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Monday,
September 10, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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MSP and
other constraints Reservation
war in UP
Did govt
learn any lesson from Agra? |
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Absent-minded?
They
risked their lives to save citizens
Kids
cause earthquake in giant jump
Students
take to drugs 30 die
after taking Viagra
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MSP and other constraints An increase in the MSP (minimum support prices) of paddy by about 4 per cent will be treated as a joke but for the damaging effect this will have on farmers. Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh claims that the government has doubled the recommendation of the CACP (Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices) and that sounds grand. In reality it is Rs 20 a quintal from the proposed Rs 10, and it takes the procurement price to Rs 530 for the common variety and Rs 560 for the fine one. The kisan is unhappy and opposition politicians are critical but half their heart beats a pure political pulse. But Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is satisfied though his Finance Minister is not. No, it does not reflect any sharp policy difference at the top, only lack of consultation. Mr Badal has his own compulsions. He had demanded an increase of Rs 50 a quintal and had roped in Mr Om Prakash Chautala and Andhra strong man Chandrababu Naidu to put up a joint front. An adverse reaction now will make him a critic of the Centre and that is not his style. It will also encourage anti-Centre tendency in the farming community and its distressed state will turn this into anti-state government feelings. Mr Badal naturally wants to stem this and hence his evasive action. But then the MSP is only one of the four problems farmers face. Procurement will start only from October 1, and not even on September 21 as it did last year. There was a time when it started on September 1. That is why government agencies have not entered the mandi. Those farmers who grew early maturing varieties are flooding the market across Punjab with their produce but there are not many buyers. Rice mill owners, the only ones interested in stocking the grain, arbitrarily fix the moisture content and offer a price lower than the MSP of last year. No one in high places realises that the MSP has become a joke because of delayed procurement by state agencies. Providing an assured market for every grain produced in Punjab, Haryana and western UP was one of the four props of the dazzling green revolution. The Centre has deployed another weapon to harass the kisan directly or indirectly . It will not extend the concession of last year in terms of moisture level and percentage of broken rice. Last year the permissible percentage of broken rice was 8 but the Centre wants to revert back to the earlier 3 per cent. Rice millers who accept the procured paddy and turn it into rice on behalf of the FCI are against this and the stipulation that 67 per cent of rice conversion; they want it to be lowered to 64 per cent. One thing is obvious in all these anti-kisan moves. The Centre has a big problem with food stocks and it wants to mitigate it at the cost of the kisan. The hero of the green revolution and food security is made to look like a villain of rotting foodgrain stocks. A pity. |
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Reservation war in UP The speed with which Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh is unfolding new job reservation packages may or may not help the Bharatiya Janata Party regain its popularity in the Hindi heartland. But the mess he has already created with the narrow objective of winning the assembly elections would ensure that UP does not get out of the politician-induced state of perpetual backwardness. The decision to create reservation within reservation for the most backward castes, it now transpires, was just a curtain-raiser. He is cooking up a new reservation dish almost every second day. Who cares for the negative social and economic consequences of the blind adherence to the policy of reservation as a mantra for winning elections? Not Mr Rajnath Singh. The decision to create sub-quotas for the MBCs did rattle Ms Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. However, both leaders appear to have recovered sufficiently to launch a counter-offensive. Ms Mayawati recently addressed a Press conference demanding proportionate representation reservation for members of all the backward castes. She also said the BJP's newly-discovered concern for the welfare of the Dalits should be reflected in the caste profile of the candidates it picks up for the assembly elections. It sounds good in theory. However, the two backward caste leaders should not underestimate Mr Rajnath Singh's ability to pull a rabbit out of thin air. The Chief Minister as also other BJP leaders are currently engaged in devising a no-holds-barred strategy for regaining the lost political ground in UP. However, in real terms it is a Catch-22 situation for the BJP leadership. If it decides to increase the quota of tickets for the Dalits, it may lose the already thinning support of the upper castes. Reports from Lucknow suggest that Mr Rajnath Singh has started a damage control exercise by appearing to be running with the Dalits and hunting with the upper caste voters. The latest ploy for attempting the impossible task of keeping both the Dalits and the upper castes on his side is said to enjoy the backing of the central leadership. It includes creating 5 per cent job reservation for the economically backward sections among the upper castes. It is the brainchild of the social justice committee set up by Mr Rajnath Sigh obviously with an eye on the crucial Muslim vote. The major beneficiaries of the new policy are likely to be a hand-picked group of Muslims who have secretly promised support to the BJP. Of course, Mr Rajnath Singh is not the only politician who believes in exploiting the caste factor for winning elections. The sad part is that even after 54 years of Independence no party or leader has made a genuine attempt to pull the Dalits out of the abyss of economic and social backwardness. Sooner than later the patently-flawed approach to dealing with the potentially explosive issue of dispensing social justice is bound to invite a high-intensity backlash from the sections of people being pushed to the margins by the phoney champions of Dalit rights. |
Did govt learn any lesson from Agra? The Vajpayee government appears to be keenly looking forward to another meeting between the Prime Minister and the Pakistani President later this month in New York. Which makes it difficult to believe that until just three months ago it was General Musharraf who was asking, virtually beseeching, India for bilateral talks. Remember his repeated “anywhere, anytime, any level” pleas? And our repeatedly saying no, not until the General’s jehadis stopped their bloody game in Kashmir. Pakistan did nothing of the sort, and yet suddenly one day Mr Vajpayee invited the Pakistani chief for talks, and at the highest level to boot — only to come a cropper. So, did this government learn any lessons from the Agra fiasco? Did it realise that its so-called bold initiative had yielded nothing but a monumental PR boost for the Pakistani dictator, both in his country and in leading world capitals which had till then taken a dim view of the way he demolished an elected dispensation and usurped power? Why, thanks both to the official fuss and the exertions of our audio-visual paparazzi, this architect of the Kargil invasion became an instant celebrity even in India! Did our smart-alecky strategists realise that the Prime Minister’s “statesmanship” had not just misfired but boomeranged? By all available evidence the answer to these questions is a distressing No. But, then, let’s face it, when have the leaders and governments in this country ever learnt from mistakes? Two years ago those who thought that the in-coming government led by the “nationalist” BJP (which had roundly berated all previous governments for their blunders vis-a-vis Pakistan and Kashmir) would be different and purposively decisive in dealing with Pakistani intransigence, well, to their bewilderment, now know better. Not only is the NDA government cavalierly keeping up the tradition of blunders, it has already made more of them than any previous government. And it seems set to continue to do so. Indeed, in an incredible posture reversal, it is New Delhi now which is keen to resume talks, and Islamabad which appears to be generous in agreeing to do so. How else does one explain the latest (at the time of writing) statements: Mr Vajpayee says he would be meeting General Musharraf in New York; the General says there is a “possibility” they will meet. Mr Vajpayee says “we will talk about everything, including Kashmir”; the General says “we will talk of Kashmir before we talk of anything else”. So, are we going to witness Act 2 of the Agra drama? And are we to see a repeat of je june statements from the MEA (Ministry of External Affairs)? — “Although a new journey has begun, the destination of a joint statement has not been reached.” The pre-Agra invitation to General Musharraf talked of walking together on the “high road to peace and prosperity.” Two days of pow-wow and the “destination” got transformed to a “joint statement”, and even that proved elusive. What we fail to recognise is that even if there had been a joint statement, would it have spelt peace? Did joint statements in the past spell peace — Tashkent, Simla, Lahore? What is the value of such statements if one of the two signatories is hellbent on wresting Kashmir? Sadly, this basic question was not raised in all the profuse commentaries on the Agra failure. Even now, while talking about the impending meeting some analysts speak of the possibility of New York succeeding where Agra failed. They are hoping the two will issue some kind of a joint statement this time. To what end? Merely to keep open the road to Islamabad, the next milestone of the dubious “journey”? Whether New York will yield the coveted statement time will tell. Meanwhile, the General’s terrorist monster continues to spread its tentacles across the border and Indians continue to die in J&K. In fact, the attacks and killings have gone up since Agra, facilitated undoubtedly by the Vajpayee government’s earlier pea-brained decision to impose a ceasefire on our security forces, and for as long as six months — time enough for Pakistan’s ISI and company to regroup and re-equip and re-launch the mercenaries and jehadis, with results we witness daily. Apologists for the government will of course rush to point out that a proactive policy is in force now, that the security forces are free to chase and eliminate the terrorists, that many of them have indeed been killed. Yes, but look at the costs! These need not have been so high if only we had acted in time and not indulged in mindless experimentation and policy flip-flops. Hardly a day goes by when Indian civilians and soldiers are not killed. These attacks are not a matter of blind shoot and scoot; the terrorists are acting according to a definite plan: first it was Kashmiri Pandits, then Sikhs, and now other Hindus. The aim obviously is to rid the state of all non-Muslims. Instead of telling the world of this diabolical plan and taking countervailing measures on this score, what we have is vacuous rhetoric: condemnation of the “dastardly” attacks, pointing out in tones of injured piety that the “killing of innocent people cannot be described as jehad”, emphasising how the “noble faith of Islam does not preach violence”, asking “Muslim intellectuals” to ask their co-religionists in Pakistan to ask their government to cease and desist in Kashmir, and similar other sentiments wholly irrelevant to the problem at hand. For the rest, we hear of how vachanbadh (pledged) India is to “continuing the dialogue to settle all our differences” with Pakistan. This last again is questionable. For one thing, the Vajpayee government is not India; witness how divorced government policy is from public opinion as reflected in various polls and letters carried in newspapers. Secondly, what is all this insistence on “all our differences”? The real problem with Pakistan is its obsession with Kashmir and Islamabad’s variegated machinations to grab it by hook or by crook. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Pakistani Establishment, the military-mullah combine, is even considering reconciling itself to the legality and fact of Kashmir being an unbreakable part of India. Given this, given the hotting up of the LoC, given the escalating attacks in J&K, given the continuing venomous utterances of Pakistani leaders — given the totality of the circumstances, the government must do a serious re-think, not only on the usefulness of the New York meeting but also on the wisdom of its olive-branch approach to a treacherous and intransigent Pakistan. It is all very well to indulge in lofty sentiments of together walking the “high road of peace” but how can you walk together alone? Considering that Pakistan remains frozen in its stand, what will talks be about? Whether India should accept Kashmir as a “dispute”? Whether Pakistan should recognise its role in “cross-border terrorism”? By themselves these and other disputed words and (punctuations!) mean nothing. What matter are intentions and actions, what matter are facts on the ground, in the killing fields of Kashmir. This is what must concern us and dictate what we need to do. We must forthwith cease to hanker after good-boy certificates from the West, chiefly and now almost exclusively from the USA. We must cease to give unilateral concessions to Pakistan. We must cease to give half-hearted orders to our security forces; and we must cease to give contradictory signals to anti-India elements and secessionist groupings in Kashmir. Mr Jaswant Singh keeps lamenting about General Musharraf being “unifocal”, concerned only with Kashmir. Instead of criticising Pakistan for its open and avowed obsession, let us also get unifocal and deal with the real problem, that is, the terrorist war imposed on us. Enough of namby-pamby, wishy-washy, event-by-event policies and actions. The only way to win a war is by defeating the enemy. Nothing else will work. |
Absent-minded? Bacchus is the boss. The drink drives. The pub is the hub. In every civilised city. Every evening. The place gives great relief at the end of the day’s drudgery. It is the rendezvous for the young. The intellectuals gather to discuss men and matters. One evening, there were many. It provided a lot to share. Some stories. Heard of any about the absent-minded professor? I have. The old fellow from one of the well-known universities. He was sitting in the corner. Sharing the intellectual pursuits. The professor with his gray hair, thick bushy eyebrows, Harris Tweed jacket and the pipe in his hand provided a perfect picture. A lady walked up to him and asked: “Professor do you remember that you had once proposed to me?” “Oh really? And did we finally get married?” Then there is another. The professor was immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit. He walked up to the barman. Ordered two large whiskies. Gulped one. Picked up the second and joined his friends at the table. After sometime he walked to the washroom. Took out his necktie. And wet his trousers. Truly the dead can make no mistake. But are these happy moments the exclusive prerogative of the intellectual bigwigs? Have the lesser mortals an exemption from error? I feel sure that I have done better than most of these distinguished men of letters. You do not believe it? I have often put toothpaste on the shaving brush and the shaving cream on the toothbrush. Lit my cigarette at the wrong end. Put on different coloured socks out of two pairs. Even black and brown boots together. Emptied a bottle of gin down the drain. And then stood in silence to pay homage to the departed spirits. Given five currency notes of Rs five hundred each to a person who had to be paid only five hundred. Received a proper tongue-lashing from my wife. Certainly not the only time. But the piece de resistance was the day when I had to make a speech. To a select audience. I donned my best three-piece suit. Dark blue. Pin stripes. Reached on the dot. And after the usual courtesies, I was on my hind legs. In front of the microphone. I had started well. I was gaining in confidence with every minute. Everyone seemed to be listening to me with a rapt attention. Almost spell bound. There was a smile on every face. An appreciative glint in the eyes. Things were smooth. A round or two of applause. I was feeling good. After some time the gentleman at the back had let out a big yawn. Bad manners? May be. But an honest opinion? Certainly yes! Without an iota of doubt. I am open-minded. But always thought that I am not empty-headed. In any case, I had not missed the hint. Yet it had taken some time before I was able to wind up the speech. Angry with myself, I had driven back home. Wondering as to where I had gone wrong. Reached home. Still unable to get the answer. I was tense till I discovered to my utter dismay that I was wearing my wife’s denture. It had just not stopped moving. Absent-minded or empty-headed? Probably, a bit of both. |
They risked their lives to save
citizens There could be no greater act of ingratitude for a society than marshalling of guns against men of the ilk of Ribeiro and KPSG’s band of securitymen who risked their lives to save innocent citizens from those trigger-happy terrorists and preserved our nationhood. Where were these human rights champions hiding when innocents were being gunned? Why were their tongues tied in those dark days? It is great to pontificate when protected by a battalion of gun-men from behind the security of bullet-proof screens. I lived through every moment of that dark decade of Punjab, DIG Atwal’s elder brother and I were together in the engineering college. For the dam-designer elder brother, the DIG was like a son for it was he who had brought him up and educated him. He was totally shattered that evening when the DIG was shot at the gates of the Golden Temple while the entire government watched in paralysis. Ribeiro and KPSG were also friends. I met Ribeiro soon after providence had saved him from the terrorist potshot as he and his wife Melba were having their morning walk on the lawns of the PAP headquarters at Jalandhar. A terrorist had managed to scale its walls and shoot at a sitting duck target on the wide expanse of a green lawn. A bullet actually ricocheted from a copper wrist-band that Ribeiro wore. And terrorist anger did not end with his posting outside Punjab; they chased him even into the police state of Cauchescue’s Romania, where he was subsequently posted. Another attempt was made on his life. Similarly, KPSG survived two bomb blasts. It was a miracle that he escaped with a mere fracture of one leg in one. But he was back on duty next morning, unshaken and undeterred by the risk he carried to his life. On the civilian side as a single organisation, the Punjab Tractors group was perhaps the largest victim of Punjab terrorism. A bus was hijacked from the gates of a factory at the close of a shift. The entire management team of our foundry, 28 young professionals, General Manager down to the last management trainee, were pulled out, made to squat in a field, and shot point-blank. A second bullet was also pumped in, if any signs of life were visible after the first. The wail of 28 families on that cruel night of March 21, 1991, still rings in my ears. Queues at the morgue and the cremation ground appeared endless. The first child of one young manager was born that night. The engagement of another was slated for the coming Baisakhi. A third was the sole provider for his aged parents. None had the remotest link with politics. Since our foundry was the single source feeder for the entire group, the other plants started coming to a standstill one by one: Combine Division on 28th, Tractor Division of 3rd April and Swaraj Mazda on 6th. The very survival of the group was at stake. Development of new sources for automotive castings for our volumes is a long-drawn exercise, takes months. Fear of life, however, was so large that not a single manager was prepared to go to the foundry even under police protection. Many resigned without alternative jobs; life was more precious. Since reopening of the foundry was critical to the survival of the group which I had built from scratch, I managed to persuade the workers to re-open after three weeks provided I organised armour protection. But I failed to persuade a single manager or supervisor despite the armoured escort. I had to run the foundry single-handed with workers for two months. All those five terrorists who had committed that gruesome murder were eliminated in the next three months. Did they deserve any sympathy? Hadn’t they themselves violated every human right? Did securitymen have any other choice? The entire govt stood paralysed with fear in those dark days. The terrorist writ ran supreme throughout the state. No lawyer was prepared to take up a case against terrorists. Not a single witness was prepared to testify when DIG Mangat’s son was shot in broad daylight at 10 a.m. in the busiest locality of Patiala. Judges themselves were scared and found excuses to drop cases. A single dictat by terrorists and all shop signboards in Mohali were repainted overnight in yellow background with lettering in Punjabi. In a similar fashion, yellow patka, black turbans and yellow chunnis became standard uniform for schools in Punjab overnight. A few months after the foundry tragedy, an officer from the US Embassy called on me to seek views on the adverse reaction provoked by President Clinton’s remark on human rights and its violation by the state in Punjab’s fight against terrorism. He had just no reply when I confronted him with the likes of the foundry incident. I also reminded him of the age-old adage. People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones at others. Life is the uppermost priority of every human being. Gun-toting trigger-happy terrorists, whatever their cause, care a damn who comes in front of the barrel. Their motive is to spread scare; half a dozen brutal killings at random and for no rhyme or reason and mass obedience of the writ is automatic. Restoration of public morale and return of confidence from such an abyss is not easy. Let us thank those brave men who risked their lives to bring laughter and smile back to the state and not hound them out in the name of human rights. In any war for nationhood preservation, loss of some innocent lives is inevitable; distinction becomes impossible when perpetrators happen to be from within. Terrorist law-breakers carry no distinctive mark on their foreheads to single them out in a crowd. My inner conscience refused to keep silent at the hue and cry against the amnesty move. |
Kids cause earthquake in giant jump Around one million British school children succeeding in causing an earthquake, jumping up and down simultaneously in the world’s largest scientific experiment. Thousands of schools around Britain were asked to send children out into the playgrounds at 11 a.m. on Saturday to jump up and down for a minute in the hope of creating a measurable quake. Organisers of the Giant Jump event, held to mark the launch of the government’s Science Year, said it had been a success. “We’re almost sure we had a million people out there jumping for us. We got some kind of result at every single seismometer around the country,” Nigel Pain, Director of Science Year, told Reuters. “We generated something like a hundredth of a serious earthquake — that’s not an enormous amount of energy but it’s significant.” The exact number of people taking part would have to be verified, but he said it was an unofficial world record. Early estimates suggested 75,000 tonnes of energy had been released during the minute of jumping. Over the next two weeks the results from around the country will be analysed to see if the event registered on the Richter scale. Scientists said a million children with an average weight of 50 kg (110 lb) jumping 20 times in a minute would release two billion joules of energy and trigger the equivalent of an earthquake measuring three on the Richter scale. The event has also attracted serious attention from scientists, including the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which maintains Britain’s nuclear warheads. Fortunately the world didn’t split in two as one of the children surveyed before the event believed would happen, nor did the earth leave the sun’s orbit as feared by another. A third came up with a more likely, if less exciting scenario. “There will be lots of hospital visits from people with sprained ankles.”
Reuters
More women harassed at workplace If the callers to a new telephone helpline launched in May this year are anything to go by, the incidence of sexual harassment is rapidly rising in government institutions as well as in the public and private sectors. The helpline “Maadhyam’’, jointly initiated by the Delhi-based NGOs Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and Adhikaar, has received calls from working women not only in the Capital but from across the country. What clearly emerges from many calls is that the moment a woman decides to report her harassment she begins a personal battle and it may be years before she gets justice. Any complaint by a woman of sexual harassment immediately labels her as a trouble maker in the eyes of employers, regrets Priya Narula of HRLN. Reena (name changed), working as a receptionist at a reputed medical research institute, was facing harassment from her front office manager who followed her and begged for favours. When she reported him to the Personnel Manager the latter shifted her to the telephone exchange located in the basement, forcing her to confront her harasser every day. When she refused to report for work, she was charge-sheeted. She approached HRLN as her organisation did not have a sexual harassment complaints committee. Eventually, she was forced to drop her complaint and quit the job. The women who call the helpline are generally quite depressed and need counselling. Callers do not belong to a particular industry. They might be working in a government organisation or a private firm, nationalised banks, educational institutes or the unorganised sector, says Priya.
UNI |
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Students take to
drugs Prescription drugs are fast making their way into the chemical drug market. These are easily available, less harmful, inexpensive and promise an intoxicating high. What is probably the biggest advantage is that they do not leave a trail for the cops to follow. An increasing number of university students and even alcoholics or addicts who find it difficult to finance and procure chemical drugs are falling prey to the Schedule-H drugs, point out some addicts, who refuse to be identified. “Everyone has his own defence mechanism against the pressure and deadline threats that are forced upon us. We have to resort to relaxing agents, drugs are a strict no-no, but a mild sedative does little harm”, said an executive working in a private firm, who takes a combination of drugs like Diazepam and Phenargan to keep him “alive and ticking”. Cough syrups containing codeine and buprenorphine formulations are a favourite with not only school and college students but score a point with alcoholics as well. “I used to feign coughing episodes. Since both my parents are busy they’d give money for the syrups. It was almost after a year that they got wind of what I was up to”, said
Vikram, who is quick to add, “I’m absolutely clean now”. The major categories of drugs consumed
are: *tranquilisers like diazepam and oxazepam *Central nervous system (CNS) stimulants like
caffine, tobacco and diethlypropton *Hallucinogens like LSD, marijuana and Ecstasy *Sedative hypniotics like Secobarbital and
Pentabarbital *CNS depressants like opium, morphine and heroin. These come under Schedule-H of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules and can only be sold against a prescription of a registered medical practitioner. But these drugs can be easily purchased over the counter. In the university areas and localities in Delhi where students live in large numbers, these drugs can be easily purchased. The chemists are often a party to these clandestine purchasing and have come up with innovative selling methods. When a customer comes to buy his required quota, he only has to ask for A, C or P, which stand for
Avil, Corex or Phenargan. When asked whether they warn against the resultant damage of these drugs, the chemists point out that the addicts are well informed and yet choose to continue. So what have the drug controllers done to curb the misuse of these habit-forming drugs?
Stockists and retailers are permitted to stock only limited quantities. Even the manufacturers have been directed to revise the composition of the drugs. A warning “the drug is potential for abuse and should be sold under medical supervision” has to be put on the label and the carton of the formulation. How effective these stipulations have been is anybody’s guess. But the visible increase in the number of drug dependents is eloquent enough. |
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30 die after taking Viagra At least 30 men have died in Germany after taking Viagra since use of the sexual potency drug was authorised within the European Union in September, 1998, the Health Ministry revealed on Saturday. In a written reply to a parliamentary question, Health Secretary Gudrun Schaich-Walch said the Federal Institute for Medicinal Products had received 104 reports of “suspected undesirable side-effects” among people who took the drug. “In 30 of these reports it is documented that the patient died at some point in time afterwards, often as a result of cardiac or circulatory problems.” Pfizer, which manufactures
Viagra, denied that Viagra was unsafe. The German Health Ministry said a total of 709 “undesirable effects” had been reported among Viagra users in the 14 other European Union countries, Norway and Iceland, of which 77 had resulted in death.
AFP |
Ambala Conciliation Board At a special meeting of the Conciliation Board, Ambala, rules were framed for the membership and conduct of business of the Board. The addition of four members was recommended to represent pit-bazars. It was also resolved that members should wear a distinctive badge while on duty on public occasions. A resolution was also passed placing on record the sense of appreciation of the Board for the policy adopted by the Cantonment Magistrate, Sardar Sayid Zaman Khan, in associating the people with the official arrangements made in connection with the last 'Id and Muharram by calling into being the Board, and giving it every help in rendering such association effective. |
The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. — Cesare Pavese, The Burning brand
***** Life is not worth worrying over too much. It begins in folly and ends in smoke.... The best policy is to laugh its worries away. — Sardar Bahadur Maharaj Jagat Singh, A Spiritual Bouquet, 36
***** All life clings to a body perfect goodness clings to all that is modest. — The Tirukural, 1013
***** The world is a bride of surpassing beauty but remember that this maiden is never bound to anyone. — Divan-i-Hafiz
***** We live in the world when we love it. — Rabindranath Tagore |
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