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Thursday,
October
9, 2003,
Chandigarh, India  
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Jolt for Jogi Sullying the Sutlej Green signal to investors |
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Dangers ahead in Sri Lanka
A tailor-made tribute
Vaclav Havel knows the power of the powerless
From Pakistan
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Jolt for Jogi IT is rarely that a complainant in a case becomes the accused. This dubious distinction goes to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi. When in March this year he complained that the Intelligence Bureau’s Special Directorate had launched an operation, code-named “Black Sea”, to target Opposition leaders, including him, with a view to influencing the coming elections, he could not have imagined that it would boomerang on him. Mr Jogi cannot blame the Prime Minister for ordering a CBI inquiry into the complaint as it was he who had sought such an action. The CBI has since then completed its inquiry and found that the Chief Minister had tried to malign the Intelligence Bureau by circulating a document which, it says, was faked. Accordingly, it has filed a chargesheet in the CBI court in the Capital accusing him of forgery and cheating. Needless to say, these are serious charges to be slapped against a Chief Minister. Since the court is seized of the matter, it is not proper to comment on the justifiability of the CBI action at this stage. Mr Jogi is, perhaps, within his rights to point out similar instances and carry on as Chief Minister. But in the public perception, suspicion will linger till the court absolves him of all the charges. In the past, the CBI was known to have acted as the handmaiden of those in power. However, efforts to insulate the premier investigating body from extraneous influences by fixing the term of its Director have begun paying dividends. But the way it has been handling certain cases over the years has led to doubts about its impartiality. This is all the more reason that the CBI should ensure that nothing raises suspicion about this sensitive case. It may be a mere coincidence that the Bureau filed the chargesheet against Mr Jogi a day after the Election Commission announced the schedule for elections to five state assemblies, including that of Chhattisgarh. The timing of the CBI action, however, has given Mr Jogi an argument that it is politically motivated. It is also true that Mr Jogi has not been able to control his proclivity to court controversies despite being in power for so long. Unfortunately, the chief ministership of the state seems to rest heavily on his shoulders. It is almost certain that both the Congress and the Opposition BJP will go to town with the case in the run-up to the polls, which are just a month away. Under these circumstances, the fear of the case overtaking other issues in the coming elections in the state is too real to be scoffed at. In other words, there is the danger of the case determining the fate of the Jogi government. It is difficult for the media to judge whether Mr Jogi has really forged the papers to indict the Central Government or whether the CBI’s chargesheet is being used as an electoral weapon against him. The court will take its own time to give its verdict. Whatever the truth and the weight of the allegations and counter-allegations, the CBI’s chargesheet against Mr Jogi has overshadowed all other issues in the Chhattisgarh elections. |
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Sullying the Sutlej REPORTS of large inflow of fly ash into the Sutlej in the international wetland area following a breach in the Stage-I dyke of the Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Plant at Ropar is a cause for concern. Sadly, the authorities concerned have done little to check the fly ash menace even though it has been a serious health and environmental hazard for quite some time. Incidentally, this was the second major breach in the thermal plant dyke. What follow-up action has the authorities taken after the earlier breach in the Stage-II dyke of the plant on January 22, 2002? Industrial effluents released into the Sutlej have harmed the people living in its vicinity. The drinking water gets contaminated by fly ash and other effluents. As a result, people suffer from liver, renal and gastro problems, besides skin diseases. They also suffer from gall bladder, jaundice and respiratory problems. Experts say that due to constant sippage, contaminated water gets mixed up with ground water and causes ailments. Tuesday’s incident warrants expeditious action by the authorities in larger public interest and for environmental safety. Areas located downstream like Ropar town draw drinking water from the Sutlej or the Sirhind canal emerging from the Ropar headworks. It is feared that the fly ash will not only contaminate the main drinking water source of lakhs of people but also kill thousands of migratory birds and fish in the wetland. The Punjab government should take immediate remedial action. Experience suggests that it has done little so far even though the problem is becoming worse day by day. What happened to the ambitious Sutlej Action Plan Project for treating effluents in Ludhiana? This project is reportedly bogged down because of financial constraints and the hike in the cost of property. There is also need to popularise effective management of fly ash because 72 per cent of the country’s power plants are coal-based, generating nearly 40 million tonnes of fly ash annually. Having produced eco-friendly fly ash bricks, the Delhi government has created a record. It has converted the huge waste into a national asset. This model should be emulated by all states. It is said that mechanised manufacture of fly ash lime bricks will help achieve a three-fold objective — utilisation of bulk quantities of fly ash, bridging the huge shortfall of bricks and other building materials required by the construction industry, and protecting the perilously imbalanced environment. |
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Green signal to investors THE Supreme Court judgement on Tuesday has rightly upheld the tax exemption given by the Central Board of Direct Taxes through a circular dated April 13, 2000, to the Mauritius-based foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Most of the FIIs making investments in the Indian stock markets operate from Mauritius. They do not have to pay any capital gains tax in that country. In India they are protected by the Indo-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Convention signed in 1982. All that a foreign investor has to do to claim tax exemption is to produce a certificate of residence from the Mauritius authorities. The Supreme Court has clarified that if a firm is a resident of both countries, it will be taxed in the country from where it is effectively controlled. An NGO, Azadi Bachao Andolan, had moved the Delhi High Court saying that the CBDT circular barred income tax officials from investigating FIIs and allowed unscrupulous traders to incorporate fake front companies in Mauritius to evade taxes. When the high court quashed the circular on May 31, 2002, it created panic among the FIIs and the stock markets crashed. The FDI inflows declined sharply. The loss caused to small investors was severe and has remained unassessed. The FIIs have invested close to $20 billion in the Indian stock markets since 1992 when they started bringing their funds to this country. Almost half of the foreign direct investment (FDI) comes through the firms registered in Mauritius. Courts, NGOs, government financial departments and regulatory bodies have to be extremely cautious in dealing with financial matters that have a bearing on investments — Indian as well as foreign. The Delhi High Court, according to the Supreme Court, had erred on all counts. It should not have interfered in economic policy decisions. Developing countries which have embraced market economy are in a mad race to woo foreign investment. Opponents of the process of liberalisation and ordinary citizens may not see any immediate benefit in government giveaways to foreign investors, but in the long run FDI is the key to fast-track growth. The apex court has aptly observed in this regard: “There are many principles in a fiscal economy, which though in first blush might appear to be evil, are tolerated in a developing economy in the interest of long-term development”. Need one add more? An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. —Lord Chesterfield |
Dangers ahead in Sri Lanka WITH the Indian media remaining obsessed with Pakistan, very little attention is unfortunately devoted to developments in other neighbouring countries that could have crucial implications for peace, stability and progress in the region. This is particularly so of developments in Sri Lanka where the efforts to reach a peaceful settlement to the prolonged ethnic conflict now appear to have reached a dead end. Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe has bent backwards to accept the demands of the LTTE that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. In the process he has incurred the wrath of President Chandrika Kumaratunga and alienated an influential section of the majority Sinhala opinion, though a significant part of the population has welcomed the halt to the terrorist violence. But this situation has not arisen without the Sri Lankan government paying a price. The government and the LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement in February 2002. Under this agreement large portions of the northern and eastern provinces came under LTTE control. The LTTE agreed to halt all offensive raids, ambushes, assassinations and forced conscription. A monitoring mission with international observers was established. Five rounds of talks facilitated by Norwegian diplomats have since been held between the government and the LTTE in Thailand, Norway and Germany. The international community has shown its readiness to encourage the peace process by holding a Peace Support Conference of donors in Oslo on November 25, 2002. The Japanese who are great believers in “cheque book diplomacy”, premised on the belief that a promise of funds can get people to respect their wishes got into the act. The LTTE, however, chose to stay away from a donors meeting convened earlier this year in Tokyo. While it was agreed during the third round of talks in Oslo that the two sides would seek a federal political framework for Sri Lanka, LTTE supremo Prabhakaran himself has never renounced his belief in armed struggle, or his determination to establish an independent Tamil state (Eelam). He obviously feels that his armed forces came very close to forcing the Sri Lanka Army out of Jaffna not too long ago and is encouraged by manifestations of a sense of tiredness and helplessness to maintain the country’s unity on the part of the ruling elite in the country. The government has conceded the demand for “internal self-determination” to the LTTE. More importantly, this so-called “internal self-determination” has been agreed to in “areas of historic habitation of Tamil-speaking people”. In effect, the Sri Lankan government has conceded a long-standing LTTE demand for the merger of the northern and eastern provinces made at a very early stage of the negotiating process, without having obtained a firm commitment from the LTTE to disarm, respect democratic principles, allow Tamil parties like the EPDP to function freely and renounce its struggle for Tamil Eelam. On April 21 2003, the LTTE announced its decision to spurn further negotiations. On the eve of the Tokyo Donors Conference the LTTE upped its ante and asserted that it would return to the negotiating table only if the government agreed to the establishment of an Interim Administrative Council (IAC) for the North-East. It reiterated its earlier demand for “self-determination”. What exactly does Prabhakaran mean by the IAC? When the Indo-Sri Lankan Agreement of 1987 was signed Prabhakaran had voiced a demand for such a council that would enable him to function as an unelected ruler of North-East Sri Lanka. He never had any intention of seeking a popular mandate in multiparty elections. He has systematically killed every Tamil leader in Sri Lanka who dared to challenge his hegemony. He obviously knows that once an Interim Administrative Council is set up he will exercise total control over all economic and reconstruction assistance from international donors and will create a situation wherein international donors start dealing with him as the Head of Government in Sri Lanka’s North-East. The LTTE has run a parallel government in the North-East ever since the ceasefire came into effect,. LTTE cadres collect taxes; the courts set up by the LTTE administer their version of justice and the entire law and order machinery is LTTE-controlled. The writ of the Sri Lanka government runs exclusively in high security zones controlled by the Army. The LTTE has also used the ceasefire to terrorise or eliminate all political opposition. It today runs a one-party state. The LTTE has also used the ceasefire to acquire weapons, so that it can mount offensive operations. Given the low morale and high rate of desertions within the Sri Lanka Army, such an offensive may either lead to a prolonged stalemate accompanied by a resumption of terrorist violence, or in a defeat of the Sri Lankan forces. India’s response to the problems faced by the Sri Lankan government has naturally disappointed it. The Indian Navy has assisted in dealing with the LTTE attempts to obtain weapons and supplies from abroad. But when the Sri Lankan forces were on the verge of collapse, all that New Delhi could do was to offer to evacuate them from the Jaffna peninsula. The ruling coalition in New Delhi includes parties with LTTE sympathies. An impression has, therefore, been created that India is not prepared to act strongly enough to protect the unity and territorial integrity of a friendly neighbour. This has encouraged the LTTE to make demands that would result in the establishment of a confederation in Sri Lanka as a prelude to the establishment of a separate Tamil Eelam. A separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka ruled by a fascist one-party dispensation will have serious repercussions on India’s internal security. India will have to take some hard decisions on the developments in Sri Lanka. We do indeed have a strange situation when a member of the Union Council of Ministers, who has sworn allegiance to the Constitution, voices support and sympathy for the LTTE — an international terrorist organisation whose leader is wanted in India for involvement in the assassination of a former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Mercifully, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has made it clear that she will act strongly against the LTTE and its supporters. New Delhi should take decisive steps to signal to the LTTE that India will not allow it to prevail militarily under any circumstances and that we will not relent in efforts to bring Prabhakaran to face trial in India by all available means. As a first step, Parliament could approve legislation authorising the government’s security agencies to use covert operations to apprehend those wanted for terrorist offences and bring them to India to face trial even if they are on foreign soil. Secondly, a clear message should be sent to the LTTE that India will use air power to thwart any attempt by it to eject Sri Lankan forces from the Jaffna peninsula. We should tighten our naval surveillance of the Sri Lankan North-East. We could also consider steps for the joint development of port and oil storage facilities at Trincomallee. Only then will the LTTE display a measure of realism in negotiations with the Sri Lanka government. And India’s experience in 1987 has shown that despite the exertions of those who profess support for the LTTE, public opinion in Tamil Nadu will endorse measures that New Delhi takes to force the LTTE to see
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A tailor-made tribute THEY could not have chosen a fitter occasion for the announcement of the feat. The occasion, in fact, was just tailor-made for national rejoicing over the record-breaking event. It was on October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, that the giant task was reported to have been accomplished, making it a day to remember for a better reason than a mere birth anniversary. Embarrassing memories of a half-naked fakir receded further, as a shirt of Herculean proportions was given the final stitches on a sprawling ground somewhere in the country’s capital by an army of apparel-makers before the cameras of a popular television channel. For those who came in late, it was nothing less than the world’s largest ever shirt in the making. Those crawling on it in diligent concentration, like Lilliputians on Gulliver, were carrying out the creative commands of a fashion designer of growing fame. The finished product, it was made known, would celebrate the merger between the avant-garde production unit and an upcoming export house. The designer spelt out the message for the media: “Indian fashion is ready to take on the world.” Words that would make any Indian chest swell with pride. It can swell all it can, but cannot still equal the chest measurement of the shirt estimated at 170 feet, against a length of 160 feet. The collar is said to be as broad as the doorway of a five-star hotel, which is quite logical considering that the wearer of the shirt is unlikely to go in for any lesser board and lodging. About 5,000 metres of fabric has gone into the making of the product: not since the time of Draupadi, say historians, has so much of material been used to drape a single individual (even if it is only an imaginary one in the present case). And, keep your shirt on, this one has a row of 15 solid-wood buttons, each of a diameter of 35 inches, together making as light an attire as a dining table. The idea of banishing the memory of Gandhi and backwardness is only secondary. The primary purpose of the event was to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. The country had some catching up to do in this regard. There has, in recent years, been a noticeable decline in the number of Indian achievers like those who grow far-reaching fingernails, who can cover themselves with cockroaches, who can vault to new heights in vada-eating. and so on and so forth. The shirt-makers are clothing the nation with a new dignity. This is barely the beginning. If the giant shirt comes, can a jumbo sari be far behind? Or the largest ever Lucknavi kurta? These can be produced, to mark other corporate mergers and to claim more mentions in the Guinness that should more than make up for our place in the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Come October 2, 2004, and it is clear what our fashion industry should create. Yes, the world’s largest loincloth. That will be a fitting answer to frivolous critics of the fantasy shirt. And, maybe, an exhibition someday of “the emperor’s clothes” of the most extraordinary
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Vaclav Havel knows the power of the powerless
HILLARY Clinton in her memoir Living History narrates in detail her first visit to Prague in the company of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, whose family had emigrated from Czechoslovakia to England and ultimately to the US. Czech President Vaclav Havel led them on a walk through old Prague and across the famous Charles Bridge, a popular destination for dissidents and music lovers during the Communist era. She also recalls her husband’s visit to a jazz club in Prague in 1994 when Havel presented him with a saxophone. The host insisted that Bill Clinton play with the performers while he himself accompanied him on the tambourine. Their renditions of “My Funny Valentine” and other songs were made into a CD that earned cult status in the Czech Capital. It is rarely that such a programme is dovetailed into a visiting President’s itinerary. But in this case, Clinton’s visit to the jazz club symbolised the triumph of democracy. It also rekindled memories of the period when saxophone was not just a musical instrument but a powerful weapon against authoritarianism. There are no parallels in history to the Czech use of music as an instrument against autocracy. And the conductor in that musical extravaganza that brought down a totalitarian regime was a sickly, short-statured playwright who became an icon of human rights and liberty and went on to become the first democratically elected President of Czechoslovakia. Havel’s ascent was anything but typical. Born into a wealthy, aristocratic family, the young Havel suddenly found himself dispossessed when the Communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948. The Communist slogan, “Workers of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose except your chains”, appeared meaningless to him when he was denied even access to higher education. He had to spend his days in hard work so that he could attend classes at night. More than the economic deprivation, what rattled Havel was the loss of freedom the Czechoslovakians suffered. A whole people found themselves in chains. Havel found work as a stagehand in a theatre company in Prague and turned to playwriting. He converted playwriting into a powerful political instrument and his popularity began to soar. Before long, the Prague Spring was on and the Czechoslovakians began experiencing a measure of freedom. For the better part of the sixties, the people thought the country would liberalise and throw off its Soviet shackles. In Havel’s own words, “That was an extraordinarily interesting, fertile, and inspiring period, not only here, but in the culture of the entire world.” During this happy period, “Bohemia rediscovered Bohemia, producing arguably the most dynamic artistic flowering Communism ever tolerated, highlighted by Milos Forman and the Czech New Wave of cinema, novelist Bohumil Hrabal’s Slavic take on magical realism, and the madcap theatrical rock band, The Plastic People of the Universe”. Little did the Czechoslovakians know that this period of artistic freedom was soon to end. And it did when the Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The world was aghast but New Delhi was too overawed by the Soviet experiment in regimentation to protest against the invasion. It preferred to turn a blind eye to the goings-on in Prague. The same year, Havel visited the US where he identified himself with the sixties’ counterculture, especially its rock music. A transformed Havel, who supported himself by working in a brewery, could not remain a mute witness to the smothering of freedom. Just as Animal Farm-fame George Orwell saw picking up a gun to shoot fascists in the Spanish Civil War as the “only conceivable thing to do”, Havel understood this assault on freedom as one outrage too far. Through numerous articles and essays, circulated clandestinely, he denounced totalitarianism and identified himself with the cause of human rights. In what some people call “temporary insanity”, Havel committed an act of sheer daredevilry when he wrote an open letter to the Communist dictator, Gustav Husak, explaining in detail why and how totalitarianism was ruining the country. The empire struck back, calling him a subversive and banning his writing. Music, particularly American rock music, was instrumental in keeping hope alive after the Soviet crackdown. A rare copy of the Velvet Underground’s first record somehow found its way to Prague. It became a sensation in music circles and beyond, eventually inspiring the Czech name for their bloodless 1989 overthrow of Communist rule, the “Velvet Revolution.” The 1977 arrest and trial of the rock band, “The Plastic People of the Universe” was a turning point in Havel’s life. “Everyone understood”, he wrote later, “that an attack on the Czech musical underground was an attack on a most elementary and important thing, something that, in fact, bound everyone together: it was an attack on the very notion of living within the truth, on the real aims of life.” He was imprisoned several times and encouraged to seek exile. He rejected all such offers on the ground that “the solution of this human situation does not lie in leaving it.” Along with other intellectuals, he helped orchestrate and produce Charter 77, a document dedicated to ensuring human rights to the Czechoslovakians. Jails could not contain Havel, whose fight for human rights caught the imagination of the people, who came on a new platform called Civil Forum, dedicated to democratic reforms. It gained momentum forcing the Communist dictator to give up power in 1989. Like Nelson Mandela in South Africa and Lech Walesa in Poland, the onus of presiding over the transition fell on Havel’s shoulders. In Havel’s case, the task was doubly difficult as the centrifugal forces unleashed by the collapse of the Iron Curtain also spawned ethnic divisions splitting Czechoslovakia into two Republics — Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He became the first President of the new Czech Republic and continued till he was term-limited out of office on February 2 this year. As a European historian evaluates him, “Havel’s essays, lectures, and prison letters from the last quarter century are, taken together, among the most vivid, sustained and searching explorations of the moral and political responsibility of the intellectual produced anywhere in Europe.” Small wonder that Francis Fukuyama in his classic The End of History and the Last Man often refers to Havel’s masterly essay “The Power of the Powerless” which has the beautiful description of a greengrocer who displays among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite”. Circumstances had forced the grocer to indulge in deception but that did not mean the poor grocer did not long for dignity. As Havel says, “The essential aims of life are present naturally in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existences.” How could such a person support President George W. Bush’s aggressive Iraq policy? Perhaps, he was influenced by the 1938 Munich agreement when war-shy British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain notoriously sacrificed western Czechoslovakia to Hitler in the name of “peace with honour” thereby giving the hegemonic Americans the moral authority to attack unfriendly regimes from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq. However, such a shortcoming does not detract from Vaclav Havel’s greatness and eligibility to receive India’s equivalent of the Nobel, the Gandhi Peace Prize. |
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From Pakistan QUETTA: Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, veteran Baloch nationalist leader, has launched a new party, the National Party, with the merger of his Balochistan National Movement and the Balochistan National Democratic Party headed by Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo for “securing the rights” of the federating units as per the resolution of 1940 and parity in the distribution of national resources. The chief organiser of the National Party would be Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, while Hasil Bizenjo would be its deputy organiser. The organising committee will comprise 33 members who will summon a central convention of the National Party for the election of its leaders. —
The News International
Youth Force in the offing
MIRPURKHAS: Under the directives of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali a Pakistan Youth Force (PYF) is being formed at the district and taluka levels across the country, and government officers have been given the task of nominating members for it from government departments as well as non-governmental organisations within the next two days. The aim of the PYF is to involve the youths in social, cultural and development activities, official sources told The News here on Tuesday. — The News
International
Serious rift in ARD
ISLAMABAD: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) on Tuesday postponed its meeting as serious differences has emerged among the component parties on the appointment of a new ARD chairman after the death of Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, The Nation has learnt. The meeting was, however, held on Wednesday. Alliance sources said a row over the distribution of offices between the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan People’s Party, the two major components of the15-party alliance, resulted in the postponement of the meeting. According to sources, PML(N) is demanding a few major slots in the ARD through its restructuring while the PPP is insisting on the existing structure of the alliance. — The Nation
CEC seals MPs’ asset records
ISLAMABAD: The Chief Election Commissioner has sealed the record of assets and liabilities of over 1,000 parliamentarians following a strict warning by the ruling MPs, including sitting federal ministers, to the commissioner not to make public their assets’ record, a source in the commission told The Nation on Tuesday. The Election Commission had set the deadline of September 30 for 1,170 members of the Senate, and the National and Provincial Assemblies with a grace period of 15 days. The deadline hitherto has moved over 1,000 MPs to file their annual statements with the commission, mandatory under the Representation of the People Act, 1976. — The Nation
Sipah-e-Sahaba chief murdered
ISLAMABAD: Member of Pakistan National Assembly and outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba chief Maulana Azam Tariq’s murder by unidentified assailants near Golra Toll Plaza on the Kashmir Highway here on Monday sparked off widespread anger among his followers in religious schools, especially the one in Lal Masjid, near Melody. Furious supporters of the late maulana started vandalising vehicles, shops and hotels after they left in a procession the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, where Azam Tariq’s dead body was brought. Eyewitnesses said there were no police or other law-enforcing personnel when the protestors stoned and damaged cars and shops located along the Mohammad Ali Jinnah Avenue. —
The Frontier Post
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Without the grace and guidance of the Guru, we cannot know the essence of the truth; the unfathomable God lives in one and all. — Guru Nanak There’s no sin worse than the one one commits in the name of religion! — Guru Gobind Singh It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated. — Sri Ramakrishna The one condition for fighting for peace and liberty is to acquire self-restraint. — Mahatma Gandhi Love is to the moral nature what the sun is to the earth. — Balzac We attract hearts by the qualities we display: we retain them by the qualities we possess. — Suard |
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