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Wah
Bhai Waugh India makes Steve's farewell series memorable BOTH India and Australia deserve a special round of applause from the growing tribe of global cricket fanatics. The four-Test cricket series between the World Champions and India will certainly be ranked among the best in the history of the game. Over four decades ago, Australia and the West Indies played a sensational.
Trauma
of Punjab’s jobless
The lost
generation
Kashmir’s
orphans spread trust and goodwill Legal
Notes
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SAARC pledge THE 12th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) session that ended at Islamabad on Tuesday was, perhaps, the most hyped in its 20-year history. This was bound to happen as it came in the midst of India and Pakistan making earnest efforts to normalise their bilateral relations through several confidence-building measures. This factor has played a major role in the successful conclusion of the session. For India, the major achievement is the signing of the Additional Protocol to the SAARC Convention on Combating Terrorism, which has been included in the Islamabad Declaration. It should help eliminate the monster of terrorism from the region. With terrorism threatening peace and stability in South Asia, as also in the rest of the world, efforts to alleviate poverty through increased economic activity and other measures can hardly succeed. The problem, therefore, must get top priority. Terrorism has, in fact, been coming in the way of settling bilateral disputes too. The SAARC members must do everything possible to develop friendly relations among themselves for ensuring smooth implementation of the agreement on the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) and the social charter for promoting the welfare of the people in the region. However, the implementation of the pledges made at Islamabad is easier said than done. Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali of Pakistan has said that his country will extend the necessary cooperation in fighting terrorism. But such assurances in the past were never fulfilled. In fact, cross-border militancy increased in the subcontinent after the signing of the 1987 Convention on Terrorism. The search for a barrier-free trade regime after the signing of the agreement on SAFTA should be easier now. The momentum to achieve this goal must be maintained for the ultimate cause of alleviating poverty in the region. Spurring economic activity, including trade, through the agency of SAARC is in the realm of possibility. After all, there has been considerable increase in the volume of regional trade after SAARC included this core subject in its agenda in 1995. Trade can help SAARC to deliver the goods in other areas too. |
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Truce at last STRICTLY speaking, the recent fracas in the Punjab Congress is the internal matter of the party. But in reality, the whole State will breathe easy now that the warring factions have ostensibly buried the hatchet. The State was suffering more than the dramatis personae because the administration had gone into the sleep mode. Leave alone development work, even routine jobs had been put on hold. The State was virtually without a government. What was noticeable during this crisis was that when ministers slug it out in Delhi, the subordinate staff too takes it easy. It is time everyone went to the workstations immediately because there is so much of catching up to do. The public has suffered a lot for no fault of its own. Let it be compensated a little bit by some days of genuine hard work. Politically speaking, it is a very tenuous kind of truce. Capt Amarinder Singh and Mrs Rajinder Kaur Bhattal can pose for brother-sister photographs for now, with the former even going to the extent of claiming that "there are no differences between us", but only time will tell how long the ceasefire will last. The experience so far has been that the battle of attrition starts as soon as the handshake ends. What may keep the rebels subdued are the newly introduced anti-defection provisions which virtually close the option of forming a separate splinter party but even internal dissension will have to be nipped if the Congress is to do some genuine damage control. The Lok Sabha elections will be the big test for the Chief Minister. If he can carry the various factions along and ensure a credible win for the party, he may extend the hold on the chief ministerial gaddi. If not, well, he may have to experience first hand what it means to live on borrowed time. It will also be interesting to watch the fate of Capt Amarinder Singh's anti-corruption drive, especially against his own party colleagues. |
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Wah Bhai Waugh BOTH India and Australia deserve a special round of applause from the growing tribe of global cricket fanatics. The four-Test cricket series between the World Champions and India will certainly be ranked among the best in the history of the game. Over four decades ago, Australia and the West Indies played a sensational. Test in Brisbane — a match that ended in a tie and, according to some, changed the game of cricket forever. India's quest for cricketing glory overseas began at the same venue three months ago. In the end, it was the game of cricket that triumphed. From Brisbane to Adelaide, Melbourne to the final Test at Steve's home ground in Sydney, the Indian players surprised their critics and supporters in equal measure through some breath-taking displays on the field. Saurav Ganguly set the pace in the first Test for one of the most outstanding performances by India in an overseas series. The pundits rubbed their eyes in disbelief when in spite of Sachin Tendulkar's indifferent form in the first three games, India dominated the world's number one team throughout the series. Just about every Indian player made a substantial contribution. Rahul Dravid and V. V. S. Laxman revived memories of the great Kolkata Test against the same team through another monumental partnership at Adelaide. Anil Kumble silenced his critics by emerging as the leading wicket-taker on either side, although he was dropped from the team for the first Test. The series could have been in Ganguly's pocket at Melbourne but for the rare collapse after a splendid start in the first innings. It allowed Steve to level the series. At Sydney, Waugh did his team a final good turn not by scoring 80 runs in the last innings of his career, but by holding one end up. When his wicket finally fell there was little time for Ganguly to push for a result. But make no mistake that India's journey to the top is now only a matter of time. |
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Thought for the day The present is the funeral of the past, And man the living sepulchre of life.
— John Clare |
Trauma of Punjab’s jobless Punjab
is faced with a gigantic challenge: how to give employment to 30 lakh jobless youth? Successive governments have never cared to know why the youth went berserk during the days of militancy. There is no policy worth the name to make them employable. The problem of unemployment is somewhat different in Punjab. This border state is still emerging out of the shadows of militancy that had lasted over a decade. The major impact of militancy was on the three border districts where the involvement of the local youth was significant. The youngsters there are still restive. Education is in a disarray. Employment opportunities are negligible. Denial of any economic package or incentives to commerce and industry in the border belt has hit the economy hard. It has further increased the woes of the jobless. The situation in other districts is no better. Punjab’s economy is rooted in agriculture. It is dependent on migrant labour. Despite the Green Revolution and the mechanisation of farming operations, agriculture still remains the single largest employer. Yet, policy-makers have seldom cared to explore it or train the youth for agriculture-related jobs. Several contributory factors have accentuated the problem of unemployment over a period of time. These are the rise in population, stagnant economy, poor quality of education, high percentage of school dropouts between primary and 10+2 levels, etc. Then there is the failure of the state to introduce new courses, concepts, technological skills and training modules in sunrise disciplines or vocations in step with the changing times and needs. Punjab has ignored the changing job profiles, as competition, commerce and quality consciousness influenced the market-driven economy and overshadowed the job bazaar. Successive governments have overlooked the need for setting up technology institutes, management institutions or scientific research centres. While society became knowledge-centric and jobs need-based, policy-makers failed to fathom the possible impact of globalisation, privatisation, liberalisation or the WTO on the state’s economy. Punjab’s fiscal health has continued to deteriorate since the mid-1980s, due to militancy and the myopic vision of the politicians and the bureaucrats. They fiddled when the youth went astray. The state has failed to educate and make the youth aware that government jobs will shrink in future, contract jobs will be offered off-the-shelf, the private sector will outpace the public sector, hire and fire policies will become a norm, the self-employed will face difficulties due to stiff competition and without the right skill or knowledge, their future will be bleak. While Punjab blinked, the concepts of education and employment, economics and business, private-public sector participation, preferences and needs changed. The Punjabi mindset, however, has been slow to change. This has led to abandoning of the youth at the crossroads of career-crisis, confusion and uncertainty. Another contributory factor to the rising unemployment is the wide disparity in the options and opportunities available to the youth in the rural and urban areas. This is in terms of education and employment, social and economic infrastructure, communication and connectivity. The urban youth still manages to find jobs that they may not be ‘’satisfied’’ with. At least these jobs keep them ‘’occupied’’. But even such options are closed to the youth in small towns and villages. Disturbing reports of youth slipping into drug addiction and crime are proving true the apprehensions of parents, ever worried over the future of their children. The consequent social tensions that are building up may lead to law and order problems. Punjab, therefore, needs an overarching policy for the youth that will ensure right education and proper employment, will bridge the gap between what the youth deserve and desire and check their migration from rural to urban centres. This will also mean creating jobs in villages, making rural areas livable and locating viable vocational training institutions there. Today, thousands of young men and women do not have even reasonable jobs. These youths are primarily the school dropouts or simple graduates or certificate and diploma holders. This grim scenario calls for immediate attention of parents, politicians, administrators and academicians, who will have to evolve short-and-long-term policies to stem the rot of unemployment. There is another angle to the problem. The youths are either unemployed or under-employed or unemployable, despite a chain of institutions ranging from polytechnics to ITIs to professional colleges. This is primarily because of the existing conventional education system. If the quality of education is woefully poor, so is the attitude of teachers — lackadaisical. Only 8 per cent students out of every 100 enrolled annually in the primary classes enter the portals of colleges. The rest, 92 per cent, drop out on the way up to 10+2. Of the approximate four lakh students who appear in the 10+2 annual examination, less than 60 per cent enter colleges. The rest opt for certificate or diploma courses. It is estimated that from the universities in Punjab, 50,000-odd students graduate annually. And it seems that the entire higher education infrastructure, administrative and academic, is only for 8 per cent students, who seek admission to colleges after qualifying in the entrance tests. This means that there is no policy for the 92 per cent dropouts. Where do these students go? What do they do? What should be done for them? Where to find jobs for 50,000-odd simple graduates in arts, commerce, science, computer application etc? Will Punjab find answers to such questions and draw up strategies to harness the potential of these young men and women? This is required to be done as much in the interest of the state as of the youths themselves. Punjab will also need to reinvent conventional education, make it more attractive and relevant to the changing job scene, as competition, commerce and quality rule the market-driven economic trends. Punjab Technical University Vice-Chancellor Prof Y. S .Rajan says that at the all-India level 1.8 crore new graduates join the queues of the jobless every year. Another 9 million certificate or diploma holders also join similar queues. Therefore, to absorb the educated jobless, Punjab will also need to create more than 3.5 lakh jobs every year and expand the base of education. A different kind of education-cum-employment system will be required to be put in place for the 92 per cent dropouts. |
The lost generation Dinnertime is usually considered the family time in any Indian household, be it any caste, culture or creed. It has been the accepted convention till before the jet-set modern life style invaded our middle class social set-up in a big and irreversible way. Suddenly, the middle-class aspirations have soared high, the dreams are becoming a reality and the wealth has started pouring in or rather “reigning in”, unleashing along in its wake a neo-rich, status conscious, trendy class that takes delight in Armani clothing, Gucci shoes, Omega watches and Platinum jewellery. The old values suddenly seem to be getting “obsolete” and crumbled against a generation whose “fundas” are as outrageous as their dress sense, eating habits or code of conduct. My school-going children were also growing up and fast becoming a part of this new generation psyche. Since childhood, I had tried to inculcate in them, rather deliberately and diligently, the habit of looking forward to the family meals, whether at lunch or dinnertime. Lunchtime, during their kindergarten or early school days, was reserved for fairy-tales — Indian, English or Scottish and particularly “Russi Lok-Kathain” (Russian folklore). The last particularly enamoured their young minds no end since these stories pertained to an altogether different milieu and were unheard of by any one of us, young or old. The delightful lunch time and the afternoon siesta was particularly marked by their innocent question-answer pranks. These bordered on the brink of comic relief and hilarity that always strengthens the mutual affectionate bond. Clearly, lunchtime was mama’s time, no doubt, in the absence of an over busy and always-late-for-lunch papa. Of course, the dinnertime was also as eagerly awaited as the lunch-hour since it was the moment of the family reunion where the father loved to talk about the kids’ school, their homework, teachers as well as their friends. This was the ideal time for relating experiences, family anecdotes, telling jokes and indulging in idle gossip also. The children’s imagination always let loose at these moments and they enlivened the atmosphere as well as our hearts with their silly prattle, jabbering and comic jibes at each other. Dinnertime was certainly the time of entertainment galore and we all loved each moment of it. A few years hence.... and the time and the kids’ childhood, suddenly seemed to the flying away as if “on the wings of Poesy” to use the Keatsian phrase. They were growing fast and getting taller, as was their mind, their interests, their outlook and also their circle of friends. The ever-interesting lunchtime of folklore and fairy tales took a backseat in favour of more technical and intelligent topics and electronic gadgets e.g computers or video games or sega-mega drives or even an occasional children’s programme of the Cable TV that lengthened into hours at a stretch. The story telling sessions were replaced by mama’s reprimands and were resented to initially on one pretext or the other. The growing process, the adolescent eccentricities and the ever-widening generation gap between us and the kids took its toll on the family time finally. Come the dinner-hour and the children would walk smug to the TV room and order for their dinner there and then so that they could watch their favourite programmes like “Friends”, “Full House”, Ally McBeal or “Hogan’s Family”. No amount of coaxing could deter their gutsy determination to have their meals while watching the Cable TV. Desperate to be together as a family during the meal-times, I carried my dinner-plate to the TV room, ignoring the accusing glances of my better-half, when Surabhi, my daughter croaked with a mischievous laughter, “ Mama, do you know, what sustains the family bond these days.... it is the flicks of the TV remote.... of the Cable TV.... ha, ha, ha...” “Yeah! You are all a lost generation, no doubt,” I quoted Hemingway’s epigraph to his first major novel, “The Sun also Rises”. “Lost generation? Mama.... What do you mean? Not me, surely!” protested the mama’s daughter. “Well, the term ‘lost generation’ was used by Hemingway in a conversation with Gertrude Stein, a literary legend, who had mentioned a garage-keeper’s comment to Hemingway. “Oh!” my daughter heaved a sigh of relief. “But how true, even today?” I couldn’t help muttering to myself. |
Kashmir’s orphans spread trust and goodwill
WE hear often of the widows of Kashmir and the agonising search for the missing men in their lives but there are hardly any stories about the children who have been orphaned by the 13 years of turmoil in the valley. So it came as a surprise to meet this group of 40 orphans from Jammu and Kashmir in Delhi and learn that there are hundreds being brought up by the Yateem Trust, Apna Ghar and other orphanages. Many of them may not be technically orphans because they have a mother. But a large number of widows remarry and their children often end up in orphanages, going home once or twice a year for festivals and holidays. Several children have also been left in State care because their mothers have not the means to bring them up. There were nine young girls of seven to 14 years who had lost their fathers and some, both parents, during the shelling in Kargil. Living close to the international border and subjected to constant shelling, the young ones have not even been to school. From their new home in Apna Ghar they now go to school regularly and nurse ambitions of making something of their lives. Mudassar from Kupwara was 12 years old when he lost his father due to an ailment and he was moved into an orphanage. Mudassar has two older brothers and five sisters. Because of poverty all the siblings, except for an older brother who is 24, are in orphanages. Khurshid Ahmed, 13, of Badgaon has been in the Srinagar Yateem Ghar since he was seven. Khurshid is bright, comes within the first five in his class and has ambitions of becoming a doctor. For all these children coming to Delhi and performing small skits and plays, which they have scripted, at Delhi Haat was a great experience. For Yakjaf, the small group of concerned citizen based in Srinagar, Jammu and Delhi who have brought the children to the Capital, it was an occasion to work with children in removing the communal divide that separates them. The children, Hindus from the Jammu migrant camps, Muslims and Buddhists from orphanages in Srinagar and Jammu, dialogued and formed the nucleus of a network of children working for peace in the Valley. Jigme Chottan, 12, who lost both her parents in the Kargil operations and is now in Apna Ghar, has been confined to the four walls of the orphanage. During holidays she manages a trip to Kargil to live with relatives who will have her. But in December life suddenly acquired a new meaning for her as well as other children who came to celebrate life and present skits on peace and harmony. Yakjah means “coming together” in Kashmiri and you could see the hard work of its committed workers taking shape as multiethnic groups of children of 6 to 14 years, divided by the years of violence in the Valley, began to dialogue with one another and establish new bonds of friendship. For Sanjay Kumar and Ashima Kaul Bhatia of Yakjah, these children will form the core of the network that will spread a culture of tolerance and understanding, remove mistrust and reduce tensions. Older people are bitter, angry and it is difficult to change their mind set. But children are more open to dialogue and change, says Sanjay. In fact over the last three years the Army, the BSF, a Mumbai-based NGO Sarhad, Sadbhavana in Delhi and Yakjah have been working with children. Yakjah’s efforts have been slightly different. It has been trying to create safe spaces where children can express themselves creatively. Sanjay, founder of Pandies Theatre, had earlier worked with the British Council on child rights issues in Jammu. The right to security is a basic right of the child and in a communal situation this is jeopardised, he pointed out. With the support of concerned citizens, three theatre workshops have been held in migrant camps in Jammu, Delhi and in the orphanages in the Valley. The performance at Delhi Haat was the culmination of these theatre workshops. It was for many of them a festival for life. Coming to Delhi they have broadened their horizons by site seeing and discussions. Sanjay provided the concept, communal harmony, and the children provided the script for their performance. Sadabahar, the group from Badgaon, did a play on police corruption. The children from the Yateem Trust, Srinagar, did a wonderful skit on corruption in elections and those from the migrant camps in Jammu on the trauma of displacement. They enacted the agony of getting ration cards and rehabilitation facilities. The children from the Krishna Market refugee camp in Delhi did a take off on their personal experiences. (There are still some 14 camps of Kashmiri Pandits in Delhi.) The children said their parents often talked disparagingly about the Muslims in the Valley. In their school too, Muslim were looked on as aliens. Then one of the children got an opportunity to attend a wedding in Srinagar where he made friends with a Muslim boy and came back convinced that the Muslim boys were no different from their Pandit counterparts. Discussion on creative writing and religion are part of the grooming. It is an occasion for airing their views, their experiences and concerns. At one such session a young Kashmiri Pandit said, “we have lived with Kashmiri Muslims and they are not like the picture of them presented after the Gujarat riots.” Another interesting aspect of the Yakjah work is the large number of orphans they work with. There is no database on the number of orphans in the Valley. The Department of Sociology, Kashmir University, did a study on 500 widows and orphans of the Valley but it was more on the widows than the orphans. The Yateem Trust, a pioneering institute for orphans, is over 30 years. But most of the orphanages are terribly short of funds and in a sorry state. But even so a few children, brought up in the care of the Yateem Trust have become doctors and engineers. Apna Ghar in Jammu is supported by the Central Government. The Centre is supposed to provide Rs 500 a child but the money never reaches on time. Apna Ghar has not yet received the grant of 2002. Some orphanages also receive large sums of money from India and abroad. According to one estimate, it is about Rs 50 lakh annually. Moving into orphanages has ensured that the children are educated. All of them have ambitions to become doctors, engineers and even policemen. Not one of them expressed a desire to be an actor. “There are no cinema halls in the Valley for the last 13 years and I have not seen a single Bollywood film. How can I aspire to be an actor,” one of them retorted. The desire for peace is pervasive. When Yakjah sought resources for sending the children to Delhi, several people volunteered help, says Ashima. Mangat Ram Sharma, the Transport Minister and Deputy CM, provided transport for 40 children from Srinagar and Jammu to Delhi. The Director of the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Corporation Aziz Wani provided food. The Vice Chancellor of Jammu University provided accommodation for their stay in Jammu and the SOS Villages put them up in Delhi. The women journalists of the Capital entertained them to lunch and many of them had their first lick of ice creams at the party. Despite some cash donations by friends and well wishers, Yakjah is still short of Rs 12,000. But the enthusiasm shown by the children brought to Delhi has motivated Yakjah to organise theatre workshops in a systematic manner in the Valley every summer and in Delhi in winter. These orphan kids are the hope for an era of peace in the Valley and greater communal harmony in the country. |
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Legal Notes Former Punjab Public Service Commission Chairman Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu, who has been lodged in judicial custody since March 2002 in the “money-for-job” scam, which had rocked the state two years ago, can hope for his release on bail in the new year as the Supreme Court has attached a pre-condition of recording the evidence of two approvers with the acceptance of his bail plea. To ensure that the evidence of approver Prem Sagar and Randhir Singh Dheera are recorded before January 9, the court had directed the trial judge at Patiala to complete the process on the basis of day-to-day proceedings. The court had told Sidhu’s counsel that it was inclined to accept the bail plea of the former PPSC chief provided the recording of the evidence of the approvers is completed, which the prosecution considered very crucial in the case. The Vigilance Bureau of the Punjab Police had registered three cases against Sidhu and he has already been granted bail in two of them.
Telgi case Even though the Maharashtra and Karnataka governments have expressed their willingness to hand over the probe in the Telgi stamp paper scam to the CBI, the Supreme Court will take up for hearing this week of two public interest litigation petitions seeking the investigation in all the 11 states where the sale of fake stamps had been detected. The PIL by two advocates had sought the transfer of the case to the CBI to ensure uniformity in the investigation and unearthing the politician-police-bureaucrat nexus in the scam so far estimated to be worth Rs 33,000 crore. The petitions by Supreme Court advocate Ajay Agrawal and Mumbai-based lawyer Mukesh Manubhai Vaishi had also sought constant monitoring of the CBI probe by the apex court to ensure early results.
Jaya’s woes Despite her exoneration in the TANSI land deal case by the Supreme Court, the woes of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on the legal front are far from over as she still has six cases pending against her. These pertain to acquiring of properties worth Rs 66.65 crore in the country and abroad the trial of which has been ordered to be transferred to Bangalore by the apex court, the sale of the state government’s share in the South Petro Industries Corporation for an alleged consideration in violation of the law, a Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) case in connection with the alleged receipt of three lakh dollars from the US, the granite mining
licence scam and the Meena Advertising scam. The previous Karunanidhi government had registered nine cases
against Jayalalithaa, and apart from the TANSI land scam, she has also been acquitted by the courts in the colour TV purchase and coal import cases. Her exoneration by the Supreme Court in the Tansi land deal was, however, loaded with severe strictures for her “moral misconduct” as the apex court gave her the benefit of the doubt in the absence of concrete evidence.
Death sentence After being awarded the death sentence following an eight-year trial for the brutal murder of his wife Naina Sahni, Sushil Sharma is some distance away from the gallows as he has challenged his conviction in the Delhi High Court. A city Sessions Judge had recently awarded the capital punishment to Sharma for killing Naina in June 1995 and then trying to destroy her body by burning it in the “tandoor” of a restaurant run by him on contract. Similarly, the Delhi Police has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittal of S A R Geelani, a former lecturer of the Capital’s Zakir Hussain College in the
Parliament attack case along with a woman convict by the Delhi High Court recently. While Geelani was awarded the death sentence by a Special POTA court a year ago, Navjot Sandhu, alias Afsan Guru, the wife of Jaish-e-Mohammed militant Shaukat Hussain, alias Guru, was given five years’ jail term. Shaukat and another JeM militant Mohammed Afzal were also awarded the death sentence by the trial court, which was upheld by the High Court.
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I salute him who always dwells in the plantain forest, who shines like the rising sun, who smiles like moonlight, and who is ever the servant of king Sree Rama. — Shri Adi Shankaracharya I see that it is God Himself who has become everything, the universe and its living beings. — Sri Ramakrishna A single word of his (Sri Ramakrishna’s) is to me far weighter than the Vedas and the Vedanta. — Swami Vivekananda As God makes one, so one becomes; since except Him none can do this. Man is thus instructed according to the understanding that God gives Him. He is directed as it pleases God. — Guru Nanak |
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