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Liberate AIIMS After Hasina, Zia |
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When small is big Bad eggs should be thrown out This had to happen. When the issue of headless chickens came home to roost from across the Atlantic, sooner rather than later another controversy of sorts was only to be expected.
The quality of
justice
A teacher of old
When statistics
hide the truth An Indian says it
with a website Save the dainty
gazelle
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After Hasina, Zia Politics
in Bangladesh is in a flux. The latest development is the arrest of Mrs Khaleda Zia. The tenure of Mrs Khaleda Zia has been notorious for massive corruption and abuse of power. So, when her archrival Hasina Wajed was arrested by the new regime instead on July 16, the view that had gained currency in Bangladesh was that the military-backed regime was lenient towards her, while being rude to Hasina. As if to remove this impression, the government has now arrested her too, 48 days after Hasina. The army-backed administration’s law and information adviser, Mr Mainul Husein, even made it a point to clarify that her arrest was delayed because the Anti-Corruption Commission needed some time to have all the necessary evidence in hand. Implicit in this drive against the big guns is the message that the government is determined to root out corruption. The arrest of the immediate past Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is for illegally influencing the selection of an operator for two state-run container depots in 2003. It is apparent that many more cases will be filed against her in the days to come. Her supporters are bound to protest against the action, but the reaction from the general public has not been sharp so far. The politicians are widely viewed as corrupt and hence the drive against them after Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmad assumed office on January 12 under the state of emergency – which has seen the arrest of more than 170 politicians so far — has seemingly some public support. At the same time, there are fears that the army may formally seize control. The elections scheduled for next year are going to be the litmus test. The Indian reaction too has been confined to saying that it favours early and full restoration of democracy in Bangladesh. The response is not only in sync with the general mood in the eastern neighbourhood, but also takes into account Begum Zia’s track record. During her 2001-2006 tenure, she not only supped with anti-Indian jehadi fundamentalists but also stepped up ties with Pakistan and China at the cost of India. There is also the problem of militant lenders in Assam and elsewhere in the north-east finding sanctuary in Bangladesh. Hopefully the new dispensation is cooperating with India on this account.
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When small is big This
had to happen. When the issue of headless chickens came home to roost from across the Atlantic, sooner rather than later another controversy of sorts was only to be expected. In times to come, as learned historians pore over the many facets of this complex phase of Indian society, diplomacy, security and development, they can be certain of one fact: that the chicken, even if it came decapitated in a tactless delivery, arrived before the egg. The country has come a long way from when national security issues were peppered with scandals involving jeeps, guns and encounters false, or otherwise. That was in the past century. In the new millennium nuclear development may be the minimum deterrent. But, as every soldier who has signed up for his country knows, it is the men — and not the machines — that represent maximum deterrence. And, as we all know, every army marches on its stomach. The way to keep an army fighting fit, like the one to a man’s heart, is through the stomach. So it comes as no surprise that the matter of the eggs being smaller, and consequently weighing less — is a bigger issue that one would have expected. Size matters and the egg is no exception to this rule. It is specified that each egg supplied to Army should be at least 48 grams and a tray of 12 should weigh 600 grams. Now, it turns out that some negligent authority in the headquarters of Northern Command contracted to buy eggs that weigh 40 grams each. Anyone who does his sums can figure out that the Army would be consuming millions of eggs and the amount involved would run to crores of rupees. As a result, the Army is left with more egg on its face than in its stomach. Action is underway against the bad eggs among the officers involved in the contract for smaller-sized eggs. It is all very well for a curate’s egg to be good and bad in parts. When it comes to the armed forces where smaller-sized eggs have ruffled feathers, there can be no place for bad eggs. Those who violated the norms should not be allowed to wear uniform but sent home to learn the difference big and small.
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Friends are the sunshine of life.
— John Hay |
The quality of justice The
judiciary has done the country proud despite failures and aberrations, mostly in its lower rungs. However, the dark chapter of the Emergency apart, the superior judiciary has generally inspired confidence and assurance that justice and the rule of law shall ultimately prevail. There have, however, been rumblings over recent reports of malfeasance in the higher judiciary. Petitions have been filed, inquiries made and impeachment proceedings initiated involving high judicial functionaries. These have come to naught for a variety of reasons. Seemingly well documented allegations have been levelled at Chief Justices of High Courts and judges of the Supreme Court and cases made out for not selecting some for higher appointments, but to no avail. A listing of these cases is to be found on the website of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial Reforms (www.judicialreforms.org) and make distressing reading. Nevertheless, the demand for judicial accountability and a transparent procedure for the appointment, transfer and promotion of judges remains. In response, the government drafted the Judges Inquiry Bill, 2005 and sent it to the Law Commission, which submitted its recommendations and amendments in January 2006. And there the matter rests, partly because Parliament has found little time for serious debate. The Law Commission’s letter of transmittal to the Law Ministry emphasised that “Judicial independence is not absolute. Judicial independence and accountability are two sides of the same coin”. That remains the crux of the matter and must be the starting point of judicial reform. What has now caused considerable dismay and surprise is the grave charge levelled against the just retired Chief Justice of India, Mr Y.K. Sabharwal, by eminent peers, including Mr Shanti Bhushan, Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice
P.B. Sawant, all patrons of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial Reform. The allegations were detailed at a press conference but received only a modicum of publicity. A press statement was distributed, has been posted on at least three websites and was the subject of a vivid broadcast discussion anchored by Karan Thapar with senior advocate of the Supreme Court, Mr Prashant Bhushan, and a distinguished former CJI, Mr J.S. Verma, as participants. Tehelka carried the story in print. Mr Sabharwal was pressed to furnish his side of the story but remained unavailable as though above the fray. But silence in the circumstances can lead to damaging inferences. Equally surprising, the media, otherwise prone to make “breaking news” out of chaff, has ignored the story while the Bar has maintained a stiff upper lip, saying nothing. Is there then a conspiracy of silence? Why? The charges against Justice Sabharwal, spelt out by the Campaign, predicates a conflict of interest as his sons were allegedly beneficiaries of his orders. The narrative is based on documents supplied by them to the Company Law Department. In brief, Justice Sabharwal, and later as CJI, gathered to himself as presiding judge certain cases pertaining to Master Plan (2001) violations through misuse of residential properties for commercial purposes in Delhi between 2004 and 2006, and passed sealing orders thereon. Nothing untoward about this in itself but for the fact that his two sons, Chetan and Nitin, small time import-export businessmen, decided at this very juncture to take up real estate business where they made a killing, with mall and commercial property values skyrocketing as residential properties were targeted under Justice Sabharwal’s orders. During this same period, their business offices were moved for a while from the family home in Punjabi Bagh to the official residence of Justice Sabharwal at No. 6 Motilal Nehru Marg. Concurrently, certain leading real estate developers decided to collaborate with the sons and one of the new entities thus formed, Pawan Impex, was subsequently to receive a Rs 28 crore loan from the Union Bank against a collateral of Rs 18 crore of “projected income from prospective buyers”! The Income Tax Department got interested. Everybody would like to believe that there must be a simple and credible explanation and that Justice Sabharwal, otherwise described as an exemplary judge, would swiftly dispel all doubt and suspicion by putting the record straight. Sadly, this has not happened. The former CJI has chosen to remain studiously silent. Yet silence can be more eloquent than words. He has even now the opportunity to speak and dispel all doubts and will hopefully do so. What can be done? Contempt no longer applies, as truth can now be used as a defence. A retired Judge cannot be impeached. Since the Judge did not recuse himself at the time, knowing that there was or had developed a conflict of interest, can or should the relevant orders he passed be re-heard? Does the Bar, the Bench, Parliament and the government have no role but to watch and wait until corruption and untruth overwhelms us all? Justice is blind, it is said. But woe betide the land if Justice is not just blind but becomes deaf and dumb as
well.
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A teacher of old I picture him still — an ageless form, military in bearing, sitting sternly behind the Headmaster’s table. I am quite certain that in my seven years at Yadavindra Public School (YPS) I never once entered those hallowed premises. The privilege of egress was limited to boys who displayed either extraordinary talents or unpardonable misbehaviour. I fell in neither category. If this teacher of old inspired awe, it was certainly not an account of his appearance. Short and balding, but trim as a professional athlete, he was meticulous in attention to his own turnout, as he was in his insistence on neatness among his wards. In the tradition of English public schools, sports were given the pride of place among all activities. Sports being compulsory, any schoolboy missing a sports period was unheard of. Mr G (let me use his initials), true to the public school tradition, joined enthusiastically in all these activities. Excessive diligence in respect of books was not encouraged. So much so that some bright young scholars who insisted on aiming at the highest grades, found their efforts frowned upon, by their fellow pupils, if not by their teachers. Mr G’s emphasis was on the basics. Excellence in sports, a team spirit, and the development of latent human qualities — that is what he seems to have promoted. This I realise now, though I did not then. Perhaps he felt that he was responsible only for laying the foundation of character-building, that a boy’s innate qualities would develop as he cruised along in life. This same emphasis on the development of a boy’s personality, as a whole, could be perceived in Mr G’s approach to teaching. He taught English. Himself an Anglo-German, he spoke the Queen’s English with just that much of an Indian accent to be fully understood in Patiala. “There are only three ways of learning English”, he used to say. “Read, read, and read !”. And he would add immediately: “But there are three other ways of doing it”. We would be all attention. “Write, write and write!” And so he made us do. I think Mr G understood clearly that his system of teaching English, while attuned to Cambridge requirements, did not assure comparable performance in Indian examinations. It came as no surprise to him, although it was to us, when distinction holders barely scraped through in later intermediate and graduation in Indian universities. The levelling off came, I think, at Master’s level, when the Chaucer and Shakespeare imbibed during adolescence, began suddenly and unexpectedly to flower. What was Lt. Col. F.A. von Goldstein’s contribution to YPS ? An
irreverent question. Goldstein was not the Headmaster of YPS. He was YPS itself. He had no family, or at least not one that any had heard of. He lived and breathed for the school. I don’t recall his ever being on leave, or visiting friends and relatives, or holidaying abroad. He was always here. How carefully he followed every pupil’s welfare was realised when my wife received this letter from the old HM on the occasion of our marriage. It simply said: “You have married one of the good products of
Y.P.S”. |
When statistics hide the truth Numbers differ as governmental economists have, with liberal aid and abetment from statisticians, successfully covered up the ugly reality of poverty in India. The finance minister has virtually been strutting over the last two years about growth of the Indian economy at a pace of around ten per cent, fastest ever, and yet his advisers are unable to explain the higher incidents of suicide by impoverished and heavily indebted farmers in different parts of the country. The anti-poverty programmes, despite huge fund allocations and implementation for years, failed to make a dent in the desired way only because of the inbuilt weaknesses and snags in these schemes. The uniformly patterned Central schemes for all states are implemented by state administrations that have collapsed long before as a delivery system for various reasons including rampant corruption. India does not have the mechanism at any stage in life, neither at home nor at schools, to teach ethical behaviour and build character in human beings. There are few with instinctive honesty. For the vast majority honesty is only strategic. The checks and balances of the scheme only open the flood gates for exploitation and self aggrandisement rather than for service of the poor. Persons devoid of character are assigned the task of implementing schemes that do require honesty, commitment and sensitivity for the poor for the effective reach. When the issue of poverty was first raised in Parliament in 1963, even the prime minister was appalled by facts presented by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and Nehru was forced to set in motion a process for officially defining the line of poverty. Almost a decade later an acceptable definition was worked out and in 1973, the poverty line was set at Rs. 1.40 per day income for individuals in rural and urban areas. Only in 2005-2006 it was revised upwardly to put the individual income at Rs. 12 per day in rural areas and at Rs. 18 per day in urban areas. The year also noted that per capita income had reached the new height of Rs. 25,716 which was hundred times the level at dawn of independence and 27 times the year when the poverty line was defined The per capita income rose by 27 times but the income for the under poverty line was pegged only eight times higher.. Poor could buy two kilo wheat and spare a few paisa for salt and other accessories in 1973 with the daily income of Rs. 1.40 but could do it no more in 2005 with the defined poverty income level. The Planning Commission grudgingly admitted that there were 30 crore in the country living below the poverty line and needed assistance from government to eject them out of the abyss of poverty and deprivation. The National Commission for the Unorganised Sector has, however, says nearly 77 pert cent population of India lives below the income of Rs. 20 per day. Both income levels are not only inadequate to provide dignity in life but also the basic calorie needs. It is obvious that all increases in per capita incomes have been cornered by those who are above the poverty line. The average income of those below poverty line would work out at Rs. 3756 per year given that no one got paid for Sundays. In other words, only 15 per cent was left for thirty crore poor and 85 per cent is grabbed by those 70 crore who are above the poverty line. If Rs. 20 per day income people is taken into consideration then 77 per cent population is left with 25 per cent and 75 per cent goes to share of 20 per cent creamy section of the national population. Every state is anxious to draw maximum amounts of its share in allocated funds for anti-poverty programmes but their enthusiasm takes a different form when it comes to identify and register the poor below poverty line as states are competing fiercely with each other in attracting direct foreign investments. So each state presents a better economic picture by juggling of statistics. Indukumar Jani, a dedicated social worker among poor and landless of Gujarat had complaints from the poor that the state administration was not issuing them cards as a below poverty line family even after they had proved their abject conditions. To his horror he discovered that the state administration did not want numbers of the below poverty line in the state to go upwards by registering them as it would damage the state image as an economically advanced one and consequently affect the flow of direct foreign investments. On an average 40 to 45 children of the tender age of eight to 12 land at New Delhi railway station every morning. They have fled their homes in search of job and food as they do not get sufficient quantum at home. The numbers of children of tender age landing at other stations are no less staggering. Their escape from homes in such large numbers nails a lie to all statistics relating to prevalence of poverty. After a study, the Planning Commission concluded that for delivery of each one rupee the state has to spend Rs. 3.60 as delivery expenditure. In other words, of every hundred rupees allocated for these schemes, Rs. 72 goes for the administrative and delivery expenditure. Of the remaining Rs. 28, it is matter of guessing as to how much is siphoned off and how much is actually delivered. No wonder then at the reports from most districts that those given work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme received between Rs. 13 and Rs. 28 as wages per day, against the promised Rs. 60 per day for hundred days in districts covered under the scheme. In any case, the actual money received per day was much less than the minimum wages prescribed by law. To say that governments spent trillions of rupees on the anti poverty programmes is misnomer. At the most it can be said that trillions have been allocated but actually only a fraction of it reached the poor. Thus nearly three fourth of funds allocated for the NREG scheme have reached those who were not intended beneficiaries and did not need governmental assistance to sustain life. This arithmetic does not take into consideration what is usually siphoned off by the sarkari babus and their henchmen contractors who have perfected the art of spinning black money despite all inbuilt checks and balances of these schemes.
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An Indian says it with a website Michael
Bloomberg founded his financial information firm 26 years ago, after a hot career at Salomon Brothers. Raj Kumar founded his development information firm seven years ago, as a student project at the Kennedy School of Government. Bloomberg’s company has become a giant, employing 8,200 people. Kumar’s Development Executive Group (www.developmentex.com) so far employs 65, but his concept is similar. Bloomberg gives financial markets what they need: instant and plentiful information. Before the company’s terminals became ubiquitous, the bond market was a backward place: If you wanted to buy bonds, you called a few brokers to see what might be available. Now, with Bloomberg, investors can see all their options on a screen. They get the best price, which means Wall Street middlemen don’t scalp money off each trade, which means more of the country’s capital reaches firms that need it. Kumar’s aspiration is to do the same for the development business. Foreign assistance is an industry in itself: Every year, governments and charities spend some $200 billion on projects in poor countries. Some of those billions are wasted, because the development market hasn’t had its Bloomberg yet: It lacks information. There is plenty of talk about corruption siphoning off development dollars, but sheer inefficiency in aid is probably the bigger problem. Consider the process of procurement. Development projects involve contracts in the millions of dollars for construction, engineering, information technology and so on. If you’re running one of these projects, you can place ads in the newspapers asking for, say, water engineers. But most of your potential suppliers probably won’t notice. As a result, there will be few bids for your tender, and you will pay an unnecessarily high price, just as bond buyers did in the pre-Bloomberg era. Now comes Kumar’s Web site, which creates a clearinghouse for information on 30,000 development projects. With that much business in one place, suppliers congregate like bees, especially since the site is searchable. By typing in a key word, a water-engineering firm can find 1,675 water-engineering opportunities. Suddenly, buyers of water-engineering services have multiple suppliers to choose from. Costs fall by perhaps one-fifth, judging by experiments in competitive procurement in Brazil and the Philippines. Next, consider the process of hiring development professionals. Again, the managers of development projects can advertise for people in the newspapers, but this is a haphazard method: By the nature of their work, the professionals you want are scattered. Kumar’s Web site provides employers with one-stop access to 62,000 aid workers. You want an Arabic-speaking water engineer with a master’s degree and a minimum of three years’ experience? A few clicks will introduce you to 141 of them. You want to avoid overpriced expatriates? For your project in Egypt, the site offers a dozen Egyptian water specialists. Kumar is adding a networking option to his site – a sort of development workers’ ‘My Space.’ If a health worker in Nairobi is having difficulty setting up a vaccine supply chain, she can search Kumar’s site for fellow aidniks who have worked in Africa and understand the challenges of cold storage. (When I checked recently, there were 14 of them.) Then she can e-mail these colleagues and tap them for advice and sympathy. Kumar’s website is part of a wider effort to take development online, and it promises broad benefits. Until now, the aid business has been dominated by large bureaucracies, because these were best at accumulating and disseminating development know-how. Today online professional networks provide an alternative. Until now, understaffed governments in poor countries have battled to coordinate dozens of donors. Today Tanzania’s planners can go to Kumar’s website and see the 97 water projects in their country that 11 different donors are financing. The Development Executive Group isn’t exactly Bloomberg yet, and perhaps some rival outfit will emerge to dominate the cyber-aid market. But whatever the future for Kumar’s firm, foreign assistance is ripe for a Bloomberg-style leap
forward. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Save the dainty gazelle There was an interesting zoological brief on the Chinkara, titled “An endangered species”, carried on the front page of The Tribune on Aug 25, 2007.
But the accompanying photography was that of a cheetal stag, an error which is rather surprising in this “age of
the mouse.” In India, the confusion generally arises from erroneously terming the three distinct species of our mammals - the antelope, the gazelle and the deer - by one common denominator, that is , “deer.” In reality, we have four sub-species of the antelope namely, the Blue Bull, the Four-horned antelope, the Goral and the Black Buck. As for gazelles, we really have just one, the Chinkara, though occasionally, a few Chiru or the Tibetan gazelle may be encountered in North Eastern Ladakh. The deer, however, are a large family comprising the Cheetal, the Sambhar, the Swamp deer, the Hog deer, the Hangul or the Kashmir stag and several more. The Chinkara is a chestnut coloured, elegant animal with a compact body supported by dainty legs that would be the envy of designers of stiletto shoes for the Parisian ladies. It carries two spikey horns, seldom more than ten inches long and only a shade thicker than the stiletto heels. Today it is found in the limited desert habitat patches scattered in North West Rajasthan only. It is doubtful if any Chinkara survives in Pakistan, and certainly, there are none in Iran where a few were last spotted in the 1950s. The Chital or the Spotted Deer is comparatively more plentiful than the Chinkara. It has a bright rufous-fawn coat profusely spotted with white at all ages and in all seasons. It inhabits mainly the forested tracts in the Northern fringes of the Gangetic plain and also the forests of the lower Deccan hills. The Spotted Deer is a feast for the eyes, especially the stag with an impressive rack of antlers atop his skull with six to ten tines. In body length and weight the Chital would be almost twice that of the Chinkara. Furthermore, the deer species (Chital) shed their antlers and regrow them every year whereas the gazelle (Chinkara) retain their horns through their life span. Under normal circumstances, there is just no way that any one could mistake a Chital for a Chinkara. Looks apart, there is a vast geographical separation in their habitats so that any identity confusion is simply
unthinkable. The Chinkara population in India, nay, the world, today is a few hundred only. So their hunters must be made to serve out their full prison sentences for illegally and mindlessly shooting these animals. And unless such citizens are ostracised from civilised society there is little chance of saving the precious little of what remains of our wildlife. |
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