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In the woods
Ranking game rankles
The fringe benefits
Musharaff’s memoir Rising job anxiety among Chinese students Inside Pakistan
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SC snubs Modi THE Supreme Court has snubbed the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat for putting blocks in the trial of 17 major cases related to the post-Godhra violence in the state in 2002. The National Human Rights Commission and some NGOs, including the Citizens for Justice and Peace, had moved the apex court in 2003 seeking transfer of these cases from the state. True to its character, the government has been trying to scuttle the move on one ground or another. It sought dismissal of the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the NHRC and others on the ground that PILs had no role to play in criminal cases. In this context, it cited the apex court’s recent judgement in the case concerning Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. The Supreme Court, however, rejected the government’s contention and said that it could not remain a silent spectator when the government was subverting the criminal justice system in the state. Undoubtedly, the record of the Gujarat police in the investigation of the riot cases has been shoddy and perfunctory. On several occasions, the apex court had expressed its anguish over the manner in which the government had been conducting itself. It had also pointed out several lapses in the investigation. These range from improper filing of chargesheets, burial of bodies without postmortem and without informing the relatives of the victims, false testimony of doctors and so on. Consequently, the Supreme Court’s powers in such matters could not be confined strictly to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. The government’s reference to the apex court’s earlier ruling in Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav’s case also falls flat in the light of various reports of the Law Commission and the Justice Malimath Committee Report which had recommended streamlining of the criminal justice system in the wake of too many aberrations. But for the Supreme Court’s intervention, all the accused in the Best Bakery case would have escaped scot-free. The PILs moved in 2003 in the wake of the failure of this case had charged the state police with improper investigation and the closure of as many as 1900 FIRs. It was only on the apex court’s order that the closed cases were reopened and justice triumphed at last.
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Unmanned deathtraps THINGS go horribly wrong far too often at unmanned railway crossings. According to one estimate, 48 per cent of fatalities in the railways take place at level crossings. Yet, hundreds of them remain without human supervision all over the country, as if inviting accidents. On Thursday morning, luck ran out on the students of Arya Girls College, Noormahal, near Jalandhar, when their bus collided with the Dhanbad-Ferozepore train at one such crossing near Gumtala village. Three girls died; many more were injured. Normally, such accidents take place due to rash driving. This time the culprit was fog. The driver reportedly stopped the bus but since he and many others could not see the approaching train, he pressed ahead, leading to the tragedy. Such error of judgement is always a possibility. The question is: why should things be left to chance? The railways say they cannot afford to depute workers at each and every such crossing. That is odd, considering that it claims at the same time that it has started making profits. Surely, profit should not be made at the cost of the safety of people. It wants the state authorities to share the burden. How they do it is their business. If necessary, even the help of panchayats of nearby villages can be taken. But what matters to the common man is that he should not be left so vulnerable. Ideally, there should be an automatic arrangement to close the gates whenever a train approaches. This will also reduce the possibility of human error. If not, at least there can be some kind of warning signals at the crossings, which can emit red light or audible signals whenever a train approaches. All this should be done before more lives are lost at these unmanned sacrificial spots.
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In the woods FOLLOWING directions of the National Forest Commission to all states to formulate their own forest policies, Haryana has come out with clear guidelines to preserve and promote the fast-shrinking green cover of the state. Haryana Minister of State Kiran Choudhary hopes to achieve the target of 10 per cent tree cover in the state by 2010 from the present 6.6 per cent. This is not a very ambitious goal to achieve. The land of Bishnois does not need much motivation to protect the ecology. Respect for animal and plant life is a part of their faith. Rather it is shocking that despite the presence of such environment-loving people, the forest cover has shrunk so low in Haryana. Man’s greed for materialistic goods plays havoc with nature. One hopes the state’s first-ever forest policy would check unbridled and directionless development, which pays no regard to the environment. Economic costs of depleting green resources are seldom taken into account while counting the benefits of growth. Farmers are already suffering the adverse side-effects of the Green Revolution like the sharp decline in the water table, poisoning of underground water due to an extensive use of chemicals and the shrinking forest cover. Due to its proximity to Delhi, Haryana has been industrialising very fast. The tree cover needs to expand simultaneously. Given the policy of encouraging special economic zones on barren or single-crop land, the state has vast stretches of such land. These can be used for both setting up clusters of industrial units as well as growing more trees. Two features of the policy particularly stand out: focus on medicinal plants to boost farmers’ income and plan to involve women in social forestry projects through self help groups. Apart from spreading awareness about protecting the environment and launching a state-wide campaign for tree plantation, the government needs to take stern measures to stop felling of trees. Much will depend on how serious the government is in implementing the new policy. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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You must be the change, you want to see in the world. — Mahatma Gandhi
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Ranking game rankles
There
is something not quite right about newspapers and magazines giving awards to states as if it were a beauty contest. It is the job of the media to inform and even make comment leaving the judging of performance to the people. Besides it is downright unethical if the awards are dished out just before the somewhat less objectively chosen state went to the polls. This is what India Today has done in the case of Punjab when it ranked it as first among Indian states. To compound this the President of India was the one who handed over the award lending it an official imprimatur. This is indeed unfortunate and it is best that constitutional authorities like the President who should be well above partisan politics kept away from such beauty parades where the criterion can only be subjective. If the governance of a state has been good the people of that state have seldom failed to reward the ruling party, as we see in the case of West Bengal, which has posted the highest growth in incomes over the last decade. It was in another such India Today beauty contest that the writer VS Naipaul castigated Marxism for ruining West Bengal, when the facts are quite contrary to that. There is about as much Marxism in West Bengal as there is in Punjab, thank God for that, as the practice of Marxist orthodoxy is not possible under our constitutional arrangements. There can be no denying that with Rs 30,701 Punjab has the highest per capita income among the states in India in 2004-5. There are many reasons for this. But most notable is the fact that 85.15 per cent of all land in Punjab is arable with 89.72 per cent of it with irrigation. More than half of this is due to the huge central government projects, Bhakra Nangal being the most notable among them. Equally notable is the fact that Punjab has benefited by a disproportionately large recruitment into the armed and paramilitary forces giving a good many rural families in the state a second stream of income. The fact is that Punjab has had the highest per capita income in India since 1950. But what should cause concern is the fact that this growth rate has now slowed down considerably. In each of the last five years Punjab’s growth has been well below the national growth rate. Even if just the performance of the financial year gone by was employed as the criterion, the growth was 5.9 per cent at 1993-94 prices as opposed to the national average of 7.7 per cent. Surely this should weigh as much as the actual placing when what purports to be recognition for good governance is handed out by the President of India? While the growth of income is probably the best indicator of the success of a government, there are several other criteria that need to be considered. It has often been said that prosperity is the best contraceptive. But this is apparently not so in the Punjab. With the highest per capita income in the country one would have thought Punjab’s population growth ranking would have been commensurate with its income. That honour must go to the state with the second biggest per capita income, Kerala. The population growth in Kerala was a mere 1.11 per cent as opposed to Punjab’s 1.85 per cent. As a matter of fact all the other South Indian states and West Bengal are better than Punjab in this regard. Compounded to this is the fact that the sex ratio in Punjab is also a none too happy one. It was 874/1000 in 2001 having dropped from 882/1000 in 1991. Only Haryana had a worse performance than this. Things all over the country have improved somewhat when the ratio moved upwards from 927/1000 to 933/1000 between 1991-2001. Every other day there are harrowing tales in the media about aborted female fetuses being recovered in Punjab and while there is no accurate data available on this it would seem that in terms of female infanticides Punjab should rank quite high. Another related statistic that should cause concern is the relatively high infant mortality rate (IMR). It was 51/1000 as opposed to Kerala’s 11/1000 in 2003. But the more important point is that in the decade ending 2003 Kerala IMR declined by 30.1 per cent while the decline in Punjab was by just 7.3 per cent. Mind you the per capita incomes of both these states are pretty close. But what makes Punjab’s performance truly unacceptable is that it is worse than states like West Bengal (49) and neighbouring Himachal Pradesh (36) which come nowhere close to it in the per capita income rankings. Similarly even in terms of average life expectancy Punjab rates lower than Kerala by as much as three years. If the rankings are to measure how developed the states are then one of the major factors that need to be given prominence is the female literacy rate. It has a high degree of relevance due to the linkages it has to child health, nutrition and primary education. The female literacy rate in Punjab was 63.55 per cent a good 14 per cent below that of Kerala. The decadal change in female literacy rate for Punjab was only around 13.14 per cent and this was lower than the country’s average of 14.39 per cent. This and the adverse sex ratio should be considered a huge demerit when judging standards of governance. When it comes to the number of students in primary and secondary schools Punjab’s performance is truly shocking. It is 137 per 1000 population, whereas the national average is 181. In fact, school enrolment in Punjab is the lowest in India. It is little wonder then that in terms of the composite Human Development Index too Punjab has not done well. Between 1981 and 2001 Kerala improved by 0.138 to 0.638, while Punjab moved up by just 0.125 to 0.537. The whole country during the same period moved up by 0.160 to 0.472. Given the abundance of irrigation and the willingness of the Punjab farmer to innovate, Punjab has for long been one of the main granaries of India. Its performance in agriculture has always been spectacular, but we must not forget that almost 90 per cent of agricultural land is irrigated and there now seems little prospect of extending that further. Therefore, the answer lies in a spectacular rise in farm productivity. Unfortunately that has not happened, due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of the state government. But there are factors that lie well within the influence of the state government, and here the effort in Punjab has been found wanting. The annual percentage industrial output growth rate for the period from 1993-94 to 2003-04 was 4.97 per cent for Punjab while the all India growth rates stood at 6.19 per cent. Worse is the trend in industrial value addition. It has stubbornly remained at 2.9 per cent of the national total. The real answer to this riddle can be gleaned from the sluggish implementation of investment plans in general. Against the national implementation ratio of 38.1, Punjab’s is 28.3. Its share of the total national investment in projects in 2004 was just 1.3 per cent of the Rs 20,74,894 crores invested in projects in India. As a matter of fact Punjab comes last in the list of the larger states with an investment of just Rs 27, 769 crores. The performance of Punjab has not been a particularly good one and the people of Punjab have much to be dissatisfied about. We have no problem with it being chosen first in a beauty contest where income is the sole criterion, but if good governance is considered to be a factor, Punjab can hardly be considered to be among the top performers. The elections in Punjab are due in a few months and people will judge the performance of its government during the last few years. The only thing going for the Congress Party is that the choice is between them and the Akali/BJP alliance. Between the devil and the deep sea!
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The fringe benefits
Whoever thought that talk was cheap had never hired a lawyer. A chain smoker in his youth never imagined that a doctor’s five-minute visit would mean so much money. The cranky on the “couch” never knew that the “shrink” would own his money before he is cured. I have been in the profession of law. For decades. I can admit having lost several cases. Quite often, on account of my own ignorance. Of facts or law. Yet, it has never prevented me from sending a bill or accepting the cheque. Mercifully, each profession provides some sops. Today, a pizza gets to your home before the police do. But my friend who had been in the police for almost a lifetime had some magic about himself. On hearing of a crime, he was invariably the first one at the spot. And his presence made a huge difference. Almost instantaneously, the “eyewitnesses” appeared on the scene. Virtually, from nowhere. They also knew exactly what he expected them to say. I have been to jail several times. At different places. Often, in august company. And I have come across some interesting characters. Like the convict, Thakar Singh. I asked him, “You commit burglaries?” The reply was simple and straight: “I cannot sleep a wink throughout the night. So, what shall I do? Make a living while others are asleep. The hour is most convenient and rewarding”. My doctor friend has a typical handwriting. Totally illegible. Five minutes after writing the prescription, even he is unable to decipher the code. But this too has a silver lining. The bad handwriting helps him to hide his spelling mistakes. Undaunted he tells me — “The professions of law and medicine have a lot in common. Both deal with and affect human lives. But there is one difference. If the doctor makes a mistake, it is buried six feet deep. However, when a lawyer falters, the poor man is hung 10 feet high. He is there for everyone to see.” I met a beer taster. He does not drink water. Reason? It is habit forming. You get addicted to it. And it is totally unfit for human consumption. See what it does to the pipes. It rusts the best of them. How can it ever spare a simple vegetarian like me? And then adds: “Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder. Water only dulls your senses”. In the words of Jeffrey Bernard “Journalism is the only thinkable alternative to working.” The journalist too has an advantage over the others. When he writes an obituary, it makes the “Middle”. When others write, it is just an “obituary”. Why not? Every profession offers some fringe benefits.
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Musharaff’s memoir Perhaps
never within our living memory has a memoir prompted such a large and heavy response from the public as General Pervez Musharaff’s “In the line of Fire.” Musharaff had released his book with much fanfare in the U.S. to attract a worldwide attention. Though lauded by his own admirers, his book, on the whole, has been strongly criticised for a wilful misrepresentation of facts, and a deliberate suppression of information on issues he thought it prudent to avoid mentioning in his book in his own and in his country’s interest. Musharaff has been accused of being untruthful on Kargil, and altogether devious on the Agra summit. In a recent article published in The Tribune (Oct. 29), B.G. Verghese has pointed out some glaring mistakes committed in the three maps appended in the book to show how Musharaff has violated the solemn agreements reached between India and Pakistan on the boundary question. Generally, diplomats, administrators, politicians and army generals write their memoirs after they retire from service. But this is not the case with Musharaff. He chose to produce and publish his memoir when he is heading the Pakistan state. Musharraf has no pretentions to be a literary writer. His narrative is lucid and straightforward and he has acknowledged that in the revision of his text he has received help from some competent writers. His book is a bit diffuse, flitting from one theme to another, lacking coherence. When he lauds his own achievement as the builder of Pakistan and its saviour, then his work appears like a manual of self-glorification. Why should Musharaff write his memoir when he is still holding the office of President of Pakistan? What was his motive? What gave an impulse to his composition? Was it his purpose in writing his memoir to assure President Bush and the American people that he is their truest and most faithful ally who would stand by them in their hour of trial? Or was it his object to show to his countrymen, not by words but deeds, that their future lies safe in his hands because of the great service he has done in critical times when the weather was rough? The question is whether memoirs or autobiographies can be reliable or trustworthy, and if so, to what extent. Isn’t the subjective element a predominent feature of memoir-writing when their writers justify their actions, and neglect to give the opposite point of view, even though that may be more adequate and convincing? I have always felt that diaries, unless written with an eye on posterity, are more reliable than autobiographies which are reconstructions in retrospect. Jawaharlal Nehru’s diaries as reproduced in S. Gopal’s “Selected Works” are a more reliable guide on the Congress policy and its programme, especially relating to the Second World War than any of his published work, including his “Discovery of India.” During the modern period, the first autobiographical writing attributed to Raja Rammohun Roy is generally regarded as spurious. Debindranath Tagore wrote his memoir which unfolds his commitment to Brahmo Samaj and its ideals. M.K. Gandhi’s “Experiments with Truth” took the country by the storm. Originally, Gandhi wrote articles in the Gujarati language which Mahadeo Desai put into a book form. Following his master, Jawaharlal Nehru completed his autobiography during his prison in Almora. Nehru’s autobiography is essentially a political document in the contemporary situation in the country, though he traces his own intellectual development as a curious mixture of the East and West. He has harsh things to say about his political rivals, and does not spare the Muslim nationalists, who did not stand up to fight the scourage of communalism. The text of his autobiography was revised by Edward Thompson, an Oxford Don, and his literary agent in London, Krishna Menon. Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s “Autobiography of an Unknown Indian” provoked a severe criticism in literary circles in India. He dedicated his book to British rule in India. His main contention is that it is the impact of foreign rule that has led to the vitality of Indian thought and culture. Nirad C Chaudhuri has a tremendous, ill-assorted vocabulary. His prose is jolting and turgid. I cannot resist the temptation of two memoirs published in the post-Independence period, the first by Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan’s “Looking Back,” and the other by M.C. Setalvad’s “My Life, Law and Other Things.” Both these outstanding legal experts have given a frank, candid and judicious analysis of the political system operating in the country, and its shortcomings. The narrative is unpretentious. Jinnah wrote no memoir possibly because he had no literary flare. Krishna Menon had a literary temper but he distrusted memoir-writers. He believed that no memoir-writer would speak the truth. Memoirs are generally misleading. Memoir-writers write in terms of their experience. The question is whether they are honest in doing so. Of all the memoir-writers, I would give a primary place to the autobiographies of two literary giants, John Sturt Mill, and Bertrand Russell. Their autobiographies reflect their rich experiences, bold and daring confessions and exquisite literary skill. The test of a memoir is its survival. Only future will show whether Musharraf’s memoir will survive.
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Rising job anxiety among Chinese students A tide of more than 30,000 students with polished resumes and high hopes surged into a job fair here so eager to meet with employers that they shattered four glass doors and splayed the side walls of an escalator in what became a near riot. As the crowd of youths swelled out of control, students and security guards said, police tried to beat back the tide, but to no avail. Pushing, screaming and climbing over one another, the students charged on, heading for the booths inside the Zhongyuan International Exhibition Center, where company recruiters waited with the keys to China's new economy. ``You didn't even need to walk in the main hall, because people were sweeping you along all the time,'' said Hou Shuangshuang, 23, an e-commerce major with long hair who was among the students who overflowed the job fair when it opened Sunday. ``At some points, your feet couldn't even touch the ground.'' Hou, fellow students from Zhengzhou University and other schools in this Henan province city 500 miles south of Beijing, provided a dramatic example of rising anxiety over employment among Chinese students. After years in which graduates were ensured of a good job in the fast-growing economy, the number of degree-holders has outstripped the number of jobs, and the guarantees have evaporated. ``I don't think we have a very bright future,'' said Yu Honghua, 23, another e-commerce major at Zhengzhou University who shoved her way into the job fair. ``I saw only one company that needed students who majored in e-commerce, and they just needed one person.'' The disappointment voiced by Yu and others has become a major worry for the Chinese Communist Party. An open-ended rise in living standards, particularly for the educated middle class, has been part of an unspoken pact under which the party retains a monopoly on political power despite the country's turn away from socialism. So far, the party has delivered on its part of the bargain: The economy has grown by more than 9 percent a year recently, and the main beneficiaries have been educated urbanites. Content to claim their share in the prosperity, most students have shown little interest in politics since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. But a large pool of unemployed or underemployed university graduates, some analysts have suggested, could become a new breeding ground for opposition. An educated opposition, they said, would have far more organizational and ideological ability--and present a greater threat to the government--than the left-behind farmers who have been the main source of unrest in recent years. The Labor and Social Security Ministry estimated recently that as many as 4.9 million youths will graduate from universities by the end of 2007, up by nearly 20 percent over 2006. Another 49.5 million will graduate from high school, also a 20 percent increase. The sharp climb in graduation rates represents a dramatic improvement in the lives of many Chinese, made possible by the economic transformation that has taken place here over the past quarter-century. But indications have emerged that, booming as it is, the economy might not be able to absorb that many degree-holders into the jobs for which they are being trained. ``The fact is that it's very hard for college students to get the right job these days,'' said Zhang Xuxin, a Zhengzhou student who plans to pursue postgraduate studies next year. ``You may have a job, but it's very hard to have an ideal one.'' A waitress in a German restaurant near Beijing's Ritan Park, for instance, said she has been looking for work in the computer industry since graduating last summer, but in the meantime, she has to serve sausages and beer to pay the rent. Tian Chengping, the labor and social security minister, predicted about 1.2 million of the 2007 university graduates will have trouble finding employment. As a result, his ministry announced Tuesday, colleges will be forced to restrict admissions into study programs with low postgraduate employment rates. Tensions over employment after graduation have exploded repeatedly in recent months. Students at the Shengda Economics, Trade and Management College, affiliated with Zhengzhou University, rioted in June when they discovered their diplomas would not be the same as those from the university, putting them at a disadvantage in job hunting. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy has recorded 10 such disturbances since summer. Zhang, who studied liberal arts with a major in English, said students from provincial universities such as Zhengzhou's have the most difficulty finding appropriate jobs. Those from the
"top 10,'' he said, usually find employment immediately. The employment center director at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University said, for example, that every 2007 Tsinghua graduate should be able to choose from five job offers. But Yu and Hou said they rose at 6 a.m. Sunday for the job fair. They had already bought entrance tickets for the equivalent of 60 cents. They, with six other classmates, arrived around 8 a.m. They struggled through the crowd and approached the entrance. By then, Yu said, the mayhem was already underway.
"I was pushed onto the escalator,'' she recalled, "and I heard people screaming, 'The escalator is broken!''' A security guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said the doors were supposed to open at 8:30, but he and his colleagues opened an hour early because of the crush. By then, he said a large plaza in front of the center was full of students, and hundreds more overflowed into the street.
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Inside Pakistan If
kite flying brings joy to one and all, it is also a major cause for power tripping in many Pakistani cities. Last year the Supreme Court of Pakistan banned this popular sport except during 15 days on the occasion of Basant. As a result, the disruption in power supply has come down considerably in cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala. According to a report in The News of November 23, Wapda (the agency responsible for water and power supply) has released figures saying that the decrease in power tripping during the first three months of the current year was "33 per cent, 16 per cent, 8 per cent and 3 per cent for the Lahore Electricity Supply Company, the Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company, the Islamabad Electricity Supply Company and the Gujranwala Electric Power Company respectively." Kite flying also results in deaths and injuries because of the practice of keeping strings as sharp as possible with a view to bringing down others' kites when there is an aerial duel. Commenting on the kite-flying mania, particularly in Lahore, Pakistani Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi last year said: "It is a matter of concern that a healthy sport is being turned into a game of death. Action under the Anti-Terrorism Act would be taken in the case of deaths due to … dangerous kite-flying strings." Lahorites become highly emotional during kite flying, leading to a serious law and order problem, particularly in the heat of the Basant celebrations. Many use sharp metallic strings, which not only make people lose their lives but also cause power breakdowns when these strings come into contact with a live wire. The bitter bulb Onion is no longer a vegetable of the common man, at least in Pakistan. For the past few years there has been a sharp rise in its prices. According to Nawa-e-Waqt, onion nowadays sells between Rs 55 and Rs 60 per kg. The popular Urdu daily recently carried an exhaustive article by Zafar Ali Raja, saying that Islamabad was planning to "import onion from Iran and India to normalise its prices. First the Indian onion and then the produce from Iran will now be found in the Pakistsani mandis." There are many factors responsible for the sky-rocketing onion prices, according to Raja. But it is mainly inadequate storage facilities and the lacklustre attitude of the successive governments towards the growers which have made onion a vegetable of the rich. "Between 20 and 40 per cent of the produce perishes before it reaches the kitchen from the farm via the mandi", says the writer. The productivity is also very low. Pakistan produces only 13.3 tonne per hectare of onion whereas it has the capacity to get an yield of 22 tonne per hectare. As he puts it, "Every year onion is grown in a 110 thousand hectare area in Pakistan. The total annual yield comes to 1449.05 thousand tonnes. It is grown in all four provinces of Pakistan and in different seasons." Yet there has been no control on the onion prices. The Pervez Musharraf government may have a lot of explaining to do during the coming elections. The missing tourists Very few international tourists prefer Pakistan, and most of those who do are the Pakistanis settled abroad. That is why its tourism industry hardly generates $186 million annually. There has been little change in its revenue earning through tourism since 2004, according to Anwer Kemal, a former ambassador. In his informative article carried in Dawn on November 21, Anwer says, "The reported presence in Pakistan of some of the world's diehard terrorists may have something to do with the dearth of tourists. A reputation for religious and cultural intolerance, undeserved by the population as a whole, does not help either." Anwer informs that the Pakistan government, which has declared 2007 as "Visit Pakistan Year", has prepared an elaborate plan to attract tourists from different parts of the world to increase its tourism revenue. "Even India is being targeted as a source of tourists. This is a mature and healthy way to improve relations with our long estranged neighbour and to generate revenue, without compromising our core interests and issues." There is, no doubt, considerable scope for promoting tourism between the two neighbours. Both are bound to gain. But this is possible only when the terrorist monster is finally laid to rest, as it can always throw a spanner in the works.
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Victory sows the seeds of hatred. The conquered is unhappy either because he lives in constant fear of retaliation. The man who has given up both victory and defeat is contented and happy. — The Buddha
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