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Hike in wheat MSP Limitless storage |
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Science in trouble
Hostage to bandh
The Reunion
A world in your hands Gore supporters hope for Nobel win Legal Notes
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Hike in wheat MSP
A
record Rs 250 rise in the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat to Rs 1,000 a quintal brings it closer to the market price and makes it more realistic. The government on Tuesday also announced a Rs 50 per quintal bonus for paddy and banned non-basmati rice exports to enable the official agencies to buy stocks for the public distribution system (PDS). The sugarcane-growers and the sugar industry stand to gain as the government has made 5 per cent blending of ethanol with petrol mandatory. The tax concessions given to the sugar industry will help it clear the arrears of sugarcane-growers. These are welcome measures, even if the announcement has come when there is speculation about an early poll. The government has been forced to catch up with the wheat market price, which is still higher. The government attracted criticism after it imported wheat at almost double the price of the minimum support price of Rs 750 a quintal. Despite a Rs 100 a quintal bonus on the MSP, the government agencies had failed to mop up sufficient stocks for the PDS. Newspaper reports indicate traders and millers have hoarded huge stocks of wheat and wheat flour and are waiting for the prices to rise further. Despite higher budgetary allocations for irrigation and higher institutional credit for farmers, agriculture has remained sluggish and the plight of the farmer has not improved. This is because the rise in the MSPs for various farm commodities has not kept pace with the escalating cost of inputs. A farmer has to borrow from the private moneylender at a very high interest rate to meet his family’s social obligations and cope with an emergency. The “sharp” rise in the wheat MSP, therefore, may still fall short of farmers’ expectations. Besides, it is the “minimum” support price and farmers should not be forced to sell to government agencies at this price. They should be free to sell their produce at the best available price in the market. |
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Limitless storage Anyone
who uses any modern, mobile device – a cell-phone, laptop, iPod or digital camera – has experienced the pleasure and convenience of being able to store enormous amounts of data in a bit of space. While earlier generations grew up stacking innumerable records, tapes and CDs to save their music, and bulky, unwieldy album collections to preserve cherished memories in colour or black and white, the modern, gadget-savvy individual will store and access it all at will, in a device that fits in the palm of his hand. And all those millions of techies, from the silicon valley to our own ‘silicon plateau’ down the south, owe a debt of gratitude to the two men who made it possible for them to generate billions and billions of dollars. German Peter Gruenberg and Frenchman Albert Fert independently discovered the phenomenon at the junction of electricity and magnetism, called Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR), which makes it possible for devices to “read” huge quantities of magnetic data packed into a tiny space. Another genius at IBM was among those who turned the discovery into practical applications that made possible today’s popular devices. The data storage revolution is larger than merely the ability to store thousands of songs and photographs in a small device. Easier and larger storage capability has further enhanced the way information technology can impact economies and societies, and the implications are still unfolding. IT’s anticipated convergence with nano and biotechnologies will take it all even further. While a sharp digital divide still persists, there is no doubt that IT is getting democratised fast. Information and knowledge are easily and widely available to those who can negotiate their way through “noise” and “overload.” Whole libraries can be stored and accessed with ease, and we are already talking about storing all of human knowledge and creativity in perpetuity. Nothing need ever be lost again. The danger, in fact, is in the surfeit of data the world will have to wade through. |
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Science in trouble Those
with a stake in Indian science are a worried lot. From professors to technologists to many a project manager in ISRO and DRDO labs, they are all confronted with the reality that Indian science is languishing for want of quality inputs from quality personnel. As scientists have stressed time and again, it is one thing to churn out thousands of engineers, but quite another to create a talent pool for basic research. It is basic research that drives science forward, and creates the sound foundation for applied science and engineering, and advanced technology. Government and academic bodies have long recognised the malaise, but corrective measures appear too few and far between. A couple of years ago, the first India Science Report was released. The report was commissioned by the Indian National Science Academy on the lines of the UN’s World Science Report. The document did not mince words when it came to slamming the prevalent quality of science teaching and underscored the fact that engineering disciplines were dragging the best students away from the pure sciences. As for those who gritted their teeth and ploughed through their courses, 20 per cent of the graduates and 14 per cent of the Ph.Ds could not find jobs. The cream went abroad. Attempts are being made to turn things around. The government has talked about revamping the educational institutions and offering more fellowships and scholarships, besides creating better career options. A substantial increase in science and technology spending has been promised, doubling the allocation from the current 1 per cent to 2 per cent. We certainly need more science institutions and more facilities at the existing ones, from laboratories to libraries. The National Knowledge Commission has recommended the setting up of an ambitious National Science and Social Science Foundation, which will work on projects where India can be a “leader” and produce work “worthy of a Nobel Prize.” If this is not to become a laughable goal, a massive, nation-wide effort is required to revive science in India. |
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The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. —
Oscar Wilde |
Hostage to bandh The
Supreme Court has rightly taken the Karunanidhi government to task for organising a bandh in Tamil Nadu on October 1 despite its strong warning against holding it. In a special hearing on Sunday (September 30), the Bench consisting of Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice P.P. Naolekar ruled that the call for bandh was illegal and unconstitutional. Still, the government chose to go ahead with its devious plan to demand the speedy completion of the Sethusamudram project. If the entire state came to a grinding halt on October 1, accountability must be squarely fixed on the Chief Minister himself. Organising a bandh despite the court order was a brazen violation of the majesty of law. The Chief Minister had no right to circumvent the law. No one would buy Mr Karunanidhi’s argument that it was a hunger strike and not a bandh. If it was just a fast by leaders of the ruling coalition — the DMK, the Congress, the CPM, the CPI and the PMK — why was normal life paralysed in Chennai and the entire state? Schools, colleges and universities were closed. All shops and commercial establishments downed their shutters. Train services were disrupted. Even hospitals were not spared. They were deprived of essential food supplies. Surely, political parties like the DMK and the PMK refused to see reason and understand the underlying spirit behind the apex court’s warning — that the citizens’ interests are paramount and no government or political party has the right to cause inconvenience to the common man. Largely dictated by self-interest, political parties care two hoots about the public interest and the bandh’s adverse consequences on the socio-economic life of people. No wonder, the apex court deprecated the shoddy conduct of the state government and ruled that an individual’s rights are superior to those of the political parties. The issue in question should not be viewed through the narrow prism of politics only because the AIADMK, the DMK’s main political adversary, has petitioned the court. The issue is one of protecting the rights and liberties of the citizens. What would the common man do when the state government goes berserk and pitches itself on the wrong side of the law? Should the judiciary close its eyes when the government abdicates its onerous responsibility and tramples upon the citizens’ rights? Justice Agarwal was well within his powers when he said that “if what the AIADMK counsel said was true, then there is a complete breakdown of constitutional machinery in the state”. He added, “we will recommend to the President to dismiss the DMK government in Tamil Nadu”. He also said that “the UPA government at the Centre, of which the DMK is an ally, should not feel shy of dismissing the state government.” These observations, by no stretch of the imagination, can be described as “judicial overreach and high-handedness”. CPM general secretary Prakash Karat’s argument that the apex court ruling amounts to a “judicial encroachment” and transgression of people’s fundamental right to freedom of expression under Article 19 (i) (a) is unconvincing and does not hold water. No doubt, citizens, including political parties, have the right to stage protests and dharnas in a functioning democracy like ours. However, there is a clear distinction between organising peaceful protests and those by coercion and intimidation. The political parties don’t have the right to hold the state to ransom. Individual liberty as guaranteed under the Constitution doesn’t give one the licence to take the people for a ride and destroy public property. Under Article 19, the Constitution guarantees certain positive rights to promote the ideal of liberty as contained in the Preamble. Availability of these rights (six freedoms) is reflective of the genuineness of our democracy. Nonetheless, no modern state can guarantee absolute individual rights. The guarantee of each of the rights under Article 19 is limited by the Constitution itself by conferring upon the state a power to impose reasonable restrictions on the enjoyment or exercise of those rights in the larger interest of the community. More to the point, the Indian Constitution has not followed the philosophy of laissez faire enumerating uncontrolled individual rights. It has rather sought to ensure that where collective interests are involved, individual liberty must yield to the common good. Thus, the Constitution has specified permissible limitations in Clauses 2 to 6 of Article 19 itself. The Constitution attempts to strike a harmonious balance between individual liberty and social control. The problem with our political parties is that bandhs, strikes, hartals, picketing — call them by whatever name — have become too common these days. Having realised the gravity of the situation, the Kerala High Court banned bandhs of all kinds as far back as 1997. Significantly, the Supreme Court had rejected the then Left Front government’s special leave petition to get that order reversed. Subsequently, short-circuiting the High Court order, political parties have been observing hartals instead of bandhs. In 2000, the Kerala High Court ruled that no party, association or group has the right to call a hartal and enforce it by force, intimidation (physical and mental) and coercion. The Calcutta High Court, the Guwahati High Court, the Bombay High Court and the Orissa High Court have given identical rulings against bandhs. It is a travesty of justice that despite these rulings there is no respite for the people from bandhs. Deplorably, this menace has spread to all the states. The issue becomes alarming when the state government itself sponsors the bandh as in Tamil Nadu. It is a typical case of the fence eating the crop. A situation of anarchy prevails because the entire bureaucracy and the police act as the handmaidens of the ruling coalition. Shouldn’t there be a check on governments that are bent on violating the court rulings and organising bandhs? In 2004, the Bombay High Court imposed a fine of Rs 20 lakh each on both the BJP and the Shiv Sena for having organised a bandh in Mumbai on July 30, 2003 in protest against the Ghatkopar bomb blasts. The ruling was in conformity with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the meaning and concept of one’s right to sponsor or observe bandh on any issue. The petitioners in this case were men of stature like former Cabinet Secretary B.G. Deshmukh and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro. In this case, the court admitted their plea that political parties must be made accountable for paralysing normal life in Mumbai. The higher judiciary’s activist role in checking the propensity of the political parties to organise bandhs is highly commendable. During the Gujjars’ agitation in June this year, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the large-scale destruction of property in Rajasthan and in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi and called it “a national shame”. It directed the police commissioners concerned to explain what action had been taken against the offenders. It asked the TV channels to provide footage of the telecasts to the police to help nab the culprits and take appropriate action. A state government’s duty is to protect and not harm the citizens’ interests. This is ordained by the Constitution and there can be no compromise on this. However, if it abdicates its responsibility, the judiciary, as the protector and sentinel of the Constitution, will have to step in to uphold the rule of law. Even as the Supreme Court’s action on the contempt petition against the Tamil Nadu government will be keenly watched, irresponsible and recalcitrant political parties must be taught a lesson for holding the people to
ransom.
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The Reunion
It
is 50 years since I passed out from School and, by tradition, my batch would re-assemble in school to be part of a ceremony to celebrate, again, our pride and joy in everything that the school had done for us and, perhaps, to express our gratitude at still being around. The 160-year-old chapel was decorated with a profusion of flowers, as beautifully as if for a wedding, and the ceremony itself was simple and moving. Our class representative spoke about our days in school, and brought alive again in our minds the memories of incidents long forgotten. One hilarious incident he recounted and which had us all roaring with laughter, pertained to something that occurred when we were in Upper III or class VI. The school had just been taken over from the army by the Education Ministry and a Board of Governors had been appointed with the Secretary of the Ministry as the Chairman. One bright morning we were told that one of the board members would be taking a round of the school and if he wandered into our classroom we were to ignore him. We had 19 desks in our classroom and 18 children. Just before our maths class Veena Vij requested permission to change her desk as there was ink on her chair. Halfway through the class, the Governor walked into the class. We followed our instructions and ignored him. He went straight to the empty desk and sat down on the ink. The suppressed laughter erupted into one great roar when the Governor squirmed his way out of the class. It was reported that Veena had dropped the ink deliberately and had later said: "I use only washable ink." Now after all these long years we were once again convulsed with mirth at the retelling of this incident. The twist in the tale came when, later, at tea at the Headmaster's residence, Veena said plaintively: "I promise I never dropped that ink and I never, never said anything about it being washable. All of you hounded me so much that I left the school at the end of the year." It was true, she had left at the end of the year and my sister, who had been a year senior to us, confirmed that Veena had been reduced to a state of constant misery by the jeers and jokes that she received at the hands of the other members of her batch. What should have been an occasion of affirmation became an occasion of regret. Regret at the mindless cruelty and thoughtlessness with which we had so readily accepted the story we were told without confirming it with Veena, regret for the trauma we had subjected her to with the silly, pointless jokes that we had aimed at her day after day. I do not know about the others, but I will carry the burden of guilt for my part in this cruelty for my remaining
days. |
A world in your hands
The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has honored two scientists whose discovery revolutionised digital data storage, awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for work that allows millions to sway to music on their iPods and to store a lifetime’s photographs on palm-size devices. Peter Gruenberg of Germany and Albert Fert of France were recognised for their independent discovery of giant magnetoresistance – an exotic phenomenon whose practical applications became ubiquitous in everyday life in less than two decades. Among the results: the palm-size external hard drive that can hold a good chunk of your local library. The iPod that allows you to carry a thousand songs in your pocket. The computing revolution that allows your laptop to hold more information than a 19th-century warehouse. The Europeans will share about $1.5 million, a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars in wealth they have to helped create in Silicon Valley and around the world. “It feels great,” said Gruenberg in an interview after he won the prize. As usual, Nobel Prize winners were alerted on Tuesday half an hour ahead of the rest of the world by the academy in Stockholm. When the call came, Gruenberg said, the voice on the other end of the line was extremely faint.
He strained to understand what he
was being told. “When I heard the word, ‘Stockholm,’ I thought, ‘That’s it! I have won the prize!’ “he recalled. Gruenberg and Felt had long been tipped to become Nobelists. Their discovery that ultra-thin slices of metal have different electrical properties in a magnetic field not only changed the musical and computing habits of the entire planet but also altered the very landscape of how people think about information, and the ways in which music, movies and
ideas can be shared. Packing information into ever-more-compact spaces is at the heart of the success of devices such as the iPod. That success would have been impossible without the scientific discovery honored Tuesday. The phenomenon of giant magnetoresistance, or GMR, is one of those ideas that seems impossible until someone shows how it can be done, and then it seems obvious. Hundreds of laboratories and companies today are expanding on Fert and Gruenberg’s idea, with results more striking than anything they had originally visualised. Scientists such as Xiaoguang Zhang, a senior researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, described that original discovery as path-breaking. “It really freed the minds of physicists,” Zhang said. Although giant magnetoresistance does sound a bit like one of those mutants in the “X-Men” movie series, it actually describes a phenomenon at the junction of electricity and magnetism: When two layers of a metal such as iron are separated by a thin layer of another metal such as chromium, the application of a magnetic field can change the resistance of the structure – which determines how much electricity will flow through it. Data in computer hard drives and iPod players are magnetically stored. Computer manufacturers have built GMR devices that “read” this data: As the mechanical reader “head” using GMR technology moves over the data, the magnetic field alters the resistance within the head, thereby controlling the flow of electricity. This in turn is translated into the ones and zeroes of digital information that processors turn into images, music or vast databases. Without giant magnetoresistance, a lot of information could still be packed into a tiny space, but it would be unreadable. Effectively, GMR technology provides a sort of magnifying glass that allows electronic devices to read very tiny letters. Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the school of engineering at Harvard University and a professor of physics, said Fert and Gruenberg’s discovery had led to a wide range of applications. “If you can change the electrical properties of materials, that has important implications for a whole bunch of applications,” he said. Gruenberg and others credited American Stuart Parkin at IBM’s research labs in Silicon Valley for translating the European scientists’ research into practical applications. Some had expected Parkin to share the Nobel with Fert and Gruenberg. “We have high expectations, and we are disappointed he was not considered with the other two, but the award was given for the raw discovery, and they did that,” said Mark Dean, Parkin’s boss and vice president for research at IBM. “We are very proud of Stuart,” Dean added. “We believe he was the key to identifying the materials and structures that made this understanding of the science practical. ... Without his work, we would not be sitting here with the capacities we have today.” Dean said GMR technology has been central to allowing the computer industry to make dramatic leaps forward each year in the storage of data. “The raw understanding of how nature works is a great thing,” Dean added. “The application of that knowing how nature works in the creation of something my mother can use is another great breakthrough – and as significant.” Fert, 69, is a professor at the University of Paris-Sud, in Orsay, France. Born in Carcassonne, France, he is married and has two children. Gruenberg, 68, was born in Pilsen in what is now the Czech Republic. Now a German citizen, he works at the Institute of Solid State Research, which is part of a scientific facility known as Research Center Juelich in western Germany. He is married and has three children. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Gore supporters hope for Nobel win Al Gore
never quite closed the door on running for president again and his many loyalists are now pinning their hopes on Norway’s Nobel committee, in the belief that the prize must be his, this year of all years. The Nobel Prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo and for many, Mr Gore is head and shoulders above the other 181 candidates. The Nobel committee also has a reputation for making political choices. A peace prize may soon be added to the Emmy he won for his Current TV channel and the Oscar that was awarded last February for his call to arms on climate change, the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. With little debate among candidates about America’s role in causing global warming, the Draft Gore movement has been growing by leaps and bounds. It boasts a website that puts most official presidential candidates to shame. It has petitions to sign, a campaign song to sing, Draft Gore buttons, DVDs and ways to contact other Gore enthusiasts. Pre-written opinion articles are on hand on the site urging Mr Gore to run which his supporters are encouraged to plagiarise and send to their local newspaper. The supporters’ group has already gathered about 127,000 signatures this year n 10,000 of them in the last week of September alone n and is planning to take out full-page advert in The New York Times as an open letter urging Mr Gore to run. “We feel that if [Mr Gore] wins the Nobel Prize ... then he can’t not run for president,” Roy Gayhart, the man behind California’s Draft Gore group, told Newsweek. Mr Gore has said nothing to indicate he might run, and his Nashville headquarters is silent on the question. But people close to the former vice-president are convinced that he is looking for an opportunity to jump in the race as a candidate who really is prepared to bring about urgent change in the face of the looming disaster posed by global warming. So far in the presidential campaign, candidates have run shy of embracing aggressive measures to deal with America’s contribution to climate change. Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate, has the weakest environmental record of all. And Barack Obama took until this week to come up with proposals that won favour with environmentalists, after first backing a disastrous scheme to subsidise turning coal into petrol. Mr Obama’s plan is full of proposals drafted by climate scientists, including limits on carbon emissions, energy-efficiency targets and billions of dollars for energy research. There is not a word about turning coal into liquid. The next few weeks are considered crucial for a Gore candidacy. A petition drive for New York State must gather 5,000 signatures between the end of October and early December if he is to be legally entitled to be on the ballot. In Michigan, Gore supporters must get more than 12,000 signatures, and a signed statement by Mr Gore himself to get on next year’s primary ballot. His backers are hopeful, however, looking to a recent local TV poll that had 36 per cent of Democratic voters backing him, beating Mrs Clinton with 32 per cent. But even those who expect him to get the Nobel Prize are unsure they can persuade Mr Gore to run. “I know it’s still a real long shot that he’ll run,” said Fred Koed, of the Massachusetts Draft Gore group. “If I were in his shoes, after the devastating and painful loss in 2000, I’d really have to search inside myself to see if it was all worth doing again. He’ll have to determine if this is right for him.” By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Legal Notes While
the Central Information Commission has ruled that the Right to Information Act will not apply to any subjudice matter, the Supreme Court Administration has taken a radical step to make its working more transparent. The aim is to share information on the status of cases with litigants, advocates and media on their request, and about other such issues on which the sharing of information is not prohibited by the law. To facilitate this, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan has appointed a Public Relations Officer in the Supreme Court for the first time earlier this month. Additional Registrar R.N. Nijhawan has been assigned the duty of the PRO to provide requisite information to litigants, advocates, media and the common people about the status of a case and important orders passed, and to help the media. It has been stated in his appointment order itself that people could contact him on phone for information and he will also have to attend to inquires from the high courts and government departments on cases’ status. A periodic house journal – The Court News – since January 2006, is being published every three months to give insight into the Court’s functioning, appointment of judges and vacancies right from the Supreme Court to the lower judiciary, and important judgements passed by the apex court and the high courts. The fresh step by the present CJI is seen as another major initiative towards bringing more transparency in the functioning of the judiciary in the age of right to information.
Judges Inquiry Bill resisted Two members of the Parliamentary standing committee on Law and Justice – Ram Jethmalani and Virendra Bhatia, both Rajya Sabha MPs – have sought return of the Judges Inquiry Bill, claiming that it conflicts with several constitutional provisions, will not withstand judicial scrutiny, and will be struck down by the Supreme Court. Ramjethmalani has describe the Bill as a badly-drafted document, which is repugnant to Article 124 of the Constitution, which deals with appointment and removal of judges in the high judiciary. The Bill aims at establishing a National Judicial Council to probe any misconduct of judges, lays down procedures for their removal for any serious misconduct or judicial incapacity and reprimands if the offence is not serious enough to warrant removal. The Bill seeks to replace the 1968 Act which lays down a procedure for the removal of Supreme Court and High Court judges by an impeachment proceeding. It was referred to the standing committee for detailed deliberation, which has in its report suggested several changes in it. But Jethmalani and Bhatia in their dissent notes say that even if the Bill is passed after the changes suggested by the committee, it still will not withstand judicial scrutiny. Jethmalani has suggested that the opinion of the Supreme Court under Article 143 be taken to avoid the embarrassment of the legislation being struck down later. He says the better course for the Government will be to bring another Bill to create a body like National Judicial Commission, with wider representation from Parliament, executive and Bar for appointment and removal of judges.
Help for good samaritans People generally hesitate to attend to a victim of a road accident due to the fear of police harassment. Now they no longer need to worry about unnecessary interrogation by the cops if they come forward to help the injured person and take him or her to hospital. The Supreme Court in an order has laid down that the responsibility of the person helping the accident victim ends as soon as he admits him to the hospital. If the victim is admitted to a hospital, the responsibility lies with the hospital authority to inform the police and not with the helper. The hospitals have also been directed to provide immediate medical aid to the injured rather then waiting for the police to complete the medico-legal formalities and lodging of the complaint. The prime requirement and responsibility of hospitals in such cases is saving the life of the injured. If a hospital or medical centre feels that the patient needs to be referred to a bigger hospital, it should be done after providing him first aid. The hospitals can demand payment from victims’ relatives only after attending to the patient and not make it as a pre-condition. The medical aid could not be deferred merely to await receipt of payment and completion of medico-legal formalities, the Court has laid down. |
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