 |
| Saturday, June 3, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
|
A verdict for the people The Kerala High Court's latest judgement, which has taken away from political parties the right to force hartals on the people as a form of protest, is woven around its path-breaking verdict on a similar issue delivered in July, 1997. Misshapen Sri Lankan policy Flight and fright
Bane of universities Unwillingness to recognise talent by Amrik Singh DESPITE the various letters, including that of Dr J.S. Puar (who did not award the fellowship to Gurdial Singh) in response to my article about Punjabi University, I am sorry to say that no one has been able to explain satisfactorily why Gurdial Singh’s fellowship case could not have been handled more imaginatively. Army casualness in Bharatpur fire |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shilpi sculpts her way to glory When she received a letter informing her she had won a prestigious American award to be presented by United States President Bill Clinton, sculptress Jashu Shilpi’s first reaction was to pinch herself to check if she was dreaming. Gold is back in vogue
The Railway Strike
|
|
The Kerala High Court's latest judgement, which has taken away from political parties the right to force hartals on the people as a form of protest, is woven around its path-breaking verdict on a similar issue delivered in July, 1997. The earlier verdict, declaring forced bandhs as illegal, was delivered by a Full Bench. Thursday's verdict was delivered by a Division Bench of the same court. The spirit of the two judgements is substantially the same - that people cannot be made to participate in bandhs or hartals under duress. This is as it should be. The 1997 verdict upheld the view that the organisers of bandh "trample upon the right of the citizens protected by the Constitution". In simple terms, the judiciary laid down the rule that political parties and trade unions have a right to protest, but the citizens have an equal right to not support their action. The Supreme Court gave further strength to the Kerala High Court's interpretation by supporting the view that for political parties, trade unions and other organisations to force the uninvolved sections of the citizens to join their form of protest, general strikes or bandhs, was both unconstitutional and illegal. Legal luminaries who went through the apex court's ruling felt it should have outlined the acceptable limits of protest while upholding the Kerala High Court's verdict as constitutionally sound. However, it may not be wrong to say that this was an exercise in nit-picking, because neither the Kerala High Court nor the Supreme Court stopped political parties and trade unions from organising bandhs or strikes. They merely laid down the ground rule which protects the principle of "individual preference" for or against any line of action. The courts did not stop political parties or any other organisations from organising bandhs or hartals with the total cooperation of the people. If nine out of 10 shopkeepers agree to participate in a bandh organised by whoever, but the tenth shopkeeper refuses to join the protest, he cannot be forced to take a forced holiday by closing his business establishment, which is the source of livelihood of his entire family. This was the sum and substance of the 1997 verdict upheld later by the apex court. But why has a Division Bench of the same court delivered a verdict which appears to be a reiteration of the ground rules laid down in 1997? Some political parties and trade unions thought they were being clever by giving their form of protest the name of hartal and not bandh. The latest judgement has removed the confusion by stating that hartal and bandh were two different names for the same form of protest. This time the High Court reiterated more forcefully that a hartal call made by a party or association or organisation by "force, intimidation — physical or mental — and coercion" would be treated as unconstitutional. The organisers would be liable to pay damages to the state — whose resources are used for maintaining law and order - and private citizens, who suffer financial loss because of their action. A part of the latest judgement should be of interest to Chief Election Commissioner M. S. Gill, a staunch advocate of electoral reforms and political discipline. The Election Commission was asked to explain why it did not exercise greater control over the conduct of registered political parties. It took the plea that under the relevant provisions of the Representation of the People Act it had no power to take drastic action against political parties. Mr Gill and his colleagues can now quote from the Kerala High Court judgement which removed their misgivings on this count. The Bench held that if a hartal was enforced by a political party, or a group of political parties, by using unconstitutional means, - intimidation, threat etc - the Election Commission would be within its right to de-recognise it or cancel its registration. An equally clear direction was given to government officers for initiating the process for the recovery of damages, because it was their duty to protect and preserve public property as also to help private citizens on account of a hartal or bandh forced on them. The Kerala High Court has delivered twice in a span of four years what can be called pro-people verdicts. The Supreme Court should have no problem in putting its seal approval once again on substantially the same verdict it had supported in 1997. |
|
India’s policy on the ongoing fighting in Jaffna in Sri Lanka rests on three fixed positions. No military intervention but offer of humanitarian aid, assistance in evacuation of troops from Jaffna and, finally, insistence on a negotiated settlement leading to greater autonomy to the Tamils within a federal set-up. This has been the position since the Elephant Pass fell into the LTTE hands on April 22. Developments during the past 40 days have made a mess of the assumptions underlying this lofty aloofness. New Delhi firmly believed that Jaffna would fall like a ripe mango, forcing it to rush both relief supplies and naval ships to take the defeated soldiers to safety. This has not happened and it appears that the Sri Lankan army may hold out for some more time. The offer of help in organising an orderly retreat now sounds premature and an inexplicable panic reaction. India earned the wrath of all sides with its promise of food and medicines. The Sri Lankan government and the Sinhala population were angry that the supply would reach only the LTTE, thus demoralising the soldiers. The LTTE and its supporters in this country saw in this a not-so-clever gambit to bale out the hard-pressed government. The trapped people in Jaffna feel outraged that for all the loud talk and sterile controversy, they have got no help and continue to live in appalling conditions. Once again, India’s assessment has proved to be totally wrong. It thought the Tamils in their tens of thousands will flee Jaffna and head for the Tamil Nadu shores and it will gently interrupt them, house them briefly in any one of the dozens of uninhabitated islands and take them back to areas not controlled by the LTTE. There the Internation Red Cross would take care of the refugees with India-donated tents, food, and medicines. This was an excellent plan as plans go, but this one went kaput. The people of Jaffna merely left home and sought shelter in temples, churches and mosques where supplies are meagre and living conditions primitive. The humanitarian leg of the policy is now a sad joke. It is in the matter of devolution of power that the sense of bankruptcy is somewhat glaring. One, there has been no political consensus on the nature of power sharing and hence no majority in Sri Lankan Parliament to push through a constitutional amendment. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has offered perhaps the most generous package (that is the reason why the Sinhala parties oppose it) and most non-LTTE parties of the Tamils are satisfied with it. Even before the current phase of fighting LTTE supremo Prabhakaran had spurned all offer of autonomy; he wants an independent state of Eelam. Now the issue has become highly complicated. If the army loses Jaffna, the government loses the urgency to talk with the LTTE. If it wins, the ferocious Tigers will have no stomach to talk peace. It is not as though all cards are staked in favour of the guerrillas. They cannot attack the only air base and harbour and damage it; that will choke supplies of essential commodities from the south. It cannot bring in its heavy artillery since it has to be carted through the main roads, in which case the air force can destroy them. As a guerrilla force, it cannot engage the army in a regular fixed point battle. The numbers, said to be 6:1, are against it. Nor can it use the fire power indiscriminately as is its wont. In a populated area the civilian casualties will be very heavy. Eelam is out of the question; barring two splinter groups in Tamil Nadu nobody will recognise it. India should deploy Mr Vaiko and Dr Ramadoss to impress on Prabhakaran his shrinking options and exploit the high degree of international interest to wrest maximum concessions. Alas, this does not find a place in the blurred policy papers of New Delhi. |
|
At long last, the air link to Kathmandu has been restored. The resumption comes after the whole of May, which is a month of peak tourist traffic. The total loss to the two countries during these five months of severed air links is of the tune of Rs 1,000 crore. More invaluable has been the loss of goodwill. Instead of being seen as a genuine demand of a country whose plane had been hijacked to Kandahar amid abysmally poor airport security on Christmas eve last year, the suspension of flights and the demand for a thorough overhaul of the security arrangements at the Tribhuvan International Airport were seen in Nepal as "arm-twisting" by a "big bully". New Delhi's demands were simple enough: frisking of passengers at ladder point before they boarded the aircraft and the X-raying of checked-in baggage in the cargo hold area. These were fully in line with the guidelines laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). India allows many foreign airlines such as Sri Lankan Airlines and Pakistan International Airlines to conduct ladder point frisking. India also provides the facility of placing a second X-ray machine in the baggage hold area to several foreign airlines at its airports and enjoys similar facility at many airports abroad. But in a politically volatile Nepal, these demands were blown up into issues of "national sovereignty". To begin with, there were screaming headlines against any "succumbing to such pressure". Even when it was realised that the safeguards were very much in keeping with internationally accepted measures, hair-splitting objections were raised repeatedly, such as whether these checks should take place on the tarmac or on a specially constructed platform at the midpoint on the ladder. The result of the wrangling was that the flights remained suspended and tourist traffic dropped sharply. The grouse of the people connected with tourist and hotel industries was understandable but equally genuine was the dilemma of the Indian authorities. Allowing flights to an airport whose safety failures were admitted by no less persons than the Prime Minister of that country would have been open to even more strong criticism within India. That does not mean that the Indian side conducted the negotiations in a very professional manner. It was only in April-end that New Delhi pointed out that the Ministry of Civil Aviation had already given similar facilities to a private Nepalese airline, Necon Air, flying from Kathmandu to Patna and there was no reason why Kathmandu could not return the compliment. If this argument had been advanced right from the start, much friction could have been avoided. Anyway, now that an ugly chapter has been closed, it is time to look forward, with the hope that such discord would not be allowed to sour future relations. What should be realised by everyone is that those who undergo the nightmare of being held hostage on a hijacked plane are not just nationals of a particular country but human beings first. Rupen Katyal could very well have been a Nepalese. The demand to provide adequate security should not have been seen as blackmail. India was a victim of a hijacking and not an aggressor. At the same time, it is imperative to ensure that the new security measures put in place remain as unobtrusive as possible and do not become an instrument of harassment for the travelling public. |
|
Bane of universities DESPITE the various letters, including that of Dr J.S. Puar (who did not award the fellowship to Gurdial Singh) in response to my article about Punjabi University, I am sorry to say that no one has been able to explain satisfactorily why Gurdial Singh’s fellowship case could not have been handled more imaginatively. In this particular case, I had even cautioned the then Vice-Chancellor that such a situation could arise. But the caution was ignored. The issue, however, is not Gurdial Singh. The issue is the unwillingness or the inability to recognise talent. There are two dimensions of this issue. The first one is to identify talent and the second one is to do whatever is possible to help to promote it. The problem in India as a whole, and in the Punjab in particular, is that talent is promoted only if the person concerned is acceptable to those in authority. (It is exactly the same in Pakistan as those in touch with things will testify). This means that he should either belong to our way of thinking or, in his personal life and conduct, he should belong to whatever faction we belong to. As a matter of fact, what is destroying India is the relentless drive to drive out talent. Other countries like the USA are its beneficiaries and it is we who are the losers. Sad to say, we in our country are unable to even make good use of whatever talent is available to us. It may not be out of place here to refer to the very substantial amount of talent that has been exported from Punjab during the recent decades. One-third of a million are to be found in the UK, approximately two million in Canada and something like a quarter million, if not more, in the USA. In addition, there are colonies of Indian expatriates in Australia, New Zealand, South East Asian countries and several others. All these people had enterprise and ability. Had we been able to retain this talent and not obliged these people to seek their fortunes elsewhere, we would have stood to gain. Owing to the long and debilitating rule of the British for 200 years in India, we could not progress as well as we could have. But what have we achieved since 1947? A few things, no doubt; the Green Revolution for example and several such initiatives. But one thing that we have not been able to achieve is to create a social and economic system which would have been conducive to the growth and nurturing of talent and also an academic and scientific setting in which talent should flourish. When it comes to industry and industrial growth, the situation is equally dismal. A high proportion of the CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) of the leading 100 companies in the USA belong to India. Clearly, there is something wrong with us and in our way of working. When it comes to education, the inability to distinguish between those who are talented and those who belong to the run of the mill category is one explanation. The real explanation is that both our school and college education are so irremediably mediocre that by the time a student reaches the postgraduate stage, it is only a few rare individuals who are able to perform well. And even when they do, as quite a few manage to achieve the coveted goal, they are not given their due. In this connection, I am reminded of a personal encounter. In 1986, when there was still some concern about the welfare of the 1984 killings in Delhi, there was a meeting in connection with the raising of funds etc. for them. The next day there was a photograph in the papers and I was shown as being one of those present on the occasion. A couple of hours later, I received a phone call from someone who claimed to be a student from my Patiala days. He came to see me later in the day. It turned out that he had passed out the year I had joined the university. At the convocation, however, I had the privilege to confer a gold medal on him for having stood first in one of the M.A. examinations. For a full decade almost, 1977 to 1986 to be precise, he had been unable to get a job. He could not get a teaching job for which he was qualified. He could not get enrolled for a Ph.D course either, his resources did not permit him to do so. He sat for the PCS examination more than once and did very well both times but could not arrange to please certain people and continued to be jobless. It was a very sad case. The man had ability but no connections, nor the resources to please anyone. He could not even get married for he could not support himself; how could he look after his wife, he asked me in a helpless way. There are hundreds of such cases. I have referred to one where I got to know the details at first hand. How was the problem solved? One family settled abroad advertised for a suitable groom. He responded to the advertisement. And before anyone knew what was happening, he had taken off for a foreign land. Is that the way to solve our problem or to build the country? Dr Puar’s reference to the honour done to Dr Harbhajan Singh proves the point that I am trying to make. Till the time his talent had not been recognised by the University of Delhi and several other leading academic bodies, Punjabi University had no use for him. Once that happened, the university went out of the way to offer him further recognition. This is nothing but a mark of the sense of inferiority (or something worse than that) from which we suffer. To put it bluntly, we are blind to talent when it is being neglected. Once talent is recognised by others, we begin to rub our eyes and wonder why we had overlooked that particular individual. If I may repeat, the title which I gave to my article was “Punjabi University and the Neglect of Talent”. Despite all the explanations being offered, I still maintain that we are unable to identify talent because we are blinded by all kinds of prejudices. What happened in the case of Har Gobind Khurana? When he came back and wanted a job in Punjab University (at that time that was the only university in the state), he could not get even a lecturership. In other words, he was left with no choice except to go abroad. The way he went on to win the Nobel Prize speaks for itself and no more needs to be said on this subject. No country can progress unless it does its best to identify talent and promote it. The American experience is there for everyone to see and study for himself. This search for talent came to notice not only in the 19th and the early 20th century, it is a part of that country’s system. What is happening in that country even today is highly instructive. Those who refuse to learn, and most of us in India belong to that category, are condemned to be our own enemies. In other words, we in India do not look at what others are doing. Indeed we are stupid enough to hurt ourselves. That is why I posed the question: “Must the Punjabi University Misjudge Every Time? The other examples were an illustration of a process that is at work. By seeking to offer superficial or misleading explanations for our unwillingness to recognise talent, we are proving exactly the point that we are not prepared to recognise it when we encounter talent. Instead of being apologetic, we are being evasive or defensive. That was not the objective of my writing that piece. If I brought in examples other than that of Gurdial Singh, it was to make the point that there seems to be a pattern about it and this pattern is precisely what ought not to exist if our universities and centres of scientific research and others sectors of activity have to move forward. To say no more about it, I have two simple criteria in mind with regard to the economic and academic growth of the country. Today, the exchange rate for a dollar is over Rs 44. Not many years ago, it used to be Rs 15-20. The day we go back to that level of exchange rate, it would be a clear proof that the country has progressed on the economic front. When it comes to academic and scientific growth, and that is my second criteria, my litmus test is can we identify talent when it is still to be identified by others? If we cannot, we are destined to continue to wallow in mediocrity and this is precisely what is happening in most universities of the country, including those in Punjab. When it comes to Punjabi, I have one more thing to say. Unlike most states in the country where people are proud of the language that they speak, Punjabi is owned up mainly by the Sikhs in Punjab. It is not owned up by the non-Sikhs as much as it could have been. Some of the Sikhs imagine, but wrongly in my opinion, that their support has done a great deal of good to Punjabi. The fact of the matter is that it has hurt Punjabi. From this it does not follow that they should have refused to own up Punjabi. But this much should be understood clearly that those who own up Punjabi should recognise that whatever has happened has restricted the scope of the development of Punjabi. On top of it, there is some talent and we choose to ignore it. This amounts to adding to our difficulties. Punjabi needs to be promoted and made more and more acceptable. One way of doing it is to improve the quality of literary output in Punjabi. From that point of view, Punjabi University has a special obligation laid upon it and that is to help in the growth of Punjabi. Having served it for a couple of years some two decades ago, I write these words with pain and sorrow. I do not wish to be personal because that would defeat the whole purpose of my having written that piece. My purpose is to ensure that anybody who has talent regardless of what are his personal beliefs and loyalties, should be recognised and honoured. I do not know for certain but I would like to know and somebody to go on record and say how many of the universities of the state even sent a letter of congratulation to Gurdial Singh. Had they done it, this would have been like that group of people from Calcutta who went to Shantiniketan in order to honour Rabindranath Tagore after he had been conferred the Nobel Prize as described in my last article. But perhaps even that has not happened. Why? |
|
Army casualness in Bharatpur fire Passing the buck, shifting responsibility, sitting on the file, tracing the file — some of the terms commonly used in government departments. Another phrase exclusively used in the Defence Ministry is: “information can’t be disclosed in national interest.” Defence Ministers often use it when they went to evade a reply to a question in Parliament. The most glaring example of this is the almost forgotten report of Major-Gen Henderson Brooke about India’s military debacle in 1962, when China attacked and our Army was caught napping, totally demoralised. What Henderson Brooke recommended has not so far been disclosed and every time the issue is raised in Parliament, by Parliamentary Committees on the Defence Ministry, by defence writers and experts, the stock answer always is: “It can’t be disclosed in national interest”. The only time we heard something different was when the Subramanyam Committee met the Press recently in connection with its report on the Kargil “war” last year. In reply to a pointed question, if the Kargil report will meet the same fate as did the Henderson Brooke Committee report, Subramanyam said: “Look, Henderson report was an internal” Army enquiry’ and the Defence Ministry had not much to do with it, whereas our report is a Defence Ministry document, of a “Committee appointed by the Government.” Subramanyam’s reaction at once brings to mind the enquiry report on the recent fire in Bharatpur Army Ammunition Depot, on April 28. What was the nature of enquiry committee, headed by Major-Gen A.K. Suku? Suku has completed the findings, but the document has till the time of the writing remained a "secret". The investigations about the fire accident were made by a Court of Enquiry, an Army term for the first stage of a General Court Martial (GCM). Obviously the Suku report is an Army document. But surprisingly, the Army’s PRO says that the report is with the Defence Ministry and its contents are “not known to us”. Will Subramanyam kindly tell us why was the Henderson report not a Defence Ministry document? I’ll tell you, why. The “national interest” story is invariably resorted to because the culprits are either the authorities themselves or vested interests prevail. Henderson report has not been disclosed because the Major-General had concluded in no uncertain terms that the 1962 debacle was caused by “total failure of command and control”. The General had told me this year later during his visit to New Delhi before he passed away in 1998 in Australia, where he had settled down after his retirement from the Indian Army. Not many would remember that the then Prime Minister Nehru had himself told Parliament after the Chinese invasion that a high-level committee was investigating the matter — like the Vajpayee government did after the Kargil fiasco. Whoever has got the Suku Committee report on the Bharatpur Ammunition Depot blast — Defence Ministry or Army HQ — it must be made public. No “national interest” can be involved in its disclosure. Efforts are being made to keep its contents “secret” because the responsibility of the accident, which killed two civilians, injured 10 persons, including three militarymen, and rendered about 250 villages homeless, lay squarely on the Army officers responsible for the upkeep of the depot. Actually, what caused the accident is not so important to know than why it happened. All sources in the Army and in the surrounding areas have revealed in no uncertain terms that the elephant grass that had grown as high as seven to eight feet and had not been cut for more than two years was the cause of the fire. There is ample evidence, which the Suku Committee must have collected, to prove that the grass was not cut for two years. The Army officers concerned had not given out the contract for cutting the grass for two years. One Theli Ram of an adjoining village who had taken the contract for cutting the grass in 1979 for just Rs 600 has been quoted by a colleague as having stated that the auction price went up to Rs 900 in the second year and Rs 12,000 in the third year. He could not take the contract in the fourth year, he said, as his bid was low as compared to that of a villager who had migrated to the place from Punjab. The grass used as fodder in surrounding villages involved big money — “hera pheri” in the exercise for bidding et al. The unusual heat wave and somebody’s bidi caused the fire and the damage about which estimates vary from Rs 316 crore, as stated by Defence Minister George Fernandes, to Rs 6,000 crore, reported in newspapers. Another authoritative estimate has indicated that about 10,000 tonnes of ammunition had been destroyed. One could go on estimating the extent of damage and the figures could be alarming. It is for this reason alone that the Suku Committee report needed to be made public, so that a true picture of the damage could emerge. Those who know a bit about the Army depot know that 1000 tonnes of ammunition can’t be stored at one place. Ammunition in any sector of the field area is always distributed from the Corps HQ to the battalion level. But, at the same time, whatever loss there was to life and ammunition must be known, and the guilty punished. Secrecy in such matters does not help. Accidents take place, but precautions always need to be taken which, tragically, was not done prior to the Bharatpur fire. What precautions? First, proper method for the storage of the explosives. It continues to be primitive under tarpaulin tents. About 60 per cent of the Army’s ammunition does not have proper facility in most cases. It lies in the open in more than 15 major depots across the country. Second precaution? Lessons learnt from the previous major fire accidents. Similar accidents had taken place at Phoolgaon and Jabalpur during the 1980s and courts of enquiry were held in both cases. Their recommendations have not been implemented, if not forgotten. For example, the Court of Enquiry for Phoolgaon had recommended that elephant grass should not be allowed to grow in the vicinity of an ammunition depot, and arrangements be made to install fire-alarm system and automatic water sprinkler system. Nothing of the sort was done in Bharatpur. Not only that, even the routine procedure to get the grass cut every year during the first three months of the year, before the onset of the summer, was not undertaken. A crisis of casualness has obviously entered the armed forces also. There is no denying the fact that elephant grass is excellent for camouflage. But in such cases, it is also mandatory that there should be fire lanes 30 ft. between stacks and that no vegetation growth should be permitted nearby. The failure to follow all these stipulations in Bharatpur has justifiably caused a great deal of anxiety among the people in other areas where ammunition depots are located. It is, therefore, necessary that safety arrangements in and around ammunition depots are made on top priority basis. Additionally, besides the norms already in vogue, the Court of Enquiry report on the Bharatpur accident should be studied in depth, made public and the recommendations implemented without delay. It has become all the more urgent, because the ammunition for the latest weaponry is expensive and difficult to get. Buying of latest weapons and systems is as important as their storing. — INFA |
|
Shilpi sculpts her way to glory When she received a letter informing her she had won a prestigious American award to be presented by United States President Bill Clinton, sculptress Jashu Shilpi’s first reaction was to pinch herself to check if she was dreaming. “This was an unimaginable moment for me,” reveals Shilpi, who has been selected by the American Biographical Institute for its Millennium Woman award and is also among the Who’s Who of Professional and Business Women selected by the institute for year 2000. The award will be presented on July 3 during the 27th International Millennium Congress on Arts and Communications. Shilpi plans to gift Clinton a bust she has recently created. “I am going abroad for the first time and that too for receiving an award to be presented by President Clinton,” says the sculptress who lives in Ahmedabad, still partly in disbelief. “I have got everything in my life. I feel disheartened that the American people are praising my work but my own Gujarat government or the Indian government have not valued my work and no award has been given by them,” she says. Shilpi (her name means artisan in Hindi), is known as the Bronze Woman of India, after the more than 275 bronze creations she has crafted. The 52-year-old sculptor says the seeds of her art were sown in her childhood. The “seeds of art were sown in me since my childhood as my father and mother both were doing art work — printing.” She says she acquired the ability to work hard from her mother. Shilpi went to the C.N. College of Fine Arts in Ahmedabad where she learned everything she could about art. When she was just 16, she went to Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, as part of a study tour and was so fascinated by the historical statues she saw there that she decided to dedicate her life to sculpture. She completed her diploma in sculpture from C.N. College in 1971. Shilpi fell in love with an art teacher and got married to him in 1970. Though her husband Manhar Sheikh was a Muslim by birth he preached Buddhism. After their marriage Sheikh formally changed his religion and became Hindu. “My early days after marriage were terrible as I had married a Muslim. My own relatives deserted me and did not allow me to enter their houses and kitchens. They cut off all ties with me and my family,” Shipli recalls. It was her work and her dedication to sculpture which sustained her during this difficult period. After her first work, a life-size statue of B.R. Ambedkar, leader of the downtrodden and architect of the Constitution, was installed in the Gujarat city of Rajkot, Jashu Shilpi did not look back. She continued to make sculptures of national leaders and counts her latest work, the 18-foot-high bronze statue of Lakshmibai, queen of the erstwhile kingdom of Jhansi, who fought bravely in the first war of Indian independence and died in battle in 1858, as one of her best creations. The statue shows a combatant Laxmibai, with her child slung on her back, on a horse straining at its reins. It weighs 4,500 kg and is the tallest and heaviest made by a woman sculptor in the country. Shilpi took five months to complete the statue. Jashu Shilpi, who was nominated for the prestigious Millennium Woman award after one of her relatives wrote to the American Biographical Institute about her achievements, says she has been given 15 minutes to deliver a speech at the presentation function. But she regrets that since she has a poor command of the English language, her speech will be given by someone else. She will present a slide show and an exhibition of her works, including sculptures of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton and pop icon Michael Jackson at the gathering.
— India Abroad News Service |
|
Gold is back in vogue Gold is back in vogue. After nearly two years in which its prices were on a slippery slope, the yellow metal is bullish again. Indians, who are the world’s biggest consumers of the precious metal, are expected to remain big buyers as fears of a prolonged drought have been put at rest by official forecasts that the monsoon would arrive on time and rains would be normal. “Though prices are now on the higher side there is more demand for gold which will peak during the marriage season later this year,” says Vijubhai Zaveri, a jewellery dealer at Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar, one of the biggest gold trading centres in the country. The World Gold Council (WGC) is now backing Zaveri’s claims with statistics. According to the WGC’s quarterly Gold Demand Trends survey, Indians purchased 135.2 tonnes of the yellow metal between January and March this year, a 3 per cent increase over the first quarter of 1999. Should the trend continue throughout the year, gold imports for 2000 would exceed the 573.8 tonnes of gold imported in 1999. According to available statistics, Indians account for 25 per cent of the gold sold in the world. More than 10 per cent of the gold mined in the world since time immemorial is now stored in India, chiefly among housewives in the country, according to the WGC. This does not include clandestine imports of gold from Dubai which account for a substantial chunk of imports into India. “Roughly 30 per cent of the gold sold in the souks of Dubai are destined for India,” says an observer of the gold trade. Statistics seem to bear him out. In 1998 just after the Indian Government reduced import duties on gold to Rs 250 per 10 grams, purchases via official channels shot up to 613.7 tonnes. However, an increase in duty to Rs 400 per 10 grams saw gold sales drop to 573.8 tonnes. Currently gold sold in India costs nearly 12 per cent to 15 per cent more than in international markets. Despite the price differences, the WGC has forecast demands for the current year at 795.2 tonnes. A robust economy with the consensus forecast for higher gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the current fiscal year ending March, 2001, buoyant industrial growth, continuing economic reform and the vibrant software sector are positive indicators for a good demand for gold in India, the report from the WGC said. “The projected growth of the Indian economy augurs well for gold demand in the country. Overall we anticipate a good monsoon to provide the necessary boost to agricultural production thus improving rural incomes. To a certain extent this may offset the impact of the drought prevailing in certain specific pockets of the country,” Derrick Macdo, Regional Director-India at the WGC, said. Demand for gold in India is expected to remain high despite an increase in price. The gold price, which touched a low of Rs 3,500 per 10 grams a couple of years ago has now risen to Rs 4,380 per 10 grams. A spokesman for the WGC attributed the strong price to a decision by the European Central Bank to stagger sales of gold in the open market. “The banks decided late last year to restrict sale of gold in the open market to 2,000 tonnes over five years,” he said. Earlier a decision by the Bank of Switzerland and the Bank of England to release more than 1,000 tonnes of gold in the open market resulted in a sharp fall in prices.
— India Abroad News Service |
— Atharva Veda, 7.20
— A Zoroastrian prayer, Gathas. 45.10
— A Taoist prayer, Tao T-Ching 33.
— A Rabbinic prayer
— Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, Chapter XI, 477
— The Holy Quran 14:11
— Shvetashvatara Upanishad 6.11. Our Father, it is Thy universe, it is Thy will; — A Nuer prayer |
The Railway Strike In connection with the North Western Railway strike, a suggestion has been made to the effect that the Government should pass an Act authorising the appointment of Conciliation Boards to settle labour disputes. Even in the absence of such an Act arbitration committees are being appointed at present by private employers of labour at a certain stage of a strike and it is disappointing to see that the N.W. Railway authorities have taken no action in this direction to end the present strike. The Government as the biggest employer of labour ought to set an example in the matter of the treatment of labourers and in settling labour disputes as speedily as possible. We should like to know what the Railway Department of the Government has done to bring the N.W. Railway strike to an end. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | In Spotlight | 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 120 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
