|
|
PM’s
assurance Submarine
mishap |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Why the
bail?
Not the
right choice
How hot
it is over there?
China’s
bold move Al-Qaida
may try to test Obama early Delhi Durbar
|
|
Submarine mishap
IT’S not known why an accident occurred in a Russian submarine killing 21 Russian Navy personnel. Reports suggest they died as a result of poisonous gas leaking from its fire extinguishing system. It’s possible that the submarine has not suffered any structural damage. Only a detailed inquiry will reveal whether it was a human error or structural default that resulted in the mishap. What makes the death of the Russian Navy men all the more disquieting is that the submarine – Akula II Class Nerpa nuclear attack submarine – was slated to join the Indian Navy fleet on lease for 10 years beginning August 15, 2009. In fact, a batch of Indian Navy personnel was getting ready to leave for Russia to undergo training on this very submarine. The submarine is one of the most modern Russia has in its fleet. The accident is bound to delay its induction and India’s plans to have a strong nuclear submarine arm as a deterrent against any adventurous plans by its neighbours in India’s territorial waters. The accident should propel the experts who have chosen the submarine to go deeper into the accident to ensure that it does not suffer from structural weaknesses. The sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in which a large number of Navy men were killed was too recent to be forgotten. The accident occurred because of an explosion in the forward weapons space – the torpedo compartment – during weapons drills. The warhead of a torpedo or missile exploded, ripping a hole in the pressure hull of the submarine. Incidentally, in the instant case, the accident occurred when the submarine was undergoing sea trials. In other words, the vessel in question is far from tested. Unfortunately, Russia’s safety records have a lot to be desired. The Chernobyl disaster that shook the world and killed an indeterminate number of people living in the vicinity of the nuclear reactor was a chilling reminder that the authorities there had a tendency to take things for granted. The submarine will cost India nearly a billion dollars and this is all the more reason that it should be fool-proof, both structurally and operationally. After all, it is meant to train Indian Navy men on a nuclear platform and to build similar vessels indigenously.
|
|
|
Why the bail?
The
manner in which Rohit Monserratte, son of Goa’s Education Minister Antanasio Babush Monserratte, accused of raping a German minor, was granted bail on Monday is questionable. It also makes a mockery of the criminal justice system and the rule of law because it was only on November 4 that he had surrendered before the police after evading arrest for a few weeks. Though the Supreme Court is yet to issue guidelines and the UPA government has not tabled the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill in Parliament regarding denial of bail to the rape accused, the apex court, in various judicial pronouncements, has consistently maintained that no rape accused should be given bail. One cannot question the court’s powers to grant bail to an accused, but when it is given to a person accused of committing a heinous offence like raping a minor, it is certainly questionable. Rohit’s dramatic release comes close on the heels of the victim’s mother, Fadela Fuchs, a German researcher, withdrawing her complaint with the Calangute police in Goa on November 9. Having charged the police with non-cooperation, she said, “the whole system has failed her.” In fact, ever since she filed her complaint in early October, she had been under pressure to withdraw it. Of course, a complaint in terms of a cognisable offence can neither be withdrawn nor compounded. But the court has to judiciously decide whether the accused should be granted bail or sent to judicial custody. Unfortunately, the track record of the Goa police in tackling rape cases in the past few months has been very poor. While Goa Superintendent of Police Bosco George, who was directly monitoring the Rohit case, has gone on leave, the police did not oppose Rohit’s plea for bail, apparently, under political pressure. It has so far failed to catch the culprits responsible for the rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling. German Consul-General Walter Stechel has met Goa Governor S.S. Sidhu and sought justice. The ends of justice will be met only if Rohit is put behind bars and tried by a fast track court, notwithstanding the withdrawal of the complaint by the victim’s mother. It will be a travesty of justice if the rape accused is allowed to get away without punishment.
|
|
|
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world. — William Shakespeare
|
|
Corrections and clarifications n
The news-item “Cut in interest rate soon” (page 1, Nov 5) should have mentioned that if the rates are cut, they would be applicable as early as next week.
Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is amarchandel@tribunemail.com. H.K. Dua
|
|||||
Not the right choice An
idea of the falling standards of Indian politics can be obtained from the fact that two of the most divisive politicians — Mr L.K.Advani and Ms Mayawati — claim to be serious contenders for the Prime Minister’s post. In the earlier decades, there would have been little hope for anyone so closely identified with communalism and casteism to aspire for such a coveted position. The preference then was for individuals known for their broad-minded attitude in tune with the ideals of the freedom movement. But the norms have evidently changed — for the worse, as some will say — for even a cursory look at Mr Advani’s and Ms Mayawati’s biodata will show their dubious credentials for the job. To start with the senior of the two, Mr Advani’s reputation as a hardliner preceded his 1990 Rath Yatra. The perennial No. 2 in the BJP’s pecking order was a typical organisation man while the moderate Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the party’s public face, the right man in the wrong party, as he was called. Not surprisingly, when the time came for the party to step out of its diffident past and flaunt its true communal colours, it had to be Mr Advani who unfurled the saffron banner to embark on what came to be known as the “riot Yatra”. Before the Gujarat riots of 2002 marked a new low in communal violence, 1990 was one of the worst years in this respect. In a way, it surpassed Gujarat because the violence erupted virtually all over the country along Mr Advani’s route. According to the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, there were more than a thousand deaths during the Yatra. Yet, Mr Advani did not show the slightest sign of remorse. Instead, it was customary for him and his party to compare the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation with the freedom movement. As Mr Advani told the Liberhan Commission, the Yatra evoked an “astounding response … I could see in the eyes of people, particularly the rural folks and tribals, a sense of reverence normally bestowed on religious men”. This “religious” man showed a similar insensitiveness during the Gujarat riots when he had no hesitation in supporting Mr Narendra Modi. It was Mr Vajpayee who considered sacking the chief minister for his failure to observe the raj dharma. Subsequently, Mr Vajpayee held Mr Modi responsible for the BJP’s 2004 defeat. But he was dissuaded from taking the fateful step on the grounds that there might be more violence if Mr Modi was dismissed. The threat of unleashing more of the same was typical of the man and his supporters, including the “religious man”. Of late, however, Mr Advani has been showing faint signs of moderation. Just as Ms Mayawati realised that to broaden her electoral appeal, she had to reach out to those whom she had been excoriating earlier, Mr Advani has also seen the value of imitating Mr Vajpayee if he aspires for the same post. After all, even the BJP has realised that the country hasn’t yet shed its pluralist attitude. The Jinnah episode was Mr Advani’s first attempt to put on the moderate mask. Since then, he has consorted with the Muslims and even said that he had “a soft corner” for Christians because of his schooling in a missionary institution in Karachi. But there are two problems with this approach. First, he is not fully believed because of his past. And, more importantly, he is very much out on a limb with his new line so far as the BJP and the Sangh parivar are concerned. Since the party is full of hardliners, there aren’t many who will endorse Mr Advani’s softness for Christians. But, crucially, it is the parivar which will try to ensure that there are no major deviations from the Hindu agenda. Mr Advani is not unaware of the dangers of heresy, for the Jinnah misadventure cost him his job as the party president. But what is significant in the context of his ambitions is that he evidently has no control over the kind of violence which the parivar extremists have unleashed on the Christians. In fact, ever since the BJP’s failure to build the Ram temple during its years in power convinced the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal that Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani — the “twin towers”, as a saffron scribe derisively called them — were of no use to them, these rabid outfits have virtually followed their own course, as the attacks on Christians have shown. Distrusted by the RSS and the hardliners, Mr Advani today is a much weaker man than he was when he was riding the Ram rath. His weakness showed when his feeble attempts to fine-tune the party’s policy on the nuclear deal were scuttled by Mr Yashwant Sinha and Mr Arun Shourie. His prime ministerial hopes also seem jinxed. His best chance was in the early nineties. But his involvement in the hawala scam compelled him to stand down in Mr Vajpayee’s favour. And now, more than a decade later, his selection as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidature is mainly because of the fact that in all these years, the party has not been able to produce any leader other than the twin towers. So, when one of them steps aside because of ill health, the other automatically moves in. But while the energy of the period of the party’s spectacular rise is gone, Mr Advani hasn’t been able to shake off the stigma of the riots of 1990 and 1992. This reputation makes him as unacceptable to the minorities and the liberal Hindus today as in the nineties. It is the same in Ms Mayawati’s case although it is casteism and not communalism which haunts her. For all her attempts to woo the Brahmins, her focus remains not only on her core constituency of the Dalits, but she is not averse to cynically exploiting casteist sentiments to undermine any challenge she may face, as was seen when she claimed that Mr Rahul Gandhi washes himself with a special soap after spending time with the Dalits. Such comments point to a new low in political rhetoric, which would have been shocking even from a lower level functionary addressing a small meeting of sympathisers, but from a prime minister wannabe, it is nothing short of outrageous. No less deplorable were her attempts to stall the railway project in Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s constituency of Rae Bareli and prevent Mr Rahul Gandhi from addressing students in a Kanpur college. Such tactics are evidence of a bare-knuckled variety of politics based, first, on crude sectarianism and, secondly, on the arrogant use of official power. That Ms Mayawati beat an ignominious retreat on the railway project showed that even she realised the limits of governmental authority in a democracy, but what her initial steps had shown was how dangerous it would be for the country if she acquired powers more substantial than those of a chief minister. What was evident from these peremptory steps was that her primary purpose was to demonstrate to her main body of supporters how powerful one of them had become after centuries of deprivation. Her moves were a reiteration, therefore, of her original slogan: tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro jootey char, meaning beat the Brahmins, Banias and Rajputs with shoes. Sectarianism has become the bane of Indian politics after the fading of the aura of the freedom struggle. Mr Raj Thackeray’s antics are basically no different from the sub-nationalism of parties appealing to religious communities, like the BJP and the Akalis. Or to casteism like the BSP, the RJD, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (United). Or focussing on states like the Dravida Kazhagams, the Telugu Desam, the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal. As long as such divisive tendencies persist, there isn’t much
hope.
|
|||||
How hot it is over there? Heaven
and hell are the two post-mortem options available to us mortals. But what are the climatic conditions there? Inquiries on the Internet revealed that a student at the University of Washington attempted to analyse the weather in the nether world while responding, in a mid-term test, to the question: Is hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs it)? Giving his answer using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed), he wrote that first we must know how the mass of hell is changing in time, which is the rate at which souls are moving into, or leaving, it. Assuming that the ticket to hell is only one-way, he said that, to arrive at the entry figure, “let’s look at the different religions. Most of these state that if you are not their member, you will go to hell. Since there is more than one of these faiths and since people do not belong to more than one religion we can project that all souls go to purgatory. With birth rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.” Then he looked at the rate of change of the volume of hell because Boyle’s Law implies that for the temperature and pressure to stay the same, its volume has to expand proportionately as souls are added. If hell is expanding slower than the rate at which souls enter it, then the temperature and pressure inside would increase. But if it is expanding at a faster rate than the ingress of souls in it, then these indicators would drop. At this point he buttressed his logic with personal experience and accepted the postulate given to him some years earlier by his girlfriend, Theresa, that “it will be a cold day in hell before I sleep with you.” He wrote, considering “the fact that I have still not succeeded in having an affair with her, then the above cannot be true, and thus I am sure that hell is exothermic” and, therefore, hot. Religious scriptures, too, generally paint a picture of hell that makes it look uncomfortably torrid. The Bible gives us some hints about the possible heat level. Revelation 21:8 refers in this context to a “lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” Brimstone is sulphur. To be molten, its temperature must be at or above 119 °C. On the other hand, heaven is pictured, with or without the wine or virgins, as a place with salubrious climate, a bit on the cooler side because of its location among the clouds. Unfortunately, circumstantial evidence from the Bible suggests otherwise. Isaiah 30:26 states: “Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” One interpretation of this passage, based on Stephan-Boltzmann calculation of heat radiation, is that the temperature of heaven would be nearly 500 degrees hotter than what the earth is currently, and much hotter than hell. Either way, it is not a happy
choice.
|
|||||
China’s bold move
In
what could provide an important global lift, China unveiled plans on Sunday to pump about $586 billion into infrastructure projects and other stimulus measures to bolster domestic demand and shore up its weakening economy. The two-year stimulus package, which one analyst described as China's version of the New Deal, represents one of the most aggressive actions to date by a country to counter the effects of the global financial crisis. It comes as China's president, Hu Jintao, prepares to join President Bush and other world leaders for a global economic summit in Washington, D.C. President-elect Barack Obama has called on U.S. lawmakers to take swift action to pass a stimulus package as well. During the summit, leaders of major economies are expected to discuss a coordinated fiscal stimulus, much like lock-step actions by nations in recent weeks to inject capital into banks and to lower interest rates. China's move could set a bar for other countries, said Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. China's plan would include tax cuts, a loosening of credit and government spending through 2010 on a range of programs, including construction of low-income housing, transportation systems and the development of rural infrastructure, the official New China News Agency said. Analysts welcomed the larger-than-expected stimulus package, which amounts to one-sixth of China's annual economic output. They said the spending would help businesses, boost demand for commodities and raise consumption. China's announcement appeared to give an immediate lift to investors' sentiment, as stock markets rose in Asia and Australia on Monday. China's stocks jumped the most in seven weeks, gaining as much as 5.9 percent in morning trading. "The Chinese stimulus package is a bold and very positive step for the Chinese and global economies," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. With the U.S., Japan and much of Europe staring at recession, China's role looms ever larger because it has been a major driver of global economic growth in recent years. China's expansion has spurred trade and commodity purchases and prices. Many multinational companies are looking to China's large market to help them ride out the turbulence of the worst global downturn in decades. But China's economic growth has slowed sharply this year, to an annual pace of 9 percent in the third quarter compared with nearly 12 percent for the same period last year. Tens of thousands of Chinese factories have closed this year, and more are at risk as export orders from the U.S. and elsewhere shrink. China's real estate market has been sagging, dampening investments and consumer spending. Before Sunday's announcement, some analysts had predicted that China's economic growth would fall to as low as 6 percent next year -- a disturbing prospect for Chinese officials because of the threat of rising joblessness and the risk of social instability. Analysts said that the stimulus package could lift growth next year to 8 percent or higher. "This broad-based fiscal stimulus program will emerge as the government's front line of defense against an excessive economic slowdown," said Jing Ulrich, managing director of China equities at JP Morgan in Hong Kong. Likening the package to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression, Ulrich said higher social-welfare spending and rural reforms would stimulate private consumption. In the U.S., Democratic leaders of Congress are looking to approve a stimulus package of about $60 billion to $100 billion. But as in other countries, officials also are concerned about increased public spending at a time when fiscal budgets are under strain. That's not a concern for China, with its $2 trillion in foreign reserves and a reported fiscal surplus of $175 billion in the first half of this year. The package is much larger than the fiscal injection China gave during the Asian financial crisis in 1997. "China can afford massive fiscal stimulus," Weinberg said. He added that the biggest windfall for China from this package is political as it shows the nation's capability to contribute to global economic stability. China "will demand a more equal footing after this (summit) meeting," Weinberg said, noting that China has been a minor player in the power structure of organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Previous measures to spur the nation's growth have included interest-rate cuts, tax rebates for exporters and reducing reserve requirements for banks so more money could be made available for lending. China also previously has pledged substantial funds for various infrastructure and rural-development projects. It wasn't clear whether previously committed funds were included in the new stimulus package amount. The announcement Sunday said China would spend about $58.6 billion in the current quarter, with additional funds to be used over the next two years to finance programs in 10 major areas, including projects related to water, electricity, technological innovation and rebuilding from disasters such as the May 12 earthquake. Ulrich said Beijing has huge infrastructure projects planned to 2020. "Despite the weakening economy and slowing tax revenue in recent months," she said, "the government has every political incentive to boost spending in priority programs." — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
|
|
Al-Qaida may try to test Obama early Amid
the focus on wars that President-elect Obama will inherit in Iraq and Afghanistan, a third conflict gets less attention: the shadow-war against stateless networks of Islamic extremists. Terror greeted the past two presidents early in their terms. Clinton faced the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and Bush the world-changing attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "I fear al-Qaida could try to test Obama," said a top Italian anti-terror official who asked to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivity of the issue. A weaker al-Qaida, tighter U.S. borders and the apparent lack of U.S. support networks make a new strike on American soil unlikely, though not impossible, according to Western anti-terror officials. Instead, the foremost scenario is an attack on U.S. targets in Europe similar to the alleged foiled plots against American troops in Germany last year and transatlantic flights from London in 2006. Security officials worry particularly about al-Qaida recruits returning to Britain and other Western countries from Pakistani training compounds. The new administration also will face the threat of attacks, training hubs and radicalization in locales ranging from Somalia to Yemen to Western Europe, the front line for a new generation of homegrown militants, Western investigators say. As he takes office, Obama will inherit strong anti-terror alliances. Many European investigations today grow out of shared U.S. intercepts of online communications, leads made possible because most Internet servers are based in the United States. Cross-border teamwork has driven cases such as the roundup this year in Barcelona of an alleged Pakistani terror cell that was infiltrated by a French undercover operative with the help of Spanish and American spies. "Even during the worst times of diplomatic conflict over Iraq, close cooperation continued because it was in everybody's interests," said French security consultant Louis Caprioli, former counter-terror chief of the DST, the nation's lead intelligence agency. But rifts endure. Although European security forces say they have gathered valuable intelligence at Guantanamo Bay, human rights issues concerning the island prison and the secret U.S. "rendition" program have caused bitter clashes. In Italy, 26 Americans, most of them CIA operatives, are on trial, in absentia, after being charged by anti-terror prosecutors with abducting an Egyptian suspect there and flying him to Egypt for harsh interrogation. Several top European officials have called for a more restrained American approach that emphasizes the rule of law and equitable sharing of intelligence. "It's essential that we restore trust and the principle of solidarity in the distribution, use and exploitation of intelligence," said Baltasar Garzon, a Spanish anti-terror magistrate. Garzon and others welcome Obama's promise to shut down Guantanamo. But they foresee a long, difficult process. Governments and international organizations will have to wrestle with the danger posed by any hard-core militants who are freed as well as the danger to ex-prisoners sent back to homelands in the Arab world that have records of human rights abuse. "It's absolutely necessary to show U.S. society and the world that things will change," Garzon said. Guantanamo "is inhuman and must be closed, but meanwhile it should be under normal civilian control. Then we have to find places for all the inmates, either judging them in the U.S. with all guarantees, or in the countries where they broke the law." Obama, who had his first secret intelligence briefing in Chicago on Thursday, has called for U.S. forces to go after al-Qaida leaders in the badlands of northwest Pakistan if the government in Islamabad fails to do so. An escalating campaign of U.S. airstrikes in northwest Pakistan this year has killed at least four fugitive leaders of al-Qaida, which did not issue a videotaped message before the American presidential election as it did in 2004. Experts predict that President Bush will press the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his deputies in hopes of a last-minute triumph. "It looks like they want to eliminate as many al-Qaida figures as possible to go out with history on their side," said academic and former CIA officer Marc Sageman, now scholar-in-residence at the New York Police Department. Sageman contends that "al-Qaida has been on the ropes for a while. ... There are not many of them: Maybe two dozen leaders, about 200 (veteran militants) who have been around since the 1980s. And it seems they are being picked off one by one." — By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
|
|
Delhi Durbar The Supreme Court order granting bail to Baba Amrik Singh, an undertrial in Punjab, last week might open the jail doors for over 2,00,000 other prisoners across the country.
While passing the order, Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice C.K. Thakker remarked that no one could be kept in jail for such a long period of two years without being subjected to trial. The judges also said they were against filling the jails with undertrials. Once an accused was convicted, he might be kept behind the bars for any number of years, depending upon the offence, but not before the trial, they clarified. This view reinforces the already prevalent norm: bail is a rule, jail an exception. Cheer up undertrials and fight for your rights!
Obama wins in Delhi too
Much before Barack Obama was declared the 44th President-elect of the United States, Delhiites had already voted overwhelmingly in favour of the charismatic African-American leader to occupy the most powerful job in the world. It was a carnival atmosphere at the American Center in New Delhi as votes were being counted in the US in the presidential election. The guests, who included a strong contingent of journalists, also participated in a mock-polling exercise in which Obama emerged victorious hands down. The guests also made a beeline to have their pictures clicked next to a cutout of Obama. The cutout of Republican nominee John McCain struck a lonely pose by contrast.
However, everyone was impressed with the speech delivered by McCain soon after Obama won the race. “Look how gracious he is even in defeat…I wish our politicians draw a lesson from McCain,’’a journalist remarked as celebrations broke out as soon as Obama appeared on television screens in the company of his family soon after he was declared the winner in the hard-fought battle.
HAL should diversify
Last week the parliamentary consultative committee for the Defence Ministry reviewed the working of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in which parliamentarians expressed their opinions on how HAL should go ahead in future. Defence Minister A K Antony asked HAL to be more competitive and modernise with the changing times. The MPs had a whole lot of issues, which included an apprehension about the poor finishing of Dhruv — the indigenous helicopter inducted in the forces — and suggested an improvement in this. An MP suggested HAL diversify while another spoke against the same and was of the view that HAL should provide hardware to the country's armed forces, especially the Air Force. Contributed by R Sedhuraman, Ashok Tuteja and Ajay Banerjee
|
|
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
