 Hello and welcome to Dispatches from India, where we bring you some of the significant developments of the week. In this episode, we take a look at the second anniversary of momentous political change in Jammu and Kashmir, this continuing impact of Pegasus revelations and the condition of power looms sector in the state of Tamil Nadu. We begin with Jammu and Kashmir. August 5th, 2021, marked two years since the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, abrogated Article 370 and Article 35A of the Indian Constitution. Now these provisions gave a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Alongside the move, the centre also bifurcated the state into two union territories that is Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Now union territories are directly under the administration of the centre. Thus, in a flash move, the people of Kashmir lost not only their autonomy, but also their ability to govern themselves. Simultaneously, a harsh communications blockade was imposed and military deployment was increased, causing massive suffering to the people. Two years after the move, the people of Kashmir still have little say in their administration. On the occasion, News Clicks Pragya Singh spoke to Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami, a member of parliament from Kashmir from the Communist Party of India, Marxist, on what has happened over the past two years. It seems as if constitution of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated, but also the constitution of India was not working, is not working in this region of the country. Otherwise, ordinarily, whenever any state got divided, new states got constituted. Constitutional, it was mandatory to refer it to the people's opinion, to the concerned population, concerned legislature, has this constitutional direction followed with Jammu and Kashmir. I think our countrymen do remember that time and again, the senior leaders of the country have been telling the people of India and people of Jammu and Kashmir that Kashmir remains the crown of India. How was this crown treated? You see, our state, a historic state, and Kashmir has 5000 years history, and then it is downgraded, it is divided with whose consent? The manner in which the special status of the erstwhile state was taken away, shocked the people. The decision was suddenly announced without any consultation with the representatives of the people, and it was hurriedly passed through India's parliament. The fact that the communications blockade was in place, restricted people from even getting proper information about the development or protesting. Nonetheless, a few rallies and demonstrations did take place. In addition to the change to Article 370, Article 35A of the constitution was also scrapped. The provision put restrictions on outsiders buying land in Kashmir, which has always been a major concern for residents. Today, the government is talking about Naya Kashmir, as they are claiming in the rest of the country building Naya India, New India by destroying the very basic structures of India, modern India. Similarly, they want to destroy the whole Naya Kashmir, which came into being through the hard historic struggles while land to the tiller was first enacted in this part of the region, while the peasants became masters of the erstwhile and land where women rights were ensured, where free education up to the university level was provided. That Kashmir has remained an eyesore for the Sangh Parivar. That's what this government has done on 5th August 2019, destroyed the constitutional provision, destroyed the very constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, destroyed those very rights which were, which emerged out of long struggles of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Now, we have been put in a state of silence and this silence is not voluntary. This silence is not of our choice. This silence is forced silence. But how long? This is the question which we are posing. This is the question I hope the democratic opinion of the country will someday ask these people who are in authority today. Now, when statehood will be restored remains a major question. In parliament, on being asked about the restoration of statehood, a ministerial state for home affairs that's Nithyanand Rai said that it would take place when normalcy was restored. Now, when this normalcy is going to come back and what is in fact this haloed normalcy is a question that remains unanswered for now. Staying on the topic of Kashmir, we go to the victims of pellet guns. Over the past many years, in fact over almost a decade, security forces in Kashmir have used guns which fired pellets against protesters in the region. Now, security forces claim that these pellet guns are non-lethal equipment. However, these in fact are greatly harmful and many have lost their eyesight or suffered severe injuries due to this. A media report two years ago said that anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people could have been affected by the pellets. In addition to the injuries and the medical procedures needed after that, many of the victims suffer from intense psychological distress and mental health issues. We bring you a feature on some of these victims. Now, if you hit the corneal, then the corneal tears and it is dangerous that the corneal whiteness also becomes, which is called corneal opacity. As the pellet gets hit on the eye, it travels in a very high velocity and it rotates. The problem is that there is actually copper in it and some other chemicals, which goes inside the eye. Unfortunately, the vitreous body, the water inside the eye, becomes a chalky type of material. It becomes a cheesy type. The chalk type becomes as much of a reaction as possible. Now, those who have a little less injury, their prognosis is fine. But most of the pellet victims, their prognosis is not so good. Our next story is about the ongoing Pegasus controversy in India. The names of a number of journalists, politicians and even judges figured in the list of people who may have been spied upon using the spyware Pegasus, which was manufactured by the Israeli firm NSO Group. Over the past few weeks, the opposition has continuously raised the issue in parliament, but the government has not provided a categorical answer on whether these public figures were spied on. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of India is also hearing the matter. Newsclicks editor Praveer Purkhaisar talks about the various dimensions of the issue. The Pegasus issue still continues to rock the Indian parliament and finds resonance in the media. As you know, a number of journalists have been found to have been infected with the Pegasus cyber weapon or spyware, whatever you want to call it. And this issue has now come not only in the parliament but also in front of the Supreme Court. Number of journalists and other important figures have petitioned the Supreme Court that they should start looking at this issue and have a judicial review of what has happened and is it true the government of India did buy the Pegasus software and did bug a number of journalists as well as opposition figures. From the listed transpires that even some of the ruling party and government officials including judges had also been similarly spied upon. This issue is not going to go away, particularly the government refuses to answer a very simple question. Did it or did it not buy Pegasus spyware or cyber weapon from NSO, the Israeli company? A simple yes or no answer should by now have been provided but the government has stone walled it in the parliament, outside the parliament and even in front of the Supreme Court. The answer they are saying is there is no proof. The question is people are not asking show us that this was not used. What they are asking is a simple question that could have an easy yes or no answer. Did any government agency buy the Pegasus software? Did government of India's money, people's money was used to buy the Pegasus spyware or cyber weapon as Israelis themselves admit that this cyber weapon or spyware was deployed against the Indian journalists as well as other figures in the country. Now that answer as long as that answer is not given, let me repeat, as long as that answer is not given this issue is not going to die down. Whether the Supreme Court will order a Supreme Court monitored inquiry is something that is before the courts and let us see where it leads us to. Why is it important that this issue needs a closure, whether Pegasus was deployed in India or not? This is because the government surveilling it, the opposition surveilling judges, surveilling journalists is an issue of democracy that if this is allowed to happen, if these weapons are used against its own population against various sections of the people including the opposition, then this really endangers what we consider essential that is the privacy of the people and also their ability to talk to each other free from government surveillance. This conversion of India into a surveillance state in a way that we had never foreseen that means that you carry a spy in your pocket which is your phone. These are things which are extremely dangerous for Indian democracy and I think the government owes it to the people and the Supreme Court owes it to us to also give a clear answer that what is the way forward. And finally we go to the state of Tamil Nadu and its struggling power loom sector. Small scale units have been especially hit after the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying lockdowns but even before that they had been affected by the sudden demonetization process in 2016. Now this process made invalid a large number of high value currency notes under the guise of fighting black money but caused a lot of difficulty to the people. Similarly the introduction of goods and services tax also affected such producers. The COVID-19 lockdown in the country was the final nail in the coffin of what was an already suffering sector. Here is a video feature on some of the issues faced by them. The power loom sector is a significant industry in Tamil Nadu. According to the Tamil Nadu hand loom and textile department nearly 3.2 lakh people have registered as power loomers. Further there are 142 power loom viewers co-operative societies covering 24,000 looms across the state. Two-third of these power loom units are functioning in Koyamthu, Tirupur, Eeru, Karu, Salem and Namakal districts. During the pandemic induced lockdown the sector confronted various problems including the exporting of clothes. The problem involved in the production said that they are not getting adequate income out of it. News click visited a power loom unit and its worker in Salem to understand their problems. That is all we have time for today. We will be back next week with more news from India. Until then keep watching People's Dispatch.