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EC is right SHAR blast Justice on trial |
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Stealing Congress robes BJP trying to expand its base
A lawyer’s dream
The dirty bomb: myths and the reality Failing
parents to get training More secrets of a healthy life
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EC is right A LEVEL-PLAYING field is a must for free and fair elections. Neither the ruling party nor the Opposition should get any advantage over each other save the ideological. The decision of the Election Commission to turn down the Home Ministry’s request to permit Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani to use the Indian Air Force aircraft for electioneering should be seen in this context. The only person who is entitled to the use of such an aircraft during elections is the Prime Minister. This is understandable as the Prime Minister occupies a unique position and there can be no restrictions on his movements. The Supreme Court had also upheld this position when the Election Commission under Mr T.N. Seshan had sought to deny even him access to the IAF aircraft. In any case, the Deputy Prime Minister does not belong to the category of the President and the Prime Minister. In fact, the Constitution does not even mention such a post. There is no restriction on the Prime Minister appointing any number of his ministers as deputy prime ministers. There is at least one instance – the Morarji Desai Cabinet — when there were two deputy prime ministers. If, for instance, Mr Advani’s plea was upheld, and if the Prime Minister wanted to give more ministers access to IAF aircraft, all he needed to do was to designate them as deputy prime ministers. The Election Commission has nipped such a possibility by rejecting the plea. Had the facility been extended to the DPM in the name of security, the Leader of the Opposition would also have staked a claim in view of the special law that takes care of her security. After all, she is entitled to a higher level of security than the DPM. Needless to say, such a move would have opened the floodgates of similar demands from other leaders. Incidentally, as an Opposition leader Mr Advani had even questioned the use of IAF aircraft by the then Prime Minister on the ground that it gave the Congress an extra advantage over the Opposition. The BJP has done well in not challenging the Election Commission’s decision and making arrangements for a private aircraft to ferry the DPM for his election tour. Ideally, the Home Ministry should not have even explored the possibility of Mr Advani using the IAF aircraft for political purposes. |
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SHAR blast THE Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota is the sheetanchor of India’s high-tech aspirations and the unlikeliest of places where an accident should take place. But the nightmare came true on Monday when an explosion rocked the solid propellant booster plant of the high-security complex. Although sabotage has been ruled out, even an accidental blast is a matter of grave concern. It is true that accidents do happen but a space centre is supposed to have zero-tolerance level in matters of safety. The nation wants to be assured that adequate safety measures are in place to ensure that there is no repeat of such a horrifying disaster which claimed the lives of several senior scientists. There are reports to suggest that this is not the first accident of this kind but the biggest so far. Apparently, there has been negligence. The high-level enquiry should explore this aspect fully. The usual smokescreen of secrecy should not be spread to keep facts away from the public eye. It is also necessary to analyse whether the centre was able to respond to the crisis in an effective manner. Initial reports suggest that rescue teams were not able to completely access the accident site. Since it is the first time that it has suffered a disaster of this magnitude, its reaction time may not be as quick as desirable. While all attempts should be made to ensure that there is no repetition, it is also necessary to learn from the mistakes and prepare oneself for the worst-case scenario. Present indications are that the accident will not affect the country’s launch plans. Luckily, buildings of the complex are spaced wide apart. The complex where the explosion took place was some 5 km away from the launch pad. But for that precaution, consequences would have been unthinkable. |
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Justice on trial THE Supreme Court is rightly concerned over the prevalence of a nexus between the lawyers and the judges to misuse the judicial process. Chief Justice V.N. Khare’s observation that the cash-for-warrants scam is not confined to Gujarat alone but is happening all over the country not only demonstrates the extent to which some black sheep have eroded the majesty of the judiciary but also calls for timely course corrections to restore the people’s faith in the system. Though the malaise was confined to a section of lawyers and magistrates in the lower courts, it has now spread its tentacles to higher courts. This makes the situation all the more serious. The judges are much more than mere career professionals as it is through them that the state exercises its sovereign judicial power. Their rulings will lose their credibility if even some of them are influenced by illegal gratification or extraneous considerations. Justice Khare’s helplessness to tackle the menace, in the absence of explicit powers conferred on him by the legislature to take corrective action against judges, is understandable. Surely, things would not have come to such a pass had the High Courts themselves strengthened the system of regular and effective supervision of the courts under their jurisdiction. Corrupt practices in the district courts with the connivance of judicial officers could be checked through an in-house vigilance mechanism and surprise inspection by the judges of the High Court. In addition, Justice Khare’s suggestion for more administrative powers under the Judges Enquiry Act merits serious consideration. More to the point, the judicial appointments should be made foolproof and transparent with stress on merit, integrity, character and experience. If judges and lawyers are arraigned for grave delinquencies, the administration of law and justice will become a farce.
Thought for the day The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
— William Blake |
Stealing Congress robes BJP trying to expand its base THE BJP, in particular its leader Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has acquired a more dominant position in the NDA than when the ruling coalition was first cobbled. But in the process it had to further compromise its original agenda. Fears were expressed that once the BJP consolidated its position, it will get rid of its inconvenient allies. Gujarat experience had encouraged the hardliners in the party that it could achieve better success on the strength of its own ideology of Hindutva. VHP leaders had started threatening to expose and oppose Mr Vajpayee and Mr L.K. Advani if they deviated from it. But in its victory in the assembly elections in three crucial states on the issue of what it called BSP (Bijli, Sarak and Pani), the BJP discovered an alternative route to power. It is leading the NDA election campaign on economic issues and foreign policy. It is possible that once the BJP gets a majority on its own, as its leaders are hoping to get, it might impose its version of democracy and nationalism. But what is more important is their realisation that the people of India can be better won by promises of economic prosperity and peace than by arousing communal passions and anti-Pakistan hysteria. It is this maturity of the Indian electorate that is a real check on the reversal of the role of the BJP. I also concede that the distance covered by the BJP since its early Jana Sangh days is motivated by an urge for power. This highlights the liberating role of power. In India, a powerful school of political thought has held power to be source of all evils. MN Roy, the great philosopher, and Jayaprakash Narayan, the moral leader of India after Gandhi, had propounded the ideal of politics without power. This ideal is like a marriage without sex. The suppression of the urge for power leads to perversions in politics as the suppression of the sexual urge does in individual life. As idealists and perfectionists who once held commanding heights in Indian politics, thus, sidelined themselves, the secular nationalists were inhibited in recognising the diversity of the country - based on region, caste and ethnicity. The Congress, for instance, spent more energy on condemning casteism of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav than communalism of the BJP in the 1999 election in the UP. In Panchmari, it further handicapped itself by adopting the policy of going alone and rejecting coalition politics. The BJP, which started as a party of uniformity, on the other hand, accommodated far more diversity than its main rival. It leads a government which includes hardened RSS workers, socialists and regional outfits. All opponents of a unitary constitution and votaries of maximum autonomy for states like the Dravidian parties, the Akali Dal and till recently the National Conference have been its allies. In fact, all the Dravidian parties - ruling and in the opposition - which once threatened secession from India were at one time vying with one another to collaborate with the BJP. How far the BJP can go to accommodate secessionist groups is ironically highlighted by the RSS mouthpiece,
Panchjanya. Its issue of December 7, 2003, gives details of the BJP’s collusion with “militant and secessionist” elements in the North-East for “political gains.” Panchjanya reports that the BJP is a member of the ruling National Democratic Alliance and five of its seven legislators are ministers in Nagaland. It adds that the Alliance came to power with “the help of the militant organisation NSCN-IM” and that its government is known for funding church activities for the last many years. Its latest catch is a Christian leader of the North-East, Mr PA Sangma, who had been a vocal campaigner for the right to eat beef. The BJP accommodates not only regional sentiments, however, chauvinistic, but also makes all possible compromises with caste groups. Thus, it took all the risks involved in supporting an unpredictable Mayawati as the Chief Minister of UP to get the Scheduled Caste votes and invited her to campaign for it in the Gujarat election. Despite acrimonious split with her, efforts are being renewed to neutralise or win her back. Likewise, the BJP is trying to project OBC leaders. Ms Uma Bharati in MP, Mr Vinay Katiyar and now Mr Kalyan Singh in UP. It is oversimplification to interpret Mr Narendra Modi’s victory as that of mere Hindutva; though the communal massacre did polarise the voters. But the fact that he went out of his way to woo the Scheduled Castes, and the Scheduled Tribes and that he himself belonged to the OBC, too, were contributory factors. Moreover, he repeatedly played the regional card by talking about Gujarat “gaurav” (pride). Addressing the Gujarati NRIs, in the recent Bharatiya Pravasi Conference, he took pride in mentioning how a great Gujarati, Gandhi, changed the world. Not that he was the most qualified person to play regional, caste and tribal cards, but the main opposition confined itself to a defensive role of soft Hindutva. Apart from widening its ideological and ethnic sweep, the BJP tried to encroach upon the traditional ground of the Congress as a party of Indian nationalism. It has gradually co-opted all icons of the freedom movement and has started claiming that it is its real inheritor. Tribute to Gandhi is part of the daily prayer in the RSS shakhas, which was once accused of his murder. From Vivekananda to Tilak and Patel have been its revered figures. The BJP has started celebrating birth anniversaries of Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh. So far the dividing line between the BJP and the secularists used to be Nehru. But recently the BJP president, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, claimed that his party was doing precisely what the Congress used to do under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru. The changed definition of nationalism has facilitated its task. In the Gandhi-Nehru era, it was defined in terms of hostility to British imperialism which has disappeared and has been replaced by Pakistan as main threat to Indian nationalism. In its anti-Pakistan role, the BJP scored better than other parties. Its hostility to Indian Muslims was mainly an extension of its anti-Pakistanism; as it doubted Muslim loyalty in the event of a conflict with Pakistan. But now it has started mending its fences with Muslims. The RSS initiated a dialogue with the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, a close ally of the Congress party during the freedom movement. Mr Advani quoted the secessionist Kashmiri Muslim conglomeration, the Hurriyat Conference, as having wished the return of the Vajpayee government in the election. The offer of Mr Muzaffar Baig, a minister in the Kashmir government, to Mr Vajpayee to contest from a Muslim constituency like Srinagar is also being used to build his image among the Muslims. As Pakistan has hailed him as a man of peace, it might also serve the same purpose. Apart from the attempts to expand the caste, community and ideological base, the BJP is trying to add glamour to its electoral armoury by enlisting sports persons, film stars, etc, into the party. How formidable this grand alliance will become depends on the ability of the BJP to maintain its internal coherence under the broad
umbrella of Mr Vajpayee’s leadership. If it can form a government on its own strength, Mr Vajpayee’s indispensability for the Parivar will be reduced and the type of coalition that he has built will be in jeopardy. Finally, the shape of Indian politics will also depend on the capacity of the alternative Congress-led front to revive its ideological and organisational broad base to gather larger diversity. The Congress has realised, though belatedly, how all its robes have been stolen by the BJP. It is now going out of its way to forge alliances and, wherever possible, electoral adjustments. There is, of course, enough diversity in the country that can accommodate at least two broad fronts of Indian
politics. |
A lawyer’s dream A group of lawyers from Chandigarh were in for a surprise when they were invited for a meeting by the Governor of Punjab, Lt-General Khalid Maqbool (retd), at the Governor’s House, Lahore, on a wintry December morning. They were simply dazzled by the exquisite building of British vintage. No less impressive was the handsome Governor, who effortlessly spoke Urdu, Punjabi and English. They were simply bowled over by his affability. Once the pleasantries were over and they settled down for talks, the Governor asked them whether they could suggest two steps which would obliterate all the misgivings and rancour of the past between the people of India and Pakistan and put the bilateral relations on an even keel. All of a sudden, there was pindrop silence in the high-domed, chandeliered hall. The visitors seemed to have been stumped by the Governor’s request. When no answers were forthcoming from the 61 lawyers who formed the group, the Governor repeated the question in a different tongue. Again, the response was the same: the lawyers looked at one another with an expression of having been caught unawares writ large on their faces. The Governor was not the type who would leave the matter at that. Again, he asked the question, this time in Punjabi. The response would not have been different but for my lawyer friend who stepped forward and gave two suggestions which he thought would revolutionise Indo-Pak relations. “Sir, I would like India and Pakistan to agree to ease the visa restrictions whereby Indians born in what is now Pakistan and Pakistanis born in what is now India, and their descendants do not require any visa to “cross the borders”. Everybody heard him with rapt attention, some of them even nodding their heads in agreement. This encouraged him to continue: “I consider the Punjabi spoken in Lahore and broadcast by the Lahore station of Pakistan Radio as the purest and the most ear-soothing. The language reminds me of the pre-Partition days when the Punjabis on both sides of the border lived like one whole family. “Every morning as I get ready to leave for the High Court, I tune into the Lahore station and listen to the news bulletin, not so much for the news, but to enjoy the language. But I cannot listen to the broadcast when the sky is cloudy. Sometimes, I am unable to listen to the news for weeks together. This is because the broadcast is through the medium wave. If you can make arrangements to broadcast it through the satellite, Punjabis the world over would be indebted to you”. The lawyer who has a few satellite radio receivers knew only too well that listening to satellite radio broadcast was sheer pleasure. The Governor noted down the two points on a paper. He asked whether anyone else had any other suggestions to make. Since nobody came forward with any other idea, he said: “Since visa regime is not in my domain, I can only bring your suggestion to the notice of General Pervez Musharraf, when I meet him next. As regards satellite broadcasting, I promise you that it will soon be done. Two months have passed since he made this promise but the lawyer’s dream of listening to his favourite news bulletin through his satellite radio receiver remains a mere
dream. |
The dirty bomb: myths and the reality
A few years ago, my son, pretending to be a budding chemist, shouted at his sister at the dinner table. “Please don’t add ‘sodium chloride’ to your dish”. She got scared. She was too young then to know that ‘sodium chloride’ is just plain common salt. The chemical jargon evoked the notion of some poison! The public tend to associate words such as “nuclear,” “radiation” and “atomic” with catastrophic and bizarre consequences. Over the past few years, I have learnt that if you add a bit of “radioactivity” to a news story it will get top billing in the media! I suspect that the media carried the news about the dirty bomb prominently because of ill-founded worries. Maybe, persons like me with some experience in the field, failed to allay their fears. (A “dirty bomb” or a radiological dispersal device is a combination of a conventional explosive or bomb and a suitable radioactive material.) The Hindustan Times based its February 13 report on an article by Kishore Kuchibhotla and Matthew Mckinzie at Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington. The authors estimated by using a computer code, the possible effects of a dirty bomb consisting of a cobalt-60 source, used for cancer treatment and five pounds of TNT on parts of Delhi. The original report gives many helpful hints to the would-be terrorist! “There was agreement among experts within and outside the US government that a dirty bomb would not cause a large loss of life —as in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks...,” the authors conceded. “The ‘man on the street’ might not dwell on the distinctions between a radiological weapon and a nuclear weapon, focusing instead on the fact that it is nuclear. The mass media might inflame public reaction and contribute to confusion and panic...” The news reports did not highlight these views. The HT report claims that dirty bombs are easy to make. In India, all such sources are in the safe custody of licensees. They are not freely available, as the HT report assumes. The physical security measures of the sources in hospitals and industry may not be very strict. But it is virtually impossible to make a dirty bomb with a teletherapy source because of several reasons. Specialists have concluded that radioactive material contained in a dirty bomb is unlikely to kill anyone. Besides some deaths due to the explosion, radioactive material from the bomb may get widely dispersed over a large area. Mostly, the radiation doses to victims will be no more than those at which thousands of patients undergoing certain diagnostic and some therapeutic applications of nuclear medicine are allowed to go home. Some specialists believe that low doses of radiation may not cause any appreciable harm. The victims may suffer some cancer risks, which may not be distinguishable from the natural incidence of cancer in the unexposed population. Some mavericks (no longer a minority!) believe that low level exposures may be beneficial! More people may die of traffic accidents from fleeing the scene out of fear than of cancer from radiation doses! The levels of radiation may be appreciable at the site of explosion. A few tens of metres away, the radiation level may not be significantly more than the natural background radiation in different parts of the country. The natural background radiation levels in some parts of the beaches in Kerala are 1,000 times more than those in Minicoy Island. The regulatory agencies will ensure that the increase in the radiation levels due to the incident are As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA concept). This may require decontamination of vast areas, spending large sums of money, depending on the intensity of explosion, amount of radioactive material and weather conditions. Detectability of radiation at very low levels helps to evaluate and reduce health and safety impacts. Cancer patients need not worry about their safety as the source used in a teletherapy unit is not a bomb material. The radiation level on its source head is acceptably low. Nearly 250 Cobalt-60 units are used to treat cancer patients in different parts of the country. Many of these workhorses have been in use since the seventies. I hasten to add that the fear about dirty bombs is understandable. I do not want to underestimate the concerns. The officials of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and associated agencies attended many meetings at the international and national levels, spending considerable time, money, and effort to address these concerns. The AERB initiated several steps proactively right in the late nineties. Its staff met the licensees at Mumbai, Chennai, Trichy, Kolkata, and Delhi over the past few months to discuss relevant issues. Indian scientists assisted the International Atomic Energy Agency in tracking lost sources overseas. We can attend to any radiological emergency that follows a dirty bomb explosion. We have been handling radioactive material since the mid-fifties. We have trained many persons in radiation and radioactivity monitoring over the past several decades. We operate 14 nuclear power reactors. The off-site emergency monitoring capability, which exists at the nuclear power stations, is very handy to deal with the effects of dirty bombs. My recent discovery worries me. The best way to make a dirty bomb appears to be to consult the so-called think-tanks. They may know more about it than any one else. The media use their “scholarly” reports to release telling news stories. Every one wants to maximise the effect. Mitigating radiological consequences is a strenuous endeavour. An important phase of this activity is to evaluate the impact of the incident and to convey precise information to the public at large. I expected the media to ask some searching questions to our own specialists before splashing the conclusions of think-tanks on the front pages of our newspapers. The writer is a former Secretary of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board |
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Failing parents to get training PARENTS of unruly children in the UK will be sent on residential courses to teach them how to raise a family. Under a dramatic extension of the state’s power to intervene in family life to be unveiled this week, education chiefs will be able to force parents whose children have been expelled from school to take parenting lessons. The new powers will be controversial, with accusations of a `boot camp’ approach and fears of damaging trust between parents and teachers if schools are seen to be judging families on how they bring up their children. However, government ministers will argue that it is unfair to children not to tackle inadequate parenting and that `tough love’ measures can divert them before they slide too deep into trouble. `We will try to help first and, if that help is refused, we look to a legal sanction,’ said a spokesman for the UK Department for Education and Skills. Under the new breed of parenting orders, adults whose children are considered at risk of getting into trouble could be sent on weekend courses on how to control their offspring. Education authorities will also be able to obtain court orders against the parents of expelled pupils to tackle the root causes of misbehaviour, backed by the threat of a Pounds Sterling 1,000 fine for failure to comply. They could also draw up `parenting contracts’, setting out what each side will do to help a child to improve: contracts will be voluntary. Until now, youth offending teams could only seek parenting orders against children convicted of a crime. But from Friday they can intervene with those merely considered at risk of getting into trouble.
— The Guardian |
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More secrets of a healthy life BILLIONS of pounds have been spent trying to conjure the spell for swift weight loss, good health and long life, yet the ‘secret formula’ has been found in 14 simple words: beans, blueberries, broccoli, oats, oranges, pumpkin, salmon, soy, spinach, tea, tomatoes, turkey, walnuts and yoghurt. Remember these while conducting the weekly shop and health, long-life and beauty are assured, an American doctor insists. Tired of diets that judge their effectiveness through complexity, the world’s most health-conscious — and overweight — people are now embracing simplicity. ‘Foods, the right foods, can actually change the course of your biochemistry,’ said Dr Steven Pratt, an authority on food and ageing, and co-author of the book at the heart of America’s latest diet craze, Super Foods: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life. ‘These superfoods can help to stop damage at the cellular levels that can develop into disease,’ he said. ‘And they have the delightful side effect of making you feel better, look better and have more energy.’ The foods — which are all rich in nutrients and relatively low in calories — could prevent, and in some cases even reverse, heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers and dementia, Pratt claims. His book has stormed to the top of US bestseller lists and he has become an overnight health guru and media darling, starring in a special Oprah Winfrey show. The Atkins diet comes in for particular criticism from Pratt, who believes that the obsession with a low-carbohydrate, high-protein regime promoted by followers such as Jennifer Aniston, Geri Halliwell and Renee Zellweger, is dangerously flawed. ‘We evolved on fats, carbohydrates and proteins,’ he said. ‘If you eat a healthy, whole-grain diet you’ll feel full long before you get fat.’ Instead of concentrating on what we shouldn’t eat, Pratt believes we should focus on micronutrients, which include vitamins, minerals and other powerful plant chemicals. His 14 superfoods are all rich in nutrients and relatively low in calories and Pratt says that each food is the best in its class at preventing and even reversing certain diseases. ‘Take diabetes,’ he said. ‘Two easy ways to avoid it are to eat four servings of beans a week and three to five servings of whole grains a day. If you had to pick one food, spinach is best for low rates of heart disease, cancer, cataracts and age-related vision loss.’ The extraordinarily high vitamin E and vitamin C content of blueberries — or brainberries as Pratt calls them — can play an invaluable part in reducing mental deterioration. ‘If you had to pick one food to ensure your lowest rates of dementia as you get older, blueberries are the thing,’ said Pratt. ‘Frozen or fresh, it doesn’t matter.’ Pratt started investigating the link between diet and disease in the Eighties after discovering that zinc, selenium and other antioxidants could ward off macular degeneration and other diseases that plagued his ageing patients. By adding certain foods to their diets and subtracting others, such as refined foods, sugar and salt, he found that they flourished. He now claims that his superfoods offer the ultimate combination of the life-enhancing nutrients, namely vitamin C, folic acid, selenium, vitamin E, lycopene, lutein, alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, glutathione, resveratrol, fibre, omega-3 fatty acids and polyphenols. The New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry have all lent him their support. ‘The reasoning sounds very good,’ says Katherine Tallmadge, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. ‘These are good, healthy whole foods which we should all be eating.’ However, even Pratt admits that simply eating well will not guarantee good health and longevity. ‘You have to exercise, too,’ he said. `The linchpin of good health includes 30 to 60 minutes a day of aerobic exercise and weight training two to three times a week.’
— The Guardian
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By giving and consecration, the whole life of the soul is given to the service of the Supreme and the ego is freed from its barriers and its acts no more bind the soul. — Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in The Bhagavad Gita By hearing the word Men learn of the earth, the power that supports it, and the firmament. — Guru Nanak Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. — Saint Francis of Assisi Ahimsa is an attribute of the brave. Cowardice and Ahimsa don’t go together any more than water and fire. — Mahatma Gandhi |
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