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Tuesday,
February 4, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Learning from a tragedy Karnal’s Kalpana India
roots for peace |
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Congress in Catch-22 situation
Last of the old guard
Is it really an election team?
Study eases fears about eye nerves
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Learning from a tragedy EVEN before the USA is to emerge out of the shock of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, a massive operation has been put in place to get at the roots of this tragedy. Even the slightest possibilities are being magnified manifold to unravel the truth. Nobody is attempting to gloss over various problem areas. Three possibilities are being explored. These are, one, structural failure; two, damage from foam insulation to the left wing of the shuttle at the time of the launch on January 16; and, three, the failure of the controls following the buildup of excessive heat in the aftermath of the loss of the heat shields. Three independent panels are to probe the disaster. These will not work at cross-purposes but complement each other’s work. One enquiry will be conducted by the US Congress through the Science Committee of the House of Representatives, another by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) itself and the third by the experts from the United States Air Force, the Navy, the Transportation Department and other Federal agencies. Nothing unusual about that, except that a similar standard procedure is rarely followed in India. After every tragedy, either a cloak of secrecy is spread over it or a great game of passing the buck starts. Investigative reporting is rubbished as irresponsible trial by the media while official enquiries tend to become a clever ploy to buy time and deflect public attention. The end result is that the real causes never come out in the open. That is why correctives are never applied and similar tragedies continue to dog the nation time and again. The most illustrative is the exceptionally high incidence of MiG crashes. So many of them have tumbled out of the sky and yet the official reaction is that everything is quite in order. Nobody has bothered to inform the nation as to why these are still proving to be “flying coffins” and what is being done to remedy the situation. A similar insensitivity is also there in the case of train and road disasters. Voluminous reports gather dust while rail tracks, bridges, crossings, culverts, roads, etc, continue to be dangerously unreliable. Time and again it has been witnessed that there is no crisis management mechanism in place. Equally scandalous is the dealing of the official agencies with the victims of various disasters. The uncaring behaviour adds to the anguish of these unfortunate men and women. The long-neglected public expects so little from officials, but they are still not shamed into fulfilling their basic duties. Once they get away with their dereliction, it becomes some kind of a precedent for them. India has ambitions to send a mission to the space, even to the moon. Such endeavours will be credible only if we spread at least an elementary safety net for those engaged in similar but far less risky ventures. We have had far too many accidents to brook complacency. |
| Karnal’s Kalpana ASTRONAUT Kalpana Chawla had ceased to be an Indian national long ago. She died as an American citizen along with her six astronaut colleagues as the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle exploded over the American sky a little before its scheduled landing on earth on Saturday. But the whole of India, particularly Haryana, the land of her roots, was shocked beyond belief. People of Haryana are in a state of mourning, as declared by the government. She might have taken US citizenship and married a person of French origin, but she remained the Kalpana of Karnal and the rest of Haryana. After all, nobody can destroy one’s roots. Thus, it is but natural if people of Karnal are deeply upset at having lost someone so bright, who was very much part of their own self. There may be no logical explanation to the emotional outpourings of teachers at her alma mater in Karnal and Chandigarh — Tagore Bal Niketan School and Punjab Engineering College — but their feelings cannot be brushed aside. The widespread expression of grief is a measure of her popularity among the people who saw her flower into a scientist of world standards. Excelling as an astronaut at America’s NASA ( short for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is no child’s play. It was a dream come true for Kalpana when she became a part of the galaxy of NASA brains years ago. For this life-time’s achievement she had to make unbelievable efforts and demonstrate unusual grit. Thus, the gesture shown by the Haryana Government and the Chandigarh Administration by instituting awards in memory of Kalpana Chawla is truly reflective of the depth of belonging shown by those who considered her as their own. The Haryana Chief Minister has earned appreciation by declaring that every year the girl student topper in the Class 10 examinations in the state will be honoured with the Kalpana Chawla Award and four topper girls seeking admission to all 31 engineering colleges will get a monthly scholarship of Rs 2000 each for the four-year duration of the course. The Chandigarh Administration too has done well by instituting an award for the best student of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College, from where Kalpana did her graduation before joining NASA. The cruel hands of death have snatched from our midst perhaps the best source of inspiration particularly for girl students in this region and the rest of India. But Kalpana will continue to serve this purpose forever even after her death through the awards announced in her memory. |
India roots for peace THE threat of military action against Iraq is more real today than it was during the period when the United Nations weapons inspectors were collecting evidence of compliance with the Security Council resolutions. The chief weapons inspector simply he-hawed while presenting the report on his team’s findings before the Security Council last week. He neither said yes to Iraq having defied global opinion nor no to concealment of crucial evidence by the Iraqi regime. The USA being what it is, the ambivalence by the weapons inspectors was projected as “that man Saddam having been found in violation of Security Council resolution 1441”. It ignored the findings of the team that went looking for evidence of Iraq having a covert or overt nuclear programme. This team gave “that man” a near-clean chit and sought more time for giving peace a chance. There is palpable tension in the “global air”. The decks are being cleared for yet another unilateral attack on Iraq led by the only super power. The head count has begun for identifying “our pals and our enemies”. Britain evidently wants to live in the reflected glory of the past when the sun never set on its empire. It has chosen to be the sidekick of the USA in the belief that if America cannot make the sun rise, it can at least make nations sink. But the USA is making a terrible mistake by mobilising support for attacking Iraq. It may be the only super power today, but the world is clearly divided into two camps — one that is behind it and the other that wants to see the UN play the role of a fair and impartial peacekeeper. In this context, India has done well to root for peace in West Asia and for giving the UN the authority to act decisively for restraining even the mighty America from taking unilateral action against Iraq. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has already laid down what is clearly the official policy that India is following on Iraq. It was repeated by Defence Minister George Fernandes last weekend in Karnataka. The only time India had compromised its position on West Asia was when Mr Chandra Shekhar was heading a toothless government at the Centre. That was in 1991 and the entire nation was shocked when American planes that took part in carpet-bombing Iraq into submission were allowed refuelling facility in India. He was wise enough to realise the folly after the Congress and the Opposition raised concerns over the landing of US war planes on Indian soil. Mr Vajpayee’s speech in Ahmedabad last week left no scope for doubt that the mistake would not be repeated. He had the courage of conviction to ask the super power to show restraint in dealing with the situation in Iraq. The fact that President Mohammed Khatami of Iran agreed with Mr Vajpayee’s line on West Asia during his state visit to India is significant. India has not taken a principled stand against war in isolation. It is playing a major role in mobilising global opinion against the American position on Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s stature in his country has shrunk because of his support for President George W. Bush. In contrast, Mr Vajpayee is likely to earn increased global respect for rooting for peace in West Asia. |
Congress in Catch-22 situation AN undercurrent of nervousness is palpable in the Congress Party as it surveys the national scene with an eye on elections in nine states this year. It is amazing that a party which rules 14, if not 15, states should feel vulnerable to the changing winds set in motion by the Gujarat election. But the central problem for the grand old party of Indian independence is that it has not got its act together in finding a winning answer to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindutva hurricane. There lies the rub for the Congress. It is a question of leadership, and while the party has traditionally banked on a charismatic leader or exceptional circumstances, such as a leader’s assassination, to win or retain power, Mrs Sonia Gandhi provides a link to the dynasty but has yet to measure up to the job. She has the handicap of being of foreign birth, which was fully exploited by the BJP in the Gujarat election and remains a source of discomfort for a large section of the middle class in the country. Time is running out and the absence of strong party leadership can have catastrophic consequences for the Congress. The change of Assembly party leadership in Maharashtra was an effort to refurbish the Congress image at the cost of producing an embarrassingly large ministry. Rajasthan has been spared for the present. For the rest, it would seem, Congress Chief Ministers are being largely left to their own devices as the election clock moves on. The danger is that, without a central overarching theme and direction, piecemeal and freelance efforts by individual Chief Ministers can do more harm than good. A telling example is that of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Digvijay Singh. His sudden affection for the cow, in campaign speeches in his state and in his interactions with the media, is indicative of the kind of mistakes Congressmen made in Gujarat. His earlier effort in glorifying the national flag to exploit pride in nationalism was of a less harmful nature. The problem is that these attempts are so transparently time-serving that they do not carry conviction. One would have imagined that the Congress party’s efforts would be directed at two themes: people’s economic problems and its own record in the states it governs and a concept of secular nationalism that strikes a chord among people and counters the Hindutva brand of “cultural nationalism”. In the latter context, secularism should not be posed as antithesis to religion. Rather, everyone’s right to practise his or her religion should be emphasised while retaining the distinction between religion and state. Uncertain times, in India and elsewhere in the world, have encouraged religiosity. In the intellectual sphere, there would be little point in preaching to the converted — propagating the merits of pluralism and secularism in the English-language media has a limited impact. Rather, the effort must be to spread the message in regional languages and, more importantly, among political volunteers and, through them, to the people. The Congress is not a cadre-based party but it starved its roots of sustenance in favour of wheeler-dealers during Indira Gandhi’s remarkable stints in office. The Sangh Parivar has gratefully filled the vacuum with its staple diet of Hindutva. The Congress is also acutely conscious of the fact that it is the main adversary of most regional parties in the states, and other regional formations fight shy of it because they are loath to propel it to power in New Delhi after the long innings it has enjoyed. The much-touted Opposition unity thus often fails to materialise or the asking price of such unity is inordinately high. A pre-electoral coalition arrangement, therefore, falls victim to the past and other parties’ ambitions. The Congress’ own power equations in its heyday have fallen apart. The Dalits have found refuge in their own narrower-based parties while the so-called backward classes have their conglomerations. Hindu upper castes have gravitated to the BJP. Nor has the plank of secularism proved sturdy enough to support the weight of opportunistic considerations. Secularism, like Hindutva, is flexible in accommodating strange bedfellows. To an extent, politics is the art of managing contradictions, a classic instance being the BJP’s uneasy alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. The central BJP leadership has decided that it is willing to suffer the indignities of being Ms Mayawati’s junior partner because its overriding consideration is to retain a toehold in the country’s most populous state with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress, on the other hand, has been unable to guard its small flock in the state, much to the delight of the BSP. Mrs Sonia Gandhi is not short of advice or advisers, but unless she asserts her leadership or makes way for a leader who can deliver, the Congress is in for a series of rude shocks. Gallup polls must be taken with a pinch of salt, but the projection of a BJP majority in the Lok Sabha on the basis of a new India Today poll can do little to cheer the Congress flock. In a measure, the Congress is in a Catch-22 situation. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has traditionally served it well and Sonia provides a tenuous link with it. On the other hand, if Mrs Gandhi were to give up projecting herself as a Prime Minister in waiting, internecine warfare in the party would obliterate its chances of returning to power. Perhaps the easier course will be to form a directorate to run the party’s affairs under Mrs Gandhi’s titular chairmanship and come up fast with a party theme and a rounded strategy to face the electorate. |
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Last of the old guard I
received a rather pensive note a few days ago from A.A. Mackeith an English ex-I.P. Officer with whom I have been having an intimate contact for the last so many years. He has an articulate member of the UK chapter of the I.P. Officers Association and has maintained an animated contact with Indian counterparts and even juniors like me in the I.P.S. His latest missive, interalia, read- “We are only nine of us left of the Punjab family.” I was struck with the poignance of the note and his feeling of the fraternity with Punjab that he still nurtures across the seven seas. I was sent ruminating over the impending demise of an era— the golden chapter of the ICS and I.P. who maintained a ram-rod straight and unbending stance throughout their careers in giving an honest and dispassionate service to the people they had come to administer. It was their impeccable commitment and sense which made justice accessible to the humblest and left a strongly-woven woof and warp of administrative systems which govern us even today although we bade goodbye to their author more than fifty years ago. The systems which they have left behind are continuing without a comma or semicolon having been added or deleted. The last time an updated version of Punjab Police Rules was published in 1934 and although more than seven decades have elapsed no significant revision or updating of the rules has taken place ever since. Dozens of occupants of unproductive sinecures in the planks of IG and DG have drawn their fat salaries without revising a single line of the outdated rules which used to be a routine exercise. The Police Act of 1861 has continued to be the Bible of police working for nearly one and a half century without a single systematic attempt having been made to revise it in the intervening years even after Independence. It seems that John Bull’s imprint on our law and systems is everlasting and unrevisable. Given the choice we have not added a word here or there and our criticism of the originators of the systems is more political than real. A note like one I received from Mr A.A. Mackeith compels me to recall how some of the old guards are doing and how they are keeping their interest alive in the land they once served. John Martin Dean, an I.P. Officer of Punjab Cadre (1936 batch), visited me at Phillaur from England a few years ago and stayed with me for three days and played a few rounds of golf. He found the place more English than what the Englishmen had left it as. I escorted him to Hoshiarpur where he was the police chief some six decades ago. He spent a few nostalgic moments in the office though he was disappointed to see the typically English residence of the S.P. having got burnt down a few years ago. I also conducted him to Chandigarh and Delhi where he met some of the old colleagues like S. Gurdial Singh and Mr Ashwani Kumar. He had a memorable trip to Shimla where he had spent a large number of summer holidays during his policing career. He realised to his great pain that it was not possible to undertake a trip to Lahore from Amritsar that easily and that Lahore, once the capital of Punjab, was no longer a part of it. Mr A.A. Mackeith, an ex-IP Officer of the 1937 batch, who has been constantly interacting with me on Indian affairs has kept up his interest in the Punjab Police. He presented a copy of his book “Memories of a frontier Policeman” when I visited him in Scotland a few years ago. It is an extremely absorbing account of his policing career in Punjab and N.W.F.P. He and his wife entertained me and my wife to a superb lunch preceded by choicest horde’ oeuvres, Alastair, as he is known for short, lived on a mountainous slope over-looking the picturesque Scottish glens — the home of famous grouse, the whisky by this name being his favourite drink. He is an avid golfer living in the home of golf. Not being able to carry his golf anymore on his shoulders he has procured a “buggy” which carries him through the course for his next swing. Alastair is a young man at 88. Touch wood! On my asking, Alastair has sent me the addresses of the nine English ex-I.P. Officers alive today. While he and Mr R.M. Hallows, M.J. Thompson, R.M. Wall and F.B. Manley (one of my predecessors at Phillaur) live in Great Britain, H.A. Oliver lives in South Africa. P.D. Berrington is settled in U.S.A. and Carson is living in Australia. I have hastened to write to them to know about how they are doing with the fond hope that my letters get the much-needed response before the old guard depletes further. I wish all of them a longer life and somehow do not want the chapter to be over so soon! Auld lang
Syne!!
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Is it really an election team? WHEN RAJIV Gandhi was the Prime Minister, it was routine for the editor of our newspaper chain to persist on highlighting the irrational shiftings of the ministers in frequent cabinet reshuffles. The Prime Minister’s personal stability, he wanted us to write again and again, did not by itself mean stability of the government or continuity of its policies and programmes. Now a minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet, he himself has become a victim of irrational shiftings and postings. He was about to lose his disinvestment portfolio (and media had carried it) but was saved due to last- minute corporate lobbying. The only difference has been that such pressures did not work under Rajiv. He was guided by his own whims and brainwaves of his colleagues. Mr Vajpayee may not have such a high score as Rajiv’s ‘23 reshuffles’ as we had then frequently carried in page one anchors. But in the business of reckless shuntings and shiftings, Mr Vajpayee’s record has been even worse than Rajiv’s. Barring the ‘untouchable’ portfolios like home, defence and HRD, most others have changed hands on slightest pretexts. No minister knows when he or she gets orders to move out. The result has been perpetual insecurity and policy zig-zags. The average life of a law minister under Mr Vajpayee may not even be one year. Jethmalanis and Arun Jaitleys were brought and sent back at will. The life span in Information and Broadcasting may be even less with Mrs Sushma Swaraj coming in and out with Pramod Mahajans and Jaitleys filling in between. Now it is a promoted minister. The Health ministry changed hands thrice in the past six months. Similar has been the fate of ministries like parliamentary affairs, communication, etc. It may be a Prime Minister’s prerogative to treat individuals as dispensibles and the loyal worker’s duty to accept it. But in an increasingly competitive society with global pressures for improved performance, this is certainly not good governance. Mrs Sushma Swaraj was herded round from Shastri Bhavan, Karnataka, Delhi politics, I & B again and now to parliamentary affairs with a long vacuum in between. Another minister suddenly leaves for the Himalayas to take sanyas and then being called back to another ministry. Corporate power cost Mr Ramvilas Paswan the prized communications. Mr Sharad Yadav was herded out from civil aviation (for obstructing reform) and labour (for blocking the TU bills). Even Mr Sahib Singh Verma is not secure on this score. Mr Jagmohan, that forthright administrator, was unceremoniously removed from urban development because he resisted Delhi BJP’s poll-eve brinkmanship to allow master plan violations. Mr Ananth Kumar is now doing so on dotted lines. The Vajpayee government’s peculiar style of functioning and its loose kind of supervision make it still worse. Unlike the short-lived UF, neither the BJP nor the NDA has any inbuilt mechanism to hold pre-decision consultations on critical issues. Thus, if Mr Yashwant Sinha leaves finance, it invariably leads to strategy shifts. Even the ruling party found Mr Sinha an election ‘hurdle’. The new incumbent offers change and assures to make things ‘middle class-oriented’, etc. He is described as an election-eve minister. Mr Sinha, on his part, charts out his own foreign policy and working style in the External Affairs Ministry. Under Mr Vajpayee, it is all individual’s policies, not that of the government. Two aspects of the latest reshuffle are noteworthy. First, the prerogative has gone over to Mr L.K. Advani who has left his own indelible mark throughout. Second, the assiduously built political myths around it. Taking up the second first, there is little to show that the Cabinet reshuffle and changes in the BJP make it an ‘election cabinet’ or ‘election year party’. Mr Mahajan’s removal was admittedly to cleansing the tarnished image. But then, Mr Ram Naik with the massive petrol pump scam and Mr Ananth Kumar who is involved in Delhi’s land scandal involving prime plots worth hundreds of crores of rupees are still in the government. How can Mr Jaitley’s return to the Cabinet after six months with two additional portfolios or Mr Shourie taking over Mr Mahajan’s communication make it an ‘election cabinet’? None of other additions to the ministry will help raise any new confidence. For the BJP, Mr Mahajan’s arrival at the headquarters has been the only new development so far. Deputing two women ministers to Rajasthan and faction-ridden Madhya Pradesh has been an old decision. Both continued to resist their appointment. The BJP itself had tried this old Congress tradition in the case of Mr Narendra Modi and Mr Rajnath Singh. Time alone will say how harmoniously Mr Venkaiah Naidu and Mr Mahajan can pull together. Mr Naidu, with Mr Advani’s firm support, is bound to strive to see Mahajan works under him as his general secretary and thus establish supremacy over him. By nature Mr Mahajan is so hyperactive that he cannot be kept confined to low-profile areas. If things fail to work, we will find his shunting back to government, again as an ‘election-oriented’ action. There seems to be some substance in the claim that the new Cabinet changes will strengthen reform. Both Mr Shourie and Mr Jaitley are zealous reformists and they will strive for it. But then, those like Mr Ram Naik and Mr Fernandes continue to be active. As the elections draw nearer, the BJP itself is moving towards the anti-reform mode with its insistance on the rejection of Kelkar proposals and several other populist programmes. Can Mr Jaitely and Mr Shourie reject them? The takeover of the management of the Cabinet reshuffle by Mr Advani is another stride in the gradual marginalisation of the institution of the
Prime Minister. This time it was Mr Advani who had called each incumbent, curtly told of decisions and ensured quiet compliance. Everything was done in the PM’s name. The way the names leaked out and portfolios hinted at had the unmistakable Advani touch. The same ‘Gujarat’ group – of Mr Advani, Mr Naidu and Mr Jaitely – which now controls organisational function, has also spread its wings on the government work. Already there are indications that Mr Advani is emerging as the pivot for defining the nitty-gritty of major policies. This means ministers will have to consult him on important moves. If this really happens, it is bound to add some cohesion and authority in ministerial decisions. |
Study eases fears about eye nerves A
new study has eased fears that Viagra may damage nerves in the eye. However, researchers have found that the drug may cause damage to the optic nerves of the people whose blood vessels are already in a poor state. And they still cannot explain why taking the drug seems to be linked to problems in picking up subtle changes of colour. When Viagra was introduced in 1999, the drug’s manufacturers warned of a number of visual side-effects, including possible nerve damage to the eyes. But researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found that nerve damage in healthy people is extremely unlikely — even when Viagra is taken in high doses. Since Viagra lowers blood pressure overall, there was persistent suspicion that the drug might reduce blood flow to the eyes, which can cause nerve damage. But Dr Tim McCulley, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Irvine, said there was no evidence that taking the drug had any impact on reducing blood flow in the eyes.
ANI |
There is one body, and one spirit.... one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. —The Bible, Eph 4.4-6 |
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Merely to decry the Hindutva plank as being divisive and the manner of its promotion in Gujarat as tantamount to spreading hate, with serious consequences for the integrity of the country, is no answer. Nor is the propagation of secularism as the relevant creed for a pluralist society a vote-winning mantra. Rather, the need of the hour is to coin a catchy phrase or formula that can encompass the essence of Congress philosophy. In an earlier era, Indira Gandhi had galvanised the country with her “gharibi hatao” cry.