The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Elevation of judges
Centre averts showdown with the judiciary

THE UPA Government has cleared the appointment of three Supreme Court judges. In doing so, it has not only averted a constitutional crisis but also reinforced the supremacy of the Supreme Court collegium vis-à-vis the Union Government on matters relating to the appointment of judges.

Ever since the collegium had recommended the appointment to the Supreme Court of Justice A.K. Ganguly (Madras High Court), Justice H.L. Dattu (Kerala) and Justice R.M. Lodha (Patna), the Centre had been reluctant to go ahead with the appointments on the ground that the collegium had ignored three senior-most high court chief justices.

These judges were — Justice A.P. Shah (Delhi High Court), Justice A.K. Patnaik (MP) and Justice V.K. Gupta (Uttarakhand). Subsequently, the Centre had returned the file to the collegium for its reconsideration. However, when the latter stuck to its decision, the former had no alternative but to accept it. Under the law, the collegium’s decision is final.

The collegium may have come under criticism from the government because its modus operandi and criteria for judges’ selection are neither transparent nor in the public domain. Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj went a step further by saying that the collegium system has “failed” and that this must be restructured.

However, this system must continue because the collegium (consisting of the CJI and senior judges of the Supreme Court) alone is in a better position to know the professional expertise and abilities of the judges than the executive.

Undoubtedly, judges must be selected on merit in conformity with the ruling in the Second Judges’ case (1993) and the Supreme Court’s response to the Presidential Reference (1998). The apex court ruling in the Second Judges’ case is an important guideline because it overruled its own judgement in the First Judges’ case (1972) in which it held that the CJI’s opinion could be “completely ignored” in the matter of judges’ appointment.

Independence of the judiciary — the cornerstone of the Constitution — may be threatened if the executive gets an upper hand in the judicial appointments vis-à-vis the collegium. It augurs well that the Centre has followed the rulebook and cleared the appointments.

Hope in Mizoram
Create jobs to retain voters’ support

THE Congress victory in Mizoram is significant. There can be no mistaking the spectacular nature of the success. The party bagged 32 seats out of a total of 40, registering a two-thirds victory. Never before has the national party registered such a phenomenal victory since the state was formed in 1987. In doing so, the Congress has handed one of the worst defeats to the Mizo National Front.

The election of Lal Thanhawla as the Congress Legislature Party leader and future Chief Minister on Wednesday was a foregone conclusion. Though the Congress, as is the custom, did not project him as the chief ministerial candidate, nobody had any doubt about his leadership during the elections.

One reason why the Congress could defeat the MNF was the unstinted support it received from the youth, many of whom were first and second-time voters. They did not know or care to know which MNF faction their parents aligned with when under the late Laldanga, they fought for “independence”.

In fact, many of them were born after insurgency virtually ended there. For the youth what matters is the quality of life they can aspire for in the state. Among the Northeastern states, Mizoram is now one of the most peaceful with the highest literacy rate in the country. Consequently, the rate of unemployment is also very high in Mizoram.

The previous government led by Zoramthanga became unpopular because it failed to live up to the aspirations of the voters who, besides peace, also wanted jobs and opportunities for growth. Call centre jobs in Gurgaon and Kolkata should not be the only option for them. The Congress had the foresight to field relatively young and new candidates. Significantly, most of the MNF top brass were felled by young men.

Lal Thanhawla has a huge job cut out for him — end the high-level of corruption in government offices, tackle drug addiction and provide employment opportunities to those who have brought him to power. With a two-thirds majority, he is in a position to provide political stability to the state.

Thought for the Day

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. — Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

ARTICLE

Time for decisive action
Enough evidence against Pak-based terrorists
by G. Parthasarathy

AS temperatures drop below zero in Washington D.C, there are two domestic subjects that dominate the discourse in America’s national capital — the economic meltdown and the transition to the Obama Administration. Externally, however, the predominant focus of attention remains on the terrorist carnage in Mumbai, whose horrors reached every American home by nonstop television coverage.

A “lame duck” Bush Administration is infuriated by the behaviour of its “major non-NATO ally” Pakistan and Pakistan’s attempts to obfuscate, confuse and divert attention away from its culpability in what is described as India’s 9/11.

This outrage is tempered by the realisation that 70 per cent of supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan come through Pakistan, where in the last few days the Taliban have struck even in Peshawar, destroying over 200 trucks carrying supplies, including American troop carriers. Thus, while Indian fury at Pakistani culpability is understood and acknowledged, the Americans never tire of counselling “restraint” on an infuriated India.

The Indian effort in Washington to spell out the implications of the international community failing to close down the terrorist infrastructure in Paksitan has been sophisticated and measured. But a few facts need constant repetition so that the international community is not entirely led away by President Zardari’s pleas for understanding about actions by “non-state actors” based in Pakistan — a euphemism for groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LeT) and the Jaish-e Mohammed.

The most important of these considerations is that despite protestations to the contrary and demands for evidence, the Pakistan government already has enough evidence about the terrorist attacks carried out by these groups in India.

The proposal for a “joint investigative mechanism” by Pakistan is laughable, as Pakistan will stall or deny culpability, as it has done on the presence of Dawood Ibrahim in Karachi, whose mansion I have, incidentally, personally driven past in 1999. One does not provide evidence to a burglar in the investigation of a burglary!

But New Delhi will now have to bring out a White Paper detailing the evidence the world has from writings in the Pakistan media and by prominent Pakistanis like Ahmed Rashid, Amir Mir and Shuja Nawaz, which give graphic details of the ISI nexus with terrorist groups.

On December 13, 2001, well-armed terrorists stormed India’s Parliament and were gunned down by alert security personnel. Investigations revealed that the terrorists had come from Pakistan and worked together with local contacts. I recall proceeding with a parliamentary delegation to Arab countries giving the capitals we visited details of evidence we had, including wireless intercepts, describing how the group, comprising members of the Jaish-e-Mohammed led by Masood Azhar, had been in touch with handlers across the border. Pakistan, however, accused us of indulging in a “blame game” and feigned injured innocence.

But, on March 6, 2004, Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, a former Director-General of the ISI and then Pakistan’s Minister for Railways, told Pakistan’s parliament: “We must not be afraid to admit that the Jaish-e-Mohammed was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, the bombing of Indian Parliament, (American journalist) Daniel Pearl’s murder and an attempt to assassinate President Musharraf.”

Pakistani protestations of injured innocence are not new — Interpol investigations established that the ISI gave the hijackers of an Indian Airlines flight a pistol at Lahore airport in 1984.

The world must be made aware of these facts when Pakistan demands “evidence” to prosecute Masood Azhar, when General Qazi’s assertion confirms that Pakistan itself has evidence on the role of the Jaish-e-Mohammed in the attack on Indian Parliament.

On January 13, 2001, LeT terrorists attacked the Red Fort in Delhi. Shortly thereafter, LeT Chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed boasted at a gathering of leaders of religious parties in Pakistan that he had unfurled Pakistan’s flag in the capital of the country’s past Muslim rulers!

Saeed does not confine his territorial ambitions to Jammu and Kashmir. Given Saeed’s description of Hyderabad as “Hyderabad Deccan,” his cadres operating in India call themselves the “Deccan Mujahideen”.

Moreover, Saeed’s credentials as a terrorist can be easily gleaned from his writings in the Lashkar mouthpice, the Dawa. The parent organisation of the LeT, known as Markaz-ud-Dawa, is very well funded, runs Islamic educational institutions and has cadres in Arab Gulf countries. It receives funds from donations within Pakistan and also from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Saeed has been close to the family of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He is a self-confessed terrorist. India does not have to provide “evidence” to Pakistan for Saeed to be prosecuted.

Probably, the best description of the Lashkar’s activities has been written by Pakistan’s present Ambassador in Washing-ton, Mr Hussain Haqqani, who acknowledges that the LeT is “backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistan’s intelligence services”.

The distinguished ambassador confirms that the Lashkar proclaims: “Muslims ruled Anadalusia (Spain) for 800 years but they were finished to the last man. Christians now rule Spain and we must wrest it back from them. All of India, including Kashmir, Hyderabad, Assam, Nepal, Burma, Bihar and Junagadh, were part of the Muslim empire that was lost because Muslims gave up jihad.”

On Israel, Saeed asserts: “Palestine is occupied by the Jews. The holy Qibla-e-Awwal (First Centre of Prayer) in Jerusalem is under Jewish control.” He further proclaims: “Jews, Christians and Hindus are enemies of Islam.”

It is this blind religious bigotry and hatred for Israel, India, the United States and the UK that led to Indians, Israelis and American and British nationals being singled out for massacre by the Lashkar terrorists in Mumbai.

Over the past four years the Manmohan Singh government has let the country down by failing to highlight the danger posed by Pakistan’s jihadi groups both internationally and domestically. This policy has to be drastically changed. There has to be a clear focus on establishing not only the motivations and ideologies of groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba, but also their affiliations with Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front.

One decision for which the government has, however, to be commended was its quck realisation that there was no piont in negotiating with the terrosits and that the only way out was through Commando action. But the time has come to make it clear that if the international community does not succeed in dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan, including that of the Lashkar, Jaish and the Muzafarrabad-based United Jihad Council, India will be constrained to act on its own to ensure that the Mumbai outrage is never repeated.

MIDDLE

Yes, we can finish!
by Vepa Rao

A handful of wise men like me were asked to make a blueprint for finishing terrorism. We picked up our TA and DA quickly and began the brain-storming session. “We should increase the length of our police lathis by one foot, and their girth by four inches”, suggested a former police chief. We agreed.

“But first of all, we need a proper office” said an elderly politician addressed as Bhai Saab. “Then, we members should obtain first-hand knowledge of these attacks. We will keep visiting Mumbai and other cities, speak to all affected parties and examine the sites like Taj etc. After that, we should tour America and other countries to study how they cope with the problem. In a couple of years we shall finish the field work and take a year more to finish writing the report”. We all agreed. Two members were asked to find a suitable office accommodation and recruit fifty peons, hundred clerks, and acquire sound furniture, vehicles etc.

“Meanwhile, we should chalk out programmes for boosting public morale” suggested another member. “Patriotic songs, slogans, street plays, movies, biographies of martyrs etc should be promoted. Statues of terror victims will be set up in monuments in every city, and seminars and functions will be held for promoting the virtues of sacrifice and martyrdom…” “Yes. We can fix contractors for all this”, said Bhai Saab smiling with satisfaction.

“Apart from inspiring our janata to face death bravely, we should persuade the terrorists to give up the gun. Their hearts will melt and change if groups of poor and hungry people go to their hideouts and offer to die voluntarily on a regular basis. The volunteers can also carry quotes from great men like Gandhiji, Vinobaji etc.”

“Wah!”, we all nodded vigorously, finishing our snacks and coffee, “that’s in line with our great tradition, our glorious culture. Other countries foolishly call us soft… After all our great public is fed on lies and looted every minute, but does our common man ever go beyond protests?”

Encouraged by the trend, another member (an activist) intervened. “Let’s abolish jail sentence for surrendered or captured terrorists, give them incentives like jobs of their choice, free housing etc. They will all come forward. After all, their rights should come first — since they come first and their victims come only later…”

“Wah!”, we said again finishing another round of coffee, “our image in the eyes of the world will go up further as a heavily spiritual country with loads of compassion. Peace is our only motto. We should also write gentle letters daily to leaders of the countries sheltering terrorists and other criminals requesting them to shed such activities. We must impress upon them the noble virtues like humanism. Yes, this way we can finish…” We finished another round of coffee and rose.

OPED

Fight against bulge
Fat India is a serious concern
by Nonika Singh

FOR long India has ignored obesity as just another lifestyle concern of its urban middle class. Indeed, in a nation in which millions suffer from chronic hunger and the nutritional status of many can be bracketed with that of Subsaharan Africa, who will be interested in the problem of gluttony with which obesity is often connected?

So the fat at best have been an object of sympathy and, at worst, of ridicule and derision. Worthy of attention or cure? Never.

But today as obesity threatens to turn into an epidemic, as India is set to become a diabetic capital by 2050, it has been realised that India has to fight hunger and obesity, the two parallel realities simultaneously.

If the poor are not getting enough, clearly the rich are not eating well either. Actually, the average Indian’s consumption of vegetables and fruits is far below the required norm.

More recently, the Health Ministry and the Diabetes Foundation of India have redefined the Body Mass Index, the barometer of obesity.

Interestingly, the new BMI is even lower than the international guidelines for Indians are genetically predisposed to obesity, particularly abdominal fat which puts them at a greater risk to obesity-related diseases, especially diabetes.

Three hundred million people of the urban middle class are susceptible to obesity at an early age.

As of now India has burgeoning 41 million diabetics. In 2020 it could increase substantially more, by which time the number of heart patients in India is feared to be the maximum in the world.

In fact, whichever way one looks at the statistical figures, the inference is gloomy. As per one report every second person in Delhi fulfils the obesity criterion, one among every three Indians has high levels of bad cholesterol. Even the most conservative estimates suggest that 30 per cent women and 20 per cent men in the urban areas are obese.

And the news closer home is equally dismal. The National Family Health Survey puts Punjab as the frontrunner in the obesity race. Its neighbour Haryana, however, is
relatively slimmer.

Even more worrisome than adult fat is child obesity. What Kate Steinbeck, who co-chaired the 10th International Congress on Obesity in Sydney, said — the mounting obesity could see many of the children die before their parents— can be tragically true for India too.

According to a study conducted by the Diabetes Foundation of India, there has been a 13 per cent rise in the number of Delhi schoolchildren identified as overweight and obese. School surveys in Indian cities show that 30 per cent adolescents among India’s well-heeled are overweight.

Since fast food and colas, the staple diet of urban children, is the major culprit, health-conscious Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has crusaded for a ban on colas and fast foods in schools.

Only a couple of states have seriously implemented the ban and several schools have taken an initiative in this regard on their own. Yet children’s access to harmful food products has not been ruptured.

The plea of the Health Minister beseeching celebrities not to endorse unhealthy food has fallen on deaf ears. Now his voice is finding an echo in many consumer groups demanding a ban on junk food advertisements. And their argument is not without reason.

A government-funded study in the US has found that banning fast food advertising on TV can reduce the number of overweight children. Rather the mass media can be put to effective use to spread awareness about healthy eating. While innovative television programmes are a good idea, SMSs that are like the Bible for today’s youth can underline health risks of obesity.

Consciousness might seep in further with the new BMI cut-offs. Health experts argue that the new parameters are aimed to help about eight crore Indians, who now find themselves in the category of unfit.

With India emerging as a new destination of foreign nationals seeking slimming surgery, its own people too are taking recourse to surgical procedures. However, surgery is only recommended for those who are double of their ideal weight. Drugs too are an extreme alternative to be taken under strict medical supervision.

Beyond tokenism—-celebrating World Diabetes Day, Anti Obesity Day, beyond redefining health parameters — campaigns emphasising changes in lifestyles “eat right and exercise healthy” must gain a fillip.

It is time individuals start the calorie meter and manufacturers are forced to specify calorie content of food products. Junk food outlets too can be pressurised to serve healthy alternatives.

The spin-off benefits of the fight against obesity are manifold. For one, India’s overstrained health care system can be saved from further stretching.

A Centre for Obesity Research, Kanpur, study estimates that Rs 3,750 billion has been spent on obesity-related health problems between 1998 and 2003 accounting for 55.7 per cent of India’s healthcare expenses during this period.

Needless to say, individuals will be the biggest beneficiaries in the battle against the bulge. Besides immense health benefits— every 10 kg extra weight can reduce life span by three years— there is a huge psychological bonus too.

For if you look good, you feel good. Only obesity has to be viewed as not just another cosmetic exercise, but as a pressing concern, which if not addressed immediately can certainly bog India, especially the “Shining India”, down.

‘Tired of disease, not tired of living’
by Andy McSmith

IMAGES of a terminally ill man ending his own life in a Swiss clinic were shown on British television for the first time on Wednesday night. The scenes were filmed with the patient’s consent. His widow has praised the film for breaking the “taboo” that surrounds assisted suicide.

Craig Ewert, a retired university lecturer and IT specialist, paid the Dignitas clinic £3,000 for an assisted suicide after being crippled by the incurable motor neurone disease.

He agreed to a Canadian film director recording his final moments to “remove the veil” that made people reluctant to think or talk about his death, his widow, Mary, told The Independent. He had told his family years earlier that he would rather die by his own hand than be incapable of looking after himself.

He believed that broadcasting his last moments would be “educative”. The film shows Mr Ewert with Mary, his wife of 37 years, at his side, swallowing a lethal mixture of sedatives and switching off his life-support machine.

He needed a mouth-operated system to switch off the machine because he had lost the use of his limbs. He died 45 minutes later.

Their final exchange of words begins with Mrs Ewert saying : “Can I give you a kiss?” He replies: “Of course.” After they tell one another that they love each other, she says: “Have a safe journey. I will see you some time.”

A retired social worker, Arthur Bernard, 63, who has acted as an “escort” in more than 100 assisted suicides for Dignitas, then mixes the sedative and pours it into a glass. He says: “Mr Ewert, if you drink this you are going to die.”

The patient drinks the mixture through a pink straw, then asks for apple juice, and for music to be played. Just before he closes his eyes, he says: “Thank you.” His wife bids him a good journey and says: “Have a good sleep.”

His death is the centrepiece of the film The Suicide Tourist, by an awardwinning Canadian director, John Zaritsky, which has been shown in private screenings in the Netherlands, Canada and the US. The director interviewed Mr Ewert, 59, at his home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, after the Dignitas clinic put them in touch.

The film’s producer, Terence McKeown, from the Point Grey Pictures film company in Vancouver, said: “We felt there was a great deal of value in demystifying this suicide process, because whether people approve of it or not, we think they understand it. If people want to attack it, they should at least know what they are attacking.”

The decision to screen the film, on Sky Real Lives channel, drew criticism from people who saw it as an invasion of privacy, and from those who oppose assisted suicide.

In an implied criticism of the law, Mrs Ewert, who now lives in Chicago, said that her husband might have lived longer if euthanasia was legal in the UK. In England, Wales and Scotland, anyone assisting a suicide is liable to a charge of murder.

This has led terminally ill British patients to take their own lives in Switzerland where the laws permit assisted suicide. Dignitas has helped more than 700 people from 25 countries to die since 1999.

Last month, Debbie Purdy, 45, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, lost her landmark legal attempt to clarify British law on assisted suicide. She feared her husband would be prosecuted in Britain if he travelled with her to Switzerland when she took her own life with Dignitas.

Mr Ewert, interviewed for the film at home and in the clinic, said: “I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue but the thing is that I really cannot. If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured rather than end this journey and start the next one. I cannot take the risk. Let’s face it, when you’re completely paralysed and cannot talk how do you let somebody know you are suffering? This could be a complete and utter hell. You can watch only so much of yourself drain away before you look at what is left and say, ‘This is an empty shell’. Once I become completely paralysed I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube.”

The parents of Daniel James, the 23-year-old rugby player paralysed in a training ground accident, will not face criminal charges for taking him to Switzerland and helping him to die, the Crown Prosecution Service has announced. The last moments:

The lethal dose: Craig Ewert is shown drinking a lethal dose of sedatives through a straw. Motor neurone disease has left him paralysed and unable to use his hands.

The final act: Next he switches off his oxygen supply with his teeth. For his death to be counted as a suicide, it is essential he drinks the lethal cocktail and switches off the oxygen himself.

The death: A doctor checks to see if there is a pulse. The doctor may not administer the lethal drugs or switch off the oxygen; he might then be charged with homicide.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Health
HIV can be manageable
by Manoj Jain

TEN years ago, an intelligent, reserved software engineer — a woman with the complexion of Halle Berry and the physique of a marathoner — came to my infectious-disease clinic, accompanied by her fiance. They’d been referred to me a few weeks after a rash and pneumonia prompted a clinic doctor to test the woman for HIV. The test came back positive. Her fiance, tested later, was HIV-negative.

Choosing my words carefully, I answered their questions about their future relationship, emphasizing condom use as well as blood and body fluid precautions. They married as scheduled, and I placed her on a regimen of four medications: eight pills daily, taken at three different times throughout the day. As time went by, her health and immune system improved.

A few years after her diagnosis, my patient told me that she and her husband wanted to have a child. Concerned about the risk of transmitting HIV to her husband if they stopped using condoms, I said I would refer her to an in vitro fertilization clinic. But before I could do that, my patient informed me that she was pregnant.

A nearby academic medical center delivered her son by Caesarean section, using all precautions to protect the baby from infection. And it worked: He was healthy and HIV-negative. My patient did not breast-feed — again, to avoid transmission risks — and managed well as a new mother. Soon she went back to work and even got a promotion, to software manager. Some years later, she delivered a second son, also by C-section, also HIV-negative.

Her husband regularly took HIV tests; all were negative. (Not every unprotected sexual encounter results in infection, but it’s a kind of Russian roulette I don’t recommend.)

Over the years, my patient tolerated the usual side effects of the HIV medication: nausea, diarrhea and a rash. Her insurance covered the cost, so for a long time the most troublesome part was the pill burden and the regimented schedule.

Since only her parents and husband knew of her HIV status, carrying pills to work or to a dinner party was awkward. Then, several years ago she switched to Atripla, which combines three medications in one pill, taken once a day. Life became easier.

Her story is a remarkable chronicle of the advance of medicine and strong evidence of the importance of testing. Not only can my patient expect to live a relatively long and productive life, she can do it with the love and support of a healthy husband and children. None of this would have been possible without early detection .

In the early years of HIV, I recall feeling helpless as my patients’ bodies succumbed to the relentless attacks by the virus. As their immune systems disintegrated, common bacteria, parasites or tuberculosis organisms would infect their lungs or a usually innocuous fungus would invade the deep tissues of their brains, and eventually they died.

But in the mid-1990s, researchers developed HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) medicines that in various ways arrest the growth of the virus, reducing it to “undetectable levels.” Over the past decade and a half, for many in the developed world, HIV has become more like a chronic disease instead of a death sentence.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post