O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Murder most foul
Attack on India’s cultural ethos
THE murder of a Christian missionary and his assistant near Herbertpur in Dehradun district in Uttarakhand cannot be seen in isolation. As our report mentions, it is the fourth incident in which the small Christian community has found itself at the receiving end in the state since the BJP came to power. If anybody sees it as part of the anti-Christian violence let loose, first, in Orissa and, then, in Karnataka, it cannot be helped.

Lynching of the CEO
Noida police did not save him
India is perceived by many as a difficult place to live and work in. Right or wrong, this is the general impression that most of the outside world happens to have about it. Monday’s lynching of the CEO of an Italy-based company in Greater Noida has proved the critics right.

Ferment in South Africa
Mbeki exit spells more changes
The resignation of South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki less than a year before the next elections are due signifies cracks in the African National Congress (ANC) and bodes ill, certainly in the short term, for the country’s politics. As the predominant political force, the ANC of the legendary Nelson Mandela has been the sheet anchor of stability in the post-apartheid political dispensation. 

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

Judicial appointments
Plug entry of rotten elements
by K.N. Bhatt
Soumitra Sen, a lawyer in Kolkata while acting as a court receiver allegedly misappropriated over 30 lakhs of rupees in the year 1993. The matter did not remain a secret — it remained pending before courts. Yet in the year 2003 a three-judge collegium of the Calcutta High Court recommended his name for appointment as a judge of the High Court. Another collegium of judges of the Supreme Court, one of them being a former judge of that High Court, approved the proposal.

MIDDLE

An “easy” job
by Zahur H. Zaidi
For those of you who think that being a cop is easy, I have just one thing to say: Come, see us train. Our training schools are places we reverentially refer to as HELL. As a young man in my early 20s, I hated waking up early in the morning because I liked to hit the sack late, I liked to wear my hair long and generally speaking, I detested being disciplined.

OPED

Pak lawyers lit the flame
Civil society has to keep it up
by Kuldip Nayar
ONE is disappointed the way the lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of 60 judges in Pakistan is petering out. Many lawyers are still in the field but their solidarity has been weakened. First, the then President Pervez Musharraf tried to break the movement. Now President Asif Ali Zardari is doing so.

A time bomb called methane
by Steve Connor
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

Inside Pakistan
Al-Qaeda in Islamabad
by Syed Nooruzzaman
The terrorist attack at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel highlights the ugly reality that militant jihadis have established a strong network in Pakistan’s capital. That is why they succeeded in striking at one of the most prestigious buildings in Islamabad. They could not succeed in doing what they did on Saturday without their deep penetration in the Pakistan Army and the political establishment.

EDITORIALS

Murder most foul
Attack on India’s cultural ethos

THE murder of a Christian missionary and his assistant near Herbertpur in Dehradun district in Uttarakhand cannot be seen in isolation. As our report mentions, it is the fourth incident in which the small Christian community has found itself at the receiving end in the state since the BJP came to power. If anybody sees it as part of the anti-Christian violence let loose, first, in Orissa and, then, in Karnataka, it cannot be helped. Unfortunately, an impression has gained ground that violence has the sanction of those in power. In Orissa the murder of a VHP leader, claimed to have been committed by the Naxalites, was used as a ruse to target the Christians of Kandhamal. The state has done little to arrest those who burnt alive or killed dozens of people and drove thousands out of their villages.

Similarly, in Karnataka where in the name of protesting against a booklet allegedly published by a neo-Christian, the Bajrang Dal has been attacking churches. The attackers had every reason to believe that they had the support of the state when, instead of condemning the violence, leaders like the Chief Minister suggested there was a need to debate the issue of conversion. The government arrested a Bajrang Dal leader, who has been openly claiming credit for the attacks, only after the Central government warned the state of action if it failed in its duty to protect the life and property of the people. In a bid to assuage the hurt feelings of Christians, Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa visited the Catholic Archbishop in Bangalore on Monday and also announced that the government would use the Goonda Act against those who attack churches.

The Karnataka government need not have waited so long to send a stern warning to those who seek to destroy communal peace in the state. It is amazing that leaders like Prime Ministerial aspirant Lal Krishna Advani have not thought it necessary to severely condemn the attacks on churches. Had they done so, violence would not have spread to other states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, ruled by the BJP. Even now it is not too late for the BJP leadership to condemn violence against Christians and tell its cadres that vandalising religious places only brings infamy to the country and the party. Or, is there a design behind this silence?

Lynching of the CEO
Noida police did not save him

India is perceived by many as a difficult place to live and work in. Right or wrong, this is the general impression that most of the outside world happens to have about it. Monday’s lynching of the CEO of an Italy-based company in Greater Noida has proved the critics right. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, India head of the Rs 360-crore auto-parts Italian company Cerlikon-Graziano Transmissions India in Udyog Vihar of Greater Noida, was beaten to death by some dismissed workers. Ironically, these employees had been thrown out some months ago because they had indulged in violence. The company asked them to write an apology letter saying that they had turned violent in the past which forced a lockout. This demand made them furious and they beat the CEO dead besides injuring many others from the management side and causing extensive damage to property on the premises.

The police was duly informed before the meeting with the workers, but as it normally happens, it reached the factory only after it was all over. The SHO of the Bisrakh police station has been suspended but that is hardly a consolation for the CEO and his bereaved family or the factory management. If only the police could be responsive!

As it is, MNCs hesitate to go to Noida or Greater Noida to set up shop. The latest incident will act as an even greater deterrent to future investment in the area. This one shocking incident neutralises years of PR campaigns. The worsening of the industrial climate can be foretold with considerable certainty. If this can happen in the backyard of the national Capital, the plight of the hinterland can be well imagined. It is high time the government woke up and did something drastic to restore the confidence of investors. Not only the foreigners but even the Indians find themselves vulnerable. If it is not the terrorists, then they can even fall a prey to such ruthless workers. The accused need to be tried for cold-blooded murder.

Ferment in South Africa
Mbeki exit spells more changes

The resignation of South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki less than a year before the next elections are due signifies cracks in the African National Congress (ANC) and bodes ill, certainly in the short term, for the country’s politics. As the predominant political force, the ANC of the legendary Nelson Mandela has been the sheet anchor of stability in the post-apartheid political dispensation. It has subsumed dissidence and at times of crisis succeeded in rallying all factions to the cause of the party and the country. If Mr Mbeki, who succeeded Mr Mandela as President in January 1999 and would have left office in June 2009 after two terms, has quit gracefully, it is because he was left with no other choice.

Mr Mbeki resigned after the ANC leadership asked him to step down in the interests of party unity. Trouble has been brewing since December last when Mr Jacob Zuma, despite being mired in allegations of corruption was elected president of the ANC. Mr Zuma’s rise to the top was an assertion of his having marshalled to his cause the various factions within the ANC, particularly those opposed to the economic policies of Mr Mbeki. The election of Mr Zuma shifted the power struggle to the next stage — a contest for the country’s presidency.

The last straw that brought down Mr Mbeki was a court ruling that the President’s office was “interfering” to ensure that his political challenger Mr Zuma was nailed on charges of fraud and corruption. Mr Mbeki has been succeeded by Mr Kgalema Motlanthe, who will hold office until the next election. In reality, this is a lame-duck presidency. While it boosts the prospects of Mr Zuma for the post of president, the resignation of Mr Mbeki may trigger more exits from the government and further divide, if not split, the ANC, thereby unsettling South Africa’s politics in unpredictable ways.

Thought for the Day

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. — Rita Mae Brown

ARTICLE

Judicial appointments
Plug entry of rotten elements
by K.N. Bhatt

Soumitra Sen, a lawyer in Kolkata while acting as a court receiver allegedly misappropriated over 30 lakhs of rupees in the year 1993. The matter did not remain a secret — it remained pending before courts. Yet in the year 2003 a three-judge collegium of the Calcutta High Court recommended his name for appointment as a judge of the High Court. Another collegium of judges of the Supreme Court, one of them being a former judge of that High Court, approved the proposal.

The “misbehaviour” continued for about three years into Justice Sen’s career as a judge; it was only in the year 2006 he returned the money — that too pursuant to a court order. With a lameduck Parliament waiting for its inevitable dissolution, the “impeachment” move will remain in cold storage. And Justice Sen will in the meanwhile continue to draw his emoluments without working.

A Judge appointed to the Punjab and Haryana High Court only a couple of years ago is now facing CBI investigation in connection with the “cash at the doorsteps” scandal. A few years ago two Judges of the High Courts of Delhi and Rajasthan were compelled to resign under circumstances that could only be described as shameful. Many other corrupt and incompetent worthies on the Bench continued in office till retirement despite knowledge of public disrespect for them. With the experience gained since 1993, not many would doubt that the present machinery of appointment invented by the judges of the Supreme Court through the Second judges Case has failed.

It must be conceded that even prior to 1993 faux pas in the matter of appointment were not unknown. In the year 1992 one Srivastva of the Mizoram Judicial Service received the Presidential warrant appointing him a judge of the Gauhati High Court. Before he could take the oath of office, it was discovered that he lacked the basic minimum qualification of 10 years of practice as a lawyer — or in judicial service. In a PIL the Supreme Court quashed the warrant. Many judges appointed under the old discipline and now happily retired are living proof of the inability of that system also to keep away the undesirable ones.

Wrong selections are not entirely on account of wrong selectors or wrong motives. With the best of judges in the collegium errors may creep in because of lack of timely information — or total indifference to available material by those whose duty it is to coordinate. Making a key appointment is of lasting consequence to the country — not like conferring “Padma” awards on persons of dubious background. The instance of a police officer found to have lent his helping hand for renewing the license of an unsafe cinema that eventually went up in flames killing scores of innocent people, including children, received his periodical promotions and may be gallantry awards too notwithstanding strictures by courts. This is just an example of how we carry on.

The IB is the main agency for gathering vital information - it is supposed to be an amalgam of the five senses of the nation; but surely in the matter of appointment of judges — there were several wrong reports about good candidates and many like Mr Sen, escaped their scrutiny.

The practice prevailing in the USA in the matter of key appointments is worthy of examination. There the President can make certain appointments only with the advice and consent of the Senate. Officials whose appointments require the Senate’s approval include Justices of the Supreme Court, and other federal judges. Typically, a nominee is first subject to a hearing before a Senate committee.

It is impracticable in India to replicate that system but surely a body like National Judicial Commission when formed can through its own machinery gather information discreetly from the Bar or from the former clients of the candidate. After sorting out the material collected the candidate can be asked to present himself at an in camera hearing by the commission to throw light on darker areas. At the end of the process, the suitability of the candidate concerned will be substantially judged or at any rate sufficient information would have been gathered to make further enquiries.

All these are not permissible under the Constitution as it stands - amendments will have to be made to establish a National Judicial Commission with meaningful representation to the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, including the Bar. The commission should be empowered to formulate its own procedure from time to time and of recommending appointments to the higher judiciary in place of the present collegium. Hopefully such machinery will help in timely detection and prevention of the invaders.

How about appointments to the Subordinate Judiciary which in reality is the very foundation of our justice delivery system? It is generally accepted that the present system of appointment where sitting judges of High Courts have a decisive say is unsatisfactory. The Punjab and Haryana High Court might have hit the media headlines recently — thanks to a vigilant Press — but the rest of India is no different. A light-hearted comment on the issue is that being a brother-in-law or a son-in-law of a sitting High Court judge is the best legal qualification to be a district judge.

What then is the alternative? Way back in the year 1958, the first Law Commission consisting of legendary lawyers like M.C.Setalvad and Nani Palkhivala, suggested constitution of an All-India Judicial Service. It was only in the year 1976, during the infamous emergency, with whatever motive, Art.312 of the Constitution was amended to enable constitution of such a service.

The concept as envisaged by the Law Commission and repeated time and again by judicial pronouncements and echoed by eminent jurists was that bright young law graduates coming out successful in an all-India competitive examination would constitute the cadre. They will be distributed among different states according to their needs — as in the case of the IAS and the IPS. After undergoing the prescribed period and mode of practical training the AIJS members will be posted as judges.

This will ensure that every state will normally get judges of quality who are not administratively subordinate to any High Court. The AIJS eventually will be the main source for recruiting judges to the higher judiciary - on the basis of proven merit.

Judges at all levels have shown that they are ordinary human beings. Like in any other field a large number of them are by nature honest and they would have been so in any other walk of life. Judiciary is respected — not because of any misgiving that they are of a different breed — but because of the system of open hearing, reasoned judgements based on law and precedents and subject to correction in appeals. If in addition the men who preside over courts are honest and able, the system would command reverence - and if entries of bad elements in to the system are frequent and glaring the public respect which is the sole foundation on which the judiciary stands will sink.

The writer is Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

MIDDLE

An “easy” job
by Zahur H. Zaidi

For those of you who think that being a cop is easy, I have just one thing to say: Come, see us train.

Our training schools are places we reverentially refer to as HELL. As a young man in my early 20s, I hated waking up early in the morning because I liked to hit the sack late, I liked to wear my hair long and generally speaking, I detested being disciplined.

As luck would have it, I became a recruit to the Indian Police Service. And then, life changed forever, to say the least.

Within an hour of my arrival at the Police Academy, I saw all my friends being herded to the barber’s shop, who ruthlessly went around doing his nasty job. After he had finished shearing my well-groomed hair, I could have sworn that he had been an apprentice to a cobbler and not a barber! I left the shop miserable over the loss of my beautiful tresses. Worse was to follow.

I was deep in my dreams when a loud knock on my door awakened me. I looked at the table clock and rubbed my eyes in disbelief: It was 4:30 am. I cursed the man outside and then cursed myself. I opened the door and accepted the thermos flask that was handed over by a smiling bearer who cheerily informed me that I was expected to show up at the parade ground, shaved and neatly dressed, in half an hour. I cursed myself again.

I deposited the flask on my table and went back to bed, only to hear louder knocking. This time the bearer looked menacing. I obeyed and yawned all the way to the parade ground. We ran, exercised, rolled, carried heavy rifles and performed drill every morning and evening. When the indoor classes began during the later part of the day we all slept. This became an everyday routine.

My squad of 14 had a tyrant of a Drill Ustaad. We started calling him Hitler. Now Hitler was close to 50 but he was fitter than all of us. He loved proving this to us and he was a strict disciplinarian. And above all he loved giving us regular Ragdas — run 100 metres and then immediately do 10 pushups as you pant to catch a few ounces of oxygen. Followed quickly by front rolling. Shammers like me were branded Makras. In short he was the most hated guy around. But he did not lack a sense of humour, however weird.

One evening I decided to shave my nonexistent stubble so that I could catch a few more moments of sleep the following morning. Hitler greeted us as usual in the parade ground. After barking a few orders he went on to inspect our turnout. He stopped before me. I froze.

He felt my chin with his hand and asked,” Makra, have you shaved today?” I said at the top of my voice,” Yes Sir”! He said,” Well, tomorrow stand closer to the razor. For the moment give me 20 pushups.”

Protests don’t work in the police.

Midterm break was a welcome change. I returned home in great physical shape. For two weeks I did not suffer the Drill and PT. And I went back to my habit of waking up late. But how long can two weeks last?

On return I reached at a time when our dear sadistic barber had closed shop and left. In 14 days my hair had grown long enough to deserve expulsion from the Academy. But what could I do at that late hour?

Next day the ordeal restarted. Hitler walked up to me and saw my hair. I was relieved when I saw him move on to inspect the file behind mine. Then he asked me,” Makra! Am I hurting you”? I said,” No Sir!” “Oh! I thought I was standing on your hair. Now we will see this Makra do two rounds of the parade ground at top speed!”

God bless my Ustaad. How I hated him then.

The batch of 1994 passed out of the academy a few months later. We still remember the time spent at the Police Academy very fondly. They were the best days of our lives. Some of us I am sure would go on to achieve great heights in their career.

But Hitler remains etched very fondly in the memories of at least 14 of us.

OPED

Pak lawyers lit the flame
Civil society has to keep it up
by Kuldip Nayar

ONE is disappointed the way the lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of 60 judges in Pakistan is petering out. Many lawyers are still in the field but their solidarity has been weakened. First, the then President Pervez Musharraf tried to break the movement. Now President Asif Ali Zardari is doing so.

That Zardari should be a party to such a heinous conspiracy is unfortunate because the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which he heads with his son, is the organisation that has given its blood and tears to restore democracy in the country.

If Pakistan can be proud of people’s assertion since its formation, the lawyers’ movement comes at the top.

There was a stir in Sind some years ago for the state’s autonomy. No doubt, it was patriotic, passionate in content. But it was confined to just one state.

In Baluchistan too there was an uprising, laced with violence which the Pervez Musharraf government deliberately provoked to black out the Balochi identity and to kill a respected leader like Bugti.

Both agitations in Sind and Baluchistan are praiseworthy. But they never touched the height which the lawyers’ movement has. It transcended borders and acquired the character of an all-Pakistan, secular endeavour.

Even fundamentalists who participated in it never brought their parochial politics to it. Nor has the lawyers’ leadership allowed it. It will be a tragedy if the movement fails in its objective because that may well be the failure of liberal forces all over the world, not only Pakistan.

The movement is comparable to the national struggle for Independence. Not many Muslims participated in it in the later years because by that time the demand for Pakistan had pushed everything else into the background. But the national struggle was selfless, a sort of saga of sacrifices. India got rid of the British because of that struggle.

In the same way, the lawyers’ movement evoked the spirit of idealism in Pakistan’s civil society, which, like civil society in India, is engrossed in its own comforts and careers. Those who are writing off the lawyers’ movement are committing a mistake because the phoenix will one day rise from the ashes.

The lawyers have ignited a spark to burn the hay of grievances against the Musharraf government or, for that matter, the military establishment. The semblance of democracy which is visible in Pakistan today is because lawyers awakened the people to their right to freedom.

It is true that Pakistan Bar Council Chairman Aitzaz Hasan took the initiative and infused life in the dead civil society. His sacrifices would be remembered by the country. But the role played by other lawyers has not been insignificant.

Pakistan, no matter what time it takes, will see the reinstatement of all judges and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary, who have already recorded their names in the annals of history. Along their family, the judges were confined to solitary imprisonment for three months. They have come a long way. Yet their destination is distant. The society inured to dictation will take time to assess its strength to defy.

As it happens in the long-stretched movements, some persons fall along the way. A few judges have betrayed the cause and joined their original positions by taking yet another oath. Had they shown stamina and commitment Asif Ali Zardari could not have resiled from the Murree Declaration in which he had avowed reinstatement of all the 60 judges.

Their unity would have forced him to accept the lawyers’ demand and made the judiciary in Pakistan independent for all times to come. The movement has met with a reversal. But it is going to succeed because the success or the failure of the lawyers, who despite the division created in the ranks, is keeping the flame alive.

Civil society in Pakistan must realise that the eyes of the entire democratic world are fixed on it. Will it allow a civil government to defeat the determination of lawyers?

Nawaz Sharif, now Zardari’s rival, has tried his best to make Zardari abide by the promise to reinstate all the judges, including the Chief Justice. Nawaz Sharif knows that but for the lawyers’ movement, his Muslim League would not have ruled Punjab nor would it have had such a presence in the National Assembly as it has today.

The people’s rule would not have returned to Pakistan. But Zardari, it seems, has personal scores to settle, Nawaz Sharif on one hand and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary on the other. It is a tragedy that the democratic forces have got divided even before they have consolidated.

Pakistan has had a military rule in one shape or the other for most of years since its inception in August 1947. The lawyers’ movement has demolished the ramparts from behind which the men in khaki have ruled ruthlessly in the last 50 years. This alone is a message to people in Pakistan that their vote has not gone waste and that the ballot box is secure in the future.

Nawaz Sharif should not confine himself to issuing statements, however strong. His Muslim League has no option except to reignite the enthusiasm in the lawyers’ community and contribute to the freedom movement, which is still going on.

At stake is the future of democracy in Pakistan. There can be no bigger challenge to the nation than the success of lawyers. The exasperated people can go back to the military.

Every citizen must display a degree of vigilance and willingness to sacrifice. Without the awareness of what is right and a desire to act according to what is right there may no realisation of what is wrong.

India nearly lost democracy in 1975 when Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, imposed the Emergency. The nation asserted itself to remove her Congress party lock, stock and barrel. But we lost a lot in the process. The dividing line between right and wrong, moral and immoral which has ceased to exist since then, has not been visible yet.

The only thing which we have been able to do is that we have deepened democracy. Once the lawyers’ movement succeeds, such things will come back.

A time bomb called methane
by Steve Connor

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia’s northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a “lid” to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.

Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.

Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.

“We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night,” said Dr Gustafsson. “An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These ‘methane chimneys’ were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments].”

By arrangement with The Independent

Inside Pakistan
Al-Qaeda in Islamabad
by Syed Nooruzzaman

The terrorist attack at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel highlights the ugly reality that militant jihadis have established a strong network in Pakistan’s capital. That is why they succeeded in striking at one of the most prestigious buildings in Islamabad. They could not succeed in doing what they did on Saturday without their deep penetration in the Pakistan Army and the political establishment.

According to Daily Times, Al-Qaeda is well-entrenched in Islamabad and “doesn’t need sleeper cells”. The terrorist outfit has “around 8000 ‘foreigners’ in Pakistan ready to lay down their lives as combatants or suicide bombers because they are ‘uprooted’ and ready to abandon their life.”

Al-Qaeda has “its foot soldiers among two types of Taliban (activists): the Afghan ones and those in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); and among the Pakistanis from the rest of the country who are members of once state-supported jihadi militias.”

According to Dawn (Sept 22), “In the days ahead, the bombing will take to a fever pitch the debate about whether Pakistan is fighting its own war against terrorism or America’s. The debate will miss the point: it is an internal war, and it goes to the heart of what we want Pakistan to be.”

As Business Recorder pointed out, “the actual content (in Mr Zardari’s speech) left many a listener disappointed. His directive to parliament to form an all-parties committee to revisit the Seventeenth Amendment and Article 58-2(b) appeared to many an unnecessary process fraught with delays, and may bring to mind the maxim that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. The President’s perception, however, was that the setting up of this committee must be viewed as the President giving away his powers — the first time ever.”