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A royal carnage Central rule in Manipur |
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Limitations of the coming summit Invitation is not
weakness
Anupam Gupta
Floating houses make waves
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A royal carnage A horror story, the killing of King Birendra and several family members has become horrific since there is no way of knowing what really happened. The man who perpetrated the crime, Prince Dripendra, is in coma and perhaps brain dead. He is clinically dead but the life support system keeps the vital organs functioning. Contrary to initial reports, he did not try to kill himself but was shot at the back, maybe by security men who came very, very late. One thing is obvious. The once a month Friday dinner is a very intimate family get-together and only a few kitchen hands are present with the royal family. The rogue prince, a product of the country’s military academy, is an admirer of rifles and pistols and accepted three types of assault rifles from the army for testing and selection. It was with one such weapon that he wiped out his own family. He thus turned a royal privilege into a royal route to mass killing. Nepal is stunned not because it loves its constitutional monarchy but because it greatly admired the late King Birendra. He was a modern monarch attuned to the popular urges of the day. In 1990 when political parties united to demand the establishment of a multiparty democracy he readily agreed; he could have taken the issue to the people for a violent verdict. He gave up all his absolutist monarchical powers to the elected Parliament reducing himself to a decorative figure head. Such self-effacement is rare. Indo-Nepalese relations enter an uncertain phase. King Birendra was a friend of India and often visited Varanasi and Hardwar, Hindu pilgrimage centres. True, he did have personal conflicts with Rajiv Gandhi but the bilateral relations miraculously survived. Prince Gyanendra, the effective ruler, is ill-disposed towards this country. He believes that India instigated and orchestrated the agitation which led to the loss of royal authority. The implication is that he does not endorse the installation of multiparty democracy however chaotic, and believes that India exports democracy to the detriment of shaky regimes in the neighbourhood. The royal killings can pose a danger to the fledgeling democracy in the Himalayan kingdom. Maoist Communists have unleashed violence in impoverished northern districts demanding the abolition of the monarchy. Now that it has been crippled from inside, the Maoists have lost the steam and will step up violence to remain politically relevant. The Girija Prasad Koirala government is beleaguered in the wake of a serious corruption charge. The political situation is extremely fluid and King Birendra’s shocking departure has made it all the more so. |
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Central rule in Manipur PRESIDENT'S rule in Manipur was almost a certainty and the inevitable has been duly ordered following a recommendation by the Union Cabinet to that effect. There can be no fight with the Governor's conclusion that it was impossible to have a stable government in the State after the Speaker, Mr S. Dhananjoy Singh, failed to furnish a new list of supporters to support his claim. He also did not heed the Governor's advice to resign as Speaker before staking his claim. The State is in constitutional turmoil indeed. What is noteworthy is that the Assembly has been put under suspended animation. It is perhaps hoped that better sense will prevail among the legislators in a matter of a few weeks. The Atal Behari Vajpayee government just does not have the adequate numbers to get the presidential proclamation ratified in the Rajya Sabha. But it does have three months now before the matter will require Parliament's mandatory approval. Under the circumstances, it is safe to assume that President's rule will be there for about eight weeks. The hope is that the legislators will realign themselves differently within this cooling-off period. What is important from the BJP point of view is that it has managed to propitiate the Samata Party for now. The latter had threatened that there would be dire consequences at the national level if the BJP attempted to form a ministry after voting against the Samata Party-led People's Front ministry headed by Mr Radhabinod Koijam. The party MLAs were initially in a defiant mood, but appear to have been made to fall in line by the central leadership. The new grouping that they had formed, the Progressive Democratic Alliance, is more or less defunct now. The crisis has blown over, for the time being at least. But it is borrowed time at most. The same men will have another go at ministry formation about two months from now. In effect, that means that the same deck of cards will be shuffled yet again. Will the change in government bring about any improvement in governance? Not by a long shot! The same lowbrow political machinations will keep the people's representatives occupied. That is the tragedy of Manipur and many other States in the North-East. Once they have had enough of Tweedledum, the only choice before them is to go in for Tweedledee. Restlessness among the public never makes politicians mend their ways. |
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Limitations of the coming summit IF the summit talks take place next month, July will acquire a special significance for Indo-Pakistan relations. It was in July that the
Simla summit was held. This month can create a new relationship between the two countries. But will it be a new beginning on Kashmir? The chances are that this will not be the only meeting between the two heads of government. Whatever the results of the projected July summit, Gen Musharraf will want to be the host for another summit in Pakistan. The meeting called by Vajpayee has been generally welcomed by Pakistan. The first reason is that it spells a new recognition for the Pakistani chief executive who after his takeover was kept at a reasonable distance by most non-Islamic countries, except China for understandable reasons, of course. Recognition like this by India is no small gain for Pakistan. Pakistan also knows that this recognition has come not by diplomacy or its own strength but, speaking frankly, by the blood spilled by the jehadis of Pakistan and Afghanistan who went ahead in pursuit of their goal to kill. They kept the Kashmir issue alive. Gen Musharraf has to be grateful to them for their sacrifice. Pakistan also knows that it must keep them well and kicking. Can the Pakistani ruler pay them back by reaching an agreement with India with which they will be dissatisfied? This is something that forms the limitation of the coming summit. This meeting cannot be compared to the Simla summit between Indira Gandhi and Z.A. Bhutto. Pakistan was at that time a defeated country, with a lakh of prisoners of war in India and 5,000 square miles under Indian occupation. Bhutto had recently come to power. Having been one of those who were responsible for dismembering Pakistan, he was weak. But he proved to be clever in dealing with Indira Gandhi. He assured her that he would see to it that the Line of Control would be made into a permanent border. Indira Gandhi gave in, also because she did not want to send a failed Bhutto back to Pakistan. Atal Behari Vajpayee would have to be more careful. He should know that little would come out of the first summit meeting. What is he going to offer Gen Musharraf to satisfy him? Pakistan’s spokesmen, from its Ambassador to India to its Foreign Minister, have not so far shown any change of attitude. From what can be seen now Pakistan is not going to make any radical departure from its usual demands on Kashmir. And India cannot give concessions just to please Pakistan. Both sides know their limitations. Gen Musharraf will not give up the demand for self-determination. Not that he has to go by the dictates of the Hurriyat. He has no constituency in Kashmir and will not be afraid of spurning the Hurriyat and others who have fomented the rebellion there. Gen Musharraf is strong enough not to succumb to their disapproval. But he has a constituency in Pakistan which he would like to pander to for he means to rule for a long time and he must have its support. He would like to assure it that it is he who not only resolved the Kashmir dispute but also acquired the kernal of it for Pakistan. That is his wish — no matter whether it comes by diplomacy or by violence triggered by the ISI. This is a challenge to Vajpayee. His limitation is severe. He cannot afford to go in for any drastic concession to Pakistan. The opposition has supported him in inviting Gen Musharraf but, mindful of the history of this country, he cannot give any concessions. Would Vajpayee’s plea for taking the high road of economic recovery help? In no case. Pakistan would long have solved all its problems if it had decided to be reasonable on Kashmir. Was the gesture of calling a summit, therefore, ill-timed? No, it came at the proper time and should help in lessening the temperature. But how disastrous would be its failure? What can Vajpayee offer that Gen Musharraf will be able to accept? Shorn of protocol pomp and pelf, Vajpayee has little to offer beyond the atmospherics. Will Gen Musharraf be like Gen Zia who was a great public relations man to the extent of picking up his old classmates from St Stephen’s College to witnessing a cricket match? Here too cricket may be a great beneficiary. But ultimately the rest came to nothing. Since he was to invite Gen Musharraf, it was the proper time for Vajpayee to end the ceasefire. Its repeated extension had become a bore. If India did not find an answer to the peculiar situation of one side indulging in killings and the Indian security forces having lowered their guard, the ceasefire had slowly lost its meaning. There was an unequal equation. For defeating the purpose of the ceasefire, Pakistan and the ISI agents should bear the primary responsibility. They could have given the ceasefire a new life by helping the objective of ending the violence. Instead, they went into a scorched-earth policy of killing both the security forces and the civilians. For long the Indians did not realise that their own people were being done away with in greater number. Where it suited Pakistan, it held on to the ceasefire — on the Line of Control. Because it was always getting a bloody nose there. But inside Kashmir the jehadis went on the programme of killings. That is why when L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh went to Kashmir they were told almost unanimously that the ceasefire was not serving any purpose. The end of the ceasefire could mean that there would initially be more bloodshed in Kashmir but it would gradually level down. Yet, Vajpayee can still make a gesture when Gen Musharraf is about to come to India. The Indian security forces could for that brief period also renew the ceasefire. Let there be no killings while the talks are on. This could be a time for showing real friendship with Pakistan. Kargil has not endeared Gen Musharraf to Indian masses. There is also the hangover of the failure of the bus yatra to Lahore. It was Gen Musharraf who was responsible for this. But in international relations these have to be counted as minus and plus points. Gen Musharraf would also want to create a good impression. He is facing a tough economic situation and it would not help him to continue the blood-letting. The main Indian purpose of the summit should be to tell Pakistan that continued confrontation would not help anyone. This should be explained to him with firmness and in depth, at the same time affirming friendship with Pakistan. It could result in lessening the tension. There would be no greater gain than this. Even this would be difficult because without tension and violence Kashmir would no more be a festering sore. This is the tragedy of Kashmir — and of Indo-Pakistan relation. If the summit can help in this, Vajpayee’s initiative would have been worthwhile. |
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Invitation is not
weakness IT has been our repeated suggestion in these columns that we should not adopt a rigid stance and lay down preconditions for starting talks with Gen Pervez Musharraf. This was first predicated in this paper, “The emerging realities in Pakistan,” dated November 18, 1999. We opposed the rigidity in demanding cessation of cross-border terrorism as a precursor to opening a dialogue with Pakistan. The ceasefire too was never favoured and the possibility of increased attack on security forces and large-scale killing of our informers too was recorded, besides other disadvantages. We argued for a three-pronged move. One to start the talks; two, concurrently intensify anti-terrorist operations and three, when we sit down across the table, impress upon Pakistan to terminate cross-border terrorism. Since then close to a thousand civilians, terrorists and security personnel have died. The futility of initiating talks with APHC leaders was also noted and we maintained that they have no role to play in India-Pakistan dialogue and are not the sole voice of people of J and K. Since the time we first made the suggestion for commencing dialogue with Pakistan, much water has flowed down the Jhelum and our foreign policy initiatives have seen a paradigm change and shift for the better. Realpolitik seems to have taken the centrestage in the country’s foreign policy. There is far greater appreciation, internationally, of India’s genuine and purposeful efforts to bring peace in J and K. Gen Musharraf has his own compulsions at home. Fundamentalists and jehadi groups have increased their hold in the country and the civil society. The ISI has become all pervasive and powerful. The army itself has been affected by these developments and fundamentalists have found place in the rank and file. While the chief executive could not halt cross-border terrorism, the response to India’s cessation of operations against militants by declaring ceasefire on the LoC was a bold step on his part. He has the “dateline” drawn by the Supreme Court of Pakistan which hangs over him like the sword of Democles and he has to carry the generals with him. All the malice, disorder and corruption he had resolved to root out still persist in the Pakistan society and the vested interests continue to remain entrenched. It is no secret that a bankrupt Pakistan is under intense pressure from the IMF, World Bank and other creditors besides America and some western countries, to stop aiding terrorists and seek a workable solution to the vexed problem of J and K. These groups and countries are equally aware of Musharraf’s compulsions at home and his inability to terminate cross-border terrorism all too suddenly and without any quid pro quo. It is not entirely within his means to control the disparate groups and power centres in Pakistan and shift their stance on Kashmir when his own position is shaky. Pakistan is hurtling towards economic collapse on the one hand and
Talibanisation and chaos in the civil society on the other. Instability and turmoil in Pakistan and its close links with Afghan Taliban holds out threat to peace and stability in the entire South East Asia and it is something which concerns India and Central Asian Republics more than others in the area. The wide ranging comments on India’s sudden willingness to do business with Gen Musharraf, after adopting an inflexible stance, range from a “climbdown” to the futility of it all. There are some who argue that the Army in Pakistan will not allow even an iota of change in the country’s Kashmir policy. But military in Pakistan is a reality and we can do little to bring about a change, no matter how ardent a champion of democracy we may profess ourselves to be. So there is no alternatives to doing business with it. Even “peaceniks” of the
I.K. Gujral genre are airing serious doubts on the possibility of any positive outcome from these talks, though he and others of his ilk have no other option to offer. It must be seen as yet another attempt by Vajpayee, after the Lahore peace process, to give peace one more try and there is no climbdown in this initiative. It is equally fallacious to project the Lahore initiative as a political gamble or for that matter, the present invitation to Musharraf a risky proposition. Even if, in the worst case, the current efforts to find a solution to the problems between the two countries do not fructify, yet the credit for making every effort in this direction must go to India and its leadership. It is demonstrative of Vajpayee’s courage, flexibility and confidence to change stance and course, when an opening seems possible; no matter how remote. Pakistan would, once again be misreading the Indian mind and committing another folly, as at Kargil, if it tries to read any signs of weakness or softening or any debilitation of will and resolve, or capacity to deal with, crossborder terrorism or the larger dimension of cry for “jehad”. There may be a temptation to conclude that it is the pressure of crossborder terrorism which has compelled India to start a dialogue. Such an inference, though totally illogical, could bear on Pakistan’s posturing at the conference table and deny Pakistan yet another opportunity to resolve its problems with India and continued downward slide would remain unchecked. The scope and span of the forthcoming talks between Vajpayee and Musharraf is difficult to forecast at this stage. Will it merely be to break the ice and set up task forces to take up various issues or the two will set the agenda and tone for the teams by agreeing on a certain basic framework on which to proceed forward? By now both India and Pakistan have agreed on composite tasks, the difference being that while Pakistan would like Kashmir to remain the core issue, India may prefer to make a start with the lesser issues of confidence building measures (CMDs) and mutual trade and commerce and take up the more vexed problems of border disputes in the Runn of Kutch and the issue of J and K in a more deliberate and measured manner. Perhaps a via media may have to be worked out. The Kashmir issue itself can be tackled in four segments. One, agree to continue with the ceasefire on the LoC, two, linking the reduction of security forces in J and K to termination of crossborder terrorism, three, tackle the less intractable problem of Siachin Glacier, on which agreement was very nearly reached in the past. Once some provisional agreements are reached and implemented on these, the interlocutors could take up the larger issue of J and K itself, as the fourth step. Free movement across the LoC and opening the old road to Muzaffarabad, as suggested by some experts, would be a bit premature at this stage and has serious security implications. What this really means is that should Pakistan insist on taking up the core issue of J and K first, then let it be so and that we should not balk at it. While India has her own problems, emanating from the compulsions of a coalition government, the Congress constantly sniping at it and the Sangh Parivar, Musharraf’s difficulties are of a much higher magnitude. He cannot be seen coming home without some tangible gains. In this regard the linking of thinning out in J and K with cessation of cross border terrorism and the de-escalation and de-militarisation of Siachin could be a reasonable deal. India needs to draw up a comprehensive and well considered agenda for the talks and must be quite clear as to what level of agreement is acceptable on the issue of J and K. Both India and Pakistan must be realistic, flexible and appreciate each others’ obsessions, compulsions and imperatives and strive for a reasonable solution to the problems. It calls for great patience and time with the full realisation that both the countries stand to gain from the settlement of their mutual problems. It would be too optimistic a view to expect dramatic results, at least initially, from Musharraf’s visit to Delhi. After all, almost all the problems that exist today have defied resolution for over half a century of efforts. We will have to shed decades of mindset and approach the problems between the two countries in a spirit of understanding and goodwill. It will take time to find solutions which will be acceptable to both sides. A durable agreement between any two parties has to be one which is reasonable, equable and fair. Both the countries are home to the poorest of the poor on this planet and their millions yearn for a future which has some prospects of hope and semblance of prosperity. Neither can afford to waste their scarce resources on military confrontations. |
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A Judge he was not, but a judge always SEERVAI’S views on the judiciary, judicial performance and related issues. Two factors, albeit mutually inconsistent, have dictated my choice of this theme this week. One, the appreciation that my last, May 28 article on Arundhati Roy received from readers, both legal and lay, reflecting (if I mistake not) wide dissatisfaction with the judiciary despite the plaudits that it has earned for itself in recent years. And, two, the absence of any major legal event or development since then, affording me time and space for the luxury of more fundamental reflections. If Arundhati Roy has just shaped into the sharpest, and most impressive, critic of the Supreme Court from amongst non-lawyers, the late H.M. Seervai had in his lifetime already established himself as its most brilliant and indomitable critic from amongst the Bar itself. “(M)ost Supreme Court Judges live in a dream world of their own,” wrote Seervai in the last volume of the silver jubilee edition of his Constitutional Law of India, published posthumously in 1996. “There are rhetorical passages in a number of judgements as to the intellectual and moral qualities which Judges should possess and, by implication, most of them do possess. In my submission, it is necessary to point out that this picture of qualities and character possessed by most Judges.... is not justified by matters on record.” Advocate-General of Maharashtra for 17 years — an incredible tenure when judged by contemporary standards — Seervai declined invitations successively to be a Judge of the High Court of Bombay, a Judge of the Supreme Court, and the Attorney-General of India. Had he accepted judgeship of the Supreme Court, he would have been Chief Justice of India for as long as five and a half years. With great respect to the past and present members of the Bar and the Bench in the country, it would be well-nigh impossible to come across a single individual amongst them capable of such renunciation. And for so long. For the first offer, that of judgeship of the High Court, was made to him as early as in 1950 when he was just 44 years old (or young). And the last, that of the Attorney-Generalship of India, two decades later in 1971. In between he started, in 1961, upon his monumental commentary on the constitutional law of India, the first edition of which came out in 1967. And was immediately hailed by Prof P.K. Tripathi, the Dean of the Delhi law school and India’s greatest constitutional law academic, as “perhaps the best book ever written” on the subject. To read it, wrote another learned reviewer, Prof Geoffrey Wilson of the University of Cambridge, “is like cramming years of training in the busy chambers of an important practitioner....he makes one wonder why Indian constitutional law is not compulsory in the law schools in this country.” Seervai’s critical faculty, his ability and courage to dissect leading judgements of the Supreme Court, his distaste for sloppiness of thought and for high-flown rhetoric in judicial utterance (as Colin Turpin put it) or for “sermon, prophecy and platform rhetoric” (as he put it himself), marked him out from all other members of the Bar and the academia. What he wrote to Union Law Minister, H.R. Gokhale, himself a former Judge, in September, 1971, while declining the latter’s offer of Attorney-Generalship of India, would put the tallest of practising lawyers to shame. “If I exchanged the exclusive practice in the Bombay High Court for a daily practice before our Supreme Court,” he said, “my credibility as a detached and impartial critic of the judicial interpretation of our Constitution would be destroyed.” Work in only one High Court, he said — the Bombay High Court in Seervai’s case, where he was then Advocate-General — would not have that effect. It would rather help to give his book a hold on the realities of constitutional law as it is developed in court, the theoretical parts of the book getting firmly grounded in practice. Four years after he passed away in January, 1996, leaving behind a void that will literally never be
filled, his wife and intellectual soul-mate Feroza Seervai made the letter to Gokhale public for the first time in “The Seervai Legacy” published at the end of 2000. Also published for the first time is the transcript of Seervai’s oral testimony before the Law Commission of India in 1957 as well as a confidential letter that he hand-wrote to the Chief Justice of India in 1981. Both the testimony and the letter range over a large number of issues and if I refer here to only one of them, it is because it has a vital bearing on the ethics of the Bench and the Bar and public perceptions about both of them. “The touchstone of the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” Seervai told the Law Commission, “is that when an ignorant rustic comes to the mofussil centre to engage a lawyer he must ask, ‘Who is the best qualified lawyer who can tackle within my means the type of case I have got?’ and not, ‘Who is the reigning favourite whom I must engage at all costs?’ ” Needless to say, that is the touchstone not only at the level of the mofussil courts but at all higher levels as well right upto the Supreme Court. Judges must, Seervai continued, in the interest of their offices and the larger public welfare, “cultivate a certain amount of mental detachment and physical aloofness, not because of any false pride but because it is not given to all of us to be very sociable and clubbable and, at the same time, avoid all reverberation therefrom in official life.” That is strong enough but both in 1957 and in 1981 Seervai then addresses directly an issue which many of us would shy away from confronting: lawyers’ parties to Judges. “Giving evidence before the Law Commission in 1957,” he wrote in his letter to the CJI 24 years later, “I commented on the extreme impropriety of Judges accepting lunches and dinners from practising members of the Bar and even from private citizens”. Referring to an article by Ms Indira Jaising captioned “Socialising with Justice” and to a certain dinner thrown by an unnamed counsel to the Judges of the High Court (at Bombay), Seervai remarked: “(T)he whole object of the exercise is to show to people, first, how wealthy is the Advocate giving the dinner; and (second) how well connected he is with Judges and high officers of the State.” There is “seething resentment among junior members of the Bar (Seervai added), and among senior members of the Bar who have not lowered their standards, at (such) attempts to create an impression among litigants that the counsel is not only rich but very familiar with the Judges whom he entertains, for they corrupt justice at source.” Matching practice with precept, Seervai then told the CJI how he had refused to entertain a Judge even though he had been asked by the then Chief Justice of Bombay to do so: “He pointed out that the former Advocate-General had given a dinner in honour of Chief Justice Mahajan when he came to Bombay and that I should give a dinner to Chief Justice Sinha. I said that I refused on principle to do so.... Recently it was suggested to me that a Judge of the Supreme Court, who wanted to see me, should be given a party. I refused to do so, but made a courtesy call on the Judge when he was in Bombay.” The only exception that Seervai would draw is for Judges being invited by practising advocates to ceremonial functions like marriages or thread ceremonies, for that does not create the impression that the function is being held “in the honour of a Judge.” Coming back to Seervai’s criticism of the Supreme Court, a court before which he argued, despite his refusal to shift to Delhi, some of the most outstanding constitutional cases of the 20th century — from the privileges case of the UP Assembly in 1964 to the Kesavananda Bharati case concerning Parliament’s power to amend the fundamental rights in 1973 to the Judges’ Appointment and Transfer case in 1981 — his letter to the CJI lays the foundation of a theme developed subsequently in his commentary on the Constitution. “(T)he desire of Judges,” he said, “to be in the vanguard of modern thought by reference to psychology, sociology, social anthropology, (and) metaphysical, ethical and political theory of government has added greatly to the length of trials and to the citation of newspaper articles, speeches of people prominent in public life, (and) writing(s) in this or that Review.” Fifteen years later, in 1996, in the last, posthumously published edition of his book, he bemoaned openly what he called the “steep fall” in the standard of the Supreme Court’s judgements on constitutional and administrative law. It is apparent, he said, that the Judges are not interested in laying down as accurately as they can the law on the questions raised before them but “inject their personal preconceptions” while interpreting the Constitution. Accusing the Supreme Court of “complete judicial indiscipline,” Benches of lesser strength refusing to follow judgements of larger Benches, and “disconcerting unpredictability”, he said that this was because most Judges ask themselves the wrong question: “This is how I wish to decide, what shall I say?” instead of asking themselves the right question: “What is the law?” Written at a time when the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, was basking in popularity, these words show the totally uncompromising character of Seervai’s juristic assessments. But more than anything else it is on the subject of appointment of Judges that he proved to be truly prescient and anticipated developments by over three decades. “I do not think,” said Seervai in 1970, delivering the Chimanlal Setalvad memorial lectures at the University of Bombay, “that if the appointment of judges was left to the judiciary, the result would be appreciably better, for with rare exceptions, the desire to appoint the best man is just not there.” It is the old, old moral problem, he said, of knowing the better and doing the worse. “(L)ong experience has convinced me that no safeguard will avail as long as judge or minister, or both, can say, A is better than B, nevertheless B must be appointed a judge. No doubt, if a different moral climate were created, this blot on the administration of justice would be removed. But how that climate is to be created is too large a subject to be discussed in this lecture.”
Or, for that matter, in this article. |
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Floating houses make waves Ever thought of buying a house you could move with you? One Dutch construction company, recognising the growing scarcity of building ground in the Netherlands, has started to build houses on water.
Ooms Bouwmaatschappij has built the first eight of 500 planned floating houses on the outskirts of Amsterdam — the capital of the world’s third most densely populated country. The houses, which are designed to withstand gales, are built on floating platforms, allowing owners with itchy feet to drift off into the sunset, their homes in tow. For centuries planning in this low-lying country has focused on separating and maintaining the division between land and water. Precious land has been reclaimed from the sea by building dams and heightening dikes. But the tide of thinking has turned and in the quest to find fresh building ground in the Netherlands, where two-thirds of the population lives below sea-level, Dutch planners are looking to the country’s most abundant resource — water. Interest in this novel mode of living, a natural progression from the Netherlands’ ubiquitous houseboats, has been keen with about 5,000 names already on the waiting list. The houses, retailing between $180,000 and $ 500,000, will be located up to 100 metres (330 feet) away from the sea shore. Made of wood and lightweight
aluminium, they will be linked to each other by walkways. They will be arranged initially in clusters but they will be able to be detached from the surrounding neighbourhood and moved individually by tugboat to new waters. “What’s interesting is you can move your house. It’s nice because it’s free, it’s not attached to anything,” said Dorien
Vluchter,f amily doctor and mother of two, inspecting the show houses. However, her husband was less impressed. “I can imagine that the water is kind of calming, something very quiet and nice to look at. On the other side, I think, well it is just water, so I cannot open the door and play in the garden with my daughter.”
Reuters
Hot Dog Eating Championship THERE are a million different ways to eat a hot dog, but only one that will put you in reach of the title Hot Dog Eating Champion of the World. Pioneered in Tokyo, this is a technique known as
“Japanesing”, the art of separating the sausage from the bun and, while inhaling the former, crushing the latter to a dough ball and downing it in one. It is the formula by which Kazutoyo Arai, Japan’s dumpling-eating champion, hopes to beat his record of 25 hot dogs in 12 minutes, at the world championships next month. The competitive eating contest, or “chow-down” as the professionals call it, used to be a student event, an annual fixture in Rag Week where the participants’ savage table manners were mitigated by charitable sponsorship. The idea was to pick one, preferably comedy food item, and eat as much of it as you could in a few minutes. Hot dogs, pies and pasta dishes were joined on the chow-down menu by hard boiled eggs, matzo balls, clams, pickles, chilli peppers and — essential to student humour — cornflakes. Whatever the food stuff, the point was to have a laugh and make as much mess as possible. This is no longer the case. On July 4, thousands of spectators will descend on Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog shop in Coney Island, New York, for the world championship, the culmination of 15 regional heats. Twenty-two men and women from around the world will compete for the Mustard Yellow International Belt. The sport is governed by official rules: competitors can eat the hot dogs and buns in any style, with any condiments and beverage (“wash-down”). Any hot dog in the competitor’s mouth when the whistle blows is included in the final tally. Hot dogs and buns are counted in fractions: therefore, Kazutoyo Arai’s actual world record is 25 and an eighth.
The Guardian |
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To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all creeds. —
Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses **** I believe in one God, and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life. —
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason **** Neither the lunar nor the solar spheres, Nor the dry land nor the waters over the earth Nor the air nor the moving winds in the limitless spaces Shall endure ever; Thou alone art! Thou alone art! ***** It is in no one’s power to give livelihood to another, The Lord alone is the Sustainer of all, The one endureth, naught else is enduring; Thou alone art! Thou alone art! —
Guru Nanak Dev, Rag Majh ki Var. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, pages 144-145
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