O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Rahul is willing
But is the UPA ready?
Though it is for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to decide what “larger role” Rahul Gandhi can play, the very idea has infused excitement in the party’s rank and file, otherwise demoralised by electoral setbacks, scandals and criticism over “policy paralysis”. The jubilant mood, however, was cut short as another crisis gripped the UPA.

National loss
Public property not for anyone’s anger
The Supreme Court has floated the idea of making state governments pay the Railways for the damage suffered by it during violent agitations. The money may subsequently be recovered from parties or individuals responsible for damaging the public property.

Wedlock no more deadlock
But who should define cruelty?
The apex court has shown extreme sensitivity in finding acts of immaturity of a wife as a cause of ‘mental cruelty’ to grant divorce to her husband. Terming these acts — like the crumpling of ironed clothes and hiding motorbike keys — as ‘cruel’, the court stated that her false affidavit advertised in a newspaper “has frozen the emotions and snuffed out the bright candle of feeling of the husband.”

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

Unfinished land reforms
Need for out-of-box policy rethink
by S. S. Johl
Land to the tiller” was projected as a flagship land reform programme of the government after the country achieved Independence. The zamindari system and absentee landlordism were abolished and peasant proprietorship was considered to be the preferred system. Barring some categories and marginal manipulations by some influential persons through bending the provisions of the law, such as dividing the large holdings among family members and “benami” sale deeds, ceilings were imposed on agricultural land holdings.

MIDDLE

Going on a shoot
by Harish Dhillon
Unfortunately, though I grew up, like most schoolboys of the day, under the mesmerising spell of the Jim Corbett stories, I didn’t get to go on an actual shoot till I was well into my thirties. While one of my colleagues was holding forth about the new gun that he had just acquired I made the mistake of mentioning that I had never been on a shoot. There were four other teachers who were sailing in the same boat. Our friend decided that this situation must be rectified at the earliest. So a ‘shoot’ was organised.

Saturday REVIEW

CINEMA: NEW Release
Forget this Knight
So, we’re at it again, those daring Hollywood flying man-machines, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman, Batman whatever, and now they have aliases. Third in the line of Batmen (after Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) comes The Dark Knight Rises, which promises to be the last. But don’t be too sure of Hollywood’s promises, it is known to break them abundantly and flog dead horses without compunction which goes by another name—marketing.

Movies on TV

EDITORIALS

Rahul is willing
But is the UPA ready?

Though it is for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to decide what “larger role” Rahul Gandhi can play, the very idea has infused excitement in the party’s rank and file, otherwise demoralised by electoral setbacks, scandals and criticism over “policy paralysis”. The jubilant mood, however, was cut short as another crisis gripped the UPA. NCP leader Sharad Pawar, who has reportedly been feeling slighted over the denial of the number two position in the government for the past some days, has decided to assert his importance in the coalition. The party, the government and Rahul Gandhi himself may think he is ready for bigger challenges, but in the era of coalition politics, will he be able to deal with an unpredictable Mamata Banerjee, a wily Mulayam Singh and an egoist Sharad Pawar?

The dominant thinking is the Congress and its allies will contest the 2014 elections with Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Ministerial candidate. To enable him to play a bigger role, it is important for the UPA to regain power. Otherwise, Rahul would be confined to organisational matters of a party in opposition. Given the scandalous state of national affairs, the sinking feeling of economic deterioration and reforms required to push growth perpetually held up by coalition compulsions, can the UPA honestly hope for another term? There is a curiosity about what views Rahul Gandhi holds on reforms, foreign investment and development. So far the country has seen, as Law Minister Salman Khurshid put it, only “cameos of his thoughts and ideas like democratising elections to the Youth Congress”.

Expectations are high from him since he is being projected for the most powerful post in a country of a billion-plus people. Age is on his side. More than half the population of the country is below 25 now, which cannot relate to senior citizens clinging to positions of power. Young Indians are impatient with the system that fails to deliver, with corrosive corruption and with missed opportunities. A younger team under Rahul can ignite hopes for change. There is still time to set things right.

National loss
Public property not for anyone’s anger

The Supreme Court has floated the idea of making state governments pay the Railways for the damage suffered by it during violent agitations. The money may subsequently be recovered from parties or individuals responsible for damaging the public property. The suggestion probably stems from the frustration courts have experienced in fixing responsibility for such losses in the past. The instant case was of the Jat agitation that followed the Mirchpur incident. Jats in Haryana caused losses during the job reservation stir too. Before them, the Gujjars in Rajasthan had caused extensive damage to railway property in 2007. As no one has ever paid for the losses, it is the Railways that ends up bearing the cost. Causing damage to public property should be treated as an anti-national act.

However, even if we provide for sponsors of violence to pay for the damage, questions will remain first regarding fixing responsibility, and then making them pay for it. There already exists the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, that provides for jail up to five years, a strong enough deterrent if applied. This law has thus far failed to serve its purpose because of lack of political will, which would come into play even when we make perpetrators pay in cash. Most agitations are allowed to turn violent in the first place because they are political in nature, and the governments of the day indulge more in appeasement than implementation of law.

Ironically, India is a country where a man no less than Mahatma Gandhi has demonstrated — and successfully at that — what a non-violent agitation can achieve. And he did it under a colonial ruler. It is a shame that today’s political parties — all hope to run the government one time or the other — fail to show people the endless means of redress available within our democratic system. If the system fails to deliver justice, the need is to strengthen and apply corrections from within, not attack it as outsiders. In a democracy, there are no ‘us and them’.

Wedlock no more deadlock
But who should define cruelty?

The apex court has shown extreme sensitivity in finding acts of immaturity of a wife as a cause of ‘mental cruelty’ to grant divorce to her husband. Terming these acts — like the crumpling of ironed clothes and hiding motorbike keys — as ‘cruel’, the court stated that her false affidavit advertised in a newspaper “has frozen the emotions and snuffed out the bright candle of feeling of the husband.” This poetic outpouring in the court of law is not witnessed in this case alone. The denial of sex to a spouse on the wedding night as a ground for marriage annulment has been upheld by the Delhi High Court. The court has stated that sex is the foundation of marriage and denial of it amounts to cruelty.

Cruelty as a ground for divorce is nowhere defined in the Hindu Marriage Act. There cannot be a straitjacket formula for determining whether an act is cruel or not in the context of a marriage. The denial of sex by a woman in the initial period of marriage could also be due to fear and anxiety, like the strange behaviour of a wife to hide motorbike keys could be reflective of her desire to have her husband’s company. But, as the courts suggested, “it does not require Solomon’s wisdom” to understand what caused embarrassment to the husband.

Surprisingly, mutilating a woman’s face by acid is not cruelty enough for the same legal system, which has so far not worked out a law to deal with the most excruciating form of cruelty against women. If studies conducted for the Economic Research Foundation of India are to be believed, women in India stay in failing marriages for many reasons. Most of these emanate from social and financial pressures that divorced women are left to face, and they believe it is an ‘uneven fight’ as men have more access to the legal system. It is the cruelty of the system that needs to be addressed rather than defining immaturity as cruelty.

Thought for the Day

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. — Moliere

ARTICLE

Unfinished land reforms
Need for out-of-box policy rethink
by S. S. Johl

Land to the tiller” was projected as a flagship land reform programme of the government after the country achieved Independence. The zamindari system and absentee landlordism were abolished and peasant proprietorship was considered to be the preferred system. Barring some categories and marginal manipulations by some influential persons through bending the provisions of the law, such as dividing the large holdings among family members and “benami” sale deeds, ceilings were imposed on agricultural land holdings.

As a consequence substantial areas of land were declared surplus for distribution amongst the landless segments of the rural population. After Mahatma Gandhi’s initiative, Vinoba Bhave launched the campaign for voluntary donations of land under “bhoo-daan” and “gram-daan” programmes. Some of the surplus declared lands were distributed also among landless people, yet the land so distributed so far is not more than 1.3 per cent of the arable land of the country. In many parts of the country, the tenants cultivating the lands for decades even have not been conferred proprietary rights.

Though more than six and a half decades have passed after the country achieved independence, there are umpteen numbers of issues such as providing land for home for the homeless, women empowerment through land deeds in their names, tribal area and forest land disputes that remain unresolved. The task in this context remains unfinished.

There is a need for an impact analysis of the programme of land distribution undertaken so far with respect to what has happened of the small pieces of land that were allocated to the beneficiaries. After all, distribution of land in fractions of acres does not make the beneficiaries farmers over night. The system may have just bottled up the beneficiaries in the villages or the lands might have been sold, rented out or may be lying waste. It should be of interest to know how many beneficiaries may be cultivating the land allotted to them. The government is, no doubt, fully aware of this unfinished task on land reforms and had constituted a National Council on Land Reforms under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister in 2008. It is a different matter that so far no meeting has been held. Also the civil society is deeply concerned about the issue and is holding a long protest march next October.

In a welfare state, every citizen has the legitimate aspiration to own a roof on his/her head, particularly women of the families. Provision of land and financial support for houses for the homeless is a legitimate charge on the state exchequer. The allocation of agricultural land in small pieces is, however, a different game.   In order to earn an income just equivalent to the salary of an Assistant in the government, one needs not less than 20 acres of two-crop irrigated land. Such ridiculous allocations in fractions of acres, therefore, serve no purpose.

If the government is serious in giving some sort of relief to these people, the approach should be to (1) effectively implement the Land Ceilings Act, plugging the loopholes that permit violations; this will render substantial areas surplus even now, (2)  aggregate all such surplus declared areas, plus all the areas already declared surplus not distributed and abandoned lands in the mined areas and other distributable lands in blocks of reasonable sizes( say about 1,000 acres plus); this will require consolidation of holdings of the total area involved, which by itself is a necessary step to boost productivity and production of the areas so consolidated, (3) instead of allotting small areas in fractions of acres to individuals, allot these land blocks to groups of eligible beneficiaries.

These blocks of land should be converted into farm corporations or cooperatives or any other form of aggregation. The intended beneficiaries should be given shares in these corporations/ aggregates, not pieces of land. These aggregates should be adequately capitalised through the Central and state sharing of the cost of land development, provision of machinery and implements, technical/advisory staff etc. All the government schemes and programmes should be implemented on these aggregates. Government may provide an agronomist as a manager, plant protection, horticulture, animal husbandry experts and a mechanic as an essential staff to these corporations at government cost. A management committee of not more than five persons should be chosen by beneficiaries for a term of three years. This committee should be tasked to finally decide on production patterns to be followed. The manger along with his subject matter specialists will support, guide and execute the programme decided upon by the management committee in consultation with these experts.

The beneficiaries/share-holders will have prior right to work in their aggregates according to their capacities and skills and will draw wages for the services rendered. At the end of the year, net profit (after keeping 10-20 per cent reserve fund) will be prorated according to the shares held. Thus, the beneficiaries /share-holders will have two sources of income, one from work wages, if they opt for working on these aggregates, and the other from net income of farms.  An additional advantage will be that the beneficiaries will not be tied down to a land piece of uneconomic size. The system will lend him/her mobility and choice to work on the farm or elsewhere and the aggregate will command its entity in perpetuity.

Another very important related issue is the creation of land lease market in the country. At present there is a great difficulty in leasing in and leasing out of land for development and long-term operations. Small holders are reluctant to rent out their land for longer periods because of fear of losing the land to the tenants. On the other hand, those who want to rent in land to make their holdings economical at the operational level, find it hard to rent in the land for a longer period. This affects adversely the development of land, which in turn affects productivity and introduces uncertainty for the owner as well for the tenant.

There is a need for relevant amendments or enactment of a new law that would enable renting in and renting out of land for any length of time without any fear of losing the land to the tenants. This will create an effective land lease market which will be highly conducive to land development and improvement in productivity. This provision will considerably help the new allottees under the provisions of land reforms

There is also a dire need for institutional financing at low rates for the purchase of land for farmers who are operating below the level of land ceilings. With this provision, quite a large number of very small and marginal land holders, more so the new allottees under the provisions of land reforms will be benefited and will be able to quit farming and move out to the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy and other green pastures for the betterment of their lives. Otherwise, they would remain stuck in villages as disadvantaged, poor and severely under-employed segments of society and the task of land reforms in its essence will remain unfinished forever.

MIDDLE

Going on a shoot
by Harish Dhillon

Unfortunately, though I grew up, like most schoolboys of the day, under the mesmerising spell of the Jim Corbett stories, I didn’t get to go on an actual shoot till I was well into my thirties.

While one of my colleagues was holding forth about the new gun that he had just acquired I made the mistake of mentioning that I had never been on a shoot. There were four other teachers who were sailing in the same boat. Our friend decided that this situation must be rectified at the earliest. So a ‘shoot’ was organised.

Late one evening we followed our ‘leader’ through the rear entrance of the school. We had been given strict instructions as to what exactly we were to do. We were to move in single file with a distance of exactly ten feet between each individual. Under no circumstances were we to indulge in conversation of any kind. So strictly had this injunction been imposed on us that it was all I could do to keep myself from putting my finger on my lips.

At a certain point on the bridle path to Dharampur, our leader took off down the hillside and we followed. I lost my footing and a loose stone hurtled down the hillside. The look from our shikari froze me with guilt. Finally, we were at the edge of the corn fields. We sat patiently. Slowly, very slowly, the sun sank over the horizon. My legs ached with the effort of trying to keep so absolutely still. Then, much to my relief, our leader got to his feet, clapped his hands and said, “Let’s go.” We followed him back to Moti’s Corner, though I have never been able to fathom why we had to come back in single file and maintain the same pin-drop silence. I was to learn later, that our ‘shikari’ was as much a novice at the game as we were.

But the icing on the cake was still to come. The shikari told me later that it had been one of his unlucky days and invited me to join him in a private hunt for wild fowl in the wilderness around the Garden City which is now the New Field. I had my doubts but I went and early Sunday morning found us circling a tall pine tree on which our quarry sat. He gave me his binoculars to take a closer look at our prey. Once I had managed to get the glasses focussed, I saw, what I was sure was the back and beak of a vulture. He laughed at this expression of gross ignorance.

Very carefully he positioned himself, took aim and fired: the bird came fluttering down to the ground in a violent flurry of wings. When we went to retrieve it, we found it was a vulture. Whatever else this experience may or may not have achieved, it cured me of all interest in ever going on a shoot.

Saturday REVIEW

CINEMA: NEW Release
Forget this Knight
 RATINGS *****Excellent I ****Very Good I ***Good I **Average I *Poor
Ervell E. Menezes

Film: The Dark Knight Rises Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy. Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine and Marion Cottilar Duration: 165 minutes Rating **

So, we’re at it again, those daring Hollywood flying man-machines, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman, Batman whatever, and now they have aliases. Third in the line of Batmen (after Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) comes The Dark Knight Rises, which promises to be the last. But don’t be too sure of Hollywood’s promises, it is known to break them abundantly and flog dead horses without compunction which goes by another name—marketing.

Hence, rise Christian Bale after a hiatus of seven years and don those familiar suits or disguises, you have a whole lot of fans pining for you, or so is the impression created by those dream merchants and their superlatives-dropping publicity agents. Maybe it’s a new development, if one can call it that, like Spiderman, the Dark Knight alias Batman takes his bow well into (60 minutes) the film and to keep the viewer happy the script-writers have two new characters, a cute cat-burglar named Selma Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who takes the shine off Batman for a while, and terrorist leader Bane (Tom Hardy) hiding behind a half-mask and grunting inaudibly. His mission is, to destroy Gotham City.

One recognises his voice even before seeing Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, his age clearly showing (so, no close-ups) but he soon goes off-screen only to show his face at the end. That’s the plight of these former prima donnas but I still salivate over his salad day roles like the cockney casanova in Alfie in the mid-1960s.

Egging on Batman to make a comeback is Miranda Tate (Marion Cottilard) and one is likely to mix her with look-alike Selma, an old Hollywood ploy to evoke confusion in the audience. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) is a former police chief who pontificates too much (after all the film has to stretch to 165 minutes and there must be some relief from the over-action). Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who is dispensable as Hollywood humours yet another golden oldie. The FX team works overtime and the visuals are quite outstanding with cameraman Witly Pfister going great guns, but one doesn’t watch a film only for the FX.

The story is the main thing, EM Foster said years ago. What he said for the novel also applies to cinema where the narrative replaces the novel. Also, like all these Hollywood biggies it is unduly stretched out and could easily have been clipped by all of 20 minutes. It also consumes half a day (wastes, if one doesn’t like it) and that’s a large slice of time. There are surprises at the end but by then the viewer has well nigh switched off.

There are no great performances to speak of with Christian Bale going through the motions almost drearily and Tom Hardy, probably the worst of the lot, may be a full mask would have done him a world of a good. Anne Hathaway is certainly a bonus, a bright spark while Marion Cottilard is not unduly stretched. We’ve seen more of her talents before and Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman mere also-rans.

Why flood the cast with big names when they do precious little? It is an old Hollywood gimmick which does not work these days. You cannot fool all the people all the time, so think up something new! May be Anne Hathaway as Batman’s associate is the best reason for seeing The Dark Knight Rises.

Movies on TV

Saturday July 21

Sunday July 22

London Paris New York

Star gold 4:25PM

London, Paris, New York also known by the abbreviated form LPNY, is an Indian romantic comedy film that marked the writing and directing debut of Anu Menon and Ali Zafar and Aditi Rao Hydari in the lead roles. It was shot in the three most popular and beautiful cities of the world, London, Paris and New York.London Paris New York is a film that captures the angst of the twenties, the most dramatic period of one's life - when you have to find a career and you have your first significant relationship.

The Mask of Zorro

STAR MOVIES 9:18AM

The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the Zorro character created by Johnston Mc Culley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta- Jones, and Stuart Wilson. In the story, the original Zorro (Hopkins) escapes from prison to find his long-lost daughter (Zeta-Jones) and avenge the death of his wife against the corrupt governor (Wilson). He is aided by his successor (Banderas), who also pursues his own vendetta.

Watch out for Kyaa super Kool Hain Hum Kya Super Kool Hain Hum is an upcoming Bollywood comedy film directed by Sachin Yardi, and produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor. The film is a sequel to the 2005 surprise hit, Kyaa Kool Hai Hum. It stars Tusshar Kapoor and Ritesh Deshmukh from the original cast. The film is scheduled for theatrical release on 27 July 2012 Ek Tha Tiger Ek Tha Tiger is a 2012 Bollywood romantic action thriller film starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. Produced by Aditya Chopra and directed by Kabir Khan, the film marks the third collaboration of Kabir Khan with Yash Raj Films after Kabul Express (2006) and New York (2009). The film is scheduled for theatrical release on 15 August 2012.