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Provocative behaviour Empowering growth |
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Sponsors’ mischief
Asian Games vs the poor
Dadi Maa Kay Nuskhay
How multiculturalism can betray women Poverty of state action in Haryana Delhi Durbar Hamirpur polls Heroes, not terrorists
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Provocative behaviour SUNDAY'S air raids by the LTTE on two oil depots in Kolonnava and Muthurajawela areas in Colombo cannot be treated as acts of desperation. The terrorist outfit, which has set up an air wing, earlier struck at two air bases of the Sri Lanka Air Force at Katunayake and Palali on March 26 and April 24. This shows that the LTTE, perhaps, wants to convey the hard message that it has acquired enough military muscle to carry on its destructive activities. But this is too provocative behaviour to be ignored by the world community. A terrorist outfit acquiring air power is an alarming development. It needs to be viewed with utmost seriousness not only by Colombo but India also in the interest of peace and stability in South Asia. The LTTE says it targeted the fuel facilities because these were used by the Sri Lanka Air Force to destroy LTTE assets. Obviously, the LTTE air-strikes may lead to punitive action by the Sri Lanka Air Force, renewing tension in the island-nation. But it is now more difficult to tame the LTTE than earlier. So far, the unrest in Sri Lanka has affected economic activity only in that country. But now the other regional economies may also suffer. This calls for a fresh debate on how to face the fresh challenge posed by an untamed LTTE. The 2002 ceasefire agreement reached between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE is just a tattered piece of paper. The LTTE, it seems, has used the accord only to regroup itself. LTTE chief Prabhakaran reportedly told his cadres soon after the agreement was signed that they should use the opportunity to prepare themselves for “a bigger battle” in the days to become. This means that what he says has nothing to do with what he actually does. The truth is that the man wedded to violence to achieve his so-called objective can hardly accept a peaceful way of resolving a conflict. |
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Empowering growth NORTH India is in for another summer of discontent as the supply of power fails to keep pace with the growing demand. According to reports of the 17th Power Survey, the demand for power grows faster in the northern states than the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are known industrial hubs. The desperation for power can be gauged from the fact that states like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have offered to buy power at Rs 7 a unit from any source against the normal cost of Rs 2.50 to Rs 3 per unit. Punjab too spends about Rs 2,000 crore each year to buy power from other states. This year it may have to pay more for meeting the increased demand in summer. Reasons are many for this bleak scenario. Apart from the demand-supply mismatch, power is in short supply because of high transmission and distribution losses, which run up to 40 per cent in some cases. Mega projects have a long gestation period. The Dabhol project is yet to take off. Targets are set but not fully realised. During the 10th Plan period that ended in March, 2007, the power target realisation was just 56 per cent. Moreover, the poor financial health of various state electricity boards, disruptions in the supply of coal and inadequate availability of gas also contribute to the prevailing mess. To achieve and sustain 9 per cent growth, the country needs to tap every available source of power and strengthen the distribution network. Hydel and nuclear projects can provide cheaper power but resource constraints and a biased mindset come in the way. According to an estimate of a working group set up by the Centre, Rs 10 lakh crore is required to generate more power and put in place reliable transmission and distribution infrastructure by 2012. The electricity-deficit states will have to pool resources, encourage private investment, speed up power reforms and improve the fiscal health of their power utilities. |
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Sponsors’ mischief IT is what every fan has come to believe and many an insider has hinted at. And now none less than the BCCI chief has said it openly. Commercial sponsors of cricket players manage to exercise undue influence on team selection. There is nothing here that is surprising. Any big corporate which pays crores of rupees to hire several cricketers would like to get the money’s worth and try to keep those cricketers in the team who are visible on television screens for the maximum time possible, if not doing a great job for the team and the country. There have already been some expected denials from selectors and commercial quarters. Even Mr Sharad Pawar, when prodded in the interview where he made these remarks, lamely pointed to some “young players” as the source of this “feeling” and stressed that he had “full faith” in the selectors. There might be some more backing down in the coming days. There will be BCCI-style clarifications. But the truth is widely known. For it requires no great feat of the imagination to see how such illicit influence can work, in subtle and not so subtle ways. It is time to put a stop to what amounts to corrupting one of the most popular games in the country. The BCCI has stirred itself out of inaction and made a start in limiting endorsements. Under players’ protests, there is needless talk now of “flexibility” on this issue and willingness to “discuss with the players.” While any injustice to players should be avoided, the BCCI should not succumb and let things drift back to the status quo ante. For there is no doubt that unregulated commercial involvement is detrimental to players’ performance, even when they may have the best of intentions. Ultimately it is not about whether they are allowed three, four or five endorsements, or whether a company is allowed one, two or three players. It is about everyone recognising that there is a larger interest involved. Those who think otherwise should be asked to keep out of the game. |
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There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies. |
Asian Games vs the poor IT is a matter of great relief that the Asian Games bid by the Government of India has failed. To say this amounts to inviting the charge of being anti-patriotic and sports spoiler, but when one feels so strongly about it one has to take the risk of so being charged, which, in fact, is not true. Let me at once disabuse anyone of my being anti-sports. During college days in 1945, this writer was a triple-holder of Punjab tennis championship. So, at best my bona fides should not be suspicious. My opposition arises from the perversion of priorities shown by official agencies to the complete insensitivity to the real problem being faced by the masses and a readiness for unconscionable reckless expense which could and should be utilised for the uplift of poor millions. The canard that ventures like the Commonwealth Games or ASIAD add to the development of infrastructure in the city and to the encouragement of sports among the mass of poor people is puerile and not borne out of actual experience. We have had ASIAD in the eighties. But the sports victories have not improved. Stadiums have remained unused for years and then put to non-sports and even for temporary residence of security forces. The Employment Guarantee Scheme is being reduced to 100 days of employment in 200 districts rather 200 days in all 500 districts as was originally announced. The apparent reason is the shortage of funds. But this contrasts so embarrassingly with the open offer by the association to give a couple of million dollars to each of the participants. The poor in the country should be thankful that in this game of bribe-prone incentives, we were outbidden. The lament of the organisers that a terrific blow has been struck at the sports climate in the country is phoney. Our sporting spirit is such that in spite of our credible proud record of cricket championship victories in the past, we bay for blood of our fine team because they were out in the World Cup. The canard that these games help in developing a city, especially Delhi, is belied on the face of it. None of the expenses on the previous ASIAD has relieved the poor of his housing needs. Delhi is reeling under electricity breakdowns and shortage — water is not available even for two hours in most of the localities — and half of the city is without a toilet, and water-taps at home. Of course, we have added five-star hotels and malls, they only create an illusion of development. The only worthwhile and pro-masses development is the Metro Rail and that has nothing to do with the infrastructure conceived by the game clique. The country has officially over 301 million people below the poverty level — which in reality means the capacity per individual to spend daily being only Rs 12 (in rural areas) and Rs 18 (in urban areas) — and if the unofficial modest figure of Rs 820 per month was taken as the poverty level, only 10 per cent of the country’s population would be above the poverty level. With our overwhelming mass of people growing under such gruesome deprivation, the effort of the organisers to purportedly call these games as beneficial to the people reminds one of the circuses held in the past by Roman emperors and the suicidal strain of Queen Marie Antoinettee, who chided the starving mobs protesting at the lack of bread by shouting that if they did not have bread let them instead eat cakes. It is fallacious to assume that holding ASIAD in the present circumstances will enhance the prestige of India in the comity of nations. Have the organisers not heard that these are now arranged for foreigners’ slum tours, meaning that visitors are taken to our shanties and filthy dwellings of the poor? The answer to that is not to waste resources in ornamental games, but to open more schools, reduce malnutrition among children and provide sports facilities, libraries and common rooms in poor localities, give training to young hopefuls, have officials in charge who are sports persons and not political favourities out to capture funding and enjoy foreign jauntings. While three billionaires in the Forbes fortune list get headlines in the media, only a passing reference is given to the fact that the number of years a child goes to school is between three and four. As many as 300 million people are unemployed/employable and only 45 million are actually registered with employment offices with little or no hope of getting jobs. The World Bank’s definition of $1 per day per person, or $365 per year is the extreme poverty line. Only 5 per cent of Indians understand English, yet most of the websites of the Government of India, state governments and public institutions are in English! The number of very poor — below the poverty line — was 115 million in 2004-05. Rs 57,000 crore (25 per cent of the cost of our Indian bureaucracy), if saved, could bring everybody above the poverty line. The governments, should, therefore, work towards that end — say goodbye to holding games for two decades. The debate on this matter has to be done with an open mind and not in the false premises of the country’s honour. Too often, we have seen these officials and sporting enthusiasts in the government going on extended holidays abroad, all in the name of how various foreign countries had made preparations when they held games — the group included officials who had nothing to do with the preparation for games and were actually due to retire on return. We have also vivid instances of how our potential young sports persons when taken abroad were put up in dormitories in low-priced motels while the managers, the official coterie (many of them may not even be knowing the technique of the game), holidaying regally in five-star hotels. Enough of hypocrisy and wasteful expense at the cost of our young sports men and women — divert this money to train/equip them, give them equipment of the world standard, ensure their career and let sports persons of recognition be in charge; throw off the yoke of transitory politicians and free sports from the stranglehold of bloated bureaucrats (none of whom could even distinguish a penalty corner from a head hit. The recent tragic shooting by a university student in the US, giving vent to his frustration at the vulgar display of wealth by co-students, should give a warning to our so-called Asian Games The writer is a former Chief Justice, High Court of Delhi.
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Dadi Maa Kay Nuskhay DURING our younger days, legendary Vijay Merchant, Vijay Hazaray, Lala Amar Nath and many others, who came to limelight, were never coached by foreign experts or visited a gym. It was their grit, determination, hard work, tips of the game passed on by elders and love of the game that had inspired and helped them to reach the heights. Those days the player had to arrange funds out of his own resources. Money was not the sole consideration. Coming from the Princely State of Patiala, well known as the nursery of sports and particularly of cricket, I had witnessed Lala Amar Nath being offered one rupee a run if he scored a century in one of the Ranji Trophy matches in Bara Dari Cricket Ground, Patiala. That day he did score a century and was extremely happy with the hundred rupees “Prize Money”! At present even the loser of league matches in the World Cup would receive a huge amount of money. Lala Amar Nath became the Director of Sports on the formation of Pepsu and in this capacity he had to look after the development of all sports. Being a badminton player, I had to meet him frequently. Soon I developed a personal rapport with him and he gave me many tips for the improvement of my game. He would humorously term them as “Dadi Maa Kay Nuskhey” inherited by him! Another interesting incident which has refused to fade out is about the Punjab Police hockey team during the days Mr Ashwani Kumar was the Inspector-General of Police and was heading this sports body. The Punjab Police hockey team will invariably win most of the major tournaments. Once I asked a player the secret of their success. Reluctantly, he parted with the secret. He told me that if their team won any tournament, all the members would not only receive “appreciation letters” but also promotion by one rank. In case they returned defeated, then all would have to face severe punishment. Any taker for
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How multiculturalism can betray women DO you believe in the rights of women, or do you believe in multiculturalism? A series of verdicts in the German courts in the past month, have shown with hot, hard logic that you can’t back both. You have to choose. The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats. So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of women would find it very easy to make a judgement: you’re free from this man, case dismissed. But Judge Christa Datz-Winter followed the logic of multiculturalism instead. She said she would not grant an early divorce because - despite the police documentation of extreme violence and continued threats - there was no “unreasonable hardship” here. Why? Because the woman, as a Muslim, should have “expected” it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the “right to use corporal punishment”. Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you. That’s your culture. Goodbye, and enjoy your beatings. This is not a freakish exception. Germany’s only state-level Minister for Integration, Armin Laschet, says this is only “the last link, for the time being, in a chain of horrific rulings handed down by the German courts”. The German magazine Der Spiegel has documented a long list of these multicultural verdicts. Here are just a few: A Lebanese-German who strangled his daughter Ibthahale and then beat her unconscious with a bludgeon because she didn’t want to marry the man he had picked out for her was sentenced to mere probation. His “cultural background” was cited by the judge as a mitigating factor. A Turkish-German who stabbed his wife Zeynep to death in Frankfurt was given the lowest possible sentence, because, the judge said, the murdered woman had violated his “male honour, derived from his Anatolian moral concepts”. A Lebanese-German who raped his wife Fatima while whipping her with a belt was sentenced to probation, with the judge citing his ... you get the idea. In Germany today, Muslim women have been reduced to third-class citizens stripped of core legal protections - because of the doctrine of multiculturalism, which says a society should be divided into separate cultures with different norms according to ethnic origin. These German cases highlight the flaw at the core of multiculturalism. It assumes that immigrants have one homogenous culture which they should all follow - and it allows the most reactionary and revolting men in their midst to define what that culture is. Across Europe, many imams are offering advice to Muslim men on how to beat Muslim women. For example, in Spain, the popular Imam Mohammed Kamal Mustafa warns that you shouldn’t use “whips that are too thick” because they leave scars that can be detected by the “infidels”. That might be Mustafa’s culture - but it isn’t Nishal’s. It isn’t the culture of the women who scream and weep as they are beaten. And yes, we should admit that this is disproportionately a problem among Muslim, Sikh and Hindu immigrants who arrive from countries which have not had women’s rights movements. Listen to Jasvinder Sanghera, who founded the best British charity helping Asian women after her sister was beaten and beaten and then burned herself to death. She says: “It’s a betrayal of these women to be PC about this. Look at the figures. Asian women in Britain are three times more likely to commit suicide than their white friends. That’s because of all this.” Yet the brave campaigners who have tried to help these women - like the British Labour MP Ann Cryer - have been smeared as racist. In fact, the real racists are the people who vehemently condemn misogyny and homophobia when it comes from white people but mysteriously fall silent when it comes from black and Asian men. Indeed, in the name of this warm, welcoming multiculturalism, the German courts have explicitly compared Muslim women to the brain-damaged. The highest administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia has agreed that Muslim parents have the “right” to forbid their daughter from going on a school trip unless she was accompanied by a male family member at all times. The judges said the girl was like “a partially mentally impaired person who, because of her disability, can only travel with a companion”. Multiculturalists believe that they are defending immigrants. But in reality, they are betraying at least 55 per cent of them - the women and the gays. It is multiculturalists, for example, who are the biggest champions of the Government’s massive expansion of “faith” schools, where children will be segregated according to parental superstition and often taught the most literalist and cruel strain of a “faith”. We desperately need to empower Muslim women to reinterpret the Koran in less literalist and vicious ways, or to leave their religion all together, as they wish. But multiculturalism hobbles them before they even begin, by saying they should stick to the “authentic” culture represented by the imams. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Poverty of state action in Haryana THE poverty ratio figures released at the end of March this year, based on the National Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) 61st round survey for 2004-05, clearly indicate the worsening of the poverty ratio in Haryana. Roughly, one in every 10 Haryanvi in 2004-05 was directly looking towards the state policies and programmes for livelihood options, as well as sustenance of body and soul. Two contradictory pieces of recent information have further added to the confusion. They are the Haryana Finance Minister’s budget speech determination to ensure that Haryana remains in the forefront of the ‘India Growth Story’ and the newest (mid-February 2007) decision to scrap the poverty line survey. The former relates to the economic performance experience while the later is with regard to ensuring social justice. Both are integral parts of the constitutional obligation. Interestingly, 2004-05, provides a potent dividing line between the ‘India Shining’ and the ‘India Growth Story’. The devil is indeed in the details. Does it mean that the poor have become poorer in Haryana in general and rural areas in particular? Yes, the growth story line of the ‘India Shining’ framework did make for the worse fears coming true. But why the knee-jerk move to resurvey the poor people in rural Haryana? The comparable Below Poverty Line (BPL) figures between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, distinctly non-Congress periods, indicate about one percentage point (21.5 lakh) increase in rural Haryana. The rural-urban combined increase is to the tune of 1.16 percentage points (32.1 lakh). The growth storyline again comes into focus for two significant reasons. First, the high economic growth must also translate itself into higher rates of poverty reduction. This has not happened in Haryana. This deficiency is solely on account of poor operating procedures of the department charged with poverty alleviation programmes. Problems with identification of the poor households are merely a ruse for no action. Secondly, the agriculture sector, undoubtedly, is the key. The saga of her neglect acutely reflects on the source of growth. During the 1999-2000 to 2004-05 periods, the primary sector’s share in the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) came down from about one-third (32 per cent) to slightly over one-fifth (23 per cent). In this fall, the growth rate too declined, decaying the fruit of gains. This resulted in a sharp dip in the real wages. The state machinery could not wake up from her slumber due to complete lack of sensitivities. Have we anything new to suggest that pro-poor sensitivities have developed amongst the functionaries? The cutting-edge level functionaries carried out the 2006 BPL survey. Have they acquired some magical capacity in 2007 to properly identify the poor households? The Planning Commission prescribed format of 13 parameters in four levels, is certainly not flawless. But the involvement of gram sabha and scaling methods did attempt some element of transparency. The manufactured consent, for instance, of the gram sabha is the oft-quoted field reality. The same set of officials will carry out the fresh survey, albeit, on five parameters alone. Before the appropriateness of this approach is examined, new parametres need to be listed. These vague and arbitrary considerations are land-holding, type of house, household goods, literacy level of the earning member and source of livelihood. The inventiveness of the field functionaries therefore will get all opportunity for practice. The main cause of action for the fresh survey is to get more development assistance from the central kitty on account of poverty reduction strategy. The state claims to be on a high income growth pathways where the agriculture sector is in the red. The tertiary (services) sector with about 45% share was clocking nearly 12% growth rate. Obviously, the Haryana rural development mandarins in particular and the development planners in general, have forgotten their fundamentals. An update will greatly help them to realise and reiterate a strong correlation between the agriculture sector performance, real wages and poverty reduction. Must the rural population suffer these archaic, development pen-pushers? The national common minimum programme, the millennium development goals and the Supreme Court in the recent past have emphasised on the decentralisation of delivery of public services that alleviate poverty. The poverty of action has indeed made a mockery of the poverty alleviation programme in a high-income growth state. The writer is the Convenor, National Implementing Agency, Capacity Building for Poverty Reduction, at the Haryana Institute of Public Administration |
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Delhi Durbar THE UPA government is often on the defensive in the Supreme Court in important cases. It had a pleasant surprise recently with Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh proving to be its saviour. Believed to have been inducted a year ago at the instance of union railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, Singh has proved to be a tough nut. Ever since he was handed over some of the important cases, he has been taking a hard stand on “judicial overreach” and was blunt in telling the Court that there is no provision of “judicial emergency” in the country’s law to enable it to interfere in every legislative or executive decision. The effect of his tough stance has yielded good results for the government as the Court had to accept the appointment of the Forest Advisory Committee and partially lift last year’s stay. The court had stayed the functioning of the FAC because it had reservations on the capabilities of some non-official members. But Singh, like his inimitable mentor Lalu Prasad Yadav, stuck to his guns and refuse to yield even an inch to the judiciary beyond the provisions of the law. Hamirpur polls With the by-election to the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat and polls to the Shimla Municipal Corporation expected to set the tempo for next year’s assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh, both the BJP and the Congress are working to a strategy. The Congress, whose track record in Hamirpur has not been very impressive in the recent polls, is not making undue claims about the seat, though it is determined to defeat the BJP and highlight charges of corruption against the former MP of the saffron party. The ruling party is evidently more comfortable about the corporation polls in Shimla where it is in power. Both the BJP and Congress are seemingly keen to know the other’s candidate for Hamirpur before they decide their own. Heroes, not terrorists Minister of State in the Commerce Ministry Ashwani Kumar has strongly objected to the new Oriya social studies text book, which has described freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad, Sukdev and Rajguru as santrasbadis – terrorists. The textbook, published by the Orissa Board of Secondary Education, talks about “terrorists playing a key role in the civil disobedience movement,” and contrasts those taking “shelter under violence” with the Gandhian path. Kumar said that “considering the current context in which the word ‘terrorists’ is used, describing our national heroes in that way cannot be condoned.” He called upon the Prime Minister to initiate action for the deletion of such references against those who have been “immortalised through their supreme sacrifice in the prime of their youth…to whom a grateful nation shall forever remain beholden.” Contributed by S S Negi and
Prashant Sood |
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