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Chief ministers humbled More women in new House |
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A historic mandate for Modi
Career options for retirees
Porn again: The incomplete picture
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Chief ministers humbled The
Lok Sabha election results have dealt a humiliating blow to the chief ministers in the Congress-ruled states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand where the ruling party has got almost wiped out. Despite the Modi wave the BJP-SAD show in Punjab has been far below the expectations of the leadership of the two parties. The Congress-National Conference government in Jammu and Kashmir has also been humbled as both parties could not secure even a single seat. Although the Congress governments in these states suffered on account of dissatisfaction of people in general with the UPA government at the Centre due to price rise and corruption, they also paid a price for anti-incumbency - their own as well as of the Manmohan Singh government. Then there was the Modi effect, which transcended boundaries and appealed to people who saw in Modi a better alternative to Rahul Gandhi in a largely personality-oriented contest. In Punjab, however, the Modi factor had no effect. With all power at its command, the BJP-SAD duo could not save Arun Jaitley from humiliation. They might have won six seats; it is a non-victory. Their vote share has slumped. With four seats, AAP is set to be the game-changer. Haryana Chief Minister Hooda suffered a double whammy. The failings of his own government as also of the UPA, piling up for the past 10 years, turned voters to the BJP, which has emerged as a force to reckon with and will be a serious contender for power in the assembly elections in four months. In Himachal Pradesh the Congress under Virbhadra Singh was not expected to do as badly so soon after his success in the assembly polls. The Congress drubbing in Uttarakhand happened despite a change of guard. The replacement of Vijay Bahuguna with a more acceptable Harish Rawat as Chief Minister could not save the party from utter ruin. The Congress and the NC lost all six seats in J&K to the BJP and the PDP. Much to Omar Abdullah's embarrassment, his father, Farooq, lost too - for the first time.
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More women in new House The
representation of women in the Lok Sabha has further improved. There will be 61 women in a 543-member House. The outgoing House had 59 women, just about 10.8 per cent of the total numbers. Such abysmally low representation of women in decision-making is a worrying factor, especially in the context of a countrywide mobilisation of the masses that demanded better laws for women's security in the wake of a series of brutal attacks on young women through 2012 and 2013. Less than required female representation is reflective of the deeper malaise of gender inequality that persists in the testosterone-driven society and its polity. Women make up 22 per cent of lower houses in parliaments around the world. Globally their numbers have almost doubled, from 11.7 per cent in 1997. In contrast India’s dismal tally has only improved marginally over the last three election cycles. In 2004 we had 45 women and in 1999 the number was just 49. While most political parties, dominated by misogynists, opposed the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, other countries like Italy, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Burundi and Argentina experimented with a variety of quota policies to have a better representation of women in their political system. Despite tall claims made by major political parties, of the total 1325 candidates fielded by the three major political parties in the 2014 elections, only 12 per cent women were put in the fray. Of them many were relatives of mainstream politicians. Institutions of all streams are headed efficiently by women in this country. Unfortunately, when it comes to political representation, women are valued for their glamour quotient. A healthy democracy should have a representation of all segments; a weaker representation of women spells neglect for the concerns of nearly 50 per cent of the electorate. Since this House has come with a clear majority, it should pass the Women's Reservation Bill to bridge the gap.
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Thought for the Day
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. —
Will Rogers
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Boycott of Indians
THE report that 750 Indians have already sailed from Durban to India and 260 more are awaiting the next steamer to return, shows an unexpected exodus of Indians from South Africa. The brief message of the Daily Mail correspondent said that the exodus was due to "insecurity of domicile"-a very doubtful expression. It may be insecurity of employment or living. For we read in the Indian Opinion of the 25th March that a movement to boycott Indians was started in the Transvaal and at a big meeting speeches were made appealing to the public not to engage Indians for employment or buy anything from them, as "they were of no good to the country, living on 4d. worth of rice a day and remitting all their earnings to India." Lady health visitors
THE system of employing lady health visitors is said to be very useful in European towns. Bombay and Calcutta were the first to try a similar experiment, but we have read only of the results of the work in Bombay which is appreciated. We understand that the Government of India have made a suggestion to the Delhi Municipality that two trained lady nurses may be employed as an experimental measure as nurse visitors in Delhi. They should possess the qualifications of midwives and the necessary knowledge and experience of the country. The object is to abate the high death rate of women and children in Delhi. The Delhi Municipality has approved of the suggestion. It is necessary to point out the experiment has failed in certain places owing to want of sympathy between the health visitor and the women requiring their help. We hope that the Delhi experiment may be more useful.
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A historic mandate for Modi The 16th Lok Sabha election was historic for several reasons. It was the largest election ever held in the world. That the election was held throughout the country in nine phases in a peaceful manner goes to the credit of the Indian state and people. The results of the election have delivered a ‘man of destiny’ — Narendra Modi.
For the first time since 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi secured more than a 2/3rd majority in the Lok Sabha in the aftermath of a sympathy wave generated by the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the latest election has yielded a clear majority to the main opposition party, BJP, which will now come to power. Modi’s achievements as a 'Man of Destiny' are manifold. The BJP received almost 32 per cent of the votes polled which is the highest ever. It won all the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi. In Gujarat the party won all the 26 seats. It won an unprecedented 73 out of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, where the BSP, which came to power in 2007 by securing the support of Brahmins and Dalits, got no Lok Sabha seat this time. Nationwide, the elections saw the defeat of several Central Cabinet ministers, including Sushilkumar Shinde, Kapil Sibal, Pawan Bansal, Sachin Pilot, Farooq Abdullah, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni, a remarkable array of casualties. In winning the two Lok Sabha constituencies, Vadodara and Varanasi, Modi scored with an unbeatable margin of 5,70,000 votes in Vadodara and over 3,00,000 in Varanasi. This election undoubtedly marks the eclipse of the Congress party. The last 10 years of Congress rule witnessed lack of requisite governance and a number of scams, which explain such a huge fall in the fortunes of the Congress and the defeat of several stalwarts. The president and the vice-president of the Congress graciously owned the responsibility for the setback. In his victory speech at Vadodara on the May 16 evening, Modi made some important points. He said that he considered himself as “Mazdoor No. 1”, that he would never betray the country’s mandate and that he would not discriminate against any community. Modi also said that he wanted 10 years to make India a powerful nation. There is little doubt that he will deliver on what he has promised. People look up to him as Vikas Purush and that he will be able to extend the Gujarat model to the whole country. At the very minimum, the Gujarat model of development means the availability of water and power all the 24 hours on all the 365 days of the year. Most parts of the country are without both water and power; it is a common sight to see women with utensils waiting patiently on the roadside for water tanks to come and deliver water. On the power situation, the less said the better. Many industrial sectors in the south like Coimbatore are deprived of power, leading to frequent shutdowns and unemployment, apart from the loss of exports. Narendra Modi has spoken in terms of implementing the linking of all the major rivers in the country, a great project, which has been in the planning books for over many years. Pioneers like technocrat K.L. Rao have spoken about the possibility of linking India's great rivers over 50 years back. If only Modi could link up all the rivers — Yamuna and Ganga, Godavari, Narmada and Kaveri —India would be transformed into a country of abundant rural prosperity. Jagdish Bhagwati, a distinguished Professor and economist at Columbia University, USA, has discovered his Gujarati roots and has warmly spoken of Modi promising a “Second Revolution” as the “people's Prime Minister” and that Modi would follow Swami Vivekananda’s Karmayoga which means service to mankind. Narendra Modi has spoken in terms of making India one of the most powerful nations in the world, which means next only to the USA, China and Japan. Even earlier, Modi had spoken in terms of India being completely self-sufficient in the production of defence material and that India should also be able to export defence products. It is known that India is not self-sufficient in defence production. It took two decades to produce a standard tank, Arjun, which is not entirely satisfactory to the armoured corps. Everyone knows the recent setback and the series of accidents in the few submarines that India owns. The state of affairs in the defnece equipment is not at all satisfactory. It is high time now the situation was set right. As for economic reforms, Indian industry stalwarts have welcomed the arrival of Narendra Modi. The first priority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be to ensure the revival of economic growth, which has gone below 5 per cent in the past two years and also tackle food inflation and price rise, which has deeply upset the common man. The industrial momentum also has to be revived and maintained at a higher average. The captains of industry have urged him to restore investors' confidence, attract higher investments and generate jobs. The heads of state around the world, including President Obama, have hailed the arrival of Narendra Modi and have invited him to visit their respective countries. Modi’s election has been hailed in the US as an epochal democratic experiment. The warm welcome from the US President is moreover an admission of its faulty attitude earlier in denying a visa to him. Invitations have also come from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh Interestingly, strategic experts at the Institute of International Studies, which has close links with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, have commented that Mr. Modi could open the door to more Chinese investments as well as leave a lasting mark on the history of Sino-Indian relations. As the news of the BJP's landslide victory came, Modi tweeted, “India has won”, which reverberated all over the country. With this Tweet eliciting as many as 50,000 tweets from all around the world, let us hope it is going to be truly prophetic.
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Career options for retirees But the word has got around that retiring high officials can hope to get hired again by the government. Hence, the mad scramble by these august persons for Governorship, Lieutenant Governorship, High Commissionership, Ambassadorship and even Vice-Chancellorship in the twilight years of their service careers. And, institutions like BIFR, CIC, UPSC, and a whole alphabet soup of institutions that can provide term-employment to retirees. Apart, of course, from inquiry commissions and fact-finding committees that are meant to accommodate bureaucrats put out to pasture. Failing all these billets, of course, are Directorships in public and private enterprises for which their unique qualifications befit them. That still leaves out a sizeable chunk of ex-bureaucrats who are desperate to contribute to nation-building after their time in the government. Naturally, for suitable consideration. What to do? And that is where the magic word materializes: Consultancy. What exactly does it mean? The dictionary says that consultants perform advisory functions, which include professional guidance and counselling. The question arises: what is the professional guidance or counselling that the retirees provide, especially to someone dealing with the government? Expediting a decision — favorable, of course. Or, navigating a file through the labyrinthine corridors of power. In the corporate jungle, moreover, getting one’s work done is important. But it is equally important to get the rival company's work delayed or stymied. That's where the consultant can prove his worth. Namely, with his “liaison” capabilities, which depend on his ‘contacts’ within the government, which derive, in turn, from the consultant's ability to 'persuade' lower and higher officials. Not a particularly savory occupation for personages who could rarely be approached during their bureaucratic careers. Either they were busy in meetings, or “not in their seats.” It must be galling for them to face the same treatment, and deal with minions who were barely visible during their service years. Still, consultancy does provide work. And retirees cannot be choosers. Apocryphal stories abound regarding the ‘sacrifices’ made by consultants to serve their new employers. One refers to a former Home Secretary, later Chairman of the UPSC, sitting patiently on the peon’s stool outside a Joint Secretary’s room. Apparently, the official was busy in a meeting. And, there was this occasion when I was travelling to Bhopal on the Shatabdi. Getting down in Agra to stretch my legs, I ran into a former Secretary to the Government of India escorting a group of American tourists. Foolishly, I asked what he was doing in these unusual circumstances only to receive a one-word reply: “Consultancy.”
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Porn again: The incomplete picture I
want to talk about the Internet, the impact it’s having on the innocence of our children, how online pornography is corroding childhood and how, in the darkest corners of the Internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children and that must be stamped out. Now, I’m not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger but because I feel profoundly, as a politician and as a dad, that the time for action has come.” Now, before you jump the gun and assume it’s one of our puritanical political leaders shooting off yet another lecture on morality, let me enlighten you this is UK Prime Minister David Cameron talking. When recently the apex court asked the Indian government to look into whether pornographic sites can be banned, many must have presumed here we go again down the ludicrous path paved by prudes. But clearly if not pornography on the whole, certainly child pornography as well as children’s easy accesses to graphic images of sex is a worldwide concern.
Erotic circle
In Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentarian Sebastian Edathy lost his job when allegations of child pornography against him surfaced. In India, three Karnataka ministers had to resign when caught watching erotica in the Assembly. They might have become a butt of ridicule as the country guffawed and laughed at their porn watching antics in an open house. But let’s face it, they were (are) only a few in the growing tribe of porn watchers in India. While Kamlesh Vaswani who has filed a petition against pornography might be off the mark when he says that we have become a nation of porn addicts, there is no denying that more and more adults and teenagers are watching porn what with 4.2 million pornographic websites and 420 million pornographic pages only a click away. According to Google Trends between 2004 and 2013 in India Google searches for the word “porn,” as a proportion of total Google searches, increased five times. Over that period, India ranked fourth worldwide, after Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, and Pakistan. And New Delhi, the rape capital of India, also has the dubious distinction of topping the list of cities searching porn sites. What is shocking is that many of these searches could be ending at violent porn. According to a survey by a condom company, more than 46 per cent of the loyal porn community swore by schoolgirl rape videos.
Porn and crime
Indeed, there is no concrete or tangible evidence to collate the spurt in sexual assaults with easy accessibility of pornographic material. In the US argue many the reverse has happened and the incidence of rape and availability of pornographic material has shown an inverse relationship. David Loftus, an actor and author of “Watching Sex: How Men Really Respond to Pornography,” challenged the classic anti-porn notions and held that man woman relationship has little to do with pornography. He wrote, “The men who have difficulties with pornography, much like many who cannot relate well to others and turn to crime, tend to come from dysfunctional backgrounds .” His view that pornography is used in counselling couples having problems with sexuality finds an echo closer home too. In the US prisons, pornography is believed to have been used as a rehabilitative tool to deal with sexual offenders. Vaswani, however, has an altogether different and not such an implausible viewpoint either. He believes that watching porn corrupts people, and many of the crimes that happen to women, girls and children, such as sex-trafficking, are mostly related to pornography. In Kerala a similar contention was made by the state government once again in response to a PIL. In the west there are examples of serial killers openly admitting to the link between aggressive sexual behaviour and porn material. Ted Bundy, a notorious serial killer in America, talked of pornographic roots of his crimes. Violence in the media, he said, “particularly sexualized violence,” sent boys down the road to being Ted Bundys, an assertion that was dismissed as a last minute attempt to shift blame. Perhaps, the brutal rape in Delhi that jolted the conscience of the nation might have stemmed from violent images from internet porn. Or, it may have its genesis somewhere else. But there is no denying that kinky sex is getting kinkier by the hour and not in the virtual realm alone. Rapidly making its way into our real world it could possibly have its origins in the virtual space.
Cut to size
In the face of spiralling sexual crimes inflicted upon babies as small as eighteen month old, perhaps the government’s helplessness in clamping down pornographic sites as those of the Internet service providers can’t be accepted without any qualms. If over the years the UK has been able to curtail child abuse content substantially why can’t India? In the past, if certain sites could be banned for political reasons why pornographic sites can’t be filtered? Besides, after all, Savita Bhabi.com, a pornographic site, was shown the door. In the existing scenario, the law might be ambiguous and the boundaries of Internet amorphous. As of now the legal position is that while distributing obscene material is illegal watching pornography isn’t. But can it be allowed to be a completely unregulated realm? Sure people just can’t be booked for watching porn in the privacy of their homes. Perhaps, making it a non-bailable offence as it has been mooted in the past too might be an over jealous overreaction. But certain images, especially the violent graphics do need to be contained. Indeed, at times the line could be thin and fuse too. One man’s titillation could be another one’s catalyst for aberrant behaviour.
Blocking violent images
Yet if over the years scissor-happy Censor Board has managed to evolve the right way of checks and balances without being caught in a time warp so can an Internet monitoring authority. Interestingly, one of the advocates of porn films was none other than producer Vijay Anand who was the censor board chief way back in 2002. His suggestion of legalising the country's pornographic film industry and to allow the screening of hardcore movies in cinemas of course was not paid heed to. But today porn stares us in the eye from every nook and corner and even gained some kind of legitimacy. What else can explain the rise of porn star Sunny Leone in India? By the way the actor of many films is now modelling for India’s first intimate products superstore as online portals of sex toys make a foray to target billion plus Indians. Certainly, the land that has given the world the ultimate treatise on sex, Kamasutra, where Khajurao temples are a perfect ode to love making, where a phallic symbol is worshipped as the harbinger of creation, can’t proclaim Puritanism as a virtue. Certainly India was never a land of prudes. But nor was it of blatant permissiveness and perverts. In 21st century India when sexuality is out in the open, the society in transition has to learn to delineate between crass and bold, erotic and repugnant and most importantly between titillation and abuse. The government can’t turn a blind eye and plead non-interference on the pretext of inability to control Internet or use the ruse of freedom of expression. Instead, the government machinery and the legal framework have to find ways to protect the vulnerable and listen to what a political bigwig is saying in another part of the world. Over to Cameron again, “The Internet is not just where we buy, sell and socialise, it’s where crimes happen and people can get hurt.” In a democracy, liberty and right to privacy might be a given, but it can’t become an excuse for abhorrent, malevolent and sick mindsets to have a free run. While a video uploaded on the YouTube made light of the issue and in characteristic tongue-in-cheek style talked of the advent of government regulated porn, ‘to ban or not to ban porn’ is no laughing matter. Controversial and debatable yes, it has to be discussed threadbare and blinkers both about its need and dangers have to be shed.
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There
Pornography has existed in society in some form or the other since time immemorial. To blame it alone for ills afflicting society would be overstating the case. We are living in times of social anomie where people suffer from anti-social personality disorders. People who watch violent pornography are not normal human beings anyway. We need social welfare and policing in place to check crime. 
Banning pornographic sites is hardly a solution and is actually easier said than done. Cyber space anyway is a vast realm near impossible to monitor. A ban would make it more attractive. Instead, of brushing the issue under the carpet or creating unnecessary hype we need to talk more about it and reveal its ugly side that involves exploitation. Certain kind of pornography like the one involving child abuse or sadistic videos is a big no. We do need to create more firewalls to ensure only adults are accessing these sites.
While it may not be possible to ban porn for it has no borders one can’t be oblivious to the dangers inherent in its easy and ample availability. It’s ironical and even fraught with dangers that while most Indians who do not have access to basic education and health services can log on to porn in a jiffy on their net- enabled phones. In times when moral values are on a decline, when blatant commercialisation sends out signals that all women are available, the new cultural ethos and instant accessibility of porn is certainly a fatal cocktail, even if it can’t be completely wished away. 
Even at the risk of sounding like a culture cop I do think there is a need for a strict vigil. If all sites can’t be banned at one go at least certain safeguards need to be built in to contain the damage. Watching pornography is often not only a catalyst for sexual crimes but also a trigger for aberrant promiscuous
behaviour. See when we talk of India as a land of Khajuraho and Kamasutra we often miss the context in which these were situated. 
There can’t be a blanket ban on pornographic sites for people will find a way to access these any way. However, we can’t allow child pornography which is not only a crime but the ultimate act of depravity. It would be erroneous to assume that one can’t draw a line. There is porn that can be accepted as natural and then there are acts of bestiality like snuff or rape videos videos which no sane mind can condone.