E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Nuclear one-upmanship
It is for good reasons that men like Gen Pervez Musharraf become the blue-eyed boys of the west in general and the US in particular. They know what sounds like music to the western ear, even if it happens to be only empty rhetoric.

Rein in returning officers
The Punjab and Haryana High Court’s ruling setting aside the election of Safidon MLA Ram Phal Kundu may be sustainable under the law in the considered opinion of Justice Viney Mittal. But the judgement raises serious questions on the quasi-judicial powers and administrative propriety of the Returning Officer. 

Patiala peg of taint
Capt Amarinder Singh had begun his term as Chief Minister of Punjab on a very promising note. The talk of the state was that because of his royal background he would deal with the issue of corruption in high places more firmly than his predecessors had done.

OPINION

From posturing to accommodation
Kashmir issue has to be sidestepped
Syed Nooruzzaman
Those who have been praying all these years for the normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan are ecstatic. After Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set the ball rolling from Srinagar on April 18 by expressing his desire for talks to end the atmosphere of animosity in the subcontinent, the response from the other side has been almost on expected lines.

MIDDLE

Shakespeare in Lock
Ranbir Parmar
The passage of time gives strange nostalgic aura to the memory of persons we know in our youth or childhood. Especially so in case of the teachers who had taught us in schools or colleges. During our juvenile years we might have seen them as ruthlessly authoritative, awe-inspiring or unpleasant individuals and even hated some of them.

Mayors dance to political tunes in Haryana
C.D. Verma
The Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, passed in haste in 1994, suffers from several flaws and legal infirmities to the detriment of the elected representatives and the general people. Many of its statutory provisions have been blatantly contravened and negated at leisure over the last nine years. 

• Elected there, selected here

SIGHT & SOUND

Too much in a hurry
Amita Malik
I suppose I should consider myself lucky, cable operators being what they are, that I am now getting all the new or rejuvenated TV channels except NDTV Hindi and Headlines Today. So NDTV 24x7 remains the only India-based channel I can watch in English.

School changes create behavioural problems
A new study has found that children who frequently change schools are more likely to have behavioural health problems than those who don’t. According to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, school mobility is an independent predictor of behavioural problems — regardless of one’s race, income, maternal education level or any other factor measured in the study.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Nuclear one-upmanship

It is for good reasons that men like Gen Pervez Musharraf become the blue-eyed boys of the west in general and the US in particular. They know what sounds like music to the western ear, even if it happens to be only empty rhetoric. The Pakistani President’s informal proposal to denuclearise South Asia falls in that category. He is aware that the west is agitated over Kashmir mainly because India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons. On the face of it, the prospect of denuclearisation may appear tempting to those who want to maintain the exclusivity of the nuclear club. Only someone who is conversant with the ground situation can understand the cleverness and contradictions in this gesture. Some of these hidden facts written in small print have been underlined by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. As he mentioned in Parliament on Thursday, the Pakistani nuclear programme is India-specific, while our programme is not focussed on Pakistan as “we have to keep in mind developments in other neighbouring countries as well”. The reference, obviously, is to China’s growing military strength and ambitions. Equally significant is the fact that Pakistan has not responded to India’s no-first-use commitment. Not only that, Gen Musharraf had cockily threatened to use nuclear weapons during the recent border stand-off. The talk of denuclearisation by such a leader does not carry conviction. Equally significant are the reports that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is not safe and there is a real risk that such weapons may find their way to terrorist organisations like the Al-Qaida.

Howsoever insincere the General’s offer may be, it must have pleased quite a few people in the world capitals. It is now a challenge for Indian diplomacy to explain the factual position to them. The visit of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage provides one such opportunity. It needs to be explained to him that this proposal is as hollow as Gen Musharraf’s “absolute assurance that there is nothing happening across the Line of Control”. Mr Armitage is quoted to have told him that throughout last year, infiltration had continued, though at a lower level. This remains a concern for the US. Gen Musharraf made bold to say that if there was some terrorist structure in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, “it would be dismantled tomorrow”. The fact of the matter is that many new centres have been opened in the recent past. Only if the new legislation taking shape in the US Congress calling for sanctions if Pakistan does not end cross-border terrorism is forcefully implemented, will Islamabad mend its ways.

Rein in returning officers

The Punjab and Haryana High Court’s ruling setting aside the election of Safidon MLA Ram Phal Kundu may be sustainable under the law in the considered opinion of Justice Viney Mittal. But the judgement raises serious questions on the quasi-judicial powers and administrative propriety of the Returning Officer. The judge has said, for instance, that he was declaring the election as null and void because of the Returning Officer’s “wrong” and “improper” rejection of the nomination papers of the petitioner, Kamal Sharma. The issue in question is why should Mr Kundu, who was duly elected by the people, be made to suffer because of the wrong action on the part of the Returning Officer, that too, after three long years? The High Court’s action would have been found reasonable and appropriate had Mr Kundu been found guilty of indulging in any of the corrupt practices as mentioned in the Representation of the People Act. However, no such thing has happened and Mr Kundu has been made a scapegoat for the blunder committed by the Returning Officer. Clearly, the ruling is flawed and bad in law as the judge, while unseating Mr Kundu and directing the Election Commission to order fresh election to the seat, has allowed the Returning Officer to go scot free. Mercifully, the MLA has been given time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.

The case underscores the need for a proper system of checks and balances to monitor the performance and decisions of the returning officers. Accountability will have to be fixed on them for their acts of omission and commission and they should not be let off the hook. The recent electoral rolls scandal in Madhya Pradesh is a case in point. Though the returning officers of Khargone, Rewa and Shahdol were reportedly involved in the scandal, no action has been taken against them. Even Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh’s directive to the state Chief Secretary to take disciplinary action against them was not complied with. The state government did everything to protect them, reinforcing the general impression that these officers, who are all collectors or district magistrates, have been let off because of Chief Minister Digvijay Singh’s support and protection. In the case in question, if the Returning Officer was clearly held responsible for rejecting the nomination papers of the petitioner, such an action would have made a salutary impact on the conduct and powers of the returning officers.

Patiala peg of taint

Capt Amarinder Singh had begun his term as Chief Minister of Punjab on a very promising note. The talk of the state was that because of his royal background he would deal with the issue of corruption in high places more firmly than his predecessors had done. This perception was based on the premise that want is the mother of corruption. As a former Maharaja, the Chief Minister did not fall in that category. He could have led a life of comfort had he not chosen to enter politics. He is well-read and his wide range of interests would have seen him serving many a social cause with distinction. In their enthusiasm to see in the former Maharaja the genetically induced seeds of good governance, the people overlooked the available evidence of former rulers making poor political leaders. Mr V. P. Singh as Chief Minister in 1980 gave Phoolan Devi to Uttar Pradesh. He Mandalised Indian society as Prime Minister in 1990. When and why Capt Amarinder Singh began to drift from the course he had set for Punjab is unclear. The unfolding of the PPSC scam involving Ravi Sidhu and other senior officials, days after his swearing-in as Chief Minister, had created a tidal wave of public opinion in favour of his war against corruption. But the faultlines in his style of governance did not take long to become visible.

The recent administrative reshuffle need not have attracted more than routine attention. But Capt Amarinder Singh will have to take much of the blame for the unsavoury comments in sections of the media following the re-appointment of a controversial bureaucrat as Financial Commissioner, Taxation and Excise. No purpose will be served by taking the high moral ground on what has come to be known as the Panchkula episode. However, it would be naive to say that the incident did not tarnish the image of the bureaucrat. The episode may not have justified harsh action against him. But why give him back the charge of the very departments he demanded he must have? A taint is a taint and not all the perfumes of Arabia can mask the stink that the incident caused in social and bureaucratic circles. The Chief Minister may have plausible explanations even for the reappointment of a tainted former judge as chairman of a commission and the selection of a controversial former IPS officer of Haryana as member-secretary of the same body. It is clear that if he intends to play a longer innings as the political boss, he must learn to show greater sensitivity than he has so far to the popular mood in Punjab. He must reinvent the magic that saw him scale the dizzy heights of instant popularity after the PPSC scam.

OPINION

From posturing to accommodation
Kashmir issue has to be sidestepped
Syed Nooruzzaman

Those who have been praying all these years for the normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan are ecstatic. After Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee set the ball rolling from Srinagar on April 18 by expressing his desire for talks to end the atmosphere of animosity in the subcontinent, the response from the other side has been almost on expected lines. Pakistani leaders had been giving hints of their readiness for dialogue for a long time owing to their own compulsions plus the growing international pressure.

Mr Vajpayee’s move is surprising when viewed in the context of his statements like “Aar-paar ki larayee” and the line articulated by External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha that there was a case for India to launch a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan as America did in Iraq. But it seems to be well-calculated. That the US has played a role in all this goes without saying. America has its strong interests to protect in the region. After accomplishing its Iraq project it could not ignore the anti-America forces acquiring enormous strength in Pakistan. The anti-US elements have already captured political power in Baluchistan and the NWFP, besides having a substantial presence in Pakistan’s National Assembly.

Afghanistan and Kashmir are the principal factors providing sustenance to the anti-US sentiment in Pakistan. However, Afghanistan has been put on the backburner because of the unchallengeable American presence there whereas Kashmir remains a hot spot. The jehadis associated with the “Kashmir cause” and their sympathisers could pose a serious threat to the continuance of Gen Pervez Musharraf as the all-powerful ruler of Pakistan. That would mean a major loss to the superpower. This clearly shows the significance of the General in the US scheme of things. The pull of the Kashmir factor in Pakistani society can be minimised by improving relations with India. So, an increased American interest in easing the tension over Kashmir was inevitable under the circumstances. This could have gone to the extent of intervention because the US is consciously trying to change its image in Muslim societies where it is perceived as an “enemy of Islam”.

Perhaps, Mr Vajpayee and his advisers thought that before the US entered the Kashmir arena in its own way, it was time to seize the opportunity. India stands to gain immediately in diplomatic terms as there will be no open third-party intervention. The US is, of course, talking of facilitating the process of dialogue, but this much is unavoidable in an America-driven world. Those who oppose Mr Vajpayee’s move in the Sangh parivar should realise the significance of safeguarding the country’s well-known position — settling all issues bilaterally. Even otherwise how long could India refuse to talk and continue with its coercive diplomacy against an exactly opposite international opinion and when the deployment of the armed forces at a massive scale on the border too could not bring the desired results? The truth is that the use of military power as an option is unadvisable because of the nuclear factor. Holding talks, therefore, remains the best course available. How far the two neighbours can go in quest of peace is not the immediate problem. What is required as a first step is that the two should sit at the negotiating table.

Looking closely at the fast developing situation, it appears that India has not suffered an image loss so far as its stance on Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism is concerned. A few weeks ago British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told Pakistan categorically that it would have to stop militant infiltration into India in the interest of regional stability. This was followed by Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s statement that the camps for the collection of funds in the name of “Kashmir jehad” had been dismantled. It is not known if his government has initiated steps against the terrorist training camps. But President Pervez Musharraf has claimed during his talks with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, currently on a visit to the subcontinent, that there are no such camps in Pakistan. He has even promised to dismantle such camps if there are any. Though this has been Islamabad’s standard response, one can interpret the statement to mean that the camps that did exist are no longer there. Significantly, General Musharraf was recently quoted in ‘The News’ of Karachi as saying, “I will stop cross-border infiltration if the United States can ensure the Indian Government’s willingness to start a dialogue.” Here it must be pointed out that as soon as the dialogue process is on India will have to insist on an effective monitoring mechanism to prevent militant infiltration from across the border. This is essential in view of the General’s promise to the international community on cross-border terrorism in the wake of 9/11 when very little happened at the ground level.

The unanimity of views on holding talks with India among the principal political parties of Pakistan, which discussed India’s offer at a series of meetings, convened by Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, shows that at last there is realisation in their ranks that the disputes between the two neighbours can be solved only through peaceful means. Years of proxy war or jehadi killings have made matters worse. The advocates of violence stand sidelined. That the MMA, the alliance of religious parties, continues to assert that the Kashmir issue cannot be relegated to a position of secondary importance is quite disturbing. But that is how they can take care of their own constituencies. This is also one way of silencing the militant jehadi elements and other hawks. In any case, the old rhetoric that there can be no negotiations unless the Kashmir question is discussed as the number one item on the agenda is gone.

Reports suggest that Pakistan’s positive posture has the backing of the Army and the ISI. One can attribute this to American pressure. Yet the development cannot be dismissed as something inconsequential. The two institutions have enormous clout in the power structure and can easily kill any initiative taken by the regime in Islamabad. How long the new posture remains unchanged is a matter to be watched closely. This thought comes to one’s mind in view of the vested interest of the Pakistan Army and the ISI in the escalation of tension in the subcontinent.

Obviously, the dawn of a new era in Indo-Pak relations does not suit the militant forces. They will do all they can to sabotage the peace move through increased violence. But they cannot be as effective in creating trouble as they could in the new climate. Even then such incidents should not distract any side from the dialogue path. This is what sanity demands.

What is, however, most essential is that there should be no hurry at any stage. Those who are realistic enough on both sides understand how even the most difficult knot of Kashmir can be untied without any party yielding too much. They also know that this is not possible at this stage. First of all, there is need to establish an atmosphere of trust between the two neighbours. Let the merchants of violence in Pakistan and the hawks in India get irrelevant. This is not impossible. If the Palestinians can recognise Israel’s right to exist in the heart of the Arab world and if Israel can concede to the Palestinian demand for an independent homeland by allowing the dismantling of Jewish settlements, why can India and Pakistan not find a way to live peacefully in an amicable atmosphere? We should not forget that there is no honourable alternative to peace. Is Pakistan listening? 

MIDDLE

Shakespeare in Lock
Ranbir Parmar

The passage of time gives strange nostalgic aura to the memory of persons we know in our youth or childhood. Especially so in case of the teachers who had taught us in schools or colleges. During our juvenile years we might have seen them as ruthlessly authoritative, awe-inspiring or unpleasant individuals and even hated some of them. But in our maturer years we remember most of them with strange affection and reverence.

A very special teacher which comes to my mind is Mr Ahuja. He used to teach us Shakespearean drama in the post-graduate classes. With his towering presence, dark visage and thundering voice, he inspired awful respect in the mind of every student. His perennially angry eyes glowered at our faces from behind his rimless spectacles. Nobody dared whisper or ventured a thoughtless smile in his class.

The grim passages from Hamlet sounded gloomier in his booming theatrical voice. We never noticed a semblance of a smile cross his dark countenance during the time he taught us Hamlet. The girls nicknamed him Cloudius after the vicious villainking in the play.

A deathly silence greeted him whenever he entered the class auditorium. After placing his register on the dais, he would cast a threatening glance at the whole class pinning everybody in his or her seat.

Then he would take the roll call, the roll numbers escaping his lips like shots from a sten-gun. If anyone missed his or her roll number for any reason, he or she could not dare interrupt him. After calling the last roll number he would close the register with a snap.

“Close the door!” he would order in his echoing voice.

Someone would move from the first row and return to his seat after closing the big one-panelled door.

“Bolt it please!” Mr Ahuja would roar again and someone else had to leave his or her seat to bolt the door. Nobody was allowed to enter the class after the door was bolted. And this scene was replayed almost daily with irritating monotony at the beginning of Mr Ahuja’s lecture.

But one day this sequence of events was enacted for the last time and that too in a slightly altered way so as to make it an inseparable part of my memory. Hamlet had been finished the day before and we were to start with the next Shakespearean masterpiece, The Twelfth Night. Mr Ahuja finished with his rapid-fire roll call, shouted his orders for closing the door and again for bolting it. A bored looking young man got up from the first row, spent sometime bolting the door and then disappeared among the benches in the last row. First of all, the girls sitting towards the far end of the auditorium saw what the young man had really done. A big metallic lock was hanging from the staple of the door he had just bolted.

As the students kept on becoming aware of the comical sight of the lock, a wave of hesitant smiles travelled from one end of the class to the other. Mr Ahuja stared at our smiling faces with narrowed eyes, then followed our glances and noticed the lock.

“Who did it? I say who did it?” his voice was trembling with anger.

The whole class froze into silence. The bored looking young man stood up from among the back benchers and said in a tired voice,” I did it, sir.”

“Open it at once!” Mr Ahuja shouted, his eyes bulging out of the sockets in unsuppressed fury. For a moment we thought that he would devour that young man with his eyes.

The boy went up to the door, unlocked it and calmly returned to his seat. Now he was standing with his head meekly bowed as if saying, “You can very well hang me, sir.”

It was then that the unbelievable happened, Mr Ahuja threw his book on the dais and broke into a roaring laughter which went on and on. We stared at him in utter disbelief, then joined him and soon the whole auditorium was resounding with laughter. When the frenzy subsided a bit, we heard Mr Ahuja’s unusually cheerful voice, “What can be a better beginning for Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s most hilarious comedy!”

And during the time he taught Twelfth Night, we discovered a different person in Mr Ahuja. Nearly always beaming with spontaneous humour, he brought the slapstick comical atmosphere of the play alive in the classroom.

Whenever I recall this amusing episode from my student life, I am reminded of the unique theatrical skills of that excellent teacher of drama. I extend my soulful salute to Mr Ahuja wherever he is at present.

Mayors dance to political tunes in Haryana
C.D. Verma

The Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, passed in haste in 1994, suffers from several flaws and legal infirmities to the detriment of the elected representatives and the general people. Many of its statutory provisions have been blatantly contravened and negated at leisure over the last nine years. The Act drew its elan vital from the 74th Constitution Amendment Act (Nagarpalika Bill), enacted by Parliament in 1992.

Following the enactment of the Corporation Act in 1994, the Municipal Corporation Faridabad — the only corporation in Haryana — came into being. Now when the Government of Haryana has already decided to upgrade the civic bodies of ten more towns (Yamunanagar, Karnal, Gurgaon and Rohtak among them) in the state to corporations, it is time to critically appraise the Corporation Act as implemented and experimented in Faridabad.

The Faridabad Corporation came into existence in place of the erstwhile Faridabad Complex Administration (FCA), an amalgamated body of three towns, old Faridabad, Ballabgarh and New Industrial Township, and the panchayats of the adjoining rural areas. The Corporation Act envisages two wings of governance -- the deliberative wing and the administrative wing. Therefore, the difference between the former FCA and the present corporation vis-a-vis their functions, powers and duties is that while the FCA was under the overall control of the administrative wing, that is officialdom of the state, the corporation has two wings, the deliberative wing comprising the elected corporators and the administrative wing comprising bureaucrats.

In most of the corporations of the country, including Delhi and Mumbai, vast powers have been vested in the deliberative wing to pass the budget and decide about house and other taxes. But no such powers have been provided to the deliberative wing in the Corporation Act. Most of the powers are still vested in the state government through the Commissioner Corporation, that is the administrative wing.

Further, Section 61 of the Corporation Act makes it mandatory for the corporation to frame byelaws and business rules. But so far these byelaws, business rules and regulations have not been formulated, though a period of nine years has elapsed since the Act was passed. Therefore, all the actions of the successive Corporation Commissioners, including the imposition of the house tax and other levies, meetings of the general house and the resolutions passed and decisions taken by the elected councillors therein, willy-nilly, become null and void and are legally not tenable.

In fact, the Municipal Corporation Act virtually makes the elected representatives subservient to the bureaucrats. They have no powers worth the name as all powers are concentrated in the Commissioner Corporation and the government. As such, the elected councillors can be pushed around by the powers-that-be.

For instance, Section 34 of the Act empowers the state government to remove by notification any member of the civic body on imaginary and petty charges if he acts in contravention of the provisions of Section 60. Five years later, in 1999, the then Bansi Lal government amended the Act and inserted a new provision (34-A) which gave powers to the Divisional Commissioner to suspend any member of the corporation, including the Mayor and the Deputy Mayors. The new provisions under Section 34-A provide much scope to the ruling party in the state to punish the difficult and inconvenient elected representatives. Section 34-A certainly contravenes the statutory provisions of the parent Act, the 74th Constitution Amendment Act.

By a natural corollary, it is implied that the elected MLAs and MPs also fall within the ambit of Section 34-A, and that the Divisional Commissioner can even suspend them and prevent them from participating in the meetings and discharging their public duties. It is like empowering the Chief Secretary of the state to suspend the MLAs and ministers. What a mockery the Corporation Act makes of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act, the local government and the Panchayati Raj System!

There is no gainsaying the fact that the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act negates the statutory provisions of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act. The Constitution Amendment Act stipulates that the term of office of the Mayor, the Senior Deputy Mayor and the Deputy Mayor would be one year by rotation among the Scheduled Castes, the backward classes, women and general categories of elected representatives.

However, the Haryana Government amended the Corporation Act immediately after the first election to the Faridabad Corporation was held in December, 1994, and extended the term of the Mayor and the two Deputy Mayors from one year to five years. That means that one of the categories from amongst the four categories of women, the Scheduled Castes, the backward classes and the general category will occupy the Mayoral office after 20 years. Such was not the intention of the founding fathers of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act, who provided a chance to become a Mayor and Deputy Mayor to every category of elected representatives within a single term of five years, the span of each elected house.

Suffice to say that the powers-that-be have followed the politics of contrivance and expediency to install their trusted henchmen as Mayors and Deputy Mayors for five years. It is time to right the wrong, restore the dignity of the elected representatives and the sanctity of the democratic system and its institutions. The government must act fast to amend the Corporation Act to restore its original character commensurate with the central legislation, before any other civic body in the state is elected to a corporation.

Elected there, selected here

Mayors in other corporations are elected. But in Faridabad they have been invariably selected. And the pattern might be followed in the corporations to come. After the elections to the Faridabad Corporation were held in April, 2000, the post of Mayor, after a draw of lots, was reserved for the backward class category. Two candidates won elections from Ward No. 2 and 24, reserved for the backward class candidates. But their claim to the Mayor's office was ignored, as they did not have any political clout and mentors. The government amended the Act, hand-picked a political darling, who had won from a general ward, and installed him as the Mayor.

But as soon as he began to assert his authority, his wings were clipped. In July 2001, he was removed from the Mayor's post after a no-confidence motion. And in his place was installed a politically convenient woman, Ms Anita Goswami, who too had won from a general ward. Her election as Mayor was set aside by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on April 22 on the ground that she did not belong to the backward class. (The Supreme Court upheld the decision on Thursday. —Editor)

Section 4 of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act envisages that the elected MLAs and MPs would be the members of the corporation, but will not have any voting right. The Faridabad experiment manifests that the elected MLAs and MPs never participated in the deliberations of the general house as they did not have the voting rights. C.D.V.

SIGHT & SOUND

Too much in a hurry
Amita Malik

I suppose I should consider myself lucky, cable operators being what they are, that I am now getting all the new or rejuvenated TV channels except NDTV Hindi and Headlines Today. So NDTV 24x7 remains the only India-based channel I can watch in English. But no matter what the language, I find that there is a frantic race going on between all the news channels to capture their audiences as fast as they can. And to do so, they are using all the gimmicks on earth, NDTV included, not only to grab advertisements, but also to advertise themselves to an alarmingly overwhelming degree, destroying the viewer’s concentration and enjoyment. The channel which has surprised me most, first with its gimmicks and then with its self-advertisement, is NDTV 24x7.

The number of times Prannoy Roy’s face is projected, from every possible angle and in rapid succession takes away, I think from his image as the unassailable No. 1 of news anchors and specialist commentators in India and of top international calibre. Prannoy Roy does not need re-selling, both his long-time fans and newcomers needing no reminder about his authority or finding any difficulty in recognising immediately the unchallenged quality of his TV performances. I recently had the occasion to interact with some older school children from good schools in an all-India debate, and found the younger generation also has sober elements who appreciate good news channels, much as they do the BBC, Discovery and National Geographic. Similarly, some of NDTV’s best newspersons, now household words in India, are too established with viewers of a certain level of sophistication and education, to have their publicity kept within reasonable limits and not keep bobbing up every few minutes at length, like the irritating way in which DD rubs in commercial ads at the expense of sporting events. With both commercial ads necessary for survival and acceptable as long as they do not interfere with programmes, and self-advertisement as well, NDTV, I fear, is cutting down the continuity of its programmes and not allowing viewers to follow them with the kind of concentration needed to appreciate them. Conceding that every channel is dependent on commercial ads and has to project its new image and also attract young viewers, one can make allowances up to a point and no more.

In the same way, I find that with every channel now trying out new backdrops, new styles of approach (not just sitting grimly at a desk a la Doordarshan) jazzy music and more and more youthful anchors, a good deal of the serious content of news has been dropped along the way. Most pathetic of all is Mumbai-based Star News Hindi, whose sweet young things and eager beaver young men seem unable to comprehend what they are reading and unable to cope with outside reporters. They look and sound like models rounded up for looks, and that does not make good newscasters. That is where Zee, Sahara and to a lesser extent Aaj Tak (apparently reaching out madly for mindless young viewers) score because they have some sort of a base of experienced reporters reading the news with comprehension as well as asking the right questions of field reporters. Star’s newscasters obviously are fed questions and cannot cope if the matter goes further than the first question.

The experiments with colour are also more distracting than newsworthy. So may I suggest to all the new and rejuvenated news channels that they put news first and glamour and youth second. They would be surprised at the hunger for serious news and newspersons careers, because there are lively channels for youth as well as the lightest of entertainment channels when they want to have fun or relaxation. They have their own slots and preferences for separating news from entertainment.

Jaspal Bhatti is someone so unique on the Indian TV scene, with his own brand of satire on many aspects of our national life, that I feel he should be left alone to do his own thing and not submit to directors and producers to re-image him. Together with his wife and a male colleague, he has built up a wounderful team who complement each other. Bhatti’s satire is far too subtle, whether it is putting up an academy for training more Bhagat Singhs for the screen or replacing trishuls with AK 47s not to speak of separation from his wife to be submitted to the dhaba style of loud humour which is not even SAB TV’s best.

School changes create behavioural problems

A new study has found that children who frequently change schools are more likely to have behavioural health problems than those who don’t. According to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, school mobility is an independent predictor of behavioural problems — regardless of one’s race, income, maternal education level or any other factor measured in the study.

About 40 per cent of children with stunted growth at the age of one were also low birth weight babies, which is often seen among low-income mothers-to-be who may not have access to prenatal care and lack proper nutrition. Overall, higher-income children had greater birth weights and were taller by age one than children from lower-income families. ANI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

For mind-development there is nothing better than restricting one's desires. — Mencius 7,2,35

The mind must be kept in repose and balance. Work done with a disturbed mind under nervous tension or forced rest taken in a nervous state of mind are both harmful for health and ultimately lead to disease. Physical work becomes less tiring if it is done with a mind at ease. Relaxation with a peaceful mind overcomes fatigue soon.

— Sudarshan Kumar Biala, Yoga for Better Living and Self Realisation.