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Exam system stinks Plug the loopholes |
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Chinese chakkar
The Saudi-Pakistan
nexus
Ways of Sarkar
Farmers’ suicides
drive kids to elders’ care China gets cautious
in quelling riots From
Pakistan
From the pages of
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Plug the loopholes The
Rs 9 crore fraud detected in Maharashtra’s employment guarantee scheme may appear too small to deserve any notice. Yet it points to possible loopholes in a similar scheme proposed at the national level. One major concern voiced at many levels about the UPA government’s job guarantee scheme, which is based on the Maharashtra model, is that funds might get diverted due to leakages in the system. Instead of reaching the actual beneficiaries, the money could be gobbled up by the well-entrenched sharks. Thanks to an alert District Collector of Solapur, the fraud got exposed. The fact that she was first transferred and then her transfer was stayed as the scandal surfaced indicates the extent of influence wielded by the vested interests. What is worrying about the national-level job scheme is the massive scale of its financing. On the suggestion of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the group of ministers headed by Mr Pranab Mukherjee has extended the scheme to cover not just those below the poverty line, but all rural households. The number of districts to be covered has been raised from 150 to 200. As a result, the cost has gone up from the previous Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 1.5 lakh crore. This is a huge sum and strenuous efforts must be made to plug all possible leakages before the scheme becomes a reality. Raising that much cash is the biggest challenge and worry for the UPA government. Most states are reluctant to cough up the required cash. The scheme is vital as it not only addresses the problem of unemployment, but also attempts to make a frontal assault on rural poverty by generating incomes in the countryside that can ultimately boost industrial activity apart from building rural infrastructure. The scheme, therefore, cannot be allowed to fail due to poor planning. Resources can be raised through disinvestment of PSUs, cutting non-merit subsidies and reducing administrative expenditure by clubbing all job schemes and trimming officialdom. |
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Chinese chakkar The
iconoclastic Dravidian rationalist ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasami Naicker once lamented to the effect that all his life he had propagated the breaking of idols, but his followers ended up making an idol of him. The irony is manifest in the statues of Periyar, which abound in Tamil Nadu, and are worshipped with a reverence the atheists scorned among the temple-going. This then, perhaps, is the supreme truth: the deities may change but deification will endure to the profit of mankind. Therefore, it was inevitable that, like all opposites, godlessness and godliness too would meet at some point impelled by the exigencies of man and Mammon. Nothing illustrates this more than the Chinese making idols of Hindu gods and goddesses and selling them to devout Indians who worship these products. The Chinese-made idols, now flooding the markets here with an eye on festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Puja, are said to be as good a buy for the religious occasion as the idols made in India by Indians. No doubt, the price of these idols is attractive. Those who had insistently proclaimed that the elephant shall overcome the dragon will find fulfilment in the fact that the Chinese are making idols of Ganesha. History has come full circle: from the time when Indian revolutionaries chanted “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” to the present when Chinese idol-makers find that Indian gods and goddesses can bestow prosperity on them too, regardless of race and religion, if they bow to their form and function. What matters whether it is
mool mantra or moolah mantra, this minor difference in pronunciation, when the market can bring together idol makers and idol worshippers. After all, faith, be it in God or money, can move not only mountains but also peoples divided by mountains to make common cause. Ah progressivism, what price progress. |
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Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell |
The Saudi-Pakistan nexus
WHEN Saudi Arabia’s ruler King Fahd died after a prolonged illness on August 1, his last rites were performed according to strict and austere Wahabi traditions. But one person who reacted as though his beloved uncle had died and mourned publicly, was Pakistan’s General Musharraf, who promptly declared one week’s state mourning and became the first non-Arab ruler of a Muslim country to rush to Saudi Arabia for the last rites of the Saudi monarch. What prompted this show of grief and solidarity by General Musharraf who had visited Saudi Arabia only a few weeks earlier? Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now in the same boat on issues of global terrorism. The ISI continues to provide support to the Taliban and jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose cadres are being arrested worldwide for inciting and promoting terrorism. There is also evidence that Saudi “charities” like the Al Harmain Islamic Foundation, the International Institute for Islamic Thought and the International Islamic Relief Organisation continue to fund extremist and terrorist activities worldwide, undermining peace and harmony in pluralistic societies. King Abdullah, who has just ascended the throne in Saudi Arabia, is respected as a moderate. The same, however, cannot be said of other members of the royal family, including those of the powerful Sudairi clan who have controlled the levers of power and defied Abdullah even when he was the kingdom’s de facto ruler. Influential royals of the Sudairi clan like the Governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, have funded extremist Islamist causes worldwide. Prince Salman channeled large funds to Islamic extremist groups in Bosnia. He also provided arms and training to Chechen rebels. King Fahd’s “favourite” son, Prince Abdul Aziz (popularly known as Azouzi), sent millions of dollars through a known associate of Osama bin Laden to “slaughter Russian soldiers and civilians alike” in Chechnya. Azouzi also transferred huge sums of money to countries like Germany, Spain and the US for Wahabi Islamic causes that preach hatred of the West. His love for opulence is such that he was permitted by an indulgent father to spend $4.6 billion for constructing a palace outside Riyadh. One of America’s leading experts, Mr Robert Baer, who was formerly in the CIA, states that Saudi Arabia is ruled by “an increasingly bankrupt, criminal, dysfunctional royal family that is hated by the people it rules.’’ Rather than coming down heavily on the Saudi elite after 9/11, the Bush Administration has chosen to tread cautiously. Humanitarian causes dear to influential people like Mrs Barbara Bush and Mrs Nancy Reagan have been funded by the Saudi royals. Influential Americans like Vice-President Dick Cheney, Mr George Schultz, Mr James Baker, Mr Colin Powell and Dr Henry Kissinger have all been associated with companies like the Carlyle Group and Haliburton that deal extensively with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are estimated to have invested over $500 billion in the US. They remain a major buyer of American arms and are the largest supplier of oil to the US. They have also played ball with the Americans in keeping global oil prices at levels that the Americans find acceptable. But while the Bush Administration has avoided public criticism of the links of Saudi royals with international terrorism, American writers like Robert Baer, Gerald Posner and Craig Unger have been given access to information about their terrorist links. Gerald Posner recently revealed that when the FBI captured a top Al-Qaeda terrorist, Abu Zubaydah in Faisalabad, Zubaydah revealed that his contacts in Saudi Arabia were Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a wealthy royal with a passion for race horses, Prince Sultan bin Turki al Saud, a nephew of King Fahd, and Prince Fahd bin Turki, another relative of the monarch. Zubaydah told his American interrogators that the royal family struck a deal with Al-Qaeda for the latter not to target it. He also revealed that Prince Ahmed was informed beforehand that Al-Qaeda was planning to strike on American targets on September 11, 2001. Zubaydah further revealed that Al-Qaeda had also struck a deal with the Pakistani military. Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir was informed of the impending attacks on the US on 9/11. The Bush Administration has remained silent on these allegations. More ominously, Prince Ahmed died mysteriously in his sleep a few weeks after Zubaydah’s revelations. His cousin Prince Sultan bin Turki died the next day in a “car accident”. Prince Fahd bin Turki died mysteriously a week later of “thirst” while he was said to be driving in the desert. Finally, Air Chief Marshal Mir died in a mysterious air crash in Pakistan. According to Posner, the air crash is believed to have been an act of sabotage. Just as Pakistan and China are partners in nuclear and missile proliferation, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are partners in global terrorism. Mosques and jihadi-oriented madarsas in both countries spout anti-western venom. Terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba have links in Saudi Arabia. This is evident from the phone calls made by Lashkar militants operating in India to contacts in Saudi Arabia. But the Pakistani-Saudi nexus goes beyond terrorism. The Petroleum Intelligence Weekly reported in July 2000 that Saudi Arabia was sending 150,000 barrels of oil per day virtually free of cost to Pakistan. Such supplies, currently valued at $3.2 billion annually, continue. Robert Baer has reported that the US has known about nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia since 1994. Defence Minister Prince Sultan was given unprecedented access to Pakistan’s nuclear facilities in Kahuta in May 1999. Dr. A.Q. Khan visited Saudi Arabia shortly thereafter. According to Pakistani writer Amir Mir, General Musharraf’s visit to Saudi Arabia on June 25-26 was primarily to discuss how to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to information about the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia nuclear nexus. Saudi Arabia is resisting pressures to adhere to the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, a Protocol that Iran has been compelled to accept. Saudi Arabia has been a consistent supporter in the OIC of Pakistan’s protégés in the Hurriyat Conference in Jammu and Kashmir. One, however, sincerely hopes that King Abdullah will avoid going down the path chosen by General Musharraf. No country can insulate itself from the inevitable consequences of sponsoring jihad and extremism abroad while piously proclaiming its abhorrence of such causes. Words necessarily have to be matched by
deeds.
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Ways of Sarkar My
late wife had willed a property in Mohali (Punjab) of which she was a joint holder to be transferred in the name of our younger son who is abroad. I had undertaken to get it done. I went to the local Estate Office for that purpose but came back on seeing a long waiting line. I remembered that I was the Chief Secretary Punjab some time back. I rang up the Secretary, Urban Development, to help me. He was very polite and helpful and he gave me the cell phone number of the Estate Officer concerned. He told me that the officer would be waiting for me the next day. I reached the Estate Office the next day but as I tried to enter the office a security guard stopped me and asked me to stand in a queue to obtain an entry pass. Facing the same predicament as on the previous day, I rang up the officer concerned on his cell phone. He was good enough to come down and escort me to his office. He called for the dealing clerk and passed the necessary orders for the substitution of the name of my late wife with that of my
son. He asked the clerk concerned to hand over a requisition in the name of a daily newspaper for publication to me so that I could get the formality required completed at the earliest. I found that the clerk concerned was not liking the order of the officer very much but somehow he carried out those
orders. Luckily for us we read the draft that was given. It was full of mistakes which took us a few days to correct. We were told to collect a copy of the new record after about a
fortnight. I went back to Delhi asking my younger brother who stays at Mohali to collect the necessary papers after a fortnight. He was told by the clerk concerned that we would have to wait for the copy of the orders as according to the procedure prescribed, the file would first go for clearance to their accounts section for certifying that no dues of the government were payable for the property. Thereafter, he said that their assistant engineer would verify by visiting the property if we had undertaken any unauthorised construction. My brother was given the friendly advice that since he stayed at Mohali, he could enquire from time to time as to what was
happening. When I learnt as to what had happened, I blamed myself for forgetting that I had retired from the civil service a long time back and as a private citizen I should have approached a property agent who would have got the needful done by charging a little fee leaving every one concerned happy in the
bargain. |
Farmers’ suicides drive
kids to elders’ care Dressed
in a tehmat and kurta, Bade Ram looks older than his age. He has every reason to look worried. He is being forced to discontinue sending his two nieces — 11-year-old Shiela and nine-year-old Reena, studying in Class V and Class II, respectively — to the local government school in Banga village. It seems difficult to believe that Bade Ram, whose family once owed 3,000 acres of land in the village of Banga near Patiala, can no longer afford the education of two girls. But indebtedness has caused havoc in rural Punjab and hundreds of families can no longer fork out miniscule amounts of two to three hundred per month towards educational expenses. Both Shiela and Reena are bright girls and very good at their studies. When asked whether she would like to continue with her studies, Shiela replied with tears in her eyes. “I love studying and have always managed to come in the first five in my class.” Problems in young Shiela’s family have escalated in the last couple of years. Financial difficulties forced Bade Ram’s three elder brothers ( including Shiela’s father) to commit suicide. “My eldest brother, Balbir Singh, committed suicide way back in 1997. Immediately after his death, my ‘bhabi’, wife of my middle brother, Gyan Singh, became ill. Gyan ended up incurring loans of Rs 2.5 lakh on medication. She died anyway. Unable to pay back the debts, Gyan killed himself by drinking a pesticide.” Farmers suicides in Punjab have created a situation where the upbringing of children has been forced into the hands of aging grandfathers and grandmothers, who lack both economic and physical wherewithal to be burdened with such a huge responsibility. Take the case of elderly Paneswari Devi hailing from Kalwanjara village near Lehra. After her husband’s death, her only son, 27-year-old Pritam Singh, committed suicide in July, 2004. “We were heavily in debt and could not repay the money. Pritam Singh’s wife ran away, leaving three kids between five and ten. They are my responsibility, but tell me, how can an aged woman like me take care of them,” Devi asks. Unable to make both ends meet, Paneswari Devi is working as a day labourer. The three children work along with her in the fields. “What can I do ? I earn Rs 20 -30 a day. That is not enough to feed three growing kids,” she says. Malkit Kaur, recently elected sarpanch of Chottiyan village, points out, “We are constantly being told about the AIDS syndrome where earning members are being wiped out by this disease. But in Punjab, an entire generation has been wiped out because of indebtedness. There are no earning members left to shoulder the responsibility of nurturing the younger ones and no one is paying attention to this phenomenon.” Farmers’ suicides, Malkit maintains, are not limited to male-headed households. She cites the example of Sukhpal Kaur of Nangla village whose husband had consumed pesticide because he could not repay a debt of Rs 70,000. Sukhpal was under pressure from arhtiyas that she had to finally take her life. She left behind four children. Panchayat members express concern at this trend. Said one senior sarpanch on the condition of anonymity, “This entire area comes under the Lok Sabha constituency of the wife of the Punjab Chief Minister. She has done little to ameliorate the grief of these thousands of bereaved families. But no one wants to speak against her in public.” Chandigarh-based activist Inderjit Singh Jaijee, Chairperson of the Movement Against State Repression, has been tabulating statistics on farmers’ suicides in Punjab’s Sangrur and Mansa districts since 1998. “In all, more than 10,000 farmers have committed suicide in Punjab. Most of these families are now being headed by women,” he observes. “Statistics show that an average of 50 suicides take place in Lehra and Andana blocks every year. Even if we were to halve this number to 25, we could expostulate the number to 2,500 per year in Punjab’s remaining 100 districts since suicide reports are now coming from all regions,” says Mr Jaijee, a former MLA from Sangrur district. Already during Capt Amarinder Singh’s tenure, official statistics point out that 325 farmers have committed suicide, Mr Jaijee adds. Dr Ranjit Singh Ghuman, Prof of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala, believes that 8 per cent of land holdings in Punjab are marginal and, therefore, uneconomical. In order to make these economical, the government needs to persuade farmers to set up co-operatives. Only then will their condition improve. Unfortunately, the government’s own investment in agriculture has declined substantially from 3.98 per cent of the GDP in 1979 to 1.8 per cent at present. This has resulted in large-scale disengagement in the rural work force — from 55 per cent to 39 per cent — but cities have not been able to absorb the rural labour, Dr Ghuman adds. Ms Manjit Hardev Singh, a lawyer practising in the Delhi High Court, read about the plight of these children being brought up by women matriarchs. After extensively touring Sangrur district, she chose to adopt three such families. “I give a stipend of Rs 1,500 per month to three such families. The cheques are given to them through the local sarpanch or a responsible village elder. But my contribution is like a drop in the ocean . Other people need to come forward and help these suffering people,” he adds. |
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China gets cautious in quelling riots Facing
a steady rhythm of violent protests, the Chinese government is showing increased concern about stability, using caution in putting down riots around the country but warning people that violence will not be tolerated. The fallout from a series of demonstrations has been magnified recently because of loosened restrictions on news reporting and increased use of cell phones and the Internet, even by villagers in remote areas, according to government-connected researchers and peasants involved in the protests. Although Communist Party censors try to stifle reporting on the unrest, they said, word of the incidents is transmitted at a speed previously unknown in China. As they are more widely publicised, the violent protests have become a major issue for President Hu Jintao’s government. According to Chinese sources, senior officials early on realized that such violence could undermine the country’s economic growth—and perhaps the party’s monopoly on power—if it continues to grow and spread. As a result, calls for stability and social harmony have become the watchwords in speeches by Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao. Reflecting the leaders’ concern, the People’s Daily, the main party newspaper, declared in a front-page editorial July 28 that any attempt to use protests to correct social injustices that arise as China moves toward a market economy would be ``punished in accordance with the law.’’ The editorial also was broadcast on state television and relayed by the official New China News Agency, underlying the importance officials attached to the warning. “Resolving any such problems must be done in line with law and maintenance of stability,’’ the editorial said. “The solution of any problems must rely on the party, the government, the law, the policies and the system.’’ Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang said last month that the number of what he called “mass incidents’’ was rising fast across China, according to a report in a government-funded newspaper confirmed by an official who heard Zhou speak at a closed meeting. In 2004, Zhou said, 3.76 million of China’s 1.3 billion people took part in 74,000 such protests, which he said represented a dramatic increase. Perhaps more worrisome, Zhou continued, is a “noticeable’’ trend toward organized unrest, rather than the spontaneous outbursts that traditionally have led to violent clashes between citizens and police. The minister added, however, that most protests erupt over specific economic issues rather than political demands, suggesting they are not coordinated or directed at bringing down the one-party system that has been in place in China since 1949. Rural protesters have recently cited farmland seizures by local governments working with developers, or pollution of fields and irrigation sources by locally licensed factories or mines as the reasons for their uprisings. Other protests have erupted over clashes between factory managers and the millions of youths who leave their villages to work in assembly plants in big city suburbs. Provincial, municipal and county governments have often proven unable to handle these complaints because local officials, eager for economic growth in partnership with businessmen, regard the aggrieved people as obstacles to success. — LA Times-Washington Post |
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From Pakistan LAHORE:
Opposition in the Punjab Assembly has filed a reference against Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, seeking his disqualification as member of the assembly under Article 63(2) of the Constitution for getting loans worth Rs 39.07 million written off from banks. Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Qasim Zia and Parliamentary Leader of PML — N. Rana Sanaullah filed this reference against the chief minister along with other members of two parties in the assembly chambers with the staff officer of the Punjab Assembly. Qasim Zia, while addressing a Press conference in his chambers said according to annual report of Muslim Commercial Bank of year 2000, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi got a loan of Rs 22.792 million written off while another loan of Rs 16.32 million from United Bank Ltd was written off in 2002. He said under the Constitution, which includes the Legal Framework Order, no individual can be elected as member of a House if he is a defaulter of a bank loan or got a loan written off by him.
— The News Now 20-rupee
notes RAWALPINDI: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday approved the issuance of a 20-rupee denomination note on the eve of Independence Day of Pakistan on August 13. State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Ishrat Hussain presented a prototype of the new note, already approved by the Cabinet. He informed the President that the bill contains state-of-the-art international standard security features which are extremely difficult to counterfeit. The SBP will also introduce a 5,000-rupee denomination note and plans to phase out all the existing bills gradually.
— Dawn Time for civic elections RAWALPINDI:
It is local government election time and the printers and banner makers are making proverbial ‘hay’ while the
‘sun shines.’
In a printing shop in downtown Rawalpindi, the employees are working over time to cope with the rush to print handbills, posters and stickers for those contesting local government elections. They start at around 11 in the morning and continue well past 2 in the night. It is time to make some quick money. “I had been eagerly waiting for these elections and knew there would be a rush by the candidates to print their advertisement material,” says Maroof, the owner of a printing press on Circular Road. In today’s fast-paced life the need for conventional methods of advertisement will never go out of fashion, young Maroof maintains. The dusty Circular Road, dotted with motorcycle shops and some shabby restaurants, is the hub of printing business. According to estimates, there are around 50 printing presses operating along a small stretch of road. The owners of the printing shops will receive a flood of orders for candidates’ advertisement material once they are allotted election symbols.
— The Nation
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From the pages of No fines on clerks!
The Circular Order from the Government of India prohibiting the punishment of clerks by fine has excited mixed feelings in the great quill-driving fraternity. We are sure that the uneasiness that prevails in some clerical circles is simply due to a misapprehension of the scope of the alternative penalties. In lieu of fine, the circular prescribes reprimand, giving of more work, warning, stoppage of promotion, reduction, black mark in service book, in extreme cases suspension, even dismissal. All these kinds of punishment have existed till now by the side of flue; and what Government obviously means is that the system of flues should be abolished and the other forms of correctives should continue in force as before. We are surprised to read, therefore, in the “Pioneer” that now “wails are rising from erring clerks, who hitherto would have got off with a flue but now find themselves suspended or dismissed.” This is meaningless rubbish, for suspension or dismissal is not the only alternative of a money penalty; there are several less drastic ones to choose from. |
And there are in fact among people of the Book those, who believe in God and what was revealed to you and what was revealed to them, those who are humble toward God: they do not well the signs of God for a petty price. They have their reward with their Lore; and God is quick to account. — Book of quotations on Islam The most important thing in life is to remain detached from all we do, all the values we practice, all the people with whom we are connected by ties of blood and all the actions which may bring us great honour. One who has been able to do this is the true yogi. — The Mahabharata I certainly do not overlook the work of any worker among you, male or female: you come from one another. And as for those who have fled or been driven from their homes or been hurt in My cause, or fought or been killed, I will erase their sins from them and introduce them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as a reward from the presence of God. And in the presence of God is the finest of rewards. — Book of quotations on Islam And what exactly is anguish? Anguish is birth, suffering, pain, sorrow, sickness, disease, old age, decay, death, grief, despair, poverty, evil, lamentations, woe, tribulations, misfortune, war, insanity, hunger, unfulfilled wants, unfulfilled basic needs, association with the unwanted, disassociation from the wanted, and is what in unstable and
uncontrollable.
— The Buddha |
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