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Unbridled inflation Koirala’s exit |
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Death in custody A blot on the criminal justice system THE increasing cases of torture, assault and deaths in custody raise disturbing questions about the credibility of the rule of law and the administration of the criminal justice system. According to the latest report of the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights, there are four custodial deaths in the country every day.
No respite from
price rise
Decline of a hero
The law and the gun Chatterati Unshackle the
informal sector from red tape
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Koirala’s exit WITH the resignation of Girija Prasad Koirala as Prime Minister, a stumbling block to the formation of a new Nepalese government has disappeared. The decks have been cleared for the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which emerged as the single largest party in the April 10 election, to form the government; and, for Maoist chief Prachanda to become prime minister. Mr Koirala ought to have quit long back, without using the leverage of his pre-election office to press his claim to be made president of Nepal. Had he demitted office, as required by the mandate in which his Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) came second and third respectively, the work of government formation could have begun much earlier. Now, some 11 weeks after the election to the Constituent Assembly, there is still no government in place. The monarchy has been abolished, the former king removed from the palace, Nepal declared a republic and the nation’s flag replaced. The most important post-election task, i.e., the formation of a government, has been unconscionably delayed only because the Maoists won the right to lead the government. This caused disagreements over not only whether the Maoists, NC and UML could form a coalition ministry and who should be prime minister and president but also over the process of electing them. Mr Koirala seized the impasse to further complicate matters by clinging to office on one pretext or another, such as lack of clarity on to whom he should submit his resignation. Eventually, when these and a number of related as well as extraneous issues were resolved, Mr Koirala declared his resignation in the Constituent Assembly. The president and prime minister, it has been agreed, will be elected by a simple majority and, thereafter, the elected president will accept Mr Koirala’s resignation. That should pave the way for a government headed by the Maoists. The stalemate and resultant delay in government formation were entirely avoidable. Nepal would be better served if the elected class eschewed unproductive parliamentary games and moved with a greater sense of purpose to deal with issues of governance. |
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Death in custody THE increasing cases of torture, assault and deaths in custody raise disturbing questions about the credibility of the rule of law and the administration of the criminal justice system. According to the latest report of the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights, there are four custodial deaths in the country every day. As many as 7,468 people, on an average of 1,494 people a year or four persons a day, have died or have been killed in prison and police custody from 2002 to 2007. An equal number of people have been killed in the custody of the Army, Central paramilitary forces and state armed forces in the insurgency-hit areas, the report says. This implies that the authorities concerned are not strictly enforcing the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission. Unfortunately, the police are yet to shed their colonial mindset. Sometimes, these men in khaki behave more as beasts than as policemen. The statute is crystal clear regarding the methods to be adopted by the policemen during investigations. Often, in the process of extracting a confession, the police adopt various methods of torture that lead to the death of the accused. The state can kill a person only if one is sentenced to death, that too, under the due process of law, not otherwise. Speedy trial and prosecution of the guilty policemen can act as a strong deterrent, but the main stumbling block has been the very attitude of the government. More often than not, it has been developing cold feet in this regard. On the contrary, the state governments attribute the large number of deaths in custody to “illness or natural death, escaping from custody, suicide, attacks by other criminals, etc.” The ACHR report says that the executive cannot act as a “super-judicial body” to decide whether the accused personnel should be prosecuted in a court of law or not. In its 152nd Report on Custodial Crimes, the Law Commission had recommended shifting the onus of proving innocence on the accused in all custodial death cases. To implement this recommendation, suitable changes in the Indian Evidence Act are a must. |
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The fatal law of gravity: when you are down everything falls on you. — Sylvia Townsend Warner
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No respite from price rise There
seems to be no end to the plight of the poor during these inflationary times. With inflation crossing double digit levels, what a 100-rupee can buy will shrink further. Inflation is helping to redistribute money from the poor to the rich and there seems to be no short-term respite in sight. Most wage earners do not receive incomes indexed to inflation, which means they have to struggle during high inflation, cutting corners and eating less. It seems inflation is something no one can predict any longer and it is taking its own course and probably following global cues. According to the government, prices are going to come down in the next three or four months but this may not happen because of the soaring oil prices. Food prices are also rising in India and the rest of the world, and even if the food supply situation improves considerably, prices are likely to remain high. This is because the government has raised the procurement prices for wheat and rice and consequently, the issue and retail prices would remain higher than before. Fiscal relief like duty exemptions on the import of essential goods has also not done the trick of bringing down inflation. Edible oil prices have shot up even with fiscal concessions. There is gloomy news on other fronts too. Though industrial growth has picked up already, and climbed up from 3 per cent to 7 per cent in April, it is much lower than the industrial growth of 11.7 per cent experienced the same time last year. Core sector growth has also fallen for April 2008 -- from 5.7 per cent a year ago to 3.6 per cent, which means infrastructure growth is also slower than before. There has been a slowdown in electricity production from 8.7 per cent a year ago to 1.4 per cent in April 2008. Crude oil production is also lower though cement steel and coal have fared better. As it is, infrastructure is one of the big constraints to higher industrial growth and now it is faltering further. Business confidence index (according to a survey conducted by CII) is also lower by 9 per cent for April to September 2009 and many big companies like BHEL, ONGC and Thermax have already registered a lacklustre growth in revenues. The rupee depreciated recently which would have been good for exports, but since it was making imports very costly, the Reserve Bank of India intervened in the market to prop up the rupee by spending $5 billion from the foreign exchange reserves. The pressure on the rupee is coming from the high oil prices and food prices. It is also coming from an increase in demand for dollars as a large number of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) left the stock markets (taking out $5.3 billions this year) fearing a rise in inflation and poorer corporate performance. In the absence of a good inflow of FIIs, the stock market boom is no longer possible. The stock market reacted to the news of double digit inflation with the Sensex coming down
considerably. Fearing that it is also the excess liquidity in the market that is causing prices to rise, the RBI raised the repo rate or the rate at which it lends to banks by 25 basis points to 8 per cent in early June, and again by 0.5 per cent on June 24. It will mean a hike in the prime lending rates of all banks. Perhaps, this additional step had to be undertaken because otherwise the real rate of interest (the nominal rate minus the rate of inflation) would ramain negative. A higher rate would also suck out liquidity from the market and control inflation. Whether it is a wise step or not will be evident soon because high interest rates will affect everyone and not only the people involved in speculation and hoarding. High rates will affect all industries — big, small-scale and micro enterprises — alike and would actually cripple industry, especially the small-scale industry. Big industrialists can always go abroad for raising funds through the external commercial borrowing route since the rules for such borrowings have been relaxed. They can raise millions abroad at low interest rates. The small enterprises, however, will find it extremely difficult to raise money for their working capital. In the 1990s, when inflation was in double digit, the hike in the interest rates reduced growth by half, from 8 per cent in 1996-97 to 4.3 per cent in 1997-98. High interest rates, as everyone knows, will affect the real estate sector, consumer durable goods and the automobile sector severely. In real estate, there has already been a fall in the share values of prime realty companies. Many top realty companies are feeling cash-strapped and many developers are borrowing from the unorganised credit market at 35 per cent to 50 per cent interest rates. They may not be able to finish the projects under construction. A construction boom is important for providing employment to unorganised workers as well as for fulfilling the housing needs of middle-income groups. The many middle class homes that are being built in all metro cities may also run into trouble due to the high cost of raw materials, higher labour costs and high interests on housing loans. Many people may find paying monthly installments on housing loans very burdensome and may be forced to go in for foreclosures like in the US. There would be a slowdown in industrial growth due to the lower demand also and inventories would pile up affecting new investments. Many industries and companies are already tightening their belts by cutting costs in order to adjust (to the prospect of a lower demand and higher costs) and remain competitive. In global competitiveness, India is ranked 29th in the world. Adjustment, however, is the prerogative of big firms but what adjustment can the small and micro enterprises undertake to combat the high interest rates, declining demand and inflation? With high raw material costs, higher labour and transportation costs, only the fittest can survive. In
downsising by big industry, many jobs are going to be lost which will bring hardships to the middle classes also. In all, the government has failed in combating inflation, and if it rises further there will be pain felt in all quarters except by the super rich. A better public distribution system and timely release of food stocks can alleviate the problem of accessing food supplies by the poor. In times of inflation, the social security programmes and other social welfare schemes of the government assume greater importance and hence these should be revamped to offer relief to the
poor.
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Decline of a hero Vikram
was a year senior to me at college and something of a hero in my eyes. He was tall and good-looking, graceful in his movements, particularly on a tennis court, where he was the reigning monarch. Apart from these enviable qualities, he was well above average as a student and no one was surprised when he secured a high first division in the BA examination soon after which he left for England to join his father’s old college at Cambridge. A couple of years later, in 1936, I went to England to study at the L.S.E. and in the summer of that year I went down to Cambridge for a long week-end at the invitation of one of my friends. I asked him about Vikram and was told that he had left the university to join the anti-Franco forces in Spain. It was a pity he did so, said my friend because he had been well on the way to winning his tennis blue. The years rolled on. I returned to India and found myself a job with a mercantile firm. I got married and, in due course, raised a family. My wife and I spent the war years in Bombay. Life was depressing with the nightly black-outs but we managed to make the best of it. One evening, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I took my wife to the Taj. After ordering our food I looked around and saw someone sipping coffee at a nearby table whose face, even in the heavily shaded lights, seemed familiar. Suddenly, the man, who was in uniform, looked in my direction. Recognition came simultaneously to both of us. Hands outstretched, we left our tables and I asked Vikram, for it was he, to join us and meet my wife. He wore the three stars of a captain on his shoulder straps, the uniform suited his athletic figure. I asked him if he had got married. “No,” he said, “and I don’t intend to till this show is over. It wouldn’t be fair to the girl.” For the next few years I lost touch with him. I was told, however, that on being demobbed he had gone back to England, but no one knew what he was doing there. In 1951 my wife and I spent my annual leave in England. The scarcities caused by the war were still in evidence. Food wasn’t plentiful but one could be sure of a decent meal at a high class restaurant like Veeraswamy’s in Regent Street where we dropped in for lunch after a morning’s shopping. I looked up at the neatly dressed waiter as he handed me the menu and I couldn’t believe my eyes. The man who stood politely for my order was no other than Vikram, older, greyer, but still with a youthful figure. I was about to stand up and greet him when he winked at me and almost imperceptibly shook his head. My wife was busy scanning her own card and hadn’t noticed a thing. I was in a quandary when we finished our coffee. Was I to leave a tip for Vikram and, if I did, would I be insulting him? He must have guessed what was going on in my mind when he handed me the folded bill on a plate. He winked at me again and there was a smile on the face. So, we thanked him and walked out. That was the last time I saw Vikram. I have often wished that I had found out his address and gone to see him. But perhaps it was kinder not to have done so. Telling me the story of his life might have been painful for
him. |
The law and the gun You
can live in a country for more than a dozen years. You can marry one of its citizens, and watch your son grow up to be one of its citizens. Yet on occasion, here in the United States, I still feel like an alien from the opposite end of the universe. This week provided one of those moments, when the Supreme Court threw out the District of Columbia’s 32-year ban on handgun ownership, ruling in the process that the second amendment of the country’s constitution guaranteed the right of every American to possess firearms. A statement of the blindingly obvious, you might think, given that the gun population of the US is not far short of its 300 million human one. But that did not prevent this affirmation of the status quo being trumpeted by leading newspapers, with headlines of the size normally reserved for terrorist attacks and presidential election results. The majority and dissenting opinions in the 5-4 decision, and the shifts from the nine-man court’s previous pronouncements on the issue, have been parsed and dissected with the zeal classics masters from my schooldays used to apply to the finer points of Greek grammar. And, it must be said, not without reason. The crux of the debate is in the language of the amendment, second of the 10 that form America’s bill of rights, that noblest of charters of basic human rights, but also perhaps the most picked-over body of words on the planet. It reads as follows: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” Try disentangling that one, and its idiosyncratic use of commas that would have appalled my classics master had the text been written in the language of Demosthenes. How exactly are the thoughts of statesmen of the late 18th century to be divined and applied to gun control in the first decade of the 21st? Previously, the court has upheld ownership of firearms as a collective right – in the context of those citizen militias who 220 years ago were a safeguard against any attempt by Britain to regain the colonies that had the cheek to fight for, and win, their independence. This time the conservative majority on the court went further. The amendment, it declared, guaranteed an individual’s right to own a gun for self-defence, whatever the crime-ridden District of Columbia or anyone else might have to say on the subject. So, you might think, the floodgates have been opened. We should brace ourselves for even wider gun ownership and a jump in the murder rate. Surely there will be more of those shooting sprees that in foreign eyes are the hallmark of modern America – be they the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech which generated global headlines, or incidents seemingly so common they are scarcely noticed any more, such as in Kentucky on the very eve of the Supreme Court’s decision, when a disgruntled worker at a plastics factory shot dead five of his colleagues and then himself. Oddly, though, even for those to whom common sense dictates the fewer handguns around the better, the ruling may have been the preferable option. Yes, there will be a flurry of efforts to roll back gun controls in other cities, and expand gun ownership rights. The National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobbying group, is backing lawsuits against Chicago, Detroit and New York, which have laws similar to, but less draconian, than DC. There are fears, too, that the decision will prove the thin end of the anti-gun control wedge. If handgun ownership is fine, then why not the possession of semi-automatic rifles and assault weapons? And shouldn’t a man have the right to carry a gun with him in the street, concealed or unconcealed? And, for that matter, what’s wrong with citizens being allowed to install mortars in their back gardens to repel marauders? All, of course, in the name of those “well regulated Militias”, so relevant in their day, so dear to the Founding Fathers. In fact, I doubt there will be any increase in the shooting rampages. The court majority made clear that it was not seeking to remove existing prior checks on would-be gun purchasers, or the ban on gun ownership by criminals and the mentally ill. Nor, foreign readers will be mightily relieved to hear, have the justices made life harder for Barack Obama, the world’s overwhelmingly preferred option for the White House in November. The Democrats have long tried to lay to rest notions they are anti-gun – remember those pictures from campaign 2004, of candidate John Kerry dressed up in hunting camouflage, rifle at the ready, out at dawn to slaughter ducks in swing-state Ohio? Obama himself is on the record as supporting individual gun rights. Probably, the court has taken the issue off the political table, and with it one of the Republican election-winning troika of “God, guns and gays”. Finally, and to return to where the ruling was specifically directed, it will have no impact on the crime rate here in Washington DC. Three-quarters of the city’s 181 murders last year were carried out with guns, despite the ban that has now been overturned. Alas for the district, it has an undefended border with the great Commonwealth of Virginia, whose most recent contribution to gun control was to limit a person’s purchase of handguns to one per month. But suppose for an instant the justices had done the truly unexpected, and opposed individual handgun ownership. The NRA would have gone berserk; guns would be right, left and centre in the election campaign, and the authorities would be confronting the nightmare of 200 million-plus weapons out there, many of them now illegal. Now that would have been the stuff of banner headlines. The real lesson of last week, obscured in the fog of jurisprudence, is another. In this most legalistic of countries, the ruling has demonstrated the vast importance of the Supreme Court. We have George Bush, who appointed two of the nine justices, to thank for the body’s present conservative tilt. But at least two, perhaps three, vacancies are likely soon. If a President Barack Obama can shift the balance back, it will be his most enduring legacy. By arrangement with The Independent |
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Chatterati Lalu
should be a worried man. He seems to be the target of attack in recent times. If not him personally, it’s his turf that is constantly under siege. The railways are a bit of a soft target and they have been at the receiving end of protests and delays during the last few weeks. Over a dozen super-fast and scores of other passenger and goods trains have been disrupted over the last few days. The recent anxiety was of course on account of protesting squatters on the tracks across Punjab. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lalu’s trains had been stuck on the tracks in Rajasthan. But so far Lalu has been keeping quiet. After all, bhands, hartals and disruptions have always been a part of every politician’s arsenal. Strangely though, both the recent cases of railway disruptions were more like people’s movements rather than recognised political shows. The effects are the same – public discomfort, business losses, trade anxieties and revenue shortfalls for the government. Lalu may have lost his tongue but his ministry certainly must be bleeding. Mr 420 Ever since I read about this seventy-five-year-old, balding, four-and-a-half feet tall Mr Vishwanathan, I have become a fan of him. He shuttles between the best super star hotels and central prisons. He has enjoyed every luxury hotel in the south and all for free. He is used to having employees of star hotels fussing over him. The hotel staff is impressed by this old man who converses in immaculate English, has refined manners, and wears well-tailored suits. This suave guy first rings up the hotel where he is going to relax for a couple of weeks. He claims to be a senior executive and confirms his booking by sending a fax, and ensures his suite is reserved. He will clarify, more than once, that the hotel expenses will be borne by the company. The company named is big, like Tata etc, and he positions himself as Vice- President. Viswanathan checks in and makes full use of the services available. He has impressive-looking visiting cards which he gives to all. Well, one day, he will suddenly vanish from the hotel leaving nothing behind (he doesn’t bring much with him anyway). Sometimes the hotel staff find out but don’t call the cops in view of his age, and also to avoid embarrassment. Or he is indeed handed over to the cops and sent to judicial remand. In prison, Viswanathan is a new avatar. Here he only wears off-white dhotis and matching shirts. But here he dupes his inmates too He uses his gift of the gab and convinces prisoners that he knows the best advocates. He usually targets only newcomers with a decent background. Viswanathan talks his “quarry” into contacting their families outside and asking them to give money to Viswanathan for hiring good advocates for them. He is 78 now, so is accommodated in prison hospitals where he is entitled to a cot with mattress, fan, bread, milk and a good diet. Once out of prison he starts his adventures all over again. |
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Unshackle the informal sector from red tape Did
you know that a barber in Amritsar does not require a licence to open shop, whereas a cobbler in the same city has to pay Rs 1,000 to obtain just a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Municipal Town Planners? A dhaba owner in the same city has to obtain an NOC from his neighbours as well as from the departments of Municipal Town Planner (MTP), the Fire Brigade, House Tax and Water Supply and Sewerage Department, before he can apply for a license. These facts were revealed by the Law, Liberty and Livelihood project, a study conducted by think-tanks Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) and Centre for Civil Society (CCS). The study, which was aimed at documenting the livelihood regulations and entry level barriers in the informal sector, was conducted in 63 cities across India with the help of young interns. In Amritsar, the study was conducted by Mr. Rishi Kochhar and Gaurav Kochhar. The purpose aimed at unveiling the laws applicable to entry-level professions like cycle-rickshaw pullers and mobile and stationary street vendors, and to document them, with the effort to create public attention to issues faced by them. The study is funded by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), Mumbai. Before digging deep into the findings of the survey, here is a summary of how a licence is obtained in Amritsar. The Municipal Town Planners (MTP) charge Rs 1,000 from the traders for issuing a No-Objection Certificate (NOC). After the submission of this certificate, the Punjab Municipal Corporation (PMC) issues the licence, which has to be renewed every year before April 30. The procedure for cobblers, dhaba owners and meat shop owners is the same. Several surprising aspects were unearthed during the survey. For instance, the NOC from the Fire Brigade has to be obtained as per the provisions of ISI-2190 and the National Building Code, under which, the Building Plan must be submitted and the premises must be verified physically by 15 officers. To the astonishment of the interns, none of the officers had a copy of the required guidelines in hand, and, it seems, that they had obtained one from the fire department of some other city. It was also found that there was a vast difference between the fee for the NOC and the license. While the certificate costs Rs 1,000, the latter costs anywhere between Rs 50 to Rs 200 – depending on the trade. For cycle-rickshaws, the story was found to be entirely different. Here, the puller is issued a token number and a license/permit with his photograph on it. The conditions for this license are that the puller must be a healthy person, the rickshaw must have a bell and a roof, and it must have a mudguard on its rear tyre and a reflector at the back for safety at night. The application for a licence has to be accompanied by two photographs that are attested by a councilor or an MLA or a gazetted officer. A medical fitness certificate from an MBBS doctor is also mandatory. Interestingly, other than the above mentioned criteria, no other city permit is required and there is no restriction on the number of cycle-rickshaws at a particular time. Nevertheless, if a cycle-rickshaw puller is caught without a valid license, his rickshaw is locked up and released only after a clearance from the department. As studies reveal, over 90 per cent of India’s work force earns its livelihood in the informal sector, which accounts for 63 per cent of the country’s GDP. As citizens of India, it’s high time we know how things function in our country. Gone are the days of oblivion and ignorance. Keeping this in mind, the project aimed at informing the public about the functioning of these trades and related aspects. With available documents relating to legal and governing factors, and with, the power of the Right to Information Act, the interns dug out details that would otherwise have been not known. The result of this survey is an easy-to access website providing details about the concerned laws and legislations. To know more about the project and the survey in your city, check out the following websites: http://www.cppr.in and
www.ccs.in. |
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