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Ask CBI to probe Science calling Why waive the tax? |
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Fast as a weapon
Our men in khaki
CAScading effect It can, indeed, be a happy New Year Delhi Durbar
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Ask CBI to probe IN the aftermath of the shocking discovery of the serial killings of children in Noida, public outcry has forced the state and Central authorities to act. The criminal case itself is more or less clear: Chandigarh-based businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Satish alias Surendra abducted, abused and killed children, and some grown-ups too, and stashed away the bodily remains in the Sector 31 house and in the drain behind the house. As far as the police case goes, the criminals have been nabbed. What remains, by way of investigation, is to establish whether any others, including those in the organ trade, are involved; and, build an iron-clad case so that the perpetrators of one of the most heinous crimes do not find any loophole to escape. There are several other aspects of the case, such as the negligence of the police and other officials, the attitude of the authorities towards even serious complaints from the poorer sections of society, a clear assessment of child abductions and killings, and the vulnerability of girls and women. With so many of the issues thrown up by the serial killings clamouring for immediate attention, several institutions and agencies have begun looking into these. As a result, there are too many enquiries and tracks of investigations underway. This raises the possibility of getting the lines crossed and the focus diffused. To obviate such a situation, it is essential that the case, including the police officials guilty of omission and commission, be handed over to the CBI or a Special Investigation Team. Although some policemen have been suspended and others dismissed, there remain others who should be dealt with, and free of any pressures and influences. There is little confidence that the Mulayam Singh Yadav administration would be able to accomplish these objectives, and the Chief Minister, who is fairly on the defensive now, himself is not averse to a CBI probe. In addition to the probe ordered by the Union Ministry for Women and Child Welfare, the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Women is also looking into aspects of the case. Public interest would be best served by reducing the number of agencies involved, if only for achieving a more focussed inquiry that is concluded at the earliest with all offenders being given the harshest punishment. |
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Science calling Increasing
the science and technology budget from around 1 per cent of the GDP to 2 per cent over a period of five years, would be the first concrete step taken by the government to save science. The promise, made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the 94th Science Congress in Chidambaram, comes a year after the release of the gloomy “India Science Report’ commissioned by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA). That report too was released by the PM, and he had then made a promise to not only restructure the entire support system for science, but also de-bureaucratise science management and science institutions. While an increase in allocation is urgently needed, an effective difference on the ground will require the ability to spend that money in the best way possible. Indeed, reforming science in India is not possible without reforming education, and that will mean a nationwide effort spanning all levels, from schools to universities. The inadequate way science is taught in schools is enough to turn away many a talent, with mathematics, engineering and technical courses surviving only because of a strong “pull factor” from the job market. For true advance in basic science, without which India will be building an edifice without a foundation, teaching will have to improve. And in the universities, we need teaching of more modern disciplines, more fully-equipped laboratories, and libraries with the wherewithal to procure the latest international journals in all fields. To make science graduates more employable, a research culture has to be created, which is sorely lacking. As Israeli Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover stressed at Chidambaram, neglecting basic science for applied science is “dangerous,” as then there would be “nothing to apply.” Because of lack of money in research, the best talent does tend to drift away. These problems have been known for some time now, even before the findings of the INSA report. It is up to the Centre and the state governments, along with concerned ministries and departments, to come up with a broad-based action plan. Advances are taking place in nano and biotechnologies, lasers, robotics, space research and new sources of energy, and India has to ensure that it keeps pace with new technology. |
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Why waive the tax? The
Income Tax Department has described as “non-recoverable” tax arrears amounting to Rs 85,000 crore accumulated up to 2003-04 and has suggested to the government to waive the staggering sum. The outstanding dues are mostly from companies, banks and high net worth individuals. The IT Department’s plea for a write-off is nothing but plain admission of its own incompetence to recover the dues. It also speaks of an inefficient tax system which allows arrears to pile up. Many companies, as a practice, contest tax demands and file appeals which remain pending in courts and tribunals for years, thus enabling them to earn interest on tax amounts. It is the honest taxpayers who suffer due to the IT Department’s lethargy or much else. Income tax officials allow themselves to be influenced by extraneous considerations and let off big offenders while they spend their energies more often on chasing small evaders. The salaried class is charged tax right at the source of income and this is the easiest and foolproof way of tax collection. The tax burden on this class rises year after year as finance ministers take the easier route of hiking taxes instead of focussing on realising the dues. Few of them have made any fruitful effort to recover huge amounts locked in litigation arising from a complex tax system. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram may not have to raise taxes if he simplifies the tax structure and plugs the loopholes which are all well known. There is need to cut down on litigation and delays. The realisation of Rs 1,700 crore is held up due to the Supreme Court’s delay in deciding the Harshad Mehta case. The Telgi case arrears too may take long to recover. While the Finance Minister and the IT Department keep boasting about higher tax collections, they are often silent on leaks in the financial system, scams and recovery tax arrears. Writing off arrears is no solution as more will pile up after some years unless the system is reformed. Why can the Finance Minister and his men not make more efforts than they have apparently made to collect the tax arrears? |
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There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
— Louis Pasteur |
Fast as a weapon
IT is good that Ms Mamata Banerjee ended her fast on the issue of land acquisition for Tata’s Singur car plant. What she got was an assurance of talks and a review of allegations in terms of some cases of forcible land acquisition. But this was available long before in repeated statements made by the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The fast essentially achieved nothing but needlessly distracted the nation and once again subjected economic decision-making and processes of democratic consultation to political demagogy and partisan politics. The notion that indefinite hunger strikes and fasts unto death are heroic acts that merit applause and public support must be dispelled. Citing Gandhiji’s fasts, under alien rule without the constitutional processes of democratic redress now available, is a false analogy. In today’s context it is little more than emotional blackmail and derogates from democratic values. That a motley crowd ranging from the BJP to sundry Naxal groups climbed on to the Mamata bandwagon tells its own story. This was not a union of ideology or principles but a marriage of expediency. Sixty years after Independence it is surely time to say enough. Grievances there will be, many of them legitimate, some based on ego, obstinacy and whimsy. But there are avenues for seeking justice and review other than coercing governments and institutions to act in a particular manner. Some do this with a gun. Some call them terrorists, though they too have a “cause”. Others do it by hijacking and taking hostages. Still others by seeking to play on others’ emotions. Is anyone more justified than the other? Two issues have been raised in the course of the Singur protest. The first is that due process has been subverted, at least in part. If any lapses are found these must surely be corrected. The second is that good agricultural land, rather than available wasteland, has been offered to Tatas at Singur. It has been widely accepted that as far as possible, other things being equal, fertile agricultural land should not be diverted. It is the West Bengal government’s case that this maxim has been followed to some extent. For the rest, if farmers are offered a good price, should they be prevented from selling? In any event, the West Bengal government has just competed a land status survey and is in the process of laying down norms for future acquisition for urbanisation, infrastructure and industry measured against certain norms like the possibility of augmenting farm productivity on those lands and the social costs of diversion. Ratan Tata’s remark that some Tata competitors were fuelling the Singur agitation should not be ignored. This would be a most unfortunate tendency and one that should be strongly discouraged. It is akin to losers denouncing contracts won by their rivals in a bid to reopen bids. These are unfair practices that entail social costs and delays for which the nation ultimately pays. The Sardar Sarovar dam wall after much tribulation is also reported to have reached the stipulated height of 122.92 metres. All that now remains to be done is to instal the gates above this to attain the full height of 138 metres. Needless to say, all those falling within the 122.92 m submergence level must be resettled and/or compensated and earlier hard cases suitably disposed of. This is the time for Ms Medha Patkar to liaise with the project authorities and the state government on the basis of its data so that the numbers can be properly tallied and all eligible persons duly compensated and resettled. The 1450-MW capacity riverbed power turbines will be operational at 122.92 m and there will be enough storage for up to 55,500 ha of irrigation this coming season, or just under a third of the total potential. But if post-monsoon irrigation is to be maximised, Gujarat will have to expedite branch and distributary canals and organise water user associations to dig field channels and oversee cropping patterns, rotation, conjunctive use and so forth at the base level. The drinking water system, too, will need to be rapidly extended so that benefits do not trail behind the storage created and the project’s pay-off time is not further postponed. With the completion of civil works at the dam-site Kevadia colony by the end of the year, steps should be taken to convert at least part of that sprawling campus into a tribal college and farmers’ polytechnic to train the people of the catchment and command areas for the new life and opportunities ahead of them. In the Northeast, another avoidable controversy is unfortunately building around the Tipaimukh dam in Manipur, near the tri-junction with Mizoram and Assam. This is a project that could transform the region and benefit Bangladesh, which needs to be consulted ahead of time in order to remove misgivings, real or imagined, largely based on lack of communication. Relations with this neighbour could do with radical improvement. Similarly, a high-level dialogue with the Manipuri groups that fear cultural and environmental loss is indicated as many apprehensions can be laid to rest through
dialogue.
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Our men in khaki
MY train reached Bareilly at 5 a.m. Since markets open not before 11. I decided to relax in the retiring room at the railway station. The T.C. who allots the bed, asked me to wait for his Assistant. Soon a young man in late twenties entered the room followed by a group of young boys with sullen faces. The body language and the triumphant looks of that man in white coat gave enough indication that he was coming home after having done something big. Hardly had he taken his seat, I advanced my journey ticket to him. Impatient to share his rare feat, he started speaking loudly in an angry tone, using fitting expletives “These policewallas (cops) have exceeded all limits. We don’t mind their moving without ticket and can tolerate even if their family members are travelling with them without ticket but it is indeed too much when one constable carries not one but 15 passengers without ticket by taking money from them”. It was enough to raise my eyebrows and take away my sleep as well. While preparing the receipt, he continued to share his experience with me. “Look at these boys. They paid Rs 50 each to that rascal for their journey without ticket from Gorakhpur to Bareilly”. Indeed a great catch, I quipped and to be the part of discussion I said “I can see the boys but, where is the Super Cop? Frowning, he said “Bahoot joot mara, bahut gali diya per salon ko sharm to hai nahi. Girgrane laga ke nokri ka sawal hai (I took him left and right but then they have no sense of shame and he started begging my pardon saying that it was the question of his job). I had to be considerate since he was a government employee like us and allowed him to go but in salo ko nahi jane doonga under kar ke aram loonga (but I won’t spare these boys and will put them in the jail)”. Having come to know that it is a great privilege to be a government employee in our country and all punishments are meant for people like us who have to sweat out to earn their livelihood, I paid the money and rushed back to my room as I was keen to make best use of the money I had spent. After finishing my job I decided to move back to Ambala by the first available train. Luckily for me Jan Nayak which goes to Amritsar via Ambala was entering the platform. It was so badly crowded that the very thought of getting in to the compartment looked horribly frightening. Seeing my dilemma, a cop approached “Chalna hai sahib? Seat milega (Do you want to go? I will get you a seat) “I didn’t respond whereas another five or six persons went with him. “As the train started I also hanged on to the door and thanks to my good attire, the fellow passengers gave me space to stand though I remained cramped. At Laksar station, signal was not there so train had a long halt. As I got down to have snacks and tea, someone stroked on my back and remarked with a wide grin “Papaji, It was the question of fifty rupees only, you could have also gone sitting like us”. He was the one who had accepted the offer of the police constable. Back in the crowded compartment, for a moment I felt enlightened like Buddha. I had got answers to a few questions which always nibbled my mind. One, why people pay in lakhs even for the job of ‘Khalassi’ in the government. Second, why the crime rate in India is ever on the
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CAScading effect WHEN you have a choice, you exercise the right of selection and don’t mind paying for what you select. This is the basic premise for introducing the Conditional Access System (CAS) in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. The three metros together account for nearly 14 per cent of an estimated 65 million cable homes in India, the world's third-biggest cable television market. Since the New Year, there has been some confusion about CAS and what it entails. CAS makes it mandatory for broadcasters to provide pay channels through a set-top box. Doordarshan and many other channels are free-to-air, which means that they do not charge any money from those who want to see the programmes they broadcast. However, there are others, especially the popular entertainment channels like Zee, Star, ESPN, etc. that charge money. Till now, they have been sending encrypted or coded transmission signals to local cable operators who buy decoders to decrypt the signal and transmit it on to their subscribers. The channels charged the operators on the basis of the viewership, which was told to them by the operators. The viewers got an operator-determined package and their choice was limited to it. With CAS, what happens is that the encrypted signal is decrypted only at the end of the line, at the consumer’s home, through a set-top box (STB). The downside is that the viewers need to buy a set-top box to receive and decrypt the signal. On the positive side, they select the channels that they want, and pay Rs 5 per month for each pay channel of their choice to the operators. The rate has been determined by the Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The STB is required to watch only pay channels, not free-to-air channels, which are sent by the cable operator. There has been some disquiet from broadcasters about the low rate fixed by TRAI, but according to a report from JM Morgan Stanley, cable operators under-report subscriber numbers by as much as 50 per cent. Once CAS is introduced, broadcasters could see a 33 per cent rise in subscription revenue because of increased reporting and a bigger share of the distribution break-up. As of now, for television broadcasters, subscriptions make up about 45 per cent of total revenue. The STBs typically cost Rs 3,000 or more and various operators have come with schemes that allow their subscribers to rent them at reasonable rates. However, once the STB has been installed on the television in your house, it is fairly smooth sailing thereafter - you get what you want and the quality of the reception is far better. There have been initial glitches in implementing the system, but there is no doubt that enforcing the CAS regime will lead to greater transparency in the vast, unregulated and fragmented $3.6 billion TV industry which has more than 25,000 cable operators. As viewers know, they charge random tariffs and sometimes blackout broadcasters. This will change now. The advertisers would know the exact reach of various channels and programmes. They would have another tool to determine how their advertisement budgets are to be spent. Though the cable operators will have to smarten up their act and be more professional, they too will gain from the stability in the market in the longer run. Another system vying for attention of the TV viewer is the Direct-to-Home television or DTH. This is the reception of satellite programs with a personal dish in an individual home. Remember the huge satellite dishes that were perched atop well-to-do homes in the late ’80s? Well, now the dish is the size of a ‘thali’ and the system far more sophisticated. DTH service providers and cable operators are already battling to grab a greater share of the consumers. In fact, recently, TRAI was moved to fix the tariffs of the DTH service providers too. Till now, the two main players, Tata Sky and Dish TV, have set their own rates and provide different mix of channels, but now consumers can expect the DTH segment to be regulated too. Of course, the benefit of bypassing the cable operator and the frequencies of outages caused by faulty cables or electrical problems is considerable. The DTH reception is superb and it is mobile, since DTH satellites have a national footprint and can reach anywhere in the country. With a STB, even if you are moving within a city you may have to switch your cable operator and, therefore, first return the box, get your refund and acquire a fresh connection. On the other hand, the STB is far more interactive and can fetch the content from the operator’s server on your command, whereas for DTH, you would need to call to get such service. A new option looming in the future is the Internet Protocol Television or IPTV in which television content is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks instead of being delivered through traditional formats and cable. Generally broadband connections are used, which telecom majors such as Reliance, Bharti and Tatas may offer. IPTV is often provided in conjunction with Video-on-Demand and may be bundled with Internet services such as Web access and Internet phones. In Bangalore, India on Line Broadband has started trials of the IPTV service on the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) broadband network for BSNL subscribers. The company will provide subscribers Hollywood movies without any commercial breaks, months before they are broadcast on satellite TV. Its IPTV service gives viewers interactive control over TV and video media, along with functions such as pause, rewind, fast forward, and store. It has plans to offer the IPTV services in other cities too. Introducing CAS will, indeed, have a cascading effect on the way viewers interact with television in India. As the confusion sorts itself out, in the coming days, television viewers will be spoilt for choice.
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It can, indeed, be a happy New Year THE e-mails keep streaming in, here in my little apartment in Japan, from friends in California and places farther east. The world is unraveling daily, they say; we’re going through a period of darkness unprecedented in our history. The war against terrorism is a war without end, in effect; the strikes of 9/11 have put us all on edge, even on trial, for life. I read the messages – kids walking in the sunshine to their schools outside my window – and wonder what planet I’ve landed on. The cries I hear in my friends’ voices are those of conscience, and there’s something stirring in their concern about America’s war-mongering and injustices. And yet, I feel like saying, America – though still the strongest power in the world – is by no means the largest or even the central one. One in every three people on our planet lives in China or India, and for those worthy souls, the new century is a time of possibilities unimagined before. There is corruption and oppression and pollution all over China; India is still a byword for suffering and poverty; and yet, for more than 2 billion of our neighbors in the global village, history is moving in a positive direction. In Japan, where I live, people are beginning to look up at last after a decade of recession. In Berlin, where I spent some of the summer, the wounds of the recent past seem so unthreatening that they have been turned into architectural wonders. In Bolivia, where I often find myself, people are exulting in the fact that for the first time in their history, they have a leader who looks and sounds quite a bit like themselves. Growing up near London, I could never have dreamed that the dreary, colorless, greasy home of fish and chips would, in just a generation, become one of the hottest – youngest, freshest, most stylish and international – cities on the planet. I know, of course, that in Kashmir, in the Middle East, and especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is war; the sadder truth is that there has been war in all of these places for a long, long time. I know that more than a billion of our neighbors are without enough food or water or shelter, and that it is our responsibility in a planetary community to think of them and care for them. Traveling around Sri Lanka this summer, suicide bombers doing their work all around me, I found myself not only in an all-too-typical modern cycle of vengeance without end, I was also in a model, on the physically paradisal island, of so many places on the planet where two groups feel they cannot share the same space, and the intolerance of a few makes for the daily tragedy of the many. Yet almost everywhere I have been these last 12 months, people are still looking to America for its unique and longtime industry: hopefulness. America on the screen and in their minds continues to mean, among all the difficult and belligerent things it now means, the capital of possibility. Immigrants write back to relatives around the world to say that their new home is not the land they dreamed of, but it is a place where a new life is possible and futures can be generated. The U.S. government and its cultural exports may never have been so unpopular; the American spirit of possibility may never have been so prevalent. The world finds itself, therefore, in one of the strangest of situations. Even as more and more places are partaking of an optimism that might traditionally have been called all-American (having to do with the chance for a better life and new freedoms), America itself is busy indulging itself in the gloominess of the Old World. And even as a little light is appearing for peasants and the smart but unemployed in the world’s largest countries, those whose lives they aspire to are speaking of the Dark Ages. We live now in a global, not an American, century. And in such circumstances, it can be a little odd to focus entirely on our own small fears when the majority of our neighbors – in Bangalore and Shanghai and Berlin and even South Africa – are laying claim to opportunities they could not have enjoyed even a few years ago. The war in Iraq, the loss of faith in our leaders and institutions, the ever more violent polarization between blue states and red – these are all real reasons to mourn. But they are no reason for ignoring or writing off more than half the people in the world, for whom the New Year could be, in fact, very possibly a happy one. The writer is a renowned author of travel books
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Delhi Durbar Chief Justice of India designate K G Balakrishnan had never thought, while in school, that one day he would reach this level. Back then, even the post of a judicial officer in a court in his native town in Kerala looked impressive and out of reach. He was fascinated to see a judge when he had the odd opportunity to go to court with his father. He is candid in admitting that he was not only fascinated by the judge but by his attendant as well, who wore a special dress with a long cloak and a huge turban. Humble and polite, Justice Balakrishnan attributes his achievement to the success of Indian democracy and the Constitution, which provides equal opportunities to all, despite various flaws. In public interest Noted criminal lawyer, Ashok Arora, who chose renunciation in July 2005, is content with his new lifestyle sans vacations and social gatherings. The 50-year-old lawyer handled high profile cases in the eighties and nineties. He represented the then Chemical Minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha case, Yadav’s son Praksh Yadav in the urea scam, former Law Minister Ashok Sen, the then Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar in the Hawala case. Then there was the memorable cross examination of Ram Jethmalani in a defamation case filed by the latter against Chandraswami. Arora is now very selective about cases. An alumnus of the Hindu College, he is inspired by Raja Janak and Guru Nanak Dev. He feels that the concept of renunciation is misunderstood. Arora has dedicated himself to the ideal of service and now takes up only those cases which involve public interest, or if he is convinced that the petitioner deserves relief. War of the statues The animus between the two mainline Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu – the DMK and the AIADMK – is no secret. The ongoing war made its presence felt in the Capital also when the statues of late union minister Murasoli Maran and the AIADMK’s founder M G Ramachandran were installed and unveiled in the portals of Parliament during the winter session of Parliament last month. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi could not attend the ceremony due to prior commitments. It was speculated that the Prime Minister and the Congress chief had kept away as it might not have gone down well with the DMK, an ally of the Congress-led UPA government. Parliament House has at least two score statues in its precincts and a lot more, like those of N T Rama Rao who floated the Telegu Desam party in Andhra Pradesh and freedom fighter Bhagat Singh are in the queue. With Parliament House choc-a-bloc with statues, the additions will now have to be accommodated in the Parliament Library complex.
Contributed by S S Negi, Tripti Nath, and S Satyanarayanan |
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