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Saturday,
June 14, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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A fulfilling trip Resolve through dialogue Trouble at Talhan |
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Elementary education for all
Bush and Blair WMDS
Advani sews up strategic partnership
Akali unity outcome of mutual compulsions
Indian rhythms
in Singapore
Cameron Dueck
SIGHT & SOUND
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A fulfilling trip It will be juvenile on the part of the BJP cadre if they hold felicitation meetings when Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani returns from his two-nation tour but it is a fact that the vital US leg has been quite fulfilling. The trip was meant to be an exercise to position India as an emerging global power and Mr Advani indeed played that role competently. Despite attempts to the contrary, Pakistan dominated the proceedings. India’s allegation that it was the epicentre of terrorism was not just a reiteration of earlier such regular entreaties for two reasons. One, the high-level delegation accompanying the Deputy Prime Minister carried with it irrefutable proof of its involvement. Two, some US experts too have described Pakistan in a similar language recently. Even otherwise, now that the US has suffered the pain of terrorists’ brutality, it is more responsive to India’s plea. That is why Mr Advani was able to put his message across forcefully, eliciting a positive response from President Bush. That does not mean that Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf will be reprimanded quite as severely as some in India believe when he visits the USA shortly, but he will surely have quite a bit of explaining to do - and maybe also some course correction. Hard-boiled international negotiators do not go about doing their Boy Scout quota of good deeds every morning unless there is a convergence of interests and the element of quid pro quo comes into the picture. The US is none too keen to pose the uncomfortable terrorism question to Islamabad but at the same time it desperately wants India to send its troops to Iraq. After all, it is rattled by the body bags that have started coming back to the US. Mr Advani knew this well and used the card diligently, without committing anything. Just as there have been many behind-the-scene parleys during his US visit, there will be meetings with other parties once he returns and perhaps he will be able to explain to the opposition the pros and cons of sending the troops so that a consensus can be developed. In fact, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has already taken the initiative for a meeting with Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi to discuss the issue. Even without the “Lauh Purush” controversy fanned by BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, Mr Advani enjoys the image of being a hawk. But while in the US, he tried to steer clear of the stereotype. He not only refrained from making any pro-Hindu utterances (remember Mr Vajpayee’s “I am a swayamsevak first” remark?) but also carefully avoided saying anything hawkish. Here was a conscious attempt to conduct himself like a world statesman. Deliberately or otherwise, he has underlined the fact that he is a moderate who can be depended on to follow a secular policy as and when he gets the baton. |
| Resolve through dialogue Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s recent remark that ‘India is in a problem-solving phase’ indicates his willingness to look at old problems with a fresh mind and try out different options in an attempt to solve them. It is too early to say whether Mr Vajpayee himself or his colleagues within the party and outside it will have the resolve and the tenacity to hammer out solutions, but the intent is noteworthy. An expression of this intent, perhaps, was Swami Jayendra Saraswati’s visit to Lucknow last week to meet the Shia Muslim cleric, Kalbe
Sadiq, and seek his support for the Triveni Plan. The plan reportedly envisages a compromise on the Ayodhya issue. Kalbe Sadiq apparently found some substance in what the Shankaracharya of Kanchi had to offer and, consequently, quit the hardline Babri Masjid Action Committee. By taking this decision, he signalled to other Muslim leaders that an honourable exit from the imbroglio could only be through a policy of give and take. This is not the first time that peace overtures have been made and an effort has been initiated to start a Hindu-Muslim dialogue on Ayodhya. A number of attempts have been made in the past, including those initiated by the
Shankaracharya. Unfortunately, each one of them failed to take off. But this time round, it appears that the first step has been successfully taken. Mr Vajpayee is obviously the man who has the highest political stake in finding a way out of the vexed issue. But for others too it is clear that if direct confrontation is to be avoided between the two communities, an out-of-court settlement is the only option available. The Babri Masjid panel maintains that it will accept the court’s verdict. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its various affiliates are not prepared to accept the verdict if it is not favourable to them. Hence, there are apprehensions on both sides. The building of the Ram Mandir or the restoration of the demolished Babri Masjid is a highly emotive issue which can veer out of control of those who are leading their respective communities. It is thus essential that the disputants should enter into a deal that leaves them satisfied to the greatest extent possible. Moreover, they should also have the opportunity to participate in the resolution of the problem so that they are bound by the settlement clauses. The Shankaracharya and Kalbe Sadiq would be moving in the right direction if they devise a process for dialogue that is not only transparent and fair but also seems so. This is an essential confidence-building measure on which will rest the foundation of a constructive dialogue on Ayodhya. |
Trouble at Talhan Talhan has been dominating the headlines. The village in which the Dalits are an overwhelming majority has had a long history of communal harmony, which has been vitiated because of rising tensions about the administration of the local shrine. There are various threads in this tangle and unravelling it will, no doubt, be tough. Though the Dalits are in a majority, yet the land is largely in the hands of the
Jats, who have traditionally been the land-owning class. Largely due to the migration of the village youth to foreign lands, the people in the area are relatively well off. When incomes rise, so does the feeling that one must assert oneself socially, which is where the current controversy concerning the shrine, called Gurdwara
Shaheedan, comes in. The Jats have been handling the administration of the shrine, and there is no doubt about the genuineness of the grievance of the Dalits, who have been denied any role in the administration of the
samadh-cum-gurdwara, which has so far not had any Dalit members. This led to conflict a few years ago, and the Dalits took the matter to court and even floated a parallel management committee. They have been facing a social boycott since then. This, of course, complicated the situation further. As matters stand today, the Punjab Government has appointed a receiver, pending the resolution of the conflict between the two communities. The shrine has been ringed by a police force, and it has a number of persons in it, who are not letting the police into the building. Life in the village is at a standstill ever since curfew was first imposed there on June 6. There have been various clashes between the Jats and the Dalits, and the police force there has not been able to keep the situation totally under control. Violence has further exacerbated the tensions in the community. That this is the first major caste clash in the state in decades is also a matter of grave concern. It is obvious that the matter has to be resolved by the local community where members have to live with one another. The appointment of a receiver during such a dispute can only be seen as a fire-fighting measure, since for the Sikhs, any gurdwara under siege by the police will cause disquiet. The government has failed to redress the situation in spite of having intervened earlier. Sincere and effective measures have to be taken to address the issue and prevent further divisions in the social fabric of the state. The problem will become more intractable if it is not resolved immediately. |
Elementary education for all It did not make the news, as is the fate of many things that matter far more than so much trivia that catches the headlines. A Press Information Bureau release dated May 29 announced that Himachal Pradesh now had only 8000 children out of school and would attain the constitutional goal of universalisation of elementary education (UEE) with the reopening of schools next month. This is a great and welcome achievement and places Himachal in the vanguard of social development in India. It also strikes a powerful blow for women’s empowerment. Himachal is made up of many erstwhile princely states tucked in the folds of the Himalaya. How this sequestered region has virtually accomplished UEE appears worthy of a careful case study that could illuminate the path for others. Geography does not favour mountain people. Access is not easy because of the terrain and harsh climate, with hamlets scattered across remote valleys and isolated ridges. Nor did Himachal inherit a head start in social development as did, say Kerala, on account of the vision of enlightened rulers and a long tradition of tradition of social reform across communities. There are obviously lessons to be learnt. The State is being supported by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan — launched in 2000 with the aim of promoting UEE — and aims to get Scheduled Caste and Tribe children, especially girls, to regular schools, education guarantee centres and bridge courses during the ensuing academic year. Haryana, next door, has 200,000 children out of school in the age group 6-11 and 150,000 children in the age group 11-14. It is now concentrating on making an educational dent in the backward Mewat tract in Gurgaon district next door to Delhi. India shamefully has the largest number of illiterates in the world, with an overall literacy ratio of 65.35 per cent in 2001 (54.16 per cent for women). The bulk of the illiterates are in the Hindi heartland or one-time BIMARU states, from which Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are beginning to exit, leaving Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at the bottom of the heap. The 10th Plan document estimates that 40 million children in the 6-14 age group are out of school, the vast majority of them from among the Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes, and preponderantly girls. But the lower primary dropout rate was placed at 40.3 per cent in 2000, representing a huge wastage. The challenge remains as before: access, quality, retention. The world took a pledge at Jomtien to attain education for all in 1990. The 10th Plan expects India will achieve this at the lower primary level by 2007 and the upper primary level by 2010, that is 50 years after the Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution that this should be accomplished by 1960. Access is measured in terms of provision of a primary school within a kilometre of any hamlet with a population of 300 and an upper primary school within a radius of 3 km from any village with a population of 500. Many efforts have been made to improve the school infrastructure: Operation Blackboard in 1988; the District Primary Education Project with international funding for backwards areas; Mahila Samakhya, targeting the girl child and women’s empowerment in five states; and now the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Some states have run special programmes (an Education Guarantee in Madhya Pradesh and Lok Jumbish and Shiksha Karmi in Rajasthan). The midday meal programme was expanded and in 2001 over 107 million children were receiving either cooked meals or take-home rations. The Supreme Court has now ordered that cooked meals be provided in all cases as an incentive to attendance and retention in school and as a nutrition supplement. Unfortunately, the scheme has got entangled in red tape. The dark side of fraud and incompetence in the delivery of primary education was vividly brought out in the PROBE report some years ago. May be things are beginning to look up. NGOs have taken a lead in some areas. One such, Pratham, started from Mumbai and is now operating in other States. Its experience in Delhi indicates that the outskirts of the Capital attract hordes of impoverished migrants form the country’s poverty belt. These jhuggi-jhonpri colonies are under-schooled and exhibit a poor pupil-teacher ratio. The social indices in these shanty towns are by some estimates no better than those of the worst BIMARU states. Pratham, in collaboration with the Delhi State and Municipal authorities, has launched a summer holiday package of bridge and remedial courses and an innovative “Padho Delhi” drive that is calculated to enable children to read within six weeks. This reading ability is expected to enhance enrollment and retention in regular schools and enable these new school entrants to absorb lessons more easily. Many concerned citizens rightly argue that while it is no doubt important to get children to school, the social values and quality of education imparted are critically important.Access is often related to poverty and social distance. These factor cannot be ignored and UEE or education as such is not to be treated as a mechanical process of rote learning or the instlling of values that are inimical to rational thinking and narrow the mind. Hence the need for teacher training, better text books, enrichment, character building and emphasis on the ideals of good citizenship. The country has given itself the goal of becoming a developed nation — whatever that means — by 2020. For this to happen, gaping infrastructural lags will have to be made good, not least in terms of social infrastructure. Education is the key to realising the promise of the Preamble to the Constitution. That is why Himachal’s great leap forward is so encouraging and coversely, the falure to acknowledge and applaud that milestone so disappointing. |
Bush and Blair WMDS An enterprising unemployed youth from Bihar is about to become the entrepreneur of the century. All he has done is set up a small shop called “Bush and Blair WMDS” in one of the crowded bylanes of Patna. The cash register hasn’t stopped ringing. To ask how a seemingly simple Bihari got this brainwave is like asking a genius how he became a genius. That extra something is what makes the average Bihari stand out in a country of one billion struggling individuals. Bush and Blair are about to make this enterprising young man from Laloo land the first “balti billionaire” of the world. Bihar is not America where India is still a land of snake charmers and wily fakirs doing the rope-trick. Ask a Bihari what WMD stands for and he will tell you that the Bush and Blair shop down the road produces them according to individual specifications. Remember Laloo’s lathi rally? The entire project was the brainwave of this budding entrepreneur. In the popular mind the lathi is associated with Mahatma Gandhi. Any weapon in Gandhi’s hand had the habit of turning violently non-violent. A million-strong lathi rally meant a million-strong movement for shanti. Every project must have a hidden agenda for it to work. The entrepreneur’s agenda was simply marvellous. It earned him a personal hug from Laloo, plus an order for one million well oiled lathis at the rate of Rs 10 per piece. What made the supremo of Bihar jump with joy was the exposition of how the peaceful lathi would prove more than a match for “Togadia-Phogadia’s” trishul in the event of war and peace, secularism and communalism, coming face-to-face on the streets of Bihar? Bihar’s first Bill Gate-in-the-making — Azim Premji is too small for him — has since expanded his WMD industry, by including a range of potentially more lethal weapons than the lathi in his range of custom-made or over-the-counter products. He has now set up sales outlets in all parts of the country. Yes, the lathi-money was wisely invested to expand an enterprise that was bound to flourish. Bush and Blair are now brand names that turn any illegal act into a mission of mercy. With their names providing the value addition his business could only go up and up and up. Noticing the chaos at his outlets the youth from Bihar has now streamlined his business operations. Harvard graduates could not have done better. The mornings are reserved for married women. Yup, in these bad times who doesn’t need WMDs for self-protection? The ladies are handed over neatly done packets for a small sum of money. No questions are asked. The women have evolved a code of honour not to squeal. All that they share are notes on how to cheat and still keep your pati parmeshwar happy. The instructions in Hindi on the packet clearly state that it should be left open within arms length during cheating sessions. In the event of the unscheduled early return of parmeshwar from office throw the contents of the packet in his eyes before he can blink. This will give you time to destroy all signs of trespass and violation of the wedding vows. This WMD is called “ankh ki dhool”. Young girls line up in the afternoons, before going for those “special coaching classes”, at the outlets for their daily quota of red chili powder. It is specially laced to blind potential rapists and molesters. It is a multipurpose weapon of mass destruction. In the event of being caught two-timing smart lasses use it to blind both and run into the arms of the third one waiting behind the bush. A bird in the bush is better than the two fighting chili-induced blindness. It is called “mirch masala”. There is a secret entrance at most outlets for men who do not want their hatred for gender equality to become public. They buy rats, roaches and lizards at wholesale rates. These WMDs are then distributed among the network of volunteers, who make a decent living by letting loose these weapons at public rallies or private meetings where women gather to discuss their rights. These weapons are called “bluster busters”. Usually reliable sources have reported that the Bihari entrepreneur has received orders for bulk supply of the WMDs to Iraq. He has decided not to charge anything as an expression of gratitude to Bush and Blair. |
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Advani sews up strategic partnership CHICAGO: The basic purpose of the current visit of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L K Advani, to the USA is to tightly weave together the political, economic and military relationship between the two countries into a “strategic partnership”. The fulfilment of this purpose will, apparently, have far-reaching positive consequences, worldwide. Despite the fact that the two countries may continue to agree to disagree on certain issues, like perceptions on the role of Pakistan in pursuing terrorism as a “state policy” or sending jehadis across the Indian borders or deployment of Indian troops to Iraq, India-US partnership is clearly to stay, as the two democracies are natural allies. Mr Advani has repeatedly said that his visit was not “Pakistan-centric” and there was tremendous scope and potential for India and the US to together explore new economic horizons and harness human, natural and knowledge resources to overcome old challenges, namely eradication of poverty, diseases and human suffering. This means more of cross-investment between the two countries. His address at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council gave a resume of India’s economic profile. In this backdrop, the timing of the visit of Mr Advani is as “strategic”, as is the “strategic partnership” that he has sought during his meetings with the US leaders in Washington. The visit has been planned prior to that of Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf. The two countries are now out to forge this partnership in the wake of September 11 and December 13 “attacks” in the US and India, followed by “liberation” of Afghanistan and Iraq. The US cannot combat terrorism alone and global coalition against this menace is imperative. That is one reason that the US is seeking deployment of multinational troops in Iraq to maintain peace. The Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, was keen on India saying “yes” to its request but Mr Advani stuck to the official position. He has promised to consider all aspects in the light of the UN resolution on this and more so in the context of India’s good relations with Iraq. In other words, Mr Advani has conveyed that India takes its own decisions. The US experience in Afghanistan is that Al-Quaida activists have either been caught or have crossed the mountains into Pakistan. Though chased out, like the seeds blowing in the winds, these activists are sure to replant elsewhere. This is why worldwide strategic partnerships between different countries and democracies, like the one Mr Advani is seeking between India and the US, becomes all the more important. This is despite the fact that there is no level of political decision-making higher than national level. Seen in this context Mr Advani has succinctly conveyed India’s point of view on bilateral, regional and international issues to the US. This visit has also sent a clear message to the US that back home there is political stability and no crisis of leadership between him and the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, vis-a-vis national issues or the running of the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP. It is generally perceived that Mr Advani is a ‘hawk” when it comes to pursuing state policy on Pakistan and also that it was his “hard” stance that did not allow Agra talks between India and Pakistan to make the desired headway then. However, from what Mr Advani has stated in his interaction with the media and to the Indian community, it is clear that he has brought with him a roadmap, which has been jointly prepared by him and Mr Vajpayee. In fact, the initiative India has taken makes Mr Advani “hopeful” of results showing, provided US ensures that Gen Musharraf fulfils his commitments made to it and the international community in eradicating terrorism from its soil. He had described Pakistan as the “epicentre” of international terrorism in his Los Angeles address. Mr Advani has gone across the US to interact with the Indian community and convey emphatically that India is a strong nation capable of taking care of its own security and defend itself against cross-border terrorism. He has given a stern message to Pakistan to give up “futile path” of confrontation with India. Therefore, there is an apparent attempt on the part of the US at “softening the ground” vis-a-vis Mr Advani, thereby, acknowledging that he does “plain and straight forward” talk on India’s internal security. To the American Indian communities at Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago, the message was that unlike Pakistan, which opted for a “theocratic” state, India has remained a “secular democracy”, where there is tremendous tolerance and respect for all religions and opinions. For instance in Los Angeles, an area where people are a trading community, he wanted the American Indians to serve their parent nation as well. “After all, you people have made South California ninth largest economy in the world. There is tremendous appreciation for you from President George Bush”. If one may add, the present visit of Mr Advani may make the US revise its strategies and approach to Pakistan vis-a-vis India under the given circumstances. Its soft corner for Gen Musharraf is known, but it will now have better appreciation of India. The writer, The Tribune Bureau Chief, is accompanying the Deputy Prime Minister on his two-nation tour. |
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Akali unity outcome of mutual compulsions To understand the implications of the Badal-Tohra rapprochement, it is important to recall the currents of Akali politics since the assassination of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal. During the whole turmoil that ensued only three prominent Akali leaders — Mr Parkash Singh Badal, Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Mr Surjit Singh Barnala — have shown themselves to be the real power contenders. Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, who succeeded Sant Harchand Singh Longowal as the President of the Shiromani Akali Dal became the Chief Minister of Punjab from 1985 to 1987, twice a minister in the Union Cabinet and three times a Governor. Mr Barnala, who was involved in the signing of the
Rajiv-Longowal accord, failed to get it implemented. Being Chief Minister of Punjab, it was his commitment to get the Rajiv-Longowal accord implemented. He was advised by his close friends and advisers to resign from the Chief Ministership of Punjab when the Congress government at the Centre dilly-dallied in the implementation of the accord but he stuck to the chair. Mr Parkash Singh Badal remained Chief Minister of Punjab for three times. Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra has held the reins of the SGPC for 25 years with a reasonably good record of handling gurdwara affairs. Mr Jagdev Singh Talwandi, a traditional Akali leader, has not been able to pull on well with his colleagues for various reasons. He proved his leadership with a short stint as President of the SGPC, but he lacks vision. Mr Simranjit Singh Mann, a former IPS officer, is also a product of the post-Sant Longowal period. He got a massive mandate in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections from the mainstream, but he failed to avail himself of the opportunity of serving the Sikh community and got embroiled in the controversy of taking the sword inside Parliament House. Mr Mann is now trying to make amends and has succeeded in creating a place for himself in Parliament. The positive work done by Mr Badal at the tercentenary of the birth of the Khalsa got clouded by the factional fight. The refusal of Mr Badal to accept the “hukamnama” issued by the then Akal Takht Jathedar, Bhai Ranjit Singh, for a 15-day truce, led him to appear at the Akal Takht on June 5. As a matter of fact, the Badal-Tohra rapprochement is the outcome of compulsions of both sides. Mr Tohra was able to organise his group up to the village level after separation from Mr Badal but he was never able to win allies, who never gave him the status of a leader. But the fact remained that Mr Tohra was the only leader which Mr Badal had to reckon with. The election results of the 2002 Vidhan Sabha poll have put both factions to introspection. Mr Baranala had predicted that Mr Tohra could adversely affect 36 seats and he did not prove wrong. The followers of both factions were feeling the pain of the situation. They got an opportunity when Mr Tohra became sick. Mr Tohra has given the impression of being exhausted. On the other hand, Mr Badal has been desperate because of the fear of prosecution by the Amarinder Singh government. He is unable to defend his colleagues, who have been his ministers. The charge of harbouring corrupt people is too big a scar to be erased easily. His friends at the Centre were unable to do much in this regard. So he had to respond to some of his well-wishers’ advice to make amends with Mr Tohra. With the achievement of unity, many organisational matters remain to be settled and several important people on both sides will have to show magnanimity to accommodate other factional leaders. Mr Simranjit Singh Mann thinks that he continues to represent those who fought and perished for the Khalsa Panth. He finds himself in the vanguard of those who offered to sacrifice themselves in the black days of the Congress persecution. His incarceration for a long time still carries an aura of sacrifice. But he fails to understand the ground realities. He has not been able to dominate the Sikh mainstream. It is yet to be seen how far this unity of the Akali factions will prove beneficial to the Sikhs. The unity of the Akali factions will surely have its implications in so far as the Congress government in Punjab is concerned. The Akalis can no longer be beaten with the corruption stick. Perhaps the phase is over. |
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Indian rhythms in Singapore Cameron Dueck It is Sunday afternoon, and the sweet scent of jasmine wafts over the crowds wandering down Serangoon Road as they shop and dine in the heart of Singapore’s colourful precinct of Little India. Street stalls sell flower garlands and fruit as worshippers crowd the three Hindu temples along the landmark street, imparting an ambiance hard to find in other parts of the orderly, modern city. “I feel like I am in Chennai, or in Delhi or Bangalore,” said N. Charumathy, principal of a dance and music school, the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society, located in Little India. Women in bright saris and young male labourers chat in Hindi, Tamil and other South Asian tongues, as they stop for spicy curry and tandoori dishes at one of the restaurants lining the street in the Chinese-dominated island state. The South Asians who flock to Serangoon Road at weekends are as diverse as the sub-continent itself, but many of them share the common bond of Hinduism and the traditions of music and dance integral to the religion. “There is always music and dance, we can’t do without it,” said Srivathsan, a volunteer with the Temple of Fine Arts, a community organisation that teaches and promotes Indian arts. “In Singapore, there are so many Western influences and such a Chinese majority, we have to preserve some of our culture if someday we want to know where we came from and who we are,” Srivathsan said. About eight percent of Singapore’s four million residents are of Indian descent. Organisations such as Srivathsan’s and Charumathy’s are an important part of bringing those people together and keeping their culture alive. In each classroom at Charumathy’s arts society, housed in an old school building, is a young Indian practicing to master the arts that have defined the culture for thousands of years. Behind one door, a girl with brow knit in concentration as her feet thump the polished floor, practices Indian dance steps while an instructor taps out a rhythm with a wooden stick. In another room, a young man sits cross-legged on a carpet, his hands a blur as he extracts an intricate beat from a pakhawaj, or double-headed drum. His instructor keeps rhythm by slapping his knee and reciting the melodic scales of Indian classical music. Stacey Tan, director for Arts Capability Development at Singapore’s government-funded National Arts Council, said the organisation of the Indian arts scene sets it apart from other ethnic groups, putting children into training at a young age with structured tests and diplomas. “To them it’s a very big part of their culture and traditions to take instruction in an art form at an early age, and in that aspect they are are bit stronger than you would see in some of the other cultures here,” Tan said. Nawaz Mirajkar left India in 1996 to play and teach the tabla in Singapore, carrying on a craft mastered by his father and grandfather. He said young musicians in Singapore are adapting the ancient forms of music to attract a more contemporary audience. Nawaz, who at one time held the world record for longest continuous drumming — 27 hours and 45 minutes — has combined Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Malay percussion in performances. “By maintaining our Indian tastes, and using that in a kind of fusion, we can introduce some new rhythms and then draw them into classical music,” he said.
Reuters
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SIGHT & SOUND With the severe competition going on between the new news channels, all sorts of slots, not necessarily connected with hot news, are popping up on the small screen. There are entire slots on crime, for instance and perhaps more importantly for the common viewer, slots on medicine and connected topics. Aaj Tak has always had a small slot for medicine and now NDTV English has a whole afternoon slot devoted to particular ailments with reputed doctors answering questions from viewers. Last week, for instance there was a session on rheumatoid arthritis and, earlier on, heart diseases. Some of the doctors such as Dr Samiran. Nundee, are already TV personalities, and very assured and relaxed. The women doctors, I am sorry to say, mostly come grossly over-dressed and over made-up which takes away from their professional dignity. Surely the producers should give them an advance hint that they should look like normal doctors on normal hospital duty and not their concept of TV stars. My women doctors dress simply but elegantly on duty but never ostentatiously. Somehow, TV seems to bring out the worst form of dress sense in specialists. Zee, on the other hand has done a ruthless expose on adulteration of medicines and, even more dangerously, on non-qualified people selling and dispensing medicines without a licence and without the mandatory presence of a qualified and licensed pharmacist in every dispensary. Some raids on chemists in Noida revealed a terrible tale of irresponsibility and, indeed, illegal sale and dispensing of medicines. In one shop, a little boy who looked no more than 10 or 12 was calmly selling dangerous medicines without any written prescription from a doctor, while his father, equally non-qualified and without a licence, was allegedly at lunch. Government officials who are supposed to keep an eye on malpractices were equally nonchalant and vague. A serious state of affairs which needs a follow-up by the Ministry of Health and local government authorities. If I sound one advance note about an otherwise excellent programme it is that while the male commentator was very professional, the interviewer, with his weak voice and fast speed was not really good enough for the sort of tough grilling required. He sounded incoherent at times and almost apologetic. The much-neglected North-East is at last getting some space on our national channels. NDTV’s awardwinning North-East specialist Bano Haralo and Zee’s correspondent Manzar Alam have been filing steady and detailed news items, but that is about all. So I am glad that Sahara Samay has started a weekly programme on the North-East, together with one on Kashmir. I saw one 10-minute slot on Sahara and there were three interesting items but a little too brief. I still feel that 10 minutes is too short for such an important furbulent area of India which some consider even more dangerous and newsworthy than Kashmir. At last my cable operator was merciful enough to give me NDTV Hindi last week and I was impressed by the first programme I saw, which was Pankaj Pachauri doing Hum Log, a Hindi version of Barkha Dutt’s We The People, on water and electricity, which he conducted with equal verve and assurance. Pankaj was later seen anchoring the news from Mumbai with equal panache, while Srinivasan Jain has already been doing so in English, Mumbai Live. Obviously with Star News Hindi, a national bulletin, strangely headquartered in Mumbai, where it seems more at home in the filmi duniya and newscasters who look more like film extras trying to become starlets, other channels would also like to keep a foot in Mumbai. But I have one note of regret. That NDTV more in Hindi and to a lesser extent in English, has let its enviable standards in the photogenic quality and style of its newscasters and anchors drop. The new men in Hindi at times look positivelty scruffy, as in the early Aaj Tak days and some of the women are disastrous, such as their filmi anchor Veethika, who down-graded all the valiant reporting of Chuman Das by speaking in a high-pitched squeaky voice and in a self-conscious, artifical manner. And she should really have her teeth fixed. I have watched three episodes of Shekhar Gupta’s Indian edition of Simpson’s World and feel it is yet to get into top gear. Too contrived. So is Simpson’s, but invisibly A good idea which needs far better production. TAIL-PIECE: The two items which gave me most pleasure last week were Aaj Tak’s trully delightful vignette on Cherrapunji, both in visuals and commentary. And the three-minute promo of Star Plus is brilliant as well as moving on all counts, a lovely tribute to Bharat Mahaan at its very best.
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Action sincere by noble-minded man, reflects the very self of the unseen. — Senge Takatomi |
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