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Tuesday,
June 10, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Advani and Ayodhya Warning signals from Talhan Weapons of embarrassment |
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Power reforms to empower people
A friend goes “away”
Girl child: God’s blessing or man’s burden?
Spanking kids
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Advani and Ayodhya The golden jubilee celebrations of the ascension of Swami Jayendra Saraswati as the Shankaracharya of Kanchi Mutt was hardly the occasion for discussing Ayodhya. The Allahabad High Court is examining the various claims about the disputed site. The Archaeological Survey of India is helping the court by excavating the site for evidence. The recent statement of some kar sevaks, who took part in the demolition of the mosque, has given a new twist to the controversy. They accused Mr L.K. Advani, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi and Ms Uma Bharati of having instigated the sevaks into demolishing the controversial structure. They used their VIP connections to subvert fair investigation of the case. The reaction of the Opposition was predictable as was the explanation of the BJP spokesman. The kar sevaks may have been used by elements that wanted to add to Mr Advani's sense of discomfiture over his name being dragged into the leadership controversy barely a week ago. But the CBI could not have been influenced into naming the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Joshi and Ms Bharati, besides other senior Sangh Parivar members in the Ayodhya-related chargesheet submitted before the special court in Rae Bareli last week. The chargesheet is more damaging than the unsubstantiated accusation of the kar sevaks. The Kanchi Shankaracharya on Sunday took the focus away from Mr Advani and his Ayodhya colleagues, but his statement in Delhi gave birth to a fresh controversy. He was quoted by a section of the media as having said that he was making an appeal on behalf of both the Hindus and the Muslims to the politicians to stay out of the Ayodhya controversy. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asserted that "Ayodhya was not for political gains". But where was the need to discuss Ayodhya? The occasion should have been used for identifying the reason for religion having becoming a set of rituals rather than a means for attaining the highest state of spiritual awakening that connects man to mankind. How can Ayodhya be delinked from politics keeping in mind its role in the resurrection of the BJP? From a purely political angle, the BJP is in a catch-22 situation. If it dumps Ayodhya, it stands the risk of losing the Hindutva votes that helped it form a coalition government at the Centre. And there is no guarantee that the Muslims will accept an Ayodhya-less BJP. As for the Shankaracharya's statement, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board denied on Monday that any Muslim organisation has promised to hand over the disputed land for the construction of the Ram temple. It wants the court to decide. Those interested in the early resolution of the dispute should keep quiet and instead demand the early disposal of all Ayodhya-related cases, including the ones involving Mr Advani and his senior party colleagues. |
Warning signals from Talhan The outbreak of communal violence that enveloped Talhan and the adjoining areas is finally on the wane, but it has left many lessons in its wake. Rather, these are warning signals which the authorities cannot afford to ignore. The most important reminder is that the communal harmony in the state is more fragile than was anticipated. The way the violence spread to the adjoining areas of Jalandhar shows that there is an undercurrent of tension among various communities. The social assimilation of castes is no more than skin deep. Deep within, it may be still as strong as it was down the centuries. This enmity should not be oversimplified as a rich-poor clash because the Dalits in the Jalandhar region are better off than those in the rest of the areas, thanks to the overseas money. Perhaps, that is one reason why they felt emboldened to give back as good as they get. But the basic driving force was the lure of the lucre rather than any exalted motives. The desire to control the huge amount of offerings that come to a samadh in the village provided the trigger for the centuries-old animosities to flare up. After that, once lumpen elements took over, it was free for all. Even that would not have caused the kind of conflagration that the region witnessed, had some self-serving persons not jumped into the fray. It is they who aggravated the volatile situation. The government needs to rein them in with an iron hand despite their political connections. The most unavoidable task before the administration is to ensure that it gets an advance warning of such convulsions. And then it must be fully geared to take preventive measures. That did not happen in the case of
Talhan. Apparently, things had been hotting up for quite some time. And yet, the administration was found wanting when the crunch came. The police intelligence is supposed to be the eyes and ears of the government. But since the police does not happen to have the necessary rapport with the public, it does not get the information in real time. The unfortunate consequence is that it responds to a crime way too late — exactly as it happens in typical Mumbai films. As a matter of abundant caution, it should be surmised that Talhan was a test case. Violence may have abated but resentment and anger remain. There can be an eruption in future, not necessarily in the same spot, but somewhere else. To make sure that such apprehensions do not come true, the government will have to learn to be more responsive. |
| Weapons of embarrassment Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction remain a constant source of embarrassment for the US and the UK. The latest on the subject is that the ousted Iraqi ruler had no WMDs to pose a serious threat to the world peace, as President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted the global community to believe. The Sunday Times of London, respected for its credibility the world over, has revealed that Saddam had a small-scale chemical and biological research programme but no WMDs nor any manufacturing facility for the purpose. The revelation is based on what an Iraqi general associated with the project has said at a time when a large contingent of experts, drawn from the US and elsewhere, has landed in Baghdad in search of the justification for the allied action. Both the Bush administration and the Blair government are under tremendous pressure from their own people to provide proof of Saddam’s
WMDs. It was used as an excuse to launch a full-scale war to bring about a regime change. After all, what they did, defying the world opinion, damaged the image of the UN considerably. It ruined a whole country with over 3000 civilians dead and a far greater number of people injured. Besides this, the avoidable war has put a question mark over the sovereignty of a country opposing the super power on any issue. President Bush misled the world by saying that the matter was too urgent to be left to the UN. Mr Blair went to the extent of declaring at one stage that an Iraqi attack on its neighbours with WMDs was possible “within 45 minutes”. But the truth is that the UN weapons inspectors led by Mr Hans Blix failed to unearth the dangerous weapons even by spending days and nights on the challenging assignment from November 2002 to a few hours before the rain of US-UK bombs and missiles began on Iraq on March 19, 2003. Mr Blix has again offered his services now when the regime of that “dangerous tyrant” is gone forever. But the allied powers have no faith in him today. The reason is that he has already given the impression that the search for Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons will be an exercise in futility. Neither Mr Blix nor anyone else is prepared to believe the argument that there is the possibility of Iraq’s WMDs having been despatched to some neighbouring country. Which regime would risk its existence by helping a ruler who was about to be dumped in the dustbin of history? Now two questions arise. Did Mr Bush and Mr Blair lie to the international community to hide their hegemonistic designs? Or did their intelligence networks let them down? Both have serious implications in an America-driven world. |
Power reforms to empower people The Tribune is to be complimented for encouraging a debate on power reforms, so crucial for the growth of Punjab. Without doubt, the debate will help evolve a consensus and prevent vested interests from hijacking governance. However, the article
"Reforming Punjab's power
sector" (May 26) by Mr M.G. Devasahayam requires special mention. It accuses the Expert Group on Power Reforms of writing a report to serve a "private agenda in the garb of public interest", stating that "a donor agency trademark could be seen on every page of the report", and that it was "got approved from senior (World) Bank functionaries at Washington". This implies that national interests were bartered to serve the agenda of foreign institutions. Such a charge is no ordinary matter. It is a matter of public record that the donor agencies had no say in the evolution of the reform strategy in Punjab. The state government has not yet approached any of these agencies for assistance. Nor is any agency contemplating such assistance. It was stated that the Expert Group report was synchronised with the passage of the Electricity Bill in Parliament. It is true that I authored the Electricity Bill, but that is history. Incumbent players had subsequently managed to distort some of the basic provisions of the Bill, and I opposed them openly. The Report of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Energy has reflected my viewpoint on the Electricity Bill. Clearly, the Expert Group report does not suffer from the flaws in the Electricity Bill. To that extent, it is more in line with the best international practices. My efforts (while serving in the Union Finance Ministry) in saving the economy from several unsustainable private power projects are no secret. Of course, this was possible only because of the support and guidance that I received from the then Finance Ministers. It is also public knowledge that I have been a vocal critic of the World Bank-assisted Orissa model that was adopted in seven other states, including Haryana. It was not my intention to burden the reader with my credentials. A healthy debate must be issue-based. But when motives are attributed, it becomes necessary to get "suspicions" out of the way, to provide comfort to the readers that this debate is in the best interest of Punjab. Coming to the basic issues, the objective of power reforms should be to provide reliable power at reasonable prices, and the consumer should be given a choice. If the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) is able to provide improved services, consumers may choose to stay with it. If not, they should have the freedom to shift to whoever gives them better services. This makes robust common sense. It is also a fundamental right of the people. On the other hand, some of the PSEB employees are opposed to open access and competition. Like all roads leading to Rome, the purpose of their arguments is to perpetuate the monopoly of the PSEB, never mind the interests of the people. Unlike the Orissa model, Punjab's reform strategy aims at demolishing the monopolistic structure of the power sector, because the creation of monopolies is an unacceptable form of government interference in the markets. It is neither conducive to consumer interests nor does it accelerate economic growth. Though the Telecom Department and Indian Airlines are better organised than the PSEB, will anyone want the return of their monopoly? A vast improvement in their services coupled with a reduction in the cost is there for everyone to see. Open access in the power sector is aimed at the same direction. That is also the way power reforms have succeeded in other countries. There seems to be a phobia in some quarters against the privatisation of the PSEB. A careful reading of the Expert Group's report (page 33) would clarify that it did not foresee privatisation in the near future. At any rate, the group did not rely on privatisation as the key to growth and welfare. Instead, it recognised competition as a critical element in the reform process. Let public sector entities compete with private companies to provide better and cheaper services to the consumer. Reforms should not perpetuate public sector monopolies. On the contrary, they should expose these entities to the pressures of competition so that they serve their master, the consumer, better. The PSEB is meant to serve the people, and not vice versa. Economic liberalisation has brought about much growth and welfare during the past decade. This was made possible by the demolition of the "licence-quota-permit raj" that had enabled a handful of people to exploit the millions. The power sector, however, continues to represent the worst form of the licence raj. A producer of power can sell his produce only to a state-owned SEB. He cannot sell directly to anyone else. Why should a free society compel every producer to sell his produce to the state alone? On the other hand, the SEBs are virtually bankrupt, and thus unable to buy power from private producers. Moreover, when the SEBs manage to sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) with private entities, the role of corruption in raising power costs assumes significance. Given the present structure of the PSEB, it should be little wonder that three lakh farmers in Punjab are waiting for an electricity connection while the eight lakh who have connections do not get electricity for more than eight hours a day. Why should an advanced state like Punjab, with its enterprising people, continue to suffer such a plight? This is not the making of the people. This has been imposed on them by incumbent functionaries who wish to perpetuate their stranglehold over this vast empire called the power sector. There seem to be reservations in some quarters about World Bank assistance for financing power reforms. Is it the suggestion that Punjab should deny to itself a source of concessional finance? It should be obvious that Punjab needs to maximise investments as long as they support its own strategy of reforms. Opponents of reform fear tariff increases as an outcome of it. That would indeed be the case if monopolies continue to rule the roost, be it in the form of the SEBs or their corporatised successors. For example, some employee associations of the PSEB have been demanding a sharp increase in tariffs. On the other hand, little is being done to reduce T&D losses of 38 units for every 100 units sold. Competition could fundamentally change the present scenario. There would be efficiency improvements and cost reduction too. The Expert Group has recommended that any tariff hikes should be commensurate with an improvement in services (page 97) and that farmers and low-income households should continue to be subsidised, though with sharper targeting (page 58). The message is simple and clear. Power reforms in Punjab are aimed at improving the lot of the people. The reforms will arm people with a choice and ensure better supply at cheaper rates. That indeed is the burden of the Expert Group’s report, available on the Punjab Government’s website for anyone to see. |
A friend goes “away” Where people love to glorify pain and problems Usha was one person who exuded warmth and zest for life. I remember the first time I met her. She was standing among scores of mothers in front of the KG class of my son and I was immediately arrested by her tinkling laughter and twinkling eyes. Befriending her was not difficult as her infectious vivacity enveloped everyone into her fold. Blessed with a nice husband and two lovely children and all the comforts of life, she was one of those fortunate persons who could not have asked for more, and she didn’t. But beneath her role as a contented housewife was a woman wanting to reach out and extend her horizons. It was, thus, just a matter of time that she landed up with a job. Time flowed and we were both busy in our own little worlds. Then last summer, I was surprised to see her looking pale and with a scarf on her head. ‘‘Something was wrong, but now everything is fine’’, she said nonchalantly that day and I was shocked to know from her a day later that she had been diagnosed with having cancer and had also undergone a surgery. ‘‘I’ve told my husband that I’m not going anywhere for the next 45 years’’, she declared in her characteristic giggly tone as if almost daring to defy fate. I had often suggested that she motivate other patients, but little did I know that whom I saw as a ambassador of hope was herself fighting a lost battle. For a while, everything went on well , and it seemed that she was well on the road to recovery. But the silent killer was spreading its tentacles within her even as she kept on putting a brave front dismissing minor problems. It was so characteristic of her to invite friends over and I was touched to see ‘‘for friendship’’ written on the cake that she served us on one such visit. ‘‘We shall plan some outing with kids’’ were her parting words as I left her looking graceful as ever in her closely cropped hair style. Little did I know that it was the last time that I will see her in that shape. ‘‘She is very ill and in hospital’’, told a common friend. I could feel the pain of her family, to see a cherished one slip out of your hands each moment is a torture beyond comprehension. My failure to see her in her last days will be a lifelong regret. But the very thought of seeing her losing the battle of life made me dither. This fighter finally gave in last week, but her resilience and the will to live is what makes her a lesson for several others like her. As someone said ‘‘the most important lessons of life are learnt from failures rather than from success.’’ Thanks Usha for being a good friend and for being there. |
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Girl child: God’s blessing or man’s burden? It is generally believed that in the lower middle class, people practise female foeticide because of their inability to educate, bring up and marry off their daughters during these days of soaring prices. But if we do an impartial evaluation of our day-to-day social life, we will know that even the rich families have not lagged behind in indulging in this evil practice. They have better means to get ultrasound done and they do not want the girls to spend and share the ancestral property. In our society the individual personality of a woman never develops properly throughout her life. In this male-dominated society she is often known as a father’s daughter, a brother’s sister and after marriage as a man’s wife. Perhaps this stone-hearted society never recognises her individual merits, the achievements of Mother Teresa, Jhansi ki Rani, Mai Bhago, Amrita Pritam, Lata Mangeshkar, Kiran Bedi, P.T. Usha, Barkha Dutt and Kalpana Chawla notwithstanding. In famous ancient love-tales like Heer-Ranjha, Sassi-Punnu, Sohni-Mahiwal, Shiri-Farhad and also in notable godly couples like Sita-Ram, Radha-Krishna, the name of the female is invariably placed before the name of the male. There are many experienced and well-educated persons who argue that in order to curb this evil, strict laws should be enacted to punish parents, doctors etc. who take part in female foeticide. But there are many harsh laws against murder, theft, deception and rape, yet there is no let-up in such crimes. Those who wilfully break laws, many a time go scot-free with the help of various interpretations of the law. It cannot be denied that strict laws against female foeticide are needed, but more important than this is to bring a change in the minds of the masses so that they behave more decently with women. If state governments, social organisations, educational institutions, policy-makers and all educated people unitedly oppose female foeticide and propagate equality between boys and girls, then we can get rid of this evil practice. This herculean task should not be left to the Social Welfare Department of the Punjab Government, the Punjab State Women Commission and the police and civil officials of the state. Rather, every citizen should take up cudgels to eliminate this evil practice. Whenever he/she finds any such incident in his/her house, neighbourhood, village, city and among relations and acquaintances, he/she must get a report registered with the nearest police station. In order to avoid things going from bad to worse, all the means of publicity and communication should be used to start a special campaign to highlight every such evil deed so that the people come to know that it is the worst crime. Newspapers, TV channels and magazines should take up this issue in an appropriate manner. It will be more beneficial if modern novelists, playwrights, prose-writers and poets make this contemptuous practice the subject matter of their creations. This will help change the narrow-mindedness of our people. Woman is, indeed, a blessing and not a curse. She is not only the pivot of human life but also an equal partner of man in making human life flourish and progress. Shiv Kumar Batalvi, a Punjabi lyricist, in his epoch making book Loona, has rightly said: “Whatever is beautiful on earth/ a woman is behind that/Whatever famous is produced/ a woman’s hand is there in that/A woman is herself a goddess/ Third eye of every forehead/ Woman is a poet of our land/ Future of humanity is in her hand”. The writer is the Director, Public Relations, Punjab Government |
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Economically rich, socially poor Twins are born to a couple in a village in Fatehgarh Sahib district having the lowest sex ratio in Punjab. The male child is named Labh (profit) Singh and the female Ayi Gayi (come on her own, will go away on her own, uncared). Labh Singh is breast-fed, while Ayi Gayi is given cow milk contrary to World Health Organisation norms. This was discovered by a researcher working on the infant mortality rate (IMR) who visited the village for a study. A couple blessed with a triplet in Chandigarh threatened to go to court against a doctor who had allegedly informed them that all the three foetuses were males, but one of them later turned out to be a female. “Corbusier’s Chandigarh may be different from others, but societal attitudes here are the same as in Punjab,” says an expert when asked to explain the reasons behind a relatively higher IMR in the city. If the data from the Death and Birth Department, which reflects cases reaching hospitals from the entire region, are to be taken into account, the picture becomes worse, he adds. The bias against the females can be noticed in the registration of a high IMR at 24 per 1,000 in Chandigarh despite having the best medical facilities in the country according to its size. The high IMR reflected in Chandigarh is baffling as indicators like the rate of literacy, female literacy, the nutrition level, medical facilities, safe drinking water, sanitation, income and expenditure levels and hygiene speak volumes of the quality of life comparably better than that in Kerala, which has the best record of 11 infant deaths per 1,000. Experts here feel a high IMR is witnessed in Delhi also at 28 per thousand which is again more than expected. But with 3.3 lakh people of the city living in slums with no facility for answering the call of nature, Chandigarh could not have achieved an ideal IMR at 8 per 1,000 found in the Scandinavian countries. One possible reason for a high infant mortality rate can be the skewed income distribution between the top 20 per cent and the bottom 40 per cent in the region, which has a high per capita income in the country. Those at the low end do not have a solid backing of health care institutions. The city is only next to Delhi in the population density and has a 41 per cent decadal growth in population, indicating it has been attracting a large number of migrants, mostly labourers. But has the investment in healthcare been commensurate with the growth in the population to make medical facilities widely accessible, which Kerala has successfully done? If the data of Punjab is taken as a base for a regional analysis of IMR seen in Chandigarh, some explanation for Chandigarh having a more than double the IMR at 24 per 1,000 against the 11 of Kerala can be found, at least to gauge its attitudinal moorings. The Planning Commission’s Punjab Development Report, as per the 1998 Sample Registration System bulletin finds disparity between male and female children at every stage of of life. Experts say the pre-natal care of hospital support and nutrition of the mother are important factors for the survival of an infant within 28 days of its birth. Two-thirds of the deaths of infants occur during this period and the health of the mother is the most important factor in this period. However, a rising preference of figure-conscious mothers in the urban areas to avoid breast-feeding deprives their newborns necessary nutrients, which makes them vulnerable. It needs to be analysed as to why the economic development in the region reflected in the higher per capita income of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh has not resulted in a better social development as seen through the high infant mortality rate. There is also a need to understand whether the slowdown in the economic growth at 4.7 per cent during the last decade in Punjab against a national average of 6.9 per cent had any impact on the people spending less on healthcare and nutrition when they are financially tight. With pneumonia alone accounting for 25 per cent of the deaths of infants, better respiratory care is required. This facility is not available in the entire region except the PGI. Around 37.5 per cent of births in Punjab take place in hospitals, only 22.4 per cent in Haryana, 28. 9 in Himachal and 35.6 in Jammu and Kashmir as per the 1998 data provided by the Punjab Development Report. This is in stark contrast to an average 70 per cent institutional (under medical care) births in the southern Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which have a much better record in IMR and are now becoming growth engines of the economy, apparently by producing healthy human resources.
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Spanking kids Spanking your child makes you either a criminal or the model of parental responsibility, according to arguments made before the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday last. A Toronto-based foundation is challenging the law that allows parents and teachers to exercise “reasonable” force to correct a child. The group, the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law argued that the protection for parents and teachers — enshrined in Section 43 of the Criminal Code — should be struck down as unconstitutional, since it means children do not have the same protection as adults. “Hitting children for whatever reason is a bad thing,” Paul Shabas, lawyer for the foundation told the court. “It violates their dignity. It violates their bodily integrity.” If the provision were struck down, parents who spanked their kids could face a conviction for assault, a crime that carries penalties of up to five years in prison. “Here we are, taxpayers, funding this group in order for them to in essence make criminals out of a large number of Canadian parents,” said Derek Rogusky of Focus on the Family Canada, a conservative parents group that is part of a coalition that intervened in the case. “In 99.9 per cent of the cases, the state cannot do the same good job that loving parents can do when it comes to issues of discipline.” Funding for the case came as part of the government’s Court Challenges Programme, meant to advance equality rights, but it did not stop Ottawa from defending the law that allows spanking and declaring that spanking did not amount to child abuse. “Society has an important stake in the responsibility of parents to educate and nurture their children,” Roslyn Levine argued for the government. She pointed out that two lower-court judgements, which upheld the right to spank, said there was no definitive link established between spanking and harm to the child. An Angus Reid poll of Canadians in 1999, when the current case was first launched in an Ontario court, found 83 per cent opposition to criminalising spanking. The case does not centre on any specific incident, but the issue of spanking did hit the news in Ontario in 2001 when social workers seized seven children from a conservative evangelical family that used corporal punishment. The children were returned to their home in about a month and the parents escaped criminal penalties because of Section 43, but the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies joined in asking for law to be struck down. Justice Charles Gonthier worried about a chilling effect on parents if they had no legal protection. “Doesn’t the fundamental rights of the child include the idea that he be raised, cared for disciplined... and normally by his parents rather than the state?” he asked. Reuters |
Perfect enjoyment is to be without enjoyment; the highest praise is to be without praise. — Chuang Tzu Do good, you will find good. — Moorish proverb |
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If we have a glimpse of our social life then we feel that despite the spread of education and advancement of science and technology in the 21st century, man has become very clever and cunning in his daily deeds. Being very selfish and narrow-minded, he considers his own daughter a burden. Therefore, on the birth of a son, he distributes sweets. The news of a daughter’s birth is like the falling of a thunderbolt on him and he finds the burden unbearable. The atmosphere in the house becomes gloomy as if some calamity has taken place. He feels as if a daughter will lessen his property and make him feel low in society. Because of this narrow thinking, particularly in Punjab, female foeticide has become a common practice now. No doubt, man has touched heights of excellence in the field of science and technology, but the invention of ultrasonic machines has taken him far behind his times.