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| Wednesday,
April 25, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Two losers in impasse war Small can be beautiful Worthy winners, bad losers |
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Frightening shadow of lure for lucre No intelligence failure, really?
Problems that plague Punjab's State Commission for Women
The female face of crime
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Two losers in impasse war BOTH the BJP-led government and the Congress would like to believe that they have emerged victorious from the four weeks of parliamentary disruption. At heart the two sides will hope that it has been a draw and they have not lost anything even if they had not gained much to show for their rigid stand on setting up a JPC. But the people know better. Both have blundered and the stature of their leaders has come down by a few centimetres. It has been a spectacular failure of common sense. Take the Congress. Until Monday morning it said JPC or no smooth functioning of the two Houses. At the end of the day it grasped a vague assurance about the demand being taken up after the budget was passed. Does the party realise that it could have turned the table on the government by taking this reasonable stand a few hours earlier? Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who spoke in the Lok Sabha on the killing of BSF jawans, could have announced an end to the protest, adding that since the government was not interested in listening to the opposition, her party was softening its stand and would participate in the discussion. That was in the afternoon and the climbdown came in the evening. When it came it was a fullblown retreat and not a return of reason in the interest of vital parliamentary work. The government too had lost a similar opportunity. What if the Prime Minister had in his second letter to Mrs Gandhi said what he said later in the evening? Political parties have forgotten that a retreat to sanity is not a defeat and only weak and insecure men recoil at the idea of reviewing their stand. As one commentator reminded all law-makers, the golden rule of parliamentary democracy is the government must have its way and the opposition its say. Is there no winner? There is and he is Speaker Balayogi of the Lok Sabha. He made it clear that he was aghast at the continued disruption of the proceedings and that he would not like to preside if the Union budget was to be passed without a discussion and by a voice vote. His was not a hallow threat. On Monday he skipped the question hour and also the half hour discussion on the gruesome happening on the Indo-Bangladesh border. If the Speaker were to withdraw himself from the working of the House, it would expose the ruling alliance more than the opposition and hence the hurried reappraisal. Also many backbenchers of the ruling and opposition benches were worried at the hostile public reaction to the standoff. In a manner of speaking, it was the victory of the people over the egoistic or mistaken pride of individual leaders. Herein lies the hope for the largest democracy in the world. |
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Small can be beautiful THE Himachal Pradesh Government's decision to promote small dams in a big way is a step in the right direction. Large and mega hydroelectric projects have brought in a lot of misery in their wake by way of side-effects. Too many people have to be uprooted, and too much good land and forests have to be sacrificed to produce electricity. Moreover, large dams require huge investment, which a poor state like Himachal Pradesh is not able to afford. The possibility of large reservoirs causing seismic activity has made them look even less attractive. Perhaps the last mentioned factor has been instrumental in turning the attention of the government towards the micro dams. The government has promised to remove bottlenecks that are hampering the speedy implementation of these projects. Private sector investments will be invited and several policy initiatives have been taken to make the investments in this sector more lucrative. Small hydroelectric projects offer many positive spinoffs. These can generate employment opportunities for the local people, open up the hinterland leading to the economic growth of far-flung areas and eliminate power shortage. Besides, the state governments can earn much-needed revenue. The only fly in the ointment is that many of the potential small projects are not economically viable. The generation and maintenance cost can be much higher as compared to large dams. Only exceptionally liberal packages can make these attractive to investors. That is why many of the memoranda of understanding signed by various parties so far have remained on paper. The government has over the years improved the overall terms and conditions for the investors. More remains to be done. However, what the investors need even more acutely is the assurance that the government is keen to go ahead with the projects. In private, they allege that they are done in by bureaucracy and red-tapism. Himachal Pradesh has a lot of untapped potential. Those who enter the virgin area will need to be treated with extreme care, at least to begin with. It is time the adversary relationship that once existed between the private sector and the public sector gave way to a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie. The two can complement each other. |
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Worthy winners, bad losers THE Ranji Trophy final between Baroda and Railways was almost a rerun of the famous Kolkata Test in which India came in from behind to beat Australia by a handsome margin. India joined the elite club by becoming only the second team to win a Test after being made to follow on. Had Baroda not batted first the Railways might have been tempted to enforce the follow-on considering that it had scored exactly 151 runs more than Baroda in the first innings. The new champions joined the elite club of teams by lifting the Ranji Trophy in spite of letting the opposition grab the vital first innings lead. However, the four other members of the unique club, Hyderabad, Bombay, Bengal and Karnataka, did not have to overcome such a massive first innings deficit as Baroda did. In overall terms the now concluded Ranji season literally saw domestic cricket emerge from the shadows of domestic cricket's big brothers, including Bombay, Delhi, Karnataka and Hyderabad and strike roots in less fancied locales. Look at the semi-final line-up. It was made up of the four underdogs of domestic cricket. Baroda beat Orissa and the Railways beat Punjab to enter the final . There was a time when there was only marginal difference in the composition of the Mumbai and the India XI. In the 90s Karnataka became the super power of domestic cricket. At one point of time nearly half the Indian team was made up of players from Karnataka. However, the country cousins of the big town boys have rewritten the script. Look at the list of probables for the Zimbabwe tour. Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia and Reetinder Sodhi are from Punjab, Shiv Sunder Das and Debasis Mohanty represent Orissa and Harvinder Singh of Punjab now plays for the Railways. Had the Railways accepted defeat with good grace the Ranji final would indeed have been the best advertisement for the game. The Railways skipper for reasons not difficult to understand played the typical spoil sport. He blamed poor umpiring for his team's defeat. The explanation for the outburst against the level of umpiring lies in the fact that Baroda has now won the title five times. For the Railways it was only the second time in the history of the Ranji Trophy tournament that it had managed to reach the final. On the earlier occasion it lost to Tamil Nadu. However, there is no excuse for bad conduct. The Railways skipper should be reprimanded for attempting to damage the spirit of sportsmanship. |
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Frightening shadow of lure for lucre THE Tehelka expose suddenly flung open the portals of hell, giving a clear view of slimy creatures wallowing in the sea of the molten yellow metal. They smell gold, breathe gold, eat and drink gold, yet their hunger and thirst for the yellow stuff is insatiable like the proverbial hungry ghosts. This expose has proved beyond doubt that the lure for lucre among the Indian ruling elites is limitless and they are ever ready, rather eager, to mortage their soul for a pad of currency notes. What should worry those keen for the survival of Indian democracy is the mocking brazenness, sickening shamefacedness and defiant arrogance with which those accused in the scandal have denied the charges and the whole episode has been characterised as a conspiracy by them and their colleagues. No modesty, no sense of shame and no regret, whatsoever. They think that people are simple fools, and they can easily be beguiled through clever rhetoric. The Supreme Court is right in not accepting the Central government’s request to spare a serving judge to preside over the commission of inquiry in this gigantic scandal. Since Independence 40 inquiry commissions have been set up but nothing has come out of anyone of them, and their reports have gathered dust. Why to add one more to this pile of stationery? Moreover, what is there to inquire about? The ease with which two amateur reporters wormed their way into the realms of power at every level—multi-starred army officers, the firebreathing erstwhile socialists in the ruling combine, the towering-most dalit presiding over the ruling party’s head office, bureaucrats and babus — shows how
corrupt and porous our system has become. The venality, cupidity and felony of our ruling elites are too astounding for words, and this poses a lethal threat to the very fabric of Indian democracy. The RSS seems to have patent rights over patriotism in India and the sole wisdom to decide as to who is a patriot and who is not. Its chief has called upon the Muslims and Christians to “Indianise” themselves, implying thereby that otherwise their patriotism would always be in question. How much safe is the country in the hands of the government led by the BJP is a mighty question to be pondered over after the Tehelka expose. Even RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan has held the “incompetent persons” in the PMO responsible for the crisis. He has also observed that “persons not accountable to the public in any manner should not have any extra-constitutional authority” (The Tribune, March 19), making an oblique reference to the doings of the foster son-in-law of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. He has clearly expressed his sense of utter disgust with the Prime Minister. The rot is too deep and cannot be stemmed by shuffling the political pack of cards available at the moment. The crisis has established beyond any shred of doubt that irons have entered into the souls of our ruling elites, and they are beyond redemption. It is not a sudden development. It is the culmination of a process that started soon after the Nehru era at a slow pace and has acquired supersonic speed at the hands of self-styled patriots of India. This has not only undermined the credibility of our political system but has also put a question mark before its future. Nay, it has raised serious doubts, about the utility of Indian democracy as it operates now, and it should be debated whether in this country democracy deserves to survive or not. After all, democracy is not an end in itself, it is a means, a tool to serve the interests of the people. If this tool gets blunted or is used exclusively for the self-aggrandisement of the ruling elites to the extent of compromising the security of the nation itself, the utility of such a tool comes into question. Ortega Y Gasset in his book “The Revolt of the Masses”, published in the thirties, looked upon the masses as a potential threat to human civilisation. Christopher Lasch, an American historian, thinks that now this threat comes from the elites at the top of social hierarchy. This is more true of the developing countries. Before we talk about the state of Indian democracy today, the very concept of democracy needs a fresh look. Democracy as a concept is generally understood by referring to multiparty polity, periodic elections, adult franchise, separation of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, rule of law, freedom of the press, freedom of
association, etc. Accountability and transparency in day-to-day functioning are other traits of a democratic setup. If a country’s political setup has these attributes, it is supposed to be democratic. However, they are only formalistic, demonstrative and procedural attributes of democracy. They constitute a necessary but not a sufficient condition to make a particular country democratic. They together weave a web which at best can be defined as a form of democracy but they do not necessarily define the richness and utility of its texture that lie in its content, its essence. People at large on the one hand and the rulers on the other constitute the two poles in any form of governance. There have always been rulers and the ruled in an organised society. What undergoes change is the nature of relationship between the two poles. In a democracy the ruling setup derives its legitimacy from the people who are supposed to express their will and exercise their choice through periodic elections. If this periodic exercise is denuded of its meaning and becomes a mere ritual, it throws up a ruling setup that comes to wield power through democratic procedures but gets congealed into an alien entity for the people and it is democratic only in name. The essence of democracy cannot be grasped without evaluating the nature and quality of relationship between the ruling elites and the people at large. A political setup, constituted after following formal democratic procedures like elections based on adult franchise and other attributes, can be said to acquire democratic content if its ruling elites fulfil three conditions. First, they are responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people at large; secondly, they have the vision, commitment conceptual framework and intellectual wherewithal to translate these aspirations and needs into reality as far as possible; and, thirdly, they are seen to be constantly striving in that direction. The common man has to be at the centre of social concerns in a democracy. The litmus test for democracy lies in answering the question whether it advances the wellbeing of the labouring people or it just fattens the coffers of the parasitic elites who, in turn, pile misery on the masses. Whether a country is democratic or not is to be seen in what it does to expand or restrict the sphere of human capabilities and opportunities to improve or debase the quality of social life. The mere adoption of formalistic attributes like adult franchise, periodic elections, etc, though necessary in their own right, would not by themselves make a country democratic. Judged in the light of the above criteria, Indian democracy has been flawed right from its inception. It has been structured to favour the privileged at the expense of the deprived. This was succinctly put by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of our Constitution, in his speech delivered in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. He observed: “On the 28th January, 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality, and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote, and one vote one value. In our social and economic life we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one vote one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?” This tension between form and content in our democratic system, as highlighted by Dr Ambedkar, was in-built in the system right from the beginning, and the tension has now reached breaking point. Indian democracy till Nehru’s times was guided by the vague humanistic ideal of public welfare and the confused ideological construct of the mixed economy. The idealism generated through the freedom struggle was still intact, by being superficial in its depth, it started losing its appeal among the ruling elites and soon petered off. Corruption that began as an echo during Nehru’s times acquired the dimensions of a big bang during the subsequent Congress regimes, and now in the regime led by the saffron party it has acquired the shape of a volcanic eruption, leaving the people dumfounded. Indian democracy has traversed from the ideological to the managerial. It is the managers all around now and they claim to have the capacity to mange any crisis. Efforts now are on to manage the crisis of what has come to be known as Defencegate. The efficacy of a democracy is to be assessed with reference to the impact of development on the people at large. This cannot be judged with the help of cold statistics like GNP, GDP, per capital income, balance of payments, fiscal deficit, etc. The common man’s share in the developmental process has to be adjudged by referring to more reliable indicators like life expectancy, the mortality rate, basic education, health care, social security, land reforms, gender relations and such other things. India lags behind most countries in the matter of these developmental indices as is evident from the Human Development Report, an annual UNDP publication. A whole lot of data is available on this. There is no country in the world where the infant mortality rate is as high as in Ganjam district in Orissa or where the adult female rate is as low as in Barmer district of Rajasthan. Even the entire states such as UP, Bihar and a few more are not doing better than the least developed countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the matter of socio-economic indicators. Economic growth per se is no guarantee for reducing gender inequalities. The sex ratio in Haryana is the worst in the world. The developmental process in India has created an island of affluence in a vast sea of misery and poverty. A tiny section of the Indian population has acquired the living standard comparable to the one obtaining in certain developed countries of the West. Then, there is the managerial class in the corporate sector, the affluent traders, colonisers, property dealers, speculators and swindlers of all kinds, touts and fixers jamming the corridors of power and such like characters who are the real beneficiaries of the system. A vast majority of the Indian population is outside the pale of development. There is no vision to inspire them. They no longer repose faith in the ruling elites. A series of massive scams involving the top layer of our politicians and bureaucrats has made them perceive that the king is not only naked, he takes pride in his nakedness. The painfully yawning gulf between the beneficiaries of the system and the rest of the populace has bred a deep sense of cynicism and nihilism in Indian society. The latest scandal involving the security of the nation is likely to prove the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back. “Sab chor hain” (all are thieves) is the common refrain among the people. It is this kind of cynicism that sows the seeds of fascism in society. People start hankering after a saviour, an emancipator when the general run of politicians is perceived to be a pack of crooks, more rightly than wrongly now. The Indian State now has entered a new phase of crisis. The content of Indian democracy, which has been weak right since the beginning, has become totally insipid today. Even its form has come under unbearable stress. Whether it should survive or not is no longer a moral question. The logical question whether Indian democracy is left with any rationale or not overrides the moral postulate. The march of history is conditioned not by wishful thinking but by the pull of objective societal forces. The wish can acquire potency if it is an invigorating agent in the process of social transformation. Otherwise, mere wish becomes indifference which is fatal for democracy. If the present process is not checked with the help of powerful societal intervention as an outcome of mass participation, the feasibility will soon take precedence over desirability so far as Indian democracy is concerned. The issue needs to be debated widely. The writer, who teaches English at Dyal Singh College, New Delhi, is a keen observer of socio-political developments. |
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No intelligence failure, really? LOCKING the stable after the horses have bolted is considered the height of stupidity. Not securing your other stables even after one of them has suffered such a loss is even worse. Yet, India has proved in the North-East that lessons were not learnt from Kargil or they were immediately forgotten. Foreign Minister-cum-Defence Minister Jaswant Singh's claims notwithstanding, intelligence failure on the Indo-Bangladesh border has been as monumental as in Kashmir. In fact, it is bigger. For one, the terrain in Meghalaya and Assam is not quite as formidable as in Kargil. And, two, India is not saddled with unsupportive public in this region. Many villagers passed on vital information to the authorities in advance but, alas, there was no one to listen to or act on them. After Kashmir, the North-East has perhaps the highest concentration of intelligence personnel in the country. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has more than 800 operatives permanently stationed there. The military intelligence is equally well staffed. Then there is the BSF's own intelligence wing called the G-branch. To cap it all, there is also the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), that recently regrouped its staff in Dhaka. Still, several battalions of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and the regular army planned and executed such a massive operation without anyone having any information about it! Not only that, there are reports that several battalions of the Bangladesh Army, backed by armoured vehicles and equipped with standard infantry weapons, moved towards the border from Mymensingh. Nobody was perturbed over the development! One wonders how this Bangladeshi attack could be called the "adventurism of local commanders". Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed holds the defence portfolio as well. There are reports that BSF officers posted along the border at Mancachar had picked up snatches of wireless conversation between Bangladesh army officers that one battalion should be deployed at Pyrdiwah and five at Mancachar. Messages to move in two brigades of the BDR's 19 Division were also intercepted. It did not need any specialised snooping to divine that mischief was afoot. All that was needed was to listen to our own men. The Meghalaya Chief Minister, Mr E.K.Mawlong, insists that the BSF ignored warnings of local villagers about a possible attack by Bangladeshi troops on their outposts. "The BSF was caught napping from the first day itself despite being warned by local villagers. The villagers approached the BSF camp thrice, but nothing happened," he laments. He had asserted on April 18 that Pyrdiwah (which Bangladesh calls Padua) in East Khasi Hills district had been under the occupation of the Bangladesh Rifles since Monday (April 16). The BSF kept on denying this. No wonder, the Chief Minister is livid with anger. The fact of the matter is that BDR Director-General Maj-Gen Fazlur Rehman had taken a group of journalists to Padua on Monday itself. Trouble had been brewing since long. Even on March 27, villagers in Lyngkhat had filed a complaint with the Meghalaya Government as well as the BSF that the BDR was obstructing repairs of a footpath being funded by the Meghalaya Government. Nobody took it seriously. Meghalaya's Home Minister T.H. Rangad calls it the "BSF's total intelligence failure". Normally, one would take the word of politicians with a pinch of salt. But this time the Meghalaya Government has facts on its side. However, the government cannot escape blame. A new BSF battalion was specially sanctioned for the sensitive border last year. The Meghalaya Government did not provide them with suitable land and hence the headquarters is yet to be set up. Only now, after the killing of BSF jawans, have things started moving again. It is Assam which has offered land nearby. The storming of the village left its 800 Khasi residents homeless. The village has been retaken by India, but traditional Khasi rulers are agitated over the loss of face and have demanded that they should be allowed to raise a people's army to assist the BSF in protecting the border. More alarmingly, they have given the government time till October to resolve the boundary dispute, failing which the matter would be taken to the UN. Contrary to popular belief, the border with Bangladesh has never been quiet. Skirmishes are routine. There have been as many as 51 clashes in the past 16 months. In 1998, a red alert was flashed to intensify vigil to check ISI-backed infiltration in the 443-km-long Meghalaya-Bangladesh border. Things slipped back to complacency soon enough. There was no galvanisation despite the ISI becoming hyperactive in the area. Thirty battalions of central paramilitary forces, including the BSF and the CRPF, which were diverted to Kashmir during the Kargil war, are yet to be returned to the North-East. In 1962, somnolence was caused by the drone of the "Hindi Chini bhai bhai" slogans. Last year, the Lahore bus yatra caused enough euphoria to ignore the mischief afoot in Kargil. And this time, the visit of General Fazlur Rehman to New Delhi last month made us believe that everything was hunky-dory. Perhaps it was thought that Bangladesh was a friendly country. Or it was considered too poor, docile or weak to mount a challenge. Shrill anti-India war cries by the opposition as a run-up to the October elections and even General Rehman's own hawkish postures did not alert anybody. The end result is that New Delhi has ended up with egg on its face and 17 bodybags to boot. Things have cooled down for now but can flare up any time. As long as 111 Indian enclaves remain in Bangladeshi territory and 51 similar bits of Bangladeshi land remain in India's adverse "possession", the flashpoint will remain active. The question is: are the thousands of intelligence men posted there keeping a constant vigil? Keep your fingers crossed. |
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Problems that plague Punjab's State Commission for Women THE Punjab State Commission for Women (PCW) was first constituted in 1994 as a non-statutory advisory board. But in less than two years it was disbanded in 1996, reportedly, because its first Chairperson, Ms Parkash Kaur Gill, had not followed the proper procedures in conducting meetings. The PCW was then reconstituted in 1998 and Ms Surinder Kaur Grewal was appointed its second Chairperson. The second reconstitution was merely on the basis of a notification. However, three years later it has now acquired the status of a civil court after the recent amendment in the just concluded Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha. Thus, the PCW is no more a paper tiger. Before we delve on this, it is essential to review its performance. Did it follow the route assigned to it? Were there any aims and objectives to be implemented? Did the State Government constitute the PCW as per laid down guidelines? The PCW was reconstituted with the best of intensions by the Punjab Government. But the follow-up action lost its speed, as is the fate of most of the decisions taken by any government in our country. After the appointment of Ms Grewal, of the six members which included a member-Secretary (an IAS or PCS officer), four members were never appointed. Besides, a PCS officer the only other member appointed was Ms Amajit Kaur, wife of Sewa Singh Sekhwan, Minister for Revenue. Obviously, she was a political appointee as the only qualification of the lady was that she represented the SGPC as a member. Although, the Chairperson, Ms Surinder Kaur Grewal, was also reportedly a hand-picked favourite of Mr Parkash Singh Badal, she still had her own credentials to stake claim to the post. She had vast experience spread over two decades on issues concerning women. Beginning her socio-political career at the grassroots working for Harijan Sewak Sangh, she rose to become an executive member of the State Red Cross Society and maintained her pursuit of voluntary service to Bhartiya Grameen Mahila Sangh and the Hospital Welfare Society, Patiala, as well. Besides being elected a municipal counsellor in Patiala in 1979, Ms Surinder Kaur Grewal was also on the Board of Directors of Punwac (Punjab Women and Children Welfare and Development Corporation). She had represented Punjab on the Central Social Welfare Board and the Social Welfare Advisory Board, New Delhi. She was on the District Consumers’ Court, Patiala, and had the opportunity to attended the World Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995. Ms Surinder Kaur Grewal is primarily a considerate woman who herself had led a life full of tragedies, denial, hardship and struggle. She began her role as Chairperson by visiting all the jails in Punjab to observe the ground realty of women prisoners. “I discovered many women languishing in jails as undertrials. The PCW took up 458 cases and provided them free legal aid to process their bail orders and cases. Many of them got released and were in dire need of rehabilitation. We have helped them with some vocational training to enable them to earn a livelihood”, says Ms Grewal. To her dismay she also discovered that women prisoners were not provided with any cotton during their menstruation. “I felt this was a basic need of any woman not only for maintaining human dignity but also for personal hygiene. Because of the financial constraints nobody had paid attention to this dire need. So the PCW ensured that at least ‘khadi cloth’ as an alternative is provided to women prisoners. But unfortunately such matters are often dismissed as trivial. ‘‘However, I have a sense of satisfaction that the Commission also succeeded in asserting that women accused of crime will have to be escorted by women constables in police stations. This was made possible after I visited a majority of the police ‘thanas’ and made surprise checks. Today the police abides by the directive of the PCW”. While visiting women cells in Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Faridkot, Ferozepore, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Gurdaspur, Ms Grewal discovered that no gynecologist had ever been posted for the care of women prisoners. The PCW has recommended that each women cell in the jails should compulsorily have a gynecologist. Similarly, at Ludhiana jail the commission introduced vocational training in embroidery, cutting and tailoring and knitting. Despite these positive initiatives, it cannot be denied that the PCW lacked vision and wider perception of the very idea of its formation. The commission was provided with a meager Budget allocation of Rs 20 lakh. Ironically, of this Rs 15.17 lakh goes towards staff salary alone, Rs 1.50 lakh towards RRI, Rs 2 lakh towards office expenses etc. So where is the money for all the ambitious tasks assigned to the PCW? Its functions included (a) to investigate, suo moto or on a complaint, discrimination and victimisation of women in the state; (b) to conduct research and document problems faced by the women of Punjab; (c) to demand and assist in prosecution of offences committed against women of Punjab; (d) to inspect police stations, lock-ups, sub-jails and rescue homes where women were kept; (e) to conduct PILs on behalf of women groups and individuals who suffer injustice and provide legal aid and rehabilitation; (f) to study employment opportunities, health hazards at work places of women in Punjab; and (g) to improve basic services like drinking water, sanitation, housing, cooking methods etc. To be fair to the PCW, the fact cannot to ignored that none of these goals could be achieved without funds and the basic infrastructure. However, women in the absence of any major alternative for help in desperate situations have approached the PCW. At least 517 cases of marital disputes and domestic violence were placed before the commission since 1998. The PCW succeeded in settling 175 of the total cases and the remaining were in court. Interestingly, in May, 2000, the National Commission of Women held a zonal meeting of the women’s commissions of various states in Rajasthan. Six states responded. At this meeting Karnataka was declared number one on the basis of its performance and surprisingly Punjab was declared number two. It only depicted the pathetic pace at which most of those commissions were at present moving. Meanwhile, in the recent Vidhan Sabha Budget session, Ms Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, BJP MLA, made certain observations about the Bill that brought about amendments in the Punjab State Commission for Women. She said: “Under the amended Act of PCW it was no longer mandatory that only a woman can be appointed as chairperson contrary to the January 7, 1994, notification that had specifically stated that the chairperson shall be a woman. Besides it has not been made categorical as to which Director-General of Police of Punjab would be the member of the Commission. There are dozens of D-G.Ps in Punjab.’’ The PCW at least for the present does not have an office of its own. It is housed in a disputed building over which a court battle is on. Since this building was hired by the now disbanded Punwac and the dispute is in the court, the PCW is not even entitled to put up its board at the gate. One wonders how the poor and rural women about whom there is a very specific stress in the aims and objectives of the Bill are supposed to know about the location of the commission’s office. The new amendment has raised apprehensions and fears in the minds of the conscientious and the intellectual. They are afraid that any government will use the commission to nominate political personalities useful to them. “By not qualifying that only a woman would be chairperson the Act has opened the gates for politically ambitious men to vie for this position. There is no denying the fact that there can be male activists working for the cause of women but there is always a remote possibility of them being chosen for such a position. The very fact that a SGPC member with a nondescript record in the field of women was appointed a member of the PCW is an indicator in this direction”, they echo unanimously. |
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The female face of crime A recent surge in the number of crimes committed by women illustrates that women have the capacity to be as violent as men. Some studies about women and aggression reveal that women involve themselves in violent acts more often for passion, sex and love and less for monetary incentives. Criminologists believe that women, are particularly manipulative and shrewd while devising crimes, perhaps because they are generally physically less strong than men.
WFS How about this one? Your clothes could one day recharge your cell phone, MP3 player or Palm. Scientists at the Institute of Physical Electronics at the University of Stuttgart developed synthetic fibers that generate electricity when exposed to light. The fibres could be woven into machine-washable clothes and could recharge a cell phone every time the wearer is in a lighted room. And now a stupid robot Engineers have built a stupid robot because they think it will perform better than a smart one. The machine looks like a scorpion and scientists believe it will be able to make its own way across California’s Mojave desert. They say that if it had the ability to solve complex problems it might get itself into trouble during the 50-mile journey. Frank Kirchner and Alan Rudolph designed the half-metre long robot at Northeastern University in Boston. It relies almost entirely on reflexes when confronted by a problem — if it comes across an obstacle more than half its height it will try to go round it. The robotic scorpion will set off next year with only a compass and a map reference to guide it to a target and back. New Scientist. 3G just around the corner Sprint and Lucent Technologies just completed a wireless phone call at a rate 2.4 megabits per second, which is about 165 times faster than any other wireless network in the United States. Sprint plans to roll out the network at the enhanced speed later this year. Scared at school Thousands of schoolgirls in South Africa regularly encounter sexual violence and harassment in what should be a safe and nurturing environment, according to a study by US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) titled “Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools”. Activists have charged the government with doing little to tackle the problem seriously. In Parliament, Hendrietta Bogopane, a woman member, wept during a presentation on the document as she related how, as a 17-year-old student, she was sexually abused by a teacher in a school for the disabled.
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Baba Gurdit Singh’s
statement
Amritsar: Baba Gurdit Singh has issued a notification narrating at length his attempts to bring about harmony between the two groups of the Akalis. After describing his conversations with the party leaders, he says that peace without a general election of the SGPC was impossible. It appeared to him that some responsible leaders of the SGPC, belonging to Sardar Bahadur Mehtab Singh’s party was opposed to a general election. In conclusion he says that if such a state of affairs continued till the elections of the Central Board, the community would be faced with a grave danger. He urges the immediate convening of a big Panthic Conference for consideration of the present situation.
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The heart must burn with hunger for him. Nothing but complete self-surrender to Him will satisfy such intense longing. You call him the inner controller, omniscient and omnipresent and still you waver and fear to surrender yourself to Him! Thinkest thou ghat thou wilt realise God the Mother by hypocritical devotion? No, no, this is not a sweet in a child's hand that thou wint cajole it out of Her. There is no deceiving God. He sees all. If you love anything other than God and do not renounce all for Him you cannot realise Him. If one considers God to be all in all, how can one find joy in worldly things. —Swami Turiyananda, "Spiritual Talks" in Christopher Isherwood. *** To be whole is to be healthy. That is exactly the meaning of the word "healthy"; to be whole. Nothing is missing, all the parts are functioning in deep harmony, in accord, in tune with each other. It is an organic unity. To be ill means some parts are missing, non-functioning; the accord is lost-the harmony is no longer there; some trouble has arisen; the balance has been lost. —Osho, Come, Come, Yet again come. *** Indifference to illness is a crime greater than that of falling ill... We have to worry and find out why we are or have become ill. Health not illth' is the law of nature. Let us investigate the law of nature and obey it. —Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan. July 28, 1946 *** Eloquence is dumb founded by love. —Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, From R.A. Nicholson, Rumi, Poet and Mystic |
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