O P I N I O N S

Perspective

Serious journalism must remain part of democratic dharma
by B.G. Verghese
As we observe Newspaper Day today, there is much for the Indian press to celebrate. Much more to ponder. The importance of an independent press remains greater than ever before to enhance democracy, civil liberties, empowerment and good governance.

High drama and low comedy
by Inder Malhotra
DURING the last few days there has been a plethora of events — some of them yet tortuously proceeding towards their denouement — that have produced high drama, low comedy and an element of tragedy, altogether adding up to a situation that cannot make anyone happy. The latest of these episodes was the belated delivery of the full judgment of the Supreme Court on the Bihar Assembly dissolution case.

On Record
Improving minorities’ welfare
by Humra Quraishi
Professor Dr Tahir Mahmood, Member of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, Government of India, is the Founder-Chairman of the Amity University Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. A specialist in the laws on religion, religious minorities and human rights, he has 42 years of experience in teaching and research and has authored a large number of books to his credit.

OPED

Profile
IT prodigy reaches dizzy heights
by Harihar Swarup
The architect of Infosys Technologies, Nandan Nilekani was in distant Davos when he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third highest honour, planning India’s strategy at the World Economic Forum. Of all things, he did not expect the Padma Bhushan. His first reaction was of dismay: “What? Wonderful !”. He then paused and uttered just a few words: “It’s a tremendous honour…it feels really good”. At Davos, Nilekani has been conceptualising “India Everywhere” — a systematic and holistic strategy to create a positive environment about India. The plan is to project India as the biggest market democracy.

Reflections
People-policing, not piecemeal policing
by Kiran Bedi
If we want cities safe for all we will have to do better ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ policing. Briefly said, it needs to be more ‘people-policing’ in content and approach. This would imply specific, sustained, comprehensive and collective crime prevention measures. Policing would necessarily have to involve all sections of society — men, women, young, elders, poor or rich, urban or rural, educated or not. It must also engage all organised sections of society, including the influential individuals.

Diversities — Delhi Letter
Good response to World Book Fair
by Humra Quraishi
THE New Delhi World Book Fair took off this weekend. The enthusiasm seems strong for the fair which would remain open till February 4. Book releases and the accompanying cocktails and celebrations at the Canadian and Austrian missions. The Afro-Asian Book Council is focusing on electronic publishing on holding a seminar. Much more will follow in the coming days as the books would begin unfolding.

• President Bush’s visit to India

• Seminar on Gandhi

REFLECTIONS

Perspective

Serious journalism must remain part of
democratic dharma
by B.G. Verghese

As we observe Newspaper Day today, there is much for the Indian press to celebrate. Much more to ponder. The importance of an independent press remains greater than ever before to enhance democracy, civil liberties, empowerment and good governance.

The newspaper industry has expanded and there is much to celebrate today. The media today wields immense power, shaping the national agenda by what it writes or portrays and serving as a watchdog. We live in a global village and an instant world, in a Knowledge Society and an Information Age. But beyond these roseate hues there also lies another worrying reality.

The market has become more pervasive than government. The marginalised citizen is in daily contention with the consumer with his accoutrement of power and pelf. The spread of Naxalism over 175 districts is cautionary. This has too long been treated as a law and order problem, not as a socio-economic problem.

In the competition for circulation/ratings and a larger share in the consumer rupee through advertising, there has been a dumbing down of serious reportage and analysis, a trivialisation of news and events, sensationalism and prurient coverage, invasion of privacy, trial by the press, resort to rumour, gossip and innuendo without verification, and disregard for fair and balanced reporting or prompt correction when in error and the right of reply. While there are admittedly fine journalists and some excellent writing, there is a lot of editorialising in the news, conjecture in place of fact and lazy journalism marked by shallow writing, inadequate research or patent ignorance of background and context.

Two trends merit attention. Editors have declined as market savvy proprietors and managers have taken over. Overall, editors have yielded to page editors even as entertainment, lifestyle, food and other sections jostle for space with serious news and analysis. Many chief editors spend a lot of time outside the office and have become brand managers.

The other factor has been the rise of television, especially 24-hour channels. While television is indeed a powerful medium and seeks to portray visual reality, it is in some ways a shallow medium. No picture, no news! Some events get overexposure because the visuals are brilliant whereas other more relevant events may be underplayed, as they are not caught on camera. Visuals dominate or “make” news. Since news falls intermittently, every subsequent bulletin repeats the same litany but struggles to be different from the earlier newscast and that from rival stables by adding gloss and spin, fatuous detail and supposedly learned commentary from whomsoever is at hand.

Anything new, however routine, is billed “breaking news” and even when the matter is of some substance the absence or footage, relevant background or informed comment can lead to a lot of tittle-tattle and trivialisation of the event. What matters is not what is said but the sound and air, sound bytes and photo opportunity. The print media too has been carried away by sound byte journalism where inconsequential statements take over substance and meaning.

Despite initial gains in garnering “mind share”, a phrase that exemplifies an insidious market influence on the news “product”, serious journalism must remain part of the democratic dharma. A true democracy is inseparable from an informed people exposed to diverse views and ideas. It is here that the serious daily newspaper with its 24-hour rather than 24-minute news cycle scores over the 24-hour news channel, bringing the reader a well considered menu of news, analyses, readers’ views and comments.

In India, a large developing society, new papers will continue to emerge, especially at the local level and circulations may continue to increase as the literacy base expands and incomes rise. The diversity of the population will also sustain a range of journals catering to special interests and cultural groups. The penetration of local and community papers into rural areas and small towns is a more recent development that should grow and flourish.

Internet has opened up online possibilities. While newspapers can be read by anyone, anywhere, bloggers can speak and advertise goods and services to each other and to the world, bypassing established news channels. This could tell on newspaper circulations and advertising revenues but serious newspapers are more likely to survive.

The peaks are higher than before. There is greater specialisation. Women have added lustre to the profession. Investigative reporting and crusading journalism have exposed scandals and helped promote causes but some of this has also been partisan and self-serving. Disinformation and plants abound. Some journalists and journals have come to scorn objectivity and balance as a value. The Prime Minister recently complained of hit-and-run journalism. There is certainly grave danger when the reporter turns partisan or activist; if the observer becomes a participant, what results is pamphleteering, not journalism.

Journalistic values too have perhaps suffered the same erosion as larger social values. Publishing has changed from being a mission to a business and sometimes a business concerned with peddling influence and power. Of course, commercial viability matters for survival and quality, but the ultimate goal has to be public service, not profit and market dominance. The media remains a public trust, which alone justifies its characterisation as the Fourth Estate. Its prime asset is credibility. The maintenance of professional standards of fairness, balance and public interest is critical to its place in society.

The press is indeed a watchdog; but who shall watch it should it go wrong? The Press Council is a court of honour, not of law, and is made up largely of press peers who adjudicate on standards and taste. It can censure but not punish. Many critics complain that it lacks teeth. However, were the Council to be vested with penal powers it would subject to the appellate jurisdiction of the superior courts and become just another court of law in the judicial hierarchy. This is not its true purpose.

Two correctives suggest themselves to make the Council a more credible body. First, its membership, not composition, could be improved by more careful selection. Secondly, recalcitrant newspapers, which do not care to respond to the Council’s summons or publish its rulings if they themselves are censured, should be liable to contempt.

Beyond that, the best answer is self-regulation by editors and publishers, professional associations, media watch commentators and websites like www.thehoot.org. Newspaper ombudsmen are new to India but it is good news that The Hindu has announced its intention to establish an independent Reader’s Editor.

High drama and low comedy
by Inder Malhotra

DURING the last few days there has been a plethora of events — some of them yet tortuously proceeding towards their denouement — that have produced high drama, low comedy and an element of tragedy, altogether adding up to a situation that cannot make anyone happy. The latest of these episodes was the belated delivery of the full judgment of the Supreme Court on the Bihar Assembly dissolution case.

Though not unexpected, the full judgment was shocking. It held the Bihar Governor, Mr Buta Singh, guilty of “mala fides” and regretted the Centre’s failure to verify the Governor’s “flight of fancy” before acting on his advice. But, true to form, Mr Buta Singh was defiant and refused to resign. However, after taking the salute at the Republic Day, on which he was insistent, he did put in his papers. All through this interval, in New Delhi, there was the usual dithering.

Detailed comment on the monumental mess about the appointment of governors and their conduct must wait. For the present, notice has to be taken of events like the Congress party’s plenary session at Hyderabad that turned out to be a mixture of a tamasha — with a lot of well-orchestrated noise hailing the 36-year-old Mr Rahul Gandhi as the party’s only messiah — and undisguised depression over the grim developments in Karnataka.

The most significant message to emerge from Hyderabad was that coalition dharma — desperately needed in our times — is conspicuous by its absence. Having had to swallow strident demands and stern warnings from its allies, especially the Leftists, for 20 months, the Congress has at last hit back with surprising vigour. It has even conjured up visions of the party winning a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own — a hope that must have been whetted by a TV channel’s public opinion poll.

However, the Congress party’s appeal to its allies to realise that there was “such a thing as collective responsibility” means little when there is no collectivity even among the Congress ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government, nor the requisite synergy between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Congress party establishment.

The Leftists are not the only source of trouble for the Congress. Even smaller allies, representing regional parties, give it headache. The government’s Sri Lanka policy, for instance, has become victim of the petty politics played by Tamil Nadu allies.

Ms Sonia Gandhi is perhaps right in believing that despite the internal strife within the UPA, the ruling coalition would not collapse any time soon. But she skates on thin ice when she claims that “contradictions” within the UPA are, in fact, a sign that “national challenges” are being met with “national responses”. For, the reality is that the UPA’s raison d’etre — to keep the BJP at bay — is already eroded. The saffron camp is no longer as untouchable as it was in May 2004.

First, Mr Nitish Kumar in Bihar, as secular a leader as you can find, had no compunction to capture power with the BJP as his ally. Now, Mr Deve Gowda, calling his party Janata Dal (Secular) has delivered an even more shattering blow to the secular-versus-communal doctrine. After shedding crocodile tears over his son, Mr H.D. Kumaraswamy’s masterstroke of charting a path to become Karnataka Chief Minister by joining hands with the BJP, the former Prime Minister is playing both ends of the street.

Few have any doubt that Mr Gowda and his over-ambitious son are acting in concert. Indeed, wags are saying that, as in other parties, so in Karnataka’s JD (S), it is a question of “sonrise”.

The Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr Dharam Singh, who resigned on Saturday, may be as good or bad a chief minister as any. But his weighty presence reminds one of what Jawaharlal Nehru said of a British Viceroy, “Heavy of body, slow of mind, firm like a rock and with a rock’s understanding”. This might explain his maladroit attempts to cut the ground from under Mr Gowda’s feet.

About the constant chants at the Congress plenary for giving greater responsibility to Mr Rahul Gandhi — described by many delegates at Hyderabad as their “greatest hope” — the only saving grace was the young man’s own sensible intervention in the debate to tell the shrieking horde that leadership had to be built brick by brick, not conferred on anyone.

The real tragedy about the dramas at Hyderabad and Bangalore is that these have diverted attention from three simultaneous and alarming happenings that symbolize everything that is eating into the country’s vitals.

The suspension of the Mumbai police officer, once considered a hero and now alleged to be the worst villain, only underscores how irremediable the scourge of corruption in the Indian system has become.

Far more shocking and representative of the all-round rot is the deplorable role that the already much-disgraced Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has played in the most squalid Ottavio Quattrocchi affair. It first accepted full responsibility for sending a law officer to Britain to enable the Italian businessman, still a prime accused in the unending Bofors case, to get away with his frozen funds amounting to nearly six million dollars. And now it has the temerity to tell the Supreme Court that it would continue to strive for Mr Quattrocchi’s “extradition” to India!

Sadly, this is entirely in keeping with its dubious conduct in the cases relating to the demolition of Babri Masjid, involving Mr L.K. Advani and other BJP leaders; to the Taj corridor in which Ms. Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), is impugned; and the St. Kitts affair in which that curious combination of a “godman” and a “godfather”, Chandraswami, was allowed to go scot-free because of the agency’s failure to produce easily available evidence. What is in common in all these cases is that the CBI has acted at every stage and at every step strictly in accordance with its crass calculations about the prevailing political wind.

Under these circumstances, is it any surprise that the third and the horrifying development — the escalation of vicious violence by insurgent groups in Assam and elsewhere — has gone almost completely unnoticed?

On Record
Improving minorities’ welfare
by Humra Quraishi

Dr Tahir Mahmood

Professor Dr Tahir Mahmood, Member of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, Government of India, is the Founder-Chairman of the Amity University Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. A specialist in the laws on religion, religious minorities and human rights, he has 42 years of experience in teaching and research and has authored a large number of books to his credit.

Excerpts:

Q: What about the functions of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities?

A: This is a short-term and non-statutory Commission to report on the minorities’ demand for reservation in government employment and educational institutions. The issue of exclusion of Christian and Muslim Dalits from the exorbitant benefits accorded to the Scheduled Castes has also been referred to this Commission. We have to submit the findings by April 30.

Q: Why don’t we have an independent and apolitical watchdog group?

A: Statutory bodies like the NHRC, NCM and NCW are meant to be "apolitical watchdogs". It depends on how those who man them fulfil their statutory obligations. These bodies must be in independent and non-political hands.

Q: What about the demand for a uniform civil code?

A: An innocuous constitutional provision for a possible uniformity in civil laws has been gravely misunderstood and is being exploited by vested interests. It has to be seen in its true perspective and must be kept off politics.

Q: Counter-reactionaries (groups or individuals) have come up in minority communities? Why?

A: Lack of legal literacy and proper information about the issues have led to such a phenomenon. The remedy lies in effectively educating the masses, including the minorities about their real problems and the actual issues.

Q: If the Muslims had a leader like one in yesteryears, would their problems have been better dealt with?

A: I am against denominational leadership. All national leaders represent India as a whole, not of particular communities. All of them must be equally concerned about the minorities rights.

Q: Communal biases and rigidities in each community have increased in recent years, especially among the educated? Why?

A: Surely, the condition of 140 million Indian Muslim citizens should have been far better today. Whatever "communal biases and rigidities" exist in various communities must be eradicated. Nobody should be allowed to doubt anybody else’s patriotism, and the constitutional principle of absolute equality of all citizens must be respected by everyone in belief and practice.

OPED

Profile
IT prodigy reaches dizzy heights
by Harihar Swarup

The architect of Infosys Technologies, Nandan Nilekani was in distant Davos when he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third highest honour, planning India’s strategy at the World Economic Forum. Of all things, he did not expect the Padma Bhushan. His first reaction was of dismay: “What? Wonderful !”. He then paused and uttered just a few words: “It’s a tremendous honour…it feels really good”. At Davos, Nilekani has been conceptualising “India Everywhere” — a systematic and holistic strategy to create a positive environment about India. The plan is to project India as the biggest market democracy.

Currently holding the post of Chief Executive and Managing Director of Infosys, Nilekani is turning out to be a prodigy in the sphere of Information Technology and management. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, he does not hold any ceremonial management degree. Yet, he has demonstrated superb managerial skill. He, along with N. R. Narayan Murthy, received the Fortune magazine’s “Asia’s Businessmen of the year 2003” Award. According to a survey conducted by the Financial Times, Nilekani is regarded as one of world’s most respected business leaders.

Nilekani is only 49. How did he reach the dizzy heights of success in such a short span? Hard work, time management and team work have been his key words to success. “I believe that meritocracy and hard work are the foundation of all successful individuals and institutions. I would advice all young men and women to recognise, learn and assimilate changes and have the ability work as part of a team, submitting individual glory to team achievement”, he says.

For a man who started off as a software engineer and became head of one of India’s most admired companies, it has been a long journey in shortest possible time. He has indeed come a long way. When Nilekani entered the IIT campus in the summer of 1973, he was a common 18-year-old youth from a small town, unused to the life of a big, sophisticated city like Mumbai. When he graduated five years later, he felt he had the experience and confidence to face the world.

One fine morning after graduation, Nilekani walked into the cabin of Narayna Murthy — then head of the software group at the Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems — to seek a job. Their chemistry clicked and Murthy hired the young engineering graduate right away. Neither of them realised at that time that the relationship would last long and go down in India’s corporate history.

Three years later in 1981, seven young enthusiasts, led by Nilekani, decided to start their own outfit — Infosys Technologies. The ‘Magnificent Seven’, as they have come to be known, began work in a small flat in Pune owned by Narayan Murthy and with this rewriting the history of domestic software industry of India also began. Later in 1983, they decided to shift the Infosys headquarters to Bangalore which had better infrastructure and better housing facilities.

Nilekani works 12 to 14 hours a day and also associates himself with social work. One of his objectives is to raise the level of public governance in India. Currently he chairs an organisation named the Bangalore Agenda Task Force which is a mixture of public and private partnership dedicated to make Bangalore a better city. Outside Bangalore, he is involved in projects involving the improvement of 56 cities in Karnataka apart from e-governance and municipal governance. He is also involved in various initiatives of the Central and state governments. He was Chairman of the Central Government’s IT Task Force for the power sector.

Nilekani travels a lot — three to four times a year and, perhaps, thrice a month within the country. He prefers to spend his free time at home with the family. His wife is a writer and novelist in English and the couple has two children — daughter and son.

Nilekani looks to Nelson Mandela as a role model. “Mandela’s life has been a great source of inspiration to me. His determination and perseverance in the midst of extreme adversity is truly motivating”, he says. He has steered Infosys to its first billion-dollar revenue in 2003. His company donated $22 million to a charity founded by his wife that focuses on water issues, such as purification, rainwater harvesting and getting supplies to the poor.

One of Nilekani’s mantra of management is transparency. “When in doubt, disclose” is one of Infosys’ corporate governance philosophy. Politicians and businessmen do not get proper sleep and some keep awake night. When someone recently asked Nilekani what is the key to sound sleep, his prompt reply was: “The softest pillow is a clear conscience”.

Reflections
People-policing, not piecemeal policing
by Kiran Bedi

If we want cities safe for all we will have to do better ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ policing. Briefly said, it needs to be more ‘people-policing’ in content and approach.

This would imply specific, sustained, comprehensive and collective crime prevention measures. Policing would necessarily have to involve all sections of society — men, women, young, elders, poor or rich, urban or rural, educated or not. It must also engage all organised sections of society, including the influential individuals.

‘People-policing’ means collective and mutually supportive policing which is widespread in all residential and business areas comprising rich who do provide for their own security through watchmen or trained personnel hired from private security agencies. It must equally provide for the ‘iron grilled’ middle classes and ‘not so grilled’ lower classes, villages and the ever sprawling open street slums.

Some of the measures which would be required to be practiced by all sections of society are:

• Involving ‘all’ office bearers, to begin with, of Resident Welfare Associations, Pradhans of slums, village elders and youth in crime prevention measures in an intensive way by regular communications in the form of briefings, some orientation in being alert, personal commitment, motivation, entrusting of responsibility down the line. This initiative will need to be taken by the police and ought to be responded by the people in mutual interest. However, in areas where police does not take such initiatives nothing stops the ‘people’ from coming together and helping themselves for their own security. It works always…
• Initiate formation of women and senior/ citizen groups in resident associations, slums and villages to which women can turn to. In case of need, be it for prevention, counselling, intervention or any other response dependent on the situation.
• These groups be regularly kept updated and oriented to self-help and ‘people’-policing in crime prevention with added attention towards respect for and security of women and young girls.
• Involve educational institutions in educating crime prevention and respect for women and girls. This is a part of value education by teachers themselves and by police officers of the area visiting schools and colleges to speak at the assemblies. Alongside organise people and specifically youth visits to police stations. This will help forge greater understanding and enhance sensitivity.
• Train women and girls in self defense in a big way. Provide for training of trainers programme for all sports or physical training teachers or other volunteers and let them impart this training in their respective schools, colleges or colonies over week ends in conjunction with resident welfare organisations. Police and the Civil Defense could pitch in together in a total way. If quicker results are desired…
• Enroll NCC, NSS girl and boy cadets also as Civil Defense volunteers to serve the community in self and ‘people’-policing anywhere they are resident of. The community could recognise their contributions from time to time in locality functions.
• Make the existing Civil Defense Corps, a countrywide movement. The police could call them out for duty regularly in residential areas and not only for Ramlilas and Janamasthmis.
• Increase the enrolment of women’s participation in Civil Defense Corps.
• Enrolled police personnel to be in the area through an effective round-the- clock- beat- system by which the area or the beat police officer (male or female) understands policing needs of his or her jurisdiction and develops intelligence and ‘people’ support base.
• Regularly identify vagabonds or rough elements and call them to police stations for verification to work on their corrective reformative counseling. (No slapping please).
• Make preventive arrests of those suspected to be engaged in criminal activities. And not lose sight of them after their release on bail. To work with and through sureties to correct, reform and socially rehabilitate the deviants.
• Continue to verify all released and past criminals only for reasons of reform and watch so that they do not slip back into crime. No false arrests please. Support all reform efforts and be non-sparing for the active ones. Whoever they might be!
• Regularly share ideas amongst all police stations Station House Officers in the presence of ‘people’ by brain storming for mutual learning.
• Provide additional resources to field policing to allow them to work in shifts. It is here where people-policing will be of tremendous benefit. For regular police resources will always be behind time.
• Train and regularly re-train the police personnel to understand how to involve people in such a large and sustained way. Alongside continue to co-opt ‘people’ in policing.
• Leadership must get directly participate in all the above measures. Let this not be a paper circular giving it a nomenclature, ‘like Majnu operation’ by the Police Headquarters. Or be it a TV or photo opportunity!

None of the above ideas are abstract. Wherever these were practiced they yielded results. The only condition is, it has to be ‘people’-policing and not ‘piece-meal’ policing.

Diversities — Delhi Letter
Good response to World Book Fair
by Humra Quraishi

THE New Delhi World Book Fair took off this weekend. The enthusiasm seems strong for the fair which would remain open till February 4. Book releases and the accompanying cocktails and celebrations at the Canadian and Austrian missions. The Afro-Asian Book Council is focusing on electronic publishing on holding a seminar. Much more will follow in the coming days as the books would begin unfolding.

Let me focus on a particular book. I am a tea addict, so even a pamphlet on tea attracts my attention. A couple of days back, a full-fledged book on tea landed. So you can well imagine the excitement I went through. Titled Tea and Health — Science Behind The Myths (UBS PD), it is written by Dr Nikhil Ghosh Hajra, who is the project director of the Darjeeling Tea Research and Development Centre, Tea Board of India.

So amazing are the health benefits attributed to tea that you feel that the government should make tea drinking compulsory. He has focussed on every possible ailment and disorder including Alzheimer’s and together with that focused on the medical role that tea leaves can play to combat illness of various hues and forms. All too detailed with scientific and medical inputs.

He has put all possible data and his long years of experience in compiling this book. If only the editing and layout was better, it would have been one of the best books on tea.

President Bush’s visit to India

Will the recent controversial remark of the US Ambassador to India be pushed into the background by March, the time when President George

Bush is likely to visit here? Last fortnight during a visit to Hyderabad, I saw huge cutouts of George Bush with this caption in English and Urdu — ‘Bush: A Fool or a Leader’. It was the take-off poster of a new Urdu daily recently launched in that city when the Pravasi Diwas was in full swing.

In the Capital, during last week’s meet on peace and earthquake relief operations in both parts of Kashmir, two references came up to President Bush’s visit.

A former Pakistan Minister said that one should be careful during his visit.

Another speaker reminded of the Chattisinghpora massacre in Kashmir during Clinton’s visit to India. He also made a subtle reference to Mr Bush’s visit.

Not to overlook is the fact that any meet here on Iraq does not overlook the role played by the US. Journalists Siddarth Varadarajan and Praful Bidwai spoke not just of America’s intrusion into Iraq but India’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the US. They took on India’s weak stand in condemning the war crimes committed by the US Army.

Both lamented that though white phosphorous was used by the invading army on the Iraqi civilian population in Fallojah, there has been no condemnation from any quarter of the world including the Government of India.

Another speaker, former diplomat Hamid Ansari minced no words in stating that though America tried to use September 11 bombing as an excuse to intrude into Iraq, "America’s war on Iraq was a ‘conspiracy’ hatched prior to September 11".

At this juncture, I cannot really say whether New Delhi’s socialite and management expert Suhel Seth will find an appropriate opportunity to present his full-fledged book on Bush humour which he had compiled and was published by Roli Books.

A book full of PJs and more on George Bush.

Seminar on Gandhi

Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh is organising a seminar on Mahatma Gandhi on January 30 at Mavlankar Hall. The speakers would include Professor Bipan Chandra and Bollywood’s Farouque Shaikh.

Several NGOs are also organising a day-long fast at Rajghat. They would like to focus on the human rights violations of the Kashmiris in the Capital.

The organisers say that the Kashmiris are looked upon with suspicion and often subjected to humiliating questions.

In particular, those living in New Delhi are routinely harassed before every Independence Day and Republic Day.

REFLECTIONS

Ahimsa means infinite love, which again means infinite capacity for suffering.

— Mahatma Gandhi

God is joy, unceasing joy. The joy of our senses is but temporal.

— The Upanishads

To the hasty being, administered reproofs are not pleasant. But the Buddha says, it will be better, not worse, for the one who follows the admonishes.

— The Buddha

He who himself is beguiled beguiles his comrades too.

— Guru Nanak

You are going in a hearse to the country of death, bound by hands of feet.

— Kabir