#dnaEdit | Jottings of the week: From MNS-Sena's violent tactics to Hurricane Matthew

Sena & MNS’s violent tactics

When fringe outfits seek publicity, they invariably resort to strong-arm tactics. The Shiv Sena sniffed an opportunity in a UP Ram Leela show in which actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui was supposed to perform. The event in Muzaffarnagar’s Budhana tehsil had attracted an impressive crowd that had come to see Siddiqui’s performance as Marich, Ravana’s uncle. The Sena’s objection to the actor’s religion, followed by police’s alleged refusal to offer protection to the cast and crew, shows how fragile law-and-order has become in the poll-bound state. The Sena is an organised bunch of thugs under a political banner whose survival depends on communal and ethnic polarisation. How effortlessly they can override the collective desire of the villagers with the threat of violence! Siddiqui’s participation in the event could have been a shining example of communal harmony in a district that has seen consistent targeting of Muslims in recent years. Not to be outdone, in Mumbai, the Sena’s estranged cousin, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), indulged in theatrics to stay in news prior to BMC elections. MNS bullies heckled the BMC’s chief engineer and forced him to hold up a placard that said he was responsible for Mumbai’s potholes. This, naturally, has enraged the civic body’s engineers who have resigned en masse seeking the corporator’s arrest. The only way to put an end to this thuggery is to award exemplary punishments.

Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew has left a trail of deaths and destruction in its wake. A stunned Haitian government, after assessing the extent of damage to lives and properties, has come up with a death toll on Thursday that far exceeds the first estimate. Now at least 283 people are feared dead instead of the half-dozen reported earlier. Even the latest figures are bound to change as international aid groups and agencies began working in the worst affected areas in the south that bore the maximum brunt of the hurricane’s fury. Matthew raged with 145 miles/ hour winds accompanied by downpour. The south had plunged into darkness with communication and in some cases physical access being shut off. It is gradually crawling back to a semblance of normalcy, giving a clearer picture of the devastation. “There is severe damage to the communities, and hundreds of deaths are expected and many more injured,” said Enzo di Taranto, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti. “There will be a severe impact on the environment, agriculture and water systems.”

Billed as humane

With the Union cabinet clearing the revised draft of the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014, that makes any act of discrimination against a person afflicted with HIV/AIDS a punishable offence, we, as a collective, have taken a major step towards becoming more humane and compassionate. Harrowing tales of humiliation and ostracisation of AIDS victims abound, even as awareness about the syndrome has grown by leaps and bounds. India has approximately 21 lakh people of which .3% is adults. Around 40% of that percentage is women. The bulk of the AIDS population is concentrated in four states — Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The bill, of course, isn’t without faults. Though it talks about rights-based treatment, the catch is in the four words “as far as possible”. This loophole can defeat the purpose of providing succour to AIDS patients. HIV/AIDS funding did suffer a setback when international agencies withdrew from India, but the central government has stepped in to fill the void.