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Wednesday,
May 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pleasantries
and rhetoric Gender
divide User(-friendly)
charges |
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System
out of sync with reality
The
story of an imported watch
This tree on the Government Museum road in Sector 10 reflects the quantum of damage being inflicted by the deadly mealy bugs, which have been feeding on Chandigarh’s green cover for the third year in a row.
— A Tribune photo
If
Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
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Pleasantries and rhetoric There is plenty of good news in the context of the thaw in India-Pakistan relations. Ever since Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee extended the hand of friendship to Pakistan, during his visit to Srinagar, neither side has tried to spoil the mood, as it were, before the real partying begins. The hostile reaction of the Togadias on either side of the border should be ignored. At the official level both sides are making the right moves. Pakistan is making certain noises to attract the attention of the global community. Who would not be impressed by the seemingly generous offer from President Pervez Musharraf for a no-war pact followed by the destruction of the nuclear arsenal by India and Pakistan? But that is old hat and ignores India's position on the issue. India believes in improved regional cooperation by giving SAARC more economic teeth. It has all along resisted global pressure for signing the treaties, that restrict the use of nuclear weapons, by demanding a level playing field for all nations. The Indian leadership too could have thrown in a heavy dose of rhetoric in the overtures that have revived the prospects of normalisation of relations with Pakistan. As far as Pakistan is concerned, its leadership cannot avoid playing to the gallery given the country's ties with China and the post-9/11 arrangement with the US. What is significant is the general mood on both sides. The initiative of Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to convene an all-party meeting for discussing the Indian offer of open talks should help prepare the ground for a larger diplomatic engagement by both sides. India is prepared to hold wide-ranging talks on issues that form the basis of the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore process. However, Mr Vajpayee cannot afford to be as flamboyant as General Musharraf. He has to take note of domestic concerns and local sensitivities while discussing the contours of the possible roadmap for lasting peace in the subcontinent. It is important that he puts in place a well-crafted agenda for a possible summit-level discussion at a future date. The immediate need is to normalise relations between the two countries. It means appointment of High Commissioners and opening up of air and rail routes for facilitating people-to-people contact as a crucial first step for the journey to the top. US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is currently in Pakistan and will visit India on May 9, followed by a face-to-face between External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Moscow on May 14. In between National Security Adviser Brajesh Misra will visit Washington for talks with US officials on a range of issues having a bearing on regional security. These interactions should not take the focus away from the genuine gesture that was made by Mr Vajpayee during his visit to Srinagar last month. |
Gender divide It is a paradox that while most MPs swear by providing dignified space to women in public life, they hum and haw when it comes to taking concrete action. That is why the Women’s Reservation Bill has been a non-starter ever since it was introduced in 1999. It has once again come
centrestage, but so have the old hesitations. Quite expectedly, the government on Tuesday agreed to defer its tabling in the Lok
Sabha. With the Shiva Sena and a section of the Samata Party, two constituents of the ruling National Democratic Alliance, themselves opposing it, there is little hope for a smooth passage. From among the opposition parties, the Samajwadi Party, which is one of the strongest opponents of the Bill, has softened its stand only to the extent that it has come up with an alternative proposal to make it mandatory for political parties to select a predetermined minimum percentage of women candidates for Lok Sabha and Assembly seats. That can be a clever ploy, with the party bosses choosing women candidates in constituencies where their chances of winning are minimal. This way, they can fulfil the conditions on paper, without yielding any seats to women in practice. The fact of the matter is that although the
BJP, the Congress, the Left parties, the AIADMK and the DMK, the Telugu Desam Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are all in support of reservation for women, there is a clear gender divide on the matter among their MPs. Male MPs want to say one thing and do quite the opposite. The end result is that in spite of the fact that there are over 275 million women voters in the country, less than 10 per cent of our Lok Sabha MPs are women. This gender discrimination manifests itself in various ways. Even where women do get elected, an attempt is made to deprive them of the constitutional benefits they are entitled to. It is this mindset which has to change before any real progress can be made. What the male members have to realise is that the economic and social empowerment of women is in their own interest as well. If women continue to lag behind, they will be a drag on the development in every field. Several parties in Germany, Finland, Sweden and Denmark have made a commitment to give 50 per cent representation to women in the party structures as well as in the legislatures. It is a crying shame that in India, even 33 per cent reservation is being balked at. |
| User(-friendly) charges The Punjab Government has raised the user charges for
water and sewerage in all cities and towns having a municipal
corporation or a municipal council. For the next five years these
charges will stay unchanged. The water tariff hike is obviously to
boost the depleting resources of the civic bodies, which deteriorated
after the ill-planned withdrawal and subsequent restoration of octroi.
The city-dwellers will resent the hike, but they won’t resist or
resort to any protest as most understand the precarious financial
position of the municipalities. But what they expect in return from
the municipal corporations and councils is a definite improvement in
the civic amenities, particularly in the chaotic state of water
supply. Water supply is often untimely and inadequate with frequent
disruptions and leakages. The quality of drinking water also needs
better monitoring as the subsoil water is getting increasingly
polluted. The sewerage in most towns either does not work or is in so
bad a state that a little rain is enough to throw it out of gear.
Standing rainwater is a common sight in Punjab’s cities and towns,
breeding mosquitoes and diseases, and presenting an ugly sight.
Equally common is the water wastage by residents. If the increased
water tariff acts as some sort of check on water mismanagement, it is
welcome. Using the weapon of “user charges” to raise revenue or
discourage the residents from misusing services like water and
electricity is understandable, but to apply the same logic to the
services like health and education is unfair. Therefore, the Himachal
Government’s decision to withdraw the “user charges” on the
health services, levied by the previous BJP government, is
commendable, at least, for two reasons. One, the poor residents of the
hill state, who stand to benefit from the lower charges in hospitals,
do not have the paying capacity to make use of the basic health
services. Two, the state government cannot run away from its
responsibility of providing the citizens with health and education
facilities at affordable rates. Ways and means can be found to raise
resources for updating medical technology and skills. User charges,
for instance, can be levied on those who need personalised, special
treatment, something for which a great many people turn to private
hospitals and willingly pay hefty charges. At the same time, the
governments must invest more in the health and education sectors, and
put an end to state profligacy wherever possible. |
System out of sync with reality The Malimath Committee on the criminal justice system has submitted its report to the Union Government. It has made comprehensive recommendations to streamline the system. Some of these like a new Police Act, trial of those criminals sentenced for three years or less by magistrates, permanent criminal Benches at the Supreme Court and the High Courts to be presided over by special judges, and legislation to protect witnesses are all well-intended. Even though the measures suggested are expected to quicken the pace of justice and help lakhs of litigants, their implementation does not seem to be simplistic. Clearly, an effort of this nature and volume will have to be a holistic exercise. These include formulating changes in the law, streamlining the procedures and developing new techniques for effective management of the crime problem. Significantly, the Malimath Committee has examined the various constitutional provisions relating to the criminal jurisprudence as also whether the Criminal Procedure Code, the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Evidence Act are required to be altered in tune with the changing needs and challenges. Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has assured that the Union Government will implement the report. However, if we look at the fate of the innumerable reports over the years, doubts are bound to be raised whether the Union Government will pursue the latest one to its logical conclusion. The primary objective of the criminal justice system is to ensure the protection of life and property of the citizens as also to ensure law and order so that individual, institutional and social harmony and development can be achieved. Viewed in this perspective, the success of the system depends on the actual functioning of the various agencies associated with it. Crime prevention and control can be broadly classified into four stages: the enactment of suitable laws by the legislature, the role of the police, the criminal trial by the Bench and the Bar to determine the question of guilt or innocence of those booked by the police, and the treatment of the guilty by the jail and probation officials. As each of the four stages is looked after by different agencies, an overview of the system as a whole may appear to be difficult. However, all the four are so inextricably intertwined that the successful working of one stage is entirely dependent on that of the other three. Studies by experts at home and abroad suggest indifferent results in the criminal justice administration because of the imperfect functioning of the actors in all the four stages. Interestingly, American authors Jerome H. Skolnick and David H. Baylay in their book “The Blue Line”, suggest that some portion of the time and resources available with the police, for instance, should be transferred to the task of winning the confidence and goodwill of the common people. This, they feel, will have a major impact on the crime situation. For this purpose, they say, what is required is an attitudinal change and a shift in emphasis, and not large-scale funding of the police force by the government. However, so deep is the malaise that a simple solution cannot work. Consider the mess in the police administration. The command structure at the three most crucial levels — the Director-General of Police, the Superintendent of Police and the Station House Officer — is in total disarray. The effect of such disruption in the command structure can be seen in the low level of discipline of the force, the indifferent registration of cases at police stations, the poor quality of investigation and the mounting grievances against the conduct of the police and corruption. Related to this is the existing system of police chiefs which often leads to the placement of persons who are not known for professionalism, integrity and administrative acumen. Senior IAS and IPS officers admit in confidence that thoughtless and undue emphasis on crime statistics has resulted in indiscriminate registration of cases under minor sections of the law. These malpractices have led to an erosion of people’s faith in the system inasmuch as policemen are regarded more as appendages of the ruling party at the Centre and in the states than being the protectors of the life and property of the common people. Added to this is the general failure of the prosecution machinery and the huge backlog of cases under trial. These have led to a deterioration in the crime situation and a growing tendency among the people of taking the law into their own hands for instant justice. The Malimath Committee has gone into these maladies in greater detail and given salutary recommendations. For instance, it has suggested the recasting of the 1861 Police Act, which is anachronistic and was meant for subserving the interests of the colonial rulers, not for a functioning democracy like ours. Similarly, it wants the separation of the investigation machinery from the law and order wing as also the need to insulate it from police and extraneous influences. In this context, it has endorsed the National Police Commission’s recommendations and has called for a new Police Act. But the problem is that the NPC report prepared by a distinguished ICS officer and former West Bengal Governor, Dharma Vira, has been gathering dust at South Block for well over two decades. There seems to be no political will to implement the same. Why is the Centre dragging its feet on this? Is it afraid of the benefits that will accrue to the people from the report? There is no technical or constitutional problem in enacting a new Police Act. This can be straightaway passed by Parliament and then adopted by the states as has been the case with many pieces of Central legislation even on subjects enumerated in the State List. The imperatives for reforming the criminal justice system cannot be overstressed. In fact, they have assumed a sense of urgency and brook no delay. However, reforms should be comprehensive and not ad hoc or half-hearted in approach. The world is witnessing social, political and economic changes of far-reaching dimensions. India has been a victim of terrorism for a long time. It has been facing cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, aided and abetted by Pakistan. There are also internal problems in the Northeast, gang wars and an alarming rise in the incidence of crime in many states. A federal law to tackle organised crime and violence has become a necessity, though it is opposed by some Chief Ministers for reasons best known to them. Security commissions at the Centre and in the states — as suggested by the Dharma Vira and the Malimath committees — are also the need of the hour to prevent custodial deaths and promote human rights. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had demonstrated its political will when it amended the Civil Procedure Code last year, without buckling down under pressure by the powerful lawyers’ lobby, to bring justice to the doorsteps of the people and restore their confidence in the system. The action taken in this regard, mainly because of the personal initiative of Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley, was hailed by various sections. Will the Centre demonstrate the same political will now in implementing the Malimath Committee report? Or will the report become a part of the long list of those which are yet to see the light of the day? |
The story of an imported watch “Have I been sitting so late in the office?” remarked the Additional Inspector General of Police with disbelief as he looked at my watch, then his own and mine again. His showed 6 in the evening, and mine, 9. He looked out of the window to get a clue; darkness had descended, it being the winter month of December (1975), and he couldn’t really figure out anything. The indomitable Addl. IG, J.S. Bawa, was a diligent and conscientious officer, who believed in disposing of the day’s work before he called it a day, and who kept his SPs — I being one of them — waiting till he himself sat in the office. “No sir”, I reassured him, “it’s only 6 right now”. “Mine is an imported watch and it gains four hours every day!” I added. And thereby hung a tale. We, a group of IPS probationers of the 1969 batch, under training at the National Police Academy, then at Mount Abu, chanced to visit Bombay in August, 1970, during the “Bharat darshan” tour. A visit to that city was incomplete without a trip to the foreign goods market near Flora Fountain. Those were not the days of the liberalised economy, and the craze for the imported stuff among Indians was great, indeed. One of us purchased a Yashika camera; another a Seiko watch. I couldn’t, however, fancy any item for myself. As we were about to leave, a thick-set fellow accosted me: “Sir, you haven’t purchased anything. Here is a Seiko watch for you; the first piece from a ship just now docked in the port. Dirt-cheap; Rs 500 only.” I declined the offer, he kept following us and kept lowering the price till he brought it down to Rs 300. “No, I don’t want it,” I repeated disdainfully. “How much would you bargain for?” he demanded to know. I thought Rs 100 would finally put him off. “Rs 100,” I almost rebuffed him. “Alright, sir,” he yielded. “You are the first customer of the day; I will accept it.” I was trapped. I took the watch. The dial proudly proclaimed it to be a Seiko watch with 22 jewels. In the evening, we boarded a train for Bangalore. We discussed our proud possessions before falling off to sleep. Next morning as I woke up in the train, I noticed that my watch had stopped ticking. I wound it but the hands won’t move. My friend’s watch, on the other hand, was working alright. My face fell. In Bangalore, after the day’s work was over, I visited a watch-repair shop. The man on the job ripped it open, looked inside cursorily and enquired: “Where did you get it from?” “It is an imported watch. I purchased it only the other day,” I declared with a sense of injured innocence. “Imported it is, indeed,” he smiled. “Such watches are not made in this country. It’s all mechanical; no jewels,” he elucidated. “Can you fix it?” I asked him. “Yes, for Rs 10. I will replace the broken spring. But no guarantee that it would work.” I got the watch repaired, and it worked. Only that it gained four hours every day! I continued using the watch, and developed a mental ability to correlate the correct time with that shown by the watch. In 1976, I got married and was presented with an HMT watch. “What shall you do now with your imported watch, sir?” my driver asked me. “Why? I shall throw it away,” I said. “No, sir; please give it to me. I shall sell it off,” he implored. I passed it on to him. Next day, he came with a bouncing gait and announced: “Sir, I have sold the watch for the amount you purchased it.” He gave me 10 ten-rupee notes. I returned him one. “Keep it. This is your reward,” I said to him.
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UT’s green cover under threat from pest The ambitious ‘green action plan’ launched in the city by the outgoing Punjab Governor and UT Administrator, Lt Gen J.F.R. Jacob (retd), may remain just a plan if the ground situation is not assessed. For the third consecutive year, thousands of trees along various stretches in Chandigarh are under a fatal attack from the dangerous mealy bugs which, until last year, were primarily infesting trees along roadsides and in green belts and gardens. Horticulture experts do not rule out the attack of pests on trees in Punjab and Haryana and other regions as well. In Chandigarh the pests began with attacking sliver oaks and ficus benjaminias, apart from some fruit trees, last year, but this time they are feeding on about 70 species of trees and are assuming an epidemic form. They are also infesting trees and shrubs in the open spaces of homes, especially in Sectors 9, 10, 16, 18 and 27. Whereas on earlier occasions these pests were concentrated around the tree base, they now spread all over the trees, mainly around its top. They are also more scattered and can be easily spotted all over the tracks in the Rose Garden in Sector 16 and also on the walls at the entrance and the exit to the garden. Fatter in size, they are attacking the trees from the top. The attack of mango mealy bugs, as they are called, came to light about two years back when the UT Administration had, reportedly, set up a task force to prevent their multiplication. Constituted under Lt Gen Baljit Singh (retd), an ardent tree lover, the force also has horticulturist Dr Satish Narula and Mr Raghbir Singh of the Horticulture Department as members. Dr Narula informed The Tribune that the UT Administration was aware of the sensitivity of the matter and the task force was in the process of identifying areas of the bug’s concentration. Admitting that the bug can kill the trees by sucking the sap, he said that polythenes will be wrapped around the trees to prevent their upward movement. In fact, tree number 82 in Sector 9 was even used for this demonstration some days back. Millions of bugs (each less than 1 mm in size) were found dead at the base of the tree. Dr Narula suggested that by adopting this method, the growth of the bugs could be checked. “Polythenes will be wrapped around trees in November because that is the time the bugs will come down to lay eggs,” said the horticulturist. This apart, a survey conducted by The Tribune shows that the bugs are back in full form. In fact, Lt Gen Baljit Singh (retd), who favours the biological destruction of the bug, had earlier contacted Dr Kumar Ghorpade, an expert entomologist based in Bangalore, to obtain his views on the measures necessary to destroy the bug. He said all the papers in this regard had been passed on to the Governor’s office in March this year, along with a warning that the bugs would return if control measures were not taken immediately. Lt Gen Baljit Singh (retd) is yet to get a reply from the Governor’s office. Meanwhile, pests are multiplying and are causing irreparable damage to the city’s green cover by sucking the sap of the trees and robbing them of their nutrients. About 15 trees have already died over the past one year, informs Lt Gen Singh, who has been closely watching the green cover. The main areas of concentration of the pest are: Rose Garden, especially the area near the Punjab Red Cross Bhavan building; the green stretch from Sector 22 to the Secretariat, running through Shanti Kunj and a clump of trees opposite the Government Museum complex in Sector 10. The pest has also begun entering homes in Sectors 16, 18 and 27. In Lt Gen Singh’s home in Sector 16, the pest has attacked almost all trees. About two years back, the Horticulture Wing had to spray the entire Sector 18 area, where trees had been attacked by the bug. The movement of the bug over to trees of other descriptions this year is being attributed to a record increase in its numbers.
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All about the mealy bug Mealy bugs are like other bugs sucking insects. The female mealy bug is fleshy and soft bodied and more or less covered with a whitish or yellowish powdery wax, which is sometimes produced into whitish processes on the body making it more conspicuous. Several hundreds of eggs are generally laid in masses hidden under a regular cottony ovisac or amongst loose mass of waxy filaments. The young ones that emerge out of the eggs crawl about, although slowly during their entire life. These bugs are among the most common pests attacking a wide variety of plants — the perennials, like some of the fruit and ornamental plants and the short-lived plants like vegetable crops and even cereals. The most common regions that are infested in a plant are the leaves and tender twigs. They also attack the fruits, flowers and even hardier stems. There are bugs that infest even the root region of the plants within the soil. They injure the plant by constantly sucking sap, as a result of which tender twigs and leaves are deformed and stunted in growth. Such injury, especially in short-lived vegetable and ornamental plants will seriously affect the growth and yield of the crop. Besides, their excrete attracts ants and sooty mould, a fungus, making the plants appear ugly. In case of heavy and extensive deposit of the sooty mould, the photosynthetic activity of the plant may be adversely affected resulting in leaf fall and ultimate death of the plant. The bug’s mating season falls during mid-summers. The female dies after mating. Eggs remain in the soil for months together. Nymphs start making an appearance in December and keep coming out till March. The eggs are laid towards the base of the trees so that the nymphs can crawl up the trees with ease. They reach for softer portions of the tree and start sucking the sap.
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How to control it The mealy bug can be destroyed in two ways: 1) Through the chemical route: This must be resorted to in order that growth of the pest is immediately arrested. The favoured egg-laying areas need to be discovered. Since the gestation period is long, the sites can be dug up and impregnated with chemicals. There is only one generation of the mealy bug. If the life cycle is broken, they will diminish in numbers. Dr Narula, suggests methyl parathion sprays as an effective measure for its control and destruction. The powder of methyl parathion is also very effective if sprayed around the tree in November when the nymphs of mealy bugs are beginning to appear and crawl up the tree. Towards the end of November, a polythene band of one foot width should be tied around the main stem. The slippery band will not allow the nymphs to crawl up. This measure has been approved by expert at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, and will shortly be implemented in Chandigarh. (2) Through the biological route: The chemical route is dangerous and does not ensure a complete elimination of pests (the malaria mosquito had sprung back). Experts suggest that the pest should be destroyed biologically. This can be done with the help of predators. A number of predators of the mealy bug have been identified by those working on different species of mealy bugs. Generally, coccinellids or the ladybird beetles are amongst the most common predators of mealy bugs. There are also others like the lycaenid butterfly, the flies and species of green lacewings which at time become numerous and exercise a good controlling influence along with other groups of predators. |
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is a lyrical first novel which established Jon McGregor, 26, as a serious new writer and was granted the added imprimatur of a place on last year’s Man Booker Prize long list. There are echoes of Dylan Thomas in the opening chapter, the auditory anatomy of a northern English city at night; traffic, air conditioners, road sweepers, lorries reversing, `sung sirens, sliding through the streets, streaking blue light from distress to distress’, `the rippled roll of shutters’. This urban overture delights in the play and music of language to describe, gorgeously, unlovely details of industrial skylines and streets, and sets the tone for the story (more correctly, stories) that follows. Though this level of poetry is tempered by the idiomatic in the following chapters, the principle of finding wonder in the mundane is the essence of the novel. A first-person narrative, that of a young woman, recalls a late-summer day in 1997, a day on which a tragedy shook her sleepy street in that northern city. Alternating with these chapters is the slow accumulation of that day in each of the houses in that street, leading to the event that is revealed only in the final chapter. Through the windows of these once-grand houses, McGregor points his authorial lens just as the enigmatic boy at number 18 collects Polaroids of the street’s inhabitants; in one house, an old man tries to hide his terminal illness from his wife to spare her pain; in another, a group of students prepares to leave a life of communal safety for an uncertain adult future; in each of the others, small dramas of family life are being played out, observed with beautiful exactness. Dialogue is spare but always word-perfect; the unremarkable speech of ordinary people rendered poetic. If there is a flaw in this exceptionally accomplished debut, it is that the plot is so narrowly focused that the impression left is curiously evanescent.
The Guardian |
A time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. — John 16:2-3 In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. —John 16:33 There is more happiness in giving than in receiving. —Acts 20:35 Do not say, “I am too young,” for you shall go to all to whom I send you. — Jermiah 1:7 |
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