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Politics of paralysis Sudden love |
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Police goes berserk Jobless are not criminals THE Chandigarh police disgraced itself when it teargassed and lathi-charged protesting jobless youth on Monday. One thought years of experience in handling demonstrations, so frequent at the city’s Matka Chowk, would have taught the police tact and patience in dealing with provocative situations. That has not happened.
A many-sided threat
The romance of words
DOCUMENT Protect the student as consumer In Afghanistan, a new
crackdown
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Politics of paralysis THERE’S nothing unusual about what happened on Monday: Both Houses of Parliament were adjourned after ruling and Opposition MPs paralysed proceedings. The conduct of our elected representatives of the people — in not letting Parliament proceed with its business — betrays a brazen contempt for those who elect them. First, they fight to get elected, to become lawmakers. Then, they make a fool of those who voted for them by continuing their party fights in Parliament. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, instead of being used for the mandated business — of passing laws, enabling governance, demanding accountability, checking governmental excesses and debating and discussing issues of national importance — are reduced to akharas. Flinging charges and counter-charges, storming into the well of the House, barracking, boycotting and generally disabling Parliament, is the way our Honourable Members wrestle with their responsibilities to the nation. True, the Pathak Inquiry Authority report must be debated, Mr Natwar Singh’s role dealt with and the privilege notices against the Prime Minister and his government discussed. The issues involved are far too serious to be trampled under by unseemly conduct, yet our MPs do none of this. They expend their energy, and the resources of the exchequer, in shouting slogans, jumping into the well of the House and much worse. They are bringing Parliament into disrepute daily. Almost all parties in Parliament have been in government and in the Opposition. Yet, they behave as if this forum is a mere extension of the street for carrying on their political battles. With such parliamentarians, no extra-parliamentary forces are required to subvert representative democracy. Our MPs ought to behave better, abide by the norms and let Parliament function. No matter what the provocation, the supremacy of Parliament can be asserted only if it functions and is allowed to function. It is a curious lacuna that offending members who disrupt and disable Parliament cannot be, and are not, proceeded against.
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Sudden love IT is a sad commentary on the state of politics that an indicted Natwar Singh is now the toast of some Opposition leaders. After reports came in that the Justice R.S. Pathak Inquiry Authority found that the former External Affairs Minister was the main actor in the oil-for-food scam, many of them called on him to express solidarity with him. Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh had a film song on his lips to suggest that Mr Natwar Singh would have a home in the SP if the Congress threw him out. A senior CPI leader made it clear that he and his party had sympathy for the Congress leader. The CPM’s Prakash Karat refrained from commenting on the Pathak report though the party did not forget Mr Natwar Singh’s anti-Americanism and stand on Iran. No calamity has befallen Mr Natwar Singh to deserve any sympathy. When the Volcker report appeared early this year, he made many protestations of innocence. He even said it was a case of mistaken identity. Instead of facing the truth, he became more and more combative. And when the Authority was appointed, he gave the impression that in a couple of months he would bounce back into the ministry. As the report clearly brings out, he tried all his best to cover up his role in the scam. In the end it was found that Mr Natwar Singh had done everything possible to get the oil contract for his and his son’s friends that made them richer by Rs 80-90 lakh. He wrote as many as three letters on his official letterhead beseeching the Iraqi government’s favour for his friends. No national interest was served in what Mr Natwar Singh did. He owes Parliament and the nation an explanation why he took all the trouble to facilitate the oil contract for Mr Aditya Khanna and Mr Andaleeb Sehgal, his son’s friends and relations. The Authority found that the Iraqi government was obliging Mr Natwar Singh and the position he held when it awarded the oil contract to the recommended party. Perhaps, the Opposition — which seems to be ignoring these facts brought out by the
R.S. Pathak report — expects him to wash some dirty government linen in public or, as one of them put it colourfully, “Congress ka pol kholne do, Natwar ko bolne do” (Let Natwar speak and expose the Congress). This is nothing but shortsightedness. Politicians like Mr Natwar Singh need to be shunned by all parties—the Congress and the Opposition—and not embraced even if there is a need to spite political rivals. This is the treatment that needs to be given to all those who misuse their official position to benefit themselves — or their sons and friends.
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Police goes berserk THE Chandigarh police disgraced itself when it teargassed and lathi-charged protesting jobless youth on Monday. One thought years of experience in handling demonstrations, so frequent at the city’s Matka Chowk, would have taught the police tact and patience in dealing with provocative situations. That has not happened. The incompetence of the policemen can be gauged from the fact that first they threw a teargas shell at their own SHO, injuring him, and then, in a fit of fury, used excessive force to disperse the crowd, which included girls. Reports say, to cover up their folly, they later picked up injured youth from hospitals and lodged them in police lock-up. Is this the way to deal with the jobless? The only provocation, if it can be called so, was that some youths tried to remove the barricades so that they could march up to the Punjab Chief Minister’s residence and hand him over a charter of demands. The protesters were not criminals or hardened law-breakers, but unemployed physical training instructors, veterinary pharmacists and agriculture sub-inspectors. All they wanted was to request the Chief Minister to fill the vacant posts. Some minister or senior bureaucrat could have given them a patient hearing and apprised them of the official response. Protests take place mostly because governments these days are distant and unresponsive. It has become quite common for the police to mishandle simple situations. What happened on Monday was totally avoidable. Police inefficiency, once again, was on display. Despite efforts to improve police training and spread awareness about human rights, the police refuses to shed its old mindset. Reforms in the police administration and increased police-public interaction have failed to discipline the force. Will Gen S. F. Rodrigues, who is the Administrator of the Union Territory, take time off from inaugurals, and look into the functioning of his police? |
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The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings. — William Shakespeare
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A many-sided threat THE Government of India has postponed the scheduled talks between the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan and so is the proposed visit of the Prime Minister to Pakistan. It has definitely adversely affected the peace process between the two countries which had raised high hopes among the people of the subcontinent, in particular among the people of Kashmir. One may regret it. But India had absolutely no choice. No Prime Minister of a democratic country can afford to defy strong angry popular mood that had been created after the terrorist strike in Mumbai in which 200 innocent civilians were killed, and in which Pakistan’s hand was suspected. But could the attack be anticipated and prevented? There were enough indications, external and internal, of a possible trouble. International jihadi terror was no longer friendly to India. Internal Muslim discontent had been simmering for quite some time. Osama bin Laden in his speech, through Al-Jazeera, in April, for instance, was quoted to have spoken of “Crusader-Zionist-Hindu war against Muslims”. By adding Hindus to traditional Christians and Jews, he thus added his powerful weight to the Pakistani jihadi groups, whose traditional targets have been Hindus and India. Husain Haqqani, the dissident Pakistani scholar, based in America, quotes Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of the Lashkar-e-Toiba now operating openly in Pakistan as the Jamat-ud-Dawa, as having said as far back as in 1999 that “Our mujahideen will create three Pakistans within India.” Haqqani concedes that jihadis have only brought violence, instability and defernation for Pakistan. But asks, “why then are Musharraf and the Pakistani establishment reluctant to root out jihadis with the vigour that Pakistan’s military establishment have often shown in vanquishing their political enemies?” The answer, in his view, lies in the Pakistani establishment’s world-view: the need to “internationalise” the Kashmir dispute. In this context, President Musharraf could have been asked for an explanation when he proposed demilitarisation of Kashmir and assured that once it was done, militant activity in the state will stop. It implied close enough understanding between the President and the militant outfits that gave him the requisite assurance. Silence of India over the proposal put it on the defensive. Many Indian commentators and mainstream Kashmiri leaders criticised the government of India for not responding to the “flexible” attitude of Pakistan President. Actually he should have been asked why he changed his stand. Earlier he had made a categorical commitment that Pakistan’s soil would not be used for terrorist activity against India. Why had he made this offer conditional? More bluntly, the United Jihad Council chairman, Syed Salahuddin, warned that “if India does not withdraw its forces from Kashmir, the war against them will spread all across India since the militants have the potential to strike in any part of India.” They did start giving evidence of the fact that they have the potential to strike cities like Delhi, Varanasi and Bangalore. And when the warning was not heeded, they struck in a big way through train blasts in Mumbai. This may not be a clinching evidence of the Jihad Council having organised the Mumbai mayhem or having played a major role therein. Nor did the earlier anti-India and anti-Hindu statements made from the Pakistani soil conclusively prove that the Pakistan government was responsible for the Mumbai blasts. But they provided enough ground for India to seek clarification from Pakistan during peace talks as to what it was doing to prevent the open threats that were being hurled at India and to close their training camps. That is a reflection on India’s Pakistan policy and the negotiating skills of those who have been engaged in talks with Pakistan. The anti-India jihadi forces did draw strength from international religious terrorist groups made easier by India’s isolation from the Muslim world in recent years. This aspect of our foreign policy, too, deserves serious notice. Before any further damage is done there is need to consider corrective measures. Whatever compensatory gains we presume to have made in the support of the advanced democratic countries are somewhat exaggerated. The US, for instance, was quick to advise us to resume talks with Pakistan which we had suspended after Mumbai massacre. While there is no support for the militant movement in Kashmir, there is certainly international pressure on India to match Pakistan’s “conciliatory and flexible” approaches on Kashmir. India’s diplomatic efforts and foreign missions are not much informed on merits of India’s case on Kashmir as to carry conviction with foreign governments and think tanks. What should be India’s policy on Kashmir and what concessions it should give to Pakistan or separatists in Kashmir are too complex problems that need a separate treatment. However, terror threat within India is not entirely due to external factors. They would not have mattered unless they were supplemented by internal factors. Not long ago India used to boast being the only country with a sizeable Muslim population, which does not have a single member in the international Islamic terrorist movement. What happened to our boast and strong basis of Indian secularism? Muslim grievances may not have increased in recent years, but there is increased protest over them. Hindu fascist threat, too, has assumed a more menacing posture. Finally, we must try to anticipate the post-Mumbai situation and the problems that it will pose. For obvious reasons all the suspected accused arrested so far happen to be Muslims. It has almost become an axiom that while every Muslim is not a terrorist, every terrorist is a Muslim. Will the post-Mumbai situation confirm this impression? Will the wall of suspicion between communities widen? What steps are proposed to fill up the communal divide and unite the nation to fight the challenge of terror? The problem that the country faces today is, in many respects, unprecedented and is extremely complex and multidimensional. It requires a holistic approach making full use of our intellectual, political and moral resources. At this crucial hour of our history, we should not be found wanting.
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The romance of words
MY romance with words started at an early age, but it’s not till lately that it became for not only an expression of my deepest thoughts, dreams and disputations, but also a distinctive form of nirvana. In a writing career spread over 50 years, I had to brook many an awkward and distressing moment in the early stages, and I didn’t quite know the direction of my muses sought. What’s more, I wasn’t quite sure of the spiritual potential of such an exercise. All I needed then, or perhaps cared for, was romance with words, an extension of the self in lexical fields, a kind of “game”, if you like. That writing, indeed, is such a romance, such an extension and such a game even at the higher level, I was destined to learn years later when problems of language, form and style turned out to be also questions of epistemology, values and vision in the wider sense. The point I’m trying to make is that in this long period of writing I have been moving from one place to another even as, basically, little changed en route. Still, different streams of thought, flowing chiefly from the western founts appeared to have gathered into the basin of my mind, and given an edge, a focus and a direction to whatever I was trying to put across. And though a certain kind of ideological monism did colour my perceptions for a long time, I started moving towards some kind of pluralism in thought later. And the writing in obedience to such a sum of ideas began to assume its new form and its own signature. Thus, writing as a cognitive process, and as a life of the imagination has survived in its various avtars. However, writing as a spiritual therapy, and finally as nirvana seldom entered my mind consciously till I fell critically ill a few years ago. At one time, during this ordeal, the fatigue of the mind as a consequence of long labour in writing too was suggested by doctors and friends as a possible source of my neurological disorder. But I have steadily moved away from such thoughts, and come to believe that it has now become in these twilight years of pain, perhaps the only form of nirvana available in sight. Even as I submit ever more to the call of prayers to the sweetness of the hymns from the Gurbani, I continue to drag my feet on the threshold of faith. And I return again and again to the discipline of writing as a mode of finding peace in the midst of my ambiguities and anxieties. The poem, in particular, helped work off my fever and eased my mutinous nerves. Basically, art is that kind of medicine being cathartic in nature. But I am truly seeking some kind of physical relief as well, which reminds me of John Steinbeck’s remark that “poetry is also the best therapy because sometimes the troubles come tumbling out”. Thus, writing, in general, helps meet the assault of suffering and keeps adrenaline flowing in my spirit. And if it does anything, it at least keeps a maverick mind from straying into all manner of phantom flaws. It ties me down to a certain discipline. And it acts as a palliative for a while, and even if peace comes in such small doses and fleeting interludes, it has, its own place in the scheme of things. Clearly, I’m not talking of nirvana in the religious sense, but an earthly moksha within the constraints of my situation. A truly religious personality is, I think, a gift of God, and since I do not possess those traits, I have had to work out my own kind of
nirvana. |
DOCUMENT
THE adverse economic impact of HIV and AIDS occurs at three levels: the individual/household level, sector level, and national or macro-levels. In the early phase of the epidemic, the impacts at the sector and macro-levels are rather mild and, hence, not easily measurable or quantifiable. So far in India, given the low overall prevalence, the focus has been on the effects at the level of the individual and the household. As the HIV epidemic unfolds, its impacts are bound to be deeply compounded. These impacts cannot be assessed in their totality by a mere extrapolation of the household level impact. Furthermore, in 2005, the number of HIV-infected persons exceeds 5 million, and this number is expected to quintuple to between 20 million and 25 million by 2010. With that kind of a jump in the number of HIV cases in the next 5-10 years, there is bound to be a visible impact on the national economy. At present, little or nothing is known about the potential macro-economic impact of HIV and AIDS on the Indian economy. A quantitative assessment of the macro-economic impact of AIDS on the Indian economy, therefore, needs to be undertaken urgently to assist the policy makers. An economic model is used to generate a ‘no-AIDS’ reference scenario and a ‘with-AIDS’ scenario for the 14-year period, 2002-03 to 2015-16. The growth rates of supplies of labour of all the three skill types (skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled) decline in the ‘with-AIDS’ scenario. The decline is maximum for the unskilled labour, followed by that of semi-skilled and skilled labour. The increase in health expenditure of the households and the government results in a fall in their savings, which then crowds out investment. This fall in investment causes growth to slow down, and, hence, labour demand to shrink. The fall in labour demand outstrips the AIDS-induced fall in labour supply in case of all the three skill types of labour, and all the wage rates, therefore, decline, though unequally. The slowdown in economic growth is manifested in a decline in the growth of real aggregate GDP as well as in the growth of per capita GDP. The former decreased, on an average, by 0.86 percentage points, while the latter declined, on an average, by 0.55 percentage points in the ‘with-AIDS’ scenario compared to the ‘no-AIDS’ scenario. Hence, the survivors of the epidemic are not “indifferent” or “better-off ”. They are in fact “worse-off”, as the lower per capita incomes show. Household income growth rates for all the groups decline, though unequally. The decline in the household income growth rate is steepest for rural nonagricultural self employed, followed by that of rural agricultural labour, rural non-agricultural labour rural agricultural self employed and urban casual labour. These household groups are the ones which derive their incomes mainly from unskilled labour, which, among the three labour types, is affected most adversely by the HIV epidemic. In sectoral terms, the HIV epidemic hits harder the sectors that use unskilled labour intensively. For example, ‘tourism’, which is the second-most unskilled labour-intensive sector, suffers the maximum loss of 18 percent in value-added terms in the ‘with-AIDS’ scenario in the final year 2015-16. It is followed by the ‘manufacturing’ or ‘industry’ sector, occupying the third position in the unskilled labour intensity ranking, and having a value-added which is 12 percent smaller in the ‘with-AIDS’ scenario as compared to the ‘no-AIDS’ scenario. On the other end of the scale, is the healthcare sector, which is least unskilled labour-intensive, and, hence, experiences a minor 2 percent loss in its value-added. The other reason for this obviously, is that the demand for health care by workers with HIV increases relatively. Overall, the sectoral pattern of production changes in favour of ‘healthcare’ and ‘services’ – i.e. sectors having relatively lower unskilled labour intensity - at the cost of ‘tourism’ and ‘manufacturing’ – i.e., sectors with relatively higher unskilled labour intensity. Within industry, it is possible able to identify the sectors which are major contributors to the overall loss in industrial GDP as a result of AIDS. These sectors are: Construction, Chemicals, Mining and Quarrying, Capital Goods and Textiles. The humanitarian case for taking action to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS is in itself a compelling one. However, it does not suffice for the economic policy-maker. The present study shows that the adverse macro-economic and sectoral impacts which the HIV epidemic is likely to impinge on the Indian economy in the coming decade, is by no means insignificant. Rather, it is very much real and sizable, and reinforces the already compelling humanitarian reason for urgent and effective policy action to control HIV and AIDS. In the absence of remedial policy action, the HIV epidemic in India is likely to bring down the average annual GDP growth rate during 2002-03 to 2015-16 by about 1 percent. Conversely speaking – i.e., assuming that the ‘with-AIDS’ scenario is the business-as-usual scenario, and the ‘no-AIDS’ scenario is the counterfactual policy scenario – it is possible to argue that in the next decade the annual GDP growth rate can be increased by upto 1 percent, if AIDS is effectively countered. It is time, therefore, to begin to see policy action against AIDS as a growth-enhancing policy endeavour, and, first and foremost, dedicate adequate resources for this purpose. New ideas, innovative institutions, and bold implementation must follow suit. The above is excerpted from the report “ The Macro-Economic and Sectoral Impacts of HIV and AIDS in India: A CGE Analysis”, NACO, NCAER, and UNDP, 2006.
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Protect the student as consumer THE National Consumer Disputes and Redressal Commission, the highest authority, established under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), 1986, has repeatedly held that in disputes regarding academic matters against a university/ Board, or an educational institution, provisions of the CPA cannot be invoked, as a student is neither a consumer, nor does the university/educational institution render service for a consideration. Nevertheless, the Consumer Disputes and Redressal agencies at the district and state level, have been entertaining the complaints of students. However, a recent order of the National Consumer Commission has completely taken ‘education’ out of the ambit of the Consumer Fora, which have been debarred/restrained from admitting complaints relating to matters academic. The National Commission held: “In our view, a student who appears in an examination conducted by a University cannot be held to be a consumer. Such a person does not hire, or avail of the services of the University or the Board for a consideration... but appears in the examination voluntarily for the purpose of getting degree, or diploma and for evaluation of his merit with regard to studies during the course.” The stern directions issued by the National Commission will have far-reaching consequences. The Consumer Fora will now dismiss the complaints of the students against the university, or the Board, even when the petitions appertain to not academic but administrative lapses. According to Section 2(d) (ii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the word ‘consumer’ has been defined as any person “who hires or avails of any service for a consideration which has been paid or promised....” The word ‘service’ has been defined in Section 2(O): “service means service of any description which is made available to potential users... but does not include the rendering of any service free of charge or under a contract of personal service.” A student pays a fee and gets admission in a school/ college to learn. Again, a student hires the services of the examining bodies qua the examiners for a consideration to get the knowledge assimilated by him evaluated, and for this he pays the fee. And as such he becomes a consumer for all practical and legal purposes. The absence of any statutory mandate vis-a-vis the subject education in the CPA, it is the interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Act that may constitute the woof and warp of the said Act. Going by the common logic education then is a service and a student is a consumer. What is enervating is that there has been no statutory forum, outside the secrecy-bound universities and Boards, for the aggrieved students and their harried parents to seek redressal of their complaints. Even the founding fathers of the CPA did not consider it necessary to include education in this otherwise beneficent legislation. Therefore, natural justice demands that education, now being a fundamental right, and the students having the right to know, to information, should be clearly brought within the purview of the CPA, so that the students get a statutory forum to get their grievances against the universities/Boards redressed. Students need the protection of the CPA more than any one else. The writer is Reader and head, Deptt. of English, Hans Raj College,
Faridabad. |
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In Afghanistan, a new
crackdown KABUL – Behind an unmarked door on a quiet residential street, a half-dozen young Chinese women in miniskirts shimmy to disco tapes or sit with beefy European men. Next to the fully stocked bar, a plastic Christmas tree pulses with tiny lights. Behind a desk in a spartan government office, a bearded official says he is swamped with job applicants for a proposed department to promote virtue and discourage vice, which would send out religious monitors to uncover and correct un-Islamic behavior in the populace. Both scenes coexist in a confused, newly democratic Muslim society grappling with a five-year influx of foreign troops and visitors, who have provided aid and protection but have also brought alcohol, prostitution and other tempting taboos to the deeply traditional and long-isolated country. In recent weeks, the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai has moved aggressively to crack down on what Afghans call imported vices. He is acting partly in response to pressure from domestic religious leaders and partly to upstage Islamic Taliban insurgents who are stepping up attacks across the south. Police in this capital of 4 million, which is also home to several thousand foreigners, have raided about a dozen restaurants and shops suspected of selling alcohol to Afghans and have seized and destroyed thousands of bottles. Officers have detained more than 100 Chinese women as suspected prostitutes, seven of whom were deported at the airport here Wednesday. The cabinet also approved reviving the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Discouragement of Vice, a body that Afghan governments have maintained through much of the country’s history. It became notoriously punitive under Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, when turbaned enforcers whipped women if their veils slipped and arrested men for wearing too-short beards or playing chess. The proposal, which must be ratified by parliament, has outraged human rights groups, Western-oriented Afghan leaders and Western diplomats here because of the concept’s association with the Taliban. Afghan officials have hastened to reassure their international allies that the reconstituted vice and virtue squads would focus on education. “We would be as different from the Taliban as earth and sky,’’ said Sulieman Hamid, an official of the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs who would oversee the virtue and vice monitors. “They used Islam for political purposes. We only want to stop people from committing bad acts and help maintain the honor of Islam.’’ He said the monitors would not replace police enforcement of law, intrude in private homes, operate separate prisons or contradict constitutional rights. “No one has any reason to be frightened,’’ said Abdul Jabbar Sabit, an adviser to the Interior Ministry who supervised the recent bar raids and deportations. “We would not beat people or force women to wear scarves. But we have to do something to protect society, to tell people they should not drink alcohol or smoke hashish or kill their Muslim brothers.’’ In the same week that the government sent alleged prostitutes back to China, it faced a different foreign challenge to Islamic culture – the arrival of about 1,200 evangelical Christians from South Korea. They were sent home.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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February 14, 1974 Skylab astronauts taller! “It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller…” Whether the Skylab astronauts too were getting anxious about their growing height like the little girl in Carrol’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” is not known. But they had grown taller by two inches after a record three months in orbit. Mercifully, they are back before they could hit the ceiling in the cockpit Skylab! They were expected to regain their normal size in a couple of days. Why the astronauts gained in height while in space is not yet explained scientifically. The scientists have to study the question. They also hope to obtain knowledge about weather prediction, mineral deposits on earth and crop growth as well as detailed information about the effects of space on the mind and body of man. The findings are likely to quash any lingering physiological or technological doubts about the feasibility of lengthy trips to the nearer planets.
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There is no place in the whole world where death cannot overcome the mortal. Neither the sky, nor the sea nor deep mountain caves can provide him a refuge from death. He who creates all sustains them too. The creator who has made this world also cares for it. Never scorn food, for food is the sustainer of life. Eat dry and simple food and drink cold water; do not look at the buttered bread of others and long for it. — Kabir |
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