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In the face of defeat Well served, Pappu Simply Sania |
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An unbecoming outburst
Valentine Eve
Document
Universities told to
check plagiarism
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In the face of defeat Some people think before taking any precipitate action. Some reverse the order. Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has now chosen to act under pique. He first admonished his Chief Secretary and other officers for not carrying out the orders which were issued by him in violation of the model code of conduct in force in the state. He followed it up with a virtual ultimatum to the Election Commission of India to allow certain appointments. As if that was not ill-advised enough, he has now suspended a senior IAS officer for allegedly not obeying the government’s orders under the garb of the model code of conduct. Interestingly, he has not specified which orders Mr Bhaskar Chatterjee, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Finance, Town and Country Planning and Tourism, did not implement. This vagueness tells its own story, although it is widely known that what has got Mr Chautala’s goat is the refusal of Mr Chatterjee to give licences to certain private colonisers. What Mr Chautala refuses to accept is that he is only a stopgap Chief Minister at this stage and he cannot go about issuing orders binding the next government irrevocably. Heavens are not going to fall or even move if certain orders are kept in abeyance till the new regime takes charge in less than a month. By issuing arbitrary orders towards the end of his tenure, Mr Chautala is only giving vent to his frustration over the way voting is believed to have gone in the recent elections. He has every right to proclaim that he is coming back to power but the writing on the wall carries a different script. Either way, he has no business to pick a fight with the Election Commission, a constitutional authority, and also browbeat bureaucrats who are only doing their duty. If he is to exit from power he should do so with good grace. May be, that is asking for too much from Mr Chautala.
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Well served, Pappu The Supreme Court directive shifting the Madhepura Lok Sabha member, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, from Beur Jail in Patna to Tihar Jail in New Delhi within a week is timely. It will not only force the tainted member to abide by the jail manual but also restore order in Bihar’s prison administration.' The judgement by a Bench comprising Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Justice S.B. Sinha is significant because it has ordered that the trial of all pending criminal cases against him would continue in Patna through video-conferencing. It ruled that only in rare and exceptional circumstances he would be produced before the Patna Sessions Judge. The apex court also said that the officials should extend no special privileges to Pappu Yadav either while shifting him to New Delhi or during his incarceration in Tihar Jail. The Jail Manual will have to be strictly followed regarding the visitation rights of his family at Tihar Jail. Pappu Yadav had virtually turned Beur Jail into a personal retreat, throwing all established norms to thin air. He could come in and out of the prison, call ministers on his cell phone and hold durbars in the prison at will, right under the nose of the jail officials. The latter’s response towards his conduct was characterised by either sycophancy or helplessness because of his high political connections. The Supreme Court took serious exception to the open durbars held by Pappu Yadav, ordered the transfer of the Jail Superintendent and directed the CBI to submit a proposal to shift him to a jail outside Bihar. The court has selected Tihar Jail out of the six prisons suggested by the CBI. It had earlier ordered the installation of jammers in the jails to make cell phones defunct. The court has now called Pappu Yadav’s bluff. However, given his propensity for mischief, the court should continue to monitor his conduct closely so that he does not repeat his antics in Tihar Jail. |
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Simply Sania Tennis sensation Sania Mirza’s wresting of the WTA title in Hyderabad not only made her the first Indian woman to win the honour but has also earned her a place in the top 100 in world ranking. Now ranked 99, Sania has jumped 67 places in a remarkably short span of time. Only weeks ago, the comely lass from Hyderabad was ranked no. 166, from where she entered the Australian Open as a wild card. Her Grand Slam debut moved her up 35 places, but still some way from the top 100. Now her 117 points for the title triumph in the Hyderabad Open has given her a further boost. This is a sterling achievement, especially because Sania herself had aimed to enter the top 100 only in the course of this year and not within a matter of weeks. In a country where cricket has sidelined other games to a point where even funds and facilities are not forthcoming, Sania’s accomplishment should break many a barrier. Men’s tennis has a history in India, but only now is women’s tennis in the limelight. There are a lot of other gritty girls, like Shikha Uberoi and Rushmi Chakravarthi, who show promise and, given encouraging conditions, can go further up the road to win laurels. Women’s sport, especially tennis, will never be the same in India after Sania’s victory. We too would be moving into the era of “court queens” with all its attendant glamour powered by spectator interest, and driven by television and money. These can do a lot of good for the game, bring in the sponsors for the training of hopefuls and cover the cost of tournaments; it can revolutionise women’s tennis in India. There are pitfalls too: the lure of big money and endorsements distracting, if not corrupting, star players. These need to be guarded against by tennis women in general and Sania Mirza in particular, if they want to get where their sights are set now.
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Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it. — Ivan Turgenev
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An unbecoming outburst Never has the image and reputation of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana been put under such a dark cloud as by the outburst of none else than its Chief Justice B.K. Roy and that too on the eve of his transfer to Guwahati. The reference here is to his recent interviews to TV channels. Those of us who have been associated with the judiciary, whether as judges or lawyers, and many others too tend to refrain from forming an opinion on the matter before us unless and until we also know the other side of the story — and more often than not there is another side of the story. Insofar as the judiciary is concerned, there is perhaps nothings more destructive of its credibility than for it to be involved in a public controversy. Such a controversy would inevitably magnify if the judges concerned too were to likewise give their version of the accusations that have been hurled at them by their Chief Justice. It is, therefore, unlikely that anything will be heard from their side. Chief Justice B.K. Roy would not doubt be aware of this. With such being the situation, what he has said and implied in his TV interviews against his colleagues deserves to be taken with a pinch of salt. The unfortunate aspect of it, however, remains that in the eyes of many people in our society the credibility of the institution that he has presided over for more than two years stands gravely compromised. There is a standard of conduct and a sense of responsibility expected of a Chief Justice which surely does not countenance running down his colleagues in the media, as has been done here. As is now well known, recognising that “a complaint casting reflection on the independence and integrity of a judge is bound to have a prejudicial effect on the image of the higher judiciary of which the judge is an honoured member,” the Supreme Court has evolved an in-house procedure to deal with the complaints of commission and omission against judges. As per this procedure, insofar as is relevant here, if the Chief Justice of the High Court finds that a complaint involving misconduct or impropriety is of a serious nature he shall ask for the response thereto of the judge concerned. If on a consideration of the allegations in the complaint in the light of the response of the judge concerned the Chief Justice of the High Court is of the opinion that the allegations in the complaint need a deeper probe, he is required to forward the complaint, the response of the judge and his comments thereon to the Chief Justice of India. On his part if the Chief Justice of India, after considering the complaint in the light of the response of the judge concerned and the comments of the Chief Justice of the High Court, is of the opinion that a deeper probe is required into the allegations contained in the complaint, he shall constitute a three-member committee consisting of two Chief Justices of High Courts other than the High Court to which the judge belongs and one High Court judge. The committee shall then hold an inquiry into the allegations contained in the complaint. If after such an inquiry the committee concludes that there is sufficient substance in the allegations in the complaint and the misconduct disclosed is so serious that it calls for initiation of proceedings for the removal of the judge the Chief Justice of India shall: 1. Advise the judge concerned to resign his office or seek voluntary retirement; and 2. In case the judge expresses his unwillingness to resign or seek voluntary retirement, advise the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned not to allocate any judicial work to the judge concerned. This fact would also be intimated to the President and the Prime Minister. If, on the other hand, the committee finds that there is substance in the allegations but the misconduct disclosed is not so serious as to call for the initiation of proceedings for the removal of the judge, the Chief Justice of India shall call the judge concerned and advise him accordingly and may also direct that the report of the committee be placed on record. This procedure is designed to serve a dual purpose. One, that the allegations against the judge are examined by his peers and not by an outside agency and thereby the independence of the judiciary would be maintained and second, that the existence of a machinery for the examination of complaints against judges would preserve the faith of the people in the independence and impartiality of the judicial process. The striking feature of the case here is that there is nothing to suggest that Chief Justice B.K. Roy ever resorted to this procedure in respect of any allegation by him against any judge. As we have seen, he has instead preferred the TV interviews route. In the context of the unfortunate state of relations between Chief Justice B.K. Roy and his companion judges, much has been made of the unprecedented action of judges having taken a day off from court on account of their differences with the Chief Justice. Having regard, however, to the situation created for them at the High Court by the Chief Justice, they perhaps have a better claim for understanding than criticism. What deserves pointed mention here is that the strained relations between them had long since assumed the proportions of a public scandal and this was to the knowledge of the Supreme Court. It will be recalled that it was as far back as October 2003 that more than half the judges of the High Court had met the then Chief Justice of India, Justice V.N. Khare, and asked to be transferred to some other High Court on the plea that they could not function with Chief Justice B.K. Roy. Later in January 2004 Justice V.N. Khare was constrained to send two of his colleagues, Justice R.C. Lohati (now the Chief Justice of India) and Justice Ashok Bhan, to Chandigarh to advise him on the situation. It is said that on their return they recommended the immediate transfer of Chief Justice B.K. Roy. Unfortunately, this recommendation was not implemented. Needless to say, had the recommendation been accepted the judiciary would have been spared the embarrassment of seeing judges abstaining from court. Be that as it may, Chief Justice B.K. Roy’s wholly unbecoming outburst against the judges in his TV interviews cannot but tend to shake the confidence of the public in the credibility of our judiciary. No wonder, he is goes now unwept and unsung.n The writer is a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Allahabad |
Valentine Eve
LISTENING to the mesmerising sitar recital by Shujaat Hussain Khan, I would have missed the mobile ring had I not put the instrument on vibration mode and in my shirt pocket. My better half watched me as I took out the phone to read the message. Lo and behold, there were three messages which landed in quick succession! I opened the inbox; the scroll bar read, "Happy Valentine's Day". Who was this person remembering me on Valentine's eve? She might have thought that it was safer to send the SMS a day earlier than get caught in the terrible messaging jam that was sure to happen. She must be wiser by experience, I thought. My heart fluttered as I opened the message because two prying eyes were on the mobile. Switching it off at that juncture would have planted seeds of suspicion in my wife's mind. And who does not know that no seeds grow better than this superb variety? I forgot for a moment that we were enjoying a concert by the son of the late music maestro Vilayat Khan in the forecourt of Qila Mubarak on the second day of the Patiala Heritage Festival. Summoning up courage, I opened the message and read the name of the sender - Priya. Who was this Priya remembering me just hours before Valentine's Day? Was it by mistake that the message had landed on my mobile? What explanation would I be able to give to my wife, who was watching the goings-on? The message had all the ingredients of a big quarrel. I checked the number from which the message originated, again and again. It was an unfamiliar number. In any case, how can one remember so many 10-digit phone numbers? The mystery only deepened as my anxiety grew. It was time to end it by calling that number. But instead of Priya, it was a man who answered the call. Like an answering machine, he told me to call after five minutes and switched off the phone. He, perhaps, did not know that incoming calls were free all over India. Or, he wanted the suspense to continue. It was pointless to discuss the episode with my wife till the identity of Priya was established beyond a shadow of doubt. Whoever had said that "time flies"? To me, five minutes were like five hours. Had Shujaat been continuing his sitar recital, I could have at least got engrossed in it. Instead, he had turned vocal. Limitations of language prevented me from clapping when others did. Finally, I called the number again. This time it was a female voice at the other end. My wife could have heard my heartbeat as I readied myself to talk to this mysterious valentine. Then came a child-like voice, "Uncle, I am Priya". I could never have imagined that my little niece, who is in middle school, would borrow my nephew's cell phone to send me a Valentine message. After a pleasant chat, I handed over the phone to my wife so that she could talk to the Priya in my life and thus save our own Valentine's Day.n
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Document The following are excerpts from Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran’s speech delivered at a function organised by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis and the India International Centre in Delhi on Monday:
AS a flourishing democracy, India welcomes more democracy in our neighbourhood, but that too is something that we may encourage and promote; it is not something that we can impose upon others. We must also recognise, regrettable though this may be, that the countries of South Asia, while occupying the same geographical space, do not have a shared security perception and, hence, a common security doctrine. This is different from EU or ASEAN. In South Asia, at least some of the States perceive security threats as arising from within the region. Keeping in mind this reality, our approach to SAARC was the only one logically sustainable - we set aside our differing political and security perceptions for the time being, and focus attention on economic cooperation. Our expectation was that the very dynamic of establishing cross-border economic linkages, drawing upon the
complementaries that existed among different parts of our region would eventually help us overcome the mutual distrust and suspicion which prevents us from evolving a shared security perception. This remains our hope today, even though the record of SAARC in this respect, has been hardly inspiring. The fact is that SAARC is still largely a consultative body, which has shied away from undertaking even a single collaborative project in its 20 years of existence. In fact, there is deep resistance to doing anything that could be collaborative. On the other hand, some members of SAARC actively seek association with countries outside the region or with regional or international organisations, in a barely disguised effort to “counterbalance” India within the Association or to project SAARC as some kind of a regional dispute settlement mechanism. It should be clear to any observer that India would not like to see a SAARC in which some of its members perceive it as a vehicle primarily to countervail India or to seek to limit its room for manoeuvre. There has to be a minimal consensual basis on which to pursue cooperation under SAARC, and that is the willingness to promote cross-border linkages, building upon intra-regional economic complementarities and acknowledging and encouraging the obvious cultural affinities that bind our people together. If there continues to be a resistance to such linkages within the region, even while seeking to promote linkages outside the region, if the thrust of initiatives of some of the members is seen to be patently hostile to India or motivated by a desire to contain India in some way, SAARC would continue to lack substance and energy. India already has a set of bilateral relationships with its neighbours, which vary in both political and economic intensity. What can SAARC offer as an additionality to this set of relationships? Clearly, the creation of a free market of 1.3 billion people, with rising purchasing power, can be a significant additionality for all SAARC members. Currently, intra-regional trade accounts for only 5% of SAARC’s total foreign trade and this needs to be addressed. But the mere lowering of tariffs and pruning of negative lists do not add up to a true free market. The political lines dividing South Asia have also severed the transport and communication linkages among member countries. The road, rail and waterway links that bound the different sub-regions of the sub-continent into a vast interconnected web of economic and commercial links, still remain severed. India is today one of the most dynamic and fastest growing economies of the world. It constitutes not only a vast and growing market, but also a competitive source of technologies and knowledge-based services. Should not our neighbours also seek to share in the prospects for mutual prosperity India offers to them? Do countries in our neighbourhood envisage their own security and development in cooperation with India or in hostility to India or by seeking to isolate themselves from India against the logic of our geography? Some neighbours have taken advantage of India’s strengths and are reaping both economic and political benefits as a result. Others are not. If globalisation implies that no country can develop in an autarchic environment, is this not true even more for countries within a region? If SAARC is to evolve into an organisation relevant to the aspirations of the peoples of South Asia, then these questions will need deep reflection and honest answers. The challenge for our diplomacy lies in convincing our neighbours that India is an opportunity not a threat, that far from being besieged by India, they have a vast, productive hinterland that would give their economies far greater opportunities for growth than if they were to rely on their domestic markets alone. It is true that as the largest country in the region and its strongest economy, India has a greater responsibility to encourage the SAARC process. In the free markets that India has already established with Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, it has already accepted the principle of non-reciprocity. We are prepared to do more to throw open our markets to all our neighbours. We are prepared to invest our capital in rebuilding and upgrading cross-border infrastructure with each one of them. In a word, we are prepared to make our neighbours full stakeholders in India’s economic destiny and, through such cooperation, in creating a truly vibrant and globally competitive South Asian Economic Community. However, while we are ready and willing to accept this regional economic partnership and open up our markets to all our neighbours, we do expect that they demonstrate sensitivity to our vital concerns. |
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Universities told to
check plagiarism UNIVERSITIES have been warned to clamp down on students who cheat because of fears that they are devaluing the status of British degrees.
Guidelines sent to all universities warn that plagiarism is likely to rise given the amount of easily accessed work on the internet and growing external pressure from the need to work part-time while studying. “There is evidence to support widely expressed concerns that student plagiarism in the UK is common and is probably becoming more so,” concluded the report by Jisc, the Joint Information Systems Committee, which advises higher education on technology. It warned that a minority of students deliberately set out to cheat but said that there was no way of measuring the problem. “We can only guess as to the frequency of behaviours such as paying ghost writers, wholesale downloading of coursework, or copying from other students”, said the report, Deterring, Detecting and Dealing with Student Plagiarism. “A decision to plagiarise may be associated with increasing pressures on students arising from, for example, undertaking paid work, heavier coursework load, or lack of personal organisation skills,” the report said. “When stresses rise, students see plagiarism as a reasonable and reasonably risk-free way out of difficulties.” The report cites research from 2002 which used anti-cheating software to analyse 1,770 pieces of students’ work from five Australian universities. It found that 8.8 per cent contained more than 25 per cent of unattributed material from the internet. Two pieces of work were found to comprise more than 75 per cent of downloaded material. The Plagiarism Advisory Service (PAS), based at Northumbria University, has estimated that a quarter of university students have cheated by lifting material from the internet. Most plagiarism was “accidental” and occurred because students misunderstood or misused academic conventions, the Jisc report said. However, deliberate cheats caused the most concern because they threatened to devalue the British university system. “Students who deliberately cheat or engage in fraudulent behaviour are characterised as threatening the values and beliefs that underpin academic work, angering and discouraging other students who do not use such tactics, devaluing the integrity of UK awards and qualifications, and distorting the efforts of lecturers who wish to teach rather than police others’ actions,” it said. The report calls on universities to nominate members of staff to deal with cases of plagiarism. But it recommends employing a carrot, rather than stick, approach: “Catch-and- punish approaches are self-defeating in that they absorb huge amounts of staff time, do not lessen the overall incidence of plagiarism and deflect students from a focus on learning to one devoted to not breaking rules or not getting caught.” Last month, a leading vice-chancellor warned that plagiarism was increasing partly because universities had failed to equip students with a basic sense of morality. Steven Schwartz, vice- chancellor of Brunel University, who chaired the Government’s working party on university admissions, said: “Plagiarism, incivility, rudeness and reneging on legitimate debts—all of these are depressingly common among university students,” he said. “I believe that it is time for universities once again to articulate a moral vision of what they are trying to achieve, and live up to it.” |
When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life radiating that love. — Mother Teresa Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self help. — Mahatma Gandhi By repetition of the Lord’s name, one gets connected with the Sabad —
Guru Nanak |
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