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Elusive Lok Pal Sports feuds A bloody shame |
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Electronic voting is questionable
Old Sanawarian conundrum
The new face of the post office.
— Tribune photo by Manoj Mahajan Delhi Durbar
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Elusive Lok Pal THE issue of Lok Pal has again come to the fore with both President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh having expressed their willingness for inclusion of their high offices within the ambit of the ombudsman. Dr Kalam and Dr Singh are known for their honesty and unimpeachable integrity and their speeches at the All-India Conference of Lok Ayuktas at Dehra Dun demonstrate their determination to cleanse the system of various ills by setting personal examples. It is debatable whether the two high offices should be brought within the purview of the Lok Pal in view of fears that it may open the floodgates of frivolous complaints. But what is distressing is the failure of successive governments to push forward the Bill. It is a pity that Parliament has not pursued the matter with the attention it deserves. Unfortunately, the issue has been hanging fire since 1966 when the Administrative Reforms Commission was set up under the chairmanship of Morarji Desai. In 1968, the Lok Pal Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, but it could not become a law because the Lok Sabha’s term had ended by then. Between 1971 and 1985, three attempts were made to pass the Bill. For the first time, the office of Prime Minister was included within its purview during Mr V.P. Singh’s regime. Since 1989, it has been tabled four times, the last in 2002. The need for a Lok Pal at the Centre has become greater today because of the mounting corruption at various levels. The Prime Minister has rightly said that the absence of a Lok Pal at the Centre is, to some extent, adversely affecting the working of the Lok Ayuktas in the states. His promise to push forward the Bill in the winter session of Parliament is welcome. But the question remains — will Parliament really enact the legislation this time? The members may have differences on the modalities of the Lok Pal Bill including the problem of frivolous petitions, but these can be sorted out through a sincere and constructive debate in Parliament. |
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Sports feuds The contest for the BCCI headship had all the drama and seat's-edge excitement that one associates with one-day cricket. The victory of Mr Ranbir Singh Mahendra over redoubtable Sharad Pawar was also akin to a last-ball cliffhanger. But the competition did not set any fine example of gamesmanship. On the contrary, the way some voters were disqualified and the way outgoing president Jagmohan Dalmiya himself used his casting vote to break a 15-15 tie made the election highly controversial. More than these unsavoury details, our objection is to the trend of politicians desperately wanting to become sports administrators. As was mentioned in these columns a few days ago, their fetish has played havoc with sports. While politicians and senior bureaucrats gain a lot from such associations, the reverse is just not true. The very anxiety of leaders to grab sports bodies points to the fact that these are a rich source of power and pelf. Imagine Mr Sharad Pawar, who also sees himself as a candidate for Prime Ministership, vying for the BCCI leadership! No doubt it is the most affluent of them all, but still! With politicians has come the inevitable intrigue and sharp division. During the BCCI elections, battlelines were drawn along party contours. Mr Dalmiya did manage to checkmate Mr Pawar but only through highly objectionable means. Worse, the bitterness that has been generated is unlikely to go away. That will make the functioning of the board all the more messy. As it is, the BCCI, like most other sports organisations, is divided on a zonal and state basis. The new developments will make it all the more faction-ridden. One saving grace is that Mr Mahendra has been active in the BCCI for long and has proved his mark as an administrator. But the pulls and pressures that he will now come to bear will be nothing like what he has experienced so far. Whether he will be able to steer the boat efficiently in the days to come or becomes a pawn in the power game, as some fear, will be watched with keen interest. |
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A bloody
shame Indians may have been at risk because of imported blood plasma products contaminated with the human form of mad cow disease. It is shocking that the country has just found out from the media that some of the products could be from the blood donated in the 1990s by nine persons in Britain who died from the variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD), which has claimed 150 lives worldwide, with 143 in the UK alone. This disease is a disorder involving rapid decrease of mental function and movement. These abnormalities are caused by prion, a protein, that damages the brain. It causes personality change, loss of body functions and eventually death. There is no known cure for the disease. A total of 11 countries received infected blood products; and they include Ireland, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brunei, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Russia and Singapore (though Singapore authorities maintain that it is Hong Kong) besides India. In Britain, 3,000 patients were potentially exposed to the same problem. The 'lethal secrecy' that the UK Government has been accused of in not revealing the names of their patients at risk and of the nations that received the contaminated products for so long is indeed shocking. Till now, the Indian authorities have learnt of this only from the reports in the media, and not from the British Government. This disease has a long gestation period and only last year did two cases come to light in Britain, long after the world had got over the scare due to which British and other meat products were banned worldwide in 1996 and all cows with the disease were slaughtered. The global implications of this shipment of contaminated blood products have again brought home the need for greater transparency between nations. The British authorities should have been proactive in warning the patients at risk. The health authorities in India should begin the task of tracking down the recipients and examining them for any ill-effects. This should be done promptly and effectively. |
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The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
— William Hazlitt |
Electronic voting is questionable The famous American inventor of 19th — 20th century, Thomas Alva Edison, owned over 1100 patents. The first of them was a tamper-proof vote- recording machine. Edison sent it to the Chairman of the US Senate believing that it would be readily accepted. After a few months of restless waiting, Edison encountered the Chairman and asked: “Do you doubt my machine being tamper-proof?” The Chairman replied: “No”. Edison questioned: “Then why don’t you take it?” Answer: “Because it is tamper proof.” Is there an Edison to guarantee that our voting machine is tamper-proof? In 1990 a sub-committee of experts constituted by the Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms certified that the prototype of the electronic voting machine could not be tampered with. However, read Question 21 and the answer thereto in the Election Commission’s website — reproduced below — they betray our weakness. Q 21. Is it possible to program the EVMs in such a way that initially, say up to 100 votes, votes will be recorded exactly in the same way as the ‘blue buttons’ are pressed, but thereafter, votes will be recorded only in favour of one particular candidate irrespective of whether the 'blue button’ against that candidate or any other candidate is pressed? Ans. The microchip used in EVMs is manufactured in the USA and it is sealed at the time of import. It cannot be opened and any rewriting of program can be done by anyone without damaging the chip. There is, therefore, absolutely no chance of programming the EVMs in a particular way to select any particular candidate or political party. The answer is an awful confession that we trust America to keep our elections pure. Ironically, however, informed and influential sections in the US are highly skeptical of the use of electronic voting machines in their own country. The potential of these machines to rig the elections through undetectable frauds has been and is being publicly highlighted by renowned electronic experts associated with reputed institutes like Johns Hopkins and MIT. The proposed use of electronic voting machines in the forthcoming Presidential elections in November is viewed with cynicism and even distrust. In the US there is no uniform procedure prescribed for casting votes even for the Presidential election — each state has its own method of recording votes. Coincidentally, serious disputes about the votes polled by rival candidates in the 2000 Presidential race arose in the state of Florida where the brother of Mr George Bush was the Governor. The law there required a validly cast ballot to have a hole through which light could pass. Mr Al Gore polled a larger number of votes, but the machines failed — or allegedly were designed to fail — to make a hole in the ballot papers. Hence they were not counted for Mr Al Gore though the intentions of the voters were clear. Mr Gore lost narrowly and the whole of the Presidency. In 2002 a law by name Help America Vote Act, or HAVA for short, was passed. Among other things, it provides for Federal funding to the states to purchase electronic voting machines worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Republican-ruled states have reportedly bought machines by Diebold Election Systems Inc - DESI for short. DESI reaping the funds under HAVA has raised serious queries like “Will the 2004 election be stolen with electronic voting machines?” In short, apart from the misgivings about DESI, the experts in the US distrust the electronic voting system, as it exists. Incidentally, the 2002 elections held in Georgia for the office of the Governor and a seat in the US Senate with DESI machines are termed as “stunning” by experts there — the Republicans were the upset winners. The SPAN magazine of July-August 2004 reproduced from the MIT Technology Review a very informative interview with Mr David L. Dill, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. He brings out several startling possibilities surrounding the fact that there can be errors or fraud committed by programmers or anybody who had access to the software before it was installed on the machine. Professor Dill makes it clear that whether the machine used is a highly sophisticated one as in vogue in the US or a basic one like what we have in India, people who want to alter the results of elections can do it more easily where the elections are through the machines. Hence the second series of questions to India’s Election Commission: What if the safe chips made in the US are replaced? Worse still is the question: Why should Indian democracy be entrusted to an American company? Who assured the Election Commission that there in America is an honest chipmaker while the Americans find it hard to locate one to conduct their elections? The major drawback with the electronic device, according to experts, is the impossibility of a voter to satisfy himself that his vote has been correctly recorded. In any democracy such a satisfaction is the most legitimate minimum expectation of a citizen. Provision for a printout receipt — like what one gets at an ATM — should satisfy a voter that his vote has indeed reached the right destination. These receipts should be deposited compulsorily in a box kept in the polling station to avoid their misuse. Further, in case of any dispute at a later stage about improper receipt or rejection of votes, these papers would help resolution. The EVMs were partially introduced for the first time in May 1982 in the Kerala Assembly elections. The Representation of People Act, 1961, which governs the conduct of elections, or the rules had no provision then for voting through machines. Still, the Election Commission went ahead with the voting machines. The Supreme Court upheld the challenge to the validity of the election on the ground that law did not permit the use of voting machines. The decision was that the commission couldn’t innovate a method of voting outside the legal framework. In 1989 the law was amended permitting the use of the voting machines. The law as it stands offers several protections to conventional voting. Such safeguards are not available — in fact, cannot be provided — for electronic voting. The controlling unit of the voting machines, like ballot boxes, may be preserved for some time as prescribed by law. It will only give the total number of votes, but there is no way to check whether faulty programming of the chip diverted A’s vote to B, unlike improper rejection or acceptance of ballots that can be physically scrutinised. These apprehensions cannot be dismissed as the fear of the unknown, because one wrong government installed for a few years through a rigged election may change the course of the nation’s destiny. Voting is too serious a business to be left to some doubtful contraption. Changing the present system can only be through political wisdom or judicial writ — both will take time. To begin with, in the name of free and fair elections, in the impending elections the Election Commission should invite political parties to send their experts for a random examination of these machines in advance. In the alternative, political parties should demand such scrutiny. The progenies of prototypes tested in 1990 may deserve re-checking. And the next generation machines should be equipped to issue printouts confirming honest registering of votes.
— The writer is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India |
Old Sanawarian conundrum Sanawar’s Founder’s Day is coming up in early October. This year, however, Founder’s at the Lawrence School is slated to be different. Yet, some things like Bertie Wooster, don’t change in the wardrobes of old institutions. Like last year, this time too, an old Sanawarian is going to do honours as the Chief Guest. It was Omar Abdullah in 2003; in 2004 it is to be the middle-aged Bollywood man Sanjay Dutt. Dutt will find a change of drill as far as the OBs go. There shall be no old Sanawarian’s bash on campus with its ear-shattering disco decibels. In wisdom, drilled into them by the new “heady”, Prof Gautam Chatterjee, the old boys and girls have decided that their heady brands of music and beverages shall be transported to a resort in the neighbourhood of the school. Rumour, fact and fiction have it between them that in the reign of the previous ruling deity of the school, the alcoholic monsoon of the occasion had even spilt into the adrenalin of the security guards, one of whom tried to get a handy feel of an old girl’s athletic torso. Old “Sanawarians”, almost normal human-beings, when going on about their mundane worldly existence, are prone to a certain neuralgia born of an excessive dose of unhealthy nostalgia. They tend to get into remote mode vis-a-vis school affairs and administration. “Never give In”, “they know best”, seems to be their motto, even though they may know precious little about matters pedagogical. This affliction, almost a virus, can cause so much disequilibrium that it can result in a barrage as far as a turnover of headmasters is concerned. In the past 10 years, Sanawar has had five headmasters, and if the OSs are not reined in, the next may be in the pipeline somewhere. Old “Sanawarians” are an enigma, their vision (or lack of it) for their school a conundrum. Founder’s for them is an atavistic cocktail of antiquated ritual, booze and social hysteria. Many still think their school is a combination of asylum, borstal and military institution. They still want to parade and salute the British Monarch’s colours; they still believe that bullying is O.K in school, they still think that a spot of corporal punishment would not be out of order. And, most OSs no longer believe in a sedate dinner and dance to celebrate Founder’s but in high-decibel bhangra-shake splurged with high doses of tobacco and alcohol. It’s time Sanawar took a leaf out of Granth Sahib, Shantiniketan and J. Krishnamurti’s Rishi Valley School, and banned alcohol and tobacco from the campus. Ban the two for all from the heady, teaching staff, class IV to visiting parents and old “Sanaarians”. Should someone simply must smoke (and drink along with) his or her peace-pipe, a suitable terrain would be on the Long Back from the school gate to Sukhijori. Finally, it is tragic to see public schools, like Sanawar, with their vast resources of finance and real-estate, become prey to gross forms of neo-modern consumerism. Their backyards of faculty residences, parent’s picnic boxes and hampers and boarding house waste are replete with the wrappings and trappings of junk fastfoods: Plastic and foil wrappers, “disposable” non-degradable bottles, Pepsi, Coke and the rotten what-have-you of a consumerist society. It’s time public schools cleaned up their backyard-i.e. — if they would still like to stake a claim to being role models, and educators of a leadership elite for society and nation. Just in case they have jettisoned such claims, it would then be time to relegate them to the dustbin of the history of education in this country. However, it is important they save themselves from such an inglorious fate, and make efforts to reinvent themselves to play their role in contemporary
India.
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Never too old to learn Whoever thought the post office will slowly fade into oblivion may need to take a second look. The Department of Posts, which completes 150 years on October 1, has mastered the art of survival when it is under threat from the Internet, telephones and mobile phones. It already has found itself a role other than the routine of selling stamps, sending money orders to remote places and delivering mail. The Department of Posts holds the potential to open up new vistas for the collection of various bills with its 1.54 lakh post offices spread across the country, thus benefiting customers and companies. It is a sea change since Rajesh Khanna played the postman and pedalled around with the song “Dakiya dak laya” in the 1977 movie “Palkon Ke Chhaon Mein.” Those were the days of the old economy. As early as 1774, the British led by Robert Clive had laid down a system of posts in Calcutta. The Presidencies of Madras and Bombay followed up soon. The various forms of postal services were merged into one on October 1, 1854. The postman was the link with the outside world. Till about 15 years ago the arrival of the postman used to be an event of the day more awaited than today’s saas-bahu serials or cricket match on television. The post offices used to maintain dak bungalows and sarais in early days. On payment of fee, a traveller could book his seat in any palki, boat, horse, coach or cart carrying mail and parcel. He also could take rest in dak bungalows on the way. The post offices started the remittance of money orders in 1880 which was the lifeline for people living in villages while men worked in cities. During the freedom struggle a number of post offices were burnt and postal lines were disrupted as a mark of protest against British rule. The post or dak runner is a part of the folklore. Each dak runner was provided with a drummer in forest tracts, besides, an escort of two torch-bearers and two archers after nightfall. Still, at times, he was robbed. Quite uncharitably, this generation hooked onto computers, refers to mail through post as “snail mail”. Even job applications are sent on the Internet while friends and family members are just a call away. But this is a small minority in urban Indian. They have never written a letter to their brother or sister in the US or the UK, and sent it by the special “airmail” envelope. They have e-mailed it and will continue doing so. The possibility of faxing a document using a telephone line coupled with the provision of sending data and photos over e-mail has further eroded the use of post as a medium of communication. In rural India, telephones have arrived but the Internet is way behind. Today money orders are sent through satellite, making the delivery faster. Speed post has been a value addition. The postman will still leave message at your door if your are not at home and there is mail for you. In Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala, where the economy is based on remittances from abroad, the postal department now handles international money transfers and has a tie-up in 185 countries for an instantaneous remittance of money. In the first year itself the post offices have brought in about 10 million US dollars into the country. Apart from handling small savings, the Post Office Savings Bank can claim to be the largest retail bank in the country, operating from over 1,50,000 branches. In the last financial year alone, collections stood at a whooping Rs 2,00,000 crore. The Post Office is also handling mutual funds of leading institutions through selected branches in cities like Mumbai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. A major chunk of the work of telephone bills is gone as BSNL has its own computerised counters. In some centres there is a tie-up with a telecom operators for bill collections, however, it is not on the national scale. Besides carrying on what it is already doing, the future post office, with its unparalleled reach as the single largest agency across the country, can be the bill collector for departments like electricity and water supply, income tax, land revenue, sales tax, house tax, excise, stamp duty and even for private telecom operators. The possibilities are endless and the postal department knows that the post office can be the one-stop place to take away the hassle of depositing bills. Companies can outsource processing and accounting to the post office. The department is positioning itself to establish the India Post Data Centre, which will be accessible through the Internet. This set-up can take care of about 15 lakh transactions a day with a scope for expanding it to 75 lakh transactions a day. The customer may have the facility of paying from home or office through on-line registration, besides paying at the post office. |
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Delhi Durbar One of the first things that National Commission for Minorities Chairman Tarlochan Singh did on his return from Pakistan
earlier this month was to send a demi-official letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh impressing upon him the need to visit the village of his birth across the border. People born before 1947 have a great desire to visit their places of birth in this country. He urged the Prime Minister to consider a special scheme for these elder citizens enabling them to visit India. And within 72 hours of Tarlochan Singh’s letter and on the eve of Dr Manmohan Singh visit abroad, the External Affairs Ministry announced further relaxation in the visa rules encompassing the senior citizens of Pakistan.
Congress vs Left in Punjab
Is the Congress-CPM alliance coming apart in Punjab? Some Congress leaders believe it to be so. The focus is on the Garhshankar assembly bypoll. The Congress high command is of the opinion that the party should field its nominees in both assembly segments despite the understanding with the Left. A section of the Congressmen believes that the party can win both the assembly seats. The Congress leadership finds extremely worrisome the intense factionalism in the PPCC, which is all the more stark when it is in power than out of it. The Garhshankar seat fell vacant after state BJP President Avinash Rai Khanna was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha constituency.
Chautala’s visit to Pakistan
Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, who led a delegation to Pakistan from September 13 to 16, is peeved that the Ministry of External Affairs categorised his sojourn across the border as “private.” The Pakistan High Commission accordingly stamped the passports of Chautala and other members of his delegation as being on a private visit to the neighbouring country’s Punjab province. The Chief Ministers going abroad have to secure the green signal of the MEA after which the PHC issues the requisite visas. Though Chautala’s host was Fakhar Zaman, President of the Pakistan chapter of the World Punjabi Congress, Punjab’s Chief Minister Pervez Elahi side-stepped protocol and was present at the Wagah border to receive him. With his image somewhat on the downswing, Chautala appears to have gained political mileage in his home state in undertaking the Bhai Kanhaiya yatra in the neighbouring country.
Shukla plans homecoming
Loyalists of former Union minister V C Shukla have been making rounds of the AICC with requests to facilitate his re-entry into the Congress. Though Shukla resigned from the BJP recently, his return to the Congress may not be easy. Considering his somewhat poor equation with Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the past, party leaders are extremely guarded about Shukla making yet another homecoming bid. On his part, Shukla has tried to mend fences with the leaders opposed to him. He met former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi in the Capital recently, but that does not seem to have cut much ice. It is apparent former Chief Minister Jogi would not like another power centre
against him in
Chhattisgarh. — Contributed by R Suryamurthy, Prashant Sood and Gaurav Choudhury |
Since both Paramatman and Jivatman are one and the same, it is not possible to differentiate them. It is also impossible to attribute separate qualities to them. — Lord Sri Rama Lured by desire, I am neither tempted to knock at another door. For, God’s Name has stilled all my cravings and the Master has shown me the Lord’s mansion within my own mind, which now rests imbued with equanimity. — Guru Nanak |
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