The killing of 30-year-old Jordan Neely on the subway earlier this week, however, put the mayor in a difficult position as progressive lawmakers led a growing chorus of outrage and launched a renewed attack on Adams’ approach to public safety.
The stakes are high. Subway crime was a driving force behind a groundswell of support for GOP candidates last year, which lifted a Republican gubernatorial candidate to within six points of winning the general election and helped the right flip several Congressional seats to take over the House. New York Republicans continue hammering Democrats on crime ahead of the upcoming congressional races that include several competitive seats. How New Yorkers ultimately view Neely’s killing and the government’s response could also alter the city’s strategy toward mental health and public safety.
On Monday, Neely was acting erratically aboard an F train when he was placed into a chokehold by a 24-year-old passenger and later died. On Wednesday, the city’s medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. Several reports have noted Neely, who did impersonations of Michael Jackson in years’ past, struggled with mental health issues.
Adams has said that the incident demonstrates why his policies have been needed all along.
“This is what highlights what I’ve been saying throughout my administration,” Adams said Thursday during an unrelated press conference, echoing comments he made the night before on national television. “People who are dealing with mental health illness should get the help they need and not live on the train. And I’m going to continue to push on that.”
Prominent progressives, however, have laced into the mayor’s response to the incident and re-upped long standing criticisms of Adams’ approach to mental health and safety.
“This is the inevitable outcome of the dangerous rhetoric of stigmatizing mental health issues, stigmatizing poverty and the continued bloated investment in the carceral system at the expense of funding access to housing, food and health,” Tiffany Cabán, a progressive New York City Council member, said in an interview.
So far, the mayor appears outnumbered by a growing cadre of elected officials who have weighed in. While Adams has characterized the incident as tragic, he has also said he will wait until Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg completes his investigation before making any assessment — a view that is not shared even by those politically aligned with the mayor.
“Racism that continues to permeate throughout our society allows for a level of dehumanization that denies Black people from being recognized as victims when subjected to acts of violence,” New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said in a statement, later adding that “the initial response by our legal system to this killing is disturbing and puts on display for the world the double standards that Black people and other people of color continue to face.”
And Maurice Mitchell, head of the national Working Families Party, noted Adams’ policies were in full effect Monday but did not stop Neely from dying.
“Even with hundreds of police in our subways, they failed to prevent this—or even apprehend the killer,” he said in a statement.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Kolkata: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday alleged that the BJP is sharpening communal polarisation as the 2024 general elections approach.
He said that clashes between groups of people have been witnessed during the Ram Navami celebrations in some parts of the country.
“As 2024 (Lok Sabha elections) approaches, sharpening communal polarisation has become mainstay for the BJP for its electoral and political mobilisation,” Yechury said at a press conference here.
Stating that there is no history of clashes during the Ramnavami celebrations in the past in many of the places where they occurred, the CPI(M) leader claimed that it was engineered.
The CPI(M) leader said that the anti-BJP forces in the country have to unite to make sure that the saffron party does not continue to control the reins of the government and state power.
Yechury said that post the general elections next year, the actual formation of an anti-BJP alliance will take shape.
He claimed that this combine will form the next government, replacing the BJP-led NDA.
The CPI(M) leader said each state has its specific political alignments, but the idea is to maximise pooling of the anti-BJP forces.
“Both in 1996 and 2004, alliances were formed after the elections,” he said.
He pointed out that the CPI(M) supported the Manmohan Singh government in 2004 despite having fought the Congress in three states West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.
He said that the CPI(M) has decided to continue to talk with all the secular, democratic opposition parties.
“The effort would be, in the coming 2024 elections, in every state to maximise the pooling of patriotic and secular opposition forces so that the BJP cannot take advantage of a division in the opposition,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of Mamata Banerjee-led ruling party in Bengal being in it, the CPI(M) leader claimed that the Trinamool Congress’ credibility as an anti-BJP force has “always been questionable.”
Claiming that politics is not just about arithmetic and adding numbers, he said that it has to be seen who is a consistent ally.
“If the entire purpose of the Trinamool and the BJP is to isolate the Left and the Congress and the other secular forces, then the point is what in the future they will do together,” he asked.
In the past a number of opposition parties uch as DMK, the Left, RJD, JD(U) and NCP have held meetings to forge an understanding ahead of the 2024 general elections. However, the Trinamool Congress at that time had indicated it would like to remain equidistant from both the Congress and BJP.
Nevertheless, after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification, the TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee tweeted her condemnation and the party started sending its representative to various opposition programs.
Yechury termed as “peculiar” the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s assertion that if their lives “are difficult or made difficult with the support of the State”, would the Indian Muslim population be growing.
“This very argument is completely unacceptable,” he said.
The Left leader claimed that the real wages in India have remained stagnant over the last eight years of the Narendra Modi government.
“With inflation soaring, if the real wages are stagnant, that means people’s consumption are declining, which means poverty levels are increasing,” he said.
Yechury claimed that in the last 10 years, two India’s have emerged – shining India and suffering India, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
Alleging misuse of the ED, CBI and governors, he also claimed that the democratic system in the country is being destroyed.
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Christie, a Trump acolyte-turned-critic and potential 2024 presidential rival, said Sunday that while criticism of Trump’s attacks on the judicial system is fair, there are “legitimate questions,” about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s motives.
“You can be incredibly critical of the way Trump treats all of our institutions, the judiciary, being part of it. And he has called for the use of prosecutorial power against people that he’s opposed to without knowing at all what the facts are. He should be criticized for that. I’ve criticized him for it and others have,” Christie said.
“At the same time, there can be legitimate questions to be raised about Alvin Bragg’s conduct and his lack of use of prosecutorial discretion here,” said, Christie, who argued that Bragg may not be making the best use of his limited resources.
“What I hate about our conversations about this right now, George, is that you have to be in one camp or the other. It’s not true,” Christie told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The charges, Christie noted, could contain some unexpected material. “I do think there may be surprises in there for us,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Srinagar, Mar 15 (GNS): Residents of Ajas in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district are aghast over alleged lackadaisical approach of employees towards account-holders at locally setup branch of Jammu and Kashmir Bank.
A delegation of aggrieved account holders told GNS that the staff has been taking them on a ride and playing down their genuine issues.
“The bank staff is acting indifferent towards our genuine issues, be it regarding cash transactions, sanctioning of loan or any other trivial matter”, they alleged adding the bank has been instead entertaining cases of a selected group of people who act as sort of touts and thereby put the commoners into jeopardy.
Despite moving multiple representations before the authorities, we are yet to see any respite, they further said.
Despite repeated attempts, Zonal Head (Sopore) didn’t attend to any of the calls.
When contacted, PRO J&K Bank Ajaz Zargar told GNS that the people from the area should come with a formal representation to them. “We assure the grievances would be done away with at an earliest”, the official said. (GNS)
Amaravathi: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) senior leader Varla Ramaiah on Monday said the party will approach the Andhra Pradesh High Court after it accused government officials and police of crossing limits in the graduates and teachers constituencies elections.
Speaking to the media, he said that chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy reposed faith in backdoor methods to win the polls. “At least 30 percent of the votes polled for both the graduates and teachers constituencies are bogus,” he alleged.
“YSR Congress Party MLA Bhumana Karunakar Reddy and his son Abhinay were allowed inside the polling booth and the TDP leaders, who questioned this have been taken into custody,” said the senior TDP leader.
He asked why was YSRCP leader Y V Subba Reddy allowed to campaign inside the polling booth. “Are the laws not applicable to Reddy? Just because he was the chief minister’s uncle?” questioned Ramaiah.
“When the Tirupati district Superintendent of Police (SP) and the State Election Commissioner are violating the laws, why is the chief electoral officer Mukesh Kumar Meena silent?” he asked.
Ramaiah demanded an immediate investigation by the EC on the legislative council polls in Andhra Pradesh.
Tehran: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said that he hopes the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can adopt a “professional” approach to the Iranian nuclear issue and prevent certain countries from affecting the nuclear watchdog’s decisions.
Raisi made the remarks on Saturday in a meeting with visiting Director General of the IAEA Rafael Grossi in the capital Tehran, according to a report on the website of the president’s office.
Countries like Israel and the US use the nuclear issue as an “excuse” to further pressure the Iranian people, said the President, pointing out that it was the US that violated the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Xinhua news agency reported.
Iran has had “the highest level” of cooperation with the IAEA, expects the agency to tell the truth about Iran’s nuclear programme as well the country’s commitment ot its regulations, he noted.
Meanwhile, the IAEA Chief expressed pleasure at visiting Iran and meeting the country’s President, saying the IAEA’s team led by himself had “constructive and positive” meetings with the Iranian side, according to the report.
Grossi arrived in Tehran on Friday for a two-day visit, during which he also held talks with Mohammad Eslami, President of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
In recent months, the IAEA has criticised Iran for its lack of cooperation with the agency.
In November 2020, the IAEA’s Board of Governors passed a resolution proposed by the US, Britain, France and Germany that called on Iran to collaborate with the agency’s investigators regarding the alleged “traces of uranium” at a number of its “undeclared” sites.
Iran has repeatedly rejected such allegations and emphasised the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.
Tangmarg, Mar 3 (GNS): Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Parshottam Rupala, during his visit to Baramulla for Public Outreach programme has made operational the Aquarium cum Awareness centre established at Trout Fish Farm Tangmarg for the upcoming summer season.
Union Minster inspected the Trout Rearing Unit Tangmarg and reviewed various Fisheries development schemes and activities being implemented in the district. He also had an exclusive interactive session with farmers.
He distributed fishing material among 39 beneficiaries including 14 women covered under beneficiary oriented schemes of PMMSY.
On the occasion, Union Minister instructed the officers to prepare estimates and submit DPR for upgradation of Fish Farm Bella, Baramulla, which was damaged during the floods of 2014.
Earlier, Union Minister distributed sanction orders amounting Rs. 193.1 lakh in favour of 28 beneficiaries of Baramulla under various components of PMMSY/UT CAPEX scheme
Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla was also present during the function.
Union Minister was briefed that fish production in J&K has reached 25.40 thousand tons. The UT has the monopoly of Trout culture and the Trout Production here has reached to 1663 tons. During the year 2021-22, the department has produced 148 lakh of Trout seed and 14 lakh Trout seed was exported to other cold water states of the country. For providing working capital to the fishers, the department has sanctioned 696 KCCs in Fisheries Sector. Keeping in view the success of Trout Culture in Private sector, the department has kept Trout fish under One district One Product scheme (ODOP) in Anantnag and Baramulla districts. The department also contemplates to register Trout Fish products for GI tagging to project UT in the world map as a hub of Trout production, he was further informed.
Union Minister was told that the department is going to implement a project in Fisheries sector with a total cost of Rs. 232.85 crore during the next five years under Holistic Development of Agriculture plan (HADP) with an aim to double the fish production in the UT. Apart from increasing fish production and productivity, the project envisages creation of direct and indirect employment for about 2.50 lakh youth of UT. The major technological interventions under the project included introduction of modern Technology of fish culture viz RAS, Biofloc, establishment of feed mill, Hatcheries, Ice plant etc under private sector in a big way besides upgradation and strengthening of Departmental Fish farms to exploit their full potential, he was informed. To improve the genetic vigour, growth rate and survival of Trout, the department is procuring 100 lakh of genetically improved eyed of Rainbow and Brown Trout under HADP.
Parshottam Rupala emphasized the need of adopting fish farming activity as it can contribute significantly in increasing the farmers’ income in J&K.
While describing the importance of Kashmir region as an epicenter for development of cold water fisheries, Union Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, various steps are being taken up by the Central Government for enhancing the productivity as well income of the fishers and special subsidy component has been kept for the Cold water states/UTs to attract more farmers for adopting this profitable venture.
Union Minister said that farmers would be made more resourceful through implementation of various schemes for marketing of Trout and also for its export to other states to get remunerative prices for their produce.
Appreciating the Department of Fisheries, he said that J&K is the leader in production of Trout and successful implementation of various centrally and UT Sponsored schemes and proposed technological interventions under HADP clearly reflects the pro-farmer approach of the present government in the UT.
Mohammad Farooq Dar, Director Fisheries, Purnima Mittal, Director Animal Husbandry, Kashmir and other senior officers of the department were present on the occasion.(GNS)
Pulwama/Srinagar, Feb 28: Jammu and Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Monday said that the government along with the security agencies is working on a 360 degree approach to eliminate militancy and the killers of slain Sanjay Sharma won’t go scot free.
“Killing of Kashmiri Pandit Bank Security Guard (at Pulwama) is very unfortunate. Such acts create a sense of insecurity among people. Administration along with the security agencies are working on a 360 degree approach to eliminate militancy,” the LG told reporters on the side-lines of a function at SKICC here, in reply to a query as per news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO). He said that security agencies are working on leads and the killers of Kashmiri Pandit Sanjay Sharma won’t go scot free.
Meanwhile, several political Leaders on Monday visited Achan village in Pulwama to offer condolences with Sanjay Sharma’s family who was killed by gunmen on Sunday outside his residence.
The leaders who visited to offer condolences include former CM Mehbooba Mufti, BJP President for J&K, Ravindra Raina, BJP leader Sofi Yousuf, Altaf Thakur, PDP leader and DDC Chairman Pulwama Syed Bari Andrabi and others.
While talking to reporters at Achan, PDP President Mehbooba Mufti while targeting BJP said that if they claim militancy has ended then they must answer who has killed Sanjay Sharma.
On the killing of Sanjay, she said: “we all feel ashamed as Kashmiri Muslims are those who in 1947 have staked their lives for the safety of people of other religions.”
People here this time are caught themselves as one side on name of wiping out militancy- hundreds of people have been languishing in jails , properties are being sealed, ED and NIA raids on name of terror funding and even four houses were attached today, she said, adding that if militancy has been wiped out then who has killed Sanjay.
She while urging government to provide job and other help to bereaved family requested muslim community despite that they themselves are facing problems at hands of BJP must ensure the safety of minority community members as they are the symbol of kashmiriyat.
Ravindra Raina while talking to media said that all political parties must get united to fight militancy.
He said that government must frame a policy for all Pandits working or living here so that their safety can be ensured.
He said killing of Sharma isn’t any act of bravery but it is big sin what his killers have committed.
He said that the gun isn’t seeing whether it is BJP or any other, Hindu or Muslim but it is killing human whosoever and political parties must get together to fight militancy.
He praised local Muslim community for remaining shoulder to shoulder with Sanjay’s family and taking part in his last rites
He assured the family of all possible help they need in this tragic hour.
Sanjay Pandit was working as a security guard at a bank who was killed by gunmen in his native village on Sunday—(KNO)
European Union leaders want to reinforce their controversial “fortress Europe” policies by clamping down even harder on inward migration. This reveals a deep and self-defeating disconnect between the 27-nation bloc’s internal actions and its international aspirations.
The EU’s self-image is that of a benign power and a force for global good. European leaders spend a lot of time telling the world about the virtues of “European values”. There is even an EU commissioner whose sole task it is to promote the “European way of life”. Other countries are constantly taken to task, often through the imposition of sanctions, for their failure to align with international human rights standards.
Yet external perceptions of the bloc are determined not by fictionalised narratives but by the real-life experience of African, Asian and Middle Eastern migrants and refugees who seek EU protection. The EU’s image is also increasingly judged against the treatment of its own black and brown citizens. Regrettably, the record is poor on both counts, prompting justified accusations that the bloc is guilty of double standards and has a human rights policy based on selective outrage.
Internal squabbling, rising numbers of migrant crossings and racist far-right narratives that demonise migrants and refugees have left EU plans for more humane migration management in tatters. Instead, taboos are falling fast and the previously inadmissible is becoming acceptable as a frightening disregard for the human rights of refugees from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is embedded in EU migration policy.
Having once denounced Donald Trump’s plans to build a wall on the US border with Mexico as morally unacceptable, the bloc now has nearly 20 external steel walls or razor-wire fences, running to a combined length of nearly 2,000km. Twenty years ago there were no walls around the EU.
While these barriers were paid for by national governments, EU leaders have just agreed to “immediately mobilise substantial EU funds and means” to help member states bolster their “border protection capabilities and infrastructure”. In other words, more cameras, drones and watchtowers.
Britain’s blueprint for outsourcing asylum applications to African countries such as Rwanda is now also on EU leaders’ agenda, as are plans to make EU development assistance, trade deals and visa liberalisation policies conditional on countries’ readiness to take back people who are denied EU asylum.
Ukrainians at the Medyka border crossing, Poland, March 2022. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Hans Leijtens, a senior Dutch official and former commander of the military police in the Netherlands, is the new head of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, which faces a spate of criticism, court cases and investigations into alleged “pushbacks” and other breaches of human rights. Leijtens has promised “tangible results” in defending the EU’s external borders, which raises concerns that little will improve on his watch.
The EU’s embrace of the far right’s corrosive “stop migration” agenda is a violation of human rights and a breach of the bloc’s international humanitarian obligations. It is also shortsighted, given ageing Europe’s need for labour and the central role played by migrants as frontline workers, a fact underlined during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even more damaging, by normalising the policies of far-right politicians – of those who are in government and those outside them – the EU is eroding its own once impressive credentials as a global defender of democracy, good governance and the rule of law. As far-right ideas seep even further into the EU mainstream, Europe’s internal societal cohesion and measures to boost cultural, religious and ethnic coexistence are at risk.
In danger also is the EU’s promise to stop racism, discrimination and police violence against Europe’s black and brown citizens through an ambitious anti-racism action plan. Hastily crafted in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, the blueprint breaks new ground by calling for EU-wide action to root out structural and institutional racism against Europeans of colour.
Also, significantly, after years of paralysis on the issue – and despite some internal resistance – there is, for the first time, a drive to diversify the “Brussels so white” bubble by recruiting more non-white Europeans as EU interns and members of staff. EU bodies now run seminars on unconscious bias and microaggression. A new EU “coordinator” has been tasked to fight EU-wide racism and discrimination. After almost a year’s wait, the commission also has a new “anti-Muslim hatred” coordinator in addition to the one dealing with antisemitism who has been in office since 2015.
These gains in fighting racism in Europe are modest and remain contested. Their chances of survival are slim if, as many fear, EU politics slide further to the right through a wider alliance between the European parliament’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists party.
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Such a move would give rightwing parties a stronger say in appointing the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the head of the European external action service, the EU’s diplomatic arm. It is not even clear if the post of an EU commissioner for equality would survive such an overhaul.
This would have serious consequences for migration and anti-racism policies, but also for the EU’s geopolitical standing. Racism, xenophobia and Europe’s colonial legacies are increasingly acute obstacles to EU efforts to open a new chapter in relations with Africa.
This became clear last year when many African countries declined to join the EU’s stance over the war in Ukraine, arguing, as the Senegalese president Macky Sall did, that the “burden of history” makes them wary of involvement in a new cold war. Contrasting the EU’s warm welcome to those fleeing Ukraine with Europe’s stop-migration policies for others, Martin Kimani, Kenya’s ambassador to the UN, urged the EU to ensure that movement to Europe is also “safe and dignified”.
EU leaders may live in a well-insulated parallel universe where domestic and external issues are unconnected. Kimani’s words are a warning that Europe should practise at home what it preaches abroad. Failure to do so is an abdication of responsibility towards these countries’ citizens of colour and to refugees and migrants. It is also eroding the EU’s global standing.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
