 |
|
V.P. Singh for Congress! Mercenary act |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Uttam Pradesh
The High Court crisis
Golf, environment and corporate masti
HUMAN RIGHTS DIARY
Half of Brits like it in public! HEALTH
|
V.P. Singh for Congress! FORMER Prime Minister V.P. Singh has come full circle. Sixteen years after he parted company with the Congress on the Bofors issue, he has found virtue in the grand old party. He has expressed his preference for the Congress while exhorting the countrymen to vote against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. For those who have been watching the Raja of Manda, the turnaround in him has not come as a surprise. Recently when the Delhi High Court gave a clean chit to Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors bribery case, he did not try to pick holes in the judgement. He was gracious in his reaction, though it was his revolt against the former Prime Minister that sealed the fate of the Congress in the 1989 elections. This has been brought about by events over which he has no control. Take the case of the Janata Dal which he once led. The party has split so many times that its splinters are now part of the competing alliances led by the Congress and the BJP. Mr Singh has thus been deprived of a platform though, strictly speaking, he has not been vying for any political post. His espousal of the Mandal cause has alienated a large section of the people, who are yet to reconcile to the fact that the Mandalisation of the polity had begun much before he had become Prime Minister. Even so, it was Mr Singh who crystallised the Mandal process when he introduced reservation for the other backward classes. That even his bitterest critics could not do a thing against what he initiated shows few other politicians have impacted the society the way he has. Mr Singh's new-found love for the Congress is also a reflection of the new status the BJP has acquired. Having held the reins of power for more than six years, it suddenly finds itself in the position of the Congress, which had that innate capacity to unite the Opposition. The BJP claims to head a larger coalition than the Congress, but it will not be surprising if, over a period of time, other political parties are tempted to join the bandwagon against it. Mr V.P. Singh represents the backlash against the BJP which is getting reflected in the exit polls. |
|
Mercenary act THE Indian ex-servicemen who agreed to take up security-related assignments in Iraq and the placement agencies which took them there clandestinely have unwittingly done incalculable damage to the image of their country. Even though they went there in their private capacity, the soldiers are seen as Indians colluding with the occupying American forces. That can translate into anger against India as a whole. The mercenaries have thus unwittingly besmirched the reputation of their homeland for a few dollars. Some have paid heavily for this folly, with two reported to be dead and one injured of bullet wounds sustained while driving a US convoy. Their decision is not only unethical but also ill-advised. The Indian Government had imposed a ban on April 15 on sending people to that country following deterioration in the security situation there. Yet, certain private security agencies reportedly took as many as 1,500 ex-servicemen to Iraq on the pretext that they were headed for Jordan and Kuwait. How is it that the government did not know about it? And if it knew, it should have taken the country into confidence about it. Such fraudulent immigration is common among civilians but just cannot be allowed in the case of former soldiers because of wide-ranging implications. The private security agencies too have to be disciplined. The problem is that a Central law cannot be framed in this regard because law and order is a state subject. But the issue is of such vital importance that all state governments should cooperate with the Centre to curb the trend. The model law that the latter is contemplating to frame requiring all such agencies to register with the local police should be enforced firmly. But in the end, it all boils down to the conscience of the former soldiers. They must contemplate whether they must allow themselves to do the dirty work of others. There are apprehensions that some of those who went to Iraq may even have flouted the five-year cool-off restriction following their discharge from the armed forces. |
|
Uttam Pradesh CHIEF Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav wants to turn Uttar Pradesh into Uttam Pradesh. He need not have put up massive hoardings seeking the votes of the people to help him realise this dream. Is he serious? If yes, what is stopping him? He is like a bad workman who keeps quarrelling with his tools. He was not born into politics yesterday that he does not know why the preferred name of UP is Ulta Pradesh. The Uttam Pradesh campaign is just a poll gimmick. It has merely put the Samajwadi Party in the company of the Bharatiya Janata Party that started it all through its India Shining ad blitz. There are so many things that are crying for attention. Right now, as Chief Minister of the state that sends the largest contingent of 80 members to the Lok Sabha, he should have accorded priority to ensuring fair and violence-free elections. Actions speak louder than words. It would be a bold announcement, worth more than the cliched wordings on the hoardings. The first round of polling in eastern UP was largely incident-free not because of the bandobast made by Mr Mulayam Singh's government, but because of the hawk-eyed supervision of the arrangements by the Election Commission. The only incident of violence was reported from Ghazipur from where underworld don Mukhtar Ansari is contesting. The Samajwadi leader wants UP to become Uttam Pradesh. It will remain an unfulfilled dream until he takes the lead in decriminalising politics in UP. Ms Mayawati and Mr Mulayam Singh are running a close race in the matter of giving tickets to known criminals. If the second round of polling today passes off peacefully, the credit again will go to the security agencies and not the state administration. The third and final round is expected to see the
goons unsheathe their weapons. The exit poll predictions have made the Samajwadi camp extremely nervous. Mr Mulayam Singh doesn’t have to compete with Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and go his way of electioneering. Thought for the day One picture is worth ten thousand words.
— Frederick R. Barnard
|
The High Court crisis MUCH has been said and written about the unprecedented action of the Judges taking a day off from court on account of their differences with the Chief Justice - undoubtedly an indefensible act. But what were these differences that led them to take this extraordinary step? This is now the oft-asked question. As is well known, for the past several months, stories had been circulating of the unfortunate state of relations between the Chief Justice and most of his colleagues in the High Court. In course of time these stories went on to assume the proportions of a public scandal, undermining in the process the image and reputation of the judiciary. Indicative of this were the news items that began to appear in the Press highlighting the conflict between the Chief Justice and the Judges. The one that deserves particular mention was where it was said that 21 Judges accused the Chief Justice of bias while the Chief Justice accused the Judges of being double-faced. Now with 25 out of 27 Judges virtually expressing lack of trust and confidence in the Chief Justice, it clearly denotes a failure of leadership - a quality so vital to the credibility and efficiency of any institution. It is all the more so here when to right the wrongs of men is the primary duty of those who hold judicial office. In the instant case, it is the high judicial office of the Chief Justice of the High Court. It is learnt that it was as far back as October 2003 when the Chief Justice of India was in Chandigarh, while on his way to Shimla, that 14 Judges of the High Court met him to apprise him of the situation obtaining at the High Court. On that occasion they went to the extent of asking to be transferred to some other High Courts just to be away from the Chief Justice. Later 21 Judges (out of 25) wrote to the Chief Justice to say that the atmosphere at the High Court had been totally vitiated with the integrity of the Judges, judicial officers and the staff being doubted by him and it was, therefore, not possible for them to look after the administrative work of the districts. This was in December 2003. A copy of this communication was also sent to the Chief Justice of India. It was perhaps as a consequence of this letter of December 2003 that the Chief Justice of India deputed two Judges of the Supreme Court, Mr Justice R.C. Lohati and Mr Justice Ashok Bhan, to visit Chandigarh and advise him on the situation at the High Court. On their return to Delhi, it is said that they made definite recommendations to the Chief Justice of India but no action followed. In the meanwhile, relations between the Chief Justice and the Judges continued to further deteriorate. This would be apparent from the fact that in March this year 23 Judges again wrote to the Chief Justice of India to say that it had become extremely difficult for them to work with the Chief Justice as the sense of honour and dignity of most of them had been seriously compromised on account of his behaviour. They prayed to the Chief Justice of India to intervene and save the court from further decline. This prayer was repeated in their further communication sent to the Chief Justice of India immediately before they went on leave. Unfortunately, all this was again of no avail. Needless to say, it would be reasonable to assume that during this period the Chief justice too on his part must have addressed communications against the Judges to the Chief Justice of India. Be that as it may, what seems to have been lost sight of is that a Chief Justice who does not respect the Judges or Judges who do not respect the Chief Justice forget that they are like two communicating vases. The level of one cannot be lowered without equally affecting the level of the other. In the blame game that now follows, the matter to be considered is where lies the greater burden of fault? Is on the act of commission of the Judges in proceeding on en mass leave or the Chief Justice of India and his companion Judges in the collegium for their omission to act despite being in the know of the situation at the High Court? Much has been made in the Press of the explanation sought by the Chief Justice from the two Judges who had been given honorary membership of the Forest Hill Golf Club. This membership had been given to them much before the Public Interest Litigation against the Forest Hill Golf Club had been taken up on a report about it in the Hindustan Times. Judicial discretion and propriety render it incumbent that if any Judge is said to have fallen from standard the matter be dealt with in such a manner that the image and reputation of the judiciary is not undermined thereby. One would have expected that, and in the circumstances the Chief Justice would have called the two Judges and advised them to give up the membership of the club and that would have been the end of the matter with the Judges abiding by his advice. Instead, the first reference to it came in the court of the Chief Justice while dealing with the Forest Hill Golf Club case. In dealing with this matter it deserves to be mentioned that on the advice of their senior colleagues both Judges did, in fact, give up the membership of the club. What is more, it was after over a month thereafter that the Chief justice wrote to the two Judges for their comments in the matter. By dealing with the matter in this manner has the Chief Justice enhanced the image of the institution he presides over? It is apparent, therefore, that it was a much deeper malaise that led to the unfortunate aberration of Judges abstaining from work. In other words, there is much more to it than meets the eye. |
Golf, environment and corporate masti
THERE
is a popular myth doing the rounds that golf is an environment-friendly sport. This was probably true when golf was invented and played by
shepherds in the vales, dales and highlands of Scotland. It is no longer the case with the
commercially sponsored modern game. Golf courses are often laid out after bulldozing and altering natural features. They do present a spectacle of green, but it is a
toxic polluted green. Large amounts of chemical fertiliser and toxic weedicide go into a golf course to create the mirage of an organic landscape when the reality is quite the
opposite. What is more, huge quantities of water are required to irrigate a golf course. This is quite anti-social when the lack of availability of water is a question of life and death in our daily life. In spite of being water unfriendly to the core, or because of it, there is not a golf course in the country that has gone in for rain water-harvesting. Given to digging tubewells to irrigate their acres, golf is also guilty of contributing to depleting water-levels, particularly is the chemicalised agricultural region of Punjab and Haryana. The game is also not people-friendly, at least not in India where it is cloistered into private clubs and defence services institutes at
exorbitant public cost. It is rather a well kept secret that a Golf Club in Chandigarh
and its sprawling acres were once planned to be a public park in the original city as conceived by Le Corbusier and his team of
architects and planners. It took a Governor of Punjab, a golf addict himself, to create a club and course for bureaucrats
and businessmen. |
HUMAN RIGHTS DIARY
BEFORE I begin the diary, let me pay my tribute to
V. M. Tarkunde, who died the other day. He was the father of the human rights movement in India. He not only chaired the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the Citizens for Democracy (CFD) - both founded by Jaya Prakash Narayan - but also put together various organisations working in the same fields to become a force. He was untiring in his efforts. Seldom had dedication and devotion been so combined in one person as was in Tarkunde. Retired as a high court judge from Maharashtra, he gave all his life to get justice for the aggrieved from law courts and human rights commissions. He is missed because there is none to take his place. In fact, the entire movement began slackening when he became inactive because of his ill health a few months before his death. But his absence has not throttled the voice of human rights activists. They are articulate. They have not forgiven those who have strayed away from their midst. At Tarkunde’s memorial meeting at Gandhi Peace Foundation in New Delhi, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie was ticked off by some young activists. They were upset that he, who was a founder member of the PUCL, had joined the
BJP. Two or three of them asked him to leave the place. Some persons intervened before the situation could take an ugly turn. But why pick on Shourie alone? I know of many human rights activists who have been saffronised over the years. It shows lack of commitment. I wonder if these persons ever believed in the ethos of human rights. Their association was to get prominence. Once they got it, they moved on to something else which they considered was more rewarding. It is, indeed, disturbing to see those who have earned fame moving to the direction opposed to basic human rights. This is what is becoming the law of life in the country. Power has taken the place of principles. Today human rights activists are cheaper by dozens. They are spread all over the country and there is hardly any activity of human affairs which is beyond their reach. People at the grassroots welcome their work because they are seen articulating the plight of the oppressed and the neglected. Yet they count little in the affairs of the government. The rulers describe them as the “overground face” of the “underground”. I recall the hullabaloo created by my petition to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to verify whether the encounter alleged by the police at the Ansal Plaza, killing two “terrorists”, was genuine. One minister attributed all types of motives to me. My grievance is not so much against him as against the NHRC, which entrusted the inquiry to the same police against whose action I had complained. Official lassitude is understandable because it exudes arrogance of power, not human sympathy. But when even human rights activists stay silent, it hurts. None of them took up the case when my petition was rejected. They should have raised their voice when the commission, for reasons best known to it, did not join issue with the administration. I even telephoned one leading human rights activist to suggest some protest meeting. She assured me that she would discuss the matter with other organisations. Two months have gone by, but I have not heard from her. The police has got away with yet another instance of false encounter and the cause of human rights has further suffered. Kashmir jail The report by the High Court Bar Association of Kashmir on the state jails should not be confused with the disclosure of America’s atrocities in jails of Iraq. The report is nowhere near what the American soldiers did. But the violation of human rights does not become benign because the severity is less. According to the Bar’s report, there are 549 detainees, including 64 foreigners lodged in jails in the state. In Kote Bhailwal jail, the Bar’s team report that 271 detenus and undertrials, including 34 Pakistanis and Afghans. “Out of them four are minors, 10 have turned insane and three are deaf and dumb”, says the report . Patients are denied treatment in jails. And the number of habeas corpus petitions in the state high court stands at 3,000. In all, more than 60,000 such petitions came up in the court between 1990 and 2004. The Bar has complained that no legal aid is being provided by the state to poor prisoners. “They cannot afford private counsel, particularly in Jammu and outside the state, which causes severe hardships to them. It is otherwise a must to give them legal aid”, says the report. Bihar mukhiya The commitment and performance of Musahru Yadav, the mukhiya of Sahuri Gram Panchayat in Begusarai district of Bihar, is a shining example of how to fight the oppressive forces in the rural areas and make the lives of ordinary people a little more bearable and a little more meaningful. But he had to pay a heavy price for his idealism. He was shot dead by six criminals hired by a moneylender. The unique achievement for which he would be remembered was his success in stopping the local mafia from acquiring some poor people’s land through mortgage. He told the villagers that under no circumstances should they mortgage their lands. He used the available government funds and mobilised private resources to ensure that during difficult days the needy did not have to go to the moneylenders for help and fall into a debt trap. During last year’s floods, he bought five boats on loan and used them for relief operations. Hundreds of villagers say that it was due to the efforts of mukhiya Musahru Yadav that they were able to retain their lands. The moneylenders and land grabbers were naturally furious. On February 17, six men shot eight bullets into him. The whole village was aghast at the brutal murder of the popular leader. Around 15,000 residents of Sahuri lynched two suspects, who had confessed that they had been given the contract to kill Yadav. The Begusarai police stated that the people who were lynched by the mob were known criminals and wanted in several police cases. Still this was no way to punish the murderers of Masahru Yadav. Law has to take its course. |
|
Half of Brits like it in public! A
new survey has revealed that over half of Britain’s adults have indulged in sex at a public place. According to
Ananova, the annual sex poll also found that 56 per cent of men and women admitted to having cheated in a relationship. One in three women disclosed that they had faked their orgasms, while nearly a third of British men and 38 per cent of British women said that they had lost their virginity at 16 or under. Commenting on the results, sex therapist Denise Knowles said about sex in public spaces, “People are all looking for that buzz and adrenaline in all aspects of their lives. The idea of getting caught out has always been in the fantasy books.” “It’s obvious that unfaithful behaviour has increased greatly over the years. There is more and more opportunity for affairs, with people going out more, and women going out to work. There is also a more relaxed attitude to sex and infidelity,” the report quoted Knowles as saying. — ANI |
|
HEALTH AN American research says that breast milk contains a protein that could reduce the risk of obesity. A team at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found high levels of a protein, which affects the body’s processing of fat. They believe that its presence in breast milk could influence a person’s fat levels in body later in life. Dr Lisa Martin and colleagues found high levels of the protein adiponectin in breast milk. Adiponectin is secreted by fat cells and affects how the body processes sugars and fatty substances in the blood. Low levels of this protein have been linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and coronary artery disease. “Exposures early in life, during the period of extreme growth and development, may have an impact on adult disease,” The BBC quoted Martin as saying. The researchers also discovered that the presence of another protein in breast milk, called leptin also helps to regulate body fat but the levels of adiponectin is more significant than leptin. Dr Ian Campbell, Chair of the National Obesity Forum, said, “We know there is a clear link between breast feeding and a reduced risk of obesity, but we are not sure why. There is an accumulative effect, the longer they are breast-fed the better it is”. “This study is interesting because it looks at the mechanism behind why breast-feeding may reduce the risk of obesity,” said Rosemary Dodds, policy research officer for the National Childbirth Trust. Dodds said that though the Trust is keen to promote breast- feeding, the decision is a very personal one. “We support women to make a decision that’s best for them,” she said. Treatment of
asthma A study presented at the 2004 Paediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Francisco has found that asthmatic children admitted to pediatric medical centres received equal quality of care regardless of race, gender or ethnicity. “When brought into the hospital setting, we found that black children experienced the same quality of care and outcomes as white children.” said Susan Fisher-Owens, lead researcher at Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC). “Previous studies show that black children with asthma fare worse than white children in most outpatient settings, but from what we found, disparities are diminished once patients get within the walls of a children’s hospital,” added Fisher-Owens. The researchers analysed data from the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) of 17,406 patients between 2-21 years of age that were admitted to an academic pediatric hospital for the treatment of asthma. New imaging
methods Physicians and engineers are collaborating to test three new imaging techniques to find breast abnormalities, including cancer. Results from the first stage of their research, information about the electro-magnetic characteristics of healthy breast tissue, will appear in this month’s issue of Radiology, the journal of the Radiological Society of North America. The team, which includes researchers from Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and Dartmouth Medical School working with experts at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the Department of Radiology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), is developing and testing imaging techniques to learn about breast tissue structure and behavior. “This study offers the foundation for future research and clinical trials,” says Steven Poplack, associate professor of radiology and OB/GYN at Dartmouth Medical School, doctor of diagnostic radiology and Co-Director for Breast Imaging/ Mammography at DHMC, and the lead author of the paper. “We’re establishing normal ranges for healthy breast tissue characteristics in order to more easily recognize the abnormalities.”
— ANI |
Those who take shelter under Me in this world, meditating on Me and repeating the Mantra of My sacred name, will surely get My vision, even unasked, as I know they have no other refuge. — Sri Rama He is born in vain who, having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realise God in this very life. — Sri Krishna Pure is the body wherein abides the true name of the Lord. — Guru Nanak Anger spoils good relations, pride destroys humility, deceit destroys amity and greed destroys everything. — Lord Mahavir Nothing can be achieved without His grace. — Sarada Devi |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
