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Out with the tainted Freedom for jailbirds |
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No to nurses
Food security in peril
Cruel precedent
Cyber insecurity No holy cow for Edamaruku LEGAL NOTES
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Out with the tainted For people aghast at the large-scale invasion of shady elements into the political arena, the statement of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Shamsher Singh Dullo that his party would not be giving tickets to the tainted during the next Assembly elections should have come as a breath of fresh air. The declaration is so bold that there is bound to be a bit of disbelief as well. The sceptics might even carp that if that criterion were to be applied, it would be very difficult to get candidates these days. But cynicism apart, the assertion is highly commendable and hopefully the party would stand by it when the time comes for the distribution of tickets. Those with a controversial record happen to rule the roost in Punjab, as in many other states and under different party labels. Thanks to them, the age-old caustic comment that politics is the last resort of scoundrels has come to be believed by many as gospel truth. There is a need to break this myth with some firm corrective action. The evil can be nipped right in the beginning if such unsuitable persons are not given tickets at all. That need for self-correction is not for the Congress alone. An appreciable improvement in the situation can be brought about only if other parties like the Akali Dal follow the same precept. Most parties have misutilised the “winnability” test for far too long to kowtow to the corrupt and sometimes those with a criminal background. The end result is that more and more notorious persons, who at one stage were working behind the scene to ensure the victory of some candidates, have now themselves started jumping into the fray and for wrong reasons. The damage this has done is incalculable. The authorities who should be hunting down such racketeers are forced to fall in line. Policies and all what is needed for the progress of the country become a hostage to the machinations of these self-serving leaders. And even laws necessary to control the malevolent elements are never implemented because the law-breakers come to occupy the positions of power. The deterioration has gone too far and if Mr Dullo’s bold proclamation starts a cleansing operation, it is for the good.
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Freedom for jailbirds Tuesday’s notification of the Union Home Ministry introducing the plea-bargaining system in the Criminal Procedure Code, in a new chapter (21 A), is yet another progressive reform launched by the Manmohan Singh government. This comes close on the heels of the enforcement of the Cr PC Amendment Act 2005 which stipulates that an undertrial, who cannot be awarded death penalty, will be released if he has already served half of the prescribed period of imprisonment for a particular offence. There is no doubt that plea-bargaining will help reduce the huge backlog of cases in the trial courts as also check overcrowding in the jails. The importance of this system can be gauged by the fact that it is expected to benefit as many as 50,000 undertrials, in addition to its possible use in fresh cases. If an accused admits to the crime in a criminal case, agrees to compensate the victim, and obtains the due consent of the victim, the judge and the prosecutor, in conformity with the provisions of plea-bargaining, there is no reason why he or she should not be given a reduced sentence. Thousands of undertrials languishing in the jails for decades with no hope of early trial are a heavy burden on the exchequer. The jails in all the states are also overcrowded. Keeping them without providing them even basic amenities is a gross violation of human rights. Plea-bargaining has become an accepted norm in many countries today. As the system has been working well in countries like the US, the UK and Australia, there is no reason why it should not succeed in India. This provision will not dilute the authority of the courts. Despite the scope for reduced sentence in plea-bargaining, it is the court that will ultimately decide the quantum of sentence and not the prosecution or the defence. Even with regard to the quantum of sentence, it is provided that an accused will not be sentenced to less than one-fourth and not more than one-third of the total punishment prescribed for an offence under the law. This institutional reform merits implementation across the country.
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No to nurses Britain’s decision to stop the recruitment of nurses from India and other countries outside the European Union would not have deserved notice but for the fact that it smacks of discrimination. It is aimed to keep out non-EU nurses. This comes soon after the Tony Blair government made it compulsory for non-EU doctors to seek a work permit to enter Britain. Now the work permit for a job is granted only if there is no other applicant for the post from the UK or the EU. India is severely affected by the latest decision as the country accounted for the maximum number of nurses (3,690 out of a total 11,477) recruited during 2004-05. But nurses here need not worry as demand for their services is growing worldwide and at home. Britain had in the past often prided itself on being a multicultural society. Asians’ and South Africans’ contribution to its economic well-being had been recognised and appreciated. But in 2000 the Labour government revised its migration strategy that resulted in the present demand-quota-points approach. The recent terrorist bombings too have contributed to this trend. The latest decisions on nurses and doctors are bound to hurt its reputation for fair play and equity apart from discouraging professionals from non-EU countries to head for London. In a globalising world no country can put arbitrary restrictions on the free flow of talent and skills without hurting its own interests. After initial reservations, US companies have started outsourcing jobs, thus sharply cutting down their costs. If Britain denies Asians jobs, it might keep off a large number of students who go to Britain for higher education in the hope of employment there. British educational institutions now vigorously woo Indian students. The latter may have second thoughts on going to a country that can be so blatantly discriminatory in its policies.
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The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. — Walter Bagehot |
Food security in peril
The Centre’s decision to import five lakh tonnes of wheat just ahead of the rabi season has rung alarm bells throughout the farm community, with the country’s top agricultural scientists, including Dr M.S. Swaminathan, warning against what is being widely perceived as the looming failure of India’s food security. Agricultural scientists fear that the high import of wheat will further “depress” prices for farmers, and shift the spate of suicides from the cotton to the wheat-growing areas. This would be disastrous for Punjab and Haryana, the “wheat bowl” of India. The explanation of Mr Sharad Pawar, Union Agriculture Minister, is indeed disturbing. While stating that the wheat production this year was a “little” better than last year, he admits: “The only thing is that we could not procure, and that is the reason why we have to take this (import) decision.” This is admission of gross failure of the food procurement system, the very foundation of the present food security mechanism. It is, therefore, imperative that an alternative is found without any further loss of time. Myopic politicians and government functionaries always believed that food security means overflowing of FCI godowns with foodgrains procured and stored at costs twice or thrice the prevailing market prices with some of them substandard and rotting. So, when this stock depletes due to mismanagement and bungling these worthies rush to foreign sources unmindful of the serious repercussions within the country. In fact, food security is something quite different and actually means access to foodgrains to all sections of society at all times at affordable prices. This does not require a huge stockpile of grain being kept under asbestos roofs and canvas canopies exposed to sun and rain. The crux of the matter is whether the government or its agencies like the FCI should go through this faulty and terribly expensive procurement process or would it suffice to keep the foodgrains trade within well-specified parameters of social discipline. This matter was studied, deliberated and debated at great length by the High-Powered Committee on Agricultural Policies and Programmes in the early nineties. Based on these deliberations, the committee submitted specific recommendations to the Government of India as to how India’s food security system should be structured. The core issues identified were the need to rely more on the personal involvement of the farmers who are the producers and the market mechanism that influences consumption; protecting the farmer and the consumer against the vagaries of production and the market forces in order to enhance agricultural productivity and ensure fair prices; reduction in the cost of foodgrain procurement, storage, transportation and distribution; an efficient delivery system under which those in genuine need of subsidies and support are properly targeted and given sufficient access to foodgrains and effective intervention powers in the hands of the government in times of need to protect the interests of producers or consumers as the case may be. A series of policy initiatives were suggested. Emphasis was on withdrawal of all controls, except quality controls, on movement, processing, marketing and export of farm products except in years of scarcity. The concept of “triple pricing” was advocated in order to regulate the market and to protect the producer, consumer and the trader. There will be a “parity price” to fully compensate the farmers for a rise in the cost of inputs and their other necessities of life, a support price below which prices will not be allowed to fall and “intervention price” beyond which prices would not be allowed to rise. An important suggestion was to establish a chain of professionally managed rural and urban godowns/warehouses with infrastructure and banking facilities. The farmers may, at any time, sell their produce to the warehouses at the support price and this stock will go in government account. The farmers will have the option to deposit the same in their own accounts and take bank loans against their pledged stock. It should be obligatory for all stockists who wish to stock more than 20 tonnes of foodgrains to do so only in these warehouses. The private sector could be involved in building and managing these godowns. As soon as the price of foodgrains in the open market would rise above the intervention price (already fixed), all stocks or part of it would be acquired by the government agencies on payment of “parity” price plus storage charges. If the price would fall below the support price, the farmers would have the right to sell their stocks to the government at the support price already fixed, plus the storage charges. This mechanism could be made to work effectively by establishing appropriate Food Security Regulatory Authorities at the Centre and in the states invested with adequate powers to implement and monitor. Under this policy mechanism farmers will be assured of minimum support price and consumers of supplies at reasonable and relatively stable prices. Traders — private as well as cooperatives — will also know the limits within which they can operate. Small farmers will be saved from going in for distress sales, and the government will have the facility to quickly locate and acquire foodgrains stocks in times of need. This mechanism would also remove the fatal flaws inherent in the present impersonal, “command and control” bureaucracy-oriented policy and system regarding food security. These flaws have kept the food prices artificially depressed while providing huge subsidies to the FCI. This has neither helped the predominantly urban consumer nor relieved the suffering of the vast majority of the poor living in villages and towns. The only beneficiaries are the FCI and the food department employees, some traders/contractors and their political mentors. This has stunted the growth of Indian agriculture that has vast potential not only for productivity and production growth but also in providing additional employment in rural areas. The core of this innovative mechanism is the simple device of relying on the people who have personal stake in the system instead of a bunch of “bureaucrat-employees” who are more interested in their job security than the nation’s food security. This is sought to be done by trusting the farmers and giving them incentives to stock foodgrains at the chain of government/private-owned or contracted godowns and warehouses located in rural areas and small towns. Even if a small fraction of the procurement and storage cost incurred by the FCI is passed on to the farmers as an incentive, in addition to the parity/support price, they would gladly leave their stocks in these godowns, to be lifted and utilised as and when required by the government. This in turn would achieve real food security that is in peril
today. The writer, a former IAS officer, was
a member of the High-Powered Committee on Agricultural Policies and Programmes set up by the Government of India in 1990.
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Cruel precedent
Those were the days when I could get up from both sides of the bed in the morning. Chandigarh was young then and it was a blessing to live with no pollution in the air. “Matka Chowk” had not come up and we had to be contended with the Lake. A few cases of unhappy employees jumping into the lake and never to have come out alive, had ruled out this place for any type of agitation. The Punjab Government in its wisdom issued a circular granting lesser dearness allowances to unmarried gazetted officers as compared to married gazetted officers drawing similar salaries and pay scales. This was discrimination with the unmarried class and was greatly resented. Following the old style of protest, an association of unmarried gazetted officers was formed and an emergency meeting convened. A member pointed out that though he brought fresh and pure milk from the dairyfarm every morning, the milk served to him never tasted pure. Another explained that the leg pieces of the chicken were always missing on his dining table. The role of servant was severely criticised. Another said that a wife would put her heart and soul in whatever is entrusted to her. There was fervour, enthusiasm and energy and when it came to meals no compromises whatever was made by her. The merits and demerits were discussed and an expert committee was entrusted to submit a representation to the government. According to the prescribed procedure in the Secretariat, every representation was put up on a file which should have previous papers, policy and precedent. These were known as “Three Pees”. In this case neither a policy was available nor any precedent. Our repeated pleas that precedents had to be created were lightly brushed aside. The discrimination continued. A few members crossed over and got married. By now the Government of India started giving greater thrust to the family planning programmes and “Do Kay Baad Kabhi Nahin” slogan was all over the country. Here was a ray of hope for me. I managed to meet the administrative head and explained that their decision to allow lesser dearness allowance to unmarried gazetted officers was contrary to this policy and that we followed the slogan “Kabhi Nahin Kabhi Nahin” ! That very day the circular was cancelled and the discrimination ended. Our association adopted a resolution unanimously, before disbanding appreciating my services and for the discovery of the slogan “Kabhi Nahin Kabhi Nahin”. My late revered elder brother had once written to me and I quote: “It is not necessary to be 100% truthful in retelling anecdotes. ‘Ashwathama iti gaj’ is permissible here as well as in the Mahabharta !” I have followed his advice
here.
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Cyber insecurity Security, or rather the lack of it in the cyber world, has come into focus again. National secrets have been leaking out at an appalling rate and supposedly secure computers have become more of cyber sieves than repositories of data. There has been a major leak of electronic data from the National Security Council Secretariat in New Delhi. Mukesh Saini, a former Navy Commander who served as the information security specialist at the NSC, is now being sought for questioning, while S. S. Paul, a systems analyst, has been arrested. Ujjwal Dasgupta, Director of Computers in RAW, is also under a cloud, as is the high-profile Indo-US Cyber Security Forum. The NSC leak comes at a time when the CBI charge sheet in the Naval war-room leak case states that no less than 7,000 pages of classified information were compromised between 2002 and 2005 when three now dismissed naval officers simply downloaded the data from the computers and took it out from a room that was supposed to have maximum security. The data compromised by this leak included operational plans and communications data from all the three armed services. While not comparable to the national security implications of these two cases, there have been two incidents on the business side, too, that have exposed the Achilles’ heel of Indian IT operations-security. With huge stakes for both national security and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, India can ill-afford the publicity and the resultant perception of the nation as a insecure destination. In Bangalore, recently, Nadeem Kashmiri, an employee of an offshore unit of Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), allegedly colluded with criminals and supplied them with confidential consumer information that allowed them to steal nearly Rs 1.95 crore from account holders of the bank in the UK. On the other hand, Ankit Srivastava, downloaded call details of some very important public figures and officials who are Airtel customers and apparently attempted blackmail thereafter. Like others, these two persons, too, have been identified, arrested and will now face the law. The HSBC case is the third BPO fraud reported in India. Last year, five employees of Msource were arrested in Pune for allegedly siphoning $ 4,25,000 from Citibank in April. A sting operation by a British paper in June that year exposed how an employee of Infinity E-search, Gurgaon, was willing to sell confidential consumer information to the newspaper’s reporter. Nasscom’s quick reaction and the ability of the Indian police to arrest and prosecute the accused in all these cases augur well for the nation, since the world is learning to deal with cyber crime, which affects very real lives. The industry response to cyber leaks has been more responsive than the answers from the officialdom in cases involving breach of national security. The companies where the crime took place have played a major role in detecting the security breaches and seeking professional help to catch the criminals. This contrasts with a “brush under the carpet” mentality that seems to dominate bureaucracy, uniformed or not. No doubt, security breaches are not unique to India, but India is vulnerable because of a “chalta hai” attitude, even towards security. There is no earthly reason why anyone would be allowed to bring pen drives inside high-security areas and use Web-based e-mail at these offices. There is no justification for allowing computers to have USB ports that allow, among other things, data to be uploaded and downloaded. Secure networked computers should not have any floppy drives, CD writers or USB ports, unless strictly required for operational reasons, in which case these should be watched even more closely than the other computers. If you look hard enough at a security breach, you will find casualness, carelessness and complacence that allowed the perpetrators of the crime to commit it. It is human vulnerabilities that are exploited for cyber crimes. Unauthorised contacts with foreign nationals should have been spotted by the security services before the damage was done in the NSCS case. Also, $ 50,000 was promised, and $ 20,000 delivered for the data. In the Naval war-room leak case, old-boy ties coupled with pecuniary promises seem to have done the trick; in the HSBC case, the youngster was told he would get a job in the UK, and the Airtel hacker was just plain greedy. With computerisation, the volume of data available to individuals who have access to it is tremendous; thus, the need for more security. It should not be of any comfort for India that as compared with the developed world, it has fewer cyber crimes. No doubt, the Indian legal system has been effective in apprehending the suspects and the independent judiciary ensures that the guilty have the book thrown on them, but much more needs to be done. The Mumbai police is to be lauded for seeking the assistance of KPMG Advisory Services to equip its policemen better to deal with BPO fraud cases and other offences in the Cyber Crime Act. Anyone working in a high-security environment is aware that he or she is subject to much more checks that an ordinary person. While one does not know the specifics of the government’s working, often BPOs use measures that would be considered intrusive in the developed world to keep a tab on their employees. These include closed-circuit cameras, firewalls and ban on camera cell phones. In theory, the antecedents of all employees are checked thoroughly before they are recruited. There are checks on employees while they are on the rolls of the companies, too. Presumably, the government uses these measures and more, yet there are breaches, which underlines the fact that cyber security needs to be taken seriously. Computer centres that contain data are like Fort Knox, and the data is the gold that must be secured with the same diligence and industry.
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No holy cow for Edamaruku THE ‘diary notes’ of Prof A.T. Kovoor, serialised in a Malayalam journal, provided me the first introduction to rationalism. Son of a Mar Thoma priest, who was known for his oratorical skills, Prof Kovoor migrated to Colombo where he practised psychology. Punarjanmam (Rebirth), a full-length feature film based on a real case he handled, begins with a self-introduction by Prof Kovoor. This is how he introduces himself: “I was born as the result of an accidental collision between an X-chromosome and a Y-chromosome”. My admiration for him went up several notches when he challenged all those, including godmen, who claimed to have supernatural powers, to show their special power and get a prize. The prize was Rs 1 lakh with which one could buy five Ambassador cars those days. To get the prize, the contestants did not have to do much except write down on a piece of paper the serial number of a currency note kept in a sealed envelope. Not a single person came forward to accept the challenge and win the prize. It was around this time that I got attracted to Prof Kovoor’s follower in Kerala, Joseph Edamaruku, whose writing questioned the very concept of divinity. Long before Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code-fame was born, he wrote a book on the “manhood of Christ”, resulting in his instant excommunication. Getting trumped-up in a fake Naxalite case, losing job in a big publishing house in Kerala and spending a few months in jail during the Emergency constituted a small price Edamaruku had to pay for his outspokenness and belief. Edamaruku was a good political commentator, whose analyses of political developments were sharp and incisive. He had a vast range of interest from the metaphysical to the meteorological and from the abstract to the abnormal. After Edamaruku shifted to Delhi, there were many occasions when I bumped into him at public functions. It was with trepidation that I once invited him to a lecture in memory of a bishop. “Oh, that bishop whom Sanjay Gandhi wanted to be arrested!” he exclaimed. Sure enough, he attended the lecture, where a friend mistook him for a priest as he sported a flowing beard and wore sparkling white clothes. While my own romance with rationalism had its ups and downs, Edamaruku remained steadfast in his belief, authoring as many as 173 books on an assortment of subjects. He critically examined all belief systems which people considered sacrosanct. He did not spare the Bible, the Koran and the Upanishads from his critical study. In other words, he did not spare the gods. Few people knew as much about Delhi’s historical and cultural heritage as Edamaruku, as was borne out by his column in a Delhi newspaper. He was as passionate about making every non-resident Keralite familiar with the Malayalam script as he was about popularising Kathakali. Edamaruku might not have converted many religionists into rationalists but he certainly influenced his immediate family so much that all of them — wife, a son and a daughter – are today “practising” rationalists. After all, rationalism, like charity, begins at home. It can verily be said Edamaruku practised what he preached. When he died peacefully at his house last week, his eyes went to the eye bank and his body to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for the use of its students. He was 73.
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LEGAL NOTES The issue of harassment of Christian missionaries in Rajasthan by some important functionaries of the Vasundhra Raje Government and that of missionaries distributing certain books with derogatory references to Hindu Gods and Goddesses has ultimately landed in the Supreme Court. It has issued notices to the State Government and its Social Welfare Minister Madan Dilawar. Dilawar has been accused by two Christian missionaries – V S Thomas and Samuel Thomas – of harassing them and getting FIRs registered against them in Kota for promoting enmity between different sections of society and outraging religious feelings of others. The two Christians, belonging to the Emmanuel Mission, claimed to be engaged in various welfare schemes for poor people and in running an orphanage. They alleged that the Minister got false charges of kidnapping and illegal confinement slapped against them in the FIR. Thomas and Samuel said that the Emmanuel Mission had issued a public statement to the effect that they did not subscribe to any view expressed in the book Haqeeqat which is the source of the controversy. But the FIR stated that the two missionaries were in fact behind its distribution. It said the book has depicted Hindu Gods, some Jain saints and Hindu worship methods in a derogatory manner. The book also has critical references towards Vedic culture and the national song Vande Matram. The Court has sought responses from the Rajasthan Government and the Minister. Pendency of cases The pendency of cases in the Supreme Court has gone up this year despite a high disposal rate, because of filing of more new cases. According to the available data up to March 31, a total of 35,201 cases were pending with the top court of the country which was up by 720 cases compared to 34,481 at the close of the year 2005. The marginal increase in pendency could be attributed to three posts of judges’ remaining unfilled after retirement of an equal number of judges recently. The Supreme Court has a sanctioned strength of 26 judges. The appointment of the three judges could take time as the procedure is cumbersome. Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal has on more than one occasion expressed concern over the appointment procedure and was of the view that it should be initiated well in advance to ensure that the moment a vacancy occurs, the selected person was already there to take charge. Judicial reforms As a follow up to the conference of the Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts held in the capital on March 11, the Government is contemplating to set up a three member committee for implementing the decision taken at the conference. It will comprise Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Law Minister H R Bhardwaj. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be a special invitee to tender his advice. The panel would act as a monitoring body to oversee the work of state committees set up for implementing judicial reforms as decided in the Chief Ministers and Chief Justices conference. The reforms pertains to improving the procedure of appointment of judges in high courts and subordinate judiciary, simplification of court procedure to ensure speedy disposal of cases, use of Information Technology in court management, and sifting of petty offence cases from the main cases to be dealt by special magistrates.
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From the pages of T.T.K. & Alice in Wonderland Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall, and not all the king’s horses or the king’s men could put him back again. This was because Humpty-Dumpty was top-heavy i.e. liable to tip over because the centre of gravity was too high. But obviously Mr T.T. Krishnamachari has forgotten his Alice in Wonderland. Or else he should have ‘known’ what every school-girl knows, and not expressed a preference for being top-heavy compared to the middle-spread. War on the middle-spread was declared the day the national leaders issued their call to people to tighten their belts. Since then have also been pulling themselves up by their own boot-strap, the exercise has further benefited their waist-line.
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There are many oceans in this world. Their water lap the shores of many lands, very different from each other. Yet wherever they may be, their waters taste salty. So is it with love. —The Buddha What need have I to know of his infinite splendours? If I must know these let me first realise him. —Ramakrishna Accursed is the life of an egocentric which is as hard and unfeeling as a stone, That remains dry at the core even when kept under water for any length of time. —Guru Nanak Speak the truth and nothing but the truth. —The Upanishads |
