The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Don’t bail them out
Let airlines stew in their own juice

SUCCESS, they say, has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. Many have claimed credit for Jet Airways’ decision to reinstate all the sacked 1900 employees. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel is one of them. He claimed that Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal took the decision soon after he spoke to him on phone. On his part, Mr Goyal claimed that he was moved by the tears of the sacked staff. If Mr Patel was that bothered about the fate of the Jet employees, why was he so callous when the first lot of 850 employees was sacked? At that time he had said that it was not the government’s policy to intervene in labour disputes. Now he has changed tack and talks about bailing out the crisis-hit aviation industry.

What Mr Patel does not accept is that the government is to blame mainly for the crisis. By introducing what was called “an open sky policy”, he allowed a large number of new airlines to take off. Many airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, did not have enough runways and other infrastructure to handle the new traffic. Often, aircraft had to hover over the airports for long before they were given landing rights. In the process, precious fuel was wasted. Many airlines used this excuse to increase the fares. They themselves did not have enough staff, vehicles and x-ray machines. Small wonder that some of them folded up in due course.

Even those that survived like Jet and Kingfisher have been forced to form an alliance to keep themselves afloat. It is this coming together that has rendered many employees surplus. It is true the US meltdown and the resultant turmoil had a detrimental effect on the aviation sector but it is not on this account alone that the Indian airlines are in trouble. Mr Patel, who is keen to bail them out, says that the Rs 1.5 billion or so the industry has lost is on account of the high cost of aviation fuel. But then fuel prices have always been high in India and the airlines should have factored this while planning their strategy. That Jet had recruited a large number of employees just six months ago shows the lack of planning and foresight. Under these circumstances, the taxpayers simply cannot take kindly to any decision aimed at bailing out the inefficient airlines. Why should the people pay for the blunders committed by the Civil Aviation Minister and the managements of the two airlines — Jet and Kingfisher?

Oh, Gurgaon!
Dream city is victim of neglect and much else

HYPED as the millennium city, Gurgaon has turned into an urban nightmare. Meant to be the showcase of globalised India, it stands as an archetype of urban planning gone wrong. This fast growing city, hosting offices of over 200 Fortune-500 companies, today is home for nearly two million people whose plight is no different than those of any ill-managed city of the country. Beset by prolonged power cuts, erratic water supply, garbage stench, potholes doubling up as roads and persistent traffic snarl-ups, the citizen’s woes are many and growing by the day.

Urbanisation is inevitable, and cities are the engines of development. Phenomenal growth and ascent as the hub of IT and multinationals could have made Gurgaon an urban role model. Sadly, its ambitious bid as the gateway to a “Shining India” has been compromised by the greed of private builders in connivance with the political class and indifferent local authority. The city has developed jointly through the government and the private sector initiative, both of which have been shameless “partners” in manipulation and mismanagement. The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) claims to have spent thousands of crores of rupees on its infrastructure. Yet, even the basic needs of residents are not met. Serious municipal planning and a holistic vision the city required have been completely forsaken. The shortsighted planners forgot the simple truth that the cart cannot be put before the horse. Infrastructure facilities like power substations, a garbage disposal system, sewage treatment plants, assured water supply, healthcare services and public transport must precede and not follow a city’s development.

Just the glitter of flashy shopping malls, condominiums and swanky office towers do not make a metropolis. Big cities have to be designed as evolving eco-systems, almost as living entities, in consonance with the given resources and limitations, but where the people can live in peace and without serious complaints. Merely calling a city by fancy names will not make it futuristic. In Gurgaon’s failure, the world is gaping at the collapse of our urban dream. Nearly 5000 years ago, India lived in planned urban cities. Modern day town planners are far better equipped to envision and create living cities endowed with the basic amenities citizens badly need. In the face of a growing public outcry and the mounting media criticism, the Haryana government has promised action. But is it really serious in pulling the city out of the mess it is stuck in?

ARTICLE

More than glaciers are melting
Time for sustainable lifestyles
by B.G. Verghese

BOTH Wall Street and glaciers appear to be melting this season, giving everybody cause for concern. There has also been some cheer in the final signing of the 123 Agreement and the relocation of Nano from the negative no-noism of Ms Mamata Banerjee and Marxists who prefer to live in the lost world of dinosaurs.

Conscious of approaching uncertainties and perils, the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change published a national action plan last June. This called for maintaining high growth for increasing living standards and catering to people’s needs, not their greed, and promoting sustainable production and lifestyles across the globe. Time being critical, there has to be a revolution in production and living patterns within a generation.

The civil-nuclear agreement India negotiated was with the world, though the Americans as the global gatekeeper took the onus of first steering it through the US Congress. It had thereafter to win the consent of the IAEA and the NSG. With this, India became free to enter into peaceful nuclear commerce with the entire world marked by an agreement for civil-nuclear cooperation with France.

Final ratification of the internal US 123 Agreement followed curiously American procedures, concluding with a Presidential signing speech stating that the Act meant only what President Bush intended it to mean, as solemnly agreed with India under an internationally binding treaty. The Indian critics had it wrong all along. And on being discomfited at the end are determined to fight on.

The nuclear deal will enable India to move to cleaner, non-fossil fuel and renewable energy generation in three stages over the next 20 years. The progression will be from current uranium nuclear technology to fast-breeders and finally to a more efficient thorium cycle for which the country has plentiful raw material. The issue is not the “mere” 6 per cent nuclear energy India will be able to produce tomorrow, but its ability to augment this exponentially thereafter, making a notable contribution not only to energy security but to an emission-free fuel cycle. This will enhance and not detract from national sovereignty and independence.

The Nano land-fight at Singur, led by Ms Manata Bannerjee but taken over by sundry agitators and ideologues, was a manifestation of agro-nostalgia divorced from current realities. Agriculture can no longer sustain growing numbers that must be increasingly shifted to off-farm industrial and service occupations. The only relevant issues were fair compensation and rehabilitation. The package offered was generous and could have been enhanced, with left-outs included. But Ms Banerjee was out to “save” agriculture. A flagship project, invited to instil confidence in West Bengal’s professed new investment and industrial culture and create much-needed jobs, was scuttled.

The Nano has migrated to Gujarat. While it is deserving of support, the far greater need is to expand public transport by bus and rapid transit systems as much as by restoring pedestrian and bicycle-friendly tracks even in large cities. Technology, taxation, municipal laws and national transportation policy must be collectively harnessed to achieve this goal. We need to de-clutter roads of traffic and parking, reduce unit and overall emissions and save on expensive oil imports.

The shift to public transport must be part of a national and, indeed, global lifestyle change as hyper-consumption is no longer environmentally and socially viable. The widening gap between rich and poor citizens, regions and nations has caused growing tension and conflict and must be reversed. Were India and China to imitate American living standards, based on waste, the world would run out of natural resources. The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth estimates when first propounded were pooh-poohed. They have now been reworked and suggest that those grim prognostications were not overly exaggerated.

The scarcely hidden competition for oil, if not outright oil wars, is a foretaste of what future conflicts over other resources, water included, might be like. It could tear the world apart. Therefore the issue confronting us globally is not merely reducing emissions but of scaling down lifestyles from greed to reasonable need-plus comforts between and within nations.

This is also the message of the global stock market crisis. Banks and financial institutions have far overstretched themselves, driven more by greed than economic prudence. Central banks and global financial institutions have gone along with this misadventure. The US and the UK bailout packages have rightly been criticised by legislators and the citizenry as a bail out for the criminals at the cost of their victims.

During the earlier Asian financial crisis, the West loftily blamed Asian gullibility and venality while cheerfully picking up the best pieces. This time, Western economies are imperilled and threatening to pull down others with them. This may yet be prevented but there will have to be a reordering of global economic and market priorities and a new design for living. In India, one happy outcome could be a reprioritisation of economic goals in the medium term in favour of agriculture, infrastructure and the social sector so that the Indian economy and society are brought into better balance for the next forward thrust.

MIDDLE

Penny wise, pound foolish
by Rana Nayar

IT was our Class VI mathematics teacher, perhaps, who drilled the importance of “savings” into our thick little heads, saying, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Often, as he uttered these words, he’d also tug at his trousers, slipping over his protruding belly, with the sudden jerk of his elbows. His characteristic habit of fumbling into his over-bloated pockets as he did so, made us suspect that he was feeling crisp currency notes inside. Looking back, I now realise that frayed cuffs and collars of his shirts had quite a different story to tell, though.

Our Class VIII English teacher, who preferred to sport a pint-sized dhoti and a half-sleeved khadi kurta, was very fond of repeating “Always cut your coat according to your cloth.” All of us knew that his father was a Gandhian, and had taken part in the freedom struggle, too. Occasionally, the boys laughed up their sleeves, “need” of a street-beggar.

God be thanked, those days, “economics” wasn’t taught in schools. All my efforts in college to wrestle with knotty problems of “economics” (something I was forced to opt for) invariably came to naught.

The intricacies of both the “macro” and “micro” continued to elude my naive mind. And so did the laws of taxation or the hard-to-grasp theories of “income and expenditure.” Despite all the inputs, the curve of my economic understanding never showed an upward, bullish trend, teceding instead like the laws of diminishing marginal utility.

No wonder, all this failed to impress upon me the virtues of an over-glorified Indian habit of “savings.” My first teaching assignment took me to Shimla, a pretty expensive town in the early 80s. Worse still, I was expected to survive on what my MBA daughter now describes as “a ridiculously small salary of a thousand odd or so.”

The going was pretty tough. In the first month itself, I ran into rough weather. Fortunately, a colleague of mine, whom I had befriended in good time, played the “World Bank” and bailed me out by offering a liberal loan of two hundred or so. Then on, I started borrowing from him frequently, almost as if it was my birthright to borrow, and his to lend.

Into the third month, he bolted, saying that if he continued to help me through, I’d perhaps never learn the much needed lesson in self-reliance. To convicence me of his theory, he narrated how in the early 70s, when he had just started out on a salary of less than five hundred, he lived within his frugal means, often cutting down on essentials like “newspapers” and “books,” too.

Reading of the “global meltdown” recently brought back memories of another era, when money was still paper, not plastic; when the “savings” were still sacred; and the “subprime borrowings” hadn’t yet begun to squeeze us.

We may think the times have changed, but have they? The common people used to look skywards, and they still do. The only difference is that earlier they watched the “vagaries of weather;” but now they observe the “swings of sensex,” perhaps as helplessly.

OPED

Naveen in Modi’s company
Orissa govt should have been dismissed
by Kuldip Nayar

I KNEW Biju Patnaik, once Orissa Chief Minister, very well. He was corrupt and the Justice Khanna Commission nailed him. But he was administratively excellent. In a way, he is an architect of modern Orissa.

This writer knows his son Naveen Patnaik very little. He is not corrupt, but administratively zero. His performance is in proportion to the competence of the Chief Secretary and Home Secretary he has. His own ability does not go beyond his stock phrase: the law will take its own course. There is nothing wrong with that observation if it is followed by action. He just does not know how to act, much less when to act.

One admirable trait of Biju was that he was secular. The mishmash of communities that Orissa represents had in him a person who honoured religious identities, tribal diversities and did not allow them to come in the way of his secular administration. Naveen is out of the depths when he has to face claims of different communities in the state. He is not communal, but does not lose his sleep if the minorities are under pressure. A person used to luxuries has little time for mixing with people or meeting them, an opportunity which his father reveled. Naveen cannot event speak Oriya. Till the other day, he could not even read and write the language.

His plus point is that the other leaders in his own party or the opposition are zeros. And he shines in comparison with them. Naveen is the Chief Minister for the second time, for almost eight and a half years, not because he has a large following but because the party in the opposition, the Congress, is hopelessly divided and is still driven by the people who have grown old in ideas and in age. They do not pose him much challenge because they are more sullied in the eyes of the voters. Compared to them, Naveen looks taller.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is Naveen’s hero. The partial ethnic cleansing of Christians does not prick his conscience because he believes that he did all that he could like Modi. It is more than a coincidence that the killings and burning of Christians which took place were on the pattern of the post-Godhra massacre. There the Muslims were victims and here the Christians. The manner in which the riots in Orissa started seemed to have been copied from Gujarat.

An RSS mahant is killed on September 23. The following morning sees a procession of thousands of people led by the Bajrang Dal. They had all the weapons to kill and the material to burn houses and churches. It was obvious that the preparations had been made well in advance. The police are silent spectators. When the mob attacks Kandhmal where the Christians live, the Bajrang Dal has the field and the administration connives at the whole thing.

This was the way when thousands of Muslims were attacked by Hindu extremists. In Orissa it was the mahant who provided the spark and in Gujarat the burning of a train compartment in which the kar sevaks were traveling near Godhra. Here also the police were mute witnesses. It has been proved in Guajrat with the help of documents and the records at the police stations that there were verbal orders not to act. It looks that similar kind of instructions, not to interfere, were issued to the Orissa Police. The conspiracy at both places was that the central forces were not used. Naveen asked Delhi for more forces but Delhi, in turn, told him to deploy at least the ones he had. He acted after a few days, just as the Gujarat administration woke up after the killings in the state.

Nobody would have come to know about the rape of a nun if The Hindu had not published the full story on its front page. Naveen’s explanation for the police negligence was “a clash of interests” between ethnic tribes. And all he said was that the rape was “shocking and savage.” All rapes are.

Once again, like Gujarat, the riot victims, numbering more than one lakh, have been in refugee camps with all the handicaps. The authorities are so callous that none from the Chief Minister’s side ever visits them. Naveen has made a proud announcement that their number has decreased to 20,000. He has not said that they are the people who have refused to move from the camps because they have no confidence in the police if and when they return to their homes.

Hands of both Modi and Naveen are stained with blood and so are of the BJP leaders who have backed the two governments. The inept Centre is busy considering a ban on the Bajrang Dal. In fact, by this time the Naveen Patnaik’s government should have been dismissed on the basis of the Governor’s report which, if published, would bring tears. The untold atrocities are beyond description and the authorities’ attitude is still cursory.

Even the instructions the Centre sent to the Orissa government were more of an advice than a directive. Article 355 enunciates the Union Government’s duty to protect states against internal disturbances. The Manmohan Singh government did not do so because it is just afraid of the BJP and India was shamed throughout the world. When the President of France told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his face in Paris that there was a “massacre” of Christians in India, the latter had very little explanation to offer.

Meanwhile, the Christians and their churches were attacked in other BJP-run governments, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Conversion is not defendable and so is the re-conversion. Both Hindu and Christian leaders would have to sort it out. L.K. Advani who met Christian leaders should take the initiative.

The tragedy of what happened in Gujarat was that Modi got away because the BJP was ruling at the Centre then. Naveen should not be let off the hook. But the problem with the Congress is that in view of the coming general elections it does not want to take any stand lest it should, in the process, rub Hindus on the wrong side. It is hard to say which Hindus the Congress has in mind because the community as such has been abhorred by killings in Orissa.

Good governance will help combat terror
by Maja Daruwala and Mandeep Tiwana

INDIA has some of the harshest anti-terror laws in the world. The National Security Act permits imprisonment of persons suspected of being a threat to “public order” or “security of the state” for up to one year without trial simply on the orders of an executive authority. In practice, this means that a suspect has no recourse to the trial courts to challenge the evidence on which the detention has been ordered.

Only, a writ of habeas corpus can be introduced in the High Court or the Supreme Court and even they do not go into the facts upon which the government has based its decision but simply on whether proper procedure as mandated by the law was followed.

The Unlawful Activities Amendment Act 2004 (ULPA) – India’s main anti terror law – contains an elaborate definition on what constitutes a terrorist activity and stringent punishments including death and life imprisonment. Under the ULPA, the identity of witnesses can be kept secret and trials conducted in camera in breach of well established fair trial principles.

Moreover, the police throughout India have broad powers of arrest, which are freely exercised. Also in terrorist related offences, experience on the grounds shows that bail is almost always denied to the suspect. Dr Binayak Sen who was arrested in May 2007 and charged under the ULPA and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPA) has been repeatedly denied bail.

Disturbed areas like Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir have the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that gives soldiers the liberty to shoot to kill anyone in breach of a law or official order prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons. Powers under this law are effectively invoked to contain outpourings of public protest.

In Chhattisgarh, the CSPA criminalises uttering words, writing or making visual representations that create “risk or danger for public order, peace or public tranquillity” to curb speech and journalistic freedom. Legal cover to state agents is provided by the Code of Criminal Procedure which prevents courts, without the government’s prmission, from prosecuting public servants for offences committed while “acting or purporting to act” in the discharge of official duty.

Law enforcement officials accused of extra-judicial killings and torture often take refuge under this provision as many times, the required government permission is not forthcoming.

Torture is commonplace throughout the country and frequently used to extract confessions or information not just from dreaded terrorists but even from petty criminals. An apparatus that relies so heavily on torture cannot be termed as operating under a “soft state”.

Successive annual reports of the national and state human rights commissions illustrate in detail, the brutality of some these methods. This by itself is enough proof that law enforcement agencies in the country have a free reign and do not need more powers that can lead to greater abuse. The now repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) had a provision that allowed suspects to be convicted upon a confession made to a senior police officer.

However, given the widespread prevalence of torture and the impunity with which it is carried out in the country, can it be guaranteed that if POTA is re-introduced, innocent people will not be forced to confess to crimes they did not commit on the pain of torture?

Laws cannot prevent bombs but alert citizens who have faith in the moral legitimacy of the state can, by providing timely information to law enforcement agencies of activities endangering the common good of the people. For this, the battle for hearts and minds has to be waged amongst disaffected peoples, to encourage them to join the legitimate democratic political process. The debate should not be about enough laws or harsh enough laws (India already has them) but of shoddy law enforcement and poor investigative and intelligence capacity.

We need to introspect why so many people are choosing to adopt the path of violence? Perhaps, it is because they have no faith in the ability of the state to provide justice and good governance.

Many of those who choose the perilous road to terrorism are direct victims of the harsh edge of the state. Of course, many are brainwashed into adopting this path. But then, those who brain wash them have concrete examples to showcase, of the injustice perpetrated by the state whether it is impunity for those who engineer mass riots, commit human rights violations or corner natural resources for selfish ends.

Maja Daruwala is Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, and Mandeep Tiwana is a human rights defender working for an international organisation in South Africa

Chatterati
It’s an unequal tug of war
by Devi Cherian

ARE Congress’s best state war horses being driven by chiefs they don’t choose? At the moment, the party cadres are amused watching this unequal tug of war. The chiefs in the frontlines are not grinning and the amusement on their party workers’ faces could vanish too. But whether this will wipe off the grin at the AICC where party managers claim this balancing act as theirs is not certain.

So you find two former chief ministers in an embarrassing no-win situation where they have been saddled with running “hard to win” campaigns in states where their junior colleagues are PCC chiefs. If one goes by the fate of the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, it may point to a trend. Expectations of victory with poor control over the party machine.

This divide and attempt to rule strategy will be a failure, says even the party faithful. Dispirited chiefs and divided cadre loyalties are not exactly a recipe for success.

Behenji’s antics

Behenji is at her lowest hitting out best at the moment. On Kanshi Ram’s second death anniversary, Behanji lashed out at the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. She now wants a Bharat Ratna for Kanshi Ram, founder leader of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

She claims that the Congress has overlooked his achievements and contributions to strengthen the weak and downtrodden. She claims it is highly unfortunate that Kanshi Ram, who devoted his life to raise the status of Dalits and other marginalised sections, has been completely ignored by the Union Government.

Gutsy lady! After the tu tu mien mien over Rai Bareily she still expects. And in return she has put up candidates in all Assembly constituencies in Delhi and all other states. Nuisance value on one side but Karat on her side, she is surely eying Delhi’s top slot job.

The grim reality

The recent Bridal Asia show was an eye-opener for all in the fashion industry. There was a time when it was impossible to walk in the aisles of this show. Today no buyers, no one to appreciate the designers work. This surely shows the financial crisis has hit the market in India too.

While Sunil Sethi and FDCI are doing cartwheels to hold two fashion weeks simultaneously and tom-toming about the buying houses attending their shows, the grim reality is seen during the shows where there are hardly any buyers or celebrities. The story here is cutting your nose to spite your face. If they been slightly more market-savvy, they would have had a combined fashion week.

The losers are, of course, the fashion designers as their hard work, effort and money invested may not give them returns this time.