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Hostile to truth Mid-year review |
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Olympian lament
A bit of Musharraf-speak
The travelling companion
Where the Taliban roam free At last, some teachers, but at what price? Delhi Durbar
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Hostile to truth THE Delhi High Court has issued show-cause notices to 32 witnesses who turned hostile in the celebrated Jessica Lall murder case. It was on the basis of their volte-face that the trial court acquitted Manu Sharma and two others in February. The acquittal amounted to making a mockery of justice. The witnesses have been asked to appear before the court on February 1, 2007. The Jessica case provides an illustration of the accused putting pressures, economic and otherwise, on the witnesses to change their statements. For instance, who can accept the statement of Shayan Munshi, a model-turned actor, that he could not read the FIR as he did not know Hindi? Munshi’s two-weapon theory was also a figment of his imagination which the High Court duly has rejected. The law of perjury, which prescribes a maximum punishment of seven years’ jail term, is applicable to them. But the law is seldom invoked to punish such witnesses. Needless to say, if the menace of hostile witnesses is increasing day by day, it is mainly because of the absence of fear of the law among the people. This also brings to light the role of the trial court headed by Mr S.L. Bhayana, who has been elevated to the Delhi High Court. The High Court aptly observed that Mr Bhayana did little to ferret out the truth even though a large number of witnesses, one after the other, turned hostile to thwart the course of justice. Significantly, the Supreme Court, while convicting Zaheera Sheikh to a year’s prison term and a fine for her flip-flops in the Best Bakery case, ruled in March that the trial court has “unlimited powers” under Section 311 Cr PC to play a “pro-active role”. It said the trial court could examine witnesses on its own accord and bring on record evidence from the point of view of the accused, the prosecution and an “orderly society”. The Jessica case enjoins a special responsibility on the UPA government to hasten the amendment to the Cr PC and introduce a comprehensive witness protection programme. If confessional statements of witnesses are recorded before a magistrate, as also video-recorded, this will prevent them from turning hostile. The amendment will also meet the demand of the law-enforcing agencies to protect witnesses from pressure of any kind. Unfortunately, despite the Law Commission’s recommendation, successive governments have failed to pursue the issue to its logical conclusion. Clearly, witnesses should not be allowed to get away by saying one thing at one time and another at another time.
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Mid-year review THE mid-year review of the economy, presented in Parliament on Tuesday, gives an idea of the past and future trends on the economic front. What may ring alarm bells in Punjab and Haryana is the Finance Ministry’s observation that the minimum support price mechanism has not delivered the desired results. Any tinkering with the MSP mechanism can affect the fortunes of farmers in the two predominately agricultural states. While pointing to the obvious slowdown in agriculture, the mid-year review has not come out with any concrete action plan to pull agriculture out of the present quagmire. Addressing concerns on inflationary pressures and inadequacies in infrastructure, the review takes up the crucial question whether the economy is overheating. The continuous boom in the stock markets, rising prices and a high economic growth rate have raised the question whether the country has been growing beyond its growth potential? The Finance Ministry’s verdict is in the negative. The question of overheating has been raised in the case of China also, which is growing faster than India. But China has sufficient current account surplus and its inflation is lower than that in India. The review explains that the Indian stock market boom is based on robust corporate growth and future growth prospects. The third vital issue touched in the review concerns tax exemptions and subsidies. The Finance Minister has already gone public on the two issues and the coming Budget may reflect his thinking. While there is limited scope for reducing subsidies, given its political implications and the Leftist opposition, the income tax exemptions may be curtailed. Mr P. Chidambaram has made it known that the tax exemptions and concessions cost the exchequer upward of Rs 1 lakh crore. In his last Budget, Mr Chidambaram had cut exemptions in the Customs, Central excise and the service tax. There is a possibility of rescheduling subsidies to target the poor more specifically.
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Olympian lament TO say that Indian hockey lovers are angry and disappointed will be an understatement. Actually, they are seething with impotent rage. Imagine the world beaters not being able to qualify for the semifinals in the Asian Games at Doha! There could not be a worse dream, and to think that it very much came true. The hurt is all the more in the case of former Olympians who brought home glory in the past. That is why they marched with their faces downcast in Delhi on Wednesday. There could not be a more pathetic spectacle. If this does not shame the Indian Hockey Federation into action, nothing would. There are many things that ail Indian hockey today. As legendary Pargat Singh has pointed out, these include red tape, the insincere, unprofessional and inept approach of sports federations and associations, non-existent research, outdated coaching methods, the lack of world class infrastructure and equipment and financial insecurity. If all this has to be summarised into one specific weakness, it is the scandalously bad administration of the game. The harsh fact is that the administrators, instead of being facilitators, have become a hindrance. There is lack of vision and to cap it, there is the dictatorial attitude. There is no attempt to benefit from the rich experience of the stalwarts. That is why hockey is on deathbed. Bureaucrats like Mr K P S Gill come to the helm of sports federations not for the love of the game but because of the influence and power that come with it. He has led the IHF ingloriously for far too long. Now is the time to hand over the baton to someone professional who can ensure a turnaround. And why should the whole show be run by any one person or clique at all? There is need for a democratic setup where the voice of every genuine hockey lover is heard. There are enough experienced hands in the country who can contribute their mite. The rot has not set in hockey alone. Almost every game is afflicted, as shooter Jaspal Rana so candidly pointed out on his triumphant return from Doha. Let the boys and girls shine because of the administrative intervention. Right now a handful of them are doing so despite such intervention.
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Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. — George Ade
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A bit of Musharraf-speak
President
Musharraf has spoken yet again. India and Pakistan are both having to learn to interpret Musharraf-speak. Some have begun to decipher this as an encoded language in which the General does not mean what he says or say what he means. The essential communication has to be read between his lines, which keep changing with the season within certain degrees of political elasticity. His “new” four-point solution for Jammu and Kashmir is a pirated version of the concept of a J&K with soft borders leading to some kind of “confederation” that was canvassed with President Ayub and Abdul Qayyum Khan by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah as far back as 1964. That idea has since been informally mooted by Indians over many decades but was consistently scorned by Pakistan, which “claimed” J&K by virtue of the two-nation ideology (inscribed in PAK’s Pakistan-given constitution). J&K was the “unfinished business of Partition”, Pakistan’s “jugular vein”, its “lifeline”. The popular slogan was “Kashmir banega Pakistan”. Wars and cross-border intervention have failed to win the prize and instead threatens to unravel a militarised and increasingly fractured Pakistan yet to come to terms with itself. Having reached a dead end, General Musharraf has now recognised that the “core” J&K issue is something from which it must disengage in good order. Hence dropping the “claim” to Kashmir and the first re-writing of schoolbooks to soften the ideological sub-text of the Two-Nation Theory, with a symbolic visit to a Hindu shrine thrown in. Alongside this, repeated restatements of his four-point proposal, most recently in an interview with NDTV. General Musharraf would first “identify” negotiable territories within J&K. Here he would rather not let go of the Northern Areas, (possibly paired against Buddhist Ladakh and Hindu Kathua, a communal vivisection unacceptable to India, which views J&K as a whole). Next he would “demilitarise” the identified regions with troops garrisoned in two or three places. He would, third, confer “self-governance” on these identified regions. This would include internal security but exclude external defence. Fourthly, he rejects division along the LoC as a permanent solution and would go along with Dr Manmohan Singh in making it irrelevant. This would be achieved through “joint supervision” by India and Pakistan (rather than “control” or “management”) of the local administration in the two parts of J&K, both of which would enjoy considerable internal autonomy. Self-determination is, therefore, to be internalised by either side within their twin sovereignties and not externally determined for the whole through a plebiscite. The latter possibility was killed by Pakistan’s failure to observe its basic preconditions in the early years when it was still a viable option. Should there be equivalence in the nature and content of “self-determination” on either side of the J&K divide? Musharraf-speak would suggest that PAK has a “President” and “Prime Minister” and that it is for India to upgrade the level of autonomy in J&K. The truth is the very opposite. PAK’s “autonomy” is hollow while the Northern Areas enjoy the meanest of democratic rights. Islamabad is all-powerful. Pakistan itself is struggling for self-determination and the General has made it known that he will be elected, while still in uniform, by the present National and State Assemblies that were themselves elected in somewhat dubious circumstances that are retold in his “In The Line of Fire”. On the Indian side, Dr Manmohan Singh has set up four task forces in the wake of the J&K Roundtable. These are to evolve a consensus on cross-LoC-cum-cross-country relations, further autonomy for J&K alongside regional autonomy for its component regions, internal grievance redressal within J&K, and development of a plan for economic resurgence. There has been a wide measure of consultation. Some elements like the Hurriyat have unwisely remained aloof thus far but may hopefully still join. Those that choose to stay out cannot later claim a veto on grounds of non-consultation or failure to take their ideas and sentiments into account. The National Conference has already presented its autonomy plan going back to 1953, or essentially the Delhi Agreement. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in turn articulated the PDF’s vision in Washington in November. This looks for “peace through economic reconstruction” that subsumes the demobilisation and reintegration of militants and the reintegration of displaced populations. This strategy is calculated “to negate the LoC through economic integration” and “shared sovereignty”, with “markets overriding dividing lines”. The tentative roadmap envisages restoring an indirectly elected Governor for J&K. None of this is anathema or will endanger Indian sovereignty or security. However, there is opposition from the BJP/Parivar and those who dream of independence for J&K, and the United Jehad Council and other religious hardliners in Pakistan. Dr Manmohan Singh has done well to welcome President Musharraf’s latest statement. The talks must go on and the diplomatic back channel is at work. Due allowances must be made for General Musharraf’s public rhetoric as he has to create an honourable exit for himself and for Pakistan. It is in India’s best interest to assist him in doing
so.
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The travelling companion
I
WAS entraining from Old Delhi station on a cold January evening. We were headed for a western station to raise an Army divisional headquarters. Our names on the railways’ list did not carry our ranks. According to the reservation chart, among the other three passengers in my compartment was one Mrs N. Khosla. Long train journeys can be a trying experience, more so if one lands in talkative company, or, with someone whose religious zeal gets vocal early mornings. “A lady’s presence would add sobriety and decorum”, I happily concluded and awaited her arrival with eagerness. The platform was the usual melange of sounds and sights, with porters haggling, hawkers shouting their wares and passengers scurrying, with wailing kids in tow. The other two occupants of our compartment came in due time and occupied their berths. They were both nondescript, apparently men of affluence, well girthed and with bulging pockets. We exchanged indifferent glances. Unmindful of the cold breeze slapping my face, I then returned to surveying the crowd for the fourth compartment companion, my curious mind conjecturing her person. Shortly, a striped-suited man with greying sideboards and twirling a knobkerrie in his hand, made his approach. He halted to read the reservation chart. Before I could tell him that he was at a wrong place, he came close to me and squinting at my nameplate, said. “So you are Lt Col Kadyan, the GSO1?” His inquisitiveness and his slouched hat-brim made me relate him to a typical intelligence risk and I became guarded. However, before I could voice my objection to his unwanted intrusion on my privacy, he pre-empted. “I am Colonel S.N. Khosla, the ADMS”, he said, smiling amiably. We all had read the posting orders and knew names. He extended a courteous hand. At that moment, almost in a split second the reality dawned on me. “I am very disappointed to meet you sir”, my response was totally involuntary. It was now his turn to wear a frown. “You need to explain it”, he demanded in a parade voice, with some of the affability wearing off his visage. “The faux pas is actually of the Railways”, I said, “Instead of writing your name as ‘Mr S. N. Khosla” they have displaced one letter and typed ‘Mrs N. Khosla’, and I was actually looking forward to see Mrs Khosla instead of you”. When one meets a new person it takes time to establish rapport. But we clicked instantaneously under that dim railway lamplight, as he hugged me and let out a guffaw that turned many heads our
way.
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Where the Taliban roam free
QUETTA, Pakistan — At a time when the Taliban is making its strongest push in years to regain influence and territory across the border in Afghanistan, this mountain-ringed provincial capital has become an increasingly brazen hub of activity by the Islamist militia. Quetta serves as a place of rest and refuge for Taliban fighters between battles, a funneling point for cash and armaments, a fertile recruiting ground and a sometime meeting point for the group’s fugitive leaders, say aid workers, local officials, diplomats, doctors and Pakistani journalists. “Everybody is here,” said Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a Quetta-based member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, describing the routine comings and goings of senior Taliban commanders in Quetta, the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The apparent ease of Taliban movement in and out of Quetta comes against a backdrop of increasingly bitter squabbling by authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan over who bears the responsibility for the militia’s use of tribal areas on the Pakistan side as a staging ground for attacks that have killed at least 180 NATO and allied troops this year. Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this month blamed Pakistan for orchestrating Taliban activity. Pakistan, a key ally in President Bush “war on terror,” in turn accused Karzai of seeking a scapegoat for his own failures of governance. Quetta is a microcosm for these tensions. Local Pakistani authorities insist they keep a tight lid on Taliban activity — a claim derided by many residents of this city of about 1.5 million people, and one backed by little demonstrable evidence. Residents described nerve-racking random encounters with Taliban convoys bristling with weaponry and volleys of automatic-weapons fire echoing from within some walled-off madrasas. Taliban recruitment videos sell briskly in compact disc stalls tucked between the gun emporiums and carpet shops of Quetta’s raucous main market. “For the Taliban, this is considered to be a safe haven,” said Syed Ali Shah, a journalist who writes for the Baluchistan Times. “They come here, they regroup and retrain.” At a local madrasa, or Islamic seminary, black-turbaned young men gathered around a makeshift fountain on a recent day, making ablutions before noon prayers. One, then two, then half a dozen of them aimed steely glares at outsiders lingering near the rusty green gate of the mud-brick compound. The madrasa is one of dozens in and around Quetta at which Taliban ideology is openly preached. From these schools, willing foot soldiers emerge by the hundreds to join the fight against Western forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban presence in Quetta is helped by the insular and secretive nature of Pashtun tribal society, the virtually unsecured border with Afghanistan and the city’s large population of Afghan refugees, with whom the militia’s members can readily blend. The city also has close historic, ethnic and cultural ties to the Taliban’s birthplace, the Afghan city of Kandahar, a bone-jarring five hours away by road. Many Pashtun clans have roots on both sides of the border. Afghan provinces lying close to Baluchistan have been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting this year between Taliban and allied forces. The bulk of more than 115 suicide attacks against coalition troops have taken place in and near Kandahar, which was the seat of Taliban power when the movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Today in Quetta, it’s almost as if the Taliban never went away. Some Taliban-affiliated madrasas operate almost in the shadow of police and military installations. On the main road that runs from the border town of Chaman to Quetta, there is only one police checkpoint. On a recent day, two police officers sat in a lean-to, drinking tea and barely glancing up at passing cars. Pakistani police in Quetta say they have rounded up hundreds of suspected Taliban militants in the past year, and report frequent raids on madrasas suspected of militant ties. “All the time we are harassing them,” said Salman Syed Muhammed, Quetta’s deputy police inspector-general. But one Western aid official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described such roundups as a “catch-and-release” program, with most of the detainees seen on the streets again within a matter of days. Militants who are deported to Afghanistan can make their way back to Pakistan at will, either traveling by motorbike on unmarked border trails or joining the crush of up to 6,000 people, mainly Afghans, who cross the border daily at Chaman. By mingling with refugees, wounded fighters are able to seek treatment in several Quetta hospitals, which on the whole are better equipped than those on the Afghan side of the frontier. The International Committee of the Red Cross helps arrange medical care in Quetta for injured civilians, and says that inevitably some fighters slip in among them. “According to international law, once a wounded combatant has put down his weapon, it becomes a humanitarian case,” said Paul Fruh, who heads the Red Cross office in Quetta. Although most local people are afraid to talk about sightings of senior Taliban figures, commanders are said to have unimpeded access to the city, even highly recognizable ones. For the families of young fighters from Quetta and its environs, the subject of their decision to take up arms for the Taliban is taboo. A local leader said the tiny hamlet of Charqol, about a dozen miles northwest of Quetta, had produced half a dozen suicide bombers this year alone. None of their relatives would talk. The climate of fear extends to foreign humanitarian agencies, whose workers are required to have armed escorts whenever they venture outside Quetta. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Quetta was briefly shut down earlier this year in response to a Taliban threat. “I’m afraid, not as an aid worker, but as a citizen, as someone living here,” said Duniya Khan of the refugee agency. “Everyone in this city feels insecure.” By arrangement with
LA Times–Washington Post
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At last, some teachers, but at what price? THE recent round of recruitment of teachers may turn out to be the best thing to happen to Punjab schools in a long time. As many as 840 schools out of 3121 High and Senior Secondary Schools in the state are without a single trained graduate teacher. Such an abysmal situation had arisen as a result of the Punjab government’s policy to abolish the posts lying vacant for more than six months, and not to fill the vacancies caused on retirement. It was a good idea that the government decided to revive some of the abolished posts and start this recruitment process. It is for the first time in Punjab that the recruitment is taking place purely on merit. The element of money for the job has been eliminated. The credit should go to the Secretary, Education and his team of officers from the education department. However, bringing a sense of urgency to the process is one thing, but undue haste is another. Therefore, the unprecedented haste with which the bureaucracy put the Punjab Cabinet’s decision to recruit the teachers, before the coming into effect of the Election Commission’s code of conduct for the forthcoming assembly elections, raises many questions on the functioning of the bureaucracy in a democratic set up. In a democratic set up, the bureaucracy is required to be responsive to both political masters and the citizens whom it serves. The decision to recruit the teachers at this point of time was clearly with an eye on electoral gains. It took the Akalis by surprise. Due application of mind appeared to be missing at every stage. Inviting applications for the posts of 1314 headmasters and lecturers and 2614 masters and mistresses from all eligible candidates did not make sense, when the recruitment was to be made purely on merit, computed on the basis of the marks obtained in the minimum prescribed academic and professional qualifications. Any study group constituted would have suggested the cut off merit for inviting applications from double to triple the number of candidates rather than all in the first place. Inviting the applications first and then slapping the cut off percentage on their face at the counseling stage constituted a mental cruelty of the worst kind. It was also a mockery of the equal opportunity concept, when no written test etc. was planned to be conducted to bring the candidates on a level playing field. Whether it was an inadvertent act or a deliberate ploy to collect the huge revenue from the application fee is not known. Nevertheless, it resulted in quite a stash even after accounting for the concession of fees for certain reserved categories. More than one and a half lakh of applications, approximately, appear to have been received. The application fees for general candidates were Rs.85/ per candidate. The hurried and harried recruitment process has given rise to a host of complaints covering eligibility criteria, non-inclusion of internal assessment marks and general harassment. People outside Punjab from South and North East of the country were not given adequate time to enable them to travel by the common mode of transport - rail - to attend the counseling sessions. All these cases may translate into court cases. The recruitment for the post of Headmaster used to be made by Punjab Public Service Commission, where five members used to sit to assess the aptitude and experience of teaching of the candidate for that post. In the present case aptitude has no place. The eligible candidates are selected merely on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying academic and professional qualifications. As most of the universities outside Punjab tend to award liberal marks as compared to Punjab and Punjabi Universities, it is an irony of ironies that most of the candidates making it to the merit have qualifications from outside universities. In such circumstances, one wonders whether it were really the deserving who have been selected. As regards the online application, it is a sad reflection on the state of e-governance in Punjab that the task of “online submission” of application and computing of merit had to be outsourced to the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Mohali. The Department of Information Technology and National Informatics Centre, Punjab, merely remained a silent spectator. The application and the draft had yet to be physically transported. The manner of outsourcing to C-DAC, terms of MOU entered with it and the designation of exclusive centers to accept online applications, need public scrutiny. Will any political benefit during the forthcoming elections accrue to the ruling political party by selecting only a few and turning away a large population of candidates? Only time will tell. As far as the bureaucracy is concerned, it probably chose the “greater good” of the people of Punjab over the “lesser evil” of throwing caution to the wind. We only hope that in the larger battle between democracy and bureaucracy, democracy has not been the casualty. The only redeeming feature in the episode will be the outcome, if at all it takes place, of again having teachers in the long-suffering schools of Punjab.
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Delhi Durbar THE Lok Sabha Speaker’s job is losing its sheen for Somnath Chatterjee, judging by his remarks in Kolkata recently. The Opposition has time and again disrupted the proceedings of the House, and at one point during the winter session of Parliament, the BJP-led NDA had also taken exception to the functioning of the Speaker on the ground that he was far from being impartial. This delicate situation blew over quickly. The CPI (M) stalwart observed in his home state that because of his office he has lost the habit of speaking. “Earlier, I used to give long speeches. However, after becoming the Speaker, I use only two sentences, one containing six words and the other three,” Chatterjee observed. The two oft repeated sentences were: “Please go back to your seat” and “Please sit down.” He lamented that he faced criticism from certain quarters for becoming a headmaster (in Parliament).
Tryst with the king When Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, acquitted by a lower court in the disproportionate assets case, entered the Lok Sabha, it was the king of fruits, mango, which was the subject of discussion. There was harmonious thumping of desks as Lalu entered the House. Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh thought it was his ministry’s success in persudading Japan to lift the 20 year ban on Indian mangoes that excited the members. “I thought the applause was for mango exports,” Ramesh quipped. BJP leader Harin Pathak’s negative remark about Lalu being acquitted, however, had RJD members on their feet demanding an apology. Sensing the confrontational mood, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee remarked “Mangoes and Laluji are both sweet.”
Peter G Kaestner, Consul General of the US Embassy, is only too happy to be back in India after more than two decades. A keen bird watcher, Keastner has fond memories of his previous posting in the national capital when he lived in Hauz Khas. Presently engaged in meeting what he calls the “wonderful challenge” of clearing the visa backlog, Kaestner says he has come across people he issued visas way back in 1981, who have come back to India with the experience of living and working in the United States. “It is just such a wonderful feeling,” he said. The Consul General, who met mediapersons last week to brief them on the new consular services and expeditious visa processing, said it was interesting that newspapers enjoyed an important place in the daily lives of people in India. It was fascinating to come across people reading newspapers by the roadside in the morning, he said. Contributed by Satish Misra,
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God, the Creator, is True and Eternal. —Guru Nanak God is the greatest of the great. Great too is His world, in which He himself assigns to everyone his respective task. —Guru Nanak Self-realisation does not mean giving up the world. One must live in the world and do all his prescribed duties. One who does them with non-attachment is the true yogi. Living among yogis, wearing their clothes and eating their food cannot make a yogi. They are mere illusions of being a yogi. —The Bhagvad Gita There is one single being who creates the universe, maintains and destroy it to recreate it. This divinity is His splendour, immensely shining. —The Vedas
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