 |
|
Progeny of the
mighty Cash for PC’s
kitty |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Magic fingers
Manu’s crime and
punishment
Promises to
keep...yet again
When the mountains
call A peek into the
21st century’s future Inside
Pakistan
|
|
Cash for PC’s kitty The UPA government’s decision to exit Maruti Udyog is a successful example of disinvestment as the dilution of the government equity led to a better valuation of the company’s stock. Despite stiff competition, Maruti has retained its market leadership. By selling the remaining stake of 10.27 per cent the government hopes to collect Rs 2,700 crore at the present stock prices. And the timing is also proper as the stock markets are at a high. This is a tidy sum which the Finance Minister badly needs to add more into his kitty. The disinvestment of government stake in public sector undertakings was expected to bring in hefty yields, but the plan floundered following opposition from coalition partners. While the Leftist stance on disinvestment is well known, even the DMK threatened to withdraw support to the UPA government when Neyveli Lignite was slated for disinvestment. This led the Prime Minister to put on hold the entire disinvestment programme until some political consensus emerged, which effectively means the issue is as good as dead. The previous NDA government did sell off successfully the government stake in certain public sector companies, but the exercise landed in one controversy after another. There were charges of under-valuation of companies put up for sale. The Centaur Hotel controversy questioned the wisdom of disposing of valuable government assets recklessly. To add to the government’s troubles, the Comptroller and Auditor General accused the NDA government of undervaluing nine PSUs during their disinvestment. In view of such track record of disinvestment, the current impasse is understandable. The Finance Minister, hard pressed to raise resources, has clarified that the money from Maruti will not go to the National Investment Fund. He does not regard this as a case of disinvestments and will refurbish his own balance sheet.
|
|
Magic fingers Someone
approaching a haul of 700 wickets has got to be special, and Indian cricket fans know that. But even as we salute the greatest leg-spinner the world has ever produced, there will be a sense of satisfaction that India generally managed to get the better of Shane Warne. After all, his record against India is his worst, averaging 47.18 runs per wicket, while his over-all average is 25.49. The spinner himself acknowledged this “blemish” in his career, and has attested to having nightmares of Sachin Tendulkar dancing down the wicket and smashing him overhead for sixers. He saved his best for Ashes rivals England, starting from the “ball of the century” he bowled all those many years ago. This ball spun from a foot outside leg stump to clip Mike Gatting’s off-bail. His current tally against England – he has got two more matches to go – is 186 wickets at an average of 23.43, and many of those hauls are match-winning ones. He played a key role in the wins in the current Ashes series, which wrested the urn back from the British. But even in the Ashes loss to England those 400-odd days ago, Warne was out there fighting. Not only was he sending down over after indefatigable over, but he would hold fort with a bat, almost single-handedly trying to keep the Ashes urn from crossing the oceans. Interestingly, his sub-continental woes did not extend to Pakistan. He notched up his best average against them, at 20.17, with a total haul of 90 wickets in 15 matches. But after all the flippers, not to mention the sex, drugs and bookie scandals he was allegedly associated with, Warne’s legacy will centre around the basic art of leg-spin, which in his wristy hands, became a potent wicket-taking weapon. It will also be around sheer commitment to excellence and an abiding desire to fight and win. It is that drive and the combat mode that makes for a match-winner. Well-bowled Warne. |
|
Knowing is not enough; we must apply; willing is not enough; we must do.
— Goethe |
Manu’s crime and punishment
Right
people at the right places at the right times will bring in right results, even if the operating system is imperfect. But such miracles do not often happen in real life. Manu Sharma was for once right when he sighed that it was his fate that brought him to this pass. Yes, it was fate that brought him and the killer of Priyadarshini before Justices Sodhi and Bhasin and not again before another Bhayana or Taneja. The best efforts of the best criminal lawyer in the country could not change the destiny. Remember Mr Jethmalani tried his best to shift the case to some other Bench. However, any system that is only just as good as the person in charge is not reliable. The holes in the criminal law administration that lets — nay invites and promotes — the escape of criminals have been identified long ago and practicable solutions were prescribed, but the government failed to implement them and a section of lawyers opposed the move that would make the system more efficient. The first and growing impediment to bringing the culprits to book is witnesses retracting from their original statements on the basis of which the prosecution’s case is built — in other words witnesses turning hostile with impunity. Way back in 1958, the Law Commission headed by one of the greats among lawyers M.C. Setalvad with another stalwart
G.S. Pathak as member, made the following recommendations:- “It is necessary to amend section 164 Cr.PC so as to make it mandatory for the investigating officer to get statements of all material witnesses questioned by him during the course of investigation recorded on oath by the magistrate. The statement thus recorded will be of much evidentiary value and can be used as previous statement. Such recording will prevent the witnesses turning hostile at their free will. Such a change will also help the police to complete the investigation and submit a final report on the basis of such statements made on oath and on other facts and circumstances stated as recovery, etc.” The government refused to act on the excuse that to implement this recommendation too large a number of magistrates will have to be appointed. In the year 2001, the Law Commission headed by Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy in its 177th report noted: “…The experience shows that where the accused happens to be rich and/or influential persons or members of mafia gangs, the witnesses very often turn hostile either because of the inducements offered to them or because of the threats given to them. To protect public interest and to safeguard the interests of society, measures need to be devised to eliminate, as far as possible, scope for such happenings.” The commission recommended: “….In all offences punishable with 10 or more years imprisonment, including offences for which death sentence can be awarded, the police shall have the statements of all important witnesses recorded under Section 164 by a magistrate. Indeed, it would be more appropriate, if this is done at the earliest opportunity i.e. at the very inception of the investigation. It is well-known that generally witnesses stick to truth at the early stages but may change in course of time. ” The committee appointed by the Government of India in the year 2001 to suggest reforms to the criminal justice system - the Malimath Committee - in its report submitted in March, 2003, supported the views of the law commissions and observed:- “…Unfortunately, there is no dearth of witnesses who come to the courts and give false evidence with impunity. This is a major cause of the failure of the system. The procedure prescribed for taking action against perjury is as cumbersome and as it is unsatisfactory. Many witnesses give false evidence either because of inducement or because of the threats to him or his family members. There is no law to give protection to the witnesses subject to such threats, similar to witness protection laws available in other countries.” The ladies and gentlemen at Bina Ramani’s restaurant feigned ignorance of the shooting that killed Jessica. This was despite the fact that the killing shot was preceded by a warning shot that should have alerted everyone. Silence prevailed at the dictate of prudence because every one knew that there was no one to protect the witnesses from the powerful criminals. Between the time of their statements are recorded by the police and their examination in courts many years pass, resulting in loss of memory, real, pretended or procured. The NDA government introduced a Bill to make some of these recommendations a part of our legal system. It lapsed. Justice Sodhi in this case taking recourse to a provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure that remains largely unused, has issued notices to all the 32 witnesses who turned hostile to explain why they should not be prosecuted for perjury. Those who fail to convince the court will be made to face prosecution before a magistrate. This indeed is a good precedent to deter the prospective liars. To close the criminals’ escape through the police, the Law Commission as well as Chief Justice Malimath recommended that the police force which is in charge of law and order and traffic control should be different from the crime investigation team who necessarily have to be trained differently. Malimath suggested that an investigating judge should supervise the police in the task of investigation into certain classes of offences. This is broadly an adaptation of the continental system and designed to suit our society. Another byproduct of Manu Sharma case is that the Delhi police, including senior officers, may have to answer inconvenient questions once the reports submitted by the Special Investigation Team of the Delhi Police are made public on February 1, 2007. At present they are kept under sealed cover as directed by Justice Sodhi, who rightly refused to look in to it until after the judgment is delivered in the main case. One of the weakest aspects of our criminal justice system is that the law expects the prosecution to prove the guilt beyond reasonable doubt. All that the defence has to do is to create a doubt in the mind of the judge about the story as put up by the prosecution. Therefore the defence strategy generally begins with ensuring adequate cooperation of the police to tamper with evidence. Recall the tactics of Mr Ram Jethmalani introducing two-gun-two-bullet theory and a tall Sardarji smarting under a spurned invitation to bed. A jury might have bitten it, but not the seasoned judges. The Malimath Committee has recommended the continental model where preponderance of probabilities would be enough to convict and therefore the accused cannot afford to remain silent. And the lawmakers will have to answer a few more questions like why not permit the victims’ family to participate in the proceedings? Murders cannot be prevented; but how many more of them are needed to stir the concerned into action by suitably amending the laws to make the justice system more efficient and
meaningful?
The writer is Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India
|
Promises to keep...yet again It
is that time of the year again — when you take stock of the months gone by and eagerly plan for the year ahead. Never mind if the laidback in you couldn’t stick to all those good intentions called resolutions, as now’s the time for the optimist in you to raise its beautiful head again. You could probably call it the December-end magic, which nudges you to let go of the past and all things imminently forgettable. In turn, you find it’s time again to embrace new dreams and aspirations for a better tomorrow, starting January 1. The list of “not dones” may be fairly long: Not lost 10 kg, not read 50 books in a year, not kept your temper in check, not cultivated a hobby, not learnt more patience, not tried your hand at exotic recipes, not stuck to health foods and so on and so forth. Surprisingly, despite the consistent past record of never-meeting targets, you don’t give up hope. The mind promises you there’s always a next time (read next year). And, so you stay resolute about resolutions, year after year. Why, my to-do list was more or less the same even two decades back. The weight then too had to be dislodged, the patience then too was wafer-thin. Let’s say once a sucker, always a sucker for resolutions. My improve-thyself hormones may come out in full force during year-end, but they are also listlessly on the move 24x7, 365 days a year. Every morning, the better part of my newspaper-reading time is devoted to city supplements, sardonically but aptly dubbed pastries by my boss. The newsworthiness of these add-ons may be suspect but they surely dole out a fair number of to-do recipes: ten ways to a smarter you, five ways to be a better parent, how to be more well toned, etc. Since it is time for stocktaking, I have tried putting my finger on why, how and where I go amiss. You would agree, parked in December, the resolutions for January seem oh-so-attainable. Likewise, it is blissful to read all that talk about a trimmer you, sitting snug in the bed. The implementation bit, of course, is saved for the latter part of the day, which provenly is nothing short of a mirage. And so this “exercise” continues the year round. Similarly, nothing can be more invigorating than reading about mouth-watering recipes. Sadly, however, when the will is there, the ingredients are missing. When both are there, time’s at a premium. And when there’s nothing stopping you from trying out that green Thai curry, your friends tempt you with a pizza bash. What then, you just end up grimacing: Ah, only if life wasn’t so unpredictable and friends weren’t such spoilsports. I agree making resolutions is an exercise in futility. But, I also have to confess this “exercise” releases a set of feel-good hormones that could help you sail through the year. So the affirmation goes every year. Plan, plan, plan until you
succeed.
|
When the mountains call
We
have been looking up at the mountains since we came down from the trees, but it is only in the past couple of centuries that we have had the curious phenomenon where people go deliberately where it is difficult and dangerous to go, where there is little oxygen, where there are no trees or flowers only screen and snow and ice and trackless waste and the ever-present risk of sudden death. Even more curious is the fact that it was the English who, in an organized way, did it first. Next year the Alpine Club marks its 150th anniversary, and when it was established in 1857 it was the only mountaineering organisation in the world. Yet England has no mountains. They had to cross the water, spend large sums of money, make themselves and their outlandish intentions clear to foreigners, before they could get to grips with them at all. But they did it all the same. It was in February 1857 that the idea was first floated that the Englishmen who could not get enough of mountains should band together in an Alpine Club. The benchmark of achievement was initially put at a climb above 13,000 feet. When it was realised that this would produce an
unfeasibly small club, the committee was given discretion in the matter. But they were serious
climbers. Members who climbed any new peak, or any old peak by a new route, were to tell the club president all they knew, the details being passed on to other members via the Alpine Journal. They rarely talked, one imagines, about why they spent such energy on the mountains putting their parents and wives and children to such agonies of anxiety. Mountaineers down the ages have been fascinated by the technical factors, driven forward by competitiveness, consoled by comradeship - but shy about talking, except in the blandest terms, about the why and the wherefore. One founder member who seems to have known exactly why he climbed mountains was Albert Smith. Unlike the others, he did not have a living to fall back on, being a freelance journalist who wrote for Punch and the Illustrated London News. He was only a pioneer in the broadest sense: when he set off to conquer Mont Blanc in 1851, it was the fortieth ascent of the mountain. But he made up for his tardiness with his flamboyance: he and his two companions were accompanied by at least 16 guides and 18 porters bearing 46 fowls, 20 loaves of bread, 91 bottles of wine and three of cognac. It is no surprise to learn that Smith was held in dim regard by other members. Too many guides and porters, too much wine, too much razzamatazz altogether - with filthy lucre at the rainbow’s end. The chap was clearly beyond the pale. So what about the others hauling themselves up the slopes, the 57 barristers, 34 clergymen, 19 landed peers, 15 dons, five stockbrokers and three professional politicians among the 281 members elected to the club between its foundation in 1857 and 1863? What was in it for them? The writer and art historian John Ruskin was one of those who looked askance at their exertions and in fact mocked them. They regarded the Alps, he sneered, “as soaped poles in a bear-garden, which you set yourself to climb and slide down again, with shrieks of delight.” But then Ruskin himself got the bug, and when he wrote to his father from Chamonix in 1863, he probably put his finger on what was goading him and his fellow Victorians onward and upward. “That question of the moral effect of danger,” he wrote, “is a very curious one; but this I know and find practically, that if you come to a dangerous place, and turn back from it, though it may have been perfectly right and wise to do so, still your character has suffered some slight deterioration; you are to that extent weaker, more lifeless, more effeminate, more liable to passion and error in the future; whereas if you go through with the danger, though it may have been apparently wrong and foolish to encounter it, you come out of the encounter a stronger and better man, fitter for every sort of work and trial, and NOTHING BUT DANGER produces this effect.” Ruskin had hit the nail on the head; he was elected to the club - more for his writing than his climbing - six years later. Climbing was crazy but it made you better. Life was becoming steadily easier and more comfortable, merely staying alive was less and less of a struggle, for decades on end there wasn’t even a decent war to throw yourself at. But the high peaks, these men found, made an excellent substitute. This moral aspect, which real mountaineers just hate to talk about, explains why so many religious men took to the sport. Hindu sadhus and Buddhist sages have haunted desolate Asian mountains for millennia of course, though reaching the physical summit was never part of their programme. But when Frenchmen began assaulting the Alps in the 18th century, many were priests, and indeed the man who has been described as “perhaps the first true mountaineer”, making a series of first ascents of peaks above 11,000 feet in Eastern Switzerland, was a Benedictine monk, Father Placidus a Spescha. English divines were equally susceptible. The English, whose Alpine Club had a 20 year start on the continental ones, looked on in disgust as others transformed the clergyman’s test of courage into something much more dynamic. They climbed faces that were considered impossible using pitons which they bashed into the rocks and with crampons strapped to their feet, to the disgust of the Alpine Club geriarchy. The Alpine Club remains lean and small, with 1,200 members, a mere minnow compared to the mass organisations on the continent. The clergymen have been replaced by the likes of Joe Brown, Chris Bonnington and Stephen Venables. The terrors and the trials remain. By arrangement with
The Independent |
|
A peek into the 21st century’s future The
rise of China as a scientific super power and wearable computers are among the predictions scientists are making for the 21st century. Predicting the future is a notoriously risky business, yet teams of experts have given their considered opinion on what to expect in the next 50 years in fields ranging from brain chemistry to space travel. The UK Government has published a series of 246 insights or “scans” into the future based on the knowledge of hundreds of specialists drawn from industry and academia known to be at the cutting edge of new developments. Their scans covered everything from the social and economic effects of financial shocks on the international currency markets to the implications of medical breakthroughs in genetic technology and the increasing influence of an ageing population. Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, acknowledged how difficult it was to see beyond the next 10 or 15 years in terms of scientific developments but nevertheless, he said, there was still a rationale for scanning well beyond the known horizons. “These scans are tools for government to identify risk and opportunities in the future. We’re not in the business of predicting the future,” Sir David said. “But we do need to explore the broadest range of different possibilities to help ensure government is prepared in the long-term and considers issues across the spectrum in its planning,” he said. As the 21st century unfolds, we can expect to see the rise of China as a scientific superpower. As Chinese science develops in the next 20 years, the goods made by the world’s manufacturing powerhouse will become more sophisticated and high-value. Other emerging countries are expected to include Singapore, South Korea and Brazil, which will compete for the leading minds in science and engineering. The 20th century “brain drain” to North America and Europe will give way to “brain circulation” in which the best people move from one country to the next, competing in a global market. The insights are published by the Government’s Horizon Scanning Centre, which is part of the Foresight Directorate within Sir David’s Office of Science and Innovation. Medicine Medical developments such as stem cell therapy and RNA interference will continue to make progress in the coming decades. They will offer hope of treating incurable conditions, and could eventually lead to cures that were thought impossible only a few years ago. Other developments in biology, however, could lead to more fundamental rebuilding of our minds and bodies. Computers for instance will shrink, making it possible for them to be made small enough to be built into a body. The idea would be to implant chips under the skin or even devices into the brain to improve physical or mental performance. Extensions of the nervous system could improve the lives of the disabled and the able bodied. “While optoelectric implants can restore lost vision, they could also be used to give people the ability to see outside the visible spectrum ... Although aural implants and pacemakers ... are already in use, significant resistance to implantable devices may persist due to social, moral, ethical and religious objections,” it says, adding that “the majority of human computational extensions may be more like an exoskeleton”. If any country is likely to lead the revolution in wearable computers it is South Korea, where high broadband use and the world’s highest rate of plastic surgery provide the medical and technical infrastructure to meet the demand. Climate change seems inevitable but just how bad it will eventually become depends on how much pollution we create and how fast we can develop technology to mitigate the effects. Global average temperatures could rise by between 2C and 5C by the middle of the century, leading to animal and plant migrations, rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Developed nations may produce the technology to mitigate the worst effects, but this will be more difficult in developing countries. The sort of sea barriers being developed for the Netherlands, for instance, would be too costly for countries such as Bangladesh, “suggesting the possibility of a massive, chaotic migration of urban populations away from coastal floodplains”, the report says. By arrangement with
The Independent |
|
Inside Pakistan Two
suggestions are being discussed in the Pakistani media these days for ending the growing disenchantment in Sindh, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) against Islamabad. One is that these provinces should be granted as much autonomy as possible, and the other is that they should be divided into smaller administrative units for better governance. The political forces in the provinces are, however, opposed to the division idea, saying that this is basically designed to weaken the movement for provincial autonomy. The News on December 20 carried an interesting piece highlighting the views of the Press in Sindh. The write-up by Shahid Shah, quoting Daily Koshish, said: “Koshish held the view that the big provinces were not a problem nor was their division a solution. The major cause for all big problems is the helplessness of these provinces. ‘Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP are not autonomous in their political as well as economic matters’.” Koshish, which has been opposed to dividing the provinces, wrote recently that “government representatives have made that unrealistic suggestion many times”, but there was “no wisdom” in it. Instead of wasting its time and resources on promoting a concept which was a recipe for disaster, the government should ensure “effective administration”, the Sindhi daily was reported to have said. In the words of Shahid Shah, “The daily observed that Punjab was the biggest province in terms of population and there might be administrative issues, so one could think of dividing it; but it was not necessary to adopt the same formula of dividing the smaller provinces to resolve their problems.” Why? Shahid quoted another paper, Awami Awaz, which is of the view that the debate on provincial autonomy has “nothing to do with the reality”. Calls for provincial autonomy “become useless” when “all powers lie with one person only”. Acute energy shortage The unending crisis in Balochistan is one of the major causes for a severe energy shortage in Pakistan. The supply from the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited has come down considerably, resulting in a drastically reduced availability of gas for industry in Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. The situation has worsened also because of a 3-4 per cent decline in hydel power generation. The government may have to impose country-wide restrictions on night-time commercial activity, according to a Dawn report. However, the Islamabad government is giving priority to protecting its support base particularly in the rural areas and hence a gasification plan for the villages. The industrial sector has to fend for itself. Dawn quoted a Planning Commission official to say that “Pakistan is most likely to face a major energy crisis . in the medium-to-long term (next three to four years) that could choke economic growth for many years to come”. According to the report, “Pakistan’s total energy requirement would increase by about 48 per cent”. The demand for natural gas consumption may go up by 44 per cent, whereas a major shortfall is expected in gas supply. Troubled times for Press The media in Pakistan, particularly the Press, may lose whatever freedom it has been enjoying so far if the regime in Islamabad succeeds in implementing its latest plan. It has come out with a Bill for the Press and Publications Regulatory Authority which, it is feared, is basically aimed at ensuring that the newspapers and news agencies function in accordance with the dictates of the government. Reports in various newspapers, however, say that media organisations will not take it lying down. The All-Pakistan Newspapers Society has vowed to strongly resist the plan for enacting the draconian law meant for gagging the Press. The Society at its meeting in Lahore on Monday declared that the newspaper industry would never accept the dangerous idea of making the Press to toe the government line. The new law will grant “sweeping powers” to the Regulatory Authority “to inspect and raid printing presses and offices of publications, news agencies and advertising agencies for an on-the-spot checking of records and accounts,” according to a Dawn report. A Press statement issued by the Society after its executive committee meeting said: “The executive committee noted that the draft Bill is not related to the audit of circulation as claimed by the Ministry of Information, but is mainly aimed at regulating the Press, news agencies and advertising agencies.” |
Or like a raincloud from the sky, in its darkness, thunder, and lightning. They put their fingers in their ears against the peal in fear of death; yet God surrounds the ungrateful. — The Koran We have to do only that work which has been assigned to us by God, from the very beginning. — Guru Nanak He who willingly seeks the company of fools is like them and with them. The company of the wise brings happiness like meeting with well loved ones. — The Buddha
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
