 |
|
George and the
Judge Koizumi’s visit |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Right to education Birth certificate can’t block it The presentation of the birth certificate at the time of seeking admission for a child in a government school was made compulsory to inculcate the habit of registering the birth of a child among the parents. But this well-meant decision kept many children away from government schools, much to the delight of private institutions.
Why not a diluted
veto?
Two’s company
Towards ‘larger
freedom’ Obsessed about
colleague’s work ethic? Chatterati
|
|
Koizumi’s visit Coming
as it does, after the visits by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to India assumes considerable significance. It shows that the relations between India and Japan have begun moving forward. There is renewed interest in Japan for doing business with India. The two countries have realised that together they can play a key role in promoting prosperity and stability in Asia. Their cooperation can be effective not only in bringing about a meaningful reform in the UN, but also in the emergence of an Asian century earlier than expected. One can notice a clear change in the Japanese attitude towards New Delhi that had hardened after India’s nuclear tests in 1998. Apparently, Japan now does not want the nuclear tests to come in the way of relations with India. The real gain is going to be in terms of increased Japanese investment in India. There is a vast scope for the expansion of Indo-Japanese economic relations. The sluggish bilateral trade can also pick up, benefiting both countries. With a little effort, the trade volume, which is hardly $4 billion at present, can go up to $10 billion annually. Mr Koizumi’s visit indicates that Tokyo wants to make up for the opportunities it lost during the past several years. Japan obviously does not want to be left behind particularly when the US and China are upgrading their relations with India. The Japanese have another problem: the eruption of strong anti-Japan feelings in China owing to historical reasons may jeopardise its investments there. Tokyo, therefore, wants to invest elsewhere. India, of course, has a major infrastructure problem, which has been hampering its economic growth. This can be tackled to a great extent with Japanese cooperation. The agreement with Japan to build a Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah rail corridor can be a significant step in this direction. |
|
Right to education The
presentation of the birth certificate at the time of seeking admission for a child in a government school was made compulsory to inculcate the habit of registering the birth of a child among the parents. But this well-meant decision kept many children away from government schools, much to the delight of private institutions. The biggest sufferers were the parents belonging to the poorer sections of society for whom obtaining a birth certificate was quite an ordeal. As it is, some of them were not too keen to send their children to school. The absence of a birth certificate gave them an additional reason to keep the children at home doing menial jobs. As a Tribune report mentioned the other day, this brought down the strength of children in primary schools of Haryana by as much as 30 to 50 per cent. Even those parents who were keen to send their wards to schools were forced to patronise private schools despite the much higher fee. Education is every child’s right. Haryana and Chandigarh have done well to dispense with the birth certificate requirement. The step will, hopefully, draw more students to government schools and thus give a boost to the education drive. There is no point in insisting on a technical formality if it derails the education-for-all campaign. Meanwhile, the possibility of privatising education in Punjab has had a salutary effect. Government school teachers are going out of their way to attract children to their schools. They are obviously taking these pains like never before to save their own jobs but if that helps getting more children into the classroom, so be it. Over the years government schools have lost out to private ones mainly because of the apathy of the teachers. If only they can take their job seriously, the teachers of government schools can change the fortunes of the institutions from which they draw their salary. |
|
Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.
— William Shakespeare |
Why not a diluted veto?
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not mince words in telling India that the ideas of India and the other new permanent members — if that proposal gets accepted — having veto and that of the present five giving up the veto power are utopian. His advice was that the recommendation of the high-level panel headed by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun should be accepted in toto. That recommendation gives two alternatives. The first one is to expand the non-permanent membership by eight who will have terms of four years and will be eligible for re-election. The second is to expand the permanent membership by another six — two each from Asia and Africa and one each from Europe and the Americas. The high-level panel did not recommend the veto power for the new permanent members. Of the six contenders for a permanent seat in the Security Council with veto power, Japan, Germany, India and Brazil have formed the G-4 group and are campaigning for their claim. Their argument is that among the permanent members (old and new) there should be no distinction in terms of veto power. Mr Kofi Annan is of the view that this demand would not get through in the UN. Already Pakistan, South Korea, Mexico, Egypt, Italy and some other countries have started a campaign against the expansion of permanent membership. They are believed to have mobilised 40 members in their support so far and their efforts to recruit more are continuing. India has made the Security Council membership as the sole focus of attention in UN reform. The Secretary-General has been blunt in view of the Indian obsession on the veto wielding permanent seat in the Security Council. One hopes the Indian Foreign Office would tone down its rhetoric on this issue in the light of the Secretary-General’s sober advice. The UN reforms to be adopted need two-thirds support in the General Assembly and the approval of all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council. With the present strength of the General Assembly, some 64 votes can thwart any proposal. As mentioned earlier, the so-called “Coffee Club” of the nations opposed to the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council already has 40 votes and they need only another 25 votes out of the balance 151 to kill the proposal to expand the permanent membership. The veto-wielders were imposed by the Charter framers on the rest of the UN membership. Had it been left to majority voting in 1945, it is doubtful if there had been more than two permanent members — the US and the USSR. There is no doubt that on the basis of the criteria set out by the high-level panel for enhancing the legitimacy of the Security Council — contribution to the UN, capabilities to carry out UN tasks, etc — the G-4 fully deserve to be included along with an Islamic state and a black African country. But international politics does not operate on the basis of cold logic. A large populous, highly capable and powerful neighbour is usually resented by its smaller, less populous and less capable neighbours. India is resented by Pakistan and Bangladesh; Japan by South Korea, North Korea, China and South-East Asian countries; Germany by all smaller European countries and Italy; and Portuguese-speaking Brazil by all Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The developing countries, which number nearly 150 in the UN General Assembly, would prefer to have a large number of seats for them in the Security Council and a higher probability of their occupying that seat than have six seats blocked by the new permanent members and thereby reduce the probability of their occupying the Security Council seat in their turn. China has threatened to veto Japan’s entry into the Security Council as a permanent member though Japan is the second largest subscriber to the UN coffers. Mr Kofi Annan has exhorted that the UN reform proposals should be considered and adopted as a package. There should be no picking and choosing. If China were to veto Japan’s entry then it is doubtful whether the rest of the five permanent seats under Model B of the high-level panel’s recommendations will get filled. Therefore, it appears that it is premature to assume that the expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council is in the bag, and it is now a question of these additional members getting the same veto power as the existing five. More the ordinary members of the UN feel about the likely gap in the status between themselves and the newly empowered permanent members, more fierce will be their opposition to the number of additional permanent members. Everyone will tell India that its opposition to the package is not directed against the Indian membership but due to other considerations. India argues that it is iniquitous to have two sets of permanent membership. In the opinion of a majority of the nations it is equally inequitous to have permanent members at all in the Security Council. They cannot do anything about the present five. But they may have no intention to increase the inequity in the system. Lastly, in the post-Cold War world the veto has lost much of its potency. Therefore, it is time the Indian Foreign Office came to terms with the reality and tried to work in cooperation with Japan, Germany and Brazil to dilute the power of the veto. Instead of the present system of single-power veto, it could be proposed that a minimum of two vetoes from the present permanent members would make the vetoes effective in future. This will not be accepted by the P-5 but it will give India an image of working towards democratisation instead of joining the big bullies. The present package authorises international intervention in cases where a nation is unable to stop on its own human rights violations such as ethnic cleansing and genocide. In effect, it abolishes the Domestic Jurisdiction Article of the
Charter. This is not going to be acceptable to a large number of undemocratic members. Their number is large enough to thwart any UN reform. |
Two’s company
THE friends in one’s life are divided into two categories. First, there are those that spring from one’s environment; with whom you have in common the things you do. They pass in and out of your life. Some you remember, some you forget. Then there are those whom you could call your “elected” friends — not many in number — whom a real interest on either side brings together and who usually remain your friends for life. My friend X definitely belongs to the second category. We were at school together, and at college. And, we shared the same interests. For example, neither of us was particularly fond of sports. Both of us were bookworms, spending as much time as we could spare in the library, looking up heavy tomes. At the university I did my B.A. and he his B.Sc, after which we went our separate ways. I to England to continue my studies, he to a medical college down south and from there to Edinburgh to become a very competent surgeon. Oddly enough in all those years in pre-war Britain we met only once, and that by accident, in Paris, unaware of each other’s presence, we happened to be staying at the same “pension” on the Left Bank. It was an exhilarating spring day. The laburnum trees along the sidewalk were in full bloom and I had planned that after breakfast I would walk the streets and go wherever my fancy took me. I wanted, above all, to get the grey drabness of London out of my system for a while. I was enjoying my “cafe au lait” and hot croissant in the small dining room of the “pension” when in walked X with a pretty, auburn-haired, blue-eyed girl, obviously English. Naturally, he was taken aback seeing me there and, somewhat sheepishly, he introduced us. Then, he must have noticed that I hadn’t batted an eyelid, having been accustomed to Indian students in England indulging in such capers. He relaxed and asked me if I had someone with me. “No one at all” I replied. “I’m here on a rest cure after a bout of flu”. “A pity”, he said, “We might have made a nice foursome”. I didn’t want to be the odd man out, so the very next day, I moved to another lodging. Time went by. Both of us returned to India just a year before Hitler marched into Poland. I to sit behind an office desk in a business house, X, with the letters FRCS after his name, to set up of flourishing practice in our home town. We did not meet very often but made it a point to visit each other at Divali or Christmas. In due course, both of us got married, had children and grand-children. X’s wife, as you might think, wasn’t the blue-eyed, auburn-haired girl I had met in Paris but an attractive, likeable girl from down south. On our get-togethers we sometimes talk of the old days while X’s wife serves us with delicious coffee made from freshly ground beans. “This isn’t cafe au lait,” she tells me with a twinkle in her eyes. “It’s the home-made product and much nicer.” I have often wondered. If X had told his wife of our accidental meeting in Paris. I suppose, at our age such disclosures don’t matter any more.
|
Towards ‘larger freedom’ Over the decades, India has made an enormous contribution to the United Nations, through the efforts of its government, and the work of Indian scholars, soldiers and international civil servants. India’s has been one of the most eloquent voices helping to shape the UN agenda on behalf of the developing world. And the experience and professionalism of your armed forces has proved invaluable, time and again, in UN peacekeeping operations — in which over a hundred Indian soldiers have given their lives. So it was natural, when 18 months ago I asked a group of international experts to make recommendations for strengthening our system of collective security and adapting it to the threats and challenges of the 21st century, that I asked the former commander of one of those peacekeeping operations, a very distinguishing Indian general, Satish Nambiar, to be a member of the panel. The panel reported to me last December, and some of its recommendations did concern the reform of the Security Council. The panel members wanted the countries that contribute most to the United Nations — financially, militarily and diplomatically — to be more involved in decision-making. They also wanted the Council to be more representative of the broader UN membership, especially the developing world, without becoming less effective. The composition of the Security Council is — obviously — a very important issue. But it is by no means the only thing that needs changing if we are to rise to the challenges of today and make this world freer, fairer and safer for all its inhabitants. Our agenda of change is much broader. A strengthened Security Council should be one element in a major adjustment of all our policies and institutions, aimed at ensuring that people everywhere are protected against the gravest threats to their well-being, their security, and their fundamental rights. That’s why I called my report “In Larger Freedom” — a phrase taken from the preamble to the United Nations Charter. Our founders, speaking in the name of “the peoples of the United Nations”, expressed their determination “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. That makes it clear that they not only included development among the objectives of the organisation, but also considered development to be closely related to freedom. You might almost say they anticipated the thought of the great Indian economist, Amartya Sen. He has taught us that freedom is only meaningful when people’s economic circumstances allow them to make real choices in life, but also that development is only meaningful when it actually enables people to make choices. It cannot be captured by purely quantitative measures such as gross domestic product per capita. It has to be experienced by individual human beings, as an increase in their autonomy and dignity, and a stronger assurance of respect for their fundamental rights. Thus both development and human rights are components, or aspects, of freedom. But so is security. You are not meaningfully free if you are exposed to arbitrary violence, whether inflicted by the security forces of other states, or of your own state, or by what we euphemistically call “non-state actors”, meaning terrorists, criminals or armed factions. Security is essential for development, and for the enjoyment of individual rights. But we have also seen that widespread human rights violations often lead to conflict, and that conflicts are often harder to resolve peacefully in poor or underdeveloped countries. That is why I see “larger freedom” as an overarching concept, which includes all three of these goals: development, security and human rights. You cannot really enjoy any one of the three without the other two; and all three need to be underpinned by the rule of law. Indians, I believe, have understood, better and sooner than many other peoples, that these three goals are not alternatives. On the contrary, they reinforce each other. People in developing countries are all too often the victims of terrorism — as Indians know better than most. So it is very much in their interest that the world should adopt the comprehensive strategy against terrorism that I have proposed, starting with a clear definition of terrorism that covers all deliberate attacks on civilians for political ends. And finally, people in developing countries are all too likely to be the first victims of nuclear weapons, if we do not soon make progress both in disarmament and in halting proliferation. I am sure you all share my delight that one proposal in my report — the convention on nuclear terrorism — has already been adopted by the General Assembly. I hope India will set an example by rapidly adhering to that convention, and will also soon sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as well as giving active support to the negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty. I suggest that this should be done not only by enlarging the Security Council but also by creating two new inter-governmental bodies — a Peacebuilding Commission, which would bring together the various actors involved in helping countries move from war to lasting peace, and a Human Rights Council, in which States from all regions would participate. Excerpted from the lecture the writer — UN Secretary-General — delivered at the India International Centre, New Delhi, on April 28
|
|
Obsessed about colleague’s work ethic? You noticed it one day coming into the office: The receptionist was on a personal call. The next day, you watched for it. And before you knew it, you were so worked up that she spent her time talking to friends, you wanted to tell your boss. The tattletale impulse is just one of those ways we digress and turn something minor into a major issue that probably has nothing to do with our own work. “People get irritated about the most fascinating things,” said Heather Bradley, founder of the Flourishing Company
LLC, a workplace consulting firm. “If it’s really in the way of someone getting a job done, a manager will find out.” “If a person is committed to getting a job done, they manage their time,” Bradley said. “If someone’s tracking when someone is gone, they’re doing what with their (own) time?” Sure, there are times when one person should blow the whistle on another (Enron being a prominent example). Recently, though, there have been incidents in which tattling about personal, not financial, matters caused upheaval. New York Times reporter Susan Sachs was accused by management, according to anonymous sources in press reports, of sending correspondence to the wives of two colleagues telling them their husbands were having affairs. She was fired. She has denied writing the messages, and the Times will not discuss its reason for firing her. In good, strong workplaces, tattling doesn’t really happen. Successful teams of workers push each other to work hard and not goof around. Those co-workers have high expectations for one another. “In great teams in the workplace, the co-worker goes to the person and talks with the person first,” said Curt Coffman, global practice leader at the Gallup Organization. “One of my fundamental beliefs is that you have to stop talking about the person and take the talk-with-people approach.” More often than not, someone who wants to spread the word that a co-worker sneaks out for a two-hour lunch every other Wednesday is only going to show a boss a personal conflict with the co-worker and an interest in getting ahead. What such workers are actually doing is wasting company time and breaking down morale. “It’s not really for betterment of an organization, but really because their feelings are hurt, they feel slighted, or have some need to hurt somebody else,” said Kerry J.
Sulkowicz, founder of the Boswell Group LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in the psychology of business. The person may be telling a boss about an issue “out of deep-seated feeling of unfairness,” Sulkowicz said. “It’s like telling parents, ‘You have to control this other person’s behavior because it makes me feel bad.”’ Often, it’s easy for a manager to see why a co-worker is spreading the word about another’s misdeeds. What tattling tells a boss is, “I’m not a good co-worker or team player,” Coffman said. “It’s all about me.” — LA
Times-Washington Post |
||
|
Chatterati Through
the fashion week we had different people set on different agenda. Some are only here to be seen with their international designer labels and a few who are born fashionable. The behanjis trying to turn mod are easy to figure out because they are confused over designers who showcase their creativity. There are some wanna be designers here too who could be either bored rich housewives or some who just want to get their glory for that half an hour. After that don’t ask me where they disappear. Some times I wonder how they had the guts to show such crap. It’s inhuman to make anyone sit there. Yes, Rohit Bal got a standing ovation from the entire audience not only for his creations but for the whole concept. Wendell, Rina Dhaka, Manish Arora etc were all there. There was serious business too. First time that the breast cancer awareness campaign gained momentum, thanks to Devika Bhojwani from Mumbai. There were seminars on media reporting on fashion. Disappointment also as many fraud buyers who come harass for days and don’t buy a thing. There should be a way to stop this infiltration of pile-ons who are just a waste of time and space. Every year there are pow-wow stories too. Politicians as Governors The new strategy of the UPA government to send off politicians as Governors seems to be failing. It shocked all when Shinde from Maharashtra was sent off without a word of thanks for successfully winning the state. While Buta Singh seems to be an exception fairing well in Bihar. Krishna is in Maharashtra, Balram Jakhar in Madhya Pradesh and A.R. Kidwai in Haryana. Arjun Singh managed to literally make sure in Bihar that “Congress ke haath walking stick ke saath”. It’s remarkable that he still breathes easy in the Capital as among the most powerful of New Delhi’s ministers. So what if candidates who lost elections are ministers at the Centre. There are Governors who lost too as in case of R.L. Bhatia in Kerala Rizvi in Jharkhand tried to play politics while calling for the largest party chief to form government. It’s absurd how these full-time politicians are expected to sit quietly and twiddle their thumbs while their “chamchaas” instigate infighting. Value added politics Value added politics definitely suits the BJP better than value added tax. Earlier, the NDA Government after announcing the proposal to introduce VAT during its regime, went to great lengths explaining the merits of the scheme. The trader’s lobby did not allow them to pursue the scheme further and the party buckled under. The traders are blackmailing the government to reduce the tax rate on a number of items. Wonder what Jaswant, Yashwant and Pramod Mahajan, who were supporters of VAT, think about the BJP about-turn on the issue.
|
||
|
From the pages of
The
military budget estimates for 1883-84 have like the Financial Statement been published in the shape of a written Minute. The net cost of the army in India for the current provincial year is estimated at £1,11,94,000 being £95,000 less than what it was for the year which has just closed. Remembering that large reductions were carried out in the native army in 1882, this result must be pronounced disappointing. But General Wilson, the Military Member of the Council, does not take this view. He thinks that there is no cause for other feeling than that of satisfaction with the accounts generally. The reductions effected altogether a saving of £1,03,183. But then a considerable portion of these savings was absorbed by the payment of gratuities, compensation and pension to officers and men of the corps. The compensation and gratuities have been paid, and there will be no further claims to meet on this account but the pensionary changes have been largely increased. |
||
God is attained only when man gets established in one or other of these three attitudes: All this am I; All this art Thou; Thou art the Master and I am the servant. — Sri Ramakrishna Enter your closet, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees you in secret shall reward you openly. — Jesus Christ Strength is the one thing needful. It is the medicine for the world’s disease. And nothing gives such strength as the idea of Monism. — Swami Vivekananda The wise God knows everything. — Guru Nanak |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
