The militant ranks are apparently becoming desperate. With better fencing and patrolling, there has been a drop in the infiltration level. They are also not enjoying support of the people in the Valley. At one time, booming guns provided some cover to the infiltrators. Now that the guns are silent, they find it difficult to enter the Indian side. Small wonder that those who manage to get in are keen to make the most of their presence in the country. They do not want the present atmosphere to continue because peace is what they dread the most. They have been exploiting the people’s resentment over the Bandipura incident, even forcing the Hurriyat Conference to threaten to opt out of the talks with the Centre.

This is easier expected than delivered as borne out by the fact that the government has already conveyed its inability to monitor violations. The Act stipulates that advertisements must not be political and religious. This underscores not so much the intentions of the government as the inability of any set of authorities to enforce compliance in a vast country with over 100 channels reaching out to crores of viewers.

The CAG has also reported the mishandling of finances in several areas. It is not just one or two government departments that have come under adverse comment. The taxation department has received the maximum flak. The CAG has also pulled up the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board for not depositing electricity duty of nearly Rs 59 crore. Serious acts of omission and commission have also been pointed out in the Forest Department. It is amazing how widespread the extent of financial bungling has been going on in the hill state.

It was interesting to see Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Mr Khurshid Kasuri, and India’s National Security Adviser, Mr Brajesh Mishra, together sharing the dais with the Chairman of the Munich Conference during its last session on future developments in West Asia. From the South Asian perspective, it made a useful sight except the part when Mr Kasuri had to reply some awkward but legitimate questions from the participants on Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan Affair and nuclear proliferation. At one stage, Mr Brajesh Mishra got involved in this when a questioner asked if India and Pakistan would now consider signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But his one liner reply, “Please don’t have those hopes”, bailed Mr Kasuri out also. The Pakistani Foreign Minister’s reply started with, “As Mr Mishra said, Pakistan will not sign the NPT..”, and then India’s National Security Adviser had to interrupt saying that his reply pertained to India and not Pakistan.

Indo-Pak perspectives and the similarity of views on the situation in West Asia; even the sequence of putting them across during the speeches by Mr Kasuri and Mr Mishra gave an impression as if these were part of some bilateral decision which obviously they were not. Both started by narrating near identical facts about their respective country’s connections with West Asia. Geo-politically, both considered their respective country to be a “bridge” between West Asia and Central, South and South-East Asia. Mr Kasuri emphasised religious connections — he questioned India having the second largest population of Muslims — while Mr Mishra conveyed it more on the basis of communications, economics and development.

Both speakers sought early resolution of the Palestinian problem and recommended greater US and European leverage on the parties concerned for the implementation of the Quartet Road Map and the Arab League Peace Plan. According to Mr Kasuri, “... resolution of the Palestinian problem will generate greater understanding in the Islamic world for normalisation of relations with Israel.”

On the situation in Iraq, they emphasised the role of the United Nations for giving legitimacy to the political as well as stabilisation processes. Mr Mishra, seeking the “creation of a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic secular democracy, while preserving territorial integrity, called for consulting Iraq’s neighbours — to harness their energies and tap their influence — in its political revival and economic reconstruction. He mentioned the $ 30 million pledge by India for the re-construction of Iraqi infrastructure. Mr Kasuri pitched for consulting the Arab and other Islamic countries.

Both speakers also spoke on terrorism. Mr Kasuri said that Pakistan was “engaged in a comprehensive war against terrorism”. It had deployed 70,000 troops along the Pak-Afghan border to locate/interdict terrorist suspects, and talked of the intelligence network backed by the Quick Reaction Teams (it reminded me of what we have been doing on the India-Pakistan border for so many years). At least 500 Al-Qaeda operatives/associates had been arrested. According to him, “Al-Qaeda is on the run. There is no prospect of the Taliban coming back (Mr Mishra did not agree)..... the war on terrorism is not over...has yet to be fought and won”.

Both Mr Mishra and Mr Kasuri felt that in Afghanistan it was necessary to bring an early end to war-lordism and extend security cover to the whole country. Mr Mishra mentioned the inability of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (made much of by the US and NATO member-nations) to even enter some of the interior provinces. He emphasised that at this crucial stage when elections were due (these cannot be held by June 2004 because not even 5 per cent of the voters’ lists have been compiled yet) the international coalition cannot afford to turn its attention away from Afghanistan. He also called for expansion and strengthening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation for a cooperative security framework in the region.

During these discussions, I spoke to a senior defence official from a NATO country and enquired if there was an overall NATO assessment on the approximate number of troops required to create conducive conditions for the reconstruction and conduct peaceful elections in the interior of Afghanistan. He replied in the negative and was astonished when I told him of our experiences in Nagaland, Manipur and some other states in North-East India. Despite contingent-based engagements in the Balkan states and elsewhere, European militaries have little experience of conducting such “low intensity operations” in the Asian milieu like Afghanistan.

Mr Brajesh Mishra also dwelt on the positive changes that were taking place in the rest of Asia. He referred to the recent advances in India-China relations and said that it held a promise of far-reaching geostrategic consequences. His overall approach and message was generally for greater intra- and-inter-regional economic cooperation as initiated by India on all fronts, preserving the inherent pluralism, respect for heterogeneity, and multilateral approaches to the security issues. He said that “approaches to security, based on conventional alliance, arms competition, deterrence and diplomacy have been less effective in coping with the challenges posed by terrorism, suicide attacks, WMD proliferation and failing states.....only a multilateral consultative machinery with international credibility can provide legitimacy to the extraordinary measure being contemplated to combat these challenges”. On proliferation, he made it clear that “clubbing the partners against terrorism with countries of true proliferation concern is a self-defeating approach, which can only weaken the cause of genuine non-proliferation.”

In his address, Mr Kasuri stated that “terrorism in and around Afghanistan was an unintended consequence of the international campaign to secure Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan”. This, in my opinion, is only a part of the cause. It had also to do with the “look west” approach adopted by the Pakistani leaders in the 1970s and 1980s. They, particularly Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gen Zia-ul-Haq, hyped Pakistan’s religious connections with West Asian countries, and leaned heavily on its neo-rich but religiously conservative nations for strategic and economic support.

While answering questions on the A Q Khan affair, Mr Kasuri put up a brave front, stating that the Pakistan President had removed Dr Khan from the key post in 2001 and had taken prompt action on the evidence provided by the US intelligence agencies. The President could not punish a national icon and, therefore, took the most appropriate action of pardoning him. All this did not appear to convince the audience. He talked of an “enquiry”, but did not say at what level.

Mr Kasuri said that terrorism should not be equated with Islam, and that the whole region comprises moderate states that want to eradicate extremism and radicalism and focus on economic development. He accepted that Islamic nations must, in the first place, carry out the necessary reforms.

Is this political flexibility or a change of the mindset and a conscious U-turn by the Army-dominated regime in Pakistan? Only time will tell. 

She would be well advised to take out an insurance against cardiac surprises. English in its global mode is in a tearing hurry to reach out. If rules get mauled, it is their fault for coming in the way of the "free fall" of the written word.

Lynne believes that she can raise an army of sticklers to help her evolve a zero tolerance approach to punctuation. She thinks it is possible to save the language because she was born in Britain where most road users strictly follow the National Highway Code. They know it better than they know their scripture. For a pedestrian to step on to the zebra crossing on a busy London street is akin to having a sneak preview of the order that would presumably distinguish heaven from hell.

The rules of the road and the rules of grammar have a common objective. Avoid chaos. One facilitates the free flow of traffic, the other free flow of the written word. The spoken word should only be slave to pauses to make the speech effective.

Lynne would do her cause a good turn if she were to to study the anarchy in motion on Indian roads. We are the most illiterate people as far as our understanding of even elementary rules of the road is concerned. I missed out on a good story by not testing Kiran Bedi's knowledge when she had let herself loose on the hapless road users in Delhi as "Crane" Bedi in the 80s. My one claim to boast is the British driving licence that I did not care to save. I got it after clearing the toughest test for road-users; that too in just one attempt.

On Indian highways truckers have "taught" us to flash the right indicator for allowing vehicles to overtake. What would be the signal for turning right? What would happen if the vehicle behind the ignorant road user were to mistake it as a signal to overtake? Probably another fatal road accident. Ask Lynne and she will tell you that you must flash the left indicator to signal that you intend to stick to the left side of the road for the traffic behind you to overtake you from your right.

Interestingly, the PSHRC is saddled with complaints against the role of the Punjab Police. As per the Act, the commission has a DGP rank officer but with inadequate staff provided to him. Thus, it is humanly impossible to investigate thousands of complaints against the police. There is yet another intriguing outcome of the investigations held by the commission. As per available information, when the complaints against the Punjab Police are investigated by the respective police stations in the state, in 90 to 99 per cent cases the conclusions rebuff the complainants saying complaints against the police were false. However, when these complaints are investigated by either the state crime branch or the police’s internal vigilance, at least 30 per cent complaints against the police were found to be true. Similarly, when the D-GP of the commission and his team investigated complaints against the police, at least 70 per cent were found to be correct.

To run its affairs, the PSHRC is allocated Rs 2.70 crore, per annum. But like all government departments, this commission too spends 95 per cent on the establishment, salaries, dearness allowance, leave travel expenses, rent of its premises etc. It is mind boggling that the PSHRC is paying Rs 2.50 lakh per month as rent of its office. Thus, Rs 30 lakh a year is drained out on just rent. Ever since its inception in 1997, the commission has paid over Rs 3 crore only towards rent. Apparently, neither the state government nor the commission has ever made any efforts to save this money by building its own office. The state government could have easily strived for one-time Central grant to erect a PSHRC building.

The conviction and the will to ensure the smooth running of the commission is certainly missing. For instance, the last Secretary to the commission, Mr Ramesh Inder Singh, left in 2002 to join at the Centre and so far nobody has been posted by the government to fill this vacancy. Interestingly, the PSHRC has not submitted its annual reports to the state government since 1999. Similarly, the state government, for which it is mandatory to present these reports before the House, has also not pursued the matter.

The present Chairperson of the PSHRC, Justice N.C. Jain (retd.), who took over a year ago, said that he has written to the state government to appoint the Secretary at the earliest. “However, I am making sure that the commission’s work does not suffer because of the absence of a Secretary. I have pushed the staff to prepare pending annual reports and we shall soon send at least two reports to the state government”. The Chairperson has toured a couple of jails in Punjab and is of the opinion that they urgently need significant improvement. However, he expressed the inability of the commission to sponsor any research project for lack of adequate funds.

The DGP of the PSHRC, Mr S.K. Verma, said that the commission was receiving thousands of complaints, which required a thorough investigation. “My investigation wing has only six enquiry officers. We have no infrastructure and resources. For instance, we have just one Gypsy to be shared by all the six enquiry officers. The lack of facilities and infrastructure does make the investigation an uphill task, yet we try to do our best. I have personally investigated 66 cases this year. We have written to the state government to improve the investigation wing of the commission so as to ensure speedy and thorough investigations”. Mr Verma has taken the initiative to create a data bank of all the cases handled by the PSHRC. So far, nearly 20,000 cases have been put on its website.

The functioning of the commission has been attacked by fire-brand social activist and former MLA Laxmi Kanta Chawla. She says, “The PSHRC instead of reaching out to the victims, is actually acting as a court, where the onus is on the victims to prove their victimisation. So the victims are made to travel to Chandigarh before the commission along with their witnesses for a number of times. This means the expenditure to be incurred on the travel, lodging and boarding has to be borne by the victims. Since the victims are mostly poor, this exercise only adds to their woes.

The Consumer Forums have often come down heavily on these housing bodies and land development authorities for the way they treat consumers. Perhaps the strongest indictment came from the Supreme Court in 1993 in the case of Lucknow Development Authority vs M.K. Gupta, when it described them as “store houses of inaction” where “papers moved not out of concern for duty and responsibility, but for extraneous considerations”.

The apex court also made it clear in that order that any defect in construction activity would be denial of comfort and service to a consumer. And when possession of property is not delivered within the stipulated period, the delay so caused was denial of service.

Since then, the forums constituted under the Consumer Protection Act have compensated many a consumer for the hardship or harassment undergone on account of defects in construction or delay in handing over possession of a plot or a house or any other deficient service rendered by housing bodies and builders. In three relatively recent cases, the apex consumer court has reiterated further the right of the consumer to get compensation against such negligent services.

In the case of the Rajasthan Housing Board vs Shail Bhargava, for example, the National Consumer Disputs Redressal Commission once again emphasised that the delay in handing over possession of a plot or a house or a flat within a reasonable time constituted deficiency in service and that the consumer would be entitled to compensation in such cases.

Earlier, in the case of Chief Administrator, PUDA, vs Shabnam Virk, the National Commission had clarified what constituted a reasonable time. In its view a period of two to two and a half years would be a reasonable time for constructing a house and handing over possession to the consumer.

Any delay beyond this period would constitute a deficiency in service and the builder or the land development authority responsible for such delay could be held liable for consequent damages.

The apex consumer court also made it clear in this case that the land development authorities and builders cannot arbitrarily hike up the cost of a plot or a house. There ought to be sufficient and valid grounds for price escalation, the commission said. In this case, the apex consumer court agreed with the view of the lower consumer courts that PUDA was not justified in hiking the cost of the house and, therefore, it should charge the consumer Rs 6.3 lakh being the original price and not the escalated price of Rs 7.44 lakh.