The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Khap terror again
Why is state government silent?

Unmindful of the directions of the courts and oblivious of the revulsion that they generate all over the world, khap panchayats of Haryana continue to play their old cruel tricks. In another shocking incident, one such panchayat of the Beniwal gotra in Kheri Meham village of Rohtak district issued a Taliban-like fatwa was issued on Saturday annulling the three-year-old marriage of a couple and instructed them to live like brother and sister. The holding of such a meeting was no secret and yet the government did nothing to stop it. That gives credence to the apprehension that there are many politicians and officials who are willing to go along with the diktats of these self-styled leaders of society who think they are above the law. Every time they are allowed to get away with such deeds, they are encouraged to repeat themselves. Just for the sake of a few votes, political parties fight shy of taking on them.

What they have done is not only an insult to the image of the country and the state but also a crime against humanity. They have spared no thought for the 10-month child, Raunak, of the harried couple. They have sent him along with her mother, Kavita Berwal of Bagi village in Jhajjar district, to her parents’ house, unmindful of the fact that life for him would be a nightmare in the absence of his father. They have no reply to the entreaties of Kavita that more than a hundred villagers had accompanied the barat of her husband, Satish Beniwal. Why were they silent all this while?

While the authorities look the other way, individual sufferers do raise their voice. But their protest is brutally nipped in the bud. A similar panchayat had ordered the “exile” of a couple at Garhi Ballam village in Rohtak district on November 1 last. One Ved Pal was lynched by a mob in another Haryana village for marrying within the same gotra. It is high time members of the khap panchayats were prosecuted under the Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act, under which a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment can be awarded to an individual.

Triumph of music
World is Rahman’s oyster

Winning awards seems to have become a habit with India’s best-known music composer AR Rahman. After creating history by becoming the first Indian composer who won two Oscar awards last year, the “Mozart of Madras” continues with his unending winning spree. At the 52nd Grammy awards he has picked up two Grammy awards for the music of his Oscar wining film Slumdog Millionaire. Piping past big ones like Bruce Springsteen, Rahman, who won the Grammy for best motion picture song and best compilation soundtrack, has once more proved that world is his oyster.

When the musical genius burst on the national scene with his first film Roja with his famous creation “Chotti si Aasha” music lovers sat up and listened with awe and admiration. Since then he has been creating new compositions and melodies that transcend the frontiers of language, genres and styles. No wonder, today the world is applauding. Though Slumdog Millionaire isn’t his first foray into the international scene, he seems to have struck a receptive chord with its energetic and edgy “Jai ho” score that has a universal appeal. Awards have been raining ever since. Even before the coveted Oscars came his way, the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award were all his. Rahman may not be the first Indian to have won the Grammy yet the significance of the award, which he himself calls the “ultimate music award”, is no less.

Accepting the Grammy award he exclaimed: “This is insane, God is great again”. Rahman is close to greatness and has done India proud more than once. From composing jingles to an international celebrity he has indeed come a long way. What is more heartening is that, this is only a beginning as the young prodigal music director has many more surprises up his sleeve and is working on Shekhar Kapur’s Passage and Ashok Amritraj’s Street Dancing. While he may not be too happy with the outcome of his first Hollywood soundtrack for Couples Retreat, with Hollywood filmmakers like Steven Spielberg expressing willingness to work with him, the Indian of the Year is ready to take on the world. If he has not taken it on already.

Thought for the Day

A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket. — John Dennis

ARTICLE

Statehood demands
Time to try the Assam model
by Anil Nauriya

That the case for the formation of a Telangana state is strong tends to be widely accepted. Many of the districts which make up Telangana have remained economically backward; undoubtedly, their development requires special attention. While this is readily conceded, what worries many observers is the cascading effect that the creation of Telangana would have on similar demands for statehood elsewhere. A new state can engender new social problems as well with the coming to the fore of “new minorities” and marginalised groups.

Apart from this, the creation of a new state gives rise to an array of administrative issues which result in considerable dislocation. In the case of Telangana, political parties have been trimming their sails to the prevailing winds in the various regions of present-day Andhra Pradesh. Consequently, some parties find themselves committed to cross-purposes either directly or through their local units both to an undivided Andhra Pradesh and to the creation of Telangana. There is a way out of this tangle which could be not only politically acceptable to all concerned but also administratively preferable to the immediate creation of a full-fledged state.

The solution, perhaps, lies in adopting a model similar to the one tried through the Assam Reorganisation (Meghalaya) Act 1969 [ARMA, 69]. This legislation was made possible by the Constitution ( Twenty-Second Amendment) Act, 1969, which, by inserting Article 244A, introduced a rather original idea into the Constitution in relation to the state of Assam. This Article made it possible to establish an “autonomous state” within the State of Assam.

Not many may remember that before Meghalaya became a full-fledged state, it was constituted as an “autonomous state” within Assam with its own Chief Minister, Cabinet and Legislative Assembly. Under ARMA 69, Meghalaya was constituted 40 years ago, in January 1970, as an “autonomous state” within the state of Assam. Full-fledged statehood for Meghalaya, came somewhat later under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, when the states of Manipur and Tripura were also established. As the 1969 law, which established Meghalaya as an “autonomous state” within Assam, was not worked for long, being overtaken by the 1971 legislation, the ARMA 69 approach in resolving some festering disputes has not received a full trial and has not been adequately explored.

Under ARMA 69, a division of legislative responsibilities was made between the Legislative Assemblies of Assam and Meghalaya. The matters listed under the State List and Concurrent List of the Constitution of India were allocated as between the two assemblies. Under this allocation, as many as 61 out of 66 entries in the State List were either wholly or substantively placed in what came to be called the “Autonomous State List”. This list included such matters as agriculture and land, including rights in land. In addition, four matters from the Concurrent List were also made available for legislation by the autonomous state. A Concurrent List between the Autonomous State and the State of Assam was also drawn up. It was further provided that for several purposes, including those of the Finance Commission set up under Article 280 of the Constitution to recommend criteria for the distribution of revenues to and among states, references to states would include the autonomous state formed under ARMA, 69.

There would be advantages in following this pattern, with appropriate modifications for Telangana, if it is similarly constituted as an “autonomous state” within Andhra Pradesh. A constitutional amendment and also some variations of the ARMA 69 pattern will, of course, be necessary to bring this about. For example, by ARMA 69 some state subjects like public order and industry were retained by the Legislative Assembly of Assam and not transferred to Meghalaya. In the case of Telangana, industry would have to be included among the transferred subjects as lack of industrial development has been one of the principal grievances of the region.

Interestingly, ARMA 69 did transfer matters relating to the regulation of mines and mineral development from Assam to the autonomous state of Meghalaya. For obvious reasons, such a provision would be relevant also for resource-rich Telangana. But the transfer of “public order” to the Telangana legislature might be held over until there are adequate guarantees that the kind of demands that were made in Mulki Rules-style agitations some decades ago would not result in any deprivation of rights of any regional or other minorities in the Telangana area.

Politically, an approach based on the ARMA 69 pattern would meet the twin objective of constituting a Telangana state without actually breaking up Andhra Pradesh. Administratively, it would provide time for the completion of certain necessary arrangements for an eventually complete separation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh at a later stage, should an overall consensus evolve by then. This would also keep open the theoretical possibility of public opinion within the Telangana area opting a few years later to remain within Andhra Pradesh and make permanent the “autonomous state” arrangement, based on the ARMA 69 model. This model could also help avoid intractable disputes over such matters as the location of the capital city. At any rate, such disputes would, in this framework, probably not assume an irreconciliable character.

Had the Centre not been in a tearing hurry in the year 2000, ARMA 69 might have been a suitable pattern to follow in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh when legislation to re-organise Bihar and Madhya Pradesh was enacted. The administration in these two areas was ill-prepared when statehood was suddenly thrust upon the two areas carved out as states. Even in the case of present-day Uttarakhand, which was also formed at the time by the re-organisation of Uttar Pradesh, it is well known that work in the new High Court established at Nainital was held up for months on end before cases and records could be transferred from the Allahabad High Court. Had the ARMA 69 model been adopted it would have provided sufficient time for administrative arrangements to be completed.

But it is not simply as an interim arrangement that ARMA 69 can be useful. In the case of Meghalaya, the formation of the autonomous state in 1969 was not originally conceived as a transitional arrangement though, of course, Meghalaya did attain full-fledged statehood sometime later. The ARMA 69 pattern, which is essentially a devolution model, could help resolve other persistent demands such as those for the formation of Gorkhaland and Vidarbha. As time passes, there would be greater administrative and political constraints on the multiplication of the number of states in India. Alternative methods of devolution of power will, therefore, need to be explored.

The cry for forming Gorkhaland by breaking up West Bengal poses a special dilemma. While the demand for statehood has been increasingly pressing, re-organisation of Bengal has historically been the cause for so much resentment that it would not fail to revive old wounds. The further division of Punjab, some 20 years after 1947, was a somewhat different case because the demand for a new and reconstituted Punjab in the mid-sixties had come from within the Punjabi heartland. For strategic reasons also, and particularly in the light of recent developments in neighbouring Nepal, the demand for full-fledged statehood for Gorkhaland is not likely to be conceded by any Central government in a hurry. This is the context in which the ARMA 69 pattern, with suitable variations, may be worth considering. It would preserve the unity of West Bengal while conceding to the Gorkha areas statehood in substance.

The case for an autonomous state of Vidarbha on the ARMA 69 pattern is irresistible on economic grounds. The misery of rural Vidarbha in particular has been underlined by the many peasants who have been driven to desperation during the past several years. Successive governments in Maharashtra do not appear to have done justice to the region and have failed in their primary duty towards the area and its people. As the ARMA 69 pattern would not involve the break-up of Maharashtra, it would probably not encounter resistance from sectarian groups within that state. At some stage, the ARMA 69 model may, perhaps, be considered for certain regions of Jammu and Kashmir when proposals for greater autonomy for the state as a whole are considered.

The writer is advocate, Supreme Court of India.

MIDDLE

Wanderings in Dehradun
by Shriniwas Joshi

It is early dawn when I go for morning walk, rather for wandering in Dehradun.

I find that my companions, at that cold and foggy time, are my Darwinian ancestors who have better sense of weekdays than I. If I see them walking in groups to the old Shiv temple, I conclude that it is a Monday, on Tuesdays they move towards the Hanuman temple and on Thursdays, their rendezvous is Sai temple. The devotees to these temples do not mind feeding them to earn bonus of His Grace by doing so.

Anyway, these rovings educate me. One morning when I reached Khurbara, one of the oldest localities that existed even in 1880s, I found its name originating from the hoof (khur) of the sacred cow Kamdhenu. So big (bara) was the hoof of the cow that three springs had broken out from where the cow had planted it.

The other day I found that an elephant had rent a great bar tree (Ficus Indica) when it tried to pass through an opening between its trunks and left a pass (khala) there originating the name of another old locality, Hathibarkhala.

The fascinating buildings that have come up in the recent past have attractive English, Hindi or Anglo-Hindi names. If there is a Nirvana Nest, there is an Eternal Bliss too. The names of the two buildings dedicated to the parents — Matra Kunj to the mother at old Mussorie Road and Pitra Sharanam to the father — at Jakhan-Canal Road are appealing.

This road has more pits and pots than the level plane. A paved channel carrying waters of the Rispana river flows by its side thus facilitates the JJ dwellers to wash their clothes and take a quick bath in ice-cold water. The presence of these shanty-occupants on one side is uncomplimentary to the abundance of the residents of Casa Tarraza, premier designer apartments, on the other side of the road. The Cuban-Spanish name of these apartments is mod and hep in teenagers’ lingo.

Rajpur, a small town on the north of Dehradun, has many newly constructed beautiful buildings and quite a few of them have meditation centres, including IM, a Swedish organisation for individual relief. The old town has predominance of buildings in Muslim architecture. A marble plaque fixed here in 2008 reads, “78 persons from the town had participated in World War I and (an unfilled dash) gave up their lives” thus showing the ‘chalta hai’ attitude.

A sign-board on the road that leads to Sahstradhara warns: “Do not be harsh on curves” beneath which a youthful scribble asks “Road’s or Lady’s?” bringing silky smiles on the faces.

OPED

Don’t blame hoarders alone for price rise
by Mohan Guruswamy

The price rise of all food items seems to have nonplussed our political and bureaucratic leadership, as usual. They are also as usual flailing about threatening to crack down on “hoarders” and to institute tight price controls. As always, this will amount to nothing because the state not only does not have any sinews but also teeth to back its intentions.

Besides, the only commodities that the state can exercise even a modicum of control are cereals, sugar and cooking oil. That is because these are the only food items that are hoardable and it can regulate prices somewhat with policy sticks like restricting movements, imports and by additional PDS releases. Good luck to them!

But the real price increases have been in items which are not hoardable and where only the most basic law of economics prevails. It’s a world where only supply and demand determine prices. You cannot, after all, hoard “bhindi” or “baingan” nor import them in any significant quantity to make any difference.

The price increases for vegetables and certain pulses have been astronomical and have been well over 100% in many cases. The prices that now prevail are truly astounding. I don’t think either Dr Manmohan Singh or Pranab Mukherji or Sharad Pawar, and for that matter even Anand Sharma or Subodh Kant Sahay, all ministers concerned with this particular price rise, would have ever visited a market to shop for vegetables and nor would their wives.

Most Indians spend over two-thirds of their budgets on food articles, but almost certainly for these above named it would just be small change. But they show concern because of the beating they are taking in the political marketplace. For that matter neither would Mulayam Singh Yadav nor Lalu Prasad Yadav be even a wee bit affected by the price rise, but they protest because it’s a good stick to beat the government with.

Most of our leaders live a blessed life. Only the price rise of a BMW or Mercedes Benz might pinch the pocket a bit. Maybe not even that. Most of our political leaders are rags-to-riches stories. Such price increases are of little consequence to them personally and are only sticks to belabour each other with.

Remember the hue and cry over the rising prices of onions a few years ago. Well onion prices in this season of huge price increases have plummeted. But this does not cause them to shed any tears over the plight of farmers devastated by this. Most onion farmers live in Sharad Pawar’s political backyard but he seems more focussed on cricket administration and all the moolah involved in it and what to do with Jagmohan Dalmia, who has reappeared on the scene like a bad dream.

Here are some of the new prices in my neighbourhood subzi market. “Matar” now costs Rs 120 per kg and beans are priced at Rs 100 a kilo. Cucumbers are selling at Rs 80 per kg, while dhania is to be had for Rs 80 a bundle. Tomatoes and bhindi now cost more than Rs 48 per kg and “baingan” and “alu” now cost Rs 42 and Rs 24 to Rs 28, respectively.

My subziwala friend says he has never seen prices like this and worried consumers like this before. What can you expect when “palak” now costs Rs.16 a bundle. And somehow the bundles seem a lot slimmer than before. My wife tells me that prices have gone up by more than 25% in just the past one month. Of course, she exaggerates a bit, but my driver could barely conceal a sneer when I offered a pay rise of Rs 500 a month.

On the other end of the supply chain, my farmer friend, who grows cauliflower near Betul in Madhya Pradesh, tells me that prices have crashed by as much as 20%. The “thalis” at my favourite New Delhi restaurants like Sagar Ratna and Naivedyam have reduced the variety of vegetables and there now seems to be a marked preference for cabbages as they and onions are the only vegetables that have bucked the price rise trend.

Many reasons are being trotted out by the authorities to account for the price rise. The most important one, if they are to be believed, is last year’s purported drought. The final year-end rainfall data, however, doesn’t back this up at all. The rains were late in some parts but that only affects cereal production in the rain-fed areas.

Vegetables are grown mostly in areas around cities and on land irrigated either by canals or tubewells. Nor has there been a shortfall in vegetable production to warrant such huge price increases. The biggest reason for the price rise of vegetables is that middle class consumers have done well in the past few years and are just much much better off.

The new Pay Commission salaries have helped. They cover 24 million government employees and this means a population of about 150 million suddenly had a great deal more money in their pockets. This is why car sales have risen by 32% when the GDP growth dropped a full 1.5% last year.

The Prime Minister is an economist by training. He knows that when more money chases the same amount of goods prices will rise. At our current rate of GDP growth, India needs a growth of 4% in agriculture. It is growing at about 1.5%. That’s why prices are rising.

And why shouldn’t the grower get more for his produce when prices of manufactured goods keep rising and when consumers have more money? But don’t tell my wife I said that!

No bust, but still far from boom
by Stephen King

On arriving in Davos on Tuesday, I detected a mood of cautious optimism. Perhaps it was the snow, the sunny weather and, for some of the delegates at the annual World Economic Forum, the prospect of a bit of skiing a little later in the week. More likely, however, many of those attending were simply relieved.

After all, a year earlier, the world’s great and good were dreading the onset of a Great Depression Mark II, doubtless fuelled by assorted apocalyptic warnings from Nouriel Roubini, Davos’s self-styled Doctor Doom. In the event, however, a Great Depression Mark II didn’t materialise.

For those who think we live in a binary world in which economies either boom or bust, the avoidance of the worst possible outcome was obviously very good news indeed: if the bust was out of the way, it was surely time to pop open a few bottles of chilled Laurent Perrier.

Yet, as the week progressed, the mood of this gathering of supposedly strategic long-term thinkers darkened. Why did optimism shift so quickly to gritty realism and then to renewed pessimism?

Partly, I suspect, it dawned on delegates that this was no ordinary economic recovery (if, indeed, there is ever such a thing). There were, it seemed, too many bumps in the road ahead. Over the last three decades – a working lifetime for most people at Davos – recoveries have been mostly market-led.

This recovery, however, is rather unusual. The market has not played much of a role. Interest rates are remarkably low but, rather than stimulating a big increase in credit growth, banks remain cautious and, within the private sector, there’s a shortage of willing borrowers. Money supply growth has collapsed.

Admittedly, the inventory cycle is still working – as demonstrated by the big rebound in US economic activity at the tail end of last year – but the overall impression is that economies are still on life support, demonstrated by huge increases in budget deficits. It’s not obvious what happens when that life support is removed. Stock-market jitters since the beginning of the year have only served to reinforce this fear.

Put another way, the economic outlook depends, critically, not so much on tried-and-tested market mechanisms but, instead, on the sometimes-fickle choices made by policymakers. And, as the week progressed, there seemed to be little clarity regarding those choices.

Following last year’s promises that any reforms to the financial system would be made under the auspices of the G20, it suddenly appears that the appetite for a multilateral solution is fading.

Whatever anyone thinks about the details of President Obama’s proposals to reform the banks, the message is abundantly clear: the US has adopted a unilateral approach which may endanger the functioning of what, over the years, has evolved into a genuinely global capital market.

It may well be that that huge cross-border capital flows have created additional instability, but it is surely important to recognise also that heightened capital flows have been instrumental in lifting people in many hitherto un- successful economies out of poverty.

Then there’s the issue of exit strategies from the life support policies which now dominate economies in the Western world. Some think that it’s too early to do anything. Others believe that interest rates should rise immediately to reduce the risk of yet more financial bubbles. And there are still others – and I include myself in this category – who believe that it’s better to start by tightening fiscal policy, leaving interest rates lower for longer.

This level of confusion is not good for economic recovery. What should businesses be worrying about? Higher interest rates, higher taxes or cutbacks in public services? Should they be concerned about exchange-rate instability or, instead, should they be worrying about sovereign default and a possible rise in long-term borrowing costs?

The problem stems, in part, from the rather comfortable distinction made in recent years between the aims of monetary policy – designed to control inflation – and fiscal policy – aimed primarily at good budgetary housekeeping at the national level.

This compartmentalised approach no longer works. The scale of budgetary adjustment now required in the US, the UK and elsewhere is so large that it will inevitably have an impact on inflation. That makes life tough for central bankers. Having had sole responsibility for the control of inflation, they will now find themselves in an unwanted power-sharing agreement with governments comprised of ministers who, inevitably, will respond not only to economic necessity but also to electoral expediency.

Uncertainty over the fiscal outlook is not, of course, restricted to the US or the UK. Another big theme last week was the growing fiscal crisis in Greece. Would the Greek government deliver the necessary austerity? Would the Germans and French be happy with any Athens fiscal plan? What if the Greeks were forced to default? Was there a risk of contagion spreading to other fiscally incontinent nations within the eurozone?

Unlike the US, the eurozone has no centralised fiscal authority to smooth over local fiscal difficulties. That’s one key reason why financial markets are much more worried about Greece than they are about California, which, frankly, is also in a deep fiscal crisis. Greece, however, reveals a deeper truth about the state of the world economy.

We are no longer living in a world in which economic outcomes will be determined by the invisible hand of the market; economic outcomes are increasingly dependent on the politically possible. As the Greek example demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the result will be either economically or financially attractive.

But perhaps the biggest concern at Davos, at least from a Western perspective, was the sense that economic power was shifting eastwards. Plenty of platitudes were expressed about the importance of open trade and the opportunities provided by economic strength in China and other emerging nations.

The truth, however, is that Davos will look very different in 25 years’ time. The Americans will still have a voice, but China and India will increasingly dominate. Individual European countries will have little of importance to say and will, increasingly, be ignored.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Delhi Durbar
Jitin Prasada to tie the nuptial knot

The 15th Lok Sabha has seen a sizeable number of young men and women return as Congress MPs, quite a few of them are unmarried. As MPs they are naturally sought after in the matrimony market.

Leading the gang is none other than AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi. A prominent member of this group Union Minister of State for Petroleum Jitin Prasada, a two-time MP, has announced his marriage with a TV news anchor Neha Seth on the 17th of the next month.

Jitin used to be a member of the group led by Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways R.P. N. Singh, who is also married to a TV news anchor.

But the moot question everyone seems to be asking is: Will Rahul Gandhi take a hint from his friends and end his bachelorhood soon?

Politicians add to traffic chaos

The NDMC has done a wise thing by constructing road dividers on Lutyen’s zone roads, ignoring protests of the hoi polloi inhabiting these areas. This has suddenly stopped Delhi drivers, particularly motorcyclists, from happily crossing the yellow line and meandering into the middle of the traffic coming from the opposite direction as it used to happen everyday on Ashoka Road in front of the BJP office and Tolstoy Marg, between Janpath and Kasturba Gandhi Marg. It has also made it less menacing for pedestrians to cross the road opposite the BJP office.

But this seems to have annoyed the bigwigs in the BJP for this has prevented them from turning right and instead forced them to take their cars right up to the end of the road and return after going around the circle. So within a week of strenuous construction the divider has been removed and chaos has returned.

A similar thing happened on Copernicus Marg because the heavy-duty caravan of Punjab politicos, all with hordes of SUVs and police convoys, found a wee bit irksome to negotiate the full length of the road to enter Punjab and Haryana Bhawans situated on that road.

Navin Patnaik obliges Centre

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was in New Delhi last week as the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations. The grapevine has it that he was keen to visit the site of the Posco steel project in Orissa, coming up with Seoul’s assistance.

While the government fast-tracked clearances for the project on the eve of his visit, it was not enthused by the South Korean leader’s idea of visiting Orissa for inspecting the site as well as to meet local officials.

The reason: thousands of locals have been protesting against the project, saying it will displace them from their homeland and ruin their livelihood.

The PMO was worried that an unpleasant situation could arise if Lee were to visit the state. Worried PMO officials got in touch with Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik and pleaded with him to come to Delhi and brief the visiting dignitary on the project. The CM did not disappoint them. He air-dashed to Delhi and discussed the project in great detail with Lee.

Contributed by Faraz Ahmad and Ashok Tuteja

Corrections and clarifications

n The headline “Apology for emergency ward” (Page 4, February 1, Chandigarh Tribune) is unclear. A more accurate headline would have been “An apology for an emergency ward”.

n The headline “Shatabdi worst hit by long delays” (Page 1, January 30, Chandigarh Tribune) is inappropriate. There is no comparison made in the report with delays recorded by other trains. The proper headline would have been “Shatabdi hit hard by long delays”.

n A blurb on Page 2 of “Lifestyle” supplement of January 28 in regard to Aamir Khan’s nostalgia about his mother spells Padma Bhushan as Padam Bhushan.

n The headline “No tricolour hoisting at Lal Chowk” (Page 6, January 28) is clumsy. A better way of putting it would have been “Tricolour not hoisted at “Lal Chowk”.

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 appears twice a week — every Tuesday 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