The Brave Pedestrian

21 April 2016, Mumbai: With the backdrop of the Union Labour Ministry's tripartite consultations reported to be happening today to “assess the impact of the mandated larger pictorial warnings covering 85% of packaging space on the livelihood of 1.50 crore bidi workers”, nine bidi smokers who suffered from cancer, and their bereaved relatives, today wrote a letter to Mr Virjesh Upadhyay, Secretary of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which claims to be the bidi workers' trade union. Download a copy of the open letter on behalf of bidi victims . (Incidentally, bidi-rollers are not the enemy of bidi smokers and their   families, although it is in the name of bidi-rollers that Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh is trying to help the bidi industry evade the 85% pictorial warnings. Bidi-rollers are themselves a downtrodden and exploited lot -- largely dirt-poor child labourers, especially girls, often pushed into debt by the bidi industry contractors, and they have no genuine spokesmen. Bidi...

30th May, 2015 Dear Shri Narendra Modi, Pranaam. Advance greetings from the widows of five former smokers and tobacco users on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day (31st May). We feel it is apt to greet you on this great occasion as the government is a major shareholder in the tobacco industry. Our late husbands have contributed considerable amounts to your government's massive tax income from the tobacco industries, and also to the profits of Life Insurance Corporation, financial institutions, mutual funds etc, who hold about 35% shares in ITC and other tobacco companies. We are writing to you also because, although state after state has banned chewing-tobacco Gutka, there is only one state where gutka is manufactured: Gujarat. It is the only state in entire India that continues to manufacture gutka. From there, it is smuggled to all other states of India, in violation of the bans. Surely you know this? Mr Prime Minister, Sir, we beg to introduce ourselves and ...

Aren't judicial remedies like those patented cancer drugs that aim to generate huge profits for multinational drug companies, rather than save the lives of the masses? In India (and other countries also), the judiciary enables big lawyers to get rich, without helping the masses to get justice. Chief justices, judges, magistrates, public prosecutors and government pleaders are all riding on this gravy train. Some get riches, others get glory and power... and the poor masses get only false hopes and tareekh pe tareekh! Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share