O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Restraint is worth it
It will sustain peace process
Despite the Pakistani denial, Indian forces seem to have gathered enough proof to conclude that Tuesday’s mortar shelling at the Line of Control in the Poonch sector was a violation of the ceasefire agreement signed in November 2003.

Left turns pragmatic
Accepts FDI in banks with a rider
Some two months ago when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram suggested private banks should be allowed to secure foreign direct investment (FDI), the Left protested. At Wednesday’s breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister, the Leftist leaders were much mellowed and more receptive. 

Jails in a mess
Even Burail break hasn’t changed anything
It is full one year since the Beant Singh murder accused wormed their way out of the Burail jail in one of the most sensational incidents of its kind in the country. Despite a massive manhunt reportedly launched for the terrorists, there is no trace of them. 

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Punjab’s success story
Not by money alone
by S.S. Johl
Economics defines land, labour, capital and management as four principal factors of production. Land and capital by themselves are inert resources. It is the management that applies appropriate doses of labour to the right mix of land and capital, which in turn determines the optimality of the product-mix.

MIDDLE

The wonder drug
by Raj Kadyan
It was 1976. We were taking part in a high-level Army exercise in Punjab. Some staff officer with a spiteful sense of humour had codenamed the exercise ‘Summer Holiday’. While there was plenty of summer, but holiday?

OPED

NRIs caught in legal tangles
India not a party to Hague conventions
by Shubha Singh
As the overseas Indian community grows larger and maintains close links with the homeland, an increasing number of Indians in India and abroad have begun facing legal complications with regard to family matters. At the recent Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held in Mumbai, delegates spoke of the problems faced by overseas Indians in dealing with legal matters.

Delhi Durbar
Prediction goes wrong
Whether it is the Lok Sabha or assembly elections, majority of the politicians in the fray consult one astrologer or another to know their fate. And a favourite among the superstitious politicians is well-known astrologer Laxman Singh Madan.

• Who will be CM?

• NCP becomes rallying point

• Godhra report to benefit Laloo

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Restraint is worth it
It will sustain peace process

Despite the Pakistani denial, Indian forces seem to have gathered enough proof to conclude that Tuesday’s mortar shelling at the Line of Control in the Poonch sector was a violation of the ceasefire agreement signed in November 2003. The fact that all the shells fired from across the LoC were of 82 mm calibre shows that the unfortunate incident was the handiwork of elements in the Pakistani troops. Militants are not known to have used shells of such calibre. That Indian forces maintained restraint deserves appreciation. Their reaction in the face of such provocation could have led to serious consequences. The Government of India too preferred to play it down in the larger interest of peace.

The incident, perhaps, reflects Pakistan’s “frustration” after its weapon of terrorism having been blunted because of the fencing of the 778-km-long LoC along with surveillance and intruder alarm systems by India and the growing international pressure on Islamabad to shun the use of militancy as an instrument of state policy. During the past few months a number of militants attempting to infiltrate into India from Pakistan have either been gunned down or captured. On Tuesday too five militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba had been shot while trying to intrude into India. This happened early in the morning while mortar shelling began violating the ceasefire in the evening.

Reports suggest that the exemplary restraint displayed by the Indian forces have been taken note of by the Pakistani side. But that is not enough. Pakistan will have to rein in its border forces so that the provocative incident is not repeated in the interest of peace in South Asia. Such incidents can pose a serious threat to whatever headway that has been made by the two countries in the dialogue process. Peace must be promoted at every cost as there is no better alternative to it. 

Left turns pragmatic
Accepts FDI in banks with a rider

Some two months ago when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram suggested private banks should be allowed to secure foreign direct investment (FDI), the Left protested. At Wednesday’s breakfast meeting with the Prime Minister, the Leftist leaders were much mellowed and more receptive. They gave Mr Chidambaram a patient hearing and made him change the FDI schedule a bit. Instead of letting foreign banks pick up equity up to 74 per cent in Indian private banks in one go, the compromise worked out was to allow only 10 per cent foreign investment in one year. How this staggered flow of FDI will help, only comrades can explain.

The Finance Minister chose not to spoil the breakfast by raising contentious issues — like the one of increasing FDI in telecommunications and a hike in the EPF rates —on which the Leftist position is rigid still. He was also accommodating in not suggesting any privatisation of public sector banks — loss-making or otherwise. Mr Chidambaram has confined his banking reforms agenda to “consolidation”, which means merger of government banks to create one or two banks of global standards. The biggest of the lot, the SBI, is not big enough. Another issue sensitive to the Leftist constituency related to the retrenchment of staff. The Finance Minister assured them nobody would lose his job. That was good enough.

Since the Leftist concerns were addressed adequately, the breakfast meeting ended on a sweet note for the coalition partners. That augurs well for the coalition’s future. Despite occasional irritants, the Congress-Left marriage of convenience has been progressing smoothly. With experience, the Leftists have become less noisy and more pragmatic. Those running the government also make it a point to consult them and tailor their reforms accordingly. It was quite natural, therefore, that the senior lot present at Wednesday’s meeting — Dr Manmohan Singh, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and CPM General Secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet — allowed the misgivings, whatever left, be talked over. 

Jails in a mess
Even Burail break hasn’t changed anything

It is full one year since the Beant Singh murder accused wormed their way out of the Burail jail in one of the most sensational incidents of its kind in the country. Despite a massive manhunt reportedly launched for the terrorists, there is no trace of them. As it always happens in such cases, “red alerts” and frantic checkings ordered in the wake of the jailbreak have all been scaled down to business as usual, which means a state of glorious inactivity. The only thing that the government knows for certain is that they have vanished into thin air. In a way, this failure is as much an acceptance of defeat as was the elusiveness of Veerappan for decades. If those involved in one of the most high-profile murders could saunter out so easily, what is the point of arresting criminals at all?

Even if the police failed to prevent the escape or to apprehend the escaped killers, it was at least expected to close the proverbial doors after the horses had bolted. But things have hardly improved either in the jails of Punjab or of other states for that matter. Media reports suggest that almost all jails continue to be a model of monumental neglect, where there are few officials to take care of the excessive number of criminal inmates. Few have fired a shot in past many years to be able to shoot straight. Arms and ammunition available with them are obsolete. Surveillance cameras are more of showpieces. Even searchlights function in fits and starts. It seems that everything has been left to chance and another jailbreak is being anxiously awaited.

Politicians who are supposed to set things right have themselves been flouting the rules, if not in Punjab then in other states. After all, some of them like Pappu Yadav are almost permanent jailbirds living in comfort. Since they function from behind bars, they have no interest in enhancing security. Imagine the Supreme Court having to explore the possibility of installing jammers to prevent use of mobile phones in jails! If mobile phones can be smuggled in so easily, what is there to stop the entry of tunnel-digging implements of the kind that the Burail escapees freely used? 

Thought for the day

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

ARTICLE

Punjab’s success story
Not by money alone
by S.S. Johl

Economics defines land, labour, capital and management as four principal factors of production. Land and capital by themselves are inert resources. It is the management that applies appropriate doses of labour to the right mix of land and capital, which in turn determines the optimality of the product-mix. Management is the driving force in the production system and in growth and development. Again, it is not the per capita income, but the savings and exogenous investments that determine growth. Mohan Guruswamy contends (The Tribune, October 23, 2004) that it is entirely because of the huge investment made by the centre in Punjab on the Bhakhra dam and higher allocation of Plan resources to the state that has made a difference in the development of Punjab vis-à-vis Bihar. This argument has apparently been based on faulty premises.

In absolute terms, Bihar received higher allocations in every Five-Year Plan. For instance, during the Sixth to Eighth Plan, the planning commission allocated Rs 55,775 crore to Bihar compared with Rs 40,012 crore to Punjab. In the Tenth Plan, the provision is Rs 20,995 crore for Bihar compared with Rs 18,657 crore for Punjab. Due to some fiscal constraints, Punjab has never been able to achieve more than 70 per cent of financial expenditure targets. Recently the achievement has been around 40 per cent only. Still, the state shows better results on physical achievements.

With a lower level of Plan allocations and still lower utilisation of allocated funds, Punjab provides gainful employment to 3.71 million (PAU survey, 2004) migratory workers and their families living in the state, mainly from Bihar. This forms 17 per cent of the state’s population. These workers send out more than Rs 3,500 crore annually to their home-states. This is a significant spillover of positive externalities of development in the state, which should be counted to the advantage of Bihar and other such states.

The Bhakhra dam and its hydro-electric system is cited as another predominant factor in the development of Punjab. It needs to be realised that Punjab was devastated by Partition, which trauma and tragedy fortunately did not visit the state of Bihar. Further, the harvested water and electricity generated out of this system is not appropriated by Punjab alone. These waters and power are shared by Haryana, the Union Territory of Chandigarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan also. Punjab effectively gets not more than 54 per cent of the power and less than 25 per cent of the irrigation water out of this system and has to compensate Himachal Pradesh on various accounts in lieu of its claims to water and power generated out of this complex. As from December 31, 1981, Punjab gets only 4.22 million acre feet of water out of the total estimated availability of 17.17 MAF.

Rajasthan, which is not even a riparian state, gets 8.60 MAF and yet it has not progressed as well. The canal system in Punjab supplies only 25 per cent of the irrigation water requirements of the crops grown in the state. Seventyfive per cent of irrigation water is supplied through tubewells. As usual, this year Punjab had to buy electricity from outside the state worth more than Rs 1800 crore and had to close industries for two to three days a week and divert the electricity so saved from industrial and domestic sectors to the paddy crop to ward off drought. This social cost of producing paddy in the state comes to more than Rs 500 per quintal, which is nowhere counted in determining the minimum support price.

Punjab consumes none of the more than 10 million tonnes of rice produced in the state, which it contributes to the Central pool that ultimately goes to the deficit states like Bihar. Wheat and rice put together, the state has been contributing more than 20 million tons of foodgrains to the central stocks annually for more than three decades. More than 90 per cent of the grains that move to the deficit states like Bihar are the grains from Punjab.

Imagine, if this contribution from the state were not there, what would have been the fate of the country on the food front! In calculating the cost of production, which is an important element in the determination of the minimum support price, only the cost of the inputs actually paid by the farmer is included. To the extent subsidy is provided, the MSP remains low. No element of subsidy on water, fertilizers, etc, enters the price the farmers get. Any subsidy by way of irrigation water the state provides too flows to the consumers because this does not enter into the cost calculations and consequently issue prices remain lower than the economic (shadow) price. In fact, the farm sector is net taxed, which has been established by various studies. Thus, the subsidy, whether by the Centre or the state, de facto flows to the consumers of the deficit states in the form of lower issue prices. This way the Punjab state exchequer and its people have been and are heavily subsidising annually the consumers of the deficit states like Bihar.

Punjab is mining its ground water at an excessive rate and the water-table is receding at more than 42 centimetres per annum. It is estimated that if water continues to be exploited at this rate, within one decade nowhere in Punjab the water-table will be less than 17 metre deep. Centrifugal pumps have gone dysfunctional at many places and hand-pumps are things of the past. All this due to the Bhakhra dam and the growing of paddy for the deficit consuming states! Whereas, Punjab gets only 25 per cent of its irrigation requirement from the canal system, the dam has drastically reduced the recharge of underground aquifer. Were these dams not there, underground water could be pumped freely to meet total irrigation requirements easily without creating any imbalance between the withdrawal from and recharge of sub-soil aquifer.

Whereas the major share of benefits out of Bhakhra and other dams has flown to the other adjoining states, Punjab is left licking its wounds and is suffering a climate of indifference towards its plight. It is ironic that the states in the gangetic basin like Bihar have more than 20 million hectares of fertile land floating over sweet water and still these states are deficit in foodgrains. They also have enough labour force to work upon their resource endowments. What is lacking is the judicious use of resources and the exploitation of available capacities of resource endowment by the government and, more importantly, the lack of initiative by the people and the private sector.

It is to be realised that land consolidation and levelling, provision of approach roads to individual holdings, farm-level developments, market infrastructure and market regulation, small-scale industries, innovative small tools and implements, etc, did not come though the Central allocation of funds. It is the awakened and committed management factor in public and private sectors which has put the state on a faster growth path. This is precisely what is lacking in Bihar. Otherwise, given the Punjab level of private sector initiative and the proper facilitating role of the government, there should be reverse flow of labour into that state.

Unfortunately, even Punjab is now showing signs of fatigue, starting early nineties, due to the lack of the desired level of concern, commitment and will power on the part of the political class, which is driven by its personal agendas only. We must not forget that growth and development do not take place by money alone.

MIDDLE

The wonder drug
by Raj Kadyan

It was 1976. We were taking part in a high-level Army exercise in Punjab. Some staff officer with a spiteful sense of humour had codenamed the exercise ‘Summer Holiday’. While there was plenty of summer, but holiday?

We occupied a position in freshly harvested acreage of wheat. Children from the nearby villages were greatly amused to see us play “hide and seek” as we crawled between our foxholes through the interconnecting shallow trenches. It wasn’t so much the fear of exposing ourselves to the “enemy” that kept us on the slither; it had more to do with the over-zealous umpires deputed to assess our performance.

Our unit did not have a medical officer on its rolls. For the duration of the manoeuvres, a doctor from one of the hospitals had been provided to us as a man of the hour.

As we moved into our new habitat, our daily sick report rose sharply. From a single digit, the number of men who lined up daily before the doctor went up almost tenfold. It was naturally a cause for concern. The commanding officer charged me, as the second-in-command, to take urgent steps to identify the problem and take corrective action.

Along with the Subedar Major, I set out to inspect the bivouac. We checked the cookhouses, the latrines, the bathing points and every other place that could be a possible source of the problem. We found the conditions generally satisfactory. Before investigating any further, I decided to have a word with the medico.

There was a long queue outside his underground inspection-cum-treatment centre and he was busy. I sat on a campstool and watched him function. The first sick man reported a stomach ailment. After a cursory probing of his mid region, the doctor prescribed “Ruga, once a day.” The next man complained of toothache and was given an identical prescription. The third was a case of lack of sleep and appetite and was prescribed “Ruga, twice a day.” And so it went on with every sick reporter being handed out Ruga in varying dosage.

Though not very knowledgeable on medical subject, I was generally familiar with the drugs for such common ailments. I had never heard of Ruga and concluded that it must be a new cure-all medicine. Seeing the men walk away happily with the prescriptions, helped build my respect for the unknown elixir. I waited for the doctors to finish seeing his many patients and then asked him what this new drug was.

“It is very effective and popular sir”, he said by way of background. “Actually, it is not a drug”, he elaborated, “Ruga is an abbreviated term for rum gargles.”

OPED

NRIs caught in legal tangles
India not a party to Hague conventions
by Shubha Singh

As the overseas Indian community grows larger and maintains close links with the homeland, an increasing number of Indians in India and abroad have begun facing legal complications with regard to family matters. At the recent Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held in Mumbai, delegates spoke of the problems faced by overseas Indians in dealing with legal matters.

While in India the number of women deserted by their NRI husbands has become a matter of concern in several Indian states, the issues of maintenance, child support, divorce, partition of matrimonial property as well as inheritance are unnecessarily prolonged and tangled because the two parties live in different countries with dissimilar legal systems.

The problem is further accentuated as India is not a party to the international conventions that make compatible the different legal systems of the member countries.

The international conventions have grown out of the Hague conference on private international law that was held to rationalise the different civil laws that were in force in different countries where there was a large movement of people.

Over the years conventions have been agreed upon to deal with new issues, but India has not been a party to the conventions dealing with areas of family law, partly because of the differing personal laws applicable in India.

Many Indian women deserted by their NRI husbands have discovered that their spouses have obtained an ex-parte divorce in the US without their knowledge on the grounds of irrevocable breakdown of marriage.

In most of these cases, a false affidavit stating summons has been served in India or that the defendant refused to accept summons is sufficient for the judgment to be pronounced.

NRIs who go through a second marriage in India under pressure from their families can be sued for bigamy, a criminal offence in the country where they reside but most are confident that little action will actually be taken.

Abduction of small children by one parent in a strained marriage is becoming another legal and human problem. A parent with custody rights will often take the children to India in the hope that the long drawn-out process in the Indian courts will allow them to keep the children.

The US consular division took up 10 cases of abducted children with the Indian government recently. In one case the father had abducted the children and left them with his parents in India. He was sentenced to prison in the US but the wife has not been able to obtain custody of her children as the grandparents in India are unwilling to let them go.

In another case, the husband was awarded custody of the children by an Indian court but the wife took them abroad, beyond the reach of the Indian part of the family.

Abduction of children by one parent has become so frequent, especially among Asians, that single parents travelling with small children are often asked to produce custody papers by the airport authorities in recent days.

Minister for Overseas Indians Jagdish Tytler has proposed setting up mechanisms in his ministry to check the antecedents of prospective NRI bridegrooms who come to India to get married.

The External Affairs Ministry is, meanwhile, taking a close look at the international conventions that govern the area of laws that is known as private international law or ‘conflict of laws’ between the legal practices in two different countries.

Since India is a party to few of the international conventions it is difficult for Indians to deal with personal matters that are linked to a foreign legal system.

The need to take a closer look at the private international law has become a pressing problem with the large number of deserted wives of NRIs in states where migration is common.

There is the need to safeguard the interests of Indian women in matters relating to divorce, enforcement of alimony obligations and maintenance payments for children as well as issues arising from matrimonial property.

The Supreme Court has urged the government to enact legislation to mitigate the conflict of laws caused by differing legal systems while giving judgments in two separate divorce cases.

The government has ratified the international convention on abolishing legalisation for foreign public documents and the convention will become applicable in India by June 2005. All documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, educational documents as well as court judgments have to be certified before they are accepted as legal documents in any other country.

Educational certificates need to be certified by the state government concerned and the Union Human Resource Development Ministry before the Ministry of External Affairs certifies them. The process of giving a legal cover to Indian documents for use abroad is usually a long drawn out affair.

Once India’s ratification of the convention comes into force, it will shorten the process by making the Ministry of External Affairs the signing authority for all such documents.

While these conventions will mitigate some of the problems, the government is still to consider other conventions such as the Hague Convention on Recognition of Divorces and Legal Separations 1970, the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Matrimonial Property Regimes 1978.

However, negotiations are currently taking place at The Hague to adopt a new convention that covers all kinds of family support for spouses, children and elderly parents. India contributed to the negotiations in June 2004.

Delhi Durbar
Prediction goes wrong

Whether it is the Lok Sabha or assembly elections, majority of the politicians in the fray consult one astrologer or another to know their fate. And a favourite among the superstitious politicians is well-known astrologer Laxman Singh Madan.

However, the scene ahead of the coming assembly poll in Haryana, Jharkhand and Bihar seems to have changed a little for Madanji. If one of the well-known BJP leaders is to be believed, many of the party candidates, who would have otherwise consulted Madanji, have decided not to consult him this time.

The reason, he said, could probably be due to Madanji’s reported prediction that the UPA Government will fall by the end of 2004 and Atal Bihari Vajpayee would once again become Prime Minister. However, this as of now remains a distant dream for the most respected BJP leader.

Who will be CM?

There is a lot of talk in the media regarding the possible Congress victory in the coming Haryana assembly elections and so is the talk as to who will become Chief Minister.

The names doing the rounds include Bhajan Lal, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Birendra Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh and Kumari Selja.

The staff of the Minister of State for Poverty Alleviation and Urban Unemployment, Kumari Selja, while fixing the dates for her signing an MoU with her Chinese counterpart on bamboo culture, have ensured that the dates do not clash with the dates of the swearing-in ceremony of the Haryana Chief Minister.

Selja is not only young and a Dalit, but also a favourite of party chief Sonia Gandhi, who definitely likes the “woman power” to grow.

NCP becomes rallying point

The Nationalist Congress Party is slowly but surely emerging as the rallying point for all those UPA partners who have some grouse with the Congress.

NCP General Secretary and spokesman Devi Prasad Tripathi, who has decades old ties with the Left parties, has been asked by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar to remain in touch with not only the CPI and the CPM, but also with leaders of the other smaller parties.

As a result DPT, as Tripathi is popularly known among his friends and foes, has been working over time, meeting these leaders.

Godhra report to benefit Laloo

More than the BJP, it may be the Congress which faces the brunt of any political implications of the interim report on the Godhra carnage. Political observers feel that the interim report has only consolidated RJD chief Laloo Prasad’s image as a “champion of secularism” and no other party in the “secular camp” is likely to benefit.

They say that the probe committee was set up on the initiative of Laloo Prasad and the RJD supremo would not allow others to corner any electoral credit.

Laloo Prasad has left a handful of seats for the Congress in Bihar and has made the grand old party’s task difficult in Jharkhand by deciding to put up candidates on a large number of seats.

Given the RJD’s posturing, it may not be easy for the Congress to win back the sizeable minority community in the two election-going states.

Contributed by Prashant Sood, S.Satyanarayanan, Girja Shankar Kaura and Satish Misra

REFLECTIONS

—Guru Nanak