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Down, but not out Finally, there’s
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DNA ties
Should India play cricket with Pak?
Literature as
stress buster
The
bluster and self-deception so characteristic of eurozone political
leaders is evident once again
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Finally, there’s help Reacting
to the four-year jail term announced for the four medical students responsible for his son Aman’s death from beating during ragging, Dr Raj Kachroo had said, “It’s a historic judgement, but for me, the matter will end only when all ragging stops.” He has ever since been running a campaign to see that it ends. There could have been no one more qualified, or determined, to run the website — www.antiragging.in — launched in conjunction with the Union HRD Ministry to receive complaints regarding ragging. A helpline has also been set up. On any complaint received, the information would be forwarded to the relevant authorities, including the police, to take action according to the seriousness of the incident. It was, however, in May 2009 that the Supreme Court had ordered such a helpline be set up by the government, which has now been done as a public-private partnership. The apex court had also said it should be run by an NGO. Governments, by limitations of their structure and priorities, have rarely been able to act consistently on such ‘soft’ matters — which is why despite court rulings and UGC formulating clear norms to check ragging, the phenomenon continues. The foremost point of redress for a ragging victim is teachers, committees or other authorities of his own institute. The inherent flaw in this is that the same set of people are also responsible for the ‘reputation’ of the institute, and there could be a cover-up. That is where it becomes imperative for the administrative machinery to be alert to such goings-on. As with most other ills, it is prevention that is more effective than cure. Helplines come into play when a wrong is being perpetrated, but educational institutes have to run the affairs such that conditions conducive to ragging do not arise. Initial months for freshers should be closely supervised, and to arrange an “introduction” with the seniors, colleges can organise multiple events such as concerts, exhibitions and project competitions in which they work jointly. In the end, however, the authorities need to let the seniors know the stick is always available ready to hand.
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DNA ties Unravelling the strands of deoxyribonucleic acid to decode the mysteries of life has been a hoary scientific persuasion ever since scientists discovered this nucleic acid that has the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of living organisms. It is well known that often boffins are unaware of the power of their scientific enquiries, and thus James Watson and Francis Crick, who are credited with discovering DNA, may well be pardoned for their inability to foresee that the scientific advances based on their inquiry would victimise a poor Indian political leader in his advanced age. Advances made during his not-so-young years led to a situation that many a male has faced, one of unintended consequences. In the good old days, you could simply take care of such a problem by various means, none of them pleasant. However, in the hyper-linked world of today, with the full glare of media often focusing on these kinds of peccadilloes, such issues are not easily resolved. No one would dispute that everyone is entitled to privacy, even if his assertion that he should be allowed to live by his rule may well be disputed, but, then, it is up to the parties concerned that ensure that what happens in the boudoir remains in the boudoir. More so in case the match is not made in heaven, or if it ceases to be a relationship of “till death do us part.” Or the issue becomes an aggrieved party and marches up to a court, legal and scientific means are available to unravel the strands of DNA and determine without a shadow of doubt what could have been in the older days just a boudoir secret. Steve Jobs, Boris Becker, Eddie Murphy — it is a celebrity A-list of paternity proved. ‘Simplicity’ has led the most celebrated Indian paternity test parent into the spotlight once again in spite of his advanced age. Is there a lesson in all this for us all? Yes, if you are man enough to sire a child, be man enough to own up, acknowledge and accept; if not, you are merely delaying the inevitable as our ‘simple’ man found out.
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Mountains are earth's undecaying monuments. — Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Should India play cricket with Pak?
THE Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced that it is acceding to a request from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for the revival of matches between India and Pakistan in December this year. The BCCI decided to resume cricketing ties with Pakistan by inviting the Pakistan cricket team for a short series in December 2012-January 2013 while Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata will host ODIs. T-20 matches will be played in Ahmedabad and Bangalore. It may be recalled that at the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan on July 4 and 5, the Pakistan Foreign Secretary suggested the revival of cricket between the two countries as one of the confidence-building measures. The Indian Foreign Secretary agreed to forward the request to the BCCI. Home Minister P. Chidambaram stated on July 17 that he saw no objection to the proposed India-Pakistan bilateral cricket series in India. When members of the BCCI met him and asked if the proposed series would be all right, the Home Minister replied that India and Pakistan had been talking on trade relations and other issues like those related to fishermen, etc, and, therefore, he did not see any reason why sporting relations could not be normalised as well, and that foolproof security arrangements could be provided. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced that extra-precaution would be taken before issuing visas to Pakistani fans wanting to enjoy the proposed cricket series in India later this year. A senior MHA official said though India had been liberal in granting visas to Pakistanis, but this time stringent measures would be taken before this is done. During the investigations into the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, it came to light how Pakistani terrorists and ISI operatives exploited the visas in plotting terror attacks against India. During the interrogation of Syed Zabiuddin Ansari it was revealed that a Pakistan Army officer, Major Abdur Rehman, and Lashkar-e-Toiba activist Sajid Mir, who were in “the control room”, had visited on a reconnaissance mission a year before David Coleman Headley visited Mumbai to identify the targets for the 2008 attacks. It is a matter of serious concern that there are 7,000 Pakistanis still in India after their visas had expired and they are, no doubt, a potential threat to the nation’s internal security. The Home Ministry’s official figure of over-staying Pakistan nationals in India was 7,691 as on December 31, 2009. Though this figure included Hindus and Sikhs apart from Pakistani Muslims, that makes no difference to the fact that they all pose a danger to the country’s security. Any indiscriminate issuing of visas to Pakistani visitors, ostensibly for witnessing the Indo-Pak cricket series in December in India, would be asking for additional headache, to say the least. It is indeed surprising that the powers-that-be in India represented by the Ministry of External Affairs as well as the Ministry of Home Affairs could ignore Pakistan’s persistent denial of its role in the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai and Pakistan’s failure to take any action against those involved. It was only Sunil Gavaskar, the veteran cricketer, who made a dissenting note by asking why India should play cricket with Pakistan now. Gavaskar went on to say that he was speaking as a Mumbaikar and that Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist who was caught during the Mumbai attacks, was still alive in jail. It is the solemn responsibility of India to ensure that Pakistan took action against state and non-state participants who perpetrated the crime on 26/11 in Mumbai. Salman Bashir, who has become the Pakistan High Commissioner and posted in India, had the temerity to describe the various dossiers which India handed over to Pakistan on the Mumbai attacks as mere literature. This time, on the eve of the meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries, Salman Bashir’s successor, Jilani, who is now Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary, met Jammu and Kashmir separatists — the Hurriyat leaders. The Indian Foreign Secretary objected to this meeting, but it was of no avail. At the meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries, the Indian Foreign Secretary brought up the topic of Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Jundal and his role in the “control room” which had been set up by Pakistan near Karachi international airport and the role played by Ansari in the “control room” by guiding the perpetrators of the attacks as they were being carried out in Mumbai. Pakistan could not possibly deny that Ansari was given a Pakistani passport with a false name of Riyasat Ali and sent to Saudi Arabia. It was after considerable efforts that Saudi Arabia could be persuaded to extradite Ansari to India. Ansari’s role in the Karachi “control room” was specifically referred to by Home Minister P.Chidambaram. He also pointed out that in the interrogation of Ansari, it was brought out that in the Karachi “control room”, which was coordinating the Mumbai terror attacks, he had met Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Zakir-ur-Rehman Lakhvi as well as two serving Pakistan Army officers, Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali. Ansari had also mentioned that Lakhvi was possibly planning further attacks on the lines of the Mumbai attack at some other places in India some time in future and that he was planning them along with Major Iqbal and Major Sameer Ali. After the Foreign Secretaries meeting, Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir described as incredible and unbelievable the allegations that any Pakistani state agency was involved in the Mumbai attacks. Salman Bashir did not give a direct reply when asked whether Pakistan would take any action against those responsible for the terror attacks in Mumbai on 26/11. Hard analysis of the events which have taken place since the Mumbai attacks and the revelations of Ansari about the Karachi “control room”, etc, combined with the revelations made by Headley earlier, as ascertained by the National Investigating Agency, would convince anyone that there is no doubt whatsoever regarding the role played by state actors and others like Lashkar-e-Toiba jihadis such as Lakhvi in the 26/11 attacks. In spite of all the evidence, there appears to be no hope of Pakistan taking any action against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks. It is nothing but a charade which is being played by Pakistan, and eventually Pakistan would take no action whatsoever against the guilty. Should India, therefore, forget 26/11 and resume relations with Pakistan by hosting cricket teams, to begin with?. If India resumes cricketing ties with Pakistan in December this year by organising matches at various places, the country should be prepared for more surprise
attacks. The writer is a former Governor of UP and West Bengal.
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Literature as stress buster In
this age when lust for
power and pelf has occupied the minds of the people around, it is high
time to return to the sanctuary of literature for gaining repose. Sir
Tej Bahadur Sapru, a highly renowned figure in literature and politics,
was in the habit of picking up the "Diwan" of Hafiz Shirazi
when he was under stress. Flipping through the ghazals of the
classical Persian poet, he regained the solace of his mind. Nowadays the
"Diwan" of Mirza Ghalib comes to the rescue of the
overburdened minds of the persons leading a hectic life. Poetry touches
the inner chords of the human psyche, starting the process of
de-stressing the individual. Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) was a
mystic poet whose "Mathnawi" (a long narrative poem) in
Persian is a veritable treasure trove of wit and wisdom. Indian poets
have been greatly influenced by the ideas expressed in this classical
work. Maulana Rumi’s lyrical poetry has also a charm of its own. It at
times rings a string of bells in the mind. The reader readily falls in
line with his mode of thinking — We are the mirror as well as the
face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We
are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and
the jar that pours. Hafiz Shirazi (1325-1368) has enriched Persian ghazal
in such a manner that it has always remained the darling of the
discerning readers all over the world. In one of his famous couplets, he
expresses his desire, in a playful mood, to give away the towns of
Samarcund and Bukhara for the teasing mole on the cheek of his beloved
— "Bkhale hinduish bakhsham Samarkund-o-Bukhara ra". But
the couplet in which he advises fellow human beings to be ‘indulgent’
to friends and ‘considerate’ to enemies is unsurpassable in the
pithiness of its meaning— "Ba dostaan ‘muravvat’, ba
dushmanan ‘mudara’." In this age when electronic media has
robbed man of the joy of reading books in seclusion, there is still an
escape route for the seekers of the peace of mind. A great thinker has
said that he slips into a room adjacent to the living room where the
members of the family have gathered to view the idiot box. What a great
opportunity, indeed ! Nearer home, the poets from Mirza Ghalib to Faiz
Ahmed Faiz and beyond form the best company when one is in a depressed
frame of mind. At that time even the couplets that convey pessimistic
views give solace to the mind. P.B. Shelley was right when he said,
"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."
Mirza Ghalib once said that he had to undergo many hardships in the
course of his life. As such, he had to die many a time whereas he would
have preferred to die a natural death — "Mujhe kya bura thha
marna agar ek baar hota." Even such couplets restore the
equilibrium of the mind of the reader who has seen many ups and downs in
life. The younger generation is now exploring new avenues of
information and knowledge so as to keep pace with the fast-changing
world. Of course, the spirit of competition leaves them with no time to
introspect and speculate. Still there is a dire need to keep the young
minds in touch with our rich heritage. Folk songs, folk dances and
folklore can keep them in the company of the sensibilities of their
ancestors. This way their minds can easily cope with the strains and
stresses of the modern world. In the hectic life of today, a doha of
Bhagat Kabir, a lyric by Shiv Kumar (Batalvi), a poem by Amrita Pritam
or a ghazal by Ishwar Chitarkar can go a long way in keeping the
feet of the young people on the solid ground of their ethos. They can
also be conversant with the legends and myths related to their culture.
Thus, they would not feel helpless in the hazy world of doubts and fears
as well as of uncertainty and unpredictability.
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The bluster and self-deception so characteristic of
So
now it is Spain that will need a sovereign bailout. In an effort to increase confidence, the government says it has enough money to get through the autumn, but of course that has quite the opposite effect in that it emphasises that it will run out of money after that. Only a few weeks ago, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, was denying that there would be sharp tax increases and said that seeking eurozone funds to rescue the banks was not a sovereign rescue. Then VAT was put up by 3 per cent. And now is it even more evident that the country needs a full bailout. The bluster and self-deception so characteristic of eurozone politicians is evident once again. What is so strange is that politicians feel compelled to go through the established sequence of downplaying their financial problems, then blaming foreign speculators, then conceding that they might need external help, then finally capitulating or being thrown out.
Politicians unprepared It is strange, certainly, but perhaps explicable at two levels. The first is that nothing in the experience of most politicians prepares them for leading a country through a fiscal crisis. When you were an ambitious 25-year-old deciding on a political career, you entered a trade that involved distributing public funds. True, some of those funds had to be raised in tax, but you did not emphasise that aspect of your job. And, because there was a growing population and you could borrow within reasonable limits, you did not have to raise the full amount of your spending in tax. The other level is that the consequences of fiscal failure could be concealed by a combination of devaluation and inflation. You could devalue your way out of loss of competitiveness and inflate your way out of excessive debt. Both these conditions have changed. Most of Continental Europe faces a falling population and rising dependency ratios, so tax revenues will be weak at just the time when demands rise. And within the eurozone at least an individual country cannot inflate or devalue.
Sound German policy The economics have changed but, in most of Europe, the politics haven’t. So other countries attack Germany both for following a reasonably sound fiscal policy itself and for resisting pressure to take on liability for others’ sovereign debts.In Britain, the experience of the 1976 bailout by the IMF and the expulsion from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992 have meant that there is critical mass in favour of fiscal responsibility. The first kept Labour out of power for four elections, the second the Tories for three – a scarring experience for both parties. But in much of southern Europe the scars are not so deep. None of us can hope to see the detail or the timing but the past few days have reminded us of the inevitability of some sort of break-up of the eurozone. The idea that Greece might leave is widely accepted and the debate has shifted to the advantages and disadvantages of Spain and Italy leaving too. That is quite different from what was being said 18 months ago. But we have hardly begun to think about the impact of all this on European politics. Politicians do what voters want. But they can only do so within the framework of the possible. That framework, in or out of the euro, has become much more constrained, and politicians will have to adapt to that. What we are seeing in the eurozone is a sudden and wrenching shift, but a similar changing awareness of what governments can and cannot do will happen more gradually throughout the developed world, including here in the UK.
Need to be flexible It is easy to pick holes in the ONS’s work in measuring wellbeing, or indeed the Government’s attempt to shift emphasis from hard economic numbers such as GDP to softer ones such as life satisfaction. Easy, but unfair. Economics has always been concerned about human welfare. Long before national accounting was developed in the 1930s, economists were trying to measure happiness. Utility theory goes right back to Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the early 19th century. Bentham’s aim, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” of people, is noble indeed; the problem was how to measure it. Lots of things emerge from the ONS and other work that should enable policy to be fine-tuned. The base is that most people seem reasonably happy. But there are things that make people unhappy, such as unemployment. Flexible labour markets should therefore help increase happiness because they help create jobs. But governments need to be careful. Other studies show people hate government interference and they don’t go a bundle on taxation. So nudge, rather than “tax ‘n’ spend”. — The Independent
Fact File Angela Merkel The
“world’s most powerful woman” first staked her claim to greatness in 1999, with the publication of an open letter in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung. It called for the Christian Democrats to reject Helmut Kohl, the retired chancellor and her former mentor, and in doing so paved the way for Angela Merkel’s eventual election as party leader. Despite this early hint at a ruthless streak, Merkel’s subsequent political reputation has rested more on pragmatism than dramatic flair. After winning power in 2005, she successfully negotiated an unlikely coalition with the left-leaning Social Democrats. In 2009, she won a second term, making her one of the longest serving leaders in Europe. Her critics say she bows to popular pressure; her supporters say she is strong enough to compromise. The eurozone crisis has seen Merkel rise in prominence to become the continent’s most powerful leader, but it has also knocked her party’s popularity at home. In 2012, a humiliating defeat in key local elections was seen as a rejection of her party’s austerity policies, but subsequent polls suggested a quick recovery. Her nicknames in Europe’s tabloid press are also telling: once referred to dismissively by Kohl as “mein Madchen” (‘my girl’), Merkel became “Mutti” (‘mummy’) during her first term as chancellor and in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, she’s acquired a new nickname: “Frau Nein”. The Numbers Timeline The Independent
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