Yearbook 2006
 India. The Indian economy continued its strong growth.
For the financial year up to and including March 2006, GDP
increased by 8.4% and for the period July-September the rate
of increase was 9.3%. This gave the government the
opportunity to present a budget with major investments in
education, health care, infrastructure and rural
development. Well aware that the previous right-wing
government was convicted in 2004 for underestimating the
rural problems, the government guaranteed 100 days of work
per year for one person per household. About SEK 26 billion
was committed to support debt-ridden farmers in four states.
The government signed agreements with private companies to
take over the operation of major airports in Delhi and
Bombay.
In July, until the privatization of state-owned
enterprises was suspended, after an important regional party
threatened to leave the coalition government in protest of
the planned sale of a state-owned power company.
According to
CountryAAH, the ruling Congress Party Chairman Sonia Gandhi left
Parliament after criticizing her for sitting at another high
government post. After also leaving the second assignment,
she quickly resumed the parliamentary seat by gaining over
80% of the vote in the general election in the family's
traditional constituency in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
In elections to state assemblies, there was mixed results
for the Congress Party. It lost to communist-led alliances
in West Bengal and Kerala and was forced to reign in Tamil
Nadu and Assam.
In October, Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee was
appointed Foreign Minister. The post had been vacant for
almost a year since the representative resigned following
corruption charges.
At a March I visit by US President George W. Bush, the
agreement on civil nuclear cooperation was signed when India's
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington in 2005. It
was until November before the US Senate approved the
agreement, as India has not signed the Non-Proliferation
Agreement (NPT). In return, India open their nuclear power
plants for inspection.
At a visit by China's President Hu Jintao in November,
the countries pledged to double trade exchanges until 2010.
The peace process between I and Pakistan was temporarily
suspended after 200 people were killed and over 700 injured
in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on commuter
trains and railway stations in Bombay on July 11. India openly
accused the Pakistani military intelligence service of
taking part in the attacks together with Indian extremists.
It was not until late autumn that contacts at government
level were resumed.
In March, about 20 people were killed in two blasts
shortly after each other in the Hindu pilgrimage city of
Varanasi.
In September, at least 37 people were killed and hundreds
injured in a blast attack at a Muslim burial ground in the
state of Maharashtra in western India. In neighboring Gujarat,
12 people were sentenced to life imprisonment for multiple
murders during the anti-Muslim riots in 2002 when more than
1,000 people were killed.
A Bombay special court found 100 people guilty of
participating in a series of blast attacks in 1993, when 257
people were killed.
In the state of Chattisgarh in central India, a Maoist
guerrilla uprising required a large number of human lives.
In Assam in the northeast, the government began indirect
negotiations with the separatist guerrilla ULFA after
several blast attacks. The army canceled all operations
while negotiations with people nominated by the guerrillas
were ongoing. However, the negotiations soon ended, and
after new blasts, the army sent reinforcements in November.
In Assam and the other Northeast states, separatist
uprisings have been going on for decades.
In November, the Nanavati-Mehta Commission reported to
the Gujarat Parliament on the 2002 massacre that had cost
about 2,000 lives - most Muslims. The report was kept
secret. The authorities have thus continued to throw smoke
over the events and the authorities' own responsibility -
including Prime Minister Modi's share in the responsibility
for the massacre.
At the same time as the government, on paper, advocated a
rapid spread of the Internet, it also tightened freedom of
expression. Journalists, human rights defenders and
activists who criticized major government projects were
subjected to state arrests and harassment.
Both police and soldiers traditionally enjoy an extensive
impunity for their criminal activities. It was therefore
unusual when a military court in November sentenced 5
soldiers, including 2 officers to life imprisonment for in
2010, for murdering 3 innocent villagers.
Modi participated in Moscow in May 2015 in celebration of
the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. The
anniversary of the victory over Nazism was boycotted by the
US and the EU.
In the second half of 2015, India embarked on a major
modernization of the infrastructure. 1000 new diesel
locomotives were ordered and a contract to build the
country's first high-speed railway signed - from Mombay to
Ahmedabad. A modernization of the country's main roads was
also initiated, as well as a plan for modernized freight on
its rivers.
In August, the government signed a peace agreement with
the National Socialist Council (NSCM) of Nagalan. The deal
ended the 60-year uprising in the state.
Military spending increased by 11% in 2015.
Armed groups, not only in Jammu and Kashmir, but also in
the northeastern states of Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya, and
the central states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha,
Maharashtra, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh as well as Punjab
carried out a large number of human rights violations such
as extortion, abduction and murder. In Jammu & Kashmir, the
government put the state in an emergency after a group had
attacked a military facility. The government used the state
of emergency to commit a wide range of human rights
violations to the civilian population. At the same time,
tension with neighboring Pakistan increased.
The weakest groups in society, the homeless and the
tribal, continued to be subject to systematic crimes. In
2016, 45,000 crimes were committed against homeless people
and 11,000 against tribal people. Often by Hindu
fundamentalists attached to BJP. In January 2016, the
homeless student Rohith Vemula committed suicide. It led to
nationwide protests and discussion of the discrimination and
violence ceaselessly exposed at the universities. In March,
police arrested students and staff of the University of
Hyderabad, where Vemula had been studying. In July,
extensive demonstrations broke out in Una, Gujarat, after 4
castles had been whipped publicly by a self-guided guard
after cutting the skins of a dead cow. A work that is
traditionally reserved for castles.
Self-appointed guard guards to protect (the holy) cows
harassed and attacked people in several states: Gujarat,
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. In March 2016, the
bodies of two Muslim cattle traders were found hanging in a
tree in Jharkhand. In June, members of a security guard in
Haryana forced two Muslim men suspected of carrying beef to
eat colourte. In August, a woman in Haryana reported that
she and her cousin had been mass-raped by a group of men who
accused them of eating beef.
Africans continued to face racist harassment,
discrimination and violence in a wide range of cities. In
February 2016, a woman from Tanzania was undressed and
beaten by a mob in Bengaluru, Karnataka. In May, a man from
the Democratic Republic of Congo was beaten to death by a
group of men in New Delhi.
|
