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Dupers on the prowl Wounds of Dabwali |
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Another Earth?
N-deal can still be saved
Gandhi all the way
A few good lies Save Chandigarh before it is too late Delhi Durbar Judicial reversals
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Dupers on the prowl ONE positive outcome of the arrest of BJP MP Babubhai Katara engaged in taking persons abroad on his family members’ passports is that it has focussed the country’s attention on the gravity of the problem. The persons going abroad were from Punjab, and the deal too had been arranged by travel agents based in the region. There have been other instances of travel agents cheating gullible people in the name of sending them abroad. All this clearly shows that the whole racket is being run with VIP blessings. Otherwise, how could it be that these fraudulent agents should be duping thousands of persons every year and yet get away lightly? Now that Punjab has woken up to the harsh reality, it has decided to appoint an officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police to expeditiously deal with such cases and to provide quick relief to the victims. If the announcement is implemented with the seriousness it deserves, and does not become just a pretext to have yet another ADGP, it can indeed ease life for the duped people. The problem of desertion of women by NRI husbands is as serious as that of human trafficking. This ADGP-rank officer is supposed to tackle this menace also. The special cell will have to play an active role and not take recourse to the weather-beaten line that “we will look into the problem when it is brought to our notice”. To begin with, enticing and misleading advertisements have to be banned. The agency will also have to keep an eagle eye on travel agents, immigration consultants and marriage bureaux. As former Central minister and Lok Bhalai Party president Balwant Singh Ramoowalia says, nearly 25,000 Indian nationals have been pushed into foreign countries by dubious travel agents during the past few years. Most of them are from Punjab. The lure of “phoren countries” is so strong, particularly in the Doaba area, that even those who have been cheated once are willing to sell the rest of their meagre land to make another try. While punishing the travel agents, the government must also start an awareness campaign to make them realise that the pot of gold that is promised to them at the end of the foreign rainbow is only a mirage. |
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Wounds of Dabwali If the survivors of the devastating Dabwali fire that claimed the lives of 442 people and left 150 others seriously injured more than 11 years ago still carry the scars of the tragedy, it is partly because of the agonisingly slow process of relief distribution. The one-man commission headed by Justice (retd) T.P. Garg, which was to decide on compensation and fix responsibility for the fire, was given one more extension of six months by the Punjab and Haryana Court on Wednesday. Before that the commission, set up on January 29, 2003, had already been given six extensions. Soon after the Dabwali fire, the then Prime Minister, Mr Narasimha Rao, had announced “immediate” assistance for the injured. But the survivors perhaps did not realise then how painful it would be to get the promised relief. Since official machinery failed to deliver, the victims approached the high court, which contsituted a commission. The state government has paid some compensation for the dead and the injured, but that is not considered good enough. In his latest report to the high court Justice Garg has submitted that he will complete arguments in all cases of compensation for the dead by the end of this month and then begin arguments for relief to the injured. The then Sirsa Deputy Commission, who was indicted for dereliction of duty, has been penalised. Three accused persons were jailed and the fourth had died during trial. Few lessens, however, have been learnt from the Dabwali fire. Judicial delays such as witnessed in this case may dent public faith in judicial commissions. There are reports of marriage palaces still flouting fire safety rules. Two years later the Uphaar fire tragedy had occurred, but the victims in this case had got justice in 2003. The Dabwali fire survivors are not that lucky. Some have sold their houses and moved out of town to erase unpleasant memories. |
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Another Earth? THE idea that there could be life beyond earth so captures the human imagination that every time a new discovery throws up the possibility, there is general excitement all around. The rocky planet discovered orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581, is the closest thing to an Earth-like planet we have found yet. At 20.5 light years away, it is quite a distance. If we are to take the next Shuttle out of Earth to Gliese, say, travelling at the speed of light, which is 107,92,52,848.8 kilometres per hour, we will get there in 20 odd years. Gliese 581c, the planet, takes just 13 Earth days to orbit its sun, as it is pretty close to it. On the other hand, this “sun” is a red dwarf and, therefore, much cooler than our sun. A rough estimate by scientists has put the temperature on the planet in the 0 degrees to 40 degrees centigrade range, which appears a bit more congenial than the polar and desert temperatures Earth features. Scientists note that its “relative proximity” will make it the first target of future space missions looking for life in outer space. The planet has not been directly observed yet, but its tidally locked-in orbit suggests that one half of it will be perennially day, and the other half night. Its radius is 50 per cent larger than the Earth’s and about five times as massive. Possibility for life mostly focuses on the fact that the temperatures allow for liquid water to be present. As human beings, we clearly do not want to be alone in space. As we search for life “out there” with more and more sophisticated instruments and the technologies for missions that fly out farther and farther into space, we will continue to learn a lot more about the universe. And we might well find what we are looking for…if we are not found first! |
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If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. —
Thomas Hardy |
N-deal can still be saved During the brief India-US honeymoon between the advent of the second Clinton Administration and the Indian nuclear tests, there was an effort to identify the problems standing in the way of a meaningful bilateral relationship. We did not fail to impress upon our American interlocutors that the “first, second and third” impediment was technology denial. The refrain at that time, more in helplessness than in acceptance, was that the domestic laws of the US could not be changed to accommodate India. Now, after much activity that lasted nearly two years and the adoption of the Hyde Act with much fanfare for precisely changing the US law, a spokesman of the State Department has used the same words: “US laws cannot be changed.” Are we back to square one? When US diplomats said a couple of weeks ago that the ball was in India’s court, it appeared that true negotiations were over and the blame game had begun. The tennis metaphor is not very apt when the two sides are engaged in a joint effort to find a solution. But it becomes appropriate when each side tries to score a point over the other, leading to victory for one and defeat for the other. In that kind of a situation, throwing the ball back is all that each side is concerned about. And the ball must go in such a way that the other side finds it difficult to return. If the other side crumbles, it is all the better for this side. Perhaps, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will go to Washington to throw the ball back to the US court in the expectation that it will never be returned. Another interesting comment by the State Department was that the discussion should now be on the political rather than the diplomatic level. One characteristic feature of the nuclear deal was that it came from top to bottom rather than the other way round. Specialists and diplomats were largely in the dark when the Joint Statement was finalised in Washington. The political decision was taken long ago and it was for scientists, diplomats and legislators to give the deal a concrete shape. With the wealth of wisdom generated by them for over two years, political leaders will hardly be able to have the kind of clear vision they had in 2005. In fact, their hands and feet are tied so tightly on this issue that they would not be able to tango even if they wish to do so. To call for a political solution at this stage is to admit failure. Failure, they say, is an orphan. But in this case, the failure has many fathers and they must all be acknowledged. Our scientists, at least some of them, should take the credit for creating an impression that the deal is neither necessary nor desirable. Their concerns about their autonomy vis-à-vis the inspectors of the IAEA has fanned the flames of patriotism among the people, who are quite content to let them reinvent the wheel. Some of the very same scientists who argued vehemently against technology denial now consider it a blessing, as though their inventiveness can bloom only in crisis situations. The thorium route is suddenly not a distant dream anymore in the eyes of the public as a result of some of the claims made. For the leftists, of course, the whole issue is about US domination and neocolonialism. They admire China for making use of every capitalist opportunity to bring prosperity to its people, but they do not trust the ability of the Government of India to resist US pressure. In the process of fighting American domination in the nuclear arena, they found common cause with undemocratic and religious regimes. To them, the battle is won as long as the Americans are kept at bay. The non-proliferationists in the US will have the last laugh if the deal fails. They have been working strenuously to thwart the administration’s efforts to give India an alternative to the NPT to secure legitimacy as a responsible technologically advanced state. They successfully influenced the US Congressmen to introduce various elements to the deal, thereby ensuring that it becomes unacceptable to India. At every stage, they took care not to cast aspersions on India, but pointed to the danger of rogue nations taking advantage of the Indian example. In effect, however, they scuttled the understanding of 2005. For them, the NPT is sacrosanct and any deviation from it is an anathema. President Bush appeared to be willing, at one stage, to overrule the Congress, but he became powerless to do so in the aftermath of the Iraq debacle. Fundamentally, India and the United States saw the deal differently, partly by closing their eyes to what they did not want to see and partly in the pious hope that things would work out eventually. India saw it as a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, which has no bearing on our strategic assets. For the US, it was always a non-proliferation exercise to cap India’s nuclear weapon capability. For India, the assurance that it will have the same rights and obligations as similar countries like the US was sufficient to get over the problem of discrimination. But for the US, the beef was in the formalisation of India’s moratorium on testing, its willingness to enter into negotiations on the FMCT and general strategic restraint, the same “benchmarks” that Mr Strobe Talbott tried to extract from Mr Jaswant Singh. The deal was an incentive to get India into a certain discipline in nuclear matters without insisting on a signature on the NPT. The disillusionment on both sides became apparent as the details of the deal began to emerge. The merit of the Joint Statement was that it had a balance of rights and obligations that appealed to both sides. The enormous effort that several interested circles made to make the deal a reality was unprecedented. The Indian-American community and the business community genuinely believed that the Hyde Act, with all its conditions, would somehow find a way out of the technology denial regime. They did not think that the deal-breakers that various legislators inserted into the Bill would not harm it since the leadership on both sides was determined to strike a deal. They underestimated the capacity of the opponents of the deal to sway public opinion. It will be no easy task to stimulate these groups again to launch a similar campaign. The lobbying companies, which made a killing by charging hefty fees, are the true beneficiaries of the entire exercise. It is not beyond the ingenuity of Indian and US diplomats to get around the remaining issues with suitable formulations. The issue of reprocessing can be tackled by bringing the IAEA into the picture, if the concern is only the diversion of plutonium for weapon purposes. Similarly, India has to accept that in the event of an Indian test in its supreme national interests, there will be no further supply of fuel. Perpetuity in international agreements is to be understood as applicable to normal circumstances, not cataclysmic ones. In fact, there may be merit in striking a deal for a limited duration, with a provision for extension with mutual agreement. The question as to who will be the loser if the deal ultimately falls through has begun to be asked. Here, there should be no dispute as the status quo will hurt India more and we are the ones who sought a change. But that is irrelevant in the larger context of broader national interests. No side can blame the other for not playing the ball. The ball is in both courts and a joint effort is necessary to end the game in victory for
both. The writer is a former Ambassador of India to the UN, Vienna
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Gandhi all the way
RICHARD Attenborough's “Gandhi” had captured media attention. Working in an isolated residential school in Himachal, I wondered if I would ever get to see it. Then our Headmaster, with his usual initiative and enterprise, procured a videocassette of the film. A TV was rigged up in the school hall, and we watched the film in small groups. LCD projection was still in the future and we sat in a semi-circle peering at the TV screen, lapping up everything with immense concentration. Two days later I left to attend a workshop at our sister school in Lovedale, near Ooty. I had a stopover at Delhi. My gracious hostess laid on an early dinner. “We've got tickets for 'Gandhi',” she said. She made it sound as if this had been done specially for me and I knew it would be churlish to say that I had seen the film less than 48 hours before. So I went and saw “Gandhi” again. It was a long and tiring journey to Lovedale. Fortunately, after a short briefing, we were free to go to our rooms and catch up on our sleep. “But please make sure you assemble in front of the main school building at five fortyfive.” We assembled dutifully at the appointed place, at the appointed time, were loaded into the school bus and driven into town. I looked forward to exploring the shops for the famed local chocolates and cheeses and for antique Toda jewellery. But the bus did not stop at the town centre and drove straight to a cinema hall and we all trooped in to see “Gandhi” — a special treat that had been laid on for us! I had a cousin who was at that time Deputy Commandant of the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington and I had promised to have a meal with him on my way down to Coimbatore after the workshop. When I sat down to breakfast on the last day I received a message that a car had come for me and the driver bore a letter. It was a handwritten note from Rita, my cousin's wife. “Do make sure you reach here by 10.30 a.m. The gates close at a quarter to eleven.” I abandoned my half-eaten breakfast, made hasty and cursory farewells and rushed into the waiting car. Rita and Harkirat were waiting at their gate and climbed into the car. We drove on to the auditorium. The gates did close at 10.45 a.m. and I sat through another screening of “Gandhi”. When I returned to school three days later, I found a note from the Headmaster waiting for me. “Gandhi” was now being screened in Chandigarh and he wanted the children to experience it on the wide screen. Would I be one of the escorts? It was not till 10 years later that I could bring myself to watch “Gandhi” again and to recognise and appreciate it as the masterpiece that it is. |
A few good lies Truth, it is famously said, is the first casualty of war. And thus it has been for two of the most celebrated official heroes of America’s campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. One was Pat Tillman, the pro-football star who gave up the US National Football League’s riches to serve, and ultimately die for, his country. The other was a young woman from West Virginia whose capture and rescue in the early days of the Iraq conflict inspired the TV drama-documentary Saving Jessica Lynch. Now, however, the two stories have returned to haunt the Pentagon. Both stand revealed as propaganda operations in which the truth was deliberately distorted to inspire a country and allay public doubts about the righteousness of the cause. For the US military they have become a colossal embarrassment; for gleeful Democrats they are another stick with which to beat an already battered administration. Earlier this week, the two cases converged in a hearing of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by the California congressman Henry Waxman, an especially harsh tormentor of the Bush White House since the Democrats recaptured Congress last November. Waxman promises to follow both affairs wherever they lead - in the Tillman case, he hints, perhaps to a cover-up involving Donald Rumsfeld, the former defence secretary, in person. Of the two, the Jessica Lynch saga contains the lesser danger for the administration. She was taken prisoner by Saddam Hussein’s troops, and freed from hospital within the space of barely a week in March and April 2003. By the end of that year the initial version of her capture and release, featuring her as a latter-day Annie Oakley who went down all guns firing, and her liberators as all-American supermen, had been demolished as a feel-good PR special dreamt up by the Pentagon. In fact she was rendered unconscious by the crash of her vehicle. As for her release, it was a splendid opportunity to showcase military derring-do, in the shape of a dramatic (and conveniently filmed) assault against what in fact was an unresisting hospital. From early on, Ms Lynch complained that she felt she had been used. This week she made her feelings crystal clear again, to Waxman’s committee. “The story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting is not true,” she said. “The bottom line is, the American people are capable of determining their own ideals for heroes, and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies.” When NBC ran its film in November 2003, she noted later, such were the inaccuracies she could not bear to watch it through to the end. But her case, to all intents and purposes, is closed. Not so that of Corporal (posthumously promoted to Sergeant) Tillman. His story was the stuff of a military recruiter’s dreams. An established star with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League, he turned down a $3.6 million contract in 2002 to enlist in the elite Army Rangers, to hunt down those responsible for the 9/11 attacks six months earlier. He was handsome, personable, and just 27 years old when he was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in April 2004. This fact was known to members of his unit, but was instantly suppressed. It took more than a month for his family to be notified of what had happened, by which time the US Army had concocted the story of how he died under enemy fire - and also concocted a citation for a Silver Star, the military’s third highest award for valour in combat. Since then matters have grown steadily more convoluted, despite two investigations and a report from the Pentagon’s inspector general that identified nine officers who might be disciplined over the affair. One of them, Lt General Philip Kensinger, head of Army special operations in 2004, refused to testify to the committee on Tuesday, invoking his right to avoid self-incrimination. But the new information that did emerge was damaging enough. An Army Ranger who was with Sgt Tillman when he died told how he realised at once that friendly fire was to blame, and wanted to tell Kevin Tillman, Pat’s brother, who was serving in the same unit. But he was ordered not to by his battalion commander, with an implicit warning that he “would get in trouble” if he disobeyed. Kevin’s testimony was even more bitter. He accused the military of “deliberate and calculated lies” designed to transform his brother’s tragic death into “an inspirational message” - carefully timed to divert attention from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal which erupted only days later, and mounting US casualties in Iraq. Waxman now wants to resolve the question left unanswered by the Pentagon reports, of how high the cover-up extended. As Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother, noted, her son’s decision to give up a lucrative NFL career attracted so much attention that Rumsfeld in 2002 sent him a personal letter of thanks. It was inconceivable the latter was not informed when he died, Ms Tillman argues. Thus, too, the ominous words of Waxman, redolent of countless Washington scandals past. “We don’t know what the secretary of defence knew, and we don’t know what the White House knew. These are questions this committee seeks answers to.” In other words, Donald Rumsfeld’s thus far quiet retirement may be rudely interrupted, by a personal appearance before Waxman and his fellow searchers for truth. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Save Chandigarh before it is too late The average citizen of Chandigarh, who invested his savings in settling down in the city when it was being raised in the Sixties, is today disillusioned and does not know whom to turn to when it comes to his leading a peaceful and hassle free life as a law abiding citizen. That the political masters and their representatives have not made the life of the citizen any easier would of course be an understatement. Pressing matters of state like whether the city would ever be handed over to Punjab or whether a Monorail is a necessity, so dominate their minds, that the day to day minimum essentials of a safe, pollution and noise free environment that a Chandigarian would hope for, is lost sight of. All of us, the residents of the city, the elected and nominated members of the Municipal Corporation, the Chandigarh Administration itself, and the politicians of Haryana and Punjab and at the Centre, are all to be held to account. What is it that you and I who live in this city wish for, and are not getting? We certainly do not wish to be run over while walking on our street, by reckless, young drivers who go tearing down in their cars and motor cycles as if the devil was riding on their back. We do not wish for an early morning propagation of religion from our Gurudwaras and Mandirs if the loudspeakers are not toned down to bearable decibel levels. We must ask ourselves as to why we cannot practice our religion less silently and within ourselves. Are we impressing God when we wake up the whole colony from its slumber at 4 A.M or thereabouts? We certainly do not want dogs biting us as we take an evening walk, or for that matter a battalion of monkeys raiding our roof tops in full force when it is time to read the morning newspaper. Neither do we need the blaring sounds of an early morning brass band when a happy groom is returning home with his bride, or of a noisy satsang or some other religious function emerging from many of the Bhavans that the Adminstration has from time to time so liberally allocated within the residential areas of our city. And we positively do not want parks in our sectors where “dogs and playing of cricket” is strictly forbidden by the Municipal Committee itself, being overrun by dog owners having their favourite canine urinating and shitting all over the place, or young boys running amuck playing cricket and breaking the window panes of the adjoining houses and making so much noise that even Kumbkarna would be jolted out of his sleep. Only the other day a poor horse was hit on the head and died because of a cricket ball If the rich Indian wishes to keep his dog in crowded cities, then like in New York he had better lift his pet’s business himself and dispose it off in dustbins that need to be provided at short distances. How many of our pet dogs in the city carry collars or are registered? And what pray is being done when at street corners juice shops open up overnight, causing traffic jams and accidents? And what about the domestic help and their fast multiplying families, where their sibling roam about like press gangs, making noise and shouting as if they owned the place? And as regards the unchecked immigration into the city of workers from other states over the last two decades, and the law and order and criminal graph going up, the less said the better. Are not our politicians aware of the consequences of an unchecked overburdening of the existing infrastructure, where a city meant for five lakh has now blown up to over a million? Or is the greed for the vote bank from the bastees and jhugees too over powering for our MPs and other law makers? Where do we go from here, is the question that needs to be answered. We citizens of Chandigarh, while aware of our rights, do also need to start living by some code of conduct and carry out our civic duties to the full, checking and correcting on the spot where we see things going wrong. Turning away from a situation or ignoring it, or worse expecting someone else to come and rectify it, will just not do. We have our Municipality and the Mayor, and they must be compelled to address the legitimate demands of their constituency, failing which a system of recall needs to be instituted where others more willing to resolve a problem can be installed. |
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Delhi Durbar Minister of State for Steel, Akhilesh Das, a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh and a former Mayor, is eyeing the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency currently represented by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Das is presently concentrating on the assembly elections in the state. With his excellent relations with the Congress high command, he has got tickets for his followers, which include a former IPS officer, a builder, and a hotel chain owner. Das, who owns a couple of three-star hotels in the state capital, is known for his hospitality and is said to have entertained even Rahul Gandhi with Avadh delicacies. He is getting together a young brigade and regularly meets upcoming youth leaders from every locality of the state capital.
Judicial reversals The UPA Government is on the defensive in almost all the cases coming up before the Supreme Court pertaining to vital constitutional questions, and has suffered a series of setbacks due to adverse verdicts. Questions are being raised by its allies, especially the Left, on the manner in which the cases are being pursued. Their ire is directed against the Law Ministry. Publically, the Left parties are projecting a judicial overreach. Insiders say that they have conveyed their concern to the Prime Minister, about how the adverse verdicts, in one case after another, have caused a major dent to the image of the coalition. They have cited the verdicts on illegal Bangaldeshi migrants in Assam, President's rule in Bihar, the Ninth Schedule, Delhi’s Master Plan and the OBC quota, as the examples where the Law Ministry has failed miserably. Apparently the heat is directed more at Law Minister H. R. Bhardwaj, a close confidante of 10, Janpath.
Scaring smokers Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss minces no words in telling smokers that smoking kills. Addressing the media ahead of a journalistic boot camp on the rising cancer and tobacco burden in the capital, Ramadoss said that there is nothing wrong in the proposed pictoral warnings on cigarette packets. The graphic new visuals will highlight the damage caused by smoking. The Health Minister said that the government had spent a lot of money to educate the public on the harmful effects of tobacco. “It is time now to scare them.”
While the lassi is ever popular, problems like short shelf-life have hindered the marketability of the drink. The Karnal based National Dairy Research Institute has developed ingredients for the formulation of a mango lassi. The scientists have also successfully extended the shelf-life of mango lassi using bio-preservatives. Now that mangoes have started tickling American tastebuds, perhaps the day is not far away when the mango lassi would share the table with hotdogs, burgers and pizzas. Contributed by Satish Misra, S. S. Negi, Tripti Nath and R. Suryamurthy |
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