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Human
bombs Bonus for
farmers |
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Police
reforms
Coalition
in the future
It’s
an ad world
Jharia:
a town on fire Putin’s
cold war fishing trip Delhi Durbar
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Human bombs WHOEVER is responsible for identifying and publicising the pictures of five women as potential “human bombs” deserves exemplary punishment. At the time the pictures were pasted on the notice boards of many police stations in Punjab, there were no criminal charges against them. Even if they are accused in some cases, this does not justify the police action. There is no disputing that human bombs can cause death and destruction as had happened in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. It is the job of the police to identify and strike at them before they can execute their nefarious plan. In this particular case, the women the police has identified as “human bombs” are mostly housewives and teachers with families of their own. They are among thousands of followers of Dera Sacha Sauda, which has been under a cloud ever since its chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh allegedly imitated the 10th Guru of the Sikhs. Such a nebulous link with the Dera does not make them potential human bombs. In any case, human bombs are highly indoctrinated persons, who are ready to sacrifice everything for a cause. By no stretch of the imagination can the police claim that these women made the grade. If the police has definite information that they are indeed “human bombs” why does it need to publish pamphlets and alert the people about the danger they pose to society? At the time their photographs appeared on the notice boards in police stations, they were leading normal lives. Nothing prevented the police from arresting the women straightaway for becoming “human bombs”. It could also have arrested those who motivated them to take such a path. The fact is the police had nothing substantial against the women. And in order to cover up its folly, it is bound to come up with conspiracy theories involving them. The police officers who hit upon this idea of “human bombs” are oblivious of the damage it has caused to the women concerned and their families. They have also brought disrepute to the Punjab Police. Nothing short of punishment to the guilty officers will serve the ends of justice in this case. |
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Bonus for farmers FOR farmers sore over the tendency of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and the Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation (HSIDC) to acquire land at rates far below the market price, the announcement of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to give an additional amount of Rs 10,000 per year for each acre of the acquired land for 33 years will come as a relief. One major advantage of such long-term payment is that this continuous flow of funds to the families of peasants can provide sustenance to those solely dependent on farmland for their livelihood. The experience so far has been that the lumpsum amount given as compensation is either frittered away or spent in buying an alternative piece of land. That hardly improves the everyday life of the farmers. The annual “royalty” will be something to fall back on. It is another matter that the farmers are not happy, because they were expecting at least Rs 20,000 per acre, if not more. Interestingly, the incentives offered to farmers have been made party-specific by giving these to only those whose land has been acquired after the present regime assumed office on March 5, 2005. This will be welcomed by some but rued by others who were unfortunate enough to be deprived of their land some days or months before the Hooda government took over. The Chief Minister has announced several other farmer-friendly measures. For instance, if village land is acquired for setting up of some industry, 25 per cent jobs in that industrial unit would be reserved for the village farmers and landless workers who were dependent on agriculture. Land is not just the accumulated asset of several generations, it is also the soul of the farmers for emotional reasons. This parting should be made as painless as possible. The ideal way to reduce the anguish of parting is to let them have some stake in the acquired land.
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Police reforms THE Supreme Court has rightly rejected the petitions filed by some state governments to review its September 22, 2006, order on introducing wide-ranging reforms to insulate the police machinery from political interference. Clearly, the governments have no justification to express reservations about the apex court order. If most chief ministers are reluctant to implement it, it is only because of their fear that they would lose control of the police administration once the reforms are introduced. As it is, the police administration is vitiated at various levels. Corruption, maladministration and insubordination rule the roost in most states. Political interference in the day-to-day administration has only made matters worse. Officials — from the Station House Officer to the Director-General of Police — are frequently transferred. Some policemen even go out of the way to pander to the wishes of their political bosses. Small wonder that politicisation of the police force has adversely affected the law and order administration in the states. A close look at the Supreme Court’s reform proposals would suggest that it is interested in stemming the rot. What is wrong with its directive to set up state security commission with the chief minister or the home minister as its chairman? This is mainly aimed at checking the government’s unwarranted influence or pressure exercised on the state police. Similarly, its directives on the selection of the DGP through a panel of three senior officers, a fixed tenure for all officers, a police establishment board to decide all transfers, postings and promotions of the personnel will help streamline the police machinery. Moreover, it needs to be emphasised that the Supreme Court’s slew of reforms are not new. Over the years, these were suggested by many expert panels, the most important being the National Police Commission headed by former West Bengal Governor Dharma Vira as far back as 1979. However, true to their style and nature, successive governments at the Centre and in the states have done little to implement them. Now that the apex court has been playing a pivotal role in cleaning up the police system, the chief ministers should implement them in the right spirit. Indeed, the reluctant chief ministers have no choice but to fall in line.
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This is the weather the cuckoo likes,/And so do I;/ When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,/And nestlings fly. — Thomas Hardy
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Coalition in the future It’s
all over bar the shouting. The general election is on the horizon, sooner than the Congress and other parties wanted, but the Indo-US nuclear deal has triggered a set of circumstances in which the Left’s essential support base for the coalition government is crumbling. Whatever the future zigzags, both the Congress and the Left see a parting of ways. What remain to be determined are the precise timing and the two parties’ search for issues on which to announce their divorce. The Left’s support for the Congress was a marriage of convenience, and thanks to the best results ever it obtained in the Lok Sabha, the dominant Marxists in particular gained an enviable clout in governance at the national level. They demonstrated this clout time and again, in slowing down economic reforms and privatisation moves and in the trade union field. The government got away with some economic policies while giving way on others. It is unlikely that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh daring the Marxists to bring down the government was responsible for the vehemence with which the Left rejected the Indo-US nuclear deal. But the Marxists had to enthuse their constituency and anti-Americanism is as good a theme as any to call the government to account. The tensions that had been building over economic and other policy differences snowballed into something of an ultimatum: put the nuclear deal on hold or else. Neither the Congress nor the Marxists want an immediate election because they are not in the pink of health. The current thinking is that the general election should be held after the Gujarat assembly elections later this year, preferably in the middle of 2008. Whether the Congress-led coalition and its Left supporters can stretch a patched-up truce that long remains to be seen. Party-wise, the Congress has still to set its house in order. It faced reverses in a string of state assembly elections and Ms Sonia Gandhi’s efforts to enthuse and revive grassroots organisations are barely beginning. Besides, the strains in the unique dual-headed nature of the power structure are showing. The contracting geographical reach of Congress power imposes its own limit and the party has still to find a new slogan that will negate the perception that it is a tired old party. It is open to question whether it can match the results of the last general election. The Marxists are in a worse predicament because they face factionalism in their party in both their strongholds, West Bengal and Kerala, and have still to surmount the Stalinist phase of the party’s development. The contradictions in West Bengal, for instance, flow from the differences between the progressive wing led by Mr Buddhadev Bhattarcharjee seeking industrialisation after the Chinese model and the majority of hidebound Marxists still singing from the Stalinist hymnbook. Even more damaging, from the Marxists’ perspective, is growing indiscipline in the party, most tellingly revealed in the power struggle between the governmental and organisational wings of the party in Kerala. It is conventional wisdom that the Left’s strength will not match its last performance. Significantly, the BJP was the first off the block in preparing for elections, with Mr L.K. Advani urging his party’s legislators to head for their constituencies after the parliamentary session. But the party is in a sorry state, with its mascot, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, ailing, the party president, Mr Rajnath Singh, a mediocrity and a second rung of leadership in an intense struggle for succession. The BJP’s mentor, the RSS, has developed a mind of its own and wants to run the party. Mr Advani himself has all but thrown his hat in the ring as the party’s future leader in the hope of becoming prime minister, despite the age factor working against him. One of the chimeras of Indian politics is the concept of an all-powerful third front ruling the country. The newest attempt in this direction is the United National Progressive Alliance, which collapsed shortly after it was born with one of its main constituents, the AIADMK, going against a collective decision on the country’s presidency. And the hankering after Left support, without which a non-Congress non-BJP entity would be a non-starter, proved illusive. There is nothing that the Left parties dominated by the Marxists would want more than to lead a Third Front to power, but there is little to keep the disparate regional parties with their parochial and personality-oriented outlook together. Besides, the Marxists and other Left parties must surmount their own contradictions. The transition of European communists to social democracy is far from Indian communists’ minds and they also seem hesitant in following the new Chinese model of “capitalism with socialist characteristics”. Indeed, among the other parties, only the Bahujan Samaj Party of Ms Mayawati exudes confidence as it seeks to widen its ken from its triumph in Uttar Pradesh to the other northern outposts. As it is, UP commands a disproportionate share of seats in the Lok Sabha and hence enjoys great political clout. Ms Mayawati’s immediate ambition will be to become the new power factor in a future coalition replacing the Left’s equation with the Congress-led coalition in the present dispensation. The BJP prides itself on the fact that it provided the only coalition at the Centre to complete its full term, assuming that the Congress-led coalition will not last till 2009. But the party’s great coalition builder, Mr Vajpayee, is in no shape to lead the BJP in the next general election campaign and its next aspirant is not cut from the same cloth. As a rule, coalitions in New Delhi have been nine-day wonders, creating a rash of former prime ministers, but little else. It would be fair to assume that the choice of the next coalition would be limited to a Congress- or BJP-led coalition, with the complexion of supporting and opposing parties changing. For the Left parties, the prospect can hardly be encouraging. But they can find some consolation in the woes of a regional outfit like the Samajwadi Party mixing Leftist rhetoric with a partiality for its Muslim vote
bank.
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It’s an ad world IF your sister ties “rakhi” on your wrist a bit too tight this time, don’t frown at her. She might just be inspired by a TV ad stating that on “Rakhi,” mere “shagun” is not enough. To put it more directly, your love for your sister cannot be called pure and unconditional unless you present her with a pack of chocolates made by “A” company. Gone are the days when you could placate your resentful wife with a mere “sorry” slip or a smiling flower. Now, you’ve got to prove to your better half how much you care for her by gifting her a diamond necklace, or at least a ring. Because, in this modern (read materialistic) era, not true love, but a diamond is forever. Welcome to this glittery but illusory world of advertisements, where a “self-made” film star attributes success in life to a brand of whiskey and a cricket idol claims that he derives energy from biscuits. But why blame them alone? After all, nearly everybody wants shortcuts these days and the ads promise these in abundance. Wish to have silky-black hair in a jiffy? Use shampoo “B”. For those model-like looks, try soap “C”. Put on brand “Y” apparel for an impressive personality and for everlasting energy, just swallow pill “Q”. In short, these catchy commercials offer you the whole world in a neat little packet, delivered at your doorstep. If you are a tough one to please, they’ll lure you with free gifts and scratch schemes. Even in case you happen to be a contended housewife, there’s still something in store for you: A pack of incense sticks which — the makers claim — can turn your home into a temple. So what, if these incense sticks are marketed by a tobacco products company? Still caught up in those old-fashioned ideals of simple living and high thinking? Oh please, take a
break!
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Jharia: a town on fire
When
we say that such and such town is sitting on a powder keg, we mean that figuratively. But in the case of Jharia (Jharkhand), it is literally true. Coal burning uncontrolled underneath it has put a fiery question mark on the very existence of this town. Fire and smoke spew out at hundreds of places. Most houses have developed cracks and are on the verge of caving in. But an encounter of the first kind with impending disaster has made many people so blasé about the situation that they are just not ready to move out to safety. It is the only part of the world where 70 underground fires are burning in a relatively small but densely populated geographical area. These are the result of unscientific “slaughter” mining that has taken place over the decades. Unmindful of the fire burning just a few feet away from them, nearly four lakh residents of Jharia go about their everyday life as a routine. This includes for some indulging in hazardous activities like using a welding machine right next to an open fire pit. They sit pretty not because of carelessness alone. Most of them are so poor and deprived that they cannot think of any future in a new place. The government has broken its promises so often in the past that no official word of assurance about proper relocation and rehabilitation is believed. There are organisations galore to resist any attempt to shift them. The fire is not burning underground alone. Their everyday life above ground is also as uncomfortable as Dante’s hell. That is true not only of Jharia, but the entire Dhanbad coal belt. Poverty level has to be seen to be believed. Both the mineral-rich land and its residents have been exploited to the hilt for decades. Mafia rules the roost with the kind of ferocity that could put any terrorist organisation to shame. These horrifying facts have been underlined in a five-part documentary, “Hot As Hell”, produced and directed by journalist-educationist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in partnership with the Public service Broadcasting Trust. In one part, he focuses on Jharia, one of India’s oldest coal mining areas, and living on top of a veritable inferno. The other four tell the sordid tale of the Dhanbad region as a whole, where powerful mafia organisations rule and exploit the underprivileged by mining illegally, supervising organised pilferage, running extortion rackets and bagging lucrative contracts. Their close contacts with top political leaders are well known but are discussed in hushed tones, because life is dirt cheap in this “most polluted part of Planet Earth”. One of the most touching scenes in the documentary shows a few persons dip into a highly polluted rivulet to extract a bucketful of coal. Covered in slush all over, they look like inhabitants of some other planet. The area produces the most valuable coal available in India, known as coking coal or metallurgical coal that is used for making steel. Coal mining itself causes irreparable environmental degradation. Underground fires have compounded the damage. The human beings ruling the roost above the ground are equally inhuman. Their greed has left the environment so degraded that those who live and work here have become vulnerable to diseases that are a direct result of air and water pollution. Seeing the deplorable state of coal miners, the private operations were nationalised in 1971. But that has hardly improved the economic condition of the residents, most of them low-caste dalits and economically backward tribals (adivasis). The district administration, the law-enforcing agencies and the public sector management fight regular battles with politically well-connected gangsters who run lucrative coal and sand transportation businesses, corner construction contracts, conduct money-lending operations and organise theft of coal, but the skirmishes hardly dent the might of these bloodsuckers. The mafia bosses have successfully infiltrated the local administration and managements of coal mining companies and corrupted officials. So, the rich resources of Jharia have ironically become a curse for it. Thakurta says the documentary, which features interviews with over 40 individuals – experts as well as common men – is as much about the fires that are burning within the people as it is about fires beneath the surface of the earth. It is also an expose of the tendency in India and elsewhere in the world to marginalise the poor and exacerbate inequalities in the name of “development”.
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Putin’s cold war
fishing trip
If
there is a rifle hanging on the wall in the first act, in the third act, the rifle will be fired”, KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky is musing on the words of the Russian dramatist Chekhov, as he considers Vladimir Putin’s latest strategic moves, which he fears could lead inevitably to all-out military conflict. “When Putin came to power, it was clear what was going to happen,” says Mr Gordievsky of his former KGB colleague. “I warned John Scarlett Gordievsky’s former handler in Moscow who now heads MI6], I warned the Foreign Office, I warned journalists. Now they believe me,” he thunders. Not content with hanging up a rifle on the wall, the Russian president has lined up a whole array of weaponry, including nuclear-capable strategic bombers while ratcheting up his rhetoric, prompting talk of a “new Cold War”. “The old one never stopped,” said Dan Plesch a senior British arms control analyst who shares the concern of the highest-ranking KGB officer to defect to the UK that we are sleepwalking to disaster. One false move, and “there is a very significant danger of global nuclear war”, according to Mr Plesch. In a week in which the world has been distracted by the bare muscular torso of the 54-year-old Russian leader on his Siberian holiday, compared with the air-brushed “love handles” of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, one thing stands out in the series of images on the Kremlin website. This is a president who wears military fatigues, not jeans, in his spare time. The Russian bear is back with a vengeance. But seen from Moscow, the Kremlin is simply reacting to a series of provocations by the United States and NATO as the Western alliance creeps towards Russian borders, threatening the security of the state. The “new Cold War” has its origins in a speech made by Mr Putin last February at a security conference in Munich, in front of an audience of Western defence ministers and parliamentarians, in which he listed Moscow’s grievances and accused the Bush administration of trying to establish a “unipolar” world. “One single centre of power. One single centre of force. One single centre of decision-making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign,” the President complained. The speech went down a storm back home, where Russian newspapers congratulated the President for telling the West where to get off. But it kicked up a different kind of storm in the West, already worried about oil-rich Russia using energy as a weapon to bully its neighbours and concerned about the country’s return to more authoritarian rule under Mr Putin. Since the Munich speech, in which the Russian leader criticised American plans to base part of an anti-missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, both former Warsaw Pact nations, the chill wind has got chillier. The West and Russia are at loggerheads over a host of political issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iraq, the future of Kosovo and, in particular, NATO expansion, which is a Kremlin obsession. British-Russian relations are at their worst in decades after the radiation poisoning of the former KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, in central London last November, and Russia’s refusal to extradite the former KGB man who is suspected of the murder. In May, Mr Putin fired off another volley against American unilateralism, obliquely comparing US policies to those of the Third Reich in a speech commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the fall of Nazi Germany. Things have got steadily worse: an EU-Russia summit held amid tensions between Russia and Poland and Estonia ended acrimoniously as the European leaders criticised the arrest of a group of Russian opposition activists led by Garry Kasparov. They were detained on their way to a protest rally near the summit in Samara. Then came Russia’s threat to turn of gas supplies to Belarus, in what became almost a replay of the stand-off in 2006 when supplies to Ukraine were shut down, ostensibly to punish the former Soviet republic for its Orange Revolution. But the military developments have clearly raised the most dangerous tensions between Russia and the West. In retaliation for the US anti-missile shield plans, Mr Putin announced that Russia would retarget its own missiles towards Europe to counter the proposed installations in its former satellite states that are now EU members and fervently pro-US. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Delhi Durbar There
are only three places in New Delhi where the media takes interest, Samajwadi General Secretary Amar Singh reportedly told one of his colleagues in Lucknow recently. Curious to know the details, Singh confided saying that the media descends at the residences of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and at his place. According to him, these three places are also centres of the three alliances — the NDA, the UPA and the UNPA.
Package dynamics Will the Prime Minister’s announcement on Independence Day of Rs 25,000 crore investment in agriculture have an impact on the choice of the next PCC chief in Punjab? A section of the Punjab Congress feels that this would work in favour of appointing a PCC chief from the Jat community from Majha. Their feeling is that a leader from the farming community, which has strong agricultural roots, would be more effective in taking the party’s message home. The argument on the other side is that the Jat community has traditionally been supporting the Akali Dal and the Congress should give due representation in high posts to those sections which have turned away from the party in the recent past.
NBA’s choice As the pros and cons of the Indo-US nuclear deal are being keenly discussed, the Narmada Bachao Andolan has voiced its opposition to the very production of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The NBA says that irreversible dangers of radioactivity and its impact on health, water and the environment are being summarily dismissed in an irresponsible manner. It says the whole cycle of nuclear production, beginning with uranium mining, is fraught with catastrophic dangers and the country should use renewable sources of energy which are environmentally benign and abundantly available. While emphasising that solar, wind and ocean waves along with human power need to be fully tapped and put to use with people’s control, the organisation says the nuclear energy option should be put up for widespread public debate and the citizens should get an opportunity to make informed choice.
Ah Taj! French freelance photographer Nicolas Chorier has shown modern-day photographers a unique way of aerial photography. In his book, Kite’s eye view — India between earth and sky, released last week by outgoing French Ambassador Dominque Girard, Chorier has used about 200 photographs with the kite aerial photography technique propounded by French photographer Arthur Batut in 1888. The book presents a collection of pictures taken in Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Ladakh and Uttar Pradesh. Contributed by Satish Misra, Prashant Sood and Tripti Nath
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Those who cannot give up attachments to worldly things, and who find no means to shake off the feeling of 'I' should rather cherish the idea, 'I am God's servant; I am his servant; I am his devotee.' — Shri Ramakrishna Truth is attained through God’s grace. — Guru Nanak God’s actions may procure a better quality of life. But Salvation comes only through the grace
of God. — Guru Nanak On the sun’s rays to the world of Brahma, Where he can have his fill of enjoyment. — Mandukya Upanishad
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