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Returned to the sender Tigers or terrorists? Shameful distinction |
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The unrest in Sri Lanka
Assortment of lively moments
Private agricultural markets are inevitable AIDS: Ignorance is the main problem Punishing women to protect daughters
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Returned to the sender The UPA government has only itself to blame for President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s decision to return for a second look the controversial Office of Profit Bill, passed by Parliament during the Budget session. Despite widespread protests the government had left serious infirmities in the Bill, which naturally made the President take this unusual step. The bill was meant to be comprehensive and all-encompassing so that it could be uniformly applied at the Centre and in the states and union territories as well. Not only that, it was supposed to take care of future needs also. Instead, the government followed an ad hoc approach, which gave the impression that it was only trying to tackle an immediate problem triggered off by Mrs Jaya Bachchan’s disqualification. Moreover, there was no delineation of the criteria for granting exemptions in various cases. Only the favourites were sought to be exempted in a grossly partisan manner. The President has now faulted it on exactly those counts. Then there is also the question of making it applicable with a retrospective effect, which too has not gone down well with the President. The government should not make it a prestige issue and instead carry out all possible changes so that at least some of the objections raised by the President and all other independent observers are suitably addressed. Dr Kalam acted under the powers vested in him by Article 111 of the Constitution. If Parliament again sends the Bill to him in an unaltered form, he has no choice but to sign it. That will be a constitutional victory for the government but not a moral one. The objections raised by the President are there in the minds of the citizens of the country as well. Most believe that the Bill is nothing more than a person-specific legislative sleight of hand. Not only that, the Bill in its present form can also run into a lot of legal complications at the courts because of its shortcomings. Hopefully, saner counsel will prevail. |
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Tigers or terrorists? At last, the European Union has realised that the Liberal Tigers of Tamil Eelam is out and out a terrorist outfit and deserves to be banned. A welcome decision, which should have come much earlier, follows a May 17 recommendation by European officials to proscribe this organisation to prevent it from funding its activities with collections from the 25 EU countries. The US had listed the LTTE as a terrorist formation a long time ago. The recent attack on a vessel carrying unarmed security personnel with a Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission flag, the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and the attempt to eliminate army chief Sarath Fonseka are some of the recent incidents which are believed to have influenced the EU thinking. The truth, however, is that the Tamil Tigers have never been prepared to change their stripes despite their having come to the negotiation table following the Norwegian intervention. The EU freeze of the LTTE’s assets may make the Tigers reject the second round of talks altogether. The Sri Lankan government and the Tigers held their previous round of peace negotiations in Geneva in February, but the next round, scheduled for April, could not be possible because of a spurt in terrorist violence, which each side blamed on the other. Notwithstanding the brave face being put up by Tamil terrorist leaders, the EU move may lead to the LTTE’s further isolation at the international level. The world has no sympathy for any group taking to terrorism to achieve its objectives. An outfit like the LTTE, which refuses to renounce violence, deserves no support from any quarters. The Europeans did not serve the cause of peace by allowing the collection of funds, mostly through coercive methods, by the LTTE all these years. The international community should now devise a plan to ensure that the EU slap on the LTTE, which controls much of the north-east of Sri Lanka, does not lead to an escalation of violence in the island nation. It is rightly feared that the LTTE may now try to prove its point that any attempt to discredit the Tigers will lead to more bloodshed in the strife-torn country. |
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Shameful
distinction India has achieved the dubious distinction of having more AIDS-afflicted patients than any other nation in the world. This fact is even more distressing since it has been established that worldwide the rate of spread of the AIDS pandemic has stabilised for the first time in 25 years. According to the figures released by the UN, an estimated 5.7 million Indians were infected by the HIV virus by 2005. This is a huge number, and it is only natural to feel that the government has not been giving this issue sufficient importance. No doubt there is awareness about this pandemic through NGO work, as well as some government measures, but given the scale of the problem, enough has not been done. Various regions of Indian have different reasons due to which they get the HIV virus. In some parts the main cause is abuse of drugs, infected needles of drug addicts to be precise; in others regions it is because of sexual conduct. Women’s vulnerability to the disease continues to increase, says the report. In India, ironically, one of the major reasons for the disease not spreading as much as it was feared has been, according to a study, the fidelity of the Indian wife. The rate of extramarital sex among women is very low. Even though wives of HIV positive patients get the infection, they are not likely to pass it on further. As expected, sex workers and a large number of truckers and migrant workers are primarily at risk. Thus, the relatively low condom use and an unresponsive public-health system increase the risk of contracting AIDS for the public at large. AIDS is a threat to the health of the nation, and public-private intervention is needed to take on this challenge. The Prime Minister should directly intervene to help focus right attention to this threat. He should convene a meeting of all Chief Ministers specifically about combating AIDS and put more pressure on them to show effective results. |
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To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
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The unrest in Sri Lanka
ON May 21, 1991, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives deputed by LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran blew herself up and assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Prabhakaran, who faces charges of involvement in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, still controls the LTTE from hideouts in Sri Lanka’s northeast. Successive governments in India have done precious little, either overtly or covertly, to see that he is brought to face trial for his heinous crime of killing one of the country’s top leaders in the midst of a national election campaign. Worse still, recent coalition governments have gone to the extent of soft-pedaling and downplaying condemnation of the LTTE, because of what are stated to be the “compulsions of coalition politics”. Rarely, if ever, do we see forthright condemnation of the LTTE, or a vigorous diplomatic campaign by India to secure international pressure on the LTTE to force it to end its campaign of ruthless terrorism. Described by a western analyst as the “most successful terrorist organisation in the world,” the LTTE is today the only terrorist group in the world that has acquired maritime and air power potential. On May 11 a squadron of LTTE speedboats piloted by suicide bombers rammed into a Sri Lankan navy troop carrier off the northern coast of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan naval convoy was carrying the Head of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Norway’s Major General Ulf Henricsson. Seven Sri Lankan navy personnel were killed in the attack. This attack followed another suicide bomb attack in Colombo barely a month earlier in which Sri Lankan Army Chief Lt-Gen Sarath Fonseca was nearly killed. The SLMM and the international community are quite clear that under the ceasefire agreement the LTTE does not have the right to have a naval armada. Despite this, the LTTE brazenly claimed that as the ceasefire agreement was based on its “parity” with the Sri Lankan Government, it had “sovereignty” over the land, sea and air of the “Tamil Homeland” in northeastern Sri Lanka. The SLMM demanded that the LTTE should immediately cease all operations at sea, as these constituted violations of the ceasefire. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan backed this demand. While members of the European Union have shown great forbearance in dealing with the LTTE, it is now clear that the patience of the international community is wearing thin. The US condemned the attack of May 11 and urged the European Union to “list” the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. On May 18 the European Union Parliament meeting in Strasbourg passed a unanimous resolution asking its member-states to freeze all assets of the LTTE, including bank accounts, holdings, companies and undertakings. It also called on member-states to prevent the LTTE from collecting illegal tax from resident Tamil communities. As High Commissioner in Australia I have been witness to how LTTE supporters virtually extort money from expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils. Apart from calling on EU governments to “list” the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, the European Parliament rejected LTTE claims that it is the “sole representative” of the Tamils. It noted that the LTTE does not permit other democratic and political voices in the Tamil community to be heard. The actions taken against the LTTE by the international community have arisen primarily because of its terrorist acts in Sri Lanka. India has not mounted any meaningful effort to get the LTTE declared as an international terrorist organisation, despite its involvement in the assassination of a former Prime Minister. Worse still, there is reluctance in New Delhi to firmly back democratically inclined Tamil parties in Sri Lanka like the EPDP, or to support the efforts of Tamil leaders like “Colonel” Karuna who have shown the courage to reject Prabhakaran’s excesses. While it is true that there will be concern in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere in India if an escalating conflict should lead to yet another exodus of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka’s northeast, past experience has shown that people in Tamil Nadu are not particularly impressed or attracted by Prabhakaran’s excesses. Throughout the operations of the IPKF in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1989, efforts to mobilise opinion against New Delhi ‘s policies failed and the Congress-AIADMK alliance, in fact, swept the parliamentary elections in 1989, when the IPKF was still operating against the LTTE. One hopes the LTTE will see the writing on the wall as it faces growing international isolation and the prospects of severe restrictions being imposed on its sources of funds and its shipping and other activities across the world. But it is quite possible that it will not mend its ways. It would not be in India’s interests to allow a terrorist organisation to run its own “navy” close to its shores. Maritime cooperation with the Sri Lankan navy and other regional countries will have to be stepped up to curb LTTE pretensions about is maritime power. Surveillance on the LTTE’s aerial assets will also have to be stepped up. More importantly, the time has perhaps come to move the UN Security Council to declare the LTTE as an international terrorist organisation under its Resolution 1373. India will be fully justified in proposing such action given the role of the LTTE in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and in its numerous terrorist activities, including gun running and drug smuggling across the world. Having notified the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, New Delhi cannot obviously sit across the negotiating table with its representatives. But India has an abiding interest in a resolution of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka in a manner that guarantees the island nation’s unity and territorial integrity, while ensuring the security and dignity of its Tamil population. There can be no question of pandering to LTTE demands for “sovereignty” or “parity” with the Sri Lankan government, or endorsing its secessionist objectives. There have unfortunately been reports of excesses against Tamils by the Sri Lankan authorities in Trincomallee and elsewhere. Colombo will have to be persuaded that an influx of Tamil refugees in large numbers into India will adversely affect India’s ability to help in isolating the LTTE. But it is imperative that our government does not become paralysed in helping a friendly neighbour to deal with a terrorist threat to its security and integrity merely because of unwarranted fears about the political reaction in Tamil Nadu. A nation that allows such considerations to determine the conduct of foreign policy hardly has any right to claim to be a responsible regional power that merits international
respect.
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Assortment of lively moments
THE imposing structure of cement and concrete in City Beautiful, which is known as the Secretariat and occupied by Political Masters, bureaucrats and pen-pushers, gives a feeling that laughter and joy must be in very short supply there. However, my long and intimate association with all the wings of administration belied this and I realised that they could put some sparkle into any tense moments and turn these into lively ones. I also found that there was a mysterious mixture of softness, gentleness, patience and love. Here are a few Khattay Mithay untold moments. A new popular ministry had assumed power in Punjab. A number of legislators with ample background were inducted into the Council of Ministers to show to the people that the new government really meant business and was keen to implement the promises made to the voters. One of the important legislators with solid supporters could not find a berth in the Cabinet. There was a simmering discontent amongst a sizeable number of MLAs. There was a danger of clash and to smooth out the rough edges and bring about a fruitful ending, the Chief Minister sent for the disgruntled legislator. It was early morning when a tall, well-built gentleman entered the office of the Chief Minister and was warmly greeted by him. He was asked by the Chief Minister as to what other job except that of a minister could be assigned to him keeping in view his aptitude. He was given half an hour to think. Exactly after half an hour he was sitting in front of the Chief Minister and without mincing word he said that the only thing he considered himself fit to work was as a minister! Very soon he was inducted into the Cabinet and, after the swearing-in-ceremony, he looked at me with a mischievous smile which made both of us laugh much to the surprise of all present. The Head of the State was on tour of the remote areas and some important matters required his immediate attention. He agreed to meet me early in the morning in the small rest house where he was camping. I was outside his room and asked the “orderly” attending on him to inform the boss. He did not call me and I never went in. When he came out for presiding over the fixed meeting, he rudely said that he was waiting for me. I told him that I had sent the message through the orderly and was waiting for his direction. He enquired: “Why the orderly should come in between you and me?” I replied that since he was in his bedroom I was not supposed to enter till I was sent for as I grew up in an atmosphere where good manners played a dominant role. He smiled and asked me to knock the door unmindful of the place he was sitting and if I heard “yes”, I could enter. The potential danger of a clash ended happily! Those were the days when modern facilities were not available. Bulky documents had to be tied up with “sutlee”. The stock of “sutlee” had exhausted and the storekeeper, a stickler for rules, made a written request for purchase of 20 seers of “rope”. He did not know the correct English equivalent for sutlee. The purchase was sanctioned but the officer wanted to know “who was to be hanged?” Every officer is provided with an orderly who is always at the door and attending to the calls of the officer. By dint of his good manners and hard work, he normally become close. Once a lady officer, who had not married then and was always addressed as “Miss” asked his orderly whether he was married. Pat came this reply “Main Bhee Aap Di Taran Miss He Haan” (I am also a Miss like you). This was a burning topic in the corridors of the
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Private agricultural markets are inevitable In pursuance of the national policy on agricultural sector reforms, Legislative Assemblies of various states amended the Agricultural Produce Markets Act, as did Punjab last year with an enabling clause to facilitate the entry of private players in the agricultural produce markets of the state. In the wake of this amendment, many companies like RIL, ITC, Bharti, and NDDB showed interest in establishing private markets in the state. The Punjab Government was at the negotiating stage with RIL for this purpose when hue and cry was raised not only by compulsive political denouncers, but also by professional economists. A lot of heat has been generated on the issue, yet there is little light that is being thrown on the logic or lack of it. It is unfortunate that in our system of competitive politics, it is considered politically vital, rather mandatory, that any move by the ruling party, good or bad, must be opposed with equal vehemence. The two main political parties in Punjab consider each other as enemy number one. They fight with each other by playing with the emotions of simple-minded uninformed voters. The present-day politicians forget with ease that, as leaders of masses, their real enemies are poverty, unemployment, lack of quality education and infrastructure, dilapidated health services, etc. It is distressing that whatever their declared populist election manifestoes, they contest elections throwing sops to the ignorant poor people and intoxicants to the ill-educated voters. They seldom approach the educated middle class for votes. Electoral compulsions do not permit them to rise above petty competitive politics. Unbridled criticism of each other develops a kind of hostile environment for right policies by any political party in power. No doubt capturing and retaining the political power are legitimate objectives of the political parties, yet adoption of legitimate means is vital for the development of healthy democracy, which they are mandated to nurture. These are some vital issues on which policy parameters should be clearly defined for all political parties. For instance, the pricing of water and electricity for farmers, poor and society at large is a issue that must not be taken so lightly and fiddled with for creating vote banks and appropriating electoral gains. It does not require much of imagination to understand why the Congress government on the eve of impending elections deviated from the right path they were treading to right-price the electric supply to the farm sector. Their apprehensions were that if they did not do so, the opposition party would list free supply of power in their election manifesto. The same is the case of entry of private companies in the agriculture sector. Punjab suffering from monoculture of foodgrain crops, having deleterious effect on its economic, social and ecological environment, tried to restructure its agricultural production pattern for alleviating these problems. Inter alia, the contract farming system was tried, and based on experience gained modified over time. As yet it has not shown any perceptible impact. However, efforts are on and modifications are being introduced. The establishment of state-of-the-art private markets is another approach that would serve the purpose. These markets would set up facilities for proper grading, processing, packaging and marketing of quality produce and providing cold chains for high-end domestic and international marketing of perishable agricultural commodities. RIL is one of the companies that intends to enter Punjab with an investment of over Rs 6,000 crore. RIL is a business house, which is not coming to Punjab as a welfare organisation. Welfare is the state function and the state facilitating this investment intends to serve the interests of the farming community, especially of small farmers, because it has an open-ended approach with no obligation on the farmer to supply the produce. RIL will have to promote quality production and provide attractive prices to farmers. Thus, the presence of competitive private markets will have healthy effect on the existing markets in terms of prices offered and facilities provided. But to begin its operation, the company needs land. Justice demands that if private land has to be acquired for setting up of such markets, the owners should be paid according to the market price. It would be a cruel punishment to farmers to acquire their lands below market price, or even at market price, as it is not a voluntary sale. The investors, however, have to be attracted through some incentives. In this competitive world, the state will have to provide clear advantage to the investors who have multiple choices and options, otherwise the state may lose out such investments to other competing states. Therefore, the government can acquire private land above the market price and lease out the land to these business houses on reasonable rates for this specific purpose. Government land, however, comes under a different category. Here the principle of opportunity and the cost of land-use should come into play, and this cost versus the benefit to the farmers of the area covered as well as on-farm and off-farm additional employment opportunities generated and ecological externalities should be accounted for. So there is no use opposing such deals for the sake of opposing, simply because one gets into the news or extracts undue political mileage out of it. |
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AIDS: Ignorance is the main problem On 5 June 1981, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first cases of what would become known as AIDS. Twenty five years later, the disease has killed 25 million people, infected 40 million more 1990s, as UNAIDS just reported, but the number of people living with HIV is still rising. The statistics are numbing, and many remain numbed by them, including world leaders still awakening to the reality. For years, the inadequate response to AIDS allowed the pandemic to expand unchecked. Not until 2001 did the fight against AIDS become a global priority, when 189 countries declared it a worldwide emergency. Five years on, there are some signs of progress. There is more cash-up from less than $1 billion in 1999 to more than $8billion in 2005 - nearly 1.5 million people in developing nations are getting anti-retroviral drugs, and six of the most heavily infected African countries have cut the spread of HIV among young people. A key contributor to this achievement has been the Global Fund, the Swiss foundation established by the G8 nations in 2001, which has not only raised billions for the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but also distributed the funds in record time. But the challenge is still immense and the response to it still inadequate. The epidemic is growing more rapidly than the world is working to stop it, and while in some countries the spread is slowing, in others it is accelerating. An estimated $20billion will be needed annually from 2008. The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, though unlocking $15billion-worth of funds and boosting treatment, has had a disastrous impact on prevention, with its emphasis on abstinence and resistance to condoms. Family planning organisations across Africa have lost funding after failing to comply with strictures preventing the promotion of condoms. Hopes were raised this month that Pope Benedict XVI was poised to ease the Catholic church’s opposition to condom use for married couples where one partner was HIV infected. This would offer crucial protection to women. In every region of the world the proportion of women being infected is increasing. The lack of control of women over sexuality and the absence of female-controlled methods of protection is a key reason behind the growth of the epidemic. Microbicides — gels or creams for women to protect themselves — are under development, but will not be available before 2010, the UN says. Beyond that, wider HIV testing, sex education and reproductive health care for girls and women are vital elements of the campaign against AIDS. There are other glaring gaps. Fewer than one in five of those who inject drugs and less than half of sex workers receive help — clean needles and condoms — to avoid HIV infection. Less than one in 10 gay men received any type of HIV prevention service in 2005. Such services are vital in regions such as Russia, where the virus is poised to break out of the marginal high-risk groups into the general population. But ignorance and denial conspire to prevent action. As Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, observes: 25 years on, nations still think of AIDS as a crisis in need of a quick fix. Not true: it is a massive long-term problem that demands the kind of response we give to preventing financial meltdown or curbing nuclear weaponry. AIDS now kills more adults than all today’s wars and armed conflicts combined. But it is still not generating a commensurate response. —By arrangement with
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Punishing women to protect daughters The dice seems loaded against Indian women everywhere, right from the womb, where her birth depends on her luck. Even after she is born, there is no guarantee that her interests will be protected by her family or the community or even law makers. In the case of the PNDT Act it can be said that the framers of this act had the interests of woman in mind—that she should be allowed to be born. But who does the law punish if she is not allowed to her right to birth? Often, it is the woman herself who is punished for fulfilling the wishes of her family and community to detect the sex and the child and eliminate any girl child. The PNDT Act is about preventing abuse of medical technology for the purpose of determining the sex of the child. The users of the technique are of course both parents and the doctors. The law understands the pressure under which a woman is forced to get her daughters eliminated to ensure her own survival and dignity. The law points at the greedy doctor who does the ultrasound tests out of sheer lust of lucre. It takes a sympathetic view of the mother who is forced to seek the death of her own child by the perverse obsession of her family and community with having a male heir. The law understands this and says so, but the law keepers have not been as charitable to women. In Nawanshahar district of Punjab, the law was turned upside down — a mother forced to lose her own daughters thanks to a society hostile to the girl child, came at the receiving end of the law. The collector of the district, one of the handful in the whole country who have considered it necessary to implement the Act to prevent female foeticide, has been targeting women. At least six cases have been registered against mothers so far, while doctors for whom ultra sound machines have opened doors of a money-making industry face no danger from the PNDT Act here. The irony of the situtation was that the Collector of Nawanshahar sincerely wanted to find solutions to the problem of female foeticide. He said that he was quite helpless as the women always wanted to please their husbands rather than abide by the law and inform the administration about pressure to commit female foeticide. The other problem faced by the collector was that Nawanshahar was a district of NRI households and women could go to neighbouring cities to consult ultra sound clinics there and find the sex of the child. His plea was that the doctors, even if in the wrong, were not within his reach as they were in other districts where no one was implementing PNDT Act. Which only worsens the plight of the women who were being pursued just because the doctors were hard to catch. Recently, Justice R.C. Lahoti, a former Chief Justice, said that catching doctors is futile and the law itself is no solution. When a judge says that the PNDT Act is no solution, that law cannot eradicate theft and so on, does it mean that state should descend into lawlessness or wait for a miracle that makes men stop discriminating between sons and daughters and makes them accept their offsprings as gifts of nature? While that question holds good for most of this country, in the three or four districts implementing the PNDT Act, the gains would be nullified if women were targeted in spite of the noble intent of the keepers of the law. |
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From the pages of
The Nehru-Liaquat agreement was released to the people of India and Pakistan simultaneously by the two Prime Ministers on Monday. Roughly it falls into four parts: the first is a declaration by the two Governments of the fundamental rights of minorities and an undertaking to enforce them effectively; the second sets forth in detail the measures to be adopted to alleviate the suffering caused by the recent disturbances in East Bengal, West Bengal, Assam and Tripura; the third lays down the measures to be adopted to restore confidence in this area with special emphasis on the punitive measures to be adopted against those responsible for, and fomenting, communal disturbances; and fourth the machinery to be set up to prevent the recurrence in future of such disturbances. The agreement is as detailed and comprehensive as it could possibly have been made in the light of post experience. Every known loophole has been stopped. Each Government recognizes the right of the other to keep itself informed and to check the implementation of the assurances in all the stages….
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As long as a man remains ignorant, that is to say, as long as he has not realised God, so long will he be born. —Ramakrishna There are many ways of realising the true objective of life. Some of us do through devotion, by praying and believing and singing the praises of the Lord. They are lifted up above the waves of passion for the Lord and know the joys of loving him. —The
Bhagavadgita As is hope so is desire, fulfilled by the All-inclusive God. — Guru Nanak Robust faith in oneself and brave trust of the opponent, so-called or real, is the best safeguard. —Mahatma Gandhi |
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