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Indian Express
a day ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
Ram Madhav writes: What the current discourse on religious freedom gets wrong
In an interesting report, 'Changing the conversation about religious freedom: An integral human development approach', published in June last year, the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank, claimed that it was seeking 'a new approach to religious freedom that integrates it with integral human development (IHD)'. In a welcome departure from the earlier practice of demonising countries in the name of religious freedom, the report argued that religious freedom should not only be treated as a human right but also as 'a crucial component of overall human flourishing and sustainable development'. Religious freedom became a bogey to defame countries after the US Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) in 1998 and created the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to 'monitor, analyse and report on violations of religious freedom worldwide'. The commission's annual reports have acquired notoriety for misrepresenting facts, often with an alleged political bias, in branding several countries as 'Countries of Particular Concern' (CPCs). Several countries have questioned its locus standi in interfering in their sovereign affairs. India took an aggressive stand by refusing to recognise the commission and denying visas to its officials. Earlier this year, the Ministry of External Affairs not only rejected the commission's 2025 report, which included India as one of the CPCs, but went further to brand the commission an 'entity of concern'. The USCIRF's reports have no sanctity outside the four walls of the US Congress. Yet, they have helped create a 'religious freedom industry'. A breed of 'religious freedom ambassadors' has emerged in over 30 countries. Religious freedom, per se, is not contentious. Several democracies, including India, hold it as sacrosanct. Articles 25 to 30 of the Indian Constitution offer various freedoms to religions including the freedom of conscience, the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate, and the freedom to manage their affairs without state intervention. Minority religions enjoy positive discrimination by way of special rights to run educational and cultural institutions. The same rights are not available to the majority Hindu religion. India is the only country where people of all religions, including several Christian denominations and Muslim sects, coexist in harmony. It's not that there are no religious tensions, but they must be seen in the context of India's population of a billion-plus Hindus, almost 200 million Muslims and 40 million Christians. In its long history, Hindu society has endured enormous religious persecution by invading Mughal armies as well as violent religious inquisitions by Christian rulers like the Portuguese in Goa. The country was partitioned in 1947 on religious grounds after a brutal and violent campaign led by the Muslim League. That history has made the leaders of modern India recognise the need for strengthening the bond of national unity based not only on political and constitutional foundations but also on cultural and civilisational ethos. Religious bigotry and fundamentalism — majority or minority — were rejected and emphasis was laid on creating a national mainstream. For a vast and diverse country with a long history of religious strife, that's not an easy task. Yet, occasional outbursts notwithstanding, India has achieved commendable success in demonstrating unity and harmony. Still, India remained in the USCIRF's crosshairs. There are two important reasons for that bias. One is that the commission places its religious freedom discourse in a Eurocentric framework. It refuses to take into account country-specific sensitivities. Two, it relies on scholars who are reportedly biased. I was at a conference in Rome recently where the Atlantic Council's initiative to view religious freedom from the prism of integral human development was the central theme. Propounded first by Jacques Maritain, a French Catholic philosopher, in 1936, and followed three decades later by Deendayal Upadhyaya, the ideological father figure of the BJP, Integral humanism emphasises the need to rise above religions to secure not only the material but ethical, moral and spiritual well-being of individuals. It advocates a pluralistic approach for achieving such an integral development. It is imperative that the religious freedom discourse be situated in the national context to achieve a proper understanding of the role of religions in the integral growth of people. The Indian Constitution imposes reasonable restrictions on public order, morality and health on all fundamental rights, including the freedom of religion. That calls for religions that came from outside to internalise the cultural experience of India, in which pluralism and respect for all religions is an important basic principle. No religion can claim universality or superiority. Hence, in the Indian context, the religious narrative should shift from 'one god' to 'only god' — everything is divine — and 'one truth' to 'only truth'. Religious conversions are an important challenge in this context. In a landmark judgment in Rev. Stainislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh (1977), the Supreme Court held that the right to 'propagate' does not include the right to proselytise and hence there is no fundamental right to convert another person. The Court clarified that it does not impinge on the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution, but rather, protects it. It may be worthwhile to recall that Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis had criticised proselytism, albeit in the limited context of Catholics being won over by other denominations. A proper understanding of the cultural and civilisational experiences of various nations helps in reframing the religious freedom discourse in the right perspective. Otherwise, the Atlantic Council's efforts will also be seen as 'a form of 'cultural imperialism' or a 'Western' endeavour with a hidden agenda', to borrow from its own report. The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP. Views are personal
New York Post
07-05-2025
- General
- New York Post
US experiences 1,000 air traffic control failures each week: insiders
WASHINGTON — Air traffic controllers are facing about 1,000 equipment failures per week — and 'more and more' are expected without a serious 'overhaul' of the ancient systems, a former FAA official and several airline industry insiders tell The Post. The shocking revelation follows the 90-second radar and comms blackout for controllers overseeing Newark Liberty International Airport, which resulted in a cascade of cancelations and delays that has lasted more than a week. A fried piece of copper wire caused the April 28 outage. Following the incident, five FAA workers in the Philadelphia-based control center took federal 'trauma leave' of up to 45 days, according to CNN. Advertisement 8 A fried piece of copper wire caused air traffic controllers' comms to go dark on April 28 for less than two minutes, prompting flight delays and cancellations for passengers in Newark. Getty Images 'This is a copper wire system, and frankly the FAA is experiencing almost 1,000 outages a week,' one airline industry official said of the fiasco. 'Some outages are worse than others — but the bad thing about them is you can't predict them.' Industry officials explained that the miles of telecommunications wire snaking its way through systems from New York to California are being overloaded by the tens of thousands of flights Americans take every day — and the historic lack of Certified Professional Controllers (CPCs) overseeing the planes. Advertisement It's an 'increasingly urgent' problem, they said. Another airline industry insider said that most of the technology currently in use is, at best, late 1980s, early 1990s-era, making it a 'top priority' for lawmakers to address in upcoming reconciliation and appropriations bills if possible. David Grizzle, who served under former President Barack Obama as the FAA's chief counsel, acting deputy administrator and chief operating officer of its Air Traffic Organization, said the current 'air traffic control dilemma' is entirely due to 'archaic' equipment, a shortage of air traffic controllers and 'inadequate and inconsistent' funding from Congress. 'Historically, we have assured safety by trading off inefficiency, and so we would just slow the traffic down more and more and more to keep it safe,' Grizzle said. Advertisement But 'when you start having unscheduled outages like what happened at Newark — you can't do the safety-for-efficiency tradeoff like we've been doing.' 8 'When you start having unscheduled outages like what happened at Newark — you can't do the safety-for-efficiency tradeoff like we've been doing,' said David Grizzle, a former FAA chief operating officer. C-SPAN 'Today at Newark the average flight is four-hours delayed,' he went on. 'The FAA is holding planes on the ground all over the country in order to meter the number of arrivals down to a small enough number to safely manage it with the staffing and the unreliable equipment that they have.' As of October, there were 1,020 fewer certified professional controllers than there were at the end of fiscal year 2012 — a 9% decrease. Advertisement Just 34 controllers were added through hiring last year. In total, there are 10,791 certified controllers at the FAA spread across 300 air traffic control facilities monitoring 50,000 flights per day. 8 As of October, there were 1,020 fewer CPCs than there were at the end of fiscal year 2012 — a 9% decrease. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post Asked about the 90-second blackout that air traffic controllers suffered, Grizzle noted that it was certainly the most 'dramatic' incident in recent memory but that an 'unscheduled outage' is likely to be seen 'more and more.' 'The nature of an unscheduled outage is you don't know where it's going to happen,' he warned — and despite it being fewer than two minutes, 'if a plane is traveling at 555 miles per hour, a few seconds is significant.' Grizzle also cautioned that passengers should still feel safe given the other guidelines that the agency is applying nationwide. 'They can still assume that this is a very safe system, but the margin of safety is declining and the level of delays and cancellations that are being required to maintain this level of safety is completely unacceptable for a modern country like the United States,' he added. 8 In a Fox News interview Monday night, Duffy slammed the Biden administration for doing 'nothing' to fix the mounting problems at the FAA — including its telecom system. Advertisement 'We're having to cancel hundreds of flights because we simply don't have the technology and staffing to manage them.' Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is preparing Thursday to announce an 'overhaul' much of the outdated and understaffed FAA with a recruiting blitz, 'cutting-edge technology' and a consolidation of the roughly two dozen air traffic control towers into just five or six state-of-the-art centers, the insiders added. In a Fox News interview Monday night, Duffy slammed the Biden administration for doing 'nothing' to fix the mounting problems at the FAA — including its telecom system. 'It hasn't been updated in the last 30-40 years,' he declared, before explaining what happened in Newark. Advertisement 8 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is preparing Thursday to announce an 'overhaul' much of the outdated and understaffed FAA with a recruiting blitz and more 'cutting-edge technology.' Getty Images 'The primary communication line went down, the backup line didn't fire, and so for 30 seconds, we lost contact with air traffic control,' he said on 'The Ingraham Angle.' 'Were planes going to crash? No, they have communication devices. They can see other air traffic,' he added. 'But it's a sign that we have a frail system in place, and it has to be fixed.' Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), who serves as chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is hoping to push for at least $4.75 billion to upgrade the telecom system in the coming year. Advertisement On Wednesday, the FAA released a statement announcing that 'three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications connections' would be added between the New York-based radar processing location and Philadelphia one. 8 On Wednesday, the FAA, headed by acting administrator Chris Rocheleau, released a statement announcing telecom and staffing updates. Getty Images The agency is also hiring more air traffic controllers and replacing the copper wires with fiberoptic ones for higher bandwidth and greater speed and setting up a 'temporary backup system' at the Philly-based radar processing center. Just 22 CPCs serve at the Philadelphia center, known as TRACON, along with 21 other controllers and supervisors in training. Advertisement 'We have a healthy pipeline with training classes filled through July 2026,' a spokesperson for the agency said. 'The FAA has been slowing arrivals and departures at Newark Liberty International Airport due to runway construction at Newark and staffing and technology issues at Philadelphia TRACON, which guides aircraft in and out of the airport,' the spokesperson added. 8 Nicholas Calio, the CEO of the leading trade association for cargo and passenger planes, told Congress in a March hearing that around 90% of the FAA's facilities and equipment budget is used just to patch up existing issues. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post Nicholas Calio, the CEO of the leading trade association for cargo and passenger planes, told Congress in a March hearing that around 90% of the FAA's facilities and equipment budget is used just to patch up issues in the existing system. 'It's not acceptable to just continue to tolerate a chronically understaffed air traffic control system. Just like it's not acceptable for controllers and technicians to be using paper strips and floppy disks to run our nation's National Aviation System.' Industry officials said there will likely be a push for an even higher $30 or $40 billion supplementary request in the coming months. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last December found that 'of the FAA's 138 systems' at least 27% 'were unsustainable' and 39% were 'potentially unsustainable.' 8 'It hasn't been updated in the last 30-40 years,' Duffy declared of the telecom system, before explaining what happened in Newark last week. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post There are also concerns about how so-called 'slot relief,' a system that forces roughly 10% fewer flights at a given airport, has been unnecessarily deflating the number of flights daily at high-traffic hubs like JFK and LaGuardia, prompting a letter from Calio's group, Airlines for America, in April. That missive requested an extension until 2027 of slot relief to allow for increased hiring and updated tech before taking on the higher daily total of flights. It also noted that 'approximately 75% of all delays in the National Airspace System' occur in NYC airspace. 'In 2019, the FAA estimated that the annual cost of delays to the U.S. economy and passengers was $33 billion, reinforcing the need to address these issues,' the letter noted.
