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| Monday, June 11, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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After the
famous win Winsome
duo
World disappearing
from view |
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| The
trouble with inquiry commissions Rahul Singh EVER since our independence and the horrific communal riots that accompanied it, there have been two major communal outbursts that have traumatised the nation: the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, in which some 4,000 Sikhs were massacred, mostly in the Capital, and the 1992-93 series of riots that followed the destruction of the Babri mosque.
Have a
heart!
Individuals
pass on, systems remain: CEC
Keep
learning to enhance memory
New German Cabinet
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After the famous win IT is tempting to believe that armed with a massive mandate President Mohammed Khatami will briskly restart his aborted reforms programme. He will not because he cannot. The people are no doubt with him but the Iranian Constitution and clergy are against him. Even a stunning 80 per cent voter support cannot change this skewed equation. Rewind the tape of time to 1997. Mr Khatami wins by a crushing margin against a clergy-supported opponent. That gives him the look of a reformer, although he is a middle level mullah. The youth – two-thirds of Iran’s population is below 35 years of age — hail him as the messiah of political liberalisation. The stunned clergy takes time to recover and the counter-attack is ferocious. Mr Khatamii’s ambitious press reforms legislation suddenly dies in Parliament, strangled by an edict from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme spiritual leader. As many as 40 journalists are arrested and jailed. All known and loud liberals, assorted academics and idealistic reformers are in various prison cells. The charismatic Teheran Mayor, Mr Gholam Hussain Karbasti, is charged with corruption, tried in an anti-corruption court, convicted and packed off to jail. He was the most admired face of Mr Khatami’s support base. A replay of the recent past is essential for two reasons. One, there is a structural obstruction to political liberalisation. Two, Mr Khatami is a nominal President and not an executive one, however impressive his popularity rating. Iran’s constitutional structure is not liberal democratic but a unique Shia model of social control. At the top of the heap is the spiritual leader, now Ayatollah Khamenei. This post was created for the late Ayatollah Khomeni. He is dead but the post and its awesome powers continue. He appoints half of the 12-member guardians council, in which all religious, social and political powers vest. The other half is nominated by Parliament from out of a short list it receives from the chief of the country’s judiciary, who himself is an appointee of the Ayatollah. The Ayatollah also controls the armed forces and selects the head of the powerful state-owned broadcasting monopoly. This shows where the real power is and who is the most powerful power wielder. True, during the past four years Ayatollah Khamenei has supported Mr Khatami giving the impression that he is not a hardliner. But the issues were not basic but of peripheral importance. On political freedom, respect for personal rights and also flexibility in social behaviour, he is opposed to any radical change. As a cleric himself, Mr Khatami is not ready to press his ideas with determination and conviction. |
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Winsome duo LOOKING
back, it seems hard to believe that as recently as four years ago, the chances of any Indian tennis player bringing home a Grand Slam title appeared as bleak as, say, climbing Mt Everest, without oxygen. And then the doughty Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi burst on the scene, doing the "impossible" many times over in quick succession. On Saturday the unseeded pair claimed its second French Open title with a come-from-behind 7-6, 6-3 victory over 13th seeds Petr Pala and Pavel Vizner (Czech). It was their first Grand Slam crown of the year, and third overall. Before that, in 1998, Bhupathi had become the first Indian to win a Grand Slam when he partnered Rika Hiraki of Japan for a mixed doubles title in Paris. More could have been in their kitty, but for their unfortunate parting of ways. They partnered others, with no luck. It is useless to cry over spilt milk and split partnership. What does matter is that they have made up at last and are now back in business. After they reunited, the winning touch eluded them for some time and they lost in the US Open and the Sydney Olympics. At long last, they seem to have rediscovered their rhythm. What is all the more credible is that they made a stunning comeback at Roland Garros. They were 2-5 down in the first set, but took it in the tiebreaker at 7-6(7-5). To do that against a pair that has had the hottest streak in recent months when they made four Tour finals is a remarkable achievement. That shows that their fighting spirit has been rekindled. However, it will be quite some time before they return to their 1999 form. That year, they not only won the French Open and the Wimbledon, but also reached the final of the other two Grand Slams, finishing as year-end number one. Now, the Wimbledon and the US Open beckon them. In India, international victories are so few that such an achievement makes you an ex-officio demi-god. From then on, you play more for the sake of an expectant nation's wish-fulfilment than your own personal glory. Paes and Bhupathi are proving to be good role models, now that they have gotten over their egoistic tiff. Their court behaviour is exemplary. The victory should play a major role in the revival of tennis - as well as sports in general-in the country. It needs reiteration that talented players abound here. Many of them are run down by the insensitive system that is in place. The rest prefer to lie low because the killer instinct does not come naturally to them. The spark provided by the Paris victory will hopefully charge them enough to fire on all four cylinders. |
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World disappearing from view IN a democratic polity, the mainstream Press reflects a country’s pecking order in the world and its ambitions beyond its own borders. The striking contrast British broadsheets today present with what they were not so long ago is a case in point. One has only to compare the parochial nature of the front page of the London Times with the New York Times to realise how Britain’s role and standing in the world has shrunk. In India, we have been witnessing a paradox. For the first time since the halcyon days of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s salience in the world has risen. Yet our mainstream Press, with honourable exceptions, treats the world as almost irrelevant except in relation to India, particularly in business and industry, or to indulge in triumphalism on the exploits of the Indian diaspora or to seek titillation. Major newspapers often dismiss the world in half a page and rely on wholesale borrowing for the kind of world reporting they offer. Yet this was not always the case. In the Nehru era and later years, major newspapers had a string of correspondents posted in important capitals. There can be no substitute for a resident foreign correspondent, as opposed to visiting firemen, to get one’s own perspective on the world. Maintaining foreign correspondents is expensive but newspaper establishments with resources sent their men to live abroad because it was money well spent. Indian foreign correspondents today are an endangered species. There has been wholesale sacking of resident foreign correspondents or they have been downgraded as stringers, newspaper jargon for men and women usually paid a monthly retainer and money on the basis of what is printed. This phenomenon bears no relation to the financial health of a newspaper establishment. In fact, some of our major establishments — good luck to them — have never done better in terms of the ringing of cash registers. It is salutary to remember that the only Indian newspaper correspondent who was in Beijing at the time of the Tiananmen massacre and Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit was a man who paid his own way to be there. In our very neighbourhood, the massacre of the royal family in Nepal had Star news relying on a BBC correspondent for the first comments on the bizarre tragedy. Even if one accepts the hypothesis that major Indian newspapers are merely following their readers’ inclinations, it being now unfashionable for the Press to give the lead, it raises the question of our interests. Have we become so parochial that the world interests us only insofar as its affects us or our pocket book? Troublesome and difficult neighbours apart, has our sense of curiosity been so dulled by the never-ending supply of Indian soap operas that the world does not matter, except for Nasdaq and Dow Jones and the exploits of Indian whizkids in Silicon Valley? These are not idle questions but a cause for national concern. Unlike in the West where prosperity often translates into de-politicisation and minimal world interest, India has large areas of poverty and poor people. And in the West the tabloids are balanced by quality newspapers employing their own men and women around the world for those interested in issues of international importance. A country that seeks a place in the sun — more recently by aspiring to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council — cannot rely on a world view interpreted by others. But that is all that a serious Indian reader can usually find in the country’s Press, exceptions apart. This lack of information about the world from an Indian perspective — not counting glowing Indian news agency accounts of ministerial or ambassadorial exploits abroad — is a godsend for the government of the day because it has a free hand in framing and pursuing policy. Only in relation to Pakistan, China and other neighbours are public interest and prejudices a constraining factor for the authorities. It can be argued that Indians have traditionally been parochial and it was only Jawaharlal Nehru and his internationalism and the spot he and India occupied in the early decades of independence that had transformed his countrymen. The transition from Nehru to Lal Bahadur Shastri had meant a readjustment of sights. There was less emphasis on the world, more on India and Indian problems. Over the years, the world increasingly disappeared from view except through the prism of narrow Indian self-interest. Are we then about to see a new flowering of Indian interest in the world, in view of New Delhi’s thrust for a greater role and influence in international councils? We are now a nuclear weapon power, a future software superpower and a country of economic potential. India is seeking to find a place in the pecking order in the post-Cold War world although there is no Nehru to kindle his countrymen’s interest in the world outside India’s borders. Strangely, the growing number of Indian families with permanent links abroad in terms of relations settled outside should have engendered a greater interest in the wider world. Yet the family connections often translate into long visits or undertaking holidays to distant parts, rather than in arousing serious interest in what makes other societies tick. Satellite television, it would seem, has become a new impetus for Indian parochialism because Indian soaps can now be accessed in the West. Previously, Indian embassy families had to rely on swapping Indian video cassettes shipped out of London. Is India, rather than China, then the ultimate middle Kingdom? It should not take us too long to discover the answers because India’s claim to a new status in the councils of the world can have newspapers scrambling to have their own men and women in world capitals, instead of relying on news agencies and borrowed feathers. We shall then discover that there are other things in the world than Miss Indias winning beauty crowns or Indian companies being listed on the New York Stock Exchange or that a new Indian-born genius of 14 has performed a notable feat in the United States. I am keeping my fingers crossed. |
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The trouble with inquiry commissions EVER since our independence and the horrific communal riots that accompanied it, there have been two major communal outbursts that have traumatised the nation: the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, in which some 4,000 Sikhs were massacred, mostly in the Capital, and the 1992-93 series of riots that followed the destruction of the Babri mosque. In both these communal flareups, some elements of the Indian police, instigated by politicians to be sure, played a dubious and partisan role. The 1984 riots have been inquired into by various commissions, but very little real action has been taken against the killers and the instigators. Yet another commission, headed by Justice Liberhan, is currently looking at what exactly happened in 1984. The trouble is that when you inquire into what took place 17 years ago, witnesses tend to be somewhat hazy in their memories, a fact that clever lawyers can exploit to devastating effect. To be effective, inquiry commissions should be setup straight away, their report and recommendations prepared in as short a period as possible, and those found prima facie guilty of wrong-doing, immediately prosecuted. Which is why the Liberhan Commission, however, thorough its work may eventually turn out to be, is not likely to produce any results where it really matters — successful prosecution of the guilty. I hope that is not going to be the fate of the wholly admirable and entirely fair, though hard-hitting, Justice Srikrishna report into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots, following the pulling down of the Babri mosque. In early 1996, just when the report was about to be submitted, the Shiv Sena/Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine, which was then in power in Maharashtra, where most of the rioting had taken place, disbanded the Srikrishna Commission. This was an absolutely outrageous decision and an outcry followed. To the credit of the BJP government, which was in power at the Centre (though only for 13 days), it ordered the State government to revive the commission, which eventually submitted its report in early 1998. Predictably, the Shiv Sena, which had come out badly in the report, labelled it “anti-Hindu”, even though Justice Srikrishna is a devout and practising Hindu (he also had harsh things to say about some fundamentalist Muslim organisations). The commission recommended the reopening of 1,371 cases that had been somehow closed by the Maharashtra police, clearly to save the skin of the indicted policemen. Then, a state committee came into the
picture. It recommended a departmental inquiry against 18 policemen and criminal prosecution against two. The final stage in this tortuous process was the setting up of a Special Task Force (STF) a little over a year ago, to look at the reopened cases. It was as a result of the STF’s investigations that a first information report (FIR) was filed against Ram Deo Tyagi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, when the incident took place, for his role in the infamous Suleman Bakery killing. FIRs against 16 other policemen have also been filed for the same incident, in which nine innocent and unarmed Muslims were killed in cold blood. This was probably the worst case of police excesses during the entire riots and it was mainly pressure from the Supreme Court that has made the authorities act. The FIRs have been filed under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, relating to murder. It is a mystery why Tyagi and the other policemen have still not been arrested. In murder cases, even anticipatory bail is not generally given and the indicted persons immediately arrested, especially when the evidence against them is compelling, as it is in this particular case. Jyoti Punwani, a Mumbai reporter with “Midday”, who has been following the aftermath of the riots with admirable tenacity, has provided ample proof of Tyagi’s complicity and concluded that the police have more than enough evidence to arrest him. She has also shown that Tyagi’s statement, in his defence, that he had never entered the bakery, was a blatant lie, since the wireless messages that he sent (and of which there are transcripts) clearly showed that they were sent by him from inside the bakery. Tyagi’s and the Shiv Sena’s subsequent behaviour is equally damning. Incredibly enough, when the Shiv Sena was in power in the state, he was promoted and made Police Commissioner. Then, after he retired, he entered politics and stood for election on a Shiv Sena ticket. There could not be greater circumstantial evidence of brazen and shameless collusion between the two. Narayan Rane, former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, against whom there has also been a murder charge in the past, has the effrontery to say that if any action is taken against Tyagi and the other indicted policemen, it would “demoralise” the Mumbai police force. That is like saying that no action should have been taken against the Nazi and Japanese war criminals after World War II, because it would have demoralised the German and Japanese soldiers! In any case, the present Police Commissioner, M.N. Singh, has ridiculed Rane by countering him and stating that there is no question of the Mumbai police force being “demoralised”. Rane should also be thinking about the general Mumbai public and its morale. Sadly, the general impression is that no action is ever taken against the instigators of communal violence. This is true not just of Mumbai but in other parts of the country as well. That is one reason why communal riots keep flaring up, their perpetrators knowing that no one will lift a finger against them. Nobody is ever punished for these riots, neither the instigators, nor even the killers. That must change if India is to call itself a civilised society. But to return to Tyagi and the 16 indicted policemen, here is an example of those who are meant to maintain law and order and protect the public, allegedly going on a killing spree against a particular community. If they are found guilty, they must be punished swiftly and severely, so that the impartiality and honour of the Mumbai police force, once the nation’s pride, is restored. |
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Have a heart! THEY literally dig into human hearts to take out pace-makers for implant in those who, for reasons other than health, try to wish away their cardiac disorder. The Kolkata-based “pace-maker Bank”, as it is called, has so far put in these “second-hand” electronic gadgets in 250 hearts, which otherwise could have stopped beating. There is a better part still - the small equipment is collected free and donated free and comes with the best wishes of all those involved - the doctors, the family of the donor, pharmaceutical companies and voluntary organisation “Medical Bank”, which runs the show. The pace-makers, taken out from bodies lying in hospitals or crematoriums, are refitted and sterilised before they are listed in the register of the bank. There is also a register of cardiac patients who are not in a position to buy a pace-maker, which costs around Rs 50,000-80,000 in the market. When requirements of such patients, as prescribed by doctors, match with specifications (make, model, weight) of the machines, these find their place in new hearts, says Medical Bank Secretary D Ashis. The bank, which now has a ‘waiting list’ of 25 patients against a supply of 22 pace-makers, mostly bears the cost of refitment and sterilisation, but also gets subsidised supply from companies like Cadilla Healthcare, Cannon Devices and Sterile System. The cost of refitment - replacing the lead wire of a pace-maker which is cut before taking it out - is between Rs 8,000-10,000, while sterilisation costs about Rs 500. “We have arrangements with companies for supply of the lead wire and for sterilisation at a subsidised rate,” Ashis says. The Medical Bank also has an understanding with crematorium and hospitals authorities who notify it about the death of a cardiac patient with a pace-maker. “You cannot incinerate a patient with a pace-maker in an electric furnace. It causes technical problems. Therefore, family members of the patient or the crematorium authorities call us to take out the pace-maker,” he says. The bank has its own expert volunteers like Tapas Santra and Arun Pal, who take out the pace-makers from those who have lived out their natural hearts. There is, however, one word of caution, Ashis says, pace-makers fitted in hearts of patients suffering from AIDS or cancer, cannot be re-used for reasons of safety. PTI Dutch abortion ship on a stormy trip A Dutch ship offering onboard abortions will sail for Ireland this week on the first leg of a voyage likely to whip up a storm of protest in nations where abortions are illegal and contraceptives frowned upon. The ship, the Sea of Change, aims to provide abortions to women outside the territorial waters of countries where pregnancies are only terminated in exceptional circumstances. In a trip that could take in parts of Africa, the Dutch-based Women on Waves Foundation will also provide in-port family planning advice to visitors, contraceptives for those who ask and workshops on reproductive health issues for lawyers, doctors, teachers and politicians. “We hope to provide a catalyst for legalisation...We simply want to give women a choice. Public awareness is the first step,’’ Women on Waves founder Rebecca Gomperts told Reuters. Gomperts, a qualified doctor who started the group in 1999, previously provided medical assistance aboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship. The Women on Waves Foundation, funded by private donations, says its mission is to prevent unwanted pregnancies, enable women to make informed decisions about family planning and to ensure safe and legal abortions. “We want to stress that we are offering a whole range of family planning information to women and not just abortions,’’ Gomperts said. Quoting figures from the U.S-based Alan Guttmacher Institute which backs family planning, Women on Waves says more than one-third of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned and that a quarter of these — about 53 million — end in abortion. Some 25 per cent of the world’s population live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws. Illegal abortions are still carried out in these nations, but the often unsafe methods lead to complications in about 40 per cent of cases and to more than 70,000 deaths a year. Some 20 million of the 53 million abortions carried out could be categorised as unsafe, she said. Where abortion is legal, safe and available, complication rates are less than one per cent, Women on Waves says. First stop will be Ireland, where the ship will moor for up to a month. Gomperts described the trip as a pilot project. Further legs of the journey will depend on its success.
Reuters |
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Individuals
pass on, systems remain: CEC Persuasiveness
and unanimity are the two buzz words for the Chief Election Commissioner, Dr Manohar Singh Gill, who will be retiring on June 13 after an eight year stint in the Election Commission, first as Commissioner and then as its chief. In a wide-ranging interview to The Tribune, Dr Gill refused to dwell on his future plans. While listing out the achievements he spelt out what could be done to check criminalisation of politics, providing reservation to women in Parliament and legislatures and effectively implementing the anti-defection law. The following are the excerpts of the interview. TENURE IN THE ELECTION COMMISSION: Since July 1995 when the three-member Commission was formed, the Commission had been unanimous in every single judgement. I had contributed to it when I was a Commissioner, the history of which I will write one day, and during my five years as CEC it was absolutely unanimous. In fact, my style has been that it is not just we three of us would sit and discuss but involve the Deputy Commissioners because there is no logic in believing that the senior man is always wiser than his juniors. Ours was a well knit cohesive Commission. It was not so before me and the net result was no matter how much was the tension and burden, when I know that my two colleagues were standing like a rock and when I knew all my officers and babus were with me then I could sleep well in the most tense elections. So, I never had any tension because I knew that the whole Commission was with me. Even in these recently conducted Assembly polls, some controversies were raised in West Bengal and though I was in Nainital, the two Commissioners came out with a fierce statement because they knew that what business did anyone have to identify the head or any of us...it was a decision of the Commission. I along with my colleagues made a little contribution in making a system with a tradition of cohesive unanimous working. Knowing who will be my successor (Mr J M Lyndoh) and the two other Commissioners, I strongly believe that the Commission will be unanimous and will be going in that direction. AGENDA AND OBJECTIVE? ON TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL TO IMPROVING
POLLING: ON PHOTO IDENTITY CARDS: On
EVMs: ON CRIMINALISATION OF
POLITICS: ON WOMEN’S
RESERVATION: ANTI-DEFECTION LAW: |
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Keep learning to enhance memory FOR most of us memorising a 30-digit number in less than a minute is next to impossible but for Anant and Nishant Kasibhatla, holders of many national memory records, it is a piece of cake. The two brothers have found their way into the Limca Book of Records for their memory prowess. They say anybody can perform such a feat with the help of Mnemonics — the science of enhancing memory — and remember long and complicated numbers easily. There is nothing as a bad or good memory and there is little or no difference between an
intelligent and average brain. “The difference is in the way we use our brain,” he says, giving the example of vegetable vendors who have an astonishing ability to calculate money, only because they are in the habit of calculating mentally and not on calculators. Nishant and Anant attribute their achievements to the two important concepts of mnemonics - visualisation and association. “Everybody knows that the brain remembers pictures better than anything else. Therefore, if any information is to be remembered, we can do it more effectively by converting it into pictures...Visualisation holds the key for a better memory,” says Anant. The reason why he could remember 30-digit number given to him during an interview in PTI was that he had created pictures or images for the digits, he informs. All human brains are alike and have the same physical features. They have exactly same mental powers, including the power to memorise, says Nishant, who features in this year’s Limca Book of Records for memorising a thoroughly shuffled pack of playing cards in reverse sequence in two minutes 31 seconds. “A brain is made up of one lakh crore neurons or brain cells and this network of neurons or the brain is estimated to be much more powerful than the network of all the computers in the world,” they say, adding that average humans do not even use one per cent of their brain’s capacity, therefore, memory depends only on how much brain capacity one uses. Nishant says memory is a three-staged process and the stages may be called as the 3 Rs of the memory, which are registration, retention and recall. In the first stage, that is registration, the data is simply learnt and most of the memory problems can be attributed to lack of proper registration. Retention of the registered data is extremely important and one can choose which data can be put into short-term or long-term memory. Any data which enters the brain is through short-term memory and if the data is not shifted into the long-term memory it would be difficult to recall the data at a later stage. “Recall of information at will is ensured if we adopt correct ways while dealing with the registration and the retention processes,” Anant says. “There are basically three reasons why people have problems in remembering things - they are either disinterested in the information, they disbelieve their own memory capacity and do not even try to remember things,” Anant says, adding that the third but most important reason for memory loss is “disuse of memory faculty and too much dependency on artificial memory aids like scribbling pads, data banks and digital diaries”. Just like a machine gets rusted if not used frequently, the memory becomes blunt if one does not try to remember things, he says. “Be a life-long learner,” advises Anant and adds that the mental faculties get toned down the moment one stops evolving oneself from active learning and to reverse this trend try learning something or the other — always.
PTI |
New German Cabinet
The avowedly socialist leanings of the new Cabinet, which ex-Chancellor Marx is now feeling in Berlin, lend particular significance to happenings in Central Europe. Already the coup d’etat under Marshal Pilsudeki, which has received visible sympathies from the socialist group in Poland, has drawn to events there the attention of other European countries. The Russo-German and the Russo-Turkish treaties indicate the increasing importance of Soviet Russia in international matters. The accretions to the influence of Socialism in Germany, which are demonstrated by Dr Marx’s statement that “his cabinet will aim at cooperating to its utmost with the Socialists,” give a further tone-up to the cause of socialism in Europe. |
SPIRITUAL NUGGETS Follow not after vanity, nor after the enjoyment of love and lust! He who is earnest and meditative, obtains ample joy. —
The Dhammapada, 27 ***** Lift breath from navel lotus with nam (Holy name) Rise and stabilise at throat lotus, Hurry up with right understanding, Practise concentration in the Absolute Find exit from the outlet in the head, Attain the akash, O! lover, Meet the Beloved directly, And realise the love within. Incessant rhythm of the breath, Achieve it with love, Conceal it from the world, And be merry with the Lord. —
Sai Roshan Ali Shah **** Guard the breath Breath is the Divine mystery, Breath is a river Unique and without a peer, Its waves are manifest and latent, The drops merge in the
ocean. — Dewan Bedil |
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