market performance has been seen with healthy scepticism, if not outright dismissal, by most studies, particularly for developing countries where such measures tend to disproportionately affect marginalised groups within the labour markets.

On the extreme but likely plausible end of the spectrum, all such measures are coming on the heels of rising concerns by global watchdogs that modern slavery will see an uptick in the shadow of the pandemic. To dilute protective measures may risk creating a conducive atmosphere for such a scenario. To compel a worker to work under diluted protections, even as the rest of the country is cloistered in the safety of their homes to withstand a pandemic, is effectively forced labour and as classist a move as one can fathom. To want to return to the safety of ones home, or to have the assurance of a safe working environment and make a minimum wage is not an exercise in privilege. Far from it; it is a demand for a right to life and to live a meaningful life, free of servitude and compelled labour.

Also read: Changes in Labour Laws Will Turn the Clock Back by Over a Century

It is apposite to remind legislators of the positive ratification status of India to six of the eight core conventions of the ILO: Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105), Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111), Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) commitments to which it is bound at an international and domestic level. In the absence of social protective measures in developing countries, most recommendations from international organisations have focused on measures such as public employment programmes. Deregulation as a step in the opposite direction is more likely to aggravate the human rights concerns which emerge in an economic crisis. A ripple effect of such measures is more likely to be seen in the form of economic inequality and the deepening of the societal fault lines of gender, religion and caste. Thus, to say that regulations make Indian labour more costly is to function with the hypothesis that even minimum wages are too heavy a burden for a capitalist regulatory regime.

Aiman Hashmi is a final year LLB candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

The rest is here:

What Removing Labour Protections Will Mean for India's Workers - The Wire

For decades, the cult of density has informed the way architects and space planners have thought about everything from office layouts to the way we organise our cities. The assumption has generally been that density is good for you. When Ricky Burdett curated his Venice Biennale show a decade ago, it was all about the way we needed to densify.

Suddenly, all this is starting to look irrelevant. The new mantra is space, not density; homes and gardens, rather than high-rise residential boxes; and office floorspace layouts based on separation, not proximity.

Since most of the proponents of density themselves live in substantial houses with gardens attached, not to mention their second homes well away from fashionably dense urban environments, we dont need to shed too many tears for them or their nostrums.

In the meantime, wonderful new workstreams are opening up for designers as employers get to grips with the implications of new ways of living and working. The useless teaching unions objecting to children going back to school seem to be oblivious to the excellent work undertaken by teachers, some presumably their own members, in rethinking classrooms and routes through schools, as part of the programme to let the children of key workers remain at school.

This is a time for constructive and creative thinking, not endless moaning about how everything is impossible. Its a bit like Dads Army, where ingenuity is at a premium while regulation fetishists like Warden Hodges go around squeaking but contributing absolutely nothing to the overall effort.

Arp hodges

I found it extraordinary that intelligent people claimed to be confused about the prime ministers back-to-work television address. They apparently didnt know whether they were supposed to go back to work or not. Since the message explicitly stated that people who can work from home should continue to do so, I was only confused by the alleged confusion. (Boriss critics include people who dislike or hate him for being a Conservative; object to him because he won the Brexit referendum; and are furious that he won the last election. None of this, of course, has anything to do with the virus.)

Critics should note that Boris was the only politician to achieve any increase in residential space standards since the abolition of Parker Morris regulations

When it comes to space planning, critics should note that Boris was the only politician to achieve any increase in residential space standards since the abolition of Parker Morris regulations 40 years ago. His London minimum space standards should become mandatory nationally, and possibly made bigger to take account of possible future pandemic scenarios in which people have to work from home to an even greater extent than they are likely to anyway.

The designers who have won awards for their school architecture in recent years should be mobilised to do speedy revamps of classroom layouts, and to plot out routes in and around schools, recognising the requirement for social distancing. If I have a criticism of government, it is that it has not been centralist enough on this subject, instead leaving it to local education authorities and, of course, the sniping from dozy, self-serving teaching unions.

It came as no surprise to hear that Sadiq Khan is increasing the Congestion Charge in London to 15 a day, extending the tax to cover Saturdays and Sundays, and closing key routes. This is in the context of worries about congestion on the Underground and buses, and a request from government to encourage alternative modes of transport (for example walking and cycling), but including the use of cars.

Mayor Khan has never understood a simple rule, not just about transport, but the provision of almost anything: you shouldnt reduce capacity at a time of maximum demand. Thank goodness he is not in charge of PPE.

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This is a time for constructive thinking, not endless moaning - Architects Journal

If you start to scratch away at street names, you can uncover part of Liverpool's fascinating urban history.

Whether it's the commemoration of historical events, honouring prominent figures of the past, or a reminder of long-vanished industries, the names give a clue.

Here are just a few of the stories behind Liverpool's well-known or unusual street names.

The street made famous by The Beatles was named after Liverpool slave ship owner and anti-abolitionist James Penny.

Penny, like the Duke of Clarence, spoke in favour of the slave trade in Parliament, telling MPs that he had invested in 11 voyages of ships carrying slaves from Africa to the West Indies, in what he believed was a humane transaction.

(Between Islington and West Derby Road)

In the early 19th century, Caroline of Brunswick was the popular wife of the rather less popular King George IV.

Folklore has it that Brunswick Road came by its name when a painter repainting street signs left his work, only to return and find Brunswick Place chalked on by a supporter of the Queen.

Thinking it was official, he copied it. "Place" later became "Road."

Both Falkner Street and Falkner Square in the Georgian Quarter were named after Edward Falkner. He was a soldier and the Sheriff of Lancashire who - so the story goes - mustered 1,000 men in one hour to defend Liverpool in 1797 when a French invasion threatened.

The Square dates from 1835 and was one of the first open public spaces. But many of the houses remained vacant as potential buyers feared the houses would sink into the marshy ground on which they were built. It was also unpopular because it was so far outside of town.

As a result, locals nicknamed the square Falkner's Folly, which eventually became Falkner Square.

The Duke of Clarence who became King William IV was honoured in recognition of his campaigning against the abolition of slavery.

Widely travelled, he spent a lot of time in the House of Lords where he was a controversial speaker.

He visited Liverpool in 1790 when Clarence Street was being laid and the naming was a measure of his popularity here.

One of the few places to be named after a woman. Sarah Clayton became a captain of industry in the mid-18th century, taking over her merchant father Alderman William Clayton's business with her mother after his death, when it was unheard of for women to do so.

She was known as a formidable businesswoman and merged the family coal business with her brother-in-law's, meaning she presided over a considerable area of mines situated near to the Sankey Canal and became one of the most important coal dealers in Liverpool.

In 1752 she mapped out a landmark in her family name - Clayton Square - and occupied the largest house in the square.

One of Liverpool's main thoroughfares was originally known as Limekiln Lane. Where the railway station is now, back in the 18th century there were lime kilns used to produce quicklime.

They had to be taken down when doctors from the Infirmary across the street complained that fumes being emitted were detrimental to their patients.

The kilns were moved, but the name stuck and was given to the railway station built on the road in 1851.

Professor Sir John Utting was Mayor of Liverpool from 1917-18, the first Professor of Anaesthetics at Liverpool University and Liverpool's chief medical officer.

He was also Liverpool Football Club's first club doctor. Both Utting Avenue, and Utting Avenue East, were named in recognition of his work.

The Goree Warehouses, built in 1793, were named after a slave embarkation island off Senegal, West Africa.

The warehouses were built 11 years after the courts ruled that every slave became free as soon as their feet touched English soil.

The buildings were demolished in 1958 following extensive bomb damage in World War Two. Their site is now part of the Strand, which was widened in the 1960s as part of an ambitious scheme for an inner motorway around the city centre.

The only part to have been built was from Leeds Street to Parliament Street.

There is an old belief that iron hoops in the walls were used to chain up African slaves, but this is a myth.

The road owed its name to a dispute between its inhabitants and the Inland Revenue. In the days of the window tax (introduced in 1696), residents had to pay tax on each individual pane of glass they owned.

But the residents of this particular Liverpool road came up with a cunning method to evade the tax, making the few window panes they had as large as possible, to reduce their outgoings.

The row with the Inland Revenue was only resolved by means of an agreement known as a "commutation".

The old Victorian buildings on this road - close to William Brown Street - have now sadly been torn down and replaced by an office block.

Welsh builders came to Liverpool in the 19th century, which resulted in a lot of Welsh names. Off High Park Street there are many streets named after Welsh rivers.

And a set of streets off County Road are also part of the Welsh influence on the city - some of them sit just a stone's throw away from Goodison Park.

Welsh builders Owen Elias and his son, William Owen Elias used the first initials of their names in a set of 22 streets in Walton.

The roads, which all still exist, are: Oxton, Winslow, Eton, Neston, Andrew, Nimrod, Dane, Wilburn, Ismay, Lind, Lowell, Index, Arnot, Makin, Olney, Weldon, Euston, Nixon, Elton, Liston, Imrie and Astor streets.

Named after Jonas Bold, who leased land from the Corporation on which St Luke's Church and a ropery owned by James and Jonathon Brookes were built.

This was the name given to the area by the Town Hall on which, until commodity exchanges were built, merchants gathered to transact their business.

The name commemorates William Huskisson, MP who was killed at the official opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830.

One of Liverpool's turnpike roads, it led to Preston via Walton, Burscough and Maghull. Stage coaches from Liverpool followed this route through Lancaster and Kendal to Scotland.

The road later became famous as the childhood home of Cilla Black.

Read more here:

How Liverpool streets earned their famous names - Liverpool Echo

It was not the typical invitation journalist Boyden Sparks found in his mailbox one morning in the spring of 1924.

The correspondent from William Randolph Hearts International and Cosmopolitan magazine, a forebear to the fashion and entertainment publication Cosmopolitan, did not receive an invitation to someones birthday party or wedding. It was not for a childs graduation or baptism.

Instead, Sparks was being asked to come to Sing Sing Prison, about 30 miles north of New York City, at the behest of the prisons warden, Lewis Lawes, on April 10, 1924, to watch someone die in the electric chair.

The invitation read:

In accordance with Section 507 of the Penal Code you are hereby invited to be present as a witness at the execution of Antonio Viandante, which will occur at this prison on Thursday.

The hour of 11 p.m. has been designated by me for such execution and you will arrange to be at my office in this prison not later than 10:45 p.m.

I would thank you to treat this communication as confidential and advise me immediately upon its receipt of your acceptance or otherwise, so that I may make my arrangement accordingly.

Lewis Lawes was the warden at Sing Sing Prison for 21 years, from 1920 to 1941. He oversaw more than 300 executions during his tenure.Library of Congress

Sparks would immediately accept what he called this grisly R.S.V.P.

In the resulting article, Sparks would take readers into Sing Sings death chamber and give an unflinching account of what a condemned persons final moments were like.

The accusing article was entitled, You and I Killed This Man.

For readers from Central New York, this man was a local, the first person convicted from Onondaga County to go to the electric chair since 1894.

Antonio Viandante was a Manlius shoe repairman who, in a jealous rage on Dec. 3, 1922, fatally stabbed his wife Rosa and then the towns local butcher, Frank Vasto, who happened to be the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sparks arrived at the prison on the night of the execution at the appointed time.

He was taken into Lawes double parlor and met some of the other witnesses who would attending Viandantes execution.

It must have been a strange scene, with guests mingling in a room furnished with old-fashioned mantels of white Italian marble and deeply capacious, thickly upholstered chairs.

In the parlor, Sparks met a couple other reporters, Warden Lawes, the prisons physician, Dr. Amos Squire, and Roman Catholic priest Father Cashin, who had visited with condemned men in their final moments for more than a dozen years.

Viandante would not be one of them.

Sparks wondered aloud why Cashin was not dressed in his vestments despite the executions time quickly approaching.

The man next to Sparks filled him in, whispering:

This fellow the one tonight said hed kill Father Cashin if he came near him. Said he didnt want any religious consolation. They think hes faking insanity.

Then the man told Sparks about Viandantes last night.

(He) tried to hang himself in his cell last night, using a spring taken from his bed. A death house guard saw him in time. Tore the skin on one side of his throat, though. Hes a big bird and theyre looking for trouble.

Sparks made his way over to Lawes, the man who would oversee more than 300 executions during his 21-year tenure as warden at Sing Sing and inquired about Viandante.

(Despite those statistics, Lawes was one of capital punishments most fierce critics. In 1923, he wrote, I shall ask for the abolition of the Penalty of Death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me. It makes one think that Sparks invitation, and subsequent article, was to help further Lawes anti-death penalty ideas.)

He killed his wife at Manlius, New York, the warden said. He was once a police sergeant in Italy and then spent two years in an insane asylum there. Delusions, Im told.

Sparks asked Lawes if the condemned man would receive any sort of drugs before being taken to the chair.

No, Lawes said, we never dope them. The theory is that they are entitled to be in the full possession of their faculties when it happens.

At that moment, the door opened, and a uniformed guard stuck his head in and addressed Lawes.

They are ready, the guard said.

The assembled visitors left the wardens home and made the short walk to the to a one-story brick building, the death house.

Sparks gave this description of the chamber:

Just inside the door and to the right were half a dozen wooden benches with backs shoulder-high suggestive of church pews into these filed the witnesses, scuffling their feet as awkwardly as so many schoolboys in spite of obvious efforts to be quiet. There were only two other articles of furniture in the chamber. One was a white enamel table used to convey patients to and from the operating room. The other was the electric chair, an armchair, if you please.

The chair, Sparks wrote, stood throne-like and sinister.

The witnesses sat in silence, until 11:09 p.m. when Antonio Viandante made his appearance.

To learn more about Antonio Viandante, his backstory, crimes, trial, and death, please download and subscribe to syracuse.coms new local history/true crime podcast series, The Condemned. The first two episodes, including Viandantes, will be available on Monday, June 1.

The Condemned

If you like true-crime stories, be sure to look for our podcast The Condemned" where we explore the stories of five men from Onondaga County who paid the price for their crimes in the electric chair.

Episodes launch on June 1. Bookmark it on our Acast page or other popular platforms including iTunes, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher. Want to be one of the first to listen? Make sure to subscribe on your preferred platform to get new episodes as they become available.

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'The Condemned: A new true crime podcast by syracuse.com

The Condemned: The first use of the electric chair left many of its witnesses horrified in 1890

1924-1929: Meet Syracuses Death Juror, the farmer who helped send two men to the electric chair

1881: Hundreds watch Onondaga Countys final hanging

1887: The botched hanging of Roxalana Druse helped open the way for the electric chair

This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle at jcroyle@syracuse.com or call 315-427-3958.

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The Condemned: Witnesses gather at Sing Sing prison for the execution of a Manlius shoe repairman in 1924 - syracuse.com

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For South Asians committed to ending state violence against Black people, it has always been clear that our work goes further, that we must also work to undo anti-Blackness within our own communities. The hard conversations with our parents and our uncles and aunties about white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and solidarity are not usually easy or fruitful.

But there are moments of clarity and windows of possibility.

Many people have now heard the story of the Gandhi Mahal Restaurant, located just three doors down from the 3rd precinct which was burned down on May 28th in Minneapolis (read the NY Times storyhere). The restaurant owners are Bangladeshi immigrants and they turned the Gandhi Mahal into a staging area for medics and a resting place for protesters dealing with tear gas during the uprising. According to theNew York Times: As wounds were bandaged and hands were held in the front room, [Ruhel Islam] was in the kitchen, preparing daal, basmati rice and naan for the protesters. Overnight, the fire from the 3rd precinct reached the Gandhi Mahal and it was severely damaged. Still, Mr. Islam said: Let my building burn. Justice needs to be served.

When I heard about the Gandhi Mahal restaurant, it reminded me of a conversation I had in 2014 with employees at the Ferguson Market & Liquor where 18-year-old Michael Brown stopped before his murder at the hands of Darren Wilson, a police officer. An Indian worker Ispokewith there expressed similar support for protesters and criticized the discriminatory policing he regularly observed, noting that the real problem is with cops who stop African-Americans. In an interview withIndia Abroad, Anil Gopal, the president of the St. Louis Asian Indian Business Association and a 21-year resident of Fergusonsaidthat a lot of black people came to help the (desi) community. They came out in droves to help clean up the neighborhood, and helped the victims clean up their stores. Some of them even kept vigil outside the store as long as they could to protect the stores.

These may be small and rare parts of the bigger story around police brutality targeting Black people in this country, but for South Asians, they are meaningful and significant. These stories remind us that it is possible to build bridges, to understand the systemic failures of policing in this country, and to fight for justice for Black lives. While these stories dont reflect the experiences of every desi shop owner in this country, they do provide an alternative to the narrative we often hear: that South Asians and Black communities do not have common cause and that immigrant business owners do not care about Black customers and residents. Mr. Islam, who said he grew up in a traumatic police state in Bangladesh, understood the anger and frustrations of Black people. The Indian store clerk I spoke with in Ferguson understood the class and race connections between communities of color.

More broadly, these stories, even with the complexities underlying them, reflect the foundations of solidarity practice: centering those most affected by inequality, understanding that the systems, institutions, and policies of white supremacy target us all, and taking steps to support and co-conspire for shared liberation.

For those South Asians who are privileged by virtue of class, caste, or immigration status, the stories of South Asian shop owners in Minneapolis and Ferguson may not resonate. Many South Asians take the racial bribe and climb the racial ladder in a futile attempt to reach the status of whiteness. They are the ones calling protesters looters and differentiating themselves as model minorities. Still others remain indifferent to understanding the history of Black liberation struggles that paved the way for their own families to immigrate and enjoy benefits in America. Some are silent and apathetic, seemingly oblivious to the civil unrest happening around them. Getting more South Asians to understand the importance of dismantling the systems of white supremacy is not easy, especially when we see images of Indians filling up a stadium in Houston in support of a Hindu nationalist leader or recognize that there are people from our own communities who activelysupport the current Administration despite its anti-immigrant policies.

But that doesnt mean we can stop. We must continue to amplify the importance of solidarity with Black communities and undo anti-Blackness within our own people. That means explaining how white supremacy and racism are devastating all people of color including South Asians. It means acknowledging that the full liberation of Black communities leads to the freedom of all people. It means explaining that when we perpetuate anti-Blackness, that we are being complicit ourselves in reinforcing systems of oppression that harm our own people too. And it means coming from a place of love and compassion.

We must keep trying, and we can look to the stories of Minneapolis and Ferguson shop owners as starting points and inspiration.

Also read: Indians who support Kapil Mishra are saying #BlackLivesMatter. Let that sink in

Below are 10 action steps that South Asians can take:

Step 1:Donate

To help protesters get out of jail around the country with bail funds > https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/national-bail-fund-network. Then, donate to Black-led organizations in your area and to South Asian and Asian American organizations with an explicit commitment to be in solidarity with Black communities. Every dollar does count.

Step 2:Show upsafelyon real streets or coordinate South Asian solidarity actions on digital streets.

With digital conversations, plan an agenda to discuss: How can South Asians show up for Black lives? Discuss using the guides in Step 4, and then come up with a plan of action with 1 individual action + 3 collective steps (examples: deepen my own analysis and share it; support a local group; commit to 2 community conversations; ask a place of worship or cultural group to make a statement of solidarity).

Step 3. Sign a letter of solidarity(for Asian American groups and individuals) organized by the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) in Minnesota >https://caalmn.org/api4georgefloyd/.

Step 4:Learn about South Asian communities and the imperative for building solidarity with Black communities.

>For a starting point: read Vijay PrashadsKarma of Brown Folk.

>For post 9/11 analysis on solidarity with Black communities: read a chapter frommy book,We Too Sing America, calledFerguson is Everywherethat provides community stories along a framework for discussions and political education (link).

> Check out Anirvan ChatterjeesThe Secret History of South Asian and African American Solidarityfor historical examples of cross-racial solidarity.

>For courageous conversations with family, use this guide with exercises developed by the Queer South Asian National Network (link).

Step 5. Take a stand.

Share your commitment to dismantling anti-Black racism and the demands of Black communities (step 7) with friends, networks, and on social media.

Also read: Taylor Swift calls out Trump for stoking fires of white supremacy over Minneapolis protests

Step 6. Then ask others to take a stand.

Ask your networks, organizations, places of worship, and campus groups to make solidarity statements. Check out @SouthAsians4BlackLives on Instagram for visuals and messages.

Step 7:Understand and Support the Demands from Black Communities.

Insist on investments in communities and divestment from law enforcement. Heres a report from MPD_150 (link)and a mini-syllabus on prison & police abolition (link). You can take an Abolition in Policing workshop from Critical Resistancehere, and see demands from Color of Change (link) that address use-of-force, profit motives in policing and more in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, and Breonna Taylor.

Step 8:Support the Gandhi Mahal in Minneapolis >

https://www.facebook.com/donate/624114434980787

Step 9.Ensure that South Asian solidarity struggles also include confronting casteism, Hindutva, and Islamophobia.

Learn more from South Asian groupshereand read about caste abolition from Equality Labshere. In fact, in communities advocated for the passage of a city council resolution in St. Paul against the human rights violations in India (link).

Step 10. When the urgency stops, dont stop acting:

Dismantling white supremacy is a long-term commitment. Even when its not on the news, we need to show up for each other. Practice self-care and community care, and build your daily plan for transformative solidarity.

This article was first published at Medium.com

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South Asians in the US must support #BlackLivesMatter, but first undo your own anti-Blackness - ThePrint

The death of Balbir Singh Sr -- three-time Olympic gold medallist between 1948 and 1956 -- on Monday put Indian hockey's golden era, when they won six consecutive gold medals, top of the mind again. After 1956, there have been only two more hockey golds, in 1964 and then from a depleted field in 1980, plus one World Cup win. India had legacy, heritage, a bubbling talent pool; where did it all go?

2 Related

Pay half-attention to the idea and random words will float into millennial consciousness: Artificial turf, fitness, coach sackings, bickerings. Better to set those vague notions aside and talk freely. From the beginning.

What's the first question in your mind?

Did anyone see this decline coming? When did the slide start?

Slowly at first, marked by a depleting talent pool.

At the height of the country's hockey success, the national team represented all of India. The first teams after independence had a generous mix of regions and communities within the squad, who came from everywhere. The central provinces, where Dhyan Chand and his family came from. The Kodavas of Karnataka played it, the Goans on the west coast played it. The Parsis. Even the Anglo-Indian community provided several impact players to Indian Olympic-winning teams from 1928 right up to 1948. Post-independence, they migrated to countries like Australia, Canada and Spain and continue playing and coaching there.

Hockey was as much a sport for the masses in India as football, both in cities as well as in smaller urban centres. India international Ashok Kumar, Dhyan Chand's son, remembers kids playing hockey on the road, gravel, alleyways and even inside their homes. Former India captain Viren Rasquinha has noticed that traditional supply centres of the sport like Bengal, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have stopped producing players with the regularity they once did. Punjab today dominates the core of national team players.

Where did the rest of the players go?

The Anglo-Indians of course left the country, their representation reducing drastically with each Olympic cycle from 1948 onwards. The Parsis stopped playing as they too migrated or went into business. The Kodavas turned to their coffee estates, a more profitable venture than full-time sport. The others moved to different sports with better opportunities. Post-1983, when India won the cricket World Cup, those from centres like Calcutta and Bangalore migrated to cricket. Post-1991, when the country's economy began opening up, people in general found better employment opportunities and stopped playing sport on the scale they once did. Hockey has stopped being the first-choice sport for the best athletes in the country.

Did artificial turf really kill Indian hockey?

In the first 10-15 years, the surface was a factor, but after that it was something else. In Montreal '76, for the first time in the Olympics, the organisers put down an artificial surface that was easier to maintain than grass. The ball zips around more on turf as compared to grass, rendering skills, which teams like India and Pakistan were known for, less important than speed and fitness. Ashok remembers the Indians going to Montreal 'with zero exposure to the turf'. They played with wooden sticks against opposition nations that had moved on to fibreglass and carbon sticks, which are the norm now.

Surely you're joking?

Unfortunately, no. Remember this was the 1970s, India didn't have any artificial turfs. In preparation, Ashok says, the National Institute of Sport (NIS), Patiala, tried to simulate an artificial surface by shaving off the grass and covering it with cowdung because it was believed this was how turf would behave. The Indians played with leather balls, and they didn't have the right shoes or the right sticks. For the first time in their Olympic history, India finished outside the podium, at seventh.

This is terrible, but it's been a long time since 1976. Couldn't we adjust?

Obviously not. Look at Rasquinha's international career a quarter of a century later. He too began playing on mud and grass in Mumbai. He first played on turf at the age of 16. He retired from international hockey in 2008, by when, he reckons, India would have had 35-40 artificial turf grounds, barely half of them in prime condition. His club in Stuttgart alone had four such grounds in a better state. The number of artificial surfaces in India has now risen to about 200 over the past decade, but it's still not comparable with the biggest hockey centres in countries like Australia, Netherlands and Germany.

Logically, our standards should have improved once more kids began playing on turf, shouldn't they?

Yes, but there was also another factor coming into play at the time: Rule changes. Indian hockey, Pakistan's hockey and from there the rest of Asian hockey, was always identifiable for the emphasis on individual flair, artistry, dribbling, dodging and feints. It was the crowd-puller at international matches. A raft of rule changes in world hockey by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) ended up blunting that advantage. The most significant of those was the abolition of offside in 1992, which gave foreign teams that didn't always have good dribblers new avenues to scoring. It introduced a level of parity in attack, which India again took time to adapt to.

Between then and now, only Pakistan won a bronze medal in Barcelona 1992 and gold at the 1994 World Cup. India haven't even been to the semi-finals of either a World Cup or an Olympics since 1980. Asia's success has come through the fast, physical hockey of the South Koreans, who were originally coached by a South Korean who'd learnt his stuff at NIS Patiala.

Seems like Indian hockey was doomed from the start..

Wait, there's more. India's best performances came in an era when teams were required to field their starting XI throughout the 70 minutes. It meant India's quality could make the opposition suffer. Not the rolling substitutions of today, which keeps players fresher and lets coaches adjust tactics. The emphasis and requirement of quality dribbling was further reduced due to the abolition of the offside rule and by allowing overhead balls, previously considered dangerous play, as long as the receiver was five yards from his/her opponents. Ashok says modern hockey has become a 25-yard game, where you need only bother about your own 25 yards and that of the opponent; the 50-yard space in the middle is wasted completely in modern hockey.

But it's not like it was done overnight. Why didn't we keep in step?

We were fretting about the surface and rules for too long. India stagnated, while the rest of the world kept improving. Rasquinha puts it down to the absence of quality coaching. It may have improved in the last five years, but he says the coaching dished out to talented Indian teenagers is about 15-20 years behind the times. A 14-year-old from India might be at par with the best in the world in his age group. When he steps into the senior team, he quickly realises that the best teams will punish each of his mistakes in a match with a goal. Plus, he suggests, we also take into account nutrition, fitness, recovery and intelligent usage of rolling substitution. Even if we consider ourselves just one percent behind the rest of the world in these factors, Rasquinha says, it becomes four-five percent per player.

"Multiply that by 16 players. In a team sport, those gaps are harder to bridge."

Wow. This looks like people sleeping on their job for about, what, fifty years now? Okay let's look at post-liberalisation, let's make it, three decades or so?

Everyone moans about cricket, but administratively hockey has been damaged at every level -- grassroots to elite -- by short-sighted administration. For example, the men's team have had seven different coaches since the 2014 Asian Games, the last time they won a major medal. In fact, cricket makes for an excellent example of going in the opposite direction. Crowds of the same numbers used to turn up at cricket and hockey. If you're looking for a parallel for Indian hockey, Rasquinha reminds us, think of West Indian cricket and how its supply line of talent dried up. Like their cricketers went into football and basketball, India's best athletes went into cricket and now sports like badminton, boxing, wrestling. Sport is cyclical, but professional sport punishes those waiting for cycles to pass.

In real terms, both Ashok and Rasquinha, players from two generations, believe a weakened domestic structure has only added to the problem. Rasquinha says the absence of strong state units of the central governing body is holding the game back from being spread to more centres across the nation.

Fortunately, there appears to be a drive to professionalise the sport in India at the moment. The head of the FIH is an Indian, no other country still can generate numbers and excitement of the sport as India can. But there's a lot of work to be done on the ground. The more the ego-based decision-making, the further away we go from international hockey success.

So, no Olympic gold medals in the near future then?

Let's be reasonable and look at an Olympic semi-final spot to start with.

(With inputs from Sharda Ugra)

Link:

Chak de, no more: What went wrong with Indian hockey? - ESPN India