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Killer Nullah Left has second thoughts |
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Buddha’s blunder
A distrusted General
Textbook cricketer
Televista Defence Notes
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Killer Nullah THE Tribune has been campaigning for the last four years against the health hazards Buddha Nullah poses. It has been Ludhiana’s shame for so long that it seems like a fairytale when old-timers say that till the 1950s, its water was crystal clear and was used for drinking purposes. Fish used to abound and its banks were a favourite picnic spot. Today, going anywhere near its stinking vicinity can be a daunting proposition - and a health hazard to boot. For the past many years, all the motions of rectifying the human folly have been made, but there has hardly been any improvement in the overall situation. The Tribune campaign was noticed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court, angry over the official lethargy, had ordered the clean-up operation and yet the administration went about in its usual slow motion. The court has now directed the Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner and the Municipal Commissioner to be present in the court along with the Managing Director of the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board and others on the next hearing of the case on December 17. Perhaps the court stinker will make them do what they had been ignoring all along. Even when The Tribune carried a series of articles highlighting the sorry state of Buddha Nullah some time back, everybody from the then Chief Minister Amarinder Singh downwards had promised prompt action. But the promise was never fulfilled. Perhaps there is not sufficient realisation that the nullah is not only an eyesore but also a serious health hazard, spreading several diseases affecting those living along both banks as it winds its way through the city. And yet, solid waste and industrial effluents are dumped in it with impunity while the administration conveniently looks the other way. No doubt, constant monitoring is not an easy task, but there is no alternative at all. There are encroachments all along its length, which have to be immediately removed. Electroplating and dyeing units have played havoc with the rivulet. The toxicity in it is affecting the river Sutlej also, to which it is connected. Unless the officials down the line are made personally responsible for its upkeep, they will continue to invent excuses for not stemming the deadly rot. |
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Left has second thoughts THERE is now reason to believe that the India-US civil nuclear deal can indeed be saved. The Left parties, which have been vehemently opposing the deal on the ground that it would bring asunder the country’s sovereignty, have mellowed in the sense that they have agreed to let the government start negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency India-specific safeguards. Such talks are a prelude to operationalising the deal which the Left parties have been opposing. In fact, at one point they had warned that any such step would jeopardise the stability of the UPA government. Seen against this backdrop, the new stance of the Left that it would not oppose the talks with the IAEA is certainly a forward movement. This follows the word given by the government that it would not finalise any agreement with the IAEA till the UPA-Left joint panel gives its green signal. A clearer picture will emerge only after the joint panel holds its meeting on Friday. The Left melt down has not come about all of a sudden. Despite their public posture, there are differences of opinion in the Left parties about the nuclear deal. Not all sections in these parties share CPM leader Prakash Karat’s view that any truck with the US is dangerous. They also realise that nuclear energy has to be tapped to meet the growing needs of the economy. Every world leader who has had an interaction with the Indian leaders in the recent past, the last being Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been advising them to operationalise the deal. Public opinion has also been growing in favour of the deal, something the Left leaders can only ill afford to ignore. On the political front, the BJP does not subscribe to the Left position. Its opposition to the deal is mainly on the ground that the government had not been taking it into confidence. Better late than never, the Manmohan Singh government has tried to explain to the BJP leaders that India’s programme to develop the strategic deterrent has not been compromised by the deal. This has helped. The interactions the US Ambassador to India and the former US Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger, had with the BJP leaders also suggest that the party can be persuaded to be more accommodative on the nuclear deal. In other words, it would have dawned on the Left leaders that their argument that the majority in Parliament did not support the deal did no longer hold water. Whatever be the Left’s compulsions, its second thoughts bode well for the UPA government. |
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Buddha’s blunder WEST BENGAL Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s statement defending the carnage perpetrated by the CPM cadres in Nandigram is wholly irresponsible. He has taken the oath of office and secrecy not only to serve every citizen without any ill will or malice but also to protect the Constitution. Having maintained that the activists of the Bhoomi Uchched Pratirodh Committee have been “paid back in the same coin” in retaliation to what happened on March 14, he has glossed over his own government’s failure to save the hapless people from the wrath of the Marxist cadres. Worse, his statement on the horrendous episode makes him vulnerable to the charge of willfully violating his constitutional responsibilities and allowing armed gangs to hijack the administration’s work. If a chief minister himself defends the bloody recapture of Nandigram, what kind of message will it send to those down the line — officials and party cadres? Moreover, a chief minister, far from approving of violence of any kind, is expected to strive as an arbiter between two rival sections and resolve the conflict amicably. Unfortunately, he has done precious little to restore normalcy in Nandigram during the past few months. Similarly, Mr Bhattacharjee’s argument that he did not use force in Nandigram to avoid a “repetition” of March 14 is as flawed and unconvincing as his charge that the Centre had failed to send CRPF jawans in time. He is just passing the buck to the Centre to cover up his own failure. Reports suggest that the state police are not giving a free hand to the CRPF. While the government and the ruling CPM claim of Maoist presence in Nandigram, home secretary P.R. Roy thinks otherwise. The people are entitled to know who is speaking the truth. Meanwhile, reports that the CRPF has stumbled upon some landmines and guns at Sonachura in Nandigram suggest the presence of Maoists in the region because these were the type of weapons generally used by the Maoists of Purulia and
Midnapore. |
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He can’t see a belt without hitting below it. |
A distrusted General Acting in his capacity as Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf suspended the provisions of the 1973 Constitution on November 3. He proclaimed a Provisional Constitutional Order, which enabled him to sack the country’s assertive Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges, who refused to swear allegiance to an extra-constitutional order that ended judicial independence and denied Pakistani nationals the right to life and liberty.
Justifying his actions, General Musharraf alleged that the judiciary had forced him to release terrorists captured in the Lal Masjid complex in Islamabad. This, despite the fact that two judges — Justice Abbasi and Justice Khokhar — who were
over- This has naturally raised questions about whether they had conspired with General Musharraf to demand the release of the terrorists to discredit the Supreme Court. General Musharraf’s rationale for dismissing the judges on grounds of their releasing terrorists was further eroded the very next day after he imposed martial law, when he approved the release of 20 captured terrorists to secure the release of over 200 soldiers captured by the militant tribal leader in Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud. General Musharraf held out the spectre of a takeover of Pakistan by pro-Taliban religious ex-tremists as yet another reason for his action. But he left unanswered the question why over the past eight years of his rule he had allowed a situation to arise wherein the writ of the Pakistan government over large parts of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afgha-nistan no longer existed. How is it that he permitted a group of radicals to erode the credibility of his government internationally, when they seized control of Lal Masjid (located just over a mile from General Musharraf’s office) and terrorised people in the capital city of Islamabad? One has to analyse how his misplaced policies of seeking “strategic depth” through making Afghanistan a client state by propping up the Taliban and of continuing efforts to “bleed India with a thousand cuts” through jihadi groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba have backfired and undermined the security of Pakistan itself. General Musharraf’s present predicament arises primarily from his duplicity, as a self-proclaimed “frontline ally” in US President George Bush’s war on terrorism, which commenced with the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan. American military operations were badly executed, resulting in the Taliban leadership escaping to Baluchistan and finding shelter in places like Quetta. At the same time, Osama bin Laden, and his Al-Qaeda, Chechen, Uzbek and Uighur supporters found shelter in the tribal areas of Waziristan, in Pakistan’s NWFP. For over three years the ISI permitted Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, to periodically cross over into Quetta and the NWFP. A rejuvenated, regrouped and rearmed Taliban has stepped up attacks since 2006, inflicting huge casualties on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Americans then forced General Musharraf to crackdown on pro-Taliban elements in the tribal areas, compelling him to adopt a duplicitous policy of giving support to the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, while cracking down on their supporters in the tribal areas. The operations by the Pakistan Army in the tribal areas have been disastrous. Over 1000 soldiers have been killed in the shootouts and suicide bombings. Around 400 officers and men face court martial proceedings for refusing to fight against “fellow Muslims”. Around 500 men, including officers, have surrendered to pro-Taliban militants without firing a shot. As indiscriminate air attacks by the Pakistan Air Force and Army helicopter gunships caused mounting civilian casualties, the tribals retaliated with suicide bombings on Pakistan Army installations, including the elite Special Services Group, once commanded by General Musharraf himself, ISI personnel in Rawalpindi and the strategic Sargodha air base in Punjab. Tribal anger was further fuelled by reports that the SSG killed around 300 Pashtun women students when they stormed Lal Masjid in July. Moreover, signs of a Shia-Sunni divide are appearing for the first time in the Pakistan armed forces, with reports that units of the predominantly Shia Northern Light Infantry (used by General Musharraf in Kargil) have been brought into Waziristan, with the tribals retaliating by selectively killing captured Shia soldiers. Coercion and force will be used extensively by General Musharraf to deal with political opponents, as he has now virtually ruled out either ending martial law or quitting as army chief soon. He has been helped by the fact that his extensive dealings with Ms Benazir Bhutto have eroded her credibility and effectively dimmed the prospects of a unified opposition confronting him. Most reports now suggest that in Punjab province it is Mr Nawaz Sharif, and not Ms Benazir Bhutto, who enjoys the widest popularity. But Mr Sharif is not a favoured politician of the Americans and given the fact that General Musharraf has made it clear that he will not reinstate the judges he has fired, Mr Sharif will certainly be arrested and possibly packed off to Saudi Arabia again if he chooses to return. Thus, with the backing of the MQM in Karachi and his chosen Chief Minister Parvez Elahi calling the shots in Lahore, no effort will be spared to ensure that any attempt to mobilise crowds to demonstrate against General Musharraf will be crushed both in Punjab and urban Sind. Despite these developments, General Musharraf faces the prospect of his hold over power being gradually eroded, primarily because he is so widely disliked and distrusted within Pakistan. Sharia law is now effectively in force across the NWFP, with men being forced to grow beards, barber shops and video parlours forcibly shut down, those not observing regular prayers being whipped in public, women not being permitted to go to shops unless escorted by a male family member, educational institutions for girls shut down, ancient Buddhist sculptures being defaced and destroyed and an illegal radio station in the picturesque Swat valley run by Mullah Fazlullah spouting venom. All this is the outcome of nine years of General Musharraf claiming that he is wedded to a policy of “enlightened moderation”. Given the massive deployment of its forces on its western frontiers, Pakistan will naturally not want anything to happen that could provoke India, especially when India has been more than correct in ensuring that it is not even perceived to be fishing in Pakistan’s troubled waters. But policies like circumstances change. There is no place for misplaced sentimentalism in dealing with the mercurial General who rules over India’s western neighbour. Terrorism as an instrument of state policy has not yet been discarded by Pakistan’s rulers either in Afghanistan or
India. |
Textbook cricketer MY career as a sports journalist was so brief, I cannot even put it down on my CV. But in that time, I met and interviewed two great cricketers — the previous and present Test captains of the Indian cricket team.
The prelude to my journalistic ambitions was watching hours of Test and one-day cricket at the cost of sleep While my brothers went to engineering colleges, I did a degree in journalism.
Returning after the inaugural day of his engineering years at RV College, Bangalore, my elder brother could only speak of a senior, Anil Kumble, who not only had made it to the Indian team but also secured a distinction. Quite a rare and heady combination of success in academics and sport. I did not know what to expect when I went to interview Kumble, the hero of the recently concluded Hero Cup. The address he had given led to a simple house in a middle-class Jayanagar neighbourhood. His mother was standing at the door, just looking around like many of our mothers do when they are not busy. His father went about his daily routine dressed in a simple dhoti. It was not the age of fancy personal managers who orchestrate interviews. We were just cub reporters of a college magazine, but he humoured us. He patiently answered questions about his favourite music, food and books. All I could get from that interview was that our new Test captain loves Kishore Kumar music and the biryani prepared by his mother. And idolises Prasanna and Chandrashekar, India’s great turners. However, he is most grateful to his brother for nudging him into becoming a leggie, inclined as he was initially to medium pace. Eagerly, he showed us the ball with which he had bowled India to victory in the finals of the Hero Cup. When I asked him if he saw himself as the captain of the Indian team, those 14 years ago, he said he would take his career one step at a time. And it has taken many steps indeed to get here. Although extremely affable, he answered all questions about cricket politics with “no comments”. His inherent tactfulness will stand him in good stead. My brother had been urging me to try and wheedle an interview with Rahul Dravid before he made it to the Indian team. He said the Karnataka Ranji star would not entertain trainee journalists once he donned the country’s colours. If it is possible, he seemed even nicer than Kumble. He had a Maruti 800 parked outside and opened the door himself. He had not yet got rid of his teenage acne and spoke of simple dreams like finishing his studies and scoring innumerable centuries. Those days, he had only kind words for his team mates and the media. But, then that is another story. Simple people. Simple times. Just as we were leaving Anil Kumble’s house, the postman rang the bell. Forgetting our presence, he eagerly leapt to check the post. Later, rather sheepishly, he told us he was expecting a call for county cricket. This is the endearing image I carry of our new Captain. A childlike eagerness and enthusiasm that is sure to be still evident, underneath the player of steel that he later
became. |
This above all There is an expression which one often comes across in Urdu poetry, but in no other language that I know. It is gareeban chaak karna. Its literal meaning is to tear up one’s shirt. I had assumed that it meant to expose one’s inner self in all its ugliness or bare one’s soul for everyone to see. It could also be introspection to examine one’s own shortcomings. I came to the conclusion by Iqbal’s lines which ask, “how is it possible that I tear open my shirt and not earn ill repute” – gareeban chaak karoon aur ruswaee na ho?
To clear doubts in my mind, I sought enlightenment from Deepak Tandon of Panchkula whose erudition and scholarship I respect. He assures me I am wrong. I quote his words: “Gareebaan chaak karna” or “Gireebaan taar taar karna” the lexicon meaning is to tear one’s garment to shreds in a state of madness, rage, grief etc. Such a state, to my mind, comes in extreme cases. One may let one’s garment to come off only in cases of extreme derangement, distraction, lunacy, frenzy, fury, rage or keeness of passions. Ipso facto, it does not mean ‘exposing one’s real self’. On the contrary, it is a sign of abnormal behaviour or eccentricity. Apnee vahshat kee numaish mujhey manzoor na tthee Varna dushavaar na ttha chaak gareebaan hona Shelley, too, wrote: “I could lie down like a tired child/And weep away the life of care/Which I have borne and yet must bear/Till Death like Sleep might steal on me”. He believed that “Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow”. Byron in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage says: “I’m not so weak;/But thinking on an absent wife/Will blanch a faithful cheek”. Further, he says: “There, in a moment, we may plunge our years/In fatal penitence, and in the blight/Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears/And colour things to come with hues of Night”. Shakespeare in Henry IV says: “A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder”. When things such as these tear one’s heart, travail and sorrow tend to kill the holy spirit of man, believes Swinburne. Sometimes, rage makes him “blow like cataracts of hurricanes spout”. Thanks Mr Tandon, you’ve left me more confused than I was. Road to the hills Never again will I go to my summer home in Kasauli by road: the last journey was a torture. Besides the never-ending construction of over-bridges in Panipat, Karnal and Ambala, the main highway was in sad state of disrepair. I used to pray that there would be no hold-ups going through the narrow bazaars of Pinjore and Kalka: my prayers were answered as there were none. But there was a 20-mile traffic gridlock extending from Panchkula near Chandigarh to Pinjore. Thousands of cars, buses, trucks, tractors, motor cycles, scooters stood still for over an hour and a half with no one knowing the reason why. A journey which took me between five to six hours door-to-door from Sujan Singh Park, New Delhi, to Raj Villa, Kasauli, took more than eight hours. You can guess what that kind of ordeal can do to a 94-year old budda. I swore this is the last time I will undertake this journey. That night I slept for almost nine hours: Complete silence and clean air have soporofic qualities. I was woken up by the sunlight streaming in through my window opening out to the east. “Get up lazy bones!” it seemed to say. “See how the mountains are lit up, autumn flowers in bloom and hear birds in full-throated song”. I dragged myself to sit out in the garden and soak in the sun. The first thing my eyes fell on is the havoc caused by the monsoons. The approach road I had re-tarmac-ed only two years ago was a shamble of loose pebbles. A huge pine tree near the entrance of my villa had come down crushing the rickshaw shed, including the rickshaw, under its massive trunk and blocked the approach. It had been cut to clear the way, and the wood stacked away. In a cantonment, trees, including those growing in private compounds, belong to the cantonment. At many places the corrugated tin roof had sprung leaks. It was a long litany of woes I have to hear this time of the year. Last May there were swarms of white butterflies swirling round the garden. This time there was not one to be seen. Birds were there – crows, whistling thrushes, bulbuls, mynahs, blackbirds and woodpeckers. I could not hear their calls: I had become deafer than I was four months ago. Owning a second home in the hills is a status symbol, which bores a big hole in one’s pocket. Nevertheless, homes which were bought for paltry sums of under Rs 30,000 barely twenty years ago are today selling for over two crore rupees. Most of the year they remain unlived in. Nevertheless, people continue to buy old ones and build new ones. Recently, a home barely fifty yards along the same hillside as mine was bought and renovated by retired Brigadier Wazir Singh Chaudhary, who lives half the year in Panchkula playing golf, half the year in Kasauli playing bridge. He is, as the saying goes, happy as a lark. The family dropped in to introduce themselves. Their names are very easy to memorise: the wife’s name was Gursharan Kaur, the daughter’s Sonia. He had no regrets buying a second home in Kasauli. After a hefty Patiala peg, he fished out a piece of paper from his trouser pocket. He had never written poetry in his life till he was hospitalised with a heart ailment and put in intensive care unit. Then the muse burst open. He asked for a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled an ode in Urdu in praise of Kasauli: “Its soft, misty, mornings, its gentle breezes fragrant with pine-scented air, its hillsides bedecked with a variety of wild flowers and the singing of birds from dawn to dusk”. I was moved. How could I ever forget what Kasauli has given me in the 80 years that I have been coming up, to spend a few weeks of the summer and autumn, in the little cantonment township? It is I who have become an old, crotchety grumbler. Thank you Kasauli! Bihari nasbandi Population control system in Bihar: “Hum do, hamare do, Uske baad jitne hon Sab ko Punjab bhej do” We two, after two send all to Punjab. (Contributed by Shivtar Singh Dalla, Ludhiana) |
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Televista That is, until, they were thrown out. For us in India, it is very interesting to see what is happening in Pakistan and it is not a pretty sight as far as the media are concerned. Immediately after Emergency was declared by President Musharraf, the independent radio and TV stations went off the air and only the government controlled stations were putting out government dominated news. The few correspondents and press people who could get through to Indian media said how they were not getting any news from home, people could not find out what was happening and they were frantically listening and viewing foreign stations, not least of all India, to get news about their own country. Times Now, being in link with Reuter’s, was able to give viewers a lot more than those Indian channels which either did not have correspondents or could not get to them easily. I frequently watched the BBC, which had some exciting interviews with Supreme Court judges who had been ousted but were planning countrywide protests with the full backing of the country’s lawyers. For us in India we were able to share the experiences of some Pakistani press and media people whom we see and hear every day on TV. The editors of Dawn, Friday Times and some of the broadcasters of independent TV got through quite often and also told us that they were getting news about their own country through Indian media. Then there was NDTV’s correspondent, Munaesa Jahangir (hope I have spelt her first name right). Her mother, famous activist Asma Jahangir, a frequent visitor to India, was immediately put under house arrest, which her daughter had to report. More thrilling was the going underground of famous cricketer and TV star, Imran Khan. He was also placed under house arrest but slipped out of his house and went underground. He is the leader of one of the smaller political parties and up to the time of writing was still untraceable. He must be planning some fast political bowling, batting and catching. Meanwhile, we saw the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court being hustled into a police car – just like some time ago – and ordinary citizens of Pakistan speaking bravely into the mike and expressing their protests about what was happening to their unfortunate country. India and Pakistan became independent 60 years ago within a day of each other and one could not but feel thankful that India, which the late John Kenneth Galbraith once affectionately and wittily described as “the biggest functioning anarchy in the world” is still going strong. Meanwhile, much of the India-Pakistan cricket matches, the first ODI having taken place within a day of Musharraf’s coup, became for Indians a feeling of sympathy for the Pakistani team, cut off from their families when air travel, telephones, cell phones and internet were down. Naturally some of them expressed anxiety about being cut off from their families. Although their manager said their tour would go on and certainly their first match went off on schedule, one could guess that though they carried on bravely, their game was bound to be affected. It was at the time of writing the only normal thing in their lives. On a less grim note, it was very interesting and endearing to see retired Pak captain Inzamamul Haq, Inzy to us all, taking on his new role of doing a running commentary for the matches for Zee TV. On the field, Inzy has always looked a little heavy when running, one seldom saw him smile and he lumbered while fielding. It was a different Inzy as commentator. He seems to have shed weight, he was always smiling, he spoke eloquently and displayed a sense of wit and humour which had eluded us so far. It was a pleasure to welcome Inzy to the tribe of commentators, and I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed his fluent and interesting analysis of the game. After all, he knows what he is talking about. |
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Defence Notes THE Minister of State for Defence Production, Rao Inderjit Singh, has asked private industry to seize business opportunities in the defence industry as India gallops towards a developed economy and the armed forces transform themselves into a lean and mean fighting machine. Addressing an international seminar on Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) here, the first of its kind in the country, Rao Inderjit cited success stories in private-public partnership in developing weapon systems, notably the Light Combat Aircraft ‘Tejas’, the Prithvi and Brahmos missiles and Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRLs). All this has been made possible since the government threw open defence production to the private sector in 2001, he said. Rao Inderjit further said the government encourages DRDO and public-private industry to harness synergies and meet the huge potential in fulfilling the armed forces’ needs.
Evading detection Indigenous warship technology for evading detection by enemy ships and submarines was handed over to the Indian Navy in Vishakapatnam earlier this month. A. Sivathanu Pillai, chief controller (R&D) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), handed over the products to Vice-Admiral D.S.P. Varma, chief of materials at the Naval Headquarters. The technology has been developed by the Vishakapatnam-based Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL). These technologies are intended for use in modern warships under design and construction. NSTL has nurtured these technologies in the recent past and is progressing strongly towards self-reliance in this critical arena. NSTL has developed a number of products to avert damages to naval ships in enemy attacks. Among the products developed are acoustics enclosures, acoustic silencers, double stage vibration isolation systems, radar transparent ladders, stanchions, camouflage screens, and composite blowers.
Raytheon tie-ups The Raytheon Company has signed new MoUs with four major Indian companies. The firms are Wipro Limited, Larsen & Toubro Limited, Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company Limited, and Data Patterns (India) Private Limited. The MoUs represent another step towards providing for in-country offsets. They will also pave the way for more exchanges of technology and business know-how between India and the U.S. “These strategic alignments make good business sense for Raytheon and for India,” said Wes Motooka, vice president for international strategy and business development at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. With an MoU signed earlier this year, Raytheon is also working closely with the Strategic Electronics Division of the Tata Power Company. |
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