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Loss after loss Byelections no surprise |
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Hostage to terror
Transparency can curb corruption
Pay hike
Hunger in Afghanistan Kashmir children struggle with loss and trauma Delhi Durbar
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Loss after loss IF the convincing losses it has suffered in assembly elections in Karnataka and byelections in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra and Meghalaya do not jolt the Congress into applying major correctives, nothing ever will. It will just not do to gloat over the slight increase in its tally in Karnataka and the victory in two assembly byelections in Haryana. Nor will it be sensible to hold forth that state elections and Lok Sabha byelections are not a referendum on the central government. The Karnataka election was particularly fought by it while tom-tomming its achievements like the Rs 60,000 crore farm package and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It did not cut much ice. One loss may not be a pointer but over a dozen that it has suffered since 2004 certainly spell danger that the Congress can ignore only at its own peril. As is usual, standard excuses are being parroted for the reverses. By now, it should be clear even to Mrs Sonia Gandhi that these just do not hold water. It is the entire setup of the party that calls for a thorough revamp while its policies are in need of honest revaluation. The “leave it to the leader” mantra that the Congressmen are used to reciting may have been effective at one time, but at this stage it is proving to be disastrous. A proper hierarchy must be allowed to function and take on the responsibilities. The internecine fighting and one-upmanship that are taking place in most states can no longer be brushed aside. The Congress is neither able to rein in its own loose cannons like Arjun Singh, nor it seems to have any control over the representatives of its partners like Dr Ramadoss. But the worst is its kowtowing to the Left. It may like to believe that it is adhering to the coalition dharma but to an outsider, all that compromise appears to be spineless succumbing. The Congress has stuck to power but is paying too heavy a price for that. If it laments that it is being blamed unnecessarily for the price rise because that is an international phenomenon, it must also remember that it was also taking credit for the increase in FDI and the economic growth which too are also a part of the global phenomenon. It is high time the Congress appeared to be in command instead of being a puppet in the hands of events and its coalition partners.
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Byelections no surprise IN the byelections for the three Lok Sabha and four assembly seats, spread across five states, the Congress has been able to retain only two — Indri and Gohana — both in Haryana. The ruling party at the Centre has been held responsible for the relentless rise in the prices of essential commodities. It was not a vote in favour of “pro-people” policies of the state governments in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab as leaders of the ruling parties would like to claim. It is too early to pronounce a verdict on their performance. May be, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government can lay that claim with some justification. Bhajan Lal’s victory in Adampur was a foregone conclusion as the former chief minister has nursed this constituency over the years. In the past 40 years the Bhajan Lal family has not lost any election from this constituency. The byelection results have come as a jolt to Om Prakash Chautala, who will fail to gain the status of Leader of Opposition in the Haryana assembly as his party, INLD, is short of just one seat to meet the requirement. The victory of Himachal Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal’s son, Anurag Thakur, was also expected as Hamirpur has been a long-time stronghold of the BJP. Apart from inflation, infighting in the Punjab Congress is responsible for the ignominy the Congress candidate suffered in the battle for Amritsar (West). The winning Akali Dal-BJP nominee, Inderbir Singh Bularia, has secured a higher percentage of votes (65) than even his father, the late Raminder Singh Bularia (62), whose death had led to the byelection. A common feature of the byelections is that voters are unmindful of the fielding of politicians’ progeny. Like Hamirpur and Amritsar, Tura in Meghalaya has returned a politician’s offspring. Former Speaker P.A Sangma’s daughter, Agatha, has won the parliamentary seat. At 27, this Delhi-based lawyer will be one of the youngest members of Parliament.
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Hostage to terror THE Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has at last resumed service through the North Cachar Hills district, bringing relief to not only many Assam districts, but also Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur. The train services are a lifeline for these remote states, bringing in food and other supplies. The 10-day disruption was caused by a series of attacks by the Assamese terror outfit Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel), also known as the Black Widow, on railway workers engaged in broad gauge conversion work. Many were also killed when supply trucks were waylaid in the Panimur belt. Both train and truck services were disrupted, causing further hardship to the people. Realising that it was consequently not winning any support from the people, Black Widow militants had “asked” the railways to resume suspended train services after declaring a so-called unilateral ceasefire, soon after the attacks. The NFR, however, waited till it was satisfied with security arrangements. The Assam government has now assured adequate security, and the 185-km long Lumding-Badarpur section is chugging again. Reports suggest that the NFR is also fortifying its engines with bullet-proof steel sheets and glass to protect the drivers’ cabins. The Black Widow group has periodically indulged in brutal violence to further its separatist ends. In November last year, their ultras shot dead 10 unidentified saw mill workers and injured eight others in two separate attacks at Bithorgaon in the North Cachar Hills. Insurgent violence in Assam is on the increase – both the number of incidents and the number of fatalities showed a big increase in 2007, after a marginal drop in 2006. ULFA continues to operate, and attempts to bring the group into talks have failed. Other groups like KLNLF, AANLA and MULTA have carved out their own space as well. While the Army has had some sporadic successes, the Assam police is ill-equipped and understaffed. Assam is clearly struggling in its fight against terror. Both the state government and the Centre are far too reactive, and need to augment capabilities to tackle the terror groups head on.
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Coming together is beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. — Henry Ford
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Corrections and clarifications
Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the words “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is:
amarchandel@tribunemail.com H.K. Dua
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Transparency can curb corruption THE Editor-in-Chief of a newspaper such as The Tribune writing a front-page, signed editorial is not a common occurrence. This is usually done to bring a burning issue to the notice of the readership. H.K. Dua has done precisely that in “The stink of corruption” (April 29, 2008) which highlights the depths to which corruption has pervaded the society in India. He begins with a question and ends with a statement, and wisely does not venture to tell what needs to be done, how, and by whom. His last statement is “Obliging bureaucrats are waiting in the wings for the politicians to comply with their wishes. The nexus between the politicians and the willing bureaucrats is stronger than ever before.” Just a few days later, one of the leading jurists of the country, Fali Nariman, speaking at the annual function of Transparency International (parts of the talk published in The Tribune on May 04, 2008) started his talk by saying, “I belong to a profession where there is the least transparency.” Lamenting “with a sense of responsibility though with a tinge of great sadness” that what was being done was “not how judicial corruption in high places should be tackled,” he suggested “institutionalised” mechanisms as the only way to prevent further damage to “the general credibility of the judiciary as a body”. His proposal is to have “in place (with almost immediate effect) an office called the office of “Judicial Ombudsman”. Exactly how this august office will be set up and by whom must, of course, be obvious to Mr Nariman but is otherwise not too clear. Then we have the Chief Justice of India (CJI) saying that since the office of the CJI is a “constitutional authority”, it is not covered by the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005, which, expectedly, generated a lot of debate. A former distinguished judge of the Supreme Court, Justice V.K. Krishna Iyer, writing in another newspaper, has refuted this in very strong terms, terming it as “a grave goof-up” and a “rare occurrence”. And Justice Krishna Iyer, like all distinguished judges, chooses his words very carefully. He suggests the formation of “a judicial appointments and performance commission of supreme stature (whose) members (will be) selected from among the highest judicial, political and public-spirited wonders of popular confidence.” This, according to him, “is essential to ensure that the finest and most independent members of the fraternity would exercise judicial power, and that they would be held in the highest esteem by the enlightened wisdom of the people of India. This desideratum demands a diamond-hard constitutional code that covers every dimension of judicial performance.” Is this likely to happen, and how will this happen? These are important questions. The answers to these and similar questions lies in the fact that we, and particularly our “powers that be”, obviously know what needs to be done, and how, but it is their willingness to actually do seems in doubt, to use an understatement. Two examples, one from 1999-2003 and one recent should suffice. To take the 1999-2003 example first. A civil society group files a PIL in the Delhi High Court seeking that criminal, financial, and educational background of candidates contesting elections to Parliament and state assemblies be made accessible to voters, so that voters can make an informed choice while voting. The court upholds the petition, giving directions to the Election Commission (EC) of India to implement the court’s orders. While the EC did not seem to have any problems with the decision of the high court, the Union of India appeals against it to the Supreme Court. Several political parties become interveners to the dispute and oppose the judgement. The Supreme Court upholds the high court judgement. Then an all-party meeting decides not to allow the court’s decision to be implemented and to amend the Representation of People (RP) Act to prevent implementation of the court’s judgement. The amendment of the RP Act is again challenged in the Supreme Court and is declared “null and void” and “unconstitutional”. It took four years and a lot of patience and persistence to get an opportunity for citizens/voters to know whom they could or had to vote for. The conclusion about knowing what to do and the willingness to do the right thing seems obvious. The other example is very recent and comes in the form of a decision of the Central Information Commission (CIC). The same organisation that filed the PIL seeking disclosure of candidates’ background mentioned above realised that while elected members of Parliament and state assemblies were important elements in the political system and governance of the country, perhaps the more important and critical elements were the political parties. It is the political parties who choose the candidates who can and will contest elections (with the exceptions of Independents, of course), and by implication, decide whom “We, the People” can vote for. After the elections, it is the political parties who decide how the elected legislatures vote on various proposals and measures through the use of the appropriately called mechanism, the “whip”. Even before deciding whom we can vote for, political parties are the mobilisers and makers of public opinion. An attempt to learn about the functioning of political parties, showed that most political parties, while claiming to be the upholders and defenders of democracy in the country at large, did not seem to practice democracy in their internal functioning. And while they wanted everyone else to be transparent in their functioning, they (the political parties) themselves were almost the exact opposite of being transparent. That is when this organisation, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), filed an application under the Right to Information Act, seeking copies of income tax returns of political parties. As was by now expected, based on the experience of the High Court and Supreme Court cases earlier, the political parties, excepting the CPI and the CPM, objected to making copies of their income tax returns accessible to the citizens. All the public information officers of the Income Tax Department accepted this plea of the political parties and denied the request of ADR. Interestingly, although the CPI and the CPM did not have any objections to their income tax returns being made public, the concerned income tax officials decided not to make them available. Not being satisfied by the denial, ADR appealed to the appellate authority within the Income Tax Department, as provided in the RTI Act. At this stage, copies of income tax returns of the AGP, the BJD and the PDP were made available. All the other appellate authorities rejected the appeals, following almost the same logic. This is when ADR filed an appeal with the Central Information Commission (CIC). The CIC decided to seek the views of the political parties. Considering the submissions made by the applicant/appellant and various court judgements and the report of various committees and commissions having a bearing on the issue, Information Commissioner A.N. Tiwari ruled that making income tax returns of political parties accessible to citizens was indeed in public interest and must be done. Maintaining that since political parties are unique due to “the fact that in spite of being non-governmental, political parties come to wield or directly or indirectly influence, exercise of governmental power … it (is) facetious to argue that transparency is good for all State organs, but not so good for the political parties, which control the most important of those organs…. It is difficult to be persuaded by the argument that though political parties control the political executive — who are their appointees — these parties should be allowed to be insulated from the demands of transparency (and that) political parties be allowed to escape the obligations/norms transparency imposes, and inferentially, escape accountability, even though these parties almost always influence and, frequently control, State power through the organs of the State. That shall be an unacceptable proposition — especially in a democracy — as accountability is the underpinning of the actions of all stake-holders who have anything to do with State power.” This decision of the CIC which came after a 14-month effort, provides citizens another tool to strike at “the nexus between the politicians and the willing bureaucrats” and to try and stem the rot of corruption which is gnawing away at the innards of our society. The two examples given above also highlight what kind of an effort and persistence it takes to nudge the political system towards transparency which the legislature itself has enacted and which is possibly the only way left to make even a slight dent on the deep-rooted malaise of corruption. The saying of sunlight being the best disinfectant will come true only when concerned citizens persist in their efforts to bring in
transparency. The writer, a retired professor, IIM, Ahmedabad, is a founder-member of the Association for Democratic Reforms.
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Pay hike MEMBERS of Parliament and of several state legislatures have recently voted for themselves hefty hikes in their salaries and sumptuary allowances. This has led to an angry outburst of protest from people who claim that they are being asked to tighten their beets, while the law-makers are helping themselves generously from the public till. I have been talking to a senior MP who is now serving his fifth consecutive term in Parliament. “I’m thoroughly disillusioned,” he said looking at me sad eyed, “I joined politics and vied for elective office because I wanted to selflessly serve the poor and the downtrodden and had I known that I’d become the target of motivated and vicious attacks, I’d have looked for greener pastures elsewhere.” “I tell you, there’s a solid case for hiking the salaries and allowances of MPs and state legislators. Do you know that in recent weeks, the cost of air travel has gone up by a whopping 450 per cent?” “You mean when you’ve to travel by air to your home constituency so that you can be close to the people who are your true masters?” I asked. “Oh, don’t be silly,” snapped the MP, “with the next round to cabinet expansion in the offing, we’ve to air dash between state capitals and Delhi to press our case with the party high command for our inclusion in the Cabinet as excise and commercial taxes minister and most airlines have unilaterally put up their fares by as much as 450 per cent. How can we meet our air travel expenses except by hiking our salaries and allowances?” “You’ve a point there,” I conceded. “Then take hotel bills...” “You mean when you have to stay in a hotel in your constituency so that you can be easily accessible to the common people, listen to their grievances and speedily redress them?” “Oh, don’t talk nonsense,” said the MP annoyed, “with dissidence and rebellion brewing in the ruling party, we MPs and legislators have to meet incognito under assumed names in hotels for midnight conclaves and pow-wows for plotting backroom strategems and most 5-star hotels have increased their room rental and service charges by some 300 per cent. Just take a measure of the economic hardship the law-makers in this country are being put to.” “Tut, tut,” I said sympathetically. “Then take the cost of meals...” “You mean the meals you serve to people in your constituency who are living below the poverty line and can’t afford two square meals a day?” “For heaven’s sake, don’t be stupid,” said the MP, “with observers from the party high command in town to study the fluid political situation and contain growing dissidence, we disgruntled law-makers have to catch their eye and host midnight dinner parties where we can carry tales against the ruling clique and a basic meal with no second helpings cost a staggering Rs 175 plus taxes and you certainly wouldn’t expect us to foot these expenses from our pockets?” “Of course not,” I said sympathetically, “I know MPs and state legislators must be generously and fairly compensated for rendering public service.” The MP looked at me blankly. “Public service?” he demurred. “What’s that? I’ve never heard of
it.”
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Hunger in Afghanistan KABUL – By 7 a.m., the bakers of Sang Tarashi Street have been hard at work for hours, shaping globs of dough, slapping them into a hot clay oven and flipping them out at just the right second. A stack of naan sits invitingly by the window, and the familiar morning smell wafts into the street. But the scene outside the window has a desperate feel. Customers ask for half their normal breakfast purchases. A carpenter counts out the equivalent of 40 cents and buys two naans, far too little to feed his family of seven. A gaunt man in a threadbare tunic hovers nearby, looking ashamed, until the bakery owner notices him and tosses him a piece. The man, a handcart hauler named Abdul Karim, said: “I have to rely on this baker’s kindness so my children can eat. I do my best for them and work hard all day, but it is not enough anymore.” As the global food crisis deepens, bringing inflation and shortages to many countries, Afghanistan – already facing a protracted drought, entrenched rural poverty and an ongoing conflict with Islamist insurgents – finds itself battling the added threat of hunger. For generations, Afghans have depended on cheap, plentiful bread as their main staple. The country’s principal crop is wheat, and its farmers produce more than 5 million tons in a good year. Although that is not enough to feed the entire population, wheat can usually be trucked in from neighboring Pakistan. Since February, however, a combination of local drought and regional shortages has driven the price of flour here to once-unimaginable levels – as much as $50 for a 40-pound sack. Pakistan, also worried about how to feed 160 million-plus people, has closed its borders to food exports, as have a number of other largely agricultural countries anxious to stave off domestic hardship and political unrest. So far, Afghan authorities and international charities have prevented the wheat flour shortage here from reaching crisis proportions by finding emergency sources. The government has trucked in tons of flour from Kazakhstan, and the U.N. World Food Program has raised money to import 85,000 tons from major wheat-producing countries such as Canada and Australia. In addition, enterprising smugglers have continued to bring in truck after truck piled with sacks of flour from Pakistan. Sacks are said to cross the border surreptitiously on donkey-back, via bribery at official crossing spots and buried deep inside cargo trucks carrying Afghan refugees and their belongings back home. Nevertheless, the skyrocketing costs of flour and other staples have deepened public frustration with the government of President Hamid Karzai, which many Afghans complain has failed to meet even their basic needs. Foreign donors have given enormous sums for rural aid since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban rulers in late 2001, and Afghans wonder aloud where the money has gone. “Now our government is a beggar, just like we are,” said Wahidullah, 34, a carpenter buying bread for his family in Kabul’s Old City neighborhood. “Even though it is a shame for us, we thank God they started buying flour from the Russians, or people would be eating each other.” One reason Afghan wheat production has suffered is that many farmers have shifted their resources to growing opium poppies, a far more lucrative crop that requires much less watering, little labour except at harvest time and no marketing. Afghanistan, barely able to feed a populace of about 30 million, is now the world’s leading producer of opium and heroin. Last week, Karzai called several hundred farmers from across the country to his palace and urged them to help switch the agricultural economy back from opium to wheat. In interviews afterward, however, rural leaders and agricultural experts said it would require substantial financial and technical aid for farmers to make the change. “In my area, people have no choice but to grow poppies,” said Mohammed Anwar, a member of parliament from Helmand province, the country’s premier poppy-growing region. “Most of our farmers are poor. They don’t have money to buy tractors or generator fuel. They don’t have storage or irrigation facilities. With wheat, you have to water five or six times a season. With poppies, you water only once, and you earn so much more.” Only a small fraction of Afghanistan’s arable land is planted with poppies, while about 90 percent is wheat. Last year, Afghan farmers had a good wheat yield of 5.6 million tons, but there was still a shortfall of half a million tons that had to be supplemented with Pakistani imports. Tekeste Tekie, the senior official here for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said that with better seeds and more irrigation, Afghanistan should be able to feed itself. But he also said agricultural development has been neglected, with half the nation’s farmland still dependent on rainfall and vulnerable to drought. At the central flour market in Kabul, there is little evidence of a shortage. Laborers unload sack after sack of smuggled flour from Pakistani trucks, and warehouses are piled high with sacks labeled in English, Urdu and Russian. But amid the bustle of apparent plenty wander figures of desperate want - women in blue burqas clutching empty sacks, hovering next to cargo trucks and peering into gloomy warehouses, hoping to glean spilled flour from the floors. “We used to sell wheat from Helmand in the south, from Kunduz in the north, but now their people come here to buy from us,” said Abdul Wahab, a flour dealer. He ticked off a list of causes: the drought, the government, the poppy boom, the Pakistani mafia and NATO. “There are troops from 30 countries here, but they should worry less about al-Qaida and more about rebuilding our country,” Wahab said.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Kashmir children struggle with loss and trauma Bilkees
(name changed), a nine year old girl of Poonch, was playing in the upper storey of the shop. Hearing gun shots, she came charging downstairs, terrified, and was greeted by the scene of her father shot and lying on the ground, in a pool of blood. Bilkees lost consciousness and regained it at a police station. In a numb and dazed state, she remained by the side of her father’s inert body in a bus which took them to their village, to be greeted by the anguished cries of her mother and sister. Months later Bilkees was brought to the Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar with complaints of recurrent episodes of loss of consciousness, chest pain, fatigue and headache. Those horrifying moments should have receded to the back of Bilkees’ young mind, but that did not happen. The event scarred her psyche. Fifteen days after witnessing her father’s violent death, the third standard student started developing symptoms strange for a girl of her age. She could not sleep, was jumpy, irritable and would recoil from going near the place of the incident or mentioning it. She also would scrupulously avoid visiting the graveyard of her father. Bilkees is not the only one in J&K. Hundreds of children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) a clinical syndrome with fairly well-defined emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social and physical symptoms.. Dr Mushtaq A. Margoob, who has been working with the traumatised cases for more than fifteen years, says: “Sometimes a violent incident leaves a scar in the mind of the person in such a way that the whole perception of the world and self gets stuck with that event. The person experiences the event again and again.” According to him, there is a ‘denial mode’ mode at work so strong that “sometimes the patient will not be able to register events which have a resemblance to the one which set the trauma off in the first place. For instance, if he/she has been witness to blood oozing out, then they may not be able to register the red colour. It is a particularly distressing situation of not being able to forget and not being able to remember. On the whole, this extreme distress leads to symptoms like forgetfulness and numbness.” Dr Magroob adds: “After a lull, when the events repeat themselves, the condition which was dormant can get reactivated and the patient again starts showing the same symptoms. If such a condition becomes chronic, it not only affects social existence, but also biologically affects the brain”. In Kashmir, more than two decades of violence has exposed all age-groups to scenes of cross-firing, homes being destroyed and loved ones being killed. One of the most vulnerable of these groups is children, as is obvious, and is also validated by research. Still in their formative years, the dance of death and destruction around them has taken their toll, their minds unable to absorb this onslaught. Sometimes a split second snatches away the innocence and playfulness of childhood and replaces it with a harsh brutal world which they are ill-equipped to face. According to available data, most affected children were in the age-group of five to 12 years. A study was conducted in the year 2006, on 100 cases of PTSD in children in the age group of 13-16 years by Dr Mushtaq Ahmad Margoob and Dr Akash Yousuf Khan. It showed that 49 per cent of the children developed the symptoms after witnessing the killing of a close relative; 15 per cent following the arrest or torture of a close relative; 14 per cent after being caught up in cross firing; 11 per cent after witnessing night raids; and 7 per cent on hearing about the killing of a close relative. Several of these children suffered from episodes of loss of consciousness, reported irritability or outbursts of anger. Many say they have lost any interest and joy in life, some develop stammering and bedwetting. The World Health Organisation has specific guidelines for mental health in emergencies and disasters which could be a guideline for Kashmir’s ravaged conflict zone. It stresses on community outreach and a host of culturally appropriate interventions to help normalise life and make available the information needed to heal and overcome negative effects. — Charkha Features
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Delhi Durbar THE Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Forward Bloc made a show last week of staying away from the Prime Minister’s dinner to mark the UPA government’s fourth anniversary. Forward Bloc leader Debabrata Biswas remarked: “It doesn’t look nice if we agitate against them outside and then go dining with them.” RSP leader Abani Roy was more blunt: “I have all along been opposed to all this breakfast, dinner diplomacy.” But the real reason was given out sullenly and privately by an RSP leader when he complained about the seating arrangements on these occasions. “If it was one long table at which we are all sitting it would be different. But when the Prime Minister sits with a select few VIP leaders and the others sit at a distance like outcastes, we don’t like it.” Although he did not say so directly, he was clearly referring to earlier occasions when the CPM and CPI leaders sat in close proximity to the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi while the RSP and Forward Bloc leaders were made to feel like poor cousins.
Ringing nuisance No matter how earnest the plea, urging addicted cell phone users to keep off their cells remains a daunting task. Even the union finance minister finds the job tough. Theother day when P. Chidambaram surfaced in his trademark style to brief the media on the meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA), he began by requesting reporters to switch off their cells. And just when the FM thought he had made his point, there were some rings. They came as huge irritants at a time when the FM was announcing the CCEA’s decision to authorise the board of the Nuclear Power Corporation to start acquiring land for future nuclear power projects. The minister was not deterred from his briefing, but he made his point later: “The CCEA today gave its approval for authorising the board of Nuclear Power Corporation to ban the use of cell phones in India!”
Condescending It’s a habit which could prove costly for petroleum minister Murli Deora. He likes to chuckle and use condescending words when he meets his party colleagues and workers. The minister got quite a earful from none other Prabha Rau, president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), when Deora made the mistake of making his trademark noises while enquiring about her well being at a recent party meeting. Congressmen who were present at the meeting said Rau took great offense at this mode of enquiry and was quick to tell Deora that she was not a child to be spoken to like this. A dumbfounded Murli Deora did not know how to defend himself and had to leave the venue in a rush. Contributed by Faraz Ahmad, Aditi Tandon and Bhagyashree Pande
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