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Haneef vindicated Australia has much to answer for EVEN before the Australian authorities dropped terrorism charges formally against Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef for his alleged link to the failed car bomb plot in the UK, it was clear that the case was becoming unsustainable. In the event, the Australian Federal Police had little choice but to free him after his unwarranted detention – when he was heaped with uncalled for suspicions – since July 2.
123 breakthrough
The old faithful
Innovative thinking can
clean up our cities The toothpaste behind a relationship Inside Pakistan
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Conviction at last The
assassination of the then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh outside the Secretariat in Chandigarh rocked the nation way back on August 31, 1995. After a trial lasting 11 years, six of the accused — Jagtar Singh Hawara, Balwant Singh, Shamsher Singh, Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Naseeb Singh — have been convicted and one, Navjot Singh, acquitted. The case against Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bheora is being heard separately. Every killing by terrorists in those horror-filled days was demoralising for all right-thinking people. The assassination of the Chief Minister by a human bomb — along with 17 others — was a particularly devastating incident that weighed heavily on the psyche of the nation. The perpetrators deserve no mercy. The gravity of the crime was further compounded by the sensational jailbreak by three main accused, Hawara, Tara and Bheora, from the high-security Burail jail on the night of January 21, 2004, by digging a 94-ft-long tunnel under the barracks of the jail. Though Hawara and Bheora were arrested last year, Tara is still absconding. The case missed the deadline of October 31, 2005, set by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. How long it will take to punish the remaining accused cannot be foreseen. The quantum of sentence will be announced on Saturday. There is a need to analyse why even a criminal case involving the murder of a Chief Minister should move at an abysmally slow pace. Among several factors, one ridiculous one was that the orders and statements were typed on a manual typewriter. It took the Punjab Government over a decade to realise that it should use a computer instead. While the typewriter took nearly a year to record the statement of just one accused Balwant Singh, the computer took merely two months to record the lengthy statements of all the 10 accused.
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A matter of shame It is elementary that if we want to have a stable structure, we have to have a strong foundation. But in government functioning, such common sense is not very common. While we make remarkable strides in the space arena and even dream of sending man to the moon in the near future, we continue to ignore even elementary education. That is why there are 90,000 schools in the country, which do not even have blackboards. All this is hard to believe in the 21st century, but this abysmal report card about the state of governance comes from none other than the National University of Educational Planning and Administration. What kind of education such schools will be providing will be anybody’s guess. Ironically, such state of affairs exists not only in rural areas but also urban schools in some states. While the percentage of schools in rural areas without blackboards is 7.37 per cent, it is as high as 9.06 in urban areas. The highest number of primary schools without blackboards are in Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Bihar. Blackboards are not the only item needed to impart elementary education to children. There are thousands of schools which also do not have buildings, drinking water facilities, toilets, boundary walls and playgrounds. We do not know that all schools have chalk, although the schools without blackboards would not need this item of luxury! The shocking tale of neglect does not end even there. There are schools which have only one classroom. To call them schools is in itself a travesty. The lack of facilities affects enrolment of students in schools, the report admits. The end result is that we are raising a whole generation which has been deprived of the benefit of even most rudimentary education. How can these children of a lesser god ever compete with their more fortunate cousins and also lend a helping hand in nation-building. But who cares? |
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Haneef vindicated EVEN before the Australian authorities dropped terrorism charges formally against Indian doctor Mohamed Haneef for his alleged link to the failed car bomb plot in the UK, it was clear that the case was becoming unsustainable. In the event, the Australian Federal Police had little choice but to free him after his unwarranted detention – when he was heaped with uncalled for suspicions – since July 2. The authorities owe a more thorough explanation, especially after the Australian Prime Minister had stuck his neck out in defence of Dr Haneef’s unjustifiably prolonged detention. Irrelevant assumptions and prejudice, with reprehensible undertones of race and religion, had precluded a clear-headed assessment of the facts and circumstances of the case. Dr Haneef’s wife and family members in India must be immensely relieved at the end of what they perceived to be blatant and unjustified persecution of an innocent person, merely because he had allowed use of his mobile SIM card. The investigation by the Australian authorities, at every stage, was exposed as being riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions. Despite a climate that makes “Islamic terrorism” a handy weapon, influential sections of the Australian media and public-spirited citizens came out in defence of Dr Haneef and challenged absurd police claims that did not stand the test of scrutiny. The Australian investigation became suspect the moment the authorities decided to charge him anyway and revoked his visa when there were no palpable grounds for such actions. At the end of it, the Australian authorities, particularly the federal police, have an egg on their face. When it became certain the case was collapsing, they tried to work up sympathy for themselves saying that the police was working under extreme pressure. Dealing with terrorism, as Indian authorities know, is an extraordinarily high-pressure job without respite. That does not justify the harassment and persecution of innocents. It would have been more graceful if the Australian authorities had extended to Dr Haneef a bit of the sympathy for which they are crying themselves hoarse now. |
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Hold a true friend with both your hands. — Nigerian proverb
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123 breakthrough
THE nuclear cooperation deal struck in Washington last week addresses all the concerns raised by critics in New Delhi and Washington and is the product of some give and take by both sides, according to senior Indian and American officials. A handful of sticking points were whittled down to just two by the time negotiators sat down for talks in Washington last week. Burnt by experience, India was insistent to secure a guarantee of fuel supply in the eventuality of a nuclear test and get reprocessing rights for spent nuclear fuel. The big breakthrough came when the Americans accepted an Indian proposal to build a dedicated reprocessing facility for U.S.-origin nuclear fuel. As per the 123 Agreement, India will now build this facility. This will be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards but will be set up in consultation with the United States, which has laid down benchmarks of safety and non-diversion. The facility will remain under “continuous” safeguards as opposed to “campaign-mode,” which is what New Delhi offered for other countries’ fuel — although this will be negotiated between India and each supplier country. The benchmarks will form the basis on which India will negotiate with the IAEA on additional protocols and safeguards for this facility. The Additional Protocols provide more authority to the IAEA in terms of verification, monitoring and reporting. The Americans noted that setting up a dedicated facility would be an arduous process. The facility will involve hundreds of kilometres of piping, and safeguarding and monitoring this will be a very complicated task as, among other things, it will be difficult to know where in the pipes nuclear fuel may get stuck. Washington will be kept informed that there is no diversion of nuclear fuel to military programmes, no re-exporting of fuel, and no altering of it without prior U.S. consent. On the second sticking point, fuel supply guarantees, both sides agreed that U.S. law will take precedence. As per the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, Washington must terminate nuclear cooperation deals if the partner country tests a nuclear device. The Hyde Act, which enables civilian nuclear cooperation with India and was passed by Congress and signed into law by Mr Bush in December 2006, gives the President the option to waive that condition. There are certain conditions under which a test by India will not hurt the nuclear deal. These include instances in which Pakistan, China or even the United States tests a nuclear device. It is a Chinese test that New Delhi will be most concerned about. In such an event New Delhi can make a legitimate case that its security has been eroded. However, the Chinese conducted an extensive round of tests prior to signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and are not likely to conduct another nuclear test. The deal struck last week essentially “immunises” civilian nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and India with continuous fuel-supply assurances. The Bush administration’s commitment to the deal starts at the very top. The President has taken a personal interest in moving negotiations along and had instructed his National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to wrap things up last week. Mindful of opponents in both capitals, officials have been tightlipped about the contents of the 35-page draft agreement. A source admitted “managing the politics” of the deal is the next big challenge facing both administrations. “We don’t have time to dance around on this,” said an official speaking on the condition of anonymity. Despite achieving a breakthrough after hundreds of hours of painstaking and at times tedious negotiations that spanned the globe, neither side held a press conference and instead opted to signal the developments in a brief joint statement. According to analysts, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) review always takes a long time and is sent independently to the President. The secretaries of State and Energy must then make a written recommendation to the President. The President then approves it for signature and the agreement is sent to Congress. The text becomes public at that time. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is likely to travel to India in August to formally sign the deal. A suggestion that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visit Washington for the signing was apparently shot down by the Ministry of External Affairs, which pointed out that Dr. Singh would be travelling to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly session. On the earlier sticking point of “sequencing” — India has agreed to go ahead and work with the IAEA. Some holdout states in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had made this a condition for taking up the deal in Vienna, Austria. A consensus is required from the 45-member NSG. According to sources familiar with the deal, there is less than a month’s work left for India to wrap up the deal with the IAEA. The U.S. Congress is required to give an up-or-down vote to the 123 Agreement. Prior to that, Bush administration officials will brief key members of Congress and assure them that all their concerns have been met. The deal is likely to pass without much trouble on Capitol Hill. But there will be some posturing by critics and those who have made a career of beating the nonproliferation drum. Support in Congress may also not be as effusive as it was for the Hyde Act, which was merely an enabling legislation. Now, to borrow an American expression, is when the rubber meets the
road.
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The old faithful
THESE days, when I read of domestic servants making off with the family’s jewellery and cash or, worse, murdering them, I often think of old Bhagat Ram whom we engaged as a bearer on my transfer to Patna in 1949. He was a married man in his ’30s, with two sons and a daughter, who lived with his wife in the village of Sultanpur, near Danapur cantonment, a few miles out of Patna. Bhagat Ram came to us with excellent references, one of them from a railway official for whom he had worked for 10 years and from whose wife he had learnt to cook some choice Bengali dishes, one of them being prawn curry which happened to be our favourite item on the lunch menu on Sundays. Bihar is a state where fruit-bearing palm trees grow in abundance, encouraging the “home” distillation of toddy. A few days after Bhagat Ram entered our service he took a day’s leave to attend a meeting of his village panchayat. It transpired that he and a couple of his cronies had been arraigned before the elders for taking part in a drunken brawl in the course of which a man had been grievously hurt. The next day he came and told me of the panchayat’s decision. Each one of the accused would pay Rs 100 to the injured party. Could I loan him the amount? I did, somewhat reluctantly, as he has been with us a very short time. But I extracted a promise from him that in future he would: indulge in his Bacchanalian pursuits in moderation, a promise he faithfully kept all the time we were in Patna. When we left Patna, Bhagat Ram insisted on coming with us. The only stipulation he made was to be paid his railway fares to and from his home once a year so that he could be with his family for a month. And so he became a part of our menage, accompanying us to towns as far apart as Vizag in the South to Jalandhar in the North. Bhagat Ram could read Hindi and he was a regular subscriber to the leading vernacular daily except for the short time we were in Vizag. On his free afternoons, once a week, he was sure to be found wherever a football or hockey match was in progress. His other passion was the radio. He was not interested in music, especially “filmi gana” which he regarded as somewhat “improper”. But he would sit with his ears glued to the kitchen transistor whenever the Hindi news bulletin was read or a talk was being given. Jawaharlal Nehru, to him, was almost as omniscient and worthy of reverence as the Almighty himself and no one could call him out of the kitchen if Panditji was on the air. As for his two sons, Bhagat Ram was determined that they would not enter domestic service. Both of them were sent to school to become matricculates. In 1971, long after I had retired and settled down in Delhi, he developed cardiac asthma. By the end of the year we could no longer take the risk of his dying away from his family. Sorrowfully, we sent him home. He died two years later. He must have sensed the end coming for he wrote me a “farewell” postcard just a week before it. In it, he thanked me for helping his sons to find employment, one in a government office, the other with the Bata Shoe Co in Patna. They, he wrote, were out of the “rut” in which he and his forefathers had spent their
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Innovative thinking can
clean up our cities HEAPS
of garbage, its stench and the chaotic vehicular jumble dispensing nauseating exhaust fumes is not uncommon to almost all our cities and the crowded core of all of our thriving metropolises. That need not be the case if we took note of the two success stories from the last decade of the 20th century when these repulsive sights and health hazards to society were courageously combated and imaginatively eliminated! The first story comes from the Americas. Brazil had hosted the first Earth Summit in 1992 at its capital Rio De Janeiro. With a few exceptions the Rio Summit (as it came to be called and remembered ever since) was attended and addressed by the executive heads of all nations. The cream of the VVIPs and their personal staff were to be housed in the swanky Sao Pualo, a spanking new suburb of Rio. Now, these two habitations were separated by a slum with mounds and mounds of garbage of varied decaying vintage. And the only connecting road, albeit a four lane speedway, passed through the heart of this slum. When all conventional means of garbage removal made little dent to the years of accumulation, the head of the Sao Paulo municipality came up with a courageous, innovative, pragmatic, and yet unbelievably simple plan of action. All the garbage removal motor-vehicles were quarantined inside the garages for one month. All drivers and garbage removal staff were encouraged to take one month’s sabbatical over and above their annual entitlement of leave but at half the salary. That done, all the slum dwellers were invited to collect and carry a sack of 20 kilogrammes of garbage from the designated areas to several chosen dumping sites. In exchange, they would be rewarded there and then with a 20 kg sack of food stuff comprising rice, pulses, potatos, eggs and bananas. As the story went, the slum was freed of all traces of garbage well before the commencement of the Rio Summit. And the scheme was thenceforth adopted as a permanent modus operandi! Now where did the money come from for procuring the food stuffs and the sacks? Well, the savings from the fuel bill and the running repairs to the motor-vehicle fleet for the month was not only found adequate to offset all expenses, but it even left a modest surplus to provide for incentives to ensure that the initiative gathered popular acceptance, as a permanent measure. Among the most discussed issues at the Rio Summit was the greenhouse gases phenomena; its causes and ramifications to humankind. Flowing from that debate a city in Europe (possibly Brussels and very recently Paris too) decided to cut down motor-vehicle exhaust fumes from within the city limits through a process of denials in life-styles. Here again it was a simple but courageous initiative which successfully reduced carbon emission and noise pollution by 80 per cent of the prevailing levels as also decongested the city of vehicular traffic by 95 per cent for 18 hours every day! From sunrise to midnight, all public and private motor-vehicles were debarred from all roads within the city limits. The only exceptions were related to life and death emergencies confronting residents and for the upkeep of essential services such as water, electricity, communications network and the like. All citizens including the heads of businesses, multinationals and the bureaucracy walked or bicycled to and fro for their chores. State of the art bicycles were made available from a grid of kiosks conveniently spread across the city. Entry to the kiosk and access to a cycle was automated by inserting a coin in a dispensing machine. The bicycle could be utilised and deposited before midnight at any kiosk convenient to the user. For restocking the city’s marts and godowns with the necessities of life, motor-vehicles were permitted to ply in the city from midnight till sunrise. For those who feel incapacitated when shorn of the insignia of their office and the red, flashing light-beacon atop their automobiles, there is an apt story from the Indian Army. Way back in the 1950s, the Indian Army’s budget for fuel was so drastically reduced that not more than five per cent of their vehicles could be plied. Brigadier T. Berry Jackson, who commanded a brigade near Srinagar, wanted to set a personal example to implement fuel economy. He commandeered an Army motor-cycle in lieu of his staff-car to discharge his duties. The brigade commander’s Pennant was mounted atop the front mud-guard of the motor cycle. One of the star-plates was bolted to the handle-bar and in the rear the star plate replaced the mud-flap. His staff were at their wits end as to where and how to attach the flashing red beacon? The brigadier rose to the challenge. He simply replaced his olive-khaki beret with a red coloured one when riding his motor-cycle! And in the process, the brigadier acquired the sobriquet Red Beret Jackson! Are there no takers for these success stories in any of our cities? How much more fun it would be to walk our roads admiring the trees, the immaculately dressed pedestrians, aesthetically land-scaped traffic islands, the architecture and even the fancy bill-boards fronting shops, without the fear of being knocked down cold by a speeding automobile? |
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The toothpaste behind a relationship What did they have in common, they were asked at the customary joint press conference after the meeting. A certain brand of toothpaste, Bush finally answered, after a pause that lingered. God help us, one thought, until it emerged that Bush was making a jokey reference to the tubes of Colgate with which every cabin at the Presidential retreat in the wooded mountains north of Washington was equipped. Thus began a new chapter in, well yes, the “special relationship”. Now Gordon Brown is about to be accorded the Camp David treatment. He has met Bush before, earlier this year at one of those well-choreographed “drop-by” meetings, where the President just happened to wander in when the visiting not-yet PM was chatting with his National Security adviser. Since Brown entered No 10, they have talked on the phone and by video-conference. But this will be the first long session in person. Just as in 2001, it comes almost exactly a month after the new partner – Brown in this case – took power. Americans liked Blair, for his eloquence and his loyalty. Accustomed to the inflexible four-year rhythm of Presidential elections, they moreover haven’t really understood how, or why, he upped and left when he did. Now they must cope with a successor, and for students of Anglo-American relations, this pairing is even more intriguing than Bush-Blair. We know what Bush is like, all too well. But what will he find in common with someone who comes across here – insofar as he comes across at all – as an earnest and unsmiling Scot who doesn’t seem especially religious, who doesn’t share Blair’s taste for bridge-building by laddish joshing? Some predict – and according to the polls a clear majority of Brown’s fellow citizens heartily desire – that after “poodle” Blair, the new Prime Minister will put some distance between himself and Washington. And, some argued, if trusty old Britain did drift away from the US, did that really matter in the wider scheme of things? Yes, Tony Blair would be missed. But now there was not only nice Angela Merkel in Berlin, but also Nicolas Sarkozy, a French President who, sacre bleu, goes jogging in an NYPD tee shirt. George Bush’s America is not short of friends even in “Old Europe”. But this Plan B, if such it is, will not be needed. One hates to talk of a “special relationship” – though experts in the subject will minutely parse the words of Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, when he announced the Brown visit yesterday. The two leaders had a “very special important relationship”, he said. Was it a ringing endorsement, or a subtle distancing? The answer is, neither. Ultimately, the underpinnings of the Anglo-American relationship transcend both toiletries and the nimble semantics of Tony Snow. There have been several angry US/UK spats over the years. But thanks not only to Blair but Thatcher and Churchill before him, Britain is the country that Americans automatically assume will be at their shoulder in a global crisis. Furthermore, the new Prime Minister has inherited a unique institutionalised co-operation in matters of defence, nuclear strategy and intelligence that dates back to the Second World War. He has also of course inherited the mess in Iraq. Brown himself acknowledged as much in his press conference this week. The Transatlantic alliance, he said, was “our strongest bilateral relationship”, almost the exact words used by Blair. He also knows America unusually well. You could never imagine Tony Blair, as Brown did at the same press conference, quoting Mark Twain to explain a doubtful Scot’s conversion to the pleasures of life in London. In short, Brown will get on with Bush. A weakened Bush is in no position to drag Britain into a new madcap adventure in Iran. Rather, he needs every friend he can get. Tony Blair got precious little in return for his devotion from this unilateralist, America-first White House. But as Bush searches for an international success to redeem his record, Blair’s successor just might. And purgatory won’t last for ever. Assuming Brown doesn’t call an early election and lose it, he will be around in January 2009, when a new president is installed, and Britain and the world will take a fresh and forgiving look at an America led by someone other than George W. The strong odds moreover are that he – or she – will be a Democrat, with whom he has far more in common than a brand of toothpaste.
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Inside Pakistan THE Supreme Court’s celebrated judgement reinstating Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as the Chief Justice of Pakistan has led to the belief that the judiciary can work as a bulwark against General Pervez Musharraf’s attempt at perpetuating his rule by trampling on the constitution. In fact, judicial intervention is being seen as the remedy for most of the ills plaguing the system in Pakistan today. After all, “the judiciary has reached the stage of real independence after breaking the shackles of the doctrine of necessity”, as commented by Urdu daily Jang of July 22. According to Jang, “The people are expecting so much from the judiciary because of the manner in which Justice Chaudhry highlighted the need for the restoration of democracy and upholding the constitution during the speeches he made at the functions organised by the various bar councils” after his suspension in March. Mr Zamir Ghumro, a Karachi-based barrister-at-law, however, says in an article carried in Dawn on July 26, that “through this verdict the people have got but one element of good governance and rule of law, i.e. an independent judiciary. What is equally important is a fair political system that has yet to be achieved.” That is why it is “unrealistic” to expect the judiciary to meet all the expectations of the people, “especially if these involve minute aspects (like holding of free and fair elections) that should ideally be addressed by other institutions and organs of the State.” Moreover, “in a country such as Pakistan where a handful of political elites dictate the show, the interests of the winning coalitions (synonymous with the political elite) and the masses often end up conflicting”, as Moeed Yusuf points out in an article in The Friday Times of July 20-26. Even if the judiciary plays its role on the expected lines, there is little possibility of a truly democratic system responsive to the people’s aspirations emerging from the present chaos. The reason is, in the words of Yusuf, “the lack of democratic norms within the political parties”, which have “a closed party structure and authoritarian decision-making norms”. Changing logic of deals Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s efforts at striking a deal with General Musharraf seem to have suffered a setback with the higher judiciary asserting its independence. According to Business Recorder, “Now when she sees the ‘logic’ of a deal with President Musharraf having been significantly weakened in the wake of the court verdict, the possibility of the PPP helping the government to secure a waiver of the bar under Article 63 (1) (k) of the constitution to his election in return for her getting a chance for a third term through a constitutional amendment has also disappeared. So, she, too, seems to be warming up for court battles” like the other opposition parties. She, in fact, realises that under the circumstances the Musharraf regime cannot dare to go in for an amendment to the constitution to strike a deal with Benazir. Immediately, such a course can be reversed through judicial intervention. Hence her apparent change of heart as expressed in the course of a recent interview with a British newspaper. “Or, perhaps, a deal might still be possible”, as The News (July 25) sees it, “but it’s just that the PPP is trying to extract the maximum from the President’s camp before reaching it. That would also make sense from a purely Machiavellian view of how politics or negotiations work between two disparate but potential partners.” In an article, “A hundred beats”, carried in The News on July 22, Benazir Bhutto’s niece, Fatima Bhutto, an established author, points out “three major types of disastrous Pakistani politics”. But what is more interesting is her description of “the politics of victimisation”, practised by people like her own aunt. Fatima says: “She has long claimed that her brother, my father – an elected member of parliament – was killed to bring down her government, thereby sidestepping her complicity in the assassination and the major cover-up in its aftermath. “According to her (Benazir), his cold-blooded assassination at the hands of the Pakistani police force was an elaborate ploy to hurt her…The military coup of 1999 was enacted to prevent her from returning to power. The rise of sugar prices was induced to affect her vote bank. “The Taliban wouldn’t have been strengthened if she were left in power (they were created during her regime, however). The May 12 massacre (in Karachi) was an attack on her party as was…suicide bombing in Islamabad. There is one major problem with this kind of politics – it has nothing to do with the people. It is fuelled by ego and ambition, not by concern for the masses.” |
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WILL
Gordon and George have their Colgate moment? Six-and-a-half years ago, desperate to be the first European leader to meet the new President, Tony Blair rushed to Camp David. They were an improbable pair – the fluent, bushy tailed exponent of a once-fashionable “Third Way”, and the avowedly conservative George Bush, who wore macho Texas as a badge of honour.