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The N-deal and after Panchayati justice |
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SC on obscenity Media must heed Press Council’s advice THE Supreme Court has rightly directed the Union Government to look into the Press Council of India’s request to make certain amendments to the Press Council Act to punish some newspapers violating guidelines on the use of what could be regarded as obscene.
The Chinese challenge
A mission unfulfilled
Integrated in defence Capital markets feed off global money glut We insist, it was a conspiracy
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The N-deal and after NO agreement between two sovereign nations is possible without adopting a give-and-take approach. Thus, the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation deal, set to become an enabling US law with President George W. Bush scheduled to sign the Bill cleared by the US Congress on December 18, could not be expected without an understanding between the two countries to protect each other’s key interests. The UPA government has been maintaining that under no circumstances can India accept anything that affects its nuclear weapons programme. So far, it has proved true to its words. But the real challenge has come now when the two countries have reached the stage of signing a bilateral agreement under Section 123 of the US law governing nuclear trade. Only the provisions in the 123 Agreement will be binding on India. The government must get the necessary cooperation from the Opposition to negotiate with the US administration from a position of strength. The Opposition should have no reservations in extending its helping hand after External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee assured Parliament on Tuesday that “we will not allow external scrutiny of or interference with the strategic programme” of the country. He has further stressed the point that the July 18, 2005, and March 2, 2006, joint statements signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush will get fully reflected in the 123 Agreement. On August 17, 2006, Dr Manmohan Singh, too, had told the nation during his reply to the discussion on the nuclear deal in the Rajya Sabha that “the proposed US legislation on nuclear cooperation with India will not be allowed to become an instrument to compromise India’s sovereignty”. What else do the sceptics of the nuclear deal want? They, particularly those belonging to the BJP and the CPM, are not realistic in opposing the deal. They must realise the advantages India will have now. But it has to seek adjustment in the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group besides signing an India-specific nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. India has to accomplish these tasks without compromising its national interests. Those involved must be made to feel comfortable at this crucial juncture when a fresh round of negotiations is to start after President Bush signs the Bill sent by the US Congress.
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Panchayati justice NEARLY 75 lakh cases reach the formal justice system from rural areas every year. Most of these relate to disputes over farm land, right to cultivate or draw water from canals. Nevertheless, they clog the justice delivery machinery. Not only that, they lead to squandering of even meagre resources by the contesting parties. It takes interminably long to reach a settlement. Since the courts are only vaguely conversant with the ground realities in such matters, at times justice is still not possible—and for years. Having been bitten badly, the Panchayati Raj Ministry is now thinking of going back to the age-old system under which a decision in such matters was taken by the village elders. It has proposed to set up 1.5 lakh nyaya panchayats for village-level local self-governing bodies to deliver inexpensive justice to the people quickly. Petty disputes will come before these non-political persons who will be elected simultaneously with the gram panchayat polls. They will use persuasion, reconciliation and mediation to resolve them. If an amicable settlement is not reached, they will adjudicate. Each litigant will pay Rs 250. This will generate Rs 1,000 crore as revenue. The rest of the expenditure on the scheme will be borne by states. One redeeming feature is that no one can hire a lawyer and all hearings will be in public. Civil courts can’t grant injunction. Appeal will lie with the judicial magistrate. This “participatory redressal system” will function properly only if the adjudicators are strictly free from political pressure and also benefit the SCs/STs, OBCs and women, who are generally at the receiving end of social and economic justice. The experience in many villages is that the whole exercise becomes a farce if the panchayats are manned by persons of dubious merit. In many places, panchayats are the preserve of the rich and the powerful. Under them, justice can elude the under-privileged. But if this weakness can be eliminated, a lot of unnecessary litigation can be avoided. The noble idea cries for an honest implementation. |
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SC on obscenity THE Supreme Court has rightly directed the Union Government to look into the Press Council of India’s request to make certain amendments to the Press Council Act to punish some newspapers violating guidelines on the use of what could be regarded as obscene. In a significant ruling on Monday, in response to a public interest litigation, it put the onus of publication of such material on the newspapers themselves rather than imposing a complete ban on it. The Bench consisting of Justice A.R. Lakshmanan and Justice Tarun Chaterjee said a ban would amount to curtailing the freedom of the press. As it is, the freedom of speech and expression, as guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution, is not absolute. It is subject to certain reasonable restrictions under Article 19 (2) and hence no need for a ban, the Bench said. Significantly, the Bench underlined the need for a self-regulatory mechanism to ensure that the publication of photographs and such other material in the newspapers is inside of the Lakshman Rekha. There are adequate laws in the statute book like the Indecent Representation of Women Act to deal with those violating the legal provisions, but “nudity per se is not obscenity”, the Bench said, relying on the practice under the American jurisprudence. The Press Council of India bans newspapers against publication of any item, picture or even advertisement that is obscene and vulgar. According to it, whether a picture is obscene or not should be judged on three tests: whether it is vulgar and indecent; whether it is a piece of mere pornography; and does it constitute an “unwholesome exploitation for commercial gain”. Elaborating further, the council says, one should see whether the picture is relevant to the subject matter of the publication and whether “its publication serves any preponderating social or public purpose, in relation to art, painting, medicine, research or reform of sex”. But the problem is that the Press Council has no powers to punish the offenders. The Supreme Court’s directive to the Centre, if implemented, will hopefully fulfil this requirement. |
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There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.
— Margaret Thatcher |
The Chinese challenge
EXCHANGES of visits between the leaders of India and China have become commonplace after the visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in December 1988. Prime Minister Li Peng visited India twice, apart from visits by President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Indian dignitaries who have since visited China include R. Venkataraman and K.R. Narayanan when they were President and Narasimha Rao and A.B. Vajpayee as Prime Minister. These visits have led to a number of measures to maintain peace and tranquillity along the common borders, though efforts to resolve differences on the border issue have met with little success. China is, however, not averse to applying pressures on India whenever it so chooses. This was evident from its actions during the Kargil conflict near Demchok in Ladakh and its incursions and deployments in West Kameng district in Arunachal Pradesh. India cannot, therefore, ignore the growing Chinese military capabilities in Tibet. China has maritime border disputes with virtually all its neighbours, including Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. It has not hesitated to use force against neighbours it perceives to be weaker like India, Vietnam and the Philippines, to enforce its border claims. Chinese Ambassador Sun Yuxi’s comment that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China was neither inadvertent nor accidental. In their recent writings, Chinese strategic analysts have advocated that measures like the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet railway and the construction of a network of roads on Tibet’s borders with Nepal and India should economically integrate Tibet, Nepal and the bordering States of India with China’s economy. Writings by China’s scholars suggest that “conditions are not ripe for a peaceful and satisfactory solution” of the Sino-Indian border “dispute”. Chinese writers also voice concern over what they claim are India’s rising military power and its ability to defend itself and assert its influence in Myanmar and the Indian Ocean region. The Chinese are not in a hurry to change their stance on the border issue. Differences over the Line of Actual Control will be used to periodically demonstrate China’s better border communications network and its ability to militarily assert its border claims. New Delhi will have to reconcile itself to this reality. While its efforts to progressively expand cooperation with China must continue, it should not be lulled into a sense of complacency on issues of defence preparedness. China’s apologists in India were ecstatic about the reference in the Hu-Manmohan Singh Joint Declaration stating that China had agreed that “international civilian nuclear cooperation should be advanced through innovative and forward looking approaches”. This, it was claimed, was a Chinese endorsement of the Indo-US nuclear deal and an agreement by China that it would not oppose an end to global nuclear sanctions in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). It was forgotten that just on the eve of the March 2006 visit to India of President Bush, China had demanded that India should sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Its spokesman Qin Gang proclaimed: “China hopes that non-signatory countries (to the NPT) will join it as soon as possible as non-nuclear weapon States, thereby contributing to strengthening the international non-proliferation regime”. Qin Gang hoped that countries like the US will bear this in mind. In its year-end report released on December 7, China’s official Xinhua news agency said that the Indo-US nuclear deal will harm non-proliferation efforts. It added: “The (American) double standards are manifested in another case — India, a country which has detonated nuclear bombs but refused to sign the NPT”. China is determined to deny any international legitimacy to India’s nuclear weapons programme, by removal of NSG sanctions. This is ironic, given its own transfers of nuclear weapons designs, materials and knowhow to Pakistan to enable that country to enhance its uranium enrichment capabilities and develop plutonium processing capabilities, in blatant violation of the NPT, which China piously claims must apply to India. The Chinese will discretely seek to prevent an end to nuclear sanctions on India by urging that such sanctions against Pakistan should also end, knowing full well that most members of the NSG will not agree to end sanctions against Pakistan. Chinese diplomats are reported to have urged their American counterparts that sanctions against Pakistan should also be removed. It is doubtful if this effort will succeed. Despite its pious proclamations endorsing a multipolar world order, China is working towards a bipolar world dominated by the US and by itself. It will not hesitate to join the US wherever feasible to undermine our quest for a larger international role and a permanent seat in the Security Council. We have to recognise that in military and economic terms the Chinese, who are supreme realists and still believe in Mao’s adage that “Power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, will not treat India or Indians as equals. This will change only when India enhances its economic and military muscle significantly — a process that will take years, if not decades. But, in the meantime, we have to bear in mind that the Chinese are not infallible. Their insatiable thirst for energy and raw materials is already causing suspicions across the globe, particularly in Africa and the West Asia. There is little difference between China’s exploitative approach to developing countries in the twenty-first century and that of the colonial powers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Even its present trade with India is based significantly on Indian exports of construction materials and iron ore in return for Chinese manufactured products. China will remain a challenge for India in the coming years. The process of high-level dialogue with China initiated by Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 will have to continue as there are several areas like the WTO and the Kyoto protocol where we share common interests with China. A dialogue with China also enables us to prevent other powers from benefiting from unseemly public differences between the two most populous countries in the world. The sustained dialogue strengthens peace and stability along the Sino-Indian border and enhances economic and people-to-people interaction. At the same time, New Delhi must have effective answers for China’s policies of “containment” of India through its military/nuclear/missile relationship with Pakistan and its “string of pearls” strategy of encircling India with naval facilities on its eastern and western maritime frontiers. This would necessarily involve strengthening of ties with countries like Japan and Vietnam and a review of the present limitations on contacts with Taiwan, so that our contacts with Taiwan are at least identical to those of China’s ASEAN partners.n
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A mission unfulfilled IT was an unexpected phone call. But it provided a pleasant opportunity to hear a few words from an old friend wedded to the profession of journalism. For a long time there had been no interaction with him though he lived in Delhi, the city I visit like ‘Mullah ki daur masjid tak’. He needed to help a budding journalist, the reason why he rang me up. But before I could get back to him he became unapproachable. Within a few hours after talking to me he said alvida to this mortal world. Perhaps, the Almighty had some other project waiting for him. It is not God’s problem if his own project remains stillborn. Only recently he had resigned as editor of a newly launched Urdu daily in Delhi and had finalised a plan for his own publications, first in Urdu and then in English. He could write in both languages with equal felicity. His affair with journalism began when he was about to complete his graduation. First he wrote for other papers. But when this could not satiate his hunger for expressing his views on different issues and happenings, he gathered courage to launch his own fortnightly in Urdu. Mandoob, the paper he edited as a student, however, could not survive longer as peer pressure made him concentrate on his studies for post-graduation with undivided attention. But his Mandoob experiment had proved that he was born to die as a journalist. After completion of his studies he got an opportunity to work for an English-language weekly. His knowledge of Urdu helped him to have an edge over his colleagues, particularly when it came to writing on issues relating to Muslims. But he had wider interests, which took him to London and New York. He perfected his journalistic skill by staying in the UK and the US for nearly a decade. A short stint at the United Nations enabled him to acquire indepth understanding of international affairs. Inbisat Alvi was not a moneyed man, yet he thought he could have his own small newspaper establishment. He had a mission of promoting educational awakening, particularly among Muslims. Alas, his mission remains unfulfilled! |
Integrated in defence AN article by the recently retired Naval Chief who had also been Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) for much of his tenure, takes up the issue of integration, not within the higher military organisation of the three different services, but of the Armed Forces Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence (MOD). One argument is that Service officers should, along with their civilian counterparts, occupy administrative positions such as those of Additional, Joint and Deputy Secretaries, thereby bringing the Armed Forces directly in the chain of decision making and policy formulation. Examples of the US Pentagon and the MOD (UK) are cited in support. In the UK model, functioning in a parliamentary system of the kind prevalent in India, the Minister exercises control through a Defence Council in which senior civil servants as well as the Service Chiefs are members. Under him, each Service has its own Council presided over by the junior minister-in-charge which includes not only the Chief of the Service but also his principal staff officers (PSOs). By and large, policy and financial issues fall under the purview of the Permanent Under Secretary (PUS), equivalent to our Defence Secretary, while operational and doctrinal issues are looked after by the CDS. Cohesion between the two wings is ensured through the Councils. When a Defence Committee of the Cabinet was first constituted in India after independence, Prime Minister Nehru had told Parliament that this would be followed by the setting up of Councils; however, this never came to pass. The reason was that the Service Chiefs did not want their subordinates to sit along with them. There are also records to show that senior officers in the Indian Army, the predominant service at that time, actually took the position that the Armed Forces Headquarters should retain a separate entity and maintain some distance from the Ministry of Defence. The ‘attached office’ tag, found so objectionable now, was not viewed with any great resentment earlier. That this inhibition continues even now can be seen from the fact that following the GOM recommendation that Service Headquarters should be renamed as Integrated Headquarters of the MOD, only the Navy implemented the change speedily. The Air Force took more than two years to do so and the Army Headquarters has chosen not to follow suit thus far. All this notwithstanding, there can be no two views that the Armed Forces Headquarters should work much more closely with the MOD and be more involved in formulation of policy. At the same time, it is naive to presume that policy of major import can be formulated by the MOD without consulting the Services. Still, the process can be further improved. The concept of merging Service Headquarters with the MOD may appear attractive but is full of pitfalls. For example, if a Service Chief gets upset when a proposal made under his authority is turned down by a civilian official junior to him and with no accountability, imagine his discomfort if this rejection were to come from a serving military officer. Another issue is the effect that assignments in the MOD would have on the career progression and attitudes of officers. Again, while a civil servant can serve in a position for four to five years and provide some continuity, it would be impossible for a military officer to do so. So, the concept is essentially a messy one. In Pakistan, military officers occupy important senior positions in government but the Indian environment is not similar. The Council route is the better option. These issues were discussed at length by the Task Force on Higher Defence Management and neither proposal found support. The chairman and the civilian members, and this writer, were opposed to the merger concept while the military members discounted the councils. This led to two recommendations which have been implemented; one, renaming each Service Headquarters as Integrated Headquarters of the MOD and two, much greater devolution of financial and administrative powers to the them. The entire revenue expenditure, about 65 percent of the Defence budget, should fall within the purview of the Service Chiefs. This has not yet been achieved but quite some distance has been traveled. As for delegation of administrative powers, the position is very different to what it was five years ago. For example, Service Chiefs can now promote or transfer all officers up to the rank of Brigadier on their own, which leaves a very small number of more senior officers for whom proposals require the approval of the Minister or higher authority. There are many other areas in which some delegation has been effected. More needs to be done to give a Service Chief the power and wherewithal to manage his force and this is the way to go ahead rather than to turn military officers into civilian bureaucrats. Ultimately, a system can only be as good as the people who work it. The more crying need is to somehow inject an element of accountability in the various departments of the MOD. The several delays that are repeatedly being highlighted by the highest military level, Chiefs included, is a clear indication that things are amiss. In 2000, the GOM had directed that readjustments made by them in higher defence management be reviewed after five years. That time has come and gone. This Holy Cow eats up Rs 100,000 crores of the tax payer’s money every year and Indians have a right to demand that they get value for their money. |
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Capital markets feed off global money glut THE idea of a global money glut — investors worldwide having more capital than they know what to do with — has been a powerful theme underpinning financial markets in recent years. It’s a simple explanation for why domestic and foreign stock prices have continued to rise, why bond yields have stayed depressed and why investors have taken greater risk in a search for greater returns on their money. Cash is in ample supply, and credit is relatively easy. That’s a bullish mix for markets. The capital glut is partly a function of the profit generated by the global economic expansion. But it couldn’t exist without the accommodation of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the world’s other major central banks, which are the gatekeepers of money and credit in their economies. Even though the central banks have been tightening credit, they’ve left huge sums of money sloshing around, which is what has been pouring into markets from Wall Street to Moscow to Jakarta. But those markets now face reminders that central bank policymakers may try to put a dent in the capital glut by making credit more costly. The European Central Bank on Thursday raised its key short-term rate to a five-year high of 3.5 percent, from 3.25 percent, and left the door open for more increases next year. The Bank of Japan, which has tightened credit twice this year, is poised to do so again, perhaps at its meeting Dec. 19. Fed policymakers will meet Tuesday, their final gathering of 2006. Although they appear certain to hold their benchmark rate at 5.25 percent, as they have since June, they may not be finished raising rates. That has been the message from Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and other Fed officials in their public comments in recent weeks. They’ve made clear that they’re concerned that underlying strength in the economy might push up inflation, which would oblige the Fed to lift rates further. Yet the markets have acted as if Bernanke & Co. will be hacking away at interest rates. The markets seem to be supremely confident that the Fed is finished raising rates, and that the next move will be a cut. But there’s another possibility: It could be that many investors aren’t betting on rate cuts in 2007 so much as they just figure that central bankers aren’t going to kill the global economic expansion, or dry up the capital glut, even if short-term interest rates move higher. There is a virtuous circle at work here: The longer the economy prospers, inflation stays subdued and markets are cheery, faith in policymakers grows. In turn, investors’ high level of trust in the Fed and other central banks means the latter can continue their slow-motion pace of tightening credit, says Anthony Chan, chief economist at JPMorgan Private Client Services in New York. “They don’t have to hit the markets with a sledgehammer’’ to make their point about controlling inflation, he said. The Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan all have been moving rates up in quarter-point increments, a comfortable pace that has, by all indications, left plenty of money for investment. Because markets aren’t worried that the central banks will spring a surprise — say, a half-point or larger rate increase —people feel freer to take more risk in their portfolios, such as by buying securities (or entire companies) with borrowed money. The unimpeded use of credit adds to the global capital glut. Not everyone is so sanguine about this state of affairs. James Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer newsletter in New York, believes that risk-taking has reached the red zone, or beyond, in some markets, including securities backed by “sub-prime mortgages.’’ That market was jolted last week as investors began to rethink how many of those loans might go bad in 2007. Typically, when people drop their guard about investment risk, something happens to remind them of what can go wrong. Recall the sudden plunge in stocks worldwide from mid-May to mid-June after the Fed signaled that it wasn’t done raising rates to combat inflation. (Sound familiar?) What if the Fed still isn’t done? Michael Darda, economist at investment firm MKM Partners in Greenwich, Conn., says he is sticking with his view that the Fed will raise its benchmark rate. The message simply may be that central banks would have to do a lot more damage with short-term rates to break the virtuous circle — and to drain away the glut of money that has global markets riding high. By arrangement with
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We insist, it was a conspiracy
IT'S time to come out. I’ll admit it straight: along with 30 per cent of the British population, I simply cannot be persuaded that Princess Diana’s death was an accident. Oh, I know the very juxtaposition of the words “Princess” and “Diana” marks me out as a commoner - and therefore unreliable in such matters. Those really in the know speak scrupulously of “Diana, Princess of Wales”. And the establishment, joined for once by the metropolitan chattering classes, has done its best to dismiss us sceptics on the Diana question as fantasists and fools. Perhaps we are. Then again, look at the delays. Look at the elements that still have to be explained. Look, finally, at the efforts “they” have applied, even at this late stage, to trying to “prove” us wrong. We know that French police and French ministers might not be the easiest partners in an investigation. We suspect France might not be the best-ordered country in a crisis such as the one that brought the mortally injured princess to hospital in the small hours of the morning. But why has it taken the best part of nine years for an inquest to be held? Why did the Fayed family have to threaten court action for even the preliminaries to the inquest to be held in public? If any death is of public interest, surely it is that of Diana. Then those nagging details. It concerns me not at all whether Diana was pregnant, and if so, by whom. I am profoundly uninterested in Dodi’s intentions when he bought that ring. I am not even sure that the prospect of the Fayeds being brought into the royal circle supplies a motive for murder. Other things trouble me more: the small, elementary things that do not add up. Why were none of the CCTV cameras at the Paris Ritz working that evening? What about that small white car that some saw in the tunnel? Why should the driver, drunk or sober, have been in the pay of the French secret services, and why - as we now learn - were Diana’s phone calls monitored by US intelligence? Why did it take so long to transport Diana to hospital? What about the speed with which the tunnel was cleaned, and why were Mercedes mechanics not permitted to examine the car? Time and again we are told that the conspiracy theory has been discredited. But it is not discredited just because the BBC reports DNA evidence that “proves” the driver’s blood sample was really his. Drunk or sober, an agent has his uses. The BBC protests too much. By leading the weekend news on this detail, it imposed argument on fact. I felt hectored by an item that essentially promoted Sunday’s documentary. This, too, was strange. How Diana Died was the first of a series on conspiracy theories. It was shown the weekend before Lord Stevens publishes his report. How neatly it all hangs together. If the Diana conspiracy is classed as just one of a half a dozen daft theories swallowed by the gullible, it must soon be discredited with the rest. This conspiracy, however, is not so easily dispatched. Diana herself claimed that there was a plot to kill her in a car crash less than a year before she died, and the method is a staple of security services the world over. My personal conspiracy theory stops short of suggesting who did it, but motive there surely was. By breaking free from the Royal Family and behaving as indiscreetly as she did, Diana was subverting the monarchy, and thus the state. The establishment may have underestimated the threat to the social order from her untimely death, but what of the destabilising effect had she lived? With the hindsight of 10 years, it can be said that the standing of the Royal Family has benefited from the absence of Diana. I do not generally favour conspiracy theories, preferring the cock-up school of history. I never blamed the US government for the Oklahoma bomb and divined no darker secret behind the planes that smashed into the World Trade Centre. I don’t see Dr David Kelly’s death as anything other than suicide. I don’t even believe the Prime Minister lied about Iraq’s lethal weapons; I fear he believed in every last tonne. Nor can I offer any explanation for the poisoning of the former spy, Alexander Litvinenko. I just do not think it was in Putin’s interests to have ordered it. Diana’s death is different. There has been too much secrecy. Too many people have tried too hard to convince us we should not believe what we do believe for us to accept that it was only an accident. Which reminds me of something else I don’t believe: that only one in three Britons shares this view. By arrangement with
The Independent |
The Third state is called Prajna, of deep sleep in which one neither dreams nor desires. There is no mind in Prajna, there is no Separateness; but the sleeper is not Consciousness of this. Let him become conscious In Prajna and it will open the door To the state of — The Mandukya Upanishads It is the trumpet who says, “I am you.” The spiritual master arrives and bows before a student. Try to live to see this! —Kabir I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings — Mahatma Gandhi Those who know that the world will come to an end, cease quarreling at once. —The Buddha God, the Guru, is attained through loving adoration. — Guru Nanak |
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