EDITORIALS

Maternal instinct
Inquire into Alva’s allegations

MRS MARGARET ALVA’S resignation from the post of general secretary of the Congress might have been caused by her maternal feelings but it does point to an unhealthy trend in the grand old party. She alleged that her son was not given a party ticket during the Karnataka Assembly elections held six months ago while in the recent distribution of tickets in Madhya Pradesh and other states, many relatives of Congress leaders were bestowed with party tickets. What she questioned was the double standard employed by the party. Worse, she also alleged that money was demanded in lieu of party tickets. Senior Congress leader Yogendra Makwana has corroborated Mrs Alva’s point when he said two ticket aspirants had told him about the demand for money made to them.

It is true that Mrs Alva would not have raised the issue if her son had got the ticket. It is also true that she waited for six long months to make the allegation about the Congress collecting money while distributing tickets. But it cannot be gainsaid that she is one of the top leaders of the party who has been a Member of Parliament for several decades and has been in charge of the party in several states. Therefore, she should have been heard with greater attention. Instead, the attempt seemed to have been to gag her and thereby throttle any voice of dissent in the party. Defence Minister A.K. Antony, who is in charge of the party’s disciplinary mechanism, does not seem to have lived up to the expectations of partymen when he just heard her out, rather than act on her complaint.

Instead of demonising Mrs Alva, the party leadership would have done well to order an inquiry into the complaints so that the party’s image was not besmirched. There can be differences of opinion on whether a particular person was given ticket purely on the basis of merit or not. If those who distributed tickets in Karnataka thought that her son did not deserve to be the party’s candidate, few would challenge the decision. But that is not the case when senior party leaders allege that money changes hands when tickets are distributed. Better late than never, the Congress should order an inquiry into the allegations so that the party remains above suspicion.

Across the Gulf
Selling India’s growth story

PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh’s visit to Oman and Qatar, the two oil-rich Gulf countries, was part of a drive to attract investments from non-Western sources, which are drying up because of the global financial crisis. India currently needs $5 billion for pumping into its infrastructure sectors in five years. This is not difficult to get from the cash-surplus Gulf region, which has a 5 million-strong Indian expatriate community. The Indian economy’s strong fundamentals and its capacity to weather the storm caused by the international financial meltdown provide proof that investments made in India are 100 per cent safe. Both sides will gain immensely by strengthening their trade and industrial relations.

There is considerable scope for expanding bilateral trade. It has been growing, though there is need to sharpen the focus on the non-oil sector. To ensure that the investors from the Gulf are doubly confident of gaining by putting their money in infrastructure-related projects in India, an agreement has been reached with Oman for creating a $100-million joint fund. This money will be used for creating genuine direct investment opportunities. It is not India alone which is looking for direct investments from Oman, Qatar and other Gulf countries to avoid dependence on Western financial institutions. Investors in the Gulf, too, have been showing greater interest in India because of the various problems they have been facing in the West after 9/11.

Besides direct investments in various projects, India requires sufficient energy supplies to fulfil the demands of its industrial, agricultural and other consumers. That is why it wanted Qatar to help it with more liquefied natural gas than the already committed 7.5 million tonnes annually. It is believed that Qatar may honour India’s request in the near future if it has not already done so. The agreements reached between India and Qatar “to lay down a structure for joint maritime security” and on sharing information “on threats posed by extremists” and to check illegal money-laundering activities have their own significance. Unending transnational crime requires countries to have joint arrangements to face the new threats to growth and stability.

Glorious certainties
Indian cricket in the ascendant

THE conclusion of the India-Australia series was one of the most tearful moments in Indian cricket in recent years. There were tears of triumph as there were tears of farewell. India crushed Australia, leaving the world-beaters wondering what hit them, to wrest the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Team India has moved up to be ranked world No. 2 and as captain Ricky Ponting candidly confessed, the Australians are going back “with our tail between the legs a bit”. It was also a triumphal farewell for Sourav Ganguly, who, as captain, had led India to some of its most famous cricketing victories. Although he ended with a memorable duck in his last stand, in the first innings at Nagpur he put India on the way to a win with a superb 85. And so with great grace, Mahendra Singh Dhoni let Ganguly revel in a final moment of captaincy. After all, Ganguly’s finest moments were in matches against Australia.

As Ponting’s men head home, they must be all too aware of the need to revive the team’s morale as well as playing power. Australia’s inability to take 20 wickets in the first three matches left them extremely vulnerable. It exposes the declining power of their bowling. If only they had played Jason Krejza earlier, his bowling might have saved the situation somewhat. Krejza’s performance brought an electrifying thrill, which made India’s win sweeter.

Just as it was triumphal leave-taking for Ganguly, so it was for Anil Kumble, who returned to captain the Kotla Test despite his finger injury and retired in a blaze of glory. The departure of Ganguly and Kumble marks the end of a chapter precisely when Dhoni and his team hold out the promise of great new beginnings. Dhoni’s captaincy has proved successful so far in more than one form of the game and he has shown a grasp of strategy that leaves his more experienced rivals bewildered. With the likes of bowler Amit Mishra and batsman Murali Vijay proving that they have got what it takes to face the toughest challengers, Team India may look forward to some ‘glorious certainties’.

Thought for the Day

He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure. — William Congreve

ARTICLE

Daughters’ interests
Unfair recommendations of law panel
by Virendra Kumar

The Law Commission of India has recommended the amendment of one particular perspective introduced by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act of 2005 (No. 39 of 2005) into the principal Act of 1956. Through its latest report, the commission has specifically proposed to amend the “Explanation” appended to new Section 6 of the principal Act.

The new section, which replaces the old section, represents a significant departure in the matter of devolution of interest of a male Hindu dying intestate in the Mitakshara coparcenary property. Prior to the amending Act of 2005, the daughter of a male Hindu dying intestate would get a much less share in the coparnenary property than the son. In the presence of a daughter, for instance, a son would get property in two capacities: one a major share as coparcener and another part of the share as a heir of the deceased; whereas a daughter would get only a truncated or part share as a heir and not as a coparcener.

This discriminatory treatment stands removed by the amending Act through the incorporation of the provisions of new Section 6. Sub-Section (1) of this section clearly stipulates that the daughter of a coparcener in a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara law shall by birth become a coparcener in her own right in the same manner as the son. In her new capacity, she shall have the same rights and also be subjected to the same liabilities as that of a son.

However, the legislature has added a proviso by laying down that “nothing contained in this sub-section shall affect or invalidate any disposition or alienation including partition or testamentary disposition of property which had taken place before the 20th day of December 2004.” There is a repeat provision of this exclusion clause in Sub-Section (5) of new Section 6 to the extent that any partition made before December 20, 2004, shall not be affected by the operation of the amending law conferring the status of a coparcener on the daughter.

The mode of partition which falls within the ambit of the exclusion clause is specifically spelled out in the “Explanation” appended at the end of the new section: “For the purposes of this section, “partition” means any partition made by the execution of a deed of partition duly registered under the Registration Act, 1908 (16 of 1908), or partition by a decree of a court.”

The reason for the proposed amendment of “Explanation” adduced by the Law Commission is: “The Act has failed to include oral partition and family arrangement within the definition of ‘partition’, which are common and legally accepted modes of division of property under Hindu Law.” In support of its assertion, the Law Commission has cited a plethora of judicial decisions, including those of the Privy Council and the apex court, to show that “oral partition” or “family arrangement” is an extremely valuable power whereby “the peace, happiness and welfare of a family are secured and litigation is avoided”. Accordingly, the commission has recommended that the “Explanation” be suitably amended “to include oral partition and family arrangement in the definition of ‘partition’.”

The Law Commission’s logic of inclusion is highly suspect in our view. It has failed to address itself to at least two distinct and yet closely related basic questions. In the first instance, it has not considered why the Act excludes “partition”, effected before December 20, 2004, for the purposes of its operation. Nor has it reasoned why the Act, again for purposes of its operation, excludes only the restricted mode of alienation, particularly through a registered deed of partition.

The singular objective of the provisions of new Section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act is to augment and protect the daughter’s interest in the Hindu joint family property hitherto governed by the Mitakshara law by making her coparcener along with the son from the date of commencement of the amending Act of 2005. Lest the male members in anticipation of coming into force of the new provisions conferring equal rights on the daughters should frustrate their claims by alienating property, the legislature has purposely made the Act operative retrospectively by stipulating the anterior date of December 20, 2004, for deciphering the legitimacy of alienation by way of resorting to partition.

Likewise, it would be inconceivable to impute to Parliament that they did not comprehend the complete connotation of the concept of partition as enunciated by the Privy Council and later by the Supreme Court of India in exposition of the various principles of Hindu law. The need for appending “Explanation”, which restricts the definition of “partition” either to “registered deed of partition” or to partition “effected by a decree of a court,” clearly betrays the intention of the legislature that they consciously excluded “oral partition” from its purview. Similarly, they excluded the concept of “family arrangement” from the ambit of “partition” envisaged under the Explanation, because it represents transactions within and among the members of the family, invariably oral, requiring no registration, and, therefore, akin to “oral partition”.

Thus, the exclusion of oral partition and family arrangement from the purview of partition by Parliament in the enactment of Explanation was clearly a conscious decision and with a definite design, and not out of just ignorance or inadvertence. Through the strategy of exclusion, the legislature intended to protect the interest of the daughter by limiting the scope of partition to the partition by a registered deed only and that too from an anterior date of December 20, 2004. This was evidently done for avoiding the mischief of resorting to a fake or fictitious partition either in the name of oral partition or a non-registered family arrangement.

Acceptance of the Law Commission’s recommendation for widening the scope of Explanation by including oral partition and family arrangement within the ambit of the definition of partition, therefore, would nullify the strategic protection of the daughter’s interest in the Hindu joint family just in the name of preserving peace, happiness, honour and welfare of family!

The writer is a former Professor & Chairman, Department of Laws, and UGC Emeritus Fellow, Panjab University, Chandigarh

MIDDLE

Sensex Patel
by Peeyush Agnihotri

It is the story of Satyendra, aka Sensex Patel, who not long ago was one of the most-sought after Gujarati in the Indian community, which lives on the Atlantic side of the USA.

The nickname, Sensex, had more to do with the Indian stock market investment sense that he sort of possessed rather than his appearance. Those bitten by the get-rich-overnight bug sought share gyaan from him.

Until July this year, you could find Sensex Patel at almost every social gathering any Indian hosted. Clutching on to a peg of Grey Goose, he would just melt into one of the clusters that unwittingly get formed at the get-togethers and the topic would invariably steer to the scrips’ fact-sheets — on how they were faring back home and the peak they might attain. He would then spew out the names of a few big ones doing good, public offers in the pipeline and dividends that a few blue chips were offering.

Sensex Patel walked, talked and even dreamt Bulls. So much so, that a slight surge on the BSE lent a bounce to his gait. “I do not earn my living from the liquor store I own. I, rather, convert all my dollars into INRs and invest in the stocks through my agents in Mumbai,” he would often boast. He would often drop the names of a few stockbrokers who mattered telling everyone on how they passed on all inside bazaar information.

A firm believer in the now-defunct hypothesis that the Indian stock markets were vaccinated against the bear hug, he used the gravity-defying curve of 2007 as a prop to win investor confidence.

“The dynamics and parameters on the Dalal Street are different than those on the Wall Street,” was his staple quote. Needless to say, he was the happiest man when Sensex, the curve, kissed 21,000 early this year.

Sensex Patel soon became the Pied Piper. NRIs, most of them Gujju traders, with money to spare, started trusting him with greenbacks for ensuring a good return through whatever ‘channels’ he had on the Indian bourses.

Then, two months ago, came the transformation.

Suddenly, Sensex Patel became evasive. He started avoiding almost all gatherings. If you bumped into him at a WalMart, he would exhibit a forced optimism and say that the markets were bound to recover.

It was recently that his Hispanic neighbours told those seeking him that he had sold off his debt-ridden shop last weekend, rented a U-Haul, packed his belongings and had...well, vanished.

Perhaps Sensex Patel knew that the Sensex back home was bound to perform a nasty nose-dive sooner than later.

He leaves behind a long queue of investors whose money vanished with him.

OPED

Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush’s delusions
by Robert Fisk

American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington last week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of “raw” reports from American spies and their “assets” around the world came a CIA West Asia warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location.

The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in East Asia.

That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the US in the “war on terror” shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years.

If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a “terrorist”, that Arabs are “terrorists”, that they can be executed, that living “terrorists” must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America.

There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.

But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once said that “the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war”. After Bush’s fear-mongering and Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot?

Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?

Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He’s got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the “change” he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America’s borders.

He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole “war on terror”. He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America’s massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land.

Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush’s 2004 acceptance of Israel’s claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.

Indeed, there’s a growing concern among America’s allies in West Asia that the US military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus’ original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the “surge” than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush’s policies.

There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned byWashington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.

But Obama’s not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He’s not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he’s not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel’s enemies.

With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – “our man in the White House”, as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there’s the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he’s not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.

There is just one little problem, though, and that’s the “missing” prisoners. Not the victims who have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims.

Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Comedy is the king
by Shakuntala Rao

The Bollywood comedy genre has finally come of age. Gone are the days of Johnny Walker and Mukri to punctuate a film with drunken overtures and fat jokes (often at the expense of the brilliant actress and singer Uma Devi who went by the screen name Tun Tun). The stupendous success of Singh is Kinng tells us that today’s Bollywood feature-length comedies stand — and sell — on their own.

One cannot undermine the rich on-screen comedic history left behind by actors like Kishore Kumar, Asrani, and Mehmood in films like Chalti Ka Nam Gaadi, Sholay or Padosan or the subtle humour of late director Hrishikesh Mukherjee in his films like Guddi, Bawarchi and Khubsoorat. Yet, the comedy genre in Mumbai films never fully reached its potential and too few were made to pose a serious challenge to dramas and action films.

This trend was unlike Hollywood where comedy had been a dominant genre from the early silent era with the success of Charles Chaplin followed by Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton films. Comedies matured with Jacques Tati’s mostly dialogue-free hit, Mr Hulot’s Holiday; the Blake Edwards series of Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau; Hal Ashby’s eccentric cult film, Harold and Maude; Robert Altman’s irreverent, anti-war black comedy set during the Korean War, M*A*S*H; and the more recent success of Coen Brothers’ violent and quirky series of comedies, Barton Fink, Fargo, and Burn After Reading.

In Hindi films, it is the screwball genre of comedy which has proved to be one of the most popular and enduring. While there is no authoritative list of defining characteristics that comprise a screwball comedy Gail Finney, author of Look Who’s Laughing: Comedy & Gender in Films, defines it as “a sex comedy without the sex.”

David Dhawan and Govinda set the stage in the 1990s for comedy hype though it is actor Akshay Kumar who has become the king of Bollywood’s laugh factory. In films like Garam Masala, Hera Pheri and Namastey London to his later releases, Singh is Kinng and Welcome, Kumar has mastered a unique comic formula — a combo of low-down raunch, huggable humanism and happy endings.

Kumar is not an obviously handsome actor; neither does he possess an inspiring screen presence nor a style that is visually exaggerated. Instead, Kumar is cool, laid-back and has a classic “make-‘em-laugh” style.

In his characters one observes deficiencies, foib-les, and frustrations of life. Predictable? Yes, yet within the all-too-familiar uplifting arc of real wit and snarky rant is Kumar’s comic chops which always leave us smiling and surprised.

The change comes with an end of roles that typecast. Twenty years ago successful actors and actresses would stay away from comedy. That is no longer the case. Top actors and actresses these days routinely appear in comedies and recognise that their success lies in doing a range of roles rather than being pigeonholed into one. As the box-office happily endorses another comedy, it is a win-win situation for audiences who love comedies and actors who are willing to experiment with their portfolios.

Inside Pakistan
Patch-up time for Nawaz, Zardari
by Syed Nooruzzaman

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan seems to have changed in his approach considerably after his recent visit to Saudi Arabia. He has realised the significance of a rapprochement with PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif for handling the various problems Pakistan is faced with today. Reports suggest that Saudi leaders wanted to know from Mr Zardari why he was not accompanied by Mr Sharif.

Soon after coming back to Islamabad Mr Zardari invited Mr Sharif to Aiwan-e-Sadr (President’s House) for an exchange of views over dinner on Saturday. The Charter of Democracy, signed in London by Mr Sharif and the late PPP chief Benazir Bhutto, was the guiding document for what went on between the two sides.

Mr Zardari “discussed the political situation with him (Mr Sharif), vowing that he would move the country forward in collaboration with the PML (N). Mr Sharif repeated his undertaking that he would do nothing to destabilise the government and join hands with Mr Zardari in facing up to the problems of terrorism and economic crisis”, according The Daily Times.

As The Nation said, “the two leaders had an over 40-minute one-on-one meeting, during which they discussed the prevailing political situation, besides examining the factors adversely affecting their already strained relations.”

On the death-bed

The PML (Q), the ruling party during Gen Pervez Musharraf’s rule, is gasping for breath. Though it enjoyed the patronage of the then President of Pakistan for six years till February 2008, it got identified with the famous Chaudharys of Gujarat (Punjab) —- Chaudhary Shujaat Husain and Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi. This was in accordance with the practice in Pakistan where political parties are controlled by individual families.

Soon after the elections early this year the PML (Q) was in the news because of a quiet move to merge it with the party led by Mr Nawaz Sharif. Now there is a drive to delink the PML (Q) from the Chaudhary brothers (cousins) who have fallen apart. For the time being the elder Chaudhary, Shujaat Husain, has succeeded in keeping the party under his control by sidelining Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi, a former Punjab Chief Minister.

There is a strong move for holding elections for the party’s office-bearers. Chaudhary Shujaat is opposed to it as this may lead to his marginalisation like Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi. But as soon as the elections are held and the two Chaudharys are shown the door, the PML (Q) may also disappear. No party in Pakistan without any ideology to hold it together can survive if it is not identified with any well-known family.

As The News says, “Sadly, any notion of ideology seems to have vanished completely from our (Pakistan’s) politics. The issue of personality and individual dictates much of what happens within parties.”

Flight of funds

While Pakistan is short of foreign exchange to meet its pressing needs, it has a thriving illegal network siphoning off billions of dollars to clients abroad. The chief of a registered money exchange company and some others associated with him have been taken in custody, but only after considerable damage has been done. The government was taken to task for its delayed action when the issue came up for discussion in the Senate on Monday, according to a Dawn report.

The News says, “The FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) believes these networks were engaged in the illegal transfer of a sum of around $10 billion out of the country, beginning in April 2008. This massive flight of capital brought reserves down from around $16 billion late last year to about $7 billion now and pushed up dollar rates in the country, contributing to the prevailing economic crisis we face.”

The thriving Hundi and Hawala business has led to a sharp decline in the value of the Pakistani rupee. Inflation has gone up to as high as 25 per cent. Many industrial units have declared closure because of liquidity crunch.

According to Business Recorder, “During times when Pakistan’s economy was booming, the same director who was paraded with handcuffs was, in all probability, feted by the government for being the conduit for foreign currency inflow into the country. What is, therefore, required is for the government to create an environment in which capital flight would not be attractive.”