Six months ago, the CSE had declared that much of the bottled mineral water sold in the country was unfit for drinking because it had 36 times the amount of pesticides residues as allowed by the European Union. The nation shares the CSE’s lament that while bottled water at least needs mandatory certification, there are no such norms or standards for soft drinks. Such neglect of public health is indeed shocking. And this is not the first time that the country has been caught napping. Many countries have rejected Indian wheat and other grains because these contained excessive percentage of pesticides or rat droppings. But instead of setting things right, Indian agencies have reacted with self-righteous indignation accusing these countries of bias propagated by interested lobbies. That is why the quality of many Indian goods is not what it ought to be to find acceptability in international market.

This is a trade that has been going on for long. Once such stories fade out of public memory, it is business as usual. It is also a telling comment on the apathy of the government machinery in cracking down on slave traders. It comes as no surprise that many such persons are allegedly ‘employed’ by those who are supposed to be checking such practices, often on ‘slave’ wages. Sexual exploitation is one of the many kinds of torture such individuals face because of their sin of being poor. While the government needs to crack down on such practices, it should also ensure better schooling and basic infrastructure in tribal areas.

On the domestic front Mr Vajpayee had electrified the country by slapping down the feisty and arrogant Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ms Mayawati, who had overreached herself and overplayed her hand. She had got used to insulting and humiliating her BJP coalition partners in the key state and getting away with it which evidently encouraged her into believing that her peremptory demand for the dismissal of the Union Tourism and Culture Minister, Mr Jagmohan, would also be accepted. But she was in for a shock. Atalji told her where she got off and she beat a hasty retreat. Almost everyone, barring her loyal followers, applauded him.

And then, as happens so often in this land of countless paradoxes and unending contradictions, the situation suddenly changed. The BJP, as the core of the ruling NDA coalition in New Delhi, came under heavy fire and for good reasons. One of these was the culpability of the BJP ministry in Gujarat for the Best Bakery case that has turned out to be one of the worst instances of miscarriage of justice. The public’s ire was both intense and understandable because this case related to arguably the most gruesome of communal slaughters last year following the outrageous Godhra killings in a burnt down railway compartment. All the accused in the Bakery case were acquitted because investigations had been botched up by the state administration, headed by Mr Narendra Modi whose shoddy record is an open book.

More painfully, it soon became evident that the principal witnesses had turned hostile during the hearing of the case under mortal fear but were prepared to tell the truth if a retrial was ordered, preferably outside Gujarat. Since neither the state government nor the BJP’s leadership showed any signs of reacting to the demand for a fresh trial, the National Human Rights Commission, headed by a former Chief Justice of India, Mr A.S. Anand, took the initiative to do something about the outrage. It filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court praying that not only should the Best Bakery case be tried afresh in a court in some other state but also four other comparable and ongoing trials should be transferred outside Gujarat.

The NHRC’s move is doubtless unprecedented. But then so are the horrifying features and facets of the Best Bakery case that grievously erode the integrity and credibility of the entire judicial system in this country. The issue can and should best be left to the judgement of the apex court. But that is not the BJP’s way of doing things. Its government in Gujarat is trying to bypass the NHRC’s move by filing an appeal against the acquittals in the high court at Ahmedabad. The BJP’s Central leaders have been busy denouncing Justice Anand and the commission he heads, calling them “anti-Hindu”.

The party’s usually voluble president, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, has accused the country’s former Chief Justice for “maligning” Gujarat. Is he planning to file a defamation suit against Justice Anand and other members of the NHRC?

As if this was not enough, the Central Government also besmirched itself because of the way the CBI, the country’s premier investigative agency, on its own or under political pressure, has diluted the charges against the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and other BJP leaders. What lends this matter great importance is that the charges relate to deplorable demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya more than a decade ago.

There is no doubt that the authorities in New Delhi, in partnership with the Mayawati ministry in Lucknow, have managed to confuse the issue egregiously. This has enabled Mr Arun Jaitley, the Vajpayee government’s most articulate and clever debater, to draw a number of red herrings across the trail and to argue that there never was a conspiracy charge against Mr Advani and other BJP bigwigs. He is wrong. A careful reading of the record establishes that the conspiracy charge, dropped from an earlier charge-sheet for technical and “curable” reasons, was levelled clearly and lawfully in 1997 and quietly dropped by the CBI after the BJP-led coalition came to power in New Delhi in March 1998.

It is altogether typical that this issue led to the disruption of Parliament’s proceeding for two days running and the government agreed to a discussion on the subject only after two precious days were lost in noise, tumult and discord.

On top of all this Mr Vajpayee chose to dent his own normally burnished image by his speech at the funeral of Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans. The occasion was surely emotive and the Prime Minister was evidently carried away by his oratorical skills. Consequently, he gave the impression that the deceased Mahant’s “last wish”, the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya at the disputed site, had become the Prime Minister’s priority, too. Atalji’s later flip-flop, reaffirming that there had been no change in his government’s policy on Ayodhya, has made no difference to the public’s adverse reaction.

What the CPM leader, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, along with other Opposition leaders, has said about Mr Vajpayee may sound harsh. But the fact is that even the Prime Minister’s admirers are dismayed by his proclivity to tailor his rhetoric to the demands of his audiences, not to the merits of the issue. For instance, after the Gujarat riots, during which he was avowedly inclined to ease out Mr Modi, he changed his mind and delivered a speech on a Goa beach that could have delighted Mr Pravin Togadia.

One caustic comment from someone who usually treats Atalji with respect is that the Prime Minister has confirmed on the banks of the Saryu what two years ago he had claimed in Staten Island in the US — that he is essentially “a swayamsevak”. The furore over the Best Bakery case, the CBI’s misuse and the Prime Minister’s Ayodhya speech will not go away.

It is against this backdrop that the BJP, in the person of Mr Advani, has come out heavily in favour of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. This is a vast subject that has to be discussed separately. But here two points must be made briefly.

First, that elections to the Lok Sabha and all state assemblies — some of which were elected only a few months ago — are not possible except through an amendment of the Constitution that would not be easy to push through. In its anxiety to advance the Lok Sabha elections all that the BJP can do is to synchronise them with the polls to the five state assemblies that are due. There is no way other assemblies can be dissolved. Neither the President nor Parliament nor the Supreme Court would put up with this act of utter illegality.

Secondly — and more importantly — not just the BJP but also all the Opposition parties and indeed the entire political class are guilty of behaving in a crass and craven manner over all the major issues troubling the nation. For instance, none of them is prepared to accept the wholesome recommendation of several commissions and committees that the country should safeguard the CBI’s fairness and impartiality by making it autonomous of political control and yet accountable.

Similarly, to talk of simultaneous polls for Parliament and all state assemblies is an attempt to tinker with the symptoms of a malady, not to attack the underlying disease. The problem is the deplorable tendency of ruling parties to suspend decision-making whenever elections loom ahead in any corner of the country. Why must the Union Government abdicate its responsibility for fear of offending voters in Mizoram or Himachal Pradesh?

In meeting after meeting, Mr Modi spelt out Mr Lyngdoh’s full name and accused him of being a stooge of the Congress. Never before had a CEC been singled out for such vicious attacks. The only other time when this constitutional authority was berated was when Mr T.N. Seshan postponed the polls in Bihar. Irked by the decision, the then Bihar Chief Minister, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, came up with the colourful expression that the elections had become a “Nation versus Seshan” issue.

The brilliant poll strategist that Yadav is, he cashed in on Mr Seshan’s gaffes to laugh all the way to the vote bank. However, the closest that Mr Yadav came to abusing Mr Seshan was when he referred to a canine breed, Alsatian. Mr Seshan could only fret and fume as a disclaimer that he was neither an Alsatian nor had he ever visited Alsatia, the haunt of the law-breakers, would not have served any purpose.

Mr Lyngdoh’s case was different. He was being attacked for no other reason than that his name sounded Christian. Meanwhile, Modi’s references to Mian Musharraf and Christian Lyngdoh were being lapped up by his cadres, some of whom had blood on their hands.

Pushed to the wall, Mr Lyngdoh had to pick up the gauntlet. He did so with a bland statement that he was an atheist and never went to church. Those who have visited Meghalaya even once know only too well that in that state people’s names have little to do with either religion or the meanings they convey. Thus it is not unusual to meet a Miss Clitoris or a Mrs Toilet or a Ms Shabby or a Mr Hitler or a Master Mussolini in downtown Shillong or in Jaintia hills. Such was the fascination for English names at one time that they chose any word from the lexicon they fancied.

Perhaps, Mr Modi was unaware of this trait among those who come from the abode of the clouds. Nonetheless, since Mr Lyngdoh was a non-church goer, who could Mrs Sonia Gandhi have met in the church?

The last time she visited the impressive Gothic-style Cathedral, a stone’s throw from the gold-topped Bangla Sahib Gurdwara, I happened to be there. She had come to lay a wreath on the body of Bishop Alan de Lastic, who died in an accident in Poland where he had gone to worship at the shrine of Black Madonna. As she was returning, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi walked in. They crossed each other in the aisle but not before exchanging a word or two of pleasantries. So whom did Sonia Gandhi meet in the church?

Far from denting Mr Lyngdoh’s image, Mr Modi’s attack only refurbished it as I realised when I visited Kashmir as part of a 35-member team of journalists like Ajit Bhattacharjea and academicians like Balraj Puri, sponsored by the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) to study the elections. On the day of polling in Srinagar, my heart sank when early in the morning we visited some booths along the Dal lake. They wore a deserted look except for the ubiquitous security personnel.

Soon, we drove to Badgam where I witnessed one of the most encouraging scenes I have ever seen in any election. A mela-like situation prevailed in the constituency with hundreds of voters, men and women, young and old, jostling one another in booth after booth.

I accosted an old voter and asked him whether he trusted the fairness of the election process. “Why not, is not Mr Lyngdoh in charge?” he shot back. In distant Kashmir I did not even expect him to know the name of the CEC.

The present focus on CAS seems misplaced for it is out of sync with the available technology today. Soon, hopefully very soon, direct-to-home (DTH) TV is going to become a reality in the country. The gadgetry required for DTH is different from the set-top boxes required for CAS. Clearly, any investment now in these set-top boxes will be wasted once DTH becomes freely available. Therefore, if CAS is indeed operationalised at the present time, the consumer will be burdened with an avoidable expense for short-term use only. It would be better to expedite the DTH option and let the consumer wait for the same. CAS is an outdated option.

There is also a lot of confusion with regard to what the consumer will have to pay under the CAS system. The debate regarding the pricing of packages being offered by telecasters like Star, Zee and Sony etc. is somehow missing the point. Surely, it can be nobody’s argument that the consumer will have to pay for each package. That is simply preposterous and defeats the very purpose of CAS. CAS will be of interest to the consumer only if he has the freedom to choose each TV channel independently and not burdened with packages.

Another area of concern is the hitherto undefined duration of the viewing cycle for purposes of pricing. Would the customer by paying per hour of viewing time for each channel or on a pro rata monthly basis as tariff for services that may or may not be used? Further, would the customer have to predefine the selection of channels to be viewed or have the freedom to make his selection at will directly from the viewing station itself? In case of the former what would be the mechanism for making short-term changes in viewing options? Or would the customer be unable to exercise such an option? Answers to these questions will greatly influence the value estimation of CAS by the customer.

It is not clear as to what would happen if the viewership for a particular channel is relatively small in a particular area. What would be the obligation of the cable operator to provide for these viewers the channels of their choice? Can the cable operator deny facilities to such viewers? CAS would not be attractive unless the interests of such minority viewers are specifically protected.

The present debate is completely silent on the issue of the quality of TV transmission provided by the cable operators. What would be the penalty for poor quality of transmissions and who would be competent to monitor this? This is a serious practical problem faced by many viewers. At present 40 per cent of the channels that are notionally being provided by cable operators cannot be viewed because of faulty signal transmission.

Statistics show that TV business in India today is worth approximately Rs 40,000 crore. It is time to realise that the consumer pays for it all, directly or indirectly. According to one estimate, at present there are 4.2 crore households with cable connections in the country. At an average cable rental of Rs 200 per connection per month the TV viewers pay approximately Rs 10,080 crore annually for their viewing pleasure. About half of this amount reaches the TV companies while the cable operators pocket the other half. Thus, the TV viewers directly pay only about 10 to 15 per cent of the annual revenue generated by the industry. The rest of the money comes from advertising. That may be a good statistical lullaby for the consumer, but the fact is that the cost of advertising is ultimately recovered by the advertisers from the sale of goods to the very same TV viewers. Thus, the entire revenue generated by the TV industry actually comes from the pocket of the poor TV viewer.

On an average, all the pay channels carry advertisements, which occupy at least 40 per cent of the viewing time if not more. As a captive audience, the viewer has no choice but to suffer these advertisements whether he likes it or not. In other words, the viewer gets only 60 per cent of the value for the money he pays for TV viewing! The remaining 40 per cent of the money that he pays only helps to generate revenue of approximately Rs 35,000 crore for the TV industry and many times more for those segments of industry that use the medium for advertising. It seems, therefore, that there is a strong case for the advertising industry actually paying the consumer for viewing telecast! This could be easily done by not charging any rental for the viewing of TV channels that carry advertisements. The viewer should be expected to pay only for those channels that do not carry any advertisements, overt or covert. Since advertisement lay the golden egg, it is unlikely that any of the presently available TV channels would be willing to give up telecasting of advertisements.

Clearly therefore, if the government were to legislate that pay channels cannot carry advertisements, as is indeed the case in many countries, the issue would become simplified and CAS could become meaningful. Otherwise, there is no need for CAS if there are no pay channels free from advertisements on offer! All that is required is to make TV viewing absolutely free of charge!