|
RBI opts for status quo
Tickets for women |
|
|
Bhajji vindicated
A Tribune Debate
“Enemies” in love
The crisis in agriculture research Today is the 60th anniversary of Gandhi's assassination In Cold War spy games, nothing is as it seems
|
Tickets for women There have been far too many false starts on the 33 per cent reservation for women issue in Parliament and it is but natural to lose hope on that count. A consensus appears impossible to evolve, it seems, given the fractured nature of the mandate that the Lower House currently has. Under the circumstances, the BJP’s decision to amend its constitution and give 33 per cent representation to women in all organisational bodies right from the grassroots level to the central election committee is a good beginning. There is no unanimity whether this facility will be given to women in the Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body of the party, as well but the first step itself is worthy of emulation by all parties, particularly the Congress. The BJP has taken the lead and that should make the latter less averse to the idea. After all, if women’s empowerment cannot be ensured in one go, there is no harm in adopting a piecemeal approach. But the next logical step is also imperative. The BJP – the Congress and all other parties – should now earmark one-third of their tickets to women in the parliamentary and Assembly elections. If this is done sincerely, and not by just giving them weak seats to be politically correct, this can result in a sharp increase in the number of women in Parliament. This is in line with the recommendation of the Election Commission too. Only a minor amendment to the Representation of People Act will be needed. In fact, it can bypass the need for reserving 33 per cent seats for women which will require a major constitutional amendment – which is difficult to bring about given the deep-rooted prejudices among most male MPs, especially those belonging to regional parties. They are just not willing to let go of their position.
On the other hand, parties can set aside tickets for women by merely amending their own constitutions. It is high time women occupied the high table in running the affairs of the country in strength. |
Bhajji vindicated Once again, a crisis in international cricket has been averted with the International Cricket Council dropping the offensive racism charge and the three-match ban slapped against Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh. Even before the case came up before the appointed judge, the so-called “compromise” formula had already evolved, with Bhajji copping a charge (and a fine of 50 per cent of his match fee) under the less serious Section 2.8 of the ICC Code of Conduct, for using offensive and insulting language.
The earlier charge was under Section 3.3, which pertains to racial abuse. The Indian and Australian players, along with their cricket boards, had worked towards this end before the hearing. Of course, there will be some murmurs about the BCCI’s “muscle power” from other cricketing countries, especially since the board had threatened to withdraw from the tour if Bhajji was not cleared of the racism charge. But critics should remember that the balance of the case is clearly in the spinner’s favour. It is equally apparent that he was being provoked and hounded on the field, which led him to use the insults, which were misconstrued as racial vilification. These periodic tussles can and should be brought to an end. This can be done only if competent and non-biased umpiring is the norm rather than the exception, and the ICC should do more than it is doing now, in finding, training and empanelling quality umpires from all over the world. And this whole business of sledging and so-called “gamesmanship” must be rooted out of cricket. Many veterans, including Australians, have expressed displeasure over the “inane chatter” that goes on in the cricket field. While a spontaneous comment or two in the heat of the moment can be accommodated if it is of a non-abusive nature, sledging as a practice to “mentally wear down” the opposition player is clearly not cricket. It has no place in the game. |
Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.
—William Henry Beveridge |
A Tribune Debate
THE function of a judge is to take a given matrix of facts and then apply the law, as it was on a relevant moment in time, to return a decision on the question posed to him. A judge is not a law maker and a judgment is incapable of conferring a right or a duty on any person. Judgments are only endorsements of the rights or duties already attached to people, but which may have been disputed or called into question. Really, a person claiming to be the rightful purchaser of a disputed property cannot say that the court or the judge gave him the right to have the property; at best, he can only claim that the judge vindicated his claim and rejected the contentions of his opponents. A writ petition before a High Court or a Supreme Court bench is essentially to be treated in the same manner. The judge deciding a case where the petitioner claims the violation of his right to life, or of personal liberty or free speech — or of any other right that “We the people” have conferred on him — may only examine all the facts before him and decide whether that right has actually been conferred upon him by the Constitution or a statute and in breach direct the government or other persons to restore what was rightfully his, to begin with. A court of law is, therefore, a restorative forum at best. It is not a forum for social or economic or cultural change at all. A court must only function within the confines of the conditions which the people, acting through the legislature, have enacted in the form of laws. If the people are unhappy with a particular rule or law, then the supreme and exclusive power to change it rests exclusively with their chosen representatives, and it is patently indefensible and unjustifiable for a judge to substitute his will or conscience and go against that law. A law made by a parliament or a legislature represents the will of the majority of the people, and neither their motives nor their intent may be questioned by a judge. A judge may, of course, examine the process which leads to the making of the law and determine whether or not the process satisfied the procedures (again, only the procedures prescribed by the people in laws authorising their representatives to legislate). If the judge finds the procedure adopted by the legislators to be contrary to those procedures, he may hold the law to be badly made. But for a judge to go into the motives of the legislature cannot be justified, not in a democracy at least. It is quite instructional to read the oath which every judge is obligated to swear while being sworn in. The oath, itself prescribed in the Constitution, enjoins a judge to be true to the Constitution but makes neither demand nor requirement for the judge to owe any form of allegiance to the font of all authority, the common man, who collectively with his peers makes up “We the people”. This has two connotations. One, the judge has no right to empathise with or to be revolted by any litigant or cause. Two, the judge is subservient only to the law — and the law as given to him by Parliament and legislatures. There is no other law nor source nor conscience which he may obey. Judges, unfortunately, express their frustration at the manifest injustice being caused by particular pieces of legislation in their judgments. Latin and Greek maxims are often the chosen vehicles of such transgressions and in wanting to appear to do justice, judges inadvertently perform the greatest disservice possible to the law. The most desirable characteristic of any law is its predictability. The law ought to be a predictable set of rules and, given the same set of facts and circumstances, must return only the same one answer each time. A legal system which depends on the personality of the actors — the litigants, counsel or the judges — may well be a great social system, but is a poor system. When judges start tweaking the law to make it seem more just as per their individual conscience, they introduce the “x” or the uncertainty variable into our interactions. Judges can’t possibly be expected to comprehend each and every ripple that would be caused by their plucking at a single strand in the fabric of the law as it exists and often end up causing unthinkable effects. While saying that judges cannot “make the law”, I also contend that judges can’t even opine about what the law is going to be, even a moment into the future. To change the law or to wipe it out all together is the exclusive domain of the legislature, and for a judge to premise his judgment on a future expectation would be equally fallacious. Democracy by definition means that if we can get enough people to agree to the same thing, then our representatives can enact it as a law and even the minority which doesn’t agree with it must still abide by those rules. Now if a judge feels, with all the strength of his conscience, that a particular rule is unjust — generally, or in a given case — even then he must not try to mould the law to his personal prejudices. Not only because it makes the law arbitrary and unpredictable, but also because it goes against the collective will of the majority. The presumption must be that every law which is on the statute books is desirable and essential to the majority of the people. One must also acknowledge that most of the judicial misadventures are largely due to the extremely persuasive and misplaced advocacy of advocates and counsel. The most vocal critics will, of course, point out that the executive and the legislature have abdicated their responsibilities and have forced the constitutional courts to “legislate”. If there has been a vacuum in good governance, then it is because either the legislature or the executive has been failing in its duties. The failure of the executive should possibly trigger off a rethink of our entire system of civil service and warrant its revamp or abolition. The failure of the legislature may possibly be because we don’t want better legislators representing us in Parliament. But neither possibility, horrifying as it may be, warrants the flexing of judicial muscle. If a Judge feels that the law is imperfect and he is unable to impose it in its full majesty, let him resign rather than be untrue to his oath. But let not a judge feel that he alone can save this overburdened land from its unruly masses. An oft-speaking judge, said Francis Bacon, is like an ill-tuned cymbal. And that unfortunately is the reason why a cacophony is emanating from our courts today. Judges have got used to speaking through their judgments and can rarely restrain themselves from proselytising. Extremely learned judges have written literature in the guise of judgments; but for a lay person to comprehend the implications of the “flowing of the Ganges under the bridge” is a tall order, indeed.n The writer is a Barrister-at-Law. The article is in continuation of The Tribune Debate, “Judges vs Judges”, in which a number of legal luminaries participated with their articles, carried on this page on December 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 25, 2007, and January 17, 2008. |
“Enemies” in love
THE “stroll” that Union minister Jairam Ramesh reportedly took at the Wagah border created ripples with Pakistan frowning at it. Though the matter has been ostensibly resolved with the Pak Rangers giving a clean chit to the minister, but it did set me thinking. Had the minister been prompted by the Sunny Deol-starrer in which the actor merrily sang, “Rabb jaane, kab gujara Amritsar, kab Lahore aaya?” My sympathies were with the minister as some time back, during a trip to the Hussainiwala border check-post, I felt similar sentiments stirring within me when the milestone in Ferozepur announced: Lahore 42 km. So near, yet so far it was! After all, it was not for nothing that the old-timers used to say, “Jinney Lahore Nahin Vekhya...” The minister’s might have been an isolated case but even 60 years after the partition, it is hard to escape the fact that most Indians are overpowered by a sense of nostalgia when it comes to Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif’s village Jatti Umra in the Indian Punjab went in raptures when he made it big in politics and similar sentiments were reciprocated in village Gah of Chakwal district in Pakistan’s Punjab province when Manmohan Singh was elected as the Prime Minister of India. Even the school that Manmohan Singh attended was named after him by Pakistan. Even Pervez Musharraf took time out to visit his Neharval Haveli in Delhi’s Daryaganj area. We love to hate each other but seldom look at each other with disinterest as Aroosa Alam may only be too willing to testify! Other than fighting wars, the game of one-upmanship between the two countries goes on even in other areas. The last ball six that Javed Miandad hit off the hapless Chetan Sharma in Sharjah was a bodyblow for Indians and we rejoiced when at Bangalore, Venkatesh Prasad wildly gesticulated at Aamir Sohail telling him to walk the talk, having got his wicket after a verbal duel. And yet, the group of Pakistan-based artists that comes to stage the play “Jinne Lahore…” in Punjab, receives rave reviews. We allow ourselves to be regaled by Omar Sharif and others from across the LoC on laughter challenge shows without a trace of prejudice. There is no doubt an obvious dichotomy in the way Indians and Pakistanis treat each other. Overcoming mutual distrust that is steeped in partition and its bitter aftermath is no doubt an arduous task. But Indians and Pakistanis also have a cultural and linguistic history to share. For Indians, Pakistan is as much about Siachen and Kargil as it is about Allama Iqbal and Saadat Hasan Manto. Manto’s immortal Toba Tek Singh reflected the great subcontinental urge to resist partition but the march of history willed otherwise. Still, the sentiment lingers on. And Jairam Ramesh, like in the great game of cricket, deserves to be given the benefit of the
doubt! |
The crisis in agriculture research The call for transforming India’s farm science institutions is growing, first at the national level and now increasingly at the level of the states. A two-day meeting of the National Development Council held in May last year was devoted exclusively to a strategy to lift agriculture and the urgent need to revamp India’s agricultural research and education system so that it is more responsive to the emerging challenges facing the country. While it is true that the current level of funding for agricultural research and education is grossly inadequate in relation to the needs, it is also clear that enhanced funding alone is unlikely to yield the desired results. Transforming India’s farm science institutions to respond effectively to the multiple and complex problems facing the agriculture sector, calls for fundamental changes in the way we have viewed and sought answers to these problems in the past. The system needs to undergo changes on several counts and in many ways, but the most critical relates to a shift from the largely crop-focused research and development agenda that we have adopted thus far to an eco-regional approach to planning and executing research for a development agenda. The term agro-eco region refers to an area which is relatively uniform with respect to bio-physical and associated socio-economic features, such that the results of research can be extended and adopted relatively easily. The eco-regional approach has several distinct advantages over the individual crop-focused research for development and offers a way to leverage the much needed change to transform the system to become increasingly responsive to the emerging challenges facing the sector. Importantly, the eco-regional approach permits integration of biophysical resource endowments and socio-economic considerations in defining and prioritising the research agenda and which is directly linked to the development needs of the region. Meeting the goal of self-sufficiency in food-grain production has been the sole aims of agricultural research in the past. Thing have changed. While increasing productivity of food grains to meet the increasing demands remains a primary concern, it is clear that these concerns cannot be addressed in isolation from the increasing concerns of resource degradation and the environment, that have accompanied past development strategies. The eco-regional approach offers an opportunity to address these in an integrated fashion. A distinct advantage in adopting this approach is that although agriculture is a state subject, it provides the basis for linking local to regional and national level issues, priorities and actions, both with short term and longer term objectives in view. Both conceptually and operationally, the approach has to evolve over time and place and no straight jacketed approach is likely to work. What is required is conceptual clarity and facilitation towards the evolution of new approaches. This will call for continued dialogue and interaction amongst the key stakeholders, the State Agricultural Universities and the ICAR institutes, and the respective state and central governments. Agriculture being a state subject, while the primary onus for operationalising the new approach will be that of Agricultural Universities, yet the critically needed initiative, facilitation, coordination and integrating role will continue to be that of the ICAR. This, then, is the challenge before India’s agricultural research and education system. Mr Prakash Singh Badal, Chief minister of Punjab observed in a public meeting that the Punjab Agricultural University, which was once considered among the best of the country’s agricultural universities, had deteriorated. The state of Punjab and its farmers, once at the centre stage of the green revolution, are facing serious problems of sustaining agriculture. The problems facing the farmers can be viewed in relation to three distinct regions/ situations of the state; one, the central rice-wheat cropping zone where declining water table, overall resource degradation (soil and water quality) and resulting increasing cost of production are increasingly cutting into the farmer’s profitability. The second, the canal irrigated southwestern zone, the cotton-wheat belt, is the region where ground waters are brackish in nature, a factor limiting their exploitation for irrigation. Fall in ground water table and heavy use of agrochemicals-related problems are increasingly limiting profitability of farmers and contributing to serious environmental and health problems. The third, the ecologically fragile Kandi region, is distinct in that the problems facing farmers relate to recurrent droughts, wide spread problems of resources degradation (soil erosion, loss of biodiversity etc) and consequently, continued low level of overall socio-economic development. The problem specificities of the three regions call for differentiated approaches to finding solutions, and therefore research for development agenda, which is essentially the responsibility of the state agricultural university. Viewed from the national perspective, the problems facing the three regions are shared by contiguous areas in the adjoining states. Thus the problems facing rice-wheat central zone extends to similar areas in the states of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh – the green revolution areas; the problems facing the cotton-wheat belt are shared with similar areas in south-west Haryana and contiguous region in Rajasthan; and those of ‘Kandi’ region are shared with the states of Haryana, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. This then, is the context of the role of central institutions – ICAR and its institutes. They should facilitate linkages, and coordination, understand problems in a holistic manner, in the context of a longer term view to solution and policy perspective at the Central government level, and define their own research agenda. This shift to a eco-regional approach will require action, both at the central and at the state levels, but the initiative has to come from the Centre and constant learning is what will provide the right direction and evolution. This eco-regional approach constitutes a major paradigm shift from the way problems of agricultural research and development have been visualised in the past. This has implications for the roles of existing and potential partners and the way they link, interact and
function. The writer is Director, Centre for Advancement of Sustainable Agriculture. |
Today is the 60th anniversary of Gandhi's assassination Sixty
years after his death a portion of Gandhiji's ashes, stashed away by Madalsa and Shriman Narayan, the daughter and son-in-law of Jamnalal Bajaj, will be immersed at Chowpati Beach in Mumbai. Although I will be thousands of miles away in the United States the memories of 60 years ago will be refreshed and the day will be as poignant as January 30, 1948. In 1969 when the world celebrated Gandhiji's 100th birth anniversary many of us who had lived in Sewagram Ashram, Wardha, with Gandhiji were invited for a reunion. The person who organised this event was Shriman Narayanji who was then the Governor of Gujarat. He shared with us a story of his experience with Gandhiji which emphasises an aspect of Gandhiji's philosophy that is all but forgotten today. Sometime in the early 1930s when Shrimanji received his doctorate from the London School of Economics he returned to India full of enthusiasm to change and rebuild the economy of India according to western standards. When he told his parents how impatient he was to begin work his father said: "You cannot begin to do anything until you receive Gandhiji's blessings. So, if you are in a hurry to begin working you had better go as quickly as possible to Sewagram Ashram and get Bapu's blessings." This will be a piece of cake, Shrimanji thought, and still bubbling with enthusiasm Shrimanji arrived in Sewagram and relentlessly poured his enthusiasm into Bapu's lap and said: "Now give me your blessings so I can get to work." "Not so fast," Gandhiji said. "If you want my blessings you will have to earn them. Tomorrow morning you will join the group and clean the ashram toilets." These were not the modern water closets. The ashram toilets were primitive with buckets to collect urine and faeces. The buckets had to be carried into the fields and emptied into holes, washed and replaced for use. It was the meanest kind of work that is responsible for untouchability in India. Gandhiji wanted to teach us the dignity of labour. Shrimanji was aghast but did not argue. He had no enthusiasm for this kind of work but to satisfy Gandhiji's whim he had to do it. After the morning ordeal and a refreshing bath he rushed back to Gandhiji and said: "I've done what you asked me to do. Now give me your blessings." "Not yet," said Gandhiji. "You will get my blessings only when you satisfy me that you are capable of cleaning toilets with the same enthusiasm as changing the economy of the country." The moral of the story was that we must be willing to do any kind of work that is necessary and break the stranglehold of the master-servant relationship that persists in India even to this day. It is the feeling that those of us who are rich and educated are superior and those who are poor and uneducated are inferior that breeds arrogance in us, instead of the humility that Gandhiji sought to instil. I am often asked in India and in the United States if Gandhiji's philosophy can be relevant today. My answer is that a philosophy that is based on respect, understanding, appreciation and compassion has to be relevant at all times. If we conclude that nonviolence is not relevant today we are saying in effect that the positive attitudes of respect, understanding, appreciation and compassion are not relevant. If that be so then we cannot claim to be a civilised society. Over the years many have concluded that non-violence is a "negative" philosophy because we insert a hyphen in the word and make it the opposite of violence. In reality it is the other way around. What we forget is that to practice violence we have to be arrogant, hateful, angry and capable of dehumanising people so that we can hurt and even kill them. These and more are negative emotions and attitudes that dominate our psyche to such an extent that we have now become victims of a culture of violence that controls every aspect of human life. On the other hand, to practice nonviolence one has to be dominated by positive emotions and attitudes like love, understanding, respect, compassion and so on. It is only when we learn to respect people as human beings that we will be able to truly practice nonviolence. We cannot and should not be selective in whom we respect, it has to be unconditional and all pervasive. For centuries human beings have been working to create peace and we fail more often than we succeed. The reason is that peace is not the absence of physical violence. No country can claim that they are at peace because they are not at war with anyone. Human nature has learned to practice violence in many ways - both physical and passive, or non-physical. It is the non-physical violence that is more insidious because we commit it knowingly and unknowingly and it leads to anger in the victim and the anger results in physical violence. Gandhiji's talisman was: "Ask yourself if the action you contemplate will hurt or harm someone." The culture of violence has resulted in the erosion of relationships across the board. Everyone has become selfish and self-centred. If we have no relationships based on mutual respect, understanding and appreciation there will be no harmony. And, if there is no harmony in a home, office, neighbourhood, society or a nation there cannot be peace. When Gandhiji said peace begins with you he did not mean the selfish peace that we seek through 'sadhana' or meditation but the peace that we need to bring about through love and respect for all living creatures - whatever their economic, social or political standing in life.
Can we become the change we wish to see? —
IANS Arun Gandhi is a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, New York. |
In Cold War spy games, nothing is as it seems BERLIN
– On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation. Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. “Worldwide reaction was outstandingly favorable in terms of enhancement of U.S. prestige,” the CIA wrote in an internal history of the Berlin Tunnel project that was declassified last year and recently made public. Western allies in particular reacted with “unconcealed delight to this indication that the U.S., almost universally regarded as a stumbling neophyte in espionage matters, was capable of a coup against the Soviet Union, which had long been the acknowledged master in such matters.” In terms of telephonic engineering and sheer skulduggery, the CIA’s tunnel was a marvelous accomplishment. Begun in August 1954 under a makeshift warehouse in the Rudow sector of West Berlin, near a field of hovels built amid wartime rubble by German refugees, the mole hole was secretly dug over a period of 18 months. It extended 300 yards into the Soviet sector. Aided by British intelligence, the tunnelers tapped into three large cables that carried most of the telephone and telegraph traffic between East Berlin and points farther afield, including Moscow. For nearly a year, U.S. and British spies recorded the communists’ communications, amassing more than 25 tons of magnetic tape that were culled for clues by hundreds of translators and processors in Washington and London. More than a half-century later, however, scholars and spies are still arguing over which side really succeeded in pulling the wool over the other’s eyes. The debate, revived in part by the recent release of the CIA’s internal history of the operation, underscores how public perceptions are often more important in espionage than the value of stolen secrets. After exposing the tunnel on April 22, 1956, the Soviets and East Germans immediately tried to squeeze out a propaganda victory. They held a news conference - something the Soviet military almost never did – and invited reporters from both sides of the border to attend. In the ensuing weeks, as Washington remained silent about its complicity, the communist authorities paraded 50,000 East Berliners through the tunnel to give them a firsthand glimpse of the enemy’s “filthy trick,” as one East German official put it. At the CIA, however, the spooks were elated that the communists had gone public. Planners had assumed they would find the tunnel eventually but hush it up. The truth was much more complicated. Unbeknownst to the CIA, the Soviets had known about the tunnel all along. Before breaking ground, the CIA had made the mistake of discussing its plans with George Blake, a high-ranking British intelligence official. In 1961, Blake was exposed as a mole for the KGB who had betrayed the identities of hundreds of British agents, as well as plans for the tunnel project. According to a book co-written by Blake’s KGB handler, Sergei A. Kondrashev, Soviet intelligence officials were highly concerned about the risk of exposing their source. They worried that suspicions might be aroused if they “discovered” the tunnel too quickly, so they let the operation proceed unmolested. Heavy rains that damaged one of the cables in the spring of 1956 gave them an excuse to inspect the communications lines and make it appear as if they had stumbled across the tunnel. So it was the CIA that was snookered. Blake’s exposure as a double agent five years later led to a reappraisal of the wiretapping project: Had it generated any real secrets? Or had the Soviets fed disinformation through the cables? In his book, Kondrashev said the cable traffic was genuine and that the Soviets hadn’t dared transmit false material for fear of compromising Blake. But scholars remain uncertain. Blake, who escaped from a British prison in 1966 and fled to Moscow, is still alive but has never divulged exactly what he told the
KGB. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post |
HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |