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Targeting Badal Free and fair Enter
Galileo |
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Compulsions of peace
The moment of radicals at Harvard
IN FOCUS
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Targeting Badal IT is ironic that while the public is greatly agitated when a public man indulges in corruption, the man on the street suddenly turns sympathetic towards him or her when the government starts investigating the case. Perhaps this has something to do with the visceral hatred for the establishment which almost every Indian has developed during long foreign rule. The State, or the government for that matter, is seen as some kind of an oppressor rather than one's own representative. That is why action against a political person has to be launched with a lot of finesse lest it comes to be perceived as witch-hunting. Be a little too harsh on the accused and he manages to evoke unwarranted public sympathy. What happened to Indira Gandhi when Charan Singh went hammer and tongs against her is the case in point. With all this wisdom before him, Capt Amarinder Singh was expected to be doubly careful while launching proceedings against Mr Parkash Singh Badal, but quite the opposite has happened. In his anxiety to make sure that his predecessor does not get any leeway, the Chief Minister has used the ironsmith's hammer where the goldsmith's instrument would have been more appropriate. The result is there for all to see. Despite his alleged sins of omission and commission, the former Chief Minister has all but managed to convert his personal legal problems into an "attack" on the Shiromani Akali Dal. The huge crowd that he managed to gather at Ropar is a clear proof of that. The fact that partymen were willing to face lathi blows for him makes his position all the more strong. Enough heat and dust has been raised over the aggression shown by the police and the Vigilance Bureau. Suddenly, Mr Badal has been given the robe of a martyr which he may not really deserve. The saddest point is that the main issue of corruption has got sidelined. The whole controversy has got badly politicised and it will be almost impossible to separate grain from chaff. The message that goes out is that if you have a mass following, you can do no wrong. Well, at least you cannot be held responsible for it. Mr Badal should be thankful to Capt Amarinder Singh for the handling of the whole issue. |
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Free and fair THE stray incidents of violence reported from some areas do not detract from the fact that Monday's elections to four state assemblies were peaceful. The Election Commission has every reason to pat itself on the back for the arrangements it made. It showed considerable tenacity when it dealt with the shenanigans of politicians, be they of the Chhattisgarh or Madhya Pradesh variety. Given the stakes and the powerful people involved in these elections, it is no mean achievement that it did not compromise on the fairness of the elections. The use of electronic voting machines in all the constituencies had obviated attempts to capture booths and made the whole process more transparent and efficient. Had the political parties involved in the contest shown similar straightforwardness, the elections would have been an excellent opportunity to debate some national and state issues that concern the people. Instead, their emphasis was on washing dirty linen in public and hitting their rivals below the belt. No effort was spared to have willing officers in key places to manipulate the system forcing the Election Commission even to approach a court of law. What's more, they did not refrain from misusing official machinery for electoral gains, little realising that the voters are shrewd enough to judge the performance of a government. Luckily, campaigning on communal lines was not attempted mainly because they found that such a strategy had few takers. The result is keenly awaited because it will be an indicator of the shape of things to come. It is not for no reason that the elections were described as a semi-final contest, the final being the Lok Sabha elections due early next year. For the Congress, the ability to retain the four states despite the anti-incumbency factor will go a long way in re-establishing its credentials as a party that can be trusted with governance. As for the BJP, it has little to lose but gain a lot if it is able to dislodge the Congress from the four states. It will make its task of winning the next Lok Sabha elections that much easier. |
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Enter Galileo THE Prime Minister's announcement that India would be a partner in the European Union's Galileo satellite radio navigation system project, rather than just be a mere customer, is heartening. The project envisages a constellation of 30 satellites that will allow radio navigation to multiple kinds of users. It is similar to the American Global Positioning System (GPS) that has become ubiquitous in both civil and military applications. The Prime Minister is right in saying that India's well-known expertise in providing cost-effective space technologies could bring both technical value and save money for the project. India, like China, has committed about € 300 million to the project. It would be a good investment, since the interaction would result in the sharing of ideas and expertise and, hopefully, some more contracts for IT professionals in India who have till now been US-centric in their thinking. By conceiving and executing the project the EU has effectively given the world an alternative to the US-controlled GPS. The GPS has been operating for many years now and has been effectively used for military and civil applications. As is to be expected, the Americans are not happy to have their monopoly disturbed, but as Mr Chris Patten said: "I don't think it is sensible to have one system in the world." As opposed to 24 satellites in the GPS, the Galileo promises 30 and has many additional features that will make locating any object in the planet easy. It will have various services — open, commercial and publicly regulated — and its ultimate goal is to improve position accuracy, reliability and availability under the widest possible range of field conditions. The Galileo is the first major step in Indo-European cooperation and, hopefully, the two will look for such efforts in many other fields also. |
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Thought for the day Enough of blood and tears. Enough. — Yitzhak Rabin |
Compulsions of peace IT would be churlish to dismiss the significance of the moves India and Pakistan have lately made bringing hope and cheer to the people on both sides of the divide. Rather than habitually playing war games, the two countries have begun making peace moves which, followed through with sincerity, can lead to durable peace in the troubled subcontinent. The warm welcome the ceasefire has received in Lahore and Amritsar, and from the people of the two countries can eventually prove the cynics and specialists wrong. There are many people in Pakistan who are given to questioning the motives of any initiative India takes to be friends with its neighbour. There are also many people in India who think Pakistan, given its record of abetting terrorism, the Kargil war and much else can never be trusted. Mutual suspicions have kept the two countries apart and often pushed them to war. If the competition in making peace moves leads the two governments to reduce distrust among the people, they will be making a contribution to the welfare of nearly one-fifth of humanity living in the subcontinent. The leaders of the two countries are perhaps coming to realise that 56 years of hatred and bitterness are self-consuming and cannot lead them anywhere but more hatred and bitterness and more wars and more misery. The compulsions of peace, it seems, have begun to assert. Willy-nilly, the two countries are now taking steps that can take them to the path of sanity and possibly a dialogue that, wisely handled, can abolish war from the subcontinent. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee realised the importance of making peace bids soon after he came to power. He extended a hand of friendship and said he would walk the extra mile to seek peace with Pakistan. His bus journey to Lahore and subsequent moves, despite the Kargil war, were born not out of a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize —as his critics at home alleged — but the innate conviction that India cannot make much headway politically and economically and be counted among the big nations of the world if it remained caught up in troubled relationship with Pakistan (as also with China). Perhaps, he has also been living with the feeling that peace would be more difficult to achieve after him and that he must do his bit to usher in a new era in the subcontinent during his Prime Ministership. May be, he thinks that peace and harmony would be a better legacy to leave behind than what the leaders who cannot look beyond the nose would think about. He has persevered with this despite attacks from Mr Bal Thackeray, Mr Ashok Kumar Singhal and Mr Praveen Togadia and other hardliners of the Sangh Parivar. More than a poet's dream, it is the subcontinent's elementary need for peace that has made Mr Vajpayee keep walking on the peace track. The package of proposals he recently came out to improve relations with Pakistan by enhancing people-to-people contacts between the two countries was clearly another attempt to prove to his own critics at home and in Pakistan and the people in general of both countries that the constituency of peace was larger than the constituency of hatred and suspicion. On the face of it, the October 22 package looked simplistic considering the enormity of the task involved in establishing peace, but the response from within India, from among the people inside Pakistan and the rest of the world must have surprised the subcontinent's sceptics. President Musharraf's response was initially hesitant and tentative but last week's unilateral offer of ceasefire came as a refreshing surprise to many in India and Pakistan. It will be silly to dismiss the ceasefire as a public relations move by the General, meant to look a reasonable and a good guy a month before he is to play host to the SAARC summit in Islamabad. All rulers and events they host have a public relations angle. In President Musharraf's case there can also be other compulsions that have led him to offer the ceasefire. But this is not the first time he has offered a ceasefire. Only recently when a media-cum-MPs' delegation went to Pakistan, he offered a ceasefire to India but with a rider that New Delhi also orders a ceasefire in the Valley. It was rightly rejected by India. This time, Pakistan's offer of ceasefire is unconditional. Requirements of a pre-Summit charm offensive cannot be as strong as real compulsions and ground realities that seem to have led the General to change tack. May be, President Musharraf has realised that the image of supporting terrorism has brought about Pakistan's isolation from the world community. This is evident from what he last month told a group of prominent editors of Pakistan. President Musharraf said that with the passage of time, the perception that Pakistan and he himself were supporting extremists was gaining widespread acceptance in the world. He said this perception needed to be removed urgently. He warned that Pakistan could lose a billion dollars if the European Union, believing that it was involved in spreading international extremism, withdrew trade concessions it had lately offered to Islamabad. He surprised his audience by sharing a secret conversation he recently had in Beijing with Chinese leaders. He told the editors that he was shocked when the Chinese leaders told him during his visit that Pakistan had given sanctuary to extremists working against Chinese interests. Given Pakistan's cosy relations with China, President Musharraf's shock at the Chinese accusation is understandable. Of late, the United States is also showing impatience with Pakistan as is clear from the statement the new US Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr Zalmay Khalizad, has made before leaving for Kabul last week. Mr Khalizad expressed concern that the Taliban rank and file "are using Pakistan territory to carry out attacks in Afghanistan" across the border. He said "we would like Pakistan to do more" to curb these elements. Judging from President Musharraf's remarks to the editors, the point, it seems, is going home in Islamabad. Besides international isolation, President Musharraf and the Army top brass may also be feeling the heat of the growing threat terrorist groups are posing to Pakistan itself. Talking to the editors, he also spoke about the areas of concern for Pakistan in the days ahead: Religious extremism, provincial harmony and political stability. Terrorists, after all, are nobody's friends and do not relish stability. Addressing these concerns may have persuaded President Musharraf to think afresh about the direction Pakistan is to take during the coming years. After 9/11, he chose to cooperate with the US in combating terrorism on Pakistan's western border, but felt that he could continue supporting terrorism on Pakistan's eastern border with India with impunity. This compartmentalisation of terrorism in two categories has clearly not worked in Pakistan's favour during the last two years. The Pakistan Army also needs to acquire support of the people it wants to rule. May be, its top brass is coming to believe that the people no longer want to live in a state of continuing tensions with India and periodic wars that have in effect brought Pakistan to a point when some people regard it as a failed state. There is a constituency of peace in Pakistan also which perhaps is increasingly making its presence felt, although it may not yet be an assertive force. Whatever the compulsions, if President Musharraf and Pakistan are trying to come on board for improving relations, India can — without lowering its guard of course — afford to take a more positive view of the post-ceasefire situation. There are, after all, possibilities in the situation which, creatively handled, can transform the face of the subcontinent during the next few years. In the affairs of nations, sometimes it becomes necessary to experiment with history — if you want to change it. |
The moment of radicals at Harvard OF all the Ivy League universities, Harvard, at the top of the table, enjoys a very special kind of reputation for several reasons, one of which is that it was established in Cambridge, Massachusets, as the first university that could match the standards of Oxford or Cambridge in the United Kingdom. And, indeed, Harvard has gone on from strength to strength, having produced some of the most important men and scholars in the US — Nobel Prize winners, captains of industry, American Presidents, senators and Congressmen among them. In sum, the American establishment has always had Harvardians as an integral part of it. It thus emerged as the voice of Corporate America. And when such a place, in the sixties of the last century, also turned radical, repudiating conservative values and the new American imperialism, it was something unbelievable. I reached Harvard for a year as a Visiting Professor on a Fulbright grant in September, 1969, when the wave of radicalism was in full tide. Thus, I was an eyewitness to that extraordinary phenomenon. What’s more, not only the students, but also most of the faculty too had risen in arms against “Pentagonism” (a phrase coined for war-mongering by the Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Wald) in the wake of the Viet Nam War. Earlier, MacCarthyism had already alienated the university scholars and academics all across the US. The situation in the 60s was then ripe for revolt in campuses. With the Kent State tragedy in which the State troopers shot dead four university students had shaken the American nation, and the “hippie” revolt assumed grim proportions. The outcry was so loud and clear that the campus administration everywhere faced daily sit-ins, marches with banners and provocative slogans. It appeared as though all the ordeals and hidden frustrations of the youth had to find a voice. And the voice was stringent, threatening and ugly at times to send shivers down the spine of the establishment. The affluent America, the youth found poor “in the goods of the spirit”, to recall Aldous Huxley’s words. No wonder, the faded, tattered jeans became a loud symbol of protest against gross materialism. “The flower children”, as they came to be known, were bent upon rediscovering the America of the Mayflower pilgrim fathers. It was also the time when “black power” came into its own, and the youth were found chanting, “Black is Beautiful”. This brings me to that day when Harvard saw its students in a defiant, ugly mood. I happened to be streaming out of a packed big lecture-hall where the distinguished American professor and critic, Lionel Trilling, then a Visiting Professor from Columbia University, had just concluded his final lecture — the series called Norton Lectures entitled “Sincerity and Authenticity,” later published by the Harvard University Press. It was a scene that I could never have imagined, for I too got caught in the melee when the state police troopers were trying to keep a shouting mob of students at bay. “Keep off, you state dogs”, they went on shouting and chanting in unison. It was at this stage that I saw flames leaping up near me, and I didn’t know how to manage my way out of that scene of horror. The mounted police had by now started chasing and assaulting the students. One of them seeing me there nearly lost his temper. “What the hell are you doing here, Mr?” I managed to mumble somehow that I was a Visiting Professor of English there, and then seeing my turban and beard, he dismounted and taking me by the arm escorted me into a side-lane from where I trudged my way into 12, Clinton Street, my rooming-house. It was a traumatic experience, and I kept musing for a long time over this extraordinary phenomenon. Harvard had, in its long history, never seen such an eruption of violent youth energy, and the next day when I joined the faculty for our weekly lunch at the Eliot House where Professor Trilling too had come to join us, the gruesome proceedings of the previous evening and the consequence remained the burden of our song. Even as I revolve that moment before the mirror of my Harvard memories, I realise how and why revolutions wither away in the end when pragmatism takes possession of the mind.
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IN FOCUS
IT came up in a flash and produced generations of doctors; it is now dragging along and is no longer inspirational. Government Medical College, Patiala, has been a premier medical institution for a long time, but it now shows symptoms that are alarmingly similar to those shown by its sister institutions in the state. It was in 1953 that the father of the present Chief Minister of Punjab and the father-in-law of the present Principal of the college had got together to set up the institution. As one enters the college, one can see the stone laid by President Dr Rajendra Prasad. The 90-acre campus is clean, its front-lawns manicured. However, the paint is pealing at many places, and the rear lawns on the campus are not well maintained. This could well be a metaphor. There are some bright spots, some things can be glossed over, but the signs of decay are vivid. It is ironic that the institution that benefited from the munificence of Maharaja Yadavindra Singh is suffering from ills the roots of which can be traced to the deprivation caused by a lack of funds and personnel, even when his son, Capt Amarinder Singh, is ruling the state. The college caters to a large number of students. There are 150 seats for the five-year-and-a-half MBBS course, 40 for the BDS, 50 for D. Pharmacy, 30 for laboratory technician’s course, and 11 for radiographer’s course. There are also 50 seats for nursing, but this has come at the cost of the General Nursing course, which had been taught much before Independence. This at a time when nursing is much in demand and the college and its hospital are facing a shortage (as high as 45 per cent, according to one source) of qualified nurses! Ms Jiwan Preet Kaur, president of the Punjab Nursing Association, points out that since the inception of the college, the departments have doubled, but the nurses have lost half their strength and 220 posts of nurse are now vacant. “Instead of closing the basic nursing course, provisions should have been made for nurses taking Post-Basic Nursing courses, as they do at the PGI,” she says. The college authorities say that the course was stopped on instructions from the government, though the college itself would have liked it to continue. If so, it is a decision that defies reason, especially since there are over 60 private nursing colleges doing a roaring business in Punjab and there are many employment opportunities abroad. After talking to a cross-section of the faculty, it was evident that some home truths had to be accepted. While expectations from doctors still remain high, their work reflects to which society they belong. There has been a change in the kind of students who enter the college, as also the teachers. These days, students take tuitions from Class IX onwards in botany, zoology, physics and chemistry. Often, this means that parents are spending upwards of Rs 60,000 every year till the time the child enters a medical college, if he is lucky. By and large, the students are persons of means with their own standard of living to consider once they graduate and gain experience. As for doctors who are working here, the rules regarding private practice notwithstanding, it is a reality, and according to many patients, doctors often trudge in late at the OPDs because of this. On probing further on the basis of an observation by a section of students that certain good teachers had left the college, it turned out that some of them were doing very well in private practice. No matter what, it is the students who suffer. An intern said, when he had just joined the college, there had been four Professors in the Skin Department. Now there is only one. “This affects the postgraduate-course students, since normally two PG students are attached to a Professor,” he said. Shortage of staff is a serious problem all over Punjab, and in this college, out of a sanctioned strength of 189, there are 52 vacancies in the faculty (Professor to Lecturer). There are seven vacancies for senior resident, 65 for class III position and 26 for class V employee. Though rationalisation could help somewhat, since there are some departments that are top heavy, the shortage is evident and acute. The budget for the college is clearly inadequate, since most of the money is spent on salary, transport and other costs. Doctors point out that for the past 10 years, they have not received any TA/DA for official work, which includes giving evidence in courts for medico-legal cases, and want the Home Department to give them so. Maintenance of equipment, chemicals and other necessities is absent. In any case, the procedure for repairing equipment is cumbersome. There is an acute shortage of equipment—CAT-scan machine in Rajendra Hospital, which is attached to the college, has been dysfunctional for more than a year. In the meantime, four private CAT machines are said to be operating in the city. Of course, the operators charge more than the hospital would, but the patients have no other recourse. Dr Kiranjeet Kaur, the Principal, says that she is confident of getting a new machine soon, but even she would not venture when. As for the other problem people face, because of the non-functioning of the cobalt therapy unit for cancer treatment, she says the company requires advance payment, which is not permissible under the rules. “However, I am still hopeful of finding a solution.” The Principal might be enthusiastic, but what can you do if your financial powers end at Rs 500 per day and Rs 10,000 during an emergency? Most of the time is wasted in battling bureaucracy, which has over-centralised decision-making. She proudly points out that her students get top positions in Punjab and the college is the first choice for students during placement. As for students, they are generally positive about the infrastructure and the faculty. They say that the hostels are being renovated and the food and security is generally good. The girls and the boys both lamented the lack of cultural activities in the college. The Internet facility is adequate and the books in the library are outdated, a fact conceded by the authorities, who cite lack of budget for the situation. Many doctors complained that while they are entrusted with taking life-and-death decisions for their patients, they are not trusted to make even small decisions that have financial implications. There are tight government controls and the quotation system has been a bane, since quality goes down while cost actually goes up. “The government has disowned medical education, but shackled us. Medical education is not a business and should not be treated as one. Professionals are too shy of being on cumbersome purchasing committees,” a doctor said. Not that there has been no effort to simplify the system. Dr Kiranjeet Kaur’s husband, Dr Ravinder Singh — who is the son of hospital founder Dr Amarjit Singh and who headed the institution before her and was also the Director, Medical Education, Punjab, before his retirement — worked with the state’s Finance Department to formulate a policy to smoothen the working of medical institutions, including this college. “We worked on the draft with experts from the department, but the final document was twisted, distorted and not what we had agreed upon.” He protested and the document was submitted for reappraisal, i.e. put in cold storage. There has been no new Director, Medical Education, since he retired in 2001. At Rajendra Hospital, cleanliness is just not there. Just next to the mortuary, there is a huge dump of biomedical waste and enquiries reveal that the issue of its disposal is tied in red tape. “Even for disposing of the waste, we need permission from Chandigarh,” said a disgruntled employee. Even the cold chambers in the mortuary are not working. The hospital no longer attracts as many patients as it did some time ago. A variety of reasons are given for it, including the levelling of user charges, which raised the cost of treatment in the hospital. It is, however, still cheaper than private facilities, though how much value for money it provides is debatable. The money accrued from user-charges was supposed to be ploughed back into the institution, which has not been done. The sum is more than Rs 23 crore, which includes the money received from NRI students. Thus, while budgets are cut, money supposed to be given to the institution also does not reach it. The alumni are keen to help. They form one of the largest groups of doctors abroad and want to contribute their skills, advanced equipment and even money. However, they want certain safeguards and commitments, which the bureaucrats are loath to give. Thus, a fairly large corpus is being kept in abeyance because of this. The alumni recently got the college auditorium renovated. Bureaucratic bungling has allowed this institution and others like it to decay. Over-centralisation of decision-making must be replaced with more powers to the college Principals, who, in turn, should be asked to show results. As for Government Medical College, Patiala, born as it was with a silver spoon, it has to face a difficult future. The college needs a transfusion of funds and new talent. If that happens, the prognosis is good. Without it, it will continue to be a pale shadow of what it was. |
Man suffers so much simply for want of devotion to God. One should therefore adopt such means as would help the thought of God to arise in the mind at the last moment of one’s life. The means is practice of devotion to God. — Sri Ramakrishna I can’t contain myself when one draws near me and calls me Mother. — Sarada Devi Stand up and express the divinity within you... Arise, awake, sleep no more. Within each of you there is the power to remove all wants and all miseries. Believe in this, and that power will be manifested. — Swami Vivekananda The Pandit does not know truth himself but considers himself wise and justified to instruct others. O, how wise is this man of wisdom! — Guru Nanak There are pearls in the deep sea, but you must hazard all perils to get them. If you fail to get them by a single dive, do not conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again, and you are sure to be rewarded in the end. — Sri Ramakrishna |
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