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Scope of judiciary
On Record Child labour: Ban alone not enough |
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Reflections
Diversities — Delhi Letter
Profile
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Scope of judiciary As the judiciary is catching up with societal and technological evolution, the citizens of India look up to this institution with hope as the ultimate protector of human rights and the final resort for dispensation of justice. The unflinching hope the nation cherishes and looks forward to is the judiciary with its excellence and impeccable integrity. We should do everything to make the judicial system succeed. This casts a very heavy responsibility on the entire judicial system and participating institutions to live up to the expectations reposed in it and to maintain the sacred aura attached to it unsullied. Qualities of honesty and integrity are synonymous with each member of the judicial system. One must see the multi-dimensions of the justice delivery system. Significantly, there are many positive developments in this regard. First, Parliament has passed the Right to Information Act last year. Many citizens have been benefited by it. Sometimes, the information sought has also led to suggestions for improving the functioning of certain institutions. The system is in the evolutionary path. For deriving maximum benefit from this Act, active participation of all stakeholders such as political leaders, civil services, the judiciary, the media, societal transformers and the citizens is required. This will also make India a highly participative democracy. Secondly, Chitakoot’s Deendayal Research Institute (DRI), led by Mr Nanaji Deshmukh and his team members, is striving for a conflict-free society. It is a unique institution developing and implementing a village development model, which is most suited for India. Apart from development activities, the DRI is facilitating a cohesive conflict-free society. As a result, 80 villages around Chitrakoot are almost litigation free. The villagers have unanimously decided that no dispute will find its way to court. The differences will be sorted out amicably in the village itself. Mr Deshmukh says that if the people fight among each other, they have no time for development. This model may be propagated in other parts of the country by societal and judicial organisations and the government. Mediators and conciliators may facilitate such an action. Thirdly, we must see the functioning of the Mobile Legal Aid and Lok Adalats in Gujarat and Bihar High Courts. All these Adalats are networked. The number of cases settled in each month is being presented. This provides transparency to the villagers and many are coming forward for getting their cases settled. A good justice delivery system for the rural areas is the need of the hour. Fourthly, another important societal development of settling the disputes is through mediation and reconciliation. We should have trained mediators and conciliators who can see the problem objectively without bias and facilitate resolution among the affected parties. This system is cost-effective. In the cases involving parties from rural areas, the mediators and conciliators may move to the site of occurrence of the problem and resolve the issue. Mediators, as role models, should be able to persuade and create conviction among the parties. Chennai’s Mediation and Conciliation Centre had solved many family disputes pending for a long time in a year. Fifthly, we should assess the potential of e-judiciary. Computerisation of the Supreme Court, High Courts and subordinate courts is essential for the development of e-judiciary system. From the time of case registration to the judgment, the entire processing must take place electronically. This will enable easy search, retrieval, grouping, information processing, judicial record processing and disposal of the cases in a transparent manner and enable quicker disposal of cases. At any time the complainant should be able to find out the status of the case, which court, what date and what subject will be dealt with by the court during a particular hearing so that the litigant is fully prepared for the case. The judges can also see the progress of the case, the number of adjournments sought, whether the grounds are trivial or serious and so on. In certain courts, e-judiciary system has already started functioning; it has to be extended to all the courts in the country. The government has approved connecting all the 15,000 courts — from the District Courts to the Supreme Court — through a Wide Area Network. This is a very important step and it should be completed through a mission mode and time-bound operation. Sixthly, cyber crimes and the role of business in the digital world on the web. In the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organisational wealth which will be in the digital form in multiple locations. In the 20th century, a nation’s business transactions and wealth creation were based on transfer of materials from one place to the other. But in the 21st century, wealth is created whenever information in the form of electrons is transferred across the networks in a borderless world. Our judicial system has to build its capacity to define jurisdictions in a way that any crime committed against India or her assets by anyone from anywhere shall be punishable by Indian law. It may be true for other countries also. We should formulate progressive and innovative crime prevention methods for the digital economy which is one of the vital components of a developed nation. And finally, let us study the laws driven by national priorities. There are major issues of protecting the local and global environment. Just as science and technology is driven by human curiosity and reasoning, laws are meant to protect people, their rights and make them feel secure in society. This is the common meeting ground of law, science and technology, people and society. We must ensure that legal instruments maximise the benefits for our people and nation. Laws must protect the indigenous technologies and trade to the extent they impact people’s living and their welfare as well as ensure national interest. We need experts both in the Bar and the judiciary to effectively deal with the legal systems of multiple nations and protect the interest of our companies doing business and trade with these countries. Excerpts from the President of India’s Twelfth Justice Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture delivered in New Delhi recently
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On Record
Mr Ajit Kumar Doval, the former Chief of Intelligence Bureau, Government of India, is an internationally renowned expert on strategic affairs. He is known for his out-of-box thinking, unconventional wisdom and pragmatic views. Mr Doval speaks to The Sunday Tribune exclusively on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to India beginning tomorrow. Excerpts: Q: The Chinese Ambassador to India, Mr Sun Yuxin, has said the whole of Arunachal Pradesh belonged to China. What could be his motive behind this comment? A: The remarks made by the Chinese Ambassador were bad in form and content. A subjective interpretation of facts, history and obligations under international law does not alter the realities. There is a bilateral mechanism in place where the border question is being addressed and such assertions do not help the process. More important, it was the timing, stridency and the fact that the remark was made without any apparent provocation is disquieting. Obviously, it was a deliberate assertion and not an off the cuff remark. Its impact on President Hu Jintao’s visit could also not have been lost sight of. It may well be an attempt to put India on the defensive when addressing various bilateral issues. Q: How do you see Mr Hu’s visit to India? Will it be a successful, substantive, forward-looking visit? Or is it just a stopover for Mr Hu who undertakes a far more important and sensitive visit to Pakistan from November 23? A: It is a very important visit. India and China are poised to be two major players in the emerging global scenario and have much in common, both in strengths and problems. Together they have world’s one-third population, are fastest growing economies and share many problems of growth and development. Most important, they are neighbours with a long common border and it is in the interest of both the countries not to grow as strategic adversaries. President Hu’s visit is an important visit and underrating it will be a mistake. Linking it to his visit to Pakistan may not be the right approach. With a long-term perspective, we need to formulate an independent China policy and firm sure footed moves at this stage will help in evolving that policy. Q: Can India trust China considering Beijing’s close ties with its all-weather ally Pakistan? Is India’s China policy faulty? Should India reverse its stand on two crucial issues of Tibet and Taiwan? What will be the pros and cons if New Delhi were to do that? A: The question of trust and distrust is not the issue. Identifying our best national interests and developing a convergence to achieve them is the issue. Let us not underestimate our own strengths. India is as important to China as China is to India in pursuing their respective long-term national interest. A conflict relationship is not in the interest of either country. How do we develop that commonality of interests, fully protecting our strategic, security, political and economic interests, is the challenge. India does not have to speak from a position of weakness or strength but reasonableness and rationality. China would do well to develop greater sensitivity and understanding of India’s genuine concerns. Q: Is it correct that the Chinese have re-started arming the Indian Northeast insurgents, reversing their own decades-old policy? A: I don’t have any information about the Chinese arming the Northeastern insurgent group. I do not know what is the basis of your information. On the face of it, it looks highly unlikely to me. Q: How do you see the trade route with China through Nathu La in Sikkim? Will it ultimately work as the Chinese mainland-Lhasa railway is now poised to expand to the Indian borders? What are the military and strategic implications of this railway line for India? A: Opening of Nathu La for trade was an important move forward. Its trade potential, at least at this juncture, may not be very high but its symbolic import cannot be underestimated. It does have some security implications, but I am sure the agencies concerned would have taken appropriate countermeasures. Whether the experiment will prove to be fruitful or not will depend on overall evolution of relations between the two great neighbours. Lhasa being connected to the mainland by a railway line has definite military and strategic implications for India. The railway infrastructure has been built which is capable of enhancing combat capability of China and transporting hardware for military offensive. India has to factor it in its higher defence planning and match the capabilities. Q: How do you see the role of Yughen Thinley Dorjee, the Chinese-recognised 17th Karmapa working among the Tibetan Diaspora both within Tibet and outside, especially in India? A: On the face of it, the whole sequence of his coming to India, establishing himself, developing contacts and linkages, gives an impression that there is more to the whole episode than what meets the eye. I definitely feel that it is a sensitive matter and needs to be addressed from a higher plane of knowledge. Of course, if he is under the spell of some hostile influences, internal or external, it can be detrimental to India and we need to maintain a high degree of vigil. |
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Child labour: Ban alone
not enough The Union Government’s decision to ban child labour is most welcome. But how will it be implemented in letter and spirit? We will use all our methods and excuses to engage small children in petty jobs. Parents of these children can’t go to the court. They cannot afford to send them to school nor are in a position to provide them minimum necessities of life. Even after 59 years of Independence, we have not been able to provide free and compulsory education to all the children up to the age of 14, provide quota for minorities and adequate representation for women in the administration, Parliament and state legislatures. Successive governments — at the Centre and in the States —have done little in this regard. The government should help every citizen lead a respectful life irrespective of caste, creed and sex. The chapter on “Rights and Duties” in the Indian Constitution should be implemented in toto. There is no need to make Plans which cannot be implemented properly? Prices are soaring and a poor man is finding it difficult to have two square meals a day. The root cause of most of our socio-economic problems is continued child labour. Ban on child labour alone won’t do. We have to provide economic security to the people on the basis of economic backwardness. The Centre must give serious thought to the following steps. Without any discrimination of caste, creed, sex and religion, it should provide basic needs of livelihood to every citizen who is below the poverty line. This should be done very judiciously. Population control is a must as this has adversely affected our developmental plan programmes. Our Parliament is very liberal in passing so many Bills. Why shouldn’t it enact a law on family planning to check population? The government should provide all facilities to children to meet their educational needs. Monetary help may be provided to the poorest of the poor. In addition to government’s efforts, NRIs, NGOs, philanthropists and social organisations should come forward to extend all possible help. Domestic servants above the age of 14 years should be encouraged to purse higher studies. Vocational education is all the more better as it will give him/her a job after completing the course. This writer admitted his 18-year-old domestic help in Bathinda’s Government Polytechnic. He has completed the course of electrician and has got ‘B’ grade certificate. He could pursue this course during the daytime when his presence was not needed at home and we were away for our jobs. There are many more ways of uplifting the poor. But we need to be honest and sincere with the necessary will to do it. Let’s look beyond the ban on child labour to provide succour to the poor children and their families. The writer is associated with Sanawar, an institute for children, at Bathinda |
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Reflections My American friends, Heather and Mark, who I met last year through my God daughter, love India, its people, the spicy food and the adventure and spirituality it has to offer. When they visited me last year from New York, they expressed a keen interest in volunteering with my not-for-profit, India Vision Foundation. I suggested they conduct an English conversation training course for the teachers of our rural primary school, 35 km outside Delhi. They were very excited. Given their busy schedules — Heather is a Managing Director at Standard & Poor’s/Crisil and Mark is the editor of an archaeology magazine — they decided they would undertake the effort during their next vacation trip to India. Before I knew it, they were getting organised, gathering support and working around their schedules. Heather got across to her employer’s parent organisation, McGraw-Hill, a major US publisher, for educational materials. Heather’s colleagues at India-based Crisil volunteered translating children’s stories for the effort. With the active support of our in-house project co-coordinators, Chandni and Shakira and others, they got on to work with the teachers and some school children, the very next day of their arrival. On our side, there was a great deal of anticipation and enthusiasm amongst the ‘students’ over learning to converse in English without being teased or jeered at. I was naturally curious to assess the impact of this exercise. I therefore took an open feedback session. I truly came back with an experience I would cherish forever. It proved beyond doubt certain realities of our schooling today and particularly for those educational institutions whose strength and focus is not teaching adequately and correctly, the English language. It had messages for those in governance, administration, education, community service and parents. The couple volunteered to stay on the project premises in the village, knowing well, that the rural setting had erratic power supply, mosquitoes, and dogs barking at 3 a.m., besides many other constraints of connectivity etc. But their focus was their students. Here is some of the feedback in the participants’ own words. *
“I had lost 10 to 12 years of my life without knowing how to converse and convey my feelings in English when I needed to. I had a burning desire in me to regain my lost time. This course has given me that...” *
“Every time my children would correct me and at times made fun…now I will be happy to be corrected and also correct them for now I know the right way to say…” *
“The world has opened up for me. Earlier someone else spoke for me while I looked on. Now I will no more be a mere onlooker”. *
“We were never exposed to such sort of training. No one explained to us and taught us this way. We got no chance... This is the first time I got such an opportunity”. *
“Besides learning to communicate in English, have you learnt anything else”? I asked. They said: *... “I will now not skip the English news. *... “I will now not avoid reading English newspapers. *
...“I will not hesitate sharing in our afternoon reviews in English. *… “At home I will be able to speak with my children in English.” *
“I will read my children’s English books. Earlier I used to put them aside”. *… “I have learnt to do better time management by seeing them organise and work efficiently. *… “I will not feel hesitant anymore in speaking in English even if I am feeling that I am making a mistake. Because this is the only way I will keep up my practice.” *
“Environment of learning is so important. Once in a while I used to open a dictionary for help but it never worked. Also after school there is so much of house work and children to be taken care of. There is no time to self educate. Here it has been so much of joyful focused learning”. We at the rural project realised how important English speaking was to all of them. How left out they had been feeling when others spoke in their presence. How deep within them was the inferiority complex of not being able to communicate in English. How inadequate they felt missing out on books, news, English movies etc. How hesitant they were reaching out to their own children when tutoring them. It was really insightful when I was told by a 10-year-old girl student that her mother said… “You are learning for your zindagi…(life)”. While our teachers and some school children learnt English from both the visitors, Mark tried learning Sanskrit, after class hours, from the priest amongst the students. Here is what Heather and Mark had to say… “Even though there were minor inconveniences, these were all outweighed by many positive surprises. We were very impressed by the breadth and commitment, extraordinary effectiveness, the personal touch, and good humour of all and the treats of fabulous Indian vegetarian meals and the beauty of the afternoon light falling on the courtyard. “As to our mission, in the space of just two weeks we saw participants speaking more confidently and progressed with pronunciation beyond their own expectations…We have to come back again…To share and to learn…” After the feedback session, the entire class drove out on their bikes as they had planned, to the nearby lake chattering and singing… |
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Diversities — Delhi Letter Once again, the big question of reservation has come up. For whom and for what and for how long? Followed by heated debates and discussions. The very title was one such debate due in the India International Centre this week-end is apt, “Left out in the cold: Muslims, Dalit Christians and Women”. This column is being written several hours before one could get to hear what the speakers, Professor Imtiaz Ahmad, T.K. Oommen and Ritu Menon, would say. But then, it would be naïve to expect as though all is going fine with the country’s minority communities. In August first week, I had attended a meet in Ahmedabad, which was sponsored by a NGO working for the Dalits and Muslims. Even before we left for the venue, as we got talking over breakfast, the Dalit crusader Anand Telhembde recounted how hapless farmers and Dalits in Maharashtra were killing themselves in utter financial despair. The picture got larger and grimmer as Gujarat-based activists
Raju Solanki and Mukul Sinha came up with further pointers. This time it was towards the pathetic state of the Muslims in Gujarat as activists said there was a distinct similarity in the patterns of helplessness, poverty and bias of the state machinery. Recent incidents in Maharashtra point to the biased treatment meted out to the Dalits. Now as the Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee findings are out, the real issues that confront the Muslim community are staring in the face. They are disturbing for the findings are a pointer that the Muslim community is not faring well and is under represented in every sphere including government jobs. Ironically, the only place and sphere they are more than their overall population percentage is in the jails. The Sachar Committee findings with dismal facts and figures pertaining to the Muslims should come as no shock, for the past few years there have been other pointers in the same direction. And yet we let only non-issues bother us and not the dismal overall picture. The Gopal Singh report was the first official pointer that Muslims were under-represented even at the government jobs level. In the late nineties, the National Council of Applied Economic Research had conducted a study survey of rural Indian households. They had come up with the human development profile’, complete with facts about the overall poverty levels in rural India. India’s 350 million people live a miserable life. Statistics show that Muslims were lagging behind on several fronts. The community wise break-up showed that the Muslims seemed to be comparatively worse off than the upper caste Hindus. Coupled with this the fact that more Muslims — 66 per cent of all Muslims lived in rural areas. These findings showed overall the head count poverty and capability
ratios were considerably higher for Muslims compared to the all-India average and the caste Hindus. The percentage of population below the poverty line was 43 for Muslims as against 32 for caste Hindus and 39 for the whole population. Not only was the household income of Muslims only Rs 22,807 compared with Rs 29,786 for the Hindu of the upper caste, but even where land was concerned, 43 per cent of Muslim households were landless compared with only 30 per cent among Hindus. The government knows it all. Yet, it sets up committee after committee to come with another set of facts and figures. What’s going on at the implementation level!
This weekend saw the formal launch of a book which
contains correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr Karan Singh with
a foreword by Sonia Gandhi. Edited by Jawaid Alam and published by Penguin, the very title of this book spells out much in terms of the topic — Jammu and Kashmir 1949-64: Select Correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and Karan Singh. Shashi Tharoor and Roshan Seth are readying themselves to read out excerpts on the launch evening (Nov 18). This week also saw the launch of Partners in Freedom: Jamia Millia Islamia (Niyogi Books). Co-authored by Professor Mushirul Hasan and Rakhshanda Jalil, it’s one of the finest produced volumes in recent years. The range of photographs is amazing. This book “endeavours to unfurl the nationalist legacy of Jamia, locate its story in the larger context of India’s anti-colonial struggle and profiles the lives of dedicated men and women who were committed to the ideas of plural nationhood and composite culture.”
Commonwealth Games New Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games in 2010, but the so-called curtain-raiser to it took off on Nov 17, when one of the branches of the DPS School in East of Kailash hosted a grand Sports Day — Khel Yatra — the so-called curtain raiser to the Commowealth Games. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was the chief guest. Several of the who’s who in the field of sports were also present. I could spot Ajay Jadeja and Jaspal Rana. It was a great show. Through various items and shows, these school children managed to trace the history of the games. I quote from the brochure given to the guests by School Headmistress Amita Mishra, “Sports were invented in Ancient Egypt. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt were the forefathers of many modern-day sports.”
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Profile Two hundred kilometers to the south of Nagpur lies Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra. It is located on the borders of Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. This area is known to be one of the most backward regions of Maharashtra. In this forlorn place, a brilliant doctor couple, in their fifties, has been working for over two decades, taking medical care to the poor people. Dr Abhay Bang and Dr Rani Bang have become legends in their lifetime. Their work for the poor in the sphere of rural ailments in general and infant mortality in particular has been recognised nationally and internationally. Time magazine has called them “frontline angels of mercy” and “Global Heroes of Health”. Dr Rani Bang has now been honoured with the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Award for the pioneering research in rural health, especially among the women of the areas. The Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), founded by the doctor couple in 1968, has trained a number of “barefoot doctors” in 60 villages to treat women and also organised a movement against alcoholism. The work done by SEARCH has significantly reduced the infant mortality rate in the area around Gadchiroli. The couple trained local volunteers, illiterate or school dropout, in treating mother and child by dispatching them to remote areas. They would reach antibiotics to them as 30 per cent died due to pneumonia. The Bangs also designed a “breath counter” to replace stethoscope. All this was put into a small kit. The Bangs are now planning to use e-learning tools to reach out to the people and are working with the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation for training one lakh barefoot doctors. The Planning Commission, having studied the Bangs’ home-based neonatal care programme, is convinced that this shows the way for replication in the rest of the country. The model will now be part of the National Rural Health Mission in three lakh villages in Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Dr Rani and her husband hold masters degree in medicine from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University. They did most of their medical education in India and were gold medallists. What inspired them to devote their life and time for the poor in most backward region? They often narrate a moving story which, possibly, changed the course of their lives: On a dark stormy evening, a tribal woman rushed in with her newborn baby to their house and pleaded with them to save the child’s life. Dr Abhay says: “We took the infant, laid him on our bed and tried our best to save him but he died right there and then”. The child’s death haunted the two doctors. They decided to tackle a subject the medical community had long abandoned — the high child mortality rate in the developing world. The husband-and-wife team had already decided to follow Gandhian principles and live and work with the poor, founding SEARCH. After setting up a lab in an old warehouse, they began surveying two nearby villages. He and Dr Rani found that 92 per cent women had gynaecological diseases. Encouraged, the Bangs listened more and more to their patients. They identified alcohol abuse as another big issue and began addiction treatment. As half of their patients were from the forest-dwelling Gond tribes and wary of city hospitals, the doctor couple asked them what a Gond hospital might look like. The result was what Dr Abhay called “Shodhagram” (Research Village), a medical centre outside Gadchiroli that resembles a village, with separate huts housing the lab, surgery, pharmacy, wards, library and even a shrine of the Gond goddess “Danteshwari”. The two doctors found no problems that could not be treated by a health worker with rudimentary skills, some infant sleeping bags and an abacus on which to record every 10 heartbeats. Dr Rani got sleeping bags stitched and requisitioned services of a carpenter to make the abacuses. They drew up a health training programme and taught the volunteers how to use the two simple equipment. The couple published the results of their effort in 1999 and they were encouraging. The child mortality rate had come down. The programme is now being adopted across India, where more than a quarter of the four million annual newborn deaths occur, and in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Africa. Dr Abhay grew up in Gandhiji’s Sevagram. His father Dr Thakurdas Bang too was a true Gandhian and even at 90 worked for the poor. Both Dr Abhay and his wife had a brilliant medical career. Dr Rani hails from an affluent family. The doctor couple have devoted their lives for the
poor. |
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