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Daughters’ rights sacred Mega response |
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From ISI’s mouth
Hunt for Osama
Beware of dogs!
HUMAN RIGHTS DIARY
Delhi Durbar
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Daughters’ rights sacred THE Mufti Sayeed government in Jammu and Kashmir has only itself to blame for the trouble it faces over the state Assembly adopting a Bill aimed at depriving the state's daughters of their permanent resident status once they marry an outsider. The Congress, a coalition partner, on second thoughts, wants the controversial piece of legislation to be referred to a select committee of the legislature, but the Mufti's PDP has yet to announce what it wants to do to the Bill in view of public protests and the Congress changing its position. In any case, the government now appears to be inclined to remove the gender bias in the Bill which forced women rights groups and the others concerned to raise their voice against it. The Bill, if it became a law in its present form, would disqualify the women marrying non-state subjects to hold any immovable property in their name. However, it would not affect the status of a young man from Jammu and Kashmir marrying a non-state subject. This was a clear case of gender-based discrimination. The Bill also negates the fundamental right of equality guaranteed under the Constitution of India. It is good that a move has begun to remove the injustice done to the daughters of the state. Surprisingly, the Bill did not evoke criticism from any section of the state Assembly when it was tabled in the House. It is difficult to understand why the Chief Minister has gone in for this obnoxious law at all. It may have been intended to strengthen the ruling PDP's position in the Valley, where it faces a serious challenge from the National Conference. Mr Omer Abdullah of the NC might have acquiesced in because of political reasons, as it was he who was accusing Mufti Sayeed of neglecting the state's interests after his government withdrew the Special Leave Petition from the Supreme Court filed against the High Court verdict, scrapping the discriminatory law that already existed there. But the Congress ought to have prevented the ugly controversy by taking enough care before voting for the Bill in the Assembly. |
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Mega response EAR-to-ear smile has returned to the face of Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie, and why not? The mega offer to sell 10 per cent of government stake in the ONGC evoked an overwhelming response on Friday. The biggest ever issue was oversubscribed by 1.07 times within 45 minutes of the opening of the bidding. By the time the first day was out, the oversubscription had gone up to 2.12 times. Many records are expected to be set by the time the offer closes on March 13. This despite the fact that critics had been shouting that the price band of Rs 680-750 was too high for investors. The target was to get Rs 10,000 crore from the largest issue of the country, but the government may end up mopping up as much as Rs 13,100 crore. Significantly, the issue has attracted foreign buyers in droves. Legendary Warren Buffett, billionaire stock market investor, putting in $1 billion can indeed be seen as a vote for India. The development will force all the leading funds of the world to look at India in a different light. It should be noted that China has been following the same route to modernise its economy. What is remarkable is that the other five companies — CMC, IPCL, GAIL, Dredging Corporation and IBP — where the government has sold its remaining share in the current round, have also evoked an equally positive response. The target of raising Rs 14,500 crore through disinvestments in public sector companies in the current financial year is as good as achieved. This will not only put privatisation back on the rails but will also have an impact on the Indian economy, the GDP, infrastructure and the capital market. But disinvestment is not a target in itself. It is only a means to make PSUs function better and also to use the huge investment lying idle in them more judiciously. It is now for the government to utilise the money that comes in its hand for wealth generation in such a way that the “India Shining” slogan turns into a reality. |
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From ISI’s mouth INDIA can very well utter “we told you so” following the statement by former ISI chief Javed Ashraf Qazi in the Pakistani Parliament on Friday that the Jaish-e-Mohammed was involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and also in the deaths of “thousands of innocent Kashmiris”. This candid admission is unusual but not really surprising, coming as it does only after the banned organisation turned its guns on President Pervez Musharraf and launched suicide attacks on him. At the same time, it is indicative of the fact that the western countries are turning the screws on the Pakistan government to come clean on the terrorism issue. The links of terrorist organisations like the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Toiba with Al-Qaida stand exposed and the US realises that it cannot crush Osama bin Laden’s band without eliminating its supporting branches. Still, the statement is very significant in that it shows that Pakistan is finally being forced to sever its ties with terrorism. But this break will be meaningful only if it is complete. It cannot afford to be with the hares and the hounds at the same time. Right now, the Jaish chief Masood Azhar continues to be a free man in Pakistan. Nor is there any serious attempt to apprehend the other top terrorists whose names were provided to Islamabad by India. The best way for Pakistan to atone for its past sins is to undo them. It created a dangerous genie which it must put back in the bottle now. That will be in its own interest as well because the creation has targeted Pakistan also. Even if it cannot admit it publicly, it has to launch an all-out drive against terrorists and fundamentalists operating within Pakistan. Just because they can make India bleed from a thousand cuts does not mean that they will not inflict at least five hundred similar wounds on Pakistan as well.
The price of championing human rights is a little inconsistency at times. |
Hunt for Osama WHILE US Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to arrive, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw has spent three days in Pakistan, meeting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and his own counterpart and went through the usual routine. On top of his agenda was the question of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons technology and knowhow. He addressed a joint Press conference with the Pakistan Foreign Minister on March 4 and announced satisfaction with what Pakistan was doing to ensure nonproliferation. Mr Straw also announced a quadrupling of British aid and easing of the British visa regime for Pakistanis by withdrawing all the current restrictions. The British government may also work more assiduously for Pakistan’s re-entry into the Commonwealth. All of these are important in themselves. But these results underline a basic understanding on what is the crucially important subject: what needs to be done after the disclosures made by Dr. A.Q. Khan and others’ investigations. There is another subject, perhaps of even greater importance: it is being the election year in the US, President George W. Bush seems to desire some spectacular success in Afghanistan - perhaps in the shape of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and Mulla Umar, along with some success in putting down the resurgent Taliban who are now attacking Afghan and western targets inside Afghanistan. Since they are using Pakistan - where they have regrouped - as a launching pad, an offensive against them is visualised for May-June inside as well as outside Pakistan’s tribal areas on either side of the Pak-Afghan border. As it happens, the Taliban’s support base is more widespread, especially in the NWFP’s and Balochistan’s Pushtoon areas. This will anyhow require Pakistan’s active cooperation. Now, it seems that General Musharraf has promised to do the Pakistan Army’s best. It will be a tricky and politically risky operation in these inaccessible and traditionally independence-loving areas. Pakistan’s own control over the areas is nominal, and the Pakistan Army has never entered the seven Tribal Agencies while internal security there has been ensured through the locally recruited militias. Political presence has been kept through a special political service. Normal laws do not apply in these areas. Now, the Pakistan Army has already moved into these areas (South Waziristan) to ferret out Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives. Pakistan is required to intensify these operations and perhaps fan out into other Tribal Agencies. The Americans talk of a spring offensive perhaps to add colour to a war that is already on and is constantly intensifying. The number of troops may go up substantially by spring. But Pakistan’s effort has already been on. It is hard to see what more can it do? Could it be some new dimension of the extra effort? What new dimension can be desired other than what has been bruited in the Samuel Hersh’s recent article in New Yorker magazine: “Joint Operations” by Pakistan and American troops on both sides of the border. The coming days will show whether Pakistani spokesmen continue to vehemently assert that no American troops are operating this side of the Pak-Afghan border nor will they at any time. If Pakistani officials go on reassuring the worried Pakistanis that GIs are not coming, it will show that the West has accepted the Pakistani assurances of doing its utmost to capture Osama, Mulla Umar and others. Hitherto, there has been a crisis of credibility, according to the American media. A section of the American press believes that Pakistan’s participation in the US war against terror is not whole-hearted; it thinks that Pakistan does as much as American intelligence points out. For the rest, it dare not annoy or alienate the fierce Pushtoon tribes that are the sympathisers of both the Taliban - their own kith and kin - and, by extension, Al-Qaeda. This suspicion has persisted for some time. The reason why some Americans are sold on Pakistan’s greater participation has to do with the American calendar: by summer they must show some remarkable success in the war on terror so that Mr. Bush’s chances in the November 2 contest improve. Iraq seems to be a hopeless case. So, the success will have to come from Afghanistan where the Taliban are beginning to threaten the US schemes. And since the Taliban were originally introduced by it, Pakistan’s role can be decisive in checkmating them. The US is unaware of the sensitivities involved in the operations required in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. And since there was the suspicion of Pakistan not doing the required job whole-hearted, they have proposed “joint” Pak-American operations on either side of the border. What Mr Jack Straw said the other day in Islamabad suggests that the Pakistanis have succeeded in convincing him that “joint operations” are not a good idea. He could be expected to understand the peculiarities of the areas involved because Britain had to struggle to control these very areas for over a century with none too great a success. For a time the pressures on Pakistan seemed overwhelming. Apart from General Abizaid and CIA Director George Tenet’s recent visits, French Foreign Minister Dominique Villepon was in Islamabad for three days before Mr Jack Straw came in. The third European power — the so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany - merely sent a Director-General of its Foreign Office ostensibly to co-chair the Joint Commission of Pakistan and Germany. All these high-ranking visitors met General Musharraf among others. The EU3 were in Pakistan at approximately the same time. But Pakistan seems to have stood its ground in refusing to host GIs inside Pakistan borders or to operate on the Afghan soil. US Vice-President Dick Cheney has, with some grace, accepted this reality. The US seems to have settled for parallel offensives to get Osama, Mulla Umar and other Al-Qaeda and Taliban notables in Afghanistan and Pakistan at much the same time. That changes the ambience of Mr Powell’s coming visit. A necessary ingredient of this outcome was the note of truculence in President Musharraf’s pronouncement in recent weeks on the question of nuclear proliferation. Ostensibly it was to reassure Pakistan’s religious right and other bomb-loving people that he would continue the nuclear and missile build-up well past the original ceilings of the minimum nuclear deterrent, while his spokesmen, civilian and military, were asserting that no GIs were welcome on the Pakistani soil. Another part of Pakistan’s negotiating strategy is to reassure the US and its EU3 friends that they could count on Pakistan’s active cooperation in achieving what the Americans so ardently desire. Apparently, the West’s need for Pakistan’s cooperation was stronger than their misgivings about Islamabad having perhaps a soft corner for the Taliban or having an itch to proliferate nuclear material. The next offensive, if it is not already on, will be fought separately in the two countries by two separate powers, after all. Though this outcome of the big international campaign to corner Pakistan and to force on it US terms leaves the subcontinent worse off, the nuclear and missile races are alive and kicking. Unless India displays the virtue of turning the other cheek, these and conventional armament races may intensify. The gains of the SAARC Summit at Islamabad in January will be at risk unless something is done now to preserve them despite India being in an election mode. |
Beware of dogs! THE term “dog” often pejoratively used obfuscates the finest human qualities that he possesses. A dog has intelligence, emotion, loyalty and devotion. We employ the best trained canine members of the force for surveillance and detection of explosives and narcotics, something which the human-beings and their machines fail to accomplish. For some of us they are an enviable status symbol. We proudly proclaim that we can afford to keep these denizens of the animal world while it is difficult for some of us to keep the wolf from the door. They are often the playthings of the affluent elite; for some an attempt at keeping up with the Joneses. I and my wife are the proud owners of two female-cocker spaniels, an adorable extension to an essentially feminist family. After our two daughters got married and left for the U.K. these two “bitches” (to be precise) took over their place automatically filling the vacuum of affection so poignantly left behind by the daughters’ departure. They would both vie with each other for our affections pretty much like our two daughters and would grumble and growl for us never to feel lonely in our moments of solitude. Since they were as affable as our two daughters they would rush to the gates on hearing the slightest sound of visitors primarily to bark their greetings rather than to frighten them. Worried at their unmindful rushing to the gates we resolved to put up a caution on the gate for the entering drivers to be careful. We kept debating among ourselves as to what the caution should read. ‘Beware of Dogs’ was too ferocious and frightening a warning. We obviously could not have ‘Beware of Bitches” for the pejorative connotation that it could carry. We realised that it was still a male’s world even when it came to down to animal species. The word “dog” or “bitch” connotes a world of difference. After careful we agreed on preparing a board which read “Watch out for Pets”. We thought it was the most humane and sensitive way of conveying that we thought of our pair of she-dogs (if that is a word). And the word “pets” conveyed the idea that they were tiny specimens of a decorative breed and not the bloodhounds that the words ‘beware of dogs’ conveyed. The visitors often congratulated us on such an imaginative and gentle caution rather than a rude word of command painting an ominous picture. We have seen that in the West writing the warning “beware of dogs” serves like a burglar’s alarm and keeps the house out of mischief of petty thieves who are repelled by the warning where even when none of the canine species is there to backup the warning. The presumption is that nobody wants to have his pants torn in the process of committing a
theft!
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HUMAN RIGHTS DIARY
THE latest in Gujarat is its Chief Secretary’s warning that he will not allow Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan to enter the state. After working with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, he seems to have imbibed some autocratic traits of his boss. But he should realise that he is not the government. Even if he were so, he would be coming in the way of the Constitution, which gives every Indian citizen the fundamental right of free movement. Gujarat’s administrators should have sobered down after the Supreme Court strictures on the functioning of the state government. The issue that Medha has raised, in fact, deals with the rehabilitation of the oustees who still lack facilities, particularly the land in exchange of the one inundated by the dam. The proposed rise in the height of the dam will drive away 8,000 more people from their fields and homes. No order has been adequate, neither of the Narmada Board Award nor of the Supreme Court. According to both, the resettlement of ousted families had to take place six months before they were shifted. The Chief Secretary should be concentrating on the state’s law and order problem. But shocking things are coming to light in Gujarat. Teams working to uncover state police lapses are under the threat of influential, dominant and powerful people, including politicians and ministers. The witnesses, not many left in the field, are also being threatened. The Supreme Court has been approached for Central protection. Tragically, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, whose views on the happenings in Gujarat are too well known, heads the Home Ministry. Caught on the wrong foot, New Delhi does not want to permit a US panel on religious freedom to visit India. However, the commission, which has included India in a dubious list of countries of particular concern, says New Delhi should not block a fact-finding mission if it believes that the situation is not as bad as it is made out to be in media reports. The commission has justified its proposal on the grounds of continuing violence against Muslims and Christians and what the panel regards as the government’s failure to adequately address the Gujarat killings issue. India is the only democratic country that has not extended an invitation for the commission to visit and we would welcome that invitation, panel chairman Michael Young said while speaking to journalists in Washington. *** THE “feel-good” factor stops where human rights violations begin. That is how things are in Madhya Pradesh, which has been taken over by the BJP’s Uma Bharti, assisted by the RSS advisers. Christians living in Jhabua district have experienced the worst type of atrocities. Only the other day did some 300 people, carrying saffron flags, surround Amkhut village where the Bhil Church Mission has stood since 1914. They went into the middle school, tore up posters of Jesus Christ, flung aside copies of the Bible and ordered students never to wear the cross. It is a tribal area where the RSS has been entrenching itself for the last three to four years. Angeline Duncan, an elderly arithmetic teacher and a fourth generation Christian, remembers the day, trying to reason with the saffron crowd. “I told them they were doing wrong things and we had done no harm to them. I asked them to leave but they wanted to frighten us, I think. They would not leave. They came and erupted like a storm.” Thereafter, the processionists spread all over and lit fires in the area covered with tall, thick trees. A small church of Kathiwara nearby was torched. The church in Alirajput was stoned and vandalised. Houses of eight Christians were set on fire. In Punyawad, another tribal hamlet, people arrived in jeeps and trucks and began attacking Christian homes and institutions. Amkhut is a quiet, peaceful place. People mind their own business and nobody comes in one another’s way. It is for the first time that they were told not to have Christ’s photographs on the school walls. A priest says: “What is happening, I cannot understand. Why can they not go on living as they have always done, doing their own things and living together in communities?” *** BIHAR, with some eight crore people, is a byword for what represents the worst in India. Crime, corruption and caste are so intertwined in the governance that a mafia has come to rule the state. Politicians, bureaucrats and members of the underworld are all part of it. They see to it that there is no altruistic work done. If some persist in doing so, they are either whisked away or simply murdered. Such was the fate of two activists, Sarita and Mahesh. Local land mafia in Gaya district killed them. This was not the killing of two individuals but an attempt to kill the entire people’s movement. Sarita and Mahesh had mobilised people in and around Fatehpur block of Gaya district and revived the centuries-old canal system measuring 45 kilometres. This virtually changed the face of Sabdo village and the surrounding areas. The work by the two also helped about 35,000 people in some 40 villages to get together and connect tanks to a river or a stream through man-made channels. People in Sabdo village were so excited that they not only erased boundaries of their own fields, totalling 175 acres but also opted for collective farming. The production of wheat went up by 25 per cent. Hundreds of farmers also gave up drinking. The land mafia was scared by the idea, which was catching up with the masses. They had both Sarita and Mahesh shot dead when they were travelling on a bike from Sabdo to the Fatehpur Block Resource Centre. There is nobody to pick up the thread from where the two let it off. The villagers are forlorn and isolated. Many meetings have been held to express solidarity with the two. The biggest one is yet to be held in the middle of March at Patna where human rights activists from all over India propose to converge. Theirs is a protest against the rule of jungle law which prevails in Bihar. Needless to add that Laloo Prasad Yadav’s wife is the Chief Minister. He had to step down because of the charges of corruption running into crores of rupees in the fodder scam. |
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Delhi Durbar LALOO Prasad Yadav rarely spares an opportunity in having a swipe at the BJP. At the same time, he is causing some restlessness in the Congress and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti party about the distribution of seats in Bihar, which contributes 40 seats to the Lok Sabha. Laloo believes the Congress and the LJP are stretching themselves in demanding such a large number of seats that the RJD will be left high and dry in the state. He insists that the Congress, which had two seats in the dissolved 13th Lok Sabha and the LJP a lone seat, are overstretching themselves by demanding seats which virtually put the RJD in the cold. He maintains that the RJD must contest at least 25 seats. As the Congress and the LJP have necessarily to ride the piggyback on the RJD, they should be content with five and three seats respectively. Some food for thought for the Congress and Paswan! Varun Gandhi in demand Soon after joining the BJP last month, Varun Gandhi, son of Maneka Gandhi and late Sanjay Gandhi, proved beyond doubt to a spellbound audience in Mumbai that politics and oration come naturally to him. Even the skeptics were compelled to acknowledge his potential. And now in the thick of elections, Varun is all set to charm voters with his charisma. According to family sources, Feroze is expected to make a public
appearance in Baroda on March 13 (his birthday when he will turn 24). It is understood that the BJP is flooded with requests for his
appearance from a large number of states. The BJD in Orissa has made a special request for his presence. Varun may also go to Kanyakumari to campaign during the elections.
Leaders without mass base A senior and seasoned leader from Punjab believes that with age catching up the Congress high command should consider him for the Rajya Sabha. A Congress woman feels that her chances of winning her
erstwhile Lok Sabha seat are extremely bleak. A former MP is seeking a change of constituency in the hope of improving his chances. A Congress leader in the know insists: “Take it from me that Sonia Gandhi wants these senior leaders to enter the fray and have a mass base.” This is to counter the criticism that most senior leaders having Sonia Gandhi’s eyes and ears are those lacking any mass base in the states from where they hail.
Civil aviation meetings At a time when the civil aviation sector of the country is all set to open up, it is natural that the airports not only in the metros but also around the country are of international standards. Civil Aviation Ministry officials have been holding long meetings with the officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in this regard. Recently, one of the meetings went on for almost eight hours and all the high-ranking officials of the ministry and the AAI were unable to excuse themselves for such long hours. One of the AAI official disclosed later that the meeting was for upgrading the
airports. But guess what was being upgraded. The toilets! The officials discussed endlessly what kinds of tiles and materials should be available in the toilets along with granite and marble wash basins. Contributed by Prashant Sood, Tripti Nath and Girja Shankar Kaura. |
The Gita requires us, not to renounce works but to do them, offering them to the Supreme in which alone is immortality. — Dr S.
Radhakrishnan Belief comes to the mind from the mind itself. — Guru Nanak Saints do not feel satisfied by being happy in themselves.
They want to share their happiness with others. — Nirankari Baba Hardev Singh Ahimsa is my God, and Truth is my God. — Mahatma Gandhi Progress in meditation comes swiftly for those who try their hardest. — Patanjali |
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