O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Theatre of abuse
Laloo and Paswan slug it out
If these are the lies that the two politicians purvey about each other, the truth about them could well be more damaging. Or so one is tempted to conclude as Union Ministers Laloo Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan continue to fling allegations at each other.

Towards Asian Community
An idea which can change the continent’s face
If it can happen in Europe it can happen in Asia too. That is why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s idea of an Asian Economic Community, on the lines of the European Union, is getting greater acceptability throughout the continent.
 
Flaws in anti-AIDS fight
The epidemic spreads its tentacles
It is heartening to know that Pune’s National AIDS Research Institute is closer to developing an AIDS vaccine with its trial on volunteers beginning in January next year.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Broadcasting for people
It’s not the concern of Prasar Bharati alone
by N. Bhaskara Rao
How much concerned are we today about Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)? Of course, PSB cannot be appraised in isolation of the larger broadcast scene in the country. There is a misnomer that “public interest” contents cannot maximise viewership/ listenership, and that “commercial viability” is not possible without going for “popularity” programmes irrespective of their public interest.

MIDDLE

Admission tests
by Harish Dhillon
For nine years I headed a school where, amongst other things, we tested three-year-old children for admission to Prep I. I agreed wholeheartedly with the criticism of this test. What aptitude and potential can you test in a child so young? Even more, is it fair to subject a three year old to the trauma of failure?

OPED

Women more vulnerable to AIDS
Unfaithful husbands spread the disease
by Neelam Sharma
Have you heard me today?’’ screams this year’s slogan of the World AIDS day falling on December 1. More than one-fourth of the total 5.1 million HIV positive persons living in India are women. This year the focus is on vulnerable women and young girls, who due to their lower socio-economic standing in the community, are exposed to the threat of acquiring of the HIV more than their male counterparts.

Mines claim more lives than firing
by Ramesh Ramachandran
Wheelchair-bound Raj Kaur (50) rues the day she was reduced to a mere statistic. In April, 2002, she stepped on a mine while crossing a field in her village in Ferozepur district. Victims like Raj Kaur, who were in New Delhi recently to mobilise opinion against landmines, wondered when India and Pakistan would sign the Mine Ban Convention.

EDITORIALS

Theatre of abuse
Laloo and Paswan slug it out

If these are the lies that the two politicians purvey about each other, the truth about them could well be more damaging. Or so one is tempted to conclude as Union Ministers Laloo Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan continue to fling allegations at each other. Railway Minister Laloo Prasad has described his Cabinet colleague, Steel Minister Paswan, as a "leader of mafia elements". This is the Rashtriya Janata Dal chieftain's riposte to the Lok Janashakti Party boss calling him a "chara chor" (fodder thief). And both are accusing each other of using undignified language, though what the two Union Cabinet colleagues have exchanged are hardly testimonials of good conduct and character. It is most unseemly that two prominent figures of the United Progressive Alliance government headed by one so decent and distinguished as Dr Manmohan Singh should carry on in this disgraceful manner. Yet, the Congress party is pretending that it is least affected by the goings-on, and only because it does not want to get involved. On the other hand, the BJP is out to make the most of the situation.

This offers a foretaste of things to come with the elections to the Bihar assembly approaching. Both Mr Prasad and Mr Paswan appear determined to carry on their bitter confrontation to the end even as they battle it out for the prize of ruling Bihar. While Mr Paswan is out to do everything he can to end the 14-year-long (mis)rule of the state under Mr Prasad and his wife, Mrs Rabri Devi, the RJD chief wants to squash anyone with a potential to challenge him in what he considers to be his fiefdom.

The Congress may have opted for prudence as the better part of valour to avoid being caught in the crossfire. That may be useful for an electoral bargain in Bihar but it could wreck the cohesion of the UPA and adversely affect its functioning. It is time the two ministers are reined in and asked to desist from using their office for this irresponsible and vicious personal campaign against each other.

Towards Asian Community
An idea which can change the continent’s face

If it can happen in Europe it can happen in Asia too. That is why Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s idea of an Asian Economic Community, on the lines of the European Union, is getting greater acceptability throughout the continent. He first floated it at the recently held India-Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in New Delhi and Mumbai. Japanese Prime Minister, who met Mr Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Laos on Monday, was quite realistic when he described it as an Arc of Prosperity. Once it takes shape, the proposed Asian Community will obviously be an envy of not only the European nations but also the rest of the West because of its huge market size. Whatever the West’s prejudices, it is definitely an idea whose time seems to have come.

The Asian Community proposal is aimed at going beyond what the ASEAN leaders visualised last year when they signed a pact to create a common market having common security goals. The “plan of action” of the ASEAN community included cooperation in areas of politics, security matters, military affairs, transportation, information technology and tourism, besides the removal of tariff barriers by 2010. Yet it would not have the advantages that would be there in the larger Asian Community comprising the world’s two largest markets --- China and India ---- and Japan, an economic super power.

Japan is as much interested in the Asian Community becoming a reality as is India because of its own reasons. Japan has been the biggest beneficiary in the two-way trade with ASEAN so far, but China is likely to surpass it in the near future. It will be an entirely different situation once Asia becomes a common market. The Japanese being the technology leaders will have the obvious advantages. India and China also would be major gainers because of their market size and the progress they have achieved in various areas. The idea can, in fact, change the face of the entire continent, helping to find solutions to even problems other than those related to the economy.

Flaws in anti-AIDS fight
The epidemic spreads its tentacles

It is heartening to know that Pune’s National AIDS Research Institute is closer to developing an AIDS vaccine with its trial on volunteers beginning in January next year. French researchers have come out with a vaccine that can suppress the virus for a year. For India, which is second to South Africa in having the largest number of HIV-infected patients in the world, these are significant developments. Though the first HIV positive case in India was diagnosed in Chennai in 1986, the initial neglect, continued lack of funds and a flawed approach have led to the rapid proliferation of AIDS cases from a few thousands in the early nineties to about 50 lakh in 2003.

From initial suspects like sex workers, migrants, drug users and truck drivers, the disease has spread over to women and children, from the urban areas to the rural areas. This year’s focus of the anti-AIDS day, falling on December 1, is on the vulnerability of women and children. Unfortunately, despite an increasing awareness about the deadly disease the world over, the Indian efforts at diagnosis are still limited to the traditional suspects and to the urban areas. The government’s allocation of $38.8 million for the anti-AIDS programme between 1999 and 2004 is considered too meagre, given the magnitude of the epidemic.

The anti-AIDS campaign also suffers from a lack of consensus on what constitutes the right strategy to combat the disease. The government stress is more on preaching sexual abstinence and faithfulness to an unwilling population rather than making condoms within easy reach. Facilities for diagnosis are woefully inadequate. There are only 25 community HIV/AIDS care centres across the country. Most individuals are tested for HIV without their consent and knowledge. Because of the stigma attached to the disease, not many willingly undergo tests. The vaccine, when found successful, may be the answer to the problem which has already become acute.

Thought for the day

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better.
— Thomas Edison

ARTICLE

Broadcasting for people
It’s not the concern of Prasar Bharati alone
by N. Bhaskara Rao

How much concerned are we today about Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)? Of course, PSB cannot be appraised in isolation of the larger broadcast scene in the country. There is a misnomer that “public interest” contents cannot maximise viewership/ listenership, and that “commercial viability” is not possible without going for “popularity” programmes irrespective of their public interest.

That being the general assumption, there can be three options in a broadcast scenario. One, maximise viewership for public interest broadcasts, unconcerned about commercial viability. Two, maximise viewership so that commercial interests can be served better; unconcerned about public interest. Three, the balance between commercial interest and public interest where popularity programming can subsidise public interest programmes and make “public interest” programmes in such a way that they too become “popular”.

The intervening factor that dictates the course is the government policy towards broadcasting. For example, if the government is serious of public service broadcasting, the much-awaited “community radio” scheme should not have been languishing. At the end of two years of a policy, only one community radio service has actually come into operation (that too in the heart of Chennai!) out of some 60 applications from across the country. The priority, on the other hand, has been for “commercial broadcasting”. For, more than a dozen FM broadcasts have come into operation during the same period.

All India Radio has set good benchmarks as to what public service broadcasting is all about. AIR has been offering programmes on information, entertainment, culture and motivation. And it has adopted to changing times with CBS and opened up its channels for advertising. The difference then and now, of course, is that AIR was never looked upon as a source of revenue. Going by the Supreme Court’s judgment of 1995, “airwaves belong to the public”. If that is so, their use cannot be primarily for “private profit”. And going by this, every broadcaster has to cater to public service as a responsibility and obligation, and it is for the government to prescribe a minimum level for such contents.

The role of PSB becomes even more important where socio-economic inequalities within the country are so glaring as in India. The “hawa” of privatisation of government-funded bodies should not be extended to Prasar Bharati.

What is “public interest”? Is it the same as what interests the larger public and “in the interest of the public”? Not necessarily. More often, in a competitive scenario, as broadcasters have to “attract” viewers/listeners, they go more for what interests the public. In fact, channels do so constantly. “Popularity” should not be mixed up as “interest”. Even more so in the context of visual media. All broadcasters should have public service concern and programmes but, in a competitive situation it is the degree of concern for public service or the extent of such coverage. For, every broadcaster would claim that he is serving the public.

The Television Rating Points (TRPs) system is the villain of public service broadcasting. That is, TRP measuring of viewership, programme-wise, segment-wise and region-wise, day in and day out, has become the criterion for popularity. As this has become the sole yardstick for advertising outlays, all broadcasters/ channels have succumbed to such a benchmark.

This TRP phenomenon is at the root of wrong concerns, priorities and preoccupation of broadcasting in India. Doing anything without addressing this menace will not make much difference to PSB in India. The concern should also be about the implications and impact of broadcasting. This also means recognition that broadcasting influences people, changes their attitudes, values and lifestyles. That is why advertisers do so much research and spend so much for TRPs. That is how the TRP system ended up being advertising-centred.

Expecting Doordarshan to be a “public service broadcaster” in isolation of the broadcast scene and without any moderation or restraint on the part of a lassez faire policy of the government for channels is an unworkable and unfair proposition. The public service broadcaster cannot be left at the mercy of market forces or expected to fight (an unequal) competition and with irrelevant benchmarks. Adding to this basic contradiction in the government policy on broadcasting is not to assure Prasar Bharati budgetary requirement as a long-term commitment. And such a budgetary commitment for public service broadcasting has to be irrelevant of which party the government is in power and as an obligation.

All broadcast channels should have the obligation for certain “minimum public service” conditions in their programme contents. Such obligations could be in terms of time devoted to community interests, in the interest of children and by way of and in ensuring pluralism, taking into account public grievances, and observing certain codes on advertising and programmes, etc.

All this ideally should be the job of an independent regulator. A regulator should not be merely a problem-solver and as a stop-gap arrangement. For that is how TRAI is being viewed as of now.

At least three conditions are expected to be ensured for a public service broadcaster to remain so. But does the government want a PSB today? The first and foremost condition is guaranteed funding, adequate to meet its objectives and in a competitive market. The second is the independence of organisational structures, operations and programme priorities. The third is the accountability to larger “public” (Parliament and such other bodies) and certain transparency in that process. A set of public service concerns associated with “national issues” like communicable diseases, literacy, vocational education, right to information, and minimum wages should be identified for all broadcasters (not just DD) to take on. Also, a certain section of people like children and farmers should be identified for special programmes.

Having formed Prasar Bharati as a public corporation, the government has never reconciled to the fact that it is supposed to operate with some independence and financial commitment. In both respects the government has let down Prasar Bharati. In fact, on the issue of finance, the government showed its ignorance of public service by mending Prasar Bharati to “earn from the market” - which means in competition with other broadcasters operating without any government regulation and obligations to the public. There has been so much indecisiveness and inconsistencies in government policies towards the broadcasting sector. The government should view the budgetary allocation for Prasar Bharati from the Consolidated Fund the same way as in the case of allocations for education, drinking water or irrigation. The government should fund research and specially for reaching the unreached. As we have for the telecom sector, there should be “universal service obligation” on the part of all broadcasters.

The concern for PSB should not be limited to Prasar Bharati. The government should ease the procedures for setting up community radio networks. Every broadcaster should do some PSB as an obligation. The extent of dependence on advertisements need be moderated-both in the case of Prasar Bharati and other broadcasters. Even more urgent is the revamping of the TRP system, which should be more broad based. All broadcasters should observe certain accountability discipline and transparency obligations. An independent commission or regulator should be there as a nodal agency to regulate broadcasting services. Decentralised broadcasting is better for PSB, and yet Prasar Bharati is going for centralised DTH. Prasar Bharati should be assured of funding as annual budgetary provision. It cannot be expected to be viable otherwise. There should be monitoring and time series research studies.

MIDDLE

Admission tests
by Harish Dhillon

For nine years I headed a school where, amongst other things, we tested three-year-old children for admission to Prep I. I agreed wholeheartedly with the criticism of this test. What aptitude and potential can you test in a child so young? Even more, is it fair to subject a three year old to the trauma of failure? Alternatives were discussed. But for various reasons we continued with the admission tests. Ironically, now when I look back on that time, I realise that some of my most delightful memories of my tenure belong to these admission tests.

A little Sardar boy sat opposite me, his arms on the table, his chin cradled in his hands, looking fixedly into my eyes, resolutely refusing to say a word. Finally in despair I said:

"Well, at least recite a poem for me."

"That I will do later" the boy said in a flash of unexpected animation. "First tell me what is this board under the table."

It was a slanting footboard with a bell push on it.

"It is a bell - if you press it the peon answers."

"I don't believe it."

"Try it."

He squiggled his foot and somehow pressed the bell push. When the peon came in he looked towards me, helplessness writ large upon his face. I held up my hands, palm upwards, and shrugged my shoulders.

It took him all of ten seconds to rally around. He straightened his collar and turned to the peon.

"Chal, yaar. Get me a glass of water."

Another young boy also refused to talk. I called him to my side and pulled open my drawer to reveal a treasury of sweets and toffees.

"Talk to me" I said, "and I will give you a pocketful of these." He smiled tentatively. Then his glance, wandering to the window, caught my old fiat parked outside. His eyes lit up.

"Whose car is that?"

"Mine."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Principal of a big school like YPS, going around in a battered old Fiat. You should get yourself a Maruti."

"Why?"

The little three-year-old rattled off all the statistics about pickup, fuel consumption, maintenance etc., and left me totally breathless.

There was a little girl, who the moment she entered my office said: "Tell that man to go away." I was taken aback because 'that man' was her father.

"He didn't let me eat the parathas that my grandmother made for me - hurry up, hurry up, he kept saying. He would not let me wear my party frock and all the way to the school he kept asking me who's the Chief Minister of Mizoram."

"You've heard the child," I told the father "I'd be grateful if you waited outside." Once he had left we had a delightful conversation where she told me a string of home remedies for afflictions ranging from the common cold to receding hairlines.

Needless to say all three children were admitted. Looking back now, I am glad we did not do away with the admission tests.

OPED

Women more vulnerable to AIDS
Unfaithful husbands spread the disease
by Neelam Sharma

An HIV positive sign located at the entrance of a Buddhist temple in Thailand — Reuters photo

Have you heard me today?’’ screams this year’s slogan of the World AIDS day falling on December 1.

More than one-fourth of the total 5.1 million HIV positive persons living in India are women. This year the focus is on vulnerable women and young girls, who due to their lower socio-economic standing in the community, are exposed to the threat of acquiring of the HIV more than their male counterparts.

According to the National AIDS Control Association (NACO), “Globally, young women and girls are more susceptible to HIV than men and boys, with studies showing they can be 2.5 times more likely to be HIV-infected as their male counterparts. Their vulnerability is primarily due to inadequate knowledge about AIDS, insufficient access to HIV prevention services, inability to negotiate safer sex and a lack of female-controlled HIV prevention methods.’’

The ABC approach of keeping HIV at bay — that of abstinence, being faithful and condom use — have not entirely worked in favour of women. For despite abstinence, millions of faithful housewives are infected by their “unfaithful husbands” and female condoms are yet to be the reality for an average Indian woman.

When the talk of prevention of HIV is focused on “behavioural change,’’ the challenge before those willing to bring about a change is how to protect women in their homes from acquiring the HIV infection. The problems for young women and adolescents compound in the country because they are less likely to access information on HIV and have limited ability and power to exercise control over their sexual lives.

“I think female condoms have to become a reality and more acceptable for both partners. It would give the much needed empowerment to women in their sexual lives,’’ says Dr. Subha Raghavan of the NGO SAATHI, Chennai.

Be it the commercial sex workers working in the country’s most frequented red-light areas or the unsuspecting housewife waiting for her husband at home, both are equally susceptible to the disease. Yet the predominant belief in India is that it’s just the commercial sex workers who are more likely to get the infection. This despite the statistics that in India out of the 18.87 lakh women who are currently living with HIV, the female sex workers are just around 10, 300.

The main challenge in addressing the issue of HIV among women is that all over the world, women do not enjoy the same rights and access to employment, property and education as men. Women and girls are also more likely to face sexual violence, which can accelerate the spread of HIV.

Airing concern of the HIV positive women in India is the Chennai-based Positive Women Network. One of its pioneers, P. Kousalya, says, “Discrimination and social ostracism are more in case of women living with HIV than for men because of the low social status of women in society. The cases of women being driven out of their homes after their husbands die of the disease are common everywhere.’’

The district of Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, where this group is actively working, is a living example of the state of affairs in which most of the positive women find themselves. In this town of truckers and transporters, out of a more than 1,000 HIV positive persons, 546 are women and majority of them are widows. Not more than 20 female sex workers are among those infected.

Women usually come to know that they are HIV positive only at the time of pregnancy during check-ups in ante-natal clinics.

More than 600 HIV voluntary counselling and testing centres in the country too are “stigmatised” as the belief runs that they are visited by HIV positive people alone.

However, those working at the grassroots level suggest that empowerment of women is the key in fighting the disease rather than bombarding the didactic vertical social messages.

Social activist Meena Seshu of NGO Sangram, working with commercial sex workers in the red-light area of Sangli, located on the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka, says, “It’s a myth that women cannot negotiate safe sex. They only need to be aware of what safe sex means.’’ She further says, ``when we made the female sex workers here realise how important the use of condom by their client is, they began to negotiate for condom in paid sex in their own way, which an outsider could never teach them. Now the use of condom has increased substantially.’’

While the official humdrum promises to continue at its own pace in the country, as Dr Sadhna Rout, the Joint Director of NACO at the UNAIDS and NACO workshop in Goa, said recently, “This year’s world AIDS campaign explores how gender inequality fuels the AIDS epidemic, and is conceived to help accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS by encouraging people to address female vulnerability to HIV.’’ The solution for containing the epidemic lies in the empowerment of the women.

According to the UNAIDS and World Health Organisation’s latest report, around half of the 37 million living with HIV in the world are females. The report says that all the regions in the world have witnessed an increase in the epidemic. In South and South East Asia, 30 per cent women are living with HIV, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 57 per cent women are infected by the virus. In East Asia 22 per cent and Oceania 21 per cent women of the total population are living with HIV.

Mines claim more lives than firing
by Ramesh Ramachandran

Wheelchair-bound Raj Kaur (50) rues the day she was reduced to a mere statistic. In April, 2002, she stepped on a mine while crossing a field in her village in Ferozepur district.

Victims like Raj Kaur, who were in New Delhi recently to mobilise opinion against landmines, wondered when India and Pakistan would sign the Mine Ban Convention. Three quarters of the world’s states have joined the convention but the crisis is not over. Two casualties occur every hour in the world. Most of them are civilians.

India has voted in favour of the 1996 United Nations General Assembly Resolution urging States to pursue an international agreement banning anti-personnel mines but it has abstained from voting on every annual pro-mine ban treaty UNGA resolution since then.

The government’s position on mines is for a complete prohibition of their use, except in international armed conflicts. It has also said that the use of mines should only be permitted for the long-term defence of borders and that a ban should be pursued “in a manner that addresses the legitimate defence requirements of States”.

The Landmine Monitor Report 2004, which was released last week, stated : “India has declined to reveal the number of anti-personnel mines in its national stockpile. Since 1999, Landmine Monitor has estimated that India holds between four and five million anti-personnel mines, the sixth largest stockpile in the world.”

The document quoted government sources as having reported 10,709 landmine and IED casualties (1,489 killed and 9,220 injured) between 1989 and 1999 in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere.

Ironically, more persons have been killed or injured due to anti-personnel mines than shelling or firing in the last two years. According to the data compiled by the Indian Institute for Peace, Disarmament and Environmental Protection, mines have killed or injured 758 persons as compared to 379 casualties due to shelling or firing.

The data showed that 120 persons have been killed or injured in the three border districts of Amritsar (33), Gurdaspur (29) and Ferozepur (58) in Punjab between January 2002 and March 2004.

The corresponding figure for Jammu and Kashmir is 454 with mines maiming or killing 117 in Jammu, 169 in Poonch, 135 in Rajouri and 33 in Kathua.

According to Dr Balakrishna Kurvey, who is spearheading the “Indian Campaign to Ban Landmines”, the Army operations along the border affected 19 lakh farmers in 1,818 villages cultivating 60,915 acres in the three border districts of Ferozepur, Gurdaspur and Amritsar after mines were laid along the border with Pakistan.

Dr Kurvey said that till September 30, 2003, the Army is reported to have recovered a majority of the mines but the mine clearance process, which is painstakingly slow and dangerous, is continuing. Ramchander (27) of Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan is the latest casualty.

REFLECTIONS

— Mother Teresa