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Toys for the
Generals Naxal
upswing in UP |
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Parking
hassles Supreme Court means business In a ruling aimed at reducing public inconvenience caused by lack of parking space at busy shopping and commercial centres, the Supreme Court on Friday told the Delhi government not to clear any building project until a parking policy was formulated and gave it a time limit of six weeks.
Games Musharraf
plays
Our own Discovery
channel
When a professional
becomes negligent Chatterati
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Toys for the Generals The
US has a long history of rewarding its allies for services rendered, unmindful of the blatant misuse that the beneficiaries may make of these gifts. When these gifts happen to be in the form of lethal weaponry, the exchange is bound to evoke apprehensions. That is what is currently happening in India and many other countries of the world. The recipient of the largesse is old faithful Pakistan which is set to get sophisticated weapons, including F-16 aircraft, apparently for taking a policy U-turn on Taliban and hounding the fundamentalist mercenaries along with the US. Indeed, Pakistan has served as a perfect lackey, but the carrot that the US has chosen to present it is too dangerous not only for the region but the US itself. The repercussions can be destabilising to the extreme. The first and foremost result will be that an arms race will be revived, which the sub-continent cannot afford. The weapons that Pakistan will get are not meant to be used in the war against terrorism but will be aimed at India, as has been the case in the past. This will hamper the recent efforts to mend relationships between the two. An emboldened Pakistan may see the US bequest as a licence to step up violent activities in its neighbourhood. In fact, a change in its tone on Kashmir is already visible, forcing the Indian Foreign Secretary to convey his concern to the Bush Administration. The induction of nuclear capable F-16 aircraft will send all the wrong signals. The hawks in the Pakistani army may see it as a tacit acquiescence to the wishes of a new nuclear State. And India will have no option but to take a serious view of the new development. As some analysts have pointed out, the dangerous toy in the hands of Pakistan will give rise to a piquant situation where the US-supplied aircraft and nuclear-tipped missiles from China and North Korea will upset the military balance in the region. Where this convergence will take the US war on proliferation is something which Washington has to understand and quickly. |
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Naxal upswing in UP The
killing of 17 policemen in Uttar Pradesh’s Chandauli district by Naxalites who blew up a truck brings to the fore a number of issues that have been glossed over in the context of the Maoist negotiations in Andhra Pradesh. First and foremost is that Naxalites, or Maoists, as they prefer to be called now, are setting the agenda in a way where they agree to talk to the authorities in one state while carrying on their annihilation policy elsewhere. While one group may conveniently disown responsibility by pointing at another outfit, the fact remains that there is broad strategic collaboration between the various Maoist organisations. Second, Maoist violence is on the upswing in UP, which has recently emerged as a new battleground. Third, this emergence of extremist attacks is inextricably linked with Maoist groups in Bihar and Nepal. Reports, in recent months, of Maoists from Nepal and their “comrades” in Bihar using the border areas of UP for transit, recruitment, training and for smuggling of weapons have not been grasped adequately for their political and security implications. It was only some 11 months ago that the UP Government claimed a decline in Naxalite activities. In January 2004, there were reports of a Maoist conclave being held somewhere along the UP-Nepal border, suggesting escalation of Maoist violence in Chandauli, Mirzapur and Sonebhadra districts. A month later, Naxalites killed five CRPF jawans in a landmine blast in Sonebhadra. In September, when Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil called a meeting of the home and police departments of Naxalite-affected states, although UP made out a case for a special force to tackle the Maoists, it was still
complacent. Now comes the worst incident of Maoist violence in UP, just two days after a similar blast in the same district on Thursday killed three forest officials. It is high time that the state and Centre woke up to the seriousness of the situation. |
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Parking hassles In
a ruling aimed at reducing public inconvenience caused by lack of parking space at busy shopping and commercial centres, the Supreme Court on Friday told the Delhi government not to clear any building project until a parking policy was formulated and gave it a time limit of six weeks. The obvious implication is that no building should be cleared until sufficient space is made available for parking. Due to high land prices in cities, builders, private colonisers and property dealers tend to exploit commercially every inch of land available. Government agencies and officials too try to squeeze maximum profit from urban land deals and fail to plan for future requirements either due to lack of foresight or greed. The Supreme Court judgement will, at least, force the Delhi authorities to plan for the increasing pressure of a furiously rising number of vehicles. There is no reason why other cities and towns should not follow the court directive. Parking is seldom given its due importance in urban planning. The needs of a fast-growing, vehicle-owning population are generally ignored. The result is a slow-moving traffic, accidents, wastage of
man-hours and social tension. Even planned cities like Chandigarh have failed to cope with the rising pressure on roads. As incomes rise, more and more Indians want to have their own vehicles. A car is not only a status symbol, but also a necessity, given an inadequate, tiring public transport system. To avoid traffic congestion in busy areas, the civic authorities can levy/raise parking charges. Vehicle-owners may not mind paying a little extra for safety and comfort. Multiplexes, shopping malls and other such symbols of urban life must also pay a part of their profits to plan for their customers’ needs and convenience. |
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It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.
— Magic Johnson |
Games Musharraf plays AS a soldier who has been through all command and staff courses up to the British Royal College of Defence Studies, General Musharraf appears to believe in psyops (Psychological operations) vis-a-vis India. So he seems to be blowing hot and cold on the Kashmir issue. In New York he had a cordial meeting with Dr Manmohan Singh who made it clear that neither redrawing of international borders nor division of Kashmir on communal lines would be acceptable to India and he should come up with fresh proposals. General Musharraf came up with his “Iftar musings” meant primarily to be debated among the Pakistanis. He clarified that he would go with his proposals to Dr Singh in the light of views of media and experts expressed on his “seven region-four status” Iftar proposals. In Pakistan the two major parties — The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muslim League (Nawaz Shrief) — have rejected his proposals. Nor has it received support from his own ally Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA),
the religious party. The Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Natwar Singh had announced that the Pakistani proposals would be considered by India when they were formally placed before it. Presumably this is expected to happen when the Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visits Delhi this week. Meanwhile, Dr Singh during his visit to Kashmir reiterated the position he had already communicated to General Musharraf in New York. This time however, General Musharraf has decided to take offence at the Indian Prime Minister’s reiteration of the Indian position. Even without making any formal proposals to India he charges India of being patronising and that Delhi must engage him in a dialogue and not talk of just listening to his proposal in one-way communication. Then he launches a new propaganda offensive. He gives up his alleged flexibility of not insisting on the UN plebiscite demand and goes back to it in view of India’s “inflexibility” implied in the Indian PM’s reassertion in Srinagar. He also declares that he does not accept the validity of Kashmir elections and considers only the Hurriyat as the true representative of Kashmiris. He also demands that the Hurriyat should be a third party in Indo-Pakistan dialogue. General Musharraf has launched this diatribe even before his Prime Minister is to reach Delhi. It is not clear whether he has abandoned his earlier wish of putting forward his final proposals resulting from the Pakistan debate on his “Iftar musings”. While three of the four proposals of giving the regions options of sovereignty, accession to India or Pakistan and coming under UN mandate would go against Dr Manmohan Singh’s two parameters, the fourth suggestion of condominium can be implemented without altering the international borders or dividing Kashmir on communal lines. However, the proposal needs to be spelt out further by Pakistan. Obviously, India and Pakistan cannot jointly exercise condominium on a third territory unless their own relationship is non-antagonistic. In other words the road to that solution is through improvement of relationship between India and Pakistan which should reach a level like that between the UK and Irish Republic to consider arrangements like the one proposed in the Good Friday agreement. Dr Manmohan Singh did not say anything he had not said in New York. India did not reject any proposal offered by Pakistan. Therefore it puzzles one why the General is throwing up such tantrums. One wonders whether General Musharraf has realised that his condominium proposals have potential for further consideration by India and therefore wants to kill them before they are being formally offered to India. The General, by casting doubts on the validity of elections in Kashmir is focussing attention on his own legitimacy as the ruler of Pakistan. By insisting on the Hurriyat being present in Indo-Pak dialogue he begs the issue that the representatives of the PPP, PML (N) and the MMA alone can represent Pakistan in any dialogue with India and he happens to be a self- anointed President whose legitimacy is being questioned everyday in Pakistan. There is also a possibility that General Musharraf understands that Pakistan’s hold on the Hurriyat is slipping as highlighted by the latest interview of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq,
caretaker chairman of All Party Hurriyat Conference to The Hindu in which he has ruled out any communal or ethnic division of Jammu and Kashmir and insists on a federal solution to the Kashmir issue. The General’s bonafides will become clearer during the visit of his Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. When the General rails at India for asking Pakistan to come up with its proposals and offering to listen and examine them he should understand that is inherent in the Kashmir situation. Pakistan is the revisionist state which launched three unsuccessful aggressions. India is content to live with the status quo. There is yet another factor to be taken into account, namely Washington. The General’s “Iftar musings” earned the prompt endorsement of the departing US Deputy Secretary of State who called it “forward thinking”. It is widely known that Colin Powell and Richard Armitage had a soft corner for the General. Possibly the General is not sure of the incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and therefore does not want to put forward proposals which may lead to a dialogue. He may prefer to revert to the earlier situation of reasonable tension with India. In these circumstances the Indian strategy should be, if the “Iftar musings” were to be presented to India by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ,not to reject them but to seek clarifications from Pakistan about its ideas of condominium. Condominiums are unrealistic between two nations of which one claims that its nuclear weapons are meant solely to be used against the other. Condominium can only be an end process of deepening friendship and shared strategic interests between the two countries. India should enquire whether Pakistan has a road map for moving towards such a situation. It is in India’s interest not to allow Pakistan to break off the composite dialogue. India should not walk into the trap of Pakistan projecting itself as an underdog being bullied by larger India. This is a major diplomatic challenge in the coming months. |
When a professional becomes negligent
The Supreme Court’s ruling on doctors has evoked mixed reactions in the country from both the general public and doctors. To put the issue in a proper perspective and appreciate the ruling properly, one has to analyse the aspect of negligence in both civil and criminal context. Negligence is not susceptible to any precise definition and can be variously understood. An attorney, ignorant of the changes in the law, gives an erroneous advice to a client and the client, based on that advice, sustains huge financial loss. An engineer, miscalculating the load-bearing capacity of a structural support and the structure built to those specifications, fails, causing property damage, injury and death. A doctor working in a rural hospital fails to diagnose disease in a child, the treatment gets delayed and the child dies. In each of these cases, the professional faces the prospect of a negligence suit. Section 357 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 empowers the courts to award compensation to the victims. This power is not ancillary to other sentences, but is in addition thereto. Thus, by authorising courts, the distinction between tort and crime has been conveyed in the sense that the degree of negligence in criminal liability is much higher than that of negligence in tortuous liability. A doctor prescribing drugs with serious side-effects without informing the patient about them and without carrying out the recommended tests is guilty of gross carelessness in exposing the patient to the risk. In such circumstances, negligence usually forms the basis of criminal liability. Negligence in civil and criminal context carries some other features. There can be no civil action for negligence if the negligent act or omission has not been attended to by injury to any person whereas bare negligence involving the risk of injury is punishable criminally though no one is actually hurt by it. Further, in a civil action, the victim can sue a person or those falling in the chain of events whereas in an action for criminal liability, every person is responsible for his own act. Above all, in determining liability in civil cases, the outcome rests upon balance of probabilities. Was the condition caused by negligence rather than some complication of disease? In determining criminal liability, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt”. The Supreme Court, in its ruling on August 4, 2004, has said nothing novel in maintaining that “for fixing criminal liability on a doctor or a surgeon, the standard of negligence required to be proved should be so high as can be described as gross or reckless showing such disregard for life and safety of his patient as to amount to a crime against the state. Mere inadvertence or error of judgement or an accident might create civil liability but would not suffice to hold him criminally liable.” In this case Dr Suresh Gupta, a plastic surgeon, operated the patient for nasal deformity on April 18, 1994 and the patient died in the course of operation. However, the report of post-mortem conducted on April 21, 1994, described the cause of death as “asphyxia resulting from blockage of respiratory passage by aspirated blood consequent upon surgically incised margin of nasal septum”. The Medical Board further said: “The blockage of air passage was due to aspiration of blood from the wound and it was not likely in the presence of cuffed endotracheal tube of proper size having introduced before the operation and remained there in position”. It also said that the “presence of fluid and clotted blood in the respiratory passage, as noted in the report, could also be due to trickling of decomposed, bloody fluid and some clot present in the nostril”. The Board gave a different opinion, apparently in the surgeon’s favour. The Supreme Court said, “The act of non-introduction of cuffed endotracheal tube of proper size as to prevent aspiration of blood into the respiratory passage being attributed to the surgeon, even if accepted to be true, can be described as negligent act as there was lack of due care and caution. For this act of negligence, he may be liable in tort but his carelessness or want of due attention and skill cannot be described to be so reckless or grossly negligent as to make him criminally liable.” The writer is Professor and Head, Forensic Medicine, Government Medical College Hospital, Chandigarh |
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Chatterati The month of Ramzan may be one of fasting and praying. But Iftaar parties send out major political messages. Paswan’s Iftaar in the Capital was where Sonia Gandhi smiled through the evening. Then came Nitish Kumar’s Iftaar where Paswan hugged Nitish right through. Subtle messages for Laloo, I wonder. Then came former Prime Minister Vajpayee’s Iftaar. He was looking healthier and was in his elements. He spoke on the arrest of Kanchi Sankaracharya and Uma Bharti’s tantrums. Well, the former P.M. was conscious that his statement should not influence the legal process, but showed concern about the Acharya’s health and state of mind after the way he was arrested. This Iftaar of the former P.M. was obviously a bit lack-lustre. If Amar Singh was overjoyed to be invited at last to some heavy weight party, Mr Advani gave this evening a miss. Shahnawaaz was still in a shock over Uma’s suspension. The daughter who was thrown out of her family was, of course, missing. Her outburst at the meeting has made some of the BJP second-rung leaders very happy.
A secular crowd at Id Milan An Id and Divali Milan at Gulam Nabi Azad’s residence. Well, if the food was a mix of kabab, samosas, kahwa and chaat, so was the crowd so secular. Manmohan Singh, Shivraj Patil, Anand Sharma, Chidambaram and media personalities rubbed shoulders with Sanjay Khan of Bollywood. But no page 3 crowd here and hardly any industrialists. Tariq Anwar of the NCP was attending a party of a Congress person after a long time. At one time when Azad was Youth Congress President, Tariq was his General Secretary. Surjeet Singh, A.B. Bardhan and Debrata Biswas, Oscar Fernandes, lone BJP guy Madan Lal Khurana, Ajit Jogi in a wheel-chair and Shiela Dixit hopped on one leg as she had fractured her ankle. Gulam Nabi’s wife Shamim and daughter Sophia played elegant hosts with son Sadana.
Networking at festivals Satte pe satte. Yes! That is the buzzword around Divali in the Capital. Card sessions, a good amount of socialising together with stakes which go up to crores, Patiala pegs, tandoori chickens and Italian to Lebanese food along with drugs, and cocaine for the new rich. Huge mashals, tables set for the rich to play their teen patis. The bored auntyjis laden in their diamonds and latest designer bags with cash over-flowing and flesh literally bursting out of their designer clothes. At a friend’s house a card party wound up at 12 the next day. Gone are the days of family divalis, puja and sharing of love and small gifts. Now houses of cops, bureaucrats and politicians are full of silver, TV sets, expensive items and new cell phones for their kids. The pious festivals of Id and Divali are for networking, signing deals, lubricating dry itching palms for officials who curry favours in their official capacity. The Capital was again overcast with a thick layer of pollution and everyone’s asthma and sinus went flaring. It was also a time for the babus to humour the new political bosses with gifts. As for our new generation, they insist it’s the Ram story you know, when he killed the Ravana guy and came back home. OK. That’s it! The rest is party time, man! |
God is one; the Eternal Truth; He is the Supreme Creator. — Guru Nanak One way of deluding ourselves is to talk about renunciation and contemplation while thinking about sensual pleasures. What we think about, determines what we are; not what our names and castes are. A low-born person may become a saint by thinking of God and Truth. — The Bhagvad Gita The Fire God believes that he is all powerful. But even his power to burn comes from the Supreme. — The Upanishads Every living faith must have within itself the power of rejuvenation if it is to live. Just as the body cannot exist without blood, so the soul needs matchless and pure strength of faith. — Mahatma Gandhi It's not who we are that holds us back, it's who we think we're not. — Michael Nolan |
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