No reservations

The politics of the Women’s Reservation Bill has understandably been the subject of editorial comment. “An assessment of the determination and intention of political parties on this issue can be had from the fact that the bill has been presented in the Lok Sabha four times since 1996, but the result has been along expected lines (dhaak ke teen paat), and now again its outcome would not be different from the past experience,” writes Rashtriya Sahara in an editorial entitled, ‘Politics of Women’s Reservation’ (May 6). It seems neither any home work with regard to any changes in the bill has been done, nor has there been any consensus even among UPA allies, it observes.

Behind the wall

The camera is stripping citizens living behind walls’ (Faseel bund shehriyon ko camera barehna kar raha hai) runs the banner headline of Hamara Samaj (April 25). This news report is about cameras installed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to “keep an eye on illegal construction” in the walled city area of Delhi. Citizens of areas around Jama Masjid are enraged at the pictures of interiors of dwellings in the area flashed by high range 3-D cameras and watched on ten screens put up in the City Zone Office of the Corporation.

The Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Maulana Ahmad Bukhari, has described it as “a conspiracy to unveil Muslim women.” Union Minister Kapil Sibal, whose electoral constituency is Chandni Chowk, says it is to locate the “illegal constructions and activities” in the area and “take action against erring persons.” According to the newspaper report, the walled city is the only area of the capital where such cameras have been installed. “No one has dared to install such cameras in any other locality.” One of the three cameras (installed on top of Gate 2 of Jama Masjid) has reportedly been “made unoperational by the Shahi Imam.” The other two cameras are taking photographs of objects upto a distance of 5 km during daytime and 2 km at night, according to the newspaper report. “The goings-on inside the rooms of homes with glass windows can be clearly seen on the screen”, claims the reporter. There are plans of installing another five to seven cameras in the area, according to the report.