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SC ban on Narco tests
Populism in retreat |
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Battlelines are drawn British polls may throw up hung Parliament THIS time British parliamentary elections have evoked more than usual interest worldwide. Besides Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party and the Conservatives led by David Cameron, the Liberal Democrats headed by Nick Clegg are no pushover either.
Reviewing the NPT
Picasso and his paintings
Uncertain Britons vote today
Two-party era in twilight
Nick Clegg: Rise of third force
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SC ban on Narco tests
THE Supreme Court judgement on Wednesday banning Narco analysis, brain-mapping and polygraph tests on the accused is a big blow to agencies like the CBI which have been using such techniques as important tools in investigation. In a landmark ruling, a three-member Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice Dalveer Bhandari has said that if an individual is forced to undergo these tests, it would amount to “unwarranted intrusion of his personal liberty” and a flagrant violation of his fundamental right under Article 20 (3) of the Constitution which prohibits self-incrimination. The Bench made it clear that these tests will not be admissible as evidence in the courts as the law prohibits an accused from giving evidence against himself. As for polygraphy tests, it observed that the investigating agencies will have to follow strictly the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission. Significantly, the investigating agencies have conducted these tests in a number of high profile cases such as the fake stamp paper kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi case, Nithari killings accused Surinder Koli’s case and on Abu Salem in the Gulshan Kumar murder case. In the Arushi murder case, her parents underwent the lie detector test but no Narco test was conducted on them. Narco test involves psychotherapy and the patient is deeply sedated with medication. Though it is believed that inhibitions are reduced and the subject cannot manipulate answers during this test, opinion is sharply divided over its efficacy. While the issue as such has been a subject of national debate, many senior advocates believe that Narco analysis is “imperfect, uncertain and hazardous” often leading to “wrong results”. Not surprisingly, it was not conducted on Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, found guilty in the Mumbai terror attack. Now that the Supreme Court has banned these tests, the authorities will have to evolve new methods of investigation. The police ought to change its colonial mindset and to show greater respect for human rights. It is common knowledge how the accused are tortured these days, sometimes resulting in custodial deaths. The apex court ruling may help ensure a fair trial for any individual, but agencies like the CBI ought to deploy more humane methods of investigation to ferret out the truth and bring the guilty to book.
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Populism in retreat
Populism
is being rolled back in bits and pieces in Punjab. The latest facing the axe is the free water supply to the urban poor, who may also have to pay nominal sewerage charges if Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia’s proposal goes through. Incidentally, the minister belongs to the BJP, which considers the urbanites its vote bank. He had also co-scripted the government’s fund-raising plan with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal under which farmers were asked to pay for electricity and water and claim reimbursement of power bills. The Kalia-Sukhbir report has put some cash in the almost depleted coffers of the state. Though a gradual shift in political thinking about reforms is welcome, the leadership actually has no alternative. Saddled with an ever-growing debt, which is to reach Rs 71,000 crore by the end of this fiscal, the government has to raise resources from every available source to save the state from a financial catastrophe. After the withdrawal of octroi, the municipal corporations in the state are starved of cash. The visible deterioration in the civic amenities is a pointer to that. The urban chaos is becoming unmanageable with the city dwellers being deprived of regular supply of power and clean drinking water. Central funds are available for urban uplift under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme. The state can also have an access to easy funds from the 13th Finance Commission if it meets the prescribed conditions like the levy of user-charges for services and the imposition of house tax in the cities. People must pay if the essential services are to be provided and maintained. If the poor are being asked to make sacrifices in these days of high food inflation, the state leadership too must avoid extravagant expenditure, axe political deadwood and shed administrative flab. |
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Battlelines are drawn
THIS time British parliamentary elections have evoked more than usual interest worldwide. Besides Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party and the Conservatives led by David Cameron, the Liberal Democrats headed by Nick Clegg are no pushover either. Most pollsters have predicted a hung parliament unless some voters change their mind at the eleventh hour and swing the pendulum towards the Conservatives, who believe in “old politics” and carrying on “business as usual”. The Nick Clegg factor, it seems, is working strongly in favour of a drastic change in British politics. The Liberal Democrats’ tremendous appeal particularly among the youngsters is likely to upset the calculations of those who stand for the status quo. The emergence of the third major political force has led to a serious demand for switching over to proportional representation as the prevalent first-past-the-post system does not allow the formation of a government representing the majority of the electorate. A party which manages to have more than 50 per cent of the MPs on its side forms the government, though they may not represent the majority of the electorate. In the system of proportional representation, the number of seats that a party gets is more or less in proportion to the votes cast. In the event of a hung parliament, there is the strong possibility of the ruling Labour and the Liberal Democrats coming together to keep the Conservatives at bay. Even if the Conservatives win more seats than the other two parties, the convention in Britain says that first the incumbent Prime Minister will be asked to try to form a government. Thus, there are greater chances of Britain getting a non-Conservative government again. This means the likelihood of proportional representation replacing the first-past-the-post system, as the Liberal Democrats have been openly demanding such a change and the Labour leadership stands for holding a referendum for the purpose. Politics in Britain is truly at crossroads today. |
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Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in. — Lord Chesterfield
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Reviewing the NPT AS representatives from the nearly 190 countries, party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), gather this month for four weeks to take stock of the accord that lies at the heart of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, the entire regime is under tremendous strain and it is no longer evident if it can be salvaged unblemished. The strains had come into sharp focus ever since India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices in 1998, thereby challenging the extant global nuclear order. But the US-led international community found that challenge manageable. Despite its mixed results, the nuclear non-proliferation regime is widely recognised as one of the most successful arms-control arrangements made ever. And the NPT has been the mainstay of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the key international standard-setting document for conduct in the nuclear era. It has been argued that the non-proliferation treaty has had considerable success in persuading nations to forgo nuclear weapons as evidenced by the termination of nuclear weapon-related programmes in Argentina and Brazil, the elimination of South Africa's nuclear arsenal, the transfer of former Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia, and the detection and freeze of North Korea's nuclear facilities. When the NPT came up for extension in 1995, widespread opinion among policymakers and experts was that the NPT needed to be extended as it had worked very well. This was premised on the belief that an extension of the NPT for unlimited duration would not only preserve all the gains made by the nuclear proliferation regime as a whole but would also make sure that future progress gathered momentum. The significance of the NPT for the nuclear non-proliferation regime remained in it being the sole global instrument through which non-nuclear-weapon states could make a legal commitment not to acquire the ultimate weapon. The NPT got an indefinite extension in 1995, leading some to make a claim that it had been the most successful arms control treaty ever negotiated despite some problems primarily associated with a lack of movement towards nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers. Even after the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, scholars remained upbeat about the non-proliferation regime. It was argued that India and Pakistan were exceptions to the rule and the non-proliferation regime had succeeded beyond the expectations of its founders. No one has, however, thought it fit to examine the “failures” of the non-proliferation regime closely so as to discern as to why, after all, this regime has not worked in the regions where it was most urgently required. Today, new challenges have arisen from all sides and the same US-led international community seems to have no idea about how to respond. North Korea is a nuclear-weapon state while Iran seems to be moving steadfastly in the same direction. Moreover, the increasing complicity between the so-called “rogue” states is creating a second-tier of nuclear states who refuse to play the nuclear norms set by the West during the hey days of the Cold War. There is evidence that Iran has provided North Korea with data from its missile tests to enable Pyongyang to make improvements in its own missile systems. On the other hand, North Korea may be supplying Iran with engineering suggestions for further testing. North Korea may also be trying to raise hard currency by peddling its nuclear missile technology in the global black market. While it is accepted now that the
A.Q. Khan network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, international inspectors are fretting over the fact that the Khan network may have even sold blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon. It’s not clear who received these blueprints. Most damaging has been the role of China — a nuclear-weapon state that has single-handedly wrecked the NPT by not abiding by its commitments of not spreading nuclear weapons technology. There is a real danger that if nothing is done with regard to Iran and North Korea, other states like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil may be tempted to go nuclear. Moreover, with nations willing to trade their nuclear and missile technologies in the global black market, there is a real danger of these technologies falling into the hands of terrorists. It should be clear to even the lay observer that the NPT has been a mute spectator of these recent developments. In fact, Iran has used its right as a member of the NPT to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes to move towards nuclear weapons. And North Korea casually walked out of the NPT when it realised that the treaty was becoming an impediment to its acquisition of nuclear weapons. The world has also taken note of the fact that India and Pakistan have become members of the global nuclear order without ever bowing to the pressures of the
NPT. The NPT was always a flawed document in many ways and various countries, including India, had pointed to its flaws over the years. Recent global developments make it amply clear that unless a thorough review is undertaken of the
NPT, it would soon become a paper tiger, if it is not so already. Given the horrors of September 11, 2001, the danger of nuclear terrorism and the prospect of numerous Irans and North Koreas just a screwdriver-turn away from nuclear weapons, it is time for the international community to promote a bolder nuclear arrangement than the
NPT. India has always been dissatisfied with the global non-proliferation and arms control regime because it constrained its autonomy to make foreign policy decisions as dictated by national interests. India had argued that an inequitable regime that gave only a few countries the permanent right to have nuclear weapons and denied others this right was inherently unstable. There are reasons for India to feel vindicated by its long-held stance on these issues. Today, as the global nuclear non-proliferation regime crumbles under the weight of its own contradictions and India gains acceptance as a de facto nuclear-weapon state, India can rightfully claim that it was one of the first states to draw the attention of the world community to these challenges. A radically new global security architecture is needed to tackle the problem of proliferation and terrorism. The old security architecture has failed and it is time this got recognised if the world hoped to tackle the emerging challenges. India along with the older nuclear powers should rise to the occasion and offer ideas on a new framework for international security suitable for the 21st century. Typically, world powers not only challenge the status quo that is inimical to their interests but also provide responsible alternatives to manage the challenges facing the globe. It is time for India to respond to its rising global
profile.
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Picasso and his paintings
A painting should reflect how the artist perceives the subject, and you appreciate it for the effect it has on you, the viewer. During my younger days, I did not have many definite ideas about art and artists, for the simple reason that I did not know enough, though I did appreciate art. Looking at Rodin’s Thinker was an experience that touched the soul; the impressionists left an impact of a painting that far transcended realism. The fundamentals of art are universal, and people are ready to pay maximum dollars to possess paintings by masters. A painting by Pablo Picasso has just been sold in New York for $106.5 million - a new world record. The 1932 painting, Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust), has Marie-Therese Walter, the artist’s mistress, in a reclining position and also in a bust. Picasso included his own profile in the blue background. Picasso was a painter about whom I had strong views. When I was young, Picasso’s work left me totally unmoved and impressed, though, to be fair, I had graduated from an earlier stage when I felt that Picasso was a bit like me, someone who couldn’t paint and thus odd shapes like triangles for the nose! I lived in ignorance for decades. I remained somewhat suspicious of the person whose full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. Although he dominated the 20th-century art scene, he left me unmoved. By the end of the century, I had seen the world, but not Picasso’s place in the world of art. It was the dawn of the 21st century that enabled me to finally shed this bit of ignorance, and my prejudice towards Picasso. The trigger was a colleague who had just visited an exhibition of the works of the great artist mounted at the National Museum, New Delhi. The Government of France had sponsored the “Picasso: Metamorphoses, 1900-1972, From the French Collections, from December 2001 to February 2002”. Gaurav had seen the exhibition and was bubbling with enthusiasm, talking constantly about it to my colleagues and me. His account of how great the exhibition was, and how it aided his understanding of the artist enthused me enough to drive down to Delhi one Sunday morning, straight to the museum. Having started early, I found myself there by the opening time and went in. Here were 122 works — graphics, drawings, collages, assemblages and sculpture. What an array divided into various sections that profiled the panoramic sweep of Picasso’s prolific career. Blue Period paintings, early turn-of-century, brooding contemplative works, the brilliant sculptures, his portraits, which were thoughtfully placed along with photographs of the subjects... Picasso’s greatness finally sunk into. I realised, not for the first or the last time, what a fool I had been, in not getting rid of the negativity of ill-formed opinions based on prejudice. Thank God, providence and prodding had enabled me to discover the greatness of an artist. I went out for lunch and came back to the museum. I bought some prints and generally spent as much as I could afford before driving back to Chandigarh that evening. I had thought of meeting friends, as I always do when I am in Delhi, but that didn’t happen. I needed to be alone to absorb what I had experienced during the
day.
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Uncertain Britons vote today BRITISH political leaders campaigned around the clock in a final push for votes before a parliamentary election that opinion polls suggest could redraw the political map. Prime Minister Gordon Brown hinted that he could step aside if his Labour Party fails to win a fourth consecutive election on Thursday, as most polls suggest.
Recent surveys have indicated that David Cameron, hoping to end his Conservative Party’s 13 years in opposition, would either win a slim majority in parliament or fall just short of it. But a new poll showed the race tightening again. The YouGov survey for the Sun newspaper showed Labour cutting the Conservatives’ lead to five points while the Liberal Democrats slipped back. That outcome would make Labour the largest party in parliament, though without a majority. “I have never known so many undecided voters as we have seen in this election,” Brown told a rally in Manchester. Cameron planned to campaign overnight, with events scheduled in northern England early Wednesday as he seeks support from the third of voters said to still be wavering. The rise of the LibDems has added to the unpredictability and turned the contest into a three-way fight. The LibDems could hold the balance of power in an inconclusive election and will use that to push for a proportional voting system. Brown, finance minister for a decade until 2007, indicated earlier he could step aside if Labour flops at the polls. “I will take full responsibility if anything happens,” Brown told GMTV. “But I still think there are thousands of people who have still to make up their minds.” Cameron accused Brown of lying about alleged Conservative plans to cut benefits, saying he had conducted the most negative campaign in modern British political history. “It’s been the most disgraceful campaign,” he told a rally in Scotland. Brown’s campaign was undermined by one of his candidates who described him in a local newspaper interview as “the worst prime minister ever.” Manish Sood, standing for election in Norfolk, eastern England, told Reuters he stood by his comments. — Reuters Gordon: Torment will be over soon Gordon Brown is finished. He is gone even in the scenario whereby the Tories fall so far short of a majority that there appears a stronger mandate for a Lib-Lab coalition than a minority Cameron administration. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Mr Clegg leading such a coalition, since even Labour isn’t daft enough to try to impose another leader yet to put himself before the electorate. But whoever such a PM might be, it cannot now be Gordon. He is that dead man walking. The prospect of his going fills me with neither glee nor a sense of imminent regret. After all, though he will effectively be driven out of Downing Street in Mr Clegg’s big yellow taxi, this is hardly a case of not knowing what you got till it’s gone. With Gordon, in fact, we knew what we were getting before he arrived in No 10, even if dunces like me hoped that achieving his great ambition might affect him like waking up on Christmas Day did Ebenezer Scrooge. Alas, alas, and thrice alas, in the real world even ghosts lack transformative power. Yet being an appalling PM doesn’t make Gordon a small one. Far from it, this is the largest politician we’ve known since Mrs Thatcher – a man who’d have stood tall in any age but stands out as a Titan in this one. The fact that his role model is Prometheus, with his liver devoured daily, highlights his extraordinary talents both for provoking sadistic attack and for futile regeneration after it. His resilience has been wondrous to behold these recent weeks, and if it doesn’t make you warm to him, it must instill ungrudging respect. For him to be coming down this final furlong like an express train now, albeit from 40 lengths off the pace, bankrupts belief. Even at his debating worst, when the rictus drowned out an effective closing speech, he was visibly a Gulliver among Lilliputians. —Matthew Norman/The Independent
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THIS election campaign has felt almost like a liberation. The prison walls – the stultifying, spirit-crushing assumptions of the long era of two-party politics – have crumbled. The surge in support for the Liberal Democrats has unlocked something precious: a feeling among the public that, for the first time in a generation, a radical overhaul of our political settlement could be possible.
That feeling – combined with the enduring uncertainty over the result of the election – is a tonic for democracy. The public sense that their vote matters. When one considers that this campaign began against a backdrop of rampant cynicism and apathy, stirred up by MPs’ abuse of their expenses, this transformation looks all the more remarkable. And welcome. But while this is a moment of hope and freedom, it is also a moment of danger for the popular movement for change that has been set free in recent weeks. Nick Clegg’s party has made an astonishing breakthrough. But though the mould of British politics is fractured, it is not yet broken. And the vested interest of the “old politics” could still preserve it. Despite the drama of recent weeks, there remains a considerable risk that Britain could wake up on Friday morning to discover we are in for four or five more years of “business as usual” politics under a Conservative government. Labour Party Labour seeks public support on the basis of its record in power. Gordon Brown is due immense credit for the manner in which he handled the 2008 financial crisis. And Labour can point to some worthy and lasting achievements, from political accord in Northern Ireland, to the introductions of civil partnerships and the minimum wage. But the blind support for the disastrous US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the dishonest way in which the case for that intervention was made drained the party of moral authority. And while Labour’s efforts to reform our public services and cut national carbon emissions have been a disappointment, its record on civil liberties has been a disgrace. This feels like an exhausted administration. Labour’s decision to pick up the banner of electoral reform has all the moral conviction of a sinner recanting on his deathbed. And the electoral reform it has floated – the alternative vote – is a non-proportional sham. And yet Labour’s position on this key matter, its commitment to hold a referendum on moving to a new voting system, is a thousand times better than the Conservatives’ flat rejection of the case for any change. For this reason alone, Labour, not the Conservative Party, would make a better coalition partner for the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung parliament. Conservative Party The conservative Party talks of the need for change in Britain and its leader, David Cameron, likes to emphasise the manner in which the party has renewed itself. The Conservatives are no longer the reactionary rabble that fought the 2005 election. Their focus on improving the state education system and the National Health Service does them credit. So does their plan to encourage the voluntary sector to play a greater role in delivering public services. But in a host of other areas – from criminal justice, to their hostility to the European Union, to their attitude to immigration – the shift has been superficial at best. Worse, the Conservatives have set their face resolutely against the fundamental change that would breathe new life into our body politic: electoral reform. If the Conservatives win the highest number of seats this week – an outcome that the opinion polls suggest is increasingly possible – they would be a formidable roadblock to the overhaul of the voting system that the public want and deserve. The lid could yet be slammed firmly down on all those hopes for a new way of doing politics. — The Independent |
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Nick Clegg: Rise of third force Whatever the eventual outcome of this election, the voters have spoken already. The political landscape changed suddenly after the first televised leaders’ debate, when support for the Liberal Democrats soared in a way that was without precedent in the middle of a campaign. “Cleggmania” was the equivalent of a loud cathartic scream from a bemused, frightened and angry electorate.
The noisy eruption was more shapeless than it might have seemed at first. I doubt if many of those turning towards Nick Clegg knew too much about what was in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto. Probably their disillusionment with the traditionally bigger two parties had little to do with what either Labour or the Conservatives were proposing at the election. But voters saw in Clegg a figure who could perhaps guide them away from stifling political orthodoxy as represented by the old duopoly. This recognition, however vaguely formed, had in its origins a refreshing clarity. A majority of voters yearn for a new way of conducting politics. Cleggmania was not really a new phenomenon. But the context made it fundamentally different. The backdrop to the election campaign is both an economic crisis of apocalyptic proportions and a parliamentary scandal. The near collapse of the banks and the reckless greed that brought it about should be enough to shake up politics on its own. When the MPs’ expenses scandal is added to the brew we have a combustible combination. The sudden increase in support for a third party once the election was underway has been one consequence of changes that are taking place in front of our eyes. Who would have though that the government would own several banks? Who would have thought we would be accumulating an intimidating debt to stay afloat? Political change is partly a response to wild events elsewhere. There is another factor in the hunger for political reform. In trying too hard to please as many voters as possible, Labour and the Conservative parties have blurred their identities to a point where few have any sense of what they represent. If Cameron had truly modernised his party Clegg would not have had any space by the time of the debates. Instead, Clegg espouses a politics that might have been Cameron’s if he had seriously changed his party. Clegg is pragmatically pro-European, a constitutional reformer, an advocate of sweeping redistribution through the tax system. Steve Richards/The Independent |
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The media cell of the Art of Living guru, Ravi Shankar’s headquarters here, keeps up a steady stream of press statements containing Sri Sri’s comments on various topical events. The globe-trotting guru, who has never been in a sex scandal himself, has issued a press statement against Nityananda, who is at the centre of a sleaze drama. Ravi Shankar criticised Nityananda, first citing UNAIDS guidelines and then the tantric tradition. According to him, sexual experiments belonging to the tantric tradition can be attempted by householders only. The guru with a benign smile had also issued statements on the IPL controversy and on artist Husain’s citizenship issue. Ravi Shankar seems to have fallen out with Vijay Mallya, owner of the Bangalore team in the IPL, who used to proclaim himself a follower of Ravi Shankar. Ravi Shankar’s statement on IPL criticises businessmen getting involved in sports. Phone directory these days! BSNL, Bangalore, has surprised everyone by deciding to bring out a tele- phone directory in print. A phone directory in book form has become obsolete with people doing their search for phone numbers on the internet. Besides, agencies such as Justdial are available to give you phone numbers of services available in the neighbourhood. BSNL had last published a directory three years back. Without having any demand for it as such, BSNL will again bring out a new directory and three lakh CDs of the print edition. BSNL officials here say that old habits die hard and the sale of the print edition will not be a problem. IISc graduate course Gadadhar Mishra, G. Rangarajan and Tirthankar Bhattacharya, faculty members at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) here, are all quite excited about the proposed starting of undergraduate courses in IISc, ranked number one in the country among scientific and engineering research institutions. Work on building up infrastructure for the new programme (building hostels, etc) is in progress, they said, and added that next year would see the IISc opening its doors to the undergraduate students. The four years integrated course will primarily provide science and engineering education with a dash of humanities. After passing out, the students are expected to take up R&D jobs, fill teachers vacancies in NITs and so on. |
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