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EDITORIALS

Chairman Atal
Mr Vajpayee can play a sobering role
T
he BJP criticised the Congress for changing the party constitution and making Mrs Sonia Gandhi the Chairman of the Congress parliamentary party. But it has had to do exactly the same itself, thus making Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Chairman and Mr L.K. Advani the Leader of the Parliamentary Party.

Wisdom of the hind
End of BJP-AIADMK tango
I
t was a short-lived affair, more a dalliance than an alliance, between two mismatched partners. And in the cold light of the morning after the party failed to be a hit, the BJP has realised that Ms J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK was a liability that should be jettisoned. 


 

EARLIER ARTICLES

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS
50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Happily married
Waiting for the stork to deliver
I
t takes all sorts to make the world. However, couples like the one from Germany make it interesting. They provide both amusement and astonishment. The two deserve a special Nobel for their touching innocence about the facts of life.

ARTICLE

India’s West Asia policy
Friendship can never be a one-way street
by G. Parthasarathy
T
HERE were some interesting nuances in the approach of major political parties to the situation in West Asia during the recent general election. For over four decades, virtually all political parties, except for the BJP (that took a contrary pro-Israel line), routinely condemned Israel for its alleged acts of omission and commission.

MIDDLE

Innovative helmets
by Madan Gupta “Spatu”
H
elmets are being resisted by ladies because they do not make a fashion statement. The police in collaboration with imaginative manufacturers of headgears can make the helmets all the rage.

OPED

An assignment from the Almighty
The new CJI is sensitive to problems of the needy
by S.S. Negi
M
r Justice R C Lahoti, who took over as Chief Justice of India on June 1, is considered by legal experts as “conservative” in matters of interpretation of law, yet competent, sharp and sensitive to problems of the poor and the needy. Born on November 1, 1940, to Mr Rattan Lal Lahoti, a known advocate, freedom fighter and social worker from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Justice Lahoti has risen to occupy one of the top constitutional posts of the country on the sheer strength of his merit and hard work.

Health
How to beat hay fever
by Barefoot Doctor
A
nyone who suffers the annual torments of hay fever will tell you the problem grows more intense and widespread as the mix of pollution, higher temperatures from global warming and, presumably, the as yet uncharted effects of GM crops, create an increasingly formidable airborne cocktail.

 REFLECTIONS

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Chairman Atal
Mr Vajpayee can play a sobering role

The BJP criticised the Congress for changing the party constitution and making Mrs Sonia Gandhi the Chairman of the Congress parliamentary party. But it has had to do exactly the same itself, thus making Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee the Chairman and Mr L.K. Advani the Leader of the Parliamentary Party. The idea is not new. The duo held similar positions during the Narasimha Rao regime for two years (1991-93). Under the arrangement, Mr Vajpayee remains in active politics, while Mr Advani takes care of the nitty-gritty. As party president Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu has said it in a rather convoluted way, his will be the position of “responsibility with respectability with all the authority”. Indeed, the former Prime Minister can play the stabilising role of an elder statesman for the party which has returned with many new faces, several stalwarts having bitten the dust in the recent elections. The party badly needs the benefit of his experience.

After lying low following the electoral reverses, Mr Vajpayee today exudes confidence – real or imaginary. He has tried to send adrenaline flowing through the veins of the MPs by saying that the party won’t be in Opposition for long. This may be pure pep talk, but the BJP cadres indeed need a large dose of it after the drubbing they have received.

But the realism and forthrightness that one expects from him were not visible when he spoke about the reasons for the defeat. For one thing, he ruled out that Gujarat had anything to do with it. This is either refusal to accept reality or to somehow keep the Hindu card intact. His clean chit to the Modi brigade looks all the more awkward, given that all allies have squarely blamed the Gujarat Chief Minister for their troubles. Mr Vajpayee has said that his outfit was done in by complacency and over-confidence as it did not identify the real enemies. One hopes he realises at least now that there were many enemies within the party itself who precipitated defeat through their short-sighted policies.
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Wisdom of the hind
End of BJP-AIADMK tango

It was a short-lived affair, more a dalliance than an alliance, between two mismatched partners. And in the cold light of the morning after the party failed to be a hit, the BJP has realised that Ms J Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK was a liability that should be jettisoned. The BJP didn’t have to wait for its alliance with the AIADMK to score a duck, to know that it was headed for an electoral rout in Tamil Nadu. The politically canny Atal Bihari Vajpayee disfavoured an alliance with the authoritarian AIADMK supremo. Yet if the BJP was driven into the arms of the ‘Iron Lady’ to court the crushing defeat it suffered in Tamil Nadu, then it is thanks to others like Mr L K Advani and the state leaders who rooted for the AIADMK and alienated the key NDA constituents, namely the DMK, MDMK and the PMK. In the event, electoral arithmetic, geometry and chemistry all favoured the DMK-led front.

Ms Jayalalithaa’s controversial and unpopular decisions, to which the BJP attributes the alliance’s failure for not winning a single Lok Sabha seat from Tamil Nadu, were a stark reality much before the two parties joined hands. Disregarding these and the public outcry against her administration on successive occasions, the BJP continued to drift towards Ms Jayalalithaa from the time she returned as Chief Minister in 2001. In fact, despite the DMK, MDMK and the PMK being dependable allies, the BJP showed a marked preference for the AIADMK which was a superior but non-formal ally of the NDA. The BJP deluded itself that it was on a winning wicket and, therefore, had the whip-hand in Tamil Nadu to pick and choose either regional party.

This self-deception coupled with a wilful refusal to accept that no national party in Tamil Nadu can win Lok Sabha elections without an alliance with the stronger of the two regional parties proved to be the BJP’s undoing. The lesson would not be entirely lost if the BJP begins work in right earnest now for the assembly polls in 2006. The party can do better on its own than it did by reducing itself to an adjunct of the AIADMK.
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Happily married
Waiting for the stork to deliver

It takes all sorts to make the world. However, couples like the one from Germany make it interesting. They provide both amusement and astonishment. The two deserve a special Nobel for their touching innocence about the facts of life. The stork is a powerful symbol of life-long commitment to family values in Norse mythology. Aesop's tales turned it into a universal symbol associated with childbirth. This couple evidently had an overdose of the stork story. In their world, a popular myth became an event that every married couple waits for expectantly. For eight years they waited for the good bird to bring them their bundle of joy.

Of course, the reports from Lubeck raise many questions. The story is not a simple one. Who guided them to the fertility clinic to find out why they were not having children? Moreover, the most important question that deserves an honest answer is about the eight years they spent together as man and wife before undergoing a medical check-up. In this age of information explosion destiny produced not one but two persons who evidently knew nothing about what it really takes to get a family started. Germany is a nation where the level of general awareness is high. Besides, the couple was not living in a forest, cut off from civilisation.

Pity the doctors for running all the tests to check their levels of fertility. Neither the husband nor the wife had a medical condition that prevents conception. The doctors had almost given up on providing them the joy the couple sought for filling the vacuum in their life. The dejected pair was about to leave when the matron asked them very casually about their sex life. That question unlocked the mystery of the missing stork. The 30-year-old wife and the 36-year-old husband are now undergoing sex therapy. The medical fraternity is now looking for another instance to determine the real height of innocence.
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Thought for the day

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. — Samuel Johnson
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India’s West Asia policy
Friendship can never be a one-way street
by G. Parthasarathy

THERE were some interesting nuances in the approach of major political parties to the situation in West Asia during the recent general election. For over four decades, virtually all political parties, except for the BJP (that took a contrary pro-Israel line), routinely condemned Israel for its alleged acts of omission and commission. But neither the NDA nor the Congress party followed this practice during the recent election campaign. The Communist Party of India avoided all mention of the Palestinian issue in its election manifesto, though it continued with its ritualistic opposition to “imperialist military and economic aggression”. Even the CPM made no mention of the Palestinian issue in its manifesto, though it proclaimed its opposition to the alleged “strategic alliance” that the Vajpayee government had concluded with Israel. And even this “alliance” was opposed only because it “follows the RSS view that a US-Israel-India axis would serve the interests of Hindutva”.

In these circumstances, it was peculiar to see both the CPI and the CPM stress the importance of the Palestinian issue when the coalition partners of the UPA were drafting their common minimum programme (CMP). One even heard calls to end military collaboration with Israel. This posture emerged in the public view after the first draft of the CMP presented by the Congress made no reference to the Palestinian issue. It was in deference to these postures that the CPM proclaimed that “the UPA government reiterates India’s decades-old commitment to the cause of the Palestinian people for a homeland of their own”. It is obvious that those who drafted this formulation were somewhat ignorant of the nuances of contemporary developments. India and the international community no longer endorse the cause of a mere Palestinian “homeland”. They demand the establishment of a “viable Palestinian State”.

It is evident that on national security issues like our nuclear deterrent, nuclear disarmament and our relations with China and the United States, the two communist parties adopt postures that portray a total lack of realism and understanding of the contemporary world. They advocate that India should discard its time-tested policies of seeking nuclear disarmament exclusively on a global and non-discriminatory basis and recommend that we should yield to American and Chinese pressures by accepting regional nuclear disarmament in South Asia. They conveniently ignore the fact that it is China that has provided Pakistan the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons and has supplied our western neighbour with missiles that can devastate Indian towns and cities. They also oppose India acquiring capabilities for missile defences that could protect our cities against attacks by Chinese missiles supplied to Pakistan, should Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal fall into wrong hands.

It is a similar lack of understanding that leads the two leftist parties to their criticism of our recent policies on Arab-Israeli issues. India recognised the State of Israel in 1950. But it took over four decades before we established full diplomatic relations with Israel. In the meantime, discreet contacts were maintained with Israel in capitals like Washington and through the Israeli Consulate in Mumbai. Indira Gandhi flatly rejected a Saudi Arabian demand in 1974 that we should close the Israeli Consulate even though we were then faced with a severe balance of payments crisis. We had earlier sought and obtained arms from Israel just after the 1965 conflict with Pakistan. It is also worth mentioning that the supply of nuclear capable F-16s by the US to Pakistan in 1981 was seen as a security threat not only by India but also by pro-Israeli groups like the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which joined India in lobbying against this sale. Thus, if there is a “US-Israel-India axis”, as the CPM and the Pakistanis claim, this so-called “axis” has played an important role in promoting the understanding of India’s security concerns in the US and elsewhere.

India’s ties with Israel have expanded significantly over the past decade. Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Arjun Singh, Mr P. Chidambaram and Mr. Sharad Pawar have visited Israel during this period. India’s annual bilateral trade with Israel has reached around $ 1.3 billion. Israel has played a key role in the conclusion of over 200 agreements for agricultural development in India in crucial areas like drip irrigation, greenhouse technology and horticulture. It is in recognition of the importance of Israeli investments and collaboration in these fields that Mr Jyoti Basu visited Israel in August 2000, just before he relinquished office.

Both China and India have developed extensive defence ties with Israel. While as a result of American pressures Israel could not sell advanced AWACS systems to China, it agreed to their sale to India. These systems mounted on Russian aircraft are crucial for India’s air defence. They are reportedly being assembled in Uzbekistan. Is the CPM going to criticise this agreement as constituting an “India-Israel-Russia-Uzbekistan axis”? It is also pertinent to stress that in view of the continuing Sino-Pak nuclear and missile nexus India should not close the option of obtaining missile defences from any source, including Israel. The Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherji, has rightly rejected suggestions for a review of defence collaboration with Israel.

No foreign policy can be devoid of a moral content. Even if India has good reasons for friendship with Israel, it should not hesitate to voice its opposition to Israeli actions like the demolition of homes of innocent Palestinians. It is equally important to advise India’s Palestinian friends to curb the excesses of groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. The success of Indian diplomacy would lie in being seen both by Israel and the Palestinians as a constructive voice urging moderation and seeking negotiated settlements.

It is also important to bear in mind that with the exception of a few countries like Algeria, India’s Arab friends, particularly Saudi Arabia, have shown no sensitivity of New Delhi’s concerns when they join the chorus in adopting anti-Indian postures on Kashmir in forums like the OIC. Saudi Arabia’s role in getting OIC endorsement of Pakistan-backed extremists, who have left the mainstream Hurriyat Conference, is a matter of particular concern. Friendship cannot forever be a one-way street.
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Innovative helmets
by Madan Gupta “Spatu”

Helmets are being resisted by ladies because they do not make a fashion statement. The police in collaboration with imaginative manufacturers of headgears can make the helmets all the rage.

Like shades of lipsticks, helmets must be available in all colours. Different helmets can be used on different days in sync with the colour of one’s scooter, dress, ear-rings, dupattas, etc.

Their designs should also be in keeping with hairstyles. Puffed helmet; the curly one; bobbed style, “joora” helmet are just some of the possibilities .

Transparent helmets should also be available through which ladies can display their latest hairstyle, ear-rings, fancy clips, latest hair bands etc, while driving.

Young girls should not resist the helmet. It serves so many purposes. Your aunties and uncles who maintain your Daily Diary Report of the guys with whom you are seen riding shall not be able to recognise you under the cover of helmet.

In case of emergency, you can use it as a weapon by throwing it at mobile snatchers or eveteasers. In the vegetable market, you need not carry extra bags. Just turn it upside down and the helmet makes a nice watermelon carrier.

Helmets with built-in mobiles should be very popular. Imagine chatting with your friends on the wheels. Similarly, helmets with radio and cassette players can keep the boredom away. May be these can also be made airconditioned.

Detachable windshields that go with helmets should be designed in hep style like expensive goggles.
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An assignment from the Almighty
The new CJI is sensitive to problems of the needy
by S.S. Negi

Mr Justice R C LahotiMr Justice R C Lahoti, who took over as Chief Justice of India (CJI) on June 1, is considered by legal experts as “conservative” in matters of interpretation of law, yet competent, sharp and sensitive to problems of the poor and the needy.

Born on November 1, 1940, to Mr Rattan Lal Lahoti, a known advocate, freedom fighter and social worker from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Justice Lahoti has risen to occupy one of the top constitutional posts of the country on the sheer strength of his merit and hard work.

Justice Lahoti, who started his career as a lawyer in 1961, is a “stickler” to the law and is perhaps one of the few apex court judges who have the experience of working as a District and Sessions Judge, the post he got through direct recruitment in 1977. But he quit the job after about a year to start his practice as an advocate in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

After making a mark as an advocate, specialising in constitutional, taxation, civil, labour and criminal laws, he was appointed a jugdge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in February, 1994, transferred to the Delhi High Court in 1995 and subsequently elevated to the Supreme Court on November 15, 1998.

A thoroughly religious person, Mr Justice Lahoti has a brilliant academic record and got his masters’ degree in economics from Bombay University’s Podar College. He was awarded the gold medal by the university for topping in the LL.B examination.

Mr Justice Lahoti considers dispension of justice as a responsibility bestoved on him by the Almighty. He believes that the duty of a judge is to accomplish this godly assignment with pride, dignity and honour and has clearly spelt out the agenda he intends to implement as CJI to improve the judicial system.

It is because of this reason he believes that a CJI can enforce discipline among the fellow judges and the judges of high courts on the strength of his “moral authority” even in the absence of a law in this regard.

While assuring the countrymen that he would deal sternly with any “corrupt” element in the judiciary, he does not believe that corruption in courts is as alarming as is being made out. He says that the judicial system should not be described corrupt because of certain aberrations, which can be corrected with prompt and stern action.

Several senior lawyers, who had the opportunity of working with him, say Justice Lahoti is “humble, down-to-earth, a good human being and a brilliant gentleman judge”.

Robust common sense, an insight into the law, the courage of conviction and vision are the hallmarks of his judgements, but the verdicts are always with a humane approach. While he believes in upholding the finest judicial tradition, he treads on the correct path of defining the judge-made laws, they say.

Among his priorities are the setting up of a National Judicial Academy for training of judicial officers and research in the field of law, computerisation of courts’ functioning and popularising the system of mediation and conciliation in resolving civil disputes, which linger on in courts for decades.

Though Mr Justice Lahoti has delivered several landmark judgments, his recent verdict defining the powers of the Supreme Court and the high courts has been highly acclaimed in legal circles. This question came before his Bench when the Patna High Court, in an unprecedented move, had raised questions over the powers of the apex court when it had summoned certain records relating to a case from it.

Mr Justice Lahoti in his judgement has, for the first time, clearly laid down future references as what should be the relations between the Supreme Court and the high courts, legal experts say.

He believes that there is no need for the power of “superintendence” over the functioning of the high courts as it neither has been defined in the Constitution, nor was it the intent of its framers. If this is allowed to be so, it will amount to curtailing the powers of high courts whose jurisdication under Article 226 is identical to that of the the Supereme Court. Of course, the appellate power of the apex court is final and non-challengable, he says.

He has described the relations between the apex court and the high courts as those of “elder and younger brothers” by laying down that “the framers of the Constitution did not think it necessary to specially confer power on the Supreme Court to give a command to the high courts for they were the men of vision and farsight and knew that the constitutional functionaries and institutions would act in the best interest of norms and traditions consistent with democracy.”

Among his notable judgments are those on the welfare and compulsory education of children, striking down the reservations in super speciality professional courses which he delivered in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences students’ case, defining the duty of senior bureaucrats in the Tarlochan Dev Sharma case and upholding the law passed by the the Haryana Government to ban the contesting of panchayat elections by those having more than two children.

Besides, he had headed two important inquiry commissions that investigated the cheating of hundreds of people by the Skipper Construction Company in the Capital on the promise of providing cheaper flats to them and the Charkhi-Dadri mid-air collision in 1996.

While in the case of the former, he had provided relief to nearly 800 people who were allegedly cheated by Skipper, in the case of the Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan aircraft mid-air collusion, which claimed over 400 lives, he had made various valuable recommendations on the air safety measures to the Government in his inquiry report after examining scores of experts.
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Health
How to beat hay fever
by Barefoot Doctor

Anyone who suffers the annual torments of hay fever will tell you the problem grows more intense and widespread as the mix of pollution, higher temperatures from global warming and, presumably, the as yet uncharted effects of GM crops, create an increasingly formidable airborne cocktail.

I’d never suffered it myself until I moved to New Mexico for four years in the Seventies, where the unfamiliar, exotic cottonwood pollen had a field day, if you’ll excuse the pun, with my respiratory system.

Fortunately, I was studying Chinese medicine at the time and regulating the condition became a pet project for my teacher, who, being the utter genius he was, sorted it so effectively I’ve never been troubled by more than the hint of a tickle ever since, even when the pollen count soars.

I subsequently employed his method, which essentially boils down to filling a teapot, in my own healing practice over the years and found it to be equally effective when treating others, no matter the actual airborne allergen involved.

This is because it works on building the resistance in general, and not only could it help you considerably if prone to hay fever but could also be of overall benefit in boosting your immune response in general.

According to the style of Taoist medicine I was taught, it’s your kidney energy that lies at the root of your ability to resist external pernicious elements of any kind, whether airborne or otherwise and at this time of year, as always, nature herself, provides the perfect remedy: stinging nettles.

Wearing gloves if you like, though it’s not essential, pick off the uppermost leaves, as, apart from being hardly stingy at all, these are the freshest and most full of healing energy. Two or three plants’ worth, or sufficient to fill a small paper bag, will be enough to make a pot of strong tea, which is approximately one day’s dose. It’s preferable to pick them every day but picking enough for the week ahead is a good second best.

Meanwhile, your relationship with the physical world and your body’s capacity for effectively processing external stimuli, such as allergens, and subsequently stabilising itself, is governed, say the Taoists, by your spleen energy, for which a most effective natural stimulant at this time of year is honey, preferably locally produced, as this also seems to provide a quasi-homeopathic effect on the system, honey being produced from local pollen. Hence why it’s not just self-indulgent to plonk at least two teaspoons’ worth in each cup of nettle tea you drink.

On the frontline of this campaign, though, are your lungs, whose energy supports your breathing apparatus and membranous tissue (hence the itchy eyes). Mullein (from herb shops) is highly effective for supporting your lung energy and opening up your breathing passages. It also happens to make you feel extremely clear-minded, as opposed to the mental fuzziness that normally accompanies hay fever. You can either make a fresh pot of tea with it, or simply add it in equal measure to the nettles.

Between cups of tea, it also helps to eat beetroot, as not only does this increase your vitamin C levels, which is helpful in all respiratory conditions, but also, as its colour would suggest, helps make you more sanguine and hence confident in your body’s capacity to protect itself from the dreaded tickle. — The Guardian
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The nearer you come to God, the less you are disposed to questioning and reasoning.

— Sri Ramakrishna

Self, that which seems to those who love their self as their being, is not the eternal, the everlasting, the imperishable. Seek not self, but seek the truth.

— The Buddha

Whatever pleases God’s will, that alone prevails.

— Guru Nanak

Be not attached to friend or foe, to son or kinsman, to peace or war. If you aspire for Vishnu’s realm, look upon all things as of equal worth.

— Sri Adi Sankaracharya

If any man sues you at the law, and takes away your coat, let him have your cloak also.

— Jesus Christ
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