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Privileges and duties Minister for sons RTI scanner |
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Alarming Afghan situation
Biggest, tallest…
The Tribune, a voice for the public good We will restore independent judiciary: Pak PM Delhi Durbar
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Privileges and duties IT is understandable why members of Parliament have, by and large, been opposed to codification of parliamentary privileges. They believe that it would deprive them of the freedom they enjoy in interpreting what constitutes a parliamentary privilege. At the time Parliament came into being, the consensus was that it would be guided by the practices prevalent in the House of Commons in Britain. But when the absence of a codification gave rise to differing interpretations and MPs’ privileges came into conflict with those of other organs of the state, an Act was added to the statute. Two parliamentary committees — the Lok Sabha committee of privileges and the committee to inquire into the misconduct of members of the House — have concluded that there is no need for codification. Instead, they suggested a code of conduct for the MPs. An Independent member Sebastian Paul appended a dissenting note to the committee’s report. In the normal circumstances, 60 years of Independence should have been sufficient for Parliament to evolve a clear understanding of what constitutes its privileges. The members have the privilege to ask questions about the government’s functioning but when it is found that these questions are raised in lieu of money or at the instance of vested interests, parliamentary privilege cannot be invoked to protect the MPs. Similarly, the members cannot be prevented from attending House sessions but when the police arrest a member for his involvement in, say, a murder case, they cannot shout that parliamentary privileges have been stifled. There is also a need to codify the duties of MPs which include attending Parliament sessions regularly and maintaining decorum in the House. The MPs have a right to protest in Parliament against a Bill, a government decision or a law and order situation in their constituencies. But this right does not mean they can create a situation where Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is compelled to describe the zero hour as a “torture hour”. It was just a week ago that the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha had to invoke a rarely used rule to evict a cantankerous member from the House. A code of conduct, however laudable, is unlikely to work as it is difficult to be enforced. In sharp contrast is a proper codification of the privileges and duties which will obviate the need for interpretation. The MPs will then know that they do not enjoy any privileges except to discharge their duty as legislators.
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Minister for sons THE murky affair of gas allotment to the firms owned by the two sons of Union Transport and Shipping Minister T R Baalu has entrapped even the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in a controversy. It has been revealed that the PMO had forwarded as many as eight letters to the Petroleum Ministry in this regard. But knowing the working of the PMO, it can be said that such letters are indeed forwarded as a routine and do not necessarily mean endorsing the contents. However, it is a fact that when any letter comes from the PMO, and that too relating to a matter connected with the family members of a Union minister, it carries a lot of weight. That is why the Opposition is unlikely to be satisfied with the explanation given by Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora. Whether or not the PMO was right in forwarding the letters, the minister was certainly wrong in promoting the interests of his family members. His statement that there was nothing wrong in doing so is too facetious. Mr Baalu is there to promote the interests of the general public, not exclusively that of his family. He got preferential treatment for his family members all along and has yet been holding that the authorities concerned have been engaged in vendetta against his sons’ firms. Mr Baalu has become a major embarrassment for the government. The irony is that the Congress is not in a position to ease him out because he belongs to the DMK, whose support is crucial for the government’s continuance. He draws strength from the backing of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, but his antics have become far too untenable. It is a pity that the fate of a minister is decided not on the basis of the gravity of charges against him but on the basis of the nuisance value of the party to whom he belongs. The DMK’s support is all-important for the Congress and at the moment the latter seems to be content with compromising on principles and morals.
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RTI scanner THE Central Information Commission’s ruling that the people could seek income-tax returns of the political parties will give a big boost to the citizens’ right to know under the Right to Information Act. CIC A.N. Tiwari has directed the income-tax authorities to provide copies of returns and assessment orders of the parties to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO. The political parties have been refusing to provide information about their returns on the ground that this would be a violation of the IT Act. The CIC directive now makes the tax returns of the parties open for public scrutiny. The RTI gives the citizens an enforceable right to question, examine, audit, review and assess the government’s acts and decisions. Now political parties, too, have come under its ambit, thus expanding the citizens’ democratic space. Unfortunately, of all the political parties, only the CPI and the CPM have given no objection to the CIC for disclosing their tax returns to the public. The Congress, the BJP, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party have all given lame excuses to escape public scrutiny of their accounts. The DMK has gone a step further by maintaining that information regarding its party funds was “confidential” as it included details of its “commercial activities”. Surprisingly, the Congress has toed this line. How can democracy flourish if political parties refuse to share information with the people? Though political parties are said to be the legitimising agents of the democratic process, the manner in which they have been functioning leaves much to be desired. The erosion of transparency, accountability and increasing corruption in various institutions of governance are a sad reflection of the larger political process and the patron-client culture of political parties. Criminalisation of politics, electoral corruption and the absence of inner party democracy have threatened the party system in the country. Bringing political parties into the RTI’s ambit will check the menace of black money, improve their functioning and ensure democratic, people-centric governance.
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It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Alarming Afghan situation THE attempt on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday — mercifully unsuccessful — underscores how intractable the crisis in Afghanistan has become. Karzai has survived three such attempts in the past but this was the first in the nation’s capital and, therefore, far more ominous. Equally striking was the brazenness with which the Taliban and Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the ghastly incident. Let it not be forgotten that after 9/11, it was in Afghanistan that the United States and NATO began the “war on terror”. The invasion of Iraq on palpably false grounds came later. Yet, while America is making a song and dance about the “achievements” of the recent “surge” in Iraq, it is practically ignoring the far worse mess in Afghanistan despite timely warnings. No fewer than three authoritative studies — by the Atlantic Council, the Afghanistan Study Group and the National Defence University — have grimly stated: “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan.” To this, Karl F Inderfurth, a former Assistant Secretary of State, has added, “Defeat in Afghanistan is a possibility.” Sunday’s outrage, ironically during celebrations of the victory of the mujahideen over the communists over a decade ago, confirms this gloomy assessment. The US objective was quickly to destroy the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Instead of being destroyed, they have only been dispersed. They have, in fact, regrouped themselves and are now acting in concert with various like-minded networks. According to Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times’s well-informed correspondent in Pakistan, the attackers on the victory parade used sophisticated weapons, produced only in western countries and Israel. (Where could they have got these, if not from Pakistan?) Also abandoning headlong fights with NATO’s mighty military machine, the Taliban have embarked on the kind of attacks they staged in Kabul. Significantly, the attackers on the victory parade were able to penetrate 18 tight security cordons! There are, of course, several other factors that hamstring the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as well as the Karzai government that is both shaky and shaken by acute difficulties, including the “opium poppy explosion”. Nearly 93 per cent of opium on the world market is of Afghan origin, partly because most of the irrigation projects having been destroyed during the prolonged civil war among Afghan mujahideen groups and landmines still buried underground, poor peasants have taken to poppy cultivation to survive. Of course, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda use the opium money for their ends. More disastrous than the infirmities of the Afghan dispensation is a fundamental flaw in the American and NATO strategy that betrays an inability to comprehend the essence of the Afghan problem. The belief that a quick military victory, together with the creation of institutions of democracy and pep talks on nation-building would conjure up a modern, moderate Muslim democracy in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan is naïve beyond belief. Afghanistan’s is a tribal society in which loyalty to the tribal chief and one’s family is supreme. The Pushtoons have traditionally been dominant; yet even within them rivalry between the two main tribes, the Durranis and the Khilzais, is unending. The ethnic divide and the Iran factor in the Hazara Shia areas aggravate the situation. Also no Afghan tribe wants its women to be educated or the Islamic sharia replaced by parliamentary enactments. In short, a unified, centralised government is not to the Afghans’ liking. They were happier under King Zaheer Shah’s benevolent neglect. This does not mean that things cannot change. But that would be a very long and very hard haul. Do the US and its allies have the requisite stomach and the stamina? Nor should it be overlooked that the only time the Afghans unite and their nationalism prevails over their tribalism is when they perceive a foreign power trying to occupy their land. The British learnt this in the nineteenth century and the Russians in the twentieth. Will it be America’s fate to learn the same lesson now? It is in this context that one must revert to the immediate difficulties and deficiencies of the NATO-led ISAF. According to respected experts, the current strength of western troops in Afghanistan — 27,000 American and roughly an equal number from other NATO countries — is insufficient, and no European country is anxious to send more soldiers. No wonder, the training of the Afghan army that is being raised is “outsourced”. The truth is that for all its technological and professional superiority, even the American army has no great experience of counter-insurgency operations. Worse, the Afghans joining the government army are paid less than the Taliban pay their cadres. The joke in Kabul is that the Americans are organising an Afghan army of “70,000 potential deserters who would melt into the mountains at the first opportunity”. Under these circumstances, the US and NATO troops make their second big mistake: reckless use of air power and artillery both within Afghanistan and on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Inevitably, a very large number of innocent civilians, including children and women, are killed. Luckily, NATO has promised to exercise restraint in this respect. NATO’s third major problem — indeed, the biggest of them all — is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters easily find sanctuaries in Waziristan and other tribal lands where Islamabad’s writ scarcely runs or in Balochistan, which cannot happen without the connivance of the ISI (the Inter-Services Intelligence). That is precisely where the US is caught in a cleft stick. Ever since the 180-degree change in Pakistan’s Afghan policy after 9/11 President General Musharraf had been the US favourite and, to an extent, remains so even after his deflation. But he never delivered fully on his promises to the US. His American mentors fumed privately but publicly went on hailing him as their “key ally” in the war on terror. General Musharraf is still clinging to the presidency, but the US knows it has to deal with the elected civilian government. US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte got the first taste of the Pakistani ruling coalition’s response to American demands when Nawaz Sharif gruffly told him that Pakistan’s Afghan policy would be decided by “Parliament, not by America”. The civilian dispensation in Islamabad is not at all keen on military action in Waziristan and wants to give negotiations a chance though the Army’s attitude is not yet known. Is this why Washington has started toying with the dangerous idea of “talking to the moderate
Taliban”?
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Biggest, tallest…
IN San Francisco, I was meandering at Fisherman’s Wharf in Pier 39, the largest visited tourists’ joint there, when I saw “the world’s BIGGEST chocolate shop” and went inside. Almost all the varieties of Ghirardelli’s chocolates were available there at cost-plus price. Domingo Ghirardelli, an Italian chocolate-maker, was lured by the gold rush and had moved to San Francisco in 1849 to manufacture world class chocolates. I was surprised to see “chikki” made popular by Lonavala manufacturers being sold there. My next visit was to Lombard Street — called the crookedest street in the world. I was in a car with members of my family and when on top of the Lombard, it seemed that to drive through the eight hairpin curves falling one after another would be a tough going but those were deftly negotiated by my niece’s American husband. The cobblestone street is lined with beautiful flowers and lovely Victorian homes on either side. I recommend it as a must visit to tourists. We drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas on Interstate 15 and bypassed a 4.5 mile long Zzyzx (pronounced zaiziks) road in Mojave Desert. It runs from Interstate 15 generally south to the Zzyzx settlement. Zzyzx, known for mineral springs and health spa, was approved as a place name by the US Board on Geographic Names in 1984 and is alphabetically CRUDEST place name. Not far from here is the town of Baker where the “World’s tallest thermometer” at 134 feet is easily visible from the highway. The thermometer regularly records temperatures well in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. Erected by a Baker businessman in 1991, it is right next to the Mojave National Preserve. When in Vegas one can stroll from a hotel to a hotel. Bellagio Hotel there has a marvellous, mouthwatering device at the Jean Phillipe Patisserie. Here is a glass-encased 27 foot high chocolate fountain with 2100 pounds of melted flowing chocolate. It is the world’s tallest and largest volume chocolate fountain. It was designed by a Montreal artist Michel Mailhot who used six pumps to circulate close to two tons of chocolate that rises to 27 vertical feet from the lowest pump level and what is visible to the spectators is a chocolate spout of 14 feet from the floor level. It took two years of planning and designing to erect this dazzling feat of engineering. Chocoholic as I am, I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process.... It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance? I took the biggest choco-pastry with melted chocolate on it from the Patisserie and ate it with
ZEST.
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The Tribune, a voice for the public good The following is the text of the speech the Prime Minister made while launching the book “The Tribune – 125 Years, An Anthology (1881-2006)” in New Delhi on April 30 I
AM delighted to release this most interesting volume put together by the editors of
The Tribune. The Tribune has been my morning paper for many years and I compliment my friend Mr. H.K. Dua for taking the paper to newer heights. I also pay tribute to the memory of the visionary founder Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia and all those who have been associated with the publication of this national daily. My esteemed friends, Mr. R.S. Talwar, Dr. R.P. Bambah, Mr Justice S.S. Sodhi, and Mr. N.N. Vohra, among others, have all contributed to upholding high standards of journalism at
The Tribune. When Sardar Majithia founded The Tribune he saw it as a means of reforming society and educating our people. As I recalled at your 125th Anniversary, the statement of objectives penned by the founders of
The Tribune in 1881 remains a bold vision for the media even today. That statement began with the confession that
The Tribune had no pet theories to maintain and “no personal interests to serve”. The paper’s founders declared that they were not motivated by pecuniary considerations. Rather, they were motivated by the public good which was best advanced more by “charity and moderation than by rancour and harsh words”. When I read through the first half of this volume, covering the period up to Independence, I was struck by how zealously the editors of
The Tribune adhered to this original vision. The high-mindedness of the editorials, the patriotism and nationalism of many of the writers and the focus on public good is striking. I was also impressed by the kind of people that
The Tribune attracted to its columns. Mahatma Gandhi contributed to the paper and so did Rabindranath Tagore. Many of the distinguished social, political, intellectual and business leaders of the period expressed their views on important contemporary issues through the columns of The Tribune. This book shows clearly that
The Tribune was not just a source of daily news but also a record of history and an important opinion maker. It is these three roles that give the media a special place in a democracy. If media is confined only to “the here and now”, it ceases to play the role of the fourth estate. That important role is claimed only when media is able to take a larger view of daily events, shape public opinion in a constructive way and record history even as it is being made. The combination of providing news, of shaping views and guiding society is what gives the media a special status. The essays published in this book show us that your editors and your publishers have tried to discharge that role in an honourable way. The Tribune is today read across large parts of northern India. This is a very diverse region. The area around New Delhi has become a magnet of new economic activity in the past two decades. I find some of this activity spreading towards Jaipur and into Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. But other parts of
The Tribune’s hinterland are not doing as well. The Tribune’s original homeland of the Punjab has slowed down in recent years. The Punjab needs a new era of industrial and services sector development. Our government has given the agrarian economy of the State a new boost with improved terms of trade for foodgrains and with incentives for horticulture development. But in agriculture, too, we need a new wave of creativity. I have great confidence in the people of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of the region. I am confident that this region will move forward in years to come. I urge the state governments concerned to invest in infrastructure, in education and in urban development so that the regional economy can benefit from the new sources of growth in the economy. I also find
The Tribune taking active interest in national affairs. I acknowledge the well-informed support that
The Tribune has accorded to many of our initiatives in the realm of foreign policy and national security. I compliment Mr Dua for attracting good talent to his news and opinion pages. I compliment you for rising above the purely regional and local and offering a national perspective to news. Our democracy is our biggest strength. I do believe it has worked in the interest of our people. Our media has been an important healer of our democracy and I sincerely hope it will continue to play a constructive role in nation building, reinforcing the knowledge of our society and the confidence of our people. I hope this book will inspire a new generation of journalists to dedicate themselves to the highest standards of journalism.
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We will restore independent judiciary: Pak PM IT is important for Pakistan – which has transited from an authoritarian regime to democratic governance – that the message of this first critical post-election period be bold and clear. Like newly elected governments in other democratic societies, we intend to set the tone and agenda. We want to show the world that our nation is back in business, with an overwhelming mandate from our people. This is not an easy transition. The scars of the past decade are deep. The problems facing our country are great. But the sacrifices of millions of Pakistanis – including Pakistan’s quintessential democratic leader, Benazir Bhutto – were not made so that our new government could be timid. We know our people expect action and progress. Our boldness is a manifestation of our awareness of the stakes – both of success and failure. My government is a coalition of modern, moderate, innovative, progressive democratic forces determined to jump-start the economy and to rebuild the social fabric of Pakistan. We have already freed political prisoners and lifted press censorship. We have released detained judges and will restore an independent judiciary, the centerpiece of civil society. We will strengthen and protect our neglected democratic infrastructure, especially Parliament. We will reform our tribal areas economically, politically and socially through measures that address the needs of the people and will integrate these areas into mainstream society. The world is rightly concerned about the threat of terrorism and expects its elimination to be our government’s highest priority. We intend to vigorously continue the war against terrorism with the support of the people. Pakistan must fight terrorism for Pakistan’s sake. Past efforts have suffered because of the view that Pakistan sought to combat terrorism only in response to international pressure. Our strategy against global terrorism will be multifaceted. We will combine the use of force against terrorists and civil dialogue with those who, because of religious or ethnic considerations, were misled into supporting extremists. Pakistan will not negotiate with terrorists, but it will not refrain from talking to insurgent tribesmen whose withdrawal of support could help drain the swamp in which terrorists fester and grow. Yet no talks will be held with anyone refusing to lay down arms. Our policy aims to marginalise terrorists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and our North-West Frontier region, where the rule of law had been abandoned and territory all but ceded to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Negotiations with the various tribes are being pursued with the help of the secular Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party, which has intimate knowledge of tribes and clans in the area and which, along with my Pakistan People’s Party, received the bulk of the votes of ethnic Pashtuns in the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. Erroneous comparisons have been made between our new policy and the failed deals reached with tribal militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2004 and 2006. Those agreements were signed after militant groups bruised Pakistan’s security forces in battle. Now we are negotiating from a position of strength. Militants have been asked to surrender their weapons and unequivocally give up violence. We will not cut off our ability to use force or lower the vigilance we maintain to guard against violations of the peace agreements. We intend to restore order and to give the people an option other than collaborating with murderers whose sole goal is chaos and anarchy. We will welcome our tribes back into society while respecting their conservative interpretations of Islam, as long as they give up violence and refuse to acquiesce to the intimidation of terrorists. Since the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s, the security and prosperity of Pakistan and Afghanistan have become interdependent. The border between our countries is porous, not least because some 3 million Afghan refugees still in Pakistan need to maintain ties with their kin. We intend to work with the Afghan government to secure the border and to ensure the repatriation of the refugees with dignity, security and full economic opportunity. Our government confronts high global food and oil prices and has inherited food shortages exacerbated by the smuggling of Pakistani wheat across our borders. Yet our government plans to be the safety net that ensures equity and protects people. We seek and expect the support of the international community in attaining these objectives. There are moments in all nations’ histories that divide the past from the future, that define nations’ souls. This is such a moment for Pakistan. God willing, we will demonstrate to our people and to the other 1.3 billion Muslims on this planet that democracy works and is the best guarantee against terrorism, injustice and hopelessness. The writer is prime minister of Pakistan and vice-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar LOK Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee received some sound advice from his granddaughter when she found him despairing over how he would handle noisy MPs and ensure the smooth functioning of the House. The young lady cited the example of her school teacher who always kept pieces of chalk handy, which where promptly aimed at rowdy and indisciplined students. “Believe me, this actually works,” Chatterjee was told. Fortunately, the Speaker did not have to resort to such extreme measures as the second half of the budget session has not witnessed any major disruption. Dodgy youth Youth Congress workers who rolled out the red carpet for AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi on his recent visit to Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh were in for a rude shock when the Nehru-Gandhi scion subjected them to some uncomfortable questions. They were quizzed about their age and then asked to enumerate the salient features of the UPA government’s pro-poor schemes, like the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme. Needless to say, most of those questioned were too old to qualify as Youth Congress members and very few were able to provide adequate answers to his queries. Clearly, Rahul Gandhi, who has been given charge of the Youth Congress, has his task cut out for him.
Succession feud There is a spot of trouble for Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav on his home front. His son, Lok Sabha MP Akhilesh Singh, is apparently smarting as his uncle Shivpal Yadav is being preferred by his father as his political heir. According to Delhi’s hyperactive grapevine, Mulayam Singh Yadav would like his son to inherit his politcal mantle but is under pressure from his second wife, who feels that her son and Akhilesh Singh’s step-brother Prateek, might get short-changed in the process.
Hindutva tilt It now transpires that junior minister Shakeel Ahmed’s shift from the communications to the home ministry has a far deeper significance than envisaged earlier. Ahmed was moved there to correct the perceived soft Hindutva tilt of Union home minister Shivraj Patil. Congress circles insist that Patil has a special bond with the saffron brigade and that he owed his successive Lok Sabha victories from the Latur constituency in Maharashtra to the unofficial help he got from the local
RSS. Contributed by Anita Katyal, Satish Misra and Tripti Nath
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