The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Zahira will get justice
Supreme Court teaches Gujarat rajdharma

ON Friday a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice V. N. Khare assured Zahira and other victims of the communal madness that visited the Best Bakery in Ahmedabad in February last year that they will get justice. The slipshod arguments and the reasons advanced by the Gujarat government for the dismissal of the case by the trial court made the three-Judge Bench use unusual but well-deserved harsh language. Each word the Bench uttered while dismissing the appeal filed by the Gujarat government expressed the anger and anguish of the countless victims of miscarriage of justice, usually caused by indifferent investigation and sloppy presentation of case by the prosecution.

The manner in which witnesses were terrorised into retracting their statements made the Best Bakery the "rarest of rare" case for earning a government the wrath of the Supreme Court. It was directed against those who failed to get justice to the Best Bakery victims of what was the worst carnage in Gujarat. The State government was forced to appear before the Supreme Court because of the legal measures that Zahira, the National Human Rights Commission and several NGOs took for the reopening of the case. The court had a reason to go into a state of rage when counsel for the NHRC pointed out how the Modi government's plea before the High Court did not seek fresh trial in the Best Bakery case despite the trial court pointing out gaping holes in the prosecution's story. The apex court dismissed the government's plea before the High Court as a "complete eyewash".

The apex court said: "What is the rajdharma of the government? You quit if you cannot prosecute the guilty. Democracy does not mean you will not prosecute anyone." Chief Minister Narendra Modi never hid the fixed smirk when Gujarat was burning. It is unlikely that he will hide it at least now to show his disappointment over the Supreme Court's undisguised warning that "we will act if the State keeps silent before the High Court". History occasionally throws up embarrassments like him. The Supreme Court has spoken forcefully in support of the rule of law. But will it make the Gujarat Chief Minister pay heed to the highest court's suggestion that his government should appoint an independent prosecuting agency in the Best Bakery case, the Godhra carnage case and other important post-Godhra riot cases?

No means no
Consensus is against sending troops

FOR a people, nothing is more important than the national interest. It was this consideration that weighed with the Indian leadership when on July 14, it turned down the US request to send troops to Iraq. However, Washington does not seem to have taken India’s “no” for a clear answer if reports coming from the US since then are anything to go by. President George W. Bush is believed to have broached the subject when he telephoned Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee early this week. Though US Assistant Secretary of State Christina B. Rocca has specifically mentioned that her recent visit to New Delhi had nothing to do with the request for troops, the subject did come up in her meetings. This is because the whole world knows that the US is desperate to have a multinational force to police Iraq as its own 1,40,000 troops have been found to be inadequate. Britain has already expressed its inability to increase its troops by not more than a few hundreds. An additional one division of troops is needed for tackling the situation in Iraq.

The US may not yet be ruing the day it decided to overthrow the Saddam regime but it is definitely learning that it is tough to normalise life in the war-ravaged country. The prospect of the US losing more troops in peacekeeping than in the invasion stares the super power in the face. All its expectations of a massive upsurge in favour of the “liberators” have been proved wrong. The US troops are already under strain mainly due to the harsh weather conditions and the danger lurking behind and in front of them. It is against this backdrop that the Americans have been looking for troops, which can provide their own troops some relief. For one reason or another, all the countries it approached have been turning down the request. This has forced the US to knock on the doors of the Security Council with a draft proposal which many of its members find does not measure up to their expectations.

While it is for the US to modify the resolution and give the UN its rightful role in Iraq, countries like India can only wait and watch the situation. The national consensus is definitely against sending troops to Iraq because they will be seen as an appendage of the occupying Anglo-American forces. It will be difficult for the Vajpayee government to go against the national mood, particularly in an election year.

Our shabby airports
Privatisation may turn them around

THOSE who have been to several countries are unanimous about one thing: the Indian airports are more suited for bus services. At a time when many a developing country can boast of modern airports, those at our metropolises like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai continue to belong to the antique category. Leave alone conforming to international standards, most of them lack even basic amenities that an air traveller routinely demands. First impression is the last impression and the Indian airports present a very pathetic picture of what the country is all about. The airports in smaller towns are in worse shape. The government's in-principle approval to modernise those at Delhi and Mumbai through the privatisation route has not come a day too soon. Rather, it should have come many years earlier. The Indian airports are going to seed not only because of the notorious official apathy. Restructuring each one of them requires an investment of more than Rs 2,000 crore, the kind of money that the government is just not in a position to put in. Under such circumstances, privatisation is perhaps the only remedy. The government will offload 74 per cent of its stake and bring in professional organisations that already run leading international airports. It is expecting several bids because the combined profit of the two airports before tax happens to be more than Rs 270 crore.

But government optimism will translate into worthwhile action only if the terms and conditions are attractive and rational. There are strong lobbies at work which scuttle every attempt at privatisation. These will have to be kept firmly at bay if the whole move is to go beyond the willingness stage. One major sticking point will be the fate of the staff at the airports.

Another bogey that is usually raised in such cases is that of the security aspect. It will be wrong to presume that privatisation will compromise it any way. Despite privatisation, air traffic control and security will stay in government hands. Airports generate sufficient funds the world over because each and every service is paid for. Professional management can transform them into efficient public services.

Thought for the day

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.

— William Hazlitt

OPINION

One rank, one pension: Why the delay?
Neglect of men in uniform continues
by Maj-Gen Himmat Singh Gill (retd)

AT Anandpur Sahib in 1999 at the Khalsa celebrations, Defence Minister George Fernandes had announced that within a few weeks the long-pending “one rank, one pension” (OROP) scheme would be implemented. Little has happened thereafter on this front.

The reason being trotted out by the government is that its implementation will bring in its wake a terrible drain on the exchequer, as the civilian employees too may demand a similar concession. In reply to this, all one can say is that the government should also see whether OROP should be made applicable to the civil central cadres. If that be the case, then the government must arrange finances for the purpose.

It is not right to reject OROP for the soldiers, who have extremely rigorous serving conditions, limited promotion structure at all levels and early retirement age. The varying terms and conditions of the soldiers’ contract with the President of India place the criteria of working out the pension in their case on a different pedestal. OROP once approved would take care of many an infirmity as noticed today in the case of the officer cadres. Many officers who have a minimum of 33 years’ service making them eligible for the maximum pension of that rank, continue to be assessed for pension at the minimum of the pay scale in that rank, at the time of retirement. What gains the government makes in formulating such stingy and morally wrong rules is difficult to fathom. If some wise persons out there just put their thinking caps on, they may, considering the small number of the aged and mostly infirm pensioners still around, come to the conclusion that their cussedness in withholding the legitimate due of a poor jawan or officer has cost the country the faith and trust of the soldiery, not easy to regain when the time comes to go into battle.

This writer with 35 years of service came back home with a meagre Rs 3.75 lakh in 1993 as his total emoluments, including all terminal benefits and commuted pension, his final count of a life’s saving. Today when even a Brigadier on retirement carries home nearly Rs 18 lakh or Rs 20 lakh, it is time our busybodies sat down to address the many anomalies concerning the armed forces. Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, a former soldier, should set many of these anomalies right, and sanction OROP to the armed forces soon.

Defence never came cheap, and it is not a commodity that you can buy at the price of onions and potatoes. It is pointless to talk about the Kargil relief fund and love for the soldiers during every war, and yet continue to sleep over what the soldiery must have as its legitimate due and not what is being termed as a concession by some so ignorant of the Service ethos and culture. It is a national shame that no government has given a serious thought to the welfare of the retired jawan and officer, particularly to the case of OROP. The real reason may be that no government wishes to lose out on the vote bank of the country’s teeming Central services, who have started wielding immense power over the years.

It is when you have retired that you need your life’s savings which you had earned with so much difficulty at field stations, where for many days you had not seen the sun because of inclement weather.

Another matter the government would do well to understand, is that the soldier goes through umpteen number of medical check-ups and boards throughout his career, and many are boarded out and sent home if the desired medical status is not maintained. It is indeed surprising. I have often thought as to how one is still alive after all the terrain, weather and other life-endangering situations one has faced in one’s military career, a situation that the average civilian, no matter whether one is a minister or an IAS officer, is normally not faced with.

Surviving helicopter crashes, landing at advance landing grounds the size of your little finger where a slight slip up on the part of your pilot would throw you in the company of the fish in the river flowing nearby, in the middle of the firing on the LoC are just a few examples of the kind of life that soldiers lead in our so-called peace-time days.

There are many of my Service colleagues who are lucky to be living today, having faced danger 10 times greater than this. So, it is pretty ridiculous to ever equate the working conditions of the civilians with those of the armed forces personnel. The hardships they face, the difficult living conditions for their families when the husbands are in the field areas and the contract to give up their lives for the motherland make each one of them a special class that the country should salute rather than ignore.

It is time the government realised the damage it was doing to the country and the Services by playing footsie with the pensioners and their OROP scheme. For the reader’s information, the terminal benefits that accrue when an officer retires are worked out under five heads: commutation of pension, gratuity, leave encashment, Army group scheme and the Provident Fund that one might have saved while in service. While the last four heads are variables, differing from each individual’s contribution, saving of annual leave every year and contribution towards his DSOP Fund, the fact remains that an officer in 1970, 1985 or in 1993 must be brought on a par in pay and pension with an officer of the same rank retiring today. The loss all these years to an officer in the form of interest had he been paid his pension emoluments at today’s rate, say 15 years ago, will also be considerable in terms of not only cash but an opportunity lost with a lesser bank balance to start his retired life with.

MIDDLE

Phone, the mandatory menace
by Suchita Malik

VIKRAM, my 14-year old, still in school, has demanded a personal mobile telephone for his birthday gift, “Mama, please...or else...” went on his mischievous jabbering. I tried to put him off. “Your dad, a bureaucrat, still doesn’t possess one and look at me, a college lecturer, I don’t need one as yet.” “Mama, I can’t do without one.... all my friends have it...I also need some privacy.” I was dumbstruck at his abashed audacity and was in a state of “suspended disbelief”, to borrow the Keatsian phrase.

Did Graham Bell ever think that “telephone”, his master invention would become indispensable in modern man’s life? Initially invented and designed to facilitate communication from far-off places, the telecom system has gone a long way in bringing the world closer. The live voice of dear ones at the other end was delighting the people for more than a century by now.

Leave apart the technical, professional, social or emotional support or advantages of the telecom lines! Telephone gossip, especially on the mobiles is considered very much “in” and trendy these days. Having emerged as a status symbol three or four years ago, it has acquired larger proportions and has almost become the normal accompanying gadget for all ages, perhaps even a nuisance in many cases.

Take the case of the children first. Telephone has almost become synonymous with their homework diary. Your afternoon siesta is perennially disturbed by the trin.... trin.... trin... from their friends and the constant chattering on telephone in the name of jotting down their missing homework. Ask them the reason for not taking it down in the classroom itself and pat would go the blame to the teacher who speaks either too fast or her handwriting being illegible for them to note down. Rather, the “hep’” and trendy cliche makes you feel so antique, obsolete and unfit for modern company. You already feel the “pangs’” of the generation gap quite marked.

Let alone the children, the elders are no less when it comes to chatting on the telephone. For some, it may be a hobby or the best time-pass. Their “mindless chatter” about the weather, the recipes, and the mind-boggling relationships of other people makes them forget that they are impinging upon the ever busy morning time of the working woman who has to pack off her children to school and the husband to his office. Yet, if ever you have to pass on an important message, it is almost impossible to get across to them since their telephone is always abuzz with activity. How ironic!

It is at times like this you wonder that telephone, besides being a boon, is also a convenient instrument of gossip or a nuisance of the first order. The recent advent of mobile technology has taken the imagination of our young children and adults by storm. They are almost never away from the monstrous “trin...trin...” of this innocuous looking instrument that has the power of disturbing their peace even at the most private moments of their daily routine. The worst part is to see young and middle-age people, with cellphones attuned to their ears, during their early morning walks when, indeed, they should be listening to a cuckoo’s sweet melodious tunes or the chirping of other birds or feel the breeze. One only wonders...what next from here? Perhaps what is left is an instrument that can make you understand its message even in your sleep and monitor your responses while enjoying a peaceful slumber. Thank God, there is no answering machine that can be fitted inside the human brain. God forbid! No clues intended for the inventors.

IN FOCUS

STATE OF UNIVERSITIES — 10
Research benefits don’t reach farmers
Palampur varsity fails to implement expert report on restructuring
by Shishu Patial

Computers have been introduced at all levels in HPAU

CHOUDHARY Sarwan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Agriculture University at Palampur, which completes 25 years of its existence this year, has failed to come up to the expectations of the farming community in the state. The university earlier was a campus of Punjab Agricultural University. When the Janata Party came to power in 1977, Himachal had a Chief Minister in Mr Shanta Kumar from the lower areas. In 1978 he set up an agriculture university at Palampur with a college campus at Solan. Later in 1985 a separate university of horticulture and forestry was set up at Solan.

Though the budget of HPAU, Palampur, has increased from a few lakhs in 1978 to more than Rs 31 crore at present, the university scientists are still to visit a large number of villages in the state. The farming community in Himachal is still suspicious about the recommendations of university scientists because the research had been restricted to laboratories only and many of the recommendations are impractical from the farmer's point of view. The full-fledged extension division has failed to make inroads in far-flung villages and their work has mostly been restricted to villages easily approachable by road.

The inbreeding in the university is said to be major cause for the present situation. It is alleged that most of the teachers and scientists have been educated here and are now working in the same university and have little exposure at the national and international levels. No doubt, there have been examples of brilliant research and extension work in some fields but this is restricted to individual efforts and such hard-working scientists have found no encouragement from the university. In some cases there are complaints of harassment by seniors.

The university has been a fertile ground for political heavyweights. As a result, it is over-staffed and a burden on the state exchequer. The past few years have witnessed a continuous struggle by the Vice-Chancellor to keep the university afloat as the state government, which supports the HPAU with the salary component of its budget, has imposed a cut. The state Finance Department has repeatedly accused the university authorities of financial mismanagement. The last two years witnessed many occasions when the university failed to pay even salaries on time to its employees leading to agitations.

New crop varieties

The achievements of any agriculture research institution are gauged from its contribution in the shape of new crop varieties and help extended to the farming community of the area in these fight against diseases to crops and animals. It is a sad reflection on the working of the university that during the past 25 years, despite a strength of almost 400 teachers and scientists, HPAU has released only 80 varieties, many of these relating to fodder. The university scientists have not goteven one research work patented when at all levels there has been stress on getting traditional as well as new knowledge patented so that it is protected. The university has a full-fledged dairy but its milk production is dismally low and does not generate confidence among animal breeders.

The university has at present more than 354 scientists, about 1,600 non-teaching employees and a large force of daily wagers. There are less than 800 students in the four colleges of the university. The university, apart from research stations, KVKs and substations, has its main campus at Palampur. While the veterinary graduates of the university have a ready market due to the expanding animal husbandry department in the state, agriculture graduates have not found jobs and there are few takers for the Home Science courses. The Basic Sciences College is functioning in contravention of the guidelines laid down by the University Grants Commission as it is functioning only as an under-graduate college.

The university scientists in the past had been blindly following the research pattern adopted by the agriculture universities in the plains and it is alleged that most of research work was only academic and had no relevance to the needs of the farmers of the state. Himachal being a hill state, the geographic and climatic conditions change from place to place and as such the crops and needs of farmers of one village may differ from that of the adjoining village. Thus the blanket recommendations made by scientists of the university have found little acceptance among farmers. The farm production has been almost static for the last many years despite huge inputs in the shape of fertilisers, new seeds and irrigation facilities. Though the university holds two workshops every year for agriculture department officers to give extension advice, but this time is wasted in voicing complaints instead of going into the needs of farmers.

Political pressure

Due to political pressure, the number of employees has risen alarmingly. The one-man committee headed by a former Vice-Chancellor of PAU, Dr S.S. Johl, who was asked by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Tej Partap, to go into the working of HPAU, in his report has stated that it is over-staffed and needs restructuring. He had also suggested retrenchment and voluntary retirement to reduce the number of employees, but the university has failed to implement the recommendations. The full budgetary support has been denied during the last two years which has forced the university to review its working and set its house in order. Dr Tej Partap has made sincere efforts to bring the university back on the rails, but is facing resistance from scientists, non-teaching employees as well as from bureaucrats and politicians, who suddenly find themselves in a situation where they are unable to enjoy the benefits of the university.

The young Vice-Chancellor, Dr Tej Partap, a renowned mountain agriculture expert, agrees that the university has failed to come up to the expectations of the people. He is critical of the approach of the scientific community and emphasises the need for niche-based research. His efforts to revamp the working of the university and remove the dead wood amongst the teachers, scientists and non-teaching employees, despite resistance, have started showing results. The reorganisation of research stations as research and extension stations will help in taking scientists to the fields in their area which will bring them closer to farmers. His emphasis on patenting research has led to the submission of six patents, two of which relating to the use of herbal dyes in textiles industry and citrus-based formations in the tea industry have been accepted and are sure to open new avenues of research and industrial co-operation. The farmers are encouraged to adopt a new cropping pattern and go in for cash crops such as off-season vegetables, cut flowers, seed cultivation and cultivation of aromatic and medicinal plants. The VC has banned new recruitment. Now contract employees are hired according to the needs of various projects.

The Vice-Chancellor insists that scientists should go all out for getting new research projects and this has injected new enthusiasm amongst the young scientists. HPAU, which some years ago had only a few research projects, can now boast of projects worth more than Rs 25 crore. The Vice-Chancellor has allowed a free hand to the investigators in spending funds allocated for the project with the result while junior scientists are enjoying, the heads and other seniors with no research work have had their facilities withdrawn. Efforts are on to reorganise the colleges and to introduce short-and-long-term courses which benefit farmers and economic activists in the agriculture sector.

Misuse of vehicles

Dr Tej Partap, annoyed at the repeated complaints of misuse of vehicles, has withdrawn all attached vehicles from the statutory offices and pooled them. The university now boasts of income from its vehicle pool while earlier this was a big drain on the resources. Telephones have been replaced with a new PBX which has helped in checking their misuse. The university has introduced an innovative system of billing phone users. Computers have been introduced at all levels and efforts are on to do away with the system of personal staff.

While a section of the staff is enthusiastic about the changes being introduced, another faction has adopted a wait-and-watch policy as they feel that once the present VC leaves early next year, things will revert to the previous state.