 |
|
Uncertainty in Bihar Insipid excuses |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Blair Truth
Search for energy security
Then and now
Ban caste panchayats Service and sacrifice is the true religion From
Pakistan
From the pages of
|
Uncertainty in Bihar Bihar has been passing through a period of uncertainty for long. The Centre has extended President’s rule in the state for another six months. The elections held in February threw up a fractured mandate. Far from restoring order, the hung Assembly complicated matters. As no party or group was in a position to form the government, President’s rule was imposed on the state and the Assembly was kept under suspended animation. Even as the Janata Dal (United) was in the process of staking claim to form the government following reports of a split in the Lok Janshakti Party, the Assembly was dissolved in a hurry. The National Democratic Alliance has challenged the dissolution in the Supreme Court. Significantly, the court has asked the petitioners to file appropriate petitions for a “restraining directive” to the Election Commission before it initiates the poll process and issues notices to the Centre on how the decision on dissolution was taken. While the Supreme Court is expected to examine all the electoral, legal and constitutional issues involved, it would be difficult to revive a dead Assembly. Consequently, fresh elections are the only answer to the continued stalemate. The people should be given an opportunity to exercise their franchise once again to choose a popular government. For, a duly elected government representing the informed choice of the people is always better for a democracy than President’s rule. As the Election Commission has decided to hold elections only in late October and November, the people have to wait for another three months for a popular government to be installed. Unfortunately, despite Governor Buta Singh’s claims, lawlessness remains unabated during President’s rule. Monday’s bomb blasts that killed Water Board Chairperson Ashok Yadav right in his Patna office proves the extent of lawlessness in the state. Earlier, criminals gunned down a councillor and his bodyguard in broad daylight in the state capital. There is also no let-up in kidnappings, extortions and the like which were the hallmark during the Rabri Devi-Laloo Prasad Yadav’s regimes. As President’s rule is essentially Governor’s rule, the Governor is duty-bound to take firm and effective steps to restore order and create a peaceful and conducive atmosphere for holding elections in a free and fair manner.
|
|
Insipid excuses The reverberations of the Gurgaon police barbarism continue to rock the nation and Parliament, and understandably so. Independent India has rarely seen such brutality. While the conscience of the country was deeply moved, the Home Minister on the day after did not seem to share the deep sense of outrage. Instead, his statement in a way appeared to be tailored to defend the police action. Apparently, he had failed to gauge the gravity of the incident as also the mood of Parliament. It was only after finding that MPs cutting across party lines were alleging that he was speaking like a Haryana Government spokesman, did he return to the House to announce that Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had agreed to a judicial inquiry. But the damage had been done. The Congress will have to work hard to live down the image that the unforgettable incident has left behind. Even if it is the workers who had precipitated the violent incidents, the force used by the police was grossly disproportionate. Whatever the report of the inquiry might be, it is obvious that the policemen need drastic reorientation of attitudes and ways of dealing with angry crowds. While the government has challenged the assessment of the Japanese Ambassador that the incident might affect the flow of investment from his country, even Indian analysts agree that the investment climate may get tarnished if such incidents are not prevented in time. Assocham and PHDCCI office-bearers have said in unequivocal terms that the incident will send negative signals to not only international investors but also domestic ones. It is this possibility which the state government must take very seriously. One more such incident and all its wooing of investors will go waste. While the police action is simply inexcusable, the mob mentality displayed by the workers too cannot be condoned. How to tackle such organised hooliganism is only one part of the problem. Equally important is the issue of developing an industrial atmosphere in which such incidents do not take place. While the anger against the police is inevitable, that should not lead to the ignoring of the related factors which culminated into the ugly confrontation. Labour leaders need to play a constructive role instead of pouring oil over the fire. Workers stand to gain more in an atmosphere free from tension and violence. The management also ought to have ensured that the door to a negotiated settlement with the workers is never ordered shut.
|
|
The Blair Truth Sooner or later it was bound to come up in the public realm, this whole business of what the image makeovers of our politicians is costing the taxpayer. First off the mark is 10 Downing Street with the news that British Prime Minister Tony Blair spent Rs 1.3 lakh from the exchequer on cosmetics and make-up artists to improve his public appearance. This is indeed small beer considering that the amount accounts for expenses since 1997 when he first became Prime Minister. The devil in the detail is that almost half of the total amount was spent in 2004 in the run up to Mr Blair’s third election. In cost-benefit terms the amount has fetched handsome returns as Mr Blair is the first Labour Premier to win a third term. True, such analysis begs the question as to who bore the cost and who got the benefit, and bean counters can be trusted to split hairs. The semantics of accountancy apart, Mr Blair can truly claim that his accountability extends not only to his policies but to his image as well. What is in question though is transparency, as cosmetics tend to confuse the public, glossing as it does over real issues and widening the gap between what they see and what they get. That said, it might be pertinent to ask whether the Indian neta would also go in for such a makeover – no, not in dipping into the treasury for cosmetics, but in revealing how much they spend in ‘looking good’. Time was when the scruffy look in a khadi kurta-pajama sufficed as a currency for success in politics. Today, our body-sculpted neta comes puffed up not only in a designer three-piece suit with pricey pens sticking out of his pocket but also reeking of perfume. Television has created its own compulsions and the gloss extends beyond their pronouncements and policies to their persona too. This only goes to show that appearances, particularly of politicians, can be highly deceptive. They hide a lot under the masks they wear.
|
|
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. — Robert Frost
|
Search for energy security Recently I asked a businessman from South-East Asia, who has extensive business interests in China, why China attracted $ 50 billion of foreign direct investment annually while India could barely attract one-tenth of this amount. His answer was: “China’s Communist leaders base their economic policies on realism and not populism.” Smilingly, he added: “What you should perhaps do is sign a free trade agreement with China. You could thereafter import Communist leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao from China and export some of your esteemed Communist Party leaders to China. Your economic growth will then go up to 10 per cent and China’s will come down to 4 per cent!” It is not only on issues of FDI that China is leaving India far behind. China became a net importer of energy in 1993. It has since exploited geopolitical developments following the collapse of the Soviet Union to invest heavily in energy resources in Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Canada, Latin America, Sudan, Angola and Australia. Its audacious attempt to acquire the American international oil company UNOCAL with an investment of $ 18.5 billion would have established Chinese influence over large sections of the oil and gas sectors in neighbouring Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. China’s geopolitical skills are evident in the manner in which it has dealt with Iran and Saudi Arabia. Supplementing its missile sales to Iran and Saudi Arabia, China signed an agreement with Iran to import 110 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas in March 2004. This was followed by an agreement in October 2004 valued at over $ 100 billion to import 250 million tonnes of LNG from Iran’s Yadarvan oilfields. This agreement also provides China access to 150,000 barrels of oil per day for a quarter of a century. What we will be obtaining through the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is insignificant when compared to China’s deals with Iran. Apprehensions about American sanctions alone should, therefore, not deter India from proceeding with energy cooperation with Iran. China signed a $ 3.5 billion agreement with Kazakhstan in September 2004 for an oil pipeline. Apart from emerging as the largest market for Russian arms, China signed an agreement for importing electricity from Russia earlier this year. In October 2004 Chinese and Russian companies signed agreements for the supply of oil and natural gas to China. During the G-8 Summit at Gleneagles President Putin announced that Russia would set up a new oil terminal in the border town of Skovordov to supply China 20 million tonnes of oil annually. Another terminal is also to be set up near the pacific Port of Nakhodka for a further supply of 10 million tonnes to China. China has outmanoeuvred rival Japan in securing access to Siberian oil. Chinese banks are reported to have invested around $ 6 billion in the Russian oil industry with Russia. Given the historic mistrust of the Russians about China, their energy relationship could, however, well be an uneasy one in the long term. A major feature that characterises the geopolitics of energy supplies today is the American desire to dominate global energy markets and to “persuade” former Soviet republics to bypass Russian pipeline networks. This has led to American moves to replace pro-Russian governments by regimes friendly to Western energy interests. The most recent manifestation of this was the May 25 inauguration of a $ 4 billion, 1760 kilometre pipeline with a capacity of one million barrels of oil per day from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The largest foreign shareholders in this pipeline are British Petroleum and American oil giant UNOCAL. Both Azerbaijan and Georgia are now ruled by pro-Western regimes. The US has consistently endeavoured to “persuade” the governments in the former Soviet republics to build pipelines with Western assistance that bypass the Russian pipeline grid and Iran. The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is the first major success it has achieved in seeking control over the energy sector in Central Asia and the Caucasus. China has, however, broadly supported the Russian approach to developments in Central Asia. India has achieved only modest success in securing equity stakes in exploiting energy resources abroad, in Russia, Sudan and Vietnam. It has been outmanoeuvred by China in Angola. The talks we have held on projects like the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline have shown an absence of a realistic understanding of geopolitical and regional realities. The Cabinet Committee on Security has not comprehensively examined the issues of security and pricing of oil pipelines, whether from Iran or Turkmenistan. India first stated that it would go head with the pipeline from Iran only if Pakistan agreed to transit facilities for India to Afghanistan. This policy was abruptly reversed. India then proclaimed that it would negotiate only with Iran on this project, giving Iran the entire responsibility of security of energy supplies. This policy was also jettisoned and we have established a joint working group with Pakistan. Similar inconsistency has characterised our approach to the proposal for a Myanmar-Bangladesh-India pipeline. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alluded to the risks in the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline while in Washington. International financiers will obviously look closely at the jihadi instincts of the Pakistan Army establishment and the volatile politics of Baluchistan, where Pakistani pipelines are regularly blown up, before opening their purse-strings. The Petroleum Minister, however, is reported to have voiced his unhappiness at the Prime Minister’s comments to his Communist comrades, who, in turn, believe that our national security is best promoted by reducing the Defence Budget! India’s quest for energy security will have to be realistic. We will have to continue to import the bulk of our energy requirements from seven Arab Gulf States and Iran in the Persian Gulf region. Nearly four million Indians reside in these Arab countries. We have in recent years neglected the Arab Gulf countries that are our immediate neighbours. The only power in the world that can significantly influence major Arab oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Iraq is the US. We will, therefore, first have to consult the US and then consumers like Japan and South Korea on how we can guarantee stability and security in the Persian Gulf and in the sealanes of the Indian Ocean. At the same time, Russia and China are making common cause to counter American influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. We should, therefore, avoid showing undue interest in American-backed projects like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that are designed to undermine Russian influence in the former Soviet republics.
|
Then and now
It was the year 1959. I was studying at Government College. There was a grand galaxy of teachers. Hardworking. Punctilious about punctuality. They were dignified in their dress and address. All of them were contented and committed. The Principal had just an old Fiat. Some had cycles. The others simply walked to the college. As students, we looked up to each one of them. Prof Mahesh Chandra was teaching history. He was tall, thin and lean. Handsome. He had a presence. His students spoke highly about his qualities of head and heart. I had not opted for the subject. But I wanted to talk to him. And as chance would have, it an inter-college elocution contest provided me an opportunity to meet him. I requested him to suggest a suitable piece. There was a friendly nod of the head. “Let me see”, was all that I heard. I left the staff room with a mixed feeling. Unsure of what would happen, I spent the afternoon in the college library. And the fact that I did not see Prof Chandra there further led me to believe that I shall have to help myself. I was slightly anxious. But my age entitled me to good meal. And as the clock ticked 9, I was overtaken by Ms Calm Sleep. I was totally oblivious of what the good professor was going through. At least till the next morning. As I got up, I found eight books on the table. My father told me that the kind professor had come to the house at 11.30 pm. He had brought the books from the university library, which was nearly 8 km from where I lived. Some books were placed in the basket. Some on the cycle carrier. The rest were in his arm. With the other hand, he had steered his pedal mobile — the cycle. He must have reached his home after midnight. I glanced through the marked pages. Each one was an excellent piece of oration. And on reaching the college, I discovered that he had gone to the university immediately after finishing his class. He had spent the afternoon and the evening going through a large number of books. Ultimately, he had selected the eight pieces. This happened 46 years back. My teacher had done it. Would anyone do it today? Would my grandson’s teacher do it? I have grave doubts. It is sad that things have changed. So much. From then to now.
|
Ban caste panchayats Two years ago a young Scheduled Castes boy and an upper-caste girl were stoned to death in Madhya Pradesh. Their crime: they fell in love and chose to get married. In Saharanpur district, around the same time, an upper-caste girl and a lower caste boy who had dared to elope had their hands thrust in burning oil as a grim warning to the other youth of the village not to transgress the caste barriers. In both these cases, the punishment to the youngsters, scarcely out of their teens, had been meted out by caste panchayats which often operate as little more than kangaroo courts dispensing justice at the drop of a hat. They do not hesitate ordering public lynching, tonsuring, stripping or even having the poor victims stoned to death. The fatwas being issued by these caste panchayats are so powerful that several human rights organisations have appealed to both the central and state governments to ensure that their fatwas remain unimplemented. Just a stone’s throw from the Capital are the khap(caste) panchayats of Haryana which have dispensed bizarre judgements, including insisting that a three-month pregnant woman terminate her marriage with her husband since they both belonged to the same gotra. The judgement decreed that the woman accept her husband as her brother. Such a judgement bears an uncanny similarity to the fatwa issued by the Dar-ul Uloom of Deoband, earlier this month, which declared that 28-year-old Imrana, a mother of five children could no longer live with her husband Noor Elahi because she had been raped by her father-in-law. As per Islamic law, a woman cannot continue with a conjugal relationship if she has been raped by his blood relative. The All India Muslim Law Board (AIMLB) supported this fatwa insisting that as per the Quran, that had she been raped by anyone other than a blood relative, she would have been permitted to stay with her husband. After the blaze of publicity that the case received, Imrana has now retreated into a cocoon of silence and refuses to meet the Press or even talk to activists. She was recently seen on a television channel pleading to be left alone, insisting all the while that she would accept whatever the Shariat had decreed. Personal laws sanctioned by the Constitution do not give any cleric or religious organisation the legal right to enforce verdicts on any disputes concerning personal law. The fatwa is only an opinion based on an interpretation of a religious text and several interpretations can be given to a single text. It is for this reason that organisations like the All India Democratic Women’s Association have been demanding that Muslim clerics themselves undertake some kind of codification of their personal laws. While it is true that the Muslim Personal Law Board has set up nine sharia courts in different parts of India and Muslims are encouraged by their ulema to go to these courts, these do not enjoy any legal sanctity. It is for this reason that educated Muslim women are increasingly seeking redress of their disputes in civil courts. Women activists and lawyers feel these extra-judicial bodies with disproportionate powers must be banned. They have been allowed to emerge as parallel centres of power only because they pander to the vote bank politics being played out by our present politicians. Women lawyers insist that all criminal cases, including rape, murder and kidnapping, must necessarily fall under the Indian Penal Code. It is only cases of marriage and divorce which fall under the jurisdiction of the Muslim Personal Law Board. More and more young Muslim girls, however, refuse to accept verdicts of sharia courts and are knocking at the doors of the judiciary for justice. Similarly, the khap panchayat’s verdict in Haryana asking a legally married woman to accept her husband as her “brother” was overruled by the Supreme Court in response to a PIL filed by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties. Some women activists believe the infamous Gudiya case in which a pregnant woman, married happily for the second time was forced to return to her first husband who had been reported dead and who arrived back home four years later, acted as a trigger to strengthen the verdicts of the ulemas. Few NGOs spoke out against the verdict and little pressure was placed on the government to get this verdict reversed. Caste panchayats, based on narrow definitions of identity, are notorious for handing over patriarchal and anti-women judgements and yet women and their families accept their verdicts because of community pressure. Civil courts are expensive, corrupt and time consuming. The problem is that there are any number of communities in India and each of these has set up its own caste panchayat. The government is wary of seeking a direct confrontation with so many groups. But either it draws certain parameters under which these bodies function or else it simply bans them. The latter is more advisable because these organisations do not seem to understand that men and women share equal rights and that this has been enshrined in our Constitution.
|
|
Service and sacrifice is the true religion It is amusing to see how the faux pas of Capt Amarinder Singh in addressing the Sikh congregation in Dixie Gurdwara Toronto, Canada, under the banner of ‘Khalistan Zindabad’ has been kicked round by various political groups and individuals to derive some political mileage out of it. A similar incident could have happened with almost any other visitor from India. I am told that quite a few Akali stalwarts had appeared on the same stage to address the congregation. The Khalistani takeover of the Sikh gurdwaras abroad is a post-operation Bluestar phenomenon having its roots in the post-Independence Sikh grievance of having been left out in the cold, when fruits of Indian freedom got distributed. Bhindranwale and the “khadkus” inspired by him combined with a fringe of naxalites, were able to project that the traditional Sikh leadership brought nothing but humiliation and dishonour to the Sikhs in all their struggles and only they, with their motorcycle armed squads, could get for the Sikhs what they had been aspiring for all through. In 1947 the Congress, the Muslim League and the Akalis were the three parties involved in parleys with the British for the transfer of power. The Congress was ruling India and the Muslim League was in power in Pakistan after Independence. The strength of the Sikhs sulking with this dispension was underestimated by the Congress leaders. They got the SAD to merge with the Congress and almost the entire Sikh leadership came over to join the Congress party ; thus becoming partners in wielding political power, but the vacuum of not being inheritors of political power from the British among the Sikhs provided a ready constituency for those Sikh leaders who got frustrated in their race for power or influence. The demand became sometimes for Punjabi Suba and, at other times, it was the Anandpur Sahib resolution culminating in the demand for Khalistan after Operation Bluestar. The hardliners among the Sikhs managed to emigrate and unfurl the Khalistani flag in gurdwaras abroad. Incidentally, after getting a whole generation of the Sikh youth bathed in blood, most of them have trekked back to the motherland, mostly unrepentent about their role. Their knowledge of the Sikh scripture and tradition was limited to some pet phrases like that political power came from weapons and the same has to be wrested by force. Shastran ke adhin hai raj, koi kisi ko raj na de hai; jo leh hai so nij bal se leh hai. These are not even the sayings of any of the Gurus still such apocrypha played havoc in Punjab for more than a decade. No advocate of Khalistan has produced a solution as to how to sell their ideal to the non-Sikhs nor at the national level the real cause of the Sikh estrangement from the mainstream has been studied or appreciated The truncated Punjab being ruled by the moderate Akalis or Dr Manmohan Singh being the Prime Minister cannot remedy the situation unless a realisation dawned on the Sikhs that it is through service and sacrifice for others that their forefathers had come to rule Punjab and it would again be through service and sacrifice for the poor and the downtrodden that could usher Raj Karega Khalsa and not any chimera of Khalistan.
|
|
From Pakistan ISLAMABAD:
There is no shortage of wheat flour and it is available at the controlled rate all over Pakistan. All flour mills are purchasing wheat from the market for grinding and Pasco has enough wheat stocks, said Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) President Tariq Sadiq while speaking to a delegation of the Flour Mills Association. He said that the government had increased the wheat price by Rs 50 per metric tonne to help the grower, which would directly affect flour consumers because not a single flour mill is in a position to bear this burden. He said that all flour mills are purchasing wheat from the market and to restrict their supply for an area is not applicable because if the government is supplying its own wheat then it can impose restrictions. He said the supply of flour is according to the needs of area. Mr Sadiq expressed the hope that there would be no shortage of flour in the future because the government has allowed the private sector to import duty-free wheat and this decision would have positive effect on the economy. During the last two years the price of wheat has been increased to Rs 250 per bag. — The News Reforms in doldrums ISLAMABAD:
An inordinate delay in amending the out-dated Societies Act-1860 is hindering the registration of madarsas, a source in the Auqaf Department told Dawn. As the Act is being revised, the Religious Affairs Ministry has barred the auqaf departments from registering seminaries, the source said. The source said the government had announced the Madarsa Reforms Package in 2001 under which a Madarsa Board was to be formed for the registration of seminaries. However, the package is stated to be in the doldrums causing delay in the registration of religious institutions. Under the Societies Act, the registration of religious seminaries was a provincial subject and without amendments to the Act, a centralised mechanism of madarsa reforms cannot be established. —
Dawn No to women in NWFP poll ISLAMABAD: A protest demonstration was held here Monday against the decision by some religious and political elements in Dir and Batagram in the NWFP of disenfranchising women, depriving them of their right to participate in the forthcoming local bodies elections. Protestors displayed placards condemning the decision and raised slogans in favour of women’s rights. The protestors announced that the PPP women’s wing in Islamabad would hold a demonstration in front of Parliament House if the government fails to establish its writ in the areas where women are deprived of their electoral rights. The President of the Pakistan People’s Party women’s wing, Islamabad, Nargis Faiz Malik, while addressing a large gathering of women at Aabpara Chowk, said that Pakistani women would not allow anyone to Talibanise Pakistan and usurp
women’s rights. — The Nation
|
|
From the pages of Times’ attack on Tilak Last week in an article on the Viceregal tour the Mahratta had occasion to express its innocent surprise as to how the Viceroy, the European guests and the august hosts remained ignorant to the disaster which occurred at Baroda before the banquet. There was absolutely nothing in the article calculated to give unnecessary offence to any body. But the Times of India has fiercely attacked Mr Tilak, as Editor of the Mahratta, for saying that both the Viceroy and the European guests possessed knowledge of the catastrophe when they set down to the grand banquet at the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, although the honourable gentleman had said no such thing. And when Mr Tilak sent a refutation the Times of India refused to print it!
|
— Book of quotations on Islam Envy becomes the whole-time companion of the man who desires material satisfaction. Whenever he cannot get the things he wants he is envious of those who have them. His jealousy binds him to the efforts that others may have put in or the costs they may have borne. —The Mahabharata Happiness like every other emotional state, has blindness and insensibility to opposing facts given to it as its instinctive weapon for self-protection against disturbance. —Book of quotations on Happiness Those who are strong willed, self-disciplined, moderate in all actions, faithful and controlled can withstand tempests like a rock steady mountain. — The Buddha
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
