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Killer cops No mercy for
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Corruption in J and
K
Fractured island
Memorable marriage
Vatavaran
- 2005 Behind the screens Chatterati
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No mercy for rapists THE Supreme Court ruling awarding the maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment to a father for sexually exploiting his own 12-year-old daughter at the servant quarters of Himachal Pradesh Raj Bhavan in Shimla is a landmark judgement. Even though the crime was committed 17 years ago, the apex court took a serious view of the crime and maintained that those accused of rape deserve to be awarded the severest punishment to act as a deterrent. Rape is a heinous crime. And if a father rapes his own daughter, it will be a “graver offence”, destroying the very noble concept of the family itself. A father is considered the guardian, protector and custodian of his children. How can a daughter lead a peaceful life in the family if she does not get protection from her own father? Significantly, the Supreme Court deplored the insensitivity of both the Sessions Court and the Himachal Pradesh High Court while dealing with the case. The Sessions Court had sentenced Asha Ram of Dumhar village in Solan district to five years of rigorous imprisonment. But the High Court acquitted him of the charge. The Supreme Court reversed the High Court ruling calling it “perverse and against all cannons of justice”. It allowed the state government’s appeal seeking severest possible punishment to Asha Ram. Clearly, the gravity of the offence in question is such that both the Sessions Court and the High Court had erred in making a proper examination of the case. If the Sessions Court had faulted in awarding just a five-year sentence to Asha Ram, the High Court diluted the severity of the crime by overlooking the prosecution evidence and peremptorily acquitting him of the charge. The Supreme Court’s observations in this case and subsequent reversal of the High Court judgement should act as a corrective measure for all the courts to act tough in future while dealing with rape cases. Rapists deserve no mercy. |
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Corruption in J and K BESIDES Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir has been suffering from widespread corruption at various levels of the government. New Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad promised a concerted drive against the malaise soon after his election as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party, leading to alarm bells ringing in the administration. However, all his brave talk on corruption will be meaningless if he refuses to remove from his Cabinet Peerzada Mohammed Sayeed, now Sports Minister, named by the state’s Accountability Commission in the panchayat ghar electrification scam. He has no right to function as a minister after the serious charges levelled against him. In fact, Mr Azad should not have inducted the Peerzada, a former Housing and Urban Development Minister, in his Cabinet when the latter was well known for his involvement in the major corruption case. The Peerzada’s continuance as a minister may send encouraging signals to the bureaucracy, whose members have been feeling uneasy after the new Chief Minister declared that he was determined to root out the disease from the state. The multi-crore panchayat electrification scam has threatened the very existence of the Accountability Commission for exposing what has been eating into the vitals of the state. This fear is being expressed after one of the accused in the case, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghanai, approached the Jammu and Kashmir High Court with a video-footage of commission chief Justice (retd) R. P. Sethi’s son, then Additional Advocate-General, accepting a bribe from him for ensuring that the case against Ghanai at the commission was decided in his favour. An infuriated Justice Sethi resigned from the commission, but stating that if his son was guilty he should be shown no mercy. This is as it ought to be, but Justice Sethi’s anger has been displayed only after his son had been caught accepting the bribe. There was, perhaps, no choice for him but to delink himself from the son’s misdeed. |
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A modern computer hovers between the obsolescent and the nonexistent.
— Sydney Brenner |
Fractured island THE emergence of Mr Mahinda Rajapakse at the helm of the state and government in Sri Lanka marks a clear break with the tradition where a dynasty or a dominant family held the highest political office. Understandably then, the unfamiliar evokes images of a bleak scenario ahead. All these years, Sri Lanka has been run by a few families, and the first of these is the Bandaranaike dynasty, the keeper of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). The rival United National Party (UNP) has been the virtual property of an extended family — from J.R. Jayewardene to Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe and is dubbed as the ‘Uncle-Nephew-Party’. Although Mr Rajapakse belongs to the SLFP of Ms Kumaratunga, she had distanced herself from his election campaign and would have been happier to see her party man worsted by Mr Wickremesinghe. Now, with Mr Rajapakse’s success, the SLFP, founded nearly 50 years ago by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, and later presided over by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, has slipped out of the control of daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga. This is a major shift in Sri Lanka’s family-dominated politics and not entirely to the new President’s advantage given the way the odds would stack up. President Rajapakse is an island amidst the many competing political streams that have long been dominant in Sri Lanka. He survived being swept away in the storm of the presidential elections despite being isolated by his own party leader, Ms Kumaratunga, the Tamils and the Muslims. His victory margin is very narrow, less than half a per cent more than the statutory 50 per cent of votes required to avoid a second round; and less than 2 per cent more than the 48.43 per cent polled by Mr Wickremesinghe. The fifth President’s winning margin is the smallest in Sri Lanka’s electoral history since the beginning of presidential government in 1978. Apart from being given a wide berth by Ms Kumaratunga and factions in his own party, Mr Rajapakse had to contend with the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) of plantation Tamils and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) rooting for Mr Wickremesinghe. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) enforced a boycott of the elections in the North-East and the trickle of votes that came in These, and the fact that Mr Rajapakse had an electoral tie-up with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), reinforce the view that he symbolises the Sinhalese-Buddhist majoritarian mindset and that his mandate is not representative of the island’s ethnic and religious diversity. His victory is seen as a vote for a unitary Sri Lanka and a setback for federalism, indicating an ethnic polarisation that would undo the hitherto, broadly bipartisan approach to both economic development and the peace process. Unlike Mr Wickremesinghe and Ms Kumaratunga, Mr Rajapakse is not a face associated with liberalisation of the economy. His past record as Labour Minister and emphasis on “national economy” suggest that his conception of reforms heavily lean towards rural development and protection for labour, all with an eye on the Sinhalese constituency in the southern part of the country. The rising unemployment in the south coupled with his dependence on the JVP and JHU could mean less effort to attract overseas investments for reviving the tsunami-hit economy. In turn, the international community, which has poured in over three billion dollars to help Sri Lanka’s recovery from the ravages of the tsunami, might be more wary of Mr Rajapakse. That he does not enjoy an international profile comparable to that of Ms Kumaratunga or Mr Wickremesinghe would result in a The economic and the political are inseparable, implicated as both are by the faltering, if not failed, process to resolve the Tamil-Sinhala conflict. High on everyone’s agenda would be the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS), the agreement between the government and the LTTE for the distribution of relief. The Sinhala forces and the army are violently opposed to the partnership with separatist LTTE, and should any party renege on its commitment, the entire effort for relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation would come unstuck. Once the LTTE and Mr Rajapakse’s administration begin a tug of war on this tricky issue, it is bound to spill over to the economy, heighten political polarisation and wreck any hope of the peace process being revived in the near future. The process is already endangered and the LTTE is doing all it can to ensure that the threads are not picked up again. In boycotting the election, the LTTE’s intention, doubtless, was to scuttle Mr Wickremesinghe’s prospects of winning, for the Tamils would have voted for him. By ensuring Mr Rajapakse’s victory, the LTTE wants to give a boost to the Sinhalese forces that are opposed to self-determination for the Tamils in the North-East. This cynical ploy of the LTTE would succeed if Mr Rajapakse plays into the hands of the JVP and the JHU who, like the Tamil Tigers, would like to keep the country hostage The peace process would be his severest test. Mr Rajapakse has vowed to carry it forward based on “an undivided country, national consensus and honourable peace”. No matter how he moves forward, the “no-war, no-peace” situation that has prevailed since the ceasefire of February 2002 would be unsettled. Equally certain is that the LTTE, which suspended participation in the peace negotiations in April 2003 is raring to resume the armed struggle. Should Mr Rajapakse succeed in denying the LTTE this opportunity, and restrain the JVP and JHU from provocative actions, that would be achievement enough for a start. The decks are loaded against President Rajapakse, who is hemmed in by parliamentary as well as extra-parliamentary forces. Yet, there is enough room for him to manoeuvre a way out by turning his weakness into strength. His low margin of victory and the thin majority of the SLFP and its allies in parliament are his weakest points. While he does not command the broad political support that Ms Kumaratunga and Mr Wickremesinghe enjoyed while in office, his opponents are not a single, unified entity. For instance, the SLMC and the CWC opposed Mr Rajapakse in the election but they cannot make common cause with the LTTE, which indirectly helped him to win. There are delicious ironies in this delicate balance. All parties are key players in the present parliamentary line-up and any one of them is unlikely to upset the balance in the absence of a clear alternative. This is an advantageous opening for Mr Rajapakse, provided he sets forth with moderate words and actions. With expectations from him being so low, he cannot disappoint. Or, so he should tell
himself.
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Memorable marriage IT was an invitation I could not resist. After all, it came from then Kerala Chief Minister the late Chelat Achutha Menon. His daughter was getting married. The invitation clearly mentioned that he would not accept any gift in kind or cash. In any case, what gift could I have given to the Chief Minister when all I had was the niggardly pocket money from my father? At that time I was beginning to admire Menon, who I consider is the best Chief Minister Kerala ever had. That was another reason for me to attend the wedding, which entailed a three-hour bus journey. When I reached Kanakakunnu (golden hill) Palace, situated on a hillock in the museum compound in Thiruvananthapuram, the imposing mansion was overflowing with people. There were ministers, MLAs, bureaucrats, police officers, workers, porters and toddy tappers milling around to bless the couple. Some of them had brought flowers and bouquets while a majority came empty-handed. The marriage ceremony was already over when I entered the stunning space of architectural excellence that brought to mind the majesty and gallantry of the kings of Travancore. Menon stood beside the couple to personally receive the greetings of people. Security officials shooed away those who came with gifts wrapped in coloured paper. However, those who came with humbler, open gifts like flowers did not have to go back disappointed. They were accepted with a smile. Those who extended a hand to the CM got a warm handshake while others got a namaste with folded hands. In his spotless white kurta and dhoti, he looked every inch a gracious host and contented father. Outside the gabled, pagoda-style red brick structure, elaborate arrangements had been made to treat every guest to a glass of sherbet. Each of them was given a lemon and a cotton bud dipped in attar (scent) to carry home. I hung around the place for some more time. When I left the palace, people were still queuing up for the sherbet. By then a little hungry, I went straight to Azad Hotel where I had my favourite Malabar porotta and mutton curry that cost me a princely sum of Rs 1.60. Late in the evening when I reached home, my mother took the lemon I brought to make a few glasses of
nimbu paani for my younger siblings. The cotton bud remained fragrant for quite a few days. Years later, I met Menon as a cub reporter at Kerala House on Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi, which originally belonged to Sir Sobha Singh and where Khushwant Singh was born. He was happy to know that I attended his daughter’s wedding. Just to disabuse the readers’ notion of my proximity to Menon, let me add: The invitation I received was by way of a quarter-page advertisement in the Janayugam, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India. Through that ad, the Chief Minister invited everyone in Kerala to attend his daughter’s marriage. I was reminded of the simplest marriage I ever attended when I read copious reports about the sumptuous spread — Indian, continental, Chinese, Italian, Mexican and what have you — at the wedding of CPM leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet’s grandson at Ludhiana and reception in New Delhi, where most invitees came in Mercs, BMWs, Toyotas and
Camrys. |
Vatavaran - 2005 Shrinking
forests, disappearing tigers, the urban sprawl eating up green spaces, pollution levels in cities making it difficult to breathe, and the interminable cycle of floods, droughts and natural disasters, leave one with the distinct feeling that our environment is doomed and the very existence of man threatened. It is in this doomsday scenario that the third Vatavaran film festival, organized by the Centre for Media Studies with the support of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and endorsed by the United Nations Environment Programme and the British High Commission, comes as a silver lining. Films are a wonderful way of telling people what is happening to our wildlife and environment. The myriad secrets of nature are revealed as Vatavaran takes you through the animal kingdom and exposes the foibles of man. The festival is being hosted at the India Habitat Centre, Delhi, from Nov 21 to Nov 24. For three years now Vatavaran, India’s only environment and wildlife film festival, has been showcasing the magnificence of nature and the tremendous challenges to save and protect it. Film-makers, young and old alike, have picked up their cameras and travelled deep into the country’s interior, up snow covered mountains and even underwater — to capture visuals that are truly breath-taking and sometimes desperately painful. The slaughter of Indian whale sharks because of man’s greed for its meat, the majestic elephants’ struggle to survive even as its natural forest corridors are broken and colonized, and the Olive Ridley turtles’ cycle of birth and death on the seashores of Orissa’s Bhittarkanika have a message for those making our policies on environment. Our dying rivers, the decimation of mangroves that protect the most fragile coastlines, the garbage dumps on our pristine mountains and the shrinking glaciers are a part of the panorama that the Vatavaran film festival takes you through. 47 films selected from the 244 entries are to compete for top honours during the festival. There are seven categories of films and the awards range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.50,000. The total award money is Rs 8 lakhs. The theme of the festival this year is Forests for Life. Last year it was Water for Life. Having won laurels in India, some of these films can then join the race for the Green Oscars or the Panda awards. In fact, Harriet Nimmo, executive director of Wildscreen, the biggest environment and wildlife festival organized in UK, is coming here for the Vatavaran festival and Indian film makers are hoping for a tie-up. Making the festival truly eventful will be the simultaneous congress of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists. The theme of the congress is ‘Human-wildlife conflict and sustainable development.’ One of the highlights of the festival will be the retrospective of British filmmakers Doug Allan and Richard Brock. In fact Allan, who was the principal cameraman for BBC’s award-winning series Blue Planet, will conduct a special workshop on underwater filming. Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Centre for Environmental Journalism, and Dave Poulson of the Michigan State University will hold another workshop on e-journalism. For the first time there will be a focus on Asian films at Vatavaran. Though these films cannot participate in the competitive section, environment films made by Asian directors should give our young producers an opportunity to see what their contemporaries are producing in the neighbouring countries. It could result in a new synergy between Indian and other Asian producers because environment concerns are not limited to a country. Many of them are shared problems. Starting with just 100 entries in 2002, the first year of Vatavaran, the number shot up to 154 for the second Vatavaran festival and this year there are an additional 90 entries. This phenomenal jump in entries surprised Mr Shyam Benegal, the chairman of the jury this year. “Considering the fact that there are so few distribution and exhibition channels available for these films in a commercial set up and the enormous difficulties of getting funding, it is wonderful to see such dedication and commitment,” he said. “No worthwhile development is possible without paying long term and continuing attention to the well-being of all living beings and to the environment in which we live,” he added. In fact filming nature and its myriad creatures is more difficult than producing a Bollywood masala movie. Wildlife film makers are a breed apart. They rough it out in primitive conditions, waiting for hours on end for the perfect shot and images unknown and unexplored. “We brave the odds precisely for this reason — to film endangered creatures,” said eminent Indian film maker, Mike Pandey, maker of Shores of Silence. Making meaningful films on wildlife and nature is expensive business. The BBC series The Land of the Tigers on India’s wildlife cost Mike Birkhead 70,000 pounds. In India that kind of money is not available for wildlife film makers – not unless it is sponsored by National Geographic or some other TV channel. Therefore the efforts of Vatavaran to give a platform to our environment and wildlife film makers, is laudable. Let us capture at least on celluloid the wonders of nature — before it disappears! |
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Behind the screens It
is likely that you have never heard of the phrase “integrated movie-making.” It is a euphemism used by advertisers for something increasingly ubiquitous in films: product placement. In Bollywood films, the most common type of placement has been the inclusion of a product name or logo in the foreground of a scene. In Kya Kool Hai Hum, the hip and young are seen wearing Spykar and Pantaloons brand of clothing. In Jism, the beer Zingaro is prominently featured in places such as a shopping mall, a bar and even in a song. Yaaadein’s producer, Subhash Ghai, earned a cool Rs 3.5 crore out of product placement by strategically placing Hero cycles and Coca-Cola in the film. In Ram Gopal Varma’s Road a Tata Sumo is featured in just about every scene. Even in a film like Kaante, entirely set in Los Angeles, the star cast of Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty and Mahesh Manjrekar do the tough act with Thums Up bottles in hands (though the Thums Up brand is not available in North America). Besides product placement, even location placement is becoming big business. Places like London, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Cape Town and Bonn are soliciting Bollywood producers with incentives to shoot in their cities in efforts to promote tourism. Product placement in Hollywood began in earnest with the 1971 hit, Dirty Harry, which featured Smith and Wesson company’s Magnum .44 revolver. Originally showing poor sales, the Magnum started flying off the shelf after Clint Eastwood was seen stylistically brandish one in the film. By 2000, in the film Castaway the prominence of FedEx and Wilson products was so striking that an exasperated movie reviewer wrote, “I have never seen more egregious campaigning for a company in a film than I witnessed in this one.” Hollywood films have so thoroughly embraced product placement that the trade magazine, Variety, wrote of the “burgeoning subfield of product placement cinema” where use of products are written into story-lines. In case of television, audiences can avoid ads by taking a break; in films they are captive audiences who otherwise would not choose to expose themselves to such messages. Labeling the trend as “hypercommercialism,” Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy warns, “Conglomerate control of films has opened the floodgates to commercialism and has proven deadly for creativity.” McChesney concludes this is “not exactly a recipe for art.” If you are a fan of movies, what does product placement says about the art of movie-making? For now we can only hope that the members of the Academy of Motion Picture will ignore the blatant promotion of Tanishq jewelry in Paheli, an otherwise intelligent movie, and nominate it for Oscars. |
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Chatterati This
is the beginning of the marriage season in town. In a city which is full of superficial people one is not amazed by the things that go into making a wedding. Millions are spent here on pandals, and as for food, chefs and ingredients are flown in from all over the world. Hey, even flowers are imported with the designers. But the fun of it all is for the bride and her pals. Weeks in advance hair extensions, permanent tattooed eye liner and lip liners are done. Then there are false nails, collagen filled lips and false eyelashes. Now, what is original? Body parts I hope. In Saddi Dilli everything fake sells! This new culture is in every urban and rural area. Thanks to the new awareness about beauty products there are parlours all over. And to top it all you have to book film stars or crooners well in advance to entertain your guests on the Sangeet. Right from Shah Rukh Khan who charges a whopping amount for an evening, to a Daler Mehndi who is not so expensive. Traffic folks be prepared to sit in your car for two to three hours in a jam. And God forbid, if any VIP is present, there will be road blocks. Hey! Even to reach the stage to wish the couple will take another half an hour in the queue. So, don’t carry flowers; they will wilt away and anyway will be thrown behind the stage. Drinks and food are an excessive bounty. There are very few classy weddings where everything is understated and classy. In our nation where we still have starvation deaths this is a shame. Whatever laws can be made to amend such a vulgar display of wealth will be more than welcome. The squatters of Delhi In another classic example of the judiciary stepping in where the executive has failed, the Supreme Court has been unsparing in its scathing criticism of unauthorized occupation of government bungalows in Lutyen’s Delhi. Why are successive governments unable to do anything on this front? Because political parties themselves are the worst offenders. They use these bungalows as party offices creating a host of problems relating to traffic, law and order, and parking. Netas and babus will not stop at anything to stay on at Lutyen’s Delhi. This is the only decent area in Delhi where you can breathe fresh air, and have wide roads and avenues to run your swanky cars and take long walks. You don’t suffer power cuts, shortage of water, traffic snarls, parking problems, chain snatchings, pick-pocketing and a host of other problems including landlord-tenant fights. Try renting an apartment in Delhi, and unless you are very rich, you will have to run around in circles before getting one. Try buying a house and you know that you are getting into a mind boggling array of clearances from MCD, DDA, revenue and even the ASI. The loads of black money which go into every such transaction for lessening the burden of stamp-duty, registration fees and the like is known to all. The hassle a landlord faces in throwing out a tenant in Delhi still continues. The security issues pertaining to a common man are a source of a veritable nightmare. Why should a neta or a babu go through all these problems? Lutyen’s Delhi is the best escape. Young and hip The fashion fraternity is all ready with their shows too. The first one was of Sidharth Tytler. This young talented son of Jagdish Tytler really has made a name for himself in a short span of time. Though low key, he has a huge fan club. Sidharth’s collection was young and hip with the emphasis being more on cut and fabric, for sophisticated club wear. The drinks flowed freely and so did the guests. Jagdish Tytler was missing from his son’s show but mother Jenny was there looking chic and elegant. |
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From the pages of Overcrowding in jails Most of the jails in this country are getting rapidly filled, owing to the increase of crime and the unpreparedness of the police to detect and obtain punishment of the criminals. Heinous offences are everywhere increasing and jails are naturally much in demand. It is a sign of the times to check this, and proper steps have yet to be taken. In this connection it is worthy of note that the Chief Commissioner of Assam has ordered the construction of temporary structures to accommodate prisoners in the overcrowded jails of Assam in which the rate of mortality has risen. Attention is also given to suitable and better diet but the real remedy lies in preventive work.
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Giving without humility is but the way to downfall. — The Upanishadas You cannot give to the outside what you do not have on the inside... compassion and love have to grow from within. — Mother Teresa A learned man’s knowledge will be of no avail to him if he does not have control over his tongue. — Kabir Brave and fearless must be the actions of the king. Quick and light be the movements of the king. Skilled and true must be the thrust and parry of his weapons. Then the watching subjects will be full of admiration and will adore him ever more. — The Mahabharata |
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