 |
Monday,
July 14, 2003, Chandigarh, India   |
Discriminatory bar Striking them hard |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Reforms sans welfare
US need for Indian troops in Iraq
Empress of the kitchen
A new order needed for stability in region
Too thin to win
|
Discriminatory bar LAST week’s Supreme Court’s decision setting aside an earlier Bombay High Court order increasing the flying age of Air-India air-hostesses from 50 to 58 will obviously be resented by the female cabin crew, because their male counterparts will continue till their retirement at the age of 58. The judgement will directly affect about 80 hostesses who are already past the age of 50 and are still flying. Women comprise roughly half of Air-India’s 1,600-strong crew. When the flag carrier had decided to ground hostesses on their 50th birthday, there was a furore and they had gone to court saying that the decision was discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution guaranteeing the right to equality. The Bombay High Court had decided in their favour. The apex court seems to have decided the issue while comparing the situation with that prevailing in other airlines. Most international carriers in the Southeast Asian region, including Pakistan International Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Thai, do not have air-hostesses over the age of 40. In some cases, the retirement age for on-board duties is as low as 30. Then there are airlines like Virgin Airways where hostesses average between 18 and 33. To compete with them and to present a youthful image, Air-India has been keen to hire young cabin crew. In fact, it has already begun hiring about 200 new cabin crew members on a contract basis. But while trying to carry out this exercise to improve the in-flight look of the flag carrier, it must be remembered that it is not only women who go past their prime at 50. So do men. Allowing them to continue till 58 will cause acute heart-burn, besides posing seniority and work function problems. In flights, men traditionally handle the galley while women attend to the passengers. This tradition was broken and the functions were merged after the last High Court judgement. This was resented by some of the male crew. The Supreme Court has now said that there should not be a merger of the service cadres of male and female cabin crew. Still, many sore points may remain. These can be addressed suitably if the grounding ages of men and women are brought on a par. |
|
Striking them hard THE Tamil Nadu High Court’s rejection of the petition filed by the dismissed state government employees is unfortunate. Its direction to them to approach the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) — and not the judiciary — may be legally valid. But keeping in view the gravity of the situation, the court was expected to defuse the volatile situation by giving relief to the employees. The court’s order to the government to release all the arrested employees will hardly meet the ends of justice. Moreover, as thousands of dismissed teachers of aided colleges and schools do not come under the purview of the tribunal, they have no place to go for justice. Apparently, the situation has gone out of the government’s control. Having amended the Tamil Nadu Essential Services Maintenance Act (TESMA), 2002, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has unleashed a reign of terror in the state. Over two lakh striking employees have been peremptorily dismissed from service and over one lakh fresh recruitments have already been made. Clearly, Ms Jayalalithaa should not have closed the negotiation route even though the employees, in their eagerness to secure justice, may have gone on strike to press their demands. Situations such as this are best handled through talks across the table with an open mind and a willingness to give and take. But the problem with the Chief Minister is that she does not believe in concepts like negotiation, conciliation and compromise. Remember the brazen manner in which she clamped the Prevention of Terrorism Act on MDMK leader Vaiko last year for an omnibus speech on the Sri Lankan Tamils that he made? Or how she sacks ministers at the drop of a hat and shuffles IAS and IPS officers like pawns on a chess board? Moreover, her TESMA is draconian, undemocratic and an affront on individual freedom and dignity. In fact, as far back as 1981, the Second National Commission on Labour had recommended the repeal of the Essential Services Maintenance Act. It also suggested a mechanism to resolve any “unresolved dispute in essential services” through “compulsory arbitration” if 51 per cent employees favoured a strike. True, the government cannot overlook the financial implications of the employees’ demands. But the dismissal of lakhs of employees who have put in decades of service is inhuman and smacks of vendetta on the part of the Chief Minister. Wiser counsel should prevail on both sides to restore normalcy. |
|
Reforms sans welfare THE introduction of “user charges” in Punjab colleges is finally showing the effect, desired or otherwise. As a result of the recent hike in college fees, many seats in undergraduate and postgraduate courses have remained unfilled as The Tribune survey published on Saturday indicates. Although the admission process is still on, lack of enthusiasm for higher education is all too evident. If the intention of the state government is to regulate the flow of students to colleges, the only yardstick for granting or denying admissions should be merit. By creating an economic barrier, the state is discriminating against children from poor and lower middle class families. Girls are particularly hit. Worse, the state is restricting higher education to those who can afford it. This is absolutely against all welfare norms as practised worldwide. Even if one accepts the need to restrict higher education to those who have an aptitude and talent for it, the process of regulation should be gradual. Right now if the colleges do not get sufficient number of students, many teachers would go without work and college infrastructure would remain underutilised. The plight of private aided colleges would be worse. They would not be able to pay salaries to the teachers. Given the standards of government primary and secondary schools in Punjab, those passing out are barely literate. As Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh discovered recently, there are English teachers who cannot correctly spell the word “tuition”. The kind of teaching they can do can be well imagined. If the idea is to encourage students to take up vocational courses, the number of institutions providing technical education is woefully inadequate and most are ill-equipped to teach skills which are in demand in the job market. The role of the state, no doubt, has been undergoing a change. From being a “provider”, it now likes to act as a “facilitator”. The government certainly needs to withdraw from many areas, but it cannot abdicate its responsibility for providing basic services like education and health care at affordable costs to the citizens. What else do they pay the taxes for? In the Western countries which have embraced capitalism, social security is made available to the needy, whether the jobless or the aged. India is pushing reforms without social safety on its agenda and without realising the possible consequences. |
|
|
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon |
US need for Indian troops in Iraq THE message of Thursday’s hour-long meeting between the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L. K. Advani, and the outgoing United States Ambassador, Mr Blackwill, could not have been clearer. America’s need for the highly disciplined, efficient and peacekeeping-savvy Indian troops to “stabilise” Iraq is becoming more and more desperate by the day, as the capacity of the occupying American and British forces to control the volatile situation there grows visibly less and less. At the same time the reasons that have so far restrained the Vajpayee Government from acting on its initial impulse to respond positively to Washington’s pressing request have grown much stronger. This has inevitably made life difficult for those in the ruling establishment that want to do America’s bidding as a matter of course. Even so, Mr Blackwill still hopes that he might get a favourable Indian decision well before he leaves New Delhi at the end of the month. Hence his brisk parleys at the level of the Deputy Prime Minister rather than at that of the External Affairs Minister. According to sources close to him, the US Ambassador believes that he has a fifty-fifty chance to persuade this country to send a division of Rashtriya Rifles to take charge of the Kurd-majority area in northern Iraq. From all accounts, this is over-optimism or rather wishful thinking. New Delhi doesn’t like to say “no” to the US because it values India’s relations with the sole superpower and hopes to consolidate them into a “strategic partnership” in reality, not just in words. But it is also painfully aware that, in the present circumstances, it just cannot say “yes” to the American request for troops. A sudden miracle that might change the circumstances appears unlikely, to say the least. Interestingly, the deadline for a decision by New Delhi, one way or the other, is not July 30, the date of Mr Blackwill’s departure, but July 21 when commences Parliament’s monsoon session. No wonder then that the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that has already considered the American request thrice is meeting on July 14 presumably to grasp the nettle. The moment of decision, however, is also the moment of truth for the government. No one realises this more acutely than the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who alone had held back those of his colleagues who wanted to lose no time to commit this country to rushing 17,000 soldiers to Basra. It was Atalji who held fast to two basic principles. First, that the Indian troops must function not only autonomously but also under an acceptable command structure, preferably the one with which the UN was clearly associated. The UN Security Council’s resolution 1483, according post-facto legitimacy to the occupation forces, was not good enough, as the Foreign Secretary, Mr Kanwal Sibal, later made clear to his interlocutors in Washington. Secondly, and more importantly, the Prime Minister laid down that the Indian decision on participating in the “stabilisation” of Iraq must be based on national consensus. Today, the rub lies on both counts. Disregarding sound advice by sections of the American media, the Bush administration has made no attempt to widen the area of UN’s participation in Iraq to cover the military operations. Nor is it likely to. The only step the American proconsul in Baghdad, Mr Paul Bremer (enraged Iraqis call him “Saddam Bremer”), is prepared to take is to form an interim council of Iraqi advisers, consisting of a Shia majority and with adequate representation to Sunnis, Kurds and other tribes. According to him, this council would have the power to name interim ministers, pending elections about which the US is in no hurry. About the formation of the interim council, however, Mr Bremer is in great haste. For, he has been informed – apparently on the basis of the Advani-Blackwill talks – that India might be amenable to sending troops to Iraq if there is an “Iraqi face” in Baghdad. Whether such a body can be set up before July 21 is doubtful, however, if only because the US insists on including in it the self-exiled Mr Ahmed Chalabi, whom most Iraqis consider an “unacceptable traitor”. But even if an interim council of sorts is rigged up, there is no guarantee that it would be credible enough to be the proverbial fig-leaf cover for policy makers in New Delhi. And that is where the critically important Indian public opinion comes in. Even at the time when the American request for troops was first discussed and the government’s inclination to comply was vaguely indicated, the political and public opinion was intensely hostile to this idea. Since then this hostility has taken a quantum leap for reasons for which the American occupiers of Iraq alone are to blame. Indeed, what kind of a new imperium is this sole superpower that cannot even restore water and electric supply in Iraqi cities three months after conquering them? On the contrary, it takes sniffer dogs in Iraqi homes infuriating almost the entire population. Even those Iraqis that detest the ousted Saddam Hussein hate the Americans much more. Not a day passes when the Iraqi snipers do not kill some American soldiers. Is this the atmosphere in which Indian troops should go to Iraq? Wouldn’t the Iraqis look upon our gallant soldiers as appendages of the American army of occupation? And what if Indian troops also start getting killed? The once plausible argument that India should send troops to Iraq not for the sake of the US but for that of the Iraqi people with whom this country has had close relations and in whose future welfare it has a heavy stake is now meaningless. Not a single Iraqi leader of any consequence has said a word to invite Indian military presence in that country. The perennial competition with Pakistan, in the context of the India-US-Pakistan triangle, has also been an argument of those in the present power structure who believe that to follow America in every respect is in India’s best interest. When Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, first announced that he would like to send Pakistani troops to Iraq “if asked to do so”, alarm bells rang in South Block and the PMO. Pakistan must not be allowed to “steal a march over us” was the cry. If India didn’t send the troops and Pakistan did, all the “rewards” would go to the adversary, so ran the panicky lament. As it happened, General Musharraf also covered his flanks and told the US that to be able to send his troops to Iraq he would need the cover of either the UN or the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC is a non-entity. The US has already excluded the United Nations. It remains to be seen whether the OIC, in which countries like Iran, Syria and Libya are represented, would like to bolster the US occupation of Iraq. In any case, India cannot have anything to do with this denominational outfit. The obsession with Pakistan also needs to be given up. Retired Generals and Air Marshals of this country I have interacted with have usually favoured the despatch of the Indian division to northern Iraq regardless of the enormous cost — Rs 1,300 crore a year — and frightening logistic difficulties. But General V.R. Raghavan, a former Director-General of Military Operations, has made a formidable case, based on the experience of the IPKF in Sri Lanka and the treacherous conditions in Iraq, against rushing Indian troops “to the wrong place, at the wrong time and for wrong reasons”. The final argument against committing our troops to legitimising the outcome of a war our Parliament “deplored” as unjust is the time factor. The overall commander of the war on Iraq, Gen Tommy Franks, has told the US Congress that the US military presence in Iraq would be necessary for as long as four years. Must an Indian division be bogged down, amidst Iraqi hostility, there for this length of time? A short foray of a few months would be neither here nor there. |
Empress of the kitchen MANY people in the North still seem to believe that Kerala cuisine consists of dosa, masala dosa, idly, sambhar and more sambhar. Once a friend asked me with all sincerity how we got over the boredom eating the same stuff over and over again. Obviously, he had not heard about Mrs K.M. Mathew, who had been writing a popular weekly column, Paachaka Veedi (The Way of Cooking), in mass-circulation Malayala Manorama for more than half a century. Her cookery books, both in Malayalam and English, were in many a sense trailblazers and helped dispel the wrong impressions about Kerala cuisine. Those who have written regular newspaper columns know how difficult it is to choose subjects week after week to keep them going. Having grown up reading her Paachaka Veedi, I always marvelled at her ability to come up with recipes of newer and newer dishes every Sunday. I also remember pestering my mother to try out some of the dishes, though without much success. To be frank, there were even occasions when I thought her recipes had more to do with imagination and literature than real cooking until I read in an interview she granted to a newspaper that she tried out every recipe before it was put to pen and published. In other words, she never cooked up her column, writing of which was a piece of cake for her. In the process, she introduced many new dishes to Kerala cuisine and reintroduced those which had faded out from the Malayalis’ memory like the “INRI appam” prepared only once a year on Maundy Thursday. Unknown to many, Kerala cuisine has a rich heritage. It even attracted foreigners. At a time when the best European dish was stinking dried, salted meat or Scotch broth, Keralites had a variety of spices to lace their food. When the Europeans came to know about pepper, they realised that it could transform their cuisine. The early traders like the Portuguese and the Dutch were more interested in monopolising the trade in spices than in conquering the country. On a visit to Amsterdam a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find a warehouse converted into a museum in the old port area of the city. It was in this warehouse that spices brought from Kerala were stored. As a tourist brochure of the Netherlands mentions, those days pepper was “costlier” than even the yellow metal. Evolved over the centuries, cuisine in Kerala varies from region to region and community to community. Muslims are particularly known for their meat dishes but there is no common style or recipe among them. Perhaps, no one knew the variations in cooking style better than Mrs Mathew, whose columns were always well-peppered and never half-baked. It was no mean achievement authoring 24 cookery books, four of them in English, bringing out the many splendours of the art of cooking. Her 25th book on the food traditions of Malabar in northern Kerala was in the making when death snatched her from the kitchen. There was a lot more to Mrs Mathew than cooking. She pioneered the art of bridal make-up, giving practical tips on the thousand and one ways in which the bride’s tresses can be tied up into a bun, a crown, a tail or as her fanciful imagination allowed. In between, she also found time to write travelogues about the frequent foreign visits she made in the company of her husband and paterfamilias of the Malayala Manorama group, Mr K.M. Mathew. Her travelogues — written in simple but elegant Malayalam — were truly tour de force. Whether she will be remembered as the longest-serving editor of Vanitha, the largest selling women’s magazine in the country, or as a social worker or as a singer, who ran a music school in her house, or as a great hostess, she showed the world that there was more to Kerala cuisine than dosa, idly and sambhar. She was the empress of the kitchen whose column, in turn, enabled countless readers to become the kings and queens of the kitchen. n |
|
A new order needed for stability in region T. R. Ramachandran interviews I.K. Gujral Former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral believes that by invading Iraq, the George Bush regime has infused destabilisation in the region. He maintains that his doctrine should be pursued in the neighbourhood to put relations on an even keel. Courtesy personified, Mr Gujral (84) spoke on a wide range of issues encompassing the polity, women’s reservation, Ayodhya, Indo-Pak and Sino-India relations and political parties posing casteist dangers. Excerpts from the interview: On foreign policy shifts, initiatives and Iraq invasion Foreign policy is never static and keeps on changing. We have to keep adjusting and modulating from time to time. Therefore, policy shifts are considered as part of continuity. They are integrated all the time. The policy of the cold war era cannot be pursued now as was evident during the last two years of the Clinton Presidency. That is not the case with the Bush regime. We tried to build on democracy with Nawaz Sharif but were unable to sustain it because of the return to military rule in Pakistan. The invasion of Iraq has caught the Americans in a difficult frame of mind. Americans do not know how to handle peace. Everyday there is a new reality in Iraq. The allegation that Iraq was acquiring materials for manufacturing a nuclear bomb was bogus. A committee of the British Parliament has dismissed the arguments of the American regime. The Iraq invasion has disturbed the region. We have kept our distance declaring that we will go with the United Nations. The move proved to be correct. There is the challenge of sending troops and I hope we don’t commit oursevles. Now we can’t after the revelations by the British Parliamentary committee. There is a new situation in Central and South Asia as well as a part of China of being destabilised. A military regime anywhere cannot be a stabilising factor and more so in Pakistan. Gen Pervez Musharraf has vested interest in instability. Ever since Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s time, terorism has been the state policy of Pakistan and they have not gone away from that. On PM’s initiative and Indo-Pak relations The questions before the Indian government are: what do we want? How do we deal with it? Naturally, it creates uncertainty in our minds. To say "aar ya paar" is one thing but how do we move further? We should encourage people-to-people contacts at all levels. Make visas and travel easier. It is a fact there is no relaxation on the terrorist front but India has proved in the last 20 years that it can look after its own interests without bellicose or aggressive intent. This has to be sustained. Most important is the policy towards our own people in Jammu and Kashmir. Our policy is that J and K is an integral part of India. Their aspirations and frustrations must be met. Article 371 and not Article 370 must be read carefully. The country’s unity in diversity is the spirit of Article of 371. It is probably the longest Article in our Constitution. Trouble in many cases arises when we are undemocratic and lack the elasticity of accommodation. Patriotism does not live in Delhi alone. It lives in every part of India and particularly in the border lands. Once we are able to generate the environment of trust and meeting the aspirations of the people of J and K, we have won the battle. On political parties seeking mileage from casteism Internal unity is paramount. The carnage in Gujarat and slogans trying to create fissures among communities give a wrong signal to the rest of the country. There are several states in the country where the minority community is in majority like the Sikhs in Punjab, Muslims in J and K, Christians in several states in the Northeast. It will be a wrong signal if Delhi, UP and Madhya Pradesh get multiplied, then we will have to pay a very heavy price. The pride of the Indian state is that we have mixed and prospered because of the spirit of accommodation. On India-China relations and how the Gujral doctrine has been dumped The Gujral doctrine says we are the largest country in South Asia and strong economically, let us give unilateral concessions. Let us go back to it. At the same time let us not respond to any polemics by Pakistan. I refused to respond to the polemics of the Pakistani leaders at the United Nations. That helped. Any dictatorship is unfriendly. I am happy that people are coming in driblets. Train services should also open. The visa regime should be more relaxed. We must keep in mind that terrorists don’t come with visas. Don’t harass people with police reporting. The constituency in Pakistan is very large which wants peace and friendship with India. On Ayodhya tangle and its implications Ayodhya is an unfortunate aberration in the system. A mature nation has to deal with it in a spirit of toleration and accommodation. There will be loud slogans in the elections. Is Ayodhya a detering factor in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Nagaland or even in Punjab? No. There has to be a balancing and counter balancing process. On issues at the hustings and formation of a Third Front All the political parties are in seach of issues. The possibility of a Third Front arises for the regional parties who could not find a place either with the Congress or the BJP. Almost every regional party has found a niche of either aligning with the BJP or the Congress. The confrontation is essentially between the Fronts headed by the BJP and the Congress respectively. There is talk of a composite government not in terms of any single party forming the government. There has to be provocation to break away from either side. I don’t see it happening in these elections. Coalition politics is the order of the day. Since 1989 onwards with federalism being a vital factor in politics, coalitions have become inevitable. I don’t see the prospects of any single party forming the government in next year’s general elections. No single party has an all India sweep. It is not a value judgement but a question of seeing the reality. On political parties posing casteist danger Political parties do pose casteist dangers. Considering the social reality, people are being fed on the talk of caste as the freedom struggle is wearing out. Problems have to be dealt with comprehensively in a democratic spirit. When Jawaharlal Nehru removed the ban on Communist parties there was a hue and cry that the country is going to go red. Jawaharlal Nehru’s words were prophetic. He said an underground party is more dangerous to the polity than an overground one. Speaking in Parliament after becoming the Prime Minister, I had made it clear that the opposition are not my enemies. It is good for the opposition to keep its vigilance up. On reservation for women I had come forward with a private
members Bill in the Rajya Sabha in 1995. Let us keep in mind that the
presence of women in Pakistan and Bangladesh is one-third in their
legislatures. Reservation for women in this country can be met in a
different way. We should either follow the Pakistan or Bangladesh
model without any embarrassment or provide pro-rata representation
after elections. Pro-rata representation entails increasing the number
of seats in Parliament and the legislatures. This will not disturb the
parity. |
|
Too thin to win ON court, in the pool or pounding the track, they look like perfect physical specimens. Their toned, muscular bodies, straining in pursuit of titles, exude energy, determination and health. But a growing number of women athletes are suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. An obsessive will to win combined with pressure from coaches to lose weight and the need for female competitors in sport to look attractive are being blamed. Sports governing bodies, psychologists and experts in eating disorders have warned that a generation of supremely fit women are risking brittle bones, fertility problems and even early death by becoming dangerously slim. The sight of tennis player Daniela Hantuchova competing at Wimbledon with painfully skinny arms, legs and torso has focused attention on a problem which, although widespread, is rarely discussed in sport. Experts believe that as many as one in five women who regularly take part in sporting activities, from members of running clubs to household names, starve themselves or deliberately vomit after eating to keep their weight down. Like most sportswomen confronting issues related to food, Hantuchova denies she has a problem. The 20-year-old Slovakian, who is 1.81 metres tall, admits that she is well below her ideal competitive weight of 55kg, and has lost a significant amount of weight over the past year as she has risen from 39 to eight in the world rankings. Nigel Sears, her British coach, recently voiced concern about Hantuchova’s visible and dramatic weight loss. But he too denies that she is anorexic. ‘She is fit and strong but is burning off more calories than she is taking in,’ he said. ‘Of course this is a sensitive issue for young girls. They see fashion items which to wear they must not be a couple of pounds overweight.’ ‘Around ten to 20 per cent of female runners at elite level are worryingly thin,’ said Carole Seheult, a clinical psychologist who has treated sportswomen at all levels with eating disorders. ‘This is a much bigger problem than is currently recognised. A lot of coaches feel that the lighter you are, the faster you’re going to run. But unless that’s coupled with the nutritional needs of the athlete, damage can be done.’ According to Steve Bloomfield of the UK’s Eating Disorders Association (EDA), people involved in sport, especially women, are far more likely to have an eating disorder than the rest of the population. ‘Middle and long-distance running, cross-country skiing and cycling seem to have the highest incidence,’ he said. ‘But there’s also a correlation between aesthetic sports like swimming, diving, gymnastics and skiing, where you’re judged on your appearance as well as your talent, and female competitors having eating disorders. ‘It’s quite easy to end up starving yourself,’ he added. You might lose a few pounds, then a bit more and a bit more, until eventually you no longer have enough energy left to compete properly.’ Psychologists cannot agree whether sport causes women to lose an unhealthy amount of weight, or whether sport simply holds an attraction for females who already have, or are most likely to develop, an eating disorder and have a strong desire to be the best they can be at any activity they take up. People with an eating disorder, and those drawn to sport, are often perfectionists, say experts. —
The Guardian
|
Heaven does not gurdge truth Nor earth its gems. — Chinese proverb Rule by love. — Mencius I,2, 12 When you know, To known that you know And when you do not know, To know that you do not know That is true knowledge. — Analects 2, 17 Scatter your bread in the land and in the end your hand will find it. — Herbrew proverb When life is misery, and hope is dumb, The world says ‘go’ The grave says come. — A Hindi proverb The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. — Bible Romans 6, 23 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. — Bible Col. 4.6 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. — Bible, Matthew 25.35 Fail not to be with them that weep, and mourn with them that mourn. — Apocrypha. 7.34 |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
