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Law’s reach On death row in Pakistan |
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Business of leadership
Nepal: dangerous drift
Kindness gone awry
Streamline health insurance Acquiring missile defence
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Law’s reach THE opinion of the Central Vigilance Commissioner that there is evidence to prosecute Ms Mayawati and some others in the Taj Heritage Corridor Project case is a blow to the Bahujan Samaj Party leader. She can cry foul but she cannot escape a serious inquiry, which can even lead to her conviction in the Rs 175-crore scam. It is for the Supreme Court to decide which agency should investigate the case in view of a surprising opinion given earlier by the CBI that there was no evidence to implicate her in the case. The Attorney-General had also concurred with the CBI’s opinion. It was under these circumstances that the court had asked the CVC to give its opinion. Questions will now be raised on why the CVC has spared some senior officials, including the then Secretary to the Environment Ministry and the then Chief Secretary while pointing its accusing finger at Ms Mayawati, one of her ministers and some state officials. The BSP leader has all along been claiming that the case is the result of a conspiracy against her, hatched by some of her political detractors. But she should realise that the CBI officers, who had investigated the case, again, on the orders of the apex court, had found that there was prima facie evidence of guilt against her. But it was at the higher levels of the agency that such a conclusion was amended and the court was told that there was no evidence against her. And when the A-G reportedly agreed with the CBI’s finding, the inescapable conclusion for most people was that she had managed to bring pressure on the CBI. What lent credence to such a belief was the fact that her party was providing support to the UPA government. The UPA, like the NDA, might have taken an indulgent view of Ms Mayawati for political reasons. Importantly, nobody has so far said that she is innocent. Given the nature of the project and its likely impact on the world heritage that the Taj is, it is difficult to believe that it could have been conceived by UP officials and proceeded with without the approval of Ms Mayawati, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. All her attempts to pass the buck have so far failed. It is a tribute to the proactive approach of the Supreme Court that the case has reached this stage. Now, Ms Mayawati has no other option but to prove her innocence in a court of law. The case should bring home the point to all those who exercise power that they cannot escape the responsibility that comes with it. |
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On death row in Pakistan As if the plight of hundreds of Indians languishing in Pakistani jails was not heart-rending enough, now comes the news that one of them, Sarabjit Singh, will be hanged after being branded a RAW agent and held guilty of masterminding a series of blasts in that country. The concern of the family members of the man from Amritsar district, MPs and the country is understandable because justice system in Pakistan being what it is, nobody believes that the charges against him are genuine. The sense of helplessness is all the more acute because it could be a case of mistaken identity. While he is actually Sarabjit Singh, he has been “tried” and proclaimed guilty as Manjit Singh. Sarabjit Singh had reportedly strayed into Pakistan way back in 1990 and his tribulations have never ended. With the border being ill-defined, especially in those times, such straying was — both way — not uncommon. Had the relations between the two neighbours been congenial, things would never have come to such a pass, but unfortunately that was not to be. The Indian Government must take up his case at the highest level to end the anguish of the family of the poor man. It should also share with the public the facts about the case and the steps it has taken to help men like Sarabjit Singh who should not be made a pawn in bilateral games. The condition of the Indians in Pakistani jails is generally horrifying. Most of them had landed there after losing their way or being duped by travel agents. Even those who have completed their jail terms continue to languish there. Then there are some PoWs whose existence Pakistan does not even acknowledge. Many of them are seriously ill and some have even become mentally disturbed. The old trick of being branded as “Indian spies” has been played on far too many such victims. Now that the relations between the two countries are on the mend, President Musharraf should take a more humanitarian view of their condition. |
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Business
of leadership Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill may have proved to be Adolf Hitler’s nemesis. But history appears to have come full cycle since then, and today Hitler ranks way above Premier Tony Blair as one of the greatest leaders of all time, reveals a poll that surveyed 1000 business leaders. The German fuehrer figured at the 20th spot in the list, while Mr Blair could reach only the 25th place. The survey was done ahead of a ‘Leaders in London 2005’ event scheduled in October and high profile corporate honchos were asked to name their favourite political leader. The findings show that political predilections of businessmen are as unpredictable as the economic swings of their enterprises. In fact, many may feel thankful that the leadership of such businessmen does not extend to politics. Top of the list of the greatest leaders is Churchill, followed by Mahatma Gandhi. Businessmen, at least in Britain, are not all that insensitive if the “Naked Fakir”, who stirred the multitudes to rise against the Empire, could garner so many votes – at least enough to take second place to Churchill. After all, Indian Independence has been good for not only the English but also the English language. Former South African President Nelson Mandela came in third. If these have not raised eyebrows, it is because the bigger surprises are lower down in the list, the most unexpected being Hitler’s high ranking, above not only Mr Blair but also Mao Xedong, Stalin and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Some politicians whose faith in democratic and human values is fragile may find comfort in the fact that the Nazi dictator ranks higher than the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. It is perhaps a saving grace that ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher comes in eighth. This should be good grist for the mill of `those who have long harboured the suspicion that western definitions of democracy are guided more by business considerations than political values. |
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Art is born of humiliation. — W.H. Auden
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Nepal: dangerous drift
A
recent study published in an American journal places Nepal at the 37th place in a list of 60 prospective failing states all over the world. The study must have been conducted a few months earlier.
Today, Nepal must have moved up in the list. It was the concern for the deteriorating internal situation in the kingdom and its royal regime’s wild allegations against India (for supplying faulty INSAS rifles to the Royal Nepalese Army) to divert attention that prompted India’s National Security Council to meet and discuss the Nepalese
situation recently. After the meeting, a strong statement in favour of restoration of democracy in Nepal was issued. Far from the King’s claims to stabilise the situation within 100 days after his takeover on February 1, 2005, Nepal looks confused and chaotic. Militarily, the RNA (Royal Nepal Army) suffered a severe setback in the first week of August, in Pili of Kalikot division in western Nepal. Almost the entire army base was wiped out by the Maoists and huge stores of modern arms were captured by the rebels. Administratively, the King has tried to put his people in zonal and district control but their writ does not run. At the village level, many of the newly appointed Village Developmental Council (VDC) members have quit their positions. The worst erosion of the royal regime is evident at the political level. The King’s refusal to do anything to restore the democratic process has brought the political parties and the Maoists together. There is a tremendous upsurge among the party cadres in favour of a republican Nepal, so much so that if the top party leaders show any hesitation in responding to this upsurge, they may be pushed into oblivion and a new, more radical and youthful leadership may take over. It is under this pressure from the grassroots that the Nepali Congress has decided to drop its organisational position of being supportive of the constitutional monarchy and the United Marxist Leninist Communist Party unanimously expressed its support for a republican democracy in Nepal in its Central Committee deliberations. The civil society groups like journalists, lawyers, civil servants and youths are agitating against the regime. The King is being caricatured and lampooned in the media and from public platforms openly for his authoritarian political ambitions, lack of administrative acumen and financial mismanagement. Manifold increase in the budgetary allocations for the palace and the RNA is a matter of sharp criticism in public places. Some of the important industrial and business concerns like the Uniliver are shutting down under the Maoists threats as the security forces cannot provide them adequate security.The second Cabinet reshuffle by the King after February 1 under his own chairmanship has alienated even some of the old Panchayat loyalists from the royal regime. His appointment of former Generals on lucrative ambassadorial positions has also been disapproved of publicly. The royal regime by its sheer obstinacy in refusing to restore the democratic process has also managed to distance itself from the international community. The regime has had a particularly acrimonious exchange with the British Ambassador who refused to treat the Maoists as a bunch of terrorists. Even the US support for the King has been diluted. The King’s Foreign Minister boasts of Chinese support but it is clear to everyone that even the King’s efforts to participate in some of the international fora did not get him the support he was looking for. The international community, in particular, India, the US and the UK, has started reviewing its policy towards the royal regime seriously. The most important question in Nepal today is the emerging nature of democratic and anti-monarchical forces. The political parties and the Maoists have started getting together to build a united front against the royal regime. Almost all the political parties are actively pursuing this objective except the Rastriya Prajatantra Party of the old Panchyat loyalists. The King is trying his best to subvert and delay the formation of this united front through devious means and surrogate party leaders, but in view of the fast changing popular perceptions, he is not likely to succeed. As and when the united front takes a concrete shape, and that may not be too far, a strong anti-King agitation will surface all over Nepal. This will amount to a political implosion in the kingdom on a much larger and stronger scale than witnessed during the “people’s movement” in1989-90. It is time for India and the international community to shed off its self-imposed dilemma and lethargy of a twin-pillar approach of supporting democracy under a constitutional monarchy. Instead, India and the international community must engage constructively with the rising popular forces in the form of a united front of the political parties and the Maoists. The Maoists have repeatedly assured that they want to follow a democratic route by accepting a multi-party democracy. They have stopped their violence against the political parties and are prepared to accept independent international monitoring of their conduct in this respect. They have also given assurances to agree to free and non-violent elections for the Constituent Assembly, which most political parties are willing to accept. The international community’s engagement with the united front of the popular forces would provide the much-needed sense of security and confidence to the political parties as it will also cast a moderating influence on the Maoists. It is possible that an open and declared support of the international community for the popular forces may force the King to gather his political balance, prepare for a compromise and political accommodation and initiate the possibility of a peaceful and democratic resolution of the problem. India must take the lead in this regard. More so because it faces today a very turbulent neighbourhood, full of worrisome prospects. Sri Lanka’s peace process is on the verge of collapse in the aftermath of Foreign Minister Kadirgamar’s assassination. Bangladesh is fast coming under the grip of Islamic extremism and terrorism and Pakistan looks as enigmatic as ever. India’s responses towards all these situations are half-hearted and wishy-washy, leaving room for undesirable domestic and external forces to have a field day. If Nepal can be brought to the track of stable democratic evolution, one of India’s major worries would be over. The writer is Professor, South Asian Studies, JNU, New Delhi.
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Kindness gone awry
For a very very long time people have followed the practice of placing on the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem letters addressed to God to seek divine help for their problems. A person of modest means was once very short of money and wrote a long letter to the Almighty, explaining his predicament and requesting a sum of $ 50. The
post-office employee who collected the letter from the Wall was somehow very moved by the appeal but found he could spare only $ 30. He, therefore, sent that money to the applicant as coming from God. The response of grateful thanks came by return post but it included a special request to the divine benefactor: “Please, God, next time send to me direct whatever you have to give me. On the last occasion the thieving men at the postoffice kept back for themselves $ 20 out of the money you so graciously spared for me”. A Romanian who apparently did not believe in seeking heavenly intercession for help with his problems, instead dealt with them on his own. His immediate difficulty was that in order to prevent him from going drinking with his friends, his wife had locked him in the bedroom. After a little halfhearted mental opposition to the idea, his desire to escape got the better of him. The only way out for him, however, was to swing from tree to tree near his flat in Tarzan style. He soon found though that he was deficient in the skills of Tarzan: he slipped from a vine and fell 15 feet to the floor breaking his arm, an ankle and a leg. So the joyous session of drinking that he had planned for with his friends became replaced with the rather prosaic company of the doctors at the hospital. Quite a sad end for what can perhaps be described as “vaulting” ambition amidst the trees. There was another case of a serious miscalculation leading to a disaster when two US students decided to collect money for a deserving charity. The method they picked on for that purpose was a down-to-earth one — ‘down-to-earth’ in the literal sense of the phrase: a method much more familiar to the East than to the West. They crawled on their hands and knees for an agonising 32 miles for 45 hours through hail, lightning and freezing conditions in Colorado Springs. Some money did come in for the charity, but the next day the crawling duo had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance to be treated for dehydration and very severe muscle breakdown, apart from any number of bruises and lacerations. Tailpiece: On a safari a man along with his wife occupied one tent while his mother-in-law slept in a second tent close by. In the middle of the night the wife was horrified to see a lion go in where her mother was. She woke up the husband and in great agitation, asked him to do something to help. He took the matter calmly and said: “Don’t worry, darling, the lion went into that tent on his own, let us leave him to take care of himself”. |
Streamline health insurance
The health insurance sector in India has long been riddled with problems. Despite repeated attempts by the Government of India to streamline the system and ensure speedy delivery of insurance services to those trapped in medical emergencies, stability in the sector is yet to be achieved. Formerly, consumers were dejected with the poor norms adopted by insurance companies in clearance of claims. Now they are disconsolate about the functioning of Third Party Administrators
(TPAs), who were created three years ago to lubricate a rigid health insurance sector. Although insurance companies claim that complaints against TPAs have reduced largely, there are cases that indicate that loopholes still exist. At the heart of the problem is the rejection of a large number of insurance claims made by people seeking treatment in hospitals. In many such cases, claims are rejected on grounds that the aliment for which insurance is being sought is “pre-existing”. Following several such complaints by consumers, some insurance companies like Oriental Insurance recently evolved a policy of allowing people to take medical insurance. Mr
G.C. Galong, Regional Director, Oriental Insurance, said, “The new policy is an outcome of complaints we received against the
TPAs. But there is no doubt that in many cases, the ailments had pre-existed and medical insurance was sought later.” Many senior physicians, however, say that the rejection of claim applications on the ground that the ailment pre-existed is no solution to the problem. A senior surgeon from Fortis, Chandigarh, reasons, “If that is the problem, why a person can’t be medically examined before he/she is given a cashless facility through the
TPA. Once the claim is allowed, it’s the TPA’s duty to allow it.” TPAs were created as a smart alternative to health insurance companies that followed elaborate procedures in clearing insurance claims. They were meant to facilitate cash-free and trouble-less healthcare to the needy consequent upon frequent complaints about ineffective rules adopted by insurance companies in reimbursing medical claims. Unfortunately, the new system has not worked as well as it should have. This despite the fact that persons taking mediclaim policies through TPAs pay an additional 6 per cent premium on health insurance towards the cost of TPA services. The facility means the patient has to pay no money at the time of clearance of medical bills in hospitals. But in several cases of insurance claims people face harassment. No wonder some insurance companies are a bit unhappy with the working of
TPAs. For their part, TPAs say they are doing the best they can in the given situation. Says a senior official in a Faridabad-based
TPA, “People who get to know about their disease and can afford to wait for sometime before active medical management are induced to take health insurance. Subsequently, they claim free health care. There are innumerable instances where knowingly or otherwise, people get admitted to hospitals for treatment in the first year or a little later after taking the insurance policy. We have to guard against such claims.” There is, however, a way out of the situation. As a Delhi cardiology consultant says, “The issue can easily be resolved by either extending the health insurance policy which includes pre-existing conditions as is done for corporate insurance clients by almost all insurance companies or by introducing a system of mandatory pre-insurance health check-ups to rule out pre-existing diseases.” Recently a TPA refused cashless facility to the sister-in-law of a surgeon practising in a private hospital in Chandigarh. It took the filing of a criminal complaint against the TPA to get the medical expense reimbursed. Similar was the experience of a senior journalist whose relative was denied cashless facility arbitrarily after she sought treatment for anaemia and shock despite her possessing a health insurance for four years. Experts point out several gaps in the existing system of health insurance. There is no class clarity in insurance policies. Says a doctor, “Hospitals should be graded according to the specialities they offer, their size and their costs. Insurance companies should also grade hospitals and demand premium based on the facilities a particular hospital offers. The policy is under consideration with the Union Government”. Experts also suggest accreditation of hospitals. A senior surgeon from Apollo, Delhi admits, “Right now you can claim insurance based on the bill issued by a nursing home which may not even have basic medical equipment. There is an urgent need to accredit hospitals and allow insurance facilities only in them.” It’s also time the government introduced mandatory health insurance for its employees, granting them the right to choose clinics as well as hospitals. This will enable a valid comparison of healthcare between private and government institutions. Old insurance hands recommend measures like mandatory pre-insurance health-check ups for all, class clarity in insurance policies, coverage of pre-existing diseases and mandatory health insurance for all to correct a faulty system.
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Acquiring missile defence Recent newspapers reports have suggested that during the Defence Minister’s visit, the US offered to provide India details of Patriot anti-missile system, the latest version of which is PAC 3 as also collaboration relating to missile defence. The collaboration aspect is not understood considering that the US itself feels that it is nowhere as far as fielding ground based BMD is concerned. As reports in the US defence media indicate, the US House and Senate armed services committees have queried the Pentagon on the Defence Department’s missile defence activities, ranging from how best to avoid fratricide to the next generation of early warning satellites. The army has been asked to explain by early 2006 efforts to correct problems with the Patriot missile shooting friendly planes in Iraq. The House has also desired to be briefed on the improvements to the systems in an aircraft that alert air defence batteries that they are friendly. The House also directed the Defence Secretary to submit a fresh cost review on the Space Based Infrared System
(SBIRS) early warning satellites. The cost of that programme has risen steadily from about $ 2 billion when it began to more than $ 10 billion. The first launch of a SBIRS satellite is slated for 2008. The New York Times reported on May 28 that the Pentagon wants to protect US satellites with space-based weapons, a plan that scientists say is very expensive and could trigger an arms race in space. They are correct, but the main unspoken truth has more to do with BMD than it does with protecting undefended satellites. The US defence hierarchy is gradually realising that the land-based BMD systems currently available with the US and Israel are not capable of defeating/neutralising a missile attack. Technology cannot provide a land and sea-based BMD that is reasonably sufficient. So the feeling is that move into space with space-based censors and weapons designed to kill ballistic missiles launched against US territory.
SBIRS high will put five infrared sensors in a high space orbit. SBIRS low will place 24 sensors in a low space orbit. Missile defence advocates in the military industrial congressional complex see weapons in space as the only viable way to put a missile umbrella over US territory. However, given the technological uncertainties, it would probably result in moving to an even deeper abyss. The policy will probably result in an arms race in space and as also in ballistic missile proliferation on earth. All that is mentioned above has its fallout in the South Asian context. India has been toying with the idea of purchasing the Arrow missile system from Israel and now the Patriot system from the US. These sales will not only be at odds with the Missile Technology Control Regime
(MTCR), but also compel Pakistan to respond possibly by increasing its missile arsenal and thereby countering India’s more expensive option, by a cheaper option, thus achieving a psychological one-upmanship We need to analyse in-depth before stepping into the financial morass of acquiring missile defence. The analysis should result in joint doctrines for proactive/offensive measures to defeat adversaries missile capability. |
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From the pages of Scientific research in India The Government of India have now taken steps to provide for that condition of scientific enquiry which has been rendered essential by the development of the machinery of the various departments. We are told that “the work of many of the members of the scientific staff covers fields in which experiments of a similar or cognate character are being independently conducted. Thus in chemistry we have several investigators following parallel lines of research; in economic botany there are two departments working independently of each other; in economic entomology there have been two specialists, each charged with investigations similar in character. Finally the appointment of an Inspector-General of Agriculture adds to the staff an official with a close interest in all the branches of science which bear up on the agricultural conditions of the country.” This duplication, and possibly misdirection of energy is not desirable, and there will not be two opinions about the necessity of a concentration of effort and energy. The fact that scientific exploration pure and simple has hitherto absorbed the efforts of the workers, strengthens the argument in favour of a central advising body.
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Won’t He who can hear even the sound of the anklets on the appendage of the ant, hear your prayer? — Kabir A man with a hundred desires sleeps uneasy. — The Upanishads The flames of envy and jealousy lick at man’s anger and keep the heart alive. All the time they remind him of what he should have had but does not have. No man should kindle these flames in another’s breast. — The Mahabharata The privilege of pleasure, we treasure beyond measure. — Book of quotations on happiness If you avoid the gravest of
what you are forbidden, we will blot out you sins and lead you into a noble entry. — Book of quotations on Islam
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