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| Thursday, November 30, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Peace demands determination Bitterness over “Mohabbatien” |
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Gore versus Bush war HISTORY may well declare Vice-President Al Gore the winner in the US presidential election. But for now another great US institution, the opinion poll, is about to hand the post to his rival, Texas Governor George W. Bush. Mr Gore is threatening an increasingly bitter legal battle and the other is mounting tremendous psychological pressure by acting presidential.
DILEMMA OF DEVELOPMENT
The dreamer in Paswan
Talking on empty stomach
France trying to rein in the Net?
Value system and the police
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Peace demands determination THE enemies of peace, the hardcore terrorists having the backing of Pakistan's military regime, have acted on expected lines. Their provocative response to India's declaration of ceasefire during the holy month of Ramzan has come in the form of killing of three soldiers belonging to the Rashtriya Rifles and injuring 12 at Nowpora Doru, about 75 km from Srinagar, on Tuesday, the first day of fasting by the devout. The security forces have maintained exemplary restraint. They have stopped combing operations, etc. in search of the killers and their sympathisers. The whole world is watching. Though the peace move India has initiated is a kind of gamble, it has to remain determined to stir the conscience of the world community, specially in the Muslim countries. Most of these nations allow themselves to be misled by Pakistan on the Kashmir question. Now is the time for them to see who is serious about resolving the ticklish issue. A responsible government in Islamabad would have reacted to India's Ramzan initiative by calling upon the "jehadis" to shun the path of violence and help the process of peace. It has done nothing of the sort. Instead, it is being said in Pakistan that India's intentions are suspect. This is shameful, to say the least. In this gloomy scenario, it is heartening to learn that there are also people on the other side of the border who have taken a pledge to work for "peace, harmony and tolerance" between India and Pakistan. And they are no ordinary men and women. They are writers, poets, journalists, artists and academics. They came from different parts of Pakistan to participate in a three-day Pen for Peace Conference held in Karachi on Sunday. The historic resolution they adopted disapproved of "war-focused" policies and pleaded for "peaceful negotiations" for resolving bilateral disputes. In a country which has been waging a prolonged proxy war on India, these ambassadors of peace came down heavily on those who talked of an armed struggle to solve the problems of the subcontinent. They are justified in their belief that the "war option" has never brought a solution to a dispute. These intellectuals and scholars, one can believe, represent a large segment of the Pakistanis who are sick of war-mongering by religious extremists and the ruling classes, including the armed forces. Such saner elements must impress upon the people in general that their basic problems are growing unemployment, lack of proper health care facilities, educational backwardness, homelessness, etc. The resources which could be used to launch a battle on the economic front are being diverted towards destructive purposes. If the masses come out openly against the "jehadis", who exploit the name of religion, the situation may change for the better. But those who aspire for peace will also have to force the military regime to stop sponsoring cross-border terrorism so that their efforts produce the desired results. India respects the sentiments of those behind the Pen for Peace Conference. Its Ramzan ceasefire provides enough proof. |
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Bitterness over “Mohabbatien” THE stated objective of the moderately successful film "Mohabbatien" was to spread the message of love. That the film has inadvertently generated more bitterness than love, at least among the "motivated" section of viewers, is partly the fault of the film-maker and partly of Amitabh Bachchan, who plays the role of a stern school principal. There should be no doubt whatsoever that hurting the religious sentiments of any section was not the intention of either the producer or the director or Amitabh. But they managed to do just that by including a religion-based scene in the film. The same group of protesters who forced Deepa Mehta to virtually abandon the making of "Water" have found a religiously hurtful flaw in at least one scene. Big B is shown reciting the sacred "Gayatri Mantra" with his shoes on. And the group of Brahmins who forced Madonna to fly to the holy city and receive from them instructions for correcting her Sanskrit diction for a song in which she is shown reciting a "shloka" have absolutely no doubt that Amitabh Bachchan is guilty of having caused hurt to those who know their faith and how to recite sacred verses. Amitabh, who is now into his second spell of superstardom, thanks to the amazing success of "Kaun Banega Crorepati", has denied the charge. However, while doing so the original angry young man of Indian cinema has overlooked a simple point. The activists of the Ved Prayan Kendram, the Kashi Sanskriti Raksha Samiti and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust have not made up the offensive scene. It is there in all the shades and colours modern technology is able to put into films. Their objection is not limited to Big B wearing shoes. The students in the assembly hall where the holy verse was recited too were not shown to be barefoot. They have even found flaws in the thespian's Sanskrit diction. And he thought he knew everything about correct pronunciation. The Pandits of Varanasi have approached Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj for the deletion of the objectionable scene from the film meant to promote the value of love. It is evident that the Brahmins of Varanasi had done their homework before they raised their voice. But pray what is the basis of the violent protest by Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai? A few years ago they had gone on the rampage all over the country against the screening of Deepa Mehta's "Fire", based on the lesbian relationship between two women who happened to be Indians. "Fire" was anti-women and anti-India as far as the ill-informed Sainiks were concerned. Now Varanasi has given them another excuse for indulging in hooliganism. The Sainiks in Mumbai forced the management of the cinema house showing "Mohabbatien" to cancel the screening because of the offensive scene. Although there is no official word on the deletion of the controversial part, the management of the cinema house in Mumbai produced a letter from the District Magistrate of Varanasi stating that the scene had been removed from the film! The moral, if there is any, of the controversy is simple. Painters, writers and film-makers will have to give up their right to the use of religious symbols for making a point. Ask painter M.F. Husain, sculptor Doshi and any number of film-makers who have had to face the ire of religious fanatics from virtually all faiths practised in India. The so-called self-appointed protectors of religious purity should be asked to go back into time and demand the destruction of all films made in India on religious themes. Why? The producers, directors and actors of yore may have been more careful than the current film-makers in handling films on religious subjects. But where is the guarantee that the members of the audience used to or would now take off their shoes and follow the prescribed procedure for watching such films on television at home or in the cinema houses? The problem with "Mohabattien" is not that Amitabh Bachchan wore shoes while reciting the "Gayatri Mantra". No one from the audience, anywhere in the country, is reported to have followed the
prescribed procedure when the verse was recited. Let the self-appointed protectors of the faith have their way, provided they are able to ensure a total ban on the celebration of religious festivals outside the designated places of worship. |
Gore versus Bush war HISTORY may well declare Vice-President Al Gore the winner in the US presidential election. But for now another great US institution, the opinion poll, is about to hand the post to his rival, Texas Governor George W. Bush. Mr Gore is threatening an increasingly bitter legal battle and the other is mounting tremendous psychological pressure by acting presidential. President Clinton, who continues to be very popular, thrown his weight behind his party man by refusing to recognise the Texan as the winner. He has said the legal process is not over yet and so he will not release $ 5.3 million as transition expenses and office space. How the American people will respond to this partly legal but mostly partisan stand will be known in the next opinion poll. Depending on how questions are framed, this presidential refusal can be seen as neutral or as an attempt to deny the winner his due. That is what manufacturing popular reaction is all about. Until now Mr Gore had the electorate with him and many supported his call for a complete count of votes in three counties in Florida state. But with the Supreme Court (the US version of the Indian High Court) closing the recount and setting a deadline for certification (equal to the declaration of the result by the returning officer), there is a veneer of legality to the Bush claim. Mr Gore is fully conscious of this and hence his strident efforts to attach sanctity to every vote. His speech-writer has waxed eloquent about each vote being a firm and final voice of the nation and the winner is one whom the people vote for. Another unique US institution, the television, may already have hurt his cause by featuring him almost endlessly. This is so despite he being very brief in his comments and being very interesting too. If the contest itself was very close, the post-voting period is proving to be chaotic. By the middle of the next week, the court will pass its order and anyway the electoral college of 538 representatives have to formally elect the next President by December 12. That leaves very little time for the Vice-President to avail of all his legal avenues. There is too much of federalism in the USA. Each state has its own election laws and even so each county has its own rules. For instance, in Florida there was punching of the ballot paper, manually marking one’s choice, electronic voting and making indentation. The last one produces a “chad” and this is what has caused all the problem. A central election authority like in India would have prevented this but Americans swear by power to the local authority. Even this year’s twists and turns will not make any difference to this fetish. Another constitutional furore may surface if some of the electoral college members decide to vote according to their conscience and not with the others from the same state. It does not normally happen but there is no rule specifically banning this. Once in the 19th century one member went against this tradition but his rebellion did not alter the final outcome. Mr Gore is ahead of Mr Bush in popular votes but the system will reject him. A saving grace is the innate sense of humour and the industry this has spawned. One comedian wants Serbia (which the USA bombed last year) to send a peace-keeping force to the USA to keep the warring sides apart. Another has suggested that the official who declared Mr Bush the winner on the basis of defective chads should be sent as US envoy to Chad, an African country. |
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DILEMMA OF DEVELOPMENT AFTER winning political Independence in 1947 at a heavy cost, India chose the path of economic development as the dominant strategy for the people’s economic and social emancipation. Within that dominant strategy, major paradigm-shifts have taken place since then. We have seen the Gandhi’s concept of Ramrajya perched on the humanistic value system of Antyodaya being swamped by a heavy-industry-driven, state-controlled model of economic growth. Under the charismatic leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, we followed the model of nationalisation as the panacea, for all ills. Now, the common belief is that privatisation and market mechanism provide the ultimate solution. The axioms have undergone a metamorphosis — from self-reliance to globalisation. The slogan of socialistic pattern has given way to liberalisation and privatisation. The paradigm-shifts notwithstanding, the postulate that salvation lies only in fast economic growth has been dominating, albeit amidst meek nonconformist voices of sustainability, spirituality, equality and social justice. No doubt successes have been many. We can boast of a manifold increase in agricultural and industrial production, of revolution in technology, particularly in information technology, of tremendous improvement in the quality of goods and services available, enhancing the levels of man’s luxury. Tremendous success in the field of telecommunications — Internet, fax, e-mail, e-commerce, etc — has transformed yesterday’s fiction into today’s reality. Achievements in the field of education are commendable. There is significant improvement in the position of women and others belonging to the weaker sections. We have won many a battle against poverty, underdevelopment and backwardness during the last half of the twentieth century. Yet, all does not seem to be well with the development path. It appears that we are heading towards losing the war after winning the battles. Is the solution becoming the problem? Let me sketch what we have been losing as a result of the journey along the chosen path of economic development. It involves a comparison over time between now (year 2000) and then (about 50 years ago), which is based more on what has happened to the common man rather than to the elite. Consider the case of food, clothing and shelter, the basic economic needs. Let us look at food first. A large variety of foodgrains, some coarse, some fine with different natural tastes were available then. Those who were there then and are still alive shall remember the chapatis made of different varieties of wheat, and of chana, bajra, matar, mahua or even of the stuff taken out from the kernels of mangoes. Remember the taste of rice of different varieties of paddy, of sanwan, kakun, kodo and corn; and dal of several kinds of pulses. Many varieties of vegetables and fruits, often collected freely from the wild, were available. It was rare that any two trees of desi mangoes would bear fruits of identical taste. That variety in food has disappeared. Now only a few varieties, of course, high yielding, of foodgrains, vegetables and fruits are available. We have gone for bulk production at the cost of natural taste and variety, thanks to scientific research and commercialisation (where things are produced with a view to selling and making profit). Production of food in bulk is necessary to feed a large population. But it would have been technically possible, perhaps, to have quantity as well as variety. That alternative was never explored. Faced with the simultaneous problem of glut and shortage, now agricultural scientists and policy makers are thinking of diversification of crops. What has happened regarding culture and values? The differences in the outwardly civilisation notwithstanding, there was a delicate string of a common value system, the inner soul of the nation, that maintained its cultural unity. It was this unity in diversity that was rediscovered by Nehru in his book, “Discovery of India”. The great Indian nation indeed personified “Ekoahama Bahusyaam” (I am many but one). All that diversity is disappearing, and with accelerating pace. At the same time, the inner soul of culture is splitting into pieces. One discovers disunity amidst homogeneity. Most of us have started dressing alike — the regional distinction of dress has disappeared. The houses made from bricks, cement and iron, and wood with no environmental consideration are seen everywhere. Recent elitist fad for “Vastu” reflects only the feeling of individualistic insecurity of the rich rather than the systemic concern for the environmental fit. .Take the case of education. The quality of education in rural areas is bad. The number of schools and colleges has gone up, but the quality has gone down. Society’s de facto preference for quantity as against quality is most evident in the case of rural education. The situation is so bad that it is well nigh impossible for a child who studies in a village school/college to get admission in a good professional institution or clear a test for a civil position. It is generally bad in cities as well, except in the case of a few islands of a high standard of education. Inequality in the educational opportunity has been perhaps the most dangerous consequence of the faulty process of development that we have adopted. The position of medical services is at least as bad. No doubt the number of hospitals has multiplied and so has the number of beds in hospitals. There is tremendous advance in the range and quality of medicines and treatment technology. But much of it is available to the elite. The facilities in the government hospitals are very limited vis-a-vis the rising
population. The services in the private sector are too expensive. Inefficiencies and corruption, particularly in the rural areas in government hospitals make the condition really pathetic. The problem on the urban infrastructure front is serious. Urban congestion in India is highest in the world. About 19 per cent of Indian families live in less than 10 square metres of space, and about 44 per cent of the families in urban areas live in one room only. About 35 per cent of the city population lives in slums. The slums and squatters’ population has been increasing at a rate more than double the growth rate of the overall cities’ population. There are more fatalities each year from road accidents in India than in the USA, though India has only one-twentieth of vehicles as compared to the USA. According to a recent study, the accident rate of women in Chandigarh has risen alarmingly. At present there is no sanitation worth the name for 52 per cent of the urban population. The sewerage system covers only 35 per cent of the population of Class IV cities and 75 per cent of the population of Class I cities. About 34 per cent of urban population does not have any arrangement even for the drainage of rain-water around its habitats. Nearly 60 per cent of the municipal bodies in India collect less than 40 per cent of the urban waste, which is allowed to decompose on the roadside and around houses and factories. Quite a substantial portion of it goes into the drains, choking them and creating slush and stink all around, besides providing breeding ground for pests, flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches. The Economic Survey, 1999-2000, warns, “...the widening gap between demand and supply of infrastructure continues to raise questions concerning the sustainability of economic growth in future.” Paucity of financial resources with the government, has been well recognised. According to the Minister of Urban Development, at least Rs 20,000 crore per annum would be required over the next 10 years to make good the deficiencies in the arena of urban infrastructure alone. According to the demand put up by 10 states to the 11th Finance Commission, the total amount needed for devolution to the urban local bodies for the period 2000-2005 works out to Rs 42,000 crore. As against this amount, the commission has recommended only Rs 400 crore for the first year. If the same amount is repeated every year in the coming five years, the total allocation would amount to only Rs 2,000 crore, leaving a demand gap of Rs 40,000 crore. Inequality is enormous in the urban sector. Look at the modern city of Chandigarh. Next to the beautiful Panjab University campus, the abode of intellectuals and socially concerned, is a labour colony. In this colony the standard of life of humans is only a shade better than that of their pigs. Such a thing is not an exception. As you enter a cosmopolitan city like New Delhi or Mumbai by train, you observe a mass of humanity living a life of hell on your left and right. All modern cities present a pathetic scene of glaring inequality among the homosapiens themselves. Filthy slums coexist with clusters of palatial houses with all the state of the art facilities of urban life. It is an empirically established theorem that if there is a city, it must contain slums where human beings live in misery and deprivation. Prosperity and deprivation appear to be the two sides of the coin born of our chosen path of development. Let us look at the position of the environment and biodiversity. Remember a journey to the Vaishno Devi temple even in the early 1980s. The 14 km walk between Katra and Vaishno Devi temple was an adventure in nature. The peace of the mountain with beautiful flora and fauna was so absorbing. The climb-up would steadily fill you up with devotion for the deity. The climb-down would reinforce the devotion. The deity not only resided in a specified place in the temple; but also became synonymous with the whole ecosystem, including the chitta (heart) of the devotees. This must have been much more grand and wonderful 50 years back. The picture is totally different now. The entire stretch between Katra and the temple of Vaishno Devi is covered with shops of all kinds on both sides of the narrow concrete path. Your ears are continuously dinned by the invitation of sellers. The bazaar has swallowed the aesthetic beauty of the place. The painful process of despoilation of the environment is well under way. The development process involves producing goods and services whose consumption requires purchasing power. For example, big buildings, car, airconditioners, air travel, computers, modern health care. Therefore, these are available only to the elite. At the same time, as a consequence of developmental activities, a large number of things of nature’s bounty — water, sunshine, trees, plants, wild animals — that were available to the common man as much as to the elite are becoming scarce. The production process used to push up the output of industry or agriculture also increases pollution. The poor are proportionately larger consumers of pollution as compared to the rich. Profits produced by a factory go to the rich shareholders, while the poor labourers suffer from the unbecoming work environment within the factory and the polluted unhygienic environment of the ghettos where they and their families live. The process of development is followed by skewed distribution of goods in favour of the rich. Urbanisation has been playing the main villain. Rural society is aping the urban populace as much as turban society is aping the West. There is a large migration from the village to the city. Urban slums are created by the overflow of rural poverty. Those who remain in villages are adopting the urban lifestyle — the adoption of the values of urban society being most disturbing. The total environment of many villages resembles the environment of a city slum. Today it is really becoming hard to make a difference between rural and urban areas. The villages are becoming extended urban slums. We are reaching the limits of growth. Villages are growing (or deteriorating!) into towns, towns into cities. Urban type cement houses, roads, factories and shops are swallowing the land. The trees are being converted into wood for furniture and fuel. The real output of a forest — oxygen, water and soil — is being largely ignored. Soil is being converted into bricks. A cubic centimetre of soil takes lakhs of years to form. And it is so cheaply used to make bricks. The natural resources, once thought to be abundant but now well recognised to be limited, are being wastefully depleted. Wisdom demands that wealth should be optimally used. It is strange that economists who make policy decisions and do national income accounting suggest the maximisation of the use of natural resources in the name of accelerating economic growth, knowing full well the distinction between maximisation and optimisation. They are unmindful of the long-term consequences. The paradigm of development is questionable. The dilemma is staring straight into our eyes as the solution is becoming the problem. Environmentalists have succinctly established the causal link between the development process and the undesirable consequences. The model of development being followed is proving to be too costly. If the natural resources deplete the way they are, if pollution continues the way it is, time for Pralaya (total destruction) is not far off. And the main emphasis of the national and state governments, of industrialists, and of policy-makers continues to be on the maximisation of economic growth. The environmental constraints are not incorporated seriously enough. Thus, while we are formulating and implementing the tactics for battles against poverty, underdevelopment and backwardness, we are in effect preparing a strategy for losing the war against those evils. The system is showing allergic symptoms to the treatment given for economic and social emancipation. The solution has become the problem. Obviously, it is now time, if it is not too late, to redefine the man’s optimisation problem. It appears to be a better alternative where the objective is to protect the environment subject to the constraint of the minimum consumption for survival. The writer is Professor, University Business School, Panjab University, Chandigarh. |
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The dreamer in Paswan FOR quite some time Union Telecommunications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has been feeling uneasy as a member of the Janata Dal (United). The intensity of his discomfort would increase when he looked at the situation in his home state — Bihar. Although Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav remains the undisputably top political player of the state, he has any number of people who have no love lost for him. In fact, the Bihar electoral arena is divided into two camps — pro-Laloo and anti-Laloo. The
angry member of the "Janata parivar", Mr Paswan, wishes the two broad categories of voters to be identified as pro-Laloo and pro-Paswan. Hence the idea to desert his old organisation — the Janata Dal (U) — and float a new one, the Janashakti. The truth, however, is that it is a new name for his Dalit Sena. He has had the realisation that the Dalit Sena reminds one of casteist politics. That he owes his political existence to this factor is a different matter. For all this he had to do something so that the JD(U), with which he had been associated so far, got discredited in the eyes of the public. He hopes to achieve his objective by attacking the head of the JD(U), Mr Sharad Yadav. who has no grassroots following. The rest of the JD(U) leaders like Mr Nitish Kumar too have only small pockets of influence. Thus Mr Paswan thinks that he has the field open to emerge as the second most preferred "neta" of Bihar. And that will mean the realisation of his long-cherished dream. In most cases, however, dreams have nothing to do with the reality. Mr Paswan should be aware of it. He has with him only three of the JD(U)'s 10 MPs and seven of its 18 MLAs in the Bihar Assembly. One MP and some of the MLAs are his relatives. No doubt, he has managed a clear split. But that is all. The assembly elections in Bihar — where he hopes to make a major dent on Mr Laloo Yadav's vote bank — are not going to be held before four years when the present assembly's term will expire. By that time his calculations may go haywire. So what, Mr Paswan might say! This happens in the game of politics. Mani & muscle power NO doubt, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar is one of the most articulate and vocal Congress members of Parliament. But, lately, the former IFS officer appears to have opened his normally big mouth wider than usual and managed to put both his feet into it. The result: Aiyar received a lusty kick on his seat from Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh. It was a "penalty kick", as it were, for Mr Aiyar paid for a thoughtless remark about Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. According to reports, Mr Aiyar went on teasing Mr Amar Singh, heaping abuse on his party and his leader. Mr Amar Singh's patience was gradually running out. What proved the last straw on the camel's back was when the former Rajiv Gandhi confidant said something about his facial resemblance to Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and suggested that the Samajwadi leader should check it up with his mother. An apparently infuriated Amar Singh brought to play all his unsuspected soccer skills and landed his sturdy foot on Mr Aiyar's posterior. Mr Aiyar, who had reportedly downed one too many pegs at the cocktail party, the venue of the incident, had to swallow this insult silently. The intended insinuation of Mr Aiyar's remark was in poor taste and showed the 58-year-old former Congress spokesman in poorer light. The incident, it later transpired, was the mystery behind why the Samajwadi Party members stonewalled Sonia Gandhi from speaking on the farmers issue in the Lok Sabha last week. One feels sorry for Mr Aiyar, the brilliant IFS officer who left the plum service to join politics after the death of his Doon School friend and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. What has politics done to the once suave diplomat and effervescent spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry? Mr Aiyar will need all his diplomatic skills and his famous (now infamous) gift of the gab to explain the incident to No. 10, Janpath, the place he looks up to for his political future. Back to centrestage WITH the dust yet to settle down on the Rajkumar hostage odyssey, reports have appeared suggesting that forest brigand Veerappan’s next target is likely to be Bollywood’s film star Mithun Chakraborty. It was first reported by Dhinathanthi, the largest circulated Tamil daily, and promptly picked up by others across the country, especially in West Bengal from where the actor hails. An obviously worried Mithun wrote to the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharya, who in turn has conveyed his concern to the Centre. The report has caused much consternation. An obvious fallout is tighter security for Mithun. While it is not clear what is the basis for the original report in the Tamil daily, what lends a measure of credibility to the news is that Mithun now lives in Ooty, not far from the forest hideout of Veerappan. Bollywood watchers would agree that Mithun’s days as a top-notch star are long over. He is now into the tourism industry and runs a hotel in Ooty and retains a foothold on the celluloid world by being busy in what the industry calls the C-grade movies. Though the rating within the Bollywood does not make him the most coveted target for Veerappan, Mithun’s popularity is much wider across the country than Rajkumar’s whose sway is largely limited to the southern states. With the Special Task Force on the move to track down the sandalwood smuggler, it is difficult to understand if an ageing and weary Veerappan is ready for another kidnap venture. His task must be much tougher what with the security and intelligence agencies becoming wiser and more alert (hopefully) after the Rajkumar incident.. The report may be alarming to the film star but it has certainly brought a somewhat forgotten Mithun back to the centrestage. |
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Talking on empty stomach THE International Monetary Fund has given Kenya $ 193 million in aid. But it comes with certain conditions. The country must spend $ 1.8 million on workshops to talk about poverty. Many Kenyans are not eager to participate in what they consider a complete waste of money. “Since when did poverty become an academic exercise?” asks Karega-Munene, a university professor. When Kenya received $ 193 million in aid last July through the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility programme, the country agreed to a participatory process involving development partners and wider society — including the poor. The IMF has given Kenya a grant worth 140 million shillings to hold worships and seminars to prepare a “Poverty Reduction Strategy” Paper, which outlines how the country intends to tackle poverty. But some Kenyans don’t think such discussion is needed. Many are angry. “We know how we ended up in poverty and we do not need to sit down and narrate it once again,” says David Mwenje, a legislator from a low-income Nairobi constituency. “If they want to see poverty let them come to Embakasi slums in my constituency. When you are in hole, you simply stop digging.” (Gemini) Anaemia alarm Swati Thakur starts feeling drowsy by the fourth period in school everyday. Nairuti has no energy left after school; so she is not joining any games nor is she taking part in the dance rehearsal. Bharuni spends most of her time at home but is unable to concentrate on her homework, though she listlessly assists her mother in the kitchen. These are young girls living in urban Gujarat. However, those living in rural areas or tribal hamlets are no better. Thakarshi from a village, 30 km north of Vadodara, is exhausted after a 1 km walk to her middle school. She like some other girls force themselves to attend school, often stopping enroute to rest a while or find some distraction. It was not until a “field study” of blood samples was conducted jointly by the Gujarat State Health and Education Department and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) that the common strand linking these girls was discovered. All these young, schoolgoing girls, between the ages of 12 to 19, were found to be anaemic with varying degrees of iron deficiency. Blood samples of 2860 girls from 30 schools representing tribal, rural, urban poor and urban neighbourhoods, from all 11 talukas of Vadodara districts was analysed. The results were startling. Around 75 per cent of the girls were anaemic. There was no difference in the prevalence of anaemia in rural, tribal and urban areas. Further as the age advanced the Hb (haemoglobin) declined, strengthening the diagnoses that a large number of young pregnant women need a supplement of iron tablets. This was not all. The worst was still to come. The study revealed a high prevalence of anaemia among teachers too. Under the pretext of ascertaining their blood group, volunteers were called upon, 133 teachers (97 females and 36 males) were examined from 21 schools.
Anaemia prevalence as defined by WHO was 68 per cent among female teachers and 38 per cent among male teachers. These findings brought out by Medical College, Vadodara, by Dr P.V. Kotecha, professor, preventive and social medicine, prompted the team to embark on a novel programme, first for Vadodara district, spread over to Gujarat at a later stage and finally with Government of India’s support span out to the entire nation. It was decided to deal with the problem head-on and not wait until the first pregnancy to supplement a woman’s diet with iron tablets as had been done all these years. Empowering the girl-child with a fuller life during adolescence would in the natural process eliminate at best or reduce the level of iron deficiency when she was ready to have the first child. Under the project, every Wednesday schools in Vadodara city and villages are to give iron tablets to the girl students under the supervision of their class teacher. Every child is given a card where she marks out the weekly dose of iron. The programme hopes to cater to 70,000 teenage girls in this region including the out of school girls. (Grassroots Feature) Clarke Omniputer It could think for itself, lip-read, scheme and murder. Now HAL-9000, the infamous computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey which turned on its operators and tried to kill them, is being brought back to life by its creator. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001, is backing a colourful British computer entrepreneur in his bid to launch a mass-market version of HAL under the brand name the Clarke Omniputer. It will be the first time that Clarke, now 82, has given his name to an electronic device on the market. The Clarke 1 Gigahertz Omniputer is being dubbed as the most advanced personal computer in the world, verging on artificial intelligence. “For the first time, it gives high-quality architecture at low cost, opening the door to handling speech recognition and lip-reading. It will start off addressing issues of consciousness,” said Joseph de Saram, the 28-year-old chief executive of Clarke Omniputers, the Luxembourg-based company behind the project. ‘We’re on the verge of going off into artificial intelligence. HAL is back.’ The Omniputer has 15 patents on the motherboard alone. It is operated by a touchscreen display, and so won’t need a mouse. Clarke Omniputers say they already have 60,000 orders for the computer, manufactured in China, and hope to sell 350,000 in the first year alone. The price of the computer will be under $ 2,800. In the film 2001, HAL was the onboard computer for the spaceship Discovery on a trip to Jupiter. It could hear and see almost everywhere on the ship and, in a famous scene, lip-read a conversation between crew members hiding in an escape pod. HAL managed to lure his operator, Dave Bowman, into space and tried to lock him out. Bowman was eventually able to break back into the spaceship where he removed HAL’s chips one by one. HAL begged for its life before being disarmed and turned off.
(The Guardian) |
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France trying to rein in the Net? A recent judgement by a French Judge, Jean-Jacques Gomez, has become a focal point of discussions that transcend judicial jurisdictions and national boundaries. The judge upheld a seven-month-old verdict that Yahoo! should prevent its French users from visiting certain pages of its auction sites that sell, among many other things, around 1,200 Nazi-related items, including flags. The US company is to pay a fine of $13,000 per day if does not comply with the order. An earlier judgement, delivered in May, maintained that by selling Nazi memorabilia, Yahoo! was violating French law and offending the “collective memory” of the country. The phrase was seen to refer to the Holocaust years when Jews were persecuted in France and other Nazi-held areas during World War II. The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of French Jewish Students had filed the case. Under French law, attempts to trivialise the Nazis and matters related to them are taken seriously. On the other hand, Yahoo! is based in California, and US law, especially the First Amendment to the US Constitution, stridently protects the right to free speech to the extent that it is used by hate groups and pornographic purveyors to defend their actions. The dilemma this judgement raises is a jurisdictional one: in a trans-national entity like the Internet, which sensibilities, and more significantly laws, matter — those of the nation where the company is based or where the content is disseminated? Then there is also the question of enforceability. One of the judicial shibboleths is that a judge should not give a verdict that is not enforceable, and there are practical problems in this case, too. Proponents of freedom of thought and expression, who regard the Internet as the last really free space in the world, raised an outcry and said that using the decision as a precedent, websites with global reach, which all are, would be forced to comply with the laws of too many nations, seriously impairing the functioning of the Internet. Such a move would also have a negative impact on attempts to foster global e-commerce, they maintained. Technically minded persons pointed out that such a selective access would not be possible. Yahoo’s lawyers have also maintained that the company can’t come out with a foolproof system of blocking access by Internet users in France. The court had appointed a panel of three experts to evaluate that contention. They testified that Yahoo! could prevent most of the users from reaching objectionable sites, though Vinton G. Cerf, an early architect of the Internet, who was on the panel, did voice concern about unwarranted regulation of traffic. This is not the first time that European values have clashed with the liberties; some would say licence, granted by the US First Amendment. Earlier, the issue was pornography. In 1998, a Bavarian Judge gave a two-year sentence to the head of a German affiliate of CompuServe on grounds that the company was spreading pornographic material. Yahoo! is the most visited Web site on the Internet. It is a portal which provides links to whatever could be of interest to its visitors. This includes materials that would be perfectly legal in the country that the California-based company is in, but would be objectionable in certain other parts of the world. There have been objections from various quarters about sites that support secessionist activities in India. Most of such sites are based abroad, where their actions would not be considered illegal. Would an Indian ban on, say the LTTE, allow someone in the country to file a suit seeking to stop access from India to such a site? What role would the French precedent have in such a case? What about material that offends social sensibilities, such as pornography? Would people like those who sought a ban on FTV (Fashion TV) seek blockage of such sites also? There has never been a legal ban on access to an Internet site in India, though the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn had its access blocked last year. The access was blocked through Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL). Since the VSNL is the largest provider of Internet services in India (even private operators go through the VSNL gateways) all that it had to do was to put Dawn’s Internet address (its IP number) in the list of sites that would be denied access. That this denial was easily flouted, with the help of some Indians, is another story. As various countries have realised at various times, attempts at blocking anything on the Internet are ineffective. One of the primary properties of the Internet is its ability to defy attempts at stifling communication through it. Just as people devote time to finding ways to block access on the Internet, there are others who find means of getting around these blockages. There are always ways around a blockage. Thus Yahoo’s argument about its inability to guarantee denial of access to objectionable pages to French users does have some ground. The moot point is not technical, but legal. A lot of the material that is given on the Internet is objectionable somewhere or the other. Most of the Internet companies are US-based and so are most of the Internet sites, and the USA stridently guards freedom of speech and expression. Many of the nations in which the Internet is received are not that tolerant. While few would argue about the right to spread pornography or hate messages, it is very difficult to draw a jurisdictional line on something as ephemeral and transcendental as the Internet. The recent judgement and its message will be debated for a long time, since it might not be possible to deal with a trans-national phenomena in a legal framework that is dependent on nation-states. — Roopinder Singh |
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Value system and the police THE policeman in India is drawn from the ranks of the have-nots. He mirrors the attitude, culture and prejudices of the have-nots. His officers, who come mainly from the middle class, reflect the values and culture of that class. The middle class in any society is supposed to be the backbone of the moral conscience of the people. When the middle class succumbs to the temptations of consumerism, materialism and the get-rich-quick-by-any-means syndrome, then this newly acquired culture is bound to be reflected in the police hierarchy as well. Simultaneously, the police at the lower ranks will try and emulate its betters. In today's India, every policeman yearns for a television, a motor-cycle or a scooter, electronic gadgets and other possessions that denote rising expectations. Since he cannot get these in a legitimate manner within his salary, he does so through corruption, a phenomenon that has affected his seniors also. In the past, senior officers used to provide examples of rectitude and good behaviour. The juniors could not cite them as excuses for their own sins. The position is quite different today, as the distinction between the seniors and juniors in the realm of values and proper behaviour has been obliterated. The ideal policeman is one who is humane, honest, intelligent, helpful, polite, sensitive to human suffering and human wants, both physical and emotional. The ideal policeman is one who takes prompt and effective action according to the laws of the land. He should be respected and admired by law-abiding citizens. He should be feared only by the law-breakers. Unfortunately, the image of the policeman in India is exactly the opposite. He is seen as boorish, insensitive, corrupt and inhuman. He is seen as a friend of criminals. He is avoided by the law-abiding, who hesitate to approach him for help even in dire circumstances. This public concept of the average policeman is unfortunately justified. As values in Indian society decline, as unbridled consumerism envelopes not only the cities but also the smaller towns, penetrating sometimes to the villages with the advent of television, particularly cable television, the urge to acquire consumer goods touches all spheres of human and economic endeavour. Values have deteriorated in every segment of society, even in noble professions such as medicine and teaching. It is unrealistic to expect this deterioration not to be reflected in the police force. The same middle class that has fallen prey to modern values, ironically expects police officers and men to possess all the good qualities that it is discarding itself. For example, loud-mouthed businessmen who have no scruples about the methods they employ to make money, talk very glibly in their drawing rooms and at club meetings about police corruption. They themselves indulge in all the known vices and yet expect the much lower paid and less educated policemen to be better human beings than they are. This is not to condone police transgressions. This is an attempt to explain the general fall in values in every sphere of societal activity and to show how it has had its inevitable fall-out in the value system of the police. I do believe, however, that policemen should be better behaved and more dignified than even those who are their betters in terms of economic, social and educational status. This is because the police has a vital duty to perform, the duty to protect the life and property of the citizens. This is an onerous duty, requiring a higher value system and genuine concern for the poor and the defenceless. Careful selection of new recruits and inculcation of moral and spiritual values during training to change the mindset of the new entrants will help. It is gratifying that police training colleges across the country have already started trying to do this. Unfortunately, many idealistic young men lose their idealism when they finish training and begin their careers in the field. |
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Ambitious men; if they cannot command an army, they are willing to command a file; and if they cannot be honoured by really great and important persons, they are glad to be honoured by lesser and meaner people — but honour of some kind they must have. What is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected. There are three classes of men — lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain. The money-makers will contrast the vanity of honour or if learning if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver. The lover of wisdom has a great advantage over the lover of gain, for he has a double experience. The rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. — Plato *** Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood. — James Harvey Robinson, Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. — Henry David Thoreau, Journal, June 1850. Miracles enable us to judge of doctrine and doctrine enables us to judge of miracles. — Pascal, Pensees, 802 All prophesies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophesy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven. — David Hume, Concerning Human Understanding, X, 101 ... man himself is a greater miracle than any miracle done through his instrumentality. — St. Augustine, City of God, X, 12 The word miracle is derived from admiration, which arises when an effect is manifest, and its cause is hidden, as when a man sees an eclipse of the sun without knowing its cause.... Now the cause of an effect which makes its appearance may be known to one, but unknown to others. And so a thing is wonderful to one and not at all to others; as an eclipse is to a rustie, but not to an astronomer. Now a miracle is called so as being full of wonder, and as having a cause absolutely hidden from all; and this cause is God. Therefore, those things which God does outside those causes which we know, are called miracles. — St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1,105.7. Such is the progress of credulity, that miracles, most doubtful on the spot and at the moment, will be received with implicit faith at a convenient distance of time and space. — Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, LVIII. |
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