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Ban was a must Speaker misused |
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Terror trading Government has to choke the dangerous route There were dark rumours for quite some time that the share markets were having a bull run partly because terrorist groups were operating on the stock exchanges. These allegations stand confirmed following an assertion in this regard made by none less than the National Security Adviser, Mr M.K. Narayanan.
Sachar hijacked?
“Operation chimp”
Law must come to the aid of NRI brides News analysis Delhi Durbar
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Ban was a must ON the one hand the government has been importing wheat, on the other it had allowed wheat exports until the ban was announced on Wednesday. The ban, which should have been imposed long back, came only after the UPA government had faced trenchant criticism over a steep rise in the prices of essential commodities as the media reported inflation soaring to a two-year high of 6.58 per cent. Measures to contain inflation have not worked to the desired extent. The latest in the series is the RBI hiking the cash reserve ratio (CRR) to drain a liquidity of Rs 14,000 crore from the financial system. The government has mishandled its wheat import-export policies. In the last season the Food Corporation of India had procured only 9.2 million tonnes of wheat against 14.8 million tonnes in the previous year. Private traders had mopped up wheat stocks at prices higher than the minimum support price which was offered by the official agencies. As a consequence, the buffer stock dwindled and the government was forced to import 5.2 million tonnes of wheat. To encourage imports by private traders, it first reduced the duty on wheat imports from 50 per cent to 5 per cent and then, as the situation did not improve, waived it in September last year. The ban on wheat exports, to be effective from February 9 for the whole year, is intended to discourage private traders from again accumulating wheat stocks. Last year the wheat prices had surged to record levels due to poor harvests in major wheat-producing countries like the US, Russia and Australia. This year, going by the future prices, the situation is expected to be better as fresh wheat arrivals are expected to soften the prices. The shortage of other agricultural commodities like pulses and oilseeds, and lately of onions, has caused prices to spiral, leading to unacceptable political repercussions. Ultimately, the government will have to revitalise agriculture and make efforts to raise productivity to meet the demands of a growing country. |
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Speaker misused THE disqualification of 13 Uttar Pradesh MLAs by a five-member Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court exposes the unprincipled manner in which the Samajwadi Party headed by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav ousted the Mayawati government and came to power in August, 2003. These MLAs had defected from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and later formed the Loktantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD) with the defection of another 24 MLAs. The LBD “merged” with the ruling Samajwadi Party. The Bench has upheld the Allahabad High Court ruling that the “split” under the Anti-defection Act was a “one-time affair” and not a “continuous process” as claimed by the splinter group. When the 13 MLAs had defected, they did not constitute one-third of the BSP’s strength in the House and thus attracted disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. As the same provision is applicable to the other 24 MLAs, the Bench should have disqualified them as well instead of leaving the matter of their disqualification to the Speaker. The judgement brings to the fore the blatantly partisan role being played by the Speakers, some of whom are too willing to help the ruling party cobble together a majority through defections. This has happened in Goa, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. In the present case, the then Speaker, Mr Kesrinath Tripathi of the BJP, wilfully kept silent when the BSP petitioned him seeking the disqualification of 13 MLAs. He acted as the ruling coalition’s hatchet man by ignoring the petition until the breakaway group’s strength went up to 37, to become one-third of the BSP’s strength of 109 in the Assembly. There is a need to define the Speaker’s powers to disqualify members. In December last year, the Supreme Court advised Parliament to examine the issue as it ruled that the malaise, if not checked, will affect the impartiality and credibility of the Speaker’s high office. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution had recommended that the power of a member’s disqualification on grounds of defection should be vested with the Election Commission rather than the Speaker concerned. In its latest report, the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Mr M. Veerappa Moily has suggested that the President or the Governor should decide it on the Election Commission’s advice. The malaise can be checked if persons of outstanding ability and impartiality are appointed as Speakers. |
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Terror trading There were dark rumours for quite some time that the share markets were having a bull run partly because terrorist groups were operating on the stock exchanges. These allegations stand confirmed following an assertion in this regard made by none less than the National Security Adviser, Mr M.K. Narayanan. Speaking at a conference on international security at Munich last week, he not only revealed that terrorist groups were raising funds for their operations through fictitious companies, he also disclosed a conspiracy by “official agencies” in Pakistan, a euphemism for the ISI, to carry out “economic subversion”. That goes on to show that the operation is being carried out in a systematic manner. The consequences can be exceptionally damaging. One, the share markets may rise and fall at the beck and call of the enemies of the nation. And, two, the money that they make through “legitimate” means may be used to wage a clandestine war against India. This is the first time that the NSA has disclosed that the stock exchange operations are being used to fund terror. Earlier, he had revealed that there was a jehadi plot against India’s atomic facilities. While it is good that he is taking the public into confidence on these sensitive issues, what the nation wants to know more about is what the government is doing to defeat the threat. This slush money follows a complex funding route. But surely, there are enough means available with the authorities to thwart the ugly designs. A reassurance in this regard will be in order. It is not only local terrorist modules who are engaging in clandestine operations. Security agencies have detected many instances of funds received via banking channels from so-called safe locations like Dubai and the UAE that were intended for terrorist groups. Then there is also the problem of fake currency routed to India through Nepal and Bangladesh. For an effective curb on such practices, India will need to forge better cooperation with these governments. |
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The closer one gets to the top, the more one finds there is no top.
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Sachar hijacked?
Have
the Sachar Committee findings been hijacked, as it happened with the Mandal Commission report in 1990? The incumbent Prime Minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, had himself hijacked the Mandal report, when his chosen Deputy Prime Minister, Devi Lal, tried to upstage him with a view to unseating him. The Haryana patriarch would hold massive rallies at the Boat Club grounds in the capital with hired crowds from his home State in support of all kinds of demands in the name of peasants. Unable to match the opportunism in kind, V.P. Singh unleashed on an unsuspecting nation the Mandal recommendations. They had lain in limbo for 10 years. To add insult to injury it was done through an executive order, denying discussion on the topic. While Singh thought he had saved his prime ministership, the desperate gesture touched off large-scale caste rioting in several parts of north India. Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress party, aggrieved by loss of Lok Sabha majority as a result of the Bofors expose, fuelled the agitation, with the BJP, threatened by the caste virus eating into its Hindu phalanx, followed suit. Gory instances of misguided youths setting themselves on fire in public followed. Unconcerned, V.P. Singh set out in the reflected glory of a self-proclaimed high priest of affirmative action! Retired chief justice of Delhi, Rajindar Sachar, has no such personal axe to grind in having his report hijacked but he has been a party to it, both wittingly and unwittingly. It was done through, first, blackout of official information about the committee’s recommendations and then by calculated disinformation. The Manmohan Singh Government did not officially release the Sachar Committee report even after it had been tabled in Parliament, which was unusual. Further, even when the media was replete with “leaks” about the report it did not care to release an executive summary of the 404-page document and the massive array of statistical data attached to it. Abdul Rehman Antulay’s Minority Affairs Ministry, which was to disseminate details of the report, went about it in its own way. It fed obliging news agencies with reports that an inter-ministerial task force headed by a Planning Commission member was being set up “for execution of programmes aimed at welfare of the religion-based minority across the country.” The minister followed it up with a declaration that some of the Sachar committee recommendations like reservations for the minorities (sic) would be implemented before the budget session of Parliament opened. That was notwithstanding Justice Sachar’s protestations that his committee did not recommend religion-based reservation! The truth is that the report has been equivocal: it seemed to be anxious to go along with the protagonists of reservation but afraid to do so. Gandhiji and the pre-Independence Indian National Congress had resisted such reservation during constitutional negotiations with the British Government. Later, the Constituent Assembly categorically rejected the very principle of reservation, particularly religion-based separate electorates. A solitary exception was made for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs), that, too, for only 10 years. But clamour for reservation, both vertical and horizontal, overwhelmed the 10-year limit. Thus, 46 years after the Constitutional deadline for reservation per se, India has become the most “reserved” country. While the safeguards for the SCs and STs have been continuing at 22.5 per cent, there has been an additional 44 per cent reservation for the Mandal Commission’s new category of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), taking the total to 66.5. The OBCs are also a flexible entity with more and more castes demanding to be counted in. Now Sachar wants to add another 19.5 per cent to the lot, making a grand total of 86 per cent. Looking at the small print of nearly 20 Sachar committee recommendations, it divides Muslims into two categories, Ashraf and Azlaf, of whom the well-off Ashrafs are said to be comparable with caste Hindus. It says the Afzals “need multifarious measures, including reservation” for their welfare. That is despite Justice Sachar’s assertion that the committee did not favour reservation. Further, while reservation may benefit a small portion of deserving Muslims and fortify the vote bank of powerful politicians, it will erode national integrity. In this light, the most galling is a recommendation like “recognising degrees from madarasas for eligibility in defence, civil (service?) and banking examinations.” That was despite the committee’s finding that not many Muslims opt for madarsa education these days. Secondly, while in Pakistan there is compulsory registration of madarasas no such safeguard exists in our country in spite of apprehension that the large number of madarasas being set up in UP and Bihar are potential centres of spying and drug trafficking. Basically, the Sachar committee identifies study of Urdu and access to defence establishments as criteria for Muslim uplift, which is not understandable. Urdu was being widely used in UP along with Hindi or Hindustani in the British period. Nehru was a shining example. He was a fluent Hindustani speaker. At the bureaucratic level, Rajeshwar Dayal, ICS, who was Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan in Ayub’s time, spoke Urdu fluently being from Badayun. Rajindar Sachar himself knows Urdu as well as Hindi. Urdu was second language in U.P. until Dr Sampurnand, Chandra Bhanu Gupta and Kamala Pathi Tripathi made it a totally Hindi speaking State for settling intra-party disputes. During the 1975 “emergency” V.P. Singh, Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna and Narayan Dutt Tewari as chief ministers let the situation persist. Yet in the runup to the 1989 general election, Rajiv Gandhi with the same Narayan Dutt in tow, made Urdu the second language of U.P. That was to balance the opening of the makeshift Ram temple at Ayodhya for worship, which itself was to offset the Shah Bano surrender to Islamic clerics. In short, Urdu teaching has been more a political football than a tool of Muslim development. Most importantly, it is fallacious to think that all Muslims are Urdu speakers. The President, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, recently said his mother tongue is Tamil. The crucial flaw in the Sachar Committee approach is ignoring the fact that unless Muslims shed sectarian approach they cannot grow as equal citizens of the country. External props like reservations are not even palliatives. Finally, the Sachar Committee has generalised its perception of Muslim backwardness. Even in a much-maligned State like Gujarat, the percentage of Muslims below the poverty line is 13 whereas it is nearly three times that number, 36, in West Bengal. Similarly, the percentage of Muslim employment in State Government service is 2.1 in West Bengal as against 5.4 in Gujarat. Most interestingly, Muslim literacy is above 80 per cent in Kerala, Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat. In Gujarat Muslim men with 83 per cent literacy fare better than their Hindu counterparts at 79 per cent. Equally crucially, a recommendation like “establishing a delimitation procedure that does not reserve constituencies with high minority populations for SCs” betrays a chartered accountant mentality rather than that of a committee headed by a one-time follower of Dr Lohia and a resister of 1975 “emergency.” True, a member of the Sachar committee like Professor Oomen has a grouse to that effect but how many such instances are there and does one need a national commission to redress a local grievance. Some boy was remarking the other day that Muslim participants in the TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati do not measure up to their proportion in the total
population!
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“Operation chimp”
THE Chhat Bir Zoo had just acquired a chimpanzee on a barter basis. A number of journalists had gathered to witness “operation chimp” — release of the ape into its new home. The vehicle carrying the ape entered the primate enclosure. The chimpanzee covered its face with its big palms as cameramen clicked with flash guns. A number of zoo attendants were at hand to carry out the operation. A tranquiliser shot saw the chimpanzee sit back. It got up and rubbed its eyes, giving a stare at those present. Then it walked unsteadily in the small case before collapsing. Six attendants lifted the unconscious chimpanzee. It was heavy. One of the attendants lowered the animal for a better hold. All this time the then zoo director, Dr Vinod Sharma, repeatedly told them to hurry up as he feared the tranquiliser effect may wear off. The attendant holding the right hand of the chimpanzee suddenly noticed a glint in the eyes of the ape. But before he could sound an alert, the chimp dug its teeth into the attendant’s thumb. The attendant screamed. He gave a punch on the primate’s face and pulled out his bleeding thumb. All hell broke loose as the attendants dropped the animal and ran. Everyone was for
himself. Photographer Karam Singh darted into the empty cage, meant for the chimp, and bolted it from inside. I climbed up the enclosure housing the cages at a speed that would have put even the monkeys to shame. Two more journalists followed me up. From my high perch I had a clear view of the goings on. Two of the cameramen had rushed out and could be seen 200 metres away. It was a trying time for the zoo director. He stood near the chimpanzee which was standing on its two legs with a dazed look. He knew of the danger the chimpanzee could pose to the mediamen. Time was short as the effect of the tranquiliser shot was dying. Soon a second tranquiliser shot was
ready. A perfect aim and the dart hit the thigh of the animal. The chimpanzee let out a cry, and moved towards the iron grill of the enclosure we had climbed up. It grasped the grill for some time. But then slowly it spread out on the floor as the tranquiliser began to take effect. The second-time unconscious primate was carried into the cage which cameraman Karam Singh had made his temporary abode. “Operation chimp” was
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Law must come to the aid of NRI brides ON December 30, 2006, the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs had announced a scheme to provide free legal and counseling services to NRI women as well as foreign citizens of Indian origin in distress, as a welfare measure. To begin with this scheme will be applicable in US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Gulf.
This was followed by the publication of a guidance booklet titled “Marriage to overseas Indians”. Now, another proposal as reportedly discussed on January 31, 2007, between the Overseas Affairs Minister and the Minister for Women and Child Development, has materialised. According to this proposal, the Indian Government may soon decide to stamp the marital status of Non Resident Indians on their passports. This is indeed a welcome development. But is it enough? Do we need to do more? Of a population of over one billion Indians, twenty five million are NRIs living worldwide. Times have changed but family law legislations enacted by the Indian Parliament in 1955 and 1956 have left family laws of NRIs where they were. The result, an influx of family law problems arising out of NRI marriages with no practical solutions in the legislative enactments as they exist today. To compound the problems, registration of marriages, which is optional under Hindu Family laws, has not been made compulsory in India. The result: multiple marriages by the NRI often without a previous divorce, invariably by duping the previous spouse and providing no maintenance to the abandoned wife and the unfortunate child of such union if any. Foreign divorce decrees are not accepted by Indian Courts. Defending a matrimonial matter abroad sitting in India is an impossible task. Legal recourse in India is difficult, time consuming, expensive and complicated. Despite a Family Courts Act, 1984, most States have none despite 22 years having elapsed since this law was made. The end result: about twenty five thousand abandoned women in Punjab alone fending for themselves in an uphill legal system which provides no solutions. Then, there are issues relating to inter-parental child abduction. Legal recourse is difficult, undefined and India not being a signatory to The Hague Convention on Child Abduction, there is practically no law on the subject. Still further, inter-country adoptions are governed by a maze of laws and procedures. How are all these family law related issues to be resolved? Who will do it? How will it be done? An eye opener to the gravity of one such dominant problems arising from NRI marriages is projected in a path breaking and authoritative pronouncement by a Bench of the Delhi High Court then headed by Mr Justice Vijender Jain which can be best quoted in its original form as follows: “This is one of those classic cases where Indian citizens who go abroad and marry Indian women and thereafter maltreat such women and inflict cruelty and dump them in alien and hostile environment without even bothering to give adequate maintenance. “Such persons take advantage of the fact that they are outside the jurisdiction of the Courts of India and most of the time, battered married women do not have resources to fight back and bring the culprits to face the consequences of their wrong doings.” “Therefore, in this regard, the duty is cast on the State that such persons who marry Indian women and then dump them in foreign countries by resorting to the laws of those countries for taking divorce, which may not be valid in India, and without giving any maintenance and without discharging their liabilities, to be served with the notices and the orders passed by the Court through the embassies and High Commissions of India in those countries so as to bring them under the jurisdiction of the Courts to enforce the liabilities fastened on them under India law and to make them comply with the orders passed by the Courts in India. “Indian citizens residing outside as NRIs either on account of having a residency permit or on account of having work permit should not be allowed to violate the rule of law of this country. So long they are citizens of India, they are not immune from the laws of this country and must be made to comply with the orders passed by the Courts in India.” In our country where we have plural systems of family laws and no compulsory registration of marriages despite a Supreme Court Judgement in February 2006 giving Central and State Governments three months to enact legislation for compulsory registration or marriages, multiple bigamous unions by NRIs abound. Defending summary divorce proceedings of foreign courts initiated by an erring NRI with no legal assistance or maintenance makes the hapless deserted Indian spouse suffer in agony. Caught in this crossfire are innocent children of such unfortunate marriages often bundled off against their wishes. Indian legislation provides no answers. There being no bilateral agreements or treaties with foreign countries, parallel court proceedings initiated on both sides in different country leads to a conflict of jurisdictions and flouted court orders. The legislature needs to enact a comprehensive new legislation which is a composite and wholesome answer to these social issues. The writer is a practicing advocate at the Supreme Court & the Punjab & Haryana High Court
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News analysis The much-awaited final ruling from the Supreme Court on the fate of the breakaway group of BSP MLAs, who were instrumental in installing the present Mulayam Singh Yadav government, has come as an anticlimax. Proving to be an example of ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ the three intervening years gave more than sufficient time to Mulayam Singh Yadav and his men to make yesterday’s decision completely irrelevant. It poses no direct danger to the government that in any case has only a few more weeks to go. But the judgment, possibly the last major constitutional judgment of its nature interpreting the old defection laws, has amply demonstrated how the law makers, interpreters and enforcers can play around with processes and procedures completing reducing to shreds the basic spirit of the constitution. Taking a grim view of the Allahabad High Court in delaying the matter the constitutional bench headed by CJI Balakrishnan observed: “We must express our unhappiness at the tardy manner in which a matter of some consequence and constitutional propriety was dealt with by the high court”. It is a matter of political significance that the writ petition No 5085 filed on 29 September 2003, challenging the order of the Speaker recognizing the phased breaking away of BSP MLAs as a split in the party, came up before the division bench of the High Court two days later on 1 October 2003. It was first listed to be heard exactly a week later on 8 October but was kept hanging by repeated adjournments. It was adjourned seven times and finally listed for 14 November 2003 on the request of the state’s then Advocate General. Obviously, it was no coincidence that exactly on that day Speaker Kesharinath Tripathi passed an order adjourning the petition pending before him seeking disqualification of the BSP MLAs on the ground that it would be in the interests of justice to await the decision of the High Court in the pending writ petition since the decision therein on some of the issues, would be relevant for his consideration. Now the petition was to be placed before the Speaker only after the High Court judgment! The judgment of the constitutional bench proves the connivance of the then Speaker and now the BJP state President K.N. Tripathi in facilitating the process of engineering the crucial split in the BSP to help the Mulayam Singh Yadav government prove his majority on the floor of the house and let it continue unchallenged. Denouncing the Speaker the judgment has observed: “We have no doubt that the speaker had totally misdirected himself in purporting to answer the claim of the 37 MLAs that there has been a split in the party even while leaving open the question of disqualification raised before him by way of an application that was already pending before him. This failure on the part of the speaker to decide the application seeking disqualification cannot be said to be merely in the realm of the procedure”. Speaker Kesharinath Tripathi is himself a legal expert and practices law in the Allahabad High Court. Ironically, it is the BJP under his leadership that is now training its guns at the misdeeds of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government. The party has submitted a memorandum to the governor stating that the present ‘minority’ government had no right, constitutional or moral, to continue in power. However, after enjoying the perks of office for three years it hardly matters if the 13 BSP MLAs are made to quit on the eve of elections. With the Supreme Court judgment on the BSP MLAs not making any dent in the present government all eyes are now glued to the SC verdict on a PIL into the alleged disproportionate assets case of Chief Minister Yadav and his immediate family scheduled in the apex court on 22 March 2006. Similarly, responding to the apex court’s direction of 27 November 2006 the CBI is reportedly once again moving the court with investigations detailed and evidence in connection with the Rs 175 crore Taj Heritage corridor case. However, going by recent history of corruption cases against politicians in the country it again would be no surprise if even an adverse judgment in these cases prove to be an asset during the election campaign by the respective leaders who would leave no stone unturned in projecting themselves as being hunted by their political rivals! |
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Delhi Durbar With inflation soaring, there is an air of expectation, especially among the babus in the corridors of power. As the Pay Commission is considering calculating “cost to the government” like the private sector’s “cost to the company” while framing its recommendations, officials are not happy with the proposal. This is particularly so as it would include all sorts of perks like market rent of accomodation and leave compensation. Indications are that calculation of cost to the government would result in manifold increase in the basic salary of government servants. But the actual hike would be a marginal 10 per cent in salary which has been the case in the past. So, the babus are at work to make the hike realistic and ensure that it does not pinch them hard.
Media diplomacy Pakistani Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Tariq Azim was in the capital to participate in the Rotary South Asia Goodwill Summit. He was confronted with a tricky question by a Rotarian as to whether he was happy with the coverage of Indian and Pakistani media on Indo-Pak issues. While his body language indicated that he would have loved to make some critical comments on the Indian media, Azim was after all in the Indian capital and he preferred to be diplomatic saying: “as you know media is the Fourth Estate and it has an important role to play...As far its performance is concerned I leave it to your judgement”.
Media challenge Senior Congress leaders are shying away from the media in taking questions about the possible outcome of the assembly elections in Punjab. Most of the exit polls conducted by the electronic media show a keenly contested contest but the odds are in favour of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s SAD. One of the anchors of the exit polls in a prominent TV news channel said all the Congress leaders they had contacted had backed out at the last minute without assigning any reason. However, Punjab Finance minister Surinder Singla, who agreed to appear on prime time show was pitted against two opposition leaders in BJP’s Arun Jaitley, who is in charge of Punjab, and SAD’s heir apparent Sukhbir Singh Badal. Singla put up a brave front about the Congress retaining power in Punjab, and though some were quick to say it was a rather weak defence for the Congress, Singla was at least willing to battle it out unlike his party colleagues.
Media management These days a lot of focus is laid on media management. The United States Information Department went the entire distance the other day. At a press conference of the visiting US Secretary of Commerce Carlos M Gutierrez, organised at one of the plush hotels in the capital, the number of media managers of the US Embassy and Information Department almost equalled the media persons present at the meet. This prompted one of the journalists to say, borrowing a phrase from football: “It seems they believe in one-to-one marking.”
Contributed by R Suryamurthy,
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