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No “goondagardi” Recover loans, but legally ON paper, they are “recovery agents” sent by banks etc to loan defaulters. In reality, they are musclemen out to terrorise those who have failed to repay the amount. Since the agents get commission on the loan recovered, they are ever eager to use rough and ready methods.
Hurriyat role in J and K
Classic apathy
Relax, it is not the end of the world Avaaz: the online voice of change HEALTH
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Gas from Iran IT seems the much-talked-about Iranian gas supply through the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline will soon become a reality. The optimism is based on what Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has revealed about the price factor. Iran has agreed to lower the price by 30 per cent compared to what it offered last August. But a sale-purchase agreement may be signed only by June. The latest pricing formula, discussed by the two sides in January last year, envisages the delivery of gas by Iran at its border with Pakistan at $60 per barrel (crude price) and this means the price will come to $4.93 per mbtu. But the actual price for India will be close to $6.5 mbtu when the gas reaches the Rajasthan border, as it will have to pay to Pakistan $1.5 per mbtu as transit fee and other charges. Yet the price “looks comfortable”, according to Petroleum Secretary M. S. Srinivasan. There was the possibility of Iran lowering its gas price a little further, but Pakistan lost patience during the talks and entered into a preliminary agreement with Iran, leaving India aside. Pakistan has been desperate to see the gas pipeline project becoming a reality because it will benefit in more ways than. Iran, too, has been making strenuous efforts to salvage the ambitious project after it ran into rough weather with the UN imposing sanctions on Teheran for its nuclear ambitions. Iran, having 940 trillion cu ft of gas reserves, the second largest after Russia’s, cannot afford to let the pipeline project die at this stage. It is estimated to earn Iran $ 9.5 billion a year. The gas pipeline project, however, would lose much of its attraction without India’s participation in it. This is the primary reason why Iran offered a new pricing formula to India. The Iranians, perhaps, have in their mind the long-term gains from the project with India, a huge and fast-growing economy, remaining on board. India, too, needs the Iranian gas to meet its growing energy requirement. Hopefully, the US-Iran row over the nuclear issue will not stand in the way. |
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River of discord THE decision to defer the Karnataka bandh till the air show, which began in the state capital on Wednesday, is over is indeed gratifying. It would have been even more gratifying if the umbrella organisation, which had given the call for the bandh, had altogether given up the idea of the bandh. The bandh would have adversely affected the air show, which is one of the most prestigious events in Bangalore attracting aircraft manufacturers from all over the world. Except inconveniencing the public, such forms of protest seldom achieve any purpose. The bandh, now rescheduled for February 12, has been caused by the verdict given by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, which many people in Karnataka think is unfavourable to the state. Even in Tamil Nadu, where the government welcomed the verdict, political parties like the AIADMK have a different viewpoint. That the verdict should evoke mixed reaction is not at all surprising. The dispute over the sharing of the Cauvery water is one of the oldest because of the contentious nature of the claims of each of the four disputants, particularly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Small wonder that the Tribunal took nearly 17 years to hear the claims of the parties concerned and arrive at a decision which, incidentally, was unanimous. Under the circumstances, the verdict was the fairest that could have been expected. The parties concerned should have accepted the verdict in all humility. Unfortunately, politics comes into play in such cases with every political party trying to exploit the situation to its advantage as is now witnessed in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Tribunal itself was aware of the possibility that its verdict might not be acceptable to all the disputants. It allows three months time for the aggrieved parties to appeal against it. Karnataka can certainly exercise its right to convince the Tribunal that it has not done justice to the state. It is a jigsaw puzzle what fresh argument or evidence the state can produce before the Tribunal to alter the verdict. Fortunately, the weather God has been so kind to the region during the past few years that sharing of the Cauvery water did not pose any problem. Whatever be the final outcome of the Tribunal verdict, there is no justification whatsoever for public demonstration of anger in the form of bandhs and violence. |
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No “goondagardi” ON paper, they are “recovery agents” sent by banks etc to loan defaulters. In reality, they are musclemen out to terrorise those who have failed to repay the amount. Since the agents get commission on the loan recovered, they are ever eager to use rough and ready methods. Coercion is part of their “persuasive” techniques. It is not only the defaulter who has to bear the brunt. His family members can also be intimidated. The malady has become so widespread that the Supreme Court has had to call for a halt to it. A Bench has made it clear that whatever may be the compulsions, banks cannot employ goondas and musclemen to recover loans from the defaulters. The instructions are unexceptionable. Even banks are supposed to obey the law of the land which is absolutely clear: coercive methods cannot be used. Justice A R Lakshmanan has cited an instance wherein he himself had come across a case where a bank sent its musclemen to the house of a defaulter and intimidated his wife for recovery of the loans. What the Honourable Judge of the Supreme Court himself noted takes place day in and day out in the country putting thousands of persons to great hardship. It was but natural that the apex court took exception to the stand taken by the bank’s counsel which smacked of endorsing the use of force by the bank. The banks are not wrong when they say that there are millions of defaulters and it is difficult to recover the instalments if they have to go through the legal process. But they are absolutely wrong in trying to bypass the due process of law. If that is allowed in even one case, it will lead to anarchy. After all, how will the bank officers react if someone to whom the bank owes some money sends in goondas to recover it? |
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The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. — Robert Benchley
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Hurriyat role in J and K
THE Manmohan Singh government appears to believe that hardcore separatists, armed, financed and trained across our borders, can be won over by a policy of appeasement. This was evident in the approach to ULFA in Assam, which was let off the hook by an ill-advised ceasefire when the Army had its cadres on the run. There is a similar approach to the separatists of the "moderate" Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir. The Hurriyat, established on March 10, 1993, was set up with Pakistani support, to give political content to a demoralised and failing armed uprising in Kashmir. The Hurriyat leadership has consistently stated that it supports Pakistan's efforts to pursue its "unfinished agenda of Partition" in Jammu and Kashmir. Its constitution adopted in March 1993 says the Hurriyat is committed to a "peaceful struggle" to obtain the "right to self-determination" under the UN resolutions for the people of J&K. Members of the Hurriyat Conference have remained close to terrorist groups, who are members of the ISI-sponsored United Jihad Council in Muzaffarabad. If Syed Ali Shah Geelani uses the Hizbul Mujahideen to enforce his writ through terrorist violence, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is familiar with the Al-Umar Mujahideen led by Mushtaq Zargar — a serial killer released during the infamous Kandahar hijacking. The Hurriyat Conference is derogatorily referred to as the "Hartal Conference" because of its propensity, duly backed by the guns of terrorists, to call hartals and bandhs on every conceivable occasion. The Hurriyat, which describes itself as the "sole" and "authentic" voice of the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, has primarily served as the mouthpiece for the Pakistan Government and as the political arm of the terrorists sponsored by the ISI. Pakistan has obtained an "Observer" status for the Hurriyat in the Organization of Islamic Conference providing the Hurriyat leadership access to leaders of Islamic countries. Knowing its limited electoral appeal and given the disunity in its ranks, the Hurriyat has never contested elections. Apologists of the Hurriyat claim that the organisation split with the Mirwaiz leading the "moderates" and Geelani the "hardliners" because of differences over their responses to General Musharraf's four-point proposal on Jammu and Kashmir. The real reasons for the split, however, lie in developments in Pakistan when General Musharraf and Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed fell apart. Geelani toed the line advocated by the Qazi, who opposed General Musharraf's proposals. While General Musharraf has been the mentor of the "moderates" led by the Mirwaiz, Geelani has chosen to regard the Qazi as his mentor. The main "threat" that the Mirwaiz faces is from the cadres of the Hizbul Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad. When Mirwaiz Farooq left for Islamabad, he assumed pretensions of being a bridge between New Delhi and Islamabad and also between the people in J&K on both sides of the LoC. He did little more than echo the General's proposals, though he did let the cat out of the bag by revealing that the proposals were for an "interim" and not "final" resolution of the issue of J&K. He appears to have been advised by General Musharraf to set the stage for a "ceasefire" in Jammu and Kashmir by calling on the militants to end their armed struggle. Those in Pakistan backing the Qazi’s approach called the Mirwaiz a traitor to the cause of the Kashmiris and the "Hamid Karzai of Kashmir". Feeling the political heat, Pakistan's Foreign Office distanced itself from the Mirwaiz, claiming that what he had said constituted his personal views and not the views of the Pakistan government. Desperate to avoid the wrath of the jihadis who could threaten his life, the Mirwaiz met Mushtaq Zargar, the one terrorist leader on whom he could rely. This could not have happened without the ISI facilitation as Pakistan has officially claimed that it is not aware of Zargar's whereabouts. At this meeting he also met "Area Commanders" of the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed — the terrorist organisations banned internationally under UN Security Council Resolution 1373. The Mirwaiz has remained ambiguous about these meetings, but has not denied that they took place. Thus, despite General Musharraf's protestations, it is obvious that the infrastructure of terrorism is alive and kicking in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and that the ISI is actively assisting these terrorist outfits. The Hurriyat delegation met political leaders in PoK, but avoided meeting leaders from the Shia-dominated Northern Areas as they would have spoken in quite different terms about the repression they face. The Mirwaiz has also assumed the role of organising meetings between political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir and those in PoK, after his meeting with Sardar Atique Ahmad Khan, the "Prime Minister" of PoK. All such meetings will inevitably be under the Pakistan government and the ISI patronage. General Musharraf obviously wishes to use his protégés to play the leading role in promoting an intra-Kashmiri dialogue, which can then proceed on the terms set by him. New Delhi seems to have conducted itself in a manner that gave the impression that it would not be averse to the Hurriyat Conference playing such a role. While the leaders of mainstream political parties like the National
Conference have watched from the sidelines, the Hurriyat has assumed such airs of importance that it will not condescend to meet anyone other than the Prime Minister. The Hurriyat has to be formally told that before it seeks political-level meetings, it should first seek to interact with the Union Government's interlocutor for Kashmir, Mr. N.N. Vohra. Secondly, it should be made clear to the Hurriyat that there can be no high-level political contacts in New Delhi till it participates in the round-table discussions that has been initiated by the Prime Minister, with a wide cross section of political and public opinion in J&K. New Delhi should also firmly inform the Hurriyat leadership that it will not allow the separatists to assume any role in inviting people like Sardar Atique Ahmad and other political leaders from PoK and the Northern Areas across the LoC. This is a role that has to be played at an appropriate time by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, in consultation with political leaders in the J&K Assembly, with due clearance from the Union Government. Finally, there can be no question of any "ceasefire" in Jammu and Kashmir till the infrastructure of terrorism across the LoC is dismantled and militants who have crossed the LoC lay down their arms. The nation paid a heavy price for the ill-advised "Ramzan ceasefire" in November
2000.
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Classic apathy
FOR
a bibliophile like myself, a visit to Chandigarh’s pavement book market evokes mixed feelings. Laying one’s hands on a much-wanted classic, and that too dirt cheap, undoubtedly brings great joy. However, it’s disturbing to see so many second-hand copies of literary masterpieces, reduced to disposable items by uncaring readers. A classic retains its freshness and magical appeal no matter how many times you read it. No wonder it is said that a good book is an ideal companion for a lifetime. Sadly, even evergreen works like Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and George Orwell’s Animal Farm are not regarded as “life partners” by some people, since they have no qualms about selling these off. Instead of gracing bookshelves in homes or libraries, these gems lie exposed to the vagaries of the weather, their condition getting worse day by day until a connoisseur comes to their rescue. I wonder what makes people part with vintage works of literature. Quite a few BA and MA students treat these merely as textbooks, which lose their importance once the exams are over. Like pearls before swine, the greatness of these world-famous creations is lost on them. The money obtained by selling the volumes is spent “fruitfully” on fast food, branded clothes and other trappings of crass consumerism. Then there are those heartless (or artless) creatures who go to the extent of selling the editions they had received as gifts. Sometimes, the names of the culprit and the unsuspecting victim are written on the first page itself. Having gifted paperbacks to several friends over the years, I dread chancing upon any of these in this market. At the same time, I don’t really believe that my pals would let me down by discarding titles chosen especially for them. It’s also possible — but painful to imagine — that some of the books might have belonged to a veteran collector, whose death prompted his family members to get rid of his prized possessions, simply because these were occupying “too much space” in the house. If the late bibliophile’s kin can’t help disposing of his collection, a dignified way is to donate the whole of it to a library. A treasure trove and a dumping ground — that’s the dual reality of this book mandi, where Shakespeare’s immortal plays suffer the ignominy of being placed alongside trashy novels on a tarpaulin sheet. Like King Lear wronged by his elder daughters Goneril and Regan, the dust-covered, wind-buffeted classics bemoan the insensitivity of their former owners. Their only hope is that a kind Cordelia will come one day to give the healing
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Relax, it is not the end of the world Before we get too discouraged with the state of the world at the beginning of 2007, we should stop to consider a broader context in which things look much brighter. The single most notable but overlooked fact about today’s world is that the global economy has been driving ahead full speed, raising living standards and closing the gap between the First and Third worlds. The economies of the world’s two most populous countries, India and China, have been growing in recent years at nearly 9 percent and 10 percent, respectively. A decade after the 1997-98 financial crisis, East Asia as a whole has returned to its torrid pace of development. But the rest of the world is growing steadily too. Latin America, despite instability in the Andes and a backlash against “neo-liberalism,” has been averaging 4 percent to 5 percent growth based on exports. Sub-Saharan Africa, after three decades of decline, has seen greater than 5 percent annual growth in recent years, and the Middle East is not far behind. These trends in the developing world are increasingly driven by south-south trade, as India and China consume commodities and natural resources from Latin America and Africa. This has spawned world-class multinational companies from developing countries, such as Mittal (originally of India), Cemex (Mexico) and Embraer (Brazil). Even Europe, despite the dislike of many of its intellectuals for an American-led globalisation, has seen rates of unemployment fall to levels without recent precedent as the European Union expands and integrates with the global economy. What is even more striking than the fact of economic growth has been its robustness. The early years of the 21st century have not been peaceful ones, after all: The world has seen the 9/11 attacks on the United States; horrific bombings in London, Madrid, Istanbul and Bali; two wars in the Middle East and one in Afghanistan; and an enormous increase in commodity prices. Similar shocks in the 1970s sent the global economy into a tailspin. Ah, many would say, but today’s rosy economic picture masks huge vulnerabilities, particularly in the form of the twin American trade and budget deficits and the unsustainable buildup of U.S. dollars in foreign central banks. These deficits, and the global imbalances they represent, are indeed worrisome and unsustainable, but people misunderstand where they come from. They do not arise primarily from American profligacy but rather from decisions taken by non-Americans to build up dollar reserves and thus ensure themselves against financial risks. The decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall was marked by constant financial instability, but since the Asian financial crisis, countries have weaned themselves off short-term capital flows and built up reserves through export-led growth. The International Monetary Fund is in trouble today because it has run out of customers for its fire brigade services. We evidently suffer, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke once suggested, from a global oversupply of capital that keeps real interest rates low even as growth takes off. Economic growth by itself will not guarantee stability, any more than the period of globalisation before 1914 could prevent the outbreak of World War I. But there is good reason to think that we have consistently overestimated threats to stability since 9/11 and that it is American reaction to this overestimation that has created special dangers. At the time of the September 11 attacks, there were probably no more than a few dozen people in the world with the motivation and potential means to cause catastrophic harm to the United States. Once the US national security apparatus was turned to focus on this problem, the likelihood of a successful attack dropped dramatically. It was in deciding that America had to “make a statement” by invading Iraq that the US created a brand new problem for themselves, creating a new terrorist haven and shifting the power balance in the Persian Gulf in Iran’s favor. But various equilibrating forces are at work. The Sunni world is not sitting by idly as Iran’s influence grows, but is mobilising to contain the threat. And although the behavior of the latest bunch of oil-empowered tyrants is disturbing, in the long run, many of today’s troublesome political trends are unlikely to be sustained. Russia, Venezuela and Iran - leaders of the anti-democratic rollback - have been able to defy the normal laws of economics because they benefit from high energy prices. But oil prices have already come down from last year’s high of $75 per barrel to about $57 per barrel. This reflects the working of markets: Rising prices have stimulated heavy investment in new upstream capacity while persuading consumers to conserve or to switch to alternative sources of energy. But we seem not to have noticed that the civil war engulfing Iraq involves two anti-American, radical Islamist groups that are increasingly interested in fighting one another rather than the U.S. This does not absolve Washington from moral culpability for bringing this situation about, but it does mean there are self-equilibrating forces in the region that will limit the damage that conflict will represent to U.S. interests once they disengage. There are real dangers to being excessively pessimistic at this juncture. Growing numbers of people in the U.S. and Israel believe that Iran represents an existential threat, that it will behave irrationally and therefore cannot be deterred – and that the US consequently has no choice but to preempt. It is this same logic – that our backs are against the wall – that led America to the Iraq debacle.
The writer is a renowned US academic, author of “The end of history and the last man.” By arrangement with
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Avaaz: the online voice of change GEORGE
Bush, Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac are in bed, fast asleep. All around them the evidence of climate change is clear and pressing but nothing can rouse the world leaders from their slumber. “Global warming is here, but our leaders just won’t wake up,” says a voice-over. “Now you can sound the alarm. Go to avaaz.org to send your leader a wake up call.” These adverts – broadcast this week in Paris, Berlin, Washington and Delhi – represent the opening salvo of a new online activism group whose rather modest aim is to change the world. Inspired by the success of the progressive American group MoveOn, which was formed during the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, the organisers – some of whom were involved in MoveOn – hope to form a grass-roots organisation with worldwide reach to campaign on issues ranging from climate change to Aids in Africa. Named Avaaz, the organisation already claims to have almost 900,000 members in 198 countries. “We have been inspired by watching those moments of global consciousness such as the aftermath of 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq war,” said Ricken Patel, one of the founders of Avaaz, which means “voice” in several Asian languages. “We are trying to build that sort of infrastructure online and to reduce the gap between the world people want and the world we have.” The adverts – timed to coincide with meetings being held in Germany to set the agenda for this summer’s G8 meeting in Heiligendamm – are the start of the effort to build the sort of global activism that could genuinely wield influence. The organisers believe that email and letter writing campaigns on a global scale can have an impact on pushing governments to act and that activists can obtain information and through the internet and by other instant means such as text messaging. “Climate change is a pretty classic example of a global problem that requires a global solution,” said David Madden, another of Avaaz’s founders and an activist previously involved in the Australian group GetUp.org.au. “We are asking people to send world leaders a wake-up call. The post-2012 stage of Kyoto is too important to be left to bureaucrats. World leaders need to get down to business.” Can such lofty aims succeed? In the US, the political action committee arm of MoveOn has raised funds for and supported scores of political candidates, most recently more than a dozen Democrats who contested the mid-term elections last November. Among the victorious candidates backed by MoveOn was Patrick Murphy, a former US soldier who won Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. Eli Pariser, founder of MoveOn and one of the directors of Avaaz, told the Personal Democracy Forum website: “We think this model – which in the US has brought 3m folks into the political process, developed a new small-donor base for Democratic candidates, and helped win a number of key elections, can have an exciting impact worldwide.”
By arrangement with
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Health Cases
of accident victims having been ‘brought dead’ to the hospital’s emergency wings, or the patient breathing his last on the road side for want of medical care, or a patient waiting for dressing material to arrive while bleeding on hospital-stretchers, are not uncommon. The surgical expertise to deal with trauma cases even in the operation theatres of big hospitals is often inadequate. In fact, trauma services do not exist in most centres. The planning and development of trauma care systems in India has yet to gain attention and priority from the government, even though the high number of trauma cases constitute a major public health issue. A chain of trauma care centers is essential in India, since ours is one of the most populous countries in the world, and one with a high burden of trauma deaths and disability. The number of vehicles is rising fast and accidents are occurring day in and day out. Rural India lacks trauma care services and in urban areas such care is a part of the emergency section, with inefficient services for trauma care due to paucity of trained manpower, financial constraints and lack of appropriate health infrastructure. There is no national nodal agency to co-ordinate various components of a trauma care system. Education in trauma life-support skills is hardly available. The doctors trained in super-specialties like orthopedics, plastic surgery, neuro-surgery are not willing to be “dumped” for the treatment of the injured, for the rest of their lives. In India, no credible data is available to ascertain the number of victims of various types of injuries or the outcome of trauma victims. Road-traffic accidents are increasing at an alarming annual rate of 3 per cent. In 1997, 10.1 per cent of all deaths in India were due to accidents and injuries. A vehicular accident is reported every 3 minutes and a death every 10 minutes on Indian roads. During 1998, nearly 80,000 lives were lost and 330,000 people were injured. Of these, 78 per cent were men in the peak productive age group of 20-44 years. A trauma-related death occurs in India every 1.9 minutes. The majority of fatal road-traffic accident victims are pedestrians, two wheeler riders and bicyclists. India is also a disaster-prone country with frequent floods, cyclones, landslides and earthquakes, train accidents and industrial mishaps and many more. There is a high mortality rate amongst those with multi-system injuries. It is established that the mortality in serious injuries is six times worse in a developing country such as India compared to a developed country, mainly due to the rudimentary skill and services. There is not a single trauma centre in the Punjab region to give exclusive and comprehensive care to these persons in mental and physical shock, or to save their lives. Even in metros cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Chennai, the trauma systems are at an embryonic stage, predominantly supported by non-government and private agencies. Available personnel and their skills often do not match the needs of the patients. The optimal number and type of pre-hospital personnel for ambulances is not defined. The concept of a dedicated trauma team is not accepted at all levels. At the majority of hospitals in the public health system, the casualty medical officer is the only one to respond to a demand for major resuscitation. This paradox, where the most seriously injured patients are frequently attended to by the most junior and inexperienced staff, is striking. The National Board of Examinations has recently begun registering courses in trauma care, though in a very limited manner. There are no minimum stipulated educational standards for paramedic and ambulance personnel dealing with trauma cases. Paramedic training programmes are offered in major institutions but there is no accreditation, review or provision for periodic update of skills and knowledge. In the absence of guidelines and trained paramedical staff, decisions about evacuation of the victim and the choice of the destination hospital are made on an individual-case basis. These choices are often made at the behest of patients or their kin. Trauma care situations creates a perfect arena for medical errors: unstable patients, incomplete histories, time-critical decisions, concurrent tasks, involvement of many disciplines, and often junior personnel working for endless hours in busy emergency departments.
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A true Brahmin should be the very image of humility and not be proud of his knowledge or wisdom. When one lacks discrimination and his mind is undisciplined, the senses run hither and thither like wild horses. God has neither form nor colour, neither sign nor feature. He is revealed only through the true Word.
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