Patently incorrect
IT is a self-willed fiasco that the ruling alliance could have done without. And Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Madan Lal Khurana is to blame. It transpires that he did not at all send the Patents Bill to Rashtrapati Bhavan, contrary to what he claimed on Wednesday while explaining away the failure to move it in the Lok Sabha.

Govts come, go, come…
POLITICAL developments in Nepal generally follow the pattern emerging in India but as far as instability is concerned, the Himalayan kingdom seems to have outdone even its big neighbour.

HIGH PRICES
by K.F. Rustamji
I CANNOT recall any year in the last 60 or 70 years in which the price rise has been so precipitous. During World War II, in the years 1940-42, there were shortages owing to the war which increased prices. The British Government acted swiftly to introduce rationing, control, raids on hoarders, even paraded blackmarketeers on donkeys.

Safeguarding rights of children
by S. S. Saraswathi
IN the series of national policies and national level bodies to look after the welfare of specific groups of the population or promote the special interests of particular categories, the latest relates to the children of the country.

Army needs better equipment
by Tavleen Singh
BY one of those coincidences that add spice to journalism I happened to spend a day with our Army chief about a week before the USA and Britain bombed Baghdad. I travelled with Gen Ved Prakash Malik to Hisar where he inspected troops and weaponry.

Lack of creativity, initiative
by Amita Malik
INDIAN TV, which was DD only at the beginning, started by being so cinema-obsessed that it hardly had any identity of its own, beyond Bollywood. Then came some mighty serials, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Why lose hope?
by J. L. Gupta
I MADE a mistake. This was nothing new. It was not the first time. I have done it even before this. In fact, so often. But, there was one difference. Normally, I had always been quick to apologise. To ring up and express sincere regrets. To say sorry. Even to tender an abject apology. This time there was an initial hesitation. Probably, because the fault was bad.

75 Years Ago

Fraud alleged
THE police are on the lookout for a Bengali Mussalman named M.A. Khan, who is wanted on a charge of misappropriating currency notes of the value of Rs 381, property of the Tata Company.

Patently incorrect

IT is a self-willed fiasco that the ruling alliance could have done without. And Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Madan Lal Khurana is to blame. It transpires that he did not at all send the Patents Bill to Rashtrapati Bhavan, contrary to what he claimed on Wednesday while explaining away the failure to move it in the Lok Sabha. His first goof-up was in thinking that the Bill had to be sent to the President after the Rajya Sabha had adopted it. It was not necessary; the procedure is to straight away move it in the lower House for consideration. He compounded it by referring to the delay in receiving it back and a bit later blaming the Congress for imposing conditions for its continued support. All that the former ruling party wanted was for the government to circulate the four-line amendment well in advance, by no means an inappropriate or impossible demand. Any way, the Congress could not have changed its stand from support to opposition within 24 hours of voting for it in the Rajya Sabha. What is more, the ruling alliance does not need outside help since it enjoys a clear majority, despite the Samata Party’s vague threat to oppose it. The Bill was not on the agenda for the day!

The Patents Bill is one of the key amendments listed for adoption in the winter session. The other is the Insurance Regulatory Authority legislation. India has to have a law by April next year under the World Trade Organisation agreement and failure will cost the nation dear. It is because of this that both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister have been holding out assurances from every available forum of early legislative action. There is opposition to these measures in the Lok Sabha, but with the Congress coming forward to back the Bills, their passage was assured. Lack of alertness on the part of Mr Khurana led to the IRA Bill being sent to a select committee, thus delaying its becoming a law. Now Patents Bill has to wait till the Budget session. The first is a test case of India’s readiness to move forward on liberalisation and the second is a test case of its seriousness in honouring international commitment without delay. Both have been stalled, at least for the time being. And this non-performance has dented the impression the Prime Minister has been trying to create that the government is moving energetically on the economic front.

This has come at a time when the economy is developing serious problems. Listen to Mr Yashwant Sinha. Revenue collection is way behind budget estimates. There is likely to be a wide gap of something like Rs 12,000 crore in excise and customs collection. This in turn is a reflection of a slow industrial growth, about 3.6 per cent higher than last year’s volume. Fiscal deficit is inching towards 7 per cent, far higher than the overconfident 5.6 per cent Mr Sinha expected. Exports are stagnant while imports are ballooning, particularly of such items as consumer electronics, edible oil, pulses and the like. Six such items account for half of the trade deficit, which could go up to $ 10 billion this financial year. And to send a powerful negative signal at this time!

Govts come, go, come…

POLITICAL developments in Nepal generally follow the pattern emerging in India but as far as instability is concerned, the Himalayan kingdom seems to have outdone even its big neighbour. The march of seven governments in eight years brings to mind the goings-on in Italy half a century ago. Mr Girija Prasad Koirala, who was appointed Prime Minister on April 12 heading a minority Nepali Congress-led government, bowed out earlier this week, following the withdrawal of support by the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist), a breakaway faction of the United Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Nepal. A national government was to be installed to pave the way for yet another free and fair parliamentary election early next year. But equally suddenly, he is back in the saddle, at the head of yet another coalition. The largest Communist group in Parliament, the UML, has agreed to back him on the condition that he will appoint its members to the Cabinet and call early elections. That means that the impending elections have only been delayed. The burden of such repeated exercises on the extremely poor country can be well imagined but the fractured mandate and the never-ending intrigues of politicians have ensured that the country has no option. In coalition governments, parties with a handful of seats have come to acquire tremendous clout and have been using it blatantly. The bigger parties, the Nepali Congress and the UML, too have not covered themselves with glory, as these are following unprincipled politics unabashedly. In fact, the line of distinction between these two parties has been more or less obliterated, with each supporting the other when it suits it. The time and attention given to political intrigues in Kathmandu are at the cost of economic development, which has virtually come to a halt during the past few years. In fact, what has grown in Nepal is not a full-fledged democracy but a strange mutant variety where narrow political ends subserve everything else. In this atmosphere, exploitative tendencies are given full play and none of the parties considers it necessary to maintain even a façade of fairplay.

The debilitating effects are telling upon the health of the body politic. As said earlier, economic development is a major casualty. Another noticeable feature is that in order to divert the people’s attention away from their own shortcomings and wrongdoing, the leaders look upon the neighbours to provide them scapegoats. Since India is big, it has come to be treated as a favourite whipping boy. Whatever goes wrong with the country is partly blamed on India. Even responsible leaders like Mr Koirala have taken recourse to India bashing. Political consciousness is not very strong in the residents of the far-flung areas but the country did fight a concerted 30-year battle against the monarchy. Since the politicians have not given a good account of themselves since 1990, when multi-party democracy was introduced, the feeling is growing that perhaps democracy is not suited to this country. The Palace has subtly utilised this perception to increase its power. The King has gradually increased his role in public affairs. The tremendous support and respect bordering on reverence that he enjoys has come in handy. The latest example has been his rejection of the recommendation of Mr Koirala to dissolve Parliament and order fresh elections. This runs contrary to the Constitution, which specifies that all of the King’s actions should be based on the Prime Minister’s advice. Amidst the political uncertainty that exists in Kathmandu, few seem to be bothered about such niceties. There was hardly any protest against the King’s recent actions. He is coming to look taller and taller in comparison with the leaders thrown up by democracy. All politicians must realise that through their petty power play, they are strengthening the feeling that monarchy was somehow better than the present democracy. If they do not collectively stem the rot, it may not be impossible for the Palace to fill the vacuum.

HIGH PRICES
A warning we cannot ignore
by K.F. Rustamji

I CANNOT recall any year in the last 60 or 70 years in which the price rise has been so precipitous. During World War II, in the years 1940-42, there were shortages owing to the war which increased prices. The British Government acted swiftly to introduce rationing, control, raids on hoarders, even paraded blackmarketeers on donkeys. Yet prices produced the worst famine in living memory — the Bengal Famine of 1943. The heartrending cries of the dying were recorded forever by Satyajit Ray in his film of the tragedy, “Ashoni Sanket”. It was the worst disaster in this century.

Are we waiting for something like that to happen? Why does everyone in authority think it is only temporary shortage, which has sent up prices? In the first place, a shortage in India occurs due to shortage in production, a scare, and extra buying. A little extra taken by everyone who can afford it, makes the day of the traders, and the night of the unemployed youngster who came to the city in search of employment, or the poor who are the 40 million forgotten people.

Dr Amartya Sen says democracy and a free press are the best safeguard against famine. What he does not seem to know is that our democracy is meant only for the 5 per cent that are tax-payers, 15 per cent that are tax evaders, and a few others who live in comfort on loans from banks, or by defrauding the nation. The rest don’t matter. Nor could I find any mention in the media of the effect of the price rise on the poorest living in the middle lands of India. Our free press does not consider it worth an article: too troublesome to go there.

The Congress blames the BJP, the BJP blames the Congress. I have the awful fear that both may be blameless or powerless to contain the slide. It may be sanctions that have produced instability, and nobody is prepared to say so because we are so proud of our economy being able to resist outside pressure, or it may be population pressure, or global economic turmoil.

Can the government set up rationing in a systematic way? Can they distribute stocks and ensure that everybody has a fair deal. We have not only to frame the laws but to find the men and women who can deal with the problem competently, who are prepared to see that this is not a small problem of supplies failing due to rain: it deals with death. And how do we get judicial decisions in time to have an impact on hoarders and profiteers?

The price rise started a year or two ago. Six months ago it became atrocious, and it took us that much time to debate the matter in Parliament. Is this the way a democracy protects the people against starvation? This is the lot of about 40 million deprived, who can only come out to thrash the leaders in the elections. Thank God we have elections otherwise the fate of the poor would not be a matter of concern for our democrats at all.

My main reason for anxiety is that the discipline of the nation has been seriously impaired by our inability to punish the corrupt or even the worst criminals. We are not enforcing laws, we are mocking them. We will find it very difficult to make an impact on hoarders and profiteers; partly because of the corruption that the administration is steeped in, and the delays in justice. Secondly, not only are our politicians obsessed with the wrong politics but they cannot see that if the economic slide continues, we may end up in chaos. In a large overpopulated country like India, it is too dangerous to delay in dealing with prices. We have lost six months in the hope that things will improve. What if they don’t?

What if the price of oil rises, or the deficit blows through the roof, or the global capital system begins to disintegrate? The damage is already visible in parts of Orissa. We may not be far from the day when streams of famished men, women and children emerge out of the tribal areas, and the government is made to see that there are more things in life than Pakistan, “Fire”, and the protection of Indian culture which is securely grounded in 5000 years of history.

About five or six years ago, the Indian economy began to totter. We were so busy with the Babri agitation that we did not notice the decline becoming steeper. Even when we conducted the nuclear explosion at Pokhran, we had no clear warning of the economic morass that we were walking into. Sanctions and global depression produced that one bit of uncertainty that plunged us into an economic crisis, coinciding with the South East Asia debacle.

Then around Divali this year, we found our financial institutions were also tottering. The UTI had dipped into investments to pay dividends. With a crash 11 banks and three financial institutions lost about Rs 30,000 crore. It seems that we have nationalised banks only in order to hand out more wages to agitating staff, and to help the friends of the Manager with bad loans, euphemistically called non-performing assets. The stock market produced shock after shock. The upper middle class dropped to lower middle while the lower middle class began to look at the black face of poverty.

In all the breast-beating over Babri, nobody has mentioned that it was mob rule that decided the destruction of the Babri structure. That is the real danger that faces the country today — mob rule — and the indications are clear in the cultural impositions in Mumbai. Even the biggest decision of our time, partition, was a decision of mobs, though politicians initiated the movement and could not stem the frenzy. Prices can create a law and order situation of a type that would be difficult to control, particularly if mobs take it upon themselves to remove inequality.

Safeguarding rights of children
by S. S. Saraswathi

IN the series of national policies and national level bodies to look after the welfare of specific groups of the population or promote the special interests of particular categories, the latest relates to the children of the country. According to press reports, the Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, said a proposal to constitute a National Commission for Children (NCC) would be placed before the Parliament during the budget session in the coming year.

Child population (0-14 years) in India forms about 36 per cent of the total population. That this numerically significant group, which is going to supply the main human resource to work for the nation’s progress in the immediate future and determine the quality of life, needs a national commission to free itself from the shackles inherited and imposed by their elder generations is certainly not a tribute to the rulers of this nation since Independence. Indeed, it is a stigma on the Indian culture.

The Minister has disclosed that his ministry is keen to vest the commission with judicial powers. The thinking in the ministry seems to be in favour of creating a statutory body with adequate powers to ensure implementation of policies and programmes.

A convention was adopted by the United Nations in 1989 on the Rights of Children on the lines of the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child 1924 which has since been recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The convention concludes the rights of a child to life, liberty, information, basic amenities, and the right not to be tortured or subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment among other things. It gives primacy to the rights of the Child against that of the parents.

The Government of India endorsed the Rights of the Child in December, 1992. It was declared that by reason of tender age and physical and mental immaturity, children deserved special safeguards to protect their interests, including legal protection. During the last six years since the adoption of this convention, there has been a realisation of the importance of the welfare of children, but the problems remain with natural increase in quantum with the passage of time.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) held a summit meeting in May, 1997, and approved the commitment of the seven member countries to ensure the rights of the children. The declaration then adopted by the Heads of State directly pointed to gross violation of children’s rights in such forms as trafficking of children and prostitution and highlighted the priorities for action in the field of nutrition, gender equality and special protection for the needy.

The declaration called for urgent action to put an end to the severe discriminations practised against girl children. It also set a target for elimination of bonded child labour and employment of children in hazardous occupations by the end of this century and total elimination of child labour in any form by 2010.

Thus, there is no dearth of pious resolutions, and worthy promises for a better deal for children, but conditions do not show much improvement. Indeed, there is further deterioration in some spheres in India.

Since 1992, the UNICEF has been publishing a report on the Progress of Nations which includes report on the plight of children. Its observations about the state of Indian children expose the hollowness of goals and resolutions set by the authorities. The 1995 Report found India’s performance in the field of child nutrition scandalous. Poverty was said to be the main cause and children, particularly girl children were found to be the worst victims of poverty. The 1996 Report found that one-half of the world’s malnourished children were in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

In the words of this report the home of malnourished children was not Sub-Saharan Africa, but India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Conclusively pointing out that children on the Indian sub-continent are not as well fed and as well cared for as children in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Report attributes this to poor care given to girls and women by their husbands and elders. Child malnutrition was found linked with low status of women and the tradition that gives the central place to the husband and mother-in-law and not the young mother in the family setup. — INFA

Why lose hope?
by J. L. Gupta

I MADE a mistake. This was nothing new. It was not the first time. I have done it even before this. In fact, so often. But, there was one difference. Normally, I had always been quick to apologise. To ring up and express sincere regrets. To say sorry. Even to tender an abject apology. This time there was an initial hesitation. Probably, because the fault was bad. Therefore, the dilemma. How to say it? Go personally? Or to send it in writing? To make a written apology? That should be the right thing to do. And here it is. In black and white.

But, what happened? Something really serious? No! Apparently, it was very ordinary. I was just invited to dinner. Nothing out of the world. Even in the past, people have volunteered to suffer me. Most of the times, without any ostensible reason. The important thing was that the invitation was from a good human being. More than that, from a dear friend. And I had formally accepted it. Not only on my own behalf, but also on behalf of my wife and daughter.

And what happened? I just forgot. Totally. Watching the cricket match. Seeing Sachin hit fabulous sixes and score an unbeaten century. The thrill and excitement of India lambasting another cricketing nation. That too in the final match. It was good cricket. Interesting to watch. Made me feel proud. For once, India was doing really well. Ultimately, we had won the match. Without losing a single wicket. It felt good. In fact, very good. And, as ill luck would have it, the invitation to dinner was an unintended casualty. It had just slipped out of my mind.

So what? Even this had not happened for the first time. I have done it before. In fact many a time. But there was one difference. It had never happened when I had personally accepted the invitation. That was the real problem. It was giving me all the hiccups. It had left me with a bad feeling. Why did I do such a thing?

I stood in front of the mirror. Gave myself a good look. Nothing appeared to be right. The man in the mirror did not seem to be the man he used to be. A receding hairline. Silver on the few leftover hair. Silver in the teeth. The thoughts seemed to have turned from “passion to pension”. For a moment, I felt totally indifferent to everything. To life itself. There seemed to be almost no interest in any worldly affair.

A bad symptom. A depressing portent. Dust of the evening seemed to be just around the corner. Shadows appeared to be growing broader. Is the sunset of life setting in? I seemed to be indulging in a soliloquy —” Age is catching up, old boy! There is spring in the air. Not in you. If you have the itch, you have got to scratch. Hearken to the nature’s warning. Watch out. Do something immediately. Before it is too late. A moment more may mean never again”.

No! Please cool down. Do not raise a false alarm. I told myself. Snow on the rooftop normally indicates that there is fire inside. Grey hair is like the moon. Giving light in the evening of life. The intellect increases with years. The river of life flows smoother and wider. Age always sits with grace. It “retains its tastes by habit”. It is a reward for a well-spent youth. A promising young man always has something of the old man in him. An active old man has invariably got something of the naughty young man in him. He is often able to hide a few years. Living the life well is an art. The youth, the middle age and the old age are the three “Acts” in the life’s play. Each more interesting and exciting then the other. Man is the actor. And applause is due to a good actor at whatever scene of the play he makes his exit. Live each day as if it were a good, happy and purposeful lifetime. Good opportunities should not be missed. The lost time never returns. So I told myself.

Why waste any more time over it? Why keep brooding? Why not wait for another opportunity?

Shall there be any? Inshaallah! Why lose hope? God willing, there shall be many. And He is kind. While I was just saying it, I have got another invitation. For tonight.

Army needs better equipment

by Tavleen Singh

BY one of those coincidences that add spice to journalism I happened to spend a day with our Army chief about a week before the USA and Britain bombed Baghdad. I travelled with Gen Ved Prakash Malik to Hisar where he inspected troops and weaponry. While we wandered between, what looked to me, like a truly ancient species of Russian tank I asked the General whether it were only my imagination or if this kind of equipment were not in the antique category. He replied that the tanks were, in fact, among the latest kind and that the few old ones that they had were now also being replaced.

He pointed out some of the replacements which looked to me as antiquated as the kind they had replaced and it was only when the bombing of Baghdad began that I understood why. Wars are now fought on our television screens and the last one that I remember following with fascinated horror was the Gulf war. The tanks that pushed Saddam Hussein’s retreating troops backwards across those desert sands seemed to me 50 years younger than the ones that the Army chief inspected in Hisar that morning. I tried to probe him on the subject and he said, “Well, you see, we don’t need to worry about what a country like America has what we need to be sure about is that we are better equipped than our enemies”.

The General’s words came back to me as I watched the strange, little, fluorescent computer images that represented the soundless bombing of Baghdad. There was something surreal about this war in which no soldiers were visible and in which missiles could home in from distant shores. My sense of surrealism heightened when I read in the New York Times, the following day, that every one of the computer-guided bombs cost $ 1 million and more than 500 were used against Iraq this time round.

Most of our political and defence commentators have taken a high moral tone in their condemnation of the bombing of Baghdad. We have always nursed an antipathy against the Americans, and a peculiar fondness for the Russians, and whenever they attack our former friend and ally, Saddam Hussein, we get upset. The Ministry of External Affairs, more restrained than usual, merely deplored what had happened and from all accounts even Russia’s visiting Prime Minister was unable to get us to say more than that.

What I find personally worrying, though, is that none of our learned commentators and really nobody even in the higher echelons of our defence and security establishment ever reminds us of what we can learn from these new computer-game wars. Surely, lesson number one should be that our Army needs to be revamped and made into a leaner, meaner fighting machine than it currently is?

The Army chief did not think so. He said that in terms of human resources we had the best Army in the world. What about our weaponry, what about equipment? The General hesitated and then admitted that in these areas we were not quite as well prepared as we could have been. Was it not true, I persisted, that the terrorists they are fighting in Kashmir have better communications systems than the Indian Army does? The General conceded that this was true but added that this was one of the main reasons why he was trying to bring about some change in the relationship between the armed forces and the Defence Ministry.

It came as something of a shock to me when he then said, “You see the final authority on the weapons we buy is not me but the Ministry. I tell them what I think we should get and they make the final decision”. Imagine that. Imagine, that with corruption having eaten its way into the very soul of the bureaucracy it is still left to bureaucrats to decide what our troops need. George Fernandes has been more appalled by this than his predecessors and famously sent a handful of senior officials packing to Siachen to see what conditions are troops live and fight under. They appear to have returned duly chastened but the Defence Ministry continues to have the final say and to call the main shots.

The constant tussle between the armed forces and the Ministry has occupied so much of our time, consumed so much energy, that nobody has given any serious thought to modernising the Army. Do we need an Army of 500,000 men? Would we not be better off with a smaller, better equipped fighting force? The Army chief seemed not to think so but he did concede that the kind of wars we would be fighting in the future would be more like the ones we are currently fighting in Kashmir and the North-East than like the wars we fought earlier.

Again, we seem to be fighting with bows and arrows when we compare our own methods of dealing with proxy wars to that of the Americans. Osama bin Laden had only to be identified as the man behind the bombings of the American embassies in Africa and cruise missiles followed him to Afghanistan.

Would we ever have the courage to do something similar? Afghanistan is, after all, the training grounds for most of our own terrorists? And, if we did do something similar how would the USA react?

Of course, we need to worry about America going berserk as the world’s only remaining supercop but we also need to learn from their methods to see what we can do to improve our own methods of dealing with future and present threats. In the day that I spent with the Army chief in Hisar I never once got the feeling that there had been any kind of real change in the Army in the past 50 years. The General said there had been . The Army was more professional now than ever before, he said, but when I watched those million dollar bombs rain down on Baghdad I found myself wondering whether it was professional enough for the 21st century.

Lack of creativity, initiative

by Amita Malik

INDIAN TV, which was DD only at the beginning, started by being so cinema-obsessed that it hardly had any identity of its own, beyond Bollywood. Then came some mighty serials, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata. And in the process, serials on Indian TV after an initial spurt with Buniyad and the rest, never really grew up. A Tamas here and a Saans there are all Indian TV has to show, with a row of inane “funny” serials taking over. It is a symbol of the times that the latest serial to be launched has a famous Pakistani serial writer. After all Pakistan TV has done such credible and highly professional serials about middle-class life down the years, that Indians have flocked to buy or borrow the cassettes to make up for the dull fare they get on their own TV.

But at least the new serial with a vibrant Sushma Seth as the matriarch, is properly commissioned. The amount of plagiarism now going on on Indian channels is another symbol of lack of creativity and initiative on the part of even the biggest names. It is not just a case of shamelessly copying foreign serials like the X-Files. Even in routine programmes this kind of copying goes on. The DD programme Subah-Savera has lifted ideas intact and sometimes carried them at the identical timings of the original Good Morning India. I once found both the morning exercises and the birthday greetings running at identical timings as if it was a contest between two detergents. Pity the anchors on DD’s programme cannot emulate Shireen and Sharad, with their relaxed ease, their casual clothes, which is what young people wear in the mornings and their sophistication. The male anchor on Subah-Savera wears fancy designer clothes, something between Tagore’s choga and a dressing gown and the girl’s fixed smile and stiff manner are even more freezing than the fog. The interviewer who comes in between made a hash of his chat with shy Dingo Singh as he has done with many others. Which just proves that copying does not pay.

The latest on the plagiarism list is Star Plus’s shameful but very poor imitation of Sohaib Ilyasi’s India’s Most Wanted. Apradhi, which claims to highlight crimes against women is very tamely anchored and its reconstructions of the crime areundramatic and static, it again proves that copying does not pay. In fact, I think the only channel which tried to be original in the serious entertainment sphere was TVI, which is probably why it appears and disappears off the cable operators’ list. Be original and be damned, seems to be the fate of Indian TV, which is why it remains a perpetual rat-race with everyone doing the same thing.

I have been watching Calcutta TV’s gallant efforts to cover Amartya Sen’s Nobel Prize first from New York, then Stockholm (with a very oddly dressed Dr Saha) and then Calcutta and Santiniketan. Indrani Misra, who scripted and narrated, had the right ideas and must have worked very hard over it. But where DD always trips up is in technical details. In Delhi, at least, the reception was as poor as usual, with erratic colour and sound. Half the time one could not make out what Prof Sen was saying. Then there was the camerawork. I cannot believe that Calcutta TV could not have done better. Just one shot from Santiniketan said it all. When Sen’s cousin was being interviewed on a verandah, there was a heap of upturned furniture between the camera and the speaker. A slightly different angle could have avoided that. Then the commentaries (which were well done) were seldom synchronised with the camera which was focused on something else when someone or something was being described. Doordarshan, generally, has been left so far behind in the technical race that one cannot even blame it on poor equipment. I believe DD’s Central Production Centre has some of the most modern equipment in India. But outsiders use the studios more than DD itself. If true, it is a poor commentary on those at the top, who seem as out-dated in their thinking as ever.

75 YEARS AGO

Fraud alleged

THE police are on the lookout for a Bengali Mussalman named M.A. Khan, who is wanted on a charge of misappropriating currency notes of the value of Rs 381, property of the Tata Company.

It appears, the accused was employed as a despatching clerk in the office of the Superintending Engineer at the Works of Dam at Somwadi village, near Wadgaon Railway Station.

On the 30th of the last month the accused was given notes and he placed them in an envelope in the presence of the Assistant Accountant. He then went to the Post Office and returned with a receipt for letter at 2 p.m and saying that he was feeling ill, he left the office and went to his quarters.

On the 3rd August, officers at Lonavla, informed the Accountant that he had received a letter and opening it in the presence of the Post Master, he found some paper but no money.

The police were accordingly informed. The man is described as being of fair complexion with smallpox marks on his face, medium build and a good crop of hair on his head. He wears an English-pattern coat with a dhoti but no cap.