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Wednesday,
August 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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A city bounces back Maya's parting shot Missing cricketers |
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Drawbacks in the CVC Bill
Looking back
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A city bounces back ADVERSITY brings out the best in a man. The same holds true of a nation or a city as well. Mumbai has passed the litmus test with flying colours. The way it coped with Monday’s horrific twin bomb blasts is a testimony to its spirit and moral fibre. Before the police could come on the scene, the people present at the site of the explosions had already started the rescue work. Taxi drivers and car owners used their vehicles to rush the injured to hospitals. Common people queued up voluntarily to donate blood for the needy. Cable operators chipped in by making announcements about the whereabouts of various victims and also making appeals for the need of blood at various hospitals. This was Mumbai’s famed civil society at its best. Everyone showed that he cared for his fellow residents. Neither caste nor creed mattered. It is this type of brotherhood which lessens the pain of a tragedy to some extent. That all this was being done by people who are normally so busy as not to even tell the time to an enquirer was an added plus point. The resilience in the face of hardship was also witnessed when the commercial institutions opened the very next day. It was business as usual at most places. This was not as if the dear departed had been forgotten but just a signal to the enemies of the nation that they could not deplete the inherent vigour of a great city. Panic was, of course, there but it was not debilitating. Even the share market which took a beating immediately after the news of the blasts was flashed recovered to a considerable extent soon enough. As if all that was not praiseworthy enough, the restraint shown by the people was all the more creditable. It was widely feared that the bomb blasts would lead to a backlash. Nothing of the sort happened. There were no counterattacks or reprisal killings. Perhaps the people had learnt a lesson from such mischief in the past. Why, even the Shiv Sena made a welcome departure from its tradition and announced that there would be no Mumbai bandh on the issue. In “normal” circumstances, that would have been the first consequence. Such a strike would have fed the communal virus. By rising above petty considerations, Mumbai has shown that bomb blasts may rock it physically but its emotional and social foundations are made up of sterner stuff. |
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Maya's parting shot ON Monday Ms Mayawati had said that she would not resign even after the Bharatiya Janata Party had withdrawn support to her government. On Tuesday she sprang a surprise on her political rivals by quitting as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. This is her style of functioning. Ask Union Tourism Minister Jagmohan. One day she wanted his head for his alleged role in the Taj corridor controversy and the next day was singing a different tune. The fact of the matter is that she did not have a choice after Monday's dramatic developments that saw the BJP preempt her attempt to have the State Assembly dissolved. However, she did manage to give the BJP a parting kick. She told reporters that the BJP ministers had attended Monday morning's controversial Cabinet meeting where the decision to recommend early elections was taken. What was the status of the letter that Mr Lalji Tandon submitted to the Governor conveying his party's decision to withdraw support to Ms Mayawati's government while the BJP ministers, including Mr Tandon himself, continued to conduct official business by attending the Cabinet meeting presided over by her? In a related development Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav too met Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri on Tuesday and told him that the Samajwadi Party had the necessary numbers to form a stable government with the help of its allies. In Delhi the BJP Parliamentary Party decided to follow the policy of wait and watch rather than play an overt role in helping Raj Bhavan decide between recommending a spell of President's rule and inviting Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav to form the next government if he could prove his majority on the floor of the House. The final decision will be influenced not by what the major political players are saying in public but the behind-the-scene "guidance" that Mr Shastri may receive from Delhi. Constitutional propriety should see the scale tilt in favour of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav being invited. UP BJP President Vinay Katiyar threw a broad hint about his party's preference by saying that "we are prepared to sit in the opposition". It is clear that Ms Mayawati and not the BJP would be hurt more if the Samajwadi Party leader replaces her. Anyway, the ball is now in the Governor's court. |
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Missing cricketers THE
disappearance of five members of a women’s cricket team, sent by a Jalandhar-based club to play cricket in London, has once again raised the issue of human trafficking. The five Punjab girls, who went missing, were lured, perhaps, by trappings of western lifestyle. They seem to have gone prepared to stay back in the country they were visiting. According to reports from Jalandhar, two of the
missing girls have rejoined the team in England. The parents of some of them claim to have paid Rs 2 lakh to the Lynex Travel Club that sent them abroad. The Jalandhar club, whose antecedents appear questionable, managed to get visas for its team by producing an invitation letter from a club in London. The incident is bound to make foreign visits more difficult for genuine sportspersons. There have been reports in the past of unscrupulous elements charging huge amounts for illegal immigration. Many a youth has either landed in jail for travelling on fake documents or even met a tragic end while trying to evade the law. The Malta boat tragedy is still fresh in memory. There have been cases of girls being married to elderly and already married non-resident Indians, knowingly or otherwise. Gangs of unlicensed travel agents are still active, particularly in the Doaba region of Punjab. They lure innocent youth and their parents with tall promises and use all sorts of means to send them abroad. These thugs cannot operate without the police knowledge and connivance. Why so many youth want to leave Punjab and go abroad is understandable. There are many pull and push factors at play. The success stories of NRIs and possibilities of achieving higher standards of living pull the youth to western countries, while unemployment, lack of opportunities and facilities for self-growth, corruption, a demeaning work culture and systemic hurdles force them to leave their motherland. In almost all societies enterprising people move on in search of greener pastures, but one can only invite trouble by resorting to illegal means to march ahead. Thought for the day A man should have the fine point of his soul taken off to become fit for this world. —John Keats
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Drawbacks in the CVC Bill IN our country corruption sustained by black money has become a part of the system. Black money is generated only by black transactions. Black transactions and corruption sustain each other. This is generally done by showing favours at a price, for bending or twisting laws or giving sanctions with the help of obliging civil servants, at the decision-making level. The new Central Vigilance Commission Bill seeks to protect the decision-making bureaucrats. According to the Bill, passed by Parliament, a three-member commission, each with a fixed tenure, will be appointed for overseeing the working of the CBI. The choice for the selection of members is restricted only to retired bureaucrats and officers of public sector undertakings. It would have been better if the field of selection included eminent public men, journalists, jurists and judges of the Supreme Court. All appointments will mean an extension of service by four years, like the bureaucrats in the UPSC, or the Election Commission. It is not that talent is available only in retired bureaucrats. It is also there in other sections of society. Lest it be forgotten, the Central Vigilance Commission has been in existence since the 1960’s as a result of the recommendation of a committee headed by K. Santhanam. The Santhanam Committee recognised the malady of corruption and observed in 1962: “The tendency to subvert integrity in the public services, instead of being isolated and aberrative, is growing into a well-organised, well-planned racket. The committee also observed that corruption had increased to such an extent that people have started losing faith in the integrity of public administration.” The Supreme Court, in the Vineet Narain case, popularly known as the Jain hawala case, looked into the entire gamut of purifying public life and controlling corruption in its judgement dated December 18, 1997. It also looked into the question of validity of several executive directives, including the so-called Single Directive, which required the CBI to take the prior permission of the government to start any inquiry or look into any malfeasance case involving the officers of the level of Joint Secretary and above. This permission was separate from the sanction for prosecution required in the case of all public servants, from a peon to the Cabinet Secretary. The Supreme Court held: “Obviously, where the accusation of corruption is based on direct evidence and it does not require any inference to be drawn, dependent on the decision-making process, there is no rational basis to classify them differently. In other words, if the accusation be of bribery which is supported by direct evidence of acceptance of illegal gratification by them, including trap cases, it is obvious that no other factor is relevant and the level of status of the offender is irrelevant.” The protection enjoyed by the higher echelons of the bureaucracy till December 1997 against investigation by the CBI was held illegal, as the government’s power of superintendence did not include the power to interfere with the CBI’s power to investigate. The classification of offenders on the basis of their rank was also not rational and hence opposed to the right to equality guaranteed under the Constitution. The CVC has been vested with the powers to exercise superintendence over the functioning of the CBI insofar as it relates to investigation of offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act or an offence with which a public servant can be charged under the new Bill. Earlier, this was the responsibility of the government. What the Supreme Court had declared as illegal has been smuggled back vide Section 6 of the CVC Bill. The position is almost the same as it was before the Bill was passed. The court also held that “It is trite that the holders of public offices are entrusted with certain powers to be exercised in public interest alone and, therefore, the office is held by them in trust for the people. Any deviation from the path of rectitude by any of them amounts to a breach of trust and must be severely dealt with instead of being pushed under the carpet. If the conduct amounts to an offence it must be promptly investigated and the offender against whom a prima facie case is made out should be prosecuted expeditiously so that the majesty of law is upheld and the rule of law vindicated. The adverse impact of lack of probity in public life leading to a high degree of corruption is manifold. It also has an adverse effect on foreign investment and funding from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which have warned that future aid to underdeveloped countries may be subject to the requisite steps being taken to eradicate corruption, which prevents international aid from reaching those for whom it is meant. Increasing corruption has led to investigative journalism which is of value to a free society. Some time back the government amended Section 33 (B) of the Representation of the People Act, which declared that “no candidate shall be liable to disclose or furnish any such information in respect of his election which is not required to be disclosed or furnished under this Act or the rules made there under.” This provision was to be effective, irrespective of any judgement or directive of the Election Commission to the contrary. The apex court struck it down on March 13, 2003, on the ground that the new law violated the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed under Article 19(1) as interpreted by the court. Interpretation of the Constitution is within the domain of the judiciary. There is no doubt that a law creating two classes of public servants will meet the same fate as the amendment to the Representation of the People Act. The Single Directive was held violative of the fundamental right to equality in 1997. It cannot become legal in 2003 (Section 6 of the CVC Bill) when more big fish like the Vice-Chairman of the DDA and Chairman and other senior officers of the Income Tax Department, the Customs and others have been caught indulging in blatant
corruption. The writer is a former Director of the CBI |
Looking back THE
house was untenanted and looked as if it had been so for several years. In place of the neat gravel path surrounding it that I used to run around on as a boy there was a mass of undergrowth. The sloping corrugated iron roof, once bright with green paint, was rusty and there were large, gaping holes where it had corroded completely. Many of the windows had lost their glasspanes. I remembered them so well because they were lozenge-shaped, red, green, blue and yellow, and the sunlight coming through them used to fascinate me. However, the old deodar still stood sentinal outside the almost immovable iron gate. And, forlornly, the board nailed to it still bore the name of the house, Waverley Cottage, which my parents had rented in Mussoorie summer after summer. As I stood and gazed at the desolate scene before me a voice suddenly lifted the gloom that it had brought upon me. I closed my eyes and pictured the little pahari with a Charlie Chaplin moustache whose sense of humour had never failed to brighten an occasional dark day for me when my elders had reprimanded me or denied me some expensive toy that I had fancied. Bir Singh was the cottage chowkidar who used to make a bit of extra money during the holiday season by doing odd jobs for the tenants. He had a large family to support and a sickly wife who eventually died of T.B. But that old weather-beaten face of his was for ever wreathed in smiles. I could see him now in my mind’s eye — his patched up pyjamas, his grey shirt down to his knees and his black, cotton waistcoat. On chilly days he wore a multicoloured pullover that he had knitted for himself. When he was not acting the clown to amuse us, he would talk of his two older sons who looked after the small patch of land he owned in Pauri-Garhwal. Then, a note of pride would creep into his voice. They were fine boys, he would say, married, though neither of them had provided him with grandsons. “But when one of them comes I will bring him here so that he can learn to read and write with the children of the sahib log. Then he can get a peon’s job in an office or even become a babu. Who knows?” And he had come, that grandson of Bir Singh. But he had done a great deal more than what his grandfather had planned for him. He had enlisted as a jawan in World War II and had been decorated for gallantry in the western desert and had retired from service with a Viceroy’s commission. He now lives in his village, growing rice, red chillies and potatoes in his terraced fields. A few years ago I met him in Dehra Dun. “A pity, sahib,” he said referring to the 1965 war with Pakistan. “I was too old for it, but my son is with my old regiment.” And he stuck out his chest with
pride. |
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CSE’s war on soft drink giants THE
“Dirty Dozen”, a popular war movie of the last century, entertained millions across the globe but when a lady in her early 40s referred to the “Dirty Dozen” very recently, it was a different story. Declaring war against soft drink multinational giants including popular brands like Pepsi, Coke, Fanta, Mirinda, Sprite, Limca and Thums Up, Sunita Narain, Director of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) made a startling disclosure. She contended that Indian consumers of 6.6 billion bottles of aerated waters were also consuming deadly poison like Lindane, DDT, Malathion and other insecticides and pesticides. Armed with facts and figures from her laboratory, she roared that these multinationals like the Atlanta-headquartered Coca Cola Company and New York-based PepsiCo were following different norms for countries like India and selling to Indian consumers a deadly cocktail of pesticides and insecticides but had different norms for the US and European markets. Taking advantage of the Indian rules and regulations, the soft drink manufacturers, driven by the lure of high profit margins, were taking short-cuts and not processing the main raw material for these products to remove impurities from water, she said. Immediately, the soft drink
manufacturers launched a counter-offensive threatening her with legal action but then it was for the first time that Ms Narain was confronted with such a situation. Ms Narain’s revelation found its echo in Parliament which promptly banned the soft drinks in its canteen. Many educational institutions and organisations in the country followed suit. Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj denied in Parliament that she had given a “clean chit” to the coal joints, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, in her earlier statement. Subsequently, the Union Government has ordered a 15-member Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe with the Nationalist Congress Party leader, Mr Sharad Pawar, as Chairman. The JPC will suggest “suitable safety standards for soft drinks, fruit juice and other beverages” after evaluating the findings of the CSE on pesticide and other harmful residues in soft drinks. In her quarter of a century engagement for a healthy environment, this was not the first time that Narain was facing threats from “vested interests” and powerful lobbies. During the campaign for cleaning the Delhi’s polluted air of diesel and petrol fumes in the 90s, she and CSE founder director late Anil Agarwal fought a determined battle in favour of the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Automobile giant Telco (now Tata Motors) had served the CSE with a legal notice of Rs 100 crore but the “courage of conviction and strength of research” did not deter the CSE and its fellow workers from the “right” path. “It was our campaign against adulteration in diesel and petrol” which had put the CSR against vested interests. As CNG could not be adulterated these groups rallied against the CNG campaign, Ms Narain said recalling those days. “Today Delhi’s air motivates us to take up more causes”, Ms Narain said in a conversation as she took time out to talk about her passion for a clean and healthy environment. “Development and environment must go hand in hand”, she observed as she talked of “sustainable development” which strikes a right balance between development and the ecosystem. “My interest in environmental issues” began in school itself when some of us founded a group “Kalpvriksh” and worked against felling of trees in the national capital. Unable to find a suitable course, she decided to enrol herself in correspondence course in Delhi University and joined the Vikram Sarabhai Institute for Development Interaction. Later, she worked for sometime at the Bombay Natural History Society before moving to the CSE in 1981. Ms Narain’s first major engagement for a public cause began in Kerala where inhabitants of a small cashew producing hamlet Padre complained of high incidence of diseases. “On our investigations we found that the real cause was a pesticide which had a chemical called endosulfun.” The industry challenged our report and hired a private laboratory in Tamil Nadu to debunk our findings. The people continued the battle and succeeded in inviting NHRC’s intervention which asked another independent laboratory to check the data. NHRC confirmed our findings and the inhabitants won. That success motivated the CSE team as it steeled its conviction for the cause, Ms Narain said with the Centre deciding to set up a testing laboratory at an approximate cost of Rs 30 lakh. She said that the coming up of a laboratory strengthened their resolve as their laboratory findings revealed that bottled water contained pesticides and insecticides. The Rs 1,000-crore mineral water industry, which had the capacity to treat and clean water, was selling water with these dangerous elements. The industry also catered to hapless consumers with little choice but to pay more for water than for milk. Municipal supplies were unreliable. Theirs was a thriving business. Then why this opposition, we asked. But in the case of soft drinks, the stakes are much higher as it is growing at a phenomenal rate of almost 30 per cent a year with Indians consuming almost 6.6 billion bottles of soft drinks. Before making our findings public, it was difficult to fathom the reaction of the two corporate giants. But nonetheless, our faith in the people propelled us. The consumer in the free world, they say, is king. So “let the King pass the sentence”, Ms Narain wrote in her editorial before going public with the findings. |
Unease in Congress THERE is an element of unease in the Congress with disgruntled and ageing partymen kept out of the loop seeking to whip up the Telangana and Vidarbha issues much to the discomfiture of the high command. The demand for a separate Telangana in Andhra Pradesh has arisen due to a combination of factors including the growing discontent in the APCC. The recent appointment of the new APCC chief D. Srinivas, a relative lightweight, is also said to be cause. Discriminating Congressmen in Andhra Pradesh believe launching a struggle for Telangana might facilitate in meeting their aspirations, a euphemism for being in power. The long pending demand for a separate Vidarbha state carved out of Maharashtra has hit the spotlight again, thanks to Vasant Sathe and N.K.P. Salve. Though Congress general secretary incharge of Maharashtra Vyalar Ravi appears to have calmed ruffled feathers for the moment, the Congress high command wants to make a proper assessment of similar sentiments elsewhere in the country before firming up its stand and strategy. Balancing act The uncanny RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav is once again at his balancing act to keep the MY (Muslim-Yadav) vote bank intact in Bihar. A case in point is that of Mohammed Shahabuddin, the MP from Siwan in North Bihar, who was remanded to judicial custody in Siwan in North Bihar on August 13 in four cases. He is not new to the confines of a jail. Shahabuddin has won two elections — one to the state assembly and another to the Lok Sabha — while being in the lock up. Acknowledging that he makes laws, Shahabuddin insisted that he will be the last one to run away from the long arm of the law. Nevertheless, that has not only created cracks in the Laloo-Shahabuddin relationship but created fissures among the Muslim community on extending support to the irrepressible Laloo. As a means of balancing the delicate situation, barely 48 hours later on August 15, VHP leader Pravin Togadia was stopped at Patna airport and sent back by the same aircraft by which he had arrived. Laloo later warned that if Togadia ever comes to Bihar and creates trouble, he will be lodged in Beur jail for anti-national activities. One Scindia is
enough for Cong Another Scindia scion Yashodhara Raje, who has been in the news recently for submitting her resignation as the BJP MLA in the Madhya Pradesh, was seeking entry into the Congress. A senior leader of the Congress, who is also an important AICC functionary, pleaded with party President Sonia Gandhi and had almost succeeded in convincing the Madam but then hit a major roadblock. When Madam asked for the opinion of the Raje’s nephew Joytiraditya Scindia, pat came the reply “one Scindia is enough in the Congress”. And MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh was smiling as he was worried over the possible entry of another Scindia in the party, that too, in his own state. Gurdwara in
Glasgow Glasgow in Scotland is to have the biggest Gurdwara outside London costing 10 million pounds. The largest place of worship for the expatriate Sikh community is in Southall in London. The Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara costing 17 million pounds opened earlier this year. Though the money for Gurdwara in Glasgow is yet to be raised, an office bearer of the
Central Gurdwara Singh Sabha said in London that “God will help us”. There are about 10,000 Sikhs in Scotland. The new Gurdwara will accommodate up to 1400 people and has been approved by the Glasgow City Council. The new Gurdwara will be an addition to Glasgow’s buildings of an ancient Cathedral, a Mosque and Greek Thomson churches. Contributed by T.R. Ramachandran, Satish Misra and Smriti Kak |
Whenever there is a withering of the Law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest Myself. For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as evil, I come to birth age after age. (Krishna to Arjuna) — The Bhagavad Gita The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to mainifest infinite power. As soon as man or a nation loses faith, death comes. — Swami Vivekananda In the midst of nights and days, seasons and nether regions, wind, water and fire, God has made the earth as the seat of Dharma. — Guru Nanak The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue. — Confucius |
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