[Reader-list] Readers मजलिस: Reflections on Surveillance as Security & Crime and Punishment on 24th September, 2014 @Paradigm Shift

[Kabir Khan]

Readers मजलिस: Reflections on Surveillance as Security & Crime and
Punishment <https://www.facebook.com/events/854681947878247/?ref=22>

We at Paradigm Shift <https://www.facebook.com/paradigmshiftvegan> in
collaboration with People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) are hosting
Readers मजलिस on 24th September, at 18:30. The topic of conversation is
Surveillance as Security & Crime and Punishment. Dr. Usha Ramanathan,
internationally recognized expert on law and poverty, will be sharing her
reflections and facilitating the conversation on the same.

The outline of the conversation is given below and certain answers for
pertinent questions will be evolved during the session.

Surveillance as security: UID, Natgrid, NPR, Netra, CCTVs, CCTNS, these are
some acronyms. Databasing, convergence, tagging, tracking, profiling are
emerging phenomena. Corruption, terrorism, brutal rape, inefficiency are
offered to explain the normalising of surveillance. ID numbers in
repositories, biometrics, DNA in databases, camera capture of faces and
persons. Fear, alarm, threat, risk. The Transparent Individual, turning the
RTI on its head.

Does surveillance really make the citizen/resident secure?

Crime and Punishment: It is axiomatic that the state makes the law and so
decides what is a crime, what should be punished, how, and how much.

What is it about the death penalty and the state? Why is the court so
uncomfortable with it while the executive state embraces it with an ardour
unbecoming of one that is meant to protect life? Why is protest a matter of
`law and order' and not of politics? Why is beggary a crime, punishable
with indefinite incarceration? What has `docket explosion' to do with crime
and punishment? What has the breakdown of the criminal justice system to do
with scapegoating, the diluting of fair trial standards, and the death of
innocence?

About Dr. Usha Ramanathan: Dr. Ramanathan is a research fellow at the
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, teaches environmental law,
labour law and consumer law at the Indian Law Institute and is a regular
guest professor many universities around the world.

Dr Ramanathan is also the South Asia Editor of the Law, Environment and
Development Journal (LEAD Journal), a peer-reviewed academic journal
jointly published by IELRC and SOAS.

Her research interests include human rights, displacement, torts and
environment. She has published extensively in India and abroad. In
particular, she has devoted her attention to a number of specific issues
such as the Bhopal gas disaster, the Narmada valley dams or slum eviction
in Delhi.
For more details you can write to paradigmshiftbangalore at gmail.com or call
@+919663427315

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कबीर/کبیر

Phone:00-91-96-63-427-315

email: kabirkhan1989 at gmail.com

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