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Row over Rahul’s
remark Caution on
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Learning
Mandarin
Declining
water-table in Punjab
The
British way
“Commitment”
to live together
Dispel confusion
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Caution on concessions
An unfortunate political controversy has erupted on the issue of concessions to the upcoming refinery at Bathinda. A joint venture of state-owned Hindustan Petroleum and Mittal Energy of steel magnate L.N Mittal, the refinery has been delayed for too long. Now when 92 per cent work on the refinery has been completed Mr Mittal has started pressing for an interest-free loan of Rs 400 crore every year for the next 15 years. This comes to Rs 6,000 crore before the loan repayment starts in the 16th year. Significantly enough, according to an agreement signed on August 12, 2005, the Punjab government had already agreed to grant an interest-free loan of Rs 250 crore annually for five years, which adds up to Rs 1,200 crore. It is unusual for a company to renegotiate the terms of a project on its completion. But the recent global recession has hit industry everywhere and governments have offered incentives where necessary. Mr Mittal has been lobbying for five times more concessions than what was initially agreed to. He has also roped in the PMO and the Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab is not too averse to considering Mr Mittal’s request. But the government’s hands are tied. Its precarious financial state does not permit any liberal aid to industry. The state has witnessed a major political showdown over debt and subsidies leading to the removal of Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal. The Punjab Congress president, Capt Amarinder Singh, has also made it known that he would reverse any government decision on sops to Mr Mittal if voted to power in the 2010 assembly elections. In this scenario it will be politically suicidal for the ruling alliance to succumb to a billionaire’s pressure. Ideally, the government should have a well-defined industrial policy listing concessions on a par with, if not better than, other states for promoting industrialisation. Rewriting terms for industrial projects midway is always suspect and is bound to provoke protests. |
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Learning Mandarin
It
is heartening to know that from the next academic session students in the CBSE schools in India will get an opportunity to learn Mandarin, the language spoken by the majority of the Chinese. The move that was initiated by HRD Minster Kapil Sibal when he visited China was appreciated in the India-China joint statement issued after delegation-level talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The laudable step has to be seen in the light of the growing trade relations between the two countries and the expanding job market in China. While it is an accepted fact that by and large most people in the world are multilingual, Indians who grow up learning more than one language are believed to be naturally multi-linguistic. As a rule every language helps us grow and expand both our vision and mental horizon. In today’s world which is but a global village, learning a foreign language not only helps build cultural bridges but can also open many doors. Knowledge of Mandarin can be especially useful to business executives. Since all rules and laws in China are in Mandarin it is difficult to do business in the neighbouring country without understanding the language. The CBSE initiative is likely to train many and be able to meet the future requirement of Mandarin experts, which is likely to grow in the next decade. However, though China has promised support and training, meeting the requirement of the CBSE-affiliated 11, 438 schools in the country will not be a cakewalk. Lack of teachers and absence of text material is likely to pose impediments. Nevertheless, if the overwhelming response to the expression of intent by the CBSE schools is an indicator, well-begun is half done. Moreover, the introduction of the language at the primary level will not only inculcate interest in the language but also in India’s powerful
neighbour. |
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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. — Roosevelt
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Declining water-table in Punjab
The
people in Punjab, more so their political leaders, are quite oblivious of the impending disaster on the underground water front in the state. The state’s policies are primarily responsible for the catastrophe in the making. Umpteen times subject experts and knowledgeable persons have warned us on this aspect, but our policy makers and the authorities responsible are sitting with their eyes closed like the proverbial pigeon before the cat on the prowl. The cultivation of the paddy crop, the guzzler of water under the extent cultivation technology of puddling the soil before transplantation and crop growing in the constantly ponded water in the field, is not being discouraged by providing a sustainable alternative. Instead, with free electricity for tubewells and the policy drifts that allow the relaxation of standardised norms for the procurement of paddy by the government, the cultivation of the rice crop with the help of traditional technology is being inadvertently encouraged. This may lead to serious consequences affecting the underground water-table, soil quality and the agro-ecological environment. Even this year, which experienced a fairly good rainfall, the water-table receded, though at a lower rate. Unfortunately, the political leaders of the state are living under the illusion that if power supply to the farm sector is priced, they will lose their vote banks. They have failed to realise that the real issue and what the farm sector needs is the regular supply of quality power, not the inadequate and uncertain supply of free electricity. Inadequate power supply necessitates the use of diesel engines, which is costlier and increases the overall cost of production. It was the Akali-BJP government that made power supply free for the farm sector, yet they lost the next general election in 2002. Again, the Congress government, after fixing flat rates for the supply of electricity to the farm sector in the earlier years of its regime, made the power supply to this sector free on the election eve. The Congress, too, lost the elections in 2007. Still the political leadership refuses to learn any lesson from its experience. Similarly, the urban sector water supply is not rightly priced; hence the misuse and overuse of water in this sector. Here again vote bank politics is playing its negative role. Water in the urban areas is being wasted through washing cars, sprinkling the roads and the wasteful use inside our houses. Punjab — whose river water has been dammed and taken away from the basin, with the main river having been converted into a narrow channel through earthen embankments — is devoid of adequate recharge of the underground aquifer. As a consequence, even the heavier rains do not provide enough recharge. On the western side, the Ghaghar seasonal rivulet causes devastating floods only. On the other hand, with the crop cultivation intensity going up to 187 per cent, the water requirements of crops have been ever increasing. The situation is such that water supply from the canal system does not meet even 20 per cent requirement of the crops being grown in the state. Additionally, even the seasonal flash floods have also been checked through damming the flow of chaos. Under the circumstances, the state cannot take liberties with the over-use and misuse of the available scarce water resources. Of course, the agricultural scientists and extension workers of Punjab have successfully tried various water-saving techniques such as the laser levelling of fields which saves between 15 and 20 per cent of water, putting tensio-metres in the fields that enable farmers to rationalise the application of water to the rice crop and the direct seeding of paddy which saves water between 30 and 40 per cent. But none of these techniques will be fully adopted if the power supply to the tubewells is not right-priced. It is a well recognised fact that the farm sector in any economy, whether it is a developed or a developing country, cannot survive without production and marketing subsidies. Yet investment subsidies should be preferred for their long-term positive effect, and not the input subsidies that are trade-distorting in their very nature and are consumed just in one season, necessitating their continuation forever. Such subsidies gravitate mostly to the bigger farmers at the cost of the small and marginal farmers and create vested interests leading to the emergence of political pressure groups, which are often unreasonable and do not let the policy-maker resort to rational decisions. To the extent the input subsidies have to be given, these should be targeted to the small and marginal operators, either on the basis of the acreage cultivated or the power units used. There is no logic in providing across-the-board subsidies that gravitate to the bigger farmers with little benefit to the deserving small and marginal operators. The mantra is that subsidies should be rationalised to serve the purpose of technology promotion, improving the access of poor farmers to costly inputs, building of capacities for a long-term effect, focused and targeted to the really needy persons. The need of the hour is that subsidies must be utilised to economise the use of irrigation water by promoting the practices that save water. For instance, the better alternative would be to subsidise the farmer on the capital costs that save water and the use of electricity and charge the variable/working costs of water and power supply. Then, incentivise the farmers on water-saving methods and techniques. Let us say, if the farmer laser-levels his fields under cultivation and to the extent he does so, he gets reduction on water and power charges up to 10 per cent. Further, if he installs tensio-metres in his fields and applies water to the fields as indicated by the instrument, he gets another 5 per cent rebate. If he resorts to the technique of direct seeding without puddling and uses tensio-metre, he gets up to 40 per cent rebate on the bill. Thus, by using water-saving techniques, the farmer will be able to save on his power bill up to more than 50 per cent over and above the lower bill he will get on the lesser use of power. But all this is possible if water and power are right-priced covering all the variable/working costs for the supply of these inputs to the farm sector. However, there still remains a question mark on the will of our political leaders to take rational decisions and on coming out of the misplaced perception that vote banks can be sustained only through the free supply of power to the farm sector and not by fixing the right price on water supply to the urban sector.
The writer, a former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, Patiala, is a well-known agricultural economist.
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The British way
A
Smith & Wesson revolver — .32 bore, no- prohibited — is a cute little weapon much fancied by many a connoisseur of small firearms. So, while in Leeds (United Kingdom) in November, 1986 in connection with an overseas training programme, I ordered one for £235 from Pheasant Valley Shooting Range, Globe Road, Leeds. The proprietor, Stephen Newby, dwelling on the modalities of the delivery explained: “Agent Colin Vincent of the DJS Clearance Ltd, would hand over the weapon to you at the airport; it would have to go with the baggage in the plane’s hold. You pay Colin £35 as handling charges.” I agreed to the proposition and gave Stephen the details of the departure flight: British Airways 147, Terminal 4, Heathrow Airport, London, November 16, 1025 hrs. “Alright, the agent will see you with the weapon at 8.30 at the information desk,” he informed me. “Where is the agent based?” I asked him. “At London,” he replied. “How would you send the weapon to London?” I asked him, again. “By the national postal service, the Royal Mail,” he said. I almost gasped. Back home in India, such valuables were hardly sent by post, specially if the delivery was desired by a specified date. “Are you sure the stuff would reach Colin at London and in time?” I queried. “It would,” he assured me. A day before the departure, I tried to call Colin at London to confirm the receipt of the weapon: there was no response. A call to Stephen also didn’t come through. I reached the airport 2½ hours before the plane’s departure, to be there in good time. I went upto the information desk and enquired about Colin; he was not there. I waited till 8.15, but he hadn’t turned up. I dialled his number from the pay-phone; nobody picked up the call. Convinced that I had been cheated of my money, I proceeded to the British Airways counter, had the baggage checked in and collected the boarding pass. As I was proceeding towards the immigration/security check, I heard an announcement on the public address system: “Mr Purshottam Lal, boarding British Airways Flight 147 for New Delhi is wanted by Mr Colin Vincent at the information desk.” I stopped in my tracks and looked at the watch; it was 8.30, the hour fixed for the appointment with the agent. I hurried back; Colin was all smiles. He handed over the packet containing the revolver. I expressed the difficulty that the baggage to go in the plane’s hold had already been got checked in. An airport staff arrived; he radioed to somebody on his walkie-talkie. The checked in baggage was brought back, the tapes were unfastened, the weapon, after inspection by the security, was put in the suitcase which was retaped and loaded on to the conveyor belt. All this was done with utmost dispatch, within about 5 minutes. The work over, I moved on. “Mr Lal, what about my handling charges?” I could hear Colin at the back, hollering to me. In the huff, I had forgotten to pay him (and also, to thank him). “Oh, I am sorry,” I said, and paid him and thanked him, too.
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“Commitment” to live together
Traditionally, the Indian society might have frowned upon live-in relationships. But the growing number of such couples indicates a degree of acceptance. Women, however, are still the losers
“Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a domestic relationship,” said a bench of Justices Markandey Katju and TS Thakur, cautioning that in future, claims for financial relief arising out of live-in link-ups would increase in India. The Supreme Court of India has noted that just any ‘live-in relationship’ does not entitle a woman to alimony. To make a ‘live-in’ legal the Supreme Court says that the couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses; they must be of legal age to marry; they must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried; and they must have voluntarily cohabited for a significant period of time. Making an attempt to iron out certain ambiguous situations, the judges also said that if a man has a ‘mistress’ whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship “in the nature of marriage.” Conscious that the judgment would exclude many women in live-in relationships from the benefit of the PWDVA, the apex court further said it is not for this court to legislate or amend the law. Parliament has used the expression ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ and not ‘live-in relationship’. Considering the increasing number of live-in relationships in our times in India, the Supreme Court wants the scope of the provision for maintenance under section 125 of the criminal procedure code (Cr.P.C.) expanded, so that women in such relationships do not face economic deprivation after living in a domestic set-up for long periods of time. The issue has assumed and rightly so huge dimensions that Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly have urged the Chief Justice SH Kapadia to set up a larger bench to consider whether “the living together of a man and woman as husband and wife for a considerable period would raise the presumption of a valid marriage between them and whether such a presumption would entitle the woman to maintenance under section 125 Cr.P.C.?’’ Secondly whether proof of marriage is essential for a claim of maintenance under the section? Also whether a marriage performed according to customary rites, without strictly fulfilling the requisites of the Hindu Marriage Act, or any other personal law, would entitle the woman to maintenance under the section?” The bench also wanted an expansive interpretation of the term ‘wife’ to include cases where a man and woman have been living together as husband and wife for a reasonably long period. The judges said the PWDVA gave a very broad definition of the term ‘domestic abuse’, which must include economic abuse. The law traditionally has been biased in favour of marriage. Public policy supports marriage as necessary to the stability of the family, the basic societal unit. To preserve and encourage marriage, the law reserves many rights and privileges to married persons. Cohabitation carries none of those rights and privileges. It has been said in the context that cohabitation has all the headaches of marriage without any of the benefits. What the PWDVA does is that it deters men from having ‘live-in-relationships’ for the fear of providing maintenance to his partner. On the other hand if a married man provides maintenance to his partner he is denying what was the economic right of his legal wife and children. What needs to be understood is that the institution of marriage and issues that emerge from it is essentially a concept that needs to be perceived in a time frame and specific context. A set of norms valued and acceptable in one context cannot easily or rather should not easily be planted in another context. Today’s India is changing at a pace that was socially unimaginable say 50 years ago. Issues like ‘live-in relationship’ that were taken up by the western society are gradually percolating into our social norms. The most obvious contributing factor being the transformed urban life which itself is growing from factors associated with urbanisation and increased income, long hours of work, often late in the night and virtually no time for family. But the issue that needs our conscious attention is that is Indian society ready for this trend? It needs to be noted that whatever one may say the fact is that women will ultimately emerge as the most vulnerable and possibly the greatest losers. Children that result from such relationships are also to be kept in mind. The conventional argument that has always been cited in favour of India’s unique concept of the family being responsible for looking after the young and the aged is also an issue of concern. The PWDVA is silent on the status of children out of a ‘live-in relationship’. Finally it must also be appreciated that laws and legal obligations notwithstanding foundations of a relationship are based on commitment. Marriage is just another commitment. If people are shying away from marriages – one reason could be that people are scared of commitments that grow from marriage and are worried– what if it does not work out? Divorce procedures in our country are cumbersome and taxing. May be they need a more liberal reframing so as to decrease the element of
fear.
(The writer is Director, Women’s Studies, Research Centre, Kurukshetra
University)
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What judges said ON October 21, 2010 a Two-Judge Bench of Supreme Court comprising Justices Markandey Katju and TS Thakur in D Veluswamy vs D Patchaiammal ruled that in their opinion not all live-in relationships will amount to a relationship in the nature of marriage to get the benefit of the PWDVA, 2005. Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a “domestic relationship.” If a man has a “keep” whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purposes and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage. No doubt, the view we are taking would exclude many women who have a live-in relationship from the benefit of the PWDVA Act, but then it is not for this court to legislate or amend the law. Parliament has used the expression "relationship in the nature of marriage" and not "live in relationship".
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Dispel confusion The
diverse societal opinion on the growing trend of “live-in-relationship” apart, the judicial viewpoint over the same has been rather cautious. Of course, things have undergone a change after the enactment of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA)
whose provisions also extend to women living-in a relationship in the nature of marriage. By doing so, albeit in a veiled manner, the legislature has finally endeavored to accept the contemporary global phenomena appreciated and attempted by some persons among the Gen Next. In August this year, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court ruled that a live-in which has been long lasting will be considered as marriage and children born out of it are not illegitimate. This verdict came just days after a Delhi High Court ruling which laid down that a partner in a live-in relationship can walk out of it at any point of time without any legal consequence and neither of the partners can complain of infidelity if one deserts the other. It held that “live-in is a walk-in and walk-out relationship. There are no strings attached to it nor the same creates any legal bond between the parties. Such a thing is a contract of living together which is renewed every day by the parties and can be terminated by either without consent of the other party.” In mid-2008, the National Commission for Women recommended that a woman in a live-in relationship should be entitled to maintenance if she is deserted by her partner. The commission sought a change in the definition of ‘‘wife’’ as described in the Section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which deals with maintenance and suggested that it should include women involved in a live-in relationship. The move aims at harmonising other sections of the law with the PWDVA that treats a live-in couple’s relationship on a par with that between a legally married husband and wife. The state of Maharashtra also okayed this proposal in 2008 but it requires the final nod of the Centre. Section 125 provides for maintenance of wife, children and parents, who cannot maintain themselves. As of now maintenance can only be claimed by a woman who is a wife, has either been divorced or has obtained a divorce, or is legally separated and is not remarried. It is hoped that the Supreme Court would urgently interpret the whole issue thoroughly in order to ensure that there is no room for any ambiguity for lower courts in the country while dealing with issues related to live-in. Until the concept is granted statutory recognition by Parliament, it is imperative for the judiciary to clear its stand over the same so as to protect the interests of women in such relationships.
(The writer is an advocate Punjab and Haryana High Court)
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