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Saturday,
April 19, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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PM in Kashmir Govt dithers, strike lingers Breaking the speed barrier |
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The eagle has landed in Iraq
Lost in the shadows of my past
THE TRIBUNE INTERVIEW
‘Why did you do this to us?’
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PM in Kashmir THE Prime Minister’s two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir has started a chain of reaction in India and abroad. Separatist organisations, including the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, gave a call for a general strike on Friday and Saturday. The Hurriyat's statement was on expected lines. It had boycotted the assembly elections that were acknowledged as free and fair by the international community. It now believes that a two-day closure of business and other establishments would somehow “draw the attention of the global community to the reality”. The strength of Indian democracy lies in allowing organisations like the Hurriyat to express their views, no matter how irrational they may be. But Mr Vajpayee should not ignore the views of the Federation of Chambers of Industries in Kashmir (FCIK) on the Rs 6000-crore economic package for Jammu and Kashmir. Mr Vajpayee and Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said at a public rally that employment generation schemes would receive the priority they deserve. The FCIK believes that the package in its present form will not generate
employment. The sectors that have been given importance “would in no way improve the living conditions of the people of the valley”. According to the FCIK, “the worst affected industrial sector, which contributes to the economy of the state and plays a vital role in eradicating unemployment, has been totally ignored in the economic package”. The political noises that were made on the occasion of Mr Vajpayee's Srinagar yatra too need to be examined. In a lengthy interview to a news website National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said that combating terrorism should receive the highest priority. He pointed out that “Dr Farooq Abdullah had devoted 90 per cent of his energies to fighting terrorism”. And did he succeed? If he did, why did the electorate reject the National Conference? Mr Omar Abdullah is young and articulate, but evidently has a lot of ground to cover for him to learn the importance of being a good loser in politics. The verdict allowed the Mufti government to try the “healing touch” approach, backed by employment generation schemes, for tackling the problem of terrorism. In Washington the India Caucus urged Mr Vajpayee to solve the Kashmir dispute through dialogue with Pakistan. The suggestion of Congressional Caucus co-chair Joseph Crowley that the US can play a constructive role in starting the process is not worth a formal response from India. The Shimla Agreement has recognised the importance of a bilateral approach for solving disputes between India and Pakistan. Mr Crowley acknowledged that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has failed to live up to his pledge to “stop infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir”. Not only America but India too “would like to see some concrete steps from President Musharraf”. Mr Vajpayee went to Lahore in search of peace and General Musharraf engineered the Kargil war. He was invited to Agra and he violated diplomatic norms by turning a private breakfast meeting with the Indian media into a live press conference. The process of dialogue can start only after General Musharraf stops the proxy war in Kashmir. |
Govt dithers, strike lingers THE truckers’ strike has lingered simply because the government has mishandled it right from the start. First, it took no notice of the truckers' demands before they actually went on strike. Then the government gave the impression that it would act tough and won't yield to pressure. But then the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Maj-Gen (retd) B.C.
Khanduri, proceeded to hold talks with representatives of the agitating All-India Motor Transport Congress on Thursday. The talks collapsed because the minister was not authorised to negotiate on the demands which concerned other government departments and agencies. For instance, their demand for a revision of diesel prices once in three months concerned the Petroleum Ministry, while the issue of insuring old vehicles could be handled only by the Finance Ministry. The minister simply held out to the truckers an assurance to consider their demands sympathetically once they called off the strike. Since there was no concrete proposal, the truckers were unlikely to oblige the minister. Instead, they have adopted a tougher posture and made it clear that the future parleys would be held only at the Prime Minister's level even if that meant dragging the strike up to 40 days or more. General Khanduri was handicapped in the absence of a point-by-point government response to the truckers' already well-known demands. The government's dithering and the truckers' stubbornness are costing the commonman and the economy dearly. The prices of items of daily use like milk, vegetables and fruits are
spiralling. The shortage of medicines and petroleum products is also being felt in metropolitan cities. According to a financial daily, the manufacturing companies engaged in exports are suffering a loss of Rs 100 crore each day. Besides, in the prevailing economic scenario, any failure to keep an export commitment can damage the credibility of Indian firms in the global market and they may lose export orders in future. The global slowdown is already casting its shadow on the country's economy. With limited inventory space and mounting costs, many companies plan to shut down if the strike prolongs. Maruti Udyog too has indicated that it may be forced to restrict production. The firms producing steel, engineering goods and chemicals are among the worst hit. Some 10,000 labourers, who do the loading and unloading work on trucks, have been rendered idle. The impact of the strike is being felt widely. One can only hope that the Centre is not deliberately letting the traders, the BJP's traditional vote-bank, to fish in the troubled waters. Why is the government shying away from facing the reality? |
Breaking the speed barrier Railway Minister Nitish Kumar’s statement at Chennai that the Indian Railways will break its current speed barrier and touch the 150-km per hour limit is rosy and impracticable. The idea of competing with the railways in foreign countries may appear to be sound and inspiring, particularly at a function held to mark the conclusion of the year-long 150th anniversary celebrations of the Indian Railways. But are we ready to take the leap? For one thing, the state of our rolling stock, including the track, the coaches, the bridges and the signalling equipment are in a mess. For another, we are yet to reach a level that would match the high professional standards in foreign countries. By Indian standards, the Rajdhanis and the Shatabdi Express trains are considered to be elite and prestigious. Running at a speed of 130 km per hour, as compared to 80 or 100 km for other mail or superfast express trains, they have sturdy and powerful engines. Their airconditioned coaches also have impact resistance features that are supposed to be subjected to the most stringent maintenance checks. However, claims about these elite trains were shattered following the Kolkata-New Delhi Rajdhani Express accident last year. As passenger safety has become the worst casualty, the railways were forced to reduce the speed of the Rajdhanis and the
Shatabdis. The authorities may break the latest speed barrier in some isolated stretches of the Konkan Railway, but it is doubtful how far they will succeed in this in other routes, especially in the busy ones, including the high -density corridor. Experts say that bridges with steel structures commissioned before 1930 are “extremely fatigued”. This makes them vulnerable to the high frequency vibrations of a super fast train. Such bridges require constant monitoring. Again, to enable peak speeds, the wooden sleepers currently in use on tracks will have to be replaced with
pressure-resistent styrene or any other durable synthetic material. Moreover, our trains operate on very old track alignments with curves and gradients that cannot cope with high-speed trains like the ones in France or Germany, which run on dedicated railway tracks. With too many manned and unmanned railway crossings in India, it is difficult to build dedicated corridors and make sure no one strays onto the tracks. The Railway Minister’s suggestion for fencing on both sides of the track seems impracticable. How will he raise funds needed for this huge venture? Will fencing ever be possible in places like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai where jhuggis across the tracks are common? Mr Nitish Kumar would do well to set realistic targets in tune with the Indian conditions and improve safety standards, instead of toying with fanciful ideas. |
The eagle has landed in Iraq The US-led war against Iraq, now nearly over, has dangerous portents for the world. The brazen unilateralism with which the Bush administration pursued its war agenda and the scant regard it showed for the will of the United Nations in particular and the international community in general conjure up visions of more acts of global policemanship from the only super power in the world. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This axiom seems to be a fit description of the post-9/11 United States. Tony Blair-led Britain acted as a navigator of the Bush administration in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Such was Prime Minister Blair’s conviction that he went all out to support the US for the war against Iraq, ignoring jokes dubbing him as the new Secretary of State of President Bush and was undeterred when he nearly found himself on the chopping block after a revolt from a sizable section of his ruling Labour party. President Bush has repeatedly stated that Gulf War II should not be construed as a clash of civilisations. But this is exactly what the acts and warnings of Washington and London are threatening to achieve. Kuwait may be the only Muslim country in the world which is gleeful over what happened in Iraq. And in Kuwait, too, it is hard to say that all the Kuwaitis stood for the war against Iraq, no matter what demonic acts Saddam Hussein perpetrated on the tiny nation of 2.4 million (only six lakh of whose population is native Kuwaitis). The US-UK combine conveniently ignored the warning of the King of Jordan who said that before the war there was only one Osama bin Laden but at the end of it there might be a hundred Osamas. This warning did not come from Anglo-American rivals like Russia and China and “friends” like France and Germany — all of whom vociferously opposed the war against Iraq. That the warning came from a time-tested strategic ally like Jordan should have been enough to jolt Mr Bush and Mr Blair out of their slumber. There are strong indications that Saddam Hussein fled the country in the first week of April. That explains the sudden evaporation of the much-vaunted Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard. As a result, the coalition forces were able to capture Baghdad in half the time in comparison with the 42-day-long Gulf War I. Whether or not Saddam had anything to do with Bin Laden, as is alleged by western intelligence agencies, it should surprise none in the West if the two were to come together now. As the David-versus-Goliath war is drawing to its inevitable conclusion, there is no sign yet of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) — the sole reason for launching the war in the first place. Every now and then in the first two weeks of the war there were shouts of “Eureka” whenever coalition troops stumbled upon suspicious-looking powder or vials or chemical suits. But each time it was crying wolf. The Anglo-American spirits have again soared with the surrender of Saddam’s top scientific advisor, Gen Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, who is believed to be the chief architect of the ousted Iraqi leader’s alleged biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programme. The western-educated chemistry expert, a member of Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority, has gone on record telling ZDF TV in Baghdad on April 12 that Iraq did not have any WMDs. “You will see, the future will show it, and nothing else will come out after the end of the war.” In February last, US Secretary of State Colin Powell had, in a speech at the United Nations Security Council, accused Mr Al-Saadi of spying on UN inspectors and undermining and frustrating their efforts on instructions from Saddam. But Mr Al-Saadi countered that the evidence Mr Powell presented to the Security Council was a forgery. Now consider the following
facts: The Bush administration has made constant claims of “documentary evidence” linking Iraq to attempted uranium purchases in Niger, despite the fact that the documents were forged and CIA analysts doubted their authenticity. Washington frequently cited incriminating testimony of Iraqi defector Hussein Kamel, but suppressed that part of the testimony in which Kamel stated that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed following the 1991 Gulf War. A British intelligence report on Iraq’s security services did the rounds on international circuits. The report was later found to be plagiarised from a student’s article. A crucial question arises. If no WMDs are found in Iraq after the war how the aggressors should be dealt with? Can any country arrogate to itself the task of becoming a “liberator”? If that be so, then what is the sanctity of world organisations like the UN and the International Court of Justice? If Washington and London are so obsessed with the restoration of democracy around the world, removing the threat of WMDs, combating terrorism and showing respect for human rights, then what about Saudi Arabia, a monarchy which still has medieval laws of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and which is known for donating huge sums to Islamic outfits of dubious reputation? What about Pakistan where sham democracy is under the army boots and which happens to be the only terrorism-exporting nuclear power in the world where the army controls the nuclear button? The most glaring example of all, what about North Korea which openly declared before the Iraq war that it had nuclear weapons and unequivocally stated that it had missiles capable of reaching more than 10000 km and hitting targets in the US? Even at the peak of the North Korean crisis, the Bush administration’s decision-makers favoured a military option for Iraq (which was merely suspected of pursuing a programme of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) and a diplomatic approach for North Korea despite Pyongyang’s unabashed admission of possessing nukes. Another contention of Mr Bush and Mr Blair is that the war on Iraq is part of the war on terrorism. The New York Times published a report on March 16 which quoted an American official based in Europe as saying that Iraq had become “a battle cry, in a way” for Al-Qaida recruiters. The article quoted a leading counter-terrorism judge of France as saying: “Bin Laden’s strategy has always been to demonstrate to the Islamic community that the West, and especially the US, is starting a global war against Muslims. An attack on Iraq might confirm his vision for many Muslims. I am very worried about the next wave of recruits.” To prove an Al-Qaida-Iraq link, Mr Colin Powell cited in February last an audiotape from Bin Laden in which the latter called Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party regime “infidels”! Some strange twisted logic this. The American eagle has landed in Iraq. It is going to build a nest for itself there and forget about leaving the place. Just as it has done elsewhere: South-East Asia, the Middle-East, Europe, former Soviet republics... the list is endless. Where does the eagle land next? Syria? Iran? The writer was in Kuwait reporting the war for The Tribune |
Lost in the shadows of my past Good gracious Lord, how could he say that he had not been able to place me! He and I had started our career together, he in a news agency called NAFEN (Near And Far Eastern News) and I in the good old Pioneer under its gracious Editor, S.N. Ghosh. We used to take our coffee together almost every evening in Lucknow’s famous coffee house. I waved to him. But I did not get his response. He was sitting in one corner of the lounge in the India International Centre in New Delhi with an ex-Secretary to the President of India. I was having my lunch along with my wife in another corner. When I did not get any response, it occurred to me that the reason was his fading eyesight. And so I walked up to his table. And there I was shocked to know from him that he had failed to place me. Amnesia? Perhaps. Gulzarilal Nanda, twice Prime Minister of India, first following the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and then following the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri, was a victim of it. Whenever someone would mention to him that he was Prime Minister of India, he would start clapping his hands. So was another friend, P.V. Krishanamurthi. Once upon a time, when Doordarshan had no competitors, his name was so much synonymous with TV as DD’s DG that just as you could not think of an omlette without thinking of an egg, you could not think of TV without thinking of PVK. The last I heard about him was that he was counting the stars over Chennai. Something similar President Regan, ex-, of course, is supposed to be doing in the USA, if still alive. How could this happen? Frailty, Shakespeare says, thy name is woman. Memory? Nothing more than a mode “emancipated from the order of time and space.” That is how Coleridge runs it down. “You know,” I said to my wife, as I was sitting ensconced in my Dimple chair (I had bought it from Paharganj when Dimple Kapadia was at the peak of her glory and hence the shopkeeper had rightly named it Dimple), “the fellow just refused to recognise me. I know that his news agency has been wound up and he has lost his job. And I also know that he is having financial difficulties. He has sacked his chauffeur. He writes nowhere. No one accepts him. But that does not mean that he should lose his moorings, too.” “About whom are you talking?” my wife asked me. “As if you were not there,” I answered cryptically, “you were a witness to all that had happened.” “Witness to what?” “Witness to that man’s behaviour in the India International Centre.” “When did you go there?” When did I go to the IIC? The woman had gone with me. On the way, she had all along been cautioning me to drive the car carefully. Madness on the roads had increased and there was no knowing when one might get involved in an accident. Death does not warn you before it descends on you. “Which car?” she asked. “Our own,” I answered courageously. “That car,” said she, “you had sold out two years ago. The battery had gone down. Besides, your licence had expired. And I do not remember when the two of us visited the India International Centre last. Certainly it was not in the recent past.” |
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THE TRIBUNE INTERVIEW In 1991, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, honoured him with their highest award of the Honorary Fellowship of the college. Prof Wig is the only psychiatrist from India to be thus honoured. In 1997 Dr Wig was designated as Professor Emeritus, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh. Dr Wig’s name is regularly listed in “India Who is Who” since 1974. Prof Wig started the Department of Psychiatry at the PGI, Chandigarh, in 1963. In a few years, this became one of the leading centres of psychiatry in India. In 1976, the department got international recognition as the WHO collaborating centre for training and research in mental health. Among his various research studies, Prof Wig will be particularly remembered for his work in community mental health in the villages of Raipur Rani block in Haryana, which became a model of the primary mental health care programme in India and in many other countries. In 1980, Dr Wig moved to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, as Professor and Head of the department. In 1984, he joined the World Health Organisation as the Regional Adviser, Mental Health, and remained in Alexandria, Egypt, till 1992. In this capacity, he was responsible for developing mental health programmes in 22 countries, from Pakistan to Morocco in West Asia and North Africa. Dr Wig is a leading figure in international psychiatry. He has published over 250 scientific papers in different journals and books. He has won many national and international awards. He is currently a member of the WHO advisory panel on mental health. He has travelled widely to many parts of the world. After his retirement, he has settled in Panchkula. He is happily married and has two sons. He continues to be active in clinical service, teaching and voluntary social service activities. Psychiatry is a not very popular in the medical profession. Why did you join it? This is true. A few decades ago when I decided to adopt psychiatry as a profession, it was not very popular among young medical graduates. Many of my friends tried to dissuade me. The general perception was that since psychiatry involved dealing with mentally ill patients, the doctor treating them too ended up becoming mentally unbalanced sooner or later. I became a psychiatrist because I found it very fascinating. I always wanted to reach below the symptoms to know what is causing them. I am very happy that I chose psychiatry over other disciplines. I am also happy to report that the general attitude towards psychiatry has also undergone a change. Some of the brightest and most promising medical students are now opting for psychiatry as a subject. How important is mental health? The old thinking about mental health is changing. It is no longer a peripheral problem. A WHO study conducted in 2001 has shown that mental ailments have assumed an epidemic proportions. The study revealed that roughly one in four persons in the world will get a psychiatry problem during his or her lifetime. One of the most rapidly increasing diseases is depression. By 2020, depression will become the most rampant ailment after heart disease. The disease pattern is changing. When I was studying 40 years ago, the average life span of an Indian was just 30 years. Now it is 60. Infectious diseases which once gripped the mankind are receding. Their place has been taken by non-communicable diseases like cancer, blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes. Now mental diseases are also coming to the fore. Also spreading are the related problems of alcohol and drug abuse. New research is also taking place such fields as gnomes, genetics which has shown that mental diseases are like any other disease and can be treated. Mentally ill patients face a lot problems. Society at large looks down upon them. Even their own family members neglect them and discriminate against them. What is being done to combat this problem? This is true. One of the biggest problems we face is the stigma, prejudice and discrimination against mental illness. People try to hide mental ailments. Families try to keep their mentally ill members out of public gaze. In olden times, people used to hide the fact if they or anyone in the family was suffering from diseases like TB and leprosy. But all that has changed. People are now more open about these diseases. The stigma attached to these diseases is now gone and the patients are getting treatment and going about their chores in a normal fashion. I am actively involved in the fight against stigma on mental illness. The World Psychiatrists Association has formed a five-man steering committee, of which I am a member, to run an anti-stigma programme in India. It is a very important issue. What is the state of mental institutions in Punjab? The mental hospital at Amritsar was in bad shape about five years ago. Some time ago, the state government formed a two-member committee of which I was also a member to suggest ways and means of improving it. We made certain recommendations which are now being implemented. I hope things will improve. Mental hospitals, if kept in isolation, will lead to corruption and neglect. If they are thrown open to NGOs, human rights activists and others, things will be all right. The new thinking is not to turn them into mental lock-ups where patients are put away behind closed doors. I feel that every district hospital should have a few beds for psychiatric patients which will make it much easy to treat them. A number of suicides have taken place in Chandigarh in the recent days. What do you make of this trend? This is indicative of the rising graph of mental ailments not only in the city but the whole country. Some time ago, the frequency of suicides in the country was recorded at six suicides per lakh of population. Now it has increased to 10 suicides per lakh of population. In states like Kerala, it is as high as 20 suicides per lakh of population. What has been the impact of the Mental Health Act adopted by the Government of India? The Mental Health Act was enacted in 1987 and became operational after a couple of years. It relates to the administration and maintenance of mental institutions in the country. Incidentally, the judiciary too has been very proactive in this field and has ruled that a mentally ill patient should not be locked up in a jail just because he is mentally ill. |
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‘Why did you do this to us?’ Baghdad: The waiter in this small hotel by the Tigris has been kind to me, finding me tea when there is none and a bowl of soup after it is all gone. He is a dignified man, 53, once an engineer, with a trim moustache, wire eyeglasses and a gentle manner. It is not easy in the hotel, packed with journalists, peace activists, homeless Iraqi families, working without electricity, walking miles to work and facing a complete body search by US Marines each time he comes to work or leaves. Early Thursday morning he looks stricken and I ask him what is wrong. “My country,” he says, “it has been destroyed. It is no more.” Perhaps, perhaps not. If you drive around Baghdad in any direction, you realise that terrible final indignity of anarchy was more damaging than the bombing. Hospitals, museums, shops and homes have been looted. If the looters took nothing, they destroyed anything else they found, mindlessly tearing apart both the history of one of the first great civilisations on the earth and the history of individuals families. In the litter of looting you persistently find family photos, a child’s toy, a music school’s violin, a family antique. Animals, some family pets, run wild throughout the city, crazed by fear and hunger. Along the Tigris banks at night packs of literally dozens of dogs race crazily about, howling for hours in a search for food. Others find food in cemeteries, angrily growling at interlopers who come to search gravestones. As late as Tuesday, human bodies were still unburied on downtown streets. Streets are literally awash with raw sewage and garbage quickly attacked at night by rats. Until late this week thousands of workers in different jobs here were afraid to come to work so nothing is cleaned, little is washed; if it is it was washed with dirty water. Insects abound, crawling over the garbage and up the walls of houses. Water certainly is vital. Thousands of families having been drawing their water from outside pipes and not all of it is potable. By Wednesday night several grids in central Baghdad had light but much of the city seen from the 16th floor of one hotel was dark. Medical services are crippled, not only in the near future but in the longer term. On the immediate level there is no electricity. Looters stripped several major hospitals, and there is no clean water — a fundamental element in medical care. Persistently people ask an American reporter: why did you come and do this to us?
IANS |
Whenever I see Him, I sing His praises, And then I His slave, attain peace and bliss. On meeting my Master, I merge in Melody Divine. — Sant Namadeva, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Page 656 |
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Dr N. N. Wig , who has been honoured with the Dr V.N. Bagadia Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bombay Psychiatric Society for Promotion of Mental Health, is among the foremost psychiatrists of India today. He had his education at Medical College, Lucknow, where he obtained his MBBS and MD (Medicine). He also holds a double diploma in psychological medicine - one from England and one from Scotland. He is a Fellow of India’s prestigious National Academy of Medical Science. In addition, he is a Fellow of the Indian Psychiatric Society and the American Psychiatric Association.