The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Pain of the rain-hit
Govt apathy adds to their misery

Every year during a normal monsoon heavy rain causes much damage to crops and houses, and lays bare infrastructural deficiencies in large parts of Punjab. Precious lives are lost as unsafe buildings collapse. Those residing close to the rivers and canals are the worst hit when waters spill over. People’s misery, it seems, has ceased to shock the ruling politicians, who focus more on political point-scoring over inter-state water disputes, the Hansi-Butana canal being the latest addition, than on desilting and repairing the canals and rivers. They may bemoan the regular decline of the water table, but won’t try rainwater harvesting.

While petty politicking over the Ghaggar floods engaged the attention of Punjab and Haryana politicians, each blaming the rival for the sorry state of affairs, and “mahapanchayats” were organised to demand the control of floods, no one bothered about the other rivers, the Beas and the Sutlej, which further stretched their limits. No study has been done to assess the annual loss to human life, animals and the state economy. Since the gravity of the problem is not realised, a solution is unlikely and unexpected. Death stalks roads. In the hill areas of Himachal Pradesh accidents become more frequent as highways prove inadequate for a growing number of vehicles. Holidaymakers visiting the hills to spend an extended weekend had a harrowing time on choked roads with rain hammering the fragile hills.

In most towns sewerage is either non-existent or non-functioning. In cities, barring posh areas, common people are subjected to unbelievable suffering. The all-pervasive filth spreads disease, which strikes the poor the most, sapping their energy to earn a living and eating away their limited savings. Clean drinking water becomes more inaccessible. The government has to respond effectively to the known dangers of urban chaos, disease and floods. The monsoon does not come as a surprise. Yet lack of official preparedness is appalling. Politicians wake up only to demand or announce relief.

Indian cricket dethroned
It was arrogance that did them in

THE magnitude of the reaction against India’s poor performance in the three Tests in England is a little surprising. It seems that the entire cricket-following public of India had assumed that the Indian team would walk over its rivals. On the contrary, it was always going to be a tough assignment and the additional factors of poor attitude, poor preparation and largely a sense of arrogance have come back to haunt the side. It was rather presumptuous for all concerned to expect that the English, who were mentally and physically completely tuned-in to the job of dethroning India, would simply fold up and hand the Pataudi Trophy to India. This arrogance was India’s Achilles heel. Mental and physical preparation for this series was at bare minimum.

Half the team arrived in England from the West Indies, while the star players, who had opted out of that series after a very long and arduous season, reached from India. But among them were some players who were unfit and as the series progressed, it became even more evident that little was done to change that situation. Zaheeer Khan limped out of the attack on the first day of the series and the bowlers have struggled to fill that chasm, while the English batsmen made merry.

Technically too it was a nightmare. In essence, India are 0-3 down in the series since the batsmen, who have often been given very hospitable invites to bat first, failed miserably. While the younger players, fed on the diet of instant cricket, were always expected to be tested by the swing and bounce they would face from the English fast bowlers, even the seniors, who have earlier done well there were found wanting. Rahul Dravid was left to do many roles — including wicket-keeping — and one cannot expect to win any team game on performances from one person. This was an abject lesson for Team India as well as skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. One can only hope that they have learned some valuable lessons from it.

Thought for the Day

Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than by a thousand arguments. — Emmons Nathaniel

ARTICLE

Misgovernance in India, Pak
Rulers’ promises and performance
by Kuldip Nayar

WHEN India and Pakistan are celebrating their 64th independence anniversaries, the scions of the two dominating families are also happily entering their adulthood in the political arena. Rahul Gandhi in India and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Pakistan are equally conscious of their dynastic clout that gives them the power and privileges they have come to enjoy without holding any government office.

They dress up simply - Rahul in kurta and pajama and Bilal will soon be returning to Pakistan and wearing salwar and kameez (the dress that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto prescribed). But both dynasties have tonnes of money, most of which they have reportedly stashed away abroad. Every one remembers the luxurious country estate priced at crores of rupees (more than four million pounds) that Asif Ali Zardari purchased in the English county of Surrey. In Rajiv Gandhi’s regime, the Bofors gun scandal was a byword for corruption.

Both dynasties of Nehru-Gandhi on the one hand and Zulfiqar-Benazir Bhutto on the other are conscious of their support among the gullible whom each have fed on slogans: Mrs Gandhi promising the electorate to oust poverty (gharibi hatao) and Bhutto’s vowing to give the common man access to food, clothes and housing (roti, kapda aur makaan).

Without doubt they have each let their respective nations down because people on both sides still wallow in poverty and helplessness. But the past sacrifices of Jawaharlal Nehru in one country and those of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir in the other have still sustained the hope that the two dynasties would one day deliver the dream which they had sold.

Indeed, the two families have the halo of martyrdom around them which the Congress in India and the Pakistan People’s Party are able to cash in on during the polls. One may criticise Mrs Gandhi for driving morality from politics during the 1975-77 Emergency, but, at the same time, who can forget that she was assassinated by her own security men whom the intelligence agencies correctly identified as doubtful. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto may have rubbed his opponents the wrong way or suppressed free speech, but people recall him as their saviour who gave his life because he wanted democracy to live.

When will the peoples of the two nations remove the blinkers from their eyes is difficult to say because Pakistan remains a feudal society and India a middle class-led democracy, with a wobbling Parliament. Yet one thing is certain: the common man will some day assert himself and undo the spell of the dynasties and their misgovernance.

Stirrings are already visible. The Anna Hazare phenomenon in India, underlining the appointment of a Lokpal (Ombudsman), is bringing out people’s resentment in the open. Strangely, in Pakistan more and more people are finding solace in fundamentalism as if religion will find a solution to their problems or dismal poverty. Unfortunately, terrorism is the harvest of seeds of fundamentalism sown at one time.

Both India and Pakistan are victims, although the latter is more to blame because it had made terrorism part of its policy. Beheading of two security men by terrorists who then returned to the heaven of Pakistan has remained uncondemned by Islamabad. In India, Chief Minister Narendra Modi has suspended an IPS officer because he alleged Modi’s complicity in the Godhara-Gujarat riots.

Since India is an open society, the corruption of politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen is discussed even in Parliament. The two major parties, the Congress and the BJP, are vying with each other in hurling charges of corruption. The fact remains that both parties have indulged in corruption and nepotism wherever they are in power in the states and whenever they assumed office at the Centre. In Pakistan, corruption in high places is an open secret, but it is seldom discussed because the government is harsh while dealing with the whistle-blowers. Many journalists have died while exposing even a minor scam.

Sadly, none of the political parties in either country ever thought of providing free education. This should have been a priority with Nehru, or with the first martial law dictator in Pakistan, Gen Mohammed Ayub Khan. Had the two nations been educated, they would have been resourceful enough to start enterprises and oust social ills from their lives. Today — after more than six decades — India’s literacy level is around 70 per cent while Pakistan remains way down. Instead the rulers on both sides have cultivated prejudices in the hearts of the people. The hatred between India and Pakistan is one of the fallouts.

Another fallout has been the lack of character in the upper class. It has no sense of social obligation. The dazzling malls that have come up are full of women who flaunt their Rs 16 lakh purses and of men who think that the clothes with foreign brand names give them distinction and the intellectual air which they otherwise lack. They have no pride in the indigenous goods. Even otherwise one cannot buy eatables which are not adulterated. The worst is that even medicines are not without impurity. Children are the real sufferers because the best of hospitals do not provide a clean environment and many patients pick up infection from there.

Perhaps it is time for the two countries to introspect about where they are heading and what are their goals. A little soul-searching cannot do any harm. It is no use picking one party or one person as a scapegoat. In this bathroom we are all naked. The problem with us is that we have lost sensitivity.

We may talk about poverty, but we, the privileged class, really do not know what the poor go through, or how they live. Mahatma Gandhi, who led us to freedom, said that the country would now usher in an era where everybody would have food to eat, a house to live and an opportunity for gainful employment. Nehru talked about a tryst with destiny and promised to fulfil the dreams with which the people had lived during their bondage.

The founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, promised equality to all in the matter of religion and opportunities. His dream of a pluralist society has been belied by modern Pakistan. India can at least say with pride that it has established a secular society. Yet what the rulers and dynasties in both countries have to realise is that they are far from what the founding fathers had promised. At least they should have met the minimum needs of the common man and, above all, they should have established democratic, secular polities.

On the 64th birth anniversaries of India and Pakistan, people should make it clear that each country is not a playground for any dynasty. Democracy means rule of the people, by the people and for the people.

MIDDLE

‘Ek chhoti si’ love story
by Jupinderjit Singh

There would hardly be anyone who has not felt love ever. Generations remember some stories. But some stories remain in the hearts only. A friend of mine is living his own ‘chhoti c love story’ these days.

He was young. She was younger. He was in Class tenth. She was in ninth. He liked her. She found him cute. He had no idea what the longing was all about. She was too innocent to understand anything.

He was the star player and the head boy. She was the first one to dare to wear trousers amidst the sea of suits and salwars. He looked in her dove eyes. She looked down.

He loved the dimple chin. She loved his humour. He followed her back home on his red bicycle. She was always ahead on her pink bicycle. He never sped up to catch up. She always peddled slowly thinking he would.

Then, one bigger boy on a bigger bicycle overtook him. He could not keep pace. The boy was aggressive and conveniently pedalled his cycle in between them. Then, there was another one on another bicycle and then a bike and a scooter and then even a car. The girl kept growing beautiful and her suitors bigger, stronger and richer.

He was silent. He was sad. He always thought tomorrow he would say it all. But when tomorrow became today, he let it become yesterday and yesterdays became the past days, the past life.

They met years — donkey’s years — later, on a social networking site. His intense eyes still peeped through the specs. Her dimple chin was more prominent in her double chin. Her husband and kids smiled from her profile picture. His wife looked on from the side of their family picture.

“Hi,” he began. She smiled. “You remember me?” he asked. “Yeah,” she wrote.

He punched in a smiley.

“And life?” he asked. “Good, he is rich and our two kids are in best school, and I see you have progressed a lot.”

“Thanks. And love?” he asked. She paused long.

“Yes, I experienced love. It was little short of what I felt on the road when someone used to follow me.”

“That someone was one of the many,” my friend couldn’t resist, “but they were all rich and handsome.”

“Others? Who? I didn’t notice any. I felt only him everyday and I live those moments again and again.”

“I wish you had given ‘him’ some sign, maybe... ,” my friend left it incomplete.

“It is destiny, as they say,” she wrote.

My friend smiled: “Yes, and remember John Keats said in the Ode on a Grecian Urn about the permanency of love. The lovers kissing each others in the painting on the urn would always remain locked in the immortal love, unlike the real world.”

“And so those two shall be always on that road,” she punched along with a smiley. He repeated and both said time to sign off, time for the loving family.

OPED-DOCUMENT

No single step can eradicate corruption: PM
In his address to the nation on the 64th anniversary of Independence of the country the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, spoke on the latest challenges, including corruption, Lokpal, price rise, land acquisition law and terrorism. Excerpts from the speech:

I have been addressing you from the historic Red Fort for the last seven years. In these seven years, our country has achieved much. During this period, we have travelled rapidly on the path of development and have seen success in many areas. However, I am also well aware that a lot remains to be done. We have to banish poverty and illiteracy from our country. We have to provide the common man with access to improved health services. We have to provide employment opportunities to each one of our youth.

The road ahead is long and arduous. Particularly, the prevailing situation both inside and outside the country is such that if we do not act with understanding and restraint, our security and prosperity can get adversely affected. The world economy is slowing down. The developed countries, especially America and countries of Western Europe, are facing economic problems. There is unrest in many Arab countries of the Middle East. There are some people who want to create disturbances in the country so that our progress gets stalled. All this can have a negative impact on us. But we will not let this happen. I know that if we work together, we can face any challenge. However, it is necessary that we rise above personal or political interests and build a consensus on issues of vital national importance.

In these seven years, the pace of our economic development has been rapid. We have achieved this success despite the global economic slowdown of 2008 and rising prices of energy and commodities in world markets.

We have strived for reducing inequalities in the country. We have enacted laws which would guarantee our people their basic entitlements. After the rights to education, employment and information, we will soon enact legislation for providing food security to the people.

Strictest possible action against the corrupt

In the last few months many instances of corruption have come to light. In some cases, functionaries of the Central government face allegations of corruption. In other cases, it is the functionaries of various state governments.

We are taking the strictest possible action in cases of corruption that have surfaced. These cases are sub-judice and hence I will say nothing more on this subject.

It is essential that when we consider these issues, we do not create an atmosphere in which the country's progress comes into question. Any debate on these matters should reflect the confidence that we can overcome these challenges.

Corruption manifests itself in many forms. In some instances, funds meant for schemes for the welfare of the common man end up in the pocket of government officials. In some other instances government discretion is used to favour a selected few. There are also cases where government contracts are wrongfully awarded to the wrong people. We cannot let such activities continue unchecked.

I believe that there is no single big step which we can take to eradicate corruption. In fact, we will have to act simultaneously on many fronts.

We will have to improve our justice delivery system. Everyone should know that quick action will be taken against the corrupt and punishment meted out to them. If our system delivers justice in an effective manner, government officials would think twice before committing a wrong act out of greed or under political pressure.

We want a strong Lokpal to prevent corruption in high places. We have recently introduced a Bill in Parliament to achieve this. Now only Parliament can decide what type of Lokpal legislation should be enacted. I am aware of the differences of opinion on some aspects of the Bill. Those who don't agree with this Bill can put forward their views to Parliament, political parties and even the press. However, I also believe that they should not resort to hunger strikes and fasts-unto-death.

Judiciary can't be under Lokpal

It is not appropriate to bring the judiciary under the ambit of Lokpal. We believe that any such provision would go against the independence of the judiciary. However, we do need a framework in which the judiciary becomes more accountable. It is with this aim that we have introduced the Judicial Accountability Bill in Parliament. I am confident that this Bill will be passed soon.

An alert Press and an aware citizenry can be very helpful in the fight against corruption. The Indian Press is known for its independence and activism throughout the world. The Right to Information legislation that we have enacted has enabled our Press and people to keep a strict watch on the work of the government.

Today many government decisions, which in the absence of this Act would escape public scrutiny, are coming to light. I believe that this is a big step forward in eradicating corruption.

Many times, government discretion is misused in the allocation of scarce resources and in the grant of clearances. We have examined this issue. We will put an end to such discretionary powers wherever possible.

Any government awards contracts worth thousands of crores every year. There are frequent complaints of corruption in these decisions. We had constituted a committee to suggest measures to reduce corruption in government purchases. The committee has recommended that, like many other countries, we should also have public procurement legislation which lays down the principles and practice with regard to government purchases. We will introduce a Bill in Parliament by the end of this year to enact such a law.

Law to make regulators accountable

In recent years, we have established independent regulatory authorities in many areas. These authorities discharge many responsibilities which were earlier in the domain of the government itself. We have no legislation which would enable monitoring of the work of these regulatory authorities and make them more accountable, without, however, compromising their independence. We are also considering enactment of such a law.

I have said so much on corruption because I know that this problem is a matter of deep concern for all of us. However, this is a difficulty for which no government has a magic wand. We are taking simultaneous action on many fronts in our fight against corruption. We want all political parties to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in this fight. To eradicate corruption, we have introduced, and will introduce, many Bills in Parliament. I hope that all political parties will cooperate in the process of converting these Bills into statutes. On the issue of corruption, I would like to say in the end that we can win the fight against corruption only when each and every citizen of India cooperates in it.

Our country is passing through a phase of sustained high inflation. Controlling rising prices is a primary responsibility of any government. Our government fully understands this responsibility. We have continuously taken steps to rein in prices. Some time we have been confronted with a situation in which the reasons for rising prices lay outside the country. The prices of petroleum products, foodgrains and edible oil have risen steeply in international markets in recent times. Since we import these products in large quantities, any rise in their prices adds to inflationary pressure in our country.

Sometimes we have been successful too in controlling inflation. But this success has not proved lasting. A few days back, the people's concern at rising prices was also reflected in a discussion in Parliament. I wish to assure you today that we are continuously monitoring the situation to find out what new steps can be taken to arrest rising prices. Finding a solution to this problem will be our top-most priority in the coming months.

Land acquisition should be transparent

I am fully aware of the tensions caused in some parts of the country because of acquisition of land for industry, infrastructure and urbanisation. Our farmers have been especially affected by such acquisition. Land acquisition is no doubt necessary for projects of public interest. But it should take place in a transparent and fair manner. The interests of those whose livelihoods are dependent on the land being acquired should be fully protected. We will ensure that no injustice is done to anyone in the process of land acquisition. Our government wants to replace the 117-year-old land acquisition law by a new land acquisition and rehabilitation law which is forward looking and balanced. We have already prepared draft legislation and have initiated steps to build a consensus on it. We will soon introduce a Bill in Parliament to this end.

Last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai warn us that there cannot be any slip-up in our vigilance as far as the fight against terrorism is concerned. This is a long battle to be fought jointly by the Central Government, the state governments and the common man. We have been steadily strengthening our intelligence and security agencies and will continue to do so in the future also.

We are also taking all possible steps to overcome the challenge of Naxalism. We want to eradicate the very reasons which give rise to this problem. Therefore, we have started a new scheme for the accelerated development of 60 backward and tribal dominated districts. An amount of Rs. 3,300 crore will be spent on this scheme in a period of two years.