The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Zeroing in on Musharraf
At last, the courts are keen to get him

General Pervez Musharraf could slowly be heading forward to meet his nemesis. The Islamabad District and Sessions Judge’s order for registering an FIR against the General for “illegally” detaining 60 judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts after promulgating the November 3, 2007, emergency is another major step towards bringing the former military dictator to book for trampling on the constitution. Earlier the Pakistan Supreme Court had declared on July 31 that the imposition of the emergency was an unconstitutional step amounting to treason and the General must be tried and punished for it by the National Assembly. But very little has happened in this respect so far. The latest development may lead to greater pressure on the PPP-led government to force General Musharraf to come back to Pakistan from the UK, where he is staying at present, and face the music for the wrongs he committed during his nine-year authoritarian rule.

The Pakistan government appears to be disinclined to speed up the process of General Musharraf’s trial because President Asif Zardari is one of the beneficiaries of the deal the General struck with Benazir Bhutto. The Pakistan Army, too, is believed to be quietly trying to save its former chief. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani contends that the Pakistan National Assembly will have to pass a “unanimous” resolution —which is not easy —to begin General Musharraf’s trial.

This is for the first time that an effort is on for punishing a former Army Chief for usurping power. If he finally gets his just deserts, this may serve as a deterrent for any General in future to emulate his predecessors like General Musharraf, General Ziaul Haq, General Yahiya Khan and General Ayub Khan. But going by the history of Pakistan, there is always the risk of a General in future throwing the constitution and the law overboard.

Agenda for reform
Law Commission for speeding up justice

THE Law Commission has rightly recommended pressing reforms to streamline the functioning of the judiciary and quicken the pace of justice. In its 230th report, it has revealed that though 50,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court alone, it works for only 190 days a year. To clear the huge backlog of cases, the commission wants the apex court to reduce vacations, cut down holidays and extend the working hours daily by at least half an hour. It emphasised the need to identify and prioritise the cases for expediting justice. It also stressed the need for the judges to deliver judgements expeditiously. Indeed, in many cases, judges reserve their rulings for years, keeping the litigants on tenterhooks. In most cases, there is no valid reason for them to reserve rulings for long.

As for the judges’ selection and appointment to the Supreme Court and the High Courts, the Law Commission has suggested “an equal role” for both the judiciary and the executive. In tune with its suggestions in the 214th report, it offered two alternatives to the present method. First, it wants the Supreme Court to seek a reconsideration of its rulings of 1982, 1993 and 1998, giving primacy to the judiciary in appointments. And secondly, it wants the Centre to enact a law restoring the Chief Justice of India’s primacy and the executive’s power in making the appointments.

The commission doesn’t want the High Courts’ Chief Justices to be transferred from one High Court to another. If the Chief Justice is from the same High Court, he/she will be in a better position to control the lower judiciary and assess the suitability of persons from the Bench and the Bar for elevation to the High Court, it says. It has opposed the selection of those as judges to the High Courts where their kith and kin are practising. Indeed, this will help enhance the judiciary’s credibility. As the Chief Justices’ conference is due to be held in New Delhi on August 13 and 14, it would be interesting to see what suggestions they would offer to improve the efficiency and overall functioning of the judiciary. The judiciary certainly needs far-reaching reforms. The question is whether it is ready for reforms.

Thought for the Day

Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends. — Norman Douglas

ARTICLE

Battling for Bundelkhand
Politics vs people’s interests
by Syed Nooruzzaman

THE unending suffering of the Bundelkhand region can be given as proof of what happens when politicians allow their party interests to take precedence over the problems of the people. The misfortune of the Bundelas is that the 13 districts constituting their region are spread over two states — Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The political parties which control the levers of power in the two states — the BSP in UP and the BJP in MP —are skeptical about any move by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for the development of Bundelkhand. The Congress, too, is not as forthcoming as it ought to be for promoting economic growth in the poverty-stricken area obviously because of the Opposition parties being in power in UP and MP.

This is a strange situation where people’s interests are not the overriding concern of the political parties. The idea to set up an agency called the Bundelkhand Development Authority (BDA) appears to be the most imaginative proposal that can be thought of for improving the condition of the people in the highly backward region, in the grip of a drought for many years. But the suggestion for the BDA is being vehemently opposed by both the Mayawati government in UP and the BJP ministry in MP without any serious discussion on it. The state governments’ objection to the idea is primarily based on the fact that it has been floated by the Congress. The message is clear: any proposal that does not suit the calculations of those in power is not welcome even if it is in the interest of the people. A very sad scenario, indeed!

The BSP and the BJP are scared of the BDA idea because, in their view, the Congress will get the maximum credit for any development project initiated by the BDA because it will be controlled and financed by the Centre. Chief Minister Mayawati is so worked up that she has got a resolution adopted by the UP Assembly to kill the very idea on the pretext of preserving the federal character of the country. The BSP has taken the stand that the creation of the BDA must not be entertained because it will lead to the erosion of the states’ rights. The negative argument is that the Constitution does not allow the Centre to exercise direct control over a region which comprises seven districts of UP and six districts of MP. The BSP has put this negative viewpoint before the Prime Minister, who earlier got the proposal for the BDA from a group of Congress men led by AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress, however, appears to be determined to fight for the BDA, which can serve as the most powerful weapon to weaken the BSP’s hold over the Dalit-dominated Bundelkhand region. The Congress, which has re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with in UP, is prepared to take the issue to the public to prove that those opposing the setting up of the BDA are looking for alibis to shoot down a “pro-people idea”. If the Centre and states can come together without violating any constitutional provision for fighting the Maoist menace, why can they not join hands to launch a development drive in Bundelkhand?

Even if there are no appropriate precedents, a way must be found to translate the BDA idea into a reality in the interest of the people. There is no harm in amending the Constitution with a view to removing any impediment that comes in the way of development. After all, the cause of alleviating the economic woes of the people cannot be kept aside on any pretext.

The Mayawati government is faced with a sticky wicket. It may lose people’s sympathy if it does not review its stand on the BDA. The situation demands that it should re-arrange its priorities. But, perhaps, this is expecting too much from a government which believes that installing the statues of Dalit icons will have greater appeal among the public than seeking solutions to the people’s problems. The state government has provided proof that development does not have pride of place on its agenda. This is clearly visible when one looks at the budgetary allocations: Rs 553 crore for statues of Dalit icons and public parks, but only Rs 325 crore earmarked for development projects in Bundelkhand.

The BSP government, of course, has a point when it says that the recommendations of the Samra Committee must form the basis for changing the face of Bundelkhand. But what is the guarantee that the funds received from the Centre in the name of economic development will not be diverted to projects like the installation of Dalit icons’ statues, which cannot help fight poverty in a region where industry is virtually non-existent? Education, health care, irrigation and other such facilities are also negligible. The drought continuing for many years has aggravated the situation, leading to large-scale migration from the region. But who bothers?

The UP part of Bundelklhand has four parliamentary seats. The people have been promised the status of a separate state for their region by most political parties during election time, but only to be forgotten once they have cast their votes. The seven Bundelkhand districts in UP — Hamirpur, Mahoba, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Jalaun, Banda and Chitrakoot — had been overwhelmingly voting for the Congress till the cataclysmic events of Ayodhya changed the situation in favour of the BJP. With the emergence of the caste-based parties, the region became a citadel of the BSP. The ruling party in the state suffered a major setback in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections as people showed their preference for the Congress again.

What happens in the 2012 assembly polls remains to be seen. But one thing appears to be certain: there will be little change in the living conditions in the region because of the political parties giving lip-service to the people’s problems. Electoral interests of the parties remain their main concern. But they must remember that voters have become wiser nowadays. Those who blatantly indulge in power politics may be punished severely when the time comes.

MIDDLE

Elephantine thoughts
by Amar Chandel

Who says that the statues that Behen Mayawati is installing in a frenzied hurry are a monstrosity and a waste of public money? Like a true visionary, she is far ahead of her times and the true import of her grandiose scheme will be realised by the carping critics only after a few years when the statues spread to every village and town of Uttar Pradesh and beyond. Then cynics and the nitpickers will understand what great service she is doing to the largest state of the country.

You see, millions of doting fans love to donate small sums for her birthdays and other occasions. That is how her income has increased from nothing to crores of rupees every year. Right now, she has to send people from the headquarters to collect the voluntary donations. Sometimes — not always — they have to break the bones of those donors who want to gift more than what she wants them to.

In a true “Sarkar apke dwar” scheme, she wants to decentralise the whole collection procedure and the statues will be instrumental in this area of reform.

If you have used a piggy bank, you must have noticed that an elephant statue often has quite a similar shape; it’s only much larger. Hollow the huge belly of the elephant statue, cut a slit atop its back and, presto, you will have ideal elephant banks, into each of which you can put in rupees relevant to the appetite.

If a few thousand of the statues that have now been inaugurated in Lucknow and Noida can be placed in all mofussil towns, you can well imagine how much the birthday collections can be. They can come in handy to buy as many houses, crowns, jewellery and fancy items in Lucknow and Delhi as strike Behenji’s fancy — not to speak of the huge birthday cakes.

Since the elephant also happens to be her party’s election symbol, there will be no question of the donated money being misappropriated by someone else. The elephant statues will thus be the direct link between the people and their messiah.

Elephant statues-cum-banks will be for the use of the laity. Those who want to donate, say, one crore rupees each or more will have the privilege of doing so directly to the statues of Behenji herself. Please remember that she had got many of the statues removed merely because they did not show her holding her trademark purse.

Why not keep cynicism at bay and admire the shape of things to come and stop criticising the poor statues. They are the most utilitarian pieces of art ever carved in the vast stretch of land between Ghaziabad and Lucknow.

OPED

Pricing of gas
Deora’s role has become questionable
by Nirmal Sandhu

When a dispute is in court, it is best left there for the final outcome. The Amabni brothers' dispute over natural gas pricing is pending in the Supreme Court for a hearing on September 1. Both Anil and Mukesh want the court to settle it.

The Oil Ministry had shown little interest in the four-year-old dispute until the Bombay High Court recently ruled in favour of Anil Ambani's company, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL), allowing it to buy gas at Rs 109 ($2.34) per million British thermal unit.

The administered or controlled price of gas is Rs 93 per unit. However, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora wants the price of the gas to be Rs 195 ($4.20) per unit. At this price, Mr Deora told Parliament on August 6, the country would save Rs 3, 000 crore on fertilizer subsidy.

What he did not tell Parliament is that if this price was accepted, Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries would stand to gain Rs 50,000 crore. And if the price of Rs 109 was accepted, the country would save Rs 5,000 crore. That is why Anil Ambani says the Oil Ministry is favouring Reliance and Mukesh.

It is not a family dispute between two estranged brothers. In October, 2002, Reliance discovered Asia's biggest and one of the largest gas reserves in the world in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin.

Reliance entered into a contract with RNRL and NTPC to supply gas at $2.34 per unit. The brothers split in 2005 and Reliance reneged on the MoU signed over gas pricing.

Anil got charge of RNRL under a deal brokered by their mother, Kokilaben. In November, 2006, RNRL went to court, alleging that Reliance had flouted its contractual obligations.

NTPC, India's largest power utility, is also a party in this case against Reliance. By suggesting a higher gas price of Rs 195, why Mr Deora wants to hurt the government-owned NTPC's interest, he has not cared to explain.

Newspaper reports have alleged that by failing to honour the contract to supply gas at Rs 109 to NTPC, Reliance has caused a loss of Rs 30,000 crore to the government as the delay has led to an increase in the cost of developing the Andhra offshore field.

The Petroleum Ministry's intervention in a corporate dispute is intriguing. It says the government has the right to approve the gas price. Besides, the Union of India is the owner of the gas and any MoU signed between brothers is not binding on the government.

"We have nothing to do with the private dispute of two industries or industrialists. However, we have everything to do with protecting the interests of the government and public interest. This is our constitutional and legal obligation", Mr Murli Deora said in the Lok Sabha on August 3. Where is the constitutional obligation to cause a loss to the public exchequer under this plea?

It is not just an issue between two industrialists or industries. It is an issue of the Oil Minister trying to interfere in a corporate dispute over a contract. This is not the message the Petroleum Minister should be sending out to domestic as well as foreign investors.

Mr Deora has raised the issues of public interest as well as India's sovereign rights over its natural resources (gas). There is no dispute over these. The government had invited private companies to explore and discover oil wealth under a revenue-sharing scheme.

He has misled Parliament by raising irrelevant issues to obfuscate the real design behind his proactive role in what essentially is a battle over the refusal to honour old contractual obligations. Some Leftist MPs even got carried away by his talk of government ownership of natural resources.

If it is the government's gas, would Mr Deora like the government to nationalise the gas reserves discovered by Reliance? He has clearly ruled that out, saying "Old days of nationalisation have gone". Then what for is the extreme argument of sovereign rights?

Reliance has invested Rs 32,000 crore to create this asset. It entered into a contract to supply gas to two firms, RNRL and NTPC, at a commercial price of Rs 109 ($2.34) per unit determined by an international competitive bid.

An empowered group of ministers had earlier approved it. Later, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries realized that the price it had accepted was too low and the signing of the deal was a bad corporate decision.

Since the friendly relations between the Petroleum Minister and the Reliance Chairman are in public domain, is it proper to keep such a vital portfolio with Mr Murli Deora, who has been openly siding with Reliance, even to the extent of causing a loss to the exchequer?

The time has come for Dr Manmohan Singh to ponder whether at all it is in public interest to let Mr Deora continue to hold such an important portfolio. His role in the Petroleum Ministry has indeed become questionable and embarrassing for the government.

Tractors can generate power
by Sarabjit Arjan Singh

Since Independence, there has been a considerable increase in the per capita consumption of electricity. It rose to 606 KWh in 2004-05 from a low of 15.6 KWh in 1950. However, the per capita availability remains below the national electricity policy objective of 1,000 KWh.

Despite a substantial expansion in the generating and transmission capacities, the supply of electricity remains inadequate and prolonged power cuts are order of the day. The national electricity policy (2005) aims at providing access to electricity to all households in five years and by 2012 have sufficient generating capacity to meet all power demand.

In addition, the grid should be capable of meeting peaking demands and have adequate spinning reserves. Going by the current power situation in Punjab, it does not appear likely.

The Punjab Chief Minister has stated in the Vidhan Sabha that the present requirement was 7,870 MW while the supply was only 6,800 MW. The peak power deficit is likely to go up next year.

The Central Electricity Authority has projected that during 2009-10 Punjab’s estimated peak demand is 9,110 MW while the peak availability is projected at 6,540 mw, which will lead to a peak deficit of 28.3 per cent.

The CM maintained that Punjab made earnest efforts to reduce the deficit by “power banking” agreements, however, some states backed out, resulting in inadequate coverage of the shortfall.

If this is the ground reality, can we as consumers ever hope to see better days? Blindly treading the conventional path is unlikely to lead to improved power supply, at least, in the short term. Radical and innovative thinking is the requirement.

The national electricity policy recognises that non-conventional energy sources and captive generation will have to play their part in providing additional capacity. However, the progress in connecting the standby generating plants for augmenting the grid is limited.

Another way to meet the deficit will be to use tractors. Tractors have a built-in power take off (PTO) arrangement for driving farm machinery such as combine harvesters. There is no technical difficulty in rotating an electric generator through the PTO.

Investment in a generator and grid linking arrangement is all that is required for establishing the hook-up point. New generating capacity will come on line almost immediately and the tractor owner’s family will see its income increase.

Punjab has over 4,00,000 tractors for 40 lakh hectares. This number is large for the cultivable area and leads to gross under-utilisation. Agricultural experts have estimated that against the desirable minimum usage of 1,000 hours the actual utilisation in a year is 500 hours.

Any increase in the usage will spread fixed costs over a larger number of hours, reducing the average cost of operation. Electric power generation will be a very effective manner of bringing up usage.

Tractors sizes vary from 26 hp to 60 hp and above. A majority of tractors are in the range of 25 to 40 hp (51.8 per cent) and more than 9 per cent are 50 hp or more. A 35 hp tractor can be the representative tractor for making a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the power generating capacity.

A 35 hp tractor is likely to be capable of providing about 30 hp at the PTO, which translates into any thing between 20 kw and 24 kw of electric power generating capacity. A simple multiplication of the capacity (22kw) with the number of tractors (400,000) leads to a generating potential of 8,800 mw.

This is such a large potential that if all the 4,00,000 tractors were harnessed, Punjab could meet its present requirement of 7,870 mw from tractors alone. This calculation is just for illustrating the potential.

As a thumb rule, about 45 tractors would add one mega watt to the generating capacity. If one per cent of the 4 lakh tractors link up for power generation, the state would have an additional power availability of 88 mw. If this figure increased to 10 per cent, the additional power capacity is 880 mw.

There are no technical difficulties in implementing the suggestion. There are however, organisational and tariff questions that need satisfactory answers. Since tractors have no generators, hook-up points provided with generators and equipment required for feeding power into the grid will be required.

These hook-up points will, in addition, need power metering to enable payment to tractor-owners on the spot. A number of conveniently located hook-up centres should be able to attract tractor owners.

The other issue is establishing a tariff that makes it worthwhile for the owners to bring their tractors for connection to the grid. The electricity policy states that under the Electricity Act 2003, captive generators have access to licensees and would get access to consumers who are allowed open access.

The policy goes on that grid inter-connections for captive generators will be facilitated as per Section 30 of the Act and proposes that it should be done on priority to enable captive generation to become available as distributed generation along the grid.

It recognises that appropriate commercial arrangements need to be established between licensees and the captive generators for harnessing of spare capacity energy from captive power plants. The appropriate regulatory commission will exercise regulatory oversight on such commercial arrangements between captive generators and licensees and determine tariffs.

The reason for bringing out these policy statements is to point out that most issues have been discussed and guidelines are available. All that is necessary is to extend them to tractor generation with suitable modifications.

The remaining issue is the institutional arrangement for providing infrastructure for hook-up and payment to the tractor owner. The electricity and tariff policies envisage licensees for the distribution of power obtained from captive power generators. A licensee arrangement could be a good way to take the concept forward. The licensee should invest in the hook up point while the state could provide the land.

The suggestion has possibilities of vastly improving the power situation in a very short time and at the same time improving the finances of tractor-owners. One could try out the concept in a few locations to understand practical difficulties and then extend it to the entire state. Other states could develop their own models after taking advantage of Punjab’s experience.

The writer is a former member of the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

New El Niño threatens world with weather woe
by Michael McCarthy

A new El Niño has begun. The sporadic Pacific Ocean warming, which can disrupt weather patterns across the world, is intensifying, say meteorologists.

So, over the next few months, there may be increased drought in Africa, India and Australia, heavier rainfall in South America and increased extremes in Britain, of warm and cold. It may make 2010 one of the hottest years on record.

The cyclical phenomenon, which happens every two to seven years, is a major determinant of global weather systems. The 1997-98 El Niño combined with global warming to push 1998 into being the world’s hottest year, and caused major droughts and catastrophic forest fires in South-east Asia which sent a pall of smoke right across the region.

At present, forecasters do not expect this El Niño to equal that of 1998, but it may be the second-strongest, and concerned groups, from international insurance companies to commodity traders, to aid agencies such as Oxfam, have begun to follow its progress anxiously. Its potential for economic and social impact is considerable.

Professor Chris Folland, of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, said: “We are likely to see more global warming than we have seen in the past few years, which have been rather cool. In fact, we are already seeing it.”

El Niño is a periodic warming of the normally cold waters of the eastern tropical Pacific, the ocean region westwards out from South America along the line of the equator.

Since the Pacific is a heat reservoir which drives wind patterns around the world, the change in its temperature alters global weather. An El Niño is defined by ocean surface temperatures rising by more than 0.5C above the average.

This El Niño is well beyond that, says the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Weather Service. “Sea surface temperatures remain +0.5 to +1.5 above average across much of the equatorial Pacific Ocean,” the centre reported last week. “Observations and dynamical model forecasts indicate El Niño conditions will continue to intensify and are expected to last through the northern hemisphere winter of 2009-10.”

The last El Niño was in 2006-07 and, at its peak, sea surface temperatures averaged about 0.9 degrees above normal. But this is a stage which has already been reached by this one.

The last El Niño, comparatively weak though it was, is thought to have been partly responsible for the extraordinarily warm weather in Britain between the summer of 2006 and the spring of 2007: July 2006 was Britain’s hottest month, autumn 2006 (September, October and November) was the warmest autumn, winter 2006-07 (December, January and February) was the second warmest in Britain, and April 2007 was our warmest April.

People have forgotten this because there then began our recent cooler and wetter period, with Britain’s two “washout summers” of 2007 and 2008, and they may, in turn, have been associated with the counter-phenomenon of La Niña, a cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific waters, which followed. The start of the present El Niño was one reason the Met Office predicted a “barbecue summer” for 2009.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Corrections and clarifications

l In the report, “ Slaves of Bacchus no more” ( Page 3, August 10), the expression ‘problem drinkers’ should have been replaced with ‘alcoholics’ or ‘addicts’.

l In the report, “ Machines…missing at banks” ( Front Page, August 10), it should read, “…it has failed to make much headway,”.

l On the back page ( August 10) in the Late City edition, a picture caption has re-appeared as a quote attributed to the Union Health Minister.

l The front page report, “ Delhi, Pune schools on alert” ( August 10) fails to make it clear whether the ‘two city schools shut down for a week’ were in Delhi or Pune.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column will now appear thrice a week — every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua,
Editor-in-Chief