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Bird flu in Manipur Victims of apathy |
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Labels, old or new
Pak judiciary’s finest hour
The binge
Public road transport in Delhi needs an overhaul Criteria for Army chief’s selection Delhi Durbar
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Bird flu in Manipur Although
the outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus, branded H5N1, in a village of Manipur’s Imphal district has been officially confirmed, there need not be any panic as no case of human infection has been reported so far. The disease appears to be localised and is confined to one small poultry farm in the village. Reports suggest there is no sign that the virus could have spread. All poultry birds within the 5-km radius are being culled. Yet there cannot be any let-up in surveillance and preventive measures, given the possibility of swift transmission of the virus among birds and from birds to humans. According to the WHO data, there have been 189 deaths worldwide from the H5N1 virus since 2003. Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China and Pakistan are among the countries hit by the virus. The disease usually spreads through migratory birds, which live in a watery environment. In fact, in some rice-producing countries ducks are raised so that they eat harmful insects, thus reducing the use of agro-chemicals and cutting the cost of cultivation. Bangladesh alone has 37 million ducks. If affected, they can spread the virus through their droppings and contact with other birds. The virus can survive long in water and does not harm ducks as seriously as it does chicken and other poultry birds. India is relatively safe. Only last year on August 11 the country had declared itself to be free of bird flu. But being surrounded by disease-prone countries, the possibility of the virus striking roots here always remains. There is a ban on the import of livestock and livestock products from these countries. Even the tyres of vehicles entering India from Bangladesh are reportedly disinfected at the border. But loopholes remain. There is smuggling of goods from across the border. The affected countries should join hands to combat the disease and share their resources and relevant information to enable researchers come out with affordable treatment. The World Health Organisation can coordinate research efforts and keep commercial interests in check.
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Victims of apathy THE Supreme Court has rightly come down heavily on five states for their failure to operationalise the sanctioned anganwadi centres. The Bench consisting of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S.H. Kapadia has summoned the Chief Secretaries of Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala, Bihar and Orissa on August 30 for contempt. It has asked them to show cause why “exemplary action” should not be taken against them for their non-compliance with the earlier court order. Through affidavits, they should specifically mention the other officials who are also responsible for implementing the scheme. Thus, the message sent by the apex court to the states is loud and clear. It will not tolerate an important scheme like the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) to suffer because of the apathy and callousness of the state governments. The need for having functional anganwadi centres has never been questioned. The anganwadi worker and helper play a vital role in implementing the ICDS. The Centre launched it in 1975 in response to the problems of persistent hunger and malnutrition, especially among children. These workers are required to provide supplementary nutrition to the children below six years of age and nursing and pregnant mothers from low income families, including basic health check-up. They provide nutrition and health education to all women in the 15-45 age group. Though the Centre and the states depend upon the anganwadi workers and helpers to provide some of the most essential public services in the areas of health and nutrition, they have done little to raise the status of the poorly paid and overworked women. Since the ICDS’ benefits are still far too limited, and maternal and child health and nutrition continue to be areas of concern for the Centre and the states, the anganwadi workers deserve higher wages that would reflect all the work they really do. They deserve to be given the minimum wherewithal to help perform various services. Lack of space, irregular payments and the poor quality of foodgrains supplied for the nutritious diet scheme had taken their toll on the anganwadi scheme. The Supreme Court’s persistent efforts to make the scheme fully functional should goad the officials concerned to take their job seriously and do justice to the poor beneficiaries.
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Labels, old or new TIME was when school students would get all excited about the labels they had pasted on new books wrapped in brown paper and show off how “my label is better than yours”. The one-upmanship subsided as the academic year progressed and students discovered that their performance — and not the labels — earned more marks. But boys will be boys and the lure of labels remained an annual attraction, though for a short time. The problem now is that it has become difficult to separate the men from the boys when it comes to labels. Grown-ups — men or women — at the helm of countries, governments, political parties, business and industry — are more serious victims of labels than school students ever were. How else does one explain the excitement over the US sticking the label of “transforming” on a country that was till recently tagged as “developing”. This has triggered an “intellectual” debate on the economic and developmental leaps that our “poor country” has made. Washington has merely indulged in a bit of word play to rationalise the US aid cut — of 35 per cent — to India. Never mind that the aid never amounted to much and, therefore, the cut is irrelevant especially when India has explicitly moved from receiving aid to giving aid. And by way of a pacifier, an American certificate was handed out that the aid cut is because India is no longer a “developing” but a “transforming” entity. How thrilling to have moved up in the eyes of the world’s most prolific testimonial dispenser. Imagine, India is not impaled on the “Axis of Evil”. Nor is our Mahaan Bharat a “rogue state”. India is not even on the list of “states of concern”. Incredible India is no longer even developing but actually transforming. There must be many countries that are not transforming, frozen in some bygone age needing to be thawed with aid or a strategic partner. Not only does India not belong to that category but we have actually got ourselves a dazzling new label issued by none other than the “world’s only indispensable democracy”. The labelwallah forgot that we have lately been declared “a strategic partner”, meriting a nuclear deal. Time to bring on the champagne.
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Good taste and humour ... are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore. — Malcolm Muggeridge
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Pak judiciary’s finest hour
WITH striking unanimity, Pakistani newspapers have described the Supreme Court’s judgment, restoring Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry to the office of Chief Justice - from which President Gen Pervez Musharraf had “suspended” him as a prelude to removal - as a “crippling body blow to General Musharraf and his government”. The historic verdict, most Pakistanis believe, has weakened further the General who has been “under attack on every front and getting more rattled by the day”, thanks to the combined effect of his folly of trying to sack the Chief Justice and the events that followed. On the one hand, Justice Chaudhry’s suspension triggered a massive agitation, led by the black-coated fraternity of lawyers and immediately joined by Opposition parties as well as civil society, with the “non-functional” Chief Justice acquiring an iconic stature. On the other, General Musharraf’s duplicitous policy about terrorism inevitably led to the massacre at Islamabad’s Lal Masjid where jihadi extremists, virtually running a parallel government, were first pampered and then, under foreign pressure, killed brutally. The series of suicide bombings since then, taking a very heavy toll of life, especially in the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have a clear message of their own. As if this was not enough, America’s threat to take “unilateral military action” on Pakistani soil in the tribal areas where Al-Qaeda has regrouped and become even stronger than before has caused further problems for General Musharraf. Senior US officials are squarely blaming him for his support to the resurgent Taliban of Afghanistan where NATO finds itself in deep trouble. This also explains the vehemence of the Musharraf government’s reaction to America’s threat. In short, Pakistani and international attention is so heavily concentrated on the fate of the badly beleaguered General Musharraf that some other aspects of the historic judgment of all the 13 judges of the Supreme Court - unanimous in declaring invalid General Musharraf’s every single action against the Chief Justice but, by a majority of 10 to three, declining to deprive the President of the right to make references against judges - have not received the attention they deserve. Before discussing them, however, a word might be in order about the likely scenario in Pakistan. The verdict of one of India’s keenest Pakistan watchers, B. Raman, a former deputy chief of the external intelligence agency, RAW, and now director of a think tank, is that General Musharraf is “bruised, but not beaten”. It should be noted that after Islamabad’s angry reaction to the US threat of “unilateral” action, Washington has started backtracking on its earlier growling. The reality is that, despite its dismay over General Musharraf’s failure to do “enough” in the war on terror, the American establishment still considers him as its “best bet” in Pakistan. Secondly, while it is true that the country most hated in Pakistan today is not India but the United States, not all anti-American elements there are against General Musharraf and those that are bitterly anti-Musharraf are not necessarily anti-American. It is in this context that the Bush Administration is busy promoting a deal between Ms Benazir Bhutto - who is anxious to get corruption cases against her and her husband withdrawn - and General Musharraf so that he is not pushed out of power. Let me now revert to my main theme, which is that by delivering its sound and hugely popular judgment, the present Supreme Court has at long lost redeemed the higher judiciary of Pakistan. Its track record so far had been so appalling that many Pakistanis were not sure whether the “suspended” Chief Justice could expect justice from his colleagues. The rot had started as far back as 1958 when the Supreme Court justified and upheld Ayub Khan’s military coup on the basis of the “doctrine of necessity”. Thereafter, the highest judiciary in Pakistan dutifully endorsed every action of every military dictator. In fairness, it must be added that it was a rather renowned Chief Justice named Mohammed Munir who first propounded the doctrine of necessity a good five years before the Ayub coup. But there is a crucial difference between what he did in 1953, when Governor-General Ghulam Mohammed dismissed Prime Minister Nazimuddin abruptly, and the judgment of his successors after the Ayub take-over. In Munir’s time, Pakistan had no constitution. The 1956 Pakistani constitution had been in force for two years when the country’s first president, Iskander Mirza, in collusion with the Commander-in-Chief, Gen Ayub Khan, abrogated it, imposed martial law and appointed General Ayub Chief Martial Law Administrator. Mirza was under the fond illusion that, with Ayub’s support, he would rule Pakistan as a “benevolent dictator the country needed” while power really grew from the barrels of the military’s guns. He got his rude awakening within three weeks. Four generals roused him from his sleep, secured his resignation on the spot and bundled him out of the country The Supreme Court meekly and unanimously declared the Ayub takeover as perfectly legal. Nearly two decades later, it grovelled before Gen Zia-ul-Haq exactly as it had done before General Ayub Khan. Zia excelled Ayub by suborning the judiciary to an extent that he had little difficulty in securing a death sentence for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after what a former Attorney-General of the US called a “travesty of a trial”. This, in some ways, was poetic justice because Bhutto, even more dictatorial than military despots, had his own ways of keeping the judiciary in line. During his trial for murder in the Lahore High Court and the hearing of his appeal in the Supreme Court, partisanship of several judges was palpable. No wonder then that another civilian Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, felt encouraged to descend to very low depths in order to make the judiciary bow to his will. When he thought that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was not sufficiently cooperative, he sent his thugs to “set things right”, which they did by storming the Chief Justice’s court. Mr Sharif’s police looked the other way. Later, the Prime Minister “persuaded” other Supreme Court judges and chief justices of high courts to express lack of confidence in the Chief Justice who was thus forced to resign, and Mr Sharif could promote to the highest judicial job his trusted nominee. It is this legacy of cowardly shame on the part of the highest judiciary that last week’s judgment of the Pakistani Supreme Court has rolled back. The task before Pakistan is to ensure that the lamentable legacy remains erased
forever.
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The binge
I
was part of a student-teacher exchange. The plane dipped and I looked down and saw the blue dome of the mosque in Samarkand. “Are we touching Samarkand?” I asked the airhostess. She didn’t understand and called the Captain. “What is the problem?” he asked menacingly “Are we landing in Samarkand?” The menace left his face. “You know Samarkand?” He asked. “I know it is one of the most beautiful cities of the world.” He was beaming. “My city,” he said proudly. “This is just to let my family know that I am flying this plane.” A short while later the Captain sent me six bottles of vodka with his compliments. This was the beginning. On reaching England I spent four delightful days with my niece and her husband. When I left they gave me four bottles of their favourite whisky. My next stop was with the Warricks and John and I spent many a pleasant evening partaking of his rather rare and special malt. When I left they gave me two bottles as a farewell gift. My last few days were spent with Neil Rathmell, who had organised the trip. While there, I received a phone call from Celia who had made a documentary on the Golden Temple. Her station director felt there was a lack of background material and, having read my book on the Sikh Gurus, suggested she get in touch with me. Three phone calls and she had traced me. Would I have dinner with her the next day? The food was excellent, the wine splendid and as a token of her gratitude she gave me six bottles of it. On my last day with Neil a green and gold Harrod’s van drove up and brought me a gift hamper - my friend Rajiv’s congratulatory message on my appointment as Headmaster of our old school. Amongst other things the hamper contained a bottle of champagne, a bottle of whisky and two bottles of wine, which Neil insisted I carry back with me. I borrowed an old suitcase from him and carefully packed all my bottles of liquor. It was my first trip abroad and I had no way of knowing that the customs permitted a very limited quantity of alcohol to be brought in. We did not all get seats on the same flight. “We are a larger group. Give me your spare suitcase, sir, our numbers will absorb the excess weight,” my Vice-Principal offered. I did not think to tell him what was in the case, he did not think to ask. He was stopped by the customs in Delhi “What is in the suitcase? Electronic goods? Liquor?” “I have never touched liquor in my life,” my Vice-Principal declared, touching his ears. “Well, open the case.” In spite of the trouble I created for him I would have loved to have seen his face when he opened the case and discovered the generous array of alcohol, a strong contradiction of his pious
assertion.
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Public road transport in Delhi needs an overhaul JUST three weeks before India celebrates its 60th Independence Day, the public transport service in the Capital came to a standstill for nearly a week. Thousands waited for hours for transport, to reach their workplaces, and even more in the evening to return home. As the state authorities had no idea how to meet the crisis, the entire system collapsed, reflecting the lack of a public transport policy. In fact, the crisis was invited by the knee jerk response of the state authorities to a media outcry. They knew what would be in store for them, when they ordered all 3900 Blueline buses off the roads, crippling the entire public transport system. The media outcry rang high as nine persons, including three children, were killed in road accidents involving only the privately owned buses that were licensed to operate as the public transport service. But the state authorities further rubbed salt to the injuries of the public by releasing large ads in newspapers that aimed at blaming pedestrians, rather than the bus drivers for the road mishaps. The transport minister of the state had a dream solution to the crisis. He promised to add three thousand more buses to the transport system through the Delhi Transport Corporation, but only after two years. He did not explain how he would mobilise the resources needed – nearly Rs 10,000 crore in two years — and what should be done in the short term. The crisis clearly mirrored the lack of a definite policy framework for the Delhi public transport system, where a large majority depend only on public bus services. The reach of the newly provided metro rail service is limited to a few destinations and localities. The lack of a policy framework for management, control and monitoring of private bus services licensed to operate in the capital was self-evident as the state authorities ordered the fitness inspection of Blueline buses only after the crisis erupted in the face of the people. Only 1200 of the 3900 buses that were operating for years were found to be fit to operate. In other words they were operating without any monitoring by the authorities as there was no control mechanism in force in the state. In the other three metros also large numbers depend on public bus transport despite the availability of suburban rail services, but they have far lesser number of mishaps involving the public transport buses. The public transport bus services in other metros are under one command since they are in the hands of Municipal Bodies or else in the hands of publicly owned transport companies. Hence the management, training and control mechanisms are operated by a single team. They tend to be more effective and uniform in pattern. Since these are public transport systems, the control and monitoring mechanisms are adhered to more strictly. However the public transport system in Delhi is weird in that there are several public and private operators competing with each other in the same area. There are buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), privately owned Blueline buses, green line buses, white line buses, chartered buses and rural transport vehicles. Hence the management is dispersed with the Delhi authorities showing a total lack of a control and monitoring mechanism to bring about cohesion among them. Above all there is no procedure prescribed for recruitment and training of bus drivers and conductors. After all, they were to be recruited for public transport services. Hence their training in dealing with the public needed to be rigorously tested as it is done with regards to air services. Even though nearly twenty thousand drivers and conductors are working on privately owned public transport buses, there is not even a single institute that could provide these recruits with minimum training in dealing with passengers and pedestrians with respect and courtesy. As usual the state authorities thought that privatisation would resolve the problems that the DTC could not cope with in Delhi. However, entry of the private hands is not always the solution, especially when it is invited in without the proper checks and balances. The Delhi authorities have also not been careful to check as to who were the real owners of these private buses that were operating as the public transport service. The general perception is that mostly officials in authority were the real owners. That is why they were operating with impunity for all these years, in spite of over 4600 complaints of rash driving and speeding pending disposal, against the private Blueline bus owners and their crew. No wonder they became a public menace instead of a public service.
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Criteria for Army chief’s selection FREE India has been witness to many a controversy when it has come down to the selection and appointment of the Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army. The final selection made by the Government has often raised many an eyebrow, not only in military circles but also in the enlightened citizenry concerned about soldiery and defence. This points to the need for a fair, consistent and force-friendly choice, irrespective of which government is in power at the time. By force-friendly, I mean a selection that will protect the distinctive ethos of the Army and the extremely high operational ascendancy in war and peace, free from the rust of internal security and other home-duty deployments that seem to have overtaken the Indian Army in present times. This is not a commentary on any of the very efficient, senior officers who have been in the run for the coveted appointment, but an impartial and unbiased call for evolving as foolproof a system as we can, before these periodic selections take place. Over the years there have been some deviations in the selection process as many of us in uniform have come to notice, and this is what raises concerns about whether we have a time-tested and permanent selection system in place. Does the system make a selection based on merit and seniority, or are there other factors at play here, such as adaptability with government policies at the cost of the rank and file, like the non-establishment of a separate Pay Commission for the Armed Forces all these years? In a transparent system operational readiness, high morale and the welfare of the jawan and his family must be the selection’s main and in fact only criteria. Once a Chief and then may be a Governor or an Ambassador, goes the saying. But is not just being the Chief of Army Staff enough? Theoretically speaking, all the Army Commanders and the Vice-Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) are in the run for the top post and someone is bound to be senior or junior to each other in the considered lot. Then should just seniority (Indian Commission or IC number at the time of commissioning from the IMA decades back), be the overriding criteria for selection? Over the years, when in service, we often heard that so and so’s IC Number was higher than the rest. All the contenders in the race must get a fair chance. To select the senior most out of these just because in terms of the IC number he happened to be the senior most does not appear to be fair. On a relative merit index another contender may well be the best choice. Performance as an Army Commander in command of an Army, the operational role in war for a Command (certain Army Commands are just Training Commands, having a very restricted role in operations), and the ability and gumption to stand firm in fighting for the welfare of the troops under command, are the qualities that a jawan looks for in his Chief. The majority of the Army is often surprised when those who are war winners, like Lt. Gen. J.S. Arora in 1971, are not selected for the Chief’s post. One is supposed to believe that merit-wise they were not better than the one who finally made it! Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh, who stemmed the tide in 1965, did not make it. Imagine in professional armies like in the UK, war heroes and veterans being side lined for the top appointment. Lt Gen Prem Bhagat, VC and Lt. Gen. Inder Singh Gill knew their minds and did not hesitate to speak up to those in authority, and paid the price in a bureaucracy-ridden India. In so far as the seniority factor is concerned, Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha, who was senior, was not selected, and Lt. Gen. Arun Vaidya was appointed the Chief. Suffice it to say that it leaves one befuddled as to what is the final criterion of selection, merit or seniority or the capability to get along with the babudom and the Defence Minister or none of these. In the interest of the Army and the Nation, it is about time that the promotion to the Chief is fully insulated from extraneous factors, and merit deemed the predominant selection criteria in the empanelled lot of the Army Commanders and the
VCOAS.
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Delhi Durbar THE Bahujan Samaj Party, which is looking to expand its base beyond Uttar Pradesh, does not have to search too long for leaders and allies in Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Some prominent Congress rebels are in touch with the party in the two states. Suspended Congress MLA V.S. Mankotia, along with some former MLAs, may hop on to the BSP bandwagon in Himachal Pradesh. In Haryana, the BSP may ally with suspended Congress MP Kuldeep Bishnoi, if he floats a party with the blessings of his father and former Chief Minister, Bhajan Lal. The BSP will fit well into any plans made by Bishnoi aimed at consolidating non-Jat votes. With polls to the Himachal Pradesh assembly due in less than 12 months, BSP chief Mayawati has begun addressing rallies in the state. The good response to her rally in Dharamsala will worry the two main contenders for power in the state. The Congress in particular will feel the pain. Fresh minds Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal wants to bring down the age of scientists in the country. Sibal, who earlier this week honoured five school students for winning awards at a prestigious international science and engineering fair, said that youngsters had the ability to produce out-of-the-box solutions. The minister apparently feels that the ability to come up with fresh ideas mostly tends to decline with age, and that young people carry no baggage of the past. Sibal wants to take the scholarship programme, which selects students for the international competition, to the rural areas of the country. Media matters Union health minister Anbumani Ramdoss rarely misses an opportunity to hit back at the media. After receiving the WHO Director General’s special award for his pioneering role in the tobacco control movement, Dr Ramdoss acknowledged the encouragement given by his father and family. He added in the same breath that he would like to give due credit to “a very special group called the media.” He said that his proposal to ban smoking scenes in films was received with a lot of media criticism. “Some even questioned how I got my MBBS degree.” Now that the WHO has recognised his efforts, he hoped that the media would view matters “in proper perspective.” The Delhi Metro achieved a record of sorts last Saturday when it carried 7.36 lakh commuters and earned a revenue of Rs 81.6 lakh. However, the DMRC’s highest gross revenue was earlier this week on Monday when it earned Rs 84.61 lakh, carrying 7.24 lakh commuters. Normally on Saturdays, about five to 5.5 lakh passengers travel on the Metro. The increase, ranging from 32 to 47 per cent, can be attributed to the current Blueline blues in the national capital. Contributed by Prashant Sood, Tripti Nath and Vibha Sharma
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Our senses show us the mortal world. Love helps to make it immortal. —The Upanishads They alone have love for God who bear his fear in their minds. —Guru Nanak He who drinks the nectar of this truth rises above mortal pettiness. —The Upanishads Men receive God’s gifts only through his grace and bounty. —Guru Nanak
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