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Tackling N-terrorism
Gujjars’ protest march |
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Thumbs up to I-cards
Dithering over Dinakaran
Pesticide deficiency
What honour in killing?
Woman as head of household
Hyderabad Diary Corrections and clarifications
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Tackling N-terrorism
The
Nuclear Security Summit, held in Washington DC has brought into sharp focus the urgent need for securing the world from nuclear terrorism. The leaders representing 47 countries went beyond underlining the need for “strong nuclear security measures” so that it was rendered impossible for “terrorists, criminals or other unauthorised actors” to acquire the ultimatum weapon to annihilate the world or a part of it. The world leaders set a clear-cut target of achieving their objective in four years, which showed how serious they were in meeting the challenge posed by non-state actors. In their customary joint statement, the leaders admitted that “nuclear terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security”, the view India has been expressing for a long time. India can draw satisfaction from the fact that its wake-up call has been heard at last. Mr Obama’s achievement lies in the assembled leaders’ appreciation of his unprecedented “call to secure all vulnerable nuclear material” in a time-bound manner. However, the task is not as easy to accomplish as it appears. The target of having a world free from nuclear terrorism can be achieved only when a collective drive is launched. The voluntary commitments made by the participating nations will not produce the desired results automatically. Nuclear experts are skeptical about the success of the strategy discussed at Washington DC. There is need to have a fresh look at it for securing the world from “catastrophic consequences”, which may follow once Al-Qaida or any other terrorist group is able to lay its hands on the nuclear weapon or material required for making the bomb. Countries with weapons of mass destruction who have dubious credentials need to be watched more closely. Terrorists have made many attempts in Pakistan to forcibly capture such weapons. They have demonstrated the capacity to strike at will and anywhere they want. These non-state actors have a widespread support base which extends to the establishment, which may help them in achieving their dreaded goal. Incidents of groups and individuals trying to steal fissile material in some Central Asian countries have also come to light. The Georgian President informed the world leaders that his country had “foiled eight attempts of illicit trafficking of enriched uranium during the last 10 years”. The strategy to prevent nuclear terrorism from becoming a reality must be formulated keeping these factors in view.
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Gujjars’ protest march
The
Gujjar protest march from Hindon to Jaipur in Rajasthan to build up pressure on the Ashok Gehlot government for five per cent reservation for the community in government jobs under a special category has given a new twist to their agitation. As the agitation in 2008 had turned violent and claimed 40 lives and caused considerable hardship to the people, the authorities should make adequate arrangements to maintain law and order this time. Apparently, the government seems to have “limited options”. If it agrees to five per cent quota under the Special Backward Class (SBC) category, it would mean withdrawing the Reservation Act of 2009 that has been challenged in the Rajasthan High Court. As the quota for various categories has already touched 49 per cent (16 per cent for SCs, 12 per cent for STs and 21 per cent for OBCs), the government will have to bring forward a new Bill to provide five per cent quota for SBCs. While doing so, it should keep in mind the 50 per cent cap fixed by the Supreme Court. Significantly, in October 2009, the Gehlot government had received a jolt when the Rajasthan High Court stayed the 5 per cent quota for Gujjars and 14 per cent to the Economically Backward Classes as it breached the 50 per cent ceiling set by the apex court. Subsequently, while reverting Gujjars to the OBC category, the government said it had provisionally modified the reservation system following the high court order that indicated Gujjars, Rebaris and Gadia-Lohars would have to wait longer for quota under the SBC category. Unfortunately, successive governments have given a raw deal to Gujjars though they constitute 7.5 per cent of the state’s population. They complain that while they have been deprived of their slice of the development cake, Meenas and Jats have become upwardly mobile, with berths in the IAS, IPS, state civil services, etc. While the Vasundhara Raje government dithered on Gujjars’ demand for Scheduled Tribe status, often putting the onus on the Centre, the Gehlot government is in a bind following the High Court order. Indeed, how to provide quota for Gujjars within the apex court’s 50 per cent limit has become a challenge for the state government.
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Thumbs up to I-cards
Eight
fingers, two thumbs, two eyes and full face — these are the 13 biometric features that each Indian resident would be identified with, while his or her 16-digit Unique Identification (UID) number is being allotted, according to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UDAI). The National Population Register, database, on which these cards are issued, will also have information like name, gender, date of birth, present and permanent address, names and UIDs of parents, marital status, the name of spouse, if married, etc. While the exact numbers are not known, around 1.2 billion Indians will have their UID cards. The government recognises around 20 different kinds of documents as ID, and Indians have been long used to IDs of various kinds, including the ubiquitous ration card. One multipurpose card that eliminates the need for multiple identity proofs is being widely welcomed. Among the perceived benefits are targeted public delivery of goods and services and the elimination of what is euphemistically called “leakage”. Census 2011, which is already underway, will collect, for the first time, a photograph and biometric data of all individuals above 15 years. This data will be the core of the NPR database. Of course, UID cards are just the beginning, the real power of the project will come from the sharing of information among various Central and state organisations, especially those connected with security. Privacy advocates and human rights activists are understandably concerned about how various databases will be linked together, thereby potentially providing an environment where such information could be misused. While the UDAI maintains that such data will be secure, the public will need to be reassured abut the security, safety and inviolability of privacy of the personal details. The UID is a huge undertaking, with a lot of potential, but the devil is in the details. Putting a face and giving a number to a billion people is a monumental task. The data is already being collected, and the rest shall follow, soon, we hope.
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Progress comes to those who work hard. — The Upanishads
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Dithering over Dinakaran IN the early 1950s, when the training of the IAS and other all-India services used to take place at Delhi’s Metcalfe House, the faculty had, as its vice-principal, a genial ICS officer named Waghiewala. He used to banter with his students that they were on to a very good thing: a permanent career in plum posts, hardly any accountability “no matter what you do”, and the “worst that can happen to you is that you would be transferred”. Has this syndrome infected the country’s higher judiciary? Sadly, the answer must be “yes”, judging by the contortions through which all concerned have gone through over the shocking case of Justice P. D. Dinakaran, who is facing impeachment proceedings on charges of having involved himself in highly questionable practices as Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. Only some days ago, the Collegium of the Supreme Court — consisting of Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan and two senior judges — had advised Mr Dinakaran to “go on leave”, obviously because he was unable to discharge any judicial function. This advice he defied. Nor did he bother about Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily’s hint to him that no one was “above the law”. Rather than do anything about the brazen defiance of its directive, the Collegium reportedly recommended to the government that Mr Dinakaran be transferred to Gangtok to be the Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. Nobody denies that such a recommendation has been made. But the Union Law Ministry maintains that it has not yet received it. However, what happens when the recommendation does arrive at Mr Moily’s desk? For, the situation the Law Minister would face would be bizarre beyond belief. For this, let it be added with respect, the Collegium would not be able to absolve itself. This is so because at the Collegium’s own recommendation the President had appointed only on March 30 the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Justice Brian Ghosh, as the Chief Justice of the Sikkim High Court. Incidentally, another of the Collegium’s recommendation the Law Ministry is “processing” is for the appointment of the acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, Justice Madan B. Lokur, as the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court! Never before has the country witnessed anything like this. Yet even this does not exhaust the list of the distressing features of the Dinakaran affair. Initially, the Collegium had wanted him elevated to the Supreme Court but dropped the idea when he was accused of land grab. But Mr Dinakarn remained acceptable as Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. However, his functioning there became impossible because of the agitation by Bangalore lawyers that was at times regrettably virulent. It is no surprise, therefore, that the moment the news of Mr Dinakaran’s likely transfer to Gangtok appeared, the Bar Association of Sikkim served notice that it would do unto him exactly what the lawyers of Bangalore had done. Quite rightly the agitated lawyers asked whether Sikkim was a “dumping ground”. Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, a retired judge of the Supreme Court and an iconic figure among the jurists has made this point more bluntly. The proposed transfer to Sikkim, he has written in The Hindu, implies “as if litigants of Sikkim can submit to corrupt justice”. To this one must add that Sikkim is a border and sensitive state and it should be spared avoidable controversies. There is no doubt that of all the democratic institutions of the Indian republic the highest judiciary is the most respected. For, the people know it to be the last and dependable defender of their rights constantly under threat from executive and legislative action. But let me point out that this was not always so. During the Emergency (1975-77), the judiciary had blotted its copybook so badly that it took successive benches some years to restore the judiciary’s earlier position in the public mind. It would be a tragedy of grave dimensions if the credibility of, and respect for, the higher judiciary were eroded once again. Unfortunately, this danger exists today and not merely because of the foregoing. There are several other cases of alleged wrongdoing by judges that have also been brushed aside one way or the other. One of these in Punjab has been dubbed the “case of mistaken identity”. The broad facts are these: One night someone delivered a packet containing Rs 15 lakh at the residence of Justice Nirmaljeet Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Infuriated, she called in the police. During the subsequent inquiry, which the CBI took over later, several suspects were arrested and the investigators concluded that the money was really meant for another judge, Justice Nirmal Yadav. She, of course, denied this emphatically. But the Chandigarh Bar and sections of the public agitated for legal action her. The way out of the problem: Justice Yadav’s transfer to the Uttrakhand High Court amidst great resentment in that hill state. Meanwhile, Punjab newspapers have been reporting that the CBI has filed an application in the trial court where some persons are still arraigned seeking to withdraw the whole case because the premier investigation agency is denied the permission to prosecute the judge concerned. By contrast a Delhi High Court judge simply resigned when he discovered that the prosecuting authorities had built up a watertight case against him. Thereafter the case against him was mysteriously dropped. He then tried to withdraw his resignation but without success. No less curious is the case of Calcutta High Court Judge Justice Soumitra Sen whose impeachment was sought by none else than the Chief Justice of India. After a ding-dong legal battle in Kolkata, the matter disappeared into limbo. This is not a pretty picture, My Lords. How extremely difficult, if not impossible, it is to get an erring judge impeached should be clear from the 1993 case of the Supreme Court Justice V. Ramaswamy. The Congress party decided to abstain from voting. So there was no way to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. Something else has to be done, therefore. That is where Justice Krishna Iyer’s sage advice comes in. After asking whether the Indian Penal Code “is in coma”, he suggests that the Penal law “must begin functioning against the robed brethren”,
too.
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Pesticide deficiency Arjun
Singh, our riding instructor, the 6’3” retired President’s Guard, whose voice tore across the riding ground and even poured through the closed windows of our hostel rooms in Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussoorie, had high hopes from Amandeep Gill, our only friend in the Indian Foreign Service who matched him in height. But to Arjun Singh’s dismay Amandeep was never keen enough to keep his knees pressed against the belly of the horse. The last straw came the day Sultan, the notorious horse, sensing lack of interest in our friend, ducked all of a sudden whilst cantering, making Aman slide to, swirl around and hang from the horse’s neck, his arms garlanding it, all in one swift motion. Arjun Singh could no longer contain his anguish and burst out, “Arre Sahab Sardaron kee izzat ka kuchh to khayal karo.” Amandeep had, however, realised years ago girls prefer brains to brawn. While we, the lesser mortals were dreaming of becoming Collectors of districts, Amandeep seeing in himself the country’s ambassador to France in due course, had started learning French, even before selection. His philanthropic side had come to the fore in the preparation days, when side by side, he would tutor a circle of friends, co-aspiring for civil services. As they say God takes care of those who care for others; his best looking Student did not make it, but fell for Sir’s charms and they lived happily ever after. Having worked in Geneva, the US, Iran and Sri Lanka on important assignments, Amandeep’s deep humanism surfaced again a few years back when he floated “Farmers First Foundation” to promote organic farming and to make it viable for the farmer by way of a mix of interrelated activities. On a recent visit he paid us, he veered the conversion to his passion and explained how the use of pesticides and plant hormones to maximise yield of fruit and vegetables and make them picture perfect, is eating into the foundations of our physiques like termites. Grains and pulses are no different. The pesticides are seeping into our cells, resulting in unexplainable conditions like infertility, allergies, deformed dentures, breast cancer, tumours and other conditions that were unheard of, just half a century ago. The way he narrated it, shook us, making it difficult to turn a blind eye to the subject. On being asked how the economics works out, he explained, organic food does cost more, may be 50 per cent or so but then food and air are the only things that enter our systems. Isn’t it prudent to spend more there, than change sofa covers and curtains to keep up with the trends and suffer in hospitals later? Seeing hope in my eye, he promptly handed me the number of a friend, doing organic farming near Chandigarh. After he left, I pondered over the issue for some time and SMS-ed him, “Ok Aman, we will switch to organic food but you will have to assure us that our bodies, so used to contaminants will not start suffering from “pesticide deficiency”, making us take “pesticide supplements” alongside organic
food.
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What honour in killing?
Another
honour killing in India — a young boy of 18 strangles his 16-year-old sister when he sees her in a compromising position with her boyfriend on April 9, 2010, in Sonepat, so near the national capital of New Delhi. Ved (27) was killed in 2009, by a mob from his wife, Sonia’s village after he arrived to retrieve her, as she was being held by her family against her will. The bodies of Manoj (23) and Babli (19) were found floating in an irrigation ditch in Karnal district in July 2007, their hands and feet tied, after the Banwala panchayat ordered their deaths for marrying within their sub-caste, or gotra. Prabhjot Kaur and Pradeep Singh of Ferozepur were shot down in broad daylight as they arrived at a school so that the bride could sit for her English exam. Though honour killings have taken the lives of so many women, surprisingly, it is the first time that there has been actual punishment — the death sentence to six people who were involved in the 2007 case of Manoj and Bubli in Haryana. These heinous crimes against women are isolated stray cases if one studies them in juxtaposition with other causes of death as in natural calamities or diseases or wars. So maybe we can continue are somnambulistic lives after a bit of horror and pity. But are we forgetting that this is the society we live in, where such extreme reactions to women are still permissible? Then no wonder the lesser crimes like domestic violence, rapes, desertions, social pressure, unequal opportunities, lopsided or no education do not bother us at all! For every honour killing that occurs in the world, there are thousands of women suffering silently, through lesser trauma of all kinds of oppression. When we let the lesser crimes be permissible, we pave the way for more heinous crimes. We live it and we accept it in its milder form and thus it gets validity to be taken to its logical conclusion and that is to kill a woman who cannot be controlled by milder forms of suppression. This concept of honour, of course, is more applicable to women than to men since they are objects, symbolising the home and the hearth, and carry family traditions like chastity, dress codes, morality and submissiveness to patriarchy. For every woman who dies of honour killing, there are hundreds who die a daily death when they are less privileged than their brothers in the family, when their career options are narrowed down to suit the family’s needs, when their desires to reach beyond their limited social status is continuously crushed, when they are made to feel lesser by their husbands for not contributing o the finances of the family, while their paternal homes had never equipped them to do so! For a majority of women in South East Asia and the Islamic world, every little achievement is a triumph, because it is achieved against so many odds. Women’s sexuality is socially a very difficult aspect to handle in a patriarchal set-up. In such a society the Man symbolises the external world of wars, occupations, finances, livelihood and sexuality. The woman, though, is confined to the home and thus reflects the culture, home, family values, morality, compromise, submissiveness and subordination. While a man’s sexuality can find expression in many ways outside the family and home, and yet, let order prevail, the woman’s sexuality can subvert that order and the family, as in cases where she looks outside her marriage or if she gets involved with a man of another caste or tribe, or if she flaunts her body or sexuality as in transgressing dress codes. Since the unwritten rule of her subordination is so imbedded in the psyche of people, any kind of defiance on her part is viewed as a threat, not just to patriarchy as a whole but very immediately, to her male family members who are not accustomed to such courage from their female counterparts. The essence, then to be understood, is that honour killings are just extreme symptoms of a disease that afflicts our whole society. We cannot root out a symptom unless we reach the malaise itself. Any kind of discrimination against women, whether mild or extreme, needs to be dealt with seriously. Empowerment, through reservation in the elected seats of the legislature, through education, through equal opportunities needs to be the prime objective on this path of providing a levelled platform to women. In many cases women’s plight is seen only after their death, because society is so used to seeing them in a subjugated position, that unless the media highlights a case, it is given no cognizance at all. Why do we as a society wait for our media or our police or our politicians to take all the initiative and onus? How many of us at one time or another have been witness to violence or discrimination against women in our neighborhoods or with our maids, or in offices or sexual exploitation against innocent children and how many of us have actually had the courage to confront the violator or inform the police about it? Why do we resign ourselves to the plight of women and to the barbaric unwritten laws they are subjected to, till they are actually killed? Unless we as a society recognise the discrimination against women which is done at a basic level in their everyday lived reality, in their paternal homes, in their marriages, at their work place; the extreme form of crimes against them, like honour killings will continue to happen. Women have so long and so tremulously walked on uneven and unlevelled ground that society has often not heard their whispers unless they became wails. Let us hear those whispers, while there is time, before crimes like honour killings silence them forever. The writer is a freelancer based
in Goa
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Woman as head of household The
Census of India defines the Head of a Household as the person who generally bears the chief responsibility of managing the affairs of the household and takes decisions on behalf of household members. The head of the household need not necessarily be the oldest male or an earning member. The head of the household can be a female or even a younger member of either sex. According to the 2001 Census, the number of households in India was 194 million. Of these, 0.5 million were living in various types of institutions like jails, hospitals, hostels, hotels, messes, and orphanages, where a group of unrelated persons lived and were labeled as “houseless households”. The remaining households were categorised as “normal households”. The prevalence of females as the head of the household is quite common among all the major religions. Of the 20 million female heads of households, 16 million were Hindu, 2.4 million Muslim, 0.8 million Christians, 0.3 million Sikh, 0.2 million Buddhist and 71,617 were Jain. The highest proportion of female heads of households per 1,000 males was among Christians (179/1,000) and the lowest among Jains (97/1.000). The ratios among the two major religions — Hindu and Muslim — were quite close to each other — 113 and 118 respectively. The number of members among 193 million households varied tremendously. There were 7.6 million single-member households and, in 44.5 million households, the number of members was between 7 and 14. It is quite interesting to note that the deeply rooted joint family system is in existence even today in India as 2.3 million households had 15 or more members living together and taking meals from a common kitchen. On average, in one among every 10 households the head was a female. Of 193 million households, the heads of 173 million households were males and 20 million were females. By definition, the head of the household need not necessarily be the eldest member or of a particular sex, 1.9 million among them were of less than 20 years of age and, among them,1.5 million were males and 0.4 million were females. Similarly, among the aged heads, numbering 11.0 million, the heads of household were aged 70 and above, 9.0million of them males and 2.0 million were females. Of the 173 million male heads of the households in India, 4.7 million were never married and 161.3 million were currently married. Female heads of households have an interesting story to tell. It is not expected that women play the role of head of the household only after the death of the male head. Of the 20 million female heads of households, the highest number was of widows — 13.2 million — but 5.4 million were currently married. The share of younger female heads of households who were less than 20 years of age was 3.5 per cent of the 20 million female heads of households which was significantly higher than the younger males — 2.7 per cent. Younger girls at their tender age of less than 20, irrespective of their marital status, also shared the burden of successfully managing a household. The total number of such girls in India was 411,047 and the majority, 347,308, were never married and 43,339 were married. The remaining 20,400 were widowed or divorced. We have thus to appreciate that women are gifted with more tolerance, patience and ability to face challenges, perform well and even outshine men. Of the 3.6 million elected representatives in the local self-governing bodies more than 1.0 million were women who were elected from among 5.0 million who contested the elections. The present step of reserving 33 per cent of the seats in Parliament for women is quite heartening and a major step in the direction of empowering women in our society. It will be most interesting to see how many more women are listed as heads of households in India’s next census, coming up in 2011. Look out, men!
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Life has come full circle for Chiranjeevi, the popular film star whose foray into politics has been a flop show.
Faced with a bleak political future, the chief of the Praja Rajyam Party is contemplating getting back to doing what he is best at: Acting. The 53-year-old megastar, considered the Amitabh Bachchan of the South commanding the highest remuneration in the industry during his heyday, says he is ready to don the grease paint to entertain his fans. “If the people and the industry want me, I am ready to get back to acting,” declared the ageing star, who had acted in over 150 films in a three-decade-long career before taking the political plunge in 2008. Dark and handsome, Chiru, as he is referred to in film circles, is a mass hero. When he entered politics, he was instantly projected as a harbinger of change who could storm to power with his star appeal like his predecessors NTR and MGR. However, his party came a cropper in the last year’s general election, drawing a blank in the Lok Sabha and managing to win just 18 seats in the 294-member Assembly. Questions are now being raised over the survival of the PRP as a cohesive political entity. Student power
As a premier institution ranked among the top ten engineering colleges in the country, the National Institute of Technology, Warangal, was only used to accolades and top honours. It was least prepared for the dubious record that came its way recently. In an unprecedented development, the agitating students at the NIT(W) campus surrounded and grilled the Director, Prof Y.V. Rao, and forced him to resign over graft charges and lack of basic amenities in the hostels. The angry students alleged that over Rs 60 crore had been misappropriated during the construction of hostels, a guest house and laboratories. After being grilled for over three hours by the students, Prof Rao handed over the resignation letter to them and walked away silently. Taking a serious note of the charges, the Union HRD Ministry asked him to proceed on leave. Who’s this girl?
For weeks the Sania-Shoaib saga remained a sub-continental obsession. However, a key player in the romantic drama aired live by news channels remained behind the camera.
Ayesha Siddiqui, a Hyderabadi girl, who claimed to be the first wife of the Pakistani cricketer and had a last laugh by forcing him to divorce her, did not come out in the open during the entire drama. No one got to see her as she chose to speak to TV channels only over the phone, citing problems of “overweight”. Despite a large contingent of the media camping near her house in Banjara Hills round the clock, Ayesha refused to come out in the public. Though her family physician, Dr Shams Babar, said she was nervous and depressed, Ayesha was her articulate best in her phone-in interviews to news channels and used them to hand out quick and sharp rebuttals to Shoaib’s charges. |
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Corrections and clarifications
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. Raj Chengappa |
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