|
|
|
|
|
Manifestos on agriculture Deaths on road |
|
|
Letting Colombo off the hook
Gender games & her 'me time'
Students still feel unsafe in Australia
|
Manifestos on agriculture Farmers'
issues are seldom the primary concern of political parties or private TV channels, though a large population of the country depends on agriculture for its livelihood. During elections parties' manifestos touch the subject, but without the seriousness it deserves. Dr M.S. Swaminathan studied in depth the crisis of agriculture and offered solutions but his report, submitted in 2004, has not been implemented so far. The UPA could waive farmers' loans worth Rs 52,000 crore, give large stimulus packages to industry and accept huge bank NPAs but had no resources to fund the well thought-out farm revival scheme. The 2014 Congress manifesto skips the Swaminathan report. The BJP pledges to ensure a "minimum of 50 per cent profits over the cost of production" but in a passing way and does not elaborate on its implications. If farm produce is to be acquired at a 50 per cent profit to farmers, where will the money come from? What about the impact on inflation and consumers? The BJP ignores these issues. The Aam Aadmi Party commits itself to implementing the entire report and promises to extend MSP to 25 more crops. When questioned about the effect on food prices for the common man, an AAP spokesman said the government would bear the additional cost. In the absence of adequate cold chains, scientific storage and air-conditioned transport, large quantities of farm produce, including 30 per cent fruits and vegetables, are lost. All parties realise this, but differ on solutions. The BJP and AAP propose government investment in cold chains. The Congress, having been in power, understands the financial constraints governments face and has fought hard to open up multi-brand retail to foreign investment. It relies on foreign companies to build infrastructure and meet their supplies from local small and medium companies. The BJP, AAP and the Left, however, oppose the entry of foreign firms in this sector. The BJP suggests "cluster-based storage systems". Meanwhile, the consumer and the farmer continue to suffer, while the middleman keeps flourishing, thanks to political patronage.
|
|
Deaths on road A mini-bus became a death trap for at least 17 persons who were killed as it rolled down a deep gorge, while travelling from Milla to Paonta Sahib in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The tragedy left many injured, a number of them critically. While it is too early to ascertain what caused the accident, it is known that the bus was overloaded. Some reports maintain that a front wheel of the bus came off, and thus it veered off the road and into the 400-foot gorge. The state government has made the usual announcements of holding an inquiry and providing relief to the next-of-kin of the deceased. This has almost become a reflex in such circumstances. What needs to be done is to look at the larger picture. An appallingly high number of deaths in the nation are a result of road accidents. This is more so in the hill states where subsidiary roads do not get the attention they deserve. Added to this is an inadequate number of buses to serve the area. These facts are often overlooked by the very officials who are supposed to keep a sharp eye on such violations. Another suggestion often made is that the state governments should carry out regular and extensive safety audits of all commercial vehicles, and their drivers. There is no quick fix to a problem as endemic as that of road deaths; tragedies like the recent one again serve to push the issue of road safety into our consciousness. Is it too much to hope that this tragic loss of lives will also prick the conscience of those entrusted with the task of ensuring the safety of commuters? Those who died in the accident are not a mere statistic, they were vital members of society and the best way of paying a tribute to them will be to take concrete steps to minimise such loss of lives in future. |
||
|
Thought for the Day
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. —
H. L. Mencken
|
||
A social survey in Bombay
IF any man who knew the city of Bombay 30 years ago were to re-visit the city now, he would be painfully impressed with the physical decay of the population. From one end of the busy streets to the other he would see thin, pale men and women, with nothing but anxious demure faces, hurrying as if mechanically, to their business places, as prisoners do to their allotted labour. The streets are widened and houses made larger and more beautiful, but alas, there is neither cheer nor health in the faces of the inhabitants. Even the places of amusement appear to have lost their cheerful aspect. One is reminded of this by the suggestion made by Mr. G.P. Wishard in the Journal of the Bombay Y.M.C.A. to make a social survey of Bombay to study all the forces which affect the physical, mental and spiritual life of men and women. Such a survey is, in our opinion, absolutely necessary in Bombay and similar large cities. Bribery in the commercial world
PEOPLE in India, who occasionally hear of bribery and corruption in the commercial world, will be interested to know that the defect is by no means confined to one part of the world but is pretty general throughout it. This fact was made manifest at the seventh annual meeting of the Secret Commissions and Bribery Prevention League, held in London on March 12 and presided over by Mr. David Howard. In his speech he referred to the prevalence of bribery all over the world and the means adopted to check the evil as there was a strong feeling everywhere for taking action. In Germany there was an Anti-bribery League. In Sweden and France similar societies were about to be started.
|
Letting Colombo off the hook DICTATORSHIPS get a fillip when democracies falter. India committed this cardinal sin when it abstained from voting at the UN Human Rights Council. A resolution was sought to be passed to seek an international, transparent inquiry to find out whether Sri Lanka had killed in cold blood 40,000 soldiers and others in the wake of hostilities against the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). They had surrendered unconditionally.
India's abstention reminds me of the words of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru: When aggression takes place or human rights are violated, we will not and cannot remain neutral. Yet the Manmohan Singh government has been found placating the dictatorial government headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Colombo. New Delhi did not bother the harm it would be doing to the cause of the Tamils' rights and their own say in governance. My hunch is that bureaucrats in the Ministry of External Affairs, with their mindset, decided to stay absent what they thought was "in the interest of the country." The hapless minister, Salman Khurshid, went along. He probably wanted the release of 100 fishermen who had "strayed" into the waters claimed by Sri Lanka. What will Salman Khurshid do now when the Colombo's navy has killed four fishermen? That DMK chief M. Karunanidhi, otherwise supporting the ruling Congress, should accuse New Delhi of letting down the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and other places is understandable. But what is not understandable is the policy by which the Manmohan Singh government is pursuing to uphold the sentiments and aspirations even when the election of a new government is six weeks away. Sri Lanka should not mistake the timidity of the ruling Congress for India's betrayal of democratic rights of Tamils. I was not surprised to read the Rajapaksa government's reaction: Thank you. No doubt, New Delhi was under pressure from the democratic world, led by America, that China and Pakistan, where democracy has been reduced to a relative term, supported Colombo. India's obvious stand should have been to vote for the resolution to reiterate its policy to protect human rights. Small sovereign nations should have felt let down. I do not regret the defeat of the LTTE which was largely a terrorists' organisation. But as a humanist, I feel sad over the killing of soldiers and their supporters after the surrender. The Sri Lankan army, obviously with the blessings of President Rajapaksa and his brother, Defence Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, had no remorse over their indulging in a blood bath. The world would not have known about the killings if the enterprising BBC Channel 4 had not shown the documentary on the killings and atrocities committed not only against the LTTE troops but also against the innocent Tamils. Colombo's own inquiry was eyewash, exonerating the army and heaping the blame on the Tamils who wanted an equal say in the affairs of Sri Lanka. India has tried to persuade the Sinhalese, a preponderant majority, to give autonomy to the north, Jaffna. But all such efforts, going back to the days of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, have borne no fruit because New Delhi is afraid lest any corrective step should alienate a neighbour which is hobnobbing with China. But how long would we take a hypocritical stand of placating the ruling Sinhalese and assuring the Tamils of autonomous status? On paper, the Sinhalese and Tamil are two official languages. But in practice Tamil has no place. Even a police station does not entertain a complaint written in Tamil, much less in the state secretariat. I can appreciate the argument that the estranged Sri Lanka, next door neighbours, is capable of harming India. But what worse can Colombo do when it has allowed China to have its footprints in the country? On the one hand, Beijing has been given the development of Trincomalee port and, on the other Sri Lanka has become a refuge for some anti-India elements. We can probably do little when the Sri Lankan government is averse to accountability. It has already rejected two earlier resolutions-one of them was in conjunction with the UN Secretary General. By abstaining from a move that was meant to put pressure on the government to come clean, New Delhi has tried to let Colombo off the hook. Probably, we did so because our own record on human rights is so blotched that we do not want to set a precedent of an inquiry by outsiders. Our insensitivity can be seen from the fact that practically no political party has included violation of human rights in its election manifesto. Two main parties, the Congress and the BJP, have such a bad record of their rule that they do not encourage even a discussion on the subject. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a political platform of NGOs, should have had human rights violations on top of its agenda. But it too is losing its way-idealism-in an effort to become an alternative to the Congress and the BJP. People want change. The AAP can emerge a power to reckon with. But its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is as much surrounded by a coterie as are those in the Congress and the BJP. The AAP can retrieve the ground it has lost provided it does not make the election an end by itself. What the nation needs is a force to uphold the lower half to eliminate corruption and to reiterate the ideology of pluralism. Had the Sri Lankan government kept the principles above politics of power, it would not have been facing the charge of war crimes. But it is futile to expect this from Rajapaksa, who is a dictator through and through. It is a pity that New Delhi has arrayed itself with such countries, known for the suppression of the common man, particularly the Tamils. The din of election has suppressed even the demand for justice. Striking a personal note, I recall my visit to Colombo. There was a midnight knock at my hotel door and the police barged in to search the room for any discriminatory material. After some time the police force withdrew on its own. My crime was that I had held a press conference during the day to demand the removal of ban on the LTTE and fight it out politically.
|
||||
Gender games & her 'me time' I often protest that I "deserve" some "me time" as well. Caution: be mindful of the liberal use of the word "deserve" with your wife - it can lead to a very complicated argument of its own, if mishandled. A discussion that you cannot win, ever. Anyway, so yes, I often stake my claim to "me time" as well. After all, I had worked hard all day as well. In my office, that is. "I have done so too, same hours, same effort ", she says, as she serves a strong forehand volley right past my backhand. Score: 15 all. I scamper for a quick response in my defence. "I came home before you and had tea ready for us", I valiantly state my case. Here's the response I am rightfully served. "I picked up the kid from school. Did the groceries on my way home (with the kid hanging off one knee), filled up the car tank". Now that is a 250kmph ace right through the centre of the court. I do not even attempt to return it. Score: 15-30. "I took out the garbage bins", I respond yet again, a bit sheepish this time. I know I should have conceded the game at the previous volley itself. But here I am dishing out another low-speed second serve straight to her strong forehand. "So you took the garbage bins and then checked your Facebook updates. Flicked through TV channels while seated on the sofa. Cursed and uttered opinions about the political chaos in the world", was her account of my evening. And an accurate one too. A voice in my head urged me to shut myself and check my stupid utterances. She was making sense and I was fast running out of responses, hang on, "excuses". Score: 15-40. Game Point. By this stage I am well aware of my deficiencies. I am no match to the skill, commitment, and work load of my opponent. And rightfully so. So I plan to retreat. Withdraw myself from the bout I shouldn't have initiated in the first place. But the game point was yet to be scored. As I tried to rush out of the door having conceded my shortcomings, I heard a final power-packed volley launched at me. I deserved it. "While you were busy pondering over world matters on the television, and if you failed to notice, I did the dishes, made sure the kid is fed, made the beds for the night, organised myself for the next day, sorted out the laundry, and put up with the tantrums of the kid", were her parting words. I did not have a response, as I hurried to the door for a quick exit. I would not have attempted to respond even if I had half a response to that. She had been the better player and deserved her "me time".
|
||||
Students still feel unsafe in Australia
The
safety of Indian students in Australia has been a major issue for the Indian government ever since it began to make headlines in the domestic media in 2009-2010. This was preceded by a spate of attacks on Indian students which occurred mainly in New South Wales and Victoria and raised questions on the integrity of the entire international student immigration processes and the experience of the students when they landed in Australia to pursue studies. There was a range of reasons identified, underpinning students’ safety in Australia ranging from dodgy institutions, to lax visa rules for securing enrolment in vocational training institutes which compelled many students to live in unsafe localities to subsidise their living and work at odd hours to earn their pocket expenses. With subsequent tightening of the visa rules and crackdown on the dubious institutions and students immigration agents on both ends, the number of Indian students interested in pursuing higher degree programmes in universities has now surged to over 4,000 in 2013, marking a 7.3 per cent increase in visa lodgments from previous years.
Rising concern Although the overall experience of the majority of international students in Australia remains very positive, the recent attacks on some international students in Australia have again raised concerns among not only the international students’ community but also the Australian Commonwealth and state governments, law-enforcement and higher education sectors. The recent tragic murders in Brisbane of three international students, including one from, Griffith University in recent days, has placed the spotlight once more on the safety and security of the international student community. A question must be arising among international students and their families about their specific vulnerability to these crimes, and also what appears to be motivating these heinous crimes – is it random or are these groups being targeted under a pre-meditated plan? Criminal justice research offers some, but not all answers.
Vulnerability and violence The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), the premier national criminal justice research agency, published a study of crimes committed against international students in 2011. Based on reported crime to police, victimisation studies and homicide monitoring data, as well as the data-matching of visa records from the Department of Immigration, the AIC report paints a picture of the scale and profile of crimes of violence (robberies and assaults) against international students in Australia. The impetus for the report stemmed from the series of attacks on Indian students in 2009 and 2010 that had received extensive media coverage in Australia and India and which became the focus of political and diplomatic exchanges between the respective governments. The report has some reassuring ‘take home’ messages for international students. First, Australia, compared to other destinations is a relatively safe place for international students, with lower levels of crime targeting them than other popular student destinations, such as the UK and the USA. Homicide is relatively rare in Australia compared with other destinations, and from the AIC’s National Homicide Monitoring Program, it appears that of the ‘eight Indian students killed since 1990, none involved racial vilification or discrimination’. The profile of the crimes reported in the AIC study also showed that international students were vulnerable to attack at certain times and certain places – often working late in service industries (such as taxi driving and fast food outlets) and they are exposed more frequently to intoxicated clients. These insights from the research allow safety messages for students to be targeted by universities and local police. But the key question, which raised the initial concerns of the Indian students in 2009 was, whether the crimes committed on internationally students were racially motivated?
Ambiguity on racial issue Sadly, on this critical issue, the AIC study sheds little or no light. The principal reason is that relevant data are simply not available. Why is this so? Policing and government agencies do not collect these data. Victims are not questioned about the racial or ethnic aspects of their victimisation. There are clearly sensitivities on this issue, with the AIC study suggesting ‘direct questioning of victims on these matters may intimidate victims from coming forward and therefore reduce reporting’. With respect, we doubt that such a line of questioning would have that impact – indeed, existing crime victimisation studies suggest that ‘overseas-born’ respondents are more likely than their Australian-born counterparts to report to police when they were the victim of an assault or threat, robbery and theft of personal property. This reason, we suspect, is likely to be related to consular advice encouraging reporting and/or the insurance obligation to obtain an official police report in order to make a lodge a claim. Indeed, international students do not seem to be reticent in coming forward to police, and would not likely to be deterred if police explain that the purpose of asking questions related to race and ethnicity are important to collect data, and may form part of ‘brief of evidence’ that might establish a racial motivation for the offence. This may lead the prosecutor to choose a more serious charge or the judge to impose a heavier penalty on the offender.
Delayed response Perhaps, the most depressing aspect for researchers working in this field is that the failure to collect the data on racial profile of victimisation was highlighted more than two decades ago in the National Inquiry into Racist Violence by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). The Inquiry, chaired by the distinguished human rights lawyer, Ron Castan, recommended with exceptional foresight, that data from victims on racial motivation must be collected nationally. Like the 2011 study by the AIC, the 1991 HREOC study into racist violence revealed the lack of data collected on the topic, and made the following recommendation: “Data on racially motivated offences should be collected and analysed at a State and Federal level. Both the United States at State and Federal level and the British experience indicate that the collection of such data is feasible and necessary. There are no technical reasons why such data could not be collected by Australian jurisdictions ... The inquiry believes that ‘uniform national procedures’ for the collection of statistics on racist violence, intimidation and harassment need to be developed ... the collection of such statistics has a number of advantages including the provision of accurate public information and assistance to police managers in developing appropriate strategies to deal with racist violence”. Sadly, the HREOC recommendation was ignored. The collection of such data would inform debates about the changing profile of racial violence against Australians, as well as members of our international student community. Such data would also have important legal purposes. The legal landscape since the 1991 HREOC report has changed significantly – many Australia jurisdictions have new crimes of racial vilification with enhanced penalties for racially motivated crimes. Without gathering these data from victims, the true gravity of racially motivated crimes, which are rarely prosecuted, would not come to light.
Motivation remains elusive The deficiencies in our state of knowledge about the motivation behind crimes against international students should not detract from the ‘take-home’ message. As the 1991 HREOC Inquiry concluded “racist violence on the basis of ethnic identity in Australia is nowhere near the level that it is in many countries. Nonetheless it exists at a level that causes concern and it could increase in intensity and extent unless addressed now”. This concern is as true now, as it was then. The AIC study has revealed that more research is required to uncover the nature and extent of racism in attacks against international students (being only one subset of a larger ethnic minority living in Australia). The question that needs addressing is not solely whether international students are attacked more or less than their Australian or overseas counterparts, or the Australian population generally, but to gather qualitative data on whether or not the attacks were racially motivated. This would require researchers to analyse court transcripts to conduct interviews with victims as well as with the key criminal justice professionals (police, prosecutors and judges). Certainly this requires a larger and more challenging study for the AIC, but is absolutely essential in our view. Two decades ago, the holes in our knowledge were identified by HREOC. Two decades on it seems we are still grappling for answers because of gaps in our data. It is clearly time to face the
facts!
Simon Bronitt is Director and Ashutosh Misra is Associate Investigator at Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS), Griffith University, Australia
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
After
