Saturday,
July 5, 2003, Chandigarh, India |
Show Singhal his place Dhanraj and his men Danger facing Asian giants |
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Plus two muddle continues
Apple blossom time
Best Bakery verdict: Moditva politics at play How France has reduced fatal road accidents
Managing
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Consumer well boxed in
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Dhanraj and his men THE Indian hockey team has been in such poor shape for more than two decades now that the recent victories have enthused some hockey lovers enough to conjure up images of the Olympian glory which was once ours. This euphoria has to be restrained if the country has to effect a genuine revival. The title wins in Germany and Australia are a morale-booster all right, but this streak will have to be sustained during tougher tests that lie ahead on the way to the Athens Olympics. We must remember that the trophy in the four-nation Hamburg Masters Tournament could be claimed mainly because a plucky Argentina held Germany to a 4-4 draw. Otherwise, there are glaring shortcomings in finishing, penalty corner conversions as well as defence. All this is not to take anything away from the satisfaction of posting well-earned victories over challengers like Argentina and Spain. After all, it is no joke to win the title in a tournament in which the country had finished at the bottom the last three times. The intention is only to egg on the team to greater heights. This squad is an excellent blend of youth and experience which needs self-belief and motivation to write a new chapter under the stewardship of Dhanraj Pillay. The task cannot be done by the players alone. The IHF also has to handle them more professionally if it expects them to play like world champions. Unfortunately, bureaucratic insensitivity has been at play. When the victorious team returned from Australia last month, it was put up in a down-market hotel in New Delhi. Things were no better during the German campaign. The team went without an official manager and had to fall back on the goodwill of an Indian settled abroad to look after the liaison work. The players’ baggage was misplaced when they flew back home. They had to spend several hours at the Delhi airport to find their own way out of the predicament. To add insult to injury, airline officials said they had no idea the national team was arriving. It is this kind of bungling which hampers the players’ rhythm. Shouldn’t they be freed from at least such drudgery? The sad fact is that except cricketers, players just do not get the kind of backing and recognition they deserve. |
Danger facing Asian giants THE director of the US Centre for Disease Control says that the world's most populous nations, China and India, face an AIDS catastrophe by the end of the decade. The reason is that health controls in both countries are weak. There are said to be four million AIDS sufferers in India and the number has been soaring. The nation needs to wake up to this reality. As the recent SARS outbreak showed, the public health system in China is woefully inadequate. India is no better and it is certainly due to luck and not proper measures that it saved itself from the outbreak. The public health system in the country is inadequate. Add to this callousness and there is a disaster waiting to happen. The National AIDS Control Organisation had recently commissioned a survey in Chandigarh that put 18 per cent of the city's residents in the high-risk category. They include a whole lot of people. Special measures to educate them and to provide condoms etc were announced, but much remains to be done. AIDS has long been a taboo because of its association with sex. No doubt, unprotected sex with an infected person is a major cause of the disease but there are other factors too, like being infected through hypodermic syringe needles. There have been reports of doctors and health care workers getting infected while carrying out their duties. This shows that the risk is so great that even trained professionals can become victims. The treatment for AIDS is costly and there is no cure. What is more important is AIDS prevention. Since the spread of AIDS can be effectively stopped by taking preventive measures, awareness is the key to containing and, eventually, eliminating it. There have been good public service television advertisements that helped remove the stigma to some extent. All other media too must be used. Awareness has to be spread. Educational institutions should be the prime targets. What is needed for combating AIDS is a concerted and vigorous national campaign, and not an occasional statement or conference resolution. |
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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. |
Plus two muddle continues
PUNJAB'S
decision to continue the 11th and 12th classes in colleges is questionable. Almost 15 years after the issue was settled elsewhere, Punjab continues to remain unsettled. It is difficult to understand why. Kerala was a particularly difficult case. Even in that state, a decision to detach the plus two classes from colleges was taken some years ago and the transition is now in progress. The process will be completed within the next couple of years. What is the problem in Punjab? In theory, nobody disagrees as to what requires to be done. Indeed, a couple of years back almost a formal decision was taken. That decision is not being exactly reversed now but its operation is being delayed. To what end? No one can answer that question. One reason is said to be teacher pressure. This is true to some extent. But the more likely explanation is that the state government is not exactly clear either in regard to its priorities or about what is to be done at which stage and in what manner. Clearly, the main problem lies on the plane of implementation. Why is implementation so poor? Largely because of the kind of implementation machinery that has got established over the years and partly because of the financial problems which the state government has been facing of late. In this situation, it is somewhat difficult to sympathise with the Punjab government. At the same time, it will not be fair to criticise it without qualifying the statement because the state machinery is not organised enough to be able to do what it wishes to do. What is to be done in this situation? The present government in the normal course of things should continue to be in office for the next few years. If a decision is made within the next month or so in regard to a timetable of the various things that have to be done, it should be possible for the present government to adhere to that. While doing so, the financial situation too will have to be taken into account. The present government has made some efforts to sort out its financial difficulties. Even if there is nothing exceptional in what it is doing, it should be possible to anticipate what will get done in the next year or the year after that. It does no credit to the state government if it gets pressurised by this or that group. That infirmity of response stems largely from political uncertainty as also financial instability. These two parameters can be put together and a new timetable worked out. It will be stupid to imagine that Punjab is going to develop a different educational structure from the rest of the country. The existing structure of 10+2+3 has got accepted all over India. In some other states also, there are problems and largely because of the same reasons. But the hangover of the past continues to bother only some of the states. Most of them have been able to resolve the problems except in about 10 per cent cases. Maybe this figure is not exactly right because nobody seems to have up-to-date data in regard to every single state. On the whole, however, the situation is broadly what has been described above. Punjab has now to decide whether it would like to continue to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. The substance of that solution has been outlined above. Now it is for the state government to take a position on it and then implement whatever is agreed upon. Having commented upon the situation that has arisen in Punjab, it may not be out of place here to say something which is not all that unrelated to the current situation. This refers to the state of vocationalisation at the school level. In 1997-98, I headed a committee of the Punjab government dealing with the subject. After the report was submitted, there were the usual secretarial meetings and in the end the matter was not pursued any further. Nobody has contended that the report was not workable or it asked the state to do things which it could not do. The problem, as I understood it, was that vocationalisation in order to succeed had to be done with the NGO approach rather than the straitjacket of bureaucratic implementation. Since the decisions were being made only at the secretarial level, the other point of view was not projected at all. No wonder the secretarial mode of thinking prevailed and nothing got done. Can anything be done now? The answer is in the affirmative. Only, a somewhat different and experimental approach will have to be adopted. Strictly speaking, some amount of vocationalisation is taking place at the school level. But there are problems in regard to service matters of those teachers who were employed for this purpose, the availability of equipment, interaction with the ITIs and a dozen other things. If these problems are to be solved by the governmental machinery, nothing will get done. What is required is a different approach. Based on the recommendations already made, certain practical and short-run schemes can be worked out. Whatever little work is being done can be strengthened further and everything promoted as if it were a project which is funded and not the system which is being changed. Should this line of approach be found acceptable, a mechanism will have to be set up which will judge the progress of each project every few months and withdraw or increase support, as required. In any case it should not be necessary to set up another committee and so on. All that is required is a meeting of some of these people who are involved in voluntary work and some others whom this government might like to involve and tell this committee to make its suggestions within a few days. If a suggestion is found practical, it may be acted upon. Otherwise, another attempt can be made. In the all-India reckoning, Punjab is somewhere at the 10th or 12th position when it comes to action on vocationalisation. Secondly, unemployment is a widespread problem, especially in the countryside. Therefore, some kind of linkage between the commercialisation of agriculture which is being promoted and the kind of vocationalisation that is sought to be done will have to be established. What is required is some fresh thinking, a new mode of functioning, a project approach to problems and an outlay of Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore per year. Funding is a problem. Some of the ITIs have been recently handed over to private enterprise. This shows that funding is tight. If nothing else, let private enterprise be brought into the experiment of vocationalisation and let schools be made to respond to whatever initiative they
take. The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala |
Apple blossom time THE bus gave a lurch as it left Chaila and I glanced up from my book and out of the window. What I saw took my breath away. The entire hillside was covered with apple blossoms — one continuous stretch of white. I caught my neighbour’s eye. She was old, her skin furrowed and wrinkled through constant exposure to the elements but there was no mistaking the kindliness in her eyes. “It is beautiful, no?” she said, and I nodded my head in agreement. She reached into her bag and handed me two apples. When I unwrapped the newspaper I saw that they were last year’s apples, wrinkled and furrowed like the donor, and when I bit into them they had her sweetness too. The bus stopped at a small village. She got to her feet, gave me a smile and was gone. I kept the seeds of the apples and with them the memory of her kindness. I was in Baghi for a few days and established contact with the postmaster — for no other reason than that our sons shared a common name. I gave him my apple seeds and asked him to plant them for me. If he thought my request strange he did not say so. We parted at the end of my sojourn friendly enough to say we would keep in touch but not friends enough to be certain that we would do so. I thought of him often and once I wrote to ask him how my apple trees were doing. He wrote back to say that one of them had sprouted and would be bearing fruit in a few years. Would I like him to deal with the marketing when it did bear fruit or would I came to Baghi to do it personally? I had smiled at the joke, this subtle invitation to visit again, and had put the letter away. Life moved on and I moved with it, further and further away from Baghi, from the kindness of the old woman and from the friendliness of the postmaster who was not a friend. Then the years caught up with me and time beat its wings against my ears. I remembered all those nameless acts of kindness, those voices of cheer and affection that had made my life worth living and among them I remembered the postmaster. I sat down to write to him and was overcome by the inadequacy of words. I caught a bus to Baghi. I saw him sitting in his verandah and when he looked up at my approach I stopped in my tracks, a catch at my heart. In his snow-white hair, his wrinkled face and his stooped shoulder I saw my own aging. There was an awkwardness in our meeting, an awkwardness that comes of having grown away from each other without the bond of friendship to bring you together again. He came that evening to the rest house bearing a gift, a bottle of angoori and we got drunk together. I do not know if he stayed for dinner or if I even ate dinner that night. But in the morning there was something on my bedside table, which did not belong to me. It was a dog-eared passbook of a post office savings account. The account bore the name of the postmaster with my name in brackets in front of it. There were 33 steadily increasing credit entries — one for each year for the last 33 years. I knew without asking that each represented the annual sale of the apples from “my” tree. I saw again those smiling brown eyes, that kindly wrinkled face and heard again that soft musical voice. “It is beautiful, no?” |
Best Bakery verdict: Moditva politics at play The judiciary pronouncing the verdict in the Best Bakery case has clearly indicated the contours within which it performs its duty. The acquittal of all the 21 accused in the case was a result of 40 of the 73 witnesses turning hostile. Additional District and Sessions Judge H U Mahida said there was no legally acceptable evidence to prove that any of the accused presented before the court had committed the crime. Even though it was “proved beyond doubt that a violent mob had killed 14 people on March 1, 2002, and resorted to arson as well as loot”, the judge observed, “sufficient evidence could not be found....it is not safe to convict the accused.” The trial of the case was keenly followed by one and all. And the verdict, though a foregone conclusion, has raised several questions: what will be the fate of other cases pending in the state? Will the rule of law prevail? Will it restore the confidence of the
minority community in the state administration? What ramification will it have on the image of Gujarat and the country in the international arena? A total of 691 cases were registered in the state after the communal clashes resulting in the death of over 1,000 persons. More than 5,000 persons were arrested and several of them have since been released on bail. And, about 280 accused persons are still absconding. Of the total number of cases registered, the police said 414 of them were without merit and lacked sufficient evidence to proceed against in the court. Investigations are yet to be completed in 39 cases, while 508 cases were awaiting trial. The systematic manner in which the investigating agency carried out partisan probe is evident from not only the Best Bakery case falling flat in the court, but also the closure of several cases for lack of evidence. At Vejalpur police station under which falls Juhapura, a communally sensitive area in the city, 22 of the 55 cases were rejected for lack of evidence. At Naroda police station 108 cases were filed, 75 were dismissed and 22 are pending investigation. Eightysix persons had died in the riots in the areas which fall under this police station. In the Best Bakery case, complainant Zahida Habibullah Sheikh, who lost nine of his family members, turned hostile and was seen escorted by local BJP MLA Madhu Srivastava against whom dozens of criminal complaints have been filed. The main complainant is missing since she retracted her statement. This was one of the five cases the National Human Rights Commission wanted the CBI to investigate. The state government, however, had turned down the request. The message that the Modi government has sent out is loud and clear — the investigating agency will not harm those who helped Mr Modi come back to power. The rift in communal amity created by Moditva politics is unlikely to be overcome in the time to come. Rather, it gives credence to the right-wing fundamentalist forces to achieve the goal and yet not be accountable. The manner of investigation and the trial indicate the blatant patronage extended by the state administration. The prosecuting and defence counsel joined hands to get the accused freed. Gujarat, after the blood-curdling and infamous riots, has not been the same again. The two communities are likely to share their future in a relationship of hatred and vengeance. The attack on the Akshardham Temple was a mere indication of the times to come. The animosity between the two communities will be a fertile breeding ground for the growth of fundamentalism, both Hindu and Muslim. Uncertainty and hatred will drastically affect the economy of the state and the flow of foreign direct investment to Gujarat. Internationally, the image of the state has taken a beating after the riots and the verdict has certainly not changed that perception. In a state where the followers of Jainism are in large numbers, a religion which preaches strict observence of non-violence in all forms, the riots have certainly changed the perception of the world about Gujaratis. The community has been a torch-bearer of the country’s image abroad and the riots in Gujarat forced Gujaratis to take a stand one way or the other. The verdict has put a huge question mark on the rule of law. “Sixteen months after the violence, not a single person has been convicted and the ring leaders are still roaming free (as) the Gujarat government has sabotaged investigations,” the Human Rights Watch, a US-based rights body, has noted in its report “Compounding Injustice” on Gujarat. It has urged the central government to take over the cases of mass killings. The National Human Rights Commission has asked the state government to file an appeal in the case. An appeal in the case will go into the legal aspects of the verdict and not on the question of the quality of evidence. Given this situation, an appeal by the Gujarat government is unlikely to send the requiste signals to the investigating agency to probe the pending cases in a non-partisan manner, legal experts feel. It is for the Centre to send a clear message to the Gujarat Government to let the prosecuting agency to function independently. Will the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre pull up the Modi government? It is time for the concerned citizens to act. Otherwise, the country would be held to ransom by a few elements pursuing their own partisan interests. |
How France has reduced fatal road accidents THERE has been a `real change in behaviour among drivers’ that has cut fatal accidents by a third. The change follows the introduction of repressive traffic policies by Jacques Chirac Paul Webster Blaring horns, a race through the red lights and overtaking with a centimetre to spare are not the fashion in France this year. As the summer holiday rush begins (June 29), most French drivers are ditching years of reckless road folklore in a new mode of caution. To the astonishment of Transport Minister Gilles de Robien, there has been a `real change in behaviour among drivers’ that has cut fatal accidents by a third in the first five months of 2003. During the traditionally murderous Easter weekend, the toll dropped by half. The change follows the introduction of repressive traffic policies after Jacques Chirac, who broke a leg in a car crash in 1978, made his presidential election priority last year an attack on la violence routiere. To emphasise the message, the new road safety organiser, Remy Heitz, is a campaigning public prosecutor who has fought for years to reduce drink-driving. This year the number of dead on French roads is expected to be about 5,000. A year ago, it was nearer 7,000, a number hailed as a revolution after peak years in the Seventies when deaths approached 14,000. Even 5,000 dead is a third more than in Britain, but fear of heavy punishment appears to be at the root of a profound change. Motorists can lose their 12-point driving licence in hours by refusing to use a seat belt (three points), telephoning at the wheel (two points), failing to keep a safe distance from the car in front (three points) or ignoring a police warning to stop (six points). This month, parliament stepped up penalties across the board to coincide with increased police surveillance and the end to years of tolerance over speed limits and drinking. Offenders risk on-the-spot suspensions, a move that has left many foreign visitors stranded and forced to call taxis. An accident in the Paris suburbs in which a young driver killed three pedestrians brought home the use of stiffer penalties last week when the prosecutor recommended an eight-year prison sentence for reckless driving. A similar offence under the influence of cannabis or alcohol could be punished by a pounds sterling 1 million fine and 10 years in jail. Air-to-ground links between helicopters and checkpoints have been introduced to enforce safe distances for motorway traffic, where up to 15 people a day are killed or injured by impatient overtakers. Motorists have been pulled up miles after the offence and fined up to pounds sterling 300. One out of three drivers ignored distance restrictions before new controls were enforced. —
The Guardian |
Managing image With elections just round the corner, politicians have already begun the spade work and are leaving no stone unturned to protect even their tarnished images. So much so that some of them have hired the services of public relations agencies for image management. Even the Punjab Government, which, like any other state government has an extensive public relations set up, has engaged the services of a public relations firm. The scope of work of the firm is however, not known even though smartly attired young professionals have already started frequenting newspaper offices in Delhi. Give and take New BJP spokesman Prakash Javdekar, facing volleys of questions on the series of railway accidents in the last couple of months said resignation is an emotional step which is not an answer to the issue. “Accident by definition is an accident”. This is not new. Even the senior spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, when asked what would be give and take with Pakistan, he said they have to give and we have to take as well. Noida and UP CM UP Chief Minister Mayawati, who was born in Noida (now rechristened as Gautam Buddh Nagar) is avoiding to come to the district as all the earlier CMs who came had to demit office soon after. Now while the road to Noida from Delhi is being
constructed on a mega scale, the launch of this is being planned by remote control. A new virus If you receive an e-mail with a screaming headline “Life is beautiful.pps”, make sure that you instantly delete the file. Because if you were to open this file, a message will appear on your computer screen saying: “It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful”. Subsequently, you would lose everything in your PC and the person who sent the e-mail to you would gain access to your name, e-mail and password. This is a new virus which has started circulating since last Saturday. AOL has already confirmed the severity of the virus. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself “life owner”. Flashy cars Since no survey has been devised that can give the countrymen an idea of total asset base of parties that vie with one another to rule them, an indication can perhaps come from the number and brand of cars that visit their central offices. At the AICC head office at 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi can be seen some of the latest cars on Indian roads. Mercedes, Skoda, General Motors, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Toyota.....you name it and it’s there. This is when the Congress is out of power at the Centre. The BJP obviously is not lagging behind. Contributed by Girja Shankar Kaura, Satish Misra, Gaurav Choudhury, |
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Consumer well boxed in All these weeks I have avoided discussing the contentious issue of boxes on our TV sets because, frankly, I have no idea what is going on or what will happen on July 14. And that is the state of mind of most viewers and a hot topic amongst friends and acquaintances. So while the government claims to be consumer friendly and protecting their
interests it seems to be totally ineffective in controlling anyone although the I and B Secretary once walked out in a huff. If the government has a danda it seems unable to swing it. The broadcasters have done their share of bullying and postponing and now the cable operators have threatened drastic action. In this pitched battle between every party concerned, the consumer, instead of coming first as the old saying goes, is coming easy last. Yet speaking from plain commonsense, the problem, to me, lies in the simple fact that there are not enough boxes to go around in even the metros, let alone other cities and the rural areas, which are always the cinderellas of government policy. With the number of expensive imported boxes in short supply and their price varying from day to day and with local manufacturers not in a position to compete, there is bound to be corruption in every sphere, black marketing and of course the VIP politicians and bureaucrats will get the first pick, as usual. The
government should really face reality and postpone the box idea until they are in a position to enforce it. And spare the poor consumer, already exploited by cable operators, further
harassment and uncertainty, because that is what it is, pure and simple. Meanwhile, life goes on the tube, at least on Astitva it is getting more and more complicated on everyone’s domestic front and it is difficult for the viewer to keep up with what is happening because the in-between ads are so long and so distracting that by the time the serial comes back we try to remember what happened last. That it is a four-day serial which disappears for the rest of the week makes it still more difficult to catch up. More exploitation of the viewer’s patience. Again, the consumer comes last. Meanwhile, the cable operator has performed another act of mercy and given us Headlines Today. And its ambitions as “Sab Sez” always breaking news exclusively etc. etc. seems to lie in a magic formula” Speed, accent and bright young things, never mind if the poor viewer can’t always keep up. There is a bright young thing called Rao who left Schumacher way behind as she raced on with the Wimbledon results. Another bright young thing, when announcing the day’s results, which were quite clear and final, kept on saying Serena Williams (or whoever) won by something like 6-2, 6-2,”. Now what is this something like? As for accent, everyone wants to sound like a sahib or memsahib and there is a young man called Singh, with a name beginning with G I jotted it down somewhere but have mislaid, it, who literally mouths his news. I watched in fascination as his
mount opened and shut, dangerously wide not only up and down but sideways at times and he gave a pretty good imitation of Lord Haw Haw. The other part of the formula is to jolly along the news. Always keep smiling widely and if there is a train accident or something tragic, the minute the tragic item is over, give a wide grin to indicate we are back to jolly old times. As for youth, it really means inexperienced and untrained. But I will say this for Aaj Tak, it does keep up with hot news and is always on the alert for something unusual, even if it is imported. So let us leave the last word with Sab TV’s Public Hai Sab Janti Hai and its delectable spoof of “Par-son Tak.” It was clever of Saharha TV’s North-East programme to give us a timely insight into Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese still consider disputed territory, immediately after the PM’s visit to China. Even more than the brief details it gave about Arunachal’s assets as well as problems were interviews with Chinese people who are now Indian citizens and live this side of the border and spoke fluent Hindi. It was also chilling to watch Zee TV’s Special Report on the perks enjoyed by our MP’s (whose salaries and perks seem to go up by unanimous demand, even from Communist MPs, every year and left me wondering if even British MPs enjoy such housing and other benefits. Because not only are their petks so fancy, everything from computers to travel and telephone calls being unlimited and free, but it seems our worthy MPs also enjoy freedom from income tax. A new angle on Kaun Banega
Crorepati? |
If ye love me keep my commandments. — Bible. John 14. 15 One cannot die hidden from God. — Italian proverb If you do not see evil you cannot appreciate good. — Bulgarian proverb Engage in trade of truth so that your merchandise may be accepted in his court. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib |
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