#dnaEdit: Weekly analysis in brief

Women journos protest sexism 
Disgusted with lewd remarks and “wandering hands”, French women journalists have recently signed a petition, denouncing the rampant sexism among male politicians. “Get your paws off me!” read the front page of the Liberation newspaper. Forty of its women political reporters have spoken about their personal experiences in encountering sexism in the corridors of power. A lawmaker greets a journalist saying: “Ah but you’re on the game, hustling for a client.” A deputy runs his hands through a journalist’s hair, while a minister’s advisor asks another returning from holiday if she was “tanned all over”. In their petition, the journalists observe that even the IMF chief and presidential frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s downfall — brought about by his sexual escapades — has not deterred male politicians from indulging in this kind of unacceptable behaviour. Kudos to the scribes for protesting the offensive male behaviour! Hope the establishment takes note of it. 

At the cost of environment
The Maharashtra government’s desperation to improve the state’s industrial climate will have grave repercussions. If it scraps the norm that made it mandatory for industries to seek permission for felling trees, Maharashtra’s already depleting green cover may go extinct. And, that’s not all. It is also trying to facilitate plundering of water reserves with a plan that could exempt micro, small and medium enterprises from obtaining prior government permission for drawing water up to a certain limit from dams in the state. This is recklessness at its worst, and that too only for short-term gains. In order to make Maharashtra attractive to businessmen — big and small — the government is destroying the state’s meagre resources and putting a question mark on the livelihood of farmers.

Stifling dissent
Like all powerful governments in the world enjoying a brute majority in Parliament, the BJP dispensation, too, is allergic to dissent. So what if “democracy is in our DNA”, the NDA can always stifle voices that are critical of its style of governance. When US ambassador to India Richard Verma expressed concern at the regulatory steps taken by the government against a few NGOs, he was also trying to underscore the need to nurture and maintain a vibrant democracy. There will always be differing views and opinions, but at no point should these be crushed. There is a lot of merit in constructive criticism because the majoritarian view is not necessarily correct, and there is always scope to learn from opposing arguments. It is unfortunate that the NGO Greenpeace may have to shut shop because “it was tarnishing the government’s image abroad and in India”. The Ford Foundation, too, is feeling the heat. In such an atmosphere of fear, lesser known institutions will think twice before airing their grievances against government policies.