ON DEATH ROW
An ex bandit fights the silence of prison life with her notebook and pen; A father remembers the night his younger son was arrested for rape and murder; A woman finds out from her fellow inmates that she’s been given the death penalty.
Between 2013 and 2016, Project 39A, a criminal justice research and litigation centre based out of National Law University, Delhi, conducted interviews with death row prisoners and their families. These interviews became the basis for the Death Penalty India Report, 2016 – a first of its kind empirical study on the socio-economic profile of death row prisoners and their interaction with the criminal justice system. But the study also revealed something else. It brought to light the deeply human and personal stories of very real people and a snapshot of their fluctuating realities. The 19 stories in this book written by Jahnavi Misra are based on these interviews. Profoundly moving and illuminating, The Punished takes us on a journey into the lives and minds of the men and women often demonised by society and discarded by the State.
NEW DELHI: India said on Friday that discussions are still being held with Sri Lanka over Colombo’s unilateral decision to scrap a trilateral agreement for developing a key port terminal and instead hand it over to a state-run entity.
The Sri Lankan government’s sudden decision this month to run the East Container Terminal (ECT) of Colombo port as a fully owned operation of the Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA) didn’t go down well with India and Japan, which had signed a trilateral agreement in 2019 on jointly developing the terminal.
“India’s interest for participation in the Colombo port is a long-standing one since most goods handled there are from and to India,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told a news briefing.
“We had, in principle, agreement from the Sri Lankan government in this regard. The current government has, however, expressed a preference in engaging investors directly. I understand discussions are still underway,” he said.
India responded to the latest developments in the ECT project by calling on Sri Lanka to abide by the trilateral agreement, while Japan described the Sri Lankan government’s unilateral decision as “regrettable”.
Sri Lankan leaders and ministers have been quoted by the country’s media as saying that India and Japan will be allowed an opportunity to develop the West Container Terminal at Colombo port instead of ECT. Indian officials, however, say that no formal proposal has been received from Colombo in this regard.