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Another black Friday Tribunal for jawans |
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Third Front again
After the confidence vote
A matter of choice
Black gold in the Arctic Women shown the highest respect in armed forces Kali Bein ‘kar sewa’ a success to cherish
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Another black Friday THAT Karnataka has become a terrorist pasture has been apparent for quite sometime now. A rude reminder was delivered when several blasts, low-intensity this time, ripped though important locations in Bangalore. The pattern and the timing were distressingly familiar. A Friday was chosen, and the blasts triggered off early afternoon, perhaps, with timing devices. Most of the blasts occurred within a few minutes of one another. Crowded locations were chosen where they could have done considerably more damage had the bombs been of greater intensity. And so it goes on. Bangalore and Karnataka have been in the news often enough as both a staging ground for terrorist attacks, as well as arrests and discoveries arising out of counter-terrorism efforts. Whether it is the infamous link to the Glasgow airport in the UK, the shooting of scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, the discovery of training centres and terror cells, or the frequent scares and alarms, they all point to the vulnerability of the state to a major attack. Bangalore, India’s IT capital, presents an inviting soft target for terrorists, with a large population density and high-value targets offering the desired visibility. Whatever the claims of counter-terror agencies, the fact remains, however, that precious little headway has been made in investigating terrorist incidents. While vague accusations are thrown about, and random arrests made, investigations never seem to reach the stage where the culprits are clearly identified, if not nabbed, the modus operandi laid bare, and incontrovertible evidence presented in a court of law. As for intelligence, it appears woefully inadequate, with little or no penetration into extremist networks. Terror cannot be fought with wishful thinking, communal mistrust or hatred, and the blind lurching from non-existent clues to inevitable deadends that characterises the investigating efforts. It calls for a focused, concerted effort, co-ordinated at the highest levels, involving all state agencies, in a professional manner. That capacity is lacking in the country. Counter terror efforts cannot be held hostage any longer to worries about erosion of state power over law and order. A powerful, professionally run federal agency is urgently required, and should be the next bipartisan focus of the powers that be at the Centre and in the states.
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Tribunal for jawans THE Union Cabinet’s clearance for a 31-member independent tribunal to hear the grievances of the armed forces personnel was long overdue. The jawans and officers have been deprived of speedy redressal of their grievances because of overburdened high courts and the Supreme Court. The new Armed Forces Tribunal will have a chairperson and 29 members at its principal bench in New Delhi and eight regional benches in Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Guwahati, Chennai and Kochi. The Chandigarh Bench will have jurisdiction over Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. After the tribunal starts functioning, it will not only take up new cases but also adjudicate over 9,800 cases filed by the armed forces personnel relating to court martial and other service matters pending in various high courts and the Supreme Court. Significantly, the paramilitary forces will also be brought under its control. The issue of a separate tribunal for armed forces has been hanging fire for over two decades. In 1982, the Supreme Court had suggested an independent tribunal after pointing out several deficiencies in the existing Acts in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. It specifically pointed out the absence of remedy of appeal against the orders of courts martial and ruled that the courts martial must record reasons in support of their orders and inferences. Subsequently, the Law Commission, in its 169th report, recommended a separate tribunal for prompt disposal of cases challenging decisions of courts martial in the three services. Unfortunately, the present grievance redressal machinery in the three services is faulty and the odds are heavily stacked against the complainants. Undue delay in adjudication causes stress, hardship and misery to the aggrieved soldier. This has led to either jawans committing suicide or killing their superiors. True, a jawan can go up to the Service Chief for justice, but he/she does not get fair treatment at the hands of the immediate boss who processes the complaint. Worse, the complainant is neither informed about the fate of his petition nor apprised of his seniors’ comments. Moreover, there is no independent judicial forum to review the executive decision. The new tribunal is expected to fix accountability and ensure greater discipline among the officers and, above all, enhance the morale of the defence personnel.
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Third Front again AN unintended fallout of the intense lobbying against the government on the nuclear deal has been the taking shape of yet another avatar of the Third Front, this time with Ms Mayawati in the vanguard. The new entity seems set to take out its frustration over the failure to pull down the Manmohan Singh government by going on an agitational path. But it must make sure that it does not do so by causing any inconvenience to the public because it will need the support of the public in not too distant a future. What its leaders must remember is that if the rulers in Delhi bent the rules, its own leaders did not lag behind in many ways. The use of money and muscle power was common to all the parties and the show of disgust should come from the public, not from any of the parties, which did not have clean hands. Unless the Congress and the BJP suffer serious decline, the rationale for such a front would remain doubtful. Even if it does become strong, holding this disparate group together will be a difficult task. The largest party pulling the plug makes such fronts fall apart. The National Front-Left Front led by Mr V. P. Singh and the United Front led by Mr H.D. Deve Gowda and Mr I. K. Gujral tumbled when the BJP and the Congress, respectively, withdrew support. The Left is bound to be the power behind the quest for the throne. It will need a man like Mr Harkishan Singh Surjeet to keep things on an even keel. The Left’s problem is that it willy-nilly has to take support of groupings which may be ideologically far different from it because it has no presence worth the name in the Hindi belt. So, it is ready to sup with anybody from Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav to Ms Mayawati. It may try to explain away all this as a “political necessity” to keep away the communal and capitalistic forces but that does not really hide its discomfiture over its tendency to compromise the principles brazenly.
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It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do. — Moliere
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After the confidence vote
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price had, of course, to be paid for the UPA government’s winning the desperately-needed confidence vote in the Lok Sabha. Votes had to be purchased from a plethora of parties — one-man entities, independents and opportunists — in a time frame extending to the indefinite future. In some or most cases the consideration had to be pre-paid, that is before the confidence vote. Some may have been paid later, on fulfilment of murky deals and some expected to be paid over a long time to come. The payments are not all necessarily financial or in bundles of currency notes. There is intense speculation about the sources and quanta of the funds instantly forked out. In the drama staged in the well of the Lok Sabha the wads of thousand-rupee notes displayed were said to have come from Amar Singh of the Samajvadi Party and amounted to one crore as an advance for three crores promised to each of three BJP MPs for abstaining from voting with their party. The names of certain top industrialists, supposedly with stakes in the UPA government, have been mentioned in various publications as eager contributors for payments of up to 25 crore to every MP with suborned loyalty. Some of the allegations need conclusive proof although popular intuition takes the wallowing of the political class in widespread sleaze as evident, more especially on such a crucial occasion as this confidence vote. The game was certainly not one-sided. When the final outcome of the vote was so uncertain as to keep political pundits wondering, the opposition must have also been deep in a murky contest. Take the case of Shibu Soren and his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). The true story of this “Guruji” and his party’s inordinate love for pelf at the time of Narasimha Rao’s confidence vote spread not only on the grapevine but by the widely reported court cases as well. That Soren and his men escaped their morally-deserved punishment in that case because of a legal anomaly is another matter. But the precedent of immunity created then gave the Jharkhandi worthies a kind of guarantee of impunity in similar circumstances. Soren took the fullest advantage of the legal protection against any possibility of parliamentary chicken coming home to roost. Luckily, even without the help of any parliamentary privilege he also managed to get out of a life sentence in the case of the murder of his own secretary. He was twice Minister for Coal in the present UPA government and divested twice because of his falling foul of the criminal law of the land and yet once more this time he declared with a triumphant flourish that he had exacted from UPA a promise of a return of his favourite coal ministry to him and a ministership for one of his followers after the entire JMM group voted confidence in Manmohan Singh’s government plus a promise that his son would be made deputy chief minister in Jharkhand. But this was a post-dated cheque from the UPA and was, by itself, enough to satisfy the haggling Soren at a time when nobody anywhere in India was sure about the outcome of the confidence vote? Unlikely. A suspicion, therefore, lingers about a consideration handed over to Soren as a good enough advance. Whatever was paid or will be paid as the price for the survival of the UPA government is sure to be presented as a bill to the nation to honour. The ultimate cost, whatever forms it may take, is immeasurable. The Naga MP from Outer Manipur, Wangyuh Konyak, revealed in his brief speech a few minutes before the Lok Sabha voted that he had changed his Naga People’s Front’s stand of no support to the UPA government to a vote for confidence in it. Why? Because the government had promised a possible U turn from the commitment in the Common Minimum Programme to upholding the existing boundaries of the North-Eastern States. If such a change is indeed effected in the government’s Naga policy to provide for a Greater Nagaland it will be a sure prescription for a disaster in the already disturbed Manipur and an even wider area. Greater Nagaland means enlargement of the existing Naga State by the addition of significant areas from three or four of Manipur’s seven districts and territories sliced away from Arunachal Pradesh and the repeatedly truncated Assam. The Hindu Meiteis in the Imphal Valley, who make 50 per cent of the culturally diverse population of the State and are recognised by other Indians as Manipuris and the real face of the State, will be provoked to unpredictable heights of resistance. In the alternative, the assurance given to the Naga People’s Front to secure its solitary vote for the reinforcement of confidence in the UPA government will be forgotten opening a new source of Naga anger at New Delhi’s perfidy. It took long for the government in New Delhi to realise that its myopic eyes gave only a blurred vision of anything east of West Bengal. Even before Assam had been cut up to give Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya separate identities and Shillong was the much- loved capital of a sizeable State, a Government of India blue book, an annual directory called “India”, unpardonably gave Guwahati once, well after Independence, as capital of Assam. New Delhi learned the hard way that its unconcern with the North-East had helped too many intractable problems like the Naga insurgency and the ULFA separatism to raise their heads and challenge the ability of India’s federal centre to deal with them. Yet, blinded by their reckless pursuit of every possible vote for the confidence motion the UPA’s vote managers failed to see that they were adding to the intractability of the mess that is the North-East today. Manipur may still be the back of the beyond for most politicians and bureaucrats in New Delhi but it is one of the points on which India is often lambasted at international human rights councils. The controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which is operating in Manipur has itself become enough reason for Manipuri women to rise in indignant protests, taking the form even of a group of stark naked women appearing before the Assam Rifles with banners: “Rape Us”. A further deterioration in the already worrisome law and order situation in UP, at New Delhi’s doorstep, may also be expected sooner than later. Now that Amar Singh the ever active Socialist minder of rich industry and silver screen glamour, has secured easy accesss to 10 Janpath and 7 Race Course Road, he may think himself powerful enough to strike again at the wounded tigress Mayawati, who is sure to fight with all the resources of the UP administration and all her dalit strength for her dubiously amassed fortune. Keep watching for a big storm breaking over Uttar Pradesh any day. The words written here are not about the merits or otherwise of the confidence vote and obtained by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but about how it was secured and what must be expected in the
wake.
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A matter of choice
A
job in a mercantile marine ship as a Chief Engineer is interesting, comfortable and well paid. My ship arrived at the port of Sao Paulo in Brazil to pick up a cargo of bulk sugar for Algeria. This was my second trip from North Africa on the same run. My wife who was on board with me felt bored and opted for another ship which may be visiting better ports for more glamorous shopping. During my stay in Sao Paulo I noticed large meat carrier refrigerating ships plying between Brazil and London, Rotterdam, Rostock and Stockholm. These were faster ships, about 80000 tonnes, with arrangement both for frozen meat cargo as well as fish and dairy products. Dairy products from Europe were as popular in Brazil as frozen South American meat was in Europe. Our ship’s agent, Mr Fernando, in Sao Paulo was agent for these fully refrigerated ships also. Sensing my wife’s ideas Mr Fernando discreetly mentioned to me that their shipping company was in need of a marine chief engineer to join them during next six months for their refrigerated cargo on the Brazil-Baltic run touching Stockholm. During each run we could visit our daughter who lived in Stockholm and as such this offer appeared very tempting although international pay scales and other facilities were similar in both cases. Pressurised by my wife I decided to visit the reefer which happened to be in the same harbour loading during that point of time. The reefer was a new ship built recently at a Japanese shipyard. Its powerful Swiss made twin main diesel engines impressed me. The entire ship looked immaculately clean and well maintained. Next, I looked at the main meat cargo hold covering very large portion of the entire length and breadth of ship. Chilled meat carcasses were arriving from trucks on the wharf. Thousands of carcasses of slain pigs, sheep and other animals were seen hung upside down with aluminium channels beneath. Sight of blood-oozing kidneys and livers etc. was discomforting for a vegetarian like me. A small four-wheeled battery driven vehicle was used to carry me from one end of the freezing chamber to another. The captain of the ship who was escorting me then proceeded to a processing room where animal parts like intestines, tails, nails etc were being boiled to prepare soup in sealed aluminium cans. I did not feel like visiting anything more. My responsibility was limited only to maintaining sub-zero temperatures in refrigerated compartment while all other activities were to be carried out by the other department. I have due regards for non-vegetarians. However, I decided not to accept the
job!
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Black gold in the Arctic The
first-comprehensive assessment of oil and gas resources north of the Arctic Circle, carried out by American geologists, reveals that underneath the ice, the region may contain as much as a fifth of the world’s undiscovered yet recoverable oil and natural gas reserves. This includes 90 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for three years at current consumption rates, or to supply America for 12, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, which is equal to about a third of the world’s known gas reserves. The significance of the report is that it puts firm figures for the first time on the hydrocarbon riches which the five countries surrounding the Arctic – the US, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through its dependency, Greenland) – have been eyeing up for several years. It is the increasingly rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, which last September hit a new record summer low, and of land-based ice on Greenland, which is opening up the possibility of the once frozen wasteland providing a natural resources and minerals bonanza, not to mention a major new transport route – last year the fabled North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the top of Canada was navigable for the first time. Scientists consider that global warming is responsible for the melting, with the high latitudes of the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. Environmentalists see this as a massive danger, with the melting of Greenland’s land-based ice adding to sea-level rise, while the melting of the sea ice uncovers a dark ocean surface that absorbs far more of the sun’s heat than the ice did, and thus acts as a “positive feedback” reinforcing warming. The melting of Greenland’s ice sheet has accelerated so dramatically that it is triggering earthquakes for the first time, with movements of gigantic pieces of ice creating shockwaves with a magnitude of up to three. Conservationists are also concerned about the threat to the Arctic’s unique ecosystems and wildlife. The Arctic countries’ governments, on the other hand, see it as a massive opportunity, and are already positioning themselves to claim stakes in the seabed of the Arctic Ocean, if – as many climate scientists now believe will happen – it becomes ice-free in summer within a couple of decades. Just a year ago, to much media fanfare, the Russians planted a flag on the seabed some 2.5 miles beneath the ice at the North Pole, and dispatched a nuclear-powered icebreaker to map a subsea link between the Pole and Siberia, as part of an effort to circumvent a UN convention limiting resource claims beyond 200 miles offshore. Canada said earlier this month that it plans to counter the Russian overture with “a very strong claim” to Arctic exploration rights. This week’s oil and gas study, carried out by the US Geological Survey, does not raise the national competitive stakes appreciably as it reveals that most of the reserves are lying close to the shore, within the territorial jurisdiction of the countries concerned. Much of the oil is off Alaska; much of the natural gas off the Russian coastline. There appear to be only small reserves under the unclaimed heart of the Arctic. However, what the report does do is to indicate a very different future for one of the world’s last remaining pristine and utterly unspoilt regions. If the oil is there, countries which own it will be very likely to seek to extract it, whatever the environmental cost. “Before we can make decisions about our future use of oil and gas and related decisions about protecting endangered species, native communities and the health of our planet, we need to know what’s out there,” said the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) director, Mark Myers, in releasing the report. “With this assessment, we’re providing the same information to everyone in the world so the global community can make those difficult decisions,” he said. “Most of the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially unexplored with respect to petroleum,” said Donald Gautier, the project chief for the assessment. “The extensive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.” The geologists studied maps of subterranean rock formations across the 8.2 million square miles above the Arctic Circle to find areas with characteristics similar to oil and gas finds in other parts of the world. The study also took into account the age, depth and shape of rock formations in judging whether they are likely to contain oil. The 90 billion barrels of oil expected to be in the Arctic in total are more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and could meet current world oil demand of 86.4 million barrels a day for almost three years. But the Arctic’s oil is not intended to replace all the supplies in the rest of world. It would last much longer by boosting available supplies and possibly reducing US reliance on imported crude, if America developed the resources. The report did not include an estimate for how long it might take to bring the reserves to markets, but it would clearly be a substantial period. Offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico and west Africa can take a decade or longer to begin pumping oil. But clearly, the massive amount of industrial infrastructure necessary to find the oil, extract it, and transport it to where it is wanted will come with a very considerable environmental cost. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Women shown the highest respect in armed forces In
the armed forces, there have been a few cases of lady officers facing what they term as sexual and mental harassment. Recently, a lady officer in the army’s supply corps has alleged physical and mental harassment by her superiors. The press has added the sexual harassment element into the case. Though she has not come up with specifics, from what she has alleged so far, it appears to be a fall-out of normal pressure of military life of an officer. The service has a set work culture and performance parameters are related to timely execution of the job. Officers and troops are often called upon to perform not so routine a duty at odd hours of the day and night, or move to another location at short notice. Such additional commitments and requirements add to the normal, stressful environment in the armed forces. The military has its own channels and systems of checks and balances to deal with complaints and disciplinary cases. Therefore, intervention by the defence minister in this case by ordering an inquiry, short circuiting all channels of command, is not conducive to maintaining discipline in the army. The defence minister is expected to be alive to the needs of propriety and form before directly intervening in such matters. Undoubtedly there have been a few teething problems the lady officers have faced in joining the military, but there is nothing abnormal or alarming in this situation. One of them had preferred a false TA/DA claim and had to face the wrath of military law. The presiding officer of the General Court Marshal in this case was a woman, of the rank of a brigadier. Yet the accused and the press tried to bring in extraneous issues, little realising that a false TA/DA claim, of even a few rupees, in the defence services, can send the accused to prison, while the lady in point was merely dismissed from service. Yet there was no end to malicious press coverage and twisting of the tale. An intrusive press is not conducive to discipline in the military. There is no gender bias what ever. Quite the contrary, women are shown the highest respect and deference in the armed forces. While co-education in schools and colleges is a common feature, yet we know not of any institution in India where they have a common hostel and rooms are shared between boys and girls. Perhaps we have to be ‘Westeranised’ much more and shed our age-old cultural inhibitions and social taboos before we are prepared to take steps which push our women to share fully the rough side of military life with men. Those who clamour for induction of women into the combat arms of the military should bear this aspect in mind. So far, in the armed forces, women are offered only short service commission of five years, extendable by a few more years. As such, in this short period, they do not rise to high ranks, but their counter parts in the medical corps do attain ranks of general officers and they command respect and exercise authority as any male colleague. So to contend that reporting to a women officer in the military hurts Indian male ego is baseless. The military have had female doctors and nursing staff for a long time and they have performed magnificently. Yet there have been administrative problems in the management of lady doctors in the army. The DG Army Medical Corps once told me that he could not post lady doctors to remote areas where she would be the sole female, or to units deployed at difficult locations. Thus the load of field postings and to remote areas was borne entirely by male doctors and not equally shared by their female counterparts. Once married, they want to be posted along side their husbands, which very often is not possible. Any one who is caught doing some thing wrong has the standard defence of being victimised and targeted. No one ever admits his wrong doings. Women officers in the armed forces are no exception and the allegation of sexual harassment is the additional powerful fusillade at their disposal. Female officers in the military have to plough a lonely furrow, in a male dominated environment, and therefore must be shown special consideration. Their handling by seniors has to be with compassion and understanding. Though cases of harassment and such like treatment of female officers are far too few to cause an alarm, media often blows such incidents out of proportion and tries to sensationalise by injecting the sexual harassment element.
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Kali Bein ‘kar sewa’ a success to cherish The
Kali Bein, the 160 km-long tributary of the Beas river sacred to Guru Nanak Dev, is the lifeline of the Doaba region of Punjab. Thanks to the rapid growth of population and urbanisation over the decades, it had become utterly polluted. Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal launched his kar sewa in July 2000, to revive the dying river. Although a small river, the Kali Bein, with the sewage of 43 villages and towns, apart from the effluents of many factories turning it into a weed-choked dirty drain, shares its miserable plight with most of our bigger rivers. A thick layer of silt has settled over its bed, blocking its pores that could help recharge the water table. As a result, two districts of the Doaba region suffered in their own different ways. While a vast tract of land in Mukerian tehsil of Hoshiarpur became water-logged, almost the whole of Bhulath and Sultanpur Lodhi tehsils of Kapurthala district underwent a fast depletion of the water table. Water that seeped underground contaminated the ground water and set in an unending process of slow poisoning of the people whose lives largely depended on it. During the first phase of the kar sewa of the Holy Bein (2000-2003), the river was cleared of water hyacinth and silt at the historical town of Sultanpur Lodhi. Both its banks were raised and lined with boulders to build beautiful bathing ghats. Bricked roads along the banks were prepared and beautified with decorative and fruit trees. Water supply, sewerage and power supply systems were installed. In the second phase, hyacinth and silt were cleared out of the Kali Bein from Dhanoa in Hoshiarpur district to Kanjali in Kapurthala district, and a kutcha road was prepared from Dhanoa to Kanjali, measuring about 110 kilometres along the Bein. In the third phase (2004-05) the kar sewa was resumed at Sultanpur Lodhi to the West of Talwandi bridge, removing hyacinth and silt from the bed of the Bein. Work was also extended to the residential area of Sultanpur Lodhi, installing sewerage systems. In the fourth phase (2006-07), the kar sewa entered a new stage, which surprised many. Sant Seechewal saw that if the river is desilted from Harike upward to Sultanpur Lodhi, then it was easy to bring the Beas water upward. This plan was realised with the cooperation of the people of the Mand area. Then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam came to visit the Kali Bein at Sultanpur Lodhi on August 17, 2006. During the current phase, (2006 to 2008), the kar sewa has acquired still newer dimensions. In order to restore the purity of the Holy Bein permanently, alternative arrangements for sewage are being made. Treated sewage is being supplied through pipelines for irrigation of crops. The kar sewa has opened new economic vistas for the people of Punjab. Water flow has been restored. About 6000 acres of water-logged land in Hosphairpur have been reclaimed. In Kapurthala, 1,35,000 hectares of land have been saved from depletion of the water table. The roads along the banks have brought people and places closer and paved the way for faster development. Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal and his kar sewak followers have proved that collective efforts can work wonders.
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