The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Aya Rams and Gaya Rams
The Speaker need not decide the punishment

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s suggestion for setting up a special tribunal or empowering the Election Commission for dealing with matters of defection of elected representatives may be the correct way to tackle the problem without raising controversies. At a seminar of the presiding officers of state legislatures in Chandigarh last week, he said that the jurisdiction and authority to deal with defections as provided in the Tenth Schedule need not continue to be exercised by the presiding officers because the exercise of such power in recent times became controversial because of their political allegiance. Generally, it is the ruling party that chooses the Speaker who, in turn, depends upon the majority support for continuance in office. The politicisation of the Speaker’s office has played havoc with established constitutional norms in some states, bringing his or her impartiality under question. Consider what happened in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa. Whenever some legislators indulged in defections and reduced the majority support of the governments, the Speakers had acted in a blatantly partisan manner to bail out the governments instead of keeping party considerations at bay and upholding the dignity of the high office.

The Supreme Court and the high courts do have the authority to adjudicate on the Speaker’s decision on disqualification. The founding fathers of the Constitution thought that this would help him exercise his power “objectively, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.” They have been, however, proved wrong. Though the courts generally don’t interfere with the Speaker’s ruling, Mr Chatterjee’s suggestion for taking away the power of disqualification from the Speaker makes sense because it will insulate his office from political interference.

The suggestion for empowering the Election Commission is not new. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution had made a similar recommendation for checking the brazen misuse of power by the Speaker in a few states. However, it was not implemented. In its 170th report, the Law Commission had recommended the omission of Paragraph six of Tenth Schedule, which confers the power of disqualification on the Speaker. Empowering the Election Commission, which enjoys a very high credibility, can certainly help the office of the Speaker gain greater independence and dignity.

Trade with EU
The focus will be on civil nuclear energy

After a landmark vote in the US House of Representatives last Saturday cleared the way for India to develop its nuclear energy potential, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy announced an agreement on closer nuclear cooperation between India and the European Union at an India-EU summit in Marseilles on Monday. India has been denied access to civil nuclear technology since it tested a nuclear device in 1974. However, in recent years there has been a perceptible change in the US and European attitude towards India. Both feel the emerging economic power and the largest democracy of the world should no longer be ostracised keeping in view its unblemished record as a nuclear power.

France, that currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, gets 80 per cent of its power from nuclear plants and expects to exploit commercial opportunities thrown up by India’s efforts to tap new sources of energy. Three French companies that supply nuclear equipment are already exploring business opportunities in India. India expects nuclear reactors as well as fuel from France. Both countries also plan to boost cooperation in fusion energy research. The talks between the two leaders ranged from energy security, civil aviation, terrorism to climate change. “We can’t tell India to fight climate change without clean nuclear energy,” observed Mr Sarkozy.

Though the controversial turban issue and the recent attacks on Christians in India also cropped up during the talks, the focus remained on energy and trade relations. Trade between the 27-nation EU and India has more than doubled to 55.6 billion euros in the last seven years and the new target is to take it to 100 billion euros in the next five years. Excessive European subsidies and disagreement on tariff reductions have held up the growth of EU-India trade so far. But in the changed scenario growth possibilities are immense. India is also to sign a similar nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia.

Thought for the Day

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

ARTICLE

Divided we stand on terror
Playing politics for votes
by B.G. Verghese

Another cowardly terror strike in Delhi has shamefully divided the nation as political parties play politics for votes rather than unite against a common danger. There are occasions when politics should be set aside and those who would break the nation’s morale and equanimity must know that they face the steely resolve of a united people. Some, like the BJP, tirelessly call attention to the fact that the US has not faced a second 9/11 and from this deduce that if the country had more stringent anti-terror laws and implemented them rigorously all would be well. This is as naïve as the Congress retort that it was during the NDA regime replete with POTA that Parliament, the J&K Assembly et al were attacked. Such finger pointing is puerile.

Stronger laws by themselves cannot end terrorism. Enabling powers, where necessary, and a federal investigative agency may be desirable. Together with this there must be due safeguards, proper appellate procedures and speedy justice so that innocents have timely remedies and redress. When Delhi’s Lt. Governor suggested that carrying ID cards must be made compulsory, this was denounced. Strong laws do not go with soft treatment. Double standards show up the hollowness of stated concerns made before the camera or in front of a mike. Stereotyping too is repugnant and particular communities have been crudely labelled and targeted, especially by elements of the Sangh Parivar. Such tendencies must be deplored. The Jamia Vice-Chancellor has upheld a sound human rights principle in committing the university community to defend two of its students who stand accused of involvement in the recent Delhi bombings but who must certainly face punishment if found guilty. And when the Orissa and Karnataka governments are reportedly issued directives under Article 355 to enforce the law, the BJP is roused to oppose “strong action”!

Margaret Thatcher was right in saying that terrorists thrive on the “oxygen of publicity”. The role of large sections of the media, especially electronic, has been questionable. With the public clamouring for “action” and the authorities pressed for instant results by a baying Opposition and indignant busybodies who usurp the garb of “public opinion” and pulse-of-the-people pollsters, the police is prone to babble on the basis of preliminary leads, weak hypotheses and possible linkages based more on surmise than fact. Such leaks are then emblazoned by the media and competitively sold to a gullible public. Meanwhile, the real criminals and their mentors are alerted. The ensuing hot pursuit of false trails often runs cold, adding to public cynicism and scorn, undermining credibility and morale. The nation ends up shooting itself in the foot.

The media must show far more responsibility and restraint in its coverage and news analysis. The instant and graphic electronic media must be more careful in selecting discussants so that viewers get reasoned and thoughtful analysis, not snarling encounters between hardened party spokespersons. Trite repetitions stoke much partisan heat but shed little light on complex and sensitive issues.

There have been many such slanging matches on whether the Bajrang Dal and VHP should be bracketed with SIMI as terrorist organisations and banned, most recently for attacks on Christians and their places of worship and institutions in Karnataka, Orissa, MP and elsewhere. Forcible conversions are punishable under the law but it is a travesty to hound persons and groups on the basis of ideological predilections to push the hard Hindutva electoral agenda on which the BJP has determined. Several states, including Orissa, have passed anti-conversion laws. According to the National Minorities Commission, not a single complaint has been filed anywhere. Yet, armed goons have repeatedly taken the law into their hands with impunity and indulged in murder, arson and vandalism.

The theory and practice of so-called re-conversion also merits close scrutiny. It is being loudly propagated as a natural default option that smacks of coercion. Likewise, the New Life Church and other fundamentalist evangelical churches and their principals, mostly in the US, who want to “plant” churches to “win a billion souls” in Asia, must also know that the Crusades are over. We live in a globalising, plural society in which denigrating other faiths is un-Christian and a civil offence if liable to disturb the peace. If offensive literature is published attacking Hinduism or other faiths, alleged as being the starting point of the recent disturbances in Karantaka, this must be investigated and condign punishment awarded to those found guilty. But mobs cannot be unleashed on whole communities.

Nonetheless, nothing detracts from the campaign unleashed in Kandhamals, Orissa where, according to a NCM fact-finding report, terrified Christians hiding in the jungle have been warned not to return home unless they embrace Hinduism. What is this if not forced conversion through organised violence? A supine government must act to restore harmony and punish the guilty.

Meanwhile, the Nanavati Report on the burning of the Godhra-Sabarmati Express arouses incredulity. It flies in the face of Justice Bannerjee’s findings. This apart, what is amazing is the total advance absolution granted to Narendra Modi and Parivar for the larger Gujarat holocaust that followed, which findings are promised by December. The then Chairman of the NHRC, Justice J.S. Verma, the Supreme Court in several orders and the Tehelka Tapes provide incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Modi’s infamous broadcast warning, “If you want peace, don’t ask for justice” still reigns in Gujarat.

Surely now is the time to reconstitute and convene the National Integration Council, with less bombastic political baggage, to serve as a truth and reconciliation body to re-build national trust and provide a healing touch to a wounded nation.

MIDDLE

So near, so far
by B.K. Karkra

They were married at Lahore some 68 years back. I was around then but too young to understand what marriage meant. My mind just took note of a lovely lady coming to stay with us seemingly from nowhere. I was to call her ‘Chachiji’. My uncle, P.S. Verma, looked to be a changed person after his marriage. He seemed to emit an impression that all was well with God’s world.

She was with him alive, though not exactly kicking, when my uncle entered his nineties. Sometimes back I learnt that the oldest surviving couple in the world was in the range of 96-94 years. My uncle and aunt were within the striking distance of this record, but this was not to be. This togetherness of theirs that spanned over seven decades finally came to an end last month. The death of my aunt did them apart — only death could do it.

When I learnt about the tragedy I could feel a sense of loneliness creeping around my uncle. Earlier when we met, we went headlong in to discussion over something and vied with each other to state our views ahead of each other. Both of us had tremendous fondness for hearing our own voice. This time, however, he allowed me to monopolise all the talking. His vacant looks and stony silence sent me to a journey to our past.

Both our families lived at Lahore till tragedy of the Partition separated us. My father returned with us to the state of Nabha where one of our ancestors, a contemporary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, once held the high position of Diwan. My uncle also managed to take the last train that could make to India safely. He got his posting at Delhi and got busy in his office routine and the education of his children.

His coaching of my cousins was not very different from the interrogation by Punjab Police. They really had tough time with him, but that saw to it that they settled down in their lives exceptionally well.

His superannuation brought him in to his own. He started delving in to the philosophical aspects of the religions which happens to be my area of interest too. Thus, whenever we came together, we had animated discussions on the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Quran and the Bible etc. Last time he told me that after fair bit of reading about the religions, he had come to the conclusion that all of these seemed to say that God is kind only to those who submit to him blindly. Otherwise He could be extremely nasty to those who raised any sort of questions. This meant that man saw God in his own image. Religions revolve around the Divine Reality alright, but otherwise these do have an unmistakable human angle to them also. How true!

I hope he emerges out of his emotional void and gripping loneliness soon and I do not have to miss on the benefit of his enlightened views.

OPED

Of fear and greed
Why bailouts only add to the sense of panic
by Sean O’Grady

In the eternal battle between fear and greed that drives the financial markets, it is not difficult to see who is winning.

But why the fear? Why, when governments are almost falling over themselves to douse the fire in the markets with the soothing balm of billions of taxpayers’ dollars, euros and pounds?

Why, when Gordon Brown says that he will do “whatever it takes”? Why, when President Bush pledges that “We’ll make clear that the United States is serious about restoring confidence and stability in our financial system”?

And why – when almost every depositor in the developed world has received an implicit or explicit state guarantee that their money is safe – do we fear yet more runs on the banks?

One answer has obviously been worries about the prospects for the Paulson plan itself – whether it would be passed by Congress and, if passed, whether it would actually work.

More broadly, traders and investors also know the price that those governments and taxpayers around the world will have to pay for the Paulson plan and its counterparts.

There is reason to look on the bright side. It may well prove, in the case of the United States, for example, that any taxpayer losses on the $700bn needed to relieve the banking system of its toxic assets will eventually prove slight.

Optimists point to the two major historical precedents to make their point. They claim that both the scheme President Franklin Roosevelt ran in the New Deal in the 1930s (an even bigger $1.2 trillion affair at today’s prices), and the 1990s bailout of the US’s bust Savings and Loans institutions (running to a comparatively modest $125bn), both returned small profits in the end.

In the same way, on this side of the Atlantic voices of calm point out the extreme unlikelihood that even a substantial minority of Bradford & Bingley mortgages will go sour.

The vast majority of these home loans, if the Treasury holds them to maturity, will be paid off, in full, with interest.

Given the Treasury’s ability to fund its activities more easily than the banks, it might even turn a small profit, especially if the housing market doesn’t tank quite as badly as some fear.

The Chinese, the Singaporeans, the Gulf states, the Russians even, it is said, will be happy to buy more US Treasury bonds, British gilts and European government securities.

Yet the fears are much more potent. For the worry is that governments in America and Europe will struggle under the burden of all that debt. Their taxpayers, already hard pressed, will be squeezed still more.

The debt has to be serviced. On top of our vast personal debts we are now adding a further layer of public-sector debts.

It will mean even less consumer spending and even lower growth, and perhaps more prolonged and deeper recessions.

The second worry follows from that: the confidence the rest of the world reposes in the dollar.

Could the dollar itself be the subject of a run? Some sovereign wealth funds, the quasi-official bodies who invest the trillions earned from exports by China and the other coming world economic superpowers, are upset that they have lost billions on the money they ploughed into buying shares in Western banks.

They seem unwilling to stump up for more, and may even start to “diversify” out of the dollar.

The consequences of China unloading its trillions of holdings of US government debt are unpredictable in detail but certainly devastating to the US and the world economy.

The US and China, the planet’s biggest debtor and creditor respectively, are leaning on each other like two drunken giants. That may not be a sustainable arrangement.

In its own small mini-me way, sterling too could see a further collapse in international value.

Nor can the world “draw a line” under events with the latest round of nationalisation and rescue plans, any more than it could with their predecessors.

The recession will see to it that the property armlets continue falling, unemployment will rise, and arrears and defaults blow more holes in the balance sheets of the banks.

And when that happens they have little option but to restrict their lending still more, pushing the economy into a vicious cycle of decline.

What is plain is that no amount of taxpayer money, no vote in Congress or the Commons and no speech by a president or prime minister can now fully restore the confidence that has been drained from the system during a year of brutal capitalist “creative destruction”.

Confidence is the magical ingredient that makes our system work, the thing that allows Keynes’ “animal spirits” to take off, and create businesses and wealth.

And, as we have seen from the billions wiped from the stock markets on Monday, it is simply beyond price. Without it, there is merely fear.

— By arrangement with The Independent

UN chief struggles as peacemaker
by Colum Lynch

In the days after Georgian and Russian troops marched into the separatist province of South Ossetia, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon frantically telephoned key leaders and offered the United Nations’ diplomatic help in stemming further violence. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev refused to take his calls for more than a week, say senior U.S. and U.N. officials.

The rebuff highlighted Russia’s displeasure with Ban, who had clashed with Moscow over Kosovo’s independence drive and riled it again by issuing a statement supporting the territorial integrity of Georgia, a nation Russia intended to carve up. It also provided another example of the humbling struggles of the world’s top diplomat to prod foreign leaders to embrace peace.

After more than 20 months in office, Ban is straining to make his mark as a diplomatic peacemaker as his efforts to stem bloodshed in Sudan’s Darfur region have faltered and Myanmar’s political players refuse to meet with his special envoy.

The United Nations has been relegated to a supporting role in many of the world’s diplomatic flare-ups, including in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Ban convened a meeting of key foreign ministers Saturday on the sidelines of the General Assembly session to energize efforts to press Myanmar’s generals to democratize the country and to secure the release of nearly 2,000 political prisoners, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

But the meeting, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not attend, produced no breakthrough, and Ban canceled plans to speak to the media. Instead Ban issued a statement, pressing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to release the prisoners.

Behind the scenes, Ban has resisted calls from the United States, Britain, Singapore and other countries to travel to Burma to meet with military ruler Senior Gen. Than Shwe in December, fearing it might end in failure. There is a risk of Ban “going and coming back empty-handed,” a close aide said.

“No one is going to make a case that we are in the middle of a big diplomatic breakthrough on some of these cases you’ve mentioned,” said Robert Orr, a special adviser to Ban.

“But the fact is that is not the nature of this business. These things move quietly until they break into the open. The secretary general’s style is to work very hard, persistently, behind the scenes” to achieve that.

Orr and other U.N. officials say Ban has had far greater success in prodding governments on some long-term threats such as climate change and the global food and energy crises and in helping to secure billions of dollars in commitments to fight poverty during the world’s worst financial crisis in a generation.

They say his persistence paid off after Tropical Cyclone Nargis in May, when he traveled to Yangon, the former Burmese capital, to persuade Than Shwe to pry open the borders for relief workers.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Countering the idea of terrorism
by Vijay Sanghvi

Within six days of the serial bomb blasts in crowded markets and avenues of Delhi on September 13, the Delhi Police struck a success when it raided a house in South Delhi. The encounter that ensued resulted in the killing of two alleged terrorists and the arrest of one.

The encounter also produced a hero in Mohan Chandra Sharma, Inspector with the special cell, who succumbed later to three bullet injuries that that he had received in the encounter.

But the arrest led the Delhi Police to unravel the role played by others in the serial blasts and arrest of four more alleged culprits.

The incident brought laurels to the Delhi Police and also respite to the beleaguered Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who was facing criticism for inaction in several serial terrorist engineered blasts- that had rocked other cities earlier.

In fact, there was a relief in the country that the law enforcement agency had succeeded in cracking the case and nabbing a few young men for their role in the conspiracy.

Each detail revealed by the Delhi Police merely indicates that it has been able to crack the chain of events and has been able to lay its hands only on errand boys, who had acted merely as delivery boys.

Like delivery boys working for any fast food joint, they collect packets from a counter and deliver to the designated destinations and collect the price.

Similarly, the Delhi Police has been able to nab only educated young men whom television networks have given the title of educated killers. They had more or less functioned as errand boys though they were told before hand what their packets contained.

The pattern of investigation followed as it does in every crime because the terror strikes were also treated like a crime though it was much more than an ordinary crime

Like a fast food joint, the food packets may be designed and prepared by others under the deft supervision of the head chef. But even the chef has to follow the recipes that are designed elsewhere and by someone else. In a terror strike, the real culprit was the one original source that is responsible for driving persons to carry out different and designated roles.

Money is, perhaps, not the motivating drive. It is something much more with a strong logic that was capable of convincing even highly educated with better family background and cultural upbringing as the background of all these young men arrested in the Delhi blast case would indicate.

But so far no detail has been revealed by the Delhi Police about the source from where the powerful motivation was emerging to make these selected and trained young people to be ready to sacrifice their lives.

There are no indications that any attempt has even been made to go beyond what was caught in the net by nabbing the operators.

It is, perhaps, due to the prevailing perception that the success in nabbing the alleged suspect was enough to allow the closure of investigation as it had reached the stage where the prosecutor must take over and ensure that stern punishment was meted out.

Even politicians seem to be smarting under the belief that only stern legal framework was enough to deal with terrorism. The Bharatiya Janata Party insistently favours the delegation of draconian powers to the law-enforcement agencies as a powerful weapon to fight terrorism.

After the initial hesitation even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have conceded the demand though he would still prefer not to pass on the draconian powers in hands of the law-enforcement agencies in view of the past experience of its misuse.

But has enough been done in fighting terror? The country is yet to trace the origin of terror strikes and nab those setting the agenda, weaving the network and motivating recruited persons for such operations. The idea is obviously imbibed in the recruited persons that the success of the operation was more vital than their own life.

Perhaps, that was one of the reasons why the intelligence networks of different countries, that were victims of terror strike in the last eight years, have not been able to penetrate the groups of conspirators.

Even though as many as 20 people were involved in each strike, the intelligence networks had no inkling of exact locations and dates and times of the strikes.

All they doled out was merely intelligent guesses that intelligent persons outside the intelligence networks and without experience of intelligence work can reach.

No doubt the task is difficult but without reaching the origin of idea and the person or force that sets up the idea, fighting terrorism is not enough nor can end up in success with the traditional methods of dealing with crime even through brilliant investigation.