The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Use with care
Cell phones not always a boon

It is now widely accepted that cell phone users absorb low frequency radiation from their devices. However, whether that radiation can cause cancer is still not firmly established as various research studies have come to different conclusions. There is some concern among scientists that they could cause harm to the body.

Consumer advocates and some scientists have been expressing concern about the effect of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields generated by mobile phones, whereas the industry calls these concerns alarmist.

Millions of users of mobile phones would have read, with interest, the WHO warning that there is a link between the use of wireless devices and brain cancer. Mobile phone usage had exploded worldwide since the technology was widely adopted in the 1990s. Since then, there have been studies that link mobile phone usage to cancer, and those that deny the link. WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has called for more research into the effect of these radiofrequency electromagnetic fields on human beings. As of now, it has just put the “potentially dangerous” tag on cell phone usage. Cell phone users thus find themselves in the same category as those who consume residues of the pesticide DDT, breathe in air laced with the exhaust petrol engine vehicles and coffee drinkers.

Just as the number of petrol cars and coffee drinkers is rising sharply in India, so is the number of mobile phone users, which now stands at 811.59 million. Have people stopped drinking coffee because of the advisory? Will they give up cell phones? Of course, not. But they can check their exposure to potential health hazards by exercising moderation. Cell phones have provided millions of users with tremendous mobility and are very useful devices. However, those who use these devices extensively would be well advised to limit the length of their calls. Those who have to use cell phones for long hours may do well to heed the WHO advice and use hands-free devices to reduce radiation risks. Progress should not be at the cost of health.

Sir Vidia’s diatribe
He doesn’t need a Theroux to expose his pettiness

Like The Writers Guild of Great Britain, no one worth his/her salt would like to “ waste breath” on Sir V S Naipaul’s blather of skewed gender sensibility. The ever acerbic Sir Vidia has found a new target, this time, ‘women writers’ for his caustic tongue. “ No woman writer is equal to me,” declared Sir Naipaul.

On Jane Austen, his observations were condescending, “ Couldn’t possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world.”

So, when Sir Vidia writes ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ it is a sensitive portrayal of a householder’s search to own a house. But, when Jane Austen writes ‘Sense and Sensibility’, it is a sentimental quest! For his sensitivity, he was conferred with a Nobel, Jane Austen was not. Even without a Nobel, she continues to be a popular writer and is prescribed for post graduate courses in English literature. Yet, Sir Vidia is dismissive of her.

But, Sir Vidia is known for his misplaced anger all through his life. He was unhappy in Trinidad, for the place was too limited and closed. In London, he found bias against him and felt ignored because he came from a third world country like Trinidad. In the 60s he came to India, searching for his roots, and wrote ‘An Area of Darkness.’ He was angry with India, for being such a letdown.

On the return journey from his ancestral town, a man asked him for a lift. He refused, for, he was singed. He describes it, “It was brutal; it was ludicrous; it was pointless and infantile. But the moment of anger is a moment of exalted shrinking lucidity, from which recovery is slow and shattering.”

We do not know if Sir Vidia will ever recover from this misplaced anger against women writers! The literary world is obliged to him for elevating the genre of travelogues to such literary merit! It is ironical, the day he buried the hatchet with Paul Theroux, his one time protégé, who continued to expose his ‘elevated crankishness’ for years, as an act of revenge by publishing ‘Sir Vidia’s Shadow’, the highly respected author himself exposed his petty gender bias without a provocation.

Thought for the Day

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes. — Khalil Gibran

ARTICLE

Drive against corruption
When govt, civil society come together
by Kuldip Nayar

CIVIL society and the government are seldom on the same page. The reason is not because their interests clash, but because their adversarial role does not allow them to concur. India is in the midst of an experiment which brings the two on the same side. This is on the Lokpal Bill, which has already prefixed the word “Jan” (popular) to it.

Both government ministers and civil society activists, five from each, have been sitting across the table for almost a month. They are drafting legislation to list steps to fight corruption in high places.

An ombudsman (Lokpal) institution is sought to be set up that will supervise over the entire official machinery engaged in taking action against the dishonest. Whether the Prime Minister, high court and Supreme Court judges and MPs should come within the ambit of the Lokpal Bill, which will initiate action against the delinquent, is the point at issue.

The Bill has made a substantial progress. That the Lokpal will be an independent institution and scrutinise the complaints relating to corruption in high places goes without saying. It is a good thing that its decision is subject to judicial review.

One criticism against the Bill that the Lokpal should be answerable to the people is faulty. This argument sounds good on paper. But the argument that the impeachment of the Lokpal should depend on the verdict of Parliament will tell upon the Lokpal’s independence. Political parties can join hands to “punish” the Lokpal for having taken action against a delinquent MP. Like the Election Commission, the Lokpal will be a creature of Parliament but independent to take action against MPs and ministers.

Both sides have more or less reached a consensus except on the Prime Minister and judges. Government representatives feel that the inclusion of the Prime Minister exposes the office to frivolous charges and political vendetta. Activists argue that the Prime Minister would be tried on charges of corruption, which will be first screened by a high-power committee. As for the judges, New Delhi wants to set up a judicial commission to process the allegations against them and to pronounce judgement. The emerging argument is that the judges will be out of the ambit of the Lokpal once the commission comes into being.

Differences are minor and agreements major. The government has accepted the demand of the activists to place under the Lokpal the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate and other investigation agencies. This is a welcome step because the CBI and other agencies are only at the beck and call of those in power in Delhi. The Vigilance Commission appointed by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri has been non-functional. It is better to abolish it. The vigilance officers can be part of the investigation force under the Lokpal.

After five meetings—which were constructive, according to Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal— one got the impression that the government was forthcoming to take steps against the corrupt. Activists were happy that their demands were being met. It was too good to be true. Now the government has shown its hand. It does not want the Lokpal to have the authority to conduct a probe against the Prime Minister on the matter of his probity. Nor does the government want the judiciary to be scrutinised by the Lokpal. And MPs, even caught with their hands in the jam jar, are not under the Lokpal purview. Justice Santosh Hegde, one of the activists in the dialogue, rightly asked at the last meeting that the government should tell what the Lokpal is supposed to do if practically everybody who counts is going to be out of its reach.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, also on the ministerial committee of the dialogue, says that civil society is itself divided. That is a good thing, not something detestable in a democracy. The problem before the nation is not how to correct the ills of civil society, but how to eliminate corruption in high places. Probably, this question would not have assumed the shape it took-spontaneous demonstrations in response to Gandhian Anna Hazare’s fast-if one scam after another had not tumbled out of the government’s closet.

Nobody has ever doubted the personal honesty of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But one was horrified to see that he knew about the corrupt deals of at least Telecom Minister A. Raja and did not do anything till the media uncovered the scandal. Even now the media had to do the exposure job in the case of Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran. He made favours to a company which invested in turn in Maran’s television network. The Prime Minister has not till today asked him to quit the Cabinet. The government may need the support of the DMK, Maran’s party, to survive. Must the nation suffer for what the Prime Minister once rationalised as a “coalition dharma”?

Today, the government faces a crisis of credibility. People are not sure whether what it says is correct and whether what is explained, when exposed by the media, is the right explanation. The constitution of the Lokpal may retrieve the confidence of people in the Manmohan Singh government. When he himself has said that he, as Prime Minister, is willing to be scrutinised by the Lokpal, why should the ministerial team raise this question?

The Lokpal was first suggested by the Santhanam Committee when Shastri was the Home Minister. Topics like the Prime Minister’s office were not raised. The matter was left at that. The ruling Congress party has been discussing the Lokpal issue off and on but never went beyond having it in its election manifesto. The government cannot now face the reality because at least two of its Prime Ministers have been found lacking integrity.

The judiciary is 15 per cent corrupt, according to a statement made by a retired Chief Justice of India a few years ago. The government has done nothing. The judicial commission to which the high court and Supreme Court judges would be answerable is not even on the horizon. What do the people do when they see judgments palpably favouring the rich and the powerful?

In the face of the government’s volte face, what does civil society do? It would be foolhardy to walk out of the talks until the government is fully exposed on its duplicity. Since the entire talks have been tape-recorded, if not video-taped, the activists should reproduce what the ministerial team said in the beginning and how its earlier position has changed.

Had there been a constitutional way to hold a referendum, it should have been conducted to find out how the public is reacting. Maybe, the government should go back to the people to get a verdict on its steps to dilute the Lokpal.

MIDDLE

The lone crusader
by Mahesh Grover

It was a big day for the animals. They were collecting in response to the orders of the King, to decide on the manner of appointment of an adjudicator of disputes.So, all of them put on their thinking caps and assembled before the King, who commenced the meeting in his usual baritone: “You are free to give your views about the qualities of the adjudicator before we select one”.

“He should have a tough exterior and a soft interior”, came a voice from the crowd.

“He should be patient; as patience is also an indicator of wisdom”, called another.

“He should not have any vices”, came yet another voice.

“He should be a hard worker and a crusader,” opined another.

“He should not be harsh and should be soft spoken,” was another shout, before everybody ran out of ideas

The King peered over his spectacles, and said: “Very valuable suggestions. Now which of you has all these qualities?”

Each looked at another sheepishly, embarrassed, even as some sniggered.

“So there is no one who can become an adjudicator,” he roared in displeasure.

“You can consider me,” a hesitant voice came from the crowd, and the turtle stepped out to present himself before the King.

“I have a tough exterior, soft interior, am patient, have no vices, I work hard, speak softly and am not harsh on anyone”, said he.

“Err ... seems correct,” said the King and appointed him as the adjudicator.

All sorts of disputes relating to territory, possession, lust and passion, came to the adjudicator. Even the sovereign King came to him complaining violations of his territory despite his faecal markings.

The adjudicator was thus burdened with work which piled up due to his patient disposition which gave rise to a common refrain that he was slow in deciding disputes.

The King, perturbed over the delays, confronted the turtle with the issue, who replied: “I have to be patient lest I conclude wrongly, but I need your cooperation. Why don’t you refine some laws and reduce friction in society?”

“We are animals and we will continue with our ways. You correct your ways,” retorted the King.

Soon the people started talking about the turtle. “He is inefficient”, “he is slow”, and this chorus turned into a crescendo and then a voice echoed: “Down with the adjudicator; he is CORRUPT”.

The turtle looked on timidly; his tough exterior cracked under the strain of work and the onslaught of allegations. He tried to save his neck by pulling it back into its shell and said to himself rather sorrowfully: “I thought, I had all the qualities which were required of an adjudicator, but I forgot, I also have a soft underbelly”.

He, however, quietly bore on; as a lone crusader with no one to extol his virtues but plenty to condemn him.

OPED sports

Money, Power and politics
World football has been rocked by allegations of bribery and corruption in the controlling body. Although England led a spirited but futile bid to defer the presidential election in FIFA, which has enormous wealth and clout overseeing football in 208 countries in the world, the big daddy of football remains unmoved. What follows is a British perspective of the stand-off.
Robin Scott-Elliot & James Lawton

FIFA President Sepp Blatter at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich following the corruption row that has engulfed football's governing body and threatened his own stranglehold on the top job in the sport. Blatter was cleared of involvement in an ongoing bribery probe. — AFP PHOTO

Sepp Blatter was duly elected this week for a fourth term in charge of the world football’s governing body. The 75-year-old Swiss acknowledged that he had been “personally slapped” by the events of the last few weeks during which FIFA faced an escalating crisis. But it was England who were on the receiving end, the level of vitriol taking the chief executive of English Football Association (FA) by surprise.

Sour grapes

It culminated in an extraordinary attack by Julio Grondona, a FIFA veteran, who veered off script to accuse England of “telling lies”. Earlier in the day the Argentine had described England as “pirates”. Representatives from Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cyprus and Fiji also followed to lambast England’s stance.

Angel Maria Villar Llona, the influential Spanish member of FIFA’s executive committee added his voice, also swerving away from the subject he was supposed to be addressing, to accuse England’s stance of being based on sour grapes over the failed 2018 World Cup bid.

The FA, which wanted the election of the President to be deferred, was voted down by 172 votes to 17. The Scandinavian associations pushed for an independent panel to investigate the slew of corruption allegations, without attempting to delay the election, while the German FA preferred to work towards reforms from within.

FA’s Bernstein said: “It gives me no pleasure to give this address. I have been advised that it is better not to speak but I have decided to ignore that advice. We are subject to criticism from governments, sponsors, media and the wider public. With this background the election has turned into a one-horse race.This should be avoided both for the sake of FIFA and for the president. A coronation without an opponent provides a flawed mandate.”

Backing Blatter

Selemani Omari, president of the FA of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said: “FIFA belongs to 208 associations, not one or another. We’re ill at ease with people who wield unfounded accusations. He who accuses must provide evidence. We have no lessons to take. If there is a single candidate, sometimes it is because we are satisfied with the candidate.”

Then the Cypriot delegate, Costakis Koutsokoumis, took to the lectern. He said cuttingly: “Yes we are facing allegations. Allegations, what a beautiful English word that is. Someone stands up, says a few things in the press and then these things take their own body and mind, they are expanded, take a seed in our minds without most of the time a single shred of truth.”

Later in the Congress, Grondona was supposed to be speaking about FIFA’s finances, but grasped a chance to deliver the most withering attack on England. “We always have attacks from England which are mostly lies with the support of journalism, which is more busy lying than telling the truth.

“We have seen the World Cup go around the world, to South America and Africa, and it looks like this country does not like it. It looks like England is always complaining; so please, I say, will you leave the FIFA family alone, and when you speak, speak with truth?” It was his second outburst against England. Earlier in an interview with a German press agency, Grondona called England “pirates” and added: “Yes, I voted for Qatar, because a vote for the US would be like a vote for England. And that is not possible. But with the English bid I said: Let us be brief. If you give back the Falkland Islands, which belong to us, you will get my vote. They then became sad and left.”

Blatter’s bluster

What is truly nightmarish about FIFA is the impotence of those who have long cried that the governance of world football is an abomination.

This is true to such an extent that you have to suspect if FIFA was in charge of some decrepit banana republic, rather than the world’s most popular game, some of its most outrageous figures might be found hanging from the nearest lamp posts.

Not an outcome to be advocated by any reasonably law-abiding citizen, of course, but let’s be honest; wouldn’t it be intriguing to see if FIFA president Sepp Blatter and some of his foremost cronies could maintain expressions of unchallengeable smugness even under such fraught personal circumstances ? The chances are they probably could, because if the history of Blatter’s reign, as that of his Brazilian predecessor Joao Havelange, is characterised by anything, it is an insuperable belief in his ability to shape the organisation quite any way he chooses.

It is necessary only to stroll casually back through the 13 years of Blatter’s presidency to find examples of not just his disregard of his critics and their claims that FIFA was riddled with corruption but his open contempt.

In Seoul nine years ago he put down various rebellions in the wake of the catastrophic collapse of FIFA’s marketing organisation - amid huge debt and claims of outrageous profiteering within the organisation - and was voted into another term by “acclamation”.

The African challenge of Issa Hayatou had faded away and the whistle-blowing of Fifa’s then secretary-general, Michael Zen-Ruffinen, had also been shoved aside.

Zen-Ruffinen had done much to organise the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea and for a little while it seemed he would be sacked on the eve of the tournament as part of Blatter’s jubilantly packaged revenge. Instead he left “amicably” some time later, but not before Blatter had claimed triumphantly that Zen-Ruffinen would be “thrown out of the door by Friday. The executive committee is going to take care of Mr Clean”.

The language was chilling but then we have known for some time that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Here, on the broadest face of it, is indeed absolute power, power untrammeled by any of the normal restraints imposed by well ordered and passably just societies.

This was the bedrock of Blatter’s authority when he appeared this week to face questions about the latest pantomime of political chicanery that led to the weekend withdrawal of his rival Mohamed bin Hammam from the presidential election. There can be no mourning for the fall of Bin Hammam, the man who has the outrage of Qatar’s World Cup hosting triumph set against his name, of course, but nor can there be a scintilla of pleasure in the latest triumph of football’s Mr Big.

It is nothing so much as the confirmation of the style that in 1998 first carried him into office on the coat-tails of Havelange, the man whose policy of nurturing the hopes, and no doubt in some cases the bank accounts, of Africa and Asia he pursued with so much zeal and acumen.

For Blatter there is maybe one unwanted accolade. It is that no-one has ever been more adept at squeezing out the very pips of world football; no-one has walked so surely into the super league of man-manipulation. Havelange worked for a voting edge to neutralise any growth of scepticism among the major football nations - and Havelange’s strategy has been for so long his own inheritance.

Reforming FIFA

The overwhelming conclusion has to be that some of the resignation about the futility of reforming FIFA, of bringing it into the orbit of decency, has to be challenged. FIFA may be a law unto itself but it is not one that cannot be undermined, perhaps one day fatally, by a properly motivated and supported campaign by any government which recognises that football is more than a mere pastime.

Of course it is something that can engage the passions of the world. We saw that at Wembley last Saturday night when a huge audience tuned in to see Barcelona’s beautifully gifted team fulfil a most perfect expression of a game revered in every corner of the universe.

It is simply not good enough to shrug away the dichotomy between what Barcelona achieved and what FIFA can do to the game and its image on a routine basis. There is a duty to undermine FIFA now with every means. We cannot send in the SAS or the Seals but we can wage another kind of war aimed at ridiculing and ultimately destroying a sickening empire.

FIFA, we are constantly told, is beyond reproach or effective censure. But when critics of the 1994 World Cup in America asked Henry Kissinger if it was possible to put grass into indoor stadiums, he said: “Well, we did get a man to the moon.” Who could say that bringing down Sepp Blatter isn’t also quite a noble cause? — The Independent