 |
|
Plain-speaking in Pindi Hostile witnesses |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
HP thinks of women
Roundtable dialogue
This is my own, my native land
Salvaging justice system Scientists seek to turn sharks into spies Delhi Durbar
|
Plain-speaking in Pindi THE just concluded visit of Mr George W. Bush to South Asia has proved to be path-breaking. It is, perhaps, for the first time that a US President did not hesitate in declaring that Pakistan cannot equate itself with India, as “they are different countries with different needs and different histories”. In other words, Pakistan can no longer be placed in the category of India. The reason is Pakistan’s track record in different fields, particularly nuclear non-proliferation. The clandestine activities of disgraced scientist A. Q. Khan to help Iran, Libya and North Korea to realize their nuclear dreams cannot be ignored. President Bush pointed out that Pakistan was, no doubt, an energy-deficient country, but it would have to depend on non-nuclear sources for fulfilling its power requirement. It should not aspire for a nuclear deal as finalised between India and the US. The days of India and Pakistan hyphenation have clearly come to an end in Washington’s eyes. Pakistan has also been told once again that it should not expect the US to mediate in untying the Kashmir knot. It is for India and Pakistan to reach an understanding on Kashmir through dialogue, which is already underway. Gen Pervez Musharraf could not have expected more from the US President because of his role in thwarting democracy in Pakistan and using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. He has a lot of explaining to do for being the chief of the Pakistan Army as well as the President of Pakistan. The kind of democracy he has been promoting cannot endear him to those who want Pakistan to become a democratic state. Despite President Musharraf’s claims, President Bush’s visit to Islamabad again highlighted Pakistan’s involvement in promoting extremism. The Musharraf regime has not been honest in tackling the problem at the roots. While Pakistan has launched a drive against Al-Qaeda to satisfy the international community, particularly the US, it has not been as forthcoming in eliminating the terrorist outfits creating trouble in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India. The half-hearted efforts of Islamabad cannot bring the desired results. That is why the US President specifically told Pakistan to do more on cross-border terrorism. Destroying terrorism root and branch is not only essential for the cause of peace but also in the overall interest of Pakistan. |
|
Hostile witnesses ONE good thing that has emerged out of the Jessica Lall murder case is the widespread public revulsion over the acquittal of all accused. This extreme incident seems to have pricked the conscience of the people who want that nothing like this happens again. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has lent her support to them. It is perhaps because of her initiative that the exercise to amend the Cr. P.C. so that the witnesses do not go back on their evidence has started in right earnest. The Law Commission had made such a recommendation but the specific provisions to contain the trend were dropped from the final legislation on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs. But due to the interest shown by Mrs Gandhi, the government has changed tack and is in the process of introducing amendment to Section 164 of the Cr. P.C. to provide for a witness’ statement being recorded on oath by a magistrate so that going back on it may invite stringent punishment. This will plug a serious loophole in the law. Unfortunately, there are many more due to which the witnesses do not get properly insulated from intimidation or inducement. The government will have to ensure that all these are eliminated. That is easier said than done, considering that many a time, influential persons close to the government or the police force are themselves responsible for contamination of investigation. People’s faith has been badly shaken. The police reputation is in mud. If the situation is not remedied, the public may stop respecting the judicial system. That can lead to dangerous consequences. The people may start taking law into their hands to mete out their own brand of justice. For that reason alone, there is a strong case for putting in place not only a witness protection programme but also for weeding out corruption rampant in the police force. The turnaround can be possible only if functionaries of the government do not hustle the police force into doing their bidding. What happened in Mr Narendra Modi’s Gujarat during the riots is a case in point.
|
|
HP thinks of women WHAT Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is attempting at the national level, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh is trying to do in Himachal Pradesh: implementing gender budgeting. For the first time Himachal has a women-oriented budget. Mr Virbhadra Singh, who holds the Finance portfolio, proposes to ensure that 30 per cent of the outcome from the departmental budgets should positively impact women. To begin with, 10 panchayats will be given an additional development grant of Rs 5 lakh every year for improving the male-female birth ratio. Parents adopting family planning after the first girl child will get an interest-bearing deposit of Rs 25,000, which can be withdrawn at the time of the daughter’s marriage. These are some of the commendable aspects of the Himachal budget presented on March 3. The hill state has already got national recognition for its excellent record in human development and primary education. The literacy rate, which was an abysmal 31.3 per cent in 1971, has jumped to 77.13 per cent. Despite limited sources of revenue and geographical disadvantages, the state’s growth rate at 8.2 per cent matches the national target and is almost double of the neighbouring Punjab. According to official figures, all villages in the state are electrified and all have access to drinking water, which is remarkable. On the negative side, the most worrying aspect about Himachal is its debt liability. In three years the state debt has grown from Rs 12,000 crore to Rs 17,000 crore. This year the government has levied no new taxes, which means it will have to resort to borrowings to fund projects. Last year the budget had imposed professional tax, but it was withdrawn following protests. Next year, with elections nearing, there may not be new taxes again. The successive state governments have generally avoided taking unpopular decisions and preferred loans to taxes. Central tax relief and buoyancy in growth have yielded higher revenue, but lack of sufficient funds can only delay infrastructure building, which will impact growth.
|
|
Morality is a private and costly luxury. — Henry Brooks Adams
|
Roundtable dialogue
THE Roundtable Conference on Kashmir convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on February 25 was held in the backdrop of angry demonstrations throughout the valley against the killing of four innocent boys at Handwara allegedly by the Army. However, it was good that the conference took note of the tragedy and got a commitment from the Prime Minister to “respect human rights of all people” and that “whenever there is any violation, there must be transparent mechanism to fix responsibility and to punish those found guilty”. The Prime Minister also gave a directive to Home Minister Shivraj Patil on the spot “to form a high-level group of officials to examine all the current cases of detention to set free, before the end of March, all those against whom there are no serious cases.” The separatist groups, conspicuous by their absence, would also have raised these issues. Though each of them had met the Prime Minister separately, they have, at the moment, not enough understanding between them to meet Dr Manmohan Singh collectively. Their reservations about sitting across the roundtable with leaders of mainstream parties are understandable. The remark of one of them that they should not be clubbed with Tom, Dick and Harry who had been invited to the conference does not deserve serious notice. But Mirwaiz Moulvi Umar Farooq’s hint about the risk he had taken in initiating a dialogue with India, when his uncle Moulvi Mushtaq was killed, deserves to be looked at sympathetically. Could he take the risk of joining the mainstream parties in attending the conference even if he had subdued his ego to sit with Tom, Dick and Harry, against the warning of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the boycott call given by other separatists? This raises a fundamental question about the possibility of a free dialogue among those representing various viewpoints within the valley when the punishment prescribed for dissent is death. Can the people of the valley, forget the people of the rest of the state for a while, aspire to be a third party to the dispute when their leaders are not free to hold a dialogue with one another and openly agree and disagree among themselves? The first prerequisite for a solution of the Kashmir problem, therefore, is that nobody should be killed for his views. As far as the conference was concerned, its most notable feature was the full recognition of the wide diversity of the state, which should have been its greatest asset. But the failure to take cognizance of the diverse urges and interests of the various ethnic identities of the state and to reconcile them have resulted in internal tensions which are the main cause for many complications in the Kashmir problem. While no consensus emerged, or was intended about the solution of the problem, each group present must have been wiser after listening to the grievances, problems and aspirations of the other groups. The separatist groups, too, need an elementary understanding of these diversities if they have not to be further reduced into sectional and parochial groups. These valley-based leaders should, even without the courtesy of the Government of India, initiate a dialogue with leaders of the other two regions of the state and ethnic identities. Their priority, first of all, should be to work for the return of the alienated Kashmiri Pandit migrants to the valley and assure them full security and dignity. For without them, Kashmir’s identity would be incomplete. Then they should start a dialogue with leaders of Jammu and Ladakh about their status within the state. Kashmiri leaders have to make up their mind whether they want a separate solution about the status only of the valley or to maintain the unity of the state. If they believe in the latter, an essential condition for that would be to assure a satisfactory status for the regions within the state. In other words, it has got to be a federal state. The present centralised and unitary system in the state can neither ensure its unity nor democratic rights to the people. The Prime Minister proposed to consider concrete measures for what he called regional federalism. My own efforts, starting with my proposal for regional autonomy, which was approved of by Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah in 1952 and later endorsed by Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, could be the basis for a discussion on the subject. In any case, there is no sense in keeping the internal problems of the state accumulated till the final solution of the Kashmir problem is found. While the aspirations of the three regions were mentioned by many participants in the roundtable conference, the PDP’s Muzaffar Beg linked it to the party’s support to the idea of self-rule. According to him, “our proportion of self-rule connotes the delegation of powers at the regional level in consonance with the aspirations of all the three regions.” How is it different from the idea of regional autonomy accepted by Nehru and Abdullah in 1952 and the People’s Convention in 1968? Should it have waited till General Musharraf proposed it as a part of his “off the box” solution of the Kashmir problem? The idea of self-rule was also supported by some other parties according to their own interpretations. To National Conference president Omar Abdullah, it meant autonomy for the state. Congress leaders have asserted that there is already self-rule in the state, as the present government is an elected one. Others cited India as a model of self-rule where power was delegated up to the panchayat level, forgetting that there were no panchayats in J&K. Some asked for introducing self-rule first in Pakistan and the Pakistan-occupied part of the state before demanding it in the Indian part. But nobody mentioned the concept of self-rule as proposed by its author General Musharraf, triggering the debate as also support for its various versions in India, particularly in J&K. He categorically stated that it was more than autonomy and less than “azadi”. Defence and foreign affairs have, therefore, to be jointly controlled by India and Pakistan. India had after a long delay rejected the Musharraf’ proposal which also included demilitarisation without pointing out its obvious shortcomings or asking for clarifications. For instance, how could India and Pakistan jointly control defence and foreign affairs of the state when the armies of the two countries have yet not developed sufficient trust in each other and when they do not have a common foreign policy? Similarly, nobody asked him how is he so sure that militancy would stop after India demilitarises in three districts of Kashmir. The peace process had, in fact, started with the General’s assurance that Pakistan would not allow its soil to be used for cross-border terrorism in India. It was an unconditional offer, but now he is making it subject to demilitarisation by India. Is it not a step backward? If India has to prove its bona fides in continuing the peace process, it should discuss every proposal that comes from Pakistan and give its reasons for not accepting it, or suggest modifications in it. The roundtable conference did not discuss this aspect of the problem. But when it is convened again in May in Srinagar, when separatists would also hopefully attend, how can it evade the question of Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir? After all, Kashmir is a problem because Pakistan has refused to accept it as a part of
India. The writer is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Jammu.
|
This is my own, my native land LIKE all educated middle class Indians (the so-called intellectuals) I take it upon myself to criticise the government, the opposition, the water and the electricity department, the law and order, the car park system…
the list is endless. All the armchair intellectuals chip in during the cribbing and fault finding sessions. “the country is going to dogs”, we conclude and proceed to find solace in another cup of coffee. But the moment I touch foreign soil, my patriotism quotient shoots up. I am misty eyed each time my son’s mobile chimes, “saare jahan se achha…”. When things tumble out of my daughter’s bag she makes it a point to pick up the ten rupee note (with the GOI insignia of the three lions), kiss it, put it to her forehead: I find this incredibly sweet and touching. When we are bringing my grandson to India for the first time, my totally nondemonstrative son whispers hoarsely, “ma, touch the Indian soil to his forehead as soon as you land.” I find it very reassuring that their roots are stronger than their wings. The holiday begins. You shop till you drop. The children pamper you: take you to all the special eating joints, escort you to the shopping malls and the “happening” places, the daughter has hoarded the best DVDs for you, the son has plans to take you to this or that beach every weekend in his swanky BMW. Best of all your grandson frolics all over you. All their friends invite you and fuss over you. You go for lovely walks in the clean, well maintained parks. The lifts shine. The windowpanes of the skyscrapers glisten. The question of water shortage and electric failure does not arise. Life is perfect. But is it? What is the feeling of emptiness which gnaws at your vitals and just wouldn’t go? I miss everyone from my siblings, my friends, my helper, the cheerful parking attendant, my grumpy dhobi, the chemist, the grocer…
and anyone else I know even vaguely. It is one hell’ua party but I don’t belong here. I pounce at any one who finds fault with my beloved India. I am especially hard on Indians indulging in India bashing. At times they are voicing the same sentiments that I and my friends have discussed dozens of time. Is it the same? No…
it is different. Don’t ask me to be reasonable or logical. My heart tells me that it is different. Back home it was cathartic, here it smacks of ingratitude and disloyalty. I board the plane from a sparkling, fragrant, efficient airport and I know that I am going to land in quite a different kind of terminal. I have said goodbye to my family with a heavy heart and brimming eyes. As soon as the plane touches the Indian soil my heart sings, “This is my own, my native land.” And each time I get goosebumps. I put my foot on the Indian soil, the film buff in me imagines violins playing,
“Jeena yahan marna yahan, iske siva jana kahan??
|
Salvaging justice system Tamarind
Court is an unlicensed watering hole frequented by glitterati in the national Capital. Best Bakery was a small establishment run by a member of a minority community in the slums of Vadodra. They are separated by many hundred kilometres. But both surface time and again on the national consciousness as ugly symbols of failure of our criminal justice delivery system. If 11 persons belonging to the minority community along with three of their employees of the majority community were roasted alive when a frenzied communal mob attacked Best Bakery, Jessica Lall, a ramp model turned bartender, was shot point blank by a person who was refused a drink by her at Tamarind Court. Yet in both cases all the accused walked free — acquitted and unpunished — 21 in the Best Bakery case and nine in the Jessica Lall murder case. Tamarind is more recent. On the evening of February 21 came the depressing news that all the nine accused in the Jessica Lall murder case have been acquitted. The nation reacted with a sense of shame and anger and an acute sense of helplessness. There was a feeling that it was easy for the rich and influential to manipulate the law, obstruct justice and escape punishment. On February 24 came the news that on retrial (as ordered by the Supreme Court) in the Best Bakery case nine of the 21 accused have been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Justice had finally triumphed. At the time of Best Bakery the media rightly posed the question whether something can be done to ensure that culprits in such a carnage are meted out justice and are not allowed to go scot free. True to its constitutional commitment, the Supreme Court rose to the occasion. The Gujarat High Court had, in the meanwhile, upheld the judgement of acquittal recorded by the trial judge. Admitting the SLP against the
judgment of the High Court, the apex court set aside the acquittal of the accused holding that there had been no fair trial and ordered retrial (at Mumbai). The result is for everybody to see. On retrial a Mumbai court has convicted nine of the 21 accused and sentenced them to imprisonment for life. A judgement sure to restore and reaffirm the faith of the common man in the criminal justice delivery system. Equally heartening is the news that a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court has acted suo motu and issued notice to the Police Commissioner, Delhi, directing him to place before it all the records relating to the alleged bungling in the investigation of the Jessica Lall case. Things fast moving as these lend a reasonable hope that retrial in the Jessica Lall murder case is likely to be ordered. Obviously it is not possible for the Supreme Court to intervene in each and every case of blatant miscarriage of justice. Therefore, it is necessary to devise ways and means to ensure that the accused with money and muscle power are not allowed to subvert justice. One way is to institutionalise the precedent set by the Best Bakery case. Besides this the Law Commissions on a number of occasions have made recommendations for amendments, to the Evidence Act, the IPC and to the Cr.P.C. to discourage witnesses turning hostile and assign a more participatory role to the victim in the trial, including conferring on him a right to appeal. A suggestion has also been made that the police should get the statements of important witnesses recorded on oath by a magistrate. This would make it more difficult for a witness to turn hostile. Unfortunately, this suggestion has not met the approval of the Rajya Sabha. The malaise of witnesses turning hostile at trial is becoming widespread. Therefore, the law relating to perjury needs to be made more stringent and put into practice more frequently. The en masse acquittal of the accused in cases like Best Bakery and Jessica Lall is sometimes termed symptomatic of the system failure. Those well acquainted with system know that the trial procedure in our criminal courts is hackneyed and outmoded. The Justice Mallimath Committee on Criminal Justice has recommended that a more active role may be assigned to the trial judge. In this connection, merits and demerits of our criminal trial system (which is modelled on the Anglo-Saxon system) vis-a-vis the continental system come to mind. In our system of trial the role of the Presiding Judge is almost passive. Generally, continental methods emphasise more strongly the value of utility. The state takes a more active part in the exploration of truth in criminal matters. The Anglo-Saxon law, on the other hand, emphasises security and the accused has more elaborate safeguards, which not infrequently, lead to the acquittal of the obviously guilty person. In the continental system there is also an institution known as judge d’instruction in France and as Untersuchungsrichter in Germany. On the motion either of the prosecutor or the accused a judicial inquiry may be held in major cases in order to clarify the facts. In certain cases, it is compulsory. Such safeguards ensure that the guilty does not escape unpunished. In the continental system, once the charge is framed, the onus shifts to the accused to prove his innocence, while in our system of trial, the presumptions are in favour of the accused. Jurists acknowledge that the criminal trial in the continental system is not less fair than its Anglo-Saxon counterpart. On the whole, the continental system goes deeper in search in truth making it more difficult for the accused to escape the consequences of the offence committed by him. While in our criminal trial system it is much easier even for a guilty person to escape unpunished. On the whole, the continental criminal trial system is more justice friendly and pragmatic. It is perhaps the appropriate stage for the nation to consider whether to switch over to the continental system of criminal trial to make recurrence of the
judgments like the ones in the Best Bakery and Jessica Lall cases more difficult. The writer is a member of the Governing Council of the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.
|
|
Scientists seek to turn sharks into spies Military scientists in the United States are developing a way of manipulating sharks by remote control to turn them into underwater spies. Engineers funded by the Pentagon have created electronic brain implants for fish that they hope will be able to influence the movements of sharks and perhaps even decode what they are sensing. Although both cold war superpowers have trained sea mammals such as dolphins and killer whales to carry out quasi-military duties, this is probably the first time that the military have seriously considered using fish. The Pentagon hopes to exploit the natural ability of sharks to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails, according to New Scientist magazine. “These researchers hope such implants will improve our understanding of how the animals interact with their environment, as well as boosting research into tackling human paralysis,” says New Scientist. But the research also has a military objective. “By remotely guiding the sharks’ movements, they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable to following vessels without being spotted,” the magazine says. The neural implants consist of electrodes buried into the fish’s brain which can then be triggered by remote control to stimulate specific areas of the animal’s central nervous system that may be linked with a particular function. New Scientist says that the project is funded by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Virginia, which is also involved in a number of other research studies investigating the use of electronic implants to monitor or control the movements or behaviour of animals. Scientists at Boston University have already developed brain implants that can influence the movements of dogfish- members of the shark family — by “steering” them with a phantom odour. The electrodes are attached to the region of the dogfish brain associated with scent detection. When the stimulus is to the right side of the olfactory centre the fish turn right, when it is to the left, they fish swim to the left. “The fish flicks round to the corresponding side in response to the signal, as if it has caught a whiff of an interesting smell — the stronger the signal, the more sharply it turns,” says New Scientist. The shark study, however, is also designed to investigate the possibility of monitoring the brain activity of a shark to detect and decipher different patterns of activity that indicate whether the fish has detected an ocean current, a scent or an electrical field, according to New Scientist. “The implant sports a small pincushion of wires that sink into the brain to record activity from many neurons at once,” the magazine says. “The team plans to program a microprocessor to recognise which patterns of brain activity correlate with which scents.”
— The Independent
|
|
Delhi Durbar Maharashtra Governor S.M. Krishna appears to be sulking these days as he has not found a berth in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Council of Ministers. It is no secret that he is keen to return to the hurly burly world of politics. The buzz in Congress circles is that the former Chief Minister of Karnataka has gone into a shell after the efforts of the Krishna lobby succeeded in destabilising the Dharam Singh coalition arrangement in Bangalore. Krishna’s point of contention: while former Andhra Pradesh Governor Sushil Kumar Shinde has found a Cabinet berth, he has been left out in the cold. Maybe the Congress high command has not taken his inimical attitude to ousted Chief Minister Dharam Singh kindly.
Army brat eyes beauty crown Aspiring beauty queens with an armed forces background have a plenty of inspiration. This is particularly so with a string of ladies coming from a similar background having won national as well international pageants. While the armed forces have always rejoiced these successes, this time, thanks to the advent of reality TV, they have started their own little campaign to help. A senior official was recently discretely handing out a request for supporting a contestant who is trying her luck at the ongoing Ponds Femina Miss India contest. The contestant is an animal lover and a talented and good person happens to be the daughter of a serving officer. Making an appeal to help one of the Army’s own contestants, viewers have been urged to SMS their support and blessings to the contestant. When the stakes are so high, does it really matter if each SMS Taj Mahal ignored Despite persistent request by Laura Bush to visit the monument of love, US President George W. Bush did not accede to the demand and found himself in the Clintonised category of that half of the world who have not seen one of the wonders of the world. With Prince Charles, accompanied by his new wife Camilla Parker Bowles, scheduled to arrive in India in the coming days, all eyes are on whether he would visit the 17th century majestic marble mausoleum. What is to be seen is whether Prince Charles, who has finally found his true love in Camilla, would visit the Taj or not. Either way, the tabloid media has something to write about.
Elections in summer With the temperature soaring across the country each passing day there is concern in many quarters — farmers, weathermen, students, the power and hydro sectors. However, the most worried are politicians as they have to campaign in the scorching heat in five states. Although there could be some relief to these prospective law-makers in Kerala where the monsoon usually hits by early May, such cool news is unlikely for those campaigning in other states. However, the worst hit would be the party workers, who apart from the political heat, would have to tackle the vagaries of the weather as well. Contributed by S. Satyanarayanan, Smriti Kak Ramachandran, Prashant Sood and R. Suryamurthy
|
|
From the pages of Lahore conspiracy case THE refusal of the accused persons in the Lahore Conspiracy case to attend the proceedings before the Tribunal reduced the trial to a farce. The trial was held in the absence of the accused and their counsel; while the Government Advocate, assisted by two special public prosecutors, was throughout appearing for the Crown. The prosecution was, therefore, able to have its own way; and there was no one to take objection to any portion of the evidence led before the Tribunal. The trial merely amounted to a transference of the statements which the approvers and other prosecution witnesses had made to the police or Magistrates to the file of the Tribunal. The approvers and other important prosecution witnesses only repeated their earlier statements and there was no one to cross-examine them or to question the admissibility of any portion of those statements. In addition there were a large number of exhibits, which the police had collected during the investigation of the case.
|
Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle. —Mahatma Gandhi Calumny of others amounts to the impurity of ears. — Guru Nanak True commodity is bought with the capital. — Guru Nanak Feelings and emotions are but feeling clouds reflected in a forest pool. — The Upanishads Woeful is the mother who sees her sons fighting on different sides for a cause. Though she believes in the cause, she cannot bear to sacrifice one of her sons. Even though the son may be away from her, she still loves him true. — The Mahabharata ... I am detaching the mind from worldly objects and attaching it to the lotus-feet of the Lord. — Kabir Blessed is the wedded woman who loves her husband intensely. — 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 | |
